Continuing with the three girls' vacation, and their quest to find Maddi a decent bed or futon to sleep on! What awaits them at the hot springs?
KedharS: Yeah, definitely. But because of what she's been through, she's getting better at helping others deal with their issues.
Thunder Fire: Nah, not quite yet. Trust me, that reveal will come when it is most dramatically necessary.
JoshGamerV: If it makes you feel better, it slipped my mind when I came up with the name myself, so whoopsie on that one lol.
Rosealine gold: It's not that she's scared, she's just tired and didn't want to go on a long bus ride after a long plane ride.
Guest: Yep. Marion's design was based on Carmen from RF3. The personality is a different story, but appearance-wise, she's basically Carmen. As for games, one of the great things about Rune Factory is that the games, at least the main line ones (haven't played the console games) get progressively better with each installment. The first one has a bunch of bugs and isn't great, but I still like it because nostalgia. The second one improves on everything and has a lot of content, but the early part of the game is a drag and then the latter part is kinda weird. RF3 I believe is probably the best one to start with, maybe RF2. RF4 takes everything about RF3 and makes it even better, to the point I think it's a much better game and story (though the girls aren't as good as RF3 imo), but it might end up being overwhelming to start on. I'd recommend starting with RF3, then 4, then maybe check out the other two if you like (though you'll certainly feel a drop of quality).
Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings
Chapter 425
Maddi closed her eyes, moving in beat to the music coming from the stage. When was the last time she had heard her sister and her band play? It had been years. A smile crossed Maddi's lips as the waves of sound rolled over her.
Even if this was a dream, she was enjoying it.
A hand on her shoulder slipped Maddi into the darkness that came moments before awakening, but the music continued. She peered blearily into the night, barely making out Sango's face in the dim light. Sango's mouth was moving, but the music was still rocking in Maddi's ears so she couldn't hear the girl.
"What?" Maddi asked, removing the earbuds out of her ears.
"The bus is here," Sango said, standing up, pointing at the idling bus behind her, Cynthia already dragging her luggage onto it.
"Thanks," Maddi yawned, turning her music off and slipping her phone into her pocket. She gathered her things and woke up Grim, the ghost pokemon floating up beside her as they followed Cynthia and Sango onto the bus.
Maddi was dead to the world by the time the bus pulled up in front of the hot springs. Being one of the key tourist destinations, Cynthia's grandparents had long ago had the path leading up to their inn be one of the stops on the route. That was no small blessing to Maddi, as it meant she didn't have to walk for very long. She made it as far as the front desk before collapsing onto a sofa set up in the lobby, conserving as much strength as she could for the inevitable trip to the room. At least, that was what she convinced herself of. Compared to the rough bench of the bus stop and the bumpy ride up there, the soft couch cushions were like resting on a cloud.
"Well, someone's tired," Cynthia chuckled. "Just you watch, she'll be up and wide awake at like 2 in the morning.
Sango didn't want to admit it but that sounded plausible.
Cynthia flounced up to the front desk like she owned the place (which was a fair enough attitude to take, and greeted the old man behind it with a smile.
"We're here, Grandpa!" She chirped, and the old man's face broke out into a smile.
"Ah, I was sure that was you!" He laughed. "I'm not old enough to start seeing things just yet, Cynthia! And these must be your friends?"
"Yup!" Cynthia said, turning around. She waved Sango over. "This is Sango. She's, like, my best friend. Well, second best friend, but my best friend had to be a total assbutt and go on a trip with his girlfriend instead."
"Language, Cynthia, what would your sister say?"
Cynthia grimaced at that comment and shut her mouth quickly. Sango stifled a chuckle. She might have found a new tool to use to get Cynthia to behave herself. She would see about getting said sister's phone number from Cynthia's grandparents before they left, if for no other reason to amuse herself at Cynthia getting annoyed.
"Sango, this is my grandpa, Roland," Cynthia said, turning to her grandpa.
Sango cracked an eyebrow but said nothing, taking the older man's hand. Like Cynthia, the man was a Hoenn resident, but with a name that was distinctly un-Hoennian. But she didn't say anything, figuring they must have their own circumstances.
"Pleasure to see you again," Sango said, making sure to remind Cynthia's grandfather that this wasn't their first meeting. She barely remembered him from the last time, but it was the polite thing to do. "I'm Sango. And this is Silver, my Castform."
"Castform!" Silver chirped, the old man favoring him with a smile.
"And the lively one over there is Maddi," Cynthia said, pointing to the black-clothed girl snoring away on the couch, watched over by her Duskull. "We're not as close, but she's a pretty great girl, all things considered. I haven't been very considerate of her, so we're kind of at a rocky point in our relationship, but don't worry! She's great!"
"I'm glad," he laughed. "Your grandmother would be so happy to see you've brought such lovely friends home with you. It's truly a treat for these tired old eyes."
