Tasslehoff Burrfoot is not a thief (tas_wanderlust) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2016-07-15 16:31:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, nico robin, tasslehoff burrfoot |
Who: Tasslehoff and Robin
What: Tas wanders into Robin's antique shop
When: End of June
Where: Remember Yesterday
Rating/Warnings: Squeaky clean
Status: Complete
It was a beautiful day out. The sun was shining, the birds were singing. Of course, it seemed like every day in the Orange County was a beautiful day, except those days when it was raining blood or something equally as interesting.
Tas, for his part, was enjoying the day as he did nearly every day. Not being tied down by something silly like a job that ate up hours of his day was definitely a boon when it came to being able to check out every single thing the Orange County had to offer. Today, what the Orange County had to offer him was an antique shop.
Tas had always loved antiques. They were always so interesting, and while maybe he didn’t have much interest in what exactly an object’s history was, it was enough just to know that every object in an antique store had history of some sort. He was browsing the shelves, stopping every now and then to marvel at some strange anomaly, and if those strange anomalies happened to fall into the pouches he’d taken to wearing all along his belt well, that was no fault of his.
He let out a bit of a gasp when he saw a very beautiful hourglass that immediately made him think of Raistlin. He flipped it over and watched the sand fall from one end of the glass to the other, and as he watched he found himself wondering if such a thing was really safe sitting on this shelf where just anyone could come around and steal it. Or drop it! That would be a real tragedy. It was probably best if Tas just placed it in one of his pouches for safe keeping.
Robin was eyeing the newcomer into her shop carefully. She had taken to her Hana Hana no Mi powers quite easily, having been dreaming about them for nearly a year. Being able to sprout a part of her body practically anywhere she pleased had certainly come in handy. She could be busy in her store room and still keep an eye on the front of her shop easily. When she heard the tinkling of bells at the front entrance, she had done just that, a single eye appearing on the lip of one of the shelves just over head. When the man walked out of her field of vision, Robin withdrew the eye and produced a new one, following the man as he wandered around.
He didn’t appear as though he were up to no good. He wasn’t shifty or nervous, or constantly looking around to see if he was being watched, but the amount of pouches around his waist gave Robin pause. She also noted his ears. They were pointed at the tips, like an elf, perhaps, although, the man wasn’t quite what Robin imagined an elf would be like. Another Dreamer perhaps? Oh, Robin certainly hoped so.
She watched as the man picked up the heavy ornate hourglass to look at. A frown creased her lips when he - almost absently - stuck it into one of his pouches. “Tsk.” she shook her head in disappointment and turned to leave her storeroom, inventory apparently having to wait for another time. “Dos Fleur,” she murmured. The eye above Tas vanished and immediately after, two full arms sprouted from the man’s shoulders. ”Clutch!” Then said arms then wrapped around the man and bent him backwards in such away to keep him from running off.
Robin emerged from the store room and approached the man shaking her head. When she spoke, her voice was rich and deep and carried a note of someone who grew up speaking English in parts of the world where English was not the main language. “I would certainly appreciate it if you put that back, good sir.”
Tas started in surprise when two arms sprouted from his shoulders, and by the time the folded him backwards, he was already trying to twist around so he could get a better look at them. The result was that he ended up falling to the ground with a bit of a grunt.
He stopped trying to get a better look at them when a woman came out into the hall. He wasn’t really sure what she wanted him to put back, but he still looked at her with unconcealed wonder. “Are these your arms?” Tas asked. “Well, I mean, I guess they wouldn’t be your arms since you still have arms attached to your shoulders, but they kind of look like your arms. Not that I can get a very good look at them. But I know they’re not my arms, and you’re the only other person here that I know about, and you did show up right after they appeared.”
Robin stared down at the little shoplifter on her floor. My, but he was a chatty one. Robin expected him to struggle and perhaps freak out about the disembodied arms holding him. Instead he surprised her by firing off a rapid round of questions and seeming to not at all be upset by his current situation. How odd.
