They're not so different when it comes down to it, Bede realizes, though the revelation comes with a swing at his sanity.

At first glance, they couldn't be less alike: he's refined, elegant, and possessed of remarkable composure (as long as Opal is looking). She's crass, bordering on vulgar, and, if Bede had to choose a nicer word, he would call her rustic.

But he comes to notice this about her: she's tough, like he is. She's had to climb her way to the top tooth and nail because she's a tiny thing, plain little girl with nothing special going for her except being the best friend of the old Champion's baby brother. Nothing special, that is, until she opens her mouth. She commands attention, speaks a language of charisma that few fifteen-year-olds have any grasp on, waves her arms up and around and makes people recognize her awesome talent. She kicks and screams until they look at her, and then she shows them what she's really got, and it is nearly blinding how incredible she is when she's given the space to be herself.

So he notices this. And then he notices a funny coiling in his stomach when she says his name and, to his growing distress, he doesn't completely hate it.

"So," Gloria says, "heard you used to be a scrapper. I'm not too shocked, honestly. You've got such a temper on you, I'd be more surprised if you weren't." She chuckles to herself like it's the cleverest observation she's ever made. Probably is.

"You've read my League Cards, then." Bede sighs, more annoyed than anything else but still feeling his chest tighten in that strange way at the knowledge that she did, in fact, bother with them.

"Sure have. They've aired out all sorts of things about you on those—oh, wow, the League is ruthless. You know, I was half expecting them to write some nonsense about my dark and troubled past on mine, too. It's too bad they didn't! That might've got me more fans."

Bede lets a puff of breath out through his nose, not quite a laugh but a bit too loud to be anything else. "You've got a dark and troubled past."

"Uh-huh. There was this one time, before our Gym Challenge, Hop and I got lost in the Slumbering Weald, nearly got eaten by a mad Pokémon. I still don't know how we escaped with our lives." Her eyes are glittering darkly up at him, and Bede feels his fingers flex as though she's mocking him. He doubts she actually is, she's far too dense to make anything like a jab this sophisticated, but there's something to the quirk of her brow, the slant of her smiling mouth, that irritates him more than it should.

"Well, I'll have a word with the League and see if they can fix you up. Then you can be a charity case like me."

She barks out a laugh. "You're no charity case, Bede! You're a little scrapper, that's why the crowds love you. You're a fighter, like me." She slaps a hand on each knee, bending down so she's even lower and he can barely see her now. It's better this way, he thinks, she's little more than a line of pink and gray just beneath his peripherals. "So let's have a go, then, shall we?"

Bede looks down at her from high, high above with a mixture of horror and disgust at what she's asking of him. "I don't fight girls," he says. "Especially not ones as small as you."

She's a little runt, all of maybe a bit over half his size, scrawny thing with short legs and short arms. He reckons it's why she's so loud: she has to be, or else no one can hear her from down there.

"Come on, I can take you! I'm stronger than I look, really." She stretches a leg out behind her and he watches the sinew of her calf muscles move like ripples of water come up from beneath the surface. There's more to her than bare bones, and she's from Postwick, after all. She bares her teeth in a grin, and he's not sure if she's trying to be menacing because he can almost see the laughter behind her pearly whites.

Another sigh, a deeper one. "If you insist." Only for you, Gloria, and his hand moves in a left hook to her shoulder. He has no intentions of fighting a girl, has never fought one, so his aim is light and less than halfhearted and wouldn't hurt even a Cutifly, but it doesn't connect anyway. She lunges down before his hand is even halfway there and grips right above one of his ankles and pulls, and he feels his feet slip out from under him as she rolls him deftly and lands him on his stomach. The turf beneath them is surprisingly plush and it doesn't hurt but all the breath leaves his lungs and he squawks at her in the most undignified manner as it does.

She falls to the floor with him, screaming with laughter. They're only on the same level for a moment or two before he jumps to his feet, insists that he's towering over her again, and he yells expletives as she catches her breath. She sits on her tailbone and grins at him while he berates her before she extends a hand that goes to about his knees.

"Help me up?"

