Latias grabbed the rope connected to the front of the dinghy and gave an experimental tug. She could feel its weight resist her initial pull, but immediately after it glided smoothly through the water towards her.

"Now bring it around the side here," Michael instructed her, from his station at the miniature crane atop his larger vessel.

As soon as she did so, she found a heavy clip, terminating the davit's line, waiting for her. An image of the dinghy ready to lift sprung into Michael's mind. She was holding one line that needed to hook to it, and others waited at each rear corner. Armed with this image, making the necessary connections did not pose her any problems.

Watching the davit lift his dinghy clear out of the water underscored for Latias just how big Michael's larger boat really was. She felt proud that she had helped in her own way. Their combined efforts saw his inflatable resting at the topmost deck's rear.

"Just loosen the lines and we'll be off," Michael instructed. He provided a mental diagram how they were tied, which greatly helped her work. Freeing each of the three cleats, Latias flew back to the boat with all three ropes in hand. She tucked each in a convenient spot near where each tied, unsure how to properly neaten them.

"Yesterday, when you mentioned getting away? I didn't think you meant so literal," she sent as she joined him on the flybridge atop the cabin.

The bow kicked out away from the dock, and halfway through turning, engines surged to life as quiet thrum under the back deck. "Why not? Being on the water is relaxing. The best way to ignore distractions is to physically leave them behind, I'd think. Now I'd love to have your company up here, but I can't promise you won't be spotted. Do you want to stay?"

She milled about in indecision for a moment, before ducking down a stairway to her left down below. "No, it's fine." This led her to the pilothouse, an area with its own, more elaborate and ornate control station. For a moment she considered asking Michael to steer from down here, but she decided with such large windows ringing this space, she wouldn't be much obscured here anyway. She drifted to the other side, where another stairway down took her to a lounge and kitchen area.

She took some time exploring the vessel's interior, confirming many things she noticed during her first night's investigations. That short door that smelled of gas definitely led to an engine room, if she believed her ears. The bed in the stateroom forward still lacked its mattress.

Concerns about a lack of bedding fled her mind when she returned to the lounge and took in its details for the first time. Its windows took up considerable wall space, though not as much as the pilothouse, and were not very good for remaining hidden should someone look in. "Do these windows have any shades?"

"Yes, why?"

Latias looked around the lounge again from the top step to the lower deck. "I might be spotted down here too"

"If you still want to see out, each window can tint; there's a switch on the bottom of each frame. Should be enough to hinder prying eyes."

Sure enough, she found a small black rocker set into each one. Upon flipping one, the window before her darkened considerably. She moved between each window, flipping the switches, as she returned to her initial thoughts. "If you want, can give mattress back. If I'm staying in the house, anyway. I won't be using it then."

"You took that too? I was wondering," she retrieved from Michael's mind. "Has it been in this cave-house of yours?"

"Yep," Latias said, prodding the fixtures around the kitchen area against the lounge's forward bulkhead.

"In that case, you can keep it. It would be a hassle to clean I bet." He replied

"I've kept everything as clean as possible!"

"'As clean as possible' doesn't exactly inspire confidence," he sent. "What else do you have down there, besides all the cushions and pillows?"

"Just a table and some pictures."

"How on earth did you get the mattress and table there? It can't be far from the house if you managed that."

"With great effort. It is nearby. I can show you when we return," Latias sent

"You'd do that?"

"Doesn't matter much anymore. Not if I'm living in the house."

"I'd think you'd keep it private just in case things between us went south." Latias had to admit he had a point. Keeping it hidden for just awhile longer sounded like a good idea, when she thought about it. She had no guarantees his good nature would hold. She didn't want to outright admit he was right about this, however, so she silently amused herself with the finer details of the vessel's interior design and decoration for a while.

Before long, however, she found herself on an L-shaped couch at the back of the lounge, looking behind them. "Have any way to see farther? Like one of those stereotypical spyglasses?"

"I have binoculars up here, if you want to borrow them. Come up to the stairs," Michael replied. When she complied, she found them dangling down through the hatch, halfway up. She snatched them away, quickly returned to her comfortable lounge perch, and raised them to her eyes. The lenses weren't even adjusted to allow her to see through, let alone clearly.

Latias fiddled with them for the remainder of their short journey to the bay's opposite side, giving up as Michael's vessel slowed to a stop. Their design relied too much on human physiology to be any use to her. Michael sent her a message as she put the binoculars down on a table behind her. "You can come up now."

