Love Lost, Chapter 16b: Declarations, concluded.
#32 of Love Lost
Love Lost, Chapter 16b: Declarations, concluded.
James wiped some cold sweat from his brow. "Well, what do you think?"
Marianne spat some stringy, purple condensation against a wad of tissue resting in a small rubbish bin. "I think you need to smoke fewer cigarettes, drink more beer, and quit getting worse."
James huffed. "I guess nothing stays afloat forever."
"You said Mister Wrinklescrotum had a second option planned for you. Tell him that, after a promising start, his first has failed miserably."
"Yeah, in the last week he cut me a check for repairs after his loose-cannon parakeet ravaged my living room and then my son beat him in a pokemon fight on his dime: I'm sure he wants to hear from me again."
Marianne spat another glob and drifted over James' bed. "Ivana is his problem, accepting a battle challenge is his problem, your taking him up on his offer is his problem. And, since he has financial interest in this little medical program, you're the one doing him a favor. You would be warning him to adjust his portfolio before part of it crashes and burns."
"The part of it that I'm riding in. Thanks for that analogy."
Marianne laid flat across his bed face-up beside him and flopped a couple tendrils over his face. "Don't mention it."
James swatted them away. "Get out of my bed, Ghost. You've got your own, now."
She twisted and spun like a top before returning to her typical form. "Some hero's welcome. I knock Ivana out cold, and kinda help the squatter out, too, and it's,"--she mocked his voice for six words--" 'Get out of my bed, Ghost.' But, when Burner lets a stranger inside that wrecks up the place, then he and your boy go off to break her wing in revenge, then it's, 'Let's celebrate by having the squatter fix us a nice early dinner, catch a movie--' "
"That wasn't much of a movie," James noted.
"I liked it. Especially the part with the hot knife; I have a thing for sharp edges. Anyway, speaking in the third person, I think Marianne might have a tiny reason to feel just a wee bit under-appreciated right now."
James gripped his bed-sheets and turned over to face away from her. "I think Marianne has a lot of debt from being an ever-present pest to work off, and while her occasional good deed is not ignored, it's not going to fool anyone into actually trusting her, either."
"Well, it should," she whispered faintly as her bundle of tendrils fell into a straight downward dangle.
James turned over, looked at her, and scoffed. "I didn't know fake-tears was a move misdreavus could learn."
Marianne drifted upward into the attic silently.
"There, Uncle, I sent you a link to his profile. See it? Pentachord Badge, serial number 188. Only three digits; it's not even alphanumeric."
"I can tell you for a fact, Small Fry, that badge was minted a long time ago because they were transitioning from serial numbers to randomized codes about the same time I started getting my badges around your age. Did you do your homework on this?"
"You know I know you'd whoop my butt next time you came to town if I wasted your time with a question I could answer on my own. The League Encyclopedia does have the Pentachord Badge on the master list of badges that have been issued, but other than it being the badge of a leader called 'D. W.' with a seven month tenure, I can't find anything. It's like they wiped away everything but it stayed on the list because they still had to honor the badges that were issued. Heck, even the list of people who have been issued the badge in the past is League-eyes only. Joe's the only one that comes up, and the event is listed as a private blind match; kuroko proxies, no general audience, and no statistics except for the result."
Ulysses huffed into his trainer's device's microphone. "Okay, I'll ask around and see what I can find, but the guy you should talk to is Masato Iwamoto. He's a nice old man who lives on the other side of town. You can't miss his place; it's all landscaped and decorated funny. Oriental style, I think it's called. He was Rennin Gym's leader until he retired from house duty and started wandering whenever he gets an itch for a League-funded sight-seeing tour. Since that serial number is the only evidence of when that D. W. guy was active, and it was that long ago, Iwamoto might be the only guy still involved with the League who's got a chance of knowing something."
Percival thanked his uncle for the speech T.M. license and bade him goodnight.
"You're embarrassed," a lizard listening-in nearby stated.
"A little," Percival admitted. "I put a lot of time and trouble into you and Frankie and I've got nothing to show for it."
