2026-07-02: Cute AGGRESION
- Log: Cute AGGRESION
- Cast: Isabeau Fontaine, Pernelle
- Where: Peacock Silk
- OOC Date: 2026-07-02
- IC Date: Mon, Dec 03 2012
- Summary: Isabeau comes to investigate the ABOMINATION CALLED PERNELLE. Pernelle screams at her the minute she enters. Isabeau panics and throws her soda at him. It all goes downhill from there, but somehow, Pernelle remains a fan of Isabeau throughout the entire mess. Don't let her pet you, Pernelle! She tried to kill you!
<Pose Tracker> Isabeau Fontaine has posed.
After Tennis Club practice, there's another place for Isabeau to visit before she goes home: Peacock Silk. Going here before dinner puts her on something of a timer, of course -- because she needs to be back by dinner, she's not about to leave her father hanging -- but she has no idea if this being a store linked to Awakening means that it's open during the Dark Hour or not.
Besides, she's just scouting. It's not like she has to destroy the bird the minute she walks in.
This late in the year, the sun's set already by the time she gets to that Taisho building in Shimokitazawa. She's not wearing her Shujin uniform any more (she did go home to change!), and her sporty green shorts and green-and-yellow layered blouse manage to be tomboyish without framing her as as boy. She's strapped a white tennis visor around her head to cope with the glare of the sunset on the way here -- it's like a cap, but it wraps around her high ponytail of drill curls which falls down her head. (The honey-blonde curls to either side of her face are, of course, unblemished.) She strolls into the alcove, looking over the trapped existence of that flower bed and those trash cans...
... and examines the vending machine. "Bah," she huffs, as she sees all those weird Japanese drinks. She hesitates, for a moment, about to discount them all --
-- and then buys a can of peach soda, because, like, weird or not, she is thirsty. Glug, glug, she downs about half of it, and returns her attention to the store as she holds the can in her hand. The door's shut, and Isabeau scowls. "They close this early?!" She demands, and makes the demand in French, and she almost turns around and stalks off until she realises there's an arrow.
There is another long pause as she tries to read the little kanji in the half-light of civil twilight.
"Bah," she huffs, again, as she stalks off to find the real entrance.
So there are those double doors, and with one hand Isabeau flings them open, the other still holding that can of peach soda. She's strong enough to be able to do that with one hand... and extra enough, too.
<Pose Tracker> Pernelle has posed.
Peacock Silk is open whenever it wants to be. It is also closed whenever it wants to be. As Isabeau learns, there is a path to learning today's fortune in that regard for one who remains unsatiated by peach soda, and possesses the perseverance to wander past a false door and toward the truth.
The unlocked doors fly open...
... to an empty boutique. The force of her entrance shifts clothes displayed on the mannequins, who will woefully remain unwhimsically in place even when she glances away without anyone to rearrange them. There is no one at the register, nor working on the newest piece at the counter, nor sweeping the floors.
There is only silence and an empty spotlight.
A silence that breaks once Isabaeu steps in and the double doors swing back shut behind her.
And then...
... he happens.
A beady eyed head with a brightly colored crest popping into her periphery in the same instance that sound explodes from his beak:
"VALUED CUSTOMER! Welcome to THE REALM OF SYNTHESIS!"
<Pose Tracker> Isabeau Fontaine has posed.
OPEN! Go the doors, as Isabeau strides inside, bold as brass. "I arrive!" She declares, to the empty hall; as she turns her critical green gaze on the clothes, she finds faults to pick in them immediately, even though she couldn't do better.
Perhaps, in her mind, she could if she wanted to...
The doors swing shut.
And there, at the edge of her gaze --
OST: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3Fr6iKX7VI Taylor Swift - Look What You Made Me Do
"AAAAAAAAAAAAH!" Isabeau screams, as she whirls to face the screaming peacock, instinct driving her to defend herself with the one thing she has on hand --
-- that can of peach soda, which she throws an arm out to douse him with.
She can't summon her spearknife to her hand, in this place, but Isabeau has always been great at improvising.
It might seem, for a moment, that she doesn't even understand him, except -- Pernelle knows for a fact she does, because Isabeau is Isabeau, regardless of whether she's wearing her Victorian leathers and vials or her sporty shorts.
<Pose Tracker> Pernelle has posed.
Pernelle's wings fly open with a wild flap as Isabeau begins to scream.
