18 ♐ He is a very important 8 year old you see

[aim_exorable]

Who: A young Zahhak not named Equius plus ~Vatheon~
Where: Throughout the city
When: Throughout the day
Style: Anything
Status: Open
Note: Darkleer is 4 sweeps old aka almost 9 years old in human terms.

Scene 1

For anyone trying to go about their business this morning, they might... not notice a very small "Ahen". It's very quiet. The next "Ahem" is just a bit louder, but it's the third they might notice someone is trying to get their attention.

It is a very young troll boy, some grub fat still in his cheeks and with long black hair that falls in front of his face and down to his very knees. The only thing he's wearing seems to be a tanktop that was obviously built for someone MUCH larger and taller than him; the bottom brushes his ankles. He's trying to seem taller than he is, very important you see! But it is failing due to a few reasons. One, his hair is in front of his face. Two, the look in his eyes makes it very clear that he is on the bare edge before he flips out. Three, there is an extremely tiny white pony following him around and chewing on his hair.

Watch out, 'tho- the large white bird one might see perched nearby seems like she means business.

"Ahem." Oh, looks like the young troll is ready to speak up! "By the order of the Alternian Empire, I order you to tell me where I am and what you have done with my lusus, along with anything else important." He keeps his chest puffed up for but a second before deflating. "I mean. Please?"

Scene 2 - Open

It looks like the young troll boy has stopped accosting random passerby for information. Now that it's noon, he can be found sitting on the plaza fountain with his two 'pets' with him.

Some brilliant local thought it a smart idea to give him an ice cream cone. Judging by the shattered cone all around and his hands dripping with ice cream, it's fairly obvious what happened. The large white bird is cooing and rubbing against his face. The miniature pony? A bit busy licking at the ice cream.

No, the boy isn't about to cry. That isn't why he's hiding his face behind his hair more than he was already. He's had a hard day, okay? Shut up.

Comments

2

[crabbygenius]

For most of the morning, Washu had been wandering in and out of the shop gathering supplies. If there were children running around, someone may as well feed them and she didn't trust most people to know the correct nutrition a growing child might need.

Plus, it was an excuse to bake even more. Besides, if she was going to be trapped in her adult form, she may as well play mother for whoever needs one.

Which brings her to the current scene before her. It took the scientist a few moments to realize it was Darkleer, but when she did she couldn't help but smile. Before she approached, she sent her packages home and went and got two dishes of icecream.

"Here, this might work better then a cone for you."

[aim_exorable]

He hiccups as he looks up from beneath his hair, trying to blink away any tears that might be gathering. He doesn't understand why this weird alien is being so nice to him, but he just chalks it up to Alternian superiority. That's what other races did for Alternians, right? Right. Probably.

Very slowly, he starts to reach out for the bowl before stopping. Svaeth snorts against his side. "Might.. I might break this."

[crabbygenius]

She won't comment on the tears. Instead she just gently puts the bowl in his hands. "You won't. Just let it rest on your hand and curl your fingers around it. You don't need to put pressure on it to keep in there. Besides, if you break it, I'll just get you another one."

Once she's satisfied, Washu smiles down at him and and takes a bite of her own icecream. "Besides, it's not like you're lighting it on fire~. That's the problem I had when I was your age."

[aim_exorable]

"Oh." That sounds really nice... Normally, others aren't that nice to him. Then again, after the first few failures in socialization, he kind of gave of. Putting in a lot more concentration than most would need, he tries to follows her directions with brow furrowed.

His ears twitch a little at her own experience. "Are you a psionic, then? I heard they can do stuff like that..."

[crabbygenius]

Is it a bad thing that she's finding his efforts adorable? Probably not. At least she knows better then to say it at least.

"Not quite. I am capable of converting one form of energy to another, which when left uncontrolled can have varying results."

Washu paused to hold out her hand, letting a small ball of pure orange energy form. "You see, when released this can have disastrous results if not handled properly. Things tend to blow up or get set on fire."

[aim_exorable]

Very patiently and with a lot of interest, he listens. When she's done, he seems to take it into consideration and gives a nod of agreement.

"So you're an alien kind of psionic."

...Well, kind of agreement. Still, he seems very interested in the energy ball, leaning around to inspect it from a different side. "Do you use it in your strife specibus?"

[crabbygenius]

"You could that. It's closer to what I am anyway."

She lets him inspect as long as he doesn't try to touch it. If he did, he would get burned.

"I don't have a strife specibus. This is literally converting one for of energy into another in order to produce a form of defense."

[aim_exorable]

Don't worry, Washu, he's learned from his own novice engineering experiences that glowing things aren't what you want to touch. He keeps a reasonable enough distance.

"Huh... It still kind of sounds like a strife specibus." He finally leans back, brow furrowing as he thinks about it. "But I don't think psionics count as belonging with a strife specibus, so I suppose it makes sense."

[crabbygenius]

"One of these days, you're going to have to explain to me just what exactly a strife specibus is." At least he knew better then to touch. It was a show of common sense she swore many people lacked.

Or just general intelligence. Which, was something she knew Darkleer had tons of.

