Sunflower - Chapter 20 (Patreon)

I am not my past.

The actions of days now gone are inconsequential to the actions, which I might take in the future.

The sunflower who I have been, does not need to define the sunflower who I will be.

- Most poetic.

This rule is true for a sunflower.

But how does it apply to a Burch?

I am afraid that I can not say.

However, I find myself most curiously… overwhelmed.

This is very unusual for a sunflower.

Burch has run straight towards the city, straight through the giant rocks that surround it, like walls of a house and now, we stand amidst its population.

Wow.

There are hundreds of them. Perhaps even thousands.

- The latter is more likely.

Night begins to fall over the world and the ways begin to dwindle with people, as they duck away, one by one, into different houses.

I never knew that a colony of creatures could get this large.

Amazing.

Houses surround us by the hundreds, tightly packed together, like rocks in a pile. Glows of all color come from their openings, bathing the road and ourselves in their hues, as we walk.

Burch speaks to nobody and nobody speaks to us.

She does not play the part of a scavenger or a frightened rabbit.

We simply parade through, as if we belonged here and, oddly enough, nobody seems to take offense at us doing so.

I understand nothing of what the people here speak, their tongues making noises that are indecipherable to myself.

I assume the same can be said of Burch, as she looks around with doe-like, lost eyes that would be most unfortunate in any other environment.

- The confusion they signify might identify one as prey.

We wander through the city as night comes to consume it.

It is cold.

Burch does not notice the woman following us.

Oh well.

___________________________________________________________

It is a new day.

[Sunflower]

You bask in the light of the sun

+ 1 EXP

EXP: 181/310

EXP (Burch): 31/240

I find the city most fascinating.

Nobody pays me much mind, which I am grateful for.

- I am a bashful sunflower, after all.

Burch too, is still mostly ignored.

Except for the woman who has approached her. Her skin is of a similar shade to Burch’s, her hair of a similar tone, her eyes of a similar hue and her words are of a similar tongue.

“That’s a long way from here,” says the woman, following Burch’s short reply to her last question.

Burch nods proudly, but says little more.

Good. She has learned.

“Are you hungry?” asks the strange woman.

She is several heads taller than Burch, having reached her peak of adulthood and wears fabric around her hair. “Come!” she says. “It is rare to have anyone to speak with. You will eat with us tonight, girl.”

Burch looks at the woman and I feel the muscles of her throat moving, as she almost decides to speak.

But her lips fall shut in order to silence the growling of her greedy stomach.

Burch shakes her head and then keeps on walking.

- But I do not exactly understand what it is that we are looking for here?

“There are others too,” says the voice from behind us.

Burch turns her head.

The woman speaks. “If you got separated, there’s a chance that someone might know something.”

Burch stares at her for a moment and I feel as we start moving into the other direction, back towards her.

- ‘Separated’?

Interesting.

I did not know that Burch was a member of a community.

I had always assumed that my friend, like myself, was simply a solitary individual.

Is that why we seek paradise?

To find those who were lost along the way?

Ah.

I wonder, when we get there, will the bee who had courted me be there too?

And what of the bird, who ate my seeds?

- Perhaps not it.

But maybe my seeds are in paradise?

What a nice thought, a place where everything warm is, from the light of the suns of every day gone past, to the glow of every presence, which has ever graced us in kind passing.

What a world.

I hope we leave here and go there soon.

I would very much like to see it for myself.

Burch walks after the woman of many promises.

___________________________________________________________

The man, easily twice her size, grabs Burch around her shoulders and begins to rip her bark away.

My friend immediately sinks her sharp teeth into his large, muscular arm.

(Burch) has bit (???) for {3}DMG

Applied status: [Bleeding 1]

He howls, wrenching himself free, red blood dripping over the floors, as he strikes her across the face, sending Burch and myself flying.

(???) has struck (Burch) for {4}DMG

Applied status: [Disoriented]

Ah.

If this is what flight is, then I will leave it for the birds.

I do not care for it.

- It is very disorientating.

We land by the wall, where several other females of Burch’s community are restrained by metal vines.

The man approaches us, fussing in a language that I do not understand. He shakes out his arm, rubbing the red spot.

It sounds very stressful.

Crying fills the room.

I do not care for crying.

It is a waste of water and is also very stressful.

Burch tries to rise to her feet, lifting her hand to use some of her magic, but she seems to be a little disorientated.

The man approaches us, the woman of many promises standing in the back of the room, watching this unfold.

He grabs Burch by the throat, constricting her airway with one hand, like she herself had done to the old, gray male, on our side of the world.

- Please do not kill my friend.

I would find that very bothersome.

(Sunflower) used: [Heavy Pollen]

Yellow dust flies around the room and everyone stops.

Applied Status: [Sleep] to (???)(???)(???)(???)(???)(???)(???)

Applied Status: [Lethargy] to (???)(???)(???)

The giant, violent man falls to the ground, as does the woman of many promises, as do most of those bound to the walls around us.

How stressful.

Burch, unaffected by my magic, gasps for air, grasping for her own throat with her hands, as if it were not working properly. She fights with herself and then manages to relearn the art of breathing.

