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ingo is woken up by a thunderclap.
his eyes shoot open just in time to catch a flash of lightning through the window, and he instinctively pulls the blanket up around him.
he’s not scared. he’s almost grown, now, about seven years old or so — he’s much too old to be terrified of thunderstorms. he’ll fall back asleep in just a moment, he had just been startled…
the door to his bedroom opens with a prolonged creeeeeeak sound, and he turns over to look. he can’t make out the figure in the doorway’s face, but he doesn’t need to.
“ingo?” his brother calls, gripping the doorknob until his knuckles turn white, “are you awake?”
his voice is shaky. they have awoken at the same time.
“yeah,” ingo replies. “did…”
his brother nods. “mhm.”
“well, don’t just stand there. come on.” ingo moves to the edge of the bed as his brother inches inside, closing the door behind him more softly than he opened it. he drags the blanket he brought from his room on the floor behind him, and climbs onto the bed opposite his twin.
the bed isn’t large enough to hold ingo, his brother, and the plush his brother had brought with him quite comfortably, but no complaints are made. they fall asleep almost simultaneously; ingo does not even have the time to ask if his brother is doing all right. but really, he doesn’t have to. he just knows — as long as he’s there, they’ll be all right.
“ingoooo!”
a sing-songy voice calls his name, echoing across the cliffs of the coronet highlands. it reaches his ears as he unwraps his lunch for the day — he’s just sat down on a ledge and was enjoying the view — and he looks over in the direction it’s coming from to see melli waltzing in his direction.
“good afternoon, warden melli.”
the two of them usually kept generally to themselves, but every once in a while found their paths crossing and words exchanged (well, it was really more often than either of them would admit to their respective clans; there weren’t too many people who ventured here. clan members stopped by to check up on their resident wardens of the area and they encountered the occasional survey corps or ginkgo guild member (that volo guy had stopped by not a few days beforehand, bringing food he simply wouldn’t allow the wardens to spend money on, and told them about a rather comedic encounter he’d had in the mirelands over a hearty meal), but visitors were almost always few and far between for ingo and melli. they passed the time with conversation and the occasional pokémon battle, though ingo always wiped the floor with melli. it was a relationship built more out of necessity than anything else, as the silent agreement was that neither of them would have bothered to get to know each other if they had other options readily available, but one they both treasured (if silently) nonetheless.
“if it were a good afternoon, you wouldn’t be so brazenly leaving me behind! honestly!” melli scoffs, standing over ingo (towering, even. melli was much taller than him normally, but it was comical how far ingo had to crane his neck when he was the only one of them sitting) and scowling. playfully. “am i nothing to you?”
“yes, if anyone were to ask on the record.” ingo raises his eyebrows and takes a small bite of his sandwich. he then pats the ground next to him, inviting melli to sit down. melli complies.
they eat their lunches in relative silence, looking out over the highlands. the only sounds are of nature, for a moment, before melli nudges ingo and offers him dessert — a berry wrapped in sweet mochi.
ingo nods in thanks, taking it. he feels bad that he didn’t bring anything extra to share on his end, but melli clearly isn’t expecting anything, turning back to look over the cliff’s edge again. he’ll just have to bring a snack next time.
“hey, ingo?”
“yes?” he looks back up from his hands, dusting the powder residue off of his fingers. melli’s creations were always tasty (and looked cute to boot).
“what’s it like? to not remember anything?”
melli isn’t looking at him. it’s a bit of an embarassing question to ask.
“hm…”
“oh. almighty sinnoh, that was rude. don’t worry about it.” melli waves it off.
“no, no, it’s all right,” ingo reassures in response, “you simply caught me unawares.” melli looks a little bit relieved at that. but maybe it’s a trick of the light.
“i also… do not have the words to explain it. i don’t know what it’s like to remember, so…”
melli laughs a little. “it was a dumb question, huh?”
“you would only be naturally curious.
“i can say for certain, though, that it’s not like i just came to be. i certainly know i must have a past; it’s just always slightly out of reach.”
“like when there’s a word on the tip of your tongue? you know there’s something but can’t seem to grasp what it is?”
“yes, exactly.” ingo straightens his hat. “but in my case, it’s not just one word.”
“so you just remember nothing at all? seems like a lot of empty space up in that head of yours.”
“i remember plenty. the safest path through the wayward cave, the secret ratio to perfect irida’s favorite salad dressing, lady sneasler’s prefe—“ ingo stops when he can tell this is clearly not what melli is looking for.
“but as for the old things, it’ll be more like muscle memory, sometimes. for example…” he takes out one of the galaxy team’s pokéballs and spins it between his fingers — index, middle, ring, pinky, then back again — without so much as a fumble. “it feels more natural to use one of these than not. they didn’t have to teach me, either.”
melli makes a face. “that thing seems so complicated. so they’re common where you’re from?”
