Her first sunset [HEART] [Private: Ava]

[katya]

So far, and Griff blamed himself, Bess had never seen a proper sunset. He traveled by day and stayed indoors at night--a rather new turn of events for Griff and Volta, but with the darkness far more rampant than it was a year ago, it seemed like the wisest thing to do. But today, Griff was feeling lucky, and he took Bess to the park as the skies turned from blue to the dusky purples of twilight. They'd found a swingset atop a hill, and now she swung back and forth with him giving her a gentle push every now and then as deep violets and reds began to leak through the sky.

"No, sweetheart, it's bad for you. It gives you lung cancer," Griff said, as he took a long draw on a cigarette. He swore he didn't have a habit, but in truth, it was more accurate to say he didn't have an addiction. If he was busy, he could day weeks or months or even forever without a smoke, but when he wasn't occupied either mentally or physically? Out came the cigarette pack.

It was a habit--but not an addiction--that he probably needed to ditch. ...Which would be hard considering that Volta, bless her, smoked like a chimney.

<Piiii!> Bess replied in protest, trying to crane around every time the swing brought her back toward him, as if somehow the nicotine in the air would be her own personal ticket to heaven. (Given what the doctors kept saying, not to mention the surgeon's general warning on the pack, Griff supposed it was a ticket to heaven if you looked at it in a particularly morbid light.) <Gepiiiii. Piiii?> she demanded, and Griff had had enough of these conversations to know what she asked.

"I'm older than you--" Bess interrupted that statement with a remarkable impression of plague victim in its final death throes, and then an even more remarkable impression of a corpse. Her meaning was quite evident: cigarettes must still be equally unhealthy even for him. "...Yes. That's what I'll be like in a few years, so don't you start smoking too."

The next time Bess swung back toward him, she accosted Griff with a flurry of finger jabs and rampant gesturing toward the public trash bin nearby. Sighing, Griff stubbed out the cigarette, barely a few millimeters of it smoked, and threw it into the bin.

"Happy now? he asked, and Bess responded with a cheerful <Piii!> as she swung her little feet to get more height on the swing. <Pi! Piii!> she demanded, and Griff obediently pushed her to swing ever higher as the sun sunk towards the horizon.

[Ava]

”Okay, so let’s get this straight…” The strained voice filtered across the playground. ”You evolve by happiness. _{Kinda wish I’d known that sooner}. And this is Sweetheart Park. So that means we’ll be, you know, learning to like each other here. I guess.” If anyone bothered to pay attention to the voice, they probably would’ve came to the conclusion that the owner of the voice either didn’t have a clue what she was doing or didn’t want to be doing it. And they were right—on both counts.

It was comical how much Ava had come to disregard her riolu. Their continuous misunderstandings had led the trainer to believe that Vires was haughty, lazy and disrespectful. While she didn’t abuse him because of this, she did regard him quite strictly. After their first encounter Ava had almost immediately recalled Vires to his pokeball on account of his “snobby attitude” and hadn’t let him out since, until she’d recently realized riolu evolved by happiness. That had thrown a bit of a wrench in her plans. So, sighing, the trainer decided to suck it up and try to slap some manners into the “unruly” fighter.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Vires understood almost everything that was going on and had by this time given up trying to get through to Ava. At first he hadn’t really cared, which is what partly contributed to Ava’s conjecture about him, but after her opinion continued degenerating he started to feel indignant. It was at that point that the riolu actually attempted to explain himself to the young woman and by that point her mind was set. And now he gave up, simply walking next to Ava obediently and half listening to her words as he observed their surroundings.

The cherry blossom trees were a vibrant pink this time of year, and there was a gentle rain of petals every time a breeze swept through. The entire scene was all too calm and pretty, and Vires didn’t trust it. He wasn’t about to be lulled into a false sense of security under the belief that beauty equaled safety. The fighting type pokemon kept alert as he and his trainer walked down the serene path, Ava frowning in consternation over what to do next, and thus he was the first to notice that the park wasn’t completely empty. Vires stopped and growled.

”Riiiiolu.”

Ava slowly came to a halt and looked back at her pokemon, mouth slanted downward. ”You can fight it all you want, but we are going to become friends.” She replied firmly, fists on hips. The riolu narrowed his eyes at her. It was almost amazing, the complete inability for her to understand him. Shaking his head fervently, the pokemon tried again, this time pointing in the direction of the human and pokemon occupying the playground. ”RIIIO!”

Now Ava turned to see what he was pointing at. Staring, she bit her lip for a moment. ”…Oh. Okay, well, we’ll just let Deneb out then… You know, keep an eye on them.” Ava replied slowly, thinking it over. She still wasn’t quite sure how to judge whether a person was trustworthy or not, as she’d basically known everyone she could and couldn’t trust back home since she was a baby. Vires nodded in agreement, also watching the small group on the playground cautiously.

Reaching into her green canvas bag, Ava pulled out her second pokeball and pressed the button—in a flash of light the newest addition to her team appeared, the guard dog houndour. Deneb, as he was recently named, looked brightly at Ava, Vires, and then the man in the park. Just as Ava opened her mouth to give the dog pokemon instructions, the little pup took off stealthily in the direction of Griff and his companion. Startled, Ava hissed after him: ”Wait! Oh god damnit—” She and Vires looked at each other with wide, “what-the-fuck-do-we-do-now?” eyes and, for once in sync, decided to stand their ground. The pair thought it best to see how the man would react before they admitted to knowing the taunting houndour. They watched hesitantly from the distance as Deneb snaked behind the other trainer, tensed his muscles, and tackled the innocent-looking togepi on the swing. He loved scaring people.

