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When she agreed to this little setback in her original Johto trip scheme, Riya was plainly convinced that it wouldn’t be as much of a bad idea and that she would be done taking care of the pack of sick hoothoots sooner than this.
Now she was here, preparing her sleeping back (fortunately she decided last second to carry one just in case), as she hung up her call with a very antsy Steven that as much wanderlust he always showed and shared with her, was lowkey trying not to freak out at her sleeping in the middle of a forest instead of going back to the city to board her plane that would take her back to Hoenn first thing in the morning.
“But, Riya-” he sighed. “It can be dangerous!”
“There’s many bugs here, yes, but it’s not like they’re going to eat me while I sleep. It’ll be okay, shiny stone.”
As a kid who’s not getting away with whatever thing he had in mind, Steven muttered something under his breath and then answered back to the speaker, “okay, but promise you’ll be back here tomorrow.”
“Of course I will, you dork. Believe it or not I miss you too and I want to be with you as soon as possible.”
“Tomorrow,” he insisted.
“What got on you-” never mind that, her partner here was just showing concern about her. “I’ll do the best I can but I’m not promising you anything.”
And after exchanging short goodbyes since one couldn’t expect to have good phone reception in the middle of a forest, they hung up and Riya saved her PokeNav inside of her bag and got inside her sleeping bag.
She kind of started to regret that she didn’t get back to the city sooner, but she underestimated how long this little task she decided to take charge of would take and, well, she thought it would be more dangerous trying to find a way back when it was already so dark and many Pokemon were nightly here.
She would just get back to Hoenn later tomorrow than expected. Maybe by the nighttime if she was totally honest about the odds. But it wasn’t as if Steven didn’t do the same at times, and at least she communicated, unlike Steven that completely lost track of time inside his caves and forgot to announce he was still alive, and more often than not, make them freak out to then get back with a ‘why would you all care so much’ smile.
It had been a fairly tiresome day, so Riya decided to start soothing down her own thoughts so she could be able to sleep and the next day could arrive sooner... and she closed her eyes, thinking of how she’d make bitter comments to a
From henever they crossed paths about how another champion had to take care of his own region.time to time the sound of something... flying... or buzzing… or both... would startle her awake, but Riya knew she had to tough up and stop being a cry baby about nightly bugs if she wanted to get some sleep in the middle of a forest. So she started to simply ignore all these weird sounds, until the drowsiness was too much that she felt wrapped in a comfortable, white cloud of safety and finally fell asleep for once.
Everything was white, seeming like everything was surrounded by a very dense fog: nothing could be seen past it, or heard, no, it all was white and silent, until...
It felt like landing, and she could very clearly see where she was as she knew this place oh so well.
It was the ever so small, lovely -and boring, Pallete town, and she was in her usual spot: that little sand spot that connected to a vast sea which she could only stare at, as it was deep and only heaven knew what kind of threats were there.
Riya started to play with her pigtails as she withdrew her look from the sea to stare at her own legs, at the ground... how boring days were when Wong couldn’t go out to play... how boring days were in general. Sometimes she wanted to leave so bad, to try swimming the sea in front of her and see if she got somewhere- anywhere-, but Nadia would simply be heartbroken if she did so, with Norman barely ever coming back to see her, so these could only be dreams for Riya, as every other idea crossing her mind ever was, as-
Suddenly, Riya heard a noise, and she broke from her monotone yet comfortable stillness to look around and see whoever dared to get any close to her spot, but what she saw simply amazed her and made her run out of words.
It was... her?
Or at least this person looked so damn much like her... but much older... or could it be that this person looked so, so cool that little Riya could only dream to be as cool in a future if there was a future for her?
“Um...” she stuttered. “Uh...”
The weirdest part was that when this person laid her eyes on her, she glared surprised and thfor a couple seconds, en hprogrepression softened with a smile, like she knew who she was.
“Riya?”
How did she know her name?
Okay, maybe eating one of her mother’s plants out of boredom hadn’t been a good idea, maybe she was hallucinating, maybe–
“Maybe I shouldn’t have eaten those berries back at Ilex forest, I must be hallucinating or something–”
“Ah!”
“What?!”
“Why are you reading my mind!?”
The older one shook her head, and a lot more collectedly replied, “I think this is some kind of fever dream, Riya. Because you are me from the past and if I’m not dreaming this I don’t understand how this can be possible.”
