Broken Souls

Luminous

We awake in Olivine at the lovely seaside hotel next to the tavern. Despite how boisterous the neighboring facilities are, the little establishment carries itself with dignity. The slightly vintage feel to it makes me feel at home, despite it being almost as far away from home as it could possibly be in the region.

When we manage to get up and get ourselves together, Fang drops me a menu. He gestures silently to the buffet. "So, can we eat? I mean, unless we're going foraging in the wilderness. Do you do that?"

"No, Fang, we do not forage for berries." I push the menu back. "Why would we even..."

"How do you keep all of the food for the team, then?" He asks, his head cocked slightly to the side.

"In my bag, obviously..." I look into my bag and realize that I've never really seen the bottom of it. "That's actually a really good question. Does anyone know what these bags are even made of?"

"Synthetic fiber and dark magic!" calls Ten from the bathroom. "Someone probably made a deal with Giratina itself to create it."

"Since when does Giratina dispense its powers so that people can shove extra cans of Oran Berry substitute into their bag?" I ask. "Let's just assume it works on the same principles as almost everything else that doesn't make sense in this world."

"What principles? There are principles?"
"That's what I mean." I sigh, zipping my bag back up.

"Have you ever tried asking someone else about this? What about professors?"

"It's just more or less normal for us." I shrug. "Why, what would you do about it? If you told anyone, they'd just tell you that Pokemon did it. They wouldn't specify which Pokemon either, because they're really helpful. This goes double for the professors. Professors are the absolute worst."

"That's harsh. They've made really valuable contributions to science." Reginae says. "Not like I personally look up to any of them, but I think that anyone who's last name just so happens to be a tree is definitely a reliable source."

"That's because you are a plant." I tell him. "According to 'science', I don't exist and neither do kitsune. It took me two months to realize that I was a Goldeneye and two more to realize kitsune were real and I owned one. Plus, if professors are so great, shouldn't they be doing their own field work? Why would you send a bunch of kids to do it for you?"

"Fair point." Reginae opens the door into the hotel hall. It's only three floors tall and there are only fourteen or so suites per floor. Despite that, it has to be one of the nicest places we've ever slept just because of the sheer amount of love gone into anything. Clefairy roam the halls, brushing things off with tiny feather dusters and a whole menagerie of Pokemon follow performing maintenance of all sorts.

A Sandshrew tottles along behind the bulk of them, carrying two buckets full of wrapped and candied Oran Berries through the corridors. When he sees me, he holds one bucket up. "Hungry?"

"Am I? Thank you so much." I pet his head and take a few, unwrapping them and distributing them among my team members. I take one more and pop it in my mouth.

"Oh... thath so good. Oh my Artheus." I say. The sweetness is overwhelming, but it doesn't feel forced or fake. Instead, it lights up my whole mouth with every bite. It tastes like liquid happiness.

"Don't speak with your mouth full of berries." warns Reginae, crunching away on his own anyways.

I nudge him playfully and he swallows, shooting me a look far more bitter than any berry.

Even the clerk at the front waves cheerfully as I leave, telling me to have a nice day. You'd think it would be common courtesy to say that to your guests, who are paying you to sleep after having said nice day, but a lot of the hotel owners in Johto are jerks. Don't get me started on other industries. Let's just say that Johto has a nasty reputation for being a rundown region or "discount Kanto" and save for a few tourist spots where everything is spruced up to look somewhat better, that's absolutely the case.