Ninette almost falls face-first into the small creek. She shrieks, arms windmilling, but Théodore seizes the back of her shirt in his mouth and yanks her back in time. She falls on her butt and stares at the tall grass lining the water. It's only now that she can hear the faint, otherwise pleasant water noises.
Ninette feels like crying. She only remembers a creek far from the pokémon not-center, not close by, and she isn't sure if this is the right direction or not because of it. The pokéball shakes in her clenched fingers. Tears burn her eyes. She sniffs—it still tastes foully of blood—and spits in the most unladylike fashion.
With the greatest care in the world, Ninette sets the pokéball in the grass next to her, then peels off her bloody cardigan. Only some of it has dried. As an afterthought, and after a long look around for anyone else in the vicinity, Ninette strips off her t-shirt, too, and dunk both of them in the creek. Cold water is best for getting blood out of clothes, and to do it while it's still fresh is her best bet. She turns on her flashlight and props it between her knees while she works.
Tears drip down her nose as she scrubs her clothes.
It's not wasting time, the yellow thing is fine in there, she reminds herself, but it does little to assuage the guilt. But she'd hate herself more if she ruined that cardigan and had to lie to her mother about it.
With the creek in front of her, Ninette can do something, even if that something is self-serving. She doesn't know how to help the yellow pokémon yet, given that she's completely and utterly lost. The sun's down and the sky only retains the smallest bit of lightness in its direction.
She's lost, she doesn't know where the pokémon not-center is, she hasn't pitched her tent, and as soon as she thinks she's getting near Los Platos, she's going to have to return Théodore, who is her only source of comfort right now.
He butts his head against her bare shoulder. Ninette glances back at him, and finds that he's dug the sweaty halter top that she'd worn yesterday out of her bag—and spread most of its contents on the ground in the process.
She probably should be in more than her bra in the middle of nowhere, but the thought of putting a stinky and sweat-stained shirt back on and needing to repack her overstuffed bag do no favor for her mood.
Ninette rocks back onto her heels and wails.
Théodore barks in surprise, ears pricking, then circles around her as if looking for danger. He drops the halter top in her lap, covering the flashlight, casting them both in blue light.
"Théo, what are we going to do?!" Ninette cries. She throws her arms around his neck, accidentally jostling the flashlight in the movement—but not just the flashlight, the pokéball, too. With a plink, it falls into the creek.
Ninette shrieks but Théodore leaps into the water with zero hesitation. It's not deep enough that he needs to swim, but he ducks under briefly to pick the pokéball up in his mouth. He clambers back onto the grassy bank, then shakes out his long fur—and the style she'd brushed onto him last week.
Ninette cradles the pokéball against her chest and puts her other arm around Théodore again. "Thank you, thank you, Théo," she murmurs, the shock having calmed her, paradoxically enough. She's not crying anymore, anyway. They'd averted one single crisis together, so even if there were twenty more, at least she could check one off the list.
She leans her weight against him, uncaring for the moment of the water seeping between them. She doesn't have any of her stylist kit with her, so she can't even brush him back out after he dries, except with her own hairbrush. Dulce and Meowy and the sap incident come back to mind; there's a reason furfrou need their own brushes, and she doesn't fancy breaking her brush in trying to fix him.
"You haven't been unstyled in years," Ninette mutters into his fur.
"Ouaf," Théodore agrees and budges his head against hers. He had been her practice partner since she was old enough to know what a hairbrush was, and before Ninette had taken over his styling, her mother had taken him twice a month to the local salon. She's flirted with designing her own furfrou styles, and even has one idea she's fond of and has worked with a few times, and Théodore had shown off her ideas with the same vague disinterest he did with the professional styles, so she always took it as a good sign.
"You're a good boy," Ninette murmurs, then straightens, pulling her sopping wet clothes out of the creek. "But we need to get back to Los Platos. Go shake off over there while I repack. I can't remember if that little store had pokémon fur brushes or not…" Is she going to spend her precious money on an item she already owns, and on a cheap, convenience store version, no less?
Even if he isn't styled, furfrou have long fur that requires regular brushing. And if she's going to be selling her skills in the hopes of raising more money, then she'll need the basics, anyway. If Los Platos has such things in stock.
Ninette's fingers tighten on the pokéball again.
Everything else can happen after she gets this pokémon to that center.
