tabularasa_rp | February Prompts

Samuel is clearing out one of the empty shops in Kichijoji to use as a lab when he catches a flurry of wings and feathers out of the corner of his eye. He's not sure why he looks up, there are plenty of those odd Pidgey-chimeras around here, but look up he does. At first, he thinks that the winged animal headed straight for him is one of the chimeras -- but his face lights up, despite his confusion, when he realizes that it's an actual Pidgey. And what's more, as it comes even closer, he recognizes that Pidgey!

As the Pidgey closes the final feet between them, a collapsed Pokeball held carefully in its beak, he instinctively holds out his arm as a perch; the Pidgey lands on it, spits out the Pokeball into his waiting hand, and gives him an affectionate coo.

"Pidgey! I didn't expect to see you here, how are you?" Samuel deposits the Pokeball into his labcoat pocket with the others, and reaches his free hand over to return Pidgey's affection with a wing scratch. But then Rinoa got her 'dog'-creature back, didn't she? Angelo? So it's not the first time something like this has happened.

"Come on, I have to introduce you to everyone!" The cleaning can wait, as he gestures for Pidgey to hop onto his shoulder.

And as he walks around showing off his 'new' friend, one might spot the pair -- perhaps like Samuel, others might mistake Pidgey for one of the chimeric natives too, at least until they get closer and realize that it's all bird. (If they're familiar with Pidgey, either through personal experience or his drawings, they might even recognize the species!)

Edited 2021-02-17 05:00 (UTC)

Sure enough, when Rinoa - in the middle of a walk with Angelo and Felix - sees the Professor and his friend, she thinks at first that the creature is one of Felix's little mixed-species friends; it's not until she gets closer that she sees the differences between the creature and Felix, and hurries to the Professor's side. Come to think of it, she thinks she recalls hearing that the Felix creatures, as she tends to think of them, are part Pokémon, although that's hardly a surprise - many of the creatures around here seem to have taken their influence from the trainers' world. The Moomba-like creatures are part Pokémon too, aren't they...?

"Professor Oak!" she calls, waving to get his attention before hurrying over to him, Angelo and Felix close behind, the latter chirping away in his own excitement.

"Is this a friend of yours from home?" The unspoken second half of the question wonders if one of the mixed creatures was just somehow more bird than the others - after all, she's never seen a Pidgey before to know if this one is the real thing!

He looks up at the familiar voice, smiling as she approaches. Pidgey, on his shoulder, squawks nervously, observing the stranger approaching. Humans it's familiar enough with, but what are those strange creatures at her feet? And why does one of them look so much like a Pidgey, but clearly isn't?

"Rinoa!" Samuel calls out in return, answering with a wave at his own -- using the arm connected to the shoulder Pidgey isn't sitting on so as to not disturb its perch, don't worry. "Yes, this is Pidgey. They just... appeared out of nowhere, recently."

He crouches down to greet and pet Angelo and Felix, inadvertently allowing all of the non-human companions to get a closer look at each other. Glancing back up at Rinoa as he does so, he adds:

"Was it the same with you and Angelo? Did she just... show up, one day?" It was some time ago when they met on that trash pile, but he's pretty sure Angelo wasn't with her then.

There's a part of her itching to greet Pidgey properly, with pats and headfluffs, but she can hear the nervousness in its tone, so similar to Felix's, and so opts not to do so for now; she has no way of knowing whether it's her or her companions who are causing it to feel so, after all. So she just smiles, offering it a small smile. "Hi, Pidgey."

Turning her attention back to the professor after the fact, she nods. "She did, yes. When we first arrived, I looked for her for ages, so I know for a fact she wasn't here. Then one day... I whistled for Felix, and both of them came."

It was the happiest she's been so far in this place. The Void for Rinoa has become a lot into something more than the strange, constant homesickness, but nothing matches the moment Angelo barreled into her, leaving her winded and crying with elation.

Samuel looks down at the fruit in his hand in horror and regret, as the other fruits nearby let out tiny screams of terror.

"I'm sorry, I didn't know you had feelings!" He holds up his hands in placation, managing to not drop the fruit -- and the Pidgey on his shoulder darts at it, trying to get a mouthful. "Pidgey, no!" He quickly surrounds the fruit with both hands, trying to protect it. "You can't eat it!" Well... maybe later. Once he does some science on it.

