Ch1: On Stolen Wings
Shiny Phantump
Through Dream, I Travel
This lovely art is by @Cresselia92
Irreflections
Circumstance sets the lives two twins who parted years ago back onto a collision course with each other. Supposedly once identical, the people they've grown into couldn't be any more dissimilar. Out from under Aether's shadow, they can begin to shape who they are for themselves, and what it means to be family. The organization's shadow looms over their hard-won freedoms, though. In the end, no one can truly escape their past.
Content Warnings: Mentions of child abuse and dehumanization of the Type: Nulls. Mild internalized transphobia.
Chapter 1: On Stolen Wings
Chapter 1: On Stolen Wings
A child sits upon a cold metal railing, legs dangling out over the sea.
Oricorio fly freely in the night sky above, but the child can only watch.
What would it be like, the child wonders, to fly freely away from the cold steel island.
Or to dive into the depths of the sea below.
In the dead of night, a boy in a dark hoodie swiped a keycard stolen from his mother’s study through a reader on a lift. It descended into the deepest labs, a place he is forbidden from entering. At least, from entering while alone, like he is now. Before, he was only ever allowed to be taken down here by his mother to see the things within…
He had met someone down there that he had understood. A creature whose only name was ‘it.’ He had heard of the creature before. His father’s plan, before an accident left it to be taken over and ruined by his successor.
The successor to the project was never satisfied. He wanted to change it. When it couldn’t be what it was deemed to be, it was deemed a failure, locked beneath a mask, and hidden away where no one would have to see.
The boy understood that. He had only wished to be himself. That was never an option, though, not under Mother’s watch. He was an embarrassment. Gladion had to be hidden away, had to bury who he was beneath his own mask so he could be respected.
At first she had tried to keep her frustrations silent, but after years of living under her, Gladion had learned to hear them anyways: Why couldn’t he just be more like his sister? As time went on without him changing, they dropped the formality, and the words were spoken aloud. He grew used to it. What else did he expect? Lillie was sweet, eager to please, and fit their mother’s ideas for what they should be. He was… none of that. They may have been twins, but it felt like she was the planned one, and he the accident.
Those standards were all for his “protection,” of course. He couldn’t decide for himself who to be. Only Mother could decide who it was safe for him to be. He always had to be protected from himself. Respectability was more important than he was. His reflection looked like Lillie and not like him. It hurt, but as long as that suffering was silent it remained respectable.
He was done with being respectable. The whole world could hate him for all he cared. He was done listening to people who didn’t care about him, done caring about people who didn’t care about him in return
Gladion reached the creature, still trapped in the same lab he had first met them. With a swipe of a card and the press of a button, the creature disappeared from the containment chamber. A ball rolled out into a slot beneath the button. Like a vending machine, but for a living thing.
He took it. It felt right in his hand. A piece of Father’s legacy, left for him to care for, to mend, until the damage done after his loss was reversed. He stuffed the ball into his bag, silently thinking an apology for having to keep them contained for just a little while longer.
On his way out of the lab, he pulled the emergency lockdown alarm. The room lit up red as the entire building began to screech. Lockdown protocols triggered to ensure all but the highest clearance levels of keycards would be ignored. Now, he was done with being silent, too. There would be no covering up the fact this had happened, no hiding that he had done something and it had mattered.
The lockdown was part of the reason it had been so important the card he stole was Mother’s. It was the highest in the building. There wasn’t a single terminal in the building that wouldn’t accept it, no matter what was happening. This late at night on a weekend, it would take quite some time to muster a response from people of high enough authority to determine if the lockdown was needed, to find it was thrown by him, then to call it off. The person most likely to be the first able to respond was Wicke. She had helped him orchestrate this whole thing in the first place, so he knew she wouldn’t resolve it before he had enough time to get out.
A deep gratitude welled up in him at the thought that there was someone on his side. Without her, he wouldn't have had a future.
With any low-level staff who could potentially follow in pursuit were stuck comfortably far away, he took the lift up to the docks. Normally, it would be impossible for anyone to get on a boat during a lockdown, ever… But of course, there was one exception: Mother had made it clear that her card must never be refused.