She found Michael relocated to the pilothouse. Michael had now tinted the windows up there as well, but a still-clear skylight provided bright natural illumination. Another couch against a wall to Latias' left sat behind a rectangular table holding a six-pack of water bottles, energy bars, and the book Michael borrowed from Nola two days ago. Latias settled down on one end of the couch and extracted a water bottle from its plastic pack while Michael finished fiddling with displays and equipment.

"So we're in this for the long haul," he said as he finally sat down beside her. "I'm surprised you wanted to do something like this. You only met me what, two days before? And it wasn't a great start, at that."

"I'm surprised you agreed to it."

"I didn't know it'd be permanent."

"It's not permanent. It's just difficult to sever."

"So why'd you do it?" Michael asked. "I said before I'm surprised you took such a risk in the first place. This seems like a big liability for you. Was it just to keep tabs on me, for peace of mind or something?"

"A little, but not my biggest concern. Clayton would want me to meet you. Said I should befriend house's next occupant. Be their friend as I was his. This the fastest way to know you. Speech, my voice, it's important to me. This way I can talk, too."

Michael sighed and rubbed his face before shrugging. "Fine, that'll have to do. Where do we start?"

"Images and text are a good start. You can conjure clear mental images. They're easy to pull from your mind. I still have trouble sending them. I want to find out why." Latias removed the plastic cover from the water bottle with her mouth while she mentally spoke. Underneath it she found a pull-up sports style cap. "Thanks for this, by the way. Much more convenient."

"I figured you might have trouble with the twisting. How are we going to do this?"

"We can start with the book. Pick a page, read it, close it. Recall it to your mind after reading. Then I'll try to send it back."

Michael pulled Nola's book to himself and opened it to a random page in the middle. His voice filtered quietly through their mental channel, racing through sentences on the page before him. After a few minutes he closed the book, and she her eyes.

The bottom half of the page he held in his mind contained a picture of an old sailing ship. Words above spoke of that ship's design and construction. Believing it'd be easiest to start simple, Latias took a copy in her own mind and removed text, sending back just a blank white page with a picture at the bottom when she looked at Michael once more.

He jerked back in his seat, but this time no unintelligible cursing ensued. After a moment, "It's like it's overlaid on top of my eyesight. It just pops up right in front of my face. Do you think you can put it somewhere else? When I imagine things I don't actually see them."

"Before I do, how is the quality?"

"There's no text, but besides that the picture just looks a little off. I'm not sure how I'd describe it though. It's not bad, I can definitely see what it's supposed to be. Oh, it's gone now, thank you."

"Alright, imagine the page again." She closed her eyes again to focus.

As the page appeared back in his mind, Latias wondered if her images had always been sent to Clayton atop his vision. If so, he had never complained. It seemed like it should be natural; her voice goes into their hearing, so her images should go into their sight. She never knew it would be so much more disruptive.

This time, confronted with the image, she didn't just pull it out. She surrounded it, felt all spaces it occupied, the shape of its mental container. His mental image sat in a place between senses and memory, not quite in either. On a whim, instead of copying it and sending it, she tried replacing it with something else. She tried to overwrite the page with an image of Manisees Lighthouse's exterior, but she couldn't quite get it clear.

Before she could finish the process, she felt Michael's hands on her shoulders. Fatigue washed over her as soon as she aborted her attempt, and her mouth felt terribly dry. When she opened her eyes, she found him leaning over her, worry spreading over his emotions.

"Sorry, my mind must have wandered. Did you tire yourself out trying to chase it down?"

"No. Tried to replace. With lighthouse."

"Oh, that was you then. It worked! A little fuzzy, but it worked. That's much better." An apologetic look passed over his features then, "well, much better for me. You look like you had a rough time of it."

"Will be fine. Just a moment." She retrieved the water bottle from she previously opened and drained a quarter of its contents.

"I can't really see sharing images as very important. It's not like we'll have to do it constantly, unlike voice."

After she composed herself, she looked back into Michael's mind. This time she tried putting an image of just the page's text portion, and didn't try to perfect it. That smaller, more nebulous image still drained her, but not nearly as much. After a short period the page resolved itself in its entirety as Michael supplied it from memory.

When he did so, she noticed another part of his mind at this depth. Snippets of text from the page flit around it, running together and breaking apart. Snatching some words from his mind like she did when trying to speak, she assembled a message. "Can you hear me now?"