"Oh, yeah, where is Grandma Rose?" Cynthia asked, looking around eagerly for her grandmother with bright eyes. "I expected her to come greet her at the door!"
A shadow crossed over this old man's face, unnoticed by Cynthia but not by Sango. Her heart sunk, fearing the worst.
"Ah… about that… your grandmother, she…" His voice caught in his throat and he looked down. "It… it was so sudden. She was looking forward to seeing you again, but… it couldn't be helped, in the end. I'm sorry, sweetheart. She's gone."
Cynthia froze, her face twisting into confusion, then horror, then disbelief. She looked like she'd been shot. She shook her head slowly.
"N-No, grandma… she… she's gone? B-But… but, no, she can't… she's really gone?"
"Yes, she's gone," Roland said solemnly, nodding his head. "To the store. To pick up the groceries for dinner."
The words hung in the air for about a minute, slowly sinking in. Then the silence was broken by Cynthia, holding her sides and laughing her head off.
"Bwahahahahaha! Grandpa, that was a good one! You really had me going for a second there! Ha!" She cackled, falling back and rolling on the floor, kicking the air like crazy.
"You… you should have seen the look on your face!" Roland laughed from deep within his gut. It turned into hack like a Weezing or a Koffing but he still continued, showing no signs of slowing. "AHAHAHA! You were totally fooled! You've still got a lot to learn, kiddo!"
Ah. So this was where Cynthia got her abysmal sense of humor from. It was all starting to make sense now. Sango watched the pair of hyenas with dull, uninterested eyes, wanting to make like Maddi and just go to sleep.
"Okay, okay, that was great," Cynthia said, stopping to catch her breath. She stood up, still holding her side and stifling giggles. "Oh! I almost forgot the best part, your trick was so good, grandpa! I have another surprise, too!"
"Oh?" Roland asked, intrigued. "What's that now?"
"Take a look!" Cynthia lifted the carrier containing Aud up onto the counter, presenting him to her grandfather. Roland's brown eyes were wide and gleaming as he looked at the pokemon curiously, studying it from behind the glass. Aud was staring back at him with her pristine blue eyes, not making any efforts to move.
"Why, if my eyes don't deceive me, why that's a Vulpix, now isn't it?" Roland said, rubbing his eyes just to make sure. "But… it's not the color of a normal one, and its tails, it certainly doesn't look like any of the ones from Mt. Chimney that wander their way down Jagged Pass into these parts! Why, it doesn't even look like a fire type, white as it is!"
"She isn't," Cynthia bragged. "She's an ice-type Vulpix! Her name is Aud, and I hatched her from an egg all by myself!"
"Hatched her from an egg, you say?" Roland said, stroking his stubbly white beard. "Fascinating! We used to get a lot of tourists 'round these parts coming to warm up their eggs in hot springs, but this is the first time I've seen such an odd pokemon hatch out of one of 'em. Usually it's just Wynauts and such."
"From what I hear she's from the Alola Region," Cynthia explained. "I'm raising a foreign pokemon! And isn't she just the most darling thing ever? I fell in love with her immediately!"
Cynthia leaned down and rubbed her cheek against the carrying case. "Oooh, I hope she grows up soon so I can let her out of this darn thing, I can't take it! I normally don't mind the warm weather but she's just so snuggable I can't help but just nuzzle up all the time! It has to be a crime to be so cute and adorable!"
Sango had to admit, seeing Cynthia fawn over Aud as she had the last few weeks did bring warmth to her heart. Maddi certainly loved Grim, she had not doubt about that, but as a ghost pokemon her ways of showing him affection weren't as… glompy as Cynthia's were.
Still, if left to her own devices, Cynthia would go on like this until morning, and Sango was exhausted. She wanted to relax in the bath and then eat some dinner, airline food was nowhere near filling enough. So she cleared her throat to get the Fafnirs' attention.
"If you don't mind, can we check in now?" Sango asked. She decided to take advantage of the fact that Maddi was asleep to be a little more tactful. "Our friend is pretty burnt out, as you can see, and I thought it would be good to get her to her room."
"Eh? Why certainly, not a problem," Roland said, laughing. "We don't have any guests at the moment, so you have your pick of rooms!"
"Really? That's great!" Cynthia said, her face brightening. "See, I promised Maddi that she wouldn't have to hang out with me if she didn't want to. So to make up for everything, I was thinking that maybe we could give her her own private room? Do we have any of those?"
"Certainly, Cynthia, I told you, we don't have any guests at the moment. Why, all three of you can have your own private rooms if you want! Although, I'd expect you to want your own room in the main building, Cynthia?"
Cynthia paused, before shaking her head.