His eyes go incredulously between her hand and her face, his mouth still sputtering of its own volition.

His deliberation doesn't last long before he leans down, takes her hand and pulls her up. Her joints crack as she stands straight, hopping off the floor for a second and giving his hand a squeeze before letting go. The pads of her fingers brush his for a second as she does so, and Bede's face heats like she's just done something a million times more scandalous.

"That wasn't fair," he says in what is most definitely not a whine, trying to sound angrier than he is.

Gloria leans forward to brush debris from the front of his shirt, and he stumbles back on instinct because she's too close. "I told you I could fight," she says, "just didn't mention that I fight dirty. Now you know how we do things in Postwick."

"Who taught you that move? Hop?"

Gloria laughs, snorting on the high note. It's uncouth, and kind of obnoxious, and Bede's heart flips like a trapped Vivillon. "Hop doesn't fight girls, either. He's a true Galarian gentleman." She looks up at him, brown eyes gone positively muddy at the mention of the boy's name. "Nah. We used to scuffle with Wooloo in the fields as kids. It was just play-fighting, nothing serious, but I knocked a Dubwool flat on its side once." She looks proud of herself.

Her hands are at his chest. Bede clears his throat and takes a step back.

Gloria fumbles back, too, when she realizes. "Sorry."

Her breathing has come down, no longer so heavy and fast, the rise and fall of her ribs steadying, but Bede feels his own hitch when the distance is put between them. She was too close before, but now she's too far, and he finds himself wanting her to stay faithfully close, but for all her rowdiness she's respectful enough to leave a good arm's length between their persons.

"Personal space," Bede says, trying to make the reminder as friendly as possible.

"Right." She smiles as sheepishly as someone like her can. "Anyway—you ever need a sparring partner, you let me know. I won't pull any more tricks, honest. I wanna see what you've got."

Bede makes a noise in his throat halfway between a scoff and a bleat. "Sure. I'll let you know." He has no such intentions.

She's about to turn on her heel to leave—he can't be bothered to ask where to—but maybe she sees the pleading for a real goodbye in his eyes or mapped onto his face, because she springs back to pat him on the shoulder. He loses count of how many times because she's looking at him and her eyes are smiling in sync with her pretty mouth. "Be seeing you," she says, and she takes off before he can return the gesture.

He brings a hand to where hers had been mere moments ago, rubbing a thumb over where her fingers had creased the fabric. She's just a speck of pink and gray down the corridor now, and he thinks: Forget about personal space.

There is something woefully familiar about the way Hop talks with her, reacts to her, blooms in her presence like a plant fed rainwater. She enters the room and he's electrified, running on two megawatts instead of his usual one. It's subtle, sure, they're best friends since childhood and there's no room for awkward flirtations when you've shared a bed during sleepovers from the age of five or six and shared a mind for longer still, but there's something to it. A jolt here, a jitter there where she takes his hand, flutters her fingers over his, and Hop gives himself away. They're both loud and unrestrainedly extroverted and the way they bounce off of each other runs the risk of giving Bede a migraine, but he can admit that they work well together.

There are rumors, not unsubstantiated, talk about them being more-than-friends, but you don't have to be a genius to see that there's something going on between them. Bede, to his detriment, is perceptive, and he notices the details finer than the way they linger on each hug or hold each other's gaze for a little bit too long on the pitch. He notices the way Hop shuffles his feet while he waits for her and the way he eyes Bede glumly from time to time when Gloria beams up at the Gym Leader. He thinks that if he were in Hop's place, he'd feel the same. You can't know a girl like Gloria for as long as he has and not either fall in love or go mad.

Or, in Hop's case, surely both.

He doesn't know if they've said it out loud, doesn't know if it'd make much of a difference at this point. Doesn't know if they've kissed and doesn't want to know. They dance around it like the four letter word is a ballroom, and Gloria especially can't seem to sit still. She says it freely: she loves her Pokémon, she loves Wyndon and being Champion and loves her fans very much, but whether the word has any meaning deeper to her than the feeling she gets after eating a good meal, Bede doesn't know.

