This has been marinating in my drafts since April 2019. (and so much for a consistent posting schedule...)
Pokemon Generations Episode 7 (The Vision) implies that Courtney's an oracle of sorts.
Based off the fan theory that Team Aqua are the same People of the Sea alluded to in Pokemon Ranger: Temple of the Sea. Team Aqua bears some resemblance to Lizabeth and her family, and Archie, Matt, and Shelly all have blue gem-like motifs on their wrists that could be the sea crystals from the sea. And perhaps the underwater temple and ancient yet technologically advanced society is the past Team Aqua wants a return to.
I've always liked Matt/Courtney. They have a lot in common despite their appearances.
All comments are appreciated.
Barely two years had passed since Team Aqua summoned Kyogre and transformed the world. Yet, Matt could only vaguely remember Hoenn.
The sooty smogs of Rustboro and Fallarbor were a faint, distant nightmare. He used to know the old base like the back of his hand. Now all he could recall were the bright green patterns of their warp pads and the drab gray walls of his old room with the worn-down punching bag.
How things had changed.
All of Hoenn believed their schemes to be the harebrained ideals of a madman. They would drown the entire world in a primordial sea in their desperate attempts to reinstate their ancestral glory, Steven Stone claimed, and Archie was a dangerous demagogue.
Team Magma claimed it was all a zero-sum game, that to help pokemon was to impede human progress. But they knew nothing of the Samiyans, the ancient people of the sea. Hoenn, with all of its pollution and corruption, could not hold a candle to their technological advancement. Maxie laughed it off as the tall tales of a decimated tribe.
Deep in his heart, Matt knew better.
Team Aqua's plan was better hatched than anyone realized, buried underneath their natural boisterousness. Kyogre sunk Samiya into the sea to punish the hubris of his ancestors, but the ancient prophecies promised an inevitable return to that halcyon era.
At times, Matt could hardly believe that everything turned out as well as it did.
They came this close to failure. They'd been in an arms race with Team Magma, frantically racing towards the Orbs. Team Magma had unparalleled expertise and connections, and there were many moments where it seemed all was lost. But their advanced science and intricate strategies became useless once Archie threw the Blue Orb into Kyogre's maw.
And then, even after Team Aqua overtook Everglade, the world was determined to snuff them out. Steven Stone and Wallace put forth a worthy attempt. Tohjo sent an army of dragons. If Cynthia were not under the dark, slothful thrall of her spiritomb, she too would have attacked.
But once the sludge cleared from the streams, and the air cleared up, their future became irreversible. The populace tasted a life where they could have both standard of living and environmental cleanliness. The wealthy and the powerful died in their attempts to resist and flee, and in one fell swoop, those class differences which oppressed Hoenn for so long vanished. That the world had to be swept under a deluge seemed a small price to pay.
Team Magma, their most dangerous opponents, disintegrated like dust. They'd worked towards a better future, an age of human advancement, and now that they lived in one, the grunts and scientists were content to join Team Aqua.
Only Maxie remained belligerent. He too believed in the betterment of society, except he was proud and held grudges. Archie did not believe in execution, but Shelly pointed out that if they tolerated a charismatic opponent like Maxie who would take every chance to tear them down, they could never hold their successes.
His admins did not put up such a fight. Tabitha, after some hemming and hawing, relented and soon became a high-ranked political figure. He was pragmatic, and well-educated, and insightful, and he and Shelly spent most of their days bettering the world they'd built. Matt saw him constantly these days. Tabi-tabi's hair was graying although he was hardly pushing 35, but his laugh still boomed brightly through the hallways. Though Courtney refused to support the new regime, she acquiesced to a life of house arrest.
So much—perhaps too much—had changed.
Matt had never been too much of a leader. Deep below his muscular exterior, he was too kind, unable to emotionally distance himself from problems. It was all fine and dandy when he was herding a troupe of children, but it would not do when they were ruling an uppity world.
Still, their watery utopia was young. Team Aqua needed all hands on deck, and their grunts looked up to Matt. He could not leave, even if he served only as their emotional support.
