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!
As soon as she saw the hot chocolate, Tiffany made a grab for it and once she had it she never wanted to let it go. Now that the excitement was over and her adrenaline fell, the cold was very noticeable. Tiffany’s teeth began to chatter, but that didn’t deter her from talking.
At first it started with a, “Nice to meet you, Ahuda,” but then something clicked in her head and she gasped. “You’re right! Oh my—you’re a ranger! A female ranger. I didn’t even know other ones existed!” Even male rangers seemed to be a rarity. Tiffany could only count the number of rangers she’d met on one hand.
“This is so cool!” Pun definitely not intended.
“Wait, what happened?” Her face was blank for couple of seconds before she realised what Ahuda had meant. “Oh that. That was…” She frowned, not all that eager to try and explain.
<She doesn’t look where she’s going. That’s what happened.> Of course Mo appeared just in time to answer Tiffany’s question for her.
“Whatever, it was all your fault. Now be a nice partner and get me a towel like hers did.” <What? Me? Be nice to you? After that?>
And this is where Dizzy stops writing because the Tiff vs Mo squabbling could go on forever.
Yeah, she'd noticed that there weren't a lot of other rangers around, but Ahuda'd always assumed it was because everyone else was out fighting scourge. But the female ranger thing, though, was something that had her eyebrows rising. She didn't even get the chance to interrupt as Tiff continued on.
Ahuda deadpanned at the rotom and the ranger fighting. "...well, at least we're not like that, right?" she asked Madonna. The pokemon gave her a flat look, before shaking her head and simply holding out a towel to the other ranger.
"...yeah, you'd probably whack me over the head if I tried anything like that." Her partner only gave her a satisfied look over her shoulder in that serene way of hers.
Ahuda cleared her throat, this time speaking to only Tiff. "Got a douche of a partner?" she asked, grinning.
Tiffany shuffled on her feet and unbuttoned her coat. If there was a sign that could warm her up, then she unfortunately did not know it – unless she was desperate enough to outright burn herself, which she wasn’t. “Look, everything’s completely s-soaked n-now,” she complained at Mo. She wanted to say more but her teeth had started to chatter and she kept her mouth shut.
Besides, Ahuda was catching their attention. The squabbling had to be put on hold for now.
<You can’t call me names,> Mo whirred angrily. The angry whirring was more cute than intimidating. <You were trying to sell me out to those Sharpedo too!>
“W-well we w-wouldn’t’ve h-had to if y-you h-hadn’t—” Tiffany had been trying to defend Ahuda, but threw up her hands, and coat, up into the air and gave up. Talking with chattering teeth was downright annoying. She looked at Ahuda and her Mienshao, hopefully, and made one last effort. She pointed at the blanket and asked, “G-got a-anot-ther?”
She raised an eyebrow at the Rotom. "Sorry about that, but you were the most convenient excuse at the time," she said, purposefully blunt. Just because she was a ranger didn't mean she didn't know how to take an opportunity when she saw one.
She glanced towards Tiff as she asked for a blanket. She didn't really know, to be completely honest, and she glanced toward her partner for her to answer the question. The Mienfoo gave a quick nod toward both of them, a stern glare at the Rotom, before she was off to only-she-knew-where to grab another one or dozen blankets for Tiff.
Her Axew pokeassist held up a canister that seemed to radiate heat in the cold. < more hot chocolate? > he asked, looking from one ranger to another, and Ahuda shook her head. She wasn't finished with hers yet, but Tiff might have.
dizzy just a note: madonna is a mienfoo, not a mienshao, lol. she'll come in with the blankets next post.
Mo paused. While the ranger had apologised to him, she had also called him convenient and he wasn’t quite sure how to take that. He honestly wasn’t quite sure how to take the entire apology – partially because of the way it was said, partially because being apologised to was something that nearly never happened.
“S-s-stop g-gawk-king,” Tiffany brought herself to say. It was the last she spoke for now, as she paid more attention to keeping herself moving. Even as she smiled at the Axew – aww cute – and accepted the new hot chocolate, she was wriggling some part of her. Now she had a hot chocolate in each hand warming her up.
<Is that a happy drink?> Mo asked, curious. The question was open to everyone who wasn’t Tiffany as he knew his partner was unlikely to answer. Freezing cold aside, she never liked telling him when happy drinks were present.
Tiffany shot him a funny look. Was he really still going on about the happy drinks? Lucky Ahuda; she’d bet all her money that the Mienfoo didn’t have a personal mini-quest to obtain and drink alcohol.
nette ffff--whoops sorry. i’m in a thread where someone has a mienshao out and must’ve got the two mixed up that and i’m bad with pokemon post-gen 3 >>;
........Ahuda didn't really want to know why a rotom knew about happy drinks and just alcohol in general. She was just happy that her partner only had a confectionary and cake love, as well as an obsession with medical books. Although she wasn't sure which was worse, considering that the Mienfoo insisted on returning to Proserpina at least once every two weeks to check out new books.
Speaking of the Madonna, she was trotting back towards them with a mound of blankets in hand, almost towering over her head. Ahuda took another one gratefully, because it was damn cold, while the pokemon piled on the rest - about four or five - on the other ranger. Arceus, she had motherhenning tendencies; but Ahuda wasn't about to complain now.
"Thanks," she said to her pokemon, who nodded back. She didn't want to know where she was getting these blankets either. She sighed, before turning to the rotom. "That's hot chocolate. But how in the name of all that is good do you know about happy drinks?" Although Tiff was pretty funny, juggling two hot chocolates at once, screw not wanting to know, this was interesting.
