Tumble and Snap [Kuzi/Dale]

More recently, Dale had been spending a surprising amount of time outside of the Slums where he normally lurked, much to the relief of a certain lizard-man who had been repeatedly mugged for the ration bars he'd found a stockpile of.
It wasn't that he did much business here, or that he liked being out in the crowds. Every nerve he had still screamed at him that an assortment of knives, hammers, bullets and grabbing hands were waiting for him at just about every moment he found himself around lots of people, and that was on a good day.
But right now, he was a little less on edge. He was heading off to get some drawing done, and perhaps, finally be able to relax a bit.
...until he was tripped by a sneering wolf-man with far too fast a set of reflexes.

His sketchpad tumbled from his hands as he fell, and several pencils scattered from his jacket as he panicked to catch himself. Dale hit the ground hard, but as Chip crawls unscathed from inside his shirt, he finds the awkward fall was worth it.
More distressing however, was the array of pencils he'd just had managed to break, and he soon found himself distraught at the sight. "No, no, no...!"
While the wolf-man walked away, howling and cackling with laughter, Dale gathered up his sketchpad and broken pencils with the look of a child who'd just watched someone punt his dog.
"I don't have enough for more...!"

"Ya know, sometimes I just like to wander about aimlessly for hours to see what kinds of interesting or fun things I can find. Like, with not set path in mind or clear goal to follow. Just something for me to do ya know? Sure there are plenty of things I could be trying to do, or could be using my time more effectively. Though especially in this city if you look hard enough it doesn't take long to find something interesting going on. Then hopefully you get to talk to the person whom the interesting thing is happening to! Or maybe even become their friend! Or go off and talk to other friends about the interesting thing you saw. It's great really, good conversational starter! Not that I don't lack those already, I never seem to find it too difficult to strike up a conversation with just about anyone. Though its often harder to get them to talk back... Hmmm..." Kuzi would pause for a minute and tilt his head at the random bird he was rambling to that was just pecking at the ground completely ignoring him before flying off up into the nearby rooftops. "Oh you gotta go? Okay! Cyah!"

Anyway, from his own mouth that was why Kuzi was in the commercial ward today, he'd already seen a few interesting things. Such as a guy made out of a light bulb! Or something similar anyway, jeez that must be difficult to look like an object people use for things as your actual body. The pink fluff would consider this for a moment as he walked down the street not fully paying attention until he'd catch something thin and sharp darting his way. "GAH!" Kuzi would quickly close his eyes and concentrate as the stray flying pencil phased through his entire body and bounced over to a pile of boxes on the side of the street.

After a few seconds, he'd reopen his eyes and look around to make sure there were no more incoming sky missiles. Satisfied, he'd notice the guy who was seemingly scavenging the ground for all these dropped writing tools seeming rather distressed about it. Hoping over to it, Kuzi would nab the pencil he'd seen roll off towards the side of the street in his mouth and bring it over to the guy in an effort to help. Before trying to talk whilst the pencil was still in his mouth. "Hmmerhe, ymm ghho! Mmm Fhmnd dhmis!" He'd mumble, offering the pencil upwards.

Dale's gaze raised to look at the tiny pink creature that was holding one of his pencils in his mouth, speaking...rather unintelligibly to him. Tentatively, he took the pencil from Kuzi's mouth and looked it over, comparing it to one of the snapped pencils he'd managed to land on. A smile spreads across his face as he realises it's intact. "Yes...!"
Stowing away the pencil, he continues to look through the array of fallen pencils (geez, how many were there?) for any that had survived the fall, his small canid companion-bot rolling some of the more whole ones towards him with his nose. A pleading look falls back on Kuzi as he continues his search. "Are...are there any more? Any that haven't broken?"

"You're welcome!" Kuzi would say joyously as the guy took the pencil off of him, he seemed especially happy about that one. Though taking closer note it did seem that some of them had been broken in the fall so maybe it was because that one was still in tact? That'd make sense. "Any... Anymore?" The pink fluff would say confused as he was staring at the strange robotic dog that was nudging some of the pencils around, kind of having his concentration mostly stolen.

"Oh! Anymore. Uhm. Not sure, I kinda just had to dodge one that fell towards me a moment ago and went to grab that one for ya, didn't really pay attention for any more at the time so not really sure. Then again they could of spread around all over the place and I'm pretty small so I can check all the nooks and crannies for ya! I'm sure there must be a few more that's rolled off someplace if ya don't think you've found them all yet. Also have no idea if they'd be intact or not either until... I found them. I suppose. Worth a try though!" The talkative creature would say with a smile and a nod, waiting to see if the guy had anything further to say before heading off to search.

