Cuffing Season

Last Time on "Two Children go Huff Paint Thinner and Die"-:

Lucky for Kye, she did indeed have a home. It was right where she had said it would be; straight through the really-dark-compensating-for something forest. She had a den plunked right underneath a stack of colorless rocks in the middle of a colorless cavern containing a seemingly infinite collection of colorless AND dubious ancient ruins, all located conveniently behind a colorless waterfall surrounded by a colorless clearing full of large shelves of colorless rock, colorless trees with a canopy so thick they only allowed thin streamers of light to trickle their way in during the day, and a colorless lake fed by the colorless waterfall. Even the rainbow on the prismic spray generated by the churning waters was colorless. In short: it was everything Kye had asked for in a place for his colorless ass to live. A place where even he could lose himself in the scenery if he wasn't careful. They had only had to navigate a forest full of creatures to get there, but also luckily for Kye Merc had shortcuts.

Mercury had felt... off ever since she and Kye had found their way to her den from that gross place full of purple unhappiness. That wasn't to say that she hadn't been bursting at the seams when she had introduced Kye to her cave-y home of wonder, or when she made him a bed and they performed the official welcome-home ceremony (food and games; that was basically it. Merc had imagined that she was a pirate. Then she acted out a violent acquisition of the King's crown trader ships with various doodads from her ever-growing pile of shiny things, forcing the royal traders to either join her or have a viking-style burial at sea aboard her least favorite dingies. Kye got to be her best mate and fire aaaalllllll of the cannons). When the excitement died down and all that ended, though... the little fox woke up feeling like something just wasn't... right.  Not to mention the brain sickness she had experienced at the purple unhappiness land was only getting worse. She had gotten sick at least twice a day for the past several days, the red blood water had been coming out of her nose at least once during the day and once during the night, she was constantly having her head bashed with big invisible rocks so hard that sometimes she couldn't even make herself move, and she would leave her body every now and then and fuzzily watch Kye and herself walking around outside from way up high or behind a rock. Oh, and sometimes more things than usual would float around her and rocks would explode. All normal brain flu symptoms that Merc was sure were standard despite only just now having them for the first time.

Her weird brain flu wasn't jack compared to what was really bothering her, though. No, the whole time she was more concerned that Kye seemed to be... not Kye. Not that he wasn't Kye! He was still super floofy and hug-able an he was still her best friend in the history of forever, but... the situation was just...

weird.

For once, Mercury had no words for it. Not that she hadn't had words for things before, but this was too important for Mercury to just ignore, or forget about as she typically would. This was Kye. There was some unspoken strangeness that just hadn't seemed to work itself out like Mercury had unconsciously expected them to, and it just kept bothering her. It made her feel low and heavy, like a rock under water. Was this...

THE SA- the uh, THE SD- the, the....
THE SAD?

THE TERRIBLE S WORD???

Because of this, Mercury hadn't stopped being worried since she had woken up after their first day home. What if Kye was also having... THE S WORD??? She didn't want that, but she also didn't know what she could do. She was afraid to ask him about it; maybe he would hate her for having THE S WORD. She knew THE S WORD was a very sensitive subject, and that many friends were uncomfortable when she said or did anything remotely close to THE S WORD around them. She didn't want to scare Kye off, or worse, make him have more of THE S WORD!!! She became determined to save him; she HAD to stop Kye from having any more of THE SCARY, VILE, HORRIBLE, CORRUPTING S WORD!!! She had to figure out a way to make things right between them again. She wracked her brain for ideas on what Kye would like... games, obviously, but were games enough to combat the ssuughhahh? Food... but food was too obvious. Maybe... it was the place. Maybe they just had to find the right place to have food and games, and then he'd be happy...

AHA, of course! The fuzzy grass place with really slow shooting stars!! That place was super pretty; it was nice and slow and there was NOBODY who appreciated nice and slow things more than Kye. It would be perfect for him! She wondered if he'd ever been? Sharp intake of air, maybe it would even be his first time going there!!! That would be double perfect, he'd be waaaaay too amazed and excited to explore, and he'd forget everything about having the suueeeaaaaandals. It was perfect. Mercury immediately set to work, making a card for Kye to ask him if he would go to the place with her. Kye would never see it coming, except his bed was right next to hers and he could obviously see her working on something. But she sat with her back to him, so he didn't know what it was!!!

Luckily Mercury had an absolutely obscene amount of berries to draw with, although she had trouble drawing the whole field of fuzzy grass on the paper so she and Kye just ended up being a few toe prints against a massive landscape with stars and bigger floating stars. That was okay though. She signed the card with a message that read "Will u go see the slow stars with me?" put her pawprint on it, and slipped it onto his bed while he was off doing doing private Kye things.

How that went down:

ANDSOTHEYWENTANDTHEYWEREGOING YE S S S S S

---

Mercury and Kye arrived on the scene with Mercury stuffed full of berries and other medicinal implements in a desperate attempt to cull her brain flu during the walk to get here that had unfortunately been much longer than Merc had remembered. She had also unfortunately forgotten how wet the fuzzy grass place was. And muddy. It was a sludge mud pit full of sticky, sticky goo that turned light and clumpy when it touched her fur. For the fire type, it was thoroughy unpleasant and made her face curl up a bit with disgust. But hey, the grass was fuzzy, just like she had said!! And tall. She had forgotten how tall it really was, actually. She watched it bend and sway in the breeze in awe as it towered over them in some places.

"Isn't it really soft and nice Kye??" Mercury exclaimed jovially as she hopped onto a patch, bending it down so he could touch it.

Mercury promptly learned that she could partially dry the sludgy mud out by setting the grass on fire, because she accidentally caught the grass on fire. She ignited it by being a fire type and laying on patch of grass that she promptly began rubbing her face on, getting her super-heated ears way too close to the fibrous stalks and scorching them dry until they caught flame. Granted, it didn't burn very long in the wet environment. But it was awesome.

She stood proudly on her newly-created mud cake and grinned at Kye. "Well, it'll be a while until the sun goes down, Kye! We've got lots of sandwiches though, so we can have a picnic now and a picnic later!" she reported happily. "What do you want to do until the sun leaves? Pick anything, you like; today's your day!!!" Her tail waggled happily behind her. "Don't worry Kye! We'll have so much fun it'll kill the seeesessaaaaeeuuh right out of you! And then maybe my brain flu will go away!! And..... I dunno, maybe ice cream will get invented. Nothing else would really make this better." she thought all to herself, secretly, while she waited.

Mercury the Fennekin - 20 Energy

Intense confusion. Velikye had felt this way pretty much since meeting his new friend, but he had gotten a lot of time to really come to terms with it recently. Mercury's every thought and action bewildered him, and she was honestly very obnoxious... yet here he was, still with her after weeks of constant interaction. Actually, how long had it been? He was losing track; things seemed to move so more smoothly with the goofy fennekin around, and he was finding it progressively easier to forget about things. Maybe she was rubbing off on him, but despite how annoying and immature and dangerous she was, Velikye felt... happy around her. This was the first thing remotely close to a friendship that he'd found in a long time, and easily more appealing than any past acquaintances. He was having trouble understanding how someone so unappealing in every way could be so, well, appealing. She was kind and indifferent to all his quirks and problems, and she had so quickly forgiven him for what should have been borderline-unforgivable.

