8D

Arc II, The Plate of Time

Chapter Twenty-Six:

In the Slowest of Motions

Aurelio blinked at me.

"Why would you say that?" he finally asked, as quiet as the snowstorm allowed.

He didn't seem affronted or bothered in the slightest. It was an honest question.

"Because I have loved once," I responded. No poetry would charm this man. No words of love would sway him. Whatever I spoke, it had to be the most authentic truth. "This is what it felt like. The last time, it took much longer to realize it. But I recognize this warmth. Wherever you go, I think that I want to be the one who follows you. I want to see you sketch your drawings. I want you to read to me. I want to see you dreaming, even when I cannot myself. I want you to dream enough for the both of us, because whatever you desire yourself, I will bend time and space to allow it."

In his softening eyes, I noticed my own reflection. I was trembling.

"I don't think you realize what you're saying," he said.

"I understand it perfectly," I said, my voice stronger and verging on sarcasm. "I have spent millennia watching humanity. But nobody has ever blazed as brightly...or understood me as well as you do."

He smiled, more in his eyes than on his mouth. "It's difficult to understand someone who's been locked up in another dimension since the creation of the universe."

"Which is why it's a miracle that you understand me at all." When he didn't respond immediately, my pulse started quickening. "Please, Aurelio. Do what you will with this confession. Forget it. Let it flourish. Hold it in your heart until you inevitably die and I am still living on in the stars. Regardless, I'll keep those stars shining — for you."

I saw his mind twisting and working itself out. He falteringly began, "Many people can't say that they've received a love confession from an immortal—"

I awaited another betrayal.

The word Pokémon never came.

"—being who created the universe."

My defenses instantly lowered. A grand relief settled over me. "Yes, I suppose not."

Aurelio's hands fidgeted in his lap. "I don't know how you expect me to respond," he said. "Twenty-nine years of living and I've never experienced anything like this. Guess I've been spending too much time researching you." He chuckled, evading my gaze. "It's incredibly obvious, isn't it, that I'm at a total loss..."

"You don't need to say anything," I said. "There is no necessity to reciprocate my feelings. I am in love with you, and I am perfectly content if you allow me to be."

Aurelio launched up from the couch. But when he approached me, he came with vigilance, as if I would detonate at any given moment. He cautiously reached out his hand and brushed the tips of his fingers along my cheek, sending electricity down my body.

"Then why are you crying?" he asked, with all of the gentleness of an old, beautiful soul.

"I'm not sure," I said, steadier than ever. "I want you to love me in return. I don't need you to. But I wish that you would. More than I wished for the Alterstone."

"Hey, don't say that," said Aurelio. "Can...can I come closer to you?"

My heart lodged itself where it slept. My withdrawn breath stayed in my lungs.

Why are you afraid of me? I heard this in the echoes of the icefall, in the harmonic carols of the music on the sidewalks, those split second voids of sound amidst the pattering on the windows. My centuries-old words sang in my ears: Do not come any closer. Leave. I have far more important matters to attend to, mortal. Leave. I am no object. I will not be prisoner to the world that I created. A life with me is impossible. Leave.

How foolish was I — offering my love to a human?

"Yes," I breathed, melting into the contact upon my face.

I would never say those words again.

Not for as long as Aurelio's lips could graze me like that.

I don't recall many details after that.

There was an enduring fever between us, ascending with every gasp for air and puncture of nails on our skins. It had started off unnerving and confusing. I had no idea how to navigate him and he had even less desire to open up to me, but when he finally did, it felt like we had been molded together by mouth, and I thought that it would be perfectly fine to let the universe fall down around me if I could stay here with Aurelio.

When I bit his lip, I awoke an inferno in Aurelio that hadn't existed before. And when he tentatively reached into the thick of my hair, he calmed a tempest storm that had been raging inside since I left my nest in the chaos.

Somehow, we ended up laying atop one another on the couch. The snowstorm sang us a soothing lullaby, urging us to fall asleep there. There was no talking. There was no disturbance.

There had only been sweltering fire between our mouths for three heartbeats — or maybe even three thousand, I couldn't fairly tell — before there came knocking that echoed throughout Aurelio's apartment.

"Aurelio?" asked a familiar voice behind the front door.

His fingers tightened on my shoulders. "Josie," he whispered. "Since she finished up her job in Crystown, she's had this habit of dropping by with groceries every few days. She thinks I'm still too childish to take care of myself." At her persistent knocking, he called, "Hold up, I'm coming!"

"But—"

"I'm sorry," he said, seeming genuinely apologetic. His lips were blushing, his hair was slightly disheveled, and there was a permanent bewilderment in his eyes. My body felt synchronously laden with emotion and light as a feather. He reached out and smoothed down a section of my hair. "Arceus, I…"

He thought better of it and hustled to the door.

