dans la clandestinité

Independent RP Blog for Beta!Calem/Xavier Canon Divergent Written by Reo

[shadesandrollerblades-archive]

Oh no Dani--

[onlyheartaches]

"Xavier, my good man!"

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“You know somehow I had a feeling I’d run into you while I was out.”

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“Hm? Bonsoir, I’m just out for a walk.”

Picrew

[jocundcompany]

@shadesandrollerblades replied to your post: He gets it immediately and can't help snickering.

"...Hey, Xavier. You know, it makes sense that I have insomnia - since I'm a knight."

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He resumes snickering once again. “I guess no good knight’s sleep for you?”

[jocundcompany]

wrong account but something for xavier? and maybe something for xavier and dani's friendship? :D

Send prompts, vibes, ships, etc. for song recs! -> ft. @shadesandrollerblades

for xavier!

Sea Wolf: "Dear Fellow Traveler" (and in our travels, we found our roads / you held it like a mirror, showing me the life I chose / and I return to my beautiful city / black skies changed into blue / and my love is so wise and so pretty / but tonight I still dream of you)

12 Stones: "World So Cold" (are you sane? where is the shame? / a moment of time passes by / you cannot rewind who's to blame and where did it start / is there a cure for your sickness? have you no heart? / and I don't believe men are born to be killers / I don't believe the world can't be saved / how did you get here and when did it start? / an innocent child with a thorn in his heart)

for the xavier and dani friendship!

Avicii: "Hey Brother" (hey brother do you still believe in one another / hey sister do you still believe in love I wonder / oh, if the sky comes falling down for you / there's nothing in this world I wouldn't do / what if I'm far from home? / oh brother, I will hear you call / what if I lose it all? / oh sister, I will help you out)

Shinedown: "Daylight" (you saved my life, not once but twice / you keep me free from falling / you saved my life, make it all all right / when I don't feel like talking / you make sure I always see the daylight)

[jocundcompany]

- is tired of being nice - does just want to go apeshit

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- is going to hug his sister figure she has no say

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jocundcompany​:

“Well,” the professor says, “I suppose to some degree it’s expected, that we feel a little bittersweet when we’re traveling. New life experiences bring a lot to us. Changes we may welcome, changes we may be afraid of, changes that make us feel both things at once. We lose innocence but gain new perspectives. We find things we didn’t know about ourselves and that it brings us joy to learn, but we despair over what we won’t or can’t get back.”

He offers the boy a warm smile - yet another genuine attempt to put Calem at ease.

“So I think this will get sorted for you, with time. It’s part of growing and journeying, yes? Even I have had such moments, in my days. The Augustine of today and the Augustine of the past are two very different men!”

And how.

With what he hopes to have been a comforting pep talk given, he allows himself to fall back into his typical relaxed charm.

“Now, with the Pokedex all sorted - was there anything else I can do for you? Anything else on your mind I can help with?”

As comforting as his words were, there’s an unease that settles with him with the fact he’s already felt these things before. He can’t recall it clearly, but he feels as though he’s already seen innocence ripped from his hands forcefully. Losses he takes a long time to recover from and still leave him with aches, he wishes he knew what these mixtures of feelings meant... but all they did was exist. Reminding him that not all is as it seems, there’s someone and something behind the curtain that he can’t do anything about.

But for now, he chooses to be the initial teenager he used to be. He smiles despite his nerves, he did strangely feel a bit more calm after seeing the briefest glimpse of the professor that he used to know well. Surely at least... even if Dani, Reggie, Serena, and Brendan all acted a bit differently with him... maybe at least he was mostly the same.

But then why did Error act so strange with him?

“Now that you’ve said that, I’m curious about what you were like back then compared to now,” he muses with a laugh. “Not that you need to go into that if you don’t want to, but...thank you all the same. It helps to be reminded of that, it’s so simple but hard to remember at times.”

He shakes his head over his question. “No I don’t really have anything else to add, but it was nice talking anyway. Thank you again.”

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jocundcompany​:

“Well, of course the authorities should be the ones leading the charge, yes - but, as you say, why not help anyway, when we’re around and able to? There will always be trainers in need of help, and there will always be trainers who can best provide that help.”

Actually, he’s quite pleased that the authorities aren’t as helpful as they should be. Rodney is too busy gunning for Lysandre (as Augustine had intended), and Diantha is as useless as she is beautiful. It really couldn’t be going better for him.

