"I'm sorry." Howard said. This was not the first time the man had apologized to Shalin for a perceived slight. It wasn't the second time, either. Or the third, or the forth, or the fifth, of the sixth. Howard lost count about an hour in.

He just felt so guilty about shamelessly stealing Shalin's ride like this. With Josh, it had been slightly different. There had been projectile vomiting, favors asked and received, and a very enlightening experience about the value of Quick Attack. Here, he felt like a stranger asking a stranger for a lift on the side of the road.

Plus, he was riding something from Galar. He hated Galar. Their curry was too spicy and their towns threatened to butcher his tongue. Wedgehurst? Strange. Exotic. Foreign. Rustboro? Exhilarating. A choir of sounds working in harmony. Rustboro was the greatest name for anything in existence.

Howard lacked a Ride Pokémon of his own. It was simply not a field he had ever invested time into. Maybe he should have. Then he wouldn't be in this situation. Maybe he could get a saddle for Shirley if he asked nice enough. Was Shirley even big enough to lift Howard? He didn't want to think about it.

"I'm sorry." He said again.

---

Shalin Nariya

"It's okay!" Shalin attempted to comfort Howard as Reynir whinnied, touching his horn's flat to him if the young man allowed it. "Josh told me all about you already. Howard, is it?" she asked to confirm his name. The strong breeze sent her long, thin, green hair flying about. It felt good, and it would be a luxury they wouldn't have for long. The rainforests of Route 119 were dense, and going off trail wouldn't be an option until they got to their destination: the Braviary's Nest.

The apologies were getting on Lathiel's nerves, the normal-type raking her talons against the ground. She wanted to run, too. If Shalin had her way, she would be sitting on Lathiel's back and bonding with her that way. As it stood, though, she detested the idea of wearing a saddle. All she wanted to do was battle. Kick some Pheromosa and Buzzwole butt.

"You don't need to keep apologizing; it's fine! You'll feel a lot better when we get moving. Now, hop on!" she gestured toward Reynir. At this point, she didn't care whether Howard rode shotgun or not; the reins were more than operable from the psychic-type's rear seat.

Man, this was embarrassing. Howard himself had remarkably little pride in his own appearance and perception—he had purchased expired food from stores for a massive discount, had rummaged through trash cans in Mauville after vomiting into them, had wrestled his hat from a Ducklett in Driftveil City—but somehow this just kicked in the wrong way.

It was likely because he didn't like making an inconvenience for others. Himself was fine. Others? Not so much.

"I'm so-" Howard blinked at Lathiel, judging the creature's expression from beneath its mask. That, coupled with Shalin's insistence was what finally shut him up. If he had known about Lathiel's history, he might have groveled and asked for forgiveness. As it was, Howard didn't like envisioning how Lathiel's claws dug into the earth, except replace 'earth' with 'Howard's face'.

Howard hung his head in defeat as Reynir brushed his horn against him. The archaeologist flinched slightly, images of Galar flashing before his eyes. "Sorry." He told the Rapidash. A final courtesy.

"Thanks. Coming up!" Howard took Shalin's request and climbed up shotgun. "You nailed it! Howard, at your service! And you're Shalin! Josh mentioned you while I was vomiting into a trash can. Those two things aren't connected. I assure you!"

---

Shalin Nariya

The healing and calming effect Reynir's horn had on agitated or otherwise emotionally heated people seemed to do the trick. A simple and final apology appeared to turn apprehension into excitement. "Yep, Shalin's my name, the wildest Pokémon rider in Hoenn!" She wasn't kidding, either; by now, many stories had spread about the girl, including how she occasionally caught a wild Pokémon by mounting it while still wild and holding on for her life as it tried to send her flying. It was a talent that made for amazing campfire stories. She at times wondered if a children's story would be written about her accolades.

