bottlecaplogs | mayaka’s jan catch-all

The little Sneasel stands in a small clearing amongst the trees carrying an empty backpack, which should soon be filled with nuts and mushrooms. Her arms are crossed as she scans her surroundings. The thick layer of snow covering the woods has made it more difficult to keep track of where they’re going, and the last thing she wants to do is to get lost on this foraging trip.

At least she has company, and she trusts that this Litwick must know where they’re going, and also the way back.

“Thanks for accompanying me, Cat-chan.”

Catrina wasn't allowed to have a cute little backpack, mainly because of the flame. What she was allowed though was to assist in foraging via melting some snow with her little flame. Sure, Catrina managed to survive the wilderness last time, but that was likely because of sheer dumb luck.

"Hey no problem, we still need to get you ready to have a meeting with Polteageist and getting you over your fear of ghosts."

Good news though, Catrina is leaving a nice melted path through the snow, so it should be easy to follow back to civilization. At least it isn't a melted wax trail...that's the plus.

"Right. Thanks for reminding me..." Mayaka groans a little as she says this, sounding quite the opposite.

She enters the clearing and starts to scoop snow off the ground with her bare claws, tossing piles of it behind her, mindful not to get any on Catrina.

"Do you know where's good to find mushrooms and nuts?"

"What are friends for? Besides, you'll do great." Catrina was more than happy to remind her new friend of that promise and get Mayaka all on board with Team Ghostie Ghoul.

Glancing a bit from Mayaka and then to the trees, Catrina goes to use that mythical thing called thinking. This was an important quest and Cat knew it was something she cannot fumble.

"Let's go near the trees, mushrooms seem to like growing on them anyways."

Mayaka gives her friend a small nod before moving to clear the area underneath the trees.

"I read up about mushroom varieties in the library. We've gotta be careful because some of them are poisonous." Though, she wonders if eating them will have the same effect on her since she is a poison-type now. This sounds like something that Doctor would want to test out.

"Cat-chan, do you have lots of experience finding stuff in the woods?"

Catrina could find things in the woods pretty easily, downside though, those were normally skeletons she left to get cleaned up proper. Mushrooms and nuts though...yeah that one is not something she wasn't used to. She was more accustomed to the delicious crunch of pinecones...PINECONES! That's a solution right there if the mushrooms are a bust.

"I know that pinecones, pine needles, and the cambium are edible on evergreens if all else fails with the mushrooms."

Good save there Catrina, she gives herself a waxy pat on the back.

"Huh, what's cambium?" Mayaka has never heard of this before.

Just then, she feels her claws scratch against something on the forest floor. She picks it up, shakes the snow off of it, revealing it to be a small pinecone.

"Oh cambium, that's like that weird white stuff between the bark and the wood of the tree. It's edible and can be made into a bread." Catrina didn't waste a minute explaining the wonders of the edible parts of trees and the dread cambium bread that came with it.

Oh, what's this? Delicious pinecone? Well Mayaka found it and gets to lay claim to the pinecone delicacy right there. "That'd be a pinecone, very delicious and crunchy, definitely strong of fibers."

Mayaka can't help but chuckle as Catrina explains this piece of obscure trivia. It reminds her of the kind of odd facts her close friend Satoshi would know. She's always had a soft spot for fun facts because of this.

"Really, bread? You sure that's tasty?" she asks, sounding doubtful despite the amused smile on her face.

The Sneasel pauses for a second before offering the pinecone to the Litwick. Does Catrina actually want to eat this? Between this and the cambium, it seems like she has an odd taste in food. Though that certainly wasn't the strangest thing about this frog-turned-candle creature she's somehow befriended...

"It's shit as bread, but nothing a little bit of maple syrup won't fix."

Ironically, this was the more socially acceptable dietary plans compared to Cat's previous dietary habits by leagues. Clearly a wise decision on Arceus's end or whoever decided to bring this candle here.

It looks like Catrina does want to eat the pinecone...the wilderness did a number on this booger. At least its not something worse.

"Why eat something that tastes bad to begin with?" Mayaka arches an eyebrow at the Litwick, failing to understand her logic. At least if it was surprisingly tasty, she'd be more willing to close an eye on this questionable source of food.

And seeing how Catrina is eyeing the pinecone, the Sneasel hands it over to the candle wordlessly, even though a judging expression is clear as day on her face.

"Cause taste gets thrown out the window when food is low and you can't get anything else delicious on short notice?" Catrina says this straight faced, this was definitely a normal outing for Catrina. Nothing wrong here.

Upon being gifted the pinecone, Catrina goes to crunch crunch town with the pinecone. Simply delicious and Catrina is staying on top of her fiber goals this year!

Yikes, that got dark really fast.

Mayaka freezes, realising she may have been too careless with her words, even though the Litwick next to her is happily chowing down on the pinecone.

"I didn't know you had to go through that. That sucks."

Catrina, ironically, doesn't pick up on how dark that was. To her, this was just the price to pay for escaping her bio parents, a worthwhile payment. Pausing at the pinecone chow down, Catrina looks a bit confused.

"Hey, it's all chill. You're seventeen, right? I was about two years older than you when I escaped the donors, it was just a price to pay for freedom. Upside, the food situation eventually got better."

