The Night The Rose Wilted

**Due to this being a Red Rose White Lightning related page, the following contents may include triggering topics such as: *suicide, major character death, genocide, nazism, racism, graphic depictions of violence, child abuse, mental and emotional abuse, mental illness, and terrorism.***

> Hark, all who shall pass,
>
>
> Do not attempt to break through my set glass.
> Do not to who my talons and stone encase give a thought.
> For just like her body and her heart,
>
>
>
> Her memory and her image has been laid to rot.
>
>

The second installment in the Red Rose White Lightning series, this book is the more gruesome of the two, which you may find surprising if you've read the first. Here, Olaf's morality decays severely as his dragon turns from his autism to a paranoid voice that proffers the option of slaughtering millions who stand between Germany and greatness.

## Background

The Night The Rose Wilted's name has a rather complex origin. It has its roots in the Danish poem Oinker wrote earlier "Huset af den Visnende Rus" in which the narrator, Bodo calls the house he is returning to "Huset af den Visne Rus (The House of the Wilted Rose)" instead of "Huset af den Visnende Rus (The House of the Wilting Rose)" which it is called earlier in the poem. This is a euphemism for Mette's suicide - before she was "wilting", or ill/intoxicated (as "visnende" is commonly used as slang for), and when he returned, she was "wilted", or dead from suicide. Oinker would adapt this euphemism for the title, as its sibling, The Day The Lightning Struck, also utilizes a euphemism in its title.

For a while, the events were not a separate book, however, The Day The Lightning Struck was simply too long to be palatable, so they were split.

## Cast

### By Country

#### Main participants

##### NSP

* Danish Social Democratic State
* Free Kingdom of Norway

#### Supporting states

##### EMA

* French Republic
* Kingdom of Sweden
* Germanovichal Ukraine
* Hellenic Republic
* New Saxony
* Scottish Republic
* Germanovichal Russia

##### NSP

* Greenland
* Faroe Islands

### By person

#### Main Belligerents

* Olaf
* Mette
* Frank (J)
* Jonas
* Trond
* Gunnar
* Haakon Magnus

#### Main Non-belligerents

* Annalena
* Harald V
* Robert

#### Supporting Real People

* Emmanuel
* Magdalena
* Volodymyr
* Ursula
* Kyriakos
* Bärbel
* Bodo

#### Supporting Non-mythical OCs

* Otis
* Germanovich
* Bodo

#### Supporting Mythical OCs

* Vidkun
* Erik
* Bundes
* Hath
* Praacheen-Kaal

## Plot

Olaf, who had started to show signs of his own insanity, would attempt to rest and calm, however he is again awoken much too early to be told that the Prime Minister of Denmark has hung herself. He had chatted with her in the last book, saying some pretty nasty things, but Olaf, who says nasty things to everyone he finds displeasing, did not see the significance in it, especially since they were both adults.

Either way, he, having been the last person she formally visited, is tasked with handling the diplomatic mystery of what caused it and what next. Of course, when he takes a peek at Denmark, this entire task is lost, as the bigger problems reveal themselves. Denmark is nothing short of a Nazi state. How this escaped Olaf is not clear to him, but is clear is he must turn from defender to aggressor for the greater good.

While in Denmark, he speaks with Erik, who carries his own head and limps around Copenhagen, seeing as Denmark has no mountains for him to be regulated to. Erik speaks in obfuscated sentences, detailing a man with black eyes and concurrent overjet and underjet, who turns out to be Vidkun, and warns that a great rosey darkness has descended upon Denmark, and says "Don't listen to those men and women who speak of igler, blandinger, kainer, forrӕdere, or racerene, if they don't have black on back, they are no friend of Jack!" which is a reference to the dehumanizing language used in the ruling Danish party.

So after many pleas, many spy incidents, many interviews, Olaf rolled in the army, swollen up from the recent conflicts, and smushed Denmark with ease. He went through the country, like a mad man, and humiliated the Danes beyond repair, before declaring Danish autonomy to be "unthinkable" and annexing the territory he once dubbed a "shithole archipelago."

This shocked the world. This was reminiscent of the Nazi days, but there was little they could do. Massive, unstoppable, and clearly on the hunt, Olaf could easily afford to pay no mind to such ideas. He could go to the Red Festival with a Hitler vocal mannerism without ever thinking twice about his image. It didn't matter. So little mattered to him now.

The voices in his head told him to kill, kill, kill. And he was trapped between his own logicality and this invading force, sidelining his emotions so painfully like he had always done. He couldn't keep living like this, but he didn't have time to unpack, as the Norwegians had come for round 2.

