Exploded View
Content Warnings: None
Summary: Finals are hard enough when you aren't waking in the middle of the night, thinking about aliens. Six more days until the end of the semester--Kalea doesn't know if she's going to make it.
Author's Notes: This one-shot was written as a Blitz prize for kintsugi. The prompt was "blacephalon." Pen also wrote a fic based on the same prompt, "Head Over Heels", which you should totally check out, especially if you enjoy seeing how different writers interpret the same prompt, love a little horror-comedy, or love and/or hate clowns.
Kalea woke to an explosion, a bang that felt like it lifted her an inch from her bed. She was reaching for her shoes before she'd even properly come awake, mouthing Gunther's name.
Her shoes weren't there. The room was silent and dark, not even moonlight showing through blackout curtains. No one wondered at the noise, no one ran for the exit.
Kalea slumped back against her pillow with a groan. Right. All in her head. It had taken months for her to stop keeping her shoes bedside overnight, to accept that she'd have no reason to be sprinting out of the dorm in darkness. To fully absorb that she'd left the explosions at home. All of them.
Kalea rubbed her face and stared around the room. Niki was facedown in the other bed, breathing peacefully. It was late, then. Or early. Whatever. Huge faces loomed out of the gloom above the other girl's bed, actors Kalea wouldn't recognize even in daylight gracing posters for movies she'd never seen, most of them framed by explosions of their own. Thick books with strange acronyms on the spines were stacked haphazardly on Niki's desk, floor, hamper.
Kalea had taped pictures above her bed for times like these. It was too dark to properly make them out, but Kalea knew them all by heart anyway, could imagine each scene as her eyes traced its indistinct shadows. Aunt Luna, Chase, and Gunther, of course. Pictures of the farm and Kalea's favorite spot on the island, the hillside where the tassely red-flowered trees grew. In the middle not a photo but a curling, many-colored piece of quill-work, the biggest she'd completed back in high school.
Kalea sighed and contemplated whether it was worth it to try and get back to sleep. Now that she was properly awake she could tell the radiator was acting up again, turning the room to desert and leaching every scrap of moisture from her mouth. She felt around blearily for her water bottle with one hand, reached for the textbook down by her feet with the other. Galarian history might put her back to sleep, and if not, she could stand to review some anyway.
"Exploding head syndrome?" Niki eyed Kalea askance, as though wondering whether she'd somehow missed a radical change in her roommate's appearance. "That sounds, uh... I mean, are you going to be okay?"
"Yes, I'm fine. It's nothing serious, just kind of annoying. And it usually only shows up when I'm stressed. So, finals, you know..."
"Ouch. Exactly when you really need your sleep," Niki said hypocritically. Her eyes were sunk deep in bruise-colored circles, and Kalea was pretty sure the wrinkled black T-shirt she was wearing was the same one she'd had on yesterday and possibly also slept in. Still, Niki's eyes were as bright and intent as ever as she went on, "Well. At least it's less than a week, right? Then you can head home and not even think about any of this nonsense for a month."
"Yeah." A week away from getting on a plane and getting out of the cold and dark at last. There had been more snow last night, and the dining hall's floor was a gritty, slushy mess spotted with disintegrating napkins and dropped food. More snow, and here she was, hoping to catch a flight soon... Kalea sighed.
"Hey. You okay?" Niki asked. "You could, like, go to the health center and book a hypnosis appointment, or...?"
"I'll be fine."
"Okay." Niki sounded unconvinced. She fiddled with her spoon for a moment, then went on, "Sometimes things like the, uh, explodey thing, they kind of show up as reminders to, like, slow down, you know? Take it easy for a bit. Yeah, finals and all, but don't push yourself too hard, okay?"
Easy for her to say, Kalea thought with a pang of resentment. Niki would glance at her notes a couple of hours before her exams and then get A's no matter what.
"Anyway." It was Niki's turn to sigh now. "I should get back. My Cooperative Programming project's due tomorrow, and Blade's still rejecting my mod. Thinks the fins aren't cool enough." She pointed her spoon at Kalea. "Don't forget: dinner Monday. It's chicken nugget night. You can't miss that!"
Kalea made vague noises of acknowledgement, and Niki buzzed off back to the dorms. Kalea still had plenty of company; not far away was a big group of mostly-pokémon that had pushed a couple tables together and was loudly gossiping about the basketball team. Most people were dining alone, though, or accompanied only by textbooks. One boy a couple tables over was having a plate of sauceless, buttery spaghetti and orange Jell-o with a side of what looked like Biology notes.
That should probably be Kalea. She gathered up her swishy, new-smelling coat and prepared to brave the cold.
A week. Six days. She could keep it together for six days. No more explosions.
But Kalea's feet led her to the greenhouse instead of to her textbooks. That's where she'd find Laka, who had to be even more homesick than Kalea was, confined to the greenhouse and the adjoining biology building for the last three weeks. The comfey would wilt immediately in winter cold. Still, Laka insisted she didn't want to be sent back to Alola. She looked as cheerful as ever now, floating above a potted cluster of knobbly, ancient-looking conifers.
