Juliet's Trail of Petals

Chapter 1: Part 4: Santana Red

I ran as fast as my legs could toward my bedroom and up the stairs to my bed where she lay.

"Harri, please they do not see worth in things that do not contain gold and jewels. They are greedy, filthy swine, their words bear no value in the eyes of those with sense," I say with such a relief that I had found her unscathed.

But as I kneel to come face to face with my wife, and unveil her from my bedsheets, all that is in my bed are extra pillows. I begin to panic again, and tears start to sting in my eyes again, and I can feel my heart about to tear through the flesh and bone in my chest, and my feet becoming raw in my heels. I realized where she could have gone, that by now it may be too late, and as I deny this to myself, I am running toward the spot that our picnic lay in just this afternoon. And when I find her, she is laying in a bed of her favorite roses.

And then I see it, I see the blood, and I see her wrists, and I realized what has just happened, and I begin to panic. I see she is still moving, and so I attempt to pick her up, and as I carry her to my room where I summoned the castle physician, I tried speaking with her and I pray the medic would come at the speed of Hermes, or more accurately attempt to force her to speak.

"Harrieta, what have you done? Please awaken and breath and speak to your beloved. Please speak to me, Harrieta, for I am losing hope that you will stay with me here on this damned wave of life," I begin as tears stream down my face, like two mournful waterfalls "Just one word would suffice, I want to hear that you can make it, my love. Just show me that you have enough will left to surface this tall, tragic wave that has slammed into you. I love you Harrieta! Please awaken, please pull through the thorn covered bush you have been placed in. Please..."

I am now hunched over her on my bedroom floor next to my closet, and letting my tears anoint her, and as I continue to do so, she moves. And my head springs up like a daisy, and she turns her head in such a manner that told me she would not make it, which created the appearance of more tears in my eyes. And as my tears fall on her face she says something.

"Alexan—" she starts with a weak airy voice that was like needles down my spine and into the soles of my feet and the temples of my head "There was—it was not me—someone from—I would never—do thi—"she has run dry, and has crumbled and the wind has started, and at this I weep, and at that weeping she breaths her last breath in the form of "I love you."

And as she took her last breath, and her head and hands dropped from the place she held them, I held her, and I wept. Louder that Artemis's heart when Apollo shot Orion, louder than god and his angels when Adam took a bite from the forbidden fruit, louder than anyone had ever wept before. I wept so that all of Greece could hear of what has happened, because what has happened this day is a tragedy unlike any other. When the physician came I continued weeping, and continued to hold her, because there was nothing anyone could do to bring her back to me. There was nothing I could do to save her, nor anyone for that matter, and so I wept. I wept as if to call out to Pluto to return her soul to her body, and I wept knowing I could not see her smile at me any longer. I wept so that Pax could hear me, and know to deliver her in peace, because that's all my Harrieta intended for, peace. Peace that my Juliet had not had within her own mind, peace that she hoped would be present at our wedding, and at my coronation. Peace that the souls of those who sat at the dinner table this night ripped from her mind so harshly, that it was damaged to the point of rotting itself and so it would perish. I prayed that their petals would be tainted like that of my Juliet, and that their peace disturbed. I prayed that to all whom have killed my peace tonight suffers from the torture she was forced to endure tenfold.

And then... I begin to think of memories, and I continue to weep as I am now incapable of touching the sweet memories of the future we had together. And all because those greedy unwashed miscreants crawled into my dining room and sat and ate with the cloak of the lamb on their heads. But my Harrieta was too good not to reveal their canines and character, she was vulnerable, and as soon as they had their opportunity to rip her apart, they did. And for this I curse Atropos with a fate worse than Kratos, and I wish him to feel tenfold as weak and vulnerable as she felt tonight, and that it made him mad with sorrow. I curse Skia in hopes he must feel as a shadow does, stepped on and never good enough to become anyone anybody cares about, and that this devours him whole and makes him mad with despair. I curse Piro to be chased with the flames of rage from all of those who he has made an enemy, and that he lives watching over his shoulder, and that this feeling makes him mad with fear and paranoia. And my father and Uncle, I hope they suffer through the anguish of a those similar to my Harrieta fifty times over. I hope that they must fight to not pick up the blade and slit their wrists at the sight of themselves, and I pray that they feel worthless, weak and completely deplorable when alone in the sea of thoughts in their own minds. I hope that in this sea they always come close to drowning but cannot seem to intertwine themselves into the threads of the sweet cloak of death, and thus they must carry water filled lungs for the rest of their days and feel heavy on the shoulders of all those who must carry them.

Eventually, as I continued to weep, they took my rose, and I would instruct them through a series of moans to bury her in the middle of the garden where lies the rarest of all roses. There will never be anyone like my Harrieta again, and so as the Juliet, she is of the rarest and most beautiful of roses to have been planted on this god forsaken soil. And as she left me alone, I would march to the dining room where everyone stayed, and when I got to the door, I could hear laughs and slurred comments and complaints about politics and stress of sitting on their lazy gaidouria while having the feeling of anguish while doing what is required of them as "leaders". And as I step in everyone turns to look at me, and as I am covered in cuts from the thorns of my beloved's favorite roses and dirt from carrying her out of that same bush, all I see are confused stares.

My mother was gone, and a servant whispered to me that she heard the news and was looking for me. I simply stared at the servant and turned my attention back to the table of evil, rabid, hungry malakes who have infected my peace. But as I turned back, I heard my uncle speak.

"What's wrong dear? Did you have the pleasure of attempting a king's work? Or perhaps you were planting flowers in your garden," and as they all erupt with drunken laughter I can't move, because if I move, I know I will kill the men in front of me with the knives they used while eating supper as they ripped my life's mind apart.

And as I looked up to finally face them, I saw my father's face as the servant that he seemed to be shooing away while she tried to deliver the news of what has happened, finally forced him to listen. And his face was of pure horror and sorrow, and he realized what he and the rest of the filth dining in our home have done. And as I stood there looking at his twisted face, made sure that he saw my eyes and my cuts and my suffering, and I prayed he would feel that tenfold every day for the rest of his damned life.

I would look at him and I would say "I am leaving when I am done mourning her. And I will NOT be stopped by anyone, just as you had not stopped these deleteriode catharmatian from ripping my life away from me, is that understood?" I say in a voice that spews the toxic gas of my wife's suicide into the noses of those responsible, the servants helping to poison the ears of those I look at with disgust and hate at this moment.

"Alexandra, I— "My father starts

"Don't you DARE speak to me of your sorrow for what you have done. I will be back to claim my throne when I have found what she was talking about in her final words, as she died in my god damned arms on your god forsaken soil, Julian. Until then I pray that your will to live rots as hers did, and that you all taste the ways of your venom." I interrupt, and before I end up slitting somebody's throat I rush to my room and mourn her for the rest of the night, until the following morning dawns and until the day after that, when I can clearly begin to think of what my love had said as she took her last breath.