Flower Power (15) : Destiny City has erupted with colorful wildflowers, both beautiful to look at and surprisingly fragrant. The aroma is incredibly alluring, and it's difficult not to be tempted to get a closer whiff. As expected, it smells even more amazing up close, and immediately after inhaling the aroma, colors seem brighter. Lights appear softer. The world takes on a warm, dreamlike quality where everything feels just a little more magical. Some describe glowing trails of light, shifting colors, or patterns that seem to move when they aren't looking directly at them. Others find themselves unusually cheerful, creative, or sociable. Unfortunately, not every experience is pleasant. What begins as a pleasant daydream can quickly become overwhelming, and the same flowers that inspire wonder in one person may leave another feeling confused, anxious, or trapped in an unpleasant hallucination. The effects always fade with time, maybe a few minutes, maybe a few hours, but no one seems quite sure why these flowers have such unusual properties. If you're the type to stop and smell the roses--be careful.
Blarney was all-too familiar with the strange happenings that tended to pop up during the summer months. It was, after all, right around this time that he had Awoken, and what a world he had Awakened into. He'd already dealt with more murder chickens - he'd been so hoping those would not be repeat guests - but this was...different. This was new. New was...good? Sorta? Maybe?
Well, he didn't know if it was good or not yet, and that was what he was investigating. That was what he'd called Joy for help with, just in case, like, all the flowers came alive and tried to chomp his ankles or something. He was stronger now than he'd been as a Page, but he still wasn't strong enough. He wasn't a Knight, not yet, but Joy was probably the most powerful person he'd met, and if anyone could cut angry evil flowers down to size, it'd be her.
So he'd picked up a pretty blue Starcharm on his way downtown, and now stood a little ways away from the field of flowers, studying them. People wandered in and out of it, always with a dreamy look on their face upon exit, but they did leave, which Blarney took as a good sign. They weren't being trapped there or anything, which made Blarney think that it probably wasn't stone-cold evil or anything. But still. You could never be too careful.
Plus, he missed Joy. It had been forever since he'd seen her, and it'd been a long time since she'd pounded some sense into him. He felt pretty confident overall at the moment, which probably meant that he was missing something, and if there was anyone who could point out how to do better, it'd be Joy.
rejam
Posted: Tue Jul 07, 2026 5:53 pm
Juliette06
She arrived, as she nearly always did, looking as thought she was simultaneously performing some royal ceremony and also as though she was doing you some sort of personal favor by being there. She did, however, do Blarney the service of smiling her dimpled smile at him, apparently genuinely pleased to see him. She stopped just far enough away to avoid being ambushed by an unwanted hug, and was kind enough to make it seem like she was instead stopping there for completely unrelated reasons, as if the view she now took over the field was somehow just slightly better there than anywhere else.
She looked far too bundled up for the weather, of course, but the uniforms had their magic, and so she was as cool and composed as anyone could ever expect her to be, her cheeks only as rosy as they ever were, and she turned her quick dark eye over the scene.
"Well?" she prompted after a moment, dispensing with a greeting. "This is theoretically our domain, right?" she added drily, thumbing the emblem on her shoulder. Earth and nature. Right.
Blarney couldn't help the beaming smile that erupted on his face as Joy sauntered up. There was really no other word for it other than sauntering, because that was how Joy moved through the world - like she owned the room, even when 'the room' was the entire outdoor aspect of Destiny City. He loved that about her. Someday he hoped he'd absorb a fraction of her confidence.
"That's what I was thinkin'," Blarney said. "But I don't think these are...regular normal flowers." Blarney wrinkled his nose slightly. "I don't know that they're evil flowers, but they're definitely...weird flowers." Stop saying the word 'flowers' so much, Blarney, you absolute weirdo. He'd known her for a year, and she still made him feel like a rambly baby.
"If you want I can go in first, make sure there's nothing...bad," Blarney offered. "That way if I get yoinked to some flowery anti-space you can come save me?" Blarney gave her a winning grin. "Unless you'd rather be the one getting potentially yoinked and you trust me to come do the saving." This was so obviously a joke that Blarney couldn't help the little chuckle that escaped him: the idea of him ever saving Joy, of all people, from anything more deadly than a hangnail was laughable.
rejam
Posted: Tue Jul 07, 2026 6:38 pm
Juliette06
]
She obviously shared the opinion that this was ridiculous, giving him a stare that was witheringly full of pity.
