Username: fisht3a
Cloudsnapper name: Penumbra
Prompt:
Honey... golden and sweet.
Penumbra grew up in a small village surrounded by rolling wildflower fields. While just a dot on the map, these floral hills were known for one thing: honey. Not just regular honey either. The fields surrounding the village had an incredibly rare flower blanketing them. It almost made the land look like it was bleeding from the bright red, shimmering petals that swayed elegantly in the wind. They only were able to grow here because of a soil enchantment performed hundreds of years ago, but since then the sorceress who cast the spell vanished so the village was the only place able to cultivate these blooms. These flowers were known as the blessing of Nephelle and were the source of their booming economy.
Penumbra was born to a family that hadn't been blessed with the wealth of the flowers. While just a child, she worked hard creating bright red pigments and dyed textiles from dried petals. While the products of her work fetch a high price, her family couldn't travel to far away cities to sell them themselves. Instead, middlemen bought the textiles for bottom dollar, just leaving her family with enough money for materials and food. Penumbra always dreamed of working one of the most prestigious jobs in Nephelle: apiculture. She loved the bees that constantly hummed in the air around her. They were always drawn to the bright red blooms and drunkenly bumbled through the air after a long day of collecting pollen. What was remarkable is that the pollen of these flowers was red, resulting in a honey unlike any other. It was pink in color, and perfectly balanced with sweet floral flavor. It was a key component of many potions and salves for healing rare illness, and of course a delicious ingredient many chefs sought after. However only one family was born into honey making and they kept their bee keeping secrets under strict lock and key, driving the prices of the honey up astronomically. Penumbra's family was never able to afford it, but every day she dreamt of how good it must taste to have so many people after it.
And one day she got too curious... Those sticky little paws weren't as sticky as she thought as she snatched a small jar of honey for herself one day. She had been dreaming of tasting this honey for years and with low staff at the honey stall on a busy market day, it made for the perfect heist. But alas, that lovely jar of pink rosy honey slipped right from her grasp as did her dream at ever tasting it as she was caught and temporarily jailed.
Little did anyone know what was coming. See, the secret to the bountiful harvest of flowers and the enchantment that allowed them to grow there was also in part of the soil chemistry. The ground was heated just right for the flowers' delicate roots to flourish along with the enchanted earth allowing them to live year round. The afternoon Penumbra fell into the sticky honey thievery, the ground shook. Terrifying all who lived in the town, everyone packed up and left at the first notion of danger. Sadly for Penumbra, she was forgotten. Her had left her the shop to look over and were travelling to a far away village on a pigment consult with other textile makers. The village had a right to leave as the ground below the flower fields erupted leaving behind an ash fallen shadow of civilization, and Penumbra succumbing to her own sticky demise.
It is rumored a ghost still haunts this ashy wasteland where these flowers once grew, and sticky footprints can be seen from time to time. There's even a faint buzz in the air if you listen carefully, carefully to the sounds of the forgotten fields.
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