hiiiiii omg, so many reviews part 2, electric boogaloo. been mulling on a few of these and I definitely want to do them full justice--please do not think I have forgotten these! will be doing proper responses in the next week or so.
note: this update's a bit of weird one--
chapter 12 (jericho visits a ferris wheel) has been more or less completely rewritten. can provide summary if you don't want to read even more funky time loops in this already funky timelined story.
※
※
You run up to the human, careful to show off all your strengths. Lithe, powerful, graceful, nimble.
{Train me,} you command.
You watched her from a distance. Left her gifts you thought she’d enjoy. A potion, for her weaker teammates. A pokéball, for you. You could tell just by looking at her that she needs all the help she can get, but if she gets it, she’ll go far. She’s a fighter, like you. Scrappy, like you. She wants the world, like you. It’s a good match. She just doesn’t know it yet.
She probably doesn’t understand you, but the intent is clear enough. There’s a strange green pokémon with big eyes at her ankles. Smells like grass. Your nose crinkles. She’s got a smug look on her face, like she knows she’s better than you.
(Like she
is better than you.)
The human has pulled out her pokédex and is pointing it at you. She’s not even looking at you; she let’s the machine do that for her. That’s fine. You’ll pose for it as well. “Purrloin, huh? Tricky to raise, average offensive prowess, and a few warnings for mischievousness. Oh, and if that’s not ironed out, that could manifest as extreme aggression after evolution. They will disobey trainers they do not respect. Yikes.” She looks down at the simpering, smug one by her feet. “Still, not a dealbreaker. What do you think, Vaselva?”
Oh, she’s asking the plant for an opinion. Did you say simpering, smug? You meant supremely superior. Of course. {Please,} you say in the dialect of forests, even though begging tastes like birdshit on your tongue. {Tell her I want to train with you. She’ll listen to you. I’ll be the best companion.}
You wait, your heart throbbing in your chest.
The green one fluffs up her fronds, clearly annoyed. {Why.} It’s not a question.
You don’t hesitate. {I want to be strong.}
{This is my human. I protect her. You do not.}
That’s fair. What the green one doesn’t know won’t hurt her. {I want to be strong for myself,} you say. And that’s not even a lie. You do mean it. {But being strong means having strength to spare.}
The green one considers. Thoughtful. Yes, she would make a good partner on the field anyway. You’ve picked well. Finally, she shakes her head, and then tugs at her human’s pantleg with her scaled hands. Looks up. Nods.
You’ve done it! You have a human! She will be yours! You will call her something witty, clever. Hummy, perhaps. Brownie? She has the hair for it.
Wait, no. The human is shaking her head. She’s already put the red device away. Still isn’t looking at you. “Sorry, Vaselva. I think we’ll pass. Bianca says there are blitzle in the grass outside of town, and I think that’ll round out your flying weakness better. It’s not worth the risk, and, I mean … we can’t really afford to have extras right now.”
No!
No no no no
no!
They’re turning away. You dash around them on all fours, and then skid to a halt, blocking their path. {Train me,} you repeat. {I will be good. I will take care of the birds. I am exceptionally good at taking care of the birds. I will feed myself. No birds will bother your grassy one.}
The snake’s face is carved like a statue. {She said no.}
“Awww, aren’t you the cutest!” says the human. “Do you want a snack?” She’s reaching into her satchel now.
No, you want a trainer; you do
not want a—
She pulls out a berry and you salivate immediately. You’re hungry. You’ve been hungry for days. You—
Are eating ravenously.
When you look up, they’re gone.
※
You’re more careful choosing the next one. The rejection stings. The human you’d chosen didn’t look particularly powerful; she certainly wasn’t that much stronger than you. So for her to say that you weren’t good enough? For
her?
She looks like she crawled out of a gutter. Your mother belonged to one of their elites. Her trainer was one of the best in Unova, and she taught all of her moves to you before old age took her. So what does this little human girl know about dealbreakers?
Nothing. She knows
nothing, you have to remind yourself. You don’t need that particular human to know you’re worth something. Your mother belonged to one of their elites, until he gambled away his fortune, and his fame couldn’t protect him. He sold the expendables. Her new life wasn’t so bad; the humans who bought her were wealthy and took good care of her. But when she grew out of her prime, they discarded her like an old toy. She scrounged for a new home, and her once-proud head bowed for scraps, which she ferried back to you.
The anger festers, but the message is clear time after time: humans determine your worth in this world. If the little girl who rejected you doesn’t understand your worth yet, you will have to find someone who does. It’s that or go hungry.
So you watch him watch them. He has a strange gait, you decide. He doesn’t walk like a human, all confident and loud. He pads around, always nervous, always gentle, always quiet, as if he knows he doesn’t belong and is trying to draw as little attention to his outsiderness as possible.
He wouldn’t last a day as a purrloin, hunting them so obviously. Even as a kitten you learned how to hide from your prey. And your predators.
But he certainly has the eyes of a hunter. He surveys the other humans with a quiet, withdrawn sort of air. Even watching him carefully, you can’t quite tell if he’s looking at them or if he’s wistfully studying the trees. But he always times his entrances and exits flawlessly; always arrives just in time for the battles before melting seamlessly back into the crowd, as if he was never there to begin with.
