[closed] While you've been saving your neck

[schachmeister]

Who: Armin Arlert (schachmeister) and Annie Leonheart (lyingheart)
Where: Olivine City
When: Monday, July first
Summary: Armin is trying to understand Annie; Annie is dodging every attempt to be understood. There is also pie.
Rating: Gen. Maybe bumped a bit higher for hometown talk.
Log:

Noon finds Armin standing in front of the pokemon centre in Olivine. His hands are folded behind his back to keep him from fidgeting. He cannot deny that a small part of him cannot help but wonder if Annie is going to show. But then again, she had shown up for each previous encounter, no matter how maddingly unhelpful she had been at them. If she really wanted to avoid him, she wasn't doing a particularly good job of it.

Armin doesn't stand there alone though. A small, still young Mienfoo stands at his side. Her fur is a striking blue, marking her as one of those rare shinies to anyone who sees her. Despite the warm, summery weather, a scarf has been tied around her neck, ending in a bow at her nape, and if the heat of it bothers her, she certainly doesn't show it. Really, she doesn't show much of anything; her face set to an expression so serious it is almost comical. The reason for which is the basket (one perfect for carrying food) held in her paws. It's clear she has been given A Duty and is going to strive to complete it until the very end.

"You can put it down if it is too heavy."

The Mienfoo resolutely shakes her head, while Armin resists the urge to check his watch. Annie is punctual (just as long as it isn't a training exercise she cares nothing for) and really, Armin doesn't need anything else making him look like a nervous boyfriend waiting for his girlfriend. He already fits the look way too well.

Comments

[lyingheart]

For her part, as usual, she travels with a full, visible team. Lute is to be expected, walking at her side, and so, too, is Libera, looming over half a head taller. Arlert is perched on her back, gently bobbling along to her own metronome heart, still a Hoothoot after all this time. An egg rests before her, secured to the saddle Annie rides in on occasion. More often it's simply convenience for attaching their gear to Libera's back.

The unusual members may be the Rockruff trotting at the rear, friendly and curious and investigating interesting smells before rocketing along after her pack, and the Tentacool out and floating along, as shiny as Armin's companion. Beautiful emerald crystals reflect the light as she goes along, looking unimpressed with the world. When the Rockrff, Bott, troops past, she reaches out to grip one of his rock protrusions, carted along in his wake.

She lifts a hand, and then an eyebrow, as she spies Armin and his Pokemon. Once she's closer, she speaks.

"You certainly keep your friends close." The scarf and nature of the Pokemon standing with him leads her to certain conclusions, right or wrong. If this one is named after Mikasa, she hopes they get along better than she ever did with the original.

She doesn't feel like tussling with a Pokemon today.

[schachmeister]

Armin ducks his head a little at the comment. To be honest, he had always been a bit hesitant to name his pokemon after people he knew. No matter how intelligent pokemon were, it had always felt a little... strange to him to name, what was essentially a pet, after a friend. What sort of message would that send? That he saw them as a pet? That he wanted ownership over them? That he overthought everything ever? Probably just that last one.

Though, over the years, he had relaxed somewhat on that front, occasionally coming into possession of a pokemon here and there that simply fitted a name too well. Mika had been one of those cases. When the little Mienfoo had hatched and Armin had read up a bit on the species (he hadn't specifically requested her; it had been a bit of a mix-up), what other name but Mikasa's would fit this proud little fighting machine?

As for the scarf, well, lets just say one should do anything on an idle impulse unless they were willing to 100% commit to it. Named as she was, Armin hadn't been able to resist the impulse to wrap a scarf around Mika just once, though he had had no intention of making her wear one all the time. Mika had decided otherwise.

"It seems to be common behaviour."

Follow his eyes. Follow them to where he is glancing very pointedly at Artlert the Hoothoot.

[lyingheart]

Arlert the Hoothoot who cooperatively hoos a happy greeting to Armin. She remembers this guy! (Most the adult pokemon here remember "that guy.")

"We're friends?" she asks, lifting an eyebrow. "Here I thought you'd say I keep my enemies closer."

One might also say she could be trying to get a rise out of him, but it was more like this: Libera and Arlert were most fond of the egg. If it kept them happy, why not let them stay out to mind what she otherwise had to cart around herself?

