Entry #54

I met Roxanne today. The Rustboro Diplomat.

I wonder if she believes in miracles.

This is how the story went.

It started a few months ago, on one of her teaching days. It was her duty since her father had died over a year ago—gather all the children of Rustboro, and teach them everything her father had once taught her. It was never about the history, about the curse, about how she would forever be stuck in the stone cavern. It was always about rocks and minerals and more rocks.

She felt a pang of sympathy as she glanced over at the children.

Occasionally, they would leave the cavern in the mornings to run around by the ocean—but it was never enough. Their skin was so pale that it almost seemed sickly, and their palms and feet were scarred from the rugged stones that they ate on, slept on, and lived on.

Her father had despised the idea of houses, of estates. He believed in a village of stone and people. Of using fire to keep everyone warm, of hunting for food instead of seeking help from merchants. But it worked for Rustboro—it worked. No one attacked their village after the war, knowing very well that only Rustboro villagers had adjusted to the dark of the cave, knowing immensely well that part of their studies involved learning how to stone one to death in seconds.

But Roxanne stared at the children and sighed.

So many small faced with big, curious eyes. They were smarter than rocks and minerals and more rocks. They had created torches for their cave to protect them from the wintry chill. Not just any torches—they made torches that had different smells to them, letting the sweet scent of cinnamon waft across the stones. They had so many questions that she couldn't answer, had so many ideas that they would never use in this cavern.

Moping about it wouldn't help her, though. Nor would it help the children.

"Does anyone remember what an everstone does?" Roxanne called out.

A small child instantly raised his hand. "It stops Pokémon from evolving, Diplomat Roxanne."

"Excellent. Which minerals in the everstone cause that phenomenon?"

The kids looked dumbfounded now. A few of them rolled their eyes and shrugged. Roxanne sighed.

"Rocks are the most powerful thing in the world," she told them. "We must know all about them. After all, we would be nothing without them. They make the very land we stand on. They help us with the creation of fire, and they are the shelter over our head. They are sacred to us."

"I disagree."

His voice came from the back of the cavern, his footsteps gentle against the gravel.

Even in the dark of the cave, Roxanne could see him quite clearly. The blue sapphires over his head washed over his skin in a light blue, making his eyes seem even more icy. He was strikingly beautiful—and he was dressed like he knew that. A white undershirt, black overcoat, silver cuffs along his sleeves.

He was most definitely not from here. And he was most definitely not a child.

"Rocks have nothing against steel," he continued.

The children—damn them—made little hoots. Roxanne scoffed.

"Steel comes from iron ore," she pointed out. "Which, as we all know, comes from rocks."

The man did not seem one bit perturbed. He reached down to the ground, plucking a stone in his hand. Then, he threw it against the wall, watching smugly as it crumbled.

"That was a rock," he said. "And now, for a bar of steel…"

She hadn't seen the small band of steel in his hand—barely the size of a finger. He smashed it against the wall. He sauntered over to it, stomping on it, raking it against the ground. Then, he lifted it back into his hands.

Not a single dent or mark on it.

"Rock is nothing if you don't do anything to it," the man said. "You must temper it to make it into something powerful."

Roxanne stood there, baffled. Her students were staring at her, waiting for her to prove him wrong, to make this grown ass man regret his words.

But she had nothing. And that stung.

"I'm sorry," she said coldly. "You are not part of this class. I think you should remain silent."

"Yes, ma'am."

But he still stood there, arms folded. A calculating curiosity in his eyes as Roxanne continued her class.

"Now, children, Quick Claws. This is known to come from a very fast Pokémon. Does anyone know which Pokémon that is?"

"Zangoose," came the chorus of kids.

"Correct. Zangoose and…"

"Sneasel."

"Correct. Sneasel, hailing from the Johto region. And what do both Zangoose and Sneasel have in common?"

"They don't evolve, miss."

"Correct—"

The man spoke again, then. "That is not correct."

Roxanne nearly scowled at him. "Pardon?"

"Sneasel does evolve. Into Weavile."

"Don't be ridiculous. Everyone knows Sneasel does not evolve. This is foolery."

The man tilted his head to the side. "Oh? And what is your proof that it does not exist?"

"What is your proof that it does exist?"

"I have seen one."

"That is not proof. You could be lying."

"As could you."

A few of the children laughed at the verbal sparring. Roxanne felt her face grow hot.

"Listen here," she said, her voice dangerously low. "You are a strange man intruding on my class. I am a Diplomat who is in charge of teaching and raising these children. I am not the liar."

