Sister was being mean today. She wanted me to stay inside my special world, which normally was fun. I could fly and explore, even hunt if I got hungry enough. Sister had been adding more and more animals whenever she got the chance, she said they would make the world more real. I wasn't sure what Sister meant by that, I could touch, see, and smell everything, isn't that what real means?

I didn't mind that Sister kept adding beasts and animals. It gave me something to hunt and eat when I got hungry. Sister said hunting was a skill and I was the best. It made me proud, and curious to try different ways to hunt. With the new way of looking for things, I could find something to hunt much easier.

She had recently added a group of Peryton to an island in the middle of the lake. They were fun to play with because they could fly, and Sister had taught us a game called tag. It worked like hunting, but instead of killing the Peryton, I would just have to touch them.

They did cheat sometimes, running along the ground and hiding beneath trees. But I didn't mind, that just meant I did a good job of catching them when I found them and scared them into running or flying again. They weren't able to really hide anyway, not with my ability to see the world around me.

This time Sister asked me to watch over a few people she had brought inside my world. It was the first time that had happened, and Sister asked me to let her know if the two people she left in the flowers I had discovered died.

I would do it; Sister didn't ask me to do things often, and she almost never asked me for help. I was a big girl now, and I had to show her that we were a team. That she could ask me for help, and that she could trust me.

Trust was huge. Something Sister didn't give to many people. But she trusted me, she loved me, and I felt protected and cherished when those bursts of love and affection came through our bond.

There were times that meant you had to do things you didn't like. Sharing my special world with people other than Sister was one of those things.

Watching the two people wouldn't have been so bad if it weren't for the smell. They smelled like death and sickness. I didn't tell Sister that; it wasn't rude to think it, Sister said. It was only rude if I said it so they could hear it. It would hurt their feelings.

I didn't think that would be a problem, Sister was the only one that could hear me and knew what I was saying, but I wasn't sure if that would always be the case, and if maybe there was something about these people that was different.

There must have been something different or special about these people, or Sister wouldn't have brought them into my world. She even made a nest for them to sleep on. Sister didn't say why, but she thought they might get better while sleeping where the Golden Lodoicea grew. Sister should have dunked them in the lake before bringing them here though, but maybe she didn't think of it. That just meant it was my job, something Sister had left me to deal with.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

It couldn't be good for the Golden Lodoicea plants, that smell of death and disease.

I was good at calling the rain. It was one of my favorite things to do, flying in the strong wind gusts that came with it while dodging lightning strikes. The best times were when Sister played too. She would make the game more interesting by using lighting to tag each other. It was harder to dodge Sister's lightning than the storms.

She won most times, even when I complained that she was being mean and wasn't playing fair. I only said that a few times, the look of disappointment and regret she gave me a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach. I didn't like disappointing Sister.

I had never called the rain inside the cave before. The cave's opening wasn't large, but it was large enough. The rain responded to my call and found its way inside. The water that fell starting to flood the room. I quickly diverted the rain, sending it away before too much water had fallen.

Maybe I should have talked with Sister before trying something like this. I could only hope the ground would dry before she came back to check on the people she had left behind. Sister could have removed the water, she was really smart like that, but I could only call and direct the rain, I couldn't do anything with the water that fell.

The plants seemed to like the extra water. Sister had said they were more mushroom than flower, and the cave was damp enough to give them enough moisture to grow. I'm sure she was right, Sister normally is, but they were reacting to the rainwater, roots growing and expanding to other parts of the cave floor. The newly softened ground already seeing fresh growth, it made me think the extra water wouldn't harm them.

The stems and flowers began to move too. Just a few at first, but for those plants that the people were laying on, they began to grow faster, reaching up and embracing the two women. It looked like the plants were trying to put them back inside an egg.

The leaves and stems twining, clumps braiding together until the women were completely hidden. I considered calling Sister to have her check if this was a bad thing, but before I could I noticed the world's energy reacting.

The bad taint that sister had tried to remove by feeding them seedpods and crushed core was moving, the plants extracting the bad from them somehow. The poison that was killing them extracted through their pores and then purifying it. The flowers began to glow as they gathered more and more of whatever the women were tainted with. A field of seedpods glowing like lanterns that made the Qi constructs Sister had created to light the cave no longer needed.

The more of the bad stuff the plants absorbed, the brighter the light became. I could see the two people curled up within the safety of greenery, their sleeping becoming peaceful. I could hear their labored breathing calming and strengthening. I could smell the taint of poison and death fade. The scent of death and decay soon fading.

I forgot my boredom as I watched in amazement as the plants turned death into life. The progress increasing, until finally, some of the flowers began dimming, their work done. Seedpods that had matured as the plant healed, the women were released as the expended flowers faded and died.

There were so many of them, enough that if the Golden Lodoicea sprouted, they could spread far enough that they might be able to cross the cave's entrance and expand to the outside.

I used the strange way of thinking that Sister had taught me to look at the two people, to see if I could find any of the bad things that had infected them.

I couldn't.

They were better, even the small amount of world energy they needed to live had been restored.

I knew that I may have done a bad thing by calling the rain as I watched the nest of leaves and vines they were protected in split open, and they tumbled out. Clean, healed, and vital. They looked healthy; they smelled healthy, and I was sure they were going to live.

Sister couldn't be mad at me for calling the rain, now that they were all better, could she?