Dale nods along with the junc-son as he checks through, looking over the pencils and pieces to see just how many there were left to find after he counted everything that was here. After pocketing the ones that didn't seem to be broken, and matching up the pieces for the broken ones, there were..."Four. Four I can't find."
There were those 'case' things, weren't there? He saw them getting pencils. He'd have to get one when he could afford one so this didn't happen again.
Dale looked back to Kuzi. "You said you could look in the small places? That'd be-" His gaze snapped to something in the background, and suddenly he was off in a low sprint. "That's mine!" He cried as he dove forward, snatching up a stray pencil that someone had been reaching down to pick up. They gave him a strange look, before continuing on their way.
Dale hurried back with his rescued pencil, grabbing his sketchpad as Chip padded about. "Three more. Any idea where they might be?"

The Dreedle would watch the guy rummage through what he had found so far and nod to the number he came up with. "Four more, okay I'll be happy to check all the hard to reach places fo-..." He'd be suddenly cut off as the guy shouted out and darted off at alarming speeds to nab a pencil some random person was about to pick up. Well, they could of been trying to steal it? Though what if they were just going to return it like he did. Would he had jumped on me like that if he saw me holding that pencil before offering it to him? Hmm... Eh. Didn't matter for now! "Hehe. Okay, three more then. I'll take a scan over by those boxes on the side of the road first. It's where I found the first one so maybe more rolled over that way too that I didn't spot the first time round!"

With that he'd push off his front paws to quickly turn around and run back towards the side of the road, he'd nudge the boxes that were stacked there around at first but after numerous attempts and not being able to budge them at all. If Dale was paying attention he'd notice the small creature would just begin walking straight through the boxes instead in an attempt to search better. "If I was a pencil..." He'd begin aloud in thought. "I'd be thinking about how it was that I ended up lost on the ground... Hm..."

Dale nods vigorously at Kuzi. "Do that. Me and Chip will look somewhere else."
As much as Dale was not the sort to trust people so easily, he was pretty desperate right now, and Kuzi just happened to be quite small and reminiscent of Dale's faithful robotic companion. Combine that with the returned pencil, and the persistent paranoia that would have had him trying to keep an eye on the dreedle was instead set aside to look elsewhere.
Like in the direction Chip had suddenly taken off in.

"Chip! Wait!" He chased down the dog through the crowds, carving an indiscriminate path through the people in his way as he followed him to a nearby set of stalls. "What are you...?" Dale trailed off as he spotted another pencil half being nosed about. "No...!" That was another pencil gone...
Then again...
Dale sets about looking around the stalls, ignorant to the people he got in the way of in the process. There might be another pencil here.

Mwhnnn... He knew he liked to help out others and all, but he should had really though about how he was going to look around more. The fluff had only been searching for a little over a minute and he was already starting to feel hunger cramps. Ughh, why did phasing through things make him feel this damn hungry all the time. Did like, the food phase out of him as he used it? That'd be... Kinda gross. Though it didn't make sense as nothing seemingly fell out of him as he went so in that case there was-there was a pencil!

Nabbing the pencil up in his jaws once again, Kuzi would dash back to the center of the street to try and find the guy who he was helping collect these things... Though, it didn't seem like they were even here anymore? Strange. Seemed like the kinda guy who wouldn't of left until he found them all. Unless he did find them all and just left without telling the fluff, no, wait, but he had one in his mouth? So that didn't make sense. "Mffhere mmid hmmou fffoo?" Kuzi would mumble as loud as possible, looking up and down the street to see if he could spot the guy.

So, Dale wasn't making any friends right now. Most people don't take well to a homeless man and his dog barging through their legs.
They didn't care that he was looking for pencils. They didn't even know he was. They just knew he was getting in everyone's way.
So when he found a piece of broken pencil, mourned a little, and took off to places that *weren't here*, they were rather pleased he was gone.
Dale and Chip quickly return to Kuzi as they hear the pink fluff, two broken pieces of pencil in hand.

Dale smiles a wide, childlike smile as he sees the pencil in Kuzi's mouth. "Another one...!" He takes the pencil and puts it away with a certain sense of reverie, before giving Kuzi a look that was almost comically serious in the situation at hand. "There's one more pencil. Do you know where it is?"

"Oh there you are!" The fluff would say almost immediately as the pencil left his mouth. "I wondered where you went, like I came back out here and you just weren't here anymore. I guess you were off looking too, huh? That makes sense, just seemed odd to me that you seemed so dedicated to go look for these pencils then just wandered off before I got back. Kinda had the thought you just found them all and left without telling me at one point, but that didn't make sense either as I had one of the pencils on me. Unless that one is just some other random lost one that someone else had lost possibly years ago! Who knows. Either way, good to see you came back!" He'd continue cheerily, taking almost no time for breaths in between each sentence.

The little one would stretch out his tiny wings for a moment and flick his tail to one side as he looked around the surrounding area. "Hmm... One left you say? I was lucky enough to find that other one near where the first one I saw rolled, though there was definitely not another one other there. At this point the last one could be absolutely anywhere! So, uh, heh, no I don't know where the last one is. Though. I wouldn't worry. As long as we don't give up, we'll find it eventually, right?" Unknown to Kuzi at the time, the strange yellow feathered bird he'd been rambling to just before this whole mess, had now found its way back to the ground to start pecking at some stray food some careless person had dropped. That was, until it found an object it was curious in. Picking it up in its beak and flying up to perch on the side of a nearby building.

