Author's Note:
At long last, an update. This one has been near-complete for a long time, pending some difficult edits, but finally it's ready. The good news is that so is Chapter 4, which should be up
very soon. As always, I appreciate any and all feedback!
Chapter 3
First Impressions
Salem drank it in, all the while staring at the morphs inside. Each one a mystery. Each one an opportunity and a risk.
The room was larger than the offices and bedroom Salem was used to, but felt much smaller with a dozen or more morphs inside. Just standing by the door, their distinctive scent – at once pokémon and human – overpowered her. She couldn't help but stare, trying to take in every detail and identify every species. Round tables with varying numbers of chairs – and occupants – beside each one, and a desk at the near end of the room. Morphs talking among themselves; morphs alone. They all wore the uniform, they all had a human's upright body plan, and they all had fingered hands. Just like her.
"Don't panic," said Taylor, kindly. "I know it's another big change, but you've already been through the biggest one, right?"
That was true. It had been hard, though. This might be hard, too.
"This is the main seminar room," he continued. "You can stick around here for a bit, then maybe you'll want to see the next room along. That's the morph common room, and it's where you should go if you aren't sure where to be. It's for morphs to meet and spend time together casually.
Here is one place where morphs can learn as a group. Alright, are you ready to go through?"
She nodded and stepped forward,
feeling more eyes on her than she actually
saw. A lizard, half-asleep, with burnt-orange and black scales and a throat that bristled with spikes. Maybe a heliolisk, or possibly a really weird dragon-type… A birdlike morph with strikingly metallic plumage stared at her from one table. She stared back, but couldn't hold their gaze. A morph with leathery wings bunched beneath their arms waved to her. She thought to wave back, but hesitated too long, and her arm stayed at her side.
"You can go ahead and sit anywhere, Salem," Taylor said to her, quietly. "The teacher will be along soon. I'm sure someone will make introductions for you."
She looked around. Most tables had one or more free spots left, and there was even an empty one. Should she pick randomly? Or study the seated morphs in a hurry to make a judgment? Maybe just sit with the one who waved. No, they were talking to their neighbour now, they'd clearly lost interest. Her hands made tight fists as she looked from face to unfamiliar face.
A white-furred hybrid, alone at her table, froze her anxious searching by making direct eye contact. Blood-red feather behind one ear, golden gem centred on the forehead... A sneasel, she guessed. For a moment, Salem's hackles started to rise, but then the sneasel winked at her. Salem closed one eye and opened it again. Definitely not a proper wink. She'd better practice. The sneasel beckoned her by signing [come here] with a pair of long claws. Something Alisha had told her about 'your type' made her wonder if it was correct to sit with other dark-types.
She searched the room for groups of morphs, guessed their types – there was one table with three morphs she thought looked like psychics, but elsewhere there was a rock-type with a grass-type, and a water-type with a fighting-type. She wasn't sure what she'd expected – she was used to seeing like-types together in the teams of type specialists on TV. But this wasn't television. It was a room full of beings like her.
[Come here!] The sneasel was exaggerating the gesture now.
Taylor gave her a gentle nudge, so Salem approached the winking morph and carefully steadied herself with a hand on the table to sit down. The sneasel pulled her chair out for her, and she signed [thanks] when she took it. Taylor gave her a little wave from the door and left.
[Hello, welcome,] signed the other morph, grinning like a human who had grown up doing it. Her smile was full of sharp points.
[Hello,] replied Salem, [are you a friend?] She added in Galarish, "Are you . . . a friend?"
The toothed grin got bigger.
"Yeah," she said. "I'd like to be, anyway. You got a name?"
Salem had already decided to keep her name, but she hadn't considered what other morphs might
think of it. After a moment's panic, she replied: "Salem."
"Salem, huh? Nice to meet you, Salem. I'm Dusk."
Dusk made a sign a little like the one for [sundown]. That must be [Dusk], then.
"I'm a sneasel," she continued, the
-'morph' part left unsaid. "I guess you're a purrloin, maybe? Yeah. I saw you freaking out and wanted to help. We can be friends, but it's okay if you sit somewhere else next time. I'll even help you pick." Dusk smirked a little at Salem's extended silent stare. "Hey. You talking much yet?"
Salem swallowed, her throat seeming to dry up. "Uh, yes?" she ventured.
"Any bigger words than that?" asked Dusk, leaning her cheek against her clawed hand and maintaining her fanged smile.
"Encyclopedia," said Salem, without thinking.
Dusk burst into laughter at that; a full, eyes-closed, wheezing laugh. For a moment, Salem felt like she was interacting with a human and not another former pokémon. She glanced around to check if this was drawing any attention from the dozen other morphs present. Not really. Good. Without her meaning for it to happen, her mouth pulled at the corners into a smile.
"Okay, that's a good word," said Dusk, when she was done. "I don't know that word! I also don't know this word, 'Salem'. Does it have a sign?"
"I don't think so?" Salem said, and signed out [s-a-l-e-m] as quickly as she could. It wasn't the same as having a single sign for her name, though. What had Laura used…? Oh, yes. "My human used to sign [kitten] as a nickname. Do you understand?"
