2025-02-17 - Pink Fluff Balls & Black Eyes

Some days, it feels a bit abandoned in the Tarjay -- even if a few dozen people are in it at the same time, it's easy to be completely alone in an entire department, and certainly in a single aisle. Such is the case for Sully, who finds himself alone in the tea and coffee aisle. For the moment at least.

Perhaps at odds (to some) with his tattoos and muscular appearance) is the box of tea in his hands: a sweetly illustrated box in pastels with flowers and hearts, definitely marketed for a feminine clientele. He's holding it at a distance, squinting at the ingredients or the nutrition facts or perhaps the quaint story in a cursive font about how that particular tea blend has come into existence.

Erika seems to be enjoying the near isolation at the store. She has remembered to not wear a red top in the store today at least so nobody has approached her to ask where this or that item is located.

Today she's pushing a cart along filled with multiple bags of discounted Valentine's Candies, a litter box and a large bag of litter. Also, a sparkly blue and black one-piece swimsuit which looks like it would flatter her figure when worn is hanging from a clothes hanger suspended on the side of the cart's handle. She then turns into the tea and coffee isle and, seeing Sully, she says, "Hello, Dr. Sullivan," to the gentleman in question.

At hearing his name called, Sully turns, gaze rising from the pink and lavender box he holds in his hands. "Nurse Practitioner Yorgensen," he says, eyes crinkling a little at the odd formality, but she started it.

He drops the tea into the red hand basket he carries -- his own shopping list is apparently shorter -- at least lighter, with no cat litter to carry. So far it's only got the tea, a bag of dried cherries, and a carton of milk in it.

"Call me Sully. Everyone does," he says with a smile. "What's your cat's name?"

Erika laughs and says, "And just Erika then, Sully," acknowledging the permission for informality.

Her eyes wrinkle a bit with unvoiced laughter before she says, "I don't have a cat. But my apartment has two of those pink bunnies that you may have heard talk about. One who claimed me and another who claimed my new roommate almost the minute she set foot on Spellbound Island. I've named my Dunball." The name sounds even more Norwegian than her accent in English does.

She then glances over at the teas looking at the varieties available. As she does so she explains, "They're surprisingly intelligent for such little things. Took to litter training very quickly. Much cleaner than normal rabbits."

"I've heard some rumblings about them, and I think I might have seen one during one of my runs, before I knew what they were about. Didn't stop to help it. Thought it was maybe just some tyke's plushy that got lost on the path or something like that," Sully says, picking up another tea, this one a strong black English breakfast -- it takes a lot less scrutiny for him to toss this into his basket.

"I suppose I didn't think about them using kitty litter, but that makes sense, eh? Hopefully without the brain parasite that comes with the cats," he muses, before adding, "Dunball's a good name, even if I want to say Dunbar instead. What'd she name hers? Your roommiate? They're a matching set, or you still looking for their other halves?"

"Definately not a lost plushy. Although they do sing a bit like those toys from the 80s did," Erika says about the buns as she finds the teas she was looing for: one being Spearmint and another being Green Apple. As she puts those into the cart she returns her focus to the doctor.

"Well, Dunball means fluff ball in Norwegian," she explains. "Ella named hers Alice as a reference to Carroll's works."

"I didn't hear it sing, but I was in wolf run mode, so I wasn't really stopping to listen," Sully says with a grin, crossing the aisle then to where the coffee lives, and reaching for the compostable K-pods, picking out a couple of flavors. "Luckily being a wolf doesn't actually bring in prey drive. I do tend to get lost in the run a bit, but so far no animals have been harmed, strange and magically pink, or otherwise."

His own words hail from Boston, but with a bit more brogue around them, faded over time.

"So they're not wild animals? They need looking after?" he asks, tossing the coffee in his basket. "What do they sing?"

"Oi!" ("Oh!" in Norwegian.) After her interjection of surprise, Erika continues in English. "You can become a wolf? That's amazing," she says this first still a bit projected from the surprise and then drops her voice to a more conversational tone before saying, "I can change how I look a bit, mainly cosmetic changes like hair and eye color, but that's a much more dramatic change you're describing. I'm glad to hear it seems mostly a physical change than a lycanthropic one. Also, that you haven't harmed any of the animals, that could be traumatic for you to attack and consume something like a wild animal might."

She pauses and, after shaking her head, laughs. "I must apologize for dropping into a clinical review there I think," she explains before changing topics. "Well, they can't get food on their own in an apartment and with them liking high sugar content foods, like fruits and candies, they wouldn't be able to get their preferred food in the wild well. And no, I wouldn't classify them as wild. They seem naturally tame and mine took to a litter box very quickly when I introduced him to it."

