[christine,]

___________________________________________________________

username:: Spottedsong
name:: Persephone
gender:: Female
garden::
“I like to think that my garden is a door to an oasis in this rather dry, dead area.” The kal blinked, a
shy smile tugging at the corners of her lips. “And I do mean that quite literally. It’s a sort of greenhouse.
It was here when I moved in, but it needed a green thumb like mine in order to flourish. Even the air
seemed dead before I arrived” Her dry, calloused, dirt-roughened hands push open the door and immediately
envelops everyone in a humid, fragrant air. There’s not much colour, but the greenery fills your vision, distinct
even in the moonlight that envelops you both.
“Don’t be fooled. These aren’t flowers. I don’t do flowers.” There’s a note of pride in her voice, barely audible
but still distinct. “These are actually useful. See the bright orange petals to your left? Zucchini. It’s almost ready--
their season is coming up in a few months.” You continue to look around. There are many plants you know of--
pumpkins, tomatoes, and cucumbers catch your eye-- but here and there are plants that seem to have a sheen, a
sort of ethereal glow enveloping them. Even the floor is mossy, a welcome carpet under aching feet, a place to rest
and take solace. Persephone sticks out a possessive hand, brushing over the edge of a pot containing a bright spray
of stems you recognize as carrots. They seem oddly large, and when you point that fact out she nods with pride.
“Look up!”
All along the ceiling there are lines of crystals, glimmering and throwing rays of moonlight you hadn’t noticed before.
“Moss agate.” Persephone nods. “Promotes healing and peace within these plants. Keeps them calm. It especially
helps since these poor things are trapped in a greenhouse; I wish the climate was different outside. Flowers can survive
in this weather, but not my precious plants” She hands you a stone to touch; you can almost feel the rush of energy that
runs through the rocks as you brush your fingertips against it.
Wait, what’s that? There’s a pop of color right over her shoulder once she has turned, hidden behind some glowing plant.
Curiously, you go to push the leafy plant aside--
Roses.
“No!”
Persephone darts in front of you, panic widening her eyes as she seeks to keep her secret just that.
“M-Medicinal purposes! Keeps this room smelling nice, an example of what not--”
Over her shoulder you can see them. A massive plot of roses, hidden behind and underneath vines,
a hidden treasure in anotherwise vegetated area.
The blood red of the petals is an awakening, a testimony to something hidden and distinct, a passion meant to be concealed.
“I hate flowers! Get out, get out! You’re not welcome here!”
You turn and leave-- she was her own Cerberus, and tempting the underworld wasn’t something you wished to do.
___________________________________________________________

[Soll]

username ; Soll
name ; Aella
gender ; Female
their garden (no word limit) ;

wip res with art!

[notwearingsocks]

username ; scarlet_wolf
name ; aline
gender ; female
their garden ;
the heavy, acrid smell of flourishing roses permeated the
air of aline's garden. sunflowers turned their faces up
towards the sun, their petals wide, their leaves stretching.
dahlias swelled in spherical blossoms, their vibrant colors
startling flashes against the green. the sound of wind chimes
mingles pleasantly with bird's chatter, and bees buzzing
as they drooped lazily through the flora, butterflies trailing
along in their wake. tulips sprouted from the earth in a
rainbow of colors, red orange white pink purple. blue
hydrangeas peppered the garden, popping up in a smattering
of places, beside the roses, next to the cherry blossom tree,
which shed petals like rain, lining the stone pathway leading
through the plants. snapdragons reached upwards, towards the
half dozen clouds that littered the otherwise clear sky. as aline
padded barefoot across the smooth stones that cut through
the garden, she brushed her fingertips across the petal of a
purple lilac, her mind flashing back to when she had planted
all of the flowers. most of them had been gifts, given to her
from family members who knew of her affinity for greenery.
one plant had led to another, which led to her massive
garden. even the neighbors sometimes leaned over the fence
to catch a glimpse of her plants. some suspected it was
enchanted - surely no normal garden could be so beautiful?
but, alas, aline would assure them, no magic was involved.
she still had the calluses on her palms to prove it, from
the hours upon hours taking up a shovel and digging shallow
divots in the ground for roots to take up their home. a
royal poinciana sat parallel to the cherry blossom tree, and,
stretched tautly between the trunks, was a hammock, swinging
slowly in the faint breeze that rustled the flowers. aline
drew herself up, curling her legs underneath her, her entire
mind at ease in her sanctuary - this. this was contentment.
[ 319 words. ]

