The broken sea of white.

A lone Trapinch stood at the top of a hill with nothing beside him but a blank canvas, and some pecha berry juice. He shifted his paintbrush between his teeth, trying to decide what it was he would draw. He could draw the wonderful view of the town that he had from up above on the hill, he could paint the lone tree that he was using to shade himself from the harsh summer sun, or even something as simple as the grass blowing in the breeze. "This is impossible!" Duster exclaimed angrily, to nobody in particular, "If I can't even decide what to draw, how am I supposed to be an artist?!". He clenched his jaw tighter,  growing ever more frustrated with the situation. Eventually, he clenched so hard, that one of his teeth chipped against the metal paintbrush, and caused an excruciating amount of pain to jolt throughout his entire body. He let out one more final yell before lying on the floor, defeated.

A blue jackal like pokemon that stood on two legs sighed in satisfaction when she saw the town of Grassviel, it was another hard day of finding items and she had found a rare mask at Furnance Peak that day. She was always glad to see the town after coming back, she owned an auction house there that she wanted to display her treasure on the makeshift stands on the inside of the small shack. She pretty much wanted to show off.
"This is impossible!" she heard, "If I can't even decide what to draw, how am I supposed to be an artist?!"
Kira had to admit, she was curious. The voice seemed to be coming from atop a hill on the opposite side of a tree. She utilized her Quick Attack to make it up to the top and peered around the tree to see a trapinch next to a canvas that seemed to be painting. Trapinch can paint? She wondered. The riolu made sure to keep quiet to watch and see what the trapinch would do because stalker mode activated.

"What am I doing...?" Duster said to himself, slowly getting up, "If I don't figure out what to paint, I'll never become an artist!". As if compelled by a sudden surge of energy, Duster adjusted his paintbrush, and swiftly dipped it into the jar of pecha berry juice, and aimed his weapon at the canvas, with a look of determination on his face.
"I... still have no idea what to paint" Duster sighed, and dropped the paintbrush from his jaw, letting the paint run off into the grass. He then lied down, and stared upward at the clouds, beginning to dream about better places. He began to dream that he would become a successful artist, and would meet the painter that set him along this road once again. And suddenly, he began to dream he was falling, falling and rolling. Shaking himself back to reality, he realized that he was in fact, falling and rolling. He rolled all the way to the bottom of the hill, and landed with his stomach facing the sky. Due to the huge size of his head, he often had trouble getting up, and today was no exception. He struggled for what seemed like hours for the small Trapinch, and then finally gave up. letting his limbs grow limp, and trying to hold back a single tear.

The riolu was surprised when the trapinch fell asleep and astonished that he had begun to roll down the hill! The riolu was clueless as to what to do, she had stopped hiding and ran to where the Trapinch used to be laying as she watched him roll down the hill humorously. She watched as the pokemon struggled to get up, thinking he would be able to do it on his own, but also watched as he failed and gave up. She decided to go down and help him, the hill was steep so she would probably have issues walking down it. She place one paw in front of the other and began to slide down, keeping her hand near the ground as she slid to keep herself from running into the Trapinch as she slid, "Need help?" she asked the seemingly stuck trapinch. She would not assist the trapinch if he had refused her help, she would simply watch as he struggled until the pokemon would accept her help. It wasn't often the riolu would offer help, but she was trying to change and be more friendly, so she forced herself.
Kira was slightly amused by the trapinch's antics though, it wasn't every day you see someone go rolling down a hill after all.

Duster wasn't about to turn down an offer to help him get up, getting up on his own usually took a great deal of effort on his part, but he was still in a foul mood. "You must think I'm an idiot." Duster mumbled, not looking the Riolu in the eyes "Falling down a hill, and then not being able to get up on my own..." He shifted his eyes toward the Riolu, and said "I'd love some help getting up though, you have no idea how difficult it is to get up for me." He said, laughing nervously. "Oh, I should probably tell you my name. I'm Duster, I'm a traveling painter. What's your name?" He finished, extending one of his small legs toward her.

"Nah...you fell asleep and couldn't help yourself..." The riolu helped the trapinch up using her foot to push him over instead of her paws, thinking it would be easier to push rather than pull. She listened as the pokemon with a large mouth for most of its head introduced itself as she watched him with a straight face that looked partially bored because of her habits in making herself appear annoyed and bored in the company of others. The orange creature asked her of her name and she thought for a bit as if debating whether to tell him or not, "Kira...I own an auction house down in Grassviel..." Kira had completely forgotten about the golden mask she held in her paws and dropped it, she quickly picked it back up in a bit of a panic as if she might have damaged the item.
(Sorry forgot to mention the golden mask |D)

Still struggling to regain his balance, even after he was right side up and on flat ground, Duster managed to get a "Thank you." out, before nearly falling over again. Although he was mostly looking down at the ground to balance himself, he still caught a glint of gold out of the corner of his eye. "What's that shiny thing you have?" Duster asked, tilting his head to the side a little "It looks awfully expensive, are you going to auction it off?" Suddenly, Dusters eyes shot wide open, as a great idea raced through his mind. "Umm, Kira was it?" Duster began, trying his best not to sound too excited, "I know it's a lot to ask, especially considering how you just helped me out a great deal, but I've been having trouble deciding what to paint, and your mask looks really amazing! I-If you don't mind, I-I'd really like to, you know, paint it?" Duster asked, feeling a little embarrassed that he has needed so much help from the Riolu.

