lostcarnival | [your best friend] intensifies (open)

[your best friend] intensifies (open)

Who: Flowey and YOU!
When: B1: D1-6!
Where: Outside of his festive Children's Entertainment Booth!
What: Just you and Flowey, meeting each other and making friends!
Warnings: Flowey is (SPOILER) not nice.

[ Back here, after signing his contract, Flowey’s gone and raided the performer’s storage (which he had to burrow to find over and over again). He’s made dozens of balloon animals. Perhaps in one of his years resetting, he did it to stave off boredom. How he does it with no arms, absolutely no one can guess. “HOWDY! - ｆｌｏｗｅｙ” Is written on each and every indistinguishable bipedal animal that could resemble an annoying dog and he’s handing them out with a happy greeting! ]

“Howdy! You’re not the ugliest person on the planet, but you better hope he doesn’t die! Nice to meet you!”

“Howdy! You look like a mistake only the chaos of the universe could make, pleased to make your acquaintance!”

“Howdy! You’re kind of like Rapunzel, but instead of letting your hair down, you’re letting everyone down in your life! It’s so good to make new friends!”

“Howdy! I’m Flowey. Flowey the Flower! I’m an experiment gone wrong and I’m still less of a mistake than you! Have a nice day, happy to finally say hello!”

[ Do you… come up and get your custom insult?

Or do you defend the honor of someone he just insulted? ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

....Do you....want to be happy? Or are you faking happy...
[She honestly can't tell. Normally it's obvious. Extremely obvious, in fact. It's...Strange. .........................Well she'll take the balloon. But more importantly.] ................. ....Alumni means.... ....A student that isn't a student anymore, right? [she eventually asks, blinking.] ..................Hospitals aren't schools.

[God, Flowey, get a hold of yourself.] ....I guess it's right for if it's just the school though.... [She's not going back there, she's Pretty Sure. Or at least not to learn.]

...What is it? [She adds, holding the balloon animal itself forward.]

You're way too chatty, kid! Did you miss the joke? You look like you're dying. That's the joke. You look like you're missing an IV bag and a hospital gown. And an alumni is someone who's graduated, in this case, from the hospital... so like, you look like a dead child.

[ Frustrated-sounding. ] Now it doesn't even sound like a joke anymore! I just sound like a sicko. What a drag.

.....I didn't think you sounded 'sick'. ....There's a lot of things I still have to learn, so it's okay to explain things, isn't it? [Encouraging, perhaps?]

....I got poisoned, so I'm still getting better. ...You still didn't tell me what animal this is though. [She holds out the balloon, Waiting.]

I'm not sick, I-- oh, forget it.

It's a dog. An annoying dog. A really annoying white dog who does nothing for anybody. Now it's your annoying dog.

[There is, for a moment, a rather...Blank stare.]

.....Why do you only have those two? [She finally asks. It's pretty clear what 'two' she means.]

...

You're some kind of empath?

[ He sounds annoyed, to be read like that so easily. Your emotions should be obligatory privacy! ]

...That's the word people are using for it, I guess.

...mmm...they're both like...small parts of being angry and happy, I guess? It's not right for happy though...

If you're so smart, why don't you guess?

[ Puts on a biiiiig GRIN. ]

What are the two feelings I have?

I didn't say I was smart.

....I said there's things I'm still learning.

....I don't even know what most feelings are...I'm still trying to learn how to feel them again.

[Literally, though without the legitimate incapability. It's complicated. She is, at least, rather unaffected by his...grin. It just makes her think of Foster, really.]

[ Well, if anything gets him to stop in his troll-y tracks, it's someone just like him. ]

You lost all your feelings and you're trying to get them back?

[ A pause. ] Why not ask the Ringmaster?

[She shakes her head.] ....I didn't lose them.

....I stopped feeling them. ...it was dangerous, I think... ...because by not feeling, I could listen to what I was told to do.

....That meant staying alive.

...

[ His expression is unreadable for a moment. Not feeling in order to follow orders must mean the orders themselves were pretty nasty and unbecoming. Someone forced that on himself?

Pity is trying to break free from the sealed emotions within him but not yet. ]

Well, you can do whatever you want here, right? Gain as many of them as you like, even the terrible ones! The miserable ones! ~☆Happiness means nothing without feeling despair!☆~

[The more that emotion starts to Actually Exist, the more she's going to squint, Flowey.

As is.] .....That's not how it works....

....It's more like... ...I could feel something, now. ....But I have to find what makes me feel that, still. ....I definitely have a lot of bad ones? ....But finding things that I 'like' is still hard.

[Mostly because she sort of keeps treating everything with Logic, until it's crammed in her face. Like this balloon. It's sort of nice, she supposes.]

...Happiness and Despair though... ....is that because you wouldn't know what the other one was, if you only had one thing?

That's right. If you were always happy, you wouldn't understand what it was like to not be happy... so even being just happy would become boring. Even the most positive emotion. That's why you have to hurt. In the big ways, like losing people, and in the small ways, like finding out someone ate your leftovers out from the fridge you were really looking forward to.

[ 'Pity' is starting to beat harder, because she doesn't understand that much... but the circumstances of their regains are the same. ]

Uhhh...

[ He takes his cutest balloon animal, a realistic puppy. He waves it at her, making it look like it's doing woof-woof noises, and then he sets it back down and pops it with a friendliness pellet. ]

Like, do you feel bad for the balloon animal?

................No. [She does frown though.] ....It's not even alive, it's a balloon. [What were you even doing, with that.]

