Prince of Penance

Chapter Fifteen: A Rose By Any Other Name

Gusto couldn't sleep. The night's conversation in the library with Zummi still rolled in his mind like a dull hammer pounding on his head and echoed through the darkness.

"You're innocent..."

It was almost annoying that Gruffi had somehow managed to fall asleep before he had, curled up in a dreary dozing snore like a bug in a rug. The rise and fall of his chest and the soft tell tale snore which signalled to Gusto that the whole island could sink and Gruffi would still be sleeping like a baby. Gruffi was sound asleep and not likely to wake up and console Gusto any time soon. Up on his perch, Arte was also snoring away, in bird like happiness with his steady feather ruffling breaths. Gusto was annoyed, and jealous.

I'm the one whose going to have to go harpoon a monster, which may or may not really be created from my deepest darkest fears if what Zummi said was correct, and now I can't even get the sleep I need to do it!

With a sigh Gusto pulled himself out of bed, pulled on a robe, and went to go do what he always did when he couldn't sleep, or his nightmares plagued him. Paint.

The royal studio echoed with the darkness of midnight. Pots of old pigment lay strewn on the floors, half finished canvases drying on easels, palettes of dried paint stacked into cubby holes stored away with clay pots and paint stained brushes, their bristles sticking up in hedgehog mockery, but still clean. Yet this studio was still being used. Gusto noted a candle flickering by the fireplace; somebody was in here, in one of the white rooms, painting.

He had a feeling he knew who it might be. He swallowed, tiptoeing along as quietly as possible and peaked into each white room in turn, before finally coming to the occupied one and slipping into it as discreetly as possible.

Of course he was noticed.

"Someone had to keep up the family profession after you left," Thistle Rose said gently, her brush making soft scraping sounds on the canvas in front of her. "The servants don't clean in here, and the place is falling to ruin, but I try my best to maintain it. All the portraits of Bryton in the royal gallery are mine."

"I see..." Gusto swallowed, and came up behind her, peering at her canvas. "Ah, not bad not bad, you have a distinct style, it just screams Caravaggio!"

"Flatterer," the Queen chuckled, and turned to smile at him. "Get a canvas, and some pigments, we can paint each other!"

It was a great idea. Gusto didn't have any portraits of Thistle Rose at Gummi Glen. He had never tried painting his family members, more out of pain than fear of the others finding out about his past. He had missed them dearly. But his creative muse took over once more and once he and his sister were sitting side by side, with clean canvases before them, his sister's image began to take shape before him. It was a painting he'd wanted to paint, really, for 15 years. But something like this couldn't be seen as just a venting of pain, or a medicinal balm for 15 years of separation from his sibling. Next to her his own face was finding itself a permanent place on a sheet of canvas, and he realized for many years what he hadn't wanted to admit.

Gusto wanted to stay with his sister. More importantly, he didn't think anything could separate him from her now that they were together. In more ways than one he realized that he needed her. They were two halves of the same soul. But the idea of not returning to Gummi Glen hurt him inside, and he fought back the tears as he looked at his sister, the one beside him, not in front of him, contemplating this very possibility. No, no there had to be another way!

"Come to Gummi Glen with me, now, tonight..." he said, though his heart didn't quite feel in it. "Lets run away together!"

"No," Thistle Rose said immediately. "We both have a responsibility to Monteray still, and you know it."

"Yeah," Gusto nodded, and put his brush down. "You have to stay here as Queen until Bryton can rule as King."

"And you have to slay a monster and earn your freedom. We...can't run away from that which scares us the most," she took a deep breath. "And what I fear the most is my Crown."

Gusto stared at her, and she rose, pulling her skirts around her stiffly as she stood.

"For years now I have ruled, and the rule for being a Queen is purity and grace. I have lived in a golden cage. Each morning my ladies help me get into a corset so tight that it cuts off my breathing, in order to wear the dresses of the Queen. In all these years I have never been naked outside of my rooms. Never swam in the ocean, or stuck my toes into the mud to see if the old parable is true; that roses love having mud between their toes. I have never been outside my rooms without my hair in place. I have never danced the dance of the free. I wear my fear on my head every single day."

She pulled the crown from off of the elaborate coif of ringlets piled upon her head and tossed it to Gusto, who caught it as if it were a golden snake that would bite him.

"I want to go with you to Gummi Glen," she continued fiercely. "I want to see the mainland, the Kingdom of Dunwyn, and the humans your family speaks of; the squire and the princess. I want to meet the barbic warriors, I want to dance tribal dances with them. I want to perform the...what did Sunni call it? The Barbic Test of Bearhood! I want to take off all my clothes, paint my face, put feathers in my hair and dance beneath the full moon. Does this...alarm you?"

Gusto blinked and laughed bashfully, putting his hand behind his head.

"Nah," he waved his hand. "I've done it before. Feathers are kind of ticklish."

