Destiny Village ~ Library

[Flyg0n]

Koa eyed the little Shinx somewhat sympathetically. He sounded so young... Especially to take on a mission like this. On the other paw, Koa felt a little awkward to see him clearly so upset. Comfort wasn't something he was particularly great at dealing with. "Well, don't worry," he said. "You get to go home once all this is over, and it'll be like you never left!" It was the only comfort he had found in all this.

"Try not to dwell on it too much." He offered his best reassuring smile. "It's not so bad here when you get to know people on the team."

 

[ntmymike]

"Thanks a lot Koa." Miles said, feeling a lot better after hearing that. He's here in this world now, with a grand mission to take part in and he wanted to do his part well

"I'll try to get to know with many more people in the team"

 

[Flyg0n]

Koa smiled. He had a feeling this kid was gonna do good here. He might have been a little uncomfortable and shy, but he sensed a hardiness to him. Perhaps this little meeting wasn't so bad after all. Besides, it provided a welcome distraction. It was funny, he supposed. Here he was, talking to a Shinx, when not so long ago he'd desperately wanted to catch a Shinx of his own. The thought made him smile a little inwardly.

For the next couple hours, he hung out with Miles at the library, answering the Shinx's questions, and making light conversation. By the time he bid Miles farewell, Koa felt a little better about everything.

<><><><>​

 

[Shiny Phantump]

Soul was looking for a book. She wasn't sure what book she was looking for, but she had an emotional itch, and she needed something to scratch it with. She kept her face close to the shelf.

She was hoping nobody paid too much attention to her. It was hard not to feel self-conscious when the light behind her head was casting a shadow of the crest that had grown on her forehead onto the books she was looking at.

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Luz sometimes liked to wander the Guild study or the library waiting for a book to catch her eye, or just to appreciate the feeling of endless knowledge and creation, enouh to fill an indefinite lifespan, if she turned out to have one. Sometimes that meant bumping into a Spectrum friend.

So, Soul had reacted to the news like that, huh? Luz was still maintaining her usual, precise biological mimicry of zeraora. Maybe a little brighter than usual. If Soul wanted an eterna crest... Well, it looked rather captivating, to Luz.

"Howdy, there. Lookin' fer anythin' as I could help y'find?"

 

[Shiny Phantump]

Soul continued looking at the shelf, as if her change wouldn't already be visible to Luz from the side. "I don't know what I'm looking for, really. I feel something. I want to read something that... opens that feeling up. Expands it. Am I talking nonsense, or do you get what I mean? I want a book that makes me feel something."

If Luz was going to talk to her... what was the point in hiding? She turned to look at Luz. Let Luz see the same thing she'd seen in her reflection once she'd awoken that morning. A head still shaped like her ninetales one, but covered with eternatus' chitinous scales, like she'd put on an ethernatus mask... or like she'd taken a ninetales one off to reveal this beneath.

"Everything I learned about ourselves from Xerneas has been affecting me. I feel- Or, y I ask how you feel about it? I'm curious."

No one else she'd known had really gotten a look at her new shape. She really hoped Luz didn't find it weird or anything.

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Luz shrugged. "It sure is pretty peculiar t'not have any clue what to expect from our kind's continued existence. If this is the first time in Creation that bein's like us've come to exist, nobody may know. I could choose t'find that special, or excitin', or an adventure, I guess? Or I could let myself be terrified by it. But I guess I'm not feelin' much of either."

She leaned back against one bookcase and folded her arms. "I've already decided who I am. And who I am has got a lot more t'do with how I intend t'live an' be than it does with my parentage. Whatever this body is, it ain't gonna stop me from bein' a good 'mon."

 

[Shiny Phantump]

Soul tilted her head. "You don't feel... anything? We've learned a lot about what we are, and you... hmm... I suppose it's a good thing for you to be so stable. Like bedrock."

Still, there had to be something Luz felt, somewhere... She'd been staunchly defensive of Joule. Maybe that could be an angle? "You seemed close with Joule before. I suppose that hasn't changed?"

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

"I'm fond of that fella," replied Luz, with a faint smile. "Ain't got a miserly nor malevolent bone in his body. Nor any bones. Like us."

She sighed. "Look, I've spent half my existence worryin' 'bout my existence. An' I recently went to Spirit's Edge with Buffet an' Cal to meet my namesake t'help figure it all out fer good. It worked well enough. I ain't all that much like Zeraora Luz, but I'm like enough to her in the ways that matter to me."

She gestured vaguely. Maybe if she kept talking she'd hit on whatever it was that Soul needed to hear.

"We always knew we were connected t'Joule, an' to Dark Matter. We learned back when we fought Eterna Darkwhite that there might be a connection to Eternatus. This is jus' confirmation and specificity. It don't much change our relationship to each other, nor the team, nor what we want our lives t'be."

Luz pointed at Soul's altered face. "Y'got that mask on 'cause y'think yer own identity's secondary t'yer hypothetical fate of becomin' an eternatus, any fool could tell that. Don't mean nothin' 'bout who you are. Else we'd all be reactin' the same way, wouldn't we?"

 

[Shiny Phantump]

Soul's tails twitched. She'd been right to worry, then. Luz clearly thought she was silly. She'd known someone might say something like that, but hearing it from someone she'd considered a friend stung. "Fine, maybe you already pretty much figured all this and none of it matters to you. But I've found a missing piece of who I am... and..."

