ORIGIN

Doctor did not know Zoisite all that well, but his head tilted, some, as he noticed the pace of her clicks and chatter growing quicker. Interest? he wondered. It wasn't something he would have noticed were he still sighted; his sense of hearing had sharpened some, and he had to pay attention to sounds simply to navigate or listen for danger where his eyes would once have told him far more. And now that he did notice, it reminded him of his own swifter speaking when something drew his own keen mind.

He struggled to return his thoughts to her actual words: she was speaking of the interior of pumpkins, their flesh and seeds, and how they might be hollowed out. Then he could hear her shuffling--her jaws snapping?--and her feet thudding against the dirt. All the while she spoke, and Doctor, crouched where he was, listened.

"Reading and writing," he mused, and his first spark of fascination left his heart then sinking. "That would have been wonderful to learn. Imagine what lost information might be in texts-... Are there texts?" he wondered. He'd seen the ancient scratchings along the tunnel walls; in his mind, this must be what others were learning to interpret. But how many of his experiments (plenty, it must be noted, having been quite cruel--by scientific 'necessity') could have been skipped altogether had he been able to read someone else's notes on the topic? "A boon for science! Imagine, seeing the knowledge others have gathered, and building on that... Ahh, but I think perhaps none have such information." Sour grapes, maybe. He hoped, at least, there was nothing he was horribly missing out on, but his gut had sunken down and he felt like there were cold stones in his stomach, now. Like he might indeed be missing out, his ambition curtailed and his life's potential utterly wasted.

Damn.


He lifted his head back up, gazing blindly in the Zoisite's direction as she said that she was only saying what she'd have wished to be told. He realized then her pause, the clicking, and wondered if he'd somehow... insulted her? If only he could have seen her face, to read it--but no, he realized. I could not read their faces, and it was a somewhat amused thought. She had said 'thank you,' though, so surely it had not been all bad-? As he puzzled over this, over what he'd done, what she thought and what he should say, she spoke of the pumpkin just before him.

Doctor stepped forward, dutifully prodding outward with first his beak, then one splayed foot--and this contacted the firm, unyielding flesh of the gourd. "Ah! That is large!" he cried in surprise, and then he laughed good-naturedly. He felt it over with gentle, twisting taps of his beak and talons, careful not to damage it. "It would be perhaps too large for me to carry. If it could be picked when younger, it could be used to carry water. Hm, but to store it-?" He circled, noting the height, the breadth. It seemed to be larger than he was? "It could carry enough water to last through a siege," he mused. "Enough to support several experiments. Or young as they grow. You could cut a hole in the bottom, and plug it, and open it to let water out for little ones," he went on, the ideas piling up in his mind. "Though that might damage its... stability?" This was a wild guess--Doctor was unsure.

He sat back, half-squatting, facing the pumpkin and thinking. "Vines, trees... they carry water, do they not? I wonder... If that magic was used on them, on hollow... things, if an entire system of water transport could be created."

Draco, he seemed to remember, had rather lacked much in the way of fresh water. So had the tunnel to Hydra. Again, an interesting thought experiment, though some distant and melancholic part of him sensed that he was only staving off his encroaching depression through this hyperactive application of his mind. He turned, giving Zoisite a distinctly apologetic smile, the edges of his mouth where beak met skin curling upward. "I apologize if I am... rambling. I have not had much opportunity to speak with another." Even as he apologized, though, his mind was running over other plants--other possibilities. Their structure: what, if preserved, could they be used for?

He pushed up again, pacing around the pumpkin. "I had not thought of plants. Of preserved plants. Flower petals for scents... Vines for supports..." Like rope, he'd have said. If he'd known what ropes were. "Ahh, but my mind wanders. Despite my most recent apology. You must know more of this than I?" he added, glancing politely, if blindly, Zoisite's way. "You are, after all, the farmer." This was said kindly, a little self-deprecating humor lacing the edges of the words. Doctor was merely a visitor here, that humor said: Zoisite, the expert. "But those gourds would have been very useful, when I could still see to work. I think many would find them so."

