2024-01-17: Calm Hearts
- Log: Calm Hearts
- Cast: Arisugawa Joy, Sable Aomori
- Where: Cerulean City, Bridge
- Date: January 17, 506 PC Filgaian
- Summary: Arisugawa Joy tends to an injured Abra on a bridge out of Cerulean City. When Sable Aomori comes across her, they talk, including about a particular question...
<Pose Tracker> Arisugawa Joy has posed.
The Cerulean Bridge is a famous landmark for many reasons: it overlooks the city and casts a great view over the rest of the lake, it's a popular date spot (or at least a gathering point for dates)... and, of course, Trainers frequently challenge each other on the Bridge.
Joy simply finds the Bridge relaxing. It's a good spot to people-watch, and gather her thoughts; she's definitely got a lot to think about over the last few days. She's seated over the railing (naughty! You shouldn't do that; it's dangerous), checking over an Abra that seems to have injured itself.
Abras are usually pretty skittish and escape at the first sign of trouble, but this one seems calm around her. "... there," she remarks, as she finishes bandaging its arm. "You should be all right in a few days."
"Ra--!"
"Hmm, is that so? I'm glad to hear."
<Pose Tracker> Sable Aomori has posed.
Sable Aomori is in training to challenge Cerulean City's Gym. She has been hard at work devising strategies, catching appropriate Pokemon to round out her team, and teaching said team new moves. But it is another day....
Another day where she is now crossing back over the bridge after a long day. Her steps by habit are extremely quiet. The Abra may not even notice her at first. Her heart too is quiet, but not because she is as good as her mother at hiding her feelings; it's just because she's in a calm, happy mood, satisfied with her work for the day.
But she comes to a stop some distance from Joy on the railing...
"You aren't scaring the Abra," she comments thoughtfully.
<Pose Tracker> Arisugawa Joy has posed.
Sable's steps are quiet. So much that Joy doesn't notice her at first; and though Joy doesn't read hearts, Abra does, and it finds silence there too. She stops nearby, and Joy turns her head to look to her.
She's dressed in a white jacket, a black turtleneck, dark jeans, and a cap today, rather than the baker boy hat; it's all very chic and well-measured to her form.
"Neither are you. That must mean you have a calm heart," Joy remarks with a quiet smile. A pause, as she looks to the Abra. "Mm. Abra agrees. He says you have a serene sound in your heart."
<Pose Tracker> Sable Aomori has posed.
Sable is in a red tanktop and dark jeans, plus a black jacket with a fur collar. Her sneakers' soles are very soft. And...
"Oh..." Her expression shifts slightly towards a small smile. "I'm glad," she says. "I know that Abra usually run from Trainers..."
She does have Pokeballs on her belt. But her Pokemon are in them, rather than out at the moment, even her main partner!
"I see." She looks between Abra and Joy. "I can't sense your hearts," she admits. "That's not a power I have. But you're smiling and saying nice things and Abra hasn't run... so I think you must be calm, too."
"My name is Sable," she introduces herself. "Sable Aomori."
<Pose Tracker> Arisugawa Joy has posed.
Though they wear smiles on their faces right now, Joy has a quiet intensity about her. And she senses it from Sable too, from the way she carries herself.
"A lot of wild Abra are pretty skittish. The moment they sense an emotion that they don't like nearby, their first reaction is to run," Joy explains. "But you... I think you'd be able to handle one."
Sable mentions how she doesn't have that power, but... it looks like she's pretty gathered, from what Joy can tell of her.
"Arisugawa Joy," Joy offers her name in turn. "Are you undertaking a journey?"
It's obvious that she belongs to the Joy superfamily, between her name and looks; but 'Arisugawa' is a bit more specific.
If Sable follows League news closely, it might bring to mind a Joy that became Top Champion five years ago, and was briefly on the news because she announced her resignation a day later...
<Pose Tracker> Sable Aomori has posed.
A quiet intensity... That's accurate.
