Every time I make reference to my writing habits, I somehow never commit to them or they get tremendously worse. Just enjoy your new chapter, sorry if it took forever.

The manor, three stories tall when counting the attic, stood like a rustic needle in a haystack of trees. The towering green structure lorded over its fenced lands, casting a formidable shadow in the dead of night. Small statues of flying pokemon perched above several roofed windows, which combined with its jagged architecture, created a foreboding facade which had played a part in this manor's spooky reputation. And of all its dozens of windows light only protruded from three of them, the two flanking its giant chestnut doors and one on the second floor which the visitors were told was the Guildmaster's office.

They followed Leon up to the manor's door, then around the house to a garden hidden on its left. In the bright moonlight they can see the figure of a fountain resting behind a wall of hedges, round and featureless just like the one they had seen in Town. Behind that was a greenhouse nestled in the farthest corner of the manor's grounds, and next to it was a shack with its door swaying in the wind. From where they stood they could see the glow of the office window, conveniently placed in such a way it couldn't see the fountain a few meters to the side.

When they passed through a hole in the hedges Leon immediately took a seat on one of the gray stone benches. Underneath Leon's cowl his arms were across his chest, trying to keep the heat from escaping.

"So here we are…the scene of the crime." The smeargle lets his tail dangle to the ground, its bright glow coats the terracotta in gold. "I'll be right here if you need anything. Do you have something you can write in?"

Prinn, about to say something, just clasps his beach shut. Braviary looms over him, watching the rookie cartographer unclasp the bamboo tube from its holster and pop the container open. He scrounges the inside until he produces a large piece of folded parchment followed by a garish blue pen. He then walks to the other side of the bench where he unfurls a roll of paper. One side of it has the charcoal outlines and sketches of a burgeoning map, the other is blank - now reserved for this impromptu investigation. The tube has the bottom of it sanded down to a flat surface which is used to keep the paper still.

Leon lifts his tail onto the bench to serve as a lamp. His eyes are intently staring at the map. He looks as though he wants to tell the Kid he's doing a good job, but he isn't going to give the kid a compliment so easily.

Prinn puts his pen to the paper as he looks back at Braviary.

"Do we start with the suspects, the uh...motive? What should I do?"

"Can't say." Braviary shrugs, "Wisdom says we'd ought to leave all fields blank, or better yet, leave no field at all and just write whatever we see. You don't need to write down every single thing, unless?"

"No." Leon answers, "Just anything you may think is important. Guildmaster probably just wants something so he can put it in the archives."

"You have an archive?" Prinn chimes in.

"We have a library. Some of that's bound to be archival. Files, drawings, maps, manifests; you know the whole deal. I don't know about running a guild, but if it's anything like a business it never hurts to keep things written down."

"Pardon me friend, but have you ever run a business?"

Leon turns his head to the Braviary. He blinks slowly as he contemplates whether or not to dredge up something for a stranger.

"Sort of. I have experience as a trader, but I was mostly a caravan runner. I was nowhere near as big or as strong as the usual fodder they like to send out on caravans, couldn't even haul those carts the boys do." he makes it a point to show Braviary his arms, his frail smeargle arms. "I still got grouped up with them because they were low on pokemon who knew how to use Flash. I told them they were better off doing day runs rather than announcing to the world 'hey, we've got all sorts of goodies in these crates'. They didn't listen to me until after we got robbed. By then, my application here already got accepted."

"Apparently the winery who made us do all those runs vanished not too long ago. I guess the robbers got tired of going after the Beedril and finally went for the hive. The delicious, oran-scented hive."

Prinn has made no attempt to even pretend he was busy writing things down. At this point his eyes and ears were on Leon as he waited for the opportune moment to bludgeon him with questions.

"You think it's the same people who went after the wine here? Maybe we're dealing with serial wine-thieves?"

"Good question, Kid." Braviary nods, "How far away was this winery?"

"Far enough, so I don't think it's likely." Thinking about those people makes Leon shudder. "I can tell you any operation which manages to span all the way to Scoria Town would be a nightmare to run. The caravans, the smuggling, the fact we're so far off makes us a pain to go after. It's probably more worth it to run around a place like Calico Town around where the Winery was. More people, more places to steal from - more pokemon to gang up on."

