@celioplusplus liked for a starter with post-Rocket Clarissa
One Island, Sevii archipelago. Usually such a peaceful place. Usually such a peaceful, boring, UNASSUMING place, far, far away from the chaos and noise of Kanto’s big cities. Just a splatter of dull little dirt mounds on the fringes of civilisation. Nothing exciting ever happens here, except her. She’s counting on it—the last place interpol would ever think to look for her.
Unnoticed by the neighbourhood watch, the door to one of the island’s quaint little cottages sits ajar. The light early-evening breeze pushes against the wood to make it sway, just a little bit...sunlight and stray seeds floating merrily down the hallway within, innocently unaware of their own intrusion. All is still, and quiet, save for the stray whimper that drifts from the open window atop the abode of local programming wunderkind, “Celio”. A villager had told her the name. Reluctantly, their eyes full of distrust as their gaze bore a hole at the centre of her stained brand name t-shirt. She reeks of outsider. The sound carries meekly upon the wind, only to drop before it can reach any pair of listening ears. But then, who would even hear in this dead little village? The trees?
“Your trainer’s taking his sweet time, huh.”
The sound of squealing intensifies. Clarissa tightens her grip around the lush, leafy appendages sprouting from Hopps’ head and pulls firmly. The vegetable’s beady little yellow eyes scrunch in pain, its stumpy pink limbs squirming ineffectively against the (stained, brand name) shirt of its captor. Clarissa regards the thing’s struggle with disinterest, cold blue eyes watching passively as she twists the branches further, listening to them stretch and creak.
Hopps’ wails die out into a silent, open-mouthed scream, the tiny creature’s lungs clearly exhausted as its breath rasps in hurried, quiet gasps. Clarissa lays with her back to Celio’s bed. One leg bent at a relaxed angle, the other dangling so that the toe of her boot just scrapes the floorboards...greasy hair strewn across the pillows, her fingers tangled in foliage.
“He’s gotta be back soon, right. How long can it take to run to the store when you live on a pebble. Eh, Hoppip?” She gives the Pokémon in her hands a shake. “You still alive there, buddy? I bet Celio would cry if you snuffed it while he went out for milk.”