As the sun rises over the Crown Tundra, Marnie struggles to keep the window's glare out of her face. She curls up as tight as she can in the lodge's weighted blanket and buries her head in her pillow, but to no avail. Once the first beams of light hit her face, it was too late.
The young girl groans and thrashes as much as the constricting blanket would allow, frustrated by the work schedule that cursed her internal clock to buck all pretense of 'sleeping in.' She was going to wake up, no matter how sweet the warm embrace of the blanket was with chilly air bearing in from outside; how much her stomach was satisfied from the free meal ticket she abused the night before; or how much the serotonin switch for 'being on vacation' sent tingles pouring down from her brain.
When she does feel the uncomfortable buzz of consciousness settle over her, Marnie sits up slowly, but surely. Despite the negative temperatures recorded, Marnie's blanket falling away exposes that she had worn little more covering than her Gym Leader's attire to bed the night prior. Just a light tube top and a pair of ratty pajama pants, both pink as her favorite dress, but faded from extended use.
She rubs her eyes with a long yawn, completely unfazed by the cold.
In fact, her first thoughts seem entirely empty, up until a creeping sensation up her neck tells her that a certain weight which should have displaced her pull on the mattress was missing. She glances at the empty space to her left, clasping the headrest of the rustic, carved-oak bedframe to keep herself steady.
"Vic?"
After putting herself together, Marnie cautiously steps out of the lodge's bedroom, creaking the door open with her hip while she ties a red ribbon around the rightmost pigtail jutting up from the top of her head. At this point the motion was carried out entirely by muscle memory, she had no need for a mirror.
The flat screen television beside the door was quiet as everything except the ceiling that creaked as it settled under the weight of the Freezington snowpack. It was concerning, but she couldn't help feeling relieved not to hear another rerun of Dr. Drifloon, M.D. blaring first thing in the morning.
How that man could stomach watching that schlock so often was beyond her.
Just as Marnie is ready to start fruitlessly calling for Victor in the fleeting chance he was hiding inside the refrigerator, she finds a note left on the dining table across from the television. Victor's handwriting was unmistakable, as he insisted on mailing her letters instead of texting for seemingly anything more important than a hello. Some cheesy trick he picked up from a contact in Hoenn or some such Region. She'd be embarrassed to admit how many of the particularly mushy ones were hidden from Piers in a locked box under her bed.
The note had instructions written on it, directions for her to follow down from Freezington through the bend of the Crown Tundra. She scoffs, shaking her head as she reads while making her way to the kitchen area adjacent to the dining room. Her metal-tipped boots click against the dark wood floor.
"A bloody scavenger hunt, Vic?" She mutters, unsure whether her own tone of voice betrayed exhaustion or excitement. "I swear this dolt has lost his mind."
She snatches a Tart Apple off the kitchen counter beside its sleek four-stove burner — because with Victor's glutton of a Flapple he couldn't travel anywhere without them — and starts to make her way outside. As she's leaving the lodge, Marnie casually tosses out a Dusk Ball so Morpeko would be beside her in the sunrise's orange-drenched snow.
"C'mon Morpeko, we've got an idiot to catch."
Thanks to a couple of kind old ladies (and their Swablu, all too happy to rest on Morpeko's head like a fluffy cap), Marnie was able to make her way out of the farming village tourist attraction that was Freezington, down the steep slopes of Frostpoint Field, and into the seemingly endless grassy expanse that made up the Giant's Bed.
While the Crown Tundra was known for its snowy fields, blistering cold ice floes, and monumental peaks that hid ancient treasures, a large portion of Galar's southern tip was green when dropping below a certain altitude. Not to say it was as vibrant as the hills around Turffield; even the grassy portions of the Crown Tundra were murky under the haze that rolled off the nearby frozen mountains. The Giant's Bed was practically marshland from how often it rained, but the gradual shift from melting slush into grass was an appealing transition all the same.
Marnie's eyes were set to the sky more than the ground, however, as entering the Giant's Bed from Freezington gave any visitor an excellent view of the Dyna Tree in the distance. It was the first landmark Victor said she should follow, with a pink sprout top that would be unmistakable amid the coniferous evergreens that dotted this stretch of the Region. The gargantuan pink tree truly was a sight to behold, enough so that Marnie was disappointed to see it disappear behind the walls of the canyon as she passes along the remains of a desolate village in her descent.
