foolishwren | 90. [Video/Action for Olivine Inn] Dated to whenever Team Silent + Crow gets to Olivine.

Current Mood: resigned
Current Location: Olivine City
Current Music: "Dawn", Poets of the Fall

90. [Video/Action for Olivine Inn] Dated to whenever Team Silent + Crow gets to Olivine.

_{[It's quiet.]

[In more ways than one.]

[Actually, 'quiet' is a pretty good word to describe everything over the past few days, from Heather's perspective.]

[She's been quiet. After making an angry spectacle of herself in front of everyone, she hadn't been in much of a talkative mood. The trip down Route 38 had been spent largely in solemn silence, even after Crow had joined them mid-journey-- something that practically didn't seem possible.]

[The network's been quiet. Relatively, anyway. So many previously-prolific voices had vanished. Those who were left had understandably been left to pick up the pieces of everything that had come undone and, well, it's hard to blame them for being quiet-- those ones who had lost people, anyway. God knows Heather couldn't muster the fire to keep getting angrier as word of new disappearances had continued to flow in. The moment when she had seriously considered destroying a harmless Pokemon egg and its contents had been the moment she'd burnt herself out.]

[And, perhaps the only one that's sort of comforting right now, the city is quiet. The hustle and bustle of summer is both long ago and far in the future and as such, Olivine City in February is a great deal calmer than it had been the last time Heather had been here. That's sort of good, really. They've all needed to do a lot of thinking lately.]

[It's morning-- hardly even dawn yet.]

[At first, the camera isn't even SHOWING Heather. More a very close view of the floor, and the railing at the top of the staircase leading up from the lobby of the Olivine Inn. The cameraman is probably a Pokemon, but who knows which one it is... Godzilla has long since retired from his 'Gear-stealing shenanigans and so has Butch, now that he can WOOOOOO and QUAAAAAAG at his beloved Flapper in person.]

[But whichever one it is, it carries the camera with an air of quiet determination, and once it situates itself within view of its trainer, who seems to be sitting silently by a window in the deserted lobby, it sits itself down with a rustle and zooms in.]}

_{[Eyes shut, she almost looks asleep, except for the fact that she's absent-mindedly stroking something with one finger-- something bristly-looking and pale yellow that seems to be in the process of contentedly nuzzling its way under her chin. ... Something with four bright blue eyes not dissimilar to the odd markings on that little egg she had been threatening to crush last week.]

[The video doesn't last long. It lingers on Heather and the new Pokemon for fifteen or twenty seconds, and then shuts off. Whoever had been filming, it seemed, had no agenda outside of showing the network that, no, Heather had not gone through with her impulsive plan. Fortunately.]

[The whole time, Heather just carries on obliviously.]

[Remembering hurts... but there's nothing anybody can do to change that.]

[Half to herself and half to the creature, who doesn't seem to be aware of how close it had come to maybe NOT EVER GETTING TO HATCH, she mumbles after a few seconds.]}

... Stage five. I think.

That's acceptance, right?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

_{[You did not get between a man and his smokes.]

[They were not in his bag. His sleeping bag. Or the cuffs of his hoodie. 8( IT WAS A MYSTERY. Egg under his arm, Henry crept up to Heather's bag.]

[She wasn't around...she wouldn't care, right?]

[Maybe he had just gotten confused and hidden them in there. Yeah! Yeah, that had to be it! Heather's R-K-9 bag practically looked like the ratty little duffle he had dragged through the dirt the whole way into town. Totally!]}

Nnhhhh. 8(

_{[Anybody walking into the room would catch him poking around uneasily in his fellow survivor's things. He pushed them out of the way or pulled them out and placed them to the side with the same care that an archaeologist might. He was even holding his breath.]

[Partially from just being Henry. And partially because there JUST MIGHT be owls in there. Oh, Jesus.]}

_{[... Henry, you are SO lucky that Claudy's not in Heather's party right now...]

[The bag is mercifully free of owls, but there aren't any cigarettes in sight. And c'mon, man, Heather's classier than that! ... She'd at least ASK you for one first!]

[In any case, the door opens as he's rummaging through her bag and she steps inside-- only to just sort of stop and watch him for a few seconds.]}

... What are you doing?

_{[Henry does this amazing full-body jerk before slowly peering over his shoulder. 8[ OH GOOD. ADOPTED!DAD WASN'T AROUND.]}

Sorry, Heather. Have you seen my cigarettes? I thought they might have ended up in your bag somehow.

Why would your cigarettes be in my bag? I quit years ago.

_{[Although she wouldn't lie... it was tempting sometimes.]

[She strolls over, bending down with her hands on her knees to look in the bag as well.]}

Maybe Dad found 'em?

_{[Henry withered a little.]}

I thought maybe I put them in there by mistake...

_{[At Heather's suggestion the photographer's face blanked. Well. More than usual. Then, the corners of his mouth tilted downwards as he placed the egg on the bed.

>8c MR. MASON! ]}

I'll just have to buy some more.

_{[Heather quirks a brow at him, straightening up and moving around him to plop down on the end of the bed next to the photographer's egg. As she turns, the fuzzy little yellow thing clinging to her shoulder scuttles around to the other side so that it can continue peeping at Henry from a safe distance.]}

Just for the record, Dad knows ALL the hiding spots. He used to find all mine back when I did it, too.

If you wanna keep 'em, you should probably start keeping them in your sock or something. Like, while you're wearing it.

I just might.

_{[8C HE NEEDED HIS SMOKES. Henry notices the movement from Heather's shoulder and freezes. The hell. Was that.]}

...You've got a thing on you.