And what? Soul couldn't find the words. Whatever. Luz didn't seem inclined to care anyways. She turned to walk away.

After a moment, though, she looked back. She couldn't quite find the words for what she felt, but she could at least say something. "It does mean something to me. I-I'm not a fool for feeling this way."

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

"Well, now, I didn't mean it like that," said Luz, hurriedly. "I'm awful sorry, darlin'."

Luz stood up from her slouch and spread her paws in entreaty.

"What I mean to say is, yer relationship with this revelation is yer own. It ain't inevitable jus' 'cause of bein' a shade, and other shades don't gotta have the same reaction as you. But don't you see? That means it's yours. Yer own way of takin' the news. Not mine or anyone else's."

 

[Shiny Phantump]

Soul breathed a sigh of relief. Luz was still okay, then.

"I know that. I can see that on everyone else's normal faces. I just wanted to understand why. I suppose it's because everyone else has figured out who they are already?"

Soul had never really known what it would be like to be a normal familiar, with her identity as a given. She'd probably have ended up as a copy of Salac. Instead, she'd ended up as... nothing. "You remember when we first met? How I didn't have any form at all? At some point I took on the shape of a vulpix by accident, but I didn't stop feeling the way I did when I was shapeless. I like knowing what I am. I'm learning. I feel closer to being someone now. "

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

"An' that's a good thing, ain't it?"

Luz leaned back again. "I do remember back then, yeah. I remember bein' all jumped up thinkin' I was invincible and everythin' would always work out. Then I buckled the second somethin' went really wrong fer me fer th'first time. Sounds like you're buildin' yer identity slow an' steady. That ain't no bad thing."

 

[Shiny Phantump]

Soul laughed. That party felt like a lifetime ago now. In some sense, it was. "I remember that, too. I believed it. Really thought you were unbreakable. You still seem that way sometimes, even now that I know it's not literally true. You're very... grounded. I look up to that."

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Luz felt what she imagined would show as a blush on a body other than her own. She put a paw to her cheek.

"Darlin', yer too sweet by half," she admonished. "I sure ain't unbreakable, and I got concerns aplenty now that I've had a hot second to live and be, but I reckon I'm still that gal, more or less. Just with more substance beneath the surface impression. Which is a good thing, y'know?"

She smiled. "I dare say I'm plenty curious about what yer new visage denotes about yerself, in yer own words."

 

[Shiny Phantump]

"Before the tree and what we learned afterwards, Eternatus and their power... I knew about it, but it was like an abstract concept. Like humans: Known, but a mystery. Or, like they would be had we not a dozen of them on Team Spectrum."

Soul thought it odd how she thought of humans as distant and mysterious despite having lived with them around all the time for her entire season of life. That would be Celeste's influence, she supposed. "Now, it's a lot... closer to home. I've met Eien, and learned that she's my mother-of-shell. Or, our mother of shell, for whatever that's worth to the rest of you."

Soul hesitated, taking a moment to find the words she needed. "Most familiars emerged from the shell with identities, with memories of a history that was their own to build themselves off. Without that, I used to be aimless. Now, though, I have our origins, the heritage we come from to draw upon. It seems natural to me that's who I'm becoming. It's not really so different."

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Luz nodded. "Identity ain't somethin' fixed at creation anyway. I realised recently that I've got less t'do with the actual Luz Escarpa than I do with Brisa, an' what Brisa imagined herself t'be when she were young. That realisation... I'd say jus' bein' aware of it makes me a li'l different. Bein' aware of this makes me a li'l different too, I guess. Means my future's less certain than I thought. More mysteries ahead."

The zeraora-shade reached out and brushed a paw lightly over Soul's scalp where the draconic plating showed.

"What does bein' part-eternatus mean t'you, then, partner?"

 

[Shiny Phantump]

Soul had to think about that. What did this mean to her? It felt like there was a hole in her idea of who she is that was been filled in, but why? Why did it matter to her? She wasn't sure why. "It's hard to put into words. Everyone needs something to be. You're a zeraora. Does that mean something to you?"

Soul leaned her head into Luz's touch. It felt good, but also strange and different now that she had scales there... Did the shade turned into chitin scale really have a different feel than the shade turned into fur, or was the difference purely in her head?

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

"Yeah. Means the things I care about bein' are the things that Luz Escarpa was said to be. Strong, brave, bold, fightin' fer what's right. And entirely charmin', of course~"

She flashed her widest, brightest smile at Soul. She'd be lying if she pretended not to get a kick out of being liked. She liked Soul liking her, and Soul sure seemed to.

 

[Shiny Phantump]

Soul smiled back. Luz was pretty charming... Even if she made Soul anxious once in a while.

She counted herself fortunate being a zeraora did mean something to Luz. She was halfway anticipating Luz to say it meant nothing, which would've made her explanation all the more difficult. "But what if you didn't have that? I never had anything to fill that part of who I am, yet I still feel like something's supposed to be there. Making up things to try to become never felt meaningful, either. I'm still searching for something to fill that."

"So, what being part eternatus means to me..." Soul sighed. "I've never spoken with Eien or anything. I don't know what it means yet... But I'm close. It's comforting to know that hole can be filled. That my search for something to fill it is almost over. I'm not going to just have to get used to having something missing from me."