She found it a little tricky to see through the increasingly dense fog and keep her footing as her metal heels dug into the perpetually wet, loose dirt while she made her way down the slope. Luckily, she came across an old cemetery built onto flat ground, as promised in her instructions.
The fog made this place a little eerie at first, but it was hard to be scared when Morpeko so quickly made friends with an adorable Polteageist jingling about an indistinguishable headstone. Marnie checked; its pot was an imitation.
Once she leaves the cemetery, Marnie was in the home stretch. That became even more obvious as she catches sight of Victor's bright red polo through the now-dense fog, obscuring what had become a brisk morning sun during her walk. Her steps become more cautious as she passes through a patch of tall grass, looking down at her feet the whole time to avoid crushing a few scampering Nidoran.
However, when she looks up again, she's surprised to find the fog completely evaporated. Now Victor was clear as day, standing at the edge of a drop into a river with both hands in his pockets.
Marnie looks back over her shoulder as she approaches him to find the wall of fog kept at bay behind her, an ethereal wave trapped in time.
As the girl takes her spot beside Galar's Champion, right around a patch of lavender flowers where he intended, he speaks up: "Took you long enough, Marn. Sleeping like an Ursaring let me set this up easy, but I was worried you'd never show."
She takes his comment in stride, 'lightly' punching his shoulder and leaving him rubbing the wound.
"Better have a good reason for sendin' me on a wild Swanna chase."
Victor finishes with his arm, offers her a grin, and does a grand, sweeping gesture out over the river. Clear on the other side was the Dyna Tree in all its bell-shaped glory, ripe with massive pink fruits just on the verge of falling to the hordes of Greedent below.
"This ain't good enough for ya?" He says with a bit of a cheeky laugh. "I've got Corviknight working overtime to keep the choice view."
Marnie raises an eyebrow and tilts her head back. Far up above them, a large metallic crow glides this way and that, defogging the area with a few intense flaps in any given direction before turning to handle the rest.
"So I see…"
She watches Victor's Pokemon work for a good while longer than he expected. Her expression was unchanging, as always, but he had expected to get a little more out of her from this view at least. The Champion turns his concerned look down to her Morpeko, who had quickly grown bored of nibbling on purple flowers and decided to waddle toward a berry tree instead.
At least that gave them some alone time.
"Hey, wanted to apologize for last night."
That comment draws Marnie's eyes back down to Earth, and Victor smiles a bit when she catches his gaze.
"I didn't mean anything by it. Peony and Nia are just… A lot." He shrugs, and then starts to scratch his neck. "I'm sure you could tell."
Marnie closes her eyes, but it was hard to tell whether she was simply thinking it over or calming herself down. Victor swallows hard, hoping for the prior.
"A lot would be an understatement." Her response comes with turning her head to look out over the river and Dyna Tree again.
"I'unno that there's anythin' to worry about," she continues, right hand idly playing with the trinket dangling from her choker. "Trust ya well enough, Vic. Even if you got all kinda floozies lookin' to drop their pants when you come by."
Any sense of comfort Victor was building up evaporates in an instant. His cheeks go pale and he stares at the side of her head, dumbfounded again.
"Pardon?"
Marnie could hear the embarrassment in his tone, and that nearly brings a smile to her cold-chapped lips.
"You don't think I missed that dodgy Poison twat chattin' you up at the Star Tournament, did you?" She turns a more playful look his way. "Can definitely do better, mate. Girl's got rubbish taste in music."
Victor fills space with an open-mouthed, audible murmur as he figures out exactly what to say. "I mean, look. She might be into me; she might just be taking the piss. I haven't figured it out yet."
Marnie snorts hearing that, and then looks down at the floor while shaking her head.
"Not surprised. You're so dense you probably wouldn'ta figured I was into you till I said somethin'."
"Gimme a little credit here, Marn." Victor crosses his arms with a huff, to which she clearly derives a lot of smug satisfaction. "Pretty sure I figured that when you were cheering me on against Rose's goons."
The memory brings a slight flush back to her cheeks. She could've stood to be a bit less obvious in front of those other Spikemuth residents…
"Haven't really stopped doin' it since."
