"Ohh, Théo, you are a very bad boy! Oh no, oh no…" Despite her words, Ninette holds Théodore tight in her arms, so overwhelmingly happy to see a familiar face. She hasn't even been gone from home that long, but given how poorly the trip has gone so far, the warmth he offers is like a drug.

Who cares if she just broke possibly the worst law yet?

Skipping over to another region is one thing. And bringing back a common livestock pokémon is worse, but surely not that bad. Plus, she has plans for how to smuggle that ball back.

This, however.

Furfrou are rigorously protected in Kalos, both for their status as a national icon and because of their historical significance. It takes permit upon permit to transport one anywhere. And Théodore is a purebred one—and worse, he's a trained one. There are ten million more permits and hoops to jump through for trained pokémon to cross borders than for pets, support pokémon, or professional aides. Her mother may not have been a trainer anymore, and Théodore may be possibly the oldest furfrou in existence, and he hasn't battled since Ninette was born (or longer), but he's still registered as a trainer's pokémon.

Not to mention the issue of transporting a predator pokémon across region borders. Prey and herbivorous pokémon are generally easier to do, especially livestock ones like wooloo. But predators, if they were to get out and cross-breed with native species, can wreak absolute havoc.

(Ninette may have looked up a lot of these laws and the histories of how they came to be while preparing for this step of her plan.)

Ninette rocks him against her, moaning her desolation about the magnitude of the crime she's just accidentally committed—it being an accident certainly isn't a get out of jail free card—and he wags his tail, pleased as punch with all of the attention.

Ninette realizes, as she washes her face in the convenience store bathroom, that she has messed up in an order of magnitude not previously recognized by herself.

Accidentally smuggling Théodore had been a significant crime, but this is worse.

She does not have any signal on her phone. She had decided that morning to email her mother and tell her that her phone broke to cover for the lapse in communication and stall any questions about unreturned calls, but an unworking phone in another region is an entirely worse problem—because she can't call or text that cabbie back.

He'd said he had texted her a receipt upon arrival, and that was the number she could reach him back at (with at least three hours' warning) when she wished to depart. When she wished to take advantage of her already paid departure. She never received that message, given her lack of signal, so she does not have his number. She'd been too exhausted to realize what that meant at the time.

She could easily arrange for a new flying taxi, maybe even through that pokémon not-center, but she couldn't pay for a new one.

Ninette stares at her face in the mirror. Her skin is pink despite her rigorous sunscreen application yesterday, there's some grass she'd missed in her hair, her waterproof eyeliner is smeared and refuses to come off with a simple water rinse in a public bathroom, and she looks haggard. She feels as if she's just aged a decade with her too-late realization.

Today is supposed to be her last full day here. She's wooloo-less and too broke for another international flying taxi trip. True, it ought to be cheaper since she's not paying for a round trip in advance, but she's still looking at tens of thousands. She still needs food for today—she needs food for Théo, poor guy—and a taxi and train ride back in Kalos.

Well, at least in Kalos, she could access her bank account again… Technically, isn't today pay day? There'd be money she could use, if she could get back home in one piece. She doesn't have her own credit card, as both she and her mother were in agreement she could not handle that sort of temptation on a regular basis. (She had an emergency card—that she left back in Kalos, because she hadn't wanted any purchases to show up where her mother could see.)

Ninette therefore needs a wooloo and cash. Badly.

And something extremely sweet for breakfast. She deserves it.

Ninette swallows down her rising panic and mentally breaks her disaster into steps. First step: she needs to send that email to her mother to cover for yesterday, today, and tomorrow. That's an immediate thing to do and an easy fix. Second step: inquire at the pokémon not-center about flying taxi availability and rates. Third step: return to the wilds to obtain a wooloo, otherwise this would all have been for nothing.

She will not let this all be for nothing. It'd take her too long to save up for another trip, plus she's already fourteen. She needs to get wool mastered by sixteen, plus maintain her skill in all other areas of pokémon styling. She could be cultivating future professional contacts in that time. She'll eventually even need to pick out a dress for her future debut party, but that's easily pushed off until later, since she doesn't have the faintest clue what high fashion in two years could look like.

