Sunflower - Chapter 35 (Patreon)

One might wonder, as they sit by the waters of the world, for what purpose the entity that they have become now exists.

— Not what purpose we might have had as a seed, or as a child, mind you. Those things are self-evident. The purpose of a seed is to sprout. The purpose of a child is to grow.

But what purpose does this grown thing then have?

I suppose that it is quite difficult to say.

Especially for me.

I am just a sunflower, after all.

Burch sits by the waters. Her legs are crossed. Her hands rest on her knees. Her back is straight and her head is held high and she holds herself just as I had taught her to do, when she was younger.

Strong, a straight back, a straight neck, aligned towards the direction that one desires most.

This tight posture is betrayed by the trembling of her fingers, which are just as fragile and delicate as I remember them being.

This is in contrast to the evidence presented of her hard work. Callouses, scars, muscle of her upper and lower arms, her skin, warmed by the sun to a degree that is brought on only by the span of many years.

— But her fingers remain, scrawny, skinny things and they tremble.

And as the trembling betrays her disciplined posture, so does it betray the self-confidence she has labored for.

We sit by a brook.

It is not unlike a creek.

But it is most unlike a river.

These are all unlike a stream.

And all of them are most unlike a canal.

One might wonder about why there are so many different words to express the flowing of water from one place to another.

— Folly.

You may as wonder about the number of stars in the sky, or the number of hairs on Burch’s head, or, as pondered before, about the purpose of any one of an entity’s many existences.

They are simply many, for the fact that they are many.

This is all.

Nothing more. Nothing less.

“Back then…” says Burch, speaking for the first time in days. She seems to have found some composure through this ritual she has adopted.

Meditation.

“- Back then, last time, I was really scared,” she says. “I was really scared for a long time,” explains my friend, lowering her head.

The brook, stream, creek or whatever else it might be, babbles on. It fills the world with noise, any noise. For it, I am most grateful, as its gentle whispering and tickling voice brings an ease to the tension of my friend’s words and her overcorrection of her stiffness.

“You got me through it and then I was really sad for a long time, because I didn’t need you anymore. But then I was really happy for a long time after that,” says Burch, her voice breaking. I watch as she wipes her face, which is turned away from me. “I was really happy that I had never had to see you again,” cries Burch, lowering her head into knees as I had seen her do so often as a girl. “And now things are bad and I need you again and I’m sorry,” she says. “…I’m….” Her eyes drift over the water and I see her hands moving over her body, towards the scars left by the hobgoblin arrows that had pierced her flesh, back when we crossed the great-water.

I do not think that she realizes she is doing it.

Ah.

I understand, Burch. There is no need to be sad.

After all, I exist simply because of your fear. If you did not fear, I would not be. And now, you fear again and here I am.

It is sad that our existence is tied together in these bloody roots, because you are my dearest and most cherished friend.

But because of this, I wish nothing more than for us to find paradise now, as before.

Even if that means I must stop existing at some point. Be it due to our success, or our failure.

As long as we find it in some fashion, I am thrilled to be able to exist. After all, for me, the journey is what matters.

— A most unusual philosophy for a sunflower to have.

I lean over against her, pressing my head against hers to signal my approval, as I had done for the book she had once found, as I had done when she chose her class and path for life.

This time, I signal that I approve of her.

She is good enough, I suppose. It could be worse.

Burch cries for a while and I try to avoid the salty water.

Its unpleasantness has not changed over the years.

We stay here and rest for the night.

________________________________________________________

“There’s only one way towards the west from here,” says Burch, looking around the area.

The mountainous landscape here continues on in all directions and steep cliff-faces sever the landscape into many various gulches and valleys.

She looks ahead of herself. “But… it’s not really safe,” she explains. “That’s why most people on the run stopped next to the mountain instead of keeping on going.”

My goodness, aren’t we talkative today?

I lift my gaze, staring towards the west. The sun is still currently behind us, cresting on the far side of the mountain, where it is unfortunately out of my sight.

This makes me a sad sunflower.

But it is okay.

Because I have my very best friend, Burch.

So it evens out.

I am a content sunflower.

I do wonder though, if there is truly only one reasonable way to proceed west from here, then where did the hobgoblins go?

Was it also this way?

________________________________________________________

A sharp, pointed skull shatters apart as Burch violently kicks it against a rock.

The centipede that had been living inside of the long since dead hobgoblin scurries away, presumably being most offended.

My apologies, friend.

[Sunflower]

You bask in the light of the sun

+ 1 EXP

EXP: 278/825

(Burch) EXP: 853/2550 + [Personal Journey]

It seems that Burch has not managed to resolve her issues with her temper over these many years.

I watch the centipede scuttle away into the thick overgrowth, on both sides of the path.

The trees and bushes and roots have long since begun to overtake this road, even since before ten years ago.

This is an old way and around it lay many old things.

— Bones.

The cliff-sides on both our left and our right are flush with vegetation and it hangs down their surfaces. Both parallel running walls slowly enclose in towards a point of convergence.

There is little option for escape here. Our path moves only straight ahead, or straight behind us.

I find that I do not care for old roads.

Old roads were trodden once by old creatures and things.

The road remains here, old as eve. So, what creatures remain here along with it?

Burch pushes some old rubble out of the way and climbs over it.

