Frontier Town Traveller's Haus - Lobby

[Jackie Cat]

Jesse made to reject the offer out of hand – c'mon, he wasn't some two-bit performer for hire! He was just doing something nice for the kid! Then he winced and clicked his tongue at the memory of his not having a goddamn penny on him of late. Of course he could earn a decent day's wage doing a mission off the local boards, but he was under-strength and all his intel was years out of date. Best to do the smart thing.

"Y'know what, sure. Ain't got formal pedagogical credentials or nothin', but I know my stuff and I could do with somethin' to allocate my mind to that ain't, uh. Well, y'know how it is."

Yeah. Something regular. Something altogether different than the goddamn box he'd been cooling off in, or the fighting that put him there.

Mercifully, there was food at last, and Jesse set upon it like a starved thing, only remembering several ravening bites into it that he was supposed to be a well-mannered 'mon, or something approximating that. Well, whatever. He was too hungry to care. Half the town thought he'd caught 'going feral' off his wife and kid anyhow.

 

[Butterfree]

Jesse made a face at the offer for money, but then relented. Was he broke, too? Christ. Dave figured at least he had a roof over his head in his old cabin, but... Sage was living there now, wasn't he. Uh. Awkward.

"Maybe for the tutoring Brisa can be there too!" Jean suggested brightly. "What kinda Pokémon is she? Is she a Fire-type, too?"

"Luxio, actually," Dave said. "Or Luxray by now? It's been a bit. I, uh, don't know if she'd join in, but who knows. She's apparently out of town right now but on her way back."

He glanced at Jesse. Brisa wasn't super enthused about her dad, last he'd checked; hard to promise she'd have patience for getting dragged into tutoring a child with him.

"She's a lion!" Jean gasped. At least no less enthusiastic to meet her even if she wasn't a Fire-type.

 

[Jackie Cat]

Jesse scratched the back of his neck, dropping eye contact. "Last I saw her she was a Luxio, but she's been ready to evolve fer a long time, t'be honest. I'm expectin' to see her for the first time in months, ah, any day now I guess."

He banished the dread, and looked at the kid to give her a real answer.

"She's tough," he began, because wasn't that the main thing everyone knew about his daughter? Sure, they said 'half-feral' but what that really meant was tough, tougher than they could handle. "Strong, sturdy, loves to fight. Damn good at it, too. She's always been a bit lonesome on account a' that – most townie folks ain't that tough. I'm sure if it weren't for her fixin' to take up my sheriff's badge, she'd have upped sticks an' gone to live with her ma years ago."

And wasn't that his responsibility? He'd made that choice impossible for her. He couldn't have made her stay, and she was headstrong as anything, but he'd spent years teaching her that the town needed her, enough to strike out the years of the town telling her it didn't want her. God fucking damnit.

He looked at Dave, unable to keep the gnawing guilt off his muzzle. Dave had met Sierra, hadn't he? What did he think of Jesse in light of all this? Did he have a partner of his own? Making a kid in a lab, maybe that didn't need a woman.

His mouth cracked open to ask does the kid have a mama? and then twisted askew as he aborted the question. He didn't know what Dave had told the kid. Townies could get weird about separations, divorces and such, depending on species – maybe Dave didn't care, maybe he did. Hell, he might be overthinking this. He couldn't even shoot a telepathic message to the guy, for fuck's sake. He settled for trying to communicate with his face alone and hoped he didn't just look like he was having some kinda fuckin' seizure.

 

[Butterfree]

Jesse looked noticeably tense about the topic of Brisa, a bitter, guilty look in his eye as he talked about how she might've moved out of town. He didn't mention the bit about the fucking mayor trying to get her hanged, but it looked like at this point he kind of wished she had done that, gotten out of there while she could. Different from what Brisa'd said about when they'd last met - that he'd insisted she should've been staying in town taking care of things in his absence. Perhaps prison had given him time to get his head out of his ass.

She'd always been lonesome on account of being tough. A gentle way to put being hounded and bullied. Jean nodded sagely at his description. Wasn't like Dave wasn't guilty of framing things for her as people being jealous because she had powers they didn't.

Jesse looked at Jean and him and opened his mouth as if to ask a question but then didn't, giving him a meaningful look instead. He narrowed his eyes, trying to decode it.

