Grumbling, you pick your rod back up and try to fish up that one-of-a-kind, seemingly sapient fishy. Time passes for a while, and every little breeze that passes by reminds you that there's a large, incredibly conspicuous kissmark on your face, a reminder of both your failure and that weird moment you had with the big-lipped bass. But alas, it seems that after that big splash you made pulling the thing out of the water, nothing else was coming out to bite. The only 'catch' you've gotten so far was your line catching on a snag of muckweed near the shore and breaking. Ugh.
You could swear there was some bubbling going on a bit further out into the unusually clean swamp water, but at this point, with 45 minutes of your life wasted, you might as well find somewhere else to bum around.
You sigh and reel up your line, putting your fishing rod back into the large zipper of your travel pack (which you haven't bothered to think about until this point). Then, with a disappointed huff, you head under the canopy of the swamp and follow the damp dirt path to your car, trying to take your mind off the rather depressing fishing trip you just had. There were some nice, vibrant shrubs that you must've not noticed before. They had all kinds of colorful in shades of blue, yellow, and red. Big ones, too, with plump, darker-hued, bisected rims that formed a kind of hollow, vaguely lip-shaped cup. You felt strangely compelled to smell them.
And so, you walk up to a particularly large periwinkle bush and do exactly that--well, not before checking it for thorns. As you tentatively push your hand into the thick of it, the leaves brush your skin softly, in pairs. As you reach deeper, more and more join in, until it feels like your whole arm is being massaged. It feels unnaturally soothing. And almost...sentient.
Satisfied, you kneel down on the ground, wrap your arms around the edges of the shrub, press your face into it, and take a nice, big whiff. An overwhelmingly pleasant odor similar to lilac fills your lungs, and you subconsciously push yourself deeper just to get your nose closer to the source. If someone were looking at you, they'd probably think you're some kind of plant-loving nutjob--you WERE literally hugging this shrub, after all.
But as you sink into the plying branches and feel the leaves caress your arms, that humiliating concern disappears. Those beautiful flowers...they're pressing against your face. Their rims rub softly against you, feeling damp and prominent on your skin. One even extends, almost imperceptibly, towards your mouth. You bridge the gap and let your nose enter the space past its 'lips', and blush as they fully envelop about a third of your face, even smushing against your own lips. You gasp at the intimate feeling, and breathe in another warm, calming breath of its scent, heady and bewitching in your nostrils. A dopey smile forms on your face as the smooth, rubbery flowers brush themselves against your chest, neck, and face. You sit there for some time, just smelling them and grinning to yourself.
Eventually, reluctantly, you remove yourself from the embrace of the wonderful blue plant. You swear you could hear wet *pops* as they parted from your body...and were they stretching out longingly towards you? You shake your head and get back to walkin'. Unlike the humid, muck-sweat-inducing heat of earlier, the swamp air seems cozy and warm. Pleasant. Refreshing. Looks like stopping to smell the roses (or whatever those were) was just what you needed.
Yet, now that you think about it...were these plants here before? You don't recall seeing much strange about your surroundings, since you were kind of rushing to get here. Oh well. You might as well follow the path and see where it leads you!
After some time, you come across...
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