Victor offers her a warm smile at that, which looked downright jolly thanks to the bright red twinge all across his face from the cold.
"Yeah. Part of why I wanted to bring you out here, Marn."
"Eh?"
He nods, bringing her attention back out to the Dyna Tree. "Ever since we took that Ferris wheel ride together, I've been looking for the best spots to show you. I know you wanna see the world, so figured I could curate a few things to do together."
Marnie's stone-faced ambivalence melts away seemingly more than it ever had in that moment, as she looks to him with widened eyes and a nervous lip quiver.
"The Dyna Tree is pretty ace, but there's so much more all about this place too." Without catching Marnie's increasingly exasperated expression, Victor starts counting things off on his fingers. "We got ancient temples all over the place, this brilliant castle at the top of the mountains — betcha that one will leave you all gobsmacked, Marnie."
"Vic."
"Oh! Can't forget about the Frigid Sea, either. There's this old lady just holed away in one of the caves out there, real laugh riot. She'll teach you how to do this braid for twigs that I bet—"
"Vic!"
He's caught off-guard when she raises her voice, and sees her looking at him more sternly. Her breathing was a bit haggard, as though she were holding back a cry.
"One thing at a time, yeah?" She takes a shaky little breath. "I'd… Like to enjoy it all with you. Not just blast by like it's a PowerPoint."
It took Victor a moment to really catch onto her being, perhaps, overwhelmed rather than upset. Once he does, he smiles and nods, shuffling a step closer to her.
"No worries. We can do the tree first."
Marnie looks back up at it across the river with a sniffle. Her Pokemon seemed to sense her emotional state, as Morpeko was back to nuzzling at her right ankle.
"Know if those fruits taste any good?" She asks with a slight gesture of her head. At the same time, she reaches into one of her jacket pocket and pulls out an Oran Berry to drop for her partner.
"To be honest, not sure they're even edible grub." Victor pulls at his knit cap a bit more, feeling the chill start to get to him. "Only thing I've seen scarfing them down was Moltres, so they're either horrible or some sacred thing the Pokemon know about."
Marnie nods slowly, letting that thought settle. Once it hits her, she jerks her head his way with a raised eyebrow.
"You really saw a Legendary bird eatin' out here?"
Victor meets her look of disbelief with a sharp-toothed grin. "Remember a few weeks back when those reports about roaming beasties hit the telly?"
Her mouth hangs open in a clear admission that she did, and Victor proudly points his thumb up at his chin.
"Bloody hell." She mumbles. "Is there anythin' you ain't done, Vic?"
He shoves his hands into his pockets again, and starts bouncing from toe-to-heel, swaying his hips as he goes.
"Well, I've heard good things about taking a cruise around Kalos." He eyes her mischievously in his peripheral vision. "I know you were looking around at 'em last night, anyway. You've got pretty good taste."
She tenses up, and tries not to break her facade again even while her hands shake at her sides. "It's almost scary how much you pay attention to me, Vic."
"Is it?" He smirks. "Can't think of anyone else I'd rather pay attention to."
That drives her eyes away with a furious blush. Victor can't help but mentally congratulate himself with a slight fist bump at his hip.
Marnie clears her throat before stuttering out the next bit. "I-If only you paid enough to know how cold I was over here."
"Huh?"
Victor gives a bit of a hearty laugh at that, and shakes his head.
"You haven't been cold for one second since we pulled up to the station, Marn. Maybe you've just got a few screws loose, or…"
When he looks up at her again, Marnie was shooting him a hollow, dirty glare. He winces at the expression, but it only takes him a moment to catch on. "O-Oh! Right."
The Champion clears his throat, and then motions to sit down on the ledge, his feet dangling over a Magikarp down in the river. Marnie smoothes down her dress so it would sit further down her thighs, and then joins him on the ledge.
They watch the sun pass over the Dyna Tree for hours.
And that's all she wrote, folks. Another fun little romp in the books.
I've still got some ideas for these two in mind, and about a million other Pokemon ideas too, but if I get the chance I might transition into doing some Legend of Zelda given how much I've been playing Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity this week. Let me know if there's anything you might want to see though, my PMs are always open!
Hope everyone who celebrated had a happy Thanksgiving, be safe and healthy out there.