#Off Course

[lightrecon-blog]

Off-Course. | Dulse & Professor Willow [ Winter Event Thread ]

Winter Event Thread | @profwillow

Zossie had had one mission in mind for Dulse that day, uttered in three words that were accentuated by a flick of her wrist and her pointer finger waggling — “Just. Have. Fun!”  The mission... seemed easy enough, but the moment he decided to commit this venture to a mission was, well, when it all fell apart. The issue being — Dulse had... a very hard time having ‘fun’ for most situations; with his mind rewired as it was, he found himself at the beck and call of the next mission Phyco gave to him.

He was a creature of objectives, rules, designations. Being told ‘just have fun’ just... wasn’t good enough. There needed to be a substance to this fun, something that would entail fun. Go to a theme park; go to the mall; watch a movie, but even then, it wasn’t that simple. What would he do at a theme park? What mall would he go to? What movie would he watch? These were never things that Dulse had decided on his own; frankly, the thought of having such an open-ended objective frightened him, especially when it seemed so pointless.

He wasn’t quite sure what ‘fun’ would entail, how he would go about achieving it, and why he was doing it at all. Now, Zossie claimed that it was to better help him acclimate to the Alolan lifestyle of laidback fun for all, but Dulse simply didn’t understand. And after being left on his own with those three little words, he found himself... quite panicked. 

What if he wasn’t able to achieve ‘fun’? What would he do then? Certainly, Dulse was used to open-ended missions; after all, the mission that brought him here to this Earth was simply the mission to ‘quell Necrozma,’ and even then he found himself quite flustered in situations where Zossie did not, when unexpected changes or curveballs were thrown their way. Only in those situations, his emotions swelled into standoffishness and anger — though, he still holds the belief that he was within reason to be so cross.

This, however... he had no excuse. No excuse but to look at the process of ‘having fun’ as seriously as possible. After all, in his state, Zossie was technically his superior — doubled by the agreement of Phyco that he “really did need to live a little bit,” he was at a loss. So if he was going to achieve this fun, he sought to do it in as efficient and accurate of a way as possible. He would not leave empty-handed, with work half-assed just to get it over with. He would do it, and he would do it thoroughly, which only lead to the belief that he would simply... thoroughly enjoy himself.

But that... is where he was wrong.

The more he attempted to find a singular thing that was ‘fun,’ the more he found himself failing his own mission. It was a conundrum, truly. He was supposed to be enjoying himself, but without a specific thing in mind, he found himself researching activities to do around Alola, which ate away at his ‘fun time’ since it was spent doing non-fun things ( at least, as far as he had gathered from Zossie’s disapproving tone ). He was like a child lost at a supermarket, desperately searching for his parent that would be the answer to his questions; like a student giving a speech and constantly having to look to his teacher for reassurance that he was, in fact, doing the right thing. And Zossie would only shake her head with puffy cheeks and he would quickly realize he was doing it all wrong.

He found himself more stressed than enjoyed, which, in turn, made him realize he was failing his mission further, which caused more stress. It was... a rabbit hole he did not expect to go down.

It came to the point where he was overanalyzing every aspect of ‘fun’ so much that Zossie sent him on his way outside of their hotel room, and he was stranded, all by himself, to figure out what it all meant. And boy... was he lost. So he sought to find his answers by means of the locals; after all, that was one aspect of it, wasn’t it? To seek to assimilate with the Alolan people? And what better way to learn what Alolans like than to... simply ask, and follow along with their traditions, and do what they do?

When he’d asked the question “What do you do around here for... ‘fun’?” he’d certainly said it in a different tone that wouldn’t warrant anyone thinking he was snide; perhaps a lost tourist — what, with him dressed head to toe and wearing a scarf in the middle of the Alolan heat — or someone uncultured with Alolan ways ( which, to be fair, was true ). It was here, from some of the few locals within Ula’ula Island, that he found out about an Alolan and Unovan tradition known as... Christmas.

Now, he wasn’t sure of the origins; no matter how much he prodded for research, he couldn’t find why. Well, he could, but it lead to places such as religion and faith — all things that he didn’t dare dabble into due to confusion of the concept of human-based faith as a whole — that ended up with one of these religions saints being bastardized into a fat red man who rides on... flying Sawsbuck, delivering presents to good children with the help of Deliberd in tow, and giving gifts and merriment so long as he is appeased with good behavior and... cookies.

Like he suspected, it was confusing enough to make his nose curl, and apparently his expression was vacant and foggy enough that the woman telling the lore to him realized that he was a goner. But needless to say, he found himself fascinated with how far human imagination can bring them — what, firstly with imagination creating belief, which in turn glorified this Saint Nicholas so much that he became separated from the concept of faith, and therein assimilated with the concepts of... warmth, cookies, mint, family, and gift-giving.

He found it all absolutely... fascinating, but it was not what he ( or Zossie, at least ) would consider fun. However, by the end of his conversation with the Alolan Christmas woman, she introduced him to the concept of sleigh riding, mimicking this grand tale of Santa Claus riding off on his horde of magically-flying Sawsbuck. Except this ride was within the realm of reality, so the Sawsbuck did not fly, and they were imported by a man who lived in Unova. Also there were... only two. The intended plan was for the two Pokemon to hike down a path on Mount Lanakila, starting with one of their tamers at the top, to one of their tamers at the bottom to relieve passengers.

This seemed well and good, and on Dulse’s part ( now appropriately dressed for the snowy weather up high ), he finally believed that something within the ‘seasonally-appropriate cheer’ would be able to warrant some of this ‘fun,’ but his lukewarm excitement was frozen over at the barker and his silly red pointed hat and fake white beard. “Sorry son, you need two people to ride on the sleigh ride!” with an exaggerated waggle of his two fingers in a V.

Dulse wasn’t sure what the necessity was for the costume or look, but nonetheless, he found himself disappointed, ready to start over from square one, or perhaps even dare to call this mission of ‘fun’ a failure. But he found himself in luck... of... sorts, anyway. That same boisterous-voiced ride-owner happened to give a very loud and nasally “Buuuuuuuuut, lucky for you, my good fellow, we have another person here who also didn’t have a ride! So what do you know; you have your sleigh ride partner after all!”

Dulse found himself... hesitant. Perhaps one of his most glaring weaknesses in terms of acclimating to human life in Alola was how painfully unsocial he was — and how little he was used to human interaction, or interaction of any kind, for that matter. But it wasn’t as though he had any option to put a word in edgewise ( him, or the unfortunate other single individual, for that matter ) before the man had both of the smalls of their backs in each hand, and pushed them together into the sleigh vehicle. Luckily for them both, there was plenty of space within it that Dulse was immediately able to scoot himself over to the far side.

The man before him, however, still seemed to be stilted in protest before the Santa impersonator spoke over him in a boomed voice, and had the two Sawsbuck already on their way down their path. With a large wave from the ride-owner, the two were off before even recognizing the situation they were randomly thrust into, and Dulse folded his arms over his chest uncomfortably, only looking edgewise at the man before him. He was dressed for adventure, and bearing silver hair, wrapped up in an overcoat and layers of clothes covering his legs as his breath ghosted out nervously. He wondered briefly what the man’s necessity was for wearing such layers, seeing as how there was no sun in sight to defend himself from. The man looked at his hands as well, not quite meeting Dulse’s eye, or even his direction.

Dulse did not blame him; after all, he was doing quite the same thing.

A few moments into their trek, and it was just the two of them now, far away from the fake-bearded man and the money Dulse had found himself giving him. He felt the need to cut through the silence, in some way, shape or form, so he finally cleared his throat. “I must ask you... are you having... um. Fun?”