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#garnetting au
gretchensinister · 6 months
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Ask and ye shall receive 👀👀👀 my words: receive (lol), serendipity, magic
Receive
Note: This is in the Garnetting AU. But SkekGra and UrGoh don't know that in this little fic about their experience of the Great Conjunction.
~*~
When the light comes, they whispered to each other, we will accept whatever it brings us as a gift. We will trust, and our hands will be open. We will receive whatever fills them with joy. And they looked into each other’s eyes and thought: even if that gift be death.
They did not want the gift to be death, not exactly, though they were both very, very old, and the thought of death as a gift did not shock either of them, anymore.
They had become oh-so-fragile in the past few trine. Unum by unum, they watched each other lose substance, felt each other grow shaky, saw absences and blanks spread that had always been filled before. But one remained patient, and one refused to be defeated, and they did what they could.
Their days grew simple, as tasks that had once been simple stretched to fill the hours.
They did their best to feed each other, from a garden sung lush by magic and a coop of karatick with a faded sign affixed over the little door that said “Barracks.” They were no longer strong enough to go meet the caravans, and they had not seen any signs of them for many trine now, at least the lifetime of a gelfling.
They held and massaged each other’s ever-more-delicate flesh, finding that hands shook less when pressed against each other, that they still had some power to ease the aches and pains that had multiplied so grandly in such a short time. They held each other to share what little warmth they had between them—though they could not help but be troubled that they did so even under the full light of the desert days, now.
(And sometimes, even now, this care could startle their bodies into the remembrance not just of warmth but of heat, and it was with delight they took these moments, and one or another, as gifts into each other’s hands. Hands, above all, as other flesh more and more rarely aligned with desires of the mind and heart.)
They created, still, songs and poems and a record of what it was like, with the two of them so old and the world seeming old, too, their certainties and uncertainties, fears and hopes and wonders. Most of these, naturally, touching on that final journey, of which they had no orthodoxy to turn to, which would bear no wandering on the way, which could not be conquered. But there were jokes, too, mixed in with the rest. And when words got lost, and sentences broke, they wove over each other’s gaps, for the taking up of such snapped threads was as right as it was troubling that the threads had snapped in the first place. They would always have at least one, whole mind between them, of that they were sure.
Every day, the suns drew closer.
I’m not ready.
I feel the Song humming in my bones. At least I think I do.
Hold me.
I wish we could have one more night when we were young.
One more feast?
And everything after.
Hold me.
Whoever comes after us, I hope they understand.
How good it was.
That we did our best.
Hold me.
I hope.
I fear.
I love you.
I love you.
Hold me.
Hold me.
When the day of the Great Conjunction dawned, they knew it, as undeniable as the suns’ very rising.
They put what they’d written over the trine into a chest that would keep out the sand, along with a few other things—marionettes of each of them, a small, graceful wooden carving of one, a miniature painted with the eyes of love of the other, still luminous with the finest pigments that had ever been carried on a Dousan caravan route. The chest would rest in a place where the suns would not touch it directly, but where it would not be hidden to anyone who found this place at all.
Most of what they had created over the years would have to be left to the desert, though. Their hands skimmed over much of it as they moved through the Circle of the Suns on that last day, fingertips saying farewell to the beautiful and practical, to the lovely evidence of their peaceful hours and days and unum and trine.
They put the hearth crystal together, and placed it with a note pressed in clay that explained in as many languages as they knew what it did when the halves were separated.
They fed the karatick, and shooed them away and out of the Circle of the Suns.
And then. Then it was almost time.
I think we should go out the way we came in.
And I would like as little separation between us as possible, when it is time.
The suns climbed higher, drawing ever closer. They took off their clothes, not bothering to fold them.
A moment, a pause.
A long time since the night of the storm.
But it still comes to mind so easily.
They still suffered chill, in the heat of this last day, and so one brought their largest blanket out to the ledge where they’d spent entire gelfling lifetimes in each other’s company. The other joined with the last of their bread, spread with the last of their parga-fruit jam, the greatest sweetness they could manage without the caravans. Draped under one blanket, they fed each other, and after they had eaten they leaned against each other, holding each other’s hands.
The three suns touched over the desert.
I’m thinking of the flowers.
So am I.
And the three suns shone as one, suffusing Thra with the all-transforming light that had not been seen for a thousand trine.