She stops again for a moment and hums a set of five notes before speaking again. "That's what Dunball is singing. When he does it there's a sense of longing. They are definitely looking for a partner and he and Alice have proved to me that they are looking for a specific partner. Not just any bun will do. They aren't antagonistic to each other but... they just don't seem to see the other as what they need." She laughs before continuing. "It's not just a pure mating drive otherwise I'd expect the two of them to be at it like... well, like rabbits."

She laughs again, obviously finding her wording amusing and not being embarrassed to laugh at her own 'joke.'

"becoming a lycanthropic killer werewolf would b ea bit ironic for a doctor -- especially given that I spent the last several years in the Peace Corps. I'm not a vegetarian, but I'm definitely not someone who takes harming animals lightly," Sully says with a smile and waves off her apology for going "clinical' in her assessment of his ability. "I do like wolf time -- mostly it's just a way to get out of my head a bit, run around and be in the open air instead of the stuffy clinic."

He reaches for some creamer to add to his basket. "The other ability is a bit more expected -- healing. Which is very useful, but not fun, so I have the best of both worlds."

After skimming the words on the bottle of creamer he's selected, he drops it into his basket, looking up and smiling at the melody she hums, then chuckling at the wordplay. "That's sweet. Looking for a soulmate, eh? But Dunbar -- er, Dunball -- and Alice aren't one another's? Just friend zoned, eh?"

"Right," Erika says acknowledging the confirmed facts. "And their fur is basically this color," she explains while she closes her eyes for a moment after which her hair grows to be a vibrant pink spreading up from the roots to the tips.

"I think even on a wolf run that would have stood out, you said you thought you saw one?" she asks looking at him with eyes that have gone solid black, no iris, no whites, no visible pupil, just solid black orbs. There's no indication that she's aware of it or that it is having any sort of impact on her vision.

Sully looks down, expecting Erika to have some box of tea in her hand to indicate the color, but then looks up to see her hair color has changed. His brows rise and he laughs. "Hey, that's neat. Does it stay as long as you want?"

But then he sees her eyes, that pure black so often meant to indicated a demonic or evil presence of some sort in horror movies or television, and he takes a step backward.

"Are there eyes like that?" he asks, gesturing to his own gray-blue eyes. "It's a good thing they're fluffy and pink, I guess," he adds, with a little bit of nervous laughter.

Erika starts to reply by saying, "Well, until I sleep and then..." but then he takes that step back and there's his expression. Then the question and the pointing. She frowns as she becomes concerned. She looks around and finds a nearby coffee pot with a highly reflective chromed surface and looks at her image on it, slightly deformed by the pot's shape but sufficient for her to see what he's asking about.

"Oi! Hva i helvete?!" ("Oh! What the hell?!") she exclamations in Norwegian. She closes her eyes and concentrates and on opening them sees no change in the reflection. She shakes her head and says, "Sometimes a mistake like this happens." After a sigh about that she says, "Ja, their eyes look like this but almond shaped. I am sorry if it is disturbing you."

Sully waves off the apology, and shakes his head. "It was just a little surprising, is all. You're not disturbing me. All good." Maybe it's a few too many words to come off as completely undisturbed, but he's not running in the other direction.

"I'm sure if anyone saw me turn into a wolf, that'd be worse, if they didn't know to expect it, so no worries. Or just seeing the wolf, for that matter," Sully adds with a chuckle, before moving a bit toward the end of the aisle, where some packets of tea biscuits and biscotti sit in colorful rows. He picks up a pack of these, turning it over to consider its inegredients or nutrition facts, before putting the package in the basket.

"So it lasts until you fall asleep? That's definitely more fun than healing, but I still put wolf time above hair color time."

"Ja," Erika replies reflexively in her native Norwegian. "As far as I can tell it happens when I go into REM sleep because it doesn't happen during brief naps."

She grabs a few more varieties of herbal teas and adds them to her cart and then closes her eyes and on re-opening them they're back to her natural blue. But the hair is remaining pink.

"I hope that I've fixed the eyes now," she says and, looking at Sully, "Did it work the way I hope it did?"

Sully's peering at another variety of biscuits when she concentrates, so he looks back up and over at Erika when she asks if her eyes have returned to their normal, much more human status, and he nods. "Affirmative. No more bunny eyes for you," he says amiably. "Funny how solid black eyes are cute on furry little things, but on humans... I was going to pull out some of the old Catholic school Latin on you, girl."

The words are said easily, the tease gentle, before he tips his head in the direction of the check out area.

"I've got a couple more things to get before I need to get home and make the roomies dinner. It was good to see you, outside of work, though, Erika. I hope your fluff ball finds its kindred spirit."

"Thanks, Sully," Erika replies. She tilts her head the other way and says, "I'm going to check out linens and towels for the new roommate to use until she gets some of her own. I have some spares but a wider variety is better."

"Good luck with the wolf runs also," she adds.