In this chapter, Kate gets some much-needed closure in some of her issues… we get to explore the hard difficulty she's been going through in her life… climbing the stairs up to the mural on Stow-on-Side. Will she be able to rise to the occasion?
Pokemon Academy Best Girl Elimination Round is in the final leg. Some girls are probably out of the running, but nothing's set in stone just yet! Vote for your 5 favorites, the poll is in my profile, right at the top. Time's running out, make sure you get your votes in!
Nominated: Sango, Cynthia, Elaina, Kate, Dakota, Ayame, Marion, Kitty, Serefina, Madison, Alcea
DJ Dib Dab: You should probably hold off, they touch a bit on the myths, which could be considered a spoiler.
ConfusedCradily: I think Kate wants a little bit of space from Blake after what happened, and Blake probably feels similar.
Aquahaze675: Little bit of both.
Thunder Fire: I didn't, not yet.
Badoobadoop: They suck.
Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings
Chapter 264
After a rather meager lunch of canned lasagna heated over a fire (quite a step down from the delicious cuisine they had been eating in the hotel), the students began the exhausting climb up towards the mural of Stow-on-Side.
Kate wanted to die. She was trailing near the rear of the group, the only one doing around as bad as her was Nikita. And even the frail girl was ahead of her! Kate was at the absolute back.
"How… are you… able to… keep… going…?" Kate panted, clutching the railing desperately as she hoisted herself up the next stair, and then the next.
"I swim," Nikita replied, glancing behind her at the struggling girl. "So I'm pretty used to extended aerobics, even if hiking makes me… sore."
"Lucky…" Kate hissed.
"Also we've only been walking for like five minutes."
Kate looked down at the long staircase behind her. They weren't even a fourth of the way up. She scowled. There was no way she was getting up this mountain by herself…
Kate glanced up narrow stairway, towards the front. She saw Sango chatting away with Doctor Elizabeth Skye, the woman wearing a big smile on her face as she discussed things with the younger girl. They were both walking at relaxed pace, like this steep path was nothing for them. Kate felt a pang of envy in her breast. She wanted to talk more with Doctor Skye… she had so many questions to ask her. But she wasn't in very good shape, and there was no way she'd ever be able to catch up with them. She sighed, and felt some strength leak out of her with her next step, bracing herself against the hand rail.
By the time I get up to the mural, I won't even have the strength to enjoy it, Kate inwardly groaned, hoisting herself up another stair. She had absolutely no strength left in her legs, she felt like she was dragging a ball and chain behind her as she made the climb. If not for the railing, she would have collapsed. The afternoon sun beating overhead didn't help things, either. She may have put on sunscreen, but she still felt like she was roasting.
How long had she been walking for? How much further did she have to go?
"This is so fucking…"
"Exhausting?"
Kate blinked, raising her head, wiping sweat and tangles of hair out of her eyes. Standing in front of her was…
"Doctor Skye?" Kate sputtered, her face flushing even deeper, this time not out of fatigue. "What… how?"
She thought that the doctor was up at the front. Why did she come down here, to talk to someone like her?
"You look like you're having a rough time," Elizabeth said, looking down at the girl. Her voice was like a song from the angels, soothing Kate's exhaustion. "Would you like a hand?"
Kate swallowed, and nodded.
"Yes, please."
Elizabeth smiled.
"Good. Then let's see what we can do."
She reached down to her belt, and withdrew a pokeball. She released the pokemon from within, a furry bird with two heads. It didn't have notable wings, rather long, slender legs clearly designed for running distances.
"Donna! My friend Kate is in a bit of bind, do you think maybe you could lend a hand?" Elizabeth asked sweetly.
"Do!" The Doduo nodded both of her heads eagerly, glancing to Kate. Elizabeth helped Kate up onto the back of the bird pokemon.
"Thank you, thank you so much," Kate gushed, smiling at Elizabeth. The archaeologist nodded.
"Well, I saw that you were lagging behind," Elizabeth giggled. "And I was worried you might not make it up to the top. Water?"
