Author's Note:
This is a particularly important chapter. It contains one of the possible ‘starting points’ for Salem’s story, and though I chose to begin the fic differently, it remains a key moment for her. It also contains our first serious intrigue…
Many thanks to my wonderful beta-readers, and to Hap for your exceptional help with the chapter art.
Chapter-specific CWs:
None.
Chapter Changelog:
Salem’s time at the pokémon shelter, and her recruitment, are different to the previous version of the fic in several ways.
Chapter 7
Becoming Human
Salem woke from another dream in which she was a human, only to find herself still a purrloin. She stretched, arching her back and quivering her tail, and mewled softly at the twinges in her muscles. She hadn’t survived two months as an urban stray before surrendering herself to the care of the pokémon shelter, but even that long sleeping under cars in freezing temperatures had given her more aches and pains than a cat could count.
She’d drifted off in a dark corner of the shelter storefront, and woken in the pale light of a winter sun. Salem vaulted neatly onto the reception desk to gaze out at it – straining to reach through grey cloud cover, the dawn was too feeble to properly illuminate the bushes and brick walls outside. She watched for a while as the sun struggled to be born.
Nights were long now, but it hardly mattered inside a human place, under electric light even as it grew dark outside. Salem had spent half the night at the front window, staring out at the moon even despite the cold. She had a basket in the back of the shelter, but the other pokémon there were strangers and unpredictable to her. The moon, however, was a constant. She could rely on it to die and be reborn again, to comfort her with its silver light.
Salem drank up the full moon’s silver, watching it touch the car park tarmac outside, the berry bushes that divided it from the road, and the tail of a passing glameow. The moonlight was familiar, even if it fell on new and unfamiliar things.
Behind her, a creak from the staff door and a chirruping call snapped Salem out of her trance. She looked over her shoulder, hackles pricked, and saw a long, lithe creature with cream-and-violet fur, alert eyes, and prominent whiskers. This was Mienshao, the most senior of the shelter’s pokémon staff. She gave Salem a wave with one of her ‘sleeves’ of over-long wrist fur, and signed a friendly admonition. Though the signing was quick, Salem understood the message: [You’d sleep better if you used your basket.]
[YES], she signed back. [I KNOW.]
Mienshao chuckled, covering her mouth with one paw. Then she signed, [I watch this den/dwelling, night and day – at times when humans are absent. However, I care also for pokémon – new pokémon like you, who stay here.]
She was stunningly fluent. Expert paw motions, subtle tilts of ears and tail, casual mastery of accent-signs using whips of her fur sleeves. Far more dexterous than Salem would manage with a lifetime of practice.
[AM OKAY,] she replied, her ears flattening. [NO HELP.]
Mienshao made a chattering vocalisation that might have been laughter, signed something Salem didn’t quite catch, and then went about her tasks for the morning. She put the heating up, turned on the lights, unlocked the front door… Salem's tail thrashed irritably against the reception desk as she anticipated the arrival of the human staff and the noise and distractions that came with them.
Mienshao noticed Salem's sour body language and gave her a kindly look, signing, [You'll be okay. I'll find you some quiet company.]
Salem didn’t really
want quiet company, what she wanted was…
Her tail stiffened and her hackles pricked at the thought. She could only think of one alternative to this: being back with Laura. And that was no longer possible. Not any way she knew of, at least. So what
did she want?
She didn’t reach an answer before the humans and their racket arrived. Two of them pushed through the front door, setting off its chingling-shaped bell. Salem’s ears flattened back, irritably. She slunk off the reception desk and padded around the storefront’s product stands, scouting for a quiet place to hide as if one might have manifested since she last searched.
"I swear it’s dark except for like, half a dozen hours," grumbled Jamie, the soft-spoken, lanky human who ran the shelter. He ruffled his mousy hair with a free hand and sighed. "Dark when you go to work, dark before you even leave… Daylight savings doesn’t really help anyone, you know?"
Another human, this one restless, female: "Pretty much. Like, four in the afternoon. Yeah, just before four. Longest Night soon, though. Gets brighter by a couple minutes every day after that."
“Yeah. Yeah. That’s a good thing for us, actually. Longest Night’s an adoption hot spot, you know? Lots of kids get their first pokémon around Longest Night. Or New Year’s, you know?”
Longest Night. Salem knew about the traditions on and around the shortest day of the year. Some were acceptable – Laura sneaking her bits of roast meat under the table, getting to bite and shred crinkly wrapping-paper without being scolded – but many were dreadful.
“Sure. Hey, I’ll put the holiday playlist on.”
For instance, the carols. Most music was tolerable noise, but
these tended to have
jingling sounds, which made Salem want to pounce on non-existent toys, and humans often sang along with them, which was too
much noise.
