For the uninitiated, it was hard to decide where the gym grounds began and where they ended, set into Ehqaj's rocky beach to the west of the harbour that Tabitha's boat had disgorged her onto. The house itself was large enough that it could be taken as the whole landmark, single-storey but out of place with its generous width in the landscape, but railings extended from it like abstract fingers, reaching into the sharp-edged, dark collection of rocks, stained there where they dipped down into the water.
A group of children were clustered amongst the sheltered, shallow waves between the boulders, two pokémon bobbing up and down with no immediate rhyme or reason Tabitha could discern from a distance, disappearing into the waters without a prompt she could make out. Maybe they were collecting something that'd been scattered through the small bay earlier.
Either way, they were unsupervised. No doubt the gym leader would be inside, so if she wanted to announce her presence and fish for contacts and tips, then that was where to look for it.
It took ten minutes for her to get around to the building itself - less, actually, than it would have taken her to get to the beach with the children, unless she would've chosen to swim in this outfit - and she found it bore some semblance to a public indoor pool in the way it was arranged, although it was outright missing the reception you would expect for sure a venue. The door was open, leading into a fairly warm and humid interior and onto smooth tiles that were quick to announce most of anyone's presence.
Given what she’d heard of Ehqaj, and specifically of the gym leader she was about to meet, Tabitha suspected that she should feel frightened or intimidated. Indeed, she attempted for a while to simulate the feelings, if for no other reason than to see if she could, but alas the feeling evaded her.
*Is that arrogance, to be unafraid of someone with such power?* Tabitha mused to the tune of her own heels clicking against the tile, *I of all people should know how superior cultural power can go…*
Her steps clicked to a slow as she took in her surroundings, vaguely unsettled by the lack of bureaucratic trappings that would’ve had a secretary waylaying her before this point.
Would she make a bad impression with her lack of fear? In the end she dismissed the question as irrelevant. Whether interpreted as arrogance or as the simple confidence of a woman good at her job, Tabitha hardly needed to *fear* this appointment. She wasn’t interested in staying in Ehqaj beyond a year, she wasn’t interested in the politics of Sehto, she *certainly* wasn’t interested in the pokemon circuit. What was the worst that could happen?
It's intuition that guides her through the building, but it seems to guide her well. The humidity's dropping and before she can question whether that's a good or bad trait when it came to finding the gym leader, the corridor spills her into a room that looks more like someone's misplaced living room than anything else, circled by couches, a large framed marine poster on one wall, glass doors leading out to the beach currently slid open, letting a cool breeze whirl lazily through the room.
A woman in her late thirties is stood in one corner of the room by a tall drawer cabinet, one of the drawers open, a stack of laminated papers in one arm, tacked together as they are by a ring in one corner, a thick red marker pen in one hand, looking perhaps as if she's trying to find something. She matches the description Tabitha got for the gym leader in height, age, skin tone and hair colour, though her current attire is a dull green bathrobe concealing a bright patchwork colour swimsuit.
The motion of Tabitha's arrival-of-a-sort attracts attention and the lady's look of brief curiosity is quick to transition to one of pleasant surprise. “Oh, hello!” The fan of laminated papers is collapsed back into its resting state and dropped into the open drawer, pen and all. A hand lances forward in greeting. “Tabitha Denholm?” she asks, with a tinge of disorientation, but more sure than not. “I don't usually-” She stops herself. “I'm sorry, evidently I don't know how to dress for the occasion,” she chuckles in apology, a hint of sarcasm in her voice. “Welcome to Sehto, Mrs. Denholm; I hope the ocean was gentle to you on the way in?”
“Hello, Miss Kaiki,” Tabitha takes the proffered hand with a tight-lipped smile, not particularly subtle in summing up the woman with a glance, but not overly hostile either. “I’ve heard so much about you, it’s nice to finally put a face to a name.”
It was a lie that sprung to her lips as soon as it had sprung to her mind, unless a brief summary and a shrug offered by her fellow passenger counted as “so much”.
Still, it was the sort of lie that benefitted her best, designed to smooth the interaction between them, and previous experience had told her to stockpile as many of those little benefits as she could.
“The trip was as well as can be expected, although I’m not looking forward to making the return journey when that day comes. Please, don’t apologize! I wouldn’t be very good at my job if I judged Ehqaj’s culture based on what I’m used to.” Another lie, this one more to stall for time as she attempted to figure the woman out.
Little as she knew of Kaiki, Tabitha *did* know that she was a gym leader, and that from a social point of view the woman all but ran this town. As such, Tabitha had expected someone like herself; precise, orderly, exacting, critical. It was quite clear that that impression was not accurate.
“I must thank you for agreeing to meet with me,” she said, adopting a cautiously formal tone until she was more sure of the woman, “I’m sure you must be very busy, certainly relative to matters of an all-but-dead civilization.”
