Fifty moments captured in one sentence each, using Theme Set Epsilon from these theme sets on LiveJournal, starringLucian and Shauntal.
This little project was originally posted on AO3 from October 24 to November 16. You can also find this sentence collection on fanfiction.net and the Bulbagarden Forums.
Content Warnings: A small handful of sentences contain references to lusting/lascivious thoughts, none otherwise.
This little project was originally posted on AO3 from October 24 to November 16. You can also find this sentence collection on fanfiction.net and the Bulbagarden Forums.
Content Warnings: A small handful of sentences contain references to lusting/lascivious thoughts, none otherwise.
I. Motion
He can picture the scene clearly in his mind before he looks up to confirm it: Shauntal's frame rests awkwardly against the varnished edge of her writing desk; but there's the briefest hesitation in the motion of his hands as he reaches for her, the unspoken question of whether she’ll protest flickering through his mind before vanishing completely the next instant:of course she won't, not when her breath comes in soft, uneven beats, her arms curling around his neck the moment he lifts her, the rhythm of their steps slowing as he crosses the study, determined to lie down with his beloved—not a grand gesture, not one born of ceremony: it is the natural, fluid instinct of two souls who have known far too many sleepless nights together.
II. Cool
Rain patters against the window in a rhythmic cadence, each droplet tracing uneven lines across glass like ink seeping into paper—so distinct, Lucian thinks, as he watches the pale light of morning scatter over Shauntal's bare shoulder, her skin warm from their shared body heat, a stark contrast to the crisp, almost biting sensation of the air that sneaks through the narrow gap in the window they'd forgotten to close—forgotten, or ignored?—he muses, as he lets the faint coolness curl around the both of them, thankfully not enough to disturb Shauntal's rest, but present all the same.
III. Young
She had fallen in love with him with the shyness of one so young and innocent when it came to matters of the heart; and though she believed her displays of affection were shown with an awkwardness she could never fully conceal, no matter how hard she tried, Lucian was only all the more enchanted by Shauntal's willingness to truly be herself, awkwardness and all.
IV. Last
On any other day, Shauntal would have been the last person to leave the Unova League building (more often than not, she'd stay at her desk, pen scratching feverishly against the page long after her scheduled battles had ended), but this was not any other day: Lucian was in Unova today, and she had every reason to depart as soon as her duties permitted, for nothing set her heart racing quite like the thought of holding her one and only love in her arms after months of conversations confined to glowing screens and strained hours.
V. Wrong
Every time she tries to summon a smile, to tell him she’s fine, Lucian catches the shadow veiled in her gaze—her skin a shade paler than before, a faint sheen of fever glossing her brow, hands trembling as she raises the teacup that slips from her grip, shattering on the floor in a mosaic of color; and in that fractured instant, the sickness Shauntal so carefully hides seems to coil around them, cold and insistent, though she loathes how he reads her so easily, how he knows she could let herself be vulnerable, let him be the strength she refuses to admit she needs.
VI. Gentle
Steam rises in thick plumes as Lucian dips the cloth into the scalding bath, wringing it until the water trails down his fingers, and then presses it over her shoulders, his movements gentle, his hands finding their way along her skin, brushing soap in slow, spiraling sweeps across her back and arms, lifting her hair to run the cloth beneath with a care that feels as ceremonious as it does natural; and Shauntal, in turn, lets herself settle deeper, feeling—against the heat, against his steady hands—the sense that she has become something treasured, worthy of this weekly ritual he performs with quiet diligence, as if she were royalty in some private, unspoken rite.
VII. One
"One of these days," Shauntal teases, half-turning to catch his eye, "you’ll have to stop sneaking up on me like this," but Shauntal's words barely reach him before Lucian has drawn her back against him, his arms sliding around her bare waist with that unhurriedness she knows all too well.
VIII. Thousand
Lucian has poured over hundreds of thousands of pages detailing the most intricate of battle strategies of the lineages of the most powerful trainers and their Pokémon, every brittle paper, every ink-stained margin carrying the history he's memorized down to the finest detail, and Shauntal, in turn, has penned hundreds of thousands of words, haunted tales of ghostly figures and memories too restless to fade, her sentences spilling like rivers onto page after page, yet neither the strategies he's studied nor the stories she's spun could ever begin to measure the reasons he loves her; not a single line or note between them captures why they truly believe that they had shared lives beyond counting, memories written in a language older than the collective words they've soaked in and released.
IX. King
The Twin Kings and their Dragons tower above Unova, their stony forms etched with a history Shauntal knows well, but her mind seems to always wander to Sinnoh—a place so ancient, so steeped in the breath of legends, that even saying its name feels like invoking something older than memory; and to this she wonders how it would feel to walk for a day in Lucian’s world, where caves are marked with the shapes of Dialga and Palkia, guardians of time and space, and where every hillside and riverbed carries a story of creation itself pressed into the earth.
