Al's not normally the type to find himself wondering without purpose, but until he got his next briefing that was exactly what he was doing. He thought it might do him some good to enter one of the labs, one of his personally interests happen to be tinkering. Anything that he could get his hands on, he'd try to take a part and put it back together better than he had found it. 

When he opens the door; Pokemon respond, and in tune, his Houndoom that was never far from his side started to growl and bar its teeth until Al gave it a gentle tug on one of his horns. 

Dee signs something at Al; but to Alphonse they look like strange, almost alien hand gestures. He cocks a brow in confusion. "Are you okay?"

Fenelle Miller , my son is an idiot... 

[attr="class","emapkmn"][attr="class","emapkmn"][attr="class","emapkmn"][attr="class","emapkmn"]

Tension builds up between the pokémon, quickly subsided as their respective trainers move to calm the situation down. (Or, in Fenelle's case, wait 'till they realise they're over-reacting.) Then, Grimmsnarl returns to a body-guard-ish position, while Bronzong and Bisharp hang back again, trying to occupy themselves while only the Hisuian Goodra doesn't pay the newcomer any mind.

Fenelle frowns at the spoken words, inaudible to dem, and reluctantly puts down the tools and machinery dee has been holding to get out der phone. "I'm deaf, so I didn't hear you. Can you type or write down what you want? I'm working on something," dee lets der text-to-speech, Rocket custom module, work its speech, while gesturing to the space in front of dem.

The scene: Fenelle sitting on the floor, cross-legged, with a bunch of small parts in front of dem, and many, many, many laser pointers, taken apart partially or completely.

Alphonse Zoram

Something wells up in Al's throat. Dee can't hear. 

Shit.


Al swallows, nervous, almost sheepishly. In response, his Houndoom assumes a more defensive position, body blocking his trainer from the rest as if Al's insecurity might give them reason to attack. Alphonse runs a hand through the dog's coat, scratching at its behind as they pull out their own phone. The letters on it jumbled up, traded places and positions, and if Al looked at it look enough it would start to make his head hurt. 

Still, he could identify the icons on his phone enough to pull out his notes app. He opened it and when the keyboard shot up, he pressed the microphone icon. "Fuck. Can't read, but if this works we can talk this way?" He finished and when the text finalized on the screen he took a confident step, bypassing his pokemon much to the Houndoom's dismay. 

He laid his phone down in front of dem. 

(Duck. Can't read, but if this works we can talk this way.)

Fenelle Miller

[attr="class","emapkmn"][attr="class","emapkmn"][attr="class","emapkmn"][attr="class","emapkmn"]

Grimmsnarl indeed tenses up at the insecurity, seemingly to add to his intimidation - but he doesn't move further. Bronzong and Bisharp have fully lost interest, as they've finally found something more interesting - a solid metal ball that they could do something with. Anything.

It seems like typing it might be- ... however, this is not the face of someone who's comfortable with phones, which Fenelle hasn't thought possible in this day and age. And also because for dem, a chronically online person, some views definitely are warped compared to "normies".

And then. He speaks again-?

Dee frowns as the person moves forward, but doesn't make any hostile moves - this situation is just so very strange to dem, so dee really doesn't know what to expect. And then, there's another moment of confusion. "What did you mean with 'Duck'?" dee asks via TTS, before nodding, "I think this should wo... ..." Dee stops typing.

"You can't read?"

Alphonse Zoram

Duck? Like a duckett? That wasn’t what Al said. He shook his head. ”No, not duck, fuck—fuuhck.”

(‘No, not duck, muck, muhck.’) Little did Alphonse know that he still had his censor on. Dee gave Al a normally expectant response when he admitted that he couldn’t read. He shook his head—barely preventing himself from rolling his eyes. No, he couldn’t read.

It wasn’t like Al hadn’t tried before, it just never clicked. The words jumbled up, sometimes they weren’t the same, sometimes the letters were weird. He knew what each of them were but combining them together…? A lot of work that Al didn’t have time for.


Fenelle Miller

[attr="class","emapkmn"][attr="class","emapkmn"][attr="class","emapkmn"][attr="class","emapkmn"]

Fenelle looks at the speech-to-text with a pensive look. "So, you mean muck?" the robotic voice sounds out. Then, dee suddenly jumps forward, frowning- quickly examining the many little things on the floor. Nothing has ended up covered in grime or something, right?! Relieved as dee doesn't find anything concerning, dee leans back. "There's nothing wrong with my parts. ... but some are broken." Turns out, tinkering too much isn't too good for the hardware life.

However, the question about reading is met with a shake of the head, and dee nods, noticing the slight motion that isn't put into the motion of rolling eyes. "How? It's hard to imagine in any city ... or did you grow up elsewhere?" dee ponders, genuinely baffled and curious and also very forward with der questions. It's ... Interesting, dee signs, pensive.

"Do you want to learn?" dee then asks after overcoming the first curiosity. After all, it's not like people keep underestimating dem because of der lack of hearing - while dee is still taking spoken words with a grain of salt. How the hell do you communicate with so limited means?

Alphonse Zoram

Al shakes his head; he doesn't mean muk, he doesn't mean muck. He means fuck. He looks at dem, blinking, exasperated. He doesn't know sign, he doesn't know how to turn the filter off on his rotophone. He could flip dee off but then... well, maybe der would take it as some sort of insult, which wasn't what Al wanted to do. 

Instead, Al drops it. He speaks into the microphone. "Can I take a look?" And shows it to dee when they mention broken parts. Dee asks him where he grew up. "Sinnoh, in Hearthome." It's easy to get lost; to blend into the crowd there when you're undesirable. Al wasn't 'tech savvy' as he couldn't read, but he liked to tinker, to pull things apart and put them back together. 

The tinkle in his eyes betray the indifference on his face. "Yes."


Fenelle Miller

[attr="class","emapkmn"][attr="class","emapkmn"][attr="class","emapkmn"][attr="class","emapkmn"]

Fenelle frowns as the topic's dropped, but maybe for the better. It seems like they would get nowhere for now, but dee has no idea why that might be - there's not a really particularly difficult word with one syllable, after all. However, the other topic at hand is way more interesting and the reason for der frustration, too. The taken apart laser pointers, their innards just lain across the floor.

Dee nods at Alphonse's question, before nodding at his hometown as well ... but dee has no idea about this city, frankly. "The parts all belong to laser pointers, but some of them were defunctional. I'm trying to put one together that can switch colours quickly ... there's one I haven't taken apart yet," dee types and der phone speaks, before pointing at one laser pointer and then also giving Alphonse a fitting screwdriver.

"Have you worked with tech before?"

Alphonse Zoram