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The first thought you have about this place is that it is beautiful. You can’t remember anything from before, don’t have much to compare it to, but you think it all the same. Even when you know you’re totally and completely lost, there’s something amazing about this place you’ve ended up. Something curling around you deep down that lifts your heart and plants a spark and makes you feel alive in a way you haven’t yet in your few short seconds of memory.
The sands glow golden under the sun, the water clear as diamond and iridescent as pearl, and the land sings as you awake. The pure, primal feeling of this place follows you, nudging you forwards when you meet the eyes of the man crouched beside you, urging you to trust. It cheers when you lock eyes for the first time with the one who will be your partner - a curious, mischievous Rowlet you already know you would die for. It’s easy, natural, to latch onto him it is natural, you’ve done this before, done this all before, and you’ll do it again and again and again. You hand that Pokéball to the man last, fingers reluctant to part with the treasure. He seems to sense it, his eyes twinkling knowingly, and he pockets them with a gentle sort of care.
He leads you to a village, talking all the while about Pokémon and Jubilife and a project he’s calling the Pokédex. At the last, a bell chimes with recognition in your mind, but there’s a prod, the world urging you to keep quiet. Not yet, it tells you. Not yet. You listen.
Those in Jubilife tell you if you want to stay, you’ll have to earn your place. Prove you’re worth their resources. The trials they set are passed easily, though you haven’t fully realised what passing them means. You do realise how the inhabitants of the village look at you with suspicious, fearful glances. Laventon welcomes you, cheerful as ever, but you know his words aren’t entirely true. No one is glad you are here. The only thing that makes it better is they seem to be willing to try; for that and that alone you’ll pretend you don’t notice how they whisper when your back is turned, how your fingers unwittingly curl tighter over the device pulsing in your hand. “Seek out all Pokémon.” At least Laventon’s promised to help you achieve that. At least one person wants you.
Even with those thoughts, a warmth splutters to life in your chest. The uniform Cyllene hands you is far from acceptance, but it feels like a promise all the same. It doesn’t matter where you’re from, or that you can’t remember a thing. They’re willing to take you anyway, because of what you can do.
So you begin to settle into a routine. Going out into the wilds (the region’s called Hisui, you learn. It suits the land perfectly) to catch and observe Pokémon, talking to Laventon about what you find, crafting Pokéballs and collaborating with the only other person in the Survey Corps your age. It’s nice, though the village more often than not doesn’t hide their hostility. That’s okay. You can get by with what you have even if you find yourself wanting more. Even when you are sent to face the Clans’ noble Pokémon, calming them down from their frenzies with Dartrix’s help and a basket stacked with balms, it slots into your routine with a concerning ease. At least you have a good reputation with the clans now.
(It takes a single minute in Adaman and Irida's presence for you to know you can never let them find out your secret. You try not to think of it at all, just how you don’t think of the rift over Mt Coronet or the melody twirling around your shoulders. The Arc Phone hasn’t left your satchel since you first saw Lord Kleavor and recognised Its energy pulsating from the Pokémon in waves.)
Over time, Jubilife grows used to you. Used to the outsider, the one who comes back from surveys with scuffed up clothing and the look of the wilds in their eyes. The whispers you hear as you walk past talk of your accomplishments, how much good you’ve done, how you’re one of them after all. It’s much better than those before who’d scream ‘outsider’. You start to feel accepted, truly accepted, as the residents of Jubilife look past ignore the wrongness that clings to you - the past shunning seems distant, like it was from a different lifetime. You’ve never known what it’s like to have people looking out for you, not that you can remember but oh this feels comfortable and safe and familiar, didn’t you have so much more once ? Now though, you know everyone in the village by name, and they smile when you meet their eyes.
Something’s nagging in a corner of your mind. It tells you that none of this is real. You ignore it, because of course it’s real. You’re here, aren’t you?
(You ignore how, in your quest to be ‘normal’, you haven’t heard Hisui’s voice for weeks.)
Things are the best they have ever been when you return to Jubilife with another new partner and the last noble quelled. And then the sky breaks, and it’s over.
The frigidity of the air presses in around you, the cold intensifying with every shaken breath. You are lost and alone, and something sings; after all, hasn’t the village always been wrong, ill-fitting like a poorly-sewn cloak? The more you think the more you realise that, enthralled by an impossibility, you might have deluded yourself. Maybe you belong out here instead, with all the other not-quite-rights. You know nothing before Hisui - your first and last memory something you try not to think about. Oh, you cannot forget, you will never forget how you felt that day, how Its radiance wrapped around you and folded you to Its will. The glimpse of something so far above you that made you realise just how pointless everything is. Maybe you were trying to forget.
You’ll never belong with them, you know that, so you walk forwards with unhesitating strides, your mind already pulling down the hopes and thoughts and dreams you’ve built in your months here. They do not want you back, you will not take them back, because you are not one of them, and you’ll never be one of them because something is fundamentally wrong about you. And so you continue your walk, not flinching at the noises, the little sparks, the lives that scatter around you. You shan’t be warned off by the howls, the gruesome sounds that warn just how wild this place is, far, far away from anywhere they’d dare search. Hisui draws you in like a moth to a flame, the fire glowing brighter than ever.
You walk steadily towards this wilderness, and you are not afraid. Because you’re not one of them anymore.
You never were.