2025 Winter Holiday Prompt
Winter Star Poinsettias: (6) : Poinsettias are common during the winter seasons, so it isn't unusual to see them decorating windowsills and local establishments. What is unusual are the unique Winter Star Poinsettias that seem to have accidentally mixed into the bunch. They look like ordinary Poinsettias reflecting a bit of glow from nearby lights--only, the leaves themselves are emitting a soft, silvery glow. They look like they are covered with a fine morning dew, only with fine silver glitter peppered in to give it a unique sparkle. They seem to have gone unnoticed by most of Destiny City and the landscapers, and it's not clear how these plants were selected, but anyone with a keen eye might recognize them as the catastrophe of Destiny City Botanical Garden's 2016 Winter Extravaganza. Thankfully, these variants are far less dangerous than their counterparts, however, these plants have a strange pollen that acts like an allergen and can cause agitation, oversensitivity, and sneezing to anything with much of a strong smell. Anyone who comes into contact with these plants may also find themselves suffering from flu-like symptoms such as fever, coughing, fatigue, and nausea and no medicine will relieve it, but the symptoms gradually fade. The leaves of the poinsettia are sharp and can sting like a papercut, so be careful! ...If you're worried about an all-out attack again, it might be a good idea to destroy these poinsettias--if you can manage to do so without getting caught.
Tress hadn't actually attended Destiny City Botanical Garden's 2016 Winter Extravaganza. However, she had just arrived in Destiny City for the first time shortly after it had happened, so she remembered the stories being all over the media - on the news, in newspapers, and talked about by many people she happened across. Thus, when she happened to go out to buy more plants as she did every so often, as much as she loved them, she happened to notice and recognize the special breed of Winter Star Poinsettias that had been unveiled at the Winter Extravaganza mixed in among the normal poinsettias being sold at the store. She immediately purchased them, curious about their properties and what had made them so dangerous during that one December nine years ago.
Upon taking the poinsettias home, she wrote down observations she could make of the plant and what differences it seemed to have from its more ordinary variety. The Winter Star Poinsettias were a vibrantly rich red color along with their green leaves, just like many normal types. However, they also glowed with a soft, silvery light and were covered with fine silver glitter that made it appear almost as if it was covered with a fine morning dew. The light was almost certainly from the plant itself, but Tress wondered whether the glitter was a product of the plant or added on artificially later. It seemed to be the former, but as she couldn't remember if the Winter Star Poinsettias were said to have been discovered or created in 2016, she couldn't be sure.
It was interesting that many Destiny City civilians didn't seem to be able to tell apart the Winter Star Poinsettias from their more normal counterparts, but then again, Tress supposed not all of them had lived in the city as long as she had, nor had a memory for plants that spanned back that far. That, or they were all so used to abnormalities happening in the city that a glowing, glittering poinsettia hardly seemed out of the ordinary to them. Regardless, Tress didn't want to take any chances because people had been just as unsuspecting in 2016 when the plants had first been introduced to the city if the reports were to be believed. After all, who would have expected plants, even unnaturally glowing and sparkling ones, to come alive enough to attack people?
Tress hadn't heard anything about senshi or Negaverse agents being present at the event, but she wanted to do more research on what had happened back then in order to determine what was going on and if the Winter Star Poinsettia she had purchased was just as dangerous as the ones from the botanical garden in 2016. She wondered if they had been reintroduced into the city by the same person or people who had introduced them back then or if this was a less harmful kind. From what she remembered, it had taken a while for anyone to realize that anything was wrong with the plants because they hadn't attacked immediately, but she was determined to go to the library to find old articles on the incident and find out more rather than simply drawing from her memory which could have been faulty.
With that in mind, Tress grabbed her laptop and the plant and took them with her to the library, ready to look more into the strange flora.
