Tamin walked through the guildhouse's halls. Her head faced the ornaments which decorated the walls, and her speed was a perfectly casual pace. She couldn't look much more unassuming to onlookers, and any pokemon wouldn't look at her for more than a second. But that was all her intention, as an unassuming posture and look kept different intentions hidden beneath.
As she walked on her two grey paws, she carefully listened to the many conversations and words coming from the other guild members that were present. She could not help herself to simply keep herself away from eavesdropping for very long; it was a hobby to the minccino, and being able to know about who she lived with made her feel safer as she could plan around what she learned. She picked up the skills to endure an abusive household, so she had not yet known an environment where she didn't need them.
Tamin began at the upper floor, figuring she could work her way down from there. Recently cleaned roof above her; well made hand railings to her side, it was a superficially comfortable environment. But what she could see with her eyes wasn't what interested her, it was what she could hear. In that section of the guildhouse, she could hear the voice of Max the arcanine speaking:
"Hey Armin,"
"What is it?" Armin said as he turned his head down the hall to look, having one foot inside of his room as he stopped to talk.
Tamin slowed her pace down to be near stationary, avoiding getting too close to them so they would not notice her. She continued silently listening.
"I was just wondering how you've been. Generally. I haven/t checked up on you in a few days," the arcanine explained.
"Oh… I've been fine, thanks for asking," Armin replied in a down tone; the kind that could spread sadness to someone else just by heading it. He then turned his head back towards the open door to go forward again, but couldn't get any farther before Max spoke again.
"I wish I could believe that," he interjected. "But I can tell that's not the case."
"Look, I just want to do some drawing right now," he said in an exhausted tone.
"You can tell me what the problem is, you know that."
Armin paused at the doorway for a moment, seemingly frozen in place with one foot in the room and one paw on the frame. His body stiffened in the crossroads of indecision, unsure whether to respond to Max directly or fully enter his chamber. Ultimately, he accomplished neither as the result of his indecisiveness.
"Let me guess, you're missing your home again?" Max inquired.
"...Yes," he admitted, nose dropping down to point towards the wood floor.
"Armin, I might never fully be able to understand how you feel, but I understand what you're- wait," Max tried to reassure but stopped himself when he realized his words were contradictory with themselves. "Look, uh, just know it's not gonna be like this forever. I'm always going to be here for you, even when you feel down. Believe me."
He spent yet another second idle. He could tell that Max's words were crudely thought up on the spot, but his mouth couldn't help but change into a small smile.
"Thanks. It means a lot," Armin said as he stepped away from the door towards the arcanine. The homesickness from his voice was lessened, making the tone closer to what Tamin had heard from him when Armin originally rescued her from the forest dungeon.
"No problem," Max said with a slight head nod.
Armin walked over to Max, leaving the door open. He kneeled down a small amount and wrapped his arms around the arcanine's neck to hug him. They were both silent, not even saying a whisper into the other's ear. Tamin could tell if they did whisper.
In this moment of distraction, Tamin took a chance by peeking around a wall to look at where they were. As the door was left open, she could look into it to see a room that far more resembled an art studio than a bedroom. Canvases of work in progress pencil drawers were directly across from the entrance, and she could see many completed drawings hung up as well as countless artwork supplies. The pictures were almost entirely of landscapes and cities Tamin did not recognize, with there being a few in color as well. Oddly, she didn't see any drawings of pokemon among what was visible. More common than any completed drawing were scrunched up pieces of paper, whether stuffed into a trash bin or flooding a desk, there were countless papers of unfinished sketches that consumed the space of the room.
"I'm always here for ya, pal," Max said again.
"Thank, Max. I needed that," Armin said as he began to step away.
Armin went back to his room and Tamin tucked away to avoid being noticed. This time, the lucario fully enclosed himself in the confines of his chamber by shutting the door.