Kalea took a deep breath of the warm, humid air and felt herself relax. Almost like home. Laka floated over, chirping a bright greeting, overflowing with the scent of vanilla.
"How have you been doing?" Kalea asked. "It must be crazy around here with finals and all." Nearby a boy in an expensive-looking polo shirt smeared with mud was chasing baby bulbasaur around, in and out under tables, trying to take their temperatures.
Laka hummed serenely, and the air filled with the smell of lilac. Laka communicated almost entirely through scent, which Kalea considered lucky. The comfey was a lot easier to figure out than something like a pikachu, where you literally couldn't hear half their vocalizations. On the flip side, Laka was a lot less intense than someone like Blade, who was constantly blowing up Niki's phone with bad math jokes. Kalea could tell what Laka was saying, more or less, but it wasn't the same as talking to another human. And that was, actually, kind of nice.
Laka's fragrance changed to something more citrus, inviting. Wanting to know why Kalea was visiting.
"Oh, you know. Just seeing how you're doing," Kalea said. "Are you all ready to go home? It's less than a week now."
Laka kept putting out that orangey scent. Well, okay. Dumb question. It wasn't like the comfey had to pack.
Kalea sighed and crossed her arms. "All right. I had an episode last night. That's the first one in a long time."
Laka's scent changed to something mintier and somehow sympathetic. "You don't need to do anything. You should stay here, where it's warm." It was warm in Kalea's dorm room--too warm, usually, with the radiator going full blast no matter what anyone did to it. But Kalea couldn't bear the thought of Laka trapped in such a tiny space. At least now she could roam the whole greenhouse, which was full of students and pokémon and growing things besides.
Laka squealed and flopped down around Kalea's head the way she always used to. "It's all right. Really," Kalea said. This close up, Laka's scent was overwhelming, complexly floral and always shifting, one second fruity, the next vinegarish, then on to meaty, somehow, and on and on and on. Kalea figured she was getting some kind of complicated lecture in Comfey.
"It's just weird, I guess," Kalea went on after taking a few deep, steadying breaths of fragrance. "I thought I was over being homesick, but now I can't stop thinking--it's stupid. Who gets nostalgic about aliens?"
Laka twittered, releasing a subtle blend of perfumes that Kalea couldn't even begin to interpret.
"I guess it's just one more thing," Kalea said. "Like I don't have enough stress already, you know?"
Laka chirred and released a heavy wave of scent, and Kalea inhaled deeply, the way she'd been taught when Laka first joined her. The way she'd done in the middle of the night that first time she'd woken in a panic, thinking the ceiling was about to fall on her. Laka had been there before, and she'd been there after, too, after the doctor had figured out what was going on, after the attacks slowed and then petered out. Breathing the Aromatherapy in, Kalea was five years old again, alone with her friend in the dark, fear evaporating into orchard-scented air.
Except she wasn't, of course. After a moment Kalea became aware of the curious aipom edging closer, the beautifly hovering not far behind. The bulbasaur babies had fallen still, and the student who'd been chasing them likewise, staring slack-jawed up at Laka.
"Okay, right," Kalea said, jerking her attention back to the present. "Thanks for the talk, Laka. I'll be back to see you tomorrow, okay?"
Laka trilled and spun in place, petals brushing feather-light across Kalea's forehead and the overpowering Aromatherapy dissipating to leave behind a faintly earthy smell of affirmation.
The cold air outside was an even worse shock than usual after the greenhouse's warmth. Kalea stuffed her hands deep into her pockets and ducked her head against the wind, which carried with it a few treacherous spinning snowflakes. Laka had seemed almost pleased to hear about the return of Kalea's old, annoying medical condition. Some kind of comfey thing, maybe. Laka might be happiest with a problem to treat. Kalea tried to put the matter out of her mind and hurried towards the library, where she should have headed in the first place.
Kalea woke again with heart hammering, head blaring with eclipsing noise. All was peaceful. All was still. Niki's keyboard clattered, and as Kalea lay quiet, waiting for her pulse to slow, she caught a faint thread of upbeat music. Niki kept her headphones up loud.
Kalea closed her eyes for a few seconds, then slapped a palm against the bedspread in frustration. She wasn't getting back to sleep, was she? Instead she got up and went to the window, pulling back the blackout curtain to look out. It had snowed. A lot. No distinction remained between path and lawn; bushes were smooth lumps barely rising above the surface of the snow, trees clotted tangles of white and twig, branches bent down in supplication.
Outside it was utterly still save for a dusty curtain of still-falling snowflakes. A lazy, spotty scattering, nothing like the wall of snow that had thrashed the courtyard earlier, thickening the air to white. Kalea stood watching for a long moment, but nothing outside changed. Everything lay frozen below the flat black clouded sky and the orange wash of lamps that marked where the path was supposed to be.
A sudden impulse seized Kalea, and she let the curtain fall back, rummaged in her closet, and threw her jacket on straight over her pajamas. Her boots were already by the door.
