"Quenelle, stop!" I shouted. "Quenelle, stop!"
But Quenelle didn't stop. He kept right on running, with me on his back, holding onto his horns as tight as I could and digging my knees into his sides, hoping beyond hope not to fall down underneath his hooves. Quenelle had belonged to my mother since she was a girl—that's what she told me, that she had gotten him as a child—and though he was very loyal to her, he didn't care much for anyone else.
Which begged the question of why she'd give him to me in the first place.
My mom had taught us how to ride the tauros, and I had been fairly good at it. But that was always under her watch, and Quenelle had always behaved very tamely when my mom was watching. But my mom was in Goldenrod, a long way away now, and without her it didn't seem that Quenelle had any intention of behaving in any reasonable way. I had climbed onto his back in a moment of desperation when my cyndaquil had fainted and, surrounded by wild pokemon, Quenelle wouldn't fight. He had galloped off, and hadn't stopped—faster and faster and faster. No matter how I screamed for him to stop, the tauros ran on.
"Quenelle! Stop, Quenelle! Stop!" I yelled uselessly, my face pressed into his wooly mane as, just behind me, he cracked his three tails like whips. I squeezed my eyes shut and gripped his horns hard, until the blood rushed out of my knuckles, leaving them white. I could feel the blood pounding in my head and I could feel my heart beating wildly in my chest as my breath grew more and more rapid. "Stop! Stop! Stop!"
But he didn't stop. He snorted and charged along faster, and I began to shake on his back. My body was becoming sore from the effort of holding on, and I was certain that, at any moment, I would fall off. My palms were sweating and I was losing my grip on the powerful pokemon's horns. "Stop!" I cried out, my voice breaking. But, as before, it did me no good. The pounding of Quenelle's hooves, the beating of my heart—all of it was becoming overpowering, and I felt like I was sinking. Any minute, I thought, I would pass out from fright, and if that were to happen it would surely be the end of me. My body would go limp and I would slide down the sloped back of the tauros. If I were lucky, I'd hit the ground straight off and simply break some of my bones and scrape away some of my skin. Likely, though, I wouldn't fall straight behind him but, rather, to the side. If that were to happen, I'd break my bones hitting the ground, and then maybe get my limbs mangled as they fell beneath Quenelle's charging hooves. In the worse case, my whole body would roll beneath him, or maybe my head would fall into his path. The more I thought about it the weaker I felt. My stomach turned over inside of me as I tried to put the thought out of my mind, but it kept coming back—images of blood and cracking bone. I closed my eyes tighter as I began to cry, and feebly whispered, "Stop."
I could hear people yelling to move out of the way, and by that sound I knew that we were passing very quickly through a town. "Stop," I pleaded. "Quenelle, stop—someone's going to get hurt! Can't you hear me? Don't you care?"
I heard a boy cry out over the general noise, "Elara!"
"Octavian, keep back!" a female voice said. "Berend!"
Beneath me, Quenelle jerked violently as he collided with something. My hands slipped off the tauros' horns in the impact and I fell sideways off him as a cry passed my lips. Opening my eyes, I saw an ursaring with its hands on Quenelle's shoulders, struggling to keep him still. And then, there were arms around me. Someone caught me as I fell, and we both hit the ground. I sat up quickly and moved off the other party. "Th-thank you," I said, turning to look at the one who had saved me. My eyes widened to find that it was a gorgeous young woman—quite a bit older than me—with dark hair and a cheerful demeanor. Her hair was cut short and she wore very boyish clothes, but everything about her was the very definition of 'woman' all the same. She smiled at me, and my whole mind went blank.
"Don't mention it," she said. She turned her face toward Quenelle, who was thrashing about as the ursaring tried to hold him still. "Perhaps you should recall him?"
I nodded and held up the tauros' pokeball. "Quenelle, return!" I said. With a flash of light, the pokemon disappeared. I looked back to the woman. "Thank you so much. I thought he'd never stop running."
"Yeah," said the girl standing up. She held her hand out to help me and I took it. "He looked determined to keep on going. It's a mighty big pokemon for such a little boy."
I rubbed the back of my neck. "Y-yeah," I said lamely. A boy of about my own age came jogging over, his dark hair bouncing on his brow with every step. He was, like the woman, strikingly beautiful.
"Elara!" he said, hugging the woman around the middle. "Don't do things like that! You could've been hurt!"
"Someone had to help him, though," she told the boy quietly. She turned to me and, smiling, once more offered out her hand. "I'm Elara Sheen, and this is my little brother, Octavian."
I took her hand and shook it. "I'm Gaius Blake," I told her. "It's a pleasure to meet you both."
"What happened to your pokemon?" asked Octavian. I looked at him and he quickly dropped his eyes to the ground. I smiled at his bashfulness.
"Well," I said. "I suppose that's because he isn't really mine. He's my mother's pokemon, actually."
"Your mother's, eh?" said Elara, putting her hands in her pockets. The late afternoon light across her face made her animated expressions all the more vibrant. "So I guess that means you just started out as a trainer, then?"
I smiled and rubbed my neck again. "How could you tell?" I asked. "Heh, to be honest, I only started yesterday."
"Really?" said Elara. "Well, that makes sense, then…"
"Have you been all alone since then?" asked Octavian. "That's kind of sad."
I looked at him and he looked away once again, this time stepping slightly behind his big sister. "How do you mean?" I asked him. He seemed to hesitate to answer.
"He doesn't like being alone and has trouble imagining anyone else could," Elara said smoothly. Her voice was beautiful and even, though, so she kind of said everything smoothly. "He means that it must be lonely."
