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!
the water in pax lake is starting to warm up. theia floats contentedly beside tamara as she wades out a bit, letting the still-cold water wake her up. the sun is rising, and its rays are fractaling on the water's surface, spilling beautiful warm colors all over it like paint on a palette.
tamara closes her eyes and relaxes.
CAEDMON w/ yves horrible staring is horrible but meh
she used to swim in the lake all the time, when she was younger. there was a small cliff along the side of lemures circle that she used to jump off of, actually, and she'd dive into the water. she was a daredevil back then, practicing many dangerous jumps. she'd even do them in the winter, right before the water froze over. just her, a wetsuit and occasionally her father.
but yves doesn't swim anymore. the water is no longer crystal clear, the lake is no longer beautiful. it's ugly and rotten and she doesn't want to be here, but her body betrays her and walks her to this spot, every time. yves lays down a blanket on the sand and opens her picnic basket; sets up her lunch.
there's a woman swimming and yves immediately knows she's an agent-- no civilian or eos member would be crazy enough to go swim in that lake. she also saw a togetic out of the corner of her eye as she prepared a sandwich.
she doesn't hear the woman approaching but theia sees, and quietly points. with her evolution she's calmed down a bit, gotten more wary of her surroundings, and is good about warning tamara before she runs off or gets into fights. she's glad for the change, and with a quiet nod of thanks she raises a hand out of the pocket she'd tucked it into to wave to the woman on the shore. she doesn't recognize her, but the local pokemon here wouldn't let her here, much less spread out a picnic, so tamara will be civil.
the dirty water, she doesn't mind, especially since she's feeding what water-type pokemon linger in these waters.
the whole forest is infested with the virus-- yves can sense it in the trees and grass. she can sense it in her own blood too, as she starts slicing meat and cheese, preparing herself a sandwich. she half-heartedly throws a piece of bread into the water and watches as the infected swanna start to appear, quarreling over who gets the last piece. in a blur of white and blue, they start a fight and a small pack of three emerges victorious. a ducklett head floats in the water, bleeding red and blue into the waters.
she watches theia and tamara swim and chews her sandwich. it's not a resort, she thinks bitterly. but it's only because this was her home. she really has nothing to complain about; she doesn't live here anymore and therefore she shouldn't care. but she does. and she hates herself for it.
"would you like a sandwich?" she calls out, cupping a hand around her mouth to make the sound bigger. it's at that very moment that hope arrives, his face solemn and his mouth bloody. he's been fed, but clearly he's not very happy with himself.
when the swanna swarm, it is not to her, but to the other woman's bread; when the blood runs in the water, more scourge rise from the waters to pounce on the corpse. tamara frowns at that - the scourge should not turn upon their own kind like that. she has half a mind to scold them when theia tugs on a strand of her hair and shakes her head no.
sighing, tamara has to concede defeat. when the stranger calls, she turns to her and smiles. "if it's not to much of a bother," she laughingly says. it's been a while since breakfast - or was it dinner? she can't tell now.
(a part of herself that's still eleanor is appalled at laughing in water that a pokemon died in, but that part's long since been crushed and shoved into a mental box.)
she wades back out, drying her feet on the grass that is beginning to grow again around the lake, before stepping back into her shoes and making her way to the woman's - no, agent, judging by the scourge sableye next to her - and sitting down on a corner of the blanket. she's clean; she doesn't have any worries about dirtying it.
"thanks for inviting," she says with a grin. theia drifts down to plop on tamara's lap, and she starts rubbing the togetic on the head to hear her purr.
she looks out on the water and hums a tune quietly. sableye rummaged through the basket, they had brought paper plates, hadn't they? yves packed them. but the sableye soon discovered that she had packed china plates at the bottom of the basket. blue and white swirls and intricate designs of trees were painted onto them. hope stared at them.
yves started to make a sandwich for tamara; poured her some iced tea. she moved the basket and scooched over, making room for tamara and the togetic. she smiled. "it's nice to see someone who still enjoys the lake."
"i'm yves." she lies, biting down on her sandwich. it's not true, she's not yves. that is not her name. and it never will be. never again will she make this mistake.
"i've always loved the lake," she says as she accepts the plate gratefully. the sandwich is good, and it sates the hunger that she didn't know she had. "it's familiar, and beautiful in the summertime." she doesn't say home, because home has been dead for quite a while now.
"i'm tamara. it's nice to meet you." eleanor is long dead and buried; only tamara lives in her head.
"it's nice to meet you." is it? they're hardly good circumstances. a lake infected with a virus that causes vicious and blood-hungry behavior. maybe she would have said "nice to meet you;" maybe once upon a time. but yves merci doesn't say things like that anymore. she knows better-- thalia's shown her that. and she was going to tell tamara so, but then she remembers how the word "familiar" escaped the stranger's lips as well. she thinks, silent; unmoving.
"familiar," she repeats finally. "familiar, as in you've been here a lot after the virus took over, or..." yves stares at the lake. "familiar, as in you were here before the virus?"i was, she thinks. i was, and i was lucky to see it while it was still beautiful. yves sips her iced tea.
"yes," she says simply. "to the latter. i lived here at pax before the virus." long before the virus, actually; but she hasn't considered pax home for a while. the lake, however, is a different story. "the lake has always been my favorite, though."
tamara takes another bite of the sandwich. it's good, and she swallows it down, idly watching the scourge swanna finish their meal of broken flesh and blood and wander off again. "what about you?"
the water in pax lake is starting to warm up. theia floats contentedly beside tamara as she wades out a bit, letting the still-cold water wake her up. the sun is rising, and its rays are fractaling on the water's surface, spilling beautiful warm colors all over it like paint on a palette.
she used to swim in the lake all the time, when she was younger. there was a small cliff along the side of lemures circle that she used to jump off of, actually, and she'd dive into the water. she was a daredevil back then, practicing many dangerous jumps. she'd even do them in the winter, right before the water froze over. just her, a wetsuit and occasionally her father. 