"They signed [cat]?" asked Dusk, frowning.
"No." [Kitten. Like this. Kitten.]
[Kitten?]
"Yes!"
"I don't like that," said Dusk, her grin faltering. "You're not a child."
"Not a child," Salem agreed. But her tail bristled a little all the same at Dusk's disapproval of Laura.
"It's okay. You'll pick up a sign-name soon enough."
Salem's tail shot up. "Ah, I have one!" she blurted. "Pickpocket!" [Pickpocket!]
Dusk's grin came back twice as wide, and she copied the sign with ease.
"What does this mean?"
Salem tried explaining, with some difficulty, what a pickpocket was. Eventually she settled on 'sneaky thief', to Dusk's delight.
"Nice. So, you were trained?" asked the sneasel.
"Trained. No, I was not trained."
"You gotta stop being my echo," said Dusk, making a face. "Anyway, I was wild. Used to live up in the Alban tundra. I'm telling you now in case you don't like wild 'mon. Some trained – I mean, some 'mon that lived with humans are like that."
Echo? Oh. Of course. Salem would have to try not to copy Dusk's words out loud. She shook her head. "I'm interested in your wild. How did you become here?"
She knew she'd said something incorrect the moment the words left her mouth, from how Dusk's smile curled at the faulty phrasing. Yet, her face did not burn and she did not need to look away. It seemed funny, somehow.
Funny. That wasn't a totally new concept, but it was becoming familiar faster than she'd expected. She laughed. It was a chattering, high-pitched sound which she cut off immediately with a strangled noise.
The grin again. "I'll tell you later. Right now is a good time to tell you what you need to know about everyone else here."
Salem nodded. She bit down on the urge to echo Dusk's words and said, "Okay. I'm listening."
Dusk leaned back in her seat and nodded at the starkly-coloured bird. She looked back. Salem expected her head to bob like a pidove's, but she held it still, like a human.
"You see the bird? Steel-type bird, looking angry? She is a corviknight. She is called 'Veracity'. She is sharp. I mean sharp, because she can cut you with her wings, but also her words, they are 'sharp'. All you need to know about her is she thinks she's the boss. The boss bird, maybe."
Salem nodded, mouthing
'boss bird' wordlessly. She listened carefully, clutching at the information, but attentive also to the cadence of Dusk's voice. This was only the second time she'd heard another morph speak at all, and Dusk was speaking at length. Her phrasing, her timbre, her rhythm, were all unlike that of humans, and it was pleasant in the manner of a new toy, or petting from a stranger. Maybe 'fascinating', more than pleasant?
Dusk continued, turning to look over her shoulder, and put her paw on Salem's chair back as she did so.
"That one there is Eliza. No, not the one with scales. The one who looks most human? Dark green hair, very pale skin? She is a gallade. She thinks she was almost human even before the Change and she is always trying to make a proof of it. Like it matters."
The sneasel didn't seem to tire from talking, but barrelled on as if in a hurry. She commented on each morph in the room in turn, giving Salem a basic description. Salem repeated the key words in her head over and over, determined not to have to ask again.
The winged mammal was a noivern, called Nox. Dusk liked him, as he never did anything without thinking, which she respected. The lizard with the spiked throat was Contrivance, and he was a heliolisk. Often quiet, the throat-spikes pumped up if you startled him, which Dusk promised was tremendously entertaining. Salem would have to try that. A lone eevee didn't have a name at all. Dusk didn't know him well; he was another new arrival. There were others still, but Dusk paused her stream as one ear twitched.
"Look up now," she said, "teacher is coming."
A tall figure, made taller by a dark horn rising from one side of their head, passed through the doorway. They and Taylor nodded to each other as the newcomer brushed by him. Beside that curved horn, a sandy mane of long hair, a charcoal-furred face, and a distinct muzzle all made it clear: the teacher was no human. The teacher was a pokémorph. Morphs could teach…?
Salem could read the expression on his face somewhat (scowling, but only slightly), guess his sex from sight (male), and make a note of the clothing he wore. Black leather jacket, chequered shirt with the top three buttons undone, Perihelion badge at an angle. That all meant 'informal'. Very informal. His red eyes settled on Salem for half a second as he strode to the front of the room.
"I see some new faces," said the morph, in a quiet growl. "Today I am your communications tutor. On other days, I will be your combat instructor. You call me
Whiskey to each other, and
Sir to my face. I am here to help you make yourself understood, and to understand others. If you work hard to do that, I will be pleased. If you are not interested in that, I am not interested in you."
Dusk nudged Salem in the side. "This guy's my best friend," she said, and Salem knew she was joking from the tone.
Whiskey's eyes flicked to Dusk, but he didn't comment. He pulled up a chair for himself at the desk up front, and picked up a pen.
"Class begins in two minutes," he growled. "If you're ready to learn, be here when that time is up. If not, there's space for you elsewhere."
Salem fidgeted with her claws. Was she ready? She'd thought so, but she wanted to keep talking to Dusk…
At this point, Taylor approached, his gentle smile familiar enough to soothe. "I hope this was interesting for you, Salem!" he said, brightly. "Absol Whiskey is probably not the best first-time seminar tutor for you, though. Would you like to come with me again now? I can give you that tour of the facility, if you like."
