Cautious.

Muggy.

His own breathing echoing around inside of his head.

His peripherals a spiral blur of reds and greys. He would probably have a better sense of direction and perception had his left eye not be blind, but at this particular moment he half wishes he was completely blind. What the hell kind of garden is this? It's pathetic, it's sad, its… actually not as bad as he was expecting now that he can see it from the top of the sand dunes. Low level gardeners always get just that little bit of pitty from him deep down in his core being somewhere. He slows down his pace even more, quietly humming, mumbling the words to a song he's half forgotten to a tune fumbled and torn by time.

His sight locks onto the sickly pale green whirlm at the far end of the garden.

Wait… a whirlm? A whirlm? How do you let a WHIRLM get sick? This gardener is laying with their sick whirlm, there is no sign of the doctor on his way. Oh no. This poor little low level doesn't have the money for the doc do they? There is no way they could stop him from taking their piñata's life candy away. Oh no. Why does this happen as often as it does? Doesn't the doctor have that one free visit when he shows up to a garden for the first time? This garden is not familiar to him, then again his memory is that of a leaky bucket. Despite his ability to defy gravity, he feels his chest start to sink, his lips frown and brow furrow. In all honesty, he doesn't want to do this, but it's him or the piñata.

His thoughts lessen their intensity as he crosses over that white lined border of the garden. The sooner he gets this over with the better. Please don't start crying, just don't notice him, he's going to get the life candy and leave.

Fuck she sees him. Fuck fuck fuck fuck.

"Oh, um… hi..?"

Well, at least she hasn't started screaming, that's good. He ignores her, get the life candy, then get out of here, that's his focus, that's his goal. She's talking at him but he's not listening, get the candy, break the piñata, break it, rip it open and throw it's lifeless body aside, reap the spoils of it's lost soul, break it, destroy it.

"Excuse me."

He pauses for a moment as the gardener stands between him and his prey. His hand twitches and then tightens his grip over his whacking stick aggressively.

"I need to talk to you."

She sounds frustrated, he's heard this all before, pleads and begs of mercy for their piñata. He floats to the side and attempts to go around her. She moves into the way again. Fine. He'll stare her down, looking through the gardener completely. She'll move out of the way eventually, he knows she can't stop him, he knows she knows she can't stop him. Foolish girl.

"Look," she sighs heavily, suddenly finding that all her words are avoiding her. He can see the fear in her eyes, she's petrified. Go ahead, he's a patient man, try and talk your way out this situation you've gotten yourself into, it'll do nothing for you.

"There's, well um, there's something… weird happening with a sour here… and…"

Wait what? He blinks a few times, a momentary expression of confusion moulds onto his mask before returning to an emotionless state to the best of his ability given the circumstances. What has a sour got to do with stopping him from reaping your piñata? He remains quietly murmuring his song to keep the ill whirlm content and calm. Not to worry poor little piñata, your pain will cease shortly. He floats around the gardener, and she gets in his way again god fucking damn it are you kidding me right now.

"Please, I just want some answers," she pleads, keeping her tone as calm as she can manage, she holds a hand out towards him in a welcoming gesture. He very quickly backs away from her instinctively to be out of reach as if a touch would hurt him. She slowly retracts her hand after noticing his reaction as she continues, "I'll let you take my whirlm, but only after you answer my questions."

Despite her obvious fear of this floating sour corpse staring deeply into her soul, she is still as stubborn as ever and seems to have somehow conjured up the courage to stand tall between the reaper and her ill piñata. He takes a glance at the whirlm for a moment before returning his gaze right back at the low level and takes his time in looking her up and down. She's a hard worker, her mask has had some cracks in the past before, he notices the magical scaring still healing the wood, her feet uncovered by any socks or shoes, worn as a true Islander Gardener's feet would be with scuffs and dry mud, her mask animates the dark circles under her eyes, not much sleep shows dedication, her clothes covered in grass stains and dirt smudges. She's trying her hardest, he'll give her that. He closes his eyes to take a slow, deep inhale and holds it in an attempt to pause his thought process to have clearer thinking. Of course it doesn't work completely but, he is able to come to the conclusion that he will at least listen to the questions, his pity for the low level gardener and his guilt for being the one to take away her beloved piñata from her being the driving force behind this decision.

