Given that Adelaide had volunteered for the trial, she was kindly spared the typical treatment of getting locked in a cell. But Dakarai had collected her pokémon from her temporarily - both because they would be individually interviewed, and because they were the equivalent of weapons, and letting a potential criminal on trial keep their weapons was an obviously stupid idea. Again, because she'd volunteered, they were taken with apology, but they were taken nonetheless.

In the meantime they continued to treat her like a guest. When would the trial happen? Once the remaining evidence had been collected for it. How long would that take? On the order of a few days, perhaps, dependent on how much needed cross-referencing.

For something that had seemed like a potential sham to her, it sure seemed to need a lot of preparation. She often found Jagdish in the dining room with a notepad, scribbling into it as he sipped a cup of tea. About half the time she found Jagdish that way, she found Zoan had taken a liking to his head as well and was lounging off it, tail swishing this way and that - if he was lucky, not right in front of his face.

It was during one of those instances that he spotted her out of the corner of his eye and waved her over, snapping his notebook shut. His air was contemplative, but not particularly threatening; more like someone who was working on a particularly tricky mathematics problem than anyone that would be involved in deciding her fate.

Adelaide had found herself at something of a loose end, the past few days. She was used to having to organise her time and manage others' schedules on top of her own. This could have been a holiday, if it weren't for the looming dread of the trial.

In an attempt to keep herself occupied, the Taqnateh kitchen had possibly never been cleaner, and her attempts to divine Dakarai's tea preferences had bewildered the young man, as beverages of slightly different configurations kept appearing whenever he sat still long enough.

(He said he didn't care. But his slightly different reactions meant he did like some more than others, and with sufficient observation Adelaide would determine what tea to offer at what times of day. And then Dakarai would know too.)

Zoan had taken a liking to Jagdish, and fortunately was refraining from investigating his teacup too. It was on one such pass that Jagdish summoned her. A simple closing of a notebook should not send nervous butterfrees through her stomach. “Can I assist you?” Adelaide asked as she approached, falling back on trained politeness.

“I wanted to hear your take on something one of your pokémon seems confused about,” Jagdish revealed, clicking the ballpoint pen he'd been working with at regular intervals as he spoke. “Could you tell me what happened to your Exeggcute?”

Adelaide perched on the chair across from Jagdish. “Transferred to a Game Warden from Fuchsia City.” Simple, concise, and… woefully inadequate. The follow-up questions unspooled in her mind, and given the conversations she'd had with Dakarai over the past few days they would not be kind to her. “I knew Eggsy wasn't… happy, on the S.S. Anne. Too much change, I thought, or too many people in too small a space. Especially when she settled down while circuiting.”

Except that wasn't it, was it? Adelaide winced and forced herself to meet Jagdish's eyes. “With the benefit of hindsight and some conversations here… I think she may have disliked battling, certainly disliked the frequent challenges and hassling received by all the staff working on the ship, and is hopefully happier at the Safari Park.” The woman swallowed. “I don't have Warden Baoba's postal details with me, but I can tell you where to find my address book.”

His eyes didn't seem to narrow at her. Instead, he was just nodding mildly, as though she were untangling something that he'd had trouble parsing previously. Zoan's tail came to languish over his right eye and he swept up a hand to nudge it aside as one might an errant strand of hair. “I don't think that will be necessary. If she's free range now, I can send someone over to find her and have a short chat. We do this often enough, it doesn't even tend to take very long, assuming the pokémon is still alive.”

He took a deep breath, opened his notebook such that only he could see it, scribbled about a sentence or two worth's onto the page, then shut it again. “Your Electabuzz was a bit pessimistic when I revealed there was no longer an Exeggcute on your team, and thought she might have died in battle,” he revealed. “I didn't think that was likely, given all the other information I've gathered so far, but you can see why I wanted your side of that story.”

That had gone as badly as she'd expected, and Adelaide almost expected a metaphorical shoe to drop in response. (If it was a literal shoe, she was blaming Mew. 'Best behaviour' only lasted 12 to 18 hours with alarmingly powerful Psychic-mons, here in Taqnateh.)

The thought of casually sending someone all the way to Kanto from here did not make Mew any less terrifying.

“I understand. I've been fortunate and not lost anyone to injury, illness or old age so far.”

