|
Joy wanders into the Freehold Hollow, oversized black hoodie on which has a bulbasaur drawing on the front, she's juggling with a few stones she found along the way to the freehold, though that translate quickly into her making the little stones float around her wrist. She head toward one of the small homes in the area, hoping to warm herself up there.
Not far from the cottages, in the Freehold gardens, Bailey is up to their elbows in dirt. Kneeled down, pulling up weeds and moving aside dirt to plant fresh seedpods, that will sprout when it gets a bit warmer. She has her coat off, which is draped over a tree branch nearby, sleeves rolled up. Straw and grass hair tied back in a simple braid. When she notices someone approaching, she looks up to eye the other Dryad curiously, then gives an upnod in greeting.
Joy has leaves and foliage for hair, deep dark green, her body a grown wooden shape around a stone core, gems for eyes. She divert her approach to the other dryad, returning the same greeting toward Bailey. Her hand withdraws inside of her hoodie's sleeve. "What are you planting?" her voice quiet as her green eyes settles on the seeds and the holes dug in the ground.
"Just diggin' up dead fruit and plantin' new," she says in her cowpoke drawl. "Glamour fruit--nothin' too special." She sits up and tips her hat. "I'm Bailey. Nice to meet ya."
There's a whole menagerie loitering nearby--the most prominent is a massive crow gryphon, that is curled up and snoozing under a tree nearby. A more normal sized crow is perched on top of the mount's head, milky-white gaze angled upwards, watching... something moving around in the branches above.
"Oh nice." She responds, her gaze slowly averting from the gardening, swaying on the ball of her feet, trying to keep her balance. The menagerie elicit a slight smile on the small woman's expression, her curiosity drawn to the movement in the branches. After a moment of quiet, it seems as if Joy realizes that she should reply.
"I'm Joy, pleased to meet you too." the stones stop swirling around her wrist and are deposited in the opposite palm, then she offers a handshake
Honestly, Bailey didn't seem to mind the delayed response. She just went back to work. But she stops and leans forward, accepting the hand and giving it a firm but quick shake. Her dirty hands are rough burlap, stitched and restitched in places, which no doubt are thick callouses in her Mask. Signs of hard work, either way.
The rustling in the branches stills for a moment, and then a hedge beast peeks out from the leaves to peer down at Joy. A blue and black fluffy mask-patterned face with intelligent, keen dark eyes.
"Are these your... friends?" Joy asks, extending her pointed finger towards the bird-like hedgebeasts and then to the creature that just emerged from the branches above. A look at Bailey follows, as a bit of dirt falls from her own hand, having been left there by their hands.
"Yeup." A beat pause. "Well, the birds are. That one..." She eyes the branches. "Still working that out."
The raccoon-like creature creeps along the branch, moving closer and closer, until it's nearly above Joy--or close enough. It peers down at her a moment... and then launches. Two tiny wings flap--no where near big enough for it to fly, but it certainly helps it jump far... Right on top of her head. "Shinyshiny!" It screeches greedily, hand-like paws latching onto her face, it's bandit face turning to stare an inch away from her's--right into her eyes. And then it's making grabby hands with one paw as if set on trying to pluck out one of her gem eyes...
"Hey--no!" Bailey yells, scrambling to her feet to intervene.
Joy looks upward for a moment and she almost seems amused by the presence of the being ontop of her head, however, as the hedgebeast expresses its greed in that fashion, she immediately reacts to avoid getting blinded by the small being "Oh shit no!" with the blink of an eye, turns into an intricate wooden folding chair
Likely leaving a very confused being atop the back of the chair.
Bailey is on their feet quickly to try to pry the beast off her face--until she just..... turns into a chair. The scarecrow stops and stares, almost looking as confused as the hedgebeast. The raccoon lands with a scramble on the back of the chair, gripping on, then rolls forward into the seat and looks around, bewildered. It's paw-hands pat-pat here and there along the chair, before letting out a frustrated hmph.
The crow hedgebeast, meanwhile, breaks into uproarious cackling laughter, loud enough to make the slumbering mount crack open an eye.
"You need to stop encouraging her!" Bailey says, pointing an accusing finger at the crow, before reaching down to pick up the raccoon and haul it off of chair-Joy. "Sorry 'bout that..."
The chair waddles about, away from being under the tree, having selected the ability, the chair folds itself and rest against the side of the nearby building before returning back into her normal form. "That's one greedy Zigzagoon you got there." Joy says with a little chuckle. "Also, being a chair is weird." she looks at Bailey. "I wasn't sure hedge beast could talk honestly."
"Zigzagwhatnow?" She glares at the now very wiggly raccoon as it tries to get out of her arms, but she holds it steady under one arm, keeping it from running off--though it still flails it's paws around in protest. "Not all can, but a lot of 'em do. This one's more concerned with runnin' off with every damn thing in sight, but she can talk."
"It's a pokemon, from a japanese cartoon and video games." Joy points to the green, strange bulbous dinosaur on the front of her hoodie. "Same universe as this guy." Joy watches the raccoon with a keen attention, ready to dodge the assault, should it wriggles free, her foot tapping gently on the ground.
