Pruned Trees Re-Sprout!! ~ Ragazza Volpe Magica ~

Monday morning started the same way every morning began in Canolapra: Taika being dragged out of bed stupidly early for the sole purpose of swimming with Pacifica.

“We don’t have to do this at the crack of dawn,” Taika groaned as they stood at the edge of the pool. As with any summer morning in the northern reaches of Lybertera, it was cool out. Not bitterly cold, but certainly not warm.

While Taika complained the entire time, Pacifica kept her own reservations to herself – they were both warm water girls it seemed. That being said, the otter-girl had an ingenious counter to her foxy companion’s protests.

“Today we do,” Pacifica expertly deflected.

“Oh?” Taika tilted her head.

“We’re going to the natural history museum, remember?”

“Oh yeah!”

The night prior, Shouri had suddenly burst into the bedroom and informed them of today’s activities. A prospect the trio of girls were excited about. Pacifica had been to the museum in question several times, though lacking a Maestro that could prop up her weak stave, she didn’t necessarily understand a lot of the exhibits on display.

With such a strong tempo, her normally weak capacity to learn would be boosted allowing her (and her two knowledge-weak cohorts) to readily take in the information overload they would be subject to. Especially with Shouri’s willingness to explain what they didn’t understand.

It went without saying: Pacifica was excited to see her hometown’s learning facilities in a new light.

“Let’s swim!” the otter declared; her zeal for the water was only re-invigorated by the prospect of their adventures later today.

“Vi prego abbiate pietà!” Taika cried as she was dragged into the cool, murky depths of the pool.

Shouri slowly opened his eyes. Once more he found himself alone with Rebecca. He had begun gravitating towards her in his sleep after Taika and Pacifica’s morning departures. Needless to say, waking up with a different person in his arms was a bit jarring. At least Rebecca herself seemed (unconsciously) pleased with the arrangement as she wore a content smile whilst cuddling up close to her beloved Maestro.

“Hey,” he whispered. Her ears twitched, and then her eyes slowly opened.

“Shouri.” Even as she awoke, her smile remained. She giggled and nestled herself closer to him.

“How’d you sleep?”

“Good.”

“Good.”

After a few moments of enjoying each other’s presence, they rose from bed. “What time is it?” the vixen inquired.

“7:15,” Shouri replied checking one of the tuners. Rebecca’s ears drooped as she yawned, the grogginess encroaching on her as the realization of the current hour hit her. “Early,” she grumbled.

Her yawn was infectious, as Shouri too found himself yawning. “Yeah,” he agreed. “We have been getting up at the crack of noon for the last week or so,” he reminded her.

“Best sleep I’ve gotten in my whole life.” Rebecca smiled tiredly. She flopped back down onto the bed in protest.

“Come on Rebecca, we gotta get up.”

“I dun wannaaaaa…”

After a few moments of chiding, Shouri eventually succeeded in getting his groggy Resonator out of bed.

The pair shuffled down the hallway, stopping before the first bathroom. Rebecca slowly drew her day clothes out of the bag, leaving it with Shouri so he could make his way to the other bathroom.

Convening in the living room, Rebecca and Shouri found the other half of their traveling group in their usual configuration: Pacifica playing some video game, with Taika’s head resting on her lap.

“Morning Sho!” The otter greeted her Maestro brightly.

“Buongiorno Sho.” Taika yawned, sitting up.

“Good morning you two,” the Maestro greeted his Resonators warmly.

Rebecca frowned, feeling left out (despite having him all to herself before getting out of bed) turned him towards her. “What about me?” she pouted.

“Good morning to you too Rebecca.” Shouri chuckled. Both Pacifica and Taika glared daggers at the fire Resonator.

After eating a hearty breakfast, the quartet got ready to head out for the day. “Got everything?” Shouri asked after patting himself down.

“Si!” Taika raised a fist into the air. She was carrying their bag, filled with some snacks and their water bottle.

“Yep!” Pacifica dusted her vest off and nodded with her usual smile.

“Don’t really carry anything usually, but yeah,” Rebecca gave the final approval.

With that out of the way, they departed from the home and headed out for the day. Even though the sun had risen by this point in the morning, it was still just as cool out as when Pacifica and Taika had gone swimming hours earlier. Which made their twenty-minute walk down to the bus stop a pleasant one.