Archie remained as charismatic as ever, heartbreakingly handsome and firm in his rule even as his hair whitened and his shoulders grew weary. It was he who communed with Kyogre. After all, he consorted with legends since he could talk.
Shelly built their bureaucracy from the ground up. She was as smart as a whip and possessed the historical and scientific knowledge Archie and Matt lacked. Under her watch, a band of unpolished grunts became a legion of scientists and leaders.
It was only fitting that things ended up like this. Archie harnessed Kyogre's power, and Shelly's alchemy used it to turn the tides of time. Matt, he who was abandoned at the base, had no say in it all except to adopt that which they were too busy for.
Once upon a time, he would have fought tooth and nail to overturn this arrangement.
But Matt was no longer a hotshot with a chip on his shoulder. Amidst the flurry of activity after their victory, he finally accepted that he would never be as gifted and beautiful as his older sister.
Archie always pointed out that Matt had a warmth and emotional depth that neither of his compatriots could muster. Matt used to despise those words, because he believed them a hamfisted attempt at placating his mediocrity. Now, they only comforted him, a symbol of Archie's pride and an emblem of the role he played in their utopia.
Their utopia.
He used to dream of it, every night. See it in the depth of his sea crystals, every day.
Now he lived in it, and he'd never felt so lost.
"Her real purpose to the team," Tabitha explained to the Team Aqua higher ups, "was as a prophet. She's a damn good engineer too, but anyone can do engineering."
"So that's how you always found us," Shelly gasped in understanding, and Tabitha nodded solemnly. "And that's how she knew that we awoke Kyogre, even though she'd been curled up for hours, catatonic in your base…"
Matt said nothing. For two nights, he lay sleeplessly for two nights, mulling over this information.
The third night was the second anniversary of their victory.
Archie, who'd been away for weeks, promised he would spend all his time by Matt's side. When the time of their rendez-vous approached, he did not come. Matt waited for ten, fifteen, sixty, seventy minutes before Archie and Shelly arrived, out of breath and preoccupied.
Normally, Matt would have let it go. They carried the world on their backs. Perhaps it was the repeated nights of insomnia, or this was the last straw after years of playing second fiddle, but tonight, a desperate anger seized his being.
"You said seven."
Archie had the grace to at least hang his head. "Sorry, bro. There's been some unrest with the Lugia cultists. Same stuff for the past few months, but figured we'd settle that before the party starts."
Matt frowned. "The what?"
"It's a long story," Shelly said, her voice clipped and harsh, "and it's about time it ended." She forced some cheer into herself. "Come on! There are festivities."
"Yeah. Couldn't this stuff have waited?"
"Somebody needs to look over our utopia."
"Why didn't you tell me anything?"
Archie shook his head. "Sorry, Matt. It just kind of slipped. We can talk later, yeah?"
Why the hell did he bother?
"I'm an admin too," Matt insisted feebly.
For a second, Archie looked as if he would relent. Shelly, for all her brilliance, was cold as ice, and after a lifetime of turning to Matt for warmth, he'd cultivated a special soft spot.
Then Shelly pat Archie's arm impatiently. "We should really go."
The exchange left Matt empty, drained of everything but the anvil pounding in his chest. The celebrations he anticipated so eagerly now seemed simultaneously too raucous and too washed-out.
After the perfunctory greetings, he slipped out and headed for Courtney. He avoided the golden beams of light that emanated from the Sea Temple, even if they could take him to her instantly, and instead swam on his azumarill. The warden at the prison, one of Matt's old ace grunts, was starved for company. After a brief chat, Matt made a beeline for Courtney's cell.
"Did you see this future?" he asked her immediately.
She swiveled slowly towards him. Her vacant lilac eyes bore holes into his soul.
"Yes," she finally said.
"Then why didn't you stop us?" Matt felt stupid as soon as he asked. "Well, you coulda saved yourself. Quit the team or something."
She turned back to her books, carefully highlighting another sentence. Matt gazed around her room. It seemed almost sterile in its neatness. Her few articles of clothing hung wrinkleless, perfectly spaced through her closet. He knew that if he examined the books on her desk, their edges would be perfectly aligned. The white walls too remained pristine, even after two years of house arrest. Unlike certain former Champions, she did not have compulsive urges to punch holes into her surroundings.
