Chapter Forty-One:
Restless as the Weald

Disclaimer: I do not own the series Pokémon. Like, at all. It and all its respectable characters are © to Game Freak and Satoshi Tajiri. However, all writing contents and semi-plots here are © to me; unless it is stated otherwise. All shows/ books/ video games/ songs that are mentioned in this chapter are all © to their respective owners, I do not own them.

Notes: Don't mind me much, I'm just screeching like a damn pterodactyl over in my weird little corner. Because that's how I do.

Current Team: Keno the Swampert, Sela the Mightyena, Ambrose the Kirlia, Faye the Swellow, Nux the Gyarados, Gunner the Aron

Badges Won: Stone Badge, Knuckle Badge, Dynamo Badge

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
- "Nothing Gold Can Stay" by Robert Frost

A pillar of steam rose from the mantle of Mount Chimney. A light coating of ash greeted the group when they awoke, still silently falling until mid-morning. Shay had to keep the pot dangling over the cookfire covered to keep any ashfall from getting into the food. Nux sniffed at the air with distaste and emitted a hiss that permeated the air.

"This isn't rain. And it smells…strange."

"It's ash, from the volcano," Shay said, motioning toward the voluminous peak that loomed over them. Nux swung his head in her direction, tilting it quizzically. Shay caught the look on his face and sighed. "Molten rock spews out of active and living volcanoes. It's superheated from the core and when the pressure from below becomes too much and there's nowhere to go, they pretty much blow up and release all those gases, molten rock, and other byproducts upwards. Ash is one of those byproducts. It's made up of rocks, minerals, and glass, so eating it isn't recommended."

"Maybe not for you, but I like it!" Gunner remarked. He tilted his head back and threw his mouth open, snapping at the ash as it fluttered to the ground. Shay laughed and dusted herself off.

"Have at it, little hoss. In the meantime, we should chow down. There's a full day we've got to get through."

After Shay doled out breakfast, she sipped away on her coffee. As she ate her own food, she idly fondled the pouch with her Shards as it dangled off her belt. She enjoyed the soft metallic clink they made with each shift of her fingers. She spooned up the food she'd heated over the fire—leftover stew from last night—until it was gone and all she had left was her coffee.

Shay closed her eyes, enjoying the soft morning chorus of twittering songbirds and the buzzing of insects. The murmur of pokémon's voices beyond her campsite were hushed, and she couldn't make out the words very clearly, but she heard them all the same. It was a few peaceful minutes they all had together.

Shay froze, then perked, when a sharp whistle rose up, piercing through the tranquility.

"Hey, neighbor! You ready to go?"

She craned her head in the direction of the call and gave a passing wave to Tohru. Abby was trailing after him, clutching at her clear cup and sipping away at the water within. Chunks of ice clinked about against the inner walls. Shay had to wonder where she got ice, but then answered her own inquiry a moment later; she probably had an ice-type on hand. That was useful.

This early in the day, it was already warm, and it would only get hotter as the sun rose higher in the sky. Hoenn's climate was rather temperate, bordering on tropical. The cooler mornings were short-lived, and rarely extended beyond mid or even late morning.

Shay kept this in mind as she secured her bandolier with her team's pokéballs clipped to it. Keno sprayed the campfire and nodded in satisfaction as the fire fizzled out in an instant. Shay stood and sipped her coffee as she moved off toward Tohru and Abby. She gave the mousy brunette woman a wordless nod and Tohru a warm smile.

"You really like coffee, huh? I don't think I've seen you without your thermos."

"If I'm waking up before the sun, then I require a small sacrificial lamb to keep me appeased."

"I'll have to keep that in mind for the future," he said with a laugh. "Hey Abby, don't linger so far back. C'mon, you don't have to be so shy."

"I-I'm not shy! I just…prefer to be back here."

Shay spared the young woman a glance over the shoulder, then returned her attention to Tohru.

"Have you heard from Blon—I mean…Sabine at all?"