"If for whatever awful reason there's more reason to suspect they were involved then I'll get into it; otherwise you should probably go give the shack a look. There's a lantern in there if you need a light."

Now, it wasn't unlike a guild to get wrapped up with these sorts of crooks. Robbers and brutes are half the reason a town would consider making a guild, so they're drawn to each other like bug-types. When a guild isn't made as a reaction to the uptick in bounties, then there's soon to be someone who will come along to spite guilds. There is no shortage of cruel pokemon in the world happy to stomp out everyone and everything in their path, guilds, towns, innocent lives included. Similarly there were a lot of pokemon who don't like the idea of some organization with a bunch of cronies who have been trained vigorously by bounty hunting and dungeon delving to have a position of authority over their regions. For this reason, guilds live in equilibrium to the crime they vow to stop.

To what end were guilds necessary is a question not even Braviary knew. There seems to be general agreement among well-lived pokemon where when a real threat to everyone's way of life rears its head, it's always good to have a body of capable pokemon at the ready to put those things in place. High tales of small heroes going up against impossible odds surrounded these groups; dungeoneers unraveling a deep mystery to their land, then solving it for the good; confronting some deity-like pokemon, kindly reminding them that they shouldn't keep their head so high in the clouds; stories which begin then end punching real bastards across the face. Somebody has always had to rise to the occasion. The backing of a guild partially enables it.

Braviary would much rather live his life as neither part of a jolly band attempting the impossible or the odd pokemon out who's been called to do so. His life, as pathetic as he is right now, is finally his own. A cool breeze swept over him as he heard the crinkle of parchment, the rattling of hedges, and the door bleated out a dismal squeak. Then after a short time, Prinn returned him to this world.

"Come on," he leaves his pen on the parchment, "let's go take a look."

Braviary nods.

For the unfathomable amount of coin which went into building this place from the ground up, none of the budget went towards protecting their goods. This shack wasa square of wooden stakes topped by two sheets of tin for a roof. Through the swaying door they can see a flat stone floor covered in bottles, the glint of metal distillers, and a few barrels stacked up to the right. It served its purpose of housing wine, which judging by the warped padlock sitting in the grass it did not do a good job.

Somebody's going to get expelled from the guild for this. Their big money maker was just defiled, somebody made an embarrassment out of them and someone is going to have to pay for this. This had to be handled quickly, it's far too important to the guild to let this one down.

Braviary wouldn't wish this on anyone, not even some po-dunk frontier town.

Prinn waddles over to the door, and goes to lift the huge padlock off the ground, requiring both of his fins to even get it upright. The raw hunk of steel reeks of showboating, a challenge to anyone who dares think they can somehow break it. Which someone did by warping the shackle into an unusable mess, twisting it like it was model clay.

"I reckon you should just leave it there, it's part of the scene." Braviary sighs, "You'd think with a lock of that size they'd be better off doing anything but break it. I find it more impressive they just didn't pick the darn thing open."

"Or make the door look closed," Prinn lets it drop with a solid thud. "or give up. I probably would've."

"Some folks are just stubborn, kid. Is there anything off about it?"

"Other than it being a really, really big lock?" he squints at the contraption "I don't see any claw marks on it, no dents, like it popped out. Maybe the inside of it can tell us what happened but I don't think we're ever gonna crack this thing open."

"Ghost types would probably have a way around this other than smashing it; if it were somebody big enough to get in there through force the guildmaster would've probably seen them from the window; it's not red hot either. My money's on it being a fighting type. Call it a hunch, but the fact they're pretty good at bending steel-types in half might be a coincidence. Got anything else to suggest?"

"No, not really."

Prinn turns around, his black eyes gleaming in the moonlight. Oh no, he's about to ask something dumb.

"What makes you so sure?"

"Other than what I just said?" Braviary glances behind him, leans in, and whispers. "Have you ever seen a Lucario punch another Lucario? Like none of those pulled training punches; not any of their schmancy auramancy. I'm talking a closed-fist, full force, honest to goodness 'it's either me or that pokemon' punch."

