Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Don’t step into the tall grass!”

It’s the first rule. If you’re a kid growing up in a world with pokemon, you’ve probably heard it before. Parents are always recycling that line, feeding it to kids like you and hoping it curbs enough of your explorative enthusiasm to keep you from making stupid mistakes. Mistakes like, say, aggravating a pack of Patrat without the protection of a partner pokemon.

You’re a kid growing up in a world with pokemon, though, so I’m sure you’ve done your share of ignoring that wisdom. Or, you’ve thought about it, at least. Don’t tell me you haven’t dreamt of bonding with a wild pokemon early, being the first of your friends to find a partner. If you’ve had the chance to be a kid, you’ve had the chance to have that dream. We’ve all been there, and you’ll be neither the first nor the last to break the first rule, so I’m not going to tell you that you should listen to your parents. There are plenty of good reasons not to listen to your parents - this I know all too well - and I’m not looking to judge the merits of yours. I’m only asking you to remember.

Remember that there are more wild pokemon in this world than patrats and pidoves. Beyond the cities and the routes, and sometimes even within them, the world is ruled by monsters. A few of those monsters might be your friend. Many would ignore you. Some will make a meal of you.

You’re imagining the scariest thing your mind can muster, but you haven’t seen the world yet; your imagination can’t paint half the picture of the terrors that can lurk in taller grasses.

…

You’re still excited, aren’t you?

I was too, eventually. Didn’t make it any less stupid, but when you’re a kid, being dumb and reckless is half the point. That’s why the government built all those pokemon centers. Wander a ways into the tall grass, and you’ll get familiar with those pretty quick.

I confess to the truth you already suspect: I broke the first rule. Broke it a lot, really. It’s hard to find taller grass than an untamed forest, and for years, that tall grass was my sanctuary.

But like they say: the tall grass is dangerous. And one night, wandering those lonesome woods, I came across a witch.

Or… perhaps it would be more accurate to say: she came across me.

-----

The Unovan wilderness parted easily before the witch as she drifted through the undergrowth, the wilds yielding to her command as her will conjured a direct path to her familiar’s location. The Rookidee had all but demanded her intervention, tugging on the link that bound itself to her with incessant urgency. Come, it seemed to suggest. Important, the connection stressed. She did not know what could have prompted her familiar’s outburst. Her wards and glamours remained strong; she’d sensed no attempt from the nearby human settlement to unravel them, and the local Unovan pokemon had learned long ago not to trouble the Witch from Galar. The woods did not warn her of trouble, and she felt no infringement against the boundaries of her domain. There was no helping the faint thrill that pulsed through her in the moment - the last several decades, for all that tending her woods was rewarding, had been intensely uninteresting. She couldn’t help but feel a faint echo of excitement at the abrupt deviation from routine.

That excitement faded as she warped to her familiar’s side and let her eyes fall upon the pitiful creature balled up before her.

The human child was small and pathetic, trembling in the cold as it clutched around its chest with gangly arms. It fell back on its heels, eyes snapping wide with shock as it gasped a messy, heaving breath. She leaned away, unimpressed with the wretched sight, and cast a disdainful glare in the direction of her fluttering familiar. You waste my time with a human? She impressed the words into the Rookidee’s mind, satisfied by its visceral flinch in reaction to her scorn. Still, it twittered passionately at her: the human was suffering, and the bird wanted her to help.

Her tendril twitched dismissively. Suffering is the way of all humans. This is the order of their nature; there are no - she paused - there are few good humans. This was her truth, as sure to her mind as the sun’s inevitable wake to the horizon. But she couldn’t stop the recollections of a time long past as they bubbled up from the mire of her memory. She still remembered her time before the forest fondly. She frowned, and craned the slender stalk of her body forward, turning the pale fires of her gaze back upon the trembling child. It was a reedy, uncomfortable looking thing, and she examined its face curiously as it tentatively met her eyes. Her first thought was that the child must be fresh from battle; one eye was swollen shut with dark, angry bruising, and a ragged cut oozed blood from a tear across one cheek. Memory corrected her - most human children did not themselves battle, forestalled by their own weakness. It must have earned the ire of larger humans. Her face twisted downwards as she searched deeper.

The child’s aura was a twisted, cacophonous mess. It fell upon itself in knots, as though at war with its own nature. The pressure of it must have been strangling. Were humans always so jumbled and chaotic inside? She didn’t remember it being so, but the discrepancy would be dangerous if left unaddressed. Human’s struggled with aura, she knew, but the child reeked with the wrongness of it - surely they would be able to tell?

She thought about the child’s swollen eye and stared. She was certain they would be able to tell.

Her familiar twittered again, their song hesitant and mellow, a lament for the human’s pain.

