“Yep!” Fern continues to flourish under the brief praise, eyes bright, and mood bolstered—enough for them to feel emboldened enough to suggest, “Maybe we can continue to do more work together.” But the enthusiasm is nothing compared to the way Jayden visibly brightens at the subject change. In a fleeting moment, Fern finds themselves thinking, ‘Adorable..’[break][break]

“Well, though I do love a good party, that does sound awfully lonesome.” Their ideal sort of gathering likely does not align with the refined, posh events he is likely accustomed to with high standing parents. Fern would not fit there, probably. “It is just equally as possible to be popular, but lonely all at once.”[break][break]

Who really knows Fern, and not simply the idea of him? Somehow they find themselves much more honest about this with jayden cross than they thought they’d ever be. How strange.[break][break]

Cecilia also does not care for the beldum that floats into view. She is too busy trilling back at Vahagn, swooping low in an attempt to intercept and catch him in their chase.[break][break]

Honeycrisp is equally as apathetic. Having returned to the warmth of the crook or Fern’s neck, she curls there once again with a surly huff. “Should’ve named you Granny Smith with how sour you can be.” he says to her soothingly as he smooths a finger under her chin.[break][break]

They are distracted, though, when Jayden smiles again. It seems like such an elusive thing, but whenever it creeps out, Fern feels a sort of lightness in the center of their chest. A want for it to stick around a while. Their own animation in the conversations finds them nodding vigorously. “I agree! Do you often wonder what sorts of stories they might tell?”[break][break]

Their expression turns a touch wistful. “I used to sit for ages in the Tangle, just making up tales or explanations.” Maybe that is why they are so good now at stretching truths and telling tall tales.

[break][break]

+ jayden cross | ghostie bonding | skipping!

[attr="class","pokeclass"]

Surely this door would offer some sort of reprieve from the chaos of the last several minutes. Their breathing is still uneven as they try to regain control after running for so long. They cast one more sidelong glance toward the open door at the end with its unyielding darkness, and the crying he can still hear faintly.[break][break]

The door Fern chose swings open on creaky hinges. But inside he does not find his companion. Nor does he find some kind of sign indication that he is nearing the exit. Instead, he sees a room full of unfamiliar people. Mouldering food lines a snack table, and as they beckon him in, Fern notices that each and every person looks as though they’re falling to bits—crumbling just as the halls he's been wandering have. Their grins are just a bit too toothy, and their hands reach to usher him in.[break][break]

Quickly, he grabs the handle as his heart jumps to his throat, and then slams the door shut with a BANG. Warily, he looks back toward the door at the end of the hall. Now what is he supposed to do?
[break][break]
k_59WtJs
[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] + fern is NOT going in the party room either. slams the door and deliberates what to do.[break]
+ def using my ghoul bonus this round[break][break]
+ resolve tally: 30 + 10 = 30/50

Fern isn’t exactly trying to be nosy in their insistence. Of course, they can be plenty nosy in many and most situations, but in this…it’s different. They want to be different in his mind. Something that runs contrary to what he knows or believes in this arena.[break][break]

It’s a sort of care they feel in an achy way. To be the recurring source of a pain point is the furthest of what they want wherever jayden cross is concerned.[break][break]

Their brows furrow like they don’t fully understand why he’s asking for that reasoning. In Fern’s mind, it makes perfect sense. “Well, because it matters to me,” they say simply. [[break][break]

Why wouldn’t it?[break][break]

Their head tilts as they try to seek out the right words. “I care about what you think, and that you’re comfortable…around me, obviously.”[break][break]

Touching on the fact that they could sort of sense his unease is sketching they don’t remark upon. Not just yet. A part of Fern wonders if he might say as much, or if he’ll hold his cards close to his chest.[break][break]

It won’t change their mind, either way. As made clear by the return of their hands to the buttons of his shirt, and the careful press of a kiss against his forehead. Then another to the curve of his jaw before they nestle face there. Maybe almost a bit nervously. “I don’t want this to turn into a later regret.”