He actually does not quite finish he words, which experience their own synthesis ear piercing, "EEEEEEEEEYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA --"
SHE THROWS THE BLOOD OF CARBONATED PEACHES AT HIM
SHE THROWS! SODA!! AT PERNELLE???!
He is frozen, eyes bulgingly wide and wings outstretched, soaked in sticky soft drink that drips down his pinions and onto the floor.
"-- a"
<Pose Tracker> Isabeau Fontaine has posed.
The soda lands, and so, soon, it is chased by the soda can --
-- which, regardless of whether it lands comically and donks off his poor peacock noggin or not, is soon followed by the girl leaping upon him.
As she leaps, one might think less of a girl and more a cat; she lands on all fours, hands and feet, as the latter have the alacrity to grab at his feathers and grasp, in a fevered attempt to grab him and pin him to the sticky, sticky floor.
"YOU--!"
<Pose Tracker> Pernelle has posed.
The can bounces off of Pernelle's skull and ricochets across the boutique.
"... aaaaaaaa, aaaaa???!"
This is no time for such questions because soda followed by can is followed by girl WASN'T THERE A BOOK ABOUT THIS WITH MICE AND COOKIES (this has nothing to do with that!!)
Pernelle is many things, and one of those things is an actual factual god damn peacock with all the instincts that come attached. His pupils shrink, and his next scream is a war honk as his entire train fluffs up, rustling while he launches himself at Isabeau in a refusal to be avian prey to a feline predator.
Feathers are grabbed and molted and are flying everywhere.
"ME--!" he shrieks nonsensically. "ME! I! YOURS TRULY!"
Somewhere in all the quarreling, he manages to recognize who he is tussling with, or rather, it becomes impossible not to recognize.
"... And also YOU!"
Yes, that's what Isabeau said!
"You! You! AaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAA - HA! Aha! You! Yes! You who have come for my feathers, for your spectacular thing! SO THE FATED DAY HAS FINALLY ARRIVED! But I shall not fall so easily, and it may be your pelt claimed this day, dearest rival! EN GARDE!"
It's really far too late for an 'en garde'...
<Pose Tracker> Isabeau Fontaine has posed.
WAR HONK?!
The bird LAUNCHES himself at Isabeau, and so they roll around on the floor, Isabeau buffeted by those wings as she tries to throttle him. Unfortunately, it soon becomes clear that Isabeau really doesn't know how to pick a fight when she doesn't have her spear; she has a size advantage, and her extra padding helps to make sure that those wings are just bruising rather than breaking anything, but she really doesn't know how to land this bird.
"I know you are abomination! You cannot -- euh -- hide your nature from me! Voilà!" She cries, as she rolls on top of him, only for him to flail and flap and KNOCK HER OVER FROM BELOW. "Augh--!!"
"Die, monster!" She cries, as if she can just command him to do it because she sure isn't managing to figure out how to pull it off personally.
<Pose Tracker> Pernelle has posed.
WAR HONK!!
Pernelle is quite less of a threat without all the fire and atomic detonations to fling away. And his wings do not, mercifully, have knives in them. What he has is raw, instinctual animal flailing, and a whole lot of moxie.
(Moxie wasn't the soda that hit you Pernelle --)
But his counter offense is not as uncontrolled as it might at first seem: he buffets Isabeau with his wings, but he never applies his clawed feet to her flesh.
"An all around astonishing -- awe-inspiring -- adorable abomination...!" Pernelle grunts admits the their unarmed combat as he is bested for a moment.
"Hide?! Perish the thought! Beauty is not to be buried, but broadcast!"
She commands him die.
"My death with be as -- eyaw! -- glorious as my life...! BUT NOT TODAY!"
Intellect begins to kick past avian instincts. Is Pernelle not a bird capable of tactics? of strategy? In all their rolling, he tries to direct the scuffle to one of many hidden stashes around his home turf.
His foot claws under the counter, reaching for a gachapon capsule.
If Isabeau cannot stop him, he will grab it and squeeze until it pops open and engulfs them both in glitter.
<Pose Tracker> Isabeau Fontaine has posed.
Why would Isabeau ever suspect Pernelle of tactics? He's a TOTAL BIRD BRAIN!