Niki gave no sign of noticing. Her screen was gray-on-black computer stuff, Blade bobbing in one corner. As Kalea watched, the Porygon2 prodded a couple lines of code, then wedged its nose under one and, with a flick, sent it spinning off the screen. Niki cursed under her breath and started typing faster.
Kalea left their room and went down the stairs, out to where the side door's overhang had kept a patch of sidewalk bare. The snow stretched ahead of her, thick and smooth and nearly up to her knees. A few snowflakes filtered down, completely silent. An unnatural sort of hush gripped the air, one without the sound of waves or insects or lizards to fill it. Everything around was cold, and still, and dead.
Kalea stood with arms crossed in the door's orange halogen glow, remembering.
Waking in the middle of the night with roaring in her ears. A bang that shook the house, setting the mobile above her head turning slowly. She was out of bed and pulling on shoes long before Auntie yelled, "Kalea! It's the damn aliens again! Scaring the wooloo, I never..."
"I'm coming, Aunt Luna!" Kalea called over another volley of crackles and bangs. The house was dark, lit intermittently by flares of multicolored light. Kalea grabbed the bag of Beast Balls kept ready by the front door and slipped out into the yard.
There was no need to wake Gunther, who stood just outside, snarling bursts of flame. With Chase gone on his journey, Kalea was the only one light enough to fly him out to the cape. That's always where the trouble was, some kind of thinness in reality or strange weather conditions or a hidden signal that attracted aliens, whatever it was.
Gunther crouched to let Kalea board, his scales rough and jabby on the bare skin her nightdress left exposed. The salamence was in the air before Kalea even settled herself properly, raging away in the direction of the intruder, as mad as anyone to have been woken up.
They flew over neat rows of pineapples and beans beneath a sky filled with streaking energy rockets, shimmering bursts of light and sound. The wooloo pasture below was full of unhappy round shapes, clustered in one corner as far from the alien as they could get, bleating and complaining in their reedy, scratchy voices.
Kalea had to throw her arms around Gunther's neck as he stooped into a dive. The alien stood just ahead, glowing garishly against the green of the scrub and the ocean's mirror surface. Too tall and thin for the kind of gravity Kalea was used to, yet disturbingly familiar in its clownlike way. No face, nothing like eyes or mouth, but it did have what indisputably was a head, a glowing orb nearly as tall as Kalea was, swirled with greens and pinks and blues. While Kalea watched the alien plucked its head from its shoulders and tossed it high into the air--not at Gunther, but the shockwave of the explosion that followed forced the salamence out of his smooth dive. The air filled with showers of multicolored sparks, and Kalea's ears rang as she threw one arm up to protect her face from the spinning lights.
The air around the alien was full of angry pikipek jeering and dive-bombing the creature, and Kalea thought she saw a yungoos biting at its ankles far below. The wildies weren't having much luck, as often flying straight through the alien's body as landing hits. Energy bursts popped and crackled amidst the circling birds or came rocketing at Gunther, but Kalea didn't think the alien was trying to drive them off. It threw as many attacks into empty patches of sky, its movements fluid and unhurried, conducting its fireworks show to music no one else could hear.
This kind of alien always showed up at night, presumably so its fireworks shone properly. Could it tell when it was nighttime in this world, knew just when to cross over? Or did this kind of alien show up in daytime, too, and then lie low until their moment to perform? Was it the same alien always coming back, drawn to this place by some otherworldly logic, or a parade of them, one by one finding this same spot for their fireworks? Kalea didn't mind, one way or the other. It was annoying, being woken in the middle of the night, but at least that had a purpose now. The alien was docile, and its fireworks were pretty. Kalea much preferred it to the little papercraft-looking ones, deadly sharp and zippy.
Gunther banked, recovered from the shock of the explosion, and Kalea reached into the bag of Beast Balls. These usually worked pretty well, as long as they hit, and she'd had lots of opportunity to practice her aim. The alien had better start wrapping up its performance. In a couple of minutes it would be locked in one of these balls, soon to be sent off to Ula'Ula and from there on home.
The alien had pulled its head off again and was rolling it from one arm to the other, up and over its now-empty shoulders. Kalea tried not to be distracted by the hypnotic swirling of the alien's lights or thoughts of what kind of fireworks would emerge when it tossed the orb this time. She cocked her arm back, concentrating...
Kalea had been thinking for so long that the cold had crawled down into her bones. She stared out across the featureless snow, still wondering. How long had it been since she'd even thought about aliens?
Well, there was no reason to around here, was there? It was nice not to be up in the middle of the night, trying to aim pokéballs while riding a pokémon in flight. And yet... and yet. It felt like there was some thought, some realization, hanging just out of her reach, drifting clear and icy through the air along with the last snowflakes.
A few people had emerged from nearby dorms, taking in the new-fallen snow. A purrloin bounded across the crust nearby, so light it didn't break through; whoops sounded from somewhere in the darkness, people sledding on snow-buried paths, maybe, or having a snowball fight. Kalea thought that's what you did with snow, based on movies.
In front of another dorm someone bundled to anonymity slogged purposely through the snow, dragging a long furrow behind them. Kalea watched for a few seconds, wondering what were they doing. But as the person made a turn and started slogging back the other way, it struck her: ah, yes. Drawing a dick.
