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bakerstreet2026-09-11 06:35 pm
Garden
There is a garden, and it has always been there, and it has always been waiting for somebody.
The first part is all cottage flowers and crooked little paths, herbs growing wherever they'll fit, fruit trees heavy with something ripe, butterflies, warm grass, and a greenhouse tucked off to one side. There's a fountain somewhere beyond the lawn, plenty of shade, and more than enough places to sit.
Further in, the hedges get taller.
The paths narrow. Roses climb over walls and archways until they're everywhere, and somewhere past all that green is a maze.
Some parts of the garden are nicer than others. Gardens are like that. So are the things that keep them.
Come in. Have a strawberry. Every gate is easier to enter than to leave, but you knew that.
- Comment with your character, canon, preferences, et al.
- Tag around and pick from either bank, roll, or mix and match.
- THE GARDEN is for the nice part.
- THE ROSE GARDEN is for...everything else.
1. PICNIC: Spread a blanket somewhere soft and unpack the basket. You don't have anywhere else to be for a while.
2. DATE: Somebody called it a date. Or nobody did, and the picnic basket is starting to look suspicious.
3. BUTTERFLIES: One lands on a sleeve and stays there, opening and closing its wings in the sun. You're stuck until it decides otherwise.
4. PICK ONE: Wander until you find a flower that reminds you of the other person. Give it to them. They can ask why if they want.
5. FLOWER CROWN: There are enough little flowers to make one. Somebody gets volunteered as decoration.
6. GREENHOUSE: Warm glass, damp air, crowded shelves. Condensation runs down the windows, vines climb toward the ceiling, and there's always another plant tucked behind the one you were looking at. Wander.
7. FRUIT TREES: Something is ripe enough to come away in your hand. Eat it under the branches before anybody bothers finding a basket.
8. STRAWBERRIES: There were more when you started picking. Nobody saw anything.
9. HERB GARDEN: Brush your hand through the leaves until you find something that smells good. Crush one between your fingers and hold it out. Here.
10. SOMETHING IN YOUR HAIR: A petal has caught in their hair. Hold still.
11. THE FOUNTAIN: Sit along the edge and put your hands in the cool water. Stay there until your fingers wrinkle if you want.
12. THE MAZE: Somewhere among the hedges, you lose track of the way out. You've passed that stone urn twice already, and neither of you seems especially bothered by this.
13. UNDER THE TREE: There's a patch of shade beneath the branches, soft grass, and enough room to stretch out. Somebody's jacket makes a perfectly good pillow.
14. NAP: It was only supposed to be for a minute. The sun is warm through the leaves, though, and nobody set an alarm.
15. HELP OUT: Water the beds. Tie something back that's fallen across the path. Rescue a seedling from somebody who insists they know what they're doing.
16. SHOW ME: One of you knows the names of the flowers. The other keeps finding new ones.
17. LITTLE GIFT: Take something small from the garden with you. A pressed flower for a book, a cutting wrapped up for the trip home, a sprig of herbs tucked into a pocket.
18. FIRST BLOOM: Something you've been waiting on has finally opened. Of course you brought someone to see.
19. WARM RAIN: Rain starts softly over the garden, warm enough that nobody has to run. Stay where you are or duck into the greenhouse and listen to it on the glass.
20. QUIET COMPANY: Walk without talking. Read under a tree. Sit in the grass and watch the bees disappear into the flowers. Nothing much has to happen.
21. FEED THE FISH: Bright shapes gather under the pond water as soon as you get close. They've clearly done this before.
22. STAY A WHILE: The light has started to turn gold across the grass. You were going to leave before it got late. You could still do that.
1. TOO MANY ROSES: At first they only covered the archway. Further in, they climb the walls, spill over the hedges, and crowd close enough to brush against you when you pass. There weren't this many before.
2. WRONG TURN: You pass the fountain again. You don't remember coming back this way.
3. THE MAZE: The hedges are high enough to block out everything except the sky. Every path looks familiar, and every turn opens onto more green. Pick one.
4. DEAD END: The path ends beneath a rose arbor. Someone has set a little table there for two. The tea is still warm.
5. THORNS: The roses lean into the path as you pass. Thorns catch sleeves and hems, then skin when you try to pull free. They don't mean anything by it.
6. THE GREENHOUSE: Every plant inside has been carefully labeled in the same neat handwriting. Most of them are ordinary enough. One has a person's name. It is very well watered.
7. SOMETHING MOVED: There's a statue half-hidden among the roses. It wasn't facing this way earlier.
8. THE FOUNTAIN: Something shines at the bottom of the water. Lean closer and it almost looks familiar. It's just within reach.
9. DON'T EAT THAT: Fruit hangs heavy from a branch overhead, dark and ripe and sweet-smelling. You don't recognize the tree. There isn't another one like it anywhere nearby.
10. THE GARDENER: You keep catching glimpses of someone tending the roses a few paths away. A hat, a sleeve, the flash of pruning shears. No matter which way you go, you never get any closer.
11. CLOSED FOR THE SEASON: A little iron sign on the gate says CLOSED FOR THE SEASON. Everything behind it is flowering. It has never been the right season.
12. YOUR NAME: There it is. Carved into the bark of a tree. Written on a plant marker. Worked into the stone around the fountain.
13. SOMEONE ELSE'S NAME: Another name appears nearby. You know that one, too.
14. SOMETHING BURIED: The earth beneath the roses has been freshly turned. Something pale is showing through the dirt, only a corner of it, and there isn't a shovel in sight.
15. THE STATUES: White figures stand among the hedges, worn down by weather and half-covered in ivy. Some are missing hands or faces. You didn't count them on the way in.
