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picture_prompt_funTitle: Balloons
Fandom: Time Stalkers
Pairings: Gen
Characters: Marion, Rao, Nigel, Pyra
Words: 843
Rating: K+
Mutton, their sheep-headed butler, waved goodbye to the sentient wooden puppet as she left. In the past, he had offered to do the errands himself, but he knew by now that Marion enjoyed making the rounds of the town and observing the behaviour of its people. Her attempts at observing and mimicking social conventions were coming along in leaps and bounds. Had there actually been such a thing in this world they had been transported to, Mutton would have gladly recommended her to some of the more elegant dinner parties he arranged before he was in a mysterious fantasy world and was also a sheep.
Stepping out of the front door of the manor that served as their headquarters, Marion came to the general store first. Mostly it sold fruit. Everything in this world seemed to be fruit. All different shapes, sizes, colours and odours, the rows of fruit varied from at least understandable, such as fruit that healed or poisoned or was just tasty and filling, to fruit that summoned firestorms or teleported you out of a dungeon. Rao browsed the fruit in the baskets on stalls in front of the shop window, selecting a few to pile up in one arm. He seemed to completely ignore Nocchi, the shopkeeper's child who was jumping up and down and pulling at his fur, demanding to know who was the fluffiest out of Rao, Mutton or his daddy. His mother yelled at him to get back inside the shop.
"Are you restocking our supplies?" asked Marion. She saw healing fruit, revival fruit, exit fruit as well as several more obscure varieties she didn't understand the point of keeping in stock, "Remember that we can only take a few items into the dungeon with us and we must prioritise equipment!"
"Actually, I'm helping out with some kind of ceremony that Pyra and Nigel are planning," said Rao. Marion's eyebrows rose mechanically to indicate her interest, "They said to be outside the monster pens at midday."
Marion was not sure if the celebration required dressing formally, so she bought varnish from Bangel's shop and gave herself a new coat of varnish, sanding down the small chips she had acquired while also repairing and washing the outfit she had been given for dancing on stage. Pyra had said it would capture the heart of any man but she did not think it was ethical to steal souls. She packed some fruit so that it looked like she ate dinner, then she set out to the monster pens. The paddock outside the main stable was unusually busy, with an area fenced off, several people crowding around it whispering excitedly and a few stalls set up by enterprising merchants from all over the land. She made sure to say hello to the dog who had taken over the business from Nigel's area of the world.
Nigel himself was assisting Pyra in herding monsters into the fenced-off area. Some of them tried to make a break for it, even attacking Pyra, but Nigel fended them off and prodded them back into their new pen with his sword. All of the monsters were the same variety, Marion realised - namely, the Balloon monsters. In her home world, she remembered, balloons had not been alive, had never tried to kill people with magic. Most of the captured balloons were quite sedate as they were well fed, once Pyra had worked out what the hell they ate.
From inside the building, Marion saw that Dr. Anna's hologram was active and that a certain Space Captain was trying to flirt with her, clearly unaware that she was a hologram. Marion felt happy for him, as the she-devil was only mildly humiliating him and not manipulating him into letting her perform ghoulish experiments on him in exchange for dates.
"Ladies and gentlemen!" announced Pyra, punctuating her words with a theatrical crack of lightning, "Androids, puppets, dogs, whatever else there is these days... Anyway, welcome to our show! As you know, we've been meaning to clear out the monster pens. We don't need this many examples of each specimen and it's getting expensive to feed them all. Most of them have been safely returned to their native dungeons. Yoshio and Cooks were given jobs at the clothing store. However, we have one last pen to clear out... the balloon pen!"
To a chorus of appreciative gasps and cheers from the audience, the living balloons were set free from their anchors, first one after the other, then in groups, then a whole flock at once. Red, white, blue and yellow, their vital forces sparking inside them, they danced and twirled, some of them attacking others who got too close, some of them already trying to mate with each other. For a few minutes, the skies above Climaxland were covered in twirling, sparkling dots of colour, then they all flocked as one to their native dungeon, high in the mountains, to hover in the skies until they grew tired and found roosts in the dark storm-peaked towers.
