point of departure
x
The deck is strangely quiet.
My crew has never been an awfully loud one, often preferring to sit in the mist and play games, betting what money they have for private matters on what the dice will roll, or who will have the best hand. It isn't what people are expected to do, surely not what they should. They're games of Giratina, strange and inappropriate to the people of the homeland.
But to them, we aren't people of such modest, modern upbringing. The House of Giovanni is viciously against the League and all its ships, the Tamers who capture the hearts of monsters and send them out to war.
It's a long time running; we've been expecting an attack for months, now - but I can hear the warning bell, a nearly-broken thing strung up between two boards that stand stiff amid the breeze and the masts. This ship is old, worn like most of the fighters that work aboard it. I can't be brought to leave it behind, no matter how difficult the hardships are, sometimes. The League needs my crew. My crew needs me. We're a family, in a strange way, distant as we might be.
Kotone Stevens, first mate, is standing in the doorway to my office. There's a sickly pallor to her face, an ill, ashen tone that reminds me of my own, staring back at me as I'm named inheritor to Indigo.
"Leaf," she greets me, and she's quiet, looks a little green. She had been a famous battler, made many impressions in the papers, nationwide. I had liked the articles written about her, before Rocket took Johto and they stopped, and she stuttered to a halt with them. "There's a bark, over by the brig. Four hundred feet off, maybe."
It's not what we've been expecting. But, maybe, it's better.
"I see." I stand, walking around my desk to her side, and look down at her. She's still staring at the floor, queasy. "Togekiss will be fine, Stevens. We'll use what we have." Awkwardly, I pat her arm, a weak attempt to provide comfort. I wasn't named Champion all those years ago for being good with people.
I wasn't sure it was possible, but she seems just a bit more ill. "What we have isn't even enough for a fleet of Air hordes. It's a waste, you know that."
Her hands are so cold, as I pick one up to curl her fingers into her palm, the same way she holds the capsules of monsters with hearts only for her. They love her, so, so much. Thinking of my own partners, the beasts who are loyal to me the way the way the seafoam brushes up against the ship's hull, and the way the sky above is gray and muted, always raring to knock its opponents into its reflection beneath, it hurts to think of not taking any measure possible to save them, to make them live. "It could never be a waste. It wouldn't be a waste to use all we have on a human." They do all they can for us, always. It's a crime, to not do anything possible.
I can feel the capsules at my hip trembling. My fingers clasp around Blastoise's, and I thumb the release trigger. It's so tempting, to let him out. But there are other things to do first, a dinghy to find and a Togekiss to save before we can go and partake in games of darkness, sitting under mist and early morning.
I leave my first mate there, standing under the doorway of my office with her head in her hands. I'm not normally so giving, to allow someone to waste time like this. But I know what she's going through, in a different way. I remember a blurred figure, gaunt and shallow, surrounded with curtains of white and a sky burning up around me, and I can't bring myself to be so cruel. I duck out into the sea breeze and give a silent nod to the crew, still and alert at my presence. A few of them stare at their feet, and others at me. There isn't a person who knows what to say.
With a twist in my throat, I remember why. I don't come out so much, anymore. We're a family, my mind reminds me, voice twisted into something ugly. Route Four flashes back to me, arid and bloody, and I can see monsters falling, people collapsing into the dust, screaming like the sea in my ears on nights that Kyogre and its beasts below remember when the ocean ran pure.
I've failed them too many times to count.
Usually, the silence is welcome, but there are so many members of the crew, so many members of our family, that don't sit on upturned barrels and boxes anymore, that never came back from dry land.
At least they got a burial, under all that sand. Not everyone from the crew of Indigo has received that privilege. My stomach knots and, darkly, a noise in my head crows, Will Togekiss? Will Kotone?
Will you?
"What's with the fuss?"
A dark-haired woman with her hair in braids speaks up from the wheel. "Kotone didn't tell you, then?"
She looks at me, and I meet her stare evenly. I've always liked Candice. "I know there's a boat by the hull and I don't know if I like it. Have we got any clues on who it is?"
The raven shifts, and I can see how strong she is. No one had expected so much of her from all of this. No one had expected her to go straight into the battle and carry Volkner out of the din. But she saved him, and suddenly people have stopped calling her Ice Bitch. Kotone tells me that title's reserved for me, anymore, and I can't find it in me to be surprised. "A red-haired man, Captain. Approximately five and a half feet tall, and seems to be a Tamer."
Kotone cuts in. She's right behind me, arms crossed over her stomach like she's ready to double over any second. "We should let him on. He can't be unbeatable, on his own. Let him lash out if he wants."
