Print

[Deck of Cards]

Hari followed Dyna, leaving Dalton and the others to follow.  So far, she seems like a better leader than Raphael, but it’s mostly from first impressions.   He looked around and saw nothing more than child level Digimon and a couple of small huts with the occasional big ones.  The small ones he assumed was for living, but what of the big ones?  As tempted as he is to look, Hari would rather not cause the entire village to turn on them.  If someone else do it, at least he’ll avoid being yelled at.

He looked at some of the weird behaviors the Digimon were showing and their glares.  Louisa asked the question of whether they are welcome or not. 

“Based on some of their behavior, I agree.”   Hari’s voice is near a whisper.  Actually, Hari started to wonder if any outsiders are allowed in here at all.

[Qu33n0f1c3]

"No, not really," Raphael replied, looking at Louisa and Hari curiously. "They're wary of us, is all. I mean, what digimon wouldn't be? We're kind of infamous as a species."

Raphael advanced a bit ahead. Some of the digimon darted away. Some of the more courageous ones stood their ground, and continued to hold their suspicious gazes.

"Hello there, friends," Raphael said, smiling slightly.

[Speedy]

"..It makes me kind of wonder why our village never said anything.." The Monodramon spoke up. Mono had heard most of what was said, and immediately started thinking about.. well, as long as he could remember, everyone was always kind towards Datan, and not fearing him at all.. Maybe it was because it was just one kid..?

"Whatever the reason, they probably had a good one. Let's not worry about it, Mono." Datan replied. "Or maybe they just really didn't know. We did live in a bit of a secluded village.." "But what about the traders coming in and out?" Mono immediately replied. "I haven't recalled any of them ever seeing me, so maybe the subject of Enesmon never came up." Mono sighed. Datan was back to his confident, happy self, wasn't he.. But Mono.. he had his doubts. He didn't realize how much it impacted him before, but realizing there was.. He shook his head.

Datan simply walked on behind the rest of the group. "I guess they don't like us, huh. I wonder why.. what makes our race that infamous..?"

[Aether Engine]

Dyna crossed her arms, grunting affirmatively at Louisa's question and Hari's words. The looks they were recieving from the village digimon certainly did not scream sunshine and lollipops, that was for sure. Hearing Datan and Mono continue to speak, Dyna shifted her attention onto them for a moment, a bit curious about hearing more of the enesmon who did not know his race. She thought to answer, but felt more concerned with dealing with the villagers. With Raphael stepping forward and making his presense known, some of the digimon moving out of the way, some and sighing and groaning at the sight of enesmon intruding into their routine, Dyna looked to him, her eyes half closed in her intense look at him. Just how throughly had he investigated this place?

“A bunch of enesmon in one spot. Surely this must be a good thing.” one of the Betamon sardonically observed at a distance.

One of the braver digimon, a Gizamon looked up at Raphael and started to speak his own.

“'Friend' is used for those you know, enesmon. Wouldn't use it so quickly if I were you.” the Gizamon advised. He was clearly impatient. “What business do you lot have here, anyway?”

[Alison]

With Hari and then Raphael agreeing with her, Louisa felt generally pleased. Especially with the latter.

"Can't argue there," she replied to them both before her attention turned to Datan. Oh boy now that was an awkward question. There wasn't going to be an easy way to answer it, not that she actually wanted to answer it. She felt he deserved an answer, but was now the right time?

She heard one of the Betamon and Gazimon speak, but she paid them no heed. Raphael had been the one to speak to them, so she wasn't going to stick her nose in.

"Uh well," she replied to the boy carefully. "It sort of links back to what you were told earlier about how we get our Digimon forms. Remember how your face dropped? Some Digimon fear us for it. Some simply don't like how we go about things. It depends. Maybe we should talk about it a little more later? We don't know what's going to happen here yet."

[Qu33n0f1c3]

Raphael smiled, quietly taking in both the positive greeting, and the less positive one. "Fair enough," he stated calmly, bowing his head slightly to the gizamon.

"We are simply passing through, though it would be a lie for me to state that we have no business to attend to." Raphael straightened himself out, and glanced to the rest of his comrades.

"We've come from the convention, where we heard rumor that there is trouble brewing across the land. We're simply searching for leads, though that isn't to say we suspect your wonderful village of dastardly doings. Not at all! We simply need a place to stay, perhaps a digimon or two to interview, and we'll be on our way, if our presence is a bother for your people."

[blueRena]

Sasha had hung back, bringing up the rear of the group. At the wary glances from the villagers, she found herself starting to give them right back until she remembered that they were supposed to be here to help. And Raphael was trying to be pleasant and talk with the villagers. He'd even called them "friends." So, Sasha definitely needed to drop her own looks and try to be more... welcoming.

