Location: Jinko Island, Hotel room 3030
Time: The day before the tournament, Night
Tagging: Salem, Ajax
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Salem casually strolled down the corridors of the hotel on his way back to his room. At least, that had been his intended destination. He was lost in thought and thus not paying much attention to where his feet were taking him. His mind was on the events of the day and all the people he’d seen and met so far. There were many, but a select few had stood out from the crowd.
There was the unlucky girl with the perpetual scowl, and the red haired man with the bee stung lips. He stopped walking for a moment when he remembered something else.
‘Wasn’t there a Beedrill kidnapping?’ he thought, but dismissed the thought almost immediately as silly.
‘Speaking of silly, I did mistake a Pokemon for a human earlier.’ He chuckled softly and continued walking.
‘Come to think of it, I never did ask the young miss her name. And
I wonder if she might be a little noble of sorts. She certainly looked the part.’
His thoughts then wandered to Cassie with the silver eyes. How like mirrors they had been. When he stared into her eyes he could easily make out his own face reflected in them.
‘Cold they had been.’ “No that wasn’t quite right.” He said out loud.
‘More like detached then? Yes that seemed more accurate. Detached in the sense that they weren’t expressing real emotion, or at least not the emotions she had been feeling during dinner I think.’ “Or maybe I’m just looking for unnecessary reasons to explain why they I still see
her eyes when I close my own.” Salem said in an attempt to convince himself he was being foolish.
He looked around to see how far he had strayed. Not that far, it turned out. He had been going in a rough circle and was actually quite close to the staircase. He didn’t like elevators very much. Closed off metal cages they were, and especially uncomfortable when too many people pushed themselves in. Salem bounced up the stairs, taking several steps at once, to the third floor. Where he stepped out onto the carpet of the hallway.
His fingers brushed against the Pokeball hanging from his belt.
‘I wonder if the others are being treated well by that doctor,’ he thought.
‘I’ll go see them tomorrow before the tournament begins,’ he decided as he stopped in front of his room door and got the keycard out.
The room was dark. His hand automatically reached out for the light switch but upon locating the button he decided not to press it. He closed the front door behind him and walked straight through the room towards the balcony doors. Starting with his sandals he quickly stripped off all his clothing and stepped out onto the balcony as naked as the day he was born.
The night air was still comfortably warm and he relished the feeling of a gentle breeze on his bare, sun kissed skin. Salem closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He could smell the ocean and taste the salt in the air and for a moment he was a little boy again, back home on the island.
He imagined the warm sand between his toes and the wind tugging gently on his blonde, somewhat shorter hair. It was much longer and lighter in color now. Hinako was at his side playing in the sand. She was still a young Nidoran back then and mewing excitedly as she hopped from sand hill to sand hill, sometimes tripping and rolling down one. This made the little Pokemon squeal with delight all the more of course. This was a familiar memory of Salem. One he cherished and he smiled broadly, completely unencumbered.
“There you are Lemming…” a female voice echoed in his mind and as it faded, the memory faded with it. When the voice was completely gone Salem was back on the balcony of his hotel suite.
He opened his eyes and gazed up at the starlit night sky and spread his arms wide as if to embrace all of it. What a breathtaking sight it was. Countless tiny lights flickering in an ocean of blackness. The sight made him feel small, but also connected. Connected to something larger, something infinite. It made him feel like anything and everything was possible.
Tomorrow would bring a day of endless possibilities, just like it did every day, and it was up to him to make the most of it every time.
‘How can one not smile with all this wonder around us at all times?’ Salem thought to himself and lowered his arms.
No longer in the grasp of melancholy he became more aware of his surroundings. From a few room up and to the left he could hear someone getting his or her groove on with some hard rock and metal. When he leaned out he could guess which room it was likely to be as all the rooms surrounding it still had their lights on. “Rock on friend,” Salem chuckled approvingly, then turned and stepped back inside but left the doors open.
Back in his suite he strode over to his backpack and pulled out the thin blanket he carried around with him. He tied it around his waist and let it hang from his hip in true island fashion. Then he moved through the room picking up his discarded clothes from the floor and folded them into a neat pile on one of the chairs. Salem then called for room service to bring him up a bottle of muscatel in about half an hour. Any local brand would suffice.
He thanked the voice on the other end of the line before hanging up and reaching for the pokebelt slung over the back of a chair. He pried the lone Pokeball from his belt and released the giant turtle inside. When he materialized in the room Ajax looked over and down at his trainer. They both stared at one another for a moment in comfortable silence, and then Salem walked over to pad his friend on the shell.
“I believe I still owe you a good scrubbing don’t I?” he asked, and the big Blastoise nodded eagerly. “Come on then, let’s see if you can fit into the bathroom area where we can wash that ocean salt from your shell. You may have the bed after that.”
Roughly thirty minutes later Salem rolled his shoulders and shook his arms loose. Bathing his Blastoise was always hard, but satisfying labor. Salem always performed the task with pleasure and Ajax seemed to really relish the sturdy scrubbing. The big Pokemon in question was now sprawled out unceremoniously on the bed that only barely fit him.
‘Let the big guy get his rest tonight for he’s going to be busy come morning,’ Salem thought tiredly. He probably wouldn’t last much longer himself.
His thoughts were interrupted by a soft knock on the door to his suite.
‘Ah right, the room service,’ Salem thought. He put a relaxed smile on his face, walked over and swung the door open.
