[FIN] Walk With Me

[BlackFireKitsune]

Seraphine didn't know why she insisted on going out and window shopping. It had sounded like such a good idea earlier, but now she had sufficiently ruined her mood to the point where she wondered just why it had been so good. She'd gone to the mall, full of shoppers trying to find the best deals for their Christmas gifts, and had visited all of the shops she used to frequent when she had money. Since she no longer had money, she'd gotten various looks in all of the stores, but luckily none of them had clerks ambitious enough to tell her that if she didn't plan to buy anything, she needed to leave. She knew that happened to poor people sometimes if they went to the more expensive stores.

The brunette had even passed the store she went to with Anastasia to get her more accessories and bows - it had been where she'd bought her special collar. Well, all her collars really - the dark-type had gone through quite a few as an Eevee and several as an Umbreon, though her white one was her favorite. It was Sera's too. The girl couldn't help but wonder if wherever Anya was, if she still had her collar or if it had been taken and sold. Or maybe Anya had even been sold too?

Thus sufficiently despondent and thoroughly miserable, Seraphine left the mall with her pale eyes downcast and her small, gloved hands shoved deep into the pockets of her black and pink coat. Her matching boots that added another couple of inches to her height began moving of their own accord, directing her towards home. Ugh, today just sucked something awful. Maybe she should just go home...

...which was, she remembered quite suddenly as she halted, why window shopping had seemed like such a good idea. Slowly she turned in another direction and started walking again. The house that she'd been originally heading to, without even realizing where she was going, was no longer her house. It was just a house up for sale now. After she'd run away her parents had secured an apartment - not even a very good one, at that - to live in instead, which was much cheaper and more affordable on their currently extremely limited budget. That was where she lived now, but it wasn't home. 'Home' was her old house, where she'd lived her whole life. She wanted to go home, not go to some dingy old apartment. She wanted to go home, back to her old house and her old habits and go back to how everything used to be, back when they had money. This whole being poor thing wasn't even remotely enjoyable at all, especially without Anastasia. If she at least had her Umbreon, it would probably be bearable.

With an unhappy, quavering sigh, Sera flopped down onto a bench on a sidewalk and raised her hands to rub the heels of her palms into her eyes. Stupid, stupid - everything was just so stupid. Today was stupid.  

[Suudonym]

"What's up? You okay?"

Standing in front of that bench - or paused before it, rather, as he had been walking past when he had noticed the face of someone familiar - was Seraphine's red-headed acquaintance, watching her with a look of quiet attention.

Winter in Kodo felt strange to Luke. At home, the political nature of his family had compelled House Fabre to hold a party annually in celebration of the holidays. His birthday, which coincided incidentally with Christmas, had always been something of a secondary matter; the house's staff often smilingly wished him a happy birthday, but his parents and the manor's other residents had always been too busy with preparations to do anything particularly special for him. That was how it had always been, so he didn't mind. But then Kodo was all wrapped up in preparations as well, it seemed, with various decorations appearing on storefronts and streetlights with every passing day. It was oddly nostalgic, yet completely different. He still wasn't sure whether or not he especially liked it.

That was irrelevant, though. What he was sure he didn't like was seeing people looking down, especially people he knew. He still didn't know if he got along with Seraphine well enough to call their relationship friendship, but he at least knew he couldn't just walk past her without saying anything.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

If Luke had walked right past her, Sera probably would never have noticed - but Giselle, invisible as ever, would definitely have taken notice, and would frown deeply for some time after whenever she saw him. As far as she was concerned, all the trainers were friends, so for one not to stop and talk to another was unacceptable. Luckily he did stop, and so frowns would be unnecessary.

Sera raised her head quickly, looking vaguely suspicious of someone who would stop to talk to her, but when she saw who it was the suspicion was immediately replaced with a kind of appreciative look, whatever those look like. "Oh, um, yeah, I guess," she replied as she rubbed at an eye again, probably sounding entirely unconvincing. She hadn't started crying, but she had certainly felt like it, though she made an effort to push the feeling away. However used to crying in public she had become, she still strongly disliked it. Especially in front of her friends. "What are you doing here? Shopping or something?" Because why would anyone be in this district and not be shopping? Besides her, anyway.  