While they waited for the next bus to arrive, Taika sought to sate a bit of curiosity about their itinerary today. “What is a 'natural history museum' Sho?” she inquired.

“A natural history museum is a place with collections of stuff or records of mundane animals, Scherzando, and other natural forces or parts of the planet,” Shouri imparted on the trio.

“Mundane animals?” Rebecca raised a brow, not familiar with the term.

He ruffled the fire elemental’s hair. “You’ll find out, don’t want to spoil the surprise,” the boy teased, earning a huffy pout from the fox-girl.

“So it’s just like all about living stuff?” Pacifica questioned for clarification.

“Not at all, these kinds of places also have exhibits about stuff like paleontology and climatology.” He immediately noted Pacifica’s nervous, toothy grin. “Climatology is the study of the climate, stuff like weather, and how it changes over time. Paleontology is the study of fossilized plants and animals.”

“Oh! Fossils are like those rocks with the patterns of dead stuff in them, right?” Rebecca exclaimed.

“Sorta kinda. There’s some interesting stuff about them I think you all will find about them.” He gave them a wink, which the trio of girls found cute.

The bus arrived at that moment and the group boarded, taking their seats near the back. The ride was roughly about an hour or so due to the constant stops for other passengers.

“Oh, it’s like Corhiasela!” Taika gasped in astonishment as they approached downtown Canolapra.

“Yeah yeah! Canolapra is a big city! There is tons to do and tons of good food!” Pacifica bounced excitedly in her seat.

“You okay?” Shouri asked Rebecca, who had been silently staring out the window for the entire bus ride.

“Yeah. I just had a problem with Corhiasela,” the fire Resonator replied. She smiled after a moment. “I’m excited, don’t worry about me,” she insisted.

Once more he ruffled her hair. “It’s my job to worry about you,” he retorted, once more missing the pouty glares from Pacifica and Taika across the row from them.

Finally, the bus arrived at one of the downtown hubs and the group disembarked. Pulling a tuner from his side, Shouri checked the map to see where they had to go. “This way.” He pointed down the street and began to walk. His trio of Resonators followed close behind, all looking around with curiosity.

The big thing Taika noticed wasn’t the tall buildings, but the high volume of foot traffic. So many people, so much from all directions it made her a bit dizzy. She wound up folding her ears back to help filter out some of the white noise. Even so, the sensory overload continued as they walked by some restaurants, and the poor lunar fox was hit by a bunch of food smells.

“Ho fame,” Taika muttered, rubbing her gut sadly.

“What’s up?” Shouri snapped the pining girl out of her thoughts.

“It smells good,” she whimpered, looking at yet another eatery they were passing.

“Maybe we’ll check out one of these places on the way back.” He patted her head, earning a giggle from the lunar vixen (and a huff from a certain fire Resonator).

“Hurry up slowpokes!” Pacifica shouted to the group, a gap having formed between her and the rest of the posse.

Rounding the corner with Pacifica they found their destination looming at the end of the street.

"Canolapra Natural History Museum" was displayed proudly on the massive building allowing them to read the name even two city blocks away.

“That’s a lot of stairs,” Taika noted one of the other visible features of the building.

“What? Not gonna make it up?” Rebecca snickered.

“Basta basta,” the lunar grumbled, rolling her eyes.

“It is a lot of stairs.” Shouri looked to-and-fro for any sort of accessibility options. He spotted a ramp off to the left of the main staircase. Though due to the height needed to get to the front door the ramp in question wound around itself, gradually rising to meet the stairs at the door. “Man, that ramp must be three times the distance of the stairs,” he muttered to himself.

Rebecca took the chance to wrap an arm around her Maestro’s shoulders. “Don’t worry Sho, I can carry you.” She shot a smug smirk at Taika

“Ti stai sforzando troppo.” The other vixen returned the smirk in kind, though her eye twitched as she did so.

Shouri calmly removed Rebecca’s arm from his person. “Don’t burn your heels over it,” he lightly reprimanded her. The fire Resonator wilted, looking away and blushing slightly (Taika’s smug grin didn’t help her embarrassment).

“C’mon! C’mon!” Once more Shouri and the two foxes lagged behind allowing Pacifica to get ahead.