Salem glanced at Dusk. She'd not even been in the company of other morphs for
minutes. She shook her head and signed. [No, thank you. It is still interesting here.]
Taylor made a particular face: mouth pulled over to one side, head tilted the other way.
"Come on, Salem. Class is about to start. You're not even scheduled to join just yet, you've not had time to properly acclimatise."
"No, please. It's interesting."
"Are you sure you won't… Salem, I'm worried you'll have a difficult time, with so many new stimuli at once. It might make learning harder, for you and the other morphs…"
"No! I'll be okay. Very okay. I want to see other morphs."
Taylor was about to speak again when Dusk interrupted him.
"It's alright, chief," she said. "Why don't I look after her? I'm ahead in comms, so I don't need to be here. I can give the same tour you can give, but better for being a morph. Much to learn and fix her ears on, she won't be bored. She will be fine. Yeah?"
Taylor looked inquiringly at Salem, who nodded back firmly. Yes, this would be okay. Even better than class, even, for getting to hold extended conversation with a morph.
Taylor rubbed the back of his neck. "Maybe. If you're sure, Dusk... Do I need to go over the rules?"
"Nah. I got this."
"Okay. I'm trusting you. Salem is your responsibility for now."
"You got it, chief."
Taylor left, looking over his shoulder at the pair of morphs as he went.
Dusk gripped Salem's shoulder. "Alright! I'm
responsible for you. You can count on me, yeah?"
"Count on you," Salem echoed, signing a small [I understand]. It was easy to believe the sneasel, with such assurance in her voice. Perhaps if Salem had boldness like her, she'd get what she wanted from humans as easily as that.
Dusk rose from her seat, and Salem rose with her, tail thrashing with anxious excitement.
"Let's start that tour," said the sneasel, all confidence and delight. "Lounge first, then we can get food. Sound good?"
It did.
The absol hybrid taking notes at the front didn't raise his eyes to look at them as they left.
XxX
Salem peered through the door as Dusk held it open for her. It was
full of morphs. Hybrids of every description sat alone, in pairs, and in groups, on comfortable-looking sofas. One at a time would be enough. If she made a mistake, it would be in front of so many… Then again, there were so many to watch and learn from. Her breathing sped up.
She flicked her tail, flexed her claws and watched the morphs, picking up what she could without gawping. No staring. No eye contact. No threat.
Two talking nearby: a peach-and-rose tabby with a pincushion tail, and a grey canine with black fur around their shoulders like a cloak. Pincushion tail meant skitty; skitty were predictable. But Salem remembered the last time she tried interacting with a dog – a rockruff whose playfulness she'd instinctively misunderstood as alarm. These morphs had no such trouble. They signed in continuous sentences, punctuated by quiet words in Galarish. One laughed. The laughter sounded almost perfectly human, but with a distinctly inhuman throatiness to it.
Further away was another bird. Their plumage was a striking red and cream and iridescent green, and a bifurcated scarlet wattle hung from their head... A male blaziken, then? It was males that were so colourful, right? This one was the brightest creature she'd ever seen, and he was transfixed by a wall-mounted television playing muted sports coverage. His beak moved slightly as if he were mouthing words to himself.
There was one morph, cross-legged on the floor, quietly reading a book Salem knew this one's species for sure: mienshao. Salem had met one of those at the shelter. This one was pure white, without banded markings. They caught Salem's eye in a glance, and smiled at her.
Salem tried to imitate the smile, on reflex. To her surprise, it was easier to copy another morph than a human. There was a trick to it, and the mienshao had figured it out. So could she.
She tried smiling at Dusk, who beamed back at her.
"This is the common room," she told her. "You can come to this place when you want to, for seeing other morphs, or just to be here. Just . . . be careful. Not every morph is as friendly as me, yeah?"
Salem nodded, trying to communicate seriousness with a tightly shut mouth and pricked ears.
"Right," said Dusk, nodding at the bird. "That's Sauce. I can't say his real name, but it's the word for a kind of sauce, so that's what I call him. It's, ah, 'suh-ree-racha' or something. He doesn't like being called Sauce, so I will never stop calling him Sauce. He's a blaziken. He . . .
also thinks he is the boss bird. Maybe this is just what birds are like."
Dusk resumed her stream of information as if it had never been cut off. She described several other morphs in turn, including the mienshao, Xiaomao, an older morph who kept to herself. The last were the cat and dog pair that sat together. Dusk made a funny sound in her throat when she noticed them.
"Those two are Heather and Bramble. The skitty is Heather, the mightyena is Bramble. I always see them together, I am pretty sure they both were pets before this time, so maybe that is why? They are okay, I guess, but I don't think they want anything much. Usually morphs
want a thing really bad, like Sauce over there wants to be big and important and in charge, and Eliza back in class wants everyone to act like she is a human."
Dusk looked at Salem, holding eye contact barely any distance from her face.
"What do you want, Salem?"
