"You're joking, right?" Natiya cracked into a disbelieving chuckle upon hearing the guildmaster's statement, as karma and her sarcasm came back to bite her. But, not a hint of comedy or humor was alluded to by the Gardevoir.
"No, Natiya. I shall now ask you to leave the office and make your way home. I am sorry." Tyra's verdict was final.
And so, the Glaceon's fragile mood plummeted into the valley of blind anger. Her arms began trembling. As Tyra breathed in, intending to say something, Natiya belted a scream. She raised a paw high into the air, then swung it down with great force. The strike effortlessly split and shattered Tyra's desk in two. The guildmaster instinctively jumped out of her chair, sporting a mildly frightened look a split-second beforehand. Downstairs, everyone looked up. One of the wooden beams supporting the ceiling had bent ever so slightly.
"This is bullshit!" Natiya shouted at the top of her lungs before storming out of the office.
Even with the addition of property damage, Tyra didn't yield an inch emotionally. Still feeling oddly guilty and plagued with regret. She gazed emptily into the wall of the small lobby outside her office as Natiya ran downstairs.
"By Arceus, I just can't be mad at that girl." The old Gardevoir disenchantingly thought to herself. What and why was this feeling hindering her better judgment? Alas, what happened, did.
"You may come out, master Shaye," Tyra called out to a certain somebody.
The door to her right creaked open. It was a small room, akin to a walk-in closet, with a narrow corridor going down the middle. Tall bookshelves packed with books were acting as the walls of the room. And out that room emerged a Cyndaquil. Not a regular one, mind you. It stood on its hind legs with exceptional posture for its species. Its scarf Prussian blue, and its fur an intriguing pattern of multiple shades of brown. An excess of it on its scalp formed a pseudo-hairdo.
"I am sorry you had to hear that." she apologized.
"Oh, fret not, miss. I completely understand." The voice of an adolescent boy spewed forth from the Cyndaquil's mouth, "Though I wanted to ask: why are you relieving me of my duty?" he confusedly inquired.
"You expressed a desire to work with her a little while ago, correct?"
"Well, something about her intrigued me, I guess. Though I feel I shouldn't leave such an important post over a silly feeling like that." Shaye chuckled, scratching the back of his head.
"Worry not. We'll find someone to take your place temporarily. But, for now, I'm officially tasking you with looking after Natiya during her suspension. She needs to come back a changed person after these sixty days. You are also relieved of any other missions or tasks that may come about in the meantime, though you are free to accept them if your schedule permits it."
Shaye's face lit up as Tyra's words rolled out. A gratifying feeling coursed through his body at that moment, accompanied by something rather peculiar — a bizarre image that came and went in a flash. A blurry figure of a Glaceon walking away from him, set to an oddly dark background. The Cyndaquil's face froze for a handful of seconds.
"Are you alright? I think you should get going now." Tyra called to Shaye.
"Oh. Uh, yeah. I should. Thank you so much, miss! I promise you won't regret your decision!" Shaye snapped out of his awkward trance with a stutter of embarrassment, soulfully thanking her before making haste to the wide-open door.
"Shaye." Tyra called out to him once more when he reached the stairway leading down to the lounge, "Beware of her mother, please. That woman is a fiend." She delivered an apprehensive warning with a seemingly new piece of information at the last possible moment.
It was only met with a quick nod from Shaye before scurrying downstairs and out of the building to catch up with Natiya. The lack of a meaningful reaction or verbal acknowledgment left the old Gardevoir a dash perturbed. But now, she must let things take their course.
"I'm counting on you, master Shaye. Save her, even if it's the last thing you do."
Back in the town proper, more people were out and about in the morning sun. The sour Glaceon was already about a third of the way to her family's manor. Head down in exasperation. Her mind was tumultuous and turbulent. Walking down her usual path, Natiya stopped to look at an unremarkable stone pillar. A pillar that she passed by regularly on her way to the guild for the past few months. Now, however, in her fury-fogged mind, every single inanimate object seemed to have a voice of its own. She felt mocked, denounced by all that surrounded her. Non-existent voices scoffing at her echoed all around in a convoluted delusion far from reality. Natiya briefly scowled at the silent, solid stack of stone before forcefully kicking it with her hind legs. The pillar cracked concentrically and crumbled. Passersby turned their heads towards the loud thud, prompting her to keep walking.
