=====

The window dangled on one hapless, rusted hinge, creaking as it swung, spurred by wind and momentum. Adrian paused to look at it for a moment, two: and then he moved on. It seemed as if he did that a lot -- stop and look and go; it seemed that that had been what he had been doing ever since the destruction of all he knew. Seven years. It didn't seem like seven years.

He was making his way down the main street of Celadon City, center of the world, and the fact that he could hear his own breathing didn't bother him anymore. It had, the first day he was here, under Lenka's orders; to round up any stragglers and to convince any humans they saw that not all the Pokemon had gone crazy even though half of them had decided to wage war on the world, and he hadn't been successful in either.

Celadon was a ghost town, now, wearing nothing but faint memory. There were no silhouettes behind the curtains draped in that executive apartment; the dress hanging on the mannequin behind that shop window was rotting away. It was particularly dismal on the main street, once bristling with activity and humans and Pokemon of all color and type. He almost thought he missed the smell of tar and concrete.

He wasn't sure if this was the best idea. Humans wouldn't approach a feral-looking Wartortle without Pokemon to defend themselves, and even then they might not. They all stayed in Saffron now -- the final human enclave. Sabrina had done a fine job with its defense. Stragglers might, though; no straggler lived without being able to fight for their lives, and even if Adrian had seen some who had almost been reduced to savagery and had the ear only for primal instinct, they had been willing to go back with him to Seafoam after some coaxing, and a few days of being around other Pokemon had brought back a fair bit of civility again. Almond would have been a better choice. His lips quirked in a smile. Everyone approached Almond; it was just a way the Vaporeon had.

Adrian trotted past the Pokemon Center and he couldn't be blamed for not giving it a second look. The sun had dipped but the moon hadn't risen, and in the half-light, the twilight, a bizarre fusion of cloud and stars, the pile of ashes stirred by wind could be mistaken as a... a mound of rubbish, perhaps. But he knew it wasn't. Celadon had held on for two years, two solid years, but it had fallen at the end. The Center ransacked, the humans murdered first, then the Pokemon, the males killed, the children killed, the females ravished and then still killed at the end. And then they had razed it to the ground, and it had been a torch of their triumph, flames already hot enough to repel anyone who came within five meters and the Tessalists still spurting fire at it. Adrian should know; he'd been there to douse the flames and pull out the survivors with Alantacea. Nurse Joy. Wasn't it ironic? She'd died with tears in her eyes.

There was a crash that cracked like a whip of pure sound; Adrian jumped; he was alone, damnit, it was just another roof falling in, and before he could even finish the bloody thought, a scream sliced through the air and he began to run. He was going to request for a partner next time. The words were almost snatched away in the wind of his running. Being alone in your head did funny things to you.

He moved strangely while running, and the heavy shell didn't help matters, but it didn't matter how he ran as long as he managed to. Adrian was not built for speed, though he was more slender, slightly smaller than the average Wartortle, but he'd learned how to run, run to and away. He pounded down the main street, following the shrieks, tracing the sounds with ears attuned to every cadence of deep water, and soon he veered sideways and into an alleyway and he found them.

"Well now," said one of the Charmeleons, and Adrian swore.

They were Tessalists both, that much was obvious, and one of them held a squirming bundle of fur in his claws -- an Eevee, a delicate, haughty thing that was going at it tooth and nail. The Charmeleon holding her seemed almost amused at her antics, and she was no longer screaming now, but her teeth were bared in a scowl. She looked like a lady's pampered pet with a streak of temper, considering the manicured claws that weren't doing much damage and the once silky, now overgrown fur standing ruffled in agitation on her body. She had eyes that looked as if he should know them, but he dismissed it. Brown eyes were common enough.

He marked them both. The one holding her was the low man between the two, clearly; he was new, barely a recruit, marked only with two slashes on his shoulders that hadn't healed into white streaks yet. It was a brutally efficient way of marking hierarchy amongst the Tessalists; the higher you were, the more scars decorated your body, and they took pride in those scars. A measure of pain to measure the bringers of pain. He thought it was Merlin who had said that. Merlin was a good guy, but he had a black sense of humor sometimes.

He dismissed the recruit, but the other one made him drop into instinctive battle stance. A burnmark on his chest in the shape of a pure white flame. An officer, a high-ranking officer to boot. Adrian didn't know the exact hierarchy of the Tessalists, but he knew enough.