"I did not join Team Magma for its ideals," Courtney admitted. "This diluvial world...I don't hate it, you know."
"Then-"
Her rosy lips curved up slightly. "I follow people. And Maximillian...wherever he went, I followed. If-If he chose to set the world aflame—that was the only possible outcome of his machinations—I would throw myself onto the pyre with him."
Matt stared at her incredulously. Courtney laughed, bell-like and almost lovely if not for the underlying acrimony.
"You look surprised."
"I mean," he said hesitantly, "don't ya think that's a bit overboard?"
"No," andher pupils glinted with insanity. "A decade ago, when he first found me...I dreamed of death. Every night, when I lay down to sleep, I wondered if I would awake. People...they used me for my premonitions. Maxie too, but he was much kinder in his methods."
She resembled the Mossdeep twins then, Matt realized: brilliant and clairvoyant and used like a machine by the old Hoenn regime until all the life had been squeezed from her.
"He breathed life into me. A meaning to exist." Courtney ran her fingers through her wispy hair. "I suppose Team Magma is pleasant. Was. But Maxie: he was the beacon I followed. I would have blown the world to smithereens for him, if I thought it would make him smile. No! If he wanted to incinerate me, I would have poured the oil myself. Peeled off my skin, so that my fat would expedite the combustion. But Maxie...he no longer exists, and I am now alone."
"You're not alone," Matt protested. How the hell did you respond to something like that? He swallowed, mulling over his next words. "It's not so bad outside, you know. If you could see it, you'd forget him."
A tense silence set over them. After thirty seconds of Courtney pointedly avoiding his glance, Matt prepared to say something consolatory.
Then, her eyes flared in fury, shining embers in the dim light. "You hypocrite," she hissed. "Archie...He was your obsession. If the world tried to snuff the fire out of him, you'd destroy it with me."
His heart ached at the mention of Archie. "Not really," he said as stoically as possible. His pained tone did not escape Courtney.
"He rebuffed you," she guessed. "Or showed favoritism to someone else."
"Nothing like that. He's busy."
"Busy…Maxie was so dreadfully busy." Her smile grew poisonous. "Yet, he never neglects...neglected me. They say Tabitha was his right-hand man. But to me, he told me his deepest secrets. Our communion...it ran deeper than any-any mere trust he placed in Tabi. We make time for that which is valuable to us, yes?"
Something primal and angry washed through Matt. He resisted the urge to clench his fists.
"Watch it," he growled. The words spilled from his mouth, even as he berated himself to stop. "At least Archie's still here for us. Say what ya want about Tabi, but he gets that."
Her eyes widened, first in confusion and then silent rage.
She was right. For years, he pretended otherwise, fought to distract himself from the truth. Tonight, Matt realized his Archie was gone, and in the light of his epiphany, all his passion turned shameful.
"'Bout time I leave," he muttered as he adjusted his bandana.
"Tabitha and I," Courtney continued, her voice cold enough to freeze blood, "we are fundamentally different. Advancing human civilization, improving air quality in Western Hoenn…He lives for-for-for trite things like that. I don't care about those things. Never. I-I could pretend well enough when he was alive, but-"
She inhaled deeply, her posture shaking with energy as her voice grew to a near shout, and she toddled closer to him.
"If I want a laser, I write a proposal. Something about 'sustainable fuels' for the 'imminent energy crisis', though I only want to photolyze esoteric soils. But Tabitha! He truly believes in it all. 'Isn't it so amazing, Courtney?'" She puffed out her chest and swung her arm, her voice deepening in a poor approximation of her compatriot. "'We wouldn't be flaring anymore!' or 'Imagine making our own island!' I would have told him that noble reasons...they are the motivation behind every genocide, the decline of civilizations, but Tabitha...He is loyal to nothing but his ideals. He comes here, every week or two, to yell at me about 'joining the cause'. He could not care less if Maxie lived or died, or if Archie...can remember to think about him."
Now, she stood intimately close, enough that he could feel the tense heat of her body. Courtney trailed her fingers along the side of his face, so slowly that it felt almost tender. But they were frigid, and her icy touch scorched all that she touched.
