ˊ˗

THE

FIRST ROSE

One could not look upon her without feeling the strange, sweet ache of something irrecoverable, as though she were a letter written in a language one had once known but could no longer speak.

THAT

TENDERLY

LOVED

𑣲

✱

✶

THE

BIRTH

Before I was, there was only the old man and his sorrow. He was a soldier once, but a wicked serpent of fire and iron — what men call an IED — had bitten him, leaving his leg twisted like a gnarled root and his spirit bound to the countryside. There he lived, alone, tending a garden that refused all love. The soil was as stubborn as a miser’s heart; it would neither break nor bloom. He would plant seeds with the careful hope of a child praying for dawn, yet nothing came but dust and silence. The goddess Demeter, who watches over all green and growing things, pitied him — for his loneliness was a deeper winter than any frost, and the earth he knelt upon was a tomb, not a cradle.

ㅤnameㅤㅤprimrose darlene
ㅤnicknameㅤㅤRose
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤHoney
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤBumbi
ㅤmonikerㅤㅤdaughter of
ㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤdemeter
ㅤsex/genderㅤㅤfemale/cis
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ female
ㅤDOBㅤㅤMarch 9th
ㅤspeciesㅤㅤdemigod
ㅤstatusㅤㅤAlive
ㅤnationalityㅤㅤBelarusian
ㅤhandinessㅤㅤambidextrous
ㅤheightㅤㅤ5'4" | 165 cm
ㅤweightㅤㅤ108 lbs
ㅤhair colourㅤㅤreddish
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤ honey blond
ㅤeye colourㅤㅤmahogany
ㅤgod parentㅤㅤdemeter

Then came the night of March the ninth. A single rose bush, defiant as a miracle, pushed through the cursed ground. Within its largest bud, wrapped in petals soft as a whispered secret, I lay sleeping. When I cried out for the first time, the thorns and vines curled around me like jealous guardians, forming a briar-cradle that no cruel thing might enter. But Demeter herself, golden-fingered and grave, parted the thorns with a gentle breath. She let the old man lift me from that fragrant bed. And as he held me, the garden sighed and broke its long curse — roses tumbled over the fences,

vegetables burst forth in laughing greens, and fruits swelled heavy with sweetness. Demeter spoke then, her voice like summer rain: This is my last blessing. I shall not come again. But you must love this child as your own. And he, being a man who had loved nothing and no one for so long, wept.

He named me Primrose, saying, You are the prime of the rose — the first bloom before the bush itself knew it could flower. And so I became his daughter. But I grew slowly, as winter-dreaming things do. Words on a page danced and twisted away from me like minnows from a clumsy hand. English was a locked room; the other tongues my father spoke were foreign ghosts. Yet Greek came to me as easily as breathing. The neighborhood boys, cruel in the way that small minds are cruel, mocked my slowness. They called me stupid, and I believed them.

My power woke in high school, when the same boys cornered me once too often. I do not remember thinking; I remember only the fury of a rose’s thorn, the wild logic of the vine. Their throats closed as if invisible roots had wrapped around them, and they dangled against an old tree behind the school, gasping. It was the talk of the village for a week, but no one suspected me. They saw only the slow, sweet girl who could barely read her own name. How could she be a murderer? So they blamed anyone they saw fit. And I let them. I stopped going to school after that. Instead, I worked the soil beside my father, and with a thought, the garden became a riot of harvest. We grew rich in our quiet way.But blessings bend toward farewell. My father’s mortal body began to fail him like a house rotting from the inside. For years, we fought the sickness together, but in the end, the soil of his own flesh gave out. He died on a morning when the roses were particularly red, and I buried him beneath the first bush that ever bloomed for me. Now his mother, my grandmother, lives in the cottage with me.

✶

THE

BELOVED

THE MOTHER.ㅤMy relationship with my mother is going well. I still offer her the first and finest of my harvests, just as my late father and I did when he knelt beside me in the garden, his lame leg stretched upon the soil. She rarely meets me face to face; I am not so proud as to demand an audience with the one who makes the wheat bow and the pomegranate bleed. But every season, I kneel among the tangled vines, and I pray to her. I whisper into the roots. I leave honey and barley at the foot of that first rose bush where I was born. I wonder if I might one day meet her properly, not as a distant power but as a daughter meets her mother: to talk with her of small things, to see her face unmasked by sunlight and shadow, to touch the very winter she creates.Demeter, my mother, I am grateful to be born as your rose.

THE "FATHER".ㅤMy relationship with my adoptive father was unbreakable. He chose me, and I chose him, and neither of us ever looked away. I love him. And he loved me as if I were his very own flesh. He never saw me differently. Never once did he gaze upon me and whisper spriggan or changeling or fae-child. No—he saw me as human, just like him: fragile, stumbling, worthy of every small mercy the world deigns to give. He took care of me when I could not read the simplest words. He taught me the names of stars and the patience of seeds. And when I asked him, for the hundredth time, why the sky turned grey before rain, he explained it again—softly, without a sigh. I wish no other father to take care of me, for I have my father. It is me and my father. We are sticking together. We are doing better.His passing was the moment when I cried the hardest. My grief became a poison. The nearer soil, the very ground that had once birthed me in a miracle, began to wither. I was a withered rose because my father was gone and could no longer tend me. He had been my sunlight, my trellis, my gentle hand against the frost. And now he lay at rest in the same soil where I was born.Father, thank you for everything you did for me.

THE ....ㅤTBA.

✶

BLESSING

✱	CHLOROKINESIS.ㅤShe has the ability to mentally and/or physically summon, control, and manipulate plants and vegetation. It includes: wood, roots, fruits, leaves, and flowers, even moss found in natural fields or habitats. This also means she can telepathically communicate with plant life and vegetation.
✱	BIOKINESIS.ㅤShe has the ability to manipulate the biology of plant life.
✱	Vitakinesis.ㅤShe has powerful control of the healing process, able to apply the effects of those powers specifically to plants, such as changing the form and shape of a plant, or healing a plant of wounds. This costs a great deal of her energy, though.
✱	Taphokinesis.ㅤShe has the ability of decay manipulation or rot manipulation, the ability to mentally and/or physically make things decompose.
✱	Poison Immunity.ㅤShe is immune to all plant and fungal-based toxins.

ㅤ✱ㅤ	Her powers take out of her energy reserves, and overuse of abilities can cause extreme fatigue and low energy.
ㅤ✱ㅤ	She is powerless in places with little to no plant-life, or far away from the earth.

ㅤO1ㅤㅤPeople called her "Miss Darling" because she always messed up when writing Darlene.
ㅤO2ㅤㅤher father called her bumbi to tease her whenever she talks to the flower because she
ㅤㅤㅤ ㅤreminded him of a bumblebee.
ㅤO3ㅤㅤher grandmother called her honey because she only remembered the colour of her hair instead
ㅤㅤㅤ ㅤof her actual name.
ㅤO4ㅤㅤher favourite flower aside from roses is chocolate cosmos, and Dutchman’s Pipe Cactus.
ㅤO5ㅤㅤshe doesn't understand technology. Being dyslexic, she can't type properly.
ㅤO6ㅤㅤShe loves all fruits, but if she has to pick one, it's an apricot. She loves and is obsessed with
ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤapricots so much that she won't share them as an offering to Demeter.
ㅤO7ㅤㅤBeing the daughter of Demeter, it's only natural she smells like flowers and the earth. But she
ㅤㅤ ㅤ ㅤalways choose to smell like an apricot every day.
ㅤO8ㅤㅤa very great gardener and knows a lot about agriculture. Come to her for gardening advice!