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There are stories of those who died of a haunting, beautiful death, drowning in petals and choking on yearning desires and of a love unspoken of.
Reality wasn't so efficient, or pretty. The disease wasn't uncommon: everyone knew of one person who had it. In most cases, it didn't kill quickly. It was manageable, quite often seasonal. Quite like being allergic to morning glory, some said with a complicated smile, a sad twist of their lips. Managed with elixirs and potions to calm the throat, the lungs, and rest.
It was understood that the pain was personal, not to be examined, questioned, or meddled with by a stranger's fingers.
❀
Anna knows that she will die soon.
She has survived two assassination attempts, has survived Dagon and his plans, has survived the grind of war and the bleak, bleak days. She has made it to adulthood, and now she’ll die before she reaches her twentieth birthday.
It won’t be a spell that leads to her demise, or an assassin, or any kind of actual, material enemy.
No.
She will be killed by the one thing that got her through the war.
Love.
Or, more accurately, the absence of it. It is nowhere to be found. And it’s choking her.
The pain splinters her chest when she coughs, beautiful petals falling from her lips, pink, yellow, blue, white, red. They flutter to the floor, and it feels like someone has taken a blade and pushed it through her, ever so slowly. More and more of them, crawling up from some place in her chest, unfolding in her mouth, spat out with each cough.
Jena holds her hand as she heaves, and heaves, and heaves. When it’s over, she’s kneeling in a sea of crushed petals, all flecked with blood.
It’s getting worse. Jena doesn’t say a word, helps her clean up, vanishes the petals with a whispered spell while Anna climbs into her bedroll and curls up, but they both know it.
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Once, a stern and stoic Mage of the College of Winterhold wrote a treatise on hanahaki. The way the disease ultimately continued, Ja’kir said, was a choice made entirely by the sufferer.
He was not wrong, not really. But the old Khajit’s writings were a point of contention between himself and his former apprentice. Briam- Ja’kir’s legacy, his pride - disagreed with him, and worried that in years to come these articles might be taken in a far more stricter manner than his Master intended. So Briam sought to balance them: he wrote rebuttals, and won several debates. He irritated his old Master endlessly, and often invited Ja’kir over to verbally spar with him over adagio tea and currant cookies.
It was, perhaps, an unintended consequence of this relationship, that it gave rise to two opposing viewpoints on hanahaki in Skyrim.
❀
She never told anyone. Didn’t think anything of it, really, even as it kept happening. She had other concerns, endless quests in search of the Amulet, uncovering just what Dagon had planned. Eventually, one morning, she groaned in pain as she spat out a mouthful of lavender petals, and Jena found out. From the way her face crumpled, Anna knew. She knew she wouldn’t survive it.
Jena explained, and Anna listened. How simple it was, in the end. It all came down to love.
“This person you have feelings for…” Jena said, biting down her lip, lines of concern wrinkling her brow. “Are you sure they don’t feel the same for you?”
Anna recalled kind blue eyes, a soft smile, and something gold glinting in the light.
“I’m sure.”
Jena had hugged her, and told her she was sorry.
“No one can know,” Anna said.
So Jena kept her secret. She made excuses for Anna when she felt petals come up and had to step away, she bought and made her potions to slow the disease’s progression, she researched the disease extensively, without finding a solution. She couldn’t take away how she felt. She would rather die than lose him.
❀
Cirlena Brolilia of Cyrodiil was a novelist of singular talent. At age sixteen, she published her first book. A volume of poetry, both beautiful and morbid. Less than a year later came the Romance of the Forsaken Ghost, the story of a long-dead girl haunting her lover.
Cirlena was a reclusive girl, a shy thing. At twenty-two, she lived through a particularly harsh winter, and suffered from recurring bouts of illness until the end of her life.
Before then, she had published two books a year. Afterwards, she was barely able to pick up a quill, and was miserable for it.
Though it was a well-known fact that Cirlena did not suffer from hanahaki herself, her Forsaken Ghost was held up as a perfect portrayal of the disease. It was, after all, a tale of reaching out for someone who could not or would not see the effort. With it began the tradition of writing doomed romances, and hanahaki-sufferers as ghosts.
Cirlena worked up until her very last moments. In her final hours, she was still scratching away with her quill on parchment. It is said that historians are still finding snippets of text in her books and letters and random scraps.
Like a ghost, still speaking from beyond.
