| Short and Shorter |
| Summary: | Syd runs across Buddy and Gabrielle. Both of whom are shorter than Syd. |
| Date: | 2019.03.22 |
| Related: | None |
| NPCs: | {$npc} |
| Scene Runner: | {$runner} |
| Players: |
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++Scene
Soon after classes were over Gabrielle went out to the edge of the forest and set down a white and green plaid conforter on the grass, tossing a few cushions on it. At the moment she is in the process of putting together a chicken salad sandwich and eyeing Buddy with an undecisive expression on her face. Finally she pulls the earbuds out of her ears, put the sandwich she just finished at the edge of the comforter and says, "You can have one but this is not puppy food and I don't want paw prints on my comforter." Once she gives Buddy his warning she goes back to putting together a second sandwich, making sure to keep the book she had been reading up until a few moments ago away from the food, her tumbler of orange juice, and the dog.
It is a spring night. The weather is cool and clear.
The Buddy-doggy with a happy face and a wagging tail is chargrined by Gabrielle's words. His mouth closes and his head drops. Even his ears flop downward soon followed by his tail. He whimpers a bit and sits down near the edge of her comforter feeling like he got scolded again.
Something is coming. Something shiny. Something that desperately needed to get outdoors after all the cold, rusty weather of late. That something is Sydney. She's running. Not all that fast, certainly no faster than a normal person, but there's a lot of kinetic energy just the same, and her feet (bare, covered only in deep blue metal identical to her hair) make a clank when they hit the rocks. She stops before she reaches Gabreille's picnic and manages not to step on the dog, too. "Oh hi."
Gabrielle rolls her eyes in response to Buddy and this time she really scolds him, "Stop being silly. I just meant you should change back to belong a boy before taking the sandwich." And at about that time Sydney arrives. An arrival which makes Gabrielle shrink in a bit on herself but under her breath she starts to mutter "gotta be more social, the students are safe, gotta be more social, the students are safe…" Which anyone that has ever been through high school knows is a complete lie. But its enough to get her to smile at Sydney and say, "Hello. There's enough chicken salad for another sandwich. Would you like one?"
Buddy's head drops a bit more as he is really scolded; however, as he hears and feels the approaching tread of Sydney, he perks up and is on alert wondering what that was. When she is close enough to see, Buddy bounds up on his back legs and barks a couple times at her. Remembering, barely, what Gabrielle said, Buddy-doggy transforms into his human form wearing the green metis uniform, the mishapen tie, and untied shoes. "Hi, … uh .. oh uh." He hits himself on the head. "Dumb Buddy." He shuts his eyes really tightly before slightly opening one eye. "Sif-knee?"
Sydney was just reaching out to pet Buddy-the-dog's head, and winds up petting Buddy-the-human's head. "Close. Very close." She looks over at the little senior with the usual slightly awed expression she gets around the uppermost of upperclassmen. "Hi. I'm Syd. And um… no thanks, I had a roll of old bailing wire earlier. I'm still pretty full." She smiles at the quiet repetition. "I'm safe. I don't bite. Nibble, occasionally, but I pretty much keep that to the boyfriend, you know?"
Gabrielle nods to Sydney, a slight blush of red coming to her cheeks when the metal girl mentions nibbling the boyfriend. She ignores the comment, instead just saying, "Well, I have homemade apple pie too. But that has to wait until Buddy and I finish eating our sandwiches. You're welcome to sit down if you'd like to watch the sunset. You too, Buddy." Now that Buddy is back being a boy she pushes his plate a little closer to him and then grabs her own sandwich and bites into it. Realizing she forgot something she mumbles it around her bite, "Oh, and I'm Gabby. Nice to meet you, Syd."
Buddy isn't bothered in the least by the petting even in his human form. He grins and then notices that Gabrielle pushes the food closer to him. "Buddy likes food." He takes a huge bite of the sandwhich and starts to chew it as fast as he can. Like most things, Buddy eats as quickly as possible. With a head turn like a dog might do when curious, Buddy looks over at Sydney and tilts his head to the side. "You eat your boyfriend? Does he taste good? I thought we weren’t supposed to eat people. I've never eaten one before."
Sydney blushes straw colored, working into the purples. "Um. I." She kicks at the ground. "Not like… eat as food, no…," Syd stammers. She just nods silently to Gabby's introduction.
Gabrielle nods her head in satisfaction a couple of times as she bites into her own sandwich, satisfied with the final result. She can't hold back a tiny little smirk at Buddy's line of questioning. But the smirk doesn't mean she doesn't blush a little herself, right along with Sydney. She decides to come to the other girl's rescue by changing the topic, "Well. Do you at least like sunsets?"
Buddy scratches his head while eating a bit more. He'll be done with his sandwhich pretty quickly at this rate. "Buddy is confused. If you don't eat him like food, then how do you … sunsets?" Distraction successful. "Sunsets are pretty. I love flying into the sunset as a finch or even better, flying away from one as an eagle." He has a predatory grin on his face as he says that one. "Oh, that reminds me. Thank you sooooo much for the sandwhich. I'm glad you keep giving me stuff to eat. Buddy likes to eat a lot. Next time, Buddy will bring you something to eat."
Sydney exhales slowly, fanning her face. "Yeah… sunsets are great." She settles onto the ground. She smiles at Gabrielle weakly, and takes a deep breath. "Nice to meet you. You gotta be a senior, right? I've seen you in the yearbook."
