Could you guys please Like / Reblog this post if you’re interested in interacting with a Pokémon Legends: Arceus-based OC? Yours truly happens to be a wandering artist who may or may not be fascinated by Bug Pokémon.

 Even though he had turned his back to the other, he swore he could still feel the way he was looking at him. There was judgment in his eyes, wasn’t there? Or perhaps he was remembering something like that from before, when he was younger. His ever-present grin faltered ever so slightly at the thought, though he quickly put it out of mind. He came to Hisui to put his all into his future, and this was his calling–he could feel it in his bones!

He gave a quick glance back to his traveling companion to see if he was following, happening to catch a glimpse of the other’s hand moving away from one of his pokeballs. Had… had he said something that upset him? He could feel beads of sweat forming on his brow, though did his best to keep a positive attitude nonetheless. He had to try his best to stay on his good side, in case he might need his services again in the future.

“Huh?” The confused sound flew from his mouth before he could think once he heard what Gin had said, even stopping in his tracks to look at him bewildered. “Now that— that certainly isn’t true at all, Bronzor is a valued research partner of mine and has already protected me in some ways. I don’t believe they would think that at all!” At least, he didn’t think they did. They were… a bit hard to read. But that didn’t stop him from trying of course.

He stepped aside as they came across a boulder in their path, watching eagerly as Gin brought out a kleavor from one of his pokeballs. He truly was quite talented to be able to travel with such powerful pokemon… and also command them so effortlessly. He could only yearn to have such synergy with pokemon. For now… it was a goal to strive towards while he worked on his research.

His eyes lit up as he saw the river on the other side of the smashed boulder and eagerly made his way forward. “Oh, the survey corps have relayed plenty of sightings of species they were unfamiliar with when they passed through the region before. But there was one member’s story that I was particularly interested in. He told of a strange pokemon that he said he saw come out during a full moon and then dance under the moonlight with others of its kind like some sort of ritual… but as he tried to get closer they all vanished into the night. I’ve asked many other members but none have seen such a pokemon. The location he claimed to have seen it was around where the Fabled Spring is, so I’ve decided to go myself– to see if I might be able to document such an elusive pokemon!” He adjusted his glasses on his face. “I’ve even timed this trip so that it would line up with the next appearance of a full moon, to ensure that I would have the best chance of spotting it!” 

He pulled out his notebook and fervently flipped through the pages as he walked. “Beyond that I’ve tried my best to compile a vague approximation of species that might call this part of the mountain home based on observations of pokemon living in nearby areas. Beyond that.. it’s a total mystery! Isn’t that exciting?” He looked to the sky, noting the sun’s position. They’d made better time than he had anticipated considering the hiccup he caused beforehand. “Hm, perhaps we could find a place to camp until nightfall?” As he looked about, he happened to spot an opening to a cave nestled into the mountainside and pointed it out to his travel companion. “Perhaps in there?” Before the other had a chance to respond, Andrei had already started making his way towards it.

Gen’ichiro lagged a few steps behind his travelling companion, as he listened to his passionate exposé on the Pokémon of the Fabled Spring, and his plans for their evening. He wouldn’t deny, despite his own (reasonable, mind you) concerns regarding the man’s ability to make it on his own when faced with the local wildlife, he found this dedication to his work admirable.

But so he could keep admiring the man’s dedication, he hastened his pace, overtook him, and brushed past him to reach the cave he was pointing to first.

“Hold on.” He said. “Let me see if it is safe before you barge in there. I don’t think we’ll find a Garchomp nest at this time of year, but you still wouldn’t want to step on a Graveler or a Nosepass.”

The poet took a careful look inside the opening. At a first glance, it appeared like it was not very deep. He did not spot any sort of movement, and the dying sunlight still reached from its entrance to its back wall. This seemed like less of a cave and more of a hollow rock formation. He allowed himself to step closer, and remarked there was parallel claw marks all over the inside of the rock archway.

“I think this might have been the den of an Ursaring.”

