Submission (#5403) Approved

When someone arrives in Silveil city, they’re typically there for a few reasons- gambling, taking advantage of the dark city alleyways to get up to no good, escaping the Silveil forests to find refuge within the warm glow of the Silveil City lights- things along those lines. Despite the bad reputation Silveil City has, there were small areas in the city that were gentle and friendly, if you knew where to find them.

If one goes down several barren streets and knows when to turn left, then right, then right again, they’d arrive at Poppy’s floral shop. While regions like Faerindell and Bellmoril were known for their flowers, neither one was able to grow flora that have leaves or petals that gently glow, even when plucked and placed into a vase to be cared for and admired. While the demand for such flora wasn’t big, a demand for them still existed, and Poppy was happy to provide buyers with what they were looking for.

It had been a surprisingly busy day at the shop that day. When Poppy normally expected three to five shoppers max per day, there was a time that her store was packed with potential customers. There had been an event coming up and someone had forgotten to order decorations for the occasion, and someone had remembered that her little shop existed. By the time everyone had cleared out of the shop she barely had any inventory left. Business meant money, but now she had to figure out how to fill her shelves and displays back up with flowers and floral accessories.

That was a problem for future Poppy. For now, she stepped over to the door and switched the sign on it to display ‘CLOSED’ before looking back at her shop. What she should do is take the broom from the corner of the room and start sweeping up all the dust and flower petals on the floor. However, Poppy’s gaze moved from the floor over to the chair that was behind the counter with the cash register. She had earned a few moments of rest, hadn’t she? All she needed was several moments off her feet, and then she’d get back to cleaning up.

The elnin carefully made her way towards the counter, mindful to avoid stepping on any petals or dirt. Once she reached the chair she all but collapsed into it, the stress of the day hitting her all at once. Now that she was sitting down she leaned back a little and closed her eyes. Her mind went from thinking about her current tasks to future tasks, then future plans. Before she knew it, Poppy had managed to doze off.

When she came to, Poppy was somewhere she had never been before. She opened her eyes and looked around at her surroundings. Or lack thereof. There was no defined ground underneath her nor sky above her. All she could really take note of was that she was surrounded by pink, white, and blue mist. Cautiously she reached her paw out to see if she could touch the mist, but nothing came into contact with her paw. It was as if the mist parted just in time to escape Poppy’s grasp. The elnin took a soft step, and while she could see no ground underneath her she managed to stand and walk just fine. With little else to do, the elnin moved forward to see if there was an exist in this strange place.

Eventually the strange mist dissipated. Poppy saw that the disappearing mist revealed a large pond. The water was a deep blue, and surrounding the lake was an assortment of flowers and stones. The flowers were peculiar in that though they reminded her of flowers she had seen in Faerindell, the petals and leaves gave off a bright glow, as if they were native to Silveil. She could see the glowing light from the flowers reflect on the water’s surface. There were also glowing flowers floating on the surface of the water, connected to no lilypad or anything else - simply flowers floating gently. Poppy was half tempted to get closer to the flowers at the edge and in the water to inspect them, but an unexpected ripple in the water caught her attention. The flowers in the water moved and swapped with the ripples. Poppy followed the ripples to their source and did the ebay she could to cover her mouth to lessen the surprised gasp that came forth.

Standing at the edge of the pond was a strange and beautiful creature. It appeared to be a large white horse but Poppy knew it was much more than that. After all, what horse existed that was three times the size of an elnin? And she had never seen a horse with flowers and vines growing out of its mane like this one. Bright green vines and an assortment of colorful flowers threw from the horse's mane and tail, weaving in and out of the horse’s bright pink hair. A single pink horn sprouted out from the horse’s head as well. Was this a unicorn that Poppy had read about in stories when she was little? The horn was a little smaller than what she imagined unicorns to normally have, but a horn was still a horn, so she supposed it was still a unicorn.

Whatever this creature was, it was stunning. But what should she do now? Did she need to do anything? Or could she stand here and enjoy this mysterious and wonderful moment forever?

The unicorn looked up from the water and towards Poppy. Now that the unicorn was looking in her general direction, she saw that the unicorn had bright pink eyes like hers. They felt familiar, like when she looked in the mirror every morning. What did that mean? If the unicorn knew, it kept that secret to itself. It only looked in her general direction for a moment before turning to start walking away.

Off in the distance she heard someone calling her name.

‘Poppy…? Poppy?’

Poppy’s eyes snapped open.

She was back in her shop, sitting comfortably in the chair behind the counter. Blinking back confusion, she glanced around and saw that there was someone outside tapping against the window. Jasper, a brown elnin with long black hair, was tapping against the window and calling her name. Oh dear! She had fallen asleep! How long was she out? And what was with that strange dream?

Poppy thought quietly to herself as she stood up. She wouldn’t mind having that dream again and seeing the unicorn again in the future. For now, though, she had to let Jasper in and finish cleaning the store up!