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The nosy roots of a cherry tree bruise my back as I pant, and a tell-tale softness under my left shoulder struggles with cute noises for a few moments before it explodes, making me bounce a bit and groan with displeasure. There's a soft glow, though, and a rush of all-consuming warmth that only lasts for a moment or so before the night greedily steals back in.

"Need anything?" A soft voice asks. I turn to look at the woman who saved me, and a list of stats appear in my left eye while my right appreciates the way the moon caresses her silky grey dress. She has no level, which is odd, and a mental calculation shows me that her health regeneration would mean she's doing a rank 8 Divinity, which is insane enough that she should teach me.

"No," I say after a moment. "Thanks for the save."

She smiles, dips her head quickly, and walks away among the cherry trees. About twenty feet away she disappears off the screen, becoming a grey glowing symbol until that, too, fades.

A pink piece of fluff investigates me, its wide eyes clearly wondering if I am worth the effort of exploding. My body creaks a little as I haul myself to my feet, and the taiko drums lie in quickly disappearing pieces around the clearing.

I wait for one to spawn for me, dying for another eight orbs so I can finally get a 4.0 rage level. As I settle into stance, it occurs to me that something has changed about the clearing. There was tension in the air before; now the night is cool, a bit damp, and a petal caresses my cheek.

After a moment, the tree dumps the rest of the flowers on me and I realize even in the dim light that they are brown and wilting, and the tiny pink kamikazes can't even explode with enough force to create a small wind when they go. The drums don't spawn for ten minutes, and snow begins to fall on the small piece of the garden where the lady helped me.

Quickly, I move on. The next morning I spot something on my cheek in the pink reflection of the crystal, and instead of touching the crystal I touch my cheek. It's smooth, and no matter how I scrub at it with my sleeve the slight mark does not come off.

--

"Something's weird with my pixels," I relate to one of my friends. She's blonde and favors the Heavy Water Balloon, drowning petals for fun as I eat my lunch.

"What?" She asks, pausing for a moment to glance my way, waiting for her ring to cool down. "Looks fine to me."

"There's a thing on my cheek." I tap where I know it is. She leans closer, squinting.

A longer pause. Then, "Clean your screen, does it go away?"

Before us, a puddle swirls with no drain to go down, the petals rotting in their cells.

--

I go back to the place where she healed me now and again. It's been cleaned up, clumsily. The guards don't know what to do with it. They don't want people seeing it, so they can't so much as look at it weirdly because then everyone is going to check out whatever makes them nervous in hopes of a freebie.

They do the strangest thing: They clean out the bits of drum, rake away the fallen petals, and paint everything back to its usual color. I chip away a flake on the trunk of the tree; it's grey underneath.

Andy closed his eyes and mouthed the name to himself, over and over, in an effort not to begin giggling. It was the kind of name that required practice. The kind of a name that a seven year old says that she would like to be called when she grows up, except then she never realizes that it's indeed a silly name.

Even worse, along the lines of 'spleen', it was an inherently funny word. Andy would be working with her. Thus, practice.

He starting shaking with silent mirth around the tenth time he said it. Sheridan looked at him steadily, not managing to conceal her own smile. "You'll get used to it," she said. "Everyone does. Once we start doing underwater combat next week, you'll get used to anything."

"Ploki," Andy burst out, cawing. "Plucky Ploki plucked plenty. I mean, what? What kind of mother...?"

"Her mother didn't," Sheridan explained. "Like you, she had issues and needed to run. She decided to change her name, and, God knows why, she chose Ploki." Sheridan hesitated, like she was about to add something else, and decided against it. By the smile fluttering around her lips, Andy should have known that he was about to be the butt of a joke.

Instead, he kept trying to repeat the tongue twister. "Plucky Ploki plucked plenty, plucky Ploki plunked plety... wait, wait, I can do it ten times, I swear I can..." he he started shaking again.