It seems that this was a trap.

- But not a lie.

After all, the woman of many promises had told us that some of Burch’s ilk would indeed be here and, loe, here they are.

Burch cries for a time and I rub her beating heart with my roots. in the hope that it will dispel her sadness, that I do not quite understand.

After all, this is what was promised, no?

If she cries too much, her blood will become thick and I can not drink of it.

My friend bends down, ripping the sleeping man’s mouth open and pressing her hand against it, as if suffocating him.

(Burch) used: [Minor Pulse]

A ripple shoots through his body.

Blood leaks out of his mouth.

I hear something cracking.

(Burch) used: [Minor Pulse]

His body shakes a second time and Burch pulls her hand away.

All of his teeth are shattered and broken in a dozen places, his mouth pools with blood.

I suppose that I would like to drink it.

But it would seem rude of me.

After all, this is my friend’s hunt and kill, not mine.

I will leave the spoils of her victory to her and wait until we get some new sunshine.

- Hopefully soon.

Burch presses her fingers against the man’s eyes and digs through them with her dirty, forest-grime caked nails, until there is nothing left but a strange, red heap inside of his sockets.

Grim.

I never knew my friend had such violent tendencies.

- She takes a knife from the room and cuts the soft tendons behind his knees, inside of his elbows.

Although, perhaps this is her way of letting off some stress?

After all, it has been a long journey, hasn’t it?

Burch gets up and walks over to the woman of many promises, who is slumped over and leaned back against the wall.

My friend cuts her bark open with a knife and then sets me down.

She gently pulls me out of her rucksack, with a soft, loving touch.

My friend plants me down onto the exposed breast of the woman of many promises.

Why, thank you.

I am so lucky to have such a generous friend.

(Sunflower) used: [Bloodmeal]

My roots dig their way down towards her heart and I drink deeply of its rich dark nectar.

Burch, meanwhile, returns to the others, undoing their binds and simply letting them lay there limply, naked, against the walls.

Their fate is their own problem now.

By the time the last one falls to the ground, the spell begins to wane.

The woman of many promises begins to wake.

I turn to look at her eyes, which slowly open wide.

She opens her mouth to scream, but no words come out.

Curiously, I watch as one of my roots crawls out of her throat from the inside.

Her arms try to reach for it, to remove it, but she has lost too much blood already, she is weakened.

Shh~

Do not fret.

You have kept your promise to my friend and for that I am grateful.

As a token of reciprocity, I will make you quiet, before my friend returns.

- She is far more violent than I am.

My roots dig out of her throat, crawling up her face and in through just beneath her eyes, which try to follow them.

I bore into the soft mass inside of her skull.

She dies.

[Bloodmeal]{Passive}

• Thirst: Quenched
• Minerals: Replenished

+32 EXP

EXP: 212/310

You are welcome.

I am a soft sunflower.

Burch, having harvested some objects, which I can not discern, from the male, wipes her eyes and gently grabs me, lifting me back into the rucksack.

We leave, just as the spell leaves the others.

The eight horrified females of her kind look at the gurgling, bubbling creature that tries to howl at their feet, but it can not do so, because of the blood stuck in its throat. It can not see, it can not bite and, since Burch has cut his soft tendons with a knife, it can not fight.

- Like rabid animals, they descend down on him, clawing and biting and howling as they rip out his flesh and bite off his fingers and claw into the back of his neck.

Ah.

Isn’t nature just beautiful?

Amazing.

___________________________________________________________

[Sunflower]

You bask in the light of the sun

+ 1 EXP

EXP: 214/310

EXP (Burch): 33/240

Burch has washed herself in the waters of the city. A lot of red left her.

Nobody really seemed to mind.

Her bark is torn and ruined and she holds it together with tied knots and her hands.

Metal jangles in her rucksack, nesting on top of my roots and Burch stops before a house, staring into it.

There on display are the most curious things.

Creatures. They have the silhouettes of herself and of her ilk, but they appear to be made entirely out of wood.

Burch grabs the metal disks, which she had harvested from the large male and heads into this strange place.

___________________________________________________________

I will never come to understand her kind.

My friend has replaced her bark and I find it most unusual.

I have grown accustomed to Burch looking as she does and now, she looks different.

Hmm.

[Sunflower]

You bask in the light of the sun

+ 1 EXP

EXP: 215/310

EXP (Burch): 34/240

Well, no, I am being judgmental again.

My friend is as beautifully ugly in this bark as she was in her old bark.

We sit on the grasses of the inner city and stare up towards the sky in silence, barring the thousands of voices all around us, ringing out like an excited swarm.

- Reptiles often shed their skins.

Do her kind shed their skins? Their barks?

Apparently.

Perhaps this is their initiation into adulthood?

Like a snake, growing too big for its old skin, my friend has shed her old form and emerged with a new one.

It seems that life is just going to keep getting better and better.

Burch cries again, holding her legs in her arms.

The sun shines brightly, coming to paint us with a most harmonious sunset.

Yes.

Her body shakes.

Life is better than ever.