[FIN] Minuet of Forest

[Suudonym]

"No, look, how about we compromise?" He held up his hands defensively. "I'll sing or something, and you let me keep my clothes dry?" Whose mouth was it that had spoken those words? The things people would do in moments of desperation...  

[Tymiko]

Ty's features twisted into a look of suspicion as she put one hand on her thigh and shifted her weight to the other leg. She squinted at him.

"Fine," she agreed finally. However, she made a mental note on his reluctance to swim. Who preferred to sing over swim? Especially when they seemed to be as embarrassed about singing as Luke had been? Or maybe it was just because she had already heard him that he wasn't so bothered to sing in front of her anymore.  

[Suudonym]

A sigh of relief, followed immediately by a new feeling of reluctance. Nice save there, Luke. He was fairly confident, though, that he had indeed chosen the lesser of the two evils. He regarded the girl's critical stare somewhat wiltingly, fingers fidgeting absently. "It... It's not like a performance or something, right? I mean, you can just ignore me, and I'll just..." He really wasn't used to this sort of thing.  

[Tymiko]

"..." Straightening up at his words, the girl's expression softened and she walked a little ways toward the lake before finding a tree almost immediately beside the water. Grabbing a limb, she began to haul herself up its branches until she had disappeared from view.

The Vaporeon head dipped down under the surface of the lake once again, leaving everything still.  

[Suudonym]

Well that was... kind of creepy. She had just sort of vanished, and her Vaporeon with her. He considered calling her back out, telling her that wasn't what he meant, but he was sort of starting to get fed up with his own hesitation. "Ah, whatever," he murmured, relaxing the back of his head against the tree and closing his eyes with a resigned sigh. He allowed melody into his thoughts and gave voice to the first song that found him, singing clearly and without inhibition. A deal was a deal, he supposed.  

[Tymiko]

Once she was satisfied with his singing, Tymiko smiled to herself and made her way out to the farthest branch looking out over the lake. Usually she liked to see how high she could climb, but right now she had a different plan in mind.

Using the branch as a springboard (which probably wasn't the smartest thing to do, given that the branch also tensed and wavered like a real springboard due to its limberness) the girl jumped on the end of it a couple times.

"WHOO-HOOO!" With a sudden whoop, the water trainer leapt off the tree limb and swan dove straight into the lake.  

[Suudonym]

The girl suddenly reappeared, disappearing again shortly after with a cheer and a splash. Luke blinked after her, mildly startled, and called out, "Hey, don't get yourself hurt!" Not that he was one to talk; in the past he had engaged in his own fair share of unsafe tree stunts in the gardens around the manor. Still, it wouldn't have been very responsible of him simply to ignore it altogether.  

[Tymiko]

Fathom cringed internally when he saw the girl on the branch, guessing what she was about to do. Really...that girl can be so careless sometimes. She didn't even check how deep the lake was or what was in it. Would serve her right if a bunch of Carvanha suddenly -

He paused, suddenly feeling as though he had been taken advantage of. Or, she could have dropped me in the lake first to make sure the water was clear. Then, she could have remembered that I know Surf and decided to take for granted that I would save her. The water-type rolled his eyes and swam up to the lake surface just as his trainer jumped. Tch. Typical.

With Fathom launching a Surf attack just over the surface of the lake, a huge wave caught Tymiko and carried her towards the shore. By chance or not, she ended up heading straight for Luke. Happily shouting at the top of her lungs, the child didn't seem to have a care in the world. Not even that her clothes and possibly the red-head were in very grave danger of getting wet, let alone crushed under the weight of the wave.  

[Suudonym]

Luke was fairly certain that his end of the bargain was that he got to stay in dry clothes, and he was slightly more than a little peeved that the compromise wouldn't be honored - even if due to causes not completely under the girl's control. For now, though, there was the question of how not to get caught between a barreling wave and an unmoving tree, because that hardly sounded like a place he wanted to be. Very quickly, the boy pushed to his feet and moved himself behind the tree in hopes the wave would strike it from the front and divide around him. Keeping dry was probably a pipe dream at this point, but he was satisfied by the thought of not being mowed down by a wall of water.  

[Tymiko]

As the water crashed onto land, the dense thicket of trees and soft, damp earth absorbed much of the attack's impact. Though it may have saturated Luke's sleeves and footwear, the young man's quick thinking had allowed most of his clothing to stay dry as the waters receded back into the main body of the lake.

Tymiko got up from where she had landed on the bank, shivering. "I'm sorry!" she called, not sure where the young man had gotten to. She had realized by now that Fathom's Surf was not something the stranger had bargained for, and as such, he was probably pretty angry with her.

Fathom, meanwhile, emerged from the water and shook himself, looking tired and miserable. Having had to create a wave that strong on such short notice had been exhausting. He was more than a little irritated at his young trainer, but something else caught his attention.

The Vaporeon's ear fins perked and he returned to his Dive Ball. No way was he getting himself involved in this mess. This was all the girl's fault and it was about time she learned from her mistakes.

Tymiko, turning just in time to see the flash of light, hurried to the source and found the pokeball along with her soaked clothes. "Huh...?" Why had Fathom disappeared so fast?