"You are like me," she said breathily.
"I-What?"
"Shame," she continued, "why is it so apparent on your face?"
"Courtney-"
"This is human nature," she said. "We are programmed to fashion idols in the shape of the holes in our souls, and to worship them until they die."
"That's not true!" Matt shook his head, fighting the memories and emotions flooding his brain. "I fought for this world! Not Archie."
She stared at him dismissively. "If you will continue this denial, then...there is nothing left for us to discuss. This future...You are not satisfied with it, are you? Hence your visit."
It just kind of slipped, he could hear Archie saying. How many months of secrets and feelings he had been deemed unworthy for. His heart throbbed.
The grunts threw themselves into their new world with an enthusiasm that evaded him. His former ace grunts moved onto bigger and better things, and the others were preparing to scatter themselves across the earth. He was still Matt, left at the base while they embarked on their next great adventure, and he could not stand it anymore.
"You're right," Matt admitted. "I thought this was the future I wanted. I really did. Maybe I did just want to follow my family. And you know, it was just like an adventure. Sailing everywhere and anywhere. Living like the heroes our grandparents told us about. You never dreamed about being I don't know, a big-name scientist?"
"They led lives of misery and loneliness. And those who did not...They were abusive and terrible in their own ways."
"I never thought of it that way."
"Neither did Maxie."
The two of them stared into the night. Lights flickered in the distance. Whether they were of celebration or animosity remained unclear. Courtney's softened posture and the hard line of her mouth suggested her anger faded, even if she did not enjoy his presence.
"But," Matt said when the silence began to crush his heart, "they've all gotten used to this whole 'ruling the world' thing. They keep goin' on and on and on about succession, and tax brackets, and principalities, and it makes me wanna do myself in."
He outwore his welcome, didn't he? But the thought of returning to his team made him feel so hollow he could not move.
"Remember that night?" he asked. "The one before they executed Maxie? When Archie, and Shelly, and all the Ace Grunts didn't let ya see him?"
Matt did not know exactly what he wanted to say. All he knew was that if he did not talk then, he would never speak to Courtney ever again. And so he forced himself to continue.
"They thought he planned some sorta 'failsafe' with you. Tabitha said only you knew all his secrets. And they told me all kinds of things you could do. I was scared as fuck. Then I heard you begging to just say one last thing."
His former enemy pivoted towards him, her face stony.
"I thought, 'Hey, what if you were me, and that was Archie instead of Maxie?' Rest of Team Aqua might feel bad for a couple months, Shelly a decade. But I'd think about it for the rest of my life, rewindin' every moment thinking, 'Look what you could have done instead.' So I waited for everyone to sleep and slipped some sleepin' potion into Shelly's tea."
She was starting to melt, Matt imagined. Her expression shifted into one of captivation, her lips slightly open and her eyes shining in reluctant wonder. The air between them was changing too. Their proximity, formerly intimidating, now cackled with tension. Matt wanted to reach out, admire the exquisite line of her jaw and caress the alabaster skin of her neck and shoulder where her oversized shirt had slipped.
He blinked.
"I tried my best to listen in. But I couldn't understand anything. Old Max spoke in riddles, and you were still sad. All I knew was that he was ready to die, and you sounded like your entire world smashed into a million little pieces. But you two were over the moon to see each other. I even wondered if you two ever dated, like the scientists said-"
Something—love, and anger, and long long nights by the submarine—flashed in her eyes.
"I really thought you would die by his side," Matt said sadly. "You seemed so-"
Courtney held up her hand. "I know."
But she wasn't angry at him, only despondent. She sat back down, maintaining aloofness for a second before she swallowed and let herself sink her head into her hands. Her breath grew short, and soon the room filled with his uneasiness and her quiet sobs.
Matt did not know what to say to a woman he vowed to defeat so long ago. He could only kneel by her so that they were at eye level, and pat her back with frozen fingers.
"You should go," she whispered eventually.
"I'm sorry. I really am. I shouldn't have come."
Before he turned away, Matt stole one final look at her. She seemed so small and young, dressed in her plain regulation smock, and he could hardly believe that she was the last flame of Team Magma. In the absence of that old rivalry, all he felt was guilt and agony.
