[Game thread] Skull Ruins Pokerole

[Dragonstrike]

Spoiler

Apsis watch as Nathan, nervousness and fear wracking his (to her) puny frame, blindly reach out to grope her left fang, with it shaking so hard that it threatened to fumble straight down her maw. Well now. So the boy was willing to put himself at great risk in order to earn her approval, even if he had his annoying little Psychic giving her the stink eye and acting as a fail safe. Interesting, *Hiiiissss*

The giant snake patienently stood still like this with Nathan for a good solid minute, intently staring into his shuttered eyes and watching him squirm all the while......until she darted her tongue across his hand, gave it a niiice good slobbering in the process, and slowly leaned away with a pleased look on her face. There! She had planned to coat the boy in a layer of saliva for their past transgression against her master, and she had finally accomplished that goal! Revenge was there's at last, *Hiiiiissss!*

Now with a much less severe but much more amused yet piercing stare, Apsis craned her head down further to let Nathan pat/stroke her there. With her vengeance at long last achieved and acknowledging the fact that Nathan was willing/determined enough to leave himself in vulnerable to her tender mercies in order to garner her approval, she had deamed he had re-earned the right to touch her magnificent scaled body once more. Of course, should the boy cross her and her master aggergously again, the regal snake would just have to plan an even more humiliating way to 'get even' with them, *Hiiisss Hiiiisss!*

Ventus let out a breath he didn't know he was holding as his sister and the young trainer did not run afoul with one another, though now their was a hint of a smile in his severe experssion. He didn't savor the idea of recalling his sister and/or expending Healing Items on Nathan, since those consequences lead back to some rather.....dire events, to say the least, so he was quite grateful such things didn't need be done! The researcher continues to watch both, now much less tense and waiting to see how Nathan reacts. They still kept glancing at the archmage every now and again, of course, but much less likely to spring upon them now that he had an distraction to occupy some of his attention.....

Though that didn't stop him from shooting yet another disapproving/VERY worried glare as Shiva spoke to the archmage before he was finished with his task! Was that fae woman trying to get herself/them all killed?! Fortunately that didn't occur, but still, why did she take such a STUPID risk?! Graaggh, his blood pressure.....

...the tongue sends another shiver down the spines of Nathan and Kirlia.  BRRRRR....

...he opens one eye after that...she...she didn't bite him...he carefully withdraws his hand from her mouth...shakes the saliva off of his hand as best as he can (he doubts Aspis wants to be covered in her own saliva)...then carefully strokes her head when she lowers it.  Kirlia relaxes a little now too.

"...thank you, Aspis...for a lot of things..."

A little more of his confidence has been restored...though there's definitely still work to be done in that area...

Heart's subsequent apology and Viktor's hugs kinda help, kinda don't.  Nathan doesn't comment on it, just quietly nods...the hug was REALLY awkward since he's still holding Orthros with one arm while stroking Aspis...that, and he's not in a super social mood right now (Aspis being the exception currently.  Kyuu's probably wandered back over to Shiva by this point).  Even Kirlia is giving Nathan some space still.

"...ya know, there's still a way for you to get stronger, Aspis.  A right you and Ventus will have probably more than earned if you ever obtain the means to trigger it...something I one day hope to do with Kirlia, and that I'm sure Shiva will one day achieve with Cottonee..."

Nathan's just thinking out loud right now, talking to the pokemon...just like what he was doing with Kyuu...he's still kinda oblivious to what's going on for the most part...he's listening, but he's focusing his attention on the pokemon rather than trainers if the trainers aren't addressing him directly...