(forked from 2019-09-23)
Back outside, Yarver had brought one hand up to scratch at his right brow.
“That's a complex question,” he said. “It's hard to have proper empathy for something that doesn't share your neurological quirks. It's possible if you don't–” He paused. “This sounds patronising, I'm sorry, I don't mean it that way: It's possible if you don't make assumptions.
“But no one is asking people to understand that bonding often doesn't work the way we think. That realisation makes it easier not to do battle unless you're coerced, but at the end of the day, it's the battles and the associated… 'training'… that we condemn.” 'We', not 'Jagdish'. From the tone of his voice, at least, he wasn't doing a lot of condemning. An intellectual exercise, perhaps. Just one with high stakes.
At least Yarver had gone back to having a calm air. It wasn't quite outright soothing in the current situation, but it certainly prevented it from spiralling into a worse state.
“But let me circle back, before we lose ourselves in the tangle of this,” Yarver suggested, pinching the bridge of his nose briefly. “Bluntly said, Jagdish is used to judging people. It's part of what the Legendaries expect him to do. It doesn't typically happen that he sees someone and then doesn't get to judge them.
“Yet that's what's happened here. You came to Taqnateh before, but you declined his challenge. It's good that you did and Jagdish wouldn't think otherwise, but it's still deeply strange to him, and it's hard for him to shake the scepticism, so he pokes and probes, trying to understand the anomaly.”
With Adelaide pressing her back to a rock, Yarver had moved to sit down on a nearby boulder, looking deceptively harmless. He'd brought her here, knowing at least to some degree what it entailed, but his body language almost seemed to pretend as though he were uninvolved in her fate. A fate that would likely be worse if Farsight whisked her away at a moment's notice, sealing some grisly outcome.
By now, Yarver had leant forward to rest his elbows on his thighs, hands dangling between his knees, in the curve of his dress's droop. He really should have grown a beard to match to his long white hair, lean more into the wisened sage aesthetic, but instead he just looked a little like an aged hippie. Maybe that was part of his shtick - look harmless.
Part of the reason she'd wanted to hide somewhere with a cup of tea and a mindless manual task was to starve off the tangled mixture of panic, fear, and 'how DARE he'. That was not conductive to diplomacy, or to saving lives, or to a job interview (if there had ever been a job to begin with). A few minutes to have a quiet breakdown and rebuild her mask, that's what she'd hoped for. A few minutes and then she could handle the crisis, at least long enough to get out of it and have a proper collapse once safe.
In hindsight, it did not help that her last true 'crisis' was a hasty evacuation of a few dozen reluctant tourists, right before a cliff tried flattening a few of them. Farsight had shrieked panicked warnings but even that might not have been enough to convince the rest of the staff if one of the guest's Absol hadn't kicked up an even larger fuss. Things worked out okay then, and Adelaide had thought that they'd worked out okay when she fled Taqnateh, but…
From what Yarver was saying that may have made tensions worse and left Jagannath time to stew. Except that was an uncharitable thought that would not resolve a hostage situation and also might be projection, because if SHE had kept butting heads with him Adelaide knew that her temper would certainly get the best of her. So. Time out to calm down. It was… not quite as successful as hoped.
The discussion with Yarver on pokemon neurology and social interactions was… fraught. Interesting but strewn with emotional landmines; something she'd be willing to engage in and defer to a gym leader's obviously more experienced judgement if it were not for the circumstances. Well. No, she'd still defer to Yarver on the topic and deal with her own dismay but preferably without the kidnapping and menacing.
And they weren't talking about Yarver's judgement, but Jagannath's. And potentially multiple Legendary pokemon, which was a concept that her mind was still shying away from. Knowing they existed was one thing, glimpsing one from a distance was the stuff of lifelong memories, seeing one standing next to a cranky gym leader and being told that gym leader regularly talked with them? It did not make him any LESS terrifying.
Cerise was doing some kind of coarse braiding of Yarver's hair to pass the time while the two spoke. The tone had gradually shifted from Adelaide's panic to a corresponding wariness. “Let's talk about a pragmatic solution to the current spat,” Yarver was offering, his voice reconciliatory. “The easiest - but, I imagine, also not the only - way to defuse this situation is to accept a trial. Given your experience with your pokémon so far, and stressing that I went through one myself, as did most other gym leaders, is that an option at all?”
They had touched on a bit more of the structure - that it was the Legendaries who gave the verdict, not Jagdish, and that despite his grumpy scepticism, Jagdish would defend her case, not undermine it, and that if Yarver wanted to attend to further mediate, he could and had done so before - but the concept of a pokémon court was deeply foreign and Jagdish's biting remarks from earlier had done much to undermine any emotional credibility it might have otherwise had. Yarver's patient, slow insistance on its fairness was the only thing whittling away at the bad first impression, but he was certainly whittling with a remarkable consistency and devotion.
Legendary pokemon were objectively terrifying. She knew that. They were inhuman, far more powerful than any human (un)fortunate enough to encounter them, and were wildly held to be both highly intelligent and hold completely alien moralities. There were many fables about what could befall someone who crossed paths with a Legendary.
