“I was not finished when I died, so I came back.” He was slain before his work was done, unfairly. He wasn't meant to die. It was untimely and unpredictable. Protea, the little gardener and plant-lover, lived an ordinary life at first. He worked in a familiy-owned greenhouse which he had recently taken over from his aged grandfather--his father had decided to take a different path of working in the medical field. Protea loved the plants so much. They were his favorite things to work around; he could literally feel the light and energy thrumming through his bones when he touched their delicate leaves. And that connection grew so deep that one day, while working among the vines in his greenhouse, he heard them. Heard them speaking. Whispering. Their voices. They were gentle and quiet, all of them happy and content. It took him a long time before he realized what they were, and, Protrea, being the emotional thing he was, burst into tears. The plant chatter silented, and he realized they could hear him. They are sentient. So, in the years to come, he built relationships with each of the plants. He became so in-tune with the lovely little life forms he lived among that he never let a plant die from then on--he kept everything around him alive, from the very roots of the grass to the massive oak trees in his back yard. Protea became well-known in his small village as the "Plant-Whisperer." Little did they know, it was true. But unfortunately, this brought attention that wasn't wanted. After Protea obtained a very rare species of plant that produced the sweetest berries known to dragonkind from a vendor, he was attacked. In the greenhouse, under the light of the moon, Protea was working with the nocturnal plants when he heard them screaming. His plants, his life blood, they were crying out. The voices ripped through his mind and he fell to the floor, clutching his head and shouting out loud. The attacker obviously could not hear the plants, so when Protea looked up to see a dragon with fire licking up from his snout and the glow of the embers behind him, he immediately recognized the confusion there. It didn't take long before the fragile, passive gardener was slain. The remaining plants in the greenhouse felt the terrible vibrations of their pain all through the earth. The trees trembled, their roots adjusting as they felt their discomfort from the hive mind of the plant network. Their voice to the dragons had just been killed. A few years later, long after Protea's greenhouse had been burnt to the ground and the property long abandoned, the plants began to return. Their seeds had survived, and those children, those resurrected plants, wanted their friend back. So bit by bit, they brought him back. The final touch was the berries of that plant that had gotten him killed. The plants left his chest cavity open, and when she dropped her precious fruit into the slot meant for his heart, they let him wake up. But with a broken body. The plants had not known exactly how to build him, but they had done their best, and it was enough. So Protea was reborn, and the plants were going to help him avenge himself. Anyway, hi Orbit lol, congrats on 1.7k <3 :D You deserve it SO MUCH hhh- Alr, anyway, I had so much fun with this. You saved me from artblock by not making me do line art lol. I did edit the line art quite a bit, I hope that's okay!! Idk lol, I really enjoyed this :) --- Audio - Flowers by In Love With A Ghost Zoom-In Code - Line art (edited by me) - Coloring - /me Story/character - /me
