Chương 84: 84-Front

"Okay, finally, here it is." Amelia grumbles as the paved sidewalk gives way to packed dirt, the route number above a large bulletin board the rangers stock with information about the route, a map and trail advisories plastering the space beneath a covered awning. Tanya, ducking down slightly to get a look at the bulletin board, restrains the minor vindication of being correct and studies the notices carefully.

"It's good to know for the future that an indicator of being close to the route head is the presence of gift shops and camping supply stores." She says with no emotion in her voice.

"Yea yea, but you were trying to go to the wrong entire part of the city, so you're not clear of… uh…

'navigational foibles' either." She grumbles back before leaning closer to the notice board and lightly hums.

"Hm. I really should have expected landslides, at least it's open." Tanya hums in agreement, the earthquakes disrupted a large number of routes all across Hoenn, whether that's clearing landslide debris or managing the wild 'mon who were disturbed and might be aggressive to trainers trying to move through, which has them close until they can be made travelable again.

Several of the longer or less traveled routes are still closed, but thankfully this one is open with the added temporary restriction that for the time being any deviation from the route is forbidden for now. Normally there's a few levels of advised preparedness, going two or three metres off of the trail requiring no preparation, all the way up to half day hikes from the route having a stringent checklist and being restricted in several areas.

But with the instability following the failed eruption, even taking a few steps off the path is against the rules, even for making a camp, where they'd normally be allowed to set up almost anywhere, now they're required to camp in the ranger designated camp zones. The 'mon squints at the mounted trail map then gestures to the marked camp sites.

"We should check if these match with our map, make sure it's up to date."

"Good idea." Amelia nods, pulling out their map and unfolding it.

"Hm… oh, there, looks like this one got moved a bit further north." She comments, pulling out a pen and updating her map.

"Topology shifted in the same area, reference marker 251 is gone as well." Tanya adds, squinting over her partner's shoulder.

"I see it." She confirms, placing the map over the bulletin board and carefully tracing the new topographic lines.

"The forestry service sure was quick updating all this stuff." Tanya nods, straightening to her full height as Amelia steps back then starts carefully folding and stowing the map again.

"It is their job after all, but I'd agree they were particularly on the ball." If she had to guess why she'd say their speed is, counter-intuitively, because of their close proximity to Mt. Chimney, their organization was made with the need for a quick and effective response to landslides in mind. Other places, while still threatened by them, are presumably much more geologically stable than the large and sheer cliff faces of this terrain.

Not to mention the fact that caves exist here, which indicates that earthquakes cannot be all that regular, or powerful. With her map and pen stowed, Amelia brushes her hands against her shirt then adjusts her bag, turns on her heel, then steps off the concrete and begins to walk down the trail.

"Onward!" She calls out, a laugh in her tone and an exaggerated tromp that has both her hair and her bag bouncing with the motion, leaving Tanya to follow a half step behind with an exasperated exhale. Though it's not been obvious enough for her to comment on, it seems Amelia has been… almost rushing to get out of Lavaridge.

Not to the extent that she's been making mistakes, which would have given the 'mon a reason to intervene, but every step required for them to leave has been done with a quiet and single minded focus that Tanya's aware Amelia is capable of, but is normally reserved for goals of extreme importance. Walking a few steps behind her partner as the narrow trail doesn't allow them to walk side by side, the 'mon squints down at Amelia.

She has her theories about why the girl was so focused on getting out of Lavaridge, all of them emotional, and using Amelia's irritating capacity to repress her emotions and function through distress all the way to her absolute limits, it means she very well could be near her limits. Which is… an irritating reality of working with the girl, but one that should be manageable with the proper skills.

Tanya ducks a low hanging branch, causing Swellow to chirp in alarm and adjust himself, then looks back at the speedily marching trainer. In no life has Tanya worked at a place with a good system of handling work related stressors and mental strain. In Japan being a barely coherent husk that's obsessed with work to the detriment of all else was seen as a badge of honor.

In The Empire, aside from a few smaller experiments with sending people with shell shock to work farming or manufacturing jobs, they outright refused to admit mental health even existed, let alone work on treatment. Well, aside from just… electrifying the soldier until they decide the front is preferable to the hospital, but that's not really medicine.

It's one of Tanya's most frustrating flaws, even when she knows it's not true she assumes everyone around her perceives the world and processes everything just like her. She knows she does it, the 'mon catches herself more often than she cares to admit mistakenly modeling someone's behavior based off of what she would do. Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. Which, as much as she would like to be true, isn't.

Not everyone can be as balanced or stable as she is, in fact almost everyone falls short of that standard, it's an aspect of herself that she's trained and honed for as long as she can remember. Yet she keeps assuming, and those kinds of mistaken assumptions are the kind that gets people… Tanya exhales. … Their current literature doesn't have anything on psychology or psychotherapy, as that kind of work is a specialist role neither of them are planning to pursue.

But as the sounds of the city is replaced with quiet and steady rustle of wind through leaves fills the gap, and a tension Tanya hadn't seen in her partner disappears in a series of lengthy breaths in that silence, the 'mon makes a note to add a modern understanding of psychology and mental health to her ledger of things to learn. It's just another biological system, and right now she's studying to gain a generalist understanding of all biological systems.

