Dakarai's idea of smalltalk was certainly bordering on strange so far and when he started on a tour, that impression only deepened. He didn't as much as narrate anything obvious - that the place must have once been some sort of cathedral, that something had happened to damage it or let it fall into extreme disrepair, and that Jagdish had taken up residence here. As a tour guide, his most frequent words were 'left' and 'right' as a heads-up that he was going to go that way and for her not to be surprised by it, and the phrase “We're not doing anything with this room right now.”
It wasn't that he was completely devoid of stating the obvious. One of their earliest stops was the pantry, and he said as much, and explained that they sourced most of the contents from Vale, skipping the Hollow's prohibitive geographical structure with some pokémon's Teleport. The pokémon was usually 'Mew'.
There were also no pokémon anywhere for most of the tour - not that Adelaide could be strictly sure that the strange apparition from before wasn't hiding in plain sight again, doing something to her mind's visual processing centre to disappear.
The place was in reasonable shape, all things considered, although on even a moment's reflection it implied that Jagdish basically never left the sprawling house. No 'day job', just mob boss, then. The modern interior design, especially of the guest rooms, including the one she was occupying, seemed at odds with the necessary practicality of everything. But maybe if you spent your entire life–
On the other hand, how old could Jagdish possibly be, though? Mid-twenties? The design of the place looked a little more established, so maybe a predecessor had put that in.
“Since we're up the mountain,” Dakarai was explaining. “We get a decent amount of rain when the clouds catch here, but more often than not they just linger as fog. Anyway, it's what feeds the plumbing. If you're interested in the system, I can show you the containers outside. Frost is actually a real problem, it doesn't really get warm up here.” None of this had the tone of him expecting her to do anything about it, it just seemed to be interesting trivia to him. “Well-built pipes with solid insulation help, of course. In a pinch, friendly pokémon neighbours help, too, but that doesn't scale.”
“How much scale would be needed, though?” Adelaide asked, curious. “Baseline water consumption seems like it would be low, although I don't know how frequently you have guests staying, or how many.” She paused. “Granted, if some of those guests are pokemon, I suppose things could vary wildly.”
And if there were ever… grand gym leader conferences or suspicious gatherings of that sort, the number of people present could temporarily skyrocket. Nothing of the sort had been mentioned yet, and Dakarai had yet to show her a conference room with a sinister table headed by a grand high-backed chair, but she'd certainly seen her share of perfectly normal non-criminal conference rooms in the business world and one of those wouldn't surprise her.
She'd even seen one with a high stool for the CEO's Espeon.
…would utterly terrifying Legendaries prefer to stand, or would they have some sort of comfortable divan?
“I mean, just boiling some water is always easy, but the pipes are still here regardless who is here to use them,” Dakarai pointed out. “But yes, sometimes a pipe bursts and we go out to get the water directly from the tank while that gets fixed, and then you don't need scale at all.” He gestured loosely with one hand as though pointing in what was presumably the general direction of a container added any relevant content to the conversation. “But it's only happened three times that I've personally witnessed, and two of those were piping from the tank to indoors, the obvious breakpoints you would expect. The pipes we have in place now have heating we can turn on, but frost has caught us by surprise before, and one of the breakages was because a heating element failed. For the former we're thinking of hooking up a temperature sensor to automate it.” A light shrug. “Everything about this place is bespoke.”
She nodded slowly in understanding. “And I suppose one difficulty with bespoke is a reluctance to bring in outside experts to assist.” Between the gym leaders they could probably come up with some excellent excuses, Adelaide supposed, but if they wished to keep Mew's existence quiet - she didn't know if that was the case, but she was guessing so based on power and the fact she had no idea what species she was - then any outside expert would have to be willing to climb the volcano. That was an expensive prospect.
“It is hard to maintain an air of mystery if every plumber on the island has been to your lair,” Dakarai observed, so drily it was hard to tell whether he was making a joke or considered it an honest to god issue.
Maybe it was the stress, but that remark slipped past her self-control and Adelaide couldn't stifle a laugh. “The main mystery remaining would be 'why on earth have you chosen to live all the way up here', possibly with a side dish of 'seriously, you must love climbing treacherous mountains, but I do not and you can hire another plumber next time',” she acknowledged. “Possibly that would be why you'd need every plumber on the island.”
“I would expect they can ask some pokémon to Fly them here,” Dakarai mused, puncturing the humour a little, although judging by facial expression he wasn't deliberately trying to rain on the moment of amusement.