For once, Prinn didn't want to say anything. He was close to jumping off this train of thought , but it was too late, he was already at this morbid stop.

"No, why?"

"I haven't either, but a friend did. They just told me lucario bones are partially made of steel and to 'use my imagination.' "

Prinn sucks in a bunch of air, and he stands in the grass. Not moving as he slowly processed what Braviary means by all of this. A gulp slips down his small thick neck, then his eyes flutter. It's going to keep him up tonight for sure.

"So far, I reckon whoever did this was a fighting type." Braviary motions to the open door, "If you got nothing else, I suggest we take a peek inside."

Prinn nods, and waddles trepidatiously to the open door. He peaks his rotund head inside, takes a step in, then vanishes. By time Braviary reaches the door the room is lit up by a lantern sitting next to a box of conveniently-placed matches. The right of the room is taken up by stacks of barrels, while to the left there are two metal contraptions he assumed was for crushing and fermenting Enigma berries, and at the back there were a couple crates of empty bottles. Something about the shack's whole operation tells him their secrets lie elsewhere, wherever they grow the berries.

It's probably like the kid said, there's a way to cultivate these Enigma Berries which made them so special which couldn't be replicated outside of this guild. It would explain why they didn't go after the greenhouse instead of the shack. There's no sense robbing a place for their secret berry trees if they didn't know how to grow the blasted things. Screw that up, there's no wine left for anyone to profit off. Prinn seemed to have the same thought too, after all, he's the one who told him all about the guild's winery. Prinn glancing at the greenhouse just gave it away.

"I had at least expected their super-cool, super-secret wine to have at least more gunning for it. I've seen better setups in bandit camps." Braviary steps inside, "At least they have the excuse of being out in the field, this is nothing special"

"Well, the make of it's not the important part. It's the Enigma Berries which make it special - you really can't grow them anywhere."

"If that's the case then…"

"Yeah, I know!" Prinn chirps, "Grab a shrub or two from the greenhouse, throw 'em over the fence, at least if you had the plant you can maybe figure out what makes them so hard to grow."

"Maybe they're going for short term damage? Hurt the guild's funds immediately, get 'em all riled up."

"I was thinking they just wanted the wine." Prinn interjects, "They don't seem smart, they just stormed through the door with the huge lock instead of picking it open."

Braviary shrugs as he turns his attention to the three and a half-stacks of barrels. There's seven barrels in total, four labeled with "Scholar's Mystery Wine", three are not. He gives each one a poke. The barrels are all full except for the one closest to the door. It's as though they hadn't taken a thing; like the burglars committed some petty vandalism, then decided they had enough for the night.

"Do you know who does all the inventory around here?"

"Iunno, I'm not in the guild." Prinn squints at the wine. "Leon looks like he does ground stuff, so maybe he'd know? I have an idea we can try out, but I'm afraid if I ask him he'll say no."

"Who said we needed permission? What's the worst we can do?"

"Get into their wine and make them send adventurers after us, you know, like the story you said earlier?" He's seriously worried about his plan, like what he's about to do will land him behind bars.

Prinn won't do it, he doesn't have the Gall to even ask. And the moment he mentions their sacred wine, Braviary catches on. A big smile stretches over the old man's beak as he turns around, and shouts.

"Leon!"

The smeargle's glowing tail shuffles as he stands up, and peeks over the hedges. His brown eyes stare from a distance, waiting.

"Y'all don't mind if I take one of these bottles here, fill it up and taste test these things? We have reason to think someone might have messed with them, so if I suddenly hit the floor then grab some pecha berries for me, okay pal?"

His voice roars through the night. Everyone heard it, the Guildmaster, and those poor guildmates trying to get a good night's sleep. Leon, a guild mate like any other, was suddenly tasked with making this hard call. His tail flickers like a strobe as it wags nervously, his head looking to the second story window as though the guildmaster's gaze was upon him. He hesitates for a few more seconds then shouts back

"Alright! But you aren't getting more wine after this!"