She grabbed his arm as he prepared to leave. He did not stop her. For the rest of the night, he held her as she cried herself dry. Only at the crack of dawn, when she fell asleep, did Matt dare to head home.
Courtney hung over him like a dark cloud. He smelled of her in the morning, and he could not stop replaying their counter. Her words broke the spell he tried so hard to cast on himself. His team and idol were long gone, and no longer could he pretend happiness.
A week later, he dreamed of her for the first time. She was waiting for him in Verdanturf, standing in a billowing white dress, and her face beamed with happiness. After an awkward but brief exchange, she fell into his arms, and they lay together in the grass, their limbs intertwined and Courtney's lips all over him. When he woke up, Matt could not remember how she escaped house arrest or why she summoned him, only that her embrace left him with a deep, wistful hunger and a sudden softness towards his former enemy.
With that, the floodgates burst wide open. Matt dreamt of her for years after. In his visions, she was always either carefree—a manner he'd never seen her in—or heartbreakingly teary. When he woke up, he craved her presence.
But this burning curiosity should not shock him. In hindsight, it always existed, even if it lay latent in his soul.
He could still taste that sense of wonder, from when he first saw her golden horns glimmer on the battlefield. All the Magma admins had them, but only she wore her hood enough for them to be visible. Occasionally, the fabric would ride back over her hair, and Matt would glimpse her piercing lavender eyes: the lightest, most tender pink-purple, illuminated by some internal flame.
People raved about Lisia. She'd glance out into the crowd and look at you, they claimed, and then you were bewitched forever. Courtney, albeit infinitely more awkward, radiated that same energy: fascinating, enigmatic, and ultimately unattainable.
Tabitha was giddy on the battlefield. He was like Matt in that way. Even as mortal enemies, they would laugh and banter amidst the chaos. Maxie was a much more formidable opponent. His stare was like death, and their altercations were always tense. But Courtney spoke only to release and command her pokemon. When he inevitably pummeled her, she faded into thin air, leaving him unsatisfied.
Oh, the nostalgia.
It was all coming back to him now. Matt remembered wading through the soothing susurrus of Meteor Falls and the hordes of poochyena, looking for golden horns and gleaming purple eyes as he rushed towards the meteorite.
Though she no longer donned those golden horns, Courtney glinted like a beacon on the horizon. Matt returned to her a week after his first visit with a chain of sea crystals.
"When I'm feeling blue," he told her, "I look out at the sea. I think about the back-and-forth of the waves, and everything that lives below 'em, and my problems become real small."
"I was not made for the ocean," she said curtly. She accepted the bracelet nonetheless.
Matt came time and time again. In the beginning, she listened to him out of grudging obligation. He allowed her to visit Maxie against the will of his family, after all. But she grew to appreciate his strange sweetness. He brought her books and newspapers whenever he visited. He never interrupted her, even when she took eons to gather her thoughts. With time, she learned to take comfort in his presence.
"What future did you see?" he asked her one day.
"Rayquaza descended from the sky amidst a meteor. The very same, that we thought could destroy us all." She looked at him with large, pensive eyes. "And then, Brendan...He smashed the rock into smithereens, and a virus with arms that twisted like genetic material...it manifested. Its pathogens would haunt our planet, I saw, if it were not contained. But the boy did so. And so Deoxys will remain quarantined in the disease labs…"
"And what of our war?" Matt asked when her voice tapered off completely.
Courtney closed her eyes. Instinctively, Matt reached across the narrow space between them for her hand.
"Two potential routes," she whispered. "If we awoke Groudon, it...It would have obliterated us all. A Solar Beam, burning Maxie to dust, and then to Sootopolis, and then the world aflame. This...This vision, I could not report it to him, because it came upon me after the submarine departed our base. As for the second outcome, if you reached Kyogre before we awoke Groudon, then we would enter a new age of peace. Everything we purported to desire. Only, without Maxie. How long it would last, I could not say. I saw this a week before your victory. Maxie...he insisted this future could not exist."
