pokémon moon spoilers

[moonsmile]

The smooth stone beneath her feet shifts to grass. That's a little strange.

The sky goes from dark and star-speckled to...not quite sunny, but clearly day. That's more like it.

Nebbie escapes their Ball and flutters above her, making excited chirping noises at the wall in front of them both.



They look back at her, glee and curiosity pressing against her mind. Did you do this? Where are we? This is new! ♪

Moon's climbed the Altar of the Moon and Mount Lanakila enough to recognize clouds at her level, but this is obviously neither. The ruins of Poni don't look anything like this worn wall, or the parapets she can barely see high above. That looks more like...a Kalos thing. Did she walk into an alternate version of there?

Nebbie calls to her again, flying up and over until Moon can't see her at all. Green, grass, soft! she hears.

...Nebbie does not come back.

Moon's smile doesn't falter. It's more of a chance to look around this new space, after all, and Nebbie can handle themselves.

She adjusts her hat and heads into the first entrance she can find. 

Comments

hope this is okay!

[voidster]

Wonder of all wonders, there's a skeleton inside, dressed in the usual black pants and a nice red vest he's found somewhere. The clothes are all hanging off him, for obvious reasons, and he has a satchel on his shoulder, the nerd.

He's also wearing a watch. Imagine that, a skeleton dressing up like he's a perfectly normal man.

[Hello.] he goes. The usual sign language test.

all good!

[moonsmile]

Moon is checking most things out. Tapestries, but they're too faded to recognize. The first door she finds leads to a kitchen, but she notices the shape a little down the hall before she can walk through.

...that's new.

Bones, not so much--Nebbie looks like they have a set poking through their thin, impossible wings--but the rest of it. The clothes are real clothes, and the watch is the biggest confirmation.

Is this a world where there aren't humans at all, only skeletons? It's not as strange as Ultra Space, but Moon can't say she expected to find this.

She doesn't know what that means, aside from perhaps a greeting. Moon gives an odd double-handed wave at about chest-level.

The whole time, she doesn't stop smiling at all.

[voidster]

Hm. Not enough to tell if the newcomer understands him or not. This is all routine, he's done it... how many times now? Plenty. At least the stranger seems friendly--or very, very good at hiding shock when seeing a monster.

[Does this make any sense to you?]

[moonsmile]

What are you doing and I think I'm lost flip around her head.

...Then again, if she is lost, there might not be a reason this tall skeleton would have any idea. She's not being attacked, so it's not Beast-like.

"What are you doing?"

[voidster]

That's a no, then. He shrugs... sheepishly?

"It's. Signs. Easier for me."

Oh dear, his pronounciation is off and he doesn't even know.

[moonsmile]

Moon hesitates, blinking.

Skeleton with an accent, what do you know. Definitely closer to human than Beast, or even Pokémon.

Agreeably: "It looked like it meant something."

[voidster]

Dead human? Reanimated corpse? Really friendly zombie?

"It did. Has anyone shown you around yet?"

[moonsmile]

Dead human or very different breed.

He seems to know what she is, or doesn't care. He's noticed she's new, at least.

"No. I'm looking for my friend," she adds on a whim.

[voidster]

Despite everything--possibly being dead, fumbling over words--he's observant?

"Who is that?"

It's very strange, how he seems to mispronounce each wrong word differently, inconsistent in his mistakes. People with accents tend to use the same sounds and follow more of a pattern, don't they? He does get over half his words right, that's something.

[moonsmile]

Now to see if he knows anything. And if he'll panic...or help. Help might be useful later.

"Lunala. They're big and look like the middle-moon."

She's a protagonist smart, but she's also eleven. His accent doesn't seem to be hiding anything malicious on its own, so she's not giving it her attention as of yet.

Piece said, she takes a few steps closer. She was going to explore, but people don't care for her to stop and smell the flowers when she's travelling with them.

[voidster]

Middle moon. What does that mean? The moon, in between full and new? It's good he at least knows what moon phases are, nowadays.

"I haven't met them, unfortunately."

[moonsmile]

"I'll keep looking."

And so she does, continuing until she has to skirt around him--though she doesn't go as quickly as she could've, staring at his hands and skull. Yes, definitely bone. Definitely not worn like a Cubone, either...

[voidster]

"They aren't here, I don't think. Few people are." Going on, trying to be more confident with his voice... "We are in an--a pocket dimension, of sorts. No one knows why, why us."

