exploring hoenn

“I’ve never even seen snow,” Brendan said as if he’d read her mind. “Like even Chimney doesn’t get any snow at its peak.”

“Chimney?”

“Big volcano in the mountains up north of Mauville,” he replied. “It’s the highest peak in Hoenn. Something like five thousand plus feet above sea level?” May must’ve made a face because Brendan leaned back slightly. “What? Is that weird?”

“No, no,” May replied, looking down at her half-eaten breakfast. “That’s just… not very high.”

He chuckled. “Well, it might not be very big but it is very cool. There’s a persistent lava lake in the caldera.”

“Is that rare?”

“Very,” he replied. “There are maybe a dozen on the whole planet.”

“Huh,” May said.

“Hey, we could head there once we’re done with Mauville if you want to,” Brendan said, sitting up straighter. Hopeful? “Since you’ve never seen it before. Plus there are a ton of pokémon in that area, so we could totally get some work done too.”

It did sound cool. And it wasn’t like she had any concrete ideas of what to do now that she was out here—but following the lead of someone who knew what he was doing as far as the habitat research went was smart. If she just paid attention, she’d get to the point where she would be confident doing everything herself. That was how that worked. She just had to be sharp.

“Okay,” May said, and Brendan grinned. “I mean, if you’re not tired of me by then.”

“Nah, it’ll be great.” He sounded so sure of that. “Alright, future plans secured. But we do have two weeks out in the wilderness to get through first, so we had best make sure we’re prepped for that.”

Future plans. This time last year something so mundane just wasn’t possible—it took everything she had just to make it through a workday. And now here she was, maybe not plotting the next five years or anything but at least a month or so, which was better than nothing. As Brendan started listing the supplies they’d need to stock up on before they left, May sipped her tea. It tasted like home.