obstiné

           “AH, you said something about being scared of a Feraligatr, yes? I’m afraid that I can’t show you my POKéMON, then. Sorry.”

             “Iss’ no problem,” She said coolly, exchanging Prisma’s ball for Umbra’s; a subconscious mimicry of the other one’s actions.

“Repertoire. But that’s less important, it seems. You’ve been cursed, you say?”

The witch tilted her head, one hand resting on her chin before moving to her brooch. Well, when one is cursed by a witch, there’s not really a reason to lie. After all, who would believe you if you were trying to convince them of such a lie? It’d be too unrealistic to believe.

Snapping her fingers, she outstretched her other hand, lingering it just in front of the ghostly girl’s face. Magic had sparked to life at the sound, dancing between her fingertips while she channeled her own power. Inspecting the magical interference around the poor sap, to see if she were telling the truth. 

It’s not likely that she was lying, of course, but those affected by magic would still have said magic clinging to them. A dead give-away if it were indeed a witch’s handiwork.

“What an ill-tempered witch you ran into.”

And as far as she could tell, the girl’s story was checking out. The traces of spellwork around the gal were plain as day to the Transformation witch, suppressing and influencing the girl’s form into that of another.

Withdrawing her hand, Bridgette clicked her tongue in disapproval- an audible noise noticeably different than the words she spoke. She could lift the curse, she supposed. The girl had asked nicely enough for her tastes, and there’s no point in hiding what she was towards someone who had already had a run-in with another witch. 

But would the girl rat out her species afterwards? Humans were such untrustworthy creatures at times.

What to do, what to do. 

The witch’s comment prompted this shrugging kind of gesture from Ness; arms raised up high, with some emphatic nodding. Everything screamed, “I know, right?!” except for her voice. Having been turned into a ghost, partially, meant that it felt like air was blowing through her throat when she tried to talk. Dialogue felt like some kind of rare ore to her now: she only had so much to disperse, at risk of feeling even more undead with each sentence. Though, with the witch’s inquiry, Ness’s gesticulation came to a halt.

Is she. . .bartering with me?

Expressions of confusion flashed across her face, eyes alight with bewilderment. What would she gain? Good karma, for one. And, like, one less ghost to hassle her for inaction. Also, food? Did witches eat people food?

Ness didn’t have too much to lay down here. If she had to convince her why she should undo the spell, Ness couldn’t consider herself very lucky, really. She managed to get her face in right order and calm down, and after some repetitions of opening and closing her mouth, she finally got out some words.

“I, uh. I don’t––” Cough. Cue the charismatic saleman voice, for all of four seconds. “Y’know, thass’ a good question. One that I don’t have a very fancy answer to, ‘sides from really not wanting to be a ghoss’ and also being able to buy you something cool. Like a hat, or, some cool socks?”

"Let’s go to the mall!" He suggested, tapping the Ho-Oh’s back. While doing so, he couldn’t help but appreciate how detailed the costume was. It must have cost a little fortune! It was especially true to the original! … Or at least what was known of them. Nobody had ever seen Ho-Oh from up close, as far as the Aqua knew.

"There’s a lot of people, and they’ll think it’s a commercial event, so no one will try to stop us!"

There was two ulterior motives to this choice of place, though… For starters, the mall in Lilycove had an air conditioner. By getting there, Lorenz had a chance to survive the ordeal, or at the very least, avoid passing out. And, second: If they put themselves at that one spot where everybody passes and started dancing, with a goblet at their feet, maybe they could make a few Pokedollars out of it.

The “kigurumied” duo made their way up the stone stairs (with Lorenz pulling on Ness’s arm without waiting for her answer) that led to the part of the town where Lilycove’s famous mall was. Behind them, a group of Aqua grunts followed. The Aqua’s dormmates definitely weren’t going to miss this!

There was this distinct smell that exactly said “mall” whenever Ness was around it. Some strange mixture of fast food, leather, and new fabric, with a hodgepodge of perfumes and other faint fragrances. It tended to change depending on the section of the mall, but it was overall the same: a bouquet that could cause nausea just as easily as it could cause nostalgia. She took a big whiff of the air and grinned at Lorenz. With the A/C pumping fresh cool air into her lungs, she felt like a new person--er, Legendary, but the possibilities were overwhelming. What to do first?!

“Y’know, I feel like we should eat firss’--” and there was a longing glance to the bistro off behind him, “--but I also don’t wanna risk staining my regalia?” Oh yes. Regalia. That was definitely the appropriate word for a mildly sweaty Kigurumi. She gave Lorenz one of those conflicted looks, occasionally glancing back down at her outfit as if taking her last looks at a dying loved one.

Aeronwen wasn’t putting her trumpet away just yet, nor was she done with the berries. The diminutive trainer arrived and got to talking before she’d even noticed. Almost like she was having a good time with the Servine, sitting back and sharing snacks. But no dice, the human arrived on scene to end the fun… for Caesar at least. Ever the opportunist, our beloved sandpaper aunt had jollies to get yet. 

“I was fattening him up, actually. Should be good about now…” And she smiled, scooping up the little snake with one hand and dangling him above her head with her mouth open. This is how flesh people eat right? “Aaah… Yeah, I’m feeling snackish anyway. Hey, you want a bite?” She lifted the little salad snack and gently handed him over to his trainer.

“So,” she says like a statement of its own, “Stole your Servine, didn’t I? Caesar’s a fun kid. How’d he end up with a kid what drags a servine through the Lumiose badlands?” She shot Ness a look that would have soured all the berries in her pouch through direct exposure. 

It was mostly teasing, of course, but not something that could go unanswered. (You can’t run away after a mean look, of course.) She fished out a second enigma berry and tossed it up to Ness and Caesar before climbing to her feet and leaning with a hand against the tree. Good thing you can always count on a cousin for support.

“Name’s Aeronwen, by the way,” she grumbled first to Caesar in Pokemon, and then to Ness. “Might be bitter I stole Caesar here, but I would suggest you don’t try and fight over it. Turns out I taught him a couple tricks for berries - on the plus side - and about as many cuss words as I know.” She chuckled, and while she talked squared her hands on her back to stretch and pop just about every bone in her back. Sounded nasty, man.

That glare, though, shakes the squick right off of her. Her squint goes straight to Caesar--a very obvious Last Time I Ever Take You Anywhere You Beg Me To Go kind of look. Salty enough to give him mild indigestion, had he caught it, but he was busy catching the berry that had been tossed.

“The kind that thought she could trust when her Servine insisted he was ready for the trip.” Came the gritted-teeth response. She still had those pupils pulled up to see Caesar lounging on her head with his berry, stroking the flesh--aaaaand, that’s when she looked away, back to Aeronwen, officially banning that evil word from her vocabulary in the process. Flesh was something Aeronwen didn’t seem to have, or not in the regular sense. Right now, Ness could appreciate that, dry as it was. Better than being crispy over Caesar, at least. She’d walked out about ninety percent of her fight-might trying to catch up to these two. If she engaged, there was a high chance she’d just call time-out for a lunch break or something. All that crunching from that back-popping had her in the mood for chips. Did treeple, or tree people, eat those? She’d find out, eventually.

“Nice, how many cuss words do you know?” That was meant to be kept in her head, clearly, as Ness kept speaking before there was even a chance to answer. “Or, like, do you know how to juggle berries? Because if you taught him how to do that I’d wanna learn. We could juggle berries at each other. Food in motion, you know? If you joined the juggling team our initials would make CAN. For, well, CAN.”