Annie would agree about naming after friends... but that was where she used surnames. Enough of a reference without having to be an imperfect mirror in pokemon form. Yet she also prefers some form of familiarity, or in certain cases, penance, or even mean spiritedness when Fritz, after all, had been found after stinging her. When Fritz was utterly dehydrated and buried on the beach.

Fritz was an okay sort, but a bit too curious, and a bit too influenced by Puck in her first month with Annie.

"Let's get going," she says, instead of standing around prodding at each other. She didn't want to stay in town quite like this. "If you don't mind."

[schachmeister]

"Is that really what we are here? Enemies?"

Is she his enemy? Perhaps back home, that sort of question would have a clearer answer. But so much of what had set them against each other did not exist in this world. And even if it did, was Annie really his enemy, or was she simply a front line soldier with little choice in what her battleground would be, while the decisions were made far further away? Were those people then his enemies or did doggedly viewing people in such manner, without any concern for shades of grey, create conflicts in the first place?

Which all didn't mean he trusted her, not exactly. But he didn't trust a lot of people to varying degrees. That did not immediately make them his enemies. Surely there could exist more between enemy and friend.

But that is the sort of highly philosophical and probably somewhat pedantic debate that was better held not in front of the entrance to the pokemon centre.

"But yes. I was thinking we could eat on the beach. There is plenty of areas that shouldn't be too crowded."

Sure, Olivine had its crowded beaches, the ones with the bright soft sand and the gentle current where people liked to swim and sunbathe. But Olivine also had its less-visited beaches, the ones that were more rocky and home to watery rockpools rather than beach volly enthusiasts.

[lyingheart]

"Didn't think that friends blackmailed each other," she says, nonchalantly and without bite. It's hardly like he's revised the tone of his demands from their first meeting here. She knows the difference between being asked to cooperate, and being ostensibly strongarmed into it.

Friends? No. Enemies? Hardly in any meaningful way. But it makes more sense to her than to claim the polar opposite.

She tips her head forward, humming a brief acknowledgement and indicating for her team to mobilise. Fritz has drifted over to bob within tentacle reach distance of Armin and Mika, staring without blinking. Bott had gone to rub against Libera's leg before wagging her tail once and spinning in a happy circle. Walking! She loves walking! She also loves rocks, making her the one who'll love their destination the most, hands down.

"Lead the way." Which she says while... already heading toward the beach. It's not like it's a difficult direction to start wandering, for all she glances back his way and pauses, long enough that it's simple for him to overtake her.

[schachmeister]

"But it is also probably rare for people to have lunch with their enemies," Armin counters, his own tone fairly even and neutral too, as if they are merely discussing something from a book or story.

"Right." It's Mika who takes the lead, taking her task very seriously. Armin follows at a more sedated pace, hoping to keep to roughly the same speed as Annie so they can continue to converse. Awkwardly. He knows he needs to keep the conversation going, as it is the only way he will ever learn Annie's thoughts and to understand her. But man. He's not the best at small talk on a good day. And with everything complicated between them, it makes this even more difficult than normal.

Thankfully, there is Fritz.

"She is beautiful."

[lyingheart]

"Let alone every day for years," she says idly, considering how long Paradis basic training lasted. Their small talk is really, really lacking, but she supposes that's not so surprising. Neither of them bother overmuch with it.

His bringing up Fritz has Fritz fixing her unblinking gaze on him, letting go of her hold on Libera's horn to drift closer. Annie spares her a glance before looking ahead, studying the people and pokemon they pass, body language more relaxed than her banter about enemies and friends has been.

"Stepped on her when she was dehydrated and buried under the sand." Because having strange introductions to her pokemon teammates is more or less Annie's entire life. "Hurt like hell."

[schachmeister]

Armin's brows twitch a bit at her response, indicating that he had certainly gotten the meaning. He doesn't go into it though. He wants to find some common ground here, something that can help him understand Annie and why she had acted as she did. He wants to understand their world and why it had all gone down as it did. And that does not seem like a topic well-suited for that.

As for small talk. Sure they could talk about the weather and how it certainly is hot, wouldn't you say? But at least it is a dry heat! It's not the heat, it's the humidity. But, quite frankly, odd though their more philosophical parrying might be, it is also a lot more interesting than that. Weird, but interesting.

