[Godfrey]
Hey there, sorry for taking so long to reply to your messages. Paperwork’s been a little heavier than usual, Palmer sends his regards from under his pile.
Raising birds honestly isn’t that tough! Sure they can have a temper like any other pkmn, but it isn’t hard to win them over.
Pidgey are usually docile but if you ended up with a temperamental one then I’d suggest a Swablu to try out instead! There’s a small flock of them around Sinnoh. Here’s some links for further reading before then, just general prep stuff.
Let me know if you need more help! :)

[Catherine]
Omg no need to be so formal!!

Her ears started buzzing on Route 3, a subtle hum she mistook at first as proximity to Pewter, as the general ambiance of a summer night. Something the snow was supposed to help muffle. Something that shouldn’t have crescendoed steadily from her ears to a warm, but not unwelcome tingle when she stepped over the boundary between the Route and the entrance to Mt. Moon. Strong echoes and vibrations from the cave, maybe.

The mountain was less claustrophobic than she expected, than Dark Cave and the Icy Path, practically an open space fenced in by rock that reached towards the sky, but never swallowed it completely. Powder sugar stars somehow twinkled brighter than they were just a few steps ago, and a full and swollen moon only helped things become all the more visible.

Catherine took a moment to appreciate it, to surely inhale more than a healthy amount of moon dust in the air, before she composed herself and continued onwards. “Keep your eyes peeled and watch out for any stray meteors crashing, huh? Lot of cash if you avoid the concussion.” And then, when she felt a distinct emptiness, turned and tilted her head. “Silver?”

The ginger was still stuck all of two steps into the mountain, perturbed eyes frozen to the sky — snapped to her and caught up in two long strides. “Looked different on the outside, is all.”

“Yeah, I think things just look brighter because everything else is so dark, maybe,” she said, fished the flashlight out from her purse just in case. The travel guides mentioned there were some subterranean portions. “There’s… there’s a lot to take in.”

“Something like,” he said in an odd way, and she moved on thusly.

“Thanks for coming with me.”

“I had to.”

“Oh?” she said, purring. “I appreciate the necessity, but you don’t need to flatter me like that. Lance convinced you so well?”

“Don’t.”

“What? I wasn’t blind,” she said. “Mahogany was practically a tragedy for him. If only it weren’t for Palmer, he would’ve…”

“Oh,” said Silver with revelation, with relief, and she perked up because oh —

“Oh?”

“Don’t.”

She put a hand her chest. “But you had to. Held at gunpoint.”

“The friendship feels like that sometime, true.”

Catherine snorted and elbowed him gently, and he was only vaguely a brute when he shoved her off. “Or held at horn point, maybe. Your cowlick kinda looks a horn, and then… mm.”

“You’re losing me.”

“It was gonna be a joke about your horn and Nidorans, but I couldn’t quite land it.”

“I see.”

“And Lance’s horn, if you catch my drift.” She laid it on thick with an eyebrow wiggle that Silver didn’t seem to appreciate.

He just rolled his eyes and sighed, discomfort permeating off of him and she felt almost a little bad. She tried for greener pastures. “Up for a battle now that you’re here, by the way? Looks like no one else is around right now, plenty of space.”

A half-hearted shrug. “Don’t know. Kinda not feeling it, this place is weird.”

“It’d be so romantic though, a reverie under the stars. Make your skin all tingly.” She quirked an eyebrow. “Unless, I mean, you want to save that for Lance, there’s no issue with that —”

“Catherine. Don’t.”

Silver was always snappish in the same way Catherine was always [s]smug[/s] [s]smarmy[/s] confident. It meant snappish was a default that she let slide over her like a water on a duck, the bare minimum security check so any old fool couldn’t cash in. But now he was [i]stubborn[i], and he only got that way so often.

“You never did tell me what made you run away from home, you know. And I’d done everything you told me to. You can’t fault me for taking the hints you drop and running with them,” she said instead.

Silver grunted. Ugh, fine.

“I’m sorry for pushing.”

Silver relented. She felt a little better when she watched Silver sigh down from extra-tense to regular-stiff. “It matters this much to you, huh?”

“You matter to me, so I want to know about that, yeah,” she said. “I like to think I matter to you too, unless you’re just stupid generous instead?”

“Unfortunately the former,” he said all beleaguered, and she giggled over the ringing in her ears, the odd prickling on her skin.

They walked further into the caves as the moon didn’t seem to move from its prime spot in the center, always the center, no matter how far they wandered off to one side of the mountain or the other, no matter the couple of hours it surely took them to amble through the dirt and holes and ladders.

And then abruptly, “Once we’re out of Mt. Moon.”

“Oh?” Catherine hummed, and jostled the Cleffa in her arms that had joined them since. (Far from the only one, but Clefairy were heavy, and honestly the amount staring after her had her more concerned than anything. She’d put it back before she left.)

“Yeah,” Silver said. “We can battle, and I’ll kick your ass, but then — yeah. It’s only fair.”

“Kick [i]your[/i] ass y’mean, gingersnap.” She perked up. “Hey, since you’re doing this grand cross country thing, maybe you could sign up for the Challenge legally now? Sure, it’d be out of season, but at least it’d be legal this time. You could get another starter! Might not even have to return the one you stole?”

Silver’s deadpan look spoke volumes as she tried not to crack up, still nearly got a swarm of Zubat on them if she hadn’t been quick with sending Chiffon out. Truly, Typhlosion had a lot of utility.

“Would you rather have ghosts or the Zubat, though?” she asked.

“At least the ghosts are useful before they evolve.”

Catherine sniffed. “Yours, maybe.”

And then they heard the THUNK from further ahead.

“I was joking, you know, about the meteors and watching for your head.”

“And yet I’m somehow not surprised.”

The static on her skin only grew stronger the further they went in — had peaked they’d stumbled over their own little meteor in front of a small shrine to Cresselia, obsidian bathed in moonlight and smoking still from its descent. It had enveloped her like a blanket, warm and smoothing and a little hazy, left the air tinted sweet with sugar, coaxed her to keep her eyes on the moon above, a drunkard waxing poetical classic —

And then Silver tugged on her arm and brought her back to standard. They didn’t dawdle much longer, and picked up a handful of shards for souvenirs and pocket change, took a few photos before they continued on.

Catherine [s]could feel[/s] let herself breathe normal once they’d moved past it, then the rest of Mt. Moon, Route 4 humid and cold but lit up on the far end up Cerulean’s city lights, by the quarter-moon. Tried not to blanch at the slight wave of nausea that replaced the pleasantness from before. The normality.