[Palenski]

Tristan stopped so fast and so suddenly that he toppled forward and fell face first into a pile of recent grass cuttings. Not that he minded, since given the right circumstances he often smelled like grass cuttings himself. He scrambled to his feet, sending the cuttings flying in all directions, and tripped his way back over to where Eve was.

"What, what, what," he said, somewhat out of breath but, as always, just as wholly energetic. "Did you find one, lemme see, is it colorful, is it--EGG!!" He picked up the brightly colored pastel object, juggled it between his hands for a moment like a hot potato, before bringing it extremely close to his face for inspection. He then stuck it in a rather soft patch of grass and very gently sat himself down upon it.

"What kind of creature is it going to hatch!!"

[Indigo]

"They're not for sitting on, you silly!" He really was just like a child. Eve shoved him in the side with her nose, trying to somehow push him off the egg without damaging it. Clearly he couldn't be trusted to carry it, but that was fine; she had compartments for storing things, of course. How else could she bring her findings back to the people who wanted them? There was a bin in her chest perfect for holding the eggs they collected here, however many there were, if she could just get ahold of them.

"These aren't eggs that hatch into anything," she explained, still pushing. "Some of them do have stuff in them sometimes, but this doesn't look like one of those 'cause it doesn't have a seam in the middle. What you do in an egg hunt is you collect as many eggs as you can, and then you trade them in for prizes! It's pretty great. And sometimes you get critters out of them so it's like they hatched, huh?"

She frowned. "Although," she added, "I did hear that some of the eggs here do turn into critters. But not by hatching. I think you have to turn them in first and they get sort of changed...I don't know. Mostly I'm good at finding things."

[Palenski]

Tristan apologized before pulling the egg out from underneath him. He inspected it a bit more before handing it off to his adorable robotic friend. "Do they come in different shapes and sizes and colors?" he asked in an excited rush. "How many of them do we need to find?"

He pushed himself to his feet and brushed the back of his pants off, though continued to ignore the bits of grass cuttings that were in his hair from his previous incident. He bounced up and down on the spot, looking joyful and impatient at the same time. "Where's the next one, gogogo little Eve friend!!"

[Indigo]

She took the egg and stashed it in her chest compartment before he could change his mind. "They don't come in different shapes, silly. They're eggs! But they can be different colors, and I think maybe even different sizes. I've seen people walk away with some pretty big, crazy-colored eggs before. I just haven't done the big egg hunt before so I don't know exactly how everything goes." She frowned again. "That includes how many we have to find. Sorry. But hey, even with just one egg we'd probably get something. They usually try to make things fair at these things."

"Little Eve friend"? That was funny. She didn't know exactly how friendships worked, thought they had to take a little longer than this, but she couldn't really complain. She did like this strange man, she just thought he was a little irresponsible to be handling fragile things like eggs. No wonder the P man had needed somebody to help him. She did wonder why Tristan hadn't come himself to rent her, but there was no time for speculation now. She had work to do!

Eve turned until she caught the feeling of the next egg, and started running.

[Palenski]

Tristan followed after, hooting and hollering. Other egg hunters shot glares and moved away, attempting to avoid this strange man. Especially since he was green.

"Eggy eggs!!" Tristan cried, throwing his hands into the air as he ran. On several occasions he twirled in circles even while running, which made him bump into others and stumble into things. At one point, while he was turned in the wrong direction, he crashed into a small wooden crate that was in the middle of everything for no apparent reason. He hurriedly picked himself up and resumed chasing after Eve, though he swayed a little from dizziness.

[Indigo]

Eve would have laughed at the cry of "Eggy eggs!", but she felt she needed to save her breath; technically she didn't, since she didn't breathe exactly, but those sorts of instincts were ones that, she had discovered, came just from being alive. She heard the crashing noises behind her and winced, but didn't slow down. The only cries came from other, alarmed people, not Tristan, so she didn't think she needed to be concerned just yet.

There was a tree, tall, old, and crooked. Its branches spread across a sizable portion of the park, mingling with a couple of other trees near it. A few children stood in the branches or dangled by their hands, shouting as they did. An excellent climbing tree, full of places you could hide in for hours if you wanted, if you happened to feel like some peace and quiet.

Eve scrambled up the trunk. Her claws dug into the bark easily; this was one of the many things Dexter had considered in her design, and as a result she was quite an adept climber. It took her hardly any time at all to reach the massive branch she was looking for, and she stopped at its base, examining it. It branched off into many, many other...well, branches, each with its own crevices and leaves and other hiding places. And she didn't know which was the right one.

She sat down and waited for Tristan. This could take a while.

[Palenski]

"Tree-friend!!"

The dizziness had worn off a couple minutes prior, but all the running and jumping and falling over things had sent Tristan into a fit of goofiness and giggles. He slammed into the trunk of the tree, wrapping his arms around it.

Realizing this was the tree that Eve had climbed up, he began pulling himself up and into the branches. He located his mechanical companion and carefully made his way toward her. "Why are we up in a tree?" he asked. "Are there eggy-eggs here?" He sniffed the air, mimicking her earlier behavior, though of course was not able to smell out the egg.

[Indigo]

"Yes, Mr Tristan," Eve said. "There are eggy-eggs here. Somewhere." She sighed. Clearly whatever egg or eggs she'd caught onto were out at the ends of the branches; her senses were only precise at close range. She enjoyed hunting for things--of course she did, why else would she be here?--but there were so many branches to look through, and so many places the eggs could be. And even if her more precise senses did kick in, they might get confused if there was more than one egg up here.

On the other hand, she did have help.

