Staying here's the safest option. If Prinn's seen roaming around by Mienshao, she'll know something with the Scholars is up. Jeopardizing their investigation this late into the mystery would really be a bummer. He's safe in the walls of this tavern contemplating places to go, thinking about his coastal maps he's yet to finish, waiting around for a "sleepyhead" to wake up.
Something was weird about Halcion. Sitting next to her all of last night, and this morning, he's noticed there's an oddness about her he can't describe. She could very well be aware of everything happening before her, yet be frozen, helpless as to speak a single word. He wants nothing else than to see a stranger's suffering end, but what is he to do? He is no healer; he especially isn't an expert in sleeping Leon's tail torch shining in her face couldn't wake her then there's nothing the three of them can do.
But dammit, he really wants to know about Zekrom. Nobody's gotten nowhere if they don't try. So he gingerly reaches out to the Haxorus, touching one of her heavy, armor-like scales and gives it a good poke.
Apparently it was all anyone needed to do.
Prinn skitters away and watches the hand reach for something. Right, the bottle! Prinn steps up to the table, sliding over a mostly empty bottle of Chesto Wine into the Haxorus' claws. Like a machine, she chugs what's left of it. All the while blinded by Leon's cap over her eyes..
Her cough sounds like she's about to hack up two weeks of a meal on the spot, but she keeps it all in. Tearing off Leon's cap, she gives the Prinplup sitting next to her a killer glare.
"How long have you been sitting there?"
Prinn taps his flippers together. Minutes? An hour maybe? Leon and Braviary left a tiny bit ago. Some kind of humming noise comes from his beak.
"Don't answer that."
Halcion tosses the bottle towards the stage, and by sheer miracle it doesn't shatter into a thousand pieces. She looks at the hat in her hands.
"What's this?" She asks.
His thoughts are out the window, gone to the wind. His head's become an empty void the second he hears her speak. Anyone of her rank was terrifying.. She's way more of a qualified adventurer than him, or anyone out of their guild. There are four spines on her badge, four marks denoting just how many times better she is than him. His short legs go weak, his flippers tap like the beat of a drum. Gosh, say something!
"Um…I dunno?" Prinn blurts. "It was there when I got here. Maybe someone borrowed Minstrel's hat?"
The Haxorus pauses for what seems like hours. Her red eyes, like a monster out of a storybook, are staring straight into his heart. She's gonna pulverize him. She'll turn him into paste if given the reason.
"Well they've better bring it back." She mumbles, throwing the cap to the floor as though it were a rag. "Minstrel's a nice little birdie. Apparently he can be real feisty when he's angry, numbingly loud."
"Really? He sounded nice when I got to talk to him earlier - yesterday earlier." Better tuck the fact in there, don't want her thinking he's stolen a hat. "He talked like he knew you. Does he actually?"
Her tail is ready, primed to fling outwards should a water-type shuffle close to her. She stretches out the remainder of her body. Small pops, like a crackling fireplace are heard throughout her scales. She's a fallen statue, shaking off decades of wear as it hoists itself upright.
"We're not partners." Her eyes take this moment to rest. She's squinting and fluttering over and over, never fully looking his way. "This is my spot, I come here a lot because my guild doesn't owe it. It happens to be a venue he frequents. I like to hear stories and songs, he likes to have company. We got stuck together like Plusle and Minun."
"Stories?" Prinn inches closer. "I like stories too!"
"Of course you do, you're a kid." she scoffs.
Right there, right in the heart. This is the third, maybe fourth time in the last two days! Can someone cut him a bit of slack already? His cheeks are puffing up like balloons, he's about to burst after all of this nonsense. She's totally going to smack him into a wall if he goes at her, but dangit he just wants to talk to someone for once!
"If you want me to do a job for you, go ask anyone else. As you can see with your pretty eyes, I'm currently bar-ridden. Until this fugue passes I'm stuck here." She's projecting hard enough to light the whole town. "Pull it together and sign yourself up if you want a job done so bad."
The steam is rising, his head feels like it's on fire. He can't contain it anymore. He practically bursts of his seat.
"I don't want to join your guild!" Prinn can't stop himself.. "I-I'm an independent - so who cares? I heard you last night, and I-I just wanna ask about what you were talking about! Why does everyone treat me like I'm stupid?"
