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She didn't even like the boil, but everyone's life could be improved by the addition of a plant or two... or thirty.

Skeptically, Hollandaise looked around her room. She had still not found much time to acquire her own plant life and her room was still distressingly bare. Her one excursion to the shop in town had resulted in three cacti, two flowering and one not. The non-flowering one had already been integrated into Deszeld's room as prank of her prank. Hollandaise did not regret that decision. Out of everyone, the dragon ghoul could be trusted to love her plants with an odd abandon. Her dorm room flourished enough to put forests to shame. Regardless of how Hollandaise felt about Deszeld's possessive nature, she treated her possessions, her plants exceedingly tenderly. And Hollandaise could not take one of the ghoul's plants. She imagined the resulting roar and winced, the leaves on her shoulders shuddering slightly.

It was decided. One cactus would stay and one would go. Hollandaise would simply have to acquire another plant of her own sometime. Slowly, she would build up her room in a sort of model of the forest she was not allowed back into. Could one be homesick for a place that was no longer her home? She could go back eventually, she knew, after years of work and if the Elders deemed her worthy. Hollandaise frowned and shook her head. Now was not the time to think of homes and not-homes, but to concentrate on improving the disposition of the most annoyingly arrogant boil she had ever met. Somehow, she hoped a plant might temper him. that he would feel the simple beauty of green and growing things. (It was maybe a 50/50 chance.) With that positive thought planted firmly in her mind, she quickly braided her hair, tossed on some clothes and got to work.

She had, of course, learned the location of his room through some surreptitious questioning. That is, she had asked another rather imperious demon, one she had happened upon near the entrance to the dorm. The look he'd given Hollandaise (and the cactus) after telling her was strange and somehow judging, but she thought that perhaps that was simply how demons were. All of them seemed somehow off. Their dorm was certainly imposing enough - the architecture looked as though it were trying to say 'peons away with you!'. She snorted. Stealthily, she picked her way to his room, slinking into the shadows more out of habit than necessity. Hollandaise's hand raised, her fingers poised to drum out a cheery tap tap tap on his door, but she hesitated. What if he wasn't in? What if he was? Hollandaise's hand dropped to dangle listlessly at her side before twisting in her clothing with a small creak.

Her eyes glowed as she looked down at the sacrificial plant. She could sense a vague apprehension curling along its spines and she tried to send it encouraging thoughts. It could grow, be happy here, if Zar tried hard enough. And if he did not, she hoped he would at least re-home the poor thing before it expired. It was good, she thought, that plants had an innate understanding of their own mortality and how death could blow his hot breath across them any minute, withering them. While they would mutter out their shock and dismay over a sudden death, it was muted, a sort of odd acceptance coating even the most violent of plant deaths. Plants were stronger than most creeple gave them credit for, Hollandaise mused. With one last push of reassurance, she knelt and set the cactus down carefully near his door. Hollandaise stood and stared at Zar's door for long moments, playing absently with the end of her long braid. A door opened down the hall and she jerked, quickly skittering out of the demon dorms before anyone could ask why she was there.

When Zar decided to look, he would find that tiny cactus waiting patiently by his door, just enough off to the side that the swinging door had no danger of toppling it. Hollandaise had carefully written Zar's name in large block letters on the cactus' pot, followed by a simplistic drawing of a flower. A third-grader could've done a better drawing, but at least the lettering was bold and very precise. The cactus, if watered correctly (and she had decided to give him this type specifically because it was an extremely hardy species), would flower all over in the most brilliant purple blossoms. Its twin would stay in her room, perfectly safe and in no danger of no being loved. Zar's cactus might have to be very brave. Underneath the clay pot was several pieces of plain, white paper, folded and stapled into a pamphlet. The same neat handwriting covered the guide. For lack of a better idea, Hollandaise had written a comprehensive how-to that she hoped even an idiot could follow. The title peeked just out from under the cactus.

How To Love Your Plant As Much As It Loves You: A Guide

One the very last page of the pamphlet, there was a note, still written in the same meticulous font although it was in a different color of ink - clearly an afterthought. "Do not kill this cactus or else" It was worth noting that 'or else' was underlined no less than three times. It was unclear exactly what the 'or else' meant; Hollandaise certainly could not take Zar on in another fight and expect to win.