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Frontier Town Nina's Place

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Nova would've seen Astrid come in from the angle he was at. She made no effort to hide her identity or the welt that had formed above her eye, a consequence of fighting Koa's feral friend. She wasn't aching bad enough to see Ghaspius about it--and Grace had helped out with that anyway--but she figured treating herself to some lunch was a fine enough way to treat herself for whatever the hell that was. She'd have invited Mhynt if she could find her, but decided she might need the alone time anyway. As it were, Astrid wanted to socialize. Anything but business for once would do.

So she was real glad to see Nova the moment she scanned across the far wall, where the bar was. She waved with two tails before joining him in haste.

"Hey! What luck, I was hoping to kick back with someone this evening," she said as she slid into a chair, halting just before she fell off the other side.

Nova's beer sat on a table higher than her chair, naturally, but it still startled her that it towered above her head the way she sat. Guy was large, it made sense, but damn. "Gonna drink all that?" she asked, giving him a sly look.
 
"Probably?" Nova peered at his frothy reflection. "I've been... reacquainting myself with this stuff. Never could taste it with the mask." He lapped at some of it in a rather sloppy manner.

"What's your poison? I don't have a rent to worry about these days, so I can cover."
 
"Uhh." Ah, yes, choosing alcohol. Like Astrid could tell the difference between smooth red wine and vodka that barely wasn't gasoline. "I'll have... onnne of those, thanks," she said a little lamely, pointing to exactly what Nova was drinking. A sheepish smile split her snout from her chin as she settled more comfortably into the chair.

"Your mask. I remember. Gladion had one too, and you both broke free. Was it some kind of ritual you performed together? Or did they just happen to fall off around the same time?"
 
"Actually a few weeks apart." Nova lifted his head from the glass. "Mine was just from having a couple of folks say they consider me helpful and a friend and stuff." He leaned forward and sipped more. "Gladion's came off trying to break Sage out of their shadowed frenzy."

He lifted his head again, blinked a few times. "Sage is what the native null we rescued from Cipher is going by now. Because there are some sage plants around the old sheriff's abandoned house that they like the smell of."
 
Astrid resisted jolting in her seat. She stared at her knuckles on the table in front of her for a moment, not quite noticing the barkeeper place down a tall beer until a moment later.

"Huh," she said, suddenly distant. "That's... funny, I... knew a Sage, from my world. He, um. He was nice. Just kinda... threw me for a loop hearing that name. It's not a common one, ahaha..."

She took a long swig.

Then she gently slammed it back down on the countertop with a small burp. Wiping her mouth, she continued, "But um, this Sage. I heard about 'im. Haven't ran into the guy, but I'm glad to hear he's acclimating. I can sympathize pretty hard with some parts of his story. Less with the... shadow fever and more with the, you know... the rest of it. You been helping him along?"
 
"I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess your Sage is actually a grass-type?" Nova chuckled, watching Astrid drink. Then he sighed. "Sage is... very sheltered. The woman who built me loaded me up with all this data about people and nature and all that stuff."

He shook his head glumly. "Sage doesn't have that. So, I think it's almost comparable to a newborn learning about the world. Y'know, if the newborn could talk in complete sentences." Nova drank more of the beer. Nina came up to the table and Nova pointed to a steak sandwich with his beak, then looked at Astrid to see if she wanted anything.

"It hurts thinking about how the Coven sold them for scrap and they don't even realize how shitty of a thing that is," he whispered.
 
"Hmmp," Astrid murmured, drowned out by another swig. She eyed the drink; it was already a quarter gone. Good thing she was free the rest of the day. She took yet another and relished in the way her spine tingled before noticing Nova's look. "--Oh, yeah, sure. I'm not picky.

"Anyway, he sounds sorta like Betel," she observed, "'cept we can't see or touch Betel. And Betel does have info, just not... people skills. Maybe one day they can meet and talk about their... about stuff. I dunno. Maybe about all four hundred-- or four billion or whatever species of beetles."

Astrid was, evidently, a cheap date. The heavier consonants were already starting to drag and she'd barely been here for ten minutes. But she did sober up a little when the Coven came up.

