Oh boy, I finally get a few days off before I get to return to my typical pedestrian life, just like everyone else. How utterly fantastic, I can't wait for these days to end.

Anyhow, sarcasm behind, it's time to further throw myself down the abyss of cute shit by writing more fiction for this non-existent pairing that I'm already too waist-deep in to escape from. Or something like that. Anyways, let's not prolong it any longer.

If you're interested in this and want to see me do more stuff, I urge that you review, even a small favorite would suffice. Simply telling me your thoughts, what you liked, didn't like so much, lets me know that you're reading and chances are, you want to read more. Thanks in advance for your courtesy.

Word Count: 2205 words.

Monologues of the Ravenous Boy, the Lady, and Their Salty Mallard Game

"The hunter stalks the plains with the most cautious of light, pre-meditated steps, in order to ensure that the game does not get away..."

"He slowly approaches the game, who is benevolently unaware of his ultimate downfall. The hunter snickers, but not too loudly, for his game might hear him and get all pissy and stuff."

The boy's third-person narration starts as soon as he crawls out of the stake-out bush, and it persists throughout his trek through the long, thick grass.

"The bird quacks in the distance as the hunter and his alluring maiden near it even closer. Starving of hunger that has been pelting him for hours, the hunter readies to take down the game before it can flee."

"Can you shut up?"

Calem turns around, interrupted just as he was beginning to get to the good part of his soliloquy, the meat of the package, the golden core, all that stuff. Instead, he finds himself face-to-face with his traveling companion.

Serena huffs, "You're talking too much, it's getting annoying. Just do what you're going to do and get it over with."

In past times, her harsh snarls and bites would jab at him relentlessly and heartlessly break him down from his charismatic caricature, a portrait of a seemingly perfect boy who would do anything to kiss up the long socked legs of his potential wife to be.

Now it just makes his insides disgustingly giddy.

"You know, you didn't have to come. You could have stayed back at the center like I told you."

She exhales, "Too boring."

"I thought you said this was boring too?"

"It's not as boring. There's something called a tier system, get used to it."

They fall back into a solace as they continue to crawl about the grass. Calem attempts to concentrate on nothing but his prime goal, to swiftly move through the grass, and strike like a hawk from above.

Or something like that.

Serena is more so-so, if anything. Her demeanor shows signs of exhaustion and discomfort. Grass blades are prodding at her skin, her elbows are beginning to tire from crawling, and she's been staring at his ripe rump for the longest.

"Can you hurry up? I'm getting itchy."

Calem pauses in his crawl, he turns around to face her, casual smirk and all.

"We can go back to tonguing in the bushes if you want."

A scarlet hue tinges her face. Although slightly chagrined, she refuses to let him profit from it.

"Don't you ever tell anyone about that. "

"Aw? Why not?"

"If anyone found out I was with dorky scum like you, I would never hear the end of it." she explains, with that type of superior, highfalutin tone that sounds like lyres to his ears.

"Come on, I was good!"

"Mediocre, at best."

"How the hell would you know that?"

"I just do."

With a fierce snit, she crawls past him, teeth gritted and fists clenched. He simply gives her a sheepish smile, "Now stop being annoying and pick up the pace, I'm getting tired of staring at your ass."

'At least now I get to stare at yours...'

Of course, while he is daring, he isn't that daring enough to say something like that. There are limits. Deadly, deadly, life-threateningly risky limits, extents that border the realm of living, and. . . not living.

"Hey, over there. Is that the stupid thing you wanna kill?"

Serena stops just ahead of him, prompting him to follow her actions. In a dry tone that emits echoes of wanting to sleep for another extra hour or so, she points to something in the distance, outside of the tall grass, wandering the green terrain with the most brash of expressions.

"Far, far, far! Farfetch'd! Far, far, far! Farfetch'd!"

Just as the girl is about to make another comment on how dumb the whole ordeal is, Calem slaps a hand over her mouth to shut her up, to keep her from scaring the game away. It's a slap too hasty and too harsh.

Serena fumes, ready to bite down on his skin with all of her over-glorified independent womanly might.

"Holy hot damn! Farfetch'd, and this early too, I thought we would be out here for hours! You're a lifesaver!"

Her fumes die down and her voice clams up.

"Wh-Whatever..."

Calem squints at the duck in the distance, a mixture of confidence and perseverance in his eyes. The mallard in his sights has quite the ego, an inflated impertinence boasted by haughty, overweening arrogance.

He marches back and forth in a pattern, twirling his leek stick in his wings like a baton of sorts. It's a pattern that Calem is quick to pay recognition to, and even quicker to memorize.

Serena wipes her eyes with a yawn that he finds extremely adorable, ironic given who it's coming from.

It's a harrowing shame that that same yawn is followed up by a distasteful sigh, "Well? It's right there. Catch the stupid ass so we can get back already, you stupid ass."

His focus is lost instantly by her assumption.

To chastise her for making such a stupid remark, he flicks her on her forehead. A light gentle flick because he isn't that mean (or strong), but a flick regardless.

She flinches, "What the hell was that for?"

It certainly grabs her attention.

"Do honestly think I'm going to catch that duck?"

"It's a Pokemon. What else are you going to do with it?"

"Eat it, obviously."

Serena reasonably gags from the sudden intention of hyperbolic measures. It's kind out of the norm for him, committing bloody murder and all over something so innocent.

Sure, the mallard is cocky as all fuck, but that's not necessarily a felony and surely not reason enough to justify a death.

Calem covers her mouth again before her gags can alert the game, though more gently this time, in further whipped respect for her comforts and discomforts.

When she stops hacking, she gives him a look of disapproval, "Why the hell would you do that? That's just cruel."

He cocks an eyebrow with inquisitive interest, he expects these behavioral vibes more from himself than he does from her, "Eh? When did you suddenly start caring about lives inferior to your own?"

