In the northern part of Coast City, there is a vibrant park, full of trees, gardens, and playgrounds.  One specific tree is overlooked, standing alone in a clearing deep in the woods of the park.  It is no bigger than any other tree in the park, but it stands alone in that clearing, as if something constantly removes any sort of threat to it and at night, if a person sits under its branches and looks up, they can notice a soft, silvery glow on the edges of its leaves, confirming it as something out of the ordinary.   The tree has no name on Earth, though those places that have encountered the species enough or have compared notes with those who have encountered them call them Sko'qoi Qiral Joqlk.  The Sko'qoi don't know of their name, or even care, being a very standoffish species who do not like competition, even among themselves.  To protect themselves, a Sko'qoi will sprout a seed that takes on the form of the dominant lifeform of the region and acts as a hunter for the tree.  It is rare for the Sko'qoi in Coast City to create one, usually doing so when it is low on some needed nuritent that a mobile figure can collect much more easily than a sessile one can.  It has been on the land in Coast City for centuries, content to hunt every several decades and dream.

That is... ten or so years ago.  The Sko'qoi noticed a youth of the locals poking around it, asking questions and actually talking about the outside and himself.  It was a surreal experience, but one that left a mark on the Sko'qoi as well, making it hungry for something else, other than the minerals and nutirents it needed about once every fifty or sixty years.  When finally the boy was gone for weeks and weeks one summer, the Sko'qoi's hunger became enough to spur it into action.  It crafted a new hunter, but instead of giving the seed thorns or emerald skin to soak in more sunlight, it created a quiet, unassuming creature, one vaguely in its younger years if the Sko'qoi's memories from other hunters were true, and sent its hunter out for something more than food, but experiences as well.

The Sko'qoi gave its new hunter a name before sending it off on its first exploration, a way to make it easier to interact with people, Flora Blanche.   Flora's first experience was... water, the girl spending hours splashing about curiously until she met her first 'fellow' humans.  They were all teenagers, who assumed that the younger teenager's clothes had been stolen and gave her some of their own.  Flora quickly learned under the collective wing of the teenagers over the summer, the fall, and winter, quietly dodging questions about herself and reading what she could about the New Age they constantly talked about.

It took a visit to a computer lab one afternoon, with Flora's friends introducing her to a guy in the lab helping her with computers to get a better understanding of the world where Flora learned something very important.  Education was a key to the world, and the young hunter could find doors opened if she had formal lessons in this.  With some careful work and the development of spring, Flora found a way to wheedle her way into a school, with the sweet smell of flowers much like the Sko'qoi, and even better!  Be able to have free lunch almost every day, a grand boon to the Sko'qoi that Flora had started to call mother.  However, there was one other obsession the hunter had, a seed buried in her mind of the memory the Sko'qoi had of the boy who had visited the tree before.  Formal introductions weren't made, but Flora started carefully feeling out to find whoever this boy was, this Miles Tanner mother spoke of.

School, Flora found, to be a far more interesting distraction than just one boy, even though he always remained in the back of her mind.  Her friends were delighted when they found out she had transferred to the local public school, and she flourished there, not only because of food, but the feeding of her craving for truth, devouring books and information at an almost insane speed.  When she wasn't at school, she avoided her home grove, having already explored it as much as she could.  Instead, she began exploring the more urban environmental she was unable to use her forest walking though, the piers, the smoky bars that she could blossom her way into.  There were places to find, and roots to spread to Flora's mind, and she grew.  Even so, she was as emotionless as a plant, often known as cold and blank and eerie when she was reading, forgetting the mannerisms of humanity.

On the last St. Patrick's Day, Flora found herself following a family downtown out of curiosity.  She had recognized the smaller male, the son, Miles Tanner, as the youth who had visited Mother, and was trailing him to see how he had matured, thinking the knowledge would be a wonderful gift to her mother.  Flora was a distance away from Ground Zero, avoiding most of the damage that happened to those at the center of the explosion, except for a single, brilliant shard that pierced into Flora's chest.  Flora herself has no memory of what happened after that... until she fell right off the Marina, heard someone else screaming and splashing, and getting yanked out by another girl before voiding the contents of the human food she had eaten, as well as the salt and pollution that she had absorbed during her time in the water.  Since then, Flora has considered herself in Ione's debt for saving her life, and has started being friendly towards Richard for helping her calm down after almost dying.

People at Flora's high school joked after the accident, it was as if Flora was injected with a real sense of life, her placid, quiet nature vanishing almost overnight, developing into a full-blown flower child, smiling ear-to-ear and definitely not as harsh towards plants as she used to be.  Most people assumed she realized life was precious, but there was something more in there.  Flora had discovered a new ability on the first day of spring, similar to several years before.  She could emulate the same chemical signature as plants around her and control them, manipulating them to see beyond where she was, to send messages.  She was overjoyed at this discovery, before realizing that it meant that the plants were truly alive as well, and if they were helping her... it was rude to not return the favor.  Flora started to actually care about them, and to balance herself even more, she began to take yoga for a better understanding of her own rapidly altering body.

The more Flora started to understand her powers, the more she started to focus her attention on the Marina.  Part of it was because of her percieved debt to Ione, but a major aspect of this was to make herself not as disturbed by the water, to face her fears of it.  After all, how could she ever have a chance to return the favor if she was too scared to follow the woman into where she faced the most danger?

That sense of daring grew over the months the more Flora began to avoid her Mother tree, returning to the grove only once a week with the information Mother still sought, and trying to hide her newfound powers, while exploring and observing other people who had been caught in the explosion.  The more she watched people, starting to help them more and more as she started to begin to consider herself... well, not human, but something equal to them and wanting to support the ones she was starting to care about, a climbing vine rising along with the tree she clung to.  The sea started to become more and more a double-edged place for Flora, where she felt both afraid and alive, willing to take more and more risks.

The last few months have become very interesting for Flora as well.  Instead of becoming a college student, Flora made the decision to actually become a member of the work force for a time, experiencing that aspect as well.  However, her sense of audacity and her sense of kindness led her to go straight into the lion's den, applying her floral persuasive abilities to worm her way into the Tanner Industries... and become the private secretary of Miles Tanner himself.  Her choice and drive came from finding out in the papers what had happened to the Tanners after the explosion. Her intentions are actually very honest, wanting to make sure that Miles comes out of this okay and being able to see Ione outside of the Marina or the Grove that the two keep running into each other at when Flora is trying to talk to her mother.  A friend of Ione's approached Flora as well, a tall, elegant woman by the name of Timandra who had become curious about Flora's concern over her charge, and while Flora still has no idea exactly what Ione is, Flora takes comfort in knowing that there is the chance of something else she can help with...