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There were times when the whole world was against you, Akilae noted as he climbed unsteadily to his feet. His clothes were damp with dew that had formed on them while he slept and his body ached from resting in an uncomfortable position on the cold hard ground. Sure he'd gotten a glimpse of the rare, seemingly sentient blossom Sarga had been had been raving about but the plant was gone now and Akilae was left with only hazy memories and pain for his troubles.

Akilae been planning to capture the thing and take it home so that, Sarga, his mother and the Order's other plant people could study it. The damned plant, known as Maiden's grace for it's beauty and shyness was only seen every 50 years or so. No one was quite sure how but the seeds always seemed to sprout up in the more accessible parts of Soudul's forests. The plant would grow unassumingly amongst the rest of the common flora for about a year and then one night suddenly reveal an incredibly beautiful glowing blossom. All attempts to harvest the plant and see if it could be bred in captivity or used for something had failed though. Pre-blossom samples withered and died shortly after being uprooted and post blossom ones had this curious habit of making people fall asleep and when you awoke it was as though the Maiden's grace had uprooted itself and fled to the safety of the deeper forest. Due to the rarity of the plant's appearances and the oddity of the recorded encounters of with it, no one was quite sure what was happening with the Maiden's grace.

Akilae though had thought he'd been prepared to finally beat the elusive flower. When he'd heard about several of the pre-blossom versions in the nearby forest being almost ready to blossom he'd quickly and determinedly whipped up a plan. Sure his mother could probably have acquired it with little trouble but he didn't want to tell her about it or ask her help. Akilae had wanted to show how resourceful and clever he was.

He'd had a thick silk bandanna tied over his nose and mouth to filter out spores if that's what it used, special wax earplugs to cancel out any sort of hidden sound it might make, like those high pitched whistles only some creatures heard, and gloved hands in case the process of blossoming somehow caused the plants outer layers to produce some sort of sleep causing toxin. Not yet being having chosen his clan Akilae was still susceptible to things a plant might throw at him.

The hybrid boy had planned for almost every eventuality and still somehow he'd managed to fail. The dark skinned young man been camping out in a specific section of the woods since mid-afternoon, settled down against the partially exposed roots of a tree about 15 feet away from a still closed up and perfectly innocent looking plant.

Shortly before night fell, plugs were fitted into Akilae's ears and the bandanna around his neck pulled up to offer protection. When the casing around the Maiden's grace began to unfurl he excitedly jumped to his feet and moved to claim his prize.

That of course was when it had all gone wrong. Despite being normally surefooted Akilae had somehow tripped over a raised tree root and ended up sprawled across the forest floor. As he had gotten back to his feet and wiped the grass and loose dirt off his pants Akilae failed to realize that the fall had dragged his bandanna down off his face leaving his nose exposed. It was only as he turned his head towards the gentle glow of the now fully revealed flower that the young oblivionite remembered his precautions and by then it was too late. Even has he tugged the silken fabric back up over his face the effect of having breathed in several lungfuls of defensive spores kicked in. Akilae managed only to stumble a few feet closer to his goal before the ground rushed to meet him and once again he was prone on the forest floor.

It irked him a little that his preparations had been for naught and it was with no small amount of bitterness that he glared balefully up at the canopy as though the surrounding trees had also been party to his untimely nap. He wasn't entirely uncertain that a tree hadn't actually tripped him on purpose to be honest.

Akilae whirled at the unexpected voice, violet pupils flashing bright with fear. He had not been snuck up on in so long, he was a disgrace and on top of that he was sore and dirty. This was quite possibly the worst day of his young life thus far. Still, the boy counted himself fortunate that the dark scaled Drakein hadn't tried to kill him. He grew stronger day by day but an adult drakein was still well beyond Akilae's current skills.

He cautiously accepted the sort of compliment the creature had given him. It didn't stop him from frowning though. "I did everything right and it still escaped." Sarga was going to be angry or laugh at him and he wasn't sure yet which was worse. There might not be another chance to find any Maiden's grace about to bloom for another 50 years as the plant seemed to take ages to go to seed after blossoming. Maybe once he had chosen his clan he could pursue into the very heart of the forest but he doubted it. There were places even the strongest of oblivionites did not go without just cause and a plant with no currently known useful properties would not be worth risking his life over.