“You have,” Jagdish nodded mildly, suggesting that her good fortune was helping her case - maybe not the 'illness' and 'old age' part, but definitely the 'injury' part. His tone was to no part threatening, just matter-of-fact, like someone keeping neutral inventory. “While I have you here, when and how did the Electabuzz come to join you?”

“Wild-caught near the Olivine Lighthouse in Johto,” Adelaide answered promptly. Which was truthfully the easy part. “I was looking for a Magnemite at the time, to help handle the Water-type pokemon I was encountering on the S.S. Anne. Mostly occasional encounters with aggressive wild pokemon.” Gyarados were terrifying. She'd make a joke about angry Gyarados being more terrifying, except she'd only met one non-angry one.

“And how would you describe your relationship since then?” Jagdish asked, back to clicking the pen. Zoan shifted on his head as though deciding that it had gotten a little uncomfortable in its previous position, circled its sitting spot once, and settled back down in what looked like the exact same location as before. Some things never changed.

That was a surprisingly tricky question. “Civil and functional, but more distant than the rest of my team,” she acknowledged. “I think Ashi had greater fondness of my former place of employment than of any humans in particular. Especially the office roof, the balconies, and any part of the port higher than four stories. I don't know if that's because they're closer to the clouds and that's where storms are, or if he likes to be tall.”

Jagdish nodded mildly. The notebook opened again, the writing still concealed from her view, and he noted some things down in it, pausing to move Zoan's tail out of the way with the back of the pen in the middle of it, as said tail came to sweep down in front of his face. He seemed remarkably rather unbothered by the hat, at least, suggesting he wasn't always easy to provoke. Was that a good sign? “Thank you,” he said. “While I expect I'll have some more questions for you later, if you want to meander off for now, be my guest.”

How many gymleaders had pokemon who insisted on being hats? Adelaide thought back to when Edward was still a Zubat. Tove on some occasions, at the very least. How many other kinds of pokemon had a similar attraction to claiming some part of their human as a comfortable seat? Perhaps Jagdish's tolerance for Zoan wasn't that surprising? If he was bothered, surely he could do something about it.

For example, Jagdish could transfer Zoan to Dakarai's head, and Zoan would happily comply. Dakarai wouldn't object, either. Be confused, yes, but compliant. So this was fine.

Adelaide gave Zoan a small wave as she stood, and received a slow blink in return. At least one being in this room was entirely content with the world.

There were no questions later in that day in particular. Dakarai and Adelaide ended up having supper on their own, with Jagdish squirreled away elsewhere, either having more conversations with pokémon or sorting his notes. It was simultaneously soothing and disconcerting that Jagdish was evidently pouring much of his time into this. On the one hand it likely meant there was a lot of formal quality to any required evidence. On the other hand it presumably meant there was evidence to formalise.

It was past dusk, but not quite bedtime, when Jagdish surfaced with a tea in one hand and his notebook opened in the other. It was rather unclear where he had gotten the tea. Adelaide hadn't made it for him and no one had seen him in the kitchen all evening. Maybe there was a kettle somewhere.

“Are you more of a night owl or a morning lark?” he tossed the casual question at Adelaide a moment after waltzing into the dining room table, gently interrupting a card game she and Dakarai were playing to pass the time. Zoan was no longer sitting on his head, but Mew sat on one shoulder, looking at Adelaide with great interest.

“More morning lark,” she answered, leaving her cards face down in front of her. She was losing anyway, and that sort of question usually meant something time-related was about to be requested.

“I suppose I'm more of a night owl, if I can be said to lean either way,” he revealed, nodding along to his own words in acknowledgement of hers. “But there's no need to push this, so I'd like to talk to you after breakfast in the morning. We can discuss potential defensive strategies then.”

Defensive strategies? Well, that was certainly alarming. A small fragment of comfort there, that apparently it was possible for defenses to be made, but Adelaide doubted it would resemble anything she was familiar with.

“Very well. Is there anything I should bring? Or prepare? Or… do?” she asked awkwardly.

“As you were,” Jagdish shook his head mildly. “The conversation will be the preparation.” He glanced down at her cards, then at Dakarai, who was politely looking elsewhere. Jagdish took a sip of his tea, regarding the scene as though considering whether or not to ask whether the game could take another player. Then he took another look at the notebook; the resulting inner shake of his head was almost visible in his body language. Back to work it was.