Then, there was the tinsel. Salem stayed clear of the tinsel so long as humans were around. The destruction of tinsel was forbidden, and destruction was all that interested her about it. It
glittered, and
rustled, and
moved like a snake. Of course she wanted to kill it.
Prowling as if on the hunt, Salem turned a corner around a stand of pet toys and treats, and found herself nose-to-nose with a coarse-furred, milky-eyed herdier. He gave her a doggy smile and
wuffed in greeting, his wagging tail thumping the ground. He knew better than to get too excitable around a cat, unlike the rest of the shelter’s dog pokémon. Salem had needed to smack one particular rockruff on the nose a number of times already, and yet the pup seemed not to have learnt a thing.
She mewled a greeting. Caesar must be the ‘quiet company’ Mienshao had meant.
Caesar gestured with his head for her to follow him, and he led Salem from the product aisles to an area at one side of the storefront, where soft mats were provided for humans to sit and interact with pokémon they might adopt. Salem growled objectionably – it was too open a space. Nothing to hide behind.
Caesar gave her a canine grin and plodded to a curtain at one end, which he gripped between his teeth and tugged along its rail, until the area was closed off from the rest of the shelter. When he was done, the area felt… safer.
[GOOD?] he barked, cocking his head and perking his tail.
Salem – a little begrudgingly – nodded. It
was an improvement. The thick curtain fabric even took the edge off the music playing.
Caesar settled down on one of the mats, his tail thumping steadily. Salem hesitated, then gradually eased herself into a loaf just beside him. The herdier stayed quiet, putting his head down on his paws as if to take a quick nap. After a while, Salem’s own breathing steadied to match Caesar’s, and a little more sunlight braved its way through the overcast sky to warm her fur. Back in the main part of the storefront, Jamie quietly sang along to the carols and occasionally exchanged a few words with Mienshao as she went about her business. Salem caught a word or two about
adoption and made an unhappy noise in her throat.
[SAD?] asked Caesar, tilting his head and dropping his ears low.
Salem nodded. [YES.]
[WHY?]
Salem’s ears twitched in frustration, already knowing she couldn’t really explain.
[WANT TO STAY. WANT TO GO.]
Caesar made a little whine that might have been a kind of laughter. [CAT,] he signed, as if that explained everything.
The chiming of the bell on the front door interrupted Salem’s reply, and her ears pricked to hear the chatter between Jamie and the new arrival.
“Good morning! I’m Alisha – the Perihelion rep?”
“Oh! Oh, yes, we were expecting you. Something about a rehab program? Strays rescued, lives changed, and all that?”
‘Rehab’ was an unfamiliar word, but Salem had heard Jamie talk about it once. She got to her feet and poked her head under the curtain to take a look at the visitor. Caesar yawned disinterestedly, but joined her a moment later.
“Close, but not quite! I’ll tell you more about it along with the pokémon, if that’s alright? I hope there’s a good spot for everyone to gather round!”
“Sure, I’ll take you out back, then. Lots of open space! Mienshao, could you let everyone know we’re coming? Thanks, sweetie.”
Many different kinds of humans had come to the shelter, besides its staff. None had been quite like this new stranger. Her appearance wasn’t all that remarkable: a mass of dark hair barely held into a thick ponytail, a suit vest over a collared shirt, and piercing green eyes. What interested Salem was her hands – they signed in fluid motions, even as she spoke in human tongue to Jamie. Not just good signing,
great signing, with creative flair. Her attentive gaze flicked regularly between Jamie and Mienshao, who listened closely at Jamie’s side.
“Great, thanks!” [Many thanks!]
“Are you looking to take a certain number of pokémon?”
“Ah, not exactly,” laughed Alisha, still signing. “Maybe nobody, if nobody wants to sign up. Maybe many, if they like my pitch!” [Everyone who asks to may join in. Only if it’s right for them.]
Salem parted her mouth to take in her scent, and caught faint traces of strange and unfamiliar pokémon. This was someone who must regularly spend time with pokémon, and talk to them in sign. Not just to look after them while they waited for a trainer to take them on a journey, but to actually do something…
Caesar cocked her head at Salem. [Interested?] he seemed to ask.
Yes. Very interested.
Caesar made a gesture with his paw that meant
see you, and nudged her with his nose. That one meant something like
go for it!
Salem went for it. As Jamie led Alisha past Reception and through the staff areas via Intake & Adoption, the purrloin prowled after them.
Jamie liked to tell visitors about the shelter. He’d say things like, “We like to offer them structure, but lots of freedom to do their own thing, you know?”
‘
You know,’ he kept saying. Salem rarely knew. She knew very little, in fact.
Alisha seemed to know. She let him talk, occasionally chiming in to ask about re-homing rates, and if they had many working ‘mon, or misfits with nowhere to go.