When it shone on them, the light of the Great Conjunction warmed their ancient flesh all through, just like sunlight should. Every pain ebbed away. The hum that had been in their bones grew louder, stronger, clearer, resolving into a chord that seemed to go beyond hearing into every sense, the final, glorious note of a symphony they had—they had—been a part of. And the light shone brighter, brighter, brighter, until it felt like it was shining through them. They looked at each other to see if it was so, and when they saw each other they saw what no other being in the universe had ever seen before.
And what they saw was good.
What they saw was wonderful.
One tiny part of that final chord: Oh. Oh. Two small and perfect sounds of awe.
The light shone brighter yet, until nothing at all could be seen.
For a moment, there was silence. Deep, true, complete silence. Just a moment. But a moment long enough to create a world.
And then the Song started again, everywhere in and on and above Thra, life roaring back, the Song clear and strong as it had not been in a thousand trine, rushing and cascading through the healed Crystal like snowmelt in spring after the hardest winter a world had ever seen.
But what notes were first played at that place in the desert, when the new symphony began and the suns parted from each other in their dance once more?
It was a small sound that broke the profound silence: a nail falling onto stone.
And for a time there was only the wind through the stones. Anyone watching—though who could possibly have been there to watch?—could be forgiven for thinking that perhaps that the clink of that dreadful piece of metal on that well-loved stone would be the final sound other than wind to ever be heard at the place once named the Circle of the Suns. Would it not have been enough?
But Thra was, is, and ever shall be, abundant. Profligate. And, too, possessive of what has come to belong to it.
And soon enough, a laugh rang out. A single laugh, that was also a harmony, fitting in so perfectly with all the chords of the world at that moment that no one could be wise and say that it was not meant to be there. A laugh loud enough that it seemed the sound should reach to a far, far distant world and shatter something there. A laugh that came from the throat of something—someone—new. Good. Wonderful.
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thismaybekleo · 3 months
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Steven's cool gay aunts fr
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ratective · 4 months
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au where pearl and garnet are an old fishermen couple and amethyst is the mermaid they accidentally catch
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g-h-0-s-t-s-a-r-t-2 · 6 months
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au dump: fusion edition 🤤🔥🔥🔥
(THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE FOR 50 FOLLOWERS BUT NOW ITS FOR 70?!?! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!)
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pink-onyx-au · 3 months
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Episode 10: Together Brunch
Page 18 of 21
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0eight0nine · 1 year
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Rose 🌹🌹🌹
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alexandriaellisart · 2 months
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the fairy garden
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magentadiamondau · 3 months
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T̵a̶k̸e̶ ̵i̷n̵ ̷t̴h̷i̴s̴ ̸f̵a̷c̸a̵d̴e̴ ̶o̸f̴ ̴t̸h̸e̷ ̵p̵a̷s̷t̵,̴ ̸F̸o̶r̶ ̸n̶o̷w̸,̵ ̶i̶t̸ ̷w̴i̴l̷l̷ ̸b̷e̴ ̵y̴o̴u̸r̸ ̸l̴a̷s̵t̶.̸
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perisdynasty · 3 months
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They love to hear their sweet boy sing
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gretchensinister · 6 months
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@purplebloodedmajesty also gave me the word "space" when I asked for words. I ended up going in a different direction than I expected, but space is mentioned!
This piece is a fragment of what I’m casually calling the “Garnetting AU.” I want to save most of the explanation for the longer fic, so the things to know for this one: 1) it’s shortly post-movie, Jen, Kira, Aughra, some podlings, and SkekGra and UrGoh are currently at the Castle of the Crystal trying to Deal With All That, 2) the Great Conjunction granted SkekGra and UrGoh a fusion form who is both them and a new person. The fates of certain other parties aren’t defined in this fic and there’s a lot of stuff that isn’t addressed that obviously would be in a longer work.
~*~
“I always wanted to travel through space. Do I not find that aimless desire granted, now that I am the farthest from my origin that I have ever been?” UrGoh’s voice rose and fell as he spoke, as if he were trying to make what he said into a song.
“I knew about the wandering through the stars part, but what do you mean about the rest? Why do you sound like that? And we’re not exactly far from our origin, now.” SkekGra turned and froze when he saw the books in UrGoh’s hands.
One was triangular and made out of some glossy material that neither they, nor Rhoga, nor even Aughra had recognized, but had reluctantly opened to some combination of Rhoga’s hands and breath and voice. It held arrays of symbols that Rhoga could almost recognize and sort of interpret if they didn’t think about it too much. Rhoga didn’t like doing that, though, despite their curiosity, so what they did was make plenty of notes for SkekGra and UrGoh to use when they examined the book. SkekGra intimately understood why Rhoga was uncomfortable with the project. Rhoga was young, and new, and wonderful, and they weren’t the author of this book. At least they hoped they weren’t, and they worried that spending too much time with this book would change them from Rhoga into someone else. SkekGra and UrGoh, on another hand, had crossed a thousand trine, and if even Rhoga and the light of the Great Conjunction hadn’t made them other than themselves, then it seemed unlikely that any book possibly could. SkekGra was still suspicious of it, though. Mostly for UrGoh’s sake. Which was, of course, partly why Rhoga was suspicious of it for their own sake.
