Woo, thanks for the follows :D I should clarify that I don't intend to update as slowly as this update took, but I also am not sure what I can promise in terms of update speed. I do apologize for the unnatural delay though D:


She knew she was in trouble. The humans could see her, and she was growing ever weaker under assault. Ariados's string shot had just hit her, and she knew once slowed down she would be easy capturing.

Latios darted in front of her. Why would he do that? She heard her brother squeal and wrestle the string that held him in place. A net flew through the air, and before either dragon could react the net had wrapped itself around the blue dragon. It delivered tremendous shocks, and Latias pained to see her brother twitch in its throes.

"Find the boy" was all she heard before her brother was taken away. She cried, she thrashed, she hurt, she...

Latias awoke in a cold sweat. She looked around her. A faint beam of moonlight streamed in through the window and Ledyba buzzed away in the distance. This, along with Bianca's heavy breathing told her that this was still deep in the night, far away from daybreak when she would be free of these horrible, horrible dreams.

She slipped silently out of bed. She would be going for a quick walk before going back to sleep.


Latias flew around Alto Mare for the thirtieth time this day. Or was it the thirty-first? She wasn't sure; Latios had always been better with numbers. She took it all in once more, the narrow roads that slithered between the numerous houses, the rivers that branched out from the heart of the city in all directions and provided the primary mode of transportation, the adobe buildings that furnished domestic and industrial shelter alike for the city's burgeoning population. The setting sun threw its softening rays sideways across the city, criss-crossing the ground in intricate patterns after finding its way through the dense cityscape. The canals had begun to busy as everyone filed into their boats, the dominant transportation in Alto Mare. A few ambitious cyclists braved the labyrinthine roads that took unnecessarily many turns in an attempt to escape the impending hell in the canals, but it was always a futile endeavor: the city was built to be traversed by boat, roads linking only the closest destinations with nary the slightest concern for an overall order. After all, the canals were all that one needed to get home.

Latias came up on her favorite side of the island, a sheer cliff facing away from the . In the setting sun, the cliff and the houses that lined the top, mere dots in comparison to the full height of the cliff, made for a beautifully artistic scene, and Latias often took Bianca here at the latter's request. Moreover, the seclusion of the base of the cliff allowed the two aspiring artists to practice their sculpture in isolation; there was still an awkwardly assembled dragon lying somewhere in the darkness that was Latias's first attempt at a self-sculpture and one she preferred stay a secret. But the true beauty of this face of the island was best seen the opposite time of day, when the rising sun first stretched its warm rays through the wisps of mist that were yet to dissipate from the night. In the morning, the houses at the top of the cliff shone an otherworldly brilliance as their bright neon colors bathed in the sun, as if freshly dipped in the most adventurous painter's palette. Their kaleidoscopic coloration was intended to help sailors who had been lost the previous day and forced to spend the night at sea home the next morning. Such a tradition was soon adopted all around the island, but no one stretch caught the sun quite like this one did.

The Eon dragon, now sole Guardian of Alto Mare flew on to the West coast of the island, the final leg of her trip. Here, two proud pillars topped with stone statues framed the sunset as they had done for decades, a homage to the city's ever watchful guardians. One of the statues had flowers scattered all over its base at the top of the pillar. Latias slowed down and approached the slightly larger of the two statues and lay down the flower in her mouth. She knew that the frequent winds would soon erase her effort to decorate her brother, but it was a comforting duty to perform nonetheless. She spent a wordless minute, eyes closed and head bowed, pressed flush against the triumphant pose her inanimate brother was frozen in. Then she rose, the setting sun piercing the space between the two dragons, and took in the entirety of Alto Mare one last time. This was her island now, and she had to know every nook and cranny of the town she'd grown to adore. A deep protectiveness gushed out, accompanied by the worry that she wasn't yet ready, the same feelings that failed her every day, the same inquietude that drove her lap after lap around the town. She shook it off and shot inland, anxious not to keep Bianca and Lorenzo waiting for dinner.


