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Solo RP

Oh, this would be a really good surprise. Aoife hoped so at least. She and Niall had been snuggled up in the sun for a decent little nap. Waiting until her twin drifted off to sleep, and she was sure he had because his breathing sounded deep and sleepy, the young seel carefully shifted herself away from her sleeping sibling. It wouldn’t take long. Not if she made sure to be fast. Niall wouldn’t even notice her gone. Nope. Aoife needed to be quick though.

The plan was to find something of interest for him, either specifically for him to for him to give to Iona. She was really nice and Aoife could tell that her brother liked her bunches. It was good that her brother liked his person. Dugan was really great too. She liked listening to him read stories and he sang nicely too, not that he sang very often. At least not when he thought anyone was listening! He and Iona would sometimes duet. That was just great. It almost seemed funny in a way. Not long ago at all both her and her brother were wary and suspicious of humans. They left stuff in the sea, as evidenced by her brother getting so desperately tangled up in the fishing detritus. The trainers come with big plans of getting at least one of every pokemon out there! Not everyone is as considerate as they ought to be and that was worrying. Fortune smiled on them with Dugan and Iona. They were good people who treated Niall and her really quite well.

Back to her quest though! Aoife wanted to be back before her brother stirred. With a bit of a glance up and down their little stretch of beach, the seel dove into the water. Lately their shell and interesting item finding luck over near the tide pools had been down and they hadn’t been finding much beyond the standard seaweed and little shards of driftwood. Nah! Those wouldn’t do. It had to be something pretty or interesting, something not too, too small. There had a couple of embarrassing incidents where she had accidentally swallowed a little stone or other. Moving through the water granted the young seel more agility and grace than she was afforded on land. Making her way down to the rocky, sandy bottom, Aoife began to nose around in search of something special. The sea was calm, so even her pushing of the sand didn’t cause too much of a stir. If she was lucky, perhaps she could do it all in one breath too! Gliding over the bottom, the seel poked about, occasionally using her flippers to swish away at the sand. Her lungs were starting to burn. She’d have to surface soon. With another swipe of her flippers, she turned toward the surface.

About halfway up, her eye caught sight of something. Pausing momentarily, Aoife returned her gaze to the bottom where she had been doing her searching. Something caught the light in a soft, subtle way, not like the fair sand of the bottom. What if she lost sight of it? She had to know what it was, but getting a breath was going to become a priority very soon. Making a split second decision, she turned back towards the bottom and grabbed hold of whatever was catching the light so. It was firm in her teeth, and large. She had to struggle to keep it in place as she ascended. Breaking the surface, Aoife gave a great exhale through her nose, causing a little spray of mist. Dipping her face back under the water, the seel gave her head a little shake to remove any sand from her mouth before heading to the shore. Setting down her cargo, she gave a delighted gasp. It was perfect! It was a pretty pearlescent shell, so shapely too! Niall would be sure to love it! Aoife hoped so. Gathering it back into her mouth, she made her way back to the sibling sleepy spot. Niall was still there; sound asleep as much as she could tell. She gave an excited wiggle and nestled the prize next to her twin’s head so that he’d notice it upon waking. Hee hee! She couldn’t wait to see his face when he woke, but that would wait until then. For now, she had to rest too. Otherwise, he’d know something was up! With a yawn, she settled in next to her brother and closed her eyes. She’d just keep an ear out for his waking. It’d be so good!

Reaction to Growth RP - With Niall, Dugan, and Iona


The sun had almost completely set when the two trainers went looking for their playful pokemon, figuring they wandered a bit in their play. It had been the oddest thing, finding Aoife and Niall passed out off a ways down the beach. Dugan and Iona didn’t know what to make of it really, but the couple just figured maybe their seel twins had tuckered themselves out playing and doing their own thing to come back. So, after having carried them back to the house, Dugan had laid the two down on a nest of blankets on the floor. He and Iona swept up whatever sand that got tracked into the house and then went about making dinner. The trainers had a quiet dinner out on the deck and chatted a while before putting their dishes in the sink. Niall and Aoife hadn’t stirred to come investigate dinner, so they let them sleep. Perhaps their game had been chase or some similarly rigorous game. They were young still. They needed their rest. And so, the two retired for the night. They would just have to deal with two hungry seel in the morning.