Their approach to the building truly put into perspective how massive this museum was. It was the type of place where even exploring it for a full day wouldn’t allow one to see everything it had to offer. That much was apparent even standing across the street from the gargantuan building.

Crossing the street was the easy part. The hard part was yet to come: the massive stack of stairs that lay before them.

Despite walking a couple of city blocks before they arrived at the museum, Shouri took a couple of minutes to do some stretches. His Resonators followed along, simply so he wasn’t the only one just doing random stretches in the middle of the sidewalk. They earned a few looks and comments, but nothing worth their attention to address.

“Okay.” Shouri nodded, glaring at the steps before them. With their preparations out of the way, the ascent began. A grueling challenge with many twists and turns. However, they bested this beast with minimal casualties.

“You think with all the running around we do during Scherzando hunts, you’d be in peak shape,” Rebecca noted whilst Pacifica patted the hunched-over Shouri’s back.

“You use different muscles when climbing stairs and we don’t climb stairs ever,” he wheezed.

“Fair I guess,” Rebecca said after a moment of thought.

“Probably doesn’t help that Shouri does less moving than we do when we’re out on hunts,” Pacifica chimed in.

“Makes sense,” Taika added in.

After the Maestro recovered, the quartet made it into the building. Immediately Pacifica shivered, holding herself. “What the heck?! Why is it so cold?!” she hissed.

“It is technically summer, it’s only natural for them to crank the AC up,” Shouri said, not noticing anything amiss about the temperature. “Here.” He pulled off his jacket and handed it to the shivering otter.

“Thanks, Sho.” Pacifica quickly donned the green and white hoodie, zipping it up. It was still warm from its previous wearer and had a pleasant scent wafting from it. Needless to say, Pacifica now earned a pair of annoyed glances from the two foxes of the group (she chose to ignore them.)

Getting their tickets, it originally totaled up to 95 notes for the four of them. However, Pacifica spoke up and mentioned she was from Canolapra, which dropped the price of her ticket by 11 notes. Admission complete, they had most of the museum available to them for exploration.

“There’s so much here!” Taika gasped, noting a second and even third floor with signs pointing them all around to different exhibits.

“Yeah, this place rotates the stuff they have on display all the time, so it’s a different experience every time you come,” Pacifica told the out-of-town guests.

They located a little stand with maps of the facility. Shouri opened it up and his trio of girls crowded around, looking over the wide array of educational exhibits they had access to.

“What do you all want to see first?” Shouri asked.

“Incantatori?” Taika asked, furrowing her brows.

“Dinosaurs!” Rebecca eagerly demanded.

“Luna!!” Pacifica bounced in place.

Shouri chuckled, glad they all seemed to have some sort of excited curiosity towards the exhibits. “Well, we can visit all three for sure,” he decided.

Reviewing the map once more, the dinosaur exhibit was the closest one to them, being on the first floor. “This way.” He pointed them toward their first stop. Walking in, there was much to examine and read.

Almost immediately Taika and Rebecca were overwhelmed by the walls of text plastered everywhere and started just looking at the pictures and more impressively the massive re-constructed bones that loomed over them.

Pacifica tried her best to read the blurbs about the various elements of the exhibits but was just not as fast of a reader as her Maestro. As such, she stopped reading when she noted he was moving on, only compounding her confusion. After they got about halfway through the collection, the girls made their protests known:

“Shoooo!” they all whined together.

“What's up?” He asked, surprised by the sudden noise.

“We don’t get it,” they declared.

“Explain it to us,” Rebecca demanded.

“Yeah yeah!” Pacifica nodded quickly.

“You’re really good at explaining stuff,” Taika pouted; ears folded back.

“Ah.” It dawned on him that all three of his Resonators were weak knowledge. As such, it fell on him to be the brains of the operation. Rhythmically, he would be getting quite the workout today. “Okay okay, gather around.”

He explained the basics of dinosaurs that he had read about during the first half of the exhibit. How they ruled the planet before Naturals, Maestros, or Resonators walked the land. How there was a wide variety of different species. How their sudden extinction is puzzling to scientists even to this day. The girls hung on every word as he broke it all down for them.

“They weren’t people like us?” Taika asked.

“Not at all,” Shouri replied. “They weren’t even melopomorphs. They had all kinds of body plans as you can see here.”

