Chapter Text
It is important to give both time and attention to the imagination, but too much so, and one might find themselves delusional, having indulged in too much of the sort.
But Dawn loves those dreams of hers, and so keeps herself preoccupied with daydreams. It was her right to daydream, after all. Today was Dawn’s 16th birthday, and as such, her mother had found occasion to celebrate with her circle of friends with a event of high tea.
The only place with a sufficiently pompous high tea ceremony to suit her and her contest acquaintances, was High Grand Restaurant tucked away in the 20th floor of the Veilstone Department Store, so her mother had made reservations for a surprise party. She of course had told the young woman when to arrive, as to be fashionably late, and not too over eager.
As she waits in the Department Store lobby, Dawn takes care not to pick at the scabs on her thighs; her mother was already suspicious of how many runs she had spotted on her stockings. A natural occupational hazard of dancing until her frail legs failed her.
Nervous habits were a sign of weakness, of vulnerability. They would not be tolerated.
Her daughter, the contest beauty! This was an aspiration Dawn’s mother had found fitting for the young woman.
You see, Dawn had been born with the great misfortune of being conventionally attractive, with soft, dark eyelashes that framed her pretty grey eyes, and glossy, thick black hair that needed no taming, that accepted whatever hairstyle it could be primped and curled and ironed into.
Before her mother had known she would develop into quite the beauty; when she had been young, the older woman had tolerated her interests in more masculine hobbies and fields, and Dawn had even won a little trophy at her middle-school science fair for ‘most inventive project.’, when she had discovered a new star in the night sky.
That had quickly come to an end when Dawn had come into her own. Since she’s got these looks, her mother knew that she had a good chance of marrying well if she started acting more feminine, and considered switching to a more suitable career, like Pokémon contests. Since she’s always had the same career, it’s normal her daughter, Dawn, would follow.
A part of Dawn hoped she would not be successful at these contests, and that nobody would like her. But her hopes were to be dashed— she was quite the natural.
She writes equations into the air. If the radius of the Sun is 4.3 x 10^6 square miles long, how long would it take for a astronaut to get there?
How long would it take for me to get there?
Before she can finish her calculations of how far she is from the sun, a maître d’ bows his head. “We’ve been expecting you, miss.”
She smiles, and the heavens disappear. They’re quickly taken up by elevator to the top floor.
Her mother is discussing the competitors of the Super Contest in Veilstone City with her friends when she arrives. Walking with mincingly slow steps, Dawn approaches the table.
Various types of refreshments decorate the lace tablecloths, such as multi colored Poké Puffs, little sweet Poffins, dainty slices of angel food cake next to silver platters of vegetables and fruits, and pitchers of iced mint tea with dainty pitchers of sugar and honey. It is a positively idyllic scene, with bird Pokémon chirping all around, singing in their gilded birdcages amongst the gentile chattering of the people below. But there are no ‘Happy birthday!’ balloons or anything of the sort.
After being greeted by a chorus of birthday guests, Dawn smiles pleasantly.
“It’s the birthday girl! Oh, happy birthday.”
An older woman says, “Oh! You’re sixteen now, aren’t you… We’ll have to find a nice young man for you!”
“Dawn already has a few young men in mind,” her mother laughs. “We’ve had a plan for her, ever since she was young.”
Dawn nods, and reaches to make a plate for herself.
“Oh, of course you do—the looks run in the family, don’t they?” a woman says, giving the young woman a knowing glance. “Your mother was quite a looker when she was young as well! And her mother as well, and her mother after that…”
“Not that she would agree. Mother swore I was the only pretty one in the family,” her mother laughs. Dawn reaches over quickly to get another sweet, but is halted by:
“Dawn, you shouldn’t really be eating all that,” her mother then says, eyeing the royal blue poffin on her plate. “You won’t be able to fit into your contest dress, sweetie.” she tut-tuts. Dawn puts down the pair of dessert tongs and the little sweet bread along with it. She stares at her dish until there is nothing left on her plate but a scant handful of berries.