"You've gotten us into some trouble, lady," he muttered under his breath, and surprisingly the Eevee's ears swiveled toward him and she growled. Adrian felt amusement shoot through him; he had known an Eevee like that, once.

The officer was approaching, his steps measured and his claws swinging heavily at his side. He was large, tall; he managed to make awkward shape of bone on his head look elegant. The other one, the recruit, hadn't the height, but he was a good deal heavier and he hadn't even grown into his full weight yet. Adrian's toe-claws curled into the soil. They could rip him up once they got close-quarter, and sheer weight alone would have him squealing in the dirt. Best to keep them far away from him.

"I'll let you play, Sida," the officer said, showing the watery light of serrated teeth. He gave Adrian a contemptuous look, a once-over that reminded the Wartortle that he barely reached his shoulder, but Adrian refused to take the bait. In stories and movies the hero always engaged the villain in witty repartee, but this wasn't a story and he wasn't the hero, anyway, just someone passing by.

"Thank you, sir." Sida let the Eevee drop and she smashed headfirst into the ground. Without even pausing to shake off the brunt, she darted towards Adrian, and she might have made it had the officer not swung a lazy tail that knocked her completely off her feet and sending her scraping the ground to one side. She tried to get up, and managed it halfway with legs splayed, and when the Charmeleon made his way over to pin her down, she bared her teeth at him. There was something odd about the whole performance, like she was leashing something inside her, but maybe that came from being a pet.

Adrian dismissed it quickly, though; he had no time to figure the Eevee's mechanism out. He was matching Sida pace for pace, step for step, circling endlessly like a perverse Catherine wheel. Sida intended to use his claws, that was for certain by the way he hefted them, but Adrian didn't want him anywhere near enough to be able to touch him. Step, step, step, step, ankle over ankle, deliberate placing almost as if they were at a dance, and then he barely tucked himself into a roll quick enough to avoid the Flamethrower that flung itself through the air above his head, singeing his fur.

He reacted instantly, clambering to his feet too close to Sida for his liking, and then had to dive out of the way again as Sida charged toward him, tail swinging and flame burning, and this time when Adrian scrambled up he was ready for the Charmeleon. He stood his ground, eyes calm and still, and when the Charmeleon came close enough, was a breath away, Adrian threw himself to one side, letting Sida's momentum bring him past Adrian before he could swing around -- and for his back to be turned for one precious heartbeat. Adrian extinguished the fire on the tip of his tail with one well-placed Water Gun, extinguished his tail and his life, and as he dropped bonelessly to the ground, Adrian wheeled around and aimed the remainder of that Water Gun at the officer and swore when the Charmeleon leapt aside and he hit the Eevee instead. He sent her soaring further down the street and he heard a teeth-gnashing thump as she impacted.

"Bastard!"

"Glad to be one," the Charmeleon snarled back, and ran towards Adrian in a loping, graceful manner that left no doubt about his speed. He ducked every Water Gun Adrian had in him to fire, ducked and dodged and weaved around the jets of water Adrian knew he couldn't keep up but which fury fuelled him to attempt. He came towards Adrian far too quickly, and they met in a clash of silver claw and teeth.

Adrian fought blindly. The Charmeleon had him writhing beneath him instantly, momentum giving him advantage, strength rendering him the upper hand, but Adrian fought and he fought with anger. I should have bloody looked before I shot that Water Gun! Idiot! Idiot!

The Charmeleon brought his tail up and whipped at the soft flesh of Adrian's neck, unarmored by the toughness of his shell; blinded and scalded, Adrian lifted both arms and scrabbled desperately at the air until his claws found purchase. He raked them down instantly, scoring as hard as he could, and then howled as the Charmeleon went for his eyes, batting his paws aside, and Adrian spewed out an Ice Beam that went askew --

There was something digging into his flesh --

Claws in the meat of his thigh, mustgetthemout --

Adrian should have lost. He should have lost. The Tessalist had a firm grip of his neck, and the perfect leverage. One jerk of those wrists and his life would have been lost under a gurgle of blood and broken bone. But he remembered the look on that Eevee's face as his misaimed attack sent her flying into the air, that look of utter surprise; and he remembered the sound of flesh on pavement. He remembered and as the Tessalist prepared to yank his neck upward, he pushed his head up, the movement surprising the Charmeleon, and he tore the officer's throat out with a flash of his own teeth, going for the jugular by sheer instinct alone.

