Enzu Meets the Dream Master

Enzu walked through the open streets of Rainfront town and looked around the quite town. Rainfront had not changed much in the year that he was away. Even though Enzu hadn't visited the town often he had a few memories of visiting it, and in almost all of them the town was just as quite as it was now. Enzu figured he would walk around until he found somebody to talk to for a short while. He wanted to let his muscles slowly come to a rest after his expedition with Akuroma at Pricklemist Hill. Luckily for him the distance between the two places was very short.

Today was a rather calm day in Rainfront, just like every other day. The yellow tapir that was Morpheus yawned as he made his way into town from the outskirts that was his home. He was taking a day off and leaving the shop to Kirie, not that there was many customers anyways. He suspected that it was because of the rather suspicious happening of him eating pokemon's dreams and forcing them asleep. It was necessary for the process, it was unknown what would occur if the tower were to remain untouched after forcing its own host out of it. Despite his growing deppression about his shop, there was a smile on his face as he greeted a few townsfolk, who stared at him nervously before continuing on their merry way. He was still a stranger to this town, he still was not quite accepted.

As Enzu continued to walk about aimlessly, he would pick up small parts of stray conversations of the natives. He wasn't specifically trying to eavesdrop, he would just happen to hear random parts of conversations. Most of the things he heard were about the calm weather in the town and how strange it was. Enzu knew that Rainfront was usually in a perpetual rainstorm, so he understood why the natives would be talking about the weather as much as they were. However there were some things that Enzu heard that knew nothing about. He heard the words "Dream Catcher" pretty often, and the villagers seemed to have a cautious tone about them, and the words were usually followed by suspicious, or dangerous. Enzu was intrigued and wanted to find out more about what they were talking about, but he didn't want to just join in on a random conversation.

Enzu then noticed a Drowzee that was walking through the town. He smiled at everyone he passed and was more cheerful then most people in Rainfront that Enzu had seen. Enzu figured that since the Drowzee seemed friendly, Enzu could ask him about whatever this "Dream Catche" was. Enzu continued walking and moved closer to the Drowzee, as he did so he held up his blade as a wave and said, "Hi there."

Morpheus was surprised to see a pokemon suddenly speak to him, but was happy to see it seemed somewhat friendly, "Why, hello!" he smiled. He wondered if this pokemon was new to town, the locals were still a bit too cautious of him to just up and speak to him like this, "Is there anything you need?" he asked, hoping to help this pokemon in any way he could. He began to wonder if Kirie got this reaction from the townfolk, and it was more of because he was a drowzee which evolved into a hypno and was known to steal away children. He hoped it was just him, he would not want to wish this kind of treatment upon Kirie.

Once Enzu was within talking distance of the Drowzee he stopped walking so that the two of them could have a conversation. "Not really, I just had a question," Enzu said. Then after a short pause he said, "So then I guess you could say I need an answer. I was just wondering if you knew anything about a 'Dream Catcher'?" Enzu looked around the town and noticed he was getting odd stares once he had started talking with the Drowzee. Ignoring the stares, Enzu elaborated more on his question, "I'm visiting the town and while I was walking around I've heard a lot of people mentioning this 'Dream Catcher' and I don't really know what it is. Do you think you could tell me about it?"

The drowzee grew excited when he heard the pawniard be interested in what a Dream Catcher was, "Dream Catcher is a job," the Drowzee wondered if he should not mention that it was a business he owned, but the thought was immediately chased away. He was going to be a good businessman, not the dirty kind that lie and cheat customers, "It's at a business I own called The Dream Catchers, its a job that only certain pokemon can qualify for and not just anybody can work there due to the nature of the business. My shop must be quite the town topic I guess!" the drowzee grinned as if he knew nothing of the rumors haunting the grounds being malicious. He began to wonder if the pokemon around here just were not kind to strangers and would warm up to him over time or if he was just doomed to be THAT guy that everyone hates for no good reason.

