Children At Play

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If there was a king of dumb ideas...it would be Chance. Not only had he failed to learn his lesson last time of wandering away from home, but he was back at it again with an idea that had the potential to do far more harm than being eaten by a predator would. It was fortunate that he struggled so much to put it into action, that way the odds of him giving up was greater. Unfortunately, he had been at it for a solid five minutes. He tried all he could with various different ways of doing it.

What was he doing exactly? Moving a rock. It was much larger than he was, far too heavy for him to handle, but he hoped that the spherical nature of it would make it easier to roll. He tried straight up pushing it, running and jumping against it, and even the clever idea of using a stick as a lever-though he could not take credit for the idea as he simply heard about some nerd talking about this sort of thing before. Currently, he was trying to move it with the stick. The branch was properly wedged underneath it, but he didn't have the strength or weight to pull it down.

He simply hung off of the elevated end of the branch with his teeth stuck in the bark. His eyes glanced over to the rock with the hopes that it would move. No dice. Alright then. He would just have to try something else. He let go of the branch and dropped back to the ground. Hmm...what else could he try? Oh-why didn't he think of that sooner!

The little zorua paced closer to the rock before he stepped onto the branch. He struggled to keep balance on the stick, which made him doubt his plan at least a little. He didn't have the brainpower and common sense to stop himself from trying. He stood at the other end of the stick and proceeded to try to jump up and down. The stick bent and moved, but the rock simply would not budge. He decided that he would give it one last jump, as high as he could.

Up he went, and-SNAP- down went the branch. He yelped in terror as the weak piece of wood snapped into two from the weight. He failed to catch himself properly and fell over onto his side as the branch splintered around him. He lifted his head with a shake and shot a look towards the boulder.

No dice.

"uuuugggggggGGGGGGHHH!" he groaned loudly before he allowed his head to flop back onto the ground in defeat.

((22-20 = 2))

"Uff," Osiris groaned, flopping his head back after Kiba gave up. He was right, neither one of them knew what they were doing. Kiba maybe had the means to do it (bit of a stretch) and Iris maybe had the knowledge (bit of a stretch), but a third party would probably benefit no matter what.

The problem was... "But there's nobody here!" he exclaimed, wriggling fiercely to escape the bandana burrito. It took a lot of effort to just put a dent in it, but eventually, he was able to snake his way to freedom. "Just me, you, and two crazy pokemon that way who're probably still knocking the crap out of each other!!"

"I know-I know!" Chance responded, a little frustrated himself, "Uh...maybe we can go back to Grassveil and find someone there? Oh..but it's a long ways away...uhh...I don't know..." The zorua's ears flattened as he struggled to think of something. Everyone he knew was over at Grasveil, this side of the lands were completely new and unknown to him. The zorua legitimately did not know how to help. The only thing he could think of was to see if they could find an actually friendly pokemon that would help. Searching for pokemon, however, ran the risk of encountering mean pokemon.

"Maybe we can...uh...find a river and just go up the stream? It's hard to follow scents with water..." it was the best he could come up with. He was just about as lost as the dratini before him.

"Taking a dip isn't a bad idea either," Osiris nodded slowly as Kiba's suggestion took root. He was a snake, after all, and snakes kind of drug themselves across the ground to get around. Dirt probably wasn't good for open cuts.

Plus, the water might even be safer for him to travel in. Dratinis were very aquatic for non-water-types, and even if Iris hadn't lived that way, it didn't mean he didn't have the capacity for it. "Yeah, solid idea. You've got the nose, you lead the way?" he suggested, gathering up his bandana for travel. The notion of getting there didn't seem incredibly problematic to him either; Sure, the mightyena had done a hell of a number on him and there was a chance (hue) that they could run into another jerk of a pokemon... but he had Kiba with him. Despite all the peculiar things about him, he had delivered in the most important ways so far.

Why not trust him a little more?

Lead the way huh...well...there was a sliiiighty problem with that. Chance had never really "tracked" much of anything in his life. His visible hesitance was clear, "Uhhhh....." he stated with the certainty of tauros on a tightrope. "I'll...try?"

He closed his eyes and focused on his nose. What did water even smell like? The zorua took a big long whiff of the air around him. He could smell...the dratini. Himself. Some other pokemon...annnnnd is that water? He never really sat down and registered the smell of water. The zorua continued to sniff around with his nose in the air, concentrating completely on his nose as he started to head down hill. It probably would have been wiser for him to carry the dratini, but he had not exactly thought of it.

