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

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

"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

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

"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

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