Breakfast in hand, bag full of regrettably cheap pokémon chow hanging on her arm, Ninette realizes a new problem.

No one, ever, can know that she has Théodore here.

She can't just release him and feed him. True, being in a ball acts as a slow sort of stasis, so he wouldn't get too hungry if she kept him in there… But he'd been out for an hour that morning, and she'd promised him food, and she'd feel bad. Despite his skills at sneaking along on trips, Théodore isn't used to being in his ball for long periods of time.

Do pokémon get lonely in there? Ninette wonders with fresh dismay. She's not a trainer, so the only thoughts she had ever given to pokéballs were when she'd purchased five to attempt to obtain a wooloo, and when they had to sign paperwork at the salon about pokéball use in returning particularly unruly pokémon. Even then, that had been temporary. You couldn't style a returned pokémon, of course. They'd only returned them to move them to a different environment so that the pokémon could calm down and work could be resumed, but paperwork was paperwork; Kalos liked for things to be properly recorded.

Even with the future practice wooloo, she had envisioned only keeping it in a pokéball for transportation purposes. They had a large enough house to account for Théodore, after all, so a smaller wooloo would be little problem. (Plus, they didn't chew on furniture like he did.) Her mother would be shocked, of course, but it'd be soothed with time and Ninette showing off her brilliant new skills.

But now. Right now, not in the future, Ninette had a very real problem.

She slinks over to the not-center, breakfast churro in her mouth, and asks to use the PC. She taps out an apologetic email to her mother—her phone broke, that's why she didn't pick up any calls or answer texts, so they should communicate by email for the next couple of days please—and lets her mostly-useless cellphone charge as she does so.

Asking the Nurse Joy about flying taxis was similarly easy, though Théodore's luxury ball burned a hole in her pocket the entire time. Apparently, taxi travel was exceedingly easy in Galar; they didn't congregate in hubs like in Kalos, and could be called from any pokémon center. The rates the woman quoted to her were slightly lower than they were in Lumiose, but she was still looking at a minimum of fifteen thousand pokédollars for a one-way trip. She may have saved slightly on the trip over, but she hadn't saved that much! Renting that camping set (and the so-far-unused picnicking set) had almost caught her up to budget, and she was on par with her food budget despite only eating at the convenience store so far, because she'd had to buy food for Théodore and replace her water bottle.

Ninette had eight thousand pokédollars to her name, and she still had a day and a half to spend and eat here. She was burning too many calories to starve herself, and she'd always been a big eater. She could skimp as best she could, but she didn't see how she'd wind up with more than five thousand by the time it was all said and done.

A third of what the Nurse Joy had mentioned.

Ninette trudged back out into the wilds, reeling, boots and bag feeling heavier than ever for her emotional exhaustion.

Still no fluffy white pokémon that she saw, but she ensured she was far away from Los Platos (and away from cliffs where strange boys could ambush her from) before releasing Théodore.

She spread out the camping blanket and poured a pile of food on it, since she didn't have his food bowl. "Don't eat so fast you get sick," she halfheartedly chides, mind elsewhere. She could keep him in his ball for the rest of the trip, or at least for the rest of today, then feed him somewhere quiet before she left tomorrow.

If she could leave tomorrow.

Yes, she technically knew he could go longer in his ball without food, but he was a very spoiled boy. Ninette was half responsible for that spoiling. Théodore had been a bad boy for coming along with her instead of her mother, but she couldn't actually fault him. It was an accident. A highly illegal accident.

A sudden scream rends the air.

Théodore's long ears perk and he stands at instant attention. Ninette fumbles the luxury ball a precious moment before returning him, but the scream hadn't been close enough to signal someone coming upon a highly illegal foreign pokémon. Before the sound had even died off, it's been replaced by the unmistakable sound of a child bawling.

Ninette glances back at the half-eaten pile of pokémon food and her duffel bag laying beside it. Despite all of the gross pokémon food crumbs that get on her hands, she scoops the food back into its bag, since she can't exactly waste it right now, then grabs her stuff and makes her way toward the source of the crying.