After one last glance upward to make sure no Zubat was here to come bite their noses off, he gestured at the other to come in. The hollow was a lot larger than he expected, but not large enough that he could walk around without considerably lowering his head.

“Probably a female with cubs, it’s larger than it would for a single, fully evolved Pokémon. But I don’t see any bones, so I think it is safe to say not a soul has been here in a few mon-”

Gin did not get to finish his sentence. His foot slipped against something, and he lost balance and tripped. With a quick “Oof!” the man was on his knees, and his elbow hit the stone walls hard enough for it to be painful. But the biggest hurt was definitely done to his pride. To think that here he just was, mere minutes ago, telling his travelling companion the world out there would eat him alive if he was not careful!

“What the... What is that?” He grumbled, painfully rising up to look at the... obstacle he tripped on.

He didn’t see it, because it was in a part of the little den where the sun didn’t reach, but there was some kind of big and smooth plaque where he mistakenly put his foot down. Sliding his hand over it, he could feel something carved on it. Some sort of spiral shape with sharp angles.

He took his bag off, set it down in a corner, and immediately called to his companion’s attention.

  Andrei picked as many twigs and leaves out of his clothes and hair as he could as he rejoined his travel companion. He wasn’t used to having anyone else besides bronzor with him on his travels, and so he found incidents like this to be somewhat embarrassing. As an assistant research professor, he should be able to handle pokemon better, right? And yet.. time and time again he gets himself in trouble like this…

“Well.. that is correct, I did ask for your assistance as a pathfinder, though it was mostly out of the professor’s suggestion. No matter how I protested, he insisted..” He pursed his lips as he glanced away, adjusting his glasses so they’re sitting correctly on his nose. “I suppose my work has been hindering my judgment lately. I can’t help but try and get a closer look if I see a pokemon I’m interested in learning more about.”

His cheeks tinged a bit as the other man prodded his hip before pointing out that he hadn’t been bringing his pokemon out of their pokeball to fight off the wild pokemon. “Oh well, you see..” He waved his hands a bit dismissively. “I’m not exactly well-versed on battling, and if I can get away just fine on foot then I don’t think it’s necessary to put bronzor in danger like that!” He brought a hand to his chin in thought. “I want to try and save my stealth spray, since I think it’ll be far more important later. But.. either way, I promise I’ll try my best to stay out of sight from now on.”

He decided to take the initiative and start heading onward through the mountainous terrain of the Coronet highlands. “Anyways, no point in lingering– I’d like to reach the Fabled Spring before nightfall, and if I understand correctly it’s still quite a ways on!”

Gin simply hummed along with the other’s explanation, a bemused but vacant smirk on his face. He remained silent, mostly because he did not have much of value to contribute to the discussion that wouldn’t feel both redundant or mean-spirited. Surely they could both agree this professor fellow had been right to advise Andrei to find a guide...

But now, Gin wondered if his travel companion was just extremely unlucky as of late, or if he really was just that careless and only survived up until now out of sheer luck. At once, Gin realized he did have a way to assess exactly that. Because if the other truly was completely unable to fend for himself, the poet knew he wouldn’t sleep well at night after they inevitably parted ways.

He brought a hand to the belt of beads at his waist, and hovered it above one of the Poké Balls strapped to them. For a moment, his fingers closed on Kyoko’s. Gin was considering letting his Kleavor out, to test the other man in a match. See how he fared with giving his Pokémon directions, when running away wasn’t an option. Better he found that out now than when the airheaded researcher accidentally set a horde of Ursarings or what else after them.

But his grip on the Ball loosened when Andrei called at him to hurry up, as the Fabled Spring was quite the distance away still. Maybe, he could only assume, there were a few mental hurdles the researcher needed to overcome before he brought himself to challenge the physical ones.

“It is commendable of you to want to spare your friend from harm. But believe me when I say you need to be careful with that reasoning. Bronzor may assume you think of it as too weak to fulfill its very purpose of protecting you.“

They walked for another minute still, when a boulder blocked their path. This time, Gin did let Kyoko out of her Poké Ball so she could smash it out of the way. From here, they could clearly see the river, which probably meant the spring wouldn’t be too far away still.