Fandom: Time Stalkers
Pairings: Gen
Characters: Marion, Rao, Nigel, Pyra
Words: 843
Rating: K+
Mutton, their sheep-headed butler, waved goodbye to the sentient wooden puppet as she left. In the past, he had offered to do the errands himself, but he knew by now that Marion enjoyed making the rounds of the town and observing the behaviour of its people. Her attempts at observing and mimicking social conventions were coming along in leaps and bounds. Had there actually been such a thing in this world they had been transported to, Mutton would have gladly recommended her to some of the more elegant dinner parties he arranged before he was in a mysterious fantasy world and was also a sheep.
Stepping out of the front door of the manor that served as their headquarters, Marion came to the general store first. Mostly it sold fruit. Everything in this world seemed to be fruit. All different shapes, sizes, colours and odours, the rows of fruit varied from at least understandable, such as fruit that healed or poisoned or was just tasty and filling, to fruit that summoned firestorms or teleported you out of a dungeon. Rao browsed the fruit in the baskets on stalls in front of the shop window, selecting a few to pile up in one arm. He seemed to completely ignore Nocchi, the shopkeeper's child who was jumping up and down and pulling at his fur, demanding to know who was the fluffiest out of Rao, Mutton or his daddy. His mother yelled at him to get back inside the shop.
"Are you restocking our supplies?" asked Marion. She saw healing fruit, revival fruit, exit fruit as well as several more obscure varieties she didn't understand the point of keeping in stock, "Remember that we can only take a few items into the dungeon with us and we must prioritise equipment!"
"Actually, I'm helping out with some kind of ceremony that Pyra and Nigel are planning," said Rao. Marion's eyebrows rose mechanically to indicate her interest, "They said to be outside the monster pens at midday."
Marion was not sure if the celebration required dressing formally, so she bought varnish from Bangel's shop and gave herself a new coat of varnish, sanding down the small chips she had acquired while also repairing and washing the outfit she had been given for dancing on stage. Pyra had said it would capture the heart of any man but she did not think it was ethical to steal souls. She packed some fruit so that it looked like she ate dinner, then she set out to the monster pens. The paddock outside the main stable was unusually busy, with an area fenced off, several people crowding around it whispering excitedly and a few stalls set up by enterprising merchants from all over the land. She made sure to say hello to the dog who had taken over the business from Nigel's area of the world.
Nigel himself was assisting Pyra in herding monsters into the fenced-off area. Some of them tried to make a break for it, even attacking Pyra, but Nigel fended them off and prodded them back into their new pen with his sword. All of the monsters were the same variety, Marion realised - namely, the Balloon monsters. In her home world, she remembered, balloons had not been alive, had never tried to kill people with magic. Most of the captured balloons were quite sedate as they were well fed, once Pyra had worked out what the hell they ate.
From inside the building, Marion saw that Dr. Anna's hologram was active and that a certain Space Captain was trying to flirt with her, clearly unaware that she was a hologram. Marion felt happy for him, as the she-devil was only mildly humiliating him and not manipulating him into letting her perform ghoulish experiments on him in exchange for dates.
"Ladies and gentlemen!" announced Pyra, punctuating her words with a theatrical crack of lightning, "Androids, puppets, dogs, whatever else there is these days... Anyway, welcome to our show! As you know, we've been meaning to clear out the monster pens. We don't need this many examples of each specimen and it's getting expensive to feed them all. Most of them have been safely returned to their native dungeons. Yoshio and Cooks were given jobs at the clothing store. However, we have one last pen to clear out... the balloon pen!"
To a chorus of appreciative gasps and cheers from the audience, the living balloons were set free from their anchors, first one after the other, then in groups, then a whole flock at once. Red, white, blue and yellow, their vital forces sparking inside them, they danced and twirled, some of them attacking others who got too close, some of them already trying to mate with each other. For a few minutes, the skies above Climaxland were covered in twirling, sparkling dots of colour, then they all flocked as one to their native dungeon, high in the mountains, to hover in the skies until they grew tired and found roosts in the dark storm-peaked towers.
