[Game thread] Skull Ruins Pokerole

[Lord Windos]

Spoiler

Gallade shakes his head as he analyzes Terra's emotional patterns.  Geez, what a mess...still, he knows Nathan intends to try and right this somehow...

Nathan stops Terra by putting a hand on his shoulder and looking him straight in the eyes.  Gone is the attempt at lightheartedness in Nathan's look since Terra isn't trying to do the same.  "...before you go blaming me for breaking the deal, think carefully about when I could have helped the League set up something of this scale.  I barely even had a few hours between exploring the Skull Ruins and battling Deoxys to talk to them.  Hardly enough time for them to find every single little place he could have hidden should he have escaped, wouldn't you say?  Kinda hard to anticipate something like this situation on short notice no matter which way you look at it."

Nathan crosses his arms.  "You're not to blame for him getting captured.  Remember that."

...even despite everything Terra's said, Nathan's still trying to out at least a few of Terra's troubles at ease...even if he is being a little vague with the exact details.

That's all Nathan says for now, though.  Neither of them would benefit from a lengthier discussion of this topic right now.

He's trying to forgive Terra, however.  That much should be clear.



When Terra looks at Calam and apologizes, the Absol closes his eyes and relaxes in response.  He doesn't seem to be too particularly bothered by what happened for some reason.

Terra's tired and forlorn expression hardly changed as Nathan pulled him around and downplayed their role in Cosh's apprehension, just him frowning just the slight bit more as he heard them out.

".....Not blaming you for League capturing Cosh. Don't know if you did help them or not. If you did, probably before deal was made. *Minute shake of head* So I don't care. Won't.....condemn you for decisions made before deal that.....impact it. *Shakes head* Be unfair and.....stupid."

"No, blame you for helping capture him with Princess' help, instead of letting me free him from Meowstic's Mean Look. Broke deal then, and....moment you acted to get him captured with your papa's help. Could have gave him chance, but didn't. *Beat* ....If he got caught or....killed by League still, deal would have remained unbroken. Would have no-one to blame then, but....."

He trails off at the end, eyes darkening a bit and becoming cast in shadow as he contemplated that possibility. In a way, his archmage master of a partner getting captured could be considered even by him to be a 'good' outcome in that bleak light, if they would have suffered egregiously or perished due to him enabling enabling their escape. That would have be supremely ironic a fate, and all too devastating.....

The scholarly trainer's attempt to absolve him of his own tumultuous mess of guilt/frustration/shame/regret/inadequacy does prompt a relatively big reaction from the mountain of a man, with him raising both eyebrows in surprise and his frown turning less gloomy and more contemplative. A few seconds later, however, his expression resettles back into weariness, and he breaths out a long as he closes his eyes *Siiiiigh*

"I know. But it feels like I did."

When he re-opens his eyes, he gives his best friend the smallest, most faint of smiles, bring some energy back into his grim, Steely complexion. 

"Thank you, though. For trying to cheer me up."

He also shares a small smile with the Dark prophet, looking/feeling ever so slightly relieved and grateful.

If they have nothing else to say, then Terra would depart to do what he needs done.

Despite Terra's mood still being quite dour, Gallade would be able to tell that his smiles and comment were completely genuine. That, and he understood well their partner's unspoken forgiven and seemed to accept it, but to what measure and in what way is unclear, as he was still very much mired and muddled by his own rueful depressing feelings and was in the midst of coming to terms with them.