Lotus and Stone (Steven Stone x OC)

5. Midspring Festival pt 1

The banquet was coming to a close. It was late, everyone had eaten, everyone had drunk, and most importantly, everyone had had a good time with Luna. All of the champions and Kahunas were scheduled to leave the next day, some earlier than others. So Luna bid goodbye to almost everyone retiring for the night. Luna caught sight of Steven having a chat with Red, who was about to release his Charizard.

"Steven! Red!" Luna called out to them. They turned, she jogged over to them. "I just wanted to say thank you for coming. Unfortunately, I won't be able to accompany you to the airport" She looked at Steven, "Nor the train station tomorrow," She said looking at Red. "So I wanted to say goodbye, and of course, safe travels." She gave a slight bow to the both of them. "I hope to work together again soon." Red chuckled and gave a bow of his own.

"Well Luna, it has been a pleasure to welcome you into your championship title. Farewell. And to you Steven." With that Red released his Charizard and the pair walked off outside the great hall. Steven turned to her.

"It was an honour to be invited to Sinnoh, Luna. Thank you." He gave a curt bow.

"Oh nonsense. Let me know if you're ever in Sinnoh again for Grand Underground expeditions." Luna said.

"Of course." The two looked in each other's eyes. Luna slowly drowning in the steelish-blue irises of Steven Stone. "Goodnight Luna."

"Goodnight Steven."

The man turned and closed the door to the great hall behind him, leaving Luna in the empty room.

-

A week had passed since the Champion's Dinner party. Luna was in the yarn shop bright and early, serving plenty of customers from the elderly home down the road. Luna was busy helping customers when a certain someone walked through the door, bell ringing as she entered.

"My my, I didn't know crafts stores were this busy!" Cynthia laughed.

"Oh, excellent choice Mrs Reale, this purple is the last of its batch. That'll be 2500 poke dollars please." Luna looked up, "Oh Cynthia!" Luna was glad to see her, she had some updates for the Sinnoh Centre project in Veilstone city. Luna put the money away into the register then served the next customer. Cynthia had checked her poketch for the checklist she had written.

"Floaroma town is good for all the flower decorations, Ribbon syndicate is good for decorations as well. I think that should be enough, no? I also talked to some of the artisans in Sunnyshore bazaar, they'd be happy to work some stalls with their merchandise. Oh! I nearly forgot, in terms of food, Hearthome catering services said they approve the budget you gave them for the stalls around the region." Cynthia read off the list from her poketch, everything seemed to be going well. "Jubilife TV got in contact with Lumiose press and Mauville news, for publicity. They said we should expect big crowds. The Castelia travel agency hasn't replied yet. I'm sure they will soon."

"Excellent. That is good news... thank you for coming, have a nice day!" Luna called after the last customer who left. "whew, good...well, I talked to Byron, he said we might as well demolish the Galactic building and rebuild from zero. What do you think?" Luna said.

"Sounds like a waste of resources to me, but... to be fair, tearing down the building and the history attached to it does make sense. The decision is yours." Cynthia tapped her chin, debating the two options.

"I agree with you, it does make sense. I talked to some architects, and they said if we want to build a multi-use arena, the structure just wasn't built for it, the most we could do is make it into a research centre or a school, but to have open spaces it's better to start from scratch." Luna explained.