--And all he receives in response is a derisive snort.

"I can't imagine why the Rainbow Pokemon has declined to show itself to them."



If a fake can truly surpass the original, then there's no point in calling it a fake anymore. There's not any difference between the two. That's why this gaudy display can only be called a fake. Painted harlots and braying cattle, competing to see who can make the louder racket. As if to mitigate her disgust, she brings a well-loved kiseru pipe to her lips, the fine tobacco offering a richer, earthier aroma than anything that can be managed by anything that already comes rolled up in a packet. Once she'd secured her position, getting something better than the cheap crap they had to hand around her had been her first priority.

--It's a filthy habit, but she never claimed to be perfect. Small vices are one of the few things she has left. 

"Can the dancers even battle? I might forgive them for playing to their audience if they could at least hold their own. Half the artistry in it is in the battling, you see." 

She's entirely serious. The battles weaved into each performance might only be for show, but the emotion and the passion, they are entirely real. They are the sparks by which the sacred fires might be ignited once again. A dance without a battle is only vanity, and not worth considering as anything more than autoeroticism. She can't even say she's insulted-- are you insulted when an fish doesn't know how to walk on two legs? It's simply beyond their capabilities.

"I hope you aren't going to ask me to train them properly. You know what they say about horses  and water. Besides, I'd need a year or two just to find the right candidates."


She leans back a little and crosses her arms, her free hand disappearing into the sleeve of her kimono. Inside them, she runs a hand over Eevee's Poke Ball. She won't bring her out in a filthy place like this, but she misses the weight of her all the same.

"I'm curious what it is you do want to ask of me. I wasn't expecting an organisation like Rocket to have much use for someone like me, but, then again, it does seem that you're in dire needs of people who actually know what they're doing." 

She looks down the length of her pipe at him, her eyes empty of anything but idle  curiosity.  What brings a man like that to a point in his life like this?

--though, she supposes he could ask the same of her. Hah. The irony tastes of bitter almonds.

Yotsukura Yotsugami

☉

"...Yes. I lived that life. But, that was a long time ago. I'm nobody of any note anymore."

Her reticence does not match the manner in which she announced herself to Team Rocket. But, that's to be expected. It isn't in her nature to make more of a scene than she needs to. An image is an important thing to maintain, after all.

"Once. Foreign royalty you don't have a hold over anymore isn't incredibly impressive, if we're speaking truthfully. Unless this has been Galar all along, and I accidentally purchased the wrong ticket. That would've be foolish of me."

--And even these words don't match her last. No one of note, and yet she scoffs at royalty. Is it arrogance, or simple apathy? The answer is in the way her foot taps in time to the music, the wooden click of her geta lost to the beat.

Ah, and here's the turn in the conversation. He has her attention, at least. It's for this reason that she's here, after all. Of ghosts and rainbows, at least, she is qualified to speak. Even if she's discarded her past, or tried to, there are some parts of her that can't be so easily excised.

"...Hm. Maybe. Pokémon like that exist on a timescale that us mortal beings can't even imagine. Ancient when we were young... It would be as easy as it blinking, and missing the flickering out of a candle in the moment its eyes were closed. But, still. It seems unlikely to me."

A brief pause. Another drag from the pipe, and her other hand emerges with a fan that she snaps open in a single movement, the paper blooming like a flower in its first and last spring to cover half her face, each section a different colour of the rainbow of which they speak. But, it's curious. Kimono Girls match their accessories to their Pokémon, as is tradition, but this fan of seven shades does not suit her mourning black.

"My reasoning is quite simple, really. You're familiar with the legend, yes? The Rainbow Pokémon gives life. Why should it suffer its ally to die? if it follows a ghost, it is because it has not yet understood that they have passed."

She does not use the word 'fealty', like he does. She knows that such a creature does not serve.

Yotsukura Yotsugami

☉

"It may do. Or it may simply... move on. We cannot know how it perceives life or death, nor can we know the rules and limitations of its blessing. A divine mystery should remain a mystery, no? Perhaps that is against the ethos of Team Rocket, but it is not a mere kimono girl's place to understand why the Rainbow Pokémon heeds the call of the bell-- she need only dance to its song."

Perhaps it's a blessing that only Pokémon are worthy of, she doesn't say. To admit that possibility is to admit the impossibility of her own dream, and that is one line that she will not cross. Everything is within her reach, if only she might find the strength to grasp it.


She would sympathize with that ideal image he conjures behind his eyelids for a moment, of course. Perhaps it's in search of someplace like that again that she's here now. All roads eventually lead to home, even if you think you've forgotten the way. Even if you must build your home anew.

