literature

Before the Festival

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Ryoshi made his way through town. With the festival about to start, people from all throughout the kingdom where busy setting up; mainly merchants who were setting up sales booths, but some others were also busy making activity booths as well. The warriors who weren't planning to run a booth, such as the Mawile himself, were keeping themselves busy by keeping an eye out for anybody trying to pull something in all the commotion.

So far, things had been rather quiet; boring really. Just as Ryoshi was about to call it quits, he spied Amy coming out of her teepee with a large sack dragging behind her. Without missing a beat, he knew what he should do.

"Hi, Amy-chan!" he called out as he made his way over to the Jigglypuff. "What do you have there?"

"Oh!" She looked up, startled, but glad to see that Ryoshi was here. When was the last time he happened to be right outside without her having to track him down? Either this was just merely a coincidence, or maybe it was because...

She quickly shoved that thought aside. Of course they practically hadn't seen each other since the time when her dad suddenly came back. As soon as she heard of the upcoming Festival of Aether, she became so excited that she spent nearly every day holed up in her teepee trying to make decorations and stuff for the festival, minus the days she actually helped decorate the town with Skipper the Marshtomp. And now...

"Hey Ryoshi. Good to see you here." She smiled. "These are masks that I'm going to sell for the festival. Nearly everyone wears masks during festivals in the Hoshizora tribe, but it was really Chasca who gave me the idea that, hey, I could make and sell masks for this festival too!"

Seeing that there was nothing much in his hands at the moment, as the guy's sword was strapped to his back as usual, she asked. "...Were you wanting to help me carry this or something? I mean, it IS pretty heavy." She then added under her breath, "...and there's a Super Insanely Tall Mask in here too..."

He let out a small laugh. "Yes, I suppose that's part of it."

He then took the mouth of the sack from her and slung it over his shoulder. It was surprisingly heavy. He sorta wondered how she was managing to carry it as well as she was...

"Of course, it might have something to do with wanting to see you. Masks, huh? Sounds fun. I can remember masks being used for certain ceremonies back home. You know, on special holidays and stuff."

He readjusted the bag on his shoulder. "So, where are we taking these?"

"To the booth where I'll be selling them!" The Jigglypuff dramatically pointed to a set of wooden booths on a grassy hill in the distance just right outside the main town. "Chasca was nice enough to build me one, too. And it's the one that says, 'Happy Mask Saleswoman Shop'. Not my idea, by the way; totally Solum's. The festival starts tomorrow, so I might as well set everything up now!"

As Ryoshi started walking, Amy immediately came from behind him and slid herself under some of the sack, trying to help relieve the amount of weight that the Mawile had to carry. She couldn't help but giggle. "I'm glad you came to see me, too. I'd just been SO busy with preparing stuff for the festival, so..." She trailed off, instead preferring to focus on carrying the bag.

"I know what you mean, mi'lady. I've kind of been busy myself. Most of us warriors have been patrolling around to keep an eye out for anyone trying to steal from the booths. So far, I'm not entirely sure how needed we are; I haven't seen anyone. I was actually doing a round when I spotted you..."

For a second, Amy was going to wonder if it would be okay for Ryoshi to leave in the middle of a patrol round, but then when he said that he hadn't seen anyone, she sighed in relief. Though then again...thieves...there really wasn't much if at all in the way of outright thievery in her tribe; at least not serious thievery, without harsh social consequences. But here? Who knew? Thankfully, during her four months here, there weren't any incidents of people stealing from her shop, but she did hear of such things nearby. She sure hoped that it wouldn't be a problem anytime soon, as a lot of people were really nice here in Aether...

"Well, then! I guess that's a good thing?" she asked. "All the same, though, in case it does happens, at least you guys will be ready. And I guess since I'm making a crap ton of money all the time, it'll be even MORE important for me to keep you around..."

"I think it's mostly just King Alaric being cautious." The Mawile shrugged. "He'd rather us be there for an intimidation factor than need us actually... have to stop someone. But I suppose that's what being a samurai is really about; ensuring that nothing bad happens."