Many humans suffer, she rebuffed. She closed her eyes anyway, peering deeper still into the human’s heart, extending her senses in search of the spark that rang ever so faintly, even through the clamour of the child’s contorted aura. She let her tendrils flutter absently forward, gently caressing the child’s cheek as she infused its scars with warm, mending energy. It stiffened sharply at the sudden touch, but didn’t pull away. She was certain now she could hear it, the faintest of hums, calling out in desperation, chasing the sudden resonance between them. It was the melodious call of the wilds - the thrumming spark of magic.

She hummed a whisper-quiet tune as she repaired the child’s broken skin, the ghost of her voice dancing along the key of magic’s call.

Her familiar chirped again, a ludicrous suggestion about apprenticeship.

I have you, she challenged. Would you see yourself replaced?

Rookidee cocked its head, looking at her as if she was being the ridiculous one. It was a bird. A human could not be a bird.

That a human could be an apprentice, was left unspoken. Her body shivered as, despite her many misgivings, she allowed herself to consider the possibility before her. She, perhaps more than any other, knew that not all masters need be witches. So too then might all apprentices not need be Hattena? In this desolate, dragonridden land… it would not be surprising.

The child was staring up at her now, a cavalcade of conflicting emotion warring across its pale face. Fear fought with gratitude while underscored by deep curiosity and unmistakable wonder. That was right and well - all correct feelings for a chosen student to feel.

Yes. She could make this child remarkable, ensuring her arts not be lost to the desolate and fey-bereft Unovan cityscapes. Maybe, she allowed herself to admit, helping the child would have pleased her old trainer, were Alabaster still alive to witness it. He’d had a penchant for collecting misfits, and there was something pleasing about carrying on his legacy.

She offered the child a smile, the way she thought she once remembered smiling years and years ago, and the child startled, nervous trepidation clouding its expression as it glanced up at her with worry. Rookidee chimed a single peel of song-like amusement, then twittered at the child reassuringly until it finally relaxed. She’d interrogate her familiar about that later. She pulled her tendril away from the child’s cheek to sway easily once more at her back as she twisted forward to more carefully inspect her handiwork. The swelling around the eye would take time to fade - there would be no helping that for now - but the wicked cut had healed over nicely.

She cradled the child’s mind within the boughs of her own and projected a question, attempting gentleness.

“It… hurts less now,” the child admitted, speaking for the first time, before suddenly gasping: “I can understand you!”

The deafness of humans to the vast complexities of the world around them would never cease to astonish her. Fortunately, the walls of the human’s mind were porous and malleable, and it was a trivial thing to impress simple knowledge into the recesses of its memory. She flicked her tendril around her waist dismissively as the child grappled with new understanding

“Your… domain?” If anything, her clarification only seemed to leave the child more confused.

She sighed, narrowly stopping herself from engaging in the fruitless endeavour of trying to explain the complex mechanisms of her domain to a human, Unovan child, and settled for the simplest explanation. She did not waste effort with concepts, projecting a phantasm of her voice in the simplistic, guttural language of the child’s people. Magic.

The child’s eyes lit up with interest. “You’re magic?” it exclaimed.

She nodded, the long stalk of her body swaying forward as her tendril unfurled from her hip to swing freely behind her.

“That’s amazing, the child whispered. It smiled, but the expression wasn’t warm. “I wish I could be magic.”

Her eyes locked with the child’s at the admission, and her tendril wriggled with delight as she floated the barest distance forward with restrained anticipation. The child had no concept of the power laying dormant within its soul; it would be delightful fun to untether it from the shackles of its humanity and see what changes it wrought upon the world.

So she asked:

Would you like to be?

-----

Would you like to be?

How was I supposed to begin to answer a question like that? Whatever the pokemon in the forest was - and it was definitely a pokemon - it was the most powerful pokemon I’ve ever seen. Not that that was a particularly high bar, my mind unhelpfully added. It healed the gash on my face almost instantly, it spoke to me, and I could understand its words as if we were speaking the same language, which I’m almost certain we weren’t. It even seemed to know the little bird pokemon that followed me into the forest.

Honestly though, what the hell did it think it was doing, asking random kids in forests if they wanted to be magic, like some kind of crazy person. Especially me. I was… well… me.

Seriously, the idea of a human, let alone me, being magic was something straight out of a fairy tale, so the weird offer was almost certainly some kind of trick or trap. You didn’t grow up on a farm without knowing that even weak wild pokemon could be incredibly dangerous when you’re not protected, so there was no telling how dangerous the creature from the forest might be if stirred to anger.

The little bird pokemon was a real sweetheart though. I sighed softly, then grimaced at the sound of it. Hopefully dad was through the worst of his rage, and my collection of hardcover books hadn’t suffered too much for its brief stint as a fleet of high velocity projectiles.