"Not really, but if I can hazard a guess, she's probably screeching to the heavens above about how wronged she was to her father and that you are at the center of her suffering. Don't be surprised if she tries to get you kicked out."

"Wow. Dramatic. And no sense of personal responsibility."

"With Sabine, that sounds about right," Tohru sighed with a shake of his head. "Don't get me wrong, I've gotten fed up with it at this point, but we've all kind of grown up in the same social circles. For a while, I'll admit, I used to make excuses for her, but I've wised up over the years. Unfortunately, where she goes, I eventually end up there, or vice versa. Kind of hard to shake her."

"And her?" Shay said, nodding back to Abbolkmljlmy. Tohru frowned as he spared Abby a glance.

"Abby's…sort of always been there. By Sabine's side, I mean. For as long as I can remember, ever since we were all kids. Without Sabine, though…Abby's kind of like a toothless and clawless Skitty."

"Ah. So…what, y'all are from a slightly more well-off bracket than the rest of us and she's along for the ride as Sabine's plus-one."

Tohru sucked in a breath between clenched teeth, rubbing the back of his head. Discomfort coloured his face and wouldn't look Shay in the eye at first. "I mean…kind of."

"Hm."

Tohru raised a brow and a faint smile traced across his lips. "What?"

"Nothing."

"No, what is it? Are you surprised I'm…?"

"Rich? Not at all. It's more surprising that you would even attend this kind of place. Well, maybe not you, but your blonde girlfriend and her."

"Sabine isn't my girlfriend, as much as she likes to pretend otherwise. You should see the way she looks at Champion Steven."

"Hm. I did. She kept lurking outside the room from our first day here, ogling away and trying to insert herself into a conversation that didn't involve her." Shay remarked, sipping from her thermos. Tohru laughed and sighed.

"Sounds about right. She's been trying to get involved in his social standings for the last few years, same with her father and Steven's. Especially since he's gone above and beyond for the region and shifted a lot of things around."

"Like starting up this place."

Tohru nodded.

"Just like starting up this place," he repeated with a smile. "But I do have to wonder, Miss Courier—what is your connection with Champion Steven? It's not often we see him strike up conversation with someone so…"

"Poor? Homely? Average?" Shay said with a wry chuckle. Tohru blanched.

"Not the words I was looking for," he confessed and added, "I was going to say 'normal'. Someone completely outside the more affluential circles. People who have his dad's ear and are trying to get to Steven's. And for the record…I don't think you qualify as 'homely'. You're more…under the banner of 'attractive'."

Shay did a double-take, heat blooming in her face. She looked away and mumbled under her breath, "I don't think I'm 'attractive'. I'm average, at best."

Itch-shiver-scratch, and the tickling sensation of laughter at the back of her head.

Don't you even start.

'What? I think you look beautiful.'

Shay rolled her eyes, but otherwise didn't respond. Tohru laughed, shaking his head. "Okay, okay. You don't exactly do well when being praised about your looks. Message received."

Heat flushed through her again and she was more than grateful when Sela bumped into her hip and gave her a much-needed distraction. Shay glanced back at the rest of her team. Keno had taken it upon himself to carry Gunner while Ambrose strolled along by his side; Nux was weaving between the trees, scaled lips peeled back in a grin as he paused to sniff at low-hanging branches; Faye was flitting from branch to branch above them. Shay patted Sela along her hackles, fingers running through her coarse fur. Sela let off a pleased rumble, especially when Shay scratched around the crown of her skull, right along the stubby horns.

Shay glanced over her shoulder to peer back at Abby. The other woman yawned, covering her mouth with her free hand and scrubbed away at the sleep in her eyes. Shay cleared her throat, turning back around, and sipped her from her thermos. They were coming up on the clearing where everyone was gathering, she noticed. She could hear the chatter from the others, although it was all muffled to her ears.

The three of them tucked themselves into the throng of other students once they arrived, and their instructor waited until the last stragglers joined them. She clapped her hands to get everyone's attention. Joining her side was a Medicham, gazing serenely at the crowd.

