[ let's get down to business ]
----------She skirted from the door to the counter with a sort of invigorated diligence. Rina's working manner had her go strictly from Point A to Point B; the peat-green lanterns were junked and gone, it was now time to hang the not-peat-green lanterns. Practicality in its simplest state, she was assured. For Rina's sake—her uneased nervousness' sake—, she thought it best to assume the job at hand had been committed to her recently. The project corner appeared mostly barren, after all. The clock face just behind the front counter, the Chimecho would have not the scarcest idea of how to read it anyways.
"It is best to assume best and to not assume worst."
----------Rina began to rashly weigh two other opposing options: take the lanterns' box with her or go back for sequential tailfuls? Engulfed in get-
murde-done mode—as well as talk-Spirit-talk mode as well, apparently—the Chimecho regarded potentially moving back-and-forth from counter to corner with much disdain. Bringing the box along would minimize working time for an already-delayed duty but Rina had already dragged the cardboard box off onto the floor when that prospect came to mind. She knew she was too light and small to actually carry it so, first, she scooped in the lanterns that had scattered before tipping the entire carton onto its side and hauling it over whilst gripping the opening to the site of decor.
----------The little Chimecho had found herself in an unbeknownst state of isolation to the other going-ons strewn throughout Forget-Me-Not. One concerned her, the other did not. In earnest truth, Rina felt a twinge of regret as regards to her behavior with the surly surveyor in the baseball cap. It was a feeling she would not have felt otherwise, but her departure left a looming feeling of distaste. Before she had shut the front door and fled, there had been a period of silence as the power figure just… stood, as if truly interpreting what had happened. But then the wind chime thought she herself had interpreted movement, a large, crushing footstep as the mandator fully realized the
barbarism in Rina's ways and began to
come for her! ...she concluded it could be nothing more than a fantasy, though. The beast was beyond the enclosure and Amaryllis was handling him as a proper business owner should have been. She would come in and
not chastise Rina but instead look upon the Chimecho rightfully doing her job, nod approvingly, preferably give the girl a bit of favor as she had Spora, and go about being bossy and obsessing over tea, etcetera.
(Truly, Rina had grown vindictive towards the Florges to the point where even she was becoming self-aware of it.)
----------But earnestly, no matter how hard Proactive, Hardworking Rina sought to quash her "fantasy" with "the logical truth", a part of the Chimecho still gasped in warning:
'Watch behind you! The guard is going to come and get you!' She was finally beginning to settle into work, but even then, she was anxious with this 'gut feeling'. She shot a a desperate look over at the project corner, trying her best to stifle the 'gut feeling' and start playing the role as the store's responsible worker. Sadly, it seemed Rina's personal reflection had only invited more stress to pile, for Amaryllis and the big "bear" weren't the only ones out alone on the streets. There was the "suspicious Pokemon" to still feel antsy about, the subject of interrogation who really could have been anywhere. Logically, Rina had no real reason to fear if she had never spotted such a figure, nor was able to spontaneously predict where they could be. Yet, at the same time, her 'gut feeling' flared and the Chimecho flinched, overtaken momentarily by a stomach cramp at the sheer, paranoiac thought of,
What if they're behind the bend as we speak?
----------Her 'gut feeling' had taken a painful turn; there really was no better term to describe the sensation, a reluctant part of who she was. There had always been a glowing stigma affixed to Psychic-types, labeling them as
geniuses by default. It was more a domestic way of thinking than anything; Pokemon borrowed the affinity for mind-bogglingly brainy Alakazam and super-conscious cutie Meowstic from the Trainers that had looked after them. They were naturally
perceptive,
naturally talented,
naturally sagacious and
prominent. They should be expected to take on twice the responsibilities as other not-as-smart Pokemon because it all just came naturally to them without them even realizing it! Hahaha; the speaker would then laugh and grin, despite them personally taking such a preposterous assumption entirely seriously. The worst, soul-crushing thing about the whole stereotype was that it held actual ground. Most Psychic-types did have that natural prophesying potential, but Rina never thought herself to be a "Psychic". She thought herself to be a Chimecho.
----------In other, lesser words, Rina sought to ignore the stomach pains and more-or-less a bit of self-disdain in order to concentrate on lantern-hanging. The vague memory of Amaryllis' even vaguer instructions welded with Rina's latent desire to tend to the project space. Its vacancy immediately caught her eye, especially since the necessity of it being adorned—expressed too strongly to be forgotten, rather than the loosely-given task—had been quick to catch her undevoted attention earlier that morning. Already it felt as if that exchange had been ages ago.
----------Her stomach cramped again.
'Ow.'
----------Thus, the Chimecho set to work with the box right behind her. She didn't place much thought into the task at first. From the top of the pile, she snatched up the first paper lantern of a more attractive green shade, drifted up and pinned it to the ceiling. Rina rushed down to grab another one. Peculiarly, it was… purple.
Hmm. It drove the Chimecho to think. If she were to consider the color green on its own, she would have hardly considered purple a fitting 'match', so to speak. Not to say purple and green couldn't fit well together—perhaps if one altered the hue, made the purple particularly less saturated—but it would take a careful arrangement to really have the lanterns 'fit' as they were.
----------'Get-
murde-done' Rina, in all her Spirit-talk-term-inspired glory, was interrupted by a spark of creativity. Inspired, the crafty Chimecho took to taking a closer look inside the lantern box. Digging through, she found a paler shade of purple, a lavender that fared much better with the pastel green she'd hastily fished out moments before. There were multiple dark purples, pale purples, pale greens, even a gorgeous pink shade that Rina immediately deemed her favorite. Digging even deeper led to the discovery of a single midnight-blue lantern, heaved out from the very bottom, causing the rest of the decoratives to spill onto the tile and for Rina to "stumble" backwards. The lucky find, a beautiful thing, (though she was still partial to the pink lanterns) mostly due to its rarity.
'This will be most certain the centerpiece—ow!' More cramping. Rina took a deep breath before proceeding.
----------In a few minutes time—it was more a meticulous process than it was a long one—, the ceiling over the project area became beautified. The midnight-blue lantern hung over what Rina roughly estimated was the center of the corner. It was surrounded closely by a ring of purple, itself circled with an intertwined ring of pink and green; Rina was surprised herself by how well the two colors matched. The 'display' on its own she thought unsurpassable… for a moment's time. On closer inspection, through "narrowed eyes", (they felt narrowed in her own mind; in reality, she was just staring, as per usual) the working 'mon could only conclude with regret that the lanterns were far too close together. The Chimecho had been provided a number to hang and they all were twirling above her now, minus the three that lay at her feet. She had been in the middle of tidying them with her tail, placing them back where they belonged, but let the one she had grasped fall back down with frustration. That and stomach pain.
'Ow, ow, ow.
----------"Uuuuugh." And for that matter, what sense did it make to have put them all in one finite spot in the first place? Based on the quantity and based on what Rina had picked up about Amaryllis' nature, the boss wanted those lanterns everywhere, a colorful mess on her crusty canvas of a store ceiling. Rina couldn't complain. Rather a lively carousel of color than something all smashed and clustered together, like a Zigzagoon's hoarding hollow.
----------"Back again to the work 'as is usual', like they say," the Chimecho sighed aloud before drifting off again, returning to the store floor with a few of the paper decoratives in tow. The front door opened but she ignored it as the little light worker took to rearranging her little lantern show in a flustered sense.
and perhaps see whatever it was they were working on. Still, that was rather risky. What if he was spotted even in the darkness? Or ended up attracting the attention of Gorro? Well, perhaps he could try another method?
