WHAT IS THIS [Julie/Dale]

Looking around the area, Dale had no idea where he was.
That wasn't to say he was lost. He knew very well how he got here.
More the fact that he'd never seen anything like this.

Dale walked the area, gazing about with childlike wonder as Chip bounded along the ground at his feet. It...it was so pretty. All these colours, everywhere! And, and...oh wow!
He runs towards a nearby river, looking at himself in the crystal waters. It was like a mirror! He'd never seen a water mirror before! It-it was in the ground, but it moved, and it looked so clean, and-
Unable to resist the temptation at this point, Dale dunked his head down into the water, and shook his head about beneath the flow.
It was so, so nice. He took a little drink as he looked around underneath, delighted by just how nice it all felt.
This was amazing. Completely amazing! This was the best thing he'd found since coming here, and he loved it.

Whipping his head out of the water with an immature grin, he stares a little longer at his reflection, watching as the droplets falling from his head disturb the water's surface. Then, he...dunks his head underwater again, and greedily gulps down more of the water before...before lifting his head back out again, and...
It...he was just playing with the river at this point, acting for just this moment like he hadn't a care in the world. He simply let his guard drop, rejoicing in the moment as Chip frolicked about nearby.

It wasn't for long until Dale got someone's, or something's attention. A green blob could be seen, quite a few feet away from the man who was dunking his head into the water. From a distance it looked a little like a rock covered in moss, nothing special about that.

Something was, slightly odd about the rock though. It seemed to gently sway in the wind, rocking left and right very lightly. Very slowly, inch by inch the blob came a little closer, making sure it didn't move whenever the man was looking in it's direction. Slowly but surely the blob came closer and closer to the person playing with the water.

She had never seen anyone quite as happy as him to play with water and she had gotten a little curious about him. She knew how most adults behaved around here since many came here for a stroll or whatnot, but this person had something strange about himself, something childish. Julie was never the most serious creature around, preferring to loaf and fool around a little here and there.

She had gotten rather close to him now, to a point where it would be quite obvious something was off if he were to look in her direction. The green blob looked as if it was wet, glistening slightly. On top of that, she was semi-transparent, giving the possibility to look through her a little, if one were to try a little. A small ball, about the size of a human fist was attached to the blob by a small thread, swaying a little in the wind as it just sat there. It didn't move, didn't speak, didn't do anything. It just sat, and perhaps even watched?

He was having such a delightful time. Yes oh yes, Dale was filled with glee.
Right up until he picked up on the movement of the blob, that is. Even with a lowered guard, sheer instinct had him painfully sensitive to his surroundings. Enough to spot that, yes, that rock moved.
Suddenly, Dale's attitude goes through a complete reversal. Surprised and panicked, he grabs Chip, dives away from the not-rock, and positions himself behind a tree as he glares at the thing.
He looked suspicious. Defensive. He didn't know what it was. What it could do. It was yet another thing he hadn't seen before, and this place was full of weird people that could do weird things - or in this place, weird not-people that could do weird things. He had every reason to be wary.
So from behind his current cover, he glared at it like it could kill him instantly at any moment, alert for any sign of something that was going to happen in his surroundings.

Whatever this was, he was going to be ready for it.

The blob just remained there, gently rocking in the wind like it had been doing before. It didn't seem to be planning on attacking him. Neither did it seem to be planning, well, anything else really. The blob was about half his height, reaching up to his waist. Suddenly two eyes shot open, two black eyes with faintly glowing plus signs within them as pupils.

Her eyes looked at him with a, well rather gentle look actually. The creature didn't seem to have any bad intentions, her eyes looked more, curious. The creature gently started hopping closer to the river and looked into the water, giggling softly as it did. She turned back around towards the tree he was hiding behind, looking at him with a faint smile.

"You like water?" She gently rolled sideways a little, looking at him with a tilted head, or body, now. "Water strange. Mirror everything, even us. Things live in water, we can't, they can." Her way of speaking was strange, as if she didn't fully understood it, but at least she was intelligible.

No matter how the thing looked, Dale refused to let his guard down around it. He couldn't let his guard down around it. That was how bad stuff happened.
When it was revealed it actually had a face, he took it as confirmation of the fact this was something to be careful about. It wasn't shaped like anything he was used to other than the face, but he was willing to bet this was still a Junction person.
...yeah, Junction person. Call them that.

He watched the Junc-son carefully, noting the details of its motion. It didn't seem like anything that was too dangerous to him, if he paid attention. All he had to do was not get close.
Then, it spoke. And the things it said...
Huh. He'd never really thought about it.
"Yeah...it is, isn't it? How does it..." Wait a minute. Dale paused, something the junc-son said just registering in his mind. "...things...live in there?" His gaze flicked to the river, just a little scared. "But...how? It's...it's water. Food isn't in water. Do...do they not need to eat...?"