"What do
you want?" Salem replied, surprising herself.
This earned another grin from Dusk. "I will tell you about that some other time. We have more to look at, first."
Well, Salem would just have to keep talking to Dusk until she got an answer. But for now, she listened.
Dusk pointed at each significant thing in turn as she explained them. The morphs lived here, having all gone through the same process as Salem. The television played preselected shows at certain times of day. A screen on another wall served as a digital noticeboard, updated regularly. Anyone could use the bookcase, stocked with everything from photo albums, to novels, to (precious, exciting) encyclopedias. Various doors led to the canteen, (no more breakfast in bed), other classrooms, the arena, and the dormitories, where her new bed awaited her. Someone would take her belongings over before long. (Belongings! It was still strange to own human things.) If she had questions or trouble, and Dusk wasn't around, the friendlier morphs would be happy to help, or there were always human staff at the reception who would help her out.
"Come on," said Dusk, who seemed to be somehow
less tired after talking so much. "I'll show you around on our way to get lunch! Or, at least the places morphs are allowed to go. That's still a lot of places."
Lunch, huh. Good. Salem could do with some food.
XxX
Salem had found the common room well-populated. The canteen held easily four times the number of morphs and humans present, and the cumulative noise of each spoken word, each clink of fork against plate, each hum of human technology, made a cacophonous attack on her ears. Plus she'd been walking around a building larger than she could get her head around for a while now, as Dusk taught her about places inside it that she'd already forgotten. She flattened her ears and crouched, trying to be lower to the ground than she could stoop to.
"Hey, it's okay," said Dusk, firmly. "You'll learn to be okay in this much noise. I say this… I didn't have such a problem, because in my old life I had dozens in my family, but I still understand. It is very new, very strange. Right?"
"Right," muttered Salem, nodding.
The canteen entrance faced rows of long tables with benches on each side, many of them taken up by morph occupants. A series of counters to the left – staffed by a human, and also by a pachirisu-morph, to Salem's delight – bore not only food, but a stack of trays, plates and so on. Dusk led her along to these, took up a tray, and gave a casual, confident demonstration of asking the human server – with emphasis – for meatballs, please.
Salem followed suit, her claws flexing into her palm as she did. "Meat-balls, pluh-ease."
Somehow, any kind of emotional reaction at all would have been less surprising than the way the young man in front of her dished out the requested food with a plain "here you go".
It smelled fantastic.
Suppressing the urge to start eating it while stood there in front of the human, she followed Dusk as she proceeded to the next counter, where she exchanged a few sharp bursts of speech and sign with the bushy-tailed morph stood there. Dusk laughed; the other morph smiled. Then they served up a small bowl of pale liquid and a beaker of water for them both.
Dusk took Salem to an unoccupied table and sat across from her. Her face beamed, and the gemstone set into her head caught the overhead lighting.
"More exciting food than you got in recovery, yeah?" asked Dusk. "One human thing at a time. This is next!"
Salem nodded, and stared at her plate. Humans used tools to eat. Was she supposed to do that?
Dusk answered her by spearing a meatball with one claw and holding it up between them. "Do as you like," she said, grinning. Then she ate it.
Salem followed suit.
The meatballs were
warm.
"Not bad, right?"
She nodded, barely looking up from her food. It was not bad at
all. The pale liquid turned out to be some kind of soup, which she lapped at, experimentally at first, then quite a lot more. It wasn't bad, either!
"Still hungry," said Salem, awkwardly.
"Makes sense. Long day! Want to get some more?" asked Dusk, flashing that fang of hers again.
"
More?"
Salem tore into her seconds with as much gusto as the first serving. Dusk suggested other options to try, but she wanted the meatballs. They were the best food that existed, so why would she try anything else?
Dusk did most of the talking. No change there. Salem listened, ate her seconds, and mouthed the occasional word to try it out, and save for later. The sneasel talked about life in this place in a way similar to how Laura used to talk about college – excited, but a little forced. Dusk explained combat training with more relish than the rest. Battling... Salem had the opportunity as a kitten to get into some illicit playground scuffles, and more recently she would sometimes bully the snom outside or scrap with feral cat pokémon, but real fights were something she saw on TV. Strange that she should finally fight battles of her own in this place, with no particular human to be her trainer and companion.
At one point, Dusk simply flowed through a description of her favourite battle she'd spectated, with Salem listening, ears perked, the whole time. Dusk's eyes were bright and her feather quivering as she described the attacks involved with illustrative gestures and a few sound effects. Eventually she noticed Salem staring.
"Shit, sorry, I got excited," she blurted.
Salem didn't mind one bit.
"I like to listen to this," she said.
"Oh," said Dusk. "Okay, then." She had a different kind of grin, now. Something about the eyes. Brighter.
The conversation continued comfortably with Dusk doing most of the talking and Salem making remarks to keep the sneasel's momentum up. There was much to learn – about Perihelion, but also about Dusk. For instance, her feather vibrated excitedly whenever Salem learnt a new word from her. Salem liked that.
After a while, Dusk stood. Salem stood too, automatically, but Dusk waved her down.
"Nah, stay here. I'll be right back."
