Frontier Town Traveller's Haus - Lobby

[Jackie Cat]

Restlessness haunted Jesse better than any ghost ever could. Apparently some poor critter was holed up at his old place, and something kept him from going back there. He took a room in town, and soon wondered why he'd bothered. His mind played tricks on him, telling him he was back in the cell, telling him it wasn't even night. He shifted, rolled, got up, washed his face at the tiny little metal sink, swore at himself under his breath, tried to play his little mental games that had kept him going before...

This was supposed to be home. He was back in Frontier Town. His mission far from over – and feeling strangely abstract, small and far away from this place – his next steps unclear. No Brisa, nor her wildfire of a girlfriend. What had he imagined doing when he came back? Well, he'd expected to be back more than a year ago, with a story to tell, one that would justify his absence. And then he'd always looked forward to finally sticking it to Voclain, of course. He'd made up his mind about that bastard a while back. But no – there was no Voclain. Not even his snotty little brat of a son. Whoever that kid had been had since been replaced with a polite young fellow who'd asked for a clean slate. You and me both, kid.

He found himself out of doors, blinking suspiciously at the gaslamps, disoriented by the newness. Some things were the same, sure, but it wasn't Greasewood at the bar, and nobody he recognised was ordering. He let himself out, mumbling something about looking for someone. Who, though? Come the fuck on, Jesse. There was nobody to go to, and he knew it. Oh he'd had friends, sure, but no blood-brothers, no partners-in-crime. The memory of those folks as he'd ever spent much time with had hardly sustained him this past year, had it? And after all this time, he doubted they wanted him showing up at their doors, all haggard and needy. Goddamnit. He felt like a fucking letter without an address to go to.

Before he knew it, it was fucking dawn, and he'd walked half the fucking town. His paws ached, as did his head, his heart, his stomach. He wanted a drink, and real food, and someone to fucking talk to who wouldn't look at him like he was a half-feral 'mon.

The path of least resistance was one he'd walked down enough times before. This time, it lead him to Dave's door.

"Ambrose," he barked, with a sharp knock. "You awake?"

 

[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.

 

[Shiny Phantump]

The threat of going stir-crazy was not a foreign one to Lillie, but Forlas presented new challenges on this front. Reading was the only pastime she had that really translated, and even she had her limits on how much she could read before it grew tiresome. She didn’t have any access to the internet, obviously. She couldn’t get away from people by hanging out with the conservation area ‘mon (or, more recently, Nebby) instead, because the venn diagram of nearby people and nearby ‘mon was just two fully overlapping circles.

That meant she had to talk to people. Or go insane. Two compelling options to choose between, but at leas the latter meant she could maybe also get another angle on what the Wayfarers even were. (Gladion had told her his version while they were talking about Gladius, but he hadn’t exactly espoused reliability as a narrator that whole time.

She’d made friends once before by accident, how hard could it really be to do it on purpose? (Much harder. Many of the Wayfarers were scary.) All she had to do was wait in a public place for an ample befriending opportunity, and then pretend she hadn’t being doing that on purpose and has just happened to run into them. A foolproof plan.

An ample-seeming befriending target appeared in the form of a Persian who didn’t have too intimidating of an emotional aura… That was Jade, right? One of the people Gladion trusted, but not quite the bestie status of Laura which was good. (Having the same friends as her brother would be awkward.) Unless she’d gotten which Meowth was the Alolan one and the Continental one mixed up and this was Laura. Or unless she was even more mistaken and this Persian wasn’t a Wayfarer at all.

That was a risk she was going to have to take. She approached Jade(?), trying to look nonawkward. She’d managed to evolve into a Kirlia mercifully quickly, but was still getting used to being taller than a foot again, which made that difficult. (Worse, she was pretty sure she was taller than a normal Kirlia would be, as if the lankiness of her her human body. Which bode poorly for evolving into something even taller.) Wait, but she also had the sword she’d asked Gladion for and even if it was pretty much just a foil she still might look threatening if she approached too confidently. Socializing was hard. But there was no turning back now!

“Oh, Hi! You’re Jade, right? My name is Lillian. I’m one of the new ones, Gladion’s sister. And Gladius’ by extension.” (Hm. She didn’t actually know if Jade had a counterpart summoned for her like her brother had. Should she ask that? Was it rude to start immediately interrogating Jade’s personal relationships? Maybe she’d ask that once they were actually having a conversion. If Jade wanted to have a conversion at all, which maybe she wouldn’t! Maybe Jade would just say hi back and leave. That was probably what would happen.)