"Do you live in the heart of the forest where mature maiden's grace is common?" The drakein looked fairly intimidating and if his entire pack was made up of such creatures they might be able to survive there. Perhaps today would not be a waste then, if Akilae could somehow convince the drakein to help him fetch one of the elusive plants. The boy desperately wanted something good to come of this, especially as tiny bumps dotted his skin where the cold damp clothes clung to it.

Still, this was a feral drakein he was dealing with and they could not be taken lightly. He might respect drakein but Akilae was still wary of them for they were often aggressive towards magescans even without cause. He would have to approach this situation carefully if he wanted to come out unscathed and perhaps with a prize. " I'm Tyrok, may I ask your name?" He did not trust the drakein enough to use his given name with him and so the dark scaled creature received his alias as so many others had.

This drakein has a weird name as far as Akilae was concerned, although from what he had heard all Drakein's names were weird unless they were named by a Magescan. Even then some people gave their kids weird names and likely did the same to their bonded. Fortunately Akilae had both a perfectly good name himself and no intention of forcing a bond on a drakein.

"What would you want in return?" Akilae asked warily. Few beings were nice enough to do anything for free. Even if he had gotten Despair to lead him to the maiden's grace Akilae had anticipated a need to reward his unexpected companion somehow.

His soul? Akilae might have been a hybrid but he was pretty positive he didn't posses a - oh it had been a joke. The boy resisted the urge to glare at the drakein, that hadn't been very funny to him. Although he did sort of wonder what one could do with a magescan's soul. He'd have to ask Sarga if the sigils had ever harvested one off of the prisoners they were brought sometimes.

"You don't have a pack then?" Had he lost his somehow, Akilae wondered, or been kicked out. He had heard that drakenian were smarter than average drakien and that skills varied from pack to pack. Perhaps nowhere in Despair's territory were any highly intelligent drakein.

Akilae's respect for Despair continued to grow, to have survived out here all alone took someone with great strength of mental will as well as a powerful body. He would be careful not to anger nor turn his back on the drakein. Perhaps he could even become an ally someday in the future. The council was still debating how they felt about drakeins.

"Please lead on and I will do my best to be amusing," the boy replied. He wondered if drakeins had any traditional music and if despair would care to hear him play if he could provide a tune. It made Akilae a little uncomfortable when he could not show some skill to match the ones he was seeing by his company.

Akilae followed behind swiftly, doing his best to keep pace with the four legged being. "Oh, well I wanted to get it for a friend to study, she likes that sort of thing." Sarga had been positive that the Maiden's grace had to be useful for something, or at least powerful given how good it was at avoiding capture. "Um but we're just friends" he stressed. Akilae had suddenly realized how silly he sounded and he felt his face grow warm. He'd been potentially risking his life and going to vast lengths of trouble to get a flower for a girl. He was too young yet to really be concerned about trying to get the attention of girls for any sort of intimate affection.

"Soudana created us to rule Magesc, why shouldn't we kill those who oppose her will? " Akilae replied, responding to what he perceived as criticism with a frown. "We were here first, the other races were made in response to us, their deities had no desire to create a people until we existed." Instinctively the boy's hands balled into fists.

"They are so arrogant when they do nothing but slow the inevitable. The Orderites have no grand plans and the dovaa could care less if they are left alone." The words were practically spat from the dark skinned boy's lips. " At least your kind has ambition, so many strive to make something of themselves, to serve a purpose rather than waste the time the life they have."

Violet eyes sent a piercing stare at the Drakein, " I wonder, is it because they have souls that makes them so arrogant. When their lives end they are assured a place in an afterlife with their god or goddess so it's not as though this life matters to them."

Akilae might be a hybrid but so far as he knew and was concerned the closest thing he had to a soul was the flicker of light in his eye sockets that let him see colours and in sharper vision than the average oblivionite. So he too had only one life, once chance to fulfill the purpose given to him and make his existence matter.