goddammit school
831. inert: unable to move or respond; sluggish
Daisy and her husband left after she neatly chopped the watermelon into triangular slices and arranged them on a plate. Both Green and Latias let out a breath when the front door slammed. Green walked over to the sofa, and placed the plate of watermelon slices on the coffee table. Latias materialized, removing her invisibility.
He took out the leftovers from dinner and brought them over for her to eat. "How's Latios?"
She looked up from a spoonful of fried rice. "Inert… Maybe able to forrm illusionary body… But talking to me a lot! He says thank you for taking care of me!"
832. pandemic: general, widespread; a very widespread disease
Green smiled. "Sure thing." He helped himself to a slice of watermelon. "Can he talk to me directly though?"
"Maybe… we talk through telepathy; not norrmal telepathy though. Kind of like old language, communicating not through words but through… vibrrations… and very simple ideas." Latias was having trouble trying to describe the feeling, and Green completely understood when some humming appeared in his head. It was a deep in tone, and quiet; it conveyed a kind of warm feeling that made him feel tingly. It was the kind of feeling one gets when first looking into someone's eyes and making the friendly, albeit a little awkward, introductions.
"I – I think I get it."
"He just spoke to you right?" Green nodded (did that count as speaking?). "We learned human speech during the great pandemic many eons ago; broken dam and flooding caused disease, and we needed to tell humans how to fix things. But language style always changing – for pokemon too."
833. nascent: coming into being; being born
"Yeah." Learning archaic languages for code deciphering in the Unown ruins was a pain in the butt.
"Nascent languages have many words, many meanings, sometimes tough to learn. But all my siblings, we all speak old language – good because we all understand each other, bad because some don't want to learn modern language and can't speak with normal pokemon, humans."
"Wait, why is it so hard for humans to understand pokemon language? They understand ours so easily – or at least, they seem to."
"Our modern language has many, many dialects – but all from the same father language. It is difficult to understand each other, but we learn languages quickly; we speak in our dialect, others understand and respond in their own dialect. Humans not so good at language – you all speak similarly, so you have trouble recognizing all sorts of poke-dialects."
834. brazen: showing shameless, insolent boldness; made of brass
"Wow."
"You should try to learn – language barrier is more destructive than you think. Most humans are happy as they are, but is better for you to listen and understand. I think Gold can communicate with his pokemon quite well."
No wonder he was so brazen with ridiculous attacks. His confidence in his pokemon was beyond brute strength; it came from understanding. "Which dialects are easiest to learn?"
835. harbinger: someone or something that indicates what is to come
Latias hummed thoughtfully. "Hn… well, psychic family obviously, ghost family too… and then fairy and dark; most of the special types. Oh, dragons are quite communicative when not stubborn… Harder to learn from fire, bug, grass types. Why don't you work with Umbreon, she knows you quite well."
Umbreon looked up and made a face. Oh, those cute eyes, harbingers of the end of Green's wallet.
Latias was not to be put off, and she pouted. "Please?"
Green made a pleading face too. He'd never thought of learning poke-speech, since it wasn't like he could really speak it either. It'd be hard… but interesting.
836. stalwart: firm and resolute; having imposing physical strength
Umbreon made as if to be stalwart – so very few people had successfully learned poke-speech – but when Green held out a bar of chocolate from his stash, she relented. Anything for 80% dark chocolate with sea salt and almonds…
She flopped her ears down and whimpered. Green felt his heart squeeze and said, "Sad." Latias nodded.
Umbreon then stared at Green. Green furrowed his eyebrows, but then she jabbed him sharply with a paw. "Ouch! Uh, me? You? …Green?"
Umbreon then squatted down and then raised a paw and twirled it around the side of her head. "Cuckoo? Crazy? Stupid?"
Umbreon nodded. Green strung the words together. "Sad Green stupid? … Sad, Green stupid… Sad because Green is stupid?!"
837. ledger: a book for keeping financial records
Umbreon smirked, and nodded. Green indignantly squished her cheeks, but Latias clapped happily. "Good good! That was fairly complex, uncommon phrase. But she is playing charades, not quite speaking." Latias clicked her tongue and looked at Umbreon. "Try something more common, actual language too."
Umbreon scrunched up her nose. She purred, smiling, and then made what sounded kind of like a little cough. Green scratched his head, and she made the same sound, and jumped on his lap and reached for the chocolate bar. Green looked to Latias for translation.
"She said she likes chocolate – purr is happy, 'cah-coh' is cacao, chocolate. Dark family has good speech, should be easy to pick up words."
The rest of the evening passed with Green trying to figure out Umbreon's speech – when Latias curled up to sleep, he carried Umbreon into his bedroom, where they continued the exercise. He scribbled down notes in the margins of his ledger while calculating expenses for the rest of the month.
838. assiduous: diligent; hardworking; constant
Green had always been a fairly assiduous student, but around midnight, Green gave up trying to figure out what 'mree-reh' meant. He hugged Umbreon, who sighed (wow she was getting sassy), and then showered, brushed his teeth, and went to sleep.
839. quarantine: enforced isolation to prevent the spread of disease; to isolate for such a purpose
Early Friday morning, Silver texted him. Green was eating toast and still trying to figure out what 'mree-reh' meant, and Latias was just giggling.
7:20 AM – Silver: I am coming to battle in two hours. (read)
Green slammed his head on the kitchen sink. Arceus dammit, he totally forgot about that. Ugh, couldn't the league quarantine trainers and have like, what, a battling season or something so people could actually have a life sometimes? Hey, that was a good idea…
840. harrowing: very distressing; painful
But another harrowing load of paperwork would accompany a drastic change like that so… maybe not. Well, Green now had two hours to get his pokemon active and ready to fight. A little tough? Very tough – he'd had them recuperate all of Monday and Tuesday, and they were still at the ranch in Pallet. He had just enough time to get them back through the PC and then warm up, for what, an hour and a half? If he started running around… now?