Trent nodded. He could understand that.

"If you ever get out to Hoenn, remind me to bring you to the river I swam in as a kid. Wide, gentle, fairly shallow, very Aleron-friendly."

Aleron snorted at that but relaxed a bit again when he didn't tease her.

"Wide and slow is good," she agreed. "Especially with your group. I mean, damn, how many people have the allowed to use them as buoys?"

Trent snickered.

"Lady is possessive," he said. "She doesn't like anyone getting close, and it's not like I have a Lapras or anything like that."

"I have to admit, I would not mind having at Lapras around," Aleron said. "I mean, besides the fact that I would never have to worry about drowning. We've got the legendaries here, and Lapras are rare enough that their numbers are still down, right? Might as well let one or two hang out here as a safe place."

"Lapras are endangered, yeah," Trent said, nodding. "They're ridiculously hard to find in the wild, now. I don't know how you'd get one here."

"I don't know either, but I also wouldn't put it out of the range of possibility." Aleron grinned. "Between all the legendaries and the strays they keep dropping off."

"True," Trent agreed. "We'll see what happens."

Aleron started shivering, since she was holding still, and then she headed back to shore to get out.

"It's cold," she grumbled, wringing out her hair. "Why do you expose yourself to this voluntarily?"

"I don't notice it much," Trent admitted, following her back to shore easily. "I mean, it's cool, but not really cold."

"That's because you like water." Aleron shook herself off, going to go find a place to dry off in the sun.

Trent raised an eyebrow as he settled in the warm shallows.

"Did you even notice that you touched the hot bacon pan this morning?" he asked. "The cast-iron one that was still smoking on the stove?" He had noticed, and he'd waited to see if she would jump and shriek from the burn, but nothing had happened.

"What?" Aleron blinked. She hadn't noticed, actually. She hadn't felt anything. "Don't be silly, I would have burned myself."

"I thought you did," Trent replied. "I mean, I saw you hit the pan and everything."

"I didn't notice anything, and I think I would have noticed a burn from that thing." Aleron shrugged, even though internally she was trying to remember exactly what she'd done that morning.

"That's just it," Trent pointed out. "You touched a smoking hot cast-iron pan and didn't get burned." He grinned.

Aleron blinked, looking at him. "It could have been a fluke," she pointed out. "Somehow." She still looked dubious, though she was curious.

"Aleron, I'm not sure if you've noticed, but we're flukes," Trent pointed out. "It might be something to look into, though. This is how this thing starts, without you noticing it. At least, it did for me and Quen."

"Yeah, us too," Aleron admitted. "I had to point out to Margaret that she was actually talking to her pokemon and understanding them word for word."

"So maybe you can handle hot things without getting burned," Trent suggested. "It would make sense."

"Maybe," Aleron admitted. "We'd have to test, though." And that admittedly made her a bit nervous.

"Maybe if it happens again on its own," Trent said. He could understand why she was nervous; when his ability manifested, it had freaked him out for a while.

Aleron nodded. Except of course now she would be paying attention, so it wasn't likely to happen on accident.

Trent leaned back in the water, floating a bit. Dunking his head under, he looked at Red and Lady for a moment before coming back up.

"So what happens when you end up with a pond full of Magikarp?"

"We toss 'em when they're big enough," Aleron said with a shrug. "And if there are any shiny ones, we can toss them back in the Lake of Rage so eventually there will be enough giant red Gyarados there for trainers to gawk at." She grinned.

"How far is the Lake of Rage from here?" Trent asked. "Well, no, stupid question, just about everywhere is a haul from here. There's a stream not far from here, you can probably release them into that."