Submission (#8843) Approved

The great varieties of flora native to Faerindell’s groves are famous the land over. Underneath the large canopies of gentle pink trees and across the wide green hills are strewn a prismatic palette of flowering plants in all sizes, shapes, and smells. The work of Faerindell’s botanists seem to be never-ending as year after year they discover and catalogue new specimens and subtypes growing in the wild.

In particularly dense areas of the forest, where verdant life is so numerous and the honeyed scent of flowers is so thick that the air has a perceptible sweetness, there sometimes resides a peculiar flower. Known colloquially as the larkseed, for most of the year it remains dormant, blending in with the foliage of its habitat and laying in the cool shade of its neighbors to germinate and grow. Then, in the few days when the warmth of summer blends from spring, the larkseed blooms into soft petals of cream. The flowers are known for their fascinating and inexplicable resemblance to a small songbird — one smaller petal for the “head”, two larger petals in a jointed shape for the “wings”, and a long trailing stem for a “tail” that is able to detach from its roots. The warmth of the passing year signals to the larkseed to take flight, and they soar upon small late-spring drafts up and past the walls of vegetation from which they were incubated, leaving behind small sparkling dust trails. They reach upwards to the canopy and are then taken by the greater wind to drift to further lands, sowing their seeds in new destinations. From afar, these clouds of flora seem much alike a school of birds, fluttering and twinkling as if blessed with feathers to reach the heights of the sky. Rarely, an elnin will be in the right place and the right time to watch these magical lifeforms drift up, higher, and away.