"Unfortunately, all I've got is this."

After what felt like an eternity of watching Mawile scuffle around through the depths of her office's treasures, she finally snatched up something buried in a storage chest and delicately placed it in my outstretched vine. It was still a bit sore from overuse in today's mission that took Leah and I into a nearby valley to catch a petty outlaw, but the object she handed me wasn't very heavy at all and thus held no burden.

I retracted the green tendril and folded the white stone in my hands, inspecting its dimensions and composition. Nothing really seemed too special about it besides the circular inscription on the face, which was faded but still visible enough to see the flamboyant pattern that made it different from any old rock.

"What am I holding?" I asked her.

"My research shows that this stone here was involved in a human-related event of the past, one that was theoretically apocalyptic." Mawile walked over and took the rock from me again, placing it on a shelf where I assumed it was supposed to be all along. "The details of its story are widely debated, but it is agreed on by most researchers of the Exploration Federation that it is considered a priceless artifact for playing a vital role in this particular event."

"How did you get your hands on it then?"

"Believe me, it wasn't easy," she replied while looking up slightly at the ceiling in recollection of her efforts. "I spent three weeks bribing and begging the owner of an auction house in the Grass Continent to sell it to me, who finally gave in when I offered twice the pay that had been previously offered for it."

I raised an eyebrow. "How did you get the money to do that, if it's so valuable?"

"I took a large portion of the monthly funds normally delegated to the larder, and combined it with some offhand money I had. I told Ampharos, and he didn't mind," she answered with a dismissive shrug. "Now, Swirlix on the other hand... she didn't speak to me for two weeks, and I'm pretty sure she even tried to poison my dinner before finally realizing my typing made me immune to that kind of stuff."

I blinked. "I see... but what does this have to do with me though?"

Mawile paused for a moment before taking off her glasses and dropping them on her desk a few feet away. "Well, like I said, I unfortunately don't have much to show you. The very existence of humans is a widely debated topic, and the different stories of ancient humans saving the world is all the same. The Grass Continent has a version of a human turning into a Pokemon, but the Mist Continent has a completely different telling of the same story, and the Air Continent as well. All of them play out differently and in entirely separate time periods, yet have enough parallels to make the possibility of only one of them being true relevant in the debate as well. The problem is that the recognized scientists and historians of the world are so divided on the matter that it's become an unsolvable mess."

"Wait, humans have turned into Pokemon before me?" I blurted in surprise. "Seriously?"

She grabbed a book and skimmed through its contents, speaking as she did it. "Perhaps they have, perhaps not. I certainly think they have, but as I said, nobody knows for sure, and nobody can really agree whether humans are even real to begin with." She clapped the book shut suddenly, and turned around to look at me. "But there have definitely been claimed records of it happening in the distant past. I've got a few loosely-related documents scattered around here that you're welcome to take a look at as long as you return them intact."

"Thank you," I said with a respectful nod. "You have no idea how much this helps."

The historian returned the nod mutually, and pursed her lips for a moment before replying. "Yes, I can't say I have any idea. I'm willing to bet 'confused' doesn't quite put into perspective what you've been through these past... how long was it again?"

"It's been nearly three months since I woke up as a Pokemon. Something like that."

"I see." She leaned on her desk for support, and rubbed at her baggy eyes. "If you don't mind me asking, how did you come to trust your friend Leah so much then? I'd imagine you were skeptical of anything and everything at first, and yet you act like you've known your Fennekin friend for many years despite only living in this world for a short time."

"Well..." I rubbed the back of my head, a little unsettled by the question. "I'll admit, I've had more than one occasion already where I've doubted that any of this is even real. I was a little weary of some of the Pokemon back in Serene Village at first because of the very thing you just mentioned. But Leah's different, because we were actually enemies for a brief time."

It was Mawile's turn to raise her eyebrows. "Enemies?"

I nodded. "We got in a stupid argument and said some stuff that distanced us, and then she plunged me into a cold river."

