3: A Lesson in Respect

After the cold, steep darkness of Wayward Cave, the midday sun and the soft, flatter ground both felt like blessings. Even though this higher mountain air was still chilly, not that much warmer than the cave had been, Akari felt her mood lift. She wandered around between the trees, turning her face to the sky whenever she reached a pool of sunlight.

They were close to the shores of a lake, surrounded by trees, though perhaps not dense enough to call itself a 'forest' on this side. It was a pretty place, but it was dangerous, in the same way most places in Hisui could be dangerous. This area was home to Heracross, mostly happy to just suck sap from trees, but if they had any thoughts that someone might be out to steal their precious sap, they could throw a grown man hard enough to break a few bones.

So, Akari would not put Clefable back in her ball just yet. The Fairy Pokémon set about collecting fallen berries, warning away any wild Pokémon with a burst of her Dazzling Gleam.

Volo was quiet, and he seemed to disappear amongst the trees now and again. Akari wouldn't have thought it possible to lose someone so tall. Of course, there were moments when they both needed privacy; that was an unspoken rule of these long journeys. But, whenever he vanished for too long, she worried, feeling like she had to look out for him at all times, even though she knew that was wasn't true, nor was it a reasonable thing to expect of herself.

And there was something else bothering her.

"Volo! Don't you want to let your Pokémon run around and get some air…? I'd love to see them again." When he next came into view, she ran over to him and touched his arm gently. "You don't need to worry, you know? Obviously, I'm not asking you for a battle. Just to let them play, or train, or whatever you want! I can release my whole team, if you want, and they can protect all of us!"

Just for a moment, she was sure that she saw that same old excited gleam in the merchant's eyes. But something seemed to put it out, like water being thrown on a fire. Volo shook his head and looked away.

"Thank you, Miss Akari, but mine are not so well-trained as yours. I don't trust those two little mischief-makers not to wander off, and it's unfair to expect your Pokémon to act as their minders. Especially since they are already working so hard - like Miss Clefable here! - and we have such a long way to go. Speaking of which - may I ask, where are we going presently?"

Two…? Akari pressed her lips together and nodded. So, he really hasn't caught anything new since then?

She told herself that she needed to stop being so judgmental. Stop expecting people to be like her. It was her job to catch things; that was how she earned her keep.

But Volo was a merchant, and Akari had no idea what a travelling merchant's wages were like. Looking after Pokémon took time, and sometimes money. For Akari, it was easy enough to pick up materials while she was out on surveys and craft things in her downtime, now that she'd learned how. But even she, sometimes, had to shell out money at the craftsman's shop. Maybe Volo didn't have the same money or resources. But she couldn't exactly ask him about that without sounding far too nosy.

Let's just change the subject.

"If it's okay with you," she said, "I thought we could go to the lake down here. We can stop for a break and some food, and I need some more water…"

Volo gave her a cheerful nod in agreement.

Still feeling charged up by the sun, Akari ended up running ahead. Volo would be safe with Clefable around, and Akari was keen to see the lake - not for the lake itself, although it was a lovely sight right now. With the sun so high, the water looked like it was covered in golden glitter.

But there were lots of pretty lakes and rivers in the Coronet Highlands, and they would all sparkle in the sun. Akari was just happy because, as soon as she reached the water's edge, it was time for Samurott to come out and play.

Akari had a rule of 'no favourites', but Samurott was the first friend she'd made in Hisui. Technically, she had met a few people from the village, before she was trusted with a Pokémon. But she'd had no idea who they were, no way of knowing whether she could trust those people. It had been so different, holding that little Oshawott; there had been no question of trust between them.

And it had turned out that she was right. Some of those people, after all, had turned against her, even if it was only for a brief time. Samurott had never done that.

But Samurott's first love was water, and he was not a sentimental creature. As soon as he was out of his ball, he did not stop for his trainer to greet or pet him, but charged straight into the lake with a loud splash. Akari sat down on a low rock at the water's edge, where she could watch him. There was no need for her to do that; she just enjoyed seeing him play in the water.

