Garden of Withered Roses || ON HIATUS

Prelude: A Garden of Chrysanthemums

The world knows naught of suffering and instead focuses solely on pain. Her suffering transcends all the pain felt by the world, and yet none would remember, and none would care.

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The world knows naught of suffering and instead focuses solely on pain. Penelope always believed in this. Suffering is the Hell she went through. Whilst pain is a simple inconvenience. Sometimes, she would walk around the Estate and see a dead bird lying on the grass, and yet she still knows that it had once soared high into the sky. Is this how the world was? It acknowledges the pain, the suffering that we all go through, and yet it views it as an inconvenience.

She sighed. She had long accepted that the world was flawed, it was best to not let her mind linger on things that did not matter. It was the day of Callicia's Ball. Hilise had left not long ago to rescue Margaux.

Penelope lay down on the soft grass. She was tired, and this was most likely the only chance she'll get to rest in this lifetime.

"Maybe I'll just nap for a few minutes..." She thought, turning to her side to get more comfortable and she let her drowsiness engulf her.

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"Where am I...?" Penelope wondered.

She was surrounded by flowers of varying kinds and colors. She bent down to take a better look at them. She took turns naming the meaning of the flowers. She was lucky that she had come across a book on flowers in the Inoaden's study. The perks of being a soul in the family of spring, she guesses.

Yellow and white chrysanthemums. Letting go.

Butterfly weed. It means "let me go.", it was usually used in a romantic context. Her brows furrowed.

Wilted daffodils. Daffodils usually symbolized new beginnings, so why are they wilted?

"The end of a new beginning"

Penelope was taken aback by the thought. She was hardly an expert on flowers, hell if the book she had read did not have pictures she wouldn't have even recognized the flowers since the written descriptions were way too lengthy for her to read through.

So then why was she here? She stared out into the field of flowers that seemed to go on endlessly yet no matter how much she racked her brains, she would not come up with an answer.

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Penelope awoke, sitting upright as she stared into the walls of the Inoaden Estate. She could see the light emitted from the dining room. She immediately got up. She had no time to wonder about her dream. As she materialized through the wall, she's greeted by a stunned Diego who looked as though he had the life sucked out of him. Ricardo and Gabrielle were almost in the same state as their father and Penelope couldn't help but wonder what the hell had happened.

She visualizes Hilise's room, ready to reappear in it and have Hilise by her side. Penelope opened her eyes and instead was greeted by a broken wall and an empty bedroom. She turns her head left and right looking for any sign of Hilise.

"Did you see Lady Hilise leave the dining area just now?" One of the maids said as she walked by.

"Is it true? Is she the Head now?" Another whispered as Penelope listened attentively, following them as they returned to the kitchen.

"Personally, I don't know how she managed to grow stronger than Lord Diego. After she attacked Young Master Ricardo I would've thought that they would keep an eye on her and keep her subdued."

"Have you seen Lady Gabrielle, though? She was trembling in fear when she heard that Lady Hilise was moving closer to her room."

And at that Penelope sprinted off to the fourth floor. Out-of-breath, she leans on the doorframe of a random room that had a light open. She dematerialized through the door and found Hilise laying silently on the bed, she wasn't asleep she was just thinking. Penelope sat down beside her.

"Hey, how'd the ball go?" She asked, twirling a lock of pastel pink hair on her finger. She noticed, however, that the deeper pink that usually only was up to her tips was now several inches higher.

"I know of a way for you to get a body."

Penelope let go of her hair and turned to look at Hilise.

"What?"

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Author's Note:

hey hey ! take this small chapter before this story goes on hiatus for a little while. unfortunately i could not retrieve the file that had the other chapters and i'm still kinda bummed out because i had already written up to chapter 15 and now writer's block is taking over :(