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Chapter split into two parts (first with scenes 1 and 3, second with scene 4) for ease of reading in a chunk

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Level 25

Runa said they would reach Olivine City by noon, and already they saw the buildings and port down the valley ahead, the Magnet Line above it skirting the coast and returning inland either side. Some time on the beach, he thought; some break where Runa could be free of his burden, of carrying such a slack.

Could it have gone more horribly? It could have been a Moltres, perhaps, setting upon him, flying all the way to Hoenn to drop him into Mount Chimney, turn him to ash—it would be a mercy, rather, a benefit to Runa. Was there anything worse than that, to be an active detriment despite every effort to aid? They thought he was a waste: he lowered Runa, they had to feel, for keeping him. And nothing they said was too hard when every battle was a new exercise in fear, each in fact worse than the last, increasingly in need of rescue and a switch. Runa was above all that, of course. As he failed again to throw a twister, hardly flipped a pebble, she said not to worry, that he would improve, that he was improving. She said he grew much stronger since Ecruteak, that judging his powers he was bound to evolve (yet Gaia was still the same), that not a bit of it was for the guidance she gave but for an ability he found in himself. And Dyna screwed her face as if to say Runa was a foolish trainer! None of them saw that she was yet maturing even further toward the ideal, more and more the perfect trainer, bound to become one of the great champions. He'd been with Runa for three months already and still he grew more and more affected. She only wanted him happy and to grow, she said, as she thought was his dream.

—O, he'll make a fine Spheal, some day, Rita said.

And Runa rebuked her, guessed the meaning from so little it was alarming. Was there a human with even half her qualities? Surely nature couldn't survive with multiple Runas shaking up its order; Pokémon would be hanging off their humans wherever one looked. Not of course that they didn't show affection, that their trainers weren't fine—but they didn't imagine Runa!

It was best for Pokémon, she said, that they went at their own pace. Forcing Pokémon through drills and gyms like a factory process (she meant her sister, but didn't say), scoring them by numbers, was absolutely the farthest thing from a bond. If a trainer didn't call Pokémon people, they weren't fit to touch them—that was how Runa put it when she got excited. Pokémon were really everything to her, even though she might have been anything, done anything in the world with all her family's resources. Everything she said somehow ended up on them. A friend (she said) who imposed her dream on others was not a friend at all; a friend by definition rather helped another's. Then if her dream was to help Pokémon, they ought never to worry about hers, since her dream was fulfilled only by them acting to fill theirs. But then again—for always it reduced to this—what if one's dream was impossible? Taking her literally she said she would be fulfilled only if the rest all disappeared, if she were alone with him in her arms, laying kisses all over—lowering herself, in other words, to nothing. But then to battle was only a little better; for if, she said, it was his dream to battle (so he felt rotten again), to grow and conquer his fears, she would help in every way possible; and nodding as if that were his only purpose, wasn't he a wretch, and a liar? Only the sickness moved him; having thrown into it fully, it gorged and bloated, now it got a taste of the thing, of being held by her, being tended after a battle. He never actually feigned an injury for her attention (quite unnecessary with his weakness) but wasn't that a feeble thing to raise? He ought to keep away from her; he had to restore some sort of defence, or wouldn't evolution be for nothing? But then he would see Runa, and think of nothing but her arms and hair. If Torus did read minds, he thought, he must detect him the most corrupted thing alive.

And the scene at Route 38, he thought. He couldn't bear to think about it! It was his fault entirely—some wild notion of going off and demonstrating himself, exercising even after dark rather than sit about the camp so that returning he would eat the meal Runa made with gusto and fall right asleep, not even think of negotiating himself slowly toward her lap. For just inside the long grass there swept down the Noctowl, who, being after all many times his size and power— He wouldn't think about it. And that cry as Runa saw him carried off into the sky! all of them chasing after until he was out of sight, carried off for who knew what purpose into the forest until finally (he was pathetic) he wriggled out a Thunder Wave and the Noctowl dropped him, falling hundreds of feet into a tree where, even if he was large for a Dratini, a few boughs broke his fall. He didn't know which way was which, already past the hill; every wilder's instinct seemed forgotten, except to hide and wait, for what if he missed Runa? But in a few hours' time (it was far longer in his mind, he thought, time, they all said, being subjective) he saw a little fire, and fell to rush toward it: Tanwen, at one end of a sweeping line Runa set up to find him. —Come on, the Quilava said. For Runa was so frightened they were all too shocked to abuse him. —It's my fault, Runa said, hands all over him: —I should have seen. She forbade them to speak ill, not as an order but a rule of good behaviour everyone followed: it was horrible, she said, to abuse a victim. So they said nothing, only comments to the effect he was lucky not to hurt himself in the fall (all that padding, Rita said). Still Runa took him off battling until he was recovered, she said, and for a week hardly let him go. It's nothing, was all she said; Dratini were practically made of air; he could lay on her all he liked. And yet it was, he knew, an indelible mark on him in all the others' eyes; for Runa was perfectly fair and always treated everyone fairly, but now, they all felt, she had a favourite on whom to dote, and like a spoiled rotten rot he soaked it all up.

