The next day dawned hot and close, thunderheads looming over the northern mountains. "It'll get us before nightfall," Julianne predicted unhappily. "It could last a full day."

"That's not so bad," Alexus replied. Julianne was certain they looked ridiculous - Alex was nigh a foot taller than she, and his horse far taller than hers. Riding side by side, her head barely came up to his waist. "Rain dampens smells as much as it does everything else. The Pokémon won't notice us as quickly, s'long as we stay quiet. How's your stealth, mainlander?"

"Stealth?" Julianne echoed. "I doubt I have any."

"Suppose that means you won't be getting any quiet ones - just the ornery, feisty ones," he continued. "They like to battle more, but they're harder to train."

Like Runt, Julianne thought. "Do you have many like that?"

"One of my Growlithe, but I left them behind. They like M'ma better'n me anyhow. Tentacool can be stubborn, but it's getting better. Getting used to me, I guess."

"I wonder if-" Julianne stopped herself.

"If what?"

"Well... if Runt would stay stubborn, or if she could get used to me. If I kept training."

"She'll always be stubborn, but that doesn't mean she won't get used to you," Alex said. "Pokémon need to learn to trust their trainers, just as much as they need to learn how to battle properly. Just because you overpower one to catch it, doesn't mean it respects that. Might even hold a grudge. Had a Geodude like that - had to let it go. Some just can't be trained, you know. They stay wild."

"I don't have any wild Pokémon," Julianne said. "All of mine were bred from tame Pokémon - Catcher from my mother's, Runt from Sanulus' Lapras, Colt from the breeders on Cinnabar." She had given up not using Alex's nickname for her newest Pokémon. The Ponyta didn't seem to mind. "I don't really know about Uli, but he doesn't act wild at all." She looked to her left. Xavier was walking quietly on that side, Alex riding to her right. Though most of her belongings had been put into saddlebags, Xavier carried her bedroll and a few other supplies. "I suppose you were wild, though, Xavier."

The Kabadra shrugged. His reply was light-hearted, and heartfelt. "What did he say?" Alex asked.

"He said that some wild Pokémon look forward to being tamed," she replied. "It does make sense, doesn't it? They don't have to worry about where their next meal is coming from, or finding shelter if it rains. Though I suppose we do have to do that today." Xavier chuckled, untroubled by the weakness of her argument.

"Wild Pokémon can get pretty strong, but trained Pokémon get even stronger," Alex said. "Most wild Pokémon rely on the same attacks and the same strategies to help them in a fight. I guess some would like to learn to use more attacks, more strategies, that a trainer can teach them. To become stronger."

"Ah, da ba bra."

"Huh?"

"Being wild gets lonesome, sometimes," Julianne translated. She waited for Xavier to finish speaking before she continued. "Some Pokémon live in colonies, but others don't. The ones that don't have more worries - food, water, shelter, yes, but also company." She smiled down at her Pokémon. "I found Xavier in my mother's garden. He says he was there so he could hear us talking, to pretend someone was speaking to him."

"He is pretty quiet for a wild Pokémon," Alex admitted.

"He certainly isn't wild now," Julianne countered.

"Wild-born, I mean."

"Ah."

They rode in silence. Julianne's legs were started to chafe against the straps of her saddle, but she remained silent. She was growing used to the ache in her back and thighs.

"Heyo."

"Hmm?" Julianne looked up at Alex. "What is it?"

"Nothing. I was just going to ask, how long did it take you to learn to understand Xavier? Sounds like he's got a pretty big vocabulary."

"Oh, he does." It seemed even bigger now, with the "k" and "d" sounds coloring some of his words, like an accent he had developed overnight. "It took me a year, I think. After a while, the actual sounds they use don't matter. It's all in the infliction."

Alex nodded in agreement. "Lots of Pokémon are that way. I think that's why they understand each other most of the time."

"It's going to take me a while with Colt and Runt, though. They talk in whinnies."

"Uli should be able to help with Colt, at least. Pokémon of a type usually understand one another."

"That's what I've seen, in my mother's garden. The plant Pokémon all seem to speak the same language, though technically they don't."

"I doubt it's exactly the same, but the basics are. Enough to understand, if not word-for-word."

"Hmm." Julianne was trying hard not to smile. How easy this was! It felt like they could speak for days like this.

How hard it would be, if he knew, she reminded herself. Her urge to smile died with a sigh. I can't do this, she reminded herself. I'm making Alex into an accomplice. That isn't fair to him at all. I have to go home.

I don't want to.

I have to.

They entered the woods shortly after leaving the city. As Julianne predicted, the rain was upon them before sunset; the still Spring-thin foliage did little to protect them. Julianne put Uli back into his pokéball to keep him out of the mud. Colt didn't like the turn of the weather at all; he held his ears flat to his head, his flares of mane and tail sizzling each time they were struck. Alex's Rapidash did not seem at all inconvenienced. "Your Colt must not have been water-conditioned," Alex said. "Probably kept in a fancy stable where he didn't have to stand in the rain. Some people think that's important for a fire-type, but not me. If they can't stand a little rain, then they really won't stand water attacks. Bad enough they already have the weakness without encouraging it!"