The waves lapped at the beach outside her room. If only he could take her outside, Matt thought wistfully. Not just to the Sootopolis shore, but to her native Mossdeep, and the mysterious Johtan ruins, and to Kalos all the way on the other side of the planet.
"He'd want you to be happy, don't you think?" he blurted.
"Hmm?"
"They say he loved you. Don't ya think he'd be sad to see you locked up here forever?"
She laughed. As she readjusted her hands, Matt noted with pleasure the bright blue sea crystals on her wrist. "No. If anything, he would delight that even years later, I cannot fully forget him."
Courtney breathed deeply. "Do you remember what I said to you, about idols? I chose a cruel god, who haunts me to this day. He-He is the alpha and omega of my ambitions. He saved my life from those who abused my visions, over and over and over again. But his price...control. All he said and requested...My only task was to obey. And at the same time, only he made me feel whole."
Control, from beyond the grave.
Tabitha recalled Maxie with wistful nostalgia. Tabi first tasted the madness at the age of twenty-two: a promising young engineer who helped patent the Devon scope as an intern, swayed away from an unparalleled starting package by the sweet, compelling words of a madman. The other scientists were painfully aware of Maxie's faults and regularly told stories of his stringency. But they too were unable to openly condemn him.
"What kind of haunting?"
"In the very beginning, he...he existed in me. My first thought when I awoke, and my last thought before I went to sleep. Now, he is diminished to small bits. His blood-red hair, in flashes of fruit and flowers...His voice, reminding me to stay diligent or telling me that I was the cream of the crop...The way he rebukes Tabitha, which I am so tempted to replicate whenever he visits."
Something stabbed Matt in the heart. Fighting to keep his composure, he squeezed her hand.
"You'll be free soon enough," he promised.
She rubbed her thumb gently over his massive palm.
"And what future did you see for yourself? Or for me, if you can say."
Her eyes glazed over, and her back froze. Slowly, Courtney shook her head.
"My future...I could never see it," she finally whispered. "In all my visions, even as the rest of Team Magma stood present, I-I was always conspicuously absent. And as for your future-"
"You don't have to say if you don't want to."
"I don't mind. Really. It's just that-" She licked her lips nervously. "There's not much to see. Some unknown number of years into the future, if you stay with this regime, you will find your place eventually. You-We no longer correspond, but by then, you've assimilated. I suppose that's not interesting. But maybe you-you find it reassuring."
He left with a deep melancholy in the pit of his stomach.
After all these years, he'd finally pushed Archie off the altar. He imprinted on Archie years ago, because Archie alone showed him love and appreciation. It was the desperate fixation of a broken boy with no prospects besides pokemon battling. The sight of his leader used to elicit a diseased, all-consuming desire. But that feverish and heavy heartbreak slowly died down to a sweet and warm comfort.
And without even noticing it, he'd made Courtney his new god.
The days drifted by like the leaves of autumn: slowly and aimlessly, until the branches were laid bare and an entire era went to waste.
Existence was so dreadfully lonely. Matt found himself spending more and more time by the shore. He hated the sea, six years of slow bitter resentment, but it ran through his blood, and he could not recant it. He felt old and worn, as if his life ended half-a-decade ago. Almost sacriligeously, he continued to long for the past: not for those days of marginalization and war, but for those the excitement and adrenaline of fighting as Team Aqua.
Old Team Aqua.
Archie aged faster than Matt. Shelly treated him as an equal now, but he still felt like her baby brother. The grunts all graduated onto bigger and better things. Brendan had been so precocious yet so tiny and flippant, but now he ruled his native Tohjo.
And most of their former enemies certainly moved on by now.
Phoebe immediately defected after Kyogre's revival. She was half Samiyan, after all. The sea ran through her veins, too.
Sidney surrendered a month later. Matt remembered him fondly. Displeased, but talkative and friendly, with albino-white roots and an eternally wry expression. His regard for Hoenn began and ended with his Elite Four duties. The region marginalized him for far too long, for his type specialization and family and coloring. Once he stopped believing Team Aqua to be dangerous environmentalists who would drown the planet, he was content with the state of affairs. It helped that Phoebe enforced their postdiluvian world order, for Sidney trusted her—and only her—judgment.