‘Re-homing’ wasn’t quite ‘home’ and Salem only knew ‘working’ as Laura’s school books, but she knew ‘misfits’.
Misfits was her.
Salem followed the pair of humans into the shelter’s back yard – which was more like a field or pasture than a piece of garden turf – where the better part of the shelter’s pokémon spent large parts of the day. Some were napping in their favourite shrubbery spots, several were playing an elaborate game of chase around the obstacle course, and a handful were even casually battling atop a rock formation. One of the human staff seemed to be trying in vain to persuade a hulking mudsdale to drink from his water trough and not the ducklett pond. Salem wished her luck.
A few pokémon were waiting near the back door, crowded on the wooden patio around Mienshao, who chirped enthusiastically to call the humans over. Salem barely knew any of the pokémon in the crowd, and only really by species. She slunk past clumsy human feet to take a spot over to the side, by a scrawny-looking eevee.
Alisha waved. “Hey again, you! Is this everyone?”
[Everyone who wants to listen!]
“Ha, okay. Thank you.”
Mienshao signed something Salem couldn’t even follow, vocally chattering as she did, and Alisha replied just as fluently. Full-flow conversation. Like it was nothing. Salem watched them like a statue, trying not to think about how much she wanted that for herself. She was smart for a purrloin – at least, she thought so – but really only enough to realise how much was beyond her grasp. She strained to understand humans, lived on best-guesses and uncertain interpretations. She
tried all the time. Tried so hard to
get things. And this mienshao understood far more than she did while hardly even trying.
Even if she’d been born as a mienshao, that still wouldn’t be
enough.
“Alright, everyone,” called Alisha, gesturing [gather round]. “I’m Alisha.” [My sign name is ‘Whisper’].
Salem practised the name. It was an easy one, a little like
hush, a little like
talk, and signed very gently.
Whisper. A soft, low voice. The name suited her.
“Most pokémon in places like this will go on to partner up with a human,” began the human called [Whisper], in her quiet, clear voice. “If a pokémon isn’t wild, then they live together with humans, don’t they? There are pokémon who are pets and companions, some who work with human partners, and many others, of course, who battle alongside a trainer. But not any of you, right?”
Alisha’s eyes creased a little for an instant. Was that pain, maybe? A wince? Then her smile returned.
“Sometimes a pokémon can find themselves unwilling or unable to return to the wild, but still have no direction to take, in the world of humans. Humans get confused and lost as well, believe me, but it’s different for a pokémon. Harder to search for a different path.”
Salem’s claws pressed hard into the deck beneath her. How many pokémon like her must Alisha have spoken to –
listened to – to understand this?
“Most pokémon have the power to change themselves,” she said, using the sign for
evolution. “Maybe you’ve dreamed about it. Changing who you are, completely and permanently? It must seem terribly exciting, knowing that if you get strong enough…
suddenly, you’ll
evolve?”
A sullen scrafty nodded. A fletchling chirped a reply. Salem stifled a mewl, thinking of every time she’d seen a liepard on Laura’s TV and wanted to get
stronger.
“You know, humans don’t have that power. There’s no bright light when humans become adults. But they
are capable of change – slow, gradual, and
intentional.”
Alisha signed the final word by fluttering her fingers by her temple. It meant something like [on purpose], and something like [knowing].
Alisha caught Salem’s rapt stare, and grinned.
“Humans get to learn and grow in ways pokémon often don’t. They can figure out their place in the world bit by bit, instead of waiting for a sudden bright light. Maybe that’s what some of you are doing, if life hasn’t fallen into place for you so far. Here’s the thing… I’ve got another way for you. If you want it.”
The fluid, intricate signing continued as Alisha explained.
“I’m here to offer you a place in an experimental training program, one which doesn’t pair you up with a human partner. We call it ‘self-directed pokémon upskilling’ – that’s just a way of saying you get to learn for yourself, in classes, as if you were human kids. We have some teachers who’re human, and some who aren’t. It could be where you figure out what you want to become. It could be a home.”
Somewhere mid-flow, Alisha’s signing stopped translating exactly what she said in Galarish. As she talked about the program, her hands said something different. They said,
[We can give you a new kind of evolution.]
They said,
[Many pokémon wish they were human – to stand tall and speak clearly and understand the world.]
They said,
[That’s what we’re doing, for anyone who wants it.]
Salem could only hear Alisha’s words, and her own crazed heartbeat.
[We can make you human.]
For a moment, Salem felt afraid to breathe. She might wake up.
A sharp, earnest trill burst from her throat, and she found herself signing back, [MAKE ME HUMAN?]
Alisha smiled, and her mouth said, “The courses we offer will treat you more like a human than you’re used to, that’s for sure!”
