Spirits' Edge

[Namohysip]

"I don't know if these are the best idea sometimes," Buffet said. "The last one I did led to not being able to find them for one reason or another. Being unwilling to meet, being occupied by somewhere else, not being in the world they expected... I do hope for some luck this time around."

"So... you can meet, like... anybody dead?" Cal asked.

"Or alive, if you catch them in a dream," Buffet said. "Or other methods similar to that. Oh! I think I'm getting something if I go this way..."

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

"Buffet helped Brisket meet her pa, an' he's still alive," murmured Luz, her gaze intent on whatever Buffet was seeking. "I reckon a livin' Zeraora Luz would be interested t'meet me, at least..."

She felt something she recognised as somewhere between fear and joy. Excitement? It ought to be in her chest, a rising, shaking feeling. But that wasn't something her shade body felt, and this constellation-construct certainly didn't either.

 

[Namohysip]

"You might be right," Buffet said slowly, drifting further and further along. "I'm sensing something. Get ready--we're about to land in someone's dreamscape!"

It felt like the flow was accelerating forward...

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

The travelling spirits entered the dream, to be met with an overwhelming impression of dry earth, parched scrub, and a looming, flame-kissed storm. On the western horizon, the sun held still, setting eternally below orange and violet clouds. To the east stood towering red sandstone buttes, looking for all the world like fortresses against the night.

A zeraora was standing nearby, facing away from them, silhouetted against the horizon. Her fur, backlit by the sunset, was as white as lightning.

"Don't recognise your energy," she said, quietly. "Three of you, huh? Somehow doubt you're all aspirants. You got names, strangers?"

Luz swallowed hard. She should have come up with a lie to tell. How could she claim to be Luz?

 

[Namohysip]

"Um, hi. I'm Cal." Cal decided to be first. The Charmeleon looked herself over; back to her Shade self properly, it seemed. Or a dreamlike replica of one. She looked behind her to see that Buffet was back to looking normal as well.

"I am Buffet, Voice of Cibus. Sorry for, oh, dear, intruding, if it's a bother." He drifted to the side so Luz could get the main focus. "It's a bit of a story... This is someone who was born with the name Luz. Born out of the memories of tales about you, through some twisted magic. But she is friendly and heroic and is only fighting to save it of that same world. In a sense, she is a child of the idea of who and what you are... and she wishes to learn about her heritage properly, rather than from the memories that had been imprinted upon her."

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Luz the shade winced continuously at Buffet's lengthy explanation on her behalf.

Luz the Wandering Light turned her head slightly, pricked an ear.

"A Voice? You ain't much like the only Voice I ever met. What's it to me if someone named their kid after me, anyway?"

The flesh-and-blood zeraora turned fully, each step kicking up a little more sepia dust than felt real. She looked at the three of them— No, not exactly. She couldn't look at them. Her eyes. The pupils were dilute with amber, a little milky, almost. Unseeing.

Luz bit her lip.

"Th-that ain't it," she stammered. "I'm lit'rally made outta yer folklore. Buffet weren't bein' figurative."

The other raised a brow. "You have an energy I don't recognise at all. You . . . and Cal. What under the sky are you?"

 

[Namohysip]

"We don't know," Cal replied before Buffet could come up with his theories. "We were born from a corrupted space dragon combined with a weird unbreakable stone, some Dark Matter essence, and partial memories from one Pokemon host. Luz was born from the memories of Brisa Escarpa, from your world." Cal squinted at the other Zeraora. "Maybe if you shook hands you could feel for yourself what I mean."

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

"Escarpa?" The Luz in a white-furred body narrowed her blind eyes. "How have my name and that of my clan found their way to another world, to be given to you?" She shook her head, held up a paw. "No. Don't tell me. It will only prove a distraction. You came seeking me for a reason, I'm sure. Tell me that."

The Luz in a black gel body looked to her companions, unsure why she was so nervous. If Brisa was here, she'd be confident, bold, a hero, like she was supposed to be—

"I'm supposed to be a hero," said Luz-in-black, faltering even at this first hurdle. "I look like a zeraora, I have this urge in my head to be everythin' you're s'posed t'be. I know I'm meant to be like you. But I don't know why or what it means or how I'm meant to feel about it—"

Luz-in-white waved a paw, dismissively. "Enough. You don't move like me. You don't speak like me. You don't act like me. Your premise ain't ringing true."

Black clenched her fists, willing them to be more solid. Bold, she had to be bold... She drew breath sharply, and stepped forward. "I know I'm meant to be a replica of you. I want to know what that means. I want to know how a hero is supposed to feel."

White stared at her, unseeing, yet perceiving. Then at Cal.

"Tell me what you think, kid. Is your friend here a hero?"

 

[Namohysip]

Cal flinched, her embers shrinking. "I--" She hadn't expected to be addressed in that way. "I... don't know what a hero is," she said. "...I told my Dad once... that he was a hero, that we were all heroes because of what we were doing to save Cibus. But then he just... smiled. In that way that it wasn't really a smile. And he agreed, but I don't think he agreed..."

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

White nodded, and held a paw up, palm raised, in a gesture that invited elaboration.

"Never mind your pa. If you don't know what a hero is, do you know what . . . 'Luz' is? Tell me about her, kid."

Black cringed at the sound of their name in the mouth of her reflection. She was the reflection herself, of course. Not real.