"...There are a lot of factions here," she said, careful to keep her volume down. "Guess we're just another one of 'em, but... we're ridiculously diverse. Literally otherworldly, so, like..." She stopped to chuckle at something. "Hey Nova, when do you think we'll fight the Coven? I think they might have had something to do with our arrival here, the way they talk about summoned humans. I'm not human, but a lot of us are, so it gets me thinking..."
 
"I think we will," Nova said. He grabbed the drink and chugged a mouthful. He shook himself out. "The human stuff is..." His voice trailed off.

"It's complicated," was what he settled on, unsure if the drink or corruptive energy had nearly pushed him to stay something else. "I like our friends and they're doing a good job adapting to this. But it's... hard to hear people keep insisting that those of us who were always pokémon are getting our strength from our human teammates."

He glanced at Astrid. "They're trainers, yeah. And they have good advice. But there are some wilder instincts that you don't pick up on just cuz you're a 'mon for a couple of months. Like, I don't think many of them would default to launching a grenade at glass capsules full of liquid shadow. Or setting fire to spilled oil. Or your crazy display with all that radiance.

"Crazy in a good way." Nova tipped his glass toward Astrid in a cheer. "You were fucking ridiculous!"
 
Astrid chuckled a little and clinked her glass off of Nova's. "It felt really good," she admitted.

She tapped the bottom of her glass on the counter and then paused for a moment to drink--and to think. "Maybe too good. There's a really tiny window where the Radiance is potent enough to flow into all my moves, but doesn't overwhelm me. And I almost pushed past the limit back there. I felt it creeping up like, um, like leaving your paw on a hot stove for a millisecond too long. If it hadn't been for you and Grace..."

The thought lingered in the air for a moment, but buzzed Astrid seemed more intrigued by it than disturbed.

"That's why I gotta practice. Get a better feel for those boundaries."

Radiant sparks crawled between her toes, sizzling and dispersing into the glass in her paw. Subtle enough to not draw attention, but for Nova to notice, though Astrid still flinched at how easily they had appeared.
 
Nova looked at her paw. "Hmm." He finished off the rest of his drink, leaving only excess froth in the mug as it clanked around the table before settling. "The Rangers have that haxorus monk. Razael, I think? And we've got a link to his home, the Abbey. They've got monks and people studying radiance."

He balanced on his hind legs and clasped his dirty, chitinous forelegs together in a poor imitation of someone praying. "Between the two, maybe they can teach some of that, y'know, mental focus so you're not flirting with that boundary.

"Not that I blame you." Shrugging, Nova dropped to all fours. "Going to the edge with radiance sounds a lot more, uh, exciting than diving deep into shadows."
 
"The 'A-bb-ey'." Astrid mouthed the word with emphasis, giggling a little. "How pretentious. Heheh, but. That's not a bad idea, Nova." She fumbled around in her little knapsack and pulled out a shoddy notepad, tore out a sheet, and jotted something down. "I'll forget if I don't set a reminder," she explained.

"But anyway! Um, Radiance is like… this drink," she continued, mixing it in a gentle spiral with telekinesis alone. "It's this positive, bubbly thing, supposedly. All in the presentation. ✨'Radiance.'✨" She spread her paws out in a rainbow-shape, eyes to the ceiling in mock awe. "Shadows, meanwhile… are just depressing. Who in their right mind would want to channel their traumas if they could help it."

That statement seemed sobering enough to straighten her up, sharpen her eyes and tone, if only for a moment. "I have trouble with them," she admitted. "Radiance comes so naturally, but Shadows just make me want to stop fighting altogether, and… I know I'll need them eventually. We're bound to run into some asshole tweaking on Radiance eventually."

An idle thought pushed its way out of Astrid's brain before Nova could get a word in: "I wonder what happens when we combine them into a— a concoction of sorts." A beat passed. "Heyy barkeep! Gimme uhh, a modest cocktail, yeah?"
 
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It was at that point their food arrived. "Uh, let's get a couple of glasses of water, too," Nova said, his voice even scratchier than before. "To be safe." He laughed nervously, then took a large bite of the steak sandwich. His insides were already feeling a little less bubbly.