[Suudonym]

He didn't comment on her indeed unconvincing claims on her emotional well-being. Luke understood all too well the inherent need to answer positively even when the truth was plainly negative, and so he brushed it off as pleasantry.

"I guess," he said, burying his hands in his pocket. "I wasn't really planning on buying anything, but I prefer walking around the city to sitting in my apartment." It wasn't as though it was especially boring or anything, with Emil and their combined pokemon for company, but he had already had enough of sitting at home to last him a lifetime. It was nice to walk around whenever he felt like it, and so he felt like it often. "What about you?"  

[BlackFireKitsune]

Sera was grateful that he didn't negate her half-hearted claims, even if the appreciation was only a subconscious feeling. Actual appreciation for anything was something that didn't occur to her very often still. "Me too," she said honestly, then added, "rather than sitting at--" Not home, "at an apartment." Her lips pursed bitterly as she looked off to one side.

"I was walking around too. I didn't feel like sitting around, so I went out. But I wasn't," not 'can't', "buy anything either." Seraphine going out but not buying anything would have been such a foreign concept a year ago that her parents would have thought her ill. Funny how things turned out. She wasn't about to admit that window shopping was depressing now, so instead she offered, "I got sick of looking around though. It's.. Kind of boring." 'Boring' was obviously not the word she was originally thinking of. Seraphine was never very good at being discreet or hiding her emotions.  

[Suudonym]

"Yeah," he said with a shrug, accepting the thin veil over her words. He'd never been much for window shopping himself, so it was always pretty boring for him. He assumed, however, that it was boring for a different reason to a girl who had always seemed to adore shopping. 'Boring.' He pushed a loose piece of gravel with the toe of his shoe.

An idea. "Hey, have you seen the ads for that thing they're doing with the city garden?" Sort of vague, but he couldn't recall the exact phrasing he had seen on the poster he had inattentively skimmed when he passed it the other day. "It's some kind of holiday thing, apparently. Like a light show or something? I'm not really sure how to explain it." It seemed like a pretty straightforward tradition, though, so maybe Seraphine, who had lived in Kodo much longer than him, would understand even without hearing the precise name of the event. "Anyway, apparently they just opened it last week, so I was thinking of checking out. It sounds way more interesting than window shopping, if you wanna come too."  

[BlackFireKitsune]

Idly she watched the bit of gravel as Luke pushed it around, but at his question her light eyes flitted back up to meet his gaze, and it took but a moment before she recognized what he meant. "Oh, you mean the garden thing." Clearly she didn't think it important enough to remember the name of it either, despite living in Camphoreon her entire life. "Yeah, they do that every year. It's something with lights in the garden. My parents always go every year but I only went once, when I was a lot younger. I thought it was boring."

She frowned lightly as she glanced off down the street, as if that would answer her internal questions. Did she still think it was boring? She hadn't gone to it in years. Plus it wasn't sitting here, and it wasn't window shopping.

Sera turned her gaze back up at Luke, her expression at least a little more positive than it had been thus far. "Yeah, it's probably way more interesting. I'll go too." A pause. "When were you gonna go?"  

[Suudonym]

It was slightly disheartening when she delivered her verdict that the event was boring, but apparently it was slightly less boring than window shopping, for she acquiesced to attendance. This was to Luke's relief; he wasn't sure how he was supposed to go about trying to cheer her up if she refused to accompany him.

"Well if the lights are the important part, probably some time after sunset," he considered aloud. "Probably like 7ish? I don't have any specific plans, though, so any time works."  

[BlackFireKitsune]

It had been boring to Seraphine, as a 7 year old girl whose only interests lay with pretty, lacy frilly dresses, a 7 year old who didn't give a crap about lights unless they were spotlights on a runway. At 7 years old, Seraphine knew exactly what she liked and what she wanted, but now she wasn't sure anymore. But, she was sure that going and walking around with Luke at a garden lights thing would be much more fun than sitting around doing nothing, in her, ugh, apartment, or here on a bench.

"Alright, 7 works," she said with a short nod as she pulled her 'dex out of her pocket so she could see what time it was. A soft frown settled on her face as she said, "it's not even 4 yet. Hmm.. Should I meet you somewhere near there or something? I should probably go talk to my mother about it anyway." Her parents had begun insisting, after she'd finally gone back home, that she begin telling them where she was going and for how long and who she was with and when she would be back and ugh. Run away one time...  

