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The first flakes of powdery snow fluttered down into the Mirelands. Akari traced their patterns from her perch on one of Mount Coronet’s cliffs. By next week, the entire region would be covered in a thin layer of white. She let her vision unfocus. This would be her second winter in Hisui; her second year away from home.
“… collect enough this year.” Ingo’s voice drifted into her perception. “Were you successful in your research on Goodra yesterday?”
“Whuh?” The world unblurred. Pinpricks of cold penetrated her jacket where snowflakes had melted, and the half-built Poke Ball in her hand suddenly felt heavy.
“Are you all right?” He set down the red paint he’d been mixing and turned towards her. “I was asking about Goodra.”
“I’m fine.” She said flatly. “I’m not done with Goodra yet.”
“It’s going to hibernate soon! You should hurry, your mission will take much longer if you have to wait through another winter. There is still time for Gliscor and I to help you find one.” He glanced at his wrist, something he always did when talking about the time for reasons neither of them remembered.
“I know. And I’m close to finishing, I just…” She let herself fall backwards onto the grass. “What if there’s no one waiting for me?”
“Of course someone is.” He said. “Though I admit I have considered the possibility for myself as well. I’m not quite sure how to reconcile that uncertainty with my desire to go home.”
“I’m not so sure anyone is. At least you have your ‘white guy’ or whatever.”
“They’re a blessing and a curse.” He picked up the Poke Ball she’d dropped when she laid down and continued carving it into shape. “I don’t know how much of my memory can be trusted. They could be someone who awaits my return. Or they could look so similar to me because they sent me here with the intention to replace me. My partial memories drive me to return, but they provide me no comfort.”
“So we’re both stuck in a different but equally terrible form of memory hell. Awesome.” Akari knew he was only trying to help. But words wouldn't fix this. Only Arceus could.
“Regardless, there is someone waiting for you.”
“How are you so sure?”
“When you arrived here, were you hungry?”
“No, I wasn’t.” Bright, puffy clouds floated past. A wide open sky lay before her, but she had nowhere to go and nothing she wanted to do. Was this stagnant fog that filled her lungs a sign that she missed home? Or was it a feeling from her current time?
“Exactly. Both of us had clean clothes as well, but you are a child. It’s likely your parents fed and clothed you.”
“Arceus wiped our memories, I think it could have put clothes on us, too.”
“It clearly isn’t perfect at memory manipulation. And why give us clothes that are clearly not meant for this time period and climate?”
“To make us seem even more like outsiders.”
“Would that not be a detriment to the success of the mission Arceus itself assigned you?”
“I don’t know!” She shot back up into a seated position. “Maybe it designed things specifically so that we’d become friends. Maybe it planted your memories in your head! I mean, why do I even have to do this shit anyway? If Arceus is powerful enough to bring us here, why can’t it ‘seek out all Pokémon’ by itself?”
“We could spend all day trying to figure out what Arceus thinks,” Ingo’s voice deepened, “and get nowhere.”
“Sorry.” Right, she’d brought up the theory before, that his memories might be fake. He always hated it. And like an idiot, she’d gone and done it again. “If you were in my position, would you do it? Keep following Arceus?”
“Yes. It’s not that I dislike my life… but I’m filled with a strange emptiness which I know should not be there. I would regret never finding out what’s missing. Sometimes I envy that you have such a direct path home.”
“What if I don’t want there to be?” She whispered, voice shaking.
The wind whistled across the mountain.
“Part of me doesn’t want there to be a way home.” She continued. “I mean, I don’t want to stay, but I want to want to stay. I know that doesn’t make sense. I just… I don’t know what home is in that world. But I know what it is here.” She leaned against Ingo’s shoulder.
“Oh, Akari…”
“What if we’re from different times? Different universes? O-or I’m the only one who gets to go home, and I have to spend the rest of my life knowing I left you behind?”
So that’s what the feeling was. Sadness. She hadn’t even realized it herself until the tears poured out. Or, wait, maybe she did, and that was why she buried it. She was supposed to be the hero, the girl who showed up, helped everyone, and left as a champion. Surely that’s what receiving a quest from Arcues meant? Which, surely, would mean her bond with the people here, and any hint at a desire to stay, went against the very purpose of her existence? Surely all of this was wrong?
“Listen.” Ingo turned and grabbed hold of her shoulders. “If you are able to leave, and I can’t go with you, I want you to do it anyway.”
“I know, I know I have to. That’s what I’m supposed to do.”
“Hm? Wait. Is the only reason you want to leave because you think it’s what Arceus wants?”
“It is what Arceus wants.” She pulled her jacket tighter as a cold wind whistled through her. “I don’t know. But Arceus said-“
“No. Ah, sorry for interrupting you, but I believe your logic is flawed, and as your friend I must inform you before you go down this track.” Snow had begun to collect on his clothes, dusting him in white powder. “You can’t live your whole life for the sake of someone else. Even if it’s Arceus. Even if it’s me. What do you want?”
To stay with you, she wanted to say. But she was certain he wouldn’t accept that. Yet how could separate her desires completely from her friendships? Arceus wasn’t exactly her friend, but that didn’t make her obligations to it any less real. What her friends wanted, what other people wanted… it mattered to her. When she had no memories of her own, how was she supposed to avoid filling herself up with other people’s desires? None of it made any sense.
“Aren’t you doing the same thing?” She mumbled, wiping her cold tears off her face.
“What do you mean?”
“You want to go home for your 'white guy.' How is that different than from what I’m doing?”
“I want to go home to solve the mysteries in my lost memories. Yes, that includes meeting him. To the best of my knowledge, no one planted that desire in my head. I’m doing it because I want to.”
“And what if Arceus did plant it there?” The second she said it, an icicle of anxiety pierced her chest. She did it again. Brought up that theory he hated. “Sorry, I’m… just curious.”
“I’ll decide how to proceed when I arrive at that station. Right now, I’d rather act based on things I know to be certain. Well, more certain. As certain as I can be with my memory the way it is.” His eyes drifted to the icy Mirelands below, the closest to an outward expression of sadness Akari had ever seen from him. “Anyway. Don’t think you can get out of this by changing the subject. What do you want to do?”
“Stay with you.” She said, with no hesitation.
“Even if I go back to my time, and it isn’t where you’re from?”
“Yes. We won’t know till we get there, anyway.” She picked up her half-Poke Ball, brushing off the gathered snow. “I can decide when it happens. Er, at the station. Whatever you said. If I end up on your world, at least we’ll figure out why you talk the way you do.”
Akari yelped as Ingo dragged her up into standing. He shook the ice off his jacket. “In that case, hurry up! We have a Goodra to catch!”