Sam marked his page and set his book aside. The room became dark when he switched off his faux-sunlight array. "Is that what you want? Something to show for it?"
"You got a problem with that?" Percival grumbled.
"No."
Percival wanted to call him on his lie. "Good. Keep it that way." He started to nestle into bed, but before he could shut his eyes, Sam was on top of him with what could have been a leaf-blade pressed against his neck.
Sam brought his mouth against his master's right ear and spoke, "Percival; I really, truly do not want to begin to hate you. Do you understand?"
Percival acknowledged with a gulp.
"Good. Rest well, my friend; you have lessons in the morning." Sam licked Percival's cheek before he retreated.
It had been a long time since Sam had done that, Percival recalled. Until sleep overtook him, he struggled to remember exactly when the last time was, but his memory failed him.
When everyone in the house but one was sound asleep, Grace could resist her curiosity no longer. "Come on, Joe, let me see. I want to know what I missed. It wouldn't have been any problem if I'd come along; that old rat just wanted to upset me and make me worry about you."
As her voice penetrated Joe's sleeping mind, he began seeing a strange vision of chaotic pastel forms composing a chaotic landscape in all directions. He felt Grace's arms wrap around him and pull him backwards against her body. It was something that could not be done exactly the same way when awake, since only in her dream could her ventral antenna be experimentally dismissed from existence. He indulged her.
"I learned a little about how this works over the weekend, so all you have to do is concentrate on what you want to show me, and I'll make it real for us."
Soon the pastel plains receded and the ground beneath them shifted. They were together inside the hired car, Joe sitting where he sat before. Grace quickly positioned herself beside him as the interior's form solidified. He was holding his trainer's device, but not for long as Grace snatched it and tossed it away. "Tinted windows, and in the movies these cars have a little thing that comes up and covers the window between us and the driver. We could've had some fun back here. I think we should visit this memory again sometime when you're ready."
Even in his dreams, Joe blushed a little. "You'd like that?"
Grace twitched a little. "Of course I would. I know, I know, your father never liked the idea of us becoming close, and I've felt enough people reacting when we're together in public to understand why. Especially if they know about the kinds of guys that video was about. And, yes, some things will be different from how they would be if we weren't different." She forced her left arm against the seat behind Joe to capture him within her arms. "But I know for sure that we're a good pair. I have since our first night together."
Joe turned his head a little. Grace closed her eyes and turned hers, too. She was angling for a kiss and found it, interrupting Joe's reply for a moment, although he did not forget what he wanted to say.
"That thing you did to me that first night, is that how you know? And, why I felt so tired that morning?"
Grace's gills flushed. "It's weird, uh, if I can guess what we would have called it and translate it right, I think it would be something like, blind-mind-palpating. Don't ask me what 'palpating' means; that's the T.M. talking. Okay, it's like when we synchronize, except neither of us see anything. Only the deepest part of our minds connect, and it's like sharing patterns instead of things. I'm... not explaining this very well, am I?"
Joe grunted, "Ungh-ungh."
"Let me try this." Grace moved her left hand to Joe's left temple and tried to impart a sample of the sensation she could not describe. "See what I mean?"
Joe cocked his head to a side slightly. "I don't know," he admitted, for he could not describe it either.
"Anyway, when you woke up, it was like a little voice told me that how you would react to seeing me would let me know if I would be truly special to you."
Joe looked into her eyes as he did that morning. Grace felt him re-experiencing the sense of wonder he felt then. She leaned in and again they kissed. He put his arms around her and whispered her name.
"Grace, how will I know when I'm ready?"
She remembered a legend on a small paper box, and paraphrased. "When each of us is wholly doubtless."
