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Post by Deleted on Jun 2, 2016 3:12:14 GMT
Shopping was like running a gauntlet, to Astrid, and she was sure she never would have agreed to go if D'artagnan had not been so insistent.
Which, okay, he couldn't talk- not in any language she understood. Pokemon seemed to understand one another well enough, and they had a good grasp on human languages, which made her wonder sometimes if they chose not to speak, instead of being unable to do so. Either way, even without any language she understood, her Persian had been incredibly persuasive. Maybe it was his loud, raucous meowing, when she had made mention of her hesitance to set foot in anywhere so crowded and bustling as the Richitev City Mall.
Her visit hadn't been... bad, at least. Not yet, and she had gotten most of the things on her list: sleeping bag, travelling clothes, rations... she'd had her picture taken for her passport, and she had also gotten a much bigger suitcase, to carry her things.
Astrid had also gone to the local Pokemon Supply story, because D'artagnan couldn't enter any place of business without getting some kind of treat for himself, which explained why he now had a new collar, and why her new bag was heavy with rather pricey canned food. A lot of it, actually, although she supposed she had gotten a good deal on it. The salesman had made a comment on that- and, of course, she had been unable to respond, merely nodded and dropped her eye to the ground and following Dart out of the store.
She guessed that most people didn't have trouble like this. Everyone seemed so happy to be out in about, when all she wanted to do was get home and hide with a good book. Every single inch of this place was packed full of people, all noisy and happy and pressing too close and walking too fast and it had been too, too much at once- she had felt her breath catch and her chest tighten like a vice-
Dart had brought her to the food court and found her a quiet little cafe to sit in. It was busy, but the customers weren't loud, and there was enough space between tables for her to be comfortable. Astrid now sat in the far corner, a cup of hot coffee at her hand, her spiral notebook open in front of her as she carefully and meticulously checked off items from her list. D'artagnan lay stretched out under the small table, lapping up a saucer of very expensive, incredibly tasty meat stew.
Astrid sighed, biting the tip of her pen, brow furrowed. She still needed a first aid kit, stocked with the special supplies she needed for her eye... she sipped at her coffee and thought, mentally mapping out the best path to the local pharmacy.
Maybe she could make it there without having to actually talk to anyone. One could dream. |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 2, 2016 5:37:11 GMT
I WANT TO EMBRACE THIS SUMMER TIGHTLY BECAUSE I'LL BE BY YOUR SIDE, ALWAYS It was hard enough for her to get around the hustle and bustle of Richitev while taking up so much room on the sidewalks. Many people looked at her with question of what’s wrong, why she couldn’t walk, but she tried not to pay mind to people who questioned her. She didn’t like to talk about it, and that was that. Either they were staring at her legs or they were staring at the bug Pokemon seated on her lap and looking off in disgust because bug types were often seen as the grossest and freakiest. She wanted to gather a few things before heading out of town again, needing to get her fifth badge in Chalaz City before turning around and coming back to Richitev for her sixth battle, but Richitev was really one of the only places that had a lot of the things that were accessible. Thankfully, the shopping center did provide an elevator, which she very much made use of when she could, but even so, the place was still crowded. After a while, she found herself giving up a little bit and needing to take a bit of a break from being around such a crowd of people and often having trouble getting through some areas with her wheelchair. Resolving to the thought that she needed something to drink, she decided to go get a tea from the nearby café. She wasn’t really expecting it to be super empty, but it was more crowded than she originally thought it was going to be, and there seemed to be only one wheelchair accessible table with a placard on it that wasn’t covered up by a laughing teenager thinking that that table would be best to hang out with their friends. Hero made a small noise on her lap and she gave a small smile. “It’s okay,” she whispered kindly to him, shifting herself slightly in the wheelchair before rolling over to the counter, ordering her tea, and pivoting herself toward the table with the lone girl and her Persian. “Ah—excuse me,” she was soft spoken, and bit her lip slightly, “I don’t mean to bother you, but do you mind if I sit here with you? All of the other tables that I could use seem to be full…” She didn’t mean to startle the girl at all, and if she did, she felt a bit bad for doing so. [ OOC ] @astrid MADE BY ★MEULK OF GS |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 2, 2016 5:58:27 GMT
Astrid was engrossed in her list-making and her thoughts, and did not at first take notice of anything strange or different.
