Friendship (observer/open)

[Mirei]

"I'm sure she will like it "

The palmon's life was finally shaping into a good one now that she no longer suffered of loneliness and had somebody to sleep with during the cold nights of the forest: a youkomon who one day simply appeared in the forest and since then become the closest thing to a big sister the palmon ever had. The warmness of her body and the softness of her fur become the cushion where the plant digimon slept and at exchange she told the fox digimon everything that had to be known about the forest like what plants were edible and where to find water, although maybe the older digimon simply went along and actually already knew how to survive in the forest.

Nevermind, the cheerful digimon just finished collecting honey from a nearby beehive and thanked the bees that worked so hard for it helping to pollinate the flowers from which they obtained their food and growing some of them right below the beehive. Plant digimon always were in good terms with bug digimon .. well, at least with the bee types, and it wasn't different with the regular bees natives of the human world. She put all the honey inside a bottle and happily went where the youkomon was, she wanted to give her some delicious and fresh honey for protecting her from the bad guys and hoped she liked it.

"Siiister, I have a gift for you!"

She moved in front of the youkomon and offered some honey carefully dripped on a large leaf whose shape prevented the sweet substance from falling off it to the vulpine digimon. The fox's paws were too large and maybe she felt it was of bad manners to lick the content of the bottle with the tongue, so the palmon decided that it was better to offer to her "sister" honey like that. She didn't know if her companion liked sweet things or not, but as they say, it was the effort what mattered and she wanted to see her happy.

[Observer]

Renee returned from her patrol around the forest just recently. She spent hours looking for lost digimon spawned here, and keeping a sharp eye for that girl and dorumon the floral digimon mentioned. No results. The forest was large, and she was alone - there was no way she could cover all that ground at once, even with her ability to fly. For now, she was resting a bit, curled in a ball - common position for her when she lied down. Then, she suddenly heard the voice of that palmon she met a few days ago. Soon she figured out what she was saying...

- A gift? For me? Huh, nobody ever brought me gifts before... Not even Larry... - she muttered in amazement, as she gazed upon the yellow translucent liquid the floral digimon gathered on a plate-shaped leaf. Well this certainly was a pleasant surprise. She wasn't used to get things just like that, for no apparent reason. - Thank you... - she lowered her head and started drinking the sweet liquid, as if it were water.

Then, after half of it were gone, she suddenly stopped. No, this felt ... awkward, unnatural. She felt that drinking, eating this way was ... well, she wasn't used to that. She used to have hands, to use spoons, forks, cups and whatnot, now she wasn't able - she had 4 legs instead of two legs and two arms. Looking at her reflection in the honey, she frowned.

- I need to get back to rookie form somehow... I feel like an animal, eating the way I do... I cannot do any labor with these ... paws, or anything... I cannot even make myself some tea, and even if I could, I would have had to drink it from a bucket. - she growled in frustration for her own ineptitude... Such handicaps for superior firepower... No, she'd rather have her own arms back...

[Mirei]

"Friends and family always helps each other and gives gifts to the people they like, it's only natural!"

Raised in an environment where everything was good and everybody got along perfectly fine, she acquired strong family values and valued on everything else the unity, love and care all members of a group had to have for the others. For her, it was simply natural to always want to be helpful and useful for her friends and family members, and now the youkomon was like a sister for her, so she wanted to show her how much she liked her through her actions.

"Um .... you didn't like it?"

At first the fox digimon enjoyed with delight of the precious yellow, sticky honey, but when she ate around half of the honey she started to show an expression of disgust, she frowned and even growled as if she actually loathed the honey for which the palmon worked all the morning carefully gathering from the beehive.

"You don't have to eat the honey if you don't like it only for me ... I'm going to find something else for you ..."

The palmon felt sad because her gift caused the youkomon to get angry and disgruntled, she never meant to force her to eat something she loathed and now the plant digimon felt miserable, it was her fault that her sister was feeling uncomfortable and wanted to do something to amend for her mistake.