But Olivine City, ahead, was on the sea, and Runa said they may swim. For it was the beginning of summer, and they would be near the beaches, Runa thought, until the leaves were falling. He would swim every day: he would train and get very fit: he would build up a reserve and be good for Runa.

Runa took them to the Pokémon Centre. There was little need for it, the nurses said: they were all in fine shape, so far as injury or illness went. Again Runa had to explain her arrangement (it was shocking, said the day manager, outrageous—to pay at a Pokémon Centre!), saw they accepted her compensation for extra supplies, for didn't her family profit on the Centres somehow? This was to give back and be less of a drain. But wasn't it easier from a shop? Runa said she believed in the Pokémon Centres more than private enterprise. After that they went to the hotel overlooking the waterfront (already booked in advance for a month), left Torus behind to sleep as, Runa said, he wanted nothing, and then on the promenade they met the minders.

It was her family's condition, Runa said, that other humans entered the scene. It was possible, even likely, that after a month in Olivine someone may recognise her and, wanting something of the Pondelores, step in to impose or bother them; so they hired a couple of trainers for the summer, students in some higher education who happened to battle, who would read books on the beach but keep an eye on Runa. That was all he needed, he thought: more eyes watching. They had an Arcanine and a Blaziken both taller than Runa. And they were friends, Runa said, only to help them as they needed; but he could not let go her leg.

—I've got to go to the markets and it'll just bore you, she said. Why don't you go with Miyuki?

For they had to want to explore the big city, she said: they could keep an eye out for anything interesting, and tomorrow they'd have a day. The girl Miyuki said they would return at the waterfront at five, that she'd make sure no one bothered them (she looked at Gaia as she said it). And as she read his want, but not his reason, feeling his alarm Runa said:

—You can stay with me if you like, Shadow.

How quick they all were to leave her! Dyna wandered off at once, Tanwen following and frowning up at the big Blaziken—Gaia looked back once—and Rita, drawling after, said she wanted silks for the sand.

Runa could have suggested he go, a part of overcoming his fears—the others joked about it, how he flew into a panic if she was out of sight for any length at all, even washing herself—but the truth was she liked him near. A mother's warmth perhaps, he thought, as she lifted him up in one arm, lay him against her shirt. (The Arcanine and the boy, Stefan, followed at a distance.) He could help her decide on new clothing, she said; they would have a lot of time to swim.

But the city he began to see as Runa spotted things: the first modern city since Goldenrod, he recalled from the guide, another beat of civilisation. Along the market row, the air of cooked foods lingered around the tables they passed, caught under the umbrellas it seemed, humans and Pokémon dining, enjoying company even if not the same dishes. All the trees were in full green; there, one with flowers all short and bunched and lilac-coloured. That was the name, as Runa said: —Ah, lilac! It was growing all about but, as he had looked, still she bought a bunch to give him; he held it in his coil. It was like her hair, softly sweet. But this was his first time alone with her (the boy some way behind)—everything, he felt, was framed in terms of Runa. That tree rustled (a perfectly natural action) in a way like her hair; that shop, the scent of her poffins and Poké Puffs (spent all that effort just to feed them); a passing Pokémon, possession; a male human looking at her, piercing dread. Runa said they had better go indoors, to get out of the heat; she meant his skin, never shedding properly. It was better not to be around so many people, he thought, all free to look … yet none of them knew her … he had all her attention, so why did he have to worry, tense against her? It's all right, she said, checking the map on her phone: they were nearly off the street, what had filled with humans disgorging out of Olivine Station Tower, just arrived from half an hour's travel on the Magnet Train from Goldenrod.

