Quill had been feeling enthusiastic about Aamira's birthday at first. Sylvans loved festivals and parties, after all. What he hadn't realized was that there was going to be so many people there. The people who had attended the meeting the previous night had only been a small sample of the rebels. Almost as soon as Quill woke up the next morning, Ul told him to go down into the hideout and meet with Darach. It was then that Darach had given him a huge list of people who would be there by nightfall for the party. The list was mainly to list any allergies that any of the guests might have, but everyone's name had been written on it just to give Quill an idea of how much he would have to make. The list itself was longer than Quill was high when standing on two legs. To read the whole thing, he had to flatten the list on the floor and look at it from above.
Luckily he wasn't entirely on his own with this. A small fire type pokemon named Tepig, who was the partner of one of the rebels would be helping him cook while the Raticate, who was the partner of the guard from the Mirror Palace, and Darach's partner Tranquill would be helping to gather ingredients from a nearby forest.
At first Quill welcomed help from the three of them, especially Raticate since she was the only one who could tell him about his sister. Unfortunately, he was disappointed. The only thing that Raticate was able to tell him was what her partner had already told them back at the Mirror Palace. Tepig was alright, but he was really young and he had trouble controlling his fire, making it difficult to cook the things that had to be cooked in direct flames. Too much fire and the food was burnt, too little and it wouldn't cook. The main problem was the consistency of the heat, which made it difficult for Tepig to cook anything evenly. His first attempt, in fact, was burnt on one side and completely raw on the other.
It was Tranquill who Quill really enjoyed talking to. Apparently Darach would sometimes refer to her as "Quills", though he hadn't done that much since they were younger. Even so, the similarity of their names really helped the unease that Quill was feeling before then; Quill had heard Lucario's account of how the other Tranquill had gotten him captured and he had been on guard because of it. This Tranquill was really nice though and very knowledgeable, both from being the partner of a librarian and being a flying type and being able to go wherever she wanted because of it.
After a while, Raticate and Tranquill finished gathering the ingredients needed from the forest. Raticate ran off to do some training with her partner while Tranquill stayed behind to lend a talon and keep up the conversation so they wouldn't get bored and burn something by accident.
"Are Tranquill common partners for humans?" Quill asked once they got the bottom layer of the cake in the oven. It was one of the few recipes that they could use the human technology to help them with. "We met a Mightyena on the way here and he said that all of the humans from his village had a Poochyena or Mightyena for a partner."
"It really does depend on the region I guess." Tranquill said. "I know in the Coccona Islands most of the humans there have a Panpour, Pansage, Pansear, or one of those pokemon's evolved forms for a partner. Too bad there aren't any of them here on the mainland. I hear they're really good at cooking."
"Coccona Islands." Quill remembered hearing the name from Aamira from when they had been coming up to the city where Ul's manor stood. "That's the place where the humans have red hair and green eyes, right?"
"That's right. Well known for their chocolate too. The same chocolate you put in the marble cake, in fact. To answer your question about Tranquill though, we're not really common or uncommon as partners, although nearly everyone in Darach's family has had one for a partner, ever since that incident."
"What incident was that?" Quill asked. Tepig was getting a lot better with his fire and he was exhausted from doing the brunt of the work up until now. He didn't mind taking a little break from cooking to listen to Tranquill."
Tranquill ruffled up her feathers excitedly. "Ah such a beautiful tale. You know how Neltona and Dellevis had always been on par with each other? Never got along, ever since the countries were founded. Well way back when, the two countries were on the brink of a war. There had been a group of notorious bandits back then, which have long since been disbanded. Well, it was believed by Neltona that these bandits were in fact a group of soldiers sent to spy on their borders. Any sign of the bandits crossing the border would have meant a war. Of course, these bandits had been fleeing from the real soldiers and crossing the border was, in fact, their intention.
"Now the border itself was lined with soldiers from Neltona and the soldiers from Dellevis were approaching the border in pursuit of the bandits. Traveling with the Dellevan soldiers was one of Darach's ancestors. His partner was a beautiful Unfezant whose flying skills were unmatched. That Unfezant was one of my ancestors. At the time, she was considered one of the world's greatest Carriers."
"Carrier?" Quill asked.
"Message-bearing pokemon. They take their jobs very seriously. That is, we take our jobs very seriously, as I am also a Carrier. We follow a great code of honor second only to the knight and as such, Carriers have been dubbed the Knights of the Sky.
"Now at the time my ancestor had a very important job. She had to sneak near the border to keep an eye on the bandits and the Neltonan soldiers. From her observations, her partner would try to predict the bandit's movements so that the soldiers could apprehend them and escort them to the nearest prison before a war broke out. Every now and then she would also have to deliver their findings to the king and queen. Needless to say, it was a huge responsibility for one bird.
"At one point one of the Neltonan soldiers stumbled across the border. Historians believe that he had been dealt a head injury and sustained brain damage from a hoof to the head from a Zebstrika. Apparently he broke the terms of his contract with the Zebstrika and tried to make the Zebstrika obey his orders through force."
"I feel no sympathy for someone like that." Quill said.