Michael furrowed his brow. "Yeah I can. Not hearing though, there's no sound. I just get the words."

"Interesting."

"Not really. I like your voice."

Latias smiled before taking another long pull from the water bottle. "Thank you! What I did just now drains more. Not sure why. We'll leave it for now."

"It's definitely different. I have a hard time figuring out if I'm thinking that stuff on my own or if you're doing it." A short laugh, "I only knew then because I don't have any reason to ask myself that question."

"I've never worked those areas much before. I pulled from them but never placed."

"I thought you've been doing this for several decades now."

"I just used senses to send. Might explain why Clayton disliked sent text."

"You never did an adjustment period like this? Never took time to experiment?"

Latias shook her head. "We just let it expand naturally. Found options as they opened up. If it worked we didn't seek alternatives. This time, I know there's more. With time. With effort. So we work on it consciously. Time to try new things."

"New things, then. You said it could also do memories. How does that work?"

"We already have once, that first night. You asked about images but sent memories. That's partially why it required so much. Just replay them in your head."

"I guess it's not new after all. Don't overdo it this time," Michael said as he closed his eyes and leaned back. Latias saw his mind flip between several different scenes before finally setting on one.

Centered in a large, sunlit room, sat an open travel cage. Michael's perspective, crouched near the carpet, looked back and forth between it and a toddler, sitting on the floor against a recliner. Words filtered through in his voice, indistinct. Much clearer, a woman's voice returned, "Give it time." Before long a Vulpix emerged from the cage, too young to have more than one tail.

Latias pieced together context from how the memory anchored to his mind. The Vulpix was Flufftail, just after they brought him home. The woman was Michael's wife, and the toddler their firstborn daughter. Latias broke off her connection before his memory had progressed very far – like dreams, memories had strange properties when it came to elapsed time, and were equally immersive when experienced this way – because she was satisfied she completed her test successfully. Even still, she felt drained when she returned to reality.

Michael still had his eyes closed when she picked her water bottle off the couch. For the first time since she'd met him, thinking about his family had brought him positive emotions. She felt heartened; it meant not every reminder of his family hurt him. She accidentally roused him when she placed her water bottle back down, its contents sloshing around and thumping against the inside of its cap. When he looked back at her, a large portion of his positive emotions fled.

"Was it easier this time?"

"I didn't watch for long. Memories will be difficult for a while. They connect to so many different things."

"You still look tired though, let's take a bit of a break. Eating something might help." He waited while she tore open one of the energy bars with the tip of a claw. "You sound like such an expert on all this. I still can't believe you've never explored your old connection this way."

"Now I can speak from experience," she said while chewing. "Before I could not. Clayton didn't like experimenting. We didn't know what we could do. Not until we ran across it accidentally. The start of that connection was rough." She looked down then, slumping, "and it wasn't entirely intentional."

After a couple seconds of staring at her, Michael finally replied, "I can't imagine how you do that accidentally."

"Speech fascinated me. I knew I could feel minds. But I couldn't enter them easily. Couldn't do anything but little tricks. I wanted to speak to Clayton. Wanted to steal the secret of speech. I was young, stupid, and inconsiderate. So I forced my way in. I didn't realize it was long term."

"Oh. How, uh, how did he take it?"

"He got used to it eventually. Really loved some parts of it, but…" After a moment's pause she sent, much quieter, "I don't think he ever forgave me."

Moments passed in silence, Michael trying to think of what to say, and Latias eating slowly, unwilling to say anything. When he finally did, he spoke almost as quietly as Latias had. "If he loved it in the end, isn't that all that matters? What parts did he like?"

"The dreams, mostly. We did a lot in our dreams. Well, in his dreams. He liked that I could send pictures. Especially of places he couldn't go. He liked voice too, but not mine. He said it was beautiful once developed. But he didn't like me using it. Always wanted to hear her voice instead." Michael quirked his brow, and she sensed his confusion. "Anne's"

"I thought you were Anne."

"No!" she sent with stern tone, then placed the word into his deeper mind-spaces she explored earlier for good measure. "I take her image when I must. I know little else. But she is not me. With voice I have a choice. My voice is my own, my expression. It belongs to no other but me. I will use her voice no longer."

"Alright, alright, fine! I didn't know she was a different person, didn't know her story."