She turned to grin at Tristan. "I don't know exactly where to find the eggs this time. I think there's more than one, which makes a bunch of crossing trails, so I'm going to need your help. Maybe we can split up a little?"

With that, she started running along the branch.

[Palenski]

Tristan would trip over a flat surface if it was too polished. Overall he wasn't a very balanced person and was often described as having the coordination of a three-legged squirrel who was blind in one eye. In reality, a three-legged squirrel blinded in one eye would probably still have more coordination.

Except in trees.

For the majority of his life, Tristan had been green. It was when he first turned green that he began to photosynthesize, and smell, at least most of the time, of pine trees (which happened to have an anomalous affect of tranquilizing those nearby). He also happened to be adept at climbing trees, and had been known, in the past, to spend days at a time in them, even hanging from branches while asleep like a sloth (though no one could figure out how he managed to stay holding on while unconscious).

And so, with surprising agility, he scampered forward onto one of the thicker branches, leaves shaking off with his movement. "Eggy-eggs," he called out quietly, poking his nose into small grooves and nooks. "Where aaaaare yoouuuuu, eggy-eggs."

[Indigo]

Eve wasn't paying too much attention to what Tristan was doing; she was sure he'd be fine, and it wasn't as if she'd be able to stop him if he fell out of the tree anyway, so it was probably best not to worry. Anyway, she had things of her own to worry about, like not getting so addled by mixed signals that she fell herself.

Perhaps surprisingly for a robot of her type, she was pretty good at trees. She was light enough not to break branches with her passage and agile enough to leap from one to another without missing or slipping, and her tail was outstretched to keep her from losing her balance. Under normal circumstances she wouldn't even need to think about being careful, but unfortunately the number of trails she might be following could seriously throw her off if she wasn't careful.

She managed to isolate a particular trail through careful triangulation, but it was still difficult to maintain her focus as she crept along the branch she'd chosen, much less keep an eye out for the egg she was seeking. Next time she hoped someone else would help Tristan with his egg hunt. This was just too complicated.

[Palenski]

Tristan was swinging wildly from one branch to the next, and then again, zigzagging back and forth. At one point he nearly plopped down on a nest. "Eggs!" he cried out, before realizing that these were the kind that actually had baby birds in them. "Nevermind!" He poked at them gently, before resuming his chaotic path.

After a while of fun, something caught his eye. It was right out on the tip of one branch, probably meant for some kind of flying creature to find, especially considering the thin and easily broken quality of the branches. Tristan didn't seem to register this. He made his way out toward the colorful object, though his progress did slow as he moved farther out. Eventually he was forced to move along at a snail's pace, gripping the branch with his legs and carefully maneuvering himself forward with his arms. From the ground, he would have resembled a terrified cat, or possibly a caterpillar.

"Eeeegg," he said, a determined look of concentration on his face. "Eggy-egg, I am coming to get yoouuuuu."

[Indigo]

She scampered along the branch; it was a far-reaching one, nearly touching the end of a branch on the next tree, with several offshoots at the end. the further along she ran, the fewer conflicting trails she sensed, until finally there was only one left. By then, though, she was standing with her feet wrapped awkwardly around a particularly narrow portion of the branch, warily examining the thin twigs ahead.

The egg was definitely out there, though. Only one thing to do.

She was very good at balancing.

Eve ran forward as lightly as possible, keeping her feet supported by at least two thin branches, and usually more, at all times. Once she nearly fell, tony arms pinwheeling uselessly, but managed to regain her balance through careful use of her tail. Eventually she managed to edge her way out to the very end of the branch, and there, balanced delicately between two twigs, was an egg.

She plucked it out and stashed it carefully in her chest, before she could accidentally knock it loose. Time to turn back and find the next one.

[Palenski]

Tristan made his way out slowly, inch by inch. The branch bowed dangerously under his weight, but he didn't seem to notice. He was now completely stretched out, legs held flat and tight against the branch, chin scraping along on the bark. A bee hung in the air next to him, as though confused, but he blew air at it and it went away.

"Eggy-egg," he said, carefully moving forward by a hair. It was almost within reach of his mouth, and then he'd begin the careful journey backwards, somehow. Or perhaps he'd just drop down. With how much the branch was bowing, the ground wasn't too far away.

Almost...there...

[Indigo]

She heard the creak of straining wood, and turned in its direction to see Tristan crawling along a branch, apparently unaware of the fact that it was cracking under his weight. Strangely, her first thought was: Maybe he thinks he's the size of a child, as well? Though a human child still wouldn't be able to climb out there safely, but at least they'd be more likely to get away before the branch snapped. And someone had once said near her that small children were made of rubber, but she wasn't sure how seriously to take that.

Slightly more important, Eve realized, was the fact that Tristan could potentially fall. He wouldn't die at this height, but he could still be hurt, and she was, in a way, in charge of him. That meant protection, as best she could offer. Who knew what the P man would say otherwise?

He was trying to reach an egg, but maybe if she could grab it before the branch broke, he'd turn back and get to safety. The wood might still snap, after all that stress, but she was much more resilient than any human. It was all the plastic and metal that did it. So she looked, and she frowned, and she narrowed her eyes.

Then she jumped. She wouldn't land feet first, no, but that probably wouldn't be good for the branch, anyway. She reached out with one claw, hoping she'd judged right.

[Er...you can decide if she makes it or not. *bad at decisions*]

[Palenski]

Something metallic went flying past him at a high velocity just as he reached the egg. His lips touched air, and he blinked several times before realizing the egg was gone.

"Eggy...egg...?"

There was a loud crack, and then his stomach did a somersault as he dropped the several feet toward the ground. He landed with an umph, and rolled onto his back, staring up at the blue sky and wondering why there were stars out in the middle of the day.