Mercury was fun, adorable, and pretty much everything Kye wasn't; perhaps even some things he wanted to be. She was a clueless moron and probably legitimately insane, but being around her was the most fun he'd had in... maybe his entire life. That just made it more miserable to think about how poor a fit he was for her. He was selfish, cowardly, introverted and weak; and someone so sweet deserved better than that. Alas, she seemed to value his friendship, and with their most recent interactions, things were getting even more muddled than that. She obviously knew things were troubling him, and she claimed to want to go out somewhere fun to cheer him up, but there was more to it than that. She had decided to make him a note asking if he would go... "see the slow stars" and "eat food" with her, and upon further questioning, it was implied that she was asking him to go on a...

Velikye had about as much trouble with the word as Mercury had with "sad," though perhaps for different reasons. Was that even what the fennekin really meant by her gesture, or did she simply not understand what she was saying? Was she just mimicking what she had seen others do in the past, thinking it to be cute or somehow appropriate, or was she actually more socially adept than the eevee at her side and happened to know what was appropriate better than he did? Either way, the result was the same: it made Velikye wonder, not just about the meaning behind the gesture, but also how he was supposed to respond. His initial reaction was to agree to do whatever this was, obviously, but he now found himself wondering where he was supposed to go with it. They were just friends, right? His experience with friendship was minimal and so he had no idea how to distinguish his own feelings in such a situation. He knew he liked Mercury and wasn't entirely sure why, and he was starting to wonder just how much she liked him back, but beyond that, he was clueless. Did she like him like that, and... did he like her like that?

Worrying about such things didn't seem like a very productive use of his time here, so he tried his best to push it to the back of his mind and just enjoy himself. Mercury was fooling around with the plants and urging him to come feel them, which he reluctantly did. He hated the muddy environment and was beginning to regret coming here, but he had to admit the cattails were surprisingly soft to the touch... until they suddenly lit ablaze and he jerked his paw away on reflex. He couldn't help but smile at the ridiculousness of Mercury's... just Mercury. It was her name, but it also seemed like the only fitting label for some of her personality traits, as Kye couldn't think of a proper way to describe them. She was very Mercury. Fortunately, there was relatively little risk of her starting a serious fire in this place, accidental or otherwise, so it was safe to watch idly as she burned cattails for no particular reason. Velikye could have just filled the whole afternoon with this, but the pair actually did have specific plans for once, as Mercury was quick to remind him.

She wanted his take on what to do. Of course she did. Kye's first instinct was to try and pass the decision back to her, but he figured she would prefer if he got to pick what they did... and he actually had a few ideas; rather, he knew what he didn't want to do. "Let's try to find somewhere a little more..." he paused and lifted a paw from the disgusting, goopy mud, looking down at it with an uncomfortable expression, "...dry? Eating in the mud just sounds awful. If we could find somewhere to wash off a little before we eat, that'd be nice too. I don't know about you, but I have no idea what mud tastes like and don't want to find out." He wasn't trying to kill the mood by complaining about the environment, but his companion wasn't exactly hiding that she seemed to feel similar, so he figured she would be eager to agree. Neither of them liked the mud, it seemed; a rare instance of them actually having something in common. Kye had never been here and didn't know how to navigate this type of terrain, so he waited for Mercury to lead the way even though he doubted she knew much better than him.

The only appealing thing about this place so far was being in good company, but the silvery eevee was trying to stay hopeful that it would get better once they were all set up. Some quiet time alone with Mercury, a bunch of pretty lights and some sandwiches sounded nice. The risk of danger that came with being in a dungeon was something he could have done without, but he figured it couldn't possibly be worse than where they'd already been.

(7 energy)

While a fennekin set about catching cattail plants on fire and an eevee was attempting to aim his companion toward someplace less dirty, a croagunk was lurking nearby. Croagunks themselves weren't uncommon in the marsh, but nowadays this particular one was. One could differentiate Goro from others of his kind by the tattered, blood-stained joy ribbon tied around his left bicep, and the way he marched through the swamplands with an absentminded ease. He avoided deceptively hidden mudholes and annoyingly tall cattails with a sense of experience, stepping right over them and swaying out of their reach as they fluttered with the breeze. He strayed right off of dry pathways and took shortcuts through shallow waters, looking entirely unconcerned about whatever might hear him splashing mightly on his way. Not unaware, mind you, as he kept his peeled on the horizon for anything brave enough to approach, but definitely dispassionate. Whether or not he was right to feel such a way was another matter entirely, but it was there all the same. It was almost arrogant. There was a dreary sort of look in the frog pokemon's eye as he strode through his home dungeon, and he thought to himself that maybe he'd been disillusioned to the appeal of his home.

It was rough being Goro lately. There was once a time where he lived a stress-free life in this very same mystery dungeon. The poison type had spent his days establishing and holding territory, battling against other native pokemon, and spent his nights falling asleep while admiring the gorgeous view the fireflies provided. The latter part of that would definitely always hold a place in his heart - he loved the swamp during the daytime, but at night? It was a hundred times more beautiful. He'd fallen in love with this place once for a reason. But thinking back to all of the struggles he went through since he journeyed away, Goro couldn't help but feel like he had been wasting time here. Since he stopped being such a hermit, he'd battled against so many different kinds of pokemon - most of which he couldn't even name. Not even now, days later when he was returning home to stash his things. He couldn't say how many days had passed since he left this dungeon, but now that he was back, he felt a little bit more wizened. The enemies here didn't seem so exciting or even intimidating when he compared them to the strongest of the foes he'd encountered lately.

He still spent time here, when he could. Enough to check up on his home and make sure no one was poking around where they ought not to, at least, but the outside world was just... so much harder. It made the time he spent here seem juvenile in comparison.

It wasn't just the battles. The decisions the fighter had been forced to make yielded complicated and headache-inducing consequences, and it made him wish that things could be as simple as they used to be - just him versus nature. Unfortunately, he wasn't staying. Goro sighed morosely as he stepped back onto a dry path, recognizing this particular stretch of land he was coming up on. It was impossible for anyone to truly know their way around a mystery dungeon since they seemed to shift so often, but if you spent enough time in a particular area, you'd eventually find what you were looking for. The croagunk brightened a little bit as he pushed through a tall patch of grass with his right arm, keeping his left hand cradled at his side, a hypno's pendulum resting in the open palm. On the other side was a very familiar structure. Others might have recoiled at what they considered to be a run down, half-caved in swamp shack, but to Goro it was home. It stood at maybe two Goros tall, perhaps one-and-a-half Goros wide, and it was where he laid his head down to rest at night. Usually, anyway, when he wasn't traipsing around the world at the beck and call of a genius madwoman. The wooden planks that it was made up of were rotting and broken, but it stood at the apex of a modest bank and at the foot of the gentle hump of land, there was a small pond.

He always assumed that someone had once built it as some kind of fishing shed, but it was his now. Inside were things that marked it as such - a crusty, scratchy old pile of hay for a bed, various knick-knacks and items that he had no use for, and his old bindle. The bindle was what he was coming back for, along with just checking up on his territory. The sight of the old shack felt good, and he ambled toward it lazily. There was plenty of sunlight left, and if he took long enough in his task, he might be able to see the fireflies rise up before he left.

"Aw, I missed this." Goro whispered to himself, a wide smile blooming on his face. Returning home after a long journey felt good.

(28 energy 'cus we fuckin' live here frendos)

Mercury was very careful to listen to anything Kye said now, because that felt very right to do. Kye never seemed as... off when she was careful about listening (something she had learned about from Kye himself!!), he seemed able to act more like someone who wasn't being listened to!! Of course, the trouble with Mercury was always finding the space to get heard in the first place... But to be fair, Kye had the best chance of that of anyone else in existence if it was any consolation. In any case, this time Kye was sayiiiiiiing... that he wanted to hang out somewhere dry!!! Which Mercury personally thought was a really good idea, and she completely agreed with!... If it was actually possible to find a dry in this swamp. Mercury had prior experiences with this goopy goop land, and all of them were wet. ALL of them. Very, disgustingly, impossibly wet that always ended up leaving her fur full of the clumpies one way or another. For Kye though, she was sure that anything was possible!!! Or at the very least, she could make anything possible.

