This world is inhabited by creatures that we call pokemon. People and pokemon live together by supporting each other, but now the scourge threatens the safety of the entire region. Kohaku has become a dangerous place, where children stay at home and only brave souls go adventuring.
Welcome to KOHAKU. Come for the nightmares. Stay for the tea and crumpets.
The season is SUMMER. It is easy for survivors to forage for food from the land, as there are entire abandoned farms ready for harvest. On the downside, you can smell the corpses.
swarms
GRAND OPENING !
Welcome to KOHAKU REGION's grand opening! If you're interested in joining, come check out our grand opening giveaway!
for all of the rumor and hearsay about the corruption and terror that surrounds lake pax, sophia thinks that it is no less peaceful now than the days when the researchers would invite her to an afternoon picnic. the only difference being, she is now enjoying the lovely view of the water with a small crowd of scourge pokemon. here in the lemures circle, she can speak to storms.
or rather, jemesis the empress regent. it seemed only fit to call the milotic a regent, as the lemures do not squabble amongst themselves mindlessly as the humans do. it's all a very civilized congregation, although even sophia has to refuse a bite of raw pidgey out of self-preservation. for all of sophia's talents, she isn't sure if she is able to start a cooking fire in a swamp.
"perhaps we could afford to look the other way, your highness. while eos are kept busy in the direction of bacchus, we could direct our efforts at decima. crush the resistance while kohaku's eyes are focused elsewhere. populate the new territory with steel and poison types when melchior gives in." whether she has to force him to flee or crush his head against an icicle, sophia doesn't make the differentiation. the scourge don't, either. "the other scourge should develop some immunity over time as the air recovers. the eos pokemon won't have our advantage, especially if we keep the area secured."
it feels a little odd to be the only one who speaks the kohaku language in a near-silent swamp, but she is among friends here.
Batin doesn't visit Pax very often. There's no use in wandering a land you've conquered. The roads will never lead somewhere else. But this is the first time he's returned since he woke up. The Lucario had wanted to talk to Thousand Swords, and he'd assented. And now there were ghosts at the waterside.
"Decima has already fallen," he said. "Even if we are not the ones to hold it. It's as lost to Eos as this lake is. We should concentrate rather on not losing Bacchus, and reclaiming Bellona, rather than taking a dead city from a crazed man. Cura is ripe for the plucking as well."
it's been so long since she's heard his voice that physis feels as if she's been punched in the gut. months of burying old ghosts can do that to a person. once, she had thought that speaking to them was the only way to live, the only way to keep on the right path.
physis knows a little better than that. her claims on sophia rosenburg are gone. she has nothing left to offer him. physis is nothing except what she chooses to become. this man should be privy to the same right.
she wants to give the rationale clinically, and it is much more difficult than she had expected. her voice remains steady, to her credit.
"i am not going to contest your expertise on decima" or should she? physis has no idea of when he had returned to the waking world, and she's not hasty enough to assume that. "but i doubt that melchior will simply allow a constant stream of scourge past the city. if you have any alternative ideas, then i'm listening"
the milotic on the smooth rock gives him an expectant look. physis keeps her eyes on the court, willing her heartbeat to calm.
He thinks he knows what story she wants to hear. He knows which one he wants to be heard. And no one knows except by the telling which it'll be.
"It doesn't matter what Melchior wants to allow," he answered. The Lucario settled on his haunches and gazed steadily into the distance, his eyes fixed on some horizon that was neither partner nor regent. "What matters is what he can allow. He couldn't defend his own city without turning it into a wasteland and driving away all its inhabitants. If his poisonous atmosphere were to dry up at dawn, Decima would be ours by noon. All he can do is hold the line. He dares not even send out scouts for the fear that if his meager defenses slip, a wave of steel types might wrench his skeletal kingdom out from under him."
Batin laughed. "Do you think he doesn't know this? Do you think the knowledge doesn't gnaw at his very bones? You are brave, Sophia, and you make the mistake of thinking your opponent has your own strength. I've walked Decima's walls and seen the fear that keeps her king tethered to his prison, though he still calls it a throne. No, Decima will let the scourge pass them by, for they can do nothing else. And they will content themselves with stories of how the last fortress is an honorable one. Defiant until the end."
her eyes narrow, which only accentuates how bony her face has become in the last few months by a combination of fatigue and stress. cosmetics had once dulled the effects, but that is a luxury that was no longer of much importance. "whatever your conclusions, my priority is the same." eos has already sent some of its best as far as far as sol city, and physis has the scars on her chest to prove it. a two-front war would be the worst case scenario. "i will not allow the lemures circle to become castle forlorn's choke point" a choke point would suggest that eos could pass through the entrance at all. let them try. physis could use the extra supplies.
when she hears the words 'brave' and 'sophia', the fist in her gut digs its nails into her and starts twisting around the wound. "sophia rosenburg...sophia rosenburg was a coward who had been martyred in nerio" sophia deserved the kind of death that she could not attain at pax institute. physis hadn't cared much for what people would have thought about the girl, but the rosenburg name did not need any more dishonor. one day, they will win. hades will win and physis will restore what was a dynasty of good people. for now, faking enough medical information to fool the authorities will have to do. "...call me physis, if you must."
she sincerely hopes that he will. physis finds the alternative to be rather insulting.
fantine floats to her side to offer her a cup of moomoo milk with combee honey. physis nods appreciatively. "...it sounds as if you have been doing a lot of walking for a dead man"
her cup trembles slightly, but none of the contents spill.
