[attr="class","star1tsu"]

[attr="class","star2tsu"]The insinuation stings. You can feel the flush in your cheeks. [break][break]

You glance at him out of the side of your vision. A long, drawn-out stare.[break][break]

"What, you think just cause something's purple and prickly and mean I'll fall in love with it?"[break][break]

You stare at the pokemon sitting on the fridge. Eye-level with you, you can see its chest beating heavily. Every muscle in its body tenses up, and its quills quiver ever so slightly, ready to lash out at a moment's notice. [break][break]

It's clearly the type of beast that's learned that it needs to fight to survive. [break][break]

"I'm hurt you think I'm so predictable."[break][break]

You say that, reaching out your hand. There's food in your palm, swiped from the stall just a ways back. Old habits die hard after all.[break][break]

You don't expect it to trust you, you don't expect it to be tame. Just like that girl who fended for herself on the streets all those years ago, taught to be wild by the city underground, you don't expect it to ever trust you. [break][break]

But you don't do it to earn its trust. You do it because it's the right thing to do. This little thing's practically all skin and bones, and half of its energy goes into crafting those dangerous looking spines to poison its enemies. The priorities it holds are clear enough, and you'll never get beyond that wall of venom with just a single meal. [break][break]

"There's more of this if you wanna join us, you know."[break][break]

You slide the berries onto the fridge.[break][break]

It's a decision only he can make at the end of the day.[break][break]

[attr="class","star3tsu"][attr="class","rouxcredittsu"]♠

[attr="class","star1tsu"]

[attr="class","star2tsu"]You watch the puddle of mud at your feet idly.[break][break]

She frolics. Gills, feel, tail. You're not sure what you're looking at, slathered in that much muck. But it's moving, wiggling happily in the warmth of the sun, and the cool, cool mud. [break][break]

She's a disaster of a pokemon, you think. [break][break]

Nothing that sweet and innocent could ever love getting that dirty. But as she rolls around, as she gathers more and more mud on her body, til you can't see her skin anymore, you have to relent.[break][break]

"Yeah, guess you do love it, huh? Like a dirty little lechonk."[break][break]

You rest your cheek on the palm of your hand, watching with morbid interest. You've seen pokemon wallow in sludge before, you've seen your trusted companions drag themselves through the filthiest parts of the city, but never, ever, in your whole life, have you seen something love getting dirty like this wooper.[break][break]

"There's not enough mud on the island. You'll sink us into the sea if you don't slow it down some."[break][break]

With that lie, she raises her head. Mud caked on her face slowly drips down it, as she gazes up at you with a shocked face. [break][break]

"It's true. It's happened before, islands just disappearing off the southern coast. I read it in a paranormal magazine once."[break][break]

You can't suppress a smile as you say it. But she seems to take that as gospel all the same. As if she couldn't possibly accept that someone could lie to her, she takes it all on its face as something plausible. [break][break]

It just makes her double her efforts, rolling around in the muck even more relentlessly. [break][break]

And you watch her, crestfallen.[break][break]

[attr="class","star3tsu"][attr="class","rouxcredittsu"]♠

[attr="class","star1tsu"]

[attr="class","star2tsu"]Wings beat without sound.[break][break]

The chittering of Tsutsuji bounces back and forth in the dark, under an audible hiss like a speaker turned to full volume with nothing running through it. A box that's about to explode at any moment, as if she's awaiting the chance. [break][break]

And you sit atop her, sea rushing below. Watching intently in the dark, the figures on the boardwalk, for signs of anything out of the ordinary.[break][break]

Your wyvern swoops down closer to the ground as you dig your heel into her side ever so slightly, not enough to hurt, but enough she'll feel it even through her scales and her white mantle. She lands on the rooftop of an old boathouse, silent as ever in the dark, like a shadow herself. And you, riding atop her, slide off into the night.[break][break]

