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Cordelia Matthews loves plants.
It's a love she's harboured since was four, when she first began helping in her parents' garden. She loves the smell of flowers, herbs and fruits, loves working in the soil and seeing her hands get dirty from it, loves having her face freckled and nails grimy from hard work, loves seeing her plants perk up when she gives them water. She takes special pride in the plants she has at home, tending to them with love and tenderness. She feels that plants are easier than people, less judgemental and more easy to read without the confusion of trying to parse different expressions on faces, and don't have eyes she has to keep in contact with without seeming rude. She loves talking about her plants, the pride she has in keeping her twining ivy and hardy succulents and delicate flowers growing, though most people get weirded out except for her fellow plant-lover, Sam Manson, and wants to be a botanist.
She also loved protesting about the environment, to do things that are eco-friendly, to organise protests and petitions with Sam to protect their environment and install a community garden and just makes things better for the environment. She doesn't care if some people still call her tree-hugger, as long as the plants she loves keep growing.
She loves plants.
She especially loves gently picking the flowers of the plants most would sneer at as weeds and putting them in her hair on her walk to school, to show them as much love as their cousins get.
So it is hardly a surprise when Cordelia found a rather... curious plant growing on the sidewalk.
It's smell was what alerted the blonde to its presence—a sharp, metallic scent, almost like blood. She stopped, pausing her music, and looked down to see a small bush growing on the sidewalk, its leaves black as ebony with purple veins, inky stems with sharp thorns...
And beautiful blossoms that looked like roses, as red and rich as blood.
Cordelia gasped; never before had she seen such a beautiful plant.
Crouching down, she whispered, "Hi. What's a gorgeous little plant like you growing on a sidewalk?"
People gave her stares, but she didn't care as she stroked a petal; it was soft like velvet.
"You're so pretty," she murmured as her mind began thinking of where she had seen a plant like this before, making important notes on its rose-like blooms and black, thorny stems and purple-veined leaves, flipping through mental pages of horticultural books to see if anything matched with the plant she saw, only to come up blank.
Looking at the plant, she smiled.
"You must be some sort of rare species!" she exclaimed in delight. "I hope I find more like you and am able to name you, you beautiful little flower."
As if by her words, the flower perked up a bit. Her smile widened.
"Do you mind if I wear you in my hair?" she asked. She didn't get an answer, but she thought she saw the blooms nod.
"Okay. Thank you, little flower," Cordelia murmured as she gently plucked a bloom and nestled it in her hair. Rising to her feet, she replayed her music and skipping along, singing to the lyrics.
Not noticing the drops of green ectoplasm next to the bush, sucked in by the thorns in a vampiric matter as trails of red vapour rose up.
And not realising the grave danger she put one of her classmates in.
***
Danny Fenton tried to keep his eyes open as Mr. Lancer's droning voice spoke about some old book, though he knew he was failing; he had a late night, but not with catching ghosts. No, there had a couple of ghosts seeking him out and asking him if they'd seen their missing friend, just like what had been happening all week. Ghosts who had supposedly come into Amity Park had never come back to the Zone, and their friends and close acquaintances and partners and families were getting worried and scared.
And like he told the other ghosts, Danny promised he'd find their missing friend to the sobbing ghost as her friend held her up. It seemed to be enough for them, as they went back into the Zone with little attempts to cause a ruckus. And while Danny appreciated none of his more serious enemies/frenemies were causing chaos, the missing ghosts were alarming the half-ghost teen—and not just blob ghosts, which he'd noticed over the past week had been drastically less frequent in haunting his town, and the ones he did see looked very afraid and skittish, had been disappearing, but ghosts like shades, spectres, revenants, will o' wisps, poltergeists, spooks and wights... even a couple of apparitions had come to Danny begging for help to find their friends. He was trying to do that, with Sam and Tucker helping (even if, due to being human, they couldn't see apparitions like Danny could) in trying to find these missing ghosts.
(Especially the spooks and wights, because those were kids, and Danny was scared to think what was happening to them, how terrified they would be, couldn't stop imagining if Danielle was among them, especially since she hadn't contacted him in a little while)
But nothing. It was like the ghosts had... vanished. And not in the way ghosts could vanish.
His biggest suspect was the Guys In White, who somehow managed to capture even the constantly-invisible apparitions, and were now experimenting on them. Though, whenever he went into the Zone to ask questions if anyone had a friend or loved one missing, he heard terrified whispers of "wraiths". The teen didn't know what wraiths were, and no one was willing to talk to him about them, but he had a feeling they were bad news. Even Clockwork was unable to help him find the missing ghosts.
The one consolation was that his rogues had stopped attacking, and that any other ghosts who wanted to wander around Amity Park or cause chaos or destruction was staying firmly in the Zone until the missing were found; same with his allies, including Wulf who rather not stay in the Zone unless he needed to recharge on ectoplasm or the human world was less safer for him than the Zone. But it was hardly a consolation when Danny was afraid someone from Dora's kingdom or Frostbite's village would tell him they were gone, that he wouldn't see Wulf, Cujo or Sidney again, that Kitty or Johnny would come sobbing that the other was now missing, that Ember or Technus or even Skulker had vanished.