[katya]

<Piii?> was the grand sum of Bess' thoughts as she fell out of the swing and onto the ground with a black and burning dog to blame for the tumble. With all the dignity she could muster while lying in the grass like humpty dumpty, Bess began to trill and screech in all the tones of a furious mother scolding her children. <Piiiii~! Priiii, pii pii pii piiiiii> was the beginning of it, and if Griff had come to know Bess at all in their short time together, it wasn't the end. Were Bess human, she'd have been a detention hall monitor. The last time Bess lectured Griff on the demerits of thieving, he'd almost felt bad about it--almost.

As for Griff, first he reached for Garnet's pokeball (Volta had gone off on her own somewhere in the park, and Sprite had stayed behind to do some reading), but when no amount of bloodshed followed, he laughed. Grinning and shaking his head, Griff approached them for a better look at the situation. It was immediately evident that the togepi had survived the fall more or less unscathed, and Griff didn't need to call upon all the king's horses and all the king's men. That was good and basically all he'd been worried about.

<Pii pii pipipipipipipi!> Bess continued, not that Griff was still listening, and he sure as hell hoped the houndour wasn't paying attention anymore. Most living creatures would've zoned her out by now for the sake of their sanities.

Griff turned towards the direction where the houndour had come from and spotted a girl and a riolu. "You want to come save the dog from the lecture of doom?" he called out. "I'm sure he'd appreciate it."

286 words
all the king's horses and all the king's men! notes
ava tag

[Ava]

BURN ME TO THE ASHES AND I'LL RETURN

[atrb=cellspacing,0,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=wdith,400px;true] coolio dood, i have a template <3 356 words. After the spooking was completed, Deneb leapt away from the reprimanding togepi and wagged his stubby tail in mischievous delight. Okay so the scolding wasn’t the kind of reaction he’d exactly been looking for… but no matter, he didn’t have to listen anyway! Without another glance back, Deneb loped back to his trainer and stood faithfully by her side. "It’s a little late for that," Ava muttered under her breath to the dog pokemon, who now appeared alert and obedient. However the circumstances could have been worse—at least the guy didn’t attack the houndour with a knife or something. In fact, he actually seemed pretty amiable about the entire event. Ava herself would’ve been more than agitated if some random pokemon had attacked her pokemon, but hey who was she to complain? ”Looks like he didn’t need my help,” Ava called back, slightly interested in the other trainer despite herself. She supposed she could trust her instinct and see where it took her. This journey would be packed with new things to learn about herself… which meant mistakes, which was annoying, but nonetheless inevitable. Hesitating only a second longer, Ava started walking towards the other trainer. ”So what are you doing out here with your…” Ava glanced at the pokemon the man was with, raising a brow in stifled amusement ”…togepi? A very manly choice, I might add.” ”Riii…” Vires called after his trainer quietly. He couldn’t help it; he’d liked being on the same page as her for once. Her ignorance for him actually made the cold riolu want to be understood. But now the girl was conversing with this stranger and he didn’t approve. Glaring accusingly at Deneb, who only smirked a bit in return, he started after Ava. If the foolhardy girl was gonna get herself in trouble… well, he supposed he could possibly be there to maybe help her out. Deneb trotted jauntily behind. ”I just didn’t think anyone else would be out here now. Oh, and uh… my name’s Ava, by the way. Sorry about, you know… my houndour being a pain in the ass. I did not expect that.”

// Is this too hard to read?

[katya]

”Looks like he didn’t need my help,”

"I guess not," Griff replied before he knelt by Bess' side. As it seemed, she was absolutely find with only her dignity bruised. The grass was soft and the soil below it was rich and well-watered, all of it broke her fall and prevented her from taking any damage. To Bess, he asked, "You didn't fall on your head, did you? Because if you did, I could use that to explain a lot of things--I'm kidding! Only kidding!"

<Pi,> she retorted and smacked him in the nose. Then she began rambling again, likely about proper bedside (or grass-side, in this case) manners.

Griff turned away from Bess, who seemed perfectly content to blabber on to no one, and returned his attention to the girl approaching with her pokemon in tow. Redhead, cute in that freckled ginger sort of way, about his age, though to him, she seemed younger with the way she carried herself with those hesitant steps and her soft voice--although that could just be her personality.

”So what are you doing out here with your… …togepi? A very manly choice, I might add.”

He grinned at her amusement. "Isn't she though? I adopted her, and when you're adopting, you can't worry about compensating for anything. Or at least I don't. ...Not that I ever do," Griff added jokingly. He supposed when the old man had given him the togepi, he could've insisted on receiving something a little more fearsome instead, but Griff actually preferred the more unassuming pokemon himself; it gave him the element of surprise.

”I just didn’t think anyone else would be out here now. Oh, and uh… my name’s Ava, by the way. Sorry about, you know… my houndour being a pain in the ass. I did not expect that.”

"I didn't think I'd see anyone either. They say the noctus pokemon are bolder at night, but Bess here's never seen a proper sunset before. I figured life's not worth it if you don't risk dying a bloody, gruesome death just to see the sun go down, so here we are," Griff explained. If his words sounded like a joke, they weren't. "And don't worry about the dog. No harm done, right?"

He still wasn't in the habit of giving his real name to strangers, but it was something he'd need to get used to, (semi-)honest life and everything. "I'm Griff, and the talky one's Bess."

400 words
slightly rushed, sorry notes
ava tag