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It was just his luck that the region he had left Orre for, mind trained on the possibility of a landscape not covered in waste and filled with trainers whose first thought wasn't generally to rob a person blind, was perhaps the only other region on Pokéarth who suffered these very problems almost as badly as his home. Desert sand traded in for rubble and debri – starving crooks traded for... well, also starving crooks, he supposed. The only added benefit was that the sun wasn't absolutely sweltering in the sky above their heads, but the trade off for that was having nowhere to go. Three whole cities remained standing tall, and travel between them wasn't impossible, but nothing beyond them and the haphazardly created routes around them was traversable by anyone who lacked a death wish. There were always rumors, of course, of people disappearing beyond the lines of destruction, off to see if more had survived only to vanish like smoke in the air and never return to give their findings. Personally, he hadn't given any credence to the thought that travel beyond was impossible until he'd crawled past that line himself, stared into the abyss, and crawled back – not a coward, but a sensible human being who knew his limits, and correctly assumed that that was beyond them. At least back home, even if there was nothing to see, there was always some place to be: hour-long bike rides across burning white sand, any crumbled shadow of civilization in mind for a destination. The trainer didn't miss it, per say, but when his current “home” drew so many similarities all while falling short in each one, it would be difficult to not feel even a touch of nostalgia.[break][break]

Take the Springs, for example. Fresh water, something still dug deep into him to be a rarity despite its proximity to the underwater city of Irisia: a treasure tucked away in the woods. Irisia was almost wasteful in its use of water, using it almost exclusively to flaunt its technical prowess, to boast how even the apocalypse could not tear it down from its position as the “greatest city in the region” or whatever it was they tried to preach. The Springs, though, the Springs reminded him more of Agate, all quiet and humble and green and hidden away where the taint of the surrounding region could not affect it. The number of Volbeat and Illumise was unnerving as ever when he arrived for what must have been his third, perhaps fourth visit over his stay in Lyeant (another instinct ingrained in him; Pokemon not his own meant another trainer, and another trainer meant angry, bloody battle; no matter how many wild Pokemon he saw here, he wasn't sure he'd ever grow accustomed to them), but by now, he'd learned that they kept their distance, and so long as he didn't strike first as he'd done that first time around, they were likely to leave him to his devices.[break][break]

“What a mess,” Wes grunted, dropping his pack to the forest floor and slumping down against the nearest tree. It didn't take long for Or and Than to settle down themselves at the sight of their 'relaxing' trainer – if relaxing even qualified here. Another job had carried the three all over Irisia and back likely a dozen times, and while the exhaustion weighing down on him would have preferred a bed in a hotel rather than the trek into the woods, he'd also had had it with social interaction for the night, enough that the proceedings of trying to secure a room, and that was assuming they found one first try weren't worth the effort by any stretch of the imagination. Not that this was the first time he'd slept in the middle of Arceus-knew-where. If anything, he was more used to this than a bed. A calloused hand ran itself over the head of his Umbreon, soothing, as his Espeon stared into the shadows beyond the clearing, gaze strangely intent for a creature with nothing to look at. Still, if it deemed there was anything worth warning him about, it wouldn't have kept solely to watching; unbothered, then, he let his eyes slip shut and begged sleep to take him quickly.

[attr="class","desertriverbotimg"]FOR SCHEHERAZADE CROWE

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