Their rest had been sound, unaware of what the twins had come across in the detritus and sand of the beach and of what that meant for them. Iona was normally the early riser, but Dugan stirred first this morning. Slipping on his robe, he slipped into the hallway and headed towards the kitchen with an easy, drowsy sort of smile on his face. He’d get the coffee going, maybe poke about in the fridge for something to start cooking. Dugan paused mid-step about halfway out of the living area on his way to the kitchen and dining area. As usual he had been giving casual glances about to make sure everything was still in its place and as it was supposed to be. But something had changed. Shuffling back a few steps, Dugan’s jaw just about dropped off of his face. What in blue blazes was going on?! Running back to his and Iona’s room, but not before banging his knee into a side table, he gently shook her. “Iona, get up. You need to come see this. It’s…I…I don’t know what to think. Come see. Please. Something with Niall and Aoife…”

Huh. He didn’t sound like he was joking. Hopping up out of bed, she pulled her own robe on and followed him out into the living room where he ushered her towards where he had placed the two sleeping pokemon the night before. There, all curled up on the nest of blankets, were two children! Not just any old children. These two children had an almost elven appearance with pointed ears, but with white skin and hair and a single horn rising from the center of their foreheads, both entirely naked. Iona opened and closed her mouth several times before just pausing with her head angled into one of her hands, unable to find the words. She looked from them to Dugan who appeared as baffled as she. Drawing closer to the two nesting children, Iona kneeled down next to them with Dugan standing on the opposite side. “Niall? Aoife? Is that-…Can you hear me?” She reached down and gave the little boy’s shoulder a gentle shake. “Wake up for me, Niall?”

Dugan crouched down, half kneeling and brushed the white hair away from the sleeping little girl’s face. “Aoife? Open your eyes for me, okay?” Both trainers were legitimately worried and confused in just about equal measure. There had to be SOME answer for this. Pokemon didn’t just turn into children out of the blue.

Niall opened his eyes, glancing at Iona questioningly. He felt a strange chill about him, and gave a shiver. He was used to the warm fur he'd had as a seel. He stared at her, before slowly sitting up and giving her an affectionate headbutt. He stretched, yawning. "What's going on?" he asked, glancing at Aoife questioningly. He froze, and recovering, rose a hand to his mouth. What was going on? He could speak--he could--that wasn't his voice! And this! This wasn't his flipper--and what had happened to Aoife?!

His eyes flew open wide, and he immediately moved to attach himself to Iona. He gave another shiver, but this time it wasn't from the cold. He was afraid. He wasn't sure how to react to this--what had happened to them? He couldn't remember eating anything strange, or doing anything particularly different. He gave a sniffle. What had his trainer done to him? Had Iona done this? Why would she? Hadn't she--didn't she--he'd thought she was his friend!
No, it couldn't have been Iona. He rose his dark eyes to Iona's and saw the same confusion there as he himself was facing. It must have been--Dugan. Dugan must have done this! He must have!

Iona gave a soft relieved sigh at seeing Niall stir and wake, not minding the child’s headbutt, but his obvious fear and confusion was heartbreaking. The poor dear was so scared.

Aoife shifted herself, feeling the brush of Dugan’s hand over her head and hearing both his voice and the voice of her brother. She pushed herself up into a sitting position and gave a big yawn, without thinking rubbing her face to further dispel her sleepiness. Aoife jumped visibly, staring down at her hands and beyond to her feet. Her feet! She touched her face, her brows furrowing and looked to her brother. He had it too! “Are we sick?! Did we catch something?” Whoa! Wait! They were talking! Genuinely talking! A distressed whimper rose up from the girl as she clung to Dugan’s robe sleeve, pulling herself close. What was going on?! She shivered too. She was scared and cold. Her pretty, thick white fur was gone too!

