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“Yo. I hope you don’t mind; I brought Innocent,” DG says to you in his normal semi-formal tone. Innocent is a little less formal:
“Hiii!” Innocent waves his arm in the air as a greeting.
“Hi! Why are you here?” Wait, that sounded rude, “Uh, no offense,” you smile awkwardly.
DG answers for Innocent:
“I told him about my visits with you, and well, he wanted to see his confidante.” Something tells you that really, Innocent nagged him until he finally gave in.
“Oh, alright,” you smile and pat the spot on the floor next to you as an invitation for them to sit beside you. Innocent happily takes the offer and runs over to sit on your right, while DG moves around you to sit on your left.
You exchange the usual greetings and ‘how’s it going?’, and when Innocent complimented your outfit, it reminded DG of a rather chaotic story about clothing, and the conversation jumped from one topic to the next from there like conversations normally do.
You take a bit more interest in Innocent of course, as this is the first time you’ve been able to interact freely with him outside of the game.
He's... much more childish than his previous actions in the game suggest. You notice quickly that he speaks very simply, and has a much more childish nature than what you would have expected from someone who was so ready to die not long ago. Maybe he's just become happier after you became his confidante.
You remember some mention that Innocent’s changed a lot since JKM.
At some point during the conversation, you find yourself drifting off from the conversation as you begin wondering about the void you’re in.
The floor was weird in this void; it was definitely there, you were sitting on it after all, but you couldn’t really see it, or it didn’t seem like it was really the floor. It was the same color as the rest of the void, like sitting in a room where the walls and floor were the same color, and there wasn’t enough difference in the lighting to show enough reflection to indicate anything solid. The floating particles of dull pink light gave the void some much needed texture, but that was about it, the rest of it was just... dark red. It’s like there’s nothing there, but for whatever reason you never felt like you were in danger of suddenly falling off some invisible edge, probably because of dream-logic, you guessed.
You wonder if you’re in the actual void with DG and Innocent or if it’s in your mind; maybe a mix of both?
Instead of just asking them like a normal person, you test your question by focusing on trying to mentally influence the void around you, imagining a classic grassy field.
The void around you changed like how ketchup flows out of a bottle: slowly, and then all at once, as your mind figured out exactly what it needed to do. The void began to shift and distort as blotches of green grow and disperse, then rapidly fill out as the entire void changes to a replica of what you had imagined. The feeling of the invisible floor beneath you changes to that of grassy ground, definite ground you're sure is there.
Both DG and Innocent’s sentences cut off and they perk up like spooked cats as they see their world change around them.
“What is this?”
You don’t answer DG’s question, you’re too busy squinting at the scenery. It shifted to be more clear wherever you focused, but the rest of it seemed quite fake, as you hadn’t thought of a specific example, just the default ‘imagine a wide open field’ cliché, and your mind couldn’t imagine an HD image of everything at once.
You try thinking of something else, a specific example of some definite place you’ve actually been to, preferably something with a bit more hustle and bustle, more fun.
You think of a street you’ve been on, and focus on making those thoughts a reality, the void bending to your will slowly. Sidewalks and building manifested all around you, along with faceless people walking and blurry cars driving down the street to fill out the scene.
You, DG, and Innocent now all sat on a curb looking out at the street. Innocent marvels at everything around you, pointing to everything and asking loads of questions like a little kid first discovering a new place... Well, you guess Innocent kind of is a little kid first discovering a new place.
DG himself wasn’t as openly curious as Innocent but you definitely see occasional glimpses of excitement that manage to show through in his eyes. It’s adorable.
The street is more life-like than the grassy field, but still not perfect, certain buildings fading in and out of focus as your brain couldn’t clearly depict the whole street corner at once.
You shove it off, having to force yourself to let the imperfections go and enjoy it instead. You smile and answer DG’s and Innocent’s questions as they point at various things and ask what they are.
“What are those things all over the street?” Innocent points to a blurry truck that recently materialized.