Salem nodded, and sat back down to wait. She would look around at the morphs in the canteen and listen to their sounds, maybe even learn their scents. After a minute of this, she smelled
metal.
Salem looked around her for the source of such a strong metallic scent. She soon found it. Approaching her from behind was a pokémorph she recognised: the
corviknight, bristling with feathers that may as well have been knives. 'Veracity'.
The bird was tall, even for one of the morphs who had been large in their old life. Although she'd shrunk from her former towering height as a full pokémon, she would come up to a full head above many morphs, and Salem felt tiny in her presence. Dark feathers around her shoulders came up past her neck, and gave off a metallic glint in the light. Her legs, still bird-like, ended in sharp talons that made a sharp
'kla-klack, kla-klack', with every step. The matte-black feathers covering her body clinked and scraped against each-other like a fistful of knives. Her beaked face managed, somehow, to produce a more severe scowl than any Salem had yet seen.
Veracity fixed her eyes on Salem intently. Salem pressed her claws against her palms. Claws could draw blood, but she doubted hers were sharp enough to cut metal feathers. And she hadn't used
real attacks since she was small. If the bird started a fight, she'd have no choice but to run. Why was she so afraid of that? It wasn't just that the corviknight was a potential threat, Salem's appetite had
vanished, completely. She glanced back at her plate, feeling sick.
The corviknight loomed even at a generous distance, and her eyes, a startling blue, seemed to be little fires of intellect in the darkness of her face.
"I am Veracity," she said, in a voice that sounded like it ought to have sharp edges, were it visible. "Tell me of yourself." Her voice was strained, almost a croak, and put Salem in mind of Laura's cautious footsteps around the creaky patch of the landing floor when sneaking downstairs late at night.
Tell me of yourself? Salem was a new morph, she didn't
know herself. She didn't have
words to answer that. And anyway, how could anyone answer something like that? Even if they had all the words they could want?
"…My name . . . is Salem," she replied, slowly. "I . . . was purrloin before now." It didn't seem appropriate to say 'hello' or make conversation.
"Does your name have meaning?" came Veracity's next question, the sharp intonation barely changing.
[I don't know the answer,] she signed. "Maybe."
Veracity barely considered her reply before she continued: "A human word. A species. This is not who you are. Tell me of
yourself."
"I am a good learner," said Salem, thinking fast. "I have a lot of energy. I am always 'trying it on'."
She didn't know what that last one
meant, exactly, but a human tutor had said it of her. Perhaps it would satisfy Veracity. Veracity peered at her with her beak slightly ajar.
"You were a pet," said the corviknight. It wasn't a question. No inflection at the end – just hard sounds and a harder stare.
Salem struggled for the right words. [Yes, but more than just that,] she signed, frustrated with her tongue. [I always intended to become a trainer's pokémon.] "We were going to travel together."
"You did not actually travel together."
"No, but..." Again, the short, hard words meant more than her own. [I do not believe she meant to let me down.]
"You may believe that. Yet, you did not travel together."
"No."
Maybe if she stared back into Veracity's eyes long enough, unblinking, that would be acceptable to the corviknight, and she would leave Salem alone.
"Your companion gave you reason to dream of a future, then failed to provide that future."
Salem kept her gaze steady. There was a growing feeling of tightness in her jaw.
"Your companion is a source of suffering for you," continued the corviknight. "Will you find fault in her, or will you admit to your own weakness?"
Salem's words melted in her head before she could say them – for every thought she had, she anticipated a cutting new statement from Veracity. She stared, growing painfully aware of her own silence.
"No remark," observed the towering bird. "And you are loyal to a human who has hurt you. Perhaps you will not have the strength for what is coming. Yet, there is still time to prove otherwise."
No remark. All Salem could do was stare up at those piercing blue eyes and the sharp-edged metal covering the unfamiliar morph's body. Every feather looked like it could cut to the bone.
Veracity narrowed her eyes. "Why are you
here, Salem?"
A girl with dark hair, walking to a car. Speaking Galarish in her dreams. A cold night, sheltering from rain beneath a bench.
"I…"
"Something wrong, bird?"
Dusk! That was Dusk's voice! Salem remained transfixed on Veracity, but her ears swivelled to hear the sneasel's presence.
"There might be," said Veracity, turning to face the same way, "but it will not be solved by your involvement."
Salem finally looked round to see Dusk baring her teeth. Without a smile, her muzzle was all sharp points and predators' intent. Veracity didn't so much as frown. Nothing changed about her cold expression.
"I have done nothing wrong," said Veracity, coolly. "Your anger reveals a flaw in yourself. Go peacefully."
Dusk's eyes narrowed, and her lip curled further, revealing yet more vicious points. "Is that what you think?" she growled.
"I suspect you do not care what I think. I should pay little attention to what you think, in return," said Veracity, before returning her stare to Salem. "I value truth, and strength. Your companion here is a liar, and she is weak. Be truthful, and be strong, and I will be pleased to breathe the same air as you."
Salem swallowed hard. Veracity opened her beak again, but was interrupted by a chill scraping of claw-on-claw from Dusk. The sneasel's claws gleamed with energy; was Dusk using some kind of attack…?
