Troublemakers

There’s something so comfortable about a moral high ground. Really, it was what drew Pardon to this little contest more than anything else; the subject matter is, honestly, secondary to listening to someone else throw petty jabs and insults.

That’s not to say proper imp care isn’t important to him– he could talk someone’s ear off about proper devish aquarium sizing if they’d let him– but really, this whole question of colours seems a bit… ridiculous.

At any rate, working with Hutch holds the conditional promise of an adoption voucher– which Pardon will use to acquire a Loafki of his very own. He has always wanted one, and it seems that, very soon, the beast will be within his grasp.

Of course, he can’t let himself be distracted by the fantasy– he has three very real imps to care for and train right now!

…Not that Gelle needs to be trained very much at all. The new addition to his household came extremely well-behaved. At first, he was a bit skittish, but in no time at all, he warmed right up to Pardon– who found him quite clever, too! It really took no time at all to teach him to sit and stay. Anything else? Well… it’s really only been a couple of days.

Vrie, on the other hand, is incredibly resistant to training. Thulu, from what Pardon could gather, are supposed to be intelligent– but he’s not sure he’s seen a dumber creature. He holds that sentiment with every bit of affection in his heart, of course, but between wrestling sharp objects out of tentacles in a vice grip and pulling him from seemingly impossible-to-reach crevices, Vrie tries Pardon every day.

Vrie is quite passive at the moment, though, having latched himself to Pardon’s shoulder to watch him train Tune.

Pardon has always wanted to train Tune– but considering that Tune lives in the archive room at the Church, he really doesn’t spend much time with them. Thank goodness for this little competition! And thank goodness no one really cares how much work he gets done in a day.

The specific trick he’s trying to entice from his devish is one wherein they jump out of their tank through a hoop. He feels like he’s close to getting it– he got them to swim through the hoop, and he got them to jump out of the water; putting the two together, though, seems to be an entirely new feat for them– even with the hoop dipped in the water.

This is unfortunate, though, because Pardon specifically invited Hutch out of their way to see this trick. He had no feasible way of getting a fifteen gallon tank of water out into the open, and while Tune would be fine out of it, the trick is… really not that interesting, otherwise.

Pardon’s phone vibrates in his pocket. The sound attracts Vrie’s attention, and he curiously climbs down his person’s arm. He may not know what it was, but he finds the phone easily when it goes off a second time.

With some difficulty, Pardon extracts the device from Vrie’s suckers and checks his messages.

[here. where did you say to meet?]

[the archive room? where is that lmao]

Both from Hutch.

Pardon wipes the black sesame seeds off of his finger before responding:

[If you come in through the back, there should be a staircase going down. Should be the third door on your left.]

[Sorry, your right. No doors on the left.]

“Come on, Tune, come on,” Pardon hisses, knowing that he has maybe two minutes to get this before Hutch arrives.

He touches his index finger to the water, then into the little dish of sesame seeds sitting on the corner of the aquarium cabinet. He positions it on the side of the glass hoop opposite Tune.

Tune takes a long moment, before swimming up diagonally and jumping out directly at Pardon’s finger. Decidedly not through the hoop.

Sesame seeds fall into the tank, and Tune feasts.

“Mm, you look awfully pleased with yourself, don’t you?” Pardon muses, leaning over to view them through the glass instead of from above. “I think we can try one more time, okay? And I’m begging you– please, please jump through the hoop. It would be so awesome.”

Before he repeats the process to get the seeds to stick to his finger again, he adjusts the hoop so it’s submersed just a bit more. Maybe that’ll make it easier.

With Tune so close to the surface, it takes them a moment to notice the new offering. When they do…

…they swim directly through the hoop and into Pardon’s finger.

There is a long moment before Pardon can figure out any sort of response. He rechecks his own memory again and again, just in case his brain was making something up– he almost actually comes to the conclusion that he fabricated their success altogether, before realising that would be stupid.