But - ah! He can’t really ponder any of that further, for Calem is crying.

“My boy,” he asks, and the concern in his voice is genuine, “are you all right? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to draw up any negative or bittersweet feelings for you. I had hoped they’d be positive ones…”

Come to think of it, perhaps he ought to check in on his students more? He’s so focused on his research and - well - Team Flare that he doesn’t always think about it, but Calem, Serena, Trevor, Tierno, and Shauna are just children. Even Daniella, Reggie, Sina, and Dexio, although slightly older, may still be in need of some guidance in their personal lives.

He makes a mental note to provide more of that, in the time they have left.

“All in all, I’m relieved to hear you and the others have formed strong bonds. I’m finding in my research on Mega Evolution that such bonds are imperative - but I wonder if a strong bond with another trainer and their Pokemon could lead to such capabilities as well? Ah, but that is neither here nor there.”

And cue a genuinely kind smile.

“I’m always here if any of you need to talk - no Pokedex- or Pokemon- focus required.”

There’s a shift in his tone that doesn’t go unnoticed by Xavier and by Error too, looking up from his pokepuff with interest in the genuine response from the professor. It seems so familiar somehow to Xavier, he doesn’t remember if anything like this ever happened before but... maybe to some degree he remembers this sort of comfort. The kind of support that had been the real backbone to his entire journey to begin with, and had been noticeably absent this time around; not much beyond a general drive to move forward.

He gives his own genuine smile in return, wishing that he could tell the professor what was wrong with him honestly. But at the very least he can appreciate the kindness being offered to him. 

“Merci, professor. I’m alright, but I do appreciate you asking... I do have a lot of bittersweet feelings towards everything I’m doing right now. And I want to hope it won’t stay that way forever, I... want to keep moving forward.” He feels he must, no matter what.

“I suppose I’m hoping maybe these feelings will become more sorted out, the more I’m journeying alongside people and my team.”

It was the most normal answer he could give, with a small sliver of the truth if you read between the lines. 

Error gave a pleased beep between Sycamore and Xavier’s conversation, and it’s the happiest he’s seen from Error since they walked in. He still seems concerned about something, but for now he’s cheerfully finishing up his pokepuff. 

[faerieprincess]

hi there! these seem to get around more quickly and I’m too exhausted from failing at photoshop to make a proper promo atm so please hit that ♡ or ↻ if you’re interested in interacting with a revived Ballonlea Gym Leader OC, Emilia Feyre! follows back from @unovasrose​​!!

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jocundcompany​:

Augustine smiles at the little robotic Pokemon and hands it another Pokepuff with which to occupy itself. “Attracting bad luck, Calem?” he asks. “Perhaps it may help to spin the situation around, yes? Think of it like this - instead of feeling bad that you seem to run into such unsavory characters, think of it as a good thing, since it’s allowed you to learn more about them and circumvent their villainy!”

(Really, it’s alright with him if his students rout some of the grunts every once in a while. Things are progressing smoothly for him either way, after all - and whether he be the leader of Team Flare or not, he is, at the end of the day, a professor. He doesn’t need his students getting hurt…

…until the weapon fires, anyway, but that’s unavoidable and could kill him, too, so it doesn’t count.)

“Your Mountain Dex is looking good,” he says, then. “I must say, Calem, the progress you’ve made on your Pokedex is astounding. Leaps and bounds above many of my other students - I dare say you give even Sina and Dexio a run for their money!”

Satisfied, he hands the device back.

“Before you go to Cafe Triste, though, let me ask: Has it been worthwhile for you, to travel around the region? What would you say has been your favorite part of the experience? Are you collecting gym badges?”

How strong will you and the others be when you inevitably face me?

Error’s gaze lingers on the professor even with the pokepuff set before him, but he does go about eating it steadily a moment later. He’s not about to let a pokepuff go to waste, even if he is wary of the person who gave it to him. He still listens carefully to the conversation however, just in case.

“That doesn’t feel like something I should be doing,” he answers nervously. “That feels like something that should be left to, well... the authorities really.” But nobody will believe any of the ‘nonsense’ until it’s too late, and Diantha will be nowhere to be found when it matters.

...Where did that thought come from? It’s gone just as fast as it came, he can barely even recall it.

“...I guess it’s sort of nice to be a hero though, if no one is around to help then... I suppose better me than no one else, huh?” It’s a flimsy justification that he doesn’t fully believe, something about this feels like it itches at him. Like it’s something he’s been irritated with before, and for a long time at that. 