“Melopomorphs?” Taika questioned, having heard the word before but unsure of what it meant.

“It refers to any bipedal rhythm-using individual, so Maestros, Resonators, and even Naturals fall under that umbrella,” Shouri explained.

“So then… what is Melopology?” Pacifica furrowed a brow, seeing the term come up on the map before.

“The study of Melopomorphs, their behavior, biology, cultures, society and even things like language,” he informed the otter.

“Ah.” The three Resonators nodded, turning back to the actual subject matter of the exhibit in question, studying the remnants of the strange creature.

“They look big,” Rebecca noted.

“They were massive creatures, about the size of that big Scherzando we fought,” Shouri added (though Rebecca didn’t have a frame of reference for this)

Pacifica and Taika gasped, looking at the old bones again. There was a part of them that wondered if they could take these creatures in a fight.

The second half of the exhibit was a more modern take on the creatures. Like the hall before, this one contained many helpful walls of text (both literally and non-literally). Glass display cases showed off all sorts of specimens with helpful panels describing the contents within. In the center of the floor was a scale replica, roughly human-sized and shaped creature.

“Wh-what?” Pacifica gasped in astonishment.

“But... I thought-?” Taika tilted her head in confusion.

“Wait you mean-?” Rebecca furrowed her brow.

The big defining difference was the thick, feather-covered tail and the wing-like feathered protrusions coming from the creature’s arms. It was unlike anything any of them had ever seen before. But more than anything what it seemed to be was a Resonator of some form.

“Yeah. That is a dinosaur Resonator.” Shouri revealed. “At least a mannequin of one.” He chuckled.

“Wait Sho, didn’t you say the dinosaurs were extinct though?” Taika whimpered as she struggled to comprehend this second part of the exhibit.

Shouri folded his arms across his chest. “They are.” He nodded in a sage-like fashion

Taika puffed out her cheeks, pouting at her teasing Maestro. “Spiegare,” she demanded.

“There is a small group of Resonators out there who were genetically modified with the genes of these dinosaurs instead of the species like you all have,” he told the trio.

“So like, instead of being a fox, I could be one of these dinosaurs?” Rebecca asked, looking back at the mannequin of the dinosaur boy.

“No, you can’t change now. This is done before the egg is fertilized. To put it simply, using some crazy science stuff, they can go in and change whatever the species the sperm and egg are to be a dinosaur instead of say fox or otter, so when the baby is born it comes out as a dinosaur Resonator,” Shouri continued his edification of his Resonators.

Rebecca hummed in thought. “But why haven’t I ever seen one before?” The vixen lowered her head, trembling at the mere idea of what she was about to utter. “These seem like the kind of Resonators collectors would be after,” she admitted shakily.

The Maestro grunted, also disapproving of the thought. “Well, they’re ridiculously expensive. Probably tens of millions of notes,” he spoke after a moment.

“M-millions?!” Taika gasped, trying to count that off on her fingers.

“Why?!” Rebecca barked.

“Well, there’s the cost of the technology itself. It takes highly skilled people who have spent their whole life studying this process to do it,” he addressed their confusion.

Pacifica frowned; eyes still fixated on the Resonator mannequin. “That’s not everything, is it?” she spoke up.

“Astute observation my dear otter.” Shouri smirked (whilst reddening Pacifica’s cheeks.) “The process that makes these Resonators destroy the source fossil to make them. The more fossil used the better the result,” he revealed.

The trio of Resonators digested the information they had been provided by their Maestro. “Oh!” Taika suddenly exclaimed. “There aren’t a lot of these fossils are there?” she guessed.

“Correct! Fossils like the ones we saw in the previous room are extraordinarily rare but also make the best dinosaur Resonators. Or so I’ve heard.”

Once more the mannequin had three pairs of eyes on it, as Taika, Pacifica, and Rebecca all gazed upon it in awe. “Was he strong?” Rebecca asked quietly.

“Very. From what I’ve read they’re a bit tricky to use, but skilled Maestros can bring out their full potential,” Shouri replied, also appreciating the reproduction.