His idea of "snapping" was like a hatchling breaking a twig in two, harmless, laughable, and looking utterly pathetic before this grown pokemon. What is he thinking, is she suddenly going to ignore his age and treat him rightly? He's acting like the idiot they all think he is.
Taste of something salty falls onto his beak. A bitter, pathetic tear. And is he sniveling too? How pathetic. Prinn holds his flippers to the ears to blot out the noises he's making. He can't take this. Prinn needs something to focus on, to stop and just think!
But he can't, there's no way off this wagon. More nonsense, more shouting, are on its way out of him.
Then like a hand, or boulder crashing down, Haxorus' heavy tail finds its way on Prinn's chest and forces him back into his seat. Wherein he shrivels up, practically folding into the booth like a blob. His breath slows, his tears stop, and for a minute he sits there - a blank look upon his puffy face. It took one nudge for everything he was once thinking to go scattering to the winds. He doesn't know what to say all the way until Haxorus inevitably flicks her tail away and speaks for him.
"I've gone way too long hearing everyone say what's important to me is nonsense, a fairy-tale, stuff you tell hatchlings to bore them to sleep." She speaks. "You don't need people to decide what's worth your time, it's not my business or anyone else's. People will dismiss you no matter what, but joining their wagon will take you nowhere."
"Minstrel acts like he's above the stories I like, but he's the one who comes here every other week with new material for me to sink my teeth in." Halcion snorts. "The fickle fool…"
Anger doesn't go away instantly. Hate has a habit of staying there, pecking away at its victim. Halcion's words are the reminder Prinn needs to get to why he awoke her in the first place. Wiping a stray tear running down his face, Prinn focuses and his chipper smile returns.
"He-well he seems smart." Prinn takes his time. "Um, what stories are you interested in anyways? I heard you last night. You looked and sounded like you were still asleep, but you were uh…"
"Aware?" She chimes in.
"Yeah…" Prinn scratches his head. He distinctly remembers Halcion with her eyes wide open, pointing to Braviary as she growled nonsense. "You were pointing at people and everything, it was weird."
"It's that bad…"
She stares off to the side, mouth moving, though never making a sound. Her red, reptilian eyes quiver. And then she takes a sharp breath, returning to this world
"I don't remember it." Halcion touches her face. "Minstrel says I do that a lot. He's one of two pokemon in this town I trust not to pull a prank when I'm out of it."
"So what do you want?" She turns her attention to Prinn, her eyes flickering like sparks of life. "We have maybe a couple minutes before I go back to dreamland. Don't ask about whatever's got me under the weather, trust me, I don't remember and I already tried Judeau."
Judeau, aren't they the "little floaty fellow" Braviary was visiting? If a psychic can't know the question of what's gotten Haxorus so sick, then goodness, there's nothing the average poke like Prinn could guess at. It's gotta be something severe, something very unlikely, something he knows has happened before.
He remembers something, and smiles. He knows what's up!
"Maybe you're a Faller?" Prinn chirps proudly. "They get amnesia, so maybe you got hit with a spell while in a dungeon and woke up without your memories?"
"Nope." She says with the utmost confidence. "I'm not one of them. Someone would've had to have found me on the ground in the middle of nowhere to be a Faller, same with a Beached. I just woke up here someday, and that's the end of that story."
"Well darn, I thought I was onto something…" he trails off.
Cut to the chase, Prinn. He's wasting too much time asking pointless things. Her affliction isn't waiting for him to ask a hundred questions.
"Oh right!" Prinn smacks the side of his head. "Can you tell me more about this Knight guy I heard you talking about? You made him sound pretty cool."
"He isn't just "cool", he's one of the most important pokemon to have walked the lands" She laughs. "We wouldn't be doing what we're doing were it not for him paving our path. The Knight's the most dignified, important, and courageous adventurer to have existed and one too many people write him off as some fairy tale."
"Was he the first?" Prinn asks, full of curiosity.
"No, Zekrom's the first one to ever matter. He charted the Dawn Continent, travelled the dunes of the Sand Continent, and visited places we never thought existed. He slew foes none of us could even imagine, all to earn us our eternal freedom." The pride becomes stained with sadness. "We were supposed to carry his torch. His words should be written on the walls of every guildhall in the world, but the schmucks running the guilds these days can't even be asked to remember his name."