But Danny refused to give up. He had to find these ghosts, even if it meant breaking into the GIW's headquarters and doing a prison break. Even if it meant he got less sleep than he did when ghosts were attacking.
The door opened, dragging Danny out of his thoughts and wonderings what could be behind the disappearances other than the GIW, and looking to see one of Sam's friends, Cordelia Matthews, at the entrance, a sunny smile on her face. Danny frowned when he smelled something radiating from her; was it a new perfume?
"Miss. Matthews," Mr. Lancer said curtly, "you're late."
"Sorry, Mr. Lancer," Cordelia said sheepishly, her blonde waves falling over her face. "But I found this really pretty flower on the sidewalk and had to pick it! See?"
Cordelia turned, and as she did, the smell got stronger, and Danny saw its source just as his skin began prickling.
He stared in horror at the flower in Cordelia's hair. No.
He knew the cause for the disappearances now, why he nor Sam or Tucker had been able to find the missing ghosts, why the blob ghosts looked so terrified.
In Cordelia's hair was a blood blossom.
He had to get out. Now.
Danny's hand shot up, trying to ignore the prickling, itching feeling on his skin, the pain beginning to throb through him as his heartbeat spiked and his core thrummed with panic. His hand beginning to shake. Sam and Tucker staring at him, then at the blood blossom, in creeping horror and panic.
Mr. Lancer gave him an exasperated look, like he'd been expecting Danny to do this. "Yes, Mr. Fenton?"
"I need to go the bathroom," he gasped out, trying to tamp down his panic even as he could feel his body beginning to shake, his core thrumming with primal panic inside his chest, every ghostly instinct he had screaming at him to get away from the blood blossom before its vapours could snare him and burn his body from the inside out from burning his core to nothing before its thorns drunk up his ectoplasm to survive rather than sunlight, he had to get out.
"In a moment, Mr. Fenton. I need to talk to Miss. Matthews first," Mr. Lancer said as all eyes turned on him, as Danny could feel the panic of Sam and Tucker increasing as his heart pounded and his core throbbed and he resisted the urge to squeeze his chest as he felt sweat beginning to drip down his head, could feel a burning feeling prickle underneath his skin, seeking out the ghost within him to burn out and devour, he had to LEAVE.
"You don't understand, I—" Danny tried to grit out, but it was swallowed by a scream as Cordelia turned fully to him and the blood blossom's vapours took hold of him at least, and the burning, prickling pain he felt graduated to an inferno of agony.
Danny barely heard the crash as he fell out of his chair, his body convulsing and twitching as he writhed on the floor, screaming harsh, guttural screams that ripped his throat and vocal cords as his core spasmed in his chest, fire flooding through his usually ice-cold body, boiling his blood and incinerating his nerves, burning away his ectoplasm as red steam slowly wafted up from his body as sweat slicked his skin, green beginning to seep through his skin, barely hearing confused screams and the desperate yells of his friends, could only focus on nothing but the agonising, burning pain.
He felt hands on him and cried out in pain, the hands ice-cold against his feverish skin, could hear a panicked voice coming closer, the pain increasing the further they stepped as Danny screamed and sobbed, tears scorching his cheeks, ectoplasm welling up and spilling from his eyes, his nose, his ears, welling up from the pores of his skin as his core burned, fire eating away at the coldness in his chest, the coldness that made up his core and his ghost form, eating away at his ectoplasm, forcing it to retreat through his human skin and blood. He could feel the rings forming and sputtering away, heard an angry voice and the stomp of boots before he heard the distant sound of a window opening.
And then, the source of the major pain was gone, and once the window slammed close, all of it was gone.
Danny heard the panicked tread of boots, could feel hands that were usually warm that were cold on his feverish skin, heard voices clearly now.
"Danny? Danny, can you hear me? Oh God, please," he heard Sam's tear-choked voice.
"Danny, can you hear us? Danny, please," he heard Tucker's voice, breaking from sobs.
Danny could feel his body stop shaking, his core cooling down as his ectoplasm drew back under his skin and retreated into his cells, the ectoplasm streaming from his eyes, nose and ears drying up. Still, everything in him felt too hot, too dry, too shaky with pain.
"I—" he croaked, but said no more as nausea welled up and Danny twisted to the side and vomited, his breakfast, water, bile and ectoplasm spilling out, his throat scorched from acrid bile and ectoplasm and the fiery pain of the blood blossom.
When he'd stopped hurling, Danny shakily wiped his mouth as Tucker and Sam held him, their sobs of relief and terror filling his eardrums as, slowly, the confused and panicked shouts and yells and sobbed, "I'm sorry, I didn't know, I'm sorry Danny, if I knew I never would have worn it, I'm so so sorry"s from Cordelia, her face a mess of tears and remorse.
Danny tried to speak, but pain lanced through his skull and his vision whited. His head lolled, and he could feel Sam and Tucker slip their arms under him and take out, leading him to the doors, talking rapidly about heading into the Ghost Zone and getting Danny to Frostbite and telling all the ghosts about the wild blood blossoms growing in Amity Park before they, Jazz and Valerie got rid of all of themright now.
That was all he heard before Danny blacked out and woke up in the Far Frozen, after narrowly escaping the blood blossom's deadly grip.
And the Ghost Zone in a panic.