He came to a stop in a large hall. The ceiling was easily seven or more metres up and an open space that could have contained a small house all of its own opened up here, with two sides flanked by what looked like giant stairs, or just seating opportunities, complete with a railing separating them from the court and all.
At the end of the hall were large doors. …oh. She remembered those. That was the front door.
“This is the arena,” Dakarai said, perhaps forgetting that she knew this part fine.
The place looked rather a bit different if it was light outside, with sunlight spilling in through tall, gothic windows, but certainly no less deliberately ominous and ready to chew up any trainer that thought 'arena' sounded fun, to a loudly advertised audience of none.
Adelaide shuddered. Yes, it looked less omnious in daylight. It was still omnious, just more imposing and intimidating than a horror movie prop. Was that more or less accurate? She wasn't sure.
“I'd wondered, a little, if it was just me being tired and done and alarmed by Farsight's reaction and that was colouring my memory. But despite all the sudden complications it is causing, running still seems like it was the sensible reaction.”
“Absolutely. Although, if you do absolutely everything right, you can win the fight, but that's only ever happened once,” Dakarai mused. “And Jagdish and his friends aren't going to make that mistake again, for sure.”
“Only once?!” she asked, in shock. Being extremely good was one thing. Never losing was quite another. “Well. I already knew everyone here could outmatch me, I suppose hearing how resoundingly makes no difference. My team has always been more… competent but cunning, more than strong. And that day was only the second time Farsight has screamed like that.”
Adelaide looked at the stands without really seeing. “I half thought that the volcano was going to erupt, just based on her reaction.”
“You might have gathered by now that Jagdish has Legendary friends,” Dakarai mused. “So everything needs to be perfect, beat by beat. You need to think at least two steps ahead - non-Legendary pokémon can't do that at all, so it has to be you.” …he was being oddly specific. “It takes a lot of control. And if you have that degree of control, there are typically other reasons why you don't deserve to walk out of here.” He smiled, having stared out at the empty arena for the duration of the commentary. “So you made a good choice.”
A portion of her job was - had been - reading people. When was a good time to give a gentle reminder, when would she need to be stern, did a certain business associate expect fawning or unobtrusive competence.
Dakarai seemed to be reminiscing. His assessment of two steps ahead? That was experience. Which didn't quite fit with his statement on how such trainers didn't deserve to walk out of here, not when Yarver had explained that certain (implied, not precisely laid out in black and white) actions earnt a death penalty. Nor with Jagdish's statement that Dakarai was a slave.
It felt like one of those carved wooden puzzles, the ones with an assortment of intricate pieces that seemed impossible to fit together, yet if you aligned them in just the right way they'd click together seamlessly. There was something she was missing and if she asked the right questions, Adelaide suspected Dakarai would answer.
Did she want to know?
Curiousity was a powerful motivator. But… perhaps not now. The past would not vanish, and it would not help her anxiety over the next few days.
“It seems so,” Adelaide agreed, belatedly. “A volcano seems like it may be easier to evade than an upset Legendary. Or at least a far swifter end should you fail to do so,” she added with a grimace.
Dakarai was silent for a moment, letting his memories fill the empty arena in the privacy of his own mind. Finally, he shrugged himself out of it and looked back at Adelaide properly. “What was the other time?” he asked, walking the conversation back a step.
Adelaide grimaced at the memory. “When I worked the SS Anne. We'd taken guests ashore in the Orange Isles, to a lovely little sandy cove that could only be accessed from the sea. Towering sheer cliffs on three sides with greenery spilling over the edges, ankle height waves lapping the white sand, afternoon sun over the ocean… a perfect place to relax for a few hours. Roughly fifty people had disembarked from the transfer boats when Farsight started screaming.”
She glanced over at Dakarai. “Not just her. If it had been only her, I'm not sure we would have figured it out in time, but when an Absol starts howling at the same time? We were flinging everyone back on the boats when a huge chunk of cliff broke free and came crashing down.” Adelaide held one hand up straight and mimed it toppling forward like a falling book. “Two minutes later and there would have been people under the rockfall. As it was, the wave it caused when it hit the water swept a dozen off their feet, but a broken wrist was the worst of the damage. Everyone else was just wet and frightened.”
Dakarai nodded along mildly. “I'm glad everyone got out of that unscathed,” he said. “I see why you value your pokémon's warnings as much as you do. You've clearly been very fortunate to have her help. Do you think she picked up on the preliminary sounds of the imminent sheering?” he mused, evidently interested in how the pokémon had picked it up when the humans hadn't.
