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All things considered, the morning should have been a peaceful one. They had been walking long enough that the cold no longer stiffened Adaman's muscles. The rising sun painted the snow in shades of orange and yellow, and the combined menace of their Pokémon, flanking the group in resolute silence, kept any would-be attackers away. Even the crunch of snow under their boots made a pleasant percussive accompaniment... when Adaman could hear it over Melli's whining.
Walking with Melli was not usually such an unpleasant endeavor. Usually, he sang or made conversation or complained with such a spirit of companionship that it felt like solidarity. If only that were the case today.
"I still don't see why I had to come along," Melli grumbled, tugging his hat down low. "I thought the whole point of being a warden was getting out of these petty little tasks."
"It's not a petty little task," Adaman replied, more for the benefit of the rest of the party, in case they got any ideas. "The Pearl Clan needs our help. We're being neighborly by sending our best and brightest." There. A little flattery ought to help.
Melli continued fiddling with his hat. He'd been doing it all morning, actually. "Let the Galaxy Team be neighborly."
"The Galaxy Team is also being neighborly," Adaman said, and had to take a deep breath. The cold air smelled crisp and fresh with the scent of the mountain pines, and even persistent, fermented odor of Skuntank's poison couldn't quite spoil it. "But the Pearl Clan needs help, so we're going to help. Argue all you want, you're not getting out of it."
Melli exhaled, whining like a kicked dog. "I want to go to bed," he said wistfully.
Adaman shot him a look. Maybe something more was bothering him, though why he didn't just speak up was beyond Adaman. Melli had always been something of a riddle. And he was still messing with his hat, now pushing the seam line into his temple like he wanted to make a mark. Adaman ran a hand over his own temple. "Don't pretend. You'd be up and tending to Electrode by now anyway."
"Not with a headache like this."
Ah, there it was. Melli was bound to come up with some excuse sooner or later. And here Adaman had been expecting a sudden crisis with Lord Electrode, some urgent task left undone and forgotten until a convenient moment. Waiting until now was pushing things, though; the had almost reached the Pearl Settlement. Adaman scoffed. "Please. If you really had a headache, you'd have shut up by now."
Behind them, someone snickered. Probably Arezu.
"Adaman!" Melli pressed his fingertips to his chest. "You really think I'd lie to you?"
Adaman raised an eyebrow. "You've had a headache this whole time and you only just now thought to bring it up?"
"I," Melli said, drawing himself up to his full height, "have been suffering in dignified silence."
Someone —definitely Arezu— laughed. "Could have fooled me!"
"Hmph!" Melli crossed his arms, glowering as though Adaman were the one who had said it. "This is how we reward vulnerability in the Diamond Clan? I'm sure Electrode will be very interested to know how his beloved warden was treated."
"You probably would feel better if you quieted down," Mai offered from behind them.
Melli crossed his arms, turning his nose up. "And deprive you all of my brilliant insights?"
Slowing, Adaman moved the folds of his clothing to get to his pack. Herbs had never been his strong suit, but no one in Hisui could afford to be completely ignorant of them. And now that Mai had mentioned quieting down, he had a two-fold solution... Aha, there it was. "Hold out your hand."
"Why?" Melli asked, already doing it.
Adaman shook a few dried bushmint leaves into Melli's palm. "Hold those on your tongue. It will help."
For a long moment, Melli squinted at him. Adaman took the opportunity to look him over, just in case the matter was serious. He was the leader, after all. He had a duty to look after his own.
But Melli, at least to Adaman's untrained eye, looked perfectly alright. Pale, yes, but the cold made them all pale. Pink in the cheeks and chapped in the lips from the lashing wind. Hair and shoulders dotted with little dry snowflakes. He wasn't even squinting from the snowshine.
Melli looked away, still not entirely comfortable with eye contact after all these years. "And this isn't just to shut me up?"
"Comb mint?" Mai asked.
Adaman nodded. "That's right."
"It'll help, Melli."
"Fine." Melli closed his hand over the dried leaves. "But if I drop dead later, we all know who to blame."
Irida was waiting for them at the end of the path, accompanied by a woman in purple Galaxy Team uniform. "You're early," she called.
Adaman smiled. "Time is a precious gift. And we can't be that early, if you're here to receive us."
A quick glance behind Irida revealed the issues her messenger had alluded to: piles of snow, a few halfway submerged cabins, a handful of downed trees. In Adaman's periphery, Melli shifted and disappeared, whispering, probably to Mai, "Can I swallow these?"
There was no answer but the shuffling of fabrics and the slosh of a waterskin.