Tranquill's feather's ruffled up in agitation. "Nor do I. Oh the trouble that incident caused. He was immediately believed to be a spy by the Dellevan guards since he so much as walked the five miles across the border to their camp. He was immediately apprehended and held prisoner in the command tent. At one point he became extremely violent and the Captain of the Guard tried to knock him out to keep him from hurting anyone. It's believed that the initial head injury caused a serious hemorrhage in the brain and that the knock to the head, meant only to knock him unconscious for a few hours, was enough to finish him off.
"Here's where there's a downside to the human and pokemon partner system. That human's partner had stayed behind in the camp back in Neltona. She had been detained for trying to steal medical supplies for her partner and hadn't been able to follow him or keep him from wandering away from their camp. Of course she was able to feel it when he died and after evidence showed that he had crossed the border, they immediately assumed that he had been killed on purpose by the Dellevan soldiers. At that point, the Dellevan soldiers were already moving towards the border to confront the Neltonan soldiers for sending a spy into their territory. It wasn't long before a full battle had broken out.
"My ancestor had been ordered by the Captain of the Guard to send a message to the king and queen and to request a declaration of war. However, Unfezant are extremely loyal and will only take orders directly from their partners, no matter how high ranked the person issuing the orders is. As such, she asked his opinion first. It was then that her partner requested to be sent as a diplomat to the Neltonan Captain. His request was approved and the two of them crossed into the Neltonan camp in an attempt to stop the fight.
"Though the conversation, they were eventually able to figure out that the fight had been caused by a huge misunderstanding. The Captain had his partner spread the message that there was going to be a truce and Unfezant was sent back to her camp to deliver the same message to the Dellevan soldiers. This is where everything went wrong though. The captain didn't think that Unfezant and her partner were going to return alive and he had already sent a message to the king and queen asking for a declaration of war. Unfezant was about to follow after the Carrier when the bandits attacked. Many of the soldiers on both side had been killed or injured in the fight, so they were easily defeated. Unfezant's partner, who was trained as a scribe rather than a fighter, took up a sword himself to help in the fight.
"Unfezant helped to the best of her ability, carrying as many injured humans and pokemon as she could from the battlefield. At some point in the midst of the battle, an uneasy feeling settled over to her and she feared that something might have happened to her partner. She returned to the battlefield to find him badly injured. She was prepared to carry him to where the other injured soldiers were, since his injury wouldn't be life threatening if it could be bandaged in time. Before she could, he stopped her. From out of the case that he always carried on his back, he got a piece of parchment and a bottle of ink. However, he didn't have anything left with him to write with. The only thing available in the area was one of Unfezant's feathers.
"She protested at first, not because of the though of having one of her feathers plucked, but because she knew that he would bleed to death if she didn't get him to someone to take care of his injuries. What her partner said next is now a famous quote in Dellevis, Neltona, and even Dargan. 'My ancestors surely must envy me for the glorious partner that I've been blessed with. All scribes know what it's like to fly from the many tomes they read, but none could truly appreciate it as much as I. Even from before the time you could carry me to the sky, I've known that feeling because I've known you. Out of all other pokemon, you are without a doubt the greatest Carrier there ever has been or ever will be. Stay with me now for these last few minutes, and then deliver my final message. You know as well as I do that you can save so many more than just myself.' And so with that my ancestor gave in, sacrificing one of her fine primaries to be his quill. She watched her partner write the message and with the message, she watched his life ebbing away.
"Just as the message was finished, her partner finally found it impossible to hold on. Sickened by the pain in her heart, Unfezant rolled up the message and took it in her talons and flew for the capitol city. The other messenger was already nearly a day ahead of her and weakened by a heavy heart and several injuries, she found flying difficult than it ever should have been for her. Nonetheless, she took off, not looking back at her partner even once as she flew, and she flew farther and faster than any other of our species ever had in one flight. Along the way, she met the messenger, a huge and vicious Braviary who was the partner of the Captain of the Guard. He wouldn't believe her words and attacked without listening to her full account of events. Somehow, in spite of her injuries and the handicap of not being able to fight with her talons out of the possibility of her partner's final message being damaged, she managed to fight off the Braviary.
"Finally, weak and tired from the fight, she glided through the high windows of the throne room, and delivered the message to the king and queen. Through much negotiation, a war was prevented and they managed to enlist the help of Neltona to capture the bandits that had attacked their soldiers. Unfezant, tired from the long flight and in great physical and mental pain, lost consciousness the second her talons opened and the message was delivered and she didn't wake up for over a week. She was honored as a hero and a statue of her was placed in the castle library for all future scribes and Carriers to see. She didn't care anything for the many awards granted to her or the praise given from her fellow Carriers. Almost as soon as she regained consciousness, she resigned from her position as the Top Carrier and lived out the rest of her life alone and wild in the mountains to the north of the city."
"That's so sad." Quill said. "But I can understand why you would be proud to be Unfezant's descendant. Both she and her partner sacrificed so much."
Tranquill gave a quick, bobbing not that was characteristic for her species. "Yes, they both sacrificed so much and saved so many lives in the process. I think what really strikes people about this story is that Unfezant wasn't the stereotypical noble hero from most stories. She got injured many times and didn't necessarily die as a hero as most do in old tales. She was just like every other pokemon, exceeding others only in her speed and endurance. It's much easier to relate to a real person rather than the flat character of fairytales. Maybe that's why so many of her descendants have aspired to become something like her. The same for her partner. All of his descendants, Darach included, have wanted to do a deed as noble as his, even if it meant dieing in the process. You can see why he was so eager to teach Aamira the things that Zoroark didn't want her to know and why he was so quick to join the rebels when he could."
