[PRP] Looking Ahead

[BlackFireKitsune]

When she'd heard that Luke's mobility had returned (or, at least, the feeling in his legs which meant he wouldn't be permanently paralyzed), Nicolette had promptly burst into tears in a similar manner as she had when she'd heard details of the incident which had brought on such a horrible result in the first place. These tears, though, were much more positive and she couldn't have been happier to hear that her friend's health and independence were returning. It meant quite a number of things, but one stood out more than the rest to her: Baked goods, which were the reason for her latest visit to Rosie's house.

The idea that there were specific foods and baked goods for pokemon was one that had interested her greatly the moment she learned such items existed, so it was with immense enthusiasm and excitement that she had agreed to make poffins with Luke. She loved to learn about new things, for one thing, especially when it involved her passion for baking, but she was quite possibly just as excited to have something to do with Luke. It helped greatly that he owned a book detailing the various types and variations of poffins and their respective ingredients, but luckily they all had similar, if not identical, ways to bake them. Thus, after much referencing, adding, mixing and pouring, Nicolette had pushed the trays into the oven and closed it to let them bake. Pascal and Angeline eagerly awaited the end result, while Lulu remained near the pair in case she was needed. Agnes was perched on the back of a chair nearby, trying (and failing) to not look as eager as the other two younger pokemon.

After setting the timer, the young noble dropped her arms with a relieved and accomplished sigh. "There! Now to just wait until they're finished," she said, dusting off her small hands as she turned to offer her company a bright smile, though the expression held some subdued excitement. "I hope they turn out well."  

[Suudonym]

Luke had taken up a seat for himself - though not in the chair that Agnes occupied, to give her a comfortable amount of space - and nodded in response to Nicolette smile, "I'm sure they'll be fine. It was all according to the recipe after all." There were certainly hundreds of things that could go wrong even when following a recipe, but he was pretty sure they wouldn't run into any of them. And if they did, they could always try again.

The actual labor of cooking complete for the time being, his thoughts started to wander to other topics, his eyes counting out the pokemon gathered around the area. "You sure are building up quite a team, huh?" he observed. "Plus your Rapidash, you've got as many as I do."  

[BlackFireKitsune]

Nicolette pushed up her sleeves and began to move various bowls and utensils to the sink to begin cleaning, now that they merely needed to wait for the poffins to bake. "I hope so, but you never know. Some things are much more temperamental than others, and even the slightest mistake will ruin the whole thing," she said with a sigh, speaking probably from experience.

The topic change gave her pause, and she turned her head to do a quick check of her pokemon in the room. "Oh, yes," she replied, eyebrows raising a bit as she realized that she did, indeed, have five pokemon. "Yes, I suppose I do, and I love all of them. I keep forgetting you have just five, though, and Rosie has so many," the girl noted happily, turning back to the sink to begin washing things. "How long did it take you to get all of yours?"  

[Suudonym]

"I think poffins are pretty forgiving," he said, shrugging, "at least from what little experience I have. I've only ever used the simple recipes, though." For all he knew, there were varieties where just a minute too long in the oven would turn them to ash. Cooking seemed like such a volatile art.

He hummed thoughtfully at the question, "Not long, I don't think. It feels like I got a lot really quickly once I started training," he replied. "Before then, it was only Mieu. But I haven't had a new pokemon join me in a long time, not for about a year and a half I think."  

[BlackFireKitsune]

"I think most things are," the girl agreed with a nod, her focus still on cleaning the various utensils and everything she'd used. "They do seem forgiving, though, but we won't know for sure until they're done." Either way, she was confident they'd be fine. Plus, even if they weren't, at the very least Pascal would want to eat all of them anyway.

The thought that he hadn't gotten a new pokemon in so long was almost shocking, but everything else he said made sense. "That sounds just like me," she mused aloud, a giggle accompanying her words. "I only had Epona for years, but as soon as I came here and registered, I got so many more. I'll probably end up with more, too," she added, mostly to herself, as she aimed a brief glance over at Lulu. "I'm still not very good at training yet, though, but I'm trying my best."  