After taking a moment to calm herself, "He put highest priority on my safety. But he wanted me to experience town. I told him about my illusions. He told me about her. She was his lover long ago. Many memories meant many good references. Made the illusion easier to craft. Eventually wanted me to use it more. When looking like her, sounding like her. It comforted him, so I complied. Those moments I was Anne. Else I was Latias."

Michael's emotions read a strange mix of incredulity and contempt. Some sympathy echoed beneath, for her. The others, not for her. "I will not let you speak ill," she pre-empted him.

He snorted and looked away, towards the helm's control panels. "Fine. I'll just say this then; I think it's criminal that he called you by someone else's name half the time and never gave you your own."

"Latias is my name. Been called that longer than you Michael."

"Are there other Latiases, Latiai, whatever it is, out there?"

She paused a moment before, "I used to live in a flock. I was separated when I was young. I found my way to Manisees Island. Never left. Haven't seen another since, but they exist. Latios too; same species, different human name. Still haven't figured out why."

"Then calling you Latias isn't the same. I wouldn't be happy if you went around calling me 'Human'. Even 'Schalde' would grate after a while."

"You are free to feel so, Human." She sent in a lighthearted tone, and smiled.

"Very funny. It feels like I'm insulting you, that's all. If I can think of one good enough, will you let me give you one? So I can start to give you the respect you deserve."

She eyed him critically before sending, "Not now, but I will consider it."

"Good. That's all I ask. Now when you finish," he was interrupted by an urgent chime from the controls. "Damnit, we're drifting. I need to set the anchor again. I'll be right back." While he dashed out a thin doorway in the pilothouse's side, Latias sliced open another energy bar and drifted over to where he exited. Through a portside window she could see Manisees Lighthouse, dominating the short cliffs' top. Sending Michael some memories of her youth there would be a good exercise.

Latias moved to watch him work through the windows in front. Working an anchor struck her as a lot of work just to keep something still. It apparently didn't even work the first time. Even after he returned he didn't immediately sit, instead going back to the controls and messing with the displays more. Latias watched over his shoulder, but his work here was only slightly less mystifying to her than when he set up his pokémon detection machine. She eventually gave up trying to understand and returned to her seat.

"As I was saying," he said when he finally sat back down, "I'd like to see if we can work with more abstract things. I was able to send you the design of that knot earlier, but that's simple stuff, not far removed from a picture. What about something really complex? Do you think I can relate something really foreign to you?"

"It's worth a shot, I guess." Latias let her doubt color her mental voice.

"Anything you're interested in first?"

"A pokéball," she replied without hesitation.

"Alright, let's try it."

Latias peered into his mind and found something similar to a picture with multiple layers, each explaining different processes and details. Devices and structures part of the explanations on one layer would themselves be explained on other layers. Some details would flit in and out, explanations changing as Michael figured out what he might have thought were better ways of phrasing or framing aspects and functions. She'd never seen Clayton try something like this; if he had to explain something it would always be verbally. This organization of knowledge on a particular subject was a new experience for her, a fascinating one.

It was all terribly informative, but past the most basic point Latias still couldn't understand any of it.

"I don't think this is working. I can't soak up all your knowledge. Not even on a single subject."

"Well, I thought we'd give it a go. It'd be nice to have an assistant sometimes."

"Maybe when the channel is older. I might be able to look deeper."

"Back burner, then. What's next?"

"I have an idea. I know I can read your memories. It may be difficult, but I'm capable. I want to try to send one."

"Is it going to be even more difficult than reading mine?"

"Sending is always harder than reading." Latias replied, before quickly adding, "But I will be careful! I've been good so far."

"If you insist. What do I have to do?" Michael took a water bottle out of the pack for himself.

"Nothing. Just relax."

"I love relaxing. Hit me."

Bringing to her mind a memory of life above Manisees Lighthouse's lamp, Latias closed her eyes and settled herself on her stretch of couch. Her chosen memory remained clear despite age; nesting around the rim above the lantern room, watching the lens assembly below rotating several times every minute around its green lamp. As she started feeding it to Michael, though their link his voice returned. "Just don't overdo it."

"I won't!"


