the company is nice. she's starting to think this may have been her best decision as of late. she needed one of those, especially after picking up those nasty tauros. but she'd take a few bruises to the side over a desk job any day. 

she looks over his work and then her own and then stretches. almost as if sensing the offer to relax, gretchen trots out of the brush and stretches, claws flexing. the crotchety glameow trots forward and crawls decidedly in willow's lap. 

she puts her hammer down in favor of scratching gretchen behind the ears. "well, looks like i've got no choice in the matter. i've some leftover blackberry pie i baked the other day. if you're hungrier, i'm sure i can find something in the fridge."

Greyson Connors

☉

the air shivers around her. she clutches her gloved hands together for a bit more warmth, rubbing as her boots crunch through leaves. gideon and thistle aren't exactly autumnal beings; the twig upon the turtwig's head is a lovely shade of orange. regardless, the pair don't complain about the cold, knowing full well they'll be treated to a nice meal and a stay in the greenhouse when they return home. 

gideon croaks suddenly and willow moves over to his side. the turtwig lifts his knobby leg and thistle draws out some of her vines to yank the rock from his foot. 

he grunts, but looks away from the extraction, gaze wandering over the clearing until it settles on the perpetrator. the larvitar watches them from the bushes. 

gideon gives a wiggle and willow chuckles, offering him the okay. he bounds forward, neatly stepping over more of the offending pokemon's stealth rocks. 

orange and red leaves burst from under gideon's shell and whistle sharply towards the larvitar. the creature stumbles out of the bushes, only to be thrown back in when the foliage hits its mark. gideon jumps and it retaliates with a thrash, tossing and turning in a rampage. 

gideon's hit, but the mark across his cheek doesn't linger for long. green spores suckle the life force from the larvitar to heal the turtwig's own wounds. 

when it's felled, willow praises him and tosses a poke ball. 

SAFARI WARDEN

☉

and as expected, roman's impressed. if it didn't hurt so dang much, willow might've been impressed too. she's just lucky the tauros hadn't hit her head on - she could have cracked a rib or worse. 

she keeps holding up the hem of her shirt and then shrugs. "if you want. it's gonna feel like normal skin. just be gentle, 'kay?" she'd rather him get fixated on her bruises than adelaide's chest. seriously, where the hell does he learn this kind of stuff? 

she'll have to have a chat with bo about it. 

"and i know it looks cool, but it hurts. and it coulda been a lot worse if i wasn't careful. these tauros, they're no joke, so i'm trusting you to listen to me when we're out there."

Roman Maher

☉

most of the time, her flowers are received with bright smiles, with polite thanks. most of the time the people she gives them to understand the weight of them, have little note cards with her own writing on them from past bouquets, source codes for her secret messages. but strangers? strangers and bo don't understand the weight behind it. 

and she doesn't expect lance to. but he accepts the gift graciously and with a wider smile than she'd been expecting. it makes her feel...goofy. in a good way. in a way that makes her chuckle nervously. 

in a way that makes her breath hitch, just a bit, when he leans in to kiss her cheek. she bites her lip, thinks about how alone they are, and the moment hangs with her indecision. 

"let me get these dishes cleaned up and then we can...do whatever it is people do on dates nowadays." she laughs and shakes her head. "i could show you the greenhouse? we could walk through some of the trails behind the property? or, ah, there's a distillery nearby with some craft beers. they ought to have some stouts this time of year."

LANCE VOLLANS

☉

when he looks like he's getting the hang of it, she starts working on her own. they have quite a few of the hexagons to put together. by the time the two of them are really in their groove, they're speeding through them. and greyson's are looking just as good as her own. 

she looks up. and then she looks down and shrugs. "there are times i've minded it, but i've always liked working with my hands. and i'd take this over an office job any day." she shudders at the idea. 

"and 'sides," she says and pauses to look out across her property, "i think it's all worth it, even if it's hard sometimes."

