Chapter 4 – Stone, Wood, and Water
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David woke up feeling like he'd been hit by a Snorlax using Body Slam.
For a few long, confused seconds, he lay there staring at the ceiling, trying to figure out which part of him hurt the least. His shoulders ached. His lower back pulsed in a slow, resentful throb. Even his hands felt stiff where old calluses had met new blisters.
'Right,' he thought, flexing his fingers. 'You picked a fight with trees yesterday. The trees won on points.'
Something popped in his neck when he turned his head.
He lifted his wrist and squinted blearily at his Pokétch. 6:47 a.m.
Later than he'd meant to be up. The younger version of him, who used to roll out of bed at dawn to run laps before Gym matches, would have been appalled.
"Don't look at me like that," he muttered to the blank ceiling. "I'm on farm time now."
The house was cold when he swung his legs out from under the blankets. The floorboards were shockingly cool under his bare feet. Outside, though, he could already see the light sharpening around the edges of the curtains, the promise of a clear day.
He dressed slower than the previous morning, quietly cursing every joint that decided to voice an opinion. Tough trousers, clean shirt, boots that now had a permanent line of dried mud around the soles. He scrubbed his face in the bathroom sink until the worst of the sleep left his eyes, then headed downstairs.
The kitchen smelled faintly of coffee and Pokémon food from the night before, layered over the deeper scent of old wood and dust. He set water to boil again and did a quick inventory of the pantry while it heated.
Bread: almost gone. Cheese: about half the block left. Pickled vegetables: enough for today, maybe tomorrow. A jar of Oran preserves at the back made him pause, thumb resting on the label.
His grandfather's handwriting scrawled across it. ORAN 3rd BATCH – GOOD.
He set it carefully back on the shelf.
"Later," he muttered. "When we've earned it."
For now, he settled for toast scraped in the pan and a thin slice of cheese. Swampert, looming in the doorway like an uninvited but inevitable appliance, got a bowl piled high with the last of the limp vegetables and a handful of standard Pokémon feed pellets from a bag in the corner. Excadrill, who seemed to be able to smell food through walls, appeared from under the porch and accepted sliced Pecha with unabashed delight. Krookodile lurked just outside the back door until David tossed him an apple core, which disappeared in two crunches.
"You're supposed to be a fearsome predator," David told him, watching. "Not a living compost bin."
Krookodile gave him a stern look, saying, 'Don't food-shame me,' and snapped up a stray lettuce leaf that Swampert had missed.
After coffee and a second mug of water, the worst of the morning fog in his head cleared. The aches stayed but settled into the background—a reminder rather than a limitation.
Yesterday had been about the berry orchard: deciding which trees lived, which died, and which might forgive him later for clumsy cuts. Today, he'd told himself, would be about the skeleton of the farm itself.
Fences. Stone. Wood. Water.
He stepped out into the yard, the chill air smacking him awake more effectively than the coffee had. The sun hovered just above the hills now, casting long shadows from the farmhouse and barn. The berry and fruit trees down the slope caught the light in uneven patches where they'd been opened up, leaves glowing in spots like stained glass.
His team was scattered across the yard and the surrounding fields, in varying states of readiness.
Swampert sat squarely in the middle of a bare patch of dirt, looking faintly disappointed that there was no mud there yet. Flygon was already airborne, wings humming softly as she traced a lazy patrol loop. Nidoking stood near the barn, arms folded, glaring at the leaning fence as if daring it to fall over on his watch. Excadrill poked up from the ground near the path in little bursts. Krookodile lay half in, half out of the shade of the porch, tail flicking occasionally. Gliscor had claimed the roofline of the farmhouse again, hanging upside down from the eaves.
"Morning," David called.
A chorus of responses met him—rumbles, chitters, chirps. Gliscor dropped down in a short glide to land beside him, claws clacking on the packed dirt.
"Today," David said, "we're going shopping."
Six heads tilted in near-unison.
"Not that kind of shopping," he amended. "We're broke. We're gathering materials."
He swept an arm to take in the hills behind the house, the upper fields dotted with grey stone, the far edges of the orchards where dead trees stood like broken teeth against the sky.
