MOVEMENT

Martha held Mer out in front of her, with arms stretched as far as they would go. In the chilled evening light, its skin somehow looked immensely… pale. The solid blueness of its arms and legs turned into a sickly pallor; the patched brown on its shell became the scabs on a recently dried-out wound. It grew smaller in her grasp; its shell contracting, its arms turning into twigs before wizening away, its head dripping away until it was a mere stain on the neck. The tail drooped like condensation, melted into nothingness.

"Don't expect a Blastoise from it," Agatha had said. "It's not going to live too long."

It was Martha's only Pokémon, and it was going to die before its time. Of some unknown, unexplained ailment. "Pale," Agatha had said, and she probably had something to compare it to. Martha did not. But now that they were out of the flame-lit corridors of the Blood King's castle, and into the setting sun, it had lost colour. Like the yellow and orange beams were erasers, furiously scrabbling away at the little tortoise.

And what about her? She, too, was 'released'. The sunlight could be eating away at her, too. Her arms could be disappearing by the minutest second; they looked warmer, more colourful, where shadows covered them…

Shade. Shade was what she needed, she and Mer, away from the hungry golden rays.

Martha didn't know, when she stood in the darkness underneath the tree crowns, whether she'd run or walked there. All she knew was that the ground underneath her had changed; the soil didn't feel like the ground proper any more, but like a lid that shielded the earth below. And the air was more solid; the smell of old lay around her like a blanket. The sun couldn't get at them here; they were safe, insulated. She sat down, leant her back against a tree trunk.

"What do, do you think," she muttered to Mer, as she put it down on her knee. "Are we safe?"

It didn't reply; only stared.

"Did you lose your voice," she said. The thought didn't strike her uncomfortably. If they were already that far along, if they were already voiceless: why not just remain seated, wait for her toes to sprout moss and her fingers to sprout mushrooms? Why not lock eyes with Mer and keep her gaze right there, there in the middle of those big black pupils, until she could see the sea whisking back and forth in them; and then continue staring as the eyes rotted away, as they poured down like a messy vitreous porridge and revealed the decaying contents of the turtle's head –

– but then Mer said, "Skwer."

And even though she had heard it for the first time only two days ago, the voice still washed over her like a wave of familiarity. It stroked against her skin like silk and wafted warm sweet air into her ears.

We can't give up here, the voice said. We have a job to do. It said now is the time to move forward.

She had left home already; she'd committed.

She had told herself she would take care of Mer; she'd promised.

And she had told herself she would show the Marquis. She'd vowed. She would get stronger, and then she would – show him. She would get stronger than him, and then she would be the one whispering harshly into his ear from behind. She would take him to a field, miles away from home, and tell him he was worthless. And then she would leave him.

But before all that, she needed to get to Pewter. To meet this Braggart person that Agatha had talked about.

"Skwer," came Mer's voice, and Martha got up.

"Let's go," she said, hugging the turtle close again.

The forest stretched out in front of her, steeped with stripes of brown in the foreground and deepening to a murky green in the distance. It was foreign territory, a place she had never been before. And yet, it was shelter. Home to a million animals, a billion plants, a trillion bacteria. There was no reason it couldn't be home to a single human.

She took a step forward, and her foot landed on a protruding root and on the doorstep. She pushed away a branch and open the door, stepped into the hallway that was tiled with dead leaves and needles. In seven steps, or seven hundred yards, she would be standing in the living room but that is not where she is going. She is going to the glade that is the kitchen, which is through the living room and ten steps to the left, which is north by northwest and two miles away, it will take her forty minutes, or maybe just four seconds.

She will continue through the kitchen, making sure to step over the orange juice spill in the middle of the floor, and were she still living here she would have gone straight through the cleaning cupboard to fetch a mop but she instead goes past the little alcove, and she heads for the back door of the kitchen, which leads out to the back garden but then she remembers that the door won't open any more after last year's frost. She walks up to the sheer cliff face and pushes her shoulder against it, but it won't budge.

She turns around, and walks back the way she came, sidestepping a chair or a tree so she doesn't stumble and she heads into the living room towards the other back door, which is directly to the northeast and both five miles and eight seconds away and leads away from Pewter. She knows it will be open, as long as she remembers to turn the lock before trying the handle –

– and with the crack of a twig she was standing at the edge of the forest again, but the other end – where a sign announced, 'Pewter City: Two miles ahead'. She could only barely read it through the barren light of the moon overhead, but those words were definitely there.

"N, nearly there," she said, glancing down at Mer. She realised she was out of breath. After only walking back and forth through her own house. She was going to have to get a lot stronger. Her feet were hurting, too; she looked down and saw that they were patched with mud; her leggings were torn and brambles had cut into her shins, drawing blood.

At least there was nobody around to see her. Nobody could, after all.

Leaving her new home behind, she set off towards the city.