336. Observing flora, 8

(Rose)

We're repairing our domain, overall only dusty, not really damaged.

This odd kind of erosion opened the earth in deep cuts here and there, releasing spores we never encountered before. A little everywhere something new began to ground. In and far outside our field as well, it grew wildly, not just a little.

This plant was thin, almost like grass, a tall grass. It carried rapidly a few pods like half the bells from lilies of the valley. Same colour also overall, a pale pink or orange sometime.

These spots of flowers that just escaped the earth where they lied buried blossomed wildly for a few days. Not only in the city, but inside the woods and mountainous valleys as well. They all sparkled with spots of bloom.

There was also a faint sweet scent covering the area while it lasted, like the announcing of a new season.

Surrounding the monstrosity of vegetables covering our field, like a giant maze-like chimera we still have, these earth lilies bloomed in a monstrous form as well over the days.

They bloomed further, growing more scarce but bigger things. They blossomed this next step of their metamorphosis into something that resembles these giant Mexican cactus flowers. The ones that looked like monsters already. I don't know their name. Only that these static tentacles looked like they could just softly go around your ankle and suddenly pull you in. And then the flower would eat you.

I don't think this plant I have in mind ever did that despite its look.

The ones now growing in front of us however, I'm less confident. These ones, their tentacles-like leaves of some sort, they do move, and react to our presence.

At least they don't uproot themselves to run around and chasing us for food... Yet...

Bleue and I are standing in front of a jungle of these milky looking bouquets of sharp and long leaves, already more than two metres tall.

Ana is bolder than us. She got closer. She's pecking at one, making the leaf react, shivering for a second after each poke.

I think Ana is having fun with them.

Bleue followed this bad example and began poking these things as well, with a stick though. She got similar reaction, the leaf poked begins to move faster and more randomly for a second or two, as if tickled.

R - Well, I'll go see how it looks in town. Don't get eaten, alright?

Bleue nods. Ana nods. I think they may be teasing me.

~

The city at sunset is even more beautiful than before with these flowery spots visible here and there.

Some of them grew on top of buildings as well, meaning they don't need much earth to grow.

These ones were the firsts to wither afterward though. That enormous form was the end of their life cycle.

At night, they were slightly glowing. For a moment, it could look like the city still lives on. I thought sights like that could only happen far at sea.

I doze off in that small camp we have on top of one of the tallest towers left in the city.

As morning comes, I notice a different smell in the air. Something fruitier, or more like pot-pourri.

It was the last day of this seasonal or occasional bloom. The flowers everywhere began rotting, and melting.

They completely liquefied as they die, leaving nothing behind. Their water evaporates, their seeds probably sipping deep into the ground I would guess, waiting for next time.

And the perfume that covered the city for a short while changed into something slightly stronger for a while.

All day long, this slightly more intoxicating sweet smell lingered in the air, flowing in wafts as the flowers disappeared in a matter of hours. It was quite fugitive in the end.

In our main field, as I returned there, I noticed two things. First that both Ana and Blume got sick trying to eat them. They were not edible. Bleue welcomed me back with a spurt of vomit.

It turns out even pretty little flower and massive weird looking plants can be quite toxic. She just ate a little piece of it to try, but now her whole body was shivering and expelling everything out of her stomach in shock.

Ana was only slightly better. She didn't eat them, but just pecking them with her beak, she got enough poison on her to fall sick as well.

The other thing I noticed was a few of the monstrous late stages were still there, but now completely static. They changed around here.

These ones weren't perfumed like all the other ones that had now vanished. But perhaps they reacted to that smell of death for their kind, and something around our domain that helped. Maybe not death, but the end of a cycle in their life style probably.

I helped my poor blue birds get clean from the toxins and to recover.

They remained in bed for the whole day and morrow, shivering and cold.

I didn't scold them, though they ought to have known better.

I was poking them afterward. They hated it.

~

Two days later, the remaining giant ones melted away as well and vanished as if they had never been there.

Their melting soup was exhaling the same sweet and strong perfume of rotting flowers.

It was making me feel dizzy just smelling it, but I scooped some of it and sealed it in a jar.

I'm sure there's an alchemist whom someday might find a use for it.

~