This was a completely normal conversation, Catrina isn't registering just how dark the topic is.

Edited (Forgot to CW it :x) 2026-01-08 18:10 (UTC)

Even though Mayaka can't relate to what the Litwick is saying, she's read enough to get an idea of the sort of situation that would lead her to running away from her parents. She presses her lips together in a solemn expression, but tries not to linger too long on it given how Catrina remains in good spirits.

She distracts herself by digging through the snow and searching between the roots of the trees, and successfully fishes out more pinecones which she tosses to Catrina. The few small nuts Mayaka finds, she drops into the bagpack.

As she circles around the tree, she discovers a ring of mushrooms, just barely poking out from under a thin layer of snow.

"Cat-chan, look at this."

It was certainly for the best not to discuss Catrina's bio parents, that one is nightmare fuel, even to someone like Catrina to even talk about. In turn, Catrina was more than interest in seeing the mushroom ring that Mayaka found in the snow.

"I think we hit the jackpot here." Catrina was pretty impressed with Maya's find. If they were poisonous or not, that one was up for debate and Catrina shouldn't be ID-ing any sort of fungi as edible.

Still, Catrina goes to use her flame to melt the snow with her Litwick flame to get a better view of the mushrooms for the potential harvesting. There was some use of coming into this world as the worst candle that Arceus decided to inflict on everyone.

"So..how many are there?"

Thanks to Catrina melting the snow, Mayaka is able to get a better look at the fairy ring of mushrooms. She lowers herself onto her knees and inspects them carefully. They're white, with wide caps, and what appears to be little gills running under the underside of the mushrooms.

"Looks like there's around 10 of them. From what I've read, the difference between the toxic and non-toxic mushrooms of this sort are very minor. But..."

She reaches out to pluck one off the ground and turns it around in her claw to get a better look at the mushroom's gills.

"Based on the size of the gills, I think these are safe to eat."

Well, the only way to know would be to eat them and see what happens, but Mayaka won't do something so rash like that now.

"Hell yeah, we can harvest them then, ten should be plenty to take back, right?"

Catrina is the last former amphibian to consult about mushrooms. On the bright side, Mayaka wasn't consulting her far worse older brother, Fernando, on the mushrooms...he would've eaten them on the spot. So no surprise mushroom munching on Catrina's end thank Arceus.

"Hmmm...we could always boil them for a long time to be on the safe side."

For once, Catrina made some sort of sound advice on the mushrooms, Lupe would be proud right now if they were here..maybe. Other option was ~~pestering~~ asking Sanji if the mushrooms are safe or not, but Catrina likely isn't thinking that far ahead, that would be silly.

Boiling them, while safe, doesn't sound particularly appetizing.

"Is there someone who's really good at cooking we can ask? Most of the recipes I know don't use mushrooms."

Mayaka gathers the mushrooms in her arms and tosses them one at a time into the bag.

Catrina scrunches up her little wax face in thought for a moment. How could anyone be against mushroom soup!? The tragedy...ahh what was Catrina trying to think of before? Oh! Right someone that knows how to cook!

"Yeah there's this blonde fox guy back at the Spire that can help! I'm sure he can ID these mushrooms."

Clearly there is no flaws with this (There was definitely flaws with this plan.)

"Blonde fox? Don't think I've met him."

Mayaka lifts the bag, jostling the mushrooms around, and peeks inside to see that there's still some space for more ingredients.

"Let's see if we can find anymore mushrooms or nuts before we head back."

"Hot damn, then yeah, you're in for a show with the blondie fox. Gets weird around girls though as a heads up."

Catrina gives a nod as she goes to melting more snow with her little flame...being a fire and ghost type has its advantages, especially for this booger of a candle.

"I hear yah, you see anymore mushrooms or nuts from the ground?"

Mayaka brushes off Catrina's warning with a little snort, figuring that she'll be able to deal with that easily if it happens.

"If there was a ring of them here, it's likely there'll be others around the other trees too." Having made this deduction, the Sneasel heads to the next tree over and begins digging through the snow.

"Oh! By the way, I found a figurine near my window the other week and it didn't say who it was from. I remember you said you know how to sculpt... was it from you?"

Who else would deliberately give her a creepy ghost, knowing she was frightened of them? Mayaka had been too scared to place it in her room, or even the common room, so it's currently sitting in the garden outside her house, and she tries not to think about it lest it ruin her sleep for the night.

Edited 2026-01-10 11:26 (UTC)

If there were bones inside of Catrina, there'd be no wax off them as she shrugs. Back to hunting for more mushrooms n' nuts~

"Sounds like a plan, I'll just keep melting snow on my end to make this easier." Spring is definitely going to look weird after Catrina's intervention with the premature melting of snow.

Uh-oh...Catrina glances away quickly. She thought that little clay sheet ghost with the tiny sculpted hair bow was cute...plan has backfired spectacularly! There's no torch or pitchforks here, right? It's not like Mayaka would chase Catrina out of the Bay.

"Yeah and I made it cute as a button. Why?"

mayaka’s jan catch-all

nutty buddies w/ Catrina

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1/2

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LOL

:3c Delicious pinecone, good for your health totally.

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CW for Catrina's parents mention and past food insecurities

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wrap!! theyre so cute