It was weird though. The wild pokemon didn’t grab me, or attack me, or do anything to stop me leaving when I stammered excuses and fled from the clearing, so it must not have cared that much about my unceremonious rejection. I couldn’t shake the feeling that it hadn’t stopped watching me though. I could almost swear I felt the weight of its pale gaze on my shoulders, even after its silhouette had long faded into the shadowy depths of the forest. I tried - and failed - to avoid thinking about the way the trees seemed to be stepping away from me, the forest opening into the familiar green fields of home as if I was being spat out of its mouth.

Home.

I blinked with surprise as I glanced skyward. “I didn’t think I was out that long,” I muttered to myself, taking in the dark void of space as it sparkled with a thousand thousand stars twinkling resplendent light. It was easy, sometimes, to forget how beautiful the world really was. I let my gaze fall back to earth and settle upon the picturesque cabin nestled atop the rolling grassy hills, and felt that dark void take up residence in my stomach.

Bathed in moonlight, the modest two floor house I called home should have been everything rustic and charming, and to outsiders it probably was. Nobody else ever seemed to notice the insipid tendrils of misery strangling it from the inside out. The dread those welcoming walls inspired in me though was equal parts familiar and sickening, and regret roiled harder in my belly with every familiar step I took along the well-trod trail. I ignored the rebellion of my heart with practiced dismissal, scouting for hazards as I unlatched the front door and gently eased it forwards. I muttered an airy prayer that the hinges would keep their silence as I carefully swung the door open.

Dad’s shoes were gone, I gratefully noted, and I let my shoulders slump down as the smallest bundle of stress slipped away. He was probably out getting drunk off his ass with his tavern buddies, which meant that the morning might be worse, but at least I’d get a decent night’s sleep.

I flinched as a light from deeper inside the house flicked on, bathing the halls in dim orange light. “Hello?” Mom’s voice trembled meekly. “Is that you, A-” The old grandfather clock in the foyer seized the moment to toll its anguish as the hour hand ticked over to midnight, the noise drowning out her voice as the clock’s sorrow echoed through the wooden halls.

“Yeah, it’s me mom.” I called back once the clock was done chiming, stepping on the heel of my left sneaker and tugging my foot loose, then doing the same with the other before grabbing them off the floor and shuffling my way towards the now-lit living room. “Sorry if I worried you.” I bit down a little on my lower lip as I took in the sight of my mother sprawled across the sofa, her eyes fixed vacantly on the ceiling as her fingers fidget with the cord of the lamp she lit. Mom looked awful these days, like a shriveled reflection of a woman I remembered loving. Her once silver hair had already started fading to dull gray and hung like loose drooping threads curtaining her face. Her eyes were dim and hollow, and the face I used to associate with bright smiles and laughter curled downwards with exhausted weariness.

She glanced up at my entrance, and I caught a hint of relief dancing across her face before she dropped her head back down to stare at the ceiling again. “Your father stormed out shortly after you, and then you didn’t come back. I thought…” she trailed off into a sigh, then said: “I told you you shouldn’t dress like that. It makes him angry.”

I bit my tongue, holding back the blistering retort that welled angrily in my heart, and said instead: “I would make him angry anyway, mom. You know that.”

Mom raised her head again to look at me, her expression forlorn, and she spoke like a ghost as she whispered: “Maybe less angry… Maybe less…”

Honestly, she was half-way to a ghost already.

I looked away. It was… hard to be around mom these days. Inevitably, it made me wonder how mom, and to a lesser extent dad, went from being so bright to so broken. An old woman in Aspertia told me once that mom used to be a pretty formidable trainer, and that she’d conquered five gyms before she fell in love with dad and gave it all up to help him with the family business.

It was difficult to imagine my mother being a formidable anything now.

“Good night mom,” I said. It was the best apology I could muster, and I quickly excused myself to rush up the stairs and hide myself away in the relative security of my room.

The door clicked softly shut behind me, and I wasted no time diving into my usual nighttime routine. My black pleated skirt and pale silk blouse I eased off gently, folding them carefully then wrapping them up in a spare bed sheet which I set down on the floor beside me. I’d have to wash them carefully in the morning. Plain wool pajamas replaced them, and I plopped myself down on the side of my bed as I dug a small hand mirror and a pack of cloth wipes out of my juniper wood side table. I wiped my face down carefully, being sure to check the mirror as I washed off the remnants of my mascara and struggled to scrub away the black smudges the motion left beneath my eyes.

I stowed the mirror once I was done, then grabbed the small bundle with my day clothes as I got down on my hands and knees to wiggle slightly under the frame of my bed. I’d bought them second hand on a rare trip to the Aspertia thrift shop, and I was only even able to afford them in the first place because the lady at the counter had abruptly decided they were taking up far too much space on the shelves when she caught me fawning over them, offering me ninety percent off if I helped her get rid of them. The clerk made the offer with a smile that was way too knowing, but I hadn’t had the willpower to refuse her charity

I loved them.

