It takes a lot to make a flower truly blossom.
Nature makes it look easy; millions of years of evolution have made quick and easy growth the norm, and their prevalence throughout all the fields from all over the world can make one think that growing them is easy. Plants don't need much at all, right? And yet any gardener that knows their stuff will tell you that it isn't just a quick and easy affair, something you can put on the sidelines and not pay much attention to.
All the different kinds of plants, flowers included, are every bit as fragile and fickle as the people that try to grow them. They have all sorts of needs that could make the difference between life and death, between a pretty okay showing and a truly majestic display of the wonders of nature. They require the power of the sun to get all the energy they need to grow and mature, but too much of it can effectively cook them and cause them to wither away like nothing. They need water to sustain them, but too much will have their roots swept away in a great flood. Then there's the matter of which soil it grows on, what the weather and climate are like overall, whether or not it's at risk of being trampled on by someone or something, and about 2,763 other different factors that can really make the whole thing a chore, especially if your career depended on it.
Nature makes it look easy because of sheer numbers; having a greenhouse the size of an entire planet, it's easy to make vast quantities of flowering fields prosper without much thought and effort. Random chance with the wind and whatnot means that there's *always* a possibility that a plant will survive without anyone or anything meddling with it. Only when you well and truly focus on one plant in particular, a specific one on a pot that you cherish dearly, will you truly come to realize just how special and unique a flower really is. When you're finally able to overcome that great gap of knowledge, unraveling the great mystery that is nature and give it all the love and affection it deserves, a certain sort of euphoria overwhelms your heart, a sense of pride and accomplishment that just isn't quite like anything else.
But the universe can be funny, and can pull a joke or two.
There's a flower out there that's had everyone and everything seemingly do all they can to make it die. One that faced great droughts, storms, floods, and all sorts of calamities and disasters that constantly threatened to uproot it and relegate it to the unwritten records of history. A flower that just didn't seem to catch a break, despite struggling with all its might to survive. And yet, despite the vast arsenal unleashed against it, it was able to persist, to remain, and eventually, to bloom.
And also, it was a *she*, thank you very much.
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Flower still couldn't quite believe it, if she was being perfectly honest.
It's been over a decade since she started Battling for Dream Island, and around the same time since she was first unceremoniously rejected, seen as nothing but an aggressive pest. But finally, *finally*, she had her glorious moment in the spotlight; despite everything that had put itself between her and her rightful victory, she was finally able to seize the opportunity and finally *win* something. It wasn't Dream Island, and it *definitely* wasn't the respect and commendation from *everybody* that she knew she deserved (though it did come close), but it was still an achievement worth celebrating.
Finally, with the weight of a competition no longer burdening her shoulders, and a whole new world out there to enjoy outside of competing, she could finally just... *relax*. Find an appropriately beautiful field, sit alongside her various inanimate brethren, and just... exist. Photosynthesize.
She still had a lot ahead of her; she now had her own enterprise to take care of, there were still roads to travel, and perhaps some more friendly competitions to take part in. But for now, she could rest easy. She could breathe.
