"Nice to see you too, sis." This was going well. It's not like Autumn had been expecting some tearful sisterly reunion complete with hugs and whatever other sentimental bullshit other people did that their family had skipped out on, but it would have been nice if Elinor had at least pretended not to loathe the idea of her presence. It was the guest part wasn't it? She'd laid it on a little too thick.

Well, if they're not even going to pretend. "Guests," Autumn repeats, taking some sort of sick pleasure in her sister's growing look of horror as her sneasel returns to her side. "Unless you're planning to toss your baby sister out on the street?" Autumn may not be planning to stay with her sister any longer than she has to, but Elinor doesn't need to know that. Let her sweat a little.

"I bet the press would have a field day with that." Autumn offers her a smile that falls well short of sweet, too much teeth, and not an ounce of sincerity to carry it. "I can see it now. Local councilwoman turns on family. How long before she turns on the rest of us?" 

Elinor Anderson

☉

The worst thing about well-maintained, high-end flooring is that it doesn't creak when someone walks across it. Thankfully, the bellowing from the living room is all the warning Autumn needs to get out of her sister's room fast.

Quickly and quietly as she can, Autumn closes her sister's closet and slips out into the hall, making a show of casually strolling toward the living room like she hadn't just been snooping like her life depended on it - which it might, jury's still out on that one.

"Hiya, sis, long time no see. What's with all the yelling?" Autumn's pretty sure she knows exactly what the yelling is about, given the fact that her sneasel is pointedly ignoring both Elinor AND her harried-looking porygon-z.

The sleek-looking pokemon continues to rip into the furniture with dark glee. If anything, all the yelling has improved its mood, the ornery little thing. "Wait, let me guess, mom and dad forgot to tell you I was coming." 'Typical.'

Autumn, rolls her eyes. It's a wonder her parents even remembered that they had three daughters and not just the one. "You didn't really think I was gonna miss the chance to attend an end of the world party, did you?"

Finally, she turns to the sneasel, though she's by no means taking pity on Elinor (she just happens to be annoyed by the sounds of ripping furniture) "Caskin, cut it out!" And then, just to see how her sister reacts, she adds, "we're guests. Guests sit on the furniture, they don't tear at it like animals."

Stiffening at her words, the sneasel reluctantly pulls its claws free from the furniture with a huff. Autumn doesn't apologize on his behalf.

Elinor Anderson

☉

Autumun chews thoughtfully at her bottom lip as she opens a handful of files, giving them a cursory once over - work. work. more work. ugh! - before moving on to Elinor's messenger app.

"Daaaamn, sis, you've been busy. Mom and dad would definitely not approve," she mutters to no one in particular, pleased with her find. Now, this is juicy!

Autumn isn't sure exactly what she was expecting when she slipped into her sister's bedroom, but the unlocked laptop is definitely a surprise. 'Careless.' Clearly Elinor hadn't been expecting anyone to infiltrate her boring little sanctum sanctorum. And the rest of the room really is boring, barely more personal than the rest of the sparsely decorated apartment. But this, this is gold, and you better believe that Aumtun will be filing this knowledge away for later use.

'Note to self: Callan Young of TERAVOLT definitely looks just as appetizing sans several articles clothing as he does on stage.' And...wait, how many of those photos were taken here? Autumn looks from the pictures to the bed and back again, securitizing the sheets, the angle, the utter lack of décor. At least two of them. None of the especially racy ones, but still. He'd definitely been here. Not that that's still an open question once Autumn has scrolled a bit further down. Oh, he'd been here alright. He'd been here and he was apparently very creative. 'Gross.'

Autumn makes a face as she skims the racy messages between her older sister and the TERRAVOLT lead. Turns out, some dirt is just as awkward to find as it is to deliver. She did NOT need to know what her sister's dirty talk looked like. Nope. 100% did not. But now that she does...Autumn pulls her phone from her pocket and takes a few screenshots as she continues to scroll, saving a few messages and pictures for posterity, just in case. Let it never be said that she leaves ammo on the table, even entirely too personal ammo. Once she's got enough blackmail material on her dear big sister, Autumn slips her phone back into her pocket and closes the laptop. Next stop - the closet!

