schoolingfish: (Excited human)
Luca Paguro ([personal profile] schoolingfish) wrote in [community profile] deercountry2021-09-12 04:59 pm

The Heart is a Bloom (Open)

Who: Luca and open
What: Catch all for the month
When: Throughout the month
Where: Behind the Disaster House, anywhere in the streets, the Archives

Content Warnings: Injured fish/fish gets killed for food


[Growing Pains: OTA]

It takes him a minute to decide what he wants to plant. Everything he came here with is a reminder of his past. The herding staff from when he used to live on the farm herding fish, though Luca realizes if he buries that, it's going to take a very long time to dig a hole large enough. Then there were the pictures Alberto drew, but he doesn't want to get rid of those. Alberto's not a part of his past he's ready to let go of yet, and there's always the chance he'll show up in this place. The sea monster village, however, is clearly and distinctly in his past. It's not a place he can go back to, and it's a place he was moving on from even in his own world. It's a place he's willing to let go of. He picks up his seagrass shorts, an article of clothing that's unmistakably 'sea monster', and takes them outside. He grabs a shovel and starts digging a hole behind the house.

It's not long before a flower emerges. Posidonia, a sea grass flower. Of course, that makes sense. He's fairly sure the shorts were sea grass in the first place, so what else would grow out of them?. But, of course, he knows that means he'll have to keep the plant in salt water.

"I'll have to find a tank or a vase to keep you in."

[Around Town: OTA]

Naturally, being new to this place, Luca wants to check it out. Sure, there are lamp locations and he can just teleport wherever he needs to go, but while Luca is more than happy to use them, he doesn't want to become dependent on them, which means he'll have to learn the lay of the land without them. Luckily for him, he arrived with his bike. It's incredibly rusted, but he's never had it in any other state, having gotten it the only way most sea monsters could get such a thing. By finding it in the Ligurean sea, not far from a steep cliff that dropped off into the water.

But, miraculously, despite all the rust his bike worked just fine, and he'd even been able to ride it well enough to win the biking portion of a triathlon once. Now he's riding through town, wearing the clothes he found in his bag on arrival, as well as his robes. The latter was mostly due to the weather. With all the rain, he wanted something water resistant so he wouldn't change in the middle of town. Sure, everyone who had seen him in his sea monster form so far had been fine with it, but that doesn't mean he doesn't want to take some precautions with how many people see him.

That's why, as the first few drops begin to fall, Luca stops his bike, putting one bare foot down so he can focus on pulling his robe over his head...only to put his foot right into a puddle.

"Gah!"

He pulled his foot (which was now green) out of the puddle, causing him to fall off his bike to the ground. Frantically, Luca pulls the robe over his head to keep his face human at least, before desperately trying to wipe the water off his foot...and now his leg as well after that fall, to try and force himself to change back.

Then, finally noticing that someone else is there, Luca looks up with a nervous laugh. "Oh, uh...hi."

[The Archaic Archives: OTA]

By the time Luca reaches the Gaze, he's given up all hope of holding onto his human form. The rain's just coming down too hard, and it's too difficult trying to keep all his skin covered and ride a bike at the same time. Eventually, he just accepts that he's going to have to be in his sea monster form for now, and that's just going to have to be okay. Still, he's on high alert the entire time, just in case someone might take issue with a sea monster biking through town.

And then he reaches his destination. The archives. Between this and the School of Mutter, it truly made the Gaze the most wonderful and happy place in the entire town in Luca's eyes.

He walks inside. Normally he'd shake himself dry, but he doesn't want to take any chances of getting even a drop of water on one of the books, so instead he waits to air dry naturally. Once that happens, his scales and fins begin slowly receding into his now human-looking skin. Now that he's dry, Luca begins to walk through the Archives, looking at the books as he passes.

"Wow, there's so much here! I wonder where I should even start."
zib: (know just what you are)

[personal profile] zib 2021-09-22 09:20 pm (UTC)(link)
Ohhh, I see! That's amazing... I mean, I always thought there were probably mermaids or some kind of paranormal entity living in the ocean out there, but this is really cool getting to finally meet one...!

[And thus, the metal spider leg retracts and disappears back under his makeshift hood, and suddenly it's as if Zib is just an excited kid.]

Tell me more, what's it like living there? Do you have any cool powers or stuff you can do as a sea monster?
zib: (got you seeing double vision lately)

[personal profile] zib 2021-09-27 06:38 pm (UTC)(link)
Really? Huh... that's a little disappointing about the powers thing, but the rest is still pretty cool no less!