"Well, hey, they say that preventing stuff is a lot easier than having to fix stuff, so he's pretty smart there!" She then smiled, and would have tried to kiss him if it weren't for the fact that, well, she had her hands full carrying a big heavy bag behind him. "But really, even it's your job...thanks, Ryoshi."


Eventually, the two of them arrived at the area with the booths, and Amy helped point Ryoshi to the one with 'Happy Mask Saleswoman Shop' painted in black letters on the storefront. "All right, this is it!"

As soon as she ran from behind Ryoshi and pointed up to the sign much higher up on the stall than either of the two of them, she noticed that there was something different around Ryoshi's neck. In fact, he never wore a necklace-collar thing before...wait...it had a Magma Scale in the middle of it...

"Oh hey! You ended up going with my suggestion after all? For your Magma Scale?" She pointed it to him for clarification, remembering the behest that Ryoshi posted last month that she took as soon as she could, but was worried that some other tailor or blacksmith might end up making a better design than her. "It looks great on you! In fact, even better than I thought it would!"

"Huh?"

He starred down at his neck. There hung a collar-like necklace, with the Magma Scale attached front and center. He'd nearly forgotten that it was on. The fabric that Amy had provided for the scale to rest in was so comfortable that he could hardly feel it resting on his neck.

"Oh yeah, I did. I haven't seen you in so long that I forgot to tell you I was going to use it."

He set down the bag of masks inside the stall Amy had rented. "Would you like help setting up all the masks, Amy-sama?"

"Sure thing! Especially that really tall mask. I don't know WHY my dad asked me to make it. I mean, I can't imagine anyone who could wear such a thing..."

The Jigglypuff then reached into the back and pulled out a couple. "Okay, let's start!"


For the next hour or so, the two small Pokémon decorated the stand with all the masks in the bag. Since the stall was obviously built so it could be at face level of the average height of the Pokémon in Aether, and Amy and Ryoshi were a bit below that average, if not by a lot, they had to make heavy use of the moveable staircase behind the stall that was obviously meant for someone like Amy to help climb up to in order to man it.

Amy had also brought a load of string along inside the bag so that they could thread it through the holes in some of the masks, allowing the selection to hang from the board with the shop's name on it so everyone could see. It took some time, but by the time they were done, the whole booth was covered in masks of all sorts of varieties.

"Whew!" Amy sighed as she sat down. "And this isn't even everything! I left a bit more back at the teepee that I can get as people buy these things, so you could help me later on if you like~."

"I'd be more than happy to help. Just tell me when you need it, mi'lady."

While the two had been hanging masks, one in particular had caught Ryoshi's attention. Compared to the others, some might not even consider it a mask. It was a blank sheet of sturdy canvas paper on a string.

"Hey..." He started as he picked up one of them. "Where did you get the idea for this one? Because back home, there were myths about imps that used to run around with masks like these, each with a symbol from my native language written on it."

Amy just stared wide-eyed at the story. Imps with masks like these? She would have expected mythical creatures to wear masks a little more...intricate, if not intimidating. "Wow. What a coincidence. Again, it was honestly my dad who was all, 'You should make a mask that anyone can draw anything they want on it!' To be honest, I thought it was just another of his practical jokes, like that really tall mask over there..."

She pointed to the only mask that was so tall that they were able to merely set it up on the ground instead of stringing it from the shop sign before grabbing one of the calligraphy pens that came with the blank sheets of paper. "For his mask, he actually drew a picture on it like this."

With expert handling, Amy drew a silly smiley face with its tongue pointing out and its eyes looking in different directions. A mask that one would only expect from a man of Jukidoor's tastes.

"And that's the general idea," she explained, putting down her pen. She began to wonder where the heck her dad got those pens in the first place...on second thought, maybe it was better if she didn’t know. Instead, she turned to Ryoshi, interested in what he had to say about these masks. "I wonder what kind of symbols are in your native language, anyway..."

