Open to all!

[gardenparty]

Who: The Garden and you!
Where: The Garden and grounds
When: Starting October 27
Rating: PG-13
Summary: The Garden is experiencinng some growing pains.
The Story:
The morning of October 27 dawns with screaming. Terrified, agonized screaming. It might be hard to pinpoint the source right away from inside the Mansion, but it doesn't take much investigating to find that the source is the overgrown garden.

The Daisies and the Violets are incoherent, but the Tigerlilies and Larkspurs might be able to shed some kind of light on the situation. They won't be kind about it, though--they simply haven't the patience right now. The roses simply sob.

Bread-and-Butterflies smash themselves against tree trunks until they break into crumbs, and the Snap-Dragonflies fly in demented patterns that may or may not mean anything. The Rocking-Horseflies are prone to vicious biting to take out their agitation.

The Caterpillar, Lord of the Garden, is a thin, pale wraith of an insect. He'll be difficult to find, but he is there, trembling among the mushrooms that grow under the cover of tree trunks and leaves.

The Gnat is in hiding similarly, and the Fawn? The Fawn is no where to be seen.

[OOC: Anyone, Real thing or Mirror, is welcome to interact with the Garden. If you prefer a specific denizen of the Garden to interact with, please say so in the subject of your initial reply.]

Comments

[testmetestmetestme]

okay there is SCREAMING and that's never good!

And since Mell is in control the first thing she does is run towards it. Well, in fairness, Chell would have done the same, just. Less recklessly. With a little more thought.

To her credit, Mell at least stops at a window during her investigation and looks out it to... the garden that noise came from? Which... doesn't have anyone there, but it seems really active??

She had to check this out! Er, for moral reasons, of course... As well as just seeing what was going on there out of like, curiosity and stuff. Whatever!

It doesn't take Mell long to get them to the garden, and she starts calling out as soon as she's close enough.

"Hey! What's wrong, who screamed? What's going on out here? That was really loud, was it..."

She stops and squints and looks around because she's really sure the garden wasn't this lively the last time she was out here... Like it was pretty but there wasn't anything talking or sobbing or flying around or anything weird like that.

Then again, it's been a weird week so far - why stop now?

[gardenparty]

The screaming has by no means stopped when Mell reaches the garden. A rocking-horsefly takes the opportunity to land on her shoulder, leaving several splinters behind by way of a bite.

A nearby Tigerlily spreads its petals to scoff at Mell.

"What's wrong? What isn't wrong is what you should be asking!"

[testmetestmetestme]

Mell yelps and swats at the rocking-horsefly, jumping away as if that'd help.

"Fine! What isn't wrong?!" she shouts, turning to the Tigerlily.

It's a reasonable question, actually, considering how all messed up the Mirror and Real side have been! She's just a little sore from the bite. And the screaming. That's kind of hurting her ears a bit.

[gardenparty]

"Nothing! Nothing isn't wrong! Nothing has never not been so wrong!"

A yellow rose on a nearby bush sobs harder.

[testmetestmetestme]

"You're telling me!" Mell exclaims, throwing her arms in the air.

"First, our side gets overrun, everything breaks, like, the closets and the mirrors! No word from the Queen! None of the Reals could do anything! No warning! And then everything goes white and next thing I know I'm stuck in my boring stick-in-the-mud Real--"

Chell does the mental equivalent of coughing a word into her elbow as a subtle hint. Roots.

Mell remembers roots which means plants which is what she's talking to (and also she told them to burn the garden down!) (don't mention that part, suggests Chell.)

Mell rounds on the flower, pointing.

"Hey! Those were roots over there! Were those your roots?! Have you been growing into our side, talking plants?!"

[gardenparty]

"They were not our roots!" A Larkspur sways over in front of the Tiger-lily to interject. "As if any of us had such unruly parts!"

"We always keep our bits to ourselves!" the Tiger-lily adds, using its leaves to push the Larkspur out of its way.

[testmetestmetestme]

"Then whose were they?!" Mell demands, planting her fists on her hips.