The answer to her mental question soon made itself known. A dripping wet Teddiursa stepped out from the forest, glaring first at Luke, and then Tymiko. She stared.

Flanking the little bear pokemon were at least two Ursaring, their fur just as drenched and their demeanor just as angry as the Teddiursa. "Teddiursa!" cried the little bear. "Ursa, ursa!" It pointed ahead toward the humans with an accusing claw.

"...Uh oh."  

[Suudonym]

He exhaled a long breath. That worked out better than he had expected. His safety and relative dryness secure, Luke moved out from behind his impromptu cover, shoes marking his path in the new mud. He wore an unamused expression, "There was probably a better way to go about that, huh?"

He turned to regard whatever had caught the girl's attention, meeting the gaze of a little pokemon that looked just as unamused as he did. Even less amused were the two significantly larger pokemon that accompanied it. Neither of the two species looked familiar, but it didn't seem like the greatest timing to look either of them up in the pokedex's database. They were huge and pissed off; what else did he need to know.

Luke looked over his shoulder at the girl, "We should probably get out of here. Quickly." His fingers tensed slightly, reflexively noting the pokeball that contained Leste. An escape by air would be fastest, but the bird still wasn't fantastic at bearing more than one rider. Hopefully the angered pokemon wouldn't force him to make that choice nonetheless.  

[Tymiko]

"Probably," Ty uttered sheepishly, staring at the angry bear pokemon. "But - but doesn't running attract the attention of predators?" She whispered loudly, freezing in place. Her gaze drifted toward the bushes where she'd hidden her bag.

As far as she could remember, there wasn't much food in there...but what about fish? "Hey! Are there any Remoraid or Magikarp or Feebas flopping around? Maybe we could throw some to them!"  

[Suudonym]

"Uh, well, I don't know if it matters so long as they don't catch us..." They looked rather bulky and seemed to have pretty short legs, but Luke doubted it was a good idea to underestimate them for their appearance. Even Tartarus, stout and heavy as he was, could pull off an impressive charge when he wanted to.

The suggestion to search for fish upended by the Surf yielded one lonely Goldeen desperately trying to make its way back to the lake's waters, and Luke inched towards it carefully and plucked it from the ground. Once he had a grasp on it, though, it became obvious what exactly he was doing. Anyone who's born has a right to be alive. Maybe he was stupid or naive, but he wasn't going to make a hypocrite of himself. "I'll handle this. You just focus on getting out of here," he muttered, backing up to the water's edge to return the Goldeen to its home. That finished, he stepped forward and away from his company, raised his arms, and shouted to draw the pokemon's attention, "Hey! Come on, over here!"  

[Tymiko]

The water trainer watched as the red-head located a Goldeen and carefully picked it up. She blinked as he paused and eventually tossed the water pokemon back into the lake. Maybe he hadn't heard her properly...?

But then the young man was stepping forward toward the bear pokemon. Tymiko didn't understand. What was he doing? She wasn't sure what changed the guy's mind, but his actions were suddenly starting to seem ridiculously risky - and brave.

"Are you crazy?!" she yelled at him, both trying to understand his new method while also attempting to draw the pokemon's attention to herself. If only Fathom wasn't being such a pain right now... Thinking of Fathom, the girl got an idea.

She knew the young man was well-intentioned, but Ty wasn't about to run off and leave him on his own. Who did he think he was, ordering her around anyway? Was it just because he was older?

The girl might have trusted him if she knew him better or at least had an idea of what his plans were. As she didn't, however, she chose another option. Instead of getting away, Ty made a mad dash for the bushes in which she'd hidden her bag. True, she didn't have much food there, but she knew there was something else...

If Fathom decided to complain about it later, she could tell him it was his fault for leaving them in their time of need. The Teddiursa and one of the Ursaring stomped toward the yelling, shouting young man.

The remaining Ursaring, however, thought it would be quicker to go for the girl by the tree. Ty did her best to avoid looking up and concentrate her energies on finding what she was looking for in her bag.  

[Suudonym]

There was danger in miscommunication, and where Tymiko failed to understand Luke's intentions, he similarly failed to understand hers. As far as he could tell, she was plainly ignoring the opening he had endeavored to create for her to... get something from her bag, maybe? He could forgive salvaging her belongings before fleeing, but the longer she lingered, the more danger she was putting herself in.

"What are you doing?!" he berated loudly, both from urgency and from his continued efforts to maintain the attention of the Ursaring. These efforts were only half effective, and the other half was making its slow path towards the individual he was trying to protect. He continued to stare down the advancing Ursaring, backing away at a matching pace and keeping a hand ready to call forth Leste for a quick escape if it appeared necessary, and tapped the release on his luxury ball. Mieu wasn't the strongest pokemon on his team, but he was the most responsive and the most aligned with Luke's own thoughts and feelings. It took as little as a gesture for the Flareon to produce a cry of compliance and move to position himself between the crouching trainer and the large pokemon that had targeted her. The size difference was laughable, but that did little to prevent the fire-type from standing his ground, bristling fiercely at the evident foe.