Chapter 12  

Sprout Tower

Travel Journal — Day 14

Cinder evolved today.

I feel like that sentence should be followed by something profound.

Instead: He is longer, hotter, hungrier, and deeply offended by corners.

Still Cinder, though. Definitely still Cinder.

- - - - -

Ravina discovered that there were several different kinds of tired.

There was walking-all-day tired, which lived in the calves and lower back. 

There was camping tired, which was mostly the lingering suspicion that no matter how carefully you checked your bedroll, there was probably still a pebble under it. 

There was Pokémon-training tired, which tended to include dirt in places dirt had no business being.

And then there was apparently smiling-at-strangers-for-hours-while-wearing-an-impractical-shrine-maiden-costume tired.

That one lived in the feet, and the face, and somehow, the cheeks.

Ravina lay on her hotel bed staring at the ceiling while Owlbert informed the room that it was precisely seven in the morning.

Hoot.

“I heard you.”

Hoot.

“I acknowledge that seven o’clock exists.”

Owlbert remained on the back of the chair and stared so Ravina dragged the blanket over her head.

Hoot.

“Oh, you little bastard.”

A warm nose pushed beneath the blanket near her elbow, that was harder to ignore as Ravina lifted the edge and found Cinder was waiting there.

His nose twitched.

“Morning to you too...”

He made a soft sound and immediately tried to crawl on top of her while beneath the blanket. That lasted for approximately three seconds before Ravina noticed something.

“Cinder.”

He stopped.

“Why are you so warm?”

Another innocent chirp. 

“You are always warm. This is different.”

He had been different for the last few days, not dramatically, nothing she could have pointed to and said there, that is definitely wrong.

He had simply been hungrier, warmer, a little more restless when he woke, a little frisky at times. And yesterday, while Ravina had been dressing for work, she had caught him stretching beside the hotel bed and thought for half a second that he looked longer.

Then he'd turned sideways and the impression had disappeared, She had blamed the mirror for a trick of the light at the time.

Now he nosed at her again to break her train of thought and she looked down to her bed companion..

“Breakfast?”

That got an immediate response as Cinder bounded out from under the blanket and jumped away from the bed.

Ravina narrowed her eyes. “Alright then...”

She started as she got out of bed and he perked up some more.

“...How hungry?”

Cinder glanced toward his food bag, then back at Ravina. then toward the food bag again.

“Right.” She sighed as reached for the bag.

Owlbert gave a small, satisfied bob. “You have no right to look smug. You ate after midnight.”

Owlbert stared. “At twelve-oh-three.”

The stare intensified. “Yes, I noticed.”

Ravina had learned that accusing Owlbert of being imprecise was apparently one of the few reliable ways to offend him. She wanted to think that was useful information…probably.

- - - - -

Breakfast confirmed that Cinder's appetite had become ridiculous.

Ravina set down his normal portion. He ate it, then sat beside the bowl.

She gave him a little more, he ate that too, then sat beside the bowl.

Ravina slowly lowered the spoon. “Are you actually hungry, or have you discovered extortion?”

Cinder licked his mouth as Owlbert watched from the windowsill.

“Any hints oh wise one?.” Owlbert blinked. “Thought not…”

Ravina added one more small portion, Cinder ate more slowly this time, which made her feel better. She had no intention of letting him eat until he made himself sick just because he had decided to impersonate Saturn.

She checked his sides afterward, no obvious discomfort, breathing was normal, eyes bright, coat healthy. He leaned into her fingers when she scratched beneath his jaw.

“Okay,” she murmured. “You feel fine.”

Cinder made a contented little trill. “Still taking you past a Center if this keeps up.”

She'd begun saying things like that without noticing. A week ago, every unusual behavior had generated a brief wave of panic.

Now there was a process, observe, check, compare and write it down. Then ask someone qualified if it persisted.

Not every strange thing meant disaster. Sometimes Owlbert was staring at a wall because there was a tiny moth on it. Sometimes Cinder limped for five steps because a burr had caught in his paw.

Sometimes a Pokémon ate more because… Ravina looked at him, Because what? Growing?

She frowned and Cinder stared back. “You wouldn't happen to know if you're doing something biologically significant, would you?”

He sneezed. “Excellent consultation.”

She noted the appetite change in her journal anyway, Then beneath it: Sprout Tower today.

That made her sit a little straighter. Yesterday, Violet City felt enormous. Not geographically, not compared with the cities Ravina had seen at home, but in the number of things she'd suddenly been expected to know.

Where trainers stayed, where they registered challenges, which parts of a Center were free and which absolutely were not, what Falkner's Gym required before accepting a challenger.

How much a room cost if she wanted something more substantial than a cot. How rapidly food expenses multiplied when you had two Pokémon instead of one.

And, apparently, how convincingly Ravina could smile at a table of mildly drunk office workers while pouring drinks and pretending not to notice one of them had spent ten consecutive minutes losing a tabletop game to her.

The answer to that one was: very convincingly.

The pay had also been considerably better than most of the other jobs she saw on the board, but Ravina's feet disagreed and wished she picked the night watchman job for the hotel instead.

Still, the money folded inside her bag this morning had bought breakfast, another night at the hotel, and enough supplies that she no longer felt as though every meal Cinder ate was personally attacking her finances.

That was worth sore feet.

Today, however, belonged to training. More specifically, it belonged to the enormous wooden tower visible through nearly every second gap between Violet's rooftops. The local tour guides said that the tower had been built around an enormous Bellsprout in ancient times, and the central pillar is its still swaying stalk

Ravina mused on that thought as she finished brushing her hair. “Sprout Tower.”

Cinder looked toward the window and Owlbert rotated his head toward it without moving the rest of his body.

“We go in, we do whatever ancient local trainer test they've decided counts as character building, and then Falkner's Gym will actually let me through the door.”

Cinder chirped.

“One Gym,” Ravina reminded him as he wagged his rear end and Owlbert stared.

Ravina then pointed at him. “You're coming too.”

Hoot.

“Good.”

She slung the pack over one shoulder. Then hesitated, the VS Recorder Ito had given her still sat on the desk. Ravina still did not entirely believe Ito's explanation regarding where it had come from.

Mostly because Ito's explanation had been the word somewhere. But the device worked, she had spent part of last night figuring that out before her shift. It could record a battle from a fixed angle and attach basic trainer information afterward. More importantly, playback could be slowed and paused. A pretty useful item, especially if Sprout Tower really was meant to teach rather than simply test.

Ravina slipped it into the bag. “Okay.”

Cinder moved to the door and Owlbert flew to her pack, Ravina couldn't help but smile despite herself. “Let's go learn how terrible I am at this.”