A sigh echoes across the garden as Leon slithers back into his bench. This a problem for future Leon, right now he should take a breather - let the two vagrants sort out the guild's problems. He should be in bed anyways, not out here in the cold night.

Their guildmaster had to be monitoring the whole situation from above, no doubt he would have heard the two screaming across his courtyard, and one of his own giving this nobody flying-type permission to go pilfering through their precious, precious winery. This was a golden opportunity for anyone who remotely had a vendetta against the guild to cause some trouble. If he had the time, energy, and drive to mess with these stuck-up bookworms, he can use this chance to make this lackey's life miserable. Because no matter what he did here to throw a wrench into the guild's operation, the guild would take all its anger out on the one who let him in. Braviary could do as he pleases.

Good thing Leon had been kind for a guildie, or else the well-worn and far-traveled hammer of brainless adventurer law would come crashing on his puny head for making this mistake. Braviary just doesn't have the fight in him anymore. It's never worth it to get tangled up in guilds, not even to get a victory over them by being laughably petty. They already got him on the hook with the promise of a bed over his head anyways, he won't let go for some childish prank. He should never have agreed to even come here.

Braviary scoops up one of the many bottles strewn across the floor, and walks past Prinn to the wall of barrels. He puts the bottle on the nearest tap, pours himself a sip of the wine, then swallows it down. The bitter-sweet taste travels down his throat, while the taste of caramel lingers on his tongue like the memories of adventure's past, and then is slowly forgotten. He relives this five more times, taking just the slightest bit more from each savory barrel until he hits a soury bump along the road. The seventh barrel, the one outside of the stacks, is a different brew altogether. He cannot place its taste but he's certain.

"There!" he points with the glass, "Somebody's swapped the wine, I can taste it."

"What do you mean?"

"What do I mean?" Braviary pauses as he wipes his beak clean, "The thieves have replaced the guild's good stuff with something cheap, probably bought from the market I reckon. I can't imagine them taking a barrel from someplace farther than that."

"And when they brought it here, they probably swapped the barrels too." Prinn looks at the bottles around his feet which compared to Braviary, are taller than his knees. "Are the barrels all full?"

"Not anymore." he shrugs, placing the bottle near Prinn. "They did all have their taps in them, so it stands to suggest one of the guildies comes in here to take a swig every so often. A few might be half-full.'

"One or two half-empty ones is all they'd need." Prinn adds "You can just empty the one you wanna steal into those two, pour the cheap stuff into the now empty onel, and then the goods you added to the two back into your cheap-looking barrel."

"I see."

He doesn't. He's a vagrant; not a mathematician.

"You wanna move onto the wall now?" Braviary nods towards the open door from which a yellow glare could be seen in the distance. "See if we can't find where they came in from? If they had to lug a barrel full of wine with them, there's bound to be a flattened flower bed sitting somewhere."

"Sure! Just gimme a minute to write things down beforehand, okay?"

They pace back to the old fountain where Leon sat waiting. As he looked up at him he could almost see happiness, or perhaps surprise? Maybe Leon held him with the same disdain as those theives, expecting him to have trashed the taphouse and to come back with his clothes stained in wine. Prinn immediately goes to town, scrawling notes down in the light of Leon's Tail Glow.

Braviary flashes a smile at Leon. "You look bright eyed."

There's no immediate response, as Leon drops his line of thinking immediately.

"What's the deal?" the smeargle crosses his legs, "Find anything useful?"

"I think the boy can give y'all the low-down later, so I'll be brief. We got a reason to think it was a fighting type who broke into here with a barrel of cheap wine, swapped yours with it, and kept the less-conspicuous barrel with him as he ran."

"And how might they have done this?"

"Probably threw it over the fence, that's what we're about to check." he's about to turn to his water-type partner, when he raises a quill "Oh, and another thing: you might wanna check up on who's doing lock-up there. Somebody's been getting free drinks."

"Noted." he throws it under the rug immediately, "I'll look into it."