It's warmer on the ground, ever so slightly, but you can still see your breath in the cold. It means you've gotta hold it if you're gonna sneak around any corners. [break][break]

You peer into the dark, listening intently for a sound. All you hear are waves and the distant ringing the the buoys off the shore. All the signs you've gathered thus far point to here, all the clues have led you to this point at the edge of the beach. [break][break]

So you wait, for any sign at all.[break][break]

[attr="class","star3tsu"][attr="class","rouxcredittsu"]♠

[attr="class","star1tsu"]

[attr="class","star2tsu"]You feel the weight of all his expectations, his wants and desires for the future. [break][break]

A future lost for his brother but something he can place on you. He can make it all right again, somehow. All the ways he messed up in the past, he can fix them again if he can somehow fill your vacant heart with all those dreams.[break][break]

It's so warm. So very warm. His hand nearly burns as you grasp it. [break][break]

And being in his sight, it makes you melt. You're sweating as you gaze up at him, cause it's so fucking hot. The future that glimmers with hope, a shining star in his eyes that makes you perspire under its blazing pressure, it's so goddamn hot. [break][break]

To someone cold-blooded like you, it's unbearable. [break][break]

But you can't look away. [break][break]

Cause this guy, you know the future in his mind is the one thing she wanted as well, your precious friend who just wanted a happy world where everyone is safe and happy. He's just like her in the end, someone who loved the world with all her heart.[break][break]

So you can't look away, even gazing into the sun.[break][break]

"Yeah... just like down there, huh? You're following me around... some people would call that stalking, Michael Navidson."[break][break]

Its a thorny reception. Something to make him bleed a little, so maybe he'll burn a little of that light away, make all that hope a little less of an eyesore. But you hold back, cause you know if you give him everything he'll just wear those thorns as a crown.[break][break]

"... Your pokemon... is everyone, you know... did everyone make it back okay?"[break][break]

[attr="class","star3tsu"][attr="class","rouxcredittsu"]♠

[attr="class","star1tsu"]

[attr="class","star2tsu"]There's a hollow pit in your stomach as you look at all those slate and granite stones laid out before you.[break][break]

Every one of them a life, every one of them cut short. All laid out in uniform rows, undistinguished among each other. There's nothing extraneous to them. Names are carved after the fact, a bunch of sterile and lifeless stones, hastily hewn and laid out here in rows to mark those who fell half a region away. [break][break]

"Better than a mass grave."[break][break]

You offer it that acknowledgement. But in the end, it's as much a mass grave as it can be while avoiding the connotation of one. Each of these lives were stolen by war, by a Rocket far away. Their remains dragged back here and buried so at least their surviving family knew where they were laid to rest.[break][break]

Probably a quarter of them don't even have remains in them. It's impossible to distinguish those who mark the missing among those confirmed dead. And near the end, there's unmarked graves yet. Graves in waiting for those yet to be stolen by this conflict that's gripped the region. [break][break]

It's enough to make you sick.[break][break]

She didn't have a grave. She was buried under a tree in a garden somewhere. You don't know whether that tree's still standing, or if it was cut down for land development. [break][break]

But you think, if she should have a grave, it's one of these unmarked ones. A monument to someone who lived so pure despite all the hatred she was surrounded by. If she was to have one, it would be unassuming. She'd like to lie alongside those who were stolen by the Rockets, one among many, so people can look on it and know just how vile their cause really is. [break][break]

You set a few small flower petals on the edge of that empty grave and wait for the wind to sweep them away.[break][break]

"... Sorry."[break][break]

It'll never be enough, but every day you've forced yourself to say it, to feel it. It's what she deserves. Even if she didn't deserve to die, she deserves to be remembered.[break][break]

[attr="class","star3tsu"][attr="class","rouxcredittsu"]♠

[attr="class","star1tsu"]

[attr="class","star2tsu"]Empty.[break][break]

Everything is void and empty.[break][break]