"I will not be distracted from the correct path by cute antics!" Isabeau declares, as she roll roll rolls, and she really doesn't have a plan here. "If I get rid of you now, you will not poison their minds any longer! Here, you are just a weak bir-- AIIEEE!!" That weak bird just slapped her with a wing and she is NOT ABOUT THAT.
"Stay still, you -- arrrgh, il me court sur le haricot!" She just told Pernelle that he is running on her bean, though, of course, what that means is that he's getting on her nerves.
Tragically, this frustration means that the trapper, today, shall become the trapped...
... as Pernelle grasps that glitter bomb...
... and...
POOF!
"Egh! Ack!" Isabeau releases Pernelle to scramble back, flailing at her face. "Aaaagh, it's in my mouth! You! Yoooou...!!!"
Here lies Isabeau: defeated by a glitter bomb to the face.
<Pose Tracker> Pernelle has posed.
"Cute antics -- is -- the correct path!"
This is quite possibly the entire core of what makes Pernelle and Pernelle. So much so that even his tactical adjustment is nothing if not another incoming cute antic.
"A precious and -- prettysome poison, I should think!"
That... doesn't make it less of a problem if it's true, Pernelle?! But really, he's just saying words that sound fun because he's the middle of WRESTLING his GREATEST FOE YET!
"I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU JUST CALLED ME BUT IT SOUNDED LOVELY!"
And then.
The glitter.
"Ha HA!" Pernelle cries in triumph, scrambling free of Isabeau as she scrambles away. "What you taste now is MY GLORIOUS TRIUMPH! Sparkle and gleam with the experience you have gained! Ba da da ba da da!"
As he sings this jazzy victory chime, he shuffles a moment, then stops to ruffle his feathers, shaking himself out from crest to train. His plumage is still rather sticky.
"Well!" he says, as if everything's all over and done with forever. "That was riveting!"
<Pose Tracker> Isabeau Fontaine has posed.
"Stop it! Stop being cute!!" Isabeau demands, and yowls that, "I AM CALLING YOU A PAIN!", and yet --
AND YET --
The tragic truth is that rolling around on the ground with Pernelle also got sticky soda all over Isabeau.
And that means the glitter is sticking to her.
And it's entirely her own fault.
"Bah..." She looks at her hands, covered in glitter, and then pulls out her phone to examine her face and yelps, "MINCE!" She's not talking about beef, but disappointment, and it's clear in the speaking: it sounds more like 'mahnss'.
"You... you have not bested me," Isabeau insists, as she shoves her phone back in her pocket, folding her arms across her chest. "I am not bested. I only did not expect this! I will... I will borrow one of father's display pieces, and--!!"
Isabeau pauses.
"Euh... ben... en fait, he might be cross if I get blood on his antiques..."
Oh no, she's being distracted from her quest to destroy the bird by the fact that she's a dutiful daughter.
<Pose Tracker> Pernelle has posed.
Stop being cute?!
"DEATH FIRST!" Pernelle declares with more ferocity than he has declared anything in his life.
But, of course, he rejects death too.
Isabeau, as the case may be, could also be finding herself stuck with feathers. But they're delightfully iridescent feathers! She should be so fortunate!
Glitter. Feathers. and Sugary stickness. Pernelle preens at a wing. "Oh, dear! I am afraid I have become delicious!" He pauses, then buries his head entirely into his wing. "... Omnyomnyomynyom."
He only pops his head out to witness Isabeau inspect her new looks in the mirror, and then straightens up, chest puffed with pride. "My, my! All my time serving as the mascot of our beautiful boutique, but I've yet perform my own synthesis. I must say, you look gorgeously glimmerous. A galvanizing glamour for a gallant heart!"
Though Pernelle has a peacock's face, his voice is one of genuine cheer and delight.
But then Isabeau seems to be... distraught? And uncertain! A terrible fate, by Pernelle standards. He gasps at her sudden self doubt, as if he could suck out all the air in the room with it.
"And why should he be cross, if that is your heart's truth and desire? What self-respecting father would clip his hatchling's wings so?"
PERNELLE SHE'S TALKING ABOUT KILLING YOU
<Pose Tracker> Isabeau Fontaine has posed.
"I AM TRYING!!!"
The truth is, though, Isabeau isn't very good at this.
