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!
She spent most of her dreams at the training center or perhaps browsing the stalls at the grand bazaar. She didn't normally find a cafe to sit down for a meal.
Today was one of those days though--or nights, rather. It was one of those dreams, where she didn't want to train.
Neo wanted a pleasant dream. She wanted time off.
It was a wine bar, perhaps, or maybe it was just a café that served fine wines and girly cocktails. Neo didn't really care. She just liked the soft lighting and plush sofas. There was a haze of sweet smoke, and most tables were armed with hookahs. It was warm and cozy, and she potentially shouldn't be at this sort of establishment alone.
A waitress delivered a frothy iced coffee to her, sweet like sin, and Neo nursed it while poring over an ancient tome.
the dream world is as close as physis will probably get to civilization, these days. it's kind of fitting when she bothers to think about it. it's a place that doesn't require the scourge's protection. it's a place where she can be another woman in the crowd again. she wonders if the women who do it so effortlessly appreciate such a blessing. probably not.
she sits down at neo's table silently. "put the drink on my tab. i will also take a chai tea latte."
Neo looked at her new table companion. She wasn't used to women buying her drinks, unless it was Delilah. Neo opened her to mouth, to say I'm not interested, before she realized that was a rather large assumption.
"for punching that man in the face." she says it with minimal inflection. "he's the reason that my fiancee is dead."
not technically a lie, as disinclined as physis was to believe batin's words. that belief was still easier on the both of them, isn't it? better to have a lie than the total absence of truth. except the truth leaves no one.
physis manages a small smile. the whole situation is a lot less painful when he isn't standing in front of her with his shit-eating grin and deceptively gentle words. that didn't mean that it doesn't hurt at all. physis was not meant to exist while zahir brand still walked the earth. except he doesn't, so it's sophia rosenburg who suffers instead. "tell him that sophia still hasn't forgiven him. i doubt that he would care, though. not a man like that."
the server brings their drinks, and physis gives him a crisp bill that she had ransacked from the corpse of an eos breeder. "...i shouldn't have brought you into my personal problems, sorry. it's probably better if you stay far away from him."
it would certainly make taking places such as decima town much easier.
"I wouldn't assume that. He might care, if he remembers who you are. He's a sentimental man. At least he was when we first met." Clearly, Neo's understanding of the relationship between Batin and Zahir was faulty. In her defense, she didn't have all the facts.
Neo laughed, a drier sound than usual from all the smoke in the air. "I'd say it's better for him if I stay far away from him."
It wasn't an empty boast, but she dropped the arrogance quickly. "Thank you for the concern, but it's job to do my best to stop him in all his endeavors."
"...i wasn't able to watch all of the interview, but i did get the feeling that you two have met before. when was this?"
was this before batin had taken over the mantle? or after? she feels her frustration accumulate as she thinks of all the times that zahir and batin both ran off without telling her a thing. batin was understandable. zahir, she expected better.
"...you are a part of eos, then." she takes a drink from her latte mug. "i guess i should have known, but i had other...things on my mind at the time of the airing."
"We're fated enemies, apparently. We've fought... four times now? I'm starting to worry that I've been failing to kill him because I've gotten fond of him." That was a joke. Neo had nothing too personal against Batin--except for the jabs he kept taking at Melchior--but otherwise, she considered him alright for an agent.
Neo tried to think back on her encounters with Batin. They were scattered, but numerous enough that it was hard to keep track. "Long time ago, was the first time. We fought. Second time was in Decima, and I didn't know it was him. He was unmasked that time."
"...unmasked?" physis somehow manages to keep her tone barely interested. "seems kind of risky for someone who is wanted by an entire organization of trainers"
this is the sort of bullshit that sophia rosenburg is missing out on when her back is turned, apparently.
"That's the point of the mask, isn't it? No one can recognize him without it. I sure didn't. I let him into my house."
Neo took a long drain on her coffee, ice tinkling as it settled. "He was a polite guest though. He's always been polite enough in battle too, minus the trying to kill each other thing. Did you know him well?"
"so then you don't really know." physis closes her eyes and wonders if she sounds disappointed. she cannot help but think of the night that she had met a ranger who had iskander's face. god knows they could have passed for each other without masks. "...although i have heard that decima is a small town."
"i didn't meet him until very recently. i'm not much of a trainer--" not a trainer at all if the non-scourge would not take orders from her. not anymore. she sets down her mug gingerly. "--so i can only assume that my fiancee had played a part in keeping me away from him." away from all of the ambitions that he didn't think that she would accept. who knows exactly what he thought anymore? she is no medium (although she doubted those would help in her case). she has no way of speaking to the dead. would zahir even speak the truth, had he been alive? awake?
she hesitates. contemplates the risks of asking about the unmasked man in decima. how much does she truly wish to learn about a dead man? tick tock. she finalizes her story. "maybe...maybe the man was unmasked in decima because it was not batin at all. the risks seem too high otherwise."
"A small town," Neo agreed, "and even smaller now, with almost everyone is dead."
She'd met different people that were eerily similar to each other. Neo collected the facts Sophia had offered, scattered as they were, and tried to piece them together. "Was your fiancee related to him? If he has a brother of similar appearance and stature--well, then I suppose it might not have been Batin I let in at all. Ms. Brand never mentioned any sons to me, be it singular or plural."
"...i'm sorry." maybe not in the way that neo would interpret it, but that's how they're having this entire conversation, isn't it?
"my fiancee only told me as much as he thought that i should hear. i only know that he had family in decima town." physis warms both of her hands against the warm mug. "...i think you already know my guess. watching the interview was...more difficult than i had imagined."
her hands start to feel numb from the heat of the cup, but she does not let it go. what did it matter in the dream world? she will wake up the same, just as she always has. "patrols found my fiancee's body awhile back. i thought that i had made my peace by now. would you..." she hesitates. "would you tell me about the man at decima town?"
physis doesn't even question why she keeps constructing these masks anymore, but it feels more natural than anything else that she has been doing.
Neo could've declined to answer, but she had a good memory. She didn't see any harm in sharing what she could recall either.
"There's not that much to say. I was visiting the old house. Shouldn't have bothered, everything was soaked through with poison. Can't even call it a home anymore.
"He showed up while I was there. I suppose he was looking for a local for directions. There are still a few in town, even now. Some people just don't know when to call it quits.
"He told me about his mother. I knew her but not particularly well. She lived down the street, used to keep an eye on me when I was teenaged and dumb. I brought him over to her house, and he had the keys to enter.
"We talked a bit about... things. Pleasantries. He said he was food critic. In hindsight, Batin once said that he'd loathe being called a bad cook. Maybe I should've noticed something similar between them back then."
She pauses then. She trusts her memory, and she knows what Zahir had said. She wonders who it was that he loved. Perhaps he had a fiancee.
"He said there was a girl he loved in the city. I told him he was lucky to be living a love story."
She spent most of her dreams at the training center or perhaps browsing the stalls at the grand bazaar. She didn't normally find a cafe to sit down for a meal.
