MEMORY

"How are you, Mother?" and the voice was immaterial, it was nothing. The dirty, stubbled face, more shadowed than brightened by the searchlight; the sallow lines, the bony cheeks that stood out like an animal trying to escape from a tarpaulin; the sunken grey eyes and the clearly broken nose; it was a spectre and a fake. And the body it was attached to, with skin stretched like old rubber over pointy ribs and elbows, and the bony hands with fingers that looked like a skeleton's fingers but with nails – it was all a mockery, a mockery of a memory.

Martha remembered the man that was standing scarecrow above her, but she remembered him as a ten-year-old boy, nineteen years ago, leaving Pallet Town for the first time. He was her first charge, the first of thousands, tens of thousands, before they all melted into a baby blur. She had forgotten many of them. But never the first. Never Red.

And now here he was, right in front of her. Many years aged, stained by a careless life, starved into a scaffolding. Pale as though he had used the blood from his own veins to form his new title. Even the mucky yellow light from the torch failed to yield any colour to his complexion, and it couldn't be Red. But it was.

"Mister Brazier," he said, without breaking eye contact, "we are in most dire need of your services."

There was a noise from the darkness behind Red, something that sounded like a "Yes". He switched off the flashlight, and suddenly the noise could have come from anywhere. The shadow that was Red drifted backwards; another shadow detached itself from the blackness of the winged chair. Martha recoiled, but Agatha reached out and grabbed her by the arm and the services are murder murder but the shadow went past, and she caught a brief glimpse of a bald head in the sparse light –

– and then the light was no longer sparse, but a whoosh of hot oily cinnabar. A wind flitted past and then a pitch drum flared up on the other side of Martha. The room was blinking brass, and she could see – a room almost exactly like the hallway outside, but much wider, slightly taller. The construction was still decayed, but possibly a little less so. And on the floor… a long, red carpet, leading up to Red.

There he was, sitting half sideways on a rickety throne, resting a cheek on his fist, his eyes on her.

"Mother, I asked you a question," he said.

And it was a question Martha didn't know how to answer. How had she been – it was a polite question, the kind of question people asked when they didn't want you to think about the answer. They wanted you to read "Fine" off a card, and then forget about it. Nobody wanted to hear an explanation of why "Fine" was not the right answer. Red wouldn't want to hear it, not judging from the expression on his face. But she wanted to say it. She wanted to dump it all on him – because he was the first, he was a physical representation of everything she had wanted to run away from.

– but it's not his fault who cares he deserves it he just happened to be there and now he just happens to be here, how convenient he doesn't deserve it yes he does he dared to ask how i've been dump it dump it all –

"I, I've been fine," she said.

But Red was no longer looking at her. Instead, he was addressing Agatha. "Aggie, dearest, I'm sure this must be a prank. She can hear me."

Agatha bowed her head. "I know, sire."

"That means this woman must have… departed."

"You are correct, sire."

"Mother," and now he almost spat the word, "would never have dared to depart."

Agatha still kept her head bowed. "And yet, I believe she has, sire," she said.

"But this cannot be her, Aggie. Mother was a mere witless pawn of the, the establyment." confusion confusion doesn't he recognise me the ungrateful bastard "She will rot in that house in Pallet forever. This simply must be somebody else." how dare he how dare he –

And Agatha just stood there, didn't say a word in Martha's defence, cowardly old bag –

Martha opened her mouth, wanted to say something, wanted to put Red in his place; but before she got a sound out, the King was already looking at her. "You, woman lady," he said, and she almost stepped back. "You have been telling Aggie silly stories. You cannot be Mother, even though you look like her, because Mother is an utter poltroon. What is your real name?"

She bit down the contradiction. The feeling in her stomach was that he wouldn't listen; and after all, she was no longer Martha of Pallet Town. She was Martha of herself. She had wanted to start anew.

But she still replied "My name is, is. It's Martha."

Red looked her up and down, as though inspecting her. Nothing else on him moved, except the shadows from the firelight.

Eventually, he said: "I see. So you have the same name as Mother. I suppose we must all have our doubles." He gestured with his free hand, as though waving off a fly. "It is all most irrelevant. I will have Brainie run a check later. As for now… the Squirtle, if you please."

The Squirtle. Mer. Martha looked down; it was right there, in her arms, and had been there for so long she almost didn't notice its weight any longer. It was never a big weight to begin with.

And Red – wanted it? Was it his? Did it just fall to him, because he was a king? She looked the Squirtle in the eyes; it blinked, looked back like it didn't understand. Then it opened its mouth for the first time since the Pokémon centre.