“That’s a car. Humans use them as transportation. You put fuel in ‘em and it burns to run an engine that spins the wheels,” you explain. The truck becomes more clear as you focus on it, changing from an ever-changing blurry mass that was really just a place-holder, to a white pickup truck you had seen on a commercial. “That one’s actually a truck, which I guess is a type of car. Technically they’re actually all called automobiles, but people use the word ‘car’ most often.”
“Are there other kinds?”
You nod at Innocent’s question,
“Oh yeah; there are lots: cars, trucks, semi-trucks... vans, mini-vans...” You trail off as you run out of examples off the top of your head. Your lips squeeze together in a thoughtful expression as you try to think of the more exotic examples. “Buses, school-buses, trains, no wait trains are locomotives... Ice cream trucks! Yeah! Ice cream trucks are cars!” An ice cream truck materializes on the road as you remember the one that sometimes rode around where you live. It didn’t take long for the happy little tune to start playing.
"Ice cream truck?" Innocent looked excited at that.
“Yeah! Ice cream truck! It’s a van that is suited for someone to sell ice cream out of... I guess it’s not really a whole different type of automobile, and there aren’t a lot of them.” You loved their ice cream; too bad it was so expensive. It was much cheaper to buy it in a store. A store you went in to buy ice cream once materialized in front of you as you mentally pictured it. You squinted; you didn’t mean for it to materialize at all, and certainly not there. You looked over to the other side of the street and the ice cream shop took the place of one of the more blurry buildings. There; that was a better place for it. The shop wasn’t actually there on this specific street, but it was better than having some random floating building in front of you.
“Ooh!” Innocent excitedly pointed to the colorful ice cream shop. “What’s that place?”
“That’s an ice cream shop. You can go in and order an ice cream cone and people will make it for you, but we mainly just buy our own cartons and take them home-” You’re cut off as Innocent jumps up and grabs your face with the stubs where his hands should be.
"You've actually tasted ice cream?!?!?!"
"Oh boy," you hear DG say. You don’t have time to answer anything or ask anything before Innocent speaks again:
“Can I try?!”
“What?” You’re confused. DG interjects:
“Innocent has the power to share memories, a sort of psychic power if you will. He’s asking if he can ‘try’ ice cream through your memories of trying it.”
Oh. Well, that makes more sense. It sounded innoce- pure enough, but... opening up your mind was pretty dangerous. Innocent wouldn’t do anything to hurt you, right? You’ve seen his memory powers in action when he shared false memories with DG to derail the plan; It completely screwed DG over!
Well, you guess they’re already in your mind. You have basically no mental defenses when you first fall asleep.
Ok ok ok; now that was a disturbing intrusive thought. Innocent just wanted to ‘taste’ ice cream; that’s not anything to worry about!
‘It’ll be fine. It’s ok. Stop worrying. It’ll be fine!’
“Ok...” you say meekly.
“Yay!” Innocent promptly presses his forehead against yours, and you can feel him reach further into your mind. You blink as you realize you probably need to think about the ice cream memory for him to find it easier, and recall your trip to the ice cream shop.
After you’ve run the memory through, Innocent removes his mind from yours and his forehead from yours.
“Tee-hee ♪~” Innocent giggles. He puts his nubs up to his chin in his classic cute pose. “Tasty!”
“Heheh. You like it, huh?” It was a habitual question; you knew he liked it; you felt it.
“Yeah! My favorite is [favorite ice cream flavor/brand]!”
“Really? That’s my favorite too!” Your smile falls as you realize. “Wait, how do you have a favorite if you’ve never tried ice cream before?”
“That’s the thing with him experiencing stuff through you, whatever sparks you the most joy sparks him the most joy,” DG explains.
“Oh. Yeah; that makes sense.”
“Are there other foods sweet like ice cream?”
You turn your head back to Innocent upon hearing his question. His eyes are lit up with hope. You smile,
“Well yeah! There are a lot of other sweet things: Cake, cookies, chocolate, jello, candy-”
“CANDY?!”
“Oh boy.”