[FIN] I'd feel a lot better if my mom weren't dead.

[Suudonym]

Apparently the fire-type was receptive enough, at least temporarily at any rate. It was good enough for Luke just to have the pokemon's outward tension dissolved. "I wasn't much of a trainer myself when I first came here," he said. "I just had a Flareon that I'd pretty much kept as a pet." Green eyes wandered. "Got more serious about it when people started having pokemon stolen. The League is here now, so I think pokemon training is taken a little more seriously than it was before." Kodo still didn't have gyms established, but at least it was probably not as necessary to venture out to another region just to compete against trainers who were seriously trying to improve.

The unexpected offer was met with a temporary surprise and a fumble to organize his thoughts before he arrived at a vague conclusion, "Um, any kind of tea is fine, if that's okay."  

[Tori Honoo]

At the mention of a Flareon, Lovey's ears perked and she pushed herself over the arm of the armchair to peep at Luke, now interested in the trainers' conversation.

Dove hesitated a moment at his lack of preference, then drew out her own favorite blend of tea, moving quietly to prepare it for them both. "A flareon?" she asked with interest, tipping her head back to him again. "Lovey is pretty much the same... she's a friend, not a fighter." She smiled a little brighter, previous bad memories falling away to those of her initial meeting with the eevee.

It faded, however, at his mention of theft. "Yes... I've heard about that. The rumors were the reason I had my parents send Sparky to me..."  

[Suudonym]

A nod and a passingly wistful expression, "Mieu got a lot better at battling as we practiced, but it's better if you don't need to worry about something like that…" If the region stayed quiet enough that no one else had to think about training to defend against Team Rocket, then that was really for the best. Maybe the League had gotten a handle on things somehow after all.

"Not just rumors," he said, a certain gravity taking his tone. "A lot of my friends have had pokemon stolen. It's been a while since anything's happened though, so… I guess there's some hope."  

[Tori Honoo]

Noting his distant take on the conversation and his lower spirited tone, Dove nodded quietly, still preparing the tea. The boy definitely didn't need anything else hanging over his head, and friends' stolen pokemon wouldn't do anything to lift his spirit. "There's always hope, Luke," she added gently, sincerity clear in her voice. There was always hope, even in the most bleak of times; she herself had come to terms with that long ago.

"Are you hungry?" she asked with a small smile, reasoning he must be to some extent after losing track of time in the park. "I was thinking about making something..."  

[Suudonym]

His gaze fell away, his too-frequent obligatory smile shrinking. "Hard to believe it sometimes," he replied quietly. He'd been hoping for a long time now, and it certainly seemed that it had yet to do him any good. The only hope he had now was that his recovery continued along an upward incline.

"Um, well, not especially, to be honest," he responded with a weak laugh, "but in my case that's usually not an excuse not to eat." He was beginning to forget the feeling of not having his appetite interfered with in some way, either from stress or from medicinal side-effects.  

[Tori Honoo]

The young woman's eyes lingered on him as he replied and all but forced a laugh, her concern evident in her features, though she quickly turned to dig ingredients from the fridge. "Then eat you shall!" she announced, hoping her tone came across light and cheerful.

Setting aside a few chosen foods, she poured the tea, stepping around the counter to bring him a steaming mug. "It is hard, I know. We have to accept disappointment and hurt at times, but we can't lose hope..." she said softly, offering the tea.  

[Suudonym]

He became acutely aware, as she made her selection of ingredients, that he was just standing around letting her do everything. As he accepted the warm mug with a word of thanks, he couldn't in good faith withhold his offer, "Can I help with anything?" Cooking wasn't exactly his best skill, but he could at least follow directions well enough.

Trying to think about something like hope was just too difficult at the time. His father's words from his still recent visit home came to mind: 'We didn't catch it in time.' By the time anyone had realized how ill his mother was, it had been too late to do anything for her. What hope had she had? What had kept her body warm until she had the opportunity to impart her message to her sons? How would she have felt if that opportunity had never come? He bit his lip lightly at the thoughts, running a thumb along the side of the cup in his hands. It didn't really do him any good to think about things like that…  

[Tori Honoo]

Dove tapped his chin lightly with her fingertips, giving him a small smile of encouragement as he bit his lip. "Hey, head up, you. Things really will be okay," she teased lightly, leaving him to step back into the kitchen. "And thank you, but relax, unless you just really feel like cooking. You're a guest! I can do it, no problem."

She moved back to her counter, smoothly reaching for the first vegetable to slice. She hadn't been able to cook for more than one in quite some time, and the idea all but thrilled her; she had loved cooking as a hobby back home, especially when she had first moved out on her own the first time, albeit then she had cooked for both herself and her boyfriend of the time. She snapped a carrot in half at the thought, wondering vaguely if helping her cook might take his mind off of his mother. "Is soup alright?"  

