Myna and Kukui went up to the order counter, a young girl, about her age, stood behind it. Well actually she was sitting on a high stool, but same difference. She smiled at them as they approached.
"Alola! What can I getcha fer?" She smiled brightly, and Kukui returned it.
"Well little sis, I'd like a molasada, and she'd like a…" Kukui trailed off and looked over to Myna, who stood up a little straighter.
Logically she knew the speech therapy was successful, she could say what she wanted, but something stopped her. She glanced up at the menue and held up three fingers.
The items weren't numbered, but kukui caught her drift and counted out himself, "She'd like a chicken salad."
Myna smiled.
The girl rang it up, and Kukui, before Myna could do anything, handed over the cash. The girl counted it out, then looked up, smile back on her face, "Mahalo!" Myna liked the sound of thank you. Mahalo, it was pretty. It sounded fun to say…
"ma-ha-lo…" She whispered it quietly to herself as she followed Kukui away. If Kukui herd her speak, he didn't say anything.
The sheer amount of chickens, not torchicks, literal actual chickens, on the island was staggering. They just wandered about, unconcerned by the realities of human or pokemon life. Sometimes pokemon intermingles with them, and you would see nearly ten chickens and a couple torchicks all following a blazenkin dutifully around. Even the roosters seemed to bow before their alpha overlords. It was somewhat amusing.
Hau and Lillie were off doing whatever they were doing, and since the café was in such a nice place, the windows, which were really the walls, had been slid open, a large open firepit being the only load bearing object on the side of the building. Though there was a beautiful picket fence that went along just outside where the windows should be, giving the feeling of being on a porch, even though fans circulated the air, keeping the large room cool.
You could hear the pokemon, the wind in the trees, the wind chimes placed in ornate areas of the café. It was hard to remember they were in a pokemon center. Myna was perfectly okay with that.
"So," Kukui looked up from his phone and started the conversation, "the island challenge, is it something you would see yourself doing someday?" Myna shook her head no. definitely not for her. Kukui nodded, "Well, it's a good idea to train your pokemon anyways, Alola itself is peaceful, but people coming to it tend to cause problems." She nodded again. "Kids your age usually know their way around firearms by now," She stared at him shocked, "but I'm guessing you've never touched one before, yeah?" He laughed at her expression and waved his hand, dismissing the subject, "We'll get to it eventually."
She was not looking forwards to that.
Their food came out, and she was almost finished with her meal by the time Hau and Lillie decided to show themselves.
In the background the television was playing some breaking news, but no one but the owner of the café, a sweet old women copying receipt info into an accounting book, payed it any mind.
Hau had apparently taken Lillie to the nearby ruins, which Kukui wasn't surprised by. The whole Island used to be a collection of villages, each one with an alpha pokemon they prayed and offered things to. nearby was the most intact ruins of one such village.
Lillie was chattering away about them, turned out she loved archaeology, which was the human history study, while paleontology was the study of everything else's history.
In the background, the owner of the café turned up the television's sound. Kukui glanced over at the subtitles.
"the bill for the final separation from the rest of the UR will go to the last room of legislation tomorrow, if it passes, it will head to the president's desk. The pokemon league has already picked up their operations in Alola, and transferred its people to other regions. All persons without Alolan certification will need to apply for it, or a visa, within sixty days of the bill being signed." UR stood for United Regions.
That explained the huge presence of Alolan military banded around all the islands, it was impossible to go between islands on pokemon for now. Even the Seafolk were trapped over on Poni Island until things settled.
Alola was in a state of organized chaos, and here they were following Hau as he went through his island challenge.
The day was drawing to a close anyways, and Kukui resolved to take the three back to Melemele. They arrived as the sun was going down, and Myna got to see the stained glass windows alight in a whole knew way. The sunset shone behind them, and they were being lit up by the lights on inside. Hau'oli wasn't a big city, and Myna wasn't one for people, but even she had to marvel at its beauty.
They were standing outside Myna's home now, and Hau had just run off, on to his own house, when Kukui spoke, "Myna, I'm told you have an appointment tomorrow, yeah?"
Oh… yeah… she forgot about that, but either way she nodded.
"I'll drop you off there before taking Hau and Lillie to the next part of the challenge, yeah."
She nodded, but he must've seen the disappointment on her face.
