this one’s for u Miranda

Based on Rhyme‘s flower!

Based on Huli‘s flower!

I didn’t think that making a design in the Puddle was accepted as creativity so I wrote a story based on the design I made for Fishie‘s flower.
^{Sorry Fishie, I got swamp monster vibes from your flower, forgive me if I got it wrong…}

It came from nowhere, and everywhere at once. Jordan was enjoying the moment up until he realized it was there, watching him. He’d come to the edge of the swamp—well, a little bit into the swamp, not too far—only wishing for some quiet. The swamp was a different sort of quiet. It sang, it whispered. It croaked and swished, and it positively lived, but it was quiet. There was little to no visions of the wealth of society, no creaking habitats for people too jammed by the dozens into their homes. There was only the silence of people, and the life of the swamp.

That’s why he didn’t realize it was there until it was right up on him. The light was waning, which was not to mean the darkness was coming right away. Jordan still had hours to go before the true twilight descended. The gloominess pervaded, however, in the thickness of the flora that choked every space of the swamp, and being that Jordan had traversed a bit—well, a good way into the swamp—he couldn’t complain when it surrounded him in a grey, green shimmer. The shimmer, of course, was the fog, which seemed to glow with life as it always did. Today was a gloomy day, and the gloom quite literally shone with a sort of spark of something, Jordan mused. A spark of life? The animals and bugs would be obvious proof of that. A spark of death? That too, in the green, dark water, or the little bones of a rodent half-buried in the long-abandoned nest in the little ruined bush that Jordan had chosen to sit next to. The fog carried it all, and the swamp made the fog, so the swamp positively choked its visitors with all the pervasive presence of itself.

Jordan was a romantic. He always had been. As he sat, digging his heels into the dirt, almost black as the smudges on his boots, he stared into the water picking out the occasional fish scale glint from within the weeds. The water was as green and brown as the fish it hid, and he often delighted in trying to sketch them before they disappeared beneath the sheen of mud kicked up toward the surface by their burrowing. Jordan liked to watch the fish, and catalogue the lizards. He liked to listen to the amphibious cries of the others, often frogs but not always. So entranced was he by the life of the swamp, he easily forgot what the swamp was not.

What it was not, was right behind him. What he had forgotten, was that the swamp was not the realm of men, hidden from the night in their shacks of wooden boards and metal hinges, and lanterns outside that swayed in the breeze that drifted the fog toward the town. As the pre-twilight darkness surrounded him, Jordan failed to remember the stories his mother and aunts had told him, rife with tales of demons and screams in the night that seemed to pierce the heart of the town in an otherworldly waver without a single reverberating echo. He’d forgotten what he had felt when his sister had clambered up onto the bed with him when they were still young enough to believe in such stories. He forgot what had shaken him to his core when he felt her shivering at his side when they spent two sleepless nights listening to the stray dogs howling from deep within the swamp, miles away. He had left those nights of childish fear behind, and he had grown to love the swamp with a romantic and scientific curiousity which made fools of doctors and writers, men like Jordan, who fancied himself a scholar of his home’s wilder neighbors. He’d grown up and forgotten the lack of heroes in his town’s history. The only stories he’d heard were of death and disappearances, things that made his grown heart laugh and pretend that the names of the missing ones of the past were only those who had failed to learn the topography of the swamp before attempting to travel it. He did not understand why kids still cowered with the whispers of swamp monsters and illnesses that took people away to the swamp, or why his aunt still bothered him with that old wive’s tale of losing memory in the swamp. He would laugh it away, and attempt to impress her with the new illness he’d learned about in his medical textbook that week. Dementia, surely, not swamp shenanigans!

Jordan was too deep in thought to care at the fact he would not ever be alone here. Indeed, he counted on the fact that all around him were creatures of varying sizes, shapes, and colors—if by varying colors any could count greens and browns and blacks as different—he was never alone here. His pencil scratched a likeness of a frog, it was cute in an almost normal way so different from most of the things that dwelled here. If he had been less focused, he might have noticed that the frog was also abnormally still for its kind. Without a nearby food source, it should have fled from him, so loud was the hiss of his pencil eking out its picture onto the rough paper in Jordan’s sketchbook. It should have known he would be a threat, as did all of the living things here, but then, Jordan should have known there could be threats worse than him in this place. Still, he tried to capture the ground beneath his temporary friend, a small smile peeking out from beneath his glasses.