"We've got dead wood, loose rock, and a stream that needs help," he said. "I'd rather use what we have than spend money we don't. So—stone first. Then timber. Then," he tipped his chin toward Swampert, "we see if we can convince that stream to share a little more water with the rest of the farm without drowning anything in the process."
Flygon trilled, wings angling toward the upper slopes.
"Yeah," David said. "You're up. I need a good overview of where the stones are thickest and where we can clear without wrecking anything useful. Nidoking, you're my muscle. Excadrill, I want you scouting under the surface. Krookodile, you're…quality control."
Krookodile blinked.
"If a rock looks like it wants to roll downhill and flatten me," David clarified, "you're going to catch it."
Krookodile's grin returned, slow and sharky.
"Gliscor," David went on, "stay mobile. Keep an eye on the tree line. I don't want anything big and territorial, deciding this is the morning to investigate. Swampert—we'll need you more later. For now, you can come watch and laugh at me lifting things badly."
Swampert gave a deep, amused rumble that probably meant something like 'that part I can definitely do.'
They headed up.
The hill behind the farmhouse wasn't steep by mountain standards, but it was enough to make David's calves question his life choices after a day of orchard work. The upper fields up here were rougher—patches of thin grass, clumps of hardy weeds, and, most importantly, stones.
Some were fist-sized, half-buried and ready to twist an ankle. Others were boulders that had probably been here since the land first heaved itself into shape. A few smaller rocks had clearly been piled at field edges in past seasons, the old 'pick them up and dump them by the fence' method that every farmer who didn't have a Ground-type learned by necessity.
"We're not building a castle," David said, hands on his hips as he surveyed the slope. "But we're going to need stone for…a lot and reinforcing the stream banks. Maybe a retaining wall or two. Eventually, something like an arena. Better paths than 'whatever dirt isn't too muddy.'"
Flygon circled above, then swooped low, dragging a claw along the ground in a loose line from one cluster of stones to another, sketching a rough arc.
"Concentrated there?" David asked.
She chirped affirmatively, then pointed her nose toward a dip where the soil was already exposed in a messy patch.
"Alright. Nidoking, Excadrill: let's start there. I want the loose rocks out. Don't uproot half the hill."
Nidoking snorted, lumbering forward. He dug his claws into the earth and began levering up stones with a sort of practised brutality. Excadrill dove into the soil beside him, the ground rippling as he tunnelled under, pushing smaller rocks to the surface like a very efficient geyser system.
David rolled up his sleeves and joined in.
It wasn't glamorous. It was a lot of bending, lifting, carrying, and occasionally swearing when a rock turned out to be hooked under another rock at exactly the wrong angle. Krookodile trundled along beside him at first, watching with clear amusement. Eventually, when one particularly awkward stone slipped from David's hands and started bouncing downhill, Krookodile lunged, caught it with a low grunt, and set it back in front of him like an overenthusiastic pup returning a ball.
"Thanks," David panted.
"Krook," Krookodile said, smug.
They established two piles—one nearer the top of the slope with the good, solid pieces that could be used for building, and one lower down with smaller, irregular stones that would be better for fill or lining paths.
Gliscor, bored of simply circling, occasionally swooped down to hook his claws under a rock that was too heavy for David but not for a Pokémon, helping him manoeuvre it without sliding ten meters backward.
After the first dozen trips, David's arms felt like wet rope.
'You could've stayed in the League,' he thought, straightening slowly after setting down another stone. 'You could be doing commentary right now. Sleeping in. Drinking coffee someone else made.'
He looked around at the piles they'd built already, at the way the slope was beginning to smooth, fewer ankle traps in waiting.
'You'd also still be looking for the exit,' he answered himself.
They worked for hours, the sun climbing higher, the air warming until sweat soaked into his shirt and made the fabric cling. He often called for water breaks, more for his own benefit than for the team's. Flygon spent one rest hovering in Swampert's shadow while the big Water-type poured water from the stream-barrel over her head to rinse dust from her wings.
By midday, there was a respectable pile of building stone at the top of the hill and a swath of ground that looked less like nature's accident and more like something a human hand had shaped on purpose.
David dropped down onto a flat rock, chest heaving, arms trembling faintly.