X. Learn
Not steel nor cunning butwordswere his truest arsenal, each one learned and layered upon the last, books read to their marrow until his very breath could unravel the minds of others with the subtlest of incisions; yet for his beloved Shauntal alone would he ever unleash the most indecent of words, a treasure trove of syllables kept under lock and key, verses spun with such elegance and eloquence they could raise scarlet blushes or send her kneeling to her knees; beauty honed to burn, to brand—a gift reserved for the sole heart to ever hold his own.
XI. Blur
The blur of their last morning together—dark clouds low over the bustling airport, everything softened by the quiet fog that somehow seeped inside too, clouding the windows, the voices, even the lines on his palm where her fingers trace them again, memorizing each curve before the parting—settles heavy between them, another form of gravity, pulling at every goodbye, her voice trembling on theI'll miss you, love—quiet, wavering, but resolute, and Lucian carries the weight of every conversation they’ll resume through letters, phone calls—lifelines spun across regions—the ache catching him off-guard, though he hides it well, with a nod sayingI'll see you soon, loveand a look that doesn't disguise how long and lonely a distance it will be.
XII. Wait
She doesn’t receive much physical mail—just League memos, or worse, the inevitable deluge of unsavory fan letters hardly worth the paper they’re written on—but Lucian’s packages are always worth the wait: wrapped in crisply folded paper, it's another book he's read, dissected,lived within, and now offered to her, each and every margin holding a fragment of his mind, waiting—patiently, ardently—for her eyes alone to devour.
XIII. Change
"I wouldn't change a single thing about you, my dearest love," Lucian writes in a letter Shauntal re-reads for the hundredth time— "Not the spark in your eyes when you talk about ghost Pokémon, nor the way your hands hover over a page like you’re reaching into another world, nor the earnestness that spills from you unguarded, pure and untempered, in every word you write."
XIV. Command
How she longs for her lover to be right beside her now, wielding his masterful command of language over the tangled pages of her manuscript, for too many hours have slipped by, Shauntal readily admitting to herself that she is only half the wordsmith Lucian is, graced with a natural eloquence she can scarcely match.
XV. Hold
To hold a hand, Lucian has learned, is to carve something indelible into the architecture of shared space, an act both unadorned and unapologetic: his fingers are laced with Shauntal's as to defy any shadow or secrecy, leaving nothing behind but the simple truth that they are, unmistakably, claimed by each other in plain sight.
XVI. Need
Under the indifferent gaze of his fellow Elite Four colleagues, Lucian exhales shakily, a muted breath disguising the pull of his desire, a need that presses forward with insistent heat, conjuring the most lascivious images of Shauntal from the deepest recesses of his mind, vivid and nearly tangible, defying his every attempt to discard them.
XVII. Vision
He's no clairvoyant or seer like Olympia, but if ever he's glimpsed a destiny worth craving, it's the vision of Shauntal with a ring glinting on her finger, one he's placed there himself, proof of all he could ever wish to unfold within their lives.
XVIII. Attention
In her latest letter, Shauntal writes with a cautious heart: she hopes she isn't asking for too much of his attention; but Arceus, if only she knew that his attention is all Lucian has ever wanted to give her despite being thousands of miles apart.
XIX. Soul
"Whenever I look into your beautiful eyes," one of Lucian's very first letters to her states so openly near its conclusion, "I believe that not only our eyes meet, but in those briefest glances, our souls receive another chance to say hello to each other."
XX. Picture
In one of his earliest letters to her, written mere hours after one of the most incredible beach walks taken along Canalave's coastline, Lucian promises, "I will take one picture of you in that bathing suit I bought you and frame it in my bedroom so whenever I look up to acknowledge the morning, I will greet someone much more worthy of my ‘good morning.’"
XXI. Fool
If only fools rushed headlong into the perplexing maelstrom that was known as true love, then Shauntal would willingly christen herself its most spellbound captive.
XXII. Mad
To proclaim that his dreams drove him mad would be an awfully poor gloss—what folly, to compress such nights into a single phrase—when his mind was ever only overtaken by a silent procession ofher: Shauntal in half-light, Shauntal veiled and unknowable, her figure etched in a realm that seemed to stretch beyond his consciousness; no, it was not madness, but a peculiar and consuming symmetry that he returned to, helpless, night after night after night, as one follows the stroke of clock hands circling their face; the visions he kept of her bending his thoughts, insatiable, and he knew—achingly, irrevocably—that no waking reality could unravel him quite like the soft havoc she left, haunting him in the hinterlands of sleep.
XXIII. Child
"I dream of a child to call ours: maybe they have your lucid eyes, or perhaps my ear-to-ear smile," she had written, the words coiled on the page like secret filaments of herself, and Lucian, brow furrowed just so, read them with an inexplicable ache that did not yield to her vision—her dream of small hands, of footsteps echoing through their home, of days built upon another's laugh—because he, for all his quiet reverence, saw his future as a safe haven carved for the two of them alone.
XXIV. Now
Though they knew their time together was short, for now they were free to bask in the artistry of nature: to stand side by side, adrift in the final glow of the day, the sunset unfurling in fervid shades that devoured the western horizon in a flood of coral and claret, Lucian murmuring intermittently of its ungovernable beauty, while Shauntal, struck by the temporality of it, grasped his hand in wordless assent as she listened to her lover's soothing voice.
