foolishwren | 72. [Video]

_{[The screen is slightly steamed up when it comes on, but it soon clears enough to give a shaky view of the ... bathroom floor, and part of a towel? It doesn't stay there, though. Instead, the focus seems to be (or is TRYING to be) on the football-sized black thing zipping across the floor and out of view.]

[Then the camera awkwardly turns to the face of its holder, who apparently just get out of the shower, judging by the way her hair is plastered down wetly around the sides of her face and the towel she's got wrapped around her shoulders like a cloak. Said shoulders are hunched. Apparently she's perched on the edge of the bathtub. No questionable steamy semi-nude shots from THIS girl, though-- this is SERIOUS BUSINESS, and Heather's voice is an odd mix between amused, proud, and exasperated.]}

This is a Public Services Announcement about why you shouldn't let your Pokemon into the bathroom when they're about to level up even if they do like playing in all the water leftover after a shower.

Watch and be enlightened.

_{[The camera turns to the floor again as Heather slowly and methodically sticks one foot out and sets it down on the tile.]

[INSTANTLY and without any warning, the black thing comes streaking back onto the camera with the intention of violently attacking its trainer's toes with a long yellow beak and a volley of chittering squawks.]

[Heather yanks her foot up again with a small shriek and the Murkrow goes scuttling off behind the sink.]}

See? SEE?

Here, I'll repeat the demonstration for anyone who may have missed that.

Everybody watching?

_{[She repeats the motion, this time putting both feet on the ground.]

[The attack-crow reappears, wings flared and beak wide-open. It squabbles and pecks around in circles around Heather's feet for a second or two before, once again, skittering off across the floor to hide in the bath curtains, tiny claws clicking on the tiles.]}

I can't make it more than a couple of steps without getting Murkrow'd. I used to be able to outrun her, but now she's like an unstoppable toe-eating machine.

And all because of this.

_{[She presses a button on the 'Gear to make it repeat its last automated message. Which it does, in a cheerful computerized voice.]}

WREN grew to LEVEL 5! WREN learned PURSUIT!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I dunno, what would I be implying?

_{[Nothing. She's just being petulant and surly. Though like hell she'll admit it.]}

How would I ever know?

I dunno, you tell me.

_{[Heather was determined not help this conversation become productive in any way, apparently.]}

[Oh, he'll bite the metaphorical (and mostly non-threatening) bullet.]

Is this hostility due to the last time we spoke?

Could be.

... I apologise for how direct I was.

_{[Her voice is gruff.]}

Bit late for that.

If you say so.

What made you think that would be okay, anyway?

I never imagined you would react that way.

OH?

Gosh, mister, I'm sorry.

How the fuck am I SUPPOSED to react to someone I hardly know telling me they know about my DAD being MURDERED?!

Seriously, tell me, so I don't make another embarrassing faux pas the NEXT time some creep decides to drop by and go 'by the way, your dad totally bled to death because someone stuck a knife in his fucking chest'!

... I believe I was slightly more tactful about it than that.

[WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS GUY]

_{[HEATHER HAS NO IDEA AND THAT'S WHAT'S BOTHERING HER.]}

SO?!

There's no such THING as a way to be tactful about that!

[WELP, ~~SKEWED~~ DIFFERENT WORLD VIEWS AND ALL THAT.]

Again, my apologies.

_{[There's a long pause on Heather's end.]

[When she speaks again, her voice is totally flat.]}

... What did you see.

... Not much. The killer had already finished when I arrived at the scene. He was about to leave.

What did he look like?

_{[... Wait, he'd been in her memory, hadn't he? Shouldn't she already KNOW? ... Or did that question mean something different...?]}

His face was concealed.

_{[She goes silent, considering that.]

[Well, he can't have seen the monster, then... otherwise he probably would have mentioned 'oh yeah and also he didn't seem to be human'.]

[Somehow that doesn't make Heather feel much better, though.]}