Eternal Summer

[polymods]

✖ The Isle That Blooms

Ⅰ. ALWAYS BLOOMING, NEVER HARVEST
July flowers bring, well, August flowers.

Another month has come and gone, and you may have noticed things haven’t changed much. Everything is still beautiful. There are still no signs of babies or prepubescent children or young animals.

In fact, if you’re paying close enough attention, you may have noticed there are no fruits or grains or vegetables that have come from the constant riot of color and pollen. Only flowers, always flowers.

You still have access to the city’s temple and the baths. The High Temple’s doors are open to everyone.

Some of you may still be dealing with the unpleasant side effects of the Ancient’s now dead and gone Flower Oracle, but it should wind down before the end of the month. Or maybe you already faced your demons.

Hiding out in the Temples for the rest of the month is always an option, but be careful not to get too stagnant. It would be a shame if your ScryWatch stays stuck on the same color forever because you, too, decided to stop growing.

---

Ⅱ. FLOWER MARKET FESTIVAL
CW: Optional Alcohol/Drug Consumption.
You didn’t think the celebrations would be over just because the Flower Oracle came and went, did you? There’s always a new event, a new thing to do, a new way to make some benefit off the Travelers who pass in and out of the Isle looking to take something away from this place.

This month it’s the Flower Market!

During the days, stalls bloom beneath the elevated buildings and in the empty center where the Flower Oracle once stood. There are flowers, of course, in buckets, arrangements, wreaths, crowns, growing in tiny little pots, made into cakes, salsas, and snacks! Artists will find pigments, paints, inks, dyes, and papers. There are perfumes, lotions, oils, soaps, and more. Spices and herbs are abundant; you’ve certainly never seen saffron this cheap. If you haven’t gotten enough tie-dye from the temple, you’ll find beautiful batik clothing, purses, and even jewelry. Everything is bright, everything is for sale.

At night, the stalls are all folded away and instruments come out. Little stalls sell flowery alcoholic drinks and did you know or remember that cannabis is a flowering plant? The locals certainly remembered to make the edibles. Careful, though, drink or imbibe and you’ll find yourself talking about the things you need that you cannot buy. The things you are aching for.

And you won’t stop until someone acknowledges it.

Notes:
1. If you want it and it’s made of flowers, it’s here. No drugs or alcohol during daylight hours.

2. The Temple gives a small amount of spending money daily. Save up and get fancy, or buy a little bit of everything.

3. There is a tiny group of unknown Travelers that show up for the market. They don’t seem to have access to the same network as PCs, but their watches flash green, blue, or purple. They seem to be avoiding PC Travelers and disappear into parts of the Temples that don’t seem to be open to our group yet whenever they get too close.

---

Ⅲ. POISON GARDEN
CW: Poisons, narcotics, ect.
As you wander the now familiar village, you will notice a new pathway has opened at the edge of the village. It leads to an area with a high stone fence and a heavy gate. A skull and crossbones are painted on the gate in bright white paint, but there’s nothing actually stopping you from opening the gate and walking in.

The garden is beautiful, but surprisingly formal after the chaotic abundance of the rest of the Isle. The paths are wide and there’s space between the plants. Each one is meticulously labeled with a stake in the ground.

Do you read the labels? How long does it take you to realize everything in the garden is toxic or poisonous? There are so many options from hemlock and oleander to aconitum and angel’s trumpet and beyond.

Welcome to a study on how not everything that's natural is good for you as you continue to wander the fractal paths. Of course, not everything that's poisonous has no purpose. By the opium poppies there’s a sign that tells you that you can choose to wander the deadly garden until it kills you or you can own up to a toxic habit or behavior that you need to deal with.

Notes:
1. In theory, a character could wander forever without touching or consuming any of the poisons. For plot/fun reasons, feel free to make it a little more difficult. And remember, some of your characters can be poisoned to death.

2. Acknowledging bad habits or a need for change in an honest way is very likely to result in a shift in a ScryWatch color. Remember, the Ancient is looking for growth and improvement, not moral perfection.