--The conversation turns again, this time to a place she doesn't much like. The eye that isn't hidden by the rainbow's glare hardens, and her lips draw into a tight line.

"...Traditionally, yes. Each part of the Eevee line is as a shard of that refracted light, filtered through stone or sky or smile to find a form that suits the Pokémon best. Some even believe that the Sacred Beasts were of the line, before their rebirth... though I don't personally subscribe to that view."

There are rumors to be investigated and pursued, of beasts that wear a familiar face but take a more atavistic shape. Besides, if once the light of that rainbow shined upon the members of that clade, the rain has long since stopped, and the sun long since set. Now, like any other species, Pokémon of the Eevee line just die.

"...I am no longer in possession of my partner, if that's what you're asking."

howard slayte

☉

"You need not apologize. It is a wrong that will be righted, in time."

Whose wrong, and how will it be put right? Her face betrays no answers, only an absolute certainty in her words. It is not a possibility for her, but merely a place that she has yet to reach. The fan snaps shut abruptly, and the pipe returns to her lips. Inhale. Exhale. A ritual in microcosm, as old as humanity itself. Such a simple thing, and yet there isn't a single person in this building who is not in its thrall.

--His next words make her tilt her head. It was the correct choice to come here, it seems. Myth and legend congeal like tar in the lungs of this land, just as the stories say. She wonders if any of them truly understand the deluge of miracles they're witnessing.

"That must've been a great honor, to stand before them. When I was a child, I once thought I caught a glimpse of the Aurora Pokémon, gliding across the surface of the Lake of Rage as if it were solid ground. But, it was just a mirage. An illusion. I fear such a meeting better suits a person like me. Though... if we're talking about fakes and originals, if the quality is of the same caliber then the distinction becomes little more than semantics. If I had trained these girls, they would be Kimono Girls. The Pokémon I saw on that lake might just be an illusion, and yet it moved me. If a imitation exceeds the original, it is no longer an imitation."


She thinks of her first partner Pokémon, before she was a Kimono Girl, before she was much of anything. Her mother took her to New Bark Town specially to receive him, rather than enlist the Gym Leader's help in catching whatever Sentret or Oddish happened to be wandering the outskirts of the city. That little Cyndaquil is gone now, and yet the first Pokémon she met when came here bore a face so similar to his.

--She won't think of them as originals and imitations. Pokémon are just Pokémon. She supposes she makes for a poor terrorist, to be so sentimental. But, a woman of her age is allowed a few indulgences, no?

She listens to his next words carefully, and this time her lips curl upwards, into a smile that's almost coquettish. They're treading in dangerous territory, now.

"My. A more suspicious woman might fear you're testing my loyalty, by speaking so poorly of our illustrious comrades. Hoping to catch me in some treasonous statement, perhaps. No matter. I will speak my mind either way. I find myself lacking in patience for platitudes, nowadays. Pretending a problem doesn't exist will only make it worse, after all."

A pause. She sets her pipe down, still wearing that small smile, and lays her hands flat on the table. Slit my wrists if I speak untruly. It's like something out of a movie.

"The Kanto Rockets are little better than dogs. Houndour without a alpha. they'll happily burn this place down to ash if they're not brought to heel."

The building, the city or the region? She does not elaborate. She thinks only of the shape of that tower, smoldering in the morning rain. It isn't so far from his cigarette, really.

"I doubt I would have been so lucky as to be here had they succeeded in their invasion. More importantly, that myth would have been lost. But, they failed, and it has not yet disappeared. Where you say they 'excised' our myth, I say they helped to make it real. that our deities are just Pokémon is nothing to be disappointed in. Rather, it is providence that a Pokémon could hold that power."

She shrugs a little, and withdraws her hands, as if embarassed by the strength of her own convictions.

"That's my view, at least. I understand if you disagree. After all, I have not stood before them, as you have."

howard slayte

☉

What is the cost of a legend, really? The despair of a myth unfulfilled, perhaps, a king still slumbering beneath the mountains, or the disappointment of growing up, of letting go of those kind delusions of a world where everyone has a happy ending. Those are not so cruel a price to pay, she thinks. Not when the possibility of seeing that legend realized is so tantalizing. A gamble to place your faith in such a ephemeral belief, of course, but so are most real choices in life.

"--Hm. is that not a blessing? If the Aurora Pokémon chose to oppose you, then it acknowledged that you are strong."

