Trying Hard to Reach Out {Seria}

[Annie Prince]

Annie hadn't spent very much time at the commons area, but now seemed like as good a time as any to change that.

She had so far been pretty lucky about meeting people who eventually turned out to be decent. Her roommate was not nearly so annoying as she had feared, and despite the strange situation that had led to their meeting, the Kalosian girl, Amanda, had proven to be full of fascinating stories. It seemed like now was as good a time as any to press her luck and see if she could meet any other interesting people.

That was what had led Annie to the commons now. Seated on a comfortable sofa, with her Swinub snoring softly in her lap, she watched the people going by to see if any of them looked interesting. Annie wasn't trying to look intimidating, though by now it was little more than reflex for her to put up figurative walls of ice.

[Seria Floria]

Seria was walking to the commons, thinking about something, well, actually, she had been thinking about ways to improve her rudimentary Kalosian. It had been a project of her's to learn the language so she could talk to Amanda more fluently and better. Also, the language sounded nice. As she passed through the commons, she saw a girl with long hair, wearing the Wave Dorm uniform, and for some reason, something about the girl Seria saw reminded her just a little bit of Amanda. Tilting her head, Seria approached the girl who kept a Swinub who was sleeping on her lap. Seria was holding her mother's diary, as always. "Salut and good day, how do you do? I just saw you sitting there looking at people and wondered what you were doing here." Seria smiled as she attempted to strike up a conversation with the stranger. She hoped she was not being too sudden with the engagement.

[Annie Prince]

Do I just look like I speak Kalosian? Annie wondered. The thought was absurd to her, given her heritage, but it was starting to seem like it had some kind of basis. It had been years since she had spoken the language with any kind of regularity or fluency, but now two people had greeted her in exactly the same way in as many weeks. It seemed like it was on its way to becoming a pattern, particularly given how few encounters she was having with individuals overall.

Annie genuinely had no idea how to respond to the girl's comment, beyond an initial polite nod to the greeting. She wanted, reflexively, to wall herself off with a cold attitude, but she wasn't here to do that sort of thing. The question was... what did she do now?

Running with her best guess and being herself hadn't been too disastrous so far. "Good day," she greeted the girl politely. "I'm... watching for anyone to speak to me." Did that make sense? Annie had no idea.

Zlatan the Swinub let out an unusually large snore at that point and turned to burrow into her stomach, to Annie's mild amusement.

[Seria Floria]

Seria smiled and curtseyed in response to the girl's polite nodding and answered with a polite greeting back and said she was 'watching for anyone to speak to her.' "Well, I'm here to speak to you now, aren't I? My name's Seria Floria. What's yours?" Seria curtseyed a second time as she extended her hand out for a polite handshake. The girl's Swinub snored loudly and burrowed a bit into her stomach, which looked both cute and funny at once. The girl, upon closer inspection, did really remind her a bit of Amanda, though she seemed more cold and less... outgoing, to say the least. Regardless, Seria's mind now drifted off to the fact most of the good encounters were with people from the Wave Dorm. This was quite amusing, and the thought made her smile. Hopefully, this girl would also be a good friend.

[Annie Prince]

The other girl struck Annie as rather polite. She introduced herself as Seria Floria. Taking the offered hand, Annie replied, "Annie Prince."

Socializing was hard, and Annie wasn't completely certain what would be the right thing to say. She considered it a few moments, petting Zlatan all the while, before settling on, "Where do you come from? People around here have come from so many different places."

She certainly hoped that was good enough. Putting herself out there was hard, very hard, to the point that Annie was starting to question why she was trying again. Well, if she completely messed up, she always had her Swinub to act as a sort of icebreaker.

[Seria Floria]

Seria smiled as the girl introduced herself as Annie Prince. What a royally-sounding name! It reminded her somewhat of Amanda. She wondered if Annie was also from Kalos for a moment there. "Nice to meet you, Annie! I'm from Sinnoh. If I may ask the same of you, where do you come from?" Seria answered with a smile, her voice soft and amiable to the current situation. She couldn't tell how Annie was feeling, but Seria definitely wanted to make her feel welcomed to making another friend, given her initial purpose for simply sitting there and going people-watching. I mean, it would seem weird for others to be sitting in the commons just to watch people. Wallflowers were hard to notice for a reason. Fortunately though, Annie did stick out quite a bit compared to the other students.

[Annie Prince]

"I'm from Sinnoh."

Annie's eyes widened slightly in genuine surprise. "I grew up in Veilstone City," she blurted out. Hadn't Tanya mentioned meeting a Nature Dorm girl from Sinnoh? And this girl seemed to be wearing the colors of the Nature Dorm...

Smoothing Zlatan's fur and composing herself, Annie continued more normally, "Where in Sinnoh are you from?" She was dying to ask more questions, as she still knew altogether too little about the region where she had lived for the past twelve years despite corresponding with her friend back home about it, but she feared saying too much and making a worse impression on the stranger than she already must have. Annie hated to be overwhelming or undignified, and her lack of skill with interaction wasn't helping her there.

[Seria Floria]

Seria blinked and smiled when Annie said she grew up in Veilstone City. Oh, that's also in Sinnoh! "That's neat," Seria said, nodding approvingly. "I'm from Eterna City, myself. It's cool to see that I'm not the only one I know who's from Sinnoh." Seria kept on switching her gaze between Annie's face and the sleeping Swinub, who Annie seemed to be smoothing out. The Swinub almost looked like a freaking cushion. Soon, Seria went over to sit next to Annie, her feet beginning to ache a little, for she had been out and about for a few hours at this point. "Mind if I sit here? Anyways, what brings you here to the Academy? Despite all that's happened thus far, we've decided to stick around. I'm curious to learn a little bit more about you; you seem to be quite intriguing." Seria said softly and calmly. She hoped she was not being too intrusive.