Hot blood spurted out into Adrian's face and he shoved at the dead weight of the officer's body, shoved with all his might at the corpse, and the Charmeleon rolled gently off him and stared sightlessly at the fingernail clipping of the crescent moon, glowing hotly in black sky and the faintest hint of cloud. Night had fallen before he'd realized it; twilight had dissolved faster than he thought it would, but Adrian always lost all sense of time in battles. He leapt clear the instant he could, wiping at the blood and hating the thick coppery smell that made his throat strain to breathe. Both dead. But he didn't have to die like that. Nobody has to die like animals. As if dying isn't bad enough.

He wished he were psychic, then, had some psychic lineage, so that he didn't have to touch either body, but Adrian had done this a thousand times, would do it a thousand times more, and his face was blank and expressionless and even slightly bored as he went towards Sida and half-carried, half-dragged the corpse near the nameless officer's. He closed the officer's eyes for him; everyone deserved some dignity in death. After he tended to the Eevee he would pull them to the trees and leave them there, perhaps dig a shallow trench he didn't have time for; now he wished for fire for the more usual cremation. He should never have taken Celadon City patrol without a partner.

"I'm sorry," a little voice piped at his shoulder, and he turned to see the Eevee.

She didn't look sorry. There was no fear, no anger, just sad acceptance and an unexpected determination that burned as steadily as the moon that arched overhead, bright light spilling through a thin cutout of a crescent. A strange one. He was quite certain that she wasn't the run-of-the-mill lady's pet, now, despite the ruins of a dirty, ragged pink ribbon around her throat. Perhaps she was one of Lenka's, though he thought he knew all of the scouts, the loners at least, and most of the more higher-ranking officers, by sight.

"It's my last night here," he said, knowing it didn't make sense.

"I know," she replied, and that didn't make sense either. "That's why I came."

There was a soft glow around her suddenly, silver that might have been the long pale shafts of moonlight, but Adrian knew instantly what it was, who she was, because she'd been one of his best friends for seven years. She grew until she matched his own size, black silhouette elongating, softening, curving, the small, thin Eevee giving into the distinctively feminine curves of a much larger creature. When the glow faded away, with not much fanfare than when it had appeared, the face, the features, were still feline, the pointed snout and large close-set eyes of an Eevee, if magnified, and not quite so delicate.

Her figure was tautened, honed; it would have been boyish had not it been for those soft curves, and coated in sleek black. Tufts of fur that gleamed silver in the night hooded her chest and her paws, shining palely, and ringed around the front right forepaw were bracelets that stirred but never made a sound unless she wished it to. Her tail was whiplike, long, thin, engineered for slashing and snapping and blinding. He recognized those eyes now. In her glamour she had changed them slightly, enough so that in the pulse of impending battle he had not paid close mind to them, but they were unmistakably hers. Had she matched her colouring, ivory and ebony mixed, her eyes might have been gray, or black, but they were the same mahogany.

Narcissus arched an eyebrow at him. "Common brown eyes?"

He'd always hated how she could read minds.

=====

"So what was with the helpless damsel thing?"

This was the life. Nothing but salt and warm water and the csshh... csshh of the waves; the stars wheeling abovehead and the sky spinning, and the feel of your feet propelling you through the pulse of the water, knowing that you could keep on and on until daybreak lit the horizon. Narcissus swum awkwardly, built more for running than for swimming, but swim she did, and Adrian was content to paddle abovewater and go slowly for her sake. The water would have stung his wounds, but even though Narci didn't have the healing prowess of Merlin, she had helped in facilitating their mending, and the pain was more of a distasteful memory, now.

It was a distasteful memory like the cremation of the two Tessalists, the memory of how he'd murdered them. There was no need for burial once Narci had been there. She'd lifted them into the air with that strange... power... all the psychic Pokemon Adrian had ever met, had ever seen Narci at work, all said that they sensed absolutely nothing while she worked whatever it was that she did. Adrian had long accepted this as part of Narci, no matter how much it made other Pokemon antsy. She'd lifted them into the air, and kept them suspended as Adrian followed her to the trees, and then they were nothing but ash falling in a scattered sweep to the ground.

She refused to let him make the long trip back to Seafoam with wounds half-healed, even after she tended them as best she could with whatever ability she had; a brought Potion helped soothe the rest, but they were both tired, if neither were willing to admit it, and silent agreement had led them to finding shelter not far away and collapsing into sleep. The next afternoon had seen them rested enough to set off. Adrian was surprised Narcissus hadn't asked I'ka to Teleport her to Celadon, that she had made the swim herself; but then again, knowing her pride, she might have bitten I'ka had he asked.