Her hands said, [Yes, if that’s what you want. You would be part-pokémon, part-human. Both at once. Different to each.]
Salem glanced at Jamie. He was paying more attention to his coworker who was unsuccessfully trying to wrangle the mudsdale. Mienshao wasn’t looking at Alisha’s hands either – a squabble between a pair of nickit had distracted her.
Alisha winked at Salem.
[It will be hard, and scary, and you can’t go back after. But, if you want it enough, it will be worth it.]
“So,” she said aloud, “how would you like to try something new?”
Her hands said, [Do you want to
be something new?]
Salem stared, fur on end, mouth half-open.
Would she? She could just nod her head, and all that Alisha had told her would come true? She could change, be something better, something close to human? The answer was so strong, so clear, that Salem needed something more than just a ‘yes’. She flung herself forwards, miaowed, and rose up on her hind paws to sign, nearly toppling over.
[PLEASE.]
Alisha chuckled.
“That bad, huh? Think about this carefully. I want you to be very sure, first.” [Slow down. Think first, then choose.]
Salem was already sure. And – as best as she could – she said so. She made hesitant, experimental gestures with her paw, combining signs, inventing something she desperately hoped would be understood.
One paw sweeping across the other. [HUMAN.]
A similar motion, with claws extended. [POKÉMON.]
One paw at her temple then slashing downward. [PERSON.]
What she signed altogether was something like, [I’M HUMAN-POKÉMON. YES, NOW. I’LL GO.]
The effort was tremendous, but Alisha seemed to comprehend perfectly. “You got it, kitten,” she said. “Guess that means you’re coming with me.”
Salem’s lungs released a held breath. She would go with Alisha. Yes.
“Oh, you got a taker?” said Jamie, as he stepped back up onto the deck. “Not all that surprised Purrloin wants to go. She’s an odd one, you know?”
Yes. She did know.
“Well, she’s not the only enthusiastic volunteer I’ve ever had, but she’s up there! Okay – who else is interested?”
In the end, only a handful of pokémon chose to go with Alisha. The scrafty and the fletchling. The scrawny eevee. Salem. Jamie collected their pokéballs – would pokéballs even work on a ‘human-pokémon’? – to hand off to Alisha while she signed papers. Salem, lacking one of her own, was invited to ride shotgun.
She froze in the front doorway, staring at Alisha’s car. A few months ago, she’d watched one take Laura away. Now she would leave the same way.
Caesar’s damp nose bumped Salem’s ear. She flicked it back, and shook herself out of her stupor.
[GOING WITH HER?] he asked.
Salem nodded, trilling softly. The old herdier had been pleasant company, for a dog. She didn’t bat him on the nose for tickling her ear.
[GOODBYE,] signed Caesar. He licked Salem’s cheek and tipped his snout up. [GOOD LUCK].
Salem nodded back, and thought hard. Then carefully, with hesitant paws, she told him, [TELL MY HUMAN. IF MEET HER.]
[I WILL,] he replied.
XxX
The world whipped past her, fast enough to blur. She stood with her forepaws on the car dashboard and tried to ignore her motion sickness.
Alisha talked to her as she drove, over gentle acoustic radio music.
“I’ve met plenty of pokémon very much like you, kitten. Pokémon who like to talk, even though signing is difficult, and people don’t pay attention, and they can’t think the way humans think. Sound familiar?”
It did. As familiar as hunger, as familiar as the moon.
“Sometimes pokémon like you get this idea that if they want it badly enough, they could just… evolve into a human. Imagine it hard enough, and in a flash, have hands instead of paws. Have you ever had those kinds of thoughts, Purrloin?”
She had to admit she had. She made a soft, rumbling trill.
“I’ve helped a fair few pokémon get that wish already. To be part-human… Hybrids may as well
be human as far as I’m concerned. Having the mind and voice of one makes them human enough for me.”
Once again, Alisha allowed Salem to digest the idea. The thought fluttered in her stomach like nothing ever had.
“It’ll be tough, if you don’t back out. The actual change itself is gruelling to go through and there’s no way to reverse it, but it’s a chance to be different, to be better, to have an incredible life. I’d make that choice if I were a pokémon. Would you go for that, Salem?”
She miaowed earnestly, several times for emphasis. Alisha laughed gently and said she wasn’t surprised. All Salem could think of was having a proper voice. A human voice. Alisha just turned the music up on the radio and left Salem to her thoughts. Over the next few hours, as the sky grew darker, and the car took her further from home than she’d ever been, Salem had thoughts like, “Why would you do this for me?” and “What other pokémon have done this?” and “How is this possible?” These were questions she didn’t know how to ask. Alisha answered one for her, at least, between humming along with the radio and pointing out various roadside views.
