Chapter Text
Moon had been five the first time she met Lillie. They had both been traveling to Sinnoh, meeting up with Moon’s cousins. Moon hadn’t even known they were coming.
Really, she wasn’t all that interested in meeting them. She adored her older brother, Sun. She was always following him around, playing with him and his friends. The only person she liked on the same scale as her brother was her cousin Red.
Red was the bestest cousin, in her own words. She had lots of cousins. There was Red, Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald on her dad’s side and Shauna and Lokoni on her mom’s. There were also all of Dad’s friends, who she called Aunt and Uncle, and their kids. She had a lot of cousins.
But Red was the bestest.
He was so awesome! Red talked about school a lot. He told Moon lots of stories about math, too. Moon still wasn't sure what math had to do with letters, but it was cool, because Red was the one talking about it.
Red also talked about his friends. Moon hadn’t met them before, but she had heard lots of stories about them. She heard about Blue and some stories about him researching the pokemon in Professor Oak’s lab. She heard stories about Leaf and the crazy books she wrote.
Moon liked those stories, but not as much as Aunt Melissa’s stories about Red and the rest of her family. Red was silly, but he didn’t tell her about the silly stories. She had to get Aunt Melissa for them.
But that was okay. She had lots of stories. And she loved being around Red, her favoritest cousin.
She was so happy they were all visiting Sinnoh together! She was going to hug Red first, even though Sun was faster. If she tickled him right before running to Red, she might get there first. It had worked before.
Imagine her surprise when Red brought friends to Sinnoh. There were five people, and she didn’t like them. Especially not the boy.
She hated him.
It wasn’t fair that he got piggy back rides! And on Red! Not fair! She wanted those piggy back rides!
So, yeah. Moon hated him. Except Mom said that hating people was bad, and that she wasn’t allowed to hate people. She just really, really, really, really didn’t like him. At all.
That was her cousin, not his.
But the girl was fun. Her name was Lillie. She had super pretty hair and it was fun to braid. Sun didn’t like getting his hair braided. He said she pulled on his hair too much. Moon told him that if he grew it out, it wouldn’t pull so much.
Sun stuck his tongue out at her. She stuck hers out back. Sun got sent to time-out. Moon didn’t. Sun still didn’t grow his hair out, though.
So Moon only got to practice braiding Mom’s hair most of the time. But she liked braiding hair. It was a problem.
Fortunately, Lillie had long, pretty hair and liked getting it braided. She was also a little smaller than Moon, so Moon could braid it easily. And she shared her toys.
Sun didn’t share his toys with her. He was nice, and the bestest brother ever, but he didn’t share his toys. (A small voice in her head pointed out that she had broken at least 4 of them, but she ignored it.) Lillie did, so that meant Lillie was the bestest.
They were going to be in Sinnoh for 9 days, so Moon would have a lot of time to be with Lillie, Sun, and Red. Not Gladion, because she didn’t like him. She would play with everyone except him.
Lillie was really nice. She liked playing Pokemon Forest. It was a fun game. They had to pretend to be pokemon that lived in the forest. Moon was an Eevee, because they were the cutest, and Lillie said they couldn’t be legendaries. Lillie was Cleffa, the little baby Clefairy. Moon thought those were cute, too.
Moon got some of Mom’s scarves out, because they had to make nests and look like Pokemon, too. Mom reminded her that she couldn’t get any scarves from the drawers. Moon rolled her eyes; she already knew that.
Moon found the fluffy brown scarf, the fluffy white scarf, and the fluffy pink scarf. It took a while, because Mom had a lot of scarves. She dragged them to Lillie and they started playing. They had a lot of fun.
When Red finally came inside, she asked him to join. He agreed, because he was the best cousin. He was a Dewgong, so he took the white scarf and started dragging them into the river.
Lillie got scared, though. Moon told her that the river wasn’t real, but that didn’t help. Lillie’s big sister, who had a pokemon for real, came to get her though.
Moon was sad Lillie couldn't play. But that meant she could play with Red. So she wasn’t sad anymore.
She clambered on Red’s shoulders and spent the rest of the day playing with him and Sun. She all but forgot her anger at Gladion for stealing them. It was fun to play.
Over the next few days, she spent most of her time with Red and Sun. She played with Lillie, of course, but it had been so long since she had played with Red. Plus, Sun was good at distracting him. They were a good team when it came to tag.
On the fifth day, though, she had to spend time with Gladion. She wasn’t happy about that. It was Sun’s turn to go do something with Red and Lillie and her big sister were also doing something.
That meant Moon had to be around Gladion. Her rival.
She didn’t like it.
It seemed like he didn’t like it, either, so that made her feel marginally better. If she had to suffer in his presence, then he should suffer, too.
Moon resolved not to play with him. It might be hard to go without playing for so long, but Moon could do it. She was certain. She just had to find something to do.
She read some books, but that was boring. She played outside, but that was boring, too. She found the grown ups, but they were also boring. They were all laughing, but their jokes weren't funny.
She decided to pester her mom until she had something to do. She walked over to Mom and Dad. “Mom,” she said. Her mom didn’t answer. “Mom,” again. “Mom. Mom. Mom! Mom! Mom!”
“What, what, what?” her mom asked. Finally! Someone paid attention to her.
“I’m booooooooored,” she replied. She grabbed her mom’s arms to show her just how earnest she was. She was SOOO bored.