Mmmh.... ....I guess I've had the big hurts... ....do people really get hurt about the leftovers though..?

[Yes Reira, and you'll find out when someone eats all of your candy.]

Yeah. That'll happen to you regardless of whether you set it up or not.

...

How about a story?

A story? [Oh, well. She looks to the ground beside the other.] ...Is it ok to sit down, then?

Yeah. I guess it is my job to tell stories to children here, after all...

bgm.mp3

In a mountain that hid a bunch of monsters from the rest of humanity, who lost a war against them and were sealed away forever...
A little kid fell inside its peak. Normally, no one could survive that fall, but this kid did. They yelled out for help.
The, uh... the king's son heard the human's call.
He brought the human back to the castle he lived in, naturally. Because he was a prince? Over time, the prince and the human became like siblings. And even the King and Queen treated that little kid like their own. Talk about a lack of grudges, right?
Because a human and a monster could get along so well as siblings of the royal family, the world beneath the mountain had hope.
But nothing lasts forever. The kid got sick-- really sick. They really wanted to see the golden flowers of their hometown.
The next day.

The next day...
The human died.

The Prince, who was totally broken up about it, absorbed the human's soul. Because monsters could do that, yeah?
He transformed into something so powerful it could cross the barrier that held the monsters in like it was nothing!
He carried the human's body into the sunset. The nearest village of humans had a bunch of golden flowers, like the kid had asked for in their last request.
Suddenly, screams rang out. The villagers, of course, thought the Prince killed the kid, what with holding his body near the bed of flowers and all.
This Prince, with all the power in the world to hurt the humans who'd hurt the child enough to come down the mountain, but he didn't do a thing. He let the humans lash and attack him and stumbled home with their blades sticking out of his back.
When he got back, he bit the dust and collapsed. Literally, he became dust because of how long his form had held out.

So the kingdom fell into total despair, and their parents had lost two children in one night. Their birth child and adopted one. The humans took away their hope again, see? By proving they were vicious, cruel monsters.

The King restored everyone's hope by asserting that every human who fell into the mountain would be killed for their soul, and with enough, the barrier would be broken and all monsters would be free.

But that's not the end of the Prince. Did you know? I hear the moment before he shattered into dust, he was taken to make a deal with the Ringmaster, but only under the proposition that he disguise himself from his friends and work hard.

Can you imagine? The Prince, being here? Hahahaha... well, that's why it's a fairytale.

[If Reira is anything, it is patient. One has to be patient to go through what she has, after all, but at least it means she can exhibit that patience for stories now, as well.

Reira listens-but it's hard to see her face soften. It's harder still as he comes to the end. But finally her eyes seem to droop a little-with understanding perhaps? Something else, even? Something-]

...Is it ok to hug flowers? [She asks, seemingly out of the blue.] ....There's only two feelings right now-so I can't ask if you like hugs, right now. ....but is it okay, anyway?

....The story made me think of a friend. [Only the soul merging bit, perhaps. And the humans hurting monsters....maybe... ....Only those bits, but they're Bits.]

Yeah. I'm Kid's Entertainment here, so if I couldn't handle some kid putting their hands on me, I'd be pretty bad at my job.

[ It's his way of saying he doesn't care. Maybe it'll give her a new feeling? Whatever hugging flowers does for someone, he means.

He realizes his subtext isn't subtle but he doesn't have 'secretive' back either, so. SOL there. ]

...You could lie, probably. [She'd know you were lying, probably, but still.

Still. She does her best to carefully give the other a hug, with gentle arms.] ...but...

...'m glad. ...Sometimes people who need hugs don't take hugs, either.

I just told you a story? Why on earth do you think I need a hug? People tell stories all the time.

[ He feels like.. what hugging a particularly thick flower feels like. He can't hug back, but that's okay. ]

....People tell stories for reasons, [She answers, eventually pulling back to wipe at her eyes a little.] ....And....

...Especially stories like that... ....It's never something made up, or told from someone else. [That much, she knows. But....she ponders something, wondering if it's fair for her to know something like that, but not the reverse.]

....Neh. ...Even if your job is stories, and mine isn't... ...Should I tell you about my friend, too? ...So that it's 'fair'?

[ She's wiping her eyes? Well, at least she's feeling something, right? Even if he didn't change. Did she just imply she knows he's the Prince in that story? Or one of the people in it?

...

Aside from a few people, what does it matter if someone knows? ]

You don't have to do anything out of fairness. Life isn't fair. If you want to tell a story, you should do it because you want to.

I know it's not fair, [She shrugs.] ....That just means that, when you can be fair, it's better to make it fair, I think. [....She's come out a rather 'good egg', for being emotionless, all things considered. But...]

...My friend... ....Did a lot of bad things, [She begins.] ....I don't think he knows I'm his friend, either. I don't think he thinks anyone is his friend, now, [She adds, frowning as she stares ahead for her story.] ...But... his friends before everything bad happened, were Duel monsters.

[To this, she starts rifling in her pocket for something, while continuing.] ....Duel monsters... ....They don't have normal bodies. They couldn't have them, without 'Solid Vision'-but even without that, they had spirits. They had feelings, and voices.

....And all of them liked to fight. In the kind of fight where no one is hurt, and everyone can have fun instead. Like... ....I guess people call it a 'spar'? ...Or maybe a 'play fight'? Or a 'play'.

...They liked to make others happy with their fights. That's the important part.

[She gets her deck out, fanning it for Flowey. They're....odd cards, but probably not 'odd' to him at least. One hopes, anyway.]

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