"My name is Ingrid Heiken, and today, you're with me! This is my partner, Sting. Today's agenda is rock-climbing and learning to rappel down cliffs with proper technique. Most regions have mountainous terrain and knowing how to climb them or get down them safely when trails are few or nonexistent—or worse, destroyed—is key."

Ingrid continued, glossing over the broad strokes of their day. First, they would hike out to the cliff that they would be rappelling down, and then climb back up. Once that was completed, they would move on to the next portion of their day.

"And that's going to be emergency medical training while in the field. Yeesh. I'm not exactly…comfortable around blood. Even if it's fake. Did they say that they're using fake blood to simulate more serious injuries? Can't we just…pretend?" Tohru bemoaned, the colour seeming to drain from his face.

"Wuss," Shay remarked with a cackle. Tohru balked at her teasing.

"Hey! That's not fair! I'm not a wuss, I just…have my limits, that's all. And besides, shouldn't it really be the girls who get squeamish around blood?"

"Oh, my sweet summer child. Women see more blood than men do, with an exemption for those who go into the medical or rescue fields."

That took him a minute to ponder. His cheeks reddened and went ruddy as he suddenly slapped a hand over his face. Behind his fingers, she heard him mutter, "Oh, my Arceus, I'm an idiot."

Shay gave a sage little nod, shooting a wicked smile his way. Before either of them could respond, they were swept up in the gathered crowd of students and their teacher began roll call. Again, Shay felt the itch-shiver-scratch of Ambrose, and the reassuring whisper of his laugh at the back of her head.

"This is really high up."

"About three hundred feet, give or take, I'd say."

"Aren't you the least bit…um, afraid?"

Shay leaned over the edge, just a little bit more, to gaze down at the bottom of the cliffside, so far down below them. She pulled back and turned to face a few of her classmates. Some looked terrified, others a little sick. Some had nervous smiles plastered over their faces, trying to hide their apprehension. Shay gulped back the last of her coffee and then clipped it to her belt with a carabiner—a lovely little addition that had caught her eye when considering her purchase so many months ago.

"Nope. I've done activities like this since I was a kid. Rock climbing, camping, hiking—it's mostly nothing new to me. Plus, I've been hiking all over Hoenn the last few months, so roughing it like this is par for the course."

"…what kind of childhood did you have, and can I get some of that insanity you're clearly chugging besides that thermos of gods-knows-what?"

That set Shay to laughing and she waved off the speaker, a burly-looking young man. If she recalled correctly, his partner of choice had been a Makuhita. "One, it was coffee I was drinking, caffeine is my drug of choice. And two, I'm so sorry to say this, but those are trade secrets. However, I can offer you this: it takes twenty seconds of insane courage to do shit like this. So just take that leap—metaphorically speaking, don't-don't actually jump, not off the cliff from this high—I don't need that on my conscious. Please don't actually, physically jump. That would be horrifying to watch."

She reached up and adjusted the strap of her helmet, making sure it was snug but comfortable. She did the same cursory check on the harness, wanting to reassure herself that everything was where it needed to be—and that nothing looked so worn or unstable that it would break and let her drop down on the ground below. The thought of splattering apart from such a height sent a chill down her spine.

"You're looking a bit nervous." Shay glanced up with a frown to see Tohru had joined her. Their instructor was doing last rounds to check and adjust harnesses, and she was nearly almost done. Her Medicham, Sting, trailed after her faithfully, seeming to eye each piece of equipment to scrutinize them just as thoroughly as their trainer.

"It's been a while," Shay admitted hesitantly. The hike up to this cliffside had been pleasant comparable to most that Shay's done in the past. It wasn't quite as fun, after having to recall her team per the instructor's directions, but Tohru was a good second choice for conversation on the way up. A part of her was excited to do this, while that smaller, more contained concern lingered in the back of her head. Someone else seemed to share her sentiment, although more loudly. Way more loudly, in fact.

"I-I don't think I can do this! This is too high, there's no way I can do this!"

