Petal Plucking...

Faun was excited!  She had graduated from the Petal Plucking School and was now an official Keeper of a Daisy Patch.  As a matter of fact, her performance in school also showed that she had the ability to find hidden wild patches that others could not locate.  So, her first duty as a new Keeper was to locate as many of these patches closer to home so that other Keepers would not have to travel so far to harvest flower petals.  Faun could sniff out any flower petal, but the ones that tugged at her the most were daisies.  Daisies were her sweet tooth and the flower she loved the most!

She did not waste any time in starting her new duties as she had not been able to nibble a daisy petal since final exams and now with her graduation she could  finally treat herself.  "The sooner I find a patch, the sooner I get to check to see that they are ripe and tasty," she smiled to herself.  Being able to sample the flower petals all the while under the guise of making sure they were ripe was one of the fringe benefits of being a Petal Plucker. 

Faun decided to let the wind guide her to any nearby flower patch.  So when the winds from the mountains brushed past her sensitive nose, she followed them to the Valley of the Caves.  Normally the fauns did not travel to this valley as they don't really like being underground and can't see a reason to want to be.  "Ugh -  caves!" Faun thought as she traveled past the first of the caves in the mountain side.  It was then that she caught a whiff of a daisy.  "Theres one.  Now to find it," she told herself.  As she came around a group of large boulders and a few fallen trees, she spotted the daisy patch.  Smiling to herself, she plucked a petal and slowly chewed on it before swallowing.  "Just right," she thought as she pulled out her map of the valley and marked the spot for others to be able to find the patch.

It was as she was marking her map, that she realized that there was someone else already standing in the middle of the flower patch, busy picking daisies.  "Excuse me," asked Faun.  "Is this your patch of flowers?"  The picker was Allspice who needed some petals for a recipe he was baking for one of the other SPI members.

"Ah... no.  I thought they were wild and just need a few for something I am baking up for my friends.  Is it okay if I have some?" Allspice asked the faun.  The look that Allspice had as if he was a small child caught with his hand in the cookie jar made Faun laugh before she answered.  "No, these are wild and are available to anyone.  My name is Faun.  Do you live near here?"

Allspice smiled at the faun and also introduced himself.  "I am Allspice and my kitchen is in that big cave over there," he told her as he pointed to one of the caves on the mountainside.  Would you like to see my kitchen?"  Faun just shuddered thinking of being underground so she politely declined.  "Well, I must be getting back to my kitchen.  It was a pleasure to meet you Faun," Allspice said as he started back to his cave while the faun watched him go.

It was then that Faun noticed some other movement in the bushes near another cave.  As she watched, there appeared a young Dragon!  Now Faun had met Dree earlier and knew what the Dragon looked like.  Then just as quickly she realized something.  "That's not Dree!"

As Faun thought about it more, she realized that if there was another Dragon here, then there could be several more and the strange fae named Allspice did say he was cooking up something for his friends.  "I need to report this to the Elders," she decided as she tucked her map away so she would not lose it as she ran back home to the herd.