"They're based off on raccoon and a lot of them have an ability to pick up items after battles to help you out in the games." The smaller dryad explains further. "So yeah, the thieving make sense."
Bailey stares at her blankly as she talks, all the while the hedgebeast continues it's wiggling protests--until it eventually just... gives up and goes limp, tail and paws hanging down.
"Gotta admit," Bailey says after a beat. "I understood about half of the words that dun come outta your mouth."
She eyes the bulbasaur though. "That supposed to be a frog or a cat?"
"A dinosaur mixed up with a pant. Maybe a bit of a frog yeah." Joy responds to the specific question first. The Raccoon hedge beast giving up seems to make the little bonsai woman chuckle.
"I can probably explain the other half if you want me to." She offers to them. "If not, that's okay too."
She seems to consider it a moment, but then gives a 'what the hell' sort of shrug. "Sure, if ya like."
"So, Pokemon is a fictional fantasy world in which animals like these." she points to the bulbasaur "Have some form of elemental powers that are efficient to use in battle or not, depending on their opponent's type. they're caught and trained by humans. I suggest bracing yourself for... weird emotional reactions if you watch or play, just in case." a beat
"There is a TV show, animated, in Japan and a lot of games, based around that concept. Many in electronic form, like on a phone or a machine designed to play games specifically." she showcase her own phone, even if it doesn't work in the hedge.
"I find hedge creatures are sometimes reminiscent of that, which is why I made the comment about her." she point at the raccoon. "I hope I'm not making you more confused."
At first Bailey looks... still pretty blank faced, not super engaged--but bit by bit her expression shifts from bored to bemused, to... actually kind of interested. She eyes the phone. "Why would I have weird emotional reactions?"
"I personally did not but like, it's a trainer, capturing one of the creature in the wild to then fight with them, a bit like animal fights so, like...." an uncertain shrug. "Some of us might have a strong reaction to that part. But the way it's portrayed in the show isn't that bad, like, the pokemon are happy to be with the trainers and they form bonds of friendships and such."
"To me it's a bit like a memory of a time before, using maths and some mythical concepts in an entertaining way." she points to herself "Like, I'm basically a human bonsai and one of my favorite pokemon is literally a bonsai pokemon."
"Oh. Huh." She frowns, looking thoughtful as she tries to wrap her mind around that. "...Are the animals... like people? Like can they talk an' shit? Do they kill each other?"
"They say their names, or syllable of their names. Depending on the situation" She explains "One or two of them can actually speak human language." Joy sits down on a nearby chair. "But they don't kill each other, it's a fight until they fall down with silly spirals in their eyes the vast majority of the time, then their trainer recall them and heal them in a nearby hospital for them. Most deviation from that norm are depicted as like bad in the narrative."
"Some of the pokemons are like, objects too, one of them is like, a Garbage bag." she comments "or another is like a robot with magnets"
....Yeah, Bailey is definitely back at confused as fuck now. She was mostly on board until Joy mentioned GARBAGE BAG pokemon. "You can... get the pokemen on your phone? How?"
"It's a piece of technology, programming, like when people play a video on it, or listen to music. But, you can interact with it like a game." a beat "The game on your phone uses the other bit of technology in your phone to act like pokemons are around you and you can throw a ball at them capture them and register information on them to learn more about them and all."
"You have to have a relatively modern phone, a smart phone and then go to the app store and you can download it. It's free, but you can spend real money to like, buy stuff in the game, it's not necessary though." She waits to see if Bailey has more questions about it, not to lose the other Dryad.
Alas, Bailey clearly isn't understanding the technological side of it. At all. Joy might as well be talking Swedish. They frown, looking uncertain now. They dig out a fairly new looking smartphone to hold up. "Like this?" A beat pause. "Okay... Where's the store at?"
"I don't know if it works in the hedge, but it should be one of the basic things that was set up with the phone. Either Google store or the apple store, depending on what brand of phone you have." Joy approaches carefully, peeking around so as not to get hit by another raccoon attack.
"Type Pokemon Go, the name of the game, into the search bar, like when you send a text or compose a phone number, they'll show you the little keyboard."
Bailey... clearly doesn't know how to use their phone like a normal modern person. Unless Joy wants to see them blindly poking around their phone for five minutes, she's gonna have to help them find the app store icon.
Instead of typing it out, Bailey uses voice to text, saying "Poke. Eh. Mon. Go." slowly into the mic. But of course its not going to actually download inside the Hedge.
Joy has a moment of realization of just where Bailey was in terms of understanding the tech in their hands and nodded. "Technology like a smart phone is not going to fully work inside of the hedge, but we can totally walk to Iron side and we can work it from there, if you want." Side glance to the raccoon.
Joy pulls out a, probably much smaller, phone out of her pocket. "I can show you how this work, just let me know if I'm skipping steps."
Bailey considers it, then nods. "Yeah, sure. If ya don' mind." She looks over at the gryphon. "You an' Echo head on home. I'll meet ya there later."
The mount stands and stretches with a yawn, then him and the smaller crow hops up and away, flapping off. Bailey turns and heads for the hedge gate, holding the raccoon under her arm still.
|