"Nobody knows their roots anymore!" She spits onto the floor. "I try to tell everyone and these guilds think I'm a nutcase!"
She's getting mad at the wrong person. And all it takes for her to calm down is a drawn out breath. A wave at the bar follows. They hear Vileplume begin shifting through bottles.
"Does that answer your question, water boy?" Halcion taps the table. It's strewn with claw marks on her side. "You want more?"
Knights, and those types of heroic individuals are old news. Though there may be actual kingdoms far off on separate continents, the structure of a guild is very much a quarter of knights in everything but name - charismatic leaders and all. His two takeaways from this already were: he'd ought to read about the Knight when he gets the chance, and he'd better remember Zekrom's name. The last thing he wants is to become part of this problem plaguing guilds.
Thinking about it, he should know who his enemies were. Maybe they're as cool as he was, they may even be still around lurking in the darkness of dungeons! How exciting!
"Yeah, yeah! I always got more!" He nods his head eagerly. "If he's fought for our freedom and stuff, then who'd he fight against?"
"Erm..." She looks to the sky for a moment. "We know he couldn't stand when his kind abused their power, so there's our best guess. How many he took with him to the other side, we've no idea."
Powerful beings like him - beings like Articuno who Leon prays to or the mysterious author of the Relic Song. Beings could shake the world with their battles, make continents to freeze over.. They'd need a Zekrom or a person of similar might to keep those others in check. Who knows when the last time this world fell into calamity because a very powerful pokemon wasn't doing their job, or worse, causing the calamitous events to happen intentionally? Too many stories begin and end with this. So if Zekrom exists, then it'd make everything he's read all the more true.
Baleful outsider, Faller. Halcion's words from last night whisper in Prinn's head.. He's a pain in the rear, a meddling jerk, "baleful" doesn't fit their bird.
"What about Fallers?" He asks, rather innocently.
"Fallers?" She snaps her head to the little bird. "I let you off the slip last time, don't talk about those.."
"You mentioned them last night." He bites on his tongue. Don't mention the bird. "You said something about Outsiders too, are they the same thing?"
A red hat with legs approaches their table. The Vileplume drops the bottle, then backs away. She uses one of her horns to cork it open and she guzzles down half of it in a single gulp.
"They're a problem." Her claws grip the beverage tightly. "You wanna know something which will really help people like you?"
Prinn blinks. "Sure."
Her pupils are suddenly dilating, but her glare is fierce, deadly. A swift motion of her head could cleave him into ribbons.
"When you talk about those sorts, you invite them. Things as of now are pretty good. There hasn't been an honest to goodness event which came close to ruining everything since whatever the heck happened over on the Grass Continent." Halcion's hands quiver, another swig restrains them. "Our jobs exist because these events happen, but they shouldn't need to. Disaster always follows these outsiders. I don't know the reason why this is the case - it just is, it always has been."
Just like dungeons; a currently unexplained, intrinsic thing about the world which continues to happen from now until perceivably forever. A part of life Pokemon deal with in their own special ways. Some become adventurers so they can save others who cannot save themselves, others live their lives far away from the wilderness in the safety of towns wherein no dungeon could reach them, and some madmen attempt their best to understand it. Whether he's naive, or soon to lose himself to trying to unravel the impossible, Prinn believes he falls into the latter camp.
Someone will eventually find out the secret to these Dungeons' formation, publish it, and tell the world everything. Until this day, which is centuries in the making, he'll continue to chart his maps. He'll make sense of the world in his own special way. One day maybe his name will be as known as this Great Knight.
As always, when confronting these sorts of intrinsic things about the world it's always good to nod his head and understand he's hit a metaphysical wall.
"He raged against these disasters, all for our freedom. He just wanted…wants…"
Her breath is growing heavy, her eyes enlarge.
"What?"
Prinn's words were never going to save her. She draws in air and everything about her stops. Her eyes were frozen in time glaring at an unseen ancient foe. The bottle of Chesto Wine in her hand did little to delay the inevitable. She's far away now, wherever she is.
He listens until he finally hears her breath, so faint as to be drowned out by anything louder than a whisper. Her chest still rises with the distinct sign of life, but her eyes are dry and mummified. It hurts to look at her.