Datan and Mono were talking, asking questions that Sasha knew the kid would probably regret asking later. Later, when he actually found out the answer. Sasha did not want to be the one to answer Datan, so she kept her mouth shut. Besides, the whole villager situation was a higher priority. And a Betamon and Gazimon had spoken up. She had also noticed Louisa had started explaining the answer to Datan's question, which, hey, if Louisa wanted to tackle that, fine by Sasha.

She remained silent as Raphael talked with the villagers. Mostly because she knew if she did talk, she would say something stupid and probably blow their chances at actually getting a place to stay. And she wanted for them to actually land a place to stay. So she just stood there, trying to avoid looking at the villagers because she would start giving them looks again and that wouldn't help either.

[Aether Engine]

Dyna glanced black at the rest of the group, since Raphael at least seemed to be handling things smoothly. She nodded to Louisa and Datan, agreeing that it would likely be best to save this talk until they had the moment out of the way. Dyna then noted Sasha bringing up the rear, also staying silent. Looking around, she noticed some more villager digimon pausing and watching as they did their business.

The Gizamon sighed, drawing Dyna's attention back to him.

“Yeah, sure, fine. Just don't make trouble or harass anyone who doesn't wanna talk and you'll be fine,” he gestured to one of the huts, “We got a hostel for travellers over there. It ain't free though, we're not in the position to be charitable.”

Paying for a place to sleep... it always irritated Dyna to have to do that.

“How much will it cost?” she cut in.

“Depends,” said the same Betamon as before, “What do you got?”

Dyna scowled. How much were these digimon hoping to squeeze out of them?

[Alison]

Giving a final smile to Datan and Mono, Louisa turned her attention back to the business in hand. If things did start to fly then she needed to be ready to fly herself. Should would need to change into her Piyomon form. Once again Raphael was being smooth with his talking and she was rather impressed. She had to admit, only to herself of course. She doubted he would care after what he'd said earlier. Plus this wasn't even the time.

As the Gizamon spoke, Louisa twitched. She was starting to feel annoyed with this place. They wanted to be paid an unidentified amount to stay here for the night? With a slight frown she pondered. So they were not in a position to be charitable? It wasn't like they had asked them to be. But at least it paved the way to see if there was anything wrong around here.

"Well I don't have a whole lot to offer," she told them. She couldn't speak for the others. "But you said you're not in a position to be charitable right?" she questioned, not showing any hint of the irritation she was feeling. "Did something happen here?"

[Speedy]

Datan thought about what Louisa said.. It made sense, didn't it.. It made him wonder if there were Enesmon who had killed for the sole intent and purpose of getting an alternate form.. His stomach churned at the thought. Yeah, okay.. so Digimon fought. He had fought. Just small little fights where most everyone was just kidding around and if someone accidentally got wounded or ended up with a black eye, there was always a tree around to blame for it.

He was prepared to fight if needed. He wasn't sure how well he'd stand up against a larger Digimon.. His ass got kicked plenty of times by the larger Greymon.. But if there was truly a need, he'd fight tooth and nail to defend himself..

But to kill?

He shook his head, and realized that Raphael had been talking to some of the Digimon around.. as did the new woman, apparantly. He noticed Louisa's smile towards him, and he tried to give a smile back, but found it rather difficult to do, considering the thoughts still floating around his mind..

Datan turned his head towards Mono, as he suddenly spoke up. "Datan and I don't really have anything in the 'worth anything' section either. Well-prepared for travel wasn't in our dictionary when we decided to head out.." The Monodramon tried to smile a bit after his silly joke, but noticed the distraught facial expression on his friend's face as he turned around.. and any intention of smiling was cast off.

He turned away.. and didn't know what to do. They'd been friends for so long, but even now, Mono realized that it just wasn't going to work this way. This entire day had been one confusing as heck, unsatisfying yet extremely informative day. They knew they were completely different, but once Datan was officially described as 'Enesmon', everything just seemed to have changed.

[Qu33n0f1c3]

Raphael fell silent while the digimon responded, stating there was a hostel in the village, but it wouldn't be free. He said that it would cost them, and the way he said it sounded like it was going to be a pretty penny to boot.

Curious, Raphael thought, eying the digimon warily. How could it describe the lodging as a hostel, then ask greedily how much they'd pay?

Raphael put his head in his hand as Louisa asked a really stupid, really blunt question. Leave it to her to be stupid and headstrong and throw away everything they were hoping to work toward covertly.