One thing that the pink thing definitely did NOT have in common with Chip was that it talked. A lot. There were a lot of people and junc-sons that he'd come by since he'd come here, but this one talked more than any of them. It was kind of weird...did this one not need to breathe?
Did he need to brea-bad thoughts, he still wasn't testing that.
Anyway - "I said I was going to look somewhere else...you were looking one place. There were no pencils here. So I needed to look somewhere else. Right?"

Dale frowned at the information. "I hope so...I can't get more right now..."
The motion of the bird caught his eye initially...like just about every movement in the area did. At first, he didn't have much of a reaction - just one of those...not a person, not a junc-son...one of those things that went through the air.
He then proceeded to do a double take as he realised it had one of his precious pencils.
"I see it!" He crouched down, and suddenly, he was leaping through the air towards the bird's perch. His landing led it to fly off again across the rooftops, but with another leap he had it in hand, taking the pencil from it rapidly and leaving it to fly free as he jumped for joy on the roof. Quickly, he slipped down into an alley by the street from the roof, and stopped the power flow to his legs, leaving him briefly stuck where he was as he cooled off.
From where Kuzi is, Chip runs off to the alleyway Dale dropped into.

"I suppose that makes sense, not really sure why I didn't think of that before honestly. Guess it would of been too easy to find them all if they were all just lying about here. So you having to head off to find other ones too makes sense. Was just confused as to which way you went is all, I told you I was going over to the side of the road but I wasn't sure at all which way you were planning on going. Though it doesn't matter now! We found each other again so it all worked out in the end!" The pink mass would respond with a nod of his head, before tilting it in response to what the guy said next. "You can't? How come? Pretty sure there are plenty of places that sell them, pencils seem to be everywhere. I mean, I've never used one myself since. Well, ya know. Don't have hands which makes it hard, but fairly sure they weren't something that was rare to find lying about."

Either way, Kuzi would become confused as the guy suddenly, and quite literally, sprung into action. Like, the guy actually just bent over and leapt onto a roof... W-why couldn't he do that, that'd be so much fun! The fluff would grumble to himself slightly as he jumped up onto a small wall and sat down to have an easier time watching what the man was doing above him. Oh hey! It was that bird from earlier, he must've heard they'd lost the pencils and decided to help out too! Cool! See it was always good to talk to people and get on their good side! Never know when they'll help you out later on! "Huh?" The Dreedle's attention was suddenly drawn off the guy as his weird robo pet started bolting it for a nearby ally, when Kuzi noticed he could no longer see the guy up on the roof anymore, he'd chase after the thing as fast as he could, dodging various feet that could crush him at any moment of the people walking by whilst shouting. "Hey! Wait up!

"Not enough money for more..." It was as much a saddening thought to Dale as it was just sad to anyone else that he couldn't afford pencils...though then again, looking at them, they were some rather fancy pencils compared to typical fare. They were very good drawing pencils, and the store staff had been more than happy to take advantage of the fact that he didn't really know any better when they sold them.
"Not rare to find lying about?" He pauses for a moment, surprised, before breaking out in a smile. "I can find more pencils...!"

---

Chip leads Kuzi right into the alleyway, where Dale is sat atop a dumpster cooling off. With the surge of power only being brief, motion is already returning to his legs, and as he spots the pair he slides off the dumpster to the ground to pick up Chip. "I found the last one. One of those air things had it. That's all of them."

"Oh...?" Kuzi would take a moment to ponder over the fact the guy wasn't able to afford buying new pencils. They weren't that expensive were they? Not that he'd actually ever gone out and brought any himself. Hmm... The fluff was about to respond to this though was kinda distracted by the whole guy suddenly jumping off into the sky and forgot to bring it back up afterwards.

Chasing the robo-pup, Kuzi would enter the alley way and find the guy sitting on top a dumpster, or at least he was for a moment before sliding off. "Awesome! Glad I could help ya find some! Even though, ya know, I only actually found two which wasn't really that many in the grand scheme of things. Though still happy to help~!" The small creature would say cheerily, a huge grin on his face as he spun on the spot for a moment before realising something. "OH! I don't think I ever caught your name! My name's Kuzimahara Kuteena, I'm a Dreedle who lives over in the forest bio dome! Though you can call me Kuzi for short, most people seem to find that way easier! Though either works, take ya pick, hehe. So what about you? What's your name?" He'd question before looking down and pointing with one paw towards the mecha-dog. "Does h... Hm... Do they have a name too?" The fluff had made that mistake one too many times.

Dale was watching Kuzi very intently to see if the little pink creature was breathing at all as it just kept talking and talking and talking. Did it have really big...no, no way, it was too small! No way that could be the reason! How did it say so much at once?
...wait, it stopped talking.
"...I don't know what a Dreedle is, but I'm Dale." He looks down as Kuzi gestures to his long time companion, and he starts to pet the little dog. "That's Chip. Chip is good. Very good."