Skip Navigation
|
|
Post by Chester and Shiro on Jun 6, 2021 23:49:56 GMT
Where would one even start?
Chester knew how to do scientific research. The 24-year-old young man held a bachelor's degree in Zoology and was even continuing his studies at UT. They didn't let just anybody into University of Tokyo. If his curiosity led him down the path to learn about animal psychology (and it certainly did - just not right now), he knew exactly how to find the answer to his question and how to evaluate the credibility of its source. The issue was that Chester wasn't exactly asking about animal psychology. Oh, he knew plenty about that already anyway; besides his studies, Chester was also a fledgling keeper at the Ueno Zoo, where he learned more in an hour than a book could teach him in a week or a class could teach him in, well, four years. No, he needed something he couldn't ask his supervisor about.
Even though the young man's parents were both of Japanese descent, the fluent Japanese in which he spoke still had a strong American accent to it as he asked the Mothmon acting as a librarian, "Excuse me. Where could I find books on digimon psychology?" He asked this in a calm and even tone despite the gattling gun hanging off the librarian's abdomen; he knew by now to accept these things as another part of digimon anatomy, like a Meramon's fire or Assaultmon's own guns - inconsequential things, as long as they weren't meant for you.
Mothmon was only too happy to answer, "Check upstairs. Nonfiction is upstairs, and the STEM section is a little more toward the back right corner. What's your interest?"
Chester nodded with a smile and a "Thank you," without answering the question. As comfortable as most digimon probably were with fangs and firearms, he wasn't sure how comfortable they would be about the fact that the hulking ursid following him didn't have the faculties to judiciously use them. Wild digimon, feral digimon, digimon who didn't speak and socialize like humans... they understandably didn't fit in well with a civilized society like this one. Shiro wasn't doing himself any favors by regarding everything around himself with suspicion and sniffing his environment like a common animal. The Tamer absolutely knew what the massive bear could do, and to be honest with himself he was not sure it was a responsible thing to do to take him inside a public place like this. Even the young man felt just a little uneasy turning his back on his partner our of respect for the fury he'd seen an unhinged polar bear digimon unleash.
It wasn't that Shiro was stupid - no, no, absolutely not. The Polarmon knew full well that aggression in this place would probably have unpleasant consequences. That was about the extent of his moral reasoning, however, at least as far as Chester could tell. If something spooked or angered the wild digimon, well, Chester didn't like the odds that end well.
"I suppose while the Great Moving Library is closed, this is our next best chance. Ugh, this place has a completely different organization system, though..." The only sign that Shiro heard Chester was a grunt. While Chester knew it was an acknowledgement in response, he had no idea of knowing whether Shiro actually understood such a complex, dense way of communicating information as human verbal language. Shiro definitely understood more simple commands, but whether he had higher faculties and to what degree... well, he supposed that was what they were there to find out as the boy started scanning shelves.
|
|
|
|
Post by supesman on Jun 7, 2021 1:58:10 GMT
"Excuse me, can you direct me to the...hehe-haha, Marigold stop I'm trying to talk to this person. Hehe, you're not small enough to fit on my back anymore, quit it!" Would be the first thing that Zack was able to get out of his mouth as he stumbled in the door, more falling through the big double doors than actually walking through them. The reason for it would be pretty clear to see. A Fanbeemon, eyes grinning and sparkling in playful delight, a jaunty crimson scarf around her neck was clambering on his back as if trying to replace the studious looking backpack he was wearing. Her dull pointed limbs poking at his ribs and stomach making him snicker and giggle as he was tickled all over by the giant bug. He managed to push her off of him, leaving her buzzing to a hover in the air as he rested, panting with his chest against the front desk, holding up a finger for the Mothmon to give him a second. "Uh, yes, I would like to see if you have a specific book for me. "The Care and Feeding of a Brat."" He said, making Marigold look at him with a playful scowl that he responded to with sticking out his tongue, laughing off the joke question. "Alright, alright, seriously. Do you have an Atlases of the Digital World? Something for a complete beginner if you don't mind." He said, wiping tears of laughter from the corners of his eyes as Mothmon was giggling a bit too.
"Ah..hmm, yes. Reference books are down that way." It said, pointing with one of its many limbs. Zack nodded, sketching quick, two finger salute to the librarian before wandering off with his Digimon buzzing just behind him, his feet scuffing along on the carpet.