"Oh okay," Enzu said, he then started to wonder why most of the Town folk were cautious when mentioning such a thing. He doubted that the business would be that harmful, and this Drowzee seemed to be nice enough. "So what exactly do you do at Dream Catchers?" he asked.

This is where Morpheus began to grow uncomfortable, but he did not allow it to show, due to pokemon usually flinching when they hear about having to be put to sleep. He spoke anyways, "Well, we allow our customers to reach moves from long ago in their heritage. We send you to sleep and I construct a tower in your dreams, we then climb the tower and if we make it you can reclaim a move from deep within your ancestry. A dream catcher must assist you in your journey through the tower, and if things go bad I will be notified by Kirie, my assistant ralts, and I'll destroy the dream by eating it, it sounds a bit bad, but leaving the tower untouched after being forced out of it can have disastrous and unpredictable results. The entire process is completely safe though!"

"Wow that sounds interesting," Enzu said. He did not know that was even possible. He considered the possibilities of utilizing a service such as this. However Enzu was not sure about what moves he could possibly gain from the experience. Just then Enzu realized that he had forgotten something very important, "Oh, I'm sorry, how rude of me. I never introduced myself. My name is Enzu," he said.

"No, no, i'm the rude one, I haven't even introduced myself yet, I'm Morpheus. As I've already stated before, I'm the owner of the Dream Catchers. We've only recently just moved into Rainfront here," The drowzee waved off the steel pawn's apology to claim it as his own fault, not wanting the pawniard to feel uncomfortable. It was obvious the pawniard was new to the area, or at least had not been around here for a long time, so it would be rude to make him feel such a way.
"My father spent a lot of his time studying the Dream Tower, and he passed his business down to me." The Drowzee explained to the Pawniard, leaving out how his father had also given up on his life's work once a rumor began to spread around their previous village.

"Ah, well its nice to meet you Morpheus," Enzu said with a smile. When Morpheus had said that ownership of the shop and its practice was passed on to him by his father, Enzu felt a sort of connection with him because he had been through something similar. "Oh I see," Enzu said, "I went through something similar, my father used to run a dojo and when he passed I inherited it and the business along with it." Enzu didn't mention that he no longer ran the dojo, he would if Morpheus would ask, but until then he was not planning on mentioning it.

"Oh...sorry to hear about that, my father did not exactly pass on. It was more of a retirement than anything," the Drowzee explained. He ignored the odd glances he was getting from some of the townsfolk, who otherwise went about their business as usual now that it seemed the town was becoming a bit busier and taking advantage of the calm weather.
Morpheus remembered much about his father, how he had been completely obsessed with his work and how his mother had left him with his father out of sheer frustration that he did not spend time with her or Morpheus anymore and instead kept his nose in the books and occasionally practiced his learnings on Morpheus's mind.

"It's fine," Enzu said, "It was untimely but he was satisfied with his life, and he felt confident that I would be able to run the dojo properly." Enzu thought about the training session he had with his father. Most of the required Enzu to take more of a teacher role, rather then a student. "So how often do you enter into people's dream tower?" Enzu asked, he really was interested in Morpheus's business.

"Not much, we've only had one customer so far. Pokemon seem to think that while in the dreams memories they don't want replayed to them or others to know about is laid out to us for blackmailing, but that's actually not the case. My father found out that the tower is built off of things you've seen in the past or what your personality is like. I seem to be experiencing the same issue my father did back at my old village, but the business died by no normal means," the drowzee explained, "The customer did not get very far in the tower, so its difficult to get positive feedback when you can't guarantee success, but my business also assist pokemon with Insomnia and to help pokemon lucid dream to help themselves get over things like fear without putting themselves in actual danger."

"Oh, well I'm sorry to hear that your business is not doing so well," Enzu said, "Hopefully it will pick up. The process sounds very intriguing to me, however I'm sorry to say that I currently don't have a need for it. However, I am going to be making an expedition soon the Black Mist Mountain as a way to test my skills. And depending on how it goes, I may just come back for a session."