“it would seem so, yes.”
“maybe you’re just some kind of weirdo.”
a smile threatens to creep its way onto ingo’s face. barely.
“i would think that to be true, yes.”
“weirdo.” melli is grinning now, enough so for the two of them.
“…say, i never got to thank you. properly. for the other day.” melli continues, and ingo’s eyebrows raise. melli isn’t one to express something so heartfelt as gratitude. it’s clearly uncomfortable; melli very obviously is avoiding making eye contact with ingo. that’s just fine with him.
“whatever do you mean?”
“in that…” melli snaps thrice, trying to recall the word. “distorty… thingy. that horrible ghostly thing almost killed me! i thought i was done for! but then you pushed me aside and caught it in one of those contraptions. so… thank you. even if you did get my uniform horribly dirty in the process.”
that’s right; melli had suggested the two of them go scout it out — one had appeared near the wayward cave and melli had wanted to get a look, but the way they would disorient anyone who entered had made melli confused beyond awareness and susceptible to a badly-timed shadow ball.
“i apologize if you ended up being injured. i wasn’t thinking.” ingo had impulsively pushed melli out of the line of fire and tossed a pokéball at it before melli was seriously hurt.
“a little scrape is nothing for the diamond clan’s greatest warden! i’m telling you i was thankful you were there. just take it.”
ingo nods. “i’ll do that. you’re welcome.”
“there you go! you know, you might be polite or whatever but i’m so sure somewhere under that you’re just as egotistical as the rest of us. you like it when people rely on you, don’t you?”
melli was surprisingly observant. ingo pulls down the brim of his hat over his eyes. he did feel a sense of something like fulfillment when he knew he’d done something for someone else — something they were grateful for, something that they’d think about for a while. something that they’d want to keep him around for, should they ever need it from him again. perhaps he liked being needed; liked the feeling he got when his presence elevated someone else’s well-being; if he was there, they would feel all right.
“hey, want to challenge skuntank again?” melli interrupts ingo’s thoughts, placing a hand onto his shoulder. “i think i’ve got your weird extraterrestrial strategy down. we’re so gonna kick your ass.”
“are you ready to take it seriously, is the question? or are you intent on continuing your losing streak?”
melli scoffs. “i’m always serious, old man. that’s what makes it fun, right?”
ah, so close. but that’s wrong; that’s not how it goes. the thought is in ingo’s mind for a split second and he frowns, but it’s gone as quickly as he thought it. melli’s tone turns into one of concern.
“ingo? are you, like, okay? you look like you just smelled something rotten.”
he shakes his head, as if that will help clear it. “quite all right. not to worry.” he takes melli’s hand, offered to him to help pull him up into a standing position.
“you’d better be. who would i tell, otherwise?” melli smirks. they walk, together, in the direction of moonview arena; ingo’s pace a step or so behind.
he wakes up somewhere new as suddenly as he’d woken up in hisui. his dreams are already fleeting.
it’s only frightening and disorienting for a moment. the fact he believes he can say he’s more or less used to this now is… concerning, to say the least.
it’s a bed he’s in, he realizes, as he begins to sit up. his head pounds, and he instinctively grabs at his hair with one hand and pushes at the mattress with the other. for what, he doesn’t know — a sense of stability? to ground himself in reality? whose reality?
he realizes he hasn’t lost his memories again.
and then he realizes that maybe he’d rather they be gone. if this was anything like last time, he’d never see his friends or family again, and it was much more upsetting when one knew exactly who they’d be missing — irida, the rest of the pearl clan, lady sneasler, that kid from the galaxy team, melli… ingo isn’t one to cry, but thinking about that coupled with the splitting headache is getting him damn close.
his head really hurts, for the record.
he pushes the blanket off of himself and sits up, surprised that he’d woken up under it, anyway. he’d been positioned in the bed almost like he had woken up from a dream — a very long, very real dream. it’s a bizarre feeling. he isn’t a big fan of it.
he stands up, trying to ignore the pain (to very little avail), and looks around, trying to get an idea of his surroundings. it’s a bedroom for sure, and even though it’s clearly nighttime, there’s enough light coming in through the closed blinds to see that everything is covered in a significant layer of dust. it has clearly not been used in a very long time.
he drags his finger across the dresser. it comes off caked in it. he frowns, before rubbing it off. he looks back at the bed — it’s cushy and raised up off the floor, a stark difference from the sleeping mat and shikibuton he’d since become used to.
the dust also covers a mirror on the wall, and he catches a glimpse of his reflection. ingo is definitely looking worse for wear… where the hell has he found himself in this time?
he sneezes, and then looks around nervously, a bit worried someone had heard him, even if no one seemed to be around. this room is far too dusty for him to stay in for much longer comfortably; he wouldn’t be surprised if it had been left alone for years.
the door creaks on its hinges. it hasn’t been oiled in a while. he steps out, closing the door as quietly as he can muster behind him. he’s in an apartment, though he wouldn’t exactly know that. he just knows he finds the way it’s kind of small a little comforting. he figures he should take it slow, and is about to investigate the furniture when he’s startled by the lights suddenly coming on.