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The year went on. Anna searched for the artefacts Martin needed, helped the Blades train day after day after day, and she coughed up petals. She began to have trouble breathing, as the flowers took root in her lungs, growing there, like a malignancy. Baurus found out, but there was no time for grief. Only the War, and stopping Dagon. They recovered the Amulet, Martin mantled a God, and they saved him.
She sat next to him in the infirmary while he recovered.
“You should have ran from the Temple, far away. You could have been hurt,” he said.
“I couldn’t leave you there,” Anna said.
“I love you,” Anna didn't say.
He lived. He was crowned Emperor.
Anna stayed by his side, became a Blade. She never could go far from him, especially now. She coughed petals several times a week, lavender, dragon’s tongue, primrose, ginseng. Her mother’s family had a tradition to name their daughters after flowers. Peony, Lily, Blossom. She’ll die from them too, growing in her lungs, depriving her of air.
It’s a secret she carries everywhere.
There is no cure, no cure except returned love, and Martin does not love her.
❀
Towards the end of his life, Master Ja’kir studied in the Arcane University. In Imperial City, the story is still told to this day: the Master from Skyrim stood hand in hand with their Archmage and steered their rivalry away into a new age of peace. Ja’kir stayed with the Archmage for two years, and then another to observe.
Ja’kir and the Archmage parted on friendly terms, until he returned to the College much changed. Briam was the first to notice. When he welcomed his Master home with a cup of adagio tea, the old Master smiled wryly, and did not accept the drink. Instead, to Briam’s alarm, he apologised, bowing deeply. He did not explain what, exactly, he was apologising for.
It was only later that Briam learned of the red stained Lady’s Mantle, and only by finding such a petal in his Master’s sink.
❀
“Just tell the man,” Baurus said one afternoon, as they’re all sitting near the river, in an isolated nook of greenery and moss - and pastel petals Anna had just finished coughing up.
“It’s not that simple, Baurus,” Jena said, handing Anna some water.
“How can you be so sure he doesn’t love you?” Baurus asked Anna. “Maybe he’s just good at hiding it.”
“He doesn’t,” Anna muttered, taking small sips of the water.
Her chest burns, her throat aches. Tastes copper on her tongue, bloody petals form a crown around her, mocking her.
“Baurus,” Jena said, in an annoyed tone, like he’s missing something obvious. “If she tells him and he rejects her, it’s… not good for her. Can you blame Anna for wanting to hang on?”
Baurus’ face falls.
“Sorry. I didn’t - I’m really sorry, Anna, I just want to help and I have no idea how…” He suddenly blanched. “It’s not me, is it? The man you -”
“Of course it’s not you,” Jena said, with an eye-roll.
Baurus sighs in relief, then eyes Jena suspiciously.
“You know who it is?”
“I guessed,” Jena said.
“It’s someone we know, right?”
“Yes,” Anna said, miserable.
“Who?”
Anna wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, gives a raspy exhale. Something tickles in her throat - probably a petal that’s gotten caught.
“Martin.”
Baurus’ eyes go wide. He stays quiet for a long minute while Anna sips at more water and Jena makes the petals disappear.
“I still think you should confess,” Baurus said. “Who knows what’s actually going on in Martin’s head. He worked against Dagon with you for, like, years. It’s possible he’s in love with you, Anna, and he’s hiding it.”
“He can’t love me,” Anna murmured.
❀
Not long after his Master passed away, Briam recovered from the illness that had plagued him for years. But he’d stopped writing his treatises and proverbs, having apparently lost interest in it without his Master to rile up.
In those days, people still dreamed of a cure beyond the removal or the admission of a dearly guarded truth. When a fellow Master asked him if he’d found such a thing, Biram shook his head, and replied, I have exchanged one grieving for another.
❀
Can’t love me, Anna thinks the next day, standing in front of Martin on his throne. She can’t even remember why she’s here. He asked for her, she thinks. Maybe.
Four months left. And she still wouldn’t spend them anywhere else except here.
“Anna,” he smiled, watching her with the bright blue eyes she keeps dreaming of. “Tell me, how are you? I feel as though I haven’t seen you in eons, my friend.”
“Has anyone told you how beautiful your eyes are?” she doesn’t say.
“I am well. And you, Emperor?” she said instead.
She looks at his crown, red glinting in the sunlight, almost as bright as his laugh.
He’s talking about some training she’s conducted with the trainee Blades when she feels it. The telltale tingling in her chest, the blinding pain in her throat, the sudden sweat beading down her back. She needs to cough.
But she can’t. Not here, not while Martin’s watching.
He can’t know.