D'artagnan, however, was considerably more observant, and his ears twitched up at the first sound of wheels approaching them. When he saw that another human had come to join them at their table, he took note of several things at once; one, she was female. Two, she was bound in a chair with wheels, which was only alarming if he thought she might run over his tail. Three, and most importantly, she had a Bug in her lap.
Dart knew about Bugs. He knew they were pokemon, like he was. He knew they varied in size and shape and durability. He also knew that his favorite time of year was when the Nincada hatched and crawled out of the ground, and there were several days full of crunchy, buggy delicacies. This Bug did not seem the same as the Nincada, but it was similar, and perhaps it wouldn't mind if he chewed on it a bit? He did so love that crunch.
He sat up, slipping out from under the table, and offered a loud greeting, both to say hello, and to preemptively alert Astrid to the presence of a strange.
"Nyaorooowm."
The noise, and then the voice that soon followed, was enough to bring Astrid around. She looked up and blinked, one good eye wide as she surveyed the girl before her. She felt her cheeks heat, but something cold settled in her chest, and she heaved a breath in. Calm. Calm. Be calm. She needed somewhere to sit. Wheelchair. Special seating. That made sense. Calm. Calm...
Her Persian moved to rest his big head on her knees, and Astrid swallowed hard and nodded, studiously avoiding Evelyn's gaze.
"Yuh-yes, that, um, a good, that's f-fine, that's..."she had to clench her teeth and fall quiet, breathe in, before she could control her stammer. "...yes. If you wuh... want to." |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 3, 2016 3:13:17 GMT
I WANT TO EMBRACE THIS SUMMER TIGHTLY BECAUSE I'LL BE BY YOUR SIDE, ALWAYS Hero seemed to make a slight noise of discomfort when faced with the large cat Pokemon, watching the movements carefully and cautiously and hoping that the cat didn’t try anything. Evelyn could tell that he was a bit on edge, and held him a little bit closer against herself, deciding that she would just return him to his Pokeball if necessary. Hero was never fond of the Pokemon that he just knew that they knew moves that could hurt him, since he wasn’t the toughest Pokemon around when it came to the Pokemon that knew moves strong against him. Hearing the meow of a Persian caused her to clear her throat first, biting her lip softly and shifting herself a bit in her chair as she wheeled a bit closer. She sounded a bit awkward herself as she spoke, but she did need a place to sit and relax. Her voice was kind and slow, trying to figure out the right words to say so not to seem rude or intrusive. Evelyn could almost sense that something was up just by the avoidance of her gaze, but she didn’t say anything about it. She knew that people avoided looking at her and her wheelchair all the time, so it wasn’t really a new occurrence for her, in all honesty. Hero watched the cat Pokemon ever so slowly, lifting himself from Evelyn’s arms and settling on her head, causing the trainer to giggle slightly from his movement as she reached an arm back and pulled her pastel hair over one of her shoulders. Listening to the girl slightly stammer a bit, she bit her lip, feeling a bit of guilt from just coming over and intruding like she did. “I’m sorry,” she apologized, “Thank you very much. I’ll try not to be a disturbance… your Persian is lovely, by the way. My name’s Evelyn.”[ OOC ] @astrid MADE BY ★MEULK OF GS |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 3, 2016 5:53:59 GMT
Well-
Well, at least this strange girl seemed to understand that she needed to be patient. Astrid felt her heart rate slow just from the easy tone of her voice, and she appreciated that, because most people didn't care at all, or thought she was simply being rude, or making things up- but she never was.
Slowly recovering from the initial shock of their meeting, Astrid remained quiet, at first, after the other girl spoke. She could simply ignore her; that was a possibility. Duck her head and finish what she was doing and move on, leave a tip for the waitress, and she was sure the other girl- Evelyn, she told herself- would probably think she was rude, and doing it on purpose, and that was... that was a terrible thought, honestly.
