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Post by Morgan on Jul 8, 2019 2:08:22 GMT -6
Morgan was super proud of the tiny creature, but they still had a way to go. While they had been working on the agility obstacles; the cloud had come over them, shielding them from the hot sun. A wind was blowing quite well now; a storm was coming. However; Morgan was sure that they still had enough time to squeeze out at least a little more training time here. It was nice to get out and work on something that wasn't a particular trick or another, but also, Morgan could hardly wait to start working on it as soon as possible again. Nico was such a good creature, and Morgan really wanted to show him off eventually. It would be great to be able to push that on through, as soon as possible! "Alright boyo, we need to start working on something else. Or do you need a quick break?" Morgan asked mostly rhetorically, looking him over.
[45] - [159 Words]
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Post by Morgan on Jul 8, 2019 2:21:27 GMT -6
Morgan decided that it would be good to take a quick five minute break to really let the creature breathe for a moment. Soon, Morgan figured that they were fine to get up and start working with something else. They already played fetch with the frisbee, so perhaps using the flyball would be good next? Morgan wasn't sure how it was used and had never used one before, but they were going to have to figure it out sometime, right? Morgan patted the houluh quickly and asked, "Want to play?" Morgan asked, and of course the houluh was feeling the meaning of that through the RoT a bit. His tail was now wagging ninety-to-nothing, enough to shake his entire body. He is so cute when he does that, goodness what a cute pupper. Morgan found theirself thinking that, and immediately felt a bit upset. No coddling the houluh, even if he was a puppy! [46] - [156 Words]
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Post by Morgan on Jul 8, 2019 2:30:14 GMT -6
It was kinda hard not to be all parental over the tiny houluh. Small creatures tended to do that to humans, Morgan knew, Morgan had read it before. Some latent instinct to care of offspring caused creatures that tended to be more neotenized to be seen as a sort of replacement baby in some ways. The only difference was that Morgan tended to think that puppies and kitties were (ugh) cute, but babies were gross. Of course, this wasn't the case for everyone, but Morgan was sure that it was the case fore theirself at least. Morgan stood up, calling for the houluh to follow them, and then made their way out to the same field that they had been playing with the frisbee just earlier. Morgan pulled the flyball out from their pocket, and then stared down at it. At the present moment, it was a kind of smooth blue ball, but there had to be something on it some where, like a button or something...
[47] - [167 Words]
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Post by Morgan on Jul 8, 2019 2:33:58 GMT -6
Morgan turned the device over and over in their hand, looking for the button that had to be somewhere on the blue sphere... Finally, they were able to find a small, tiny area where a pin could be inserted. Morgan was able to use one of their cufflink's pins to turn on the device; and when they did; little wings flew out of it. Oh, it was a weird tiny little thing! Morgan smiled at it, and nodded to the houluh. "I don't know what this thing does, so lets see, huh?" Morgan said, and then tossed it in the air. Immediately, the wings started and the tiny ball began flying. Morgan watched as it flitted about, about four feet off from the ground. Thankfully, Morgan would probably be able to go get it quickly, and then of course the houluh would be able to reach it from that height as well easily enough.
[48] - [156 Words]
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Post by Morgan on Jul 8, 2019 2:41:08 GMT -6
Morgan pointed at the thing so that Nico would look over it, and simply said; "Welp, go get it I guess?" Morgan said. They weren't exactly sure how this was going to work, but the idea filtered naturally across the RoT, and Nico took off after it, getting the understanding of it enough. Morgan laughed as the creature reached up to snap at it, and the thing flittered a few feet away. It must have had some kind of a sensor on it, so the creature would have to practice at being really fleet of foot to actually get this, they thought. Perhaps they should have started with the flyball, since it was such a difficulty step up from having done nothing? Morgan was sure that despite this, Nico would do quite well with it. He'd catch it eventually. Everything technological always had a trick to it, even if it appeared simple at a first glance thankfully. Nico would catch on.
