Sunflower - Chapter 32 - The end(?)

The wind blows all around us, my stalk gently bends beneath the pressure of its presence. My petals wave, dancing in the gale, as if they were the long strands of Burch’s curly hair.

My roots hold firm in the soil of the beautiful meadow, by the orchard and they drink deeply of the nourished world.

I lift my gaze towards the sun, letting it meet me in the middle.

Hello, sun.

[Sunflower]

You bask in the light of the sun

+ 1 EXP

EXP: 317/825

How long have we been journeying together?

- For all of my life, I suppose.

In that sense, the sun and Burch share the same connection with me.

They have not only been with me for all of my days, but the two of them are also responsible for my existence.

A week has passed since we broke off from our trail, since we left the mountain and since the hobgoblin horde has passed us by, moving on to what they seek in the west.

I can only assume that they, too, seek paradise.

- The poor fools.

They don’t know that we have already found it.

Burch works, tending to the soil and the land. She makes a shelter of some kind, out on the meadow.

Life is good.

The sun is bright.

The air is warm.

The breeze is kind.

I bask, taking in the full bounty of life.

The truth is that paradise is here already. Right here. Right wherever one might find themselves. Paradise isn’t a place. Paradise is a feeling.

But it is only available to those who are willing to see life for what it really is.

Burch cries as she works, processing her troubles as she toils and her tears water the land.

It is good.

I feel my leaves droop a little more.

_____________________________________________________________

Burch is away gathering fruit.

A buzzing fills the air. A few strong, beautiful bees fly my way.

Ah.

They hum and dance through the air, landing on my face and my stem.

It is a good thing that Burch isn’t here right now.

- I wouldn’t want her to see this.

I am a most adventurous sunflower, after all.

It will be our secret, bees.

Haha.

That tickles.

_____________________________________________________________

Another week has passed. Burch grows stronger by the day as she works on herself and on her home.

When she does not toil, she sits next to me and we look at the sun, while she talks about her life.

Burch has never talked this much before.

She talks and she talks and she talks.

And then, she returns to her work, after having let out what she needs to let out.

[LEVEL UP!]

Congratulations, Burch! You are now level {9}!

HP: 31/31 ↗

SOUL: 27/27 ↗

EXP: 17/825

- [Stats] -

• STR: 09 
• DEX: 14 
• WIS: 09 ↗↗
• INT: 09 ↗↗
• LUK: 10
• LOV: 09 

NEW - [Root Weaving]{Active}

Cost: {6} SOUL

• Allows you to weave the roots of trees and plants together, in order to create strong holds on objects and people.

She will overtake me in power soon, simply by the virtue and grace of her growth as a creature.

Burch digs around at my roots, tending to the soil.

She has gathered several of my seeds, which have fallen loosely to the ground and she crawls around the dirt, planting them with generous spacing apart from myself and each other.

(Burch) used: [Growth]

A glow leaves her hands, radiating out down over the padded heaps of soil, in which she has planted my seeds.

Little sprouts emerge.

I look at them curiously.

They are odd, small, but beautiful things of a shade most vibrant and verdant.

All of them turn, moving their worm-length bodies to bend towards the light of the sun.

Hmm.

- Most curious.

_____________________________________________________________

Yet another week has passed. Burch reaches my level of strength.

[LEVEL UP!]

Congratulations, Burch! You are now level {10}!

HP: 33/33 ↗

SOUL: 29/29 ↗

EXP: 01/1250

- [Stats] -

• STR: 09 
• DEX: 14 
• WIS: 11 ↗↗
• INT: 11 ↗↗
• LUK: 10
• LOV: 09 

NEW - [Hardiness]{Passive}

• You are resistant to strong shifts in temperature and weather.

+8 to all resistances

My best friend has built a strong shelter, made up out of felled trees, stacked on top of each other.

It is a house; small, but strong. I sit just outside of it and every day, she speaks to me of her past and of the future. Each day her voice becomes stronger and clearer, as do her wishes and the lights of her eyes.

The dead wood of her home is held together by roots and vines of plants that she has fostered with her magic.

My leaves grow darker. My stem grows softer. I am old.

It seems that I am coming to the end of my journey.