Suddenly, she heard a youthful voice approaching her from behind. And a noticeably real one at that, repeatedly calling out her name. Natiya snapped her head back to see an odd-looking Cyndaquil rushing toward her, after which she stopped. Shortly afterward, the little brown rascal halted in his tracks right beside her, looking up at Natiya with a big smile on his face.
"Greetings! I—"
"What the hell do you want?"
Not allowing Shaye even a moment of introduction, she abrasively cut him off. Seemingly undeterred by her rude interruption, though, he cleared his throat:
"I'm Shaye, Yohannan Shaye. I got tasked with keeping a close eye on you during your suspension and making sure you recover and come back feeling one hundred percent. Courtesy of the guildmaster."
Natiya looked at Shaye with visible disgust and contempt as she processed what was just said to her. However, in a one-hundred-and-eighty degree turn of emotions, she began smiling. A smile that turned to a cackle and the cackle morphed into full-blown laughter. Feeling awkward and nervous — Shaye began to laugh alongside Natiya, unsure as to why. Regardless, he went with the flow. His laughs quickly grew from nervous and insincere to genuine, thinking of the situational tediousness as the punchline to the non-existent joke. Suddenly, a sharp pain spread across the side of his body as Shaye got launched a couple of yards backward. His body impacted the cobblestone pavement hard, sliding for a bit before coming to a complete stop. Natiya had hit him with her tail, which seemed as hard as a rock upon the blow connecting.
"That is it! I've had enough! Does she think she can send a feeble brat such as yourself to look after me right after suspending me from the guild? Rub some salt into the wound, will she? Tyra's the only person in that guild I had even an ounce of respect for, and she dares to do this to me? Listen closely, because I won't repeat myself: I better not see you again, boy. Both of you are dead to me. Now fuck off, before I make your relationship with the ground more intimate than it already is."
Natiya began lashing out. Shaye struggled to push himself up off the ground but found himself right beneath the Glaceon as he was about to get up. He looked up with unease, trembling and frowning with fear. Natiya concluded her reprimand with a sharp and direct insult to both him and the guildmaster before walking off in the other direction.
Shaye got up on his feet, gently holding the injured right side of his body. As she walked away, an odd feeling of sympathy and intimacy began festering in Shaye's mind. Rather than being scared straight by the formidable Glaceon that could break him in half like a twig, he felt bizarrely connected and captivated in a very complicated, confusing way. The bone-quivering fear he experienced as his life flashed before his eyes mere seconds ago evaporated seemingly into nothingness. At that moment, a bridge was built rather than burnt. Something was there. It just needed to be prodded a bit more. However, not wishing to risk anything again, let alone pursue Natiya — Shaye limply walked off into a denser part of town.
Closer to the town center, the streets are much narrower and more crowded. The monotony and uniformity of numerous similar-looking houses were occasionally interrupted by a handful of shops, inns, smitheries, and alleyways. Hung on the outside of these distinct buildings, near their entrances, was the emblem of the town of Motus. A crimson cross set against a black field. Both in shield and flag form. The pungent stench was considerably worse as well, although bearable. Walking down one of the narrow streets, the waddling Cyndaquil got cursory looks from passersby. After a few minutes of walking, Shaye reaches a pretty unremarkable house. Though only from the outside.
The shabby wooden door creaks open to reveal a very dark room. Eerie linen blinds obscured all the windows throughout the house. The entire ground floor was almost pitch black except for a sole bastion of light at the back of the room. Shaye closed the door ever so slowly and mosied towards the cozy candlelight.
"Hey, dad. I'm home." he quietly uttered.
Surrounded by stacks of books on three sides and standing in front of a makeshift lectern made of three rugged wooden boards was a feline figure. With its back mostly turned to Shaye, it appeared to be black. As it turned its head, though, one could catch a glimpse of purple. The book resting on said lectern seemed to flip through pages on its own, though the motion ceased as soon as Shaye spoke.
"Hello, dear. You're home early today. Is everything fine?"
"A bit on the rougher end, but yeah." Shaye chuckled.
"I see. She will come around, don't worry."
Chapter 2, end.