There was much I needed to tell Barf, ask Barf, yell at Barf, but the excitement of evolving took priority. A long time ago, the growlithe promised me I'd evolve into a beast six-feet tall that could crunch faces with its molars. I would have been startled. Still, even in the case I became smaller, evolution meant power.

I had grown tired of going village to village in the Grass Valleys, blessing crops and reviving gardens. I worked on a tight schedule outside of summer, so tight, this story would have never taken place if Strappo arrived at Sunstarch in the fall. Pokémon I visited on tour showered me with gifts—because gifts made me bloom with gratitude, and when my flowers poke out of their buds, I gain the ability to change nature. I can restore the fertility of soil by standing over it.

I didn't want to keep accepting donations. I didn't want gifts to do something I'd be more than happy to do pro bono—pro bones, as Sunstarch sees it, and would see it for the rest of time. If I only could do it for free, I wished.

So the typhlosion and I found ourselves together for longer than either of us expected. I could see written on his jowls that this explorer expected to drop off the flower, give instructions, and go off to do bigger things. I concluded my judgment of him: he was an intellectual of his own odd breed. Curiosity kept him on my pace rather than abandoning me to my fate. He did try to impatiently lift me up, and I regret to say I gave a pitiful yip.

"Beautiful day," Strappo said, seething. It was the last thing he would ever be concerned about. "Ever feel concerned about how nice the view is up where I am?"

"Bercreaux lets me on his back to see, when we go on tour around the villages," I said.

"Well, let me lift you up. See the poppies and the dandelions."

I balked. "N-No thanks." I enjoyed the last time, to my great shame, but couldn't accept the offer twice. "Pokémon ought to walk their path no matter how small they are. My father's words."

"Walk your path, except when he lifts you up."

"He does it to be nice... you just want to... well..."

"Want to what?"

Get to the pond faster. I was not about to push this further.

Strappo dropped the subject. "I'm going to pay you a compliment. Will that make you squirm and walk slower?"

My curiosity peaked. A compliment from an explorer? I had no idea what I did to earn it. "N-No. What is it?"

"Earlier, when we first met, you showed a lot of promise."

We met when the urn assaulted us. I showed zero promise there. "Um, I don't think so."

"Different."

I couldn't recall the significance.

"You said the vessel broke into a hundred different pieces." Strappo scratched his ear. "As if you knew, deep down, how to fix the problem."

"Oh, that was luck, I guess."

"And later," he continued, ignoring me, "when you lied to your village (I wished quietly he could have put it another way), you used evil-within and evil-without in the right context. You're quick-witted and knowledgeable." The typhlosion chortled. "Uh oh. Seems you appreciated my compliment."

I tensed up to try and stop them. My flowers bloomed anyway. Pink and yellow, their sweet scent clung to the breeze. Next to my feet, the grass started to inch forward out of the ground. Then it folded over, truncating itself to the right height for me to see over. "Sorry!" I cried. I loved to read. Hearing a dignified explorer like Strappo say it paid off, well, it was better than most gifts. My single hobby. Books and books and books. I was good at reading!

"For your edification-in the case your brother conjures another spirit-evil-within means the ghost tries to possess you through your bad thoughts. Those are the dangerous ghosts who have lived for centuries, and can burrow into a mind the moment its owner trespasses on their land. Their influence is as subtle as a poisoned well, or your own bad breath. Evil-without uses sheer force to overpower another creature's will. Luckily for all of us involved, the Urn of Inaccuracy possessed too little strength. Or we might all be stuck in a fugue state trying to toss rocks at a tree, missing every time."

I was surprised in how much humor I found in that. Thoughts swirled in my head as our talk went along. Possession isn't funny, right? Why am I amused by peril when this typhlosion talk about it?

"Not all ghosts leave you with sore arms," Strappo said, growing stern. "Some may force harm on your loved ones, or make you walk off a cliff. Ghosts are... incredible entities to observe. For example, I suppose you found it intriguing that the ghost knew I would catch the shard."

"I did!" I squeaked. "I mean, maybe it assumed from your gait you had the skill to. On the contrary, it might also think you would avoid it, unless, unless—"

"Unless it knew, down to the letter, how I interact with flying objects. Ghosts become a single note. Throwing, or wailing, or making outhouses bubble up. Whatever act they do, they comprehend it on a metaphysical level. The afterlife, what happens after we die... when it comes to throwing, the Urn of Inaccuracy can glimpse everything we ever will be in our near-misses. It stems from the solitude of its existence. Throw, throw, throw, never another option, like a bottleneck leading into the beyond."

My chest grew tight. It didn't seem too exciting, walking in a plain and talking ghosts, but I found it exhilarating.

Strappo sighed. "Some otherworldly wisdom isn't meant to be shared. If you come upon a wailing ghost, for example, run away and don't forget to scream. You do not want to feel grief undiluted by any other emotion. And never assume laughter on its own is any better. I lost an acquaintance that way..." Strappo stopped. "Never mind."

I trembled, yet couldn't stop my stupid mouth from flapping. "What happened to your friend?"

"He allowed the Chuckling Ghost of Redseeder Forest to possess him in a bout of depression. Afterwards, he responded to all stimuli with laughter. Whether it was pain or us begging him to snap out of it. Everything was so damned funny. At the point we surrendered him to a facility, he was a ghost who swaggered through life without any purpose but to laugh. He ran away from the ward to Arceus-knows-where the last I remember... Shy."

"Y-Yes?" I am unsure whether I said a word at that moment, or simply wheezed.

"Do you want me to escort you to Zruaset? To become an explorer."

A bit of advice: when inviting another to join your profession, don't lead with how one member lost his mind and was doomed to shamble through the continents beset by unstoppable laughter. Right away, I started to shake my head.

