[attr="class","wildtemp"]

He didn’t know where his footsteps were taking him.

All he was certain of was that he was headed deeper into Shoal Cave, letting his thoughts wander as his feet absentmindedly made their way through the hard ground, eventually turning into slippery, frozen earth the deeper he went.

He didn’t realize that he had wandered around until he found himself at the edge of what was a deep estuary that led into the darkness. How had he ended up here?

“There’s nothing here…” he said to himself, sighing as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

Well, he spoke too soon—

As there was a shadow looming on the horizon, moving towards him. His eyes almost bugged out of their sockets until he saw just what was heading his way—

And tempted as he was to crack a smirk at the sight, he knew that a certain someone was going to hate him for it if he kept this for himself.

‘I know what you’re thinking. Her, right?’ the snarky voice injected, shattering his train of thought.

“Shut up, how’d you know?” he grumbled, before a brief cackle interrupted him again.

‘Of course I know these things. However, you know what I want.’

“Oh, shut it,” he continued once more, before hearing something—mournful—coming from the direction of the Lapras that was headed his way.

“What the—” he went on as he looked up, the sad, haunting melody reverberating through the section of the cave where he was at. Was it—was it looking for something?

The moment the Lapras was close enough, he held a hand out, however he was still wary.

“Something happen?” he asked quietly, however the only thing he got was the same, sad, heavy melody. It reminded him of so… of so many things, suddenly coming down to crash on him at that one moment.

“I…guess, I mean…would. Would you want… to hear something?” he said after the haunting melody came to an end, rubbing at his eyes.

Crap, why was he fighting the urge to cry…?

He was reminded of so many things—

Why did he think of that now?

Lars didn’t realize that he was already singing to himself, softly at first.

“Sai che cosa penso?
Che non dovrei pensare
che se poi penso sono un animale
e se ti penso tu sei un’anima—”

Everything that had happened over the past year, coming to haunt him.

“Ma forse è questo temporale
che mi porta da te
e lo so, non dovrei farmi trovare
senza un ombrello, anche se—”

The encounter with that strange being on Mount Pyre, the one that had asked him and several others to kill in its name.

“Ho capito che
per quanto io fugga
torno sempre a te—”

The time he had to tail someone, keep an eye on them in that black-and-white world that he’d been subjected to.

He wasn’t a murderer, was he?

“Che fai rumore qui
e non lo so se mi fa bene
se il tuo rumore mi conviene—”

The second time he had to go out, to look for someone to actually—shit, he wasn’t expecting to run into someone so deathly familiar during that sojourn. That sojourn to ‘bring balance’ between life and death, like how the scales had been tipped so unfairly.

“Ma fai rumore, sì
che non lo posso sopportare
questo silenzio innaturale tra me, e te.”

After that encounter, he knew he couldn’t face his younger brother again. Or—even worse, their mother. Because of what he did. There really were some things that still bothered him.

“E me ne vado in giro senza parlare
senza un posto a cui arrivare
consumo le mie scarpe
e forse le mie scarpe
sanno bene dove andare—”

He’d tried to look for Evan after that debacle, to confess what he’d done, to admit his guilt at what he had to do. Even if the doctors did mention that there was next to no chance of her waking up again, he couldn’t help but feel he’d killed someone, with his own hands, and how that someone was his younger sister of all people!

“Che mi ritrovo negli stessi posti
proprio quei posti che dovevo evitare
e faccio finta di non ricordare
e faccio finta di dimenticare—”

The Lapras, who had taken a moment to rest near the shore, was looking at him intently. Some people said that this species of Pokémon was intelligent enough to understand human speech, but what if it was conveyed in the form of a song? Surely they would—

He wasn’t expecting to feel something bump into his outstretched hand. Looking up from his reverie, he saw that the Lapras had approached him, trying to nuzzle into his touch.

“Do you—want me to… go on?” he continued quietly, his voice cracking.

In response, the Lapras continued to nuzzle into his touch, before looking right at him. As he stared back, he was—probably freaked out a little.

Why did that stare the Lapras was conveying remind him of Evan’s own stare so much?!

“If—if you insist,” he went on, taking a deep breath to steel himself as he picked up where he’d left off. His voice cracked as he started again, however he kept going, as now there was someone watching him—

“Ma capisco che
per quanto io fugga
torno sempre a te—”

The last he’d heard from the other man was that he’d be going on a journey. The thing is, he didn’t answer where he was headed, merely ‘a journey’.

“Che fai rumore qui
e non lo so se mi fa bene
se il tuo rumore mi conviene—”

Several months had passed since then, with no word. He presumed the other would send him word, and how the Stray would remain open despite his absence.

However, a lot of things had happened since then. The Three-Day war, for one.

“Ma fai rumore, sì
che non lo posso sopportare
questo silenzio innaturale tra me, e te—”

He always kept him in his thoughts, even as he was literally fighting for his life during that time. He wondered if the other man’s own Type:Null had… gone berserk.

But he would know, because that would have been all over the HNN. He shuddered at the thought of the young girl that was looking to join the Rangers, that girl who’d been mauled to death by their own Type:Null…

“Ma fai rumore, sì
che non lo posso sopportare
questo silenzio innaturale—”

So much had changed since then. A lot of things happened all at once, everything became a huge blur, and here he was in the present, still weighed down by these things that bothered him.

“E non ne voglio fare a meno oramai
di quel bellissimo rumore che fai…”

He looked up at the Lapras again—and was surprised to see that he hadn’t chased it away. Instead, the Pokémon was looking at him with this stare that was either wonder, or sympathy—he couldn’t tell which.

“I… I know it was… bad, but… your kind always sing to each other. Do people—if you’ve met any—sing back at you?” he asked quietly once he’d managed to calm down after wiping his eyes down.

“It’s not much, but…”

Instead, the Lapras began to hum.

It sounded like—was it a dirge? Or a cry? It reminded him of the melody he’d sung to the Lapras, only…

“You…you don’t mind?” he went on, biting his lip as the new melody reverberated through the cave. It also resonated of grief, of loss, of everything that nobody should experience all at once—

“D-don’t cry.”

Maybe he was saying that last sentence for himself.

Who knows?

---

yes, he did it. HE SERENADED THE LAPRAS. This has to be the most unorthodox capture method for this Lapras!

the song: Fai Rumore and the video, if you’re curious