When finally the frog moved, it was too late for them both. As he put the finishing touch on one last attempt at the weed that the frog sat beside, Jordan felt something cold behind him and in surprise, he jabbed his pencil down. This made the lead snap, which jolted the little frog out of its stillness, and it retreated into the further side of the bush, closer to the water. A quiet swear escaped Jordan, already distracting him from what had startled him in the first place. Unknowingly, he leaned back into the cold draft. Little by little, he forgot even that feeling, and around him, the fog settled.

It was thicker than usual, though he did not care to note that. The world seemed greener, and for a moment, it seemed as though the hours of semi-daylight he had looked forward to had descended from their place in time to leave him nothing but a failing twilight. The fog was almost thick enough to touch, but Jordan was having a hard time focusing on touching anything. He couldn’t remember why he’d sworn, why his pencil was still clutched against his paper, why he was here. The fog was too thick to see the difference between land and water.

As the thought slowly arrived that he realized he’d been sitting for far too long with no real reason to be doing such a thing, Jordan shook his head in a vain attempt to focus himself. He leaned over to push himself up off of the damp ground, but when he leaned his hand down to touch the stiff mud there was—there was nothing. The fog was there, sure, but where there should have been ground beneath the fog, he could feel nothing. A frown was not enough to convey his confusion, but Jordan couldn’t think much to do anything else. He tried wobbling to his knees, but nothing seemed to heed him. His legs didn’t brace him from falling, his elbows couldn’t find the bush he’d sat himself next to hours before. His head after a long moment couldn’t figure out if he was even sitting or standing anymore. Jordan flailed as best he could for some sign that he hadn’t fallen asleep and slipped down into the swamp water, but his lungs failed to show him that. He had almost given in to the sharp pang of panic that was rising in his chest when he saw—or, rather, felt—the green fearsome eyes that lurked at the edge of his vision. Grass seemed to shift in invisible currents behind him, and he was just conscious enough of the enclosing view of it coming forward, around, and above him, before he realized what he was seeing. Was it the swamp? Manifest, a being of the swamp itself? He couldn’t harbor enough energy to guess, but he did understand that it was taking him. It had been the bringer of these feelings, this loss of ability to move, to think, to remember.

At least, he thought with a last effort of will before he lost even that, at last, I was able to see it before… Before? He felt the green tendrils encircle him, pieces of plant, or hair, or… what was that? A deep green tinge had arrived in the fog around him, a wrongness he couldn’t name, nor put any fear toward. He couldn’t help but to pull away, but it was in front of and behind him and all around him. It was everywhere, and nowhere in particular at once, and he felt helpless. The water was rising, or perhaps he was sinking. Leaves fluttered and crackled like wings, eyes staring him down, down.

And then, Jordan forgot even to think, and the swamp collected him along with its caretaker back into its depths.

Inspired by Blemy‘s flower

“Don’t eat the berries!” Deanna shrieked, her paws coming up fast to snatch at Cherise’s mouth. She had only meant to bat at Cherise’s paw, but instead she hit her harder than she expected and the pawful of berries scattered across the ground beside the two of them. One of the delicate berries had smeared across Cherise’s face, staining the beige fur of her cheek a deep crimson.

“Oh, Cher—!” Deanna started, but she couldn’t even finish her name before the other ineki’s face was scrunching up in anger. Deanna struggled to find the words to explain that she was only worried about her friend’s safety, but Cherise was already tearing up.

“You’re the worst, Dea!” Cherise exclaimed, throwing her other pawful of berries at Deanna and twirling around. “The worst!”

Deanna could only watch helplessly as Cherise stomped off, swatting at the bush with one paw before she went, a shower of dark berries splattering at Deanna’s feet. She could only frown. She hadn’t meant to make Cherise mad, or frustrate her at all today. After all, it had been Cherise’s plan to go check out the new mysterious outcropping of berry bushes beyond the bend in the cavern. Nothing new grew in their area of the cave, ever, and Deanna was helpless to stop Cherise’s excited chattering as she had run over all the possibilities of this strange berry bush. The night before, the air had felt so full of magic these past couple of weeks, surely that was why. But what kind of magic? And what kind of bush was this?

The air was as thick with gossip as it had been with magic, but Deanna had at least gotten Cherise’s compliance in asking the local doctor what sort of plant it was. She had waved the kids onward, saying she didn’t know, and warning them about the possibility of poisonous plants. Cherise had only half-listened, but Deanna had listened with renewed concern. What if the plants started to overgrow their part of the cavern and overtook the whole of the settlement? When she explained her worry to Cherise later in the morning, her friend had laughed at her, then dragged her all the way past the wide bend in the tunnel that took them to where the berry bushes had appeared to investigate together.