I can’t help but notice that it looks like a cart.

— How funny.

Burch doesn’t seem to catch on to the universe’s joke.

She’s become a bit of a sourpuss, in all honesty.

Oh well.

Perhaps that is what we have to work on this time around, her temperament.

________________________________________________________

We stand before a great maw.

Damp, warm air stagnates all around us, choking the breath of life out of the atmosphere the closer we draw towards the opening. A surge of wind moves out of it, slowly and then, after a moment, a counter breeze comes to delve into the hole.

— It is as if it were breathing.

I suppose that this is very unusual for a cave to do.

Then again, who am I to speak of such things?

Stone of a naturally hewn formation, smooth, as if once polished by much water, curves inwardly into an opening akin to that of a flower, blossoming into itself.

Burch looks around herself, staring at the many skulls, belonging to many hobgoblins.

The cave exhales, as she grabs the straps, adjusting my position.

We enter.

It is… moist.

________________________________________________________

Above our heads hang strange things. Clusters of thin, draping, blue strings dangle from the ceiling.

They glow faintly.

They remind me of strands of long, straight hair. Or of listless worms.

Each cluster has ten or more of them and there are countless clusters, hanging from every surface above us.

They fill the cave with light.

Burch’s boots let out a series of wet squelching noises, as we wander in through the dewy cave.

I think they, the stringy clusters, are mushrooms of some strange, exotic sort?

I can not say.

Between the hanging things, little lights dance, flying around like fireflies as they dart from one to the other.

In a way, this place reminds me of that grotto that Burch had hidden in, oh so many years ago.

The grotto that had sealed itself, upon our departure.

I turn around, looking to see if the entrance here too will seal itself, now that we have entered.

But I am afraid that I can not say for sure.

From where we are now, it is already out of my sight.

“Eugh…” says Burch, lifting her boot. Slime sticks to it.

The damp water of the cave has mixed in with an abundance of mushroom spores. So much so that it has become slimy.

The walls of the cave are slimy.

The floor is slimy.

The deeper we delve, the thicker the mucosal discharge becomes.

After a minute, I can see it. It drips down the walls as a slow, steady, snotty-gray ooze.

— It reminds me of Burch’s face, when she cried during her younger years.

I reach out with one of my roots, to try and connect to a mushroom, hanging from the ceiling.

I would very much like to pick its brain.

Our roots touch.

The cave moans.

Oh.

That is very odd.

I pull back my roots as Burch keeps walking. She is unable to hear it, as its cry was bound into my roots.

— Perhaps I ought to connect my roots to her, to let her hear it too?

Hmm…

No.

No, I do not think that I will.

I am not sure that she would keep going, in all honesty. It has been a long time and my friend has grown complacent and soft. She cries more often now.

This will not help our journey.

We need to undo some things that have become normal for her over these last ten years.

Safety.

Security.

Comfort.

That all needs to go. Those things are meaningless in the natural world we find ourselves inside of.

They are little but token aberrations.

They come to stay only for a moment now and then, but fools will then cling to them for full lifetimes.

— And what short lifetimes they end up being.

That old, animal vitriol inside of herself, that sense of deep-hunger, I need it to be awake.

We pass by through a cavern of many bones.

Several hobgoblin skeletons dangle from the ceiling. The fungus, the strings, hold them in place, aloft.

The mucus collects here, dripping into pools and deep basins.

We pass by a ‘normal’ skeleton and Burch stops, looking at it for a long moment.

“…No…” mutters my friend.

I do not recognize this creature. It is dead like everything else here.

But Burch does.

It seems to be someone she met during that time of my absence.

My friend lowers herself down and examines the body of someone familiar to a time of her past.

Ooze runs down its bones, covering the whole mess of a corpse in a thick, stringy slime.

The damp moisture of the cave surrounds us, as it takes another breath.

I watch, as Burch mourns the stranger and I watch, as the stranger, dead for several years, lifts his head and looks at her.

Ooze pours out of his mouth and long, stringy tendrils, like the ones on the ceiling above, shoot out of every hollow socket and broken tooth.

Burch screams and jumps up, as the cave around us comes to life.

The bodies, hanging from the ceiling, fall down, almost noiselessly, as they splash into the coagulating slime beneath them and they then too begin to rise.

They rise not as proper things, of posture strong and well kept.

Rather, they are sickly, wrong amalgamations of something that moves.

The bones float in the ooze in mismatched places, a skull drifting down past the shoulder, an elbow floating up through its ribcage.

It doesn’t matter.

The marrow inside of them is drained, and out of every fractured piece of corpse, wriggle clusters of the small, reaching tendril worms, like on the ceiling.

They crawl towards us. Burch rips herself free from the one she once knew and stumbles over backwards, falling into a puddle of slime.

She scrambles, shaking herself off and screaming in terror, as she runs as fast as she can.

— But it is difficult. The slime on the floor sticks to her boots and slows her down. The oozes do not have this problem.

This is perfect.

This is exactly what I need in order to get Burch back into a mentally healthy place.

I look down at a fat centipede, having joined in for the ride.

Burch notices it too and screams like a wild animal, brushing it off as she sprints.

It falls to the ground and I watch as the oozes descend upon its wriggling form, before continuing after us.

— Life is such a short, precious gift.

Wow.