3. Characters can collect poisonous or medicinal plants but will be at risk while doing so.

---

Ⅳ. FLOWERY FIELDS FOREVER
Maybe you need to get away from the fuss at the market or just want to stretch your legs, but it’s time to explore the flowering landscape around the village. The villagers have baskets waiting at each of the outbound trails with the request that you come back with the basket full in trade for the picnic lunch they provide.

Wander the rolling hills and you’ll find a surprising amount of wildlife for an island without offspring. There are hummingbirds the size of chihuahuas, tiny pollinating bats, nectar eating possums, giant stingless bees, and more butterflies than you can shake a stick at. All of them seem entirely unafraid of humans despite being wild animals. If you get bitten or pecked, it’s your own fault.

As you fill your basket, you’ll notice patterns in what blooms. All kinds of plants bloom outside of reason and season and traditional need because the land is trying to talk to you through flowers. What did you need to hear? The villagers can help you translate when you come back from your adventure.

Notes:
1. The giant orchid mantises are still there! Thank Gideon and Harrow for negotiating a truce, so they probably won’t eat you. A mantis might even have a conversation with you if you ask nicely, (Quentin managed somehow,) and they have their own knowledge and worship of the Ancient.

2. Feel free to use any reference for plant/flower meaning. Here’s one to get started!

3. Don’t get too attached to any of the critters, they will stay here at the end of the month.

Bonus: music to watch the flowers bloom to.

Network · Logs · OOC · Memes · Plurk

Comments

[kyley_b]

"Only a little bit," Kyle admits. He's surprised by how orderly the garden is, but also soothed: he does love things to be organised nearly. "My buddy Nore is the botanist nerd - I was helping her harvest a bunch of crap last month. But I'm not like, totally stupid about it."

He looks at a plot with lines of delicate white flowers growing up from fat green leaves. Lily of the Valley is written on the stake in front of the plot. A few feet away is a bush of hot pink flowers with a label reading Azaleas. Next another shrub with pink flowers, these ones more delicate: Oleander.

Kyle grins and gestures at two bushes. "These are so you. They match your hair and they're like... kinda expensive sounding."

[quire]

"I never cared about botany," he admits. What he wont admit is how much about plants he was supposed to learn on so many of Wolverine's little survivalist field trips that he actively didn't pay attention to. He will not give that man the pleasure of an I-told-you-so.

Quentin scrunches up his nose in his distaste for that. "What!? Oleander? Azaleas? These all sound like characters on the Golden Girls!"

[kyley_b]

Kyle cackles, sounding not unlike Ed the Hyena. "I could see you as a Golden Girl," he says. "We'll just get you a nice pantsuit."

He strolls over to another plot and studies the flowers there, still pleased as hell with himself. Tossing insults back and forth with Quentin has become one of his new favourite hobbies. This plot has rather tall plants that terminate in bunches of small white flowers. They're delicate, but rather plain.

Hemlock.

Kyle frowns. "...Quentin, what plant killed Socrates?"

[quire]

"Have you got an extra?" he snaps back because he can't even help himself.

He wanders a little further down the path, unable to help feeling like he should be looking for something. Like if the keepers of this place are trying to keep people out of it, it must be because they have something to hide.

"Hemlock," he says and for a moment Quentin catches himself relishing both the fact that Kyle suspected he'd know the answer to that, and the way the other man says his name. "Why?"

[kyley_b]

"Not in your size, shorty."

Kyle keeps looking at the little placard for a moment. "Yeah," he says. "Yeah, I thought it might be. Huh."

Slowly, he walks to another few plants. He doesn't recognise anything else until he sees Aconitum in front of some unassuming purple blooms.

"Hey, dude. I think these might all be poison."

[quire]

"Doubt I could trust your fashion sense anyway."

Suddenly the signage at the front makes sense. "Huh. Well maybe don't snack on anything then," he suggests. Glib as usual. "Why would they keep a garden of shit that can kill you? Unless they A) have a super dark side we haven't seen yet. Or B) want to protect something."

[kyley_b]

"Yeah, true."

Kyle rolls his eyes. "I wouldn't have anyway," he says. "You don't just eat random plants, that's one of the first things you learn in Scouts."