One reporter asks if she loves Hop, and she says yes, plainly. He's her best friend and she loves him dearly, and Hop, a few paces in front of Bede with the phone teetering in his hyperactive hands and the video on loop, looks like he's been struck by lightning.

It's rare that Hop can't stay to watch her matches, and there's got to be something to the fact that it's Bede she's up against today. Maybe he's reading too much into it.

There are voices that come floating from down the hall; they're hushed and only fragments of a conversation carry over, mostly Gloria's.

"Yeah, are you… so soon… back to Wedgehurst?"

There's the sound of shuffling and Bede turns the corner to see her standing just outside of the locker room. Hop is there, too, and he might've known, but his stomach still sinks.

Her hands are level with his chest. His own are at her shoulders, bringing her in, and there's hesitation when they break, like they're both unsure but like they both know. Hop's eyes are soft on hers until he notices Bede. They don't fly apart, but Hop straightens his back and Gloria's hands fall from Hop as she takes notice, too.

"Apologies. I hope I'm not interrupting anything."

He watches Gloria's mouth move because he can't look at Hop anymore. "Nothing at all. Hop here was just letting me know he has to leave early on account of some business at the lab."

"Professor Sonia rang me. She said there's been a breakthrough in our research and she wants me to hurry back. It's really exciting! I mean, I'd much rather stay," he says this more to Gloria than to Bede, "but she needs me. Important Dynamax stuff, you know how it goes."

Bede hums. Gloria is looking back at Hop but Bede's still looking at her, and Hop stammers something as he pulls out his phone and reads off a frantic text.

"But I'm having Sonia record your match, so don't worry!" he promises, and then he's gone, a farewell bidden to both Bede and Gloria before either of them can return it.

"And then there were two." Gloria grins, only looking to Bede when Hop is fully out of sight.

There's a part of him that wants to question her, point blank and with no one around to hear, but he doesn't know if he'll get answers from her and if he does, he doesn't know that they'll be ones he wants to hear. He's almost certain they won't be.

"You've been seeing less of him as of late." Hop's long gone but Bede keeps his voice low anyway. "Still, it's nice that he makes an effort."

"I'll say. He's busy, that one, but I'd expect nothing less from my best rival!" She doesn't sound upset at all, more awestruck than anything. "I appreciate him coming around, though. He's a good lad."

He is, and Bede wouldn't contest it, even if he had anything bad to say, because he knows Gloria would go for his jugular if he breathed so much as a word of it to her. He can't fault Hop for anything. Being the kid brother of the former Champion comes with its perks, and Bede could easily see him becoming an entitled brat or an arrogant piece of work (had once hoped for it, if only because it'd ease his own guilt), but he's not. He's been more forgiving than Bede can imagine himself ever being. He has a heart, and it beats for Gloria.

"He does it all for you, you know."

"I know."

Silence bristles between them. If she knows more than she lets on, he won't be getting to the bottom of it today, because she turns suddenly to grip his shoulder and say, "So! You ready for our match? Galar is waiting, and I won't be going easy on you!"

He knows she won't. He allows the corners of his mouth to curl, only for her and only because he loves a challenge and a chance to wipe the floor with her.

And maybe, too, because his heart aches in more ways than one when her mouth opens in a victorious whoop and her eyes crinkle at the edges like she's laughing for the first time in her life.

They shake on it. Bede drums fingers into her palm, and when his heart stutters as she lets go, he knows he's in deep.

She's intimidating in her own way, boisterous enough to wear out even the toughest opponent, but she's not unkind. She's a feisty thing, made of boundless energy and flailing limbs, but he's never seen her truly angry. Not until now.

The reporter asks Bede how, exactly, his parents passed, and it's not an unfamiliar query or one he's never had to answer, but he still goes rigid. Like instinct, the words are gathering on his lips, even as his leg starts to bounce like he's poised to flee, but he doesn't get the chance to even open his mouth. Gloria is upon them, shouting, voice gone up several octaves and he has to hold her back before she wrests the microphone from the nice blonde lady's hand. He's taller than her and stronger and knows how to pin her so he's not hurting her but she's well and subdued, but she's still cursing and her face has gone ruddy like he's never seen.