It is, in fact, a child crying. The little girl can't be older than eight, with light brown skin, adorable pigtails, and bright red blood smeared all over her arm.

Ten paces away is a meowth with its ears pinned flat, covered in tree sap, with a broken hairbrush stuck in the biggest glob on its back. Its tail swishes behind it, displaying obvious aggravation, but Ninette can read guilt in its eyes just as obviously.

She sees what's happened at once.

"Hey," Ninette calls, soothingly, and approaches with her hand out. "Hey, are you two alright?"

The little girl turns to her with big, watery brown eyes. She has more freckles than even Ninette, which is a real feat, but her face is splotchy with her upset. "M-Me-Meowy scra-atched me!" she sobs and points to her red-covered arm.

The meowth hunkers down lower with an even more pathetic expression—which twists into a cringe as even that small movement pulls on its fur.

Keeping her hand out in a gesture of peace, Ninette very carefully approaches them. From its posture and the nickname, the meowth must belong to the little girl, but even a tame pokémon can hurt people. As evidenced by this hard-learned lesson now. "My name is Ninette," she says, keeping her voice even and calm, eyes on the meowth. "It's nice to meet you, Meowy. And what's your name?"

"D-Dulce," the little girl sniffles.

Ninette finally reaches them, close enough to eye the wound on Dulce's arm. There's a lot of blood, but it looks like three scratch marks, and they're mostly horizontal on the outer side of her forearm, not the inside. Meowy makes a pitiful, guilty sound.

"Can you tell me what happened?" Ninette asks, though she already knows. But it's to calm Dulce down while she digs around in her bag.

"W-We were trying t-to battle, 'cause it's the Treasure H-Hunt," Dulce miserably explains, then wipes her snotty nose with her hurt arm. Ninette winces and searches a little more desperately. "B-But there was this big blue pokémon with a-all these pointy bits, a-and when we were battling, Meowy got all covered in sap! And I tried to clean her, but it was stuck, and she scratched meeee!"

"Oh, so you're a trainer?" Ninette asks.

It works as a distraction. Dulce blinks her big, wet eyes up at her, and replies, "Uh-huh."

She's too young to be a trainer by Kalosian standards, but it may be a foreign thing, or it may be another case of a little kid pretending they're more important than they actually are. It doesn't matter now. "Well, it sounds like you're a fantastic trainer, because you care so much about your pokémon. And look at Meowy—she looks very sorry, right? I think she didn't mean to scratch you."

"B-But she did!" Dulce insists and Meowy cowers lower.

Ninette finally finds her water bottle. She unscrews the cap, takes Dulce's small wrist in her hand, and pours the water over the wounds. It's recent enough that the still-wet blood washes off, though the middle scratch is still beading fresh blood. Ninette knows better (from personal experience) than to use hand sanitizer to clean a wound, even if it makes logical sense. She doesn't have bandages on her, though, but she does have a clean sock, and sacrifices it to apply pressure.

Dulce wrinkles her nose but doesn't complain.

In the same soothing tone as before, Ninette explains, "You did a very good job, trying to help Meowy clean herself. You know that meowth and other feline pokémon lick themselves to clean, but with something like tree sap, they need some extra help. And I know when you or I get our hair tangled, we can brush it out. But sometimes, when there's a big knot, it can hurt a bit, right?"

"Uh-huh," Dulce repeats.

"I'm sure it was the same thing with Meowy. You didn't mean to, but you might've pulled on her fur when you were trying to help her. And pokémon don't like being hurt any more than you or I do. But Meowy has claws, and we don't, so when Meowy tried to get away from the hurt, she accidentally hurt you. And she's very sorry for that, see?" She inclines her head over toward the moping meowth. "When felines put their ears down like that, it means they're sorry." That's a gross oversimplification, but it's more important to teach this little would-be trainer that accidents happen and it's not a pokémon's fault for lashing out when hurt.

"…Oh. Are you sorry, Meowy?" Dulce asks.

Meowy nods with a sad, "Maou."

"I'm sorry, too. I didn't realize it was hurting…"

"Did Meowy make any kind of sound when you were trying to brush the sap out of her fur?" Ninette prompts, glancing sideways at the broken human hairbrush still stuck to the poor meowth's back.

