68. [Video/Action for Olivine City] BACKDATED to the tenth.

[foolishwren]

[OOC: As usual, please feel free to skip over my long-ass prose! As usual, I apologize heartily for the spam but I couldn't let an occasion like this pass entirely without getting all sappy and BAWWW over it. Action is open to anybody in Olivine City!
also I used something from an ooc prose thing I wrote awhile ago so if some of this sounds familiar, YOU KNOW WHY]


~*~


There were a lot of things that really set this place apart from Goldenrod City.

One was the smell of the ocean. Goldenrod was a beach city, yes-- but somewhere in the middle of the smell of exhaust (nowhere near as bad as a city back home, though-- this place seemed obsessively eco-friendly for the most part), hot-lunch carts, and the sharp sweetness of the bursts of golden-colored blooms that overflowed from every park and balcony-garden, that deep, rich ocean smell was lost when you weren't right next to the damn thing.

That wasn't the case here.

In fact, as she hiked up the steep, old-timey flagstone streets of Olivine, the ocean was practically the only thing there every time she inhaled. Maybe it was because she'd just been down by the docks, but she didn't think so. No, she was pretty sure the whole city just smelled like this. Kinda liked it, in fact. Reminded her a little of home. She hadn't lived on the beach-line, but you could hop on the subway and get to the coast in perhaps an hour, tops-- that had been one of the few vacationy places that her father had been willing to take her when she was little. Lots of fond, sunny memories... Not that those rocky old Maine beaches had anything on the one she'd just walked up from.

"Hurry it up, drooly, or we'll miss the whole thing," she called over her shoulder, kicking a foot to dislodge some of the beach's contents from where it had gotten trapped between the sandal's sole and her own, sending a small cascade of the silky sand onto the already-sandy street-- that was the other thing about beach cities-- didn't quite matter how far up you got from sea-level. In the same way you could expect glitter to make its way all around the building if even one sixth grader decided they wanted their science poster to be sparkly, there was no escape from sand in a beach town.

From further down the street behind her, the damp Growlithe she'd addressed ceased his curious sniffing of a pot of sleeping Oddishes on somebody's doorstep, and broke up into a gallop to catch up with his trainer... Whereupon he slowed into a trot and proceeded to shake wet sand all over her.

"ACKplth! Cujo!"

When the spray stopped, she put her arms down and shot the dog a glare, only to be met with his usual expression of contentment as his tongue lolled out and his shaggy tail wavered back and forth.

A year ago, Heather would have turned away and grumbled foul things under her breath-- or even shoved him away with her foot-- only BARELY gently enough to not call it a kick.

Instead, she was only able to keep the glare up for a few seconds before it melted into an gentle eye-roll as she turned away, continuing to climb the steep streets on legs that last summer would have burned unpleasantly at all this uphill walking but now hardly noticed. "C'mon, you mangy mutt..."

A lot could change in a year.

A few blocks blocks higher saw the pair pause again as Heather halted on a tight corner, turning to survey the horizon. They'd made pretty good time, all things considered-- especially since they'd been all the way down on the beach just ten minutes before.

"I guess we're high enough..."

Another thing that set Olivine City apart from Goldenrod was how close everything was.

Sure, in that shiny golden city, everything was new-- tall, sleek buildings and shiny windows and great big alleys all in between. Here, as Heather mused, biting back a strained noise as she clambered onto a wheelbarrow in one of the narrow, weedy little yards to peer into the dark, dusty windows of a nearby house, everything was closer together. There were more bumps and hand-holds to grab to carry yourself up off the streets with-- it felt older. More familiar. Sort of like Johto itself did, now. Or maybe... maybe that was just her. She was okay with that.

After a few seconds of squinting, Heather nodded, then hung grimly onto the rough stone edge of the sill as she nudged the wheelbarrow out of the way with one foot and dangled before dropping back to solid ground with a sandy scrape and a grunt.

"Okay, no one's home-- c'mon, Cooj, hup!"

It would occur to her, later, that returning him to his ball and just climbing up herself, might have been easier. But as difficult as it was to have a big, wriggly (and wet) animal the size of a young St. Bernard hop into your arms without your legs buckling, for some reason, she couldn't quite bring herself to mind.

"OOF-- starting tomorrow, I'm puttin' you on a diet, fatass-- HEY, you're really not helping, here! Cut it out or I'll find an axe n'give you a makeover to look like the dogs from back home!" The words were threatening, and the tone would have been, too, if she hadn't been desperately (but somewhat unsuccessfully) trying to muffle the involuntary giggles that came with having a big sloppy canine tongue assaulting any part of her face and neck it could reach. A year ago, it would've sent her nerves into a panic-- but, well, we've already covered what can happen in a year's worth of time.

Stumbling over to a rock wall towards the back of the tiny yard, Heather shoved the squirming dog up onto it with some difficulty (as well as a disgusted "BLEAGH" noise as she tried to wipe some of the slobber off of her face with one shoulder), then proceeded to climb up behind him, herself.

Note to self, sandals: not the best climbing footwear ever.

Once she'd hauled herself upright, arms out for balance, she took another look at the skyline, pausing to catch her breath.

