"It was a miracle."
He didn't say anything.
She walked to his back, and placed her paw on his shoulder. "You don't know what a gift this is," she mumbled as her tone momentarily slipped into disdain, cutting through her concern.
He didn't say anything.
She bit her quavering lip, and dug her paws into her sides. While choking back tears, she screamed, "This was an act of RED, and you are too foolish to see that! WHAT have I done to deserve this treatment? I have done this for US! RED has done this FOR US! DO YOU BELIEVE ME!?"
He left.
This was her punishment, Elise thought. It was foolish of her to lie to Claus. She rubbed her paw on her soft abdomen where her young Cubchoo was growing, and watched as Claus descended into the nearby forests.
It was the first time Elise and Claus had been separated in six years. The two had been married and living happily in Dragonspiral Tower. Though to be fair, the only times they showed any signs of true love were during the weekly services. The Church of RED gathered every Sunday at the base of the tower to hold prayers and offerings. Elise had faith that their benevolent deity spoke directly to the otherwold, and so descended from the heavens onto Unova to deliver promises of berries and poffins for all Pokemon who follow the church. Claus, on the contrary, was skeptical; he brooded during the services while the other Beartic gawked at the pastor, gazing puppy-eyed at the pulpit. Elise was there to pray for Claus's salvation; Claus was there because he couldn't give Elise the faith RED could.
Their daily lives fell into routines of this variety; the days repeated themselves, and tensions were set aside out of love and out of ignorance. It was a paradox, a question of philosophical incompleteness. Claus's greatest strength was his loving, unconditional trust for Elise, for which Elise's greatest weakness was her affinity for manipulation. Elise's greatest strength, on the contrary, was her staunch desire to aide others, for which Claus's greatest weakness was his incessant hubris. Their perceptions of each other had been clouded by a dying, rosy infatuation, which lasted as long as their desires remained unevaluated. But as the demon of uncertainty slouched into their sights, a day of reckoning was soon to be upon them. But for now, there were content; they were one, by the power invested in RED.
Even then, what was the significance of this "one"? Were their lives a series of distilled moments of pleasure, unifying them only through their indistinguishable natures? Or were their lives complementary, comprising a total emotional and social spectrum that rendered all experience an accustomed tradition, with no new realms to conquer? They were too adventurous for the former, yet too vain for the latter, and so like a tourist on the shores of a foreign town with familiar tongue, their emotions wandered aimlessly, courting each other in predictable, artificial manners.
But Elise had a secret: there was a true foreign town, where she hid a true courting. But this was not as she anticipated. She did not expect to meet Juan on the coast of Sinnoh, far away from the unconditional, familiar embrace of Claus. She did not expect him to follow her down the shores until he gathered the nerve to ask her to dinner. She did not expect to fall in love with his smile, the way his chin twitched when she brushed her leg against his. She did not expect to make passionate love to him atop a bed of Tentacool limp on the shore, digging their membranous heads deep into her fur as Juan penetrated her womb. She did not expect to learn of her pregnancy upon returning to Unova.
"THIS WAS A MIRACLE!" she screamed, collapsing onto the ground. Her tears froze to her face, and she pecked them off of her fur with her claws. It was over.