"Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it not." -Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ninette has a grand dream.
Actually, she has a step-by-step, dream-by-dream guide to her future, but it's easier to tell other people that she has a grand dream, because for some reason, adults like hearing kids talk that way instead of acknowledging practicality. So she happily recites her grand dream to those who ask, listens to her mother gush about her aspirations and how she's been called a prodigy, and thinks about the first step to accomplishing her goals instead.
Her first, tiny, mundane, unexciting step.
Except to her, it's exciting, because it's finally time for the first step.
At fourteen, Ninette loves pokémon, but in a different way than most of her classmates and neighbors. She's not a trainer. She has no aspirations to become a trainer. Frankly, she finds battling annoying, because pokémon end up dirty, hurt, matted, ragged, or otherwise with their appearances completely ruined. Sure, she makes quite a lot of pocket money cleaning up beloved pokémon after battles, but she could really do without the mess. It's one thing to hose off an eevee that likes water—it's another to have to painstakingly re-paint the delicate scales of a vivillon's wings to ensure it looks its best for an upcoming party. She knows how to get mud or blood out of nearly every type of fur (and most fabrics, too). She's had to stitch leaves back together, preen individual feathers, trim claws, brush teeth, mop up venom, take antivenin for the venom she didn't successfully mop up, and in one particularly fun appointment, don half a fireproof suit and the thickest, ugliest gloves known to humankind in order to comb out charred stones that had gotten stuck in a slugma's back.
If Ninette had her way, she'd only be pampering and grooming for the rest of her budding career.
But she knows that's unrealistic. Pokémon are messy living things, and most of them seem to enjoy being messy living things. It's a charm point, sure, and it means she has job security forever. Pokémon will always be messy, and humans will always pay to get them un-messy. Plus, most of the pokémon she's worked with have been delights—and there's even fun to be had with the less-than-delightful ones. (Houndour make the funniest noises when getting their nails trimmed.)
"Maman, when are you leaving again?" Ninette calls down the hallway with all the casualness she can muster.
"As soon as I can figure out how to fit all of my shoes in my bag!" her mother shouts back with dry humor. They're very alike in how much they value fashion, but shoes are never easy to pack. Ninette isn't entirely sure how her mother travels so frequently and hasn't figured out a system for it yet. "Where's Théo? Is he in your room?"
Ninette casts a suspicious look around her bedroom. Théodore, her mother's positively ancient furfrou, has a very bad habit of turning up where he's not wanted. He'd even learned the trick of picking up his luxury ball, putting it in her mother's purse, and nosing it until he's returned himself in order to go along on work trips. In two exciting cases, Ninette even had to go to Lumiose City to retrieve him, when he actually couldn't tag along. Théodore demands to be in petting proximity at all times, and things like trains and planes and time zones and professionalism will not stop him.
Considering Ninette is surreptitiously packing her own things right now, she does not want a narc around.
But wherever he is, Théodore isn't in her room. She even checks under her bed, though the furfrou has never once been able to fit beneath it.
"I dunno! Kitchen?" Ninette calls back.
She actually kind of hopes that Théodore does manage to sneak himself into her mother's luggage, if only because it means she won't feel bad for leaving him behind. Sure, she's only planning on being gone two or three days, and he has an automatic feeder for his meals. But considering what an attention sponge he is, not to mention his age, she hopes he could be with her mother. Better than him moping around an empty house. Sad furfrou are the worst.
She hears her mother head out into the hallway to look for Théodore and swiftly closes her door a bit. Not completely, she's not an amateur at avoiding parental suspicion, but enough to give her a bit more hiding room from casual glances. Ninette has an excuse, in case she gets caught (because again: this isn't amateur hour), but she'd rather not use it. The less she lies to her mother, the better.
"There you are, naughty boy!" her mother exclaims. From the kitchen; yep, she'd called it. Probably digging in the trash again, or hashing through his age-old battles against the pokémon-proof cabinet latches. He's tried every tactic already. He'll probably keep trying them until the universe implodes.
Ninette goes over her own packing, safe in the knowledge of where her mother and her pokémon are. Hiking boots, check. Sandals, check. Running shoes, check. (She can pack that much, at least; wearing the bulkiest shoes during the travel is an easy trick to cut down on packing space dedicated to shoes.) Sunglasses, check. Insulated water bottle, check. Wooloo wool cardigan and cap, check. Tarountula silk stockings, check. Three changes of clothes—one skirt-based, one jean-based, and one shorts-based, because one must be prepared for not only the weather but local fashions—check. Two pairs of extra underwear, one pair of extra socks, and one extra bra, check. Chapstick, check. Waterproof eyeliner, check. Cleansing face wipes, check. Extra-strength deodorant, check. Extra-moisturizing lotion made with mago berry, check. Hand sanitizer (also scented with mago berry), check.