XXV. Shadow
Naturally, Shauntal's latest collection of short stories was a bestseller, so much so that both her publishing house as well as flocks of devoted readers had pressed her to record an audiobook—an idea she accepted with reluctance, as though baring her voice might somehow reveal too much of herself; and Lucian, listening alone to her words pour through his headphones, found himself forcibly struck by the closeness of them, each syllable cast in the delicate shadow of her hesitancy.
XXVI. Goodbye
Goodbye: The word unspools with the gravity of a shadow settling, an ache she's borne so long it's worn its own groove in her heart; but here, in Lucian's familiar elegant script, is his promise to her: that one day, they will stand under a single roof without the tyranny of time, without the silent hollow of farewell, without this ache that sinks in like dusk slipping into night; and Shauntal's fingers tremble on the page, vision blurring as she holds the words to herself, feeling them as if they could close every distance, draw her into that boundless, tender permanence he swears will come.
XXVII. Hide
Only the letter in her trembling hands, soft at the edges from her tight grip, reminds Shauntal that her tears, no longer something to hide, will meet Lucian's open acceptance, and that in her sorrow, she will find him always ready to hold what she can no longer bear alone.
XXVIII. Fortune
Lucian had never believed in such concepts as "fortune" or "fate"—at least, that was until Shauntal came along to show him why he should.
XXIX. Safe
Shauntal recalls her first stay on that September weekend, the low lights casting warmth over Lucian's bookshelves, the air as heavy as her own breathing in the quiet of his bedroom; how Lucian had pulled her close to his chest and whispered into her ear, so low she'd barely caught it, "I will keep you safe," and Shauntal, disbelieving but aching to believe, could only nod, never truly considering then thatsafewould be an ordinary word by the time she'd called this placeherhome; that she’d sit here now, years later, and wonder how she'd ever felt like a visitor in this bed, in this home—theirhome.
XXX. Ghost
Indisputably, ghosts are Shauntal's companions: phantasmal and wayward, cast in restless shades of lilac and ash, flickering with an otherworldly caprice as they drift between here and there, at once playful and wary, spectral and half-anchored to their own doleful sorrows, perpetually outcast by the world of the living; but Lucian, her one and only love, is no phantom—he is her earth-bound tether, her kindred of immortal devotion, destined to haunt neither earth nor heaven but to drift patiently alongside her, following the unending thread before them into an afterlife only the two of them will ever truly know.
XXXI. Book
"I found this book a couple of weeks ago!" Lucian's latest letter begins, "A collection of poetry by a young woman whose words many scholars thought were lost to a fire centuries ago, every line of hers presumed ash, but one work somehow endured, preserved against all fate, and it's already the breakthrough of the literary world; I can only hope that, when next you are in my arms, I can read you the passages I know will stir your heart as they have mine."
XXXII. Eye
A singular, soft sigh slips from Shauntal's lips as her head comes to rest atop Lucian's, violet eyes tracing the slow descent of her husband's eyelids with a rapture she scarcely dares to name: there, in that unfathomable threshold between his awareness and oblivion, a tremor stirs hot in her blood, something like reverence twisted with desire, the sensation coiling unmistakably into her loins, unbidden, undenied, and altogether incongruous with the pull of sleep that so easily has claimed him.
XXXIII. Never
Quick to hide the tears that prick her eyes, Shauntal steps back, overwhelmed by the sight of Lucian, calm and focused as ever, arranging every decoration, every book, telekinetically setting each object with a carefulness she has never known anyone to extend to her, into a bedroom that would now, impossibly, be calledhers, and she retreats to the adjacent study, pressing a hand to her mouth, breathless with awe.
XXXIV. Sing
The first time Lucian had heard Shauntal sing was during an afterparty, a cluster of listeners gathered close around her in a dim lounge—faces turned up toward her, enraptured—and he, standing off to the side, felt almost intrusive watching her like this, but for once he wasn't reading or exchanging polite conversation; he only stood there, transfixed, as her voice, melancholic yet unrestrained, slipped through the smoky air, drunk with a strange, beautiful abandon that he could feel settling into him as the illicit spell that it was.
XXXV. Sudden
A sudden cough seizes her, her chest tightening as she turns away to stifle it, and still Lucian, unbothered, moves with his typical quiet finesse, hands ghosting over her shoulders in that familiar, surreptitious way of his, determined to catch her off guard, always just barely felt; Shauntal could laugh at how he'll never abandon his subtlety, even now, and somehow, despite the rasp in her lungs, she likes it all the more for that.
XXXVI. Stop
She wonders, fleetingly, what he's doing here, in a city so loud, a place she herself can barely stand, and the thought alone makes Shauntal come to a brisk stop, watching as Lucian steps into a modest coffee shop across the street, his dark coat and formal suit conspicuously out of place among the laid-back patrons; even from here, she can discern the subtlest hint of vanilla and old parchment that always lingers around him, a scent that speaks of libraries and long hours, and she nearly laughs, torn between her need to vanish into the crowd and an undeniable urge to follow him inside.
