In which Petulia gets her pigs.

[pigwitch.livejournal.com]

((Closed RP for Petulia and Tinky Winky.))

Petulia was having a bit of trouble adjusting. She'd been here for a couple of months, and she had yet to really settle in. Not for lack of trying - she'd signed up for both the Secret Santa and the Valentine's Day blind date, but her Santa hadn't shown up, and she'd chickened out on actually going to the date.

She picked at her lunch and kicked her chair leg irritably. The great hall was - well, not empty, but not crowded either, as she was eating lunch in the middle of the afternoon. That tended to happen a lot, lately.

There was definitely something missing, she mused. Petulia had always lived and worked around animals, and she felt uncomfortably aimless without any livestock to look after. It was silly, but she couldn't quite shake off the feeling that she was sitting around when there were things she should be doing. Somehow, the furby she'd picked up at the CoMC class a few weeks ago didn't quite fill the void.

Actually, the furby she'd picked up at the CoMC class was pretty damn annoying, even to Petulia, who loved all animals (except maybe sheep). She tried to give it the attention it needed, if only because she'd be mortified to bring a neglected furby to the next class, but sometimes enough was enough. Therefore, Dah Noh-Lah was currently trying to navigate a maze of books and other random items under Petulia's bed. That should keep it busy for a while, at least.

Petulia sighed, and put down her fork. What she wouldn't do for a cute, wobbly-nosed pig. What she wouldn't do, indeed. Well, she might be about to find out...

Comments

[carriesapurse.livejournal.com]

Tinky Winky was a very, very happy Teletubby. His engagement to Michael Scott (http://community.livejournal.com/hogwarts_hocus/1124109.html?thread=56799501#t56799501), their timeless love (http://community.livejournal.com/hogwarts_hocus/1174949.html), their child-substitute Guano the gorgeous pug dog (http://community.livejournal.com/hogwarts_hocus/1220413.html) (full name Guantanamo; named, of course, by Michael) — all these things filled Tinky Winky's Tubby heart to overflowing. It was as though his heart were a huge bowl full of Tubby Custard and the machine just wouldn't stop splurting more Tubby Custard into the bowl, faster than any Teletubby could suck it through the bowl's built-in straw (http://www.pbs.org/parents/birthdays/teletubbies/images/food_custard.jpg).

Effervescent, incandescent with happiness, his antenna glowing intermittently (with futile efforts to pick up the Spice Channel on his tummy-telly), Tinky Winky skipped through the halls of Hogwarts and burst through the doors to the Great Hall.

"Eh-oh!"

"Tinky Winky said hello," his Narrator translated. What would Tinky Winky's interlocutors do if not for the assistance of that disembodied voice, a voice which accompanied Tinky Winky everywhere and was audible to all yet visible to none? Surely the Narrator's utility outweighed his creepiness! (Maybe?)

The Teletubby's attention flitted from person to person, object to object. It lighted on today's lucky winner, who happened to be Petulia. Tinky Winky bounded toward her.

"Tubby Tustard?" he queried, waving a purple mitt toward her lunch. It didn't look like custard, nor Tubby Toast, yet it was being treated as food! How peculiar!

[pigwitch.livejournal.com]

Oh gods, what was that? It was huge and purple and... talking to her? As the Teletubby approached, Petulia shrank back in her seat, trying not to look threatening, and also trying not to look like she was scared out of her wits, because that would be incredibly rude. And maybe encourage it to attack.

She glanced carefully at her plate. "Um, no... it's a ham sandwich. And, um, potato salad," she said. "I don't know what, um, 'tubby tustard' is."

[carriesapurse.livejournal.com]

Any reaction short of running away in screaming terror would be interpreted by Tinky Winky as friendly.

"Fwiend!" he proclaimed the girl. Though his upturned mouth lacked much mobility, Tinky Winky beamed his joy as best he could. "Me Tinky Winky! What youw name?"

The Narrator translated. "Tinky Winky wanted to know his new friend's name."

Meanwhile, Tinky Winky had begun to rummage in his huge red handbag, for reasons known only to the Teletubby.

[pigwitch.livejournal.com]

"Um, I'm Petulia," she said, glancing around cautiously. Of course, she was unable to figure out where the second voice was coming from, which did not encourage her in the least. "You're, um, Tinky Winky?"