This was a store for clothing, a boutique, she said, laying him on a white sofa. He could help, she said, and give his opinion on something to wear for the beach. So she looked and chose something. And what good, he thought, was a wretch like him to her at all? so sick he could not look at her in a parted outfit, purely practical for humans in the water, without thinking of all the skin under the shirt he'd pressed against; quite as smooth as a Dratini's, never lost a bit to peeling; quite as soft; not as tall as he was long but enough to curl up on and fit his nose below her chin. He blushed; he turned away. She said it was perhaps too open, would look for one in one piece. In any case all four limbs would be bare, and floating in the water she might hold him with every—no! He pressed his face into the corner. He was losing his mind. For didn't he imagine her now laying on the beach and he above her, both hands on his neck, and not a bit of skin removed from hers? Were there any psychics about, the minder's, perhaps, who saw? Perhaps if he thought wrongly it became their duty to interrupt and save her, tear him away. —What do you think? she said. A shirt and shorts—yes, he nodded. She ought to choose what she liked and hang him, but so long as she asked … She picked him up and held him at the mirror, as if to see how they looked together, as if she chose it to match. He shouldn't blush to see himself, she said; he was perfectly healthy and adorable. How quickly she would fling him away in disgust if she knew! The cashier lady would cry out for help, getting in between them (she smiled as Runa paid; a rich girl, she must think, and her spoiled Dratini, not a battler, summer weeks on holiday)—the Arcanine crushing him on the ground until Runa tore out the hidden ball and called a Jenny. All it took was one touch, something unmistakable (he watched her mouth as she spoke), and it would all end at once, as was bound to happen eventually. For however much people looked pleasant now, he thought, as Runa put the bag around her shoulder and took him in both arms again, all these affectations, he knew if they ever found out all these people would at once turn and destroy him, their Pokémon helping. Just as behind bright streets and corners there were people living roughly, and under the pretty forests and lakes Pokémon scrapped for food and shelter, so too in society itself there were recesses, unspoken-of strictures, which if broken made one an enemy to every right-thinking human and her Pokémon at once, not for the breach itself—to kiss a human—but for the lost impression, that for a Pokémon to curl up in his human's arms was no longer innocent but perhaps a sign of something. This was a change unbearable, they all felt, or wouldn't everyone in the world have to worry and check themselves? But as Runa recalled a song, something from the Kimono dance chorus, and (his head against her, feeling it through him) breaking from a steady hum she sang,

Legends born eternally,

Nature never changing—

suppose, he thought, he never changed? For so long as he trained he would grow and perhaps evolve, but evolution did not change everything (which would be horrible in itself, not the same person). One's character may change—a Charizard, say, once a sweet Charmander, turned rough and hard because of all the strength—but that wasn't necessary, really more the exception than the regular case. Could such sickness really grow with evolution? Surely if that happened there would be a sign, if there were others like him: large Pokémon ravishing their trainers left and right, on all the papers and screens. Was that proof it didn't get stronger? Perhaps it only proved he was alone; certainly it wasn't a natural thing, to feel this way for the other kind. There were legends—that was where he got it from, the tone of the report—old myths of Pokémon appearing as human, and somehow even breeding. How did it work? Suppose he slept beside Runa, some warm gesture on her part, and in the morning there was an egg—some sort of abomination, Runa asking how it was possible, how it worked without a special bond, finding everything out. But that was impossible; and, they were legends, nothing to do with the city and the beach. So he felt the sea air; the lilac; the warmth of her skin up his side. There was no risk of that, he thought, was there?

Runa said they might sit until it was time (hours already with her!), and they went into a little restaurant, found a booth with a window overlooking the waterfront across the cobbled square—still a few people, though not quite the crush of summer, not even like Ecruteak when the trees were all pink and they were only getting ready for the carnival. Runa ordered fruit and shakes, and they arrived on two little dishes: slices of apple and mango, a nest of berries, a whole pitaya.

"It's also called a dragon fruit," she said, and smiled. He would like it, she said—sweet but very mild, very healthy.

There was something in the peeling of a pitaya, how she made a little space and then, like that, the whole skin popped off, that filled him with a sense of peace, a cosiness, as though an old sticky layer had shed. This was enough, he thought; if all the rest came to nothing, if he never grew closer, this was enough with Runa. She liked his company; hadn't said a word about battling; only cared that he was happy, the sort of simple thing that stress of training, if anything, disrupted. Probably to enter battling at all wasn't necessary, Runa being warm even to Rita who did nothing. A conversation was enough, even if he could not speak, just to see her talk, look at him, smile because he listened.

"I'm sorry if buying things was dull," she said.