"Dirt is okay to eat sometimes, but mud isn't good. So..... Ummm... okay, dry...." Mercury repeated, sounding and feeling a bit unsure. She looked down at the little patch of dry that she had made, which was already starting to feel a little mushy again as the wet invaded it right under her paws. She felt a little disappointed that fire wasn't going to work in this situation. She preferred it when fire worked out for her, and it would have been working out for Kye too so it would have been double good. But it wasn't. It was just.... double average.

Merc started to feel like she was failing already, and her muzzle scrunched up in displeasure at the realization. How was Kye supposed to forget about having COPIOUS AMOUNTS OF THE S WORD PROBLEM if he was stuck in a place where he felt upset? She just wasn't sure where to find a dry in a place full of wet, though... she had never thought to look for it! Why would she? A wet place was wet, unless it wasn't!!! Mercury's stomach started to churn with her displeasure, and a little headache began to form right between her eyes. Oh, no no no, this was even worse!! Kye especially wouldn't want to stay if she started to feel sick. She had to stop the sickness from happening. She just... has to come up with a solution.

"Ummm... Okay, so fire won't make things dry... so we've got to find a dry instead. Uuuuummm... there isn't a whole lot of dry... well, maybe not here, but if there's a higher place nearby!! Or..." Mercury was starting to feel a little better. Her stomach calmed down, which mad her feel a big relief!! Okay, other ideas... "...or, uh, maybe we could find a friend to ask for help!! Oh, but not to stick around or anything. It's supposed to be our day to hang out, so we'll just ask if they know about a dry anywhere around here, and then we'll say goodbye! And then it'll just be us again." She nodded as if to affirm herself, feeling proud of having come up with the solution. ...Until she realized that they would have to make due until they found said solution...

It was at this point that Mercury noticed a big log jutting up out of the bog material. She stared at it before she realized that it was dry... ish. But it was some kind of dry!!! She pulled her paw out of the re-hydrated muck that she had started to sink into and gestured over to the large piece of wood excitedly.

"We can use that!!" she announced proudly. "We just need to hop from one thing to another until we get to something dry, or someone that knows where there's some dry!! It's like the floor is lava, only worse!!!" She waded over and tugged herself up onto the log, shaking herself over as best she could before she looked back over towards Kye excitedly. "What do you think Kye?? Also do you need help? That's pretty important."

Mercury was acting more and more sane as time went on... or perhaps Velikye was just adjusting to being around her nonstop. Regardless, she was actually making some amount of sense, albeit still incredibly hyperactive and hard to follow. She started off strong with the simple but valid observation that mud did not taste good, though with the added implication that dry dirt did. It was a mixed bag that included a sane statement coupled with something that sounded more like Mercury, but it was progress. Her mannerisms and general way of speaking made it a bit of a challenge to understand what she was saying at times, but Kye was getting used to her behavior and she was actually being a bit more lucid than usual. She was actually putting out valid suggestions for how to go about acquiring "dry," as she put it. The first of her recommendations was pretty much what the eevee at her side was thinking, so it obviously resonated with him right off the bat. The most obvious way of searching for dry land would be to get to higher ground since the water would have trouble reaching higher areas.

It was a shock that Mercury understood even as basic an environmental concept as that. She knew how land and water interacted with one another, apparently, which was something a child would normally learn in some kind of school or tutoring. Had she actually attended school at some point... and not failed miserably? Was she smart? It was possible that she was actually intelligent and simply out of her right mind; she had demonstrated occasional bouts of higher brain function, and she certainly seemed less oblivious to the emotions of others than her first impression implied. Kye didn't exactly think she was stupid in the first place, but it was surprising nonetheless to see her able to demonstrate such awareness of the world around her when she usually seemed to lack it. Unfortunately, she was still Mercury, and one of her fatal flaws was being far too careless and trusting, which led to her next suggestion: look around for someone to ask for help.

Velikye wanted to speak out in firm denial against this idea because his companion was a very poor judge of character and had consistently shown a willingness to put her full trust in just about anyone. She seemed like the type to follow a stranger with candy if there was no one around to stop her. Obviously, Kye felt himself a bit more suited to this task, but he still didn't want to go around looking for someone to interact with in this place. With their luck, they would find some angry feral or criminal and get attacked on sight, and Mercury would probably try to talk to them anyway. Yes, the eevee wanted to express his opinion here, but thinking of a kind way to do this would take time and he really needed to focus on keeping up with his fast-paced friend. She had already moved on to the next thing she felt important to discuss, which happened to actually be something that was bothering both of them, thus something they could agree on. She was trying to find a way to get around the muck until they could find somewhere dry, and while her idea for how to do that was pretty silly, it was also one of their only options.

A sigh escaped Velikye before he fell in line and walked up to the log. He agreed that this was definitely worse than the game revolving around not touching the floor, but he wondered if Mercury was referring to literal lava. She was a fire-type, after all, so she could probably play an extreme version of the game in a volcano and not immediately die. Maybe. "Y-yeah," he responded hesitantly upon being asked if he needed help, moving to raise his left paw out of the muck. He paused upon remembering he was about to reach out with his recently injured paw. The wound had pretty much healed, but he still didn't want to risk injuring it again while he was still recovering, so he shifted and raised his right paw up instead. He had no problems with accepting help, though he was beginning to feel a bit bad about always ending up leeching off of Mercury for something. To be fair, though, he felt he was returning the favor by giving her a bit of logical guidance and stopping her from doing unreasonably dangerous and stupid things.

Like actively seeking out strangers to draw attention from in a dangerous marsh. "And let's try to find high ground on our own first, alright? We don't wanna end up in a situation like back at the... nasty... air... place, right?" he voiced his request in a way he felt would be understandable to his friend, trying his best to think of something to call Venen Gulch that would be recognized. Mercury's way of describing things seemed to rely mostly on using simple descriptive words, so that was what Velikye was trying to do. "With the uh... mean purple people. Remember? We could run into someone like that here if we're not careful," he added on for good measure. Yes, he was attempting to emulate Mercury in order to communicate properly with her.

An inattentive croak escaped from the croagunk as he ambled up the gentle rise of his 'front yard', casting a cursory glance at and around the shack. Truly, everything seemed to be more or less exactly as he left it - that stick there in front was stickin' in the ground that way, and the shack's half-fallen in ceiling hadn't gotten much worse. The structure was missing a proper door, so he was free to simply duck inside and take stock of the place. There was his little old bed, which was in the shack when he found it. And his stick and the red bandana he tied around to make his bindle, laying next to the bed. There was his little pile of shit and garbage in the corner - a lot of seeds and orb-thingies and other items that looked like they could be worth some coin. He hadn't a clue what any of it was supposed to do, or even how to use them. He'd given thought to learning how only once or twice, but the idea of using items in a fight was so repulsive and dirty that he immediately scrapped it. If he was gonna whoop someone's ass, he was gonna do it with his own hands and not shit else. Or... hand, now.

