Harper slouched deeper into her chair, one hand scrolling aimlessly on her phone while the other drummed on the edge of her desk. Her TikTok feed was a blur of perfectly curated dances, aesthetic recipes, and painfully chipper influencers—none of it sparking the big idea she desperately needed.

Her manager’s voice echoed in her head: “You’ve tried everything, Harper. Trends, collabs, even that disastrous plant vlog. What your audience needs is something new—something real. Find a smaller creator, someone fresh, and shake things up.”

Harper huffed, dropping her phone on the desk with a soft thud. “Something real,” she muttered under her breath, spinning lazily in her chair. It wasn’t that she hated social media—far from it. But lately, the pressure to stay on top felt suffocating, like she was playing a character instead of just... existing.

She picked up her phone again, groaning as she reopened the app. After a few more swipes, her thumb froze over a video: a soft montage of delicate hands arranging wildflowers in a sunlit studio. The caption read, “Finding magic in the little things.”

The creator was a small account, barely scraping a few thousand followers, but something about the warm, unfiltered charm of the video tugged at Harper’s attention. The creator’s handle was simple: @CottageDriedLavender. She tapped on the profile.

The videos were a mix of soft, witchy vibes and cosy artistry—paintbrushes dipped in pastels, sunlight filtering through hanging herbs, and the occasional glimpse of the creator herself: a girl with wavy hair, a shy smile, and a flower crown that looked like it had been plucked straight from a fairytale.

Harper smirked. “Well, you’re definitely different,” she murmured. Scrolling through a few more posts, she caught a snippet of the girl’s voice, light and lilting, as she explained the meaning of colours in her latest painting.

It wasn’t her usual type of content, but maybe that was the point. The charm of it felt oddly magnetic, like an antidote to the endless, overproduced noise she’d been drowning in.

Her thumb hovered over the message button. For a split second, Harper hesitated. Would this even work? Could her polished, high-energy brand mesh with someone this... soft?

She shrugged and clicked, typing out a quick message before she could overthink it: “Hey, love your vibe. Want to collab?”

The moment she hit send, Harper leaned back in her chair, a slow grin spreading across her face. Whether it was a stroke of genius or a potential disaster, at least it was something new.