aterat | Autumn fruits

Entry tags:

Autumn fruits

Who; Yuki Sohma & You! (yes you)
What; Harvest/pumpkins
Where; The fields in Aterat
When; October
Warnings; None? Will change if necessary

Pumpkins

It was getting towards night time but it wasn't dark yet and Yuki was out walking his blue Chocobo Haru. He knew the places to avoid of course as well as the areas that weren't so bad. But he wanted to explore the area and get some fresh very early night air. He heard some bats chirping around too, but they didn't bother him.

A crescent moon was just starting to come into view and a faint view of about eight stars that he could see. Stopping for a moment, Haru started trying to claw at a very small pumpkin. And that's when Yuki looked up and saw a whole field full of pumpkins. His gray eyes grew wide at the sight of all shapes and sizes and was just fascinated.

"Am I imagining all of this?"

Pomegranates

The trees in another area were something Yuki typically had nothing to do with. However, curiosity got the better of him tonight and he started heading towards them. Before he concentrated on the fruit though there was a red and white book on the ground so he picked that up first and tucked it in his bookbag before returning his attention to the tree. These fruits weren't anything he was familiar with, so he wandered over closer, keeping an eye on the darkness coming for nightfall. These didn't look like apples, but they were red in colour.

He picked one from "I wonder what you can do with these.."

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The silver head turned and Yuki smiled as he saw Mono come out from behind one of the really big pumpkins. The gourd had been bigger than the boy just about and then he'd asked what they were. "You don't have pumpkins in your world?"

And of course he just smiled as Mono raced to go see Haru who was more than happy to see his old friend and chirped and warbled happily. Or so it seemed to be happy to Yuki's ears. The blue chocobo made about as much sense to Yuki as his namesake.

"You can make all sorts of foods from them though, like soup or pie."

Mono shrugged his shoulder’s at the question, “I dunno? Never saw them in the Pale City or in the forests across the water.” He supposed there might be fields where stuff like this grew beyond there, but he’d never seen it. “Not a lot of fresh stuff left in the city either.” Most things had gone kind of rotten now that people weren’t really… doing things people needed to do anymore.

Listening to Haru chirp and warble at him, he giggled a little. He was pretty delighted that it was happy to see him. Mono knew he hadn’t been around in a while, what with all the things he was learning about and starting to work. “It’s good to see you too, Haru!” He responded, giving his head a few more little pats.

“I guess there must be a lot of recipes when they get so big and so many grow.” The kid finally responded, turning back to look at the pumpkins. He was pretty sure one pumpkin alone could feed him for a while, especially one that was bigger than him! He wondered how hard it would be to roll one back to the apartments… Maybe he could share it with people like Mr. Ignis since he knew how to cook. “I wonder if you could find other stuff to do with them too, makes a good hiding spot if you need to be sneaky.” He said, wandering around the giant one he had been looking at before.

"Oh." Yuki replied as he listened to Mono. He wasn't getting a great mental picture of this kid's world but he was happy that the boy was here where he could learn about pumpkins at least. It just bothered him on some level that this kid didn't really have fresh stuff.

However, the giggle emitted from him at seeing Haru shook him out of those darker thoughts. At least the chocobo and the boy got along because he'd heard from some people that they were nasty tempered and bit people. So he was relieved that at least this blue chocobo chick didn't do such a thing.

But he could only smile as Mono went on about pumpkins. "I've heard people that come in talk about how pumpkin would be available for things like soup and pie at the local tavern, but beyond that I don't really know what it could be made into." This kid wasn't a chef, but he still would be tempted to try whatever the people would make the gourd into, no matter what it was. He wasn't going to knock any type of food until he tried it.

To the last though, he laughed a little. "Well if you got a big enough pumpkin here, you could hide behind it with Haru."

“Hmmm… I bet you’re right! He’s not that big yet and some of these are really huge.” He responded, tapping the side of one curiously, “Maybe a little bigger than this one…” He tilted his head a little. It was hard to think of them as food with how strange they looked, but everyone else knew better than he did.

Though they didn’t have anything like these in the pale city, at least not anymore if they ever had, the sheer size of the giant ones did kind of fit with the exaggerated and warped sizes of things there. Honestly, Mono hadn’t been around before the signal warped everything, at least not as far as he could remember. So the kid probably hadn’t ever seen anything like Halloween or other fall traditions before, or knew what it was about. “Maybe that’s why there’s so many? For food and for hiding when you gotta hide.”

