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Droplets of Joy (Yuletide 2017)

The Teller

King of Half-Truths
Not one to be outdone by myself, I secretly did another Yuletide just because I could. This one is for diamondpearl876, who wanted OCs for trainer classes like bird keepers, any rating goes, no sex (something I just now realize I may have taken too literally towards the end of the story), "make me cry on Christmas" (tears of laughter suffice, I suppose?), with the prompt: "Slice-of-life kind of fic portraying a day in the life of birb pokemon and birb keepers! :3" (kinda strange to use a cat emote at the end of a bird-centric prompt, but I appreciate dark humor as much as the next person). It's Johto birds all around this holiday season, so sit back, relax, and have fun!

Droplets of Joy

Before the sun rose to greet Sprout Tower, a sole Dodrio raised its three heads and each gave out a cry, one head after another, signaling the start of the day. In his tiny shack just outside the city limits, Joe awoke to Dodrio’s wakeup call. He knew that if he was awoken to Dodrio’s call, then his bird Pokémon would surely be woken up as well. No sense in sleeping in. Joe stretched himself out and got out of bed. He put on his clothes and headed out to the back of the shack. There, he saw his many birds.

Natu was staring off to the east, unmoving. She always refused to move until she could see the sun rise. On cloudy days, she was hard to deal with. Hoothoot was surprisingly still restless. He was, of course, a nocturnal bird, and so was up all night and was supposed to be asleep by now. Hoothoot also acted as a good bodyguard for the shack throughout the night, preventing any would-be thieves from stealing anything or the Pokémon, hence Joe keeping a nocturnal Pokémon around. Seeing Hoothoot still awake and agitated gave Joe cause for concern. He would have to take Hoothoot to the city’s vet later on in the day.

And then Hoothoot, still flapping in place wildly, pooped onto the floor.

Joe sighed, hoping this wasn’t a sign of some health concern. He would have to clean this up after his morning routine.

Pidgey and Spearow were still asleep. They were, of course, kept separate from one another, as the two species very infamously did NOT get along with one another. Joe caught them in the same forest, so he had no doubt that these particular two’s families had fought one another at some point. Spearow twitched and made like he was about to take flight. No doubt he was having a very vivid dream. Joe couldn’t just let the two sleep all day, so he called them out to wake them up. Pidgey was apparently startled enough that she pooped on the floor.

Joe shooed them all out. Natu remained still. Then, the morning sun peaked over the horizon and Natu, in an instant, hopped a complete 180 degrees, and flew out of the caged area, barely changing her altitude at all, no doubt assisted by her psychic power. Then, without landing or faltering, she pooped, but the bird poop disappeared before it hit the ground. Joe was at least glad that Natu was capable of cleaning up after herself, unlike most birds he worked with.

Joe led the birds to the nearby berry field, where they could eat their morning breakfast. While they did that, he could eat his own breakfast. After he was done, he called them back and made sure that each one had eaten. Satisfied, he altered the day’s plan. While originally he was going to train his birds today, Hoothoot’s condition made it so that he would have to go to Violet City to see the vet there. He made a call to the clinic to let them know who he was, what Pokémon he was bringing, the symptoms, and when he’d be arriving, and then packed up for the day. Joe owned no car, so he would have to make the journey on foot.

Calling his Pokémon back into their Poké Balls for safe keeping, Joe locked up the shack and left for Violet City. From where his shack was, he would still have some ways to go before exiting the forest entirely. A murder of Murkrow landed on some branches just overhead, staring at Joe intently. They scanned him for anything worth stealing. Shiny things, bright things, food, nearly anything were worth their attention and greed. Joe watched them from the corners of his eyes. He knew that there were Murkrow around at this time of day and so he made himself look as unappealing as possible before he left. Murkrow didn’t have the keenest sense of smell, so they wouldn’t be able to sniff out the bird food in Joe’s backpack. Joe passed underneath the murder without them attacking him. Just as he was past them, he felt something drop onto his right shoulder. One of the Murkrow had pooped on him. He looked up and saw all the Murkrow cawing at him, their equivalent of laughing, daring him to attack them. He ignored them and walked on.

A mile away from Violet City and a trainer locked eyes with Joe. As the trainer code of conduct dictates, Joe had no choice but to battle the trainer. Even with Hoothoot out of commission, he still had three birds on his team, and none of them were what he would consider “weak.” Nevertheless, he was also glad that the Violet City area rarely had powerful trainers passing through. Most new trainers went to New Bark Town to get their first Pokémon, so Violet City was usually populated by beginning trainers looking to get their first badge. This meant that Joe was confident in his abilities. It helped that, sometimes, new trainers chose Chikorita as their first Pokémon, and he could prey on that weakness.

The trainer had sent out a Bellsprout, to which Joe retaliated with sending out Spearow. Spearow landed on Joe’s outreached arm. The trainer commanded Bellsprout to use Growth, intending on bolstering its stats. Joe told Spearow to use Peck to take it out before it could get too strong. Spearow then proceeded to poop onto Joe’s gloved hand. Whatever excitement there was for the battle dissipated instantly. The trainer expressed his disgust, and Joe was embarrassed for himself. He had certainly trained his birds better than this. He wondered if Spearow was mad at him for something. Spearow then flew off towards the Bellsprout and attacked it with his beak. The Bellsprout didn’t last long. Soon enough, the trainer was handing over prize money to Joe and Joe walked on.

