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The urge to panic arrived again, but it had no teeth. Everything was fine. They remained calm. This was her wish, too, wasn’t it? Her love of plants made manifest.

Did she want a sunflower in her hair?

No, that would be too much, surely. Too ambitious, don’t you think?

Why? They had so much room to work with here. Emiliana had already put this off for so long. Gained knowledge through study. Experience through meditation. Especially that last one, where she’d nearly gotten lost.

She could feel them, couldn’t she? Structurally, she understood them well enough, didn’t she? Albumins. Globulins. Prolamins. Glutelins. She was already wielding them, see? The proteins of botanic life. Merging with the keratin she already wielded. She didn’t need all of them here, unless she wanted to get crazy.

...Did she want to get crazy?

Okay, you needed to calm down. Power tripping wasn’t going to help anything, right now.

The temptation was certainly understandable, though. And what a difference it made, this feeling. Where before she’d felt afraid, now there was so much to look forward to.

Their hand had found the madega tree, they realized.

Wait. Madega tree? No, it wasn’t a madega. That hadn’t changed. She’d just gotten confused.

See? They were still confused. Don’t be so overconfident.

Fine, maybe that was a good point.

But still. The vines had so much room to grow. And she didn’t have to be afraid of them. They could be beautiful, just like she wanted.

More tiny horns emerged from within her hair, connecting with the vines, too. She could feel the link deeply. Like they were tapping directly into her brain.

Yes. That was it, wasn’t it? What she’d wanted all along? To modify her brain.

Wow.

Somehow, this whole process was feeling so satisfying. Dopamine release? Was she doing that herself? Or was it just happening as a side effect? Must’ve been a side effect, surely.

The tree again. Her mind kept going back to it. True, it wasn’t a madega, but she still felt a connection to it like never before. She could sense its full structure in her mind, even when looking the other way. Even with her eyes closed. She could sense every single leaf as if it were connected to her own body. Every hidden bud within its canopy. Ah, yes, it was indeed a birch. The catkins were not flowering, but she could sense where they would.

They had not flowered in a very long time, however. More than one season, certainly. In fact, perhaps they never had. How strange. Was it the fault of this peculiar environment? They were indoors, after all. Hardly an ideal location.

Hold on... How did she know how long it had been? Didn’t that go a bit beyond mere physical senses and botanical knowledge?