Suddenly, Volo was at Akari's side again. He was short of breath, eyes wide, staring at the lake like he was desperate to find whatever had made that sound. Akari thought it was a funny overreaction at first, but then she remembered that wild Gyarados showed up around here sometimes.

You probably shouldn't go running towards them, though.

"Oh, it's just your dear Mister Samurott!" With a laugh, Volo flopped down onto the grass next to Akari, shrugged off his backpack, and took out one of his water flasks.

"Yeah. That's why I wanted to come to the lake. He loves to swim and go fishing, like he did last - " Oops. Akari paused, then put her hand over her reddening face. She'd just been caught out in a lie. Nothing that really mattered - it was just a bit of fun - but she had to blush at her own inability to keep a story straight. "Last night."

"Ah, is that it? And to think I believed you, when you said you caught those fish yourself." Volo shook his head like he was disappointed, but Akari caught a glimpse of his grin before he raised the bottle to his lips. "I see you're not to be trusted at all, Miss Akari! I shall be keeping an eye on you from now on!"

"I'm sorry. I just wanted you to think I'm better at this outdoorsy stuff than I really am." It sounded so silly, now that she was saying it out loud. "But I am learning! And there's no shame in letting your Pokémon help you, right?"

"No, indeed!" He propped his backpack against another rock, so that he could lean back on it. He straightened out his legs and folded his arms across his chest. "But I must ask now: did you really quell the Nobles' frenzies and collect all of those plates? Or was that Mister Samurott, too?"

"Come on, Volo, seriously...?" Although it was clear from his one-sided smile that he was just dragging out this joke that she'd brought upon herself with her white lie, Akari opened her satchel and held it out towards him. "I mean, of course my Pokémon helped, but...here, seventeen plates. You wanna count them?"

Volo might have been doing just that, for how long and intently he gazed into her open satchel. But then he laughed it off and shook his head. The joke had run its course now, and Akari felt her face cooling after her brief embarrassment.

Well, maybe it's for the best.

If she'd had to keep up the pretence of being a good fisher throughout this whole trip, it would have been exhausting. This was why she wasn't fond of keeping secrets. They were burdens. She took a brief glance into her own satchel, then folded it closed again.

"Do you know how many are left to find?" she asked.

Volo seemed to be distracted by Samurott's energetic swimming. He gazed out over the lake with half-lidded eyes. "Not exactly."

"So, doesn't that mean…we might have them all already?" The thought gave Akari a shiver, but she couldn't tell whether it was good or bad. It must have been good, she thought. It would mean they were closer to their goal than she'd thought. Closer to going home? She clutched her satchel to her side.

"That may be so!" Volo smiled brightly, but he didn't seem as excited as Akari had expected. Perhaps he'd already considered that as a possibility, and she was the one who was late to the realisation. It wouldn't be the first time. "But even if you're right, Miss Akari, we still need to work out what to do with them! Isn't that our entire reason for coming here?"

"Oh. Sure."

Akari didn't think it was likely that she could tell Volo anything new about the plates, even though she was the one carrying them. It felt arrogant, almost, to even try; he'd known what they were, long before she did.

But she was overwhelmed by the desire to be useful, to say something that would make Volo look at her like she'd just had a eureka moment. She didn't like to think of herself as someone who fished for validation, but falling through time and losing half of your memories was a very unsettling experience.

Besides, it wasn't like she often got a solid good word from her own superiors. She thought of Cyllene's stony face whenever she reviewed the Pokédex, and Kamado's ever-suspicious glances. Akari had considered that maybe it was just his face, but after what had happened, she'd always think he was looking at her with some suspicion. Laventon was nervous, and his nerves could be contagious. Rei, for all the help he'd given her, was so negative at times...

Volo was different. Smooth and assured, he behaved as though he didn't care what anyone thought, but never to the point of being abrasive. The village, and each of the clans, they all had their own rules and social norms. Volo seemed to know them all, but he also knew when he could break them and get away with it. Had it not been for that, he would never have walked boldly into Cyllene's office and offered his knowledge about myths and legends. Merchants don't do that.

