Remember to Water Your Plants [Halloween 2019]

Halloween. Celebrations. Loud. As if it wasn't bad enough that the Steamrise bar was the only one for miles in this area, now there were parties attracting loads more people than Cecíl had ever planned on handling around her. It was very hard to drink alone when there were copious amounts of people surrounding her, talking loudly, all acting like fools (without even drinking anything, in some cases!) in hopes of winning some kind of prize that ultimately didn't matter at all.

And the worst part? Chiyako and Iva were making her participate, too.

Granted, Cecíl was only participating as much as she absolutely had to in order to still be allowed at the bar. She had a costume- aka some hay, iron thorns, charcoal, and dirt stapled haphazardly to her- and she was being as in-character as possible. Dolls didn't talk, after all. And if anybody tried, or poked her in the wrong way, she would definitely start spewing curses. It had made Chiyako laugh, at least. It had also served it's purpose. Cecíl was now nursing a cup of the strongest, hardest honey-based fermented beverage the Inn had to offer, and that was enough to at least keep her ravings against the holiday in her head.

It sounded like Chiyako was trying to start a drinking event a few seats down from Cecíl. The large plant, meanwhile, did her best to avoid it and all the brainless people it attracted.

Ah, Halloween! What a fantastic celebration! With all the dressing up, goofing around and forking down heaps of sweets, it was easily Leander's favourite annual event. Best of all, though, it let you scare others. On no other day of the year could he pull more spooky pranks (except for maybe April Fools, but... actually doing something scary on that day often warranted him some poor reactions, so he usually refrained from doing that). This year was no exception, and with the Steamrise Inn filled to the brim with visitors, there were many scares waiting to happen.

The Seedot himself stood completely still beside a vase filled with appropriately orange-coloured flowers. His eyes were closed, which perhaps was a bit usual for someone seeking a victim for their Halloween antics. The thing was, he was not looking for someone as much as he was waiting for someone to take a look at him. This year, he was a jack-o-lantern. And he was not just dressed up as one, mind you; by standing still, closing his eyes and letting the darkness of the hollowed pumpkin shroud him, he pretended to be one of the Inn's actual decorations.

That was, until he could hear the footsteps of yet another curious visitor closing in. Just now, he was glad he had no visible mouth. Subduing his own smirk would have been impossible. The sounds of footsteps stopped, and he could feel the air shift from the other pokémon occupying space near him. He gave them a few moments to stare, before opening his eyes both to behold his newest victim and let them know that he was, in fact, alive.

"Oh? Hey Monda, there's another pumpkin here. Though it looks kinda wei- aaAAAAAAHH!"
What stood before him was a Deerling, whose scream was soon followed up by laughter coming from a Ponyta a few meters behind her. The fawn joined her friend in laughing soon after she realized what had happened, and the two walked off afterwards, the Deerling calling out a quick
"Nice costume!" before they vanished into the crowd. Leander had almost laughed too loudly himself to hear it.


Yet again, the nut was left on his own, still giggling a little as he recalled the face that Deerling had made. He had scared many pokémon the same way since he had arrived. Keeping his eyes open, he looked around the room, wondering if it perhaps was time to check out the rest of the party. After all, he wouldn't get to celebrate properly if all he did was sit around and pretend to be inanimate all night long.

The very next moment, Cecíl nearly spat out 60 poke's worth of her good drink as somebody's shrill shrik rose over the din of the crowd and ripped through her auditory processing with a high enough hertz measurement to make her entire field of vision go blurry. "Chrissakes??" she gasped as the shock made her whole body freeze up for a moment. Shock quickly melted into annoyance as she leaned over her chair to try and identify the perpetrator of the offending noise. At this point, Cecíl had grown used to people making ridiculous noises for the sake of their precious "costumes," but real screams like that were mostly contained within he deeper halls of the estate, for attractions like the "haunted basement tour" and the "courtyard hay maze" which she had stolen most of her costume from. Whatever had caused a comparable outburst within the cozy, cushy main hall was either truly horrifying, or a bar fight.