XXXVII. Time
For the first time in what he accepts to be the first of many more times, Lucian weaves through the bustling Hearthome Airport terminal, sidestepping travelers and luggage alike with uncharacteristic haste, allowing urgency to eclipse his usual composure, until finally his arms wrap around Shauntal's waist in a fierce embrace, and he finds himself smiling—genuine, unguarded—as her laughter melts into joyful tears.
XXXVIII. Wash
If she hadn't seen him disappear into Canalave Beach's darkened waters herself, Shauntal might think Lucian had been born from it, his skin brushed with a silvery wash that softened each angle of his frame as he strode up the shore, his shirt hanging loose, drops of seawater trailing down his forearms and fingers, seemingly reluctant to leave him, holding an expression scrubbed free of the quiet, unfathomable burdens she knows he carries but will never lay bare to anyone.
XXXIX. Torn
There is far too much sorrow within the torn pages Lucian finds scattered about her bedroom floor, frayed edges and ink smudges remnants of the battles Shauntal fights with each line, and so he gathers them with deft hands, tucking them into his coat pocket where they will rest till morning, when he will offer his beloved wife all the praise she'd never grant herself.
XL. History
Beneath the weight of so many official documents, Shauntal's pen drifts from signature to signature, each stroke a shadow slipping from one page to the next, a quiet farewell to the history she has penned here in Unova as its first ever Ghost-type Elite; but every curve of ink carries her onward, for if she has ever had a compass personified, it's Lucian, that irrefutable pull she calls her heart.
XLI. Power
It was no secret that Lucian reigned as the most gifted and powerful psychic in Sinnoh, so when whispers began slithering through the region concerning Shauntal's permanent relocation to wed him, she had felt a sort of peculiar estrangement settle around her; but his telepathy sensed her unrest at once: tucking away the overwhelming pride he felt in loving a woman as singularly captivating as she, Lucian drew Shauntal close to his chest, resolute against any sordid murmurs the world deigned to shower upon them.
XLII. Bother
Against his expectations, Lucian found he didn't mind the bother of being Shauntal's makeshift pillow; in fact, he could grow quite accustomed to it if it meant he could wake each morning greeted by traces of lavender and honey blossom.
XLIII. God
"Praise be to the God who birthed time from the abyss, who gave the heavens their light; grant me, too, a place within this boundlessnesss," Shauntal murmurs, intoning the archaic verse Lucian had imparted upon her, her voice threading through the keening winds that coil around the Spear Pillar; here, at the nexus of Sinnoh's mythos and memory, snowflakes descending ceaselessly in wisps of argent and pale cinder, she feels her heart drawn across epochs and distances, a single tether binding her to the ancient land below, as if she has, at last, claimed this place—its indecipherable enigmas, its storied expanses—as her home.
XLIV. Wall
Utterly awestruck, Shauntal stands before the towering wall of books in Lucian's study—a collection so vast it feels more like a cathedral of knowledge than a mere room—and she thinks, not for the first time, that if she weren't bound to return to Unova, she'd uproot her life and move to Sinnoh, lose herself among the endless rows of books, reading and writing andbaskingin Lucian's company.
XLV. Naked
"I hope you come back to Sinnoh sooner rather than later," Lucian says suddenly, not even bothering to hide the desperation in his voice as his eyes trail Shauntal's naked body, her skin glowing with the exertion of their coitus.
XLVI. Drive
If Lucian harbored disdain for anything, it was for the interminable drives through southern Sinnoh he was forced to take every couple of months on account of his diplomatic obligations—endless stretches of rain-drenched roads and skies weighed down in a perpetual, mournful slate; but listening to a five-hour playlist Shauntal had curated just for him, consisting of Unova's most underappreciated neo-classical musicians, helped make the journey much more bearable.
XLVII. Harm
Just as Shauntal is about to step out the door into the night, Lucian wraps an arm around his lover's waist, his voice reassuring as he whispers into her ear, "Should any harm befall you while on your walk, I know you are capable of protecting yourself; but in the event you cannot, you can guarantee that I will come running to your side, wherever your stroll may lead you."
XLVIII. Precious
"Mother," Lucian begins, a low intonation that barely stirs the autumn air as he addresses the gravestone, his hand brushing against the cool marble, "I've found her: the one whose essence is rarer than all the treasures men have squandered lifetimes seeking, a woman who keeps company with phantasms as though they are old confidants and spins their murmured tales into novels that have carved her name, quietly and indelibly, into the annals of literary renown, and whose every word seems as though it could rewrite the marrow of my soul, leaving me breathless and wondering how such brilliance could possibly shine within the confines of this fleeting, fallible world."
XLIX. Hunger
The realization struck with an almost disquieting clarity: Lucian's hunger for knowledge, that insatiable and lifelong pursuit, had been suddenly and wholly eclipsed by a yearning—a yearning for a woman who had visited his home for the span of a mere three days, arriving with the singular intent of composing a novel with a telepathic intellectual as its protagonist.