"I'll give you a chance at his reins when we get a bit closer to the Braviary's Nest, but we've still got a long ways to get there! Let's go!" Stretching her thin arms around Howard's frame, the lithe girl squeezed her Pokémon's sides, then sharply pulled back on the reins with both hands. With a neigh and a rear that got the Ranger's blood pumping, the brightly-colored equine dashed forward. Thankfully, their steed was a psychic-type, and could use the power of her strong mind to mentally harness her two riders up. No matter how the horse swerved or bucked, those two weren't going anywhere. Lathiel chased after the Rapidash but slowly lost ground.

"The wildest? Don't get too wild on me, Shalin. Otherwise, I will vomit, and there aren't any trash cans out here." Howard said gravely as he adjusted his hat for the ride. Josh had given him a crash-course on Shalin, and Howard thought he was joking at times. Judging from Reynir and Lathiel, it was clear that the Gym Leader was being completely serious.

That made him nervous.

As nervous as one could be under the comforting aura of a Galarian Rapidash, that was. Once they were moving, Howard would likely not need the horn. He was a professional, even if he didn't act like one most of the time.

"Thank you. I'll try not to drive us off a cliff when the chance arrives." Howard was perfectly content to let Shalin take the reins. As an explorer, he knew first hand to let those experienced with the terrain lead the way. "I have a question." Howard raised his hand like he was in a classroom, and not next to an Ultra Beast killing machine.

"Erm... How are you not dead?" Howard asked with the poetic grace of a man falling out of a burning building. "No offense. I've heard a lot about you. A lot of it is surreal. I thought you were a joke cooked up by Josh to screw with me, but you ACTUALLY exist!" Howard beamed.

Smooth, Slayte. He thought to himself. Maybe if you're lucky, she won't toss you off a cliff when you make it to Braviary's Nest.

---

Shalin Nariya

Howard's comment reduced Shalin to hysterical tears. "I-I'd never do that to you!" she struggled to say through laughter that got a snort out of Reynir. The Galarian Rapidash didn't understand what was so funny. Still, sensing his nerves, Shalin eased into accelerating the equine more than she normally would, cutting the run short at a comfortable canter. It was faster than Howard had ridden in the city, which may have given him an indication of the speed the species was capable of.

Howard's matter-of-fact tone had Shalin confused. She wasn't insulted, but she was... perplexed. Sure, she had gotten on the back of a wild Pokémon before, but she knew better than to do it with truly aggressive species, especially dragons. As amazingly fun as it would be, riding a dragon wild was asking to get badly injured. The ones that didn't have bone-crushing strength were massively agile. Then there was Kommo-o, a dragon that could turn a would-be wild rider into gelatin with its vibrating scales. Even tamed, Treble was a handful. Come to think of it, she hadn't hopped on Treble's back since getting her Sygna Suit. She wondered how much it would help, and whether she could crank the scaled Pokémon's metaphorical dial all the way up to a Boomburst.

"What do you mean?" she asked. "I'm surprised someone in your field hasn't at least heard of Nariya Expeditions by now. I'm no joke; I'm as real as you are!" That was when she noticed a lack of footstep noises. Lathiel was missing. She turned her fey steed around and saw the Type: Null down the trail, snoozing. "I gotta go back and wake her up." With that, she turned the psychic-type around to at least get in range to withdraw the normal-type.

A wane smile spread across Howard's face as Shalin began laughing. Did she know that he was thinking about how she could toss him off a very high cliff? No, that wasn't it. Josh had said a lot of things about Shalin Nariya, and that did NOT include witchcraft and mind reading.

"See, it's really easy to not hear about anything when you can't afford anything." Howard was already extremely loose with his wallet, and looking into aides for expeditions or assistance in traveling was something he staunchly avoided for a multitude of reasons. It was hard to embezzle artifacts when there was a witness. It was expensive. It made contact with Team Rocket cumbersome unless the added help was also from the organization. Shalin was none of these. Worst of all, she could throttle him in a dozen different ways. "Plus I've always maintained that the journey is just as important as the destination. That means trekking through the hottest deserts, climbing the tallest mountains, and traversing the deepest jungles on my feet."