   A wandering artist can also be a spy, he knows of this. But keeps his fake cheery disposition on as he sits on the remaining table under the covers of Beni canteen. Its not like he could do anything else right now as work has come to a crawl and only the injured were left to be tended to. 

  “We do not have any other alternatives, so this is for now the best recipe.”

 “I learned that all work would severely stress a man. I have watch it consume my father all too often.”

If there was a physical tell that gave away the commander’s distrust, Gin remained perfectly oblivious to it. His belonging to the Diamond Clan aside, there really was nothing to make him feel like he shouldn’t linger in Jubilife, especially considering so many of his most faithful patrons were townspeople there...

The traveler looked back down at his notebook, tapping it several times with the tip of his western-style fountain pen before he scratched off the last few characters he put on the page.

"Hmph. I have known something similar with my mother. Even at her age, she is still constantly stressing over the timing at which she should harvest her Wormadams’ silk threads. When I see the state this has often put her in, I am content enough I chose not to inherit our family business...”

He looked at the other man again, picking another mochi from his plate and chewing it noisily. He continued to speak in the same breath.

“You think I’m so clumsy that I need someone to watch over me?” He says, brushing off dirt and tufts of grass from himself and picking small twigs out of his . At least that tumble helped him escape from the angry scyther from earlier, and all he lost was a few strands of hair.

After having put the belligerent Scyther to sleep with his Parasect’s Spore, Gin followed after his unlikely companion. After such a fall from that slope, he could only pray he wouldn’t find the poor guy with a twisted ankle, or worse.

Thankfully, nothing bad happened to Andrei other than a good fright, almighty Sinnoh be thanked for that.

But this being the third accident in as many hours since they left the last settlement was starting to get on the poet’s nerves, and maybe his facial expression was making it a little too obvious, as upon joining him, Andrei was quick to pout and ask him if he thought he needed to be looked after.

Gin found it hard to come up with a friendly answer, so he shrugged and shared his honest opinion.

“Well, is that not why you have enlisted my help to get through the mountain? Now, I am no bodyguard, but you strike me as the sort of person who is better at observing Pokémon than at actually dealing with them, so you should either leave me to deal with the beasts, or at the very least try not to let any of them see you.”

He flipped the long branch he’d been using to support himself down the slope upward, and used it to tap at Andrei’s hip, more precisely poking at the single capsule dangling from his belt.

Invasive Questions (Accepting) Score : 3/10

He takes a second to reflect on the question before he answers it. When he finally does, it is without any hesitation.

"She passed shortly after giving birth to our daughter. She always had a rather strong constitution, ever since we were children, so we could never have foreseen the complications of her pregnancy. This was a difficult time. For me, for her, and for our respective families."

He may not be smiling - a rare sight coming from him, but he did not sound particularly upset. Whatever pain there was, he had grown accustomed to it a long time ago.

"Still, she held on until she could carry our child to term. But the morning after, she was gone. I had some trouble moving on after this, you see. She was my best friend first and my spouse second.

"Huh? Oh- I can look for you, give me just a moment." Andrei closed the little notebook he had been scribbling his thoughts down in before turning to the other. His head tilted as he looked about him, also taking in the man's appearance as he checked over the vest. He even started to even circle around, if only to be thorough. As he came to his back, he did jump a little bit as he saw something he hadn't expected.

"Oh- you've got a paras clung to your back-! This has to be the smallest one I've seen so far! If you don't mind, could you hold still? I have to get a record of this, it'll only be a moment-" He eagerly reached for his camera from his pack, clearly intending to take a picture of the pokemon in question.

He’d dismissed the idea of checking on that itch for quite a while, now. He first felt it when he wrapped up his tent earlier this morning, and it bothered him all day until about just now. He would have scratched it much earlier, naturally, if it was not situated at the exact spot between his shoulderblades he couldn’t reach no matter how hard he contorted himself.

So, when he finally came across another human being in the middle of nowhere, Gin took it as what it quite literally could have been: A gift of Almighty Sinnoh. He barely accorded the poor soul a second of his time for nice and proper greetings before he turned around and asked him to check his back.