[49] - [163 Words]
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Post by Morgan on Jul 8, 2019 2:47:12 GMT -6
That was one of the reasons why Morgan was pretty naturally good at most things. Everything had a rhyme and reason, everything had a trick. Even randomness had a trick to it, and could be worked with. The bespectacled human could tell that the thing had a bit of a timer on it as well, just from watching it for a while. Nico was watching it too, as if he had gotten the idea that it had something going on, or maybe it was just a natural hunting instinct reaction. Morgan was not sure how much of a hunting instinct these creatures did have; Houluh were a lot like domesticated dogs, but they were different in some ways as well. The human watched as finally Nico leaps up and then goes to snap at the flittering thing. He missed it again, but this time only narrowly. Now that was interesting; Morgan hadn't expected him to get that close this soon.
[50] - [160 Words]
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Post by Morgan on Jul 8, 2019 3:05:30 GMT -6
The creature was beginning to take on Morgan's personality traits, it would seem, and perhaps a bit more. Sometimes creatures became highly bonded to their owners with a lot of work; and they tended to have psycho-social bonds that were especially strong in the ones that were young when it was happening. Morgan's eyes widened, slightly, as they thought about it. Oh. Houluh must be one of the species where the psycho-social bond was incredibly easy to start, and fast to thicken. Morgan didn't know, but now that they could see it, it made so much sense. More sense than they would have thought. Vulticus were supposed to be based on wild wolves, really vicious really big dogs basically (Morgan had seen books written on them, but of course they were all killed off before Morgan had been ten according to the common knowledge). Morgan watched Nico as he surveyed the flying ball; figuring it out with a bit of focus that had come... From Morgan.
[51] - [166 Words]
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Post by Morgan on Jul 8, 2019 3:10:44 GMT -6
So if Vulticus were based off of wolves, those really vicious dog things, and they bonded with people super quickly with psycho-social bonds that sometimes transcended their death, then why wouldn't Houluh, who were based off of domesticated dogs, bond with people just as quickly and thickly. Morgan stared for a moment, until a bit of thunder rolled from far off in the sky. It was starting to get pretty dark, but the sun was keeping it from being pitch. Sooner or later, they would need to go home, but Morgan really wanted to get just another twenty minutes out of this. They really felt like Nico was at the edge of a breakthrough, somehow. Morgan wondered if that came from the RoT, or if that came from the psycho-social bond that was obviously pretty cemented by now. Why hadn't the ever-studious Morgan noticed this? Was it because they just didn't want to admit it? To see that the creature was thoroughly so bonded that he was basically a parasite on Morgan's emotions or whatever the Labs had caused?
[52] - [179 Words]
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Post by Morgan on Jul 8, 2019 3:17:25 GMT -6
Morgan knew that this was meant to make the creatures more controllable in the long run, but was it really a good thing to have a creature that fed off of your every change of mood? Especially when there are people like me out there. Morgan thought, knowing that it was quite important that a creature be able to grow in it's own mind, even though they weren't sentient, without someone that was somewhat emotionally rocky at times. Okay, probably a lot actually. Morgan thought, carefully. Still, the houluh was focused on the ball, and not on the storm, and luckily, not on Morgan's sort of thought with this. Oh well, it wasn't changeable. Morgan just hoped that the houluh would manage to grow up without any influence from the chaos node causing any issues for him. That was the main issue that Morgan was worried about, of course. The houluh would never understand that; he wasn't sentient, he understood basic concepts and that was that. [53] - [166 Words]
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Post by Morgan on Jul 8, 2019 3:23:34 GMT -6
Eventually, the houluh made another, much closer, attempt at snatching the flying ball out of the air, and Morgan could practically feel a pressure drop hit the air. Ah, rain soon, huh? They might not be able to make it unless the storm would blow over instead. Morgan finally called the creature away, and went and caught the flyball theirself. "Nico, let's go into the building. It's about to storm." Morgan didn't want the houluh to be in any danger, especially not when there was a perfectly good building right over there. They'd leave whenever the rain let up, Morgan thought. They just barely made it to the awning of the building for dexterity training before the rain finally started falling from the sky. It was raining just a bit, drizzling a tad, and then suddenly the rain got much more thick, and it was hitting the ground with a force. 'Cats and Dogs' Morgan's father would have said.
