Dawn: part 5

-x-

Dawn was running through the woods. She had no clue where she was going, no time to pause and check her surroundings. She only knew that she had to keep running, keep moving ahead and away from the cornucopia, so she did and didn't stop until her legs gave away underneath her and she crashed down onto the luckily soft leaf mattress. The world was spinning around her and vaguely she realized that she still needed to keep moving, needed to find cover and at the very least stop lying around there in the open where she could just as well be eaten by the wild pokémon of the arena or be found by the other trainers.

Like May Birch.

Suddenly, she felt bile rise up to her throat and she choked, forcing herself to roll to the side before she gave over, puking the contents of her stomach over the leaves on the ground. Thoroughly disgusted and spent, Dawn managed to drag herself a bit further, under a tree that she figured gave somewhat sufficient cover. She let her head fall against the bark and looked up to the sky. It wasn't even getting dark yet, barely past midday and here she was, already a pathetic whimpering mess.

She wiped her mouth on her sleeve, tears burning in her eyes. Two people had died, two children, right before her eyes and she'd been immobilized with fear, unable to do anything to help them. What worse, it had been Lyra, who had been nothing but brave and smart and full of life. Lyra, who didn't deserve to die anymore than the others, and still had. She knew that there was nothing she could've done to prevent it and deep down a voice that sounded bit like Cynthia's was telling her that it was better this way, but all that did nothing to stop the guilt and pain from twisting inside her and weighing on her chest like a stone.

"I'm so sorry," she sobbed out, letting the tears fall. "I'm so sorry, Lyra… so, so sorry."

Moments passed and she let the anguish wash over her. Distractedly, she began to wonder whether it would be better to just lie down right then and there and wait for death… she would suffer from thirst and hunger, but it couldn't be as bad as what Lyra had gone through, could it? She was fairly sure it couldn't. All she needed to do was to close her eyes and never open them again. It was like falling asleep.

Much too soon she remembered that reality was not as kind as her dreams. She was in the Games and being filmed at the very moment, if not live on national television, and that the game makers wouldn't let her fade away in peace like that. They would make her regret the decision to give up before her imminent death—maybe she'd be eaten alive by a vicious wild pokémon, helpless to defend herself, or maybe they would lead the other trainers to her, possibly the twins or better yet May. Even the thought of the girl brought bitter taste to her mouth, although it could've been the remains of the vomit too. It also sent an unimaginable wave of fury through her and very near knocked her out cold.

Eyes blazing she stumbled upwards, falling once or twice in the process, but that wasn't important. Swaying slightly she marched forward, only dimly aware of her surroundings. In her previous panic, she had been running the wrong way and was now on a much higher ground than before. There was one quirk in it though, because her location gave her an excellent view of nearly the whole arena.

Soon enough she came to a cliff that looked down over the forest and the river that flowed down from the hills. Almost hidden by the dense woods, she caught a glimpse of the cornucopia and the meadow. Anger flared inside her.

"I'll remember you," Dawn whispered to the wind, hiding the burning behind silent determination. "I'll remember you Lyra. I'll win this for you and I'll keep you in my memory."

She looked around and spotted a small blue flower right by her right foot. Bending down she carefully picked the flower and smiled sadly for a bit. The other girl definitely would've known what kind of a flower it was and how it could be used. Dawn stood back up and held the flower in front of her, feeling the breeze that kept pulling it along.

"I promise," she said with a firm voice and nodded.

Then she let the flower go.

It quickly flew off, falling and rising with the wind. Dawn watched until it was only a dot in the far horizon that soon completely disappeared from sight. There were two cannon shots then, which, she figured, meant that the fighting at the cornucopia had eased down. Only two casualties then, both which she had witnessed with her own two eyes.

The games had just begun.

-x-

Only a few minutes after the simple memorial Dawn's first chimecho landed on a nearby bush. She had paused to figure out directions and check the contents of her back bag, when her ears caught the faint cry of the pokémon. It had a small parcel tied to its tail and when she cautiously approached it let out a cry of what the girl supposed was approval. She removed the parcel from the chimecho and the pokémon flew off.

Ripping the package open, Dawn first came across a note that almost fell off when wind caught on it. Sorry for your loss, it read with Cynthia's neat handwriting. Dawn's lip trembled slightly as she folded the note and stuck it inside her jacket's breast pocket. Then she returned her attention to the parcel, pulling out a flask, beautifully decorated with floral engravings.

