"I had nothing to do with this!" Orion said quickly with a worried look on his face.

"Calm down. I believe you. The Mistress won't wait too long to find us anyway," Lucy said as she stared at the thorns. After a few seconds of no reply, she turned to see Orion heading back to the clearing as though in a fog. "Hey! Let's wait here."

Orion turned around at the sound of Lucy's voice, and Lucy noticed how unfocused his eyes looked. Like he was in some kind of trance. After a few quick steps, she noticed a smell that almost made her gag before D'Artagnan shielded her as a cloth covering her nose and mouth. It was the smell of roses but incredibly concentrated. Orion started to walk back to the clearing, and Lucy ran after him. No doubt it was some kind of lure. Lucy wondered why it affected Orion so differently and ran to grab him; the closer they got to the clearing the stronger the smell became.

Kneeling before the rose bush sat a girl or at least she resembled a girl. She turned with surprise to see Lucy and stared her down with cold, black eyes. Lucy tried to remember if The Mistress or her books had ever described a creature like this. The woman, or what Lucy suspected was a female of her species, had a humanoid figure with pale green skin. The thing that gave her away as some sort of plant alien was her hair. At first glance the woman seemed to have green hair with flowers in her hair, but on closer inspection Lucy noticed that the flowers were growing out of her hair. Black roses.

"Excuse me," Lucy said politely but held Orion in place. "Could you stop it… with the wall of thorns? We need to get back to our ship."

The woman tilted her head and looked Lucy up and down. A smirk appeared on her face before she answered, "I will allow you to leave but not him. You don't want him anyway. The only people affected by my roses are the lovelorn."

"Uh, how about no? I'll be leaving, and I'm taking this with me," Lucy said and grabbed Orion's arm. "Snap out of it!"

His eyes remained unfocused, but he didn't move toward the woman as long as Lucy had her hand on his arm. The woman hissed at Lucy in fury.

"Why are you interfering?! You don't even want him! I heard you two talking. Leave him to me! I'll take care of him better than you will!"

Lucy stared at the woman in fury before forcing herself to calm down enough to ask, "What's your name?"

"What?!"

"Your name?"

"You couldn't even pronounce it. I know the stink of your kind."

"Okay, well, I was trying to be civil, but now I don't care. Why don't you play this fair? You're basically drugging him to get him to come to you. Stop your nonsense, and we'll see who he chooses."

The woman bit her lip nervously and asked, "Why are you even helping him? I thought you wanted him to leave you alone."

"I do. But I'm not selfish enough to sentence him to a life of being forced to be with someone against his will," Lucy said angrily. Plus the fact that The Mistress and Lucy were supposed to be looking after him for the royal family of Fantazix, and Lucy doubted that they'd accept the fact that they'd just lost their only son.

The woman started to cry, and Lucy looked on helplessly. She was really no good at comforting people, but that seemed to be the only way out of this situation.

"You don't know how lonely it is here. People only come here for beach season. I just wanted someone to stay with me."

"Aren't there more of your kind here?"

"Maybe, but I can't move from this clearing. Every time I do, I feel sick. Please just leave him here; you already have a mistress."

"Uh, she's not that kind of mistress."

A revving sound made both Lucy and the woman's eyes go wide. Clearly, The Mistress had grown tired of waiting. The Mistress walked into the clearing holding what could only be described as a giant weed whacker. The fear of the woman seemed to cancel out whatever pheromones that she was releasing into the air as Orion grabbed onto Lucy's arm wearily.

The woman ran into the bush as The Mistress approached. Lucy walked over to the bush and held her hand up for The Mistress to stop. The Mistress gave her an odd look. Lucy ignored her glare as she knelt on the ground by the rose bush.

"Hey, Miss. She's not going to hurt you. Please come out, and maybe she can help."

The woman slowly came out of the bush and watched The Mistress in fear. But Lucy convinced her to share her woes with The Mistress. The Mistress listened, but she glared at the woman.

"And why should we help you?" The Mistress asked coldly, and Lucy gave her a reproachful look.

"You shouldn't," the woman said shamefully. "But I would like you to. Please."

After noticing Lucy's glare, The Mistress sighed and replied, "I've never heard of one of your kind being bound to a specific place. What exactly happens when you try to leave?"

"I feel nauseous, and it gets harder to breathe."

The Mistress left and came back with something in her hand. She opened her hand to reveal a small plant. At once the woman recoiled from the offending plant. The Mistress nodded as though confirming a theory.

"This isn't native to this place, and it's rather invasive. It can cause symptoms in your kind. All we need to do is clear a path. You were right to ask me for help. Lesser people wouldn't have noticed it."

Lucy shot her a dirty look before she said with a grin, "Well, isn't that good news? You can find it then."

The Mistress scowled, but she went to work doing "servants' chores" as Lucy tended to Orion.