Elizabeth reached into her backpack and handed up a bottle of water, Kate unscrewing the cap and gulping it down, the cold liquid feeling so refreshing going down her throat.
"Thank you," Kate gulped, handing back the bottle and wiping her lips. But her throat was already starting to feel dry again.
"Donna, let's just go for a trot, okay?" Elizabeth patted the bird's feathery back, encouraging her to move forward. "I know you don't like stairs that much, so no need to run."
"Doduo," the Doduo nodded again.
"Don't like stairs, huh?" Kate chuckled, running her fingers through the bird pokemon's feathers in a comforting fashion. "I guess that's something that the two of us… three of us? Well, it's something that we have in common."
"Do!" Both Doduo's heads chirped. The bird pokemon began walking up the stairs. She wasn't going much faster than Kate had been, but the climb was clearly a lot less stressful on the pokemon, and she clearly had a lot more stamina than Kate did at the moment.
"So Kate."
Kate blinked, glancing down. Elizabeth was still next to her, matching pace with her Doduo. She was smiling up at the girl.
"Oh! Doctor Skye, you're still here, um-"
"Please, you can just call me Elizabeth," Elizabeth giggled. Kate blushed. It felt a little… wrong to refer to her by her name, but…
"I-If you say so, Elizabeth," Kate murmured, nodding. "Th-thank you again, for-"
"Oh, it's no trouble, Donna loves helping people," Elizabeth laughed. "Isn't that right, sweetie?"
"Doduo!"
"Thank you, Donna," Kate smiled.
"You know, Kate, I've actually been meaning to talk with you."
"With me?" Kate gasped. "Really? Wh-why?"
"Well, you're quite a big fan of mine, as you showed back in the bath a few nights back," Elizabeth laughed.
"O-oh, that, yeah, well, that was, um…" Kate, still a little flustered, was rather embarrassed at her… fangirling over Doctor Skye. "I was a little starstruck, sorry."
"No, don't apologize! I actually enjoyed it! See, I might be well-known in the scientific community, but it's not like I'm a celebrity," Elizabeth said, shaking her head. "So meeting an actual fangirl, that was… I really liked it. Getting to talk with someone who knew my work, and actually have a discussion about it, you know?"
"I like your work, yeah," Kate said. "See, I mean… is that weird? Sorry, it's gotta be a little weird, a high schooler who likes research papers on ancient pokemon murals and old languages, you wouldn't expect that, right?"
Elizabeth paused, studying Kate carefully.
"This isn't really about archaeology, now is it?" She murmured.
Kate flinched, her head dropping.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Elizabeth asked quietly. "I know I'm just a stranger, but if you need a kind ear to listen, then I'd be happy to-"
"I…" Kate cut her off before Elizabeth could finish talking. She turned and looked at the woman, tears in her eyes. She wore a smile, but it looked weary and out of place, like it was a struggle to put on. Elizabeth felt sad for the girl just looking at it.
"If you don't mind, I guess… can you listen a little bit?" Kate asked. She couldn't really… she had been feeling weighed down since last night, and of course she couldn't bother Blake with her worries. And if she called her highness, well… she'd already pestered Alcea with her life story so often, she didn't want to lay more of her problems on her.
"I would love to," Elizabeth smiled.
"I guess I just… I've always felt out of place, you know?" Kate sighed. "Like I don't belong. Like… I've been living a lie. My family, we were really poor when I was born, but my dad… he made a fortune in cosmetics and perfumes, and, well… suddenly the clothes from good will were gone, replaced with designer things. The rickety old truck became a sports car and the ramshackle apartment above a shop became a fancy house. I felt out of place in my own life, and well…"
Kate sighed again.
"The girls at my new school noticed too. It didn't take them long before the ostracized me… bullied me… and my love of poison type pokemon didn't make it any better. It just gave them another reason to hate me."
"That sounds very difficult," Elizabeth said sympathetically, reaching up and placing a comforting hand on Kate's leg.