He'd never seen anything living in water, before...maybe it was too dirty to see before? But this was clean...so gloriously clean...and he couldn't see anything now.

She nodded lightly, her nodding being more of a full bodily motion than an actual nod. "Yes, things live here." She slowly bounced towards the edge of the water, peering into the river. "Splashing scared them away. Should be back soon." She looked across the water, trying to find a sign of life.

She looked and looked, staying rather still until she let out a soft sigh. "Fish gone." She turned back to him so she could look at him again. "They called fish. Live underwater. Swim very fast, sometimes very small too. Eat plants in water, some eat other fish, most are cute though."

She turned back to the river to take another glimpse into the water. "Maybe you see them next time, or other place. Fish are everywhere, not here only." She paused for a second, still looking into the river until she spoke to him again. "What were you doing? Splashing head in water, what for?"

"Oh." they could be scared off that easily? Huh. Maybe he didn't need to worry so much about them. He could just do what he did again, and they'd go.

He continues his wary watch, now intrigued enough to stay. Occasionally, he flicks his gaze over to the river, just in case the junc-son's stare would make it attack him or something. His attention returns as it speaks up once more. "...gone?" So... fish were the water things. And they weren't coming back.
He was actually a little disappointed, to be honest. These things actually lived in water. And now he knew he was probably safe, he actually wanted to see that.
There was more, though.
"...what are plants, though? And what does cute mean...?"

Oh. You could find 'fish' in other places too? He'd have to find more water.
When questioned, Dale just blinks at the creature before him. "I... wanted to? Water like this is new. It seemed nice."

"Gone yes. Fish scared very easy, swim away when scared. Always come back later." She turned back to him, hopping about a bit while she did. "Plants are..." She slowly bounced a little towards him, but stayed on the other side of the tree. "This is tree. Tree is plant. Too big for fish to eat." She turned back around and bounced over to a small bush. "This is bush, bush is plant too. Too big for fish too."

She bounced about the place a little, pointing out things that were plants. Small patches of tall grass, the grass itself, pretty much anything that was green around the place. "But fish live in water, fish can't eat plants on land." She bounced back to the edge of the river, peering into it. "Come look, can see plants underwater too."

There were indeed small patches of green plants on the bottom of the river, gently swaying about. The blob let out a soft gasp and bounced up lightly. "Fish came back. Careful though, don't scare, might swim away." Not too far from the edge, in between some of the plants was indeed a small fish. It slowly swam about, nibbling on the plants every now and then.

"Cute is.... Cute is...." She thought for a second, seemingly unable to explain it in her limited vocabulary. "Fish is cute, look, you may see too." She was still staring into the water, presumably looking at the fish that randomly swam about.

He was learning so much. Why couldn't everyone else be this helpful?
So that's what all this new stuff was! Plants! Plants everywhere! They were big, but they were also small, and they were brown and green and - alright they were mostly green BUT LOOK AT IT IT WAS GREAT!
Plants. He definitely wanted to see more plants.

He was incredibly wary as the slime called him closer. Through his head ran all the times where such a thing went wrong. But...hmm. It was easy to get away here. He could probably deal with the junc-son himself if he needed to. The way its body moved, it would probably be easy to just hit it and be done.
And he was curious.
...he...could probably manage this...
He doesn't get too close, but Dale edges out from behind the tree and to a somewhat nearby spot. He crouches down, making sure he could still move easily, and looks.

...there were plants there. And...so those were fish. He liked them.
...he still wasn't sure what cute meant, but he'd remember the fish when he heard the word.
"Fish are nice." He looked over at the creature he'd been talking to. "How...how do you know about these things? Why are you telling me?" People...people don't like telling other people things. I don't know why, but they just don't. So...why?"

She looked at the fish swimming by as the man came a little closer, looking into the river as well. "Fish are calm, calming to look at." Her body seemed to sink in a little, becoming a little flatter, almost as if she 'sat down' so to speak. "Calming." She just sat there for a while, remaining quiet, not answering his questions.

Her body puffed up a little again as she turned towards him. "Old home, had all. Plants, water, fish, all. Learned what they called by humans, now know what they are, what to call them."

She turned back towards the water again, sinking in lightly as she looked back at the fish. "You curious, want to learn. Learning good, helping others good. Julie want help others, so I help learn. Humans weird sometimes. Seen them do weird things, strange things. Things Julie doesn't understand. Humans do bad too, more good than bad, but still bad. Not helping is bad." Julie seemed to be a rather social and helpful creature. Despite her lack of knowledge of human speech she did her best to convey what she was trying to say to him.

