Swanna House

“Seriously? This is where we’re supposed to set up shop?”

Tipper scrunched his brow and let his mouth hang open as he stared at the boarded-up shop in front of him. He supposed that he should’ve seen this coming. When Dad said that a vacant franchise of Kecleon Market had opened up on the Mist Continent, Tipper thought that meant they’d be moving to Noe Town with its rock-hewn buildings and the metal towers it’d been putting up in recent years.

And yet, here they were, in this glorified rest stop along a highway between towns that didn’t even show up on maps of the Five Continents. While the fixtures styled after the heads of Kecleon like them were at least still intact, the weathered paint and the thick layer of dust on the counter was proof of the prior owner’s neglect even before letting it sit vacant for a year.

Tipper would’ve thought that this was some sort of mistake, except the letter with Footprint Runes on the counter left no room for doubt. The Footprint Runes on it were addressed with his father’s personal name, ‘Kakureon Torneko’, much as would be done back on the Air Continent. Somehow, Dad had agreed to come here of all places, and even planned on eventually bringing Mom over to help run the new shop.

“Oh come now, Tipper, it’s nothing that a fresh coat of paint and some grit can’t fix,” his father insisted. “This is a prime location! The shop’s the first thing anyone will see when they enter the town from the highway!”

No, that would be the mound of splintered wood and broken-up boxes heaped up along the back of the shop with the blue, conical roof across the street. Not that there was much competition otherwise. It was just this shop, the creaky-looking wooden steps leading up to the bluff that it was wedged against, and the pond and stream fed by the two glorified trickles of waterfalls which would surely make staving off wood rot a perpetual headache for them. Oh, and the two-story inn dug into yet another earthen rise just past it, which was supposed to be their home until they could line up permanent lodging.

“Hey! What’s the big idea standing me up?! I thought we had a deal!”

Tipper turned his head towards the square. There was a small circular design made of pavestones in the dirt… and a Scraggy and a pair of Timburr throwing down with each other over some sort of petty argument. They kept going at it for a moment before a Quagsire approached from a wooden bridge over the stream. The Scraggy abruptly bolted and fled, while the Timburr stiffened up and seemed to grow flustered as the Quagsire pulled them aside and talked about something that he couldn’t make out.

Well, this was certainly a welcoming neighborhood and worth skipping out on living in places that were important enough to show up on maps. Not.

“… I’m sure that that’s just an unfortunate coincidence,” Torneko said. “Anyways, our lodging should be just up ahead.”

Stars, Tipper hoped there was at least a Juice Bar in there. At the rate things were going, he was going to need a drink. The stronger, the better.

Tipper wasn’t sure what he was expecting from an inn called the ‘Swanna House’, even if he swore the Footprint Runes on the arch over the entrance read ‘The Inn of Swanna’ and didn’t match with the sign up front. He had expected some sort of ratty dump falling apart, but the inside at least looked comfortable, if painfully rustic with its wooden steps to the second floor just past the entrance, its low-slung tables and stump-stools, along with a wall and a signboard packed with local listings that looked like it’d never been cleared out. The only things in here that reminded him that this ‘Post Town’ wasn’t a total backwater were the embroidered circular rug near the counter, along with the cloths on the table and the counter in the back.

“Well, it seems homely enough, at least,” Torneko said to himself.

As if on cue, there was a loud snarl and sharp crash against a table. Tipper jolted his head leftward where there was a Gurdurr that smelled strongly of berry juice growling under his breath and throwing aside the handle to what used to be a mug.

Tipper picked up the pace and dutifully avoided eye contact with the Fighting-type. He didn’t know how sober the ‘mon was right now, but he could already tell he didn’t want to find out. He snuck a glance over at his father, who was pawing at the back of his head with his teeth quietly set on edge.

“Well, that’s certainly not quite how I wanted our first evening in town to go,” he murmured. “But I believe that’s our innkeeper right over there.”

Tipper turned his attention over to the counter as a Swanna made her way behind it from a side entrance. He went over alongside his father, as the elder Kecleon hailed the Swanna and gave a small bow as he made it to the counter.

