01: Rough meeting

[codendron]

Groot had been thinking for a while.

It was very comfortable, just standing and thinking, letting the breeze push over it and through the tendrils that made its body.

When it decided to move on, it carefully moved the bird's nest to a tree that wasn't inclined to talk and strolled off down the street to several loud shouts. Animals were so excitable, always moving and doing and reacting.

It was still learning the differences in animals' noises, but it recognised angry, angry voices and waved arms and long sticks that crackled with power and pain. And it saw something small, much smaller, that seemed to be the victim of their torment.

Groot didn't like bullies. It wandered over, casually curling tendrils around an upraised limb and plucking the pain stick from its grasp. "Grooooot," it stated.

Comments

[rakknruin]

Everything was a blur. There had been lots of lights and voices, accompanied by pain and a colorful variety of other physical sensations he didn't want to think about. But what he did remember was running. Running as fast as his small, tired legs could carry him down whatever path he could find. He remembered every sensation of stumbling and falling, the burning need for air in his lungs and the feeling of anxiety that came with being chased.

He didn't know how he'd gotten out. But he had.

Rocket had managed to get a fair distance away before he'd been found. The faces were familiar in some ways but it was hard to really tell. But he recognized their voices talking to him, the anger and frustration in their voices as they lashed out. The batons that came down on him were harder than he remembered but all he was concerned with for the moment was yelling - telling them to back off before he did something far worse to them.

When he'd expected another blow, nothing came. After a moment, he moved his small arms from where he'd been shielding his head to look up the new voice. His attackers were distracted by the sudden... tree. And Rocket used that as an opportunity to shove at one of the men's legs before scurrying to duck behind the talking tree. "Yeah, what the tree said!" He yelled, pretending that yes, he knew what the talking tree had said.

[codendron]

It reminded Groot of the creatures that had attended the forest back home. Snout, tail, like a real animal, not like all the animals that wandered around in these places.

Reaching a limb down, extending it with protrusions and a curl of bark to shelter the small animal, Groot tried to encourage it to climb up onto his back where it would be protected.

"Back off, tree! That's property, and it's dangerous!"

One of the people pushed its stick into Groot's chest. It tingled and made the moss quiver. Groot looked at the person and then curled more vines on the limb, squeezing until there was cracking and it yelled in pain and dropped the stick.

"Groooot."

[rakknruin]

The way the tree moved and stretched out a limb to him, Rocket wasn't sure what to expect in the beginning. But when he noticed the protrusions and noticeable lack of aggression in the gesture, he was quick to hop onto the limb to scurry onto the tree's back. Once he was settled, he turned to poke his head over the tree's shoulder to watch the exchange.

He watched as more of the vines wrapped around the person's limbs and flinched at the sound of cracking that reached his ears before the stick fell from his hands. "I'd run if I were you, pal," Rocket warned, pointing a tiny finger at the person quickly, "wouldn't want the tree here to do something worse than that, if I were you."

Shifting, he moved to half-perch on the tree's shoulder, trying to get a look at it's face to get it's attention. "You done playin' with this moron or can we go?" Between that guy and the tree, he'd pick the tree.

[codendron]

The men glanced at each other. The intervention of a giant tree with no sense of pain and determination to save the small animal changed things.

They grabbed the wounded and backed off, keeping a sharp eye on Groot. Groot watched them, then turned to look up at the little animal, perched so close. "Grooot?"

Because Groot didn't know what to do now. Mostly, animals ignored a wandering tree. No one had actually asked anything of Groot before.