"Since I met you." she answers with a pout.

Ouch. So hot.

He shifts his body, scooting closer to her because she smells faintly like vanilla and he blatantly wants more of that, "Yeah well. Here's the thing, and I'm going to be honest about it. From a competitive stance, the duck sucks."

"A 'competitive' stance, he says."

"Yes, that is what I said. The. Duck. Sucks." as harsh as Calem is, it's a harrowing fact. With pathetically low stats that are nothing to write home about and in some cases, vehemently laughable when compared to raptor powerhouses with the same typing, the verdict is disappointingly clear.

The leek-wielding mallard is more talk the talk than walk the walk.

"Far, far, far! Farfetch'd! Far, far, far! Farfetch'd!"

Yet he still acts as if he's top dog, the person who runs the joint, who runs the neighborhood, who runs his shit and everyone's shit simply because he has the entitlement to do so.

But he doesn't, it's all in his head.

"Far, far, far! Farfetch'd!"

A head that Calem wishes to seethe his teeth into and suck out all of its rich marinated duck juices.

"You went all the way out here, in the cold, to catch that duck, all because you're hungry?" she sits up and places her hands on her hips with a groan.

"God. You're pathetic."

He keeps his airs in check, not letting them deter once, even as she hammers down on him without a care, "Not as pathetic as he's going to be. You see, you may know this, but. . ."

"Farfetch'd is incredibly rare in the wild."

"But I thought you said it sucked."

"I did."

"Why is it endangered if it's a piece of crap in battle?"

Calem pinches the bridge of his nose. It's one thing if she's annoyed, because that's cute and frankly it twitches him in ways that's too inappropriate to describe, but when it comes to his own annoyance, that's genuinely a whole different narrative he would rather stray away from.

"Honey, have you been paying any attention to anything I've been saying?"

"Don't call me that."

He attempts to bring back his typical conceited demeanor by placing his head on her lap, "Stop ignoring questions then."

"Get off of me."

Calem mockingly sticks out his tongue before continuing with his clarification, "They're endangered because of how good they taste, not because they're good in battles. I want to taste one, and it just so happens that today is the day where hunters are allowed to freely go out of their way to shoot some ducks."

"I want a piece of that pie." he finishes with the most huskiest of whispers.

Serena shivers, not from the cold.

Some time passes in a solace as Calem continues to observe the duck, waiting for the right moment to strike and claim the night's dinner for his own, in his own dorky hands.

For good luck, he takes a whiff of her, it's not like she's going to do anything about it anyways. God knows the maiden would go ballistic if some huntsman were to find them in the bushes with unexplained motives and in a position that rings nothing but sexual undertones.

"Your legs smell nice today. Did you use a new shampoo?"

"You know I did." she answers as blunt as possible.

"Far, far, far! Far, far... Farfetch'd..."

Calem gets off of her lap, not in adherence to her, but because the mallard is finally letting his guard down. His ordeal of marching around the clearing and assuring all other Pokemon in the area of his overt dominance has taken a toll on him.

Farfetch'd stops marching and places the hard-hitting leek in his mouth, then starts to take a humble rest.

A humble rest that won't last for long, for the hunter's lust for duck meat is strong. Wanting to waste no time, wanting to join in the spirit of unholy mallard murder, wanting to fucking devour what might be the tastiest meal since his journey began. (Fuck berries.)

He strikes.

Serena is taken aback by his sudden approach.

"Aggh!"

Calem's attack begins with a harsh sprint out of the grass, which obviously alerts the duck within mere moments of his slumber. Yet, as he starts collecting the pieces of just what the hell is going on, it leaves an opening, an opportunity perfect for the trainer to take abuse of.

In this time, he hops into the air, preparing for an almighty tackle to take the bird down.

Farfetch'd doesn't like the idea of being served between two glaringly unabashed enamored youths over a candlelit supper. He doesn't like the sound of it at all, too many of his friends have fallen victim to the sport of duck hunting on this day, and his endeavor to ensure that he won't end up like them is surprisingly enough, a bigger wish than Calem's desire for the best main course the world has ever thought of.

Farfetch'd leaps away at the last minute.

Calem falls flat on his face.

"Far, far, far! Far! Fetch, fetch, far! Far, fetch, far! Farfetch'd!"

"Ow, ow, ow!"

The hunter is taken down in seconds by multiple leek strikes to the cranium.

The mallard stares at the fallen boy with a blank expression, which soon turns into an incredibly pompous, supercilious one when it hits that he's actually won a battle for once.

Against a human boy, no less.

That has to be worth something.

With an overbearing superior laugh, the duck tosses his leek into the air, catching it with supreme ease. To make the injury all the more painful, he gives Calem an unrelenting series of pecks on the head before marching off, while snobbishly repeating his name over and over.

Calem groans.

His stomach rumbles and grumbles.

It's failure. Quick and painful failure.

At first, Serena is surprised that the supposedly frail duck had a counter-strategy for dumb hunters like him, but once the failure sinks in, an epiphany hits her.

Serena is no longer surprised because Calem is Calem, and with Calem, disappointment and failure is inevitable in most cases. A predictable defeat for a predictable loser.

She admits though, that she has to give him credit where credit is due, because as horrible as he is at everything that isn't hair brushing or foot rubbing, he's going to keep trying until he gets it right.

She likes that side of him.

He'll never know that, but she will.

Stepping out of the grass, Serena makes her way over to the fallen boy with an offered hand. The damning tinge returns, and it's harder to hide this time.

Calem sees it, and he smiles because it's fun knowing she has secluded concerns for him.

"Let's just go and get you patched up..."

"I don't know, I think I twisted my ankle, you're going to have to carry me back."

"Don't push your luck."