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 only watched her pokemon as they played in the sun-speckled glade, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. the riolu was running after sitri, who had -- apparently -- thought it a great idea to tumble every which way and have numerous near-misses with potential hazards.
(needless to say, bael was worried out of his mind.)
watching her two pokemon have fun together was a welcome change from the rest of the forest, where hostile wild pokemon were in great abundance; and, after all, with the rest of the world in chaos, it was no surprise why the pokemon were on edge. delilah could even almost imagine that the places outside of the serene glade were all as calm as this.
silver glinted in sunlight, and the bloodied creature rose from the mass of leaves.
they had triumphed, with wing raring to go for another round. J rest a hand on the bird's back, and its bloodstained wings folded and were tucked close to its flanks. "good job," said J, one of his small, awkward smiles curving his mouth; there was a rumble in the skarmory's throat that J took for a sign of contentment.
the glade was peaceful, but the pokémon there didn't take kindly to outsiders. having seen J and wing as intruders, they had attacked, and the human fought back alongside his pokémon.
together, they settled a distance away from the other pokémon -- only to see another human and her pokémon.
how jarring, J thought; two bloody and fresh off the high of a victory, three calm and enjoying the peacefulness of the glade.
she heard the sound of crunching leaves and rustling grass, and her teal eyes shot up to identify the source. her riolu glanced up as well, pausing in his frantic chase of the playful budew, and automatically tensed. her eyes narrowed as reflected sunlight shone in her eyes, and she raised her right hand to cover her face from the painful glare.
even through the bright haze in front of her eyes, she could make out the figure of a man and his bird. bael's fists clenched; the blood put him on edge. he gently stopped sitri's oblivious rolling with a paw, wondering if he should fight -- when delilah slowly shook her head at her pokemon.
it ... didn't seem as if he would attack them. (she figured he would have done that already, were that the case.)
J nodded at delilah, and returned the wave. "hi," he said, and as if there was nothing tense about the situation, made his way to a nearby tree and settled down. he gestured for wing to move along, and the skarmory did.
even after moving next to his trainer, wing's gaze was still fixed on the riolu. it could sense that bael was uneasy; the clenched fists and cautioning motions from its trainer said volumes.
"was fighting some wild pokémon," J explained, and tapped wing's torso. reluctantly, the bird lowered its head, then its body to the forest ground in a resting state.
delilah smiled at the other person and his pokemon as he sat down nearer to her. bael still followed the skarmory with his eyes, the two of them silently meeting. as long as delilah told him otherwise, he would not attack -- but that didn't mean he had to trust them, right?
she nodded, about to comment how wild pokemon were pretty vicious -- when she took a good look at his face, which stopped her train of thought instantly.
the woman stared openly at him, her eyebrows furrowing slightly. "you ... what's your name?"
J had leaned back against the tree, and thus, tilted his head in delilah's direction as he spoke. his face remained pleasantly blank, but his tone had made it rather apparent that the sudden, sharp question hadn't been taken well at all.
his pleasant-yet-unpleasant reply only made her grin, although she was still rather unsettled. "right." delilah shrugged. "i'm delilah delacroix." the woman glanced at him, raising an eyebrow. "does that ring any bells?"
really, the resemblance was past uncanny and downright freaky.
J scratched the back of his neck, and shook his head. he resumed his previous position, cross-legged and relaxed. "other than the last name, no," he said, "why? is something amiss?"
at this, he turned to delilah, his expression disconcerted.
J's exhale was sharp, almost surprised. related to her, because of a similarity to her younger brother? the man wasn't sure what to say; people in kohaku had been throwing him for loops far too often than he would have liked.
"i see," he said, deciding not to add any more to the conversation; he knew exactly what his family was like, and preferred not being related to delilah much more than he did the other option. "i'm not aware of relatives in kohaku -- i'm from sinnoh."
delilah shrugged; if she noticed his surprise, she didn't show it. "oh, well; it was worth a shot." she honestly didn't know what she would have done, were the answer 'yes' -- but since this man didn't seem to know her, she supposed it really was only a strange coincidence.
her two pokemon returned to her side, sitri snuggling against her leg and bael taking a seat a short distance away. delilah glanced at him with a raised eyebrow. "you've never told me your name, though. what should i call you?" (unless he really wanted her to call him 'person a,' which was an idea she was still entertaining.)