First dropping the fruit in a labcoat pocket so the others don't have to see the corpse of their fallen friend, he reaches out for the nearby fruits, their tiny screams only intensifying, but instead of picking them, he gently strokes their skin.

"I'm sorry. I won't pick any more of you, I promise." He glances up at Pidgey. "And I won't let Pidgey eat any of you, either." Eventually, after enough stroking and reassuring, he manages to calm the fruit down. Now he can get some science done.

Retrieving a measuring tape from his labcoat, he starts to gently -- very gently -- measure the width of the still-living fruits. (After all, he can measure the dead one at his leisure, hopefully away from the living ones so they don't have to watch.) He laughs when the fruits let out tiny giggles at the gentle touch of the measuring tape.

"Does that tickle? I'll be done soon, I promise." Releasing the measuring tape, he goes to fetch his notebook, and then wraps it around the fruit again -- only to frown at the result. "That doesn't make any sense," he says aloud, not realizing he has an audience other than the fruits he's measuring. "That's nowhere near what I got last time."

"Murdererrrrrrrrr!"

Is that just his imagination? Or is someone screami --

"Murde -- phew wait hold on a second." From a great distance away, there comes a small girl running in his direction as fast as she can while lifting her skirts. She bends over to pant for breath halfway while coughing for a few moments.

"...'K I'm good. MURDERERRRRRR!"

By the time she reaches him, she's so out of breath that she can only manage to slap weakly at his hand. "Don't... touch!"

Samuel looks up in mild surprise, but the bird on his shoulder seems more offended, as it fluffs up its feathers and looks ready to attack before he reaches up to cup his hands around it.

"I'm not hurting them!" He protests, over Pidgey's protective squawking. Technically true -- he's not hurting them anymore. "It only tickles them, look!"

He reaches over to wrap the measuring tape around one of the fruits again. Even if their tiny giggles can't be heard over Pidgey's protests, they do swing slightly on their stems, similar to the way a person would thrash around when being tickled.

((As far as fourth wall stuff goes, I'm fine with it in narration, but I'd like to avoid it in dialogue if that's okay?))

"The fruits of your iniquities lie before me!"

It's true. There's a dead body in his pocket. How Viridi knows this is a mystery that is probably explained by however she knew this was happening in general from her position X miles away.

"Oh hey - fruit. Pretty good one-liner. Gonna write that down for future use. Anyway, what do you have to say for yourself, human?!"

"Look, I didn't know they had feelings. Most plants want their fruit to be eaten." As a scientist that grew up in a farming town... he knows his botany and agriculture.

Meanwhile, Pidgey, upon seeing he's distracted with this new aggressor, hops down his arm to get closer to the fruit still attached to the plant. It reaches out with its beak....

"I said no, Pidgey!" He moves his arm -- and the bird -- away from the plant, pushing Pidgey toward his other shoulder so he can use his arm to block it.

"Yes, that was a particular stroke of genius on my part, wasn't it?"

Nature really is remarkable, if she does say so herself.

"But these are not normal fruits! They're Adoraberries (TM I made up that name just now) and they're too cute to die. That means you, bird!"

Pidgey gets a disapproving frown.

"...Well, you're pretty cute, too. OK, you get a pass. But they literally start screaming when you reach out for them, so you don't get an excuse! I think an appropriate punishment for murder of a sapient being is instant death!"

...........

"Lucky you, we can't die yet, so I'm just going to sentence you to planting ten seeds and caring for them until they're grown."

"Do they? I don't hear high-pitched noises as well as I used to." He can play up the 'innocent old man' act when he has to.

"I don't mind planting some things, but I'm not sure they'll even grow." Does the world even understand the concept of propagating plants yet? Of planting seeds and having them grow into new plants?

"Old men or young men - all shall fall to the harvest of life eventually. Thus decrees Nature."

...

"In other words, don't try and guilt me, grandpa. Don't worry, though. Things started growing right back when the first fusion plants started appearing. I've already grown some of these myself. They grow very quickly, actually."

A faint pause.

"...I should probably sentence you to a longer punishment, come to think of it."

"Well, they seem to have forgiven me." Gesturing at the fruits. He reaches out for one and gently strokes it, eliciting a small sound that's almost like a tiny purr. It turns out that if you hang out around them long enough without picking them, they'll get used to you!