[Cyrano]

username ;smith(ers)
name ;Fauna
gender ;female
their garden (no word limit) ;
is wide and open, sloping gently down to a cosmic-blue river. A grove of cypress pines flanks us on one side, with a thicket of peaceful beeches standing guard on the other. Apple trees run through the centre of the garden, casting a lake of claw shadows onto the grass. In autumn, the fiery brilliance of their leaves is a sight: scorching-oranges, burning-browns and molten-reds. Then they drift to the ground as silently and carelessly as an ash cloud, settling in to their eternal rest.

Past the river there is a plush-green meadow which stretches away into vastness and a dragon-backed mountain. In winter, the overwhelming loneliness of its peak sends shivers down her spine Attashi lives there, wondering how anything could survive up there. The fog that coils around it seems as old and fey unearthly and grey as the mountain itself, an alien presence that can dampen any mood. I call it Cimmerian Mountain, the ancient name for the land of perpetual mist. When spring finally comes, multi colored rainbows drench the mountain with coloured fire and the light leaks into the garden.

She loves spring in the garden so much. After January, there is stained glass clarity to the sunbeams. It starts with panes of light poking the shadows and making the earth steam. Midges rise with the grass mist, hanging like moon dust in the glassy haze. Daffodils detonate from the ground overnight as if some necromancer (warlock) had put a spell of banishment on the winter. Hey presto and it’s gone. Lipstick-pink peonies adorn the fringes of the garden and honeysuckle wraps around the hedges with its ladylike perfume. The aroma of geosmine percolates through the air. If you inhale deep enough, the potpourri of scents registers as a sweet mix of jasmine, grass vapour and blossoms.

As if on cue, the herald of spring arrives after taking a sabbatical for the winter. The blackbird is the main player in the dawn chorus, his song as clear and fresh as the garden he will later raid. Warbling wrens and carolling chaffinches join him, creating an orchestra of sound. It cascades into the open spaces, ghosts through windows and onto the smiling lips of the sleepers within. This earth song of nature rouses the rest of the animals from their slumber. Dozy hedgehogs totter like zombies as they get drunk on the last of the rotten apples. Butterflies flutter through the air with their velvet wings. Above them, a murmuration (flock) of starling’s loop and reel like wind-tossed gunpowder. As the grass in the garden grows to Jurassic heights, pheasants cluck like cockerels and sprint like roadrunners, celebrating the arrival of spring.

The river I told you about earlier has a magical quality to it that I haven’t seen elsewhere. After the mountain snowmelt has purged it of its brandy-brown hue, usually in February, I love to take pre-breakfast walks down to it. The full glory of the garden is revealed as I idle past the suede soft flowers. They are tingling my fingers with nature’s electricity as I touch them. Jewel-green grasshoppers bounce off the flowers like leggy trampolines. Above me, the vault of sky seems to grow wider and higher as the morning wears on. It increases the acoustics and magnifies the richness of colour. I can hear the lullaby of the breeze swishing through the trees much clearer now and little animals scurry and shuffle in the undergrowth. Versace-purple crocuses peep shyly at me and I am lost in the marvel of springtime.

I can see cobwebs in the grass, glistering in the littoral light that the river reflects. They look like fishermen’s nets of finely meshed steel. There’s the most welcoming of scents in the air, a spearmint aroma that hangs and loiters above the wild garlic. I sit on the bench we made some time back and engage in my favourite past time; river gazing. The water is lens clear and it is easy to spot the speckled trout at the bottom. Every so often, they explode up through the crystal water and soar into the air they must have wings to stay up so long. Iridescent kingfishers flash by in a flurry of blue and gold, using the river as a super highway. Apart from the plunking of trout and the thrumming of wings, it is convent quiet at the bottom of the garden, a haven of peace and solitude.

She sits on the bench, watching the sun slowly rise over the Cimmerian mountain. At first, the lonely peak seems to hinder its ascent and it looks like a torc of gloriole-gold . Then its full splendour reveals itself and it soaks the garden with the brightness of its smile. I can see the sunlight chasing the crab-shadows of the apple trees across the steaming grass. A blackbird alights onto a nearby branch and launches into an avian aria .Within moments, a fusillade of bird song follows him, rupturing the silence of the morn. It is a welcome invasion of the peace, but I sigh as I get up from the bench. As She winds her way back through the enchanted garden and towards the house, She has only one wish; that those in slumber land within wear the same, easy smile that plays across my lips.

