Chapter 1

Lily was walking home from work. It had been a very long day. She had started early, 'cause a big shipment had come in that day. She worked at the library, and every book that came in had to be checked for faults, catalogued, stickered and put on the right shelf. By hand. That's a lot of work. It wasn't the most boring job in the world, but it wasn't the most exciting one, either. When she wasn't stickering, though, Lily loved to work with books. She loved the smell, the feel, the promise of hours of amusement. And it was very safe, none of the dangers it told of were actually there. No real adventures either, but luckily there were enough written down to satisfy her hunger for excitement. And if it got too exciting (though that is a rare case), she could just close the book, put it down, and do something else. It was close to perfect. And Lily was content with her life. Or at least she had been, until now. Content, but not satisfied.

Lily reached her home, entered, and called out a greeting to her parents.
'We're in here!' came the response from the kitchen. Lily walked in, took an apple and kissed her parents on the cheek.
'How was work today?' her father, Leon, asked.
'Same old, same old. You?'
'Same old, same old.' They smiled at each other.
'Well, my day was a bit more exciting, I should tell you.' Lily's mother, Andrea, went on: 'I ran into Mrs. Jenkins today. She had dressed up her Eevee again, it looked absolutely ridiculous! And her face, all snobby and arrogant when she was talking to me. Anyway, she told me that...' Lily's mind wandered off.
No, she wasn't satisfied. 'Cause the more she read about other peoples' fantastic adventures, the more she wished she could write down her own. Lily sighed.
'Something the matter, dear?' her mother interrupted herself.
'No, no, a bit tired, that's all. Long day.' Lily smiled at her mother, trying to make it look like a reassuring one. Apparently it worked, 'cause her mother said:
'Well, you do work an awful lot, lately. Go take a rest, dinner's in an hour.' She smile sweetly. Then she raised her voice. 'Or it will be, if your father can get his head out of the paper and give me a hand!' Leon looked up, a confused look on his face.
'Sorry, dear, did you say something?'
Lily grinned, and as she walked past her father gave her a little wink. He had heard her mother perfectly well.

You see, the problem was, reading about it, and dreaming about it, wasn't enough. It wasn't nearly enough. She wanted to sleep under the stars, looking up at the sky, trying not to be terrified of the bugs, or that she might wake up with a snake in her sleeping bag. She wanted to breathe in clean air, travel the seas, be lost inside forests. Lily sighed, again. She wanted it, but is was impossible. 'Cause you see, the man downstairs wasn't her father. Well, he had raised her for most of her live, and they loved each other like father and daughter, so technically he was her father. Or in her eyes at least. But he wasn't her biological father. Her biological father, whose name had been Anthony, had left when Lily had been two years old. Her older sister, Louise, had been four. He had left to fulfil his dream of becoming a Pokémon trainer, because he didn't have the opportunity when he was younger. Her mother had convinced him to go herself, 'cause she had known he wouldn't be fully at peace with himself until he at least tried. So he had left, with the promise of many calls and visits, and that they'd be the first to hear all his stories. And he had kept that promise. He called almost every day, and visited regularly, if his income would allow it.
And then one day, nothing. When he hadn't called for four days, Lily remembered her mother telling her that he was fine, that he'd probably gotten lost, or something. But when two whole weeks had passed without a word, she was officially worried sick. When another week had passed, Andrea contacted the police. They made a note of it, but told Andrea that he was probably lost, or in an uninhabited area. Pokémon journeys were like that. They even told her to consider the possibility that he'd left her. Andrea had cried after that conversation. She had tried to hide it from her daughters, but they'd noticed. Even though Andrea was sure of their mutual love, a little seed of insecurity was planted. More time went by. Andrea kept in contact with the police, but their story remained the same. When after two more months, Anthony had still not contacted his family, Andrea couldn't take it any longer. She asked her mother to babysit the girls, and went out to try and find him. A month later she returned, without Anthony, or any clue where he was. Eight more months passed, and one day a police officer came on a house call. They had found him. He was dead, in another region. There were no remains. That was it. Dead, no remains.
Lily's mother had cried for about a week. She had mourned her husband as deeply as she had loved him.
Andrea met Leon when Lily had just turned four. It took her a while to be able to love him, but by the time Lily was turning six, they were happily married and living together. Lily and Louise had started calling Leon 'Dad', and by now it was as natural as trees growing in earth. They had been lucky with him. He was a good man, a good husband and a good father, even though the children weren't his.
Because Lily had been so young when this all happened, she had never missed a father figure. But it still hurt, somewhere deep down. And it made it impossible for her to leave. She couldn't put her mother through that, not again. It would kill her. No, it was best to stick with the dreaming. That was safest, for all. And she was leading a good life. She was content, and happy. But just not satisfied.