route_1065 | (no subject)

Who?: Anna, and BLU Sniper
Where?: Cherrygrove City
When?: May 14th
Summary: Having finally reached Cherrygrove, the princess and the grouch are preparing for their long route ahead!
Rating: PG
Log: After spending what was unmistakably a longer amount of time than usual going through Route 29 (probably on account of, y'know, her going out of her way to avoid every Rattata she so much as lays eyes on [Thanks, Nui]), Princess Anna (with her traveling companions) finally reached Cherrygrove City! And actually, she found the whole thing kind of cute! It was certainly bigger than New Bark Town, but still had that quaint small-town aesthetic, from the flowers to the ocean breeze. Naturally, the technology in the Poke Mart and Pokemon Center psyched her out a bit...as did the old man who seemed more than insistent to show her around the place...but in the end, it didn't seem like that bad of an area!

Having heard from several sources that Route 30 takes a pretty long time to traverse, the Princess decided to rest up for a little while and mentally prepare herself for the road ahead. After all, it's been a solid couple of days since she's had a decent meal (since Anna's cooking was nowhere near the level of quality of the food served to her in the castle, and Sniper's wasn't much better~!) and a good bed to sleep in. It took a little bit of a while for her to get the hang of the PC, but after a few tries, she started to get the gist of how everything worked, and got her Axew egg and promised to take amazingly good care of it (and not scramble it)! Which finally resulted in the traveling buddies getting a chance to wind down a bit for the rest of the night.

"So, everything okay with you, Sniper? You've been kinda quiet since we've got here. ...And by that, I mean you haven't really been as grouchy. Which can be either a good thing or a bad thing, and I'd like to think positively but I also kind of want to show my concern and ask if everything's alright an--you know what I mean.." the poor princess prattles on incessantly, as is par for the course.

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"Wait, what? She's not vicious at all...! I heard that they're bad in packs, but...this little cutie looks like she couldn't hurt a fly!"

She heaves a little bit of a sigh of relief, before petting the little purple creature and smiling at it. Well, that was good, at the very least.

"I wonder why that blonde haired girl with the eyepatch said they were vicio...hey! Stop laughing at me!"

He does stop laughing, though the teasing probably isn't going anywhere for awhile. He covers the smile on his face with one hand, the corner of his eyes crinkling slightly into crows feet.

"That's your fearsome beast right there. Her name's Princess; she's kinda like you. Stubborn, a bit full of herself, but enough guts to put the rest of my team to shame. Caught her while she was chasing Courage 'round the bloody fields the other day. I think he accidentally pissed her off somehow, she wouldn't stop hounding him till I knocked her around a bit. Still I think she'll get along with you. The both of you don't know when's a good time to quit."

On a more serious note though, he does drop the chuckles to address something he's noticed about Anna.

"Probably thought to have a bit of fun by yanking your chain around a little. You look the type to believe everything someone tells you. Best be careful next time; you can't trust everything you hear, especially if it's a stranger you're talking to."

"Full of myself! Hmph!"

Even though it's at her expense, Anna is smiling a little bit, too. She's never seen her companion have this much of a laugh; she was beginning to think that scowl was permanent.

"Well, a bit of bravery never hurt anybody. I'm sure she'll stand up to even the most ferocious of beasts~! I mean, if I thought she was vicious, so will others, right?"

She says as she reaches over to cuddle the Rattata a bit more, showing it plenty of affection!

"You really think someone would do that, though? Just tell lies for fun..? ...Actually, don't answer that. I...kind of know the type."

"What you don't know is that pikers like that are a lot more common than you think," corrects Sniper, slightly irritable at what he presumes is her naiveness. "There's lots of lying snakes and spooks out there just waiting for an easy target, and you've got a big red one painted right on yer head." His index finger and thumb sticks out while the other three fingers curl in, forming a finger gun which he aims straight at Anna's forehead. His gravelly voice gets softer and he inclines his head slightly to the side, as if he's scoping Anna out with an actual rifle in his hands.

"That girl tricked ya good and proper, but least it was just about purple rats. Next time, you might not be so lucky. You could lose more than a few days travel; could be money next, maybe even your life." The imaginary gun goes off, and in his mind's eye, so does Anna's head. The finger gun drops, along with whatever good mood Sniper might've set up.

"Well, I never exactly saw the good in being too suspicious of people." Despite the severity of what Sniper is saying, Anna remains confident in what she's saying. Maybe she is kind of crazy, and she is incredibly trusting, but she never saw either of those things as a weakness.

"If you spend too much time looking over your shoulder to see who's going to stab you in the back, you miss out on seeing the people in front of you sticking out their hands to help. It just makes it that much harder to make your alliances. I might be too trusting, yeah, but I'm not stupid or anything. I just like to see the good in people, and do what I can for them. Like, look at you for example, y'know? I wouldn't have let you travel with me if I didn't think that you were a good person."

"If yer good enough at what you do, then ya don't need help from anyone. The only person you should and can trust in," he jabs a thumb at his chest, "is yourself. S'why I make it a point to be the best in my business. I don't need to worry about backstabbin' fakers tryin' to ruin my job if I don't work with'em from the start."

He raises an eyebrow at Anna's declaration of trust in him. "That's a lil' too quick to decide if I'm a good person, princess. Ya hardly know me."

"I get what you're saying. I'm not sure if I agree with it, but I understand where you're coming from."

Her smile persists anyway, despite Sniper's skepticism. "Well, why would I let a bad guy travel with me to begin with? I think you're a little rough around the edges, sure, but I'm pretty sure your heart is in the right place. ...No, I'm positive of it. You just don't like to show it."

Edited 2014-05-25 22:41 (UTC)

Her honeyed words can't sweeten Sniper's bitter and cynical heart. In fact, they only served to irritate him further; it's almost sickening to meet someone so trusting and sincere after a lifetime of being a distrusting and mean loner, and it shows in the curt tone he addresses her with.

"Just a week on the road and you're already an expert at reading people?"

Well, Anna's not changing her outlook anytime soon, so he better get used to it!

"I didn't say I was. Just that I trust you, and that I know you're not a bad guy. Is there a problem? Or do you want me to think you're bad and ditch you here?"

"...hmph. Believe what you want to believe then. Just don't say I didn't warn ya."

And there goes the conversation. Sniper settles back on his bed and pushes his hat downwards to cover his eyes as he closes in on himself again, lapsing back into silence.

"I'll take it to heart, thanks..."

Anna looks down for a little bit and ponders her companion over a bit briefly. Something must have happened to make him this way, right..?

"At the very least, it's nice that you're looking out for me."

"I'd be surprised if it gets through your thick head," he grumbles. He's half convinced that she's incapable of feeling anything but sunshine, puppies and rainbows. Probably one of those people who'd find a kangaroo and try to cuddle'em without realizing that kangaroos are as cuddly as those sharp claws and powerful kicks.

So he really shouldn't have been so surprised when Anna thanks him. Sniper tilts his head up slightly, the brim of the hat shading his eyes and hiding the barest amount of surprise within them. "There's no need fer that. I haven't done anything worth your thanks."