[Suudonym]

He nodded idly. "It seems like everyone has so many pokemon. Sometimes I feel like I should try and catch up, but I think I'd rather focus on bettering the small number I already have." Getting Rem up to speed with her four comrades had taken a lot of work, after all, and as it was he had two months of catching up to do; thankfully his friends had offered to take his team along with their own so they wouldn't go inactive, but that was still quite a length of time that he hadn't worked with them directly. He certainly didn't have time now to acclimate a new partner.

"You've been training for a while now," he commented. "What do you think of it?"  

[BlackFireKitsune]

Nicolette nodded as she busied herself by scrubbing a mixing bowl. "I think either of those are good ideas, personally," she said with a shrug as she worked. "I'm trying hard to train, but I also love having so many pokemon. It's like having a bunch of friends that are always with me - they're just not good at holding conversations with," the girl said with a bright smile.

"Bun!" Pascal suddenly interjected, crossing his paws over his chest with a huff. "Buneary!"

"Oh!" She paused so she could half-turn to regard her Buneary, offering him an apologetic look. "I didn't mean you, Pascal, since you're much more talkative than anyone else."

The Buneary seemed at least a little appeased with her answer, so he lowered his arms and dusted off the fluff around his lower half self-importantly. "Buneary."

That done, Nicolette giggled and turned back to washing. The question of what she thought of training needed little time for thought before she answered, "I like it a lot! It's lots of fun, even if I'm not very good at it yet and we need more work. I'm still so grateful that you and Rosie told me about it and helped me out so much, it's been a wonderful experience."  

[Suudonym]

He smiled at the offended-looking Buneary. "They're pretty amazing. Even though we don't speak the same language, we can still understand each other. We can't have conversations like people do with each other, but we still find ways to communicate." And then there were pokemon like Mieu that he'd been around for so long that he felt like he might as well be having a conversation, or pokemon like Tenebrae that had such strong personalities that they had no need for human words to convey their thoughts. Even the quiet, often enigmatic Rem spoke loudly through her actions.

He listened to Nicolette's answer, wearing a faint smile, "I'm glad you've been enjoying it." He was also glad that the main reason he had recommended training in the first place, as a means of self defense, hadn't been necessary to the best of his knowledge. "What do you think are the benefits of training pokemon? Like, compared to before, what sort of parts of your everyday life have improved?"  

[BlackFireKitsune]

Pascal proceeded to ignore them both again as well as their conversation in favor of eagerly awaiting the promised poffins once more. Nicolette smiled and nodded, agreeing as she moved to put the cleaned items off to a side to dry, "They are amazing. I mean, I always thought Epona was amazing, but I didn't know anywhere near as much about her as I thought I did until I came here and started to learn pokemon training. And I agree completely," she continued, "we don't need words to understand what they're trying to say. Or, at least, not everything." There were, of course, some things they would need words to fully explain, like complicated thoughts or problems. But, for most other things, words were unnecessary.

Once finished laying the various objects out to dry near the sink, Nicolette dried her hands before she turned to finally face Luke while speaking, wearing a bright smile. His questions seemed to venture further from 'random' and towards 'purposeful' and so she made an attempt to put more thought into her responses. A mild pout evidenced this effort. "Well, honestly, pretty much every part of it, I suppose," she responded at length, her expression morphing to a smile as she leaned backwards against the counter, then raised both hands to count off the various points on her fingers. "I'm never alone anymore, for one thing. I always have my pokemon with me to spend time with or to care for, or to bake with. It gives me a wonderful excuse to bake more, and I love baking! It's a responsibility to learn about them and train them, and make sure they're fed and taken care of." Goodness there were a lot of things! "They're excellent friends and teachers," she finally finished, dropping her hands to fold them in front of her instead.  

[Suudonym]

Luke nodded in agreement with Nicolette's response, thoughtfully tenting his fingers in his lap. "I think pokemon training is good in a lot of ways, but it's hard to come up with the specifics," he said. "In the years I've been here in Kodo, training has become more and more popular and serious, and I think the region's improved because of it. I've been wondering if Grande Ile could benefit the same way." His gaze wandered to the pokemon populating the room. "I know there are wild pokemon, but I don't think there's even a catalogue of all the different species that live there, let alone people that catch and train them. It seems like besides in the military, the only pokemon that people own are ones that were bred domestically and adopted out as family pets."  