“It could have been something mundane like that,” Adelaide acknowledged. “That doesn't quite explain her reaction to Jagdish, however. Nobody has ever been able to prove accurate and comprehensive fortune-telling by ordinary Psychic pokemon, but a more nebulous 'something is about to go horribly wrong' has never seemed outlandish to me. I suppose that's the sort of question I'd ask a pokemon professor. Or the relevant gym leader, if I was in Kanto.
Not in Sehto, not when the relevant gym leader was their host. Who might have a far better idea, truthfully, but was also intimidating and still giving her dark little grins.
“Jagdish has… an effect on pokémon. Sometimes on people, too,” Dakarai commented, slipping his hands into his pockets for a casual pose. “I don't think precognition needs to be involved. Usually the effect he has on pokémon is that they instinctively trust him. We're not really sure why that is; he's certainly not doing it on purpose. Maybe Farsight just reacts differently to whatever causes it.”
“I thought he may have been Team Rocket because I've rarely seen her react so distrustfully towards someone,” Adelaide admitted, “and she's never been comfortable with strangers to begin with. Which is… quite different to what you're describing.” She paused to consider. “Farsight has always been odd. I suppose the rest of my team would react more… conventionally?”
“Seems likely,” Dakarai commented, then finally dislodged himself from standing around idly in the arena and continued with the odd tour. This time it took them outside, though, past the gate that led into the generous hall they had just stood in, out onto the small plaza. A tiny, sun-bleached building stood a bit further away, its window panes dusty, giving the same impression now it had when she'd first been here - abandoned PokéMart. Not that it had the franchise's logo on it, but it aesthetically looked as though it might once have served the same general function. Now it wasn't much more than a disregarded shack.
Dakarai was turning around to look at the whole imposing structure they'd just walked out of. In the sunlight it didn't look half bad, although its sheer height was still intimidating, especially contrasted to the little shack. He grimaced very slightly, gesturing up to some of the windows in the cathedral's face. “We haven't really figured out a good way to clean those yet,” he said, half in a tone of someone sharing information, half in the tone of apology. “Ladders help, and flying pokémon, but we've been thinking of something with harnesses and ropes for increased safety.” He shrugged mildly, suggesting it hadn't been top of mind for a while.
Then he was back to casually standing in the landscape, being mostly quiet.
Once again, she wondered who had built these structures, and why. Ruins were one thing, but nobody built a ruins; they had to have been useful once. Or the folly of someone very rich, she supposed.
“Pressurized hoses are something used on buildings of a similar height in many cities, but possibly unfeasable here,” Adelaide mused, staring upwards. “Getting the required distance means the jets hit with force, and an older building with these sort of windows is probably not built to withstand lateral pressure like that. Leaks at best, damaged window panes at worst, and then all your problems multiply.” Flying pokemon could certainly help, but then you had to juggle a rider or tools. “And this is Sehto. We're in the wrong part of the world for a Pelliper bucket brigade.”
“We do powerwash some parts of the building,” Dakarai nodded. “But the windows are a bit fragile. Maybe we could have them replaced with less fragile panes, but…” he trailed off, plucking his hands out of his pockets to gesture a bit indeterminately at the air. “Other priorities,” he finished. “Anyway. Is there anything particular you're personally interested in seeing or having explained?” He glanced back at her quite innocently, as though he hadn't just incidentally reminded her of the strange priorities Jagdish had and presumably at least partly imposed on his staff.
“I don't think so, not when I don't know what I'll be…” Adelaide trailed off. She didn't know what she'd be doing. She didn't know what would be happening next. Why was she thinking about duties when it was clear that the 'job application' had some rather large holes in it and the focus had largely been on her history instead?
“Actually, I should probably ask the rather large question: what happens next?”
Dakarai hooked his thumbs into his pockets and tilted his head back, staring up at the face of the cathedral as though it had any bearing on his thought processes. Then he smiled at her a little uncertainly, for a moment almost with a boyish charm that he'd not exhibited so far, as though she'd tapped into some lingering shyness, and said: “I guess at some point you decide what you want to do and tell Jagdish.”
Her heart had, apparently, decided they already knew what was happening: she'd get the job and go to work. When her brain reminded her heart of what had to come first, that's when she locked up and had to focus on her breathing.
Dragging someone into a trial was one thing. Adelaide suspected that, given a suitable excuse, Jagdish could quite enjoy dragging her to trial. Walking there with partial knowledge was much harder.
“I am not a risk-seeker,” Adelaide grumbled, looking anywhere but Dakarai. “There's a gulf between knowing the trial is the best option, and actually setting my shoulders and walking wide-eyed into hell. Or not hell, but you know what I mean.” She stared into space some more. “My last employer would have challenged Jagdish to an arm-wrestle, but I suspect that if he desired he could snap mine like a toothpick.”
