She just… fell asleep… just like that…

She looks peaceful, gentle breaths make her chest rise and fall like waves of the ocean, tucked away in the corner full of pillows and blankets. As interesting as it is to watch a living creature simply exist, there is a more important matter at hand right now.

Dastardos brings his attention to the sour sherbat in his arms. Luckily, it doesn't seem to be ill, at least not physically. It's scared and stressed, and covered in sour vomit, the poor little paper batty…

Singing his song to calm and soothe the distressed piñata, Dastardos floats over to the particular corner of this single roomed home that he calls his kitchen. He places the sour bundle gently on the poorly carved out bench, which is more like a root that has been whittled flat by a very crude shovel. He unwraps them from MoonLily's neck scarf and throws the cloth aside, the scarf is ruined anyway, crusted with sour candy chunks, red and black confetti and stains from the sour sherbat's stress vomit. The sherbat is certainly much calmer while hearing the melody being sung to them. Their ears are still flicking and turning in every direction, and even though they're not completely better, they're good enough to stay still, laying on their back with their wings wrapped around themself.

Dastardos can't get any running water in his home, at least not conveniently. He has jars, buckets and wooden pipes placed strategically around in the roof to catch rainwater for the sours to drink, and for him to wash his hands and face with. His home is just far enough into the desert to end up missing most of the rain throughout the year. He has to stand out in the middle of his old garden if he wants to have a good shower from the sky. To get around the lack of water he's managed to find and definitely not steal himself a rusty old watering can that he's set up in his kitchen above his cooking pot. The water in the can runs out faster than Dastardos's patience, but it's still better than having to rely on the ceiling rain system. Dastardos picks up the sour sherbat with his arms and has his scarf pour the watering can over the piñata's body so that he can clean the sour crust from its paper fur, not wanting to wet the sherbat's face, which is why he doesn't just place them into the pot for a bath.

The moment the water hit the bat piñata it was shot into a chaotic panic, screaming and throwing its wings around in an attempt to get away or fly or just throw the water off of itself. Startled by the reaction, Dastardos nearly drops the sherbat into the pot below. His scarf rears up ready to catch the bat if it falls, but he keeps a firm hold of its feet and takes it away from the water as it flaps and tries to fly into all different directions.

He hushes them, trying to calm them down again. After a few moments of hushing and seeing no effect, he gently whistles at them, asking for its attention, he does this many times until the sherbat looks up at the direction of the whistles, still throwing themself around, upside-down in his hands. He sighs quietly and returns to his singing for the piñata, putting a little more effort into the magic of it. Some of the surrounding piñata start to lay down to sleep, and thankfully, the sour sherbat also calms down, wrapping its wings around itself once again and rocks itself back and forth as if the bat is a frightened child in a thunderstorm. It lets Dastardos turn it the right way around to place back down onto the bench.

It's as if it's scared of the water… alright… let's try… not, doing that then…

But… how will we clean him up though…?

He floats around for a short while, trying to come up with something. Upon seeing MoonLily's scarf he discarded earlier, his own scarf slithers and picks it up to bring it to his hands. Doing his best to not think too much in an attempt to avoid an argument with himself, he floats back over to the watering can and soaks the cloth, wringing it out a few times to clean it of the sour vomit as best he can. He'll use this to wipe away the grossness on the piñata's paper.

The sherbat is very uncomfortable with this damp rag being rubbed on its body, but it's not panicking like before. Success!

With a bit more gentle scrubbing Dastardos discards the neck scarf for a second time, now it's really ruined. He picks up the sherbat to admire his good work, all nice and squeaky clean. Speaking of squeaks, the sherbat seems to be happy finally, and giving tiny squeaks and nose twitches up at the reaper holding him, ears still rapidly twisting and turning around despite the tired drooping of its eyes. Dastardos's singing is helping to send it to sleep.