Autumn's pokemon prove equally disruptive. Some of them anyway. Autumn's sneasel has found that the arm of living room couch is an especially fun place to rake his claws as he stretches, while her kabuto contents himself with finding a nice, dark little cubby to hide in between the top of the fridge and the cabinetry above, red eyes glowing faintly from the shadows. Back in her temporary prison  new room, Autumn's victreebel hasn't moved since being released from it's ball. Choosing, instead, to sunbathe near the window. And it was anyone's guess where her skitty had gone. The little pink cat pokemon had last been seen making a beeline down the hall.

Elinor Anderson

☉

"Slateport. My family's from Rustboro," Autumn tells him with an off-handed shrug.

 "Old money," she continues, "so naturally they cut and run when they caught wind of the impending disaster. No reason to stick around when you've got sizeable summer homes in two other regions, right?" Neverminded the fact that they could have thrown some of that money at the problem.

Autumn's tone makes it clear that this is one of the many things that she looks down on her parents for, not that she'd been surprised by their decision to leave before the dome had gone up. They'd always preferred the chateau in Cyanwood. And had they cared that another one of their daughters had decided to go back into the belly of the beast? Not so much. Not that Autumn had given them much of an opportunity to object. They hadn't discovered her plans until she was already on the boat, already halfway back to Hoenn. And then the dome went up and that was that, the best they could do was insist that she stay with Elinor, as if she would somehow be safer in a penthouse apartment that towered over everything around it. Hell, maybe they were just trying to cut their losses. It was always hard to tell why they did what they did where Autumn and her siblings were concerned.

For the first few months, she'd disobeyed them and stayed at the main house in Rustboro, but it'd been too empty with everyone gone, and Autumn wasn't about to take on the task of keeping the damn thing maintained on her own - it was huge! She'd tried, at first. Screamed at her parents on the phone when they'd told her they were selling it - cutting their losses - and again when they'd told in her in no uncertain terms that she would be staying with Elinor in Slateport, this time with the added bonus of cutting her off if she disobeyed. 

Autumn frowns at her drink before she takes another sip. "Me, I've never been good at running, so here I am. Maybe I'll get to toast the end of the world." She doesn't mean it, but part of her wishes she did. Wishes she didn't care about any of it. That would certainly be easier, but she's made her choice. She's here now, come what may. "As for my sister, well, Elinor's always gone where she's told." Only she hadn't in the end, had she? Because she was here too and their parents were furious. "So we didn't see much of each other growing up. Staying out of each other's way is something of a family tradition." Which sure sounds a whole hell of a lot better than "nobody seemed to give a damn about anybody else so long as the family image was maintained." 

Zev Harcourt

☉

"Thanks." It couldn't be that easy, could it? But there he was, jotting down names and numbers just like that. Maybe it wouldn't take that long to get out from under her sister's thumb after all. Not that Elinor seemed to want Autumn around any more than Autumn wanted to be around, and what their parents didn't know couldn't hurt them, or her monthly allowance.

"I'm Zev, the owner here."

Autumn flashes him a sly smile. "Does that mean I get to share a drink with the owner himself?" Presumptuous as ever. It's easier than admitting that she's lonely in this city full of strangers. In truth, she doesn't care whether he joins her for a drink or not. "I'm Autumn."

For a while, she'd gone by Min whenever she was out on the town. Or she had, before she'd stopped caring if word of her 'uncouth behavior' got back to her parents. Somewhere over the years, she'd stopped caring, started inviting the negative attention. In the end, attention was attention, right? Well, fuck, that sounded pathetic.

"I can't imagine I've been in the city long enough for anyone to have seen me around. I've been staying with my sister Elinor for the past few days, but I figure it's better not to impose for too long. My sister likes her routines." Without me in them, the words hang unspoken between them, curling themselves into the tight lines of her mouth. Visible in the way her gaze briefly drops to her drink before it flicks back up to Zev. There's a story there.

Zev Harcourt

☉

A quick survey of the room shows very little in the way of promise.

With a huff, Autumn tosses her duffel bag onto the bed before following a similar arc, bouncing out of sheer spite.

Boring white walls. Simple, equally boring furniture. But, hey, at least the bed was comfortable. That was something, at least. Better than sleeping on on a bed that was hard as a rock and having to deal with her sister in the morning. Though, with luck, duty calling would make Elinor an early riser and Autumn wouldn't have to see her before either of them had had enough coffee to be civil. 