"Luz seemed to think combining them doesn't really... do anything?" Nova squinted at his empty beer glass. "I was firmly in the shadows back in the outskirts, but then some, uh, weird power tugged on me and drew out radiance. And I guess it was like... inner turmoil turned to anger that wanted to lash out?"

He lazily swiped at the air. "Aaaaand then I hit Owen when I hadn't used an actual offensive attack on anyone since coming to Forlas."
 
Astrid dug in without a second thought but took note of Nova's gesture all the same. For an Ice-type under the beating sun most of the day, she wasn't great about hydrating, and knew she'd appreciate it about three hours from now if she kept chugging alcohol. It seemed Nova was a guardian of sorts outside of battle, too...

"That was gnarly," she said. "Like, twice as big as any of my attacks. I think I have to keep my attacks smaller to stay within that safe Radiance window, but." She shrugged. "That's always been more my style. What's really been weird for me lately is, um... Draining Kiss."

She whispered it like it weren't a common move, then burst into a fit of laughter. "Whew-- Tails down the weirdest shit I've ever done when fighting for my life. But it's too effective to stop. That Morgrem was doing it to me too, but I think he came away with more psychological damage than I did."
 
"Oh, you mean Count Dorkula?" Nova laughed. "Pretty sure he was role playing as one of those creatures from horror stories that can turn into the crobat line and suck people's blood out by biting them." He reared up on his hind legs. "And zey talk in ze funny accents like bleh bleh bleh I vant to suck your blood."

He dropped back into a sitting position. "Guess it's fitting we burnt that camp down, then. That's usually how it ends for them in all the stories. Still, I never, uh, though much about Draining Kiss. I figured it was like Giga Drain where you don't really have to kiss someone. More like..." Nova scooped the last of the froth from his empty beer glass and blew it onto the table beside his plate. "You snort some fairy dust on 'em and it sucks their energy. Or something."

Nova watched the frothy bubbles pop one by one. "Iiiiii haven't been fairy in a very long time. Clearly."
 
Astrid hadn't heard of any vampire stories and was totally unfamiliar with the accent, but it sounded funny, and she was drunk, so she laughed hysterically all the same.

"Hmmhh. You know, I-- maybe you're right. I dunno, I just thought I had to kiss someone every time I did it." How silly that sounded now that she was saying it out loud. She sucked in a breath and made a popping sound. "Like, right on the forehead. But people use moves in different ways, so... maybe I oughta ask about it."

She looked Nova up and down. "You got a favorite type to be? How do they feel compared to one another?"
 
"Well, y'know, there's merit to that." Nova leaned over and pecked his empty glass affectionately. "The art of confusion. Do something so weird it screws with the other guy's head." He paused, then. "I'd just, y'know, buy something from the general store to wash your mouth out with."

He ate most of the remainder of the steak sandwich in a single bite. "I'm still adjusting to types again. Like reeeeeaaally old muscles I gotta work out again. Psychic's nice, though. Levitation and reading auras and shit."
 
"Psychic's fun," Astrid mused rather absent-mindedly. "If I could pick a type to be, it'd be one of my top three, four. Hmm..."

Silence settled as Astrid failed to continue the conversation meaningfully, and briefly, she felt like melting into her chair with a long sigh. The alcohol helped, of course, but couldn't overcome the feeling of inertia having its way with her body, with her mind. After a day like this? The urge to kick back grappled with the inevitability that this was the most temporary form of respite, that she'd need to save her bandwidth for the next excursion, tomorrow or whenever. Very silly, very sobering, without warning.

She shrugged off the raw shame of thinking such things and found another topic. "Uhmm, so, what do you think of the election so far?" she asked. "Any candidates catch your eye?"
 
Astrid's head bobbed back and forth in a drawn-out nod, her thousand-yard stare harmlessly piercing the glassware behind the bar.

"You ever meet Dayle?" She studied Nova's reaction. "The Machoke with the... ah, uhm, if you've met him you'd definitely know. He's running for mayor, apparently. Saw some of his stickers in the garbage," she chuckled. "Don't let him hear you say you like turning Psychic if he wins."
 
A tiny chirrup escaped Nova's beak. He blinked several times, then nibbled his shoulder.

Nope, not a dream.

"If he wins, I get the feeling we'll be ousting our second politician of the year."
 
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