The void-sea filled you entirely til there was nothing left, a gaping hole where there should have been a human heart. Where once it was black, now it's just[break][break]

[break][break]

You feel very little. Numb nearly to your core, it takes effort just to breathe. It feels almost like you're drowning, like you got used to breathing what passes for water down there and outside it you're helpless, gasping like a fish, drowning now. And yet, you persist onward. [break][break]

The hallucinations of gills your mind has gotten used to did not replace your body's instinct to breathe. Only dulled it, as if you hadn't breathed in over twenty four hours.[break][break]

You might as well be dead, you think.[break][break]

But you're alive, despite it.[break][break]

You lay there in a catatonic state staring at the ceiling. [break][break]

Images of the starry expanse of the sea dance before your eyes, and the sight of the angels, for they are there as well. They dance in pirouettes, they encircle you til you're dizzy, then spin the other way round and do it all over again. They dance, and they say that they will never die. And they beckon you, but you cannot follow. [break][break]

Your body lies limp, useless flesh that if you only could you might've shed, to float off into that starry expanse and lose yourself in the void.[break][break]

He calls your name, and you're stolen from the depths of the sea. You're laying in a hospital bed again, and you can barely breathe. He's standing over you. The reason you can't just shed everything and escape into that abyss is standing over you.[break][break]

You owe him a debt, don't you?[break][break]

Your word. [break]
Your blood. [break]

Your life. [break]
Your future. [break][break]

Everything. [break][break]

"Na... vy...?"[break][break]

You call out to him. Your voice sounds foreign, like it's not your own, drowned by the waves of another world. [break][break]

Even so, you hold your hand up. As you do, you see a purple head rise to hold your palm steady. Your most trusted partner, curled around you.[break][break]

You don't know what else to say that can't be said. He looks in rough shape, and so do you. Still, you search for something, anything.[break][break]

"You... look like shit, y'know..."[break][break]

A small smile accompanies that. It's so slight that he almost might not notice it. But in the circumstances, it might as well be the biggest smile in the world.[break][break]

[attr="class","star3tsu"][attr="class","rouxcredittsu"]♠

[attr="class","star1tsu2"]

[attr="class","star2tsu2"]The caress of a lost future beckons you desperately. [break][break]

Every time you look into her eyes you are drawn to the point at the end of that towering crystal. [break][break]

You're reassured by his touch, breaking you from those thoughts. He seems to think nothing of it. And you forget it as well, just as easily. But it leaves an impression that's not so easily discarded.[break][break]

You chip in over those few days. As always, you are not the most committed, but you help where you can. Always, always coming to stop and rest on the edge of the cliff overlooking the grotto. Always, always looming over the crystal that stretches up into the sky, where a reflection of that alternate world takes shape as a blooming flower.[break][break]

You don't consciously aim to arrive there. And yet, you find yourself there all the same. The same time every day, peering peering down into it, determining what was lost that can still be found... [break][break]

And then, you're free from its grasp again, forgotten, as if it never happened. You move on, and help out Navy and Colton, as if nothing was out of the ordinary.[break][break]

Finally, he says it's done. [break][break]

Determined to work himself to the bone, whenever Navy sets him mind to something it's like nothing else. That work ethic, it's borderline insane, you think. But you don't have much room to talk.[break][break]

As you look down at your pre-packaged food with disdain, gently sifting your fork through it but not really finding anything appetizing, you gather a strange feeling. Like something gently embracing you and caressing your wrists, your ankles, and even your waist. [break][break]

You glance down, noticing the tendrils wrapping around you. Panic rises in your chest, and you open your mouth to call his name, but...[break][break]

"N--!!"[break][break]

The moment you open your mouth, it's covered by those same tendrils. Wrapping slowly around you, embracing you, coveting you. You can't call for anyone else. It would never allow for that. The twisted love of the sea would never, ever permit you calling someone else's name.[break][break]

[attr="class","star3tsu2"][attr="class","rouxcredittsu2"]♠