His mind was dead set on finding out if this smell was water or not.

The caution and timidness that the zorua briefly showed didn't really match up with how quickly and intensely he set about sniffing the air. Osiris merely chalked it up to general unease about their—admittedly precarious—situation in general, with both of them being weak, one of them wounded, and at least two strong pokemon with tendencies toward violence close by.

Following him after he took off was a bit of a chore, though. Iris didn't exhibit anywhere near the speed or urgency that he did when he took off away from the kangaskhan and mightyena, following Kiba. Just as soon as he took off, he was strongly reminded about how close of a call he had with the big dog in question. It caught him so off guard, in fact, that he missed a relatively tall-looking rock in his path and the dratini stumbled right over it, tripping and rolling a bit toward the side, his eyes clenched shut as he hit the ground again.

... right in front of a bush with a single, round, blue berry hanging off. Iris blinked stupidly as he looked at it and of course, he recognized it as an oran berry - it was the key ingredient in his favorite food, after all!

"Well, that's convenient," he whispered to himself. He raised his head up and bit the berry right off the bush, fangs sinking into it as he automatically chewed and swallowed. "And delicious!"

The little berry seemed to work some kind of magic within him, as he felt a modicum of the intense pain fade away and it was easier to move around after ingesting it. Osiris took right off after Kiba, a bit slower but determined to keep up.

(+11 energy, new page and oran berry)

It's a good thing the zorua was distracted by his task, otherwise he would have wanted to share the berry. He wasn't at all harmed, but the taste of berries was simply too good to pass up! His mother might not have been the best cook, but at the very least she knew how to find just the right berries as ingredients.

The scent grew stronger. He started to feel a little excited. He was doing it! He was actually doing it! He narrowly avoided a collision with a tree as he stepped out to where he smelled that smelly smell and opened his eyes to behold the fruits of his efforts...

It was the geyser field. He had rounded them back all the way to the geyser field. Of course! He should have known better. They went down the hill last time to get to it, why would this be any different? He frowned as he briefly considered how effective chucking the dratini into one of those things would be at cleaning the wounds...

Sure it was a lil' hot, but the water itself shouldn't be that bad...right?

"...think those'd work?" he spoke to the dratini, pointing to one of them just as one blasted its scalding hot water off high into the air.

Osiris looked at Kiba. Osirs looked at the geyser, which rocketed a huge amount of water high up into the sky. Osiris watched the water as it fell back down and hit the ground hard. Osiris looked back at Kiba.

Osiris shook his head no.

"Iiiii don't think so." he said, not entirely sure if the zorua was messing with him or not.

It was a really bad idea, but then again so was putting a boulder on top of one of those things and riding it. But Kiba had proved he was more or less... well, not smart, but at least capable in a few different moments. Distracting a big scary wild pokemon, evading its jaws, attracting another big scary pokemon to come join the fight, and having an adept nose (even if it kind of led him to the wrong place.)

Perhaps Kiba just wasn't a good thinker. Was that a mean thing to say about someone, even if their talents lay elsewhere? Iris didn't know, but regardless, it felt accurate to him.

"Maybe we should just... pick a direction and go," he wondered out loud, actually half-serious. "We're not really having a lot of luck with anything, really."

"If you say so," although Chance had to admit to himself, there was a part of him that wanted to see what would happen if they did it. He gave a shrug before he would start his path along the edge of the field. All prior fear and anxieties seemed to have dissipated away from the zorua. There was a complete and total possibility one of the two violent pokemon could show back up, but he didn't seem to be all that concerned with it anymore.

"I'm sure we'll find something," his confidence shined as he trotted along. "It's always darkest before dawn as they say, right? Pretty sure we've gotten the dark part over it, so that just means it'll be smoot sailing from here on!" Oh how wrong he was.

"Yeeeeah," Osiris drawled out in a mildly dry tone, slithering on after Kiba. He found it a little harder to be optimistic after what he'd just gone through. "So... the 'looking around' thing. That's really the whole reason you came out here?" he asked again, doing his best to match the dark-type's pace. It was harder than it should be, but it greatly helped that neither of the two were rushing anywhere anymore.

Not that exploration in and of itself was a bad thing —Osiris himself wished he could do just that more often—but it seemed a little... bare bones to him. The least Kiba could have done was bring some friends with him, since it seemed to be dangerous like every other wild place. Iris just figured himself to be the exception, not wanting to bother the few friends he had with a trip like this.

the sunset hero carried out 10 launched of one Everspring Vale :

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"Weeeeeellllll...not exactly I guess..." he hesitated, "It is the biggest reason, but I guess I also just kinda wanted to get away from something and just ended up comin' here." He volume lowered as he spoke, as if he didn't really want the whole world to hear about this. They re-entered the forest, where Chance had the lovely opportunity of jumping up on a fallen log and walking along the top. Apparently the floor was too boring for him.