“Yes!! Yes!” he finally cheers. “Fuck yeah! Thank you!”

He sprinkles some more seeds into the aquarium, then descends the stepladder he was sitting on. In the same motion, he pulls Vrie from his lap, and returns him to his shoulder. He leans in close to the glass, fingers pressed on either side of his face, with a wide smile.

“Fuck yeah…” he says again.

Behind him, hears a knock on the door followed by a creak.

“Hello?” calls Hutch. “Is this the archive room?”

“Hi!” Pardon turns very suddenly, and his tail swishes downward. “Hello, Hutch! Perfect timing. We just nailed it!”

Vrie once again starts climbing down Pardon, curious about the new individual in the room.

“And, yes! This is the archive room.” Pardon catches Vrie just as he loses his grip and starts falling. “Come in! Come see. Pull up the desk chair.”

Hutch enters the room with their own imps in tow– Miss Hiss draped around their shoulders, Sesame in their arms, and Reginald hopping in just behind. Hutch is careful to hold the door open for him.

“You know I have aquaria, don’t you? Plenty of empty tanks?” Hutch asks, as they pull the wheeled desk chair toward Pardon. When they sit down, Reginald flutters up and settles in their lap.

“Yeah, but if anyone’s going to appreciate how nicely I decorated this one, it’d be you, right?” Pardon skitters back up the stepladder. “My boss said it looked nice. Nice? Yeah, okay, I didn’t grow all of these aquatic plants with nice. Didn’t do the research to figure out what would be best for my devish with nice. I get they didn’t have much to say, but, like, c’mon. Everything from the sea grass to the moss growing on the castle was designed precisely by yours truly.”

Pardon holds his breath after his little speech. He bragged just then– it was too much. It’s expected of him, but just because it’s expected doesn’t mean it’s liked, especially when talking to someone that actually knows a thing or two. Maybe he’s completely off base, anyways-

“Well, I certainly appreciate your attention to detail,” Hutch says, cutting off Pardon’s train of thought. “What type of seagrass did you use?”

“Technically, it’s dwarf hairgrass,” Pardon answers quickly; a bit nervously. He can’t tell whether or not this is a test. “So, not really seagrass, since it’s freshwater.”

Hutch nods. Pardon thinks it’s approvingly, but isn’t certain.

“Also, just by the way, I can move Tune next time, if you’d prefer– I don’t mean to inconvenience you. I know they’re good out of the water– I just, uh, you know…”

“It’s fine. I don’t mind a change of scenery. The trick?”

“Yes! The trick!”

Vrie writhes in Pardon’s hands, trying to push them apart with his tentacles.

“Oh, sorry, can I hand you Vrie?” Pardon asks. “After that, I’ll get on with it– he’s just really friendly. Loves people– and in this case, that’s you.”

“Of course!” Hutch smiles, which allays some of Pardon’s anxiety. “Vrie, you said?”

“Yeah, that’s right. Sort of a shortened form of the word reverie.” Pardon steps toward Hutch and offers out his shoulder companion. “Oh, and if you’re curious, Gelle is napping under the desk.” He points toward the sleeping figure.

“I see! Everybody’s here, then.” Hutch takes the thulu with a short greeting of, “Hello, Vrie.”

“Yep! Don’t, uh, please don’t tell anyone, though. I don’t know that imps aren’t allowed, but I also don’t know that they are. I mean, Tune is allowed, because Tune is confined to the aquarium, but, like, you know. Anyways, the trick! I’m done stalling, I promise.” He offers a smile, which Hutch does not see, now distracted by a fourth imp on them.

Pardon resumes his position on the stepladder.

“Alright, I’ve been trying to work on this for a while, and I finally got it just before you came in,” he says.

Tune swims up beside Pardon. He gives them a look with stern instructions not to fuck this up.

Pardon draws Tune closer to the surface by twirling his finger. He repeats the process of dipping his fingertip, then pressing it to the black sesame seeds.

