EstherFriday, June 10 – Police Station, Motostoke, Galar Region
It was Friday morning bright and early, and Esther found herself, once again, idling away. She had just finished answering a summons and was now reassessing her plans from the discomfort of the Motostoke Police Station’s lobby.Yesterday’s altercation had shaken the Galarian authorities, and KENN’s live coverage of the events had ensured the shockwaves spread to the public with no chance of being contained. Although it was unnerving to think that it had started with her capture of Houndour, Wynter had assured her that the proceedings were, thankfully, none of her business. However, a bit of curiosity revealed that the trainer they’d arrested yesterday, after thorough interrogation, would be allowed to leave under parole. Apparently, the local authorities weren’t too keen on keeping him behind bars indefinitely when he wasn’t much of a lead on J herself, they settled for putting him on a short leash while they directed their energies to investigating J and the strange Blood Wing she’d wielded, both of whom had mysteriously vanished. Anyway, Esther hadn’t come for that, she had come for another reason.
The events of yesterday had revealed her Houndour’s origins, the poor thing had been kidnapped from its home in western Kalos, route 10. Usually, the rangers would handle Pokémon re-location, but their hands were, understandably, a bit full. To further complicate things, Esther had caught Houndour, and because of that, their hands were tied. They could no more force her to return Houndour than they could force any other trainer to return their capture to the wild. As Wynter had put it, the only real difference between trainers and poachers was that trainers legally kidnapped with Pokéballs what Poachers illegally kidnapped with traps and snares.
The ranger clearly had nothing good to say about trainers or their practices, but Esther couldn’t argue with her logic.
Trainers tended to walk the moral grey lines of human-Pokémon interactions. She hadn’t given much thought to it before, but if Pokémon were highly intelligent creatures, as they clearly were, then how did they feel about being captured in Pokéballs? How did they feel about battles? Sure, many Pokémon grew to love and adore their trainers, but the process was akin to a severe form of Stockholm syndrome. The more she thought about it the more uncomfortable she felt about the entire prospect of being a trainer. It seemed...wrong, in a way, but that was obviously a personal and moral view that was influenced by her culture and upbringing. To her, it was obvious that Pokémon shouldn’t spend time trapped in enclosures or confined to Pokéballs. Even Pyrrha, for all the biting she’d done yesterday, had spent the night at the foot of Esther’s bed, outside her Pokéball. It had helped that the drake appeared deeply remorseful, if not outright apologetic. Though to complicate matters, the incident had shocked the Jangmo-o into being more reclusive than ever before...back to square one, sigh.
Esther wondered what other trainers had to say about the topic; hell, she wondered what her own Pokémon would say about it. Jangmo-o...Pyrrha...she remained an enigma, but could it be that the drake’s erratic behavior was a way of acting out? Was it a defiant protest of her circumstances—to protest being torn away from her fellows at the orphanage and forced into the care of a trainer she never even got the chance to know? Well, for Houndour she already knew. She had learned from Wynter that her Houndour wanted to return home with all due haste. That had thrown a small wrench into Esther’s plans.
Kalos was a long way off. In fact, it was a whole other region and without her brother to ferry her around, she would have to find her own means of travel. This wasn’t exactly hard; though they weren’t used in Oblivia, planes, and trains couldn’t be that hard to figure out. No, the problem was the cost.
She still wanted to see the World Coronation Series match scheduled for next week Saturday, a full 8 days away. At roughly $50 a night, even a cheap room at the Inn would run her $400 dollars, nearly a quarter of her funds and that was before food or travel expenses to Kalos. Of course, it was entirely possible to set up her camp on the city’s outskirts and live in the Wild Area, but she certainly wasn’t going to be able to scavenge enough food for the entire group, and furthermore, tickets would still be a heavy burden on her finances.
Her problems all pointed towards one, overwhelmingly obvious conclusion—she needed a job.
- - - - - -
Technology was a wonder!
Esther had transitioned to a miniature park: centered around a Pokéball-adorned fountain and flanked by verdant trees and a few benches. On one such bench, the Oblivian sat with an array of pages projected from her Pokétch. Each was a holographic representation of job requests in the GMA, the great Motosoke area.
Given her circumstances, most jobs weren’t suitable. She wouldn’t be in Galar for an extended period, the job’s primary purpose was to fund her travels after all. So, any job with permanence or a contract period that exceeded a couple of weeks was automatically off the table. That restriction severely limited her options but on the bright side it limited her options, so she only had to look through a handful of jobs rather than tens to hundreds
Professional jobs were also off the table; at 17, although Esther had tidily completed secondary education, she didn’t have the necessary know-how to tackle technical jobs that would require certification or tertiary education. It was a shame because most of the jobs she saw wanted contract workers with specific skills like Web-design, Pokémon Compatibility Assessment, and Move Tutelage; fortunately, there was also no shortage of unskilled labor:
A delivery job; it was simple and didn’t have much in the way of prerequisites, but the pay was a bit...uncertain. Payment on a per delivery basis meant no guaranteed salary, if no one decided to place an order, or worse, deliveries simply weren’t assigned to her, then she wouldn’t get paid. That would completely defeat the purpose of getting the job in the first place.
She’d have to pass on this one. Swipe left!
? ? ? ? ? ?
Hoodlum? Legal protection!? What the hell was this job? Seems like there were all kinds of jobs in Galar, but this one sounded sketchy... Swipe left!
Oh! This job was perfect. The Poke-farm was an environment that couldn’t be any more familiar; her own home was a bug farm where they produced silk threads utilized by Oblivia and Almia’s famous weavers as well as honey. Although she was far more familiar with bug Pokémon, the experience couldn’t be that different.
Even better, the job had decent pay and great compensation benefits; they might even provide meals with their lodging, but the date...that was today! The job was still posted so obviously, no one had taken it yet. She needed to get to Dappled Grove!