My toes curl at the thought of letting a stranger onto Indigo. This is sacred ground, a place for my family. And as much as I can hardly stand to be aboard myself, I know that she's right. And if he means no harm, we can surely use the assistance. The League isn't so broad, anymore - Rocket knows it.
Candice's dark eyes train on me, and with them the rest of the Leaders', and the rest of the crew. I'm still a Champion, aren't I.
"Yeah." We all wince when my voice slips a little. It hurts, to put my crew in danger like this. And none of us can do a thing about it. "Yeah, I'll send down the cables. You should all release your partners, then."
Everyone disperses to walk along the rail separating us from the open sea, and to get back to their card games, but it's tense in the air, and the mist is too thick. I like it normally, the inherent safety under the cover, but the separated cloudiness of the sky is worrying on days like this. I can hardly feel my hands as my breath fogs up around my face. Candice strides over, and I can see the dust that still clings to her shoes. Word has it that Volkner's fallen for her, now that she's saved his life. My opinion is that he already had, before the war, in a quiet way. But that's not how Candice operates, giving herself away to what she wants. She keeps to herself, and the monsters of frozen lands that love her more than anything.
We're both still Ice Bitch, in our own right.
"Hey." She takes a seat on the rail beside me and looks down straight into my eyes. No one else seems to do that, nowadays. "Y'know, they aren't disappointed in you."
My fingers clench Blastoise's capsule a little too tight. "Then what are they? What makes people look away when you enter a room, stiffen when you talk to them? What makes people distance themselves so far you can hardly tell where they've gone?" I can feel him inside, breathing, telling me to let him out already. He wants to taste the air, feel the ocean twist on his skin. Not yet, I tell him silently, drawing shapes in the frost that gathers on the smooth surface of the small ball. Just a little longer. I can feel him rowing, I can feel him coming. Just a little longer.
Candice's breath shakes, and if there weren't a look of grief raw in her eyes, I wouldn't believe her. "Fear."
Let me out, I can hear Blastoise whisper through the mist. Let me see you.
Flecks of white catch on my eyelashes, drawing them together, thick and tangled. It's so difficult to see, in this weather. "Of what?"
The Leader hops off her perch beside me and makes to go to the fo'c'sle, behind the buildup room where storage is held. I stay on the quarterdeck, and stare as the wheel inches left and right. "You don't need me to tell you that." And then she's gone, away towards the front of Indigo, disappearing through the mist and sparse whiteness tumbling from the clouds.
I hold out a hand, feeling the cold pinpricks on my skin, and Blastoise's capsule trembles again. When did it start to snow?
x
The bark draws closer, a few feet every couple of minutes. Winona flies out, Skarmory at her knees and in her knuckles' grip, to land on the small boat, be sure it's no threat to us. She comes back almost half an hour later, pale, stricken.
Skarmory preens where ice has crusted over her wings, and the Air Specialist is tense. "It's a Dragon tamer," the woman tells me, hushed, and pauses, deliberating.
It takes her a few moments to find her voice again. "There's another person there," she whispers, a hand on the steel bird's crest. "They're - they're bleeding out, Captain, we can't take them in, we don't have the necessities, it would be kinder just to leave them without their hopes up -"
"I'll go let down the cables, then."
Her arm falls to her side, limp. "I mean no disrespect, Captain, but we don't have anything to help them."
Blastoise snorts a warm breath onto my back, nudging me toward the railing a little bit more, until I bump into it. The wood is splintered in some places, not sanded down in a while, and one of the picks of the railing digs into my arm, drawing blood. Winona starts, moving forward and darting her eyes from me to the beast at my side. A hand is outstretched, reaching for me. When I glance at it pointedly, she drops it, and Skarmory coos, yellow eyes fixed on the bark, only fifty feet away. They're coming, they're coming. What will you do?
I haven't been in the medic's wing in weeks. "We have syringes, don't we?"
Winona's eyes flash, something wild, and she stares at me the way she had stared at the sea, before, when I walked out onto the deck, greeted with the chilling cold. "No. No, you don't get to choose this. You don't get to do this. I won't allow it."
Her voice shakes and cracks fearfully, and Candice's words from before return to me with a vengeance.
You don't need me to tell you that.
I huff out a laugh, crisp in the early morning, and I can almost see the sun rising. I haven't slept in days. I can do something, this time. I can help someone. "Your fleet's Champion is speaking, Nagi. Am I to assume that you are willing to disobey orders?"