"Skwer," it said.

"Martha, if you do not hand me the Squirtle afterfast, I shall be most cross."

Suddenly, Agatha's hands were around the turtle's shell. "I'll take it," she mumbled. "He's… none too pleasant when he's mad."

And Martha let go. She wouldn't have let go if it was Red's hands around the Squirtle, but with Agatha she did. Dumbly she watched as the old woman took slow, deliberate steps towards the throne, holding Mer in front of her; like it were covered in paint, like it were smelly or repulsive. When she reached Red, she went down on one knee. At no point had she even looked up from her feet.

The next minutes hours days passed in silence. With only the slight noise of the fires behind Martha ensuring her that she could still hear, she watched Red taking Mer into his lap, tapping its shell with an index finger, turning it back and forth and up and down and tugging at its tail, and he took meticulous care with every action, and Agatha stayed hunched on the floor, and the inspection went on, and on, and then Red made a blessed sound.

"Low quality," he said, matter-of-factly. "No wonder the owner let this one go, it is scarcely worth looking at."

Then he handed the Squirtle back to Agatha, while Martha simply stared. "I have no use for this. Pawn it to somebody, won't you, Aggie?"

The old woman nodded, accepted Mer. "It will be done, sire."

"In fact, I believe – you, woman lady," said Red, waggling a finger at Martha. "I will not call you Martha, you are certainly not a Martha. From hence on forth, your name shall be Muddy. Muddy – you simply must take this Squirtle. It is my gift to you for not being Mother."

Muddy. She glanced down at her legs, wondered if the sewers had stayed on her shoes or pantyhose. He called me Muddy. There he sat, looking like he'd soiled himself in a swamp, and he had the gall to call her that. Muddy.

But he had also offered her Mer. So she nodded, didn't say a word, just nodded her head. She could take Muddy, at least for a while, at least until she left the room, whenever that would –

"Good," said Red. "Now be gone. Aggie, take her back, please."

– be.

And that was it. He was no longer paying attention to anyone; he lay with his eyes closed, sprawled over his chair as though he was just a skin bag of bones.

And Martha wanted to speak up, because she did not want to go back, and she did not want to be called Muddy, and she did not want to be ordered around; she wanted to walk up to him, put her finger right under his nose, tell him in her most indignant mother voice, "You listen to me, you ungrateful little punk" but…

There was something about him. Something about the way he sat alone in a chair in some decrepit old building, about the way he gave orders, the way Agatha simply deferred to his commands and called him 'sire'. Something about the fact that, despite everything, he still held enough weight to make people refer to him as the 'Blood King'. Much as she wanted to, she could not force her legs to move, or her lips to part.

And when Agatha walked up, handed over the Squirtle, put her hand on Martha's shoulder and gently pushed – then, Martha felt herself shrink from a toppling tower into a steady treestump. She let herself be guided out of the Blood King's anaemic court, and into the hallway beyond; she glued her own tongue in spit to stop it moving, until the doors behind her closed.

Only then did she allow herself to say, "Brat."

"I know, I know," replied Agatha. "He's a little bit entitled…"

"A, and, you're enabling him!"

"We do what we have to." Now the woman frowned a bit. "He's not a bad sort, he's just… Well. Insert your own adjective, I s'pose."

Martha took a deep breath. "You said… You said there'd be answers."

"Quite right. But I never said the King would be giving them, did I?" And in just four sentences, Agatha had gone from a frown to a wink. "That was just a, whatchammacallit, proprietary visit. He wanted to see the Squirtle, y'see, and he'd already waited longer than usual."

"… And…"

"And now, we go find the answers. This is a castle, remember? After all, if you want information, you don't go to the king, you go to his advisors."

Martha tried to repeat all those words in her head to make them make sense. "You, you do?"

"Yes. By the way…" Agatha handed over Mer. "I believe this is yours now."

Martha quietly accepted. Hers. Now two people had said it; Mer was her Pokémon. And she was – she was its trainer. Even though the Blood King had asked Agatha to retrieve it. Even though…

"… Uh, what – what about its owner?" she said, not looking up from the turtle.

"Lady. I just told you it's yours."

"But Re- the King said… the owner let, let him go." She hadn't bothered to process those words until now, but he had said them. This Pokémon had an owner from before. An owner who had named it Mer.

"… Ah." The tone of Agatha's voice made Martha look up. "Well. That's a bit of a story. Come with me, we'll have to sit down for this one."

She turned around before the sentence was even finished. That, too, was worrying.