Kalea sighed and looked up into the clearing sky, where the moon now shone through a gauzy screen of cloud. She wanted to visit Laka, had an irrational desire to talk aliens and flowers and childhood memories with her, but the greenhouse was closed, Laka would be sleeping, and all of that would be there for her in the morning. She probably ought to head back to bed. There was another final tomorrow, if all the snow hadn't wiped it from the schedule.
Niki would be going home first, with no finals at all on Thursday. But only if she could find her other shoe.
Kalea watched her roommate digging around under the bed. Candy wrappers and crumpled course notes came tumbling out in irregular spurts. Laka hung in the air near Kalea's head, humming gently to herself and swaying to unheard music.
Niki's mouth was going all the while, of course. "...always was a soft grader. You've got nothing to worry about. And the weather's supposed to be good tomorrow, so--oh! Oh. Spoon." Indistinct rustling.
"Are you sure you don't want help? I could move some of those books for you," Kalea said.
"No no no no. Go have your dinner. I'll catch you next semester. You'll be all right, right?"
"Yes, of course." Laka murmured something, too, in a gentle honeysuckle breeze.
Niki poked her head out from under the bed, trying for a suspicious glare that was thwarted by the way she kept blinking in the brightness. "For real? You haven't been having more of the explodey... explodey face...?"
"Not since Saturday. And it's not a big deal anyhow." Kalea leaned back, smiling up at Laka when the comfey twittered. "It was like you said, I guess. I just had to slow down for a moment. Kind of needed a wake-up call, you know?"
"Oh, good. That's good." Niki dove back under the bed. Probably not listening. Kalea kept going anyway. She almost had it now.
"I thought I was done being homesick, but I guess it was more like I was trying not to think about it? I wanted to be here now and all, but... I think remembering is good, too. I don't have to give up home while I'm at school. And I should have been spending more time with Laka. I'm sorry I was so short with you earlier," Kalea said, looking up at the comfey. Laka rotated gently, releasing a fresh, oceanic scent. All forgiven. "I think I was so worried about doing well in class and having a good time while I'm out here that I thought I had to get as far from home as possible. But it's still important to me, you know? Even the kind of crappy parts."
"The aliens? Still jealous." Niki thought aliens were cool.
"Sure, the aliens. And everything else. Something something we remember the tough times as the ones where we all come together, or whatever. I guess I needed a reminder." Auditory hallucinations were good for that, apparently. Good enough to make her reach out to Laka, something she should have been making time for already, finals or no.
"That's the spir--ah-ha!" Niki's voice was slightly muffled. A second later a shoe tumbled into the light. "How the hell did it get wedged under all that stuff?"
Niki dragged herself back out into the open, patting at her rumpled clothing and hair without much effect. "That's it! We made it! We killed our first finals! Well, I mean, you still have that one tomorrow morning, but I know you're going to--"
"We made it," Kalea said with a smile.
Niki had already shoved her foot into the pre-laced shoe and was hauling at her overstuffed suitcase. "They've got Pokkén on in the TV room. There's totally enough time for a couple rounds before my bus. Want to come?"
"No, I think I'll get that dinner," Kalea said, getting up off her bed. "Travel safe, okay? I'll see you next semester."
Kalea was awake before she fully registered the noise. Her shoes were right where they were supposed to be, and she was halfway down the stairs before Auntie called for her. The house shook with intermittent explosions, the light filtering in through the windows now green-tinged, now red.
Gunther was up and pacing--one of the kids from town had been flying him while she was off at school, but he fell into their old routine easily enough. "All right, let's go shut this guy up," Kalea said, leaning close to the salamence's frilled ear, and Gunther leapt skyward with a growl.
Even with the wind whipping past her, the night was warm and heavy with the scent of flowers, the salt tang of the ocean. The bursting lights gave everything a surreal carnival air, and Kalea laughed with delight as a glowing rocket sped past just below them, Gunther snarling in irritation.
The alien was where it always was, one she'd met before or one of its kin. It faced out over the ocean, towards Ula'Ula glowing faintly across the channel. You could probably see the alien's fireworks all the way over on the big island. Maybe that was why they always found their way out here: an audience. Across the water people might be lining up, delighted or annoyed by another impromptu fireworks show.
Gunther fell into a tight circle above the alien's glowing head, and Kalea loosened the drawstring on the bag of Beast Balls. But she didn't throw, not yet. Lights burst and scattered around her. Had she seen those before, the blinking red ones that swarmed like fireflies before fading? Maybe the aliens were learning some new tricks. Or maybe she simply hadn't remembered.
Gunther grumbled pointedly. Getting him to wait for the Beast Ball was always the hard part. Left to his own devices he'd happily tear any alien to shreds, protected status or no. Kalea rattled the bag of Beast Balls but took her time about picking one out. Let the alien have its moment. It had come a very long way to hold its fireworks show. Let it have a little more time to strut its stuff, show this new world all its fanciest tricks, before it returned the same as everyone to its strange-familiar home.
