gratitude

[the_very_best]

Bella flies away. She visits her parents, hits up the guild for matches and wins enough to pay her guild dues, and tools around random wilderness beating up on the wildlife.

She doesn't really expect to hear from Sherlock and Tony again.

Comments

[bitofafiction]

"As would I."

[toblameforit]

"Count me out," says Tony.

[the_very_best]

"That's all right, I can ride Fireflower." Since Tony's already vacated her, Bella vaults up. "I bet you can do it, pretty one," she coos. "Yes you can."

[bitofafiction]

Sherlock remounts Watson and guides him to the starting line.

"Shall we, my dear fellow?"

"Striiika."

[the_very_best]

Fireflower's a bit more attentive to Bella than she was to Tony. And she's smarter than Branch. She trots up beside Watson at a click of Bella's tongue and shoots the Zebstrika a challenging look. "Dash."

[bitofafiction]

"Zeb," says Watson aloofly.

[the_very_best]

"Five," counts Bella, "four, three, two, one -"

She lets Fireflower react to the countoff by herself, but then she's helping. The Rapidash has better initial acceleration and her instinct is to seize the inside track with it, but given her inferior cornering Bella dissuades her. She also encourages her Pokémon over a jump that Bella knows she can make even if it looks forbidding, from far enough back that Fireflower sails right over it, and that saves them from having to go down around the little tidepool-like structures that gave her trouble before.

[bitofafiction]

Watson and Sherlock have better knowledge of the terrain, but it's the same knowledge they had for the race that just finished. And Sherlock declines to push Watson over any jump with which he is not already comfortable.

They are not making up the time lost on the straightaways so well anymore.

[the_very_best]

Fireflower is insufferably smug and paws at the ground, tossing her head, after she's trotted to a stop at the tower.

Bella looks pretty pleased with herself too.

[bitofafiction]

"Zeb, zeb," says Watson. Sherlock pats him.

[the_very_best]

"Rapidash," says Fireflower.

Bella slides off Fireflower's back, stumbles, and catches herself. "That was fun," she says breathlessly, trying to untangle some of her hair from the windblown state it has gotten into.

[bitofafiction]

"Strika," Watson says agreeably. He does seem very even-tempered.

"It was!" says Sherlock.

[the_very_best]

"Raprapidash. Raprapidash?"

"Tony seemed to have been exhausted, so I guess we can do the aerial installment another time," giggles Bella.

[bitofafiction]

"Zeb," says Watson. Sherlock laughs and pets him.

"Yes, that does sound reasonable."

[the_very_best]

Bella pets Fireflower. "You did good, sweetie." And she puts her away. And she gets her hairbrush out of her bag and attacks her ponytail. "That was a rush, she's almost never running flat out when I'm riding her."

[bitofafiction]

"I don't frequently get a chance to experience Watson's top speed, either," says Sherlock. "It was enjoyable."

[the_very_best]

Bella finishes disentangling her hair. "All right. Now what?"

[bitofafiction]

"Good question."

[the_very_best]

"Could have a non-racing type rematch. I dunno, I do other things, just I'm usually in other places when I do them."

[bitofafiction]

"Other things such as...?"

[the_very_best]

"Let Renée teach me to knit, wander into houses in arbitrary towns and get into conversations there, explore miscellaneous wilderness, I tried making my own Pokéballs from whole Apricorns once, I think about the best ways to address immortal Pokémon if I ever find any, I once went through a brief phase of entering Pokémon Contests but decided I didn't like it. Also I read a lot and do extensive self-analysis but neither thing is a particularly companionable activity."

[bitofafiction]

"And how did the Pokéball project fare?"

[the_very_best]

"Well, I only made two, so I don't know whether to attribute the fact that they completely failed to work to poor craftsmanship or to luck."

[bitofafiction]

"How do Pokéballs in fact work? I don't actually know. Tony undoubtedly does."

[the_very_best]

"I don't know about the mechanics of it. Let alone how people can get 'mon into PCs, which is part of why I don't do it and have never owned more than six. I was just using an instruction booklet on hollowing apricorns that gave step-by-step walkthroughs for various apricorn colors but didn't say anything about the whys and wherefores."