[Suudonym]

"Sure, that works," he affirmed with a nod. "Like near the entrance or something. I'll send you a message when I'm there," he brandished his pokedex briefly, "or you can send me one if you get there first."  

[BlackFireKitsune]

"Okay," she agreed with a nod as well, and offered another nod to acknowledge his pokedex as a means of communication. "Okay, see you there, then."


She'd returned home - 'home' being a relative term - shortly after, for food and to speak with her parents about the event later that evening. Sera was amused they gave her permission (like she needed it in the first place), but not as amused that she had to spend the remainder of the evening convincing her mother that no, she did not need a ride there and back. She was perfectly content to ride Luna.

That, and she had no intention of being seen in the pathetic excuse for a car her parents had been forced to get after going bankrupt.

So it was that roughly around 7pm, after a change of clothes and opting for a different, thicker coat to fend off the cold, Sera rode sidesaddle atop her dark colored Rapidash. The fire-type usually wasn't pleased to escort her trainer anywhere, but since the night was setting in she was more than happy to do so. As they approached where Sera thought the entrance was, she pulled her 'dex out of her (matching) purse to see if she had any new messages yet or not.  

[Suudonym]

Sometime around 6:50, Seraphine's pokedex received a message from Luke's stating that the boy was waiting at the walking entrance gate. When she was within range of sight, Seraphine would find the other trainer standing a short ways away from the steady influx of patrons, and he would raise a hand in greeting. Though he wore the same white jacket as he had that afternoon, he had added a sweater to his person to make the weather more bearable. He moved forward to more adequately greet his company (a nod and a "hey," as per his usual demeanor) and to fall into the rough queue.

The entrance itself was impressive enough, the large, arching gateway that appeared to be a permanent fixture of the garden wrapped in bright lights; indeed, it seemed that everything in the area was draped in lights such that it appeared that the foliage was made of the glow and the colors drowned out the area's natural appearance. "I've never seen decorations like this," was Luke's first impression of the event. "It's surreal."  

[BlackFireKitsune]

Sera was vaguely surprised to see that he was there a whole ten minutes early - she was used to being fashionably late to things, although her mother insisted that she shouldn't be tonight, so it was odd to know people arrived not only on time, but early to things. She supposed, though, that that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. True, sometimes depending on the situation it could easily be misconstrued as being rather eager for the event in question, but she dismissed the thought that this was the case. In all likelihood he was just conscientious and liked being early or something.

She saw his head of red hair before she saw his hand raise, and she raised one of hers in response before she put her 'dex away, nudged Luna to a side so she could dismount, and then returned the Rapidash to her ball which was thereafter placed safely into her purse. That slung over one shoulder, Sera offered her own greeting of "hi" as she fell into step beside him.

Pale eyes glanced at him when he spoke, then focused on the various lights just around the entrance, and the brunette nodded slightly. "It kind of is, huh? It's a lot different than I remember," she added with a small frown.  

[Suudonym]

He noted the frown, dazzled in the surrounding lights, with a slight curiosity. "Different for the worse?" At least it certainly didn't seem like she was as entertained by the landscape as he was. He had just been thinking how impressive the display was, but maybe it was more impressive in the past or something.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

"Oh, no," Sera said quickly as her gaze shot over to him again, her eyebrows raising. "I just meant like..." Another frown, this one of concentration, and she clicked her tongue ring against her teeth thoughtfully before she elaborated, "When I was younger it mostly looked to me like just a crap ton of lights everywhere, and they didn't look like anything much except vague shapes. To me, anyway. I think my mom was super impressed by it, but," she shrugged as she looked around again, "I wasn't." A pause. "It looks really awesome now, though."

She didn't voice it, but the vague, blurry shapes may have been attributed to her early near-sightedness and her lack of glasses until she turned 9 or 10. She only ever went out in contacts though, an endeavor which she would eventually have to give up when she ran out of contacts. Not that she wanted to think about that right now.

As she looked around, her gaze alighted on a booth not too far away, nestled off to one side near the entrance so it wasn't in the way of any of the paths, and Sera brightened a bit. "Ooh, I think they have free drinks over there," she said as she reached a hand out to nudge his arm while her opposite hand raised to point in the direction, "c'mon, let's go get some." That said as she was already making her way over there - Luke would catch up.