Foxfire Part 4 - Ash

Even in its death throes, the dungeon seemed to be her ally. The path out shone clearly in her mind, and she raced along it as quickly as she dared. Gideon held tightly to her, breathing hard in the increasingly smoky air. There were other Pokémon fleeing with her—the wild Pokémon that had dwelt in and near the swamp, unable to reconcile the dualistic nature of the city and the weald. None so much as glanced in her direction.

Calder and Flash were not among them.

Impossibly, the brick itself seemed to have caught fire in her second sight, cracking and crumbling to dust as she pushed past city streets she would never see again. When Gideon started coughing, something like panic gripped her heart, and she pushed on, harder, faster. Was this what Zona had felt? To see the vestiges of childhood crumble and burn...

It was not until she reached the top of the hill outside town that she finally stopped, rolling to one side and panting heavily. Gideon tumbled off of her back with a groan, but caught himself before he rolled too far.

Willow Dun was burning to the ground. The murky threshold between reality and mystery dungeon had not been able to stop the fire, and the whole forest seemed to have caught fire, sending smoke and orange, sickly light up into the sky. It was nighttime now, and the sky was thick with clouds. In the distance, thunder rumbled.

Miranda felt numb.

Eventually, she realized she was being gently shaken. Her name was being called. She turned, still dazed, to see Gideon, lightly singed, staring down at her. She focused on his face and his voice, even as she could see the light of the flames burning in the reflections in his eyes.

"... gister? Magister! Miranda, please!"

She closed her eyes and tried to center herself.

(Amos is lifeless beneath her; she sits up, breathing hard; part of her doesn't want to admit what she's just done; but the greater part of her knows that it was necessary, that it was just;

there is a stirring behind her; a small, quiet noise pierces through the chaos of the assault;

she turns; Zona is in the doorway, staring at her; his eyes are wide in horror and shock;

he runs and disappears into the darkness;

this is the second time Miranda's heart breaks)

One of her paws pushed up against him, and he rolled away from her in time for her to turn her head. Tears were burning in her eyes. Shame and anger and doubt.

On the wind, one last time, she heard her father's voice.

One paw reached up to the sky, and she let out a low, keening whine that threatened to turn into a sob. Her stomach hurt, her heart hammered, and her Ember flickered like it threatened to go out.

She coughed and rolled onto her side. Her stomach gave a particularly violent heave. She retched.

Afterward, she felt, as if from a distance, Gideon carefully pick her up and cradle her gently in his arms. The numb feeling had returned, and she had the strange idea that she was watching herself be carried away from that hill—or perhaps that she was leaving herself behind.

Her head spun. She closed her eyes.

When she came to herself, they were back in the old warehouse. Rain battered against the roof, and low, rumbling thunder seemed to shake the whole world.

She sat up, finding herself on the little raised dais from the night before. Gideon was sitting at its base, knees drawn to his chest and arms crossed over them. When he heard her stir, he pushed himself to his feet and stepped up onto the podium.

"Magister? Are you...?"

She didn't trust her voice. Her throat was tight and her mouth felt uncomfortably dry. She ducked her head and said nothing. He bit his lip, clearly trying not to fuss over her too hard. He stepped back, digging through his bag for a waterskin, which she eyed nervously but with obvious want. He offered it to her, but when she tried to call up her extrasensory power she felt... empty. Numb.

She shook her head, trying to lay down and curl herself into a small shape. He fussed, trying to coax her back up, but when that failed, he settled for holding it up to her lips, and she drank slowly.

He sat next to her, cross legged. She remained where she was, curled into as small a ball as she could manage, half-hidden behind her tails. For a while, no one said anything.

Gideon broke the silence first. "It wasn't your fault."

What he meant wasn't clear. Willow Dun? The fire? The fate of Calder and Flash? She didn't want to question it.

She saw him looking at her with the same strange and unreadable look in his eye that she'd seen before she'd passed out the first time. This time he noticed, and started guiltily, one arm blade rubbing against the other self-consciously.

Finally, she spoke. Her voice was hoarse and tight and very small. "I cannot go back."

She meant the Great Crystal City. Enigma. She couldn't go back. She was compromised. She didn't say as much.

But he nodded as though he knew. After a quiet minute, he replied, "I was supposed to kill you."

She stared at him. She should have been surprised, insulted, outraged. But she was still numb.