It was an odd thing, this need to put on clothing—humans having less in the way of warmth and resistance than Pokémon, for whatever reason evolved, they said, unable to bear natural temperatures. (Gaia always said he was unusual, hardly felt cold or heat at all, except, he thought, in connection with Runa.) And so, as humans did, they made an asset of it; took action, took to engineering their world in a way no other species did to accommodate. There wasn't a species more adaptive in the world; Pokémon were clever, yes, might have arms and cleverness fit to change the world around them, yet in all the thousands of years they hadn't put together a civilisation, as humans had: a human in a crowd of wilders, he thought, was its rightest head. Of course the others never understood, as he tried to explain it, how marvellous they were—thought it was only a bright trainer he wanted, said, when he kept stressing it (not as self-understanding then, not as practised), that he was odd, a wilder enamoured by civilisation. So he was: he loved all the human works, the music, the clothing too, the dance—like a Dragonair's motion, he reasoned—the capacity of all to stand up and decide their fate. A wilder only adhered to the wilds, and so amounted to little; a battler only drove up a ladder; whereas humans produced works so great that whole worlds popped up inside them and—like that—another world for Pokémon, the battling industry, was born, a little part of theirs.

"Manda will probably make champion this year," Runa said. Of course that was easy, he thought, with such advantages: the heir, older than Runa by six years, no hesitations at all in using Pokémon. "Remember the Indigo Plateau Conference opens today. That's probably why it's so quiet—there's no screen here."

Nor in the hotel room, he thought. Why weren't they watching themselves, all laid around her to study the battles, support her sister?

Runa stirred the little black pitaya seeds in her juice, but didn't drink it. "I don't like the tournaments," she said. "I mean, a friendly contest is fine. But these days you don't reach the top unless you're all about winning and hard drills—like my sister. There's, um … there's a word they use for certain styles of training. Pondelorian." She looked at him. "It means a mathematical approach, where you spend a lot of money and do a lot of repetitive training to get the best possible performances from Pokémon. Friendship and happiness being secondary."

It was personal to her, he thought, that she had to share the name, none of her family caring, perhaps, for Pokémon as much as she did. But what she said was the case a long time, wasn't it? The show talked about the champion Red as the last of an era, and Red was—how old?—at least forty, and quit the title when he was younger than Runa.

"Of course, her Pokémon turned out fine!" she said. She put her hand on the table. "Some day you'll meet them and make friends. I hope they win … Maybe we'll watch the finals. They've been grinding so long everyone says she can't lose against Lance. I just don't like people building up the contest and forgetting what battling's about—growing Pokémon. Manda never got that."

Not that blood ought to matter, he thought, but it was odd that, for all the warmth Runa gave Pokémon, she kept it from her own human family. With Pokémon of similar types, two Dratini say, one couldn't deny there was a shared understanding, one not only for the Corner, that made them rather closer—oughtn't it be so for humans growing up together? But her people, Runa would say, being so rich, were not like other humans and didn't understand. They treated Pokémon as a resource, cared for yet kept apart; bred them scientifically; valued them for things like shininess when in uniquity and worth (how he fluttered as she said it!) he was no different from Gaia.

"I'm sorry," she said—"I shouldn't say bad things about family. I mean, we do communicate. They pay for everything—we couldn't travel like this on just the trainer's stipend. But—" There was a drop of juice running down his neck, and she reached over with a tissue. "I mean, this is nice, relaxing a bit after travelling like other trainers, but they're used to a totally different lifestyle. Maybe Tanwen's told you about it … what she saw wasn't the same, though, in the nurseries. You could visit, but … I mean it's not the sort of place a Pokémon can grow up properly. But, if you really wanted it …"

And as she looked down and held her shake, did she think—? Or was she asking if he would leave her then, only break off and live in comfort free of fear, done with battling? As if he would abandon Runa just to lay out on a pillow watching a screen, to take up another cage! He laid his head on the table.

She smiled and said, "Oh, I didn't mean you, Shadow," and taking the straw she held the tip so that the mango and pitaya crush stayed in and held it out for him to lick. (She would not even clean it after: that was Runa with Pokémon.) Rita, she meant, would flee given half a better shot at luxury—or was that true? There were times Tanwen looked at her she seemed to frown, that he saw her watch a battle and tread. Once she asked him how he found it, to battle the first time; turned it into a barb right after, as she did, an O, perhaps it's not for you, but still there was the question. Was she beginning to think more of Runa? Time would see what happened with her, Gaia said, but already she was two months with them without offering a use—that at least Tanwen allowed him now. There hadn't yet been another Pokémon who approached Runa and became the team's sixth; it was only fit, then, if it was Rita all along.