Dastardos floats back over to the center of the room and holds an arm up into the air to the canopy of the tree. His scarf slithers and wraps its way around his arm, up and off his hand, and hooks itself onto the roof with both ends, and as if it was the world's thinnest hammock, Dastardos floats up and lays on it, holding the curled up sherbat on his chest as he gently rocks from side to side, quietly singing the lullaby he only half remembers.

He doesn't pay attention to how much time passes, but the sunset's orange of the sky shines through the cracks and holes of his tree by the time he moves again, still quietly singing of course.

It's like that sometimes, once he starts going he just, can't stop. His voice gets hoarse and dry when this happens, sometimes his singing ends up sounding like his speaking voice by the end of the day. He needs to remember to take a drink to soften the vocal cords again, but he very rarely ever does.

He takes his time quietly floating around his tree, lighting the candles by simply clicking his fingers against the tip of the wick. He has many candles on every shelf, nook and cranny in his home, he makes them out of the sour candy the piñata leave around inside. It's therapeutic for him to melt them down and drip the wax into shape. That is, when he has the energy for it of course. The little lights make it look like stars are in the ceiling, and it helps him see what he's doing at night. The sour candy even helps cover the stagnant musk that would surely be hanging inside, from rotting wood to the months-old rainwater, to the mangy ragged corpse that rarely gets to bathe, the candles may smell sour, but is a much more pleasant smell than everything else in the room.

Once his house is ominously lit to his liking, Dastardos returns to his place gently swinging back and forth on his scarf hammock with the sherbat. It was at this moment that he spotted MoonLily again and was reminded that she was here, still asleep. How she wasn't woken up from the sherbat's panic before is a mystery to him, then again, she really doesn't look well. He knows the sours would have bothered her if she tried to get inside on her own… but why did they chase her all that way into the desert? Even for them it was strange behavior… he still doesn't know what happened. When he asked MoonLily she simply told him about the sour sherbat, as if that piñata was what was important to know about in that moment. She clearly cares endlessly about this little guy.

Dastardos doesn't notice his mask start to smile a little at the bat on his chest. He watches the gardener, again, not paying attention to the passage of time, again.

Watching her sleep is probably creepy…

Not wanting to be a creepy, because he isn't a creepy creep, he simply closes his eyes so he isn't tempted to continue staring. He doesn't notice that his swaying has now matched up with the beat of his song that he is still quietly mumbling.

The gentle light of the candles becoming brighter than the light outside, the swaying of the breeze helping him rock back and forth, and his own magic in the song is making Dastardos himself start to drift off to sleep. Strangely enough, feeling safe for once.

He doesn't let himself fall asleep completely though, just enough to be brought back awake at the sound of movement from under sheets. She's finally starting to wake up again, and he still hasn't prepared any dialog. Shit.

With a bit of internal arguing and mental retakes, he finally manages to mentally prepare himself enough to be able to at least, hopefully, hold a conversation. Maybe. He thinks.

This is going to go so fucking poorly. Isn't it.

He waits quietly until he can hear that she is definitely awake, not wanting to be looking at her when she gets up, worried that it might seem like he was watching her sleep which he definitely was not doing because he is definitely not creepy. He can hear her shifting and attempting to sit up, but she can't seem to be able to do so. He takes a side-eyed glance at her, his sour clogged vision making it near impossible to see her, but she is definitely awake. He keeps his voice down, almost gentle, even with his scratchy hoarse voice, "finally up again, eh?"

She nods shyly, politely holding her arms across her torso, watching him from her place on the comfort dome. She is clearly frightened, and still exhausted.

He nods as well, "... You... feeling any better?"

He hears her sigh very quietly as she looks down at her hands, "... well… if I'm being perfectly honest… no… not really…"

He was not expecting that sort of response, though logically he should have. He finally looks over at her. He had never heard her voice without that spark of joy it normally has, it didn't feel right. She's the sickeningly sweet, little low level gardener with stars in her eyes and her head in the clouds with sunshine radiating out of her arse, not this, this quiet, soft spoken, dull and frightened version he's looking at. She even looks a little bit grayer.