All Cecíl could make out through the crowd, however, was a single pumpkin.

...

She told herself that she didn't really care what this was all about as she hefted herself from her stool, drink in hand, and that she was just going to admire whatever little slight of hand trick the staff had come up with to scare people. Since she had apparently missed it coming in here. By the time she reached the pumpkin, however, she was much more invested than she was willing to admit as the pumpkin continued to be just a pumpkin in her eyes. It was a pretty standard carving too.

"What the hell... they didn't even put a candle in," she muttered to herself as she reached for the top of the pumpkin, considering the idea that maybe there was a candle inside that just needed to be lit. When she lifted the pumpkin's stem, however, she was not met with an unlit candle. She was met with a whole fucking pokemon's body.

Cecíl immediately dropped the lid (but not her drink. always save the drink) back onto the pumpkin, like suddenly it was alive and trying to eat her hand. "Fucks sake- that's so morbid," she gasped, though she wasn't so much disgusted as she was... kind of impressed.

He'd heard the Inn had several attractions this year. Maybe he could visit one of those? Or maybe join in on whatever that cheery crowd near a Purrloin by the bar counter was doing. Either way, he wanted to go do something a bit more social than what he'd been doing so far. Just as he was about to start heading for the counter, however, another pokémon seemed to be approaching him. Alright, maybe he had time for just one more scare... He closed his eyes again.

"What the hell... they didn't even put a candle in."

Leander could barely contain his laughter. Oh, how he'd surprise her!

Except unlike the ones before her, this Lilligant did not just linger to gawk at the Inn's new 'decoration'. The moment before he was ready to do a hop and a shriek to end his share of scares for the night spectacularly, his immediate surroundings suddenly became much brighter. And he did get to do his shriek. But it was much less voluntary than he had planned, and almost a bit embarrassing considering how high-pitched it had been. It ended abruptly as the lid was thrown back on, leaving the disguised nut completely silent for a few moments even after the Lilligant had finished speaking.

After his little nut brain had finished processing it all, however, he began to laugh. It was a quiet one at first, but it quickly escalated into a hearty guffaw.

"So that's what it's like! A good spookin'!" he cheered, remnants of the last laugh still evident in his voice. After shaking his body and the costume a little to make sure the lid sat properly in its place, he tilted the whole pumpkin up in order to allow himself to look at the bold lady.
"You're the first one to do that tonight, y'know?"

Oh... oh, the body inside the pumpkin was still alive. That... that made more sense. It was almost a little disappointing. It was a good thing that the managers hadn’t fully snapped and started stuffing plant Pokémon corpses into the spooky decorations, yes... but honestly that wouldn’t have been enough to deter Cecíl from visiting the bar or anything. She was just amazed that for a moment, the prospect of it happening was actually really real.

With her mental processes currently dulled, she wasn’t really in a hurry to stand back up. She just stared at the Pokémon in the pumpkin through his eye holes and took another contemplative sip of her drink. She hadn’t seen him around before, and the way he was talking... oh he wasn’t a staff member or anything. She was pretty confident in assuming he was just a guy. “Oh... yeah, I get it now. This is your costume,” she mumbled, mostly to herself. She had to commend the dedication to being a public nuisance that this guy held. Most of the other pokemon here were witches, ghosts, things that gave them excuses to act like idiots... this guy was using his an excuse to scare the living daylights out of those who weren’t suspecting that. As annoying as it was when it was aimed at her, she respected it.

“Ain’t had a taste of your own medicine yet, huh? Not sure what you expected when you picked something so innocuous, though,” Cecíl responded. “Does the job real well, though. Nice to see someone trying a costume that isn’t an excuse to just scream ‘bleh’ at random people. You’ve probably got the most enjoyable concept I’ve encountered all night.” She heaved herself you off the ground now, but as she did... she forgot how she had planned to exit the conversation. Damn, were the drinks already getting to her? What was the point of this useless bigger evolution she triggered if it didn’t increase her tolerance at all???

Well, uh...... “...You just gonna do your thing in this corner all night?” was all she could think to ask. Maybe it would lead to some kind of appropriate ejection segue.

