The still-not-quite-familiar sensation of transition: the feeling of a hook pulling hard from behind her gut. A swooping, falling feeling, not unlike her last jaunt into the mists, Paldros plunging ahead while she and Araun and Chelou tumbled clumsily behind. A plummeting, death-drop sort of feeling not unlike something else in the recesses of her brain. Spinning, drowning in air, the mindless panic of a child; colors too bright and wild to have names; laughing, dancing shapes with too-long claws and shining eyes looming out of the mist like shadows. Someone smiling gently through the maelstrom of mist and color and cacophony, reaching for her, welcoming her to shelter and safety. Something scooping her up just before the embrace, racing away from the color and the laughter and the sad-eyed smile, the pounding of hoofbeats drowning out the—
—the sound of footsteps on a paved road. Not running, not rescuing, just a pokémon strolling past on their way into this big, circular building. They muttered something about nearly missing the latest round of "truth or dare", and Skara came back to herself.
Right. Yes. This was "Veritas City", not the mists. Not a normal part of the mists, at least. One doesn't "normally" get transported so dramatically when one is just heading from Crossmark to the outlying farms, so home this most certainly was not. But different as this place was from what she'd heard of the cities back home, it was still far too orderly to be the mists.
Skara did her best to shut out the bustling of the other pokémon as she wormed her way down the stairs, following the voice's instructions. How Lady Sabretane could be so certain that this "Diyem" wasn't one of the Lords, she didn't know—and apparently, neither did Paldros or Knight-Commander Bellan—but if anyone would've understood the cryptic message, it was certainly Sabretane.
Commander Bellan hadn't wanted Skara to go; Paldros mostly looked offended that he hadn't been asked to go himself; Sabretane had just beamed down at her and repeated that it seemed a fine test for a promising young squire.
That had lessened the grubbin's nerves, at least. She'd wondered whether she should've told anyone at all, instead of ignoring the dream like a sensible person or, perhaps (she admitted somewhat sheepishly), simply following the voice right then and there. But surviving the mists was all about preparation. Skara knew better than anyone that you didn't deal with anything remotely mistlike without consulting an expert first. And if the expert had faith in her, well...?
"I'll do my best to represent the Burning Brand," Skara had said.
"No, you won't. You've not been inducted into the order," chided Paldros.
"I'm sure you will," said Lady Sabretane, eyes twinkling.
"Just don't die, please," said the Knight-Commander.
So she'd settled down to sleep again that night and now she was here, in a strange city, at the bottom of a staircase, crawling toward a charizard who was definitely not a Lord of Mist. (Probably. Hopefully. If Sabretane wasn't wrong.)
(But when was the Lady Sabretane Keldeo ever wrong?)
"Skara of the... whoops, wait. Skara, Squire of Knight Paldros of the Burning Brand, at your service."