It only makes sense that she learns about it, and though she's in no way suited for a full career in mental health, there has to be methods to triage and stabilize mental damage. She'll learn those, the first aid tricks every medical field seems to have, just enough to stabilize someone before a specialist can come in to repair the rest. As the path widens enough for them to walk side by side, Tanya speeds up slightly until she's walking alongside her partner.

There's another few minutes of quiet trudging along the gently downward sloping trail before Amelia loudly takes a breath and looks up at Tanya." Wow, isn't this nice? I almost forgot how quiet it gets out here." She comments on the exhale, smiling up at her partner in a way that's… somehow different than it was a half hour before.

"I don't know about you, but I really needed this." Tanya glances at the Joy, then around at the peaceful silence all around them, and nods.

"It's a welcome contrast." She agrees. Amelia nods back and they walk along in silence for around ten minutes before she speaks again.

"... Chansey?"

"Yes?"

"I know we talked about… you know… getting started with all the stuff we've scheduled, but would you mind waiting until after lunch?" She asks, eyes still focused on the path in front of them.

"I'm just…" She trails off, but Tanya saves them from an awkward silence.

"I see no problem with that." She states, adjusting her bag.

"After lunch then." Amelia smiles as she nods, followed by the both of them twitching in surprise by the sound of Swellow's joyous chirp and the feeling of the 'mon shifting atop Tanya's head.

"Wait! We're not going to start training yet!?" He screeches as Tanya feels him jump up onto his talons from where he'd been perched and start furiously brushing the top of her head with his wings." Yes! See you after lunch!" At the shouted goodbye and with a final sweep of his wings, the 'mon disappears from her senses with a gust of wind, Tanya looking up just in time to see the 'mon bank past the treeline, flying low and fast. … Was he just conserving his energy for training?

Amelia giggles, apparently realizing the same thing.

"Lazy bones." She laughs, glancing at the top of Tanya's head as she does.

"I forgot he was up there." Tanya grunts in agreement, pulling her head down and reaching up to search for any bird dander but finding none. She'd forgotten he was up there too, or rather she knew he was up there, but it had fallen out of her immediate attention. … He really is light. Tanya huffs in amusement at the thought, a reaction that triggers a full laugh from her partner as they continue down the trail.

—-- –_– —-- They keep walking, slowly getting ever closer to sea level with every hill and switchbacked trail. As they pass out of the immediate shadow of Mt. Chimney the trees become more and more sparse, eventually shifting to shrubbery on the thin and less fertile soil between rocks as the lush greenery transitions to weathered volcanic stone and sheer cliffs. What little conversation that happens before lunch is purely functional, what's necessary to continue moving forward and no more.

The break for lunch is less quiet, Swellow returning means their mealtime conversation mostly revolves around interrogating the avian for information on their route ahead, interspersed with a few questions about cloud behavior for basic prediction of the weather. There'd been a small chance of rain reported before they left, but from Swellow's observations and Tanya's experience it seems any rain will be coming tomorrow, if at all.

Then lunch concludes, Swellow flying up to follow them in wide circles, waiting for Amelia to call him down, break the silence, and begin training. But the call never comes, without discussion the silent walk continues throughout the day, their pace shifting from a vigilant march to something marginally less regimented.

As the hours slowly slip by the heat of the summer sun drives the pair beneath a cliff face that the route cuts through, sipping water to help the shade and wind combat the heat as they wait for the worst of the day to pass. It's not just the grade of the path that makes this so different to the hike up to Lavaridge, the valley of steel looked like an alien world come to life, almost completely devoid of greenery and crowded with strange plateaus.

The contrasting hike down is much more normal, the metamorphic volcanic rock they're surrounded by has greenery, its weathered in sharp but familiar peaks and cliff faces, broken by the infrequent boulder field On occasion Tanya detects someone watching them, sometimes feeling more than seeing eyes from the underbrush, but for whatever reason they don't approach, and their silent walk continues with only the most essential things breaking it.

Despite their lax pace the downward grade of their hike has them reach the campsite over an hour before they'd planned to. Another opportunity to push harder, utilize their time to their utmost. Tanya wants to, she'd been halfway through organizing how they'll spend this time in her head before she catches herself.

The 'mon looks at Amelia, carefully ensuring she doesn't step outside the bounds of the camp site as she looks for some dry sticks to start a fire using the pre-dried logs the forestry service left for them here. The night is warmer than in the valley of steel, whether it's due to being deeper into the summer or their surrounding's better ability to keep heat isn't clear.

But it's enough that Amelia douses their fire immediately after dinner is warmed and forgoes her sleeping bag as she crawls into her tent for the night, Tanya settling onto her ground mat and joining shortly afterward. But it becomes moot when the 'mon finds herself half roused from her sleep, at first dimly confused, but before her half conscious mind can stir itself enough to wonder why the twitch of a frill alerts her that air presses lighter as it becomes almost wet against her body.

She chirrups sleepily, coming rain suggested by bloody memories and confirmed by something deeper. For a moment the 'mon dimly considers whether she needs to rouse herself fully, whether this new thing is a threat, then the first drop strikes her side and the thought slips away. They're safe, her other is protected and a little water isn't worth the bother.

Chansey releases a low rumble, echoed a moment later by a crack of thunder as she adjusts the material beneath her a little with her feet and her mind drifts fully back into dream.