Rose, Heir of the Crucible

Rose is the daughter of Leonel, though in her youth, she never knew who her father was. She was left in a tiny village as an infant, and when the townsfolk found her, there was a single bloodrose inexplicably blooming at her side. This was the origin of her name, a dubious sight that left her quietly yet assuredly estranged as Rose grew older. They were raised by the village's clergy, and fed their doctrine, altered and self-serving as it was. Despite this, she never quite took fully to Erdtree worship. This otherness is likely what inspired her kindness and open-minded nature towards supposed outcasts. When Rose was still a young child, they found another kid, a scared little boy, lost in the woods that bordered her home. He was strange: his body did not look like a regular human, there were horns and strange proportions that Rose had never seen before. He was also crying, and clearly hungry; without hesitating, even in the face of his "inhuman" appearance, Rose gave him the food she had packed for what was meant to be a day spent gathering herbs. The boy never gave her a name. He did, however, beg her not to tell anyone about him. So strong was his fear that she needed no convincing. The two became friends, and Rose used her gathering excursions as an excuse to watch over and provide for the terrified boy. But she couldn't fix his injuries, the ones he did not show, and so she eventually found him unconscious. The boy was barely breathing. Fearing for his life, Rose broke the one rule they had between them: she ran to her village, and pleaded with the head priestess to help her friend. The old woman took several clergymen with her as they all went into the forest. Rose was not allowed to stay and watch; in the end, all she could do was wait in her room, unable to sleep or breathe right. They would never see their lost friend again. As was so terribly expected from their lonely life, Rose was told that the little boy had been healed and taken back home. He became a void in her heart, a solitude that seemed to fill each and every day.

When the Shattering swept across the Lands Between, Rose's village burned in its wake. Everyone she had ever known either perished or fled. She had no choice but to run as well, and her already isolated existence became bleak, utterly hopeless. Everything they ever had ended up lost. With no drive to live, Rose one day sunk into the dying grass below her and stopped moving, awaiting either the brisk light of dawn or for an animal to rip her apart in her sleep. What truly happened, however, was the arrival of an unusual figure. The dim gold of the knight's armor had been worn by time, but it remained no less beautiful. They said nothing, but even so, that presence alone was a comfort. When Rose found strength in her limbs once more, inadequate as it may have been, she rose to stand by this stranger's side. This warrior, this Crucible Knight, did not reject her. From that day forth, the two of them traveled together through the burnt and bleeding lands; Rose had never been trained to wield a sword, or spear, or anything more than farming tools, but the incantations of the Crucible lit a spark within her. Somehow, they knew it as the sun knows the stars in the sky. She felt it in her bones: the pulsating energy of all life, the soft golden touch of the primordial. Rose had never known a true home, but now she understood. The Erdtree was never meant to be her place of refuge. She belonged to something older than it, and her Knight had simply shown her the way.

And then, her knight died. Cut down by a mysterious figure enshrouded in death and darkness, Rose's powerful companion finally met an ill-deserved end. She could do nothing except fall into a pit of despair, of grief so intense and overwhelming that it was like being thrown into deep water… why? Why did this always happen? They'd had so few people in this world who cared for them, yet those people were always, without fail, ripped away. Rose didn't understand. Was this the curse of the blood-stained petals that heralded her birth? Perhaps she really was a curse. It was strange, then, when she met her father. Leonel did not look at her like a curse. He found her in the throes of mourning and guilt, as if fate itself intervened to bring them together, and took Rose to the manor upon that fiery mountaintop. The people there were odd, but she was too overcome to care. She'd lost her closest companion, and now was faced with the father who left her behind all those years ago. Ignorant to his true darkness, and that of Volcano Manor, Rose attempted to form something resembling the bond between parent and child. After everything...she deserved that, right? But though they cannot see it, even Leonel's genuine desire to be the father Rose deserves ends up inflicting irreparable damage. He has fallen too far into his wretched self to ever be the person Rose needs. She will learn this to great agony. But she will one day make a true friend from this awful experience: Kazuma, the person who will never leave her.