He as to nod at Quentin's assessment of the situation though. "Obviously we just have to keep looking," he says.

There's plenty of plants that Kyle had no idea were poisonous alongside famous ones like belladonna. When he sees a bright slash of red staff, an open wound on the earth, he suspects them for what they are before they get close.

"Poppies," he says, then frowns deeply as he reads the other sign.

"Uh. Quentin? It says we're trapped here until we own up to a toxic habit or behaviour."

[quire]

"Scouts?" he baulks. "You're a boy scout? Oh that explains some things."

Refusing to say what those things are exactly, he's glad at least this new information hasn't scared Kyle off from helping him explore this place for whatever secrets he's convinced it holds.

"What? What do you mean trapped it's a garden, not a cell," his skepticism is evident as he joins Kyle there to look at the sign and frowns to read it himself. "Bullshit. What did they do? Lock the gate? I can fly us out of here."

[kyley_b]

"Jew Scouts," Kyle clarifies absently. He has no idea how it sounds.

He gives him a skeptical look. "Dude, it's a magic garden. I have a feeling if we fly we'll just bonk off of some invisible wall or some shit."

He frowns at the poppies. "So stupid. What if we don't HAVE toxic behaviours? Well, I mean you obviously do, but I don't."

[quire]

He blinks a slow blink. "Come again?"

Kyle's not wrong. Anyone who makes a weird magical island generating machine to house a bunch of people— many of whom have powers— probably thinks of ways to keep those people contained. But Quentin being a professional skeptic refuses to pass up any opportunity to find an oversight he can exploit. He'd rather be wrong a million times than miss something obvious. "Possibly. Or maybe they fucked up. I'm not going to play any games I don't absolutely have to," he says and as soon as he utters the words his whole body emits an intense pink glow.

"Hey, I just thought of one for you!" he says to Kyle, feigning a look of earnest exuberance as he rises off the ground. Just a little at first. Waiting to see if some kind of ceiling makes itself known.

[kyley_b]

"I was in Jew Scouts," Kyle says, as if maybe Quentin is a little slow to understand.

"You did?" Kyle asks as Quentin rises up. And up. And then... bonk. There's nothing visible being him from going any higher, but there's definitely a barrier. "What?"

[quire]

"Wow. That's problematic, but ok."

"Yeah!" he goes on feigning that excitement when Kyle doesn't catch the sarcasm of it. "You lack self-awareness and you can't recognize sarcasm!"

That invisible ceiling on this place makes him frown and turn his attention from Kyle a minute as he feels along the edge of it, trying to determine its shape or make up. It's certainly there, but he can't help wanting to test it.

Back on his feet he rubs his chin a little and his pink glow changes shape. Shifts away from the contours of his body and concentrates in his hands until he's cocking a crackling pink shot gun and aiming it at the sky.

[kyley_b]

Kyle bristles. "How is that problematic?" he says defensively.

His mood isn't improved by Quentin's sarcastic and (frankly accurate) assessment of his flaws. "Oh, fuck you," he grumbles. "And neither of those things is toxic even if they WERE true!"

He doesn't wince at the crack of the shotgun. He's too used to it.

When nothing happens he sighs and looks at the poppies. "I'm not toxic," he mutters.

[quire]

"Hey man it's your faith. You should move to Williamsburg and try to get the Jew Scouts going. I'm sure you'll find plenty of people who'll tell you why that's a bad idea."

His psionic shot gun smoulders as he looks on with suspicion and frustration at the lack of impact his effort seems to have made. "At least one of those things definitely is. And hey weren't we just talking about your tendencies towards toxic masculinity or did I dream that? Literally right there on the tin, pal."

[kyley_b]

There is a moment where Kyle radiates a very simple, very old emotion: hurt. He thinks he's being made fun of again for the same goddamn thing as always and it shouldn't hurt at this point but it does. There's a second where all he wants to do is cry.

Immediately smothering that impulse, of course, is a white hot anger that most would find at odds with Kyle's usual rather pleasant boy-next-door demeanor.