“I bet you’re wondering how it even happens. Right? Well, it’s a lot like evolution, just slower. Someone found out how to trick a pokémon’s body so that instead of evolving normally, it becomes part-human. I don’t know how it works any more than you do, but it works. It’ll take several days, and put a huge strain on your body, but you’ll sleep through most of it, if you’re lucky.”
Salem already felt lucky. Lucky enough to make up for every scratch and bruise and cold, hungry night. She would do anything, anything at all, for this.
XxX
Salem lay sprawled out on a cushion in the morph lounge, grinning as Scrafty painstakingly gave his account of his first combat lesson from the sofa opposite her, despite regular interruptions from Fletchling. They’d come out of their tanks on the same day, had gone through recovery together, and evidently meant to learn to fight together, too. Salem had been tracking their progress, partly to make up for not properly tracking her own when she’d been at that stage, and always let them tell her about their latest milestones.
And (sometimes) bragged that she’d
definitely been faster than them.
Scrafty rubbed his scalp as he spoke, and stared with a furrowed brow at the lounge aquarium as he concentrated on the words. Perhaps it helped him think – Salem couldn’t look at the fish without spacing out.
“I thought… that battling…
would be, uh, easy. Easier. Easier than Galarish speaking. Pokémon battle, all the time. I battled! But it was hard. Harder?”
“New body, new battle,” chirped Fletchling, perched on the arm of the sofa as if she were still an ordinary bird. She tapped a foot with each syllable when she spoke. “Learn all over. Like baby!”
Scrafty swatted at the avian morph without malice, and she gave a whistling laugh.
“No, not like a baby,” he grumbled. “It’s… a new skill.”
Salem nodded, smiling. “I know what you mean,” she said, signing as she spoke, as much out of habit as for Scrafty’s benefit. “Anything you learnt before, it might not be useful as a morph. You didn’t forget anything, you just had to learn new things.”
Scrafty grunted an agreement. “Uhuh. Did you find it harder, Salem?”
She shrugged. It was a good question.
“I didn’t battle much as a purrloin, so, it wasn’t hard in the same way. Just hard like anything is hard.” She tilted her head at Scrafty’s sullen expression. “But once I knew some good tricks, it became fun. Look, watch this!”
She leaned forward on her cushion, held up a paw and flexed it a little, willing her energy to flow. Her pads glowed softly, and a pinprick of midnight-purple shadow coalesced and expanded in her palm. It grew to the size of a pokéball, and then stabilised, rotating like a globe, violet light dancing inside a halo of darkness.
“Practising fun things is hard in a
good way,” asserted Salem with a trill in her throat, and her tail high.
“That’s cool cool cool!” said Fletchling, bobbing her head. “Wanna try! Am not allowed to burn-flame in the lounge, though.”
Salem nodded, and wondered whether the risk of scolding was worth encouraging Fletchling to show her a small fireball.
Scolding was fine, but actually setting fire to something, not so much.
“You could show me your fire in the gym?” she asked, dissipating her shadow ball to sign more easily.
Fletchling shrugged expansively. She did that a lot – it showed off her remaining plumage. “Can’t can’t can’t! Need to get-have a keycard now. Too many… things.”
“Unsupervised battles,” explained Scrafty. “Too many times gym equipment destroyed. So, new rule. Keycards for morphs who… who are… responsible. Eliza. Veracity.”
Oh, that was right. Salem nonchalantly avoided eye contact. She may have been part of the reason for the new rule.
She imitated Fletchling’s shrug. “I can get Dusk to supervise? She has a keycard.”
Of course, now that keycards were used for more than just staff rooms and offices, it might be worth trying to pilfer one…
The bird morph gave several lively nods. “Scrafty, Scrafty, will you follow-join-come with us?”
The lizard morph fell back against the sofa and groaned. “That’s effort,” he said. “How are you not tired? We each took as long to be morphed. You should be tired as me.”
“Bird, bird, bird, bird!” sang Fletchling, in triumph. “Am
bird!”
Salem laughed. She’d apparently handled her several weeks as the ‘youngest’ morph in the facility pretty well, but Fletchling had her own kind of limitless energy. It made a nice change to no longer be the youngest, the most eager, the least articulate. Sometimes she even got to
teach her junior morphs a thing or two. Maybe she could persuade Scrafty to come do some training, and show him some moves he might be able to learn from her.
As she lifted a hand to sign, her ears swivelled backward at the sound of the nearest door sliding open. And those footsteps, if her ears weren’t lying, were those of Alisha Renadier.
“—and that’s just not happening, you know? Oh, hey there! Yeah, no, thanks, I appreciate that—”
It
was Alisha!
“I’ll be right back,” said Salem, bristling whisker to tailtip with excitement.