- And what a journey it has been.

I have seen the big rocks and I have wandered beneath tall trees. I have become soaked in the torrential rains and I have bathed in the magnificent light of a hundred and then some sunsets, each more beautiful than the last. I have had an abductor and I have had a ward and I have had a best friend. I have seen and done and experienced things terrible and fantastic, things that no other being can ever claim to have known.

All of this and I am still but a sunflower.

I look at Burch, watching her work on the land, on herself. She has found peace, finally. The culmination of our adventure has led her to nothing more grand and exciting than this humble feeling. It is a mixture of many good things, having come together as a whole.

Calmness.

Self-acceptance.

Self-love.

I wonder, what things has she experienced during our journey, that I will never know of?

What things will she continue to experience that I will never know of?

This is the great sadness of life, if any.

There is too much for one creature to ever know.

We can only hope that the things that we spend our days doing, that the goals we spend our days pursuing, are true things that will enrich us with sensations of warmth and love.

And that the things which we flee from, do not drive us into the brink of darkness, but rather that they will push us towards a place where we can be who and what we truly yearn for; paradise, if such a thing is to be believed in.

Perhaps it isn’t really real.

Perhaps this was just a metaphor all along.

It would be most fitting, after all.

_____________________________________________________________

Burch sits at my side and we stare up towards the sunset, coming to bring an end to the best day of my life.

- The trick to being able to say this, is to have every day be the best day of your life.

One might wonder, what was the point of this whole thing?

If not for paradise, if not for the hobgoblins, if not for anything else, then what was the point of this strange adventure?

Look up.

Look towards the sun.

Look towards the face of a thing that you love.

- I turn towards Burch and she turns towards me.

That is the point. Nothing more, nothing less.

There is something that you need to understand, Burch.

But I know that you already understand this, as you have already understood since the day we passed through the crystal-cave, before the city. Since that day, when you saw your reflection in the glossy surface of the reflective, yellow stone.

I am a sunflower.

You are Burch.

The difference is that, I, the entity that I am, do not exist.

I am not real.

I am a metaphorical sunflower, in quite a literal sense.

I exist solely in the confines of Burch’s head, having been born of the soil of a terrible thing, a memory, despair, in order to give it a context of something brighter and hopeful.

- Even the body itself yearns for something to hope for.

The mind too yearns for something to hope for and in this, the two of them will come together to create something, if you are in a place so desperate and dark and terrible.

But Burch has grown out of her anguish and fear and she has become a thing that is not a sunflower, or a mushroom, or a worm, or a butterfly, or a snake, or a bird, or a monster.

She is just a woman, just a person. Good. Whole. Calm.

That’s all.

Nothing more. Nothing less.

And isn’t that just the most beautiful thing?

Ah.

I long for more.

I long to see and to feel and to know so many, many more things.

But the time has come for us to say goodbye.

I am an old sunflower.

Burch lifts her shaking hand, pressing it against my wilting petals, having reached the end of their natural lifespan.

I am glad that I got to exist for a while, Burch.

I am glad that we got to become friends.

I am glad that I got to know the joy of life, if only briefly.

Even if I am not real, even if nobody else can see me except for you and the constructs of your own imagination, even if I am as much a part of you as your bones and your skin and your eyes, know that I love you as much as I love the sun itself.

[Sunflower]

This is an imaginary sunflower.

It isn’t real.

“Thank you,” says Burch.

You are very welcome, Burch. This was fun. Let us do it again sometime.

Goodbye.

I stop existing, leaving my best friend, Burch, to thrive all on her own. But I know that she can do it now without me.

_____________________________________________________________

The end(?*)

Thank you all for reading this esoteric story, Sunflower! This was such a fun little experiment and I really love the way it turned out. As always, I'm going to be polishing this story up with several editing passes and then putting it non-exclusively up on amazon. RoyalRoad updates will continue as always for the full story. All tier3+ subs will of course get the fully edited digital copy as soon as its ready.

Now that this is out of my head, my writing slot will shift to something new once more. And yes, I will also be working on more weaponsmith chapters. WS is updating Mondays now too, if you missed the memo. =)

*Of book 1? Maybe more in the future? Who knows, who knows.