[Observer]

Renee figured she should have left her frustrations out after she ate the honey, and not in front of the floral digimon, who worked so hard to make this gift for her. Now the poor palmon looked very sad, as if she was about to cry, and the youkomon felt she was a big jerk. She'd try to fix this misunderstanding, if she could.

- I was not upset with honey, child. It is delicious. I was just upset with myself that in this form I cannot do anything normally... That's all. No need for a sad face, ne? - the fox said apologetically, one of her nine tails moving towards the plant digimon and wiping under her eyes, just in case. After that the fox finished with the rest of the honey. Seriously, first time in her life she was given a present, and she had to make the giver feel miserable about it. Great, super.

- There was something I wanted to ask you, child. I remember you mentioned your nanny Rosemon once, and some ... project you participated in, was it? Could you tell me more about it? It sounded very interesting... - Renee tried to change the subject, but also was pretty curious about it as well. They were studying change of behavior during evolutions, maybe they knew how to revert evolution itself?

[Mirei]

"Y-you like it ...?"

That was a great relief for the plant digimon, her "sister" wasn't angry with her nor the discomfort came from the honey, she simply felt a bit annoyed for the lack of hands to grab objects and seemed to miss her former self. The palmon wondered if by helping her this way maybe she was making her sister feel bad and what could she do to make her feel comfortable.

She would've continued feeling troubled by what to do next if weren't because one of the youkomon's nine tails wiped an small tear that was forming next to her eyes. The big, fox digimon didn't want the palmon to feel sad, so the palmon decided to smile a bit to change the mood of the situation, her nanny rosemon always told her that sadness was contagious and that smiling always helped to prevent that "disease" called sadness.

She was feeling already better and suddenly the youkomon asked her about something she didn't think about very often: about the institute in which she lived before and what her nanny rosemon did there.

"Umm ... nanny Rosemon and the others always talked about complex things, she said that every time a digimon evolved, not only their bodies but also their personality changed. She said that she joined the project because she used to be a tomboyish togemon who liked to box with other digimon when something she called the light of evolution caused her to evolve into the nice and gentle nanny Rosemon she was now and she somehow felt something changed within her that day. I don't like the idea of evolving because I could become a bad digimon like happened to devimon, but I'm sure that as long I'm with sister youkomon I'm going to become a nice adult digimon!"

[Observer]

- Viruses are generally offensive programs... This is probably why your friend became so volatile. Data and Vaccine are usually of more docile nature, tis why their nature does not change so drastically after evolution... I think you would be alright... - youkomon replied reassuringly, though within there within there was ... doubt, misunderstanding. Why did nothing bad happened to her? Why didn't her worse traits reappear from the surface? Renee knew herself - she was violent, murderous, why didn't all that get a grip on her again?

- Like your Nanny Rosemon, you said she was not a very nice digimon, but after evolution she became nice and caring. Tis was because plant digimon are in general good-natured. But tell me, did they try to de-evolve someone and see what happens? - Renee asked cautiously. If they did - she'd like to know how it was done. Maybe if she did - she'd find out how to de-evolve herself, or how to control her own evolution...

[Mirei]

"Virus, data, vaccine? I always thought everybody was the same and that we could all be friends, demi-devimon was nice when he was a kid like me so I thought the type didn't matter ... and yes! all plant digimons are super friendly and we love to play and have fun and help each other, we are like one huge big family!"

In the institute, there was not such thing as separating digimon for their type. For the sake of research, all digimon of any type and species were raised equally with love and care and the results were clear in the case of most of the digimon, who become productive members of the society when they evolved into adult champion digimon .. thought, it was true too that it was hard to fight against one's nature as the prankster but good natured demi-devimon become rather aggressive and arrogant when he evolved into devimon. At least it helped to know that what was taught to the virus digimon wasn't in vain as he somehow managed to restrain a bit his species natural cruelty and wasn't even half as evil as normal devimons.

