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| Flora | ||
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| Real Name: Heather Starchild Light | ||
| Aliases: Flora | ||
| Identity: Secret | ||
| Occupation: Organic Gardener | ||
| Citizenship: American Citizen | ||
| Education: B.A. in Agriculture | ||
| Birthplace: Light Farm Commune, Georgia | ||
| Date of Birth: June 20th, 1986 | ||
| Known Relatives: Mother: Rose, Father: Storm, Siblings: Ash, Holly, Lily | ||
| Group Affiliation: None |
Background
My parents were part of the original hippie movement, but were very different individuals. My father embraced organic, sustainable farming and was a rock of stability in the constantly shifting personality conflict of the Light Farms commune. My mother, on the other hand, embraced her plant elemental powers and joined with an animal-empath/shapeshifter to form the ecoterrorist team of Flora and Fauna.
Don't worry if you don't remember them. Unless you lived through those years or are a founding member of Greenpeace, you wouldn't think them important. They were together for only five years; after that, my mother left for something more important than saving the environment: true love. Mom met Dad and moved into the commune in the late '70s, at a time when everyone else was moving away. Together they turned it from a failed commune to a thriving organic farm.
My parents never gave up on the hippie lifestyle, so children followed. brother Ash is the oldest, and was followed by my sisters Holly and Lily, and after a few years more I followed. I grew up the baby of the bunch, home schooled and raised to think for myself and mistrust authority.
And there was a good reason for the home schooling. I was born with a wisp of leaf-green hair that changed color with the seasons. Herbicides made me horribly ill, but I healed from anything else much faster than normal, and my blood was thicker than normal, and stickier. In short, I was my mother's daughter. My parents did their best to raise me right and protect me, but they didn't hide what they were protecting me from, that the world was a cruel, polluted place. And the few encounters I had with townies reinforced that… kids can be cruel.
And as I got older, I grew less and less like the rest of the world. I no longer needed to eat or sleep. I no longer needed to breathe. I could make plants grow and move, and after seeing the Wizard of Oz learned to have them release bursts of pollen that could put people to sleep. Who needs poppies? My favorite power was moving through what I called greenspace. I could become one with the plants, with that green, shining, singing otherness, and move through them. It feels like coming home.
Still, I had my moment of teenage rebellion. Without telling my parents, I took the GED and SAT and did well at them both—very well. I applied for every scholarship I could even vaguely qualify for, and every college on the west coast that offered a degree in agriculture. I got accepted to the University of California at Berkeley, got everything set up, and then told my parents. While disappointed that I was leaving home, they were proud of me too. Because, you know, Berkeley.
In December of 2005, I graduated with a double major, Biology (plant and microbial), and Agriculture and Resource Economics. I was going to go on for a Masters, but decided to take a year off to do an internship with the Western Seed Legacy Foundation, hunting down rare heirloom plants that are in danger of being lost.
On the day of the Quake I was collecting rose hips from an abandoned mission in New Mexico, southwest of Albuquerque. The rose bush wasn't the oldest or largest in the New World, but it was close. The size of a tree, it had white five-petaled flowers, with the tip of each petal dipped in blood red. I remember how excited I was, since the bush seemed to be a Rosa Alba except… Never mind. It made a huge splash in the rose world, and you can find it in catalogs under its English name of 'Angels' Blood' or by its proper name, Sangre de Los Angeles. I had felt the faint tremor of the Quake even as I cut the last of the rose hips.
I thought it was something local, minor, until I got to the van and turned on the radio. When I heard that the epicenter of what I felt was along the San Andreas fault, and that communications were out all along the California coast, I didn't think, I just pointed my van west and drove. First town I reached was a little place called Datil. I left my van in front of the police station there, babbling something to the local cop about having to get to California. All I took with me was my wallet and a package my mother had given me when I left for college: a package I had hoped never to open, holding her old Flora costume. I changed in a gas station restroom, walked over to the nearest tree, and leapt into the green.