"Well, for the most part, the imps would have symbols for things like 'evil' or 'anger'; you know, demon-like stuff. Do you mind if I bought one of those? I'll show you one."

Amy nodded, and Ryoshi took a new mask from its hanger. Taking a pen, he placed the sheet on the stall of her booth. The Mawile took a deep breath to steady his hand and nerves. He may not have been a good painter, but calligraphy was something he was heavily trained in.

Amy watched carefully as Ryoshi held the pen in his left hand and drew a series of lines and curves. When he finished, he stood up, leaving Amy to look at a symbol that resembled...well...it was a jumbled mishmash of...

"Uh...what's this supposed to mean?" She scratched her head. "...I don't get it."

"I wouldn't expect you to get it; after all, it is in another language. Ah, but yes... This particular symbol means 'love'. Seemed fitting enough." He laughed.

"Oh..." All of a sudden, the Jigglypuff blushed. Holy crap, this guy seemed to have a humble, unassuming personality, but he sure showed that he did like her too in the most unexpected of ways.

But then she had noticed something else. "Wait, you're left-handed too? I can't believe I didn't notice that until now..." She thought she would have, given how he also tried painting the egg rocks the first time they went on the event in April, but apparently, it was too dark inside the teepee for her to really notice for sure. And she was really a lot more focused on impressing him back then, too.

"Yes, mi'lady, I am left-handed! Although I'm not surprised you haven't noticed before now. After all, I haven't written around you much before, and my sword is a two-handed blade." Ryoshi gave her a warm, reassuring grin.

She couldn't help but laugh. "Yeah, well, for some reason, it's pretty rare where I come from. I think I only had two grandparents who were left-handed, and everyone else in my family was right-handed, so I'm glad to see someone else like me!"

Then she gazed back at the complex symbol on the mask. "Oh, right. By the way, um...if this really means 'love', wouldn't it just be a lot easier if you just drew this?" She picked up a stick from the ground and drew in the dirt next to the mask...drawing a heart symbol.

"Easier? Yes, I suppose so." He grinned. "But it wouldn't keep the tradition of having my language's symbols. Plus, if no one else knows what it means, it can be our little secret, Amy-chan~." To accentuate the point, he tapped her swirl of hair playfully.

She couldn't help but blush and giggle again, trying to cover her mouth this time. "Oh, I see how it is." It took all her effort for her to not call him silly or anything like that.

As Ryoshi watched her giggle, he caught a flash of purple speed by behind her. Turning to look, he saw a Skorupi scuttling away with an odd object on his head that resembled a multi-colored heart with spikes. Wait, he recognized that thing...It was one of the masks Amy had made. But that couldn't be right; she hadn't started selling yet, they'd just set up.

"H—Hey! That guy's got one of your masks, mi'lady!" Ryoshi shouted.

"WHAT!? Where!?" Amy's head shot up and turned in the direction of Ryoshi's arm to see the Skorupi squeak and disappear into the bushes. "HEY! Get back here!"

She then started running after the scorpion, trying to use Psychic to grasp it, but for some reason couldn't seem to get a good hold on him due to the fact that it was hard for her to figure out where it was in the bushes.

"I've got him!" The Mawile made a dash for the little scorpion. He was a bit faster than the bug, but his erratic zigzagging movements through bushes, and around buildings and stalls made it difficult to actually catch up to him.

The Mawile's anger was beginning to boil over until his target ran into somewhere peculiar: Amy's teepee.

"Wha...?" He had no clue why the bug would be running in there. But if he was lucky, there would be no way out, and he could catch the thief.


Meanwhile, inside the teepee, Jukidoor was chilling out and relaxing, taking advantage of the extra space created by the now-removed bag of masks. At least this way, he wouldn't be in danger of making his daughter's teepee collapse again and him owing that Chasca girl 5,000 Cressents again.