"If you showed signs of... hesitation. Disloyalty. I had to get you alone and kill you. I almost did, when the others disappeared and you collapsed. But the thought of being alone in a dungeon with no way out..." One arm flickered with the same shadowy power he'd used against Pytho. "It would have been swift. I practiced. I was... told to. By..."

He didn't say it, but she knew what he meant. "By Enigma."

He nodded.

"What will you do now?" she asked.

"Well... I can't kill you," he said. He tried to make it sound like a joke, but it fell flat. "Not after you dragged me out of a forest fire." He shifted in place a little. "He... the Delphox... said I was a coward. I am. A coward and an assassin. I'm no good in a straight fight. And while I had enough practice to hide my intentions from you..."

"I know," she said. "I could not hide from her either. I cannot go back."

He nodded glumly.

She closed her eyes. She finally felt like she was stabilizing, coming back to herself. Or something like herself, at any rate. Perhaps part of her had died in that fire and now she had to find a third life to live.

Her father's voice had spoken to her before she'd passed out.

My sweet Melody, song dancing on the wind. A final gift of Fire and Mind. Since you choose to live and love, hearken to me.

To the west and the north, there lies a crevasse of sand and stone.

One day, soon, battle will roar there. Fire and death will loom. Over that day lies a veil that none can pierce. Who will live? Who will die?

One seeks. One speaks. Your shadow looms over them as well. They will not emerge unchanged.

"Where... where do we go from here?" Gideon asked finally.

A low peal of thunder gently shook the building. Rain hammered on the walls.

She opened her eyes.

Another place, another time

She stood in the ruins of her home.

Her second home. The one she had chosen to destroy. Leppa Town's remains sprawled around her.

She had not stood here in months, but little had changed. More of the remaining buildings had eroded away. Wind and rain had scoured the place of all signs of battle.

Zona's scent was not on the wind.

Still, she traced the familiar path. It was less supernatural in nature this time; her mind did not know the way through the ruins, but her paws did. She padded solemnly across paths that had once been well worn, though now grass and moss were reclaiming them. Nearby, she knew, Ashwood Arbor loomed. But it seemed no bigger than the last time she'd been here. Perhaps this town would be spared the horror of descending into a dungeon, preserved forever.

She stopped at a stone fence that had held its shape better than much of the space around it. Gideon slowed to a stop behind her. "M... Ma'am?"

"Stay here," she said. "No matter what you hear. I will return when I am ready." She stepped past the fence. Most of the stone walls of the house beyond still stood against encroaching entropy. Though it was empty now, she ducked her head under the arch of the doorway as she had so many times before when she'd come home.

She stepped into what had been the den. Seven strides from the door. From the threshold, one could just see this far into the house.

She set a paw down. His body had lain here, but no more. Even so, there would be traces.

She closed her eyes. Behind her eyelids, carmine glowed with an intense purple light.

When she opened them again, Amoscandar sat before her.

The elder Ninetales' ruby eyes widened. "I thought my penance would be to sit here in silence until the building turned to dust," he murmured. "Perhaps others would cross the threshold and find me. But not you. You I did not think I would see again." A curious head tilt. Then he added, with no malice in his voice, "Why are you here, Mirandalys?"

She watched him for a moment, weighing her words carefully. Then she told him, "My name is Melody."

He, too, was silent for a few beats of her heart. Then he replied, "So it is. I take it you have been to Willow Dun."

She grit her teeth, but kept her voice even. "Did you know?"

"Did I know what?" Amos replied evenly.

"About the mystery dungeon. About the lingering ghost of my father."

"I knew nothing of the sort," he said. "I had no desire to return to that place."

Melody's jaw trembled. She wanted to yell, to scream, to accuse. But she kept herself in check and she told him what had transpired. By the time she finished, Amoscandar's eyes were closed, tails flicking up and down thoughtfully.

"I see," was all he said.

"You see? You see?" She seethed, eyes shimmering with the energy of her roiling heart. "You knew. You knew. You had to have known. The Resistance was nearby and you knew. That was the only way we could have escaped unnoticed."

"Yes," he replied simply. "I took you and the others out by a secret way. But I was not attempting to lie to you or anyone else in Willow Dun. The Black Division approached me. That knowledge was a gift, a test of my loyalty. Had we not been overheard, I would have come forward with that knowledge in turn. I did not want to fight. I wanted to live."