[carriesapurse.livejournal.com]

"Tinky Winky!" the Teletubby confirmed in his loudest goofiest tones. He would have pointed to himself, except that his hands were busy.

He was looking for a ham sandwich in his handbag. Petulia said she had a ham sandwich. Tinky Winky wanted one too! For this was the way of the Teletubby: whenever one Teletubby had something, the other Teletubbies all wanted that thing. Laa-Laa's tutu, Po's bouncy ball, all manner of various objects that appeared in Teletubbyland without explanation for interactive funtime — if one Teletubby had it, the others would all want it.

The Narrator helped them to take turns. Teletubby carnage would not have been pretty.

However, with food, you couldn't very well take turns, because food was consumable and would go away, unless it was the ever-renewable resource that was Tubby Custard. So Tinky Winky wanted a sandwich of his very own.

From the handbag he produced ... a squealing piglet.

"Ham!" Tinky Winky proclaimed proudly, holding the piglet aloft.

[pigwitch.livejournal.com]

It was carrying around a piglet in its handbag? Somehow, Petulia wasn't particularly suprised. Horrified, maybe - a bag that size could /not/ be a healthy space for a pig, even such a very young one - but not surprised.

"No, that's a piggy. He's not ready to be ham, yet," she said carefully. "Um, how about this, Tinky Winky? I'll trade you the sandwich for the piggy, if you want ham."

[carriesapurse.livejournal.com]

"Piggy?" The Teletubby blinked his huge flat eyes at the piglet. The piglet didn't seem to like him much. It squirmed in his purple mitts. He set the piglet down, where it proceeded to run about in a state of high confusion, winding amidst the table legs in circles.

He looked in his handbag for the ham sandwich he wanted, and instead withdrew another piggy.

"Piggy," he said to the second piglet, which oinked at him disagreeably.

He turned his quizzical blank face to Petulia. "Piggy?"

[pigwitch.livejournal.com]

"Yes, that's another piggy. Um, how many do you have in there?" she asked, scooping up the first piglet and cuddling it in her arms. It settled down, probably thankful to be away from the Teletubby.

[carriesapurse.livejournal.com]

The piglets were probably all thankful to be away from the Teletubby and from the curious interdimensional Schrödinger-space of his magic handbag. Oblivious, Tinky Winky continued to pull piglets from the purse as though it were a clown car.

"Ham? Ham?" he inquired of each one. The Narrator kept count: "Tinky Winky found a third piglet! Tinky Winky found a fourth piglet!"

It would seem the Narrator found this an educational opportunity for the learning of ordinal numbers.

[pigwitch.livejournal.com]

There was no way that four piglets could fit into that purse. Perhaps they weren't there until he pulled them out? That made a kind of sense that lined up neatly with the over-arching lack of logic in this place. If that was the case, then probably the best thing to do was to stop him from producing any more.

"Um, if you want ham, you can have my sandwich," she said, holding it out to Tinky Winky. "I'm done with it anyway."

[carriesapurse.livejournal.com]

Tinky Winky abandoned his rummaging. The last of the four piglets wiggled away from him and hit the floor running. "Sammich?" Unsurprisingly, the Teletubby could not pronounce the name of the food.

He took the sandwich carefully from Petulia, both clumsy mitts clamping bread and meat together. "Ham," he said proudly, and took a bite ...

"Ewwwwwww."

"Tinky Winky didn't like ham," the Narrator helped. "Tinky Winky only knew how to eat Tubby Custard and Tubby Toast."

"Tinky Winky no wike," the Teletubby confirmed.

Well, that would certainly make the menu interesting for the Scott-Winky nuptial luau!

[pigwitch.livejournal.com]

"Um, well, I suppose it's not for everyone," Petulia agreed. She somehow managed to round up the four piglets, which were luckily still small enough to just barely fit all four in an armful. She'd have to find a pen of some sort for them, or maybe see if there was an empty shed or barn somewhere on campus. It was still cold out there, and they were so little. Maybe she could even find someplace to keep them inside until spring.

"I'm going to take care of the piggies, ok?" she said to Tinky Winky. Not that she was likely to let anyone take them away now, even if he did object.