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.

@V-Zoisite-One

"There are," Zoey answered Doctor's question softly, barely clicking together her mandibles. "In Cepheus, there is a library. I've never been," which was half-true, considering how close she had truly been to the library, she had never physically entered it. "... But there would be gembound who would be willing to read to you." She was thinking of her friend Pollen, and of the dragon who had visited Draco with Astraea, but Zoey herself would accompany the Doctor there to read to him if no one else would.

It was, in her mind, the right thing to do.

Speaking of knowledge, the vulture provided her with more ideas, filling her imagination with a Draco that was transformed into something even more like a true home than it had any right to be. She listened, keenly, to the idea of creating a system for transporting clean water. Could she get a system to travel from Pegasus all the way through the Aperture, providing water to those in Draco whenever they wanted?

The thought was breathtaking. Gourds to store water for a siege, filled easily without even needing magic. But Doctor went on, nearly faster than her ability to keep up. "No," she clicked with appreciation, "You have wonderful ideas. I've used glowing vines to mark paths, and preserved food for long term storage... But I would have never thought of how plants could be used transport water long distances. Or of using them for storage..." It seemed obvious in hindsight, but she felt no shame. Only wonder, and a hungry eagerness to share these ideas with her-- with the Forge.

"... Thank you," she echoed his gratitude, "for your words." Which almost seemed like a strange thing to say, but... Zoey did not have too many to talk to on a daily basis. Loneliness loved its company, as it was.

She clicked her mandibles together, sweeping her head to stare, golden-eyed at the blind vulture. "Is there a place where you've been staying?" She asked, wanting dearly to offer the Forge, Draco, a true home, to the Doctor. He had been a distant uncle, perhaps, but the relationship lingered, even if he had no idea of the seed that had been planted by simple proximity in the monster's youth.

Maybe if she wasn't worried about wounding what little remained of his dignity and pride, she would have simply started with the offer.

@Doctor

"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?"

@V-Zoisite-One

"V-Zoisite-One," Zoey provided like an automatic response, "I should earn my name soon..." She wanted to share it, her name, who she truly was, but the Doctor was an adult-figure that she didn't quite feel prepared to open up to. He knew the rules of the Forge, she assumed, and she couldn't bring herself to break them in front of him.

As he went on to mention his long slumber, Zoey understood what the Doctor meant. The implied subtext made her stomach churn. It seemed an act of great cruelty, to rob anyone of their vision, even if she had her own limited use of it compared to her more tactile senses-- she had to crane her neck to see the beauty of the world. If that was taken from her, she knew she would struggle.

Doctor seemed to be handling it much better, if not with a bit of loneliness and solemn acceptance. It was how his life was, now. The best anyone could do would be to make the most of it, right?

He was staying here, in Pegasus. It was a relatively safe cave, with plenty of food, water, and natural shelter. It was close to Draco, too, if he ran into trouble. The knowledge that he wouldn't be too far provided her comfort, even if she masked the pang of sadness that came with knowing he would be another friend that lived away from her.

It would be selfish and infantilizing to suggest that he seek refuge with the Forge. She nodded at first as his offer to visit, and then had to force herself to speak: "... You should. The Forge is open to you," she insisted, less an offer to stay with them and more a general invitation to come by whenever. "If you want to hunt the lesser creatures that try to eat our plants, too, that would be appreciated." If she caught any garden-destroyers, she had half a mind to leave them for Doctor. He looked... thin, under his bones. Maybe that was just because he had only recently awoken.

"I come by here daily, so if you have any other ideas, or... or want to talk, you should be able to find me." It was one step away from her asking him to visit, to come and keep her company while she gardened. In part to pick at his mind for new ideas, but so much more for the familial, uncle-adjacent role he unwittingly played in the background of her life.

@Doctor

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.

@V-Zoisite-One
exit due to inactivity