Yes. This one will be yours. He doesn’t know it yet, but he will soon.
You leave the oran berry by his hand while he’s sitting on a park bench, even though holding it makes your mouth water, your stomach rumble. You place it where he’ll see it the second he turns around, and then you mold back into the grass behind him, eyes wide as you watch.
It takes him a while. He’s observant, but you are stealthy. When the human children withdraw their pokémon, one battered and the other no longer able to stand, he shifts his weight and almost crushes your offering. You watch as he turns, looks at the palm of his hand, and pulls the berry up closer to his face. He doesn’t smell it for ripeness, fool that he is, but he turns it over in his hands, runs one finger over the ring of bite marks from where you held it in your teeth.
He bares his own teeth in amusement—the smile seems genuine. He looks around, almost guilty, almost amused, and, when he fails to notice you through your perfect stealth, he shrugs and deftly begins to peel it.
Excellent. You are bonded for life now.
When he gets up to leave, you linger, watching. You pad over to the spot on the bench he had occupied, which still is faint with his warmth, and as you leap onto the slats, you realize that he’s left precisely half of the oran.
You are too hungry to hunt him down and question him for his disrespect, so you eat it instead.
※
You deposit the second gift while he’s alone.
You sort of have to, you see. It’s not by choice. You’d much rather give it to him where he and everyone else with eyes can see what a good hunter you are, to bring him so many gifts. Then everyone will have no choice but to be amazed at your prowess, and they’ll all be jealous. Everyone wins.
But. The bird is quite loud. It squawks periodically, and then falls silent, as if it’s forgotten that it wants to be obnoxious. And then it remembers, and it’s shrill calls echo again. So you’re stuck with the unsavory task of half-walking, half-dragging it through the streets until he’s alone, staring over the railing into the depths of the Forest of Pinwheels.
What does he see out there? He still hasn’t fought, or battled, or done anything in this strange town except watch. You’re beginning to wonder if you made the wrong choice.
No. You would never make the wrong choice.
You deposit the broken-winged pidove on the steps behind him. You’ll leave him with the honor of finishing it off. He is a frail one. You are the better hunter. And now you can make good on your promise: no birds will bother him, or any of the others he seeks to protect. You curl up around the balcony railing and blend into the shadows.
He turns around at the low coo of the pidove. His eyes rove across the observatory deck, at first too high, and then he sees the bird slumped in a pathetic pile of grey feathers. He gasps, and rushes towards it—
Good! He’s seen your gift!
—“What? Who hurt you like this? Oh, no, you poor thing.” He’s got his hands hovering a solid foot away from the pidove in either direction, seemingly torn on if he should try to move it or leave it be.
Ugh. He pulls out a pokéball and catches the stupid thing, hopefully so he can eat it later. Is he really going to waste his time with one of
those?
He hurries off to the pokécenter, and you’re left following after him.
※
You look for the third gift while he’s standing in the midst of a crowd. Hunting, probably. He blends in with the rest of the humans if you don’t know where to look.
He is the distracted type. You see him fiddling with the collars on his wrists constantly, twisting them in golden spirals up and down his forearms. Where does he go, when his eyes wander far away? He certainly isn’t seeing this world.
There is a child with a fidget-cube. Her fingers are too chubby to manipulate it properly; she’s too young for it. That’s what you tell yourself, at least, when you approach her. All fluff and smiles, something big and purple and colorful to look at, and when she throws her arms around you, you endure it. One moment, maybe two.
Yes, this is all part of your plan. She has to hug you for at least five seconds. Or ten. Yes, when she’s nuzzling her head into your neck, mixing strands of her hair with your fur. This is part of your devious plan as well. She has to get her guard fully down, this miniature human, or else you’ll never succeed. Absolutely.
“Purr! Purr!” she says, an utter butchering of your name. Despicable. How can you stand her, the way she squeezes too tightly, lets her warmth and love bleed into yours? Thank goodness you’re so strong.
“Riley!”
Oh no. Big human.
You look up guiltily. The big human has business clothes on; you recognize the flappy bit of fabric around his neck as plumage that only the adults have. On his face is carved a scowl, also the kind that only the adults have. “Riley! Get away from that!”
No no no, you’re friendly, you aren’t going to—
He swats you off with open palms, and then with gentle hands picks up the small one.
You hiss, puff up your fur defensively at the smarting blow, but he’s already hoisting the mini human onto his hip. “See, Riley? You can’t play with strays. They’ll always show their true colors.”
No! That’s … he … you didn’t start this! He did.
The mini human dropped her toy when the big one picked her up. So you do the only sensible thing and steal it, and then run away, and then very gently deposit it at your future human’s feet.
{Train me,} you yowl, and your persistence is rewarded when he turns around and looks at you with a warm smile.
You wait for him to send out a pokémon, to attack you. Something, anything at all. You need to prove yourself. You won’t make the same mistakes as before. You’ll win this time. He’s already accepted your gifts, so he is caught deep, deep in your cunning traps.
“Hello. My name is N. I’m travelling across Unova,” he says instead. Crouches down so that his eyes are on your level. You back up instinctively before you remember to be brave.