“Yes, they’re mine.” She said. She crouched down next to him. She reached into one of his pouches and retrieved the hourglass. She turned it over and watched as the little grains of sand start to funnel from top to bottom. She turned her clear eyes from the treasure back to the man on the ground. “You were planning on paying for this, weren’t you?”
“I thought they were your arms!” Tas said cheerfully as she crouched next to him. “Is that magic? How wonderful! Do you think you could teach me to do that? Imagine how great at juggling I’d be if I had four arms and if I could just make them appear wherever I wanted! Do you juggle?”
Tas looked almost surprised when Robin pulled the hourglass out from his pouch. That being done, he managed to roll until he was sitting on his knees, since talking to someone when you were laying on the ground wasn’t very polite. “Oh that,” Tas said, looking at the hourglass. “That must have just fallen into my pouch when I turned around just now! How lucky! Can you imagine if it had fallen all the way to the ground? I bet it would be broken if that had happened. Hey, do you think you could let me go? This is kind of uncomfortable.”
“It isn’t magic,” Robin answered simply. “And no, I don’t juggle.” Though, the young man had made an interesting point. She could’ve been the world’s best juggler if she wanted to. Perhaps she should attempt to teach herself. Wouldn’t that be something?
Robin stood straight again and replaced the hourglass back onto the shelf and gently pushed it back away from the edge. Then she eyed her young captive carefull. He seemed harmless, and genuinely clueless that he had slipped the item away in his pouches. Unless he was attempting to distract her with his constant talking, but somehow Robin doubted that.
She turned to face him fully, her natural arms folded lightly over her chest. Well, she supposed she could release him. He didn’t seem dangerous, after all, and she had gotten the hour glass back. The arms around the young man popped out of existance. Robin tilted her head slightly, eyeing the young man’s ears again. They were either the most amazing set of prosthetics Robin had ever seen...or they were real. It was very possible this man was a Dreamer as well. He had just been talking about magic as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“I ate the hana hana no mi,” she told him, her voice taking on a somewhat more friendlier tone now. “It’s a Devil Fruit and it gave me the ability to sprout extra body parts.” She smiled a little. “It isn’t something I can really teach. You can get up now, if you want. Just put your hands in your pockets for the time being.”
While it was true that people generally didn’t notice that Tas was slipping all their worldly possessions into his pockets while he was yammering incessantly at them, that was entirely an unconscious decision. Tas just liked to talk, and ask questions, and make friends.
Tas gave a sigh of relief when the arms disappeared, and gave his shoulders an exaggerated roll. “Thanks!” he said cheerfully, as if she had done him a great favour instead of just releasing him from the bonds she’d placed on him herself. As he’d learned from the dreams, sometimes people would keep him restrained for months (or, at least, a few hours), and it was nice that now he hadn’t been held up (haha) for more than a couple of minutes.
Putting his hands in his pockets seemed like a really strange request, but this was her shop so Tas complied. “Oh! A Devil’s Fruit! That sounds so exciting! Do you have anymore that I can eat? I can pay you for them!” Or he could volunteer Raistlin to do it. He’d no doubt be excited to learn about something like that. Maybe she even had two - one for Tas to eat, and one for Raistlin to study. “How long should I keep my hands in my pockets?”
Robin blinked at the man and then she laughed. “I’m sorry to disappoint you,” she said, “But I don’t have any Devil Fruits here. They...don’t actually exist here, at least not that I’ve found. They come from…” she hesitated a moment. She had been dreaming for almost a year now and she still didn’t know the name of the world she Dreamed of. Even knowing the world came from (or had inspired, Robin wasn’t sure which was accurate) a Japanese manga, her continued research into the matter had never produced an actual </i>name</i> for the realm. “Well, they come from my Dreams,” she said at last. “Sorry, but there are simply none here. Though, I’m not sure I’d advise eating them even if they did exist here. They taste terrible and you never know what kind of power they will give you before you eat them. You could get something truly terrible, such as...well…” She looked thoughtful for a moment. “Well, it could turn you into a bug, or something like that.” She chuckled remembering the poor bastards from CP9. One of whom had been made to eat a fruit and had been turned into a giraffe. A giraffe, and he had fooled himself into thinking it was a fiercem creature.