Another thought enters Braviary's head as watches Prinn take his notes. It's totally fine for a guild member to head out in the middle of night and grab some drinks, right? It has to be one of the guild's privileges if they're so eager to hand it out to helpful travelers. If the Scholars ever felt like being generous, they could probably quench the thirst of a small town with what they've got in there. Nobody's going to really notice if day after day there's just a tiny bit missing each time a certain Smeargle is out on grounds duty. Leon certainly isn't guilty of screwing over the guild big time; however he's clearly got something to hide. It's some piece of the puzzle, but it's a card he'll hold onto.

Prin's pencil hits the paper with a satisfying rattle as it rolls across the bench before it's caught by a bamboo tube. "Alright!" he looks up, "Let's go!"

He gives Leon a stern look, then backs off. Past the fountain and through the hedges they go, where they encounter an impassable wall. Prinn's head barely manages to reach past these hedges, a pokemon his size couldn't dream of getting over this gigantic fence unless they had the dexterity of a Treecko. Which again, only points more towards this being some well-fit fighting. Looking behind them they can only see the tall windows of the manor's library blotted out by black cloth, having been locked up long before they got here.

They're still close enough to Leon to get his light from behind the hedges. It's not like they would have needed it, because whoever did this was not very subtle. Just to the left some more is a conspicuous dent in the grass which lines up perfectly to a windowless corner of the library.. The petals from a bush of yellow wildflowers are strewn like a murder scene, having broke the fall of its killer.

"It's that easy, huh?" Braviary sighs, "Must've dropped it from above, too scared to throw it out of fear of overshooting it and hitting around the fountain with a bang."

Prinn on the other hand, didn't look nearly as sure. He's hunched over staring at the dent in the grass, looking back and forth at the manor several times overs. Behind those Piplup's eyes the gears of his head are slowly grinding to some conclusion. Eventually he lifts a flipper to draw an imaginary line from the second story floor to here, noting the angle, jotting a few mental notes. Another moment passes when suddenly his face glows up like a firework.

"Okay, so…" he clasps his flippers together, he's ecstatic to tell Braviary this, "Leon said they close up the Library, then the rest of the guild an hour after, right?"

"I'm listening."

"We never asked what they did for the hour after they closed the library, Leon just said they locked things up. Their Guildmaster upstairs has a good view of everything back there except for this side and the side opposite. He apparently watches everyone do lock-up from up there, but this place is big right, it's gotta be a guild wide effort? Maybe he only ever looks out of his window when they're done?" Prinn looks towards the relative direction of the second story office, "I'm just guessing things, sorry."

"Assuming that's what happened, how come nobody saw the barrel sitting here?"

Prinn levels his hand to the top of the hedge. It's just up to his eyes. Given they stood between two walls, the library having its blinds shut, the lack of any decent sightlines - a barrel could possibly go unnoticed.

"A-and also!" Prinn stumbles, "they close up the stores first, and then the library. They basically check this side twice! So it had to have happened during that hour, probably right at the end of it before the guildmaster does his thing."

"So what y'all saying is that he might be at fault?"

"No, no. Not really..." There's a noticeable pause, "We'll maybe know later! It's just whoever did this has a good idea of the guild's schedule and the layout of this place. This couldn't have been, y'know, outta the blue."

"Guess I'm not the only person who can't stand guilds around here..." Braviary takes a sigh of relief, the job is done. He peers just over the hedge to see Leon looking back at him.

"You catch that, Leon?"

"I did." Leon replies. "Come get your notes, and we'll head inside. He's going to want to talk about this."

Leon had led them inside through the foyer, ignoring the dinner room straight ahead of them, and up a flight of two parallel stairs which led directly to the second story office. A few bits of moonlight peeked in through the stained-glass window opposite of them, casting some sort of image onto the granite floor which from above looked like some large winged dragon-type. a salamence by the looks of it. However they weren't here to gawk at some trick of architecture, they were here for their impromptu interview.

The office door was as tall as the entrance with the sole addition of a much, much smaller door fashioned into it. Leon nervously raised his hand then beat his first on the oak. After two knocks it creaks open, allowing the quivering candlelight to escape.

