Gauntlet

Neferti and the Rarest Bloom

Originally published as an untitled qualifying story for the Changing Seasons contest by ChallengeCorner, based on the image prompt above.

Neferti Addersley Xu tried her damndest to steer the autogyro through the unexpected sporestorm. She may be the world's foremost cryptobotanist but her piloting skills were mediocre at best. She prepared for a crash landing on the western shores of Novobarentsk.

As the whirling pollen jammed the gyrocopter's blades, Neferti held tight to the jar containing specimen Floresia sanguiolens, Arkham Red. This particular bud had been recovered by the Consortium during a raid on notorious biotrafficker Tex Hollowpoint's death-bazaar. She had fondly named it Commodore Bloomsby.

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With grim determination, Neferti trudged across the fellstone bluffs and cyclopean ruins that defined the landscape, always careful to keep Bloomsby's jar in tact. As she leaped across the perilous ridges of the Baklanysk Sound, she recalled the parkour lessons with her father, renowned psychogeographer Socrates Xu. They had spent nine summers in the teeming hypershanties of Montediablo, dashing from rooftop to balustrade, fire escape to back alley.

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As night fell, a pack of dire ursalope cubs blocked Neferti's path. Undeterred, she sang to them a mournful ballad of the Cenél nFergus tribe. The baleful melody lulled the beasts into slumber. It was a technique passed down from her mother, during her long tenure as Velveteen Aisteach, resident "chimera whisperer" in Doc Blumpkin's Vagabond Medicine Show.

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At last, Neferti reached the sulfur downs at the edge of the Stuhać Wastes. Here she would rest.

Inside her tent, she dreamt of her last meal with beloved Janvier. They met at a fine confectioner's shop in Empire City.

"I can't make you call off the expedition, so I won't try. But know that if you go, you'll return to an empty flat."

Neferti did not respond well to ultimatums.

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Shortly after daybreak, she set off for the peak of Mount Zadrota. There she planted Commodore Bloomsby in the loamy soil, from which its predecessors had been uprooted.