She clutches one hand against her chest as the pain pulses there.
“I have to go.”
He gives her an alarmed look.
“Anna, are you alright? Anna -”
She’s already out of the room. Implacable pressure threatens to burst in her chest, and she runs, runs to the nearest bathroom, holding her breath, trying not to -
The pressure bursts, and she retches, spitting a single petal out, red, red, red. She catches it in her hand, keepings running, wheezing now, her heart beating furiously in her throat, her chest aching, and in her throat, in her throat… softness and colours, blooming.
She makes it to the bathroom in time. She skids into a stall, closes the door, and she’s on her knees, coughing petals. It hurts, a deep stabbing pain everytime she expels more petals. She wheezes air in, one hand braced against the side of the stall, her head spinning, her mouth stained red.
And then the bathroom door bangs open, footsteps marching in.
“Anna!”
She jolts, bites her lips, a fiery line of pain carving her insides, her throat burning, burning…
“Don’t come in!” she begs.
The footsteps halt. She can tell he’s just on the other side of the door. There’s a beat of silence, heavy, laden with too much. She tries, she tries so hard, but she can’t stop herself from coughing again. A handful of petals flutter down, damning noise echoing in the silence of the bathroom.
“You’re not well,” Martin says, his tone clipped with worry.
“No,” Anna says.
“You need to go to the Infirmary.”
“No, I’m -”
The last word doesn’t even make it out, drowned by another coughing fit. She can’t see the floor now. Only a bed of petals. They’re roses, Anna knows. Red roses.
“You are very clearly not fine, Anna. Come out, please, or I will open this door.”
“No!”
He can’t see - he can’t see -
Her fingers scrabble at the sea of petals, crushing them between trembling fingers before she remembers her magicka. She’ll vanish it all, the blood too, and he won’t see then, she’ll -
Another spasm tears through her. She heaves, a broken sound leaving her lips.
“That’s enough, Anna,” Martin says.
He throws the door open. And he sees.
He sees the red, red petals covering the floor, a crimson, deadly wreath, he sees Anna’s face, pale and bloodless, he sees her lips as red as crushed roses, and he sees the truth.
Anna recoils in on herself, meeting his gaze with mounting dread. He’s gone almost as pale as her, blue eyes holding twin flames, and Anna doesn’t know if it’s fury or something else, but either way she’s preparing to be incinerated. Reduced to ashes by that gaze, by the weight of his knowledge, the way it’s so obviously him.
None of that happens.
He stands there for unending moments, frozen like a statue, or perhaps it’s only her own perception of time that’s unreliable, and it actually lasts a couple of seconds. She blinks, and she thinks he was just on his knees before her, slender fingers cupping her jaw, wiping the blood from her lips, but no, that’s impossible. He’s standing and he hasn’t moved. She swallows, her breath thin and wheezing, not enough air making it into her lungs.
“Come with me,” he says.
The words are soft, soft as the caress of petals across her skin, and now she’s definitely hallucinating, but fine, she’ll go with it. She struggles to her feet, stumbles out of the bathroom and down the corridor. Martin is at her side, his hand curled around her arm.
It feels solid, real.
It can’t be.
Martin doesn’t touch people, and he doesn’t care about her. Not anymore.
They’re in his office. She’s sitting in a chair, and a mug is placed in her hands.
“Drink,” Martin orders, and she does.
The warm liquid tastes like honey-infused tea, and it soothes the burn of her throat. She drinks more, her hands clutching the mug. She can feel Martin staring at her, can see him, the hem of his cloak brushing the floor as he stands close.
“Look at me, Anna.”
She doesn’t want to, but she does anyway.
“What stage are you at?” he asks.
Concern written all over his face, for her.
“Four.”
There’s a flash of cascading emotions across his features, too fast to follow. In the end, the one that stays is easy to identify - she’s seen it enough.
Sorrow.
“Then why are you hiding in bathrooms, Anna? Why are you here at all? Go, go find the object of your affection and shake them until they admit they return your feelings.”
For one impossible moment, she imagines herself doing just that. Reaching out, placing both hands on Martin’s arms, and shaking him. She wonders how he would react.
“I can’t say anything to him,” she says. “He doesn’t love me, and I’m not… I want more time.”
It’s selfish, perhaps, that he’ll never know. She has sworn Jena and Baurus to secrecy. When she dies, the secret of her disease will get out, and people will wonder who she loved, and Martin will, if he truly does care, place the blame on anyone but himself. It’s not his fault, after all, that he doesn’t love her.