"Liar," she snapped. Her vision swam. "Liar."

"No, Melody." Amos shook his head. "The truth. There is no greater meaning to it. There is no secret, no great unmasking. Sometimes there is evil in the world. Apart from political ideology, or moral, or cause. Sometimes there is only evil. The Black Division escaped to reform itself elsewhere. Willow Dun burned because we were in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Her Ember flared. Her eyes flashed and a low growl built in her throat.

"Are we simply to repeat our last argument forever?" Amos murmured. His ears pinned back, and she saw something like shame in his eyes. "I am guilty of many things. It is true. I did lie to you. I did break our accord. It was at my prompting that Lykaios fled. I was harsh with Zonaphèras and fostered his fear. I saw your anger and your sorrow for these things—the same anger and sorrow that burned in my breast for centuries before I tamed myself at last—and I did nothing. I chose not to help you. You are right.

"You are right, Melodia. I am guilty of these things and more. You had and have every right to be angry with me. But what happened to Willow Dun..." He shook his head. "It is what it is. A tragedy. If you wish to bear that burden, it is not my place to stop you. You alone live to remember that day. If it will help you to scream at me again, then do so. But it will not change what is past."

But she held her tongue, keeping her breathing steady. "Another question, then."

"Of course." Amos inclined his head.

"Did you know..." She almost choked. "Did you know... about the Master?"

"That he is dead?" Melody flinched when Amoscandar admitted it so readily. "That another claims to speak with his voice? Yes. Of course I knew. Why do you think I left the Resistance? I could no longer muster the will to fight his shadow. I had known for decades, and struggled on despite that knowledge. But when I heard the truth from that fallen star, the desire to fight left me then and there. If the gods are good, that knowledge died with me—though I suspect that she lingers still. Where her loyalty lies now is anyone's guess, least of all mine."

Her ears pinned back and she lowered her head. "Fallen star..." Surely not. Is this where Aster has gone?

"I wish that I could give you the great revelation you desire." Amos' voice was gentle, and she heard him stand and pad toward her. One intangible paw rested on her shoulder. "But I cannot give you what does not exist."

"I hate you," she breathed, voice unsteady. "I hate you. I hate you. I hate you." But she could not bring herself to mean it. "And you... you should hate me..."

"Whatever for?"

Her jaw trembled. "It is as Pytho said. Death follows me. Everywhere I go, Pokémon die. In the end, I recreated my very own tragedy here, and you... I..."

I killed you.

"Miranda," he said quietly. "Melody. We are all of us fallible. And it is yet within all our grasps to climb out of the pits we find ourselves in—whether we are thrown there or dig them ourselves. We will sweat and pant and suffer and bleed. But climb we will. And climb we do. Every day."

Her vision swam again.

"I forgive you," he said, voice warm and gentle and kind.

"How?" she breathed. "Why?"

"Because you struggle to forgive yourself. Because the sorrow of centuries bears down upon you like it bore down upon me. Or did you think you were the only one stained with blood? We are both of us guilty. Fools to the last. What paragons of wisdom, they say of Ninetales. But not us. We have stumbled. We have failed.

"It is said that Ninetales never forget their grudges, and look where our grudges have brought us. Here we are. Scorched and tattered, battered and bloodstained, here we stand. Living lives tainted by the desire for revenge. Holding fast to our grudges. Holding them so tight our very bones, our very spirits, threaten to shatter. Unless and until we choose to release them."

She grit her teeth and screwed her eyes shut. She felt Amos press his muzzle to her forehead—real and not real, there and not there at the same time. She felt it all the same. "I love you."

Now Melody broke down, sobbing, wailing. In the ruins of Leppa Town, her voice rang out in pain and horror and sorrow, in fear and shame and doubt. She wept for all the lost time, the lost centuries, the misery of her cruelty, the pointlessness of every death. The whole mural of her life raced before her eyes, and where once she had taken pride in it, now she felt shame and horror. It was all clear—too clear, too fresh, forever unblemished. Once her driving force—now a burden to bear forever and ever.

And Amos, sweet Amos, gentle Amos, held her and waited.

Eventually she stood, taking deep breaths as she rubbed at her face with her paw.

"What will you do now?" Amos asked.