"Arceus no!" Kira said as if astonished that the trapinch would even ask if she was going to auction it off, "This thing is a treasure, my first treasure. There's no WAY i'm going to auction it off, display only!" she huffed. She was a bit sour with the trapinch now, but she supposed that she couldn't blame the trapinch. Maybe the Golden Mask is more rare than I thought and pokemon don't even know about it... she thought. When Duster seemed to have been begging to paint it, she looked at her mask, and decided, "Why not?" She didn't mind having to help the trapinch, after all she was able to show off her treasure even more. Maybe he'll show the painting to other pokemon and tell about this time and mention that I have an auction house and they'll want to come and see it for themselves... The riolu thought deviously.

A huge grin spread its way across Duster's face when she agreed to let him paint it. "Really? Oh, thank you thank you thank you! You don't know how much this means to me!" Duster exclaimed, practically jumping up in glee, but almost losing his balance and falling down again in doing so. "But first, let's go paint somewhere a little more... Flat." Duster chuckled with a nervous grin. He walked the rest of the way down the hill, which wasn't that far, still going on feverishly about how grateful he was for Kira's help, but the second they reached the bottom of the hill, and Duster set up his painting materials again, he turned around to Kira and said "This is going to take a while, and I'm probably going to need to focus, sorry if I bore you." An hour or two passed, and he finished his painting. Duster stepped aside from the finished work for the Riolu to see it. It wasn't the best work, the Trapinch had clearly not been painting for too long, but it was clear that he put his heart into it. Duster turned to Kira, and with a grin on his face asked, "Whaddaya think?"

The riolu watched as the trapinch carefully painted each stroke, as time passed on the riolu had eventually fallen asleep, sitting cross legged and her elbow rested on her leg while her head balance on her paw as she slept. She was woken up when the trapinch had asked he what she thought of the work. Kira didn't know much about art or how to appreciate it or even why so she simply told the trapinch, "Looks great!" and pretended to be interested in it, "How did you make it look shiny?" she asked. She pointed at the parts where the sun had shone on the mask causing it to have its shiny look and the pokemon had painted that as well. Kira stood up to prevent herself from falling asleep and picked up her mask, she wished she had a bag or something to carry her stuff, it would be a lot easier.

"The shiny look? I just glossed it." Duster said, looking at his painting rather than Kira. He was obviously quite pleased with his work, and hearing the Riolu approve of it as well, just made him feel even better. He carefully took his sketchbook which contained the painting, and placed it in his pouch. "Darn, used up the last of my pecha berries. Gonna have to get some more later.." Duster mumbled under his breath, more to himself than Kira. When he looked back at the Riolu, he noticed she was struggling with carrying all of her items "Hey, if you'd like I can help you carry some of your stuff back with my pouch!" Duster said, signaling toward his pouch "After all, I just freed up some space in there, and it's the least I could to after you helped me out so much." He offered, with a smile. Sudenly, the Trapinch perked up again, as he suddenly remembered something. "Oh, and one more small thing to ask?" He started, sounding nervous again, "It'd be really cool if you could tell me the story behind this mask, paintings with a story are better than those without".

"No thanks, i'm fine, this is my only item," she spoke when the trapinch suggested holding her stuff for her. She didn't trust the trapinch enough to give him the golden mask, this was her treasure, and she went through what seemed to be hell to get it. She wasn't about to hand it off to just anybody. She planned on showing it off in her auction house, maybe making a partial museum out of it to attract customers so they would put their own items up in hopes of sale. She did have a fee for putting items up in her shop though, she had to have some kind of way to profit and live. When the trapinch asked about the story behind it she spoke giving only a summarized version to see if he was really interested and would beg for details, "I went up to Furnance Peak and fought off a strange litwik with a buizel for it."

Duster was visibly disappointed at how short the story that Kira had given him was, and even more disappointed that he couldn't somehow repay the many kindnesses that she had done for him. "W-Well there must be something I can do to return the favors! You've helped me out a lot, and I've only just met you!" Duster paused for a minute, thinking about what he just said. "I-I'm sorry, I don't mean to be force you into anything." Duster said, and then took a deep breath to regain his composure. "But, could you at least elaborate on your story a bit further? T-That is if you want to, you've already helped me so much..." Duster finished, not realizing how desperate he sounded.

Kira smiled, so he really was interested she thought before speaking, "Well, I walked into Scorchfall desert, met another riolu though not much had happened with him since he was a bit boring we just talked and fought off a few pokemon. Nothing special. Once I finally reached Furnance Peak I met a buizel named Tally, she helped me get the mask from this weird Litwik that was overly obsessed with the mask." Kira continued on about telling the tale of how she fought the Litwik with the help of the buizel, which was difficult for Kira since none of her moves had effected the litwik all being normal and fire moves. She told the trapinch of the firey snake that had enveloped her, and the litwik's strange habit of hissing and shouting, "My Precious"

Duster smiled when she finished telling her tale, he had been paying close attention the entire time, Duster was a bit of a sucker for stories. "I've never heard of anything like that!" He exclaimed with eyes wide in awe as he started to get up from his sitting position. "If you had to go through that much trouble to get the mask, then it must be worth a whole lot." He started to pack up his belongings, "And to think that the Buizel just let you keep the mask, they must've been been pretty nice." and when he was done he turned around to Kira and said, "So I guess this is goodbye, eh? I mean, you have no reason to stick around any longer, and you really had no reason to stick around here to begin with, other than to humor a foolish little Trapinch." He said, chuckling nervously. "I'll be sure to tell everyone the courageous tale of Kira. And I wouldn't mind if you told people about my paintings." The trapinch finished, smiling.