"It's where the soldiers stay. There are always a few beds free, but you'd be in a room with other people; the advantage is that you'd be somewhere I know how to find you."

"Oh, I don't mind sharing, I stay at pokecenters all the time." 

Terendelev gives her a shining smile. "Then I think the next order of business might be for you to enjoy our humble festival."

"Thanks! What kind of festival is it, and can I have directions to the barracks for later?"

"It's a celebration of the Wardstones, the blessed artifacts that keep the Worldwound sealed. Without them, powerful demons would stream forth into the world at large; with them, and the efforts of the crusaders, the threat is contained." She lowers her voice. "Between you and me, it's mostly a harvest fair. But it's a military town, and the spin helps morale."

"...Huh." She's seen harvest festivals with all kinds of local traditions plastered on top, but she's really starting to be concerned by the implications of this whole "Worldwound" thing. Terendelev seems busy though so she should probably ask someone else what exactly is meant by "demon" here. Sounds ominous though.

Terendelev walks off into the crowd.

The festival is in full swing! There is drinking! There are hand-to-hand combat dummies! There are archery targets! The world is her cloyster.

...Lucy boggles at the dummies and the archery. These people are fighting with their...selves? Not their pokemon? It should be, like, a machop hitting that straw thingy, not a human being. Archery takes longer to figure out, she doesn't even know off the top of her head of a 'mon that does that. 

"Aren't they silly?" asks a girl with pointy ears, glossy black eyes, and severe burn scarring covering most of her body. (Who isn't wearing shoes, despite the autumn nip in the air.)

"I don't think I have enough context to say if they are or not."

"They think it protects them. Being strong, like that. When really it just makes you more able to be hurt."

"Well, yeah, no matter how good you are at punching something with your own fists, you still shouldn't wander into tall grass without a pokemon. But Terendelev didn't even know the word pokemon, which is really confusing!"

Blink.

"I don't either. Soot, do you know?"

A black bird pokes its head out from her tangled hair and croaks.

"He doesn't... Soot knows so many things, but he doesn't know pokemon. What are they?"

She squints at him.

"Is...is he not a pokemon???" 

"He could be," Ember says dubiously. "But wouldn't he know, then?"

"I--maybe? If he's not a pokemon, then...what is he instead???"

"He's my friend!"

Soot caws reproachfully.

"And an animal," she amends, giggling. "And maybe something more than that? But only a bit more. But –"

She glances around, and her eyes light upon a little tabby cat. She scoops it up in her arms.

"Tiger, here? Tiger is an animal. And I'm not his friend yet. And I don't think there's more to him like there is of Soot. Just an animal."

"'Friend' is not the same kind of thing as pokemon versus not pokemon. Obviously I'm friends with all my pokemon. And I guess I could only be friends with pokemon, but that's not the case, I have human friends too. Tiger also looks like a pokemon, although I don't know of any specific pokemon that Soot and Tiger appear to be. I think 'animal' is more, uh, relevant, but I...don't...recognize it...any more than you recognized 'pokemon?'"

"Hmm... an animal is like a person, but usually they're less clever, and smaller or bigger, and covered with fur or feathers or scales. They eat each other, sometimes, some of them, but others of them just eat grass or fruit. They can't do anything very strange, like breathe fire, or they'd be a different thing, like a demon or a dragon or a beast. Does any of that help?"

"They eat each other!?!?!?"

"Yes! Tiger here would eat Soot, if he was hungry enough and I wasn't here to give him a treat instead."

Serenely, she sets Tiger down and draws a bit of fish jerky out of her pocket to feed him.

"Pokemon eat berries. And stuff that's made of berries. And human food, too, sometimes, but mostly berries. And loads of them breathe fire, and dragon is a pokemon type. And demon and beast are words that gets used to describe pokemon sometimes, but not, like, specific subsets of pokemon, like a type."

"They sound nice! You said you're friends with some?"

"Yeah! I have six. That's the most anyone can have with them at a time, like, as a Trainer. You get herds of Miltank or whatever that are bigger than that, but the people who take care of them aren't properly bonded to all of them."

"Six!" Ember's eyes sparkle. "It sounds lovely, having six friends with you all the time... but I think I have more friends than that around the city, and I wouldn't like to choose. Maybe it's for the best."