The man seemed to consider this. "That is true. I do not think you are lying, if I am completely honest. I think, perhaps, you are simply ignorant and oblivious."

That did it.

Roxanne stormed past the children, wrenching the man by his collar.

"Get out!" she snapped. "I do not want you here! And if you step foot in Rustboro one more time, I will have you stoned to death. We'll see how your bloody steel handles that."

And though her fingers were curled around his throat, the man smiled.

"As you wish, Diplomat Roxanne."

He turned to leave, brushing her hand away as if she was nothing. Then, with his back to her, his arm in the air, he cleared his throat.

"By the way, my name is Steven Stone. I am the Prince of Sinnoh."

Roxanne's jaw dropped as he left the cavern.

Oh, by the stinking fucking oceans.

~.~

Roxanne didn't think too much of Steven Stone.

After all, she didn't need to. Sinnoh had no relations to Hoenn—no region wanted anything to do with Hoenn after the Hoenn War. Who wanted to make economic trades with a region that was half buried under water?

Still, she had to do something when she realised her students were abandoning classes.

All she had to do was follow the sound of gasping children and clanging metal. It wasn't hard to track down people in Rustboro—when the whole village was a cavern, noise and news travelled far too quickly.

Still, the kids had done a good job at keeping Steven Stone a secret.

Especially considering that he was making them weapons.

Heating up the metal with fire from a strange, large Pokémon—hammering down on the molten steel with a hammer. She had heard rumours about the Prince of Sinnoh—about his grandfather, Duke Rowan, being a blacksmith. Still…

"I told you to get out of here," Roxanne snapped.

Steven Stone glanced up, hot dagger in hand, smiling. "I am out of here."

"How can you possibly be out of here? I told you—"

She froze as she stepped forward.

He was right.

He was passed the line—the sharp, deep line drawn across the ground where Rustboro and Vendaturf borders met.

"I'm in Vendaturf's territory," Steven said. "And their Diplomat won't kick me out, as they do not have one."

It was true. No one from Vendaturf had been involved in that war. None of them had been cursed.

"Students, get back to class," Roxanne said sharply, unmoving as the children scrambled around her. Then, she glared at the strange prince. "You… You stay here. I have words for you tonight."

"Yes, ma'am."

"And stop calling me that. I do not care if you are a prince, a king, or Arceus in disguise. If you are in my territory, you address me as Diplomat Roxanne."

"Yes, ma'am."

She wanted to strangle him. But she couldn't.

He was on the other side of the damned line.

"What do you want?"

Steven Stone was still on the very border of Vendaturf, lounging against the stone wall as Roxanne stormed up to him that night. His eyes were closed, but he pried one open to take her in.

She wondered what he thought of her. She had been trapped in Rustboro for so long that the sun hardly touched her skin, and all her clothes were passed to her from her maids that had travelled to make desperate trades. Her father had banned them from giving away rocks from their cavern to people of other villages—especially Petalburg, directly south from them. Instead, they had to rely on the kindness of those from Vendaturf. Many of her maids and servants had feigned falling in love with a hopelessly romantic Vendaturf villager, only to use their materials and steal their harvests.

Was Roxanne particularly proud of it? No.

But she believed enough about spirits to know she did not want her father haunting her if she made any trades with Diplomat Norman.

"I want to know more about Hoenn," Steven answered. "And who better to learn from than someone who loves to teach and is remarkably good at it?"

"Flattery will not get you anywhere."

"Will honesty?"

"No."

"Shame."

Roxanne hesitated, before adding, "Though, I would like to hear your honest thoughts."

It was an odd request, she knew. And she didn't know if she even wanted to hear what the stranger had to say, really.

But she was a Diplomat—surely the Prince of Sinnoh would know a thing or two about running a village.

"My honest thoughts?" Steven Stone repeated. "My honest thoughts are that you don't believe what you are saying, Roxanne. You teach your students as if you are trying very hard to remember things yourself. You don't care that much about rocks. You don't care about what minerals are inside rocks."

"What do I care about then?"

"You tell me."

Roxanne considered scowling at him. Telling him that he knew nothing about her. That he was wrong.

But instead, she sat on the ground beside him. The border of two villages between them.

"My father," she said softly. "Making my father proud."

Steven Stone didn't even glance at her. "And there it is. It always comes down to father issues."

Roxanne gave him a baffled stare. He laughed.

"My closest friend is supposed to be here with me," he explained. "She backed out, because she feels miserable all the time. Why? Because she thinks that, since she is missing a limb, she is a failure to her father. She thinks she will never become a great pirate like him. Hell, even the Queen of Sinnoh—my mother—her whole story of how she rose to power stems from deeply rooted father issues."