Goro shuffled over a bit and plopped down on the crusty old straw-bed, keeping his left hand as still as possible, so as to not upset it. It seemed like just yesterday that he threw that left punch and heard that audible, sharp crack. He didn't think he would ever forget the way it echoed around him or the panic that enveloped him that night, as he worried if he could ever use it again. It didn't look quite as bad as when it first happened, or even feel as bad honestly. But try as he might, he couldn't quite form a fist with his left hand, and that meant he couldn't punch with it. The frog pokemon could move his fingers side to side well enough, but any kind of movement like that was just painful. And the pain was fine, he could deal with pain, but even he knew that it meant something was wrong. He had to get some kind of help soon or figure something out. The idea of asking for healing was... not appealing. The poison type couldn't have been sure, but the last time he went through town, he thought he saw a poster with a croagunk's face on it. He didn't get closer or investigate since he couldn't fucking read the things that it said, and the last thing he wanted to do was draw attention to himself if it turned out to be him. And while there were many-a-croagunk in the marshlands, he figured the worst they ever got up to was harassing travelers. He'd done... much, much worse lately. Like way worse.

So. He wasn't going to a healer. Luckily enough, he had someone back in town who had his back, and was a lot fucking smarter than he would ever be. He'd assemble his trusty ol' bindle, pack the most useful-looking shit in it, and head on back to town to see if the boss couldn't figure something out for him. The rest of his garbage could stay here in case he ever had a need for it. It'd remained untouched up until now, so as long as he made the occasional visit here to remind the locals not to fuck with his shit, then all would be well. Goro set about rifling through his pile of shit, picking out a few knick-knacks that looked useful or valuable. He tied the blanket-stick up as best as he was able with just one hand, hefted it over his right shoulder, and strut right back out the door. As nice as it was being back home, he had a job to do. Him. A job. He had a job. Just the thought running through his head felt nice.

Still, he had the time to come out here in the first place - surely it wouldn't matter if he didn't get back until sunset or so. He could stay a while. With his hobo-stick in hand, Goro hustled down to the pond that sat at the foot of the bank in front of his shack, plopping down cross-legged in front of it. Just long enough for the sky to darken so he could catch the firefly pokemon rise up, he told himself. He'd get one good look at that gorgeous view to hold him over for a while until he could make another trip out here. The croagunk never imagined he would feel this way, but the old swamp had a way of making him feel homesick when he wasn't there.

Careful with his injury, he leaned back and watched the pond ripple with the breeze, content to laze the rest of the afternoon away. He'd earned this - a quiet break wasn't at all too much to ask for.

the sunset hero carried out 10 launched of one Cattail Marsh :

, , , , , , , , ,

A quiet break was definitely too much to ask for, dear froggo friend. God help ye.

Merc looked back at Kye so she could do the listening thing more clearly. And she did listen, but... she didn't understand why Kye didn't want to look for friends? ...He was right about the purple unhappiness place; that place had been bad news bewears and there were a lot of friends getting really unhappy in the pit of despair, but the purple.... people? Mercury cocked her head and gave Kye a sad look as she tried to figure out what he meant. There were... ghosts in her brain, ghosts of people and ghosts of feelings, but she couldn't get to them through these big black gaps in her head. Maybe... maybe she knew what he was talking about? She remembered big blue dinosaurs, and she remembered a red guy... maybe a kind of purple guy. But he was only kind of purple, and there was only one, so he COULDN'T be what Kye was talking about, right??? Try as she might, though, she couldn't get past those big black gaps.

"Uh... Purple guys.... Sorry Kye, there's only the purple unhappiness fog and the one kind of purplish guy in my brain? I... there's a lot of holes in the pictures; I can't figure out what you're talking about..." Mercury's ears flopped down to either side of her head. She wanted to go on and tell him all about how he didn't have to worry about friends, because friends were friends!! They just all had their different ways of helping out and doing friend things, like giving directions. And some friends were just really not good at giving directions. But then, Merc didn't want to be a bad listener. And... she guessed she understood. Sometimes it was just not time for other friends.

Not time for... OH, she got it now!!! She instantly perked up and beamed at Kye. "Don't worry, Kye!!! That makes sense!!! This is just a trip for us friends, so I understand if you don't want to get other friends involved!!" she beamed. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry; that was silly of me to suggest! We came here to be alone, so we should hang out alone! Just the two of us.~"

She was certainly relieved now, but all of that thinking and stress didn't pass without impacting the little fox's mind. Without warning, Mercury's headache suddenly came back. Worse this time, much much worse. She could see the little dancing flickers making her eyes strain to see, and suddenly she could hear a muffled "lub-dub, lub-dub" sound pounding hard inside her ears. Her head felt painfully cramped, and her eyes felt like they were going to pop out of her head. She couldn't help but put a paw to her head and press down; she didn't know why she thought the pressure would help her but she just did at the time. As usual, nothing helped, nothing worked. At least she wasn't getting sick, maybe Kye wouldn't notice...

Mercury squeaked through the following ordeal as all her thoughts and all the pressure became fuzzy and loud. They suddenly exploded out around her in a field, before condescending into solid forms of energy and then rained down to the ground around them; just a small radius of a few feet. From some distance away, it probably looked like some kind of multicolored fireworks show that left the ground glowing for just a moment. The orbs didn't fall anywhere near Kye and Merc, but they kicked up mud and busted through any other material as if it were made of paper... just like the log they were on.

Crrk, CRASH...

When Mercury opened her eyes, she and Kye were... suddenly on a FLOATING log!!! Wow, what fun, what a great idea!!! Mercury suddenly forgot that she had ever been sick in light of this new turn of events. She marveled as they started to float through some of the more viscous muck. "WOW, Kye! Where did you learn to make a floater like this?!?!" she gasped in amazement. "Will you teach me sometime? This will be super useful to find the high-up place! We can just ride there and then hop up!!!"

Mercury the Fennekin - 20 Energy (RIP bye)

FoxFireAlchemist carried out 10 launched of one Cattail Marsh :

, , , , , , , , ,

Kye had done his best to communicate in proper Mercury-speak, but alas, his message hadn't been entirely understood. It didn't seem like it was an error on his part, but rather, a concerning issue with his friend. Mercury had been acting... off, and while she was trying to hide it, she wasn't exactly the best at that kind of thing. With how delusional and bubbly she usually was, it was easy to tell when something was wrong with her. He'd tried to ignore it to avoid stressing her even more, but now it seemed she was losing memories. Or maybe she just hadn't retained those memories in the first place. Either way, her clear inability to remember what had happened in the gulch was concerning and clearly had a deeper reason behind it than simple naivete. It wasn't just her apparent inability to understand the concept of malice in others; she didn't even remember the "purple people" at all, and Kye was fairly certain he had used clear enough wording for her to understand at least that much. She didn't remember the group of koffing and weezing, or...

Maybe it was best that she didn't remember. That meant she also didn't remember the hurtful things he'd said to her, and actually, his outburst was probably the whole reason for her apparent lapse in memory. Still, that wasn't normal, even if she had been stressed and it may have been for the better. Perhaps more important in the moment was the implication that she wasn't going to listen to him due to her missing memories, but the eevee finally had a stroke of luck as his deluded companion filled in the blanks with her own logic and decided he meant he wanted to be alone with her. He still wasn't sure if she knew the things she seemed to be implying in regards to this little outing, but at least she had figured out a reason not to go looking for trouble. Kye didn't like feeling as if he was manipulating her, so he had tried to be honest, buuuuut if she was going to convince herself of something false then it seemed a little more fair. Besides, it wasn't even truly false; he did want to be alone with her, as she was the only friend he had in the entire world and he really didn't want to bother trying to get more. Sure, she was absolutely insane, but she was quickly growing on him.

