Rosaline sat around a table with three very large, very burly men. Each held a handful of thirteen cards, and each wore a different very face, which was determined by what sort of cards they had and was viewed in the dim light of the third man's attic.
Rosaline watched them and their faces. She thought about the types of men they were: the first was a simpleton, playing for fun. He always looked jolly, of course, but his smile seemed forced now. She assumed this could only mean he had a bad hand or he was tired. It was quite possible it was a mix. It was his turn. He set down a five of spades.
She turned her attention to the next man. He looked like this move had pained him, but not much. The second man had all the wealth - which would undoubtedly become hers by the end of the game - and all the cards to spare. He set down a six with ease.
The third man was greedy and it showed. His eyes shone with hunger and he sat with a hunched, pointy expression. His eyesight was not good. He began to select a card from his hand, then slid it back and set down an eight. The first man made an impressed noise.
Now it was her turn. Hidden behind her dark hair that all the Callico's shared, her eyes traced each man. They waited for her patiently. The corner of her mouth twitched as she set down a king. The men did not look shocked, nor did they look impressed. They should have been, though, because that was the fifth king she'd laid down on the table.
Her cloak snickered with the secret stash in was hiding amongst its curtains. She rolled her shoulders and sank lower into her chair. It creaked beneath her weight.
Surprisingly enough to her, they all folded. They could not pass the king. She mused that all the good cards must have been the downturned ones. She stretched her hand out and the second man snorted, then handed her a small stack of Pokemon dollars.
Just as they were starting their next round, the door on the first floor burst open. The four card players jumped in their seats as the attic door swung open, light bursting in.
Eric Callico's silhouette was immediately recognizable to Rosaline. A tall, lanky form, he stood with one arm glued to the door, the other glued to his side, and his eyes glued on her.
"You. We're leaving. Now." He said. This was directed at Rosaline, of course, but it seemed to confuse the first and third men.
"We just started another round." Rosaline replied calmly. Her voice was a bit unsettling: it sliced through the air like an icicle. "Come join us."
"No, Rosaline, now." Eric plucked a torchic feather from his sweater before he marched forward and seized his little sister by the arm. She tripped out of her chair, her cloak flying. Her whole extra set of cards flew from her pockets and scattered out among the floor like leaves in the fall. Two pokeballs escaped from her pockets as well. They opened the moment they hit the floor.
A murkrow flew up into the air, crying out angrily as it flapped about in front of the mens' faces. An umbreon scurried across the wooden floor and onto the table, taking the wads of cash placed as a bet in its jaws and chased off after it's trainor, who was being dragged out the door. The murkrow, after seeing that the job was done, left without another caw.
After they were outside, the two stalked down the poorly paved road that lead back to the town. Eric did not speak for five minutes. This would have been unsettling to anyone else, but Rosaline was the part-time queen of silence.
Then, Eric said, "You need to stop doing that."
She looked up at him innocently. "Doing what?"
He gestured to the umbreon that was holding a rough estimate of 300 pokedollars in its jaws. "That."
"Oh, come on. It was all in good fun." She said, smirking. "Come on, we can buy something nice with that!"
"No."
"Yes!"
"No."
"Please?"
"No."
Raindrops splattered against the entirely black top of the two girls umbrella, the plitteringing of the rain being almost entirely drowned out by both the girls boots splashing against the violently muddy flood plain. The two's shoes wrenched mud from the earth with every step making the heels and toes caked in a protective layer of the stuff.
"You really should. It'd help out with your pro-"
"I don't have any problems physically or mentally so I would appreciate if you didn't say anything more on the matter."
The ginger closed her mouth and assumed her favorite variation of the puffy cheeks. This proved quite ineffective on the umbrella holder, who trudged past, leaving the ginger to be buffeted by the light rain that was drizzling from the sky. The real storm would start up later that night, and the girls were headed back from high school swimming club.
"Edea get back here!" The ginger girl tried to lift her foot up for a heavy sprint, but just managed to fling mud at the back of Edea's coat.