With a head-start, Michael only needed to hit one middle step to climb back to the pilothouse. His first aid kit's rugged housing protected it through his careless toss onto a flat section at one side of the helm console. He moved everything on the table to another section as fast as possible, sweeping discarded plastic off its surface. When he dropped to a crouch to unpin the table's support, he noticed one of Latias' wings had slumped beneath it. His work's breakneck pace only slowed to delicately lift her errant wing up and aside. Its lack of joint up its length hindered his efforts until he was able to rotate it at a good angle from its base and swing it over the tabletop

Without its support pin, the table's support slid down through its mounting ring, dropping its surface to match the couch's level. Pulling cushions down from a shelf behind it, Michael hastily arranged their former workspace into a small bed.

Inside the first aid kit were two different pokémon diagnostic devices. One for trainers to hook their pokéballs into; Michael never used it but kept it for preparedness' sake. Another looked like a collar, with currently-dormant displays ringing its smooth outer surface. He clipped this around Latias' limp neck and thumbed it on as he tried to rearrange her inert body into a more comfortable position than her collapse against the rear wall had granted her, before covering her body with a blanket.

The diagnostic collar beeped and flashed its way through an initialization routine while Michael returned to the kit. He pulled a revive and a restore from within and set them on a corner of his impromptu medical theatre. Happy greens and relaxed blues played across the collar's surface; no critical problems found. A yellow [SLP] indicator flashed near the collar's clasp.

Michael sighed in relief and collapsed back into his helm's chair, spun around to face his friend-turned-patient. Most of this relief stemmed from the fact that, aside from applying one of his stock of restores, he had no idea what he would have done if something serious revealed itself. He had no problems with an emergency trip to the pokémon center, though it'd require him to leave his larger vessel here unattended while he took the much faster dinghy back to town. For her sake though, he felt she might want to avoid that whole affair. All this ignoring the fact she wasn't even his pokémon to begin with.

Irritation filled a void left by fear's departure. Even if he wanted to catch her, she struck him as the type of pokémon that would be very disobedient in captivity. Besides her own secrecy, Latias seemed to him to live moment-to-moment, not demonstrating much forethought. This was the perfect example; as soon as he's totally immersed in the mental mumbo-jumbo she piped into his brain, no longer paying attention and able to stop her, she takes the opportunity to tire herself to passing out. In the future, he'll have to be more forceful about stopping these mentally intense operations she wants to attempt, her insistence on him avoiding trainer-like behavior be damned.

With Latias incapacitated, no reason to stay on the water presented itself. He charged the boat's batteries and worked its engines just getting out here, fulfilling his only reason for the trip besides solitude. Worries about potential complications further motivated him to make a quick return. So, with a final look over his shoulder at Latias' sleeping form, he left the pilothouse to take up the anchor he had just recently set.

While working the electric winch and hauling the heavy metal aboard, he kept looking towards Manisees Lighthouse. The memory she sent him of that place was so real, it didn't feel like a memory at all. While she was still able to send it, he felt like he had actually been transported there. Its gradual fading alarmed him when he noticed it, but he hadn't been able to break the connection himself. Such potential needn't be used maliciously to harm him, and Latias' seeming carelessness might get him in trouble with some bad timing.

While a flybridge offered some convenience, he didn't want to leave Latias' side for long. Back in the pilothouse, she still slept soundly and soundlessly. Laying down and mostly under a blanket, anyone looking into his bridge would have a very hard time spotting her, so Michael had little reason to control his boat from anywhere but there. Returning to his chair, he held a switch to kick the bow towards home, and throttled the vessel's dual diesels back up. Up here, their sound was merely a quiet pilothouse-permeating purr, filling space in the beeping that marked Latias' pulse.

Aside from lazily dodging a few lobster pods, trekking home proved as uneventful as trekking out. He killed the engines at his home pier and moved forward, snatching up a rope tied to a front cleat. Latias didn't neaten his lines, and a slight tangle had formed he had to loosen as he brought it back towards the stern, where another rope lay. With both in hand, he climbed onto the gunwale and waited.

He had good aim; his boat drifted close to the pier, and he jumped across just before it lightly bounced off rubber fenders hanging from its side. He quickly hooked the stern line's pre-tied loop to a dock cleat and sprinted forward holding his bow line, slinging it around a second cleat and pulling on it to reel the boat in. Only after tying it off did he see Sparkles sitting on the shore with a floatation ring in her jaws, and chuckled to himself. It had been a very long time since he'd tied his boat off solo without someone looking out for him, and that didn't look like it was going to change just because he left his pokémon home.

