[attr="class","samknox2"]

[attr="class","samknoxw"]Built by her maternal grandfather in the mid-1900s, the homestead is not in Fortree proper, but instead down Route 119 a ways, nestled in the thick forest. A winding dirt road leads to an even windier dirt drive-- nigh impossible to find, now, as her grandparents have been dead and gone for almost ten years, and the woods have reclaimed all their hard work.

Crabapple trees and berry bushes sit amongst overgrown grass; Combee buzz and flit between blooming flowers and clusters of clover. A dilapidated wooden swingset has gone to rot and tumbled apart in the yard, next to an equally as crumbling picnic table, and an old, rusted-out Farmall. The remnants of clotheslines dangle like broken spiderwebs, gossamer tendrils flickering in the breeze. Overturned planters in the shapes of Mudbrays and Swanna, their ceramic necks broken, have been punched out by plant roots and scattered across the drive.

The house itself-- once a sturdy, picturesque one-story surrounded by twelve acres of woodland, fields, and ponds-- has seen better days. A fracturing cement step leads to a copper-green front door; the large picture window has long been grimed over with dirt and nicotine. The terracotta segments of a garage door creak ominously in the wild-scented wind.

Around the back, it’s not much better. Remnants of a garden-- overgrown corn, wild sprawling patches of tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers, all trodden by Sawsbuck and picked through by Zigzagoon-- rest next to a broken-up patio and off-kilter, nature-stained outdoor furniture. Lounge chairs with motheaten fabric are tilted over. Beyond, a pole barn and small shed, long claimed by the trees and weeds, mark the backyard line, leading to the woods beyond.

The house is done in a stone facade and dark green siding. The roof is crumbling in places; a sliding glass door, stuck in its track, leads off the patio. All of the windows are shut tight and locked, sealed with nicotine, and age, and wear. There are no lights on within... but curious noses will find a small gap in the garage door, leading to the space within.

Dust chokes every surface, save for a set of footprints on the concrete. Massive spider's webs gather in every corner and between the rafters, covering plastic sleds, children's wagons, and a red RadioFlyer gocart, the color still apparent despite the age. Cans of paint, oil, old carpenters tools, and garden tools litter the ground. An old, defunct freezer sits rusting at the back.

A door to the house proper lies just ajar, as though someone, recently, this way came...

[attr="class","samknoxt"]Isaac Merlo

[attr="class","samknoxc"]☉

[attr="class","samknox2"]

[attr="class","samknoxw"]The house smells like dust and mildew and old smoke. Despite how closed up it is, there’s a dampness to the air, like it would always come just shy of being dry in here.

A short entry hallway branches off into a decrepit powder room, a heavy latched door, and forward to the kitchen, a small, rectangular nook of wooden cupboards, scratched pressboard countertops, three ovens, and an inert gas stove. Pressed tile flooring cuts off halfway into drab gray carpet patterned in thin blue fleur de lis; a grand dining table with six ornate-backed chairs rests beneath a dangling (fake) crystal chandelier, their fabric seats worn and moth eaten.

A massive curio cabinet remains sealed to time along the right wall, with patterned dishware, ceramic statuettes, crystal glasses, and photographs faded only by time. Beyond that, a crux of halls leads to what was once the living room-- blue carpeting long trodden flat, a stone bench along half the room. An ancient couch and matching loveseat-- yellow with purple velvet filigree, covered in dust, sit around a built in fireplace. A sealed, glass-front bookshelf sits next to a rocking chair in front of the grim-sealed picture window.

Motion down the carpeted hallway brings forth Kanaya, who looks as frazzled as she’s ever been, surrounded on all sides by mildew and the decaying touch of time. She’s carrying an armful of linens that smell more fresh than anything else in the house, and she looks at Isaac with the briefest of exasperated glances, before sliding into the first room off the hall-- the master bathroom.