[prisms]

u s e r n a m e
prisms

n a m e
daisy lynn-marie

g e n d e r
nonbinary (they/them)

g a r d e n
please click here to view daisy's garden

her garden is way up in the sky, which makes it
hard for others to visit her. daisy doesn't mind
though; she prefers the comforting and quiet
sound of her koi fish, pond, and the wind.

[cocoa]

username ; Colour54
name ; Camellia, goes by: Cami
gender ; female
their garden (no word limit) ;
Cami maintains the gardens for the dead. It is perhaps the most famous garden in Hasnetania, a true beauty that the poor and rich alike traveled to bury their dead. Cami did not do that deed - the gravediggers did - but at times, laboring in the soil besides the most glamorous or simple of tombstones, she felt like she did. She does not have a garden at home - or much of a home outside of the cemetery, for that matter - so to her, this is her garden. It had been under her family's care for generations.

For hundreds of years, the original, marble-carved gates had stood, framed by a elaborate black fence. Ancient black roses with thorns wind around the fences; older, real, green vines and leaves at times gathered at the edges, by the fences. At times, Cami purposely planted thorny plants by the edges of the fences to metaphorically keep bad spirits out. The marble gates themselves were representative of that theme: the entering into the land of the dead, a safe sanctuary for their bodies so their souls could make it heaven.

The cemetery, for being so old, is large; larger than Cami could take care of with even all of her time if she filled it to the brim with her gardens. Instead, Cami worked on smaller plots of garden interspersed throughout, shaped into plots that formed a special, cosmic rune that helped protect the spirits of the dead with the living magic of the plants. Cami still marvels over the effort her ancestors put into creating that aspect of the garden, and prides herself in keeping the variety of plants in each of the plots alive and well - even changing a few plants out every few years to keep the power of the spell alive. Each section has a simple theme that blends in with the section of the cemetery it resides in; colors, primarily, and climate are the best themes. There is a white, blue, red/orange, and yellow section, as well as several smaller areas for winter, mildly tropical and Mediterranean plants. Cami's favorite is the simple white blooms, a flock of feathering flowers atop shades of varying green, kept within the poorer section of the cemetery. It bears simple rocks with moss grown into their once-carved words, or rotted wood markers. Cami has had to replace some of those wood markers in the past.

While Cami loves to care for the flowers of the protecting rune, she finds the most love in the flowers requested by families for their loved ones, to be planted by their graves. Those are the true magical wonders, and true representations of the dead soul's spirit. So many plants and their meanings that Cami can list in her head, each able to be matched to a person that had once lived on the continent of Hasetania. Her utmost care goes into pruning, watering, and ensuring the proper sunlight is received for these plants.

All around the edges of the cemetery, within the fencing, is the housed graves, placed in coffins, but not in the dirt. For these, they are used like greenhouses, planted full of beautiful orchids, vines and hanging plants, with the appropriate runes written on the walls to ensure the temperature stays correct for both the bodies and the plants; even special runes to keep fellow kalons cool is given to visitors. Visitors become full of such wonder when they walk into the carved, white marble houses, for it feels like walking into another country, exactly as Cami worked it out to be.

Sometimes, Cami just simply enjoys to care for the garden, the cemetery, as a simple whole, wandering the cobblestone and dark brown dirt tracks and clearing them of instructive weeds until only a pleasant, dark green grass remains lining the edges of the paths. She rakes and cleans the fallen leaves in autumn from the trees, as well as pruning and clipping their branches. Some of those trees were directly born from a body's ashes.

In fact, many of the plants in the renowned cemetery had, over time, likely taken in the ashes of the dead into their soil. It comforted Cami, to know she was caring for something so important, so honored, and so spiritual. She didn't mind a day that her pelt was dusted with dirt, paws clogged with soil or hair knotted with branches and leaves; it's like a ritual, to her, a prayer and a wonder.

[khvoxtic]

Good luck to everyone!!

[Anza]

good luck everyone ^^

[sillies]

good luck everyone !!

[notwearingsocks]

good luck !