"So there are some artists in the guild, and Armin feels homesick. Interesting to note," the minccino thought to herself. "Max does seem like a good friend. I guess I hope Armin makes it back home, wherever his home is."
Tamin casually walked forward again. She passed by Max but made sure her behavior was sufficiently nonchalant that the aranine would not suspect a thing. She was right.
The minccino descended down a floor shortly thereafter. She continued along the outer walls as she knew full well that the walls to the personal chambers were too thin to stop her large ears from hearing the guild members who spoke too loud for their own good. It was not too long after she got down there that she began hearing voices again. Passing by the walls to the guildmaster office, she heard familiar voices eminatting from therein.
"What did you want to talk to me about?" Espeon asked from behind his desk.
"I heard about someone named 'Valance' that Olivia told me about, so I was wondering if you knew anything about her," Locke was heard responding.
Intrigued by hearing her friend in a conversation, Tamin shifted herself to be closer to the office wall so she could eavesdrop better.
"Oh? Well, she used to be a member here- an excellent explorer- in fact," Espeon began going off of memory as he was partially surprised that Locke would bring that up. "She was a luxray that came here with her family- or what remained of it- a few years ago. Joined the guild to support her family and did her best with every mission she did. Even without formal combat training she got the hang of things quickly and it was clear that she was here to stay. But come two months later, she departed in the afternoon on a mission just like any other, and she… and she," Espeon's voice got more emotional, and with that emotion came sputtering, "...her charred body was carried back to the guildhouse."
"Oh…" Locke said, noticing how much it was affecting the guildmaster to recall those things.
"No, it's not your- it's okay for you to be asking," Espeon said, still emotional.
"I didn't know anyone had died here," Locke admitted, his head lowering as he couldn't help but feel guilt over making Espeon feel that way. Although those smaller details were ones that Tamin couldn't detect purely through audio.
"The guild has been around for a few decades, and we've had a few members who took their scarves to the graves. Six to be exact, whether that'd be for old age or getting killed on the job.
I don't usually tell new members about them since it can scare them away, but- but I don't want them to just be forgotten. Every grave feels like a mistake I've made, and I can't just push that away. I'm… I'm not sure what to do, if there is even anything for those who have already passed and been given their funeral ceremonies…"
"I think I get it," Locke said. His mind tried to come up with a dark humor joke related to the subject to make a quip on, but decided against saying it as it would be disrespectful given Espeon's state.
"I wish I could tell you more about her, but I regret not talking more to her in the short time we had her. I remember she was quite brave, if having a bit of a short fuse, but I have trouble remembering, which I regret."
"Thanks for telling me that, I was just curious. Although it's said that curiosity killed- err- nevermind," Locke said, biting his tongue to stop himself from saying a joke at a very inappropriate time.
"You're welcome. I can show you her grave if you want to. And if you want to know more, her husband and a daughter of hers are still alive and they manage an ice cream shop in town. I can easily give you the directions for that."
"Nah, I think I'm good. I guess I was just curious because Olivia said she a luxray," Locke said as he began to turn around.
"Understood. Have a great day, Locke," Espeon stated.
"You too."
As Tamin heard the conversation come to a close, she stepped away from the wall and continued stepping forward.
"So Locke's investigating… something, I guess," Tamin pondered as she walked away. "I guess now he's not just a shinx but a… shinx-stigator? Sh-investigator?... Investinx?
...I'll figure out some pun later."
Tamin shook her head around a bit and continued walking around the main floor of the guild. Like a serpent constricting around their prey, she adopted the strategy of starting with the outer halls and spiraling around while working her ways to rooms closer to the center of the floor. Although she persisted with keen observation, the few exchanges she heard amounted to short small talk: miniscule quips in the grand scheme of things that could neither serve the minccino's knowledge nor interest.
