Welcome to Weedwick
(Where chaos is compost, and the plants talk back)
Sunlight—or whatever passed for it in the Underworld—filtered lazily through the stained-glass remnants of Weedwick Castle's long-forgotten chapel windows. The colors flickered across ancient stone walls, lighting the dust and spores that danced gently in the air. I lay sprawled across an oversized, vine-woven couch that looked like it had grown out of the floor itself. My plant-woven cloak hung half-off one shoulder, and my green-streaked black hair was knotted from sleep.
My skin, a muted shade of jade, shimmered faintly under the ambient glow. Faint vine-like lines curled beneath the surface like living tattoos. Mossy horns curled from my head and bloomed with tiny, delicate flowers—an inconvenient truth I still hadn't come to terms with. The gentle warmth wasn't from fire, but from the castle itself—a place so ancient and saturated with magic it practically breathed.
A chorus of chirps and rustling leaves stirred the air above me. Feather-leafed flutterlings zipped overhead, chasing one another across the rafters. In the far corner, a puffball mushroom exploded in a glittery burst, filling the air with something that smelled faintly like lemon and danger.
"Mooooooooossssssss!"
The voice came from the cracked terracotta pot above the fireplace. Gary.
I groaned into the cushion. "No, Gary. Not today."
"It is today! Today is the day I perish. I feel it in my fronds!"
"Then perish quietly. I'm still asleep."
Gary, a dramatic broad-leafed fern with a flair for tragic monologues and a tendency to faint when overwatered who lived on the mantle (and, on occasion, in my tea cabinet), shook his fronds like an offended noble. "The dampness in the air is too thick. I had rot dreams, Moss. Rot dreams."
I dragged myself upright and blinked blearily at him. "Then stop sleeping in the tea cabinet. You know the humidity is worse there."
"You wound me!"
"Gary, I haven't even touched you."
I stood and took in the chaos of the lounge. Suc-Suc, the anxious succulent, was curled into a porcelain teacup again, muttering doomsday prophecies under his breath. A rogue vine had entangled itself in a tapestry and was now in a heated tug-of-war with a velvet curtain. The sentient cactus, Spike, had migrated dangerously close to the fireplace, attempting to roast its own spines. Again.
Just another day in Weedwick Castle.
I padded barefoot through the corridor, passing the central fountain where blooming lilies belched bubbles of lavender mist. Each room I passed was full of magic and mayhem. The sunroom had become a jungle of overgrown vines with moods of their own—jealous, clingy, occasionally murderous. The pantry was overtaken by glowing mushrooms who'd unionized after I tried to eat one of their cousins. The library hummed with petals that turned into butterflies when no one was watching and whispered unsolicited book reviews. And the castle's west tower? Still off-limits. That's where the time-thistle bloomed, and nothing good came from a flower that whispered yesterday's secrets.
As I ran my fingers along the ivy-covered wall, it purred like a pleased cat. The castle thrummed beneath my feet like a sleeping beast. But even as I walked, my mind drifted. The warmth of the castle dimmed, and memory—sharp and sudden—crept in.
Back when I was human, everything hurt.
Burnout wasn't poetic; it was ugly. I lived in a shoebox apartment stuffed with potted plants and fluorescent lights. I juggled three dead-end jobs—garden maintenance, evening desk assistant, and overnight call center agent. My back ached, my eyes burned, and sleep was a rare luxury. I was a ghost in my own life, going through motions that didn't matter.
The only thing that gave me peace was gardening. I'd sink my fingers into soil and feel... calm. Real. Like I was part of something that didn't demand receipts or paychecks. I talked to my plants more than people. They didn't judge. They just grew.
I died in a gardening accident. A stupid one.
There was a thornbush I'd been pruning on a steep slope outside a client's estate. The rain started while I was halfway through the job, but I didn't stop. I never stopped. I needed the money. The grass grew slick under my boots. One step. One twist. My foot slipped. The shears in my hand spun out of my grip, and my body slammed down the embankment. I remember the snap of my ankle. The sharp bite of a stone at my temple. And the shears... my side.
There was pain. Blood. Cold.
I lay there, staring at the soaked earth as it drank from me.