He picked a boat near the lift arbitrarily and swiped the one card its docking terminal would accept to release it from the docking clamp. He heard a few employees who’d been stuck with a night shift nearby coming to investigate, but it didn’t concern him. He was almost gone, and they wouldn’t be able to undock a boat to chase him. He’d have at least an hour’s head start before the lockdown was lifted. Plenty of time.
Father had taught him how to operate the boats back before. He had never been great at it, and it had been years since he had last been allowed to operate one. It would take him a couple minutes to reacquaint himself with all the controls, but he remembered how to accelerate and that was all that mattered right now.
He managed to get out of the spot it had been docked in and started speeding towards open waters. As he did so, he passed an employee trying to get a boat of their own. They were unimportant enough to get stuck with a night shift in docks, so naturally their card was rejected. He smirked and waved as he went by, and was cursed out in turn.
There was something cathartic about not having to care about what this person thought of him. They could hate him, and it would never matter. There could be no punishment for it. The alarm must’ve just pissed off every single person on Aether, and there was nothing any of them, not even Lusamine could do about it anymore. He was free.
Once he was far enough away for the din of Aether to fade, all he could hear was wind, waves and the soft hum of the engine. The dangerous part of this plan was over. Still, he had a bit more to do before he was entirely safe, and once his adrenaline rush ran out he was probably going to crash. It would be wisest, then, to make haste.
This boat was Aether’s, and they would be able to track it, so he couldn’t take it directly to the island he wanted to stay on. Instead, Wicke had called in a favour with an old colleague of hers to get him an undocumented trip between islands. He’d ditch the Aether boat on Poni, but stay on Akala.
He didn’t bother to moor the boat properly, instead just maneuvering it close enough to the dock, jumping, and figuring whatever happened to the boat after that was someone else’s problem.
A grey-haired older man in a black jacket approached as soon as he touched down. For someone aiding in a crime, the man was unusually nonchalant. He shot Gladion something between a smile and a smirk, seeming totally relaxed. He sounded indifferent as he spoke. “You’re the boy I’m waiting for, I take it?”
Gladion found himself smiling back. “Nah, I’m one of the other boys with a stolen Aether boat. You’re looking for the next one, he’ll probably be here soon.”
The man chuckled. “Aight, I’ll wait for him, then. See you around. Too bad it wasn’t you, I like your moxie.”
Gladion was surprised by the praise. He had figured the indifferent-sounding man would be harder to please. Now he also wasn’t sure how to respond without killing the joke, while still accepting the ride.
He hoped it hadn’t been long enough to count as an awkward pause by the time he spoke again. “Well, thanks. Nice to be appreciated, I might just hitch a ride with you after all.”
The man’s smirk grew to a lopsided grin. “Done deal.” He turned to the boat, and Gladion followed. “You can call me Nanu, by the way. Your name?”
“Gladion.” It felt good to say that. Made him feel like a normal person.
“Nice name. Ain't every day I meet a ‘Gladion.’”
Okay, maybe not quite normal. Still, it was closer to normal than he had ever been allowed to feel before. That was good enough for him. “Thanks.”
Gladion didn’t much like small talk, and Nanu seemed to feel the same way. Both were quiet during the trip to Akala.
He thought about asking what sort of tie Nanu had to Wicke, but he decided to keep the question to himself. If Wicke had wanted him to know, she would’ve told him. It wasn’t as if Nanu seemed like the type of person to go spilling secrets, either. If he had been loose-lipped, Wicke wouldn’t have chosen him for this in the first place. She didn’t make mistakes.
Instead, he just listened to the whirring of the motor.
Something about it seemed so relaxing…
He could barely keep his eyes open…
“Hey, kid, we’re here. I know it’s late, but you’re not staying the night on my boat.”
Gladion awoke with a start. He’d apparently fallen asleep on the boat, and now Nanu was shaking him. He got up as quickly as his fatigue would allow, grabbed his backpack, and hopped onto the dock.
Nanu ruffled his hair. “Good luck. You know where you’re headed, right?
He shook his head to get Nanu’s hand off it, then nodded. “Yeah.”
Tomorrow, he was supposed to hunt down an affordable place to stay in the long run, but for tonight he was staying at Tide Song Hotel. It was close enough to the dock that he could walk there, even as tired as he was. It would also be more affordable than Grand Hano, and a perfectly fine place to crash for a night.
