Bei tried not to talk too much and unreasonably give herself away while they walked along the path. She wasn't sure what was happening, and Kaelyn was being a darn slow pig and not bothering to work faster. The uncomfortable crunching of the gravel under their feet was unnerving, too—she tried not to show Casten she was nervous and worried by walking in front of him so he wouldn't be able to see her expression.

"...Ugh, Bei, are we there yet?" Casten's voice rang out from behind. Bei stiffened almost immediately, but she tried to hide it.

"I'm—uh—almost positive..!" Her reply was forced and choked out. So not her. If he wasn't dense, he would have realised something was wrong. Then Bei mentally slapped herself—she didn't know where their destination was, how was she supposed to know..?

"Ah? Oh, that's great," Casten replied coolly. Bei mentally wiped sweat off her brow—well, that was close. Last thing she needed was him asking and bugging her for the truth.

They walked along for a few more hours—so Kaelyn said—and they still hadn't reached anything. Bei felt almost remorseful that she had to lie, but she couldn't give herself away by saying something completely obvious like "oh hey I'm feeling strange all the time around you you know?". That'd just be completely wrong and he'd definitely see through it. Even if he was super dense or something.

They paused for a break, and Bei kept quiet, playing with her long tail absentmindedly. They had a really long moment of silence which Bei took gratefully and used it to think. It didn't last long, sadly.

"Hey, how do you know? How much more we have to walk, I mean," Casten abruptly asked. Bei squeaked, startled, blinking up at him with a confused expression.

"What—uh. Oh, I saw... I saw a village earlier, you know, by the hill." Which they hadn't trekked across any hill yet. Not that it mattered.

"...'Hill'?"

"Yeah, hill! You were daydreaming, or something." Bei bit her tongue subconsciously. "There's... yeah. Um, a village. It's a really pretty village, I think. And there are a few pokemon there... that's a good thing, isn't it?"

"Well, I suppose it's a good thing, I've never really gone near any type of civilisation." Casten grinned dreamily, and Bei coughed. "Oh, yeah, are you okay today? Did you get enough sleep? You've been acting pretty weird today."

The raichu spluttered. "Uh, no—I'm fine! I'm going out to hunt, I'll be back in an hour! Promise!" And with that, she took off to the deeper parts of the forest, with Casten's cries blurred out by the rushing wind blowing past her ear.

She kept running. She didn't care where she ended up, she would keep running—because, why else would things be so confusing? If something was so confusing, you should just... run... from it.

Why was she running from it, though? Why was she feelings this—

Wait. Wait. Wait. Backtrack. Rewind. Replay.

Feelings.

Arceus, I have none. What the fuck am I thinking?

"You should really watch where you're running," a voice growled, which just happened to be in the direction right in front of Bei. She flinched, glancing at the fox-like pokemon in front of her with leaf-like ears and tail, brown paws, cream fur and several leaf-like sprouts all over its body. "Ah, caught your attention. Finally. By the way, haven't seen you around this forest before."

"I'm—I'm, um, Bei," Bei blurted, unsure of what to say.

The fox-like pokemon grinned. "Oh? That's a cute name. Bei, huh?" It giggled. "Well, in return, my name's Rosetta. Or you can call me Rose, as a nickname, if you really want to." Rosetta tilted her head. "...But, really, are you new here or something?"

Bei shook her head. "Well, kind of... I've been here for a few weeks. With... a heliolisk..." She trailed off, and Rosetta nodded, urging her to go on. "And... I'm not a natural creature, I think, I'm some kind of... robot."

"'Robot'? Oooh, that's amazing!" Rosetta squealed. "Say, you live in this pokey old forest, don't ya?"

"...It's not pokey."

"I stay in the nearby village, but I like wandering through the forest usually. You wanna come with me, hun?" Rosetta's cold demeanor from before vanished and was replaced with an enthusiastic mask. "Oh, yeah. You're probably with your heliolisk friend. Go grab 'im. I'll be waiting right here, Bei-Bei. I won't move. At all."

Bei nodded, stepping backwards. "That's..."

'Nice of you. She's leading you out of the forest, into 'civilisation' that you told Casten you saw, didn't you?'

"That's extremely nice of you!" Bei burst out with a smile. "I'll go grab my friend and I'll find you again! Thanks so much, Rosetta!"

"It's not a problem." Rosetta tapped her paw on Bei's head. "But don't keep me waiting. If you're not here by evening, I'm leaving back to the village, and I can't guarantee I'll be back tomorrow."

"Of course! We'll be back before you can even blink!" Bei whipped round, and overworked her paws through the dirt again. Dirt crunching, leaves rustling, and the stupid... howling wind blowing. And nothing would stop her.

Casten was where Bei had left him at. "Oh, Bei, you're back. I thought you'd ditch me here. Turns out you didn't—"

The raichu grabbed his paw even though somewhere in her head she was screaming "don't do that!". "Of course I wouldn't ditch you!" Bei exclaimed stubbornly. "You were the one who wandered around and dealt with my fuckery, and I'm returning the favour by leading us into a. Fucking. Village. I swear to Arceus if I ditch you I will be burnt in flames. By a pyroar ghost."

"Whoa, Bei, calm down. I'll remind you you're not a problem. I was bored by the beach by myself anyways," Casten reminded. "Anyways, so, you found the village?"

"No, but I found this fox-leafy-creature called 'Rosetta'. She's really nice, I think."

Casten stiffened(1)—Bei wondered why. "Ah, leafy? She's probably a leafeon, then."

"...A leafeon? Wow, that's cool. That's awesome! She looks like a real plant!" Bei enthused. "Hey, do you think she's a good killer(2)? We can be killing buddies!"

With a huff, Casten turned away(1). "Not everyone enjoys sadistically killing them and eating their corpses for meals."

"So? What if she does? She might be different."

"Probably not."

"Whatever. Now you're acting weird. Is it because I left you here? Huh? Huh?" Bei grinned. "Well... I didn't ditch you permanently! You're still in one piece, too. You'll be fine. Let's go."

As they travelled along the path that Bei had scuttled on, Bei took in Casten's grumpy and grouchy demeanor.

...

What was wrong with him?

A/N: (1) - Someone's jealous.

(2) - Bei honey, leafeon are pacifistic.