"Woah, dad. And I thought you had a lot of books in the dorm." The buzzing insect Digimon said, clearly carried away by the wonder of scanning row upon row of different books, each title seeming to bring up some kind of new question in her mind.
"Oh I do, marigold, don't doubt that. it's just that books in places like this are...yknow...useful." He said, hunching over the waist height shelf in order to pull out a large Atlas and Almanac of the Digital World. He walked it over to the table just behind where Chester and Shiro were scanning the shelves for their own books.
"But I thought you said that your books were the inspiration for that Digi Ri-" She began to say before Zack reached out with both hands and clasped her mandibles shut. Zack would look up at Chester and Shiro if they would turn around and would only offer a wide grin and a dismissive chuckle.
"Kids, always have such wild imaginations." he blurted out, immediately kicking himself for responding to that sitcom ploy with just about the most cliché piece of dialogue he could have. An obsession with comic book melodrama did have many downsides, one of which being that it tended to get certain lines of thinking stuck in your head. He let his hands fall away from her mouth as he flipped the book open, scanning down over the words and pictures in front of him, every so often sketching or jotting something of interest down on the notepad he brought in with him. Marigold settled onto the table beside him, without a humanoid figure she couldn't exactly sit in a chair so she let herself lay out on the tabletop, her head propped up on her front limbs, back most limbs kicking behind her as she read along with him.
|
|
|
|
Post by Chester and Shiro on Jun 8, 2021 21:51:10 GMT
Chester acknowledged that there was another human in the room with a look. After all, it wasn't every day that you just stumble into another human in this world. But besides that he didn't interact with Zach and Marigold, at least at first. He was a bit too busy. Introduction to Human Psychology was the first title he'd noticed, which was absolutely the opposite of what he was after, but at least he was vaguely in the right direction. At least it wasn't the geography shelf that had been directly behind him. I'm... actually kind of curious though, he wondered as he scanned over that title, Reading about your own species from the perspective of another. It'd be trippy for sure. Probably means I shouldn't bother looking for the word 'digimon.'
As the young man scanned on, he still didn't bother to turn round even when Marigold almost blew the other person's secret identity sky high. It was the interruption of that same speech which, ironically, drew his attention away from his research. The interruption was abrupt enough to draw his attention... and the physical act involved in silencing Marigold was enough draw the Ire of the Polarmon Shiro. The bear snapped his attention to the pair and rumbled so low that even at this library-appropriate volume, it still felt like it was coming up through the floor straight to one's chest. The Tamer knew his was an expression of anxiety more than aggression, which was why all he did to address it was let one hand rest against his broad, fuzzy side. There was enough fur there to bury his hand.
By contrast, the human would uneasily smile, turning his attention too late to notice that Marigold was just being unrestrained. "Well," he'd start, addressing Zach, "If you're looking to exercise a child's imagination, you're in the right place." Upon remembering what section they were in, he'd add, "Well, not exactly the right place." Chester knew that continuing to interact with the strangers in an even, casual voice would help Shiro realize they were OK, which was one reason the otherwise introverted guy added, "So what do you like to read, sweetie?" for Marigold. The other reason was, well, now they had made eye contact. He was committed.
|
|
|
|
Post by supesman on Jun 8, 2021 23:55:51 GMT
"Hey, hey woah, WOAH!" Marigold said after Zack had removed his hands from her mandibles, holding out two of her long legs to gesture for Shiro to stay back. "I'm fine, see? I'm fine, he's fine, we're both fine together." She said, shuffling on the table top to stand slightly in front of Zack, using one of her back legs to grip his hand. She looked more than a little tense about the situation in front of her, squaring off with the beat not because she intended to pick a fight, more the exact opposite, she wanted to keep her father safe in case the bear staring them down was getting the wrong idea.
Marigold sorta gawked at Chester, her eyes rolling back and forth across the shelves upon shelves of books that seemed to go on forever. Her wings buzzed, picking her up off the floor and scanning over the rows of books, humming slightly under her breath as she tried to locate something that interested her.
"Uhh, I don't really know, sir. My dad usually reads to me, I'm still sort of working on it." She said, settling down back on the table and nuzzling her head into Zack's side, prompting him to pet his palm down over her head which made her eyes softly shut as she relaxed the tension in her muscles, at least half content that Shiro wasn't going to pounce in that moment.