16. AFTER DARK: The lamps come on one by one along the paths. That's when you realize the sun has gone down.
17. THE LOCKED GATE: At last, the entrance appears through the roses. Same gate. Same latch. The road is right there on the other side. It won't open.
18. THE KEY: A small key lies in the middle of the path, right where you'd step on it. There are plenty of gates, doors, and little locked boxes around here. None of them fit.
19. A ROSE FOR YOU: A single rose is waiting on the bench ahead. Freshly cut. Still wet, even though it hasn't rained.
20. THE OTHER PICNIC: Beyond the hedge is a blanket spread beneath the trees. The basket is open, two glasses have already been poured, and a book is lying face-down in the grass like somebody only just got up. No one is there.
21. THE POND: The fish keep gathering under the same patch of water. Throw food somewhere else and they ignore it. Every so often, the surface moves.
22. SOMETHING IN THE HEDGE: Leaves stir on the other side of the hedge as you walk. Whatever's there isn't in any hurry. When you stop, it stops.
23. THE WEATHER: Rain is falling over the path ahead. Take one step back and you're standing in sunshine again. Behind you, the stones are dry.
24. THE PATH HOME: There. The gate. The road beyond it. Somewhere you recognize. You take the right path this time. Then another right. Straight past the fountain. A few turns later, the roses are waiting again. They usually are.
Lucina Masaud | OC | OTA
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There’s always some sort of odd messages when it comes to dreams, though Marie couldn’t think of a reason for this one. A rose garden with roses and thorns are far as the eye could see.
Worse yet, it had long since turned dark, meaning she was lost in the odd maze.
“Where is the exit?” She asked, wandering around, getting annoyed as her clothes got snagged in the vines.
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She's about mapped every relevant location in her small town, visited them at least once, just to give herself something to do. She knows the town erects a hay bale maze for the kids on Halloween, but she would have remembered one filled with roses like this.
"I think I'm dreaming," she tells herself, whirling around as a lantern glows faintly behind her. She decides to follow the light as best she can, through a path choked with red blooms and thorns that tug at her sleeves. She gets stuck on them thrice, with one scraping against her upper arm, and Lucina stops to stare at the blood bubbling up.
It looks real. But that means little in her dreams, she knows this.
Lucina doubles back for the lantern, wrenching it out from the tangle of thorns and holding it aloft just as she hears a voice.
"Hello?" she calls out, taking a few cautionary steps forward. She thinks she sees something blue in the brush, just out of her line of sight. "Is someone there?"
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“Hello?” She called back. “Y-Yes, I’m here! My name’s Marie and I don’t know how, but I got lost!” She would turn around, her blue hair swaying as she tried to find the source of the voice, spotting just a bit of light from her lantern.
aventurine . honkai star rail . ota
Agnès Claudel | Trails (Daybreak 1, 2, Horizon) | OTA
sally owens | practical magic
no subject
faust, mahoyaku
Delia Battista ✨ Star Trek OC ✨OTA, 21+ for any shipping or smut
Hirose Aiki | Go for it, Nakamura-kun!!
luluci | witch hat atelier
Youko Nakajima (Twelve Kingdoms)
Conan | Conan the Barbarian | OTA (M/F pref)
dr mark watney | the martian | ota
hey there ;)
Chicago Botanic Gardens is impressively large, a curated feast for the eyes that sprawls in winding paths across several islands in the lagoon. The weather is perfect, warm enough to be comfortable without being too hot, a few wispy clouds occasionally drifting across the sun, and every time they walk in the shade of the trees along the path they can feel the temperature drop several degrees.
Autumn is on its way soon, but some of the flowers are still in bloom, their leaves not yet wilting, the trees still green and vivid. Bees and butterflies circle the bushes, and birds sing in the trees, sometimes flitting down to splash in a decorative fountain, or sitting on top of a sculpture nestled in among the flowers.
They haven't stopped to read a single placard along any of the paths. Why would they, when Mark has all the knowledge they need? He's barely stopped talking since they arrived, and Grace is content to listen, slipping in a question here and there when Mark pauses to take a breath.]
god he truly do be yappin
The Mark Watney of that morning had been a naïve fool, and a liar to boot. Fingers crossed Grace can forgive him.
Their hands are linked, as they are wont to be, so when he hurries along a few feet to get a closer look at something, Ryland is affectionately tugged along with him. It doesn't seem to matter that Mark's close to forty five years old; his excitement for plants and their biology is still at the same level as it was when he was ten, and sixteen, and twenty two. ]
Oh, and hey, this is cool- [ He's described...most of what's here the same way. ] You see that up there, with the purple flowers?
[ 'That' being a purple bloom, seemingly growing out of the side of one of the trees. ]
That's actually a kind of orchid, which are really cool plants for a lot of reasons, but the main one is that a lot of the tropical kinds are really similar to air plants, which take in all their nutrients and water from the air. They don't need soil at all - the European ones do, the Terrestrial orchids, but the tropical wild ones? They just need something solid to grow on for support.
That's also why nine times outta ten, they die when people buy 'em - they get put in soil and watered to hell and back, live for about a week before their roots suffocate or they get rot. They're not hard to care for, people are just going about it totally the wrong way.
morgan | fgo | ota
qifrey — witch hat atelier
Shen (Yuan) Qingqiu | SVSSS
Pauline Bonheur | OC | OTA
Rumi | KPop Demon Hunters | OTA
Nuala | Hellboy II: The Golden Army
Prussia ✙ Gilbert Beilschmidt | Hetalia | OTA
Orym of the Air Ashari | Critical Role | OTA
Sophie — Bridgerton
merlin | chronicles of amber
Daniel Lawrence | original character | ota