The other book was the blank volume that UrGoh had decided to use for Rhoga’s notes. Or, wait, was it Rhoga who had decided to use that book for notes, it was just that UrGoh’s choice had totally aligned with Rhoga’s? SkekGra still wasn’t used to remembering Rhoga-time, or even conceptualizing it. That was all right, though. It was wonderful, wonderful, wonderful to learn. He loved Rhoga just as much as he loved UrGoh. And he loved being Rhoga as much as he’d loved being a young skeksis—maybe even more, even if he couldn’t remember Rhoga’s experiences the way he remembered his own. He thought he’d leave a note to ask Rhoga to write down how they remembered things that SkekGra and UrGoh experienced. Because he really wanted to know what they thought about this.
“That’s—”
“The translation,” UrGoh said. He tilted his head. “The work is almost slower than I can stand. There are complexities that Rhoga has sensed but need an analytic point of view that we don’t share...yet.” He smiled softly. “I wish I could work with them face-to-face. We could work with them. Then again...I have a feeling that between you and Rhoga I wouldn’t get anything done.”
“Rhoga does have a silly tendency to miss you even when they’re happy,” SkekGra said. “I can only imagine what they would be like if they could actually hold you.”
“Well...that all applies to you just as much,” UrGoh said. He paused. “You know...I don’t think Rhoga is in danger from this book...at least not any danger of not being Rhoga. Perhaps the danger is...learning about someone else to miss.”
“Or learning about someone we’re glad is gone—even when he’s not really gone—I—look, what I mean is that all of me came from GraGoh. The Conqueror was already in him.”
“Surely you know by now...that only makes me want to know more?” UrGoh met SkekGra’s eyes. “GraGoh can’t make me love you or Rhoga less, no matter what I find.” He glanced at the more ordinary book. “I want to share this with you.”
SkekGra looked at UrGoh for a long moment. “Well,” he said, “I’ve never said no to anything when you’ve put it like that. And—I can’t forget you were inside GraGoh, too.”
UrGoh motioned SkekGra over to a table where they could sit down. “I haven’t yet figured out if GraGoh or any of the urSkeks would have laughed, been affronted, or even understood the double entendre when you speak of us being inside GraGoh, by the way.”
“Do you expect to?”
UrGoh looked at the urSkek journal thoughtfully. “Yes, I think so.”
“I guess considering all the things we wrote down—all right, what’s—what’s there, so far? And explain it without pauses, won’t you?”
UrGoh looked at SkekGra innocently. “It’s a hard...habit to break.”
SkekGra groaned, and UrGoh reached out and covered his hand with one of his own. “I won’t do it on purpose for this. But I really did get used to thinking and speaking that way...our renewal didn’t undo that.”
“Nothing undone,” SkekGra said. “Ah, fuck it. At least I’ll always know it’s you, talking like that. And my thoughts still race around the place where the nail was. Anyway—so—now—how did GraGoh speak?”
“I don’t know if we can ever know that,” UrGoh said. “The distance between speech and writing...at least this journal was only for GraGoh himself, if the way it was sealed means anything.
“So...the translation is possible because of Rhoga’s...memories, if that’s what they are. Puzzle pieces of the mind...finally fitting together. Their memories link symbol, sound, and meaning. It helps also that we taught each other skeksis and mystic, as both of those share a great deal with the...physical aspects of the urSkek language. Knowing spoken and written ‘Gelfling,’ which is really urSkek-arrival-era Vapran merged with auditory urSkek, also helped. The urSkeks...did not want to keep their way of writing a secret, though I can tell they greatly simplified it in ways that...I doubt were truly necessary.
“What also helps...my memories of how UrAc constructed his chronicles. There was a lingering urSkek sensibility, there.”
“Are you showing off?” SkekGra asked playfully.
“I just want my work to be complete,” UrGoh said.
“Well—you’re making me want to find something I can dig into so I can show off.”
“You were just nervous about this whole project.”
