" I enjoy your hair as well, Sapphire. " Shawarl let her lips curl into a smile, as the child compared her hair to the dragons. The job was going to be far too easy. She just hoped that the ' Mother' would hold up her end of the bargain. But, seeing the large sack of money tossed to Hiro quelled her thoughts on the matter easily. 

With the problem of eating out of the way, Shawarl relaxed a bit. Calmly she took the lead of the party and set off deeper into Laeto Rainforest. With Sapphire close at hand, and Hiro protecting them. There would be hardly any reason for the dragon to use her powers. Unless fate had other things in store. " I know what it is like to have so many siblings. Mother was a rather 'hungry' woman, so as a result many of us were born. We never had to fight for attention though, we all went our own ways within the clan." Shawarl made it sound as if she was just a human. Oddly her way of talking sounded normal now, as she had calmed down.

She stopped for a bit, and pointed out a rather large flower, with red petals and a large hole in the middle.  " The locals call that a corpse flower. Mainly because it smells like dead bodies. I am sure your book has it's real name, Sapphire." Shawarl chuckled. In some ways the flower was just like her. Eating others to survive, but unlike the flower she smelled sweet. Like freshly picked mint. " I hear it eats insects, thankfully. Unlike the forest guardian." She smiled and continued her walk into the heart of the forest. 

Along the way she would point things out, mostly flowers. Each one a type of plant that devours its prey by trapping it alive. The dragon was oddly familiar with each type of carnivorous plant. Even going so far as to use pieces of fallen twigs to trigger their trapping reflex." It's cute how they curl up and try to trap the air." She let out another dainty chuckle as her emerald eyes lit up with joy. 

"Honestly, I'm surprised too, but then again, my father said he dealt with many Gods over many years," he said with a smile toward the young lady.  "I haven't read too many books, I was never much of a bookworm.  The ways of the sword and magic interested me more, and my father had me learning a lot of fire magic through force of will and experimentation, rather than reading dusty tombs."  Hiro started to walk with the two young ladies as they talked about hair color, and examine the local flora.  He kept a watchful eye out for any dangers that could be lurking in the forest.  It seemed so peaceful though, it was unlikely as long as they were careful, they wouldn't run into any trouble.

He saw the corpse flower, it reeked like rotting flesh, it was revolting.  He had to cover his face from it.  They continued through the rain forest, noticing the flytrap plant.  "I wonder why there's plants that eat flesh, even if it's just flies.  Most plants live with fresh water, soil, and air, yet this one eats bugs.  It's weird."  Hiro said, commenting on the Venus flytrap plant.  Continuing to follow them, something grabbed his attention.  Something moved quickly through the trees.  It could have been anything, like a monkey, a big cat, or even a bird.  His nose picked up some kind of sweet scent through the air.  Sapphire and Shawarl would likely smell it too.  "You guys smell that?  What is that?"  He started feeling a little sleepy, it was likely to affect Sapphire too, but he didn't know if Shawarl would be affected too.  "Oh no, w-what is happening?  Why do I feel tired?  Something's in the air."  He thought he could see a fine pink and gold pollen filling the air.  There was movement in the the forest again.

They were green, and orange.  Exotic colors in their leaves.  They had vines sprouting out of central flowery bodies.  They crawled along the ground through rooty lower appendages.  There were many of them.  They started to get surrounded.  Hiro unsheathed his blade, his one handed broadsword.  "Dammit!  It's a trap!   Some kind of poison or something coming from these plants."  A viney appendage came whipping toward the young man, he swung his blade, but the blade missed the fast moving vine and smacked him in the face, knocking him back.  It was getting hard to focus, he had to do something about this poison.  He swiped his left hand, unleashing a cleansing jet of flame through the air, vaporizing the plant that attacked him.  He unleashed another jet of flame in the opposite direction, destroying another plant.  But he was now feeling light headed.  "Oooh, woozy, this stupid pollen.  I'm not sure how to get it out of me."  In this moment of weakness, another rafflesia struck at him, smacking him in the face with a vine whip.  A loud voice boomed in the distance.

"FEED ME!  FEED ME SEYMOUR!"

Looking up at Shawarl Sapphire felt pleased that someone had something in common with her. “There are over a hundred of us. Mommy has been alive for a long time though and her position as Fertility I guess in her own words make her responsible for things like that. Most of my older siblings have gone off into the world but others stay close.” 