"Her mom? What's she like? Is she a Luxray, too?" Jean asked, eyes sparkling.

Oh. He was wondering about Jean, wasn't he. "We met her, too," he said to Jean. "She's chieftain of a whole tribe out there. They're very no-nonsense and love battling. You'd like them, probably." He turned back to Jesse. "No mom in the picture on our end. Not much room for dating in my life these days when the kids take up most of my time."

"I had a mom when I was a baby," Jean announced helpfully, "but she was a b-word." Dear God, Jean. Dave dragged a paw over his face.

"Yeah, uh, my girlfriend at the time was not exactly open-minded about the Pokémorph thing. No genetic relation, left a couple months in, never in her life. She was nobody." He didn't actually remember telling Jean about Jane - alcohol had probably been involved - but she'd apparently latched on to the idea of having had a mom enough to bring it up now and then, and every time it happened he regretted everything.

 

[Jackie Cat]

Jesse forked more of his food down his gullet, with the welcome benefit of being less attentive to what Dave was saying about Sierra. No mother, huh? Or, no— Dave wasn't dating anyone! Not that it was, y'know. Any of Jesse's business.

"B-word? Oh, bitch, right. I'm, uh, right sorry t'hear that, li'l miss."

He raised a brow at Dave. If you were gonna care about your kid swearing around folks, just don't teach 'em to. Seemed simple enough to him. Or, rather, it had seemed simple enough until he'd heard second-hand that Brisa had called the mayor a 'miserable cunt'. Oops.

(She hadn't been wrong, though.)

He sniffed, and cleared his throat. Metabolising actual food was starting to put his head right by now. There were worse things than sparing a few words about his ex. Even if he didn't have the luxury of dismissing her the way Dave could dismiss his ladyfriend past.

"I'm... on speakin' terms with Sierra, I suppose," he muttered. "After we travelled the Soja' together, it was unthinkable that we wouldn't make a life together after, in a way. We knew each other inside an' out, and we hardly knew anyone else half so well. But bein' close didn't mean we'd always be at ease with each other. We wanted different things, in the end. I wanted to settle down 'round here and keep it safe; she wanted to go back to her people an' do things their way. She couldn't stand townsfolk or their ways and manners; I was outta place amongst the Clan without a hope of makin' a place fer myself. That wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for us already havin' had a kid, y'know? We tried passin' her between us for a time, but she was old enough to get sick of us makin' her decisions for her real quick. Eventually she stayed put with me, figurin' she'd take up as sheriff someday. Damn, but I wish I'd at least sorted her a proper fuckin' badge and all afore I set out."

Jesse's paw twitched repeatedly, tapping his fork – clink-clink-clink – against his plate. He dropped it, and looked on (as if observing another body than his own) as his digits shook.

"I think I fucked up," he said, mildly. "I think... I think I shoulda done it all differently."

 

[Butterfree]

Dave munched on his food, nodding along. Sounded like Jesse's family had had more of a full-on divorce experience. Couldn't have been fun for anyone, but especially not for Brisa, caught in the middle, pushed to take up her dad's job, then left dangling in limbo as he'd fucked off alone without asking anyone.

"I think I fucked up," he said, mildly. "I think... I think I shoulda done it all differently."

Yeah, that was one way to put it. At least the first step was acknowledging it. The guy seemed legitimately sorry.

He glanced at Jean, who looked uncertain, ears lowered. He figured it was all a bit much for her, people loving each other and having a kid and then just growing apart, too real adult problems instead of her simple heroic fantasies. She opened her mouth to speak anyway, though. "I'm sorry, Mr. Jesse," she said, ears perking a little again. "What do you think you should've done instead? Maybe it's not too late to still do some of it."

 

[Jackie Cat]

Jesse returned Jean's gaze. Those dinner plate-wide eyes were so earnest. How did kids manage to say stuff like that, anyway? Had he ever been like that? From the second he woke up in Forlas, he'd been grasping in the dark, every telepathic insight like a floodlight pointing a safe path. No telepathy now, though.

Good question, anyway. It deserved a real answer.

