Eleyna got in the tent, quite thankful for it, and the sleeping accommodations. She was somewhat shy to the idea of sleeping in the tent with Naomi, but she wasn't about to complain. She had left her boots outside, giving herself a though brushing off to make sure she didn't drag in any sand. She slipped into the sleeping bag, a bit uncomfortable in her clothes. She was silently relieved when Naomi disrobed in her sleeping bag, and Eleyna took the que and did so as well. She breathed a great sigh of relief for the comfort provided. Naomi, already slipping off to sleep mumbled some, ending with a wish to sleep well.<br/><br/><span style="color: blue">Thanks. You too.</span>She replied quietly.<br/><br/>But sleep didn't come. After a dozen minutes of waiting for her exhaustion to take her into a dream, she surrendered to her insomnia and quietly fished her Pokedex from her bag. She unclipped the ear phones from the case, dragging them with their cord out and placing them in her ears. She tugged the sleeping bag over her as she lay there to make sure the bright screen didn't disturb Naomi's rest.<br/><br/>She flipped through pages of data until she found the recorded video archive. There were only a dozen in all. Some from her Mother's days training, but most were downloaded from the League Net. She opened one file, marked 10 years old. The screen showed a spinning Pokeball as it loaded. She held the Pokedex close, as the video began. The music riffed, an exciting beat, and a sound that all trainers knew, and one that made her body tingle with anticipation.<br/><br/>The Pokemon League Theme. Images flew past, the Elite Four, a highlight reel of the season. It went to a sky camera looking down at the Pokemon Stadium on Indigo Plateau.<br/><br/>"Welcome to the Indigo League finals!"<br/><br/>"Last match of the season at that, and what a road it has been."<br/><br/>"That is the understatement of the decade!"<br/><br/>The announcers laughed.<br/><br/>"We have a challenger for the Championship, an actual challenger!"<br/><br/>"And who would have seen this coming? I mean no one!"<br/><br/>"No one at all. A kid from a small town here in Kanto has climbed the ladder this season - and I mean the entire thing - just this year."<br/><br/>"And he's what? 10, 11?"<br/><br/>"Honestly, I think he may have some kind of growth disorder, because there is no way a kid this young is this good."<br/><br/>They laugh.<br/><br/>Eleyna watched the highlight reel from the season as the casters spoke over it, laying it all out. The three matches preceding, and now, it was there - the young challenger was taking on Lance, Champion of the League. Eleyna had been young when it had happened, but she could remember the fervor like it was yesterday. The streets were empty, every television and PC switched on to watch the boy wonder, the miracle trainer. It was the single most viewed match in the history of the League.<br/><br/>And it didn't disappoint. Eleyna chewed on her thumbnail, grinning like a little girl. It never ceased to astonish her watching him battle, watching the coordination between his Pokemon, the willpower. They never gave a closeup on the young trainer though, never said his name. He was simply the Challenger on the Red side of the field, wearing that hat of his, the fashion statement that hit the league like wildfire afterwards. Every young trainer and kid in the world simply had to have a red hat just like that one. Of course, only his had the eight genuine badges on it.<br/><br/>The more she watched it, though, the more a feeling sank into her. Her smile disappeared. The casters for the battle kept expressing the importance of a Pokemon's bond with their trainer. It was an absolute. Look at the challenger, they said, have you ever seen Pokemon so in tune wi-<br/><br/>Eleyna closed the Pokedex.<br/><br/>She lay in her sleeping bag for a long while. She had spent so much time wanting to be a trainer, every moment imagining it. But reality wasn't a fairy tale. It was facing hard truths. It was the lesson every trainer had to learn for themselves. Eleyna slid out of her sleeping bag as quietly as she could, unzipping the tent and peering out. Everyone was asleep, and the camp fire was barely a cinder now. The moon hung in the sky, full.<br/><br/>Eleyna, naked, pulled the battered Pokeball from her bag and held it. It was so much of what she wanted. Something of her mother's, a connection, a legacy. But the truth was, it wasn't Eleyna's. And she wasn't her mother, and never would be. She was Eleyna, for all the potential and failure that meant. And it was time she stopped pretending to be someone else, clutching onto a hopeless dream.<br/><br/>Eleyna left the camp, walking slowly into the field with nothing but that one Pokeball. She found a clearing of short grass and held out her arm, trembling. She took a deep breathe and opened the Pokeball. There he was, like all the times before. Unchanged. A hard truth wrapped up in a little girl's dream.<br/><br/>Eleyna looked at the Growlithe, then tossed his Pokeball away. No pleasantry was left, no moments pause. He turned and ran vanishing like a memory into the dark. Eleyna clenched her jaw and closed her eyes, trying to fight away the tears that welled in her eyes, but her breathing wavered no matter her effort. She kneeled down and cried silently into her hands.<br/><br/><br/><br/><br/>***<br/><br/>Pokemon Health Recovered! Be wary, Yugen somehow feels far less forgiving!<br/><br/>***<br/><br/><br/><br/><br/>Morning came with a cool breeze from the lake, ruffling the long stalks of grass. Eleyna wasn't compelled to wake early, to get out of that nice warm sleeping bag on that night inflated mattress. The campfire had finally been snuffed out, little more than a lazy trail of smoke now rising from the black ashes.<br/><br/>A Krabby rifled through Steven's things, having come upon the sleeping group and detected something edible among the trainer's things.<br/><br/>Far to the south, the herd of Blitzle and Zebstrika stood at the lake's edge, quenching their thirst. When Eleyna finally dragged herself from the tent, she sat down in the sand, drowsy and all a mess. Her repugnant black mane had gone wild in the night, curling and sticking out in every which way but a presentable one. She rubbed her eyes and yawned, looking about the camp for what everyone else was up to.<div class="messageTextEndMarker"> </div>