After a brief stop-over at the Valley Windworks, Claire and I were soon back on our path north, towards the Eterna Forest. East of us, the slopes leading up the Coronal Mountains turned steep, cliffs and rugged terrain making the climb a perilous prospect. Only after crossing through a good part of the Eterna Forest, we’d come to a path through the mountains. It was right next to a river flowing out of the mountains, following its bank as it led up to Eterna City.

Compared to the path between Floaroma City and the Windworks, the path further north was a lot less maintained, at times even broken up. Grass was trying to grow from the trampled dirt and at times, Claire and I had to carefully climb over fallen branches and even a tree or two. Nothing that truly blocked the path only made it more difficult.

With the lower usage of the path came an increase of Pokémon that lived nearby and tried attacking us, giving Nuts and Su some training. They were, still, nothing to write home about in terms of strength, but strong enough to challenge our recently caught partners.

For Su, the almost ubiquitous Starly became excellent chew toys and he became really good at striking them from the ground with a well-placed thundershock before pouncing and finishing them off once they were grounded.

Nuts, on the other hand, was slowly getting better at controlling his Rollout, bringing pain to a few Bidoof and even some Parchirisu, the small, electric squirrels popping up from time to time, trying to contest our path forward.

For Claire, the first reaction to seeing one of them was an excited squeal and she instantly had dreams of a fluffy partner for herself. Maybe it was due to Su’s continued rejection of her advances, he remained stoic and as surly as his name suggested, but the white-furred Parchirisu captured Claire’s heart.

Sadly, while they managed to capture her heart, she had failed multiple times to capture one of them, going through half of her Pokéball-supply in two days, not even bothering to check their innate attributes. Sadly, all she had to show for her effort was accumulated frustration and a grumpy mood, to the point that I helped her to pet Su, putting him onto my lap and keeping him occupied. I didn’t quite hold him down, but the affronted look he gave me throughout was a clear display of his displeasure. Regardless, he had learned to respect me, partially due to Charm and his overwhelming strength but also due to the results of our training. Su was getting stronger at a good pace, the ability to rest in a Pokéball and have protection in times of weakness was incredibly useful.

Two days after we left the Windworks, we decided to make our way up some of the slopes to our east, taking an hour to climb, until we found a good view. It had taken some effort, but we were atop a reasonably high ridge, looking down on Eterna Forest, or at least the South-Eastern part of it. The forest itself was far too large to be seen entirely, at least from the altitude we had reached. It was an endless ocean of bright green, the new leaves recently sprouted and full of life.

It was interesting just how obvious the contrast was, making me wonder if there was a reason for it. It was almost as if there was a line, on one side was the bright green ocean of Eterna Forest, on the other side were the smaller, lesser, trees that were dotting the Heathland around Floaroma and had continuously increased in number as we travelled north, though never to the amount we could see below. The trees of Eterna Forest truly stood out, almost as if they were something more than just trees.

“It looks glorious,” I muttered, looking down onto the trees.

“A little scary though.” Claire amitted, standing next to me. “As if you will drown if you venture into the depths.”

“We shall see.” I grinned, before looking up to the sky, trying to gauge how much sunlight we had left. “Want to stay up here and make camp, or start into the forest?”

“Let’s stay up here.” Claire quickly responded, almost as if she was afraid of the forest. It was a little weird, with her affinity for Grass-types, I would have thought that she would be at home in the forest, but maybe not.

“It’s going to be alright,” I promised her, reaching up and patting her head, briefly giving a glance to the flower crown she was still wearing. Despite being four days old, it looked as fresh as when she had made it, the red flower giving it a splendid lustre.

At my encouragement, Claire gave me a slightly brittle smile, before nodding. “Hopefully.”

From our higher position, it was quite fascinating to watch Eterna Forest, the slowly swaying trees, moved by unseen winds, countless flying beings, some of them Pokémon, others simple animals, moving above the canopy, delving into the slowly rolling waves below, sometimes reemerging, sometimes not.

After watching for a bit, I decided that we likely wouldn’t be under serious attack, so I could train Charm a little. I had tried training him while we walked, similar to the way I had begun to train Vio, but just like her, he had trouble focusing while walking. Sadly unlike Vio, there was no way for me to carry him for an extended amount of time, even picking him up was difficult.

“Charm, remember the feeling of biting down with your fire? I don’t think you’ll manage to easily start spitting it, but maybe, if we use the Dragon Breath as a basis, you might be able to. Why don’t we try to push those primal flames back into actual fire?” I suggested, picking a few rocks up to throw. That way, Charm would have something to actually attack, not only shooting his breaths into the air.

With Claire watching, I kept tossing rocks into the air, watching as Charm was slowly changing the nature of his Dragon Breath. After a few attempts, I spoke again.

“Maybe if you first start the process similar to the Fire Fang, before spitting your Dragon Breath? That might work.” I suggested, giving him a bit to consider my idea.

Once he began to gather fire in his mouth, I threw another rock, watching as it sailed through the air. Charm tried to spit his Dragon Breath, but it looked almost as if the fire he had gathered beforehand went down the wrong pipe when he inhaled, leading to a sputtering, coughing fit, only instead of spittle, fire, sparks and ember were scattering as he tried to get his breathing back under control.

It looked adorable, especially when he started sneezing as well, desperately trying to control his body but unable to.

Standing up, I ignored the heat and flames around him, moving up to his body and hugging him in my arms, giving him something to hold onto as his body was convulsing. His claws were digging into my arms, and the heat was making me sweat but with my help, he managed to get a breath in, before letting out another sputtering cough, as I gently hit his back, trying to time my hits with his breathing, so I would push just as he was breathing out. The effect was rather impressive, a gout of flame, unfocused and almost akin to an explosion burst from his mouth, almost singing the ends of my hair but once it was out, he could breathe calmly again.

“Well, you managed to breathe fire.” I giggled, continuing to hug him, as his hold on me loosened a little.

“Are you alright?” Claire asked, sounding a little scared. Looking around, I quickly realised why. Some of the vegetation around us had caught fire and looking down, I realised that parts of my skin were smudged with ash, others were starting to turn red. There were even some bleeding scratches from Charm’s claws. Painful, but at the end of the day, he had been unable to control himself during his fit.

“Can you help put out the fire?” I asked Claire, quickly starting to throw sand on some of the burning branches, and stomping out the leaves to the best of my ability.

Charm quickly joined in, as did Claire, making sure that no embers or burning sparks remained to cause trouble down the road.

“Promise me, don’t play with fire near anything flammable,” Claire asked, sounding almost desperate.

“We’ll pay attention.” I grinned, wiping off the blood that had oozed from the scratches on my arm. Prince Charming must have noticed them and nuzzled up to me, his almost sandpaper-like, hot tongue gently lapping at my wounds, as if trying to apologize.

“It’s alright, Charm. I know you didn’t mean to hurt me and I’ll be fine, I promise.” I gently assured him, using my other arm to hug him.

“Now, let’s try to focus your Dragon Breath again. No playing with fire, just pushing the focus and power of the Dragon Breath to another level.” I gently ordered him, after a few minutes of cuddling.

He didn’t look too happy but he followed my command, obediently spitting out Dragon Breaths at stones I lobbed in the air. After three nice Dragon Breaths, I called an end to it, making sure that I greatly complimented and encouraged Charm. Like that, the evening’s training ended on a positive note, not with him accidentally injuring me, setting a fire and failing to achieve the move I wanted him to.

In the morning, we’d make our way into Eterna Forest.