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--- plot:mawne:2025-03-08 [2025/03/08 16:12] – Today's session pinkgothic
+++ plot:mawne:2025-03-08 [2025/06/14 14:25] (current) – Conclusion pinkgothic
@@ Line 57: / Line 57: @@
 <color #884400>Adelaide sat herself, gently nudging a pink tail away from her drink. While the colour and dimensions of the tail were new, the act was extremely familiar.</color>
-"Slept okay?" he asked, poke a spoon into his tea and stirring it silently, only to transition to picking up some of it and pouring it back in, a gradual cooling ritual. His eyes darted between Adelaide and her new pokémon scarf.
+"Slept okay?" he asked, poking a spoon into his tea and stirring it silently, only to transition to picking up some of it and pouring it back in, a gradual cooling ritual. His eyes darted between Adelaide and her new pokémon scarf.
 With some pause and consideration, Mew finally uncurled with a soft "Mew!" that sounded a little bit like a protest, then tiny forepaws mussed into Adelaide's hair like a caricature of putting it back into order, and the creature half-flowed, half-leapt off her shoulder and onto the table to begin a little faux-wrestle with Jagdish's spoon.
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 <color #884400>"I suspect you could have stirred his tea from here," Adelaide commented dryly, before answering the original question. "I didn't sleep especially well, but I suppose that's to be expected."</color>
-✘ **IN PROGRESS**
+He stifled a night-owl yawn as though his body wanted to sympathise. "It's common," he mentioned, continuing his tea-cooling ritual, moving Mew's tiny stubborn body with his motions. "So, from talking to your pokémon," he began, his overall tone hovering around 'first business meeting in the morning', "You're mostly going to have to deal with the standard accusation of circuiting, possibly with some probing questions about your Electabuzz, but I expect they'll try to hang you by your Chatbuoyancy, who is clearly intellectually disabled even by pokémon standards." It was all delivered neutrally, tarnished only by some visible tiredness. "Which wouldn't be a problem, by itself, if it had been left out of combat entirely."
+<color #884400>"Zoan is... what?" The accusation clearly blind-sided her. Yes, they apparently had some quirks compared to some Chatbuoyancy, but intellectually disabled?</color>
+Jagdish simply nodded mutely for a moment, then relinquished his spoon to Mew, who made an excited little 'Mew!' sound, albeit less explosive than if it were trying to get anyone's attention. A second later, the spoon was popped into Mew's mouth and its cheeks puffed out a little, misplaced in the current scene with its goofiness.
+"Yes," he said. "I figured you weren't consciously aware of that, from all the other context I've gathered. But as it were, it thinks each time you brought it into battle, it was because the other person was attacking you. I've tried - it doesn't understand, fundamentally, that it could be anything else. I did my due diligence here and cross-checked the gym records, so I know it's not also incidentally true."
+<color #884400>Adelaide let her elbows fall to the tabletop and slowly kneaded her forehead. One of her pokemon... completely misunderstood battling. Well, she supposed that made two of them? It boggled her, because Zoan's behaviour in battle was... well, somewhat similar to Zoan's behaviour out of battle. "So, what does this mean?"</color>
+"It means one of two things: Either you'll need to absorb the accusation that you took the Chatbuoyancy to battle despite knowing it was unfit to understand the dynamics of any of it, out of ease to manipulate a creature like that - or you'll need to absorb the accusation that you're so out of touch with your pokémon that you didn't realise it was that way. There's no real good third option here," Jagdish mused, making a bit of a face.
+"I would say it depends a bit how you want to play your overall cards, narratively. I think the ignorance route is the one that fits the facts the most - felt pressured into proving yourself by the environment you were in, had cultural misconceptions that pokémon like or need battling as a sort of enrichment, selective blinders to data that didn't fit that preconception.
+"It's a common defensive strategy and the Council doesn't like it, so they will pick holes into it as much as they're able, including asking some awful questions about whether you can be trusted to be better informed in future, and what evidence there is of that.
+"But we could also go the route of everything being a conscious, informed choice - that elevates your kindness to most of your pokémon, makes the choice to end the circuit early a most obviously commendable act, and reduces friction with the Legendaries in the trial, at cost of making you clearly culpable." He took a sip of his tea, then steepled his fingers.
+Concerned. He sounded concerned. For someone who had basically strong-armed her into doing a trial in the first place to atone for circuiting, it seemed bizarre that he wasn't just trying to throw her into it blindly and let the Legendaries shred her rationalisations like a swarm of pirhanas.