"That's enough," snapped Dusk. "You've said enough words. We won't hear more of them."
"Do you intend to fight me if I choose not to comply?" asked Veracity, with almost no interest at all. "You would lose. Quite badly."
"Doesn't matter," hissed Dusk. "You'd be punished either way."
Veracity's beak parted slightly, and she tilted her head. "Yes," she said. "This is true."
And then she left, as abruptly as she'd arrived, claws clacking on the tiled floor.
There was a long pause as Salem watched the departing morph, and Dusk watched Salem, ear-feather twitching slightly, claws losing their gleam. Dusk's attention lifted the weight of dread in Salem's stomach; the unnerving sense of
pressure left her shoulders.
"Good riddance," said Dusk, quietly.
"Will I see her more times?" asked Salem, daring to raise her voice above a whisper.
"If you both get put on the same unit," Dusk growled. Her expression dropped for a moment, then she redoubled her smile. "Who cares? We have nothing to worry about from the bird. It's fine."
Salem nodded vigorously, as if agreeing harder would make it more likely that Dusk was right, and the corviknight would leave her alone.
"She just likes to get under skin," said Dusk, rolling her eyes, dramatically. She'd probably picked that motion up from Alisha. Salem wasn't the only mimic around, then.
"I don't know what I did wrong," said Salem, quietly.
"Who says you did anything wrong?" replied Dusk, jabbing a claw lightly into Salem's side.
"But—"
"I say
she's wrong! Not you," insisted Dusk, jabbing her again for emphasis.
Salem's face twisted up for a moment as she considered this. If other people were wrong, then she was right. That was good.
It also meant that being right didn't mean getting what you wanted. Or being happy. Or being safe.
And that was bad.
"Okay," she said, still uncertain.
"Come on," said Dusk, the grin hardly faltering. "Let's become away from here. I'll show you the arena! It's about time you learnt to throw a good attack. Help you feel better if you see her again, yeah?"
Salem pictured her own claws glowing like Dusk's had. She pictured them rending through Veracity's steel feathers.
"Yeah. Let's do that, please."
XxX
Dusk had saved the 'Colosseum' for later in the tour, it seemed. A massive underground space where morphs could battle without worrying about collateral damage. Six-sided, large enough to host half a dozen simultaneous duels, and apparently available to first comers when not scheduled for lessons or tests.
Dusk led her onto a mezzanine that overlooked the arena. The platform was clear glass, and stretched the full perimeter of the Colosseum, with stands to seat a small complement of onlookers spaced evenly around it. A spot along the metal railing at the edge bore a control panel, which Dusk claimed immediately. Sat at the foot of the stands, Salem could see the battle below at a perfect vantage through the clear platform. Two morphs were battling each other in what amounted to a small forest, slinging ranged attacks at each other and ducking behind cover, with occasional flashes of other moves firing off. As she watched, one morph's body glowed for a moment, and a barrier of light appeared between them and their opponent.
"You might prefer ranged fighting more than me," said Dusk, offhandedly, leaning forward over the safety rail. "Maybe watch these guys. See how they do it."
"There's no trainer?"
"Nope. Don't need a human trainer to practice. We can train each other when we aren't in class."
Salem nodded, and watched in rapt attention as the figures below exchanged short bursts of water and electricity at each other, protecting themselves with energy barriers, or by stepping behind trees and rocks. It was like watching a league match with Laura, only as it actually happened! Her breath caught as fragments of a boulder shattered clean away from the force of an energy attack.
"You can tell they aren't trying very hard," commented Dusk. "But it's fun."
Salem wondered what morphs could do with
effort. What
she could do.
Eventually, the fighters walked off the arena, and Dusk straightened up off the railing. "Watch this," she said, a kind of wild glee on her face. "This is really fucking cool."
Dusk moved a slider on the control panel, slammed a fist down on one of the larger buttons, and fixed her gaze on the arena floor below. Salem stepped forward to the mezzanine railing by Dusk's side and looked over. As they watched, the arena
dropped, descending like an elevator, and slid sideways into the far wall. In its place, from a space below the near wall, emerged a new battleground, with new terrain. Where there had been dirt and dust and grass, there was a rising circle of
snow, in drifts and tiny hillocks, with a patch of rough ice around the sides.
"Pretty great, huh?" asked Dusk, practically vibrating.
"Like home," replied Salem.
Dusk was looking for joy in Salem's face. She offered a little up in gratitude, even though seeing the white surface of the arena meant seeing Circhester just before spring, before the first snowdrops emerged, snowdrops she hadn't seen in a long time. The snow was like home, yes. Not much else . . . but it was enough.
"How do we get down there?" she asked, making her face approximate a smile.
"There are stairs," said Dusk, airily. "But we don't care about that! Watch this."
Dusk hopped up onto the railing, turned her head back at Salem with her usual fierce happiness on full display, and let go. She dropped straight down, whooping as she fell, and landed in a snowdrift with a crisp
fwumch.
"Come on!" called Dusk, laughing. "Easy!"
