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<> That's what he'd decided. <> Treestar asked, wide-eyed with curiosity now. It was difficult to imagine other pokémon being small when he'd only ever known them as big, but he knew they were the same kind of pokémon so she had to have been at some point... Maybe...

"See, that's... kind 'f what I was really long-windedly and awkwardly trying to get at." Tambrey replied apologetically. "I don't think y' did. I mean, sure, your family's going to be upset... Maybe you have your own reasons for thinking you do and stuff but... you end up learning... quite a lot about people, I think, being here and, whatever you think made you deserve something like that, I doubt I'd agree. Y're a good person, 's a pretty plain thing just from the shortest of times knowing you. We do bad things here, we have pasts that nearly nobody is proud of about themselves... I haven't heard anything from you to understand why you'd think you'd deserve that." She hoped she wasn't rambling nonsense again.

Treestar looked confused. <> His leaf 'pointed' up at the table, where he thought the book was. <> It had seemed 'different' somehow when he thought it was some magical thing a human could do... This new information lent an air of the unknown to the process. What if he did it wrong somehow? Could it work in reverse? Would he get smaller... or become an egg? What if it was like filling a balloon and he burst?! He looked up at Leilani, who had that smile and didn't seem worried at all... It was probably unlikely that he'd burst. Probably.

Tambrey felt like shrugging it off or waving it away, or shaking her head more than she did as she promised "'S just true." She listened, then, to what he told her next.
"If it's helpful to talk about those, I'm still here. Hurtful things from family, I think, must carry a lot of force to that hurt, especially if you never expected them..."

Well that soothed him. So it didn't hurt and he would know.
<> He found himself grinning again; once more evolution was such an exciting prospect and his leaf waggled back and forth. <> Well, he'd forgotten, or didn't know, about the stage in between but he sounded delighted.

Tambrey was confused, but she reached out for his arm, attempting to be comforting all the same.
"Didn't... belong because you were thinking about your 'mama'?" It didn't make sense did it? Were his parents split up- no, no, he'd mentioned his mother and called her something different just before... Had his Dad found another woman who he called that? No... It took a few seconds, but she realised; he'd said the term in Spanish...
"You're adopted?" A question but soft enough to suggest she thought she knew the answer.

The Chikorita let out another happy little 'chee' noise at the head-nuzzled, then looked up, head tilted slightly.
<>

"I'm sorry..." Tambrey responded, near automatically, to the news of someone losing a loved one. She considered it and what he had told her before.
"So. He knew, then, that that was how it happened? An event like that... There is no way you should ever feel guilty about thinking about her so much. I don't know if 't means much, but, as I see it, your family, your mom and dad, they took you in after that with knowledge of how you'd come to need them... Don't let someone else's resentment colour your feelings into guilt?" She wasn't sure how much she could really help, or if the words she was choosing were right, but she hoped so.
"I mean, I know 's just me and y'know... I don't... I can't feel what you're feeling, but your mama loved you enough to save you so that they'd get to look after you; 's no right to make you feel guilty over her." And no justification for that bruise, either, but she let that one stay in her mind.

<> Treestar imagined himself with a bigger lead... If one could see his thought bubble, his idea of a Bayleef wasn't entirely correct; he envisioned his little Chikorita body just made a little larger but now sporting a gigantic leaf from the top of his head, almost big enough to glide around with. <> He asked innocently; he was pretty sure she must have been, once, but again, it was a hard thing to envision... And if he had, he'd have gotten it just as wrong anyway.

Tambrey blinked, to be saved from drowning only to drown... It gave a real sense of unfairness, somehow made the tragedy more heartbreaking.
The grunt blinked as he revealed some more of his dad's behaviour. "He tried to..." This wasn't sitting well at all. She breathed the last out quietly, but out loud just to let him know she was listening, taking it in if he wanted to talk more.

Treestar brought his leaf down in front of his face so he could stare at the tip as he waggled it from side to side. To be bigger, with this still here and bigger too... He really liked the sound of being Bayleef now.
<> He had even more questions and they made him wriggle as he wanted to ask them all at once, but he limited himself to just the two at the time.

"Arceus... Well I can certainly understand why you would..." Tambrey replied, a little stunned at the idea of trying to get a child, who'd seen their mother drown, to swim... To try and force them to.
"He was wrong." She stated after a moment. "Wrong then and wrong now. I hope you can accept that... Any guilt he's made you feel, the fact he hit you, the pool... He might be your dad, but... he's wrong."

Treestar nodded sagely. Some pokémon really did evolve so quickly. <> The grass type admitted, adding an example as he thought it might be appropriate. <> The Chikorita seemed to suddenly realise the last part.

She didn't seem to catch on that he was ashamed, though likely she wouldn't have understood why he was. It seemed, in fact, kind of perfectly reasonable a phobia to have, after hearing what she had so far.
"I... can imagine it must be. I just... You're a good person and it's... I think it's important you know people think so, at least..." She didn't like the thought that he seemed to be getting, or least showing perhaps, sadder or more hurt.
"You said you thought about your mama a lot? Would it help to talk about what you remember of her?" It could backfire, she supposed, but fond memories of loved ones gone sometimes meant the world to someone's happiness, in her experience; she phrased a question, an option, so as not to force the issue.

<> Treestar seemed quite incredulous about it now; if it didn't hurt, and you got to be bigger and stuff, then he wasn't sure how someone would be against it...

Frak. So that was painful, out of bounds territory, at least right now. The opposite direction of where she'd be hoping to go.
"Okay," She replied softly, but as quickly as she dared "sorry, I shouldn't have asked that. I don't want t' make you talk about anything y' don't want to."