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And blooming overhead, the parachute
I've got to trust it now, oh
—Parachute by Caroline Polachek
When her human jumps and falls into the arms of the ocean, there is always a brief moment in time where Speranza forgets.
In that instant, before the water envelops him entirely, she forgets his clenched hands, his tight-lipped silences, the war waged quietly behind his eyes when the wind carries with it the low thrum of wings. He disappears, and the ocean receives him: soft, tender, a mother who does not scold but soothes, washing away every bitterness, every wound, tangible and intangible. He is held in the most halcyon of hugs, singing her sweet lullaby, sweeping him far away from the ache lodged deep within his chest; the ache his human mother placed there long ago with a single command.
The dragon had tried to steal him away into the sky. Lift him from the ground from everything safe, thrusting him into the unforgiving winds. The Salamence had come roaring, vast wings stretching to blot out the sun. Her human had been so small, so fragile, barely a child. His mother had been the one to place him on the beast's back, to command the creature to fly, to return him home from wherever he'd ran, into her waiting arms. He'd told Speranza that she'd done this because she loved him, cared about him. But what did she know? She did not hear the terror-strangled cries of her son as the great dragon ascended, nor did she feel the tearing—the awful severing—from the earth. She did not know love. Glumly, Speranza suspected she didn't know care, either.
But Speranza, though wary of most humans, knew how to care for them. And so, for this child, she did.
She had sensed it in the shift of the world's pulse, in the tremor of the earth beneath her paws, long before she had heard his scream. His fear had called to her, an unspoken plea, and she had answered—her muscles coiling, her heart thundering, her body surging forward in a relentless pursuit of him. She knew where he belonged, where he needed to be. Not in the dragon's crushing claws, but down. Down where he could breathe, down where he could stand firmly once more. And she had found him, saved him, pried the Salamence from him, before both the wind and the dragon could swallow him whole.
Now, still, all these years later, he blames the sky. He swims in the sea, where no winds howl, no wings beat against the clouds. The ocean, with her infinite patience, carries him farther from the shore, lets him drift weightless within the shelter of her womb. The twilight above is not an enemy here; it blooms in shades of deep violet tinged with cerulean, the last embers of the day sinking into the horizon in soft saffron and bronze. The waters, darker now, glimmer beneath him, reflecting the sky in ripples of indigo and silver, its surface unbroken but for the small, steady rhythm of his strokes.
Speranza watches. Her body, sleek and still as the shadows lengthen around her, feels the coolness of the evening settling over the land. The stone at her neck—his gift to her, their bond made tangible—catches the final tendrils of sunlight, its chain casting a soft amethyst sheen across her fur. It hums, barely perceptible, in the space between the cadence of the ocean and the beating of her heart; she feels it thrum in time with his own heart, a reminder of his gratefulness to her the day she'd saved him from the dragon, the day he'd placed his trust wholly in her, even before his journey as a Trainer had begun.
He trusts her now. And he will trust her always. Both Speranza and Mother Ocean will catch him in his fall.
Even in the quietude of the sea, where he is most alone, where no words can pass between them, she knows. There is no need for him to look back toward the shore; he knows she is there, waiting, guarding, her presence steady, unshakable, like the earth beneath them. But she knows, too, the weight he carries, the memory that shadows him always: the mother who sent him away into the sky, into the jaws of the Salamence. He does not speak of her, but he does not forget her.
Speranza's eyes follow him as he floats farther into the darkening waters, the lines of his body faint now, silhouetted against the vastness of the sea. The twilight spills across the sky, no longer bright, but rich with shadow, the colors thickening, deepening. The first stars begin to pierce through the dusky veil above, cold and distant, mere flecks of light scattered across the endless dark. The horizon blurs into a thin line where sky and sea converge, so fragile it seems it might unravel at any moment, leaving nothing but a pure infinity.
But the ocean is no void: she is full, alive, her depths teeming with things unseen, her currents pulsing with the lifeblood of the world. She is the mother he never had—the mother who does not demand anything of him in exchange for her love, does not thrust him into the harshness of the unknown. Instead, she holds him, buoyant, untroubled, allowing him to sink into her embrace and disappear from the burdens that haunt him.
His strokes slow now, languid, his body surrendering to the sea's gentle tug. He does not fight her; he never fights her. Unlike the sky, the ocean does not betray him. Here, there are no wings to drag him unwillingly into the heavens; there are no invisible hands reaching to snatch him from the ground. He is safe here, floating within her arms, at one with the sea that rocks him, cradles him, as a mother should.
The sky, meanwhile, grows ever darker, its stars multiplying, their cold light reflecting dully on the waves. The air is cooler now, thick with salt and the smell of wet stone. The horizon has vanished entirely, swallowed by the night, leaving only the infinite turquoise sea beneath him, and the great stretch of sky above.
Speranza shifts slightly, her paws sinking deeper into the wet sands as she observes her best friend swimming back, his form illuminated by the faint starlight. She imagines that the Absolite at her neck is glowing subtly brighter the closer he returns, the pulse of it steady—a rhythmic reminder of their shared bond, their shared life. His body must be tired, but she knows it is undoubtedly calm at last. At peace. The ocean has taken from him all that the day left behind—all the tension, all the resentment, all the memories of a mother who had sent him into the sky without so much as a thought.
She pads forward, silent, the sand giving way beneath her weight. Her gaze remains fixed on him: this man who once fell from the sky and into her care, who now stands near his two loyal, lifelong protectors, far from the terrors that shadow him. His feet find the shore, sinking into the soft earth, and he looks up, amber eyes finding ruby-red eyes—unencumbered, untroubled, an incomparable comprehension passing between Pokémon and closest companion.
Here, surrounded by his two stalwart gravities, Dash can freely fall; for Speranza, just as Mother Ocean does, will always catch him.