Adrian kept half an eye on Narci as she swum. The depth underneath Narcissus, the feeling of endlessness, led to a discomfort and uneasiness Adrian rarely saw in her. Sometimes she seemed like confidence made flesh. Lenka had always said she had far too much self-assurance for her own good.

Narcissus shrugged. "I don't know. I wanted to find someone, I guess. I wanted to see if anyone would stop by and help. Maybe I just wanted to break Celadon's silence. Or maybe I just felt like sinking my teeth into Tessalist ass."

A beat, accentuated by the swish-swish of a wave, and then she conceded, "okay, that sounded quite bad."

Adrian half-smiled. "It did."

He supposed he would have to settle for her answer, though he remembered her cryptic, "I know; that's why I came." It was likely she'd come to make sure he was still in one piece, to take him home; it was even likelier that she found her feet itching and herself wanting to get away from Seafoam, and she'd stumbled on those two Tessalists and were about to teach them the folly of underestimation when he'd barged in. She hadn't helped in his battle, but then again he'd sent her skidding down the street and she was weaker than normal while cloaked in glamour. And she'd never believed in interfering with anyone's battles, personal or not, unless he was in danger. Yes, he would resign himself to her answer, for now. She didn't take well to being pressed, and what more were another two dead Tessalists in the world? And then again, what less?

They swum on, cutting through water and wave with the propulsion of their feet, and that was the only conversation they had for miles. It had been Narcissus who had found Adrian, found and pretty much ordered him to live on, right after the aftermath of Pallet, and for seven years they had breathed and fought and bled together in circumstances that would have killed other Pokemon. It might have had something to do with the fact that Narci was who she was, what she was; but perhaps it did not. They were different in every way, different in the ways that didn't matter, but when you dug deep down there was an innate core of self-preservation in both. They wouldn't give up even if their tails were being lowered toward a boiling Tessalist cookpot, but Adrian nearly had seven years before. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that everyone he knew and loved had been murdered before his eyes. That left a darkness so deep inside him he knew it was a sliver he would never get out, and those murders made this a personal war.

It was Narci who had fought teeth and turmoil to get him to a healing center, and it was Narci whom he had carried half-dead on his back on the final stretch to Seafoam. They hadn't been together for the whole of the seven years, but by fate and Lenka's orders they had been together for a fair bit of those, and they lived by an easy belief that if you died tomorrow, at least you were alive today. Sometimes Adrian thought that Narci would simply refuse to die in order to spite her enemy. It made for an easy friendship, a camaraderie he appreciated; at times they could talk for hours, but sometimes silence laid her cloak and it was comfortable. Adrian was half-dozing in the saltwater when Narci spoke up again.

"I'm surprised you didn't notice it was me. The Eevee, I mean. I'm in usual form often enough." Narcissus picked up right where they left off, when the darkness was lightening to a murky gray of a rainy dawn, where Seafoam was within sight if you knew where to look and let your imagination have a bit of a workout.

Adrian spared her a flat look. "Honey, you were twice your usual Eevee size."

"People don't usually call me honey and get away with it, but considering that I might drown if you weren't here, I'll let it pass." Narci never pulled rank with him, and anyway Adrian was a bit of a straggler, a loner, the one on the extreme left of the picture smiling but without his arm draped over a friend's shoulder like everyone else. He wasn't a soldier, would never be, would never join one of the regiments. A scout, then, but that made it... official. He just went where he was needed, patrolled enough to be called a recruit, but otherwise he was on his own, albeit under Narci's thumb, and Lenka was content enough to let it lie. Adrian had brought in stragglers like him, brought whatever poor wandering Pokemon there was left to Seafoam; the fighting, the training, the war, that was Lenka's domain. His interest was in the smaller battles, and in his opinion, the more crucial.

"You've seen me half-dead and completely pissed and recognized me still, and I was nowhere near twice my usual size." That received another one of Adrian's flat looks; he opened his mouth to mention just how pissed she had been, so drunk she could barely remember her own name. It was something he teased her about, an age-old tradition, but her teeth were bared in a scowl that made him change what he'd wanted to say. Not tonight. Not tonight. The seawater washed away the blood but not its memory. "Yes, you were, Narci. That Eevee you somehow managed to fill out was average by Eeveelution standard, but you're half that one's weight." She was a tiny, tiny thing while in usual, and Adrian was always amused when she was in usual and in command; she could balance on the top of his head then, but she had to lead charges, give orders. It was a good ruse for the Tessalists. Seeing the miniature Eevee lead the charge had always sent them into gales of derision. Until she began to fight.