Anna won’t be the first to die from unrequited love.
“He doesn’t love you,” Martin repeats, and there’s disbelief in his voice, like it’s impossible for anyone not to love her.
“He can’t, I’m too young.”
He’s staring so hard at her. Is he reading her mind? She lowers her gaze.
“Is it someone we both know?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“Someone you used to see at Cloud Ruler.”
“Yes.”
“Anna…” he says softly, too softly.
Fuck. She should have lied. He can’t know. He can’t know, it will only hurt him if, apparently, he cares.
“It doesn’t matter,” she says quickly, meeting his gaze.
“Of course it does. We’re talking about your life .” He looks angry now. “Finish your tea. Stay here. I mean it, Anna. You will not move.”
“Alright,” she replies.
She’s puzzled when he leaves. He closes the door behind him, and she hears the lock slide into place, and she couldn’t open it even if she wanted. She doesn’t move.
She remains in her chair, sipping the warm tea. Wondering where Martin has gone. Maybe he’s fetching her friends. Doesn’t trust her to go back to the Blades Quarters on her own, so he’ll have her escorted by Baurus and Jena. That makes sense.
The tea really helps with her throat, and with the soreness in her chest. She should ask him for the recipe.
She sets the mug down on the table in front of her once it’s empty, crosses her legs, sets a hand just under the lower end of her sternum. If she presses there, hard, she can feel the flowers in her lungs, feel their weight, their roots, their petals. Feel her dwindling breath, each one bringing her closer to death.
A couple of minutes later, the door creaks open. Anna is not surprised to see Martin didn;t come back alone. She is, however, surprised to see just who accompanies him.
“Steffan?”
Steffan frowns at her, his posture going a bit rigid, and turns to Martin.
“What is this about, my Emperor?”
Martin grabs him by the shoulders and makes him face Anna.
“It’s time for the truth to come out,” he says. “You haven’t said anything because of your difference in age, but Anna needs to hear it now. Tell her what you feel for her.”
“What?” Steffan asks, his voice going so high it’s almost funny.
Anna blinks, slowly. What exactly was in that tea?
“Go on, Steffan,” Martin says.
“Uh,” Steffan says. “I see her as a colleague? Potentially a friend?”
“You can’t be serious,” Anna says.
“It’s fine if you don’t want to,” Steffan says quickly.
“I’m talking to Martin. You complete idiot. You think it’s Steffan I have feelings for?”
The silence that follows is so absolute she swears she can hear the flowers growing in her chest.
“I’m confused,” Steffan eventually says.
“Steffan,” Martin says, staring at Anna like he’s planning to murder her. “Leave. Now.”
Steffan scrambles away, and Anna is left alone with Martin. A Martin with bared teeth, wild eyes, and a terrible look on his face.
Something tickles in her throat. She groans, coughs. A single white lily blooms on her tongue, soft petals brushing her lips.
“You foolish girl,” Martin growls.
He lunges forward, grabs her face, and bites the lily from her mouth. He spits it on the floor, and-
Anna realises then that he’s not planning to murder her. Not planning murder at all.
He’s kissing her, bruisingly, maddeningly, kissing her like he wants to breathe life-giving air into her lungs himself, kissing her like he will die if he doesn’t. The kiss of a lifetime.
True love’s kiss, if you believe the stories.
She feels the magic of it, and that is not a metaphor. It’s a river, flowing through her, washing away the deadly growth in her lungs. Suddenly she can breathe, and she knows the flowers are gone. She can breathe, and she’s burning up, lips locked with Martin’s, hands on his chest, her heart pounding.
When he stops, she’s out of breath, but for once, it has nothing to do with flowers.
“Were you not going to say a thing?” he asks, desperate. “Was your plan to die alone?”
His gaze is an inferno, and she wants it to consume her whole.
“I thought… I thought you didn’t love me.”
“How could I not love you? Anna, sometimes you’re a complete idiot.”
She smiles.
“You didn’t say anything either,” she points out.
He touches his forehead to hers, sighs heavily.
“I didn’t wish to burden you with something that would have left you at best puzzled and at worst disgusted. I watched you from afar and waited for you to find love with another.”
“Like Steffan? No. I have only ever loved you.”
“You haven’t actually said it. That you love me.”
He smiles.
“I love you.”
“I’ll need to hear it every day,” she tells him. “In case the flowers come back.”
That isn’t how it works. They both know it. And yet, his smile widens.
“I love you.”
There’s one thing missing.
“I love you too,” she says, and kisses him.
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