ordinary

        “ Y—Yes! Thank you so much! ” She can’t even hide the surprise yet guilt she feels—it’s only now that she realizes that she could have just had Litmus use his psychic powers to get it out… but it was too late to say that now, especially when the unwilling other party relented to her wishes. “ It’s this way—but really, thank you so much. I’m in your debt. ”

“No problem--don’t worry about it,” we exclaim, Zav chirping in agreement.  It doesn’t really matter if she could have done it herself.  Now that we and Zav are going to help, both of us can’t turn away now.  That was just harsh, y’know.  “So, where is it?”

        “ My… ring fell into a relatively… narrow and deep hole around here… a-and I was wondering if your Doduo’s beaks could… r-reach that far down. ” Her head turns away in embarrassment as she explains her silly mishap, unable to meet his eyes in fear of being judged.

We are a bit taken back by this, but we think we understand.  It takes a moment to let it sink in, but we look to Zav, who had come out on his own accord, trying to get his answer.  Zav lets out a deep, complaining noise, but his head shakes to affirm the ‘deal’.  We turn to the stranger and speak, “Well, Zav seems willing to do it.  You remember which hole it is?”

“H-Hey! Have you seen Mago around here somewhere?” She’s not talking about the berry but it sure sounds like she is, doesn’t it?

“No, I haven’t,” we state, looking a bit exasperated.  Whatever she was looking for, we hadn’t seen.  Well, we were occupied either way--Mibo was surprisingly good at hide and seek.  We still couldn’t find him.

        “ A—Ah… w-well, I thought your Doduo… n-never mind. ”

“My Doduo...?” We trail off, leaving her some room.  If she wished to answer us, she would.  If not, she was welcome to ignore us.

I’ve always wanted to draw this scene ^qqq^ (I lost patience when drawing their weapons :3 Fighting back to back has always been a long time favorite of mine OuO

With a small smile, she decided to pick up the conversation again. “Have you been here for long? I had not seen you around before.” She had already been in the Forest for a month already, and met a handful of others, all who’ve arrived at varying times. “Ah! I suppose introductions are in order. My name is Runa, and this is Solani,” she said, gesturing to the Solrock floating by her head. “It is nice to meet you two!”

“Not really.  Maybe a week or so, we’ve been here.  Mibo and I have been working on studying the architecture of this place,” we say, looking down at Mibo with a smile.  He returns our smile with a nod and a chirp.  A laugh escapes us and we look at her, replying in turn, “Nice to meet ya.  This is Mibo.  I’m Sorey.”

zzz

“Oh!” She spun on one heel to face the speaker, his appearance further confirmation that she’d never seen this particular person before. There was a moment of prolonged silence as she shifted gears from berries to the present moment, processing his words, his apology. “Oh, no, it is quite alright, I had not stepped on your papers I hope?” Taking a quick look down, she confirmed that there were no crumbled or dirty papers, nor any stuck to her boots. Breathing an internal sigh of relief, she turned her attention back to the stranger. There was quite a bit of writing on his papers, and she averted her eyes, in case it was something private. His Vaporeon was curled into him and he had his arms around it in comfort. “Ah, I am sorry if I scared your Vaporeon,” she apologized with a small smile.

It’s something about loss, but our wide smile pushes that feeling away, as though it was taboo.  It seems to be familiar, for some reason, but smiles always help--well, sometimes.  But smiling helps.  Hugging helps.  Mibo nudges us and a smile appears, wider and happier, as we try to think of other things.  We hug the pokemon again and look to the girl that is still..apparently...there.  We don’t know what to say..now.  So we stay quiet and look at her for some kind of conversation.