[FIN] Poffins and Possibilities

[BlackFireKitsune]

As he began to speak, Nicolette fell silent and listened, as well as lifted her gaze to his face. The fact that he'd outright disobeyed his own father was outright startling, and the girl didn't exactly know how to respond to such a thing. Why would he ever disobey his father, who knew what was best for him - who only had his best interests at heart? "I had no idea," she admitted quietly, still completely surprised by his admission. But really, if he hadn't gone back to Kodo, he never could have introduced her to Rosie or anyone else. She never would've gotten into Pokemon training, she never would have gotten Pascal or Lulu or any of her pokemon, and she would never have become quite so attached to the island. It was only thanks to Luke that all of these things had come to pass, and she couldn't be more grateful to him for that.

But still, despite all of that, she couldn't help but balk at the idea of disobeying either of her parents - especially both. "But you're the heir," she couldn't help but point out, obviously a little confused. "Do you ever think about what you'll do when the time comes to take over your house?" Their responsibilities that they inherited were immensely important, she knew, and the thought that he had chosen to shirk such things in favor of coming to a different region completely went against everything she had ever learned, known, or thought of.  

[Suudonym]

"Sometimes," he shrugged. "I'm not completely averse to taking over when my father decides he's had enough, but not because it's my duty as the heir. Honestly, it's mostly because I want to use the position as leverage to introduce pokemon training to the country. That's my decision, what I want to do. The way I live my life isn't decided by the circumstances of my birth, or by my parents' wishes; it's decided by me."  

[BlackFireKitsune]

Her silence and surprised expression hinted that she probably hadn't ever thought of it like that before. Her decisions over her entire life had always been to do whatever her parents decided for her and told her to do. She had always deferred to them for everything, and the only decisions she made on her own were what clothes to wear on a given day and what to bake next or how to decorate cupcakes, while anything more important she had always gone to her parents about and they had told her what to do. Even though she wasn't the heir to her house anymore, she still deferred to her parents for everything. To have someone tell her that she could - or should - do things different, and not just differently but to do things that went completely against everything she had learned, everything she had told, basically everything she had ever known or was. It was difficult, if not impossible, to wrap her head around. "I don't.... I'm not sure if that would work for me," she replied quietly. Maybe Luke could do that, but she wasn't at all sure if she could do such a thing.  

[Suudonym]

"You're not their puppet," he insisted, trying to find the words that would reach her. "If what they tell you to do is something that you personally agree with after thinking it through, that's one thing, but if you disagree or think it sounds unreasonable or feel like there's something better, you have every right to tell them no." The idea that she simply left her every decision to her parents, regardless of its importance or of her own feelings on the matter, was somehow distressing to the noble who had run away from home twice and contradicted his father at nearly every opportunity. "You're a living, thinking, feeling human with your own ideas and experiences. Even your own pokemon will disobey if they don't agree with you."  

[BlackFireKitsune]

She sat up a little straighter, distressed at his choice of words. "Of course I'm not," she countered almost immediately, wanting to correct the misunderstanding before it went too far. "I'm not their puppet. I do what they ask because they know what's best for me, and they always have my best interests at heart. They always take my feelings into consideration, and if they still give me an answer I dislike then I at least know that they feel like the decision is the best one they could make for me. I have no reason to tell them no," she finished, still vaguely distressed that he thought so negatively of her situation with her parents. They loved her and cared about her, and knew what was best for her. Why would she ever question them when they only did what was best for her?  

[Suudonym]

"You know what's best for you," he persisted. "You may not be an 'adult' according to Grande Ile law, but you're old enough to determine what is and isn't in your best interests." He exhaled silently, frustrated with his inability to convey his meaning to her. "You have to have the freedom to make your own choices. You have to be able to experience the consequences of those choices, good and bad. That's how people grow. That's how children become adults. I would not be even remotely similar to the person I am today if I hadn't made the decision years ago that I didn't want to stay at home anymore."

He paused and pushed his hand through his hair, realizing that the insistence in his tone likely wasn't endearing her to his words. When he spoke again, it was more calmly, "You came to Kodo to get your own perspective of the world, right? But you're not going to develop that perspective at all if everything you experience is filtered through your parents. If that's how you plan to live, you're just as well off sitting at home and having your parents tell you about the world."  