Just then, though, the Clefable heard a scuttling sound coming right up to the teepee, and his sensitive ears could immediately tell that the footsteps weren't that of his daughter's, or her new boyfriend’s, for that matter. But as it turned out, he could hear their footsteps and their shouting voices as they gave chase over this one particular Pokémon coming his way...wait a second, didn't this guy seem familiar...?

"ROARGABLARGABLARGABLARGA—!"

Without missing a beat, the Clefable's fist glowed with steely strength and smashed down on the head of...what turned out to be a Skorupi wearing one of those Hoshizora tribal warrior masks. Heh. Seemed that this scorpion at least had a sense of fashion in what to steal. And for that matter...

"Hey kids, he's in here," he called out lazily to the angry footsteps of the Mawile and Jigglypuff quickly approaching.

Ryoshi and Amy burst into the teepee, both breathing a little heavily from the chase, only to find the arachnid collapsed in front of Amy's father. The Mawile grabbed the Skorupi by the tail, plucked the mask from him, and gave it back to Amy. The Skorupi woke up suddenly with a screech, and attempted to bite the hand Ryoshi was holding with. He irritably flicked the aggressor off.

"Not going to work, kid. Venom doesn't penetrate metal. Now talk. Why did you decide to steal one of my girlfriend's masks, then run in her house and scare her old man?"

Jukidoor scoffed. "Oh, he was the one who was scar—"

Right before the Skorupi could lash back at Jukidoor, he was stopped in place by Amy's Psychic as she angrily clutched at his body, forcing him to hover in midair so that he couldn't move anything except for his mouth and head.

"Like he SAID," she growled. "TALK!"

Finally, the Skorupi realized that there was no way out of this situation, and was forced to comply with their demands. "Because THIS guy..." He turned to the Clefable, still resting on the ground with his hands behind his head. "...came up to me one day and started singing this crap about 'Do you like my pike?' over and over again! And he wouldn't stop swinging it around! And then he said, 'Pay me 5,000 moneys and I'll stop'! You think I could get away? Noooo, he practically had me caught in some sort of stupid net! And I really wanted this cool mask, but I was completely broke, so...so...!" He hiccupped. "I just wanted to get this guy to give me my money back..."

At this, Jukidoor froze, and Amy suddenly dropped the scorpion as she became angry all over again, but for an entirely different reason. "DAD..."

The Clefable let out a weak laugh. "...Oops. Forgot about that."

"So you're SAYING that the MONEY you paid Chasca was from THIS GUY!?" she practically roared, blowing the Skorupi into the Clefable against the wall.

And with that, she marched on over to him and held out her hand. "Give. It. Back. Give him all the money you took from him!"

Despite his growing worry, he tried one last attempt to laugh it off. "Hey, technically, I used the pike to earn that money, so—"

"DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR!?"

With his ears blasted, he shouted in reply, "Okay, okay, fine! Sheesh..." He quickly grabbed a bag of Cressents and tossed them to the Skorupi, muttering something about how "she's just as scary as her mother."

The Bug/Poison-type, now with his money returned, tried to bolt out the opening to Amy's teepee. Ryoshi stomped his foot down on the insect's tail and stopped him from running off.

"Hold it. I need a word with you as well."

The Skorupi shivered with a bit of fright as he turned to face the Mawile.

"Look, Jukidoor stole your money. Kinda. That alone should have given you an idea of what it feels like to have your stuff stolen. Two wrongs don't make a right. You could have informed one of the knights or castle workers, and something could have been done."

The Mawile sighed and shook his head. "I should really report the both of you to the king, but... I'm not going to this time. Just don't let me catch you trying to steal again, alright? If you wanted the mask THAT bad, there are things you could've done to earn more money and bought it honestly."

The Skorupi nodded, and Ryoshi allowed him to leave with his reclaimed savings.

"And YOU." Amy turned to her dad. "That should teach you to earn money the way it's supposed to be earned: By getting off your lazy butt and start patrolling, like how Ryoshi is doing!"

The Clefable scratched his ear and yelled back, "Uh, sure! But I think you kinda blasted my eardrums!"