"Wow. But how exactly does any of this make her trustworthy?"

"Because," I answered firmly. "During this time, she saved my life from a bunch of Beedrill and Combee when I was lying half-dead in a field. That's when I knew that I had someone who I could trust in this mysterious world. And from there, I began to open up more and more to others about personal stuff like my humanity and my future plans."

Mawile put her hands up defensively, indicating that she had picked up on what was interpreted as mild impatience. "I understand," she said while shooting me a calm stare. "I wasn't implying you shouldn't have been trusting anyone all this time, I was simply curious about how your thought process has functioned since the moment you realized you had no memories. It's not often that one of my stature gets to observe someone's mentality under such controlled circumstances."

"It's all good. Believe me, I'm just as curious about this kind of thing as you are." I replied.

She eyed me for a moment, her examining gaze eventually resting right below my own.

"If you don't mind me asking, where did you get that scarf?" she said, maintaining her stare at the emerald material around my neck. "I noticed you and your partner arrived with them on, and you always wear them every day. Don't they get dirty or start to smell?"

"My scarf?" I replied, self-consciously resting my hand on the saturating fabric. "Leah gave this to me as a token of our friendship. ...And no, they don't get worn out or anything like that from what I've seen."

"Not to intrude on your personal belongings, but would you mind if I took a look at it?" she pressed, lips slightly parting. "I'm no expert on attire, but even from here I can tell it isn't the average defense scarf or zinc band."

I cocked my head at her odd request, maintaining my hold on the priceless garment. "Well..." I began politely. "I hate to turn you down, but with my memories wiped and all, this is all really helpful—"

We were abruptly interrupted by the angry ring of the mess hall bell that echoed its loud chime through the walls of the compound. Riding the domino effect was my stomach, growling angrily at me for another shipment of its desired product.

"Sounds like it's dinnertime," Mawile said, quickly glancing at the door to her cluttered office and dropping the subject. "You should go. I'm going to finish what I'm doing real quick and then head down after you."

I nodded one last time and made my way out the door, shutting it delicately on the way out. I walked a few steps before turning and peering back at the closed wooden frame to call out a final gratuitous expression. "Oh, and thank you for the help on this. Every bit of information counts."

"It's my pleasure. We'll talk again soon when I'll hopefully have more to supply you with. Oh, and have Ampharos save me some food before Swirlix eats it!" The voice was barely audible through the door that served as the barrier. I turned around once more and started making my way down the smooth stairs, enticed forward by the smell of our piquant daily feast in the cafeteria below.

I slipped through the thick curtain that served as the mess hall's door without a sound, which wouldn't have really mattered anyway since dinner was already well under way and everyone had begun their joking and jabbering. I pinpointed my best friend right away, who was at the end of the table talking with Archen. My seat was saved for me as usual, and I walked over while reaching over the head of an unsuspecting Buizel with a vine to grab a banana from buffet plate in the middle of the table. Peeling and taking a single bite, I reached my chair and plopped down, relaxing my legs and sinking into the cushion as some of the soreness in my limbs found reserve.

"Hey Smugleaf," a mouth-full voice beside me gurgled. "What did Mawile have to say?"

I turned in my chair to face my partner, who had been stuffing herself with a bowl of chesto berries and had the sticky pink juice slathered around her maw to show for it.

"Well," I began, clicking my tongue. "Mawile showed me a rock, and then asked about my memories a bit, and then next thing we knew it was dinnertime."

Leah's ears dropped a little bit. "So, you're saying not much came out of it, huh?" she said in monotone.

"Basically," I answered, taking a giant bite of the closest perfect apple I could grab. "By the sound of it, the existence of humans in this world isn't something that's believed by a vast majority of Pokemon. However, it turns out that there are actually past accounts of humans turning into Pokemon, just as I have."

"Really? That's huge!" Leah exclaimed, her ears quickly perking back up. I couldn't help but smile at her enthusiasm for a problem that wasn't technically hers.