He had a way with words, too. Akari didn't think it was a sign of an over-inflated ego if she liked his compliments.

"One of the plates says something about a flute." To make sure she didn't get it wrong, Akari opened her satchel again and began to look for the right one. Their colours made it possible to tell them apart without reading them all. She was sure it had been brown, or maybe grey…?

"'It gathers power from the plates, listening for the flute's song'," Volo said, as fluently as if he were reading the words from a page. "That's the one you were thinking of."

Akari stopped searching and stared at Volo in wonder. He's like a plate encyclopedia. "Do you know them all off by heart? How? Are the words written down somewhere else…? If they are, don't we just need to work out which ones are missing? Then we'd know how many are left to find!"

Volo continued to watch Samurott. He took a while to answer this time, and Akari hoped that meant he was giving some serious thought to what she'd just said. "Alas," he said eventually, "I only know some of them! But it was a very sensible suggestion."

"Well, anyway…" Akari shrugged, trying not to look too forlorn. If it had been that easy to solve the plates' mystery, they wouldn't have needed to come all this way. "The flute it mentions can't be the Celestica flute. I tried that already."

"You tried what?" Volo asked, glancing at Akari out of the corner of his eye. There was a sudden, sharp edge to his voice.

Akari frowned and shifted her gaze, focusing on the ripples at the edge of the water for now. The issue of the Celestica flute was a touchy subject, she knew. Not wanting to dwell on it, she rushed through the rest of what she wanted to say.

"Sorry, I just meant that playing the flute like I'd normally do - sorry... - with the plates, it didn't seem to do anything. But what other kind of flute could it be?"

"Who knows? Perhaps we'll find out, when the time is right." Volo didn't sound quite so snappy anymore. He turned away from the lake and granted Akari a reassuring smile. "Anyway, Miss Akari…I would love to hear of this shortcut you found."

"Oh!" It was a good thing he'd reminded her: Akari had nearly forgotten. For now, she was relieved to change the subject, and to see Volo smiling again. She pointed away from the lake, back towards the trees and towards Wayward Cave. "It's that ridge over there! We just need to get over it!"

If someone could have looked down on the spot where the travellers were resting, they would have seen that it was sheltered by a horseshoe, a semi-circular bumpy ridge, on three sides. It wasn't what Akari would call a mountain, in its own right. But it was still steep, still too high to see over.

If they wanted to make use of the Survey Corps' luxury accommodation, their next camp lay just on the other side of that ridge, to the north-east. And that was what Akari would have preferred. She had never slept out in the open in the Coronet Highlands before. They would probably have to, at some point during this trip, but thought of it made her nervous. The fact that there was a camp so close made her want to reach it, even if it meant taking a tricky shortcut.

The first time Akari had been here, that camp hadn't even existed. She supposed she had helped to set it up, though she felt like she'd done nothing, besides shifting a couple of wild Bronzor. But, in any case, she hadn't noticed what a trek it was, back then. These mountains had been new to her, and she'd had plenty of distractions. Partly with Warden Melli putting obstacles in her way, as she'd just been telling Volo. But also with so much new survey work to be done, new Pokémon to observe and catch…

Now that Akari knew her way around better, she knew that getting to the camp from here would usually mean a long hike in one direction and back again.

You would have to go south-west, around the lake where they were currently resting, and through the forest on the other side. That was the bad part of Wayward Wood. The Heracross over this side might have been tough, but over there, there was a much higher chance of getting mauled by an Ursaring. But it was necessary to go that way, to find the entrance to the old quarry.

After going through the quarry, you would need to switch directions, this time going east along a rocky, exposed path known as the Celestica Trail. Whether or not it was always called that, and whether it held any special significance for the Celestica people, Akari didn't know. But the Mountain Camp lay at the other end.

Doing all of that in a single day, on foot, wouldn't be easy. A traveller could try to sleep in the quarry, where they would be sheltered from the weather, but they would be sharing with some territorial Bronzong. Akari was sure that those things would cause some weird dreams, even if they didn't completely scramble your brains with their psychic attacks.

