Compared with the other eleven provinces, my one doesn’t really have anything prominent and unique – it corresponds to a mediaeval duchy, has an average amount of municipalities, was once exploited for peat and possesses a very down-to-earth flag (as compared to the sparkling yet deep details held within Zeeland’s and Friesland’s). Characteristic of the whole nation, there’s also plenty of rivers and creeks running through this province… what’s “special” about that?

Overijssel’s blessed with these streams: much of it sits north of the IJssel, hence the name, but there are countless other rivers and creeks streaming like blood through flesh. With that much water to harness and/or drink you’d expect a floral cornucopia within fifty hands of a pony’s house. Alas! Instead of fertile soil I discovered while still young that many riverbanks were sandy and didn’t support anything but the smallest grasses. It appeared that my ancestors, previous generations, had tried and failed to resolve this conundrum, so I put it on myself to complete their quest. Wandering around sandbars and shrubs I collected samples from every “interesting” plant/flower I could find, this last word applicable to anything I hadn’t seen before – something like the operation which isolated paclitaxel decades later, just on a cuter scale.

Then I found a brilliant purple celandine with nine petals standing above its dunes; it had serrated leaves and radiated some mystical aura, with a circular zone around its base packed with flowers that elsewhere were superficial decorations to a bland beige mass. Sure, I brushed out a seed like I’d done a hundred times prior, which I let fall in my sandy garden on Enschede’s outskirts. Two days later I glimpsed a new petal set from my bedroom, at which I looked down for a second to release my excitement. Then I arrived for further examinations and collapsed on my side, hardly believing reality. That celandine had spurred germination and growth of all other specimens within my garden and on top of that turned my sandbox into a verdant garden. It was one whose magic intertwined with mine, sewing together my cutie mark from rivers, sand and grass. From then on I styled my mane and tail in the same serrated pattern of the celandine’s leaves as a charm, said flower itself later adored as the Astral Bloom.