Despite him telling himself there was no need to panic, he finds his throat and chest knotting up again. He leans a little bit more towards her in his scarf hammock, "you… uh… you alright?" You just asked that dumbass. "fuck." You said that out loud. FUCK. "Uh… wh.. what happened?" the gears in his brain finally click back into place and he remembers his pre-prepared notes again.

"That's right! I asked you before, didn't I? I still don't have an answer from you yet, Miss MoonLily…"

He hooks the sleeping sherbat onto the branch his scarf is on, letting the sour hang comfortably upside-down on its own as he turns over in the hammock scarf, now on his stomach with a leg dangling down and his arms crossed for his head to rest on. He raises a brow at her, looking down at her with suspicion, "... apparently the sherbat was more important--"

"Sherbat! Is, is he okay? Did you save him? Oh please tell me he's alright," MoonLily suddenly blurts out the words with tears in her eyes, holding her hands together and physically pleading that he tell her. She genuinely seems upset and worried about the little sour creature, she's most likely struggling to see much past the candlelight and Dastardos's eye glow, which would explain why she can't see the bat above him.

Dastardos floats there quietly with an emotionless expression, a little lost at the spontaneous interruption. He was shocked at the response and level of concern she has over the sour. He hadn't prepared for that, and so he doesn't have a response in the immediate moment. He just slowly points up at the bat, his voice still quiet, "yeah… it's… … fine… I guess…"

He sees her let out a sigh of relief and relax her shoulders, a little smile creeping across her mask as she lays her head back onto the pillows for a moment and closes her eyes. Before he gets the chance to try and ask what happened again he hears her voice softly speak, with that little spark of joy that has returned to her soul, "thank you."

His brain becomes numb as he simply freezes in place again. No thoughts, no feelings, no internal or external motion, the soft sweet voice slipping into his ear and lodging itself into the sour muk of his mind, stopping the entire machine. The gentle praise sinking in slowly, delicately. It reaches his face and it softens his gaze and relaxes his brows, his jaw unclenches and his mouth opens ever so slightly.

"... You're welcome…"

His throat had calmed enough to let his voice whisper without his conscious knowledge, but this time it wasn't the sour poison getting to speak, it was something else that had been drowned and buried under the black ink for years. His chest hurt less and less with each soft breath, inhale, exhale, it felt nice to just breathe, he doesn't remember at what point he stopped.

His focus returns to the gardener when she lifts her head again to smile at him, "I… don't know what you did, but I'm glad everything is okay now."

"I still don't know what happened to begin with."

He watches her as she shyly fiddles with her poncho, looking down again. She's flustered and embarrassed, her mask clearly animating as such, "oh… um… yeah… sorry…" She straightens up her poncho and rests her hands in her lap politely before she looks back up at him again. "Um… where do I start?"

He shrugs his sharp, bony shoulders with a head tilt, not knowing either. There's a pause before he points up at the sherbat again.

"... him? Yeah, start with him. Before you brought him here, what happened?"

He listens to every detail of the story. It's not unusual for the sours to fight each other… especially if candy is involved… crowlas and sherbats do tend to run into one another and become angry, but it still feels strange in this instance, and then water making the sherbat freak out is something he's learnt as well.

"... I think it just… doesn't like water… more so than most piñata, you know?" he sways a little in his makeshift hammock, "like it's got a phobia of water or something… it did the same thing when I tried cleaning it up."

"Oh," her voice sounds both surprised and upset, "oh no, poor little guy… do you think something bad might have happened to him before? I imagine it must be pretty scary not being able to see and then being around water…"

Dastardos shrugs again in response, "eh, we may never know… same with why or how he's blind…" he sits up, now sitting on his scarf like a swing and he leans on his side to peer over the top of her, "but now, for the next bit… so you brought him here… and the sour's came out to investigate I assume?"