"Well," she said briskly, gathering up her skirts in one hand to - yes - saunter forth among the flowers, "let's see what stupid bullshit Destiny City is up to this year, shall we, and whether it has teeth."
Having thus clearly established by look if not word that she did not intend on following Blarney anywhere, she swept past him and into the field, kicking a few blooms experimentally.
"Define bad, though," she said mildly. "I'm sure some people would call my flowers bad, too, but not everyone would agree with that."
In fairness, most of the disagreement would be coming from a dead man who was not in a position to share this opinion and would probably have died a second time if he'd been compelled to share it. But he couldn't possibly have been alone. Not for the first time she thought of the maid-senshi with a twinge of something between disgust and pride.
"What about your flowers?" Blarney asked, hurrying to catch up with her - leave it to Joy to choose option C from an A or B decision. "Are you a gardener, or--"
And then she kicked the flowers, sending a giant pwoof of some kind of pollen directly into Blarney's face. He made an undignified sort of noise and pawed at his nose not unlike a dog that had swallowed a bug, blinked rapidly, and failed to hold in the heroic sneeze that burst forth from his face. The only saving grace was that he did not actually sneeze on Joy - that would've been a horror from which he never recovered.
"W-what kind of fl-fl-HA-CHOO!" Blarney said, the end of his sentence buried by another sneeze, which actually sent him stumbling back a step or two. This movement naturally kicked up more pollen, and he was starting to feel light-headed. "I think I'm--I'm--" Blarney groaned rubbed his nose, rubbed his eyes, groaned again.
"I don't think I like these flowers."
rejam
Posted: Tue Jul 07, 2026 7:44 pm
Juliette06
She watched him, her (mild) consternation giving way to indulgent spectating when he did not immediately begin projectile vomiting blood or falling to the ground or erupting into sudden violence or any of the other horrible things her mind briefly conjured up.
She herself not being a person afflicted with allergies - and, being Joy, considering it something of a fundamental weakness of will to be in such a state, as if a more focused, firm denial of histamines might be all such a person really needed to deliver themselves from water-hearted suffering - she did something very unwise, stooping to pluck an especially-pretty blossom and lifting it to her nose.
There was a brief moment. She turned her eyes towards the distant road - perhaps looking for the source of some sound - and then back towards Blarney, her expression a little strange.
"I see," she said at last, dropping the flower. She waved her hand absently before her eyes.
"Well," she added, her voice a little blurry, "I'm normally, like, in the woods with a bunch of solo cups for this. I sure hope it wears off faster than all that. I have work." And then, her eyes managing a shadow of their usual sharp focus as she looked back at him, "How do you normally do for this? Do we need a trip sitter?" This, with some disgust at the idea of having to inconvenience herself on short notice for such a stupid thing. "This ******** city."
"What are you--" another semi-stifled sneeze, another groan, "--talking--about?" Blarney blinked at her blearily, pouting deeply when she held the flower to her nose and did not immediately become a Creature of Sneezes, as he had. He didn't even have allergies in the real world! Was it possible to only be allergic to certain kinds of magic? Ughhhh.
Man he felt weird. Woozy. He pressed a hand to his temple, trying valiantly to convince his brain not to leak out his ears, but he wasn't sure how successful he was. He needed to get out of this field. He needed to get out of this--
"...wait, what?" Blarney said, blinking at Joy slowly. "What about a babysitter?" No, she hadn't said babysitter. She'd said tripsitter. What the heck was a trip sitter? Sure, he'd stumbled a little, with the sneezing, but he hadn't tripped. Was he saying all of this out loud? Blarney frowned, trying to peer at his own mouth to see if it was moving. It did not appear to be. That was good, because he was pretty sure he was pretty stupid right now. Did allergies make you stupid?
"What's work? For you, I mean," Blarney said, shaking his head. It appeared the sneezing had - for the moment - calmed itself down, but he still felt terribly clogged and very, very confused. Which wasn't altogether unusual for him, really, but this was like he'd dunked his brain in a bowl of cotton candy. And he hadn't felt that way before...Blarney glared at the flowers. This freakin' city indeed.
rejam
Posted: Tue Jul 07, 2026 8:46 pm
Juliette06
"Hospitality," she said automatically. This was her go-to vague answer to that question. It wasn't that she was ashamed of her work - she decidedly was not - but it always led to weird and invasive questions and she was a discreet professional. And Blarney was too young. It would be weird.