The Seedot tipped his body forward in a polite bow as his costume was complimented, throwing in a "Thank you, thank you" while he did so. Hers was not bad either; the shiny colouring looked particularly convincing to him, even if he did not get how it was relevant to the rest of the costume. She almost seemed to be glittering for real, though, so it was impressive nonetheless. However, the nails and hay were what really brought the whole voodoo vibe home. They turned the usually pretty and cutesy look of a Lilligant into a more decrepit, eerie one. All in all, she was a pretty good shiny Lilligant doll.

His mind hopped back on the track it had been on earlier as she asked if he was going to keep this up all night. Right, he had been looking for something to do! "Actually, I was just about to go do something else before you came here. Be social, y'know? I just couldn't help but try to scare one last 'mon before heading off, kakaka... Was thinking of maybe joining that crowd over there-" He turned his body, trying his very best to point at the counter where several pokémon had gathered earlier, despite lacking the limbs to properly do so. There were less pokémon there now, so it was easier to discern what they were doing now than it had been earlier. "-the one where they're drinking or something."

Despite him living in Rainfront, it occurred to him that he had never come here for a drink before. Whenever he did come by, it was always just quick trip to grab some pastries for when he felt like having something sweet. Probably because he rarely had someone to drink with, and drinking alone just seemed sad to him. Checking out their selection now that there were plenty of pokémon around to party with seemed more appealing to him than waiting till the Inn got more modest again after spooky season had finished. After stating his intention to the other grass-type, his gaze went blank for a couple of moments, his brain seeming to be turning a few cogs as an idea crept in.

"Hey, how about you? You should come along if you're here all alone," he chirped, oblivious to the Lilligant wanting out of the conversation.

“Ha, ha,” Cecíl responded flatly, trying not to draw any more attention to her embarrassing pumpkin-fright topple. She didn’t really have anything more to say about it honestly. On the topic of fun things to do, though... “ You could do worse than Chiyako’s drinking games if you want to socialize. Just be warned: she can be pretty ruthless sometimes, in case you’re a lightweight.” She chose you make no mention of what might make her think he was a lightweight outright, because it was probably obvious.

Oh, hey, this was prime ejection material. The bar was in the direction both of them wanted to go now- she could take her seat again and just let the conversation die naturally. “ I’m gonna go back too, yeah. I need to get back to my stool before it gets stolen. Chairs are kind of prime real estate right now, for obvious reasons.” She took another swing of her drink as she turned on her heels to-

-Damn it to hell. Her seat was already gone.

Well, so much for that plan. “...Just kidding, it’s already gone. Heck with it. The drinks are cheaper when there’s a game going on, anyways...” Cecíl made little attempt to hide the frustration in her voice, though she felt a little self-concious when she realized that she was now going to be hanging around the seedot whether she liked it or not. This only made her crankier, but this time she chose to repress it. “ ...Lead the way.”

At the bar, the bartender had several small glasses full of a bright orange liquid lined up in front of all the pokemon lined up at the counter. Two more were added as Cecíl and Lea joined the group, the deep red feline nodding her head at he large plant and smiling. “Cecíl,” she said, “Nice to see you branching out a little bit for once. I know how much you take pride in being a hermit.”

Cecíl let out a grunt in response. “Hrmmph. Let’s just get to the part where you try and fail to curb my tab.”

The bartender grinned coyly, and then gestured to the crowd. “AaaaLRIGHT, you all know the name of the game- Piggyback! Or as I like to call it: living vicariously through everyone else. I’ll ask someone a question about something to do or see, or something about them that they like, and they answer. Once they’ve answered, we turn to everyone else. If you’ve done it too- you get a treat! If you haven’t, you take your drink. Let’s see what kind of shenanigans you’ve gotten into...” She pointed a paw out towards the crowd in a sweeping gesture, before finally settling in Leander. “...You! Short sir, in the pumpkin. Are you sure you’re old enough to be here...?” she joked lightly, sending a ripple off chuckles through the crowd. “What’s the wildest thing I think you’ve gotten into just by looking at you...? How about messing with public property: accidentally or otherwise?”