L. Believe
And so it was, after being haunted within the hinterlands of sleep, after giving her so much of the care and time and attention she craved, after witnessing the marvelous artistry that was a coral and claret sunset, after rushing into each other's arms and embracing, smiling genuinely and crying joyfully, after unknowingly being elevated onto the pedestal that was his sole reason to believe in fortune and fate, after realizing that their desire and desperation for each other was indescribable beyond the words collected and wielded by the both of them, that Lucian and Shauntal finallytrulybelieved that love could make—and had made—its way to them.
He can picture the scene clearly in his mind before he looks up to confirm it: Shauntal's frame rests awkwardly against the varnished edge of her writing desk; but there's the briefest hesitation in the motion of his hands as he reaches for her, the unspoken question of whether she’ll protest flickering through his mind before vanishing completely the next instant:of course she won't, not when her breath comes in soft, uneven beats, her arms curling around his neck the moment he lifts her, the rhythm of their steps slowing as he crosses the study, determined to lie down with his beloved—not a grand gesture, not one born of ceremony: it is the natural, fluid instinct of two souls who have known far too many sleepless nights together.
II. Cool
Rain patters against the window in a rhythmic cadence, each droplet tracing uneven lines across glass like ink seeping into paper—so distinct, Lucian thinks, as he watches the pale light of morning scatter over Shauntal's bare shoulder, her skin warm from their shared body heat, a stark contrast to the crisp, almost biting sensation of the air that sneaks through the narrow gap in the window they'd forgotten to close—forgotten, or ignored?—he muses, as he lets the faint coolness curl around the both of them, thankfully not enough to disturb Shauntal's rest, but present all the same.
III. Young
She had fallen in love with him with the shyness of one so young and innocent when it came to matters of the heart; and though she believed her displays of affection were shown with an awkwardness she could never fully conceal, no matter how hard she tried, Lucian was only all the more enchanted by Shauntal's willingness to truly be herself, awkwardness and all.
IV. Last
On any other day, Shauntal would have been the last person to leave the Unova League building (more often than not, she'd stay at her desk, pen scratching feverishly against the page long after her scheduled battles had ended), but this was not any other day: Lucian was in Unova today, and she had every reason to depart as soon as her duties permitted, for nothing set her heart racing quite like the thought of holding her one and only love in her arms after months of conversations confined to glowing screens and strained hours.
V. Wrong
Every time she tries to summon a smile, to tell him she’s fine, Lucian catches the shadow veiled in her gaze—her skin a shade paler than before, a faint sheen of fever glossing her brow, hands trembling as she raises the teacup that slips from her grip, shattering on the floor in a mosaic of color; and in that fractured instant, the sickness Shauntal so carefully hides seems to coil around them, cold and insistent, though she loathes how he reads her so easily, how he knows she could let herself be vulnerable, let him be the strength she refuses to admit she needs.
VI. Gentle
Steam rises in thick plumes as Lucian dips the cloth into the scalding bath, wringing it until the water trails down his fingers, and then presses it over her shoulders, his movements gentle, his hands finding their way along her skin, brushing soap in slow, spiraling sweeps across her back and arms, lifting her hair to run the cloth beneath with a care that feels as ceremonious as it does natural; and Shauntal, in turn, lets herself settle deeper, feeling—against the heat, against his steady hands—the sense that she has become something treasured, worthy of this weekly ritual he performs with quiet diligence, as if she were royalty in some private, unspoken rite.
VII. One
"One of these days," Shauntal teases, half-turning to catch his eye, "you’ll have to stop sneaking up on me like this," but Shauntal's words barely reach him before Lucian has drawn her back against him, his arms sliding around her bare waist with that unhurriedness she knows all too well.
VIII. Thousand
Lucian has poured over hundreds of thousands of pages detailing the most intricate of battle strategies of the lineages of the most powerful trainers and their Pokémon, every brittle paper, every ink-stained margin carrying the history he's memorized down to the finest detail, and Shauntal, in turn, has penned hundreds of thousands of words, haunted tales of ghostly figures and memories too restless to fade, her sentences spilling like rivers onto page after page, yet neither the strategies he's studied nor the stories she's spun could ever begin to measure the reasons he loves her; not a single line or note between them captures why they truly believe that they had shared lives beyond counting, memories written in a language older than the collective words they've soaked in and released.
IX. King
The Twin Kings and their Dragons tower above Unova, their stony forms etched with a history Shauntal knows well, but her mind seems to always wander to Sinnoh—a place so ancient, so steeped in the breath of legends, that even saying its name feels like invoking something older than memory; and to this she wonders how it would feel to walk for a day in Lucian’s world, where caves are marked with the shapes of Dialga and Palkia, guardians of time and space, and where every hillside and riverbed carries a story of creation itself pressed into the earth.
X. Learn
Not steel nor cunning butwordswere his truest arsenal, each one learned and layered upon the last, books read to their marrow until his very breath could unravel the minds of others with the subtlest of incisions; yet for his beloved Shauntal alone would he ever unleash the most indecent of words, a treasure trove of syllables kept under lock and key, verses spun with such elegance and eloquence they could raise scarlet blushes or send her kneeling to her knees; beauty honed to burn, to brand—a gift reserved for the sole heart to ever hold his own.
