"And though he never would wave goodbye
You could see it written in his eyes
As the train rolled out of sight
Bye-bye..."
Life in a Northern Town - The Dream Academy
After a long trip, Kabu enters the town of Motostoke.
It's... a lot different from any place in Hoenn...
(Of course, this is way back when it was all so new to him. If asked about it now, he would likely say he wouldn't think of any other place he would rightly call "home" than Motostoke.)
The cold season is finally properly here! We had to break out Chomp's scarf (and the matching hat) for our day trip to motostoke (not for work, just for fun), and he is already starting on his yearly obsession with hot chocolate. We stopped at a coffee shop where I got a cute picture of him, so enjoy a happy, cozy dragon.
I'm back on my [Galar] bullshit again! I had a big brainwave when I remembered the tradition of football players swapping shirts after a match, and it was a great excuse to get Lance into that Motostoke fire-themed uniform.
My original idea was to do a swap with Drake of the Hoenn E4, but you can probably already figure out where that energy was re-directed to!
At eight and three quarters, Anya was already starting to experience fatigue from moving.
Now that she was almost nine (“I’m practically ten!”), her parents gave her a more thorough explanation of her father’s job as a “Wandering Ranger”, and the importance of his job. The reason that they were always moving was because her father was always needed somewhere new
She supposed that made a sort of sense, but it also left Anya with no friends.
Denton was off on his trainer journey, and Anya wasn’t even certain she wanted to go on one.
A con-nun-drum if ever there was one. At least this new school had a big library
Living just south of Motostoke, the wooded area right by the house her family was renting had a reputation, one of the children at school had warned her.
“There’s a yamask in there!” A girl with pigtails warned “Said to be the worst thing this side of the watchtower! You need to be careful!”
When Anya asked why, the girl shushed her, attempting to touch her face, which made Anya startle and back up
She just rolled her eyes “Legend has it the spirit of the pokemon is a old warrior from the northern wars! And he haaates every southern galarian!”
“... But ahm northern”
“Hm… Maybe he’ll spare you! Maybe”
“What’d he even do? Is it even a he?”
Anya’s follow-up questions fell on deaf ears, as they usually did. No one ever seemed as curious as she was.
Oh well. She’d just have to look it up herself.
In her arms was a book on local folk tales from the school library, and she made her way back home on her own - the other kids all lived in the other direction, and she wanted to be alone and quiet anyway. So many of them were too loud and never shut up.
She gazed at the cover as she walked, signing the title to herself in an effort to practice her letter signing - she was better at words.
- A rustle in one of the bushes startled her
“GAH?! “OSE THERE????”
There was no immediate response.
“Who! Who is there! Is it the Yamask of the wood??” She called out
Nothing else moved again.
Anya huffed “Startlin’ people isn’t polite!”
Again - no response.
Anya took a deep breath, then looked down at the book.
Does she dare?
.. Yeah, she was gonna dare.
“Mams not expecting me home for a bit… i can go lookin” she reasoned
She took a breath, and stepped into the wood
It was admittedly not very dense. The trees were rather thin, and the brush was low to the ground - that meant the wood was young? That's what Anya had read once in a book about trees and forests - if she remembered correctly.
She always remembered correctly.
Anya cleared her throat, before yelling out “Yamask!!!! Where’s the Yamask ‘ere?!”
It was a foolproof plan, really
Call out for it, it will come, and she can ask it questions!
Easy!
“Yamask!!!”
“Yamask?? Can I ask ya some question’s???”
“Yamask!!!!!!”
Anya was yelling at the top of her lungs now.
“WHERE CAN I FIND A YAMASK IN HERE???”
“YA-MAHHHH”
Anya jumped and turned around, now facing who she’d been looking for
“There you are!!”
The Yamask in question gave her a bizarre expression.
“Ya took y’r time respondin’ t’me” She pouted “Ya gonna kill me ‘r what?”
“... Yah?”
“Yes?”
“Yamah!!!” The pokemon looked offended at the assumption.
“... No…?”
The yamask nodded, still scowling
“Oh…. theeeen whaddaya doing in a forest? Aren’t’cha under a bridge?”
“Yamah! Yah!”
“No? But I thought y’r stone was from an old bridge?”
The one sided conversation continued - with the yamask responding mostly verbally, and seeming pretty baffled at the child’s complete lack of fear.