She leapt to her feet and swung herself about in one smooth motion. No more aches and wobbles for her, only feline agility! The second the human talking to Alisha peeled off, Salem bounded to the lounge entrance before anyone else could intercept, and skidded to a halt beside her to sign an enthusiastic welcome, trilling as she did.
Alisha beamed at her, leaned casually against the wall, and signed a reply. [Good to see you, kitten. All’s well?] “Hey, Salem. Doing good?”
She nodded. “Yes! Are you? Did you find more pokémon who want to become morphs?” Her ears flattened slightly. “And did you find Laura?”
Alisha sighed, and shook her head, her tied-back mass of hair swaying with the motion. She beckoned Salem away from the doorway and over to a corner of the lounge. “Sorry, sweetie. There’ll be new faces here soon enough, but I didn’t have any better luck tracking down your girl than last time.”
Salem held a miserable growl in her chest, and her tail dropped down, swishing unhappily. “What does that mean? Is she lost? Will you find her next time?”
Alisha made a sympathetic face and signed [Sorry – it’ll be okay]. “I really don’t know, Salem. I’m sorry, I’ve just not got a lot to go off of, you know? A first name, a limited description, and a home town that could be Circhester or any of a dozen outlying villages…”
Salem fought down a yowl and nodded miserably. “I can tell you more things I remember. Or you can ask me about the different places, to find out which is the right one. You said you’d find her.”
Alisha hesitated and bit her lip. “Salem, I said I’d
try. I did tell you I couldn’t promise I’d actually find her.”
“Then
try harder,” said Salem, more forcefully than she’d meant to.
Alisha winced.
Salem’s tail thrashed and her ears pinned back further. There was a yowl trapped in her throat and it had blocked all her words from getting out. Her hands could still move. They moved.
[She was my
trainer. Don’t you
care about this?]
Alisha stiffened and looked away, her expression hard to read.
“You… you have no idea how much I care,” she said, softly. “I told you I’d try; I’ve been trying. What you don’t seem to realise is that I have to do things properly. The hard way. I can’t just be irresponsible and make big eyes at my bosses to get away with it, Salem.”
Then, in sign, [Do you know why nobody got in trouble over that mess in the gym? I was looking out for you. When you pull stunts like that, it makes it harder for me to look for your trainer, alright?]
Salem blinked. Her shoulders sagged. Had she made it harder for Alisha to find Laura? It had been Alisha who’d given each wing of the morph dorms a lecture about safe move practice around equipment. She’d probably been the one to manage the keycard thing, too – she’d given Dusk her keycard, at least. And all the time spent handling that… was time not spent looking for Laura.
The stifled yowl became a quiet wail, and then a small, damp sob.
“Oh, sweetie, I’m sorry. I’m sorry…”
If Alisha was signing anything, Salem didn’t see it.
“Am sorr-ee,” she said, struggling to form proper words around her feelings.
Alisha reached out and put a hand on Salem’s shoulder. “It’s okay, I’ll keep looking. Just as soon as I’ve got some time to spare, I’ll head straight to my office and keep looking into it. I promise, it’s not left my desk since you asked me about it.”
Salem nodded, miaowed something phonetically similar to ‘thank you’, and went in for a hug. Alisha made a little surprised noise, but accepted it, carefully put her arms around Salem, and hugged her back.
Salem stayed like that for a moment, wrestling with more feelings than she could handle all at once, and difficult, unfamiliar thoughts. If Alisha couldn’t find Laura on her own, then Salem needed to look for her herself. She didn’t even know how to begin. She imagined Alisha in her office, staring at a laptop like Laura’s, typing, interpreting words and images. Salem hadn’t taken any lessons in that, yet. But she was good at learning by experimentation. And she’d started Galarish literacy…
After a minute or two, Alisha pulled back from the hug, and sighed sympathetically. “I know it’s hard, missing your trainer. You must worry about her. There’s nothing wrong with that. Just… try to understand that some things take time, okay?”
Salem nodded. “Oh-kay.” She sounded like she’d forgotten how to speak, but it was just her throat closing up around her upset. “Oh-kay. Okay.”
Alisha signed a quick [Catch you later,] with an affectionate flair. “I gotta get going, Salem. Induction for those new faces, remember?”
“Okay.” [See ya.]
Salem watched Alisha pace off towards the medical wing. Only when the doors swung shut after her did Salem bring her tail curving back round in front of her. The hook at the end of her tail held a lanyard, from which a shiny new keycard dangled, temptingly. She batted at it, smirked, and took it, to pass it between each finger on one hand, as if she were knuckle rolling a coin.
How long before Alisha noticed it was gone? Long enough. Probably.
XxX
Nobody to the left. Nobody to the right. Only Salem, ears perked and eyes wide, came or went in the cross-corridor that connected the eastern wings of the building. She pressed an ear to the door to the block of staff offices. No footsteps. Good. The keycard slid in easily enough. Figuring out how to orient it to get a red flash, and then time the retrieval to get a
green flash, took a moment longer.