Irida led them into the settlement proper, where they made their introductions. Sanqua of the Galaxy Team's Construction Corps and her various workers, members of the Pearl Clan, Adaman's party.
"I don't see any Pearl Clan wardens," Melli said with a sniff.
Irida nodded. "Our wardens are typically exempt from helping out in the settlement. They have an important job to do, after all! Gaeric wanted to come down and help, but I convinced him to stay with Lord Avalugg."
"Now that's refreshing take, isn't it, Adaman," Melli said, pointed and poisonous. "Not forcing those members of your clan who already have jobs to take on more work, let alone when they're unwell."
Irida raised her eyebrows. "Is one of you unwell?"
"Don't mind him," Adaman said hurriedly, edging in front of Melli. Blood scorched his freezing cheeks. Irida was going to think he was a tyrant. "We're here to help! We've explained the situation to our Nobles, and they understand. We're at your service, Irida. And at your command, Sanqua. What can we do?"
Sanqua pointed to an array of tools scattered around the center of the settlement. "Everyone team up with a member of the Construction Corps, and take your pick between shoveling snow or cutting the trees up so we can move them. We'll have this place cleaned up in no time."
A loud huff. Adaman didn't even need to look. It was Melli. "Don't you have anything that won't cause blisters?"
"He's joking," Adaman said, bringing his foot down on top of Melli's. Melli cast him a baleful look, but kept his mouth shut. "Melli, why don't you go with Sanqua?" That ought to keep him out of trouble.
Adaman had certainly seen a saw before, but he'd never had occasion to use one.
Far be it from him to cling to tradition just for the sake of it, but the Diamond Clan had their ways, and metal was hard to come by. Or at least, it had been before the Galaxy Team had set up shop with the Ginkgo Guild in tow.
Turned out, using the saw was not the hard part. It was fairly simple, and gave his muscles a chance to work. The really difficult part was keeping pine needles out of his eyes. And hair. And mouth.
Another branch fell away. Adaman stepped back to let his arm rest, his eyes narrowing at the sudden waft of camellia perfume and the approach of footsteps on snow. He almost picked up the saw again out of sheer spite, but his arm was burning and his time for passive-aggression had long since passed. He was a leader now, whatever that entailed.
Still, he couldn't quite look at Melli, when he approached, had to stare somewhere past him. "Um, Adaman—"
"Melli," Adaman groaned, throwing his head back. Didn't he know how embarrassing this was? Hopefully, he hadn't been complaining Sanqua's ear off. "I need you to understand. I really can't have you acting like this, especially not in front of the Pearl Clan. I know you don't want to help out, but I need you to buck up and quit whining, okay? You're fine."
A long silence followed.
Adaman frowned.
Then Melli sniffled, and Adaman's heart took a long plunge toward the cold snow. He whipped his head up and found Melli staring at him with real hurt in his teary eyes, his chest quivering with tiny sobs.
Oh, no... "Melli." Adaman faced him properly, looking him over for any sign of injury. "Hey, don't do that. What's wrong?"
Melli sniffled and swallowed hard, fresh tears tracing gleaming tracks down his cheeks. "You're not listening to me," he said, his voice shaky and thin.
"I'm listening, Melli," Adaman said. He hadn't seen Melli like this in years. "Your head really hurts that bad?"
"Yes!" Melli glared at him, yet more tears spilling down his cheeks. "I tried to tell you, and you weren't listening, and those leaves didn't help at all, but Mai said to leave it alone, and now—" He broke off, swallowing thickly, and pressed a forearm to his stomach. "I don't want to be here."
Somewhere deep in Adaman's mind, a tiny memory rang like the distant chime of a bell. His grandfather forbidding him and the other children to play outside a certain house, Mai regaling them with tales of intense pains, wasting pains. Headaches so bad they could induce vomiting.
Melli sniffled again and swallowed hard, leaning forward a little.
"Okay." Adaman took him by the arms and sat him down on the trunk of the felled treee, well clear of the saw. "Try not to be sick, alright? I'll figure this out."
Melli's fingers caught them hem of Adaman's coat, clinging on exactly as he had when they'd both been little. "Where are you going?" He looked a little panicked, and his knuckles were white around the fabric. Even as Adaman watched, a little of the color disappeared from Melli's cheeks. His shoulders hitched, either with a hiccup or a slight gag.
Adaman sat down next to him. "It's okay. Just lean forward. Have you ever had a headache like this before?"
Melli shook his head, his shoulders hitching again. Definitely a gag.
"It's okay. It happens." Adaman stroked Melli's back, his eyes traveling along the intersection of Melli's hat and hood. It might feel better to have the pressure off his temples, but Melli loved that hat. He almost never took it off, even to sleep. "Have you fallen recently? Hurt your neck?"