The man at the front desk looked surprised to see a fourteen-year-old at such a late hour. He was even more surprised when Gladion pulled out cash and asked to stay overnight… Or, for whatever was left of the night, anyways. He was professional enough not to ask any questions, though, which was nice. Gladion was too tired to come up with lies.
He got a blue keycard with his room number printed on it, which he shoved in his pocket. He took the elevator up to his floor, then wandered around until he found it. He pulled a keycard out of his pocket, but the door rejected it…
Oh, he’d used the stolen Aether keycard instead. There was no reason to keep that one, but he couldn’t bring himself to rid himself of it quite yet.
He unlocked his room with the correct keycard this time, dumped his bag on the floor, and collapsed on his bed. He wished he could take Null out of their ball… but it was well after midnight and there was no way they wouldn’t make some sort of noise, be it thrilled or frightened, when seeing the world outside the Deep Labs for the first time. The attention a noise complaint would draw was the last thing he needed.
Null would have to stay in their ball overnight. Gladion, physically and emotionally exhausted, fell asleep almost immediately.
He stirred to the sound of an alarm clock. Whoever had been in this room before him must’ve used it, and the cleaning staff forgot to turn it off. Augh. He rolled over groggily to get at the vanity where the clock was.
Once he’d found the clock, he noticed the display read that it was 10:00 in the morning. That took him aback. He knew he had been up late, and that he’d crashed, but he was still surprised to see it. The lights in his room at Aether would automatically turn themselves on at 6:00, so having a dark room and a restful sleep this late in the day felt like… cheating.
Cheating was wonderful. He silenced the alarm and lay in bed for another half hour.
He did have to get out of the room by noon, though, so he made himself get up after that. He didn’t have a change of clothes with him, since enough cash to buy new clothes took up much less backpack space than a full outfit. Not like he was attached to any of the outfits Lusamine had picked for himself and Lillie. He showered, then pulled on the same clothes as he’d worn yesterday. He took a handful of bills from his bag and stuffed them into his hoodie pocket so that he could pay for things for the rest of the day without the amount of cash in his bag attracting unwanted attention.
He grabbed a quick bite to eat on the ground floor before his stay formally ended at noon, wondering if it still counted as “breakfast” at this hour, then turned his card back to the front desk, and was off.
He had a few goals for today, and he’d already overslept. He needed to pick up a burner phone, some essentials, and a place to stay. He decided to get the phone first, so he could send Wicke their agreed-upon okay signal. There was an electronics store on the main street of Heahea’s downtown. Wicke had told him that he’d see the street signs for it if he just headed straight from the Tide Song’s cul-de-sac… And, in the end, she was right, but the walk was far enough that a creeping dread, a fear of how ill-equipped he was to deal with what it would be like to be lost when his world to that point had been confined to Aether, had begun to settle in. When he did find the sign, he sighed audibly in relief.
The woman at the counter was pretty awkward about the whole transaction. Gladion supposed it wasn’t every day she got a minor, clearly not old enough for the island challenge, buying a burner phone with cash. Not anything new, not something anyone his age would want, an old model with a dialpad and slide-out keyboard. There were several moments where she looked to have a question right on the tip of her tongue, but she never ended up asking it. The silence, he felt, was all the better.
He sent a quick message to Wicke’s phone. An pre-planned okay signal before moving on.
I’ll be late to work today. Sorry about that.The next step was to get more than the one outfit he was currently wearing, and for that purpose he tracked down a quaint-looking clothing store with a name he didn’t recognize, and was therefore less likely to be a big chain. He took a deep breath in front of the door, feeling acutely aware of his hair, longer than it should be, hidden inside his hoodie. (And of the sweat that had accumulated between it and his back during the walk. His setup was proving ill-fitting for the weather.)
He was just buying clothes. This was by far the single least suspicious thing he’d done in the last 24 hours. He tried to put forth an indifferent expression. A normal person wouldn’t have any reason to look nervous here.
An employee waved to him as he entered. “Alola! What are you here for today?”
He tried to keep his voice as boyish as possible as he scrambled for an answer. “I… uhh… Clothes?”
He felt more nervous about this than he had about all the criminal offenses he’d committed yesterday. The employee just giggled.