Come on, come on, come on…

Worse than performing the wrong trick, Tune doesn’t perform at all. They stay turned up for just a moment, before swimming down and away.

Pardon stares into the water, again unsure what emotion to feel or how to react. A part of him expected this– the part that wasn’t absolutely convinced that, at the very least, Tune would do the wrong trick. He’d narrowed it down to the wrong thing, or the right thing. He did not account for, well, nothing.

He very slowly turns back to Hutch to see their reaction, and visibly sigh with relief when it turns out they didn’t even have the chance to pay attention.

They then snap to attention– Vrie had wriggled out of Hutch’s hands, and was avoiding all attempts at recapture by crawling around their shoulders. This act disturbs Miss Hiss, who gracefully sneaks all the way down to the floor. She takes her two companions with her, as Hutch starts to reach around to try to grab the wayward imp.

“Oh, jeez, I’m so sorry.” Pardon all but jumps off of his seat. He hesitates for a moment, but then lays one hand on Hutch’s shoulder to pry Vrie away. “I should’ve… thought of that- I’m sorry. Like I said, he’s really friendly.”

“That’s one way to put it,” Hutch replies. “Thulu are entertaining creatures, aren’t they? I could have predicted it, too.”

“Generous of you to say.” Pardon laughs nervously. When Vrie comes detached from Hutch’s back, he grabs a lock of hair.

“Ow!”

“Fuck– I’m sorry! Vrie, let go.” Pardon stares Vrie in the eyes, and hardens his expression. His voice drops low. “Let go. Not nice.”

Slowly, Vrie unfurls his grip.

“There we go. That’s good.” He smiles as Vrie makes his way back up onto his shoulder. “That’s right.”

Hutch has a strange expression on his face.

“Sorry.” Pardon clears his throat, and his voice returns to its usual cadence. “Vrie responds really well to Listen– I do a pretty solid impression, huh?”

Hutch laughs a bit. “I thought you were Listen.”

“No, I’m Pardon. Easy mistake, though! But, again, really sorry about Vrie.”

“It’s fine. If I may, honestly, I’d recommend you focus on him during this competition.”

“Ah, yeah…” Pardon puts a hand on Vrie’s empty head. “Now that would really win the competition. I should get twice as many points if I can finally pull it off.”

“Oh?”

“I take a lot of pride in my ability to care for my imps,” Pardon begins. “You’ve seen my tank. I always do everything I can to make sure my imps get the best possible care, you know?”

“Of course.” Hutch frowns, wondering where this is going.

“So please believe me when I tell you that Vrie is basically completely untrainable. I’m not talking about tricks, either– I’m talking about basic things, like ‘don’t climb in the toaster’; ‘falling behind the couch will hurt’; ‘the vacuum cleaner will grab your tentacles’. Even– I don’t know why I defaulted to bad things– but even things like ‘if you stay still, you get a treat’ are also beyond him.”

Hutch nods slowly. “Well, when you get a moment, you should bring him to the camp. It would really go towards proving our case if we can manage to teach him some manners, right?”

Pardon laughs nervously. “I mean, I guess so…!” He really wishes Hutch would let it go. It’s embarrassing that he failed something as basic as training his imp. He also really isn't sure Vrie's behaviour is connected to his colour.

“At any rate… Why am I here, again? Did you ever show me the trick?”

“No!” Pardon beams, delighted to have the chance to try again. "And- again, I'm really sorry about the hair pulling."

"Please, as if I haven't endured worse in my time training than a curious tug." Hutch laughs.  "I can take him again, if you want. I'm sure he's still curious."

"I'm sure, too."

Pardon holds his arm out to Hutch. Vrie doesn't move for a long moment. Then, very slowly, he starts to inch his way down.

"Well, that's something," Hutch remarks. "He's more thoughtful, this time."

"Hm." Pardon watches Vrie cross from his hand to Hutch's. "Yeah, I guess so."