Bede apologizes to the reporter, and it seems like the right thing to do at the time, but after the fact he doesn't know why.

"Blasted Mandibuzz, the lot of them," Gloria spits, wiping her mouth on the back of a sleeve. "Slow news day, yeah? Well, that's no excuse."

If it had been any other question, his reaction might've been different. He might not have frozen up like he did. Gloria might not know a lot of things, but she knows this, and he's quietly grateful for her integrity.

She stands and pats him on the back. "You're all right. Thanks for holding me back there. My reputation could've taken a hefty blow just now."

Her reputation is all she has, and she's just risked it for him. Bede isn't sure how to feel about it all.

"Dark and troubled past not sounding so enticing, now, is it?" It's all he can think to say.

"Ha." There's no humor in her voice. "Guess not. I deal with enough as it is." She's referring, he thinks, to the latest story circulating about her and Hop, and Bede wishes he had her kinds of problems.

"...Thank you, Gloria." It's the only other thing he can think to say, and he regrets not saying it before the first thing.

Whatever righteous fury was still in her fades as she smiles at him. "No need. I'm sure you'd do the same for me."

Some time ago, he would have resented her suggesting such a thing. As of right now, he's starting to consider it. "Of course."

She hugs him. It's a first, and he reacts as disjointedly as anyone would expect, hands staying at his sides like they're stuck there. He wonders if she's offended, if she's one second away from pushing off of him because he won't wrap his arms around her in kind, but she tightens her hold and her face is nestled at his sternum and it's a searing feeling like pressure not building but falling outward. It's relief. It's something inside him not coming together but undoing, like a knot pulled apart in one smart stroke.

It only hurts when she pulls away, leaving a crater of phantom pain where she'd just been.

In his dreams, she doesn't look much different than she does in the real world. She's no blushing maiden or fairytale princess; she wears pink chiffon and gold rings, but her teeth are still slightly uneven and her laughter is still hard and rolls out from her belly. In his dreams, the only one who changes is him. He goes from pauper to prince and his oversized rags become a white suit, fitted handsomely at his shoulders, and he takes her hand like a true Galarian gentleman would, kisses the back of it. His Rapidash is strong enough to carry two on its back, and when their feet are tired from filling the dance hall with the clack of her heels, the Pokémon whisks them away.

Bede isn't sure where they go. He hasn't thought about that last part in detail. Perhaps they get lost in the Glimwood Tangle forever, spending their days drinking dew and sitting with their fingers laced in the green glow of the enchanted mushrooms. He wants to dream of living in a gilded palace with marble walls, but it's too big a dream and one he can never make true, and she already has one of her own. In a cruel twist of ironic fate, it's in Wyndon, and she's getting awfully close to being betrothed to a prince, a real one.

He watches Hop when Hop isn't looking, tracing the patterns of his movements with his eyes like he can get them down to a science. Hop is too much, too noisy and too talkative and too quick on his feet, brash and uncontrollable, but he is anything but harsh or mean. Bede wonders if it's something innate or if he can learn to have that manner of kindness, too, if he trains himself diligently enough.

He's used to molding himself to fit the wants and whims of those around him, and though since meeting Opal he's sworn off bending to the will of others, he can make an exception for Gloria.

It's strange, because Hop has every reason to distance himself or stew in his bitterness, at least, but each defeat seems to have brought them closer together. He marvels at Gloria the same way Bede does, but there's no trace of envy in his eyes. He doesn't seethe in the way Bede has had a habit of doing (a habit he is trying to do away with, now, because Opal's teaching him how to let go and her guidance has thus far been successful).

He asks her why, if he is her best friend and she so adores him, she'd crush his dreams to dust like she has.

Her first response is a one-shouldered shrug, her mouth full with curry. When she's chewed and swallowed, she offers a more substantial reply. "We're rivals. It's what we do. I'm not gonna go easy on him just 'cause he's my friend. Besides, I'm a good Trainer. I know I am. It'd be a waste if I didn't put all my talent and hard work to good use, wouldn't it?"

