“Like the lingering odor surrounding the buffet at which many flatulent patrons have broken their fast upon hard boiled eggs, the sulfuric fog which looms over our once-fair city is a perpetual unpleasantness seldom spoken of, yet impossible to ignore.
“So impossible, that I intend to be an impossible thorn in its side!
“Thorn, yes… you see, I am the Bloomin’ Rose, so named because I wear bloomers, and Rose is the name given by my dear mother—may the goddess rest her beloved soul… and, yes, my goddess. The rose that blooms from the blood which seeps into the cracks in the sidewalk is Her holy symbol.
“She is Milani. I fight for Her… alone.”
So the lady in pink says to the little fairy seated in the palm of her hand.
The fairy says to her, “Fair enough. I’m not much of a fighter, but there are ways I can help…”
The lady in pink smiles at the dainty creature. “Ah, but of course! Who am I to deny you the opportunity to be my trusty sidekick? Perhaps a bumbling sidekick at first, but in due time, a legendary sidekick—of this, I am certain! Your extrêmement petite form is ideal for infiltration, no?
“Such the team we would make—the Bloomin’ Rose and the Shrunken Violet!”
The fairy is not sure about the name, but she does not argue.
“What’s in a name?”
The Bloomin’ Rose takes the better part of an hour to answer the fairy’s innocent question.
__________________________________________________
Rose has not forgotten her past. She simply does not talk about it—particularly the part in which she was a sacrificial maiden. Suture vines choked the air from her, pierced her skin, and wormed their way inside her. Her distorted body oozed from the sacrificial stone, and she awoke in a sewer, having seeped through the grate in a viscous form.
“A vicious form indeed, Monsieur Narrator. For those who sought to destroy me have instead forged me into a weapon that shall be used against them! I swear to Milani—”
A viscous form, I was saying. As in not exactly liquid, not exactly solid.
“Ah, like my plan… it is not exactly solid. I need help.”
You do have a fairy sidekick.
“Yahh… what am I, chopped liver?”
“Perish the thought, ma petite amie! The chopping block shall not claim your itty-bitty head, nor shall I permit the extraction of your teeny-weeny liver! However, I am just one woman. But with a team of like-minded unlikely heroes, we shall become…"
Likely heroes?
“Oui, oui, Monsieur Narrator!”