Velikye silently listened to his friend's goofy ramblings as he climbed onto the log with her help, figuring it best to just let her believe whatever she needed to believe to get through this safely. He wanted to keep her happy as much as she seemed to want to do the same for him. He wasn't looking forward to the physical exertion that would be required to jump around on things above the water, but he supposed it was better than having to wade through more of the muck below. Maybe they'd be dry by the time they found a good place to stay if they were lucky. Before they could get to jumping, Kye's attention was fully drawn to Mercury and how she had a paw against her head as if in some kind of pain, and by this point, he could take a guess at what was wrong. It wasn't the first time she had been sick lately, and it seemed like it was stemming from some power of hers, based on a particular experience back in the gulch. It was a bit concerning to be around her with the idea that she could release a painful impulse of power at any time, but Kye wasn't just going to back away.

A part of him regretted this when his fear became reality and a rain of light showered down around them. A display of dazzling lights was what they had come here for, but not like this. He instinctively scooted up against Mercury, hoping being closer to her would somehow protect him, and it actually seemed to work. Nothing quite hit either of them, but Kye let out a yipe as one of the vibrant rays of energy crashed into the end of the log slanted down into the water, breaking it free. It had been wedged into the mud at one end on a bit of an incline, but fortunately not enough for the displacement from being freed to knock either of them off. Still, he slipped and fell from the sudden movement, smacking his belly against the log with a light "oof" before digging his paws against the wood to steady himself. By the time he started getting himself back up, the energetic fennekin at his side was already back to herself as if nothing had happened, looking like she didn't even know what she had done. She probably didn't, as usual, but it'd actually been a good thing for once.

As Mercury was quick to observe, the log was now a "floater," drifting over the shallow waters with the pair atop it. Now they wouldn't have to do much at all to get through the environment, assuming the current took them where they wanted to go. Mercury seemed convinced that it was Velikye, not herself, who had caused this development, and after a bit of debate, he decided to just go along with it. He wasn't trying to be manipulative or lie or anything; it just seemed so much easier to agree than try and explain Mercury's own power to her. Still, how was he supposed to respond to a compliment on his ability to "make a floater?" He batted a tired glance at the fennekin, but the sight of her all better put a smile on his face immediately. "Yeah, this'll work great... and I'll try to show you sometime," he responded, sitting himself down on the log now that it looked to be somewhat stable. He wasn't exactly lying in saying he would try to teach her how to do this. If she wanted, maybe he could help her learn to control herself and use her moves or powers or whatever. He wasn't a good fighter and knew very little about the abilities of his own species, let alone others, but he figured he probably still had more general knowledge on the topic than Mercury.

But right now, he really just wanted to relax. He was willing to help her later. They both wanted this to be a fun night, so he wanted to avoid anything that could be considered work. "See? We can do things on our own."

He meant it. With all the dumb, risky situations they'd gotten into, they had also gotten out of all of them. Mercury didn't need to constantly look for help, and they were better off alone with just each other. It was hard to understand the odd fennekin's past from her own words, but from what Kye could gather, they were similar in that they had both been dealt a bad hand by the world. Maybe they were better off just... staying together and avoiding everyone else. That was what he had done in the past, anyway, and he felt like it would be an okay lifestyle if he had someone to keep him company through it. He knew Mercury would never agree, but hey, it was still a nice thought that they could accomplish things together without needing help.

Lord E V carried out 7 launched of one Cattail Marsh :

, , , , , ,

Goro found the peace and quiet to be nice. He'd always been an avid fan of inactivity, sort of just lounging around with nothing to do, and it had been a long time since he was afforded an opportunity to do just that. The prospect of getting into another fight so soon after he'd fucked up his hand wasn't even remotely appealing. While he probably could use a means to relieve all the frustration he had over that disastrous encounter, fucking his shit up even worse wasn't exactly the solution he had in mind. At least, he didn't plan on looking for anything to occupy himself with. If something just so happened to find him, well, then he wouldn't have a choice. Goro wasn't slow, but he wasn't exactly quick on his feet either, so running away from trouble wouldn't be possible even if the idea occurred to him... which it wouldn't. But as the muggy air brushed up against his leathery skin and the horrid scent of his surroundings wafted through his nose, he couldn't help but shake the feeling he was gonna find himself in some shit sometime soon.

It'd been quite a while since he was home. The croagunk hadn't exactly been keeping an eye on his 'territory', after all, and while he wasn't surprised that no one stormed his place since it was honestly pretty shitty, the same couldn't be said for the actual land around it. Even back when he was patrolling the area every day, he found plenty of pokemon who gave no fucks about what he claimed was his and how willing he was to defend it. He wasn't worried about his own safety - he knew how to survive around these parts - but he sure wasn't in the mood to put up with anyone stupid enough to start something with him. It was a stark contrast to how he used to feel about the natives of the marsh; He could remember days where he did nothing but prowl the flatlands, looking for poliwhirls and frogadiers and whatever the fuck he thought looked fun. He won some, he lost some, but he almost always had a blast. Now he felt... not quite disdainful, but a few steps past annoyed and uninterested.

He narrowed his eyes as he studied the pond in front of him, idly tracking a surskit sliding across it. He'd beaten and eaten his fair share of water bugs. It was actually something of a tantalizing sight, but he wasn't exactly able to go swim after it - that was just asking to get drowned. But it was about time for lunch either way, and he realized after watching the surskit dance across the surface of the pond that he was getting hungry. Or at least craving bite to eat. It was too bad he didn't have shit. Maybe if he went back to town he could scrounge up enough coin for something, but that was quite the walk, and it sounded like entirely too much effort.

Goro found that he didn't have the inclination to do anything but lay there for a while. So he did. The croagunk leaned backward until he was spread-eagle on the bank, staring up at the cloudy sky above him, while the afternoon dragged on.

He thought about all the strong pokemon he'd encountered, and what made them so strong. He didn't much mind that the boss was stronger than him. Ideally, he'd like to be the strongest, but that was a naive way to think, and she had much that he lacked. Power, intellect, and ambition all oozed from his leader. He remembered the psychic fighter that he met in the gulch, and how strong he seemed. Goro had been fighting for his life down there, desperately fending off poison types, and he might well have died if not for that guy with the weird hips and sword-arms. There was a myriad of pokemon that had bested him since he left the comfort of the flatlands, and he knew almost none of their names. There was one he did, though, and it was perhaps the one he remembered most vividly. She was as pretty as she was deadly. She was a stronger and better person, and they were almost friends.

Goro didn't have to wonder what Nevi thought of him - she'd made that clear before they parted ways. And then there was the most recent opponent he'd run into... the nameless umbreon. He might have struck the final blow, but he knew she walked away from that fight with her head higher than his. For fuck's sake, he broke his fist on her face and it had hurt him more than it did her! He'd never been so... beaten before. The bitch had been more brutal than anyone he could remember fighting, and she outclassed him in every aspect that he prided himself on and then some. What was did she have that she didn't? What did he lack?

The croagunk croaked dejectedly as he stared blankly up at the sky. "I'm fuckin' hungry."

(12 energy)

The prospect of learning how to make a floater made Mercury so happy her ears pricked up even higher than they did at full attention. "YessSSSSS!! That'll be so fun!!!" she announced excitedly with a little hop that shook the log a bit. She did some happy circles trotting around behind her tail in celebration. She stopped immediately and looked at Kye again, always being sure to keep up the good listening thing that made him happy - especially right now with the sssususssussssaaaaaaag looming over them. What he said made her smile. "Yeah, we can!" He was correct. Duh, Kye, they could do things on their own. They were AMAZING!!! How could they not do things alone when they were together?? What a silly thought.