Leon's hat lies on the floor in a pathetic lump. Looking at it, Prinn wonders: is it one Leon made himself or did it come from the guild? Does he have a choice in how he wants to fly the guild's colours?
When he picks up the hat to slump over Halcion's face, he hears a sound. The tavern's doors have swung open, and a pair of footsteps marches down the rickety stairs. Did Leon forget something? It's barely been an hour since they left.
No, it couldn't be him. Leon wasn't the type of person to let someone like Braviary out of sight. If this was him running to get his bag, Braviary would be with him getting a bottle for the road. This is one two-legged person. What they're doing here is none of his business. He's gonna sit here pretending to do nothing, waiting for his turn to talk to the bartender.
The footsteps were graceful, accentuated by the faint shink of claws scraping against the floor. If it were Braviary, those sounds would be louder. The bird shambles everywhere he goes. So if not Braviary, or Leon, who could they be? It's tempting to take a glimpse of the visitor, but he knows to keep his head down.
He rattles in place like a critter backed to a corner. The presence had no interest in Vileplume, they weren't stopping.. With each step they take closer to him, an inextricable fear rises inside Prinn. When the stranger rounds a corner the anxious Prinplup activates his only line of defence: he shuts his eyes, takes a breath, and pretends to become one with Haxorus in dreamland.
His world is dark. He hears sounds through the void: movement, a stifled laugh. A tall shadow falls over him, and then everything stops. He feels a tug on the cap; he sacrifices it to them. Then when everything in the bar goes quiet an unfamiliar voice calls out to him.
"Are you…"
A woman's voice, hewn by years of exhausting adventure. He's never heard it before yet he recognizes it the instant of. What does he do? What does he say? Does he get up to answer them or continue down this futile route of faking his sleep? Leon would know what to do, but he's not here for better and for worse. It's all on Prinn. He's facing down the daunting task of keeping himself together.
"You're Prinn?" The voice gets closer. "Why are you here?"
He doesn't respond.
"You're not asleep. Eileen does the same exact thing when she wants to be alone." A hand touches Prinn's shoulder. One a long wisp of fur drapes around his neck like a warm, knitted scarf. "I don't think what my partner has is contagious. Curses aren't usually, but I would not want to find out through you."
He remembers the dungeon: keep still, keep quiet, and keep his head down. It'll blow over soon.
The voice groans.
"You're usually so talkative, she says." He's given a second shake. It takes everything not to squeal. "It's okay, you don't need to talk. I'm only here to check in on a friend. If you are ill then I suggest you'd start taking what she takes. The Chesto brew here is strong but you're tough, right?"
"Tab's stacking up…" the voice exhales. "I'm actually considering taking serious jobs again, but I couldn't do this alone, Hal. Too great a risk, you know that."
She plucks the bottle from Halcion's fingers onto the table. When the beast wakes, she'll drink, and throw it to the wayside. How long has Halcion been out like this?
"I'll tire of paying for this eventually. That won't be for a long, long time.." She pauses, like she's now noticing something. "I'm giving some to the boy, he might need it. You won't mind in the slightest."
Mienshao's voice steps away, moving towards where he remembers the stage to be. It's here a bottle was thrown like a toy, and where she'll no longer face him. Just for a moment, either to make certain it's her or to capture her image in his mind's eye, Prinn takes a peep into reality.
This is Eileen's mother: an adventurer far away from Scoria Town who's only ever heard through letters. The bipedal fighting type stands on stage, her long whiskers and whip-like appendages on her wrists drape down her body. The scarlet shawl she wears is fastened to her by a semi-circle emblem of the Sundown Guild, and a three-clawed pokemon has left their mark on her shoulder.
A sparring match gone wrong? Halcion's got three claws.
Before she reaches the back of the stage, she stops. The feathers on Prinn's back ruffle like a murder of unruly Murkrow as she sees her grip her badge like a vice. Her eyes becoming laden with anxiety, stare past Prinn to the crowded market and far beyond it. Like in the midst of the battle she scans the tavern. Seeing her opening, she leaves in a hurry. Passing Prinn's booth as though he were never there.
Just like that, it's the second member of the Sundown Guild to leave him this morning under mysterious circumstances. What is wrong with anyone?