+<color #884400>"Parts of the second sounds... alarmingly close to lying. Which seems a poor idea when powerful mind readers are involved," Adelaide noted. She understood massaging the truth and presenting from a particular perspective, but she hadn't deliberately manipulated Zoan. Had she? That internal conflict likely writ itself large across her body language.</color>
+"That depends," Jagdish mused. Mew had begun to clamber up his arm and now rested on one shoulder, perched like a cat, tail curled, to look at Adelaide with large, curious eyes. "I certainly don't advise lying, but you consciously made the choice to go on the circuit - you didn't sleep walk through it. It's more of a question of focus - you knew it wasn't //necessary// to circuit, you knew your pokémon could get seriously hurt by it, and you knew your Chatbuoyancy misunderstands a lot of things. It's a question which persona you want to play." A pause. "I do assume, in your line of work you became quite familiar with playing different personas."
+<color #884400>Yes, she was. At times more than she liked to admit. Less lying and more framing. "Zoan was one of the ones I thought *enjoyed* battling," she said plaintively to her palms. Paused, and then reluctantly acknowledged, "And that only makes things worse." She'd been second-guessing all her past interactions with pokemon for the last few days, and now Adelaide needed to add a third and fourth guess too.</color>
+"Why did you think Zoan liked battling?" Jagdish asked. By tone, it was a perfectly neutral question - he wasn't assuming it was some grand faux pas to get the impression, he wanted to understand, presumably so he could figure out how it affected the defence narrative.
+<color #884400>"Eagerness to fling self into action, and increased liveliness and 'pep' afterwards," Adelaide answered. "I've tried to find other forms of stimulus since, like toys. I've had most luck with those wriggling pillows, the ones that irregularly move for a minute every so often." And if Zoan was actively distressed by it instead, that pillow would be getting removed. Or given to Taio, who seemed to find it an enjoyable belly massage.</color>
+"Zoan clearly likes you," Jagdish commented. He had woven his fingers together and was now resting his chin on them as he explained the behaviour: "And, in a sense, enjoys protecting you. For a creature that usually isn't applying a lot of control to its environment - passive in nature as Chatbuoyancies are - being //able// to control an aggressor is certainly a question of pride. So you have that effect and a lot of adrenaline buzz leading into Zoan's liveliness after the fact. It just successfully rescued you. It can be happy about that, without enjoying the situation that caused it."
+<color #884400>One thing was clear. "At some point, I think I need to ask what else I've misunderstood." Adelaide considered a moment. "Assuming there is a later." Because all the promises of things being 'not that bad' were suddenly looking alarmingly mistaken.</color>
+"There will be," Jagdish said. The trial hadn't happened yet, but it stood to reason he'd had enough experience with them to tell whether something was death or eternal banishment, and this clearly wasn't it. "But you should pick a persona and stick to it. I can support you with either of them, but it has to be consistent or you'll do your case a lot of harm."
+<color #884400>Well, it wasn't quite comforting, but his confidence was a needed beacon of hope. "Which do you recommend? Accepting culpability and attempting to demonstrate change, I presume?"</color>
+Jagdish chuckled mildly. "I recommend the one you feel most confident upholding under pressure," he said. Not making the decisions for her, apparently. He took a few sips of his tea and twirled Mew's tail around two of his narrow fingers in an absent-minded, practised gesture.
+<color #884400>Very helpful. Well, no, likely that was helpful advice, even if it was sidestepping the question.</color>
+<color #884400>Adelaide stared into her teacup. It was notable that Jagdish seemed confident in her survival without pushing for an angle. So surely the worse case scenario was 'only' an incredible amount of pain! And here she was, the complete fool, sitting and drinking tea and being ridiculously compliant instead of... well, she wasn't sure what the 'correct' option was. Possibly it involved either stealth or hitting something with a frying pan. </color>
+<color #884400>The fact she hadn't seriously contemplated it was concerning in its own way. Planning was what she did! "I quit the circuit and left my job, but I kept my team and was willing to go to a job interview with Yarver," Adelaide said, working on untangling her thoughts. "That's... perhaps not fully aligned with pure ignorance. Or at least not a sudden blinding revelation, a complete change of everything, and shunning anything even remotely associated with battling forever more and pleading ignorance.</color>
+<color #884400>"I was perfectly willing to take a job with one of Yarver's associates, am still inclined to stay and work with you in future, and am sitting here instead of in a cell because a trial seemed... seemed the right path forward. That does seem like a tacit admission of guilt, no matter what narrative is chosen." Adelaide shuddered. There was a difference between coming to a conclusion and liking that conclusion. "That seems more a request for clemency than mercy."</color>
+"I'm not the one who decides your fate," Jagdish commented. "I can only try to persuade the Council, which happens naturally. It's my role in the trial to defend you - hence why I'm asking about your persona. I can do better if I know what to lean toward. I have a good deal of experience with the audience, after all." Although presumably, as did the audience with Jagdish. He watched her attentively past the motions of finishing his tea.