[Annie Prince]

Eterna City. Wasn't that the place where Tanya had mentioned meeting someone from? Well, this surely wasn't so big a school that two roommates could go around meeting random people and never make mutual acquaintances. It seemed likelier and likelier that this was the same person. Well, Annie was at least sort of prepared for this.

If Annie could have heard what Seria was thinking about her Swinub, she would have laughed. Zlatan really did do a remarkable impression of a pillow, and he didn't even know Mimic. As it stood, Annie did not have the power to read other people's minds, but she got the sense based on the look on Seria's face that she had done well to bring the placid, likable little Pokémon. They weren't even talking about him, but Zlatan's presence seemed to improve the situation.

The line of questioning that Seria pulled out took Annie a bit by surprise. She nodded when the other girl asked permission to sit, and was unsurprised by the question of why she had come here, but after that it took an unusual turn. Curious about her? She was intriguing? This was the first time she had left Veilstone since she was three! Not that anyone needed to know that. She shrugged, and began, "I wanted to train Pokémon, and this was the only chance I had." With a frown, she continued in a more troubled tone, "My father wanted me to go back home, after he heard about the trouble with Team Origin, but I wouldn't go."

The truth was that Annie's refusal to leave Gray Garden Academy had come in the form of a fight she had been building up to having with her father for years. She had pointed out that all the girls who had freely gone out into "danger" had come back with their faces and dignity intact, and it was because she had been sheltered from the "danger" of self-defense that she hadn't come out of her dispute with the bullies back home unscathed. In sort, she had insisted, she would not even consider going home until she had reason to think that she was in more danger here than there, and so far nothing anyone had faced had presented worse risks than the very things that had been supposed to keep her "safe" had.

[Seria Floria]

Seria nodded as Annie explained that she came to the academy to train Pokemon and become better as a trainer. Apparently, this was the only chance she really had. And the events with Team Origin didn't really help either, what with the implication on the Academy and all. In fact, Seria had wondered why her own parents didn't write to her or bother contacting her about everything. She sighed softly for a moment upon being reminded of that. "I see. Well, it's good that you made that decision for yourself, I suppose," Seria nodded, smiling. Something told Seria that perhapsthere could be something more than that but she decided not to press the issue. The trouble with Team Origin certainly would serve as a legitimate cause for concern after all.

"On that note, what do you think of the whole trouble with that stupid Team? Were you a part of the defense task force? I don't think I saw you."

[Annie Prince]

Seria seemed distracted upon the mention of Team Origin. That was all right. Annie was also distracted, thinking about her fight with her father.

The question caught Annie slightly off-guard, but she recovered easily. "No, I'm afraid I wasn't part of the defense," she admitted, opting not to explain why. "I take it you were? My roommate, Tanya, told me what happened when she got back." Annie shook her head. "The whole mess is just strange. I'd never heard of this Team Origin, and apparently nobody else had either, so where did they get so many people? And I saw their broadcast. It didn't make much sense, really."

[Seria Floria]

Seria nodded and managed to force out a weak, but somewhat sincere smile. Turned out that Annie didn't show up after all, but then she said her roommate was Tanya. Seria wondered how someone could deal with her being a roommate. Not necessarily in a bad or demeaning way, but rather out of curiosity. She was... an enthusiastic and passionate individual to say the least. "I don't know and I can't say and I couldn't tell you," Seria responded, shrugging. "I was with Tanya at the time, and it seemed they have many operatives. I don't know what they want with this island but it's clear they're bad if they attempted to use the academy as a scapegoat. Well, no, they didn't attempt to - they actually did. Many people now think we're responsible for the attack."

Seria shook her head.

"I can't really blame anyone who got mad for it otherwise..."

[Annie Prince]

Annie grimaced slightly when Seria reported that Team Origin's attempt to scapegoat the academy had been successful. She had not spent terribly much time outside of Academy grounds, and was certainly not tapped into the island's mood, but it didn't exactly bode well if the people in the city thought that the school was at fault for what had happened.

"Got mad for it?" Annie repeated questioningly. "Did something happen?" She wondered if the people of the city were angry at the students, or if students were experiencing trouble among themselves. Either one might be quite possible, given how tense things seemed to have become.

[Seria Floria]

Seria shrugged as Annie seemed to repeat herself in a questioning manner; wondering if something happened to elicit such a reaction from the general public. "Well, since you weren't there, I can recount the details as I remember - those of us who were present were split into three groups to try and stave off the attack at the major three districts of the city. Now you may just imagine what happens when two big groups of trainers clash with their Pokemon - lots of property damage and chaos," Seria said, stroking her chin pensively.

"Since the real culprits escaped before we could apprehend them, most would believe that we were the aggressors to begin with, and they would try to convince people to think that we were being taught warmongering values. A big, massive mistake, of course, but it's a small price to pay when we're trying to protect the city's wellbeing." Seria sighed and shrugged.

[Annie Prince]

Seria's explanation was certainly troubling, and Annie could feel her troubled expression deepening as the other girl recounted the details of the attack and especially the reactions of the local citizens. Something seemed to be rather off about it, and all at once she realized why.

"Did they not notice that they had been under attack?" she asked, puzzled. "I thought for sure that the call for volunteers included mention that the city had been having trouble with roaming gangs, and that was the whole reason the academy's students got involved at all. Why would they just forget that there had been trouble before?"