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It happens, albeit rarely. Sometimes people make up things they need help with, or outlaws are all rounded up for the week, but other than that, once a month there’s just...nothing on the boards.
The last mission had been escorting a Butterfree and her progeny across a canyon, and Team Ebony had taken that one last night and were aiming to be back today by dinner.
”Huh,” Michael said idly, tilting his head as Charmy groaned, sliding down his body and flopping to the ground. ”Not a thing to do. Isn’t that nice.”
“NOOOOO,” Charmy whined, flailing his arms wildly as Bidoof ambled over, checking their board after seeing nothing on the Outlaw one. “THIS IS SO BOOOORING, I hate it hate it hate it-!!”
“Golly, nothing here either, fellas?” Michael shrugged at him as Bidoof shook his head, both of them ignoring Charmy’s whining. “Ain’t nothin’ for it. Time fer ol’ Bidoof to go carving!”
”Go what now.” “You carve?” Charmy perked up, as if he hadn’t just spent the past two minutes behaving like a hatchling, clambering up Michael’s arm with a cackle.
Bidoof puffed up, looking mighty proud of himself. “Sure do! Why, it’s my favorite thing! Besides helping others out, I mean. Bidoofs are a naturals at carvin’! I use me teeth.”
Michael prodded at his head curiously as if thinking of how that’d work while Charmy nodded. “Yeah, Hoopas can be known for jewelry making. I like it, but we just haven’t slowed down, you know?”
Michael, after idling the thought around of how he’d chew on a tree branch, lowered his hand, staring back at the two of them as they stared at him. ”What?” “Well, what do, uh...Xu...tree? Do?” Bidoof asked while Charmy shook his head.
“Michael was human once, remember!! So what do humans do?!”
”Uh.” Well. That was a great question. Thing was, he still had no clue of his past, so how could he answer that if he didn’t even know what he liked? ”I don’t...really know. I liked...sleeping.”
“Dude. I worry about you.”
“Well shucks, that just means ya need ta find somethin’ ya like, right? C’mon!” Bidoof hopped to the ladder as Michael took the brunt of Charmy swatting him, thumping him back as they followed.
...so it turned out that the Guild had a whole ‘hobby club’. Loudred was busy tuning a guitar and loudly singing lyrics that sounded akin to something one might turn the volume up to 200 on, Bidoof was showing Charmy how to carve while Charmy helped him figure out how to make a bracelet, and Sunflora...
...she pushed a bundle of flowers in the middle of their group, and helped Michael learn how to make a flower crown.
“You twist this...yes! Oh my gosh! And then...yeah! You got it!”
The flower stems dipped and twisted, the red roses and honey-golden flowers twisting and entwining with one another, a blue flower or a green one added in as a splash. Michael watched his pressed wired fingers twist them in and out and in and out and in and out...
”Hey.”
Charmy looked up with a grin, sputtering as a giant flower crown was plunked on his head. He sputtered, flailing as Bidoof laughed, the flowers adjusting up so he could see. “What’s the big idea?!”
”You need more color in your life.”
“Says the walking black and white photograph!”
But the Hoopa was grinning, even as the crown sat lopsided on his head. Michael had several crowns with one being placed on by Marill and Azurill who had come to visit, each point of the head dangling a new circle of flowers as he sat cross-legged on the ground, his tail swaying behind him like a pleased Skitty.
Even Wigglytuff had popped by and had yet to leave with a crown of daisies, gushing over how friendly everyone was and how they were getting along.
Sunflora reached up, putting another crown on Michael’s head with a grin. “So cool! Do you remember ever doing something funnerific like this, Mikey?”
Michael stared at her, thinking-
it’s dark, the only light a fire crackling, and a woman’s gentle voice as she presses a dying flower into his tiny, chubby hand. ‘This is a ---------‘ she said, her words meshing in the ethereal way that memories you could no longer recall easily had. ‘It means ---------. Do you like it?’
The flower was brown and crinkled between his fingers.
It was the most colorful thing he’d ever seen.
-he plucked a rose from the pile, twisting the stem to loop around Sunflora’s leaf arm, shaking his head. ”No. This is the most fun I’ve ever had, Sunflora. Thank you.”
(When things are bad, he rips flowers from the ground and smashes them into crowns, and thinks of the anger bristling in his chest.
When a mission takes too long, he entwines small blue flowers around Charmy’s horns, and thinks of home.
When things go topsy-turvy, when it’s him and Charmy literally against the world, he stares across the fire at the sleeping grass Pokémon and thinks of all the flowers that would look nice on his head.
He wonders if the him that Grovyle knew would ever do something like that.
It only lasts a minute, and then his fingers work at twisting small wishing flowers together, and he thinks that Grovyle might like the Guild...might even think of it as...
Home.)