Ninette's eyes adjust to the dark of the night in a broad sense. Sudden changes in the ground, such as a hole, still catch her off guard; she can't see details. But she can see bigger rocks and Théodore's white coat stands out like a beacon beside her. Her night vision is good enough to spot the occasional sleeping pokémon, too, which they give a wide berth to. None of the diurnal pokémon wake as they wander, but plenty of nocturnal pokémon watch them.
Plenty more than the few she can spot, she's certain.
It's creepy to be outside at night. She'd tried walking a bit with her flashlight, but it had only made it creepier, actually. This way, everything is uniformly dark, but she can see everything uniformly. With the flashlight, she could only see the yellow spot in front of her, leaving everything else pitch black.
The stars overhead are bright and proud, as if showing off what the night sky can look like outside cities. The moon hangs at just a quarter, not lending much light, but it's better than it being overcast and even darker. At least it's pretty.
Théodore guides her with the occasional nudge. If there's a path, she can't quite see it. But the ground here is fairly smooth and the grass isn't so high anymore. Surely that's a sign that they're nearing more-trafficked areas? Such as the areas close to main paths and towns?
Ninette and Théodore both almost fall off the short cliff.
She isn't certain if he'd been distracted or if the way the tall grasses lay hid it from him, but he seizes her short sleeve in his jaws and hauls her back from the edge. They both scramble for purchase for a few panicked moments, but collapse into the cool grass a moment later, Ninette with her chest heaving. Théodore butts his head against hers in apology. She scratches behind his ears as the adrenaline comes down.
And then it spikes right back up, because holy happiny, she can see the pokémon center.
The red roof glows, but the faint glow of the village itself stands out against the dark night, a literal beacon for her to follow. They're not super close yet—not close enough for her to return Théodore—but she doesn't see why she can't simply follow the sight from here to there. Down the little cliff, up a hill, across the bridge. (She remembers that bridge, even. Not that it helps with her nonexistent sense of direction, but it's nice to recognize something other than the not-center.)
Ninette throws her arms around Théodore's neck with something like a happy sob. "We found it, Théo! Ohh, we're almost there, then we can save the little pokémon!"
"Rouf!" he agrees with much tail wagging.
Not wanting to separate herself from Los Platos' line of sight, and after judging that the cliff isn't sheer so much as steep, Ninette slides down the scree. Théodore clears it in a single leap. She lands on her butt at the bottom, but dusting herself off is the least of her problems right now.
Despite the late night and long day, she gets a second wind and jogs toward Los Platos. She gets to the bridge before returning Théodore and hiding his luxury ball deep in her pocket again.
Ninette approaches the pokémon not-center and she knows she must look like a ghastly sight, but she's so grateful for the view of professionals that she doesn't care about appearances for the moment. She hadn't dared stow the pokéball anywhere during their aimless trek, so she holds it up in the same white-knuckled grip she'd maintained since catching the poor thing. Her fingers ache, but again: least of her worries.
The Nurse Joy gives her a once-over, and Ninette trips over the beginning of her breathless explanation, because that is not the Nurse Joy she knows. It must be the night shift. Not that she trusts the woman's professionalism and skill any less, but this would have been significantly easier if someone who knew (somewhat) why a Kalosian stylist was wandering around the area could have helped her with this. She doesn't want to have to explain more than she must.
"You're up late. May I help you?" the Nurse Joy asks politely.
Ninette practically trips in her haste to thrust the pokéball at her. She sags against the counter and the woman's eyes widen at the sight of blood smeared on the ball. She doesn't hesitate in catching it before it rolls off the edge, though.
"I accidentally hurt this pokémon," Ninette confesses in a tear-filled rush, "and I was far away so I caught it but it was very tiny and I-I stepped on it so I don't know what sort of damage it had done but it had been bleeding and it must have been a psychic type but I'm not sure what sort of pokémon are local in this region so I didn't recognize it and I know better than to try treating major pokémon injuries by myself so I tried really, really hard to find my way back here so can you help it?"
The Nurse Joy steps back to release the pokémon onto the padded base of the healing machine. The yellow pokémon flops onto the antiseptic cover with a burble of blood, and Nurse Joy and the mart merchant both reel back with knee-jerk shock they can't quash.
Ninette bursts into tears anew, both at how the adults were shocked at what she'd done to that thing, and the state of the poor pokémon, now that she could see it in bright, artificial light. Her initial evaluation of tiny and yellow and hurt are certainly correct, but she knows it shouldn't look so squashed in addition.