The other option... could she be brave? She glanced down, and took note of D'artagnan; calm and easy and with his chest puffed up from the compliment he had been given. He looked up at his owner and blinked, slowly, opened his eyes until they were just slits, and the look was warm and reassuring, and Astrid took comfort in that. This girl wasn't a danger, at least. Dart would be acting much differently if she were.
So she took a chance and lifted her head, inhaled slowly, and spoke. "...I'm... Astrid."
No stammer this time. Small miracles.
Satisfied that Astrid would be kept occupied, D'artagnan refocused his attentions on the Bug. It looked strange, and smelled strange, but he was sure it would crunch very well in his teeth. Very satisfying, if he could get it- though he didn't want to kill it. Honestly! An owned pokemon was different from a wild one, even when hunting. He just wanted to... chew on it. Maybe a wing? Maybe if he asked nicely. He was very handsome; he very often got what he wanted just on that basis alone.
He opened his mouth and quirked his whiskers. "Nyaowr." |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 5, 2016 5:32:14 GMT
I WANT TO EMBRACE THIS SUMMER TIGHTLY BECAUSE I'LL BE BY YOUR SIDE, ALWAYS Evelyn couldn’t help but be overly cautious. She was very familiar with people who had invisible illnesses, and if she could guess, it could potentially be classified as that. While her illness wasn’t invisible, she spent enough time in the hospital to have knowledge of people who look perfectly normal on the outside but really struggle in other ways. She always tried her best to stay patient with people—it was one of the things that she thought that she was good at. For a long while after the accident happened and she lost her ability to walk without assistance, she became sheltered and didn’t go anywhere, but after getting Hero, she pushed herself to become a trainer and she was traveling around now and overcoming her disability. She wasn’t sure if the woman would even introduce herself. She did say that she hoped that she wasn’t bothering them, and sometimes people had their own business to attend to and wanted to block out any outside interaction, which she could respect in some ways, but part of her wished that she could actually meet someone because it was hard to really find friends anymore. No matter, one person ignoring her couldn’t discourage her, or she was never going to accomplish anything. The girl did speak up though after a while, introducing herself at Astrid, which caused a smile to form on her lips. “Nice to meet you, Astrid,” she repeated the girl’s name in order to keep it sticking in her head so she could put a name to her face. As she took a little sip of her tea, she couldn’t help but ask out of curiosity, “What are you doing in Richitev City?” pausing for a moment before answering it herself so as not to seem too invasive, “I’m a trainer and I’m just passing through to get some stuff for my trip.” Hero seemed to give a suspicious look to the Persian, but that in itself was kind of hard to tell because of the lack of actual facial expressions the Shedinja really had. As he watched the Persian’s motions, Evelyn lifted her hand and gently pat him, able to tell that he was antsy for some reason, but didn’t really understand why. [ OOC ] @astrid MADE BY ★MEULK OF GS |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 6, 2016 20:57:54 GMT
Oh, god. Conversation. Actual, organic conversation, with another human being who hadn't sneered at her when she stumbled over her words, who had smiled and gotten that oh-so-gentle look in her eyes, like she understood, like she could just tell that it wasn't Astrid's fault, and that... that meant a lot. Astrid wondered if this girl knew how much it meant, when so many people simply wrote her off as rude, or spineless, or soppy. This girl wanted to speak with her, regardless.
"Nuh-nice to m... meet you. Also."it took a breath or two, but Astrid managed to respond, and was silently proud of herself for doing so. She took a few deep breaths, felt the aching tightness in her chest slowly release, her ribs relaxing, her lungs expanding. There was a weight on her legs and she looked down; D'artagnan was resting his wedge-shaped head on her thighs and peering up at her with lazy, half-lidded blue eyes. He was purring, and his forehead jewel was shining, and it was further reassuring. Astrid let her fingers run over his head, then used her fingernails the scratch at the bridge of his nose, so that he scrunched his face and quirked his whiskers at her, and his purrs became rough and interspersed with what she knew was his form of laughter.
She looked up when Evelyn spoke again. A trainer, was she? She hadn't seen a lot of trainers using Shedinja, but she could see the merit, considering their special ability. She was glad that Dart was behaving himself; she knew he liked a good, crunchy bug when he could get it.
