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"Cyllene?"
"Yes, sir?"
"The child. When is it returning back home?"
She looked up at her commander, tearing her attention away from the most recent copy of the Pokédex that Laventon had delivered onto her desk early that morning. The man sat at his desk, chin resting on his folded hands. He stared off toward the closed doors of his balcony and didn't elaborate on the abrupt question.
"I'm not sure." She closed the field book. "Why do you ask?"
If she were a lesser woman, she might have briefly feared that he was going to bring up casting out the hero of Hisui from the village again. Kamado may act foolishly often, but he typically learned from his mistakes and took care not to repeat them in the future. Sometimes, that worked in their favor. Sometimes not.
This subject was a case of the former, and so Cyllene patiently waited for him to answer.
"Hrrrm..." Kamado closed his eyes and made that inquisitive noise of his that Cyllene was quite familiar with, having known the man this long. "I was in the photo studio earlier today."
"Oh?"
"I had gone with the intention of photographing Snorlax's growth. He has gotten much bigger, stronger since we first arrived on Prelude Beach," Kamado lowered his hands to fold them on top of his desk and looked down. "Before I could, the child stopped in."
"Yes, I have had that happen to me as well," she recounted. Once their photo had finished developing, she framed it in her quarters. It hung beside the one she had of her and the commander when he appointed her as Captain of Security, and then Captain of the Survey Corps. Of course, there was also the one that Laventon had insisted she joined him and their surveyors in and...
Where she had come to Hisui without a photo to her name, no reason to spend coinage on such a trivial thing, Cyllene now found herself in abundance. Peculiar was the way that the tides of change pulled one out to sea so suddenly.
Kamado continued, "I broached the invitation first, awkward as it was. I remarked that we should preserve their presence in history for all posterity, myself included."
"And how did that go?"
He huffed. "The next thing I know, Dagero is excitedly whipping out the Galaxy Team tarp and, once posed, they're mimicking my sumo stance. Happy as can be to share that moment with me... despite what I had done to them in the past."
"They are remarkably forgiving."
"They are," he agreed. His hands drifted and he picked up the photo that lovingly found its home on his desk. Cyllene's face softened at the sight of his fingers brushing up against the glass as they caressed the face of the woman beside him.
Cyllene had never had the pleasure of meeting Kamado Suiren. And never would, shame as it was.
"I hadn't thought about it then, but now I find myself reflecting on those words. 'Proof of your visit here from afar' was what I said." Kamado placed the frame down delicately. "Tell me, Cyllene. What does one typically do after visiting places far and wide."
"They go home."
"Yes, after they go home. To tell their friends... their families..." he blinked, ridding his wettened eyes of potential tears, his past hurt fresh on this moonlit night. Cyllene bowed her own head, knowing that neither of them two had such a thing as a family anymore. Not in the sense of blood, at the very least. "And knowing that child, they would shout about the sights they have seen and the people they have met to whoever would lend a listening ear."
That they would, Cyllene thought fondly.
He rose from his seat. "The rift is gone. The Pokédex has been completed, barring the perfectionist in Laventon insisting on recording every variable..."
She understood clearly now what he was building up to. The question that probably all of Hisui's inhabitants had asked once, twice, maybe more on sleepless nights. Perhaps even the child in question as well.
What more was left to do here in Hisui that left them stranded in such a manner?
When Kamado finally faced her, to repeat, "So I ask again, when is the child returning home to their family?"
It pained her to answer, "I don't know."