Coco BeanA tingly, warm sensation suddenly found its way across her leaves, and Coco recognized it right away -- Sunlight. It was a very small quantity, which led her to believe it was dawn. Slowly, her body pulled itself out of inactivity, and one by one, she flexed her relaxed muscles until she calmly sat up.
A small ticklish sensation came from the disheveled leaves on her head and caused her to scratch the area, finding a small insect clinging onto her index finger when she pulled it away. Coco tilted her head at the insect, who was now biting her finger. It didn't hurt at all, and was actually pleasant to a point, yet it also felt like it was trying to suck something out.
"Are you trying to suck out my sap?" Coco asked the insect and huffed, flicking it away effortlessly. Though the moment the bug disappeared from her vicinity, she felt guilt at throwing the poor insect in such a harsh manner.
"Sorry if that hurt, I just don't like it when something tries to eat my sap." She explained, shrugging shamefully.
Minutes passed, and Coco kept up with her slow awakening. Eventually, she was fully aware and on her feet, giving one last stretch to her limbs before her leaves finally took their midway point between flat and puffed out. Her hearing peaked and she clapped her hands once, then starting walking back towards the College's main building, preferring to step through the green vegetation rather than the laid out path. Walking through such terrain made her feel alive, it made her feel connected to the soil rather than just moving over it. The feeling of the fertile soil on her feet, and the flower and grass rubbing against her soles and legs revitalized her.
When she arrived at the building and entered the halls, she was surprised by a sudden, familiar scent -- It wasn't exactly the same as before, presumably because she hadn't really been at her top shape last night, but it was familiar enough that Coco knew who it was, Alaira.
Wasting no time, Coco headed right for the closest bush. It was decorative and smelled nice, which aided her hiding effort. Coco was too late, though. The moment she had finished tucking up into a nice little bush shape besides the actual bush, was the moment that Alaira came into the hallway. She had barely seen a bit of her final movement, and the beastly elf female felt suspicious, Coco could smell it.
Then she felt a hard, cold metal stick poke her right on the shoulders.
'Ow!' Coco thought, her scent suddenly getting out of hand and going intense enough to even surprise her. In her sudden stress, she couldn't help the small twitches her leaves were starting to make, and eventually, the pressure she felt from the situation pushed her past hiding.
"Ah! Don't eat me, don't eat me, don't eat me, I'm poisonous to fleshlings, really!" She said quickly, leaves puffing out as she quickly stood up and started snapping her fingers.
Alaira didn't really know what to expect. What, were assassins hiding in the bushes? Completely ridic- "AH!" Alaira exclaimed as the plant girl from before leaped out of the bushes, pleading not to be eaten. The sudden shock led to Alaira falling backwards against the wall. Even on the ground, she wasn't that much shorter than the poor Foreas. "For Leehna's sake, calm down! I'm not gonna eat you!" She shouted as she got back up.
Dusting herself off, she tried to remember the girl's name. However, the copious alcohol from the previous night rendered that difficult. It was... nope gone. she took a second to rub her ear as she looked up at the girl. "How can you scream that loud if you don't have a damn mouth, gods..." Then again, she did just poke her with a stick. Which begs the question: why was she in the bushes to begin with? "What the hell were you doing in there, what was it, coca?"
At first, Coco couldn't manage to simply calm down and listen, but the reassurance that she, in fact, wasn't going to get eaten was nice. It was enough of a break to let her think rationally, and soon she heard Alaira speak again. "I speak thanks to my artifact," Coco replied, pointing at her own necklace, "there's a rune on top of it, and that one was given to me by the nice Rune Master, Val. It fixed my artifact, since it's apparently damaged to some extent." She explained, most of her panic fading by now, due to Alaira's questions.
"It's Coco. Coco Bean. Because I smell like chocolate. And I was hiding from you. Because I thought you wanted to kill me and then eat me. Or maybe even eat me alive. I don't like being eaten."
Why is this girl so fixated on not getting eaten? Alaira thought. it was a silly question, but the girl seemed to think that anything would eat her. "Hiding from me..." She said as she rubbed her chin in thought. A small part of her was a little happy. Nothing like getting told someone finds you intimidating. "Nobody here's gonna eat you. Hell, I don't even like vegetables. Least of all poisonous ones..." Alaira said simply.
"You know you don't need to hide from me, right?" She asked. While still not exactly friendly, her tone was much less hostile. "If I wanted to hurt ya, you'd know. 'sides, it's not like hiding could do ya much good when I've got eyes like mine." She said. It was true, Alaira had great eyesight. She was also a great tracker as well. If given time, she could find most prey fairly easily
"Last night, you wanted to hurt me. What is stopping you from threatening me now? Maybe because I've actually gotten enough sunlight this time around and I'm way healthier than last night? Do I look greener to you?" Coco asked curious as to how the fleshling saw her -- Their sight was sometimes useful to aid in determining illness, and Coco was determined to make the best out of it.
