“It’s real nice to meet you, Miss Cedar,” Li said between swallowed mouthfuls of egg and cheese. “I feel right awful about your study, though. I didn’t mean to cause trouble.”
“You didn’t mean it,” she replied, shaking her head. “It was me who panicked. Geeze, my first big assignment, and I mess it all up...” She smiled weakly. “I spent my last undergraduate year shadowing a field researcher studying a colony of Grimer and Muk. Maybe I’ll get used to the smell more quickly this time...”
“You’ll win ‘em back, Miss,” Li protested. “If there’s anythin’ at all I can do to help...”
“No, no,” the researcher repeated firmly. “You’re going to clean this up, and get out of the park before the warden or any of the rangers catch you.”
“Oh,” he ducked his head, gulping down the last bit of his makeshift meal. “If you say so ma’am. Uh... D’you know which way it is?” His meek expression brightened when she offered to show him to the edge of the park, and a smile tugged at one corner of his mouth.
Night had fallen over the park, and the only light cast over the clearing was from the campfire between them, casting fluid shadows through the trees and rocks that withered and died with an angry hiss as Li drowned the flames with a pot full of pond water and stirred the soupy ashes with the charred branch. He became little more than a sturdy shadow in the darkness, as he gathered his things and reached for the pokeballs attached to the second belt worn beneath the thicker black cloth tied blatantly around his hips.
“Right y’all,” he called to the domesticated Pokemon, who responded and made their way back towards him. “Everybody in. We don’t wanna overstay our welcome.” The mankey screeched in protest, but he, like the others, retired to the capsule as he’d asked, and the two made their way, the man following the woman’s lead, through the trees and back towards the plain. A dull glow over the horizon indicated Fuchsia city’s lights, and she strode quietly towards them.
“It’s quite a ways, but we should walk,” she informed him. “Doduo doesn’t like strange people on his back.”
‘’Course not,” he replied with a chuckle. “I sure wouldn’t.” Liam cocked his head to the side, eyes trailing over the level expanse of grassland, towards the hulking shape of sleeping Kangaskhan silhouetted in the distance. “So, d’ya just watch them, Miss Cedar? Must get mighty lonely all by your self out there all day.”
She shook her head, sleek red pigtails swinging with the motion. “Not really. I love it,” she confessed, as a tiny smile began to stretch across her lips. “I get really caught up watching them... You sort of forget about time. It’s a kind of, trance, I guess you could call it.”
“Oh!” Liam grinned, snapping his fingers as a thought struck him.“So, it’s kinda like meditating, hun?” Molly raised an eyebrow. “You know, where you just sit an’ clear your mind right out. ‘S real good for your head. Mister Chuck’s a real believer in it.”
“Chuck?”
Li nodded emphatically. “The leader of the Cianwood gym. I was one of his students– real great guy, taught me everything I know about pokemon.” He chuckled blithely, but caught himself, and the laughter became more sheepish. “Guess you could say he’s my Professor Oak.”
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