"Didn't we JUST decide it wasn't really toxic masculinity since it isn't hurting anybody if I don't give a shit about hair products?" Kyle snaps back. "I'm guessing your powers are pretty fucking useless at getting us out of here, as suspected."

He stuffs his hands in his pockets and walks a little ways away, because Quentin is beginning to look extremely punchable.

"What about YOU, anyway? It said we both have to own up to something. I can't imagine you will since you seem to think you're perfect."

[quire]

"Pftf, maybe YOU did. It's still toxic masculinity, even if it's hurting your own dumb ass more than anyone else."

He projects that so fiercely that it's almost enough to grab Quentin's attention, but before he can latch onto the source of that thought, it's replaced with something angry and Quentin gravitates even more readily to rage.

His brow furrows at that accusation. "Hey, at least I TRIED something! What are you bringing to the table, normie? If you're SO desperate to get out of the toxic garden just play their game and admit how fucked up you are!"

That shotgun of his dissipates. Morphing into something more innocuous when Kyle turns away from him. With a pink slingshot in hand he flings a little wad of that energy he conjures up until it hits Kyle in the back of head just hard enough to feel like a flick, but more shockingly it inspires a rush of memories involving any time Kyle embarrassed himself.

"You're right. I'm not perfect. I'm kind of petty," he says. His smile nefarious.

[kyley_b]

"Or maybe I just don't want to waste my whole morning with exfoliating or trying on six outfits or whatever and that's totally FINE."

He isn't expecting that flick, and he REALLY isn't expecting a hit parade of mortification: stumbling over his words, calling people by the wrong name, saying "you too!" in response to "enjoy!", tripping and falling, inappropriate erections, the first time he ever tried to unhook a bra, the first time he got to kiss a boy and he did it all wrong. Feeling stupid, feeling awkward and weird and lonely.

Kyle doesn't have to stop and think about what happened. He knows what it was, who was responsible and why. He knows Quentin has probably just seen over a dozen of his embarrassing moments.

He turns on his heel and launches himself at Quentin, hands gripping the front of his shirt and shaking him like a terrier with a rat

"Don't you go in my head without my permission! Don't you DARE, that's not YOURS, it's mine and you can't just SEE it!"

His mind is intent on playing back every single smart remark of Quentin's that's gotten under his skin. Calling him normie and problematic and boring and fucked up. He thinks about Carter asking why Kyle keeps following after the guy if he hates him so much.

He stops shaking Quentin abruptly, eyes huge and skin ghostly white.

"I like you," he says. "I like fighting with you. That IS fucked up, that ISN'T healthy, but oh my god I love screaming at you. I've missed this so much."

[quire]

"Who cares about your skin care routines, you braindead hick!? No one thinks you're toxically masculine because you don't know how to condition your hair properly! I called you out on your toxic masculinity because you're the type of dude to literally say I'm not sensitive and then get into a fist fight over someone's stupid opinions, like anger isn't an emotional state because it's the manly feeling!"

Salient point or not it's all quickly forgotten when Kyle's got his fists balled in Quentin's shirt and he's barking his demands. "Get offa me!" he struggles a little. Not as much as one might if they actually feared for their safety in the hands of an attacker. But a little. And then quite unexpectedly Kyle stops.

"Uh. Are you ok?" he blinks and looks at the hands still frozen in their grip on him. "I didn't even break your brain this time. I could have but I didn't..."

Turns out he's not broken though. Just stumbling through some realization of his own. And Quentin can backtrack that moment of genuine concern easily enough.
He huffs and pulls himself away to sweep the wrinkles out of his shirt. "What do you mean missed? You've known me for like one fiscal quarter," he mumbles.

[kyley_b]

"You, sure," Kyle replies. He looks at his hands as if he isn't sure who stapled them to his wrists.

"It's the dynamic. You're one of the most deliberately antagonistic people I've ever met in my life, and just pretending you don't exist is probably the smart thing to do. But I won't. I can't."

He looks back up, first at all of the flowers, then back at Quentin. Azaleas and oleander, he thinks.

"I grew up with this. This exact pattern. When I moved away I thought I'd grown up or something, but now I think I just never met anybody who would engage with me that way. Which is good. You're not supposed to get a kick out of screaming matches."