“I—”
“Unless you’re flirting to put off getting to the heart of this…”
“I wasn’t trying to do that, it’s just—” He smiled. “I will always be ridiculous about whatever you do, I guess. Including research. Remember all that prep work to make Lore?”
UrGoh chuckled softly. “I remember...I was the one who accidentally broke your reading glasses...after you made a key breakthrough.”
“My fault for keeping them on. Wanting to see you clear up close.”
“I’m still going to tell you about this translation.”
“Right, right,” SkekGra said, leaning forward, putting his fore elbows on the table, and propping his head in his hands—not neglecting to replace the hand that had been under UrGoh’s with one of his hind ones, of course.
“Cute,” UrGoh said, with a small smile. “Where was I...oh, yes...so, there were many ways that urSkek is still embedded in the languages of Thra. It will take a very long time to go away, if it ever does...if Jen and Kira value connecting to the gelfling of the past in their own language...Aughra hasn’t given them any advice on that but I think she’s ranted to Rhoga about it….
“All this is to say that the structure of urSkek is not nearly as opaque as I first imagined it might be.” He paused. “I imagined the urSkek language littered with inconceivable concepts...relying on shades of meaning too subtle for a mortal mind to distinguish...approaching time in ways I could never comprehend so long as my brain was made of matter. This way of thinking...it helped shield us from GraGoh before the Great Conjunction, and we needed it then. Now, things are different. Even from what little we know...the urSkek are not so incomprehensible. They easily communicated with gelfling. They had opinions on the ways gelfling day-to-day life should be changed and ‘advanced.’ They came from a place with rules, and laws, and customs, and punishments for those who broke them. They have long lives, but each one still has a beginning and an ending...mortals, all. The difficulties in translation instead stem from urSkek senses being very different from ours, and different aesthetics and values. And even so...they were us.”
“So—the way you were almost-singing when you got my attention?”
“My attempt to address what I think are ways of adding emotion and beauty to the text that rely on urSkek senses. Like the figurative and poetic language we use relies on our senses and experiences. I don’t know enough...we, including Rhoga, don’t know enough yet to know the best way to approach that part of the text. So...we may never know if GraGoh was a good writer...but we can know a little about what he thought. About what it was like, for him.”
SkekGra watched UrGoh, who had turned his attention back to the book with the beginning of the translation in it. The urSkek book—GraGoh’s book—rested on the table like any other object. He took a breath, feeling for the hum in his very bones that had steadied him ever since the Great Conjunction, feeling for the shining, pulsing loop of life that was Rhoga in potential, in essence, or both, always present and waiting, just on the other side of a breath, a desire, a choice—especially when he and UrGoh were touching. “I know there’s no reason to be afraid of myself anymore,” he said. “What does GraGoh have to say so far?”
UrGoh smiled, and squeezed the hind hand under his own. Sometimes SkekGra wondered why they hadn’t been fully restored, but when there were moments of such familiarity with UrGoh, he thought he understood. He’d let the light heal him only as much as it could and still leave him UrGoh’s SkekGra.
“‘By the time this record is complete, may it show that my soul is healed and that I may be safely enfolded in the lace of home.’ The word isn’t lace, exactly. I think it’s an idea that I’ll be able to translate better after I see it more. ‘I always wanted to travel through space. Do I not find that aimless desire granted, now that I am the farthest from my origin that I have ever been?’” UrGoh began again. “‘But even traveling into exile felt no different than arriving anywhere else that is connected to our Crystal—like the passing from one room to another, save that we cannot go back. Still—I do feel we are in exile. We lament. I let it flow through me that this seeming-granting of my desire severed me from everything I ever knew.’”
UrGoh paused, and softly hummed an eerie, sad tune for a few seconds. “I don’t know what it should have sounded like,” he said, “but there’s a break in the text that indicates a lament for a still-broken soul. I borrowed the urRu Lament of Repentance. It...helps me understand my translation.
“The text resumes. ‘I do not forget that I am not severed from everything I ever knew. I am with my closest, particular companions. I am still connected with those I held above all else.’ More indications of the lament...I think GraGoh included this when he wrote of something that meant he wasn’t thinking as an urSkek should. ‘This tempers my lament, and makes me feel almost like I have been granted a gift, and not the gift of a duty that will allow all of us, including myself, to correct ourselves. It feels like a gift of honor and joy to be here with my friends. Not everyone felt the way I did, but I had long attempted to imagine what it would be like to leave everything, even the lace, behind. To go beyond our Crystal and discover what existence is like, there.’ I don’t think GraGoh means just the urSkek homeworld crystal, here. There are certain marks that link it to the word I’m translating as ‘lace,’ for now.