However, before they could appreciate the rest of the chamber, Shouri honed in on a certain voice. A booming female voice. One that caused him to pale and begin to frantically look about the chamber. As the source of the voice drew closer, Shouri curled in on himself to appear smaller than he was. Pacifica naturally caught on to her Maestro’s sudden and rapid shift in demeanor. “Sho?” She asked, placing a hand on his shoulder.

“Let’s get out of here,” he decided hastily.

Taika and Rebecca exchanged a glance, and both nodded between each other, rushing out behind Shouri and Pacifica.

Leaving the dinosaur exhibit, they made their way back into the main hall. Pacifica matched pace with Shouri, whilst the two foxes tailed behind them.

“Sho do you-?” Pacifica wanted to know what was going on but was cut off by Shouri.

“No, I don’t want to see them.” He still spoke quicker than normal, constantly looking over his shoulder to see if they had been followed.

The ever-patient Pacifica offered an option: “Let’s hit the Luna exhibit then, I doubt there will be a lot of people in there.”

Forcing a smile, Shouri agreed. “Good idea.”

The Luna exhibition was all the way on the third floor in a dark, distant corner of the building.

“Motherfuckers put this damn thing on the other side of creation,” Shouri wheezed as they finally reached the exhibit.

“Sorry, Sho.” Pacifica looked on worriedly

“It’s okay, it’s okay.” He stood up straight. “We have really shitty information online about Lunars, so this is a good place to hopefully learn more about Taika.” He smiled at the lunar in question.

“Yeah! Yeah!” Pacifica nodded enthusiastically.

“I am curious too.” Rebecca averted her gaze, shuffling her feet.

The lunar Resonator in question jumped slightly, finally piecing together they had come up here for her. She teared up a bit, lowering her head and trembling slightly. “Gr-grazie. Non mi merito questo...” she squeaked.

“Of course you deserve it!” Pacifica cried out, hugging her friend tightly. In a startling move, Shouri too joined Pacifica and Taika’s embrace.

“I want to learn everything I can about you,” Shouri muttered.

“Ch-che?!” Taika whimpered, her face becoming unreasonably warm.

Even Rebecca gave in and joined the hug pile. “Lunar magic is pretty cool; it’d be nice to know more about it,” she quietly added in.

After that public display of affection, the quartet made their way into the exhibit.

It was dark, but illuminated by black lights, giving the entire hall an eerie glow to it. “Oooh, this is so cool!” Pacifica looked around excitedly, taking in the ambiance of the space-themed hall.

At the front of the hall was a map of the surface of Luna, with dots pointing out the major subterranean cities. “Oh wow! I didn’t know there were so many cities on Luna!” Pacifica gasped in awe. Taika nodded quickly in agreement.

“But it’s like space, right? How do people even live up there without any air and stuff?” Rebecca tilted her head back and forth, trying to figure it out.

“There’s all kinds of crazy life support systems that keep their subterranean cities going. But that’s not the coolest part.” Shouri motioned for the trio to follow him. “Right this way.”

Walking further in there were many displays which not only showed off aspects of Lunar life but also went into Lunar Resonators – specifically Rabbits.

“Raa-bits?” Taika tilted her head. Like the dinosaur exhibit before, there was a life-size model of a Resonator. Unlike the extinct specimen in the prior hall, this one depicted a naturally occurring creature. A bipedal melopomorph just like the four of them, except this creature bore silky black hair (like Taika’s) and extraordinarily long ears with a cute fluff-ball of a tail poking out from behind them.

“Says here Rabbits are a Resonator-only species,” Shouri noted.

“What do you mean by that Sho?” Pacifica inquired.

The boy gathered his thoughts for a moment. “Well, there are Natural Foxes and Otters and nearly every other sub-species of Resonator has a Natural counterpart, but Rabbits are the exception – they’re entirely Resonators.”

He paused, stroking his chin in thought. “Actually. Lunar magic isn’t native to Riterra. Naturals cannot be Lunar element,” he told them.

“What?” Rebecca’s eyes widened.

“It... isn’t?” Pacifica’s jaw caught a bit of slack.

Taika remained quiet, lowering her head.

“The period before our modern calendar was made is the BM era or the Before Maestro era. In the late second century BM, what is now recognized as a Rabbit Resonator descended from the moon and foretold of a great disaster. It was only after this point that Lunar magic was recorded on Riterra,” Shouri imparted, recalling that particular lesson from his own schooling.

