Chapter 11

The next day, Lumae was up quite early, making herself some tasty ham, egg, and toast sandwiches, as well as a nice steaming hot cup of coffee to warm her up a bit. After she had her amazing breakfast, she went to get dressed, not knowing what to wear on her first day of work. First, she tried on a beautiful, blue floral dress, which was casual but also formal, a formal white, buttoned shirt with black dress pants, which was really befitting for the workplace, but it seemed too formal. Finally, after an entire hour of searching for the perfect outfit, she decided on a casual grey denim and a khaki-coloured loose buttoned shirt. Pleased with her outfit, she grabbed her things and went out.

She had arrived a little early for work, so she could get settled and go around the company to get herself acquainted with her surroundings. Lumae managed to somehow explore most of the building, up until floor 11, where she managed to get lost. She kept trying to remember where the elevator was, but each time she made a turn, the scenery looked completely different. She was so fixated on finding the elevator that she didn't even notice her surroundings and bumped right into Mr. Mortez, spilling his coffee all over his shirt, "Oh my goodness, I am so sorry, let me help you clean that. I won't be able to afford you a new shirt, but I can at least pay for the dry cleaners if it doesn't come out." She grabs a bunch of tissues from her handbag, pressing them against the coffee stains to try and clean up the mess she had made, not noticing how irritated her boss is, so she just continues.

As she was patting him dry, he started to feel even more irritated, grabbing her by the wrist, pulling her a bit closer to him, "It's fine Miss Moonshaddow," he sighed, "Just, don't let it happen again, and the elevator is around that corner by the way." He let go of her hand and continued doing whatever he was busy doing, but Lumae, embarrassed, covered her face with her hands to hide her embarrassment, questioning what had just happened. When she looked back up and saw the time, she realised that she was going to be late if she didn't go to the elevator right then and there.

When she got to the shared office a few people were already there, "Ah May, right on time," noticing the familiar voice of Secretary Scarlett, Lumae turned towards her, "We're still waiting for one more person, so you can go and take..." She couldn't even finish speaking when a guy with blonde hair, green eyes and glasses burst into the room wheezing from having to run a long distance, "S-ha-Sorry that I'm late Scarlett, "Yeah yeah, Jackson, just go take a seat, so we can start." The man then goes to the only open seat, the seat next to hers and sits down, waving at Lumae with a smile as he does so. "As I'm sure all of you have noticed, we have a new member of the team, Miss Lumae Moonshaddow, or as I like to call her, May. She's the newbie here, so you should all play nice with her." The whole group chuckled for a bit, but went quiet again as Mr. Mortez walked in, now with a different shirt than before.

"Good morning, everyone," everyone answered him in sync, as though it was a rehearsal or something "Good morning, sir", but Lumae wasn't prepared at all and came in a second later, "G-Good morning, sir". Scarlett looked over towards Lumae, almost letting a laugh escape her mouth. "So, as you all know, our company has been struggling to find out why our newest product has been giving rashes to our VIPs, for those who don't know who the VIPs are, they're the people who agreed to test some of our products to ensure that they're safe for production. Anyway, so we must've missed some sort of chemical compound within this plant, or some sort of pollen, which could've created a rash, but I don't care what the cause is, we just need to find it and manage it as soon as possible. I also expect you all to show Miss Moonshaddow how everything works and help her to learn everything quickly, so we can get to the bottom of this situation faster. You are all dismissed now." Mr. Mortez then leaves the shared office, with a bunch of other people following him.

Scarlett then turns towards me, "Hey, May, so Jackson here, is going to be your partner in crime from here on out. You two will be working together to discover what could possibly be the cause of certain things in the plants that we use in our products, then you'll send it over to 'the station,' as we like to call it, even though it's a lab, where they'll then see if the discovery you've made can do anything to the products we create. If you have any questions, you can always ask Jackson, or you can find me in the secretary's office, next to Mr. Mortez's office. I'm gonna go now," she turns to Jackson, "Jackson, would you like to take Lumae to 'the forest'?" Jackson looks over to Lumae, "Yup, no problem", Scarlett then headed towards the exit. "Lumae was it?", she nods at his question, "Come follow me, you're gonna love this."

Jackson led Lumae to the 10th floor, "I'm pretty sure you've already tried to go explore the building, but you probably just did a quick scan and didn't check inside the rooms. Well, this room is my personal favourite, mostly because I spend every single working hour in here, but also because it's like a phytologist's own little haven. I present to you," he opens the two large, frosted glass doors in front of us, to show an entire, huge room, full of all sorts of exotic plants, "Our little 'forest'." Jackson smiles as he sees Lumae's amazed expression, "Wow, no wonder you guys call it that, this place is amazing. I mean look at this huge skylight and this temperature-regulating air conditioner and," Lumae gasps when she sees her favourite blue flower, that only grows in the forest of her hometown, "You guys have wolf flowers, I didn't think anyone other than the townspeople knew of this." Jackson seemed confused for a second, but then remembered something, "Oh right, Scarlett told me you grew up in Moonshaddow, we found these flowers in the forest right next to it, so there's no wonder you know of them. I have a question though. Are your ancestors the ones who started the town or something? Why do you have the same surname as the place you grew up in?" Lumae couldn't help but chuckle, "Oh no, not at all. I was left in the town's care after my mother passed away giving birth to me there, but no one actually knew who my mother was, so they named me after the town, since it seemed that I had everyone wrapped around my pinkie as a child," Jackson then accidentally burst out laughing, "I-I'm sorry, I've just never heard of something like that ever happening, it's kind of cool though, you can literally say that you kind of 'own' a town, ha ha."

Lumae chuckles at his idea, "Yeah, I probably could, but I don't think anyone would believe me. Anyway, should we get to work?" Jackson finally stops laughing, "Oh, yeah right. I completely forgot we're here to work for a second, so the plant that's currently giving our VIPs trouble is the pink Roseus flower. My previous partner and I worked day and night to discover what was causing the rash, right until he, up and leaved, due to the 'workload'", Lumae then instantly remembered she had discovered on her own when she was about 18 years old, whilst examining this exact flower, "With what do they mix the Roseus?" Jackson seemed confused for a second, "The sap of a Frimwood tree, why?" Lumae chuckles as her theory was right, "Back when I was eighteen, I did a little experiment with this exact combination, to see if the can make a good detoxing cream, but I discovered that these two products particularly, create a chemical compound, that basically starts a minor burn on one's skin which is why the VIPs are getting rashes. You should, instead, try to mix in the sap of a Brickard tree. It gives a more soothing outcome and can even take the rash that the previous combination created away within only 3 days."

Taken aback by Lumae's incredible experience, which is usually rare within newcomers, he immediately went to check this theory, by mixing the exact things Lumae said might work. "Wow, you're actually right! I don't think you understand how long we've been trying to figure this out, and you managed this in one go! That's amazing! I'll send this through to the lab immediately, you just wait here!" Jackson then sprinted out of 'the forest' with the results, leaving Lumae on her own. She then looked around and went towards the one flower that caught her eye, her favourite flower, the wolf flower, also known as wolfsbane. She then remembered that, the only reason she's not affected by it, is because she's the only daughter of the last alpha of the White Moon pack, Raymond Nocte and only the offspring of an alpha of the White Moons, the alpha himself and the cubs who haven't had their first transformation yet, has an immunity towards wolfsbane. She wanted to go and explore further, when she heard the doors of 'the forest' open, expecting Jackson to maybe have already returned. But when she turned to see who it was, it wasn't Jackson.