Unknown to the youth, a sableye had been watching. Shadows hide its form and it waits quietly. The chittering it usually makes is only held back in an attempt to try and remain out of sight. While other ghost types play pranks and demand the spotlight, this one does not. He is golden with emerald eyes, a rarity. He uses the shadows to move around the mountain and watch the youth.

It is his night on watch, and with what he's found, he fades around the shadows to sneak back to his trainer; the gravekeeper, the Ferryman of Mt. Pyre himself.

When the sableye's weight returns to the sexton's back, Sam stops his walking. A small pluck on his back tells him which direction to go. It's a language they've developed over their time together. Sam's back, like a clock. A pluck, a time, a direction.

Not having to walk far, a flashlight isn't even necessary to see what lies ahead. His toxtricity this time serves as his light, walking before him enough that her glow gives off illumination to reveal him through the night.

"Are you lost?"

knox prescott

There's a shift in the entirety of this knew man's body language. It's such an obvious switch that Sam tenses. He's alert now, aware. This one's not really himself and possibly hostile.

The gravekeeper didn't want a repeat of a week prior, when he'd gotten nearly mugged in a surprise attack by some thug trying to rob graves.

"My only destination is self-improvement. I'm neither lost, nor found, for I do not wander. I walk pointedly a path which I carved for myself."

Speaking in riddles wasn't something Sam usually did, but he found it was better to simply mirror whatever an unstable person was doing. In this case, he simply mirrors the vibe being given him.

knox prescott

it is some otherworldly being, that much knox knows. he speaks in prophecy and all at once, knox's future unfolds before him. carve your path. but he has no tools, and he is surely no carpenter.

he brightens. "purgatory, then." that is what it means to self-improve, to ascend. you reach a plane of existence where you can no longer falter. angels can't fall if they have no wings to begin with.

"do others walk with you?" he asks and his eyes betray him: can i come too?

samuel carter

Those eyes beg him, plead to him, for an answer. They ask to travel with him, but to where? Perhaps there is a freedom which this young man seeks that Sam seems to display.

The thought of freedom isn't a joking matter, but Sam finds himself smirking, and the ghost of a laugh reveals itself in a sighed chuckle.

"I have found the road I've paved is a rather lonely one. There are others who believe they walk with me, but I've created little room on my road for them to travel beside. I pass them, I feel. Walking their own roads. I dare not trust another with my road; I'm afraid it's fragile, ready to break if too much weight is set upon it."

knox prescott

his words start dribbling together and knox can't quite make out what he's saying. the words won't stick in his head. but his heart aches, suddenly, and he knows he is crestfallen, that he has been sentenced to isolation. he shivers. red dangles it before him, threatening him, exploiting him with his greatest weakness. loneliness.

left on read, stuck with the hum of a dial tone, a theatre with no audience. he looks down at his hands and his breath comes in short gasps. "how did you learn? how did you learn how to carve?"

samuel carter

"By fighting for my life, day after day."

Kanto's war had done its toll on everybody. For Sam, it had taught him how to live in chaos, and thus how to appreciate the silence of peace when it came.

"I was helped a great deal by the one person I trust more than myself..." he looked to the young man, then took a seat beside him and looked out to the fog of Mt. Pyre's eve.

"Finding that person isn't easy, and now as I try and carve my own path away from them, I find myself in a struggle. I don't want to trust anybody else, is the trouble. Why curse somebody with my existence? Why burden somebody with my shackles?"

A great secret that he rarely shared to many, thinking himself some form of a curse. Why else would he find the company of the dead so soothing?

knox prescott

and there goes another reminder of the day-to-day, of the fact that the world is a lot larger than anyone could have conceived. he'd always had his head stuck in the clouds, lost in a fantasy some way or the other. but the present is a horrorscape and it makes him feel small, and it makes him feel lost.

there is a pang of envy in him. who does he have to rely on? he's been cast aside like yesterday's trash (and he knows, deeply, that they're begging to find him there one day, cold and blue).

the weight comes back and with it the realization that he's coming down. his arms itch and he makes a noise, but he swallows it with a frown.

"guess we're all just fucked up," he says. his words still drift from him, but he can hear himself better. the world stops spinning and it starts making sense and he looks over to his companion, still frowning. "everyone's got their skeletons, man. life's too short to wallow." but isn't that what he's doing? his brain hurts. he pinches his nose as his temples throb. arms/throat/nose itch.

he shrugs. "and 'sides, ya seem an okay guy to me. weird as fuck, like I said, that's all of us."

samuel carter

☉

This one was quite the rollercoaster and Sam can't bring himself to figure out what's happening. It's only as he sees the way the other is fidgeting that Sam makes assumptions. Only to himself, and not out loud. But there's no judgement here. Not for one who seeks comfort from the dead.

"We're all as fucked up as we allow ourselves to be."

Profound? Philosophical? Sam just says things, and they're perceived most of the time as him being a smartass. But he's just talking.

"Do I really seem that weird?" Sam asked with a small and welcoming smile, pointing at himself. "I'm just the crypt keeper."

...cause there's nothing weird about that.

knox prescott

he's making more sense, but knox isn't so sure he wants him to. he wants to go back to those few perfect minutes, where all the puzzle pieces were aligned and the words spilling from his man's mouth were the words of a god. but reality is a tumultuous, teasing thing, and it doesn't let him off the hook. his world continues to slow and knox hates himself/it for it. but the only way to keep it going, to jump-start it, is going to be from the little white baggie in his back pocket.

and he's about to reach for it, but present company stops him. he pauses, thinks about it. "we all got our jobs," he says with a shrug.

"nah, you're not that bad," he finally says with a laugh. "i can see the appeal. it's sad, but it's...beautiful." the grass sways and the fog rolls, not suffocatingly. fragmented memories of mere moments ago--of the expansive mountainside, the forest of trees, the chittering of its inhabitants, pass through him like ghosts. yes, he'd say it were beautiful up here.

samuel carter

☉

"I've always thought so."

Slowly, if not just as an effort to give the other space, Sam lays down on the ground with his hands behind his head. He can hear the ghosts and ghouls in the background of the night. The sounds of the mountain are home to him.

That, and heavy metal.

The stars are countless above him and he makes no motion to count them. 'Let them be chaos,' he tells himself, enjoying their view.

"I'm just here to make sure the local wildlife don't give you the opportunity to sue me." That's not entirely the truth, so he digresses. "That, and you looked like you could use a friend."

knox prescott

beautiful up here, but the fog and the undergrowth hide pitfalls and enemies. that doesn't bother him, though. captain is his guide. the pikachu would die before she let any grievous harm befall her trainer (and this, he still questions why).

"i look that desperate, huh?" he says. he looks sideways at his companion, languidly stretched out. "and you? talking about a path all lonesome--d'you need a friend too?"

samuel carter

☉

Sam had never personally considered if he needed a friend or not. Thinking on it, he wondered what he thought personally. He knew what others said. That he needed friends who weren’t Pokémon. But did he believe that?

“Society says I do. But I’m not sure whether I believe them. Or perhaps I don’t want to risk the possibility of loss.”

He had seen it all through the war. People hurt because who they lost meant a great deal to them. He had resolved himself to only care for his mother’s safety. It had been easier that way.

“Half of me would like one. The other half of me says it’s a weakness. Ultimately, I’m undecided.”

knox prescott