"Oh my—it will be alright," Nurse Joy hastens to say. But she returns it again and holds the pokéball between her hands with an uneasy expression. "Please, calm down. We know accidents happen in the wild. You did very well to bring this pokémon here as quickly as you could, but we aren't equipped to handle surgery at this center. We'll need to fly to Mesagoza to handle this flittle's care."
"Flying taxis are going to be expensive, with that music festival in the city," the merchant advises in a low tone.
"I can handle the paperwork for reimbursement, even if it's annoying," Nurse Joy all but snaps back at him. She delicately puts the pokéball in her apron pocket, as if the pokémon inside—a flittle?—could feel her care, and bustles out from around the counter. "Could I get your name, please, miss?"
"N-Ninette," she warbles back.
"Alright, Ninette, we're going to take a flying taxi to Mesagoza. It's the biggest city here, but it's only about an hour's flight north. I'll come with you to explain the situation to the nurses on duty there, and I'll make sure you get set up there. There will be some minor paperwork for the intake and permissions for surgery, but it's simple, and I'll prep you on the flight. If you'd follow me?"
Miserable and still leaking from her eyes, Ninette nods and follows the woman. Going into the city, and thus away from the rural areas that would contain wooloo, does not matter right now. What matters is ensuring the flittle gets help, especially after she'd seen how horrified the Nurse Joy had looked.
Ninette is no stranger to pokémon injuries, but those had always been on a far smaller scale. She'd cut to the quick in a few cases with trimming claws belonging to squirming pokémon, and she'd been in the salon during that time a newbie had accidentally docked a furfrou's tail. They're not a pokémon center, so they're not there to fix pokémon, but they all have basic first aid training. There will always be cuts, scrapes, burns, and more when dealing with pokémon.
But surgery. That's a big, important, scary word. Is she going to have to pay for it because she's not a trainer? Because she's not a local? She knows accidents happen and it's not truly her fault, but she is the one who'd stepped on the poor thing, so someone has to be the responsible party. She isn't sure what the legality would be for a non-national who's there semi-illegally.
The Nurse Joy gets off the phone and says, "We'll have a cab here in about ten minutes. Would you like to wash your face before we leave? I'll also be wiping off the pokéball."
Ninette scrubs a hand over her face, feeling the crustiness of dried blood. "Yes, please." Might as well look slightly less deranged for the rest of this nightmarish process.
No one comments on her dirty clothes, though with actual light, she's pleased to see that she'd rinsed the blood out of her cardigan pretty well. It's a miniscule pleasure in the midst of everything else, but she'll take it. Ninette combs her hair out with her fingers, too tired to go digging in her overstuffed bag, but she feels a lot better after washing her face. It'd stopped the tears, too.
The cabbie who comes to pick them up could be her cabbie, but she supposes that's just the uniform of the region. What's more shocking is that it's not a corviknight or even staraptor, but a horde of multicolored, loud birds all tethered to the cab. Ninette's sure that this system passed all safety requirements, but it's still a feat of courage to step into the cab when she knows there's not a big pokémon hauling them around.
She and Nurse Joy sit thigh-to-thigh. (Cabs aren't big, and what had seemed small to Ninette when traveling across the border is downright cramped with two people.) Ninette can see the lump of the pokéball in her apron's pocket and can't seem to tear her eyes away from it.
"Are you the little Kalosian girl the day staff mentioned?" Nurse Joy asks quietly.
Ninette sulks at being called little—especially since she'd just seen Dulce earlier, and knew that trainers could apparently start very young in Galar—but nods. "I'm in the area for another day or two. I hadn't meant to…"
"I know accidents happen. If it makes you feel any better, I've seen worse," she replies with grim humor.
It both does and doesn't. Ninette doesn't want to think about it. "Aren't corviknight supposed to take flying taxis? I've never been in one with so many little pokémon."
"Oh, those squawkabilly? You can't use corviknight as taxi ferriers around here. But four or five squawkabilly are perfectly safe to fly with, even if they're quite loud about it." She seems to sense Ninette's misgivings about smaller flyers, though she's confused about the corviknight remark. Is it something about smaller towns, or this route? Before she can ask, Nurse Joy continues, "They're very pretty, though. I had a pair growing up, both of them green. Their plumage depends on what part of the region they're from, and they usually form flocks with similar-colored birds, but the cabbies here like to own multiple colors to show off to travelers."