[BlackFireKitsune]

Nicolette nodded eagerly to show her agreement, then moved to pull out the chair Agnes rested on. The Swablu flapped her wings a few times with a mildly displeased "swaaa" at being disturbed, but as Nicolette sat down, the small bird merely took it as an invitation to hop up onto the girl's shoulder to perch there instead. Nicolette didn't seem to mind - in fact, she aimed a brief grin at the little pokemon as she reached a hand up to stroke its head a few times. "It's hard to list them," she agreed with another nod once her attention returned to Luke, "but I just know they've improved my life so much. It's just difficult to put into words, or number all of the reasons how and why."

"There are wild pokemon," she agreed quite readily, nodding her head as if to give more emphasis to the statement. "I've seen some before whenever I took Epona out for a ride outside Devoirue. But, I've never even heard of pokemon training until I came here, so I don't think there's any sort of cataloging system like the pokedex there..." Now that she thought about it, she couldn't recall ever seeing pokemon within the city unless they were pets or were with the military.  

[Suudonym]

That was indeed the difficulty, but if he eventually wanted to propose the introduction of training to Grande Ile, he couldn't very well frame the benefits as just inexplicably good. He hadn't imagined it would be a simple feat, but the task was looking more and more daunting as he tried to figured out how to tackle it.

He nodded, Nicolette's explanation matching up with his understanding of the distant region. "Until recently," he said, "Kodo wasn't much of a trainer region either. There have been pokemon centers here for a long time, but the League only became a real presence about a year and a half ago, I think. I was wondering if it was possible to introduce training to Grande Ile too, since you and I both have experience and knowledge with it."  

[BlackFireKitsune]

The Pokemon League's history, especially in Kodo, hadn't been part of her learning back when she first came to the region, especially since just learning about pokemon and pokemon training had taken quite a while. Thus, Nicolette wasn't informed enough to comment one way or the other on Luke's first statements. "I must admit I don't know much about when the Pokemon League started being active in Kodo," she replied a little sheepishly, still petting Agnes, "but that sounds like a wonderful idea! How do you think it could be introduced? Though I don't know that I can help much with it," the young girl admitted sadly, dipping her head briefly. "My younger brother will succeed my father in Parliament, not me, so I don't think there's much, if anything, I could do to help."  

[Suudonym]

How was the big question; he wasn't sure how the League went about determining where to install pokemon centers and take up a presence, and he wasn't sure what kind of processes were involved in the evolution of a region into a proper League area. They had connections in Kodo, though, where such questions could begin to find answer, such as through Alder or by inquiring at the League's office. Maybe there would have to be some letter writing involved or something. Before he voiced any of that, however, the girl's tone fell, apology in her demeanor, and he was somewhat puzzled by her words. "I don't think someone would have to have an official seat in Parliament for something like that," he offered. "If anything, shouldn't your connection through your family give you an advantage in political pursuits? If you're interesting in that kind of thing, I mean." Perhaps she was looking forward to being separated from the government; it seemed like an awfully troublesome organization.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

The girl tented her fingers against her lips, effectively hiding a pout as she frowned thoughtfully to consider his words. "I suppose not," she said slowly, thoughtfully, "but I don't know that I could talk to my father about it. Mother isn't involved in Parliament, so she doesn't speak of political matters, and Father doesn't speak of them to her - or me, since shortly after Aluin was born. I could try speaking to my brother and father about it though, but I'm not sure if that would do much good.." Everyone's roles in her household were clear as glass - her mother ran the home, her father ran the House, with her brother set to succeed their father and her set to marry into another House, or possibly to a lesser noble not in Parliament if her father couldn't arrange a marriage between their House and another's. To her, such an arrangement didn't leave much room to bring up a political matter when she was no longer directly involved in political matters. "I am interested, though; I think bringing pokemon training to Grande Ile is a marvelous idea."