I pulled up the floorboards beneath my bed that I’d loosened way back when I first started sorting myself out, peeling back the underlayment before carefully tucking the bundle into the small alcove I’d built below, alongside all my other important possessions. Treasure secured, I fixed up the floor, crawled back out from underneath her bed, and flopped down on my back as I stared up at the wooden arches criss-crossing the vaulted ceiling.

“Would I like to be?” I let myself whisper, rolling the strange pokemon’s words about in my mouth, as if the shape of them would suddenly spark insight. “What does magic even mean?”

Magic was hardly a scientific term. People talked about pokemon that had magic-seeming abilities sometimes, but that wasn’t magic, that was like… type energy, and move power, and… sciency stuff. There were professors for it and everything.

I frowned, sitting up with a groan as I snatched my phone off the side of my bed and tapped my fingers rhythmically against the screen. Magic Pokemon, I plugged into the net search. Thousands of search results flooded my feed, almost all of them references to the mythos or superstitions of Unova’s legendary pokemon.

I was not naive enough to think I’d stumbled into and been chosen by a legendary pokemon or something, and the pokemon from the forest hadn’t looked anything like Unova’s gods. I sighed, practicing the timbre of it as I scrolled past dozens and dozens of unhelpful stories, legends, theories, and conspiracies. I was about to give up completely when an article near the bottom of the first results page finally caught my attention. The Mystical Magicians of Kalos - Fairy Type Pokemon: What They Are, What They Do, And Where to Find Them.

“Fairy…” I gnawed on my lower lip as I considered the idea. I’d heard of fairies before. They were a pokemon type non-native to Unova. They weren’t unheard of among the rosters of modern Unovan trainers, supposedly, but the import process was super strict and complicated and apparently the fines for releasing one in the wild were high enough to bankrupt most people. One of my classmates at school - back when I still went - gave a presentation once on how the Whimsicott species was thought to be evolving minor fairy traits to combat its draconic predators as a result of exposure to ambient type energy from imported fairies, and how the government might tighten regulations on exotic pokemon imports even more because it was some sort of “invasive adaptation.” They’d gone on to argue about… something to do with dragons, I vaguely remembered. Something about their cultural value and heritage, and how the Unovan League obviously saw fairy pokemon as a threat to that.

It seemed like a reasonable lead. I tapped the link, and then groaned in frustration when the link took me to a permission locked thread from one of the Unovan trainer forums. What was it with trainers and their secrecy? “Why show me the link if I’m not allowed to click the article?” I groused, but I bookmarked the page anyway, just in case. “New plan.”

I searched pink pokemon with tentacle and sighed when a million pictures of lady Jellicents immediately flooded my screen, then tried: forest pokemon with tentacle. This time I was graced with hundreds of photos of the Kantonian grass type Tangela, and its intimidating evolution, the hulking behemoth Tangrowth. pink forest pokemon with tentacle, I offered to the net in desperation, biting back a growl as some artist’s rendition of a cute frillish/tangela hybrid heralded a parade of artist renditions, bad photo edits, and other nonsense.

“So much for that avenue,” I mutter. “Why is it so hard to research stuff from other regions, anyway?”. At least it narrowed things down a bit. The Unovan online network had quite a bit of information on the regions from the old continent, as well as Hoenn, and information from and connections with the far off Kalos region had at least at least expanded a little in the wake of some sort of major trade deal, but info from the really distant regions was hard to find, and most of it was just hearsay anyway, like wild tales of Galarian pokemon turning into mountains. Maybe the forest pokemon was from one of those places, like the island nation of Paldea, or the lawless wastes of Orre.

If I just ignored the question of how in the world it ended up in Floccesy Forest, the idea almost seemed reasonable.

“Oh!” I felt a sudden spark of excitement as I remembered the little bird pokemon that followed me into the woods at the start, and how it almost felt like it called the forest pokemon to help me? Or eat me. I definitely didn’t recognize that one either, but bird pokemon were often recognized as defining symbols of their native region, like the Kantonian Pidgey or the Sinnohvian Starly. The two pokemon seemed familiar with each other, so I figured maybe if I could learn where the bird pokemon was from, I could learn more about the forest pokemon as well? bird pokemon, I tried, then clarified: yellow belly, blue feathers, black crown. Several photos loaded onto my phone screen, followed by a number of artist renderings.

They were exactly the bird from the forest. I smiled wide, enjoying the bright spark of excitement of discovery and read the web listing for the first photo. Rookidee, the link reads. The Tiny Bird of Galar.

Galar! I couldn’t help the thrill that ran through me at that. How many people ever got to see a real live pokemon from Galar? The Tiny Bird of Galar, and all my instincts told me that the other pokemon must therefore be from Galar too. “What kind of journey did you two make to get here?” I let myself wonder, imagining a great voyage across raging oceans. Galar was a part of the continent on the other side of the world, so to end up here, those pokemon must have traveled at least half the world! I shut off my phone, satisfied with the conclusion of my research, and crawled under the covers of my bed, only barely remembering to plug the device into its charger. I still had so many questions - maybe even more than I did before I knew where they came from - and based on my first attempts I doubted the net was going to have the answers to them. It’d be so nice if the pokemon could just tell me.