"I'd like to give them a piece of my mind... Back! So they can put it back in the Mirrorside and fix it because they made a heck of a mess let me tell you!!!"

Hopefully the flowers will start talking again or else Mell really is going to tell them! All of it.

[speaksforthetrees]

The Lorax thought he might find something here. Being one of the lucky few to get injected with his mirror's personality (yet), it sort of felt like his duty to at least try to get to the bottom of things. And the garden has the most plants, so. Maybe they can tell him something?

Unfortunately, he's immediately sidetracked by the Bread-and-Butterflies. Never mind the fact that they don't look like normal creatures, they're destroying themselves. He looks on with horror, attempting to grasp them and keep them cushioned and safe, but the only one he manages to catch is so brittle at this point that it essentially dissolves in his fingers.

"Ohhh. This is bad." The Lorax stares out at the garden, worried and scared, only speaking again to say, "Ow!" at the bite of a Rocking-Horsefly. As he watches the angry thing fly off, he decides to keep searching-- surely something will speak up and tell him what to do. Right?

[gardenparty]

"_{Bad is} a vast _under^statement."

The voice comes from under a bunch of leaves. The Caterpillar is large for a bug, but doesn't seem to be intent on getting any better. It's munching disconsolately on the edge of a mushroom.

[speaksforthetrees]

The Lorax turns at the voice, eyes widening at the sight of the Caterpillar. He's pretty sure they aren't supposed to get that big, normally. Or, y'know. Talk like a person. He wonders if it's a new resident or a very old one.

But pleasantries will have to wait. "Do you know what's going on, exactly? Or maybe how we can stop it?" He probably lives here and has seen it going on, so he's in a better position than anybody to formulate ideas, right?

[gardenparty]

"^{Foreign soil}isnot_{the same}as fertile soil. ^{We have been} given _{a sickness."}

[speaksforthetrees]

Foreign soil? What kinda soil did they have here other than their own? Unless. "Did somebody get something from the vendors to hurt you all? Like-- like moon dust or something?"

He...has no idea whether moon dust would be bad or not, but it's a start.

[gardenparty]

"Moon _{dust would certainly} be less harmful. But ^{it is just as black} and _white"

The Caterpillar coughs and drops the leaf its holding. It stares at it desolately for a moment and then flops onto the ground, despairing.

[speaksforthetrees]

"Whoa whoa whoa, it isn't that bad! Here, I'll-- I can hold it for you if you wanna keep eating?"

The Lorax grabs the leaf and helps the caterpillar into a. Uh. Seated position? Can caterpillars sit?

"Uh, and...is that literal? Are we up against zebras or something?"

[pig_and_pepper]

Sooner or later the Duchess finds her way into the centre of the garden. In her arms she carries a piglet, its belly swollen to comical proportions; a tragic witness to the failure of her ingenious plan A. And yet, and yet, the moral of her efforts is that one can only truly fail if one does not try at all, and so she tries, once again, with another idea on her mind.

"I say," she begins, before clearing her throat to give volume to her voice. "I say! What a fine day to reflect on the moral of our very life itself! I am not wrong when I proclaim that... that, indeed, speech is silver, and yet only silence is golden."

The Duchess lifts her chin and straightens her back, delivering the glory of her speech to what would seem is nobody in particular at all.

"Furthermore--"

She pauses, her eyes quickly darting from side to side.

"Furthermore! 'Tis well- well known, and as tried as it is true, that size carries little meaning in life, in fact, what we all appreciate most are the... the smaller things in life.."

The Duchess bites her lips.

"The smaller things. That is to say, things, which are small. Things, which are... which are most certainly smaller than they are now. As they should be. Small. Very small. Yes. Quite."

[gardenparty]

"Small?!" A Tigerlily sticks its head up out of a flowerbed to shriek back at the Duchess, either because of how upset it is, or just because it has to in order to make itself heard. "Do you honestly think that we like being this way?"

"Are you calling us fat!" a Larkspur adds. The Tigerlily swats at it with with its leaves; this is the Tigerlily's show, thank you.