“I actually just try to be available, generally speaking,” Rose explains in brief, gesturing for Tabitha to take a seat if she pleased, her smile wholly casual, as if she were greeting a long-term pleasant acquaintance and they were amusing themselves over some sort of aged in-joke. “I don't usually keep appointments, it's not normally necessary. Events are an exception… and of course visitors from abroad as yourself.”
She leans against the back of one couch with a firmly outstretched arm, evidently not interested in taking a seat, herself, looking a bit as if she's too used to being on the move as that the notion of comfortable rest came naturally. “Now, tell me, what are your plans from here out and how may I best serve you? Have you already organised a place to stay? Do you have a map? Is your mobile phone configured for a local carrier?” She seems genuinely curious rather than stern in her enquiry, like someone used to helping with any and all of the above points, or perhaps at least used to foreigners needing the one or other basic aid from that set.
Of course, the main points on the agenda were to get some pointers as to the sites of greatest interest, possible contacts who might be able to help her with the basics on the Kyza, and Sehto cultural idiosyncracies to watch out for lest she alienate people unintentionally, but those all required that the basics were covered, so perhaps it was best that Rose was going through her mental checkboxes this way.
*Ah…so it’s not that she’s particularly competent or wise, it’s that there’s that little to take care of in this town,* Tabitha sits in the offered seat, already relaxing even more under the woman’s friendly demeanor and her own somewhat condescending conclusions as to the woman’s efficacy. Still, Tabitha didn’t need the heroine Kaiki was made out to be, she needed a launching pad, a starting point by which to anchor her little research trip.
“I think you’ll find me a bit more prepared than your typical tourist,” she flips open the small notepad she uses as a supplement to the packet of folders in the briefcase in her hotel room. “In the short term I’ve acquired a few essentials like maps and a guidebook, mobile phone configuration, and for the long term I’m looking into more semi-permanent residence beyond my current room at the Rockdock Inn, now that I’m on location and more able to personally vet locations…”
Tabitha paused in her recitation of her own mental checklist, momentarily bemused. Typically she had no trouble keeping a clipped and professional tone, but she had been taken in by the woman’s easy and friendly demeanor. She shook her head as if to clear it of the insidious congeniality.
“…but of course, these are all matters I can easily handle on my own, I wouldn’t want to trouble you with them. I’m here in Sehto to conduct research on the Kyza, and before I settle in and begin I wish to have at least a basic understanding of what I’m getting into. I can hardly begin understanding a past culture without at least rudimentary knowledge of the current Sehto, after all. I was given to understand that you could help me a bit with the former, and much with the latter.”
Something about Tabitha's remark about how she could easily handle matters on her own seems to give Rose pause, though not to the degree that it's much of a warning sign of anything. Then the moment passes and Rose's smile returns. “I don't think current Sehto is so interesting for your work as our Xhosa subculture, who would have had some contact with Kyza when they first settled here. There are more likely to be traces of the Kyza in the way the Xhosa conduct themselves than in the way Sehto mainstream culture would conduct themselves.
“That said, there are other reasons to learn about Sehto mainstream culture, of course. You'll find structures here are fairly decentralised, though the gym leaders try to stay in touch with each other, and I'll be happy to vouch for you if it becomes necessary. Our cities are mostly autonomous. The customs here in Ehqaj are different from those of either Pyu Ivvi in the north or Vale in the west, but there are common themes.
“It's very important that you keep an eye out for where you're heading. If you enter someone else's property, be sure you do it with permission, anything else is going to be a headache in the best case scenario and hazardous in the worst case scenario. That's especially true in the more rural areas, where people are less used to having quick security responses and have learnt they need to defend themselves on their own.
“This is especially true if you're going to have a pokémon, because that's a weapon and makes you more threatening, especially if you were trying to conceal it. If you were a regular tourist I'd recommend not getting a pokémon, but you'll be out in the wild quite a long time as well as moving between the settlements a lot, and so I suggest you either get yourself a pokémon or an assistant with one.
“Either way, from my current understanding, you'll want to head west from here - take another boat ride to Vale, trek westwards and northwards from there. There are some known Kyza sites between Kzye and Kethi which are probably a good place to start. I can give you some contacts in Vale and Njoty that should be helpful for your quest; a historian by the name of Teodor Rask in Vale, and a fellow anthropologist in Njoty, Nnamdi Sadik.”
Tabitha’s pen flew across her notebook filling away names and details, but even as she writes she tilted her head to one side, clearly perturbed by a thought but saving it until Kaiki stops speaking to voice it.
It wasn’t a surprise to hear the recommendation of acquiring a pokémon, but it is far enough out of her typical thought process that it bears a moment of thinking.
“I’d thought about arming myself in some way, of course,” she admits, “I’d just assumed that a more…ah…physical weapon might be better…” for the first time Tabitha’s businesslike facade slips a little, “it hadn’t really crossed my mind to acquire a pokémon…it seems a little mercenary, doesn’t it? Using a pokemon just for my own personal protection?” she blushes, showing her first sign of embarrassment for her own first sign of unworldliness.
