The man behind the counter looked up as the bell on the door jingled. His customer was a young woman, perhaps in her early twenties - kids grew up so fast nowadays, though, so she could just as easily be a high-school girl looking for something to give her boyfriend for the prom. Her attire suggested otherwise, however: a bone-white dress, with roses embroidered in black along the hem and a Chinese dragon (again in black) curling around her body, its head coming over her shoulder and over her breast, a rose in its mouth. Such clothing could only mean that her family had recently suffered a loss.

"I'm sorry to know of your loss," he said when he was close enough to be heard, and the young woman turned to look at him.

"Do you have anything in white and black?" She was looking for a pre-made bouquet, less expensive than a handmade arrangement without being so cheap as to be tacky. "He was my uncle..."

As her voice trailed off, his mind raced. Chrysanthemums and poppies; her uncle had died in the war, then, killed by friendly fire. "I'm so very sorry," he murmured, and turned, heading for a freezer closet. Choosing carefully among the pre-arranged flowers, he finally - after a matter of seconds - chose one he thought would be appropriate. Not terribly expensive, but with class nonetheless.

"It's perfect," she breathed, impressed despite herself, and almost smiled as he rung it up. "Thank you, sir."

As the doorbell jangled again with her departure, another teen entered, this one garbed in bright reds and yellows.

"Black, orange, and pink?" she asked hopefully. A coming-out party, then, with a peculiar dark strain of rose, bird-of-paradise, and another set of chrysanthemums.

He smiled. "Right over here."

Corporeal Forces: 2 Strength: 3 Agility: 5

Ethereal Forces: 3 Intelligence: 6 Precision: 6

Celestial Forces: 2 Will: 4 Perception: 4

Skills: Artistry (Floral arrangement/4), Knowledge (Botany/6, Floral arrangement/4, General/3), Language (Flowers/6)

Songs: Entropy (Corporeal/5)

The Florist has been at his job for so long that it's rumored among Servitors of Flowers that he might have been the one to start the Language of Flowers. Certainly none of them - except perhaps Novalis herself - remembers his name, and he rarely gives it out; he and his shop are both simply "the Florist".

What is known is that he is an exceptional florist and a master botanist, and he knows the Language of Flowers so well that the aforementioned rumors may have some basis in fact. He very rarely leaves his shop; Novalis has assigned a reliever, Jiavis the Flicker, to see to his needs, as far as food and drink go. (Jiavis the Flicker cannot actually be commanded by the Florist, and so is not really a servant; however, the reliever does see to it that the Florist has all of the food and drink that he needs. It is possible that if the Florist ever tried to order Jiavis the Flicker to do something, the reliever might leave.) As a result, whenever the Florist is awake and prepared, his store is open. This means that he keeps some odd hours - although he does try to regulate the opening time to some extent, and tries not to close before 5 - but that you can occasionally catch the store being open at 2 AM.

The Florist's shop hides a secret, however; the one part that few guests know about, and none who do not serve Flowers ever see, is the Florist's garden. It's simply not possible to explain using conventional physics how so many varieties of flower and plant can exist peacefully in so small a space. (Not to mislead - the garden is actually rather large. It's just that the number of plants growing there is much, much larger - and this doesn't include the catacomb beneath the shop where the Florist grows fungi.) What makes the garden even odder is the relatively high percentage - perhaps one or two percent - of plants that are pseudo-celestial in some way. Bellflowers grow here, as do mandrake, nightshade, and one of Novalis' own black roses, each with the powers ascribed to them by legend. There are even rumors, among those high in Novalis' hierarchy, that the Florist's garden is the home of a king ginseng.

Most striking about the garden, however, is the evidence one can find, if one looks hard enough. Planting stakes exist among the roots and soil, dating back to the early 1800s; there is at least one antique spade, and on the ground next to the three-foot Venus' Flytrap is a copy of a Bible, with an inscription that implies that it was printed in the sixteenth century.

The Florist just smiles and shrugs. After all, he's just a florist.