Inside are two office chairs rolled up to a large desk stacked with candles and books. Wax drips off a brass candelabra where it has coagulated at the edge of a green rug then into a clay bowl. Behind the desk they can see another window and the overwhelming number of old books and bobbles forming a staircase to its circular sill. In that sill is a tiny bed. To their left and right they can see shelves stocked full of trophies and novels, one of which catches the old bird's eye.

It's on this shelf he sees a collection of crystal spheres on display - orbs as they are colloquially known, naturally occurring objects which allow particularly daring guildies to perform feats thought to be deemed magical. Theologists argue they're scattered across the worlds by patron deities; more educated folks say their magical properties could be the result of evolutionary stones in the earth being condensed into homogenized, orb-like forms. He's of the third school of thought who just thinks these orbs are useful; tools any adventurer worth their salt should absolutely have on hand.

Braviary wants to think the Guildmaster's just some avid collector, an adventurer aficionado who's desire is to pour all his wealth in some vaguely guild-shaped money hole. Or he can come to face reality: these pokemon might actually know what they're doing.

Speaking of the Guildmaster he finally sees them. The runt who was hidden in his books, a one foot tall creature who mastered pokemon over five times his size. Two tiny red eyes peer from behind a scroll, his black matted fur the color of ink. Yes, their guildmaster's a rattata. He's not going to talk just yet, he wants them to take a seat.

Braviary sits down immediately, while Prinn flops himself down onto the tall chair. Leon takes a step forward.

"I found these two by the door when you sent me out. I asked them if they would like to help in exchange for not sleeping out in the cold, they said yes, so here we are." Leon nods towards Prinn "I think you know Prinn already, but this here is…"

Leon turns to Braviary, the Guildmaster too. Suddenly all eyes are upon him as they wait for the flying-type to speak its name. It's been how long since he's been woken up on a beach, and Prinn hasn't even heard his name? Was it a big secret?

This Braviary was a mysterious pokemon who showed up stranded on a black beach. The missing wing points to years of experience, or some wretched accident from time long ago. His head feathers are short, his eyes are upholstered by dozens of bags which he's accrued over sleepless nights and stressful years. His attire is unlike anyone he's seen around here, he looks so weird! The hat especially, usually only Honchkrow are the flying-types who dig hats, but hats are part of their whole jigg. Don't even get Prinn started on the most unusual badge holding his poncho together, it's brass, pointy - unlike anything he's ever heard of nearby guilds. Even this guild's little initiation rite with the cups of enigma wine didn't say a darned thing about him! Who was this Braviary? Prinn was determined to find out.

The seconds tick by like minutes. He's not answering. He puts his wing up to adjust his hat in a bid to buy him precious time. It's now when Prinn's sat so close he sees a single bead of sweat drip from Braviary's brow.

He doesn't know his name.

"Braviary's fine, y'all don't take it personally." Both Prinn and Leon look away, while the Guildmaster's still staring at him. His eyes are on Braviary's badge.

The Guildmaster's voice is expectedly quiet, almost like a whisper, but as worn as a pokemon who had just swallowed a fresh bottle of wine. It would sound ridiculous had he not spoken it from a throne of bobbles. He takes himself quite seriously because many make the mistake of not.

"Braviary, it is. Would you two care to explain why you are here at this ghastly hour?"

"I wanted to head this way anyway to see how my application is going, but..." Prinn clears his throat, "I found something just this morning, something I knew you just had to see."

Prinn spent the whole day with this stranger rehearsing this very moment. Right on queue Braviary leans forward then points towards his badge. Its brass centerpiece glistens like a rare jewel.

"Yeah, the kid over here seemed really surprised to see one of these things when he found me. I reckon these things aren't too common around here." he leans back. "Wherever 'here' is."

"You're in Scoria Town,'' Guildmaster answers, "population nearing four hundred. It'd be more if we counted people's summer homes. It's the only town this side of the Obsidian Peninsula, which in of itself takes up a third of our small continent known as the Dusk Continent. Closest settlement to us is Calico, a fair way to the east."

Braviary is given a moment.

"Does that answer your question?"

Good enough, Braviary nods.