“Yeah, that’s what most people are here for. You’re probably looking for that section.”
Fortunately, she pointed to a corner of the store that had boy’s clothes. Gladion thanked her before letting out a breath he hadn’t noticed he’d been holding. The outfit Wicke had given him was doing its job.
He thanked the stars he had been able to get out before eighteen. Four more years and it would’ve taken more than a hoodie for people to believe he was who he said he was.
As he stood before the racks of clothes, it occurred to him that this was the first time he’d chosen clothes for himself. No more soft, gentle whites. No more beautiful. He would wear only what he wanted from now on. Like everyone else.
Most of the clothes there were short and light in colour, which he figured was a pragmatic choice for those who spent their time under the Alolan sun. Still, he made sure to seek out what clothes he could find that would cover his arms and legs. He’d always hated having to wear things that didn’t. He sought out darker options, too. Mother would’ve hated it all the more, and he was willing to sacrifice a bit of pragmatism out of spite, even if she’d never really see it.
He went up to the checkout, hoping the employee wouldn’t see him differently up close. She scanned the items and totaled the price without seeming to care. It was more than he’d expected, even more than his hotel room last night, but he still had enough money in his pocket that he didn’t have to reveal his backpack stash. The cashier handed him his purchases in a pair of papery shopping bags.
Now that he had a whole bunch of new clothes, he needed someplace to store them. He needed a more permanent place to stay. There was a place he and Wicke had scoped out beforehand, but he hadn’t memorized the way. He didn’t trust himself to get it right if he tried. Instead, he’d made sure the burner phone he’d picked out was able to access the internet. Sure, it had a truly awful interface on a miniscule screen, but it was technically still usable enough to pull up a map on. Once he’d fumbled his way through to a mapping website, he was off to what he really hoped would be his new base of operation: An inconspicuous motel in the middle of nowhere.
It was going to be a bit of a walk. Fortunately for him, there was at least a shuttle once he got to Wela Volcano Park. (He probably wouldn’t even have been allowed to walk the trip at all, given he didn’t have a trainer’s license or any partner he could admit to having.)
He reached a block at the city limits with a Battle Royale dome, a Thrifty Megamart, and the stop for the shuttle. The ride gave his mind a chance to wander. The thought of the premier ball, still tucked away in his bag, made him feel a little guilty. This was an extenuating circumstance, yes, but he still hadn’t wanted to start his relationship with Null by keeping them in their ball for what, at this point, was growing uncomfortably close to a full day. The suspended state it induced was supposed to be used for transport, not storage. At this rate, he was going to have trouble avoiding leaving them inside it for another full night. He wouldn’t be comfortable letting that happen. He wanted to help Null.
He checked the burner phone while he was on the shuttle. The message to Wicke had been marked as read, so by now she’d know he was okay, but she hadn’t replied. Poking around the main menu out of boredom, he noticed an option labeled “game.” He pressed it, and the screen turned to an Abomasnow chasing a skier down a tree-covered slope. It was rudimentary, but amusing in its own right. It kept him busy until the shuttle reached the other end of Wela Volcano Park.
The motel was pretty close to the shuttle stop, so he expected it wouldn’t be a long walk. The only other building he came across was what looked like a little building that looked like it could’ve been straight out of Aeth- Oh fuck.
It was a temporary Aether pop-up site, one that was left unaccounted for in the plan. It wasn’t on the map on his phone either, presumably the mapping site he’d used hadn’t updated the info on the route since it had been established.
He took a deep breath and tried to act natural. Good thing he’d gotten new clothes before coming this way. It was quite likely that word of last night’s happening had spread by now, especially seeing as he’d locked the entire bloody paradise down.
The door popped open. An androgynous-looking person in a lab coat stepped out of the building. Gladion flinched as the door swung open, but the scientist just waved. Gladion waved back and continued on his way as inconspicuously as possible. He shouldn’t be surprised not to be recognized. Nobody would be looking for him. They'd be looking for Lusamine’s kid, not a boy with a name they’d never heard.
He got to the motel without any further encounters. It was a pretty small place, not that many rooms there in the first place. It was pretty close to a few trial sites, which is probably where most of the business came from. Hopefully there weren’t so many trial-goers that he couldn’t get a room.
