in her head, she was saying prayers to xerneas. her family, fire-type trainers for all of their history, had spent much time training to be as defensive as possible against water-types. while training was not iseult’s favorite thing to do, she did remember one tip: punch a sharpedo in the nose.

absolutely nope. it could take her foot first.

just as she was sure she was going to get bitten into, and she’d squeezed her eyes shut and kissed her ass goodbye, nothing happened, but the slight calming of the water around her.

tentatively, with a pounding heart, she opened her eyes again with a breath of air. around her were beautiful scales, and she looked up in utter shock at the milotic, not yet totally convinced this was actually happening.

if it was, it surely wasn’t over.

dazed, iseult at first struggled to locate the direction mars’ voice had come from.

”yes! i’m fine!”

a night slash cut like a sharp shadow through the water towards the milotic. the sharpedo was almost close enough to bite down.

Martín del Mar

it wasn’t only mars’s encouragement, but also the pained cry of the milotic which shocked her system enough to reach up towards the hand offered. as she was pulled onto the mantine, her breath was heavy from the swim, and the panic.

“thank you, sir—”

she looked up after weakly waving back to the raichu, squinting through the sun up at her rescuer’s face. he was familiar. not in a personal way, but like the i’ve seen you in the news before several times kind of way.

”aren’t you martín del mar?” ceo of pog bank?

Martín del Mar

though it were a scrolling neon sign above his head: pay day. pay less. pog bank. she blinked, in a daze. not quite starstruck, just… in shock, really.

”yes, you too,” she agreed. and once they’d gotten formalities out of the way, it was back to what was going on in the water. the shark had dived down, gone, at least for now. the life dew that sprayed up was refreshing to say the least. in her rush of adrenaline, she’d forgotten about the cut on her foot, which quickly began to heal.

with the return of the gift-bearing alolan raichu, she gazed and held her hand out. what dropped into her hand was the last thing she expressed. her eyebrows raised. impressive.

”thank you.”

it was sincere, lavender eyes focused on the rodent’s with gratefulness. fingers curling around the tooth, and she then turned her attention on mars again.

”and you, mr. del mar. i’m not sure how i can repay you, but i am in your debt.” go figure.

Martín del Mar

some people were just born with a little something extra. it made plenty of sense to find such charm at the top of the food chain. iseult possessed charisma of her own, but much of hers had been carefully built this way over time. mars oozed natural talent for life.

he’d saved her, and it was no big deal, and he would take care of alerting the rangers after getting her back to land where she had been reminded she belonged.

“wonderful. i really can’t express my gratitude enough.”

with a sigh to soothe the rush, she smiled over at the alolan raichu. “you were very brave,” she complimented.

when they reached the shore, she would thank mars again before parting ways.

the next business day, a charcuterie basket would arrive at Martín del Mar ’ office with a bottle of vintage pinot noir from the babineaux’s own kalosian vineyard. along with it was a thank you letter from iseult’s father, warmly inviting him to their estate when the barrier let up.

Martín del Mar