Summary: Finals are hard enough when you aren't waking in the middle of the night, thinking about aliens. Six more days until the end of the semester--Kalea doesn't know if she's going to make it.
Author's Notes: This one-shot was written as a Blitz prize for kintsugi. The prompt was "blacephalon." Pen also wrote a fic based on the same prompt, "Head Over Heels", which you should totally check out, especially if you enjoy seeing how different writers interpret the same prompt, love a little horror-comedy, or love and/or hate clowns.
Exploded View
Kalea woke to an explosion, a bang that felt like it lifted her an inch from her bed. She was reaching for her shoes before she'd even properly come awake, mouthing Gunther's name.
Her shoes weren't there. The room was silent and dark, not even moonlight showing through blackout curtains. No one wondered at the noise, no one ran for the exit.
Kalea slumped back against her pillow with a groan. Right. All in her head. It had taken months for her to stop keeping her shoes bedside overnight, to accept that she'd have no reason to be sprinting out of the dorm in darkness. To fully absorb that she'd left the explosions at home. All of them.
Kalea rubbed her face and stared around the room. Niki was facedown in the other bed, breathing peacefully. It was late, then. Or early. Whatever. Huge faces loomed out of the gloom above the other girl's bed, actors Kalea wouldn't recognize even in daylight gracing posters for movies she'd never seen, most of them framed by explosions of their own. Thick books with strange acronyms on the spines were stacked haphazardly on Niki's desk, floor, hamper.
Kalea had taped pictures above her bed for times like these. It was too dark to properly make them out, but Kalea knew them all by heart anyway, could imagine each scene as her eyes traced its indistinct shadows. Aunt Luna, Chase, and Gunther, of course. Pictures of the farm and Kalea's favorite spot on the island, the hillside where the tassely red-flowered trees grew. In the middle not a photo but a curling, many-colored piece of quill-work, the biggest she'd completed back in high school.
Kalea sighed and contemplated whether it was worth it to try and get back to sleep. Now that she was properly awake she could tell the radiator was acting up again, turning the room to desert and leaching every scrap of moisture from her mouth. She felt around blearily for her water bottle with one hand, reached for the textbook down by her feet with the other. Galarian history might put her back to sleep, and if not, she could stand to review some anyway.
--
"Exploding head syndrome?" Niki eyed Kalea askance, as though wondering whether she'd somehow missed a radical change in her roommate's appearance. "That sounds, uh... I mean, are you going to be okay?"
"Yes, I'm fine. It's nothing serious, just kind of annoying. And it usually only shows up when I'm stressed. So, finals, you know..."
"Ouch. Exactly when you really need your sleep," Niki said hypocritically. Her eyes were sunk deep in bruise-colored circles, and Kalea was pretty sure the wrinkled black T-shirt she was wearing was the same one she'd had on yesterday and possibly also slept in. Still, Niki's eyes were as bright and intent as ever as she went on, "Well. At least it's less than a week, right? Then you can head home and not even think about any of this nonsense for a month."
"Yeah." A week away from getting on a plane and getting out of the cold and dark at last. There had been more snow last night, and the dining hall's floor was a gritty, slushy mess spotted with disintegrating napkins and dropped food. More snow, and here she was, hoping to catch a flight soon... Kalea sighed.
"Hey. You okay?" Niki asked. "You could, like, go to the health center and book a hypnosis appointment, or...?"
"I'll be fine."
"Okay." Niki sounded unconvinced. She fiddled with her spoon for a moment, then went on, "Sometimes things like the, uh, explodey thing, they kind of show up as reminders to, like, slow down, you know? Take it easy for a bit. Yeah, finals and all, but don't push yourself too hard, okay?"
Easy for her to say, Kalea thought with a pang of resentment. Niki would glance at her notes a couple of hours before her exams and then get A's no matter what.
"Anyway." It was Niki's turn to sigh now. "I should get back. My Cooperative Programming project's due tomorrow, and Blade's still rejecting my mod. Thinks the fins aren't cool enough." She pointed her spoon at Kalea. "Don't forget: dinner Monday. It's chicken nugget night. You can't miss that!"
Kalea made vague noises of acknowledgement, and Niki buzzed off back to the dorms. Kalea still had plenty of company; not far away was a big group of mostly-pokémon that had pushed a couple tables together and was loudly gossiping about the basketball team. Most people were dining alone, though, or accompanied only by textbooks. One boy a couple tables over was having a plate of sauceless, buttery spaghetti and orange Jell-o with a side of what looked like Biology notes.
That should probably be Kalea. She gathered up her swishy, new-smelling coat and prepared to brave the cold.
A week. Six days. She could keep it together for six days. No more explosions.
--
But Kalea's feet led her to the greenhouse instead of to her textbooks. That's where she'd find Laka, who had to be even more homesick than Kalea was, confined to the greenhouse and the adjoining biology building for the last three weeks. The comfey would wilt immediately in winter cold. Still, Laka insisted she didn't want to be sent back to Alola. She looked as cheerful as ever now, floating above a potted cluster of knobbly, ancient-looking conifers.