The door opened smoothly to reveal another empty corridor, lined with doors. No staff. She’d have bolted if so – she hadn’t come up with a good excuse to be there that
wasn’t against the rules. Not that breaking them really mattered, but it
would interrupt her investigation if she were caught. Inconvenient!
Salem was fairly certain which office belonged to Alisha from the couple of progress reviews she’d done with her. Those were fun. She’d basically gotten to brag about all her successes for several minutes straight. Such as her nascent literacy, which told her…
Capital ‘A’ for A-lisha, capital ‘R’ for R-enadier… This was Alisha’s office.
The keycard worked, at least. She slipped inside – this was the room as she’d remembered it. Wooden panelling, some bookshelves, a frosted window overlooking the building’s central atrium. Framed certificates and photos on one wall. Plenty of potted plants. And Alisha’s desk, which the search apparently had not left since Salem asked about Laura.
Salem hopped into Alisha’s mesh desk chair and squeaked at its surprising bounciness. Then, she tapped experimentally at the laptop. The screen lit up, making her blink and draw back.
A login screen.
Tap, clack, clack-a-clack, tap tap tap.
Incorrect.
She really didn’t know why she’d even tried that.
Salem turned her attention to the other items on the desk’s surface. Lamp, stationery, loose hair, miscellaneous human objects she didn’t know… She pulled out a drawer, and found a slim black container. She popped it open…
Huh. She didn’t know Alisha wore glasses. And, of course, there was paper. Loose sheets, a full in-tray, a couple of books, some folders full of paper… One of the deeper desk drawers contained dozens of similar folders.
Salem scratched behind her ear, growling quietly to herself. What had she expected, actually? That she’d come in and find a big pile of pictures of humans and search through it until she found the right one? That she could just type
‘find Laura trainer smart nice green eyes’ and the laptop would put her on the screen at once?
Salem kicked herself away from the desk and spun slowly as the chair swivelled around. She felt stupid. Naive. She could learn a hundred things a day, every day for a year, and she still wouldn’t have a grip on the world. It was too massive. Too complex. Too difficult. She’d gotten mad at Alisha for taking too long, but she didn’t have the faintest idea what looking for Laura actually
meant.
On the other paw, the Salem who’d paced aimlessly around the pokémon shelter wouldn’t have thought to even
try. Let alone been able to make requests in Galarish, steal a keycard even while badly upset… and consider just how different Alisha’s life was from hers. How different any life was from hers, really. Becoming human – part-human, hybrid, pokémorph, whatever – didn’t mean automatic understanding.
It did mean
being able to understand, though. Able to
learn. And sometimes, to invent. She turned back to the piles of paper. She might not be
good at reading, yet, but even if she couldn’t find anything here, it counted as practice, didn’t it?
Some of it was absolutely incomprehensible – words she didn’t know, about topics she didn’t understand, like
budget, and
press release. There was no release button on the paper to press! Meaningless! The book seemed to be a story about a human who studied pokémon culture: fascinating, but irrelevant. The first folder she examined, though, contained something meaningful.
G2-SHP-037 / Sriracha
And there, printed on the page, was a photo of the blaziken himself, un-morphed. Pinned next to it with a paperclip was a more recent one, of Sriracha wearing his uniform. Salem skimmed the page for words she knew. There was information here about him, about his health, his background…
If each folder was for a morph, then perhaps there’d be one for
her.
Salem glanced at the front page of each folder, finding some morphs she recognised – Scrafty, Fletchling – and others she didn’t. And there, over on the other side of the desk, was her own.
G2-SHP-054 / Salem
It was odd, seeing a photo of her un-morphed self, next to one of her post-Change, smiling and making a ‘V’ sign with one hand. She’d been so
small. And she’d looked so anxious. She touched the page, and brushed the image. Her stomach felt… peculiar.
She skimmed the text below.
‘…
Salem is recommended for courses in low profile operations. As her existing proficiency in pokésign (GPSL) is superior to average signing skill in domestic purrloin…’
She had no idea her sign was better than other purrloin. Her tailtip quivered with pride. She flicked through some more pages, finding tables of numbers she had no idea how to interpret, information about purrloin behaviour and biology she wholly disregarded, and—
Oh.
Something… unexpected, fixed with a paperclip to a page near the back.
Salem frowned, blinked, looked again. Looked
harder. She batted the page with her hand, in case it was some trick of the light.
It was not.
She read the text below. Her eyes narrowed. Her tail thumped against the chair until her hook stuck itself in the mesh. She pulled her tail free with a growl, and gripped it above the hook as she read.
