surskitty

(part 3/4/2)

Haru's adjusted, being around the ghost girl, the girl with the eyepatch, the girl who never talks -- except to that rock of hers, now on Chrome's corner of the towel, its runes facing the sea. Haru makes a face unconsciously, a mild grimace, and wonders idly what would happen if she suddenly picked it up and flung it as far towards the surf as she could.

Probably she'd break her toes, unfortunately. She'd got the chance to search up some things when they'd stopped in Mauville, just after the girl had returned with /that houndour/ and /that shuppet/ (the two in question currently a bit down the beach, the hellhound apparently attempting to bite the lapping waves as they recede and race them up the coast when they lap up, the teru-teru bouzu watching disdainfully from the shadowed protection of a nearby beach umbrella) and everything she'd found had confirmed that spiritomb were not good choices for playmates. It was a wonder the whispers of over a hundred trapped souls didn't drive the poor girl crazy, if she really was able to hear them. Unfortunately, one of the details of its pokédex entry confirmed that the rock that served as their talisman was usually about the mass of the two girls put together, so wasn't it interesting that the scrawny girl could carry it freely. It was more than likely the will of the pokémon that managed it, and she highly doubts the same courtesy would be extended to her.

Haru reflects for a moment on alternate histories, paths less traveled, what-ifs -- what if Chrome-chan hadn't become a ghost trainer, but was something more ... sane, more ordinary, like a bird tamer, or bug catcher, or teeter dancer. Would they be better friends? Would they be friends at all? Would Chrome still... be Chrome?

Probably not, she answers sadly to all three. Haru spoke to her because she seemed lonely, followed after her to be her friend, and the encounter wouldn't have happened if Chrome-chan was more like Haru. The girl is who she is, and her steadfast ways could even be rooted in her affinities towards the spirits, who were not exactly known for an easy-going malleability themselves. Perhaps it is for the best, she considers ... and her eyes once more run over the girl's demon dog, and malicious puppet, and soul-stealing balloon, and devious lying rock, and she revises her conclusion to declare that this could certainly not be the /best/ in any possible world, but...

But it was enough.


/('What Type Are You?', the sign read brightly on top of the curtained kiosk, and Haru paused in front, sucking on her dratini-shaped popsicle she'd bought from another nearby booth at the school festival. The question presented intrigued her, so she pushed aside the opening and stuck her head in to check it out.

"Yes, yes, come in!" the man said brightly from his spot behind a table covered in purple cloth. She stepped inside, looking around the tiny tent with interest -- the smell of incense filled the air, amethyst-colored beads hung in a curtain at the back, a maneki-nyaasu posed off to the side. She sat down on the stubby stool in front of the table, eyes wide with interest, and licked around the stick of the ice cream to catch the drips running down her thumb.

The old man wore a funny-looking outfit involving chiffon and a gold-tasselled hat. "So, you'd like me to divine your element for you? Knowing your affinities can aid you in matters of luck, health, pokémon training... even /love/." He gave the girl a sideways wink, which she accepted with a blank stare.

She bit the head off the dratini. "'Kay," she said, a little shy towards strangers at her age.

The man asked for a hundred fifty yen, and she paid him out of her quickly disappearing pocket money. He released an abra from a pokéball hidden up a poofy sleeve. The psy pokémon looked on all accounts to be sleeping soundly, but Haru had already learned that appearances were often more than they seemed.

part 2/4/2

She lathers up Chrome's shoulders with possibly a third of the tube of sunblock, pushing aside some wayward strands of hair. It's some kind of miracle, she thinks, that the girl doesn't burst into flame or sparkles or some other appropriate reaction whenever she goes out in bright sunlight. She's remarkably pale for a traveling trainer; maybe it has something to do with the ghost connection...? Or maybe it's just a trick of genetics, who could say.

She rubs the extra out to Chrome's arms, the girl herself absently applying a smudge to the tips of her ears. (She doesn't remove her eyepatch; Haru has never questioned or referenced it and doesn't intend to start now.) Squirting a bit onto her own palm now, she hands the bottle to the mime jr waiting on the corner of the beach towel behind her. (Chrome didn't offer to return the favor, not that she expected her to, and the pokémon's small hands feel cute on her back. And Manekkun raised no objections, though she thinks she feels him tracing the katakana for 'manene' through the lotion and she's probably going to have to try to rub it in better in a bit.)

Haru was pleasantly surprised to find that Chrome's bag held a bathing suit -- she had only considered that she might not have one about ten seconds after reaching into her pack for her own -- even if it is a rather frumpy one-piece, in her honest opinion; plain dark blue and a size too large and really, she could do so much better. She adds it to the mental list of THINGS TO GIVE TO CHROME, 'bikini' a few spots below the ever-paramount 'lunch' but above 'sweater' for now; it'd be a bit hard to catch pneumonia or hypothermia for the next few months. It's still there, though -- Chrome-chan's outfits, while fashionable in a kind of fuku fetish way, are not exactly practical in the average weather. ... Or the average terrain. ... The girl could use a wardrobe revamp.