Was this a delusion, or was Howard just coping?

"It doesn't seem to listen to you much." Howard noted helpfully from his seat. "I heard a story that you once woke up and rode a Dragonite with nothing but a toothpick, and those are scarier than that!"

An image of Lathiel appeared in Howard's mind's eye. He shuddered. "Maybe not."

---

Shalin Nariya

Couldn't afford anything? Someone in Howard's field should have little trouble making a living. That meant one of two things: there was more to this Howard that met the eye, or he was just irresponsible with money. Sure, Shalin spent a small fortune at Verdanturf Leather and Saddle, what with having a small Pokémon army at her beck and call, but she saved on money by letting the ones that could hunt on their own. She looked past that statement and kept to Howard's positive, Reynir's strides subtly and gradually getting longer. If he was paying close attention, he would have been able to feel the psychic horse speeding up. Though he may not have been aware, there was a narrow ravine coming up, right in their path. It would be one that the Rapidash would be able to easily jump over, though it would require a lot of speed to do so.

"To each their own!" Shalin chirped as their mount's hoofbeats got a little faster. "You'll never catch me walking to a distant destination like that. Riding is just way too fun!" The two looped around Lathiel, the Type: Null waking up at her trainer's command and following the two riders northward once more. "A Pidgeot and not a Dragonite, but that's otherwise true!" she bragged. "One of the things I'm known for outside my field is catching wild Pokémon by riding on their backs and tiring them out!" She wasn't kidding, either. She had several Pokémon that she had tamed that way.

"A Pidgeot? Aw." Howard deflated slightly. "Wait, can I see it?" His eye gleamed as he imagined taming Shirley with a toothpick. Their relationship was far more simple: she got to ride on his back and eat his pancakes, and he got... her! That was a pretty fair trade. The thought of riding Shirley crawled back up to the top of Howard's mind, before getting beat back down by archaeology knowledge.

And Shalin's crazy adventures.

Yet he could almost tell what she was thinking. Not because Howard Slayte was a psychic wizard, but because he knew the expression people made when he told them he was broke like the back of his hand. People asked him why he simply didn't work at a museum.

None of them would hire me. He thought darkly, before clenching a fist. He shook the feeling off. It wasn't Shalin's fault. He had to think happy thoughts. Happy was good.

Unaware of the ravine approaching them, Howard continued to strike up a conversation. "That's pretty slick, Shalin. It's almost as impressive as the time I surfed down a—"

Howard blinked as he saw what was approaching.

"...ravine."

---

Shalin Nariya

Shalin frowned at Howard's request. "Sadly, I didn't bring Zuh with me. It's not as simple as going to a Pokémon Center, either; since I let my other Pokémon roam Petalburg Woods, I can't just use the Pokémon storage system like most people do." Almost as impressive? That Pidgeot had some real buck to her. A master of using her momentum to her advantage, her swooping put a sickening amount of force on Shalin. It took a lot to challenge Hoenn's Wildest Rider, and that bird delivered.

With Lathiel's continued drowsiness making her unable to keep up, Shalin elected to simply withdraw the Type: Null instead. It was a good thing, too. "Reynir's gonna jump it. Hold on with everything you got, because we're really gonna have to pick up the pace." Gripping the reins tightly and her Pokémon's sides more so, she coaxed the psychic-type faster. "Use your AGILITY, Reynir!"

With a profound neigh, the horned equine dashed toward the ravine. Howard may have been able to feel the horse's psychic hold tightening around him. As the cliff's edge sped toward them, Shalin powerfully flicked the reins in her hands. As their pulse reached the Rapidash's halters, he leaped toward the canopy. The feeling of their weight multiplying as the riders rose into the air, immediately followed by their weight leaving them as they fell, was nothing short of euphoric for Shalin.

The dramatic jump was what Pokémon riding was all about.