Roxanne hated water, but she lived to obey rules, no matter how foreign or constraining they became. Wattson seemed too old to truly change his ideals. The guilt of his youth ate at him until he forced himself to accept Team Aqua's utopia as a salve. And so on and so forth.
Even their most stubborn prisoners resigned themselves to their new future, even if they would never say so.
Steven Stone held onto his vision of Hoenn like binacles to rock and adored the antediluvian caves and land formations too much to ever embrace the new world. He never spoke very much to Matt besides curt, smoldering questions about the affair of things. His attempts at escape ceased years ago.
Flannery and her grandfather also remained with them. Though they never explicitly supported Team Magma, Maxie was their uncle-cousin and nephew, and they'd never forgive Team Aqua for snuffing out Mt. Chimney. It was heartbreaking. The never-dying fire of their lineage was powerful in its own right, but Flannery...She used to be one of the youngest, yet most competent Gym Leaders in Hoenn history, and she withered under house arrest because she was too stubborn to forsake the teachings of her religion.
Only Courtney remained immutable.
The tide flooded in and ebbed out, over and over again, the beat of the sea's heart.
His heart.
Suddenly, his life flashed before his eyes. All these years gone by, mourning the comfort of the past and pining for kindred spirits when it was in front of him all along.
You dumbass, Matt reprimanded himself, for letting himself ruminate for so long.
He needed to find her in the morning, and that was his last thought before he fell asleep.
Courtney stared hungrily at his approaching silhouette when she heard his heavy steps. "I imagined you would never return."
"Had to train a bunch of people. But did ya really think that?"
"Only for a second," she admitted with a smile.
He sat in the chair across from her bed while she settled in a thin, shallow nest of sheets. In the warm golden light, Courtney looked so playful, her arms around a pillow and her long lilac hair messily swept over her right shoulder. Matt could make out each wispy strand and the occasional split end.
And when she beamed upon him, her bright lovely eyes poring at his...Even after all these years, his face felt so hot he could have combusted.
"But," she continued, "sometimes I imagine that you choose someone else. You steadily approach the age of parenthood, and they must ask you about romance and marriage, all the time…"
Matt shook his head violently. "Not me. Can you imagine me with a kid? Hell, I feel like a kid."
And then her facade collapsed.
"It doesn't matter," she cried, "whether you have children. But when you stay away, because...because someone else calls for you, I...it breaks my heart."
"You hated me," Matt responded dubiously. Still, her words filled him with an intense, giddy hope, and he sat on edge waiting for her to speak.
"Six years ago. But now…"
She bounced off the bed and walked towards him, until she stood so close that Matt could see the red shimmer of her eyes in the fading sunlight. They were almost at eye level. Even then, Matt felt giant.
"Courtney-"
Before he could say anything more, she was cradling his chin. Her caress, the slight edge of her crescent nails pressing gently into his skin, sent a jolt through his veins, and he could feel the goosebumps rising out of his skin.
He was terrified: of the electricity in their shared gazes, of the desire pumping through his veins, of the prospect of losing her. But Matt leaned forward in his seat nonetheless. He's played this familiar game of love, eons and eons ago when he was a child, and he let his hands settle around her waist.
Her entire body tensed at his touch. Still, she came closer and closer until the tips of their nose touched.
"You," she gasped. Her breath, husky in its steady inhale-and-exhale, was soft and warm on his skin.
"You're so beautiful," he said. And she was, with her poreless skin, large eyes, and succulent lips. Matt suddenly remembered those ancient nighttime visions, her face beaming up at him as he kissed her, and his heart melted like butter.
Courtney laughed. She ran her hands slowly over him, caressing his biceps and then tracing his muscular chest over the cotton of his shirt. "You too," she said finally, her fingers trailing along his neck. "You-Even in the beginning, you...cut an impressive sight. A brute...That's what they called you."
Of course they did.
"But in your figure," she mulled, "existed...grace. And in your face, a force I dared not look at for too long, lest I become my own funeral pyre."
In the silence, all he could hear was the sound of her heartbeat, thumping in tandem with his. Matt recognized the desire in her eyes. He should throw her off, said a voice from the back of his mind. Imagine what the others would say, when they found him fraternizing with the prisoners. But in that moment, pain and eagerness and hunger constricting in his chest, he couldn't care less.