Amy sighed in annoyance as she turned toward the flap of the tent. Man, her dad sure could be a pain in how he didn't seem to take anything seriously, but at least he knew when to be serious. She could only hope that he wouldn't make too many more stupid blunders like this one.

Right then, though, the Skorupi poked his head back into the tent in front of her. "Um, uh...I...I really like that mask though, ma’am! Now that I got my money back, can...can I buy it?" He then reached into his money back with his pincers and pulled out 1,000 Cressents; the value on the price tag for that particular mask.

For a second, Amy blinked in surprise, but then she smiled and patted the guy on the head before accepting the money and handing him the mask in her hands. "Sure thing. Now go have fun with it!"

Whooping with glee, the scorpion raced out of the tent into the distance, leaving Amy and Ryoshi at the entrance with a Clefable in the back of the teepee who promptly fell back to sleep in boredom.

"Well, now that that's settled..." She grasped Ryoshi's hand and petted it. "Let's go back before something else happens, if you know what I mean."

"Yes... Of course." He squeezed her hand gently. "Let's just hope no one else robbed the place while we were away."


They rushed there as fast as they could, but thankfully, it seemed as though every mask was in place. The only difference seemed to be a sheet of paper with a hastily-scrawled 'Thank you!' on it stuck to the booth itself.

"Whew...everything looks good to me." The Jigglypuff took a quick look around. "Looks like he was able to steal it because it was one of the ones that weren’t on a string. Maybe we should get something to glue these down onto the table. That way, it'll be much harder for them to just steal like that." She pointed to some sap coming from a nearby tree.

"Right. I'll get some."

He quickly made his way to the tree she had pointed out. He reached into the trunk and pulled out a handful of the sap that Amy wished to be used as glue.

He could immediately feel the globule of golden stickiness dripping slowly through his fingertips. It was rather disgusting, for a reason he couldn't really understand. Didn't Amy use this stuff to attach her accessories to her skin? Eugh...

By the time he had made it back over to the mask stall, he was more than pleased to throw the sap down on the counter top. He spread it out just a bit and pressed the masks down into them.

"Alright, got them glued on, Amy-chan," he announced.

Amy could only hold an arm up as she just stood there, speechless, with her mouth open. "...Oh. You didn't have to...I mean, I was going to help you..."

"Oh. Um... That's okay, mi'lady." He grinned nervously. In all honesty, he didn't want to touch the stuff ever again, but for Amy, anything seemed worth it.

Something clicked in his head as his gaze turned to the mask with the kanji for love that he painted on it before picking it up. "Oh hey, I never asked how much I owed you for this."

"Oh...uh..." She turned to the price tags. "Well, just the paper by itself is 100, and if you want a design on it, you'd buy the brush too for 300 total. Since you already used it to write the design on it, that would be 300. Is that fair?"

She hoped that it would be. In fact, sometimes, she wondered if the prices for her masks were too low. But at the same time, she seemed to be earning way more than most people (probably because she put in a lot of work to begin with), so she wanted to keep things affordable. What to do with these prices? Sure was tricky.

"That seems fair." He smiled before pulling out his small bandana sack that he kept hidden in his tunic removed a couple of coins. "...And, I believe... Yup, here's 300 Cressents."

He placed the coins tightly in her palm and petted her head. "You seem kinda worried about the price though. Don't worry about it! I don't know too much about business, but I think that as long as you’re making money, you're just fine, right?"

"Right...!" She smiled. "That's pretty much it. After all, I'm still saving up to get every single scale this kingdom has to offer!" She pumped her fist.

The Jigglypuff then stepped back to admire her booth in the rapidly-approaching night sky. "Well, I won't be able to start selling these until tomorrow anyway, so it's a good thing that we set everything up now! Tomorrow...huh...oh wait! I almost forgot! Man, it's been so long since I could catch up with you...I totally, totally forgot!"

