ORIGIN - the elusive cherimoya

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Ah, there was the drool.

At least I didn't dribble all over myself in the tavern, Aurelle thought to herself as she led Lichen back out into tunnel N. They wouldn't be turning down into Orion and then home just yet, though-- they'd be going to Polaris first, but before even that, there was the matter of The Cherimoya.

She was drooling even more now thinking about custard apples, admittedly, but she and Lichen had some work to do. When they stepped out into the damp, sweet-smelling tunnel, Aurelle let out a thoughtful hum before she stepped carefully towards where they'd found the first fruit.

There was a little divot in the ground where the cherimoya had lain, but when Aurelle checked the ground around it and pat up the wall, she couldn't find anything. Maybe the tree was somewhere high up the wall or even growing out of the ceiling..? Maybe it'd grown somewhere else and someone had dropped it in the tunnel on their way by.

Aurelle let out a disappointed whine. "I don't feel any," she told Lichen. "You're taller than me when you go longways. Can you feel the tree anywhere on the wall up here?"

@Lichen

Long ways? Lichen had to think for a long moment but quickly realised what Aurelle was asking of her. Her feelers strayed from Aurelle towards the surrounds, lizard hands and feelers working in tandem mentally map the surroundings. Even gently crossing Aurelle's own patted spot.

Lichen felt for the nearest vertical surface and upon finding it, sat back on her haunches. Using her front legs to grip the surface, she pushed up on her back legs, pushing her noodly length upwards as far as she could. Once certain she wasn't going to tumble backwards, she used her claws and feelers to check around her...

It took some reaching and struggling but eventually her feelers caught something scaly but fleshy and when she flicked her tongue out to smell; custardy! A single cherimoya was just above her. "There's one but it's high.."

Using the beak-like tip of her jaws, she snipped the stalk of the fruit. Which tumbled, hitting Lichen in the chest before falling the rest of the way to the floor; Lichen distantly hopes Aurelle's head wasn't in the way of it's journey.

@Aurelle

She perked up and then immediately deflated at the news, bringing a hand to her face to consider quietly. She hadn't realized 'it's high' also meant that Lichen could still reach it, and she'd started devising a plan when the fruit fell, bumped off Lichen's chest, and then bumped off the top of Aurelle's head, falling down onto the moss at her feet. The delayed descend had stopped it from bruising too badly, at least.

"Oof," Aurelle mumbled, rubbing the top of her head before bending down to pick up the fruit. It went safely into her bag. "That's one. Even if we find just one more, that's a chance for both of us to eat something hot."

Not that Lichen could see it (though she may be able to hear it), Aurelle was excited enough that she began an ad hoc jig on the spot, her feet bopping up and down like she were standing on hot coals. "Let me try using magic again," she offered.

Aurelle had always found that her magic was easier to call upon when she was energized, and the thought of food was the greatest motivator, really. Her surroundings flared up and she had a good sniff around, though for now, all she could really sense was the wall next to her and the Lichen-shaped mass that the bacterium was clinging to.

@Lichen

Lichen internally found herself grateful that there was something at the base that slowed the fruit's fall even further. Even if she hadn't known it was the top of Aurelle's head. But that was enough for at least a little coin, wasn't it? Truthfully, she didn't remember.

Claws made a skittering noise as she slumped back down to four sturdy legs, waiting for Aurelle's news on what she could find. Yet after a long moment without answer, Lichen slowly asks, "did it work?"

She wasn't sure if her own magic could help, if only she had a way to tap into something that wasn't mycelial, maybe a way to see moss and trees, that'd make it easier to find fruits. Unless the root network would speak to her. They'd shared one sided conversations before, but maybe if she was more patient with it..

The more she tried the longer nothing happened, or so she thought. It wasn't until an overwhelming flash of the senses struck her that she'd realised she'd done anything at all. Colour, light, noises, high pitched noises of a million organisms talking and sending information to eachother all at once. It felt as if she'd spent her entire life in a dark room, devoid of sound, taste, touch and smell, then suddenly dropped into a party with millions of participants. It was sheer overload, it was too much. It hurt.

There was no information she could gleem from any of it, as if all those millions of voices had screamed all at once at her, while simultaneously shovelling tasters into her mouth, under her nose and showing her a million different pictures.

Lichen reels backwards, lurching as if she'd been struck by something, almost falling over her own legs in an attempt to flee. Which was enough to break the focus, leaving her plunged back into her nothingness. Trembling, pained, but alive. The throbbing in her head was painful, and her ears rung, even her feelers coiled away back into her nostrils, in an attempt to slow the amount of stimulation happening all at once.

@Aurelle

"I'm still looking," Aurelle said distantly. She'd found that spells like this could get overwhelming very fast (a fact Lichen was about to also find out) and she moved slowly, extending the spell bit-by-bit. She couldn't sense anything yet-- and perhaps was going to suggest calling it and heading properly into Polaris (unless Lichen could perhaps reach the tree for firewood?) when she heard the skittering of claws against the cave floor.

Her head swivelled. "Lichen?" She called, not knowing what was wrong and not knowing that her actions were about to be very unhelpful. Driven by the desire to help she lurched forward after the dragon, scrabbling after her and placing her hands on the dragon's shoulder.

