ye of the past must die

Maea

And I hope that you don't suffer
But take the pain

With both avians airborne, Maea was just making a final circle around the clearing when it caught her eye. A flash of red so vibrant, so luminous in its intensity that the rest of the world might as well be rendered in gray. Shock pulsed through her system, and without thinking she plunged down to the ground, shifting back to her ancient form in mid air. Staggering from the hard impact of her feet hitting ground, she staggered and fell to her knees before the rose - the rose - the miraculous and elusive and very very real rose that suddenly bloomed where she thought she'd looked a hundred times already.

"Thalassa!" she gasped, as if the lyvern wouldn't have noticed her plummeting already. Eyes burning, her hands rose up to cup the glorious petals, wary of touching the gilded thorns or indeed the perfect blossom. She found it. They found it. It was real, she could go back to Torchline, she could -
"Gods, what do I even do now?" It seemed almost a crime to pluck something so beautiful. A dagger - she needed a knife. Or... would it survive being dug up by the roots? Maybe what she needed was something to carry it in, so that it would remain fresh and alive until... until what? Something about planting it, right?
Belatedly, she realized she was laughing, her face wet with tears. "It's actually real..."

Hope if everybody runs
You choose to stay