Quill was lost in thought by this for a moment. Unfezant had died with a broken heart, and yet so many of her ancestors aspired to be like her.
"Uh, Mr. Quill, I think the cake is burning." Tepig said timidly.
"Ah!" Quill ran over to the oven and opened the door, snatching the cake by the hot tin that would have burned almost any other pokemon, and pulling it out before any more damage was done. Most of the surface that had been in contact with the metal tin was now singed. Quill considered just cutting off the burned parts, but that wouldn't seem like something fit for a queen if he did. He was sure Aamira probably wouldn't mind, but any of the other humans might take offense if they found out.
While peeling off the burnt layer to see how much of it he could possibly salvage, the burnt layer reminded him of something that he should have remembered hours ago.
"Are there any ice types around here?" Quill asked Tranquill.
"Yes, why?" She asked with a tilt of the head.
"Can you get any ice types to come to the kitchen and then maybe gather some Tamato berries and honey?" Quill asked.
"I don't see where you're going with this. If you're going to make something else, maybe you should focus on the cake first."
"Just trust me." Quill said. He gave her a list of other berries and various other items he would need and she took off seconds later. He wasn't sure how much humans would like his idea, but he was sure that even if Aamira's taste buds had changed that she would still like his idea. This would be his birthday present to her.
Aamira had been the first to wake up, though it wasn't from excitement. It was amazing how the nightmares had vanished once she returned to this world. Faris had told her that she used to have constant nightmares even before she lost her memory. Her best guess for why they had stopped was because she was suddenly living in a nightmare when she had first returned. In fact, before things got really bad, she did still have the nightmares but they stopped soon after. It was strange then that she would have one now. But then she realized the reason for the dream and she had been roaming around the house anxiously all day trying to think of what to do about it.
Pam's breakfast helped to settle her nerves a little. It was a special birthday breakfast that was apparently an old tradition in her family. Aamira wondered for a moment if her uncle, who had led the rebels who instigated the civil war, had also followed this tradition. Not that it really mattered to her.
Lucario woke up last, which didn't really suit him at all. He tried to look for Quill and Aamira's auras to meet up with them and found that Quill was in the hideout, probably cooking for the party later. When he went to find Aamira, he thought at first that there were more kids than he had originally counted. It was then that he realized that the oldest black haired girl bore a striking resemblance to Anima, who he had seen in the picture.
"Last to wake up, that's not like you." Aamira said.
"What happened to your hair?" Lucario asked.
"Well no point in disguising myself as a boy anymore, is there?" Aamira said. "They already know that trick, so any guards who come across me would recognize me if I tried it again. Instead I just dyed my hair black with some ink I got from Darach. A few of the kids had been outgrowing their clothes, so when Pam took them shopping, she got me something that was more typical for this region. It helps that my hair had already started to grow in. I blend in fairly well now, don't I?"
"Not exactly." Lucario said. "If your mother was as well known as I would assume she was, that disguise won't be any help at all; you look almost exactly like Anima now."
Aamira's eyes widened as this realization dawned on her and she ran off to find the nearest mirror and started to fuss over ways to change her appearance. She thought of everything from tying up her hair, which was still much too short for something like that, to changing the look of her face by giving herself a black eye. She eventually gave up, since nothing was really working and she didn't think Faris or Darach would approve of her hurting herself constantly to keep up a disguise.
"Well maybe it's better this way. At least for tonight. I was supposed to become the queen today. Even if that's not possible, the least I could do is show off the resemblance between me and the real queen."
Ul asked Lucario to follow Aamira around for the rest of the day so that she didn't accidentally stumble across any preparations. What was about to happen wasn't exactly a surprise, but no one would want her to accidentally stumble across an unwrapped present or something else that she shouldn't see until night. Lucario had a present of sorts that he wanted to work on too and he was afraid that it wouldn't work without a few minutes of practice. He hoped she would like it, he was pretty sure she would, but then he was also worried that she would think that he was trying to show off.
They were outside now, eating some fruit and watching the kids and their pokemon playing with Alomomola. They were playing a game where Alomomola would squirt water at them from below the surface of the water and they would have to try to avoid it. Blue had joined in the game too and he seemed to be enjoying himself in spite of being a pokemon that normally wouldn't like water.
"Be careful with your horns, Blue!" Aamira shouted at him. She was scared that one of the kids would trip and end up hurting themselves on one of Blue's horns, although they were still so short and dull from being filed down before they found him at the Mirror Palace. If they did accidentally run into one of his horns, it would probably leave a bad bruise, but nothing much worse. Alomomola might have even been able to heal something so small.
"Alomomola and Emolga both look like other pokemon." Lucario said. "Emolga looks like a Pachirisu and Alomomola looks like a Luvdisc. They aren't evolved forms, are they? I've never heard of either of them before coming to this world."
"They aren't evolved forms of Pachirisu and Luvdisc but they did evolve from them." Aamira explained. "The dragon force in this world has an unusual effect on pokemon. Over time, the pokemon in this world have been changing so that they don't resemble the ones in any other world. Pachirisu and Luvdisc don't exist in this world anymore because their species was so drastically altered over a long period of time that they became entirely different species."