I closed my eyes, letting the thrill of discovery chase away the dread that usually crept up my spine when I was alone in the dark.

Would you like to be? The pokemon from the forest had asked.

It had asked me.

I inhaled sharply as the obvious revelation finally came to me.

The pokemon from the forest could just tell me, if it didn’t decide to murder me or something first.

I just had to be brave enough to ask.

Chapter Text

I woke with the sun, and wasted no time setting about to prepare for the day. I tugged on a pair of scuffed jeans and a ragged tee, then covered them with the heavy duty overalls I always wore in the fields. Dressed for work, I crept down the stairs on silent feet, breathing out a sigh of relief when I found the kitchen still empty. I pulled a cart of skim milk from the fridge, poured a small pool of it into an empty bowl, then replaced the milk back into the fridge before scavenging about for a box of cereal out of the pantry. It was bland as anything, but a bowl of cereal was quick, quiet, and easy to put together, so it usually made do. I settled on a box of plain tasting wheat thins, carefully emptying the carton into the bowl of milk, trying my best to avoid any unwanted splashing before I resealed the box and put that back away as well.

There’d been a time when my whole family would be up with the sun, and I’d wake to the smell of a proper farmer’s breakfast cooking on the skillet - eggs, bacon, sausage, and hashbrowns all seared together as mom carefully managed the kitchen and dad washed up all the dishes mom no longer needed.

It was just me now. I finished up my cereal and washed the bowl in the sink, sorting the dishes back into their homes before leaving through the back door to fetch the tiller from the shed. It was just me now, and I was glad for it. I was glad all the drinking kept dad abed in the morning, and that mom was too sad to even pretend she cared anymore. That was probably wrong of me, but I felt guilty enough about the changes without wasting any extra energy dwelling on them further.

The Leavanny tiller was an old, decrepit thing that still somehow worked despite itself. The blades and needles were all half rusted away, and it took a truly ridiculous amount of oil and grease to get the wheel spinning smoothly enough that the tool would be worth using, but with a few minutes of love and care - and then a few more minutes for good measure - it did the job. Satisfied that it would make it through today at least, I rolled the machine out into the fields and started the laborious process of working the old tiller up and down the rows of grains and barley, cultivating the compacted soil to ensure air and water continued to reach the roots of the precious crops. We didn’t tend a lot of crops anymore, so it was critical that every plant survive and thrive if I wanted our fall harvest to ensure a comfortable winter.

The sky brightened steadily as I worked the hour away, pausing at the end of it to suck in several belaboured breaths as I broke up the soil around the last of the barley plants. The other local farms all used pokemon to help them now, and were able to manage twice the fields with half the effort because of it. Helper pokemon weren’t much more of an investment than hiring an extra hand for the season, and boasted much larger returns for their services, but dad was so vehement in his refusal that I didn’t dare push the idea.

I cast my gaze towards the horizon, taking in the acres of unworked land that sat completely unused across our property. With a Timburr or two, I was sure I could transform our struggling farm into a prosperous ranch. They could help me manage our full acreage of crops, and with a bit of battle training, the pokemon would offer enough protection that we could move back into the farm animal trade as well, and everyone knew that was where the real money was.

I sighed, cracked my shoulders, and took a long draught of water from the bottle at my hip as I took back my place at the helm of the tiller. It was a stupid dream. Dad hated pokemon even more than hated me - he’d never tolerate their presence, no matter how practical the idea was. I pushed forward with the tiller, determined to finish stirring up the last acre of grain-soil with enough time leftover to dress up for school - and wasn’t that a thought?.

The fields wouldn’t cultivate themselves.

---

Dad still wasn’t up by the time I left. Mom had moved from the bed back to the living room sofa, but barely managed to muster so much as a disapproving look before I was already out the door. It was, all in all, a good morning - most of the swelling around my eye had even faded away overnight, so with any luck I could avoid any uncomfortable inquiries from teachers; I hoped that just coming back after months away would be enough to distract them.

I definitely owed the pokemon from the forest a thank you, I considered, enjoying the way my long skirt swished around my ankles as I worked my way down the long and twisting trail that wound into town. The cut it healed for me hadn’t even scarred, and there was no way I’d have been able to hide that. There were only so many ways I could conceivably get hurt in the fields before people started getting suspicious.

Another trip into the forest was in order, probably. The little bird pokemon - the rookidee - was such a sweetheart, and I felt terrible for just running off on it after it tried so hard to help me. Maybe it would find me again, and lead me back to the pokemon from the forest. I could stay and try talking like a normal person instead of running away like an idiot. Then I could ask the pokemon where it came from, what kind of pokemon it was, why it decided to help me, and what it meant when it told me I could be magic (not that I was hung up on that or anything). And then… Well, and then I didn’t know what I’d do, but at the very least, I’d get to know the name of the pokemon that helped me.

