[[character:Dakarai N'Sehla|Dakarai]]'s idea of a place to sleep turned out to be another acquaintance, this one far less dodgy in their inclination toward him, though she seemed rather surprised that he came in company with someone - perhaps a bit more than one might expect someone to be surprised, though there was a certain delight underlying her observation. She'd introduced herself to [[character:Elena Lione|Elena]] as 'Tanja'... and promptly apologised, explaining that aside from a double bed from her less-single days and a couch, she had no places to rest, but she'd strong-armed the two of them into submission about it and assigned them to the bed, declaring herself fine with the couch in the meanwhile. The reason? She wasn't going to share it with a complete stranger, "no matter how lovely," and sharing it with Dakarai was "obviously sending the wrong signals." At least, that was the advertised reason. Dakarai not-so-secretly presumed she was just looking for the nearest excuse to be equally nice to both of them.
Either way, not quite tired yet, and rarely the type to lounge about reading a book when there were things to climb across and landscapes to explore, Dakarai had dragged Elena to watch the late dusk from one of the rocky beaches near Tanja's home - even if the city was better suited for dawn by far. As it was, the dusk was simply a haunting line of a greenish hue defining the horizon, but that itself and the sheer expanse of dark ocean ahead of them made for a fantastic sight. At least when Dakarai wasn't busy playing around with a flashlight to check between the cracks of rocks as if looking for something specific. Something about how beaches occasionally were home to some fantastic treasures washed ashore. By the looks of things, and probably much to Elena's relief, he's definitely far removed from looking for a romantic evening.
Potentially sharing a bed was awkward and Elena was half tempted to force Rhaptor to take it while she claimed the floor and Roman-shaped pillow-mattress. But Roman had a habit of softly growling in his sleep so that seemed a little rude in close quarters as well. Of course she could have avoided all this by accepting [[character:Naomi Charna|Naomi]]'s offer of a place to crash in the [[place:Nightclaw]] gym and Elena wondered a little if maybe she should have. It'd certainly put her in a position to alert Rhaptor when his acquaintances arrived. But the idea made her uncomfortable in its own ways.
Sighing she turned her gaze back to the distorted semicircle cruising up and down the water a short distance from where the small waves lapped the shore. [[pokémon:Sarchus]] seemed to be enjoying the chance to stretch her limbs and have a good swim. Elena could only hope that the water being salty rather than fresh wouldn't cause her any issues.
"Oh snap!" The silence is broken by a sudden enthused shout from Dakarai, belly-down on the rough but mostly horizontal surface of a boulder, left hand clung to the narrow LED flashlight, its palm pressed against the short precipice of the rock he's on, right hand thrust downward and fumbling at the crack. "Pocketwatch!" he declares. It was going to be all sorts of splintered and broken if the waves had brought it in, but he didn't even care. It was definitely the best thing to find, amongst all the other best things to find.
That sounded bad. Elena was already scrambling to her feet wondering what went wrong when the second part of Rhaptor's exclamation reached her. Oh. He'd found something, not dropped something. "Can you reach it?" she asked as she struggled not to lose her footing. This would be so much easier if she could hover. Why couldn't humans learn pokémon moves? It would make life so much more convenient.
"I th- I think so," he comments, huffing between aborted syllables. His shoulder wiggles a bit, trying to get the last few millimetres of arm length out of his limb - and then finally, his nail catches against the rusty chain of it.
For a moment, he holds still, almost holding his breath, knowing that if he loses his grasp on it now, it'll just be harder to fish out - he'd probably have to grab a twig to help him out then. Cautiously, he uses his index finger's nail to lift the delicate chain, then slides his middle finger in under the procured loop, only to abruptly snatch the prize up. "Got it!"
An instant later, he's rolled onto his back, shoving the item into the air above him triumphantly, evidently forgetting half the pose by not actually standing up to suit. A stray splinter of glass unhinges itself from the battered face of the pocket-watch and, corners and edges eroded into harmlessness by the same water that had brought the item in, falls against his neck, causing him to flinch in reflex. Then that tiny piece has moved on, landing on the rock, and Dakarai's attention is back on the remains.