“‘I feel that instead of drifting, I am free in a way I could never have conceived within the lace. It overwhelms almost all other feeling, and I suppose I must be patient and careful with my thoughts as I wait for the longing for the lace to return to me, as it must, because after all, I am still urSkek. I know what we are here to do, and the doing will set my thoughts right.’ There are some subtle marks here that are hard for me to interpret, but if I had to guess, they would indicate something about GraGoh not agreeing with the idea that the thoughts he is supposed to correct are actually wrong. ‘For now, the pain waits, and my lament is in an almost unrecognizable key. And I am not the only one. When we disperse—when we are away from those who feel our punishment most keenly, like SoSu—I see that MalVa’s colors approach rapture, and mine probably do as well.’ It’s not ‘see,’ or ‘colors,’ what GraGoh describes here is an urSkek sensory experience.” UrGoh paused and took a deep breath. “‘The world of our exile is astonishing. It is completely unlike homeworld in almost every way, and still I find it beautiful. I didn’t know places like this could exist, and feel so harmonious, while still being entirely wild. Surely there can’t be much work ahead of us to tune this place. I am looking forward to finding out for sure. I imagine passing over every atom of this world, and I thrill at the toil it will be. There are no crystal paths, no memories of others to help me understand what I am seeing more quickly. It will not take endless time to explore one planet, I know, but I feel I have been granted a wonder that is as close to endless as one can be.’ That is as far as I have gotten in the translation,” UrGoh said.
SkekGra lowered his fore hands and wrapped them around UrGoh’s. “There's no point in hesitating to say it, is there? GraGoh sounds like—well, I hear a lot of you, in that.”
“And I hear you,” UrGoh said. “Especially when he’s glad to be in exile with the people he loves.”
“Is love the right word, for urSkeks?”
“I think so...I think that was part of the problem.” UrGoh shook his head. “I can’t help but project everything that tangled up us and the rest of the skeksis and mystics back onto the urSkeks.”
“It makes sense to me. They became us.”
“Still...some of GraGoh’s thoughts remain unfamiliar to me.”
“Conqueror thoughts? I thought I heard a few.”
UrGoh shook his head again. “You showed me the Conqueror. I know what he was like and what happened to every bit of him. I mean...ways of seeing Thra that, truly, neither mystics nor skeksis ever had. Then again...there is so much more to translate.” He met SkekGra’s eyes. “I’m not as fearless as I try to seem...about this translation. But now...we need to know GraGoh. I think I can find him…”
“You found me,” SkekGra said. “And you loved me.”
“It could be a terrible thing...to love GraGoh.”
“Surely only half-terrible, at most,” SkekGra said, giving UrGoh a little smile.
UrGoh turned his hands to cup SkekGra’s and gently press them. “I don’t know what the urSkek homeworld is like,” he said, “but if walking over the ground seemed so wonderful and novel to GraGoh, then I’m glad he had the chance. I’m glad...that stayed.”
“Yes,” SkekGra said. “But you don’t have to act like it’s not uncanny—what we were, what feels like what we could have been, another world, another time—I—I think Rhoga needs to think about this translation. I want to think about this as Rhoga—I need to be Rhoga right now.”
“Breathing as them...knowing their joy as the end,” UrGoh murmured. He left the books on the table and began to walk to SkekGra, who ran up to him before he could take more than two steps.
One embrace. One breath. One being.
“You figure out a triad and suddenly there’s a complicated fourth,” Rhoga said to themselves. “Well, we’ve done that before, too.” They smiled. “Glad I’m less worried about where a book could take me, now. It really didn’t suit me.”
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minijenn · 2 months
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More updated UF designs! I missed drawing the Gems so much ya'll have no idea. These three idiots live in my head rent free.
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ratective · 9 days
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au where the gems are ghost that live with steven 👻 backstories and general au description bellow cut!
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doctorsiren · 2 months
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Hi there, I love all of the mob psycho aus that you're doing! For your split reigen au, I was wondering how they got split? By a cursed item or a spirit with a grudge? This is a fun concept and your art is so cute!
I got this ask in my inbox a while ago but only yesterday did I figure out what could have done the splitting, so I cooked up a short animatic because it was the best way I could convey it (there’s no audio, but I gave it some dialogue that’s not exact to how it would have been if it were a canon scene, but y’know we like to be a little silly here)
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pink-onyx-au · 4 months
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Episode 10: Together Brunch
Page 10 of 21
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madychi · 2 months
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Have my Gem Projection AU!
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0eight0nine · 1 year
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Rose
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