Then her mother smiles to take the sting of her words away.
“One wish for the birthday girl?” another one of her mother’s friends asks. She smells of flowers.
Her mother looks at her expectantly. She was expected to say she only wished to do well at her upcoming contest. But the entire time, she has only one thought in her mind.
I want to go to the Sunyshore City planetarium.
Weeks ago, Professor Rowan had mentioned off-hand that a new planetarium and observatory was being built in Sunyshore City. Remembering the simple happiness of looking through a telescope, the thought of going to such a place precluded any other worries in her mind, and Dawn had made it her utmost priority.
However, as the young woman quickly learned growing up, she would have to disguise her interests in those matters with things her mother found agreeable, and furthermore, do nothing to anger her.
“I would like to win the competition… but I’m having difficulty with my new dance program. I think that if I went to the Sunyshore planetarium it would help for inspiration,” she says, but her mother’s facial muscles tighten with disapproval, and Dawn quickly adds for emphasis, her voice toned down to a soft sigh, “I would be going with Barry and Lucas.”
She would have to be careful. Just a few nights ago, she had made the mistake of letting slip that she had failed to complete the full two rotations of a spin in her dance routine. That day she had gone without food.
This earns a slight approving smile from the older woman. “We’ll see,” her mother says.
Dawn then releases a breath that she hadn’t known she’d been holding. “Thank you, Mother.”
But she was lucky, and knew it well. Others would yearn for praise while she had received it unconditionally. Dawn is a beauty, and loved completely for this. After all, how else was she supposed to attract a husband without being wafer-thin and white as a lotus flower?
As the guests continue to gossip about the other Pokémon contest competitors, Dawn preoccupies herself with talking to a small, brown bird in the cage just beside her.
“Hello, pretty bird,” she whispers, sneaking little sweet Poffins to the Pokémon in the cage. Its head darts around and pecks at empty space, unknowing where the sound had come from.
“Of course Dawn will win. Those other girls are just too much.” one woman says. “That’s what everyone loves about you! You’re wonderful!”
“Oh, she’s all right.” her mother’s smile tightens. “Dawn, quit teasing that poor Starly.”
She quits whispering to the small bird. It fluffs its feathers, pleased to be rid of the noise.
“Don’t they sing so beautifully? It’s because they devote their lives to singing,” a woman says.
“That’s what I love about you, Dawn! It’s amazing how you’ve devoted your life to contests.” the older woman says. Leaning in, Dawn realizes the older woman smells like an ashtray on top of pressed, dry flowers, an old lady smoking and scrapbooking.
I am not amazing or a wonder or a beauty, she wants to cry, scream out loud, Look at me! There are so many scars.
”I try my best,” Dawn offers meekly, her eyes still on the Pokémon. Inside the cage is a bird whose eyes had been blinded to make it sing.
“Oh! Aren’t you just wonderful!” they cry in unison.
She cries too.
“What are we looking for?” the young girl asked the space-man.
“For a comet, of course.”
Dawn looked around in the sky with the young man. “I can’t see one.”
“It will be fantastic,” he said suddenly, as if he were describing something from a dream. “And irredeemably bright.”
A man clears his throat.
“Pay attention, Dawn!” Professor Rowan scolds her. Dawn blinks, then refocuses her attention on the chalkboard.
“Yeah, pay attention, Dawn,” Barry snickers. He is sitting beside his friend, Lucas, only a few desks away from the young woman. Her mother had set her sights upon these two young men for prospective suitors, Barry in particular because his father was the leader of the Battle Factory.
A ball is thrown upward from a position (y0 ) above the ground with a velocity of 16 m/s. Find y0 if it took 3.0 seconds for the ball to hit the ground.
“Huh? Sorry…” Dawn murmurs, and picks up her ballpoint pen again. Her daydreaming hadn’t been this bad before.
