The weather was getting a little warmer and with it, came the blossoming of new flowers, some arriving a little earlier than usual this year. After everything that happened, Cat threw herself into a nature hike, intending on looking for wild onion and maybe some other plants to bring home.
Going to the swamp in Lauderhill seemed like a good idea, in theory. Until Catriona got there and stood at the edge not far from her parents' car. Was she really going to head into the wilderness again after what happened on a fucking ski slope? Fuck. It hurt her head to think about. She almost turned around then and there and got back in the car, but Cat was stubborn. She wasn't going to let one experience... or two or three... in nature stop her from enjoying what she loved most.
Besides, she was packing bear mace, a flamethrower attached to her wrist, and magic to keep anyone or anything from fucking with her. She was getting some fucking onions today and that was that.
Cat made her way into the swamp area, grateful for the lined wellies on her feet. Trucking through mud and leftover snow just to find plants that perhaps hadn't had a chance to blossom yet. She needed this though. More than anything else. She only wished she had thought to ask a friend to join her.
As Cat travelled through the swamp, occasionally, she'd magically transfer some plants into the tote she brought with her containing different pots of dirt. Sometimes she'd use her hands. It was good. She wasn't thinking about her guilt. Her sadness. Indra. Just quietly reconnecting with nature.
It was in the shadow by the marsh she found them. Wild onions. Cat smiled and made her way over, deciding to try them then and there, not realizing their resemblance to some other deadlier plant life found in the wild. She cut a bulb off from its stem and bit into one of the petals. It didn't really taste like an onion? Nor did it smell like it either. Cat frowned and took a photo of the plant and looked it up on her phone, grateful she still had service.
What Catriona found was enough to make her want to crawl out of her skin. It wasn't a wild onion plant. The word, death camas, popped up in each search she made, as she frantically scrolled through website after website.
"No, no, no, no, no!" She muttered nervously to herself, feeling so absolutely stupid. She had been fed off of by vampires, almost killed by werebears but it was a fucking plant that was going to do her in?! Catriona shrieked and dropped to the ground, trying to heave up whatever she swallowed, imagining it in her system, flooding her body with its toxicity. She almost felt like she could visualize the poison within her, unaware her eyes were silver, as she slowly, mentally, magically pulled the toxic substance out through her pores. The poison pooled on her skin, through her clothes and began to drip, drip, drip to the ground beneath her, leaving nothing behind to damage its temporary host. When it was over, Catriona fell backwards onto the wet earth, panting, exhausted with an itchy rash that stretched down her arms from her chest and neck.
"What the fuck."