8947/Suspected Difficulty

Suspected Difficulty
Date of Scene:	24 August 2019
Location:	Turtle Lair, Williamsburg
Synopsis:	Leonado determines, on a hunch, why Pippi always seems to forget what her chores are. Offering to help results in a slightly more aggressive response than expected!
Cast of Characters:	Pippi, Leonardo

---

Pippi has posed:
    Another day, another sweep of the livingroom where Pippi was cleaning past the date of chore-changing. She was listening to happy punk-pop today, the crooning sounds of guitars and guys with odd haircuts filling the lair as she vaccuumed. She was bopping around, lifting the couch one-handed as she ran the ancient vaccuum beneath it, singing along with some cover of a previously popular pop song, gone punk.

    "HEY I just met you -- and this is craaazy, but here's my numer so call me maaaybe! It's hard to look right -- at you BAAAAABY so here's my number, so call me maybe!!"

Leonardo has posed:
It isn't the first time someone's been singing inside the Lair. It might be the first time Leonardo's heard a female voice doing it, unless April's been caught crooning before. The blue-masked turtle exits his room and pauses. Wasn't Pippi doing that last week? Before interrupting her, he strolls over to the chore list, trails a finger along to see who's supposed to be doing what, and glances back over a shoulder toward the doggy mutant.

His mouth moves. Then it moves again. The music must be pretty noisy. Soon, he's repositioned himself to be within her line of sight, waving a hand to get her attention.

Pippi has posed:
    OK, the music was not Donatello Blasting EDM levels loud, but it was pretty loud, and Pippi was happily singing along with it when she spots Leo trying to get her attention -- so first she shouts back "I can't hear you, I'm vaccuu--" she turns off the vaccuum -- and then sheepishly turns off the music. She rubs the back of her head a moment with an embarrassed smile, her ears dooping slightly.

    "Ah, sorry Leo, is the music too loud? I can turn it down. Thought I was alone!"

Leonardo has posed:
Chances are if it was the EDM stuff, Leonardo would have been more proactive about getting it turned down. Some of that thumping can really reverberate. "Hello, Pippi. So I don't know what that is that you were listening to," he begins, "but why are you doing Alopex's chores? You have the dishes in the kitchen this week. You don't have to do extra work here." Even now, in a more casual setting, he still carries his swords at the back of his shell.

Pippi has posed:
    "I dunno, I turned on the music channel thingie and it was going. I've heard it before." Pippi explains, and then she looks at the vaccuum, and then looks at Leo and gives a soft 'haah' sound as she rubs the back of her head. "Dishes! Right! Must have forgotten what day they changed!" the canine replies, though her ears droop lower and go limp. Not precisely telling the truth.

Leonardo has posed:
"Must have," Leonardo replies, a browless brow shifting upward at the body language he picks up on, mainly those ears. "That's not the whole story, is it?" he asks, resting a hand against the back of the beaten-up (but not ratty, because consider who put the place together) sofa. There /are/ some dishes that have piled up, and he adds, "Don't worry. It's not something you're going to get in trouble over."

Pippi has posed:
    There's a bit of a stare-down. Pippi looks almost afraid of Leo's gentle prodding, and she squares her shoulders slightly, and rubs the back of her head, turning her gaze away from his. She's embarrassed, clearly, the pinks inside her ears turning darker as she blushes, and she rubs the bak of her neck to smooth the fur down a bit there. "Well, yeah, I mean, so much going on, what with Raph and Alopex and not to mention Donnie and supply runs and junk runs and this one time when I hopped above ground and almost got run over by a garbage truck...."

Leonardo has posed:
There's nothing in Leonardo's body language to suggest any sort of challenge, to be truthful. It's more a matter of curiosity out of him, so the reaction leaves his head tilting briefly. "I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess at something. Days of the week don't mean very much to you, do they? You never had to think about stuff like that before." He lets that sit there for a moment, adding, "And yes, there's a lot that can be going on around here. Easy to get distracted by all of it."

Pippi has posed:
"Well, yeah days of the week mean something, you have April's Podcast Release day, Star Trek Rerun Hour day, Pizza Special Changing Day, the grocery on Blecker throws out their frozen meats day..." Pippi counts, but her weight is shifting from side to side, and the fur is bristling at her tail. "... um... Taco Tuesday..." she trails off, and then she rubs the back of her neck.

Leonardo has posed:
"Yes, but.." Leonardo has a thought, motioning for Pippi to follow him. "Come over here. I want to show you something." There is a calendar hung up just off the kitchen area, and he points to a couple spots on it. First, the name of the month. Then, the current day. "Can you tell me what those words are?" he asks, reaching up to pull the mask down around his neck.

Pippi has posed:
    Pippi grimmaces, and with her tail curling between her legs just slightly, she follows Leonardo towards the kitchen, and hesitantly looks at the calendar. She looks at the jumble of symbols and lines and boxes, and crosses her arms over her chest, her ears going completely slack in defeat.

    "It's a big sheet of paper with the month on it," she replies sullenly.

    "An' besides, who cares? It's not like it matters as long as I hit things hard and don't get into trouble the days kinda run together anyway..."

    But Leo's got his mask down, and she turns to walk off, but then turns back and with a hurt expression replies:

    "... I can't."