So why was her brain more concerned about Jagannath than the embodiments of the island?
Probably due to their very nature, Adelaide mused as she moved to pace. If a human attacked you, it was a sign that something was wrong with them. If a pokemon attacked you, it was either misfortune or your own error. It was easier to accept as a mistake, or as bad luck, or as ill judgement; less threatening to everything that one knew. Even if Yarver had emphasised, repeatedly, that upending the 'normal' views and shifting society was a fundamental goal everyone living here held.
She could acknowledge that intellectually. Emotionally, some part of her was still more frightened of the Taqnetah gymleader, despite knowing that was objectively wrong. Probably. At least in the sense of being able to physically harm someone; angry gym leaders could do so much more damage to one's ability to exist in polite society, but still required successfully fleeing back to polite society in the first place. Which wasn't happening. Which was looping back to the original problem: a trial for crimes she hadn't-
No. Strip the emotion. For crimes she may have unknowingly committed, that she was uncomfortably fuzzy on, and therefore could not accurately assess what they felt was and was not acceptable. With consequences that were being kept frustratingly vague, but - given the number of missing trainers - absolutely included execution. Except, if she was accurately judging Yarver's body language - and she was deeply unsure if she was correct - that was off the table in her case.
The fact that she had NOT been outright attacked at any point since arriving here seemed to confirm that. Adelaide grimaced. Possibly the fact she'd been living on the island unmolested for the last few years confirmed that, because given how furious Jagannath had seemed when she arrived? If he'd felt she was any sort of dire threat to pokekind, she'd have been kidnapped out of her bed a long time ago.
Reluctantly, Adelaide pivoted back to face Yarver, then spent several seconds forcing herself to speak. “It…” Deep breath. “It's probably an option.”
Yarver nodded mildly. “That's good,” he said, softly. Cerise paused to admire the braiding work and he shot the Primeape a glance. It was enough for Cerise to gradually unbraid his hair again, although with the same serenity as the braiding before. “Are there any assurances that would help you with that possibility?” He made it sound like a negotiation. Maybe that's what it was at this point, though - a negotiation with Adelaide's fears.
They'd covered, repeatedly, that pokemon wouldn't be harmed. It was useless to say it again even if it was a strange gnawing anxiety. Possibly she'd been adopting traits from her Natu. Maybe too much of her reaction was based on Farsight's, but there was underlying bitterness at being told that was good while-
“It is… difficult to trust Jagdish.” He seemed to hate her, but that wasn't diplomatic to say. “Especially whe-”
Farsight whistled from behind Yarver's rock, then reappeared on Adelaide's shoulder. She moved with long familiarity to balance her pokemon, who seemed… calmer? Not currently quivering with nerves. “Outside is that much better?” she asked, puzzled.
Cerise paused with the braiding and peered with curiosity at the Natu that had just appeared. If she could speak a human tongue, she might say: What a strange, spooky little bird. Not quite little enough to win against in an ass-whooping, either, which was the way her instinct graded things.
“Huh. Where's Farsight been?” Yarver asked, curiously, only now realising that the pokémon had disappeared at all during their conversation - what with how tense they'd been, it had been easy to miss.
Adelaide paused to consider that. She'd thought about Farsight, and then the pokemon in question had appeared. Except while the Natu was Psychic, she wasn't that flavour of psychic - at least she didn't think so? - and now that she thought about it, this wasn't how she'd expect her pokemon to react.
“When she's upset Farsight often finds a perch or nook to keep watch from, like the top of a door or the kitchen cupboards. But always close.” Adelaide looked around. There didn't seem much in the way of 'up' within Farsight's normal comfort zone. Still, these were unusual circumstances, terror could well have made her go further.
Except… “You're an unhappy puffball,” Adelaide realised, gently smoothing down the feathers along her Natu's back. “You're not quivering in terror like you were before.” This didn't feel like mere distance. This felt like her pokemon had done something bravely reckless, like dropped a heavy book on a threat's head, but if anything like that had happened she was sure they would all know.
“Farsight, what did you do?” she whispered to the bird now nibbling at her fingertips.
“Maybe she joined Jagdish in the kitchen?” Yarver asked. It was a question mostly in humour, but the crinkled smile on his face suggested that his own quip had made him think. The joke had been that the puffball might have been hungry, but what if she had gone to Jagdish? Jagdish had an uncanny effect on pokémon. Prolonged exposure might have smoothed the little ball of feathers out.
“Please tell me you didn't try to scare him off,” Adelaide half-pleaded. Farsight chittered and nipped her slightly harder. That was… probably a good sign? If the gymleader had done something to her pokemon, surely Farsight would be strangely calm and comfortable with him? That's how people expected tame pokemon to be with a someone they'd decided was acceptable. But it wasn't how Farsight reacted, not in such a short period of time. Instead, the Natu normally acted, well, honestly slightly less agitated than this. So this behaviour was a little odd but not a glaring sign that someone had drugged her pokemon or used some form of Hypnosis.