She's probably trying to get Ninette's mind off of what had happened, so while Ninette hardly cares about the region's birds, she accepts the change of topic.
Mesagoza is a city, Ninette finds as they descend. It must be about Lumiose's size, which isn't what she'd expected, but then again, the only large city she knows of in Galar is Wyndon, so who knows what else there is?
One thing is for certain: there will not be wooloo here.
But it's a short flight back to Los Platos, so she's not overly worried for the time being. A big city is likelier to have trainers who want their pokémon groomed, anyway.
Despite the time of night, the city is bustling. There is an actual crowd near the pokémon center, and distantly, Ninette can hear loud music. The merchant had mentioned a music festival, so she assumes that's it. Maybe she can blend in with other tourists here? Surely vacationing people would want their pokémon groomed to look good in photos.
The milling people nominally part when they see a Nurse Joy marching through, Ninette on her heels. Pokémon are out, too, adding to the masses. More than a few toxtricity and a loudred with its speakers pounding to mimic the unheard bass of the faraway music. She sees all kinds of fashions here, so she isn't certain if the festival is themed or not.
Nurse Joy speaks in low tones to the other nurse on duty behind the counter. (Ninette is glad to see that this center is built into an actual building, with only the front counter accessible to the trainers. It's still not the type of center she is accustomed to, but it looks a bit more like a proper hospital, which is what they need.) She gestures backward to Ninette, who awkwardly gets caught between a nod and a wave. The Mesagoza Nurse Joy does not release the flittle out in public, but instead sets the ball on a machine to scan.
Her face is grim when it reports its findings. Ninette's heart sinks all over again.
"They will do what they can for the flittle, and they believe that its life is in no danger," the Los Platos Nurse Joy says when she returns to Ninette. "But it will require surgery to set some broken bones. Flittle are psychic pokémon, but they're avian, so they have very delicate skeletons… They estimated about three to four hours until it will be out of surgery, and they'll want to speak to you again then, but you do not need to wait here, since I know that is a long time. Oh, well, but please wait in Mesagoza! There is the music festival going on, so that could be a worthy distraction, and you could see a bit of what we have to offer here. I know it is not an ideal tourist circumstance for you, but Ryme is here for the festival."
Even Ninette has heard of Ryme, and she's not one for rap. No wonder the city is so packed—this is an actual event.
The Nurse Joy wrings her apron between her hands. "I need to return to my station in Los Platos. You'll be in good hands here. If you travel back south, I'll have updated the day staff about what happened, too, and we'd be happy to see the recovered flittle later. Oh, do you know the emergency number for pokémon center services here?"
"My phone doesn't get service here," Ninette admits.
"Oh, well… Any payphone or cell phone in the region can call it for free, and the number is 300. You can ask to connect it to certain local centers, if need be. The Mesagoza extension here is 955, so you could call for a status update if you leave this area and go explore the city, if you want."
Good to know. Ninette supposes an actual city would have things like payphones, though it doesn't help in getting her cabbie back in her direction, given that she doesn't have his number. It comforts her to know that she can check on the flittle without remaining in this crowd, though.
"Thank you for all of your help," Ninette tells the Nurse Joy with a quick bow.
She smiles at her. "You're very welcome, though it is my job. I hope it's feasible for you to update us after this is all fixed, but I have faith that the Nurse Joys here will heal your flittle good as new. I wish you luck, Ninette."
Ninette is left in Mesagoza and its milling crowds and distant thrum.
Three to four hours, huh? Doesn't look like she's getting any sleep tonight, and even if she did think she could sleep, she doesn't think anyone would appreciate her pitching a tent in the middle of the city. May as well see what Galarian coffee is like.
Ninette travels in exactly a one-block radius of the pokémon center. She does not want to get lost here, and while a famous(?) music festival sounds fun, she does not care for late-night crowds or exuberant fans. Posters are pasted up on every other storefront, declaring all sorts of stars, with other posters simple lists of names of other, smaller bands and artists. She finds more than a couple posters of Ryme. And an especially large one of Piers and Roxie, complete with a gaggle of punk rock fans taking selfies in front of it.