"So those individuals never really changed in appearance," Lucario said, "but over time children of those pokemon started to look different."
"Yea. Pachirisu apparently had a lot of trouble in this world before. A long time ago, there weren't many big forests. In the existing forests, Pachirisu were constantly fighting over territory. Mainly they had to stay in an area where the trees were filled with food but scattered far apart. Of course there are some pokemon who aren't above eating other pokemon, so having to run from one tree to another took too much time and put them in constant danger. Apparently they started to jump across the impossible distances between the trees. Any who couldn't made the jump would fall and most likely die or would be forced to run on the ground and would possibly be eaten. Over time the only survivors were the ones who were developing the membranes between their arms. The fur on their backs also started to become darker to help hide them in the trees and their tails became shorter and more aerodynamic. Their ears got larger too so that it was easier for them to help hear predators coming. After many generations the pokemon that resulted was so different from Pachirisu that it was an entirely different species.
"Luvdisc had problems swimming near the shores where the currents are really strong. They would often get injured and wouldn't have any way to heal while battling the currents. Over time they started to develop a membrane that would heal their wounds. Only the Luvdisc with these membranes would live on to have children, so soon that membrane became common. They also developed larger fins that helped them swim through even the toughest currents with ease. Dark patches started to form over their eyes so that they could see even when strong water was being blasted into their eyes from the currents. Alomomola are a lot more muscular than Luvdisc. It's easiest to see around the mouth."
"How could the dragon force cause so many drastic changes to these pokemon?" Lucario asked.
"No one's really sure. There are several other species of pokemon that have developed from other species. It's probably changed humans over time too. I bet if you look at the humans in this world and then the humans in that world where pokemon don't exist, there would be a huge difference between us. It's possible that even if the people in both words refer to themselves as 'human' that the species would be entirely different by now."
"Have you ever wanted to go to that world? Just to see what it's like?" Lucario asked.
"I don't think so." Aamira said. "I mean, who would ever want to live in a world with no pokemon?"
Lucario smiled and bit into the apple that he had been holding for the last few minutes. He wondered vaguely if there were any Aura Readers in that world. Before he could think about this for too long, he noticed a small pokemon sneaking up on one of the kids. He didn't know all of the pokemon that lived here yet, so he figured that it was another one that had been contracted, possibly to babysit the kids while the parents were busy.
This theory was disproven almost instantly as the purple feline pokemon leapt out of the rose bush and tackled the kid that she had been following. He screamed and fell into the pool and Alomomola immediately dove down under the water, scooped him up in one of her fins, and dragged him back up to the side of the pool.
The kid apparently couldn't swim and his siblings all seemed worried at first when he started coughing up water. After a while he caught his breath and started stumbling towards the feline. He seemed furious, although the cat merely licked its paws with its eyes closed nonchalantly. He was about to reach down and grab the cat, possibly to throw it in the pool and see if it was a better swimmer than him, when the pokemon opened its eyes. Their eyes met at the kid stopped moving entirely.
Lucario glanced over at Aamira for a second and saw that she had the weirdest sort of smirk on her face. Then he looked back over to the kid and the cat and watched as he lowered one hand to the cats head and started to rub it between its ears. The pokemon purred so loudly that they could hear it even from across the pool.
"That's his partner, isn't it?" Lucario asked. Aamira nodded. He had a suspicion that she had already known who the kid's partner was.
Finally, after hours of waiting, all of the preparations had been finished. Aamira, Quill, and Lucario had pretended to go to bed just as Ul had done. After he finally came up to tell him that everyone else in the house had fallen asleep, they got up and walked with him down to the hideout.
When they got through to the other side of the passageway, which was about a five minute walk, they found a circular trap door that led to an old well in the middle of the forest. There was such a large number of people there to shout happy birthday, humans and pokemon included, that Aamira couldn't count all of them. She had to guess that there were at least twenty pairs of humans and pokemon, though Quill knew that there was more than that.
"That's some cake." Aamira said as she walked up to the food-covered table. Of course since the fifteenth birthday also doubled as a wedding, the cake was traditionally a mix between a birthday cake and a wedding cake. This one was seven tiers and covered in such perfectly made icing tree branches and leaves that at first Aamira had though that someone had shaken the branch of a tree above the table and got it covered in debris.
"We had some trouble with the cake." Quill said. "My fault, really. At the very least that Mienfoo who came by to help us had a really steady hand. He was surprisingly good with a tube of icing."
"It all looks great." Aamira said as she looked over the rest of the food. What really caught her eye was something that looked like a gift box in the center of the table, right in front of the cake.
"I'll admit I'm not used to cooking like this." Quill said.
"And I'm sure that no one here is used to eating like this." Aamira said.
Quill had noticed the problem earlier when he had helped to carry it out. A lot of the people who had already gathered were confused after the first few dishes when they started to realize that none of the dishes included even the smallest amount of meat. Quill hadn't forgotten about how humans generally ate, but both Raticate and Tranquill ate very little meat and didn't want to gather any. Quill hadn't protested because he didn't think he would have been able to cook it, even if he knew how. Eventually he just came up with the excuse that Aamira had decided to become a vegetarian, which was true at least.