"It's a place to start," I said with a hopeful shrug. "I don't expect a bunch of information to fall into my lap about it right away, but this at least tells us that what happened to me might not be as exceptional as I thought."

"I still think it's wild that you're actually a human," Archen said, jumping into the conversation. "Like, you just seem so comfortable as a Snivy that no one would guess this isn't your 'usual' form."

As exhibited here, the Society members had reacted about how I expected them to when I told them a summarized version of my story during morning announcements earlier. Apparently last night Mawile had taken Mincinno's advice and gotten some sleep after all, albeit not very much, and was looking a little better in the morning when I told everyone. They were all skeptical at first, but came to terms with it without much friction when the members of Team Carbon recounted what had happened on our mission. To my surprise, everyone had actually been more appalled by the tidbit about the 'demon' rather than my actual confession, indicating that my humanity likely wouldn't become a future issue as far as social standing goes around here. Most of them, particularly the more high-tempo members like Buizel and the chief himself, actually seemed to think it was pretty cool having a real human on board, and I got a couple of positively awed looks and high-fives to boot.

"Like I said, I lost my memories of what it was like to actually be a human. So this technically would be my usual form, since I've never known anything else." I answered after swallowing another juicy bite of fruit.

Archen thought about it and nodded. "That's true. Although still, you've only been a Pokemon for a handful of months and yet you're capable enough physically to work here. It's pretty impres- oh! That reminds me!"

Leah and I shared a brief glance of curiosity as Archen dug his wing into his bag that was carelessly draped over the back of his chair. After a second of digging, he drew out two laminated tickets, which he distributed to the two of us. "Those," he began by pointing to the printed words at the top. "...are Air Continent passports. I bought them for you two today because Ampharos wanted the three of us to run a two-week campaign in the southern region of the continent."

"Two-week campaign?" I inquired.

"Yeah, it's basically like doing the same kind of work we do here, but over on a different continent instead. For things like this the Society will put forward funds so we have just enough for basic food and a bearable place to stay, so that during the day we can pursue the two goals of the Expedition Society: completing missions on the connection orb, and creating a map of the world. The Air Continent does have its own version of a rescue federation, but it's not as widely influential as it probably should be for a continent with so much landmass, and not to mention it's only getting more and more populated as time goes by. We all might find ourselves frequently working over in that area in the next couple of years until they get their shit together."

"What's the Air Continent like?" Leah asked with enticed fervor.

Archen rubbed the back of his head with his wing, glancing at the ceiling and thinking indifferently for a moment. "I... don't suppose it's too different from the Water Continent really, besides the colder climate in the northern regions and the lack of humidity all around. Um- oh! I will say the Air Continent does tend to sport thicker vegetation in its central mass than what you're probably used to seeing around here. I've gotten a good look at it a few times when I've flown over."

Leah seemed to take every bit of information in, visibly growing excited with each passing second. It was no secret to me that she had always desired to visit other lands, and now we were here being provided the opportunity by our feathered colleague. In a more disciplined manner, I nodded my head idly to his words for a couple of seconds until what he said at the end registered.

"Wait, did you say you 'flew' over?"

A giddy grin spawned on Archen's face as she swallowed another berry down. "Remember when I was introducing myself to you two, and I said I had something that would allow me to do what I do?"

Leah and I nodded.

"Well," he continued. "It's actually kinda hard to explain the science behind how I do it, so for that we'd have to have Jirachi tag along with us early tomorrow to the storage basement. He'll still surely be fast asleep, so that's not an option for obvious reasons. I'll instead just have to show it to you myself when it comes time to use it."

"What time are we leaving?" I asked.

"We should try and get out of here right around an hour before you usually wake, so make sure to get to bed early tonight in order to wake up rested and on time."

Damn it, I hate waking up early.

I turned to Leah, who was now engrossed with another bowl of her favorite berries, prepared for her specifically by the surprisingly-attentive Swirlix, who seemed to notice every little detail of what went on at the dinner table. I figured she probably wouldn't care too much, being a morning Pokemon and all.