At least, like Lumiose, Mesagoza is a city where shops are open at all times. Checking her phone, she finds that it's nearing three in the morning, but she finds a cafe that isn't too busy. It's decorated in the style of ground pokémon. Ninette orders a cappuccino and a chocolate parfait (complete with a cocoa diglett on top) and snags one of the bar stools.
Three in the morning, she's having caffeine, there's still blood on her, and she's on the cusp of getting lost in a very large city while worrying over an accident. She tells herself she won't stray further than this one-block radius, but she's always been better in urban centers than the wilderness, and she will likely get bored and tired as time wears on. Waiting, even waiting in the midst of tragedy, is terrible.
Ninette catches sight of a few visibly drunk men eyeing her from across the cafe and decides it's time to finish her drink and treat. She loses herself in the nighttime crowds again outside; they don't follow her out.
She finds that she can stray slightly farther than she'd anticipated, because she finds a main road leading into a bustling square just beyond her self-imposed radius. Ninette commits to memory the corner marker—a shop called Delibird Presents, and it's bright red, so that should be easy to find again—and edges out into the square. The music is louder here, without buildings to block it from carrying, and she finds a few musicians busking here. There are more visibly drunk people, but in the sense that they're having sloppy fun, so while she gives them a wide berth, she doesn't find any trouble here.
She listens to a girl seated in front of a steel drum when a battle erupts in the square.
The crowd whirls around and Ninette is jostled when they hastily clear a space for a hydreigon. Ninette has only seen one once before, and at a distance, during a battle expo in Lumiose. It's much, much larger when she's thirty feet from it. People back up even more when the dragon roars with all three heads.
The trainer standing behind the hydreigon is a woman with her fists planted on her hips. She throws her head back and cackles at the chaos she'd just created—and attention she's now receiving. Ninette knows her type; she gets plenty of those kinds of trainers in the salon, wanting them to primp their pokémon up. She isn't certain how she could style a hydreigon, granted, but every pokémon can look better with a thorough washing and brushing. And most scales can be polished, though the feather-like wings give her pause, since they'd require a more delicate touch than most dragon hide needs.
Her opponent sends out a florges.
The woman's cackling abruptly stops. "Shit."
The crowd laughs around them, but there's still a current of unease here. To Ninette's surprise, as she catches whispers, she finds it's not because of the very large dragon in their midst.
"Don't they know a flashy battle here might attract her?"
"Shh! I'm not sure she's in Mesagoza right now, but… I don't want to get caught if she does come here!"
"Maybe they don't know about Nemona, and that's why they're battling here?"
"I think that woman with the hydreigon is foreign. She was carrying around a serperior earlier."
"Carrying?"
"What about the guy with the florges?"
"I don't know—are florges from somewhere else?"
"No, I know you can catch floette on that island by Levincia."
Ninette can't resist butting in. "Florges and their line are prominently found in Kalos. Are hydreigon foreign?"
The three gossiping trainers—all in that garish uniform like Dulce had sported—turn to her with big eyes. One of them replies, "They're not, but serperior are. I'd never even seen one before."
"I had to pull out my dex to double-check that it wasn't a painted seviper!" another chimes in.
"Who would paint a pokémon?"
"Didn't you see that that weird woman had painted some band's name on her serperior's side? That's why she was carrying it around, I think…?"
The battle is over shockingly quickly. Or maybe non-expo battles are actually quicker than what Ninette knows. The florges comes out the victor and the crowd scatters even more when the hydreigon falls. The woman returns it before it can actually hit the stone, thankfully, but no one likes to see a giant dragon slumping toward them. The crowd disperses swiftly, as if from superstition, possibly from whoever those trainers had been gossiping about before. Ninette allows the flow of people to draw her further into the square.
She pops out on another side street further than her initial self-imposed radius, but she's certain she could make her way back to the pokémon center even so. It appears that most of those still awake are heading back in the direction of the festival. It's not hard to know what that direction is, given the crowds and the yet-louder music, but Ninette doesn't wish to venture that far without a guaranteed way back. She doesn't fancy paying for a taxi for something she should know how to return to.
Especially considering her dwindling funds.
There had been people busking there. She isn't certain if it's allowed due to the music festival, or if the late time of night means that police can't keep up, but it's gratifying. Sure, she's not playing a musical instrument or about to start singing, but she can make a little sign and pick up a few brushes and some scissors and probably muddle her way through some decent grooming.