Jonas in their world is not like our Jonas or Idle At Sea's Jonas. Cruel, vindictive, he is no different from the woman that came before him. He took psychedelic substances frequently, to ease his own schizophrenia which he desperately tried to hide, but after Germany embargoed Norway, his flow was cut off, causing him to descend into mania and paranoia. He ordered bombings on Germany's coast, tried to convince Haakon Magnus to push his own father down the stairs, and when Haakon Magnus refused, tried to do it himself, but was interrupted by Vidkun who was prowling around the palace, attracted by the decoration of white lillies. Vidkun is enraged and swipes at the back of Jonas's thighs, but does not kill him yet.

Robert, who, despite being very close loving friends with Olaf, believes that Olaf is not a trustworthy judge of hostility or friendliness, goes to Norway and attempts to negotiate the situation. He is barbarically executed by Jonas and his coworkers. Vidkun, who smells hvitt blood like a bloodhound, flies straight up through 4 floors and eats Jonas's face with horrifying speed, before eating assorted organs, crunching ribs and roaring inhumanly. The terror that Vidkun is is on clear display, though he would not be accepted until much later.

Back home, Olaf watches the Family Cloth, and as Robert's sect goes gray and burns brightly in red, he knows distinctly. Anna knows too, and she...breaks. The grief is too much for her now. She is very empathetic, even if she tries to pretend she isn't. She can't stand it anymore. War after war has worn them all down. Olaf, who is perhaps in love with Anna in his brain somewhere, caves to the voices in his head. What has sanity given him? Sanity took away Robert and made Anna cry. Sanity is unfair. Sanity is without utility.

Olaf, looking to cause as much pain as possible, seeks to rot Norway from the inside, in the most prolonged, agonizing way possible, phones an old friend. Thankfully, Olaf is not the only man who is mad. No, far from it. Everyone is unstable, and this will not pan out calmly or logically.

He phones Haakon Magnus, someone he had admittedly embraced back in the early 2000s, though they would grow apart a bit in a painless way as the years went by. It wasn't a big deal to reconnect, was it?

Of course Haakon Magnus, his trauma turning him inside out and bending him into a pretzel, stuck to Olaf like glue. Olaf was a strong figure in his life that promised him glory. He laid down his life for Olaf, and Vidkun, seeing this, swooped in to get his own little piece, having also met Haakon before when he was but a very small child.

Haakon would bask in the glory of these two powerful men to escape his own misery. Soon, they would consume his vulnerable brain with their destructive rhetoric, but perhaps the mistreatment he faced fed into it too. His abuse, long ignored, would be avenged through all kinds of heinous methods, from Vidkun possessing him to him becoming a terrorist who started a civil war.

After the civil war started, Olaf was faced with the fact that the rotting now had to end, and he initiated his military plan and crushed Norway, only hindered by the heavy winter snow.

Afterwards, he admittedly had to spent a while trying to figure what just happened, setting up the Temporary Norwegian State with Vidkun at its helm, and then proceeding to abolish the monarchy and send the remaining Norwegian monarchy home with their 6th cousin, the Duke of Schleswig Holstein. He was paid a pension for his service, though he was certain the greatest payment was finally having some friends at home. The Norwegian Republic would be formed, the final act of determination in the region.

Olaf returns and he collapses upon being taken to a beach by Anna during a psychotic fit, as Anna had discovered it eased him. Anna called paramedics, assuming he has gone unconscious, but paramedics assess that he is just asleep and leave him to rest through the night, with victory festivities dancing around his body. As sunrise comes, Anna, for the only time, takes control of the narrative and gives a final thought.

## Aftermath

* Norway would remain a colony for 8 years. Their population was halved and their culture slowly pidginized with German culture as Germans flocked to the fun vacation spot. Christianity was disrupted in favor of Bundesism.
* There is no established time for when Denmark is released, if ever.
* Olaf would never actually leave office despite being well known as psychotic and paranoid, as the vote of no confidence never makes it, even in an emergency situation, most likely due to his war time competence. The judiciary and legislative branches simply ignore him (though the German court doesn't really care what the Chancellor thinks anyway) as Anna slowly encouraged him to return to normal person thought through a lot of naps, knockoff straitjackets, and chamomile tea.
* There is a national day of mourning every 5 years for Robert, though Anna and Olaf visit his grave at least every year.
* The political climate of Europe is forever shifted to be very terrified of Germany. No matter how many hugs they give out, it is never clear if they will pull the knife and stab their friend in the back or not. And if not today, then when? Tommorow?