🍎 Text, anon

[bolderfell]

What's the deal with tomatoes. They're just messy fruit full of water.

Comments

[speakerstone]

Thank you. I've eaten some dubious things in my life, but never tomatoes. I like to call it common sense.

[bolderfell]

Yeah, and don't they look like something poisonous? Is it just me? Not that I'm any expert, but bright colors are usually a warning in plant life, right?

[speakerstone]

Not just you! I had some people look at me like I'd lost my mind when I said I'd tasted one.

You ever heard of a durian? Now there's a plant that's screaming "don't eat me."

[bolderfell]

Can't say I have. What, does it try to eat you instead?

[speakerstone]

Pretty much, actually. Give me just a second.



Look at this big stupid thing. People still tried to eat this!

[bolderfell]

The hell is that, it's like a cactus made love to a potato. Or a drunk god's take on a chestnut.

[He loves it?]

[speakerstone]

Apparently? Once you cut it open? It smells like a pile of rotting flesh.

I'm willing to bet God was absolutely sloshed out of his mind that day.

[bolderfell]

Damn. A spiny monstrosity after my own heart.

Do people eat it?

[speakerstone]

Supposedly! As the legends go, at least. They didn't grow anywhere close to me back home, and I'm not especially excited to try one here.

If you're able to get past the smell, apparently it's quite sweet.

[bolderfell]

[Whoops, time to disavow himself of his new fruitsona. 'Spiky exterior, sweet at heart' is far too on the nose. Apples all day erryday it is.]

Might give it a try myself, if I find one. Suppose I could let you know how it goes if I do.

So what is the most 'dubious' thing you've eaten? Now I'm curious.

[speakerstone]

Hm. Let me think...

Most times, we would gather ingredients at the local shops to make a soup. Massive amounts of soup. I come from a large family, so it fed us all for a long time. But sometimes we came across people willing to give us alms, and...well.

You know how there's always that one guy in each town, yes? He's always parading about in the streets with some suspiciously cheap delicacy he's willing to give up. Maybe you don't. We rarely hurt for food, but let's just say you aren't always in a place you can say no to that guy.

[bolderfell]

Hah. What do you know, I do know that guy. Nabbed myself a fun case of food poisoning more than once from him.

Learned pretty quick that, even when you can't say no, he's almost always more trouble than he's worth. At least I had youth and a strong stomach on my side.

[speakerstone]

Oh, absolutely. After a while, you develop a sort of sixth sense for dubious chicken.

It's never a chicken. Even if they insist it is.

[bolderfell]

I'd count myself lucky if it was even meat.

[speakerstone]

I've been lucky enough to at least get some type of meat, usually. Mostly other fowl. Birds with a menacing aura to them, the kind where a terrible metaphysical woe awaits your future, something beyond your human comprehension.

That, or you have to stop the caravan to wait for some poor fellow to emerge from the bushes.

[bolderfell]

A caravan? So you're a traveler. Merchant family?

[speakerstone]

Not exactly. We travel, yes, but not for selling wares.

You could say we take in and distribute knowledge, but we wouldn't dare ask payment for it. It would go against all our ideas.

[bolderfell]

Don't typically see scholars having to tuck into mystery meat from 'that one guy.' Or turning down money out of principle. Usually the opposite.

So why do you travel?

[speakerstone]

We travel to aid the common people and add to our knowledge stores. To protect the innocent, gather the stories of the past, present, and future, and share what we know with others, even if we come into danger because of it.

[bolderfell]

[He takes a moment to mull that all over until it resolves into something more familiar to him.]

Sort of like traveling apothecaries, but with history instead of medicine. The good kind of apothecaries, anyway. Saving lives, honing your craft. Pretty admirable a profession.

[speakerstone]

That's...actually, pretty spot-on! There are those among us who dabble in healing if someone needs it, but there is only so much we can do with what we know.

I cannot imagine being anything else. There's something magical about traveling from place to place, wondering what the next town will bring. Even with the dangers we faced, I miss it more than I can say.

[bolderfell]

Believe it or not, stranger, I understand the feeling. Got no such noble trade of my own, but I wander for my own reasons. It suits me, going where my feet take me, drinking in the local color, seeking out new ways to challenge my skills. Can't even remember the last time I stayed in one city this long.

[speakerstone]

Huh. We have an understanding, then. I can't say I thought I'd find a fellow traveler rambling into the void about the woes of fruit.

I've found friends in stranger ways. Once we've drunk in all the color we can, perhaps we could go camping out in the space wilderness, avoiding tomatoes at every turn.

[bolderfell]

Hah. Only if you promise to share your stories around the fire. The chatter in these 'kareoke bars' and cat cafes can't hold a candle to what I get at the taverns back home. Haven't found one place yet that comes close to slaking a man's thirst for tales.

[speakerstone]

What in God's name is a cat cafe