{Train. Me.} You keep the words simple. Mewl alongside them for emphasis. Maybe he’ll hear the question in it.
“Yes,” he says. “That too. Only if you want to.”
What a silly, silly trainer he’ll make. Of course you want to fight. Why else would you seek out a human? {I will fight for you. Loyally, and without fail. I promise that.}
“Oh?” He chuckles at that one.
You arch your back. You aren’t to be laughed at. You are better than this. You huff, turn to leave. You’ll find another human, and
then he’ll see. You’re three steps into your dramatic walk away when you realize he isn’t stopping you. {You’re just going to let me leave?} you mewl over your shoulder. {What, a purrloin isn’t good enough for you? Too common?}
“No. I would be honored.” Long pause. “If that’s what you want.”
He’s lying, even if he doesn’t know it. No human is honored like this for long. New pokémon are prizes to be won, interesting at first and then lackluster if they can’t prove their worth. You’ll lose his fascination and he’ll put you up on a shelf when you start losing. You know this. Your mother knew this, and taught you all too well—she was a trainer’s pokémon once, until she wasn’t.
You won’t make the same mistakes. You won’t be useless.
{Train me,} you repeat, and your heart almost bursts from pride when he extends his hand.
※
N talks to you more than you thought a trainer would. He has too many questions—
where are you from? what’s your name? what interests you in battling? am I talking too fast?—and at first you think it’s part of a test, so you answer him honestly. Accumula. Tourmaline. Strength. Yes, absolutely, do you ever stop?
(The last one you don’t say out loud.)
Slowly he peters off, when he seems to pick up that you aren’t really into it. You aren’t here for the chitchat. You’re here for the magical part where humans make you stronger than you could’ve been on your own. And if he thinks this interrogation will help, you’ll give it a try, but otherwise … you can’t get distracted.
You’re immediately distracted when you see her again.
{That girl,} you say, tugging on the collar of his shirt. You’re curled around his neck like a purple scarf, tail fluttering down his back. {I want to fight her.}
“You want to battle? I, um.” He stumbles over the words. “I don’t know how.”
{What do you mean, you don’t know how? You’re a human. All humans know how to fight.} You alight from his shoulders and land smoothly on the ground. You yowl to the girl and her green one. {Hey. Fight me.}
The green one looks up in alarm. {You again?}
{I got my own human,} you say, gesturing smugly with your tail. {He will make me strong. I will fight you now.}
{Hilda would’ve made you strong, too.}
{Hilda,} you say, the new name stretching your mouth into impossible shapes, {didn’t want me.}
{Don’t get mad that she was too busy training me. That’s not her fault.}
“You guys want a battle?” her human says, and yours gives a sort of strained grunt.
“Alright, Vaselva, let’s do this,” says the Hilda. She puts her hands on her hips like she’s analyzing the situation carefully. Silly. She should be more like your human, who isn’t staring at the opponent at all. “Vine Whip.”
The snivy nods, and then extends two thorny fronds from her backside—
where was she keeping those??—and launching them towards you. You narrowly twist out of the way of the first one, but the second one hems you in from the other side, smacking you upside the face before you can duck.
The first impact doesn’t hurt that badly. But the vine hits you hard enough to throw you to the ground, and the ground is harder than the vine, and your eyes are full of stars for a moment when your head hits the concrete of the street. You whine in alarm before you can stop yourself. You can’t look bad in front of them.
You’d watched humans watch these all the time. The pokémon there weren’t crying out in pain, although surely it must’ve hurt just as badly. Were they just stronger than you? Desensitized to it? Your mother said that when she was on the circuit, she’d just moved all the bits of her that she thought were soft and delicate and hidden them deep in her chest. {Which is where I hid you, Tourmaline, my love,} she’d whispered, nudging you with her nose. {So you wouldn’t be hurt.}
Hide them away. It’s your turn now. You pull yourself up, feel N’s concerned gaze burning into your back. {I’m fine,} you hiss back, an answer to his unspoken question. If he thinks you’re weak he’ll throw you to the side. If she thinks you’re weak she’ll know she was right to. {Tell me what to do.}
“I don’t know!” He sounds truly desperate.
You file him out as background noise for the moment and study the snake. Her vines have a predictable attack pattern to them. Left, right, left. There’s an arc and a sway that they all share; she hasn’t yet had her human point that out to her and train her out of it. You duck under the first, and then start running headlong in. The vines chase you, but you’re moving fast—they don’t retract as quickly as they extend. You get in close, and you rake your claws across her face. She manages to close her eyes and shy away just in time to protect those big, ruby eyes from the worst of it, but drops of red start sneaking down her face. She screams. You go in again. And again. Your claws ache under the impact of her skin. She’s got scales, and they’re still soft, not yet battle-hardened, not meant for this, like your claws, but if you can rake fast enough, you’ll win. You have to. Your chest aches and your head throbs and your paws are weary but—
“Vaselva, now! Vine Whip into Slam, like we practiced!”
Her vines are back. You didn’t consider that. She wraps them around you and raises you five feet into the air, prepares to smash you into the cobblestones. And before you can stop yourself, a wordless scream rips from your mouth—
“I forfeit!” shouts your human before she can complete the attack and send you into the ground, to match your shame. “Stop!”