He slowly exhales, and as he does so he sinks to the ground just as slowly until his toes gently brush the grass beneath him. He crosses his legs, floating above the ground and slowly opens his eyes again, he rests the palm of his right boney hand to the side of his twisted mask's cheek and leans his elbow against his knee, absentmindedly twirling his whacking stick around in the air with his free hand. His scarf also gets comfy on the ground beneath him, it wants to listen in too.

He hears her let out a sigh of relief, he hadn't noticed she was holding her breath until now.

"Thank you," she breathes out her words with a small smile. She seems to be under the impression that he'll actually answer her. How naive.

She does her best to explain the sour sherbat situation, and despite his expression and lack of response, he is actually just as interested in this little sherbat as she seems to be. He is a bit unsure on how to feel about her unusual approach to sours, but it's not the first time he's come across a gardener like this though. He understands the reasoning behind it, but it still never fails to come as a surprise when he finds a gardener that goes out of their way to treat every piñata kindly.

"So," she questions with an unsure expression and slightly growing nervousness at how quiet Dastardos has been, "do you… know anything about… why um… why any of this, is happening? With the halo and the sleeping, and why it's acting so… unlike how a sour piñata normally would?"

He lifts his head off of his palm, stretches his arms up above his head, his legs untangle themselves and makes his body look like a backwards 'C'. Every bone in his body making a horrible cracking sound as he stretches back, trailing from his fingertips down his spine to his toes. He can't help but snicker at the cringe he gets from the gardener in response to his bones cracking back into place.

"Yeah, I know," he yawns out the words as he slowly returns to his usual stance. His voice sounds hoarse and raspy as if he has screamed loud enough to tear his own voice box in the past, yet his humming and mumbled singing is smooth like water running gently over stones into a pool of crystal clear dew, shimmering and calming with ripples that flow and shift in his songs, quite the contrast to his speaking voice. The gardener was clearly not expecting his voice to sound quite like the way it does, but she won't say anything of it and waits for him to continue.

He slowly attempts to float around her, he answered her question, yes he does know, now leave him alone, no don't you dare get in the way- SHE IS IN THE WAY AGAIN YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME SERIOUSLY STOP TALKING TO ME THIS IS AN ABNORMAL LENGTH OF CONVERSATION WITH ME I AM NOT OKAY WITH THIS.

"Okay, that's good. I'm glad you do, can you tell me?" She questions him nervously, does she not know how much he doesn't want to be here? Is she just stupid or stubborn?

"No," he growls, being agitated that she is continuing to badgecicle him.

"Why?" She snaps back at him, probably annoyed at his lack of cooperation. Her being unimpressed with him is making him even more agitated and being pushed just that little bit closer to the edge of complete rage. His mask animates his expression, brow furrows and nose crinkles, sharpened teeth being barred, and a flicker of red flashes in the glow of his eyes for a moment. He raises his jagged shoulders and his hand looks like it will break his weapon in half, knuckles white under the pressure. His scarf rises like a syrupent about to strike, making an aggressive hiss as if they were real. The almost animalistic response makes the gardener take another step back away from him, she does not want to seem like a threat to him. He slowly returns to a neutral expression, he didn't actually mean to scare her as much as he did, for a very short moment he contemplates apologizing to her, but giving an apology is unwillingly forced out of his thoughts as quickly as it had arrived.

There is an awkward silence now as they stare at one another, unsure of the other's next action.

"... I'm sorry," the gardener, that Dastardos still doesn't know the name of yet, speaks softly as if he were a wild piñata, "I just… I want to know, I want to understand what is happening… so if you know, could you please tell me?"

He takes another deep breath. It's not like he's being difficult purposefully. She doesn't understand, and she wants answers to something she is confused about. He can respect that. Fine. Fine, he'll elaborate.

"... It's… a bit confusing to explain," he slurs his words as he tries to recall the answers that she might be looking for. He slowly floats from side to side as if swaying his entire body with the cool breeze of the night will help him in his thought process. "But at the same time it's simple. The candy balances out the… uh… the… sweet to sour ratio for lack of a better term. Basically, a sour acts sour because it is... sour... and the candy makes it sweeter without getting rid of the sourness, it's happier, lighter thoughts manifest in a way that causes a little ring of light around their head, it looks like an angel's halo but its definitely not I can tell you that much, heheh. Oh, and the sweetness numbs the pain enough for them to sleep soundly, and they're not stupid, if you keep feeding it and taking care of it, it's gonna keep coming back… as for leaving your garden unharmed, well, it's not like it could make it look much worse than it already is."