*And to a gym leader, no less,* she realizes with a further flush, *if there’s anyone less sympathetic to a reluctance to use pokemon for fighting…*
“I suppose that’s a bit of naivete I’ll have to get over,” she says hastily, “although as you can probably tell from my unfamiliarity, I may need assistance in figuring out the best way to go about such an acquisition. Given the amount of-” she almost says ‘bonding’, but stops before embarrassing herself further, “-of training I should have under my belt with the creature before I start using it in earnest, it may be better for me to find one sooner rather than later.”
A single-word note “pokemon?” is jotted onto a new page, underlined and circled, and then the pen finally stills, hovering over the blank page as she waits, still a bit abashed.
“I can understand preferring a simple tool,” Rose remarks, raising her free hand to fleetingly gesture that no faux pas had occurred. “But a gun doesn't have an additional pair of eyes, no agency of its own to protect you if you've been disabled, and no ability to get you help if you've gotten trapped in a crevice in the middle of nowhere,” she offers, again not in a tone of scolding but simply as an offer of benefits. “Nor does it run out of ammo in any comparable way, I suppose,” she adds in an amused afterthought, then shakes her head lightly to dismiss the train of thought that's producing all these benefits. “I can loan you one if you want,” she offers. “Or you can buy one from a breeder. Bred pokémon tend to tame a lot more readily than wild ones, regardless what you may have heard on the contrary.”
The pen remains hovering, even though there is plenty of information to jot down. Tabitha bites her lip, clearly torn on whether or not to voice her thoughts or continue on, but finally blurts as if against her will, “but isn’t that cruel?”
The blush is back, as if she’s furious with herself for either having feelings on the matter or voicing them, but she pushes on, “if it’s really so dangerous, is it responsible of me to be taking a creature into that danger with me?”
She glances around her again, unfamiliar feelings of self-doubt rattling around in her head. *You’re literally in a gym right now, talking to the person who will be the MOST unsympathetic to how you feel about this subject. What are you doing?*
Tabitha glances down at her notepad and makes notes of what Kaiki has told her, if for no other reason than to avoid the other woman’s gaze.
If Rose is bothered by the remark, her body language betrays none of it. “I'm not suggesting you go out looking for trouble. Pokémon are more resilient than humans and easier to heal, as well as easier to hold in stasis if damaged, minimising their pain - but I still consider it important you think exactly as you already do. You'll want to minimise danger. You'll want to feel responsible for your pokémon. Your pokémon is a particularly powerful assistant to you, not a replaceable, impersonal commodity, and you seem to have the right outlook in that regard.” There's a warmth to the way she's talking, as if she's honestly delighted that Tabitha would have the hesitant outlook she does. Does that make sense? That doesn't really mesh with what Tabitha assumed gym leaders thought like.
If anything, Tabitha’s blush burns harder at the encouraging words. Bad enough she betrayed such an unhelpful emotion towards the creatures, being called out for her empathy is even more humiliating. Beneath the embarrassment, however, is a small ember of curiosity at the woman’s attitude. Had she mistaken the purpose of a gym? If not comfortable throwing pokemon into danger, what was she doing running what was for all intents and purposes an eighth of a pokemon dogfighting ring?
“Yes, well…I think I’ll get in touch with a breeder, anything that can shorten my turnaround time will be helpful,” she stumbles back into something resembling professionalism, “any recommendations you have in that area would also be very helpful.” For a moment Tabitha even considers asking Kaiki if there is a particular pokemon breed that might be well suited to her, but she’s already beginning to feel uncomfortable with how much she’s opened up to the woman in so little time.
With a strange mix of reluctance and worry, she restrains herself from asking, distracting herself instead with a question she hopes will ease them back to the more safely impersonal area of small talk.
“I suppose I shouldn’t be so surprised at your knowledge of pokemon, given what you do,” she smiles, “is your knowledge and passion what brought you to the job, or vice-versa?”
The question chips at Rose's comfortable demeanour for no more than an instant, the sting almost invisible - Tabitha might easily miss it. “I inherited my position, actually,” Rose reveals, simply, neither sheepishly nor proudly, as if she were fully aware of the luck of the genetic draw that it represented. “Which I suppose makes it a bit of both. Growing up in that sort of environment certainly biased me toward the role, but there were some things that I only came to appreciate once I had it, since certain things I'd taken for granted turned out to be less simple.” She shrugs lightly, casting her gaze down briefly as if more comfortable reminiscing with the ground in sight. Both her brows raise as she seems to consider a different part of the conversation, bringing up he free hand to run it through her hair in a passing, absent-minded gesture. “But enough about that, it's not strictly useful to you. One tip that comes to mind: Since you'll probably end up working mostly on the arid side of Sehto, a water pokémon is probably the best choice to guard against the wild pokémon in the general area. That said, be sure to take a few paralyse heals to supplement it, as those are likely going to make all the difference if you encounter an electric pokémon, rare though they may be.”
✘ ABANDONED