Chapter Text
Ren wakes in a cold sweat. Her head sways unsteadily with disorientation, her breath comes in gasps, and her heartbeat thrums in her ears. She touches her face and chokes back a cry, forces herself to breathe steadily now that she is no longer drowning.
She throws the sheet aside and slides off the top bunk, picking her way carefully around sleeping bodies and out into the hall. She pads silently through the Pokemon Center and staggers out into the night. It is still dark, but the moon is bright enough to see by as she leaves the hazy glow of street lamps and wanders across the fields.
The city fades behind her as she plunges heedlessly into the forest. She wends between the trees, arms outstretched to guide her through the dense dark beneath the dark canopy. Twigs crack under bare feet. Rough bark meets fingertips and brush drags at skin.
She stumbles into a clearing and her feet soon become soaked to her ankles in the wet grass. She stops. This is far enough—lonely enough.
Latios melts into the air beside her. He floats there for a moment, a being of aetherium unbound by gravity, before stretching out his hind wings and touching down on the turf. He flaps his forewings before settling them at his sides and leans forward ever so slightly so that his forepaws rest on the ground. Ren has never seen him sit before. Suddenly he has weight and physicality. Resting on the earth, he is a creature of flesh and bone like any other rather than an immortal god.
It’s comforting, in its own way, but also profoundly terrifying. They are balanced at the edge of a cliff with the wind at their backs and very soon now they'll have to jump.
“I thought we’d be able to stop it… I didn’t think they could get to me.”
Nor did I, he says in her head. She is struck again by just how vast his mind feels, enveloping her in its ceaseless flowing, but after Kyogre’s pull, it is a welcome reprieve.
But despite the tearing of every last defense, the starkness had revealed something new: a sense of connection that not even that first touch had given her. So maybe there was something left.
“Why did you choose me?”
I thought you didn’t care about that.
“I thought so too, but now…” She takes a long breath. The night air is cool but not cold, misty but not an ocean of water crushing her beneath its weight. It soothes her throat in preparation for the fire. “I blew things sky high and everyone’s acting like it’s fine! But it’s not fine! I shouldn’t get off the hook for this just because I’m your partner! It was my screw-up!” She moves to pull at her hair and it’s like missing a stair when her fingers meet nothing but an inch of fuzz. She covers her face instead and ingrains the contours of the scar that has swallowed it into her palm. She can feel he has turned to look at her now, so she lowers her hands but stares off into the dark woods. “I know it’s done and we have to move forward. I want to trust that we can, but I’m having a hard time of it.”
You must trust yourself first.
“Yeah, well, it’s been a long time since I’ve been able to do that.” It’s too short—too final. It shouldn’t be.
I know, he says gently. She’s still surprised by it after how acerbic he was on their first meeting.
“I just thought it might help if I knew why—if I knew there was some reason for all of this.”
I do not believe in fate.
She laughs. She has to. “Don’t get me wrong, that’s a big relief, in a way, just not what I was expecting from a god of cycles. You’re all about patterns. You’ve seen this all before, repeating over and over again.”
Yes. But you forget, among the gods, only my sibling and I grow, age, and die. Each time I am born, I am not quite the same as I was in my last life. I am always changing, just as the world is ever-changing. I make choices that alter the course of things, be it the world or only myself. I partnered with you because the cycle is threatened, because it can be broken. We are no more destined to fail than we are to succeed. So I do not believe that fate brought you to me.
“But you still had a reason,” Ren presses.
I did and I have told you several of them.
“So that’s it?”
She expects a yes or a graceful dip of his head, but he is still and quiet and looks off into the trees for almost as long as she can take.
There is one criterion that I have not mentioned before. Not only must my partner be willing to risk their own life, but also those of their pokemon, or rather, allow their pokemon to risk their own lives. This is harder. And such willingness cannot be born of ignorance. In other words, I would never ask this undertaking of a trainer who didn’t… know the cost.
The pain coils in her chest so tight that it turns her lungs to wood and the fire burns them.
“Do you think someone else will die?” she asks, quiet and even so as not to choke on the smoke in her throat.
Nothing is certain. It’s difficult not to grow frustrated with his platitudes, but she doesn’t know what she wanted him to say… And he’s right. But that means that you may yet pull them through this. Know that I will protect them to the best of my ability.
“I didn’t think that was your area of expertise.” It comes out the way she meant it this time and the weight lifts just a little.
Sometimes offense is the best defense. Wouldn’t you agree? And she can feel the wry smile in it to match her own.
She finally looks at him and his deep red eyes meet hers. Her hand lifts almost on its own and she catches herself just before it makes contact. But he leans into her touch rather than pulling away and she tunnels her fingers into the fur of his neck. It’s soft and dense and the skin beneath is warm.
“Thank you.”
He unfurls his wing ever so slightly to nudge her with his shoulder. You are strong, Ren, in many ways. And your losses are not why I chose you. They do not define you. I saw something else, something singular.
“Well, are you going to tell me, or is it some big secret?” she teases.
We are soul-bonded. There are no secrets between us. But you may not like the answer.
They were past that. “I still want to know.”
Very well. Why did you become a trainer?
Her hand fists in his fur. “Is this whole answer going to be more questions?”
You don’t like being told things.
“Got me there.”
There is value in coming to one’s own conclusions. Her face wrinkles on one side and he nudges her with his wing shoulder. You became a trainer for your pokemon, correct?
“Yes, but it’s not as simple as that.”
Then explain it to me.
She cocks her head and gives him her now lopsided skeptical expression. “You want my life story?”
Speaking as someone who has seen it, I think there is much to be learned.
She sighs. “Alright. This is going to be a long night.”