In her excitement, Mercury couldn't help but keep talking about the floaters. Who wouldn't want to talk about floaters?? "I really like floater things!! Cause when things float, they don't get wet!!! There are a lot of things that float, like tree parts, empty berry skins... cups........" The little fox's voice trailed off as she took a moment to think. Somewhere deep within her, her words resonated with some little bubble of a memory that had long been buried, possibly now shaken closer to the surface by the constant barrage of her strange and erratic powers. "...Papa used to make floater things, too. They carried lights!! That's right, lights!!!" This was only half confirmation for Kye, the other half was for herself as she floundered her way through the images that she hadn't seen in so long they may as well new experiences.

"...they were floaters... but they didn't just float on the water. Some of them floated in the air!!! They'd go way up high until we couldn't see them anymore and they became stars!!!" She smiled a little bit and looked up into the wide blue above her, as she were watching one now. "It was so mama could blow out some candles too - on my birthday. He'd make them and send some downstream and we'd all watch the flying ones together!!! Even though mama wasn't there. She was watching! All of our eyes were in the same place so it counts." Her eyes fell back to the log and she yawned contentedly. Mercury was starting to feel a little tired already, for once. This was likely in no small part to the giant psychic outbursts that she had been having, notably the one that she had just recently experienced. The memory also kind of... made her head feel warm and fuzzy. Like Kye! She felt like the world was moving very slooooowly (which it kind of was at this point), but also she felt like it was making her a little too heavy for her legs. She turned around a few more times on the log, fluffing it up with her feetsies, and then flopping down onto it. After a few seconds, the squeals of steam escaping the log's flesh could be head quietly bubbling up from below her.

Mercury patted the log with her paws. "Come on Kye!! It's a warm floater!" It was most certainly not a warm floater, not as much as she was a warm Mercury. "We can lay down while we wait and do some stuff, like uuuuh... Oh, word games!! I've got some of those!" she exclaimed. "Let's see.... Like Ever have I Never!!! We'll each say a thing, and if we've never done it we raise our paws. If you don't raise your paw, you get a point! So like... Ever have I neverrrrrr.... Eaten a red squishy! I've done that, so I don't get any points. Get it???" She smiled and wagged her tail. "Okay, I think of a different one so we can really start. Ever have I neverrrrrrr..." she hummed, her eyes rolling around as she thought of a question. At that moment, they passed a clearing in the brushes.

"...PURPLE!!!!!!"

Mercury's paws flew up to her mouth to hold in the rest of her exclamations. That squack had been in reference to something that had caught her eyes as they hit the clearing - a small cruddy house?!? Much like her own den before Kye had arrived; something that was questionably meeting the bare standard minimum of keeping someone alive??? WOW!!! That was so distracting that it had caught Mercury's attention long enough for her to notice the other figure there in the clearing.

WOW

Was that a frog friend just laying there? Doing absolutely NOTHING of interest WHATSOEVER nor contributing to society in ANY WAY????

AAAAMMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAZZZZZIIIINGGGGGG!!!!!

Mecurry's small mind was so blowneresteestedest it was amazing her powers didn't literally blow her small body up with it.

But she contained this excitement. She had too! Kye wanted to be alone together, and she wanted to save him more than she wanted to accost the brand-new never before seen completely lethargic frog friend... So she did everything in her small foxy power to resist the frog's gravitational attraction to her unending obnoxiousness. Instead, she hunkered down into the tightest, most inconsequential innocuous ball she could muster with her skeleton intact and inside her body and she covered her eyes with her paws. She did all this without giving a speck of context within three seconds of randomly squawking "purple".

"Shhhhhhh........" she whispered to Kye through her own fluff, "If we pretend like we don't exist then the might-be-a-corpse froggy friend won't exist......."

Mercury the Fennekin - 0 Energy

Mercury certainly seemed to have a firm grasp on the concept of floating, and an abnormally prominent sense of interest to match.  Whatever beautiful miracle she saw in flotation was lost on Kye, but he liked hearing her talk about it all the same.  Understanding what she was trying to say was an uphill battle, yet it still made the eevee happy to see his friend happy.  Still, he was getting good at comprehending the enigmatic creature that was Mercury, so it wasn't too hard for him to notice the change in meaning when she brought up her father.  She  went on to describe... lights; floating lights in specific, and ones that could float in the air as well as on the water.  Was she talking about lanterns?  Did her dad help set up celebrations or something?  What the fennekin seemed to be describing certainly didn't sound like an everyday thing; it sounded like her dad made decorative floating lanterns for some kind of festival or something... or maybe just for her.

It wasn't hard to come to the conclusion that this was why Mercury liked "floaters."  Her father wasn't around anymore, and floating things probably reminded her of good times with him, even if she didn't fully realize it.  Velikye hadn't tried to push topics like their parents and death since meeting her, but from all he could tell, some part of her at least knew her family was gone in the most basic sense.  They were the same, alone, so of course the eevee understood the idea that certain things would remind his friend of her parents.  He couldn't say he enjoyed such memories as much as Mercury seemed to, but he couldn't avoid them, so it made sense that she was no different.  Given time to learn more about Mercury, it was becoming difficult to decide which was the "real" her; there was the manic lunatic on the surface, but then there was also a sad and confused girl who seemed to leak through at times.  Maybe it was just Kye trying too hard to find sanity in someone he was growing attached to, but it felt real.

Maybe he just wanted to feel like he could relate to her more.  There were so many things he wanted to discuss with her, but he figured she would simply be unable to understand without literally hurting herself.  Plus, she jumped between topics too fast to have a lengthy and coherent conversation with, as shown by her attention suddenly latching onto how she was heating up the log.  She attributed it to the object rather than herself, but it didn't really matter.  Kye scooted a little closer just to see if the wood was actually getting warmer, and of course, it was.  It was nice, considering it didn't quite burn... yet.  Mercury went on to suggest a way to pass the time, and of course, it was a silly game like everything else with her.  She got the name a little wrong, but the game in question was clear: Never Have I Ever.  This sounded particularly challenging to play with Mercury due to the difficulties that went along with trying to communicate with her, as proven by her example of having eaten a "red squishy."

WHAT WAS A RED SQUISHY??  A gummi or berry or WHAT?

Still, Velikye was curious to see where this would go.  Perhaps it was his chance to try and get to know a little more about his friend's past or just bond with her.  At the same time, what if she said something he would have to give an uncomfortable answer to?  He waited anxiously for the first round to begin, already thinking about what he would give for his own first statement.  Other than getting the name wrong again, the fennekin seemed to know the rules of the game, and Kye was attentive to every word.  He wanted to know what she would-

Purple.  "Wha..." he shook his head in confusion and stared at the grey fennekin with a bewildered expression.  Purple?  That wasn't even a coherent sentence!  How was he supposed to answer that!?  He knew this game would be a challenge to play with Mercury, but this was just unbelievable.  He was just about to question what Mercury thought she was trying to say when he noticed the change in her behavior.  He followed her eyes to the shore to see what she saw: purple.  There was some thing laying on the bank, and of course, Mercury had noticed it because it existed and thus she needed to interact with it for no reason.  She was now visibly straining herself to avoid doing that, but the damage had surely already been done with her outburst.  Her display of curling up into a ball and apparently trying to hide herself was pointless, but Kye was happy she was at least she was trying.  To fix it.  Not to disappear.  He wouldn't have liked for Mercury to magically make herself disappear, especially if she was leaving him with whatever she had just called out to.

