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the camera shuttered snapped as Luster Dawn took a photo of the tree in front of her. It had large roots, and kinda appeared to have an upset face on it. It had some sections where the bark appeared almost thinner than the rest of the tree, and had fallen off in patches. It was a bit odd, pefect for seafoam.
Seafoam was Luster's marefriend. A Kirin with a pinkish coat and golden eyes. She was the reason Luster was out in the middle of the everfree forest in the first place. It was all to find her the perfect birthday present.
Seafoam loved the everfree, well theoretically loved it, at least. She'd never been in the everfree as it terrified her immensely, but she loved to look at it from the couples shared window of their room in the school of friendship. She loved nature, and would arrange hikes for the two of them at regular intervals, but never the everfree. Luster had decided to go into the everfree and collect some pretty flowers and take some photos for Seafoam, that way she could experiene the everfree without ever having to step foot in it.
Luster felt a bit nervous being in the forest herself, but the fear was easy enough to shake of with thoughts of Seafoam's exicted experiession upon hearing how brave Luster had been to get her the perfect gift. Well worth a bit of fear and some mud and scapes here and there from bumping into the overgrowth.
Luster continued to walk through the forest, a scent hitting her nose. It was a sweet scent, like chocolate, maybe. It had been present since the moment she stepped foot into the everfree, which was odd because Luster had once or twice been in the everfree before and never had she smelled a scent like it before. It was a pleasant scent though, so it wasn't a bother, just a bit strange.
Luster contiued to walk through the muddy forest, she'd abondoned the path a little while ago. Luster heard something in the distance. Flowing water. She walked forward towards this sound until she came upon a small stream flowing through the forest. She reached one of her front hooves down toward the water. It was freezing cold, refreshing against her fur.
She took a photo of the stream. Unfortuantely she couldn't show the lovely way the stream flowed, or the coolness of it, but this was good enough. She could smell the sweet scent much more strongly, it almost seemed like the scent was coming from the water. She sniffed after leaning a bit toward the water. it really seemed as though that was the source of the scent.
The refreshing coolness that had touched her fur faded away, and now the place the water had touched her felt sticky, she lifted her foreleg toward her face. It had that same strong sweet scent.
"That's weird, but how would I smell this from the very edge of the everfree? this stream is pretty far in." Her eyes trailed the flow of the stream, which brought her eyes to a clearing in the trees a little ways away. Even from the distance she could see the countless vibrant flowers in this clearing dotting the ground. "That's perfect."
she began walking towards the clearing, the sweet scent growing more and more sweet, by the time she reached the clearing, it was an almost suffocating sweetness. The clearing was lovely though. It was grassy, despite so much of the surrounding everfree being muddy ground, and dotted with lovely flowers that smelled of the same sweetness. The water touched the edge of the clearing but did not enter it, flowing forward right at its side instead. The flowers were of various colors, purples and bright yellows next to greens and oranges, but the one that caught her eye first and foremost was the single pink one, that was directly in the center of the clearing.
First Luster took a few photos of the clearing, including the pink flower before making a few steps, hooves crunching on the grass, gaining that same sticky feeling the water had given her, this time from the grass below her feet. Like when syrup dries on fur. She made it to the center of the clearing and saw the pink flower up close, five petals, darker pink near the center and lighter towards the edges. "That's the one. It's lovely. Seafoam will think it's marvelous."
Luster reached one of her forelegs forward and plucked at the flower, but it gave resistence and didn't come out of the ground. She pulled a little harder, and yet the flower remained resilient. Luster was suprised at this point, and stooped down a bit lower to add more force in her pull. At this point Luster was using her max strength, yet the flower wouldn't budge. But then she finally pulled it out of the ground. The flower came rushing up and with it something else, a head. The head was insect-like, then Luster realized what it was. "Is that a . . ." she was cut off as two sharp protrusions shot up through the ground of the clearing at either side of Luster, then the rest of the body of which the head belong to came up from the ground.
"Praying mantis?" Luster finished now staring up at the bright pink insect in front of her. It was a praying mantis, though it was twice the size of Luster. The bug looked down at her and opened it's mouth. From the mouth came that same sweet scent, the strongest it'd ever been. Luster coughed from the overpowering nature of this scent and felt that dried syrup feeling across her face and neck where the praying mantis's grossly warm breath had hit her.
Luster knew in her mind she should run, maybe use her magic, or even fight back physically, something. But she felt frozen when she looked up at the insect, the sweet scent was so strong it was almost gross and yet something about it was so alluring. The sugar rush made it very hard for Luster to think of anything other than eating sweet things, all her favourites came to mind, but especially chocolate.
Still Luster faintly could think of Seafoam. "Oh, yeah" she said "I'll get her a picture of this." Luster said as she held the camera up to the praying mantis with a shaky hand. "She's gonna love the pretty flowers, so sweet and lovely." Luster pressed down on the camera button.
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