"We have so few purely Gummi traditions left here in Monteray," said Thistle Rose with eyes tearing. "One is that the Queen has to have the name of a flower that Gummi Bears cultivate. But Gummis never cultivated the rose, the humans did and we took that from them. The Gummi Berries on Monteray are so strange because we mixed the bushes with other strange flowers that weren't like any the Great Gummis raised. They bred together and now the berry bushes are all dying out as a result and we have to take berries from the mainland, to our own folly."

"Grammi was wondering about that," Gusto admitted.

"Gusto," Thistle Rose came over to him. "I want a Gummi Bear name. I don't want to be a flower anymore, a frail island princess. I want to be Queen of the forest, an amazon!"

Gusto laughed. He couldn't help himself. Only a male relative could officially rename the Queen. She didn't even have that right herself.

"Well what name would you like? I can give you any name you like!"

She was quite taken aback.

"Well, I don't know. I really never thought about it before. Just that Bryton would never do it for me. He wouldn't see the need for it. He's too much like his father in that way."

"I suppose I'll have to think up one for you then," said Gusto. "So, um, where shall we put our paintings?"

Thistle Rose looked suddenly guilty.

"It is...against the law now to hang a painting of you anywhere but the family gallery, and only for historical purposes. I've been painting you for fifteen years, and all those paintings are in my personal bedroom where none may see them."

"Oh..." Gusto was a little taken aback, and he felt a sickening feeling in his stomach that he knew why.

"Gusto..." she approached him, and took his hand. "What is your greatest fear? Why does it take the shape of a monster? I know you don't truly fear beasts, your family says you've fought many sea and land beasts before. What is it that the creature represents?"

Gusto looked down at her and stared deeply into her eyes for a few minutes.

"Being...swallowed into darkness. Dying, or falling deep into emptiness, never seeing colour again, or feeling joy again. Being suffocated by darkness and despair all around me. Being forgotten. My greatest fear is to be completely and entirely alone. I...can't stand it!"

Thistle Rose nodded, and reached up to kiss him. He was shaking so hard that her crown fell from his fingers to the floor. She very calmly bent down, though it must have been difficult for her, in her full skirts, to pick up the crown and put it back up on her head.

"Sometimes I need to be alone," Gusto admitted. "I lived alone for awhile after leaving the island. I lived in a waterfall. But I always had Arte, or the Gummis. I could always go talk to somebody, and there was always colour. I sleep with a window open so the light can come in. I'm...afraid of the dark."

"Ah Gusto, you haven't changed since you were three, I remember you used to be very afraid of the dark. Nanny would have to keep a candle lit for you at night, and if it even guttered a bit you'd wake up. You used to play with her; you used to blow out the candle, and cry for her to come in and light it again, just so you didn't have to go to bed."

Gusto chuckled, remembering himself what a naughty cub he'd been.

"I remember Nanny," he chuckled. "Boy, we were so mean to her."

Thistle Rose giggled, and then took his hand.

"Gusto. I want to have a ball to farewell Bryton and you before your journey," she said this seriously, but with a twinkle of mischief in her eyes. "As the Queen I can throw a royal ball to mark any occasion, no matter how small. I want to throw a ball, and I want you to escort me."

"But..." Gusto looked at her. "I can't appear in Court."

"No, you can't," she replied. "But a Royal Ball is not a Court session. And the Council didn't say you had to continue wearing those black robes. Only that you had to wear them until the Council session. So you can wear your finest clothes, I've kept everything just as you had it before you left. I can get on Mother's wedding gown, the last I'll ever wear it before I pass on the Crown to my son, and we shall dance together before you depart."

"And I shall give you a name," said Gusto brightly. "We shall have no more of this flower nonsense. A true Gummi name for a true Gummi Queen."

She threw her arms around his neck to kiss his cheek firmly.

"I hope you defeat the monster," she said. "I want you to be able to sleep in peace. I've told the Council to release you from their spell, so you shouldn't have anymore nightmares."

"All right," Gusto said, just revelling in the comforting smell, sight and touch of his sister for a few more selfish moments. "I'll walk you back to your rooms then, and tomorrow I'll go spelunking around for my old Court duds. Hope they still fit."

She giggled, and he offered her his arm.

"My Lady."

"My Prince," she responded brightly, and they pranced from the royal studio with paint on their noses and a light step to their toes.

---Forgive me. I know, I haven't been writing Gusto as in character as I should. I've been going back over all the old Gummi Bear eps, its been awhile, and I've noticed how sad and mellow I've made him. He's supposed to be wry and sarcastic and funny and maniacally artistic, so I shall try to keep him as such. Sort of a change writing serious Harry Potter fics for two years and then going to Gummi Bears and having to change the characters I write. Also, this story is more serious, I want to have less serious bouncy fun fics for Gummi bears eventually. Ah, I have too much to write!