Her mouth fell open with surprise and delight. Before the arrival of the chimecho she had been going through her belongings and had been disappointed to notice that she didn't have anything to hold water in. It was unusual to receive something like that in the games, especially so early on. Smiling an honest smile she looked around, trying to figure out where she should express her gratitude. She ended up looking up to the sky, seeing as the chimecho had come from there and she really didn't know how to spot hidden cameras.

"Thank you," she whispered as sweetly as she could manage with her raspy throat. "Thank you so much."

She reached for Jo's pokéball and listened for any noises that could indicate the presence of another person or wild pokémon nearby, before calling out the piplup. It looked absolutely baffled out in the sunlight. Dawn figured it hadn't been out much, living in the training center.

"Jo." She held up her new flask and the penguin snapped into attention. "I would like some water, please."

The piplup let out a cry and raised its beak, producing a spray of water in its throat. Dawn filled the flask and drank a bit. The cool water felt lovely, calming her throat that was still sore from vomiting. She packed the flask into her bag and swung it on her back, remembering to scratch Jo for a job well done. After a moment of indecision she picked up the penguin and it settled onto her arms. Jo wasn't heavy and it was honestly comforting to hold the bird so she decided that she would carry it around.

"Come on then," she mumbled to the penguin.

Jo cried out happily and they started down the hill. It was wiser to avoid the river so Dawn had come up with an alternative route that would hopefully take her past the cornucopia and towards the lake, which she had seen in the distance. It would probably take her the whole day, if not more, to get there but it was better than nothing. The bag held some dried fruit and meat and Jo would be perfectly happy with the berries found in the woods so it didn't even matter so much whether she reached the lake by night or not.

Her only problem was that it could prove challenging to find cover when she couldn't climb trees like she knew a lot of trainers did. Besides, she couldn't tie knots to save her life, not that she had any rope, so sleeping in a tree was out of the question. She would have to try and find some other solution.

Walking in the forest turned out to be quite nice. Jo was alert on her arms, letting out a small cry of warning whenever one of the wild pokémon got too close and Dawn honestly felt safe, unlike before. It wasn't too dark with the filtered green light shining through the leaves and her clothes were a perfect fit for the environment and climate, just like they were supposed to be.

While she traveled she thought back on the previous games and the arenas from them. Three years before, on Phoebe's year, it had been a really tropical place with sand beaches and saltwater. Iris's arena had been a rocky, mountainous one. She made a face when she thought about herself there and realized that, all in all, the current arena was a good one… its only flaw being the unrecognizable plants. The climate was a lot milder than in Sinnoh, so there were loads more flowers and trees and berries, many of which she couldn't put a name on. Luckily though, Lyra had taught her a fair lot during training so she was able to distinguish at least some of them as edible and some as poisonous, so she wouldn't have to worry about dying from that.

Darkness fell on the arena later than at home and much faster. Dawn hadn't reached the lake by then, but she guessed that she was close. It was no use trying to get there in the dark, though—she would only get herself lost like that, so she put her mind to finding herself a shelter for the night. In a few minutes, she located a large, thick-leaved bush that turned out to be hollow on the inside. She crawled underneath and fiddled around for a while, until she was pleased with her position and certain that she couldn't be seen unless somebody took a real close look.

Positioning her bag as a pillow and letting Jo make a nest onto her stomach she lied down and sighed. It had been a horrible day, if not completely so, but at least she was still alive. Like an answer to her thoughts the federation's anthem suddenly sounded from seemingly out of nowhere. She froze before relaxing again when she remembered what was going on. It was the death toll. They would be showing the so far dead trainers on the sky, but as she already knew who had died she figured it would be pointless to get out of her bush just for that.

Instead she let her eyes fall closed and fell asleep listening to the melody.

-x-

In the morning Dawn woke up to someone nibbling her fingers. Opening her eyes slowly, she was faced with Jo's expectant stare. Smiling, she listened for any sounds before carefully rising up and crawling out from the bush, Jo following her keenly. They wandered around for a bit before the girl spotted a bush of oran berries and the pokémon was more than happy to treat itself to them. Dawn herself pulled out the dried meat from her back bad and munched on it while trying to estimate how long it would take them to reach the lake—another few hours, probably, if they kept on a steady pace.