As for the plant digimon, they all shared a love for nature and for friendship, so it wasn't surprising that all of them ended up becoming fine adults when they reached champion level. They usually were docile digimon who tended to be great friends ... thought just like how some devil type digimon could be good, sometimes a harsh lifestyle would twist even the nicest plant digimon into a brutal being who loathes the good things of life.

"De-evolve? I think nobody could de-evolve there. Nanny said that it was a natural part of a digimon's life to grow older and evolve once they got enough data, and that funny light she said touched her seemed to increase A LOOOOT her data and make her evolve earlier ... but for some reason my friend Arurau-chan could evolve and de-evolve easily like magic! Shana-chan had that magical thing that could make arurau-chan change anytime and I hadn't seen anything like that before, is that the power of friendship between humans and digimon?"

For digimon born in the digital world there was no such thing as being able freely evolve and de-evolve at will, evolution worked in one way and the only time a digimon could de-evolve was after suffering critical life threatening damage, the only exception for that rule of nature were the human-partnered digimons, who were capable of evolving a lot faster than normal digimon and could even take different evolution lines or return back to old ones depending the situation, truly a very versatile ability normal digimon lacked.

[Observer]

Renee's eye suddenly widened widened as she listened to palmon's prattle. There, the light of digivolution again. She heard the reference before. Wizardmon mentioned it once, but she thought it to be a mere legend. Now another digimon is mentioning it. Just what exactly was that light anyway? She did not know the answer. Maybe she should ask Larry, he could look for it in Hypnos archives. But she'd need to give him more details...

- The light of digivolution again. I keep hearing about it... What could it possibly be? - she mused. First thought was, well light that shines upon you and makes you evolve. But that sounded ... weird. Maybe it was a metaphor of some sort? So many questions, and yet no answer. Not a single one.

- You could call what you saw ... "a power of friendship". But it works differently. Digimon paired with humans evolve faster because they feed upon the human's energy in order to evolve. Humans thus serve as ... well, power sources of sorts. Amount of energy shared depends on how the two trust each other. Or so I was told... - Renee went deeper into thoughts. Aruraumon ... she remembered fighting one before. And the girl's name was familiar. Palmon did not need to know about this, so she'd keep her mouth closed on this one...

- I'd like to repay you for that honey, child. I am not used to receive things for granted. Maybe there is anything I can do for you? - she asked, directing the subject to another route...

[Mirei]

"Woooow, humans are amazing, no wonder my friends are so strong when they are with their partners"

So humans could share their power with digimon, that was something new for the palmon, all she knew was that those digi-something things her human friends had were some sort of magical things that did a lot of things for themselves, but if they actually created miracles using a human's power .. then they were even more awesome.

"Staying with me in the forest is enough, I always wanted to have a big sister and now I have one!"

The palmon was a simple digimon with simple needs, so just by staying with the palmon, the youkomon was doing a great favor to her. The small plant digimon hated to be alone and now she had a sister that was with her the 24 hours of the day, other than bringing more members to their family, there was nothing else the youkomon could do to make the child digimon. happier. To express how much she was satisfied with the vixen's presence, she hugged the youkomon and smiled at her.

[Observer]

Renee only smiled when palmon showed her affections so freely and openly. She was never used to that - nobody showed such to her. Sure, there were other ways to show affection, but this was the most sincere, most ... heartwarming... What was that new feeling that the youkomon now experienced? She didn't even know the word, but she felt she'd not want to leave. She really felt like she was home, at last. Renee thought she'd have to thank her commander for hiding her here - thus allowing ... this to be possible.

- Do not worry, I will never leave you... I think ... a sister is what I always wanted too... - Renee replied, as one of her tails wrapped gently around the small plant-like digimon. Strange this all was - this was supposed to be an exile, and yet, the youkomon felt ... happy.