Looking over at Hiro she shrugged. “Momma has said that living by the sword and reading books should go hand in hand. I watched her train my brother while sword fighting and reading a book once! He use to get so mad at her and then charge her. She would just do this,” she struck her arm out and a vine slunk out of her wrist. She winced a little but it curled around his arm. “Then throw them. It still hurts me to do it though. Our bodies have plants in them.” The vine retracted and she watched as the wound now closed.

Sapphire looking at the large flower. It was attracted to a tree with no stem. She reached out and touched it and looked under it. “I've read about this one! It lives like a parasite according to mommy! I asked her how it can live without a stem or leaves to catch the sunlight. She said that it lives off the trees, like how vampires live off blood.” She felt the texture and wasn't at all bothered by the smell. Once they were ready to move on she followed.

Looking over at Hiro she shrugged more. “You should pick up a book. That is how the world is. There is a food chain. If you throw off the food chain things begin to set themselves off.” She smelled the scent and paused a bit. “No Hiro don't smell that!” Too late.

She moved for a moment letting the vine from Sharwarl follow her. “Here.” She reached in her pouch and grabbed a vial. Soon she was throwing the contents all over him before kissing him. A large amount of essence left her mouth into his. She backed off coughing for a moment. “Come on!” She pulled him as the cure spell filled him. 

“Sharwarl we gotta do something! I can't afford to do that again!” She had Hiro by his hand as she pleaded with the plant dragon. She scared as she now clung to Hiro and looked up at Sharwarl who seemed more reliable then Hiro at this point.

When pink and gold pollen filled the air, Shawarl breathed deeply. The smirk on her face widening as a soft glow enveloped her. " Primitive! " She scoffed and began to undo her robes. Slowly she walked forward, the vine around Sapphire retracting and returning to its master.  The top half of her robes fell off, revealing her upper body. " I think this is the perfect opportunity for me to cut loose. " 

Her  smirk now a vicious grin, as scales began to form on her body. She let out a dragon's roar that shook the treetops, and the scales began to form around her hands and feet. With a burst of magical energy, her hands and feet turned into claws. The three buds on her back shivered with anticipation as she transformed. Scales covered her breasts, legs, and arms. All with a grass green shimmer.

  With a chuckle, she beckoned with her hands for the plant creatures to attack her. " Five minutes. I have enough life essence to hold them for that long." With those words she charged forward, dodging whipping vines with ease. It was nothing compared to how she fought against siblings. As she got closer to a plant creature, she held her hand forward, and a fireball formed in the air. The small orb expanded and  launched towards the creature. Incinerating it.  

On another plant she thrust her claws deep into its body. With a burst of strength from her small frame she ripped it in half. From just two kills she was covered in plant juices and ash. While recovering from her latest kill, a vine wrapped itself around her leg, and threw her into the trees. She flew for some time, before crashing into another tree, toppling it over. With heavy breathing she  returned to her feet. Green blood was trickling from her lips. The impact must have caused some internal damage.

Out of the fight, and too far away to make it in time. Shawarl began to run back to the scene of the battle.

"Over a hundred children?  That . . . a lot."  That made Hiro consider what kind of person the Goddess was.  Could she just spit out a child without having a man involved?  Who was the father of a hundred people, the same person or different people, or was there no father?  Or maybe some had a father and others didn't?  Was this the difference between a deity and a mortal?  "I just haven't had much of a time to read a lot of books, I learned how to read and what not, I read a little bit, but I preferred to practice my magic or work on swordsmanship than sitting in a library.  Plus books are hard to get, they're expensive.  Someone has to hand write them."  She showed him some kind of weird magic by producing a vine from her wrist, though it looked painful for her to do so.  "You have plants inside you?  Does that mean you don't need to eat food?  Or you eat just plants and not meat?"

Hiro was soon fighting for his life and struggling to not pass out.  Sapphire warned him not to breath in the weird spores or poison or whatever that were being thrown into the air, but it was futile, since he couldn't hold his breath and fight at the same time like that for long.  He needed air.  He collapsed to the ground, he felt some strange liquid covering him, some potion that Sapphire was dumping on him.  "W-what are you . . ."  He was interrupted with her young girl locking lips with him.  Time seemed to scream to a halt for him.  Why was she kissing him?  He felt dizzy, and the kiss didn't help.  That was the first kiss he ever had, and she just kissed him out of nowhere?  She pulled away, and he saw Shawarl stripping out of her clothing, becoming naked before being surrounded by scales and plants across her body.  She was a beautiful woman.  "W-what is going on?  Why is she stripping?  I must be hallucinating."  Suddenly, she charged into battle, and was sent flying into the distance in a way that looked like it hurt.  Five minutes?  He snapped back to attention, getting back up.  These women were risking their lives to help, and he was so distracted by sexuality.  He slapped his cheeks and grabbed his sword.

