[Little Garden of Horrors]

To keep his thoughts off his older brother's shenanigans for the time being, Flynn had rode off without warning the council of the village and without a care. If the great King could go off on some extended vacation, then surely the young prince could do with a free night. Even if there was any sort of protest, since when did that stop the free-spirited Flynn? Their father was long gone and buried and their mother was in no state to argue. And those oldheads couldn’t do shit, as far as he was concerned.

He had heard a few nights ago about some sort of bash occurring in the forest and it gained his attention almost immediately. Some sort of customs that he was unfamiliar with, and therefore must be explored. By the time he had arrived, the night was still young and he could smell the lovely scent of treats and baked goods filling the air. He could laugh and scream, though much more of the latter as he drew nearer to the fair. Apparently people had come here for the scare of their lives; it was strange yet alluring to Flynn.

Of course, he was confident that nothing was going to terrorize him- he was a warrior at heart and faced death a few times in combat. He scuffed at the very thought of shaking in his boots, or screaming his head off at some sort of illusion or “creature” waiting in the shadows to pounce on some unfortunate bastard.

Wandering about for a while, he didn’t pay attention to where he was heading until he crossed through some gates and immediately froze and held his nose in disgust. The air reeked of death and rotten meat, but as he looked around, he didn’t see anything deceased. No, he was in some sort of bizarre garden. “Ugh, by the moon. What the hell is that smell coming from?” Flynn attempted to look around, his blue eyes hoping to seek its source. But no matter where he turned, the stench was in every direction now.

While he could have turned back, he took this a challenge and on his family’s name, he’d be damned if he would take this lying down. Eventually he found the strength to free himself from his spot and continued on, only to be met in a few moments by shrieks from plants that looked strangely like fish. He went to place a hand onto one of the mouths to quiet it, but ended up nearly getting snapped at. “Damn…whatever you are!”, he scolded before sniffing at it. It wasn’t the main source of the smell, but it surely didn’t help the matter. Soon he fell on his hands and knees, and started sniffing the earth itself; it was like everything else in this forsaken garden and with that, he started to crawl about, continuing his quest.

"Why me?" Dala muttered as she hung upside-down from the vines that had ensnared her. 

The man-snaring vines were deadly as they would keep the victim ensnared until it died of dehydration, then it would drag its victim into the ground. The sign had explicitly said it was MAN eating. Not woman eating! She thought she could get away with collecting a few roots and leaves to sell at ridiculously high prices once the fair departed. Instead, the malicious plant had dangled her inches away from the ground for twenty minutes. She would have used her sunlight magic to help but she didn't want to risk accidentally setting herself or the rest of the garden on fire. Nobody wanted to piss off the dead unless they had an exorcist nearby, and she was fresh out of exorcists. Then…. she spotted a strange man in the garden sniffing the ground. He looked like the type who had sharp objects to cut her free. 

"HEY! Hey you!" She shouted at him. "Yeah, you! Cut me down will yah?!" 

For a moment she wondered if the man had heard her. Dala took in a deep breath, then hollered at him. 

"EARTH SNIFFER GUY! HELP ME OUT!"

Perhaps she could annoy him into helping her if all else failed. She contemplated offering him silver in return, but she'd rather avoid having to give away her precious coin to some weirdo who liked to sniff dirt. 

For a shifter, this was hell. No, not for the eerie atmosphere or the creepy little bastards they wanted to call “plants”. While they did do wonders to capture one’s sinister imagination, it was that wretched stench that did it for him. One would assume that Flynn would have just left the place and the problem would have been solved. But the lad was too damn stubborn for his own good and he just had to learn the source and perhaps fix it somehow.

Which meant he would even use force if need be.

Gods knew that if anyone was watching him, plenty of folk would think of him as a fool. But it seemed that the smell was weaved into the earth itself. The land was…sour, was the best way he could summarize. He kept crawling around a bit more and froze when he heard the shouting. At first, he just thought that this fair was playing more tricks on him and didn’t even move another couple of inches before he was addressed again.

Flynn lifted his head up and looked at the young woman as she hung upside down, thanks to the vines. He wasn’t surprised that he couldn’t smell her- this whole place reeked and dulled her scent it seemed. If only he could burn this place down.

“Alright, alright. I’m coming”, he said, climbing back up to his feet and he retrieved a dagger. While humorous, he rather go on and help her out than to be subjected to that lovely name again. A threat he was sure that she’d use again promptly. “Prepare yourself for landing.” His warning came as swift as he approached and started to rip at the vines as carefully as he could until she came down. “Nice to know that the plants can be hostile, on top of smelling like death and rot”, he muttered to himself before offering her a hand off the ground. “Thanks for hanging around and testing that out for me. But really, what happened to get these to attack you?”

