sunpendant | Four | Video/Action for Goldenrod

Four | Video/Action for Goldenrod

[Action]

[Originally, Raven planned her trip to Goldenrod to take longer. It started out that way. She wanted to take in the sights, so to speak, now that winter wasn’t trying to kill her and there might be more monsters about. Then that announcement came over the gear and things changed. Anyone along the Sudowoodo Area would have seen her storming toward Goldenrod at a pace that took effort to maintain, feeling under the weather as she is. A worried Swablu chirps atop her head for most of the way.

And now she’s here. The big city. She was supposed to tell Ondorus when she was coming, but she’s too wrapped up in finding…something. Information? The person who would do terrible things like that? Oh, she’d love the second one.

She succeeds in neither, managing only to wind up hopelessly lost on the streets that circle the department store. It’s a tall building and a nice landmark…unless you have no idea where to go from there. He wasn’t kidding when he said it was like nothing he’d ever seen before, was he?]

[Video]

How do I get to the “breeding center” from here? [Raven’s face and the top of the tower are in camera view. She looks irritated and pale and tired.]

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[Something is definitely off. It's one thing if Ondorus has no idea how to find "Team Rocket", or someone with them who knows about this despicable behavior. It's another thing entirely to imply that he does know and doesn't think it would be wise to tell her.

She's stewing. Breathing hard, too. When she addresses the new greenish bird it's sharp.]

Hey.

[Melody is much more polite and will make their introductions for them.]

[Olivia looks slightly affronted at Raven's tone, trying to brush it off by ruffling her wings a little. She shuffles her feet and listens to Melody, glancing at Raven a few times.]

You know, I didn't think you'd get here so early. You're coming to the house, right? I might go back. [She looks over at Ondorus, who is very determinedly staying quiet and mulling something over.] Ondorus? Oh, what happened? The Xatu looks back at Raven and Melody, "sounding" a little displeased.]

It's not important. [This is so very obviously a lie. Raven shakes her head like that makes it less noticeable, shifting a little from foot to foot.]

I thought you lived here.

The Center and the boarding house don't occupy the same building. It's a short walk away. [Meanwhile, Olivia looks a little poofy with barely-restrained indignation, though she's not going to say anything outright. What a questionable individual you are, Raven...she's got her eye on you.]

[Olivia is in luck! Raven speaks bird. She holds her gear screen toward the Xatu instead, looking sincere.]

I want to help them.

[Olivia tilts her head in confusion and walks forward to peer at the screen.

...and has about the same reaction as Ondorus, except her displeasure is less sad and more grouchy. She shivers all over and preens at her wing. You can practically hear the quiet "h-hrmph!"]

Then you've got a lot of work to get to, don't you? Melody should train with us. [She swivels at a ninety-degree angle, facing away from Raven and tilting her beak up haughtily.] There are many strong Pokemon that live at the house, too. It's a good idea to stay there.

[Oh.

She doesn't like me, Raven thinks. It's not that unusual, really. She just got used to friendliness here.

Her own fault. Trilling softly, Melody lands back on her shoulder and rubs her face with one wing. Fine, not every pokémon had to like her. But she wanted this one to.

Wordless, she puts her gear away and stares quite hard at the nearest side wall.]

[...Ondorus can see this careening downhill. He steps forward and clears his throat softly.]

We should go ahead and show you the house, then. Olivia, can you get our bag from the hall? [The Xatu unruffles herself and nods quickly, hopping off and out of the room. Ondorus lets out a long sigh.]

That's her way of saying she wants you to move in, you know.

Move in? [Not what she expected to hear.]

There are rooms open at the boarding house. Olivia has a bit of an aversion to saying what she wants outright...I'm not sure where she got it from. [mm.] But I'm reasonably certain that that was an attempt to get you and Melody to stay around.

Didn't you watch her? I don't think she trusts me. [A notion which Melody immediately tries to disabuse her of. Stop that, you. Listen to the trainer who knows the girl.]

I can't pay enough to stay somewhere big.

Well, she has only just met you. I don't think she has any strong feelings one way or the other yet. But if I've learned anything about Olivia, it's that she waits for the other person to take the first step. [He looks up to the doorway a second before the aforementioned Xatu comes through it, now wearing a backpack.]