"Hmm..." Sable considers it. "Maybe I should," she says. "An Abra could help me when I return to Fuchsia City. But I wouldn't want to make it wait for as long as that... So maybe not yet."
She is thoughtful about her approach, but also about the Pokemon she uses. Joy gives her name--and Sable blinks once, recalling to mind a Joy of that name who was once a Champion, indeed. "I am," she says first, answering the question. "I set out from Cinnabar Island. I'm going to challenge the Pokemon League."
A pause. She considers. Someone else might stop to wonder if it's rude, but, "Are you the Arisugawa Joy who used to be a Champion?" she asks.
"...It's fine if you're not. I don't mean to say you should be someone you aren't." Her slight change in expression is embarrassment; her body languages closes off almost imperceptibly. But only almost.
<Pose Tracker> Arisugawa Joy has posed.
It's good to consider her options, anyway. Joy gently pets the Abra on the head, and it nuzzles back towards her, before turning slightly and teleporting with a weird little 'blip' and a show of purple energy, appearing on a grass patch below.
"I hope he recovers well," Joy muses. Then, Sable explains how she went from Cinnabar Island... "I see... so you met Mister Blaine, then?"
Her thoughts are interrupted, when Sable asks if she was the Arisugawa Joy who used to be a Champion.
There is silence, and then her smile gets a bit more sorrowful, as she tucks her cap down.
"... that girl was Top Champion for only one day, and never even defended her title against anyone. Not a terribly impressive one, now is it?"
Much like how Sable's body language closes off in embarrassment, Joy's does as well; Sable can sense an almost imperceptible tensing in her body, like she's recollecting slightly unfond memories... but important ones nonetheless.
<Pose Tracker> Sable Aomori has posed.
Blip! Sable waves to the Abra, and does not move to chase him. "Yes," Sable agrees of his recovery. And then she nods. "I was living there until recently. Mister Blaine works hard to give the families of the researchers things to do... So I saw a lot of his quiz show." Pause. "But I'm not good enough to challenge him myself yet."
Sable is not the best at reading emotions, but she can read changes, and she can tell that the mood is different because of the question. "..." she starts.
"I don't know about that. I haven't become a Champion at all, so someone becoming Top Champion seems like a big accomplishment to me." A pause. "You don't want to talk about that," she asserts. "Right?"
Pause. "That's fine." She steps closer to the railing, to peer down the side of the bridge. "But it's hard to come up with something else when you're thinking about not talking about a specific thing..."
<Pose Tracker> Arisugawa Joy has posed.
"Families of researchers, huh..." Joy remarks, and these two facts -- Sable's name, and belonging to a family of researchers -- starts to gel together. "Do you know a Doctor Anne Aomori, then?"
Joy seems to realise that she's getting tense from prior, and takes a few centreing breaths before she continues; when Sable assumes she doesn't want to talk about it, she ponders for a moment.
"... I don't mind, if you have questions. But I'm afraid that wasn't a journey I was allowed to keep walking on," Joy resolves, a moment later, because she knows that Sable might have questions of one that's experienced things on the journey before. It might have been taken away from her, but she realises, with Chase, with Sable... that she still cares about the journey of other people.
<Pose Tracker> Sable Aomori has posed.
"That's my mom," Sable says. "My dad is still in Cinnabar unless he left again to see if my mom will go out with him some more." Pause. "He might've done that."
But Joy takes centering breaths and Sable can at least recognize she's trying to be calm. She reveals something big in any case.
"Not allowed..." She frowns. Then she says, "I don't like that for you."
A look up to the sky. "I've been allowed a lot of things... Will that change, with everything going on...?"
She shakes her head. "You seem honest. So I won't assume that that's an 'I do mind, but I'm saying I don't mind to be polite'. But it really is fine not to answer for now. I do have a question other than that, though."
"Do you know my mom, then? A lot of people seem to know her. Even Visitors."
<Pose Tracker> Arisugawa Joy has posed.