He didn’t think that the fair owners or whoever was in charge would really seek to harm the patrons. Scare to death? Sure, but not any further than that.

Finally, the guy decided to help her down. She was worried for a moment that he'd just leave her there. He gave her a short warning and then swiftly ripped through the vines. Dala dropped to the ground, face first. When he offered his hand, she took it and dragged herself to her feet. Her rescuer gave her thanks for being a tester which made her smile proudly, until he actually asked what she did to get the attention of these plants. 

"I didn't do nothin!" Dala boldly stated with crossed arms, "All I was wanting were a few roots. These vines got plenty of them and I was hoping to, uh…. borrow some. You'd be surprised how expensive most of this shit is despite being so ugly and all." 

Her eyes glanced back to the stranger. From first appearances, he didn't look like an easily scared type or thrill seeker. Nor did he seem like a plant person. It was a bit odd seeing him sniffing around the horror garden. She gave him a look over then decided that it would probably just be easier to ask him. 

"So what about you?" Dala asked, "Watcha sniffing around here for?" 

Her eyes widened as she made a realization. Perhaps he had sniffed out something valuable! Or rare! Or cool! A smile appeared on her face as these assumptions ran through her mind. Think of all the silver they could earn! Maybe he was searching for a rare treasure that sparkled? Either way, she knew better than to miss out on any sort of opportunity. 

"Well whatever it is, I want in!" She declared, "You gotta be hunting for something important if you're going through all this effort, right? So lets get to it!" 

Little did she know, he was hunting stinky plants. 

Flynn let out a brief snicker at the lady’s graceful landing, but she was far from gravely injured, fortunately. A brave this one was; strange but brave.

His brow couldn’t raise any further when she declared herself innocent, other than to exploit the place of its resources. Somehow, he doubted that the flora here would be as understanding of her ambitions. Likewise, they certainly wouldn’t like what his own goal was.

“I take it that they may want to keep them attached, or perhaps they want your company”, he snickered again. He sheathed the dagger and took a handful of the vines; they too carried the scent and he grimaced before dropping them.

“This place is not good for my kind. We have an acute sense of smell, so you could only imagine how much of a pain it is when everything around carries that terrible odor.” He was going to continue on, but she jumped in and volunteered her help. Help, that at first he was ready to deny but then he thought about it. She likely wouldn’t be overwhelmed by this place like he would- especially since she was hanging about for gods knew how long.

“I seek to find the source and rectify it. And I suppose that if we stick together, then you’ll be able to get these roots you want and probably more. Places like this usually come with tons of surprises.” He couldn’t guarantee that last part, but he wasn’t about to reveal that little tidbit to her.

“Call me Flynn. Now come on, little lady and stay close.”

Against the wishes of his body, Flynn’s mind pushed at it to continue forward. It felt as if the further they went through this place, the more of a jungle it appeared rather than the typical garden. In no time at all, he felt himself almost ready to collapse. The foulness in the air was somehow even worse and he turned his head to the right and stared in shock. “Wait”, he spoke with a hand covering his mouth and nose, “Is that a dead body?” There was no way it was; but its appearance was uncanny to that of a corpse. He had seen such before, but it wasn’t like the other times. Moving towards it, he used his other hand to tilt the head up- it felt far too soft like it was in a constant state of decomposition.

Gods, he thought this place was supposed to be fun.

His goal was fine, and most importantly allowed her any valuables they found! It also explained why he looked so disturbed and why he was sniffing the ground. There were only two types of people who sniffed the ground. Animal folks and drug addicts! She guessed he was the former and probably only the latter on bad days or something. The young woman smirked and placed her hands on her hips like she held all the confidence in the world. 

"You got it big guy!" She agreed. 

However, staying close was a bit hard when tempted by all these exotic plant life. Yes, they were dangerous. But they looked cool and probably would cost lots and lots of money! Thankfully her impulse control, though tiny it was, kept her from running up to every dangerous plant. During their walk through the swampish and thick garden, she started to catch a scent herself. It was a rank scent that pierced through all the others… and unfortunately a familiar one too. It brought her back to the days when she was little, on the streets of Vilpamolan where a body could rot for days before someone bothered to clean it up. Dala could tell her big friend was struggling too, almost toppling over. It probably was hell on his senses. When they finally found the corpse flower, it was a horrid plant with what looked to be a rotting corpse stuck up in the center of the flower in place of a pistil. 

"Don't know. Might be some poor bugger that got eaten." 