And speaking of her dear sister, it sure is nice to have a chance to get settled without having to deal with a low-key interrogation, though Autumn's pretty sure that she can't avoid Elinor forever. For all that the place looks like it's meant for showing rather than actual living, she's gotta come home eventually, right?

Better make the most of her remaining freedom by gaining some leverage. She cn decorte this stupid moonscape of a room later.

One by one, Hazel releases her pokemon from their balls. "Alright everyone, time to explore. Let's see if we can dig up some dirt on Elinor before she gets back." She pointedly doesn't tell her skitty or sneasel to watch where they decide to stick their claws.

Elinor Anderson

☉

It's funny, back when they were still living under the same roof, it had never occurred to Autumn to care what her sister's aesthetic might be. What sorts of things might feel like home to her, but there's no way this is it. The whole place feels sterile, completely unlived in. Generic high end furniture with mostly blank walls, interrupted by the occasional picture of a flower, like a place that's been staged to market.

Which begs the question, where does her sister tend to spend most of her time? Maybe there's a special someone in the picture, a little getaway from all the stress of being the dutiful sister. Now, that would be a secret worth ferreting out. But, for now, Autumn follows the porygon-z through her temporary home away from home, and if she happens to give a certain thieving bagon a thumbs up when she catches him in the act on her way by, well, it's not like anyone's there to care that she's encouraging him. Besides, she can relate. Sometimes the only way to get your just desserts is to take them. Autumn will be doing that herself soon enough, once she's had some time to get the lay of the land and a place of her own.

For now, she's got a room of her own. A room that she has to take or else. It was always off-handed threats with their parents, when they paid attention at all. Withholding whatever was necessary until they'd resumed control of their children's lives. The worst part was, it worked. Every. Single. Fucking. Time. It worked, and Autumn was sick of it. 

This time, she told herself, this time would be different. She'd find a job, an apartment, a way to get herself free of their money and the expectations that came with it. 

Speaking of rooms, is that...

Autumn peeks at her sister's room on the way by. Same lack of personal touches, but it's the badges that really catch her eye. Not a full set. The realization floors her. She'd just assumed that her sister would have blitzed through all of the gyms on her way to her position because of course she would manage to achieve Autumn's dream too, in the same off-handed way that she did everything else. The fact that that hadn't happened yet was...something.

Surprising. Gratifying. Motivating. 

Maybe there was something here for after all. It was a nice thought to cling to as she scoped out her new room. Temporary room, she corrected herself. Though, temporary or not, she was definitely going to have to decorate.  

Elinor Anderson

☉

There's something to be said for taking some time to orient herself. It helps that Howling at the Moon is exactly her type of getaway - cozy, classy, and curious. For all the huddled groups, drinkers and diners alike, talking quietly at their tables or nursing something at the bar, this place has the feel of a building with a nightlife. Like there are rooms here where most people don't go. Or maybe she's just imagining it. Hoping to stumble upon yet another way to disappoint her family (as if she needed another one when she's found oh so many already).

But, what can she say, while her sister's friends have always been the cream of the crop, the movers and shakers of wherever she happened to be, Autumn has never really jived with all of the fake smiles and false platitudes. She's always preferred something a bit more real. And if that meant picking out people that the rest of her family wouldn't be caught dead hanging around, well, that was just an added bonus. 

No one like that here though. At least, not yet. 

Autumn is pulled from her consideration by the bartender's question. Was she having a good evening? Sitting in alone in a strange bar in a strange land, while she skipped out on facing her sister and the whole 'neither one of us wants to deal with this' discussion for a few more hours? Another quick once over, first of the bar itself, and then of him, and she's decided. "You know what, I think I am. Might have to make this place my regular haunt once I find a place of my own. Say, you wouldn't happen to know anyone with an apartment for rent on this side of the city, would you?"

Zev Harcourt Zev Harcourt

☉

It's not that Autumn is avoiding her sister, at least not entirely. It's just easier not to talk about the fact that, apparently, their parents couldn't be bothered to tell Elinor that she was coming, despite insisting that Autumn stay with her or lose access to her monthly allowance. As if she needed minding like some Arceus cursed child.