The snake freezes, almost guiltily.
{What are you
doing?} you snarl at him as she places you back on the ground. {I almost had her.}
But he’s not looking at you. His breath is coming in short, uneven bursts. He’s reaching into his pocket, pulling out a wad of green paper, counting out a handful, shoving them towards Hilda. “Here. You win.”
And then, in a softer voice, he looks at the snake. Sounds almost hurt. “You … you didn’t even hesitate. Why?”
She looks up at N, one leaf on her tail torn. The fronds around her neck are in disarray, and she shakes them out disdainfully before answering. But she doesn’t meet his eyes. {She told me to. For her and her dreams, I would do anything.}
“But …
why?”
Vaselva flicks her tattered tail dismissively, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. {Because that’s what pokémon are for.}
Your breath is coming in short gasps. Something in your ribcage feels bruised. Your fur is all ruffled. You grit your teeth. This is what you wanted. This is what you want.
“Are you hurt?” he asks, crouching down to look at you. Hilda’s saying something to him, but he doesn’t seem to hear.
{I’m fine.} He can’t know you lost this so badly. He’ll think you’re weak and then you’ll be back at square one.
You picked a strange human, one who can understand pokémon. But he doesn’t
listen, so he immediately sees the way you’re holding your chest, the gash in your leg from where you hit concrete.
And that’s how you end up glaring at the stupid pidove again in the pokécenter, both of you bandaged up and neither of you in the mood to speak.
※
The pidove is still quailing in its roost at the pokécenter, but you won’t sit around quietly. You’ll be the most useful member on his team, and then he’ll see. But he doesn’t go near the trainers, even as you follow him resolutely through the streets, down the streets, across the streets. For a while, he’s silent, his hands shoved deeply in his pockets. You imagine a miniature thunderstorm brewing around his shoulders. A few blocks in, he stops and crouches, as if to tie his shoe; though it fills your heart with shame, you accept his offer and perch around his neck. There’s still a dull ache in your legs from the battle, and all this walking isn’t helping anyway.
He must’ve been expecting it, because he doesn’t shoo you off. He doesn’t say anything else though, either.
Accumula is a nice town from up here. This tall, and you can look down on the things that used to seem so big. There’s a street cart with wisps of smoke curling off of the grill, fencing off a man selling hotdogs. He waves when you and N approach. Down the road from him is a pair of humans hogging the sidewalk, but they shuffle to the right so that you and N can pass.
This is what it means to have a human, you remind yourself. None of them would’ve given you the time of day if you’d been alone. This is what you wanted.
“Are you busy this evening, Tourmaline?”
It’s the first thing he’s said to you since you lost, so it must be important. But what a dumb question it is. You’re a pokémon. You’re a pokémon who is now owned by a human. What else would you be doing this evening? But you get the feeling he’ll be disappointed by that answer, so instead you just say, {No.}
“I’m helping my friends try something out and I think you’d enjoy it,” he explains quietly as he pushes open a gate, steering the two of you off of the sidewalk and onto a garden path. “But it’s a little new. Do you like music?”
{Do you?}
He pauses for a moment, like he’s never considered that question. The gravel crunches beneath his feet. “Yes,” he says at last.
So then that settles it. {Yes.}
Something in your voice makes him pause. “Forgive me for asking. Are you just saying that—”
{Yes.}
There’s a long silence.
{Do you want me to see this place or not?} you growl at last, when it’s clear that he isn’t going to be the one to say anything else.
“Well, we’re here already,” N says with a weak laugh, but when you perk your head up to look at him, he isn’t even trying to smile. “So you see it. But the real magic will happen in … soon. I need to help set up. But it’s a performance of sorts. Many of my friends will be there. Do you want to watch?”
What a stupid answer for a stupid question. Perhaps you wasted your gift. No. Not in a million years. Your mother picked a bad human but you haven’t made the same mistake. {I will see this place with you tonight.}
‘This place’ is an empty garden just before sundown, with three humans and a watchog fiddling with some speakers. N’s bad at stealth, so when you and he slip in, all of them turn to wave at him when he enters. “The show will start in an hour,” he says in a quiet explanation that, like most of his statements, doesn’t seem to explain anything at all. He pauses. “If there’s anywhere else you’d like to be.”
You’re a trainer’s pokémon now. Where else would you go? But you don’t have the energy to argue, so you alight from his shoulders and watch them archly from a stool in the corner of the garden, furthest from the stage, your tail flicking.
Humans are strange. They rearrange all of the furniture into a grid shape, and you have to move twice (twice!) until they’ve gotten all the chairs in a layout they’re happy with. The joke is on them though; all of their furniture is so mismatched and slapped together—there’s no way to arrange two dozen chairs that look like they came from two dozen places nicely. At the center they put up a little makeshift stage, and N is fussing with some cords on the ground when the others start to trickle in.
“Oh!” he says, too loudly, and immediately drops what he was holding to run over to the leavanny standing by the garden’s gate. “I’m so glad you could make it, Briselle.” They both fold one hand in front of their chests and bow. “Did you have any trouble finding us?”
{No,} she answers very slowly in the dialect of forests. {Your directions were very good.}
“Do you need any help setting up?”
