🐡 party pupper kurt wolfhart 🐡 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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gooseberryhigh2016-10-16 07:57 pm
puphart) wrote in gooseberryhigh2016-10-16 07:57 pm
Entry tags:
Ursula & Kurt on a riverwalk!
Who: Ursula de Luca, Kurt Wolfhart, and Ursula's beautiful baby girl Wormsula.
When: September 21st.
Where: Rainbow River.
What: Ursula agrees to go on a walk along the Rainbow River for Kurt's birthday, learns about ecoregions and the true meaning of family.
Status: Complete! (... Hence the delay between starting and posting. WHOOPS.)
Any other day and Ursula wouldn't be caught dead pairing knee high yellow polka dot galoshes with her school uniform, but even she could make an exception for a birthday. And in her defense, the fashion faux pas was a necessary evil if she was going to seriously brave whatever was lurking in the ominously named Rainbow River. This was Gooseberry, after all, and Ursula made it a point to know all the rumors - if the worst they encountered was tiny lobsters, she would consider them lucky.
She leaned against the walkway railing outside the junior boy's cabin while she waited for Kurt to emerge. At least, she assumed Kurt was in his cabin. She sincerely hoped he didn't pop up out of nowhere covered in hay and animal filth and insisting he'd only been in the kitchens. (Ursula was starting to get very concerned about the state of Gooseberry's kitchen.)
As the thought crossed her mind, she tightened her hold on her Herbology gloves and turned to scan the rest of the camp site.
Apparently today was a good day for birthday miracles! Sure, there was a false alarm for the S.S. Grindyboat. And sure, Kurt was starting to lose hope that she would ever show up again. But at least he finished classes with Outdoor Education, so he was already looking forward to his day! And that would have been the best part, until Ursula agreed to go on a walk along the Rainbow River. Agreed! He wasn’t entirely sure what she thought lived in the river, but he suspected it was closer to ravenous fish-men than adorable little crustaceans.
Kurt pulled on his sneakers and yanked his sweater over his head as he closed the cabin door. While that was a move no doubt mastered as he ran to way too many nearly-slept-through classes, he had not yet mastered the part that tousled his hair and its cowlicks in too many different directions. He saw Ursula’s boots before the rest of her (but knew better than to mention it) and grinned. “Ready to find a n-new familiar?”
Ursula spun back around and was about to steel herself for the afternoon's events when she spied the state of Kurt's hair. There was no hay, so that should have qualified as a plus, but that was really the only thing it had going for it. "Get in a disagreement with your hair brush, duckling?" She clucked her tongue lightly and attempted to smooth down his hair, but it seemed to be yet another in a series of losing battles with him. How did he manage it? She crinkled her nose and fiddled with his hair a few seconds longer before giving up.
"Just to be clear, anything we find is going home with you. There's only so many birthday miracles I can bestow."
Kurt waited patiently for his stylist to give up, straining his eyes to look up as if he were actually able to see the finished product. It was a treatment he was used to, though he often wondered when the world would realize that any attempts to tame his hair were made in vain. “It’s, um, it’s gone.” He replied with a small shrug. “M-maybe Lady Ted took it on her big adventure?” Though let’s be real — would he have used it if it had shown up? Naaaah.
When Ursula was done, he gently pulled her elbow as he set off toward the river. His Excitement Levels felt like he’d help solved an international mystery-slash-crisis, or given Healer Mufferaw a puppy; the grin was hard to contain. “Y-you might be surprised.” His mouth screwed up a little at the stutter, but it was better around friends, and smaller groups — he was definitely looking forward to hanging out with a friend by the river instead of, say, at a stupidly big party where beer takes forever to drink and everybody gets some kind of gross kissing disease.
Ursula allowed herself to be pulled along towards the river and even she wasn't jaded enough to be unaffected by Kurt's excitement. The corners of her mouth twitched with amusement while she tried to maintain a look that conveyed that this was not going to be a regular occurrence. Really. If Ursula had learned anything while living with Ribbonfin, it was that maintaining a Cold Black Heart in the face of puppy dog eyes was essential to survival.
