"I do want to hear the theory, if you don't mind telling me," she says, tilting her head. "I can keep all my objections quiet if you like."

"Not right now, I think."

"Okay." Pause. "When I was little I thought that Pachirisu evolved into Emolga and no one could convince me different," she offers.

"I thought this," she goes on, "because I'd read a book about a Pachirisu that wanted very much to fly, and made friends with a variety of flying Pokémon but ultimately didn't stick with any of them because of this or that, and ultimately learned to be content with what it was, and I thought that was a dreadful ending and it really ought to be able to fly one day if that's what it wanted to do."

"If only it had found Tony," he says, "he would have built it a jetpack."

"See, there you go," says Bella. "That would've been a much better ending - instead of 'be the thing you got assigned to be in the cold hard lottery of life and don't go around wanting things you aren't natively able to do' it'd be something like 'a bad friend might give you a ride, a good friend will give you the power to fly by yourself'. Much better."

"I agree completely."

She grins at him. "I'm hoping that when I find an immortal Pokémon it agrees with us too. A bad immortal Pokémon wants to keep all the eternity to itself, a good immortal Pokémon wants immortal friends."

"Best of luck."

"I wonder why they're so secretive. If I were immortal I imagine I'd publicize it and write a book about how I did it so everyone else could be too. Maybe I'd be less complacent about it if someone could stuff me into a Pokéball without a by-your-leave. Maybe the immortal ones aren't as well-suited to the lifestyle."

"Maybe they're terribly selfish. Maybe they can't share it and they're tired of people asking. Maybe they're afraid someone will capture them and hurt them."

"Maybe they can share it but only a few times and they don't want to be reckless about who gets it. Maybe they don't like being immortal. Maybe they aren't, maybe the species I'm looking for are some combination of mythical and not-unique-just-rare and died-a-hundred-years-ago."

"I hope that one day you find out."

"Me too. Especially if the answer isn't any of those and is just 'maybe no one asked nicely before'."

"Wouldn't that be nice."

"It would. Nice things do happen sometimes."

"That they do."

"If you could have anything you wanted, what would you want?" she asks idly.

"Immortality's a nice one," he says. "But only if I can take Tony with me, of course."

"Oh, yes, I imagine it would be terribly lonely if you couldn't take at least one other person along. I'd probably do it anyway, but I'd understand somebody else declining."

"I'd be all right with just Tony and the house."

"Is the house not already immortal in whatever sense houses are alive to begin with? Assuming you maintain it."

"Yes."

"You must be awfully attached to the house to bring it up anyway, then. It is a really nice house."