Dad taught me long ago the importance of repaying one’s debts.

The beaten path morphed into the well-kept outskirts of Flocessy Town, the settlement steadily thickening as I ventured deeper into civilization. Well, civilization by my standards. It was probably still the backwoods by Castelian standards, but who gave a damn what the city kids thought anyway?

I rounded the last corner and froze on the spot, my feet cemented to the ground beneath me. All at once, Flocessy’s only high school loomed before me. In truth, loomed was a strong word for what the single story brightly coloured school building was currently doing. More likely, it was doing its best to be open and inviting, and that was probably the more terrifying of the two options. Staring at that ridiculous building from my past, I realized I had absolutely no idea what I was thinking. I hadn’t even stepped foot in the old school building since, well…

It’d been a while.

And what was I even here for, anyway? To ask an old classmate who’d probably already forgotten me some dumb questions they probably didn’t know the answer to? This was possibly the worst plan I’d ever conceived, and the competition for that award was steep. I picked up my feet, coming to my senses just in time to turn myself back around before I irreparably ruined my life. Naturally, the damage had been done and it was already too late.

“Holy hell - AJ? Is that you?” A disbelieving voice called out from over my shoulder.

I winced, first at the acknowledgement, and then at the volume, but couldn’t help the reflexive smile that I knew was threatening to distort my face against my wishes. There was probably only one person in all of Flocessy who spoke that loud but stepped that quiet, and he probably didn’t have a mean bone in his body. I swallowed hard, nervous anyway as I slowly turned myself to face him.

The boy in front of me was impossibly even bigger than I remembered him being, and he was built like a long-haul truck before I decided to drop off the face of Unova. “Mac,” I said. “It’s been a minute.” Then, because that felt lackluster for greeting someone you haven’t seen in half a year, I added: “Have you been working out?” I immediately started berating myself internally because what in the Dragons’ name even was that but Mac flushed with pride.

“Oh, um, yeah actually. Wait, that’s not important here,” he gestured towards me. “Look at you! You look-” I could feel myself start to shrink back, bracing myself as he paused mid-thought. I shouldn’t have come here. I squeezed my eyes shut because I couldn’t bring myself to look away. I knew this was inevitable. Finding new and creative ways to hurt myself is becoming a specialized skillset of mine.

“Good,” he finally decided. “You look good.”

That… wasn’t right. Had I misunderstood him? I dared to force my eyes open, and… he was smiling. It was a reassuring sort of expression. I searched his face for malice, or cruelty, or any of the other warning signs I’d learned to recognize when dad was feeling especially sick of me, and didn’t find them. I was thoroughly, utterly screwed after that. I looked in Mac’s eyes and saw nothing but easy, quiet acceptance as he extended a hand in my direction. How could I ever run away from that?

My hackles lowered, my shoulders slumped, and I knew beyond the slightest shred of doubt that deep in the twisted, wretched ball of anxiety I called my heart, a thread had finally pulled loose and begun to unravel. If I’d had any idea of the confluence of chaos that loose thread would eventually pull me into, would I have turned away? Would I have sewn my heart back up and toiled away in our dreary fields until I lost myself to obscurity? There were days where that fate was tempting, but no. If I could do my life over again another hundred times, I can think of a thousand things I’d change, but there’s no world - not a one - where I’d turn away from the hand of friendship that a boy I barely knew guilelessly held out for me.

I never really had friends at school, back when I still attended. I was too wrapped up in my own baggage and uncertainty to dare make time for other people, but Mac? He was everyone’s friend - a schoolyard diplomat with a knack for conflict resolution. It was impossible to dislike a boy who so earnestly saw the best in everyone. It probably spoke poorly of me that I’d been so swift to assume the worst of him anyway. “Thanks,” I said, unbearably awkward as I struggled mightily to lift my gaze and meet the boy’s eyes. I couldn’t stifle the heat that burned in my cheeks at the compliment; it felt like I was drowning in my own mortification as he just kept smiling at me, looking at me like I wasn’t a twisted subversion of myself.

Looking at me like I was an old friend he was pleasantly surprised to see again.

My body finally smiled back, less of a conscious decision on my part and more of an automatic response to another person’s happiness, and immediately hated how stupidly awkward the expression felt struggling across my face.

“Are you coming back to school?” Mac asked, tilting his head in the direction of the vibrant building now lurking behind me. “I heard you got busy with the family farm.”

“Oh, yes,” I nodded, then processed the question properly and blinked. “Um, that is, yes I got busy with the farm. Mom got sick and y’know, there’s no pokemon to help out. I… don’t know if I’ll have time to come back to school. There’s still so much work to do at home, plus, you know…” I made an all-encompassing gesture towards myself and trusted him to figure out the issue. “I was just hoping I could find Macey for a few minutes to ask her some questions.”