“Maybe. Are you prepared to dazzle me?” Ursula had picked up on Kurt's brief annoyance, but didn't say anything. Having been the recipient of plenty of not-so-good-natured teasing about her own now-very-suppressed accent, it was one of the very few areas that Kurt got a pass on. Messy hair, impossibly disappearing paper boats, and fondness for smelly horses were all fair game though.
Kurt let go once she was following, and stopped at the edge of the Rainbow River. Toward the lake, or the lodge? He set off on Trout Trail. “I won’t need to dazzle you. You’ll–you’ll see,” he replied confidently. Kurt looked her in the eye, and in a serious tone said, “Seven ecoregions.” He carried on happily, and realizing that Ursula probably wouldn’t know why she should care about those words, carried on. “Did you know that Utah has seven ecoregions? Seven! C-connecticut only has two.” He looked down at the ground and back at Ursula. “We’re even kind of between two right now!” How’s that for dazzling?!
Ursula stared at Kurt for a few seconds longer than was comfortable as she waited for him to get to the punch line. When she realized 'ecoregions' apparently was the punch line, she furrowed her brow and it took her a few more seconds before she spoke. This was definitely what dazzlement looked like. "Seven ecoregions." She repeated his words in an attempt to demystify them. "...I'm sorry, you're going to have to elaborate on that one."
… Oh. He thought that would have been impressive on its own. “Umm,” Kurt stalled for time. He thought about it for a moment, and looked back at her once he’d figured it out. “E-ecosystems! Big ones. Utah has seven big ones.” He held up seven fingers for dazzling effect. “They all have their own plants and animals.” He picked up a stick from the side of the stream and drew it alongside himself in the water. “Like, like your crayfish.” Kurt looked back at Ursula and added, “They probably won’t bite you. They’re pretty small.”
Ursula wrinkled up her nose and made a small grabby gesture with her hands as she spoke. "I'm less concerned with their tiny lobster teeth than their tiny lobster claws." There was a reason she was still clutching her Herbology gloves in one hand. If Kurt did try to make her hold something, she would at least be able to protect herself from whatever evil plans crossed through its tiny lobster brain.
"I suppose that is rather impressive." She admitted. "Obviously I know that there aren't lions and what not here, but I've never really thought about whether the animals were that different here versus at home. Which now that I say it out loud is a rather silly thing to never notice."
Kurt’s discovery of the day: he is very bad at suppressing grins. He shot Ursula a knowing look as he bent down to look at something. “It’s-it’s actually really interesting if you think about it.” He stood back up, holding that something out to Ursula. His smile may have turned a little coy, but Kurt? Coy? Surely not!
If this were a classic romance written for the ages, he would be holding out a rose or a glass slipper. But this was Gooseberry, and they were millennials, and this was Kurt Wolfhart: he was holding an old leaf with a worm eating its way through the left side. “They’re all working t-t-together. In a way, even though they’re all separate, everything is good.”
Ursula would be loathe to ever admit that there was a moment where she had thought Kurt was going to present her with something, anything, more romantic than a worm on an old leaf. She really should have known better, but what was she supposed to think when Kurt was suddenly making coy smiles at her and she had a well-known fascination with princesses?
The expression on her face when being presented by the very hungry cater-- worm was one of general bafflement trying to be suppressed into delight. "...Oh. That's. Yes, I see." Okay, no, she didn't see at all. What she did see was a worm in her near vicinity and Kurt thinking it was a good idea to put it there. ‘It's his birthday’ may have started to become her silent mantra. "So.. how exactly are they working together here? Because it looks to me like this.. leaf.. is being feasted on by a worm and I can't see how that benefits the leaf very much."