Greyson Connors

☉

and just like that, everything is pretty much normal. bo's under the same roof as roman, as willow herself, and they're sharing autumn's feast together. the holiday is a tradition her family has always celebrated. even the late atkins is a bit more lucid today. tired, yes, but she's there enough to recognize the season, the day, the festivity. 

and as much as she wants to worry about whatever new pokemon bo's brought her - their - son, she can't. he's looking at her like he did when they were kids and in this moment, she's happy enough to sink into it, to smile shyly back like she'd done then. 

and then roman emerges, clad in battle armor and willow's now very thankful she'd opted not to light all the candles about the house. she does, however, pluck a few potted plants from the splash zone and sets them on top of the fridge. 

when that's done and she can feel bo's eyes on her, she suddenly feels the responsibility on her shoulders. and she opens her mouth to tell roman to take the pillows off and get himself looking nice for the meal, but - 

she goes to bo's side, back against the table, and opens another cider, one that he'd brought, and clinks it to his own. 

"my money's on roman and his weedle," she says, grinning at roman as she does.

boruta maher  CIAN MAHER  Roman Maher

☉

she doesn't search his face because she doesn't want to see what's there. indifference? jealousy? curiosity? it shouldn't matter, so rather than contemplate whether it does, she removes herself from the equation entirely, choosing instead to keep her gaze down on the fawn in question. 

it makes a croaking sound as it shuffles in bo's arms, nestling closer to him for some of his warmth. it shivers. the blanket it's wrapped in, though layered enough to give it a decent amount of warmth, is rather thin. so she shrugs off her overcoat and tucks it around her. 

"poor girl. of course i'll take her in, but you knew that already." her eyes glimmer when she finally looks up. 

"she needs to warm up. let me just feed the tauros and we can take her into the greenhouse."

and with that, she grabs the pitchfork and shoves it into the haystack sitting in a bin under the stable's overhang. the tauros blow air from their noses, hooves stamping heavily into their churned grass. they eye the food impatiently. 

with surprise no longer on her side, she'll have to be quick. a couple of whistles and gretchen finally hears her call. the old cat leans her weight over the fence post and claws playfully at the stable's latch. willow holds her breath, hefts the pitchfork filled with hay, and then springs forward when gretchen manages to flip the latch.

cowslip and buckwheat both snort and shake their heads as they charge. willow shucks the hay into their trough and skids in a turn, tossing the pitchfork like a javelin as she runs back through the gate entrance. she slams her hand down on the latch and then falls backwards as the tauros ram the fence's sides. 

she allows herself a moment and then stands up before rejoining bo. 

"you're lucky i didn't fancy cattle when i had you working out here," she says dryly as she beckons him to the warm greenhouse doors. 

boruta maher

☉

only a quarter of a cider in and suddenly she's wishing it were four. as fond as she is of her working gal's muscles, they're certainly not helpful on the once in a blue moon moment where she's trying to get tipsy. before she can get there, the sugar from the ciders usually makes her stomach turn.

(you'd think she'd just drink liquor then, but she can't stand the taste. of any of it.)

cian joins her and she thinks it's so funny to see him standing in her kitchen. she even laughs a little bit and some of her anxieties about today melt away. 

"yeah," she says, "help would be nice. oh, cian, this is adelaide." after graciously taking the wine, she waves towards the woman who's just started skinning the potatoes. "my mother's here too. i don't know if you ever actually met. but she's resting right now in her room."

she'd offer cian to help with whatever adelaide needs, but before she can get the words out edgewise, the door opens again. and as bo comes up the stairs, she pretends to fix a tangle of the ivy on the table. 

a pack of cider is set down in the corner of her vision and she smiles softly, crow's feet around her eyes crinkling. 