"Oh, yeah! She, um, made this kind of yowly sound, like she was gonna battle something!"

"That meant she was unhappy." It was probably a sound of agitation, but again: not something for a little girl to need a lesson on right now. "Pokémon warn others before they attack, with all sorts of sounds and body language. It's up to trainers to understand their pokémon."

Dulce turns from Ninette to her meowth, fresh tears falling down her cheeks. "I'm sorry, Meowy! I didn't mean to hurt you, either!"

Finally, the poor meowth rises out of her crouch, taking a tentative step forward. But even that movement causes another wince when the sap pulls on her fur anew.

"You're lucky I was here. Did you know I'm a professional pokémon stylist? That means I know a lot about grooming, too, and I know a lot about cleaning pokémon," Ninette informs them. They both turn to her with matching hope shining in their eyes. "So, I'm going to teach you how to deal with tree sap in fur, in case this ever happens again! But both of you should try to avoid it, because it's hard to get out, and can be painful if it sticks weird. Like right now. Meowy, could you come over here?" She fishes out an oran berry for good measure, holding it out in the flat of her palm.

Meowy approaches with zero caution, but a careful, almost limping gait. She eats the oran berry in one bite. (Just like Théodore likes to do.)

"I know why you tried to brush her—it's like what you or I would do, right?" Ninette says and Dulce nods. "But Meowy's fur isn't like our hair. You can't use a brush like this on her all the time, but especially not if you're trying to comb anything out. Tree sap is really sticky, right?" She reaches over and touches part of it near the brush, just to ensure it hasn't hardened yet. Not yet—good. "So things can get stuck in it easily. We want something slippery that can get rid of that stickiness without pulling on her fur anymore than we have to."

Ideally, that would be shampoo and a bath, but even in a salon, that's a tall order for most feline pokémon. They'd use mineral oil to work out stuff like sap, probably, though she never personally has had to deal with that.

"Slippery, like smoliv oil?" Dulce pipes up.

Ninette grins down at her. She pulls her sock away, finding it spotted with blood, but the scratch doesn't bleed any further. "That sounds like the perfect idea! You're pretty good at taking care of pokémon, huh?"

For the first time since she's met her, Dulce beams at her.

Ninette can't do anything for Meowy immediately—she doesn't have much water left in her bottle, and it wouldn't help with the sap, anyway—so she has Dulce return her. "Pokéballs can be good for pokémon if they're hurt or in pain. So it can be good to return pokémon to keep them safe, until you can get back to a pokémon center, right?" Ninette points out.

Dulce nods many times. She takes her hand and leads her toward the pokémon not-center, where they'd have actual wound-cleaning supplies and bandages, not some water and a sock.

Dulce chatters on happily, and Ninette learns a lot about her life. She's seven and a half, this is her first year at the academy (wherever that is; is that why she is wearing that garish uniform?), Meowy is her only pokémon, she'd come out here with her cousin but was told to train on her own so she didn't hold him back, her family is from a place called Alfornada, her favorite pokémon is Meowy but she wants to catch a spoink, her favorite food is grilled veluza filet, her favorite type of berry is roseli, and more.

Ninette is endeared, but also tunes her out at minute thirty—until Dulce yanks on her hand. "Where are you going? Los Platos is this way. Isn't that where you wanted to go?" she asks, pointing in the other direction than Ninette had meant to go.

"O-Oh, right! Good job, that's definitely where we're going. We're going to get you patched up, and I'll show you how to clean Meowy there." Thankfully the kid has a better sense of direction than Ninette, otherwise they'd be wandering all day.

With Dulce's help, it doesn't take too long to see the pokémon center red in the distance. Dulce pulls Ninette along by their still-connected hands, energy and happy mood returned with the thought of truly helping her pokémon. The Nurse Joy smiles, recognizing Ninette by now, but that turns into a confused tilt of her head when Ninette picks Dulce up—to her indignation—and sets her on the counter.