{No,} she repeats solemnly. {I have brought everything I need. Can I help you with anything?}
“There’s some lights over in the corner I was hoping to hang up before everyone else showed up,” N says, pointing to a tangle of wires, and the leavanny delicately stalks over and begins unpicking them with her leaves.
N and one of the other humans struggle with the lacing of a large banner, its paper crackling as they try to hang it over the stage. You watch with veiled interest; the lettering means nothing to you, but it must surely be important. The watchog scampers from chair to chair, laying a little piece of paper on each one.
When she skips your stool, you hiss, {What are those?}
{They’re for the humans,} she says, and when you look, you can see that they’re all crawling with the same illegible letters. {You can have one if you want,} the watchog adds.
You snatch it from her waiting paws and frown at it, trying to trace over the symbols with your tail. Belatedly, you realize you should’ve asked,
What are they for? but she’s out of hissing range and if you shout at her they’ll all see how stupid you are for not knowing. So you curl your tail tightly around your paws and trace over the strange symbols.
“Oh, hey Hilda! Welcome!”
Your head flicks over.
No. What’s she doing here?
She looks like she doesn’t know the answer either. One hand fiddles with her hair and she’s shifting her weight back and forth. But it’s the eyes that really give her away—her gaze flicks over every corner of the room, taking it in with rapid precision, analyzing the important bits and storing the information away. Her eyes slide right over you and back to N. “Hi. I hope I’m not too early?”
“You’re right on time!” N says. “Could Vaselva make it?”
Hilda blinks politely. “Pardon?”
N flinches and seems to catch himself. “Oh, pokémon are welcome in this space. If Vaselva would like to join us, we’d love to see her.”
Maybe
he would, but—
“And she’s already met Tourmaline, so perhaps they could catch up a bit!”
Before you can interject, the snake is already out of her pokéball, blinking sleepily in the garden light. Your hackles raise immediately. Does he not
realize that you don’t fraternize with enemies?
{I’m not talking to her,} you yowl from your perch.
Vaselva calmly shakes out her tail. {Scared?} she asks before N can respond.
Your claws sink into the wood of the stool. {I’d be happy to entertain our guests,} you say frostily to N, and he flashes you a grateful smile.
“Thank you,” he says. “Oh, and Tourmaline, could you save me a seat?”
{Of course,} you promise, and then belatedly realize you’re not sure how to do that. A problem for later; the snake and her human settle in next to you, and of
course, Hilda doesn’t sit between you. So you have to glare over the snake’s scaly head to watch Hilda shuffle into her seat and almost sit on the paper on her chair.
But she does notice it, and she begins to read it. You strain to catch the words as she murmurs them under her breath, her forehead creased with a frown—“First performer, Tiallys of the Yarrow Clan, from Lostlorn. He wants to be an idol performer, like Roxie, to catch the attention of his family. Second performer, Brex, from Pinwheel Forest. He usually prefers singing underwater. Third performer, Briselle, also from Pinwheel Forest. When she’s not practicing her harp, she’s working on a leaf-inspired fashion line … what?” She looks around the room, her brow furrowed, but N’s off by the stage messing with a tall light.
{Did N tell your human what this is for?} you ask the snake, while Hilda falls keeps scanning the strange paper, mouthing the words to herself.
{Perhaps, but she didn’t tell me,} Vaselva replies.
There’s a long silence.
{Are you still mad that I won?} she asks.
Not one to mince words, this one. You ignore her under the pretense of grooming at a particularly matted bit of fur under your ear while you search for the right words. {No.}
She stares straight ahead. {You certainly act like it.}
The snake wouldn’t understand. You’ve seen her type before. Bred for battle. It’s not like she ever had to struggle, blessed as she was by her birth to make her someone the humans coveted. Snivy are powerful, uncommon. She probably had everything she ever wanted given to her from the moment she hatched.
{You fought well,} you say instead, your voice stony. {Perhaps we’ll fight again.}
{Perhaps your trainer will be better when we do,} she says primly.
Your mouth is open for a retort when you realize you don’t know what you want to say.
It’s not about my trainer; it’s about me—but that’s not true, is it? Hilda was smart, so they won. You could’ve beaten the snake if Hilda hadn’t helped. But it’s not N’s fault that you lost. It’s yours.
Before you can find an answer, more people begin filling in the seats behind and around you. There’s a commotion as some of the chairs have to get rearranged to make room for a venipede, and a human boy tries to take the seat you’re saving for N, so you have to yowl at him until he stops. By the time you turn away from that, Vaselva has nuzzled up against Hilda’s leg, her eyes half-closed as Hilda gently strokes the yellow scales beneath her chin.
When you look at them, it isn’t anger that fills you. That could’ve been you. If you were—
No. You have your own trainer. This is what you wanted.
Someone flicks a light on by the stage, and then the rest of the room goes dark. The hushed chatter fizzles out, and everyone watches as N takes to the stage. You can’t help but lean forward. This is what he wanted you to see, right?
