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Characters: Skulduggery Pleasant and YOU (but specific starters for Captain Amelia, fellow turtle-parents Hawke and Akito, and Monet)
Date: Catch-all for April before the bombings and console crash events
Location: Throughout Keeliai
Situation: Various! These will include futzing with unused consoles, discovering the turtle baby, and also intercepting kedan informants. But Skulduggery’s going to be all over the Shell throughout the month, so feel free to chime in with your own.
Warnings/Rating: None for the moment. Well, there’s some lock-picking.

I usually start with prose, but I’ll adapt to any style. If you want a specific starter, PM me at

Amaraq!

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Quintus takes Akito all the way out of the city, moving gently over the slope of its much larger brethren, guided by the setting sun and later by the natural bio-luminescence of the shell. It takes him a few hours, but eventually he reaches the water's edge, where Skulduggery has been standing and staring out at the ocean for the past several hours.

Skulduggery feels Quintus coming, both through the strange new mind connection they seem to have, and through the disturbance of the air currents. Long before the large turtle actually comes into view, Skulduggery's already resigning himself to the peace that usually cuts off his thoughts in their infancy. What he isn't expecting to find is a small child napping on Quintus's shell.

Once Quintus is close enough, Skulduggery reaches out and taps the turtle's beak with two fingers. It was his original version of stroking the head, and it still seems to have a calming effect on Quintus. The turtle's eyes half-close, and he sinks to the ground.

"Ensnared a new friend, have you?" Skulduggery asks him quietly. "We need to teach you how to stop doing that. Bad turtle. Bad."

He doesn't mean it, and Quintus knows. The turtle instead looks up at him and communicates a certain smugness. New friend. Ours.

If Akito had been aware of Quintus taking him to meet someone new, he would have stayed locked up in his room instead of trusting his turtle-friend so acutely. The thought of being so defenseless and people seeing him like that would have made him shudder.

But he isn't aware, and so continues sleeping peacefully until Quintus' smugness creeps into his mind. It rouses him enough to shift a hand to smack his shell sleepily with a murmured 'Quin-kun, stop it', then curl up into a smaller little ball; ducking his head into the safety of his hood, and hiding his face behind curled up hands.

Quin-kun? Skulduggery's head tilts to the side. That's a Japanese honourific, if he remembers correctly. The interesting thing about that is that spoken language all over the turtle is magically translated. Certain phrases seem to be immune to that magic, and now Skulduggery can add Japanese honourifics to the list.

"See?" He wags his finger. "Bad turtle."

You were sad.

'Sad' isn't quite how Skulduggery would have put it, but Quintus seems determined enough for him to let that part slide. "So you kidnapped me a companion? How disturbingly generous of you."

Sarcasm is the only finer point of language Quintus hasn't yet mastered. He takes Skulduggery's comment as confirmation that he's done the right thing, and happily curls up on the ground. Skulduggery sighs, and looks at the small child sleeping on the young turtle's back.

"Hello?" he asks, since it seems to be about as appropriate as anything else.

If the greeting didn't wake him up, Quintus' not-so-gentle prodding in his mind certainly did. Still, Akito rouses slowly - body unwilling to exit the first restful sleep it's had since arriving on Tu Vishan - and grumbles half-heartedly under his breath about stupid turtles, all the while sending Quintus feelings of affection in return. He can feel Quintus' amusement in his mind, so he sends him the impression of sticking out his tongue without actually doing so. It's different than how he and Agito would speak, but not difficult.

More awake now, Akito stretches the stiffness out of his back. The movement causes him to catch sight of someone in his peripheral (he would have noticed sooner if he took off his eye patch, but he couldn't bear the thought of doing that...), startling him. He twists around quickly to face the stranger, then promptly lets out a squeal of fright and topples right off the back of Quintus.

He's run into plenty of strange things so far - polar bear dogs, aliens, shapeshifters, weird animals and people - but never a skeleton.

A skeleton.

With a hat.

Skulduggery adjusts that very hat while he waits for the metaphorical smoke to clear. If he hadn't already been used to terrified reactions from his own world, he'd be more than used to them by now, what with all the video responses to his initial exploration of the network.

Valkyrie had been twelve at the time and she'd outright fainted. This Japanese child doesn't seem to be much older than she was.

"Are you alright back there?" Skulduggery asks after a moment, peering around Quintus's shell. Quintus, for his part, merely makes the mental equivalent of an amused snort. It's not helpful in the least.

Agito would have shit himself if he were here and the thought hurts his heart like a physical wound. Despite the skeleton's friendly enough tone, and Quintus' mental reassurance, Akito isn't exactly trusting of a living skeleton. Popular culture says it isn't the best thing to do, and Kogarasumaru tended to live by the wisdom of popular culture.

"Um... Yes!"

Quintus needs to stop being so amused by this.