"Mind if I kiss you?" he whispered.
He forgot all propriety once her lips pressed against his. Her mouth, so hot and hungry, caressed him, and the feeling of her bare thighs and firm flesh drove him wild. Instinctively, he pulled her into his lap.
Courtney was surprisingly passionate for someone so stoic. Her soft lips eventually roamed downwards to the sensitive flesh of his neck. She ran her hands over the ripples of his chest and the small of his back, moving too fast for him to register anything but the electricity of her fingers. The sight of her eyes, glowing and half-lidded under her lush wet lashes...
It was all so intoxicating.
Matt wanted to rip her clothes off. He settled for running his hands over her, reveling in the feel of her flesh. Her body was soft yet tight, smooth skin stretched taut over the thin layer of fat that covered her frame. She was so damn sensitive, he realized. She moaned, gentle and breathy and incoherent, at the lightest touch.
But he couldn't blame her. He too craved intimacy after those long taxing years.
The minutes passed like seconds, the chilly morning giving way to the golden light of the late afternoon. By the end of it, Matt knew every inch of her body.
Tomorrow, her fair neck and chest would inevitably bruise. His would too, but his swarthy skin was more lenient towards hickeys. All the better. Shelly would be livid if she knew why he was away, Matt thought amusedly, but rolling in bed with Courtney far outranked sitting through economic discussions.
He knew he should be happy, he thought as they watched the sunset. Courtney certainly was, a radiant smile spreading across her face. All of this—his arms around her, her disheveled hair strewn across her forehead, their fingers intertwined—was the manifestation of his wildest dreams.
In the post-orgasmic wake, unease bubbled through him.
"Someone summoned Ho-Oh," he said.
"Hmm?"
"Small town girl, from southern Blackthorn. Never heard of her."
"The rainbow-hued bird...did you see it?" "
"Not yet. Soon, I hope. She's coming south tomorrow."
Her hand tightened like a vice. "What will you wish for?"
"Not everyone gets a wish."
She laughed. "If you did."
What did he want more than anything else? Four years ago, he would have turned back time in a heartbeat.
"Maybe some inner peace," he said. "What about you?"
She peered up at him and wrapped her arms around one of his massive biceps. Despite his unease, her touch still filled him with giddiness.
"To stay with you, perhaps," she murmured. "Any destiny with you satisfies me."
He shook his head. "I've got no idea what to do."
"You have a role in this world. No. You essentially rule it."
"I'm not Maxie, Courtney. I can't give you a...purpose."
Smiling softly at him, she seemed the very image of devotion.
"You are my purpose."
She leaned up and pressed her mouth against his. Though her kisses felt sweet and tender, he could taste the hunger behind them. His breath caught in his throat. An eon ago, she hated him with all her soul. How much she changed, Matt marveled, trapped in the walls he placed around her.
"And look how well that turned out," he replied, "with Archie and Maxie."
Courtney wilted at his words. But after a moment of deliberation, she steeled herself.
"I can find a...niche in this world," she said. "One that does not revolve around you. Maybe Cinnabar restoration, after some training. We-I realize we do not exist outside this room. I will request a pardon. If that is approved, and I find a job...then we can reassess."
"I didn't think you cared about that stuff."
"I love you," she murmured. Courtney traced the veins of his palm, almost devout in her adoration. "I would recant the past—every second of it—to follow you." Her lips pursed in subdued exasperation. "But yes, my vision. If your desire is to remain in the regime of your people, at the cost of my-our relationship, then I will fight with all I can even if I will inevitably lose."
He knew the look in her eyes. It had been there for a decade before. And for as long as he could remember, he saw it in the mirror every morning. He should recoil from it, he knew. But this love was sweeter than what he'd felt for Archie, and less dangerous than what she'd sacrificed for Maxie. Cautiously, he let himself melt into her embrace.
"I love you too," he said.
Matt could not wash away that sick, ominous foreboding in his gut. It had been there for too long, for it to disappear so quickly. But in the soft red glow of the fading sun, their utopia suddenly seemed boundless.