"I think I should'a trusted her more," he said, simply. "An' it may be you're right, li'l miss. Maybe when she gets back, I can do that for her."

[ ] job to do: reconcile with the breeze

And just like that, it was a thing that was possible. A thing he meant to do.

Jesse's paw wasn't shaking anymore.

 

[Butterfree]

One way or another, Jean's painfully earnest question seemed to have actually sparked some new resolve in Jesse. Helping Jesse Stranger reconcile with his daughter hadn't exactly been on Dave's list of expectations here, but he wasn't complaining. The weird itch in his brain about Jesse, the one always persistently reminding him this guy'd been a prick to Brisa, was starting to fade, seeing him say shit like that he should'a trusted her more.

Jean smiled brightly at Jesse. "Maybe we can all go out to see her together when she gets back!"

"Jean, you can't just invite yourself to that. Maybe they want to talk in private, you know?"

She turned a pleading gaze towards Jesse, like she expected to have the right to attend any private conversation if she just turned up the puppy eyes enough. (Those fucking puppy eyes in this form, though. She was going to murder him.)

 

[Jackie Cat]

Jesse chuckled to himself. What a sweet kid. No sense of reserve or propriety at all, huh? He'd be mortified if it weren't for her pa being mortified on his account, which somehow rendered the whole thing merely amusing.

"Well, I ain't makin' any promises, kid. But I can make the introductions, and we'll just have t'see how she's farin'."

Yeah. That sounded reasonable. For all his trepidation, he'd already had the first (fraught) reunion months back, and that was while experiencing a great deal of circumstantial distress. Back in town, with the emerging situation being what it was, he'd be sensible to assume things would be fine. If not amiable, then cordial, at least. He could abide that.

He smiled at Dave, and realised he didn't rightly know what emotion lay under his own skin. Usually he could mark some species of apprehension, resentment, or vindication, at least. What was wrong? Was there anything wrong?

Maybe there didn't have to be.

<><><><><>​

 

[Cresselia92]

Phew! Back at home, at long last! As much as she enjoyed chatting with old and new people at Nina’s, even someone as overly social and extroverted as Lyra needed a little break once in a while for herself and her countless hobbies. First, she was going to write something on her diary, then she could’ve tried something fun like painting glass or composing a new pop song or—

Lyra stopped walking, her parallax-ing gaze having detected the frame of a Deerling sitting by a window. She turned her head to better focus on him — ah, he was very deep in thought — and static jolts zipped down her spine when she spotted reading glasses on his muzzle.

If you see a Deerling with glasses, then you’d better steer clear. That’s Andre.

Right. Silver had told her as much after Andre confessed through Betey-Chat that he was a serial killer, and she internally cringed when her rabbit instincts began screaming at her, ‘fake prey, actual predator, run away’ over and over. Oh, it would have been so easy to just… slip away and pretend to not have seen him!

However! Initial shock from the revelation aside, there had to be something good and heroic in Andre, right? He might’ve been terrible at home, but in Forlas he was doing… fine, and he sounded legitimately regretful when he confessed. That ought to be something worth considering and remembering, if anything.

Lyra took a deep breath, adjusted her hat for extra confidence and to suppress her inner rabbit’s voices, then hopped toward the lost-in-clouds Deerling. “Hey there! Um… Andre, right? Fancy some company?” she greeted, beaming the kindest smile she could muster, which was still plenty bright.

 

[canisaries]

Andre flinched as the sudden greeting tore him from the maelstrom of his thoughts. He turned his head and spotted a buneary with pink accents and a large white hat. He recalled hearing her voice in Betel's network after his confession. She'd seemed quite shocked, and she sounded young. Andre would have preferred not to admit to such grisly actions in front of a child, but he supposed she would have heard about it eventually regardless.

"Yeah, I'm Andre," he said, then paused. Did he want company? Yes, he did, very badly, but was it responsible for him to have it? What if he ended up trying to justify himself to this girl? What if he ended up reconvincing himself of his actions being righteous? He didn't want to go back.

But... he also needed to stay in touch with at least some Wayfarers so that they could come to see him as a trustworthy ally again - trustworthy on Forlas specifically - and not reject a perfectly good mon in their ranks. Well. Functional, not good.

"Company's fine," he said. "I think I could use some."