Something in the way Sable speaks about her familial relations seems a bit odd, but Joy is... not an expert on adult relationships. Everything she said to her mom and dad just seemed to estrange them, after all. "I see. Yes, I do know your mother; I just happened to come across her when I was investigating the Visitors. She's supporting me in some of the expeditions we're making to the Visitors' home world, since her laboratory is in Viridian City."
It's not the full story. But Anne requested privacy, and she assumes her daughter is not privy to her work either; it's just polite.
But Sable ponders if things will change, with what she's allowed.
"I do wonder, myself... a great many things are changing for Nede."
Sable points out that she seems honest, so she'll assume she's not trying to be polite. "It does hurt, still. But I refuse to just let it be a painful memory, because there were a lot of irreplacable things I learnt on my own journey. And that's why I'm fond of seeing people's journeys -- like yours."
<Pose Tracker> Sable Aomori has posed.
It's normal enough to Sable, so she doesn't think much of it. Instead, she listens to Joy's answer, and inclines her head. "I see... That's outside her research field," Sable notes, "But she doesn't really confine herself just to that anyway..." A pause. Sable's eyes widen very slightly. "You're traveling to their home world?"
She stops, then, "...So it isn't just me."
It hurts, but, "I see. My journey is already like that too, and I'm only a couple of months in."
A smile. "I could tell you some then, if you wanted. I'd offer to let you meet my Pokemon but they're tired. We were training all day."
<Pose Tracker> Arisugawa Joy has posed.
"It is, but she was kind enough to offer. I suppose that the behaviour of fauna from their home world might be of interest to her too, or at least, how Pokemon respond to them," Joy makes an educated guess that's half a cover story and... well, honestly, more than half the truth as well.
Joy nods, however. "... right now, I want to fight the Ten Wise Men. And to that end, I know that I have to find new strength, because they aren't going to pay attention to League rules or anything like that."
But Sable speaks of how only a months in, her journey is already like that.
"Mm. I could sense that you are a diligent trainer. Then, tell me. I would like to hear."
<Pose Tracker> Sable Aomori has posed.
"I see. Yes." It makes sense to Sable, anyway. It throws her a lot less than Joy's next statement, which gets another slight widening of her eyes. "You do?" she asks. "Most people don't want to so much as talk about them, let alone fight them..."
"It makes it scarier, when people won't acknowledge what's going on."
She smiles at the compliment. "My first partner is Ulpi, a Piplup. He's very competitive. ...He doesn't accept being coddled too much. He expects me to do my part, too." She pauses. "He did very well against the Pewter Gym. I'm hoping to do as well in Cerulean... But without a type advantage among the core of my team, I'm relying on strategy."
"I've had a chance to see a lot of cities so far that I never saw much of on my own. ...And camp out. There's been a lot of camping..."
She pauses. "...What do you think of as 'strength'?"
<Pose Tracker> Arisugawa Joy has posed.
"You know exactly how it is," Joy feels a connection, when Sable expresses her experience with how the public reacted. "When I first heard the news, I hurried to every adult I could find; they all told me to not worry about it, to leave it to the Police and the League. And I know they're trying their best, but..."
She glances aside. "It's... wrong, to act like it doesn't concern you. Nede is important to me. I want to help defend it."
Joy listens as Sable describes her Piplup to her. He seems like a steadfast companion indeed. And indeed, Water would be very effective against Rock. But against a Water gym?
"Hmm. You understand Types well. Most people think only of Types in terms of offensive advantage, but... to fight Water with Water and use its resilience to find a different way -- that, too, is a way of battling."
Camping... Joy had to camp quite a lot too. "... I learnt a lot about nature allergies when camping," she admits. "And having to prepare a lot of medicine for that."
Joy is surprised by Sable's question, though. Usually, it's Joy who asks that question.
"... I wonder. I've been asking a lot of people that question too -- the Visitors, no less. They tend to have a viewpoint that I think we could learn from."
Strength...
"I'm not sure I'll ever have a final answer. Maybe that's the point, too. But right now, the strength I want... is the strength to be able to stand on my own in this world. Without that, I can't care for the people and Pokemon I love."
<Pose Tracker> Sable Aomori has posed.