Gabrielle shakes her head as she puts down her sandwich to put together another one for Buddy. "No. I'm a Junior. I was trapped in another dimension for a year, right before the rift opened. By the time I figured out how to get back it was too late for me to catch up to my original class." Once the new sandwich is ready she hands offers it to Buddy and then goes back to eating her own. "How are you two liking it here?"
Buddy finishes his sandwhich and waves his hands in the air at Sydney. "No. Buddy doesn't like little books, but stuffing a whole year in one. NoooOOOooo way." Buddy quickly grabs the second sandwhich. He thought she was only going to give him once, but he isn't going to complain about extra. "Oh, it is much better than the pound, the girl's house or the cages so much better. Don't like cur-few still." He shrugs then quickly jumping to his feet, he points to Sydney and says, "Oh, guess what I did almost correctly."
Sydney nods. "Did you age while you were gone?" Then Buddy finishes his sandwich. "What was that?"
Gabrielle takes a drink from her OJ tumbler as she turns her attention to the setting sun, which is just touching the horizon,"I did. It was just like you would imagine the Earth if human life had never evolved." With a laugh she clarifies for buddy, "Yearbook is a book where we collect the pictures of every student and some picture of the groups and activities that happened during the academic year. Its just something to help bring back memories later." With one more bite she finishes her own sandwich before wiping her hands and mouth off with some napkins she's pulled out of her picnic basket. (repose)
Buddy's second sandwhich is eaten even faster than the first one almost as though he is worried she might take it back. About 3/4ths of the way through he asks, "Do people 'warm up' for eating too?" He thinks really hard as she explains the yearbook. "Oh, Buddy likes picture books. Most of them. One made Buddy cry and cry and cry. It was *sniff* the Pokey Little Puppy. Very sad." He wipes one of his eyes and then perks right up for Sydney. "Buddy turned into an Elephant!" he says triumphantly. "Althooough, there was a little problem." He then starts laughing so much he can't finish the sandwhich. "Of course it was a little problem. an Elephant is so big almost every problem is little."
Sydney laughs softly. It's always in the back of her mind that Buddy is human, that he's had a hard life, but it's so much like talking to a talking dog, even when he's in human form, it still feels the same way. "Good books do that." She looks at Gabrielle. "I spent about 30 years frozen, so I feel your pain, kinda. Glad you found stuff to eat for that year though. We'd have missed meeting you.
Gabrielle busyies herself with pulling out a set of blue tooth speakers, then taking the headphones out of her iPod so that the music can be heard by all. Currently playing: Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven. "I got lucky. Because I can't eat anything artificial I already knew a lot about the foods that can be found in the wild. It took me a little bit to get the hand of snares but I did have a whole year to practice. Why were you frozen?" To Buddy she says, "Good books do make you cry. But why did you cry over a bad little puppy learning a lesson?"
Buddy continues talking about the elephant. "When Buddy became the elephant, Buddy went too far and forgot he was a Buddy. School people had to remind Buddy he could turn back." He scratches his head a bit sheepishly and then adds, "But Buddy keeps practicing. Buddy turned into a bear to sniff the guest lecture and was still Buddy." With the sandwich finished, he says to Gabrielle, "No need for snares with Buddy around. Buddy will catch you something. What do you like to eat? It will be really fresh." He then leans forward and says, "But the puppy wasn't bad. Just curious. Buddy knows what that is like. That is how Buddy got caught by the pound."
Sydney looks from Buddy to Gabrielle. She hasn't read this book. She nods to Gabrielle, listening. "It sounds really lonely." Syd takes a long breath. "I got frozen…well nobody really knows for sure, but I was with a friend, and I think he knew they were about to test me to destruction, or that he was going to get killed the next day, or something. Anyway, he asked me to flow myself into a barrel in a walk-in freezer. So I did. And there I stayed until the place went bankrupt.
Gabrielle laughs a bit, "I don't mind being alone. I did start getting tired of it right around when I figured out how to get back." Buddy's story gets her to laugh because, well, "That's ironic, isn't it? Elephants are famous for how good their memory is supposed to be." but Syndey's story sobers her back up, "I hope you were not consciously aware of the time passing?"
"Well, Buddy'll keep practicing because I promised Sivvy a ride," Buddy explains. "I was giving some girls rides as a horsy, but Buddy-horsy couldn't carry her, but Buddy-elephant could if only I could not lose the Buddy part." He gets up and stretches. Noticing that Gabrielle didn't answer means he will just have to surprise her with a treat someday.
Sydney smiles at Buddy and pats his shoulder. Petting him in human form just seems a little weird. "Nah. You get me much below 40 degrees for more than ten-fifteen minutes, my metabolism stops, all the water freezes, and I just… stop. Thaw me out, and I start again. Really really hungry.
Now that the sun is almost gone Gabrielle starts putting everything back in the picnic basket, talking as she works, "Well, that's good. It would have been horrible to be aware of all that time passing. Sadly, I have some homework I need to get done so I can enjoy the sundae social in town on Sunday. Do you two want to keep the comforter?"
Buddy shakes his head and says, "Nope. I don't need it. Ground is fine and nice." He then blinks his eyes wide open. "Sunday Social?" He shrugs and looks at Sydney as she pats his shoulder. "Buddy is often hungry. Sometimes," he looks around and starts to whisper. "Sometimes Buddy becomes the bunny because some weeds are delicious. And it takes less food because bunny's tummies are smaller."
Sydney nods. "Ground's fine for me too. I'll probably be heading in… I got homework too. It's nice meeting you. Hopefully see you around."