Or maybe Aamira had meant the dishes. Many of them were dishes from Quill's world, the berry pie being his own invention. The dishes that did originate from this world weren't ones that Quill had ever made before, so they all had a sort of Sylvan spin to them. The tree-covered cake being one of them.
In spite of that, everyone really loved the food, the pokemon especially. Having only ever had food made by humans or food that was grown naturally and then eaten raw with no changes made to it, it was a real experience for them to taste food that was actually cooked by a pokemon and for a pokemon.
Aamira found herself getting nostalgic over it. Those times she would sit in the café in the Investigator's Brigade headquarters and talk with all of her friends about their adventures for the day, missions that were completed or failed, of problems that other team members were having suddenly came back to her. It was amazing how much had changed and how rarely she got the chance to appreciate that she could remember that other world. Her memories of that world were next to useless in most situations in this world. Even so, she would never trade them for anything.
"If you think the cake is good, why don't you open that present there?" Quill said.
Everyone watched Aamira curiously as she stepped back up to the table. The present seemed so out of place surrounded by the food that it had caught everyone's attention. She found that for some reason the box had been nailed to the table and she couldn't pick it up. Instead, she just slid off the lid and jumped back as the sides of the box fell against the table. Stacked in a neat pyramid in the center of the base of the box was an even hundred pieces of Lava Rock candy. Quill was happy to see that she actually smiled when the walls of the box came down. She stared at it for a second before she picked up the piece from the top of the pyramid and put it in her mouth.
She started to cough uncontrollably the second she closed her mouth. Even so, she kept smiling after she finally managed to swallow it. "Ugh, it's even worse than I remember!"
"Too spicy?" Quill asked.
"Way too spicy." She picked up and ate a second one, much to everyone's confusion.
A few people were a bit hesitant to try it after Aamira nearly choked on both pieces, but most seemed to be more curious as to why she ate a second piece at all. Quill noticed something strange as other people started to eat the candy. Most of the younger humans, who were probably just barely adults, and the younger pokemon were able to eat them without much of a problem. Even stranger than that was that while all fire types loved it, as they normally did, their partners were the only ones who could eat the candy and enjoy it, no matter what age they were. It was almost as if the humans with fire type partners were fire types themselves.
"At least your eyes didn't water and you didn't start screaming on the first piece like you did back in Ignis." Quill said to Aamira after her fifth piece of candy. She might have been caught off guard by how spicy it was at first, but she couldn't deny that she really loved this candy.
"Remember when I ate that second piece and everyone just sort of stared at me? It was like I was going to eat poison or something. The expression on their faces was just priceless."
"Yea, that was pretty funny." Quill said. "Oh I think Lucario was working on a present of some sort too. He snuck away a few hours ago when you fell asleep and only came back a few minutes before Ul came to get us."
"Really?" Aamira had been so tired from the lack of sleep the previous night that she couldn't help falling asleep, even if it had been for just a few minutes. Had Lucario done this only shortly after the three of them were reunited, Aamira wouldn't care. Now that they had been traveling together for the last couple of weeks, Aamira couldn't hold a grudge towards him anymore or even pretend to. She found that she was genuinely curios and even excited to see what Lucario could come up with.
Every now and then someone who Aamira might have once known by name but she could now no longer even recognize would come up and talk to her. None of the pokemon seemed to have any problem with talking to her but most of the humans seemed strangely shy about it. Darach was the only exception and he even helped her with talking to some of the others if she just couldn't think of the right thing to say. She was almost just as shy about talking to them as they were about talking to her, which would have led to an awkward situation if Darach hadn't been there.
"Oh before I forget." Darach held his hand out and a wrapped present fell into his palm. As if he could forget. Aamira wondered how long he and Tranquill had practiced this, or if knowing where to drop a package was just second nature to Tranquill at this point. He handed it to Aamira, who opened it, expecting another necklace or something like most of the others had given her.
Instead of it being a case with another necklace or some other piece of jewelry in it, like she half expected, it turned out to be a book. Most people would think that this was just a gift that a scribe would make on a whim, but Aamira now had the feeling that Darach knew he better than anyone else here, not counting Quill, Lucario, and maybe Faris and Bisharp.
It was a thick book with too many words in it for it to be a children's book, but all of the beautiful illustrations almost suggested it was one. She flipped through the pages for a few minutes, skimming over a few of the words and looking at the pictures. In that time, she was completely unaware of what anyone else was doing. If she tried to read too much of it, she started to feel dizzy and a little nauseous just as she had every other time she had tried to read, ever since that scroll. The eye strain caused by the Reflecting Mirror didn't help either.
She thanked Darach and decided to ask Quill to read her some of it later. It was an embarrassing thought, but she genuinely wanted to read this book.
"It was one of your favorites." Darach said. "The first one you ever read all the way through. You read it five more times since then. I thought it was a real shame how you read it so many times over and that now you can't even remember it.
Darach and Quill's gifts were so far the best ones she had gotten so far. She hated to say that she liked or disliked any of the gifts since she hated to sound ungrateful. Even so, she found that the more jewelry or other meaningless trinkets she was given, the more she started to wonder how much money she could get from them if she suddenly had to leave with Quill and Lucario and that was the only way they could afford to stay in an inn one night.
Not all of the gifts were impractical. In fact, she thought that Bisharp's had been almost too much so. Bisharp had hand carved a piece of wood so that it closely resembled the sword that Faris carried and had written out a training regime that was to be followed carefully. It was more like homework than a present, but at least the wooden sword looked nice.