"Scale the ridge. I see." Volo nodded. Akari was glad to see that he was looking in the right direction, at least. He rubbed his chin. "I see your logic. Even if it is radical."

Akari smiled from ear to ear. She probably looked far too pleased, over such a little thing, but she couldn't help it: this morning, Volo had been asking if she knew how to use a 'real map'. And now he was calling her logical. Radical, too, but she could deal with that. Coming from Volo, it was probably a compliment.

Without blowing her own horn, she had to admit, her plan was a lot more efficient than having to travel the Celestica Trail twice, once in each direction. They would need to take it west from the Mountain Camp, anyway, if they wanted to reach the summit without scaling cliffs. But why double up on it?

Samurott had brought the pair some fish. Cooked over a small fire, one that was already beginning to burn itself out, the bones were wrapped and put away for now. Volo said that their resting place should be running water, not a lake.

The pair rested a little longer, and soon they returned to the subject of Akari's shortcut.

"I really don't think that ridge is super steep. And we could always…" Akari knew she shouldn't have started that sentence, especially after Volo's reaction to her mentioning the flute earlier. But it was too late now. She decided to chance it. "Volo…I know you said you don't want any help from the Noble Pokémon. And I do get it. But if it would save us a whole day of travelling, and having to camp somewhere dangerous, then…? Wouldn't you change your mind for that? Just this once? Sneasler could help us over that ridge so fast…"

This was the Copperajah in the room. If they were going to fall out over something, Akari thought, it would be this.

Since the Diamond Clan had given Akari a Celestica flute, of course it would have been easier for her to make this journey alone, because with the promise of the Noble Pokémon's help, she was never truly alone. Not for too long.

She could have called for Braviary back at Heavenward Lookout, and it would have carried her up here in a few minutes. She could have avoided Wayward Cave, maybe even flown right over that ridge. Or she could have asked Sneasler to carry her up the cliffs, instead of sticking to the paths. She might have cut out the Celestica Trail altogether, but if not, she would have raced down it on Wyrdeer's back.

But that help wasn't afforded to everyone. Akari hadn't asked for the flute. She had been embarrassed by the offer, but they had insisted on giving it to her, and that was why she could rely on the Nobles. She had no idea if those Pokémon would do the same for Volo, even if she asked them to. Even if she pleaded. Even if she said that he was her friend.

Besides, that wasn't the only issue: even if the Noble Pokémon would agree to it, Volo would not. He didn't like the idea.

The Celestica flute was sacred, he'd said. Akari couldn't remember exactly how he'd worded it, and knowing herself, maybe she'd remembered it more harshly than he'd said it. What she'd heard was that her using the flute for convenience was taking advantage of the Noble Pokémon. It was misusing the help that they were gracious enough to offer. Back in ancient times, the Celestica people would not have used the Noble Pokémon like their personal taxis.

Well, obviously he didn't say that. He doesn't know what a taxi is.

And, no, she shouldn't have cared so much about one person's opinion. She'd told herself that, so many times.

But Volo was always so positive. Always trying to put the best possible spin on things. If he had a negative word for something, or someone, it was usually justified.

Akari remembered how she'd felt when he had found her out there, banished in the wilderness, and he'd talked openly about how the Galaxy Team had treated her. It was terrible, he'd said. He was right, of course. But Akari had burst into tears. She'd been overwhelmed with relief, but equally, surprised that Volo would speak critically about the people who were, ultimately, his customers.

So, when they'd spoken about the flute, to hear that same negativity turned against her this time…it had made her feel ashamed. Like she, too, had been doing something terrible all along. After all, the clans might have given her their blessing, but it was a Celestica flute, not a Clan flute. What if Volo felt differently to them? What if he knew things that they didn't? The clans and their leaders were certainly not perfect people.

Ultimately, Akari had agreed to travel with Volo and respect his feelings. In that moment, when he'd asked her to travel with him under these conditions, she'd hesitated, not knowing how to say no, until the 'yes' finally slipped out of her mouth. But then she'd reminded herself that she liked a challenge. And maybe it wasn't fair that she had this extra help, over and above anyone else in the Survey Corps. They could praise her for doing more survey work than anyone else, pay her more than anyone else…but it wasn't exactly a level playing field, right?