A cutthroat answer for a girl of her size, but she has a point. She's more of a pragmatist than one would think.

She must have got used to being interviewed, being in and out of press conferences as of late, because she continues: "The League, the Gym Challenge, everything is set up so that there can only ever be one Trainer reigning supreme at a time. Only the strongest of the strong can come out on top. It's the way things have always been, and I'm in no position to change it." She takes another bite, stares up at the branches overhead pensively. "I don't like it or dislike it. It's just the reality us Trainers live. To borrow a phrase from Unovan, it is what it is. That's the rough translation, anyway."

She's thought about it more deeply than he'd expect, what with her propensity to bolt at the first mention of any topic more complex or with more emotional weight than training regimens or her latest favorite sweet. Bede blinks at her, but she's still looking up at the sky.

"But you don't feel bad about it in the slightest?"

Another shrug. "I didn't feel bad when I beat Leon, and he'd built his entire life around being the unbeatable Champion. To the victor go the spoils." Where in the world did she pick up that phrase? Does she read? "I'm just the best of the best, and I've earned my spot the same way he earned his when he became Champion."

So it was never anything personal, not towards Hop or towards Leon or towards Bede. Not towards Marnie or any of the Trainers along the numerous routes she's traversed whose names she's long since forgot. He'd been self-serving and sick with wishful thinking to believe she'd ever been spiteful towards him, had ever conspired against him in a bid to ruin his life.

"Do you mean to say that Hop isn't deserving?"

She laughs. "Hop is deserving of lots of things. He's a great Trainer, just not as great as me." She winks. It doesn't come out quite right, looks more like the whole left side of her face is spasming. "But he's carved out his own path in life, and if anything, I think he's grateful to me for helping him find it."

Her plate's been scraped clean. She leans down to grab the laces of her right boot. "You know," she's already laughing as she starts, "Hop taught me how to tie my shoes, back when we were kids. I got so frustrated once that I cried, so he showed me how it was done. He's always been loads smarter than me." One lace wrapped around her index finger and the other crossing over, at the age of fifteen apparently she's still struggling.

She isn't exactly one of Galar's greatest thinkers, but Bede can see fleeting hints of something deeper than what she chooses to show most of the time, some flicker of intelligence that bubbles up to the surface until she's decided she needs to reel it back in.

If he hadn't been so abrasive to her during their Gym Challenge, if he had indeed been more like Hop, maybe things would be different now. Opal has taught him how to stop shifting the blame for his actions onto others, but things remain said that can't be taken back, and he wonders if she thinks about it as often as he does. It doesn't seem like it, given how sweet she's been on him, but his words echo back once in a while and he knows she must remember.

Everything is working against him, but he tries regardless. "You're smart enough, Gloria." He says it like he means it because he does. "Give yourself a bit more credit." He brings a tentative hand over to lightly squeeze her arm, comforting her though she's given no indication of needing it.

She looks up at him at last, her laces bunched together in a haphazard Scorbunny-ear style. The wind whistles through the trees, carrying the smell of blossoms and gently blowing the stray lock of hair at her left temple, and then it blows through one of her ears and out the other. She tosses her head back, laughs, and throws an arm across his shoulders. She's too close again, but he doesn't mind so much. "Oh, but I love ya, Bede!"

He wants to recoil as if stung, flinch as she leans against him, but it wouldn't be the kind thing to do. He moves a hand over to pat hers stiffly and she giggles all the while.

"You, too."

Bede is tall, taller than a sixteen-year-old boy should be and still growing. He looms over both Hop and Gloria, though Hop is slowly beginning to catch up. He's still only a head or so taller than Gloria, though, but it works to his advantage because she only has to edge up slightly on her toes to press a kiss to his cheek, startlingly close to the corner of his mouth.

That does it: Hop smiles like he's just become Champion himself, and Bede, from on high, an easy thing to pick out of the crowd due simply to his impressive stature, feels his gut roil. Gloria doesn't see him because her eyes are on Hop and Hop is looking at her and they don't seem to notice anyone else around them at all, not even when a thrill of noise runs through the throngs of people.