After making a second trip around the main floor and gaining even less insight than the first try produced, Tamin sighed to herself as she understood what this meant: the other members must have been gathered in the lounge below. She briefly considered stopping the eavesdropping to just retreat to the solitude of her room, but that thought was dismissed as she decided to bite the bullet and check out the basement. "I can't just keep avoiding this basement forever in my stay here, I'll have to be going down sooner or later. So I might as well do it now."
Descending down the staircase served to remind her of how much she hated the underground floor. Uneven boards, unkempt quarters, and amounts of design inconsistency so vast that 'spades' would be too small of a unit of measurement to properly suffice. But as she expected, there were pokemon in the lounge, relaxing on the provided furniture.
She hopped onto an unused space on one sofa, leaned her head back, closed her eyes to avoid the details of the basement from annoying her, and let the various voices passively enter her ears. For minutes on end, it was more of just the same smalltalk that was of little note. But before her patience had expired, there was a feminine voice that caught Tamin's attention.
"What've you been up to as of late?" it asked.
It was not the words that caught Tamin's attention, but the familiarity of the voice. By the voice and the exact way it echoed and muffled on the basement walls, it sparked feelings of deja vu. In a moment of insight, she had a flashback of recollection to something she had heard before. "Have you been handing notes to other people?" was what Tamin heard from that strange conversation she eavesdropped on a few days ago. It came to mind as she realized the voice she just heard now perfectly matched with what she had heard then.
"Nothing much," Hunter's voice replied. "I do need some downtime between my pranks. Both to let myself have the necessary time to scheme, and let guards be lowered."
"Masterful planning, if I do say so myself. A-pol-o-gies that I don't assist you with your pranks more often," she said.
"Nah, it's alright," Hunter reassured.
"Ak-know-ledged."
As Tamin continued focusing to eavesdrop on them, she heard that the voices were growing more distant. The two were walking away, which in the domain made with solid walls of thick earth, would have been very troubling for someone seeking to listen in.
The minccino hopped down from the sofa she sat on and began following where she had heard the voice. She began stalking them, using her soft paws to avoid creating sounds, skill to remain in stealth, and controlling her body language to avoid looking suspicious. Following their voices down the many halls and sharp turns, she was relentless in her pursuit, she was deadlocked on finding out what was going on.
"So I have to ask, what do you think of the new members at the guild?" Hunter asked.
"They are certainly in-tri-guing, those two," the feminine voice replied. "I know we're all aware of the shinx's anger issues (and I'm well aware of the mileage you're getting out of him), but I'm personally more fas-cin-at-ed in the minccino as of this moment."
"Yeah. I pulled one trick off on Tamin by disguising myself as Locke to fool her two days ago; but honestly, I'm liking her. I had some plans for more to do with her, but after that first encounter, I think I'm cancelling them."
"And can I ask as to what way you 'like her'? Your usual criteria for liking others seems to be based on their reactions to your foolery, but if you're not wanting to prank her, then what's going on here?"
"Well, umm… you know," Hunter said, his voice cracking slightly. Although he wasn't stuttering, the sentence abruptly cut off. As though he had spontaneously become mute.
"Heheh, I think I do know," she replied, giggling like a child, but not quite the same. There is something innocent to a child giggling, but there was nothing innocent when Yuki did it. It was a subtle difference hidden behind a veil, but one that Tamin could pick up on.
"Yeah…"
"As for me, I personally just think there's more to her. So I'm far more interested in digging that up then I am with the mom-en-tary emotions of some wild pokemon."
"Makes sense,"
Tamin continued trying to covertly stalk them as the half-siblings went deeper into the basement, but danger signals were flaring through her cranium that made her precise movements harder to control. They were talking about Locke and her, which isn't something she could react to in the same way as if they were talking about anyone else. But as tense as that was, she knew she did have an advantage this time: Rustin was not around to stop her like he did last time, so she was able to continue investigating to the limits of her own skills to solve what was going on with that eerie conversation from days prior.
"What else do you want to talk about?" Hunter asked.