Blankets! Sweet, soft, warm blankets! Tiffany had never been so happy to see a piece of material in her life, but all that happiness was quickly crushed – literally – under the weight of the blankets. “Ow.” Just how many were there? Tiffany tried to shrug a couple off without spilling her drinks so she could better manoeuvre the others. Nothing had ever been so hard.
Mo nodded, as best a Pokemon without a neck could, at this new information. So, this particular happy drink was called a ‘hot chocolate’, was it? It struck him funny how humans had different names for them all, but at least that meant there was more variety for him to one day try!
<Can I have one?> He asked. It sounded on the verge of a plead. Now that his partner was busy trying to figure out how she was going to hold all those blankets and a couple of hot choclates, it was his chance to get what he wanted. <I’ve never had one before. All I want to do is taste the sweet, delicious happiness.>
He purposefully avoided going into detail.
Tiffany coughed loudly, but that might’ve just been her being cold.
Madonna hadn't meant to crush Tiffany under the blankets. She really hadn't. But even she couldn't resist snickering into a paw as she drew some off the poor ranger. Ahuda didn't give her a glance - she was used to her partner's antics, and instead stared at the rotom.
"...what." she rubbed a hand over her eyes before trying to talk again. "...okay, i don't know what is going on in that small pokemon head of yours, but what." she reached out a hand for one of Tiff's drinks, if she wanted her to hold them while she settled herself again. "Is he allowed to have hot chocolate?"
Tiffany looked at Madonna gratefully. Seriously, the Mienfoo was great. How nice it must be to have a helpful partner… Tiffany could honestly space out into a daydream about that, and very much would have if one of her hand warme—I mean, drinks hadn’t been taken from her. Yes. Drinks. That’s what you did with them. “Oh sure. Give him that one if you want,” Tiffany answered. “As long as it doesn’t have the a-l-c-o-h—”
<The what?>
“Something really yuck. Pokemon don’t like it.” More like no one wanted to risk a drunk Pokemon.
Mo gave her a suspicious look but it didn’t last for long – not with the promise of a happy drink finally about to be fulfilled.
Tiffany looked back at Ahuda. “So how's the ranger thing going for you two?”
Ahuda just... stares at the duo, before shaking her head. She's not going to concern herself with this. She's not. Absolutely not. She gives the rotom the cup of hot chocolate that she took is holding, carefully. While giving him a weird look, but hey, she could be excused, right?
The question, she latches onto to avoid the headache that is a drunk rotom. "Okay, so far - still yet to actually go out into the field yet, but we're managing. Thanks for asking, though. How are you guys doing?"
Ahuda was very much excused. If Tiffany was in her shoes she may have done the same but with more talking. Maybe a comment here or there hinting at how weird it was.
Mo happily accepted the cup, and was guaranteed to be quiet until he had finished it. If the Axew was smart, he’d keep offering to refill the mug.
“No way, neither have we!” Tiffany exclaimed, probably a little too enthusiastically. Again it was nice to know that she wasn’t the only one (although Ahuda probably had a decent excuse, according to EOS). “We still haven’t gone to Bacchus yet, but we’re heading back over that way. You’re doing the same, right?” Like every other member of EOS. Duh, Tiffany.
The Axew is not, smart, and has only come with a limited amount of hot chocolate. The next refill will be the last; and if the rotom asks for more, he'll give it a stern glare and a head of the shake no. Too bad for him. Poor Axew; he'll probably be pestered to give more. Alas, such is the nature of mortal pokemon.
Ahuda smiles. "Yeah, or we're training to, at least. But we've got a long way to go before we're at that point. I'm thinking of stopping by Ceres and all the other cities first instead of heading straight out to Bacchus. You?"
Oh dear, that will not do. Not at all. Thankfully though, Mo is still drinking his drink and doesn’t require a refill yet. He drinks rather slowly since drinking out of a mug isn’t easy for a Rotom. (Seriously, his hands are made out of electricity. I don’t even know how he’s gotten this far).
“Ooh! Definitely check out Ceres.” Tiffany started to count things off her fingers. “You can get berries there, eat Clamperl chowder at Juturna tavern, the Amberwell looks reall pretty, and Ceres is just way nicer than Di Manes, you know?” The cold, dark caverns had nothing on the pretty and lively forest.
Except for the whole scourge thing that would happen in the future.
Tiffany frowned. “Actually, we’re stopping off in the caverns. Unfortunately. There’s supposed to be a ranger outpost there somewhere and an old guy there teaches rangers some sign.”
<Don’t forget about Juturna.>
“Oh, right!” Tiffany nodded and added, “I forgot. We’re gonna stop by there for some Clamperl chowder!” She said those last two words more enthusiastically than anything she had said all day, such was the magnificence of the tavern food.
Mo looked disappointed. The chowder was nothing compared to the mystery of the tavern's happy drinks.
ahuda grins. "ceres, huh? i used to live there, before i decided to go and become a ranger." she doesn't mind being told the wonders of ceres by someone else - she's grown used to it now. "and yeah, juturna has some good clamperl chowder. are you visiting there before you go to di manes?"
Tiffany near enough gawked at that. “Seriously? You actually lived there? Like, where? In the village, or were you, like, I dunno – living in a tent?” She had never met someone so… rural before, and now viewed Ahuda in a different light.
It wasn’t a bad light. Just different. Like when you see a rare Pokemon for the first time. A very rare one.
Even better, the rarity also shared her view on a certain meal. “Just ‘some’? All that Clamperl chowder is good! And I guess so. It makes more sense since it’s on the way, right?”