and donuts? this is shaping up to be the best ranger mission of her whole life. she brightens and hops up to her feet, careful not to slosh her cider around (she absolutely would have gotten it everywhere had oleg not been prepared with a bit of psychic power). she bounces over to him and, more importantly, to the box of donuts, green eyes gleaming. 

grace explains with a chuckle, a sparknotes version of what she'd just told saskia. 

"so basically, we get to clean up all the clutter and make sure everything's all set to go when all the land needs to be tilled for the new berry season! isn't that neat?" she says, 100% enthusiastically as she grabs for an apple cinnamon frosted donut. 

porter holmes

☉

listening to grace has been fun and all, but she's never been much good at listening for long periods of time. so she's more than happy to take the gloves and bounce down the porch stairs, giving one last forlorn look to the box of donuts left by grace's side. 

that's okay. if they get snackish, oleg can always go squirrel away a couple more. great minds seem to think alike because the waddling alien beeps enthusiastically at her side. 

'tiri is very cute and saskia already loves her and has never touched a horsea before, but she imagines those cerulean, glittering scales feel like wet rocks. still salty from the ocean, tumbled smooth. it takes her a second to realize the guy - paxton? parker? pedro? - just introduced himself. 

"yeah! but you can call me sasky if you want." oh duh. the dossier. she can sneak a peek at his name there without sounding dumb and like she wasn't listening. 

she tightens her gloves and squats down to start clearing away some of the dead plants. "and this is oleg. don't mind him." oleg pitches forward, heavy head hitting the dirt with a solid thunk. his legs come up in a perfect headstand and he stretches out his arms. some of the earth loosens as tangled roots are pulled out from underneath it. 

sasky pats his stocky little legs. once, she sharpied toe beans on the cylindrical stalks. 

"where are you usually based out of? i don't think i've seen you 'round. i'm over in oldale."

porter holmes

☉

you can tell a lot about a person by the way they laugh. her mama used to say that. people without laugh lines, she said, are the ones you gotta watch out for. they're the best people. and sasky knows it's true. well, sometimes, actually, she thinks maybe it's because she laughs like a hog and it makes her feel better to think she's special. 

but when paxton-parker-pedro (she hasn't checked on the sly yet, okay?) laughs, her face lights up like a candlenights tree and she grins from ear to ear. not that he sees, because he chokes it back and digs his face into the dirt where she can't see him. 

unlucky for him though - oleg's frequency skrches and the first attempt doesn't hit it on the mark, but the second one does. he mimics the sound as best he can and swings his feet back and forth. 

"born 'n raised!" she says proudly, and loudly as she gently pushes oleg aside. she squats down beside her partner, mischievous grin and sidelong glances all while she pulls at the overgrowth. 

"'cept i studied in snowpoint with my grandad for a few years and then i got stuck there when that big bubble went up, but i came back as soon as it went down 'cause the ranger academy approved my request to come help hoenn so i'm back now and anyway, how do you like it here?"

porter holmes

☉

saskia remains completely oblivious to the state of porter's quickly deteriorating psyche. at the very least, oleg grows bored of his impersonations very quickly and totters off to go tear up some weeds in the next plot over.

"your research!" she says, utterly intrigued. she grunts as she tugs out a pesky vine from the earth. what was once the root to a pomeg bush flakes off, brown and sad. she pats it after she sets it down.

"migration patterns in the birds there, mostly, but i was studying for ecology. there's a lot of really good opportunities for eco majors with the rangers. but that's boring! tell me about your research!"

porter holmes

☉

wait, what? wait, WHATTTT? fate gave her a partner who's not gonna just nod and say, wow that's cool! when she talks about how incredible lichen is?

"what? nononono, not boring at all! ever! okay, so people like birds, right? they kinda understand it when i say birds, but really did you know there are over twenty thousand species of lichen? like, six whole percent of the earth is supposedly covered by it?

"not a whole lot of people think it's cool when you're like 'oh, moss? that's my jam. moss and algae and fungi.'"

porter holmes
we're perfect

☉

it'll take a miracle and a half to get her back on track again because she is starry-eyed. enthusiasm sends an excited jolt all throughout her body, zipping through her veins, and she has to stopper herself from running all over his words with some of her own. 

but at the same time she's enraptured that someone - someone finally! - seems to get just as freaking excited as she does about this.

"like, it's so crazy to think that underneath us, literally everything is so connected. and they're all just up here living their own little planty lives, you know? we can learn so much about native resistances to root pathogens just by digging in some dirt. and now i'm like, okay guys why are we hopping to other worlds when we still barely understand this one?"

porter holmes

☉