She mentally goes over her strict budget. Ten thousand for food, three thousand for the train ticket, eight hundred for a taxi in Lumiose… And fifty thousand pokédollars for what she hopes will be a flying taxi ticket, but will more likely be a bribe. Ninette has been saving up this money for three years, even forgoing the latest releases to ensure she had enough.
And finally, the most important part of all.
Five pokéballs, check.
Ninette has been rightfully called a prodigy in the art of pokémon styling. Fur or feathers or fluff, she can handle it. Like the art form that it is, she knows how to bring out a pokémon's true beauty. She has her stylist trainee license, though her mentor agrees that it's only her age that's preventing her from pursuing a full license. (They can't legally award them until someone is sixteen. Ninette has a countdown both on her wall calendar and in her phone. She'll bide her time and hone her skills until then.)
She knows how to deal with pokémon—and does so, happily. She loves pokémon. She never flinches at scratches or bites and has a pretty good track record at keeping her clients calm. Sure, she has a pair of scars from a panicking fletchinder, but it's not the pokémon's fault, and she can hide scars with makeup easily enough.
But Ninette doesn't have any pokémon. She's not a trainer and has no interest in pursuing her license. She's styled more fennekin, froakie, and chespin than she could count, but she has no interest in what most of her classmates had done.
So what she's doing might technically be a little bit illegal.
But here's the thing about her grand dream: sacrifices must be made, even if it's broken up into manageable steps. The first step is that she has two years until she debuts as a stylist in her own right, and she is going to use that time. She's going to do what no one has ever successfully done before.
She's going to style a mareep.
Oh, sure, they have methods of shearing mareep. They know how to do things with the wool and specialists can even help clean them. But no one's styled one before. True wool is uncommon amongst pokémon species and more difficult to deal with than one would think; too many people are used to fur.
And then there's the electricity. Thick rubber gloves will insulate that and keep the human safe, but there's no finesse to be had with gloves that large. Styling requires a delicate touch. Not to mention that mareep are large enough that usually a full rubber suit is needed to shear them. Any touch of their static-filled wool can electrocute someone, regardless of the poor mareep's will.
There's a lot of research poured into how to handle pokémon of various dangerous types, fire and electric being chief among them. Ninette will leave all of that to those fancy researchers. Who knows, maybe by next year there will be thinner electric-proof gloves made? She can't do anything about what high-end companies are doing.
What she can do is learn how to style wool. Most stylists never bother learning, just as most scoff at trying to style anything with scales.
So Ninette's very first step in securing her grand dream is to get a wooloo.
There aren't any to be found in Kalos that aren't used for shearing, and when she'd asked ranchers for permission to practice on them, she'd been laughed right out. Who cared about style if the wool was about to come off? Plus, those were raised pokémon, not pets, and not trained pokémon. They were livestock and not used to what a full-body styling would entail—hours of remaining motionless, hands everywhere, unknown tools, unknown person.
So she'll have to catch her own. Wooloo are supposed to be pretty common in Galar, even outside of all of the ranching. She won't need a training license if it's a pet (since 'research subject' is yet to be an official partner pokémon classification available to the public). Since it's a livestock pokémon, there's no breeders or pet shops that will sell them, saying there's no demand. And importing one would be ludicrously expensive, more than she could've saved up in another three years, and certainly more than such a common pokémon was worth.
Step one: catch wooloo. (Actually, it's divided into further steps, such as 'sneak to Lumiose City, take taxi, make it to station, hire/bribe flying taxi to take her across the border possibly illegally, try Galar desserts, try that curry thing that's supposed to be big over there, find wild non-ranched wooloo, capture wooloo.) Step two: tame wooloo, which ought to be easy, based on what she knows of the species. Step three: begin the process of practicing how to style wool.
She can get all this done by the time her mother comes back from her business trip. Ninette had looked up travel times—to Lumiose is only two hours, and a flight to Galar's southernmost station ought to take eight or nine hours, then double those for the way back. It's a pity she couldn't really travel around Galar, but that'd be more expensive than she likes, and way too time-consuming. She's got to make it back before her mother does.