That in mind she called back the pokémon, figuring that she'd move faster without having to carry it and set forth. The forest felt different without the penguin by her side. She was constantly vary of where she was going, suddenly remembering that there could be snares hidden on the ground. Bug pokémon buzzed about around her and she wowed that if she ever got out of the arena, she would buy herself a lifelong stack of repels. Not that there ever were pokémon in Hearthome, really—it was the time of separation after all.

Around noon she saw the first glimmer of light reflecting from water's surface somewhere behind the trees. Picking up her pace she was soon running towards the lake. Just as she burst out from the woods onto its shores she realized how bad of an idea it had been. There was already someone by the lake, the boy from Lyra's district. Dawn froze as the boy looked up from his simple camp, leaping to his feet.

She stared at him and he stared back both trapped in their place. Neither had their pokémon out, so it was kind of a stale mate—whoever reached out for their belt first would break the spell. She felt ridiculous when she realized she didn't even know his name and here she was, thinking about the best way to kill him.

Suddenly, the boy relaxed and raised his hands to the air where Dawn could see them, like a sign of surrender. Dawn straightened up from the defensive crouch she had instinctively fallen into and offered him a curious look. She couldn't let her guard down just yet, not without knowing what the boy was up to.

"Hey," he said, jerking his head a bit. His voice was deeper than she'd expected and thick with a country twang. "You were Lyra's friend, right? Dawn, was it?"

She nodded slowly. "Yeah… and you're the boy from her region, though I can't say I remember your name."

Taking a few steps back he grinned. "That's alright, you won't have any need for it." He sat back down on the rock he had been sitting before Dawn's abrupt arrival and gestured to the other rocks around it. "Sit down for a while, girlie girl. Though, I'm not suggestin' an alliance, mind you. I'm just sayin' that any friend of hers is a friend of mine too, so I won't harm ya. I owe her at least that much."

Dawn nodded again and carefully trotted towards the rocks. The boy seemed amused by her doubting expression and cracked up. Chuckling to himself, he picked up the spear he had been carving with a knife while Dawn sat down and let her back bag fall to the ground. They stayed like that for a while, Dawn figuring that she couldn't call out Jo if she didn't want to risk being killed despite the boy's words and the boy carving his spear in peace. When she dug out her flask the boy spoke up again.

"That's one hell of present, you got there." The boy whistled eyeing the flask, clearly impressed. "What'd you do? Sing 'n dance?"

Dawn blushed. "No," she muttered angrily making him smirk. After a while she added quietly. "It was a sympathy gift, I guess."

He looked up, clearly not having expected that.

"You're really something," he said. Dawn had no idea what he meant. "But hey, chin up. I don't know how Lyra went down, but she must've done it her way. That's the Lyra I know and that's the only one there ever was."

She smiled a bit, but then realized that sounded awfully like there was a longer time than a mere week behind this boy and their deceased friend. "You knew her for a long time, then?"

Something passed on the boy's face and he turned his face away. "Since we were lil' babies."

Dawn didn't know what to say. "I'm… sorry."

He barked out a bitter laugh. "Don't be. It was a bumpy ride an' I wouldn't wanna change one second of it… but with her gone, I'm gonna have to try and win so you can feel sorry about that." He paused to give Dawn an apologetic look. "Excuse me, if I wish we don't meet again… You meant a great deal to her, y'know, and that alone is enough of a reason for me. I don't wanna fight you, but a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do."

She started to open her mouth to reply, but was cut short because her stomach started grumbling. The boy gave her a wry look and she blushed yet again.

"You have that penguin thing, right?" he asked and she made a small sound to say yes. "Well, call it out. I don't mind. Yours can get us some fish and mine can roast it. Do we have a deal?"

"Sure," Dawn agreed smiling.

They reached for their pokéballs at the same time.

-x-

Jo right on her trail, Dawn waded into the lukewarm water. For a few moments the piplup seemed to be at a loss of what to do when the fish he was trying to find kept swimming off, but soon enough the pokémon's natural hunting instincts took over. After that, the penguin kept bringing Dawn goldeens and magikarps until she was laughing and crying for the pokémon to stop. Jo seemed very pleased with itself while eating the fish Dawn had rewarded it with.

She brought the remaining fish for the boy and his nameless quilava. It had evolved the previous day while battling with the trainers from district five and Dawn was thoroughly impressed with the boy's skills. While they cooked the fish with quilava's flamethrower they both agreed that the twins were scary as hell when they moved in sync and that the boy was lucky to have escaped. He had a small scratch on his leg and the pokémon had acquired a battle wound on his ear but luckily they both seemed to be healing just fine.