As I turned back to the table to involve myself with a bowl of some kind of delicious fruit, I felt myself intrigued by the thought of visiting another continent. I had a recurring memory of what land masses and oceans were, but any specific instances were wiped from my mind just as everything else that was detail-oriented was. So in a way, crossing the ocean would be a first-time thing for me whether it actually was or not. I just hoped the gastric solutions in my stomach credited to being a cold-blooded snake wouldn't cause me to become seasick. This kind of traveling was something I would be doing often, after all.

I was barely present in the dusty basement, letting out a yawn every handful of seconds as I ineffectively tried to get a grasp on the waking reality of the early morning. Leah and I were waiting on Archen to pack the last of his mysterious contraption into the hefty pack slung over his neck, which he finally got through with only after a bit of careful manipulation of his available storage space. I didn't really get a good look at it, but from what I saw it was too intricate and complicated to be thoroughly processed at this time of day anyway. I saw some kind of strap-on-belt that had four sail-like appendages extending symmetrically from its base, two to either side. A fifth extended upward from the back end, resembling a tail fin. I hardly managed to get a glance in since Archen was already beginning to disassemble it into multiple parts for the sake of travel by the time I'd arrived down in the basement. Unlike me, Leah was wide awake and trying to make sense of the thing.

"Like I said," the flightless bird grunted as he pulled the pack closed over its bulging contents and hauled it up off the ground. "All of this may look like junk, but it lets me glide through the air a lot longer than I would normally be able to with just my wings. Now, are you two ready to get going?"

"Yeah, we got enough food for a couple days," Leah told him, patting the bag that was slung around my shoulder. "We can get more there, right?"

Archen nodded and gestured for us to follow him back up to the first floor. "Yeah, we'll be docking in a place called Barem Town, and we'll move on south from there. There aren't many settlements inhabiting the mountainous area that we've been called to, but Barem Town will be able to provide any traveling needs of ours."

We continued up the stairs to the top, where Archen pushed the heavyset door open the reveal the right-wing hallway of the compound's first floor. The three of us strolled down into the lobby room, which was lit by the artificial lights installed in the walls warding away the lingering darkness of the early-early morning. Ampharos was waiting at the door, and looked up as we approached.

"Ah, there you three are," he greeted, the last syllable finishing as part of a yawn that lasted several seconds. "Are you all packed and prepared?"

"Yes sir," Archen confirmed with a nod, before pulling out his gadget and pulling up the map. I hadn't really paid much attention to the continents on the map besides the Water Continent ever since Jirachi hooked up our gadgets to the Nexus Atlas yesterday, so it was only now that I realized how crudely the others were digitally drawn on there. By the looks of it, the Society hadn't made much progress on their grand map thus far, at least not in regards to the size of the entire planet.

Archen placed his wing on the display and pointed with his claw at the southern tip of the vague outline of the Air Continent. "This area, right chief?"

"I believe so," Ampharos said. "This area isn't as widely populated as most of the continent is, so the Air Continent officials haven't delegated any assets over there. That's why we've gotten a call from a local who runs a village nestled in a valley complaining about the lack of help when someone gets hurt or lost, and requesting that we send someone in since the Air Rescue Federation situated over in Pokémon Square wouldn't."

Interesting. So this meant that the Expedition Society was pretty well known after all, even internationally. It made me feel kind of special, to be honest, being part of such an exclusive group. Even if I wasn't necessarily overwhelmed by the outward appearances and capabilities of the members right off the bat, the fact that we got a call from an isolated spot across the ocean told that the work this group had done in the past was nothing to kid about.

"Awesome," Archen said with finality, powering off the gadget and squeezing it back into his crowded pack. "I'll call in when we get to Barem Town."

"Wonderful!" Ampharos said with an energetic clap of his hands. His gaze shifted to Leah and I, and he smiled warmly. "I trust neither of you have ever visited another continent before?"