By the looks of things, it used to be a gold-coloured analog watch, though the gold has flaked off almost over the whole casing, mostly still evident in the grooves of it. The glass is unusable, both lightly spotted with something that had either once been alive or still was, as well as cracked in several random places. A good third of it is already just outright amiss. The time, insomuch as it can be discerned, is some variant of four twenty-seven, -eight or -nine.
Giggles at his antics were poorly suppressed. "Well done," Elena manages instead, still sounding amused. She reached out and prodded the watch with one finger and set it swaying like a pendulum. "Ew, it's slimy. I think it's broken," the girl commented unnecessarily as she wiped her hand off on one of the rocks. "What are you planning to do with it?"
"I... have no idea," Dakarai confessed, though he was clearly content watching it sway. "Maybe I can try to clean and fix it and then offer it to Miss Charna as a sort of blatant, undignified grovel. Do you reckon it's steampunk enough?" There's amusement in his voice, like a light mockery - a part of him is genuinely considering it, but it's of course a ludicrous thought, first and foremost because he hadn't the foggiest if she was //into// that... and on second note because he didn't really want to grovel in any way.
"It'd probably be cheaper to buy a new one," Elena admitted as she flicked it with one nail to set it swinging further. "Maybe find a friendly Psychic pokémon and ask it to teach you how to hypnotise? Or is that only Hypnos? I don't know any to ask though." She grinned down at him. "Of course psychic tricks around a Dark type gym leader is probably a bad idea. Even if she seems to mistake you for your brother or cousin or whatever."
The pocket-watch slowly descends, coming to a rest on his chest as his gaze winds his way across to her. "...why do you think she's mistaking me for someone else?" he asks, still lying on his back, tone a mixture of confused and playful, as if they weren't busy talking about his atrocious reputation with Sehto's de-facto foremost gym leader, one brow arched, light smile on his lips. The flashlight taps against the stone once, beam jittering a little, as if he wasn't entirely sure whether to bring it around for better illumination of the both of them or whether to leave it as it is.
"Because she hates you and kept warning me off, but she was talking about someone called Dakarai N'Sehla, not Rhaptor. Who is apparently a circuiter that is exceptionally cruel to their pokémon, has no emotions and something about living on a pardon?" Elena shrugged. "I've seen you interact with [[pokémon:Iris]] and [[pokémon:Paragon]] and you're not that person. And I'm not trying to insult your pokémon when I say I'm not sure they could sweep eight gyms on their own either. But same surname and close enough resemblance for Naomi to project onto you? I figure they have to be family."
She was tense. She'd tried to be matter of fact and sympathetic at the same time, because it would be HARD to know that someone you were related to was capable of such acts. And it would certainly explain how emphatic he was that she go against her own family and not yield to their desires for something he considered cruelty. That didn't make the situation any less awkward and Elena kept her eyes on Sarchus emerging from the water rather than looking at Rhaptor's reaction.
The smile persists, although his gaze, too, wanders - and a moment later, is eclipsed behind closing eyelids. There was a brief, fiery bout of rage knotting itself into his gut, almost prompting a cold 'She said that?', but the cause for his visceral irritation was hardly the brunt of it. That she'd mention the pardon was crossing several lines and he felt grateful it would take a while before he'd be back up in [[place:Taqnateh]], lest he tell [[character:Jagdish Tsukinaka|Jagdish]] all about it in a bout of petty vengeance.
A subjective eternity later, he's peeled his eyes back open and calmed down just enough not to betray that instinctual inner emotion. "No, that... would be me," he remarks, his usually so light-hearted tone framed clearly with bitterness and tension. "I've done a few things in my life I'm not at all proud about," he comments, struggling not to make a big deal out of it in tone or wording.