Kalea took a deep breath of the warm, humid air and felt herself relax. Almost like home. Laka floated over, chirping a bright greeting, overflowing with the scent of vanilla.
"How have you been doing?" Kalea asked. "It must be crazy around here with finals and all." Nearby a boy in an expensive-looking polo shirt smeared with mud was chasing baby bulbasaur around, in and out under tables, trying to take their temperatures.
Laka hummed serenely, and the air filled with the smell of lilac. Laka communicated almost entirely through scent, which Kalea considered lucky. The comfey was a lot easier to figure out than something like a pikachu, where you literally couldn't hear half their vocalizations. On the flip side, Laka was a lot less intense than someone like Blade, who was constantly blowing up Niki's phone with bad math jokes. Kalea could tell what Laka was saying, more or less, but it wasn't the same as talking to another human. And that was, actually, kind of nice.
Laka's fragrance changed to something more citrus, inviting. Wanting to know why Kalea was visiting.
"Oh, you know. Just seeing how you're doing," Kalea said. "Are you all ready to go home? It's less than a week now."
Laka kept putting out that orangey scent. Well, okay. Dumb question. It wasn't like the comfey had to pack.
Kalea sighed and crossed her arms. "All right. I had an episode last night. That's the first one in a long time."
Laka's scent changed to something mintier and somehow sympathetic. "You don't need to do anything. You should stay here, where it's warm." It was warm in Kalea's dorm room--too warm, usually, with the radiator going full blast no matter what anyone did to it. But Kalea couldn't bear the thought of Laka trapped in such a tiny space. At least now she could roam the whole greenhouse, which was full of students and pokémon and growing things besides.
Laka squealed and flopped down around Kalea's head the way she always used to. "It's all right. Really," Kalea said. This close up, Laka's scent was overwhelming, complexly floral and always shifting, one second fruity, the next vinegarish, then on to meaty, somehow, and on and on and on. Kalea figured she was getting some kind of complicated lecture in Comfey.
"It's just weird, I guess," Kalea went on after taking a few deep, steadying breaths of fragrance. "I thought I was over being homesick, but now I can't stop thinking--it's stupid. Who gets nostalgic about aliens?"
Laka twittered, releasing a subtle blend of perfumes that Kalea couldn't even begin to interpret.
"I guess it's just one more thing," Kalea said. "Like I don't have enough stress already, you know?"
Laka chirred and released a heavy wave of scent, and Kalea inhaled deeply, the way she'd been taught when Laka first joined her. The way she'd done in the middle of the night that first time she'd woken in a panic, thinking the ceiling was about to fall on her. Laka had been there before, and she'd been there after, too, after the doctor had figured out what was going on, after the attacks slowed and then petered out. Breathing the Aromatherapy in, Kalea was five years old again, alone with her friend in the dark, fear evaporating into orchard-scented air.
Except she wasn't, of course. After a moment Kalea became aware of the curious aipom edging closer, the beautifly hovering not far behind. The bulbasaur babies had fallen still, and the student who'd been chasing them likewise, staring slack-jawed up at Laka.
"Okay, right," Kalea said, jerking her attention back to the present. "Thanks for the talk, Laka. I'll be back to see you tomorrow, okay?"
Laka trilled and spun in place, petals brushing feather-light across Kalea's forehead and the overpowering Aromatherapy dissipating to leave behind a faintly earthy smell of affirmation.
The cold air outside was an even worse shock than usual after the greenhouse's warmth. Kalea stuffed her hands deep into her pockets and ducked her head against the wind, which carried with it a few treacherous spinning snowflakes. Laka had seemed almost pleased to hear about the return of Kalea's old, annoying medical condition. Some kind of comfey thing, maybe. Laka might be happiest with a problem to treat. Kalea tried to put the matter out of her mind and hurried towards the library, where she should have headed in the first place.
--
Kalea woke again with heart hammering, head blaring with eclipsing noise. All was peaceful. All was still. Niki's keyboard clattered, and as Kalea lay quiet, waiting for her pulse to slow, she caught a faint thread of upbeat music. Niki kept her headphones up loud.
Kalea closed her eyes for a few seconds, then slapped a palm against the bedspread in frustration. She wasn't getting back to sleep, was she? Instead she got up and went to the window, pulling back the blackout curtain to look out. It had snowed. A lot. No distinction remained between path and lawn; bushes were smooth lumps barely rising above the surface of the snow, trees clotted tangles of white and twig, branches bent down in supplication.
Outside it was utterly still save for a dusty curtain of still-falling snowflakes. A lazy, spotty scattering, nothing like the wall of snow that had thrashed the courtyard earlier, thickening the air to white. Kalea stood watching for a long moment, but nothing outside changed. Everything lay frozen below the flat black clouded sky and the orange wash of lamps that marked where the path was supposed to be.
A sudden impulse seized Kalea, and she let the curtain fall back, rummaged in her closet, and threw her jacket on straight over her pajamas. Her boots were already by the door.