Howard wasn't too sad to see the Type: Null go. He had no real issues with the Pokémon, but it was simply unnerving to lay eyes upon, given its disjointed nature. Howard could deal with reviving fossils, but he could not deal with science fair projects. Besides, he had a gut feeling that Lathiel's creation was a brutal one. Anything related to inter-dimensional mumbo jumbo often was.

"No, no. Don't be mad!" Howard said as they sped up. "Don't push me into this raviiiiine!" The word trailed as Reynir's Agility made sure that the group made the jump. As they rushed down to meet the ground, Howard's hat flew away in the updraft. As they landed, Howard took a deep breath.

"Anyway, where was I? Oh, right!" Howard beamed at Shalin. "That... is... BRILLIANT!" Howard's caution around Shalin faded completely as she explained her method of storage. It was so simple! Why didn't he do something similar with a dig site he would constantly return to? That way, he could avoid the PC interface entirely, along with those dreaded fees...

Howard shuddered as he imagined them.

"Plus, in Petalburg Woods, you don't have to feed them all the time. Food is plentiful, and if you've trained them, predators are limited. Man, I'm jealous! I wish I would've thought of it first. Shirley would love it, I'm sure of it." After a moment, Howard stopped and patted his head. Where was his hat?

Then, right on cue, his hat fluttered down onto Reynir's horn. Howard blinked. No! Reynir's horn wasn't a coat hanger you could put clothing articles onto!

---

Shalin Nariya

"Whooooo-hee-heeeeeeeee!!" Shalin cried as her Galarian Rapidash cleared the ravine in a single leap, looking like the riders' heads were going to brush the canopy at the jump's apex. Even the landing wasn't as rough as it should have been; the mind of the powerful psychic-type cushioned the riders from feeling like the equine's back was slamming into their rear ends upon landing from the high jump. The docile species truly was a beginner's dream to learn Pokémon riding with, yet fast enough and potentially wild enough to entertain the most talented riders. While she preferred something more unusual, there was no denying the unicorn-like Pokémon could still get the adrenaline pumping.

Shalin took one hand off the reins long enough to retrieve Howard's hat. "If you're gonna go riding, might want to run a cord or something through your hat and around your chin so it doesn't blow away," she suggested as the burst speed of Reynir's AGILITY wore off. The rapid clopping of hooves against the trail slowed to a more normal, yet still swift, pace as the riders rounded a corner. The two passed by a small, stone building, a painted mural on the outside depicting a large, yellow, tiger-like Pokémon racing through a lightning storm. "That's one place my buddy Josh Devlin stops at every time he comes through here. I don't get why he's so fixated on a Pokémon that's dead," she shrugged as the two passed the shrine to the Johto Beast. "We're almost there."

"Tsk tsk, Shalin. I thought you knew better." Howard smiled knowingly. "My hat will always come back to me. We've been through thick and thin together, and it knows me better than I know the back of my hand." Whether or not that was a depressing fact about Howard's wardrobe or his attachment to this hat remained to be seen. Logic dictated that Howard invest in a cord for his hat. His wallet disagreed, and his hat would be offended by the lack of trust Howard had in it.

Shalin's opinion was swiftly put into the suggestion box, and the hat would remain as is.

Howard frowned as the two walked past the gravesite of Raikou. He didn't know that Josh had such an interest in the Legendary Beast. It would have to be brought up at a future date. It looked to be a relatively rare Pokémon, but Howard didn't know every legend under the sun. He was an archaeologist and ruin explorer, not a chaser of mythos.

Mythology was the exaggeration of history. The great and shiny finish that enraptured the masses. Yet that did not mean that the two could intersect.

"For the same reason I dig up fossils, Shalin. It means something to us. Don't knock the past, or memories." Howard said grimly, before lapsing into silence for a few moments. Upon Shalin's statement that they were reaching their destination, he perked up. "Oh, does this mean it's my turn to ride? Come on, I gotta learn eventually. Please? I said please, so you have to at least consider it. It's part of the law."

...the law?

---

Shalin Nariya