"She has to be fine... There's no way someone like her could just... just become a victim," Andrea told herself quietly. "Surely a master Pokémon trainer like her could defend herself from anyone." The thoughts about her business partner's whereabouts were beginning to flood through her mind. As much as she tried to reason otherwise, she couldn't help but feel that something sinister had happened. "What if she was targ-"

Her thoughts were interrupted as she was knocked to the floor. A large man towered over her with a look of bitter angriness on his face. He was dressed quite sharply, sporting a brown tweed suit that unfortunately had a large cup of coffee spilled all over it. "What the fuck, lady?! Watch where you're walkin'!" he roared as he wiped at the coffee with his hand.

"I-I-I'm sorry, I was... I was-"

Before offering to help her up or even allowing her to explain herself, the man stomped off. Just as well, she knew he wouldn't be interested in any excuses she offered.

She picked herself up off of the floor and looked around. Nobody had stopped to offer to help her, or even to see what had happened. That brief encounter, the careless people around her, the situation regarding Tamara, it was all beginning to take its toll on her. "I need to get out of here before I run into anyone else..." she muttered. She took one last look at the lobby behind her before stepping out into the chilly evening air. The atmosphere around her began to put her mind at ease; she was back in Aughrim, the city which she had called home for four years.

As she navigated the promenade, the gentle tones of a tenor saxophone began to fill the crisp air around her. She'd heard this enchanting sound nearly every time she visited the train station and once again, it lured her in. A man with a bowler hat and a fancy waxed mustache stood in the center of a crowd of spectators, playing his own rendition of a popular tune from the 1980s. The case in which he carried his saxophone was drowning under a pile of bronze and silver coins, with more being added by passersby.

The music calmed her nerves as it continued. She generally wasn't a fan of upbeat ballad music and in fact usually abhorred it, but she felt drawn in by it. The soothing notes of the music began to melt her anxiety away, and thoughts about Tamara's wellbeing started to slip into the back of her mind. She even found herself singing along to the lyrics once she found her stride:

Worlds apart, days and nights gone by,
Not seeing you is bringing me nothing but pain.
I wish it weren't so, but I won't lie,
It's enough to drive me insane.
I don't get to see you, feels like ever.
How long will this go on? Forever?

Where ever you are,
I don't care what you do.
Just come to me, I'm waiting for you.
Whatever it takes!
Every day my heart breaks,
Still here, waiting for you.

I took for granted our time together,
I really thought it would last forever.
Now that you're gone, all that's left is tears.
Never seeing you again? One of my greatest fears.
I've fallen in love, I must admit,
And it's tearing me apart, bit by bit.

Where ever you are,
I don't care what you do.
Just come to me, I'm waiting for you.
Whatever it takes!
Every day my heart breaks,
Still here, waiting for you.

I wonder, can I survive without this romance?
Maybe I should get finally just say, 'I love you'.
And if you say no, well, I did all I could do...
I don't care what happens, I'll take that chance.
I don't know when that will happen,
Maybe today, but longer, I imagine.

Where ever you are,
I don't care what you do.
Just come to me, I'm waiting for you.
Whatever it takes.
Every day my heart breaks,
Still here, waiting for you.

Waiting... Waiting here, for you...

Eventually, the music ended and the saxophone player began to pack up his belongings. As the crowd began to disperse, she lingered in silent contemplation. She realized that the lyrics didn't apply to her situation at the moment, but they brought about feelings of hope nevertheless. She dug through her purse and grabbed a few silver coins, then approached the man and offered them to him.

The man studied her for a brief second, then accepted the coins graciously. "Thank you, ma'am, that's one of the most generous gifts I've gotten all week."

"No, thank you," she insisted. "Your music helped to clear my mind."

"Jus' how I do," he said before he left.

She kicked at the ground as she thought about what to do. Finding a place to stay for the night seemed like a good idea, but the evening was still young. She didn't want to be trapped in a hotel room all night, waiting for phone calls while she could be doing something more interesting with her time. The thought about reconnecting with some of her old university friends crossed her mind, but she remembered that most of them had moved out of the city by now. Then she remembered the VIP ticket that she was given, and buried her hand into her purse in search of it. With it in hand, she began to read from it:

Witness the performance of a lifetime, the biannual event that has taken Aughrim by storm for twelve straight years! This ticket admits one visitor to the Majesty of Aughrim coordination contest, scheduled for the 14th of May and held at the Cèilidh Gailearaidh on West Armory Street. Prepare to have your breath taken away as eight coordinators compete against each other for glory and the chance to be crowned the Lad or Lass of Aughrim!