It was probably a little mean to be glad her seat was taken. That had made her decide to come with him to the drinking game, though, so he couldn't help but prefer it that way. She was the first one to be bold enough to uncover his silly jack-o-lantern scheme, so naturally he was interested to know who this lady was. And it goes without saying that figuring that out would be a little hard if she just fluttered off right after they met. So he happily obliged when she asked him to lead them to the bar, even uttering a small "Yay. Off we go!" as he skipped over.

The bartender also bore her species' shiny colours, now that he thought about it. Her fur had been coloured that way every time he had seen her in the bar, though, so he was pretty sure it was natural. He knew little about about shininess, but it was supposedly very rare. Something told him he should be impressed by this, but he'd seen her hang out by her counter enough times to get used to the redness already, even if it was some ultra-rare phenomenon. This Lilligant had probably seen her even more, as they seemed to know each other. At least enough for some friendly teasing. He thought it to be just that, anyway.

Something completely different caught his attention, though: had Chiyako just called her Cecíl? His eyes darted to the cat for a moment, before he forced them back. That... had sounded awfully familiar. It took him a few moments to work his brain into finding the right memory, but soon he could recall being told that name by Alki. Back when she had listed the names of the other Phantom Thieves, when Leander had just joined the thief group. Granted, she'd told him Cecíl was a Petilil, but she'd obviously just evolved. This Lilligant was his teammate. Who had just found him inside a pumpkin, screaming. Man, what a great first impression...

Of course the Purrloin just couldn't start the damn game without saying something. And Arceus damn it, she'd teased him right in front of his teammate too. Even if Cecíl did not know they were teammates yet. His body tilted forwards a little both in an attempt to hide the red tint that was appearing under his eyes and make it so he wouldn't have to look the others in the eye. Argh, he wanted to say something back, but the surprise of her comments and the following laughter had him at a loss for good replies. He'd just have to take it. The game was starting now, anyway.

The first question was whether he'd ever messed with public property. Pssh, yeah! Of course he'd done that! Even if it was like a decade ago, when he was still a kid. And said messing had just been him breaking the window of Grassveil's library because he was little, mad and had bricks for brains. He stood on the tips of his feet and pushed his body forward, the closest he could come to puffing out his chest with his weird little body. "Yeah, I have. Who hasn't?" he said, more than a little eager to make up for being embarrassed like that earlier. Although he had sounded proud, his eyes were darting to look at pretty much everyone else by the counter as he spoke, especially Cecíl. She was a thief, so she'd think being a little bad was cool... right?

While the commotion from the crowd was getting all riled up, Cecíl noticed out of the corner of her eye that the acorn was tipping over a little bit. She had to wonder: exactly how much had he already had? Were there refreshments stashed inside the pumpkin? No, she would have seen that. Maybe he had been "pre-gaming" before arriving, knowing that he would be trapped in a corner in order to pull off his stunt. She hoped that this tilting didn't mean it was catching up to him- she didn't want to bear witness to that...

"Yeah, I have. Who hasn't?"

Cecíl's expression didn't change much- but it never did. Internally, she respected the apparent disdain for society. In her experience, rebellion against societal norms required at least a little understanding that the world was trash and no amount of rules would fix how much it wanted you to suffer. She wasn't exactly "impressed," as the gaze he hit her with might have liked her to be, but she felt a little more like he was on her level. At least being stuck hanging out with him wouldn't be a completely terrible experience.

"I stand defamed!" Chiyako announced with a hearty chuckle. "The small in stature have other tricks up their sleeves, it seems! You win this round, sir. Have a candy." The bartender pulled out a bowl of what appeared to be hand-made, hand-wrapped candies of various colors. She offered it to him, but then she immediately realized there was an issue- that issue being the lack of hands combined with the giant pumpkin being in the way. Thankfully, the latter also solved the afore-mentioned problem. ".... 'scuze me," the bartender grinned slyly before reaching forward and removing the pumpkin's lid, dropping a candy into the open hole and winking. She closed the pumpkin up and patted it, unintentionally earning a few more chuckles from the crowd. "Anybody who isn't taking their drink this round can also come grab one, courtesy of our vigilante pumpkin!"