Leonardo has posed:
Shaking his head, Leonardo denies part of what the pup counters with. "That's not true. You're worth more than just hitting things, and we're all going to get into trouble sometime one way or another. It's what makes us..well." He seems to realize the absurdity of what he's about to say, for he changes it a little. "It's what people would say makes them human, and for better or worse we're more now than what we started out as. Unfortunately that makes some things more complicated."

Which is, as it happens, how he comes to see the fact of the matter, something he'd already begun to suspect. "Hey," he says, closing the distance to offer a hand to Pippi's shoulder, looking to give it a brief squeeze. "So you can't read. It's okay." The turtle leader wonders, "Do you want to learn how? It's not like a kata or punching a bag. Learning how to read is difficult at first, but it would help you out with a lot of stuff."

Pippi has posed:
    It may be the one thing Pippi is actually sore about. She gives little growl and shrugs Leo's hand off her shoulder, trying to keep a bit of distance between them.

    "I can't." she reiterates, and her ears draw back, and up. The fur on the back of her neck's picked up, hackles are raised, and her shouders rise up. "Some people are just not good at the smart thing, and I'm not good at the smart thing. I. Can't. Read."

Leonardo has posed:
Leonardo draws his hand back at the reaction and holds both up in a peaceful sort of gesture, though he looks at a loss for how to handle this in the immediate aftermath of her growl along with the physical response. He can tell when someone feels cornered and threatened, on the verge of lashing out somehow. Whether he's reading Pippi the right way or not, that's what he's picking up from her now.

"Sorry," he begins, thoughts speeding up inside his head as he hopes to find the right thing to say. Trying to broach subject matter like this is not the same as dealing with strategy, or training, or a brother who's determined to talk back. He finds he's got nothing right now. "Just..sorry." A hand goes to the back of his own head to rub it, and he quickly tugs the mask back in place. "I thought I could help." Was he wrong?

Pippi has posed:
    Pippi closes her eyes, and she shakes her head, and takes a deep breath. "Look... don't... don't tell anyone. It's easier if they just think I'm dumb and forgetful." she states, clearly embarrassed over the whole situation. "... I'm sorry. I shouldn't... I shouldn't have..." she trails off helplessly, and shifts her weight between her feet as she looks helplessly at Leo.

    "... we're cool?"

Leonardo has posed:
With the mask back in place, Leo has closed off part of himself that is symbolically exposed when it's down. It's when he's showing a more sensitive side of himself, and when the mask is on he's usually more prone to be all business. He goes back to eyeing the calendar since Pippi seemed evasive toward making eye contact.

"You don't have to apologize, but I meant it about trying to help. Does she know?" he asks, and there is only one 'she' he could be talking about. Oh, he has opinions about what's easy and what's not, but now might not be the best time to share them. All the same, there is enough of a slump to his shoulders that shows he's still feeling the rebuke.

Pippi has posed:
    And that's the heaviest sort of guilt. Pippi drops her head, and looks down to the side.

    "... I don't think anyone else's looked." she admits quietly. "I don't think she knows, but if she does it hasn't come up."

Leonardo has posed:
"All right. If you don't want me to tell anyone, I won't," Leonardo promises, difficult as it may be at times to keep depending on the circumstances. Time will tell whether or not he succeeds or fails at that, but given what's involved it could go south if he let it slip.

So, he says, "You put a lot of trust in each other to have your backs. She knows you better than I do and she's going to figure it out one of these days. Do you want her to be the one to bring it up, or should it be you?" Hands go up again, as if to fend off a response he's expecting. "I'm not saying you have to decide on that right now, but you know it's going to come up eventually. Either way..if you ever do want to try to learn, whether you think you can or not, you can come to me. I won't judge you."

He, apparently, does not believe she /can't/ learn, just that right now she may not want to risk failing.

Pippi has posed:
    Pippi weighs options a moment, and she feels her head still heavy. "Maybe it won't come up." she states with forced optimism, but then she takes a deep breath, and looks to Leo.

    "I'll... I'll think of something if it comes up. I trust her, she's my teacher and my best friend. And you're a good friend." she rubs the back of her head again, and then just sort of points off to the rooms and personal spaces. "But right now I'm gonna go and regret growling because you're tryin' to help but don't know stuff and that's okay because you're trying to be a good friend and leader and... and.... yeeaaah." Pippi stammers a moment, and then scoots herself right along towards the rooms, terribly embarrassed over the entire situation.

Leonardo has posed:
Leonardo doesn't say anything to Pippi when she suggests it may not come up. He suspects both of them know better than that. Instead, he merely nods once, then twice. "Well..try not to let it eat at you. Anything worth getting good at is going to take hard work, time, and effort." If she doesn't understand the value of being able to read, maybe that will come with time. "You're still pretty new to who and what you are now." She's hit a roadblock, an obstacle. That's it. How she handles it will help define her going forward.

"Get some rest. I know you didn't mean anything by it," he explains to the growl and the response she gave him. She just accounted for why he knows. "And try not to be so hard on yourself. We all have things we can improve on."

Speaking of which, he looks to his own room and decides to return to it. Meditation ought to help. It usually does. It's a good time to work on some of what he's learned from Splinter with projection of himself into the astral plane, especially when his thoughts are conflicted. It will help him with a sharper focus if he can get to that point.