"And you? Do you have…so-called, father issues?"

"Perhaps I do. Or perhaps I do not."

There was a mischievous glint in his eyes. And Roxanne couldn't help it—she felt her guard dropping, felt herself smile.

"As for you, Diplomat Roxanne, yours is so deeply rooted that you feel you cannot have your own vision of Rustboro."

Roxanne didn't dare meet his eyes, even as she murmured, "I love living in this cavern."

"Perhaps you do. But do you love leading this place, teaching children about why rocks are important, and never getting to learn more about the world?"

She said nothing. They both already knew the answer.

"I want to leave so bad," she said quietly.

"Then why don't you?"

"Because of freaking Wallace and N—"

She stopped herself from blurting out their whole history. Instead, she just felt her shoulders sag.

"I should go," she said.

He nodded. "Will you be back?"

"No."

But she did come back. Every night, even. There was just something so alluring about him—something so mysterious and charming, something that made her stomach turn when he challenged her with his arched brow.

Hell, she especially loved it when they bickered.

"There is no way you are telling me that Nosepass evolves."

He grinned. "It does. And it grows hair."

"How? It's a rock!"

"You tell me, Roxanne. Are you not the rock expert?"

"Well—"

"And it wears a hat."

"No chance. I definitely do not believe you now."

It became a tradition. Every night, after supper, she would come to the border of Rustboro and Vendaturf to talk to him. They spoke about anything-Pokémon, Sinnoh, and even the war. Anything but rocks.

"So, what happens when if you cross the line?" Steven asked one day.

Roxanne glanced down at the line between them. It had become tradition to sit across from each other, on either side of the line, where neither could touch the other. It felt oddly comfortable.

"You don't want to see," she told him.

"I definitely do now."

Roxanne sighed. "If a Diplomat leaves their territory, we become…" She played with her fingers, the words escaping her. "I don't know how to explain it."

"Don't explain it, then. Show it."

And so she did.

She took one step across the line, into Vendaturf. And though she did not know what she looked like to Steven, she felt all the energy suck out of her. It was like someone had drained all the blood, all the spirit from inside her and left her like a withering, barren puppet that could barely take more than a few steps. Her back hunched, her limbs shaking and weak.

If it was anything like what would happen to her father when he crossed the line, she knew there would be agony on her face.

Instantly, she stepped back. The second she was in Rustboro territory, she felt it all race back to her – the blood, the relief, the pulsing adrenaline.

"It's the curse," she explained as Steven's mouth opened. "Norman, Watson, Wallace, Brawly, my father… The Sea Temple called them selfish. And, as a curse—and to keep the map from ever coming together again—we are cursed to stay in our own lands. When we leave, we become withered, weak, and ugly."

"Your father was one of the selfish cursed pirates," Steven finally said. "So why are you paying for his mistakes?"

She shrugged. "It curses the whole family bloodline. Besides, it could be worse—Norman's very own children were cursed to stay in a land far away from him."

"Why? Were they also selfish?"

"It is rumoured those children have a special connection to the temple. It runs in their family—when they are children, they have visions of the Sea Temple. As they grow older, the visions become more distant. Because the twins are still young, I suspect they are separated from all the selfish Diplomats to stop the Diplomats manipulating information from them."

Steven Stone's gaze was trained on the wall. Those calculating eyes buzzing. "Runs in their blood…"

"What are you thinking of?"

"Nothing important."

Before she could protest, Steven gave her one of his dazzling smiles.

"For what it is worth, Roxanne," he added, "when you crossed the line, you may have been withered and weak. But certainly not ugly."

And that was the day Roxanne decided that Steven Stone could stay around.

He became her safe haven within a week of him first interrupting her class. It didn't matter if her day was good or bad—it didn't matter if she was busy or not. Every night, before sleeping, she visited him.

"I had a terrible day," she told him.

She loved the concern in his eyes. The way he would tilt his head and furrow his brow. "What happened?"

"One of my students turned out to be an Aqua Pirate. They tried to steal the map from me." She clenched her fist. "Nowhere is safe these days…"

It had been scary. Her very own trusted students pulling out a dagger on her, darting for her heart and demanding the map. But the hardest thing had been ordering her Geodude to smash the student in the face with its fist. And even though the child had been a traitor, a pirate, a thief, it had still hurt to see a child's body lying helpless on the ground, blood oozing from their nose.

Steven could see the tears in her eyes. He held out his arms. "Come here—"

He stopped as he glanced down a the line between them. Roxanne gave a laugh that sounded far too much like a sob.