Eyes turned to the speaker, heads craning to see what all the fuss was about.

"Oof. Looks like Luke is cracking a bit."

"Just a bit," Shay agreed, partly thankful for the distraction and feeling a pang of sympathy for the young man. Their instructor pulled him to the side, away from the rest of the class to sit him down and to help calm him. "If he doesn't do this today, he's losing at least two, maybe three Shards. He doesn't have many to begin with, I think."

"And how many do you have, again?"

"I lost count," Shay said with a shrug. Tohru snorted.

"Really? Because it seems like you're passing every event and activity from the curriculum with flying colours while the rest of us mere mortals are struggling in one category or another. You've got to have at least twenty by now!"

"I don't really care about how many I get, just as long as I get through this course," Shay replied.

"Woooow. How noble of you. Really, it's a shock hearing that from you. I thought you'd be humbler."

Shay shot him an annoyed grimace, her mouth popping open to respond, but stopped at the loud claps from their instructor. She looked a bit miffed as everyone began to gather around her and Sting.

"Okay, it looks like Luke will not be joining us on our descent down the cliffside, which is a shame, but it's his choice to miss out on this. In the meantime, the rest of us are going to start belaying down in pairs of two! Pair up, people, I want to see some hustle!"

Tohru nudged Shay gently, grinning. "Partners?"

"Oh. Uh, you sure you don't want to keep an eye on Abby?" Shay scanned the crowd for the mousy girl, but Tohru drew her attention back to him.

"I mean, I could, if you don't like my company," he drawled back, taking a slow step away from Shay. She sighed and snatched at the crook of his arm, dragging him back.

"C'mere, you big oaf. Let's go fall down a mountain together."

"Ouch! Words hurt, you know! And so does falling off a mountain!"

"Aw, but it's my way of saying I like you," Shay crooned back, offering a wicked little smile. Tohru laughed and pulled his arm from Shay's grip. He let it rest on her shoulder instead, as though she were an armrest.

"Seriously?"

"You're the perfect height and I've been feeling a bit tired from the hike. You don't mind, do you?"

"Christ on a broken fucking crutch," Shay muttered, smiling in spite of herself. Her smile faded when she shot a glance over her shoulder, and it slipped into a frown when she noticed Luke and how miserable he appeared. He appeared paler and gaunter than usual, his Adam's apple bobbing prominently in his thin neck.

Tohru seemed to take notice of her distraction and turned to figure out where she was looking.

"Maybe…you could talk with him?" He suggested softly, pulling his arm from her shoulder.

"What can I say that our instructor hasn't?"

"I dunno. But maybe you could salvage him before he forfeits this event entirely?"

Shay hesitated, glancing up at Tohru. He offered her an encouraging smile. "You really don't know the effect you have on people, do you?"

She blinked at him, shock spreading across her face. "What effect? The hell you are talking about?"

Tohru sighed and shook his head, as if she was being particularly thick. "From day one, you've really done a number on everyone here. Chatting it up with the Champion like you're friends, beating those two reporters like it was nothing, not to mention you're miles ahead of everyone when it comes to this whole outdoors stuff. You already have one foot in the pool of experience for nearly every event we've gone through. It's like—how do I put this? You are the one setting the example, not just our instructors. Have you really not paid any attention to anyone else in the class?"

Shay found herself inching away from Tohru, hugging herself as though her arms could serve as a barrier to protect her. It wasn't that she hadn't noticed the way she was stared at—she had. She just didn't want to acknowledge it.

All she saw when she looked at everyone's faces were those of her former junior Marines, ready and willing to work and open to learning. It sent a pang through her when she could just as easily see them standing in the crowd instead of who was actually there. It made her miss being able to teach them, to help them do better at work, at life, at being Marines.

Here, she was hesitant to try doing so again, with people at least. It wasn't her place. She was here to take these courses, to overcome these challenges just like the rest of them, not to teach it to them. She didn't want to override anything they were being taught—even if she had at least some basic knowledge of what they provided. Who was she to step on their instructors' toes? It wasn't right if she did that, it would only undermine their instructors, wouldn't it? She wasn't an expert; she could only lay claim to some experience.