But the mood turns lighthearted again with the mention of his pokedex, he does smile hearing he’s apparently doing very well. “Don’t tell them that, I don’t think they’d let me hear the end of it!” He laughs, but he still doesn’t feel completely okay.

The professor’s follow-up questions are fair ones, that makes him think for a moment before he’s flooded with fleeting images of the life he is not currently living. Talking with Dani and Reggie about anything from scary stories to how to best go about training certain pokemon, racing Serena to gyms and she seems so much more expressive, his new friends have no idea that he’s Kalos’ Crown Prince for a long time and even after they find out they don’t seem to mind. They treat him the same as they would anyone else, which is all he’s ever really wanted.

He’s sitting on the beach with someone in Cyllage City, someone he likes quite a bit and who he met by pure chance. They jokingly suggest racing to the Champion spot but it’s just a loose excuse to spend time together, they’re not rivals after all. His head is in Xavier’s lap while he’s pretending to watch the clouds and not even doing that a little bit. Everything’s just comfortable with him there.

He’s startled by the fact his eyes have gotten teary, and he’s quick to wipe them away. “Ah-- sorry, you reminded me that uhm... I guess I really miss someone that I’ve met, throughout this journey.”

Several people actually, but this someone is a person he hasn’t seen, and he’s not sure he would want to see him when he has to be ‘Calem’ rather than ‘Xavier’. 

“But I am collecting badges, though I only have two so far. And... I think it’s been worthwhile for me to travel the region.”

It was, once. It feels empty now, he knows every route like the back of his hand but he remembers how it felt to be a new trainer.

“And... I never really got to make a lot of friends growing up, I could be friendly to pokemon of course but I didn’t have much experience with them. And with people, sometimes it felt like I knew even less. But I’ve been appreciating having that chance to fix that now, it’s nice to look out for people and know they’d do the same for you.”

It feels like this is the first time in days that for at least a moment, he didn’t have to act. 

[shadesandrollerblades-archive]

What part of this haunted house are you?

The Nursery

Dear god, there is so much more for you. Time moves differently here; like it starts and stops and replays and rewinds. The days the days the days. They’re cyclical. They’re endless. The house doesn’t think you know, or rather, it won’t let you know. It is afraid knowledge will break you, so it sits you right in the middle of it all, four walls on every side. But you are not naive. You have been broken before. You are breakable and mendable and you have broken and mended. You wish to know more and, in turn, the house will grow around you like a shield of vines and ivy. It festers inside of you, this wanting, this need to be in control of your own narrative. It’s cyclical. It’s endless.

[shadesandrollerblades-archive]

jocundcompany​:

The only ones left standing? The only ones that mattered? Ha! How silly the Grunts are. Do they not realize there isn’t actually a way to make it so only the members of Team Flare survive and that only the “unworthy” perish? Assuming the entirety of Kalos isn’t wiped out by the weapon, obviously whoever survives will be determined by sheer luck and random chance! Augustine himself may not even survive, in fact!

It really is all so comical…But. Ah. That other thing.

“Fashion?” he asks. “Really? Is that what they care about? Odd. I wonder if some of them frequent Boutique Couture…” 

(Not likely. Those uniforms were hideous! But, hey, he didn’t design them. Aliana had. Or…Celosia? Whatever. They were all the same to him. Either way-)

“I am relieved to hear you and Serena were able to get the Fossils back safely! Your Coastal Dex is looking good, by the way. Once I finish with the Mountain Dex, I’ll send you off to Cafe Triste.”

Still, he’s more curious about Error than he is the Pokedex. The way the Pokemon beeps and stares has him wondering once more if it suspects something. But what could it suspect? If things are going as planned, it’ll be Lysandre that people suspect, if they suspect anyone at all.

(No hard feelings to the man he was dating, of course, but Lysandre’s rants on beauty and penchant for reds and oranges made him a prime target for the red herring treatment.)

“Has Error met Team Flare, too?” Might as well see, though.

It bothers him that Professor Sycamore wasn’t saying anything about the members of Team Flare saying fairly concerning things, and then pointing out the fashion note over that. Them discussing fashion was hardly as important, right? He knew some of the other teams had sought to really harm the world as a whole if they hadn’t been stopped... what if it wasn’t a joke? Was that what he thought? 

