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PlushKiwi
Alright, I think I'll try my hand at a rough draft at least, while this is all fresh in my head. I only read the opening post to the fodderlocke, by the way, but flipping through it, you're posting how it's going, so maybe I'll reference more in there. Maybe not, though; all that takes place after this story, after all. But of course, once the work is done, feel free to take inspiration from it for future posts in your fodderlocke. :)
It was the biggest event of the year in a town in which cutthroat competition was a way of life. Within the gloom and beneath the boughs of the Tangled Wood, gardens of all varieties formed a patchwork in and around the town of Thornton. Life and death both burst in abundance during this time of the Thornton Gardening Competitions.
It's been like that for as long as anyone can remember. Perhaps, once, they were all assassins, and some do-gooder thought that he or she could change the bloodthirsty residents by giving them a gentler pastime, which would foster an appreciation for new life: gardening. How naïve, if that was the case. There was no more violent a time than when rival gardening societies would ruin the work of the others, stopping short the lives of those plants struggling to survive. Gardeners would go "missing," too.
This was the place where Iris grew up. Every year of her life, just about the whole town would be caught up in malicious intent and a need to
win. She'd even witnessed certain acts which the adults warned her to keep secret. Locked within her mind were many of those secrets now...
Truly, it was a frightening place for a child. Her young mind could only associate gardens and orderly plant life with murder and deceit. Every time she looked past a picketed fence into a garden plot, she would shiver, wondering who and how many had died to make those plants grow...and, if anyone was buried within the soil there, fertilizing their rivals' flowers. It certainly was far from an unlikely thing.
Every year, she would hide inside as often as she could in order to not be mistaken for one sent to sabotage someone's plot. Every year, she would tremble, imagining what horrors may have occurred as she heard angry accusations and screams outside. Every year, she would swear to herself that as soon as she was old enough, she would flee this awful place.
That was...for a while. "Every year" persisted...but with less frequency during the competitions. As she grew up, she learned to keep her eyes away from the garden plots. She got used to the cries of those who, now, didn't sound as intimidating as they once did. By the time she was grown -- though she still lived with her mother -- she had even gotten used to the whole thing. It was a waste of time, now. A nuisance. She was trying to go about her daily life, but everyone was so obsessed with their dumb gardens. She couldn't see the appeal.
Unfortunately, disinterest can be dangerous.
Iris grew careless. It was so commonplace to her now, that she didn't take any precautions while going about her tasks. Not until she heard a voice bark at her.
"HEY! Where do you think you're walking?!"
It was someone from one of the gardening societies. Iris was just returning home after a long day of foraging in the woods -- she didn't trust any of the produce grown by her fellow townsdragons -- and was surprised when the Ridgeback approached her so viciously. Wide-eyed, she immediately looked down. The brush she'd been traipsing through looked unnaturally orderly, now that she looked at it. Her heart sunk.
Oh no...
Iris snapped her attention back to the Ridgeback, full of fear.
This is his garden! Her mind rushed to the time of year. Indeed, the competitions were going on at the moment.
"I swear, I didn't realize where I was going!" she began, raising her paws in front of herself defensively and taking a step back.
Crack!
Dread welled up inside of the pair of dragons. Iris had felt something break behind her back paw. The Ridgeback looked on slack-jawed in horror. Neither were a good sign.
"MY RARE-COLORED, ULTRA-LARGE RHUBARB!"
Even as he called out in dismay, Iris dashed away, breaking some more plants in the garden along the way in her rush. She fled into the woods, not daring to return home. If the Ridgeback asked around, he was sure to find where she lived. Rare-colored ultra-large rhubarb were not easy to come by or to grow. She didn't want to imagine what sort of punishment would be levied upon her if she were caught.
Iris camped out in the woods for a few days, but she didn't really have anywhere else to go. So, cautiously, she returned home...and just in time to find the last embers dying out from her destroyed house. Alarm overwhelmed her. She began desperately searching, hoping to find no trace of the woman with whom she lived in this awful place.
But she found her. She found her where her bedroom had once been. The charred remains of her mother.
That was it. That was IT! These stupid gardening competitions had taken life before, but Iris had always had her gentle mother. The dragon had only stayed in town with her daughter because she was -- perhaps naively -- waiting for the girl's father to return...not that he ever did. Iris had always figured that he'd either abandoned them or had been killed in the competitions. But Iris' sweet, trusting mother had waited, and every year, had soothed her frightened daughter.
But now, that gentle force was no longer present in Iris' life. She roared and she screamed in her pain and in her fury...and when that finally ebbed away over so long a time...a dark fire burned within her.
Hatred. Vengeance. These residents of Thornton loved their gardens and their competitions so much, did they? Well. She would destroy them. Being the flower which bloomed in darkness, she would start her own "gardening society" -- The Black Barlows --...and weed out the wicked, plucking everything they cared for...pride, gardens, unity,
victory...out of their lives.
So. How was that? It wound up being a lot darker than I'd thought it would, but I hope you like it. :) I imagine part of Iris blames herself, too (she got careless), but her main thought is "gardening isn't worth killing and destroying over and I'll teach you that."
perhaps the isolation was forced on her from someone or something? I don't plan on mixing any of my other dragons into her lore. So you can go ham on making a unique character as well!