"West Armory, huh? Well? Now that I have nothing better to do..."

It was a quick and rather uneventful walk to the city's Old Towne district. Despite spending several years of her life in the city, Andrea had never taken the time to visit Old Towne. She felt overwhelmed as she attempted to navigate the winding alleyways that made up the core of the city, a fact made worse by the dim lighting the old street lamps offered. As a precaution, nearly everyone she came into close contact with was watched like a hawk, and anyone who looked even the least bit suspicious, angry or drunk was given a wide berth.

To avoid the thoughts about Tamara clouding her mind again, she tried to imagine the coordination contest she was about to attend. She knew very little about them, and Kimberly's description did little to paint any particular images in her imagination. 'It involves flashiness, showmanship and stunning visuals' she recalled, but what did that even mean? "What should I expect to see? Fire juggling? Ice carving? Acrobatics? Horticulture displays?"

At last, she had arrived at the Cèilidh Gailearaidh, a large and imposing stone building that could grab the attention of even a blind man. Four brick spires towered into the sky, each tipped with crenellations and decorated with grisly-looking gargoyles from ages past. Enormous stained glass windows that depicted important events in Lanark's history lined the roughly chiseled walls. She'd never seen it in person before, and now she was kicking herself for never taking the time to.

One look at the entrance to the old building was all she needed to begin reconsidering how she would spend the rest of her night. "You've gotta be kidding me..."

A seemingly endless sea of people were gathered in front of the entrance. At first, it looked like there was little order to the crowd, but closer inspection revealed a long, snaking line penned in with red velvet ropes. She tried to count the number of people waiting, only to lose count somewhere around 65.

"Am I really going to wait in the cold..." she asked herself before she noticed a much smaller line near another entrance that was opposite from the crowded one. A large banner with the words 'VIP TICKET HOLDERS ENTER HERE' emblazoned on it was a warm welcome.

"Hello! Welcome to the Cèilidh Gailearaidh!" an attendant said as she approached. "Please have your VIP ticket ready!"

She dug through her purse and grabbed one of the tickets that Kimberly gave her, then handed it over.

The attendant grabbed the ticket and held it up to a scanner. "Let's see... Yep, this is right! Welcome to the show!" He grabbed a small pamphlet and a lanyard that was decorated with silver roses and handed them to her. "Here is your VIP access pass and a schedule for tonight's show. Enjoy!"

She slipped the lanyard around her neck and entered the building. She was greeted by a stately dressed young man who offered to escort her to the VIP section, an offer that she accepted. As they passed by the main entrance to the concert hall, she could see that the seating area was nearly filled to capacity in preparation for the show; there simply weren't enough seats left for the people waiting outside. If that was the case, she reasoned, then the night would at least be memorable.

The young man who was escorting her was awkwardly silent and rebuffed every effort she made at speaking with him, so instead, she studied her surroundings. The marbled halls were home to numerous paintings and works of art, from renaissance masterpieces to modern trash. Displays of medieval arms and armor decorated the empty spaces between the paintings. Important documents and books from the city's history were housed in glass containers. A lot of history called that hallway home, history that Andrea was interested in learning about, but now wasn't the time.

The two stopped at an unmarked doorway and the man knocked on the door.

"Yes? You can come in." a voice called from the other side.

The man opened the door and motioned for her to enter. She stepped inside and immediately recognized it as a green room, much to her surprise. "Umm, I'm not not here to compete tonight, sir, I'm looking-"

Kimberly was seated at the vanity on the far side of the room, applying some last minute touch ups to her appearance. A warm smile appeared on her face as she noticed Andrea in the mirror. "Andrea, you came!"

"I... I guess I did?" she replied. The confusion in her voice was obvious; she expected to be seated by now, not visiting one of the contestants. "I don't know why that guy brought me here, but here I am."

