### Sophia Skyheart & Neva (interaction with Milly & Mel, and some Zaegar cameo)

**Nouvelle - Lugere**

Sophia stood breathless as her performance finished, her gaze sweeping across the crowd in confusion. Silence permeated the air, no one clapped, and instead they all stood looking back at somebody at the edge of the mass of people. _'Was I awful?'_ She wondered as she sucked in chill air between her teeth to fuel her fragile lungs. She narrowed her eyes to see who they were looking at: a pretty young woman, surrounded by what looked like to be body guards. _'Why are they staring at her?'_

Then the pretty young woman clapped into the silence, and the crowd immediately followed suit, the perfect imitation of chicks to a hen, causing Sophia to nearly jump in her surprise. She was still trying to regain her composure, and her breath, when the lady in question came up the steps of the stage and greeted her. Her eyes began to twinkle the more Millicent - Milly? - Cheviot spoke. Something about the the noble woman seemed familiar to Sophia, she was sure she had met the Lady somewhere else before. At a gala, perhaps? Sophia began to laugh, as much for Millicent's change of tone, as for the gratification of finally finding who she was looking for after being reprimanded time and time again by the citizens of Nouvelle. 

With tears of laughter in her eyes, she returned Meloetta's curtsy with a small bow and then focused her attention on the person she had been looking for so strenuously. **"You should know me if Mel does...? Oh!"** Sophia beamed an apologetic smile at Milly. **"Forgive me for not introducing myself sooner. I am Lady Sophia of House Skyheart, Keepers of the Stardrop Mountains, Protectors of the People, and loyal servants of Maccus, may He rule forever."** She made a small but formal curtsy before Milly. As if to punctuate her statement, Neva leapt from the nearby inn roof without delay, swooping down to land behind Sophia in a brilliant display of plumage. His predatory eyes peered down at Millicent and Meloetta as if deciding which one to eat first. Neva's birthmark, the insignia of House Skyheart, shone across his puffed chest. Sophia gave the articuno a stare that said _"we'll be talking about your behavior later"_. 

**"And this,"** She sighed with exasperation, **"is Neva, Guardian of the Skyheart lineage, Lord of Hoarfrost Temple, and a legendary pain in my butt..."** She mumbled, glaring at the bird when he swung a wing around her protectively, not caring about her protests or irritation. She pushed his wing down from her face with her free hand so that she could see Milly and Mel, the other was still gripping the violin and bow. Even with his wing protecting her thin frame from most of the chill, Sophia still felt her body beginning to break down from the stress of the day. She hadn't traveled nearly so far, nor walked so much, in all of her life and standing was beginning to be difficult without her cane, proven by her knees wobbling under her own weight. **"I cannot stay long, Lady Millicent, but I was hoping to pay my respects at the Cheviot manor as I passed through Nouvelle... um, may I call you Milly?"** The last she added with a shy blush, dropping some of the formality of her tone. 

Neva discarded his attentions on Millicent and Meloetta while he stood protectively over Sophia. His head swiveled in the peculiar way that bird's does, and he stared directly at Zaegar as the latter ate his pie, appearing to somehow sense the morph's thoughts. The legendary pokemon didn't make any move to go after Zaegar, but the intensity of his gaze seemed to magnify the longer that he stared. The three plumes jutting from articuno's head seemed to stand on-end and his feathers began to puff up defensively, making Neva appear bigger than he actually was. The articuno wasn't _positive_ of Zaegar's true nature, but the bird was magnificent at sensing morphs. Not to mention, his papa-bird attitude was in overdrive today, considering that Sophia had pushed his patience to the limit by forcing him to remain in the shadows as she traveled through the populated city.

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### Corivana Espada & Kyo (interaction with Zavier, Claire & John cameo)

**In the skies of Ayero**

After the vulpix had agreed to come with them, Kyo sailed back up into the skies, comforted by the familiar weight of Corivana upon her back. Something about the vulpix seemed to tug at her senses, however she wasn't proficient at sensing morphs, and she had no paticular feelings for them one way or another. If they were friends, she would accept them into her retinue, if they were foes... well, she and Corivana had dealt with many of those in their time together. **"Tell me, little one, why were you so frantic in your cage in the human's settlement? You look as if you are running from the tidal wave before it breaks upon you."** Kyo asked Zavier while curving around a puffy cloud. She and Corivana enjoyed going through them, but she didn't think the vulpix would enjoy getting it's fur wet. 

While Kyo and Zavier did their thing, Corivana squinted her only eye against the blazing sun that, for some reason, seemed more like a furnace the further inland she went. Normally she wouldn't take on passengers, and Kyo didn't enjoy hauling anyone but her around usually, so this exception was an oddity on both of their parts. She figured that it'd be fine. _Probably_. But the incredible heat was odd to her, as she had never remembered Ayero being quite this hot. With a grumble, Corivana patted her companion's back. **"Kyo, the sun do be a fryin' me faster than a combusken. Do be takin' us below these infernal clouds and closer to the bloody ground."**

Kyo descended obediently as she waited for Zavier's reply, curving smoothly around clouds and flocks of bird pokemon as they flew past the odd trio.

What the trio didn't know quite yet, but would soon find out the lower they descended, was that Kyo had managed to veer off-course as she dodged clouds and pokemon, and that they were almost directly above, albeit far above, the gathering of Claire, Groudon, John and Axia. And, as luck would have it, the intense heat Corivana was complaining about was Groudon's Drought ability.