More devoted supplicants expend a lifetime for less. Once again, she wonders if the people of this region realise the era they're living through. Though, she supposes she's being unkind. To become a character in legend unending is certainly a testing thing. She suspects her new friend is more than capable of rising to the challenge, though.

--After all, he had faced the Aurora Pokémon, and had not been found wanting. That's enough to afford him a sliver of her trust. Or something like it, at least.

"I suppose you must expect me to condemn the idea of opposing one of the Sacred Beasts. I might've, when I was your age. When I was young, and optimistic. But, that was a different me. I will not forget the person I was, but she was weak. And, after all--"

Her smile turns cruel, and the fathomless deep of her eyes burns cold. If the Aurora Pokemon still finds cause to flee, then it has not truly found a worthy partner.

"--It is as you said. It is only a Pokémon, in the end, and a Pokémon may come to know more than one trainer in its lifetime. And, a pure heart is not as hard as you might think for people like us to attain. Even the clearest water, if deep enough, can drown."

howard slayte

☉

"It's a shame, yes, but all journeys must end, so that new ones might begin. If a story never reaches its final page, the reader never picks up a new book. I don't know him, but I'm sure that man is living in the only way he can-- and when you kill him, that is how you will remember him."

Some sliver of unalloyed humanity returns to her gaze. Never forget the people you used to be, and never forget the people you threw away. This is the only way to walk this path. This is the only way to not be consumed entirely by regrets, to not be dragged into the mirror by the shadows lingering within. A memory that has been properly interred will not rise again on some somber morning to trouble you again. A ghost cannot harm the living, if they only embrace that shade.

"Blessings rarely do."

--She says it serenely. When she thinks of how those beasts first received blessings of their own, it seems exceedingly obvious to her that to be chosen can only be the greatest of tribulations. Anything less would make a mockery of that night, and that tower.

"But, you're still alive."

And that's all that matters, at the end of the day. Let the dead men speak of rights and wrongs, of bonds broken and stances taken. This day belongs to the living.

"There's no greater meaning to it. I just think it's rude to think of someone as a friend when you haven't met them yet."

She will speak those names when she meets their bearers, and not a moment before. That's just the way she is.

"Oh, but I must sound like quite the eccentric by now. I must apologize-- I didn't mean to waste your time with meaningless talk. Is there anything in particular you need from me? I can go out and snatch a cuople of purses, if you like. Make a few children cry, that sort of thing."

Her smile returns, rich and indulgent. She knows that those stray thoughts are what he wants from her, at this point. What they're seeking probably isn't so different, when you get down to it.

"Or, if you have more questions, you may ask them, and I will answer to the best of my abilities."

howard slayte

☉

It's a worthwhile exercise, even for all the weakness it betrays in him. She doesn't begrudge him that, hidden behind smoke and small smiles as it is. He may crumble in private all he likes, like some long-forgotten idol, the eroded visage of the golems that once built this region. So like as he is strong when her goal requires it.

--Ah, and she's already thinking of using him. How cruel of her, and far too presumptuous besides. A mere grunt shouldn't yet harbour such grand delusions, she half-heartedly chides herself.

Still, she thinks. Understanding the arc of this rocket they all share as it tears across the firmament isn't something to be ashamed of. A king who does not understand the hearts of the people he claims to rule holds only the illusion of power, liable to wash away in the last summer rains, when the shadow of autumn leaves begins to hang heavy overhead.

"Oh, ideals aren't such a bad thing. After all, conviction is born from idealogy, and conviction is the only thing that separates us from the dogs."

Does she refer to the League, or their fellow Rockets? The answer is in the sneer in her voice.

Her own conviction is not built from anything so hopeful, but if that's the hidden place from which he draws out the deepest dregs of his strength, she has no right to criticize it. If any of these thugs and thieves have something to offer her, it is only because they have something to believe in. She does not care what it is, only that it exists. Conviction is what she really needs from Team Rocket.

He stands to leave, but she stays seated, eyes lingering on the women debasing themselves on this grimy, ill-lit stage, as if insulting that very same conviction that she possesses. But, she doesn't blame them, not really. It's just as she said before--they don't know any better. Strangely, she finds himself considering his idle proposition, though she doesn't respond. Perhaps one day, in a warmer world. One day, when she's done what she came here to do. One day, when she's finally met that Pokemon, it seems a shame to let such a thing go uncelebrated in song.

"I appreciate your kindness, but hope has nothing to do with it. It's merely a place I have yet to reach."

That is the only way that the person called Yotsukura Yotsugami can live. Her words own no weakness or fault, no gap in her armor that might yet bring her short of her goal. In that way, they are not alike.

howard slayte

☉