I wish I'd brought my tools with me, Ninette laments. Théodore would benefit, but she could also do work she'd be proud of with them. She won't do a bad job, but it'll be not her best work, and it sits sourly in her stomach.
Then again, she did not need to squash anything more in her poor bag. And why would she have brought her stylist tools with her on what was supposed to be a quick, simple trip? She doesn't plan on grooming the wooloo right off the bat. She'll need a baseline level of trust first, given that it'd be wild and not used to humans, however tame the species is supposed to be.
Then, Ninette sees the combee.
Combee, like most bug pokémon, are meant to be very diurnal. It appears the music festival and extra populace have kept them awake. There's a knot of three of them clinging to a flower planter, with another planter and another trio on the other side of some stairs. They're hunkered down against the pillar of flowers, wings rigid, vibrating at a strange frequency.
Ninette approaches cautiously. The combee don't react to her or any other passersby. Something about their matched wingbeats seems familiar—and it hits her a moment later: they're following the bass of the music festival's songs. She herself can barely hear it, but she can feel it, and their wings match what the beat for the song she can hear should be.
"Oh, you poor things," Ninette murmurs. She looks around for any kind of official, but there's no one. It's the middle of the night, after all, so everyone she sees are partiers or hardcore fans. She assumes these are the semi-tame type of pokémon that hang around cities, given that they're hunkered down in what must be part of their territory.
So she hopes they're tame enough for the only way she can think to help them.
Very, very carefully, Ninette scoops one of the combee toward her. It rolls down her arm, eyes still screwed shut, tiny mouth puckered in distaste, but it collects against her chest as easily as it had been hiding in the flowers. The second one goes a little more willingly, wanting to be with the other, and the third practically moves on its own. Ninette waddles awkwardly to the other flower planter with the combee pressed against her chest.
The first combee, the one closest to her heart, relaxes its wings into a quiet, natural buzz.
Ninette repeats her scoop with the other combee. None act hostile or aggressive or even all that grumpy, despite their distaste for the late night music. They cling to each other and to her, making her feel a bit like she's wearing a buzzing shawl.
Alright, so she is not one hundred percent certain where she came from, but she does know what direction she came from, and she knows she had seen similar flower planters scattered about even in her limited walk around Mesagoza. With as fluid of steps as she can manage so as to not jostle them and get stung, Ninette waddles her way down a side street.
There are even fewer people here. Fewer posters, too, though they're still inescapable, given that she spots another two of the list-types. These ones have one band name circled multiple times in red marker—Creative Anything. Ninette has never heard of them.
Aha, there: a large flower planter with benches built into the stone. The buildings between here and the square are enough to muffle just enough of the music that now all of the combee have relaxed against her. She thinks one is even dozing. There's another pair of combee she can see snoozing in the flowers, too.
"What are you doing?" comes a voice.
Ninette, covered in combee, freezes guiltily. Is this not something that should have been done? Is it illegal to move city pokémon from designated places? She isn't a trainer, so maybe interacting with non-owned pokémon to this degree is illegal in Galar?
She spots the owner of the voice, and she is really not sure what to think when she finds that it's the cackling woman with the hydreigon.
The woman reclines on the far end of the planter's bench, head lolling, pixie cut wild like she'd run here. A large green serpent is coiled next to her, and Ninette knows only by context that it's a serperior. She's never seen one in person, either.
"Um, I was escorting these combee over here, where it is quieter…? The music was bothering them. They couldn't sleep," Ninette explains and shuffles a bit closer. In for a gimmighoul, in for a gholdengo. She begins rolling the combee back down her arms and letting them float into the flowers with very tiny snores. "A lot of bug pokémon can be quite sensitive to sounds, but combee are very friendly pokémon, so I helped guide them over here. Now they'll be able to sleep the rest of the night in peace."
The woman eyes her. "Huh."
Ninette thinks she's in the clear.
Until she adds, "Weirdo."
She huffs at her. "I'm helping them. Is that so wrong?"
"No, I meant—you sound like you're from Kalos. Didn't expect some hoity-toity Kalosian trainer to spend her tourist time herding around pokémon that isn't hers. Are you here for the music festival?"
Ninette fumes further, but she can't help but notice that the woman doesn't sound Galarian, either. "Non, I'm in Mesagoza for unrelated reasons—"
"Well you're here now! Tonight is an all-night music fest, and in about forty minutes, there's this band called Creative Anything playing, and you need to check them out. They're really good! Come on, I'll escort you." It is not an offer so much as a command. Ninette gets the sense that this woman has done this before to other unsuspecting people.