"Hmm… nothing, I suppose. I considered doing one last supply run to buy the stuff for me and him before it started snowing, but I think I'll be fine de-part-ing outside in the winter."
"'Bout what I expected."
"You must be getting better at predicting me, if that's the case."
"You must be in need of stepping up your game, if that's the case."
"Hehe, there is wisdom in that," Yuki said, that cursed giggling returning. "Anyways, can I ask what plans you have?"
"I'm working out my plans for what I think might just be my best prank yet. It'll cost a small fortune, but can you really put a price on infamy?" Hunter said as he passed into a smaller room.
"Oh? Well now you've more than just captured my a-ten-tion," she said as she came to a stop, resting in the same room.
The room they had gone into was a tight space, little more than a meter wide and with thick walls of unadulterated earth on all sides except the entrance. The dirt was perfect for both being too thick to let sound through and too soft to allow for sounds to echo off of it, making it an effective counterplay to any eavesdroppers.
Due to these hazardous acoustics, Tamin was forced to get closer to them in order to continue listening in.
"I think I would like to use your help for this, just a little bit. I hope that'll fit with your schedule."
"Do not fret, it'll be fine for me. Now go on," she reassured.
They naturally dropped their voices in addition to being in that secluded room that they had naturally walked to like it was second nature. Tamin was hugging the wall that led up to that room at that point, but even with her position and keen ears, it was still difficult to decipher the individual words. So she leaned in closer to them.
"Great. Your role won't be anything hard, just blocking off certain routes like we did with Olivia's plan. I'm still going to do the bulk of the work here.
Actually, on second thought, would you have an easier time purchasing all the stuff we might need for the contingencies?"
"Glad-ly. There's a good chance I have some of it in my room already."
The voices were still quiet, dropping in volume as they spoke further instead of gradually increasing in volume in a natural way. For this reason, the minccino tried to get just a tiny bit closer.
"Excellent, I have a good feeling about this now."
"And on what day are you planning this apparent magnum opus of yours to take place?"
"Tomorrow if we're lucky, this week if we're realistic."
"And against whom will it be?"
Tamin leaned closer.
"Why, our good ol' friend little Locky, of course~" Hunter said in a teasing tone.
At that point, Tamin leaned farther than she was able to, causing her to lose balance and trip up. While she was able to stop herself from completely tumbling onto the ground, it did cause her to hit against the hard ground of padded earth with her body weight close to the room entrance. That, in turn, caused a sound to be made.
As the sound echoed, Tamin was able to hear the conversation between the two half-siblings abruptly stop.
"Hmm?" Hunter said.
"Shoot, " Tamin thought to herself.
With a rush of fight or flight instincts coming in, the minccino chose the latter. She turned around, got on all-fours, and sprinted away from where she was back towards the lounge.
For a minute she tried her best to navigate through the vexing halls, its details once again becoming infuriating for her. Almost every hallway was the same exposed dirt and lazily installed wooden planks. As she had not remembered the route she took to get there, and as she sprinted through it while stress filled her mind, it was not long before she had to accept the fact that had gotten herself lost in the halls.
She stopped behind a wall to stand up and rest, taking a chance to orientate herself to figure out what to do next.
"I hate coming down here, I knew I shouldn't have come down here, but I'm stupid and went down here anyways. Now I'm lost down here." Tamin thought as she looked around. "Although those two are clearly up to something that's off. I need to tell Locke about this once I can finally find my way back up. And I should never come down here again."
Tamin continued to look around, forcing herself to look at the infuriatingly uneven details. But without even knowing so much as which direction north was, she was hopeless. It all looked identical to her, it was all just an endless labyrinth of inconsistent styles and unfinished walls.
Unable to gain any help from her sight, Tamin figured she would have to rely upon her trustworthy hearing instead. She prepared her large ears again and listened carefully once more for a voice, any voice, so that she could follow it back to places she knew. When she didn't hear them immediately, she began carefully walking around to search for more noises that weren't muffled by the earth.