"It's no-fun around Grassveil. It's always the same stuff around there. It's always 'don't do this!' or 'why are you so mean?' or 'Why don't you THINK for once?' over there. It's like listening to a chatot scream into your ear over and over again!" he face contorted with distaste before he shook his head and jumped down from the other end.

"Out in places like this though, there's nobody to tell me what to do! There's a ton of new stuff to see and even more things to do! Sure some of the pokemon here can be a little mean and want to eat me for breakfast, but I can dodge them quick and easy~!" he spoke as if he wasn't about to be eaten by a jolteon last week or a mightyena just moments before. His head was held high with an air of confidence and charisma, a big ol' smile on his face as if he were The Best and he knew it.

That seemed was a much more insightful answer to Osiris. Up 'til now, Kiba had just been this slightly enigmatic, peculiar zorua. Now he seemed like more of a kid, like someone he'd meet in the street back home and mess around the Small Pond with for the rest of the day. Kiba seemed to come from the same place he did, so it was kind of ironic that they met each other all the way out here.

"Grassveil can kinda suck like that," he agreed. "My mom's always telling me to go to school and be safe all the time, but I like this kind of thing a lot better. Even considering the obvious, I think..." he went on, glad that there was some common ground with his newest friend. Up 'til now, he'd actually never met someone who both understood what it was like to feel that stifled and did this kind of thing simply because they wanted to. Usually, it was just one way or another.

"Eeeeeeeeew school." Chance joked with a laugh, "My sister's supposed to be goin' there at some point I think. Peak Academy or whatever it was called-that place over by the small pond. My ma said I should go too so I can get smart or whatever...but I'd just end up bored and gettin everyone into trouble. Besides, why would I want to go someplace full of even more people that want to do nothing but tell me what to do?" He liked this dratini. The dragon type seemed to get it.

He was honestly a little surprised that the dratini hadn't decided that they were better off alone by this point. It was nice to have company he could enjoy that wasn't the looming reminder of every single one of his faults that was his sister. It wasn't her fault and he knew that, just like it wasn't his fault that he wasn't special...at least in a good way like she was.

'You're too stupid for school anyways.' he thought to himself. Just as quick as the thought appeared, he decided to try his hand-or rather paw- at the whole sniffer thing once more. An ear was still pointed in the Dratini's direction for a response as he searched the air once again for the smell of water that wasn't the geysers behind them. It helped this time that they were upwind of them at the least.

"That's where I'm going, actually!" Osiris said, brightening up. "It's not even that bad. Pretty cool, actually. I took my first class and it was about fighting." he gushed, leaning in slightly as if he was sharing a secret. Iris kind of sucked at it—at the time, he barely even had any moves—but the teacher never lost patience with anyone. It felt like there was someone there who actually wanted him to be super strong.

Compared to any other school ever, he personally thought it was dang amazing. "There's other boring stuff too, like cooking and probably math, but you don't have to do that stuff if you don't want to." he finished, feeling all of a sudden like he was making a pitch. It wasn't intentional from the start, so that seemed like a good thing to him, probably.

"Fighting huh? That sounds useful," He commented as he walked along. He did not bother to look back at the dratini as he walked along. "My mom could probably use a cooking class," he snickered briefly. The zorua continued along with his nose in the air. He occasionally propped himself up onto the trunk of a tree in order to get a better smell.

"You can probably handle it a lot more than I could," he dropped back down onto his fore paws with a quick glance back to the dratini. He looked back forward and picked up his pace a little. He could smell another stream. Hopefully this wasn't another geyser? It smelled at least a little different.

That was like the second time Kiba commented on his mom's poor culinary skills. Osiris wondered if maybe he should pack the zorua a box lunch sometime - no doubt his own mom would give him all the fixings and then some if he mentioned Kiba practically saved his life. Hell, if he lived nearby, he could come over and they could hang out. Iris nearly vocalized those thoughts, but pulled back in case he sounded too clingy or weird.

"I dunno, you did pretty good back there, I think. Didn't get snatched up or anything, which is more than I can say, heheh." he settled for saying. "And your dad's like a famous explorer, right? You've probably got it in you."