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Not many six-year-olds could claim they truly understood the nature of resentment. Of course, they might have heard the word, seen it play out in petty squabbles on playgrounds, or felt it in the sting of being denied an extra hour of screentime. But Dash? He knew resentment intimately. It colored every corner of his young life. It had a weight, an oppressive force that settled in his chest, sometimes choking the air out of his lungs when he thought too long about it.
He had been told, more times than he could count, that he was gifted. His parents said it, his teachers reinforced it, and their endless procession of socialite acquaintances and well-dressed associates delighted in confirming it. A prodigy, they'd labeled him, parading him around the region like a prized artifact to be admired and envied. He could recite the topography of Kalos from Santalune Forest to Snowbelle City as if it were his personal playground.
Geography was his comfort. He liked how maps rarely changed, how rivers followed their courses and mountain peaks stayed in place. There was no hidden agenda in the landscape. But geopolitics? That was a mess of contradictions he wasn’t quite ready to untangle.
His father, a man whose voice carried the weight of authority even in casual conversation, would often test him in front of guests.
"Dashiell, can you tell everyone where Coumarine City is?" His father always asked questions to which he already knew the answers, but Dash could see how these displays of knowledge brought a sense of egoistic satisfaction to the man. He performed his part with indifference.
"Northwestern coast," Dash would respond, tone mechanical, impersonal, eyes on the floor. "By the sea. Known for its port and the monorail." His answers were flawless, as always. And every time, there would be murmurs of approval, nods of appreciation, and his father’s smile, the kind that never fully reached his eyes but sat on his face like a mask. A performance within a performance.
Dash, even at his tender age, understood that his intelligence, his so-called genius, was not for his own benefit. It was a tool—an instrument for his parents' ambitions. He was a showpiece, his talents exhibited not to expand his own world, but to solidify their status. The more he excelled, the more they could revel in the success they had curated in him. But what puzzled Dash most was not the manipulation itself—children, he reasoned, were always subject to the will of adults—but the opaque motives behind it. He could understand geography, could memorize political borders, but the labyrinthine world of adult desires and power games eluded him. Why had his life been shaped this way? To what end?
He was smart enough to know that. But what he couldn’t yet grasp was why. Why had his life been laid out like one of his maps, with all the neat labels and the carefully marked trails? Why had he been chosen to walk those paths before he even learned to tie his own shoelaces?
There was a sadness to it, a fatigue, but Dash always kept that to himself. His six-year-old mind, already sharp with knowledge, hadn't yet figured out how to express this dull ache behind his achievements. The adults wouldn’t understand, anyway. They didn’t live in the same world as he did, despite inhabiting the same spaces.
But Destiny...
Destiny, only four years old, still floated through their world, unburdened and untroubled. She was light, both in spirit and body, darting from room to room like a Butterfree unaware of the net that awaited her. In her eyes, the world was full of possibility and adventure. She'd play with her dolls in their gardens and invented stories where her stuffed Eevee ruled kingdoms and went on brave quests. Dash would sometimes sit with her during these moments, watching quietly, envying her joy. She was still untouched by the demands of their parents, still free in her innocence.
But not for long. Dash knew, with a bitterness that tasted older than his years, that her time would come. She, too, would be drawn into their parents' web of ambition. She, too, would be groomed for some role that had already been decided long before she could comprehend it. Her laughter, her carefree spirit—they were temporary. They would erode, as his had, worn down by the relentless pressures that defined their world. He felt sorry for her, but more than that, he pitied her ignorance of the fate that awaited her.
Destiny would be forced to grow up soon. And when she did, Dash wondered if she would resent him for knowing the truth first, for not warning her. But what could he say? He hadn’t the words for this strange sorrow, this loss of innocence that crept over them both like a shadow, long before either of them was ready.
Sometimes, when the estate was quiet and their parents were away—meetings, always meetings—Dash would sit with Destiny on the floor of their massive, marble living room. She'd set up her stuffed toys in elaborate scenarios, a war between her Stufful and her Buneary. There was no sense to any of it. It was chaos. And he'd watch her narrate her fantasy battles, deciding who won and who lost with no real consequences.
His tutors, ever so impressed with his rapid comprehension of facts and figures, often praised his memory and intellectual capacity. They marveled at his ability to absorb information, to regurgitate it with perfection. His mother liked to call him her "little thinker," though she never asked him what he really thought about anything important. That wasn’t the point. He was meant to recite and perform, to absorb and reflect the values and opinions of those around him, not develop his own. Independent thought wasn’t a requirement. It wasn’t even encouraged.
His sister, on the other hand, was still allowed to wonder. Her questions were simple, pure, untouched by the complexities that tangled Dash’s mind. She asked about the stars, about why the moon followed them when they traveled, about the colors of the flowers in their garden. And though Dash knew the scientific explanations, he hesitated to answer. There was a kind of beauty in her questions, an innocence he did not want to spoil. Let her believe, for now, that the world was full of mysteries yet to be discovered. She would learn soon enough that most of those mysteries were disappointingly simple. So unlike the things his father asked and spoke about.
When his father spoke of geopolitics, Dash listened, but it was all a different language. His father would talk about shifting alliances, trade agreements, and strategic interests in places Dash only knew as colored sections on a map. The world outside that map was full of intentions and betrayals, promises made and broken over dinner parties and handshakes. It was a place where nothing stayed in its proper place for long.
Dash couldn’t stand that. He liked the way the landmarks in Kalos stood still, unmoved by the passage of time. There was something reassuring in their permanence, something that he clung to when the adults around him moved through life like shifting sand, never settling. Even the rivers stayed loyal to their courses. But people? People were nothing like rivers. People bent and twisted and broke.
At night, when the estate was quiet and his mind was racing, Dash would lie in bed, tracing the map of Kalos in his thoughts. He could see it all so clearly: the plains opening up to the rolling hills of the central region, the coastlines curling around their cities like protective arms. But it wasn’t enough to still the noise in his head. He was beginning to understand something unsettling: there was no map for what lay ahead. No guide. No lines drawn in the sand that said, This is where you are, this is where you're going.
Then, sorrowfully, tearfully, he'd wonder if he should have spent more time on his drawings instead.