“What do you- oh.” Mac frowned at me, and I tried to keep shame from averting my eyes as he held my gaze. “If anybody ever gives you a problem, they’re giving me a problem, yeah?” His voice was adamant, hard in a way that brooked no argument. There was no helping the flutter of warmth that bubbled up in my belly. My determination to maintain eye contact crumbled immediately, and I stared hard at the ground as I tried not to think about the way Mac’s abrupt surge of protectiveness was making me feel. He barely knew me; what business did he have caring?

He didn’t let me stew in my discomfort. “You’re here today,” he affirmed. “That’s what matters right now. We should reintroduce you to the teachers, and I’ll ask Macey to meet you during the lunch break. She’s taking advanced sciences with the upper years right now, so you won’t catch her in any of our classes outside of homeroom.” He gestured for me to follow as he marched off in the direction of Flocessy Secondary School’s main entrance, glancing back periodically to ensure I followed him.

I struggled, my shoes planted against the pavement as I processed the entire overwhelming exchange. I opened my mouth, ready to ask him to wait or… something. I definitely wasn’t ready. Dealing with the jovial boy who made friends with everyone was one thing, but there were dozens of kids lurking inside that foreboding building.

Mac called back: “You coming, A? It’ll be cool inside. Guarantee it.”

Somehow, his easy assurance was enough. I uprooted my feet, gathered my skirt in my hands, and jogged to catch up with him.

He waited.

“Aleja,” I finally dared to utter, offering the gift to another person for the third time in my life as Mac reached for the handle of the glass door. “But, uh, AJ is still fine, if you want.”

He smiled at me, ridiculously huge and warm, then pulled the door open and pointed inside, dipping into a ridiculous half bow like a knight from the warring eras. “Welcome back to school, Lady Aleja,” he said, affecting an access that made him sound like a complete idiot.

I felt myself blush viciously. “Dragons above - were you always this ridiculous? There’s no way I thought you were cool.” It helped though, and I felt more at ease than I’d ever felt before as I boldly stepped through the open door. Maybe my fears were well-founded, and a firing squad was all that awaited me at the end of those forgotten halls, but for whatever reason, Mac was in my corner. He’d promised, unsolicited, to go to bat for me if the need arose and the feelings that oath evoked in me were more empowering than I could ever have imagined.

---

The language arts teacher took my return in a better stride than I did. Mr. Murray nodded along as I stumbled my way through a curated explanation of the various circumstances behind my extended… hiatus from Unova’s public education system. His dark skin crinkled with consideration as he idly combed his fingers through one of the glorious silver mutton chops bracketing his cheeks. “No apologies are necessary, Miss Aleja,” he said at length. “I fully understand. You’re not the first student to be pulled away by the demands of home, and I’m sure you won’t be the last. Those demands are the nature of life in our corner of Unova, and I have no interest in punishing you for making your best judgment in a difficult situation.” He smiled at me as he clasped his hands on the desk in front of him. I struggled to hold his gaze; everything about him emanated an honest desire to help, and part of me recoiled from it. I was still waiting for the other shoe to drop, and the longer this… theater of niceties went on for, the more it was going to hurt when reality ripped down the facade.

He continued: “If you can only come into class for partial days, or need to miss a few days a week, that’s something we’re more than able to accommodate, but I’d like for us to come up with a plan to get you caught up with your peers. Making up the work you’ve missed isn’t an insurmountable task, but I - and I'm quite sure the other teachers will be of like mind - am not in the business of leaving my students behind. Would that be amenable?”

I shrunk down in my chair as I absorbed the gravity of his words. How was I supposed to tell him no when he seemed so sincere about trying to help me? It didn’t have anything to do with what I wanted - I liked school, but all the reasons I’d stopped coming the first time still applied. Sure, he was being kind to me, and Mac was nice too, but there were so many people who wouldn’t, and the farm really was dreadfully understaffed. If I left the fields to my father, they’d surely suffer, and where would that leave us come harvest time? Being short on cash for the electricity bill wasn’t going to make home any happier.

“My father thinks the farm should be my first priority,” I explained, directing my gaze anywhere but Mr. Murray’s eyes. I was used to disappointing people, but somehow that didn’t make seeing the way I disappoint everyone reflected in their eyes get any easier. “I only actually came today because I wanted to ask Macey some questions and I wasn’t sure where else to find her.”

“Does he now?” Mr. Murray’s voice rumbled with momentary anger, and I shrunk back reflexively, trying to make myself a smaller target. After several moments passed without incident, I flushed with embarrassment, and did my best to regather myself without looking up. Stupid, my stupid brain hissed at me, furious over the mortifying lapse. You think a teacher would hit you on campus? I bit hard on my lip; I’d probably insulted the man. Mr. Murray clearly wasn’t the type of man to hurt a kid, and I knew that. I’d never been given any indication otherwise, and even my instincts agreed with me when my stupid panic wasn’t overruling them.