"It really was," Kate said, nodding. "I… I struggled so hard… I didn't… I couldn't go on…"
She was on the verge of breaking down, but a bump on the stairs shook her out of it. Donna tilted one of her heads back to look pointedly at Kate. She swallowed, and regained her composure, getting back on track with her conversation.
"There was a girl, Valerie Chiester," Kate said. "She… for a long, long time I thought she was my friend. But she… she was only pretending the entire time, all in order to betray me and hurt me. Because she didn't care."
"Oh my…" Elizabeth gasped. Something like that… it was horrible! "She… what? How…?"
"Last night… Blake and I… we went to have dinner with her. She acted like she wanted to make amends for all the pain she had caused me. But it was all a trick. Just a big deception on her part, to give me hope and then tear me down and humiliate me. It… even just thinking about it now… I haven't fully gotten used to the idea, you know? I still remember moments we shared that I thought were so meaningful, but… they were all lies, all of them."
"I see…" Elizabeth frowned. "This happened last night?"
Kate nodded.
"That really does seem difficult," Elizabeth said. "You must really feel hurt and lost, huh? So what do you want to do?"
"What do you mean?" Kate asked, confused.
"It seems to me like you're aware that you feel out of your element. So what are you going to do about it? Do you still feel that way now?" Elizabeth asked.
"Why does that… how-"
"I'll explain in a moment, just… continue?"
Kate was confused, but she nodded all the same.
"I… when I went to the Pokemon Academy, I tried to fit in. I suppressed my love of poison types, and tried to be a grass type trainer because I thought that was a way I could get acknowledgment from others. It wasn't until I met Blake that I realized I don't have to continue being the way I was. That I could find people who appreciated me for myself, and wanted to be friends with me for me."
Elizabeth smiled.
"It sounds to me like you've already found your own path, then."
Kate blinked.
"Wh-what do you mean?" Kate asked, confused.
"When you started, I was worried that you would try hiding yourself off from the world, and pretend to be someone you weren't just to be accepted. You said you felt out of place, after all. So of course, pretending to be someone you're not would give you that feeling, don't you agree?" Elizabeth laughed. "I'm sorry to say, I can't feel the same. I've known what I wanted to be, an archaeologist, from very early on."
A sad smile crossed her face.
"Although, right now… I guess you could say I'm playing a role that I haven't really been prepared for. I do feel a lot like I'm… out of place."
"What do you mean?" Kate asked. "But you're amazing, and talented, and smart, and beautiful, and you're just… you know?"
"Maybe, but… I'm more than that now," Elizabeth laughed. "Right now, I'm not just an archaeologist. I'm a stepmother-to-be, and well… I'm a little bit worried that I might not be doing it right. So I guess recently… I've been in a situation that made me a little empathetic to what you're going through, wouldn't you agree?"
Elizabeth sighed.
"Before I met Sango… I was scared that she wouldn't like me. That I would be a total failure of a stepmother," Elizabeth admitted. "I was afraid that I would have to play a role, that I wouldn't be able to be… real for her, that I would wear a smile and still feel out of place. But then… Sango accepted me for who I was. Not as a replacement for her mother, but… as someone who could be close to her, someone who could hear her out and be a friend to her. And that was how I knew that I wouldn't have to pretend, that I would be able to have a relationship with her that wasn't just about me trying to play a role, but as someone genuine."
Elizabeth smiled at Kate.
"You have people like that too, right? Like Blake?"
Kate blushed, and nodded.
"And her highness, Alcea…" Kate agreed.
"In that case, don't you think you've found a place that you can belong?" Elizabeth asked. "People you can be with, who you won't feel like you're pretending around? Who won't make you feel like you don't belong with them, or are out of place?"
Kate flushed red. They absolutely did, that was true. She really had found some people who did care about her.
"And with that in mind… maybe it's okay if you ignore what that girl said, don't you think?" Elizabeth asked.