She could feel Lichen shaking beneath her palms, and the sound of shallow, pained breathing was almost deafening in Aurelle's ears, made worse by the increasing panic blooming in her chest. "Lichen? What happened?" She asked, hands smoothing over the dragon's side.

The assumption was that something had struck her, and she was bleeding-- Aurelle was, currently, looking for the injury. Her ears angled upwards around the tunnel, half-listening out in case someone had done it rather than something.

@Lichen

Lichen backed away from the touches as if Aurelle's hands had burnt. Overwhelming felt like an understatement, it felt like all her senses were alight and still coming back down from whatever that had been. Her sides heave as she tries to catch a breath that she shouldn't of lacked, nothing had happened outwardly. She hadn't moved, she hadn't been struck. Nothing.

The whole situation felt like pressing a palm to hot coals and wrenching it away again -- even worse was that she'd moved, losing her idea of where she was within the tunnel. The whole thing was a wretched experience and one she vowed to never have again. If that's what seeing was, she had no interest in it. Sensing was a hellish experience that she wouldn't wish upon her worse enemies; not that she had any.

Her claws dug into the soil, the soil was always nice. Soft. Unassuming. Sweet, in the case of Tunnel N. She kneads her palms and claws into it, rooting around at nothing particular, just a rhythmic motion to settle; as she came down from that whole experience.

"The mushrooms have a lot to say." Lichen finally said barely above a whisper, as if that alone was already too loud. Though, she remains unawares of how little what she said made sense to anyone that wasn't her, probably.

@Aurelle

When Lichen shrunk away from her hands, Aurelle snapped her hands back, too. It hurt that Lichen would do that while she was trying to help-- but she understood. It wasn't like Aurelle was going to sit there and demand she be aware when she was obviously going through something.

The mushrooms have a lot to say. It didn't immediately make sense, but Aurelle could just about gauge what she'd meant. One of her spells had gone very wrong. "Okay," Aurelle said slowly, her hands half-lifted in surrender. A purely instinctual gesture, considering neither of them could see it.

Slowly, she backed off-- not because she thought Lichen might lash out, but because she wanted to minimize the noise that she made. Now, Aurelle wasn't going to just leave Lichen there, but she definitely didn't want to be up in her business, either. She sat nearby; near enough Lichen could reach out when ready, when she wanted to, but for now, not touching.

Seconds felt like minutes as she sat there, hands on her knees, listening to Lichen breathe.

When the dragon's painful breathing seemed to even out a little, Aurelle offered, her voice soft, "do you... want me to try and give you a little clean?"

With her magic, obviously. The same thing she did to fruit. She didn't know it'd help-- in fact, the chances were quite low that it'd do anything physically. But maybe the reassurance that there was nothing on her skin would be enough to help.

@Lichen

The minutes didn't drag for Lichen, if anything she wished they'd go slower, why did everything feel so fast? She groans in exasperation, dropping from a sit to flump down onto the soil, putting her two hands over her face. Though it wasn't at Aurelle, which she belated realizes she'd unintentionally ignored most of this time.

"Oh, no thank you." Lichen spoke up, louder than before but only by a fraction. "I don't think being clean will help, unless I really am that smelly." She managed to crack into a small bit of joy, remembering Aurelle's teasing from the tavern; and it picked up in her voice too. The laugh was breathy, shaky, but there.

It wouldn't completely lift her spirits, but it warmed her chest knowing Aurelle was at least trying, the least she could do was reciprocate; even if she didn't feel up for it.

"Perhaps we'll have to promote you to Apex-Fruit Finder." Lichen grumbles, pressing her palms into her eyes, or lack thereof. "It's harder than you make it look."

@Aurelle

"Well, neither of us are really looking at anything," Aurelle joked. Though she was still worried, it was a relief to hear Lichen talking again. She smoothed out the skirt of her dress as she criss-crossed her legs, just sitting and speaking softly.

For a moment, she considered. "You're not bad-smelly," the elf offered. "You smell like you. Like Lichen. Like my friend. I wouldn't want to wash that smell away from you."

She'd meant it, truly-- some might have been put off by the smell of mushrooms coming off Lichen, but to Aurelle, it was the smell of home. She had a feeling it might hurt to peel those mushrooms off her back, too. Her hands wrung through her skirt absent-mindedly, still feeling a little anxious to help: even if the best thing to do now was to just leave Lichen to recover in her own time.

Still, it never hurt to ask. "Is there anything I can do?"

@Lichen

Lichen chuffed, the joy eeking out in these tiny moments. "Perhaps not." She conceded, because truly neither of them were looking at anything.

Though the talk of smells did have her pause, even lifting her head out of her palms to turn it towards Aurelle. A friend smell. The idea was so novel, yet so delightful. She chewed over the thought in the moments that passed, got a real taste for the idea before Aurelle finally asked if there was anything she could do.

Lichen pushed her snout against Aurelle's knee, promptly forgetting to say anything first, but making sure that nose was on the just-smoothed skirt. And proceeded to take a big, long, sniff.

Aurelle didn't smell like much to her, skin, some of the sweet soil from Tunnel N where she'd been feeling around for fruit. She smelled clean, which she supposed, was unique enough in its own sense. Not many things smelled particularly clean. There wasn't any particular smell she could pick out -- just that certain je ne se quoi that was Aurelle.

"We could keep looking." Lichen immediately suggests afterwards, as if she hadn't leaned in to get a good whiff of her friend.

@Aurelle

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