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--- plot:mawne:2024-01-27 [2024/05/04 22:11] – pinkgothic
+++ plot:mawne:2024-01-27 [2024/07/13 15:37] (current) – I guess next time will technically be a new session! pinkgothic
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 <color #884400>She'd guessed somewhat correctly; Jagdish wasn't upset by his dream cameo. His suggestion of sacrificing a town to the volcano struck her as rather more suitable to Keith; the Kzye gym leader had access to both a town and some bubbling lava. Jagdish was much higher up the volcano, true, but from a sacrifice perspective he would have to rely on gravity and that was far less spectacular.</color>
-<color #884400>"No dietry restrictions," Adelaide answered as she sat. Yarver wasn't mentioned, so possibly he'd sensibly gone home to sleep in his own bed. 'Dakarai' was a new... person, she was going to go with 'person' unless otherwise instructed. Best to treat this as she would any other possibly-work-related introduction, then. "Is there anything I should be aware of?"</color>
+<color #884400>"No dietary restrictions," Adelaide answered as she sat. Yarver wasn't mentioned, so possibly he'd sensibly gone home to sleep in his own bed. 'Dakarai' was a new... person, she was going to go with 'person' unless otherwise instructed. Best to treat this as she would any other possibly-work-related introduction, then. "Is there anything I should be aware of?"</color>
 <color #884400>That could cover anything from 'another Legendary will be here and threaten to lick you' to 'please mind your language'.</color>
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 Presumably, this was Dakarai. If so, he was a very, very quiet man. ...or perhaps someone used to not speaking until it was explicitly his turn to talk.
-<color #884400>Politeness rarely went astray. "Good morning. I'm Adelaide," she greeted, then stalled slightly on what ettiquette applied here. " Uh... my apologies for disrupting your regular routine?"</color>
+<color #884400>Politeness rarely went astray. "Good morning. I'm Adelaide," she greeted, then stalled slightly on what etiquette applied here. " Uh... my apologies for disrupting your regular routine?"</color>
 "Hi," the man said. He had to be in his early thirties, but he acted younger, for sure, in various ways - some subtle, some not. "Are you a circuiter?" There was a look of confused fascination on his face, and maybe a tinge of horror. Whatever the exact emotion, it had apparently overridden his instinct to introduce himself.
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 <color #884400>"Well, I still hope I didn't cause inadvertant discomfort," Adelaide offered with a slight smile. No need to pry right now; if she needed to know, she would be told when relevant. As it seemed she would be here for some time, she'd probably learn more eventually.</color>
-**✘ IN PROGRESS**
+Dakarai's eyes widened mildly, as if the statement was a bit of a surprise to him, or he was trying to judge if the inadvertent discomfort that might have been caused was his or Jagdish's. Since Jagdish didn't seem to be reacting to it, Dakarai finally landed on that it was himself she meant. "Not at all," he assured.
+At this point, some private humour had evidently crawled into Jagdish's skull, the tender beginnings of a chuckle on his breath and a light smirk tugging at his lips, as though he were maybe considering saying several things that, while not strictly inappropriate, were perhaps beyond Adelaide's current capacity to appreciate.
+He didn't elaborate. Instead, he seized an opportunity: "Since no one's circuiting right now, you'll see Dakarai here reasonably often. If you'd like to talk to him about anything, regardless whether I'm in the room or not, feel free." He glanced to Dakarai, belatedly realising he should probably check whether circumstances might make him a liar. "You don't have any pressing tasks, do you?"
+Dakarai shook his head.
+Jagdish nudged the honey jar over to Adelaide encouragingly. "Help yourself," he smiled, neatly packaging three disparate statements into one casual offering.
+<color #884400>She took the prompt, and tasted her breakfast with honey added. The other offerings were... leaving her uncertain how much was his sense of humour, and that left her realising she'd have to figure out the edges of that humour if she wanted a functional working relationship.</color>
+<color #884400>It struck her that she was taking that portion as a given: that this was a job she would be doing. 'Getting a bit ahead of yourself' Adelaide mentally scolded her brain. Still, it was interesting that her brain wasn't objecting as much to the murderous conspiracy that only avoided being organised crime by dint of being committed by the authorities.</color>
+<color #884400>Would it be worth asking Dakarai for his opinion? It would be heavily slanted towards Jagdish in most matters, she expected, but topics like 'what is it like to be licked by the God of Souls and what, if any, are the negative side effects?' would probably be objective enough.</color>
+"Do you have any experience with pokémon?" Dakarai asked, as though to make conversation, plucking a pancake apart with his fingers. Of course, with everything Adelaide knew so far about this place, that was anything but an innocent enquiry. Dakarai had just gone from 'shy deer in headlights' to 'interrogate the newcomer', without that his outward appearance changed at all. Jagdish didn't stop him.