Niki gave no sign of noticing. Her screen was gray-on-black computer stuff, Blade bobbing in one corner. As Kalea watched, the Porygon2 prodded a couple lines of code, then wedged its nose under one and, with a flick, sent it spinning off the screen. Niki cursed under her breath and started typing faster.
Kalea left their room and went down the stairs, out to where the side door's overhang had kept a patch of sidewalk bare. The snow stretched ahead of her, thick and smooth and nearly up to her knees. A few snowflakes filtered down, completely silent. An unnatural sort of hush gripped the air, one without the sound of waves or insects or lizards to fill it. Everything around was cold, and still, and dead.
Kalea stood with arms crossed in the door's orange halogen glow, remembering.
Waking in the middle of the night with roaring in her ears. A bang that shook the house, setting the mobile above her head turning slowly. She was out of bed and pulling on shoes long before Auntie yelled, "Kalea! It's the damn aliens again! Scaring the wooloo, I never..."
"I'm coming, Aunt Luna!" Kalea called over another volley of crackles and bangs. The house was dark, lit intermittently by flares of multicolored light. Kalea grabbed the bag of Beast Balls kept ready by the front door and slipped out into the yard.
There was no need to wake Gunther, who stood just outside, snarling bursts of flame. With Chase gone on his journey, Kalea was the only one light enough to fly him out to the cape. That's always where the trouble was, some kind of thinness in reality or strange weather conditions or a hidden signal that attracted aliens, whatever it was.
Gunther crouched to let Kalea board, his scales rough and jabby on the bare skin her nightdress left exposed. The salamence was in the air before Kalea even settled herself properly, raging away in the direction of the intruder, as mad as anyone to have been woken up.
They flew over neat rows of pineapples and beans beneath a sky filled with streaking energy rockets, shimmering bursts of light and sound. The wooloo pasture below was full of unhappy round shapes, clustered in one corner as far from the alien as they could get, bleating and complaining in their reedy, scratchy voices.
Kalea had to throw her arms around Gunther's neck as he stooped into a dive. The alien stood just ahead, glowing garishly against the green of the scrub and the ocean's mirror surface. Too tall and thin for the kind of gravity Kalea was used to, yet disturbingly familiar in its clownlike way. No face, nothing like eyes or mouth, but it did have what indisputably was a head, a glowing orb nearly as tall as Kalea was, swirled with greens and pinks and blues. While Kalea watched the alien plucked its head from its shoulders and tossed it high into the air--not at Gunther, but the shockwave of the explosion that followed forced the salamence out of his smooth dive. The air filled with showers of multicolored sparks, and Kalea's ears rang as she threw one arm up to protect her face from the spinning lights.
The air around the alien was full of angry pikipek jeering and dive-bombing the creature, and Kalea thought she saw a yungoos biting at its ankles far below. The wildies weren't having much luck, as often flying straight through the alien's body as landing hits. Energy bursts popped and crackled amidst the circling birds or came rocketing at Gunther, but Kalea didn't think the alien was trying to drive them off. It threw as many attacks into empty patches of sky, its movements fluid and unhurried, conducting its fireworks show to music no one else could hear.
This kind of alien always showed up at night, presumably so its fireworks shone properly. Could it tell when it was nighttime in this world, knew just when to cross over? Or did this kind of alien show up in daytime, too, and then lie low until their moment to perform? Was it the same alien always coming back, drawn to this place by some otherworldly logic, or a parade of them, one by one finding this same spot for their fireworks? Kalea didn't mind, one way or the other. It was annoying, being woken in the middle of the night, but at least that had a purpose now. The alien was docile, and its fireworks were pretty. Kalea much preferred it to the little papercraft-looking ones, deadly sharp and zippy.
Gunther banked, recovered from the shock of the explosion, and Kalea reached into the bag of Beast Balls. These usually worked pretty well, as long as they hit, and she'd had lots of opportunity to practice her aim. The alien had better start wrapping up its performance. In a couple of minutes it would be locked in one of these balls, soon to be sent off to Ula'Ula and from there on home.
The alien had pulled its head off again and was rolling it from one arm to the other, up and over its now-empty shoulders. Kalea tried not to be distracted by the hypnotic swirling of the alien's lights or thoughts of what kind of fireworks would emerge when it tossed the orb this time. She cocked her arm back, concentrating...
Kalea had been thinking for so long that the cold had crawled down into her bones. She stared out across the featureless snow, still wondering. How long had it been since she'd even thought about aliens?
Well, there was no reason to around here, was there? It was nice not to be up in the middle of the night, trying to aim pokéballs while riding a pokémon in flight. And yet... and yet. It felt like there was some thought, some realization, hanging just out of her reach, drifting clear and icy through the air along with the last snowflakes.
A few people had emerged from nearby dorms, taking in the new-fallen snow. A purrloin bounded across the crust nearby, so light it didn't break through; whoops sounded from somewhere in the darkness, people sledding on snow-buried paths, maybe, or having a snowball fight. Kalea thought that's what you did with snow, based on movies.
In front of another dorm someone bundled to anonymity slogged purposely through the snow, dragging a long furrow behind them. Kalea watched for a few seconds, wondering what were they doing. But as the person made a turn and started slogging back the other way, it struck her: ah, yes. Drawing a dick.