Her simulation was working better than she expected, although there were a few issues that she had not anticipated. The ride ended abruptly after their brief exchange of affection, as Joe thought of his arrival in Sulmepride. Grace followed Joe inside a partial recreation of Manse DeWell's facade. She could not explore the hotel's lobby in full, because only the parts that Joe saw were in his mind. She floated away from the main path and watched the projection distort as approximate forms and blurred colors filled gaps. Sensing their connection beginning to falter, she quickly returned to Joe's side. Although he did not seem to notice, he also was somewhat restricted, walking the paths he took when the memories were formed and being reluctant, although able, to deviate. Grace was happy to exercise some creative control, editing out parts of the memory that bugged her, such as Maximilian's presence. She was less happy to dismiss the vision of Burner when he appeared in response to Joe walking to where he was in the suite when he released his blaziken the first time, but Burner's actions, a strange hybrid of fixed historical account and predicted responses to Grace's presence and Joe's re-living the situation, were distracting at best.
Grace explored the whole of Suite 904. She stood before its piano and struck a series of notes: B, H, D#, E, H, B, G#, D#. Circuit completed, she returned to its bedroom to find Joe crawling beneath the covers.
"Going to bed already?"
Joe spoke through his pillow. "Tired." She watched as he fell asleep. More asleep, she supposed.
Faintly, Grace heard the series of notes again. She quickly drifted through the room's greater space to investigate.
Another gardevoir was sitting at the piano. It repeated the sequence a few times more before allowing the tune to continue. "He went to bed and you didn't fol-low him? I'm surprised you'd miss the chance."
Grace placed her right palm on the piano and leaned against it. "Actually, we're in bed right now."
The other gardevoir banged a flat discord. "That's good for us. We are ve-ry glad."
Grace started to smirk. "You're jealous, aren't you?"
A squint and a flourish on a few bars; otherwise she ignored Grace's suspicion.
Grace took that as an admission. "I guess that kinda explains your behavior. I know we don't get along, but, since I guess we're talking honestly and openly, please, don't take it out on me or Joe. We like you. We didn't, but you've grown on us."
The song slowed a little, but became a little deeper. The gardevoir rode the sustain pedal. "I have grown, in a way."
"I hope you mean emotionally. I don't think we can make the attic bigger."
The song changed again, increasing in tempo and featuring notes from a higher octave. In fact, it seemed almost like each song took only a matter of seconds, despite having minutes of content and being played at normal speeds. "You are speaking nonsense. Perhaps you are over-tired from," she swung her head around to gesture at their surroundings, "this effort. It is a little out of your league." She started striking keys forcefully, producing as much volume as the piano could with its rear lid closed.
Grace glanced away. "I guess he can't hear this, or he can sleep through anything."
The other gardevoir's latest chord decayed to nothing before she continued to play gently. "I don't need him to hear me yet."
"That's a nice tune. It's sorta familiar. How did you learn to play it, though?"
"We needed to do something to keep from going mad."
Grace chuckled. "I know that feeling. Now that the house is tidy enough to prove that it isn't only guys living there, I'm having to find things to keep me busy once the daily chores are done and Joe comes home from school. What do you do when I'm not seeing you around?"
The song was slow and wistful for a moment. "Listening. Waiting." But it began to pick up again.
Grace looked at the floor. "I guess that makes sense. I guess you have time on your side."
"I want time on your side."
Grace looked at the gardevoir. "What does that mean?"
A crescendo built and collapsed as the current song ended and another began, a very mournful one. "Please, don't ask," she said but to nobody.
Walking across the room toward the balcony, Grace looked out upon the city, or at least the part that Joe glanced at during his stay. A peek through the telescope revealed nothing but darkness.
"I really like this one," Grace commented.
"It is a song of loneliness, abandonment, longing, and regret." Her description of the tune's meaning seemed to conflict with the passage she was playing, far more up-beat than its first measures. A minute later, she started striking notes in a chaotic yet subtly meaningful pattern. "I'm always glad when that one is over. If you want it, I could give it to you. This one is more my style."
Grace settled into a fancy chair and listened for what must have been six minutes before the gardevoir began singing as though she had been suppressing lyrics throughout her performance and could withstand no longer. "Inte a-vis tehisgo ies. Von ente wakaomok. Fau lega mioblij ful. Von da-le kukumliij. Ecla okul kiliskukumlij krai. Von lega hikhuub. Inte a-vis hikhiib. Avo se-nt elag ilgom. Alle komu wakaji egal. Avel peldi hikidsu ebah!" The lyrics fit poorly near the end; they must have been a translation. Her music continued for three minutes after her singing ended.