"One of the perks of being a VIP ticket holder, friend. You get to visit the contestant who gave it to you before and after the show!" she said, adjusting the last of her eyeshadow. She took a moment to look at her work and found it to be unsatisfactory. "Ugh! I'm so bad at this!"

"Bad at what?"

"Makeup application! I don't know how to do it properly..."

She approached from behind to get a closer look in the mirror. "I think you did alright." Her compliment was met with silent skepticism, almost as if Kimberly was waiting to be told otherwise. "I guess it's a little sloppy near the corner of your right eye. Shouldn't be hard to fix."

Kimberly took another close look at herself in the mirror, but she could see more than just a sloppy application. She reached for a white cloth that was stained with nearly a dozen black smudges and began to rub away at her makeup. "Would it be correct of me to assume that your business partner never arrived?"

She sat down on a chair in the corner of the room. "Yeah, no sign of her. My boss can't find her, her boss can't find her, her airline can't find her, the hotel she's supposed to stay at can't find her... The most we know is that she's here in Lanark somewhere. Beyond that?" She shook her head silently as she shrugged.

"That's worrying, to say the least." Kimberly placed the cloth back onto the table and grabbed the makeup brush again. "This may be a strange question, but... Could you help me with this?"

"Help?"

Kimberly offered the brush to her. "Don't take this as an insult as I don't mean it like that, but you seem like you're much better at this makeup thing than I am."

She took a moment to think it over before asking, "That won't break any competition rules, will it?"

"No. As I was arriving, I noticed that two of the other contestants had their own assistants. It's a common practice in these competitions."

She sheepishly accepted the brush and wondered where to begin. She considered herself a veteran of eyeshadow application and had spent years perfecting her own look, but all of that knowledge and confidence went out the window now that she was working on someone else. "I'm going to screw this up, and then it'll be on me..." she thought to herself. "I'll try something subdued. I really only know how to do the prince of darkness look, but I doubt you want that. I don't think it'd fit the look you're going for."

"And what look would that be?"

She took a step back and studied Kimberly's appearance more closely. She was wearing a simple mint green pinstripe sun dress, embroidered with a dozen roses down the right side. Her outfit was anything but complex and gave off an 'I'm fun, yet classy' vibe. Her golden brown hair, on the other hand, was a complex mess of braids, twists and ribbons, yet it carried a touch of sophistication with it. She didn't know what to make of it. "You know, I'm not sure."

Kimberly closed her eyes and put her faith in Andrea as she began to apply some eyeshadow. "Neither am I, which has me slightly worried... I got a sneak peak at one of the other contestants, she was in the most gorgeous red dress I had ever seen! What I'm wearing simply can not compete."

"What you're wearing can't be all that important, right? Aren't these shows all about the Pokémon and the tricks they do?"

Kimberly tried to remain still as she laughed. "Oh bless your little cotton socks! You really do know so little about coordination... You'll soon see what it's all about!" A few minutes passed without a response from Andrea, so she asked, "What will you do if you never meet with your business partner?"

She took a step back and studied her work. She found it satisfactory enough, but wasn't sure if it matched the look that Kimberly sported. "I honestly don't know. I'll probably head back to Loch Alstan, I can't travel the roads alone, it's way too dangerous."

"Yes, the roads are quite nasty for the unprepared..."

"You can say that again. I learned that first hand before I came here."

The door opened and an attendant's head popped in. "Ten minutes until the show begins, ladies." he said before closing the door again.

"Hasn't that guy ever heard of knocking? You're lucky you were dressed!" Andrea joked.

Kimberly stood up and made some last minute adjustments to her hair in the mirror. She noticed that her hand was shaking lightly and tried her best to calm herself. "Oh dear... Nervousness is setting in... This is my first big competition."

"Heh. Just have a little faith, you'll do fine." she said.

With a few deep breaths and a few repetitions of "Confidence is key..." she nodded. "Even if I don't do well tonight, I'll have learned some valuable lessons for next time."

"If you don't mind, I'll get out of your hair. I have to find my seat, still..."

"By all means. Thank you for stopping by, friend!" Before Andrea could get far, she approached the door and called out into the hallway, "Oh! One last thing! I'll be returning to this room after my performances. Would you care to join me?"

Andrea stopped in her tracks and paused for a brief moment. "Sure, why not? See you soon."