🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀

[fire_leaf]

 
Leaf's won, among other things, a Dratini hairband. It took some work, but she's managed to make the ear fins look like ear fins without taking her hat off. It's an accomplishment! Maybe it's not as obvious as some of the other prize winners, but it was only a carnival game, and she doesn't need the stares anyway. It can stay tucked under the brim of her hat for her own satisfaction. She's got a Long Poster tucked under one arm, with the other occupied as it is. It's not a Dratini or Dragonair, which she doesn't understand, but she has it now anyway.

The sun is a disc on the horizon, but the festival is only really getting started. There are signs everywhere about a glowing ribbon show pointing towards the beach, and she's going that way, but it doesn't take much time before Leaf is distracted by a Pokémon, a yellow bug-type that's lurking behind the food stalls she'd watched help pitch the tops for earlier. When she asks, she gets told that's Galvantula.

The tiny Vulpix cradled in her arm hides her face. Leaf laughs and lets her. 

Right. Ribbon show.

Comments

[quickfirequiz]

There is a rather conspicuous old man in sunglasses hanging out at the back of the gathering-area for the ribbon show, with a handful of leaflets stuffed in his pocket, nibbling taiyaki shaped like a Magikarp.

The taiyaki is a consolation prize. He has just been politely "moved along" from a trivia game for what they all mutually agreed was overenthusiasm, and before that, he spent a good half-hour in a friendly battle with some local children before Arcanine almost set fire to a string of pennants and someone kindly reminded him of the rule against battling too close to the main thoroughfare.

Blaine is having a good time.

He pulls out one of the leaflets and consults it for further information on this ribbon show thing. It looks promising. He's a fan of lights in dark places. Then his gaze drifts, drawn just over the top of the leaflet and at a wandering Leaf.

No one can see him squint behind the sunglasses, which he is probably doing because it's already evening. He squints especially hard at the girl finding a place in the accumulating crowd, and considers a recent bulletin that came through on his work phone.

Blaine does the bumbling old man thing, and conveniently wanders by complete accident right up beside her as soon as she stops moving about.

"How many tails are we on?" he cheerfully asks Leaf, like someone might ask how old their puppy is.