[center][h1][color=#900020][b][i] Burgundy [/i][/b][/color][/h1]
[i]Perna Rockwood[/i][/center]
[hr]

Everyone has something they're good at it. Some folks are good at cooking, others at math or sports. Some are social butterflies who could flutter from person to person, group to group effortlessly like its part of their nature. Perna had always wanted to be like that. She believed she could be. It didn't seem like baseless confidence to her, but fact-a universal truth no amount of cold logic could refute. Never did she think that reality would so brutally reveal how inept she really was.

Absol stalking you in the night? Easy.
Ambushed by angry Diglets? Cakewalk.
Encounter with a momma Ursaring and her cub? Minor nuisance.
Dealing with other people? [i]Run[/i].

Dealing with people took finesse, wits, and luck! Perna felt that she lacked all three. Even after living in Saffron for so long, she thought she would get used to the big crowds. In fact, she believed she had, but leaving one's comfort zone is, by definition, uncomfortable. The people in Pallet town were nice enough, and reminded her of the rustic small-town culture she had left behind. But this wasn't the city she knew, or the farm she grew up on. They locals were pleasant to talk to on their own, but this graduation festival attracted a horde of nosy tourists and visitors. One-on-one Perna was a brilliant conversationalist, and this left her with an inflated sense of competency, but as the town amassed more and more people for the event, the more she began to realize how little experience she had in handling large crowds. A rising anxiety slowly whittled away her self-confidence. Trying to mingle with dozens of new people felt like some kind of new marathon she was wholly unprepared for. The fog of mental fatigue crept in as new names and new faces blurred together into one indistinct jumble of memories.

That's why she had been spending some time quietly recuperating near Willis, who [i]also[/i] seemed to be avoiding the crowds. She guessed he was ex-military right away. They stood out in a crowd. Their posture always seemed uncomfortably straight like someone had glued a long metal beam to their spine. The two didn't exchange words or glances, keeping to themselves. Brutus, who had been lying contentedly at the foot of another pillar, served as Perna's personal backrest, one that was sheathed in well-groomed, brown fur and sported curved horns. Originally, Perna had wore her periwinkle blue sundress and large straw hat to fit in with the locals and appear more approachable, but thankfully her tauros was doing a fantastic job of looking grouchy and generally intimidating. A bright neon sign spelling out "Fuck off!" might as well have been floating above his head.

Few people had ventured to this side of the room so far, so she guessed it was a safe place to sit down and reasonably expect not to be bothered for awhile, perhaps even until the ceremony began. She was wrong, of course. She hadn't even finished reading her second letter before the other trainers started to approach. Two girls, at first: one overdressed, and the other seemed overprotective. Then another girl with a practiced poise arrived, shortly followed by talkative, scrappy-looking kid.

[i]Seriously? What's with all the attention? Is this ex-military guy some big-shot I don't know about?[/i]

Perna spared them a furtive glance, and returned her attention to reading her letters. They had always been useful as a cathartic distraction and this time was no different. Besides, Doctor Frida's ramblings about strange ruins on the far side of the world, and her professional fascination with them as an anthropologist, seemed much more appealing at the moment.