“Ah yes, you must be Signora Swanna.”

Tipper cocked a brow, and he briefly saw his scales take on a confused yellow hue as he looked up at the Swanna at the other end of the counter.

“Wait, ‘Signora’? Is that your personal name or something?” he asked. “I’m surprised that you’re so… open about it here.”

The bird shook her head and let out a bemused chuckle in reply. Or at least Tipper hoped it was that.

“I suppose that’s one way of telling that you’re a long way from home, Kecleon,” she said. “‘Signora’ is a term of respect for dames like me from the Old Language that Pokémon sometimes use around these parts.”

Tipper supposed that that made a bit more sense, since the one constant his father had told him about the Pokémon from civilization he’d encountered during his wanderings was that they kept their personal names to themselves and those they particularly trusted. He supposed he had also known that the Old Languages before the Pokémon of the Five Continents began speaking a common tongue were also different from one another, but he didn’t realize that they’d be this different since had Swanna not explained it, he wouldn’t have had the foggiest clue what ‘Signora’ meant.

He just hoped that didn’t carry over to other practices as well. Stars, just imagine if all this time, they’d been acting impolitely to the ‘mon who was going to be running their lodging for the foreseeable future!

“So wait, what are we supposed to call you anyways?” Tipper asked. “Since we don’t really know how things work here on Mist, especially off the beaten path.”

“You can call me ‘Swanna’ if you want,” she replied. “Just don’t call me maybe.”

Tipper briefly cringed at the innkeeper’s reply. Why did that sound like it was some sort of bad joke? Though at least, she didn’t look bothered by it…

“That or ‘Signora’ will suffice,” she said. “Perhaps if we establish a closer working relationship, we can talk in more intimate terms.”

Swanna slid a set of keys over the counter with a small wooden clip with a number on it. For their room, Tipper figured, even if he didn’t know how on earth an inn was supposed to stay viable as a business with so few rooms to rent out. Torneko took the keys off the counter, before fidgeting them in his claws.

“Right, I suppose that we should settle into our room, since work will be keeping my son and I busy in short order,” the elder Kecleon said. “Though do you have any advice for settling in, Swanna?”

Swanna paused for a moment and seemed to be weighing something in her mind. She opened her beak, and after a brief hesitation, raised a wing to speak up.

“Just be patient, and if you get a cold shoulder at first or don’t make as good of a first impression as you’d hoped, don’t take things personally,” she said. “Pokémon around these parts have had a lot on their mind lately, especially with that recent batch of Mystery Dungeons that have been freshly cropping up nearby.”

Well, that totally wasn’t worrisome at all. Less so the bit about Mystery Dungeons cropping up since Dad had always seemed to handle those fairly effortlessly and much of their merchandise was sourced from them. It was more the part just beforehand that worried him. From the bit about the ‘cold shoulder’, Tipper was starting to get the feeling that Post Town wasn’t exactly a ‘warm and inviting’ sort of place.

His father didn’t seem to be fazed by the response. Probably because his baseline definition of ‘tough customers’ were wild Pokémon snarling and throwing blows at him over having their territory intruded on.

“I’m sure that my son will have plenty of opportunities to get to know the Pokémon around here while watching the shop here in town,” Torneko said. “After all, hospitality is a hallmark of Kecleon Market’s service!”

Tipper jolted up and turned to his father with a startled stare, not bothering to hide the white that was starting to show up on his scales.

“Wait, but aren’t you going to help me run the shop?” he asked. “Mom’s not due to come here for at least a year and I thought that it was company policy to have two shopkeepers per location so that way there was always at least one on staff behind the counter.”

“Nope! That policy was actually revised after Kecleon Market began its relationship with its new storage contractor,” Torneko replied. “I’ll be working the Mystery Dungeon end of things full-time! It’ll help keep your end of things well-stocked for your customers so you can focus on interacting with them!”

Fantastic, he thought to himself.

Tipper threw a claw over his face and pinched his brow as a sinking realization came over him:

He was going to hate this place. He could already tell.