There's something innocent in the way he asks, almost like a child. Raw exuberance, not filtered in any way by things such as shame or social expectation. It seems so unfitting for a warrior of this (metaphorical) stature, but his record speaks for itself.

She watches him carefully, hand falling to her hip the moment a man stands up at his table, trained response to the hostility in his voice. Glance flits sideways defiantly in his direction, but she does not return his knowing look. Instead, all she gives him is a slight scowl, feeling the tension in her air as her grasp tightens on the hilt of her sword.

"Oh, really?"

Her tone of voice is almost incredulous, that anyone would dare speak to her so casually.

"In that case, this man is with me. You may sit down and resume your game."

Somehow, she knows it won't be that easy. Nevertheless, she offers him an opportunity to back down.

Desolate night makes clearer the song of a thousand jeering corviknight.

Once soldiers, once with honor, their departed spirits turn into leering black figures. Hollow bodies and black souls peering from their sockets. They had once such promise, but it was squandered. They are nothing now.

Walk the deserted battlefields your ancestors called graves and lament at what you might have had. A reason, a purpose for living. They bled and died for soil you have seen only in your dreams. Piles of bodies that reek with death no longer, broken steel and shattered armor are all they've left you.

What is a clan that has no purpose?

With calls to the moon they judge you, the sole remnant of a line that was once proud, a line that meant something once but no longer. They claw at their graves, pick through carrion with sharp claws for scraps of weapons to take in transformed hands, to take up blade against a world that has left them behind.

All in vain.

No matter how they till ancient battlefields, turn up the long-dead and take weapon in hand, they can never bring back what was lost. It is not for the departed to carry on a legacy, but those who can still bleed and die. Only in bloodshed does the blackened blade find meaning.

That is the forge from which this blade is crafted, a fire that burns eternal, longing to fulfill the only purpose for which it was made which it has been so long deprived.

The sun is oppressive, unbearable.

It is the type of heat that bakes into one's very bones. To even breathe is to scorch one's lungs. Almost like one has committed some treason or transgression even stepping foot here, some horrible crime that can only by absolved by perdition, the desert itself knows one's soul and doles out punishment according to their deeds as they arrive.

And it is probably deserved, every last one of them. This is an unholy land for forgotten and the wicked. Only those willing to brave hell itself can last.

And she will.

Though it steals away her breath, though beads of sweat dot her forehead, she endures.

A sword is forged under hotter conditions than even this. Who is she, to turn back now, to deny herself the heat of a sun to which she rightfully belongs? It is the symbol of her very homeland, the place where the sun rises.

She will endure. MUST endure.

"As you wish," she responds, the first words she's deigned to speak in what seems like hours.

It is permission to give themselves a break from the sun. Without those words, she seems ready to have ridden onward into the desert again, though the sigh as she finds shade and jumps down from her Rhyhorn reveals that she's secretly grateful for it.

"Let's take a small break here. We can ask the locals if we're headed in the right direction."

She hitches her ride to a nearby post, though it's a mere formality. It would rip it out of the ground easily if it ever had designs to go anywhere. Luckily, there's nowhere here to go but further into the desert.

And with that, she enters the doors, expecting the dog to follow at her heels.

REDEEMING

welcome to the poké mart!

1X Hisuian Samurott (Shiny) - Sharpness - Ceaseless Edge / Razor Shell / Aerial Ace / Aqua Jet / Detect / Swords Dance (CUSTOM POKEMON TICKET - 5th ANNI)
1X TYPE 1 EVO for GROWLITHE to ARCANINE (REDEEM - 5th ANNI)
1x TYPE 1 EVO for ZORUA to ZOROARK (REDEEM - 5th ANNI)
1x TYPE 1 EVO for JANGMO-O to KOMMO-O (REDEEM - 5th ANNI)

HARVESTING

be sure to visit the pretty petal flower shop near rustboro!

1X berry

TOTAL

do come again!

00 PD