She cleared her throat. "I, um... am a ruh... researcher." she chose her words carefully, and took her time, so that things came out with minimal stammering. "I have a new... a-assignment. Assignment, with the indiguh-genous tribes. I'm ruh-research-hing their... relationship. With pokemon." she paused. "O-or, I will be. I cuh-came here to get su... supplies, first." |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 9, 2016 23:18:02 GMT
I WANT TO EMBRACE THIS SUMMER TIGHTLY BECAUSE I'LL BE BY YOUR SIDE, ALWAYS Evelyn adjusted herself in her seat. She was never one to be rude to another in conversation, especially considering she herself knew that she needed a bit of a handicap in more ways than one because she knew that she often got in the way of people because of her chair and she was often seen as less of a trainer because she couldn’t walk, but that didn’t stop her from trying to be as great of a trainer as she could be. She was patient, and her Shedinja moved his eyes off of the Persian for a moment to look back at Astrid curiously, but didn’t look at her long before making sure that the cat Pokemon wasn’t going to try anything with him. He’d like to stay in one piece, that was for sure. She could hear the slight purring coming from the Pokemon that had rested his head on the other’s thighs, Evelyn holding back a bit of a smile as she thought that it was kind of cute. Hero shifted himself a little bit and floated off of Evelyn’s head and back into his normal position on her lap, seeming to feel a little bit less threatened by the other’s Pokemon. Evelyn ran her thumb gently over his thorax to keep him calm. Hearing that the girl was a researcher intrigued her. She had never really met a researcher before, though part of that was her own fault because she kept to herself more often than not. As she mentioned to indigenous tribes, Evelyn cleared her throat slightly. Personally, she was in favor of just leaving them alone, despite the fact that they might be interesting, because she didn’t think that it was right that the government was displacing these people for their own benefit. But she could see why people would want to research them as long as they didn’t disturb them too much. “Mmm… It is kind of interesting, isn’t it? I…” she paused, “I don’t really know much about them, to be quite honest.” She found herself giggling slightly as she mumbled, “I can’t even really get over to the island even if I were curious about them. I think they should be left alone. I don’t think it’s fair to disrupt them, though I am curious.” [ OOC ] @astrid MADE BY ★MEULK OF GS |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 10, 2016 5:00:27 GMT
Astrid listened silently, and nodded, just a little. Personally... She wasn't sure how she felt about the indigenous tribes. She found them utterly fascinating, honestly, and she wanted to know more about them, but as for whether or not they should be left alone...
She wasn't sure. It was a complicated topic.
"S-so much of what we... What we know. About them, it gets... Skewed. By the muh-media. By... The people who pay for it. I guess I want the... Real story." of all things, this was a comfortable subject for her; her research, her real passion... She could have spoken of them for hours.
She paused, and looked down. "With... With the right service Pokemon, maybe, you could... Could go to different places..." something large enough to tote her chair, and her, if need be, over rough terrain. Something gentle and well trained. "I know a trainer who... Breeds them. Service Pokemon. Um- I d-don't mean to be... Presumptuous. I just. D'artagnan is mine, my service, I just thought... Nn. I'm sorry." she turned faintly red and fell quiet. Dart curled his tail in a lazy arch over his back.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 11, 2016 2:17:50 GMT
I WANT TO EMBRACE THIS SUMMER TIGHTLY BECAUSE I'LL BE BY YOUR SIDE, ALWAYS Evelyn completely agreed. She didn’t want to presuppose anything about the tribes due to the media because oftentimes the media was very one-sided, or threw things out of proportion, which wasn’t really helpful at all, quite frankly, especially for those who couldn’t go over and experience them themselves. At the same time, she didn’t want to turn into one of those tourists who just contributed to the desecration of their culture and way of life. She didn’t think it would be right to interact with them even, but she wasn’t even sure. In all honesty, she hadn’t really thought about it to a great extent. “It’s not fair to them… but people are still going to say things and the government is still going to try to get them to come to here so that they can turn that island into… I don’t know, maybe a resort or something,” she found herself saying, though it was hard to tell if it was actually in contribution to the conversation or if it was more of a muttering to herself. She rubbed her thumb against