+<color #884400>She could, as Jagdish had phrased it, 'continue expertly beating around the bush'. She was good at that and may be able to string Dakarai along for some time. But for what purpose? Jagdish knew a large chunk of her relevant personal history - Adelaide knew that Yarver would have filled him in on anything he considered important - and that meant that he could chose to share at any time.</color>
+<color #884400>Jagdish had also said Dakarai was his spy. Friendly innocent questioning could be anything but... although that could also be out of habit. Especially when she'd mentioned she'd not circuited in years; surely anyone capable of gaining more than one badge should have experience with pokemon?</color>
+<color #884400>"I've spent the last few years working with an import-export business, which involved occasional direct interactions with pokemon, but mostly staying out of their way and letting them and their handlers do their jobs," Adelaide began. "Before that I worked on a cruise liner infamous for transporting trainers who very much enjoy battling."</color>
+<color #884400>Her little finger tapped on the table as she considered. From what Yarver had said, secrecy may make things worse. Blunt polite honesty it was, then.</color>
+<color #884400>"And due to pressure from that, hidden in a drawer at home I have a little case with seven gym badges in it, in the guest room I was so kindly offered I have the team that earned them, and that includes a Natu who is unusually frightened of Jagdish and several years ago screamed like the building was about to collapse on our heads. So instead of challenging we bolted back down the mountain in the dark." Adelaide grimaced. "Which I learnt yesterday is highly unusual and makes things complicated."</color>
+Interestingly enough, Dakarai didn't seem to quirk a brow or otherwise significantly change his mood. Instead, he simply said, "Hence the 'may' from earlier," partly as a component of their dialogue, partly aloud to himself. He glanced at Jagdish. "Do you need more than Yarver's endorsement?" he asked, remarkably bluntly given the cited dynamic between them.
+"Yes," Jagdish said, minimalistically. His pancakes had since disappeared in whole, but he seemed in no rush to leave the table.
+Dakarai nodded mildly in mute acknowledgement. To Adelaide, he said, his tone still wholly innocent, as though speaking about a minor faux pas: "Do you regret it?"
+"You know that's not a simple question," Jagdish interrupted, his tone one of matter-of-fact delivery. "And you will not make Adelaide answer it now."
+Dakarai was still looking at Adelaide, rather than Jagdish. "You're embracing a trial, then?" he asked her. The conversational way he kept speaking of distressingly high-stakes topics was threatening to get uncomfortable; at least Jagdish had the courtesy of having some venom in his eyes when he was doing it, but Dakarai just seemed disconnectedly calm.
+<color #884400>Blunt honesty indeed. At least her choice of approach seemed like the correct one, or at least a viable one. Poor reassurance in a conversational minefield. Especially in one where her own thoughts and emotions were so undecided and fraught and extremely uncomfortable on multiple levels.</color>
+<color #884400>"'Embracing' is far too strong a word," Adelaide deferred, surrendering to the temptation to drop her head and rub at her temples. Some combination of 'reluctantly tiptoeing', 'prodded by dismay and guilt and maybe the faintest stirrings of inappropriate curiosity', and 'snarling at the parts of her that really are interested in the job despite the whole //lethal conspiracy// elements', those were all much more accurate than 'embracing'. But that was far deeper into honesty than she could manage at this hour of the morning.</color>
+<color #884400>"...but probably," she admitted, after a pause. If it wasn't for her intense conversation with Yarver yesterday she'd wonder what had happened to her survival instincts. Her good sense had definitely fled.</color>
+That put the beginnings of a smile on Dakarai's face, but he neglected to explain what exactly about her answer was to his liking. The courage? The acceptance? ...the fact she was going to pay for the perceived slights to her pokémon, assuming she failed to convince the judges that they weren't?
+Dakarai continued to treat his food as fingerfood until all of it was gone.
+"Was that okay?" Jagdish asked, glancing to the plates for context, the question feeling out of place. "I feel like they ended up a bit dry." Another reminder - not that she'd needed any more whatsoever - that this whole 'trial' thing, while a big deal to these people, was nonetheless commonplace enough to take a backseat to pancakes.
+<color #884400>'It was fine' or 'I've had worse' both sounded too... placating and like a backhanded insult for her taste. Pun unintended. "I think most recipes lean towards dry, because they expect you to drown your pancakes in some sort of syrup," Adelaide offered instead. Cooking was a much safer topic. </color>
+Jagdish nodded in a 'that makes sense' sort of way, then took a visible breath and rose to collect the dishes. "I'm going to wash up," he announced the obvious. "Dakarai, show Adelaide around, will you?" The 'will you?' seemed more polite reflex than any sort of option, given the context, and it was no surprise when Dakarai nodded.
+It was certainly interesting that someone keeping a slave would choose to do the dishes. What did 'slave' mean if you weren't going to make someone do the tedious work? Unless the tedious work was how Jagdish stayed sane in his strange position as mob boss.
+And so Adelaide appeared to be stuck with Dakarai again. Whether that was better or worse than being stuck with the strange pokémon that had pressed her for answers with fragmented, psychic questions was a different question.
+<color #884400>"I suppose that means I'm in your hands," Adelaide said, offering him a passable smile. This was proving to be the most nerve-wracking week of her life, and she was only two days into it.</color>
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