He thinks getting up away from the booth will aid him, but his mind gives no quarter. Why did she grip her badge? What can she see which he can't? How long has Halcion been this way? Is Halcion in on Mienshao's schemes, and what more is there to know about this Knight?
Too many questions - even fewer straight answers. Prinn's been stuck in this Tavern for far too long. If he wants to make any sense of this then he'd ought to get out of here and find a place to practice.
The Sleepyhead's habits are his to reap. Prinn plods over to the stage to find the seven-to-eight bottles on the floor behind it. Prinn looks to the bar; Vileplume doesn't care to look from whatever they're doing. And so the four empty bottles he can carry were now his to throw not-so-harmless bubbles at. Now came finding a place to set them up: which was to be about anywhere other than this tavern.
Bottles in hand he can finally leave this hole in the ground. Prinn barely makes it to the foot of the stairs when the Bartender stops him dead.
"Kid."
He almost threw a bottle at them.
"W-What?" Prinn turns with a tired look, and Vileplume simply beckons him over. The boy retraces his steps, leaving his bottles in a stack upon the stair.
The grass-type leans over the bar when Prinn reaches it; leaves of a flower-shaped head conceals them both.
"You're saying "what" like you don't know." Vileplume snorts. "You're the one who told Minstrel who told me to look at the books. So I did, because he brings in good money and I'd hate to have him swap venues."
"Did he threaten to pull because of me?" Prinn just wants a favor, not someone's business to go up into flames! "I don't mean the trouble!"
"No, he didn't say it." The grass-type sighs "I don't know the magic words you said to him, but he really wanted to know for your sake. Heck, he and I both recognize your bird friend; so I had vested interest in it too. Didn't know his name unfortunately."
What did Prinn expect? Prinn's heart sinks, and Vileplume instantly shoves it back in place.
"I do have a history of regulars who've racked up a tab only to refuse to pay it. It's called theft - and a lot of explorers in these parts love to hunt petty thieves. After the first time it happened, I started keeping names. Just to spook people."
"And…?"
Vileplume unearths a small tome from beneath the bar. The driftwood bound journal has been here soaking up knowledge with each passing year. Only its curator, a Vileplume who stuffs pages into there with reckless abandon, can navigate such a disheveled tome.
As they open it, a crumpled piece of paper magically slips out of it. Its edges are frayed, its paper stained, the fragment looks like it belongs at the bottom of a bin, yet it's this exact note they hand to Prinn. Its financial secrets are entirely his to discover.
Like opening a chest found at the deepest depth of a dungeon, Prinn takes the delicate piece into his flippers, then lays it flat against the wooden bar. Unfolding it piecemeal, prying open its secrets until it reveals its treasure: a short list of names, an amount owed, and a brief description. The golden feather above shines upon the ruinous parchment.
He begins from the top:
Halcion, Haxorus with the black painted scales around her shoulders, huge fangirl. Maybe around 600 owed.
Prinn couldn't call her a friend. Friend was a title he had for nice people like Eileen, but of all the people he's met from the Sundown Guild, of which there were two - the Haxorus was the nicest. Calling her a fangirl's kinda rude.
Just gonna write her down as Mienshao from the Sundown Guild. The Haxorus' partner. 2400 owed. Half already paid.
Eileen's mother who is unfortunately their prime suspect. No name, nothing new to add here other than the stiff bill she's racked up paying for her partner's Chesto wine. She's gotta be pretty good at her job to afford this stuff…
Minstrel, a minstrel named Minstrel. Can't peg down where he's actually from, a Chatot with a dumb hat. Drinks on the house for now.
Of the three he recognizes from here, Minstrel was the one closest to the illustrious title of a friend. No reason to think he's anything other than a good natured stranger.
Chief Investigator of the Anomalous Society, Lou T. Insisted I write down the full thing. Intelleon. 300. Not en-
Enough space. Why was the Anomalous Society's chief in Calico? Lapis Town's way far off to make frequent journeys worth it. Thinking about it, he's never actually met them. The name's completely new as well.
Four names altogether, four pokemon who Prinn was at the very least familiar with. His eyes glaze through the text, burning the details in his mind. Then as if the feather glow were guiding Prinn, his flipper moves just an inch and the light shines upon the fifth.
Burke.