[54] - [161 Words]
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Post by Morgan on Jul 8, 2019 3:39:03 GMT -6
Morgan was glad that they had made it under the awning so that the rain wouldn't pelt them, because it was raining so heavily. Nico did look nervous for a moment, but soon he was right at Morgan's heels, waiting to get into the door. Morgan grabbed the doorknob and was super happy when it opened. "Good, looks like it is open, boyo." They skittered inside, Morgan allowing the houluh in first. Once they got inside, and shut the door, they both looked at one another for a moment. A kind of understanding passed across the ribbon ends; a kind of understanding that it was probably a really good idea that they got out of the rain, and that surely there was something that they could do in here, right? Morgan looked around curiously, not really knowing what was in the building to 'do' when it came to helping with the agility training. Morgan had not planned for this.
[55] - [161 Words]
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Post by Morgan on Jul 8, 2019 5:55:35 GMT -6
After a quick search of the area, Morgan managed to find something that they could use indoors due to the rain; it was some kind of ball throwing machine. Morgan was a bit curious about what it would be used for otherwise; someone had to make this thing right? Some tinkerer had to think it was important enough to create a machine to throw balls... For some reason other than training creatures to dodge, right? Morgan was cautious and curious about it, and walked over to it to check on it; looking at it. "Look at that, Nico. We can go ahead and use this." Morgan wasn't really meaning to actually talk to Nico or anything, but realized from the RoT that a little delicate breeze of understanding passed through. Huh, that was odd. What exactly did that mean? Morgan knew it had to have come from the RoT. Ah well, might as well get started, right?
[51] - [159 Word]
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Post by Morgan on Jul 8, 2019 23:44:36 GMT -6
"Oh good, these are foam balls." Morgan said quietly, listening to the rain drum down on the roof. "They shouldn't hurt you even if they do hit." That was of course a good thing, and the tiny creature would not be harmed even if they used one of the higher settings. Still, Morgan didn't want to desensitize him to being hit; that would make the future dodging patterns that would need to be taught to be too difficult to teach. It would possibly make him not actually dodge things because he was used to getting hit, and that would be bad. Thankfully, starting it off while he was still nervous about getting hit, slow enough for him to dodge and then turning up the speed of the machine would be absolutely excellent for the tiny creature. Morgan squeezed one of the foam balls as they began picking them up to put into the machine so that they could start.
[52] - [163 Words]
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Post by Morgan on Jul 8, 2019 23:54:03 GMT -6
Finally, the machine was all loaded up. Whoever had used it before had not put all of the balls in the correct area, but they hadn't used many of them at all. That was good of course, there were a ton of them in the machine from what Morgan's limited sight could indeed see. "Well, looks like we won't run out anytime soon, Nico." Morgan said, and then they bent down quickly to pet the pup for a moment. "Hopefully this will help you learn how to dodge stuff in the future, boyo." Morgan said, before putting their forehead on the pup's forehead. Then, Morgan got up, and went to turn on the machine. Perhaps Morgan should have taught the creature something a little tougher than dash before doing this, huh... The machine was turned on and then Morgan stepped back. It would seem that Nico was waiting, as if he understood that something was going to happy.
[53] - [162 Words]
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Post by Morgan on Jul 9, 2019 0:14:36 GMT -6
Finally, the machine (on the lowest setting) sent out one of the foam balls, a little slower than Morgan had expected. That probably would not have been difficult for a very large and very slow creature to dodge, but it still frightened the houluh just a bit. He hopped over it, but still looked a little spooked. "It's okay, Nico; go on, good boyo! Good boyo!" Morgan said, trying to coax him into calming down into a healthy amount. Another foam ball was shot from the machine, and the houluh dashed away from this one rather quickly, and then turned around to look at the machine, tilting his head slightly. "Good boyo, Nico, keep up!" Morgan said, and this time the houluh actually did relax a bit. Just Morgan being around was enough to make him feel a bit more calm even under danger. The next foam ball that was shot out just so happened to be quite close to hitting him.
[54] - [166 Words]
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