"After all's said and done, I'll come back and pick you up, and you can come with us the next day?" that got a smile on her face, she nodded.
oOo
there were a lot of people, but she couldn't see any of their faces. Loud music, loud people, bright lights. There was a long table with a lot of food. People milled about around it, all adults. she was the only child at this party.
She looked down at herself, her hands looked fuzzy, but she vaguely remembered this dress… she'd loved this dress. She had grown out of it when she was six. She had to be around that age now, right?
Her father walked by, touched her shoulder, handed her a cup, and then seemed to dematerialize. She looked down at it, it looked funny, she tasted it, it tasted funny, but her father had given it to her, so it must be okay. It had to be okay, right?
As she drank more and more, she felt herself getting dizzy, saw an older man notice and come towards her, her father was there again, gently taking the cup. He threw it away, she didn't get to finish her drink that made her feel funny. Her father and the man seemed to be talking, laughing, but she was getting so tired, and it was hard to focus on anything really, something, a lot of somethings, green… money, money passed hands, and the world was spinning more, and the old man took her by the shoulders and she-
Woke up in Alola, in her room, to the sound of Apapane screeching for food.
What a strange dream… she lay in shock for a moment, not knowing if it was a dream, or a memory, before rolling herself out of bed. One glance at the clock had her running to get dressed though, and she managed to finish putting on her shoes just as the front screen door slammed open and Kukui yelled "ALOLA!" at the top of his lungs.
She called her pokemon into her pokeballs, except Apapane, who was being moody, and had gone down to Nalani, and seemed to have attached to her instead. Oh well, she left Apapane's pokeball on her nightstand, grabbed her bag, and bolted down the stairs.
Kukui laughed at her frazzled entrance, "That's the most noise I've ever heard you make!" She blushed.
Nalani laughed as well, said something to Kukui, but Myna wasn't listening, and handed her granddaughter a couple piece of toast.
Myna followed her uncle outside. Hau and Lillie were standing there, hau talking about something, and Lillie nodding and laughing. They both yelled their hellos, and she waved with a smile, the effects of that night's dream wearing off fully.
If they were a memory, she didn't want to remember it.
Hau'oli was as bright and crowded as ever, if not a little more so, with a Kalosian holiday coming up. There were a lot of probable Kalosians milling about…
Kukui and the kids ducked into a nearby building and walked down the hall. They got to the Speech pathologist's practice and Kukui signed Myna in. When he'd finished, he looked at her seriously, "Are you sure you'll be good on your own?"
She smiled and nodded, so he returned the smile.
"Okay, Alola!" he took the other two kids and left, on to Hau's challenge. Kukui was like the ringleader of children, it was amusing, he should start a school or something.
Myna sat in a plastic chair until her last name was called, when she got up, and followed the assistant to the nice speech pathologist's office.
The man glanced up as she entered, "Alola Myna, are you ready for today's meeting?"
She would rather be anywhere but here. But she smiled and sat down.
"Last week we went through the Kantonian and Alolan alphabet, how about this week we go for some words?"
Why was the idea of speech so revolting? It must've shown in her eyes, because the man wrote something down.
"We can go back over the alphabets, but this time in random order?" She nodded, and he did.
oOo
She got out of her appointment hours before the end of the day, so she decided t wander around Hau'oli.
She thought about going into some of the stores, but decide against it, instead turning off into one of the gated grassy areas. Seconds later, she came across a pokemon, It jumped when it noticed her, shocked that she'd managed to sneak up on it, but then began growling.
She held up her hands, just as surprised as the pokemon in front of her. Sure she was walking in long grass, but back home no pokemon ever attacked her… of course she was friends with all the pokemon in Kanto, and it was no longer home, but still!
It didn't take her long to realize the pokemon was guarding a tree stump full of berries. She decided to find a truce and pulled a berry out of her bag, she'd grabbed it off the table a couple days prior, and these bags had cool tech that shrunk items and kept foods good.
She handed it to the pokemon. It stopped, shocked, but excepted the berry, and let her pass. She sat down nearby and started to draw it. Maybe she could make a new friend yet.
The sun was starting to set, so she got up and wandered off to where she was supposed to meet up with Kukui and the others, today hadn't been the best, or the worst day in her life, but it had been interesting nonetheless.