[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] jayden cross | ....what kinda honey u lookin for, jay >:3[break]

“Well, yeah. They’re exciting,” Fern answers with the slightest huff in their tone. But when Jayden smiles at them, their mind sort of short circuits. It’s a bit like being hazy drunk, without out having had a single drop to drink.[break][break]

The fact that they can coax this from him, though, feels like a short lived victory. He is relaxed as Fern litters his neck with affection, but when they speak, they don’t need to hear the breath he lets out to know they’ve done something wrong. The sound is just as any reactive gasp might be, but they can feel the way he tenses under their hands, no matter how careful their touch might be.[break][break]

It’s enough to make Fern pause— wonder what they did to cause what definitely felt like an edge of discomfort. The question lingers in the back of their head with nagging insistence. The desire to ask who did this to you?[break][break]

“J—“ their question is swallowed when he doesn’t give them time to ask. He catches their mouth in a kiss that is whirlwind dizzying, and it is almost enough to make them forget their worries entirely. It does for a moment as their mouth opens to allow that access, and an eager hum vibrating from the back of their throat is muffled between them.[break][break]

“Okay..” Their chest rises and falls rapidly, and the burn in the violet of his eyes as he speaks is enough to make something in their stomach drop with anticipation.[break][break]

At first, all they can do is nod quickly—friction where their foreheads are still pressed together. And then their hand follows his guidance to begin working the buttons of his shirt free. “Yeah, yes. I’d like that,” they say, breathlessly so, “just—“[break][break]

They pause on the buttons, and their hand slips under the opening to press against his chest, just above where they can feel his heart thumping. “just wait, first. Did I say something wrong?”[break][break]

Maybe jayden cross is trying to forget, but they can’t shake that tension from their mind.[break][break]

Jayden’s breath is warm and fans across their face as they hold his gaze just as steadily. Their thumb slides back and forth rhythmically against hot skin. “You asked me before, so I’m doing the same.
Do you trust me?”

[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] jayden cross | ....what kinda honey u lookin for, jay >:3[break]

One minute, Marza Volchitsa was there, trudging behind him and complaining loudly as Morticia lifted him higher up into the air. The next, she was gone. Actually, a lot of people were. Rended to pieces with apparent ease, just like that. He howled her name down to the ground, but his haunter didn’t stop moving forward, pushing him toward the primal point, and soon that was all he could think of again.[break][break]

It seemed luck was on their side—no one seemed to notice their approach. Too busy wrapped up in their own conflicts to watch him drop in from above. But something was wrong. “Pull up, pull up!” he barked, and Morticia peeled back just in time as the primal point fired in an explosion of light, and then bounced back to make the explosion a legitimate one. Everything seemed to shatter in crystalline fractals, as the dome above them cracked and split simultaneously. Something whizzed in their direction, and though Fern’s hands stretched out, it was the haunter’s larger ones that snagged the fracture of the primal gem.[break][break]

Once it was handed over, Fern turned it in his hands as it hummed with residual energy, bright and warm to the touch. This was…good. This would be of use. He tucked it into his pocket, and as he did so, Fern began to notice that he was no longer in the air alone—suddenly the cacophony of hundreds of confused souls was filling the space.[break][break]

The shimmery outline of her serpentine body twirled around him. Ceci?” As if in play, as she did when she was no more than the undersized dreepy who could fit in the cup of his sixteen year old hands. He could not touch her, but he could still feel the sensation of her broad forehead pressing to his. The prickle of warmth that seeped from the spot. Fern let out a shaky laugh, breath choked and vision blurring. “I didn’t make it to you in time..”[break][break]

A trilling, reptilian coo echoed through him, ethereal and scolding, and Fern knew to shut up on the spot lest he be subjected to more scolding. “Alright, alright.” The dragapult fluttered back, watching him with wide, citrine eyes that never once blinked. “I don’t suppose you want to sneak back to the mortal coil while you can, hm?”[break][break]

It felt like a bit of a disservice to ask, but he wasn’t ready to say goodbye just yet. Cecilia twirled around him and Morticia one last time before dissipating to nothing in the hazy air, and the crack in his chest felt as fresh as it had the moment she’d tumbled off that ledge, blown back by that staraptor’s attack (ollie morales .) That was an answer for him—it was time for her to move on, and he would need to accept as much. Still, there was no quelling the grief he felt, despite the relief of seeing her one last time. A wound that would take insurmountable time to heal over.[break][break]

Fern patted the spot between his haunter’s ears as she continued to LEVITATE in the air. “I guess that’s that,” he said, sighing with the intent to turn his attention back to the world upending itself beneath them.[break][break]

