eulalia | Veridia Round 5: Greenheart (Reply)

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I have the world's shortest round from Arturo, because for once nothing is happening to him. He’s not suffering from a curse or getting amnesia, he’s not in any relationship drama, he’s just chilling with his spirit cat and his boyfriend/girlfriend. He even rolled a ‘nothing much happens’ entry on the ROS. Love that for him.

Also, I’m experimenting with resizing my screenshots differently, to 800px wide instead of 1280px, so if they look different that’s why.

(I’ll probably go back to a bigger size... solely because the pop-ups look too big when I paste them in now, lmao.)

So it turns out not passing out all the time is pretty great. Should Arturo have accepted Helenet’s help earlier? Probably, but what’s done is done, and also she will never let him live it down if he admits that to her.

Arturo is also a huge fan of lycanthropy. At night he can run faster, hear better, smell all sorts of things that he couldn’t before. It’s a wonderfully novel cacophony of sensations.

(He does file away a mental note that, according to Helenet, most people don’t like when you comment that you can smell their hormonal changes or what they ate for lunch.)

Arturo: So what does the wolf claim this one will be?

Helenet: He says a boy, but I’m pretty sure he’s only guessing this time to make me happy. Shall I send him over when the moon rises, by the way?

Arturo: Yes, thank you.

Elmet: So when you said you’d made a bed, I assumed it would not be a heap of straw on the ground. That was my bad.

Arturo: Complainer. I fail to see a difference between this and your mattress.

Elmet: Our mattress is inside, with linens on it.

Arturo: Seems superfluous.

Elmet: Super-what-now?

He’s also working hard on regaining the skills he lost to the curse over the winter; indeed, that’s his main focus when the little witch and the wolf are busy elsewhere.

Angus: Mum says you own some sort of magical cat? Can I meet it?

Arturo: Ah, that is Boudicca. She is a spirit, I do not own her, but she often frequents the grove. I shall see if she is nearby.

Boudicca and her mismatched pupils are back, baby! (Side note, if anyone knows how to change the appearance of spectral cats so I can make her pupils match, I’d love to hear it.)

Arturo did sow a spring garden, but it’s a bit... neglected. Between his studies and socializing, he has little time to devote to it.

That and, despite shedding the curse’s limitations, Arturo has to spend a lot more time, well, taking care of himself. Warmth and food and so on. It’s this that makes him reconsider Elmet and Helenet’s offer to move onto their property. A warm hearth and the occasional meal prepared by someone else wouldn’t go unappreciated.

One night, he spends so long fishing at the pond that he transforms out of his new wirokū form there. It occurs to him as he’s leaving that he’s never before been here in the daytime.

Arturo: Little witch, I have reconsidered your offer to join your home and would like to accept it.

Helenet: Good. I keep thinking you’re going to freeze overnight out here!

Arturo: Considering the fur, I would think that’s the time I’m least likely to freeze.

Helenet: Smart aleck. I need to double check that it’s alright with Angus first, but I don’t think he’ll have a problem with it. You know that if you’re moving in, I expect you to help with the cleaning and chores, right?

Arturo: Obviously. Please don’t expect me to find a job building walls like the wolf, though.

Helenet: I can only imagine how that would go over with the other builders in the village.

When it comes to sleep, Arturo mostly cat-naps on the hammock during the day (evidently the straw bed is just for woohoo purposes). I hope he doesn’t suddenly turn his head.

Arturo has a few useful skills and a host of other things he knows he should remember but hasn’t yet. He’s been working on basket weaving. There are plenty of reeds to harvest by the pond.

He had a want to see a ghost, so I sent him off to the cave of worship, where he left another offering and nothing at all happened—

Oh, well, he did see a ghost within 30 minutes of arriving, so maybe the offering was accepted. That was easy! Where were all the ghosts in my game when I was trying to make Mary and Hunter into ghost hunters?

I may or may not have killed off both these teen townies because they were starting the majority of the fights and I am so! sick! of the fighting! Not because I particularly care about this type of pixel violence, but because it nerfs everyone’s queues when they run to watch.

RIP in peace teen townies whose names I forgot, have fun haunting the cave.

Elmet’s brother, Eisu, is a very wise man and has been happy to teach Arturo things like the correct way to fillet a fish and what seasonings go best on what vegetables, among other knowledge.

Arturo: If I am to live with your brother and the witch, it would be prudent to ensure their children won’t accidentally die under my supervision. I believe I should learn more about babies and small children.

Eisu: Oh boy, where to start. Do you have any specific questions?

Arturo: Hmm. What happens if one drops an infant? They appear fragile. What is the purpose of swaddling? What does one feed small children? What items are poisonous to them? When do they begin to speak intelligibly, and why do they ask so many questions despite not being able to?

Another reason he wishes to finally leave the grove is that, as he said to Helenet once during another spring, he is starved for company. He doesn’t know if it’s because the curse is broken or simply because he’s become accustomed to companionship again, but when he spends his nights alone, he is often bored and just a little bit lonely.

He will miss this place, but he’ll also be glad to pack the trunk Elmet brought him and leave tomorrow.