Iona stroked the frightened boy’s hair as he clung to her. She slipped out of her robe which was printed with little stars and wrapped it around Niall, once again holding him close. The woman was completely gobsmacked that the twins were more or less human looking and were talking! She gave a soft sigh when he looked up to her, doubtless seeking an explanation, and drew him into a hug.

Dugan, too, slipped out of his robe and wrapped it around the naked seel girl, shifting to sit on the floor to allow her to curl up in his lap, pressed against his chest. Aoife sniffled and looked up to him before looking over to her brother and Iona. What caused this? She didn’t believe it to be either Dugan or Iona. They loved them and were their friends! Aoife had no clue what might cause this transformation. She curled her knees as tightly to her chest as she could, drawing Dugan’s thick robe up about her pointed ears, practically getting lost in the adult robe save for a pitifully distressed face peeking out from within it. “What’s happened to us?” She asked, her voice catching slightly as her chin trembled.

Dugan gave her a squeeze, rubbing her back softly. “Aoife, honey, I don’t know. We’ll figure out what’s happened to you and Niall, okay?” He shifted his gaze between the two kids before affixing his attention to Iona.
She wrapped her robe about Niall, tucking it around him. “I’m sure there are answers to be had. Are either of you hurting at all? Do you remember anything out of the ordinary from last night or yesterday? Anything at all?”

"What happened to us?" Niall asked, scooting away from Dugan and positioning himself closer to Iona. His lips and chin trembled as he attempted to keep tears from falling onto his cheeks. "I'm not hurting," he answered Iona's question with a shake of his head. "No... Where's our stars?" he asked, frowning as he looked for the stars they'd found for Iona the previous evening. "We were looking for presents for you last night," he said. "Then we got sleepy when we found them... I don't remember any more." The boy looked troubled. He wrapped his arms around Iona.

"What are you going to do with us now?" he asked, dreading the answer. "Get rid of us?"

Iona frowned slightly at Niall scooting further away from Dugan, like whatever had happened was his fault. She didn’t fuss though. He was just a scared boy. Neither he nor his sister knew what was going on. She and Dugan knew just as little. She held the seel boy close and rocked him, softly shushing him in the hope of keeping those threatening tears from falling. The trainer rests her cheek on the top of his head. His answer of no pain and the shaking of Aoife’s head was some small relief. Niall’s mentioning of stars confused her. “Stars? As in starfish or star, like these?” She asked pointing to the pattern on her robe.

Aoife let Dugan’s robe fall off of the back of her head to form a fluffy ruff about her neck. She frowned as she tried to think of what happened to their stars. “Not starfish, no. They were like those, only silver.” She nodded towards Iona’s robe. “As soon as we found them and touched them, we got really tired and fell asleep. I don’t remember anything else from yesterday.”

Dugan seemed to be listening with rapt attention, a thoughtful frown furrowing his brows. “Iona and I didn’t see any stars when we found you two sleeping. When I picked you both up and carried you here, there wasn’t anything hidden underneath you and you didn’t drop anything on the way back, but…silver stars sound…familiar somehow. I think I might have heard something. Something along the lines of there being these special stars and that if a pokemon finds and touches them, they change. It’s not an evolution or anything, but just changes them somehow. I guess they become more human…Does that make any sense?”

Niall nodded in agreement with Aoife's words. "That's what happened," he said. "We were going to bring them to you. It was a surprise." He had wanted to bring that shining star to Iona, and to hear that she hadn't been able to even see it, distressed him further. He clung to Iona tightly. "It disappeared, then?" he asked, frowning. "I wanted to bring it to you so you can put it on the shelf with your shells..."

