Chapter 41: Eterna Forest
"Ahh the Eterna Forest, finally. We are getting closer to the second gym, right Deino?"
"Dei," he said with a happy face and looked around as well, smelling the air. All these new smells.
Two days of Route 205, which had been flat and easy and exactly what I'd needed. I'd slept in a field the first night and a rest stop the second. All just relaxed and no strange things in sight.
I let everyone out.
Prinplup materialized and looked around and immediately found a patch of sunlight coming through a gap in the canopy. She walked to it, stood in it, closed her eyes. Just stood there. Breathing.
She'd been quieter since the Windworks. I didn't push her on it. She'd figure it out. She always did.
Rhyhorn came out and did exactly what Rhyhorn always did in a new place. She started walking. Slow loop of the immediate area, checking things with her horn, sniffing the ground. She bumped her nose against a fern and the fern wobbled and she stared at it.
"It's just a plant," I said.
"Rhy." She bumped it again. It wobbled again. She seemed satisfied. I shook my head and moved on and let her do her thing.
I sat down on a fallen log and let them be.
The stream I'd been hearing turned out to be about twenty meters off the trail. Prinplup found it first because Prinplup always found water first. I heard a splash and then a very satisfied "Pluup" and when I looked through the trees she was standing in the creek up to her knees with her eyes closed and her flippers spread.
Something moved in the water near her. A Buizel, small, young, poking its head up to look at this weird blue bird standing in its stream. Prinplup opened one eye. Looked at it. The Buizel looked at her. They had a moment. Then the Buizel dove under and swam downstream and Prinplup closed her eye again.
I watched a Budew toddle across the path in front of me. Just toddle. No urgency. No destination that I could tell. It was going from one side of the trail to the other because that's what it was doing right now and that was enough of a reason. It didn't even look at me.
A Starly landed on a branch above my head. Then another one. Then three more. They argued about something in their chirpy, aggressive way and then they all flew off at once like they'd collectively decided this branch was beneath them.
Rhyhorn had found a patch of sun of her own. A big flat rock near the stream, warm from the light coming through the canopy gap. She'd climbed onto it, which had taken her about two minutes of careful negotiation because Rhyhorn and climbing were not natural partners, and now she was lying there with her eyes half closed. Content.
Deino was investigating. He'd found a cluster of mushrooms growing on a dead log and was giving them the full inspection. Sniff. Tilt head. Sniff again. Lean closer. Pull back. Consider. Lean in one more time just to be absolutely sure.
"Deino, don't even think about eating them."
"Dei," he said, tilting his head at me with a silly smile like he was going to eat it.
"Deino. Just don't. We're here to relax. I don't want to try and find out what it'll do to you or have to run to a Pokémon Center."
"Dei dei." He pulled back from the mushrooms. Slowly. On his own terms. Just to make sure I knew the decision was his.
I smiled. This felt weird but also nice. Just sitting on a log in a forest watching my Pokémon do nothing important and feeling relaxed. It still felt weird to say my Pokémon, but it made me really happy.
A Wurmple was making its way up a tree trunk next to me. Slow, steady. A Silcoon hung from a branch above it, still and patient. Somewhere deeper in the forest I heard something heavier moving through the undergrowth, maybe a Stantler, maybe something else, but it was moving away, not toward us, and I let it go.
The light in the forest was different from anywhere I'd been. It came through the canopy in columns and shafts that moved when the wind moved the leaves, so the whole forest floor was always shifting between light and shadow. Green light.
Prinplup had moved downstream. I could hear her splashing around in the creek, and occasionally a "Plup plup" that sounded like commentary on something she'd found. She was exploring.
I closed my eyes and leaned back against the log and just listened.
Water and wind. Rhyhorn breathing slow and heavy on her rock. Deino's footsteps in the undergrowth, soft and careful.
My Pokémon in a forest, being alive, being themselves. Prinplup in a creek. Rhyhorn on a warm rock. Deino investigating mushrooms he wasn't allowed to eat.
Deino found me eventually. He always did. He came back from wherever he'd been exploring and pressed himself against my leg and sighed. A big, full-body sigh that started in his chest and went all the way through him. Not tired. Not sad. Just done for now.
"Good forest?" I said.
"Dei." Good forest.
I sat there with my hand on his head and listened to the water and the wind and didn't think about what came next. Just this. Just now.
We had a forest to get through and a city on the other side and a gym battle to try and win.