Chapter 0
A young short messy pink girl with tanned skin and blue eyes chopping away at blue logs, as she does so she looks outwards beyond the pink rose barrier that surrounds the outer boundaries of the town. As she does so a drunken stumbling crow is watching her closely, the other two crows watch the third wobble. A forth crow, "cawk!" A green aura flashes around the crow and it turns itself and the other three invisible. A thought crosses her mind, "dad didn't have anyone spying on me today?" The survey on the further part outside she can see men in armor each casually caring a bear-like beast covered in black and red veins. Near the men and the slain monster is near a tree with a scar that's three times the size and shape of a bear claw mark. She let's her mind start to drift as she thinks of fighting beast with black pulsing flesh and large red pulsing veins with boney beastly mask upon their face. As the beast roars and tries to strike her; she moves out of the way with the second slash of the claws hitting her with a swing of her blade coming down chopping the beast in half with her battle ax. She imagine a taller slender blue haired girl having a glowing aura around her hands as the wound closes up, making the skin a new. She takes the head of the beast to a cheering town, "Rose! Rose! Rose!" She wakes up from her day dreaming to hearing her name.
A short man shouts, "Rose!" She jumps to her feet. The short muscular man and a taller more lean build of a man by his side next to each other, both with weathered wheelbarrows. She helps them load up their wheelbarrows. The two head off until the shorter guy turns to face Rose.
Rose asks, "Johnny, what's up?"
Johnny asks, "can you please watch my sis again?" He says, "my parents are going to be busy again and I have some flowers to replant around the flower wall." Rose happily nods.
Rose gleefully says, "of course!"
Johnny makes small talk, "so I heard your dad has been training other people on the side for some grail, is this true?"
Rose slowly nods as she groans, "I offered to pay the price of his services to be trained but nope! He refuses to do so! It's like my sister leaves and he can't even just trust me to be trained! Like come on, you train all these other people but not me! I have been nothing but loyal, then you chose the one person with the least amount of loyalty to you be train! All because she developed her ability first!" Johnny is listening with Rose huffing and puffing.
Johnny assures her, "I'm sure he's just needing time; I'm sure in due time he'll train you."
Rose does a deep huff, "I'm sorry for ranting to you just... it's been tough." Johnny hugging her.
Johnny let's her know, "don't be sorry; I promise it's fine. If you need someone to rant to, I am here for it. Besides the fact I need to get to work but outside of my gardening I mean."
The coworker informs him, "Johnny; I waited until now to tell you but some cultist were messing with the flowers again." Johnny gasp as the two book it. After she is done with work for the day she takes a wheelbarrow full of wood, heading through town, waving to the local townsfolk with giving everyone a warm smile as she approaches deeper into town to the senior's house to see a frail aged man. Rose drops off the wood, places some fire in the large deep fire pit and strikes two rocks together lighting the fire.
The man grins, "thank you dear." The elderly man gets a tea kettle set up. He looks puzzled for a moment, turning to Rose and asks, "I know you've already done so much but if it's not too much to ask could you please fetch me some water from the well?" Rose happily nods with a minor sigh on the inside but does so in a hear beat. Now with his hands shaking as the kettle is set up, water put in and readying the tea leaves.
Rose remarks, "it's getting late and my father must be worried about me so I must take my leave sadly." She departs.
The old man shouts, "thank you for your help my dear, come back anytime you like!" Then promptly and easily sets a fish that's bigger than a full grown man over the fire. She returns the wheelbarrow, starts to head towards the library and think to herself, "I wonder if Lyn is off work yet?" The thought escapes her for a second as a man carrying a big beaten brown bag around his waist as he rides a skeleton horse and in a lapis blue uniform.
Rose happily approaches the man, "did my sister... " her words trail off as the man shakes his head; she responds with a dejected look on her face. The mailman carries on with his skeleton horse not leaving a hoof print on the road. She passes by shop with a big bottle for a sign and thinks to herself, "dad might be out of red wine again; I should probably stop by here." She steps inside, the shopkeeper at the ready with a bottle of red wine with Rose imagining a black haired man passed out on the couch with a wine bottle in hand and a crow on his knee.
The shopkeeper asks, "so, are the rumors true?" Rose looks puzzled for a second. He continues, "about him teaching crows to use magic and soul guardian training?"
She has a sigh of relief, "yes he taught his murder some magic and some soul guardian training to them." At the, "soul guardian" part of the sentence her right eye twitches a little. Rose changes subjects, "anyways how much do I owe you?"
The shopkeeper casually says, "Rose, it's still free."
Rose inquires, "Jordan, why do you gift him a bottle of red wine everyday?"
