Returning to No Applause, Only More of the Same

Chapter 46, Five Roses Standing Alone

By all calculations, it should have been crowded with kids. However, since the time was barely 11, there wasnt a soul about in the courtyard.

Do you recognize anything? George asked Kreig.

There was no way he would. But, nevertheless, Kreig took a glance around. He looked up at the old brick walls, half-built in the early 1800s, half-built ten years ago, when an attacking monster destroyed much of the school. Luckily, since it had been a Saturday, only one loitering teacher had been harmed, who survived with only minor lasting wounds. Sam couldnt see any dawning recognition in Kreigs eyes, and she understood that.

He turned from the building, away from the students staring mournfully out of the windows, and to the courtyard itself.

It was pretty small, guarded on all sides by the school buildings. In the middle, a large acorn tree stood proud, the upper branches almost touching the uppermost tops of the buildings surrounding it. It really was a gorgeous tree, but it had been much smaller a mere ten years ago. A whole lot smaller, as a matter of fact. But, with how the world was now a days, people didnt really question it when trees grew faster than-,

Hold on, by the looks of it, Kreig was about to question the tree.

He just wandered right up to it, all without a care in the world. Uh, Kreig, what are you-, But Sam couldnt say any more, because now he was hunched over, sniffing the ground like a damn dog. As if there was actually anything down there worth smelling? The only reason Sam could come up with for him to do this was because she knew he had a stupidly good sense of smell, but Still, she shot a confused look at George, who gave her an equally confused glance in turn.

Even so, they didnt stop him.

He sat there for a moment, glanced back at the two of them, and then dug a little in the soft dirt around the tree. And proceeded to pull out a small, black, truffle-like ball. It was smaller than a marble.

Was that?...

Kreig crushed it between his fingers. A red liquid splattered out on his hand, alongside flaky pieces of white flesh. Yeah, that was definitely a Messiahs Egg. God only knew how many pictures and textbook-chapters Sam had read about it. Now, the real question here was: why was it growing in a school, how had Kreig smelt it, and why did he destroy it for no reason?

Kreig stared at his messy hand for a moment. ...Instinct. Ah. Sure. Right, that explained it.

And then, as if he hadnt just popped a budding Messiahs Egg as if it was nothing, he placed a hand upon the soft earth. Closed his eyes gently. Muttered a few words.

Truth (I)

In a matter of seconds, something changed. From where Kreig held his hand, something akin to white threads seemed to blossom, digging into the dirt and the base of the tree with such speed and vigour that it stunned Sam silent. These white threads snaked their way into and through the tree, climbing inside it, infecting it. Turning the whole tree entirely white in mere moments. The bark, the sap, the leaves It all became as white as whitest snow.

Beautiful, yes, but Kreig, what the fuck did you just do? Sam asked, torn between arching her back to view the acorn tree fully and glancing down at where Kreig still sat hunched.

He stood up and turned to her. There was a strange glow in his eyes. After all these years I can still do it. Before Sam could follow up with the obligatory do what?? Kreig continued. This tree was a host of the white roots. Now, it has been awakened to the Truth. The fruits it will bear will be the sweetest of all, and it will happily harbour the Messiahs Eggs to awaken us humans To think I could still do it, here. Despite how the theocracy fell years ago

Again, extremely cryptic in a way that Sam couldnt even begin to fathom. She was just hoping that awakening a tree didnt constitute as vandalism of private property. He just made it white. That wasnt illegal, was it?

Ah, though, the lawbook never did say anything about using otherworldly powers or skills to do it

Err, it was probably fine! Nobody would know a thing so long as they didnt tell anyone!

Kreig, George said, catching the attention of both his siblings, come over here. He wasnt standing at the very edge of the courtyard, but almost. A monument seemed to stand surrounded by chains and two benches, placed out of the way but still in a way to bring attention to it. It was a simple monument, really. A row of five roses. Each standing tall and proud and made of now-matted bronze, each of the top-most petals touched and caressed until they shone as brightly as they did ten years ago.

There used to be more flowers around it, Sam said, but its been a long time. Now, they just leave off a few flowers every week. Some of the roses were more touched than others, some had fresh flowers even today. Others only held withered chrysanthemum, soon to be removed by an old groundskeeper who wished he hadnt known the kids who represented the little bronze roses.

Kreig stepped closer to the roses, his eyes transfixed. Five. Each had a little name engraved in a nameplate by the stem.

Peter Willowgrove. Jamie Schwartz. Rudy Winter. Charlie Swallowbird. And Kreig Wiedemann. Priest, Cardinal, Monk, Churchrat, and Paladin. Execution, missing in action, died in combat, missing in action, and fugitive.

He bent down. Five little roses. Five little lives lost in a world all too unlike their own. He reached out and touched Peters rose.

Peter had been the intellectual among them, always just on the cusp of doing something truly worthwhile with his cunning nature. But until he found his passion for writing and analyzing scripture, he was nothing. He excelled at the minor aspects of it all, of how faith worked and how the system (as he called it) seemed to favour faith-related skills and how even the most mundane of chants, so long as the user believed in them, could have an effect. Be it healing or otherwise. He was the brains of the bunch, the only one who could understand the time-period they found themselves in.

He was a good man.

Jamie wasnt a very smart man, but for what he was, he was a genius. He knew every aspect of his magical spells and rites. Yet he never became stuck-up. Adhering to every rule and virtue the holy order proposed, he relinquished the possible pride he could have found in the great magical strength he carried, and instead let his patience for those below him and humble nature prosper. He was no healer, but his mere presence was enough to soothe the most anxious minds. When the Five Bodies missed home, he was the one explaining calmly how it wasnt all that bad. And they took his words for it.

He was a good man.

Rudy was, despite his profession, not a patient man. Not a fighter, either. While Kreig took to head-bashing like a fish to water, he clashed with it, unable to find any pleasure in punching and kicking and shouting the words of a religion he didnt believe in at other people. He carried his fists for no one but himself. The words of the kindest monks fell on his deaf ears and he didnt hesitate to retaliate. The one thing that calmed him down and brought him to the ground was the gentle camaraderie of the others in his same position. This revealed his anger to be a mere mask covering his grieving nature, and he shed it. He never truly accepted the God Below as his lord and master, but he fought alongside his friends nonetheless.

He was a good man.

Charlie didnt have anyone before coming there. Rejected by everyone in the class, he expressed a subdued delight at being somewhere that wasnt Earth. He missed his family, sure, but there wasnt anything else he truly lacked. He gained friends and a belief he used to lack and that was all he needed. Although he was never thankful to everyone, in silent moments beneath the starlit night, he would occasionally express just the slightest hint of longing. A single word of truth, telling more than any prayer could. There was no doubt that he loved the other four, just as they loved him.

He was a good man.

And Kreig Kreig survived.

He was not a good man.