"Nah, just treat us like your guests. Sango and I can split a double, and give Maddi her own private one. It'll still be more spacious than we're used to, right?" Cynthia elbowed Sango playfully, bringing a grin to the other girl's face. Having a single roommate WOULD be a nice change of pace for once, Sango had to give her that.
"Eh? A double, eh? My, so that's why you're shunting the sleeping one off into her own room?" Roland chuckled, giving Cynthia a knowing wink. "You're aiming for the blonde one, eh? Just remember, keep it out of the baths."
"Grandpa! I'm not aiming for either of 'em!" Cynthia protested, her cheeks turning red. Sango smiled. Cynthia's embarrassment was a rare treat, and she was savoring every last second of it. She paused. That didn't make her a bad person, did it?
"Oh, I see," the old man said, once again all business. "I thought she wasn't your… 'type' I believe is what you young'uns are still calling it?"
"Exactly!" Cynthia nodded vigorously. "Remember, grandpa? The kinds of girls I like, they're more like this," Cynthia made an hourglass shape with her hands, "and Sango, well, you can see, she's like… this." Cynthia dropped her hands down in two parallel lines to demonstrate a perfect flat board with zero curves at all.
"So, there's just no way."
Sango resisted the urge to punch Cynthia's teeth out. She knew the girl didn't mean anything by it, they were just playing around.
"Ah, always the connoisseur," Roland laughed. "Come, let's get going."
He stepped out from around the front desk and raised his hand, bidding the girls to come.
"And who's fault is that?" Cynthia dryly chuckled, rolling her eyes. "You're the one who warped my tastes so much you dirty old man."
"No one told you to go sniffing around my magazines, that was all you," Roland protested, Cynthia following him towards the hall. Sango groaned and pinched the bridge of her nose. She turned and walked over to Maddi, gently shaking her awake.
"Rrmg… we there yet?" Maddi mumbled, peering up at Sango through bleary eyes. The day had been such a blur that she had temporarily forgotten they had already arrived at their destination some time ago.
"Yeah, we're being shown to our rooms now," Sango said. "Don't worry, Cynthia took care to give you a private room, so you won't have to worry about either of us keeping you up."
"…Private room… huh…" Maddi yawned, sitting up and stretching. She rose to her feet and gathered her backpack, suitcase, and traveling case, trudging blearily towards the hall Sango had indicated. "Guess she's not that bad after all…"
Sango chose not to inform Maddi of the conversation she had just slept through. That would probably just lead to her opinion of Cynthia falling another few points again. So she held her tongue and headed after them.
After the girls were taken to their rooms, Maddi waited the approximate amount of time it took to take her futon out of the closet, unroll it, change into her pajamas, and slip inside before falling right back to sleep, much to Cynthia and Sango's amusement. Sango's sleep schedule was messed up from the start and Cynthia was riding the high of her excitement to be back home, so neither felt the need to go to sleep. Sango, especially, wasn't going to bed without something to eat, that was for damn sure, so they wished Maddi goodnight and headed to their own shared room to unpack.
There was something that they DID feel a need to do after that, however.
"Man…" Sango sighed, sliding down into the warm waters up to her nose, murmuring out a stream of bubbles in the warm, bitter-tasting water. She raised her head up slightly, "I forgot how nice these hot springs were. I feel like a million bucks."
Indeed, the soothing waters were having a marvelous effect on not just her mood, but even the feeling in her body. The usual aches and pains she'd accrued from her many hours of chronic physical exertion seemed to seep out of her and into the water, where they vanished up with the steam. She sighed in content, Silver floating up beside her, peacefully bobbing in the pool.
"Pretty great, right?" Cynthia laughed, stretching out. "Plus, we've got the whole place to ourselves, how cool is that?"
Cynthia looked out across the wide reservoir of water that made up the female side of the baths, sighing contently.
"It's so spacious," Sango commented. "But I'm surprised we actually have this place all to ourselves. Do people not usually come to hot springs in the winter time?"
"No, they usually do," Cynthia replied. "I was talking with grandpa about it, and apparently it's because their reservations are filled up."
"Whoa, seriously?" Sango asked.
"Yup," Cynthia nodded. "A bunch of groups of tourists rented out a lot of rooms. He said they were coming to stay in a few days, right on Christmas Day, and no one wanted to stay here until just Christmas Eve, so we didn't have any other reservations before them. Plus, he didn't know how many friends I was going to bringing with me, so he had to account for that, and, well, guess we just got lucky. Apparently, we got the last double because he reserved it for us. The only other free rooms are the private rooms, and even then we got, like, one of the last ones."
"…Well, that's good," Sango said. "At least you guys aren't going under."
"It's not getting any easier though," Cynthia grumbled, sinking into the water until her head was submerged. She came out a few seconds later, her face flushed red from the heat. She slid over to where Sango was leaning back, joining her. "I'm hoping they'll be able to keep this place going for a while. After I've retired as a pokemon trainer, I'm gonna come here and take it over."