"Nope!" Leah answered with stars in her eyes. "This is gonna be so cool!"

Suddenly realizing something, I asked out of nowhere, "How do we get across the ocean? Do we have a boat?"

"You'll take the Lapras Liner," Ampharos answered with an amused chuckle. "We plan to purchase a private vessel one day to traverse through stormy weather, but until then we use the ferry service internationally run by a company of Lapras, for carrying around Pokemon, and Castform, for scouting the weather."

My eyes widened. "So we'll be riding on the back of a live water Pokemon? That sounds... cool, I guess?"

"Cool?" Leah exclaimed excitedly, jumping in place. "More like amazing! We're gonna ride on a Lapras across the ocean. That's something I've always wanted to do!"

"Well then you'd best get going before you wake everyone up," Ampharos laughed. "I'll await your call, Archen."

Archen nodded, and with a parting salute to the chief, pushed open the door to the humid outside air and gestured for us to follow.

"Ah, this is gonna be the best trip ever!" Leah said.

"This is the worst trip ever... uugghhh..."

Leah sat on the edge of Lapras's shell, peering down at the water. I could see how pale her face had gotten even under her warm pallet of fur, and silenced an amused chuckle at my hilariously nauseous partner. Apparently my fears of seasickness striking were fulfilled after all, only against Leah rather than myself. It made sense after all, her being a fire-type crossing an expanse of nothing but water in all directions. Unlike her, I personally found the experience to be relaxing, even relishing in the rhythm from the faint rocking motion of the waves on our warm-blooded vessel.

"Doing okay over there Leah?" Archen asked. "Heh, you look like you're gonna puke."

"Please, no throwing up on my shell," Lapras commanded with desperation. "I have no way of cleaning it on my own."

"You know Leah, I'm usually the one who's green around here. What gives?" I teased.

"Urrghh, that- that isn't funny," she moaned, before coughing twice and staring back over the edge.

I grinned mischievously. "Seriously, for a second I thought you'd pulled your scarf up over your face like a bandana."

She shot me a dangerous glare, only to break it so she could retch up nothing over the side again. Archen and I gave into our amusement and laughed at the joke, with Leah's initial excitement from roughly an hour before making it even funnier.

"I'd burn you both right now if- urk! If I didn't feel too shitty to breathe fire... ugh..."

"Ahh, that's a good one Sage," Archen said to me, then turning to Leah. "But don't worry about your nausea, Leah. It's not like it's a rare thing. You should've been there for Bunnelby's first sea voyage... hoo boy, he hated it so much that he actually considered just staying on the continent we were visiting instead of coming back to the Society. But he got over it eventually. It just took several times crossing the ocean to get used to everything."

"I don't wanna do this several times..." Leah groaned, rubbing her stomach with conviction. "Hey, Lapras. Are we there yet?"

"We've been sailing for half an hour," Lapras answered bluntly.

"How- how long will it be?"

"Fortunately Barem Town isn't too far from Lively Town, as they are both aligned on coastlines facing each other, so we should be there in about... I'd say around eighteen hours."

Leah gagged in disbelief. "Eighteen hours?!"

"If we're lucky," Lapras added.

"Wh- that's- ugh... that's like a day though..."

I tuned out of the conversation, intending to take a nap under the soothing back-and-forth motion that was currently proving to be more of a curse to my dearest friend. I laid my head down on the shell and curled up, resting that way and thinking myself to sleep. Within my idle thoughts I found myself pondering what was going on back at Serene Village now that it had been almost a week since our unannounced departure. It shocked me how long ago it already felt, as if I'd been at the Society for just as long as I'd been in Serene Village. It felt like a betrayal of where I'd come from, to equate the time spent there to the handful of moments I'd had over by the coastline, even if those moments had been an adventure of their own thus far. I wondered if my friends still thought about Leah and I, and if they were looking for us. The realistic side of me wished they didn't, that we wouldn't have to worry about any surprise encounters with a group of them while out on a job, only to have to turn down a request for our unconditional return. The thought of such a confrontation worried me, as it was very possible that it could end up turning violent. I certainly didn't want to hurt anyone from back there, and I know for a fact that Leah didn't either, and yet we couldn't just get dragged back and away from the new life we were making.