To her shock, the woman hefts the serperior up over her shoulders like they're a circus act. (There is, indeed, faint writing down the serperior's side, though it's smudged now. Ninette sees a matching smudge on the woman's shirt.) The serperior lazes over her shoulders with a happy hiss, clearly used to this behavior. Ninette has never seen someone lift a pokémon as large as a serperior before, and only now can she see the definition in the woman's form, though she shows no visible effort.
She loops her (thick) arm with Ninette's and begins dragging. She isn't stopped in the least by Ninette digging her heels in.
"U-Um, I actually have to—I'm meant to stay over in this area—"
"There are three stages set up, so you don't have to go all the way into the mosh pit or anything!"
"I need to stay by the pokémon center!" Ninette blurts with rising panic.
This, at least, pauses her would-be kidnapper. "…Is your pokémon okay?"
Ninette doesn't bother correcting her, because it's way too long of an explanation. "It's in for surgery—I mean, the prognosis was good! Nurse Joy said so. But I have to remain in this area for the next couple of hours. I don't have time to wander around and play tourist."
"A couple of hours is plenty of time to—"
"Non!" Ninette shouts and rips her arm free.
The woman and serperior both stare at her.
Then, the woman cocks her head and grins. It's not a particularly nice grin, but there's something proud in it. "I forgot what it was like to be a trainer. I guess you shouldn't be letting strangers drag you around, huh? Say, girl, do you have a weapon to defend yourself with? You can't always count on your team to protect you from aggressive strangers like me."
"Ser," the serperior adds and budges its head against its trainer's messy brown hair.
Ninette backs up a step, just in case. She has had the stranger danger talk, more than once, from her mother, her teachers, her mentor, and more. It's not easy to not be a trainer in today's world. At home, she has a can of ursaring spray her mother insists she take with her every time she goes to Lumiose. (Wisely, she did not bring it with her, because she did not want to get caught taking a weapon like that across regional borders. Even in self-defense, that would be more trouble than it's worth.)
"Ree, are you harassing people again?!"
The woman brightens like the sun. Ninette takes another step back when a man strides up—looking weird. He has to be in a band, not just a groupie, because he has makeup positively layered on and his outfit is more than a little eclectic. "I'm getting you more fans!"
"Please don't get arrested, detained, questioned, brought in, or even stopped again," the man groans.
Ninette edges even further away.
"Shouldn't you be getting ready?"
"I was, until I realized my lovely fiancée was missing and likely causing an international incident. Again. Why are there so many combee here?"
Ninette freezes on the spot when both of them turn to her. "I was—helping them."
The man runs a hand through his long hair, then growls when he realizes he's messed it out of its supposedly artful mess. "It's hard to hold concerts sometimes, since wild pokémon can be sensitive to noise. What sounds nice to humans doesn't always sound nice to pokémon. Isn't that right, mister?" he coos to the serperior, who budges into his hand, too, like the world's happiest furfrou. "You can ignore Ree here. She gets overexcited about my band. But if you do come check us out—"
"She should."
"—I'll make sure you get a free t-shirt for putting up with her!"
Ninette does not, on principle, like band shirts. She's all for proclaiming your love for something via fashion, but they're just so tacky. She has yet to see one with a pleasant design. Or even a passable design.
But she also may be staying here a little longer than she'd anticipated. Clean clothes would be nice. Possibly nicer than fashion.
"I need to be getting back to the pokémon center," she says instead of getting dragged further into becoming a groupie by force.
"Oh yeah, I need to go, too," the woman, Ree, says with the air of someone being reminded of something important.
"Ree."
"What! Arabella got her ass beat. I sort of forgot about fairies…? It's not like we were battling in the concert grounds."
"Again," the man pointedly adds.
"Again," Ree agrees with a roll of her eyes. "Go on, get back to your band, Scottie. Me and my hoity-toity Kalosian friend will head to the center, then I'll be right back over, promise."
Ninette, again, bristles at her. But this time, at least she's guided, albeit forcefully, in the direction she wants to go.
And she gets to see the serperior up close. That's a nice silver lining. They're quite pretty, she decides. She knows a few coworkers who are squeamish about serpents, but Ninette has no problem with any kind of pokémon, and reptiles like serperior are actually pretty easy to work with, given that they don't have to brush around limbs or trim claws.