Well... if this was a dream... there was nothing to be scared of, right? Maybe strangers swearing to be you from the future weren’t as dangerous in a dream and one didn’t have to call the cops on them.
And, to be fair... future Riya looked so cool, with the short hair and that black and blue outfit she was wearing.
“May I seat here? I think it’s better if no one else knows I’m here.”
“S-Sure...”
Older Riya took a place right beside her, and as she had been previously doing, she fixated her gaze on the open sea and then sighed deeply.
“I almost didn’t recall how this felt. It’s been a long while...”
Well, if this was supposed to be her from the future... would it kill her to make some questions?
“Why? Don’t you ever come around here?”
“Believe it or not, no... now I... or well, we, live in Hoenn.”
That was certainly shocking.
“Wait, what do you mean?”
“Norman got a job in Hoenn later, so mom and I ended up following him.”
“And... is it nice there at least? Or did he got us to another place like this?”
A smile drew all over her face immediately, “Hah... I feel almost like I’d spoil it for you if I told you, but... well... this is just a dream, isn’t it? Well... yeah, Hoenn is the nicest place on earth, hands down, and I can say I’ve been in enough places to compare.”
Could that be real?
“But, why’d you say that? That Hoenn is the best?”
“Riya... we have a home there. Mom is Sootopolitan, and right here we are so far away from there, but when we got to Hoenn we reconnected with our roots, we learned Sootopolitan and found a family, we found a community in there, one to write about, one to be a part of.”
She couldn’t help it, even if it felt like a lie, she wanted to know more about it, “how’s Sootopolis?”
“It’s a big crater with a city inside, and it’s full of water. Hoenn is full of water, that’s why I’m wearing this, in fact, this is also a swimsuit!”
Small Riya clapped, excitedly, “so we do once explore the sea?”
“Oh yes we do! I know it’s frustrating just staring at it from here, but we do swim a lot in Hoenn, we actually end up having many errands to accomplish down there.”
“What kind of tasks, though?” Riya tilted her head. “What’s your job there?”
She watched older Riya holding back a laughter, tilting her head proudly, “you won’t believe it, but... We are Hoenn’s very own champion!”
“What?! A champion?!” She covered her mouth. “How did we even make it?”
“Maybe we found it hard to believe it right now, but we are incredibly strong and skilled. It’s hard being a champion, I swear, but we’ve got what it takes!”
“Mom and dad must be very proud of you!”
“Why, mom is, she always is,” and she watched her roll her eyes. “Norman... never mind him. Something better will come, for mom, specially.”
“What do you mean? Mom gets another husband?”
“Let’s just say that a very handsome, Sootopolitan takes interest in her later.”
Riya gasped, “oh my! How is it that everything changed so drastically for us?”
“Look, sometimes I wonder the exact same. I’m hindsight it’s just incredible how things changed so much.”
“And what about you? Do you have a handsome Sootopolitan taking interest in you, too?”
Older Riya laughed at this, “well, well, I couldn’t tell you because Wallace is... weird? Sometimes I believe he’s all head over heels for Steven, sometimes I think he’s into me, and sometimes I just feel like I’m making it all up in the air cause then he goes kissing random people and–”
“And who’s Steven?”
That single question managed to make her run out of words utterly and flash the purest, sweetest of smiles that could have ever existed.
“Steven... he is our partner in the future.”
“Ah!” This sounded truly exciting, more so for the lovely way she had to pronounce his name, putting so much tenderness into each word she spoke addressing him. “For real?”
“Yes! Believe it or not, we end up finding love inside of a cave in Hoenn.”
“A cave?”
“You’ll have to live it to understand it, when the moment comes it will make all the sense of the world and it’ll feel like there never was any other way for these things to happen.”
“And, and... how is him?”
“Ah, Steven... how to even get started with him? He’s not very tall, he’s very, very skinny, his skin is pale, his eyes and hair are blue... he always wears suits, and if he’s not wearing a suit then he wears about the funniest outfits on earth, for a second you almost forget he comes from the wealthiest family in Hoenn. He loves rocks. Well, just loving is an understatement. You won’t ever meet someone as fascinated on rocks as him. He’s the strongest trainer I know, he’s just— so very smart, and uses all that smartness to battles, yet, he’s also so very humble and kind.”
Riya made a pause, then.
“I won’t say that everything with him is perfect. We sometimes struggle with each other, sometimes we just argue, sometimes I can’t really understand what’s going on with him. But we always find a way to figure it out. I think we have grown up a lot together, and that we will keep growing up together and building a future together and that, for me— is everything I could have ever asked for.