Bianca, Lorenzo and Latias sat around a table eating cheerily, food fast disappearing from the bowls and plates in the middle of the three.

"Dear, your cooking has really come into its own!" Lorenzo struggled to articulate amid gargantuan bites of food. He'd be a bit more polite with the heartfelt compliment, but it would require slowing down his eating, and that was never a good idea when competing with a psychic dragon for food. What were once scores of berries were now slim pickings soaking in the juices of their fallen comrades. A pile of bones, despite seemingly clean, seemed to continually generate steaming scraps of meat as it yielded treasure after treasure to Latias's unrelenting psychic efforts. An empty plate contained earlier an ornate tree assembled from salad leaves that nobody wished to disturb, a delicate equilibrium speedily lost as a stray elbow knocked down the work of art.

Bianca grinned. "Thanks Gramps. It isn't so hard to learn though, when you can try your hand at so many dishes in the course of a day..." She shot Latias a glance of the corner of her eye. The dragon, having been more than happy to comply in eating Bianca's experiments, rubbed her tummy and purred back. All three laughed.

"So, Latias, how was your — hey, give that back!" Bianca fumed as the berry she targeted "mysteriously" slipped towards Latias's plate. Latias feigned a look of confusion as the berry found its way to right in front of Bianca's mouth. A claw beckoned at Bianca to bite. "Oh, so this was for me? Sure..." Bianca rolled her eyes and bit forward. Yet her teeth caught nothing but empty air before gnashing against each other. She blinked in surprise, and tried again only to be met once more with disappointment. Her face twisted in a look of complete bewilderment, she decided to grab the berry with her hand instead. At this point, Lorenzo was doing all he could not to break out in a hearty chuckle, having seen the berry pull back every so imperceptibly every time, but when the berry eluded his granddaughter yet again his restraint failed, and he keeled over laughing.

"Gramps! Stop, it's not funny!" a purple-nosed Bianca said. The berry had "slipped" from between her fingers and "bounced" off her nose before landing "by mere chance" in Latias's mouth. The dragon trilled in delight before zooming off, fuming brunette hot in pursuit to the tune of a deep throaty laughter that comes only with time.


"...and that's why if I am elected mayor, I will give to the people the power to decide the temperature of their preferred beverage! Rampant greed has corrupted the merchants of our great State, and we must fight back with every means possible at the governing level to return the power of decision to whom it belongs! A vote for Smith is a vote for the poor, for the plenty, for the people! Arceus bless you all, and Arceus bless the Sovereign State of Altomare!"

Raucous applause erupted and the mass of people in the square displaced as a continuous blob to one side, seemingly swayed by the ostensible charisma of the former candidate. From the other end of the stage, a thin, creaky voice answered,

"But it is precisely you, the 99%, that should define how your hard work is valued! Does the common know how you have toiled, how you have sweat and sacrificed to serve your neighbors? Do they dare pretend to know your struggle, every compromise you make to put food on the table for your loved ones and your Pokemon? No, let that power be yours, and let too the power to determine your commodity's condition be yours! You, the merchant, have every right to serve your star sodas at your temperature of choice! A vote for Sully is a vote for recognition, for empowerment and fairness in the cruel market! Arceus bless you all, and Arceus bless the Sovereign State of Altomare!"

The crowd needed hardly a second before gathering itself in one incomprehensible roar-like utterance and lurching to the other side of the square. An invisible dragon, forehead pinker than its usual snowy white from repeated pounding against a conveniently present wall, shook her head furiously. The ritual of vacillating support seemed to have gone on all afternoon by now, and she had yet to figure out whether this was some ancient practice or a reflection of the simple public's susceptibility to high rhetoric, however empty. Being at her first election, she could hardly know the answer, and decided that it was the former for the sake of her faith in her beloved city. She now understood why year after year at this time Latios's forehead would inexplicably pinken. She had teased him about it, that he was paying homage to her clearly superior red, and was time and time again met with a frustrated promise to show her the next year.