"Ignore? But-"
"She hurt you, I know, and it's painful to think back on all those times, I'm sure," Elizabeth said. She knew full well how painful certain memories could be. "But… isn't that all in your past? Don't you think that it's okay if you look forward, and think about all the people around you who care, who want you around? If you let yourself be buried in the past, then you'll just find yourself swallowed by it, like you're doing right now?"
Kate paused to consider that. She didn't say anything in response, so Elizabeth continued speaking to her.
"I know this might be coming from kind of a hypocritical place, and I know you don't know me very well," Elizabeth admitted, "but you see… I…"
Elizabeth swallowed.
"I had a daughter," Elizabeth admitted. "She was such a wonderful, cheerful little girl. Her father died, so I had to raise her on my own. And I loved that little girl. And then one day… she was taken from me."
Kate gasped in shock.
"It was so sudden," Elizabeth said. "I guess losing someone like that always is. One morning I was cooking her up some pancakes, and before I knew it she was taken by the Unown, to who-knows-where."
Elizabeth looked up at the cloudless sky, and sighed.
"For a long time after that, I buried myself in my research. I was determined to get my little girl back, and I didn't even think of my future. But then I met Uboss Akana. And he showed me that as hard as I would try to find my daughter, it didn't mean I had to give up on looking forward, either. So now, I'm moving ahead, one step at a time, while continuing my search. And someday I'll find her, I'm sure of it." Elizabeth turned back to Kate and gave her a smile that dwarfed the entire mountainside. "But until that day comes, I'm going to keep walking forward with a smile on my face. Don't you think you can try to do the same?"
Kate considered that, and nodded her head briefly.
"I… I kind of understand it," Kate admitted. She didn't want to be haunted by the ghost of Val forever. She wanted to be able to feel like she did before, when she and Blake were out on the town, sharing laughs and enjoying themselves. But that feeling of joy seemed so far away now, like it was another Kate entirely.
And not just because he rejected me, she bitterly remembered.
Elizabeth saw the scowl on her face, and her brow knit in concern. Kate was clearly dealing with something problematic.
"I'm not saying it's going to be easy," Elizabeth added. "You see, even right now, I'm still working on getting adjusted to life outside my work. But if you keep your head up, and focus on the people around you who care… I'm sure you'll be able to find your path too."
Kate looked at Elizabeth and resisted the urge to break into tears. Talking with this kindly older woman, she felt a sudden compelling urge to call up her own mother and talk with her again.
"Thank you," Kate said quietly.
"Hmm?"
"Really, thank you," she repeated, her voice a little louder. "I've really been dealing with some problems right now, and talking to you about this… hearing the stuff you've gone through…"
She turned to Elizabeth and smiled.
"Thank you, Docto- Elizabeth," she corrected herself. "This really means a lot to me. I don't know how long I would have continued wallowing in this, if you hadn't spoken with me."
"I'm glad I was able to help," Elizabeth said, nodding back at her. "You're about the same age as my daughter would have been, and seeing a young lady like you going through something so hard, I had to step in and see what I can do."
She scratched her short hair sheepishly.
"Maybe that's me still playing a role, trying to be the 'good mother' that I didn't have the chance to be before…"
Kate saw the look of sadness in Elizabeth's eyes, and exclaimed "no, no, you're wrong!"
"Wh-what?" Elizabeth was a little taken aback, stopping her walk up the stairs.
"Even if it is a role… you still did a lot for me," Kate said. "Really, I honestly appreciate your help. So isn't that enough, you think?"
Elizabeth smiled.
"Thank you, Kate," Elizabeth chuckled. "And you know… your friends have done a lot for you too, don't you think? Maybe they should get some thanks as well?"
Kate paused, her cheeks flushing.
"W-well, maybe," she said, shrugging her shoulders, turning away from Elizabeth in embarrassment. "I guess maybe later or something, shut up!"
Elizabeth laughed, this girl was a little too shy for her own good, it seemed. A little like Sango, and yet at the same time they were so different.
"Well there will be time for it later," Elizabeth said, looking up. They had almost finished the walk. "For now, here we are."
So they've finally got to the mural! What will they see in those ruins, I wonder?