"I guess." Yuki replied looking around. Haru was warbling still, but he looked around the area. "Seems like someone got really busy or something for a while. I don't think it could take only a day or two to plant all of these. It had to be something more like weeks at least."

Mono tapping the side of the pumpkin had been cute but Yuki wasn't going to say a word about it. The boy seemed to be having a grand time here and of course that was the point. "But I can get a basket or something back home and bring some back with me. Do you want me to bring another bag or whatever for you too?"

"Maybe they just grow like they're supposed to be here?" Mono tilted his head a little bit. Seriously having very little idea how this sort of stuff worked, "Like they're... they're..." What was a word for things that were supposed to grow in specific places... "Natural." He finally decided sounded about right.

"Hmm..." The child considered the pumpkins. "I guess that could work for the little ones?" The little ones would probably be the smarter choices, but... "I was thinking it might be easy to just kinda roll one on its side down the road... They look like they'd be rolly if you turned them a little." No, Mono, that wasn't a great idea. Funny mental image, but probably not practical.

Yuki nodded with a smile. "It seems like they've been planted here to grow naturally. I just never knew that they could grow to be so big." And really some of these gourds were just huge and Mono could so very easily hide behind them all without an issue.

"Rolling them...or I think I recall seeing some kids with wagons they might let us borrow." Of course in his mind he thought they'd end up with a circus of kids following them but that would be good for Mono maybe.

“I’d have thought there’d be giant people around with food so big, but I haven’t seen anyone so I guess they’re just to make lots of food.” Well, that wasn’t true. He’d seen two or three tallish people around town, two of them counted in the kid’s book as giants, and the third wasn’t too far off. He’d been watching them for a while though, and they didn’t seem to be bad, so… He mostly left them alone. Especially after a slightly awkward (but turned out pleasantly) run in with one of them.

“I saw the wagons. They’d make bringing the big ones back easier than rolling, maybe?” A parade of children and a wagon full of pumpkins. It could be like something out of a nursery rhyme or fairy tale. “But I dunno how to drive a wagon. Last time I was on a moving thing, it kinda got away from me.”

"I hope there aren't giant people." Yuki replied, looking at Haru who was blissfully hopping around and fluttering his tiny blue wings. If he happened to see something he'd make that 'wark' sound at it but other than that he was pretty happy to hop on leaves just to hear them crunch or peck at the ground.

He smiled at hearing about the wagons and nodded. "You don't need to drive a wagon. I'm talking about the pull ones with the handles. We can just put the pumpkins in them and walk with them behind us." Yuki really hoped Haru would sit in the wagon too, but somehow he highly doubted it.

“Me either…” He responded with a small frown, but he shook his head a little a moment later. “I don’t think there are any to worry about, not right now, at least. I’ve been looking around and watching for them.”

Mono hadn’t noticed the ones you could pull, and he perked up at that idea quite a bit. “Oh! I didn’t know they had them. I could probably help with those if you want.” An absurd mental image, even with help. Mono was pretty small, but he was… deceptively strong when there was a need for it. And there hadn’t really been a need, so one day someone was going to be quite surprised if they gave the kid a reason to show it.

Mono's words had Yuki concerned but he wasn't going to get wrapped up in what ifs. Miss Honda did that enough back home and it drove her crazy and got her sick at times. So that was a very good lesson in what not to do.

"Well then I guess we can come back in the daylight since it's getting pretty late. And I'm sure Haru will enjoy another walk. So we can go get those and load up as many as we can carry."

He would be open to multiple trips too but that remained to be seen. He didn't want to be greedy. And who knew, maybe they could bring some to other people.

“Is it getting late?” He asked, looking up at the sky curiously. No, Mono didn’t have the greatest concept of time… What child did, though?

He looked over to where Haru was, smiling a little. “If you wanna come back tomorrow, I could meet you here? I don’t wanna keep you and Haru out if you gotta get back to the apartment building before it gets dark.” He hummed a bit, “And I don’t got anything to do tomorrow, I don’t think?”

"Well it is getting dark." Yuki smiled.

But at Mono's suggestion, he nodded. "I'll walk you back home and then we can definitely meet up tomorrow. What time is good for you?"