Her size had made him skeptical the day he met her. He'd placed himself as her protector so he could cling on to life, and he'd been exasperated with her easy air of self-confidence, that surety that nothing would ever befall her. He'd been exasperated and angry because whatever life she'd been used to before that, it had all changed now, and Pokemon didn't battle for fun anymore. She hadn't seemed to see that, hadn't seemed to understand, though Adrian now knew just how much she did. Her tales of Lenka, of building up a resistance to the Tessalists had seemed like delirious nonsense, fluffy stories put into her pretty little head by her previous owner, and he had let her lead to Seafoam to indulge her.

It wasn't until they engaged in battle that he began to suspect that she was a lot more than she appeared to be. She was a ferocious thing, fighting like a wildcat and fiercer, so quick he could barely keep an eye on her movements. She was everywhere. One moment she'd sunk her claws into the Arbok's underbelly, the other she had a mouthful of his tail, and the next she was slashing a paw over his eyes; she was merely a furry brown streak most of the time. A small streak, it was true, but it had been hell for the Arbok, and there seemed to be a lot more strength to her than her fragile frame would allow for. They'd survived for three months without her Changing from usual to self, three months that should've killed a minute Eevee and a jaded Wartortle, and she'd Changed not because she couldn't deal with her own battle, but because Adrian, in his desperation to defend her, couldn't deal with his. He hadn't been very surprised. He had, he told her, almost been expecting something like that. She had gotten quite miffed.

"I have no idea how and why you swim for pleasure," she muttered. It was more of a mumble, really. She'd never admit to it, but she was tired, and lagging behind.

"I think it might have something to do with us making love in the water."

She grunted, plainly unamused by Adrian's feeble stab at a joke. "Oh shit, Adrian, I think something's got my tail."

"Look, why don't you Change, and I'll chauffeur you to Seafoam."

It was a mark of her exhaustion that she complied with nothing but a sour look. There was a sheen of silver light -- once Adrian had half-expected dramatic music and spotlights -- but there was just a glow and then Narci, in her usual, was nearly lost in the water and the gray light. She clambered on to his shell with a snapped refusal of his help, and he shimmied through the water a lot faster than he had originally, and she held on with a muttered "show-off".

=====

There was always a feverish silence when it came to the very highest level of the Tessalist headquarters. Tessalists scurried quickly in and out of the doors, looking as if they were trying to blend with the decorations; Alantacea noticed a Charizard, of all things, skulking about and trying to look inconspicuous as he set about squeezing himself through a doorway. She herself felt a twinge of suspicion, and a solid, quivering, ulcerous thread of fear that she tamped down. Fear was something she did not allow herself to feel. Her paws made only the faintest of whispers on the tiles as she moved, of course, but it almost seemed deafening, and all she could do was to let every foot fall as delicately as she could to the floor.

"Come, hurry," said Tah. Easy for him to say. The Magnemite floated; there was no worrying of sound for him. But he looked as uneasy as everyone else, as uneasy as a Magnemite could manage to look. He drifted through the air in ponderous, unconscious circles, and sparks jumped from either side of him whenever someone made a sudden noise or movement.

Alantacea hurried on. "Why have They summoned me, Tah?"

"I do not know," Tah beeped softly. Conversation seemed alien to these gleaming tiles and machinery. Once it had been the stronghold of the Elite Four, the monument of their power, the Indigo Plateau; this was the hallway leading to the final chamber, where Lance once stood, but no longer.

She swallowed. Nobody ever knew why they were being summoned. There was strict hierarchy kept in the Tessalists; only the very highest knew who They were. Only the very highest took their orders and passed what they had to down to those below, who passed what they were required to down to those lower, until the newest mewling knew what their instructions were. Alantacea was not one of the original Tessalists; she had joined only four years ago, and although she had risen quickly, she was nowhere near the top. What would They want to do with me? They can't know. Her stomach churned madly.

"We are here," Tah hummed, and Alantacea glanced up startledly. They had turned into the final hallway; it was completely empty, free of the whirl of Pokemon of the hallways before, and so long and dimly lit that the very end was swathed in shadows. Alantacea paused and rubbed a paw over an ear before they journeyed on. She wondered if her fur was standing on end. She hoped it wasn't.

