"So you're Anna, right?" A smiling face met me at the door. "Nurse Joy called the room to let me know you was coming. Good thing, too, I kinda already tossed my stuff all over the bottom bunk, I don' usually get paired with roommates here."
"Yeah, and you're -"
"Hattie Ellis, atcha service!" She beamed, then stepped out of the doorway. "C'mon in, girl, I'll make room for you."
Hattie wasn't kidding; it looked like the entire contents of her pack were strewn out across the bottom bed. Still, she made good on her word and swept up the mess in less time than I'd expected. "There you are," she said, panting slightly. "Oh, and, hey, do you mind if I let my pokemon out in the room?"
"Uh, well, I guess that depends? How big are they?" I imagined a dragonite, an arcanine, and every other large pokemon all released in the same room.
"Oh, they're little, trust me. You aren't allergic to shroomish, are you? It seems like it happens pretty often, so I'd rather check before letting Morgan out."
I thought about it. "Well, I've never met one, but my parents are lab assistants back in Pallet. They've never been allergic to any kind of pokemon, so maybe I'm not?"
Hattie beamed. "Good enough for me. Come out, sweeties!" Two bright lights shimmered and resolved into a shroomish and a trapinch. They blinked slowly, as if awakening from a long rest.
The shroomish - Morgan, I remembered - shook itself, then frowned and butted Hattie's leg. "Shroo!" it said insistently. Hattie glanced out the window. I followed her gaze and realized that rain had begun pattering against the glass. Morgan continued to nudge at her calf. "Shrooooo." I could have been wrong, but the shroomish seemed to practically be whining.
Hattie just laughed. "Always in such a hurry, aren't we?" she cooed before turning to her trapinch. "Right, well, Preston, you gonna be a brave boy and come with us?" In response, Preston shook his oversized head back and forth rapidly, almost overbalancing with every swing. It didn't take much expertise to read that as a negative. Hattie sighed. "You're gonna have to go back in the ball, then. You know that, right?"
"Pinch."
"Ah, well, suit yourself, Press, but one of these days, it's gonna be rainy and there's not gonna be anywhere for you to hide." Hattie sounded disappointed; I guessed this was a long-standing argument. With another sigh, she recalled the trapinch, then turned to me. "Well, we're going out."
"Why?" I couldn't help but ask.
Hattie grinned. "We're in Cerulean, girl! Water's what these folks are about, and my babies love them some water. Well," she amended, glancing at the pokeball she held, "two out of three, at least. I'll get Press there someday, but it's been too long a day for fighting him on it, poor thing."
"You said two out of three. Who's the third?" I asked.
"Ah, well, Luther's not really a Pokemon Center kind of dude, so I was gonna need to go out anyhow. The rain's really just icing." Hattie's eyes suddenly lit up. "Hey, do you want to meet him?"
I shrugged, dropping my knapsack on the ground. "Don't really have other plans."
I hadn't really noticed on the way in, but half of what made Cerulean glitter in daylight was the water features. Ponds and fountains seemed as common as grass. Hattie hadn't been lying about the place being a water town, either; I was surprised to see handfuls of people wandering about with arms outstretched, while others basked in the rain like persian in the sun. They had their pokemon with them, too, oddishes and poliwags chasing each other around the water's edge. Everything was so vibrant in spite of the rain, or, I realized, maybe because of it. It made my heart twinge a little with homesickness, even though Viridian was never this lively on a sunny day, let alone in the rain.
Luther, it turned out, was a carvanha. Hattie laughed as he sent waves splashing towards her, splashing him right back. Morgan tried, too, but her feet - it was a she, Hattie had corrected me - could barely reach out from her body, let alone allow for kicking. Really, Hattie seemed to spend at least half her time making sure her shroomish didn't fall too deep into the water.
I stood back from the cheerful trio, hands deep in my jacket pockets. I had the definite sense of intruding on a family, a feeling that had been there with Marco and Neil, but not nearly so strong as now. Still, Hattie would look back at me every so often with anxious eyes, and I would smile back at her, blinking the rain out of my eyelashes. Maybe I wasn't part of the family, but the enthusiasm was infectious.
After a while, Hattie sat back on the ground, holding Morgan in her arms while Luther zipped along in the little pond. "Maybe tomorrow we can find him a river," she said, more to herself than to me or her pokemon. "It's too dark tonight, but in the morning... That'd be nice for him, yeah." Tentatively, I sat down next to her on the damp grass. My clothes were already soaking wet, so dirt or grass stains weren't of particular concern. She smiled at me. "Thanks for coming out here."
"Oh, I mean, you seemed to be having a good time," I said, unsure how to respond. We sat in quiet for a little while, watching the carvahna race against some of the poliwags on the shore. "So," I began, wanting to break the ice a little, "which one's your starter?"
"Mish!" Morgan volunteered from Hattie's lap. She chuckled at that, brushing a wet braid away from her face as she turned to me.
"Yup, Morganstern here's my first." She stroked the shroomish's head, and the pokemon nestled into her trainer's embrace. "We got Press second, and Luther's been with us just these past couple weeks. He's been doing well, though, hasn't been picking fights with the babies any. They're all good kids, really."