"Ugh," she added after a moment, thoroughly disgusted. "But I'm not sure what we're supposed to do about a big field of psilocybin. I wonder if it works on civilians," she added, suddenly a little troubled. "That seems like it could be dangerous. There's kids around here. I feel like you're not ready for ego death til you're fifteen at least."
She then paused, her eyes wandering over the flowers in a strange sort of way.
"Well. I don't know if that's going to happen," she conceded mildly. "I actually feel mostly OK." There was, indeed, an infuriating lack of any congestion whatsoever from her direction. She gathered up her skirts again, however, to trudge back out of the field, weaving a little bit as she did so. "I hope you don't have work."
"Psycho-wha?" Blarney said, sounding pathetic and whiny to his own ears. How was Joy so smart and so cool and so awesome all the time? She knew literally everything. Maybe almost as much everything is his sister, and his sister knew everything. She'd probably know what psycho-bacteria was too, or whatever it was Joy had said.
Hey. Wait. Joy was leaving. Joy was leaving!!!
"Hey! Wait!" Blarney said, following her without a single ounce of grace. "Wait up, don't--don't leave me in the--" he paused, sneezed, groaned loudly, "in the that thing." After what felt like many, many minutes (was time going elastic, or was he?) he caught up with her and made a good deal of space between him and the flowers.
He still felt confused and stupid, but he also didn't feel like he'd be sneezing the top of his own head off, which he was pretty sure was a plus.
"...Did you threaten to kill my ego a minute ago?" Blarney asked, blinking in consternation at the other Knight. "What the heck is up with those flowers?" Blarney glared at them again, now that they were a safe distance away and he didn't feel like he might float away and/or sink into the ground. "I do not like those flowers, Miss Joy. They're--" Blarney rubbed at his nose, clearly ego-wounded, if not ego-dead, "they're mean flowers."
rejam
Posted: Tue Jul 07, 2026 9:03 pm
Juliette06
She turned to him, giving her head a little shake, and squinted at him in disbelief for a long moment before reaching out and patting his cheek in, it must be said, a somewhat condescending way.
"Were you raised on one of those Christian communes or something? You have got to get out and experience the world. Maybe I really should send you out with Maus one of these days," she added vaguely, and a little darkly. She paused, adding with an increase of cheer: "Ah. Short-lived, I think. Well. I'm not really sure how we're supposed to deal with this one. Seems like a job for the city and some guys with caution tape."
Perhaps it was the surprise of Physical Contact With Miss Joy, or perhaps it was just that the flowers and their evil ways were actually short-lived, but whatever the reason, Blarney did feel more clear after that little pat. Like she'd shared some of her non-allergic-to-magic-ness with him.
"I wasn't raised in any kind of commune," he said with a huff, crossing his arms indignantly over his chest. He shook his head and sighed, staring back out at the flowers. "For whatever it's worth, I watched a bunch of people - civilians and otherwise - go in and out of here earlier. Nobody else acted like they suddenly forgot how lungs worked or anything. Most people seemed...happy. Chill." Blarney sighed and shook his head again, and turned his attention back to Miss Joy.
"...Speaking of dealing with things and...communes, maybe," he said, reaching and failing to find a better segue, which he would blame firmly still on the evil flowers, "I did want to ask you a question. Have you heard of brigades? Of Knights? Do you know what that is?"
rejam
Posted: Tue Jul 07, 2026 9:35 pm
Juliette06
"I will assume that you don't mean the usual kind of brigade," she said, with a gradual return of her usual briskness as she absently shook out her sleeves. "So no, I haven't."
She fixed him with a stern glance, her dark eyes like little crucifying nails. "You had better not be about to rope me into some sort of obligation."
"I would never," he said quickly. And that was true - not only did Halle make it clear that the people involved had to want to work together, but he knew Joy pretty fairly well by this point. He wouldn't dream of inviting her to something that may or may not amount to little more than (horrified gasp) a group project.
(Would he be mad if she decided to join up? Not at all. He'd be thrilled, in fact. He'd crow about it to his sister for possibly the rest of time. But he wasn't expecting anything, because expecting unlikely things only led to disappointment.)