She followed him back onboard – still carrying her flotation ring – once the boat was tied securely to the dock. When he returned to his captain's chair, Sparkles entered behind him and, with a toss of her head, chucked her cargo into an under-table compartment. She looked to where Latias lay and made a sound in her throat Michael couldn't decipher past a lack of hostility. He followed her gaze to his ward, the collar still beeping away.

For their short time together and what trouble Latias gave him – and he had to admit it wasn't a lot – he found he still cared for her greatly already. Years had passed since he last had daily companionship he could talk to. Despite her distrust of his work, she struck him as at least interested in it, something not even his wife could claim.

His immediate problem was figuring out how to get her back into the house. She wasn't very heavy, but did weigh enough to be unwieldy. She was a meter and a half long, in his estimate, and he couldn't just fold her wings; they were stiff their whole length. He also didn't want to risk damaging her strange glassy feathers, hoping he hadn't already when he moved her. Laid out as she was now, he realized he saw her as very delicate despite her size.

His best bet was to hope she could wake up.

"Latias?" he thought to himself. This thought-voice was a process he was still trying to consciously grasp, despite Latias teaching him he had always done it while reading to himself without thinking about it. "We're home, Latias. Are you able to move?" Speaking full sentences brought a realization; his mental voice always had a slight echo those few times he used it alone to speak to her. Now there was none. Despite his diagnostic collar telling him Latias was in perfect health, worry shot through the back of his mind. Could their mental connection burn out?

He leaned over a corner of the makeshift bedding and spoke as quietly as his concern would allow, "Latias, it's time to wake up." He was rewarded with fluttering lids, and soon after, a bright yellow iris. No sooner did she focus on his face did he see her ears twitch to the beeping sound. Her claws immediately shot to the collar, scrabbling at it as she weakly thrashed about.

"Hold on, hold on, stop it! Come here, let me get it off you."

Latias almost immediately complied, though her worrying silence continued. Michael quickly unhooked the device around her neck, and cursed when several alarms started after he broke its connection. He fumbled with it until he managed to shut it off, and placed it back in his first aid kit. "I put it on you to make sure you were still okay after you passed out, that's all. How are you feeling?"

She stared at him. Just as fear started to consume him, "Oh." Then, looking away from him, "Sorry."

"I told you not to go overboard."

"You're scared. For me?"

"Yes, for you. You pass out on me, and it felt like something between us broke. In my head. After all we put into it I didn't want that damaged."

"Doesn't work asleep. When I'm asleep." She looked back to him then, with sparkling eyes. "Thank you."

"Don't mention it, I guess you just needed a nap." Michael looked over to the clock set into the control panel. "You've been out a little over half an hour."

"No, about bond. Thanks for worrying. Means a lot."

He smiled back at her. "I said don't mention it. Think you can get up?"

"I can move."

"Good. I wasn't sure how to move you without hurting you. I hope I didn't when I shifted you before; your wings were a little awkward."

"You touched me?" A subtle lightshow ensued as Latias checked over her feathers, playing patterns across her body and turning parts of it invisible. Satisfied everything was in order, "Guess not roughly."

"Just enough to make you comfortable. Was I not supposed to?"

"Should've been awake." Her ever-surrounding voice sounded amused as she floated off the bed. "I'll make up," Suddenly her arms were around him, her neck wrapped over his shoulder and around his own. Michael looked down past her wing to Sparkles, who snorted at their affectionate display. The sound roused him from his shock, and he finally returned her gesture, wrapping one arm over the base of her wings and his other below. Her feathers weren't as stiff against his arms as he expected, and through them he felt her body's pleasant warmth.

How long had it been since someone hugged him?

"Thank you again," she said, when she finally broke away.

"For the third time, don't mention it. I'm happy to help." He looked her body up and down then, "That didn't mess up your-" A rainbow of colors flowing over her chest interrupted him, showing no distortion or adverse effect.

"Not rough. Not careless. It's fine."

"If you say so. Let's get you inside, before you go all narcoleptic on me again."

Latias looked around, noticing their surroundings for the first time. "We're home?"

"Yeah. I decided to call off the rest of our little experimentation."

Latias looked to the floor. "Fine. Another time."

"Another time. Let's get inside."

Latias nuzzled her cheek against his before turning to go, floating over Sparkles head. The Ninetales sat primly as she waited for them to leave. "Friend's feeling impatient," Latias sent, then looked back at him over a tipped wing. "But she thinks we're cute."

Michael shook his head as he got up to follow Latias out. With friends like these, he had enough trouble in his life.