"Thea!" said Josie as she walked through the doors. Just as Aurelio had said, her arms were weighed down with plastic bags. "I didn't know you were in town! If I had, I might have brought over some more supplies. You're staying the night, right?"

"We're leaving town again tomorrow," said Aurelio before I could mess up our story. "You know. Arceus related stuff."

"Wow, I wish Aurelio would take me on his adventures like he does with you," said Josie to me, grinning. She set the plastic bags onto his kitchen counter and began unloading. "He has no use for a librarian, of course. He's about creating new knowledge. I'm about preserving the old stuff."

There was a tone to her voice that I couldn't decipher, but it was certainly different from the last time we had met. I followed her as she made her way throughout the apartment, as if she had done it a hundred times.

"Really?" she asked. She pointed at his coffee table, where he had set his dirty plate earlier. Then she picked it up, much to his protests. "You're so lucky, Thea, to not have dealt with that whole boat incident. Aurelio was depressed for weeks afterward. He claims that he was upset because he didn't make it all the way to the Crystal Towers project."

"It wasn't...very exciting, anyway," I said. "Dead quiet."

Behind Josie, Aurelio slapped his forehead.

"Oh, I thought you didn't make it to the island," she said, perking up.

Aurelio hardened his eyes at me, and I glared back, mentally projecting to him, "What — do you want me to not talk at all?!"

"I managed to get some transportation later on down the road," I said. "I'm not funded by Devon. I guess you could call me a freelance researcher. But I had some connections and made it onto the island. Believe me, it wasn't much."

"Crystown was pretty dead too, but that's always the case," said Josie, having completely forgot my mistake. "The summers are freezing too. It's so far north that nobody ever wants to go there. It would be the perfect place for someone to hide away. Where are you two headed tomorrow, out of curiosity?"

"That's a good question," muttered Aurelio.

"Wherever the wind takes us," I answered.

Josie gave me a thumbs-up. "Well, wherever you go," she said, "you can always ask me for help if you need it."

I evaluated her. Concerning first impressions, she was ditzy and rambunctious. But when I probed deeper into her soul, I saw someone who sought knowledge as thirstily and needily as Aurelio. She was not someone who could be fooled. And there was a hardness circling her eyes, exhibiting to me a sense of ironclad will.

Of course, all of these were depthless observations. Her true quality of character would be revealed over time.

"Duly noted," I said. My gaze sidled over to Aurelio, who still looked permanently stunned. Being with him — in this apartment, with Josie, after what had happened, with the suffocating air pressing in on all sides — I was eager to escape. "I think that I'll go for a walk to...clear my mind before the trip."

Josie raised her eyebrows. "Thea, it's freezing outside."

"You two can have time to catch up," I said. I either needed to be alone in the cold or buried in a couch with Aurelio on top of me. One or the other. "Don't worry about me. See you soon."

When I was outside, I stood in the middle of the deserted streets. The concrete, wet from melted snow, reflected a rainbow, lit by reds, yellows, and greens, directing traffic for nobody. I might have seen galaxies in the obsidian sky if it weren't for those lights, but all I saw were pale, dull glows on the stormclouds. A car drove behind me, honking, with its tires screeching on the ice.

I let my hands plunge into the fibers of the universe, searching for the Plate of Time.

It emitted a pulsing blue light, calling and yearning for my return. Because it was not in this timeline nor this dimension, its glow felt much fainter than the Plate of Space's aura had felt. I sought it out, my mind probing the past. How far would it be? Fifty years? Five hundred years? Certainly not five thousand.

When I had gained a general idea of where the Plate resided, my soul returned to the mortal dimension. I hurried into a dank alleyway, where sewer steam rose up from vents. A gripping desire to use the Plate of Space overwhelmed me. I only wanted a peek into the dimension in which the other Plate was hidden. For the meantime, at least.

It had been so long since I had used its power, after all. Perhaps it would rejuvenate my morale. Exhaust me, yes, but I had the night to recover.

Once you and I use the Plate of Space to enter that alternate dimension, we will be allowing the continuation of a lie...

Opening a non-canonical timeline wasn't worth the snooping.

Was it?

"Two timelines total wouldn't hurt," I mumbled. I pulled the Plate of Space from the air. A Meowth down the alleyway hissed and went scrambling behind a garbage bin. Someone shouted around the corner and down the street. "One for now, one for tomorrow."

I withheld my breath, feeling it pressurize underneath my ribcage. The Plate of Space floated in front of me, purple and shining, simply pleading for us to exchange what energy we had conserved. My hand hovered before it, centimeters away from pressing the surface. Being this close to the Plate gave me hope, the same strength that I had possessed before throwing all of its power away.

Tightening my resolve, I tapped the Plate and called upon it to open another dimension.

"A-ha," echoed an all-too familiar voice. "Found you, Arceus."

End of Chapter Twenty-Six