"That said... you shouldn't believe everything Miss Charna says about me." The note of distant humour withers all too quickly. "Those fragments where she observes that I've been a right asshole are certainly spot-on. Honestly, I'm probably //still// a jerk, just... not like that. But she seems to have some issues getting it into her //thick skull// that what she objects to so much is //in the past//." His eyes have drifted back closed, heart hammering in his chest... and his voice is joining the fate of the face of the watch, splintering somewhat pathetically under the strain. His jaw sets and he stubbornly keeps his eyes closed, remaining lying on his back, willing the burn out of his eyes, inwardly venomously scolding his body for as much as thinking to cry. 'See this, Dakarai? This is why you don't have friends. Because you're an overly dramatic twit.' Inhale. Exhale. "...I'm sorry that was uncalled for," he adds, hastily and breathily, forcing the words into a narrow channel where they wouldn't be wrenched into a sob. 'Excellent way to make a case for your stability.' It's odd - he doesn't usually care about what Naomi says about him... but then, he doesn't usually have travel companions. He doesn't usually try to look like a passable human being to someone.
She wasn't sure how to respond. She'd been so sure Rhaptor and Dakarai had to be two different people - in truth she still half was, he hadn't denied that bit nor elaborated on the two name business - but Rhaptor seemed to be admitting to being guilty as charged. At least partially. As if the question was less whether Naomi was right but instead how much she was exaggerating.
"You used to be cruel, got some sense smacked into you and grew up and realised what you'd done was wrong?" Elena cautiously clarified. That... that still wasn't good, but it was comprehendable. People did stupid arrogant things when they were teenagers. She couldn't really talk, she was effectively running away from home and only barely avoided the teenage label herself, but neither did she think she'd ever done something deserving of the sheer //venom// Naomi had displayed.
A short distance away Sarchus had hauled herself from the ocean and was striding over. Claws dug into the rocks and a tail for counterbalance spared her much of the balance issues her trainer had been suffering and soon the Sailrage was looking between the two humans. Apparently picking up on the tension she gave a low threatening rumble.
"I'm fine!" Elena protested hurriedly. "He hasn't upset me, Sarchus. He's just said some stuff that's a bit..." She trailed off, searching for words that were accurate, understandable and wouldn't result in another one of her pokémon going overprotective. Roman was enough.
Sarchus leaned over to nose Elena's hair and gave a huff. She smiled weakly and noticed a glint of silver peeking out the far side of her pokémon's mouth. "Did you get some hunting?" Looking from one to the other again Sarchus suddenly stepped closer to Rhaptor and opened her maw above him, causing the large fish clamped in her jaws to drop two metres and land heavily on his face.
Whump-splat.
Oh great. A pokémon had just turned him into a dining room table. That was fractionally better than being on the menu, itself, but it was still all kinds of ridiculous. He lies still, letting the fish take its natural descent off the uneven landscape of his face, leaving a trail of Sailrage slobber and salt-water over his right cheek and nose as if he'd been given a particularly sloppy lick. It's knocked the urge to splutter something about how she'd just made the understatement of the decade to her - a good thing. It's also firmly wrenched him from horrific, vivid memories back into the present.
'You're lying here, appreciating a fish to the face,' a part of him observes cynically. Stolidly ignoring the self-loathing part of him fuelled by the entire train of thought, he maintains his stare up at the sky. "You could say that," he comments after a while, without much inflection, giving up an inner battle against the emotions he had no use for. Might as well let them pass through.
Meanwhile, the most lucid part of him observed the situation with concern. He'd made a clear mistake, it points out, with the air of a scholar - he should have laughed at her and told her not to be so naive. He should have just run her off, like he'd do with any circuiter. He should tell her to embrace what Naomi had said and get the fuck out of his vicinity. But he'd ruined the chance to do that and now it was just going to be transparently self-deprecating unless he did do her some harm.
He could do that. Sarchus didn't provide much of a deterrent in that regard. He could take the seed of insanity he was sure he'd just threaded into her assessment of him and run with it. It could solve things. It //would// solve things. So why wasn't it an option? What made her so special? Just the fact she'd decided to hang out with him for longer than five minutes or formality demanded? That was weak. Probably true, but weak and potentially dangerous.
Time to run with it.
"You're free to consider my current life a personal quest for restitution," he adds, still not quite finding it in himself to imbue the statement with much of a tone. "But to put none to fine a point on it, if I hadn't stubbornly decided to fashion myself into a useful gym leader sidekick and Miss Charna weren't the only gym leader for a generous radius that my attention is meant to pander to, I'd not bother with her at all. Plainly, we resent each other - and I put up with her because I hate myself and her attitude reminds me what I'm doing this for," he remarks, sarcasm laced into the words despite their sincerity.