“Miss Aleja?” I winced. He didn’t sound angry anymore, but I’d still insulted the man, and after he tried so hard to be nice to me too. “I understand that your father may feel exceptionally burdened between the struggles of an independent farm and your mother’s present illness, and that he may be… relying upon you to fill in the gaps. I think it’s a testament to your character that you can carry that burden in the face of those challenges. Your father should be grateful for such a fine daughter in these trying times.”

It was nice, hearing him say that, even if he was speaking out of obligation. He even sounded sincere, though I suppose he lacked the perspective to recognize the root cause of all my family’s tribulations was sitting right in front of him. “I try my best,” I lied, because no amount of hard work in the fields would change the fact that I couldn’t help but make things worse. It hurt a little, lying to someone so kind to me, but I was selfish. I didn’t want Mr. Murray to think worse of me.

“It’s clear you do,” the teacher agreed, and when I finally dared to glance up again he was still smiling. “Miss Macey is an excellent friend to have if you can’t continue full-time with your schooling. She’s a brilliant young woman with a keen talent for tutoring.” He paused, but I could tell there was something else on his mind, and didn’t dare to interrupt. We sat in awkward silence for several long moments before he finally spoke further. “Miss Aleja, was there an incident on your farm? I can’t help but notice your eye…”

I froze. I’d forgotten. I clamped down on an upwell of panic and forced myself to laugh. “Oh, that.” I looked away and did my best to appear embarrassed. “The tiller got stuck pretty bad a few days ago, and it came free all at once when I tried to yank it out. Got me pretty good, didn’t it?” The lie was weak, even to my ears, and I prayed to the dragons to not be pressed for details. Mercifully, he accepted it.

Mr. Murray laughed boisterously, leaning back as he relaxed into his chair. “The hazards of farm life are omnipresent, hmm?” he asked, though the question sounded rhetorical. “Fair enough, fair enough. The humble leavanny tiller - as cunning and deadly as the pokemon it was named for.”

“Yes sir,” I agreed, nodding with relief.

“You’re a bright girl, Miss Aleja,” Mr. Murray said, smiling. “A hard worker too. If you want to continue with school, we’ll find a way to make it fit your schedule. As for your other concern, I’d like to think it goes without saying that any student who wishes to learn is welcome within this classroom, and my colleagues would doubtless concur.” There was a rattling clack-clack-clack as he entered a string of inputs against his keyboard, and a few seconds later the whirr of a warming printer resonated through the room. I let my eyes be drawn to it as it spat out several sheets in quick succession, before the teacher grabbed the stack and slapped a staple through the top left corner. “It’s a simple enough adjustment to stand by that value,” he said, holding out the bundle for me to take.

I grabbed it, scanning through the form, and I swallowed as my pulse immediately quickened. He’d given me the attendance roster for our class, and I fought to the high heavens to stave off the ridiculous tears tugging at the corner of my eyes when I realized what he’d done. It was right there, in plain text, written in the same font, and templated the same way as every other name printed on the list.

Aleja Jaso the record read. I rubbed at it with my index finger, but the text didn’t fade, as bold and black as every other name on the list.

I felt something inside me settle into place as a weight slipped off my shoulders. A sense of wholeness I’d never felt before slammed into me with all the grace and gentleness of a freight train. I was bowled over by it, struggling to find my metaphorical feet as I sat perfectly still in the chair, only to realize in a panic that I hadn’t fought hard enough; I brought my hand to my cheek and my fingers came away wet with salt. It was mortifying, but Mr. Murray didn’t seem to find my lapse bothersome. He smiled - his ridiculous mutton chops pulling up with his cheeks to enhance the expression - and said: “You’re always welcome here.”

There was nothing I could say to that, and I spent the remaining minutes until the bell rang collecting my shattered self and gluing her back together. I felt stabler than I had in ages when the first students started streaming into the classroom, which wasn’t saying much, but for some unknowable reason my feet decided to turn away from the exit and drag me to an open-looking desk tucked away in the back corner of the room. I braced myself as several old classmates I barely recognized spared curious glances in my direction, but they found their seats without comment, and everyone else was too busy staring at phone screens to take interest in the familiar stranger hiding in the corner. One girl, panting for breath as she dashed into the classroom beneath the tolling of the final bell, smiled warmly and said “welcome back!” before finding a seat a few desks away.

I queried my memories for her name, and immediately felt terrible for not knowing it. There were the sounds bags unzipping and books opening to bookmarked pages, and then Mr. Murray launched into his lecture without any incident. There was no great shattering fracture in the heavens, and the sky didn’t crumble around me. I let myself relax, a burden lifting from my shoulders as I savoured the simple joy of listening to a kind man teach me something interesting.

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