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Snow muffles everything in Snowpoint City. Even Silver’s steps off the ferry are soundless and the silence and the sheer amount of white spanning as far as he can see is impressive. Sinnoh would have been the last place he considered for a birthday celebration - if he’s honest, it still is - especially its furthest point north, but Gold had conflicting plans. Silver was too shocked to protest fast enough when Gold produced boarding passes to Sinnoh mere hours ago, spending the trip sulking in annoyed silence, but now that he’s here, his mood lifts. He’s not a fan of the cold, but nature and solitude have been steady comforts when much else in his life hasn't, and there’s something soothing about Sinnoh’s version of desolate and far away that resonates with him. Silver breathes deep and holds the crisp air in his lungs as long as he can.
“Good, so you stopped being angry, then,” Gold's voice cuts through the tranquil. Silver looks at him, ready to exhale with anger when Gold adds, “I knew you would like it here,” and Silver has another moment, the spaces inside him going quiet in a strange way he can’t quite describe.
--
“You still haven’t told me why you brought me here, specifically,” Silver mentions over a mug of tea. Steamy mint wafts over him. It’s not as refreshing like when they first docked, but the heat feels good against his cheeks. They're finally situated in their rental, a rustic cabin that lies northwest of town surrounded by snow drifts and evergreen; Silver sits cross-legged in one bed, Weavile stretched out in his lap, while he watches Gold snuggle up against Exbo in the other bed, more intent fiddling with something on his Pokégear than answering Silver’s remark. “Not gonna be a surprise if I tell you what it is,” he replies without looking up.
“I didn’t ask what, I asked why,” Silver snarls, impatience clipping his voice; his weavile twitches in its sleep, and out of habit Silver pulls it closer to him. Lowering his voice, he continues, “What’s all the way out here that we can’t find in Johto?”
Gold sighs, but Silver thinks it sounds more like a death rattle. “Then it won’t be a surprise. Ugh, you’re today years old and you don’t understand this how, Silver? Finish your tea, then we’ll leave.”
Silver mean mugs Gold as hard as he can, setting down his tea on the nightstand while fighting the impulse to throw it at him. “I don’t know if you noticed but it’s pitch black out there. You’ve lost your damn mind if you think I’m going back outside again.”
“What, you thought I was able to hide something in here for you? Of course it’s outside, that’s part of the reason why we went to Sinnoh - you can’t see it from Johto!” Gold says, exasperated, only making Silver roll his eyes. “Look, it’s not even that far away, and what I want to show you only happens at night. Let’s go right now and if you end up not being impressed, then we’ll go back and call it a night. Deal?”
“What happened to letting me finish my drink first? Fine. We’re not staying long, and this had better be as good as you say it is,” Silver snaps, but he knows the next time he picks it up again it’ll be cold.
--
The only evidence of a path leading through a west cut in the property is the clearing his weavile easily finds hidden between several large balsam firs, and Silver is genuinely surprised by how deceptive the trail is, inside and out. The inner firs are much older, their trunks longer, more gnarled than the ones outside and their underbranches thicker and higher up too, giving Silver, Gold and their pokémon space to move without being scraped by branches and needles, but at the price of almost zero sky visibility. Their only source of light is the faint ring of fire around Exbo’s ruff, turned down to half power to avoid setting the dry needle bed on fire.
“Where is this place?” Silver asks, incredulous. He breath wisps around him and he catches light filtering from thinning branches ahead. Eventually they reach the tree path’s end and step out into another clearing, where Silver is struck by the full view of the wonder around him: they’re cliffside now, water crashing beneath in rhythmic waves. Silver realizes they’re not at Lake Acuity; they’re oceanside, at the very edge of Sinnoh itself. Above him the sky is an endless expanse of black, a sea of ink punctured by dull pinpricks against swirling nebulous wisps much larger than they appear. Silver watches the cosmic show and the way the sky seems to fold itself up with each bend and twist; Johto could never darken this much to display such a spectacular light show.
“It's… cool, I guess,” Silver says, grateful for the cover of dark when the heat rises to his cheeks.
“Yeah, it is, isn’t it? But not what I wanted to show you. Look.” Gold points west and Silver looks, where he sees sheets of ethereal, neon lights dancing in large, loose, shimmering waves. The shapes ebb in size, but their intensity never fades, colors Silver has never seen before catching sharp contrast against the reflection of the ocean and the crags of the cliff.
“I heard about these lights on the radio, so I asked Crys, and she said this part of Sinnoh sees them, but only around this time of year,” Gold explains. “And it was your birthday, so… I figured with everything that’s happened recently, it’d be nice to end the year on a good note. I hope I was right.” He trails off, but Silver doesn’t need to hear the rest of his sentence, memories wandering to archaic ruins, torn dimensions - a man in a mask, an enigma just outside his reach. But instead of a sting, there's calm, just being here with Gold watching their own show of nature at its most wild and captivating.
Silver exhales, letting the same stillness inside him - good, he thinks - expand and overtake him into something less like loneliness, more familiar in feeling. “Yeah, you were,” says Silver, and links his hand with Gold’s.