Ignoring the child for a moment, Raphael said softly behind Louisa, "All he means is that lodging isn't free, hon. I think you're reading a bit too far into things. You'd be hard pressed to find many a place that does give free lodge."

Moving to stand nearby Datan, hoping to give the boy some sort of assurance that it was okay he didn't have any money, Raphael said, "We'd gladly rent rooms, but I'm afraid I can only spend so much. If you're asking price is high, we'll have to make due sleeping under the stars. We need to make our funds last throughout our journey, you see. Surely you understand."

And any business was good business, right? If they were hard pressed for guests, they should accept any sort of payment. They wouldn't be making any money at all if they passed up a few customers for being light in the coin purse.

[Aether Engine]

Dyna briefly considered Louisa's thought, but her attention was mostly held by her flash of anger from what the Betamon said. As everyone said their peace, their state was made clear. They had little in funds, and could easily sleep under the stars. Dyna might have prefered that actually, and grunted affirmatively at Raphael's comment.

“Now—now wait a second!” the Gizamon spoke up before gesturing to the Betaman next to him, “My friend can just be a little insistant at times. We're not asking for an arm and a leg. In fact, go ahead and stay the night, and pay for however much you think it was worth. We just ask that we get something, any amount.”

The Betamon looked a bit peeved at first, but put on a look on begruding acceptance, looking to the ground. Dyna crossed her arms, leering at the Gizamon.

“Any amount?” she asked.

“Any amount, whatever you have to spare, we'll take it,” the digimon sighed defeatedly.

[Alison]

From the sounds of things, it seemed as if Datan and Mono was in the same situation as herself, well close enough. She had the contents of her basket, sure that wouldn't last forever but it was enough for a shortish journey. Yet this was not going to be short.

As Raphel spoke to her, Louisa folded her arms and gave him a glance. She had not expected free lodgins from the town, but she didn't expect to be charged a packet either. She kept quiet while Raphael took over. While it would be nice to have a bed for the night, but it wasn't like she hadn't slept outside before.

Her gaze then went back to their potential hosts. She wasn't impressed but her gaze soon started to change as the Gizamon appeared to be over-riding the Betamon. Well this was interesting and caused a slight grin to come to Louisa's face. The girls arms unfolded as Dyna questioned the any amount. Well that indeed was better, MUCH better.

"Thank you," the woman nodded her head towards the two Digimon, feeling towards where her coin purse was situated before looking to the other Enesmon. To save money they could share rooms, but how would that go down? Well there was one way to find out.

"Say," she mused. "In order to save a little money, maybe...we should share rooms where possible?"

[Qu33n0f1c3]

Raphael silently held his breath, awaiting what the Gizamon had to say in response. He released it slowly, and smiled. It was a generous offer, one Raphael almost felt bad about accepting. To give whatever they thought the stay was worth . . . They could royally screw the digimon if they chose to.

"Excuse us a moment," Raphael said to the digimon. "We must discuss the matter in private."

Smiling gingerly, Raphael put an arm around the backs of Dyna and Louisa and guided them a few feet away, where the digimon could not over here. He chose to leave Datan where he was. He was so young he likely wouldn't have say in the discussion anyway. And after all, he had Mono to keep him safe if the digimon tried anything.

"It sounds like these guys are roughing some hard times," Raphael said lowly, glancing first at Dyna, then at Louisa. "They're desperate for patronage. I'd bet they don't have a single occupied room. And with their proposition, for us to pay whatever we see fit, I'm not sure it would be necessary to share rooms, at least not for the sake of saving money."

Raphael glanced over his shoulder. "Of course, it may be wise for someone to room with the young boy, to make sure he's all right away from his home, but I'm not sure I'm comfortable going out of my way to try and save funds when it'd just turn us into the ones trying to rip them off."

[Aether Engine]

“Private? Oh, uh, of course. Please, take your time,” the Gizamon said as the trio went off to a spot where other digimon could not eavesdrop.

Dyna was unpleasantly suprised by Raphael's sudden contact, squirming a bit. She had already been pulled over enough by the time they stopped though. When they did, she threw Raphael's arm off, glaring at him. She listened as he went on, but her narrowed eyes showed her displeasure clearly. She humored being this close to talk quietly, but it still felt uncomfortable.

“First, don't touch me again,” she hissed, “If they didn't want things turned on them, they shouldn't have been so greedy with their first 'offer'.  As for the boy...”

Dyna glanced to Datan. The enesmon boy who had only known living among digimon until this day... Dyna's expression softened some.

“Yes, perhaps him and his friend will need someone to watch them,” she agreed, though she still maintained the air of offense and annoyance she had spoken with in her former points.