The vet at Violet City examined Hoothoot for awhile before reporting back to Joe. She said that the most likely cause was just that Hoothoot was subconsciously aware that it was mating season and hasn’t found a mate yet. The fact that he was kept cooped up in the caged area meant that he wasn’t really given a chance to find a mate. The agitation would probably last for another several days, unless Joe was comfortable enough to allow Hoothoot to find a mate. Joe shot down the idea. Handling four birds was hard enough. He didn’t have it in him to find another Hoothoot, take care of it, AND take care of the offspring as well. His Hoothoot would just have to live with the bachelor life. He thanked the vet for her services before gathering everything up and leaving. Being a licensed Bird Keeper class meant having some strong medication insurance in case one of your birds became sick. Though Joe thought about exploring all Violet City had to offer for today, he instead decided to head home.

When Joe was halfway back to his shack, an uncomfortable feeling caused him to bend over and perform a rolling maneuver. When he got up, he saw a Skarmory sail upwards to the trees. How had a Skarmory managed to find its way all the way down the mountain? The Pokémon circled around, ready for another go. Though all Skarmory are dangerous by nature, Joe decided that he would attempt to at least hold this one off with his newly healed birds.

He sent out his Natu, Hoothoot, Spearow, and Pidgey. This wasn’t an official Pokémon battle, so he could send out as many birds as he’d like. All four of them looked at the Skarmory and knew what their jobs were.

He ordered Pidgey to perform a Sand Attack, hoping to blind the opponent. Through the sudden sand stream, Joe commanded Spearow to Peck at it. Spearow hit the Skarmory in the chest. Joe knew that the attack wouldn’t do much, but he would take any chance he could get to damage the steel bird. Skarmory tried to Peck Spearow in return, but missed him by a country mile. Joe was relieved. This meant that it didn’t have Keen Eye for an ability. Next, he had Natu use Night Shade. Thanks to Skarmory’s steel typing, that tricky Ghost move was going to have to be Joe’s hardest hitting move. Skarmory couldn’t escape an attack like that, and the move brought the bird down to the ground. Still, it would take more than that to knock it out. Joe had Spearow and Hoothoot use Peck on Skarmory again. He kept issuing orders, one after another, giving the steel bird no time to react at all. In a normal Pokémon battle, this would be considered unfair and cruel, but when the trainer’s life is in peril, all bets were off. Eventually, the wild Skarmory fell to the ground, knocked out. Joe had managed to expertly wield four Pokémon at once in battle, a feat no mere rookie could boast. All of his birds were exhausted. Joe recalled all of them and moved onward. He knew he wasn’t strong enough to capture and control a Skarmory yet, and he knew it wise to put as much distance between himself and the knocked out bird as possible.

Finally, Joe made his way back home. It had been a long day, and he’d rather just lie in bed right then than push his precious birds any further. As he made his way up to the shack, a portal appeared over his shoulder, and Natu’s poop from earlier dropped onto it. He sighed. Perhaps it wasn’t too late to become a Fisherman instead?
 

diamondpearl876

Well-Known Member
You know, I saw the title of this again after reading it on Christmas day and the connection just clicked. They're only ever droplets of joy for bird owners. : ' )

Just wanted to say thanks again for this! It's no secret I love birds and again this is pretty reminiscent of the life of a bird owner. I mean, of course it's a little different in the pokemon world - I can't say my cockatiel can create portals or fight battles against other bird owners - but still, those little details made reading this all the better.

Thanks again, and happy holidays. ^^
 

Ambyssin

Winter can't come soon enough
This was a very cute (and slightly silly) little read. I wasn't exactly sure what to expect with a title like this, but overall its namesake wasn't so distracting as to keep from the delightful little quirks and Dex-based characteristics of each flying-type you showed up. They all had a little bit of personality to them that made them stand out, aside from the different species. And Joe's just absolute exasperation with all of it was pretty funny as well. But he wasn't a total hapless loser, and got to have his moment of glory against that Skarmory. And now I'll never look at random route trainers the same way again. XP
 

The Teller

King of Half-Truths
You know, I saw the title of this again after reading it on Christmas day and the connection just clicked. They're only ever droplets of joy for bird owners. : ' )

Just wanted to say thanks again for this! It's no secret I love birds and again this is pretty reminiscent of the life of a bird owner. I mean, of course it's a little different in the pokemon world - I can't say my cockatiel can create portals or fight battles against other bird owners - but still, those little details made reading this all the better.

Thanks again, and happy holidays. ^^

Fun fact: the title was the LAST thing I came up with, well after I had written the story, proofread and edited it, AND had it sent out to a beta to look at. I'm just glad you appreciated all the poop jokes I threw in there. I knew it would be risky, but I HAD to do it. Natu's poop gag was also edited in at the last minute as I was typing up the final parts to the story (originally, the joke was just going to be that Natu was unintentionally more hygienic than the other birds and that not EVERY bird pooped on Joe). Also, your cockatiel can do all those things you just described. You just don't own enough badges to get it to do such things on command. I wanted the story to highlight all these different bird Pokemon in the first 2 games, so I hoped you liked that as well. Thanks again for all the warm words, and I'm glad that this fic struck a familiar chord with you!
 

Chibi Pika

Stay positive
Bwaha, this was a silly little read. It's nice to take the time to look at the daily routine of the random NPCs that you never pay any mind to, and it was particularly fun seeing the wide variety of bird Pokemon and how they acted and how Joe took care of them. So much bird poo... x'D And hey, even NPCs get their time to shine every once in a while, as Joe's able to hold his own not just against another trainer, but also against a wild Skarmory. Shame he didn't catch it. ;P Buuuuut, that might've just been asking for way more work than even his other birds put him through.

~Chibi~;249;;448;
 
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