Going Swimmingly

[palmerthing]

 *Palmer has found a lake today and is giving it an uncertain kind of look. Not only is such a large outdoor feature a bit unexpected when there appears to be nothing in particular dividing it from the couches and chairs in the main area of the nexus, not only would he probably start turning into something aquatic on automatic as soon as he tried swimming, but he's fairly sure that he saw Gollum from The Lord of the Rings swimming in there and that's just too much weirdness for him. Not that he has any room to talk, but he's not up for that meeting yet. So he sits on the beach and watches the waves. Hopefully there won't be any merfolk or cartoon fish, one fantasy character at a time is bad enough.*

Comments

[palmerthing]

That or it's just one of those toddler things, hard to say.

[save_us_alice]

Probably both, honestly. [she gathers Chester into her lap as he continues crying and trying to grab more sand] Someone's decided to be Mr. Cranky all of a sudden, I see.

[palmerthing]

Wonder why he's so intent on eating dirt.

[save_us_alice]

Because he is a toddler and toddlers just love to stick anything not actually food in their mouths. Things that are actually food, they turn up their little noses at.

[palmerthing]

Ah, yes. Naturally. *Eyeroll.* Silly things.

[save_us_alice]

To be fair, we were all like this once. Even you -- part of you, anyway.

[palmerthing]

Yeah, part. Only part, though, which is kinda weird when I think about it.

[save_us_alice]

I think it would be weirder for a sapient disease to somehow have a toddler stage?

[palmerthing]

Yeah, probably. It's still a bit surreal either way, though.

[save_us_alice]

[Chester has finally calmed down a bit, though he's still sulking] Yes, well, 'surreal' is kind of the name of the game around here. It's weirder when things are ordinary.

[palmerthing]

Yeah, I bet. In a way the same is true for me, I'm just trying to ignore it for now.

[save_us_alice]

[Alice tilts her head] Ignore that -- surreal is normal for you? [because you DID just make yourself part-fish and then absorb one in front of her]

[palmerthing]

*A wry smile.* I didn't say I was doing it well. And if I try hard enough I can pretend that I'm not surreal, so it doesn't count.

[save_us_alice]

[that gets a laugh] Okay, fair enough. You seem to be doing pretty well at fitting in.

[palmerthing]

Yeah, I'm doing good. Aside from the shapeshifting bit, at least.

[save_us_alice]

One could argue the shapeshifting bit is a major part of you fitting in.

[palmerthing]

This is sort of . . . who I started as, though. Depending on how you define 'me,' but that's a separate issue.

[save_us_alice]

I imagine that definition can get rather complicated, yes, depending. . . How do you define you?

[palmerthing]

As the Thing that is the-dogthing-plus-Palmer, more or less. Or the Thing made out of Palmer. The Thing that used to be Palmer?

I guess I'm just Palmerthing.

Har har :p

[save_us_alice]

"Palmerthing" is the easiest to say out of all those options, admittedly.

[palmerthing]

By quite a bit, yes.

[save_us_alice]

Mmmm. . .I suppose the most important question, though, is -- are you, whoever that is, happy? Do you feel like you've found a place here?

[palmerthing]

. . . yeah, I think so. It's nice here.

[save_us_alice]

[she smiles] It is, isn't it? I may not be like you, but -- I feel more at home here than I did in my own world. [pause] Granted, we're talking about a world where my parents died in a house fire and I ended up in an asylum for ten years, but. . .

[palmerthing]

More reason to go forward than back for both of us, huh?