With a gentle one-woman round of applause, Grace stood and approached the piano as the other gardevoir finally wrested her weary paws from the ivory. "That was amazing. I don't know what any of those words meant, but your music makes me wish I could play a piano."
The pianist squinted. "You should, but no matter. If you want to play, you can," the gardevoir replied, before cracking a hint of a grin and coming around the instrument. "I can teach you those songs, if you will let me." She drifted toward Grace, raising her hands near Grace's temples. Grace started leaning forward.
With a bright chime and a dull thud, the other gardevoir collapsed against the piano and fell to the floor, revealing Marianne hovering behind where it stood with a mantel clock entangled in her tendrils.
"What the, the, fuck?" Grace sputtered as she stepped back a half-pace. "Why did you... wait... aren't you... " Grace looked back and forth between the ghost and the other.
Marianne tossed the clock away, letting it clatter noisily against the piano's rear lid. "I'm going to gobble-up this little fantasy and wake you up, now; try not to freak out too much." Marianne flew directly toward Grace's face as their surroundings vanished as though splashed with a jar of ink.
Grace awoke to the sensation of a wall passing through her body as Marianne dragged her into the backyard. She did not feel well, somewhat dizzy despite being released to her own sense of balance by Marianne, who drifted over the shallow end of the pool, her necklace glowing brightly.
"Marianne, what the hell was that? Did you... is that how you feed off of us? You kill people in our dreams to make us panic and then suck up the emotional energy and we don't remember in the morning?"
Marianne glanced behind herself, as Grace's voice awakened Fiona who now peeked a little out of the water. "Something like that, but I wasn't the one about to suck you dry."
"What do you mean by that?"
"I mean you were about to let that gardevoir dream-eat you. Did you forget you were asleep?"
"No, but I thought... I thought that gardevoir I was seeing was you, messing with my dreams and trying to screw with me. That's the kind of thing you do. And, you always seem to be lurking around after I see her. Even at the pokecenter when Alice was hurt."
"Well it's comforting to know you're ready to pin all of your problems on me, but that monster you saw isn't my doing, and if it's powerful enough to project itself into whatever crazy dream world you and your boy toy like playing around in at night, you might have me to thank for you not being curled up in a twitching, drooling ball of psychic lobotomy."
Fiona swam up to the edge of the pool, and Grace knelt to hug her head. "Marianne, do you really think that could happen?"
"I doubt you slammed yourself against the wall in that same bedroom for kicks, Kiddo, so something powerful out there seems to mean business."
Grace stood again. "Yeah, but the thing that threw me against the wall didn't ask. The gardevoir you claim was going to hurt me asked to connect with me."
Marianne's jewel back-lit eyes began to roll, but then they centered, indicating that she was actually thinking about it. "Maybe it's two things, but I'll be damned if I can figure out why anyone is interested in you in the first place. Anyway, next time a stranger approaches you in a dream and offers you rare candy, just say, 'No.' " Marianne drifted to the roof and passed through its shingles.
Fiona asked Grace, "Is rare candy bad?"
Grace shrugged and returned to bed. Lying beside Joe, she fondled his hair a little and listened to his breathing for a while. Sleep was coming despite her wish that it would never need to again. Instead she hoped that her dream would be of something different. Something safe from the apparition that looked like a member of her creed.
A long row of magenta feathers stood like a ruined picket fence behind a large fallen tree. The moonlight was faint, but plenty for their dark-adapted vision to watch the action as snow-white claws slashed through the night and turned ice shards into splinters that glittered as they flew. Most of the sneasels hoped the older weavile would reign victorious and retake his stone throne, but none cheered him on, for they knew that when he fell, the victor would label their voices as those of traitors.
Indeed, their recently deposed leader was already growing faint, while his successor showed little fatigue. "Old fool," spoke the new leader as the old caught his breath, "Why ask me to kill you? You taught me to survive when I was abandoned; you groomed me to succeed you; and when you failed us, I stood. I let you remain friend to us. You throw that away and challenge me because I will not let you command my pack?"