He looked down at the leaf and stated what he saw as the obvious, “... it’s dinner.” He held the leaf out for one moment, but reality smacked him in the face once more and he realized Ursula wouldn’t want to hold it. After placing it back where he’d found it, he returned to his stick and the river.
"Yes, but what is the leaf getting-" Ursula stopped herself as she realized she was trying to apply business principles to the animal kingdom and that went poorly enough for her when she was just trying to apply it to her classmates. Instead, she paused to slip her Herbology gloves on and went back to retrieve Kurt's wormy leaf. It took a moment to locate the appropriate one and when she did she held it a safe distance from her body - maybe this little worm had the ability to jump long distances and attack people's faces, okay?
"Tell me more about this little guy. Or girl. Is that even something you can tell with worms?"
Kurt blinked once at the gloves, but only once. He had to remember to take baby steps with Ursula, because she was naïve about the outdoors and she was trying. Any irony of his own utter naiveté in any social situation every was completely lost on him. She was even holding the leaf! It was like watching a foal learn to walk! Except Ursula was less gangly, and she wasn’t covered in afterbirth! … That’s super gross!
He shook the thought away, and leaned in to inspect the worm. “Itttt’s aaaa—” Light green? “Girl! The, uh, girl inchworms are light green.” He pointed up at her (Ursula, not the worm). “Like, like you. You could name it Worm Ursula, or Ursula the Worm.” he thought on the name for a moment and concluded, “W-wormsula.” At no point did he consider this line of thought to be unflattering for his companion. “She’s a cute little inchworm, and she’s going to grow up to be a beeeautiful geometer moth!” Kurt straightened up and bit his tongue at the last moment, before he said ‘Just like her mother.’ He may be oblivious sometimes, but he also knew a joke like that would probably leave him standing alone by the river.
So many things that should be left unsaid and thankfully were left unsaid. There was hope for Kurt and his mental filter, after all!
Ursula was prepared to object to any comparisons between herself and the inchworm, but once the tiny creature had been dubbed Wormsula, she couldn't help but start warming up to it. It was horribly disgusting, but also cute in a way? And it didn't seem to be interested in doing anything but hang out on its leaf. But maybe it was just clever enough to lull her into a false sense of security. Though if that were the case, she'd be terribly impressed by its ingenuity. And horrified. But definitely impressed too.
She pursed her lips as she appraised their tiny companion, then held her closer to Kurt. "Theoretically speaking, what would someone need to do in order to allow Wormsula to thrive on her path to becoming a geometer moth. Theoretically speaking."
Kurt narrowed his eyes at the little inchworm, thinking. “She’s just like any c-c-caterpillar, I think. Normal stuff.” He rubbed the side of the leaf to see what Wormsula would do; Wormsula continued being an inchworm. “O-one could keep her in a, um, a jar, or container, w-with air holes.” He brought his hand back to tick things off; the habitat had been the first. “Leaves to eat,” was two. “S-something at the bottom, like woodchips.” The subtext was ‘for poop’ but he knew that saying that was giving Ursula way too easy of a reason to abandon her new little bud. “Sticks to climb.” Kurt nodded to himself, and held up the four fingers. “Easy stuff.” He raised his eyebrows suggestively (not like that) and repeated her words, ”Th-theoretically speaking.”
Ursula shrugged her shoulder minutely when Kurt finished his list and looked back down at the inchworm. "There is a rather vast abundance of those resources in the near vicinity. And a jar is easy enough to find," Ursula allowed as her expression towards Wormsula became less distasteful. Nature could have its uses after all, it would seem.
She brought Wormsula back towards herself, holding her at a safe, but possessive distance. "Is there a particular color or flavor of leaf that she'd prefer? Less theoretically speaking, now."
Kurt’s face showed obvious signs of his trying to keep a grin from breaking, but it only lasted about three seconds until the floodgates burst open. With a smile from ear to ear, he pointed at the leaf. “She already likes elm.” He looked left and right as he tried to figure out where there might be an elm nearby, and then gently pulled Ursula’s elbow again so that he could guide her in the direction he was now walking — toward the lake. “I bet we can find some by the lodge before dinner, let’s go see.”