The selfish part of me, on the other hand, made the thought of seeing some of my friends again much more appealing with all negatives cast aside. I at least wanted to apologize to some of them, but even that would put a lot on the line.

In the end, I'd just have to forget and move on.

It always unnerved the psychic-type to no end when a dark-type would sneak up on her. She knew it wasn't always intentional, and thus hard to label as sneaking at all, but regardless it certainly felt that way to her whenever such an interaction came about. She had come to rely so casually on her acute ability to sense those around her and sometimes even peer into the edges of their minds to steal glimpses at their idle thoughts, that it would always throw her off the slightest bit when that inherited power would hit a rock wall upon contact with dark's natural immunity that left her psychic abilities useless. Fortunately there weren't many dark-types around Serene Village, in part due to the customary blitheness that credited the quaint settlement its name. The ghosts living under the rotten tree were the only exception, and even they had been coming out more often and doing nice things for the villagers since the fight in the Ancient Barrow.

This explained why her cool and one-step-ahead persona was momentarily cancelled as she jumped in place at the sound of a voice she wouldn't have really expected to hear anyway.

"Hey, kiddo. I reckon you got a minute?"

Espurr gathered together her typical demeanor and turned her gaze from the expanse of valley stretching before her, a sight she had gotten to enjoy many times up on this hill standing under the big tree. Nuzleaf strolled over and leaned against the tree, closing his eyes for a moment to take in the influence of the shade it provided from the hammering sunlight. Espurr, standing a dozen feet away at the edge of the hill's ascension, now turned her whole body to face the newcomer, and looked him over with mild curiosity.

"Mister Nuzleaf," she remarked with a nod of greeting. "How are you today?"

"I'm doin' fine, I suppose. What about you?" he said with a medium of indifference. Espurr almost habitually tried to mentally read into his emotions as he said it to try and decipher if the simple answer was really supposed to feel as as nonchalant as it sounded, before realizing it would just be ineffective for the same reason she hadn't detected Nuzleaf's approaching presence up the hill. Espurr sensed no threatening or concerning activity in his visible and audible actions, however, so she relaxed and deferred to make normal conversation.

"I'm just enjoying the wonderful weather," Espurr said back, matching his casual tone.

Nuzleaf emerged from the shade and walked up to stand a few feet to her left to take in the view for, unbeknownst to Espurr, one of the first times since his arrival here. He cast an idle glance to his right, to look not at the youth psychic-type with him but instead at the giant mountain in the distance. Only then did Espurr notice the slightest tension in him, catching his lip tighten up on the edge of her vision. Was he looking at a particular mountain, or was he just staring off into the range?

"Storm's comin' from the east, I heard," he said gruffly. "Should pass through the mountains before long."

"Good," Espurr mused. "We need rain."

"Hm. I reckon we do. My leaf-head is getting dried out these days." Nuzleaf glanced to his right again, but this time down at the young psychic. "How have your friends been gettin' by these days?"

Espurr's attention was piqued by the odd question asked of her. It naturally got her thinking, about how Pancham and Shelmet were still grinding at their typical pranking schemes and how Deerling and Goomy were still enjoying life by getting stronger and relaxing on this summer break.

"They're doing fine," Espurr determined. "Why do you ask?"

"Just wonderin'," Nuzleaf mumbled with a well-muffled sigh. Espurr had never been one to miss things, however, and was picking up on the grass-dark-type's vivid dejection more clearly now.

Now Espurr herself sighed, not bothering to hide it. She stared out at the hill's view and decided to cut to the chase before her visitor could work his way there.