He frowns and crosses his arms at the word 'punishment'.

"I'm only going along with this to be nice -- don't push your luck."

"Oh? Are you saying that the dying screams of the intelligent creature you murdered does not make you feel guilty and like you ought to make recompense? You've got some real problems if that's true, grandpa."

Viridi is very good at being accusatory.

Samuel pinches the bridge of his nose and takes a deep breath to stay calm. He's entertained her so far, but these personal attacks are going too far.

"I've already apologized to them. You, on the other hand, I owe nothing. This entire affair is none of your business." So, you know, she's not in a position to be dictating anything to him, as far as he's concerned.

He'd love to stay and study the berries some more, but it's clear he's not going to get any peace if he does that.

"Come on, Pidgey." He cups a hand around the bird to keep it from flying off or attacking, and turns around to leave.

Viridi's lips curl in disgust.

"I'm the Goddess of Nature, you stupid old man. And now that my powers are back, I felt its dying pain stabbing through me like a knife."

Which explains how she knew this was happening from five hundred feet away.

"Run away, then. Humans are all the same."

((Hello! At this point, Viridi would ICly curse him for his actions, but in the interest of not overstepping please feel free t take it if you want to play with it or ignore it otherwise!))

This whole goddess thing again? Really? He turns around and crosses his arms.

"You're not the first woman I've met here who claimed to be a goddess." Yes, woman -- to Samuel, Viridi looks like an adult, not a child. A small, bratty adult perhaps, but an adult all the same. Even the most traumatized children have a certain air of... innocence, for lack of a better word, about them that she doesn't have, and the way she's treated him so far only confirms it to him. "And just as before, I have no reason to believe you." Only her word, which based on their interactions so far, he's not going to take as proof.

It's not just his profession as a scientist that makes him skeptical -- in his world, the closest thing they have to deities are Legendary Pokemon. Very few of them are even humanoid, much less actually look like humans, so why would a deity, especially a deity of nature, look like a human?

((I forget what curses do -- I think they just cause bad luck for a while, right? If so, that's fine with me! It'll give me something to post about in late February/early March. I may have even thought of a few prompts already....))

Edited 2021-02-21 07:17 (UTC)

((OK, great! It actually only lasts a day, I believe, unless you want her to curse you over and over or something aha.))

The expression she turns upon him is withering.

"And like all humans, he thinks his opinion matters."

She is tending now to the fruit trees, sweeping up fallen leaves and petals and smoothing out the dirt.

"For your lack of remorse, I decree that the pain you have inflicted shall be returned tenfold by nature. Believe me or don't."

A faint pause.

"I mean, not that you're going to die ten times. Metaphorically. Expect a lot of bird poop your way."

((I'm thinking it could be a delayed effect? So I don't have two posts in short succession/don't overlap with the current event too much.))

He stares at her for a moment, fighting back a chuckle... but eventually loses the fight and bursts out into laughter. She's misunderstood him entirely; it's not that he doesn't regret what he did, he just doesn't see the need to make it up to some stranger. Some stranger who came along and told him her opinion matters. In the face of such hypocrisy, what can he do but laugh?

At the phrase 'bird poop', Pidgey squawks and puffs ups its feathers, offended. It's got better discipline than to relieve itself on its friend, thank you very much!

"I'd like to ask you one more question. Where did you think I was going to get the seeds to plant more berries without killing more berries?"

They do look a lot like the berries from his world, and if they're anything like them, then one berry equals one plant.

Edited 2021-02-22 00:47 (UTC)

((also cool!))

The expression progresses to 'more withering.'

"Their life cycle is seven days, after which they fall off the tree and die. Don't try and 'gotcha' me, you weirdo. What is this, an MTV show?"

She thrusts out a bag of dried fruit corpses that she's... carrying around in her pocket for some reason.

"I'm obnoxious, not obtuse."

Samuel blinks and gazes up at the sky -- the dark, starry, aurora-clad sky.

"Seven days. Right." The air quotes are heavily implied. They might be able to keep track of time now, but he still wouldn't call a 24-hour period a 'day' -- not until they get an actual dark/light cycle of some kind.

"I'm not sure they've even been around for that long."