"It's only been since yesterday," I said, shrugging. "I mean, kind of lonely, I guess, but…" I could see Octavian looking at me again, out of the corner of my eye, but I didn't try to meet his gaze, knowing he'd only look away again. Looking at him indirectly like that I couldn't see his face too well, but he looked sad from what I could tell of his expression. But then, Octavian's eyes always looked sort of sad, and that was something I never did understand.
"So," said Elara, bending down to me. I bit my lip and tried very hard to keep my eyes on her face, with mixed results. "Where are you headed now?"
"I'm not sure," I told her. "I suppose I need to train, but I'm not sure where. And I have a pokemon with me that's fainted, so I guess my most immediate destination is the pokemon center."
"Oh, we just came from there!" exclaimed Elara. "We could show you the way, if you'd like."
"Yes—I'd like that very much," I said, even though I had already been through the town on my way to Professor Elm's lab, and already knew where the pokemon center was. Elara took me by the hand and we started down the street with her brother and the ursaring following behind us.
"Alright," she said enthusiastically. "Octavian is also just starting on his pokemon journey, you see."
"Oh, is that right?" I asked, looking at him. He looked at the ground and mumbled something inaudible.
"He's shy—don't worry about that," said Elara. "We went to New Bark Town together to get him a pokemon, but he hasn't started training it yet. Maybe the two of you could train together? That'd be fun, wouldn't it?"
"What about you? Are you a pokemon trainer, also?" I asked. "This ursaring belongs to you, right?"
Elara nodded. "Mm, that's right!" she said happily. "I have some pokemon, but being a trainer isn't my ultimate goal in life."
"Oh?" I said as we reached the pokemon center and she let go of my hand. I didn't want her to let go. "What is your ultimate goal?"
Elara looked at me and smiled brightly. "That's a secret!" she said. Behind her, Octavian let out a little sigh which was absolutely charming, and made a face which said to me that he had heard this from her before, and maybe too many times.
"Why is it a secret?" I asked. "Is it embarrassing?"
"No," she said. "I just like keeping secrets. It makes getting to know people fun if they have secrets! That's why getting to know someone is fun! If you knew all about someone from the get-go, wouldn't that just suck all the joy right out of it?"
"Yeah," I said. "That makes a lot of sense."
Elara let out a squeal of delight and clapped her hands together. She turned to her brother and grinned. "See, Octavian?" she said. "He thinks I make a lot of sense!"
We entered the nice little building with the bright red roof and the automatic glass doors. Within there was a carefully polished waiting room which was mostly empty, and a desk where a woman in a nurse's uniform was seated before a large machine. She greeted us warmly as we approached the counter. "Good afternoon!" she said. "Would you like me to heal your pokemon?"
"Yes, please," I said, pulling my two pokeballs from my belt and handing them to her.
"Very good," said the nurse. "This won't take very look. Have a seat, and I'll call you when your pokemon are healed."
I thanked her and Elara, Octavian and I took a seat around a coffee table in the corner of the room. I sat beside Octavian—a fact which seemed to distress him somewhat. Elara had said he was shy and, indeed, it did seem that way—but not in the way that most shy people were shy. No, Octavian was shy in a different, almost crippling way. It was like he was afraid to ever make eye contact with anyone other than his sister. I looked at him and he blushed and stared determinedly at the floor, as though meeting my gaze might turn him to stone. However, I found this distinctly endearing about him. "You got a pokemon in New Bark Town, right?" I asked him. He nodded. "What did you get?"
"I picked a chikorita," he said, smiling faintly. I liked it when he smiled. A smile looked good on his lips. "Her name is Chunhua, I've decided."
"That's a very pretty name," I said. "I'm sure it's a good choice."
"Thank you," said Octavian, his cheeks reddening. "D-did you name your pokemon?"
"Yeah," I said nodding. "My cyndaquil is named Daryle."
"Daryle," repeated Octavian, raising his face slightly.
"You don't like that name?" I asked.
"No—I do. I like it very much," he said quickly.
Elara laughed. "Chunhua and Daryle," she said. "I hope they become good friends."
I grinned up at her and then at Octavian. "I hope so, too," I said. "And us as well."
The nurse leaned over the counter. "Excuse me," she said. "Your pokemon have been fully healed!"
"Ah, thank you," I said, standing. I retrieved my pokemon from the desk and clipped them to my belt again before turning back to the beautiful siblings. Elara clapped her hands together as she came over to me.
"Wonderful!" she said. "Now we can all go train together!"
"Eh—what happened to your ursaring?" I asked looking around. She looked around as well, her short hair dancing around her ears and face delightfully with the movement.
"He must've decided to wait outside," she said, pouting slightly. When she pouted, her face was even more amazing. "Berend isn't a big fan of people or buildings, you see."
"Berend… He must be really strong," I said. "He was able to stop Quenelle before, and Quenelle's the strongest pokemon I've ever known."
Elara nodded. "Yes, Berend's very strong," she told me. "Like Quenelle isn't really yours, Berend isn't really mine. I received him from someone I know a while back, so he's stronger than any of the pokemon I've trained on my own."
"Who did he belong to?" I asked.
Elara smiled and bent over to me. Lifting one finger she said, "Secret!" Behind her, Octavian sighed.
"Fair enough," I said. "Where should we go to train?"
"The Bellsprout Tower, of course!" said Elara. She grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the door. She pulled me energetically along, but I didn't mind it one bit.