“who’s…”
oh. he’s found himself in someone’s home. this is… awkward. he attempts to formulate some kind of response in his head, but is cut short.
“ingo…? INGO!”
he hears a shrill wail call out his name, and he feels a pair of arms suddenly wrap around him following it. he stiffens and nearly reaches upwards to rudely pull them off of his person but stops halfway through the motion — though he is not partial to physical contact, this does not feel so wrong, somehow. he lets his hands drop once more, as the other person tightens their grip on him. a million thoughts scream in his head, and he is mostly trying to piece together who this could possibly be — was there anyone he was so close with that this would not feel wrong from? was it melli? they were…friends, perhaps, but though melli was privy to this sort of verbal tone, this would not be something melli would do. melli would have no reason to. it was not irida, it was not volo, it was not—
he suddenly finds himself hearing the telltale sound of a sob next to his ear.
someone was crying over him?
“ingo. ingo, speak to me.”
the person turns his head towards them unceremoniously, and ingo chokes.
the first thing he notices is that they are not smiling. far from it, actually. this feels wrong to him; wrong to the point it makes his stomach churn. what could he have possibly have done to make the visage in front of him so horribly upset? they never looked like this. never.
but why in the world did he know that?
it clicked, after a moment; there he was, staring into a mirror — a distressingly upset mirror, reflecting everything but his own detachment and replacing that with crying eyes and quivering lips —
this is his brother, and ingo cannot remember his name.
he feels a pang of guilt rack through his body. he had moved his hands towards a position poised to hug this brother of his but stops himself, again. it’s something like muscle memory, but he doesn’t deserve the feeling of an embrace. it’s selfish, he thinks to himself, to grasp at that kind of comfort from someone who is a veritable stranger to him.
but his brother didn’t think of him as a stranger. if ingo used him like an anchor, he would be exploiting someone who was just happy to have him around, wouldn’t he? but what else was he supposed to do?
so ingo freezes. and his brother notices.
“just say something. i missed you so much.”
his brother’s voice is similar to his, but there’s a twinge to it that just feels wrong. ingo knows he can’t stay quiet, so he tries to think of something that’s not a lie, but might help…
“…i did too,” he replies.
there’s a shine in his brother’s eyes that wasn’t there a moment before.
“i didn’t— i didn’t know where you went! nobody did! they asked and they asked but-but i couldn’t—“
his brother stammers, waving his hands around frantically, and releases ingo as he does.
“where did you go? when—when—how did you get back? what happened?”
ingo’s shaky hands grip the pearl clan tunic like a lifeline. how is he supposed to explain anything?
he watches his brother’s expression soften. ingo didn’t realize he was obviously distressed, but he supposes his brother would understand. perhaps better than he himself does.
“are you okay, ingo?”
“i don’t think so, but i don’t think you’d understand.”
“i’m your brother. try me.”
and it all spills out of ingo — from the moment he woke up in hisui, to being taken in by the pearl clan, to the slow process of gaining their trust, to becoming sneasler’s warden (he tears up a bit, there; but the comforting hand tracing circles on his shoulder blade helps ease the feeling), to making friends with the other highlands warden, to when the other girl from the future had fallen from the sky, and then waking up back here. and how all the time he’d felt something more than his memory had been missing; less like a hole in his head and more like a presence; that the only reason he’d felt so wrong was because a certain someone wasn’t with him.
it’s a long, arduous thread of exposition — one that makes little sense, even to him — but his brother hangs on to his every word. ingo can tell his twin believes him (or at least believes that ingo thinks he’s telling the truth) and that makes something inside hurt even more when he realizes that he wouldn’t be able to offer his own brother the same trust.
“and you don’t remember anything?” his brother asks, when he senses that ingo is finished.
“not a thing. i apologize, deeply, because if i’m to be honest that includes you.”
“let’s start from the beginning, then.”
his brother takes ingo’s hands in his own, and ingo does not pull away.
“i am emmet. you are my brother, ingo. it’s nice to meet you.
“things are scary. you are confused. i don’t understand, but i know this. but you are here. so it will be okay.”
ingo watches as a smile makes its way onto emmet’s face, and something just clicks for him. calling it the beginning of a sense of normalcy would be a bit of a stretch, but it nonetheless feels right. and out of all the changes he’s had to get accustomed to, that’s the most welcome one.