"Mon chou, I'm headed out!" her mother says with her heel clicks signaling her approach. Ninette shoves her meticulously packed bag under her duvet right as her mother nudges the door open.
Ninette turns to face her with what she feels is the world's worst smile. "Ah, o-okay! Have a good trip!"
Her mother returns her smile with something more like a smirk, like she's used her motherly powers to read her mind and knows exactly what her teenage daughter is plotting. She pats down Ninette's loose hair, cups her cheek, then brushes her bangs back to kiss her forehead. "I know you're upset you don't get to go to Kiloude City with me, but I promise, I'll bring back all the poké puffs you can eat, and then some."
Ninette's smile relaxes a fraction. "I'll hold you to that! Make sure you get the cocoa and mago berry ones, alright? Separate, not together—"
"I know, I know, you don't like your chocolates mixed with your fruits. Sweetheart, I think I know your sweet tooth and all of its specific demands by now," her mother interrupts with a chuckle. Ninette asks for poké puffs (or any dessert, really) from every business trip her mother goes on. Her mother always obliges, though she has yet to truly bring back more than Ninette could eat.
Théodore nudges open the half-closed door with his head, his luxury ball in his mouth. He whines at both of them.
"Oh, Théo, you know you can't come with me!" her mother says with another chuckle. She bends down to scratch him behind his long ears and he obediently drops his ball before he could try to stash it in her bag again. "I'm glad you came to see me off—inside the house here, so I know you haven't snuck along with me. Good boy. You keep an eye on Ninette for me, alright?"
"Ouaf!" Théodore barks, butting his head into her hand again for further scratches. If he had his way, she'd be here another three hours, just petting him.
But that's not what an adult's schedule allows. (Or Ninette's.) Her mother stands again, runs her manicured nails one more time through his ruff, then grins at both of them. "Well, I'm off! Don't burn down the house, don't eat take-out the entire time I'm gone, and don't take sweets from—"
"Mama, that was one time!" Ninette exclaims. Take a poké puff from a stranger one time, and your parent will never let you live it down.
"It was four times by the time you were eight," her mother corrects.
"Well, I don't remember all of those other times… And I'm not eight anymore! I'm fourteen and can make, buy, or otherwise obtain-from-not-strangers any sweets I need now." As in, sweet-talk the elderly couple next door into baking for her. According to them, her birthday is every other week, and she wouldn't have it any other way.
Her mother finally leaves, and Ninette and Théodore are kind enough to walk her to the door. As soon as she's off in her taxi, Ninette shuts the door, then eyes the furfrou.
Théodore plops down and wags his tail.
"I'm going to give you some extra food before I leave. It's not meant to be eaten in twenty minutes. You'll still get your regular crunchies, too," Ninette informs him. She's fairly certain that he's both smart enough and big enough to get outside in case of a true emergency, too. He'll be fine. Lonely, but fine.
"Ouaf," Théodore replies. He heard 'food' and that's all he needed.
Ninette scratches him before heading into the kitchen to get the last of her packing underway. She'll fill her water bottle, grab the variety container of berries from the cabinet, and bribe Théodore with food. The so-called variety is mostly oran and pecha berries, but considering they're two of the most popular ones with pokémon, she'll take it. She'll need bribes for more than the taxi driver, since she doesn't have a pokémon of her own to battle with.
Last, she sneaks into the study—and then feels stupid for sneaking. She's allowed in here. She's less allowed to rifle through her mother's old stuff, however, but she tells herself it's for a good cause.
Ninette grabs her mother's old pokédex with triumph.
It's an ancient model and probably hasn't been used since she was born, but it's still working, and it's not like wooloo are a new species. Ninette stows it away in her bag, along with her phone's charger and a flashlight. (Electronics away from the pocket with her water bottle and berries. She may be good at getting berry juice out of things, but electronics are not one of those.)
Ninette sets her open bag by her door and does the last step: changes into her travel gear.
Tarountula tights, because their silk can withstand any amount of tripping, snags, pokémon attacks, and is surprisingly warm to boot. Her favorite shorts with the extra deep pockets—and into those go her phone, wallet, secondary wad of half her cash in case she gets mugged, her photo ID, and two extra hair ties. Her top is another favorite—a frilly, tiered pastel blue halter top—and she wears her wooloo wool cardigan overtop so it's not stuffed into her bag. Her hiking boots, so she doesn't have to carry that weight on her back.
