Chapter Text
Twinleaf Town
Nanami Chiaki meets Usami on the outskirts of Twinleaf, where it’s not exactly route 201, and not exactly deep in the city.
Usami is, of course, her Cleffa. She’s not entirely sure how she got there. Cleffa are rare kind of pokemon, found closer to Mt. Coronet, closer inland to Sinnoh. Or so she’s been told. But she kind of, accidentally steps on her tail. Doesn’t notice her sitting there, crying, until she trips.
(The fact that she trips is, of course, in large part to the fact that she’s particularly engaged in her game of The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks . But that is neither here or there)
“Oh,” She tells the cleffa, momentarily looking up from her game, “Sorry.”
And she almost walks away like that. Is coming home from school, has her mind somewhere else entirely.
But when she looks back (entirely on impulse), and the cleffa is following her. Big eyed and expectant.
And it snows a lot in Twinleaf. Not nearly as much as it does to the north, granted. But enough that snow piles around them most of the year, and that she knows it’s going to get particularly cold that night. And pokemon all have a particular knack for survival, so she’s been told. But the cleffa looks scared and alone, and she’s 11 and alone, and so she tells her;
“You can come home with me, I guess.”
...
It lets out a sound so distinct even she can figure out it’s relief.
Route 201
She lives in a small house with a father thats never really around, and a mother that she’s never been told is dead but is probably dead. But thats okay, because she knows how to cook and clean, and spends her time mostly playing video games, and when it snows too much she can make herself hot chocolate and no one tells her it’s too much hot chocolate, even if she gives herself stomach aches because of this.
( Sometimes the old lady next door gives her home cooked meals that are far more complicated than what she can cook, and she knows the family down the street has their Staraptor purposefully perched itself outside when she’s playing in the snow. When she introduces Usami to the middle age woman that smells a little too strongly of incense and spices, she begins to find pokemon food and poffins boxed up for her periodically on her step. She doesn’t think it’s poisoned, because it smells exactly like the spices the woman does.)
Having Usami around is nice, because Usami doesn’t mind being touched too much and sometimes she helps with games by pointing at things on screen, and now she doesn’t have to use the school's pokemon to battle because she has her own.
Sometimes her and Usami go out onto route 201 to fight the various starley and bidoof that live there. Sometimes she’ll slip on the ice, but she also knows how to patch up her own cut knee’s and Usami knows heal pulse (though she’s been told thats rare) and they’re very good at staying out of too much trouble.
(Othertimes they’ll go up to the lake, because the water always seems a little too clear, and the tree’s a little too silent, and it’s absolutely mystifying. She’ll sit and play her game for hours on end, coming when the sun is high in the sky, and leaving when the stars are reflecting on the surface like it’s a giant mirror. Usami always holds her hand when she’s walking back home, because the dark has always been just a little bit scary alone.)
She’s 13 years old and she doesn’t have a lot of friends, but also doesn’t have a lot of places to be.
Sandgem Town
Sandgem Town is the closest town to her own. Close enough to be a day trip, but far enough to be inconvenient to go everyday. The store clerks always know her by name, despite the fact that quite a few seem to change every few months, and Sometimes they “accidentally” throw in free pokeballs with the rest of her purchase, and sometimes she accidentally finds the pokedoll she and Usami had been marvelling at but could never really afford.
She’s 14, when she gets denied a lab position there. It’s not that she’s not smart enough for the job. But she falls asleep twice while doing field work, and doesn’t pay enough attention to her surroundings to avoid trouble. Or so they say.
So she spends the rest of the summer going to the beach and sticking her feet in the water and building little sand castles, and sometimes she never really manages to get all the sand off of her before she gets home, and sometimes the water is a little too cold to actually swim in. But they have fun there, despite this.
She also officially gets her trainers licence there at 15, even if she doesn’t immediately do anything with it. Usami is still her only pokemon, but she evolves into a Clefairy that summer, meaning she’s much stronger then she was before.
Route 202
She starts venturing further out when she’s 16, because her world is still small, and she has nothing better to do, and she’s been getting kind of loney with just Usami around. And it’s not that she does not love Usami, because she does. But she’s thinking having another one might be good for her.
She meets Enoshima Junko out there. A pretty woman, with bright blue eyes that she thinks might be contacts, and long blonde hair thrown up in pigtails. She’s wearing heeled boots, despite the fact that she’s obviously a traveler, and has a haunter that tries to attack Monomi without her permission.
“Oh come on,” Enoshima says, a whine, “You know what they say. When trainers eyes meet, you have to battle!”
“I’m not a trainer,” Nanami tells her, and it’s only kind of a lie. She’s kind of fought people in the past before, kind of knows how to battle. But she does not respect Enoshima, exactly, and she looks like the kind of person that plays dirty.
“Good god,” Enoshima says, in the tone of someone acting far more powerful then they are, “The people around here are so boring. We should have gone east instead. Right Monokuma?”
The haunter sticks his tongue out at her, and she’s not nearly as insulted as she thinks she should be.
She doesn’t end up finding a pokemon that day. But she does end up deciding to travel, because if people like Enoshima can do it, then she thinks that maybe she can too. Maybe not right away.
But she will one day.