And yet, seeing Luke sitting off to the side, looking about as miserable as she felt, struck something deep and fierce in her. It made her want to go to him, try and coax him into joining the rest of them. Tohru offered her a thin smile and motioned for her to go to Luke. "Try to see if you can get him to come along? He'll lose out on a lot if he doesn't."

Shay faltered, frozen in place, but slowly, she finally managed to move and began to walk over to him. He didn't seem to notice her until she was nearly beside him. He couldn't have been older than twenty, she surmised. She sat down beside him on the log he was perched on.

"Hey."

He glanced at her, then scooted further away, putting at least three feet of distance between them. Luke grunted back and folded his arms over his chest, jiggling one leg up and down in a nervous fashion.

"Go away. I'm not doing this crap."

"Then why are you even here?" Shay replied bluntly. Luke's expression soured. His jiggling leg continued on.

"…my parents are making me do this. I didn't want to be here, but it's better than getting kicked out of their house."

Something in her resonated with that statement. She settled on the log, resting her elbows on her thighs, clasping her hands together.

"You know…I did something similar to this when I was a teenager. I wasn't threatened with getting kicked out, and I had the choice to go or not. But I chose to go, because I thought it would be better than being at home." Shay started slowly, and she waited. Her patience was rewarded with a curious glance her way, the loosening of his stiff position, the jiggling leg slowed and eventually stopped altogether. Shay looked down into her lap, clasping her hands together.

"I went camping for a month straight in the middle of the woods with a few other kids and two instructors. We had tents, mind you. It was easier than building our own shelters every night because we were always on the move. We hiked, we canoed across lakes and rivers, we portaged our gear across trails to get from lake to lake. It rained pretty much every day, even snowed a couple of times. We also did some rock climbing, like what we're doing today. It was tough, but by the end of it all, I felt so accomplished. Like I could take on any challenge."

Luke's arms slowly unbundled themselves, and his defensive posturing eased up as well. He was still frowning, but there was a curious light in his eyes. She found herself smiling at the memories. "I liked it so much that I went back for the dogsledding course about two years later after the fact."

"…whoa. Dogsledding? With, like…Growlithe or something?"

"…yeah. Growlithe. They were the best of the best at what they did."

Luke was quiet for a long time. Ingrid was busy with her current pair that were rappelling down to the bottom of the cliffside. Shay quietly watched, the majority of her peers having moved on from glancing her way to watching those dangling at the end of a rope, clutching at the cliffside. Ingrid and her Medicham were acting as the belayers for the pair descending downwards. Tohru sidled up to Abby, striking up conversation with her—perhaps to ask if she had a partner and if not, then they could go down together. Abby's eyes had grown wide and glassy, and even from this distance, Shay could make out the apprehension and glimpse of terror that gripped her. She turned her attention back to Luke.

"Hey. I have an idea. I was going to be Tohru's partner for this, but would you like it if I switched to be with you today? I'll go down with you the entire way."

Luke hesitated, anxiety stealing over his face and his voice was high and tight, squeaking at the ends of his words. "It's just…it's so high up. I-I don't think I can do this."

"Hey, if my four-foot-eleven ass can do it, then your gangly tall ass can too. Trust me," Shay fired back with a grin, giving him a teasing nudge in the ribs with her elbow. She saw his lips flicker upwards, but it disappeared almost as quickly. "We just need twenty seconds of insane courage to get ourselves started. If the wind can do it, we can do it."

She was met with a puzzled stare, his nervousness temporarily waylaid. "What's that mean?"

Shay didn't answer right away. She busied herself with checking her harness, making sure that it was still snug but not too tight. "It's…from an old movie I watched as a kid. Can't really find it anymore. But it means…we can do anything. Like how if the wind can cross a desert, then so can we."