"She...didn't have anybody to teach her before we met, and I'm not exactly adjusted to this whole parenting thing yet. I was hoping to find some books on how to raise a digimon while we were hear." He explained, a slight note of anxiety in his voice, looking down at her as his hand ran over the back of her head and between her wings. It was clear that his concern for not only her wellbeing but also her future under his care was one of the things that occupied his thoughts most often. "But it is a good idea." He said, pushing himself up from his seat. "You wanna help me see if I can find the books I'm looking for, and then we can do the same? The lives that we both seem to have stumbled into would be easier if we had some connections to call on, you know?" He offered with a soft, genuine smile.
|
|
|
|
Post by Chester and Shiro on Jun 13, 2021 0:12:33 GMT
Marigold's attempt at deescalation had mixed results. Her body language was not conducive to it. Responding to an anxious ursid by standing her ground and looking ready for a scrap, to Shiro, invited one. If Marigold is anxious, then Shiro should have been anxious. And yet, he was not hostile. The larger digimon watched Marigold carefully and regarded her with suspicion. However, between Marigold's actual words and Chester more insistent hand that balled into a fist and pulled on some fur, the polar bear digimon at least quit his anxious rumbling noise. That was fast rewarded with Chester unclenching his fist and stroking the creature's side instead.
"I suppose it couldn't hurt," Chester answered Zack's last question with a nonchalant tone and a casual tip of the head. He didn't even go on and address the potential absurdity of a human looking for books about digimon parenting. Chester still didn't have a reason to think that the book was for Zack himself, but even if that were true, his thinking was that he of all people was hardly in a position to judge anyone else's relationship with their digimon. With one glance back at Shiro, the young man supposed he could afford a slight detour from his mission when asked. What was the rush? Besides, Chester was thus far coming up empty.
"You'll probably have an easier go of it than me. The books around here are written for digimon. You don't have to look for a special parenting book in that sense, just the 'normal' sort." The young man would start following Zack just then, Shiro closely in tow without a word. "Sorry about Shiro just now, but he's not an aggressive guy. He's just not... well-socialized." That became ever more clear as the bear, without regard for Zack's personal space, would follow him very closely and inspect the other boy with intrusive sniffs. Come to think of it, Chester had no idea at all what Shiro's former social life was ever like; he couldn't exactly ask. "And my name's Chester. By the way-" the next bit of this dialogue came with a switch from Japanese to English, which budding zoologist spoke with the fluency and ease of a native speaker. "-that sounds like the States I'm hearing in your accent."
|
|
|
|
Post by supesman on Jun 13, 2021 1:33:34 GMT
Marigold didn't completely relax even as Chester pulled Shiro down from pouncing on the jittering bee in front of him. Her eyes were still focused on the fuzzy murder machine in front of her until Zack reached out a hand and set it on her back, letting the touch of his hands soak heat into her glittering gold exoskeleton. She did decompress a little after that, sighing and looking up at him as they began to walk the aisles looking for the kinds of books that would be helpful to either of them. Marigold, in her youthful energy darted forward, buzzing up to the highest shelves and scanning along the spines of books that would be utterly boring to her but she was invested in the activity of at least searching around the library. That gave Zack a chance to talk to Chester and Shiro candidly without Marigold overhearing.
"Don't worry about it. Neither is she." He said with a slightly rueful smile and a sigh, placing his hands on his hips and shaking his head when Chester talked about socialization. "She was a stray, basically, abandoned by whatever birth parents or group she had and left to wander until her first life ended in short order and she wound up in the middle of my dorm room." He said, drawing Chester's attention that Zack's eyes never left the spot Marigold was in, following the shimmer of her gold and bronze body and her bright red scarf to always keep track of her, no matter what. "She's this big...bundle of abandonment and anxiety so she just latched on to the first person she saw who was willing to really act like a parent or guardian. And that person is me, for better or worse. I'm trying my best." He said, letting slip his own anxieties about not being the kind of person that Marigold really needs.
Marigold began picking books off the shelves, anything that might be at all interesting to her, piling them up quickly in front of the spot where Zack had been sitting as Zack bent over and picked out a book with a Puromon with a pacifier on the cover.
