I Don't Know Where To Be [kat]

[Seas]

Laqueta walked into Sweetheart Park, her steps uncertain and her eyes to the ground. She knew that this wasn't a place she was supposed to be alone in, but she couldn't find the courage to open up the pokeball she had gotten from Ms. Benis. She couldn't imagine what she would do if the pokemon inside didn't like her. She knew she could also release Tae from her pokeball, but Laqueta had noticed that the Buneary didn't seem to care for anything except battling.

After a few moments she found a bench and sat down, feeling grateful that at least she hadn't seen anyone else in the park.

Am I ever really going to be a good pokemon trainer? Laqueta thought miserably, twisting her fingers together, I'm not even brave enough to meet my newest pokemon. I promised I would be a good pokemon trainer for Tae, and I gave my word to look after this new pokemon. If I break that, I'll be a complete failure, at everything. Mother said I would be useless as a pokemon trainer.....

Laqueta's face took on a slightly more determined cast as her thoughts continued, and after a few seconds she pulled a pokeball out of one of her coat pockets and deliberately opened it.

In a flash of red light a puppy-like blue and black pokemon appeared in front of Laqueta. She reached out a shaking hand to touch the Riolu, not quite believing that this was her pokemon.

"Hello!" the Riolu barked, taking her hand with both paws, "It's nice to meet you. Are you my new trainer?"

Laqueta couldn't understand one word of the pokemon's, but she could interpret the soft paws wrapped around her hand.

"It's a pleasure to meet you," she said softly, falling back on manners she had learned as a child, "My name is Laqueta Solaris."

After a few moments, she added, "Are you a boy?"

Laqueta flushed right after that, feeling awkward. She needed to know to name the Riolu, but asking outright was so rude. She didn't know how else to find out though, so she just felt mortified and decided to research a way to learn, just in case she needed to know again.

"Yep!" he said, nodding his head.

"Then I'll call you Uli," Laqueta said with a smile, reaching out with her other hand to run her fingers over his fur. It was soft and smooth. That distracted Laqueta enough that when the empty pokeball fell to the ground with a clatter, she jumped a little.

After looking back at Uli, who appeared to be smiling, she started to giggle quietly. Laqueta had never felt as self conscious in front of only pokemon, and she was caught up in the feeling of everything going her way, for once.

[katya]

Griff wished Bess' idea of fun involved simple things like running around and playing tag. He could do that. That was easy. Instead, she exulted over talking at him, and she knew when he stopped listening. Now, the thing about listening is that it's singularly difficult to keep up when you couldn't understand a word of what you heard. When Bess sat in front of him and he had the advantage of charades and facial expressions and body language, Griff could follow along okay. Right now, Bess sat on his head, which first of all, was a horrible spot simply because she could fall, and then Griff would have a really hard time explaining himself to the pokemon center's nurses.

<Piii pi pi piiiii piiii pi!> she chirped happily from her vantage point above. Griff took the chirping the chirping to be a good sign. At least she was enjoying herself even if he was completely lost in the conversation. "Really?" Griff asked with great interest and zero comprehension, i.e. tried and true date tactics. He never thought he'd need to be like this with a pokemon. And he liked Bess too, unlike most of the people he'd sat opposite a coffee date, but the togepi was just a lot to deal with sometimes.

He'd been wandering the park for a while now, and when Griff passed a girl on a bench and her riolu, a fallen pokeball on the ground and rolling away in his general direction. Most excellent. Griff considered that the perfect excuse to stop and put Bess down on the ground. Quickly, but quite gently, he took Bess into his arms and set her onto the path while she looked about in confusion before she understood that her trainer was being courteous. Bess liked courtesies, so this was all perfectly appropriate behavior for Griff in her book.

He scooped up the pokeball and approached the girl, coughing lightly to let her know he was there. "Sorry to interrupt, but I think you dropped this, Griff said, holding the pokeball to her in an outstretched hand.

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<3 notes
seas tag

[Seas]

Laqueta was too wrapped with her newest pokemon to notice Griff until he coughed. She looked up, her dark eyes wide with surprise. There was a pink-haired, slender young man with a dashing smile standing in front of her, offering her the empty pokeball back. She blushed a little, though the light pink barely showed on her skin, hoping her hadn't noticed her staring.

"T-thank you," Laqueta said softly, taking the pokeball from his hand with gentle fingers.

"Yeah, thanks!" said Uli cheerfully, taking a step towards Griff and Beth. Laqueta didn't say anything to him as he took another step closer to Beth, and then dropped down to the ground, saying, "Hi! I'm Uli, who are you?"

She wanted to say something else, she wanted to chat like Uli was doing, but she didn't know what to say. She had never talked to anyone her own age after her mother had canceled the play parties her father had started for her. Laqueta liked the person in front of her, liked his too bright pink hair, liked his bright blue eyes (she had never seen such clear blue eyes before), liked the cute little Togepi that was on the ground beside him. Most of all she liked his kindness; they weren't many people who would pick up an empty pokeball for someone, and she didn't know of anyone who would do something like that for her. But all she could do was look at the ground and try to think of things to say that didn't sound silly and childish while she tangled her fingers in her coat sleeve in a clear sign of nervousness.