Cracked tile reveals a robin’s egg blue tub ensconced in a corner. Seashell motifs cover the room, and the large counter is done in that old, polished riverrock style. A shiny Mudkip is pumping clean water into the tub, where a Medicham and a Gallade are busy scrubbing sheets, pillowcases, and towels against old washboards. Flower petals and sprigs of lavender float in the water, replacing soap, in an attempt to beat the dust and mildew and smell of old cigarettes out of the fabric.

A doorway on the back of the bathroom leads to an empty master bedroom, the king bed stripped bare and resting in a set of built-in cabinets that flow into the bedframe and hook around three out of four walls of the room. Lines of string have been hung from the ceiling, every coatrack and closet structure in the house stolen to hang drying linens from. An Infernape squeezes the water out of the fabrics in her strong, warm grip, before passing it to a Zoroark to hang with clothespins.

The two lesser bedrooms have been occupied, as well; the first is a garishly 80’s themed room patterned with brown and gold wallpaper bearing lion’s heads and matching brown shag carpeting. The fake iron frame bed has been tilted up against the wall. A shiny Treecko and Combusken sort through canned items, trying to decipher if anything has kept or expired; boxes of things surely found under the sink or in the basement, soaps and cleaning sprays and old rotten sponges, are sitting off to the side to be sorted.

The final room is more subdued. A small bed sits nestled in a pale lavender painted room, large windows peeking out in two directions, though so weathered and smoke-claimed you can’t see through them, any longer. Bags of yarn, knitting needles, quilt patches, and various other crafts are strewn everywhere, as though whomever was working on them left many projects half completed.

Cyg is bundled in layers of handmade quilts in the center of the bed, fetal-position lump completely obscured by fabric squares and soft gray sheets.

[attr="class","samknoxt"]Isaac Merlo

[attr="class","samknoxc"]☉

[attr="class","samknox2"]

[attr="class","samknoxw"]Some last minute payments to the power company meant the place had electricity, and, it seemed, the inside of the fridges and ovens were the first places touched by Kanaya’s need for clean. Cupboard doors hung askew, but it was dust free. The big farm sink shone like silver, and the plates were polished to a gleam.

That being said, he would find blessed little in the kitchen. They hadn’t, it seemed, gone grocery shopping. It seemed highly likely that Cyg hadn’t really eaten since her return from Galar, which was the truth.

A Roserade stood between the cabinets putting tomatoes on the windowsill, baskets on her arms full of a bounty of things from the overgrown garden: more tomatoes, zucchini, spring onion, bushels of herbs, potatoes.

He had running water, gas to the stove, and ten years worth of wild green things to choose from.

Like a princess under a spell, Cyg sat catatonic to it all.

[attr="class","samknoxt"]Isaac Merlo

[attr="class","samknoxc"]☉

[attr="class","samknox2"]

[attr="class","samknoxw"]Shay, Cyg’s Roserade, nodded at the thanks, though the subject of Cyg made her bright eyes turn a little sad. She left her baskets of goodies and headed for the sliding back door-- it took both bouquet hands and several clinging vines to wrench it open on its rusted, dust-clogged, nicotine-sticky tracks.

The fresh air rolled in carrying pollen and sunshine. Shay pulled the bug-eaten screen shut in the big glass door’s place.

On the concrete outside, a Brelom and two Croconaws stepped up to the side of the house, and barrages of hydro pump coupled with harsh scrubbing began to powerwash the age and grime from the windows, rattling them in their panes.

The whole fam was here, beginning to carve away at the wilderness and wear that time had cast upon this place like a spell gone wrong.

---

She’d been in shock since arriving back ‘home’, the colors of her faraway kingdom rubbing off like patina in a developing picture. She’d looked into the mirror at a strange, walked around in a stranger’s clothes, and conversed with a stranger’s Pokemon. It was an odd sort of displacing blow, to remember and to feel how she had been, and now to suddenly not have it.

Like missing a limb. Or an eye.