Kalea sighed and looked up into the clearing sky, where the moon now shone through a gauzy screen of cloud. She wanted to visit Laka, had an irrational desire to talk aliens and flowers and childhood memories with her, but the greenhouse was closed, Laka would be sleeping, and all of that would be there for her in the morning. She probably ought to head back to bed. There was another final tomorrow, if all the snow hadn't wiped it from the schedule.
--
Niki would be going home first, with no finals at all on Thursday. But only if she could find her other shoe.
Kalea watched her roommate digging around under the bed. Candy wrappers and crumpled course notes came tumbling out in irregular spurts. Laka hung in the air near Kalea's head, humming gently to herself and swaying to unheard music.
Niki's mouth was going all the while, of course. "...always was a soft grader. You've got nothing to worry about. And the weather's supposed to be good tomorrow, so--oh! Oh. Spoon." Indistinct rustling.
"Are you sure you don't want help? I could move some of those books for you," Kalea said.
"No no no no. Go have your dinner. I'll catch you next semester. You'll be all right, right?"
"Yes, of course." Laka murmured something, too, in a gentle honeysuckle breeze.
Niki poked her head out from under the bed, trying for a suspicious glare that was thwarted by the way she kept blinking in the brightness. "For real? You haven't been having more of the explodey... explodey face...?"
"Not since Saturday. And it's not a big deal anyhow." Kalea leaned back, smiling up at Laka when the comfey twittered. "It was like you said, I guess. I just had to slow down for a moment. Kind of needed a wake-up call, you know?"
"Oh, good. That's good." Niki dove back under the bed. Probably not listening. Kalea kept going anyway. She almost had it now.
"I thought I was done being homesick, but I guess it was more like I was trying not to think about it? I wanted to be here now and all, but... I think remembering is good, too. I don't have to give up home while I'm at school. And I should have been spending more time with Laka. I'm sorry I was so short with you earlier," Kalea said, looking up at the comfey. Laka rotated gently, releasing a fresh, oceanic scent. All forgiven. "I think I was so worried about doing well in class and having a good time while I'm out here that I thought I had to get as far from home as possible. But it's still important to me, you know? Even the kind of crappy parts."
"The aliens? Still jealous." Niki thought aliens were cool.
"Sure, the aliens. And everything else. Something something we remember the tough times as the ones where we all come together, or whatever. I guess I needed a reminder." Auditory hallucinations were good for that, apparently. Good enough to make her reach out to Laka, something she should have been making time for already, finals or no.
"That's the spir--ah-ha!" Niki's voice was slightly muffled. A second later a shoe tumbled into the light. "How the hell did it get wedged under all that stuff?"
Niki dragged herself back out into the open, patting at her rumpled clothing and hair without much effect. "That's it! We made it! We killed our first finals! Well, I mean, you still have that one tomorrow morning, but I know you're going to--"
"We made it," Kalea said with a smile.
Niki had already shoved her foot into the pre-laced shoe and was hauling at her overstuffed suitcase. "They've got Pokkén on in the TV room. There's totally enough time for a couple rounds before my bus. Want to come?"
"No, I think I'll get that dinner," Kalea said, getting up off her bed. "Travel safe, okay? I'll see you next semester."
--
Kalea was awake before she fully registered the noise. Her shoes were right where they were supposed to be, and she was halfway down the stairs before Auntie called for her. The house shook with intermittent explosions, the light filtering in through the windows now green-tinged, now red.
Gunther was up and pacing--one of the kids from town had been flying him while she was off at school, but he fell into their old routine easily enough. "All right, let's go shut this guy up," Kalea said, leaning close to the salamence's frilled ear, and Gunther leapt skyward with a growl.
Even with the wind whipping past her, the night was warm and heavy with the scent of flowers, the salt tang of the ocean. The bursting lights gave everything a surreal carnival air, and Kalea laughed with delight as a glowing rocket sped past just below them, Gunther snarling in irritation.
The alien was where it always was, one she'd met before or one of its kin. It faced out over the ocean, towards Ula'Ula glowing faintly across the channel. You could probably see the alien's fireworks all the way over on the big island. Maybe that was why they always found their way out here: an audience. Across the water people might be lining up, delighted or annoyed by another impromptu fireworks show.
Gunther fell into a tight circle above the alien's glowing head, and Kalea loosened the drawstring on the bag of Beast Balls. But she didn't throw, not yet. Lights burst and scattered around her. Had she seen those before, the blinking red ones that swarmed like fireflies before fading? Maybe the aliens were learning some new tricks. Or maybe she simply hadn't remembered.
Gunther grumbled pointedly. Getting him to wait for the Beast Ball was always the hard part. Left to his own devices he'd happily tear any alien to shreds, protected status or no. Kalea rattled the bag of Beast Balls but took her time about picking one out. Let the alien have its moment. It had come a very long way to hold its fireworks show. Let it have a little more time to strut its stuff, show this new world all its fanciest tricks, before it returned the same as everyone to its strange-familiar home.