Dale didn't entirely understand what was being said. Not in the usual way - he could guess what curious meant, for example. More like they were speaking about things in a way he wasn't used to. "Why help people just because 'Julie' wants to wants to help people, whoever they are? And..." He paused. "Just...what do you mean? I..." This was hard to talk about. These kinds of things had not come up before. "It's bad for me if I don't get help. But it's not bad for them if they don't help? It's good for me if they help, but not for them to help?"

"Humans do do bad things. Lots of bad things. But bad for...for not them. And they do good things, but just good for them. It's how those words work. But now, now you say good and bad, like they're things on their own. Like that's not how it works. So how does that work?"

"Julie me, I Julie." She bounced a little as she introduced herself. "People do good. For them and others. Teaching good for others, working good for them. People also bad, not helping, not working, bad for other and them." She gently started rocking from side to side like a ball, humming softly to herself.

"People strange creatures. Can't understand people sometimes. Sometimes not understand themselves. Don't know how they work, work weird. Try understand, can't. Some people nice, other people not nice. Other people sometimes nice, sometimes not nice too."

She rolled backwards, ending up with her back against one of the many trees. "People difficult, world difficult understand. Maybe they things we shouldn't think about. Maybe difficult things not for us." She let out a soft yawn, gently nuzzling her back against the tree. "People can be nice, but also not. That what Julie understand. People change, people differ. I think you good, willing to listen, willing to learn. Did no harm, did not try harm. Julie like you.

Dale listened as best he could, but it still didn't completely make sense. The ideas were still strange.
Not all of them of course. Like people being strange. That made sense. People were strange. Junction was strange. Everything was different and strange here. But things like people not understanding themselves? How was that possible? They were them. They should know about that, right?
So much had changed here, but he was stuck here now. So, he had to figure it out.
He didn't have a problem with that. Things were nicer here anyway. Mostly.

As 'Julie' finishes what they were saying, a smile creeps onto Dale's face, before he clamps down harshly on it. He couldn't let his guard down, no matter what he heard. He just couldn't. It would hurt, he knew it.

"I think I need to go." Dale stands up, and shuffles away a little. This was a kind of danger that was new to him. He didn't know how to deal with it yet. He could tell quite easily, as the words crept from his mouth once more. "You're...Julie? I'm Dale. And...not human too. Look it, but not. Somehow."

He needed to stop talking. To leave. But he kept going. "...will you be here again? Tell me more?"

She slowly got up from the ground looking at Dale. She tilted her head lightly, or actually tilted her entire body sideways. "Not human? You not human? You look like human, but if not, I will not call human." She nodded lightly at him before speaking again. "This Julie's home. Julie always here. You need Julie, you find Julie here." She let out a soft giggle as she looked at him.

'Here' was a rather vague word. Did she mean in this spot, along this river, or in the entire bio dome? She bounced up and down a little as she came a little closer towards him. "Julie always tell more. Julie like to teach, always willing to teach. Julie want share what she knows with everyone."

She started to gently bounce around him a few times, giggling softly as she did so. "But, if you have to go, I won't hold up." She stopped in front of him again, giving him room to leave if he desired so. "Hope see you again, you nice." And with that she turned back around, hopping back towards the forest she called her home. At the edge she turned around one last time, jumped up high as a last goodbye before disappearing into the forest.

~FIN

Dale looks about a little, unsure how to handle this. "I'll...I'll remember that." Always here, they said...'home', they said. Still didn't know that word...but that wasn't the important bit, really. They said they were always here. Looking around, it wasn't hard for him to guess why. This was a good place.

As 'Julie' approaches, he shuffles away, not comfortable with the proximity. What was 'Julie'? Why did it act like this? He just couldn't make sense of it.

A wary gaze follows the slime as it bounces around Dale, the human-seeming robot waiting for something to happen.
But nothing did. And it unnerved him.

As Julie left, he took a few tentative steps away, looking both at the slime's passing and for any other strange looking rocks. But there was nothing. And so, he started to pick up the pace as he left the area.
A pair of eyes pop from Dale's jacket pocket, followed by a synthesised yip. Chip. He'd stayed hidden the whole time. That was good.
"...let's go, Chip." He runs his thumb over the outer shell of the toy dog as he makes his way back.

Occasionally, he finds himself looking back, considering trying to find the junc-son he'd just encountered again.
And each time, he clamps down on it with an effort of will.
Helpful as this were, this just proved they really were dangerous. And he wasn't getting caught out.