He had the day off, but wasn't sure how early was too early and Yuki still wasn't a morning person by any means, new world or not.

“Oh, I guess it is.” He responded with a little glance at the sky, noticing finally that the sun was starting to sink.

Mono nodded at the offer. He supposed he should head back now. He could follow Yuki and see Haru for a little longer before they arrived back at the apartment buildings and had to go their separate ways. “Okay, I’ll go with you and we can meet again tomorrow.” He responded with a little smile.

The question of when was a good one though, “I think I’m free anytime you wanna meet, you can call me on the phone thing if you don’t mind the static when I use it.” Mono didn’t really sleep much, used to sleeping in the short quiet moments he managed to find in his world and waking easily if something sounded close.

And he liked getting up early in this world. He would sneak up onto the roof and watch the sun rise in the sky, because a sunrise was not something he was accustomed to seeing. Not when gloomy fog and impenetrable rain clouds covered the Pale City without end.

Yuki just smiled as Mono nodded. "Sounds like we have a plan then." And it occurred to him that he hadn't seen the boy smile much which made him worry. But maybe there just wasn't enough to smile about here. But maybe doing something as simple as this would provide ample opportunity.

"Static?" he asked. "Is there something wrong with your phone?" He had to admit he was worried but he wasn't going to just invade Mono's private world. Maybe it was a simple fix or something. He couldn't recall anyone getting a faulty phone, but really..good luck with anyone keeping up with that gnome that ran away. Yuki had tried and he was a really fast runner. But his exertions hadn't gotten him far because that gnome could run at an unworldly pace.

Mono nodded at the comment, “Yeah, and it’s good to have a plan. Let’s go, Haru!” He added to the Chocobo chick with a little nod.

Smiling was an odd thing to him. He wasn’t really used to having a reason to smile, so most of the time it was a quick and unpracticed expression. But he was still smiling more than he had before in his life, and maybe he would get better at that with the help of Yuki and others. Emotions in general were something that got a bit confusing, used to feeling the more negative ones over the positives over time. He tended to keep those details to himself, though, unless he was around someone else who understood that like Illyana did.

The question gets a tiny frown though, “Yeah, static.” He pulled out his phone and fussed with it a bit, as if trying to decide how to respond… Or if he wanted to at all. “It’s kinda hard to explain, ‘cause I don’t really understand it well either. The phone’s okay, it’s something that happens when I use it.” It would be easy to say electronics just messed up around him, but that wouldn’t be accurate. He could use the appliances at the apartments just fine, he could use a lot of things easily. But devices that broadcasted in some way? Those were the things that he had issues with.

Static interference muffling calls or obscuring the screen. It was creepy for other people to deal with him on the phone and he knew it, which was why he didn’t use it much. Only doing so by mistake or when curiosity about a person or something got the better of him.

He just watched Mono enthusiastically walk with Haru. It was so nice that the little blue chicobo didn't try to wander off on its own or be mean to the boy. But he paused when he got the frown. "I can take a look at it sometime if you want." However, the final say so was going to have to come from Mono and that was totally fine really.

But for now he just kept walking with the boy, knowing they were just going back to their homes. Yuki of course would make sure that Mono got home first, especially since he was younger so his safety was more important.

Meeting up tomorrow gave him something to look forward to though, and that was something he was more than happy to do.

Mono doubted anyone looking at it would do much good, he was almost entirely certain it had to do with him and his strange powers… But talking about what he could do was hit and miss with people so far, and very hard to explain in a world where he couldn’t really use them.

But Yuki was his friend, and it wasn’t like he could make things worse with the phone. “If you wanna? I don’t mind if you look at it.” He finally responded, though his tone might’ve conveyed some uncertainty about the outcome. All it would yield was a perfectly functional phone until it was put back in his own hands. Then again, there was a small part of the child that kept hoping someone would be able to tell him something, or recognize what he could do and why it affected things the way it did. So he would always say yes, in a childish way, hoping for a new result.

Walking back to the apartment buildings, Mono kept an eye out on the world around them as the sun continued to sink. Mono would let Yuki escort him to the grey building… And then probably sneak out and follow him to the blue building to make sure he and Haru got back okay, as if it were his duty to make sure nothing bad happened. His own age and the fact that people were meant to make sure he was safe was something that he sometimes forgot, and was having a hard time adjusting to.

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Autumn fruits

🎃 🎃 🎃 🎃

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