She had explicity warned Cherise not to touch them until the doctor or Cherise’s mother at least had gotten a chance to check out the bushes. They weren’t supposed to play around strange oddities, seeing as their part of the Cave had always been a little suspiciously magical. Cherise’s mother was an adventurer, so Deanna thought her friend would know not to eat them, but then Cherise went and tried to do just that!

“Oh, fine!” Deanna grunted after Cherise, watching her tail disappear beyond the bend in the tunnel before she planted her own paws on her hips and frowned. She huffed in justified frustration for a moment before she realized with a start that she’d been the one to smash the berry onto Cherise’s face, and that meant.

“Oh, ew!”

Deanna pulled her paw up to see that she had just smeared the berry juice all over her own hip. By the looks of it, the juice probably stained. It had given Deanna a sort of tingling warmth in her paw when she smacked Cherise, but she hadn’t thought about whether it was from pushing a little too hard, or from the berry itself. Either way, she had to clean herself up if she wanted to go find Cherise and apologize.

Deanna searched for something to wipe the berry juice off of for a long moment, but she really did not want to ruin anymore of her clothing. She turned about, hatching the bright idea to wipe her paw off with a leaf, if she could find a big enough one, when she happened to look farther into the berry bush. It was a huge thing, large, deep green flowers that faded to a tan-ish golden green near the base of the bush. The berries were a beautiful deep pink-red, with dark speckles on the larger ones. How a bush larger than her by a head and a half with her standing on her hind legs had sprouted overnight, complete with ripe, sweet-smelling berries, she couldn’t imagine—but then, strange things were never as strange in their part of the Cave.

As she looked into the bush, she saw an odd scrap of cloth caught in an inside branch, jagged edges tangled around a particularly large stem that boasted a sickly green flower bud. It almost looked as if it had been caught on the bush when the bush was growing, perhaps it had been left there overnight and the bush had snagged it as it exploded from the magic in the ground? Deanna was perplexed, but she reached out and tore what she could from the bush to wipe the berry juice onto it. As she did, she leaned in to the bush to reach the stem. The closer to the bush she got, the stronger the sweet smell was, and Deanna was reminded of that sweet berry pie that her mother had made last festival. The berries sure did look a lot like the ones her mother had used, and the smell, well the smell was fantastic.

When she was finished wiping her paw, Deanna took a moment to get a closer look at the flower bud. It was an odd thing, to be there in the middle of all of the bush while the bush was just now growing berries. Didn’t plants berry, and then flower, or maybe one or the other? Or did they flower and then form berries? Deanna tried to follow along with science things, but she’d never had a good mind for it even if she listened to everything the teacher said. She did know, at least, that this one weird, sad looking bud looked very out of place amidst the rest of the bush. It was almost as if it was there only by magic, but why? That would make sense enough at least, knowing the bush got here by weird magic anyway, but it almost looked like that bud that her mother had shown her when they had traveled to the Sacred Tree a year or two ago. The bud before her was wrapped in layers, just like the one on the Sacred Tree, though it did have a worse look than any sprout bud she’d seen that time. She wanted so bad to reach out and touch it, but that would be almost as bad as if Cherise had eaten the berries. But if she had taken the scrap of cloth from the stem, what harm was there in touching the flower bud?

Realizing she was being silly, Deanna shook her head and took a wide step back from the bush. Maybe the magic was playing with her head. She could almost imagine Cherise’s outrage when she realized that Deanna had stayed behind and investigated the strange bush alone! The thought made Deanna laugh, but then she realized how guilty she would feel if Cherise did get mad at her. She might as well try to make up for upsetting her.

Deanna cast her thoughts about to try to figure out how to make up with her best friend. Maybe if she brought some of the berries with her! They could bring them together to the doctor, who could see if they were really dangerous or not. She would need berries that weren’t all squished and sad, though. Deanna smiled to herself and stared into the bush, looking for the biggest and plumpest berries to take, fresher than the ones she had knocked from her friend’s hand.

After a long moment of searching, Deanna found a small cluster of gorgeous, plump berries farther in than the scrap of cloth had been. Leaning in, Deanna reached to take the nice, big one in the center, but she reached a bit too far before she lost her balance. Tumbling forward, Deanna fell face first into the cluster of berries, realizing with horror that she smushed the entire bunch with her weight. It was silly, just silly, of her to do such a thing, and now she was sprawled all over the bush’s tangled stems with the berry juice all over her! Now, the smell was overpoweringly strong and sweet. Deanna chastised herself again and again, but maybe now she’d really forgive Deanna seeing what she’d gone and done to herself. She would forget about the berries and extricate herself as-is from the bush, and they would both get a laugh from Deanna’s horrid, stained appearance.