The tiles reflected whatever light there was so brightly they were almost mirrors, and Alantacea could nearly see herself echoed on the floor. A tall Eevee, lithe, well-muscled, larger than most males of her age and even so, not even into her full weight yet. She was almost as large as an evolution of her kind, but Alantacea seemed more built for speed than strength. In every way different from Narci, she thought bitterly. And she sits at Seafoam warming her cursed tail while I spy for her.

"Would you require me to wait for you?" asked Tah. Alantacea jumped again, and called herself a coward while she was at it; doing what she did she could be no coward. They were in the deepest of shadows, now, and she could make out an outline that resembled doors -- towering doors even for a human, almost a fortress -- and handles that she could not reach even if she jumped. They certainly wouldn't open if she nosed at them. They were far too heavy.

"No, Tah." The Magnemite nodded and floated with grave dignity away; it was slightly spoiled by the constant flickers of electricity around his body. Alantacea realized that he had accompanied her to the final hallway, as they all called it, the end hallway; that was when they spoke of it, and they almost never did. You rarely saw again anyone who was summoned there. It had taken a great deal of courage for Tah to lead her there, to attempt to lend her some sense of security in his own, strange way.

"Tah," she called.

The Magnemite turned, visibly agitated by the way Alantacea's voice bounced off the halls, but just as visibly trying to hide it. The sparks almost lit his face. "Yes, Alantacea?"

"Thank you."

He paused, as if unsure of what to make of it. "You are welcome," he said finally. "Be safe," he added in a voice oddly warm, even for him. "I will wait for you at the turn, if -- when you come back."

Alantacea waited until Tah was out of sight, and then she slumped against the doors. She never tried to show fear, never tried to allow herself to feel fear; she had been conditioned to be as polished an actress that ever bowed to applause on the stage. But that ulcerous, lumpy thread of unadulterated terror had crept and sunk tendrils into her feet and her heart, and thoughts spun again and again inside her head in a sickening centrifugal whirl. Why me? she asked herself again. They can't know. Oh, Artic no, help me, help us all, they can't know. She had been far too careful for anyone to guess where her loyalties lay, far too careful, had put in too much for any of her guise to be stripped away.

She breathed in deeply, the smell of detergent and medicine cutting into her nose, and leant her full weight limply against the door. The door began to gravel against the ground as it opened and Alantacea sprang back, the whites of her eyes showing in her terrified surprise. The doors were heavy, ornate, but they were also extremely well-balanced; a push of one's paw would have been sufficient to allow the door to swing open. For some reason that scared her even more, and it took an effort for her not to drag herself into the chamber. Why me? Pokemon don't come out of here. If -- when you come back. Tah is waiting.

An Eevee's fear was always telltale, and she knew she had all those signs, now: flaring nostrils, the whites of her eyes showing, quick breathing, twitching tail. You are better than Narcissus. The thought worked as always; it acted like a wire jerking her up to her full height, quelling the tremors that wracked her body. It was the one thought she savoured and turned in her mind, a diamond of a thought that sparkled as it spun. You are better than she is! With a great will of effort she tilted her tail so that it swept jauntily from side-to-side as she walked. She was so intent on this that she never noticed what lay in front of her.

Alantacea

And she knew, she knew that no matter how well she concealed her panic, her trepidation, She -- it was She, not They; She -- would and could part through her fur, her skin, her flesh, her skull, to see what lay in her mind.

I know what you are doing here

Alantacea closed her eyes, but she could still feel the glow that bathed her face. "What would that be?" she asked softly.

I know where your heart belongs

Tah is waiting. Give Tah something to wait for. She refused to fail the Magnemite; she had to do this; she would do this. She would walk out of this place alive if it killed her.

Tell me, Alantacea

What is the deepest of your desires

"Well," Alantacea said cheerily. A kind of recklessness had descended on her like a cumbersome curtain; she was past the point of fear. It was either to be as stupid as she could and prayed that she went out in one piece or to be a quivering mass of legs and tightly-curled tail; she didn't want to be the former, but the latter was no option, and she was better than Narcissus if she had to walk through hell and fire and brimstone to prove it. "Nothing much, really. I'm quite a content sort of person."

You are strong

You can be stronger

And a thought fluttered across Alantacea's mind, but she quashed it almost as quickly as it arrived, a feeble flit through the desolate, frightening emptiness and wilderness of her head, a glimmer of thin insubstantial hope. She dared not think it. Sometimes you cannot look in the wellspring of your desires straight in the face; it is too strong, too much to bear thinking.

I will give you your heart's desire

And She did.

 

=====

 

// finite
// Here ends Chapter One of Nitesco

 

=====