The Language of Flowers

By Devyn Kennedy

Mycena, leader of the House of Rot, is content to spend her days conducting experiments, pining after her chevalier Paeona, and be a general brat. Yet, when an existential threat in the form of the Firestarters began destroying the forest kingdom she lives in, her and Paeona's Queen decides on a drastic course of action.

 

In this short story, our lesbian plants are forced to do their duty, examine the responsibility of power, and contend with separation in order to save their home and people.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Devyn Kennedy
• Release date: Aug 29, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201098063

Devyn Kennedy

Devyn Kennedy is a nonbinary author living in Ohio. They write all sorts of things, typically within emphasis on on different narratives and capitalist social structures effect us. They are surrounded by loving cats and often drink too much coffee. When not writing, they are often found in the kitchen, cosplaying as a chef.   For more about Devyn, follow them on Twitter or join their patreon for exclusive content.

Book preview

The Language of Flowers

The forest spreads out, butterflied wide open and yet impossible to see inside of from a distance. The trees like windows with their shutters closed and curtains drawn in the warmer seasons, private and unfathomable. And in the fall and winter, when everything opened full, everything still seems unknowable and impossible to navigate.

Closeness does nothing to dispel the mystery of distance. A glimpse of life crawling around, life blooming and ending, of something that seems rotted and worn and useless being reshaped and repurposed. The paths of the forest are as tricky as its inhabitants. They hide or blend in, making it easy for abstracted travelers to lose their way. It offers no promises except that everything within it has a place and a purpose. It gives no comfort other than that nothing will go to waste.

The Elaindri love the forest for this. Here they are safe, in no small part due to their crafty and mischievous Queen. And all strive to be like Her Majesty, beautiful and terrible and wise. The nation of Q’loana, a simple place, with wood huts with twig roofs and footworn dirt paths for roads, sits in the heart of the nameless forest. The trees keep their roots clear of foot paths out of respect and the forest sends its brightest and most resplendent blooms. All to make such a wonderful, well-divided garden magnificent. The palaces of Q’loana are birch and oak and inlaid with flint, and cheap crystals found littering the floor. The palace roofs shimmer emerald in the summer and, in the winter, are blinding silver.

A smattering of fungus dots the pathway to one palace, some beautiful and vibrant, and others lackluster. Inside sits a girl who would be quite offended at the label ‘girl,’ studying. Her name is Mycena Viscido, and her hair is ruby, and her lips death’s blue and her eyes coal black. She is extraordinarily extra and every bit as dramatic as she appears. A petri dish of fungi sits next to her and, with the twirling of her wrist and knotting of her fingers, the fungi bubbles, hisses, steams, and takes shape into all manner of oddities.

Sometimes Mycena turns it black as coal and gives it wings and calls it raven; other times, it shrinks and scuttles and even bites, and this she called an ant. Her favorite is the one she keeps secret, the one not found in nature but composed of it nonetheless. She has no name for it yet, but she sometimes fantasizes about the day she will deploy them. Sometimes they are builders and workers for her people so that they can pursue their passions. Other times they are soldiers to defend against any number of