When: September 21st.
Where: Rainbow River.
What: Ursula agrees to go on a walk along the Rainbow River for Kurt's birthday, learns about ecoregions and the true meaning of family.
Status: Complete! (... Hence the delay between starting and posting. WHOOPS.)
Any other day and Ursula wouldn't be caught dead pairing knee high yellow polka dot galoshes with her school uniform, but even she could make an exception for a birthday. And in her defense, the fashion faux pas was a necessary evil if she was going to seriously brave whatever was lurking in the ominously named Rainbow River. This was Gooseberry, after all, and Ursula made it a point to know all the rumors - if the worst they encountered was tiny lobsters, she would consider them lucky.
She leaned against the walkway railing outside the junior boy's cabin while she waited for Kurt to emerge. At least, she assumed Kurt was in his cabin. She sincerely hoped he didn't pop up out of nowhere covered in hay and animal filth and insisting he'd only been in the kitchens. (Ursula was starting to get very concerned about the state of Gooseberry's kitchen.)
As the thought crossed her mind, she tightened her hold on her Herbology gloves and turned to scan the rest of the camp site.
Apparently today was a good day for birthday miracles! Sure, there was a false alarm for the S.S. Grindyboat. And sure, Kurt was starting to lose hope that she would ever show up again. But at least he finished classes with Outdoor Education, so he was already looking forward to his day! And that would have been the best part, until Ursula agreed to go on a walk along the Rainbow River. Agreed! He wasn’t entirely sure what she thought lived in the river, but he suspected it was closer to ravenous fish-men than adorable little crustaceans.
Kurt pulled on his sneakers and yanked his sweater over his head as he closed the cabin door. While that was a move no doubt mastered as he ran to way too many nearly-slept-through classes, he had not yet mastered the part that tousled his hair and its cowlicks in too many different directions. He saw Ursula’s boots before the rest of her (but knew better than to mention it) and grinned. “Ready to find a n-new familiar?”
Ursula spun back around and was about to steel herself for the afternoon's events when she spied the state of Kurt's hair. There was no hay, so that should have qualified as a plus, but that was really the only thing it had going for it. "Get in a disagreement with your hair brush, duckling?" She clucked her tongue lightly and attempted to smooth down his hair, but it seemed to be yet another in a series of losing battles with him. How did he manage it? She crinkled her nose and fiddled with his hair a few seconds longer before giving up.
"Just to be clear, anything we find is going home with you. There's only so many birthday miracles I can bestow."
Kurt waited patiently for his stylist to give up, straining his eyes to look up as if he were actually able to see the finished product. It was a treatment he was used to, though he often wondered when the world would realize that any attempts to tame his hair were made in vain. “It’s, um, it’s gone.” He replied with a small shrug. “M-maybe Lady Ted took it on her big adventure?” Though let’s be real — would he have used it if it had shown up? Naaaah.
When Ursula was done, he gently pulled her elbow as he set off toward the river. His Excitement Levels felt like he’d help solved an international mystery-slash-crisis, or given Healer Mufferaw a puppy; the grin was hard to contain. “Y-you might be surprised.” His mouth screwed up a little at the stutter, but it was better around friends, and smaller groups — he was definitely looking forward to hanging out with a friend by the river instead of, say, at a stupidly big party where beer takes forever to drink and everybody gets some kind of gross kissing disease.
Ursula allowed herself to be pulled along towards the river and even she wasn't jaded enough to be unaffected by Kurt's excitement. The corners of her mouth twitched with amusement while she tried to maintain a look that conveyed that this was not going to be a regular occurrence. Really. If Ursula had learned anything while living with Ribbonfin, it was that maintaining a Cold Black Heart in the face of puppy dog eyes was essential to survival.