_{[Whatever it is, all four of its wobbly blue eyes are staring straight at Henry and it was sort of unsurely patting Heather's shoulder with its mouthparts in the same way someone might nervously drum their fingers on a solid surface.]}

Yeah, I know.

The egg I got hatched today. Earlier.

_{[ 8[ .......................... 8[ oh god it was staring at him.]}

I think it wants to suck the liquid out of my eyeballs.

_{[Heather snorts loudly and reaches up to let the tiny spider nibble on her fingers.]}

It does not.

I read about these things. They eat static electricity, not eyes.

If you're gonna be worried about any Pokemon of mine being after your eyes, it should probably be Wren.

_{[The Murkrow is far too interested in anything with a shine to it sometimes...]}

_{[Henry frowns his little NOT SURE IF WANT frown but accepts Heather's words for now. It hadn't...done anything to him yet.]

[Well okay, so his eyes weren't in any danger but he still had no smokes and he'd been awake for a whole hour. THIS SHOULD NOT BE.]}

You sleep alright?

_{[As though reminded by the question, she reaches up to rub at her eyes a little.]}

Eh, I slept okay...

Better than I did out on the road.

_{[A bed did wonders... She needed permanent things right now, and a bed in a room in a building felt more permanent than a one-night camping site. While they were still trekking their way towards Olivine, she hadn't slept well at all. Every moment spent with eyes shut was a moment that one or the other or both of her companions might disappear.]

[And even though so many disappearances-- Aoko... Kaito...-- had happened right under her nose in the Ecruteak in, somehow she still feels better with a floor under her feet than earth. The thought of waking up in the middle of nowhere with two empty sleeping bags next to her is just too haunting to banish.]}

_{[Henry watches her face closely. He'd been worried about his friend. He had met her friends briefly and in passing. He saw how she laughed and talked to them over the 'gear. And now all that was gone.]}

I'm glad.

_{[Not all... thankfully. If it had been ALL, she'd have... well. She'd have gone on. One way or another. But it wouldn't be easy. Even this isn't easy.]

[... But she still has Henry. And her father.]

[She nods a little bit, reaching out to absent-mindedly finger a worn-out hole in the bedspread for a moment or so, seemingly lost in thought.]}

... Hey, Henry?

_{[Henry's brows drift up a little. He snaps out of his 'creative places to hide my cigarettes in that I wont actually forget about' thoughts.]}

Yeah?

_{[She takes a second or two to unstick the Joltik from her shoulder and set it down on Cujo, who is fast asleep, snoring, and taking up most of the upper portion of the bed. It happily nestles in his mane, which happens to be a great source of static electricity.]

[Then she turns back to Henry.]}

If...

Just hypothetically.

If you disappeared from here and went home tomorrow... you'd be going back to the Otherworld, right?

Since that's where you were when you were brought here.

_{[Henry freezes. They spoke about the Otherworld in passing, sure, but he hadn't really thought about going back there. He saw people come and go, but the space cadet he was never really thought about it happening to him.]}

Yeah...Yeah, I would.

_{[And into Walter's gnarly mommy-obsessed claws.]}

_{[UH OH HENRY THIS IS A SERIOUS BUSINESS CONVERSATION NOW.]}

And you said that guy... was doing some kind of ritual to bring God into the world, right?

_{[She just wants to ... to CONFIRM before she launches into a spiel.]}

Something like that...

_{[Here, Henry looks a little guilty. He's been squirreling something away in his napsack for months. The night everyone got something from Home, he'd wound up with his SCRAPBOOK OF NIGHTMARES.]

[And hadn't peeked at it since.]

[Henry was deliberately trying to forget what had happened to him.]}

_{[It's okay, Henry. She's not judging you. She just wants to make sure you'll be okay.]

[Which is probably evident in the way she rests her hands on her knees and just sort of... looks at him with a seriousness that she usually doesn't.]}

What kinds of weapons did you have on you?

Guns, knives, baseball bats? Anything?

_{[Because as good as he is with that fry-basket, she doesn't favor his chances with it if he's against a GOD.]}

I-I don't know. I had a shovel...and a gun, I think.

_{[Henry touched a hand to the side of his head as if ghosts were lurking just outside the hotel room door and making his brain throb against the inside of his skull. He didn't want to think about it.]}

"I know I had a gun."

_{[She nods.]}

Okay, good. That should be enough if you play it right.

_{[After all... she hadn't had much more than that.]

[Piercing him with that out-of-character stare, she spreads her hands.]}

The thing you gotta remember is that gods can die. They can be killed. They're strong but they can be killed. If you get them before they can finish coming into the world all the way.

_{[She's under no illusions... she knows that if somehow God had been fully formed when she took it on, her chances would have been a great deal slimmer than they already were.]

[But she'd done it. It could be done.]}

_{[Henry breaks eye contact and tries to think back to everything that had happened before he lept down that hole like a Sunderland.]}

That's the idea. _{[He frowns at nothing for a while, but pipes up again.]} Do you think..._{my being stuck here is stopping the world from ending back home?}

_{[IT'S A LOT OF PRESSURE FOR SOME RANDOM STONER ART KID OKAY?]}

_{[It's okay, Henry. It was a lot of pressure for a meek nonfiction author and a teenage girl, too. Your friends understand.]

[She blinks at the suggestion, and then frowns and shakes her head.]}

I don't-- no, our time here doesn't... change anything. As far as I know, when people go back, they... go back to the exact same moment they left from.

...Oh.

_{[Henry takes a moment to look physically ill at the thought. He'd been sleeping fairly well too in his little thought cocoon!]}

But. Yes. I was descending into...somewhere. After finding Walter had gotten down off his cross. I think his ghost-self moved it.

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