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.
When Ginyami noticed bright red poinsettias at the store, he remembered they were a favorite festive plant to purchase and decorate around the winter holidays. Since his fiancé, Sara, disliked flowers due to their bright colors, Ginyami normally wouldn't have thought to get them, but it occurred to him that it would have been funny and perhaps interesting to Sara to show him that poinsettias weren't really flowers; they were plants that had some green leaves that turned bright red at the top to mimic flowers. Thus, he decided to get some and perhaps decorate their home or doorstep with them. When choosing them, he found a lovely bunch that looked as if it were sparkling from a sprinkling of dew and it seemed to reflect the warm glow of the festive holiday lights all around. Feel as thought it were fate telling him to buy that particularly pretty bunch, he got it and loaded it up into his car.
It wasn't until he was halfway home that he started realizing the plant pollen was causing him to sneeze. He also felt strangely agitated and oversensitive. At one point, he was sneezing so much and so hard that he almost got into a car accident because he had taken his eyes off the road while sneezing. It was then he decided to pull over and examine the strange new plants he had purchased.
The closer he examined the plants, the more he realized how peculiar they were. First he learned that the plants hadn't just been reflecting the glow from holiday lights before - they were glowing. They were literally glowing with a soft, silvery light all their own, but the light had been so soft at first that he hadn't realized it had been emitted by the poinsettias themselves. The next strange thing was that what he had originally thought was dew covering the leaves was actually fine, silver glitter. Whether the glitter had been someone's doing or another part of the mystery of the plant, Ginyami didn't know. What he did know, however, was the poinsettias were a menace. Aside from making him sneeze like crazy, when he reached for it, its leaves managed to cut him.
Their glitter and glow combined with their drawing his blood reminded him of a silly story he had once heard about vampires that glittered to attract humans as their prey. It was utterly ridiculous, but he couldn't help but wonder why else the holiday poinsettias would have been created or evolved to glow and glitter. Whatever the case, though, as a plant lover and someone whose family owned a chain of plant shops in Japan, he knew this wasn't normal plant behavior.
Aside from the glowing, glittering, and cutting, there was the pollen that caused intense sneezing. Ginyami had quickly grabbed a paper mask to put over his face in order to avoid the worst of the pollen as he decided to try to drive again, but it was strange because he had never known himself to be allergic to plant pollen before and he had been around all kinds of plants. This was among the many reasons that caused him to want to research the poinsettias a little more. The Destiny City library was close by, so he detoured from his route home and drove there instead in the hopes that he would be able to find some answers to his growing number of questions.