Professor Rowan was severe and did not suffer fools, so she does her best to busy herself and not burden him with any more work.
The sound of chalk as it strikes a blackboard grounds her with its ever stiff intonation.
“Well, Dawn?” he asks her again.
An object in free-fall falls influenced only by gravitational force.
She does not say this, for fear that their educational trip would be put on hiatus had she let on her knowledge of the subject.
She would only need to play her bit part for a only a little longer. Dawn then closes her eyes and exhales. “I d-don’t know.”
“...Perhaps your education would be better served with a practical application of these concepts, Dawn.” Professor Rowan says, but his eyes then narrow imperceptibly, as if he could prove her untrustworthy by a mere glance. He then frowns. “As I mentioned before, a free-falling object is an object that is falling under the sole influence of gravity. That is to say that any object that is moving and being acted upon only be the force of gravity is said to be "in a state of free fall."
He turns his attentions to the chalkboard and continues to scrawl some problem. Her shoulders drop, and she dutifully copies down the rest of the notes on the blackboard.
“Told you girls couldn’t be pretty and smart at the same time,” Barry snickers to Lucas, his eyes darting over to her. Lucas smiles apologetically at her but says nothing.
She feels like throwing up.
Evidently, her mother must have been pleased with her performance at the Super Level Contest, and Professor Rowan must have not been too disappointed in her, for Dawn is allowed to go to the opening of the new planetarium in Sunyshore City. The young adults go by tram.
In a surprising act of tolerance, her mother had allowed her to pick out her outfit for the day. Dawn chose clothing that suited her best, a warm and soft velvet dress with little embroidered stars on the bodice, a thick red scarf to hide her chin in, gossamer stocking that concealed the scars on her thin legs.
She picks at the jewels on the contest ribbon, the price of her admission. They seemed cold, like shards of colored ice.
As the scenery rushes past her window, the young woman gapes at the sight.
Compared to her suffocating home in Twinleaf Town, the seaside town was like heaven. Sunyshore City is a hi-fi marvel, an ode to the capabilities of modernization, with steel spires that pierced the sky, a high speed tram that moved so sleek and quiet she swore it purred, buildings with floor numbers she could scarcely count up to, and solar panels that lined the roofs of houses which gleamed in the sunlight, amongst other remarkable sights.
There was a million people you could ask for help, so many people to help you up the stairs, and so many smells of food and Pokémon and perfume and flowers! Dawn closes her eyes. If she tried hard enough, she could memorize her way to the Planetarium.
The train will take you from town to town in an instant! a woman passenger whispers to her, an unknowing co-conspirator to her crime. Dawn nods and files the information away for later.
During the train ride, the boys keep to themselves; they thought her strange for studying the train schedule so intently. Dawn doesn’t mind them.
After they had all received an audiobook at the entrance of the planetarium, the youch adults were released into the not-so-watchful eye of a tour group leader (this being a great relief to Professor Rowan, who could only tolerate their foolishness for so long.).
In the Galactic Planetarium and Observatory, it feels as if she is a world and a long ways away from herself. But the sky at night, though it be a great marvel, felt like no stranger to her. She looks up in wonder at thousands of stars scattered across the darkened sky.
The tour group leader explains, “The Galactic Corporation was a major financial contributor to this planetarium. Their mission is to bring the frontier of astrophysical research to the public via exhibitry, books, public programs, and online resources. The planetarium’s mission is supplemented with programs for school children, families, and teachers.”
She’s pulled away from a door with a sig that said: KEEP OUT! GALACTIC PERSONNEL ONLY to watch the concluding presentation, by a beloved astrophysicist or businessman or something. She was ashamed to admit she hadn’t been paying attention.
The man at the podium says, “We have assembled the world’s largest cosmic atlas, extending from the Earth to the edges of the observable universe, and offer an interactive tour of the universe and a view of the constantly changing night sky.”