As for the house - actually, there was something else I needed to let you know. I asked around about jobs for blacksmiths, and Saber - the red one, there are two women similar in appearance who go by the same name - told me that she has a business making and selling practice weapons. They're wood, not metal, but I think that's the closest you can get in this world. You might want to speak with her, if you're sticking to your first idea.

[Raven is no first-step-taker. Not now and not ever.]

I don't know how to work with wood...but maybe. The city doesn't look like it needs blacksmiths. And the accessories wouldn't work.

[eeeyup. i'm sorry, melody.]

Both she and the owner of the house are very approachable and reasonable people. If cost is a concern, you can put in some hours here looking after eggs and Pokemon to cover the rent. That's what most of the residents do.

They're monsters that...other people abandoned, aren't they?

I wouldn't say that. They're ones whose trainers were sent back to their home worlds...but it is true that they don't have a trainer to stay with at this point.

Mmh. I would meet them.

[Deciding to take matters into her own wings, Melody hops from Raven's shoulder up to the top of her head, before gliding over to land on Olivia's backpack and chatter at her.]

Do you need a day or two to think about it?

[(please do it though so that we can try to be friends maybe)

Olivia coos back, in a conversational, composed, slightly haughty manner.]

First I want to find whoever trapped those birds.

[She won't let this go.

Melody is calm enough not to rise indignant against the haughty tone and wants to talk about living at the boarding house.]

[..and there he'd gotten his hopes up.]

I'm not doubting your skill as a trainer or faith in your Pokemon, but please believe me when I say that there is nothing you can accomplish against Team Rocket on your own. [He speaks from experience, but he doesn't want to say so unless there's no other way to convince her.

(Well - oh ooh things are getting tense over there again, better edge away - what do you want to know?)]

[He doesn't know what she can do. And right now she doesn't trust him enough to tell him.]

I'm not on my own.

[How much it will cost and how big it is and whether there are other birds because Raven really likes birds and also they have a Murkrow on the team and maybe it will make her feel better.]

[Ondorus gives a short, sharp sigh - judging by the look on his face afterwards, it wasn't intentional.]

So you think like that as well. [slow breath in...] We've been training, too. For the express purpose of standing against Team Rocket. And in the time I've been here, over the times I've encountered their vile activities, I've realized something about the nature of conflict in this world. That is, that whenever one human decides to act against another, for whatever reason, it is always Pokemon who stand to lose the most.

[Does he have to go farther with this, or is his point already getting across?

(Less than you make working here, pretty big and there's a yard too, and hmm sometimes there are birds around, the other Pokemon spend a lot more time in their balls than Ondorus' friends do. Their group is kind of weird and there are a bunch of boys but they're passable. (tsun.))]

[At first, she bristles. Is he criticizing the feeling she has that these pokémon are finally keeping the loneliness away? It almost stops her from listening to the rest of what he has to say...but the end of that hits home.]

...Not all monsters are good. [They're walking, so she can't shift her feet like she ordinarily might. She looks away instead.] You have them, too. Why are those people so different?

[They should all come out and play as long as they don't make too much of a mess, right, look at these tiny wings, it'd be hard to clean a huge area very fast...]

[Ondorus is very quiet for a moment, closing his eyes and breathing in.]

We're all guilty parties in it. I doubt most people even think of it that way. But even if you do think of it, still this world demands that you accept Pokemon as...commodities. Devices in the lives of humans. That's the price of being part of society here.

[This is the first time he's ever spoken so frankly about it. His voice is conspiratorially low, and his eyes hidden behind his glasses.]

Not that it excuses anything, but I'm no stranger to that kind of dissonance. [How many decades had he spent keeping quiet for Kuruna's peace of mind?] But...in my defense, I have never once acted as a "master" over the Pokemon that this world would say I owned.

We don't own them. [It isn't an intentional answer to her own question, but it might stand as one nonetheless.] As partners I'm responsible for protecting them and they are responsible for protecting me.

[This was a wave of staggering understanding that knocked her over in the middle of a blizzard. It's not what she usually thinks; often, she never knew what to think about the lines between monster and human, just that they were her personal curse. That there was a line between Raven and Others.]

Monsters aren't things. [You know that already.]

Four | Video/Action for Goldenrod

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