Something unfamiliar in Salem's brain insisted that the height was dangerous, that it would hurt to fall so far. But she'd never cared about such things before she'd changed. And Dusk didn't seem to be hurt at all. She licked her lips and put a hand to the railing.
Can I use the stairs? she almost asked. But that wasn't right. Becoming more human shouldn't mean giving up the splendid convenience of dropping from a height and saving the unbearable indignity of walking places when she could leap.
"Coming," she replied. And then before she could think it over again, she climbed the railing, let go, and pushed off with her feet. Chill air filled her eyes and ears. Instinct used her tail as a rudder, working despite her altered form. The snow filled her vision.
Fwumch.
"Fucking great, huh?" said Dusk, her words a little muffled by the snow packing Salem's ears.
First Dusk's, then Salem's laughter filled the silence of the snowy arena.
"You know snowball fights?" asked Dusk, smirking.
Oh, yes. Or rather:
oh no.
Dusk's very first projectile hit Salem clean in the face. Ah. A ruthless dark-type after all.
XxX
Dusk led her to their shared dormitory with a little more swagger in her step.
"Looks like we'll be seeing a lot more of each other, huh?"
"Seeing a lot more," murmured Salem, a tiny chirrup of a purr in her throat.
Dusk showed her in and let her look around. Salem looked closely, but how could she even judge the room? It was better than a hedge on a roadside verge. It was better than the communal space in the pokémon shelter. Was it better than her old room in the recovery wing? She couldn't say. She wandered further in, slowly, while Dusk tumbled onto one of the beds and spread her limbs in every direction.
Dusk had claimed one of two ground-level beds, each of which had another bed mounted on the wall above it. One for her and one for Dusk . . . and the others would be for other morphs, she supposed. What else was here… A desk and chair. A radio. Some rolled-up foam mats, shelves bearing cups, stationery, tiny potted plants… Behind another door, a small bathroom. She'd figured bathrooms out already, but this one had a
shower. That might prove challenging. And . . . there was a single sink, with a mirror above it.
A mirror.
She needed to look at herself in it. Properly. An anticipatory thrill ran through her skin and the back of her neck flushed with a sudden heat. So far she'd caught her reflection only faintly in poorly reflective surfaces. What did she
look like?
Salem stared at the reflection, hypnotised by her own face. She reached up and pressed her paws against her cheeks, pushing the fur and skin beneath around in that way Laura sometimes used to. She leaned over the sink to examine her eyes up close. The same, as far as she could tell; bright green, with slit-pupils. Whiskers intact, and fur pattern unchanged, but structure somehow just a little closer to human in proportion…
"Try the shower," came a call from the bedroom. "I promise you'll love it!"
Dusk's tone of voice did not sound sincere, as best as Salem could tell. Still… Her room had a shower. That was a peculiarity she had not anticipated. She considered simply ignoring it and grooming herself as she had always done, the normal way, but two things persuaded her otherwise. The first was sheer curiosity; she could not go without knowing what it felt like to use it, how it worked, and so on. The second was practicality. Since her morphing, she couldn't reach every part of her body any more. She had never asked anyone else to assist her with grooming before, and she wasn't going to start now. Therefore: into the shower she'd go.
"Okay," she called back, "show me how."
Once Dusk showed her how to set the temperature and pressure, and to point the shower head away from her to test it before using it on herself, she was in control. Once she had control, the shower became useful, even pleasant. After some experimentation, she found the right degrees of force and heat, and the spray became a kind of massage against her back. The way her fur stuck to her skin wasn't half as tolerable, but during Dusk's brief tutorial, she'd assured Salem it was very temporary.
Whatever human created this device had thought of everything. Combs were kept in a tray on the wall to brush out excess fur. Bottles of shampoo, too, with a scent that did not overwhelm her nose and simple instructions printed in pictographs of pokésign. Nozzles in the shower walls blew hot air on command to help dry her off. A function on the controls activated a disposal unit for shed fur, which whirred and gurgled loudly when in use. She couldn't help examining it, both while in use, and inert. The cap over the drain came away easily, revealing the mechanism: an assemblage of small, sharp metal blades, housed inside plastic casing. That module, too, came away when tugged at, and underneath was the drain proper, with a small recess.
…It would make quite the hiding place for pilfered treasures.
She replaced the mechanism, her interference now invisible, and resolved to make no mention to anyone of the cavity beneath.
Once back in the bedroom, Salem elected to take the bunk above Dusk's. She carefully eased herself up the ladder, exhausted enough to seriously consider everyone's countless exhortations to take things steady, and collapsed into her bed. 'Her' bed. It was a new concept. A good one. She hadn't had any kind of permanent bed since home, and at home it had been
Laura's bed…
Will you find fault in her, or will you admit to your own weakness?
She sprawled out, stretching every last limb and digit, and groaned dramatically.
"What the fuck does that mean," asked Dusk, from below, in a flat tone.
"Bad," answered Salem, voice muffled by her bedclothes.
"Okay. Bad why?"
Salem pressed her face into the bedclothes, and made a noise of pure discontent. She was physically tired, and mentally
tired, and this good bed that was hers and not Laura's didn't help.