[katya]

Griff smiled when he saw her flush pink. He noticed her staring alright--and he sure as hell didn't mind. "You're welcome," he replied easily. He considered asking what a pretty thing like herself was doing alone in Sweetheart Park--it was called sweetheart for a reason, after all--but with her soft voice and gentle hands, Griff thought it best to avoid flirting; he couldn't be sure that she'd take it well.

He found her startling in any case. There was something about her that convinced him she came from old money, between her fine aristocratic features and her manners, the sort only the kind and wealthy possessed. But on the other hand, she dressed plainly, with no adornments that spoke towards having a heavy purpose (or, more likely, a bank account)--and that was the main thought on Griff's mind.

Bess beamed at the Riolu. Someone else for her to talk to! Maybe this someone will even pay attention! <Piii~ Pi!> she cooed, and then began to chatter with excitement. <I'm Bess! It's so nice to meet you! Have you been here before? I haven't--> she frowned momentarily, <Are we interrupting your stay in the park? I'd hate to do that, that'd be terribly rude.>

To Griff, it just sounded like Bess was just getting started, and the Riolu seemed like the sociable sort that'd be a good sport to her babbling for a while yet--which meant, in turn, that Griff would probably be here for a while too if Bess had found someone else to talk at. "Bess seems to like your riolu," he commented. Griff gestured to the part of the bench that remained empty. "May I sit?"

274 words
muse is so very, very dead. sorry. notes
seas tag

[Seas]

"It's nice to meet you too," Uli replied, lying down with his feet crossed and his head propped up by his hands, "I've never been here before, and you're not interrupting our stay. We just got here. Laqueta's my new trainer. I used to live with a boy in the city. What about you? He's your trainer, right? Where did you come from?"

Laqueta blinked dark brown eyes at Griff's comment about her Riolu liking Bess, who she presumed was his Togepi. She felt softly proud of Uli, despite only having him for a short time, and at the same time she felt pleased that the trainer had noticed how their pokemon interacted. She murmured a quiet affirmative comment under her breath, and looked down at the wooden bench to avoid looking at the trainer in front of her. To Laqueta, he seemed brighter than everything else around him, as though he had stolen the colour from the rest of the world for himself.

She didn't look up when Griff asked to sit down for fear of embarrassing herself. Laqueta could feel the heat of her blush, and she knew her eyes were wide in shock. She wondered why she felt so much more silly and useless around the trainer than she did normally, but refused to continue that line of thought after it somehow ended up as, 'He's very handsome....'

"Yes, of course," Laqueta said in reply, aware that she had taken a little longer to speak than she should have. After a few seconds, she clasped her hands together and looked up at him from under her bangs.

"I am Laqueta," she said quietly, hoping that he wouldn't recognize the name, "Could I inquire as to your own name?"

Laqueta had been taught a 'proper' way of speaking by her tutors, but she rarely used it, instead preferring to simply be as polite as possible at all times. The elegant words came out at strange times in ways Laqueta couldn't control. She suspected that the phrase she had used was meant only for people in a position higher than herself. Laqueta had been told that she would rarely, if ever need to use it.

[ooc: don't worry, I think mine's worse. that's why I've been putting this off. sorry.]

[katya]

<A city? Really? Which city? I was born in Featherwing, and an old man raised me with a lot of other pokemon that he'd hatched from eggs. Then he met Griff, and he gave me to him to train, but I don't know if I'm ready for battles yet,> Bess babbled excitably to Uli. <He's very nice though, and I've been trying to teach him proper manners, but he doesn't seem to care which fork he's supposed to use, but I'm teaching him, and maybe he'll learn. But he's very nice to pokemon, and that's good.>

Griff seated himself on the bench, but he settled only at the edge of it, casual as you please and a respectful distance away--or maybe just the slightest bit too close. Years on the street hadn't dulled his knowledge of proper etiquette, even if Bess seemed to think otherwise (he knew very well which fork to use, he just didn't care), and Griff knew how to walk the fine line between arm's length and I like what I see.

He kept an eye on his togepi as she chattered, and she seemed content enough that Griff could afford to give the girl more of his attention. "Laqueta," he repeated just to taste the name. Somehow it sounded familiar, like the name of a friend of a friend's you met once last summer. "Now there's a unique name."

The familiarity meant something to him, if only because he had no other clues towards (to put it crudely) how useful her acquaintance might prove someday. Griff had never acquired an encyclopaedic knowledge of all of Unova's wealthy elite, nevermind that his parents seemed deadset on keeping in touch with them all even as their status fell. Still, plenty of blue blooded names still struck a chord in his memory. With the way the girl talked, all proper and polite, she couldn't have grown up in a middle class household, and that was confirmation enough for Griff.

...And besides, Laqueta was rather pretty--or he figured she was under her baggy clothes--and that might be reason enough if he felt like a long-term game of get-the-girl.

"Sun Griffith, but people just call me Griff. It's not so pretty as Laqueta, I'm afraid," he said, flashing her a brief grin. "Do you come here often? I don't think I've seen you in the park before."

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tag laqueta!