"What's this about Nuzleaf?"

It was rhetorical. She was fairly certain she already knew.

Nuzleaf furrowed his brow and shook his head subtly. "I miss that kid," he murmured just barely loud enough for the psychic-type feline to hear. He seemed almost reluctant to say it, like the very thought of it put him down.

"Do you think the Beeheyem got him?" Espurr asked after a moment of awkward silence, before clamping her mouth shut and internally chastising herself. She had really never been one to consistently think of the negative proportions of a situation, and certainly never one to start stressing over worst-case possibilities. When it came to her mental activity, she stayed focused and emotionless in order to keep thorough analysis a priority. That had always been her constant, or it had been up until recently. She certainly didn't want to admit that she'd been exploring the possibility in her head ever since the moment she'd woken to find most of the villagers in a hurried panic, in fear of further worrying her downcast neighbor.

But to her surprise, Nuzleaf dropped the crestfallen attitude he dragged up the hill with him and paired a definitive answer with a shake of his head. "No, I have full faith that they're doin' fine. Sage may not have been with us for but a couple of months, but I reckon I got to know him well enough that I can be certain he'd gone out prepared. And I reckon Leah's just as capable on top of that."

Espurr wasn't quite sure what to make of this. She had anticipated that she would either be recruited for a dangerous rescue mission that would aim to turn the hunter into the hunted, or that she would simply be sought out as a consultant. She was the only other Pokemon besides Nuzleaf still left at Serene Village to actually know about the Beeheyem, so either request made sense, right? Espurr honestly wished she could just read the wily Pokemon's mind and figure out why she was being deliberated on this admittedly-sensitive topic.

"What about you? Do miss him too?" Nuzleaf inquired.

"We all do. It's only natural." Her answer was impulsive, born from what she'd been telling herself since he'd left.

"Yeah, but..." Nuzleaf gestured down toward the distant lake stretching before them at the foot of the hill, where they could see the entire village and then some in its full glory. He pointed at the plaza, specifically, where Espurr could, with narrowed eyes, make out the faint outlines of her classmates playing some sort of game. The sight of them enjoying each other's company only made her narrow her eyes further. They were playing as if everything was normal, as if nothing had changed. Nuzleaf was just as observant as she was today, and it would be him picking up on her demeanor this time. "Why aren't you down there with them?"

"I'm just up here thinking, that's all. Can I help you with something?" Partially to her own dismay, Espurr was beginning to get annoyed. It wasn't like her to let her emotions show, and it only frustrated her even more when she couldn't get a grip on herself. It had been like this the past few days...

"Look, kiddo... I know you got pretty close with him. And maybe even Leah too. It wasn't no secret to none of the villagers."

Espurr raised her eyebrows, but did not look at him. "I was one of his friends, yes."

"Don't be modest," Nuzleaf insisted. "You've been more—argh, dagnabbit what's the word... more radiant ever since that kid showed up."

Espurr still wouldn't look at him. "...What?"

"It's true," Nuzleaf continued with unabridged conviction in his voice. "You've shown more of a tendency to get out and be social, which everyone has surely gone and noticed. In case you hadn't picked up on it, and I reckon you had, this ain't a very populated village. Everyone tends to pick up on these things."

Espurr gave it some thought. Nuzleaf's words held a certain truth to them, she knew. Denying it to herself was a losing battle. Whether it was her intrigue for the former human, or maybe for his quirky personality, or for how quickly he'd grown attached to her and the entire village... she had gravitated towards him because of it.

He was such a strange person.

And she missed him.

"...You actually can help me with something, actually," Nuzleaf spoke up. "If you don't mind, I could steadily use your companionship to Lively Town. Maybe we'll, ah... run into him on the way, you reckon?" The leaf-headed Pokemon rubbed the top of his head and grinned at her. "How good're you at hiking?"

Espurr only had to think for a moment. So that's what Nuzleaf wanted.

A tiny smile crossed her face. "...This girl can handle herself."