It's automatic, you've gotta have it

[roundandaround]

WHO: Rinku, you
WHAT: Playing with animal transformation, research attempts, rolling gacha with touch energy, and watching a Sobble buy groceries.
WHEN: Early March
WHERE: Solarpeak, Amberfall, Nightwake
WARNINGS: Some NSFW discussion in threads

[1) Solarpeak Lake]

[There's a fish in the Solarpeak lake/pool today. A specific fish, and one that seems to be diving into the bottom of the pool and then dragging stuff up to the shore in its mouth. Mostly cool-looking seashells, come to think of it... What's with that?

Anyone who comes to shore to check it out will be greeted by the fish speaking in Rinku's voice when she surfaces.]

Hi! Are you looking for shells too?

[2) Amberfall Library]

[Rinku's last trip in here to try and study didn't go well, mostly because she's really bad at it. But she's trying it anyway, and right now, with a basket full of romance novels (again?), she's wandering the cookbook section with a growing frown.]

There's a lot of books about cake, but I don't see any about blood yet...

[3) Gacha Arcade]

[Hey, remember the Gacha My Heart quest? Because that game store's still going strong, including the machines that run on touch energy, and Rinku is all over it today. This time, she's hit up a machine that advertises gift certificates for restaurants around the city. She pulls a ticket and reads it over.]

Aww, please play again? Okay!

[She looks and waves to the nearest person.]

Oh, hey, can you help? I'll need more touch energy to pull a bunch more!

[4) Grocery Store]

[Rinku is outside a grocery store, peering in from behind a telephone pole. If someone approaches, she'll look over, wave, and whisper to them.]

Shh! I'm following to make sure Mecchan does okay. He's on his first errand!

[Sure enough, when she points toward the shop doors, there's her Sobble, dragging a shopping tote bigger than he is behind him into the store and holding a shopping list in the other hand.]

Comments

[abnormalizes]

Oh, yeah, I'd love to not have to get the stepladder out as much...

[That's not the main reason she's working on it, but it doesn't hurt.]

[roundandaround]

Yeah! [nod nod] Especially since there are so many people here who are way taller than us. And here I thought we were average size.

[abnormalizes]

Really? I'm on the shorter side back home, I think...

[roundandaround]

I was small on Tiotio Island, but I thought that was just because there was no one else my age. But back in Nakano I'm pretty normal. Maybe it depends on the place?

[abnormalizes]

I guess so! Ellipsa gets people from all over, but not all of them are human so that skews the height chart a little.

[roundandaround]

Yeah, some people are really small or really big. [headscratch] Either way, it doesn't really matter, as long as you like how you are.

[abnormalizes]

That's true, and I like my size! It's nice to get picked up and manhandled by someone bigger than me.

[roundandaround]

Huh, I never thought of it like that. But I guess if it's fun, it's fun?

[abnormalizes]

It's fun! At least it's fun for me.

[roundandaround]

Huh.

[She thinks about this, understandably embarrassed but mostly just confused.]

Oh! Remember when we were really small, for that board game thing? Wasn't that fun? I kinda got distracted from the games and started climbing the Mouse Trap trap and the cliff from Forbidden Bridge.

[abnormalizes]

Oh, yeah, that was pretty fun. Everything looked so different from that size.

[roundandaround]

I kinda wanna buy a bunch of Minimize potions and do something like that for fun! Oh, what if we had a race while small, like in little carts? That'd be so cool...!

[abnormalizes]

You'd have to make really tiny engines, but if you got that worked out, that'd be great!

[roundandaround]

Yeah! That'd be really fun! Or even just build a thing to play around in, like how the kids are always building stuff out of blocks!

[abnormalizes]

Block castle that actually seems castle-sized...!

[roundandaround]

Yeah! Oh, oh, they were building one the other day!

[Rinku pulls her phone out to show Evangeline a photo of a fortress made of alphabet blocks. ...And a subsequent photo of Hina falling off after perching on it.]

It's okay, she landed on a cushion!

[abnormalizes]

Poor baby! But I'm glad they were having fun.

[roundandaround]

Yeah! Mecchan tries to spell things with the blocks sometimes, but other times they all just try to build stuff.

[abnormalizes]

It'd be interesting to be smaller than Mecchan, for sure... I think he'd be confused.

[roundandaround]

He might. [scratches head] But maybe he'd wanna keep you safe! Remember when he drank the Enlarge potion and got human-sized? Once we got him out of the door and calmed him down, he seemed pretty happy to be big, and less scared.

[abnormalizes]

You think Mecchan wants to protect me? That's sweet.

[A little weird to think about, but sweet!]

[roundandaround]

Yeah! Because if someone were smaller than him, he'd wanna look out for them! He always has for Hina-chan, even though he was scared at first because the first thing she did when she hatched was bite me.

[She rolls up her sleeve and shows four puncture scars on her inner arm.]

[abnormalizes]

Oh, yeah, I can see where that'd be a bad first impression... But Hina's like his little sister now, right?

[roundandaround]

Yeah! He's always looking out for her, and he worries if she flies into things and stuff. And since she can't cry, she snuggles on him if he's scared or sad.

[abnormalizes]

That's good. -They're like us, a little bit.