Merging

[trisherina]

Aliane felt compelled as she had never felt before, even when she had snatched down the puppet Prince from his perch. She slowed to a stop, eyes on the coral flowers. They seemed to her to be nodding with the breeze in time to the tune in her head:

"Thief, thief, thief..."

She bent close, plucked one, and inhaled deeply of its scent. Immediately, she was overwhelmed by a melange of spicy sea breezes and burning leaves. Her ears filled with the sound of a wall of water dropping from the trees directly overhead. She looked up to see a kaleidoscope of coruscating blooms, expanding wider and wider until they completely obliterated her field of vision. As consciousness faded, her fingers made a desperate clutch for the ornate box housing her Prince, but like Aliane, it fell insensate to one side of the path.