Lovely mauve berry trees in bloom. Two girls with flowers on their hair wandered around the soft and warm sand, holding a smaller boy with a big smile on his face by the hand. Two pale blondes, one in white, one in blue, both beaming, slim and carefree, watched from afar while resting on the same sand.

"What moves you?" I asked.

"Me?" Lillie said as she stared at the water. "I want to get to know someone, but, in a genuine way. I won't conform with just knowing them well, or with knowing a lot about them, better than anyone else. I want to know everything there is to know about another person. I want to know them better than they know themselves. I know, nobody wants to be left completely defenseless, nobody wants to give all of themselves away, not really. Believe me, that I know, very well. They always hold back at least a little bit of themselves. Don't get me wrong I completely understand. I wouldn't want to take it if they didn't willingly give it to me, but anyway, that's what I want. Just one person, one will be enough for me."

Then she turned to me violently and intensely stared into my soul.

"Would you do it? I can see it in you Serena, you aren't afraid."

"Not anymore," I said.

"Would you let me know all of you?"

"Lillie, I would."

"Tell me everything then, all there is. Don't spare a single detail, don't dismiss any little thing as unnecessary. You owe it to yourself, please. Let me witness you acknowledge yourself, love yourself, and I'll let you have everything I have in return."

"It's a deal," I said. Then we shook hands.

"I'll answer anything you ask, but first I'd like to talk about what I am when you take everyone else away.

I think of myself as a coward, and in a way I cannot deny that is what I am. Cowardice and fear have defined my life more than anything else—fear has stopped me from living a real life. A real life which I'm certain I wouldn't ever regret, no matter what. I can't live without people, it doesn't matter who is in front of me, but they need to be there so I can love them—because I need to love, to find any semblance of value to this life. And yet, I have never dared to really give my love away, the way I always wanted to, and it is all because I was afraid, and had been so my whole life.

Long ago I spent a lot of time with Ash, whom I loved dearly. I couldn't tell him how I felt, and then we went our separate ways and yet my feelings for him never left me. I was never left alone, and I think you can't ever be really left alone, but at that point I certainly felt like I was alone. I felt like an empty vessel. I thought I could feel my life with other things, be it showcases, friends, other men. Anything I thought would help me improve, all so that I'd stop feeling so empty and alone. I continued with my life, trying to cover up the fact that I was missing something, and I cannot say that it was a waste of time, or that it was unauthentic—but it was incomplete.

Honestly, I was only able to hold it together because of my mother. Her love kept me going. So when she died, the mask that was covering the hole in my heart disappeared, and that's when I really plummeted. I'd cry everywhere, I'd cry openly at work and at restaurants, and my embarrassed peers could only try to console me. At some point I think I got tired of crying, and then I thought I had healed, my mourning process had been completed. But in reality I was still empty, and everyone could notice, and that's when they told me to take a vacation.

I thought that becoming a performer meant I was embracing life, but I was wrong, I was only imitating life and not really living it. I never felt more alive than whenever I appeared at the center of the stage and showcased myself and everything for which my pokemon and I had worked, and everything I had experienced up to that point. But everything that was real about it, actually real, happened before I appeared onstage. I wanted more and I never got it, and it was all because of fear.

I now realize that everyone and everything I've ever loved, my Mother, Ash, his daughter, I love because I love life, and they are the most beautiful expressions of life itself. They live life like nobody else and can appreciate it as much as I do, perhaps even more. So basically, I love life but I'm afraid of it.

Maybe I have always known I have been doing something wrong, because I always wanted more, I needed more than what I was getting. And I still want more. I can't help but think that if I had loved myself just a little bit more, perhaps, if I had loved myself at all, maybe I wouldn't have been so afraid, and I can't help but think that the people around me would have benefited from that love as well."

"Well, you know that now," Lillie said, unfettered.

"I suppose that's true."

"Would you rather not know at all?"

"I suppose not. Maybe I'm being too grim, I don't regret becoming a pokemon performer at all, and I don't regret that now I can help others do the same. I don't regret my travels either. I certainly don't regret oversharing anything with you or with anyone. I don't regret being always honest, perhaps to a fault, although I'd never fault myself for it. I hate defrauding people, and I loved myself enough to not defraud myself by being dishonest. I do wish I'd known sooner, but there's no point in lamenting myself, just as there's no point in wishing to be alone."

I started crying, but I was happy. I wanted to give myself a hug, thankfully Lillie was there and she gave me a particularly good one, which I still remember and cherish to this day.

"Any questions?"

"What's your first memory?" She asked, and we stayed the whole night wide awake talking and staring into each other's eyes. She kept her promise and gave me everything she had. However, I will omit that for now, for the sake of her privacy.

After our fateful and life-changing encounter ended I was left with an aching feeling—mercurial yet honest—which I was certain I needed to service immediately. I was also certain said feeling had always been within me, and had previously remained in a state of numbness which had been elicited by my repentant cowardice. Well, my cowardice was gone, and my most fervent and internal motives and desires could now come out to the surface and manifest themselves at will. This feeling which was my own essence, and therefore had by its title my name, called for me to ignore any mundane matters like money and work, and to get on the most immediate flight from Alola to Kanto. So that was what I did.

I left for the airport. Lillie and I both knew it wouldn't matter if we never saw each other again (which would happen relatively soon actually, during an event I'd rather keep secret, at least for the moment), our connection had been immortalized within our souls and on the air around us.