[moonsmile]

Moon thinks about slipping worry into her voice, my friend's gone? No, I can always find who I want, but that just reminds her of Lillie and how she's gone. Nebbie brushes worry in the distance, and she shies away from the subject sharply, focusing on the other.

So this skeleton...is from another dimension. Not just this one. But he doesn't know why? "You're not a traveler?"

[voidster]

"No." He sounds amused at some joke she can't possibly get. Not yet. "I haven't been anywhere outside of Mount Ebott and this place. No travel."

[moonsmile]

"Mount Ebott?" Moon hasn't heard of that place...and she's going to be cataloging all the differences she can out of habit.

She's so, so tempted to go down the halls that aren't towards where Nebbie flew, stopping to peer down each they walk by. There might be something good in those rooms, or even the occasional pottery lining the walls...she'll backtrack soon.

[voidster]

"Not relevant to the castle." Not... really. Certainly there are actual important things to be telling her, if he's going to keep on talking.

"Mostly children here. Some monsters, some human. Generally they are friendly. Some are the same person, alternate timelines."

[luckytobealive]

Moon will find a lady.

Elizabeth is resting--posture not quite so formal, elbows on the windowsill, lounging a bit on a chair, in a dress far less formal than the ones typically acceptable for public appearances for her time. It's long and elegant all the same. While it's not quite the fashion she's used to (however old her era to others, the castle's is older) it's still comfortable.

And she hears Moon.

Oh. A child she hasn't seen around before, then, hello. (She thinks about hers at home. She decides not to.)

"Are you lost?"

[moonsmile]

Look at this girl, black torn-up shorts well above her knees, flowery white shirt and a weird hat that looks like a rooster's comb on her head--it's a flower from the top, but it's not an easy perspective to notice.

Elizabeth's dress is still a hundred times more formal than most she saw in Alola; suspicion considers rising, and she allows it, not dropping her smile for a moment.

She's definitely lost. This isn't the sunny world she was expecting, or even where she thought she'd go if something ever did go wrong.

"No."

[luckytobealive]

Fashion far beyond her. Everyone at this castle seems to be from an era of each other, but none of hers. It's a bit saddening, and more than a little frustrating, but tempers can be reckless.

"No?" she repeats, pausing thoughtfully. Not lost?

"Then you're certainly not a face I've seen around here before. My name is Elizabeth Hamilton," she says, and as she does, she rises from her seat to brush herself off, smiles politely, and bows. (She'd curtsy, once, when she was young. Customs change a little when decades pass and you age with it.) "It's a pleasure to meet you. You're quite a way from home."

[moonsmile]

A bow's polite. Flickers of Kanto come to mind.

Moon waves with both of her hands instead, a strange movement by her chest.

"I'm Moon. I'm travelling."

ah, the curse of limited icons, we meet again,

[luckytobealive]

(Strange places, strange people, strange traditions. She has a lot to get used to--well, not that she wants to be around long enough to get used to it.)

Ah, a traveller. Then she expects to be away from home. Where her destination is, Eliza doesn't know, nor does she know if she even has one.

"I see. Well, you might be here a while, unfortunately. Have you been shown around the castle yet?"

:'>

[moonsmile]

No.

"Yes." There's a short pause punctuated with the sound of Moon's footsteps, because she's not stopping. "I know where I'm going," she adds with a confident grin.

That last part's not a lie. She's going to Nebbie. Where she's going after that is less straightforward, but she'll get to that when she gets to that.

[luckytobealive]

Hmm. She isn't sure what to say, then.

People are funny. Children, no less so.

Eliza figures she should make the effort to try to get to know Moon--she doesn't know much anyone else in the Castle, besides the Guardian. It's been nice to work on her own, but she isn't used to being alone. Even with the gaping hole her husband left behind, her kids made quite the ruckus. All pains in the neck, but her pains in the neck, and she loves them all--

… that's another thing. She goes into this partially for selfish reasons. A distraction from the guilt of leaving her children behind is welcome, seeing as she can currently do nothing about it.

"I hope you wouldn't mind if I'd wanted to join you, then?"

[moonsmile]

She left Elizabeth speechless. That's irony, right there. Moon's grin grows a little more, and it doesn't even fade when the woman gets her voice back.

"Go ahead. If you can keep up," she says brightly.

Nebbie will like her dress. Nebbie likes most clothes, but the dresses they can make move with their wings more easily than anything else, and that's fun!

For them and for Moon. Not always the women who think they're being attacked. But maybe that won't happen. And maybe Moon doesn't care if it does.