The dawn light filtered in, dappling the forest floor with scant impressions of light and shade.

Below was a small area shaded but sparsely green, the soil littered with both small bushes and the fallen cover of leaves; and beside that a pool of water laid idyllic yet undisturbed. You flexed your petals wide as the sun struck down between the canopy’s shade landing square upon the branch leading out from the hollow in which you’d been spawned; fragments of memories invading your mind along with the tender flavor of a new born day.

They tell you that the morning sun will last only so long, that the trees compete with each other to grab every inch of sunlight from the sky and that soon your position facing the current sunbeam would dissolve into precarious as its light traverses out towards the ground. Lightly you waved your petals of brilliant red, gold, and white seeming for all the world like a huge blossom rising up from the branch which supports you. The warm sunlight eventually faded from you, morning passing you by as your mind takes up a new challenge.

Hunger rumbled through your delicate frame, and with it another fleeting moment of insight. You need more than the light to survive; you needed to get down onto the ground to feed, to drink, and to escape the slowly darkening shadows of the forest floor.

The strong scents of the world around you invaded your sensory pits, even as your petals shudder in loss. The strong pervading scent of Other seeped into the world, the sensation of danger seemed rife.

The darkness brushed against your mind, a dim lit touch brushing against the depths of all that was you. The leaf darkened sky pervaded overhead as you struggled down from your original perch, the thick roughness of it beneath your claws a distant comfort once you'd finally reached the ground.

Ground. The concept filled you with a fearful anticipation, the feeling of danger omnipresent as you took your first crawling steps upon the soft rich surface. And yet for all that fear, there was also a deeper seed of excitement which filled your being.

Curiosity warred with fear as you paused over the moss covered ground, green and brown and black at war with each other in a collision of muted colour. You couldn't help but luxuriate in the feeling of softness beneath your limbs as your roots lightly dug in.

... oh...

Oh!

Fear and uncertainty turned to joy as the feeling of your roots penetrating soft soil sent a lighting shiver though your body, a quiet shuddering ecstasy which you could not quantify nor qualify passed though you, even as you began the process of sipping nutrients from the earth, teasing your way deeper and deeper into its firm warmth.

It was good... soo very good.

Almost as good, you thought to yourself, as the brilliant light which you'd been feeding upon earlier.

You luxuriate in the feeling as you soak up the nutrients from the thick rich earth, claws buried beneath the leaf litter even as your roots reached down within. And yet the quiet wisp of sensation still left you feeling incomplete, something... more was needed.

The darkness touched you softly, need infiltrating your senses with impressions of warm slick wetness, a firmness greater than that which your claws were currently sunk into and a sweet sharp tang coloured red as it wriggled beneath your hungry claws.

You swayed lightly, contemplating the pleasure which came about in such a half remembered future feast.

And yet you know you could instead just supplement by going further and deeper into the supple sweet earth, even the shadowed whisper which brought you visions of that feast accompanied them with an alarming feeling of certain danger, the act of acquiring the warm sharp-sweetness a certainty for danger.

Still you mused, now somewhat sated, there was a certain amount of danger already inherent here or so your senses seemed to say. The scent of something which you couldn’t help but think of as ‘Hunter’ lurked nearby bringing with it dark impressions of teeth in flesh, sharp and painful.

You couldn’t help but wonder how that would really be; the potential feeling not the deterrent which your young mind suspected that it was meant to be. Still as you looked over the small clearing and the silvered pool of sun dappled water which sat tantalizingly close to the crevice from which you’d been spawned you couldn’t help but once again feel the tug of desire directing you to its clear soft edge.

Slowly and steadily you made your way over, eventually standing at it’s edge and staring down at your own body.

You were… interesting.

Your eyes adjusted, black lenses focusing upon the surface of the water which rippled as your breathing brought flows of heavily scented air down upon your sensory pits. Carefully you examined the image before you in all of it colour and splendor.

You were a rounded creature, chubby in a way that the dark presence within you whispered the sensation of softness in combination with youth. Vibrant petals ran all over your body covering you in brilliant wattles of red, yellow, blue and vivid electric pink all arranged organically across each petal. Upon your head the petals were arranged to cover the top, some of which clustered together to hide the front of your face and shade your eyes in a manner which your dark informant referred to as cute.

Six small chubby ‘arms’ projected out from beneath your body, one pair at your chest, and the other two further down your abdomen, each one with course stubby claws. Beneath them an orderly arrangement of roots flowed down, extending from a multitude of small pores which peppered the entire underside of your body; their sharp tips searching the air for a taste of anything which they could caress and penetrate.

All of this was arranged in perfect symmetry, arranged in a manner that all proportions were perfect and attractive in their expression.

You touched your upper hand to your face and then reached it towards in slow wonder.

A wonder interrupted by a singular, bone-chilling sound.

“ARH-WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"

Up... Up... Up...

Your mind roiled in turmoil, you needed to go up, the only safety from the horrible noise was up... You couldn't run, you weren't swift you weren't strong, you weren't in the sunlight. Fear coursed though you like nothing else you'd yet felt, and you could do naught but stumble and move though the underbrush, rushing in any desperate direction which was away from that horrible sound.

Up into the canopy, and away.

By the time you oriented yourself again from that primal burst of fearful flight, you were far away, your bearings lost... and the world darkening everywhere with fearsome shadows threatening and pervasive.

You could do naught but run away, crawling up into the canopy and using your gifts to aid you in climbing until the you could settle into a spot shone down upon by the brilliant light of the full pale moon, where quietly you curled up tightly and began to slide into slumber.

A taxing first day to the rest of your life.




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Gains
Passive Skill - Perfumer


Current status - Lost and Alone.