Melli glared at him, though he had to swallow hard before he could speak. "I'm not stupid." Then his hard expression crumbled, and he squeezed his eyes shut, young and afraid again. "Sorry..."
"Just try to breathe." Adaman kept rubbing Melli's back. He really must have been feeling bad, to cry like this. Then again, it probably had more to do with Adaman's behavior than the pain...
Adaman swallowed a pang of his own nausea, of his own guilt. Melli had asked for his help, had tried to advocate for himself in his own way, and what had Adaman done? Brushed him off and sent him away to be alone with some stranger. No retreat, no escape. What kind of a leader did that?
"Ada— My hair—" Melli hiccuped and bent further forward, and Adaman sprang behind him to gather up Melli's long, silky locks. No more mistakes.
Melli shuddered, silent except for the quiet rush of vomit hitting powder snow. Adaman pressed against his back as his shoulders strained, whole body taut. No other sound. Just Melli, made quiet and small by Adaman's carelessness.
The vomiting tapered off, and Melli hunched forward, shaking his hair free of Adaman's grasp. "I h-hate this. I want to go home."
Adaman moved his hands to Melli's arms and had him move a little down the length of the tree trunk. When he was satisfied, he climbed over and sat beside Melli, rubbing tears from that snow-white skin, from those long lashes. "I'm sorry Melli." Sorry he wasn't feeling well, sorry Adaman hadn't listened.
Melli sniffled, and again, his hand curled around the hem of Adaman's coat. Clinging on just like he had as a child, when the coat was different and the hands were smaller and the fear was much, much bigger.
"This will pass." Adaman kissed Melli's forehead, then straightened and gently pulled his coat free, folding Melli's hands in his lap. "Try to stop crying, okay?" I'll be right back; I just need to speak to Irida. Trust me." Not that he had given Melli much reason to...
Melli nodded, miserable and meek, and Adaman turned away.
—
The work didn't stop just because one member of the force was unwell, so Adaman had no choice but the continue sawing once he'd gotten Melli settled down (in Irida's bed, no less. He'd have to be happy about that once he was feeling better).
But at last, the day came to an end. Adaman's crew declined to camp at the Pearl Settlement, preferring a long walk to familiarity over a snowy night under the stars. Hard to blame them. Harder still not to worry about them, because he had to stay behind.
Irida walked him to her doorstep, her calm presence somehow making Adaman feel like a little boy playing in his grandfather's robes.
"You're sure it's alright?" Adaman asked, catching her as she tried to turn away. Leaning on the Pearl Clan's hospitality wasn't exactly a hardship in light of the aid his own clan had just provided, but this was Irida's home, her bed.
Irida nodded, not smiling, but with warm eyes. "It's no problem. I'll stay with Lina— Warden Palina's parents. They won't mind at all."
"Thank you, Irida."
She nodded again. "Give your warden my well-wishes."
"Thanks." Steeling himself, Adaman pushed into Irida's cabin, squinting in the firelight. Melli was curled up in bed with his back to the door, looking for all the world as sick as he had claimed to be that morning when he'd been crowing about that alleged headache. "Feeling any better?"
"The great Melli has been lain low," Melli said, which was answer enough. "I fear I may not live to see the daylight. So if there's anything you think you'll regret not having commended me for, now is the time."
Adaman sat on the bedding, pressing the small of his back to Melli's shoulders.
"Sounds serious."
"It is serious." They fell silent for a moment, until Melli shifted and buried his nose in the blankets. "You didn't really think I was lying, did you, Ada?"
Adaman turned so he could rest a hand on Melli's arm, guilt making sickening waves in his stomach. He had. For just a moment, he had thought Melli was deceiving him. "Not lying, but... Come on. You were being awfully talkative for someone with a supposed excruciating headache."
"My almighty spirit rises in the face of adversity."
Adaman laughed softly and patted Melli's arm. "Alright. I'm sorry I didn't act quicker. I should have listened."
"Thank you," Melli said, with great, tired sigh. "And I suppose, if there's a next time, I can allow myself to seem a few degrees more infirm. You know, just to really spell it out for you."
"I'd appreciate that." Twisting the opposite way now, Adaman pressed a kiss to Melli's temple, or where he approximated it to be under the hat and hood he was still wearing. "Get some rest. I'll be right here if you need me."
"Thank you, Adaman. You're... good at this." Melli yawned. "I don't you don't think you are, but you're doing a good job."
Heat flared in Adaman's cheeks. He ran a hand down the side of Melli's face. "Get some sleep, kid."