She ties her blonde hair back into long pigtails. She'll want it out of her face for the trip, unsure how windy flying taxis get. (And she already has a plan for getting back into the country with a wooloo in tow: she'll minimize the pokéball, braid her hair, tuck it in there, then pin it up so it'll be like a little basket no one would ever think to search.)
Ninette feels ready.
Except this is still very big for a first step.
Sneaking into Lumiose is one thing; she's done it a handful of times, albeit usually with her mentor or old school friends. And she's pretty sure her mother usually knew when she did.
But this is sneaking in and out of another country. Galar isn't on the other side of the world, sure, but it's a hell of a journey. She's prepared, she tells herself. She's as prepared as she can possibly be. Her mother's ancient pokédex doesn't have a map feature, but her phone already has two tabs open for live maps and an offline one downloaded, too. Plus, she's not going that far into Galar. She can't remember the name of the town she's headed to, just that it's south and supposed to be very farm-y. That's all she'll need.
That, and desserts. Galar isn't famous for their sweet treats, not like Kalos or Alola are, but it's still new desserts and she must have them. And sure, she'll try the curry, she supposes.
Ninette pauses to wonder if sweet curry exists.
She shakes her head to clear the distraction. She'll have plenty of time on the ground to investigate that!
She pats her pockets down one last time, ensures her phone's location tracking is off, then grabs her bag.
Lumiose City is exactly as Ninette remembers it: bright, pretty, stylish, and expensive. The taxi ride to the station had cost nine hundred and fifty pokédollars, not her (conservative) estimate of eight hundred. So she'll have slightly fewer snack funds, which is a downright shame.
She buys a crepe at the station and sucks down the whipped cream while reading over the map. She's not good with directions, but at least she's been here before. Though never to the section with international travel… But there are bright orange signposts pointing the way. Thank whoever designed the Kalos transit system for color-coding everything.
The international travel section is designed just like the cross-country train section is, she's relieved to find. There are lines of large flying taxis and larger bird pokémon, with signs declaring different companies and fare rates, and a multi-colored clash of people and pokémon milling around.
Ninette forces her way over to a taxi with a corviknight towering over it. She knows those are only used by the official, state-sanctioned taxi service used in Galar. The cabbie eyes her, and Ninette scans over the sign, slightly dismayed to find no fare rate displayed. But all of the other signs are mostly in line with her estimates, so she stands to her full height and says, "Pardon, this is a flying taxi to Galar, right? How much would a round trip cost?"
"Depends on the return date," the man replies. The corviknight leans down from its massive perch to nudge into his cap, just like how she's seen dozens of other birds do in the past, so Ninette relaxes. It's only a big bird, not something scary.
A very big bird.
"Are there flexible options? I would only be in Galar for two-ish days," she says.
"Flexible costs a mite bit more, but that's doable. Short trip," he says, looking her up and down. She knows she doesn't look like the stereotypical trainer, and she doesn't have a pokémon with her to declare her as such, either.
"It's a business trip," Ninette primly informs him. "Quick business, quick trip. I hope. I only need to get as far as the southern province to find a wooloo."
"Well, those are as common as sandygast on a beach, so you should have no problem, miss. Flexible departure date would only add another seven hundred pokédollars to the fare, flat rate, if it's so soon. Can I see your training license? Most of those come with discounts, these days."
Ninette goes rigid. She'd been afraid of this. It's not illegal to travel without a training license, but it is illegal to catch pokémon without one. "Uh," she says, incriminatingly.
The cabbie narrows his eyes. Above him, his corviknight does the same, and Ninette breaks out in a sweat. "You are a trainer, aren't you? To go catching pokémon, you'd have to be. Or are you one of them scientist types…?"
Ninette couldn't pass for a scientist type any more than she could pass for a pokémon trainer. "Uh," she repeats. "I'm going to catch a wooloo for… professional business reasons."
"Uh-huh," he says, narrowing his eyes ever further.
Ninette finally gives in and shows him her stylist trainee license. "I'm not some weirdo who's looking for a free ride, I promise! I can pay the fare rate. I'm a pokémon stylist, and there's nowhere to train on wool in Kalos, and it's not like I can go live in Galar, so I'm just going to catch a wooloo. It'll be like a pet! You don't need a license for a pet, I've already looked it up."