It was a half-truth. She couldn't find the film here, in this world, for obvious reasons. And she didn't have a digital copy of it, either. The only copy of it that she had was in a binder back in her barracks room, along with many more DVDs—originals and copies alike. The binders had been a Christmas gift from her grandmother a few years ago.

Shay shook her head, as if she could dissuade the sadness that threatened to settle on and overwhelm her. Now wasn't the time. She couldn't break down here, not now. She forced a smile onto her face and stood, offering her hand to Luke. "C'mon. We can totally do this. What do you say?"

Luke swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing in his throat, staring at her hand apprehensively. Slowly, he reached out his hand to clasp it into hers, and she hauled him to his feet. He was surprising light, and she ended up making him stumble.

"Whoops! Sorry about that. Man, you don't weigh that much, do you?"

Luke snorted but hesitated at her little nickname. "Like you're one to talk."

"Hey, hey, hey! I'm small and travel sized, I'm allowed to be on the light side. What's your excuse, beanpole?"

She laughed and at first, Luke only stared at her but eventually a smile cracked his grim expression and he let out a few chuckles.

"Right. I guess you have a point." He paused, checking on the harness he still wore. "I've…got this thing on the right way, right?"

"We should probably have Ingrid look you over. She's the expert and there's a reason she's teaching, right?"

"Oh. R-right, that makes sense. Um…thanks."

OoOoOoOoOoO

Luke was frozen in place. Terror gripped him fiercely as he clung desperately to the nylon rope that was the only thing keeping him from plummeting to the ground hundreds of feet below. His chest hurt. He wasn't breathing right and no matter how hard he tried to slow himself down, it just wouldn't. Stitched in his side stabbed mercilessly at his insides. His vision swam and he wasn't sure if it was because of the tears or because his sight was disappearing into the black. They were too far from the top to scramble back up, and much too high to go down without injury.

He was vaguely aware that his chest wasn't the only thing hurting. It was his hands, white-knuckling the rope and refusing to go up or down. If he just stayed where he was, he was safe, right? He couldn't fall if he stayed in place. Noise wasn't something he was particularly concerned with. It was the wind that he could feel tugging at him, threatening to spill him off the cliff that was terrifying him now more than anything. Was someone calling his name? He couldn't tell and it frankly wasn't on his immediate list of things to be concerned with. Sound was just a cottony muffle at this point and his only goal was to keep hanging on.

His little bubble was popped when someone grabbed his shoulder and was yelling into his ear. Luke startled, his grip on the rope faltering. His swimming vision sharpened, and clarity grew as he was forced to stare into the face of his climbing partner.

Shay had a deathgrip on his harness, keeping him in place to ensure he didn't fall. His hands spasmed and fumbled, before he gained a proper grip of his own.

"Luke! Look at me! LOOK. AT. ME!"

He couldn't get the words out, but they ran at double-time in his head. I'm going to fall! I'm going to fall! I'm going to fucking fall!

"Hey, hey, hey! You're okay! Our belay is still holding! We're fine! We're okay! Look! Look at me!"

Shay extended her legs, bracing her feet against the cliff, but she dutifully kept a grip on his harness, if only to keep him reassured. The stitches in his chest and side lessened as he trembled. "Look. Look at me. I'm okay. That means, you're okay. That's why we're doing this together. Right? Remember that? If the wind can do it…"

"We…" His voice felt weak and scratchy and strained. "W-we can do it."

Shay nodded at him, her smile just right, just enough to tell him that he was okay. He was going to be okay. Slowly, one finger at a time, she released her grip on his harness. His weight held, thanks to Ingrid's Medicham being the one to hold onto his rope far up above him. His grip that kept him aloft tightened, as if to reassure himself that he wouldn't plummet to the ground.

"Okay. We're going to go down, one step at a time. We have our belay holding for us. All we have to do is say, 'belay on' and they'll let us start going down at our own pace and feed us enough slack to do that. Are you ready?"

Luke whimpered and he shook his head. He wasn't ready. How was she so damn calm about this?! "N-no. No, I c-can't! I c-can't do th-this! Ho-how are you not s-scared?!"