"Seems like I found what I'm after." He said, switching back to English at the same time as Chester, surprising his conversation partner with a thick but still parsable New England accent. "Yea, sorry if my Downeaster is a bit thick, the only other English speakers I talk to lately are family. Come on, we should keep looking for a book for you two."
|
|
|
|
Post by Chester and Shiro on Jun 14, 2021 2:24:55 GMT
It was fortunate that in a library that had to accommodate creatures that were much larger than people on the regular, the space between the shelves was enough for Shiro to get around unencumbered. Less fortunate, that same aspect meant Chester felt as if he couldn't reach most of the contents on his own, nor could he easily scan them if they were too high. Nonetheless, he tried his hardest to help Zack out by following behind and double checking all the other boy's work. As it turned out, that wasn't necessary.
Chester knew he hadn't asked for the other person's life story, but he was a little too polite to express that. Chester kept the conversation going in English since it was apparently both their first language anyway. "I doubt it'll be as easy as that," Chester bemoaned as he headed back to where they'd just come from. "I'm not sure what I'm looking for. I know what I want to know but... not how to find out." Chester would continue to frown as his eyes drifted upward. Maybe he could have asked for Shiro's help in looking at the highest shelves if the brute could actually read, but that was right out. "I guess I'm kind of like you. I'm not a parent. Shiro's alone, but if I was gone he could feed himself and get on with life without me, I bet." When Shiro interrupted his inspection of Zack to snap his attention back to Chester, the young man added, "N-not that I was planning on it!" This answer seemed to satisfy the bear, who returned to idly lumbering behind everyone.
"But now I've got him and he's my responsibility. Can't find any rhyme or reason for it, but that's the natural world for you. The question is always 'how,' not 'why.' And he knows that when things get rough-" Chester paused long enough for one hand to blindly grope the space behind himself. Somehow it wound up on the bear digimon's snout, which Chester would go on to rub. He wasn't gentle or soft about it either; he knew he had to put some muscle into it. "-I'm his responsibility."
"You've probably noticed he's not very chatty. Ever been attacked by digimon that seemed totally wild and uncivilized? I think that's what I've got going on here." In that moment Chester picked up a book entitled On The Mind of the Digital Life Form: What Differentiates Us From Them. The title alone was moderately promising, but it turned out 'us' and 'them' was actually 'digimon' and 'humans.' An interesting read, but not the objective. Chester sullenly placed it back. "What I'd really like is to know how they get that way, but I'll settle for knowing more about them as they are."
|
|
|
|
Post by supesman on Jun 14, 2021 3:22:50 GMT
Zack took a long pause to take stock of what Chester said, reaching out with one hand, carefully and holding it in front of the massive snow bear's nose, just being as even and non threatening as possible in order to let the bear take stock of him to whatever degree he required. He really wasn't a threat, at least he hoped not, and Marigold was only a threat against her better judgement and when all of her worst insecurities came up to bite. He did finally find something to say to Chester after a while though.
"Marigold's not alone. And she won't be as long as I'm breathing." He said, his eyes following the wide, high arc of the bee as she finally seemed to have gotten her fill at around a dozen books of different shapes and sizes. "God willing, if that sort of language even applies around here, she won't be alone after I'm gone either. Forgive me for being naïve but all of us. "Tamers" or whatever, we have to rely on one another rather than pushing away. I see you as a member of the same strange fraternity as me." He said, smiling, turning his expression between both Shiro and Chester.
He said, looking back at Marigold as she admired the colorful covers of her chosen books with a childlike wonder, which produced a smile from Zack despite his anxieties and worries.
"Neither of us are really fighters, either. Despite the airs that she puts on when her worst aspects are at the front of her head. We don't want to fight people or Digimon unless we have to, to protect ourselves or others." He said, peering over Chester's shoulder in order to get a look at the book that he had picked out. "I hate to play the downer but why some creature are sentient and some aren't is one of those questions that philosophers on our world, and I'm willing to bet this one too, have been asking for as long as we've had the words to ask. Add on whatever weird layers this world has and it's hard to imagine anyone has come up with concrete answers, or ever will." He said, reaching out, hesitating for a moment before placing a hand on Chester's shoulder. "But just because it's not likely doesn't mean you should ever stop trying, if it's for Shiro's best life, and you care as much as I think you do, nothing's really ever totally impossible." He said, patting with that hand and making sure to make the gesture gentle and slow enough to let Shiro know that there was no threat in the gesture.
"Dad! Come on! Read with me!" Marigold shouted in the particular impatient tone particular to children as Zack turned to face her, holding up one finger to signal her to wait, he was going to help Chester and Shiro search for as long as they cared to.
|
|
|