Except, the smell was very strong. It was so, so very sweet, and Deanna couldn’t help herself but to sniff it. It was so much like her mother’s berry pie. She had forgotten to ask what the pie was made out of, but if the berries she had used then smelled so incredibly much like these, well, maybe they might be similar? Or, they might even be the same!

Deanna couldn’t think straight with the strong, sweetness almost overpowering her. She was, after all, covered in berry from face to chest. Maybe she got berry up her nose. She snorted with laughter at that thought, and shifted in an attempt to find a way to climb out of the bush, but just as she found a branch that seemed sturdy enough to grab, her paw came across a rather large berry all on its own. It was such a pretty, deep color. The thought crossed her mind in a flash that she might as well try eating one. Since she was covered in it, she couldn’t say that anything bad had happened to her other than maybe not being able to get the stain out later. She would probably bear the shame of her clumsiness for days and many washes. One berry couldn’t hurt, could it? It smelled so good, after all. It was so like her mother’s berry pie that had been so sweet she had eaten three slices in a row.

Slowly, Deanna’s paw reached out of its own accord and plucked the berry, bringing it to her mouth. She barely paused before she popped it into her mouth. Cherise would be mad, so she wouldn’t tell a soul she ate one. Why, it was understandable if she simply tasted it by accident! She fell into the bush! She fell into the bush.

It was a sweet sensation, and a little… blurry. Deanna’s wonderment turned into confusion as she struggled to make sense of the sensation she felt. The sweetness was there; that cloying, strong scent translated into a fierce taste in her mouth, but there was also a stinging numbness that threatened to cover her tongue. As she chewed, then swallowed, she tried to blink away the buzziness she felt in her mouth, her head, her paw.

Deanna wondered idly if she had made a mistake, but the deed was done, and she shifted to once again struggle her way out of the bush. She struggled a lot, for it was a large bush, full of tangling branches and all sorts of false openings. Just when she felt she had found a loose path out, she fell back in a struggle. Deanna just couldn’t get free. She wondered almost if the bush were trying to keep her in, or maybe—maybe she was just really, really bad at getting out. The berry scent and taste hadn’t abated. It was everywhere, and Deanna was almost sick with the sweetness of it. It kind of hurt, now, to struggle her way out of the bush, so she leaned back and took a breath, but the breath kind of hurt, too. The sweetness was so much, and the taste just would not go away.

Ah, well, if she was feeling a bit sick, she might as well rest a bit before she tried again. Deanna let her head rest back against the tangle of branches behind her and let the scent of the berries overcome her. It was a nice sweetness, still, even if it was too much. Everything was too much. Deanna let her eyes close. The sweetness was so very strong. It was hard not to just, relax. So Deanna relaxed.

—

Hours later, Cherise dragged her mother and Deanna’s mother to where she’d last seen Deanna, but curiously, they found nothing but two flowers on an otherwise empty berry bush. Some berries had been stomped into the dirt below the bush, but beyond those, there was nothing else to suggest the bush had seen a visitor. Except, upon closer inspection, Cherise found a bit of berry-stained cloth wrapped around the stem of the larger flower, which was a beautiful and deep pink-tinted red.

Amidst the black blinks golden sight
Eerie bright against the gray
Night that holds a darkened promise
Drawn up in demon ink
To keep the light within your gaze
Submit your soul to sink

Based on nope‘s flower! It’s so cool, and made think of demons and deals, huehue!

(don’t know if this is even long enough to count, but I had fun with it!)

In the intangible world of a dream,
anything is possible.
Within an indigo sky full of stars that gleam,
there’s a sight that would be impossible.

In the middle of a celestial whirlpool,
is a whale, diving into a sea of cloud.
The shimmering eye resembles a jewel,
and the shining tail would gather a crowd.

As the azure whale dived down,
the iridescent clouds parted to make way.
The clouds reflected alluring colors that shined around.
This beauty could make anyone feel okay.

If only this wasn’t a dream,
Because this sky is truly supreme.

Open for all

Based on the above flower

Based on DeepRiver1995‘s flower

JustTopaz‘s flower two!

Tropical Midnight

Based on Tamako‘s Flower #1

Based on Eluii‘s Flower #1

Flower 2 from Huli

The colors gave me a punky, futuristic vibe!

Based off Heather‘s first flower!

based off Plaid‘s first flower!! it was just so cute!!

theyre supposed to also have lil white zig zags on the dandelion petals but i bit off more than i could chew and borked it up…. im not very experienced w markers as u can imagine!! i hope u still like them!