"So, uh, how'd you end up here? I mean, you're not from-"
"Oh, yeah, nah, I'm from Hoenn, girl. Fortree, 'where the heart should be,'" Hattie recited. "And maybe it would be if they weren't so pushy about the flying stuff."
"Not big on flying?"
"Oh, goodness, no. It's the silliest thing, too, because home was sixty feet off the ground and all."
"Seriously?" I stared. "I thought at least some places in Fortree were on the ground."
"Oh, they are, they are. But I was born in the trees, so maybe that's why they don' bother me any." Hattie tilted her head up to the sky, letting the raindrops collect on her face. "But we're not meant to stay up there forever, you know. Gotta come down sometime. Flying just delays that inevitable."
"I suppose." We lapsed into silence as Luther continued to lap the wearying poliwags. I didn't have any experience to work from; I'd never been on a flier before.
"Still," Hattie said, breaking the silence as she rose, "I can't let that keep me down, right?" She shifted Morgan to her left arm to pull out Luther's pokeball. "Baby, it's getting late," she called across the water to her carvahna. Almost at once, he was by her side, sending a wave splashing up against us. "Yes, you're very fast," she said, smiling as she recalled him. "But we all gotta get to bed someday."
As we neared the Pokemon Center, a figure burst out of the doors. "Oh," I said, nonplussed, as Neil ran towards me.
Hattie raised an eyebrow. "I'll be in the room," she said, sauntering out of Neil's way as he skidded to a stop in front of me, panting.
"Where - you didn't - I didn't-" he gasped.
"I was hanging out with my roommate," I said. "You know, the girl you made sure I'd be staying with?"
Neil was panting, but his words were coming out in longer strings. "Of course I did- it's only polite - the chivalrous thing to do-"
I tried not to roll my eyes at this. "Whatever. But I'm fine, see?"
"I- I see that now, yeah," Neil said, his breathing easing into natural rhythms. "But, from what you've said, every time you go to a Pokemon Center, something goes wrong-"
"How do you figure?" I demanded, irritated.
Neil straightened, raising a hand to tick off fingers as he spoke. "Viridian, you get bawled out by the Joy there. Pewter, you come in tripping on poison stings. Mount Moon, you almost fall off a cliff. You're three for three right now, so when you weren't in your room, why wouldn't I think you were going four for four?" The streetlights only let me see part of his face, but his eyes were shining with a surprising amount of sincerity, frankness, even.
I bit my lip. "I didn't think of it like that," I admitted. "And I didn't figure you'd be checking on me, anyways. I would've left a note if you'd said anything."
Neil shrugged, and the movement seemed to settle him back into his usual stance. "You know, that's fair. I didn't think about that, to be honest with you. I just kind of, well, panicked, I guess."
"I got that, yeah," I said, trying not to laugh. "So, we both goofed here."
"That we did. We'll just do better next time, yeah?"
That caught me off guard. "Next time?"
Neil was holding out his hand to me. "Yeah, next time. We're traveling together, so next time we go to a town or something, we'll do better. Deal?"
I stared at the hand. "How long do you think we're going together?" I asked uneasily.
Neil smiled. "As far as you have to go, Anna."
"But, you have your own training, don't you?" I wasn't sure why I felt like refusing; between him and Hattie, companionship had made a compelling case for itself over the past two days. Still, I had set out on this trip alone and had meant to be alone until meeting up with Granddad. Was it betraying the spirit of the thing to agree to this, especially when it was just going to get in the way of the traveling partner?
"Anna, we can train anywhere," Neil said, waving his outstretched hand dismissively. "Besides, I haven't traveled with anyone in, well..." He paused, then frowned. "Actually, it's been quite a while. So, I mean, it's not as though you're an inconvenience or something."
"I suppose..."
"I mean, if you don't want to travel with me, that's fine." I blinked. Neil's frown deepened. "I'd completely understand if you'd rather work with, uh, Natalie, did you say?"
"Hattie," I corrected. "And, I mean, I don't know where she's going, so that's kind of-"
"Well, we can talk about it when you know that." Neil spun about as if to leave me standing there in the rain.
"Hold on!" He glanced back. "How is this fair? I barely know either of you, and you're making all these big plans, and all I really wanted to do was go to Lavender, and, and..." I trailed off, unable to articulate how frustrated I was by all of his nonsense.
He turned to face me again, looking mortified. "Anna, I wasn't thinking. You're right, of course. My mistake." We stood watching each other through the rain, which had started as a drizzle but was now creeping towards a downpour. I felt the rain pound against my scalp, rolling down my neck and soaking my shirt.
I shook my head, sending water droplets flying. "You were right, too. We should talk about this in the morning. Right now, though? I just need a hot shower."
I stepped forward, ready to go inside out of what was now definitely a downpour. Neil didn't move. "Anna, before you go, there's just one thing." He was shouting to be heard above the rain.
"What?"
"Are we okay?"
I stared at him. "What do you mean?"
