[FIN] Turtle Soup [Fade/Weep/Rise/Fell]

[Maxx D]

[Canon timing: A little while after You in the Moonlight, before the shop's network expansion]




"Well Weep!" Fade said, dropping several berries as she spoke and scampered, "ish been a produ'tiche day rite? Oopsh." She lifted her head, tossed a bunch upward and caught them firmly in her mouth, "I shink th' boss will be pleased, donsh you?"  

[Jun D]

Weep, knowing full well that they wouldn't lose so much inventory unnecessarily if only Fade talked a little less, did not bother to dignify that with a response. There was an old saying that went, if one bears berries in one's mouth, one should talk Swampmotherdamned less to stop losing berries.  

[Maxx D]

Fade allowed one to fall conveniently onto her tongue, and she thoughtfully tasted it. "Ish very guud," she opined with satisfaction, "I shink th' prbly washn't a bedder bush in sight!"


A turtle, in the meantime, toddled along the path, having found a rather convenient trail of berries that seemed to lead to more berries as time went on. He started to catch up with the source of them - a bright doe, starting and stopping in her path, and constantly dropping a veritable horde of food.  

[Jun D]

It wasn't long before Weep noticed they were being tailed. The rustle of leaves, the crunch of twigs, the occasional splash - it was rather a way behind, but it was consistent. Discreetly, she tossed a dark glance behind them - and stopped. It wasn't a predator. It wasn't an unsavoury buck. It was -

- a turtle.

She had to stare. There was a turtle, respectably large, brown, mossy green shell, merrily munching on one of Fade's discarded berries. She had monitored the progression of sound behind them for rather a distance before that measured glance - which meant the turtle had been tailing them for an impressively long time. Well...she supposed it was a stretch to say that a turtle was tailing them. One last look and she resumed her steps. Perhaps it would fall behind. Hah - perhaps, she had thought...  

[Maxx D]

"In sight mebbe," Fade considered, tilting her head and accidentally shaking a couple more berries off. "but ifsh we wensh a leeeeddle furder into th' pricklsh bushs mebbe, sho pokey tho..."

The turtle quickly snapped up a couple more, blinked slowly - thoughtfully? - at the accompanying, rather stingy doe, and decisively followed the reeling path of the yellow one, craning his neck and stretching his leatherly little legs to keep up and stay on the berry-giver's hoofsteps.  

[Jun D]

Weep was incredulous. Just incredulous in general. That the turtle was still following them - actually keeping up with them in some impossible way. That Fade had entirely failed to notice both her own occasional breaks to openly stare at the turtle and that there was a turtle following them. That Fade was still talking. That Fade even had berries left.

It was days like this that made Weep consider asking for a raise.  

[Maxx D]

A little more trotting, a little more talking and they'd reached the shop already! Time sure flew fast, Fade contemplated as she plunked her batch on a nearby sunning rock, even if supply runs were a little boring. And Weep always got more than her too, she was never really quite sure why, but generally assumed it was Weep's natural efficiency that she managed to keep a better hold on her berries.

The turtle had come all this way and its eyes were no longer glued to the doe, but scanning the veritable paradise that it had stumbled into. It tottered ahead in its own turtley way, its steps uncertain and wondering, into the midst of food and Kimeti.  

[Maxx D]

"Hello girls," Rise said warmly, emerging to welcome his running back. "Those berries look splendid as per usual, and - what's this?" He leaned down to peer at the doddering turtle, eyes wide. "You brought a turtle back? For me?"

He raised his gaze, looking extremely touched.
"Thank you. I've been wanting to try pickling one for so long, and to experiment with the by-product; it's rumoured they have medicinal properties you know -"  

[Maxx D]

"Hm, that's funny." Fade said, her head whipping around to regard the reptile, and after a while of staring, her body caught up. "I don't even remember seeing it."  

[Jun D]

One...two...three...four... Weep took the time needed to carefully deposit her share of berries to quell the sheer outrage. Methodically, she checked over the harvest, nipping off a few bad buds. Then, she finally said, "It followed you back." She'd had a lot of practice with this.  

[Maxx D]

"Followed ME?" Fade gasped dramatically, "followed ME back?" She stooped to the turtle's eye-level, and it momentarily froze in the enthusiastic blue-eyed stare in fright.

She assumed it was adoration. "Oh and what a sweet little - big - turtle you are! Ooooo you've got good taste!" She twirled, triumphant in her ability to lure stray animals to her.  

[Jun D]

"He got good tastes, alright." Weep muttered, sorting through the berries in lieu of abandoning this place in disgust.  

[Maxx D]

"Well then, I just can't give him to you, Boss." She said decisively, squishing herself against her new turtle. "I'm keeping him. Alive."  

[Maxx D]

Rise gaped, bewildered and dismayed. "But Fade - think of the shop, and all the new discoveries we could've had, if only we cracked that shell open!" (The turtle might've shrunk a little bit at the statement.) "I...I can't imagine you're keeping an animal around just...just like that. Alive."  

[Jun D]

"You wouldn't believe it," Fell cut into the conversation as he neatly finished stacking a pile of salamanders, strolling over for a look at their new addition, "but lots of kimeti keep animals around for no good reason. You know - pets." His boss was the most enterprising kimeti he knew, but his strange obsession with converting every type of animal to food was baffling of an otherwise perfecly well-adjusted buck. "Though most of them are quite a bit faster, " he appended critically, "you couldn't have attracted a mongoose back, Fade? They've got good paws for traps."