[attr="class","rosepost"]She heard his footsteps while she sat with the kneeling Gogoat, brushing out the strands of its fur as thanks for staying at their camp. She took her time before acknowledging him, though she didn't need more time to think of her response. She had stewed on it long enough.

"So you opted not to wake me."[break][break]

Her annoyance is clear. Gogoat raises his head, but she scratches under its chin to encourage it to relax. She couldn't be mad at it, after all. "We need to work as a team. Making unilateral decisions is not teamwork."[break][break]

It's then that she turns to look at him, but his bedhead startles a laugh from her. She turns back to the Gogoat, shaking her head.[break][break]

Althus Rex [break]

[attr="class","rosepost"]Celestic Town is cold. Folks wore two layers in the summertime. Keiko, three. She despised the chill. Her dream, complemented by the discomfort of makeshift island life, was filled with a chilling isolation. Her Togekiss is there, though, and she keeps Keiko company, bumping her with her nose periodically for encouragement while Keiko finishes her paper route. She chases Togekiss' warmth to keep the chill at bay -[break][break]

She wakes to Rex.[break][break]

She wakes to Rex?[break][break]

She moves quickly to scoot back to an appropriate distance, sitting on her knees. Her early morning thoughts trickle through slowly. But her estimation, it's five in the morning, since that's normally when she wakes. But if Rex is asleep, and inside and asleep, he hadn't woken her up at all. Or she'd picked up sleep walking and had returned to the tent, but she didn't find that fathomable at all. [break][break]

The urge to pull him up by his collar and wake him up viciously is only stamped down by the fact he looks so young when he's sleeping. And she's sure the sleep is a deep one after his emotional day before. She fully intends to give him an earful, but she'll let him try to get a full eight hours. She slides out of the shelter to see the Gogoat by the extinguished fire, licking at her storage clipboard. [break][break]

So it wasn't time for the Gogoat to leave just yet. She didn't know what to make of that. Unfortunately, they were not leaving just yet. No sign of Pelipper on the horizon. [break][break]

Althus Rex [break]

[attr="class","rosepost"]She wondered what that felt like, forgetting faces. Her family was small, and ancestral memory was a big deal in Celestic. They kept faithful records. Hell, journaling was damn near a requirement to live there. She forgot little, and that that she couldn't retain was most certainly recorded.[break][break]

"Do you really think you'll forget?" The event seemed so deeply embedded in his psyche.[break][break]

His fear was misplaced, as far as she was concerned, but she'd overstepped enough for one day. It was his past to work through. He would eventually find peace. In time. She would not rush him. "Very well. Wake me before long, okay?" She wasn't sure how solid his internal clock was, but she didn't want to sleep through the night and leave him a sleep-deprived mess. It wouldn't do either of them any good.[break][break]

Althus Rex [break]

[attr="class","rosepost"]Keiko arched a brow at the other woman's panic. She tried not to take it personal, but the disregard felt a little personal. She followed behind June, slower. "I can handle it," she assured, and Pelipper used hydro pump behind Keiko defensively, the forceful jet keeping Sharpedo from getting close to her as she made her way to the building.[break][break]

She squeezed through the opening, popping into a room that was half-filled with water. "Time to snatch and grab, then." She followed Pelipper through an open window, pulling herself into a room that wasn't a drown risk.[break][break]

"You don't think she was actually gonna leave us to the sharpedo, do you?" Pelipper stared at her.[break][break]

june sleigh [break]

[attr="class","rosepost"]He was sentimental, that much was clear. She approached the world differently. "Nothing stays," she answers matter-of-factly. "That's the thing. Time erodes everything. Our ancestors, our memories." Quieter. "Our pain."[break][break]

She gestured to the Gogoat eating grass. "In time, it will leave. In time, we will be off this island. It's inevitable." That much was objective fact, though she had abandoned any hope of him finding peace in that knowledge as she had. [break][break]

"You may, in time, find an opportunity to cross paths with Almighty Sinnoh again. You may have the chance to ask Her yourself, why events unfolded as they did." She didn't think that would happen, but she was still trying to wrap her head around the Littleroot event. She would never question the divine, but she'd rather plant that seed in his mind than the idea of fighting a god. It would be unwinnable for everyone.[break][break]

Stars above were growing visible. She felt a growing concern that Pelipper had not returned yet.[break][break]

Althus Rex [break]

[attr="class","rosepost"]He's internalized the actions of a god, put it on himself, made it an individual fault. She's stubborn, but she isn't heartless. Any comfort she can offer despite her anger at him is based in faith he doesn't have, so she does him the favor of being unreactive to the emotional outburst he doesn't want to have and turns into the forested area of the island.[break][break]

She takes her time, walks around the Gogoat sounds until the tangled hurt in her chest releases over time. Time heals, but Rex hasn't had enough of it to work past the event in Littleroot. She would prefer to meditate, but it's more effective for the both of them to calm down by scouting out the island until she's ready to wrangle the milk producing pokemon.[break][break]

The wrangling is easier than she thought. The Gogoat didn't seem to care, and when she climbed up a tree to secure a berry for it, it seemed all too happy to follow her.[break][break]

She walks back to camp, thinking of what to say, but Rex breaks the silence first. "See for yourself," she says, and the Gogoat appears several paces behind her. "It likes to chew hair, so don't let it get too close." She sits a respectable distance from him beside the fire, distinctly unhappy with him but aware the feeling was mutual. She doesn't have much in the way of an olive branch with the Cufant in the room, but ignoring it in favor of survival was the logical choice. "I see Gallade's been busy."[break][break]

Althus Rex [break]

[attr="class","rosepost"]"Everybody dies," she snipes back, "and people survive miraculous circumstances because of the divine." It wasn't her place to justify nor defend the actions of the divine, but. [break][break]

She has to clench her jaw to keep from yelling as he insults the object of her faith. As he demands to understand who receives punishment when he doesn't care about any of it. She accepted the judgement, but he had had to make no such peace with the divine, which was why he was so upset about the god's decision. "You don't believe any of it, anyways, so why does it matter now?" Dusk settles around them, but ironically, she feels she sees him in the light for the first time. [break][break]

"Forget it. I'm going to make the most of our time before we lose all the light." Wrangling a gogoat was better than having her god questioned.[break][break]

Althus Rex [break]

[attr="class","rosepost"]She hadn't heard of it.[break][break]

Almighty Sinnoh was a protector. But Rex gave no indication of lying, and she had dealt with hundreds of liars over the course of her life, particularly in her career. "Almighty Sinnoh only punishes -"[break][break]

She knows better than to finish the thought, as strong as he knee-jerk reaction is to defend her deity. To try to understand the divine, to try and apply reason to them, was to try and confine them within the limitations of human understanding. It couldn't be done, and to try was heresy. [break][break]

It's no concession, but she says, "Almighty Sinnoh's will is not for us to understand." It's not comfort, but she points out, "You are still here."[break][break]

Althus Rex [break]