She picked up a stick and started poking it, just to see if it was being digested. No movements. So she got a bit closer and started looking into the flower further, trying to see if the corpse was able to be pulled out. To her surprise, it seemed to be attached to the flower, like it was a part of it. 

"What the?" She said as she looked closer into the flower. "It's attached!" 

If this was someone’s plot of a sick joke, then he certainly wasn’t laughing. Nor was his new acquaintance as she moved over to check out the body with a stick. It nearly took everything Flynn had to not keel over and get overwhelmed completely. Death wasn’t anything new to him; this sight and especially the smell though, was unlike anything he had dealt with before. It felt unnatural and wrong to even be in its presence. He nodded while covering his nose, feeling some remorse for the bastard that wasn’t as lucky as the young lady here.

His baby blues darted towards her and then towards the flower that wasn’t simply feeding or ensuring the corpse- they were one and the same. It was all starting to make sense for him. Oh, how he would have loved to torch this place and satisfy his inner wolf. But curiosity was a far greater force that took over.

“What’s the point?”, he reckoned, his eyes remained on the flower and its dreadful appearance. “To lure prey?” What damn prey did these things feed on? Perhaps it was an answer that he didn’t really want to know.

He took a peek around and soon wished he hadn’t. “Uh…I don’t think this thing grows in solidarity…” Pointing over to the right, he spotted another one a few meters away. And then another in proximity. And then another.

“Or…maybe they are to dissuade people from venturing further and finding out some secrets about this place. They don’t seem to be reactive like the vines you found earlier.” Flynn swore to the gods that he would be bathing for weeks to get rid of the smell he was sure the duo would be amassing just by being in this forsaken place. He pushed himself to move around the corpse flower and snake about, looking for something, anything, peculiar.

It truly was a horror story walking past all these flora resembling the dead. Oh how he was going to have a story to tell his friends back home; if he survived. "No, no, I will make it out. This is just…", Flynn started before he stumbled upon a large, bright mushroom thing. It pulsed over and over like one would imagine a brain did as it swayed back and forth. It was mesmerizing in a way and he simply stared and watched its alluring movement. 

Her companion was equally disgusted by the sight, if not more so. He kept asking questions about why the plant would look like a corpse. “I don’t know,” Dala admitted as she kept looking at the plant, poking it with her stick.

“I can’t imagine this thing could lure anything near. Maybe it’s to keep it away…”

Dala let herself get lost in her thoughts for a moment, wondering about the gross corpse plant. By the time she looked back over Flynn, he was staring at some weird-looking brain mushroom things.

“Hey! Back away from that!” She said while trying to push him away from the weird plant. “It might eat your brains or turn you into a brain plant!”

Dala had no idea if any of that would actually happen but her fears were stronger than her logic. A sigh escaped her as she rummaged through her bag. She pulled out a necklace with a small round metal ball that could be opened. When she opened it, the essential oils and herbs stored within created a powerful but soothing smell. Perhaps it was magic. Perhaps it was well-designed oil. But the pleasing scent of natural herbs and oils blocked out most of the other scents. She handed him the necklace to give him some sort of protection from the horrific garden. The original plan was to sell it for lots of silver but… he needed it more.

“Take this. Might make you feel better.” Dala suggested. 

The young woman didn't actually know how long the necklace would be able to help if it helped at all. But it was the best she could come up with at the moment. Last thing she needed was the guy with the sword to keel over from smelling too much. Another plant that caught her attention was the strange goldfish melded onto a sunflower stalk. It also started screaming when she got closer. 

"Whoops." 

He must have heard her; her voice came out but his mind couldn’t very well make out the words she spoke. He must have felt her attempts to move him from his spot- but the pushes felt like that of a pillow thrown at him. Flynn felt distant from everything around him save for the mushroom. Its bright colors and pulsing movements stole his senses away, numbing both body and mind.

He didn’t know just how long he had remained in that spot for- minutes, hours or even days. Damn fungus had him hook, line and sinker.

It was only through his companion’s quick thinking and a smell he started to pick up that overridden the foul stench that shook him to the core and awakened him from his trance. He felt himself blinking wildly as he came to and his eyes fell down to the necklace he now bore.

Before he could fall under the spell of the mushroom again, Flynn shielded his eyes and quickly turned away. “Yeah, whatever this is, it’s working alright. Thank you.” He had no intention of keeping the trinket for too long from its rightful owner, so he had to make haste and complete his exploration before long. Or before they’d be made into mulch.

He stuck close by her as she went looking about while he kept his distance. “There has to be something worth coming here. I’d rather not risk my hide just to get possessed by some overgrown fungus.” So far, they had found nothing but problems thus far but he was stubborn. And judging from his company, he wasn’t alone, thankfully.