the things that you might like don't grow inside of me

She was never going to get used to that thing.

While the earlier afternoon had been spent effectively maintaining the Magnet Train's support pillars and patrolling the area after encountering the first Aron trying to eat the railway it had done little to change the woman's mixed feelings towards the abomination. Well, in her eyes at least. She would concede that it made a lot of peoples' lives easier, sure, but out here in the wilderness, the place Elinda had spent most of her formative years growing up?

It was an eyesore and an unwelcome intrusion upon Route 32's natural scenery, civilization stepping foot where it had no business being.

Well, regardless. It wasn't like there was anything Elinda could do about it short of releasing the Aron she'd caught earlier and that wasn't going to happen. She had plans for the wee beastie and the sooner she sent it back to Hoenn the sooner she'd be able to get her own Aggron back - as the Pokemon was with disabled family and helping around the house it wasn't like she could just leave them on their own, nevermind the fact that it was her husband the Pokemon was helping. A trade, however, was another matter, and frankly the man needed something to take his mind off of the fact that he'd been dealt a bad hand the last few years.

Again, though, that was a phone call that Elinda wasn't entirely ready to make quite yet. Mental preparation would be needed alongside some careful wording, and with the sun setting that wasn't likely to happen tonight anyways. For now she needed to find or construct some sort of shelter as Route 32's Pokemon Center was too far to find on her own and the route too treacherous to safely travel after nightfall without assistance. Were Aggron or Metagross present it would've been an entirely different story, but that was then and this was now.

If there was any saving grace to the situation, though, it was that Route 32 seemed to have remained untouched aside from the introduction of the Magnet Train's railway. Most everything was where she'd been able to remember so far, and from what Elinda could recall she was actually fairly close to one of the places she used to camp during her last few visits to Johto - a clearing located roughly halfway between Kikyo City and the Pokemon Center just ahead of where the road ended and the cave to Hiwada began.

What Elinda wasn't expecting, however, was the presence of another person.

As the blond made her way towards the clearing the trainer found herself pausing at the presence of light. Not the kind of light one usually saw near civilization, either, as it was a warm orange and flickering as open flames did rather than the cold, steady white or yellow that came of electric lighting. It was enough to intrigue Elinda, though, and for lack of any other place to spend the night she would once more continue forward - her approach only being given away at the snap of a twig beneath her boot, but by that point the older trainer had already reached the edge of the camp. Her blond hair and crimson travel coat illuminated by the fire just as her black pants, shirts and boots seemed to absorb it, Elinda would rather awkwardly pause as the other trainer looked up to the sound lest the Houndour take exception to sudden movement.

".. heya. Room for a third?" Elinda responded, still frozen stiff save for the raising of one arm into an awkward wave of greeting.

---

Mudkip - Level 7. Torrent. Whirlpool, Water Gun, Protect, Bide.

Aron - Level 7. Sturdy. Headbutt, Harden, Tackle, Mud-Slap.