Maybe, she'd thought, I should do this to keep myself humble.

And it wasn't like Volo was there for no reason. Akari had felt sorry for him, after Cogita had suggested that he was just tagging along, and that he didn't bring anything to the table. Why was she so harsh to him? No, Volo knew a lot. Akari wouldn't have known where to go, had it not been for him. He deserved to go with her, just for that.

And they both wanted the same thing. The plates. Arceus.

Akari thought there was really no need for her to have hesitated like that, when Volo had suggested that they make this trip together. It made sense.

That was why, Akari knew, she shouldn't have brought up the Noble Pokémon again. Her face was burning now, and she had to turn away from Volo, not wanting to see him angry.

No, it wasn't that he was an angry person - in fact, she'd only seen him close to angry once, and only for the briefest moment - but Akari had her own issues.

It was all her, she knew. Still disturbed by what had happened in the village that day, when they'd decided to throw her out. That feeling of being rejected by a whole town of people. People she'd believed to be her friends. People she'd helped. The total loss of control, feeling like she was suddenly at their mercy. She'd searched their faces for that mercy. Every single person she'd passed, she'd searched. But the ones who'd looked at her had no mercy in their eyes; the others had turned away and hidden theirs.

The only thing Akari could have done in her own defence, to release her Pokémon and stand her ground, would have made things even worse. It would have given them more reason to look at her like she was a monster. Had she done that, she didn't think they would ever have taken her back.

She would stop being so sensitive someday. But right now, that was still an open wound.

When Volo finally spoke, he didn't sound angry. But Akari thought it was even worse, hearing him sound so sad. His eyes were downcast, smile gone, fingers restlessly pulling up some of the tiny white flowers that grew among the grass.

"Ah, I thought this might happen. I do apologise if I am slowing you down more than you expected, Miss Akari."

"No, I'm sorry - "

"As I explained to you before we embarked on this trip, I don't agree with calling upon the Noble Pokémon when it's not absolutely necessary. They're descended from divinely-blessed Pokémon, after all. The idea of them carrying us around like royalty is…well, I cannot condone it." Without looking up, Volo shrugged heavily. "But neither can I stop you from behaving as you will. After all, I am not the one holding the flute, am I? Please don't think I'm trying to dictate what you should do, Miss Akari! This is no Galaxy Team work. You're perfectly free to make your own choices while you're with me!"

Once again, Akari was taken back to that moment when she'd hesitated, open-mouthed, unsure of what to say. This was that moment again. A chance to reconsider. But she already knew that she would not. This time, she didn't hesitate for more than a second.

"I said we'd travel together, and I meant that. Even if it means going the hard way. I'd rather do that than fall out with you, Volo."

"Miss Akari…!" Volo shook his head and smiled, although this smile looked more pained than usual. "Why, we would never fall out, no matter what you decide! That is absolutely not what I meant! Just say the word and I shall go back to the Ancient Retreat, with no quarrel, and you can - "

"I don't want to! I don't want to do this alone! Anyway, what do I know about these plates? Or how to find the rest of them? I don't even know how many are still out there! At least you know some of the words, right?"

Akari reached into her bag and brought out a paper-wrapped honey cake, mostly squashed, but still good. She offered it to Volo. Though he didn't seem excited about it, he gave her a nod of acknowledgment.

"You're not regretting your choice, then?" he asked. His uneasy gaze wandered between Akari's face and her satchel. "If you are, please know - "

"No! You were right about doing this together." A tiny grin appeared on Akari's face. "Just like I'm right about the shortcut. You'll see. And don't worry, that's not my last honey cake!"

Volo's smile became a little easier, much to Akari's relief. Though it seemed like he might have only been doing it to make her happy, he began to nibble at the cake. Akari thought that was good enough, for now.

Everything is fine, she thought, and she would not mess it up again.