"Salem?"
She needed as few words as possible to sum up the entirety of her worsening mood and how badly she didn't want to discuss it. What was one good word? One that Dusk actually knew?
"Fuck," said Salem, with feeling.
For some seconds after that, Dusk kept silent. Had she said something wrong? What could she say instead—?
A light thump and a slight vibration of the bunk indicated that Dusk had rolled out of bed and taken to the ladder. The sneasel's head appeared over the safety rail, and her fanged grin with it. The mattress shifted under the extra weight as Dusk took a seat beside Salem and patted her shoulder, coaxing her to rise from her prone sulking. She obliged, with a whining growl.
"Earlier, you were feeling great," remarked Dusk. "What changed? It's like you suddenly got all..." The sneasel didn't have the words in Galarish, so she shrugged, made a face, and signed [run away] with a disapproving flair.
"Avoidant," said Salem, smirking to herself. If she couldn't be as fluent as Dusk, she could at least make up for it with a better vocabulary.
"Okay. Whatever. Tell me what's wrong."
Ugh. First she'd have to figure out what was wrong, and then she'd have to find the words to explain it, and then she'd have to get the energy to say those words. And then Dusk would just ask a follow-up question anyway and she'd have to do it all again. It was too much. But Dusk wouldn't take 'no' for an answer, and Salem didn't want to fight. No, she wanted help. She wanted Dusk's help.
"Don't know," she muttered. "Everything is too difficult."
Dusk looked aside like she was recalling something. "It's alright if you're overwhelmed," she said. "Every morph feels this early on."
That wasn't it, though…
"Every morph doesn't feel
this," said Salem, carefully. "Everything about being a morph is . . . a lot. I know this. But I also feel my own feelings."
Dusk nodded, and let her figure out how to say it. Salem's throat unclenched, and her shoulders sank into the mattress.
"I'm too tired," she began, "to not feel bad about Laura."
Dusk gave Salem's shoulder a squeeze, and nodded. "Okay. Who is Laura?"
Salem stared at her fidgeting paws. "Laura was my friend," she said, quietly.
"Your human?"
Salem nodded. "We spent every day together, before. We were going to go on a journey together. But she couldn't go. She had to go somewhere else. I couldn't go with her. I want her to be okay."
Dusk tapped her claws one after the other against the wall. "Okay. I understand you care about her," she said.
"Yes. Very much."
"But what will you do? What would make you happy
now?" asked the sneasel, with a little force behind the words. Just enough to show she cared, without being demanding. It was a good question.
"Want to see her," said Salem, barely loud enough to hear herself.
Dusk shrugged and made a tired sound. "Not easy to do a thing like that. No morphs here can meet anyone outside, you know. Not even sending messages; it's not allowed. But if she is very important to you, maybe you will try this anyway. What makes this human so important? Explain to me."
Salem clenched her paws. She hadn't even thought about
messages, and already she'd learnt they
weren't allowed. Why? As for why Laura mattered... How to explain to Dusk? Everything the sneasel said suggested a former life without humans. Even if Salem talked about family, or friends, none of Dusk's words suggested she'd understand
trainers. Still, she had to try.
"We did many things together, every day, and we were happy," said Salem, quietly, focusing on getting out any helpful sentence at all. "She cared for me. Watched out for me. Made me safe. And I made her smile."
Dusk's feather shivered, and she raised a brow, but she kept listening, chiming in occasionally with tiny signs. [Sounds nice.] [That's good.]
[Very good.] "She was the only important person who is not me, for my whole life until now."
"Until now?"
"Yes. But she is still important, and always will be important."
Dusk had thoughts behind her eyes that Salem couldn't even guess at, but just the loss of her ever-present grin was clue enough that something was eating her. Whatever it was, she didn't share it.
"So,
Laura, she is your family?"
Family. That wasn't something Salem thought of often. She didn't know any of her relatives. "I don't know," she said. "She is very important, though. I think… I want to see her again."
Dusk nodded, slowly. "Okay. I'll help you find her."
Salem nodded, and signed a small thanks. Dusk didn't reply, but perhaps she heard Salem's steady purring and interpreted it as gratitude.
"Get asleep," said Dusk, gently, easing herself up and off of the top bunk. "Making schemes is better when rested."
Salem said nothing, but lay on her side with one arm draped over the edge of the bed. She curled and uncurled her paw in relieved contentment until she heard the sneasel snicker quietly to herself. It was nice, to be reminded that her new friend was still nearby.
Dusk fell asleep first. Salem had always been an easy sleeper, but the inside of her skull was too noisy with thoughts. Finally,
enough excitement in a day.
Enough to think about. She couldn't stop. She willed the morning to come sooner, so she could explore more, begin training, talk about everything they had yet to talk about. To meet more like them.
Dusk's unconscious breathing reminded Salem of Laura's, just a little, but also of her own as it had been before. Her own breathing must be like Dusk's now, too – partway human, but not
all the way. Like so many things. She didn't notice herself drifting off, being so preoccupied with arranging every new fact and feeling in her end.
The morning ambushed her without her having dreamed at all.
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