"Can you clean and wrap up her arm here? She was scratched by a meowth. I rinsed it as best I could and stopped the bleeding, but she needs some proper care. I'll be right back," she says and jogs off before getting an answer. Any Nurse Joy worth her salt would know how to take care of humans just as well as pokémon; she probably has more experience patching up overeager children than any one species of pokémon.

At the convenience store, Ninette finds a small bottle of smoliv oil. Of course, there's no pokémon shampoo in such a small store, nor mineral oil, but this ought to do, and it'll be safe for ingestion once Meowy inevitably takes over the role of cleaning herself again with the sap removed. Ninette wishes they had gloves, too, but she's had worse stuff on her hands.

By the time she returns, Dulce is sporting a bandage on her arm and Meowy has been let out again. Nurse Joy hovers over the poor pokémon, fretting, but knowing better than to immediately start working on the sap. She brightens considerably when Ninette holds the smoliv oil bottle aloft.

"Here, now we'll be able to get the sap out of her fur," Nurse Joy says, beaming, and Dulce returns it. To Ninette, she adds, "You know your stuff, hm? Have you had issues with sap in fur in the past?"

"Oh, no, I'm a pokémon stylist," Ninette replies, preening with the gasp of awe that earns her. "We don't do much outright cleaning, but we know plenty about getting things out of fur and feathers. And I've had my fair share of hosing down munchlax who are covered in honey, too." Honey isn't quite as bad as tree sap, given that it dissolves in enough water, but at least Meowy isn't trying to eat her coating.

To Ninette's surprise, Nurse Joy drops to her knees beside them and holds out her hands for the oil. She doesn't comment, however, since two pairs of hands that knew what they would be doing would be infinitely faster.

"We're not washing her with it?" Dulce asks as Ninette and the Nurse Joy pour the oil out onto their hands.

"There's not that much in this bottle, see? And we need to gently massage out the sap from Meowy's fur. Pokémon like it when their trainers touch them and help them, so we'll all work together to help Meowy. Here, hold out your hand, too, and I'll show you how," Nurse Joy replies. She takes over the role of the teacher; Ninette watches the exchange, silent.

Of course the Nurse Joy would know her stuff. She's a licensed professional and has years of experience doing this sort of stuff. But Ninette had sort of enjoyed fixing the problem—and the way Dulce had oohed and ahhed over her knowledge, too. She likes attention, so sue her.

Meowy melts with so many hands petting over her, even if it must be a weird sensation on her fur. Dulce laughs at how slippery everything becomes, so naturally the other two end up doing most of the work, patiently working out sap globs and combing their fingers through the oily fur. Nurse Joy manages to detach the broken hair brush.

"Pokémon with fur really should use their own brushes," Ninette offhandedly comments, unable to help herself. "It's nice that you were helping brush her, and a brush for human hair wouldn't be bad, if her fur were clean. But you can buy brushes for fur… at most places." Probably not at as tiny a town as Los Platos, though. Maybe wherever Alfornada was.

"That's right," Nurse Joy agrees. Her smile is for Dulce and Meowy, but her eyes are on Ninette. "You're very knowledgeable for your age."

"I'm a professional!" Ninette declares. A white lie, and only technically, since she has the skills themselves. Just not the age.

It takes the better part of an hour, but Meowy is cleaned of her sappy problem. (Now she has an oil problem, but that's something she can take care of by herself. Ninette advises Dulce not to try giving her a bath, and the little girl agrees with the vehemence of one who has already tried to give a meowth a bath.) As the meowth focuses on licking herself—Ninette makes sure to offer her a few more oran berries, to soothe her mood and cut through all of the oil she's about to ingest—the pokémon mart guy comes over with a bucket of soapy water and another bottle of industrial-strength soap to cut through the smoliv oil they're all covered in.

"You can keep the rest of that bottle," Ninette says, nodding down to the half-empty bottle, "in case something like this happens again."

"Oh, thank you very much. We always have such a wide array of accidents and incidents to take care of, we can never be fully stocked on anything, it seems…" The woman trails off, probably thinking about how a smaller town probably gets a smaller cut of the funding, too. Then again, it is impossible to plan for everything. As she's since learned in the past two days.