It took some time, and in that time her worry built up higher, but eventually she could identify the faint sounds of vocals speaking:
"It sure sounds like you've been quite vigilant at your job," the voice said, in the middle of a conversation.
Tamin recognized the voice: it was that of Mawile. Tamin remembered her voice from when she spoke with her in the lab, and could match it with what she now heard. Tamin silently stepped closer to the voice and kept listening.
"Indeed. I can keep managing it, even with the burden that the new members are adding," Sylveon responded to Mawile. "Speaking of which, how are your psychological profiles going? I know you've been working on that one for Locke."
Tamin raised an eyebrow. She didn't just want to find her way back to the lobby anymore, now she wanted to stalk them to hear what they were saying.
"Ah, yes. I am staying with the theory that he is instinct driven, no doubt conditioned from his years of being in mystery dungeons. I have heard him called a 'wild pokemon' just like the ones we see in mystery dungeons, but I believe that to be a misnomer. It is part of the story, but not the full story. I have read into multiple stories of attempts to domesticate those pokemon, and it doesn't match up. Those pokemon typically show a period of being feral after being removed from their habitats, but after that period they come to their senses and primarily show confusion until they can properly learn how civilization operates. Meanwhile, the shinx is showing a combination of several different phases instead of clearly being in one, both having feral tendencies but also an ability to socialize. He also certainly has intelligence (especially with the tactics people have said he has employed, such as holding his breath to sneak behind a wild pokemon in caverns). It simply doesn't line up with the known behavior of true wild pokemon.
In my professional opinion, what I believe happened was that he originally came from civilization, only to later move into the constant mystery dungeon expeditions that he described. Those dungeons then influenced his growth in his childhood and teenage growth phases of his life. It would match with his behavior."
"I can tell you have been making great strides in your scrutinizing," Sylveon commented. "Espeon will definitely be proud."
"Thank you. I have also started one on Tamin the minccino, and that has led to some interesting deductions as well."
Tamin's eyes squinted in response to her seeing her own name be mentioned. Like an echo reverberating, this conversation was proving to be similar to the last one she overheard.
"Oh? I wasn't aware of you doing anything with the minccino."
"I started recently. On the last chore day I was able to get a chance to speak, and got some insights with that."
Tamin went from squinting to her eyes widened when that was said. She tried to recall every word she had said in that conversation, and didn't think she had said anything incriminating. She even remembered keeping her guard up in that exact conversation.
"From what she answered my questions with and what Rustin told me he observed, I think there is a good chance she has mild O.C.D., or obsessive compulsive disorder. The largest piece of evidence towards this is her curious ritual of frequently folding cloth, but other things such as constant cleaning line up with that as well. Pokemon with O.C.D. have one particular compulsion- typically arbitrary- and that appears to be hers.
I'll need to see more if I can make a diagnosis in good faith, but that is the working theory."
"Good to know. Should we alter how we treat her in any way with this knowledge?"
"At this point, I don't believe we should do anything differently. Doing so might cause her to feel like a pariah."
"I will make sure Espeon knows about that. Oh- by the way- I just remembered, do you know what's going on with those red eyes people are saying they saw Locke have?"
"Yes, but I'll warn that the results can possibly seem anticlimactic. It seems to be a product of his species rather than his mental state, as some of the natural chemicals shinx have in their body for bioluminescence can be found within their eye fluids as well. That reaction gets triggered when he enters into a state where he feels endangered, and it stays until he calms down. It would stay that way if he doesn't actively try to control it. As for its red color, that's either due to high blood pressure, his diet, or a combination of the two.
What I can confirm it is not- however- is a curse. Despite what you might have been told by less educated members here."
"Makes sense. I never thought it was a curse personally."
