Golden Flower by Raiyana

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Prompt: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50343/one-girl

They had seen him fall, burning, screaming, tumbling over the edge of the cliff.

They had watched him stand, protect, defend, watched him safeguard the flight from the ruins of what had once been beautiful and safe, and now little more than heaps of smouldering wood and tumbled down stone.

The golden one, the hero among heroes whose name had already passed into song and legend.

But now he was dead.

And they did not dare to look.

Turning away from the cliffs and the horror of the smoking city, walking paths barely visible among the craggy peaks of the mountains that had so long shielded them from the wrath of the Dark Fortress, the survivors wept quietly.

For the enemy might still be on the hunt.

And yet flowers bloomed among the rocks, mocking their plight with vivid colours.

Those who had fled the ruins were long gone when footsteps once more sounded among the peaks and valleys.

The eye caught on a perfect flash of gold, the petals small, but so bright against the drab grey stone as to promise deliverance.

Promise hope.

The stone was blackened, still, burnt and cracked with the violent heat that had fallen from its heights. No gentle wave had cleaned the rock of its testament, the water leaving the memory of a long-ago battle to stand, unknowable to most, yet loud enough to scream in anguish for others.

And none who now lived remembered why the mountain here had turned black with grief.

Nor why the golden flowers bloomed at its foot, bright as sunshine and the new spring, yet lasting well into the late autumn, valiantly fighting against the darkness of oncoming night, rising to smile at the morning sun with the dawn.

Except one.