He’s trying not to assume with all these thoughts, but he feels like he’s gaining a whole new list of questions that he hadn’t accounted for until now. Trying to be optimistic he tries to tell himself that perhaps with more convincing down the line, if he sees more of Team Flare... maybe then Professor Sycamore would see the urgency behind it all. 

“I’m glad Serena and I were there too.” He replies, “I don’t know how many of the grunts she fought on her own, but I know I fought a few. We took out a pair of them together and... I haven’t ran into them again yet at least. Still a strange experience, I hate to think that they were stealing fossils just to buy expensive clothes or something.”

Then came the question about Error, which Xavier was mildly surprised about. “Met them? Hm... no I don’t believe so, I was using the rest of my team that day while he was taking a rest actually. I mentioned them idly while talking to myself on the way here, but he hasn’t actually seen them or really heard anything about my encounters until the walk here. I didn’t even talk that in-depth about them on the way here, I was more just happy to see he was ready to go again.”

“PORY-GON-TWO.” He affirms with a adamant beep, a small spark of static going across him at the thought of battling Team Flare. Xavier was sure to avoid shocking himself while he was all fired up, but he did pet his head again after the fact. 

“I’m sure he’s bound to see them for himself at some point though, especially now that he’s no longer in need of a break and... well I hope I don’t run into them again, but I feel like I just attract that sort of bad luck lately.” 

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jocundcompany​:

So Calem had run into Team Flare too, had he? How very interesting. It’s funny, really, to hear the boy speak of the organization as if it was composed of common, pathetic hoodlums like Teams Rocket and Plasma or short-sighted fools like those who ran Magma, Aqua, and Galactic.

Unlike those silly men, Augustine Sycamore had no designs on “controlling the world” (such a nebulous concept!) or “changing it to something better” (a world without water, land, and emotion would fall apart in a matter of months!).

No - he knew full well that his plans would quite likely be disastrous. He just didn’t care. Science is science, after all.

“Oh, nothing more than the usual with Daniellal!” he says, though - skirting the other subject as if he knows very little about Team Flare himself. “I can’t imagine researching Mega Evolution and singing and acting would be easy on anyone’s schedule, let alone a Delarosa’s! And she has all that wedding planning to do, too.”

He glances back down at the Pokedex.

“I do hope she orders something caffeine-free at the cafe. The other way around may exacerbate her anxiety…But!” And back on the subject of his little passion project. “You’ve met Team Flare, too? Tell me what you know, if you wouldn’t mind.”

Right-- the wedding... jeez, everytime he thinks of anything involving Reggie it feels like he’s forgetting something important. But no matter how much he tries to reach out, everything feels blocked off to him. Thinking about the wedding should be a happy thought, no matter if Dani doesn’t fully remember him the way he does her. So then why does it fill him with such dread? 

“Right... that is a lot to handle,” he softly replies. He wants to ask if she’s still a knight, and if there’s another Crown Prince that she’s been assigned to. But he doesn’t find the words, he’s not sure he can keep up the facade of ‘Calem’ if he was to get those answers. “But err, you know. I think she’s still doing pretty well, all things considered...”

Error nudges his side, a fact he barely gets the chance to smile over before Team Flare is brought into the conversation again. Funny for the professor to not seem that bothered about them, maybe he didn’t think they were worth being concerned over but Xavier was exceedingly worried over their presence. He was so sure that Lysandre had something to do with them too, was Professor Sycamore aware? ...That definitely didn’t give him a good feeling.

Error made a series of beeps over the topic shift, starting at a higher note and descending into a low one. It could’ve been nothing, but it gave Xavier a sense of him trying to express ‘this is going to get worse’.

“I ran into them with Serena actually, they were looking for fossils in the Glittering Cave,” he explained. “They mostly seemed like they were in it to take the fossils and sell them for money, but... some of them kept making comments about them being ‘the only ones left standing’, or ‘the only ones that matter’. At least those were the things about them that stuck out to me, when they weren’t talking about fashion.”

[shadesandrollerblades-archive]

jocundcompany​:

Sycamore’s eyes flick away from the Pokedex for a brief moment, alighting on Calem’s Porygon 2 as the mysterious creature beeps. The professor’s lips form the smallest of smiles, before he returns to his work. How cute Error is, to love Lysandre and Pokepuffs so dearly…even if it does seem to inspect Sycamore himself quite closely.

Oh well. Let it inspect. What will it find but a regional professor doing the appraisal work that a regional professor is intended to do?

“The pages in the Central Dex are getting filled in quite nicely, Calem,” Sycamore says. “Good work. Let’s do Coastal, yes?”