Despite how idiotic it was, Kye actually found himself following his friend's motions to an extent, dropping to his belly on the log and making himself as small as he could.  In the very likely event that the thing was alive and had been attracted to them, there was a chance it wouldn't notice them atop the log.  Their grey colors weren't the greatest for camouflage here, but at least they didn't stick out as much as a painfully vibrant red or yellow or something.  "Do you even know what a corpse is?" he couldn't help but mutter under his breath so his voice would reach out to none but Mercury.  He remembered talking to her about death in the past, and the short of it was that she seemed incapable of fully grasping the very concept of it, so the idea that she understood what the word "corpse" meant was... contradictory.  He was pretty sure she had just heard the word and probably thought it referred to someone sleeping or something along those lines. but he still had to ask.

Not like it mattered since they were probably about to both become corpses themselves.

As deep as he was in his introspection, Goro completely failed to notice the log floating along the pond in front of him. The fact that he was currently staring up into the sky and not paying a lick of attention to his surroundings also might have had something to do with that, but even if he had been, there were more important things on his mind. Like how the fuck he lost to something that he should have by all rights dominated. That one bitch had been a darkling, and he had advantages over them. A couple of fighting moves and she should have been laid out, but the complete opposite had happened. He had no idea how something like that could just happen - he'd never heard of such a phenomenon before. Was the girl just some kind of freak of nature, or was there something else going on? Could the trick be replicated? If he could somehow learn how to do that, then he wouldn't have to fear psychics as much as every other croagunk did.

Thinking about it further was quite useless, as he was obviously missing more than one piece of the puzzle. And even if he'd had all that he needed to piece the mystery together... he wasn't exactly a detective. Best to just pass the problem off to someone smarter and see if they couldn't work it out. Until he ran into that girl again - or someone with a similar power - then he'd just have to muddle on as he was. Get stronger the old fashioned way, and make up the difference with grit and guts. Another morose sigh escaped from the croagunk as he stared up at the cloudy sky, tracking their movement lazily. For all that he wanted to take this time to relax, he just couldn't take his mind off of things. Unfortunately, he wouldn't get the opportunity to keep trying.

"...PURPLE!!!!!!"

The voice was loud, feminine, childish, and very close nearby. Goro sat up nearly instantly, eyes narrowed as he stared out in the direction of the sound. But it'd sounded like it came from the pond, and he had fished nearly every water type out of there for food. Unless some new fish had migrated to his pond, then he was certain he was it was barren. The body of water went on for quite a ways, and he couldn't see the other side of the pond clearly enough to make out any figures. At the lack of an obvious culprit, he grew suspicious and annoyed. He heard a voice just now, and it came from that direction. Unless... there was a log drifting along the surface. The frog pokemon's eyes narrowed as he inspected it, and true enough, there were a couple somethings huddled on top. Two fluffy furballs, it looked like, and the sight of one of them, in particular, had him doing a double take.

Was that another eevee? A silver one?

How fucking common were these fuzzfucks? Or were they as rare as people said and the universe just liked to chuck the bastards at him?

By this point, Goro had stumbled to his feet, staring down the eevee and its curled up companion. Purple, they'd said. Well, he was purple. Was that some kind of insult - were they talking shit? One of them was curled up and the other was just laying there, though. He was at a bit of a loss; Usually when you yelled at someone like that, the insult was decent and you didn't try and hide afterward. Or... or whatever the hell the two were trying to do. His face betrayed his confusion. The croagunk was still too busy trying to wrap his head around the fact that he'd found another eevee, of all things.

Goro raised his broken hand and waved.

Shhhhh, shhhhhhhhhh... Merc was safe inside her own mind. She stayed balled up tightly in in her own fur, feeling like the world had shrunken into just her and Kye's floof. She was able to be patient at first, satisfied in the notion that this would remove the froggy friend from their special day and then things would go back to being good like they had been before. Maybe it had already changed back now! It felt like it had been a while, surely that would be enough!! She pulled down some of her fur and peeked through it to see where they had ended up, but she quickly found that they were still in the same place, and they were still with froggy. Rats. She had messed it up!! She needed to start again-

Oh no, the lazy froggy friend had waved!!! Mercury's eyes shot over to Kye and she looked at him desperately through all her fluff. They couldn't not answer his wave!!! There were SO MANY REASONS why they couldn't not answer his wave!!! It was just rude, to start. Also, it was simple!! It was easy!! People always waved at people who waved at them, unless something was wrong. It was weird and abnormal to not wave back when you waved at them, and froggy would notice this and then he'd notice them and their plan would be RUINED. "We have to do something, Kye!!" she whispered over to Kye in her desparation. "The froggy waved! If we don't wave back he'll notice us, and then he'll know we're here and he'll probably come looking and want to chat or play or something!! Don't worry, I promise I'll handle it quick and I won't say words or do anything but handle it!!!" Right. She could handle that!

Slowly, carefully, she stuck one eensy, weensy paw into the air, veeeeery carefully, gave a very quick but whole-hearted floppy wave of her paw, and then sucked her leg back into her form so quickly and so deeply that her cartilage could be heard popping. She ignored the pain and the weird sensations that came with the noises, prioritizing the assimilation of her leg back into the fluff of her body. It was clearly a gesture of restrained energy that looked very shy and child-like from an outside standpoint. Well, any outside standpoint that wasn't balled up with Mercury on a drifting log in the middle of some non-Newtonian sludge water trying to avoid being caught be a random frog. To them it probably just looked stupid and innocent. Mercury grew still again; satisfied with having returned the froggy friend's greeting.

"Don't worry Kye, I fixed it!!!" Mercury explained softly, looking at Kye through bright and enthusiastic eyes. "Everything is back to normal now. No imbalance here! Froggy friend will surely fall back to sleep and we can continue our search for the dry!!"The fennekin's statements were short and choppy as she tried for once to keep her speaking parts to a minimum. This was agonizing for Mercury. She liked to talk because it meant people would talk to her and the world wouldn't be quiet and lonely, and also pretty scary. If people weren't talking than she didn't know what they were thinking, and then how was she supposed to be friends with them?! Guess?!?! Guessing only worked some of the time, and Mercury preferred to work all of the time. What was she supposed to do if she couldn't do the one thing she thought she was good at? Who would want to talk to her???

Kye was more important than that, though. Kye was her most special friend and that meant a lot to Mercury. She'd stop being friends with a hundred (yes, she ware sure she had at least 100) of her other friends if she had to to that to keep being friends with Kye. She was determined right now to make him happy, and that was her priority over even the most laziest of froggy friends. Things just wouldn't be the same anymore if Kye decided he wasn't there!!! Mercury found herself looking at Kye through her fluff again, a tension growing behind the pained look that had invaded her furry mug. She just wanted... to be the kind of friend that Kye wanted to be friends with. She could be friends with him all year long, every year, 24/7 no problem. She wanted it things to be slightly more with him, though. She wanted to make sure he could feel the same way about her as she felt about him!! She would be friends with him no matter what, but the fact that he would be friends with her...

It made her feel a very special good. More special than Mercury had ever felt in her life. It was the first thing in the world that Mercury couldn't help but treat with reverence, even if she didn't have that label for the term. She still knew that the feeling was a magical kind of thing that made the world feel slow and comfortable. like everything was... right.

She peeked through her fluff at the froggy friend again, and she couldn't help but will the log to go faster and please make them disappear now in her mind. "Kye's not gonna be comfortable with the froggy friend still there, but I can't move froggy friend!! I can't ask froggy friend to move, either..." She covertly eyed him with sad desperation as her attempt to not exist failed her horribly. She squinched her eyes shut and tried harder. "Please... for Kye!! Just make us alone so froggy friend won't be confused and Kye won't be uncomfortable!!!"