"The world needs more of you," Strappo said, speaking quickly, "and less of your brother. Pokémon well-read enough to keep other adventurers in check."

My flowers retracted into their buds. "I, um, thank you for inviting me. It's just, I don't think I'd be useful."

"I travel alone because other pokémon make mistakes. If I travel with a team of such and such great explorers, it's only inevitable a slip up happens and I watch them disappear."

"Has... has that happened to you before?"

"Never!" He snapped. "I was smart enough to get out while I could. You'd have to be an idiot to wait around long enough to see them into their own death-traps. Do you understand?" He pounded one paw against the other. "If I think you have what it takes to be error-less, you do."

"No thank you. I need to stay here."

"Stick around here, right!" Bit by bit, he grew more passionate, louder. "They need you to make their lives perfect. There are thousands of pokémon who need help, and you are the sort to help, but you can't because that absol coddled you until you thought you were a baby! Pwecious I-dowl!"

"I, I... please don't raise your voice. I'm afraid."

"I'll yell if I want to!" Strappo roared. I skittered away, whimpering.

"No," a voice called, "you will stop hollering at him. Now." Strappo swung around to meet the voice's owner.

For the attentive reader, it might be obvious that my life as an idol is missing an important piece. It is sensible I had a brother, who left me then came back. It is reasonable that I traveled from village to village on Bercreaux's back. But the absol was old at the time, right? So who protected us from danger while we toured the Valleys?

Her name is Iduma. I'd use her staggering height as a comparison to Strappo's. Yet, in this eye-to-eye meeting in the pasture between giants, she lacked presence, like a visible-invisible thing. So much so, I hadn't caught her scent, or felt her paws beat the earth. If I had to describe her in two words it would be: pleasant surprise. If there is a single word for a pleasant surprise, then I'd be able to describe her in one word.

The zangoose snarled. "Elder Bercreaux said to bring him to the pond, not advertise your job to him."

Strappo returned the snarl. "Leave us to our talk or I burn the flower, Iduma the farmer." He said the last word in a quote-unquote fashion.

"No!" I shouted, unable to help myself.

My guardian shook her head in disgust. "You, a creature who boasts of never making mistakes, are on the precipice of one."

"Burning it is a mistake? Why, will you make it so?"

She clacked her beastly claws together. "If needs must."

She swore up and down about being a farmhand before Bercreaux brought her in as a guardian. I doubted her story. Once, a party of six bandits charged my caretaker and I as we passed over a bridge. She showed up unannounced—a pleasant surprise like always. I didn't get to see what happened. On the way back, though, I saw all six thugs slaving away on the destroyed bridge. Meanwhile, other pokémon had to use a fallen log to cross the river. Iduma stood on the bank to watch, tail wagging in slow, delighted swings.

"Ever seen a spitfire in action?" Strappo asked her.

"Ever see the dirt up-close?" Iduma shot back.

If Barf was here, he might try to fan the flames in order to see a great fight. I, however, am far from my brother.

"Please, please, please!" I cried. "Don't burn the flower. Strappo. I promise to consider your request. Really consider it, like a math question in a book. Iduma, there was a reason he yelled. He fell onto the subject of an old friend and it was my fault for prodding his bad memories." A part of me felt Strappo was going to ask either way, nicely even, but his laughing friend threw him off-track.

Strappo relaxed. Iduma followed soon after.

"I'll be accompanying you to the pond, Shy," she said. "I don't trust this one to relax."

Strappo scoffed. "I'd rather not have the stink of manure wafting around the pond. Go back to pretending to till fields."

"I'm a humble farmer. Humility—does it definition continue to elude the creature who knows so much about ghosts? They, the humblest of all things."

Her patented hat-trick. Iduma, if she liked anything beside farmwork and a noticeable absence of crime, loved to hint at being somewhere longer than anyone thought. Strappo either hid his surprise or knew, and proceeded to shout anyway. It occurred to me that the two knew each other, in some capacity, through Bercreaux.

"You're really a farmer? Howdy! I'm Giratina. That piercing in your ear. It was invented in the eastern parts of the Sand Continent, and I doubt there is arable land over there."

"No, you were invented in the eastern parts of the Sand Continent, so shut your mouth." She poked the yellow bead with her claw nervously. It seemed to shimmer for a split second.

That last comment forced Strappo to simmer down. "Er, okay? As a matter of fact, I was 'invented' in the Grass Continent by my loving mother and handsome father. You sure ran out of steam fast. I was this close to seeing you as a threat, but you're all bluster."

"Quiet, lard."

"Ah, like I'm back in school. Let's go line-and-file to the pond, children." I despised the way he looked at me, judging my aversion to becoming an explorer.

Let me skip the inane insults on the walk to the pond and bring you this, my feelings at the time. Strappo's words struck my heart. They transformed what was manageable, my desire to throw myself headfirst into danger, into what it was all along. An insatiable habit, with sharp teeth buried in my head. It was the books' fault, stupid things. I read all about adventure and ended up wanting it—is that supposed to be an obvious result? It wasn't at the time! How was I supposed to know what lurked in those warm, lonely mornings reading stories of time-traveling and of real estate purchases devolving into fights against unhappiness itself? I thought my body heating up was from the sun. I thought the awful yearning in my chest was from the high stakes. I thought I was being empathetic when I put myself in place of the heroes.

I wasn't as far from my brother as I assumed. Our want of adventure forced us onto a slope. No getting off. No sticking your paws against the ground, grinding to a halt. How did I feel on the walk over to the pond? Sad, mostly. I was being led to adventure, the word yes already resting on my tongue. Alas, an adventure is a horrible, pungent event by any account. Take my—the present my bringing you this story—word for it.