Edea turned her head in a very sober annoyance, and continued walking away. The ginger girl screamed as her boots got stuck in some hidden trap in the grass, pulling the girl to the ground, her pink socks now fully exposed and turned instantly brown.
Before she even had the chance to let a tear of frustration out, she felt a shadow slid over her vision, a umbrella being stretched as far as it could go over her body.
Edea was crouched down, her shiny black hair slowly getting matted down in the rain. She wore an expression that looked akin to boredom, but the tiniest of smirks pulled the corner of her rather thin lips.
"Kimi, thats the third pair of socks you've ruined this month."
"Two and a half." The ginger automatically replied, wiping the mud out from her face in a hurry. The mud bath wasn't too bad, and little freckles splashed across her nose already surfaced with one quick wipe. "You're going to buy me a new pair right?"
In response, Edea pulled away the umbrella from the prone form of her friend and started walking away wordlessly.
"WAIT!" Kimi tried standing up, her hands slipping in the mud and causing her to plunge even deeper. She thought she heard the slightest puff of amusement, and then the shade of the umbrella slid over her once again.
Jewel dreamed she was sitting on a justice scale. She sat in the very middle of the scale. In each cup of the scale there was a pokemon: they were the two pokemon she would decide on to complete her team. She hadn't been challenged in a while, but she knew she would have to choose between the two.
On one side of the scale sat her beloved Elgyem, and on the other her best Espurr. They both stared at her with that empty stare that most of her pokemon held. On one hand, her Elgyem was an excellent fighter, but her Espurr had good stats and was very talented in the art of creeping the audience - and usually her opponent - out.
Not that she needed that kind of help. She knew this. She was a confident fighter, with her vivid pink hair and her flowing dresses that looked like those of a goddess. The scale tipped just a tiny bit, sending her tumbling off the middle and onto the ground and sending her back to reality. She woke in her silk sheets in a calming manner. She knew, of course, which pokemon she would choose. She glanced at the set of pokeballs beside her bed. They looked so blissful, she thought, in the darkness. Almost like they were sleeping.
She wondered if she would disturb her pokemon if she released them into her room. Slowly, she reached over and took one out of its padded bed. She released her Espurr onto her bed, and it blinked at her with those unsettling violet gaze. She smiled as it curled into a ball and fell asleep at her feet. She did the same with her other pokemon; Elgyem and all the rest. Then, after the room was filled with sleeping pokemon, she dozed back off again.
"I can't believe you're making me wear this stupid thing." Cain let out as audible groan as the girl who was fitting around with the eyeshadow and mascara she applied heavily around his eyes. Someone else picked up something behind him that made a very leafy rustling sound, like they were manhandling a palm leaf.
He saw the monstrosity that was a mess of fruits, colorful cloth, and two enormous pineapples jutting out like spiky horns, and his heart plummeted.
"No. Please. This is where I draw the line-"
"Come on plllleeease? You promised!"
He promised to help out with the stage crew, and two hours later he was somehow forced into womens clothing, a bra and fake breast rubber implants pressing against his skin. He didn't know how but he would be one of the background dancers for a scene nobody else wanted to volunteer for. The choreography made him beg to quit multiple times, but the more he protested the more the vicious girls around him blackmailed him with events that he thought nobody knew or at least forgot about. This was the first time he would be asked to actually dance with full makeup and costume, and no one had informed him that he would be playing a woman.
"Cain, just this one time. You'll be instantly popular!"
"Yeah. Super. Everyone will be lining up to talk to the crossdressing belly dancer guy." he said in mock excitement.
"Thats the spirit! Now the fruits you'll be practicing with will be fake for the first few practices, but once preformance day nears we'll actually buy real fruit hats!"
Cain was a rather small boy for his age, being smaller than most of the girls crowding around him, and his figure was slightly feminine, but once he saw the makeup he knew in his heart that he never had the heart to be a cross dresser.
"This makeup makes me look more like a Grotesque experiment than feminine." He deadpanned.
"Dont say that jerk! We worked really hard on that you know? Here, we'll wipe it off then try again." The flock of girls started wiping his face, some harder than others, and they attacked his face once more with beauty utensils and clouds of powder and makeup.