"Mhm. I have actually put some research into that lead, checking what curses a ghost type pokemon or a ninetails are able to apply to pokemon and such. No surprise, none I have looked at have even a passing resemblance to Locke's condition.
I won't make an argument from ignorance as I have not studied every curse that is possible (as if that was even within my field of knowledge) but I highly doubt that has anything to do with him."
"Figures. Any other updates to provide?"
"I'll give the rest to the guildmaster's directly, keeping the confidential safe from prying eyes and ears."
Sylveon gave a nod instead of a verbal response that Tamin was capable of hearing. They then continued walking through the halls towards the lounge.
As Tamin persisted in stalking them, she couldn't help but deeply consider the things they had said, focusing much more on what they said about her then to Locke.
She questioned her own reality in a small existential crisis as she had never heard of any sort of disorder she had before; she had always assumed she was normal mentally, albeit more enlightened on the horrors the world possessed. But on the other hand, she couldn't exactly explain her desire to fold cloth as anything other than a random impulse she had to do; and if she did have something like that, it would not be the first thing that her parents failed to inform or cater to her about. It made her temporarily forget about other thoughts as she focused on resolving that. She wondered if she was possibly better off not hearing the conversation as well.
She managed to follow them to the lounge without detection, but she was only there on a physical level, as her mind was elsewhere. She stopped trying to eavesdrop others and simply paced around in her own mind. Clocks ticked forward several minutes as she just pondered to herself on a mystery to solve.
But before any form of a conclusion could have been reached, the ring-a-ding of a bell rang through the guildhouse, reaching the halls the minccino paced in and pierced into her awareness. Her thoughts were interrupted as she turned her body and head to face the sound's source.
"Right, lunch," Tamin thought.
She came to the meal and joined others there, eating the same foods she would any other day. At first her mind was preoccupied by the same questions, but the constant voices around her tempted her to focus on them instead. Before too long she had a change of mind, she decided it was better to distract herself from those thoughts.
The meal talk wasn't as interesting as the conversations before, but with the goal of just distracting herself, then random words mixed with sounds of chewing and swallowing was sufficient enough for her.
But just then, as Tamin listened around from her backless chair, another wave of deja vu suddenly swept over her. She wasn't sure what was triggering this at first, so she narrowed her focus to find it. One conversation from one of the quieter pokemon triggered that feeling more as she focused in on it, so she continued listening to every word they said as the reason for the feeling was on the tip of her tongue. Just then, she had a spark of realization. The voice was the other voice that Tamin had heard in the strange conversation days ago, the one she tried to chase after before Rustin approached her. The vulpix Yuki was the accusing voice, and this quiet voice during meal time was the one that responded.
With this realization, she looked with her eyes to see who the speaker was. Tamin raised her head to see a male braixen, sitting with a bit more distance between himself and the other guild members then what most had.
"Well well well, that's part of the mystery solved. So that conversation I heard was between Hunter's half-sister and this braixen," Tamin thought. "Although, that still doesn't explain what is going on between them.
From what I know, one is male, the other is female, and their species do have several similarities. So perhaps they're in a relationship? It's sure as hell an abusive one if that's the case. Then again, I still don't quite think that makes sense. I feel something else is going on here..."
Thinking about this mystery before her, in combination with the other discoveries she had come to learn that morning, it beckoned her imagination to consider the darkest possibilities. Her imagination ruined her appetite, and she halted eating.
After lunch was finished, Locke ran out of the guildhouse with Dewott, no doubt to get up to random hijinks in the name of competition. The rest of the room dispersed as well, and Tamin was no different. She walked off while still claiming recluse within her own mind and unshared thoughts. She stepped towards her room, although was unable to fully get back to her room before she heard a voice call out to her that immediately snapped her mind back to reality.
"Hey Tamin!" Scampi said as she got closer.
Tamin quickly shifted her head to look towards the rockruff. Her awareness was regained.
"Oh, hey Scampi," Tamin spoke monotone after turning.