He glanced at Dugan, frowning. His eyes narrowed. "You knew about this?" he demanded. "You knew, and you didn't say anything?" Dugan had done this. He'd known it all along. "What are you going to do with us now that we've changed?" he demanded, crossing his arms and pulling away from Iona. What if she decided to study him? Or that she didn't want him? What was going to happen to them now?

Huh. Maybe that’s what happened to the twins. It was at least something to explain what happened. Iona offered Niall a bit of a smile. “Well, that's sweet, Niall, Aoife. It doesn’t matter that they disappeared though. I’m just glad that you’re okay. There are other treasures to be found out there, or you two could just make us things now. You’ve got hands now so you can make crafts and we can show you how to cook and the like.” Iona paused when Niall’s attention and suspicion openly shifted to Dugan.

Dugan straightened his posture, frowning himself. “I just figured that was a silly story I heard, a rumor. I didn’t think it held water. I had no idea that there would be stars around here.” The man shook his head and looked down to Aoife who was looking up at him from his lap. “We’re not going to get rid of you, if that what you’re think. You are still our Aoife and Niall.”

Iona shook her head. “We love you both very much. Why in the world would we get rid of you?” She combed her fingers through Niall’s hair. “You’re our seels and we wouldn’t trade you for anything in the world. There isn’t any other Niall or Aoife out there. Don’t you worry about such things, okay?”
Aoife wiped her eyes and smiled at Iona before looking up at Dugan, rapping her arms around his neck in a tight hug. “Good. I don’t want to go anywhere. I like it here with you and Iona and Niall.”

"I suppose," Niall said, nodding at Iona's words. He didn't like that they had lost the stars, but since Iona didn't seem upset by the lose of them, he supposed it was alright. "We can always find something better," he said, glancing at Aoife. There were many things to find out there, and if they could still dive under water for gifts, he figured they would find enough to fill three shelves.

"...You're not?" the seel turned boy stared at Dugan, his expression changing rapidly; from disbelief to relief, to sadness. He wished he'd known. He wished he'd been able to warn Aoife before it'd happened. "You're going to keep us even now?" he asked, looking back to Iona. He reattached himself to Iona.
"But what'll happen now?" he asked. "We're not pokemon anymore... what are we to you?"

Iona smiled and gave Niall a hug. “That’s what I like to hear. I think you’ll like cooking, or at least helping Dugan and me when we cook. I have no doubt in my mind that you two will be able to find or make something even better than those stars. And it’ll be all the more special because you will have created whatever you make yourselves.”

Aoife loosened her hold on Dugan to look towards her brother and his trainer. She smiled brightly and nodded. “Yeah! That’ll be fun! I bet we could come up with something really, really nice.” She giggles softly to herself. “I’d like to learn how to cook, I think. It looks fun.” She added somewhat more quietly.
Dugan chuckled and shook his head. “Of course we’re not going to get rid of you. You and your sister have firmly cemented a place in our hearts and in our lives. We don’t want either of you to go anywhere, so we are absolutely going to be keeping both of you.”

Iona shifted Niall into her lap when he reattached himself to her. “Now? Well, we probably ought to get you two into some clothes now that you aren’t covered in fur, huh? And then I think a good breakfast will be in order. As for what you are now, well…Your kids now, so I think it’s fair to say that you are our kids now. Isn’t that right, Dugan?”

Dugan nodded vehemently, smiling quite brightly. Obviously the idea of having kids to share with Iona pleased him, even if said children had been pokemon just yesterday. “Quite right! You can be our kids. Mine and Iona’s son and daughter.” He held Aoife snugly as she rocked back and stood. And I think the first order of business should be feeding and clothing you.”