My first jump took me through most of the state of Arizona. The second dropped me in a small patch of scrub along I-15, in the Mojave Desert. The green is thin there, and I had to pause to catch my breath. What I saw disturbed me. It was as if someone had given the area a giant shake and I was nowhere near where the epicenter was supposed to have been. I spent a moment or so to help things in the area grow, wanting to have a way-point still growing when I headed back. That's when the first aftershock hit.
Some people talk about the Quake like it was one event, a quick pain, rip it off like a Band-Aid, over and done. It wasn't like that at all… heavy aftershocks lasted for the next three days, lighter ones for weeks afterward. When an enemy hits me, I can root myself to the ground and keep my place. But what do you hold to when the earth itself moves?
As soon as the aftershock faded, I leapt again into the green… This time I came out in a suburb near Pasadena. People were staggering through the streets, shell-shocked. Others were clawing their way through the wreckage of what had been their homes, screaming, weeping that family members were inside. I'm not much stronger than normal, but I am a little tougher. I don't need to eat, sleep, or drink. I could send vines through the wreckage, stabilizing it, and feeling out where someone was inside. Then I dug them out. And moved on to the next building. And repeated.
Days blurred together. I worked through nights whenever there was enough light. A few things stand out. I remember giving my name as Flora. I remember an older hero in a red white and blue costume gently pulling me away from the wreckage and steering me towards some showers. He had a couple of crates of spare costumes in solid colors, generic things, once-size-fits-most, and handed me one in green. I changed into it, but kept wearing my mother's mask, her boots and gloves. I rolled the stained and torn tunic and pants I had been wearing into a tight bundle, stowed it in a belt pouch, and went back to work.
That's another thing people get wrong. Yes, more powered heroes came out to help in the Quake zone than had ever been united on American soil. But the disaster affected the entire state. Depending on where you were working, you might go days without seeing another hero. And if another hero or powered team showed up, you didn't socialize. You quickly figured out who could handle the area best, and then anyone not needed there moved on. Sometimes it wasn't even a conversation. You just glanced at each other, realized your efforts didn't overlap, and you all kept working.
This lasted for six days… At that point it went from being about rescue to being about recovery. Corpse-sniffing dogs were brought in. That night I saw a girl in one of those black generic costumes and a black domino mask call up balls of foxfire over the wreckage to mark where the bodies were. I think I had worked my way up past Santa Clarita by then. I decided it was time to go back.
That's when my earlier stupidity hit me… I had left my clothing and wig back in a bathroom in New Mexico. I had thought to bring a van key with me, but walking up to that van in my costume would kind of negate the whole purpose of wearing it in the first place. I got a change of clothes and a backpack from some Red Cross workers. They didn't have any wigs, but one of them found a scarf to cover my hair. I stopped in Coranado National Forest and changed into the civilian clothing and did my best with the scarf to cover my hair before jumping back to Datil.
To my surprise, my van was waiting for me there. It had been filled with gas, and my clothes and wig were inside, cleaned and neatly folded. A small note was next to it, reading simply 'God Bless and godspeed.' And for the first time since the whole ugly mess started, I cried.
I reported back to the Western Seed Legacy Foundation, handed in my report, the rose hips, and my resignation. I returned to California, and got a job with the state helping build the parks of San Angeles. I'm still there, using my power to coax things along from time to time. And I plan on getting my master's degree someday from the University of California… at San Angeles. I'm keeping detailed notes and measurements on the plants in the parks I work on, especially taking notes on the aftermaths of various battles. But I don't think I can keep on the sidelines much longer. Sooner or later, I'm going to have to act.
RP Logs
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Stats
Real Name:Heather Starchild Light
Aliases: Flora
Age: 22
Hair: Spring/Summer: Green, Fall: Red, Winter: Brown. Owns several wigs.
Eyes: Green
Height: 5' 9"
Weight: 145
Known Relatives: Mother: Rose, Father: Storm, Siblings: Ash, Holly, Lily
XP Log
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