Slowly, she let out a breath through her nose. "My life... No. Miranda's life is forfeit now. Especially now that I have not returned as scheduled." A long, thoughtful pause. "It... is strange. The first time Willow Dun burned, little Melody died there, and Miranda rose from her ashes. The second time, Miranda staggered out of the village and died on the hill, and now Melody lives again. Or... something to that effect."

She glanced at him. "Norusephas stood on humanity's shores, once. So you said. But then your Conrad died, and a part of you died with him. Thus you became Amos." Her jaw tightened. "And... our Lykaios..."

She couldn't finish that thought.

Amos held out a paw. "Fret not for Lykaios. A truth I kept from you, long hidden, but no more—he lives. To my knowledge, he lives far to the north, in the frigid wastes—but all the same, he lives." Melody opened her mouth, tears threatening to spill again, but the image of Amoscandar gave a gentle nuzzle to the side of her head. "Yes. He lives, though like us, he has taken on a new name and a new self. Only Zona exists as we remember him. Scarred—but strong. Indomitable in spirit. Possessed of a pure heart and unbreakable will—unlike you and I."

Zona. Her throat tightened. "Oh, Zonaphèras... and Lykaios..."

One who seeks. One who speaks.

"I must..." Melody nodded. "I must... find them. I must seek them out."

"To overthrow Enigma?" Amos murmured. "To turn to war?"

"No." She hesitated. "I... no. Not... unless it cannot be helped. They... will want my—Miranda's—knowledge, her strength. But I do not know if I can give it."

He nodded solemnly.

"But..." Melody looked at the ground, bashful. "Zona humbled me once. He... I would not be here now if I had not..."

("I love you, Mommy!")

Here, in this place, moons ago, she had ended Amoscandar, and in doing so had ended Zona's innocence. Where he was now, the things he did, the friends he had, the ideals he upheld—all of these were ultimately of her making. They had crossed paths just once since then, not far from here, and she had attempted to wrest him back into her control, to save him, as she saw it at the time, from himself.

Melody closed her eyes.

"His future... what he will become." Her jaw was set. "I must find him again. I must know. Fire and Mind were my burden, passed to him. But he need not bear them forever. For those who might travel it, there exists another path—one of frost and faith. Or," she added ruefully, "perhaps he shall walk a new path..."

Zona had rejected her. He had walked away. Zona, who had ever sought comfort and shelter from her, who had never been brave enough to stand on his own, who had never dared to voice a dissenting opinion. In the depths of the Ashwood Arbor, while he was yet prone and at her mercy, he had looked her in the eye... and he had walked away.

Away from her. And yet not toward Amoscandar—not really. He did not see himself as some vaunted hero-to-be—no paragon nor savior. Just another Pokémon walking the narrow road, seeking to shape the future by his own will.

"What path he walks," Melody said, slowly and with difficulty, opening her eyes, "I would witness. Perhaps we will never again be family. Certainly not as we were. But it is his right to go where he will. Whither he goes, even if I am not at his side, I would see him succeed. Not just him. Lykaios too."

"So you choose." Amos tilted his head, and, after a thoughtful pause, added, "I too have freed Zonaphèras from the burden of my shadow. As you say, whither he goes, it must be his choice, and so too for Lykaios. I will neither rob them of their agency nor guide them without their consent. The paths they choose to walk are theirs, whether fire or frost, peace or war. You must look but not touch."

Melody stared at the ground, hard.

(she slowly releases her grip on his neck, withdrawing; she feels suddenly drained and weak, a blade driven deep into her heart and twisted sharply; they are both breathing heavily, but his eyes are still fixed on her while she cannot bring herself to meet his gaze;

her inner flame trembles, and she staggers as shame and anger and doubt drape themselves over her shoulders; suddenly she aches as though she's been driven into a frigid pool; her ears pin back, and she opens her mouth; but it takes her a long time, too long, to find the right words, even as he stares, patiently waiting)

Her expression tightened, Ember burning within as her tails lashed. Then she sighed deeply through her nose, and with a great effort, she let Zona go.

"... Very well," she said softly, and finally raised her head to look at Amos again.

He bowed low to the ground, and Melody looked away, her fur fluffing out in embarrassment. Seeing the elder Ninetales prostrate before her brought back memories she wished she could relinquish.

"Amos..." she muttered, waiting for him to rise again. He did, giving her a curious glance.

She took a deep breath. "Amos. Come with me."

Miranda: Foxfire - The End

Next - Melody: The Mystic's Path