I know the vestigial-dreamy-stuff seems… well, vestigial. Things will happen, trust me.
Regular disclaimers, I don't own Pokemon or any of the music referenced It's Joji, btw. I don't own anything, I'm a broke-ass college student. Lol
Here's another chapter. Thanks for reading!
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Have you seen me before? No, it would be better of me to ask if you've ever seen me. I'm not just talking about your failing vision, or the cancer, or the resulting vestigial eye and brain structures. Before all of that, before you stopped calling me your princess, before you made me responsible, before you threw away all ownership you had, before you had me even;
Have you ever seen me?
You remember when it was just me, when you would occasionally try to make me smile with a silly face or a potty joke. You talk about those days all the time, especially you wonder where your happy little girl went. I know you remember letting me ride on your shoulders to see past the crowd; you remember teaching me to stand up to bullies in the playground; you remember making sure I could be strong and proud of myself.
Then you should also remember when you stopped teaching me to be happy and started teaching me to be a parent while I was learning Algebra. You should remember teaching me to clean up after, to respect my youngers, respect my elders, respect everyone and anyone who isn't me, even to the point of being a human shield. You should remember the black and purple and blue from not doing both of your laundry soon enough, that I'm not the only one in this house, that I have to take care of two people instead of myself; that I didn't need to worry about making friends when I had you and my brother, that you wouldn't let him help because he 'shouldn't do house work and play outside'.
If you don't remember, I'm pretty sure you remember your brothers and uncles coming more often after mom left. If you don't remember her warning about them, you would surely remember the Pyramids and Blue Moons and India vs. Australia specials, the late nights you would force me to stay and cook and clean up after every small mess made by them while you just sat and laughed until long after the sun rose. At least tell me you remember the inventive belt tricks you inherited from them when you saw my grades from the test that immediately followed.
I know you will deny any of the bruises or scars or tears ever occurring, but you should know by now that you shouldn't lie to yourself.
I remember things too.
I remember when you wouldn't let me finish school. I remember wanting to be an architect, how different buildings from different eras and epochs in the same downtown space would always make my heart race and my mind soar with the history, the skill, the accomplishment those initial architects probably felt once they finished. I remember you refused to work, you refused to take him out of school even though he wanted to help you, to help me, but instead you sold me. I don't dream about buildings anymore, about achievement or happiness or you or when my only good relationship with my brother when he snuck me bits of knowledge and diminished my workload; I don't dream of anything anymore, save for those nights when you decided to keep me as a dishwasher, a washing machine, and the occasional slab of meat for your brothers and friends.
Remember the tears of pride you shed when you married me off to one of them? Remember the fear and despair I had?
Could you not see because of the dollar signs the dowry blinded you with? Or were my eyes too closed from the bruises you both decided I needed after one particularly disappointing field hockey match overseas?
I guess you can't really see anymore. I can't even tell if you're awake, if you can hear the heart-rate monitor or my voice or the voices of your brothers and friends and other family.
Actually, you shouldn't be hearing those other peoples' voices. Especially not my former husband's. I killed them all.
I want to be mad. I want to try to make you see everything that I've become, to remember everything, to see me. But you won't. Mom was right. My brother was right until he bled himself out in the bathtub. I know you want to see him again, if not mom. Not me. Never me. Not since I stopped just being your little princess.
But you don't get to die just yet. Not until you see me.
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Give me reasons we should be complete
Soft scales smoothed their way down my ear canal, each note a defined quanta, swelling or deflating until it couldn't help but flow into the next frequency of vibration. A tremor tried to stop it, make a change. It only interrupted but briefly, I was quick to return to the music.
Just hear my voice
Another tremor. Almost an aftershock. As if a moon-sized pillow were to collide with the Earth, and the planet were capable of giggling.
Shutting me out
Insistence.
You're doing so great
There's no more air.
I jerked up, eyes watering and lungs empty, trying to cough out the nothing that cut off my air supply, rejecting whatever nonexistent fluid filled the container of my lungs. It really felt like there was some sort of portal in there; every time I tried to inhale, the air just wouldn't enter my bloodstream, like it preferred to vanish upon entry.
Two helms poked into my field of vision and gazed down in apology, one a red-horned green and the other a curved-obsidian on white. My Pokemon. My Ralts and Absol.
Once I could finally breath, my coughing devolved into laughter.
Both fretted about, clearly lost on how to proceed. My laughter, crazed as it looked, was helping me put things together. My headphones were still on, and whatever was playing was really helping me stay asleep; my team must have been trying to wake me up and resorted to knocking the wind out of me.
Tex back-handed—pawed?—me across the face, and gave me a glare stern enough to shut me up.
Laughter devolved into wheezing, and since I didn't want another smack across the face, I kept that wheezing away from any daycares and dittos. "That…" I croaked out, "was fair." I sat up and tried to clear my throat. Which made me cough enough to imagine legions of pinpricks in my lungs. Which made me laugh again. It was just too much, I couldn't even clear out my throat and talk normally, so obviously the only clear and logical solution was laughing until I could talk properly.
That earned me another swat from my Absol, which I'm pretty sure was a really light—and focused—Quick Attack. My cheek was starting to throb in response, and whatever was making me mercurial evicted. Nursing my new wound, I soberly focused on the feline.
"We need to set up some boundaries for your guys' attacks."
Nice as it would have been, I had to sit the two away from me on the floor while I on the bed—my team would keep trying to play around otherwise, and we needed ground rules. The rules were as follows:
No attacking each other
No attacking me
If a move can help mitigate damage—
What's a mini-gate got to do with rules? The Ralts thought to me. I don't know how vocabulary usually translated so well yet failed here. I covered what was bound to become a bruise again, exasperation threatening to leave me in another mercurial mess.
"Mi-ti-gate. It means to reduce."
A yip from Tex—I didn't even know she could yip—preceded Dayne's response. Yeah, why didn't you just say so then?
Trying to facepalm yourself through a bruise hurts, especially when you haven't applied ice to the broken blood vessels. I readjusted my headphones and recollected my patience.
"Rule number 3: If you think you can help a teammate with an attack, first check with me. If there's danger, just do whatever you think will help. I don't want the Nincada fight to happen again, especially not in the wild."
Two nods; I'm being understood.
Which is the perfect cue for pandemonium, apparently. That, or the bird and panda that suddenly teleported onto each of my shoulders.
Why did so many teleporting Pokemon love sitting on my shoulders?
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This is a bit of a short chapter, I know. This one's been in the works for a while, and I didn't really know how to proceed. I think for a bit I'll keep things shorter for motivation's sake.