A tug on her short sleeve (wooloo wool cardigan safely tucked away from all of the oil) jars Ninette out of her thoughts. She finds Dulce staring up at her with a fistful of coins in her hand. "Here! Mom says you always pay professionals for their services, and you helped me an' Meowy a whole lot!"

It's three hundred pokédollars, which is hardly enough to have covered that bottle of smoliv oil, but it melts Ninette's heart all over again. "Thank you very much, Dulce. Your mother sounds like a very smart woman, and that's a good lesson to learn."

More than the heartwarming moment, however—Ninette looks down at the money she just earned.

She really shouldn't.

But she has few other choices, right?

Ninette is all smiles and informational responses as she lets the very bad but very good idea take root in her hindbrain. She washes her stained sock with the soapy water—both the Nurse Joy and pokémart merchant stare at her when she chirps "I'm good at getting blood out of clothes!"—and ensures her clothes are clean enough, considering her wilderness hiking and oily sidetrack. She wore the same white shorts as yesterday, because it's too hot for her jeans and her skirt doesn't have pockets (since she now has to worry about hiding Théodore's luxury ball), but she's in a worn-soft t-shirt with her mentor's salon logo on it. May as well give them some free advertising, even if it's a region away.

And the Very Bad But Very Good Idea whispers that it would be proof of her skills and professionalism, too.

Ninette checks her email at the PC again, and to her delight, her mother has responded.

"Dearest Ninette — I am so sorry to hear your phone broke! Was it Théo? I know you don't like blaming him, but I also know how much he likes to chew on things he shouldn't. I've transferred some money to your account for you to purchase a new one. Pick something cute!

I'm expecting a package in the next few days — has it arrived yet? Please don't forget to check the mail. And go through those leftovers before you order food every night, I know how you are.

I am sorry to say that it looks like I'll have to stay longer in Kiloude. Probably about another week. If you could pick up some groceries, that would be lovely, mon chou! Let me know when your phone is working again, but I'll keep you updated if anything else about my schedule changes, as soon as I know. Be safe and hold down the fort for me while I'm gone!

Love, Mama."

Ninette's heart thuds in her chest, because not only did her mother buy her story about her broken phone, she'll be away for another week. Ninette could stay longer. Not only would this give her more time to track down the elusive wooloo, but it'll give her time to raise enough money to get back home. Or maybe she could track down that cabbie she'd already paid again.

"Good news?" the pokémon mart guy asks, conversational, probably because of how broadly Ninette is grinning.

"Just emailing my mother! It's nice to hear from her." It's not even a lie. Ninette's used to her mother's whirlwind business trips and her tacking on more time away, but so rarely has it worked out so brilliantly in her favor.

She has more time now. She can still rescue this step in her grand plan.

It's just some mild misrepresentation, Ninette tells herself. She waves to Dulce and Meowy as she treks back toward the rolling green hills where the wooloo ought to be flocking. I need the money pretty badly, and I have the time to do it now, and it isn't as if I would be hurting anyone. I can style pokémon really well. But Los Platos is too small to rely on, there's practically no one there…

Too late, Ninette realizes she should've asked Dulce about her missing water bottle, too.

She resolves to keep an extra sharp eye out for it, but there's zero chance of finding it again, even with the added days to her itinerary. Priorities. Wooloo comes first, and money comes second.

Ninette has tromped her way through the grassy area again. She's sworn she's crawled all over this entire region, but she has not seen even a speck of wool, nor her lost water bottle. She even came across a swampy area and has ventured into rockier terrain.

Just as her bad mood threatens to engulf her again, Ninette receives a pleasant surprise.

A skiddo stares at her from a rocky outcrop, head tilted.

"Ah! Pitchoun!" Ninette exclaims in delight.

The skiddo cocks its head the other direction.

Ninette digs around in her bag for her berries. The skiddo hops down from the ledge before she even has any out, smiling at her, then bleats in matching delight when she pulls out a pecha berry for it. "I had no idea I would see such a familiar face here! I know your cousins in Kalos very well," Ninette says and holds it out. The skiddo skips right up and eats out her hand with another happy bleat.