Cecíl also reached for the candy, though she was one of the last to do so and it was a begrudging action. She tried her best to stare past the acorn's gaze again.

The bartender didn't seem to want to let her escape. "Another troublemaker over here, eh?" she teased as Cecíl reached into the bowl.

"Heck off," was Cecíl's flat reply.

"That's not how the game works!! Your 'date' over here is participating- you don't want to look like a coward compared to him, right?" Cecíl gagged as the bartender smirked at her knowingly. The larger plant wasn't about that life, she didn't have enough self-pride left to feel inclined to protect her honor. However, she also didn't want to pass up an opportunity to possibly be getting a drink... and honestly the candy didn't look half bad.

"I stand by my statement of 'heck off.' However, if you're going to be like that- go ahead. Let's see if you can guess my past," she scoffed.

"Brilliant!" the bartender exclaimed. "You're a salty one, so I bet you can guess a lot of things that you haven't done. This is a challenge..." She placed a paw on her chin jokingly. "How about this: have you visited at least 3 different regions in this land??"

Cecíl smugly ethrew back the remainder of her first drink, and then immediately switched to the one that had been offered to her at the start of the game. The bartender frowned and furrowed her eyebrows. "Damn... I thought 3 would be at least low enough to get you..."

There seemed to be no particular reaction coming from Cecíl after Leander had proclaimed his outdated rebelliousness. Aw, had that not been enough? It was disappointing to him, but he hardly had the time to experience the feeling before Chiyako spoke up, laughing and announcing he'd won the round. Which meant grabbing some candy. He seemed to realize the issue with that just as fast as the Purrloin did, uttering a brief "Um-" right before the cat reached forwards. Light once again crept into his costume from above as the lid was removed - this time without him screaming, thankfully. Cecíl opening it earlier had gotten him used to it. The candy noisily fell to the bottom of the pumpkin after she dropped it in, and Leander could already imagine how obnoxious he'd sound walking home if he kept on winning like that. Like an organic gumball machine on legs.

As if the crowd could read his thoughts, they burst into laughter again. The nut was confused at first, until he recalled having heard the sound of something tapping against his costume's walls while he had been thinking. Had Chiyako petted him or something? Cheeky bastard. He'd get back at her. There was little to do right now, but eventually he would. Right now, he'd just act like it didn't get to him. He even joined in on the laughing, being partially genuine, but for the wrong reasons. A good opportunity would present itself at some point, and he'd strike back. He looked forward to seeing her face then.

Cecíl had snagged a candy from the bowl, too. That wasn't much of a surprise to Leander - thieves did illegal stuff, and she'd been part of the Phantoms for longer than he had, after all. It did spark more conversation between the Lilligant and the Purrloin, though. "It'll be more fun if everyone participates, y'know," he chimed in, his voice bearing a playful, humming tone. And he meant it. What brought a party down faster than sulky people? Sure, he'd pretty much dragged her to the game, but that just meant he'd have to try to help out in gearing her up for some festivities.

The exchange soon moved on to the next game question: whether they had visited three place or more. "The West, Northeastern Mountains, here..." Leander whispered to himself, nodding slightly. Yeah, that was three. Surprisingly, his teammate downed the rest of her drink. "Didn't have you figured for a homebody, Cecíl," he commented. He had assumed Chiyako to be exaggerating earlier when she'd called her a hermit. Huh, perhaps there was some truth to it. His voice still bore playfulness, but it was not particularly judging. Just a friendly tease, and a warm-up in being a bit of an ass for his next line. This time, he targeted Chiyako.

"Hey fuzzy, lend me a paw! I need another round of candy here." It wasn't a particularly big jab, and he'd go for something better once he could, but for now it was alright. After years of notably little sass, his sass game needed some dusting off, which this hopefully served well as.