Finally, the stranger could help him shed light on his peculiar ill: A Paras, of course. This one must have snuck into his tent while he slept. He sighed, halfway relieved he did not catch some illness of the skin.

“Could you... try to remove it, please? I think it has its claws stabbed into my back.“

Visits to Jubilife Village were usually some of the more consistently entertaining parts of his adventures. For one thing, the townsfolk there had an appreciation for his poems and his ink paintings the people of his clan simply didn’t display.

That was not to say all he appreciated here were the potential patrons, of course. The food at the Wallflower alone was worth crossing the region ten times over for, and he very much enjoyed dialoguing with the people of the Galaxy Team as well as all the foreigners who freshly immigrated to these lands. There was always something new and interesting to see in Jubilife, and he hoped this would go on for decades to come.

Out of all the interesting novelties the town brought to his attention, the one that caught his eye this time around was the young girl who’d been all the talk around Hisui as of late. Laventon’s surprising new protegee, who was said to have single-handedly thrusted the Survey Corps’ progress decades ahead in the span of only a few month. Not to mention the fact she apparently was evenly matched with some noble Pokémon...

Naturally, Gin was more than happy to get an opportunity to put those rumors to the test, when he arrived on Prelude Beach and saw her already there. He gave her a respectful bow as a greeting and made his intentions immediately clear.

Gin seldom stayed anchored down in his hometown for longer than needed. It appeared life was going just fine for his child and his parents at the Eterna settlement, where the people of both clans shared the space in a surprisingly stable truce. That was all he needed to see before he could resume his travels.

Whenever he left town, the poet liked to go eastward, toward Mount Coronet, and decide on his next destination from whatever caught his eye at an altitude. Before he got to that, however, to make his departure a bit more unique this time around, he decided to cross through a small grove, away from the main path that led to the mountain.

He knew these woods by heart, he used to come and play there a lot as a child, despite the threat of wild Pokémon attacking. He of course was never afraid, and he had even less reasons to be right now, when he could let Takuya out of his Poké Ball to flutter by his side.

He did not stumble upon any other living creature on his way. That was, until he arrived to a clearing among the trees.

This glade was one Gin was familiar with. Once upon a time, it had been his refuge when he needed to write on his lonesome, and the place where he liked to retreat with his best friend and his dear Pokémon when things were getting bothersome at home. Overgrown by grass and vegetation were several stone constructs, long torn apart, save for a large statue in front of which a man was standing right now.

The poet recognized the stranger’s uniform, he appeared to be a merchant of the Ginkgo Guild. He was standing in silent contemplation of the moss-covered sculpture looming over him.

Takuya went to perch on top of his head. Gin cleared his throat to announce himself and approached the man.

send 📋 for me to write about my RP wishlist! (Accepting)

1. Literally anything having to do with training Pokémon would be amazing to explore at Hisuian times. The very concept of trainerhood barely even existed then, and I really like the idea of Gin being one of those that inspired the idea of people working with Pokémon also being wandering adventurers. I could see him partaking in the organization of Battling festivals, with an ultimate goal of turning what people used to be deadly afraid of into a fun spectacle for all, that could eventually develop into the emergence of the sport itself.

2. He really needs to interact with someone from the Pearl clan. While he is definitely more open minded than most of his fellow Diamond clansmen, he still thinks the idea almighty Sinnoh might have created space is pretty ridiculous, and some of his early poems were definitely some roasts on that concept. He's still open to debate and conversation, though, and has more than a few friends in the other clan.

He is staring down at the tiny critters scurrying along his arms and palms with such intensity, it's almost like sparkles are coming out of his eyes. He'd seen plenty of Pokémon this small before, but nothing quite as adorable as these...

Ah, wait, the sparkles aren't coming from his eyes, they're coming from the Bug-types' pincers. A dual type would certainly explain the persistent tingling he was feeling in his hands.

Now he's looking up at the stranger, with a look of unwavering determination, as if he was about to wager his life on his next, very simple request.