The insinuation still smarts, not that she's the least bit surprised by it. She's not exactly the family favorite, and she hasn't been interested in trying to be since she realized it was a nigh unattainable goal. Her parents hadn't been interested in having children, they'd simply wanted an heir, and they had one in Elinor. As far as they were concerned, their two younger children were nothing more than spare parts. A failsafe, should Elinor falter. As if that was ever going to happen.

Of course, the best part about being spare parts is people stop paying attention to you unless you do something truly egregious. The heir gets to work for the league, and make public appearances, and ensure that the family name remains untarnished. Spare parts on the other hand, spare parts gets to drink. And she has been.

In fact, Autumn is on her second drink of the night, the bastard child of a long island and pecha berry juice that's entirely too sweet for her liking, but that's probably for the best, it forces her to nurse it. The last thing she needs is to face her sister at blue o'clock in the morning while three sheets to the wind or, worse yet, the morning after with a hangover the size of the nearest mountain. That can wait until at least week two, when Autumn's found a solid reason for wanting to annoy her, or a truth that she needs a little bit of liquid courage to get off of her chest. 

mission: putting on a front w/ Zev Harcourt

☉

As the porygon chirruped and moved to help her with her luggage, Autumn smiled in spite of herself. At least someone seemed happy to have her around. The rotom on the other hand, would probably have to fall under family protocol: tell it only what was necessary and otherwise avoid it at all costs. Simple enough. 

As for how long she was going to be staying... "I don't know, depends on how long it takes me to find an apartment." And then, with a fair bit more bitterness in her voice, "don't worry, I won't inconvenience dear old sis by staying any longer than I have to." 

Autumn left the rotom to deal with the door as and stepped inside, assuming the porygon would be happy to show her and her luggage to a room she could occupy for the time being. No doubt this place had a few spares given the size of it. 

Elinor Anderson

☉

Maybe her luck hadn't run out after all. Autumn didn't think Elinor was the type to stick her pokemon with the task of greeting guests if she was home, so that meant she might actually have some time to adjust before she was caught off guard by a barrage of questions that she didn't want to answer. Like how long she was planning to stay (not long if she could help it) and why she'd come to Hoenn in the first place (yeah, there was no way she was telling her sister that).

Autumn raised a brow at the greeting. Not exactly a warm welcome, but nothing had tried to send her packing yet, so that was probably a good sign. She briefly wondered how many visitors Elinor tended to get, before reminding herself that she didn't care what Elinor did in her spare time or how many people stopped by to try and flatter her on the regular.

"I'm Autumn." It occurred to her that Elinor probably hadn't bothered to tell her pokemon that her sister was coming, or maybe she didn't even know. It's not like their parents were going to win awards for passing on relevant information in a timely fashion. At least, not when any of their children were involved. "Autumn Anderson. I'm going to be staying with my sister for a while." Would the pokemon need her to specify how long a while was, or would they simply accept that she was going to be a presence here for a while? Would she need to verify her identity?

"Elinor didn't tell you I was coming, did she?"

Elinor Anderson

☉

Surprise, surprise, little miss perfect had found herself a penthouse in one of the most expensive parts of Slateport. Anyone else might have gawked at the sheer scale of the place. It towered over the surrounding buildings, and there was little doubt that the view from the top was absolutely incredible.

Autumn barely gave it a second glance as she trudged past the doorman, who seemed none too pleased about being ignored by someone who looked like a sulky teenager. She'd steadfastly refused to give him her name, let him take her suitcase, or do anything beyond flash him a pleased little smile as she watched the elevator doors shut in his face. Point one Autumn. If she was going to be staying with Elinor, there was no way in hell she was about to settle in and make friends with the kinds of people who probably ate out of her sister's hands like dogs at a table looking for scraps. It'd been the same with the servants back home. They'd practically worshipped her sister, fussing about her like flies.

Autumn glanced down at her suitcase as the elevator rose, a small thing that declared that she had absolutely no intention of staying for any longer than she needed to. How hard could it be to find an apartment on the other end of Slateport? Given the fact that her monthly allowance remained as generous as ever, Autumn didn't anticipate running into much difficulty.

As the elevator juddered to a stop, Autumn sighed and guided her suitcase down the hall. There were few doors, which meant that not only did the apartments on the upper floors have some of the best views in all of Slateport, but also that they were massive. Autumn glared at the door before raising her hand to knock. Three quick taps. Maybe Elinor wouldn't be home...

Elinor Anderson

☉