Sherlock is outside, sitting by the shore of the lake. He glances back at her and waves.

It's dark, so she doesn't see him right away, but the combination of motion and the firelight from Fireflower's mane and tail render his sillhouette visible. "Hi, whichever-one-of-you-I-haven't-yet-learned-to-distinguish," she says cheerfully. "Gonna go for a gallop around the lakeshore, see what there is to see, you want to hop on Watson and join us?"

"Happily," he calls back. A moment later, he's climbing onto the Zebstrika's back.

"Since you had him in your pocket instead of having to go in and borrow him I'm betting you're Sherlock," says Bella, nudging Fireflower into a trot.

"You are correct," says Sherlock, following.

"Are there more obvious tells or should I just ask-and-guess till I know you well enough or I leave and it's moot?"

"We also dress and speak differently."

"You do have a bit of an - is it an Unova accent? How'd you pick that up?"

"I spend a lot of time with the house computer."

"The house computer speaks with one."

"Ooh, it talks. Neat. What does it talk about? Is that better than a text display for some things?"

Their Pokémon's hooves are making a fair amount of noise against the lakeshore. She repeats herself, speaking up a bit.

"Yes," he says finally. "For some things, it is better than a text display."

"Cool," says Bella. "I like computers, but I travel too much to bother having one of my own even in my dad's house, I just have the Pokétch and my Pokémon Center PC accounts."

"I honestly don't know what I'd do without the tower's computer."

"What do you do with it? I believe you mentioned reading books and hunting wild 'mon and playing the violin, I don't see how the computer factors in."

"...It's difficult to explain."

"I haven't got anything else particularly intellectually stimulating to do while we circuit the lake, and it's a big lake," Ace points out, eyes scanning their surroundings for odd lights or uncharacteristic motion in the grass or the water.

"I suppose not."

"But we can talk about something else, if you want, do you follow tournaments or anything standard-small-talk-y like that?"

"Among the things the computer does is offer us regular reports on such goings-on. So yes."

Bella turns out to have many and nuanced opinions on tournaments. She personally knows her guild's entrant to this year's Golden Apricorn Games, and doesn't like him very much, although she admits that he's the sort of person to have a shot at winning and give half the prize money to the guild after, so it's all right.

Sherlock does not have such insight into the personalities of the entrants, but he listens raptly to Bella's analysis.