Fireflower's a bit more attentive to Bella than she was to Tony. And she's smarter than Branch. She trots up beside Watson at a click of Bella's tongue and shoots the Zebstrika a challenging look. "Dash."
She lets Fireflower react to the countoff by herself, but then she's helping. The Rapidash has better initial acceleration and her instinct is to seize the inside track with it, but given her inferior cornering Bella dissuades her. She also encourages her Pokémon over a jump that Bella knows she can make even if it looks forbidding, from far enough back that Fireflower sails right over it, and that saves them from having to go down around the little tidepool-like structures that gave her trouble before.
They are not making up the time lost on the straightaways so well anymore.
Bella looks pretty pleased with herself too.
Bella slides off Fireflower's back, stumbles, and catches herself. "That was fun," she says breathlessly, trying to untangle some of her hair from the windblown state it has gotten into.
"It was!" says Sherlock.
"Tony seemed to have been exhausted, so I guess we can do the aerial installment another time," giggles Bella.
Bella pets Fireflower. "You did good, sweetie." And she puts her away. And she gets her hairbrush out of her bag and attacks her ponytail. "That was a rush, she's almost never running flat out when I'm riding her."
"I don't frequently get a chance to experience Watson's top speed, either," says Sherlock. "It was enjoyable."
"Could have a non-racing type rematch. I dunno, I do other things, just I'm usually in other places when I do them."
"Let Renée teach me to knit, wander into houses in arbitrary towns and get into conversations there, explore miscellaneous wilderness, I tried making my own Pokéballs from whole Apricorns once, I think about the best ways to address immortal Pokémon if I ever find any, I once went through a brief phase of entering Pokémon Contests but decided I didn't like it. Also I read a lot and do extensive self-analysis but neither thing is a particularly companionable activity."
"Well, I only made two, so I don't know whether to attribute the fact that they completely failed to work to poor craftsmanship or to luck."
"I don't know about the mechanics of it. Let alone how people can get 'mon into PCs, which is part of why I don't do it and have never owned more than six. I was just using an instruction booklet on hollowing apricorns that gave step-by-step walkthroughs for various apricorn colors but didn't say anything about the whys and wherefores."
"I figure I should come at the ulterior motive obliquely," Bella says. "Probably should spend some effort demonstrating myself harmless and indicating that I do not intend to try to catch them, because I bet they get that a lot and it hasn't yielded results so far anyway."
"How does one demonstrate harmlessness to a legendary pokemon, I wonder. Perhaps you should bring Tony along. He's very charming."