"We're still friends, right?"
I froze. Friends. I'd known him for a little over a day. Was that enough to be friends? He saved my life, made me dinner, and walked with me across a plateau. Was that what made people friends?
"Anna?" Neil's voice brought me back to the night, to the rain. His hand was outstretched again. "Even if we don't travel together, you're still-"
"Yeah, friends," I said, grabbing his hand and giving it a quick shake. "Now get out of the rain."
Hattie was lounging on the top bunk when I got out of the shower. Her hair was wrapped in a white towel that contrasted with her dark skin. Her cheeks dimpled when she smiled. "So, what was up with him?" she asked, voice laced with amusement.
"Haven't the foggiest," I answered honestly, rubbing the wetness out of my hair.
"He your sweetheart?"
I snorted, ready for the question. "I met him yesterday."
"Ahh, I see how it is," Hattie said, still smiling. "And now he wants to travel with you, eh?"
"I mean, I'm kind of going it alone so far, so it can't hurt, I guess. He wants to know if I'm going with you, but, like, I don't even know where you're going-"
"Oh, I'm not going anywhere, girl." I looked up from my towel. Hattie was sitting up, still smiling, but with a friendlier cast. Less like she was teasing, more like, well, like a friend. "Yeah, I'm here for catching, to be honest with you."
"Oh? Catching what?"
"One of those abra that you've got out here. I've been wanting one for ages."
"Why's that?"
She grinned at me. "Teleport, girl. I had a gardevoir shuttle me from Fortree to Lavaridge once, and, lemme tell you, it's definitely the way to travel. No wind in your face, no falling, just boom-and-go."
I thought about this. "Aren't there teleporters out in Hoenn, though?"
Hattie shook her head. "Yeah, but you know what else is out there?" I shook my head. "Hoenn. I'm sick of home."
"Really?" I remembered begging my parents to take us to Dewford one year. "It's so pretty out there, though."
"Yeah, yeah, it's super lovely, I know, except that when you've been there for seventeen years, you've seen it all, really, walking hither and yon. And don' sell your home short, either. This town's gorgeous, and I bet you the rest of Kanto's just as pretty."
I thought about this. "I guess that makes sense," I said. "I haven't really been that far around here, so I can't really say."
"What's that?" Hattie stared at me with increased interest. I sighed and began retelling my story. At this rate, I'd have it boiled down to an elevator speech by the end of the week. At the end of it, Hattie's eyes were wide. "So, you're going cross-country by yourself, without pokemon?" she asked.
"Well, I mean, yeah, that was the plan." I shifted, uncomfortable. "Does it really sound that crazy?"
"I don' know, girl," Hattie said, brows furrowed. "Like, on the one hand, you've been okay so far, but you also got in a couple scrapes back there. And you're going with no pokemon at all?"
"Yeah, I'm just going to Granddad's place. No need."
"Hmm." Hattie lapsed into silence. I hung up my towel and climbed into my bunk, wondering if that was all that would be said on the subject for the night. Just as I was preparing to turn off the light, Hattie spoke again. "Hey, Anna."
"Yeah?"
"This Neil kid. He seems like good people."
"Yeah."
"I think you should take him up on that offer."
I rolled out to stare up at her bunk. Hattie was looking down at me. "Just think of it as insurance. He seems pretty crazy about protecting you, so you've got that as a plus. And if he starts anything-" she swung her legs out and leapt down, missing my face by inches, "-you're going to be able to protect yourself, right? Your granddaddy isn't sending you across the region with no ways of keeping yourself safe, right?"
I snorted. "Yeah, I've got stuff," I said, pulling my bag towards me.
Hattie waved her hand. "If you're sure, I don' need to see it. You're a big girl. I just don' want you getting hurt."
"Um, thanks. Why?"
She cocked her head to the side. "We're friends, girl! And my babies like you, so I especially don' want bad things happening to you."
Those were the last words said that night. Hattie soon clambered back into bed and let her soft snores fill the quiet room. I stared at the mattress over my head and listened to her snores, to the rain, to my heartbeat. Friends seemed to be around every corner, but Hattie was right. I needed to be careful. Really, this night had just served to underscore that, more than she'd realized.
I thought back to our argument. For that brief moment when he'd lost his cool, it had felt like I was seeing a different Neil. Maybe that was the real one. I wasn't sure how to feel about that. On the one hand, Hattie's warning loomed over that moment as evidence that he was hiding something. On the other hand, the guy Neil was pretending to be seemed, well, benign, at least. Was there any harm in traveling with someone like that?
And, even if there was, I thought, drifting closer to sleep, what's life without a little risk?
A stupid thought, but it was mine at the time.
Greetings, beautiful readers. This chapter is dedicated to a good friend of mine in this community. You can (and should) read her work here where she's Motherflipping Oak, but for now, happy birthday, Emily. Thanks for encouraging me to keep writing here and tolerating my long silences. You're a good friend to have.
As usual, I love hearing what you readers have to say. Drop me a line and let me know your thoughts on where this story is going.
Until we meet again,
Carp