And now she's covered in soda and feathers and glitter and --
And that abomination is GROOMING HIMSELF while going yum yum yum --
And -- and then he just --
"I cannot go home like this!" Isabeau wails, struck by the panic of realising just how unique she is right now. "They all will stare at me even more--! Oh, and papa -- what will my father say?! Ooooohhhh...!!!"
She's SO MAD and SO UPSET and THIS BIRD MUST BE THE MOST EVIL THING ON THE PLANET
Isabeau sulks, pulling her knees up to her chest and hugging them. Sadly, this just kind of spreads the glitter-feathers-soda horror out even more, but she's sooooo beyond caring. "I mean... I kind of did not ask if I should get rid of you..." She admits, pouting. "I did not mean to play my hand this easily, but you --" no, she is NOT admitting the bird scared her, what's a better word that doesn't sound as bad, "startled me!"
She huffs, as she adds: "But it is not good for you monsters to pretend to be friends and use your cuteness to do your evil plottings. You are tricking them. I know you are! You and that bandit cat, and the strange pig man, too!"
God help her if she ever meets Jerri. No one will be able to stop her shrill peaking 'I TOLD YOU SO!'
<Pose Tracker> Pernelle has posed.
Pernelle has no idea what anyone should or shouldn't be good at besides himself, and what he is good at is being beautiful.
And apparently tasty?
"Is this what it means to be... 'a snack?'" he wonders aloud in an awed voice. But his attention snaps back to poor Isabeau and her fretting.
"And why shouldn't they stare?" Pernelle asks in sincere shock, sweeping out a wing to gesture to Isabeau's everything. "Your soul shines with demonstrable fervor! So overflowing with intent that you cannot contain your need to act, even unarmed versus an exalted beast such as myself! And with impeccable aim, might I add."
He's going to have a lump on his little peacock head.
"In our confrontation, you have become adorned in sparkles befitting your spirit!" Pernelle folds his wings with a sage nod as she mentions permission. "And fret not over such things. I would hate to see you caged by such banal chains as permission."
She didn't mean your permission, Pernelle...!
Granted, his sentiment is the same either way...
He nods with more sagacious knowing. "I am remarkably startling."
At least he knows? (Not for the right reasons.)
It is fun to talk just to hear himself go on and on until Isabeau accuses him of trickery. Pernelle gasps again, staggered back as if struck.
"T...Tricking them?! And you would accuse the bravest boar the same breath?" Pernelle suddenly softens his voice, venturing a few steps closer to the sulking girl.
"Who would spin you such a story? For starters, cuteness is the best method for evil plotting, I should think. And for second starters, I admit I had a bit of fretting over it myself. What if I am some manner of terrible devil? Should I not abscond from this place entire? But Yanagi assured me they would be distraught without my blessed presence, and so, for them, I shall not be pried from this place!"
He looks Isabeau up and down.
"... But if it would soothe your soul, I do think a little scuffle with an antique is in order, no?"
<Pose Tracker> Isabeau Fontaine has posed.
"They do eat peacocks, you know," Isabeau grumps. "Though I think it would be bad to eat an abomination as you... I heard of men from Papua New Guinea catching a terrible disease which unfolded them from the inside to out, when they ate human brains. You would also give us 'kuru', I gamble!"
Pernelle, though, puffs Isabeau up...
WHO WOULD WIN?
-- ISABEAU'S IMPOSSIBLY HUGE EGO, or
-- ISABEAU'S DEDICATION TO HUMANITY?
... "You really are impressed, hein...?" Isabeau wonders, as she scratches at an ear, looking away.
Oh, no... she hasn't hardened her spirit...!!!
"Évidemment you are tricking them," she insists, still sulky. "Because... when monsters steal men's faces, this is abomination. And when Demons lure humans away to eat them, this is abomination. And when Shadows force men to speak words they would never, this is abomination... and you are not human. What is not human must then be abomination."
She scowls, grasping her knees and setting her chin on her knees. "... you are telling me you do not know what evil you bring? Tchah! Lies and washed hog!" That's not how you say that word, Isabeau. You got that word mixed up. "You must be tricking me, too! Though... you do sound as if..." She hums, looking to Pernelle, a touch more conflicted. "Maybe you really do not know... but what is the purpose of you, given charm and voice and placed with men? Do you not corrupt them?"
Isabeau's courage is wavering...
"... besides," she adds, "I do not want to break papa's antiques. So... if you wish to fight me, you must find me in those areas of high vibration!"
d-- does she mean the dark hour or --
<Pose Tracker> Pernelle has posed.
