"But the deep blue screams
Of falling dreams
With our next move
Heaven hide your eyes
Heaven's eyes will never dry"

-"The Promise" by Arcadia


The scent of Oran berries pervaded the air, floating on clouds of steam. Hilda ran her shampoo-coated fingers through lengths of luxurious, mahogany hair and felt cleaner than she had in days. After spending nearly a week roughing it in the middle of Pinwheel Forest, she'd been reminded just how much she took things like hot showers and warm beds for granted. She'd nearly passed out upon returning home the previous day.

Hilda had loved the time she'd spent just painting in a natural, leaf-shaded studio in spite of her lack of easily accessible amenities. She had gone in with blank canvases and pages of drawing paper and left with armloads of paintings, a nearly full sketch book and a considerably diminished store of acrylics and pencils. Hilda felt accomplished but had been quick to find her way to her coffee pot and cushy bed.

Hilda gave a twist of the shower tap before stepping out from behind the flower-print curtain and gathered her towel from the hook on the wall. Though a small bathroom had been difficult to adjust to, Hilda had learned to work with what she could afford. Her profession paid for a one bedroom and bathroom apartment and nothing more.

She emerged in a dark grey pencil skirt and a white short sleeved blouse and let out a gust of air, attempting to move quickly drying locks of hair out of her eyes. She went into the kitchen and poured herself a steaming cup of coffee before flicking on the television.
"...and the shadow remains unidentified. And now for today's forecast. Tanya?"

Hilda half paid attention as she dug into a meager breakfast of a tomato sandwich. She needed to go grocery shopping. Bread was low.

"...Cloudy with an eighty percent chance of precipitation in the late afternoon and it will persist until well into the early morning..."

Hilda checked the time and polished off her coffee and wolfed down her breakfast before heading back into her bathroom to continue her morning routine.

She wore a nostalgic smile at her choice of eye shadow. Tea green had been her favourite colour since she was sixteen. She dabbed it over her upper lids and touched up her lip gloss. Exciting yet muted make up accented her face. Hilda wore the summer sky in her eyes and a soft round visage brimming with rose coloured cheeks. She looked youthful and tastefully so. A pair of clear green-tinted beads dangled from each ear. She flicked off the television as she pulled her waving lengths of pseudo-curls into a relaxed bun held up by a silver claw clip. Hilda slid stocking clad feet into a pair of beige low-heeled shoes, claimed her briefcase and keys from the counter and paused to tuck a lime coloured umbrella under her arm.


Life in Castellia city never failed to keep Hilda on the move. Though she strived to keep art alive in her life, her plans to make her living from it had fizzled out quickly. She'd attended to her education (with her share of academic bumps and blips) and graduated with high enough marks to land her an office job. A former champion of the Unova Pokemon League, a heroine who'd fought alongside Elite Four members and Gym leaders, the master-though she preferred to refer to herself as a 'friend'- of one of two Pokemon from the legendary stories every child knew...was a secretary. Instead of indulging in the fame she could have derived from her positive press, Hilda had waited for the hype to pass.

While she'd still get the odd nod of recognition, it was shadow of her former celebratism. She prefered to lead an ordinary life though a look of longing would pass over her gaze at the sight of energetic young trainers seeking their dreams of adventure and strength.

"Good morning, Hilda." a buisness suit clad man greeted as the slender receptionist flashed a sunny smile from behind her desk

"Morning, Alistair." The brunette nodded.

The sandy haired businessman smiled back, accentuating his laugh lines. Her wore a grey suit with a black tie and carried a breifcase. Like Hilda, a Xtranseiver was strapped to his wrist. He clutched a travel mug, dented on the bottom from repeated use in his left hand.
"Is the meeting with the Silph Co. representatives at ten or eleven today?"
Hilda chewed her lower lip as she clicked a window and typed in her co-workers name in. After bringing up his schedule and giving it a quick once over she returned to her previous task.
"Eleven."

"You are fantastic, you life saver you." he chuckled, visibly relaxing. Hilda flashed him a cheeky, toothy grin

"Someone's got to keep you organised."

Alistair laughed and shook his head

"So true, so true." he headed for the elevator and waved back at Hilda.

Hilda took a break from her monotonous slew of tasks and stretched. She found her eyes drawn to an office plant near the glass double doors of the building.
The lobby felt abandoned, quiet. The plant was a beautiful green, a natural colour that made her think of Pinwheel Forest again. But there was another stripe of lighter green along the leaves that brought to mind a memory of highly intelligent but naive eyes, so haunting and captivating that had never failed to ensnare her at every meeting. Hilda recalled a chaotic shock of hair the same vibrant green, falling in an oddly elegant ponytail down a broad back and long, gangly limbs that reached closer for her. Hilda's expression shifted to something indiscernible.

"He never did understand personal boundaries."

It was strange that she was thinking of him now. It had been a good eight years since he'd left, giving her only whispers of a young man and a great draconic Pokemon appearing in the skies over a myriad foreign regions scattered through out the vast world. She'd come to terms with the miniscule likelihood that she'd ever see him again and managed to moved on. So why now? A memory of that mornings' newscast resurfaced, a mere fragment of partially formed memory.

Hilda yelped as her thoughts were abruptly cut short by the shrill call of a ringing phone which she promptly answered. As the familiar drone of a man blabbered on in her ear, Hilda scrawled down a note and watched the priliminary droplets of rain shed from the cloud-engulfed sky onto the asphalt outside.

"...And the shadow remains unidentified."


AN/ I decided that I wanted to actually take an idea and roll with it. So here's my attempt at doing more than just short drabbles. Hopefully I'll actually keep this thing updated OTL