Gladion walked in. The woman behind the counter… Well, he was clearly just going to have to get used to people behind desks giving him funny looks, wasn’t he? At least until he looked old enough for an island challenge.
“Can I help you?”
“Uhh, how long can I book a room for?”
She smiled in a way he found rather condescending. “That depends on how much you can afford.”
Gladion was pretty sure he shouldn’t respond to that truthfully. A few years would be suspicious enough, giving her an idea of how much cash he actually had: A sum great enough that was supposed to keep him going until he could legally work, would only open him up to extortion… Even if the look on her face would’ve been priceless.
After what he swore was at least two hours of dealing with the front desk worker understandably befuddled at the idea of a minor buying a room for two years in cash, entirely up front, he got himself a key to a room. He wasn’t going to settle in yet, though.
He dumped his clothes and backpack of cash on the floor. He had two things left on his immediate to-do list: to let Null out for the first time and see what they were like, and to go to Ula’ula to find a woman named Plumeria, who Wicke had promised could get him one of the last things he needed to complete himself. If he wanted to commit to live as a guy, he needed to get his hands on the requisite hormones. He only had time for one thing, though, and it had to be Null.
He would need somewhere private to take Null out. The easiest place for that would be to find a nice spot in the woods, but the woods would be full of a lot of unfamiliar stimuli, and he didn’t want to overwhelm them. He could wait until the shuttle through Wela closed, then use the tunnel it passed through, but it ran until 2:00 AM, and he didn’t want another night that late if he could help it.
An impatient impulse overtook him, and he hit the button right in the middle of his motel room. A light flashed, and Null was standing right before him. It occurred to Gladion that, prior to this moment, he’d only ever seen Null sitting down in their cell. He hadn’t realized that, standing at their full height, Null was taller than he was. He kept one finger on the button to withdraw them… just in case.
Null stood stock still. It seemed they were more nervous than Gladion was. Their pupils dilated, either from the light of the motel room, surprise, or some combination of both. Probably both.
“Hey.”
Null flinched at the sound of his voice. Once they recovered, they lowered their head to stare at him through their mask. Null’s eyes were unblinking, filled with an intense scrutiny. He looked away to break eye contact. Null tensed again as he moved his head.
After a moment of silent stillness, Null began to slowly creep towards him. He hovered a finger over the button to recall them if they pounced or made any other sudden moves, but their approach remained slow and cautious.
Once they were close enough, Null reached out with one talon. They held it in front of his face for a moment. When he remained still, they touched his face gently. He tried not to react. They cooed, evidently pleased.
Gladion laughed. The sound made Null leap back, startled. He had to wonder what Null had gone through to leave them this afraid of everything he did.
Null’s body had become tense all over again. He wanted to help. He started shuffling his feet, moving forward at a pace even more cautious than that of Null’s. His finger stayed tensed over the recall button.
They remained perfectly still. Once he reached their side, they whimpered, but still did not dare resist. He began to stroke them, starting from their helmet down their back. They shivered, then the tension in their muscles loosened.
Null trilled. Gladion smiled. He relaxed the tension in his recall finger. After a few more moments of petting, Null shuffled closer, resting their body against him.
He noticed Null had a strong odor. When he was that close, it was hard not to notice. Their hygiene was probably neglected back down in the deep labs, and the helmet wouldn’t allow them to groom themself. They needed a bath.
He could try to bathe them in the shower of the hotel room, or he could go to one of the pools in Brooklet and try to wash them there. One came with a higher risk of property damage, the other with a higher risk of someone seeing Null.
He had no idea how Null would react to water, and property damage would attract attention to Null, or at least to the fact his partner was a species that was clearly strong enough that he would be required to hold a license he was clearly too young to legally earn. He thought his odds were better at Brooklet.
He checked the shower, and saw it had come stocked with some complimentary toiletries, including a multipurpose shampoo promised to be safe for fur and feathers. He pocketed the bottle, then returned to the main room to get Null.
“Sorry about all the time in your ball today, I’ll let you back out in just a moment,” he whispered to them. He knew Null wouldn’t really understand the words he was saying, but he felt better having said it anyway.
