Somewhere Always
Her cloak was still shadowy from the ash that had choked the roses. Time had chipped away her fingernails, dew drops had carved new features on her face. Winters came and went, as frost licked away her fingerprints and the bricks of a world that fire couldn't swallow.
Once upon a time, in another story, someone without a signature had carved her. As a thanks for birth and harvests, thanks for peace and health. Or perhaps as a thanks for blood and victory, a thanks for glory and righteousness.
Did it matter? Once upon a time, in another story, she may have meant peace. But stories of peace get twisted like the vines from which she had grown. They twist into war and weeps and wails and "moral righteousness" and ash, until someone claims a new God. Prayers for fertile soil. It was taking her back now, they were taking her back, the vines.
Her legs are entangled with roots. Her chest is pierced by a branch of buds and blossoms. Again the reaper stands among roses.