The Botanist and the Chemist

Three hundred years ago, on a dark and stormy night in the great continent of Tribuna, there was a terrible war between its three kingdoms, known as Tihothia, Uesh, and Hiclaie. Each kingdom was wealthy with its own natural riches. Tihothia was known for its diamonds and precious gemstones, Uesh was known for its exotic fruits and spices, and Hiclaie was known for its iron and cooper exports.

But the great and terrible King Paletooth of Hiclaie grew jealous of Tihothia’s wealth. Consumed by greed, he sent his armies to invade the Tihothians. Tihothia called for aid from their neighbors to the east, the Ueshians, but their cry for help went unanswered. To this day, Hiclaie still has a foothold in Tihothia and the Tihothians still hate the Ueshians to their core for not sending help.

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Princess Ada Gindia had always loathed the crown she was destined to inherit. Politics and war games had never interested the young princess. She had always found science and the chemical arts to be more exciting. When her parents, the King and Queen Camden and Lucrecia Gindia of Tihothia, wanted her to learn table settings and war strategy, Ada would sneak off to her secret lab under the castle to practice her potions and recipes. Her tutor and friend, Dr. Petor West, was always there to assist the princess.

On the eve of her eighteenth birthday, the king and queen had announced princess Ada’s engagement to the loathsome Prince Maerc, eldest son of King Cbin and Queen Igina and heir to the Hiclaien throne. So Princess Ada ran, fleeing west to Uesh and abandoning her throne and her family. She craved adventure and scientific opportunity, not a marriage to a greasy haired prince with a permanent sneer. Before her parents’ armies eventually tracked the young princess down and made her return to Tihothia, Ada was determined to take her life into her own hands. She had always been a rule follower, the good princess who did what she was told and followed instructions without question. Not anymore. With Dr. West’s help, Ada managed to smuggle a go bag into her secret lab the night of her escape.

She took one look in the cracked mirror hanging over her work table as she stuffed the last of her medicine books into her bag. Her blonde hair was back in a braid, and her brown eyes stared back at her from the mirror. Her father’s eyes. Gindia lineage eyes. Ada’s only regret was leaving behind her twelve year old sister, Adele. While Ada had always been tall and bony with sharp cheekbones like their mother, Adele had inherited their father’s round stature and the queen’s jet-black hair.

The princess was wearing practical black pants and a breezy black shirt to keep her cool against the sweltering summer night outside. With a nod to Dr. West, who was standing in the corner of Ada’s workshop, watching the princess pack the last of her belongings and sinch the bag tight, Ada headed for the back entrance of the castle, a weaving hallway that she knew would lead her out into the castle gardens and then into the wide world beyond.

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Neil Moone is a botanist, and his parents had died when he was four. Neil, along with his adopted sister Della, were taken in by Neil’s uncle Valfred, an expert and continent renowned botanist. Under his tutelage, both Neil and Della had grown into expert botanists themselves. One day they will both succeed Valfred Moone and his collection of thousands of rare plants from all over Tribuna.

What Neil wanted more than anything was to create a super plant. One that would grant immunity to ordinary folks from common illnesses. One that could easily be grown in window boxes or backyard gardens. A plant that would save people from illnesses like the one that took his parents. The day he met the princess; Neil’s life was never the same again.

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The old man stands hunched over his workbench; his gnarled, practiced hands carefully intertwining the stems of the two plants he was trying to crossbreed. Above his head, light shone through the green glass roof panels of his greenhouse. Sweat formed on the old man’s brow from the humidity of the room, vital to keeping so many of his plants alive.

Surrounding the old man is his life’s work. His collection of thousands of rare plants from every corner of Tribuna. Forty years of work encompasses him in terracotta pots, in mismatched glass jars and old milk jugs, and in a running indoor pond in the corner that the old man had built himself. There were various types of skinny, reaching vines climbing the walls and stretching towards the sky. From somewhere in the room, the old man’s pet bird shrieked. Popo was a rare emerald macaw, maybe the last of his kind. The old man had rescued Popo on one of his most recent missions to the southern tip of Tihothia. The bird appeared on a branch near the old man’s head and cooed.

The old man’s living quarters were separate from his greenhouse, connected by a glass tunnel to his right. Although it was rare the old man spent any time in his home besides eating and answering nature’s call. Most nights he fell asleep in his greenhouse, Popo by his side. The old man was just about finished for the evening on the night his life changed forever. He had set the plants he was experimentally crossbreeding to the side and dusted some dirt of his hands when there came a knock at his front door.

