Everything went smoothly as I wrapped up sorting the berries, while Mable laid out the kibble for other Pokemon with habitual ease. I hadn't considered it before now, but it had to be a lot of work keeping a large number of Pokémon healthy and taken care of all by herself. Why didn't she have any more helpers? It didn't seem like she minded the work and had it in hand, but she couldn't so much as take a day off if she was the only one keeping this place running. It was probably an issue of money. It sure didn't seem like Mable was selling the Pokémon for profit, like a breeder. Though, the Butterfree were taken away, so maybe they had been sold now that they couldn't stay? The only training that went on was when Pokémon decided to play around with each other, so it wasn't like this was a training daycare. If anything, the kids coming around to visit and interact with the place was the only real practical purpose the pasture served, from a strictly business standpoint.

No wonder Pansage had wanted to go out of their way to warn me about anything risky when the kids were present. If the pasture was being supplied through some sort of deal with the trainer school, one bad incident could bring this little slice of heaven tumbling to pieces. I hadn't considered it until now, but even if berries and food weren't exactly expensive, the amount that we went through each day had to add up to a significant cost. It also made me feel just a little bit guilty about how openly they had accepted me in and added me to the Pokémon being taken care of. One more Ditto couldn't be that much of a difference, but I wondered how many Pokémon here had wound up being brought in under similar circumstances. How many didn't have a place to go and had been taken in?

I felt like I wanted to try and contribute to the pasture more, but I didn't know what I could do aside from the little help I was already giving. Once I felt more confident about battling, I could try and participate in challenges for money, perhaps? Though, I would still need a trainer for that, and they'd be in charge of handling the money. Ugh! Why did being a Pokémon have to feel so complicated? I could do all sorts of things I could only dream about in the past, but I couldn't do simple things I took for granted now, either!

I slowly took a deep breath to calm myself down. I'm probably over-reacting. This place had been around for a long time before I showed up and everything was running smoothly. Maybe Mable didn't even want to take a day off, or didn't think that she needed help around here that the Pokémon couldn't give? I was probably just making up problems where they didn't exist because I was worried after the events of last night. Anyone would be a little bit pessimistic after an event like that, right?

Needing to clear my head, I bounded away from the counter, having gotten a head-start on the meals of the rest. Instead, I moved over to a large sack and transformed into Bibarel. Even if I was overreacting, it did make me want to help out more. Mable flashed a smile my way when she saw what I was doing, "Oh, you want to go feed the birds?" She laughed at my nod, waving me off. "Alright then. Just scatter and run, unless you want to get swarmed by a hungry flock all at once!"

It can't really be that bad, can it? They're Pokémon not brainless birds. Can't they control themselves while the food was being tossed out? Surely it can't be that bad.

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Naturally, it went exactly as the more experienced at the matter had suspected, and I was taught that no matter the world, birds are going to aggressively swarm at anything or anyone with food. It was mostly calm as I approached, despite the fact that they all had to know why I was trotting out into the middle of the pasture with a large sack for. And yet the moment I tossed out a handful of bird seed, it was like pandemonium unleashed. A totally calm flock that had been just standing around and staring at me became a furious feathery storm.

Running had been the right advice, as I just started trying to flee the swarm of hungry birds and trailing the bag behind me. Fortunately, as I dashed along and left the scattered food, the Pidgey and Fletchling decided to split their attention between harassing me, and finding a good spot to land and start to eat. A wave of wings landed on the ground like I was painting the grass with a brush of birds, upending the bag and dumping the last of the food out in a pile before hopping aside.

I sighed in relief at the task being done, glaring at the mass of birds. They had to be this badly behaved because I volunteered for the job! There was no way they were this aggressively mischievous about being fed when Mable did it! My sullen stare was interrupted by a wing whacking me on the back of the head, spotting my flight-training buddy swooping past me to land and peck at the pile I had just poured out. "Thanks for lunch!" She quipped, smirking at me, though the effect was spoiled by her turning to dart her beak down and peck like a chicken.

"How did you know it was me?" I asked, reaching up and touching my nose on reflex again, wondering if it was the wrong color once more.

After scarfing down a beak's worth of seeds, she turned her attention back toward me, "Easy! I saw the real Bibarel watching over the Bidoof since it's time to eat. And since he's over there, I knew it had to be you over here! What, did you finally realize birds are the best or something? Why not transform and have lunch with me?"

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I mean, I had already eaten a fair few berries, but I was curious about what other things might taste like. "I don't need to transform just to taste it." I remarked, reaching down and grabbing one of the large seeds and popping it into my mouth out of curiosity. After a crunch of beaver teeth to crack the shell, which I promptly spat to the side, the core of the seed honestly tasted a lot like all-natural sunflower seeds. Actually, it might even be all-natural sunflower seeds. Sunflora seeds? … Did Sunflora have seeds? I was getting side-tracked. They weren't bad, though. It'd make a pretty solid snack. Though, I needed to stop taking bits out of everyone else's meals.