"You need import licenses for pets," the man says, scanning her card, then fixes her with a flat look when she doesn't have a response for that. He sighs. So does his corviknight. "Normally, I'd say it's none of my business what a client gets up to between travel time. But I can't very well take you if I know you're a walking scandal ready to happen, miss. Wooloo may be common in Galar, but they're not here, and there's a lot of laws regarding importing pokémon where they're not natively found. I'm not going to risk my business so you can get an illegal pet."
The second cabbie tells her largely the same thing.
By the third, Ninette has reworked her story so she does not mention any wooloo-related reasons. Whatever happened to simply asking "business or pleasure"?
She gets asked for her trainer license again and again. One cabbie flat-out refused to provide the service for any non-trainers, and another flat-out didn't believe that a girl her age wasn't a trainer. Ninette goes down the line, growing progressively more desperate, and increasingly aware that the cabbies are beginning to gossip amongst themselves about her when one doesn't even wait for her to ask before waving her away.
Uh oh.
Ninette's definitely sweating now.
Did she remember to pack her deodorant?
Ninette collapses into a bench near some vending machines. She needs to regroup, collect herself, but she doesn't have a very large window of time. The more time she wastes here, the less time she'll have in Galar to track down a wooloo (and eat whatever she can find). She'd been reassured that wooloo are common in Galar, but that doesn't do her a lick of good if she can't get there.
Ninette takes a deep breath and calms herself.
She leaves the station and heads back to the crepe stand she'd tried earlier. She gets a different type—chocolate on chocolate, with sprinkles—and picks a low stone bench out in the sunshine, next to a fountain with some azurill bouncing around it. She'll wait out here for an hour to let the people inside forget about her. Some will take clients and leave, and maybe shifts will change between now and then. She'll give up a little bit of time now, purposefully, to save time later and prevent the situation from getting any worse.
There aren't any trains into Galar, since it's an island. An actual plane would be too expensive and impossible to book at this time. She'd figured a flying taxi would be her best bet, for flexibility as well as price, but now she's worried about her choice. What if, during all those hours of travel time, they get into a conversation and the cabbie discovers her first step to her grand dream? She doesn't think they could legally turn around… Could they?
No one can report her, since she hasn't done anything, and intent to catch a pokémon is the furthest thing from a crime, even for non-trainers. Most regions allow non-trainers to catch pokémon for various reasons if it's local. There are fifty million services for pairing pokémon with people, too, depending on need. The world wants pokémon and people to be paired up.
Unless it crosses international borders, apparently.
This is definitely an uh oh situation. She's only lost a little money, and some time, so it won't ruin her plans. But the timing works out now. The sooner she begins learning, the sooner she can hone her skills, and the better she'll be once she hits the professional level. She doesn't want to simply gain a license—Ninette wants to debut. She plans to, so she will. She's going to earn that title of prodigy.
But hope is not yet lost, so she won't have to figure out contingencies just yet.
Ninette digs around in her bag until she pulls out her sunglasses case. That found, sunglasses donned, she then unties her hair, and begins the process of twisting it into one, long braid. She pulls off her cardigan and ties it around her waist; she will single-handedly bring this look back into fashion, if that's what it takes to get to Galar today.
It's not perfect, and she wouldn't even call it a disguise, but it's a change. That, combined with the time elapsed, is in her favor.
She checks her phone and finds that just over an hour has passed. Perfect. Knowing she shouldn't get even one more snack, considering the prices she'd been quoted, Ninette heads back inside. (She makes sure to check the master list of directions again, though; even if the station is color-coded, she does get lost pretty easily, and shouldn't be wasting more time.)
Sure enough, many of the flying taxis appear to have changed out. She doesn't see either of the first two she spoke with, and the rude one who only claimed to fly trainers is also gone. Fresh faces mill about and await clients. Most have one large bird pokémon, but several have an array of smaller ones, and she supposes those would technically be safer, if less impressive to look at.
Ninette is smarter this time. She doesn't claim to be a trainer and she doesn't mention wooloo. She is as vague as humanly possible, and then some, only barely asking for fare rates. She compliments the various birds of the cabbies she speaks to. Even then, she gets two more rejections before finally finds someone who sounds as if he'll entertain the idea of taking a non-trainer to another region.
She makes sure to put on her best smile as she hands over her trainee license. "Flying taxis must not get very many non-trainers using their services. I've had a difficult time finding someone who would give me a ride, to say nothing of some of the price gouging I've seen," she remarks.