Oh right, last night, "I'm gonna be honest with ya, I don't remember that much of last night." Alaira said. She wasn't lying, her memory of the previous night was fuzzy at best. One of the many effects of dwarven ale. "Yeah, I did get pretty drunk last night..." And then the plant had rapidly changed the subject. She didn't have much in the way of an attention span, did she? "Uh, I guess? Why would you be less green?" Alaira asked. About the most she knew of plants was that most of the ones in the wild were poisonous.
But plant people? She knew absolutely nothing. but could you blame her? She wasn't even aware such a thing could exist, let alone actually exist.
"Because human researchers taught us that after extended periods of time without sunlight, we go brown. I don't know what brown and green are like, though. They're just words." Coco said, leaves twitching lightly at Alaira's lack of memories. Why did she not remember? Was she one of those amnesiac persons? Then she processed her explanation and felt confusion slowly replace her initial curiosity.
"Drunk? Someone drank your sap, uh, I mean... Blood? I know some bats suck blood, did Lucilia send one of her bats to drink your blood?"
But why would she ask if she was green if she didn't know- nevermind, Alaira would never understand. She just stood there, her leaves... twitching at her. This was just... bizarre. And then she asked another question. It was then that Alaira brought her palm to her face. Of course she wouldn't know what alcohol was, she didn't even have a mouth. "Drunk. It's not literal, it's just what they say when you've had too much alcohol." The plant girl tilted her head a bit, and sh explained a bit. "It's a thing 'fleshlings' drink that makes it really hard to think." She said with a sigh.
"Alcohol?" Coco asked quietly, head tilted -- She didn't understand. How could the fleshlings drink alcohol, if that stuff was as lethal as drinking acid? Fleshlings baffled her, and she had no doubt they'd keep surprising her even if she had a thousand years. They were strange and foreign like that.
"It can't be a lethal alcohol... I know of one type of alcohol that is actually great when combined with water and maybe something slightly acidic. Do you know where I can get it, Methanol? Is it the one you drink?"
"Uhh..." Damn it, Alaira didn't know the science behind it! All she knew was that it felt good! Although, that 'methanol' stuff seemed like bad news. "I wouldn't go drinki- wait, how do you even do that? I mean, you must need water, right?" Now it was Alaira's turn once again for questions. Heh, the plant girl might be some kind of nightmarish peversion of the natural order of things, but she sure was interesting if nothing else.
Coco's leaves flattened somewhat at Alaira's question. It was obvious, wasn't it? All things need water to live. "Well, yes. I just do it like everyone else. I pour water onto my body and I absorb it. Though my legs absorb liquids at a faster pace." She explained, having stopped snapping her fingers once she started to focus on the lance. She had seen many weapons in the College -- Most owned by students rather than guards, as she had expected. Why did the fleshlings have to bring weapons to a peaceful place of learning? She'd ask her questions on the topic later, deciding to share whatever Alaira wished to hear of Coco.
"That's... not how we do it."[b] Alaira said. Clearly, there was more than few differences between the two. right down to the most basic of physical details. [b]"We just sorta... pour the stuff down our throat. Hell, most people don't even like getting wet." Alaira never really cared for swimming. It wasn't ability, she could swim just fine, but she never really cared for the water all that much. She was thinking of another question to ask, when one that should have been obvious popped into her head. "Wait, what are you doing here anyway? I mean it's not like you're a mage, you don't even have blood, right?" she asked. Just what was the girl doing here anyway?
"That's you fleshlings. Every Foreas just pours water on themselves!"
Coco leaned against the wall, relaxing and letting the stress slowly leave her body as she prepared her thoughts for the next batch of speech. "Me? I'm here to learn about magic. Why else would I be here? Unless I was a Foreas curious for some experience... I guess that explanation makes sense too. But no, I'm here because Xiah, the best Goddess I know, gave me Electromancy to fight against the Syphis. She also let me ride a huge behemoth. It kind of smelled like a leaf pup... Every plant smells like a leaf pup lately, though."
Alaira was now confused beyond words. Xiah? The Goddess? The goddess of love gave the girl magic to fight the... Syphis? What? Leaf pup? "H-hold on... Xiah... gave you magic... to fight a thing... but didn't tell you how to actually use it." Alaira said as she tried to work it out. Why would a goddess care, least of all that one? It's not like protection is one of her domains anyhow... Alright, this was more than just a plant girl. something freaky was going on. "Wait, what's a Syphis?" In all her travels, Alaira had never heard of such a thing, and she'd seen quite a lot.
