A healthy plant will grow. But not every plant that grows is healthy.
When one tends to their garden, they expect that if they nurture their plants in just the right way that they will grow. But not everything you water will grow.
So, how can one tell if a plant is truly healthy?
I see a rose.
To the eye, the rose looks to be the picture of health and beauty. It grows tall, and several flowers bud, fresh and ready to bloom. But with the touch of one of the leaves, one can feel the plant is struggling. Dry and wilting to the fingers, the disease begins with a black spot upon one of the leaves.
Going unnoticed by the gardener, it isn’t too long before that single black spot has spread. It takes over the leaf and infects the stem of the plant. Soon the entire rose is threatened. No life can flourish while the disease roams free.
Try as it might, the infected rose bush attempts to grow. But it is far from healthy. Flowers bloom, only to wither away. The black takes over.
The blackened rose is hurting, in pain. Slowly it withers. The flowers die. Leaves wither and fall off. The disease has infected it.
Arcadia is that rose.
Once, it grew to flourish. Thriving with the hustle and bustle of people, Arcadians ready to burst forth and bloom into a life promised to them. All it would take to find their freedom was a little pain. Embrace the pain and they would be set free.
But the more pain they embraced, the more that little black spot of disease spread. They tried to grow, tried to bloom, but they couldn’t flourish. They wilted and withered under the disease of an egotistical Preacher of the Slums.
And as much as he fed them lies, your disease spreads through Arcadia, Nergal. Once upon a time, you were that beautiful rose, who smelled as sweet as she looked. But within that beautiful exterior, there always lay that black spot.
Pestilence. Once it took over Arcadia, it spread from rose to rose, killing all that it touches in its quest for domination of the garden.
I have always seen that which you hid away, that black spot. But as much as you try to kill Arcadia’s rose, you forget that the Third Eye remains the gardener of this unforgiving garden.
Any good gardener knows two things. Firstly, that rose bushes are resilient things.
And secondly, that if you prune the infected areas of the plant, you will remove the disease. The plant will regrow.
Life will flourish once more.
Through the Third Eye, I see what the world cannot. In my garden, I cull the disease and allow the roses to grow back healthier, better… Stronger than before.
I come to cut away your pestilence, for it has no place in my garden.
Arcadia is a flower ready to bloom. I can see it bloom, because my eyes are open to the things which cannot be seen. Trust in the Third Eye, and see the rose bloom.