"Are you sure?" He debates walking around Quintus to help the child back to his - or her - feet, but decides that may not be the best of ideas. "I take a little getting used to, I know, but I don't bite. Unless you're evil. And even then, I don't tend to bite so much as I tend to arrest you. Are you evil?"

No! comes Quintus's very firm reply. Skulduggery makes a mental note to teach the baby turtle about the finer nuances of language another day.

The way the skeleton-man can talk without any muscles or vocal cords is so distracting and disturbing that Akito doesn't absorb a word he says.

"...You don't have vocal cords."

As though that explains why Akito can't answer him at the moment. Because he didn't even know there was a question.

Skulduggery tilts his head, amused. "I don't. But you, on the other hand, do, unless I'm much mistaken."

You're not, Quintus assures him.

"I didn't think I was. Do you need any help?"

Akito is still torn between being scared and being curious. Had Quintus not been there, he would have run away long ago. At the skeleton-man's comment he brings a hand up to cover his throat, as though he isn't sure if he should be keeping it safe or not. Though he's pretty sure he isn't in any danger, otherwise Quintus would have taken him away.

At least, he hopes so.

"Ah, n-no. I'm fine!"

"Alright." Skulduggery looks at him for a moment longer, the blank skull hiding the otherwise strange look he would be wearing, and then he turns back to the water. "Suit yourself."

He's learned that occasionally, it's best to let people acclimatise on their own. Perhaps Quintus's mental assurances will be enough to help. If not, Quintus wouldn't let the child wander off on his own.

"You must have been tired," Skulduggery tries, by way of a conversation starter.

With the skeleton-man's back to him, it's easier for Akito to calm down. It's easier to ignore the disconcerting lack of familiar expression and focus instead on where he is. Why did Quintus take him all the way to another district?

To meet this person, he realizes so suddenly he's pretty sure the turtle was responsible for at least part of it.

"Um..."

Quintus nudges him in what Akito knows he thinks is a gentle manner, but sends him toppling onto the ground again. Ow.

"...Kind of."

Skulduggery looks back around when Akito face-plants, sighs, and shakes his head. "Tired enough not to be able to stand up straight? Either Quintus is far more capable of elaborate plans than I thought, or sleeping on top of a moving turtle isn't very peaceful."

I was very careful! Quintus protests.

It's still strange, associating the childlike voice in Skulduggery's thoughts with the boulder-sized turtle standing next to them both. Skulduggery tried responding to every single one at first; now, he's learned how to ignore them as the intrusions they are.

"Quintus is stronger than he thinks he is," Akito says quietly, ignoring the way his cheeks heat in embarrassment. Anyone could have been knocked down by that, he's sure, but if he hadn't been tired he thinks he would have been able to keep his balance.

"That's very true." With the boy back on his feet and Quintus at least partly reprimanded for all he tried to do, Skulduggery decides that it's high time to try for a handshake, so he puts one hand out. "I'm Skulduggery Pleasant."

A skeleton's hand is a disconcerting thing, but Quintus' reassurance is enough to make him take the proffered hand in a tentative shake.

"Gazelle," he says; the not-really-a-lie less bitter on his tongue than it used to be. "It's good to meet mister Skullduggery Pleasant."

Gazelle. Skulduggery tilts his head. Very much not a Japanese name, as far as he's aware; but then, who is he to judge? "Likewise."

Behind Gazelle, Quintus continues to titter at them both in whatever passes for tittering among telepathic turtles. It's quite a bit harder to ignore than many of Quintus's projected wonderings, but somehow, Skulduggery manages it anyway. "So," he says instead. "When did Quintus adopt you?"

"Um..." Akito glances to Quintus, who chuffs at him with what Akito assumes is a laugh. "A few days ago."

About the same for Skulduggery, then. Possibly even at the same time. It was entirely likely, if they lived on opposite sides of Keeliai, that the pervading feelings of peace were simultaneous even if their meetings were not.

"Has he told you anything about himself?" Skulduggery asks. "He avoids the questions whenever I ask them."

"He told me some," he says slowly. If Quintus didn't tell this person there must be a reason, even if what he told Akito is very basic. "Did you answer the questions he's asked you?"

"As many as I can." Or at least as many as he can sanely answer in one day. Quintus has many questions, and most of those are more related to science or Skulduggery's observational skills than Skulduggery's past. "What has he told you?"

Akito shrugs, feigning nonchalance. "Just some things he likes. Colours, foods, games. That sort of thing."

"Nothing helpful, then." Skulduggery looks back out at the sea. The problem is that he can't quite tell if Quintus keeps so secretive because he's been told to, or if the baby turtle genuinely doesn't know the answers to the questions. Maliciousness, or innocence; it could be either one.

He's inclined to believe the latter, but he would admit to a certain bias.

A moment later, and Skulduggery's curiosity gets the better of him. "Games? What games?"

"Twenty Questions seems to be his favourite." Which shouldn't be a surprise to anyone familiar with the hatchlings.

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