Pernelle startles, feathers ruffled and train trying to puff out. Unfortunately, it is too sticky, and only partially unfurls. "Who's they?!" He begins nodding rapidly. "Yes, yes, the, er, kuru! I would fight valiantly from within, unfolding all!"
He smooths himself out soon enough.
But is Pernelle impressed? "Just so!" he affirms in his way. "Was ours not a battle for the ages? The greatest tragedy is that there was no one to witness our duel. Ah! What fine stories they would have sang of us..."
Pernelle's gaze retreats to a fantasy world where this is the case, and he begins to hum along with it.
But the trickery! Which he has no idea he could be accused of doing right now. He blinks several times, tilts his head one side to the other. "But I haven't a man's face. And I should think I would remember stealing them. Or eating them."
Pernelle's brow knits, and then his eyes blink open wide. His beak falls open with a worried realization.
"That is... unless clowns count...?"
Pernelle did you eat the clown leather
(Pernelle ate the clown leather)
He considers the rest of her accusations. "Hm. I certainly cannot argue with not being human, but... W-Washed hogs? What manner of game has Roger gotten himself into? Summer has already ended. He'll catch the chill of death if he's off cavorting in pools and oceans!"
But Isabeau seems to soften, just a little, to ask Pernelle's glorious input. Pernelle tippy taps on his clawed feet with this invitation to speak (as if not having it stopped him before--)
"The purpose of me is to be!" he chirps. "Charm to bring customers! A voice with which to sing!" He ducks his head against his body. "I confess, sometimes I do abuse my more adorable aspects at the bakery to acquire the breads from the day before ... but is that truly such a criminal use of my blessed visage? Should we not all flaunt what we have got? It is not as if I force anyone to bestow upon me a croissant, delectably stale with added crunch!"
Ah, but she will not break her father's antiques. "As long as that is your own wish. Yes, I do suppose the waking world--" He's picked up on that much, but, "-- would be a better battlefield to work out your intense case of cute aggression."
...
what
Pernelle tips his head forward.
"If you should pat me upon the head, that may alleviate some of your symptoms until then."
<Pose Tracker> Isabeau Fontaine has posed.
"Back in Ancient Rome," Isabeau sniffs, haughtily, "and in Medieval England, too." Why -- but those are historical practices!
Surely that means today, humanity is more enlightened...
Isabeau sighs. "It is the worst when no one is watching," she agrees.
She scowls, though, as she listens to Pernelle's defences, until -- "That abomination, 'Roger'... I will defeat it, too." 'It'!!! That's not his gender!!!
Ugh, but this abomination... it's so... it's so...!
(The word is ego-syntonic, but Isabeau doesn't know that word in French so she DEFINITELY doesn't know it in Japanese.)
"... I like to sing, too," Isabeau admits, still pouting. "My coach keeps holding me back... but évidemment I could do it, you know? If she just would give me the chance..."
Frown!! "There is nothing I wish more than to crush you," Isabeau insists, when Pernelle insists on it being her wish. Except...
He leans his head forward, and...
Isabeau s l o w l y reaches her hand out to press it softly to his feathers.
If her eyes are sparkling, no they're not.
<Pose Tracker> Pernelle has posed.
Pernelle heaves a sigh of relief. "I know not such theys. I am safe!"
Isabeau calls Roger an 'it' and Pernelle squints in thought. "I do not think that is Roger's actualization? He is not so much the boar around these parts, though... hm. No, perhaps I should not overstep with my assumptions. I do receive an 'it' now and then myself, if rarer than some creatures -- the dimorphism, I presume -- and it is not an entire ill fit, now is it?"
He really does like to ramble on about just about anything.
But Isabeau likes to sing, and Pernelle's entire being lights up. He dances back and forth on his claws. "Do you? Oh, to keep back a voice... that the true crime! I simply must hear a song of yours one of these days!"
Unfortunately, Isabeau's insistent she wishes to crush him only fits in perfectly with his narrative that she is suffering from cute aggression. He nods to her in understanding and reassurance. "I know, I know."
He patiently waits for her to muster her will and courage to pet his crested, softly feathered head. If he is soda-sticky to the touch, well, so is she, so it's probably all the same to anyone.
And if anything is sparkling, it's because he's covered them both in glitter.