As he selects the second of the three categories, he hums. “You know, it’s wonderful to hear that your new friend is doing so well. Dear Lysandre was quite distraught, thinking that he’d inadvertently forced an evolution upon his beloved Error…”

Ah, but speaking of errors - or, well, mistakes -

“Daniella and Reggie…Why, they wanted to speak to you about some horrible organization called Team Flare.” Horribly brilliant, to him. “They talked about meeting you…Ah, yes, I recall. They wanted to invite you to a cafe. Triste, I believe. A dreary place, but Daniella can be quite dreary herself, can she not?”

Oh, wait. Rein it in.

“Just kidding! I just fear she’s cracking under the pressure, really. But wouldn’t we all?”

He’s relieved that he doesn’t press him further about the OT, he still wasn’t sure where it had come from to begin with. At least he didn’t say the OT’s name either, despite the talk he had with Error outside he was worried Error would slip up; not that he could blame him for it. It could’ve tripped him up too if he wasn’t careful, but so far he was holding down being ‘Calem’ well enough it seemed.

He smiled while the professor went through the pokedex. “Thank you, I’m glad to hear that!” 

Xavier also feels an unexpected wave of sympathy hearing how distraught Lysandre was over their last encounter at the lab. Error gave a questioning noise, as though he’d never given the moment a second thought as something bad, even if the evolution had been startling. 

“He seems to be doing alright now,” Xavier replied while going to pat Error’s head. “Getting used to this evolution wasn’t too hard for him at least, so... you’re free to tell him not to worry if you want. I don’t know when I’ll run into him to say that myself.” 

But the mention of Team Flare makes his smile fade and a shiver run down his spine, especially to hear that his friends had encountered them. “...I’ve ran into them too,” Xavier spoke evenly. “I’m glad they want to talk about it, I don’t know what they’re up to but... knowing how Teams can be in other regions I doubt it’s good.”

His comment about Dani was also weird, making Xavier raise his eyebrow in confusion. “Cracking under pressure...? Is there something going on with her in particular right now?” His mind ran through the possibilities, some of them had involved himself at one point... but maybe it was her family? He’s almost surprised he remembers anything, but he could recall them being very critical of her in a way that had always bothered Xavier. He supposed he wouldn’t be surprised if that was still the same now, but then again he wondered if the professor knew about that.

[shadesandrollerblades-archive]

Honestly he’s already slightly caught wind of what’s going on with Xavier right now, he doesn’t have any concrete evidence, but call it a hunch. He’s been gone even more than before and dodging Maxime more than ever, there’s no attempts to ‘keep the peace’ from him; presumably while he’s tying up loose ends.

Exhausting, but not entirely unexpected. Would’ve been nice to have at least met this boy who is apparently stealing Kalos’ Crown Prince.

[shadesandrollerblades-archive]

Legitimately sitting here thinking damn Maxime who Are you past the attitude you’ve built up as king--

[shadesandrollerblades-archive]

now honestly maxime are you proud of your son (I SAW THOSE TAGS)

send me “now, honestly…” and a question to see what my muses have to hide - King Maxime edition

How he would normally respond:

"Naturally! Why wouldn't I be? He's a hero to the region and our own Champion no less. We might have our ups and downs him and I, but I am nonetheless proud of him for how far he's come. I will be looking forward to seeing what he does next, I'm hoping to see him be a little bit more active in the upper class."

How he would respond if he had to be totally honest:

"I am, frankly I'm glad he's managed to accomplish more than I managed to at his age. I've always headed steadfast into my responsibilities being part of the Kalosian Royal Family, it didn't feel like there was room for much else in my life. Honestly I didn't see him as having that room to work with either, but then he forced it. And as annoying as his actions have been, not even getting into the headaches they have given me, there is still a part of me that is impressed with him for it."

"I do still desperately wish he would take his position as the Crown Prince more seriously, I think he has the potential to be a better king than I've been with his forceful branching out beyond the upper class. But part of me also thinks he is too much of a free spirit for this, and it's not like the position can't go to someone else. But he would have been a grand king one day, but you could say I already tried to cage the bird once. If he escapes again, he is free, and I will not chase him. Once again he would be leading a life that I never got to, being so focused on what was expected of me. I suppose sticking to what you wish for no matter your circumstances is to be admired."

"...I'm not looking forward to explaining to people what became of him, but if he is happy, then I am proud."