And then that trill.[break][break]

Loud and resounding, like a whooping victory cry as Cecilia came shooting through the air again—that time solid and tangible and real out of spatial opening from PHANTOM FORCE. She twisted in a spiraling corkscrew sailing above them, and then dropping down below, in obvious indication and Fern couldn’t help but let out a whoop of his own, a grin plastering across his face despite the pain it wreaked on his busted nose. “Shake me loose, Morty.” The haunter did as obliged, tilting so that Fern dropped into open air, only to land on the dragapult’s back as he called Morticia back into the safety of her pokeball.[break][break]

“That’s my gal,” he praised as Ceci chirped in gladness at having returned to her body. It was almost too easy to forget about everything happening around them, but secured on her back now, Fern was reminded of the spirits lifted and tangled around them in their confusion over being pulled loose from whatever dwelling held them at rest. The conflict tumbled on below it, but Fern was too focused on the spectral beauty of it. Pokémon and humans alike, treading that now-blurred line between eternal slumber and lives once lead.[break][break]

Perhaps there was more to it, though? Bright wisps of flame shot by them, and Ceci sailed out of the way. Once at a distance, Fern noted that V pattern, marked it down in his mind to revisit later. Maybe he could ask jayden cross if he knew what it might mean. It was the odd shadows that pulled free and diverged, though, that spurred him into action again. “Tail one, yeah?” Cecilia obliged and darted after the nearest shadow, trying not to lose sight of it, as it soared away.[break][break]

He had only proven up until that point that he was useless on the ground, in a fight that he didn’t have much personal stake in. But maybe this was where he could prove his worth. Maybe this was what he could do for Rocket, and even if it surmounted to nothing, he still had the shard, right? An idea formed in his mind then, and Fern fished the piece of gem loose from his pocket again. He didn’t rightly know what a little piece like this might do. He didn’t know the first thing about its properties. But maybe the energy housed within it was tied to whatever had come through that spatial tear.[break][break]

Like a homing signal? Maybe? Fern fixed his sight ahead, still chasing that elusive shadow, hair blown back and eyes watering from the wind. With the primal shard curled in his hand, just to see what might happen, if anything.
[break][break]

ZAVwPXbB
[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] mask[break]
+ where tf did Marza Volchitsa go?? [break]
+ continues to fly toward the primal point, but it fires first [break]
+ his haunter catches some of the primal gem HOLLAAA[break]
+ reunites with the spirit of his slain dragapult, ceci[break]
+ ceci returns to her body and PHANTOM FORCES to fern![break]
+ fern notes the V-shaped flames and the dark shadows among the spirits. Instructs Ceci to chase one out of curiosity[break]
+ wonders if the energy in the primal shard will act like a homing beacon to whatever came out of the rift :3c
[attr="class","poke-sprite pokemon dragapult"]

Oh now that’s interesting.[break][break]


“Excellent. I’ll put it on my fireplace mantle if you manage it.”[break][break]

He’s mostly joking. It’s very likely they’ll be far too busy to think about souvenirs. Though, of course, he would not turn down a piece of space rock if it was offered to him.[break][break]

A kommo-o wanders close, loose scales clanging like quiet symbols. Rather than go on the offensive, Honeycrisp hovers closer, flitting around the fellow dragon. Maybe she’s smitten? In any case, it doesn’t seem to mind her, so Fern opts to chance tossing a ball in its direction.[break][break]

“hm…a bit of smashed headstone, perhaps?”


[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] THEO BECKETT | catching kommo-o! [break]





[attr="class","pokesprite pokemon flapple"]

“Ah, well I sort of assumed it was more like a private collection.” Given that there’s like…a whole public oceanic museum in Slateport already. “Still fascinating, though.”[break][break]

Fascinating is a point that makes sense coming from Theo. It is the additional bit that holds Fern’s attention.[break][break]

“What’s cute about fish?” He holds up a hand quickly to dismiss his questioning as criticism, “Not passing a judgment. Just a curiosity.”[break][break]

Though fish sort of are a far cry from the fuzzier sorts of pokemon that are typically more often labeled ‘cute.’

[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] THEO BECKETT | i skip! [break]


[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-trevenant"]