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Out of Season (13) : One would think that winter would be dismal and gray, and after each snowfall there's a hefty dose of white covering up the world. Except, all winter bright patches of wildflowers begin sprouting straight through the frost--as if spring has decided to push its way into winter a few months early. Blues, pinks, yellows, and purples bloom in vivid clusters, warming the landscape with bursts of color that look impossibly alive against the cold. The flowers behave exactly like their normal spring counterparts--soft petals, gentle fragrance, and even suitable for tea or simple crafts. They’re simply appearing far too early. Whether it’s a harmless anomaly or a sign of something stirring beneath the seasons, the sudden blossoms bring an unexpected beauty to the winter chill.
Remarkably, Andreiya had found two separate clusters of wildflowers growing in Destiny City, both previously unknown to him. One had cropped up in an area he often frequented while picking up supplies for the greenhouse, but he'd had to wait until nightfall to come back and examine things properly.
On his way back to the greenhouse, he'd found another, equally impressive growth field.
The flowers at the first site had been pretty blues and yellows, but the second sight were vibrant pinks and reds. There were similarities between the two of them, but differences, too. They didn't have the same petal shape, for starters. One batch had furry, somewhat prickly stems, but the other had smooth stalks and leaves. One cluster had long stamen, the other had nothing of the sort.
They smelled the same, he thought, but he'd already been out for so long that his nose was practically frozen solid.
Before he passed the second cluster, he thought he'd take the samples he obtained back to the greenhouse and then head home for the night. He carried three little pots in his arms, intending to get them set up at the greenhouse so he could continue his investigation in the morning.
...But he couldn't leave the second sight. No one had been here before. It was a good sample. There were no footprints in the snow, and every flower was full and whole. A few were still budding, which made him wonder if he could record how quickly they were going through the life cycle. None of his samples so far had died, but it was still a mystery how they were surviving in winter--and how they were growing so quickly.
He was determined to crack the mystery.
He wanted to know how to make durable, fast-growing plants. What if they could rebuild Velenia by having the perfect combination of life-loving, speedily-growing flowers? Flowers that didn't care about the season. Winter, summer--too cold, too hot, whatever comfortable middle between. He wasn't picky.
He was desperate.
So, despite the chill--the had already frozen him to the bone--he carefully set down the flowers he was carrying.
He was really going to need to do something; he couldn't just keep carting them around in his arms. A wagon would have been too obvious and ineffective, especially when he couldn't see what was hiding beneath the snow. But still, he needed something.
He was so cold that he creaked when he knelt to carefully set the flowers down, and he creaked again when he shrugged off his backpack to extract the supplies he needed to take more samples.
Even though he was bundled up, it was still hard to move his fingers. They'd curled and stiffened into the shape of the pots he'd been carrying, which meant unzipping the backpack and withdrawing his tools was growing harder by the minute. The chemical-induced handwarmer he'd activated at the beginning of the night had already cooled too much to be useless, and Andreiya hadn't expected to be out for so long so he hadn't packed more.
Crouched by the flowers, he picked the best looking ones, and hurriedly--as much as a half-frozen Velencian could hurry--began to collect some samples.
Kaefaux