“As for your hands, please keep them in your pockets for the remainder of your visit,” she instructed. “They have a tendency to wander and I have a lot of valuable and breakable items in here.” But goodness where were her manners? “My name is Robin Nico. I own this shop. And you are?”
“Oh,” Tas said, frowning a little. It was a little disappointing that there weren’t any in this world. Not that it was surprising that she was a dreamer, given all the extra arms. “Well, I don’t really want that. Not that being an insect wouldn’t have it’s merits, but my friend Raistlin can do that whenever he wants. He’s really good at turning people into cockroaches.” Tas had never seen it personally, but it seemed to be one of his favourite threats in the dreams so he was sure he was probably very good at it. “But imagine if I got a super cool power! Like being able to grow fifty feet tall! Or flying. You know, I think not knowing what you’re going to get makes it even better!”
Tas nodded, content to keep his hands in his pockets for the remainder of his stay in the shop. Though, she probably didn’t mean during introductions. He held his hand out for a handshake. “I’m Tasslehoff Burrfoot. My friends call me Tas though. And you own this shop? Wow! I thought you just worked here! This is a great shop!”
“Your friend can turn people into insects?” She asked. “Is he a magic user, or does he have some kind of special ability that just turns people into bugs?” And all things considered, that may not have been a bad power to have. Especially considering all the different kinds of insects there were in the world.
Robin tilted her head a little as Tas talked. She decided that even though she had caught him lifting an item from the shelf, that he wasn’t a bad sort. He was actually quite entertaining. She laughed a little behind her hand. “It’s very nice to meet you Tas. And thank you. I do love this shop very much and I’m glad you like it. What made you come in here? Were you looking for something or just curious?” Honestly Robin hoped Tas was just curious. He seemed the type who would be fascinated by the antiques she had, and maybe would be interested in hearing stories about them.
“Oh yeah, he does it all the time,” Tas said. “But he has all sorts of magic! He can make fireballs, and he even said that he would send me to space one day! He’s still working on that one though. Our dreams don’t really have space. I mean, obviously there’s space all around Krynn, and we have moons and stuff, but no one really knows what it’s like. I think there’s oxygen though. The moons are a very popular honeymoon spots for kender, you know.” At least, his Uncle Trapspringer’s first wife had gone to the moon without him.
“Oh, I’m just curious.” Tas said happily. “I just love old antiques! Well, mostly. The interesting ones, at least.”
“Krynn?” Robin asked, “Is that the name of the place you dream about? How many moons does it have?” There was only one moon in her Dream world and Robin thought it incredibly interesting to hear that Tas dreamed of a world with more than one. She wondered what effect having more than one moon would have on the ocean’s tides. Did the oceans on Krynn experience tides?
She tilted her head. Tas’s worled sounded incredibly interesting and for a moment Robin forgot all about showing him around her shop. “What are Kender and how do they get to the moons? Do they usually travel up into space?”
“Krynn has two moons!” Tas said cheerfully, and then he frowned. “No wait, I mean three. But only evil people can see the third one! It’s supposed to be black. I wonder what a black moon would look like, don’t you? Do you think i looks like it’s being lit by blacklight, like at some bars? And the other two are white and red! Krynn’s the name of the planet I live on in my dreams, but Ansalon is the continent and I live in a little town called Solace but I haven’t really stayed at home much in the dreams.
“I’m a kender!” Tas said cheerfully. “At least, in the dreams I am. But I guess I’m one here too! See the ears? But we’re a race of people who like to travel around and learn all about everything and go on exciting adventures! My Uncle Trapspringer and his wife took a potion! They just gulped it back and concentrated really hard and then poof! They were on the moon! Or she was, at least. See, Uncle Trapspringer took the potion and closed his eyes and thought really hard about the moon, but he must have gotten distracted because when he opened his eyes he was still in Kendermore but his wife had disappeared! She must have made it to the moon. We’re not sure if she’s still up there or not though.”