He tried to turn his mind back to those plants, to keep that dark tide of sadness from lapping at his thoughts, but it was... difficult. To say the least.

Somehow, though-... Zoisite's presence soothed him. He felt a little surge of gratitude, again unexpected; her willingness to listen, her interest in his words, it was... steadying, somehow. "Thank you for listening," he said, blunt and simple.

Thank you for your company.

"A library... Imagine," he breathed. He'd gone still thinking of the prospect. Entire--what, walls? Full of scripts..? (That's what a library was, right?) He sighed, a little wistfully. "I will gladly look into that, thank you. I wonder if I would be able to find anybody-? Perhaps... if I find something I can trade for such a service," he mused. It was just a tad dejectedly--he could hardly survive on his own right now, let alone find stuff to trade. But also, not completely hopeless--because, given time, Doctor hoped he could adapt.

Zoey's further information, though, lifted him at once from his faint sad spell, leaning toward her with obvious curiosity--and then pleased surprise. "Glowing vines, used to mark a path? Ahh, I wish I could see this! That is a genius idea, ah--pardon me, I recognize your shape but are you still going by the name 'Zoisite?'" he asked, the 'designation' popping up helpfully in his mind. Probably something I should've asked sooner, he thought wryly. "And preserving food, as well--excellent. Excellent. As for where I'm staying, ahh--no. I am doing my best to hunt, here, but after this was done to me," and a taloned foot lifted, gestured vaguely to his button eyes, "-I have slept for quite some time."

The implication, of course, being that he'd returned to his chrysalis.

The 'why do you ask' rose in his mind, and he came at once to the assumption that Zoisite wondered if they could find him, if they wished to speak. "I will probably be here, I suppose! In Pegasus," he clarified. "Though, if you wish," and he shuffled his wings more tightly into place, unsure if he was being perhaps too forward, "I might visit, from time to time?"

It seemed almost a dismissal--not deliberately, he knew, on V-Zoisite-One's part, but rather a natural closing to a conversation. It still left him... sad, somehow. He would immediately miss the connection with another being. But--the offer to pluck Lessers from the garden made him visibly brighten, standing up a little straighter and more attentive.

"I would be glad to!" he croaked back at once. Not because it was free food--but because at least then, he could feel like he was still serving some sort of purpose. Aiding, somehow. It wasn't the grand plan of advancing Gembounds into a new medical era to reduce the suffering of illness and injury, but it was something. Keeping a steady food supply safe while at the same time feeding himself sounded both efficient and helpful. "I may focus on that, if you do not mind my presence. Are they common here?" It was almost an "employee" sort of question--as he glanced around, looking for the heat signatures of rats or mice as he imagined what sort of pests might damage the crops. Rodents, he presumed, or maybe songbirds picking at the seeds?

He glanced back to the vague shape that was Zoisite, struggling to keep that warmth in his words, despite the sad prospect of breaking off conversation. "If there is more I can do for help, or... if you wish conversation, then--I will be around. Yes? And, thank you. Your offer is very kind." The latter, of course, being the Forge. He sort of interpreted it as an open offer to join them--the one he'd turned down long ago. But he'd consider it nonetheless.

He doubted, however, that he'd be much use to them in this state.

Ahh, but-!

Doctor brightened again. And then he spoke, almost... shyly. "Should you try any of those ideas... you will tell me if they work, yes?" He was a little excited about all of those--and, clearly, wanted to stay up-to-date on what might function, and what might not.

But past that, he ruffled his wings a little. "Do you mind if I rest here for a time?" he asked. Maybe if he could find a high branch above the farm's clearing, and simply sleep for awhile...

After a few moments he did just that.

One could say his eyes slid shut, but that would be foolishly metaphorical. And a little strange. Instead, he simply hunched, preparing to rest where he sat.