She read, but she didn’t understand.
Carefully, Salem tugged the small, laminated piece of paper out of the folder, and, after staring at it a moment longer with her tail at full-brush, she placed it gingerly in her pocket. And thought about what to do next.
She had to show Dusk.
XxX
Blood thumped in her ears and sang in her limbs. Dusk ducked and weaved, jabbed, jumped back and
flipped. She flung ice shards before she even landed, spraying her opponent with a hail of jagged edges and loose mist. Of course, Eliza was demon-fast with those gallade blades of hers. Not a scratch.
“Too repetitive,” remarked Eliza. If it had been an insult, Dusk could have shot back in turn, but it was just an observation. Factual. She grunted ambivalently. Alright, she’d try something new.
Dusk flung out a pulse of darkness, and while Eliza’s eyes glowed magenta with the effort of dispelling the attack, Dusk sent a wave of damp chill rolling across the battle court, freezing it over all smooth and slippery…
Or at least, that had been the plan. Eliza was lighter on her feet than Dusk had realised, and didn’t seem at all affected.
“An interesting tactic,” said the gallade-morph.
Dusk shrugged and went in for another flurry of attacks. She mixed in a few
amateur blows with the expert strikes, hoping to get lucky against Eliza’s defences. Not quite, not quite…
In the middle of the melee, a compact shadow ball impacted against Eliza’s face, and Dusk lunged, instantly, while her guard was compromised.
“Gotcha,” she panted. Then, brow furrowing, “Don’t know how, though.”
Eliza got to her feet like a flower facing the sun, all elegance and poise. “You took advantage of your friend’s intervention,” she said, dryly. “Please tell her not to do that again. She
could just ask us to pause the fight.”
Salem tittered to herself on the side of the court. “That wouldn’t be fun, though.”
Dusk shrugged, and gave a lopsided grin. “She’s not wrong.”
Eliza rolled her eyes theatrically – for Dusk’s benefit, more than because she was
actually annoyed. “Alright, I’ll give you two troublemakers the room. Good sparring, Dusk. Your technique improves by the day.”
“Cheers,” said Dusk, signing [Seeya, loser!] and grinning ear to ear with delight when Eliza signed [Go fuck yourself] back. She was so much more fun to spar with now she played along with the banter. Sneasel fights
always had good banter. Not letting it get under your skin was part of training!
She turned to her underhanded purrloin friend and beamed even wider. “Nice one, Salem. What’s up? Come find me for a reason?”
Salem nodded, still looking anxiously after Eliza. When the gallade-morph was out of sight, she met Dusk’s eyes. She looked…
…hurt.
“Salem?”
Salem’s ears flattened back. “You said you’d have my back. Promise? Make a promise you can’t break.”
“…What?” Dusk frowned, her own ears mimicking Salem’s.
“I need to trust you,” said Salem, helplessly. As if she’d been wounded.
“You can trust me,” said Dusk, mentally searching for an explanation. Had Veracity said something fucked up to Salem? Or Whiskey, maybe? “Salem, what the fuck is wrong? You got me worried.”
Salem nodded. She had the look of someone about to dive into rapids for the first time. That wasn’t like her.
“I found something. I found something that means… the humans don’t always tell us the truth. So I need to trust you. I need you to help me.”
Dusk narrowed her eyes and held Salem by the shoulders, hoping to steady her. “Humans and pokémon and morphs all lie sometimes,” she said, carefully. “Some lie all the time. Some are just stupid and it makes them wrong. Like the birds. Remember what we talked about?”
Salem nodded impatiently. “Yes, I know, people say wrong things because they actually believe them and sometimes it’s because they are dumb and sometimes it’s because they are mean. I know, I know. This is different.”
Dusk sucked teeth for a second. Salem could get agitated by stuff, but she wasn’t stupid, and she learnt crazy-fast.
“Explain it to me. I… I’ll take it serious. Promise you.”
Salem nodded, tail still whipping back and forth, but her ears, at least, perked up.
“Okay. You remember I asked Alisha to find Laura?”
“Yeah. Told you to. And… She didn’t find her?”
Salem looked stricken. “No. Yes? She
said she didn’t find her. She told me. But…”
The purrloin-morph reached into her pocket and withdrew something tiny. Hesitantly, she offered it up, hardly letting go even as Dusk took hold of it.
It was a photograph of a human girl, maybe a young woman. Long, dark hair. Sad, tired eyes. Bright green, like Salem’s eyes.
“I found this in her office,” said Salem, in a low voice. “In the papers about me.”
“You went into Alisha’s office?” asked Dusk, unsure if she was more shocked or impressed.
“Yes.
Look, though. Dusk, look at the words.”
Dusk squinted at the text below the image, printed in a tiny font. It said…
“…Laura Weir.”
