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Vereheq still managed to unsettle Dakarai N'Sehla, a persistent seed of superstition lodged in his gut against all rational objection and the knowledge that if Solalon and other pokémon lived here without ill effect, a human being was highly unlikely to be magically less capable of surviving a night.
Despite Cecile's flippant comments about the gym circuiters having a head start, Dakarai had paused on the way, currently nestled just beside the main route amongst the worst of the destruction, using one chunk of cement as something to prop his back against, and another as a seat, left foot up on the same, right dangling off the edge. The least he could do when passing through here was say hello to the local Legendary - and the best way to encounter Solalon was to sit still and wait for him to come to you.
The downside of that setup, of course, is that he's alone with his thoughts, something he certainly rather wouldn't be. The first three times he passed through here are vivid memories, insisting that if karma had a say in the mist's machinations, he'd be dissolved down to a bloody stump in record time - which certainly isn't helping the creeping unease under his skin that no amount of inward frustrated swatting at was dispelling. In future, maybe he should invest in a large block of paper and some crayons, keep himself busy while he waits.
They were lost. This was a terrible idea. This was a horrible idea. They were going to die out here, fall in a hole or keep going in circles until they starved or have their shadows eaten by ghosts or just go to sleep and never wake up. Well. She would. Roman… she could put Roman back in his pokéball and he'd be okay, he'd just be in stasis until someone found her withered skeleton and the bright orbs tucked around her hips, but the chances of someone finding her body was infinitesimal and maybe being trapped unknowing forever was WORSE than death…
A growl rumbled through the flanks beneath her and Elena realised she'd clenched her fingers painfully into the scruff of her Arcanine's neck. With a deep breath she carefully unwound them from the thick fur and scrubbed the heels of her hands over her itchy eyes instead. Roman twisted to give her knee a brief lick before resuming his sedate walk along the foggy road. The thin ribbon of flame steadily circling them sent eerie shadows and half glimpsed reflections dancing around them, but it was their only source of illumination.
They should have stuck to the main road. But she'd seen a sign with nothing but an arrow on it pointing at an angle and she'd heard so many tales about how these ruins were a maze and when she'd spotted it had thought she was so CLEVER. And now they were lost in perpetual mist.
When a tinge of light enters his peripheral vision, Dakarai's initial thought is simply that the wait is over. That'll be Solalon, having… sensed him in some way… - for that matter, how did the Legendary perceive incursions into his territory in this perpetual soup? Maybe if travellers are all notoriously bad at personal hygiene, 'scent' could do in a pinch, but… - he stops his thought short. Solalon is a Legendary. That was quite enough as far as explanations went.
He's slid off his rock and into a saunter, tugging his thoughts out of the abysmal depths they'd sunk into, the light smile on his face distinctly practised at this point, hooked his right hand into his pocket by the thumb, and brought his left up to idly knead at the back of his neck when the hue of light begins to nag at him. He freezes in mid-stride for an instant - even brief conscious inspection proves that can't be Solalon. And that's not the main path. That's a fire of some sort, presumably from a pokémon seeing as this damp place was not prone to bursting into fire for any reason - but the chance that it's a wild pokémon are minimal, seeing as fire pokémon, despite their ability, did not usually have cause to produce flame.
Someone's lost in the ruins. He curses under his breath and taps twice at Iris' pokéball. “Iris,” he prompts, sternly, staring toward the approximate source of light. The Venomoth gives itself a shake as it appears, expression one of reluctance that is likely only legible to Dakarai and Jagdish. “Iris, someone seems to be lost,” Dakarai tells the Venomoth calmly. “I'm going to go fetch them, but I'd like to not follow their example,” he explains. “Will you help me get back to the path…” - he gestures with two digits from his left hand over his shoulder at the same - “…in case I lose my orientation?” Over the distance he estimates he needs to cross, it shouldn't be an issue, but he's been wrong before. Iris quietly observes the area for a moment, then utters a brief sound of confirmation. “Thank you,” the human responds, nodding once, then tips himself into a bit of a jog toward through the landscape of urban shrapnel.
“Hello?” he calls out once he's advanced another twenty metres toward the light, briefly half-perched atop something akin to a boulder, hoping the mists would carry his voice enough. “Stay where you are, keep the light on, I'll lead you back to the main path,” he shouts toward the flame-coloured light, despite knowing that if his voice carries, the exact instruction probably wouldn't survive in full. Then he's hopped back off the current obstacle and continues his approach, slowing it a little, attentive of his surroundings. Traps are possible. He's run into them before. He knows better now.
A voice! For a moment Elena feels elated. Rescue! Followed swiftly by fear, given there shouldn't be anyone here this place was supposed to be abandoned which meant voices couldn't be a good thing after all. 'Stay where… keep light… back… path.' The echoes were confusing. Keep away from the light? She'd heard rumours of spirits leading travellers to their doom, but this time she was the one with the light, so she couldn't really keep away from it because Roman was NOT letting her go. Keep the light back? That didn't make much sense either.
Still, she tried to encourage Roman to back away cautiously. Either there was something ahead that was provoked by light, or there was something ahead trying to trick her and they didn't want to be near it anyway. Roman steadfastly refused to budge and the only motion from the Arcanine was his ears twitching forwards to listen and the FLAME WHEEL around them whirling stronger.
From Elena's perspective, a silhouette begins to form from the shadows of the mist, clambering across the broken landscape, slowly morphing from a fuzzy-edged slab of shadow into something with a defined outline, then beginning to adopt colour as the light of Roman's flame bleeds across the shape, filling it with detail from the inside out. With the creeping detail comes a similarly creeping familiarity - and an instant before her conscious mind recognises the image that's forming, her subconscious one has whisked the association out of the archives of her recent memories: It's Rhaptor. The outlines of a Venomoth a bit further back only confirm that.
“…Elena?” …and apparently, recognition is mutual. He clambers off the nearest chunk of toppled cement and bricks with a curious caution, as if perhaps not altogether convinced on some irrational level that she was not just some illusion. Then that moment passes. “Are you all right?” Apparently, 'what are you doing here?' is at least not on the menu, though it might as well be coded into that question in subtext.
“Rhaptor?” If it was him that was good. He'd only ever been nice and probably wasn't a ghost or a spirit or malevolent pokémon. Could pokémon even use pokéballs to let out other pokémon? Below her Roman rumbled something that sounded like a greeting and was at least a friendly acknowledgement, so that meant the approaching figure had the right smell and wasn't a hallucination.
Elena rubbed her eyes again. They still felt red even though she'd stopped crying what seemed like hours ago. “No, I'm not all right. I'm lost and dad is disappointed and mum wants a better kid and I'm not sure if I want to hide in a tree for a few days or go beg gym leaders to let me take a photo with them NOT battling so I can throw them in my parents' faces just to -spite- them.” She slumped over her pokémon's back.
It's nothing to be amused by, but Dakarai finds his lips creasing to a bemused smile regardless - the mental image of a trek around Sehto simply to get photos with all gym leaders is rather fantastic, after all, even if Jagdish would politely decline. He chews on his lower lip lightly for a moment to dispel the expression, assessing it as inappropriate. His body language morphs to pensive for a moment, then he shakes his head lightly. “Let's get back to the main path,” he comments, tone encouraging. “Let's discuss gym leader predisposition to getting photographed on the way east?” he appends, tone suggesting an attempt at light-heartedness. At least he's not pushing her away - and apparently one of her stated alternatives is being morphed from 'hide in a tree' to 'hide in Nahla or Nightclaw'. That was potentially more comfortable than the original variant, at least.
✘ IN PROGRESS