“Well, hi, Bored, I’m Mom,” said Mom. Moon groaned, the grownups laughed. It wasn’t funny!
“I want something to do,” she clarified.
“Play with Gladion,” Mom suggested. She leaned over to drape an arm on Dad.
Moon frowned. “I don’t like him, though.”
“That’s not very nice. Why don’t you like him, Moon?” Mom asked. She was frowning a little bit.
“ ‘Cause I don’t,” was her eloquent reply.
“But why, Little Moonbeam?” Dad questioned.
Moon looked at him, searching for an answer. Her pout must have shown, because Dad reached forward to ruffle her bangs. “Red plays with him. Not me,” she sniffed.
Unbeknownst to her, Lusamine and Mohn were attempting to stifle their laughter. She was quite adorable. Since their son wasn’t in the room to be upset, they could find it funny, and indeed it was.
Mom leaned over to pick her up. Moon got set in the spot between Mom and Dad, then hugged by both of them. “But you don’t mind when Sun plays with Red.”
Moon sniffed. “Gladion’s not Sun. And Red’s my cousin, not his.”
“But he doesn’t have a cousin. Do you think you can share for a little bit longer?”
“Okay,” Moon decided glumly. “But I still don’t like him.”
“All right,” Mom said “How about you go color next to him. You have to be at the table, but you don’t have to talk to him.”
Moon let out a long suffering sigh. “Fiiine. I’ll go color.”
Moon marched to the table, determined. She was going to color. She was going to draw the awesomest picture ever! She was going to draw Eevee, because those were the awesomest pokemon.
Really, Eevee was great! Eevee could evolve into eight different things! That was just amazing, so clearly Eevee was the amazingest pokemon.
She got a paper out of the stack and looked for the colored pencils. They were by Gladion. Moon liked colored pencils better than crayons, but she still didn’t like Gladion. She decided that she would go with the crayons.
Moon picked out the black crayon, the white crayon, and the yellow crayon. She didn’t have the right color for the Eevee’s fluff, but yellow would work. She started drawing a big circle for the face. It had to be a pretty circle.
Once she got the circle, she got the ears. They were harder to get right. Then, she realized that she needed pink! Moon reached for the pink crayon. When she grabbed it, she noticed that Gladion was reaching for a new color, too.
She gave him her best angry look. She still didn’t like him. He didn’t do anything, though! Uugh.
Moon was angry. She didn’t like him! Not at all! And he wasn’t even angry! It wasn’t fair! That was her cousin he was spending time with!
The crayon snapped. Moon looked down at the broken pink crayon. She looked at her drawing. She looked at the lines that were out of the ear.
Moon started sobbing. It wasn’t fair! And it was all Gladion’s fault! She hated him! He stole her favorite cousin! He made her mad! And he made her ruin her pretty Eevee picture!
“I hate you!” she screamed, running out of the room and abandoning her ruined picture.
After that, the adults kept them mostly separated. It really wasn’t worth the hassle of trying to make them get along.
Moon noticed that he became friends with Sun, too. She adamantly refused to be in the same room as him. She stuck close to Lillie and Red, heartbroken that her traitorous brother would play with such a meanie.
She finally spoke to him again on their last day. They were all drinking Red’s secret lemonade recipe. After everyone was finished, the hugging commenced. They were heading back home.
Moon spent a whole five minutes clinging to Lillie, begging her mom to keep her. The adults (and Red, who was not quite an Adult, despite his claims otherwise) convinced her that she had to go home to her house.
Moon didn’t want to say goodbye. Lillie was her bestest friend! Moon didn’t want her to go! She raced back into the cabin that they had been staying in and found one of her favoritest pretty rocks. It was shiny and purple, with gold sparklies in it. (Not her favorite, obviously. She was nice, but not that nice. You didn’t give your favorite things away, just the super cool ones.)
Lillie started crying and gave her one of her clips. It was a pretty one, with pink and blue gems on it. Moon put it in her hair and snapped it in. She was going to wear it forever!
“I love you Lillie, come back soon!” she cried. They hugged again, getting their tears on each other.
“I love you too, Moon! I hope I see you again!” Lillie murmured through the tangle of tear filled hair.
Lillie went to go say goodbye to Sun, so Moon went to say goodbye to Gladion. She picked her cup of lemonade up on the way and took a sip. She then tripped. And spilled it on him.
Gladion shrieked and ran to his mom. Moon’s mom started coughing. Moon looked to see that her face was really red. Hopefully she was okay.
“Oops, it was an accident,” Moon apologized in her most convincing lie tone. She was still smiling a little.
“Mom, can we go home,” Gladion pleaded.
After everyone was packed up in their cars and more final hugs were exchanged, Moon was sent to time-out. Sun refused to play with her for the rest of the day and Red told her that was mean, too.
It was worth it, though.
~
Moon smiled, resting her head on her husband’s shoulder. Things had certainly changed from when they first met. “You know, when we first met, I hated you.”
Gladion hummed. “Really? You don’t say.”
“Quite so. I was very upset that Red played with you for even a minute. I didn’t want to share my favorite cousin.”
“Red is a very nice cousin, I understand. I am glad you got over hating me though.”
Moon looked at the scene before them. Their children were playing with their pokemon. The oldest was riding Silvally with the youngest in front of her. The older boys were trying to convince their youngest brother to ride Anatolia, the evolved Type: Null that Gladion had given her. Their middle daughter was playing with Gladion’s Absol.
She hummed. “Me too.”