Robin tapped her chin thoughtfully. What would a black moon look like? At first Robin figured one wouldn’t be able to see it at all in the night sky, except for maybe a shadowy mass, which when you thought about it, was actually quite creepy. But having a phosphorescent moon sounded amazing! “You know, I’m not sure,” she said after a moment. “I’ve never thought about it before. But now that you mention it, I would very much like to see what a black moon looks like. Perhaps during the day though, I’m not sure if you’d be able to see it well at night.”
She tilted her head again and listened to Tas talk. She wasn’t sure what was more fascinating, the fact that Tas was of a race she had never heard of before or that his aunt had drank a potion that had sent her to the moon! Never in her most wildest dreams (and Robin had a lot of wild Dreams over the past year) had she ever heard of anything like that!
“Did they get the potion from a mage?” Robin asked, fascinated by Tas’s story. “Didn’t they get one to use to come back? How long has she been on the moon? Oh, the poor woman. I hope there was something up there for her to eat. Your uncle must have been devastated!”
“They must have,” Tas said cheerfully. “Not a whole lot of non-mage people could make a moon travelling potion, I’d think. It sure sounds like magic, doesn’t it?” Well, it had to be magic, obviously. “Oh, she’s been on the moon now for probably… hmm, ten years, I guess? Maybe fifteen. I’m not really sure when. I don’t think I went to their wedding. Old Uncle Trapspringer’s fine though! He went off to have a lot more adventures! And I wouldn’t worry about her having anything to eat. The moon’s made of cheese, after all! It’ll take her an awfully long time to run out of food, especially if she packed a bunch of crackers!”
“Oh, Tas, the moon isn’t really-” Robin stopped herself. Tas seemed perfectly happy and cheerful thinking his aunt was living on the moon eating cheese to her heart’s content. Robin wasn’t sure if he truly believed that or if it was a good story he had told himself so he wouldn’t have to think of his poor aunt up on the moon starving to death. What a horrible thought, indeed! “-a place for someone to be all by themselves. Though, I’m sure she probably has friends up there by now, right? After all, she and your uncle couldn’t have been the only ones traveling to the moon via magic potion.” Time to switch topics. “Do you go on adventures like your uncle does?”
“But I sure do! Nothing as exciting as good old Uncle Trapspringer though! He’s a national hero, after all. But I once put on this teleportation ring and it sent me right to the secret evil lair of an evil mage and I got to help set one of his demons free! And I got to go to the mountain kingdom of Thorbardin and Flint tells me I’m the first kender ever go to there! And when there I met a golden woolly mammoth!” Tas frowned to himself. He’d meant to say dragon, but apparently whatever spell the dragon had cast on him had carried over to this life. “And I went to the elvish nations which most people haven’t done. Oh! And the Ice Wall, where we fought walrus men and wolves! And me and my close personal friend Fizban - I thought he was dead but it turns out he wasn’t after all! - went and… oh, I’m not supposed to talk about that either. Do you go on lots of adventures in your dreams too?”
Robin laughed behind her hand. Tas was certainly a character and she was rather pleased that he’d come into her store today. A day that would have normally been spent going over inventory and putting out stock - a day that certainly would have been boring - had turned into a very entertaining day indeed.
“I do as a matter of fact,” Robin nodded her head. “I visited a desert kingdom called Alabasta. I was a criminal at the time and sort of helped try to start a war. But in the end I turned against my boss when an ancient Ponyglyph was discovered. I was then rescued by a pirate captain and I joined his crew. Shortly after that we traveled to an island in the sky!”
Robin paused to look thoughtful for a moment. “Would you like to join me for some coffee, Tas? We can drink and exchange more stories, if you’d like.”
“I would love that!” Tas said. “I want to hear all about Alabasta! I’m so happy I wandered into this shop today!” Unprompted, he headed toward the back of the shop, the rules about keeping his hands in his pockets already forgotten.