Elly had never really had any great fondness of flowers, yet in Collateral she possessed her own garden, a collection of vibrant beauty and deadly deceptions that had once been her way of measuring time. Each decade she allowed herself a personal errand, to seek out the rarest flower and see it grow within her garden, a place it would forever be preserved. Such was how, a chiliad ago, she had happened upon this breed. The natural hybrid was fading, its longevity was short lived, its cultivation failing. It had been doomed to extinction, yet in her garden she had found a way to revive it. When years later she had happened upon this town she knew it would be the answer to their problems, but it had taken her a full lunar year to create enough cuttings. It had been a difficult task, especiall