It had been a bit of a hike finding a pool that he could get to without swimming, but which was also shallow enough Null wouldn’t drown, and also was far enough off the path to be unlikely to be visited by evening fishers, if there even were any here. He’d ended up climbing up to one of the high up ones. The climb was the price of being picky, he supposed.
He retrieved Null’s ball from one pocket and the shampoo from the other. With the click of a button, Null reappeared in front of him, looking disoriented.
Gladion tapped at the water’s surface, rippling and splashing it. “You want a bath?”
Null stared at the ripples he’d created, but didn’t move. He realized that, if they didn’t want to get in, there wouldn’t be anything he could do to coerce them. Null walked up to the water’s edge and lay down. After a moment, their talon shot out with surprising speed and struck the water’s surface, splashing and creating more ripples. Satisfied with that result, Null experimented further, holding their talon in until the ripples stopped, leaving the water around their talon still once more. Then, they started swishing their talon back and forth, disturbing the surface once again.
After another moment’s consideration, Null stood and stepped into the pool. They paused again to wait and see what happened. They sat down. The water came up high enough to cover about two-thirds of their body. Gladion sighed in relief. Null was in the water without him having to try to coerce them.
Now, he just had to give them a bath. He held the ball in one hand, one finger still hovering over the recall button once again. He cupped the other hand and began to pour water over their back to wet the remaining dry fur. Null didn’t react poorly. They just stared at him with the same unblinking stare they’d fixed him in the motel room.
Once that was done, he put some shampoo on his hand and began to massage it into Null’s fur. Their skin felt rougher than he had noticed or expected thus far. They murmured to themself as he washed them.
The bath was well underway, Null’s top side was completed. Gladion had gotten them to stand up and had begun to wash their lower body, when the tranquility of the pool exploded into motion. A Goldeen had decided they had a bone to pick with Null, and had burst up from the water to attack. Gladion jumped back, startled.
It had picked the wrong fight. The instant Null heard the sound, their head snapped around to find the source, then their talon shot out to catch it mid-lunge.
By the time Gladion had realized exactly what had happened, the action was already over. The Goldeen was flailing helplessly in Null’s talon, entirely at their mercy. He watched, heart pounding, but also curious to see what would happen next.
Null wasn't doing anything, though. They just stared at the flailing fish within their talon. They stared for long enough that Gladion began to wonder how long a Goldeen could live outside the water. He was starting to worry, but the fish still appeared to be going strong.
Before he had to find out how long it could keep going, Null lowered the fish back into the water and let go. The Goldeen, utterly cowed by the near scrape with death, disappeared deeper into the water. That was Null’s first wild encounter, and they had shown restraint. That was good for his hopes of training them.
He took a few deep breaths, trying to calm himself as everything stilled again. Null turned to stare at him. They still needed him to finish washing them, after all.
Once he was back at the motel, Gladion got some towels and released Null into the shower area. They were still dripping wet, given he hadn’t thought to bring anything to dry them with to Brooklet.
Null huffed and looked around. They seemed less disoriented each time he let them out of the ball. They were getting used to it quickly. Given the unfortunate reality he’d have to keep them in the ball whenever he was taking them somewhere, that was a relief.
Once Null was dried off to the best of his ability, he hung the two towels he had needed to dry over the shower curtain rod and led Null back into the hotel room.
Once he opened the door, Null froze, staring into the hotel room. It occurred to him that, until he’d opened the door, Null probably hadn’t realized they were even in the same motel room as before. From their perspective, the shower and bathroom would’ve seemed as disconnected from the hotel room as Brooklet Hill, or even the deep labs in Aether. Each time, they’d been recalled into their ball and just reappeared in a new location with no idea of how it connected up to the surroundings. No sense of continuity, just a bunch of discrete settings.
He really wished there was some way he could pass Null off as a species he’d be legally allowed to have with him, but anything of Null’s size would take a license... and even if that wasn’t the case, there wasn’t a person alive who would mistake Null for a normal partner regardless of size.
At least here in the motel room, they were safe. Probably. Really, there was nowhere Null would be entirely safe. Except the premier ball, but that wasn’t an acceptable solution. The motel room was about as discreet as they were getting.
Once Null had accepted the reality that the bathroom was connected to the rest of the motel room, they slunk over to the center of the room and lay on their belly.