“Maybe. Are you prepared to dazzle me?” Ursula had picked up on Kurt's brief annoyance, but didn't say anything. Having been the recipient of plenty of not-so-good-natured teasing about her own now-very-suppressed accent, it was one of the very few areas that Kurt got a pass on. Messy hair, impossibly disappearing paper boats, and fondness for smelly horses were all fair game though.
Kurt let go once she was following, and stopped at the edge of the Rainbow River. Toward the lake, or the lodge? He set off on Trout Trail. “I won’t need to dazzle you. You’ll–you’ll see,” he replied confidently. Kurt looked her in the eye, and in a serious tone said, “Seven ecoregions.” He carried on happily, and realizing that Ursula probably wouldn’t know why she should care about those words, carried on. “Did you know that Utah has seven ecoregions? Seven! C-connecticut only has two.” He looked down at the ground and back at Ursula. “We’re even kind of between two right now!” How’s that for dazzling?!
Ursula stared at Kurt for a few seconds longer than was comfortable as she waited for him to get to the punch line. When she realized 'ecoregions' apparently was the punch line, she furrowed her brow and it took her a few more seconds before she spoke. This was definitely what dazzlement looked like. "Seven ecoregions." She repeated his words in an attempt to demystify them. "...I'm sorry, you're going to have to elaborate on that one."
… Oh. He thought that would have been impressive on its own. “Umm,” Kurt stalled for time. He thought about it for a moment, and looked back at her once he’d figured it out. “E-ecosystems! Big ones. Utah has seven big ones.” He held up seven fingers for dazzling effect. “They all have their own plants and animals.” He picked up a stick from the side of the stream and drew it alongside himself in the water. “Like, like your crayfish.” Kurt looked back at Ursula and added, “They probably won’t bite you. They’re pretty small.”
Ursula wrinkled up her nose and made a small grabby gesture with her hands as she spoke. "I'm less concerned with their tiny lobster teeth than their tiny lobster claws." There was a reason she was still clutching her Herbology gloves in one hand. If Kurt did try to make her hold something, she would at least be able to protect herself from whatever evil plans crossed through its tiny lobster brain.
"I suppose that is rather impressive." She admitted. "Obviously I know that there aren't lions and what not here, but I've never really thought about whether the animals were that different here versus at home. Which now that I say it out loud is a rather silly thing to never notice."
Kurt’s discovery of the day: he is very bad at suppressing grins. He shot Ursula a knowing look as he bent down to look at something. “It’s-it’s actually really interesting if you think about it.” He stood back up, holding that something out to Ursula. His smile may have turned a little coy, but Kurt? Coy? Surely not!
If this were a classic romance written for the ages, he would be holding out a rose or a glass slipper. But this was Gooseberry, and they were millennials, and this was Kurt Wolfhart: he was holding an old leaf with a worm eating its way through the left side. “They’re all working t-t-together. In a way, even though they’re all separate, everything is good.”
Ursula would be loathe to ever admit that there was a moment where she had thought Kurt was going to present her with something, anything, more romantic than a worm on an old leaf. She really should have known better, but what was she supposed to think when Kurt was suddenly making coy smiles at her and she had a well-known fascination with princesses?
The expression on her face when being presented by the very hungry cater-- worm was one of general bafflement trying to be suppressed into delight. "...Oh. That's. Yes, I see." Okay, no, she didn't see at all. What she did see was a worm in her near vicinity and Kurt thinking it was a good idea to put it there. ‘It's his birthday’ may have started to become her silent mantra. "So.. how exactly are they working together here? Because it looks to me like this.. leaf.. is being feasted on by a worm and I can't see how that benefits the leaf very much."
He looked down at the leaf and stated what he saw as the obvious, “... it’s dinner.” He held the leaf out for one moment, but reality smacked him in the face once more and he realized Ursula wouldn’t want to hold it. After placing it back where he’d found it, he returned to his stick and the river.