Skiddo and gogoat are practically symbols of Kalos. They're supposedly one of the first domesticated pokémon ever, and they're used for all sorts of things. The only pokémon she knows better is furfrou, probably. She doesn't style them very often, but twice a year, there are fundraising events where salons will groom all of the service skiddo and gogoat in the larger cities, to raise money for the systems supporting them. Ninette's participated since she was eleven, and in Lumiose City for the past two years.

Ninette scratches the skiddo along its ruff, reflexively checking it over. It appears healthy and quite happy with her gift. It butts its head against her hip, asking for more, and Ninette is helpless to resist.

Soon, another two skiddo peer over the rocky outcrop at them, then join them. Ninette is going through her berry stash with alarming speed, but she supposes she can pick up more later.

Glancing around for anyone else and finding no one, Ninette releases Théodore. "Théo, look!"

None of the skiddo bat an eye at the large furfrou in their midst, instead sniffing at him with blatant curiosity. Théodore plops down and they take turns heatbutting him with playful snorts. The training skiddo in Lumiose often did the same thing to him, so it appears that some things cross regional borders.

"You're all very cute, you know that? Of course you know that! But have you seen any wooloo around?" The sun hangs low in the sky, so Ninette doesn't have much more time to look today. Even with the relaxed deadline, she can't afford to waste more time, and who would know this area better than its locals?

Of course, the skiddo just tilt their heads at her, confused.

Rather than try to mime anything, Ninette leaves them all with a few more head pats. They follow for a little while before peeling off to play on the short cliffs again. Théodore languidly walks at her side, in zero hurry, but Ninette supposes she's not in a hurry, either. She doesn't know where to find the wooloo, after all.

The second she sees white wool, however, she's gonna be sprinting.

"Théo, looks like we'll be spending a few more days in Galar," Ninette sighs. "I don't suppose you can track any down by scent…?" Just in case, she offers out the sleeve of her cardigan to him.

The furfrou sniffs it, flicks an ear, and very clearly shakes his head.

"Figured." Her cardigan had been washed dozens of times, had been worn by a human, and had been processed to be turned into clothing. No way it would still smell like a wooloo. (It would actually kind of suck if it still smelled like a wooloo.)

"Ouaf," Théodore agrees.

"I don't want to send you out to look for me, because you could scare the native pokémon, and if someone sees you…" She shudders in horror. "Absolutely cannot happen! Théo, you naughty boy, you're the biggest secret ever, okay? If you hear or smell or see or anything else, you have to come back to me at once to be returned! Got it?"

He yawns at her. Ninette scowls down at him. With a long-suffering sigh, Théodore nods.

"Good boy," she replies and rewards him with some ear scratches. Théodore whumps his full weight against her side, staggering her, but she doesn't fall. She's had enough practice with his attention-seeking ways to get caught off guard now.

With the sun dipping ever lower, she knows she ought to pick a spot and fight with that camping gear again. Depth perception is slowly leaving as the light fades, but she can still see so much spread out before her. Ninette scans the grass and rocks and even the swamp for the smallest hint of a wooloo.

Still nothing.

She'd lost some time that afternoon helping Dulce. She doesn't regret helping her, of course, but she does regret the time sink. It can't happen again. She'll need to head to a bigger city in a day or two to start selling her skills and search out a decent flying taxi service, and wooloo are supposed to be firmly rural pokémon.

Her foot comes down sideways on something and Ninette is abruptly thrown onto her face.

She's been grabbed by the neighbor's espurr enough times to recognize a psychic hold when she feels one, but it's a dim, distant realization. More importantly is the shrieking sound behind her and the agonizing pain in her face.

Ninette props herself up on one elbow and puts a hand to her nose, finding it gushing blood over her stinging, scraped lips. Behind her, Théodore snarls and the shrieking increases in pitch until it hurts her ears.

The sound suddenly stops.

Ninette twists around to find Théodore's cheeks puffed out.

"Drop it. What do you have in your mouth?!" Ninette cries, voice coming out nasally. She shoves her cardigan's sleeve up against her nose to staunch the flow—it sucks, but she can't be dripping onto everything, so may as well sacrifice one thing to save the rest of her outfit—and reaches out for Théodore.