[Suudonym]

He attempted a smile in return, though its resulting nature was apologetic. At her decline, he looked down the steam rising from the cup in his hands with a grudgingly compliant "okay." Suddenly very conscious of himself for just standing around idly, he instead seated himself so he could be self-conscious about sitting around idly (it had seemed like a good idea at the time).

He raised the mug, blowing away the steam that rose from the warm liquid, and drew slowly from the beverage, allowing his thoughts to defocus. He was brought back briefly by the unexpected question, eliciting a slight nod in response, "Yeah, that's fine."  

[Tori Honoo]

As the boy seated himself, Lovey tilted her head, then curiously made her way from her favorite chair over to his side, allowing herself onto the cushion of the couch beside him. With a fond flip of her ear, she settled at his side, nosing affectionately at his knee, doing her best to aid her trainer in cheering the boy up.

With his affirmation, the girl behind the counter began to work quietly, only the fall of the knife slicing through the produce disrupting the silence in the room. After a while, however, it became unbearable for the girl, especially as her mind drifted back to Luke's current problem; it would do no good to let him sit in silence and think about his mother's passing. Voice gentle and reassuring, she spoke up over her work. "So... we didn't get to talk much last time we met..." she started, hoping he might pick up from there.  

[Suudonym]

The Eevee's attention didn't go unnoticed, and he returned it with a light hand on the soft head. Rather than allow himself to be reminded of Mieu, Luke instead thought of his own Eevee and how similar she seemed to be to Lovey - though Rem's affections, he surmised, were probably more about getting pettings and kind words than about giving solace. Rem was still young, after all, so he couldn't expect but so much magnanimity.

The eventual question pulled him from his thoughts as they began to wander, and he laughed sheepishly, "Yeah, I guess that was my fault. I just kind of made things worse. Should have let Sera handle it from the beginning." Granted, he hadn't even known Seraphine was there until the situation seemed dire enough to warrant risking himself, but still.  

[Tori Honoo]

Dove shook her head, the grin evident in her voice. "You jumped in after a complete stranger, so i'm still impressed, even if Sera stepped in for a bit. Nothing wrong with a little help...especially with something so unexpected as having to save a foolish tourist," she told him, looking up as she swept a few ingredients from the cutting board into the pot. "She seemed like a...nice girl," she continued, moving to stir the contents of the pot. "Sera, I mean. I take it she's a close friend of yours...?"

Good. This was good. She at least had him talking now, she told herself, hoping her talents were enough to keep the conversation light. Though half of her wanted to know how his physical condition was--he had been hooked up to multiple machines last time they had spoken, for gods' sakes-- she wouldn't bring herself to ask at the moment. There was no use in going into heavy, personal detail at the moment if her mission was to keep his mind off of heavier things for now. If he wanted to talk later about more serious subjects, she would certainly be there to listen.

As the two talked, Lovey stilled beside the boy, closing her eyes and enjoying his returned affections as she curled against his leg, sparing a glance at the typhlosion who now watched them again. She flipped an ear at Sparky; the fire-type was far too cautious!  

[Suudonym]

"Ah…" there was a quality of uncertainty to his tone, "not so much. When we met a couple years ago, I had a really bad attitude, so I made a pretty terrible impression. She seems to tolerate me okay now, but I don't think she'd really go as far as to call me a friend - let alone a close friend." Seraphine was kind of hard to read, not that Luke was anything of a talent at reading people.  

[Tori Honoo]

"Ah. I see..."

Odd, considering how close they had been after Sera's team had pulled them from the water; then again, she had been mostly frozen and probably a lot more out of sorts than she realized at the time. She could have imagined most of it.

"Well. She seemed nice, anyway." Changing the subject, she continued to work on the food, every movement done with practiced ease. "So... how long have you been in Kodo? I'm still really knew to the region, so I haven't met many people, but quite a few of them have said they've immigrated, so to speak."  

[Suudonym]

He lowered his gaze to some unspecified point in the distance as he thought back to the questioned time. "Two years ago this summer, I guess," he finally decided, "or maybe spring…" He remembered temperate weather patterns but not the exact month. "I guess I'd fall under that definition. I came here from Grande Ile thinking I'd just take an extended vacation, then I went and rented an apartment." It was hard not to regret that decision most nights as he lay bored and sleepless under his sheets, the ever-present certainty that all hardship would have been avoided by him staying home only growing with each tragedy that passed. But there was a part of him that didn't want to discount the friendships that had been formed during his time in Kodo, and it was that part that kept him returning to the region after every visit home.