She was lingering, she was talking, she was fiddling with her hands and bouncing on her heels.
The sun was starting to go down.
The child didn’t seem to notice.
“Oh, oh are you from the independence wars??”
“ANYA!???!?!”
The girl paused in her rambling
“... uh oh”
“ANYA AMBERMIGHT?!?”
“Uh -uh - Here, Mum!!”
“Ooh young lady y’r in so much trouble!!!”
The Yamask looked to the girl, then out towards where the yelling was coming from.
“Uh, that’s my mum”
“Yah-mah” the yamask sounded sarcastic, though Anya didn’t pick up on it.
“I’ll be back tomorrow! Earlier!” She tells him “Be here!”
“Yama???”
“Please??”
“ANYA!!”
“I’m COMING!!”
And before the yamask could react to the plea, the girl ran off.
Were children always like this??
Sure, the Yamask didn’t remember much of it’s past life, but there was no way children from when he was a human were this dense.
Particularly human children
But yet, the girl showed up the next day, this time without the book in her hands.
Now she had a notepad
“Yamask!!?” She called out again, with the pokemon in question hiding behind one of the thicker trees in the wood
He watched as she continued to look for him, calling out
“Yamask!! I have questions!!”
What? Questions??
“Please???”
The Yamask saw the disappointment paint the girls face.
She had stopped yelling
“... Am I bein’ too loud?”
The Yamask tilted his head at the question.
“... I chased ‘im away, didn’t I?” The girl sighed, looking down at her feet. “A course…”
The Yamask stared at her as she sat down on the ground with a very upset expression.
And then she sniffled. “A’course I did it again….” She dropped her notepad, pulling up her knees to her face. “Was I .. too loud?”
Oh, oh great, now the Yamask was feeling bad.
The girl had shoved her head into her knees, sniffling again.
Was… was she just going to sit there?
The yamask cautiously floated out from behind his hiding place.
Oh no.
Oh no, she wasn’t crying, was she?
He didn’t make a child cry by ignoring her, did he???
uuuugh
He hated crying children - it left such a terrible feeling mulling about in his head. He’d be guilty for the next decade at least.
Making himself more visible, the pokemon floated over the moping child, who seemed to be just on the verge of tears.
Oh, no, he really had made her upset by hiding!!
He thought over everything he’d done in those few minutes - why was he being so mean in the first place!? She was just a child! Children are curious things!
She was more curious than others was all!!
“... Yah?”
Startled, the girl looked up through skewed glasses.
Well, wasn’t that adorable and a little pitying
“... You’re still here?”
He tilted his head, floating idly, unsure how to answer such a question.
“.... I’m sorry if I bothered you” her little voice trailed off. “You can go if ya wan’”
ugh
He floated down a bit, and nudged at her notepad.
She looked down at it, then back up at him.
“.. Ya wanna… answer m’questions?”
The yamask nodded
The girl seemed to jump out of her skin at the answer, moving a bit awkwardly to stand back up with her notepad.
“Oh - good - thank you! Thank you kindly!!”
She clicked her little pen “Uh, My name is Anya! Do you have a name???”
The Yamask shook its head.
“Huh, guess tha’s fine” Anya nodded “I uh, got a few questions. They’re all yes an’ no, i’s tha’ okay?”
The Yamask nodded, and Anya’s lopsided smile grew into an excited lopsided grin.
Oh, adorable.
She jumped right into questioning him.
“Are ya older than the wood?”
“Are you from around here?”
“Oh! You’re from the north then? Me too!”
As if her accent didn’t make it blatantly obvious.
Her questions kept on coming, until-
“BEEP”
“Oh!”
“Yah!”
“Oh, tha’s my alarm from mah timer!” Anya pointed out, grabbing a little stopwatch from her jacket pocket “So mum doesn’t come lookin’ for me!”
Ah, smart.
“Uh… can I ask ya more stuff tomorrah?”
The Yamask contemplated it.
Would it hurt? She was so curious!
Tentatively, the pokemon gave the girl a nod, and she started to excitedly jump
“Oh, thank ya! Thank ya!”
She checked to make sure she had all of her things, before giving him a grin “See ya tamarrah!” She managed to say as she started running off, her accent swallowing some of the consonants.
The floating ghost pokemon heaved a sigh of some kind