XI. Blur
The blur of their last morning together—dark clouds low over the bustling airport, everything softened by the quiet fog that somehow seeped inside too, clouding the windows, the voices, even the lines on his palm where her fingers trace them again, memorizing each curve before the parting—settles heavy between them, another form of gravity, pulling at every goodbye, her voice trembling on theI'll miss you, love—quiet, wavering, but resolute, and Lucian carries the weight of every conversation they’ll resume through letters, phone calls—lifelines spun across regions—the ache catching him off-guard, though he hides it well, with a nod sayingI'll see you soon, loveand a look that doesn't disguise how long and lonely a distance it will be.
XII. Wait
She doesn’t receive much physical mail—just League memos, or worse, the inevitable deluge of unsavory fan letters hardly worth the paper they’re written on—but Lucian’s packages are always worth the wait: wrapped in crisply folded paper, it's another book he's read, dissected,lived within, and now offered to her, each and every margin holding a fragment of his mind, waiting—patiently, ardently—for her eyes alone to devour.
XIII. Change
"I wouldn't change a single thing about you, my dearest love," Lucian writes in a letter Shauntal re-reads for the hundredth time— "Not the spark in your eyes when you talk about ghost Pokémon, nor the way your hands hover over a page like you’re reaching into another world, nor the earnestness that spills from you unguarded, pure and untempered, in every word you write."
XIV. Command
How she longs for her lover to be right beside her now, wielding his masterful command of language over the tangled pages of her manuscript, for too many hours have slipped by, Shauntal readily admitting to herself that she is only half the wordsmith Lucian is, graced with a natural eloquence she can scarcely match.
XV. Hold
To hold a hand, Lucian has learned, is to carve something indelible into the architecture of shared space, an act both unadorned and unapologetic: his fingers are laced with Shauntal's as to defy any shadow or secrecy, leaving nothing behind but the simple truth that they are, unmistakably, claimed by each other in plain sight.
XVI. Need
Under the indifferent gaze of his fellow Elite Four colleagues, Lucian exhales shakily, a muted breath disguising the pull of his desire, a need that presses forward with insistent heat, conjuring the most lascivious images of Shauntal from the deepest recesses of his mind, vivid and nearly tangible, defying his every attempt to discard them.
XVII. Vision
He's no clairvoyant or seer like Olympia, but if ever he's glimpsed a destiny worth craving, it's the vision of Shauntal with a ring glinting on her finger, one he's placed there himself, proof of all he could ever wish to unfold within their lives.
XVIII. Attention
In her latest letter, Shauntal writes with a cautious heart: she hopes she isn't asking for too much of his attention; but Arceus, if only she knew that his attention is all Lucian has ever wanted to give her despite being thousands of miles apart.
XIX. Soul
"Whenever I look into your beautiful eyes," one of Lucian's very first letters to her states so openly near its conclusion, "I believe that not only our eyes meet, but in those briefest glances, our souls receive another chance to say hello to each other."
XX. Picture
In one of his earliest letters to her, written mere hours after one of the most incredible beach walks taken along Canalave's coastline, Lucian promises, "I will take one picture of you in that bathing suit I bought you and frame it in my bedroom so whenever I look up to acknowledge the morning, I will greet someone much more worthy of my ‘good morning.’"
XXI. Fool
If only fools rushed headlong into the perplexing maelstrom that was known as true love, then Shauntal would willingly christen herself its most spellbound captive.
XXII. Mad
To proclaim that his dreams drove him mad would be an awfully poor gloss—what folly, to compress such nights into a single phrase—when his mind was ever only overtaken by a silent procession ofher: Shauntal in half-light, Shauntal veiled and unknowable, her figure etched in a realm that seemed to stretch beyond his consciousness; no, it was not madness, but a peculiar and consuming symmetry that he returned to, helpless, night after night after night, as one follows the stroke of clock hands circling their face; the visions he kept of her bending his thoughts, insatiable, and he knew—achingly, irrevocably—that no waking reality could unravel him quite like the soft havoc she left, haunting him in the hinterlands of sleep.
XXIII. Child
"I dream of a child to call ours: maybe they have your lucid eyes, or perhaps my ear-to-ear smile," she had written, the words coiled on the page like secret filaments of herself, and Lucian, brow furrowed just so, read them with an inexplicable ache that did not yield to her vision—her dream of small hands, of footsteps echoing through their home, of days built upon another's laugh—because he, for all his quiet reverence, saw his future as a safe haven carved for the two of them alone.
XXIV. Now
Though they knew their time together was short, for now they were free to bask in the artistry of nature: to stand side by side, adrift in the final glow of the day, the sunset unfurling in fervid shades that devoured the western horizon in a flood of coral and claret, Lucian murmuring intermittently of its ungovernable beauty, while Shauntal, struck by the temporality of it, grasped his hand in wordless assent as she listened to her lover's soothing voice.
XXV. Shadow
Naturally, Shauntal's latest collection of short stories was a bestseller, so much so that both her publishing house as well as flocks of devoted readers had pressed her to record an audiobook—an idea she accepted with reluctance, as though baring her voice might somehow reveal too much of herself; and Lucian, listening alone to her words pour through his headphones, found himself forcibly struck by the closeness of them, each syllable cast in the delicate shadow of her hesitancy.