"Things don't usually change without an outside force," she said, stirring the seeds until they twirled. "If you spend too much time without pressure … you might stop pushing back. And that's a waste of a life, don't you think, when it goes on for years and years? Back home, Pokémon don't have a chance to be themselves—I mean, all society says it's not up to them to have a choice. But most people don't grow up well unless someone guides them. They never try to change their nature because they don't know it's possible. No, you're lucky, Shadow,"—she moved the berry dish closer and smiled—"you already know that!"

And like some rot who didn't even hear her words, wasn't affected at all, he could only pick out another pecha berry and chew. If Runa had one flaw, it was that her quality blinded her to others, whom she assumed to be like her; fundamentally capable of similar understanding; able to observe their own character which, being only a simple portrait of connections and contingent qualities (so she described the game of Voltorb Flip, just arithmetic and logic and probabilities), may be redesigned at will. Was that genius? he thought. He was no longer certain. Anyone can grow, she said; anyone can improve. (But one was born with a thing like genius, surely—one didn't grow into that!) But if as she said nature changed, nothing yet was certain: he may yet gain a power, not flush every time she looked at him, not feel his flares and skin grow hot. Oh, he thought, let it be as simple as that—let it be a thing that just washed away! (Evolution was the key.) The sickness needn't even go, not entirely, so long as he could make it harmless. And then there would be nothing to spoil it, with Runa in the sea, swimming right beside her as she—

"I'm sorry," Runa said, standing and starting for the door: outside Rita ran by with a silk scarf in her mouth, then a young trainer and his Eevee chasing after, and then the girl minder and the boy and the Arcanine.

At the waterfront, Rita laying on her new Leavanny silk cloth (it was beneath the minders to go and fetch it, but so they offered), Gaia basking, Tanwen sitting as to seem the only one attentive, Dyna building sand over Torus—only he, he thought, thought at all about Runa, there buying iced tea from a stall. A few children looked, pointed to Gaia: a pink Dratini on the beach! they would say. (They scattered when the Arcanine sniffed.)

Dyna looked at him approaching. "[I found a shop that sells Everstones,]" she said, itching her wool—the sand was all inside it, he saw, but she seemed not to notice. "[I'm gonna ask Runa for one.]"

He said, "[Don't you want to evolve?]"

She harrumphed and placed a shell on Torus's nose, who was very still. "[It's for Rita,]" she said, looking to see she didn't hear. "[She's desperate to evolve into a beautiful Ninetales, you know? But I'm thinking if she makes Runa get her a big bow or something, I'll stick it inside.]"

That was rather harsh, he thought, just because Rita debated her. But what was it he had heard about the stones? There was a documentary series with, yes, Steven Stone, the one Runa mentioned in the Corner. She knew him personally, saw his family's whole collection of stones on a visit, perhaps, old friends of the Pondelores. "[Don't Vulpix need a Fire Stone to evolve?]" he said.

Dyna put another shell on Torus. "[So?]" she said.

"[But—]" he said. "[But Everstones don't affect evolutionary stones.]"

Dyna paused, seemed to think it over—and then Torus teleported away, and the sand and shells fell into a heap.

"Flaaf!" she said, and turned to him. "[Do they work on Dratini?]" she said.

"[Y— Yes,]" he said.

And she said, "[Maybe I'll stick it in a Poké Puff, you know, the kind you snarf whole? Stop you getting bigger. You'll thank me.]"

They were all cross with him, he knew, thought he was a waste to the team, slowed them down, took away Runa's attention. What if he never evolved, never became strong enough? and being far too great a liability as they battled more and more difficult trainers, as permitting a Dratini to stay became impossible, Runa would lay a hand on him and, For the sake of the others, she would say, so as not to disrupt their dreams—

Now Runa was returning with a jug; and as though he hadn't just spent hours alone with her, he rushed toward her (quite beyond all shame now). She asked what it was, wiped his eyes (he was absurd), asked who had teased him; then Dyna threw her shell and called him a snitch, and his denial Runa only took as making it worse, and now she looked at Dyna. So he spoiled things; so he bust up the team again, he thought. But Runa always said just the right thing—How would you feel if you were nearly carried off and your own family only made fun?—and Dyna, though accusing her was really unjust, though Runa didn't know what was said, only folded her arms and took a strong interest in the sand.

Once everyone had a drink from the pitcher Runa said they ought to decide on the gym.