"Well... That's a tough question. They're these big, hot as fire creatures that appeared out of nowhere and started eating my brothers and sisters. Everytime they brought their maw close to someone, that Foreas turned to ash. It was horrible." She said with a shudder and once again, twitchy leaves. "After defending myself from the Syphis, Xiah told me to come here to learn how to use my magic and also to seek out the nice Rune Master, who would fix my speech artifact."
Well, the girl had no reason to lie. Hell, Alaira wasn't even sure if Coco could lie. These Syphis sounded tough as nails... they'd be one hell of a challenge, that's for sure. But she couldn't help but feel a bit sorry for the girl. Those things certainly weren't playing fair, as she was sure Coco was a helluva lot more flammable than a normal person. Come to think of it, if the girl came from a foresty area, why were there fire-breathing predators there? and from what Coco's said, these things were new. Firebreathing hell-beasts don't just pop up out of nowhere, something evil was going down.
So, it's established that these things are cheating. And Coco had to fight these? All the magic in the world won't help you if you're not physically cut out for the task... "Hit me." Alaira said. The girl looked shocked, so she added "Just try and hit me. Don't worry, I won't hit you back." She said as she dropped her lance to the side and took a defensive stance.
Coco was not one to ignore a request, and suddenly being offered to chance to fairly get back at Alaira for last night was something pleasant. An apology was enough, but if Alaira was the kind to like physical pain, well, who was Coco to force her to just apologize?
Coco lifted her arms and kept her forearms besides her head as she tried to imitate Alaira's own stance. After making sure that the stance was as correct as possible, she balled up her fists and took wind, then swung her right arm towards Alaira's side, seeing as she could not easily reach her head.
To Coco's credit, the test wasn't entirely fair. That being said, Alaira blocked the blow fairly easily. Swiftly, she reached out to her left and grabbed hold of Coco's wrist. Firmly, but not painfully. Quickly, her right arm shot out, stopping just short of hitting Coco's stomach... or what would be her stomach, if she doesn't have one. "Well, just like I thought. Those Syphis things'll tear you to pieces." She said as she released Coco. Alaira was prepared for any sneak attacks, given that's what people usually tried when the first attck failed.
"I don't know what Xiah told you, but if those things are half as bad as you say they are, magic on it's own won't help you deal with them." Alaira said, while not anywhere near gentle, her voice did convey a small bit of concern. Alaira hated when the strong simply attacked things that were too weak to defend themselves. There was no glory in fighting someone that couldn't fight back. "But me? I've been fighting all my life. I know what I'm doing." Alaira's usual smugness was back, though much less hostile than it normally was. "If you really want to fight those things, I should at least teach you the basics sometime."
Coco's leaves had puffed out the moment Alaira had taken a hold of her arms, and they showed no signs of going back down, even after the elf had nearly hit her abdomen. Even though Alaira kept her word and didn't hurt her, she was still alarmed, especially because of her first comment. Having to think of such an scene made her feel sickly and disgusted.
"Magic saved my life. At the very least, it'll continue keeping me alive. I know it. As for the basics... Yes! I want to learn. Do you mean it like they're a dance? What do you think of starting next dawn, say... At the College's training grounds?"
"Ha! Magic's damn tough, for sure. Just don't rely too much on it." Alaira said. Coco continued, and she seemed pretty eager. Most of the time, when she offered to pass down her master's teachings, the other guy would just get angry 'Oh, I don't need your help' they'd say. However, Coco did seem a bit naive. "Make no mistake, I'm teaching you how to kill. Just be sure to use it right." She said, making sure Coco knew exactly what she was getting herself into. She smiled a bit. That's what her master had said to her almost twenty years ago...
"Yeah, that sounds alright. tomorrow morning at the training ground." She said finally, extending her hand.
'It's just killing... Nothing important.' Coco thought as soon as Alaira warned her about the things she'd be teaching her. A slight change in Alaira's pose and voice tone hinted at a less hostile mood, which made Coco want to have her leaves go back down. They had minds of their own, though, and they decided to stay puffed out.
"Yes, tomorrow morning." She said cheerily, suppressing a small urge to bounce on the spot as she snapped her fingers to realize that Alaira had extended her hand towards her. She went along with it, and shook her hand. Strange fleshling traditions. She didn't understand most of them, but knew they were important to them.
'Shaking hands mean a closed deal. That's good, I think.'