[There's a pause, and then he frowns, apologetic.]

So, err... sorry about threatening you a minute ago. I had thought you were someone else.
zib: (I barely got enough for rent)

[personal profile] zib 2021-09-28 01:58 am (UTC)(link)
I mean, he is a somethingelse rather than human, as much as that jerk pretends to be, but--anyway, sorry, it's not a metal crab leg, it's, uh...

[A pause]

A metal PAK leg, which I guess isn't dissimilar to a crab? Or a spider, which is what it reminds me of sometimes.
zib: (that I'd become someone)

[personal profile] zib 2021-09-28 08:59 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, he's--he's part of an alien race called an "Irken", and they have green skin and... and don't react well when coming in contact with water, so when I saw you, I thought... I thought maybe you were him in disguise somehow.

[PAK leg is definitely easier to say than metal crab leg though, this is true.]

You don't know what a spider is? They're like... they're small and they've got eight legs and some people mistake them as insects but they're actually arachnids which is a separate thing.
zib: (but not this time)

[personal profile] zib 2021-09-28 10:54 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, wow... well, have you learned anything new now from ending up here? Or like... have any questions you want answered? 'Cause like, I'm a land dweller so maybe I could answer any questions you have.
zib: (know just what you are)

[personal profile] zib 2021-09-29 07:41 am (UTC)(link)
... Okay, wow, that was a lot more questions than I was expecting all at once.

[But! Zib is not deterred by this.]

You can get a voice inside a machine by using a recording device, like a microphone and flash drive of some kind to store the data. Singers do it all the time by singing songs and making it so you can listen to them whenever you want without having to go see them in person to hear it. It's also how these devices we got here work when they record your voice or video of you to send to other people.

The moon is quiet and doesn't have a whole lot going on up there, but it's nice. And yes, people have gone there: some people have thought it was a hoax and that space travel to there was impossible, but I've been there myself now.

[... After one time he accidentally got stuck there with Zim briefly while body-swapped with his stupid robot, but shhhhh probably best not to think about that particular incident.]

There's a ton of food you can eat other than spaghetti you can eat with forks, and I don't just mean other pasta. People use them all the time for meat, or for eating salads, or basically anything that you don't want to use your hands for and get grease and crumbs all over you. You just use the prongs on the fork to stab into it and hold it onto the fork for you to eat, no twirling like spaghetti involved.

And humans make clocks because we're all really bad at being able to figure out what time it is without them. In the past people used to have to rely on figuring out which direction the sun was coming from to figure it out but humans are too lazy for looking at shadows and guessing that these days, so... now we have clocks to do it for us?
zib: (but not this time)

[personal profile] zib 2021-10-01 08:35 pm (UTC)(link)
I, uh, got there with my spaceship.

[He lies, because the actual circumstances behind how he got there are lame... but he does have the means to go there with his spaceship if he wanted so it's not a bold faced lie necessarily...]

And yeah, there are a lot more places to go than just the moon, like other planets that have aliens on them--don't go to Irk, though, that's the one that has the Irkens and they just want to take over or destroy other planets, they're terrible.

But there's other ones, like... Foodcourtia, which is a planet that is basically a fast food or restaurant stop for the entire galaxy. Different species from all over can go there and can get just about anything they want to eat... although, it is under Irken control, so you have to be careful to not do anything to get them to think about invading your planet.
zib: (it gives you safety)

[personal profile] zib 2021-10-05 09:26 am (UTC)(link)
Yeah! I've even got it with me in this place... though, uh, it's mostly only good for short distances at the moment. I've got some maintenance I'm still working on with it before it will be ready to attempt reaching space from here.

[At the mention of the Irken empire again, however...]

There is no good reason for what they do. Irkens are terrible and selfish: they only care about either taking things for themselves, or destroying it so that no one else can have it if they can't have it. I don't think theres a single other species that actually likes them, but they are forced to deal with them because of how powerful they are.
zib: (ain't fuckin' with that past shit)

[personal profile] zib 2021-10-15 10:49 pm (UTC)(link)
[Oh, he will absolutely allow Luca to ride with him, and it will probably be a disaster--I mean, a fun adventure.

At the bit about the irkens, he sighs.]


Listen, I've tried for... a really long time to understand them, and have even gotten my hands on their technology and information about their history to study as well. At this point, I've accepted that they really are just those kinds of life forms that care more about themselves than anyone else.