The night before the day of the gala, Isidora found herself loitering on the Traveller’s Haus' veranda. She had left her hat, bag, and sandals behind in her room, leaving just her there to lean against the railing with arms folded over each other. Peeking up at the stars from under the roof, she spent her time focusing on what made them different here. She couldn’t tell; she wasn’t an astrologer. But she wanted to believe she could see the differences. She pretended to notice that the Seviper Bearer was missing. And Milotic was supposed to be around Ursa Minor, right? She couldn't find either anyway, but assuming it wasn't there, that’d probably have some effect on the way stars were interpreted, or something like that.
The sneasel let out a halfhearted sigh and rested her chin on her arms.
Who am I kidding?
Koamaru’s accusation kept repeating in her head. The way he said it made him sound like some dumb, naive child, a far cry from the impression she got when they fought together. But it kept biting at her tail.
I came here to… She hesitated on even thinking the next part, her ears folding against her head. It felt so… dumb, and naive. Like she were a child.
Save the world. Someone kill me.
Even if it sounded childish, it was true. Isidora didn’t have the time to be getting involved in relatively petty disputes she had no real stake in. She still felt like she was struggling to get her bearings as is. Everyone was a stranger, and half the group were humans she was expected to
work with. Forlas was massive and unfamiliar, the desert itself hot and exhausting and unwelcoming. She had no idea what she was supposed to be doing, or how to go about doing it. There was a horrible, lingering fear that she had her magic stolen from her so that she'd be forced to
submit to one of the human members of the group if she wanted to succeed. It was all already too much, and if some of them were now getting hired on to catch Sonora at the same gala she wanted help infiltrating, then it was blatantly against Isidora's interest to humor this any further, lest the resulting divisions get in the way of their true goal, whatever the hell that even was.
And besides, in the long term, Sonora’s plan won’t accomplish anything. Just because she ruins the mayor’s reputation, it's not gonna magically stop the town from gentrifying like she thinks it will. Even if she manages to stop him, she can’t stop his successor, or their successor, or the successor after that. Nor can she stop the endless amount of rich ‘mon who might already be interested in this town regardless of the mayor. As long as there’s something of value to be gained from doing it, there’ll always be someone with power and influence willing to take that opportunity and ride it to the end. Even in a best case scenario where everything goes perfectly, it’ll be nothin’ more than a neat bit of trivia in the long history of Frontier City.
But… there’s no way she doesn’t know that, right?
She had to have known. Very few 'mon on the wrong side of the law had delusions of grandeur like that. At least, no one she’d ever met.
And besides, Sonora had come up to her, trusted her, and asked.
Does she really believe in those inflated human myths so much that she thinks we would help her? Koamaru’s accusation repeated again.
Most of us won’t. I shouldn’t. I’m not a criminal, this isn’t the kind of thing I want to go around doing with my time off school. It isn’t why I’m here.
And then she remembered the fire in the florogato’s eyes. Somewhere in there, she felt she could relate to it. It felt like her own.
Isidora couldn't say no to that, no matter how hard she tried to argue against it. The answer was always yes.
Her claws dug into the wooden railing.
I don't know what the group should do, but I know what I
want to do. And if any of the humans in the group have a problem with that, then they can get bent.
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