The new leader charged the old, intending to embarrass him with an immobilizing hold, but his opponent was still a little older, wiser, and more experienced, turning the new leader's lunge into a throw that sent his body against a nearby boulder.
"I asked for your help to save a member of our pack!" The elder weavile descended upon his protege and whispered into his ear to protect him from being disgraced before the sneasels he led. "She is captured by a bad trainer. You know well the cruelty of such a human, as do I. Fire guards her. I need our pack to free her."
The new leader winced and gathered himself up. "Her. I see now. This isn't about leadership, it's about pity. You pity the worthless runt you created inside the klutz. We have starved because you took pity on the weaklings. I defeated you to rescue our best from your pity, and I ordered dead your precious pitiful. Yes, I know the one you want to pity again, the one that could do nothing but run, and I deny you. Held by a trainer, maybe one day she will evolve and become like you and I are. You would deny her that for the sake of your pity?"
"Like we are, or like we were, Cu--"
The old leader's sentence ended with a bubbly gasp as the new suddenly thrust his claws between the elder's ribs, piercing both of his lungs.
"You would pity her either way, wouldn't you? I deny you and the shame you bring on us all. Even the runts who are not worthy to stand among us deserve better."
The henceforth uncontested leader of his riot hand-picked a few members to haul the body away and cast it into an abandoned mine's ventilation shaft.
"I think I used the wrong word. They're very close to each other." Fiona admitted dejectedly.
Delilah was not about to change her breakfast plans a second time. "Only a pokemon could think the words 'pancakes' and 'waffles' are close to each other." She looked at the milotic, whose expression looked almost ready to burst into tears between regret and embarrassment. "Perhaps. But waffles happened, and you're going to have to live with that for the rest of your life, because our religion does not permit third-term breakfast abortion. Now get your scaly tail out of my kitchen till I call for you." Stomping her foot but inches from said tail, the milotic retreated.
Fiona passed a yawning Percival within the hallway. "What's got you down?" he asked her.
"I said the wrong word and I'm going to eat waffles for the rest of my life." She slithered along.
Percival turned back as her tail's tip passed by him, "Do you even know what a waffle is?"
She shook her head, letting her fins dangle loosely.
"It's not much different from a pancake."
"That's what I thought, but Mother said they're against our religion." She continued through toward the backyard to curl part of herself in her wading pool.
Percival shrugged and asked himself, "Was there a scratch on that T.M. disc?"
Sam slid open Percival's window and crawled out, hoping to capture the sun's first rays. As Fiona was often either kept in her ball or no-longer secretly in the Rainier's pool at this hour, he was a little surprised to step on her tail and gave her an apology and a follow-up question, "How is your head?"
Fiona replied in their shared tongue. "It feels like it's too full."
Sam chuckled as he dragged across the lawn a metal and plastic folding lawn chair. "Heads are stretchy. If you fill it up enough times, you stop being able to."
"You like their words--those," she said "books" using a vulgar human syllable, "--you read words from them, correct?"
"As many as I can." Sam laid himself in an orientation opposite of the recliner's designer's intent.
"But you have all those words in your head from the noise."
Day began to break and, through a gap in the surrounding sparse trees and houses, sunlight fell upon Sam. He hissed with pleasure. "Not all of them. Some words are old, replaced with new words, but they aren't perfect replacements. Those words, the thoughts that need those words, the people who thought those thoughts; they interest me most."
"The things that hurt now feel good later?"
"Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. I always hope they will, because otherwise, there are a lot of good things I couldn't look forward to."
Delilah shouted a call to forks.
Fiona tensed and writhed. "Are you coming in for food?"
Sam tensed and writhed, too, to maximize the amount of his bushy tail that was in the rising sunlight. "I'm taking my breakfast out here; thank you."
The milotic re-entered her master's home. Although she knew that she did not fully understand the sceptile's philosophy, she did feel ready to suffer whatever mysteries a 'waffle' was about to bring upon her.