"Pain?" Her voice soft and shaky, her mask expressing the same concern and worry in her voice. Her empathy for this poor little creature out waying her anger at the insult to her garden.

"Yeah, like your precious little piñata right now," he side eyes the whirlm that still remains ill not to far from him, "... Well… not exactly but… heh… easy come easy go."

"How do I help the sherbat? Please you have to-"

"Jack-o-lantern," he cuts her off as he floats around her for the final time, he has spent far too much time here as it is, someone might become suspicious. She seems confused about his answer, but she knows she has already pushed her luck so far. She stays out of his way, but walks beside him.

"Could I ask you more questions in the future?" It was a long shot, if she is smart she would be expecting a no, but he does know much more about sours than her, maybe she's just a dreamer.

"Fuck no." The words escape his mouth before he gets a chance to even think them over. She disappears into the blur of his peripherals as he hovers above the sick piñata, and with a breath he takes away the last from the tiny pale creature below him, striking it with a single swift blow to the abdomen, his eyes sparking to a bloody red filled with an unnatural twisted joy in cracking it in half and ripping the candy out of its shell like intestines out of a stomach, a soft, almost maniac giggle escapes his mouth. It's incredibly therapeutic to take his frustration out onto the ill pinata, a pathetic whirlm with a life just as meaningless as the rest. He doesn't like to, but it is a good stress relief.

He hears a quiet shaky sniffle to the left only a little bit behind him, the gardener's doing well in keeping herself together and not bursting into tears over her recently deceased piñata or out of fear of this horrible psychopath in her garden. His scarf slithers and scoops up the life candy amongst the carnage and appears to devour it.

He sighs solemnly, slowly returning to what he considers normal now from his crazed sour murder high and remains facing away from the gardener. He cuts her off again, but before she gets the chance to say anything this time, "maybe… focus on your garden first, then come talk to me." And with that he turns and begins his journey home. He can hear her following him to the edge of her garden.

"I know it doesn't look like it but I am trying to work on my garden. I just… I don't know what to do to make it better," her voice is stressed and just that little bit closer to crying.

He rubs his mask's temples and turns to point with his whacking stick at each part of her garden as he explains, "fertilize your plants, your buttercups will give more seeds and buds to feed to your bunnycombs for their romance dance, any extras you can harvest and sell. Become a master romancer of all the piñata you can, but only focus on one kind of piñata at a time so you can keep track of it all, and for the love of everything buy better fucking gardening tools."

He turns and leaves, picking up the pace even more as he follows the rarely used trail into the desert. He disappears behind the sand dunes before she sees him gone, being too busy trying to take note of what she's been told. He can hear her behind him make a remark of him "just disappearing". He half smiles, a mix of mischievous smirk and frustration with himself over being so childish. He needs to get home and be by himself for a week, that was far too much human interaction for him to handle in one sitting.

Though, it wasn't entirely horrible. Maybe it was just different so it scares and excites him at the same time, actually talking to someone and them wanting him to speak back to them, like a real conversation. He sighs and shakes his head disapprovingly at his own actions, mentally scolding himself as he proceeds to smack his forehead with the jagged and boney palms of his hands. Stupid, stupid, STUPID. He needs to make a plan if this happens again, he was completely taken off guard by that entire situation. He'll be ready next time, you can't get the best of Dastardos no siree.

He's extremely tired after all that social interaction though. Nap first, plan later. He lets himself go into autopilot as he drifts over the Dessert Desert sand that is cooling off quite quickly now that the night is getting later. He slips into the back exit of his home, which is simply a hole in the twisted root system that leads into the center of the hollow sour tree. Drifting through the single room, ducking out of the way of shelves and tattered curtains, he plants his mask, still attached to his face, directly into the mountain of pillows and other stolen soft items he uses as a bed, and almost immediately passes out, being left undisturbed by the sour piñata that roam freely in and out of the tree.