"But she can't fathom it's some kind of personal decision, oh no. That would grant me some humanity," he rants - the lie is one by implied omission and thus effortlessly delivered. It //was// a personal decision - it had been his idea to large part. That it was also enforced by everyone with an inkling of power on Sehto was coincidental - he had enough pride to genuinely believe they couldn't keep him down if it were against his volition if they tried.
Huff.
"...can I have another fish to the face, please?" he asks, flatly.
She watched the fish fall in slow motion, too stunned to react to the drop or the initial impact or Sarchus looking down with a toothy grin on her face. Her pokémon had just smacked someone in the face with a fish. On purpose. Because she thought Rhaptor had upset her.
Absently she made a note to teach Sarchus that her efforts were appreciated but less than helpful and would probably piss people off more. But that could wait until she stopped internally laughing so hard at the ridiculous scene in front of her. Externally one hand pressed against her mouth as she struggled not to outright giggle at his predicament.
Rhaptor's words help to sober her. She wasn't sure what it would be like to screw up and then spend the rest of your life trying to fix things despite being treated like scum. She wasn't sure she could do so; if everyone acted like Naomi she'd probably give up and find something else to do to soothe her conscience. "You're trying though, and that's a lot more than most people would d- Sarchus, no, that was a joke!"
Clearly the Sailrage disagreed and had bent to grasp the tail of the original fish and paused with the piscine swaying lightly in the air near Rhaptor's ear. The gaze being sent her way was as close to puppy dog eyes as the generally ferocious-looking pokémon was capable of but Elena noted the way Sarchus' tailtip was twitching and dorsal sail quivered. "There's no blood in that fish, is there?" she asked, amused. And if Sarchus was bringing back food that meant she'd already eaten at least one herself.
He wasn't sure if he agreed with Elena's assessment that he'd been joking. He could certainly use a bit of a friendly punch telling him to knock it off - but maybe the antics between the two of them served as a less physical variant thereof. "...if it's any consolation, I promise the other gym leaders will stop raising such an awkward fuss about me," he comments. "I didn't mean to drag you into this drama." Was the situation defused? It was just his personal decision now, wasn't it? Naomi's claim about a pardon was shelved and implicitly labelled as an exaggeration, right?
It'd be lying to say it wasn't his fault, because apparently he did start it. "You didn't drag me into it," Elena offered instead. "Miss Charna did, but... it's kind of hard to hate her for it when she was clearly only trying to look out for me. Can I declare nobody is in the wrong?" A smile crept across her face. "Unless you keep trying to teach Sarchus that 'hitting someone with a wet fish' isn't just a figure of speech, because then I have to train her not to show off her new 'trick' and I'll certainly blame you for that."
"Oh," Dakarai comments, flatly, before tacking on a sarcastic but good-natured: "Gosh, you mean I might be personally responsible for the first misbehaving Blood-type pokémon, ever?" The type wasn't exactly known for being easy to handle. His tongue literally pokes against the inside of his right cheek for a moment, then he's slowly rolling himself against his left arm, eclipsing most of the light from the torch, only to sluggishly push to a stand.
The beam sways wildly for a short while as he brings the back of his left hand up to wipe the slime from the fish off his face. "That... wasn't cathartic at all," he comments in black humour. "Maybe I should see if I can beat your Sailrage in a swimming contest; exhaustion is a pretty good cure for unwarranted whining - something about contrast." It's not clear if he's serious about the suggestion, but chances are he's just joking around - trying to outlast a part-water-type pokémon in its native element was asking for trouble.
She looks at Sarchus. Sarchus looks back. A tailtip twitches. With a laugh Elena gestures and moments later has the dead fish dropped into her hands. "Go ahead, have fun. If you ask nicely she might even give you a head start," she answers while grinning at the idea. "I'm going to find a nice rock and clean this. If Tanja's being nice enough to offer us a roof over our head, the least I can do is supply dinner."
{{tag>[raw]}}