Flores Vitae: The Flower of Life

Matthias I stretched myself out on the bed I had bought for her. It was the finest mattress that money could buy, but it had no scent on it yet, only the aseptic smell of the factory. I sighed and closed my eyes, willing myself to sleep. Sleep is unnatural and unnecessary to my kind, but we can do it, and we can dream. And what I needed now was to dream of her. The dreams had been coming to me since the day she was born. I had watched her grow up in snippets of blurred images. I had desperately tried to use the dreams as clues to her where-abouts, but I rarely saw anything but her... everything else was blurred and unidentifiable. As sleep took me, I searched through the mist, and I found her... Her lovely honey-colored skin stood out in stark contrast against a white blouse. Her face was screwed up in concentration as she moved around an unseen environment. I felt my soul sigh at the sight of her. I wished I could reach out and touch her face, trace the freckles on her nose. Her hair was twisted up into a tight, harsh bun on the back of her head. I didn't like that. I liked her hair when it hung down free, long waves of dark chocolate, falling over her shoulders. But it seemed she was working... and she was wearing some kind of a visor. The visor was an ugly shade of brown, with a bright orange cup of coffee... and a Croatian flag. I gasped and started from my dream, instantly wide awake. I knew that logo. I'd seen it in advertisements. The coffee-shops owned by a large Croatian-American family of immigrants in South City. I knew where to look for her. "Jenny! Boris!" I bellowed for most trusted generals as a flew down the stairs. Before I had let myself out the tower chambers, they were there, waiting for me expectantly. Boris was a huge man, covered with tattoos and a mop of curling red-blond hair. Jenny was small and dainty, with black, expressionless eyes. "I know where she is."