"you know," she says, "i was just thinking the same thing." about cian. 

her gaze drops to the pokeball in bo's hand and she sighs. "if you've come to give him another dog, i might let gretchen claw your eyes out."

and then, louder, "roman! everyone's here!"

boruta maher  CIAN MAHER  Roman Maher

☉

oh. she poked at things she shouldn't have. this reply is short, is blunt, and it hits her that most of hoenn's rangers and officers have seen some shit, just by proxy of being in hoenn. she's probably one of the only people to not have been directly affected by the war around her. 

(if anything, the growth in her clientele can thank the ravages on hoenn's society.)

a sour thought, that one, but she shakes it off. "sorry. i - well, i live kind of like a hermit up here and sometimes i forget about...yeah." she frowns, reaches out to tentatively put a hand over his. 

she tries to match his smile. "i'm glad you did too."

it gets quiet. her mind races as the silence lapses. she realizes her hand is still on his. she also remembers something just as she realizes that. so she jumps up, accidentally bumps the table with her hip and grunts, cheeks going red as she saunters around him. 

"i, uh, got you something. after you said you hate being stuck in an office. i thought it might spruce it up a bit, bring a little bit of the outside in." 

she reaches up on top of the fridge (where Roman Maher can't reach) and grabs the pot of morning glory she'd covered with a cloth napkin. with most of her blush gone, she turns and goes back to the table, holding out to him like it's the most important thing in the world. 

because it is, really, but he doesn't know that.

LANCE VOLLANS

☉

much of her work was done in silence, except for the occasional hum to herself. as such, she'd banked on maintaining that silence to ensure she could slip into the tauros' pen and feed them while they slept with their legs tucked, deeply enough that she could usually scramble out if they came to their senses. 

but they rouse not at bo's footsteps tromping through dirt, but at gretchen's caterwauling. willow winces as the glameow tears through the dirt, past bo, and leaps (rather gracefully for her age) to a post beside the stable. 

willow leans against the pitchfork with a smile on her face. she regards bo and thinks several things simultaneously - how she's been distant in her texts and hasn't asked him around the property and i went on a date and it went well.

"yeah, actually," she says after clearing her throat. she props the pitchfork up against the pen that the tauros are now eyeing with agitated, flicking tails. 

"i met this guy. oh, you might know him actually. Greyson Connors . he said you battled him once. long story short, he needed some land for this project of his and my old man always wanted to build something like this so i thought 'why not?' the upkeep isn't too terrible and they'll be self-sustaining by spring and bo, what is that?"

she closes the distance to get a closer look at the moving bundle in his arms. eyes soften as she looks over the creature. she knows, instantly, that she doesn't have easy resources to take care of it, but she can't say no to it or bo. 

"where'd you find her?" she asks. 

boruta maher

☉

well, she can't quite blame him for needing his hand held this much. sometimes she forgets how lucky she was. her family never really replaced things - they never had the money. they were a family of fixers, and as such, her father had taught her from a pretty young age about the basics of carpentry and essential upkeep. 

so something as simple as lining up blocks of wood and ensuring the nail punctures cleanly, and without splintering the wood, seems so easy that she just...forgets. 

but she's a mom through and through and her companion's lack of knowledge isn't frustrating or annoying. instead, she's gentle as she instructs and explains, building one on her own to show him how it's done. 

"and don't worry if a nail pokes out. we can just reset it. function over form, right?"

Greyson Connors

☉

a metal sheet is lifted courtesy of the delphox. willow helps ease it into place and nudges a box of bolts with her toe. lus bends down, wings half-opening as he slowly starts to understand her orders. he still needs a lot of direction (most bug-types aren't very intelligent, especially compared to psychic-types like greyson's delphox), but he gets the hang of it eventually.

he's strong enough to pierce the metal, which is a relief. she'd worried they'd needed soldering equipment. the sound reverbs, echoing around her, and she puts a hand on lus' shoulders and hops back up onto the grass, motioning for greyson to follow.

"we let them build the rest of the base and you and i can start nailing these boards into hexagons. looks like you had the lowe's guy cut 'em right so it should just take some hammering."

Greyson Connors

☉