It had been raining all evening and the old man wondered who would be out in this sort of weather. His answer came when he opened his greenhouse door. The panting, sodden young man at his front door the old man recognized to be his brother and sister-in-law’s housekeeper. A young man named Zane, if memory served. The old man was about to ask what the interruption was about when a crack of lightning lit up the summer sky. The tear stained, dark skinned little face of the old man’s nephew peered out from behind the housekeeper’s legs. The old man’s stomach dropped. It was then that the old man noticed the bundle of blankets cradled in Zane’s arms. Had his brother had another child? When the old man beheld the baby’s fair complexion and shock of orange hair, he knew the child was not his brothers. Then the housekeeper explained.

Somone had abandoned this poor baby girl in the town square.

“I couldn’t just leave her there,” Zane said.

The old man considered, then quickly ushered everyone inside out of the rain. He named the baby Della, after Icloptheus Dellamotte, the first plant the child spied on that night that brought a smile to her tiny face.

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“You’re doing it wrong!” Della insisted, lecturing Neil again about proper care and keeping of the beautiful but temperamental Victoria amozonica that lived in the greenhouse pond.

“I know how to dust a plant, Dell,” Neil whined.

Uncle Valfred had given his children the tedious and incredibly boring task of dusting the greenhouse. Popo the emerald macaw squawked as he splashed and bathed himself in the tiny runoff waterfall Neil had built for him along the edge of the pond.

“We at least need to get this done before Vesgellas tonight!” Della complained, not touching the yellow duster that sat by her feet. “I am not letting you make me late like last year. Sally and Jennama were furious!”

Neil rolled his eyes at his sister as he watched her orange curls bounce as she turned and stormed off towards her room, leaving the duster discarded by the edge of the pond. Shortly after Uncle Valfred had taken them both in that night so many years ago, he had built an adjoining wing onto his home with bedrooms for both of his children.

Neil sighed and bent down to inspect the delicate, heavy leaves of the Ficus lyrata that floated in the pond. The plant had begun to brown on one side. Was the humidity level wrong? Or maybe it was the acidity in the water. He would have to get his uncle’s opinion on it later. Neil still wanted time to work on his own personal project before he had to take Della to Vesgellas tonight like he had promised he would.

Vesgellas was a yearly holiday in Uesh, and Neil had never been a big fan of parties. Vesgellas always happened at the end of the summer. All the people of their town, and all the towns across Uesh, would gather in the town square wearing masks of one of the three sacred Ueshian gods. There was the fox, the goddess Selana’s sacred animal, representing wits and wisdom. The whale, representing the god Nelano and symbolizing fertility and communication. And the frog, the goddess Fiera’s animal representing good fortune and abundant blessings. There would be songs and dancing at Vesgellas and at the end of the night everyone would throw a piece of food into the sea as an offering to the Ueshian gods.

Neil made his way through the green glass tunnel that connected the greenhouse to their home. Uncle Valfred was currently out, collecting supplies or something. Neil could hear lilting music as he exited the tunnel and entered into the homey kitchen-slash-living room. The music was coming from the music spinner Neil had gotten Della on her last birthday. He walked through the kitchen and down the hallway towards his bedroom.

Neil had never been particularly neat or tidy. His small wooden bed was unmade and strewn with dirty clothes. His workbench, on the opposite end of the bed, held his ongoing personal projects. He walked over to it and inspected the three potted plants sitting atop the bench for signs of distress or fungus. Neil sighed. Everything was going fine. Maybe this time, his experiment would be a success. Maybe this time…

“It’s never going to work, dingus!” Della said pointedly from where she had suddenly appeared in the doorway of Neil’s bedroom. She had already changed into a long blue gown that matched the flat whale mask perched atop her head, flattening her orange curls.

“And why not?” Neil asked.

“Because its impossible,” Della said.

“You just don’t believe in it,” Neil said.

“Yeah, because I believe in facts, dork!” Della teased. She stepped further into Neil’s room, kicking aside a used tissue. “Ugh, do you ever clean in here? And where in the world is your Vesgellas mask?”

Neil reached a hand under his desk. He remembered shoving it under here last year. The fox’s nose was a little bent to the left, and something sticky had dried to the back, but it would do.

“Is uncle joining us?” Della asked.