[pig_and_pepper]

"Well. Well. Well, I say--"

The Duchess huffs. She rather expected a different response entirely, and this will not do at all.

"The moral is, and has always been, and should furthermore be well known--"

She clears her throat.

"The moral is, that you must be the change you wish to see in this world, and clearly, clearly this must be your wish, for I cannot possibly fathom who else might be responsible."

The Duchess crosses her arms and lifts her chin.

"Besides, the dots do not become you."

[gardenparty]

The Tiger-lily makes a spluttering noise and withdraws a bit behind the Larkspur, drawing its petals inward. "They aren't that unbecoming."

The Larkspur is not daunted, though. "Why--why would we want to cause ourselves such pain?"

A bed of nearby Daisies begin to chorus individual words from the Larkspur's question. "Pain" and "why" are particular favorites. The noise draws a Bread-and-butterfly that begins to fly in circles around the Duchess and ram into her skirt.

[pig_and_pepper]

The Duchess inhales to present an immaculate response to this inquiry, but the lament cuts her wisdom

off, and the flying breakfast treat does little to help her concentration either.

"Will you be quiet!"

She swats at the bread-and-butterfly angrily.

"The solution is obvious, staggeringly obvious, I can hardly bear to repeat it!

Quiet, I said!"

She hisses angrily.

"The things young plant life does for attention these days..."

[gardenparty]

Hearing that last bit, the Tiger-lily regains some of its confidence and leans around past the Larkspur like a striking snake.

"You are quite younger than us!"

[pig_and_pepper]

"Well. Well. Well, I say, your flattery shan't get you anywhere."

She crosses and uncrosses her arms rapidly, tapping her foot on the ground. Her eyes dart from here an there, much like the Garden's insects, as though perhaps a closer look would reveal a conveniently placed OFF switch for the whole debacle. Alas, it does not appear so.

"Furthermore 'tis well-known that, as a plant ages a year, a Duchess ages seven. I've seven times your experience already, and this conversation has cost me seven times the time it has cost you."

The Duchess huffs.

"Do you see now what you've put us all through?"

[capsomebitches]

Daniel is actually himself at the moment. He's stepped outside to take a turn around the garden, doing that thing where he nervously pretends that everything is fine when in fact it is demonstrably not at all.

He hears all the screaming and thinks better of the jaunt. He also hears the Duchess carrying on. And this is the point at which Mirror Daniel steps without ceremony to the front.

What? demands Daniel, what are you doing? He tries to push his way back into the driver's seat. Their body twitches and shakes, but the Mirror remains in control, gazing sternly at the Duchess across the way.

I beg your leave, says Mirror Daniel, though not in a particularly begging voice. I must have an interview with the lady yonder.

And aloud, before the regular Daniel can argue:

"As subtle as you are lovely, your Grace."

He's walking towards her now, expression grim.

[pig_and_pepper]

An unwelcome interruption, if there ever was one. The Duchess mutters a silent curse and turns to the intruder.

"You again."

She eyes him, as though she saw a chance in making him disappear by scrutiny alone. Alas, reality will not have it so.

"I've spoken with you before, and I'd not care to do it again."

The Duchess notices her own eyes lingering. Ah yes, so the final word is not yet said.

"Such things aside, have you not been taught that it is quite rude to wear other people?"

[capsomebitches]

Regular Daniel has no idea what's going on, but he doesn't think he likes it.

"Had I the chance," says the Mirror coldly, "I would have asked permission ere I wore him."

(...Okay now Regular Daniel feels a bit offended. He's not a shirt.)

"But I've reason to suspect you of taking that chance from me."

What were you planting in the garden that day, your Grace? Something that shouldn't have been there? Something with great grey roots? Or, perhaps, will she claim that the timing was coincidence?

[pig_and_pepper]

"Me?"

The Duchess looks Daniel up and down with distaste.

"I'd have found you a better dress, I assure you."

She waves her hand, as though it were enough to dismiss, perhaps even vanish the man entirely.

"You are what you eat, did you hear me? You are what you eat, if you've kept the moral in

mind, then you must know that it goes double for what you wear. Or who."