He turns his head. Whatever's in his mouth pushes against his cheek, and she realizes, with horror, that she can still hear the shrieking from before, just very, very muffled.

"Drop it, Théo!" Ninette shouts at him.

Théodore bends over and obediently spits out her assailant.

Ninette's heart clenches. The pokémon is tiny. It's supposed to be yellow, but it's covered in a mix of slobber and blood. She isn't entirely sure what it's supposed to look like, but it's small enough that a human stepping on it had clearly injured it badly. She can't blame it for throwing her.

It peeps and a little bubble of blood comes out of its equally little mouth.

"Omigod," Ninette breathes and falls over herself to crawl to the injured pokémon. She's never seen anything hurt so badly. It looks crooked, in a way she's sure isn't right, and instinctively, she's pretty sure something inside it is broken.

She had given the rest of her oran berries (and half her pecha berries) to Meowy and those skiddo. She's never bought a potion in her life, and she didn't get any bandages earlier, despite proof of how easily accidents can happen out in the wild. With shaking hands, Ninette pulls out her water bottle, but she doesn't know what to rinse. Getting the furfrou saliva off would be a good bet, but she can't clearly see where it's bleeding, and it's… so small. Ninette hovers for a long, terrified moment.

"Théo! We need to get back to the pokémon center—what way was it?!" Ninette exclaims while the yellow pokémon's crying begins to die in volume.

Théodore hangs his head. Of course—she hadn't let him out anywhere near that not-center, and only sporadically out in the wilderness, so he'd have no more idea where they were than she currently does. Her phone doesn't have signal for an emergency call or GPS. The sun's almost beneath the horizon now, too.

Ninette sniffs, a disgusting sound, then turns and spits the mouthful of blood out. She puts her sleeve up against her nose again. Her lips and cheeks sting, too, so she probably got scraped, but she can deal. She's not the one who got stepped on.

Her other, shaking hand drips a few drops of water onto the hurt pokémon. It squeaks again with a violent shiver.

Tears blur her vision, but Ninette can't deal with that right now! She squeezes her eyes shut to clear them, then smacks her smarting cheeks to get back in business. She hurt this pokémon, even if it was an accident, so it's her responsibility to fix this. She has no healing supplies and has no idea where the pokémon not-center may be from here—except far enough for a couple hours' walk. She doesn't want to move the pokémon without understanding its injuries, and it's hurt enough that she fears even picking it up.

Her hands tremble in the air over the peeping pokémon.

Ninette caps her water bottle, sets it aside, and digs around in her bag again.

She pulls out a pokéball. As she had explained to Dulce just earlier that day, pokéballs can be used for a pokémon's safety, to minimize pain for transport to a center. Ninette had never thought she'd use that life lesson personally, but as she very gently presses the button against the quaking yellow pokémon, it disappears in a flash of light, and does not break back out.

Though not a wooloo, Ninette had officially captured a foreign pokémon without the proper permits.

Unlike the wooloo, however, she doesn't plan on keeping this thing, only getting it to Nurse Joy to heal. Ninette cradles the pokéball against her chest—then yanks it away again when she notices blood smeared over the white part of the ball. One hand and the sleeve of her cardigan are stained, and despite her best efforts, she has a few drops on her t-shirt, too.

Théodore budges his head against her clean hand with a sad sound. "Frou…?" he asks.

"We have to get this back to the pokémon center," Ninette declares. She scans the orange-soaked scenery around them. She at least knows what direction they came from. It's enough of a start.

LIST OF NINETTE'S CRIMES SO FAR:

+International travel without valid visa
+International travel under false pretenses
+Travel as a non-training minor without parental permission
+Intent to capture pokémon without training license
+Intent to smuggle pokémon across regional borders
+Transport of trained pokémon without valid visa
+Transport of purebred furfrou across regional borders without proper visa
+Theft of pokémon
+Misrepresentation of professional skills
+Accidental injury of pokémon
+Capture of pokémon without valid training license
+Capture of foreign pokémon without valid visa