That made Dakarai chuckle a little, tilting his head back and savouring what was, for a few seconds, a perfectly private little joke. Then he shook his head mildly and revealed the source of his humour: “I believe you would win an arm-wrestle, Jagdish is all twig.” He flexed his hands against his pockets a little, as though testing the strength in his fingers absent-mindedly. “But he's not going to agree to an arm-wrestle. And you need to decide at some point.”
“And how long would it be before the Spirit of Souls-and-Air decides for me?” Adelaide asked wryly. “On a scale of hours or days?”
Dakarai glanced at her, openly pondering the components of the question. “Jagdish would decide how long until he grows tired of your dithering,” he said, the bluntness of the words at odds with the tonally casual delivery. “It's reasonably safe to assume you can bargain for another night or two, if that's what you want.”
Jagdish, not Psynateh. Interesting. Alarming? Possibly not, it could easily be a function of how long a human lived versus a nigh-immortal pokemon; Jagdish would have a better sense of time and therefore a greater degree of impatience.
Which did not actually help with the dithering.
Adelaide rubbed her face and muttered into her hands, “Maybe I should go hug Edward.” Except then she'd have to introduce him to Dakarai which would be fine, and maybe Jagdish. Which… actually she had no idea how he'd react to the gym leader. Better than Farsight. That wasn't the highest of bars.
Although… she looked back up at the outside of the Cathedral. “You must have done a good job sealing the building. With the height and internal shadows and general… looming of it, I'm slightly surprised you don't have a resident Zubat population.”
“They don't much like the altitude,” Dakarai revealed. “But about once a year or so we find a stray one, usually when someone's left a window open for too long at night in one of the outer wings. And it's all well and good that it's a rare event, and this whole mountain peak is low on pokémon in general; I'm not sure what we would do with our resources, otherwise.”
“A fair point,” Adelaide acknowledged. “Zubat may be adorable in small numbers, but in large colonies they're…” She considered her language, and that regularly used by people travelling through long dark caves. “Easily overwhelming,” she settled on.
“Edward's a Crobat,” Adelaide elaborated, aware that most people did not consider bats 'cute'. “I don't have nearly as much experience with bird pokemon.” There was a faint trace of defensiveness there. “The one time I've been asked to help deal with a stray Zubat indoors where it shouldn't be, calming the distressed human took longer than coaxing the pokemon back outside.”
Dakarai nodded politely, still staring up at the facade of the cathedral for a few moments. It was hard to tell if he was nodding because he had learnt that it was a gesture one made if one had nothing to say but did not particularly object to what had last been said, or if he nodded because he thought she'd touched on some profound fundamental wisdom about humanity that he wasn't sharing the specifics of. Finally: “We're familiar will all kinds of pokémon up here, often dysfunctional. If you'd like to hug yours, I'm going to go out on a limb and assume it's not the rampaging type, which means he's welcome here even without Jagdish to supervise.” …well, that was an endorsement of some sort, at least.
Rampaging? Of course she knew some pokemon would do that - she'd been terrorised by a pokemon doing it - but surely a trainer's battle team wouldn't. Who would want to be near… Well, perhaps if a trainer lost and was desperate and thought they were doomed, maybe then they'd think a rampaging pokemon could be a solution and give them a chance to flee. That would go terribly for them, Adelaide suspected, but it seemed the sort of bad decision someone could have made before.
On reflection, there were many bad decisions that could be made. But what were the good ones?
She couldn't stand on the edge forever. Sooner or later she'd have to jump. Or be pushed. Would it be worse to be pushed? Possibly.
Adelaide went to speak and stopped, several times, unable to quite articulate something coherently conversational along the lines of her pokemon meeting people, or comparing which pokemon gave best hugs, or more light small-talk about the cathedral architecture. Which all converged on the same thing in the end: stalling tactics.
She thought back to Dakarai's phrasings over breakfast. “I… can't honestly say that embracing is the right word, that feels like a dishonest, but… accepting? Urgh.” Adelaide rubbed her face again and mustered her resolve. “I'll tell Jagdish that I'll accept a trial.”
This prompted a slow, friendly nod from Dakarai, reeling his gaze back in to look at her. He reached out a hand to pat her shoulder amicably, evidently not stopped by that they had only just met themselves and the gesture was really something one did amongst friends. One conversational step ahead - somehow, despite all the odd blunders of style and convention he'd been making otherwise implying that this sort of social foresight was not his strength - he said: “You'll do fine.”