Small Riya remained silent in awe... so it was possible for them to find something like that despite the disappointment their parents' relationship always was?
“So...” the youngest asked shyly. “It all gets better, right?”
“Definitely it does. Right now, being stuck here, with Wong in her current state, dad never showing up, school being the way it is, you might feel like there’s not a way out of this dread. But we ended up finding one, and one day, you’ll blossom into the person you were always supposed to be.”
She felt a very calming wave of relief inside her, she had to close her eyes and breath in deeply to enjoy it, and when she opened her eyes, she could glimpse from afar some fog.
“I can’t believe we are so cool in the future! Tell me more! Tell me about all our friends there!”
Older Riya started telling her then all about her Hoenn friends, then about her other region’s friends, and as each time there was more fog, her voice sounded more and more distant, to the point it ended up overlapped by the sound of a bell getting louder and louder each time until–
“Oh, shut up, shut up, I’m gonna wake up all the bugs, oh my lord, shut–”
Riya woke up to the view of Ilex forest in the daytime, again, finally. And when she recognized her surroundings, it sunk in.
Wasn’t she... in Pallete town?
No…
Wow…
It had seemed so real... all about the setting, about younger Riya looking so real, just as she remembered herself from those days, and...
It must have been a dream, as realistic as it felt.
A very cool dream, in which she was able to impress her younger self with all her current achievements, a dream very full of hope, a dream that it would’ve been amazing if it had been real because at that age Riya needed a lot of hope and just got disappointment following disappointment instead...
But it had simply been a dream, after all.
A dream that she lowkey wanted to dream again, there were so many things she missed in her narrative, so many that she would’ve loved to know at that age, so many that–
“Ah, the damned alarm again!” She growled, “oh, even better, it’s Wallace, maybe he’s trying to get me eaten by all the angered Pokémon that his call is about to wake up–”
She picked it up, then.
“Hello?”
“Hi, dear,” he replied with a very matter of fact tone. “How are you, how did you sleep?”
“Fine, I guess, I–”
“I want to assume you’re already on your way back here, right?”
She shook her head, not quite getting way also Wallace all of the sudden showed concern about how she was handling her schedule if usually he would mind more his own business.
“Actually, I’m still at Ilex forest, I just woke up.”
He sighed exasperatedly to the speaker, “Riya! Ah! What am I going to tell Steven, huh?”
“Lord, but what does Steven have to do with me still being here? Why are you so worried all of the sudden?”
“Why? Because he was the one to ask me to call you so he didn’t come off as insistent, so please, if you’re so kind, my dear champion, freaking rush, poor Steven is freaking out because he’s got everything ready for your b–”
As Wallace cut himself off, Riya quickly stared at the date in her PokeNav and–
Damn.
It was her birthday.
“Oh, fuck, you didn’t hear that, did you?”
And now Wallace had casually spoiled whatever surprise Steven had prepared for her back in Hoenn.
Of course they both were rushing her to get back, then. Because they were looking forward to celebrating her birthday together, at a decent hour and not just by the nighttime, if any, and she had completely and absolutely forgotten the date.
“Oh, gosh, if you heard that I think I might just have ruined a decades long friendship with Steven…”
The least she could do was play dumb and act like she heard nothing.
“What are you saying? Do you hear me? Signal is pretty bad here and I barely hear you.”
“Ah, nothing, nothing! Just that, please, get back here as soon as you can, please?”
“I will.”
They hung up, and even if Riya really didn’t want to have to do this, that being way she first opted for a normal plane option, she summoned Rayquaza.
“Long time no seeing you,” they joked. “I assume you want a ride?”
“You must be a wise ancient being else how’d you bet?”
She wanted to assume this was Rayquaza chuckling, “I thought you were a lowkey champion and guardian and preferred airplanes.”
“I usually am, but sometimes I have a thick, forgetful skull and by all means I need to make it back in Hoenn as soon as possible.”
“Well… only because it’s your birthday.”
It must have been a joke that even Rayquaza remembered it but not her.
Fortunately, she had their help too, always unconditionally, and now could put her worries at rest because soon, oh so soon she’d be reunited with the ones she loved to celebrate one more year of this ever changing, unpredictable, but as she saw in her dream, amazing life of hers.
And from above a tree… a green, fairy like creature watched her part; a happy Celebi, congratulating itself because this person really seemed to enjoy its birthday present for her.