He sighs, the exhalation long and wavering. "But I do. And you're so annoyingly good at it, and so fucking impossible to leave alone with your dumb smug smile and your ridiculous hair and your cosmopolitan veneer and your adorable stupid nose and cute fucking face. I hate you, dude."

[quire]

Not unlike the way Quentin struck a chord with him by unwittingly treading a little too close to some familiar anti-semitism, there's an old injury to Quentin's pride that's set alight, like hot water over an old burn, by the implication that Kyle would be better off without him. He folds his arms tightly over his chest, girding himself with apathy.

"Hey, I don't need your fucking charity. No one's got a gun to your head. Go hang around with whoever you want see what I care," he sulks.

It's premature of course. Less talking and a moment's more listening proves as much. It's a confusion at first. Untangling Kyle's frustration from his... what is that? Attraction? Whatever it is, it's enough to salve his pride.

"So. Are you saying you should stop hanging around me because I'm enabling your shitty behaviour or whatever? Or... are you just trying to say you think I'm cute."

[kyley_b]

That sulking might be mistaken for apathy by some, but not by Kyle. Oh no, he's far too used to that exact tone.

Kyle stares at Quentin, trying desperately to work through the bald facts he himself has laid out. He's a bright man, but emotions are much more slippery than facts.

It's funny to watch, though. Kyle's considerable brows draw together, his lips part just a bit before closing again, his forehead smooths, and then the process repeats.

"I think you're cute," he finally admits. "The fact that I can talk to you and you actually understand what I'm saying sure doesn't hurt, either." He gestures at the flowers all around them, a sweeping and somehow helpless flail of his arms. "And the whole... wanting to throttle you thing, which okay, fine, Magic Garden, you win, my toxic behaviour is sublimating sexual attraction into bickering. Or something."

He wraps his skinny arms around himself.

"I'm sorry. I understand if you want me to stay on the other side of the island, now."

[quire]

It's a good thing Quentin's attention tends to be so scattered because when it's all concentrated on Kyle like it is now it errs towards overly intense. Even his plain faced expression is some part suspicious, and some part calculating. But after a rare quiet moment, that self-satisfied grin dominates his expression again.

"I'll take cute," he shrugs. "It's no sexy, but I think I make it work."

When he's done relishing that massive ego boost his attention snaps around to Kyle before the man ca fully distance himself from that admission. "Hey! What? Chill out! I'm not gonna no-homo you or whatever. It's cool. I'm an evolved millennial mutant. I was pan before it was cool," he babbles, hopping a few steps closer to Kyle. "You're cute too, you know? For a guy who wouldn't know a Brogue from a Chelsea if it kicked him in the ass."

[kyley_b]

That grin causes Kyle to roll his eyes, although it's more force of habit than anything else. Below the surface annoyance he's a little disturbed by how much he enjoys being the focus of Quentin's fierce attention.

That, he thinks, really does jump from cute to sexy.

He looks at Quentin suspiciously. "I'm not cute," he says with the same assurance as someone would say 'water is wet.'

A wry little grin gets pulled from him. "I don't know what either of those are," he admits. He's pleased not to be told to go away, and is mentally preparing himself to resume his place as friend-with-feelings-we-don't-ever-acknowledge-again. It's a bitter sort of relief.

[quire]

"Shut up. I didn't ask what you think about you," Quentin says flippantly when Kyle denies him any acceptance of that compliment.

"Of course you don't," his bottom lip juts out just a little and he gives Kyle a gentle but intentionally patronizing pat on the cheek. "C'mon. Let's go see if the gate is open," he grabs Kyle's hand and leads them that way without a second thought for the fact that he didn't really cop to much at all. Whatever that means for getting out of here.

[kyley_b]

As usual, such casual physical kindness from a sort-of frenemy just throws Kyle off of his game completely. But you're MY little monster, he hears deep in his mind.

He nods and follows Quentin along. He's owned up to enough to make it open for him, if he were alone. Whether or not Quentin simply admitting his pettiness is enough remains to be seen; Kyle's not getting out unless it is.