"Okay," he said, wiping his forearm across his forehead. "I think that's as I'm going to get out of this hillside."
Nidoking grunted, clearly fine to keep going. Excadrill chittered quietly, still cheery. Krookodile yawned.
"We'll do more another day," David told them. "We've got wood to deal with this afternoon. And I'd like at least one joint in my body to work tomorrow still."
He glanced downhill, toward the orchards and the faint silver line of the stream.
"Let's eat," he said. "Then we see which trees were kind enough to die in places we can actually use."
The dead trees were easier to find than he would have liked.
In the fruit orchard, some trunks stood bare even now, bark flaking, branches grey and brittle. In the berry grove, a few of the shorter, spreading trees had given up entirely, no new buds, no green in the cambium when he scratched lightly at the bark.
He'd already marked many of them yesterday with little wooden stakes and shaky symbols. Now, he walked the rows again with a more practical eye.
"We're not clearing every dead tree," he said, as the team trailed behind him. "Some of them are holding the soil where we need it for now. But the ones that are already leaning into paths, or crowding healthy trees, or threatening to dump themselves on the roof when the next storm hits—those go."
He stopped beneath an old fruit tree near the edge of the orchard. Its trunk was thick, bigger around than he could wrap his arms around. The top half was a nest of dead branches. The lower half still broke into a few stubborn shoots of green.
He hesitated.
"Not this one," he decided. "Not yet. You've still got fight in you."
A few rows over, he found a smaller tree whose trunk had split sometime in the last few years, half fallen, half hanging on, roots exposed where the earth had sheared away. The wood was dry. No green beneath the bark. It leaned toward the path like an accident waiting for a target.
"Alright," he said. "You were done a while ago."
He ran his hand down the rough trunk, then stepped back.
"Gliscor, Flygon—start by clearing the upper limbs. Nothing too showy. We're not trying to see if we can land one on the farmhouse from here."
Gliscor gave an offended huff, as if to say he would never, then zipped up the side of the trunk, claws digging in. Flygon rose with him, circling the top.
With claws and tail and careful sweeps of wings, they severed smaller dead branches, letting them fall in controlled arcs away from the other trees. David and Nidoking hauled the fallen limbs into rough piles to be cut down later.
When the upper mass was thinned out, he gestured to Nidoking and Excadrill.
"The base is yours," he said. "Let's get the roots loosened and see if we can bring it down without taking half the row with it."
Nidoking dug in near the side opposite the direction of the lean, claws biting deep into the earth as he worried at the root ball. Excadrill tunnelled underneath, kicking up soil in controlled bursts, creating pockets for the roots to move into.
The tree groaned.
"Easy," David said instinctively, as if he were talking to a Pokémon. "You had a good run."
He stepped in, braced his shoulder against the trunk, and pushed.
For a moment, nothing happened.
He dug his boots into the ground. Every muscle in his legs and back protested, but he leaned into it, breath gritting between his teeth.
Then, with a long, creaking sigh, the tree shifted. The last few roots tore free with a wet, ripping sound. The trunk tipped, slowly at first, then faster, and crashed to the ground with a thunderous crack that shook smaller branches loose from nearby trees.
David stepped back, heart pounding harder than it had in any of his exhibition matches in the last year.
"Well," he panted. "One down."
The fallen tree lay sprawled across the path, branches splayed, roots exposed like skeletal fingers. Without the dead weight and the awkward lean, the surrounding trees seemed to breathe easier, their branches no longer entangled in their neighbour's slow collapse.
He rested a hand on the rough bark.
"Still work in you," he said softly. "Posts. Planks. Maybe a bench that doesn't fall apart when someone sits on it."
They set up a loose system.
Flygon and Gliscor handled the tops of trees that needed to come down, stripping smaller branches. Nidoking and Excadrill worked on the roots and soil. Swampert, when required, applied his ridiculous strength to nudge stubborn trunks in the direction David pointed. Krookodile oversaw from a safe vantage point, barking out amused 'Krook' noises whenever David misjudged and had to scramble out of the way faster than his sore legs wanted to move.
By mid-afternoon, they had three full trunks lying in a rough line near the barn and several piles of smaller branches and limbs stacked neatly at the edge of the orchard.
David wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his wrist, leaving a streak of dirt behind.
"Those'll season nicely if we keep them off the ground," he said to no one in particular. "Give it time, we can get posts, beams, maybe some better flooring in the barn. Granddad would kill me if I bought lumber when there's perfectly good deadfall on our own land."
He glanced at the sky. The sun was still a decent way above the horizon, but shadows had started to lengthen.
"One more job," he said. "Then we call it. Swampert, this one's yours."
Swampert perked up, gills flaring.
The stream was still more of a sulky trickle than a cheerful brook, but it looked better than it had two days ago. The spots he and Swampert had cleared now ran a little deeper. The water was clearer, the scent of stagnation less sharp.
David stood on the bank and squinted, trying to superimpose memory over the view.
There had been a time when a shallow side-channel fed a tiny pond not far from the house—a place where his childhood Mudkip had splashed until water went everywhere but where it was supposed to. Over the years, silt had filled the channel, grass had grown over the banks, and the pond had dwindled and vanished, leaving only a depression and a damp patch for a few weeks out of the year.
He walked along the bank until he found it: a gentle dip in the land between the stream and the farmhouse, now overgrown with reeds and tough grass. When he stomped lightly, the ground squelched.
"Here," he said.
Swampert trudged up beside him, sniffed the air, then the ground. He slapped one broad hand down and pressed; water oozed up around his fingers.
He pulled out his notebook again, flipped to another already-smudged page, and scribbled a quick plan.
-Small pond here. Shallow enough for smaller Pokémon, deep enough for Swampert to submerge. Connected to main stream by a narrow channel. Stone-lined edges later, if they had enough rock.-
"We can't yank too much water away from the main course," he said aloud. "It's barely got enough as it is. But if we bring a little across, let it settle here, and then rejoin downstream…"
He sketched a line from the stream to the low spot and back, forming a little loop.
Swampert rumbled, peering over his shoulder at the drawing.
"Yeah, yeah," David said. "I know it's not to scale. You're the hydrology expert, not me."
Swampert puffed his gills in smug agreement.
"Alright," David said. "You dig, I'll try not to get washed away."
They started by marking the rough path of the channel with small stones, from a slightly higher point on the stream's bank to the low depression, then from the far side of that depression back down to rejoin the stream several meters downstream.
"Keep the first cut shallow," David said. "We'll open it slowly. I don't want half the stream in my yard at once."
Swampert planted his hands in the earth and began to dig.
When Swampert dug with intent, it was like watching a living excavator. Each sweep of his arms moved huge amounts of soil. Where he pressed, the earth gave way. Where he needed it to hold, he tamped it carefully, broad hands patting down the sides of the forming channel.
David followed along behind with a shovel for finesse, cleaning up the edges, moving rocks out of the way, and piling usable stones on the new banks to start the reinforcement process.
Flygon watched from above, occasionally calling a warning when a section of bank looked like it might cave in if Swampert dug too close. Nidoking and Excadrill moved further up and down the stream, pulling out rocks that might divert water in unwanted directions.
By the time the first arm of the channel was carved in a shallow line from stream to pond-site, David's arms were jelly again, and the small of his back was an unbroken complaint.
He planted the shovel in the ground and leaned on it.
"Moment of truth," he said. "Let's see if this thing actually holds."
Swampert lumbered up to the point where the new channel met the stream, scooped out a little more earth, and then gently pushed aside the last thin wall of soil with one big hand.
Water rushed in.
Not a flood—just a slow, eager flow, like a held breath finally let out. It tumbled over the cut and into the shallow trench, then started its journey toward the low depression.
For a tense few seconds, David watched, ready to yell for Swampert to block it again if something went wrong.
The water followed the shallow path, hesitated in a slightly higher spot—
"Excadrill!" David called.
Excadrill popped up like a jack-in-the-box, quickly shaving off a bit of the small ridge with his claws.
The water resumed its path, trickling into the depression and pooling there. The cracked, damp ground darkened, then gleamed. A little mirror of sky formed, then grew as more water arrived.
"Good," David breathed.