Dawn felt awkward having to call him 'the boy' inside her mind but she didn't want to privy. He hadn't told her his name and it was her own fault she didn't remember it. It had possibly started with an E, but then again she couldn't be sure.

They ate and he told her stories from his childhood. He and Lyra had lived on the East coast of Johto, in a small town called New Bark. School had been miles away and they had had to run there every morning and back again every evening. When they had been nine or so, a stray marill had started following Lyra around and the two kids had taken it to their town's pokémon professor Elm. The man was district-born, but was renowned for his abilities in the capitol and had thus been placed to New Bark town to inspect the district's pokémon. He received a nice sum for his work and he had rewarded Lyra and the boy for their good work.

Dawn smiled at the story. She wished she could've been there—could've known Lyra for a longer time.

Lyra's parents had died in a fishing accident when she was twelve. She had then moved to live with her grandparents in Goldenrod and the boy hadn't seen her for a couple of years.

"Not until the reaping," he mused with barely veiled anger. "What a lovely surprise that was. We agreed that we would try to keep out of each other's way on the arena, she made me wow on it. If she hadn't, I could've saved her, but… maybe it was for the best, this way."

In turn, Dawn told him about Sinnoh and contests and anything else she could think of. Honestly, she wasn't even sure the boy was interested, but he kept on listening politely enough. He seemed abrasive when you met him, but beneath his cover he was kind of a nice boy—a nice kid like Lyra had been.

"Well then," the boy said after the meal and called back his quilava. "I better get going before it gets too dark. I'm actually lookin' for the girl and boy from one. You haven't happened to see 'em?"

Dawn suddenly remembered the rooftop conversation with the silent boy. She shook her head. Jo was resting on her lap after eating a large goldeen by itself. The boy pulled a face and rose to his feet.

"I hadn't hoped," he mumbled and started collecting his belongings. It seemed that he had managed a better bag than Dawn, one with some knives, rope, and bandages, all of which were useful in the arena. He picked up his finished spear weighing it in his hands. "I made a deal with the girl before the games begun, but I lost track of her in the initial fighting. The boy I'm lookin for, cause… well, honestly he seems like an easy enough target with that score of his."

For a second he looked absolutely disgusted with himself. Dawn could understand why. She didn't judge him either way.

"You're going hunting for him?" she asked. "Isn't that like voluntarily seeking out trouble?"

He shrugged. "I'd rather find it myself than have it find me when I'm not prepared."

"Makes sense," she said and thought about it. "I guess I'll have to think of something to do then, without you here."

He grinned. "Aw, you'll miss me," he walked over and ruffled her hair affectionately. "I'll miss you too Dawn stone. Look out for yourself. Let's not meet again, yeah?"

She beamed at him. "Yeah… Take care."

Just as he was walking off spear in hand, it hit her.

"Ethan!" she cried out. The boy turned like fire on his tail, looking worried. She laughed. "Sorry! It's just… I remembered! Your name is Ethan!"

He grinned in the distance. "It sure is!"

And with that he was gone. Dawn spent a few minutes just staring after him before she gently pushed Jo off her lap and got to her feet. She lifted her bag from the ground and called back the penguin that seemed happy to return to its ball. Sighing softly she looked around.

"Right then," she mumbled to herself. "Off towards new adventures."

Then she started into the opposite direction.

-x-

This chapter makes me feel good, even though it's kind of a bitter sweet feeling. We learn a little more about Lyra, even though she's not with us any longer… well, I thought she deserved a bit more background.

One or two notes:

Ethan and Dawn might seem a bit too easygoing, seeing as their friend has just died, but I think they're kind of used to it. It's a part of the reality they live in, and even though they haven't experienced it firsthand before, they've known to expect it and in some way are more prepared than you or me would be in a similar situation.

As seen in the chapter, chimechos are used to drop off sponsors' gifts on the arena. I thought they fit the role of the parachutes.

In the universe of this story pokémon are eaten much like animals are in ours. The plasma uprising and the resulting separation from pokémon did not change the fact although it was initially one of its main objectives. Meat was simply a much too integral source of nutrition for the people. Nowadays the citizens of the Capitol mostly realize that there's an organized meat industry, although the origin of their meat products is often not clarified. They simply choose not to think about it. For the people of the districts this only proves a point in how hypocritical the system actually is.