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Dealing with Terry had been excruciatingly functional so far - he went through all the regular motions of a gym leader, offering this and that to weary travellers, but with none of the warm conviction that he was somehow doing the right thing. At least his friend, a lady that was apparently a botanist in this near-wasteland and had roughly a decade on Terry, has proven much friendlier and given Devi a blanket and a spot on her couch, and Batsen a spot on a thin but surprisingly comfortable plastic mattress, along with three layers of bedsheets 'sufficing as a blanket in a pinch'. To make up for it, it's Batsen that has a proper pillow - Devi's having to put up with the skewed armrest.
The couch table's been moved roughly a metre from its usual position, leaving space for the aforementioned mattress, the arrangement filling the small living room almost in the entirety.
At five in the morning, the very first rays of sunlight are poking at the edges of the sky - not that it'd be visible from most of Nahla, but that doesn't stop it for being a point on someone's chronological map. Somewhere at the distant edges of their unconscious perception, Devi and Batsen, in the middle of their slumber born of travel exhaustion, would hear a conversation from the hall (too small to be called anything of the sort, to be fair, but lacking a better descriptor), muffled by the door but no less energetic for it.
And then the door opens with a similar energy, wholly without care for their state of rest, and in emphasis, Terry's voice barks, tone firmly resentful: “Guess who has time for you? Rise and shine.”
Devi's first thought is to ask who let a train run right over their roof, rumbling and clattering obnoxiously as it passes by. Her second thought is 'fuck, no, please just five more minutes', head drawing in under the edge of the blanket and eyes squeezing shut in rejection, soft and further muffled noises of complaint eased into the fabric of her make-shift bed. Her third comes with a bitter scowl, fortunately hidden from sight, and tension in her shoulders: There is no way this isn't on purpose. A brief wire of anger lashes at her gut, prompting her to quietly grit her teeth. At least it wakes her up.
Batsen's somewhere in the middle of a dream about trying to evacuate the entire island while Thorn is getting ready to erupt when suddenly light and sound crash over him. For a few moments, his subconscious decides that means he's run out of time and the volcano's erupting, and then the dream promptly ends, dropping him unceremoniously into consciousness.
He twists in his sheets, squinting out in Terry's general direction, uttering a sound somewhere between an unintelligible grumble and an annoyed whine. A few moments later, he seems to have found his words again: “Gah, what time is it?” he manages to mumble.
“Five,” Terry responds promptly, only to venomously append: “Not that it matters - if you want your chance to battle in my gym, that time is now or not all.”
Yep. Definitely on purpose. Devi heaves her torso up from the couch, glaring down at the fabric to resist the urge to glare at Terry instead. Not a morning person in the least, this is a terrible transgression from her perspective and utterly inexcusable - but it will be pardoned for one reason alone: She's not going to abort the gym circuit just because Terry is doing his damndest to alienate her and Batsen out of it. Maybe if the next gym leader is a similar asshole, she'll reconsider, but right now, she's rather convinced this is Terry's attitude problem, and Terry's alone.
Funnelling her rage into waking up and into energetic motions, she grabs her jacket, tugging it around her shirt - she's slept in her clothes, owing to the crowded space giving her little subjective impression of privacy, but even if she'd changed to pyjamas, she would not give Terry the joy of seeing her try to change into proper clothes with awkward hurry, privacy or not. Her hands dive into her rucksack, rummaging for a brush, surfacing with one to get her hair into some semblance of proud order, and next thing she knows she's fumbling for her shoes - set down beside the couch as they are and tugging them on, all while biting her tongue. Irrationally, she wants to say something like 'clearly we won't be battling in here, so “now” is evidently not the time', but a part of her recognises the useless barb as what it is and keeps it restrained.
She's not sure she can give any verbal reaction at the moment without verbally assaulting Terry, so there's not even a verbal acknowledgement. In a way, it's fitting, with how it's her going through the motions without conviction right now, listening to that implicit order simply to get things over with.
She'd hoped to get in a shower today after waking up, but it looks like morning routine is not going to happen here. Fair enough. Travelling with minimal supplies automatically came with restrictions of that sort. She can try again after the gym battle, assuming their host was so kind to let her, or in Nightclaw. Nightclaw should be easy - chances are they can grab a cheap hotel there, and that comes with all the associated benefits… including, apparently, not having the gym leader barge in and wake you in the middle of the bloody night.
✘ IN PROGRESS