Gladion wasn't tired yet, so he tried to think of what else needed to be done. It occurred to him that, for the first time since he’d slipped into the presidential suite and nicked Lusamine’s keycard, he had spare time.
He… didn’t know what to do with it. He hadn’t been able to bring anything for entertainment, and he hadn’t bought anything nonessential yet. Null was probably already overstimulated for the day, so he would let them rest.
In the end, he found himself lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling.
As he began to search the popcorn ceiling for any interesting constellations, he heard a stirring over where Null was laying. He rolled over to see what was going on, and saw Null place their talons on his bed, and pop up to stare at him.
Gladion counted himself fortunate that this motel was focused enough on island challengers to have a mattress that could endure this sort of treatment without tearing. He smiled at them. “Hey. You looking for me?”
After taking a moment to consider his question, Null climbed over him, and lay down beside him. Then, Null draped a talon over him. He shifted his pillow down so that he was beneath the sharp bolts of their control mask, and allowed himself to be held against them.
He certainly couldn’t move now. It wasn’t that Null was holding him too firmly, it just felt wrong to break away. He couldn’t even turn the lights off, so he instead buried his face in his pillow so that no light could reach his eyes.
Between the Alolan weather and the fact that Null was unnaturally warm, he had no need for his sheets, either. Best not to disturb Null.
Null…
Gladion decided that wasn’t going to work as a name for his partner. It sounded monstrous; it meant nothingness or emptiness. Null wasn’t really any of those things. He was sure of that by now… So, they needed a name. A name…
He had never named anyone before. Even when he had needed a name for himself, he’d taken the inspiration from a conversation he'd once had, when he'd asked Father what other things he or Lillie may have been named, had they both been twin boys instead.
His family had used flowers. Father had chosen the lily, for purity of heart. Lusamine had chosen one for him meaning loyalty, but that wasn’t his name. Not anymore. He’d cast that off, and now his name meant strength. He liked the sword flower better, anyway…
He liked the idea of giving Null the same. They were his father’s creation, and now he and Null had only each other. It was only right to give them a name befitting family.
There was one issue. He wasn’t familiar with what many flowers meant, aside from the ones that were already names, or the really obvious ones like roses. He tried to think of any conversations he’d had about them, but wasn’t as if he had ever liked talking about flowers. Lillie knew more about it than he did. He tried to think back.
He found one of the memories he was looking for in the half-lucid twilight between waking and sleep…
His twin pointed at one of the trees in the conservatory. The branches were studded with white blossoms. “I know what this one is! I read about it in a book. It’s witch hazel! She used it to do magic, because it's supposed to be a magical tree. I almost want to take a branch, but then I’d be sad when it didn’t work.”
He laughed. His sister was always lost in books, living through her fantasy worlds. He enjoyed the times she shared those worlds with him. It made them feel closer.
“What can you do with it? Can you put curses on people? Turn them into Tadbulbs?”
She laughed back at him. “Don’t be silly, it's for healing!”
He crossed his arms. “Healing? That’s not magic, they do that here all the time! I helped Father heal a Corsola yesterday, does that make me magic?”
His twin curled her lip, displeased. “Healing can totally be magic! Like, if you could take someone going to die, and you make them okay again, that would be magic!”
“Okay, yeah, I guess that’s right. That would be magic.”
When Gladion awoke, sunlight was glowing through the slats of the window, mingling with the ceiling light he’d left on last night.
Null wasn’t sleeping anymore, he noticed. He looked around the room, and found them sitting back in the centre of the room. They turned to look back at him, then got up and approached him.
“Good morning.”
Null trilled at him. He smiled. They seemed pleased he was awake.
“Do you want a name?”
Null tilted their head as far as their control mask would allow.
“What if I call you Hazel?”
You’re going to get better. Even if everyone else has given up on you. Even if I have to make magic happen for it.
Null cooed. He knew they weren’t able to understand his speech, not really, but in the superstitious corners of his heart, he felt that meant they liked it.
25/12/2022: Fixed a couple instances of wrong pronouns for Hazel, must’ve slipped over from AQ while I was also doing that. (After Tetra's review)
09/01/2023: Fixed some grammar and clarified some sentences. (After Negrek's review)
09/01/2023: Fixed some grammar and clarified some sentences. (After Negrek's review)
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