"Kids now?" Niall repeated, tilting his head slightly. Didn't kids call their trainers something different? He'd seen kids and their trainers on the beach. "Son and daughter?" he echoed. The concept didn't seem to sink in properly, for a long moment. "What do we call you, then?" he asked.
"I'm cold," he complained, at last, looking up at Iona. He couldn't remember being cold before. He was a water / ice type, after all. The thick fur he'd always had before had protected him from the elements. "Clothes?" he echoed. Everything was so new. So different.

Iona rose also, shifting Niall so that he sat on her hip. She smiled, nodding in kind. “Yes, your our son and daughter. We’re your parents now.” She tittered lightly at his following question. “You can call us mom and dad, if you’d like, or mama and papa, or mommy and daddy. Whatever you feel most comfortable calling us.”

Aoife blinked at the options posed to them, bringing a hand up to touch her cheek as she mulled over the possible choices. Wow, daughters and sons sure had a lot of options what to call their trainers, er, parents. She tried them out a few times. “Do we have to pick just one?” She asked with a small, confused frown.

Shaking his head, Dugan answered her. “Not at all, you can mix and match them if you so choose to.”

The seel girl tipped head back as she considered the possibilities. “Sooo…I could call you daddy and her mama?”

“If that’s what you want to do, by all means.” He gave her a hug which got him one in return.

“Okay! I love you, daddy.” She loosed her hug and turned to face Iona, reaching an arm as she leaned out a bit from Dugan, wrapping her arm around her shoulders as best she could. “And I love you too, mama.” Aoife straightened back up again, shivering slightly as Dugan’s warm robe had fallen away from her shoulders when she had leaned out to hug Iona. “I don’t think I’ve ever been chilly before.”

Iona smiled warmly at the hug and the moniker given to her, as warmly as she ever had when given a gift from them. “Thank you, honey.” She snuggled the cold Niall close to her. “Yep, we ought to get you two some clothes. Clothes are what we wear to cover ourselves. See, people don't have warm fur to cover them, so clothes are the next best thing. We probably don’t have any children’s clothes lying around the house, but you can borrow some old clothing of Dugan and me. It’ll be something to cover you both up until we get you something in your sizes.”

Children apparently called their trainers by strange names. He would have to adjust to that, too. "Momma?" Niall asked, leaning against Iona. "Alright. You'll be Momma!" He glanced at Dugan, almost hesitantly. "I'm sorry I blamed you," he said. "It isn't your fault we changed. I was just--" Frightened. He still was, but less so with how Iona was taking it. They weren't going to be thrown out! Iona and Dugan still wanted them, even though they'd changed!

He hesitated for a long moment. "Momma, do we still have to go in our pokeballs?" he asked. He wasn't sure they'd fit. "You'll help us find something nice?" he asked. "Something warm?"

Dugan offered a small, understanding smile to Niall and ruffled his hair a bit. “It’s okay. People can say and do things they don’t really mean if they’re scared. So long as you don’t let fear completely change who you are, everything will be okay.” He bobbed Aoife on his hip, getting a bit of a giggle out of her. “Let’s see what we can drum up for you two. We can layer you up until you get a bit more used to not having a nice insulating coat of fur to help keep you warm.” With that, he started heading down the hall, turning into their bedroom and setting Aoife down on the bed.

Iona nuzzled her new son. “No, honey. I don’t even know if they’d work on you like this. Nope. You’ll just have to stay out here with us. Dugan and I will have to get you and your sister a room set up. And of course we’ll find you something nice. You could help us look if you’d like to.” She followed Dugan into their room and set him down next to his sister. Dragging a box out of the closet, she popped it open and began rummaging through for things to offer the kids.

Dugan scooted his box out into the open as well. “After we get you into some clothes, we can fix you something nice and warm to help heat you through.”

Niall watched Iona as she rummaged through the box, blinking with wide, black eyes. Was this where they got new clothes? He sent Aoife a puzzled expression. He shrugged. He wasn't sure why trainers couldn't have a nice, think coat like he'd had before. It'd certainly make things easier.
He went over to Dugan and wrapped his arms around him. "Daddy? I love you."