"I got you something, though it's not much of a present." Faris said. "Sorry, I didn't even have the chance to wrap it."
"Well just give it to her anyway." Bisharp snapped at him. She just seemed way too serious sometimes.
He handed her something that looked like a disk for some sort of computer software. She assumed he probably picked this up in the Mirror Palace since technology like this wasn't too common in your everyday village.
"What is this?" Aamira asked.
"I figured it would be safer with you than if I left it back there. It's an XD program."
"Are you serious!?" Aamira shouted.
"What's an XD program?" Quill asked as he stared at the strange disk that didn't look like anything special to him.
"It's a sort of program used to create an AI." Aamira saw that this didn't really answer his question and assumed he had no idea what an AI was either. The technology gap in their worlds was amazing at times. "It's used to create an artificial intelligence. Sort of like a pokemon if it was made by humans."
"Which is exactly what that one is." Faris said. "I've used the program once before I took it. It already understands speech on a small level."
"An artificial pokemon?" Quill asked. "How can something like that even exist?"
"Well there are a lot of pokemon that were originally made by humans, even where you come from. Pokemon created using an XD program are different though. It's possible that Zoroark even used a similar program to alter how Blue and Capricorn thing. The first pokemon known to be made with a program like this, believe it or not, was actually Shadow Lugia. If you remember from the legend, Shadow got his name from Espeon. The human that created Shadow had originally called him XD001."
"Couldn't even give him a real name…" Quill said sadly.
"This one is special though." Faris said. "Most programs are used directly on a pokemon by using that pokemon as a sort of shell created for the AI. It's done by running the program in a special computer while a pokemon is being cloned. This AI was never meant to be created for a cloned pokemon. It's a species of pokemon I'm not familiar with and I believe it was meant to live solely in an electronic device of some sorts, possibly even having the ability to move freely between computers."
"Zoroark could do a lot of damage with a pokemon like that." Aamira said. "Technology is hardly ever used because of the effects it could have to the environment, but they're still a huge part of the life of humans. Just thinking what would happen if this pokemon was under Zoroark's control and it snuck into a computer that was used in a hospital to stabilize a patient…"
"You see the gravity of this then." Faris said. "As far as I know, that's the only one of those pokemon so far and it's still in early development. You could just destroy it, or you could try to educate it properly and make sure it doesn't hurt anyone."
"I won't destroy it. XD programs are sentient, after all. It wouldn't feel right."
Faris smiled and nodded. He probably knew that this was going to be her response from the start.
It was near midnight and everyone was still caught up in the party. Some of them had become so caught up in the atmosphere that they had started to simultaneously smile, cry, and shout "Long live the queen!" to anyone within hearing distance. Aamira thought that she could sneak away for a few minutes without being noticed, so she crept into a deeper part of the forest and kept walking until the lights from the party and the sound of people's voices finally died away.
It was really dark here and a sudden chill sent goose bumps up Aamira's arms. She was used to this, since it happened every new moon around this time of night. She watched as her shadow, which was showing up clearly in the darkness from the light of the stars, started to move on its own. The shadow lifted off of the ground and that pokemon appeared in front of her and he was obviously furious.
"I'm sorry, I just got caught up in everything that was happening. I wasn't expecting my birthday to fall right on the one day of the month you can appear in this world." Aamira said.
"I had to remind you." Darkrai said. It was amazing how much he acted like a child at times, even though he was an ancient legendary pokemon. Years of being alone were probably what had done it.
"I know. It doesn't matter though, does it? You couldn't appear in front of all of those people anyway."
"The one day of the month…" Darkrai said, repeating what Aamira had said before.
"I know and I really am sorry. It was some way to repay you after you helped me escape the second time. I promise I won't forget ever again." Aamira held out her hand and Darkrai nodded and took it in his and the two of them stood just as they had in Darkrai's lake over two years ago.
Darkrai still felt as deathly cold as always, but Aamira didn't mind. Even after her soul had shattered, she had kept that piece of his and he had kept the piece of hers. They were connected in a way that they couldn't ever expect anyone else to understand. Even though Aamira had said many times that Quill was the closest thing she had to a partner that probably wasn't true. If anything, because of the pact they had made, Darkrai was probably the closest thing she had to a real partner.
"No more nightmares?" Darkrai asked.
Aamira shook her head. "Not one. Aside from last night, of course. I probably deserved it though. It's strange, but I kind of miss them. Always having a good dream or no dream at all gets boring after a while. I wouldn't mind having a nightmare or two. I've found it's a lot better to dream about terrible things than to be living them. That's probably why I haven't had any."
"Living in a nightmare… It doesn't matter."
"I know people rarely remember their dreams after they wake up, so even if you did try to visit me in my sleep it wouldn't matter much to you. Just that short time should be good enough until the new moon though, right?"
Darkrai seemed to ponder this for a moment and eventually nodded. Aamira found that Darkrai rarely spoke if he wasn't extremely emotional. It was usually when he got mad that he spoke the most, or when he had to explain something important. Aamira was one of the few who could even hear Darkrai, but she didn't need to hear much to understand him. It used to be that his voice, which she could somehow hear without hearing, had been the strangest thing she had ever heard. Now that she had become a human again, it was similar to how she heard any other pokemon, whose voices were usually infused with growling or chirping or whatever noise a human would only be able to hear.