The shopkeeper sharply answers, "I owe him a great debt; more than I could pay in a life time."
She nods to the response and takes her leave. She slips on by people, trying to ignore the smell of the pies from the bakery with reaching a building with a book symbol outside labeled in bronze letters, "Maya's library" with people coming and going with books. That outside the book some wounded men in armor getting a golden white glowing light reinvigorating the men. The tall blue hair girl looking tired out healing solider after solider.
Rose has a shocked confused look on her face, asks, "what happen to you?"
The guard responds, "well Rose, a corruption cultist is what happen to us."
Rose looks surprised to asks, "what are corruption cultist doing around here?" Another guard shrugs.
The guard sighs, "your dad would be the one to know."
Rose giggles, "if the cultist encountered dad they'd be running for the hills."
Another guard speaks up, "oh yeah Rose, thank your dad for us for teaching us Soul Guardian training! If I hadn't learn that defensive style transmutation; I would've died back there." At that part Rose has her right eye twitch. While her eye twitches he puts his hand to his chest plate and has the metal morph and form back into place.
Rose smiles choking down her anger, "I'll let him know of your gratitude." In the back of her mind yelling, "are you kidding me! He taught them before me! I mean hell of course he did! He taught the crows before me!"
Lyn asks, "are you still coming over?" The shocked look to remember, "oh yeah... crud."
Rose relents, "I promised Johnny I would watch his sister."
Lyn perks up, "that's fine; we can both watch her then." A sigh of relief washes over Rose. She looks around as Lyn is healing up some more people. Lyn tells her, "I'll be over at your place in a bit; I just want to heal some more people first." Lyn's face starts to go pale.
Rose shakes her, "are you insane!"
Lyn scoffs, "yeah funny coming from miss, let me dive bomb on a broom." She brushes off her concern, "relax; my mom isn't off work yet, she's enchanting more gear for her client-" The despair on her face to see a tall woman with blue hair until she notices the face with relief washing over her. Rose can't help but laugh at this. Lyn explains, "that and these gentlemen won't say a word to my mother, right?"
The three guards nod. The first guard firmly assures, "not a word to miss Mira nor your father Markus."
Lyn shrugs, "oh dad already knows; no need to hide it from him."
Rose comments, "not what I meant; your face is going pale."
Lyn reminds her, "I know my limit; trust me." Rose gives up, putting her hands up. Lyn hugs her before the two part ways. Rose heads to the outskirt of the town with a small house sitting near the rose garden that hugs near the dirt roads. Johnny nearby working on the rosarium. Meanwhile you have crows eating roadkill while ignoring the blacken and red roadkill with the taller gardener engulfing the blacken and red corpse in flames. The black and red vein goop spreading it's infection through the plant life only to be eaten and slain by the pink roses.
The red roses driving the black and red glob away, from Johnny's perspective the red roses leave an red aura like a wall. Meanwhile the pink roses are more akin to a swirling sweet honey vortex that draws your soul in like a siren call, the touch to the soul leaving one hungry. Any infected flora nearby sprayed with smoke from burning blue logs. Rose heads inside to see a man with messy black hair drinking on the couch with a crow on his knee with the two sharing a bottle of wine, as she steps into the door the drunken crow merges into his body. The bottle is places on his stomach.
Jack perks up the couch, "did she send anything?" He reads the room as he sees her look away and towards the ground. Jack sighs.
Rose says, "I'll be looking after Lilly today, so try not to get too drunk, again." That from the couch giving a thumbs up. Rose brings up, "one of your guards mention you training your guys soul guardian training?"
Jack takes a long drink from the bottle before replying, "yup; defensive transmutation, his soul mark is based around metal so I figured I'd teach him and the others some basic stuff."
Rose asks, "so I was wondering-"
Jack cuts her off, "no; the answer is no still. You're too young, give it three more years."
Rose groans, "you say and do this every year! I'm sixteen dad!"
Rose's dad sighs, "just please wait two more years; you're not ready yet." She storms off to the garage getting the bench press set up for two hundred pounds on the incline. After some working out she heads towards the shower, thinking about how today went so far and everything stirring her into a frenzy. Once she is out of the shower getting dressed in black shorts and a pink tank top. She goes into her room lazily tossing her dirty clothes into the tall woven laundry basket and looks at the empty clean bed across from her messy dirty bed. A heavy sigh falls from her. A knock from the front door with a pep in her step to zip towards the door and see Lyn who looks as if she is on the verge of passing out. The looks exchanged between the two is enough to tell you they've been through this before. Lyn basically being carried inside and brought to Rose's room being put on the clean bed. Rose's dad in the doorway with a short round bottle with a dark blue liquid inside. Jack knocks on the door with her spinning on her heels to face him. Rose hugs him.