The lunar fox kept her head down, conflicted about what she was learning. Pacifica grabbed her shoulders. “Hey, chin up.” She pushed the fox-girl’s head up. “Alien doesn’t mean unnatural. It doesn’t mean wrong.” The otter smiled warmly.

“I still think you’re cool,” Rebecca muttered.

Taika’s ears twitched, catching that. “Che?” She was taken aback, face reddening. These people were too much.

Shouri slowly gave an approving nod. He was grateful for Pacifica’s overbearingly strong social sense. Either way, he continued his lecture to his ever-curious Resonators. “Anywho, like Taika and Rebecca have the ‘Canid Sense’, and Pacifica has ‘Fisher of the Sea’; Rabbits uniquely have the trait ‘Tail of the Lunar Sea’.”

Rebecca looked to Pacifica. “Fisher of the Sea?” she asked.

“Otters like me get super fast in water, also our ad-Lib is super cheap to use.” The water element smiled.

The fire fox nodded. She hadn’t had too much experience against otters, so her knowledge of them was limited to basically anything Pacifica had previously done in front of her. “What about this ‘Tail of the Lunar Sea’ thing?”

“It’s a bit of a doozy. First off, they can control their personal gravity, so moving around in space isn’t an issue for them,” he began. Rebecca opened her mouth to ask another question, but Shouri cut her off: “And yes, they can breathe in places where you normally couldn’t, such as in the vacuum of space or even the depths of the ocean.”

“What the fuck? That’s so crazy.” Rebecca turned her attention back to the rabbit statue with a newfound appreciation of these strange, long-eared creatures.

“Wait this thing says they can’t be trapped too?” Pacifica looked up from the display she was reading. “Like Taika’s arrow spell or that nature spell?” The otter turned to her Maestro for clarification.

Shouri himself took a quick read of the display the otter-girl was browsing. “Looks like it.” He smirked and chuckled at the last line. “Rabbits are quite slippery and difficult to catch,” he read aloud.

“Wild,” Rebecca decided.

Before they could look more into the rest of the exhibit, their peace was interrupted by a boisterously loud laugh growing ever closer. Shouri paled; the loud booming female voice echoing though the hall - it was unmistakably the same one as before, evidenced by the Maestro's panic.

“Again?!” Taika yelped, grabbing her Maestro’s hand.

“It’s the same voices as in the dino place – are they following us?” Rebecca helped with ushering the two away, while Pacifica lagged behind trying to catch a glimpse of the mystery voice's owner to no avail.

Ultimately the group escaped once more, failing to learn the identity of the voice that inspired such a quick retreat.

“Sho,” Taika pouted.

“We’re worried,” Rebecca added.

Pacifica stepped between the two foxes and their collective Maestro. “If he doesn’t want to talk about it, it's not our place to butt in,” she spoke sternly, standing tall over her shorter counterparts. “It’s okay.” She looked back, giving him a warm smile.

Shouri averted his gaze. He was being unfair to them again. “I really just don’t want to see them. They’re overwhelming,” he told his concerned Resonators.

Rebecca and Taika exchanged concerned glances, while Pacifica gave a knowing nod. “We can loop back around for the Luna exhibit. Let’s go somewhere else,” the otter suggested.

Taika tugged on Shouri’s shirt sleeve. “Sho, ho fame.” He turned, only to be met by her pleading gaze and hand over her gut. The Maestro sighed but smiled warmly. He had at least picked up that bit of Naturalian.

“Ok, let’s go see what they have at the food court,” he decided.

Opting to take the elevator, the quartet ended up making one of the other patrons uncomfortable by all piling into the elevator with them.

A small awkward silence followed while the cabin descended to the ground floor of the museum. Pacifica positioned herself as the divider between their group and the rando.

The elevator stopped, clicking into place with a small shake. The longest five seconds ever passed before the door slowly opened. As soon as it slid to the side, the other museum goer rushed out as if the elevator had caught fire.

A sharp exhale and a tail flick from Pacifica informed Shouri of that random’s opinion of them. “Let’s go girls.” He took the lead with Rebecca right behind him. Pacifica grabbed Taika’s hand. “Come on.” She put on the biggest smile she could for her fellow Resonator.

“Si…” Taika lowered her head, smiling at their joined hands.