"You're deaf friend is here." Darkrai said.
Aamira turned and saw Lucario standing in between the trees she had walked through to get to this area of the forest. He was staring, almost petrified, at Darkrai. It seemed like darkness still scared him even after all that they had been through. Aamira felt Darkrai's hand slip away from her own and turned to see him retreating into the shadows of the trees.
"Why did he run?" Lucario asked.
"Because you scared him." Aamira said, as if this was the most obvious thing. "Fear can turn to hatred and hatred becomes violence. Darkrai might look scary, but that doesn't mean he likes violence."
"I-I won't hurt you…" Lucario stammered as he spoke to the trees. Apparently the tone in his voice wasn't very convincing because he didn't come back out, although Aamira could sense that he was still in the area. Anyone would have been able to, just by walking into the area and feeling the abnormal chill in the air.
"I know you're trying for my sake, but I think it comes off as more offensive than anything." Aamira said with a weak smile. "Well don't mind him, what did you want?"
"To show you your present." Lucario said.
"Show me?" Aamira asked.
Lucario knelt down on the ground, placing both of his paws on the ground at a shoulder's length apart. He closed his eyes and the aura sensors on the back of his head rose into the air. Aamira jumped and looked at the ground around her feet. She could almost feel the ground move under her feet as he manipulated the energy in the earth with his own. The plants around them seemed to move on their own, in spite of the lack of wind.
Lucario's arms were starting to shake with the effort and still nothing was happening. Then from out between the leaves and the grass on the ground, small flecks of light appeared. It was hard to tell what they were at first, until they grew in size and burst into bloom. The small area of the forest was suddenly transformed into a field of glowing flowers. They resembled water lilies, as the Solar Flowers and Lunar Flowers had, but these were something else. They were a deep purple with flecks of acid green near the center of the pedals and glowed with a somewhat eerie dark light. They smelled like a mix between nectar and sulfur, which didn't seem to go together and yet worked surprisingly well. While the Solar and Lunar Flowers had glowed with sunlight and moonlight, this was something entirely different.
"What are they?" Aamira asked.
"It's not a very creative name, but I call them Dragon Flowers." Lucario said. "Because of my silver aura, I can make Lunar Flowers anywhere, but I found out I could make Solar Flowers in Atra by using the earth's energy. I thought that I would do the same here, but the energy here doesn't have a golden aura. I wasn't even sure if it would work at first, but I thought I'd try to use the dragon force instead and this was the result. There was something strangely appealing about them and I thought you'd like them."
"They're incredible!" Aamira knelt down on the ground next to one of the flowers and touched the pedals. As long as it wasn't picked, it seemed like a solid object, but the second it was severed from the ground, it would just disappear. There was something vaguely familiar about the glow of these flowers. It was something comforting and incredibly warm. She remembered how twilight was said to be the most beautiful time of day in her home town. This, she thought, must be that soft glow of twilight.
"You know, it's really rare for someone to be able to control the dragon force." Aamira said. "This really is amazing."
"Yes, quite amazing." The two of them looked up to see that they were entirely surrounded by a pack of Mightyena.
Lucario's first thought was that they were alphas, but then he remembered that they didn't exist in Neltona. "Who are you?" he asked.
The Mightyena that had spoken growled and hunched down as if preparing to attack. "We live in this territory. We should be the ones asking you who you are."
"There are more than just these two." Another Mightyena said. "I saw a whole pack of humans and pokemon a good distance away from here, just outside of our territory."
One of the other Mightyena growled and walked towards them. "Give us a reason why we shouldn't tear you to pieces right this instant?"
"Because I told you not to." All of the Mightyena straightened up and looked off into the direction where the voice had come from. Another Mightyena, slightly larger than the others, walked forward followed by a human boy, who they assumed had been the one who had spoken. "Those who control the dragon force are rare. The girl can do it too, but I don't think she realizes."
Aamira stood up and backed away so she was standing closer to Lucario. She didn't know why, but this guy really made her skin crawl. There was just something about him that didn't seem natural. How would he know if she could use the dragon force if she didn't know it herself? From this she guessed the unnatural feeling that she was getting was that she could sense he could use it too.
"I believe you are the same one who helped a brother of mine, in fact." One of the Mightyena who had stayed silent until now said. He turned to the human boy and spoke again. "She smells similar to a pokemon, just like you do. Just like that kid said she did. We owe these two a debt."
They guessed that they were referring to the Mightyena who they met on their way to the Mirror Palace. So they had made it here safely after all.
"A debt?" the human said. "Hardly. That Mightyena ended up being the one to protect his partner in the end and ended up saving them as well. His debt was repaid long before he reached our territory."
"You're territory?" Lucario said. "You live here with these Mightyena?"
"He's as good as one of us." The Mightyena who had entered the clearing with him said. They assumed that she must have been his partner and that this somehow made him the leader of the entire pack, even though he wasn't even the same species as the other pack members.
Aamira jumped as she felt something cold brush against her arm. She turned to her right and found that Darkrai had reappeared next to her. He was staring straight at the human and he was staring back, unblinking and unfazed. Whoever this human was, Aamira was already impressed.