Lyn says in between breaths, "th- thanks, Jack."
Jack calls back, "no problem. Now what did we learn today?"
Lyn answers, "not to cast too many spells." Jack nods. Meanwhile Rose gets Lyn to open her mouth as the liquid is poured down her mouth. Some time later Lyn is back on her feet. A knock to the door as Rose and Lyn answer it to see a young little girl in a pink dress. The little girl jumps into Rose's arms.
The little girl screams in joy, "Rose!"
Rose giggles a little, "how's my little Lilly doing?"
Lilly joyfully says, "school was good."
Lyn taken a back, "you're well spoken for someone of your age."
Lilly huffs, "when I'm at home, Johnny makes me read or he'll be reading to me. He never wants to play prince and princess with me."
Rose picks her up and excitedly says, "guess what were doing today?" They spend the day playing princess with them having tea time, Jack cutting back on his drinking as he joins in the fun, having his own prince uniform. Rose looks outside to turn to her dad.
Rose asks, "dad, don't you have work?"
Jack shrugs, "what are they going to do, fire me? I'm their only soul guardian, as the captain of the guards I can arrive late. If they need me, they'll shout for me." Rose stops pressing on him as they're partaking in the fun. Even with them baking cookies, as night time rolls around a hard knock is heard at the door, Jack slinks from the couch to the door, opening up to see Johnny. He notices Johnny has a mark on his arm with a shape of a green leaf like a tattoo but not, from Rose's perspective nothing is there. Jack request, "can we talk outside for a second?" Johnny looking confused until he looks at the leaf tattoo. Jack and John step out.
Jack remarks, "I notice you got a soul tattoo."
Johnny assures him, "this thing? Oh it's just a tattoo."
Jack laughs, "Johnny, I'm not stupid; I can feel the literal energy coming off your aura."
Johnny sighs, "yes I got a soul tattoo but please don't tell my parents."
Jack has a weary tone to the question, "why?"
Johnny says, "I wish not to go become a soul guardian; I just wanna garden."
Jack asks, "when did this appear?"
Johnny replies, "please don't think any less of me after I tell you how; I was noticing a large section of plants dying as if someone stomped on them, broke them; I couldn't bare to see my newly planted babies die and my arm started to burn as I wept over my flowers... my arm started to burn and Burt thought I was going crazy with him not seeing the tattoo form. Then my flowers started to come to life again."
Jack hugs him and says, "I don't think any less of you." He reels him in, "listen; I may not be able to train you like a soul gardener but I could train your soul to shape this newfound part of yourself." Johnny rolls his eyes. Jack mentions, "in doing so; you'll be able to grow healthier, stronger and more beautiful flowers." Johnny stops rolling his eyes.
Johnny questions, "how much will it cost me?" He answers, "oh wait; I remember the others you trained mentioning the prices, I can't exactly afford to pay five gold grail a session."
Jack ruminates until he answers, "five copper grail. The lowest I'll go." Johnny looks shocked.
Johnny probing him, "why so cheap?"
Jack shrugs, "maybe because your family, maybe because I want to see someone with your kind of potential blossom but not for free."
Johnny in a hushed tone commands, "just don't tell Rose; I know you refuse to train her and this would break her heart to hear you training me." Jack nods. The two pop back inside acting as if nothing happened.
Rose investigating, "what did you two talk about?" Johnny is about to answer until Jack steps in.
Jack slides in with, "oh he was talking about the flowers being crushed."
Lilly chimes in, "oh yeah, cultist crushing his flowers again. He said a lot of words I can't repeat or mother will be mad at me."
Johnny scoffs a little, "come on, you know I never tell." Lilly looking unsure doesn't budge after he said that.
Lyn comments, "man you really did have her read a lot of books, this is perhaps the most words I've seen a first grader use."
Johnny proudly nods, "her first grade teacher chewed me out for doing so because quote, "Lilly gets bored and doesn't engage with any of the simpler books" which hey, not my fault you suck at your job. That being said, her second and third grade teachers were happy with my results." Lilly happily nods. Johnny and Lily take their leave. Lyn and Rose enjoy the rest of the night until morning time with Lyn having her arms wrapped around Rose. Rose notices this and slips out of bed to her feet as she heads into the kitchen. The smell of bacon, eggs and hash browns hit her nose. The smell of coffee has Lyn stumbling out of bed next, rubbing her eyes as she sits down. A large blue mug put before Lyn, she puts a scoop of cream and two sugars into her coffee before downing it. Meanwhile Rose sipping on a glass of chocolate milk.
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