YURI SHIPPING OLYMPICS 2024 - BONUS ROUND 3

[a1c0bb]

For this bonus round, we're looking for prompts inspired by plant/flower symbolism and the language(s) of flowers!

Here are some resources on flower meanings:
Script Florist
Farmer's Almanac
Wikipedia: Hanakotoba
Wikipedia: Plant Symbolism

This round will end on July 1st.

Fills can be in any format, and you can fill your teammates prompts, but you cannot fill your own prompt.

You can post as many fills and as many prompts as you want!

for your prompt post title, please use the following format:

PROMPT: TEAM [TEAM NAME]

for your fill post title, please use the following format:

FILL: TEAM [TEAM NAME]

POINTS - BONUS ROUNDS
For prompts: 10 points each (maximum of 150 prompt points per team per round)
For fills:
First 4 fills by any member of your team: 100 points each
Fills 5-10: 50 points each
Fills 11-20: 40 points each
Fills 21-50: 30 points each
Fills 51+: 25 points each

Comments

PROMPT: Team Tokusatsu Yuri Ships United Front

[unenchantingly]

One hand was behind his back, and he held it out, presenting a bouquet of white and smoky purple lilies.

“They’re straight from the underworld, by the way. They are everlasting. They won’t die.”

― Jess C Scott, The Devilin Fey

(purple lily abbreviated meaning: royalty, elegance, spirituality)

FILL: Team Kittyuri

[missiletoe]

Ship: Kitty/Yuri
Word Count: 937

------------------------------------------------------------------------

It’s the outfit that gets her first. A little dated, sure–Kitty’s not sure the last time she saw someone under twenty-five sporting pinstripes–but drop-dead gorgeous. Kitty scoops her jaw off the chipped pavement and tells her legs to keep moving. They respond like buggy code, her nerves acting like frayed wires as she trips over a stone and struggles to right herself.

It’s the flowers that catch her attention second. The petals are long and thin, a rich purple that bleeds into black at the center. Kitty doesn’t recall seeing anything like those on campus–not that she’s exactly sightseeing as she’s running between classes.

And it’s her voice that gets her third.

“Kitty, these are for you,” the woman? girl? says, offering the bouquet. She can’t be any older than a college student but she certainly doesn’t look the part. She’s got a leather purse with little skulls emblazoned onto the handles that looks like it costs five times Kitty’s running tuition bill.
Kitty’s jaw hits the floor for the second time in twenty seconds when she remembers that she never introduced herself.

“Me?” she squawks, glancing around at the empty parking lot. The girl nods and pushes the bouquet into her hand when she doesn’t reach out to accept.

The flowers are undeniably alive but they smell like death.

“They’re straight from the underworld, by the way. They are everlasting. They won’t die,” the girl tacks on casually, like she’s offering a two-for-one deal at the supermarket. Kitty pinches her own forearm at the surrealism but she doesn’t wake up.

Flowers from Hell and omniscient beings. There is something very wrong with this picture and she doesn’t even think it’s the girl’s abnormal beauty.

“Who are you?” Kitty chokes out when her throat comes unstuck. She’ll need a name for the contact in her phone, after all–or she can leave it at Pretty Flower Girl / Maybe Stalker?

“Yuri,” the girl replies, sticking one hand out. “The King of Hell.”

Kitty doesn’t know whether you’re supposed to shake or kiss the hands of royalty so she ends up gripping it in some sort of bear-claw hold instead. Lovely. She can probably look forward to a hundred years in purgatory for that one.

Yuri’s skin is cool to the touch but she laughs at Kitty’s pitiful attempt at courtesy.

“You don’t have to look so nervous,” she says as Kitty tries to discreetly cover up her heart with that stupid, useless literature textbook Professor Lee makes them lug to every class. She can’t remember if demons feasting on live hearts is something from mythology or a wayward Reddit post she landed on at 2AM. Probably both. “I’ve come here with a proposition.”

I can think of twenty ways to proposition you–

The Q on her shoulder tells her to shut up and focus if she wants to retain her claim to her soul. For once, she listens–which is funny, considering she never listens to the real one.

“A proposition?” she says, somehow making it to the end of the sentence without laughing. Someone needs to update the archives of Hell with a thesaurus and a ten-volume series on the evolving memespeak.

“Come home with me,” Yuri says and the flowers land in a bundled heap on the floor. Maybe the King of Hell does keep a copy of the Urban Dictionary.

“How much is rent there?” Kitty asks instead of something normal like excuse me and find someone else to match your crazy. But still–Seoul apartment prices can be a real killer.

“Rent?” Yuri laughs, puzzled. “There’s no rent at my place.”

Kitty’s sold. (And she swears it’s not just because a pretty girl is offering to take her home–shut up Q! It’s only… economical.)

“I’d like you to come work for me,” she says and Kitty’s mind stalls.

“Pardon?”

“I’ve seen your work,” Yuri continues like Kitty hadn’t spoken at all. “It’s wonderful–no one has quite the inspiration that you do.”

Inspiration? The last time Kitty heard that word was when she drew a crooked parrot for second-grade art class.

“Your… pranks?” Yuri elaborates, like she’s fishing for the right world. Kitty gawks.

“Are you talking about the slime I left in Minho’s locker?” Yuri nods.

“Among other things.”

“You’re offering me a job,” she says, her mind playing catch-up. A job? In this economy? And she didn’t even have to do a 50-question personality test for it. “What’s the hourly rate? 18? 20?”

Yuri blinks at her.

“I can give you a whole realm if you impress me,” she says and Kitty stares. She wants to ask Yuri to elaborate on what she means by impress–how, when, why–but her last remaining brain cell tells her it’s not the time or place.

“And you’ll be royalty,” Yuri says, tipping her head towards the discarded lilies. Blood warms Kitty’s cheeks, even as Yuri tells her that all of her close officials have honorary royalty status as advisors.

“So, the flowers were a bribe?” Kitty asks suddenly, staring at them. They still reek of mothballs and Kitty’s pretty sure there’s actual dark ooze coming out of the center.

Yuri laughs like she’s said the funniest thing in the world.

“Sure, we can call it that,” she says and her smile makes Kitty shiver.

“Kitty Song Covey, do we have a deal?” Yuri asks, studying her closely.

Free rent, no student debt at the end and she’s getting paid? Kitty’s never signed up for something faster in her life.

“Yes,” Kitty says, sticking her hand out to shake.

Yuri grins and seals the contract with a kiss to the back of her hand.