The door loomed in her thoughts, and she murmured the words, Galactic Corporation to herself. Dawn’s face must have looked very strange to others as she had done this.“They’re an alternative energy company,” a customer sales representative had then explained to her. “They’ve installed solar panels all over Sunyshore City.”
“Cyrus’s the CEO.” she said, gesturing to the older man at the podium. “A recent graduate of two doctorate programs, his company pursues research in astrophysics and environmental engineering.” Stress had certainly taken a toll on the older man’s face, he looked a great deal older then an 27.
“He’s only 27?!” Barry exclaims.
“Wow, he’s so talented...” Lucas murmurs.
Their eyes meet briefly. His empty smile is that of a person much older than twenty-seven. She has to look away.
To distract herself from that man’s bizarre expression, her eyes now track the infinite stars and the comet above. It’s a visitor from afar, a space wanderer, this comet with a white-blue tail that darted above the atmosphere, above the oak trees.
Before too long, Professor Rowan announces their time to depart. Incredibly sorry to go, Dawn tucks away her audiobook and cassette tape player within her skirts, making up some excuse that she’s misplaced it. (It is in fact safe and warm with the heat of her body.)
And because she is such an incredibly curious girl who can’t leave things well enough alone, later that night, Dawn sneaks back in, back into the room with the aggressively labeled KEEP OUT! sign when the lights in the city had dimmed, and the Planetarium and Observatory had closed.
The room is filled with marvels like and unlike the planetarium she had seen just previously. Listening to her stolen audiobook with headphones in her ears, she wanders from exhibit to exhibit, lost in the heavens. A multitude of stars lights up the room, each exhibit of a extraterrestrial wonder labeled with a copper plaque.
She finds the same comet in the center of the room, and plugs in her headphones to her stolen audiobook to listen to this exhibit’s description.
“Every year or two, one of these naked-eye comets appears in the sky, even though they are only visible in the dark skies. We have become privy to the great glory of the infinite stars.”
A glory…?
Her fingers trace the engraved words of the plaque describing the comet. This feeling, of being lost amongst the stars, was so achingly familiar to her.
Which is exactly why she doesn’t notice when the same narrator from the audiobook clears his throat once more, and reiterates, “Visiting hours have concluded for the day.”
His intelligent keen eyes focus in on her, and she realizes his harsh, metallic voice from the device was no defect of the technology, but instead the natural intonation of his voice.
She realizes now that there is something attractive about his face, but it’s an attractiveness that beckons you to stay away. The same cold fire from the comet burns in his eyes.
Cyrus.
“Pardon me,” he says, a bizarre expression on his face. “Visiting hours have concluded for the day.”
Dawn knew what peace there may be in silence, so she says nothing at all, but instead simply stares upward at the ceiling, and watches the slumbering waltz of the night sky.
The older man looks up at the ceiling of the planetarium, the star-studded upside-down and asks:
“Do you know the theory of universal gravitation?”
Dawn knows the formula.
What she wants to say: The force between two charged bodies increases as the square of the distance decreases.
What she does say: absolutely nothing.
Her lips move, but no sound comes out.
Surrounded by the pitch dark of the planetarium’s night sky, his terse stretched smile brings to mind a cold, sterile lab, the large broad-leafed things that grew inside warmed only by the light of artificial lamps.
Like his smile’s trying too hard to be natural. Hyper-natural, almost.
So in that sense, the expression’s rather unnerving and a bit creepy.
Aware of this offputting expression, and of how long she has lingered there, with him so close she could sneeze on the man, the young woman backs away.
“I-I have to go,” Dawn says, trembling. “R-Right now.”
She keeps walking until she reaches the entrance of the planetarium, and only looks back once she has reached the safety of the fluorescent light of the linoleum walkway.
Cyrus says nothing, but only waits there as he watches her depart, like a figure from the strangest of dreams.