"Whew ... okay, we still got time. C'mon, boy."

A wobbly fence, a few broken shingles, and more than one canine backslide later, Heather crouched at their destination, reaching out with one hand to tug Cujo up beside her and sucking on a scraped finger with the other.

"Okay, I gotcha-- waitasec, you're slip-- nah, okay, you got it. Good boy."



Once both Cujo's paws were successfully over the edge, anchoring him there securely, he snorted in a contented manner and went back to panting-- happy as a clam despite the fact that he was a good deal higher off of solid ground than most dogs care to be. Pleased to see that they'd reached their goal in time, Heather dug in her pockets, breaking into a grin.

"Sorta feel bad for not bringing any of the others up here... but I guess it feels kinda right. Just you and me... like it was when we started."

Cujo nudged his big wet nose under her elbow in agreement-- or maybe just because he really wanted to smell it. It was hard to tell with him. He, after all, was one thing that had stayed largely the same over the last twelve months...

... It was Heather who had changed. For all kinds of reasons, really.

One of them being Cujo, himself.

But there were others. So many others. And as Heather fumbled for the 'Gear, looking out at the object of their whole trip upwards through town, she couldn't help but smile as she remembered them... all of them.

Even the ones who were gone, the ones who it hurt to admit she may never see again, the ones who she almost wished for awhile that she hadn't even met, just because it had seemed a little easier that way...

Watching the slow transformation of a stubbornly-unamused frown into that crooked ‘stop it you’re not funny, really, I mean it, go away, I’m not smiling!’ grin every time she bothered Phoenix, or the quiet concern in his eyes and words when she had arrived, bleeding and covered in snow at the door to his room that one December night …

Meeting Cybil Bennett, the woman she'd grown up hearing about her entire life but never able to know in person, the one and only friend her father had ever told her about having...

The quiet but somehow reassuring presence of awkward, sweet-natured James, the first person she’d ever met to have seen the full extent of that town’s terrifying underbelly and survived…

Those memories were bittersweet but just as important, she knew, as all the ones that were still there, still changing everything bit by little bit.

… Otacon’s hugs, the cuddly ones that smelled like his labcoat and always seemed to wind up assisted by the yellow, tingly-furred Asimov… Wrestling matches with Liquid that somehow always seemed to degenerate into tickle-fights (which Heather would inevitably lose, but underneath the indignation, she secretly didn’t mind)… Playfully fending Rise off as the pigtailed pop-idol loomed behind her with a hairbrush and tinfoil … The Professor’s proud, fatherly smile when she solved one of his puzzles, no matter how many picarats she lost in the process… The amusement that lurked under Snake’s grumbliness at all the crazy ideas she shared with him over whatever cheap snack he’d bought her on one of the many side-streets of Goldenrod… The fight to keep a straight face every time Sora popped up unexpectedly with that ridiculous fake beard to challenge her to a battle… The endless number of late-night network calls to Kaito that always seemed to end in them laughing so hard it hurt, no matter what was going on in their lives at the time, light or grim…. Feeling that tight-chested ache of pride whenever she spotted Miles and Ken playing like the children they deserved to be…


Trekking through forests and mountains and endless long-grassed fields until her muscles ached and heels bubbled up with blisters…

That feeling that was equal parts relief and triumph when she stumbled into a new city after days on end of seeing nothing but wilderness…

The rush of exhilaration that coursed through her entire body like blood in her veins during the thick of an intense battle…

Falling sleep under the stars at night, curled up against the one creature she never thought she’d trust, but somehow still feeling safer in his stupid, slobbery presence than she could have ever predicted…

... Getting to hug her father again.




All the friends-- no, family-- she’d made, all the places she’d seen, all the times she’d shared, good and bad, with both...


Her fingers snagged the plastic cover of the PokeGear and she finally yanked it out, aiming it at her target and mumbling to herself...

"This is for you guys."


[VIDEO]


_{[The feed comes on with a jumble at first-- and-- ... is that a hand pressed over the camera?]}

--got it, Cujo, cut it out or I'll chuck you off of here like a volleyball--

AHEM.

Hey, Johto. How you doin'. I'm pretty good, y'know, just chillin'.

But hey, I've kinda gotten to like you, considering you've been here being a pain in our collective butt for a three-hundred-sixty-five days now-- y'know, 'we' being all the people you sort of dumped into yourself without warning-- so I figured... now'd be a good time to show everybody your thank-you gift for puttin' up with you, huh?

Naaaah, there's no need to thank me for spreading your favor around, I'm just being a gosh-darn Good Samaritan here-- assuming everybody else is ready for it, of course.

Say, Cooj, d'you think the rest of the network's ready to accept Johto's thank-you gift?

WUFF!

Y'sure? ... Well, all right.

_{[The hand is lifted.]}



... Y'know, I'm not totally sure this makes up for the kidnapping, but...

_{[The camera wavers a little bit to show Heather's grinning face.]}

S'pretty nice, huh?

Happy anniversary.





_{[The camera turns back to the sunset-- and will likely stay on until the sky goes totally dark. Whereupon, end feed~]}