"you doing alright over there, kiddos?" comes a call from the back porch from a woman who absolutely knows these two schmucks have gotten completely sidetracked from their duties. sasky stops grinning stupidly at porter to hop up out of her crouch and wave big at miss grace.

"we're good! we just wanna be extra thorough! don't worry, ma'am, we'll make sure your garden gets all done today!"

and then she crouches back down, clasps porter on the shoulder, and gravely says, "how the heck are we gonna get this all done today?"

porter holmes

☉

kirin is getting really good at navigating around the ultra crater. saskia is convinced the deer has a little map in her head because she always seems to know which direction they need to walk in. 

sasky also thinks haoyu is very funny. she likes old people. like that one lady whose farm she helped out on with that other ranger guy. old people like to talk about the good old days and haoyu, it seems, is no different.

she drapes herself over kirin's front. the wyrdeer snorts at sasky's insistence on riding instead of walking alongside their companion. but her feet hurt!

"now we can yeet ourselves into caves filled with blood-thirsty monsters! what a time to be alive!" there is absolutely no sarcasm in her voice. she grins from ear to ear. 

at the first scent of gas, kirin startles, braying and shoving her head into haoyu's back.

"oh! oh, gods. i've seen this before. um, careful where you step, sir. some of these spots can - " and a baby celesteela rolls over on its side, right onto some loose earth that immediately erupts to their right.

@haoyu

19 involve a geyser or volcanic eruption in some pivotal way.

☉

it makes her feel warm to know she's been missed too. life is crazy and it's hard to keep in touch with friends, especially friends you didn't really know you were friends with. she misses so many people. 

people like Greyson Connors, who seem so far away from her now. 

"aw," she says as she helps herself out of their little hidey hole. a fresh blanket of sand covers the entirety of mt. chimney, which can't possibly be good for all the flora up here. "ughhhh," she groans. "i'm gonna have to write a reportttt about this."

more paperwork.

"anyway, it really was nice! we should go get coffee sometime! or go to the beach, where sand is supposed to be."

Sasha Huang

☉

"okay, ol. i think it's time we - wait, no, leave the plant alone!!!" she yanks him back by one nubby arm and clutches him tight to her chest like a little teddie bear. he pouts as she stalks off in the opposite direction, leaving the lileep to its own devices.

PREMIUM SAFARI BALLS 1/4
skipping

☉

honestly, she hadn't even noticed at first. she's observant when it comes to things like 'oh, another species of moss that shouldn't be able to thrive here but is now because of the weird distortions' but with something like this - with people, their weird mannerisms when they're doing something wrong, she's clueless. 

luckily for her, and unluckily for them, oleg is not. 

he imitates the sound of police sirens, going WEE-WOO-WEE-WOO, and sasky drops her ice cream cone. she's quick to act though, as oleg's copper impression is always a serious one, but she must not pitch an intimidating figure with chocolate still smeared on the corner of her lip and on her left hand.

"okay, but you must be doing something wrong, or oleg wouldn't be crazy! he's never wrong!" she exasperatedly points down to the little guy, who stomps his foot and beeps again. "i just gotta see what's in the bag, okay?"

cato

☉

greyson, on the other hand, does not seem very enthused or impressed by saskia's quick thinking and oleg's flawless execution. she tilts her head and she says, "what? we did it! we got 'em off the path and once oleg's out of their sight, they'll lose their aggression."

speaking of. 

the air shimmers behind her and with a blip, oleg reappears, whole and unhurt. he spins around on the ground a couple of times, cackling in that weird beep-boop way he does. shortly after, he collapses and leans up against sasky's ankle and calf, completely spent. 

she crouches just to pat him on the head.

"oh, wait, did you mean his song? he's workshopping it. we call it daft punk's skibidi toilet."

Greyson Connors

☉

and just like that, the battle is finished. she looks at the spot where tapu bulu had disappeared, that triumphant smile bleeding way back to anxiety when she recognizes the musical instrument laying in the ground. 

monday still has the one they found together. 

"it leaves it as a gift," she says. "if you prove yourself or something. it, um, it opens this temple that's some ways away, but - " she checks her watch. without a sygna suit on either of them - oh, yikes - they're cutting it close. 

"happy to take you there next time, but we'll need to recover outside of the rifts for a bit."

@haoyu

☉