He goes on back to Ballonlea, and Opal, as if she knows, puts the kettle on, sits with him and doesn't ask questions.

He tries not to dream of her anymore, but it's hard. When he can't hold his mind at bay, his visions are different: he's no longer a prince but a monster, a hulking Grimmsnarl come to steal Galar's princess from her throne. She vanquishes him herself, wielding the fabled sword, and he returns to the woods from whence he came and never shows his face to her again.

It's not who he is and not who he wants to be, so he stops thinking of what it might be like to stroke her hair or brush his lips against her knuckles and the fair skin of her face. He instead turns his focus to his training, and when she comes directly to Ballonlea to see him, looking more like a vagabond than a princess, he doesn't let his mind flit to anything more than the cordial dimensions of their relationship.

She's not here to battle him, though. "Just wanted to say hello. I haven't seen you in a while. Everything okay?"

"Everything is fine. Being a Gym Leader of my caliber is demanding, and I've had to keep myself stationed here because Opal has fallen ill." It's entirely a lie, that last part; Opal is fine, as alert and discerning as usual.

Gloria's face falls, worry etching between and under her eyes. "Oh, no, is she all right?"

"She will be, in time."

In time, he'll forget about this and go back to becoming the strongest Gym Leader in Galar, back to challenging her for her spot and maybe, if the stars align, he'll go on to become their rightful ruler.

Right now, though, there's a dull hurt in his stomach as Gloria looks at him, and he thinks to ask Opal how long it takes for the feeling to pass.

"Ballonlea seems a bit livelier ever since you took over for her. Opal went strong for a long time, and her reign was legendary, if you ask me, but what this place needed was a young face representing it. A fresh start, if you take my meaning." She walks beside him, meandering too close, as always, and they sit on a bench just on the outskirts. "You've become really popular, Bede. Don't think I haven't noticed all the boys and girls lining up to ask for your hand." She grins, nudges him with an elbow, and he acknowledges her with a shallow, closed-mouth laugh.

It's a fact: he's amassed his share of admirers, a sizable portion of his unexpectedly massive fanbase. Opal delights in sitting at the dining table with him and brandishing her letter opener, watching Bede's face flush as one or the other of them reads aloud.

Her legs dangle over the edge of their seat. Bede's heels dig into the loam underfoot. They sit for some time, encased in the colorful haze of the town, overlooking the Inkay and the Morelull that dance among the gnarled roots.

He likes Ballonlea more than he'd thought he would. There's comfort in the secrets that the encroaching forest keeps and the silence that settles like the canopy above, the relative peace he hadn't known he needed. Here, there are less interviewers to dodge and less old wounds to reopen.

"I know you don't much care for Wyndon," Gloria says, like she can read his mind (and he wonders for one unsettling moment if this really might be the case), "but I'd be chuffed if you could come to my next match. I'm going up against Hop, and I know you two don't talk much, but he's got nothing against you. Really. He considers you as much a friend as I do."

Bede exhales like he's ridding himself of some weight. He still doesn't know if he can call Gloria a friend, certainly doesn't think he can say that of Hop, but there's a twinge in his chest that isn't all bad when he thinks about it. It does, actually, feel kind of good, almost good enough to undo the tightness in the pit of his stomach.

"I'll consider it."

It's enough to make Gloria beam so wide her teeth gleam in the pink light, her cheeks gone rosy. She looks charming like that, until she throws herself off the bench and balls one hand into a fist, and then she's the picture of fire and mercilessness again.

"I didn't come here for this," she says, "but what do you say you and me have a battle? Not as Gym Leader and Champion, not as colleagues, just as Bede and Gloria."

"Just as rivals?"

"Just as rivals," Gloria agrees, "and as friends."

When a heavy moment's passed, Bede says all right, and Gloria shoots off into the Tangle. He shouts for her to slow because she's faster than she looks on her short bow legged run, and when she doesn't, he bounds ahead, stays by her side and shows her how to find the best spot among the spores and the maze of soaring tree trunks.