There was a pensive tone in her voice that was very unlike Cynthia. That made twice in one day, to Sango's continued surprise.
"Grandpa's joke earlier… that was real mean," Cynthia mumbled. "I mean, he and grandma, they're both in good health now, but they aren't getting any younger. I really was worried that she might have, well… you know. And when they're gone, well…"
Sango nodded.
"What about your parents?" Sango asked quietly. She hadn't even thought about it until now, seeing Cynthia's grandparents again, but why was Cynthia staying here? Why didn't she go back home to her parents? Sango was learning quite quickly that for how much of an open book Cynthia might be, she wasn't that talkative about her family. Sango was learning that there was still so much about Cynthia that she still had to learn.
"Parents, huh…" Cynthia sighed, her voice a hollow echo across the wide bath, disappearing aimlessly into the night.
In all the time Sango had known Cynthia, she wasn't sure she could remember the girl ever saying one thing about her parents. Sango had no idea if they even got along or what their relationship was right. Hell, until tonight, she didn't know that Cynthia had a sister!
For a girl who considered her her (second) best friend, Sango didn't know that much about her personal life.
"What's to talk about?" Cynthia grumbled. "They're just some stuffy researchers at Devon Corp, always focusing on work. You know, they paid more attention to their research projects than they did to me, their own daughter? But of course, VIOLET gets all the attention because VIOLET is the special one, she's the genius, and I'm just the leftovers."
Sango took a wild guess that Violet was the name of Cynthia's older sister.
"Wow, that must be hard," Sango said.
"Yeah, I guess," Cynthia said noncommittally, rolling her eyes. "Look at me, complaining about my parents to you."
Sango blinked, tilting her head to the side.
"Huh?"
"I mean, your mom, she isn't… around," Cynthia said quietly, looking down at the dark water. "And your dad, well… I mean, my parents worked a lot and didn't really have time for me, but compared to your dad, it's like… what's even the big deal, you know?"
Cynthia glanced timidly up at Sango.
"So, like… I'm not complaining about my parents, nope. I mean, sure, we barely talk, but… I still have a mom, at least, so… sorry. It's kinda rotten to complain about something like that to you, yeah?" Cynthia admitted, her voice tinged with sheepishness like she was embarrassed by the fact that her parents were still alive, or more accurately, that she had been complaining about them to someone whose mother wasn't.
"Who says it's rotten?" Sango asked, reaching up and wrapping her arm around Cynthia's bare shoulders. She moved over so that she was practically straddling the shorter girl, hugging her close and looking into Cynthia's eyes to show she was being serious.
"Whoa there girl," Cynthia let out an awkward laugh, not entirely sure what was going on, and not entirely sure she was comfortable with it. "Don't be starting something you aren't prepared to finish. Because when the motor gets revved up-"
"Cynthia I'm being serious," Sango said, the tone of her voice telling Cynthia she should stop trying to deflect her real feelings with jokes.
Cynthia sighed.
"What… what are you talking about, Sango?"
"I just want to know, who says that complaining about your parents to me is a rotten thing to do?" Sango asked.
"But your mom-"
"Is dead," Sango said, nodding. "But that doesn't mean you can't complain about yours."
"You… you won't get upset that I'm complaining about something so trivial?"
"I should smack you for saying that, you know," Sango huffed, moving back in the water so she was no longer practically on top of Cynthia. She crossed her arms over her chest. "You know how Blake's mother is in a coma?"
Cynthia nodded.
"Now imagine if I had told him 'quit whining at least your mom's alive!'" Sango said. "THAT would be something rotten, don't you think?"
Cynthia nodded again, that did sound like a pretty rotten thing to tell somebody, that they shouldn't complain about their problems because hers were worse.
"I don't know what's up with your folks, but if you want to complain about them, just do it," Sango urged her, putting on a smile of confidence. "It's not like you're rubbing in my face the fact that your mom is still alive, okay? I'm a big girl. I can listen to your problems without having to think about only mine."
Besides, she silently added, glancing to the side, after being the kind of bitch I was to my step-mom-to-be, I don't exactly have the moral high ground to hold my mom's death over someone's head even if I wanted to.
"…Hey, Sango?" Cynthia said, Sango returning her attention to the bright smile on Cynthia's face, a wave of relief washing over her as she saw it.
"Yeah?" Sango asked.
"You're pretty great, you know?"
The way Sango felt sometimes led her to doubt that assertion, but she didn't want to say that, so she shrugged and asked "really?"
"Yup. Better be careful though!" Cynthia gave her a coy wink. "Keep being so sweet and understanding and I might even fall for you!"
A shiver went down Sango's spine, and it wasn't just the winter chill in the air.
New ship, perhaps? Gotta start cramming the romantic runner-ups together.