Aries

Maiden's Peak

"Maiden's Peak, huh?" Steven looked around the small town, which seemed to be in the middle of the summer festival. Tents were pitched along the streets, and gaudy coloured fabric shaded the cobbled pathways between old-looking houses. Vendors waved trinkets and wind chimes jingled past as Steven and Ash walked along the main road. An old lady waved them over, a sly grin on her face as the two men approached her.

"Now... I warn you... a young girl will one day lead you to a cruel fate.." The old lady waved her hands through the air to make her seem mysterious. Pinwheel sniffed her.

"...You don't seem right..." Pinwheel squinted at the old lady, giving more investigatory sniffs to the lady. Steven laughed softly, undeterred by the comments made by her as he looked at the spell tags and charms. "I don't think I'd be attracted to the girl, lady. Don't worry about me."

The lady looked curiously at Steven. "Young man, you don't sound Kantonian."

"I'm not, I'm Hoennian. I'm Daigo. This here is my friend, Satoshi." Steven introduced himself, holding a hand for her to shake. She smiled a little and dipped her head instead of shaking his hand, before lifting off a warning charm from the back of her little tent with an ancient Hisuian kanji printed on it, which seemed out of place amongst the Kantonian kanji's printed on every other charm in the area.

"Do you recognise this symbol?" The old lady smiled eerily, as Steven examined it closely. He shook his head and released Mesa. The Claydol floated up and around before adjusting to look at the symbol itself.

"...Hisui. It's a Hisuian symbol." Mesa spoke. Ash blinked. "Where is Hisui?"

Steven looked closely at the hand-drawn symbol on the cloth. "It's the old name of Sinnoh. But why would there be Hisuian iconography here?"

The old lady shrugged, before a large swarm of tourists ran through the town to chase after somebody who mentioned a pretty ghost, leaving Steven and Ash dazed.

And the old lady was gone.

"Welcome to the Shrine of the Maiden. Please do not touch anything." An older gentleman in a fundoshi explained in a soft-spoken manner. Steven and Ash looked about the shrine in awe, staring at the walls and painting in particular. Steven approached the older gentleman as Ash bowed in greeting- he remembered his mother mentioning that to him. The Dragonite, amusingly enough.

"So what is the history of this temple?" Steven asked, slipping his palms into his pocket and smiling politely at the shrine's maiden.

"Oh, around 150 years ago, there was a great war that Kanto fought. The maiden waiting on the cliff, waiting for her lover to return from the war, eventually, she had waited for so long with him never returning, she turned to stone, where she would rest forever more.." The man told, gesturing to the painting. Steven looked curious.

"So, who was Kanto at war with?" Steven asked. The man looked away, before looking back. "Young man, historical records are difficult to find from that period.."

"Johto," Ash replied. He had heard the story of the war 150 years ago, a disagreement between a young Blackthorn prodigy and a man called Indigo. Some people claimed that "Indigo" was a mistranslation. Some thought he wasn't even Kantonian. The general stories from word-of-mouth around Blackthorn claimed he was a soul of the future, brought to fix the past. "A disagreement by a Blackthorn prodigy, a young man generally agreed to be the ancestor for the Wataru clan, between a man named Indigo who would later be honoured through the Indigo Plateau would become a war between the two areas. It ended with the final separation of the two."

He thought he'd leave out the time travel rumours this time. Steven at least seemed interested, while the man looking after the shrine nodded, but seemed disinterested with the information. Ash bit back a scowl.