She bounced up and clutched at his shoulders to try and steady herself, as if to impress upon him the importance of what she had to say. "Me and Chasca and Solum were talking about plans for the festival, and we decided that the four of us should go on a double date tomorrow night at sunset! We're going to meet in town square so we can enjoy the first night of the festival! Well, Ryoshi?" She couldn't help but smile at him shyly. "...What do you think?"

"Oh! Uh..."

Double date, huh? He knew those were a date involving two couples. True, he was sort hoping their first date would be just the two of them... Maybe it was for the best this way. They could ease into the dating first before truly jumping in.

"Y—Yeah. I think that would be great, Amy-chan."

"Hee~" She couldn't help but stare at his face again, though she also noticed just how easy it was for her to continue clinging onto him with that new accessory around his neck; in fact, way easier than just holding onto his short, narrow shoulders. With it, she brought herself up to his face and kissed him again. 

Huh, she could get used to this. And indeed she was. While the first kiss felt so good that she didn't want to pull away, the second one was a bit more reasonable, and so was this time, at about ten seconds.

"Like I said, this necklace collar thing really does look better on you than I first thought." She giggled. "And it’s so useful, too~. I wasn't exactly planning for it to be used like this when I first suggested it~."

"And it's all thanks to you, love." He chuckled.

He then stole a glance at the evening sky, watching it quickly approaching night. "It's getting late; we should probably get home before it's too dark. See you tomorrow night?"

Amy’s heart warmed at the compliment. Wow. This was the first time he called her 'love'. He really did care about her~. "Yup~! I'll be waiting!"

And with that, she let go of his necklace collar thing and raced back home, but not until she suddenly stopped in place and turned around. Part of it was to make sure he was still securely holding onto the mask she helped make for her, but it was also for something else.

"Hey, Ryoshi! After this, we should totally go on another date on the last day of the festival! Just us!"

The Mawile held a thumb up. "For sure, mi'lady!"

As Amy ran home, she couldn't help be filled with an amazing amount of energy stemming from the sudden blast of happiness. Holy freaking cow, they were officially going on their first real date tomorrow along with their friends, and then they'd have a second date at the end of the festival!  So many good things were happening today. Sure, there was that minor incident earlier with the Skorupi, but at least that was solved.

What was most important was that she felt pride at being able to make all these gifts for Ryoshi; that she was able to show him what she enjoyed and how skilled she was, and most importantly of all, how he showed how he truly did love her as much as she loved him.

(8/20/13) EDIT: Not much of a change really... Honorifics and minor speech pattern changes.


Featuring =ChicoChikorita's Ryoshi Sumiura the Mawile and *Amy-the-Jigglypuff's Amy Apirana the Jigglypuff:



:bulletyellow::bulletyellow::bulletyellow: =ChicoChikorita's Comments: :bulletyellow::bulletyellow::bulletyellow:

Ah, you know, it's stuff like this that reminds me that collabs with friends is more fun than writing on my own. (Of course, I've only been doing collabs recently, buuuuuut...) Imp mask get because there is never enough Okami with Ryoshi. I honestly considered the Majora's Mask one because Majora's Mask is my favorite game, but... Imp mask was more Ryoshi-ish. You can expect two more RPs pretty soon. Wee~!

:bulletpink::bulletpink::bulletpink: *Amy-the-Jigglypuff's comments: :bulletpink::bulletpink::bulletpink:

All right~! The day before the Festival of Aether~. Amy being absurdly busy before the actual festival makes sense if you consider the fact that not only did she make enough masks to support a mask shop, but she also helped create banners and decorations for the whole town AND had to contend with a few behests, too. What I really like about this RP was not only Jukidoor finally got something through his thick skull for once, but that Amy was able to help Ryoshi out with accessories and masks, and that she asked him out on a date~. Two of them, actually! Look forward to those next two times in our upcoming few collab RP pieces for this, #Pokemon-of-Avalon's Event 2: Festival of Aether!

:star: Word Count: 4872 = 4850 Cressents :star:
© 2013 - 2024 Mosshrooms
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shadowkilla762's avatar
The imp mask was also used in Okamiden, not just Okami.