Meanwhile, at the sight of the source of picked berries, Pidgey suddenly darts forward to try and snatch some. Samuel might have forbidden it from eating the one he picked, and won't let it pick any of its own, but these are clearly fair game!

"Excuse me."

Pidgey is intercepted by a buzzing creature that resembles a flying upside-down chestnut with a single eye that chirps and whines.

"Not for you. Fly off, child. You -- " She gestures to Professor Oak. " -- can also go, by the way, Captain Pedant, if we have nothing more to discuss. And they've been here for fifteen days."

She refuses to engage with the pedantry.

Well, he was going to leave, but now that she's told him to, he won't. Spite is a human emotion that even the great Professor Oak is capable of sometimes! Her ego doesn't need more stroking, anyway. If he were more spiteful he might be tempted to pick another fruit just to annoy her... but no, he respects nature too much to do that.

"You know, despite your bad attitude, I was still perfectly willing to cooperate with you when this conversation started. Maybe a little self-examination is in order, to determine what you said or did to change my mind." It didn't have to turn out like this; one personal attack too many was the straw that broke the Camerupt's back, and even a peaceful, gentle man like him has his limits.

With that final opportunity for education sorted, he takes a few steps away, just out of conversation distance... and sits down on the ground as Pidgey flies back to him for comfort. He pats it and gives it gentle scritches, making soothing sounds.

"Sure thing, murderer."

This is about all she has to say to any other comments he might have. Viridi has played this game many times in the past and has quite a lot of practice. From her perspective, the idea that he thinks that an apology makes up for his actions of what she perceives to be murder is laughable.

Though as long as he's not speaking to her, she won't bother him, either. She tends to the trees, waters them, and begins her own task of planting more along this leyline.

"May your life be renewed."

That gets an aggravated noise and a dirty look. She keeps using that word. How he'd love to throw her own words back at her -- she thinks her opinion matters -- but he can't bring himself to sink that low. Having their own words shoved back in their face might make a more reasonable person realize their hypocrisy, but he gets the feeling that's a lost cause here; his refusal to kowtow has soured her opinion of him too much.

So instead he continues to pet Pidgey, teeth silently grit behind his lips as he takes deep breaths through his nose. It takes the arrival of one of the Pidgey-chimeras, curious about this new creature that looks so similar yet different from itself, to begin to bring his mood up.

While the two creatures, Pidgey and the chimera, squawk a conversation and examine each other, he realizes he recognizes this one.

"Hello there, little one! I haven't seen you in a while." And for the first time since she arrived here, he sounds genuinely happy. "Is your wing feeling better? Let me take a look." He reaches over to gently stretch out the wing in question, examining it. It doesn't seem to be the first time he's manhandled this particular individual, as it seems pretty calm about him grabbing its wing.

Viridi more or less continues to ignore whatever he's doing so long as he's not talking to her and keeping away from the berry trees. It takes her about a solid hour to finish with her work, and when she's done, there is a neat row of slightly raised mounds of dirt, ready to perpetuate the cycle of growth.

She truly has nothing else to say to this human - so perhaps the scene will fade to black as our heroes passive-aggressively ignore each other.

Samuel returns to the empty shop in Kichijoji, finishing his cleaning and lab setup. Now he can finally get some work done! Pidgey rests on a windowsill nearby, while his other Pokemon, having assisted in the cleanup, rest in their Pokeballs.

After measuring the circumference of his picked fruit many, many times, he finally gets his result to settle down. Along with his fruit, he has a beaker of water nearby, and is scribbling away at a pencil and paper. At the sound of the door opening, and footsteps behind him, he calls out without looking up:

"Do you think 22/7 is a close enough approximation for pi? I don't have a calculator, and it's closer and easier to use than 3.14. I am not using three." He wrinkles his nose and sticks out his tongue slightly at the thought, though his guest won't be able to see it with his back to them; what does he look like, an engineer? He turns around with the fruit in his hand to see who's paid him a visit. "Who knows what kind of non-Euclidean nightmare this world will turn into if it thinks pi is three?"

Edited 2021-02-16 22:22 (UTC)

February Prompts

A Friend Returns (Kichijoji + Various)

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Mistaken Reaper (Mortis Lake)

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sounds good!

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Scientific Method (Kichijoji again)