She nods quietly, now becoming nervous, she fidgets with her hands as she speaks, "they were surprisingly gentle, they were just coming over to say hello I'm sure, I know I would be curious if a stranger showed up to my garden making a commotion…" she lowers her head and her voice, seeming to become more and more anxious, "... but… um…" She takes a few breaths but just hides her mask in her hands. It looks and sounds like she's trying to stop herself from crying. Dastardos slowly descends from his scarf, which lets go of the branch above and slithers around his shoulders again just as slowly. He floats low enough for his mask to be at the same level as her's, laying in the air in front of her.

"But… what?" he didn't mean to sound assertive, but it seems as though that's just how the words fell out, the half of him that is irritated with how long this is taking beginning to over power the concerned big brother instinct that's somehow managed to stay floating around somewhere in his core being.

"The cocoadiles…" she shakily murmurs the words out, she tries to sigh away the feeling but it doesn't look like its working. "I… I thought… I thought I would be okay now… I'm supposed to be a gardener… I… I just…" she wipes her mask and shakes her head, looking to the floor. "... I don't know…"

"and what's so scary about them? Seems you can handle every other piñata in this tree…" Dastardos gestures around with a slow spin in the air before stopping, facing her again but this time upside-down to keep himself from getting bored. "Did one try to rip your leg off or something?"

"Arm… actually…" she mutters through a sniffle.

Oh fuck.

A wave of guilt hits him like a shovel, he was only poking fun he didn't actually think it was something that might have happened. He slowly turns the right way up in silence, not really knowing how to respond. He watches as she rolls up the sleeve part of her poncho to show her left shoulder, and the huge bite mark scarred across the entirety of it. Although it was a scar, it looked deep, and looked relatively new as far as scars go, the skin tissue still very clearly not completely finished healing.

"Back when I was a helper… I knew they would hurt us but… I didn't really want to believe it… they're still a piñata after all… no piñata would, really hurt us, right? … …" she slowly let her poncho rest back across her shoulder. Now that he's seen the scar he can't unsee it, he notices the parts that her poncho doesn't cover, he follows the scar down her side and he's finally noticed the burns and sand scrapes on her back. He remains speechless as she continues, "they're just doing what's in their nature… I was a helper, they're a sour cocoadile… that's just how things are, but… but I'm not anymore… they shouldn't… they…" she falls silent, staring at the floor with tears welling up in her eyes.

The piñata must have somehow known she was a helper at one point, or remembered her as one. He almost frowns, but continues to remain emotionless on his mask, "if you were a helper then where was the gardener? Did they help at all? Surely they would have done something... though, heh, I have met a few shitty gardeners in my time… like today…" he growls quietly at the mere thought of the pony gardener. They were infuriating. If he could go back and beat their skull in he would. Speaking of skulls he gently rubs the back of his, the pain seeping back to him for a moment before his attention is brought back to reality.

"He…" she sighs, but the emotion behind it is unclear. She holds her breath and lets it out slowly, she seems to sink down in the pillows even further as she does so, "... I… … he… I guess he did… it felt like it took him a very long time to call Patch for me, but I was pretty hysterical… apparently… I don't really remember… he did… hold me in his arms though… kept me safe from the sours I guess… I think… ….. I didn't feel safe but… he could have just left me there so… I'm… grateful… he saved my life… he could have just left me to die... but… he didn't so..."

She herself seems confused by her own story… and this makes Dastardos confused as well. Weird. Though she did say that she doesn't remember very well. He squints, confused and ever so slightly concerned, "did you go back to working for him after that?"

There is a long pause of silence. Dastardos can feel the weight in the air and the chill of the sudden drop in the atmosphere.

MoonLily slowly sighs another shaky sigh and stares up at the candle lights above her.

"I don't really want to talk about it right now… sorry..."