The man looks over her card, even flipping it over (though the back is totally blank). "Not many people who aren't trainers do want to travel to another region this way," he replies, offhand. There's a large staraptor perched on his taxi, peering over them, but curiously enough, also a pair of starly. Judging from the staraptor's guarded behavior, she assumes a family unit. "Traveling for business or pleasure?"
Finally. "Business," Ninette confidently replies.
"You ever been out of Kalos before?"
"No, never. But you must know a lot about travel."
"Not as much as you'd think—mostly fly between stations and cities. But I like to get out to Lumiose when we can, since Kalos is pretty different. Nothing like the food back home, though."
Weird—usually she's heard lukewarm things about Galarian food. But Ninette allows a bit more hope into her heart. "I can't wait to try some. I won't be there for very long, and I'm only staying in the south, if you can drop me off there. Uh—I forgot the name of the town, exactly?" she mareepishly admits. She's really not good with directions, or what you find in certain directions. It's a miracle she's successfully snuck off to Lumiose so many times.
"Oh, lots of tourists want to hit up the southern coast," the man drawls and hands back her license. "But usually not only for two days, and then head back. There's not a lot of cities in the south, you know? Most want to head to other tourist places, too, see the famous sights. There's ten of them, you know—"
"That's fine! I want to go out into the smaller, more farm-y areas!" Ninette blurts with something akin to panic. Yes, she'd love to travel around Galar, but she does not have the time or money for it. And she doesn't need to be upsold by a flying taxi driver.
The cabbie shrugs. "If you don't have a set return date and time, flexible departure rate is another thousand pokédollars. It'll be about ten hours flight time, but I don't charge by the hour—forty thousand flat rate to get from here to there and back. This isn't a plane, so no food included, and I ask that you use the bathroom before we leave. We can make a stop in an emergency, but it adds time, and that means I'll have to add a fee, too."
Ninette is too busy mentally cheering that this came under budget that she puts off the prospect of ten hours without a bathroom break. She can do it. She hasn't drank much today.
The cabbie fixes her with a flat look. In a slightly quieter voice, "And it'll be an extra seven thousand on top of that, since I figure you probably don't have any of the proper paperwork for international travel, do you?"
Ninette's triumphant grin becomes rictus.
Dang it.
He sighs, shaking his head, and claps a hand on her shoulder. "Relax, miss. This isn't my first time playing ferryman to kids who want to travel, and you don't look like you're running away from home in that get-up. If you can afford it, I'll get you there, safe and sound. Plus—I really like showing off my home to foreigners. You'll be able to see a lot of the eastern coast, and if we leave soon, you'll see Levincia all lit up at night. It rivals Lumiose for glitz and glamor."
Ninette may not have traveled very much, but she's heard plenty of cities say they're a rival for Lumiose's beauty. And she considers them all wrong. But this man is honest, he's giving her a ride, and she understands having pride in one's home, so she doesn't argue the point.
"I can't wait to see it for myself," she says instead, beaming.
A ten hour flight in a flying taxi is hell.
It beats flying on the back of a pokémon, sure, in the fact that she can shift around and the wind is broken, but there's not very much space, and it's quite cold. Ninette can't sleep like this, even as the sky darkens and she grows weary. Stiffness settles into her limbs. She can't talk to the cabbie during the flight, like she'd assumed, so she's stuck reading on her phone until she realizes she ought to save power.
She dozes as best she can, and stares out the window as best she can, but they're high up and it's dark, so all she can see is mountains. When are we going to cross the ocean? Did I miss it already? She thinks she can see the ocean in the distance, so they're following the coast for some time. She hasn't seen a world map in ages, not since school, so she doesn't have the faintest of clues as to what sort of route they're taking.
At hour eight, she's jolted out of a doze by a loud smacking on the windshield. The cabbie gestures downward enthusiastically.
Ninette peers over the edge of the door's window and finds a positively sparkling city sprawled beneath them.
What city is that?! Now she's really regretting not remembering that world map. (No phone service out here, either, to look it up.) It is bright enough to rival Lumiose, but all of its lights are… more garish, in the kindest manner possible. Different colors, spotlights shining upward, even the blinking neon of advertising boards. It's pretty in the way fireworks are pretty. But it's not Lumiose, and it will never be as elegant as Lumiose.
But it is captivating, and a sight for sore eyes, since it's something to look at.