And then I saw it—just before everything went dark. A tiny, unbloomed bud. Grey and curled like a clenched fist. As my blood soaked into the soil, it bloomed.
A single, vivid green flower. It unfurled in slow motion, trembling with unnatural life, its petals edged in a luminous glow that pulsed like a heartbeat. The color was too rich, too vibrant, like it had stolen green from a thousand forests. It smelled of earth after lightning, of something sacred and terrifying. It shouldn't have been there. And yet, in that moment, it felt like the most honest thing I'd ever seen. Ethereal. Wrong. Right. Like it had always been waiting for me.
Then came the heat.
I woke in a body that wasn't mine. Taller. Stronger. Horned. My skin shimmered green. My fingers burned with green flame. Bloomfire, I would come to call it. It pulsed with life, with power, with something ancient and wild.
The realm I woke into was the demon realm—a place of scorched skies, obsidian mountains, and cities carved from bone and brimstone. The demons there were made of red and smoke and fire. I was green. And growing.
I tried to fit in.
But my very presence was... infectious. Flowers bloomed in lecture halls. Vines wrapped through city pipes. Mushrooms took over bathhouses. I was a walking plague of fertility in a world that prized decay.
When one of the demon nobles woke up with a flowering trellis sprouting from their ceiling—singing lullabies, no less—I was summoned.
Labeled unstable. Dangerous. A threat to cultural values and indoor plumbing.
So they did what demons do best.
They exiled me.
They threw me to the fringes, into the forgotten ruins of Weedwick Castle. A half-swallowed relic. Overgrown. Cursed.
They thought they were punishing me.
But for the first time, I felt like I could breathe.
And the plants?
They welcomed me home.
I blinked, and the castle came back into focus. The halls of Weedwick were quiet now, save for the soft rustling of leaves and the burbling of the lily-fountain. I could still feel that phantom moment of blooming—when blood touched bud, when life turned green.
The demons thought they cast me into ruin.
But Weedwick was not a ruin.
It was alive.
And so was I.
A vine tugged playfully at my sleeve, snapping me from my reverie. I turned toward it just in time to duck as a pufffruit exploded overhead, raining down glowing blue spores that smelled faintly of blueberry tea and regret.
From down the hall, I heard the unmistakable sound of Spike rolling into a stack of magical compost again, yelling something about "tactical mulch" like he was leading a military campaign.
Gary, naturally, had resumed his dramatic wailing from his perch above the fireplace. Something about air pressure and root compression.
The curtain had lost its battle with the tapestry and now hung twisted in an unnatural bow, as if surrendering to the inevitable.
The dining room table was missing again. Last seen sprouting legs and sprinting toward the orchard after someone left a bowl of fermented persimmons on it overnight.
Suc-Suc was pacing in circles atop the bookshelf, muttering about pollen conspiracies and whispering to a particularly bossy fern.
Somewhere in the greenhouse annex, the chorus of crooning carnivorous plants began warming up their scales. It was feeding day.
A jungle pearling with chaos. Petals on fire, vines coiling into the chandelier like it was a jungle gym, and somewhere in the ceiling, the invisible pollen ghost was humming again—off-key, of course. Always off-key.
A burst of spores erupted from the hallway as a pair of seedling twins chased a flying book, shouting, "It stole our recipe again!"
A swarm of flower sprites flew past me, dragging glittery streamers that read "Happy Arrival-versary"—which, apparently, was today. I made a mental note to prune whoever put them up.
The bathtub was burping again. That meant the underground kelp spa was overflowing. Again.
And someone—probably Gary—had enchanted the tea kettle to screech sea shanties in three-part harmony.
Yes. Alive was one word for it.
Another word? Home.
A home that moaned and creaked and smelled like honeyed moss, where curtains had opinions and teacups muttered gossip, and even the chandeliers were trying to kill you—gently. But it was mine. Not a prison gilded in brimstone or a cubicle stacked with unanswered voicemails. It was overgrown and inconvenient and weirdly scented, but every vine knew my name.
So yes. Alive. And for the first time in too many lifetimes...Rooted.
And I wouldn't trade a second of the chaos for all the underworld's gold-leafed demon crowns.
Another day in paradise. And chaos, as always, was in bloom.