"That's the one from her nightmares." Darkrai said to Aamira.
"Who's nightmares?" Aamira asked, making Lucario jump, since he hadn't realized that Darkrai had reappeared.
"That girl Cyndaquil. She dreams about humans. Every night she dreams of Zoroark, both disguised as Xerxes and as he truly is. She dreams of his Houndoom too. She dreams of every human that she had ever seen in this world. He appeared in her dream last. The boy with the black hair and blue eyes."
Aamira turned back to the human and looked closer at his eyes. It was hard to see because of how dark it was, but because of the faint light of the Dragon Flowers, she could just barely make out a sliver of blue in his eyes.
"So you know that Cyndaquil?" he asked.
Aamira looked back and fourth between Darkrai and the human. "You can hear him?"
"Should I not be able to?" he asked. Aamira was already getting tired of his voice, which constantly had a lazy and uncaring tone to it.
"Why is she having nightmares about you? Have you hurt her?" Aamira asked accusingly.
"Of course not!" his partner growled.
"It's okay, Nana." He said to his partner. "It's an easy assumption to make. Why would a child have nightmares about me? The obvious conclusion would be that I caused some sort of trauma. This isn't the case, however. It seems that just about everything traumatizes that child. She hasn't spoken a word to anyone since her rescue."
"If that's true, then let her go." Aamira said. "Her older brother has been worrying about her for weeks now. He's only a few yards away and he has no idea that she's here. Once she sees her brother, she's sure to get better."
"Such a simple way of thinking." He said with the same blank expression. "And what would you give us in return. Either way you look at it, whether we rescued her or not, we are kidnappers. I expect some sort of trade from it."
"Well what do you want?" Lucario asked. He was almost tempted to ask him what he could want. If pokemon lived such simple lives away from humans and this kid was living like a pokemon, surely he wouldn't be after money.
He didn't answer right away, which led Lucario to believe that he had been correct in thinking that he didn't really want anything. Eventually he looked away from Lucario and back towards Aamira. "You. Come with me. We'll discuss this back at the den."
Aamira was just barely able to keep from shouting at him. She had never heard such a rude tone from anyone. Even so, she didn't want to do something that might make him take it out on Daisy. She moved towards him slowly so she wouldn't give the Mightyena any reason to attack her. When Lucario tried to follow, a couple of Mightyena growled and ran in his path, cutting him off from Aamira.
"It's okay." Aamira assured him. "Don't worry, I'll be back soon with Daisy."
Lucario hated not being able to do anything to make sure she didn't get hurt. He turned to Darkrai, who was still standing to his right. "Follow them and make sure they don't hurt her."
Darkrai held his gaze for such a long time that Lucario wondered if he was trying to say something. Eventually Darkrai just nodded and disappeared into the shadows.
Quill had noticed Aamira sneaking off before and he noticed Lucario following after her a few minutes later. He thought that the two of them could probably use some time alone since the last time they were able to spend some time alone was probably when the two of them had been traveling together in the Other world. He wasn't sure how the two of them were getting along nowadays and he doubted either of them really knew for sure either, so some time to talk with no one else around was probably just what they needed.
Even so, how long had it been since they left? Quill gazed around anxiously at the party guests who had started to notice Aamira's absence. He had covered for her by saying that she had gone to put her presents inside so she wouldn't have to sit them down somewhere where they would get dirty. He could tell that Darach and Faris hadn't bought this, but they went along with the story. Now they were starting to get worried.
Somewhere in the distance, a shrill scream brought everyone to silence. They all looked in the distance that the noise had come from, but nothing was happening. After a few minutes, Faris was really on edge and was about to go see what had happened when a small peach, colored figure came running out of the brush. She kept running until she noticed how many people were there and she stopped, curled up into a ball on the ground, and the fire on her back came to life.
"Daisy!?" Quill ran forward and crouched down next to her, but before he could even touch her, she screamed again and her fire flared up more. Quill looked up towards the sound of moving foliage and saw Aamira and Lucario running after Daisy. He winced at the sight of them. Lucario's legs and the palms of Aamira's hands were both badly burnt and the Joy Ribbon that Quill had given Daisy was hanging limply from Aamira's hands and was almost unrecognizable from the fire damage. Could Daisy have done something like that? He didn't care about the Joy Ribbon, but he never thought that Daisy was ever capable of hurting anyone like this.
"What happened?" Quill asked.
"It's a long story." Aamira said. "She's been through a lot and I think I might have scared her. It looks like she's completely terrified by humans."
"It's okay." Quill said. "Daisy, it's me, Quill. You're safe now."
At the sound of Quill's name, she scream and her fire burned brighter as she rolled up tighter.
"Daisy, please listen to me." Quill pleaded with her. He reached out and tried to wrap his arms around his sister, but almost immediately she straightened up and bit Quill on the arm as hard as she could.
"Back off!" Aamira shouted at him.
Quill was so startled by the sudden hostility in Aamira's voice that he did just that. He hurried to back away as far as he could without bumping into anyone from the crowd of onlookers. Almost immediately Daisy started to calm down and her fire died down. It was then that Quill realized that Daisy wasn't just terrified of humans, she was terrified of him. He couldn't understand how this had happened. For Daisy to suddenly fear her older brother who she had idolized since the day she hatched, what had Zoroark done to her?