+<color #884400>She thought she had been clear, but perhaps Jadgish was intent on making her explicitly say it. "I'll go with the persona of making a conscious choice. I'm-" she grimaced some more, "- possibly having too many errors rubbed in my face this week to successfully plead innocence."</color>
+<color #884400>And if she had to deal with the Council in future, provoking them now was unwise. She could pile up more justifications for her choice if she put an effort in, and thereby convince herself not to gibber in terror, right?</color>
+Mew had righted itself as Adelaide spoke, standing on Jagdish's shoulders on its hindlimbs, its forepaws pressed against the side of his skull as it leant against it, but its deeply curious gaze lingered unmistakably on Adelaide. The tail had tugged itself free from Jagdish's twirling motions and was now flicking to and fro somewhere behind his shoulder, visible only whenever the twitch brought it far enough to the side - but it did, easily, revealing the range of motion was currently notably high.
+Jagdish was merely nodding. "In that case, we should discuss what points of ignorance to keep. From our conversation now and the conversations with your pokémon, I personally think if we ditch the social pressure angle entirely, we can still salvage the narrative arc nicely if we simply work with the assumption that you mistook pokémon capacity for battle for pokémon being, in some sense, designed for battle - that it is natural for them to battle, like we see wild Tauros do amongst their own species for social dominance, except with each other. The Tauros may not enjoy this battling in the moment, but it is a natural part of their behaviour."
+<color #884400>"Which meshes with the common view in Kanto and Johto that pokemon thrive with or even require battling for their own health," Adelaide said slowly. "Or at least that teaching is common enough for many trainers to use that argument with me, on the S.S Anne."</color>
+<color #884400>In Rattata, tail lashing was a sign of agitation. In Marill, of excitement. She suspected that in Mew it was the latter, too.</color>
+"Exactly." At this, Jagdish glanced to the side pointedly, and raised his left hand to ease fingers between Mew's paws and the side of his head, gently prising Mew away from his face. The pokémon took the opportunity to - in a split second motion - wrap itself around Jagdish's arm instead, tail and all, provoking a bit of a sigh in him.
+"That said, the core of it is notably distinct from the 'enrichment' angle. It's not enrichment for the Tauros to fight each other; it's an unpleasant thing that must be done, because the instincts demand it. Absent other Tauros, there are no instincts demanding it, and no need to do battle, and the kind thing to do with a Tauros would be not to expose it to such a situation in the first place. But it is nonetheless //natural// to the Tauros and they are built to withstand it," he mused. "Similarly, even if one assumed pokémon battled by nature, it does not necessarily imply it is needed for them to thrive or to be healthy."
+<color #884400>She nodded, and grimaced to herself. Yes, she expected that to be a topic that was returned to repeatedly, in ways deeply unpleasant to herself. Which she was trying hard not to think about. "And providing alternative 'enrichment'... framing it like that is possibly a poor idea?" Adelaide checked. Because that was, in many ways, what she had been doing in recent years. "The act being good, but the motivation misguided."</color>
+"It's not necessarily a 'bad idea', but it'll definitely be picked apart. I expect you'll be made to retreat to the core I was talking about, at least if you're willing to acknowledge that you knew that your pokémon could get hurt and be unhappy about battling, at the very least at the outcome," Jagdish mused. "As long as you're ready for that, and you can raise that point without tying yourself into a pretzel when it gets deconstructed, you can raise it."
+<color #884400>High risk, likely no reward, and a good chance of getting herself into trouble? "Ah. So. Likely not something to bring up, and only to address if or when questioned on the topic. And I can't claim true ignorance on the risks of battling, not when 'no battling in the corridors' was always a rule for many good reasons." She resisted the urge to bury herself in tea. "Quibbling about the low //probability// of that happening won't help, either."</color>
+Since it was morning, they did not continue discussing deep into the night. Instead, Jagdish eventually broke to do some chores and tend to some pokémon that were using other parts of the cathedral as a kind of hotel, convened with the increasing number of Legendaries mostly parked outside, summoned Adelaide for a late lunch, where he cooked a rather larger amount of fish than was necessary for two people and brought the rest outside for his esteemed guests, spent some of the afternoon discussing strategy details with Adelaide, and at supper time announced, with the same kind of matter-of-fact distant emoting that she was gradually getting used to, that the trial was going to be at dusk of the next day.
+It was an odd thing to be told over a three course meal. By tone it all sounded like it was happening to someone else. The Legendaries had all gathered but one who would arrive over the course of the day tomorrow. Perhaps it was to be expected that such immortal beings were not prone to boredom, but it was still striking that they did not arrive all at once, to a predefined date and time. Instead, the trial's timing simply seemed to follow in their wake.
+<color #884400>Tomorrow evening felt far too soon. Normal legal cases took weeks if not months to prepare! But there was nothing normal about this, was there? Telepathy and teleportation were time-saving advantages, but it was still unfolding at a breath-taking rate.</color>
+<color #884400>And yet, the dreadful anticipation did no favours either. A longer wait would give her more time to work herself into a state, without the time to finally collapse and regather herself after. So perhaps this was for the best.</color>
+<color #884400>That thought failed to be comforting.</color>
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