Which was good! And helpful to know. And probably yet another thing Jagdish would get upset at both of them for if he thought she'd done this on purpose. Which she had not! Farsight had come with anxiety to begin with.
Yarver made some kind of an aborted noise, almost surely a stifled laugh. Evidently the concept of someone scaring Jagdish off struck him as ridiculously unlikely. “So your Natu's calmed down,” he said. “Does that help your own nerves, as well?”
Adelaide considered that. Did it? Honestly, no, but how much of that was just her digging in her heels? “The parts about him harming my pokemon, maybe.”
Yarver simply nodded, evidently choosing not to press the point. But he did pick up the thread they'd abandoned when the Natu had made its reappearance: “So, what kinds of assurances would help you here?”
What would help? Truthfully, sincerely help?
…the only thing coming to mind was, it seems, not on the negotiating table.
“You've seen all the materials from my job application, of course, and undoubtedly checked my references. You're part of what is essentially an island-wide conspiracy, you'd be mad NOT to.” A different flavour of mad was required to participate in said conspiracy, but… no, don't compare them to organised crime. Part of her was still desperately hoping there were very few killings, and mostly organised less-than-effective rescue missions when a nasty trainer got themself into strife.
Adelaide focused on her breathing. “So you'd guess that 'methodical' is a term that's been applied to me. 'Meticulous'. 'Prone to withdrawing and not spontaneous enough', according to my supervisor on the SS Anne.” She grimaced. “When I get in over my head I used to panic, so I practised stepping back and calming down and assessing, but retreating isn't an option here. Farsight and I are… slightly better matched than I usually allow people to realise. Because being anything other than calmly competant isn't professional.” Adelaide scrubbed her hands over her face. “Not that that seems to matter as much, when we're discussing trials with lives at stake and deep ethical philosophies and the Legendaries who can, apparently, unravel your soul.” She paused. “And I'm no longer willing to guess how much of that is just folklore.”
“Meaning…?” Yarver prompted gently, trying to squeeze something actionable out of Adelaide's statements that might serve as an answer to which assurances would help smooth things over. Accept her into the position? “You wouldn't be up here if you weren't one step away from the job, if that's what you're asking an assurance on. It's a final hurdle with plenty of nuances, so there's a limit to what I can promise, but I can say, with full confidence, that if you were to indulge Jagdish on this, we'd be happy to have you here.” He pinched at his nose briefly. “There's even a precedent, if you will.”
That jolted her a little out of her brewing panic. “The job is one hundred percent real, and this wasn't some rigged process?” No, she didn't think she was important enough to have arranged all this, but- “The venn diagram of people good at administration, partial circuiters and eligable for potentially deadly conspiracy is really broad enough to job hunt personal assistants?”
Slightly bewildered, Adelaide finally answered the prior question. “And meaning it would be reassuring to have a chance to sleep and think things over, but that's not viable.”
Yarver's face knotted into an interesting shape at the suggestion that the job might be anything but real, as though the concept of lying about something like that was insultingly foreign, but he didn't comment on it. “I'm sure technically Jagdish would prefer someone that isn't a partial circuiter, though I suppose it has some charm that the gym leaders have all seen you at least once,” he commented mildly. “And I imagine you can sleep it over if you're willing to sleep at my place in Vale, or here.” He thumbed to the building, imposing despite its partial ruin and the comfortable distance they had to it.
Yarver's grimace seemed significant. Personal dislike of lying? Jadgish disliked lying? None of them could be terrible at lying or this wouldn't be a successful conspiracy but the Taqnateh gymleader was notoriously reclusive, and having obvious tells would be a more sensible explaination than some of the ones she'd heard.
Her favourite of the ridiculous ones she'd heard was that Taqnateh gymleader had died of natural causes but his beloved Psychic pokemon had figured out how to puppet his dramatic cape, and trainers were actually fighting at least two pokemon in a trenchcoat.
Adelaide pushed those thoughts aside. They had no value right now. What did she want? What did she need? Farsight, picking up on something, nibbled at her fingers. Fleeing to Vale was an incredibly appealing thought. Possibly too appealing. Yarver's life was on the line and even if she didn't run, Adelaide wasn't sure what would be too much. Baulking and not wanting to move? Hesitating? Probably no to both, but could she take that risk?
“I think… maybe it would be best if I take at least an hour or so to get control of my emotions?” she admitted.
Yarver nodded slowly. For long seconds, the silent acknowledgement was his only response, his gaze wandering off for most of the duration, invisibly working through some thoughts. Then his attention was back on her and he said: “We can stay out here for that time, or I can find you a guest room where you can nap. Or, if you're hungry, we can get you something to eat. How do you want to spend the hour?”
“Would a cup of tea be possible?” she asked, slightly plaintively.
The mundane question caused a slow, sincere smile to blossom on Yarver's face. “Of course. Come, let's go inside,” he gestured, rising from his sit, displacing Cerise's hair braiding-and-unbraiding efforts, to the pokémon's obvious dismay.