There's a smear of black to the left of the bright city, which she supposes must be the ocean. They're too high up to see the water sparkling its reflection, but she supposes that must also be a sight to behold. Maybe she could talk to her mother about a vacation here in the future, a real trip to see Galar.
It's been a very long time since they've gone on a trip that wasn't a business trip.
They leave the bright city behind, and Ninette settles back into her chilly, stiff corner. She falls back into dozing as best she can. She doesn't know what the time difference will be, but it's definitely night, and her body is definitely demanding rest. While sleeping wooloo would be spectacularly easy to catch, she doesn't fancy stumbling around fields in the dark. She's been able to sleep overnight twice at pokémon centers in the past; they've never carded her. She really hopes they don't card here, either.
But don't people camp a lot in Galar? If necessary, she supposes she could rent a camping kit… She'll make it work, somehow.
The sky is pink and the sun casts their shadows long and stark ahead of them as they finally begin their descent. The cabbie bangs on the windshield again, to wake her up, and Ninette blearily looks out the window to find pink-colored beaches, red-colored cliffs, a tall lighthouse, and a beautiful landscape soaked in dawn light. She wishes she were conscious enough to appreciate it.
They land on the outskirts of a very small town. Well, Ninette had asked for the rural south, and her flying taxi driver had certainly delivered. The landing itself is a little jarring, a heavy whump, but she's so happy to stand again she doesn't care. As soon as the door is opened for her, she's stumbling out into moving-limb freedom.
Ninette stretches. She wishes she could stretch forever.
"Not used to those red eye flights, huh?" the cabbie asks with sympathetic humor. "I've given up on having a normal sleep schedule, all things considered. And so have my girls. But you all did wonderfully!" he coos up to the staraptor—and starly.
Did the starly help fly the taxi? Ninette wonders with mixed dismay and awe. Are they training for the role? Are they helping a parent? It's cute, aside from the fact that part of her weight may have been carried and thus dependent on two very small birds.
Ninette fishes out the bag of berries in her bag, then pulls out a fistful of oran berries. The cabbie stares at her, but Ninette holds out one each to the starly, then two to the staraptor. The starly hardly wait until her fingers are clear before diving into the treat.
"Here you go, ladies! Thank you for all your hard work last night!" Ninette says with as much gratitude as her sleepy self can manage. Her mother always taught her to be grateful to those who've helped her, and her job training has taught her that pokémon understand gratitude, usually better than people.
"Huh," the cabbie says.
"Oh—I'm sorry, are they on a special diet? They were only oran berries, those are pretty much universally safe for any pokémon to eat, and I have a bunch on me for—reasons. It was the least I could do. Oh, and your payment! I wasn't meaning to imply that that was part of the payment we agreed on!" She fishes around in her pockets for both her cash wad and her wallet, since she'll have to nearly empty both to pay. But—she planned for this. It's fine.
"No, no, you're fine. Thanks, I mean. Not very often that fares acknowledge the pokémon, that's all, so I was a bit surprised," the cabbie admits.
"Well, they did all of the work, aside from maybe some navigation. And the money collection. Yes, that's right, you don't understand human currencies or how to buy berries with it!" Ninette coos when one of the starly hops onto her shoulder, seeking further treats.
With a sharp whistle from the man, the starly flits back onto the roof of the cab. "That's enough mooching, girls. We can go pick up some real food from Seafood Fresco in a bit. Thanks for the fare, miss, and you have my work number—just send me a message with the date, time, and location of your pick-up for your return trip. I ask for at least three hours' warning. And I won't answer any questions about you, if I'm asked, but you best lay low, don't get into trouble. This is a ride service, not a bail service. And since you're not a trainer, no bringing unauthorized pokémon back with you."
Ninette giggles. Guiltily. "Yep, sure!"
He doesn't say anything else, though, so he shuffles his birds back onto the cab and they flap off into the brightening day. Ninette lets herself stretch once more, for the luxury of it, then takes in a deep, beautiful breath of Galarian air. That cabbie was pretty nice, all things considered—didn't ask any annoying questions and didn't ask for many clarifications. Let her go about her business.
She's exhausted and sore, but with the sky lightening overhead, and the thrill of foreign scenery and wooloo on her mind, Ninette plants her fists on her hips and surveys her waiting conquest.
She doesn't see a single wooloo just yet, even with the rolling fields and gentle hills laid out in the direction away from the tiny town, but she will. She can feel it. She has a plan for it, and Ninette is very good at plans and the steps to plans.
Next step: find wooloo.