 

[Namohysip]

Cal frowned, glancing at Buffet, but he only shook his head. This was for Cal to answer.

"...I think she's cool," Cal replied. "She was born with a set of memories and that's all she had. And she's accepting that's who she is because she likes that, and now she's trying to find a way to make it work. And now she's trying to figure out who she is and she actually had the courage to get out there and find the real deal. More than I could work up..."

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

White sniffed. "I have never met Brisa of my clan. These memories... They are only stories about what I represent to the Escarpa. You say you were born with them, that they are your identity?"

The zeraora's face tensed in what could have been pain. Maybe pity.

The shade nodded, making a face not too different from hers.

"What of you, Cal?" asked White. "The memories you were born with, are they also tales and fables?"

 

[Namohysip]

Cal liked the Luz she knew better. This one was asking too many hard questions. Yet she felt compelled to answer them. Maybe it was better this way. "No," she said. "I'm... I don't know what I am. I'm parts of Dad--I mean, my host. I'm parts that he keeps inside. And I'm also memories of someone who died a long time ago. So I'm not her or him or anyone. One day I just woke up and started existing and I don't really know if I'm s-supposed to."

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

White Luz laughed at that. "As much as anyone else is, I expect. Look, y'all are pretty young, I take it? Here's something it might help you to hear."

The zeraora walked forward, until she was standing very nearly right up against her dark mirror.

"Nobody is supposed to exist. They don't choose to. They only choose how. Whoever you become, that's who you decided to be. Who cares what you were before? What matters is what you're becoming, today, tomorrow, and the next day."

Black Luz frowned, whiskers twitching. "Sure, but I wanna know how to be you—"

White put a digit to Black's mouth.

"We are nothing alike, and we do not need to be. Take my stories, if you like them. Be someone like that, if you'd like to. You'll never be me. You'll be you. That's as it should be."

She looked at Cal, and smiled.

"There's nothing about me that was meant to be. Everything I am, I chose. All of me. And the same is true for anyone. The same is true for you."

 

[Namohysip]

Cal fidgeted, unable to look at White directly. She seemed to become smaller and smaller. "...He told me the same thing," she said. "I don't... I don't get it. How can I choose who I am when all of the memories I've been given are... not my choice? A-am I even in control of what I like and don't like... or is that just from how I was made? Luz?" She looked to the Shade. "Does... does that make sense to you? What does it mean to... be you, when we're us?"

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

The grin on White's face actually looked like the one Black usually wore. If only for a moment, before the serious look returned.

"You have memories since you started existing, right? Those were your choice. And the way I figure it, there ain't a difference between what you care about and what you choose to care about."

She started to say something else, then smiled, and splayed one paw against her own chest.

"I wasn't always a zeraora, did you know that? That's why your Luz can never be who I am. She has no idea who I was before I was this. I lived a life in a body I didn't choose, and changed it later. By choice. But . . . that wasn't the only choice I ever made to change myself. I did it slowly, one decision at a time, over years and years. And y'know what? That's what everyone does. That's what life is. You make choices, over and over, and you change, or you don't.

Black spread her arms wide in supplication. "So, what are you sayin'? That I ain't ever gonna be like you? I can't become a Wanderin' Light?"

"No!" said her counterpart. "I'm saying that if that's what you care about, that's what you already are. Whatever you say you are, believing it in your heart . . . you are."

 

[Namohysip]

Cal seemed silent, contemplative. She didn't reply to any of that, but it was more than clear that it had all gotten through to her, more than any blow to her Core ever could. She nodded quietly, something else on her mind.

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

The shade's mouth wobbled, and her ears pinned back. For a second, her body lost definition, looked more like tar than fur, before returning to the carefully sculpted form she presented.

"But I don't– I can't..."

She clenched her fists, and it hurt that there was no muscle there to clench.

"I'm not like that. I ain't brave an' bold, I ain't an inspiration, I ain't always there t'help others. I don't have answers. I don't have conviction..."

The hero stared at her with those blank, sightless eyes. One corner of her mouth drew tight. She didn't speak. Not yet.

 

[Namohysip]

"...What're you talking about?" Cal said, looking up. "You're, like... one of the bravest Shades. You're practically more of an inspiration than half the team! You know, the... flesh-and-blood team."

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

"But I'm so afraid," whispered Luz. "All the time. I ain't self assured, I just acted that way outta ignorance until the very first time somethin' spooked me an' then I folded like a house o' cards."

"Really?" said Luz, folding her arms. "We're doing the 'courage is being afraid and acting anyway' bit? How young are you, anyway?"

Luz shook her head. "Not like that. Not in fights. Not talkin' to folks. ...I ain't brave enough t'figure this out alone, I'm beggin' answers from role model after role model an' gettin' nowhere. I'm hidin' from facin' my problems. I ain't talkin' to the person I really oughta."

Luz sighed, and pointed a claw at Luz's chest. "You travelled from your world into this one just to have this conversation, knowing that I had the power to ruin you for it if I only chose to be cruel. You were fearful, when you arrived. I could sense it in your stance, your voice, your energy. You cared about something, you took action, you risked harm. That's courage."

The Wandering Light moved her claw to point at Cal. "You didn't have to come, but you did anyway. You wanna know who you are? Start with this: there are things that matter to you, and you have crossed worlds for their sake. That's a choice you made. Don't forget that."