[BlackFireKitsune]

"No, they do," she insisted, not understanding why he disagreed so fervently with this. But why? Just because that had worked well for him didn't mean it would work well for her, and even then she couldn't even see herself disobeying her parents or going against their wishes so blatantly. She had no reason to.

His last comments stung more than anything else though, and she wilted under them, tears suddenly threatening to fall down her cheeks. "That isn't true," she argued with a small shake of her head, as if that would help counter his claims. "I've already seen and experienced and learned so much that they could never have even thought of, let alone told me about; and besides, it's much better to experience everything firsthand than from someone else. That's why I wanted to travel in the first place," or one of the reasons, at any rate.  

[Suudonym]

"They don't," he countered stubbornly. "They did when you were a child and you didn't know that fire would burn you or not looking where you're going could make you trip, but you're not a child anymore. What are you going to do when you're older and your parents aren't a part of your everyday life anymore? At 30, 40 years old, are you going to call up your father and ask if you can go out to train your pokemon? What if when you get back tomorrow he decides not to let you train them anymore because they're not necessary in Grande Ile? What if he thinks they're a waste of time and effort? Are you just going to dump them in the wilderness because that's what he thinks is best?"

He breathed a sigh, tucking his head down. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you. It just… sounds like you've been brainwashed. Your parents are different people from you. They can't know what's best for you, because they're not you."  

[BlackFireKitsune]

"He wouldn't do that," she retorted quickly, seizing on the more pressing opinion of her father than that of her future - that was silly anyway, because after her marriage, whenever that happened, she would defer to her husband instead of her parents. It seemed obvious, and also not as important as the matter of keeping her precious pokemon. "He wouldn't make me get rid of them, they're too important to me!"

Pascal seemed vaguely insulted that anyone would try to get rid of him, or that anyone would try to make his trainer get rid of him, and he snorted lightly into his poffin before offering a muffled "pfffneary!" in response.

Nicolette looked to her normal-type briefly before returning her gaze to Luke, though in contrast to him, she looked more upset than anything else. This had always been normal to her. It was how she was raised, it was her life, and she saw absolutely nothing wrong with it. In fact, she appreciated her parents' input and decisions, glad for their concern and how much they cared for and about her. Why would she ever be upset by that? Why would she ever go against that? "I am not," she replied with a quick inhale, trying to keep herself from crying. "I appreciate your concern though, but I think my family is just different from yours." That had to be it - that had to be why they just couldn't understand one another's opinions and motivations. She couldn't even hope to wrap her head around the concept of Luke so easily disobeying his father's wishes, and perhaps that same difference was why he obviously couldn't wrap his head around why she didn't think to disobey hers. Just because their opinions differed so much didn't mean one was right and one was wrong, though, or that one was bad and the other was good.  

[Suudonym]

"What if he did, though? They're important to you for completely personal and sentimental reasons because of experiences that you've had that he can't even imagine. What if he decides that they aren't important in Grande Ile so they're not important to you or your future?" Brainwashed indeed. In her eyes, it seemed that her parents were perfect angels who could do no wrong. Something such as deeming her precious pokemon unnecessary, which seemed like a very real possibility for Grande Ile nobility, was so far from her mind that it was unimaginable.

"They're not different," he said, nearly pleading for her understanding. "My family spent years controlling what I was and wasn't allowed to do. I wasn't allowed as much as to leave my own home, no matter how miserable I was, because they thought staying locked in the house was in my best interest. Would you just accept that, not being allowed to leave your home even just to look around the town - for seven straight years?" He extended a hand entreatingly, "This isn't about our families being different, Nicolette. It's about the basic human right to self-determination. No one can take that from you, not even your parents. Just because it's what you're used to doesn't mean it isn't wrong."  

[BlackFireKitsune]

"He won't," she insisted, her small hands balling up into fists in her lap and leveled Luke with a displeased, pouting frown as she set herself to argue against his various points. "He won't because no matter where I go after - back to Kodo or to Sinnoh or somewhere completely different - there will be pokemon and pokemon training, and I can learn more with my pokemon than without them. Plus, as long as I'm with them, then I should be much safer than if I traveled completely by myself," she argued. Why would her father ever want her to get rid of her pokemon? He wouldn't. There was no way he would, not with the various benefits she had already stated and some she hadn't, though that was simply because the ones she hadn't voiced weren't the first ones to come to mind.