"Good. Prinplup here is correct. It should be obvious our guild lacks badges of their own, so we are putting much of our resources into looking at how to manufacture our in-house. However, each guild has their own ways of doing so, a guild secret unique to each guildmaster."

"Do you plan on copying some other guild's hard work?" he places his wing over his chest, hiding the badge in his worn feathers, "If y'all are gonna mess with one guild's work in the slightest, they really ain't gonna like it."

"No, not at all." he looks repulsed by even the suggestion, "You don't even need to give it to me. We can begin by having you tell us what yours in particular does, what it's made of, and work our way outwards."

Then suddenly, and with an earnest laugh.

"What if I told you I had no Idea how it works? How do you reckon it'd feel?"

The silence is palpable, hitting the ground like a brick. Sure a pokemon can excuse not knowing why they woke up on a beach, but this? There were certain strange occurrences which followed adventurers everywhere they went, bouts of amnesia could certainly be excused. This just proved the nagging hunch Prinn had right. This pokemon didn't know who he was, how he got here, nor how his badge even works! They're going to think he's a criminal!

This sudden, sinking sensation is pulling Prinn under. It feels like his stomach is full of stones. All of his planning, his shot at getting an honest to good guild job, this whole golden opportunity - wasted by an old coot's lack of memory. This is bad, so bad.

"You're-"

Suddenly Prinn rises out of his chair, ending the Guildmaster's sentence with the thwak of his webbed feet hitting the floor. He leans in front of Braviary as though taking a shot for him, then stammers out.

"W-what he's saying is he's happy to do some field testing to work out its capabilities!" he collects himself partway through his sentence, "We're just really tired, him especially. It's been a long day for both of us. If it's possible we can stay the night, we'd really appreciate it. And we can always talk in the morning!"

He doesn't need to turn to know Braviary is glaring straight at him, like he's about to punt him across the room as though his blue head were one of those orbs. Braviary had spent the better half of a whole day beating into Prinn how much he could not stand these guilds, his only stipulation in all of this being he wouldn't be wrapped up into some hairbrained adventure. Then the unexpected happened: Braviary kept his mouth shut. Prinn glanced behind his shoulder to see his face had contorted into a smile, hiding the excruciating pain hiding under his bristling feathers.

The Guildmaster stares among his towers of knowledge, retrieving a Rattata-sized note which fills his intense red eyes with surprise. "Hmm..." he mumbles, nudging the paper to Leon who begins to read it.

"I supposed there is always noon. I don't wake until lunch." Guildmaster corrects, "I presume Leon was watching you investigate, you can elucidate me with answers then. Show them to their room Leon, then report back."

"Um, before we're dismissed…" Leon lifts a finger up, "The Dorm here says there's only one bed, I know it's for the larger pokemon, but.."

"Oh, Prinn doesn't mind." Braviary says, "He can sleep on the floor. Spare the boy a sheet if you've got one."

With a motion of the Guildmaster's hand Leon opens the door, and the two awkwardly follow him out, catching one last glimpse of the ornate collection before the office closes behind them, followed shortly by the clunk of a deadbolt. They are led side by side like disgruntled siblings, down the steps then down a hallway where they are freed from earshot. Leon takes a well-earned sigh, followed by Braviary, then Prinn.

After adjusting the green band around his "hat", Leon is the one to break the ice.

"You gave him the runaround, didn't you?" he says to Braviary.

"Wish I could say that."

"You too kid, nice one."

There it is, a compliment drowned underneath the tension in the air. They shouldn't be talking. This is a conversation for when they've had time to process what just happened.

They were shown a room at the end of the east corridor. The door is flimsy, worn down by guildmates countlessly slamming it shut at the end of every tiresome day. There's a small rack attached to the other side of the door, another familiar window feeding moonlight directly onto the pillow. It's small, with enough space to accommodate a sleeping bag after its rotted desk had been removed last week, but it is a roof - a luxury. With what little strength remains, Braviary tosses the quilt, the bedsheets, everything except for the pillow for water-type to nest in and plants himself beak-first into the cushion.

There are no words, only the still lingering stench of saltwater. It's time for bed.