Joy understands. Sable is relieved by that. "I haven't brought it up to Mom yet," she admits. "...But I think so too. I'm not sure what I can do, though." She looks down. "I'm frightened..."
But talking about her Piplup is much easier a subject than the Ten Wise Men. "Thank you," she says. "...All of my main team are resistant to Water. Water, Ice, and Dragon. I've caught a Bellsprout to help us, but I don't want to put it all on one Pokemon's shoulders... so I'm adapting a wider strategy."
Then, "Nature allergies... That would be difficult." But of course she would have medicine for it. It would be difficult, not impossible.
And Sable does wonder; Joy speaks of strength as so important that it makes sense to ask. "I see... So the Visitors have insight..."
Then a nod. "I see. ...Mom wants me to have that, too. It's why she was willing to move to Viridian after I started my journey, instead of waiting in Cinnabar for me. That's what she said, anyway. That she believed that I could do it. That I could always come to her if I needed to... but that it was important to try for myself, too."
"...Dad was a little more worried," she admits. "But on 'strength'..."
"I don't think I have any new answers for you. I'm still trying to learn it for myself."
<Pose Tracker> Arisugawa Joy has posed.
"I'm frightened too, of course. But... even knowing at least some people are bothered by it too -- that counts for more than you'd think," Joy admits.
Piplup is a much nicer subject than the Ten Wise Men. "Mmm. Novice trainers often look for the first Pokemon that has a Type advantage nearby, and then put their hopes on that one Pokemon... but that tends to cause a lot of stress and anxiety, since they haven't had a lot of time to develop a bond yet."
Sable speaks of how Anne wants her to have the strength to stand on her own. But... what of Sable herself?
"I'd be interested to know what kind of answer you find. I don't think there's a right or wrong answer, when it comes to that kind of question. But as far as strength goes..."
Joy reaches for her pack and rummages through it for a moment, before procuring a thick circular, band-like object that's purple in color, and has a lens in the middle. It looks like it's had a lot of use and care.
"I'd like you to have this, as a token of our meeting. It's called a Power Lens, and helps your Pokemon develop focus. It's something I used a lot when I was training with my Pokemon. I think one who's very serious about training, like you, could find a lot of use out of it."
<Pose Tracker> Sable Aomori has posed.
"Really? And you still want to fight?"
That surprises her too.
"Yes," Sable answers of her approach, "I can't ask Bellsprout to work that hard for me when I haven't worked as hard for it, yet. We haven't even gotten close enough yet for me to think of a name..." A pause. What does Sable think? What does she want? She doesn't say for now.
"I'll tell you, when I do."
A pause. Sable tilts her head--and then accepts it, in both hands. "This...?"
A token of their meeting. "A Power Lens," Sable repeats. "...This is something you've obviously used a lot. It must be very helpful..."
Her fingers close over the Power Lens. "Thank you," Sable says. "I'll do my best to use it well."
<Pose Tracker> Arisugawa Joy has posed.
"I think that acknowledging that I'm afraid is an important part of it," Joy reasons.
Bellsprout certainly seems like they could be a powerful partner in the long run for Sable. But names...? "I never... was very good at naming. In the end, I simply called most of my partners as who they were."
There's a quiet nod at Sable's resolve to use the Lens well, and Joy pulls away from the railing and begins to walk back towards Cerulean City.
"I look forward to it. And thank you, for letting me have the chance to meet you. The next time..."
She smiles over her shoulder, looking back at Sable.
"Let's have a Pokemon Battle. I'm eager to know what sings in your Pokemon's heart when they're working alongside you."
<Pose Tracker> Sable Aomori has posed.
"I see..."
"Oh," Sable says. "That's a good approach, too. I use names because Mom did. ...So it became 'normal' to me."
Joy pulls away, and Sable smiles back.
"...I'd like that," she says, and lifts a hand to wave. "I'll see you again, I'm sure."
She was going to go back to Cerulean City, but....
But for now she turns back to look out over the water, and over the grass beyond.
She'll be 'here' for a little while longer.