Hero again, a wistful smile on her face as she used her free hand to take a drink of her tea. At the change in topic to service Pokemon, her smile went flat. She had heard about them before, but she cleared her throat and caused a smile to rise to her cheeks again. It wasn’t that she had anything against them, but she didn’t want to admit to needing help, even if there were places that she couldn’t really get to on her own. Oftentimes she would just convince herself that she didn’t need to go to the place if there was no way for her to with her wheelchair. As her lips downturned slightly, she found herself jumping as the other girl began to apologize. “Ah—no no,” she quickly said, “I—I’m sorry. I… try not to think too much about the things that I can’t do. I like to focus on just doing things that I’m able to do and even if there are things that I can’t do I know that I can still do lots of other stuff so I try not to let it get to me… I—I don’t want to say that service Pokemon are bad I think they are wonderful but I just…I don’t know if I could deal with having one in general. And if I could I don’t even know what it would be. Hero here has helped me through a lot and is there for me emotionally so he’s like my own little service Pokemon even if he can’t help me in areas made for walking people…”[ OOC ] @astrid MADE BY ★MEULK OF GS |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 13, 2016 11:10:27 GMT
Astrid was quiet, for several moments, and then reached into her bag, pulling out her wallet, and from it producing a small, dog-eared business card. She put it on the table and slid it across to Evelyn, then pulled her hand back and looked down at her teacup. There wasn't much left in it but a fine layer of sludgy tea and several leaves, clouding the bottom. She had heard somewhere that some people could read tea leaves. She wondered what hers would say.
"...th-that's the... when I was little, and my parents guh-gave me..." she reached down and stroked D'artagnan's head, scratching gently around his jewel. "...they got him fruh-from there. As a meowth. He was trained, they select- buh-based on what you need, so you get..." she shrugged. "...muh-matched up. Properly. Maybe they can... only if you w-want."
She just... it helped, so much, to have a pokemon trained to help her where she needed it. Her disability only became physical when she had panic attacks or got sick from nerves. To be in a wheelchair, in a world that wasn't always fair to the disabled like it should have been... it might help to have a pokemon that could assist. |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 22, 2016 5:09:27 GMT
I WANT TO EMBRACE THIS SUMMER TIGHTLY BECAUSE I'LL BE BY YOUR SIDE, ALWAYS Watching the business card slightly, she bit her lip and reached over to gently take it and read over it, scanning it with care and wondering if it was a good idea for her to look into it. She didn’t admit that she needed help at times, so she kind of resolved to not dealing with places that didn’t accommodate with her inability to walk. It didn’t bother her too much considering she pushed it out of her mind for most of her time since she had gotten so used to it. Her eyes scanned the card once more before she gave a small nod of thanks before letting it disappear into the outer pocket of her bag for her to find later after forgetting about it. “I…I don’t know,” she commented softly back, “Thank you…” wanting to make sure that she properly thanked the girl so that she didn’t think that she had done anything wrong by giving her the little business card, considering her first response seemed a bit iffy and Evelyn wanted to make sure that Astrid clearly understood that she wasn’t crossing any boundaries by giving her the card or anything. Evelyn fully understood that the world could often be unfair to her, but that was one of the reasons why she set out to become a trainer in the first place. To tell the people who were against her that she could do something like this.
“Hero is my big support right now… but maybe I could stop by the center and see what they would say to me…” She spoke softly, almost musing to herself, but speaking aloud in a somewhat interested way. She wasn’t exactly sure if a service Pokemon was something she necessarily wanted, but she couldn’t help but be a little bit curious as to what kind of Pokemon they would offer for her circumstance, considering she could imagine a lot of Pokemon there were probably given as emotional support and not physical support, especially not for younger people like herself. She gave one more pause before glancing back to Astrid, thumb wavering over the Shedinja’s abdomen before finally saying, “Out of the few accessible tables for wheelchairs, I’m glad that I chose your table to join in this crowded area. You’re really lovely company…”
[ OOC ] @astrid MADE BY ★MEULK OF GS |
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