"I was never dead. The dead do not suffer the living to pass, and I was taught that lesson thoroughly. But I have traveled, yes. There is much I do not know yet, but I learned much as well. And I planted what I could, where it could take root. I've spent time with Iskander. He dislikes leaving Juno, apparently, but his metagross doesn't have his reservations." He paced as he spoke, but stopped to meet her gaze.
"I will not agree with all you say, but if you wish Decima, Physis, I will give you Decima."
physis is silent for a few moments. when she finally speaks, her voice is unmistakably cold. not clinically so, but with the sharpness of ice. "you did not think to tell anyone else after waking up? was castle forlorn truly so difficult to find?"
it is only the court's presence that holds physis back from decking this man across the face. would it have made any difference if he did say anything? would it have brought sophia rosenburg back from the dead? these are not questions that physis can answer.
there is much that she does not know about this man. the zahir brand that physis can remember was not someone who would have left sophia to fend for herself (was that the reason she had been so enamoured? physis cannot recall). was zahir real, or a passing shadow that had been conjured by a lonely woman's needs? she does not remember the man's scar, but everything else seems to be in order. if it wasn't, then the scourge would have torn him apart before he even made it to lemeres.
there's no point in dodging the question anymore.
"what are you trying to accomplish? why show up now when you have been hiding from the world for so long?"
she hopes that his answer is good, for his sake. physis puts her hands behind her back and subtly draws her stylus from her back pockets in case it wasn't.
"What castle? What lord? What dominion can we claim? What right to rule, when we falter, when we stand hesitant on the brink of victory? I woke to find we had Nerio in our grip and let it be ripped back from us by children, by the dregs that Eos gathered and fed on the corpses of their great and beloved dead. If I walked alone for a time, would you deny me the solace of my own company, in the face of such deeds? What I wanted was peace, then, and the clarity to assemble a plan. What I wanted was fire, and I woke to ash. What I wanted was to know I was not alone and friendless in a new world. I could not face that knowledge from the beginning; I would have shattered. I approached, in time, those I could survive if they no longer shared our same vision. I came to you last."
they are only simple words spoken by a man. lies cannot hurt her. words cannot serrate her flesh. can the truth hurt her? can the truth seperate sinew from bone?
they cannot, but a woman is made up of more than just bones and flesh. it is a lesson that physis has learned well. she does not even notice when her stylus drops onto the ground from her slackened fingers. her hands ball into fists.
don't pretend that i was any sort of priority she thinks, as if she had not let zahir be for the weeks before his coma. as if she was able to protect him from his own ambitions.
"fantine and i have been fighting across the continent for months" a woman and a froslass wreaking havoc and torturing eos trainers across kohaku was hardly a state secret. "you're going to have to lie better than that if you care about being persuasive."
does he? what does physis have to give to him?
"what have i denied you?" her rage boils to a fever point. "zahir brand, what have i taken from you that you don't give willingly?"
For the first time, Batin's expression flickered to surprise. "You misunderstand me," he said. "I am not mad at you. I am angry with myself. I am angry with the others. I am not angry with you. Ask Iskander, if you wish. Often I was with him. Often I was not. I used to be told I never thought enough--I found I wished to do nothing but think. Seeing you again would have interfered with that. And if you had gone rogue, it would have been more than an interference."
"You have denied me nothing, and I have never meant to imply otherwise. But please call me Batin."
he's dangerous. he's a dangerous man associating with a dangerous woman living dangerous lives while dreaming a dangerous dream.
"...batin, your stories hold power only as long as someone is willing to hear them. someone who needs them " she steadies her trembling breath. "i am not sophia rosenburg. i have little need of stories"
she tells him that this power does not have hold on her. what she does not need does not move physis. that is natural law, that is how the world operates. that is how she can destroy the stories of everyone else around her as if they meant nothing. she does not care whether he speaks the truth or not. she only needs the truth to be real with a finality that can overcome the most persistent forces of change.
He smiled. The side of his face that was scarred pulled red and raw with the expression. Whether it was a pleasant sight or not depended on the viewer.
"My love," he said. "That's just another story, in the end. But you'll see me at Decima. Melchior's head is a tantalizing prize." The Lucario rose from his crouch and began advancing steadily west. Batin strolled after him as if they merely happened to be traveling the same direction.
she had been mistaken. physis had been mistaken to believe that she could sell her heart for the scrap iron that she needed to win this war. the latter was worth far more than the former, but the former was not what was necessary to secure kohaku's future.
maybe she had needed it after all, to protect her from all the things that could hurt her. to protect her from the only man who is still alive to hurt her. physis was never quite deluded enough to believe that she and sophia were not one and the same, but isolating them should not have been this difficult. she watches him leave and fights the urge to run after him. fights the urge to let him leave a second time, to lose him again.
she lets him go. she waits for his silhouette to disappear into the fog.
physis turns around to the court that she had forgotten, although they did not seem to mind so much. the food that was available had helped.
"i'm sorry for that display. i think we should resume proceedings"
the smile on her face could have been faked, but the warm tears in her eyes felt undeniably real.
