Sunrise

The glittering dew drops on the farm grass felt refreshing against Melrose’s bare feet. Happy Apple Farm’s homely aroma, mixed with the morning sun on the Pikachu’s fur, brought her an innate sense of peace. She stretched out her body, touching her toes, saluting the sun, et cetera, before taking a deep breath. Now, she was fully ready to conquer her chores!

“Shoulda been up sooner,” an aged Tropius called down to his daughter, who jumped at the sudden sound of his voice. Gaius was chuckling at his daughter’s surprise, and gave an aged smile when she looked up at him. “The sunrise was gorgeous.”

“Sorry, Papa! You know I have a hard time waking up before the sun does.” Melrose returned her father’s laughing with her own giggles, then placed her hands on her hips while tilting her chin up. “At least I’m up before those lazy boys!”

“Hey, we’re as awake as you are, Mel…” a tired voice called from the front door of the farm house. An Aipom was rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, followed by a Mudsdale whose yawn was almost bigger than Melrose’s head. “I dunno how you can be so chipper after hardly sleeping a wink.” He looked up at Gaius, giving him an exhausted look. “I swear she was up all night .”

The Pikachu’s cheeks sparked with a small burst of electricity. “I’ve just been so excited about receiving my acceptance letter, it’s makin’ me restless!” Melrose kept her hands on her hips as she turned towards the Aipom. “Once I get to go to school, I won’t have to deal with your intolerable gripin’ all the darn time.”

The Aipom groaned quietly, “and I won’t have to deal with your–” He suddenly became silent, reserving his counterattack teases due to Gaius’s intensive stare. The Aipom cleared his throat loudly. “We should just get to work before it gets too hot outside.”

“I hear ya, Nate.” Gaius waved towards the orchard with his leafy wing. “Y’all better start harvestin’.” The Tropius stretched out his legs, wincing as he pushed his body a little too hard. “I’ll go and see if Chile is awake.”

Melrose watched for a moment as Gaius started to walk back to the farm house, frowning when a few of his steps looked pained. There was a guilt she couldn’t quite bury down; if she was accepted into R.E.D. Academy, she would be leaving her papa with less hands on the farm. Gaius insisted that she seek her own path, but what if something bad happened while she was gone?

“C’mon Mel,” Nate nudged the Pikachu with his tail. “Race ya to the orchard!” The Aipom laughed mischievously as he took his fellow farmhand off guard with the challenge. He was already well into scurrying away when Melrose started to chase after him. The Mudsdale followed slowly behind, making sure neither of them got hurt.

Melrose was easily able to rush ahead, darting into the orchard and slamming her paw on the first apple tree along the path. “Haha! Beat ya!”

Nate frowned hard, “Using Quick Attack is no fair!”

“It’s perfectly fair! ‘Sides, you started the race before me! I was just making it even.” Melrose’s cheeks sparked as she crossed her arms. “Just wait ‘till I learn Agility, then you’ll be an even poorer sport when I kick your butt!”

“Hey! Aipoms learn Agility too!” Nate thought for a second. “I’m… pretty sure, anyway. I remember my mama saying all sorts of things about what moves I can learn as I grow, but I always kinda tuned her out.”

“Of course you did. You don’t listen to anybody.” Melrose stuck her tongue out at Nate, who, of course, returned the gesture.

The Mudsdale approached the both of them, pulling a large cart that was attached to him from behind. The mechanism was similar to a saddle, but was made so that quadrupedal Pokémon could get them on without aid. “Aight, that’s enough, you two. Start picking.”

“Yes sir, Koa sir.” Melrose grabbed one of the baskets from the cart and held the handle in her mouth as she climbed one of the farm’s many large apple trees. Nate followed suit, using his tail to hold the basket as he picked the delicate fruit.

Melrose found it was easy to get work done when she let her mind wonder. Her body ran on autopilot: pick apples, fill basket, dump basket in cart, repeat. She imagined going to school, and pondered what her fellow students might be like. Melrose had only ever been to the capital once or twice– maybe more, but she would have been much too little to remember. The Pokémon she met on those trips were nice enough, so surely it was a fine place to live. Happy Apple Farm was all she ever knew, but there was this itch to go out into the world she could no longer repress.

Nate dumped the remaining apples from his tree into the cart before collapsing to the ground. “Ain’t it supposed to be Autumn soon? Why’s it still so damn hot?”

“Language.” Koa huffed. “It’s hardly been an hour, Nate. Get it together. We have to at least fill this one cart.”

“Ugh… I can’t go on, Koa. I need a break.”

The Mudsdale was about to shut him down, but Melrose joined her fellow farmhands on the ground after just finishing up her own tree. “Actually, I could really go for a break too. Please, Koa? Just a short one?”

Koa huffed and turned his head to the side— he had a hard time telling Melrose no. The horse Pokémon’s ears flattened against his head, “Rosie, how ‘bout you go get some Oran Berries from the house for us to share.” The Pikachu’s tail swished back and forth happily as she started to run back towards the house. Koa called after her. “But then it’s back to work, ya hear?”

Melrose gave the Mudsdale a short thumbs up before hightailing it to the farm house. She navigated the country furniture scattered about the living room and leapt into the kitchen to search the pantry for Oran Berries. The dry storage held plenty of food, but Melrose struggled to locate any berries. “Shoot, we ain’t out, are we? Didn’t Koa and Pops just go to the market?” She sniffed around the whole kitchen. The berries had to be somewhere.