His pleading words and story of his earlier life at home left her perplexed and confused. What if her parents had done such a thing? What if they had forbidden her from leaving the house for so long? One of her favorite things for years now was riding Epona around, whether it be around the house safely within the gates, or outside the city limits. What would she have said or done if they'd forbidden her from that for seven years? "I don't... I don't know," she finally replied a little helplessly. She desperately wanted to do as they said, to please them and make them happy with her, and because they knew best, but if that barred her from doing something she so obviously enjoyed... But they wouldn't do such a thing - in fact, they were doing quite the opposite. They were allowing her to go out into the world without them, to see and to learn and experience things for herself. Eventually she shook her head again, reiterating, "They wouldn't do that."  

[Suudonym]

"What if they did?" he pressed. "It's a hypothetical situation. Maybe they would, maybe they wouldn't, but what if they did? What would you do if you went home and they said no more pokemon? Or no more baking, or no more riding Epona, or whatever. What would you do if there was something important and precious to you and your parents said no more and wouldn't reconsider no matter what you said? I'm not asking if it's realistic or if you think it might ever be something you have to worry about; I'm asking what you would do if your parents explicitly forbade you from something you love."  

[BlackFireKitsune]

His suggestions were startling, and only furthered her growing distress. She reached her hands up to her temples, pushing her fingers into her hair and clenching them there. "I don't know," she insisted, squeezing her eyes shut as she kept her hands held fast to her head, as if the action would help her think. Her thoughts buzzed angrily around her mind, opposing ideas warring against each other so much and so loudly it was giving her a headache. What would she do in such an instance, even though she knew it wouldn't happen? Her very nature claimed she would do as her parents wished, just as she always had, but her heart argued against that, insisting that she loved all these things, surely she couldn't ever give them up? Surely they couldn't even ask her to, because of her feelings about them and experience with them, and surely she would convince them otherwise even if they did. But would she really?

That coupled with Luke's insistence and her own fretful indecision about what she would do in a hypothetical situation - one she still didn't think would ever happen - and the growing headache fueled by her distress culminated in a shaky inhale that only lead to tears. Her small hands slid over to cover her eyes as she began to cry. Through her tears, she still insisted, although her voice was less assured and more dismayed, "They wouldn't. They couldn't do that." It sounded almost as if, this time, she was saying it more to herself, convincing herself that her parents wouldn't do such a thing and she needn't worry about it this much. The tears that continued to stubbornly slide down her cheeks hinted that if this was the case, it hadn't worked.  

[Suudonym]

The conversation was beginning to give Luke a headache as well; Nicolette simply refused to consider what he was trying to tell him, deflecting difficult thoughts and falling back on a safety net that he wasn't convinced actually existed. He drew in a long breath, held it momentarily, and exhaled. "Nicolette," he said, his tone soft, "you are an intelligent, capable, and all around good person. But this obedience, this total willingness to just hand over your fate without as much as arguing - it's going to get you into a bad situation someday. Your parents are human. They're not omniscient, and they're not flawless." His words hardened, lending a sternness to his voice. "Just giving them your life and accepting everything they choose for you is nothing short of childish and irresponsible."  

[BlackFireKitsune]

Her thoughts and emotions continued to war inside her even as he spoke, but his final statement caused everything to cease for a moment. She had always tried her best to seem mature and responsible at home, doing whatever she could to help and wanting to travel to gain more worldly experience - mature adults had plenty of real world experience, so clearly if she traveled, she would gain that experience as well and be considered much more mature. But to so suddenly and unexpectedly be called childish and irresponsible wasn't just startling, it was jarring. Why would he ever think such a thing? Just because he didn't understand her way of life didn't mean it was as horrible and awful as he made it out to be. "I know they're not," she replied without tears, as her crying had been startled into a brief pause. "They're human just like everyone else, and they give due consideration to everything before making decisions. I have my own opinions and views and perspectives that I share with them, and we discuss things before they reach a decision, which they give with an explanation of their reasoning. I've never once had cause to dislike or disagree with one of their decisions," she explained, because indeed she hadn't. They had decided that she should go to Kodo, which she was extremely happy about, and they had decided that she could, indeed, engage in pokemon training, which she was also happy about and extremely grateful for, because she knew at least her father's hesitation in allowing her to do such things. They had yet to decide anything for her that she disliked or disagreed with. Why would she refuse one of their decisions if she actually liked or agreed with it? That seemed beyond silly.