"Hey, don't do that. Don't give in to that fear. Wind can do it…"

"W-we can do it." Luke stuttered out again and he glanced upwards to the dozen or so faces leering down at him and Shay from the cliff's edge, including their instructor. Shay bumped into his shoulder, drawing his attention back, and nodded to him.

"Twenty seconds. That's all it takes to get us started. Do what I do, okay? I know it seems scary, and it is, but we're gonna be okay. Okay?"

She curled her legs and then straightened them once more from the sheer cliff wall, her hands placed right where the instructor had directed them. Luke slowly unfolded himself from his balled-up position and copied her seemingly lax posture. He rearranged his hands where they needed to be. Shay looked up and shouted, "BELAY ON?!"

"BELAY ON!" Responded their instructor. Was that relief in her voice? He couldn't tell.

"CLIMBING!"

Shay looked to Luke expectantly, and he cleared his throat before shouting up, repeating the same phrase words Shay had yelled. She took a few steps downward, paused, and waited for him. Luke shivered, almost diving back into the cocoon of safety he had known only minutes before—but he took one step. Then another. And another. Shay began to match his pace, just a foot or two below him. He took it one step at a time, just as Shay kept telling him to.

"That's it, you're doing great! We're over halfway done!"

When he spared a quick glance over his shoulder, he was more than surprised to see the ground was much closer now than it was before. The other students that had gone before him and Shay were cheering them on. When he looked upwards, there was more cliff than sky, and the faces of his peers were so small and distant above him. Shay remained a steady force to follow, and talked to him the entire time, reassuring Luke that he was doing well and that he had nothing to fear.

If the wind could do this, then surely, he could too.

His legs trembled with every step, and yet they didn't buckle like he thought they would, like they probably should have. Eventually, they seemed to grow numb, but dutifully, they continued stepping down, down, down. He jumped, frightened, when his feet hit solid ground at last, an eternity later. Was he truly safe? Was he okay? He breathed out in shuddering gasps as he peered over his shoulder, to see that he had indeed arrived at ground level, and he let go of the rope entirely on accident and fell the rest of the way down. It was a short fall; he was glad to know that as his back struck the ground.

He laughed when that happened, and he scrubbed at the tears that suddenly sprung up at his eyes. He covered his face as he continued laughing, the noise muffled behind his hands in absolute, cathartic relief. He was alive. He wasn't going to be leaving his precious pokémon partner alone in this world!

Hands scrabbled at him and thrusted him into a sitting position, and he gasped, pulling his hands down to see it was Shay manhandling him. For someone so small, she was surprisingly strong. How could she have so much energy all that?! She laughed wildly, arms draped around him in a tight embrace, crowing away in his ear.

"YOU FUCKING DID IT! YOU DID IT, LUKE! I'M SO FUCKING PROUD OF YOU, DUDE!"

A round of whoops and hollers from the others who had already made the perilous journey down the cliffside added on their words of affirmation and praise at his accomplishment. She was like a mother Blaziken celebrating her little Torchic's first steps into the world. He couldn't help but cling to her, alternating between laughing, crying, and screaming in delight at having done what he thought he could never do on his own. The world itself was still the same.

The forest around him wasn't ablaze or dead. It was bright and green and wild and so full of life. It was nothing like he had thought before. He didn't die out here, he had done what he had once thought impossible for him. He could hear the cries of birdsong and the buzzing of insects, continuing on in spite of his personal hardship. His fear was but a pin drop in the well of life out here.

He had cleared nearly three hundred feet of a cliff face with barely any incident. If he could do that, then what else could he do?

Additional Notes: I felt that a touch of human connection was important in this chapter. And I'm not sure if my younger readers could catch on to the reference that I had made several times in-chapter, but I would highly recommend you look for "A Far Off Place". It's a Disney film, and yet, it isn't found on Disney Plus. It's on YouTube, as far as this chapter posting goes. So please, watch it, if you are able.