They do have a leafy bit of tail and a fringe, though, which would require extra care. This one appears to be well taken care of, but its coloration is the slightly darker one of a grass pokémon up too late into the night. Sunlight tomorrow—well, later this morning—will fix that right up.
Ninette is nearly ready to start manually scratching its scales with her nails by the time Ree escorts her to the center.
"Lady with a dragon coming through!" Ree hollers and marches through the people milling in the area. There are fewer people here now, but they hasten to get out of her way, either from her volume or the threat of a dragon speeding their steps. "See, you gotta be forceful when it comes to getting assholes out of your way, especially when it comes to taking care of your pokémon."
Oh, this is turning into advice. Ninette doesn't want to point out that she isn't a trainer, given that she is waiting in line to check on a pokémon as well, but she doesn't need a stern but fond talking-to by a perceived elder in the field.
"Few things are more important than your team," Ree continues and slams her pokéball down on the counter. The Nurse Joy on duty jumps at the movement. "She lost a battle, nothing big, but it's a hydreigon, so I don't think you should let her out to check on a couple of bruises."
Despite her callous words, Ninette senses real affection—and more than a little protectiveness, even over a large dragon pokémon—from Ree. It's the same she's heard millions of times from other trainers. She isn't jealous, but she does wish she could understand it better. She loves so many pokémon, like Théodore, and the neighbor's espurr, and the repeat clients at the salon, and the skiddo and gogoat in Lumiose, and even those sleepy combee, but she's never bonded like how a trainer can bond with theirs. Not even with Théodore.
Then again, he's her mother's pokémon, not hers, even if he did break a few laws by accompanying Ninette on this journey.
"She needs her pokémon checked over, too!" Ree shouts and hauls Ninette forward by an arm. "You left it here, right? What was it?"
Ninette, caught between Ree's demand and Nurse Joy's wide eyes, manages a, "Uh, a f-flittle."
"Oh, that flittle, the one undergoing surgery? She's doing well, but it will be another two hours at least. And we cannot release a pokémon who is still sedated, so it will depend on when that wears off."
She? Ninette wonders with something tender and wounded in her chest. She had stepped on a little girl pokémon. She doesn't know why that makes it sadder, but it does, doesn't it?
Though knowing it's a female pokémon increases the cuteness factor. Maybe that's why it makes it sadder.
Ree slaps Ninette way too hard on the back. "So she'll pull through! That's great. No trainer should have to lose a pokémon."
Coughing, Ninette can't quite point out that the flittle isn't hers. "I-I knew it'd—she would—pull through…"
She. A little girl flittle. Ninette still doesn't know what an uninjured one looks like—outside of very small and very yellow—but it cements the image of the pokémon in her mind a little more. It's an individual, just as much as she is.
She realizes with despair that she'll never find the place where she'd stepped on her ever again. She'll have to ask the Los Platos Nurse Joy to release her—or no, finding someone to adopt her would probably be the better course of action, wouldn't it? Don't let the flittle get traumatized by humans, and if it needs any physical therapy, then a trainer or owner could help her through that.
Except the money. Ninette is resolved to pay for this poor pokémon's treatment, but her wallet…
She eyes the serperior and the writing along its side.
"…Say, you wouldn't be interested in letting a real Kalosian stylist spruce up your serperior for that concert you're looking forward to, would you? You wouldn't want smudged paint and dull scales when cheering them on."
Ninette hits the jackpot. Ree is exactly the type of trainer to dote too much on her pokémon, which translates to her agreeing to purchase tools with which Ninette will groom her pokémon. Arceus bless attached trainers and their bonds with their teams!
Ninette sits cross-legged on the ground right in front of the center and goes section by section over the serperior's smooth scales. The paint is easy to wash off, and she can do nothing for the duller nighttime coloration, but she can brush off dead and loose scales, primp its foliage, and even condition its back. (The little bottle of smoliv oil Ree had purchased does not cover a fully grown serperior. They both agree just the back is fine.)
While she didn't get a fee for it, which is a stinging point as a professional stylist, Ninette grins down at the roll of grooming tools she received instead.
She has two hours, a basic set of tools, and a very busy city to work with now. She can't wait.
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 valid 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
+Pokémon grooming without valid professional license
+Pokémon grooming without valid local license