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Given that Adelaide had volunteered for the trial, she was kindly spared the typical treatment of getting locked in a cell. But Dakarai had collected her pokémon from her temporarily - both because they would be individually interviewed, and because they were the equivalent of weapons, and letting a potential criminal on trial keep their weapons was an obviously stupid idea. Again, because she'd volunteered, they were taken with apology, but they were taken nonetheless.
In the meantime they continued to treat her like a guest. When would the trial happen? Once the remaining evidence had been collected for it. How long would that take? On the order of a few days, perhaps, dependent on how much needed cross-referencing.
For something that had seemed like a potential sham to her, it sure seemed to need a lot of preparation. She often found Jagdish in the dining room with a notepad, scribbling into it as he sipped a cup of tea. About half the time she found Jagdish that way, she found Zoan had taken a liking to his head as well and was lounging off it, tail swishing this way and that - if he was lucky, not right in front of his face.
It was during one of those instances that he spotted her out of the corner of his eye and waved her over, snapping his notebook shut. His air was contemplative, but not particularly threatening; more like someone who was working on a particularly tricky mathematics problem than anyone that would be involved in deciding her fate.
Adelaide had found herself at something of a loose end, the past few days. She was used to having to organise her time and manage others' schedules on top of her own. This could have been a holiday, if it weren't for the looming dread of the trial.
In an attempt to keep herself occupied, the Taqnateh kitchen had possibly never been cleaner, and her attempts to divine Dakarai's tea preferences had bewildered the young man, as beverages of slightly different configurations kept appearing whenever he sat still long enough.
(He said he didn't care. But his slightly different reactions meant he did like some more than others, and with sufficient observation Adelaide would determine what tea to offer at what times of day. And then Dakarai would know too.)
Zoan had taken a liking to Jagdish, and fortunately was refraining from investigating his teacup too. It was on one such pass that Jagdish summoned her. A simple closing of a notebook should not send nervous butterfrees through her stomach. “Can I assist you?” Adelaide asked as she approached, falling back on trained politeness.
“I wanted to hear your take on something one of your pokémon seems confused about,” Jagdish revealed, clicking the ballpoint pen he'd been working with at regular intervals as he spoke. “Could you tell me what happened to your Exeggcute?”
Adelaide perched on the chair across from Jagdish. “Transferred to a Game Warden from Fuchsia City.” Simple, concise, and… woefully inadequate. The follow-up questions unspooled in her mind, and given the conversations she'd had with Dakarai over the past few days they would not be kind to her. “I knew Eggsy wasn't… happy, on the S.S. Anne. Too much change, I thought, or too many people in too small a space. Especially when she settled down while circuiting.”
Except that wasn't it, was it? Adelaide winced and forced herself to meet Jagdish's eyes. “With the benefit of hindsight and some conversations here… I think she may have disliked battling, certainly disliked the frequent challenges and hassling received by all the staff working on the ship, and is hopefully happier at the Safari Park.” The woman swallowed. “I don't have Warden Baoba's postal details with me, but I can tell you where to find my address book.”
His eyes didn't seem to narrow at her. Instead, he was just nodding mildly, as though she were untangling something that he'd had trouble parsing previously. Zoan's tail came to languish over his right eye and he swept up a hand to nudge it aside as one might an errant strand of hair. “I don't think that will be necessary. If she's free range now, I can send someone over to find her and have a short chat. We do this often enough, it doesn't even tend to take very long, assuming the pokémon is still alive.”
He took a deep breath, opened his notebook such that only he could see it, scribbled about a sentence or two worth's onto the page, then shut it again. “Your Electabuzz was a bit pessimistic when I revealed there was no longer an Exeggcute on your team, and thought she might have died in battle,” he revealed. “I didn't think that was likely, given all the other information I've gathered so far, but you can see why I wanted your side of that story.”
That had gone as badly as she'd expected, and Adelaide almost expected a metaphorical shoe to drop in response. (If it was a literal shoe, she was blaming Mew. 'Best behaviour' only lasted 12 to 18 hours with alarmingly powerful Psychic-mons, here in Taqnateh.)
The thought of casually sending someone all the way to Kanto from here did not make Mew any less terrifying.
“I understand. I've been fortunate and not lost anyone to injury, illness or old age so far.”
✘ IN PROGRESS