[aim_exorable]

"I can show you now, if you want!" He seems pretty eager for it. Sharing information is something he knows how to do, even if small talk is a struggle.

"My sylladex is still working! There's some weird stuff in it, but my strife specibus is there!"

[crabbygenius]

"I would enjoy that~. Please, show me what you're talking about." Washu was really curious now. What was a sylladex? Well, if he was willing to show her, she was willing to learn.

Besides~, it's not every day she gets to learn something new. Or at least, it wasn't until she ended up in the bubble anyway.

[aim_exorable]

"Alright." It's only fair, after all. She showed him some of her technology, so here's his.

Shifting back a bit for room, he pulls up his sylladex- row after row of hand sized cards appearing out of thin air. There's a lot more cards then he remembers having, so he keeps it to a manageable level for now with just rows of five by five. There are various items that can be seen on the cards, from what appears to be a medical kit to a robot and such.

"This is my sylladex. You store things in it."

[crabbygenius]

Washu leans in a little closer as cards appear. Now this, was something she had definitely not seen before. It was an interesting means of storage, that was for sure and perhaps a little more organized then her own methods.

"How does it work? How did you get one?"

[aim_exorable]

What a silly question! Chiron shakes his head a bit before explaining. "Everyone on Alternia gets one. Mine has always been with me for as long as I can remember." This is perhaps not quite true, but he hasn't had enough life experience to know the difference between growing up as a highblood and growing up as a lowblood.

"Mine has a mathematical related fetch modus- oh, fetch modi determine how your things are organized. To get something out, I have to solve an equation, like this..." Shifting his attention to a card with a robotic ape in it, he tries to get it to open, and it does in fact seem to shift with the image disappearing and a rather complicated equation appearing. Chiron pauses.

"It's not usually this hard for me, um, hold on..."

[crabbygenius]

As the equation appears, she quickly does the math herself and waits to see if he can come up with the answer. When he can't, she's faintly amused. Apparently this didn't change with his age.

"Are there different types of fetch modus? Do you get to pick your kind or are you just randomly handed one."

She'll wait to see if he gets the equation before even thinking of offering the answer.

"Take your time~."

[aim_exorable]

Listen, he has this when he's an adult! When he's had hundreds of years of experience... He's eight, give him a break. Sob.

A bit sidetracked by trying to answer the equation, he sounds a bit distant as he answers. "I think everyone just gets a really basic modus at first, but they can get or make a new one if they want to..." He tentatively offers an answer to the fetch modus and winces when it blares bright red because, whoops, wrong!

[crabbygenius]

She'll give him a break when he stops being adorable in her eyes. Which, means sorry. Not going to happen.

"Who hands out the basic modus?" She raises an eyebrow at the blaring red and tries to hide her amusement. "Would you like a little help with that?"

[aim_exorable]

Curse you, Washu.

"I can't remember. It's probably drones. They help with building our hives, too... Although my lusus did most of the building." Oh no, she noticed. Kind of hard not to, but still, his ears lower in embarrassment. "...If you don't mind."

[crabbygenius]

You can curse her all you want~. She doesn't mind.

"Where do the drones come from?" She's already heard quite a bit about their Lusus, but this is the first time she's heard drones mention which is very curious to her.

"I don't mind at all."

One very quick and complicated equation and answer later, and its unlocked.

[aim_exorable]

Whups! And out pops one (1) robotic ape, tilting its head curiously as it powers on. Chiron seems just a bit envious before he settles down with his slowly growing zoo of animals.

"They come from the Mother Grub, of course." Obviously! "She lays a whole bunch of eggs. Some of them are troll grubs, but some of them are just drone grubs. There are different kinds. We get drones so that we can direct them to build our hives for us. There are also Imperial Drones..." He shifts, distinctly uncomfortable.

"They listen to the Empress, and also collect genetic material."

[crabbygenius]

"I see." That was about as far as she was going to ask that particular like of questioning right now. It seemed more like something she should bring up when Darkleer was an adult again.

"How many other robots do you have in there?"

[aim_exorable]

Yes, that is a good plan. This child will just get bewildered and freaked out if it keeps going.

Giving a low hum, Chiron brings up his sylladex again to look through the cards. "I used to have only a couple, but somehow I have a lot more in here... They don't look like mine, they must be someone else's." That is to say, his adult self has way too much spare time and available materials.

[crabbygenius]

Most children would.

Washu takes a look at the other animals and can clearly see just how bord the adult version of him has gotten. It's rather endearing to her. She really needs to liven up Darkleers life a little. Preferably with new projects and experiments. And maybe a well placed explosion or two to keep him on his toes~.

"Maybe, I would keep them in your sylladex until you find out who they belong to."

[aim_exorable]

Explosions? Washu, please, no, his life is exciting without them, really, please.

"I might just keep them," he says with a small nod. "When I've gone exploring, I've found all sorts of things out there and I keep them to myself. Sometimes I've even found dead trolls! I still have to figure out a way of cracking open a sylladex when the owner is dead..."

[crabbygenius]

That last comment definitely gains a raised eyebrow. "Don't you bury your dead or honor them somehow?"