“The—” He flinches back as the microphone in his hand screeches, and when he starts over again he’s careful to keep it further from his face. Which is a problem, because he speaks softly, and you feel the rest of the audience straining in to catch his words. “The performers will be introducing themselves, and there are also programs on your seats for the hard of hearing.” He clears his throat, and you watch his gaze dart nervously around the crowd. “Um, thank you all for coming. We’re really pleased with the turnout, and the Accumula chapter will be trying to host more events in the future.” Another pause. “That’s all.”
He replaces the microphone and slinks off the stage to scattered applause. There’s a tiny, localized wave of disturbances as he picks his way through the tightly-packed seats—it looks like he struggles to see in the dimmed light, but you can watch him fumble around perfectly—and you trace the mantra of
“pardon me, sorry, thank you” until he makes his way to the back row and takes the seat by your side.
{Is that what you wanted me to see?} you whisper, but he just points at the stage.
You’ve seen these a few times before, from when you greedily watched human television through their windows. But you’ve never seen one with—
A minccino quietly totters up the steps, and scampers up the ascending boxes that have been arranged so he can be tall enough to reach the microphone. {Hello. My name is Tiallys,} he says quietly, in the dialect of forests. It would seem he learned from watching N; he’s careful not to get too close to the microphone, but his voice carries smoothly from the speakers. {I am from the Yarrow Clan of Lostlorn Forest. This is a song that my siblings and I used to sing in celebration of the Short Night. Traditionally—} He pauses.
His tail twitches, and that’s when you see how dirty it is. Strange. Usually the rats clean one another; it’s the first thing they do when they meet. {Traditionally, it should be sung with at least five others, but the Yarrow Clan was separated when our part of the forest was clear-cut. Um. The melody is very simple, and you are welcome to join in on the chorus if you would like.}
He pauses. The room is silent. Then he begins.
When he sings, his voice resonates in a deep vibrato, one that you wouldn’t have believed could fit in his tiny body. The words are lost to you, but the melody settles around your shoulders like a heavy blanket, warm, comforting. It lilts in a strange way, with pauses that feel like they should be filled by another. But it happens all at once: he’s halfway through threading a lyric, some stupid rhyme about “my love” and “stars above”, when—
You’re curled up against your mother, in the rare shared moments she had with you. Her humans couldn’t know about you, she’d explained. They’d make you fight. So she hid you carefully in the alleyways during the day while she fawned around her humans, and ran to you at night. {But I was thinking of you the entire time, my love,} she whispers with a soft laugh, her tongue rasping against the fur on the back of your neck. Her breath is warm, and you’re bundled tightly to her flank, and as you drift off to sleep, she begins to croon a lullaby—
Short night, good night,
Find your way in the moon’s soft sight.
You blink back to reality. It’s a different song; a simple one, like Tiallys said; roughly half the pokémon in the room have joined the rat on the chorus. You want to focus on how they aren’t as good as he is, how they’re distracting from the
real talent in the room, but you can’t. You can’t even bring yourself to join them; you just stare, stare at the stupid rat as he finishes his song with his eyes closed.
Short night, good night,
May we meet in the morn’s sweet light.
Your heart feels like it’s sunk all the way to your paws, and there’s a heavy weight on your shoulders that forces your head down, your ears back. The snake’s got her tail curled tightly around herself, and she clutches it like it’s something precious.
A tear traces down Hilda’s cheek. Does she even know why?
The rest of the show is a blur.
※
After the show, people start to trickle out. A group of humans approach N; he answers their questions with a stutter and a fake smile. The pokémon performers are gathered on the stage, and you almost could go up and join them, thank them, but what would you say? So you sit quietly.
Eventually, the crowd thins. Hilda walks up and clears her throat, and when he looks at her, she says, “Thanks for inviting me. This was … this was really nice. And different.”
N practically beams. “I’m so glad.” He fumbles around until he finds the stack of flyers in the chair beside him and presses one into her stunned hands. “The Accumula branch of Plasma has chapter meetings every other Wednesday, and for travelling trainers there’s listserv that’ll go directly to your x-transceiver so you can see what’s going on when. There are chapters in all the major cities now.” His smile fades and he trails off. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, of course! But if you were interested …”
Hilda scrutinizes the flyer in her hand—what, does she think it’s going to answer for her? “I think I will.” She swallows. “I learned a lot tonight. And you had a good time too, didn’t you, Vaselva?”
The snivy nods, and then adds quietly, {This was a very nice performance. Thank you.} She looks at both you and N when she says it.
The enthusiasm is back in N’s voice. “I’m so glad! I think a lot of people—and trainers—could benefit from seeing things like this, if we just …” He frowns and picks his next words very carefully. “If we just helped them see a world where pokémon are free to be people.”
Hilda’s face clouds in confusion. You see the question burning on her lips, but N doesn’t, and maybe she doesn’t either. She nods and waves before slipping out of the room, Vaselva at her heels.
Most of the room empties until there’s just a core group of people left. As far as you can tell, no one says a word, but somehow they all know what to do, and they begin rearranging the chairs (
again) into a large circle. A human and the watchog from earlier drag a heavy black bowl into the center. Someone turns on a set of string lights that almost seem to float overhead, twined in the branches of the oak tree above. The remaining half dozen or so people lounge in spots around the ring of chairs; someone passes glass bottles around them.