Uncle Valfred hated celebrations, especially Vesgellas. Della knew this, they both did, but every year she hoped he might change his mind.

Neil shrugged. “He’s probably busy.”

“Busy on purpose,” Della scoffed. “Let’s go already, I bet Sally and Jennama are already waiting for me!”

Neil sighed and tapped the fox mask onto his head. His personal projects would have to wait a little longer.

When they stepped out the front door of the greenhouse a few minutes later, it seemed like everyone in their town was already headed towards the square. They joined the sea of red, blue, and green masks as Neil slid the fox mask down over his face. Children too young for Vesgellas masks clung tightly to their parents. It was a tradition in Uesh to get your Vesgellas mask on your eighth holiday. Whichever god or goddess you chose was based solely on your own intuition.

The crowd rounded the corner towards the square. Neil and Della could see lots of children flocking towards the mask-choosing table in the center of the square. Neil remembered choosing the fox simply because it had looked the coolest, but that had been ten years ago. Della, two years behind him in age, had been so jealous when he got his Vesgellas mask that she had tried to make her own out of paper. It had fallen apart before they had even reached the square and Uncle Valfred had carried Della, who cried the whole way home.

Suddenly, Della spotted her friends in the crowd and squealed. Both of her friends were wearing frog masks and they whisked his sister away towards the dancing section of the square, babbling already about what cute boys were here tonight.

Neil sighed and went to find something to occupy himself. He had been making his way towards the buffet table when a pale, unmasked face flashed through the crowd. He turned, searching amongst the crowd for the stranger, but she had disappeared. Neil shrugged. He had been staring at plants all day, no wonder his brain was scrambled.

After filling his plate at the buffet, Neil took a seat on a low stone wall on the outside of the festivities. He lifted his fox mask to his head. Loud music played as people clapped and danced to the song. The energy was palpable tonight; it was impossible not to be happy on Vesgellas. Neil bit into a coconut meat pie. Children in their new Vesgellas masks ran around with bags full of sweets, stuffing their faces. A toothy grinned little boy skidded to a halt right in front of Neil, whose mouth was now full of pie. The boy opened his sack of candy and motioned dropping something inside.

Neil chuckled, swallowed, and slid a sweet from his plate into the child’s bag.

“May Selana, Nelano, and Fiera bless you!” The boy said, running off into the crowd again.

Neil was about to take another bite of the delicious coconut pie when he stopped. There she was! The stranger he had seen a moment ago hadn’t been a trick of his tired mind. The girl was making her way out of the crowd and was headed down towards the beach. Neil set his plate on the wall and went to follow, making a mental note to come back for that pie. Who was this stranger? If she was from Uesh, where was her Vesgellas mask? Had she lost it? Losing your Vesgellas mask was considered bad luck.

Neil shuffled through the crowd. The sun was dipping down to meet the edge of the sea. Orange and purple clouds covered the distant horizon in streaks. The heat and humidity of late summer were still stifling and Neil could feel sweat dripping down his back.

The blonde girl had stopped by the edge of where the waves met the sand, water lapping gently at her bare feet.

“Don’t think I can’t hear you sneaking up on me,” the girl said.

Neil stopped three stride lengths away. “I wasn’t sneaking,” he said.

The girl whipped her head around. Her brown eyes studied him carefully. Neil thought she looked about his age.

“You were,” she said. “Sneaking, I mean.”

“I didn’t mean to, it’s just that…”

“I stick out like a sore thumb because I don’t have one of those masks?” The girl said. “I know, ok! And quit sneaking up on people! I’m Ada, by the way,” she said, sticking out a hand to shake Neil’s.

Neil shook it and told the girl his name.

Ada grinned. “Alright Neil Moone, you’re the first Ueshian to not look at me like I have three heads. Show me where I can get one of those fancy masks.”

Neil was shocked by the girl’s boldness but obliged, leading her back up the beach and towards the festivities again. The setting sun cast long shadows as they walked.

“Where are you from?” Neil asked.

Ada snorted. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“You’re Tihothian, aren’t you?” Neil asked. “You’re definitely not from Hiclaie.”

“Very observant, wise guy,” Ada added. “Now after we get this mask, would you show a girl a good time and take me dancing?”

Neil blushed. There was something about this girl, something that pulled on his chest gently, like it was leading him towards her. He had never felt anything like it before in his life. He wanted to know more about this beautiful stranger from Tihothia, so he followed her into the crowd.