For now, though, Chrome is in her bathing suit and Haru is in her yellow chinchou-print bikini, and she leans back on her palms, staring out into the horizon, giving the sunscreen a bit of time to work before going to jump in the waves. She's found she's become a little quieter, since choosing to follow the lonely girl. It was her hope that Chrome might go the other way, lighten up a bit, open up a bit. But no, Chrome-chan has remained Chrome-chan, while where Haru would have been chatting with Manekkun or Sabotchan or whoever else when she walked along the interminable routes towards uncertain destinations, relating anecdotes from home or tales of friends she had or encouragements of victories they would win together... The girl didn't reply when she tried to brighten up their walks with some conversation, for the most part, and even though her pokémon didn't either at least they /reacted/, somehow... and after a while it became less trying to stop trying.

Of course, Haru is still Haru and will always be Haru, so she tries. "Did you ever go to the beach, when you were a kid?" She's been south of Fuschia, once or twice before she started training, but no Kanto coast could hold a candle to those of Hoenn. Her left hand traces meaningless patterns in the fine white sands.

Chrome raises her head from her gaze on nothing at all, looking to her without looking at her, as she had a tendency of doing. Haru had grown accustomed to it. "... What?" she says faintly, as if unsure if the girl had been addressing her, but soon catches herself. "Oh... No, I didn't." No further explanation, the laconic phrase containing the answer she had asked for and nothing else, in the 'conversational' style she had also become used to.

Now you have ficbits on your page! Aren't you happy. ... I don't know what happened with this, haha. Drunk sharks were the prompt; this does not include drunk sharks.

Takes place after Chrome getting Ken and Chikusa and before they meet with Gokudera-tachi.


part 1/2 (part 1/4/2)

This is a good idea, Haru's sure of it, and she is nearly very right.

She knows it's a good idea, and not one of those seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time good ideas, like stealing Gokudera-san's smokes and methodically snapping each one in half (the long-term risk to her health was soon replaced with a very pissed off short-term one) or that fiasco involving Hana-chan the person, an eleventh-hour mixup at the costume shop, and eggnog of dubious quality. She knows it is a good idea -- well, she knew from the second she thought of it, but she's absolutely certain the moment she leads Chrome-chan up the shrub-spotted dune and watches her first reaction to the gulf of Slateport.

"Oh," Chrome says, a small gasp, one of surprise but not disgust or disappointment, or at least Haru thinks that's what she hears. She imagines the ghost trainer has seen the ocean before -- she'd have had to get from Sinnoh to Hoenn somehow, and even if it was by way of the drifloon express there would have been water below her at some point. Still, it's one thing to see the ocean and another to be at the beach, the atmosphere filled with the sounds of crashing waves and kids laughing and the sea winds rushing past their ears, ruffling salt-tinged air through their hair, and Haru fills her lungs with it and grins.

This was a great idea.

...um

How do you expect me to know?

; ;

True, true. I'm still really fond of my layouts/banners. =3 I'm making more graphics or layouts than I'm working on fixing old content. I think that's kind of problematic...

Aw :[ Boring.

I'm stuck between the team in my signature and one with a daikenki and kokoromori instead of the first two.

Are the level ~70 pokemon very good for training?

What are your views on samurai otters?

Hello! :D
How've you been? Earlier today I FINISHED MY FINAL ESSAY (of the term, at least) AND NOW I AM FREEEEEEEE!!! I celebrated by eating a lot of pizza and watching a lot of The West Wing and drinking some very, very cheap and horrible alcohol.
Are you done with school yet? I'm beginning the first leg of my multi-legged journey home tomorrow (and I should arrive home on Monday evening), and I'm hoping it doesn't snow too much that the trains get cancelled. Is there much snow happening where you are? (Maryland, right??)

Ah cool. AMC could probably use a new name also; it's going to eventually have some non-Pokémon stuff on it too. But I'm too lazy to change the name on the banners.

Thanks! Was it stickied before? I didn't even notice if it was or not haha.

Hope it gets better soon... =) That is something. Writing is a good way to relax and express emotion, at least for me... I've also started working on Absol's Moonlit Cave again, mostly layouts.

I started a new one: http://forums.dragonflycave.com/showthread.php?p=454708

And hi, by the way! =) How is life?

=(

It's possible that I was hinting in that direction, yes.

I know, but I don't have time to make it right now. I look forward to it

More specifically, it's this one.

Hey, didn't you have an RP-area in the safari zone? I remember being partway through a go.

I would love nothing more than to be your minion.

Christ, I'm sorry I didn't reply to your message before - thank you for the birthday love! I don't need a drawing, of course I wouldn't turn one down, but if you're half as busy as me, you've got many more important things to be doing (like your four essays, instead of posting on Pokemon forums at 6 in the morning).

Also, I've been meaning to say, I really like your icon. I keep seeing the guy as Franziska, which makes it even more fun XD

Everyone in my family except me wears glasses (well, my sister should, but doesn't), and nearly all my friends do, so there's usually someone around to steal from :) I actually remember one time in school my best friend got so stick of me stealing her glasses that she brought in a pair of old ones for me to mess around with so I'd leave hers alone XD