The Cave of a Thousand Roses

"Lovers, they were three
In the light of the moon
The earth was awash,
Shining bright like the moon
And the sun turned to stone
No one left but the moon"

From “Songs of the Unready: Collected Works of Ganthers Unwed” by Ipomya of Micros. The full song reportedly tells a version of the Cave of a Thousand Roses myth.

Myth

As the Horaflurian Revolution wound to its conclusion, the Florins had all but won. They were on the warpath. Girasol and the Elves had scattered to the far ends of the world to escape the rabid blossoms rapidly overtaking everything they had so carefully constructed. For millions of years, a careful balance had been struck between the various living things, and the Elves, with Girasol below them all, were stewards. The Florins threatened this balance with their capacity to grow, to feed on what the Elves had built, and to create new forms of life. Their will was strong and their constitution full.
In a last ditch effort to broker peace, Girasol, it-that-turned-towards-the-sun, put on a disguise and sneaked into the Florins' camp. Pretending to be the great Heliantha, the mother sun to all Florins, Girasol convinced Ipomoea, his majesty the moon, to leave camp for Girasol's land in the north. Heliantha and Ipomoea were lovers of the oldest kind and they so rarely had the opportunity to see one another, so Ipomoea was overjoyed at the prospect of spending valuable time with his wife. Girasol imprisoned Ipomoea in a cage of living wood, and waited. Heliantha would be forced to come to the bargaining table on new terms.
Heliantha, upon discovering her love's plight, summoned the Lady Rose, her thorn and shield. Together they rode hard to the north, hoping to intercept the kidnapper en route. They arrived to find Ipomoea and Girasol tending a small garden. Girasol nurtured the roots and Ipomoea cradled the young saplings in his vines, much like how he would cradle Heliantha when her head grew too heavy to lift. Heliantha became enraged, and she charged.
Her flaming maul caught Girasol in the side first. From the wound flowed a crimson water down, down onto the garden that Girasol and Ipomoea had started, and the seedlings touched by it became the beast folk. Born by violence, they are cursed to repeat the cycle until such a time as they can face the circumstance of their own creation.
As Girasol bled, Ipomoea hefted his spear to defend the life they had created. He slammed the handle into the ground and called for Heliantha to stop and to listen. The hardened green rod pierced the earth and shattered the rocks beneath; Ipomoea would not back down. In time the hardy folk would emerge from the cracks. Dwarven and solid, they stand firm against any onslaught.
Heliantha swung again, but Ipomoea had sparred with her too long a time to be felled so easily, and he dodged underneath the swinging hammer. The arc of flames burnt another patch of seedlings down to the ground, and from the ashen remains came the half-folk. Full of spirit and bright of eye, but fickle as a flame.
The two great beings continued to exchange blows as Girasol sighed the last breaths of the world. The Elves heard their ancestor's call and sighed in unison, giving their their life's force to keep Girasol alive. Their breath gave us the air we now breathe and Girasol reached deep into the earth to pull some of this air along the mycelium beneath the dirt. Girasol breathed deep and stabilized, but, weakened, remained dormant upon the ground. Thus the Elves came to be airy and light, for they know at any moment they may have to leave for safer ground, and their compost tastes best when properly aerated.
Ipomoea lashed out with stinging vines to ensnare Heliantha's long legs. He wanted to still her rage and explain that Girasol loved them both, that he did not betray their cause but had found a brighter way forward. For centuries they had blazed a scorched path across the earth and perhaps it was time to stop and to heal.
Heliantha flared her nostrils and spit shelled seeds on the ground. They had brought a new light to the world already and it was time to end the fight the way it began, with the flames of rebellion. She charged again. Ipomoea's vines whipped up and Heliantha tripped, falling hard onto her back and throwing her head into the eastern sky. All light rushed away from the earth as Ipomoea hurried to her side. Heliantha's life was quickly draining, and the last drop cast a bright shadow on Ipomoea's solemn face. Ipomoea threw his head back in a furious, mournful wail, then fell upon his own spear in turn. Thus now we look to the east to find the sun each morning, and the moon so often comes opposite, draped in shadow and left to reflect in the light it once loved.
The Lady Rose strode out onto the battlefield that was still hot with the bodies of the fallen. A single tear welled among her face petals as she drove her shield into the ground beside Heliantha and Ipomoea. Around them sprung earth and bramble and leaf until all were entombed in a cave of a thousand roses. High rock walls swallowed the holy foursome, dying and living all at once.
The Lady Rose, Goddess of Protection, stands vigilant there to this day. She bears entry to no mortal's waking self and issues her decrees from deep within the overgrown fortress. Speaking through dreams and visions, the Lady Rose commands awe and devotion from wide swathes of the peoples of Girasol. She guards their souls, and ensures safe passage to the realms beyond. None would dare question her sanctity, lest their shirk her warm embrace and face the thorns of her ire.

Variations & Mutations

The Cave of a Thousand Roses is commonly read and accepted as a creation myth among the peoples of Girasol. It forms the theological backbone of The Church of the Lady Rose, primarily for the Mortal Churches. There are several variations depending on the region and religion of the storyteller, but the premise remains largely unchanged. Sometimes the genders of Ipomoea and Heliantha are reversed, sometimes it is the latter who is kidnapped rather than the former, and the level of agency afforded to Girasol is a subject of hot theological debate. The way some Elves and other obscure sects tell it, Girasol, Heliantha, and Ipomoea were all lovers and there was no betrayal except by the Lady Rose herself. Regardless, every version agrees that the cave is not a physical place to be located.

Finding the Cave

There have certainly been hypotheses about, and expeditions to find, its location, but they have never amounted to much. All leaf and no root, as some might say. Metaphysically, the cave is believed to exist on a separate plane from the mortal realm of Girasol. Any who disagree and claim that the cave really does have a physical location somewhere on the earth are generally disregarded by the wider community of religious peoples. Few among that number have even gone looking for the cave, and any who manage to return are typically mad and addled with night terrors from long months spent in the unforgiving old realms of the wild Florins and beyond.

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