XXVI. Goodbye
Goodbye: The word unspools with the gravity of a shadow settling, an ache she's borne so long it's worn its own groove in her heart; but here, in Lucian's familiar elegant script, is his promise to her: that one day, they will stand under a single roof without the tyranny of time, without the silent hollow of farewell, without this ache that sinks in like dusk slipping into night; and Shauntal's fingers tremble on the page, vision blurring as she holds the words to herself, feeling them as if they could close every distance, draw her into that boundless, tender permanence he swears will come.
XXVII. Hide
Only the letter in her trembling hands, soft at the edges from her tight grip, reminds Shauntal that her tears, no longer something to hide, will meet Lucian's open acceptance, and that in her sorrow, she will find him always ready to hold what she can no longer bear alone.
XXVIII. Fortune
Lucian had never believed in such concepts as "fortune" or "fate"—at least, that was until Shauntal came along to show him why he should.
XXIX. Safe
Shauntal recalls her first stay on that September weekend, the low lights casting warmth over Lucian's bookshelves, the air as heavy as her own breathing in the quiet of his bedroom; how Lucian had pulled her close to his chest and whispered into her ear, so low she'd barely caught it, "I will keep you safe," and Shauntal, disbelieving but aching to believe, could only nod, never truly considering then thatsafewould be an ordinary word by the time she'd called this placeherhome; that she’d sit here now, years later, and wonder how she'd ever felt like a visitor in this bed, in this home—theirhome.
XXX. Ghost
Indisputably, ghosts are Shauntal's companions: phantasmal and wayward, cast in restless shades of lilac and ash, flickering with an otherworldly caprice as they drift between here and there, at once playful and wary, spectral and half-anchored to their own doleful sorrows, perpetually outcast by the world of the living; but Lucian, her one and only love, is no phantom—he is her earth-bound tether, her kindred of immortal devotion, destined to haunt neither earth nor heaven but to drift patiently alongside her, following the unending thread before them into an afterlife only the two of them will ever truly know.
XXXI. Book
"I found this book a couple of weeks ago!" Lucian's latest letter begins, "A collection of poetry by a young woman whose words many scholars thought were lost to a fire centuries ago, every line of hers presumed ash, but one work somehow endured, preserved against all fate, and it's already the breakthrough of the literary world; I can only hope that, when next you are in my arms, I can read you the passages I know will stir your heart as they have mine."
XXXII. Eye
A singular, soft sigh slips from Shauntal's lips as her head comes to rest atop Lucian's, violet eyes tracing the slow descent of her husband's eyelids with a rapture she scarcely dares to name: there, in that unfathomable threshold between his awareness and oblivion, a tremor stirs hot in her blood, something like reverence twisted with desire, the sensation coiling unmistakably into her loins, unbidden, undenied, and altogether incongruous with the pull of sleep that so easily has claimed him.
XXXIII. Never
Quick to hide the tears that prick her eyes, Shauntal steps back, overwhelmed by the sight of Lucian, calm and focused as ever, arranging every decoration, every book, telekinetically setting each object with a carefulness she has never known anyone to extend to her, into a bedroom that would now, impossibly, be calledhers, and she retreats to the adjacent study, pressing a hand to her mouth, breathless with awe.
XXXIV. Sing
The first time Lucian had heard Shauntal sing was during an afterparty, a cluster of listeners gathered close around her in a dim lounge—faces turned up toward her, enraptured—and he, standing off to the side, felt almost intrusive watching her like this, but for once he wasn't reading or exchanging polite conversation; he only stood there, transfixed, as her voice, melancholic yet unrestrained, slipped through the smoky air, drunk with a strange, beautiful abandon that he could feel settling into him as the illicit spell that it was.
XXXV. Sudden
A sudden cough seizes her, her chest tightening as she turns away to stifle it, and still Lucian, unbothered, moves with his typical quiet finesse, hands ghosting over her shoulders in that familiar, surreptitious way of his, determined to catch her off guard, always just barely felt; Shauntal could laugh at how he'll never abandon his subtlety, even now, and somehow, despite the rasp in her lungs, she likes it all the more for that.
XXXVI. Stop
She wonders, fleetingly, what he's doing here, in a city so loud, a place she herself can barely stand, and the thought alone makes Shauntal come to a brisk stop, watching as Lucian steps into a modest coffee shop across the street, his dark coat and formal suit conspicuously out of place among the laid-back patrons; even from here, she can discern the subtlest hint of vanilla and old parchment that always lingers around him, a scent that speaks of libraries and long hours, and she nearly laughs, torn between her need to vanish into the crowd and an undeniable urge to follow him inside.
XXXVII. Time
For the first time in what he accepts to be the first of many more times, Lucian weaves through the bustling Hearthome Airport terminal, sidestepping travelers and luggage alike with uncharacteristic haste, allowing urgency to eclipse his usual composure, until finally his arms wrap around Shauntal's waist in a fierce embrace, and he finds himself smiling—genuine, unguarded—as her laughter melts into joyful tears.