We sat there for a few minutes in comfortable near-silence, aside from the cracking crunch of seed shells breaking under tooth or beak. Interestingly enough, my companion didn't seem to be actually tossing the shells back out. "Why are you breaking the shells if you're just gonna eat the shell anyway?" I asked, taking another seed for myself afterward. Crunch. Spit.

She tipped her head aside, staring at me like I was crazy for asking the question. "Because it tastes better that way! If you had to choose between the bland, boring shell and the actual good-tasting bit, why wouldn't you want to taste the good part? Besides, you should just eat the shell too. Mom says they're good for you!"

I grabbed another seed and skeptically looked at the seed's shell, pondering it for a moment. Fine, try anything once. I tossed it into my mouth and crunched down on it, before swallowing the whole thing. It felt weird, since the firm texture of the shell made it feel like I just swallowed an oddly-textured marble. It left me coughing and sputtering, then a shudder ran through me at the sensation.

Cackling in a series of high-pitched trilling sounds, my Pidgey companion nearly choked on her own food laughing at me. "You still have to crush the shell up first, stupid, not swallow it nearly whole!" No wonder she had been crunching away with her beak for a bit between each downward peck for food.

"You could have told me that sooner!"

"It should have been obvious to chew your food more, dummy!"

"Stop calling me names!"

"Make me!"

Predictably, our bickering over lunch steadily led into another practice session in the skies, with me transforming into a Pidgey's form for the process all over again. "You ready for that spar? Because I feel like I'm fired up enough to try and get back at you for that little seed trick you pulled!" I called out as we both took to wing, lazily circling each other in preparation.

"You keep saying I tricked you! Is it supposed to be my fault you aren't smart enough to chew your food all the way?" She retorted, winging closer to me. "But if you think you're ready to get pushed out of the nest already, I don't mind!" Taking my remark as a sign to start, she swooped down at me with her wings already tinting with the sky-blue energy of a flying attack.

I was quick to mirror her actions, pushing energy into my own wings and leaving a faint trail of color behind me with each flap. We were heading right toward each other in a game of chicken, and I didn't want to be the one to flinch away first. Whoever broke away first would be presenting a wider target for the other's Gust attack, after all. But she wasn't turning away. She's going to turn, right? We're about to- SMACK.

At the last moment, she twisted just enough aside to avoid ramming into me beak-to-beak. Instead, her wing slammed straight into my head, leaving me seeing stars and frantically flapping my wings to recover, trying to figure out which way was up.

"Just because you think you know I'm going for a Gust attack doesn't mean you shouldn't be ready for me to do something else!" My Pidgey companion lectured me despite the fact this was supposed to be a fight, not a training session. "Wing Attack builds up energy in the same way, but saves it for impact before releasing it! So maybe don't fly straight into it next time!"

Huffing with annoyance, I shot the Gust I had still been holding at her in an attempt at retaliation, doing little besides ruffling her feathers. Alright, so I clearly wasn't going to beat her with just the tactics that she herself had taught me. I needed to do something unexpected. Suddenly, an idea popped into my head. It might not be a proper move, but I could imitate other moves I knew, still. Pushing more energy into my wings, I flapped after her in a chase, as we returned to an almost identical situation as moments ago. I swear that my partner had a smirk on her beak, as if daring me to show that I had learned from the last encounter.

I flew straight at her, like I was doing nothing different. This time, however, I flipped myself into an inverted position right as we neared one another, leaving her wing gliding past my talons, which I promptly gripped down in a hard grab against her wing. I heard a surprised squawk, and then I used my charged Gust attack to push behind myself, propelling me forward faster as I tucked my wings in against my sides. My hapless companion trailing behind me, I twisted around and threw her down at the ground below in my imitation of a Seismic Toss.

The plan was to flare my wings out and wing away while she landed in a topple, expressing my victory. Of course, I hadn't ever been very good at math. Or physics. So I might have underestimated how much room I needed to catch myself and fly away, releasing her closer to the ground to ensure she would crash... so I followed suit, beak-first into the dirt and tumbling across the grass like a ragdoll crash-test-dummy. Both of us cried out in pain at the hard landing, though we both managed to find our feet.

"You're a moron. That caught me off guard because it was something only a moron would do!"

"Still made you eat dirt!"

"Yeah but you didn't end up any better off, moron!"

"Will you stop calling me a moron already!?"

"Make me!"

Just another usual training session- no, I'm sorry, proper battle between friends.