"They really have a bad habit of ending up on the beach. I always try to toss them back in when I find one, but it's hard to do so without getting stung. It's much harder for them to control their venom when they are dehydrated like that."

[lyingheart]

"Don't the newly hatched have difficulties with that, too?" She's heard that around, but hasn't verified either way. By and large it isn't a concern for her, and Fritz hadn't been new-hatched, anyway.

Fritz, listening to this discussion of her species, continues to stare at them, one tentacle arm wrapped around a loop in the packs Libera carries. She's a floating banner as they go, the scent of salt permeating the air and sound of waves crashing against the shore growing steadily louder.

"Any idea why the end up washed up so often? It's not like they're incapable of living for short periods out of water... is it that difficult for the wild ones to coordinate to get back to sea?"

fakes pokemon biology

[schachmeister]

"They do. Not just newly hatched Tentacool either. I've heard people say that the sting of a young poison type pokemon is often worse than that of an older one, just because they aren't as good at controlling the amount of their venom. I haven't really had a chance to verify that though."

Through research and reading more books! Not by letting himself get stung by a ton of newly hatched poison type pokemon. That is not the sort of nonsense he is all about.

"Despite being water pokemon Tentacool actually aren't very good swimmers. Instead, they move by using ocean currents. They simply drift wherever the current takes them, and use their long tentacles to snag up any prey unlucky enough to swim within their reach. Unfortunately, that also means that if they are taken off guard and wash up on land, they often don't have the strength to quickly propel themselves back into the water.

Furthermore, they don't have anything in terms of skeletal structure. Instead, they have something called the mesoglea, which is the jelly-like substance that makes up their body. The mesoglea is mostly water though and it needs the buoyancy of the water to retain its shape. Without that, it quickly collapses in on itself, leaving the Tentacool stuck on the beach."

delicious fake pokemon biology

[lyingheart]

She's read pieces of this in her studies on Pokemon, because the only way to be prepared is to take in as much information as she can, but what she lacks in passion for the subject is what Armin brings so effortlessly. It is almost ironic that it ends up drawing her eye, Annie going quiet not for a lack of anything to say, or for a lack of thoughts, but because she appreciates existing in the presence of that kind of passion. Her own is still so narrow, still so hard for people to understand, and she accepts that.

Most the technical words she may have read once and summarily forgotten, because knowing about a mesoglea won't tell her how to adapt to a battle situation, won't give her an advantage, won't save or forsake her, so that when he says it, she's hearing it again for the first time. What is it that gives Titans their bulk? No one has an answer, aside from claiming something all curse and magic and mystery and science, but it's still curious.

They, too, lose form when what they need to support them is taken away.

But she shakes the thought away, making a noise of acknowledgement and perhaps also interest, still watching Armin. Lute bumps against her thigh and her fingers find the top of his head, raking gently through his fur. The beach arrives swiftly, and she allows him to choose where they're going, fairly ambivalent to those particulars.

"Do Tentacruel face the same difficulties with drifting and beaching?"

[schachmeister]

He might not be able to be passionate about Annie's techniques, but this is one area where Armin's passion wells up easily and plentiful. Ever since he was a little boy, first exploring his very limited world, the natural world has been fascinating to him. From the ants marching in a line across the dirt to the butterflies fluttering their jumpy paths through the air, there were questions there; creatures living entirely different lives than him, than any human ever, and he wanted to know about it. Wanted to understand the whys and hows.

Coming here had not changed that. If anything, the easy access to information and the general encouragement to learn had been like oil on a fire.

The more he talks, the more animated he becomes, his hands coming up to gesture and underline his words. For a moment, everything between them has been forgotten, deemed irrelevant in the face of how cool nature and the creatures that live in it are. In Armin's opinion, knowledge was meant to be shared, to be spread, to be built on, and he is doing plenty of it right now.

"They don't. When they evolve, the make-up of their mesoglea changes. Unlike a Tentacool's mesoglea, which is mostly water, the mesoglea of a Tentacruel also contains muscle bundles and nerve fibres. So unlike a Tentacool, who cannot really control the shape of their bell, a Tentacruel can contract and relax the muscles in their mesoglea which allows them to actually swim through the water. It also is what gives them more structure outside of the water and keeps them from collapsing as quickly as a Tentacool's body does, though given enough time, they too need to return to the water or risk collapse."