Her head hurt from the triviality of it all. Perhaps it was the benefit of having ever watchful psychic guardians, but Altomare hardly saw any real conflict; foreign policy was resolved in natural manners, any hostility wavering quickly at a paralyzingly glare from the male Guardian, and domestic unrest was quelled by both the generosity and arbitration of the female Eon dragon. As a result, Altomare politics was a wash of trivialities, campaigning on issues teetering on the edge of existence, far beyond the realm of significance. Yet it was a thriving part of Altomare that had to be kept under surveillance by the omniscient eye of the Guardian.

Somewhere, Latias was sure her brother was cackling maniacally. She stuck her tongue out at empty space before zooming off. While the square was still full, she could sense the well-meaning hearts of everyone beneath her (not to mention their sheer simpleness) and left in confidence before the vapid lack of intelligence drove her mad.


Bianca brushed aside the "closed indefinitely" sign hanging over the and scurried in, an unsettled urgency replacing her habitually strong, confident pacing. The door lingered open for a brief moment before admitting a shimmer and closing with a brisk snap.

An unnatural hush seeped through the air. The usually grandly lit chamber was illuminated with a single flickering candle, a small warm warmth fighting against the encroaching darkness that seemed to dance on the walls. A shadow swept briskly across the wall, bowl in hand, to a small corner of the room. A head with two perky ears floated not far behind.

"Gramps, how are you doing?" Bianca stirred at the bowl and blew on it, cooling the freshly made soup. A quivering voice grunted affirmatively. Latias bobbed her head over and nuzzled the old man softly on the hand. Lorenzo chuckled and slowly ran his hand through the soft feathers on her head. He turned his head to look at the beautiful dragon, gazing into a pair of profoundly worried eyes that seemed to shimmer, whether from tears or the flickering flame it was unsure.

Lorenzo suddenly made a motion to sit up. Normally Bianca would have protested had not a small glow appeared around the aged man. Latias had expected Lorenzo to want to shift and had a psychic at ready to support his weight, or rather negate it, better than any mattress ever could.

"Bianca, we have both known this day long in the coming. I have had a more fortunate old age, and indeed a more blessed life, than most, surrounded by those whom I love and that which I enjoy, but death has its way with every mortal some day or another.

I still remember when I first took you in, Bianca, oh you were but a child. You knew to help out around the business, but I could see that carpentry was never for you. I saw how every time we took a boat out, you stared wordlessly around, in awe of the beauty of our beautiful city. I saw your eyes sparkle every time you found just the perfect scene, the joy in your every word as you scrambled to show me what you could see. And I bought you your first sketch books. You know the rest of this story much better than I, and I wouldn't dare be the one to tell it.

You have always been an artist Bianca. Now that Latias is all grown up, there is little reason for you to stay in a business that was never yours to love, never your burden to bear. What began as a means and excuse to bring up the twins in safety should not and cannot become your burden. This is not your call to make; I have already dissolved the business. In addition to the remaining stock, i made a few last gondolas. Most are to sell, and being the finest of our craft they will be enough to send you to art school somewhere on the mainland. But I saved one for you, forever here should you choose to return to the waters that watched you grow up. These are perhaps the only gifts an old pair of calloused hands can give you by now."

Lorenzo coughed and chuckled again before continuing

"It appears death finds me tardy to our date. And you, Latias. I have even less for you than for Bianca, for what could I hope to give a Legendary Guardian. I talked to the mayor about our city's military, and under the guise of Latios's loss I convinced him to redouble our military powers. At the current pace, in a few years you will be free to see the world you have only seen on television and heard in stories. You deserve to see the world too, dear friend, not merely to be shackled to a city stuck in the middle of a vast solitude.

With that, I beg your collective pardon and ask your permission to leave you. Farewells were never my strength, but I hope my words have found some accord with you in your hearts to chase the dreams you have always held close. I leave you with my favorite line in the little I've ever read: above all else, to thine own self be true!"

With that, the old man settled back into a slumber, and while he was still breathing the two girls knew it would be his last, best rest. They cried together, for the only father either had ever known.