Chapter Text
“Alright,” Gloria announces to Opal’s parlor like she’s addressing a wallpapered war room, brandishing a wax-sealed card in her hand like a broadsword. “Emergency meetin’ convened to discuss THIS nonsense, right here, right now.”
“THIS nonsense” is -- bold and impressive and aggressively formal, colored Important People Black with glossy, golden calligraphy. It issues orders about the attendees, the place, the time, the attire. It commands her to direct issues and media inquiries to the board’s very proper, very official media departments.
The worst of it, she thinks, reads:
The Pokémon League of Galar requests the pleasure of your company at the Grand Inaugural Ball to celebrate the crowning of Gloria MacCrae as the 56th Galarian League Champion.
“Feel like it’s threatenin’ me,” Gloria says, tossing the invitation on the coffee table, where it softly settles on top of Marnie’s and Hop’s. Bede, she notes, lingers over his, turning the cardstock around in his hands. “‘Get ta Wyndon or get fucked.’”
“Is this it? I was actually quite busy doing something important, you know. Some of us, at least, have duties. ” Bede places his invitation on the table next to his teacup, prim and orderly. “If I’d known you were only going to complain about a simple party I wouldn’t have let you in.”
“It’s not really simple, though.” Marnie thoughtfully hovers over the platter of biscuits left by Opal before selecting a ginger digestive and dunking it in her tea. “They only hold it when there’s a new Champion. It’s been a decade so obviously it’s gonna be a thrasher.”
“Right,” Hop agrees, nodding with the enthusiasm, Gloria thinks, of a boy that has exactly zero formal obligations or duties at an event as importantly-titled as The Grand Inaugural Ball . “It’ll be fun! They make a huge production out of it, there’s gonna be some ceremony stuff and a formal dance and a dinner and live shows and--”
“Hold on.” He holds on. Gloria fords ahead. “Formal dance? Formal dance?”
“Do you think you’ll be getting an informal dance at a black tie event?” Bede’s face is irritatingly calm, still as water, and she wonders if he’s gotten better at hiding or if she’s gotten worse at the reading.
“Nope,” she says. “No. Absolutely no. I’m no’ goin’.”
“You have to.” Marnie has just the tiniest hint of a smile propping up the corner of her mouth. Gloria is getting good at reading Marnie’s mild facial expressions and thinks that this one is especially smug and infuriating. “The Champion always takes the first dance. It’s your gala, Glory.”
“It’ll be fun!” Hop says this as though the repetition will make it any more true and grins, this impish knowing little thing that has driven her crazy for as long as she’s known him. “You’ll get to be girly for once.”
But she doesn’t want to be girly. She wants her sweaters and her jeans and worn-out trainers. She wants a night out with her friends, her family, raising glasses of the shittiest wine and most tepid lagers until the ceiling spins and her shoulders ache.
She does not want to dance.
She crosses her arms. “Do you know when I last wore a dress? Fuckin’ never. I’ve never worn a dress, let alone a gown, let alone in front ae hundreds of strangers at an event in ma honor. ”
Hop is all faux sympathy and that grin she’s going to smack off his mouth if he keeps it up for much longer. “Aw Glory, it’s not gonna be that bad. Leon told me all about his, he stepped on Melony’s toes seven times and his cape fell off in the middle of the dance floor.”
“First off: Leon was ten, aebody thinks ten year olds are cute no matter what kinda muppet they are. I’m seventeen, the windae’s closed. Second: Am no’ gonna wear a fuckin' cape. Tha’ is a line in the sand.”
“You’re a guest in Opal’s home,” Bede says, taking a carefully measured sip of his tea. “Mind your language.”
“I’ll mind your language.”
“That doesn’t mean anything. It’s complete nonsense.”
“Alright, alright, calm down ,” Marnie says. Her lungs aren’t laughing, but her soft eyes are. “We need to focus on what’s important here.”
Gloria flops down with a long-suffering sigh into an overstuffed, floral-patterned armchair. “I dunno how to dance.”
“Bede’s a very competent ballroom dancer, you know.”
The wind feels like it’s been sucked out of the room, and Opal fills the parlor doorway as though she’s teleported with a smile as polite as it is agitatingly coy. Gloria’s gran was never so mischievous. (But, she thinks, she was never so sìthiche either.) She takes four pairs of eyes turning on her with the relish of an old hat stage actress. “I’d daresay he’s among the most naturally talented I’ve instructed in my long life,” she adds, “though for some reason he’s declined to pursue mastery.”
Gloria looks to Bede then, whose face is no longer quite so lake-surface serene--it’s taking on a delightful tinge of pink, in fact--as he murmurs into his teacup: “It was part of your training, so I obliged for exactly as long as necessary. That’s all.”
Hop grins like a shark with a meal while Marnie tucks a small smile into her own drink. “Is ballroom dancing important for a fairy-type trainer, Ms. Opal?” he asks, all the picture of pastoral innocence. Bede leans into his hand, covering his brow.
Opal nods. “It is incredibly important. Ballonlea’s leader should always be graceful and light on their feet. In fact...”
And then Gloria feels her eyes on her, that dissecting sort of stare that dips under the skin and starts to sift through all her bones and words and thoughts, like checking her for atomic flaws that might make her unsuitable . The pause goes on for a full second too long before Opal continues: “Why doesn’t Bede give you lessons? You’re a coordinated girl; it shouldn’t take you long at all to pick up. And you two get along so well.”
Bede looks for all the world like he wants nothing more than to say no , to stand up and take his teacup and saucer to the kitchen, to hoist himself out the window and vanish into the fae woods without another word. (It’s the little victories that count, she thinks -- he flushes from nose to cheek to ear, too pale to hide his blood.) But Opal’s looking at him pointedly, and he can’t rally the needed strength to test her will.
“...Fine. I will give exactly one week’s worth of lessons. And if you somehow can’t manage to pick it up by then, you’ll have to look elsewhere for your miracle.”
Gloria smiles in a way that is entirely too gleeful, too Purrloin. “I’m so touched you’re offerin’, Bede. Tha’ sounds perfect.”
“Really just an all-around swell guy, Bede. You’re really pullin’ through for your friend.” Hop claps him on the shoulder as he stands up to leave with a grin that could mirror Gloria’s. Bede spares him a glance -- and if looks could kill, Hop would be leaving the parlor in a dripping wicker basket.
Marnie, conjuring equivalent boldness, lays a soft hand on Bede’s knee as she stands, too, and gives it three staccato pats. “Oh, make that face all you want, you’ll have fun. Don’t get a cob on, you’ll be fine.”
“The tea was lovely, Ms. Opal,” Gloria says, the last to get up to her feet, following Hop and Marnie out of the parlor with a too-long, too-loud laugh, leaving Bede alone to sink into the floral sofa, rubbing at his forehead.
Opal eases herself slowly into a chair and pours herself a cup of tea. “I’m glad you’ve made such pleasant friends, dear.”
Bede holds his cup in both hands and looks down through the pale chamomile tea liquor to the white porcelain at the bottom. “You and I have very different definitions of pleasant,” he says.
He could think of a few more ways to describe them, but to his credit, he minds his language.