"We don't have to," she said—"it's only for motivation. This is the Kanto break so the gym is nearly empty, and we'll get plenty of practice in any case. But if we're feeling ready, in a couple weeks we can try for the badge."

Tanwen looked at each of them consequentially, took another share from the pitcher: it was for her that Runa even considered it, thought of committing them to serious battles that to her were only more experience and growth but to Tanwen were the whole point of it. In a Steel-type gym she would shine glorious, make her mark, she said; and wasn't it both fair and far past time they got a badge, she being with Runa for eleven months already and accomplishing nothing but to bloat the team? But water was just as well, Runa said, against the Steelix, bred from the old leader Jasmine's—Gaia would be centre as well.

Tanwen looked at him. "[Be nice if we had another water user,]" she said. He turned pink, looked away. But that was the trouble: they needed three for the leader match, according to the conditions.

"[It's not his fault,]" Gaia said. "[We've hardly seen water for over a year.]"

"[Water's everywhere. You're water-egg types. It should be easy,]" Tanwen said.

"[You don't know anything about controlling water,]" Gaia said.

But Tanwen was correct: Dratini ought to have a grip on water right from the egg, or wasn't that a dragon's strength, a grasp of many elements? And yet while Gaia could throw up a surf now whenever she liked, drew it right through the ground and rock, he could not turn over a cup.

"I think any of you could evolve soon," Runa said, "but there's no need to rush it. We'll only go if there's enough who feel ready."

Rita looked at him. That was all: she looked, then away. So why, he thought, did he feel so thoroughly rotten? It was the team, the those who feel ready, meaning those who could actually battle; and there were only two she could rely on for that. Any other team (and she already cared for six Pokémon!) would have a surplus of choice; yet here Runa had to work it out, as with Dyna (helpless against the Steelix), Rita (no help at all), Torus (no help against anything serious) all excluded, where did that put Runa? But there was more to it, this feeling. It was what Rita said before, on the way to Olivine. Runa had mentioned the gym and Tanwen was adamant they battled, despite the team's weakness, and Runa was saying they ought not to rush, that their growth was what mattered, and after a minute Rita turned to him.

—Do many Pokémon get this?

—Get what?

—This. Runa's way.

—It's wonderful, isn't it? Runa's the best!"

—O, a wonder, yes. Because when you can afford the finest vitamins and minerals any science can produce, whole herds of Blissey for breakfast eggs and teams of chefs to prepare them, even to buy a gym outright and not just own its badge but lead it too—with all that, the best you can do is to beg your Pokémon, if it wasn't an imposition, if it only pleased her, whether she might consider growing up a bit before a Steelix blasts her all the way to groundwater.

Whether her view was secretly changing, whether it was all a bluster or not, Rita was horrible to Runa and didn't deserve her. And he argued, said Runa only cared more than any human, and didn't force; and Rita had looked across her nose and said, if Runa only wanted a Dratini-shaped doll who trilled when she pressed him, she might have gone to the Super Mart.

"We can't battle without three," Runa said. For with only two of five battlers wanting it, that was not a consensus, but with three, Runa would follow their want in it.

But—and Gaia said always to ignore Rita—but was this really how it ought to be, a trainer negotiating with her Pokémon? For if Runa was the wisest (and didn't she train them?) it was right that she decided. Humans appointed leaders precisely to avoid this sort of debate; parents, if she saw herself as one, reasoned with their young but in the end their word was final. And none of them spoke, as she looked to each of them—skipped him over. He looked away—and with all the others saying nothing, looking between each other … But this was intolerable, he thought, everyone feeling it, what they did to Runa, drove her to doubt or to force them, for didn't others only obey everything their trainer said and yet they were happy and grew? He had to do it, he thought—volunteer. The assembly of every apparent circumstance in three months built to this instant, demanding he offer for Runa. But what would they say?

It's not a good idea before you've learned water, seriously.

You'd be pulverised. We don't need you wrecking our battle. Leave it to fire.

O, you'll give the girls a nice breather, I'm sure, that whole second.

Dyna raised her hand and looked at Tanwen, as if to say, Now shush up.

Chance again missed him: he let it pass. He would never be a great battler to Runa; would never rise at all in her reckoning, just the one who nearly lost himself in the woods from his own stupidity, for even Dyna who didn't care at all was more willing to put herself on the spot. And once Torus evolved, he would be firmly in fifth, and with Rita discounted, still last of all.

He lay out on the sand in Runa's shadow: so he would always be. And did Torus look—? But he was only meditating.

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