"So a friend of mine, a Knight of Lysithea, he and a few other Knights all kind of joined up together to fight off this guy," Blarney began, feeling his confidence and stability return the more he spoke (and the farther they got from the stupid flowers). "I don't know the details, that doesn't matter, but what does matter is that they unlocked a sorta, like, group power? Like a group attack, sort of? And it did mega damage. And, even cooler than that, they figured out they had a sort of, like, magically customized home-base sort of situation? Like a headquarters? That had all the stuff they needed, so they could meet there and plan and work and stuff. Like a Wonder but for multiple people," he said, excitement growing in spite of himself as he spoke.
"So we were talking, my friend and I, and like--how that can solve so many problems. A bunch of Knights working to get something done - they're bound to get something done, right? So we're trying to figure out how to make a brigade but make it more...intentionally, if that makes sense? Like, now that we know it's possible to do, we want to figure out how it's done, and what you get from it. I really want a way to help out Pages, like how you helped me, but like - more, and more organized. So that's part of it, like making a safety net all across town to catch random flailing Pages that might need help. But there's more, too, that we want to do, aside from that and aside from just figuring out, like, the logistics and data behind the thing."
Blarney was rambling, because when Blarney got excited, he rambled. He shut his mouth, a light blush creeping across his cheeks, over his nose.
"Sorry. I just - I wondered if you'd heard anything about that. Or had any ideas of how to...make it and make it a good thing? I'm--Halle sort of--I'm kind of in charge of it," Blarney said, the blush spreading to his ears, down his neck. Absently, he scratched at the back of his neck, caught somewhere between pride and embarrassment. "But there's no it to be in charge of yet and I don't want to--I can't let people down about this, y'know what I mean? This could be a real thing, like, a really good thing that could help people and if I screw it up because I don't know enough or didn't ask enough questions..."
rejam
Posted: Tue Jul 07, 2026 9:57 pm
Juliette06
There had been a flickering of recognition at the name Halle, but as it came mid-stammer she'd let it go. She did not, however, address it right away, instead walking in silence for a moment.
"It's all good to do your research," she said at last, "but if anyone around knows how to do that, they're too s**t at it to give you any good advice. Or else you wouldn't need to do it, because it would already exist."
She was just kind enough not to tell him that it was a project she would not touch with a ten foot pole, recoiling inwardly from the very idea. She reacted to it in much the same way she reacted to the idea of righteous murder: someone should be doing it, and it was embarrassing and maddening that someone wasn't, and that someone absolutely would not be her. It was bad enough to be saddled with Maus, feeling reluctantly compelled to care for him; that night he'd crashed on her couch in visible tears had made her feel stupid and incompetent, unable to be for him whatever it was that he needed, and it was not a feeling she was inclined to court. It went against her ideas of herself.
It took him a few long moments to untangle what she'd said. Either he was still dumb from flowers or he was just - dumb. He wasn't sure which was worse.
"You're right," he finally said, nodding once to himself. "Whatever we do figure out about this thing, we need to share it with the rest of the Knight population at large, so other people can make their own brigades, if they want." That was a good idea; it seemed obvious, now that she'd pointed it out, but that would be a good final step, once they'd learned what they needed to learn. Blarney truly hadn't thought much beyond 'get a brigade together' as any kind of last step in the process, but - you had to write it down for it to be science. Maybe they could find a way to post on the tracker thingy...
Blarney shook his head at himself and tried to refocus. Tried really hard.
"Thank you," he said, and meant it. "And thank you for not telling me it's a stupid idea that will never work," he added, with a knowing little smile. "Believe me, I know it might not. And maybe not even because of me - we don't even know if it's something we can do on purpose or if it's just something that..." Blarney waved a hand, "Happens To You, like Awakening in the first place. So..." Blarney trailed off.
"Can you do me a favor, though? If we do make it happen, and it's like - it does end up being a good thing...if you happen to run into anybody who...y'know, is like how I was. Am. Who seems like they need a..." 'family' was too strong a word, but that was what he reached for and had to think of another word instead, "...a group of people...can you give them my info? If they seem--you know, cool, or like if they pass the vibe check?" It went without saying that he trusted her judgement implicitly.
"You don't--I don't mean like, I'm not asking you to go out and recruit or anything. I mean like - literally I am giving you permission to pawn whoever you want off on me and I'll see if I can--brigade it up. Would that be okay? Just--if you happen to meet anyone who needs--who needs people."