 

[Cresselia92]

Aw, heavens and stars, Andre sounded so… crestfallen. Which would be totally understandable if he had become an outcast to the others. The notion was strong enough to make Lyra’s heart twinge with sadness, and whatever hesitation she still held faded to nothingness.

Lyra nodded politely, her smile unwavering. “Alright, then! Ah, name’s Lyra, by the way, in case you forgot with the multitude of new people, eheh~!”

As a leap of faith and act of relaxation, Lyra tucked her forepaws underneath her chest, then pressed her entire body against the floor, resembling a small furred carpet or a very toasty bun. She looked outside the window, wondering what to say. Definitely not something like “Why did you decide to become a killer, anyway?” — that would have been a terrible ice-breaker!

Hmm. Perhaps it was best to start with something simple and innocuous.

“So! How has this world been treating ya? Y’know, with this feeling like getting a new life and everything?” she asked, swiveling one ear toward the deer. “It must’ve quite the mental trip going from a world with humans and Pokémon to a world with, well, humans-turned-Pokémon and Pokémon, huh?”

 

[canisaries]

Lyra nodded politely, her smile unwavering. “Alright, then! Ah, name’s Lyra, by the way, in case you forgot with the multitude of new people, eheh~!”

"Nice to meet you, Lyra," Andre said quietly, remembering that politeness was something he used to do and something that had actually been a good thing.

“So! How has this world been treating ya? Y’know, with this feeling like getting a new life and everything?” she asked, swiveling one ear toward the deer. “It must’ve quite the mental trip going from a world with humans and Pokémon to a world with, well, humans-turned-Pokémon and Pokémon, huh?”

"Mm, well, not as odd as it could be," Andre said. "There are plenty of talking pokémon where I come from. Ben, the teddiursa that is, uh, paired with me, is one of them."

Andre looked out the window. "But otherwise, it's been... nice, I guess. It's been a kind of... adventure, like the ones you read about in old school fantasy books. Stopping a huge world-threatening calamity, for example. Never did anything like that at home. I worked..." Andre cleared his throat. "More grassroots, to put it mildly."

He turned to Lyra again. "How about you? Are you from one of those worlds where young plucky heroes save the day, or are you from someplace more..." He wanted to say 'adult', but would have been rude. "Boring?"

 

[Cresselia92]

"Mm, well, not as odd as it could be," Andre said. "There are plenty of talking pokémon where I come from. Ben, the teddiursa that is, uh, paired with me, is one of them."

Whoa! So Andre’s world had talking Pokémon? As in legitimate non-telepathic species who could actually speak human languages? That was pretty awesome!!

“Oooh, neat!” Lyra chirped, pondering how it would be like to live in a world with plenty of talking Pokémon. If anything, it would make things like language barriers much easier to circumvent or outright ignore. “Talking Pokémon are very rare where I come from. Throughout my life, I’ve only met one regular Pokémon who could speak a human tongue.”

Of course, that was without considering the legendary Pokémon. However, did they really speak ‘human’ or were their conversations something more ancestral and mystical in nature? She couldn’t say for sure.

He turned to Lyra again. "How about you? Are you from one of those worlds where young plucky heroes save the day, or are you from someplace more..." He wanted to say 'adult', but would have been rude. "Boring?"

At this Lyra giggled in amusement, her paw covering her mouth. “Well! Lemme tell ya that ‘boring’ is probably one of the least fitting adjectives to describe my world!”

The mirth in her expression shifted into a nostalgic glint, and she began tapping her chin in thought. “Um, I’d say it’s the first option, yep! One of my childhood besties even helped save our home region which is, I mean, something that not many teens can claim! Or many adults, for that matter…” She shrugged. “But well, if it wasn’t us, it would’ve been someone else, I guess. Some other heroes would’ve taken our spots to save princesses, stop bad guys and write happy endings. Kinda like us with Forlas, y’know?”

Her gaze drifted to her paws. Was she approaching a touchy topic? After all, it must’ve been quite the change to go from ‘reckless villain’ to ‘unlikely hero’ in a single go.

“What about your world? Is it ‘boring’ or does it have some form of… ‘excitement’?” she asked, adding a hint of cheeky humor to her voice.