Conspiracies, like the unexpected, have a tendency of sneaking up during the worst of moments. On the eve of the supposed end of the world, Cetus let out a low sigh, and stared dull before her. The lone window within her dingy, rundown place called home filtered in a single, thick sliver of moonlight, dying her a lighter shade of white. The place was stripped bare of all furniture and personal belongings save a few forced in screws in the wall, which the Galactic grunt was quite content abandoning to whoever could make use of them next. Stretched out, she lounged against the perpendicular surface, one arm curved about the shoulders of her Marowak and the other clenched about the neck of a barely full whisky bottle.

There was a few huffs from her, something akin to a chortle, and they died come their birth. Mat fixed a pair of beryl yellow eyes upon her, sharpening them to a glare, before figuring anger wasn't the right emotion that moment and letting his off-putting attitude die like her questionable laughter. They sat as they did that evening, neither accepting or denying the company of the other, and enjoyed what time remained until the entirety of the Pokemon universe went up in flames. Silence lingered like a lace veil on the head of a virgin between the two, until its cherry was popped as Cetus brought up the liquor bottle, sloshing its contents about, and took a heavy gulp, wiping the dirt colored residue from her lips with the back of her palm when she was finished. Suddenly, the grunt shook her Marowak slightly, and the Ground-type presented her his attention in full.

"Hey, you think we're gonna die . . . in the morning?" Cetus randomly asked, quirking her head toward him as their gaze met.

The Marowak broke their linked eyes, staring off back in the direction of the window, contemplating the nearby future. With an unseen pair of pursed lips, he replied with a single, "Maro" which Cetus couldn't decipher as an affirmation or a no.

"Ah, yea, I agree." Cetus replied nonetheless, shrugging her shoulders. "If it happens or not, its not like we have anything . . . to lose, right?"

Mat turned to her this time, glaring, and though slightly tipsy, the Galactic was slightly taken aback by his hardened stare. "Wha'?" she inquired at his beaming chagrin. "You have something you value?"

The Marowak did not reply. He continued to stare before him, entertained by the dance of dust particles only visible against the wan knife of moonshine murdering the darkness of his trainer's apartment. With lowered lids, he settled mentally on an answer, and gave a single nod to Cetus. She tilted her head again at him, unsure what to make of the reply, and huffed out a womanly giggle half of drunkenness, half of amusement. Giving him a wry smile, which Mat blinked at, Cetus asked, "What, got a mate?"

Mat, at that moment, felt anger flare without question. He almost stood and whacked her upside the head for bringing up love, but considered the situation. Cetus knew nothing of his background, of his first and only love. The very idea of romance was far passed him. He shook his head, replying, "Marowak" to her. Though his suppressed anger wasn't evident, it croaked his voice a tad, but the inebriated woman didn't catch onto it. Instead, she upped her chin in understanding, figuring what he said was less than love.

"A friend?" she asked, and he nodded his skull head, wakening a bit of pride in her because she finally understood something her Pokemon said. "Who?" she asked next, but the Marowak remained quiet for a rather good while, indicating he had no desire to answer. Taking his hint, Cetus didn't press the matter further, and drowned out her curiosity with another slug from the glass container in her left hand.

Again, silence permeated the crevasse between the two. Conversation seemed a null and void idea and even as Mat closed the distance between him and her by scuttling a bit closer for warmth, words didn't come. The back of Cetus's head hit the wall behind her with a low thunk! and she rolled her deep teal gaze upward, switching the scene of a starry night in Katarina for a water-stained sheetrock ceiling.

"Actually . . . I don't wanna die," she admitted, sighing. "'Cause I got things to lose. Things I kinda like, ahaha . . . ha."

Silence. Than, Cetus finished the last bit of her whisky, and than began to cry, filling the four-sided interior of the room with low, muffled sobs. Mat blanched. The heck? He figured it was because she emptied her only stash of alcohol, but threw that thought aside as she kicked the bottle from her in a childish huff. The middle-aged woman cried and cried even as the pin-pricks of light in the night dissolved into a soupy gradient of orange to purple. Mat hummed, nudging his chin towards the window, and Cetus blinked in surprise when the morning sun blinded her watered gaze. Wiping the wash of salty tang along her cheeks, Cetus rushed to the window with a slight tumble, and stared in disbelief out of it.

"We're not dead."

"Marowak."

"Tomorrow always come, eh, buddy?" Cetus let out with an noticeable sigh of relief. "I guess, today, I can say it's . . . good to be alive?"

Mat, despite his slight trouble, brought himself to his feet and bore his weight on his femur. "Marowak," he agreed, nodding his head despite the eruption of pain on his right side. There's more to life than simply living. Thank you, my friend, for showing me that.