Welcome to Gaia! ::

Surprised that the badge dropped, but rather overjoyed, Marosa grinned and hugged his dog around the neck, telling him in a soft voice of how proud he was of his dog.

He now had the perfect name for him.

"Finder." Marosa grinned at his dog, ruffling his hair again, also checking to see if there was anything more hidden in that hair of his.

Shaking his head and laughing at the dog perking up his ears, he winded down to a chuckle and held Sleuth's badge close, giving a nod of thanks to both Sleuth -- and her dog.

(( Thank you Sleuth <33 ))

Merope failed to notice that he was even in a gym by the time it finally occurred to him that no, he was no longer outside. No, the festival noise was pretty absent. And yes, that was one of Sleuth’s dogs watching him warily.

“Hey, hey,” he said shakily, holding his hands up in surrender. “E-Easy there fella. I’m not here to make trouble. I’ll just, well. Heeeey! Are those the seahorses?” Distracted, Merope turned away from Sleuth’s guard to approach where the seahorses were being kept, much to Merope’s delight.

He remembered these. He also remembered placing a bet on one, only -- did he get distracted? Something like that. He pushed that thought aside as he sat and watched them, content. Moments like these reminded him of home, of the ocean he had left behind.

...wasn’t he doing something?

Merope shook himself as he looked up to Sleuth, gesturing towards the seahorses. “Can we still bet on these?” He asked, “If you’re still running the rac- no, wait. The race track was destroyed, huh? That’s a shame.” He looked back at the tank, considering.

“Are they still available? To keep, I mean. I’d like one, if only to be able to build a racetrack of my own. They seem to like racing each other, y’know? So maybe with a track...” He trailed off, thinking. It would be a fun project to work on, if he could pull it off.



Of course, before he could even pull off building a race track he had to get racers. He perked up and was all but dancing when he received a seahorse, but another look revealed that the seahorse he thought he had was no longer in his possessions.

Merope was still quite horribly confused when he left the gym, trying in vain to figure out what exactly happened.

((DERP
SN: Marushii ))

Israfel was back, and per usual, peering at the magic that was sea ponies. (Ponies were always so magical). Face pressed to the glass he made his request. "Can I take another home with me? Yes? Yesyesyesyesyes." His face might have been peering at the sea horses too deeply. It didn't help that the pony was staring back at him just as deep.

SN: Vamps

Ruchii, after settling the seahorse comfortably on her finger, looked up at the hearing of another voice in the area. "Heeeey, he's cute." She didn't seem to have heard exactly what was said. "I gots a dog, too, lookit! She's over there." She pointed to where she had left Sleuth's dogs, who were non longer piled there and had since disappeared. The vulpine beast denied the pointing finger, turning up her nose, as if to say she was a fox, not a dog, but it was lost on the troll completely. "I K'n pet yer dog, yeah? You c'n pet mine, if you c'n catch'er." She didn't seem keen on waiting, and had already curled her legs under her, holding out an unusually gentle for-her-size paw, palm up and flat, to the timid little ghostpooch.

Enya smiled at the person speaking to her. "Sure, she's shy but friendly." Honi needed a bit of encouragement from her but eventually the ghost dog let Ruchii pet her. "See, she's a real sweetheart. My name's Enya. What's yours?" It was nice to have someone to talk to. She really wanted to know what fun games they would have in this gym but until then, having someone to occupy her time was good. One never knew what kind of trouble Enya could get into out of boredom.

He had not forgotten about the sea horses. In fact. Merope was just getting started where they were concerned. He arrived to the gym in a cheerful mood, pausing long enough to give Sleuth and her minis a wave before sitting down in front of the seahorse tank. Merope arranged himself as comfortably as he could before flipping the book open to a blank page and scribbling.

The idea of racing minipets intrigued him. Seahorses were the best place to start in his eyes: they were already trained to race! He was also pretty sure that they wouldn’t eat each other. Or maybe Sir Coralflipper would. Would he? Merope stopped to stare at the red seahorse, considering. Red was the color of most creatures’ blood. What if Sir Coralflipper was a white seahorse until he rampaged and defeated his enemies enough to become red?

But wait. He was being unfair to that seahorse. Yes, the seahorse was red and yes it was still glaring at him. Did that make it a killer? Merope resisted the urge to tap his pencil against the glass tank. For all he knew, that might make the seahorse mad. It might make all of them mad.

He could buy it if one of the seahorses was secretly a dangerous minipet. Lady Lemon? Her bow could have been won from a vicious struggle against the non-existent Miss Pink. Sir Bubbles? He did look a little unhinged. No, wait -- Ms Twilight Sparkle looked suspicious, and Mr. E.G.O. seemed to agree considering how many shifty glances he was giving the rest of his fellow seahorses.

What about Mr Eeyore, though? He looked sad. Did another seahorse off one of his buddies? Merope looked at the dour seahorse with new eyes. Or was he being blackmailed? Blackmail would account for his sorrowful expression. But who would it be?

Lady Lemon would probably do it, especially if she was into collecting accessories. Little seahorse bows couldn’t be cheap, but if she got it off of an unseen seahorse then she wouldn’t have need of buying new ones. Not to mention the fact that she looked so happy. Maybe she was innocent?

Maybe. But Mr. E.G.O. didn’t seem convinced, Merope noted. The green seahorse continued to look at the others. It was like a constant watch, come to think of it. Did Mr. E.G.O. know something? Did he know one of the others was behind it? Merope watched the green seahorse, chewing on his pencil’s eraser thoughtfully. There was something about Mr. E.G.O. that could go either way: either he was watching his back, or... Or what if Mr. E.G.O. was afraid that another seahorse would find out about what he did?

His curiosity was really getting to him. “Excuse me? Sleuth?” He asked, rising from his seat. He closed his still blank notebook, looking for the gym leader. “Are you still looking to home the seahorses? I’d like to take one home, if you are...”

((SN: Marushii))

Ikki hummed, returning to the tank to watch the seahorses. She made faces in the glass, pressed her nose up to it, stuck her paw in it. She even ran her claws accross the outside of it once... For about a third of a second. She winced, and looked back inside, growing bored. The whole time, she'd been amused, though, at the bubbles, constantly disappearing from her paws.