"How's things going for you!?"
This wasn't the first time Scampi had done this, she'd come up to Tamin before and attempt to thrust herself into a conversation. "Will she ever stop doing this? This is getting annoying. I mean, the first time was okay, but..." was what Tamin thought.
"Scampi?" Tamin said.
"Yes?"
"Can I ask why you like me so much?" Tamin asked. "Like, I don't get why you're coming to me right now. I wasn't doing anything."
"I was concerned about ya," Scampi answered.
"Concerned?" she questioned, speaking like an alien trying to grasp a human concept.
"Yee. You haven't- I haven't seen you been talking with anyone else for a little while, so I was worried about ya," Scampi explained as she shifted her hind legs to sit down on the carpet.
"Oh…" Tamin said, her mind wandering off again as she thought about this, "When was the last time someone was concerned for me?... why is this hard to think of an answer to?"
"Are you okay?" Scampi said while tilting her head to the side, noticing Tamin drift off.
"What? Oh, sorry. Yeah, I'm fine."
"That's great to hear! Anything you want to do now?"
"Uh, not sure."
"Oh C'mon now, you can't just stay cooped up all the time! You've got to step out of your shell a bit every now and then! I'm trying to help you out here."
"Is that what you want to do?" Tamin said, more defensive then she needed to be.
"Uh-huh! Tell ya what, there's an ice cream shop in town run by a white ninetails and a shinx, want to go there?" Scampi said while her tail wagged.
"No thanks, I think it's cold enough out already without ice cream."
"Well've you got any ideas then?" Scampi said, her talking getting so fast that words melded together.
"Not really, sorry. I was just planning on spending time by myself in my bedroom," Tamin said, gesturing with her paws to show she simply didn't know. "We could do a mission together."
"Mission, mission… Oh! That gives me an idea!"
"What is it?"
"We can do some training together!"
"I really haven't a clue on how to go about doing that," Tamin stated.
"Come along with me then! I know who can help!"
Without confirmation nor asking to make sure Tamin wanted to come along, Scampi turned around and ran off, with Tamin being obligated to follow.
Scampi brought her back into the mess hall. Inside of that central room, Mienfoo was still sitting down on one of the tables, having finished eating her takeout meal and was calmly cleaning her lips with a napkin.
"Mienfoo! Hey Mienfoo!" The excited rockruff called out.
"Hmm? What is it?"
"Tamin and I want to do some training together! Can you help us?" she said as she came to a stop.
"Is that so now?"
"Well, it was her idea, not mine. But I'm coming along," Tamin said with a shrug.
"What do ya say?" Scampi asked again, tail still wagging.
"I can certainly help be your mentor, but what help I can provide is limited as you two are both different types than I," Mienfoo explained as she began to get out of her seat. "Then again, I could teach you the discipline and practice required to get better. But at that point, it will have to be your own journey to get better, up to you and you alone."
"Sure, sounds alright," Tamin responded casually to Mienfoo's sagely words. "Where should we do this?"
"I usually go outside for all of my exercises."
"Eh, it's a bit cold out today," Tamin said.
"Well the other option would be using one of the more open rooms in the basement."
"Outside it is then! Let's head out," Tamin said.
The three girls headed off into the guildhouse's backyard, where they began some basic training exercises. Tamin did try to retain focus during the process, but she was primarily in it just to be with Scampi, and her mind had a dozen different ideas it thought about. Her body might have practiced paw strikes, kicks, balancing, quick dodging and lifting its own body weight, but her mind was totally elsewhere; her mind thought about what she had eavesdropped on Armin and Max saying, what the vulpix Yuki was up to, what Hunter was possibly planning, Mawile's psychological profiles, self-introspection with her own neural state, and what it meant for others to be concerned about her and their reasons for doing so. Those ideas remained in her head: both in time and in location, for hours longer.
End of chapter 11.