"Yes, but what is the leaf getting-" Ursula stopped herself as she realized she was trying to apply business principles to the animal kingdom and that went poorly enough for her when she was just trying to apply it to her classmates. Instead, she paused to slip her Herbology gloves on and went back to retrieve Kurt's wormy leaf. It took a moment to locate the appropriate one and when she did she held it a safe distance from her body - maybe this little worm had the ability to jump long distances and attack people's faces, okay?
"Tell me more about this little guy. Or girl. Is that even something you can tell with worms?"
Kurt blinked once at the gloves, but only once. He had to remember to take baby steps with Ursula, because she was naïve about the outdoors and she was trying. Any irony of his own utter naiveté in any social situation every was completely lost on him. She was even holding the leaf! It was like watching a foal learn to walk! Except Ursula was less gangly, and she wasn’t covered in afterbirth! … That’s super gross!
He shook the thought away, and leaned in to inspect the worm. “Itttt’s aaaa—” Light green? “Girl! The, uh, girl inchworms are light green.” He pointed up at her (Ursula, not the worm). “Like, like you. You could name it Worm Ursula, or Ursula the Worm.” he thought on the name for a moment and concluded, “W-wormsula.” At no point did he consider this line of thought to be unflattering for his companion. “She’s a cute little inchworm, and she’s going to grow up to be a beeeautiful geometer moth!” Kurt straightened up and bit his tongue at the last moment, before he said ‘Just like her mother.’ He may be oblivious sometimes, but he also knew a joke like that would probably leave him standing alone by the river.
So many things that should be left unsaid and thankfully were left unsaid. There was hope for Kurt and his mental filter, after all!
Ursula was prepared to object to any comparisons between herself and the inchworm, but once the tiny creature had been dubbed Wormsula, she couldn't help but start warming up to it. It was horribly disgusting, but also cute in a way? And it didn't seem to be interested in doing anything but hang out on its leaf. But maybe it was just clever enough to lull her into a false sense of security. Though if that were the case, she'd be terribly impressed by its ingenuity. And horrified. But definitely impressed too.
She pursed her lips as she appraised their tiny companion, then held her closer to Kurt. "Theoretically speaking, what would someone need to do in order to allow Wormsula to thrive on her path to becoming a geometer moth. Theoretically speaking."
Kurt narrowed his eyes at the little inchworm, thinking. “She’s just like any c-c-caterpillar, I think. Normal stuff.” He rubbed the side of the leaf to see what Wormsula would do; Wormsula continued being an inchworm. “O-one could keep her in a, um, a jar, or container, w-with air holes.” He brought his hand back to tick things off; the habitat had been the first. “Leaves to eat,” was two. “S-something at the bottom, like woodchips.” The subtext was ‘for poop’ but he knew that saying that was giving Ursula way too easy of a reason to abandon her new little bud. “Sticks to climb.” Kurt nodded to himself, and held up the four fingers. “Easy stuff.” He raised his eyebrows suggestively (not like that) and repeated her words, ”Th-theoretically speaking.”
Ursula shrugged her shoulder minutely when Kurt finished his list and looked back down at the inchworm. "There is a rather vast abundance of those resources in the near vicinity. And a jar is easy enough to find," Ursula allowed as her expression towards Wormsula became less distasteful. Nature could have its uses after all, it would seem.
She brought Wormsula back towards herself, holding her at a safe, but possessive distance. "Is there a particular color or flavor of leaf that she'd prefer? Less theoretically speaking, now."
Kurt’s face showed obvious signs of his trying to keep a grin from breaking, but it only lasted about three seconds until the floodgates burst open. With a smile from ear to ear, he pointed at the leaf. “She already likes elm.” He looked left and right as he tried to figure out where there might be an elm nearby, and then gently pulled Ursula’s elbow again so that he could guide her in the direction he was now walking — toward the lake. “I bet we can find some by the lodge before dinner, let’s go see.”