"Right," Julianne agreed. Even with her cured blanket over her head, she felt just as miserable as Colt did. The rain felt hot and oily, one of those heavy summer downpours that did nothing to ease the already uncomfortable heat.

Xavier had the least to complain about. He kept a small Light Screen held over his head to keep himself dry, though his feet had been soaked through. He was not strong enough to hold the 'Screen for them all. He had apologized to Colt, who merely snorted in reply. If they hadn't needed to carry Colt's heavy tacking, Julianne would have returned him to his pokéball.

"Don't fret," Alex said suddenly. "There's supposed to be a Pokémon Tower somewhere in the woods here. The Emperor keeps them stocked, so we might get a free night's sleep in the dry."

A Pokémon Tower? Under her heavy blanket, Julianne shuddered. Avius had stayed in Pokémon Towers before, and loathed the experience. "They're old, dusty, creepy, cold - in a word, awful!" he ranted. It mattered not that it was the cheapest place to send him if he wanted to go out to train. Like the Pallet's plantation, Towers would house trainers for a day or two, giving their Pokémon time to rest and heal. Trainers could also board there for weeks at a time, as Avius had done, for a modest donation, be it in money or in volunteered time. For Avius, it had always been by coin, as he wanted to spend as much time as possible in training.

"Have you ever stayed in a Tower, Alex?" she asked.

"Aw, sure. We have one at home, though it's on the opposite side of the island as the town. My master the apothecary sent me there to study sometimes. The healers at the Towers specialize in Pokémon medicine, but some things can go for us or them."

"My brother has stayed at a few, here on the mainland. He's always hated it."

"The one on the island's not so bad. Kind of bare. Food's plain and the beds are sometimes musty, but you can't complain. They heal your Pokémon without charging you for it and give you a roof over your head besides."

He had a point. "Better than sleeping outside, especially in weather like this."

"Sleeping outside isn't so bad," Alex argued. "No such thing as flat ground, sure, so the 'bed' has always got a lump or two somewhere... sure, in this kind of wet, it's little fun. Didn't have this kind of rain very often on Cinnabar." He turned his face up, letting the hood of his cured cloak fall back. He smiled a bit as the rain dripped down on him from the tree branches above. "Is it common on the mainland?"

"They come and go all summer." She frowned at him. "Put your hood back up before you take a chill. You're certain to, especially if you're not used to this kind of rain."

"Why? Does it carry something that Cinnabaran rains don't? Don't be a priss, Jules. It'll help get the salt off me, if nothing else."

"Salt?" In her discomfort and indecision, Julianne had never taken into account that Alex had yet to bathe since he'd left home. It wasn't uncommon for people of his sort to go a season or more without such provisions, but the thought made Julianne want to shudder. He's probably used to going even longer, unless Cinnabarans bathe in salt water. They wouldn't have the fresh water to spare, especially in the summer. She was accustomed to washing her hair on a weekly basis, the rest of her whenever she felt dirty. She wasn't certain whether to be disgusted or envious. How much simpler his life seemed! "You did not stop at the Pallet's plantation?"

"Naw. What for? I have all the supplies me and Rapidash can carry." He lowered his head, to better hide his face. "'Sides, I was so green when I got across it wasn't a bit funny."

"Oh, yes." In spite of the rain and how rude doing it would be, Julianne was tempted to smile. "Gelasia mentioned you get seasick."

"Embarrassing as anything - a Mariner with no sea legs!" Alex groaned. Julianne laughed in spite of herself. She covered her mouth in an effort to stifle it, hoping to apologize once she trusted herself to speak. But Alex spoke first. "That's right! Laugh at me!" he cried, obviously joking. "Laugh at the end of this particular Mariner line. Only thing 'mariner' about me is I'm island-born. I don't know rope from rigging or sails from sheets."

"How did you stand crossing to mainland?"

"By lying down," he quipped. "If not for the nastier Pokémon to be found in the ocean, I'd have just held on to Tentacool for the trip. You have a nice, big water Pokémon you made the crossing on."

Julianne flushed. "I did far worse by it," she admitted. Briefly she told him of her own trip across the waters between Cinnabar and Kanto.

Alex didn't speak immediately. "No wonder you weren't long gone by the time I got to shore," he said at last. "And a fine bit of luck that was, too, in its way. It's kind of jarring, you know - I can't hear the sea anymore. That's always been a weird thing to me. Most anywhere in Cinnabar, even at the edges of the wastes, you can still hear it all around you. Having somebody familiar with me... I know it wasn't intentional, but I do appreciate it."

His candidness surprised her. She felt salt stinging her eyes as she bit her tongue. It was so tempting to speak as loosely as he did! I did, for a moment, she realized. By telling him about my crossing. But I just wanted him to feel better about getting sick. Just as he didn't want her to feel bad about being foolish, she realized. As if the lapse of judgment could be explained as a twist of fate. It's my turn, she thought. So she told him more of Avius, and he told her about his sisters, then she spoke of hers... they laughed at how both had four siblings, of the similarities and differences between being youngest, and being second youngest. Though the rain fell harder than ever, cutting through the thick branches overhead, a different sort of pall had been lifted.