That night is a quiet one. Somewhere deeper in the city, a fester of sewaddle are gathering, humming as their legs click together. Their music drifts gently through the leaves.
N’s hunched over the black bowl, and with his own two hands he shakily manages to trap a flame. Oh. You remember those. You saw them in the city windows. Envied the ones who had their warmth.
He’s careful. You watch him from atop your stool, entranced. You’ve never seen someone handle fire so delicately. Normally you’d expect him to be afraid of it; it’s
fire, after all. But he’s not, as he gently pokes at the embers with a stick, blows a little into it, and coaxes it into a crackling hearth.
You’ve always wanted a human. Maybe this isn’t what you meant, though. This one is strange. This one will not get you to where you want to go.
But. Is that so bad?
The fire crackles as he steps back, casting shadows up his face and neck. You watch him survey the ring of people, and then he comes and sits next to you.
He leans back, but his back stays hunched, like he’s some sort of misproportioned sawk. He’s much too tall for the chair he picked, but he doesn’t seem bothered by it. You leap down from the stool and pick your way over to him, nuzzle yourself under his hand and curl up in his lap.
“Did you have a good time, Tourmaline? I’m sorry if you were uncomfortable being alone.”
You ignore his question. You can handle the snake and the girl, and he doesn’t need to know if you can’t. {Why didn’t you perform?} you ask instead.
“It wasn’t my place. I wanted that to be somewhere for pokémon to be who they want to be.”
When Brex sang, a human girl drummed the sides of his bucket. When the tympole dove underwater, the warbling effect from his voice echoed with the rhythmic rapping sound from the metal. It was a nice duet, you remember, but by that point your heart and your mind were far, far away. {There were some humans up there as well.}
He smiles stiffly. “That’s true.” The smile fades. “But I’d much rather watch.”
You think about how Hilda watched, frozen, the tear on her cheek glistening in the lights of the stage. When Tiallys finished his song, she’d wiped it away and clapped with all the rest, but you couldn’t help but wonder: did she know? Did she understand?
Your mother could’ve taken you to the forests. It’d be easier to hunt there, and she wouldn’t have had to preen and posture for her humans to get enough scraps to feed the two of you. But the wilds were dangerous in their own ways. Too easy for humans to decide that your home, your family, was theirs now. Tiallys sang for his siblings. If they were dead, he would’ve started with that. There is no shame or sadness in losing one to the wild. But if they were taken, scattered across Unova—he could sing as loudly as he wanted, but he’d probably sing alone.
Did she sense the magic in the room when the others joined in? Did she know who they were singing for?
No. Surely not. She might’ve tried, but she’d never be able to understand, not when all she could do was
watch.
You certainly weren’t wrong in picking your human. You can see that much now. But—
{You lost to that girl. I was humiliated.}
“I’m sorry you were hurt, Tourmaline. That was my fault.”
{I don’t want your apologies. I want to know how to get better.}
N swallows nervously. He’s staring into the fire, so all you can see is the bottom of his chin, the way it throws different shadows alongside the flickering light. “I think you did a really good job. You tried your best.”
{My best wasn’t good enough.} It’s your pride that stings more than the ache in your bones, now that you’ve been healed. You lost to the green one, and you won’t forget it. {You didn’t give me any commands.}
“I’m sorry,” he says, and from the sounds of it, he’s not making that up. “I’m new to battling, honestly.”
{New? But you’re so old.}
“I waited a bit.”
Ah.
“It makes me uncomfortable to try to give pokémon commands. I didn’t think you’d prefer it. You know yourself so much better than I do.” Idly, he begins to scratch at the spot where your nose bridges into your forehead, and you close your eyes. The fire is warm on your fur; the crackling light sends patterns spiraling up the inside of your eyelids. “I hope that if you ever find a new trainer who gives you a command that you don’t want to obey, you don’t feel obligated to listen.”
He’s certainly new to this, if he doesn’t realize what humans are. They’re meant to command. That’s their only purpose. Pokémon fight. Humans call the shots. That’s simply how things are. He’ll learn his place one day, as you’ve learned yours.
{I will do what it takes,} you promise instead.
“Do you think it’s fair that battles work like that?” he asks, almost casually. But you can sense the loaded intent in his words. If they had form they would be an adult liepard, rear legs bent taut and ready to pounce. “Is that what you want?”
{What else would I want?} you respond testily.
He doesn’t take your question as an answer, even if you wish he had. “I’m not sure. That’s why I like organizing events like this. It’s good for the trainers, but I hope that maybe the pokémon who attend can see if there’s something else they want instead.”
{I’m not going to sing.} You think of the leavanny and her harp, who introduced herself tremulously and explained that she’d admired the lyre since she was a sewaddle. Is that what he wants from you? {And I’m not going to play a stupid instrument, either.}
“You don’t have to.”
{You didn’t sing either,} you say, in case he’s got any grand ideas about getting the two of you onstage in a duet. {You organized the whole thing, right? If you hadn’t spoken up at the beginning, they wouldn’t have even known you were there.}
“No, they wouldn’t have.” He shifts his legs slightly, and you hiss in annoyance until he stills. “But I find that I hear quite enough of my own voice these days.”
You aren’t sure how to answer that. He keeps petting you, but he goes silent.