"You can come back in here," she said. "As Diplomat, I give you permission to hug me."

"Can I stay after the hug?"

"Perhaps."

And so he crossed the line, his warm arms around her while she wept.

"Nowhere is safe," she mumbled against his shoulder. "If someone found the map…"

"You could give me the map," he suggested. "I could keep it safe. If pirates try to raid Rustboro, they will not find anything."

"You would do that for me?"

He shrugged. "You cannot afford for it to go missing, after all. There is only one."

"Actually, about that…"

Roxanne stepped out of his arms, wiping the tears from her eyes.

"It's odd," she began. "I have tried burning the map, or drowning it in water to see if it would break the curse. And every time it has been burnt, or eaten by a freaking Zigzagoon… the map appears again. It just reappears suddenly in my own hand. Except it comes with great pain—all over my body. Like a reminder that I failed my duty of protecting it."

"That's quite remarkable."

"Remarkable?" Roxanne repeated, incredulous. "It's scary. Knowing that I will never be able to leave this cavern. Knowing that I will never see anything outside."

Steven gave her a warm smile. "I guess we just have to hope that good things come to you instead, then."

"Indeed, Steven Stone. Indeed."

She didn't know where she found the courage. But, in that moment, with their eyes locked and their bodies warm against one another, Roxanne stood on her toes and kissed the Prince of Sinnoh.

He froze, his eyes wide. He didn't even try to kiss her back.

Roxanne quickly stepped back. Her cheeks burning.

She waited for him to say something. Anything about the kiss.

Instead, he tilted his head and furrowed his brows. That same look he was confused.

"Do you believe in miracles, Roxanne?"

Roxanne glared hard at her bare feet.

Stupid.

Why did she do that?

Why did she believe that he would like her?

Why did she think she would find happiness in this damned cave?

"Of course not," she said bitterly. "There are no miracles. Only curses."

She wished she had said something different once she looked up at his face. Disappointment sat there, between his eyes and on his lips. Like she had said something wrong.

"I should go," she quickly said. "I need to keep the map safely away from the border."

Steven's eyes widened. "The map is with you now?"

"No one ever bothers to check inside my boots."

"Clever lass."

"Have a good evening, Steven Stone."

He grabbed her elbow. She hoped desperately he would yank her into his arms again. Kiss her back.

But instead, he asked, "May I sleep on the Rustboro side of the line tonight?"

"Whatever tickles your fancy."

And that was that.

That night, she had been exhausted. All the crying, all the frantic thoughts about Steven Stone—it had all gotten into her head. By the time she had tossed off her boots, dressed into a robe, and wrapped herself in blankets, she had barely been able to keep her eyes open.

She only awoke when she heard her Geodude cry out. And, when she opened her eyes, she found her Geodude and Nosepass sprawled on the cavern floor, dented and gasping.

And there was someone digging through her boots.

"Hey! Stop!"

The figure froze. Roxanne instantly jumped up and chased after them.

But they were quick. Their boots were like quicksilver in the night, while hers were being shredded and torn by the jagged crystals littered across the ground.

They were fast – too fast. By the time Roxanne was able to see who it was, they had already crossed passed Vendaturf.

Silver eyes. Silver hair. An apologetic, thoughtful smile.

Steven Stone.

He stood on the other side of the border, a fragment of the map tightly clenched in his fist.

Roxanne's head was reeling.

No.

Not Steven Stone.

No—

"I may not be able to cross the line, but my guards can," Roxanne hissed. "I will have them come after you. I will—"

Steven only sighed. And, at his side, she saw something—a Pokémon. An Aggron.

"I am sorry about this, Roxanne."

And, with a single flick towards the ceiling, Steven's Aggron's eyes glowed blue.

And Roxanne had to jump back as stones crumbled and fell from the ceiling over the cavern, rolling and tumbling down the sides, plummeting towards her.

She had just managed to dart back in time to see what he had done.

He had barricaded Vendaturf with boulders. He had blocked her out.

Then came the pain. Darting through her whole body, squeezing at her heart.

You failed, Roxanne.

And the map she was sworn to protect was in her hand again, crumpled and sad. Respawned.

But it didn't matter. The danger was already out there.

One part of the map was already out there.

With Steven fucking Stone.

Entry #56

Perhaps I should feel guilty for what I did to Roxanne. Perhaps I should go back and return the map.

I wonder what will become of her. Will she crumble like rock? Or will she temper herself into steel?

If only August could have met her. I think they would have gotten along quite swiftly.