“Good morning, Melrose.” A stout Lotad entered, blinking slowly as he watched the Pikachu tear the kitchen apart searching for her blue prizes. He almost failed to dodge a flying oven mitt while watching his friend dig through cabinets. “You seem… mildly stressed. Can I help you?”

Melrose lifted her head up, only just now noticing the Lotad. “Ah, mornin’ Chile. Where are the Oran Berries? We bought more of them, didn’t we?”

“I thought so?” Chile scratched his chin with one of his nubby hands. “Didn’t they get put in that new-fangled ice box?”

Melrose’s ears perked up. “Oh! Yeah, that’s right! Thank you–” Melrose hustled over to a small room situated by the kitchen, where they kept the very few Capital inventions they could afford. Those big-heads were always able to find some way to make things more convenient with magical doohickeys, and Melrose wasn’t exactly used to them having the ice infused storage box in their home. She opened it up and, sure enough, there were all the sweet, sweet Oran Berries! Too preoccupied with having finally found her treasure, she didn’t notice that Chile had finally waddled in from behind.

“Pass me one, will ya? I haven’t had breakfast yet. Gaius just woke me up.” Chile’s stomach growled, as if on cue, and the Lotad blushed faintly.

The Pikachu’s ears perked up once more when she heard her friend’s voice. “Well, then you need something more filling. An Oran Berry won’t do ya any good.” Melrose closed the ice box. “I saw some bread while searching the dry storage. Do you want me to getcha a slice or two and spread some jam on top?”

Chile smiled and nodded his head. “That sounds lovely, but you don’t have to do that for me.”

“Nonsense!” Melrose skipped over her Lotad friend’s body and leaped back into the kitchen. She returned to where she remembered the bread being, pulling apart two slices before setting them down at the table. She called loudly towards Chile. “What jam ya want? Pecha? Rawst?”

“We got Razz still?” Chile waddled his way back into the kitchen. “Razz Berry is my favorite.”

“Let me see…” Melrose looked at the various jars of preserves they had gathered from the farmer’s market, smiling when she spotted the dark pink jam. She unscrewed the lid to give it a good sniff, “sure enough, we got Razz Berry!” The Pikachu returned to the bread, giving it a good slather of jelly on each slice. “Tah-dah!”

Chile giggled to himself as he hopped up on one of the chairs. Furnishings were built to be generally functional for as many Pokémon as possible, but, unfortunately for Chile, the Lotad’s body type was mildly uncommon. “Thanks, Mel. You’re the best.” He started to eat his breakfast, crumbs and fruit spread already getting on his beak. “I appreciate it a lot, but… weren’t you doing something?”

Melrose blinked a few times before jumping up suddenly. “Shucks! The Oran Berries! Ah, man, Koa’s gonna kick me across the country!” She quickly grabbed the three berries before scrambling out towards the front door. “I’ll see you later, Chile!”

Nate was begrudgingly returned to his apple picking tree by the time Melrose got back. “What the hell took you so long?”

“Language.”

“I’m sorry! I got distracted…” Melrose set the berries hurriedly on the ground.

“How hard is it to just go and get some food? And you wanna be an explorer?” Nate laughed cruelly as he hopped down from the branches. His arms were crossed, so he used his tail to pick up a berry. “Don’t explorers need functioning attention spans?”

Melrose’s face flushed over from embarrassment, and electricity sparked around her whole body. “When I go to school, you’ll see! I’ll be the best explorer around!”

“You mean if you go to school.” Nate growled. “You keep acting like you’ve been accepted, but you haven’t. You probably ain’t even gonna get into that fancy-pantsy school.”

“Nathaniel! You cut that out.” Koa glared down at the little Aipom.

“It’s true though, and you can’t tell me it ain’t!” Nate shoved his face closer to the Mudsdale. “All them capital Pokémon and rich kids are guaranteed spots, so why’d they ever bring in some nobody farm girl?” Nate took a big chomp out of the Oran Berry, as if that strengthened his point. The Aipom relished in his harsh comment for only a moment, snapping out of his bullying mindset only when Melrose started to cry. “Ah– ah, Mel, come on… Don’t cry, I was just being realistic–”

“I’ll prove it!” Melrose cut the Aipom off with her sudden outburst. “I’ll prove it’s what I’m supposed to do!” The upset Pikachu suddenly ran deeper into the trees, tears streaming down her face.

I’ll show Nate! I’ll show everybody! I’m more than just a farmhand– and I deserve to go to that school just as much as those blue-bloods sittin’ pretty in the capital!

In the blink of an eye, Melrose was out of sight.

Koa shoved Nate with his hoof, being careful with his power– but still giving him a strong push. “Look at what you’ve done! You’ve gone and hurt Rosie’s feelings, and now she’s run off who knows where with that Pikachu speed of hers!” Koa silenced whatever excuse Nate was about to make immediately with a simple raise of his hoof. “Go chase after her and apologize!”

Nate didn’t say another word, fearing what the large horse Pokémon would do to him if he objected. The Aipom ran on his fours to catch up to Melrose, and Koa watched for a moment or two before ducking out of the contraption that kept him connected to the cart.

He needed to go get Gaius. It irked him that the harvest was going to be set back, but he had a pretty good feeling he knew where Melrose was headed. The only thing out that direction was Nightshade Grove, and they’d need all the help that they could get if she decided to take on the Mystery Dungeon.