“That pidove you left me.” He pauses for a while, eyes distant into the open flame. “Why?”
{You knew it was me?}
The next long pause tells you all you need to know. “You were very stealthy,” he says, very carefully. He’s a very bad liar.
{I wanted to show you I was strong.}
“I believe you’re strong. You didn’t have to do it like that.”
{Do what?}
“The pidove almost—she was badly wounded.” His fingers stop on a snag in your fur, and he delicately begins pulling a small bramble out of it. Gentle. You haven’t had anyone groom you this way since your mother— “Did you intend to battle her for me?”
{Not a battle. You seemed like a bad hunter.}
“Ah.” The bramble’s tangled deep in there; had it come from the snake’s vines? You don’t remember. “Forgive me. I don’t actually know. Do you normally hunt pidove for food?”
{No. Territorial spats, sometimes. I would wound them or chase them off. In times of great famine, perhaps. If there is no other choice. Otherwise, no. They are irritating and more trouble than they’re worth.} So loud. Your mother picked the loudest spot in the alleyway to hide you when you were younger, where the pidove screamed at all hours of the day.
He’s got the bramble out. He inspects it in the firelight carefully, and then throws it aside. Resumes his petting in nice, slow strokes. “Would you hurt a human like that?”
{No. Absolutely not. I would never.}
“Why? Even for territorial spats? If one took your nest?”
Your tail flicks idly. He speaks like one who has never had to hunt. That is okay. You will do the hunting for him. You weren’t a good hunter in the city, but when you grow older you’ll be good enough for both of you. {Pidove are stupid. If I attack one pidove, the flock leaves us to settle our grievances alone. Even if I’m weaker, and two or three of them could easily overwhelm me. If I attack one human, they will all come. I will lose.}
That doesn’t seem like the answer he was expecting, but he smiles anyway. “Interesting.” Someone is getting up from the circle; N waves at them before they go. You don’t turn to watch. When he settles, he says, “You said you wanted to show me you were strong. What does that mean to you?”
Mean? Why would he ask that? Humans are for making meaning. {I want to win. I want to be stronger.} Maybe if you repeat it, it’ll sink in.
Maybe not. “What is stronger to you? The power to crush your foes? To have teeth and claws so sharp that none would dare challenge you?”
You … you aren’t sure. But stronger is certainly the opposite of what you are now. Can you get there on your own? You don’t think so. Your mother always told you the humans were the ones with all the power. They were the strongest. So of course you’d have to learn from them.
What would you learn from this human, though? How to call people together and help them sing? How not to battle? How to hang posters from trees?
There could be good lessons in there, you suppose. Perhaps even strength. But would they be what you want?
These are thick concepts. You’re reminded of trying to tear apart a backpack with your teeth to find the sweet prizes inside—it’s heavy work. The cloth is thick and must be wrestled with. You’re tired. Today started so long ago.
“You don’t want to stay with me, do you,” he says at last. He’s not looking at you. He’s staring into the fire.
Those words send a lurch of alarm through your paws. You stiffen. {What do you mean?}
“I think we’re both realizing I can’t make you strong the way you want, Tourmaline. I apologize.” He’s still petting you, and with your eyes closed the world is reduced to just the warmth of the firelight, and the pressure of his hand on your back, and the softness of his voice. “But I respect your desire. If you wanted to train, I have a few friends who have more courage than I, who can stomach violence. I think you would like them. They could help you become strong. Or, if you’d like, you can seek out your own trainer until you found one who fit.”
{Are you …} The anger crystallizes through the exhaustion. {Are you rejecting me?}
“If that’s what you want,” he says quietly, staring straight ahead.
You blink very slowly up at him. Fatigue is starting to slip in, enveloping your sore limbs, your confused mind. It’s a hard question. Maybe tomorrow you will leave him, find a trainer who will help you fight and become strong. Maybe you’ll stay. It could be that tomorrow you wrestle with what it is that you want from your humans, what it is you want with this world. It could be that the answers are easy once you look at them in the sunlight.
Somehow you know they won’t be. They never are.
Your mother wanted you to stay in the alleyway forever, even as the box she tucked you in grew smaller and smaller and you no longer fit. She wouldn’t have wanted you here, following her pawprints. But it’s what
you wanted. She hadn’t been able to hide the glints of glamor in her voice, the way that all of Unova used to erupt into cheers, chanting her name like a magic spell when she fought.
When the humans here applauded for Tiallys tonight, they were quiet, hesitant. Even though opening his heart up like that, finding all the soft and delicate bits that he’d hidden deep within his chest and sharing them with the world—that must’ve been harder than any battle. Your wounds from fighting Vaselva healed already, but there’s a pressure on the top of your head, the kind that feels like your mother’s breath on your fur. Tiallys had put that there without even touching you. It feels warm.
That … that was some power indeed.
Perhaps he could teach you this tomorrow, or N. Perhaps, tomorrow, one of N’s friends could teach you a different strength. If you could only find the one you wanted.
But that is tomorrow. Tonight, you curl up with him by the fire, watch the stars above, shutter your eyelids as N softly sings a lullaby in a language whose words you do not recognize. Tonight you can be at peace.