"All right, time to take these bastards down."  The plants surrounded them, Hiro took a large breath, not feeling the effects of the poison in the air, and unleashed a huge wave of fire from his mouth, mowing down the monsters surrounding him and vaporizing the spores surrounding them.  The plants screamed and shrieked as they were incinerated.  More plants started to arrive behind the burning ones, pushing the dead ones.  Hiro charged in, slicing through leafy bodies with his broadsword, wishing he had a bigger sword on hand to more easily do this.  A large plant loomed above all the others, looking like a cross between a venus flytrap, and a giant leafy mouth with countless razor sharp teeth.

"You're destroying my babies!  I'll teach you to respect my authority!  I'm the baddest mother-lover that ever lived, the king of the plants.  My name is Audrey, and I'll teach you who's boss!  I'll take over the world with my spores, the creation of a mad alchemist!"  Harped the vile plant in a bit of a sing-song voice.  The monster swung a vine, striking Hiro in the stomach hard, nearly knocking the air out of him.  But he managed to grab hold of the monster's vine, dropping his sword to the ground.

"Heh.  I don't care what you call yourself, what your plans are, or who made you!  You know what happens when you play with fire?  You get burned!"  Flames leaped from his finger tips and spread across the vine he was holding, flying toward the main body of the beast.  The monster, Audrey, took a sharp, blade-like leaf and lopped off its own vine to stop the spread of the fire.  It swung the same leaf blade down in a piercing strike toward the hero.  Hiro jumped to the side, dodging the attack, which was followed up by a series of swings from the vine's blade.  Hiro moved quickly dodging the attacks, while he was unarmed, he was able to move out of the way of each swing.  "Once I see your attacks enough, I can dodge them easily.  You fight with no technique, just raw speed and power.  But you're predictable.  You're not fast enough to beat me."  He carefully positioned himself so that he was just in front of the monster, the next piercing stab from the monster's vine-blade went straight toward him, but leaping out of the way, the blade pierced the plant monster's main body, impaling itself.  The monster shrieked in pain.

"You bastard!  How dare you do that to the baddest mother-lover that ever . . ."

"Shut up!"  Hiro yelled, raising his hands above his head, summoning a large ball of flames that he then tossed at the main body of the plant monster.  The whole monster's body exploded into flames.  Hiro started tossing a barrage of smaller fireballs from his hands, further burning the Audrey.  The monster collapsed to the ground, roaring in flames.  Hiro walked over to his sword, picking it back up, then stabbing the monster through the body with the whole blade, ripping a large hole in its body, then tossing in another large fireball.

Hiro started walking away from the monster, which suddenly exploded, sending bits and pieces of smoldering plant material flying everywhere.  The monster was dead.  It's minions followed behind it, the remaining plant monsters wilted and collapsed quickly.

"That's taken care of, is everyone okay?  Sapphire?  Shawarl?  Are you ladies okay?"

"Mommy is Fertility. She shows her power by having that many. Some men come a long ways to have children with her. Then they leave us. That's what my father did. Bragging rights is what my sisters call them. My momma loves all of us though." She thought a little on the matter and smiled up at Hiro. "Someday you should come with me to Sularia and read in the library. I can teach you all about our culture!" Moving on to showing him what she was made of she giggled. "We eat a bit of everything. We're not completely plant like."

Sapphire was terrified of everything going on around her. Those blue eyes looked in every direction especially watching what Shawarl was doing. This was dangerous and her mother had been right. She huddled close to a tree as Shawarl went flying. Then she watched as Hiro went charging into battle.

These were plants and she could see them all moving. She could smell them. Her blue eyes watched as Hiro asked her if she was okay. "I'm fi-fine I think." She was stuttering a bit as she regained her composure. She took a deep breath before her senses went off. "Hiro look out!" She pushed him out of the way as a large vine went through her stomach. She coughed up blood and soon she shot from what fire magic she had at it. Falling to the ground she stared up at the sky.

"Are you alright Hiro?" She wasn't concerned about herself. These wounds would heal. "It feels like I got hit pretty hard." She moved her hand to her stomach and lifted her hand up staring at the blood on it. "I haven't ever felt pain like this. Momma was right."