Skarmory caws, a laugh between the voice of the ocean and the screams of beasts below, and Blastoise's breath is warm on the back of my neck. I watch my blood bead, shallow and thin, and I can see eyes in the distance, yellow like the sand on Route Four, and the sky on the sea. A voice calls out, desperate; Winona shudders in the cold.
It will be enough.
x
Ninetales helps me pull the cables, after the distantly familiar red-haired stranger and his companion are settled in the spare boat behind me on the quarterdeck. The crew stands back, capsules in-hand, ready to toss and send out their companions. Leaning against the storage den, Candice watches the others, nose pink but otherwise entirely at peace with the frigidness in the air.
Kotone stares down over the railing, warning us when the boat tilts to one side, or when it's about to tap the side of Indigo. It goes on for nearly an hour, and I can't feel my hands by the time we're done, reddened and bruised. The skin's been torn and burns in a few places, distinct lines crossing over my palms, but the small, black-haired man in the bottom of the boat is frighteningly pale, his clothes smattered with red, and I couldn't care less about my hands.
My first mate stiffens, dashing over to get a better look at the pale figure, and I release Arcanine. I press a hand to his fur, warm and soft as ever, and his eyes are sharp and kind. "Take him to the medic's wing, immediately," I instruct him, and help my old friend lift the unconscious man onto the Fire beast's back. She follows at a distance, dark eyes wrought with pure, unadulterated horror.
I'm reminded of Togekiss, and I stop her on her way down the stairs to the lower deck. She looks at me, pupils small and fingers shaking, and I take hold of her sleeve, keeping her in place. Her throat constricts and her voice wavers, ducking under like she's drowning, and I think to myself, if I can do anything, let it be this.
The bead faces up, and brown eyes focus, hyperaware, on the bloom of red that decorates the inside of my wrist. "We'll use what we have," I promise her.
x
It's a long night, sitting in the medic's wing. Green does what he can, fixing a tie at the joint of my arm to draw blood, sectioning off what he can get into a transparent bag. He doesn't hook the dark-haired stranger up to the drip we've managed to keep well all these years until he's done, and his hands are steady on mine, pale stare overly conscious.
"You don't have to do this," he murmurs as he unties the strap from my elbow. "You can say no. I can put it back, you know I can."
My mouth sours a little. "Use what I have, Oak. Don't and I'll do it myself." I shudder out a deep breath, and his eyes snap up to me, immediately. Ashy brown hair falls in front of my eyes, but I can see much better than I can on the deck.
He offers me a jacket hanging over the back of his seat, and I accept it with a nod as he drops it over my shoulders. We watch red trickle from a bag of full me concentrate, straight into the raven's arm. He looks a little less pale, a little less dead.
Togekiss is on a table not three feet away, and he's breathing, I can feel it, but it's hurt and slow and fading away, and it's too painful to watch.
Green's hand is warm on mine. It's so cold, inside.
Blastoise's capsule twitches again at my side. Let me see you. I can smell it, your blood, someone's hurt you, I'll kill them.
I look at the Leader beside me, push the ball a little further into my pocket, and leave.
Kotone is pacing the hall outside. There are two patients in the wing. There are two losses, waiting to break her apart. She's awful to see.
When I walk by, taking the left to go back up to the deck, she doesn't look at me. I'm not surprised, but it digs the needle into my veins just a little bit deeper. We'll use what we have.
Blastoise is still whispering, white noise that catches in my throat. Arcanine is crying, fire strong in his mind the same way the weather invades my memories and dyes the world in white.
Swellow flies over from the crows' nest, landing on my shoulder, and perches there, huddling close to my neck, for a while. We're both standing on the deck together, leaning over the railing. I think of the House of Giovanni, and the fleets of the League, burning and screaming over the sound of the snow. I think of the Leaders and their crews, lost in the sand and the sea. It's been so long since I've seen the other Champions, I wonder if they were ever real.
The ocean is still and calm, and the seafoam brushes against the below, a caress of ice and Legends' fury. It would be so easy, falling in.
Swellow disappears into the sky again, taking off with a jostling flap of her wings. A few feathers fall down around, some scattering into the water; I can see them floating, dancing on the surface, ducking under only to gasp back up again. It's a magnificent view, with the sun to the left just barely breaching the horizon.
There's a brush on the back of my neck, gentle and soft, and there are eyes on me. Blastoise stands tall, watchful and kind, darker than war.
I would kill for you, you know.
My arm reaches out to cup his face, and he lowers his head, patient.
Yes, I do.
He leans up to taste the air, and to feel the ocean twist on his skin. It's still snowing, still so, so cold.
x
A/N: "if Red hadn't been enough" au.
sort of for Aoi. there will be another following Leaf and Green soon, if I can work it out.