She’d floated around, wistful, silent, like a ghost, for a while, barely having the wherewithal to close up the apothecary beforehand. Eventually, her drifting had brought her here-- and it was fitting, in a way, to come back to this place which had been such a large part of her childhood, once, until it wasn’t. A place she went to until it was something she only remembered in her dreams.

She felt stiff and cold in her own body; she hadn’t eaten, hadn’t really slept, either. Just sort of… existed, flitting between memories, closing her eyes and reliving them as dreams, like she did with so much else she’d lost. Childhood memories and people who no longer existed, but had... they had.

It was a strange kind of emptiness, one she didn’t really have words for. And maybe… maybe she was being dramatic. Maybe she was being foolish, having heaped so much into a life that was never meant to be. One that wasn’t even that much better than this one, if she was being completely honest… but…

… but it had been hers. She had been there. It had been. That was the important part. The part that was missing.

The smell and sound of life outside that little bedroom sounded dim and far away, drowning under her heartbeat and the slow, comatose pace of her breathing.

Someone spoke. The bed shifted.

Her mouth parted to answer, but no sound came out; her stomach, flagrant betrayer that it was, rumbled loudly. But she couldn’t eat when her mouth was full of ash and her grief was a meal in and of itself.

She felt bad. He’d gone through all this work, and she just sat there like an ungrateful lump.

“...sorry.”

Her voice was crackly from disuse and words felt foreign on her lips. The concept of language another cognitive dissonance, scattered to the wind and taken far away. A mire of depression so deep and consuming that everything felt separated, fragmented; like this whole thing was some horrible out-of-body experience, a nightmare where, no matter how she focused, she could never go fast or far enough.

[attr="class","samknoxt"]Isaac Merlo

[attr="class","samknoxc"]☉

[attr="class","samknox2"]

[attr="class","samknoxw"]There’s a moment where she feels her arm moving but doesn’t realize it. Like thinking a thought so loud you mistakenly believe you’ve said it. After a beat she realizes she isn’t moving and, with a ponderous sort of creaking feeling, she rolls over, and slowly extends one arm; a quilt of many colors lifts up, inviting him into the darkness and warmth and safety beneath.

It was a small concession to make to invite him into this labyrinthine fortress of solitude she’d built for herself. Her skin was pale, cheeks and eyes red from tears, hair tangled and askew. She had, at some point, showered and changed into comfy clothes, and the sheets and quilt were clean and smelled like lavender.

“Come on in.”

[attr="class","samknoxt"]Isaac Merlo

[attr="class","samknoxc"]☉

[attr="class","samknox2"]

[attr="class","samknoxw"]She looked at him with a steady, unfocused gaze, slightly downcast; once the ‘door’ was shut, she receded back into herself, hands coming to rest in a mockery of prayer beneath her head on the age-crushed pillows.

“Hi.”

Empty. Hollow. Tired beyond belief.

“I take it the world hasn’t ended yet?”

No mirth in her tone. From somewhere else, a windowpane shakes, and there’s a cacophony of raspy blabber as two Pokemon (likely Gremlin and his mother) get into an argument. A series of steady bonks sets them right again.

[attr="class","samknoxt"]Isaac Merlo

[attr="class","samknoxc"]☉

[attr="class","samknox2"]

[attr="class","samknoxw"]This funk has gripping fingers that drag her down into exhaustion. The promise of future Hoenn cataclysms just adds to the weight of it.

She’s so unbelievably tired. Tired of fighting. Done with knocking on Arceus’ door and staving off Ruinous Beasts and defending themselves against whatever Legendary has a bone to pick with them next.

It can all crumble and fade.

“...I didn’t want to be found.”

She was still unsure of the providence of it. She was never unhappy to see Isaac, of course. But for all she loved him, he was another reminder of What Had Been Lost.

"Sorry."

[attr="class","samknoxt"]Isaac Merlo

[attr="class","samknoxc"]☉