Mercury peeked one eye open and looked out of the corner of her eye to see if it had worked.

It had not. In fact, the froggy friend was moving with them now.

Internally, this made Mercury feel a bit like
.
She had MESSED IT UP.
OH NO.

"NO THIS IS THE OPPOSITE OF MAKING KYE NOT UNCOMFORTABLE PLEASE," She begged some unidentified construct of her mind as she stared with wide eyes before sqinching them shut very tightly again. "Just... make the froggy friend not here! Or make us not here! Or make Kye happy; anything would be okay!!! I just... I just want this to work!!!"

More power began to gather around Mercury as she bottled up everything that was going on inside her.

Mercury the Fennekin - 0 Energy (Wish activated)

Kye didn't expect the poor attempt at "hiding" to work, so when it didn't, there was little reaction from him. It didn't take long for the purple figure to get up and pick them out of the environment, making its appearance clear as a... frog thing. He wasn't really sure what it was, but he knew it looked scary and was now staring right at them and that was enough for him. Unfortunately, they were stuck on a log in the middle of a body of water and wouldn't be fleeing anywhere fast. It was Mercury who had insisted on riding a log, and it was Mercury who had called out to the frog for no reason, and Mercury who'd proposed the idea of going here in the first place. Whatever was about to happen was all Mercury's fault as usual. She was just a bad omen constantly making bad decisions that led to bad things happening for herself and everyone around her. It was a miracle that she had somehow survived so long on her own; or perhaps she hadn't and Kye was simply her most recent guardian, following the last one to have perished trying to protect her from herself...

The eevee suddenly realized his own terrible feelings and felt ashamed. One thing being around Mercury had taught him was that he liked to blame others for things when he felt stressed. Granted, Mercury was an idiot and had a tendency to get the both of them into trouble, but it wasn't as if he had to go along with her. He didn't want to leave her, but even so, he could probably have convinced her not to come here in the first place, were he only more outgoing. He could give her partial blame, but he needed to learn to accept some level of responsibility for things. Besides, in return for the chore that was watching over her, Mercury provided something very important: happiness. Not right now in particular, but in general, Velikye felt happier around her. He wasn't used to having a friend like this... and he'd spent his recent life completely and utterly alone. It was hard for him to talk to her about personal things, but that actually worked out since he didn't want to discuss his past or anything else "personal."

That said, he was annoyed with her at the moment. He watched as the fennekin noticed the frog noticing her, but something a bit relieving then happened. In a show of consciousness if nothing else, the stranger waved at them, and of course, Mercury couldn't stop herself from waving back. She was clearly trying to restrain herself, but she was Mercury. Still, it wasn't as if it could do any harm now that they'd already been noticed; actually, her reasoning was right in a way. The idea that this new face would just magically go away if she waved back at it wasn't exactly correct, but it was true that ignoring the presumably friendly gesture would likely do more harm than good. Maybe it would leave them alone after exchanging a simple greeting, and on the flip-side, maybe it would feel offended if they were to ignore it. With this in mind, Kye stood upright on the log with a lack of enthusiasm and sheepishly lifted his healing paw. He felt confident in his action for all of one second before locking eyes with the frog and suddenly wanting to lay back down and shut his eyes in much the same manner as Mercury.

Sheepishly, Velikye waved back at the stranger, visibly recoiling in anxiety as he went through the motions. A nervous frown came over his face while he tried desperately to look as unintimidating as possible, which wasn't difficult with his species. His ears dropped and he visibly shrunk in on himself, already expecting the worst to happen even though he had been given no reason to do so. In all likelihood, the thing waving at them would either end the exchange there or just want to chat, neither of which sounded dangerous. Besides, it wasn't as if it could just sprint through the marsh, so they would have plenty of time to react if it decided to suddenly turn hostile. He glanced down at Mercury and sighed lightly at her balled-up figure before lifting his good paw. He was planning to pat her on the head or something to reassure her and show he wasn't mad, but he froze when she looked up at the frog again... with a rather concerning expression.

Kye couldn't help but follow her gaze to see perhaps the most terrifying thing possible: the stranger was now walking along the bank, following their log, eyes trained on them. He had to force himself not to give a reaction as fearful as Mercury's. It was all he could do to hope the creature was simply curious and not plotting the best way to kill and eat them in no particular order. He liked Mercury, but he didn't want the nonsensical fennekin being the one doing the talking this time. "Shh," he gently hushed her and placed his paw on her back in an attempt to calm her down. There were so many reasons why she needed to stay calm here... and silent. She needed to control both her powers and her words, and... well, Kye didn't like seeing her upset. Taking a deep breath and struggling to gather the courage to speak, he finally responded to the frog's concerning behavior.

"Um... h-hi..." was all that came out. The fear in his voice was painfully obvious and he could barely will himself to be audible, but at least he had said something. If Mercury were the one talking, she probably would have provoked this thing just by confusing it, so his two words were surely the lesser of two evils.

Goro wasn't sure what he was expecting when he raised his hand and waved at the two fuzzy buggers. The pair of fluffballs floating along the pond in his front yard was such a weird sight that it left him at a loss. What to do about them? The easy answer was to simply wave hello at the two strangers and let them be on their way. Sure, they were in his territory and they were alarmingly close to his goddamn house, which he went to painful lengths to keep safe from other pokemon in the area, but they looked like the definition of harmless kids. What were the odds that they were gonna break into his place and steal his shit? He was right here, and he had time to lounge around. They weren't getting in any time soon.

Then again, nothing was stopping them from coming back later when he wasn't home. He had a day job now, after all. It was kind of a night job, too. Come to think of it, it was sort of like a whenever-the-fuck-I-say-you-need-to-be-here kind of job. Goro was totally fine with that sort of thing - it wasn't like he had a life - but it did leave his place unguarded. And, honestly? He was really fucking bored right now. The croagunk had planned on waiting until the fireflies came out so he could catch a good look at that view before he left, and tagging along after these two tykes sounded like a decent way to waste that time. When the one that was curled up into a ball gave him a split-second wave back, before curling right back up, he decided to say fuck it. This was more interesting than just sitting on his ass anyway.

Goro shrugged his shoulders, bent down, scooped up his bindle, and ambled along after the log. He wasn't about to stride into the waters after them, but he could walk alongside the bank and follow them to an extent. It wasn't as if they could change their path on the water; He'd be very surprised if the two of them weighed twenty pounds soaking wet, combined. No way they were gonna be able to paddle away and actually be faster than him. An absentminded frown found its way on his face as he strode along the bank of the pond, his bindle resting on his right shoulder, eyes trained on the two fox pokemon. If Goro had a pair of eyebrows, they would have rose when the eevee waved back as well. It seemed rather... frazzled. Nervous, kinda. Its ears fell back and it hunched in on itself as if something just made it sad. He kind of liked how sad it was. It reminded him less of a certain plush toy - and the less he thought about that thing, the better. Honestly, what were the odds that he'd find a silver eevee in his own fuckin' backyard?

He paused when it actually made noise, cocking his head at the creature. It sounded young. Kind of like a boy, or maybe just a really manly girl. Hard to tell. It wanted to talk, though, so that was something. He croaked absently in response, taking a few moments to formulate a response. What did he even want from these things? Answers?

"That's fuckin' weird." There, that was a start. Goro pointed at the curled up fox thing, hopefully indicating how it was still attempting to... imitate a rock. Or hide. Whatever the fuck it was doing. Honestly, starting things off by just talking felt weird. He supposed he could have just waded through and dunked the two little shits under the water until they did something cool, but that could come later. Maybe if they failed to be interesting. "Is it hurt or somethin'?"