XXXVIII. Wash
If she hadn't seen him disappear into Canalave Beach's darkened waters herself, Shauntal might think Lucian had been born from it, his skin brushed with a silvery wash that softened each angle of his frame as he strode up the shore, his shirt hanging loose, drops of seawater trailing down his forearms and fingers, seemingly reluctant to leave him, holding an expression scrubbed free of the quiet, unfathomable burdens she knows he carries but will never lay bare to anyone.
XXXIX. Torn
There is far too much sorrow within the torn pages Lucian finds scattered about her bedroom floor, frayed edges and ink smudges remnants of the battles Shauntal fights with each line, and so he gathers them with deft hands, tucking them into his coat pocket where they will rest till morning, when he will offer his beloved wife all the praise she'd never grant herself.
XL. History
Beneath the weight of so many official documents, Shauntal's pen drifts from signature to signature, each stroke a shadow slipping from one page to the next, a quiet farewell to the history she has penned here in Unova as its first ever Ghost-type Elite; but every curve of ink carries her onward, for if she has ever had a compass personified, it's Lucian, that irrefutable pull she calls her heart.
XLI. Power
It was no secret that Lucian reigned as the most gifted and powerful psychic in Sinnoh, so when whispers began slithering through the region concerning Shauntal's permanent relocation to wed him, she had felt a sort of peculiar estrangement settle around her; but his telepathy sensed her unrest at once: tucking away the overwhelming pride he felt in loving a woman as singularly captivating as she, Lucian drew Shauntal close to his chest, resolute against any sordid murmurs the world deigned to shower upon them.
XLII. Bother
Against his expectations, Lucian found he didn't mind the bother of being Shauntal's makeshift pillow; in fact, he could grow quite accustomed to it if it meant he could wake each morning greeted by traces of lavender and honey blossom.
XLIII. God
"Praise be to the God who birthed time from the abyss, who gave the heavens their light; grant me, too, a place within this boundlessnesss," Shauntal murmurs, intoning the archaic verse Lucian had imparted upon her, her voice threading through the keening winds that coil around the Spear Pillar; here, at the nexus of Sinnoh's mythos and memory, snowflakes descending ceaselessly in wisps of argent and pale cinder, she feels her heart drawn across epochs and distances, a single tether binding her to the ancient land below, as if she has, at last, claimed this place—its indecipherable enigmas, its storied expanses—as her home.
XLIV. Wall
Utterly awestruck, Shauntal stands before the towering wall of books in Lucian's study—a collection so vast it feels more like a cathedral of knowledge than a mere room—and she thinks, not for the first time, that if she weren't bound to return to Unova, she'd uproot her life and move to Sinnoh, lose herself among the endless rows of books, reading and writing andbaskingin Lucian's company.
XLV. Naked
"I hope you come back to Sinnoh sooner rather than later," Lucian says suddenly, not even bothering to hide the desperation in his voice as his eyes trail Shauntal's naked body, her skin glowing with the exertion of their coitus.
XLVI. Drive
If Lucian harbored disdain for anything, it was for the interminable drives through southern Sinnoh he was forced to take every couple of months on account of his diplomatic obligations—endless stretches of rain-drenched roads and skies weighed down in a perpetual, mournful slate; but listening to a five-hour playlist Shauntal had curated just for him, consisting of Unova's most underappreciated neo-classical musicians, helped make the journey much more bearable.
XLVII. Harm
Just as Shauntal is about to step out the door into the night, Lucian wraps an arm around his lover's waist, his voice reassuring as he whispers into her ear, "Should any harm befall you while on your walk, I know you are capable of protecting yourself; but in the event you cannot, you can guarantee that I will come running to your side, wherever your stroll may lead you."
XLVIII. Precious
"Mother," Lucian begins, a low intonation that barely stirs the autumn air as he addresses the gravestone, his hand brushing against the cool marble, "I've found her: the one whose essence is rarer than all the treasures men have squandered lifetimes seeking, a woman who keeps company with phantasms as though they are old confidants and spins their murmured tales into novels that have carved her name, quietly and indelibly, into the annals of literary renown, and whose every word seems as though it could rewrite the marrow of my soul, leaving me breathless and wondering how such brilliance could possibly shine within the confines of this fleeting, fallible world."
XLIX. Hunger
The realization struck with an almost disquieting clarity: Lucian's hunger for knowledge, that insatiable and lifelong pursuit, had been suddenly and wholly eclipsed by a yearning—a yearning for a woman who had visited his home for the span of a mere three days, arriving with the singular intent of composing a novel with a telepathic intellectual as its protagonist.
L. Believe
And so it was, after being haunted within the hinterlands of sleep, after giving her so much of the care and time and attention she craved, after witnessing the marvelous artistry that was a coral and claret sunset, after rushing into each other's arms and embracing, smiling genuinely and crying joyfully, after unknowingly being elevated onto the pedestal that was his sole reason to believe in fortune and fate, after realizing that their desire and desperation for each other was indescribable beyond the words collected and wielded by the both of them, that Lucian and Shauntal finallytrulybelieved that love could make—and had made—its way to them.