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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.
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