On cue, Swampert stomped into the forming pond with the careful enthusiasm of someone trying not to ruin their own work. The water barely reached his knees, but he made a happy noise all the same, scooping handfuls over his head and gills.
"We're going to deepen it later," David told him. "This is just proof of concept."
Swampert, face dripping, gave him a look that clearly said his concept was now approved.
They watched the water level for a while. As it approached the marked exit point, Swampert and Nidoking carved a shallow return channel together, allowing some of the pond water to spill back into the main stream farther down.
It wasn't elegant yet. The banks were muddy, the water a little cloudy from disturbed soil. But it worked. The stream still flowed. The new loop shimmered quietly in the afternoon light. And Swampert looked like he'd just been given his own private spa.
Gliscor swooped down, touched a claw in the pond, shivered, and zipped back up into the air with a chittering complaint about cold water. Flygon merely dipped the very tips of her feet in and hummed, pleased.
David stepped a little way into the pond, boots sinking slightly. Cool water soaked through where his socks had already lost their battle with the day. He hissed at the temperature, then sighed as the ache in his feet eased.
"Not bad," he said. "For two and a half days' work."
He looked around.
The orchard behind him bore the scars of pruning and removal, but also the beginnings of shape. The upper fields, visible in the distance, showed freshly turned patches where stones had been cleared. The stream cut a slightly deeper line now, joined by the new loop that would keep Swampert happy and give future herds and workers a place to drink without trampling the main banks.
He pulled his Pokétch up with his free hand, snapped a quick picture of Swampert chest-deep in the muddy, newly formed pond, Flygon's wings visible at the edge of the frame, and Gliscor hanging upside down from a nearby branch.
He typed with his thumb:
-New feature: Swampert-approved water hole. No tickets sold yet.-
He stared at it for a second, then hit send.
It took a little longer this time, but the three dots eventually appeared.
-Is this what retirement looks like for you?- came Cynthia's reply. -Digging ditches and building spas for Swampert?-
He snorted.
-You say that like it's a bad thing,- he wrote back. -We also lifted rocks. Very glamorous.-
The reply came with a slight delay.
-Better rocks than reporters,- she wrote. Then, after a beat: -The channel looks good. Careful with the banks. Don't let the next big rain undo your work.-
He smiled, faint and genuine.
-Yes, Champion,- he tapped, then, before she could fire back, stuffed the Pokétch into his pocket again.
The sun had dipped lower while they'd worked, shadows stretching long and blue across the fields. The air had a hint of evening cool creeping in, bringing with it the earthy tang of wet soil and the faint, sweet fragrance of berries somewhere upwind.
He drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly.
He'd told himself yesterday that he'd go talk to Mayor Elson "tomorrow." Now, tomorrow had come and gone in a blur of rock and wood and water.
He could still, technically, walk into town. The light would hold a little longer. Elson would almost certainly still be at his desk.
He pictured the mayor's office, the worn desk, the stacks of paper. Pictured himself sitting across from it, admitting he was in over his head. Admitting he needed things he couldn't simply muscle into place.
His hand drifted to the notebook in his pocket, the pages full of lists and rough maps and problems he didn't yet have solutions for.
"Not yet," he said softly, to the water, to himself. "I need a bit more…proof of concept."
He could feel Swampert's gaze on him, the big Pokémon half-submerged, watching.
"I'll go," David promised. "Just…not today. I want to have something more to show than 'I tripped over a fence and my back hurts.'"
Swampert snorted a bubble, unconvinced.
"And I want a hot shower before I have to sit in a chair and talk like an adult," David added. "Which this house cannot currently provide. So, you see, there are structural issues."
Swampert huffed, sending a little spray his way.
"Traitor," David said, but there was no heat in it.
He trudged back up toward the farmhouse, boots squelching slightly. Behind him, the newly formed pond gleamed in the last strong light of the day, Swampert's silhouette a hulking, contented shape in the middle.
Tomorrow, there would be more stones to move, more dead wood to clear, more trees to coax back toward health. Next week, there would be real conversations with the town, whether he wanted them or not.
For now, though, there was a farm that looked a fraction less like it was dying and a fraction more like it might, with time and stubbornness, live.
One stone. One tree. One trickle of water at a time.
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