(Author's note: Sorry about the lag between this chapter and the last one. Family life kind of impeding the creative flow. Hopefully there won't be as big of a gap between this chapter and the next one. Disclaimer: I still do not own Pokémon)

I woke up feeling stiff and not particularly well rested. I couldn't remember dreaming, and had a moment of paranoia, wondering if someone had cannibalized my dream. Sono and Alvas were talking in lowered tones across the room, and Mimpi was curled up tightly in the corner, shaking in her sleep. Dormi was gone, and Traum had apparently spent the night elsewhere. The house was quiet.

I toyed with the idea of going outside, but then decided not to risk running into one of the humans. I was starting to feel vaguely apprehensive about meeting the two human males. Visions of my brain floating in a jar flashed through my mind. I wanted to ask someone what the superficially harmless humans would be searching through my brain for. Sono and Alvas were still deeply engaged in their conversation. And what was I thinking? I didn't know these Hypno. They had no tribe, no allegiance. Their motives and loyalties couldn't be assumed. Back home such outsiders would have been treated with suspicion and it annoyed me that my defences had lowered. They, like the humans, couldn't be trusted. Which left me with no-one to trust except Lazlo, and he had every reason not to trust me. My brain felt knotted.

I allowed myself to slip into a train of paranoid mental ramblings. I could run away from this house, with its unfathomable humans and castoff Hypno. There didn't seem to be any walls keeping me in. There was an unobstructed path leading off into the wild blue yonder. But getting home from here would be dangerous. I couldn't orient myself in this landscape. I would need to pass through numerous territories, where I had no kin to vouch for me. Where I would be treated with mistrust, even attacked. Or worse, there would be no Hypno there, just emptiness. And danger, from human and Pokémon. I wouldn't make it.

But if I stayed here, I would lose my identity, and my freedom. I would never see my tribe again. Oneira. All the places I knew. I would be a nothing. I would turn into a mind reading pervert, or just the regular kind. I would starve, end up eating my own kind's dreams. Be trapped in this house, with its little scrap of outdoors. Condemned to the same landscape forever, caged by my own fear of escape. They might trade me away. They might experiment on me, sift through my brain until I ended up a gibbering mess. I would lose myself.

The choice between leaving and staying was like being asked whether you would prefer loosing your hands or your feet. Neither answer is going to be pleasant. I felt an abyss open in my chest, like my heart had dropped through the floor. I wanted to run, run, run away, but the outside world would kill me. Everyone in our tribe knows the dangers that are out there. The usual ones of being injured too far from help, being attacked by other Pokémon, or our own, or being captured… We live in a kind of permanent nebulous dread. But it is the only way to be safe. No one will protect you but your own tribe. No-one else can.

I didn't want to think anymore. Suddenly there was a snorting sound from under the table. I looked over to see Mimpi staring at me, obviously trying to stifle her laughter. I crawled under the table. "What?"

"I know a secret about you," she whispered "Do you want to know what it is?"

"Can't be much of a secret, if you're just going to tell me."

She pouted, which I found annoying.

"You're going to run away. I know a lot of secrets, but I won't tell you any more." She started sniffing a marker. I looked up at the table. She'd drawn all over it. Clumsy, crude drawings that had bled into the grain of the wood. Blobby hearts and stars and flowers.

"I know about you and the lady upstairs." Apparently my lack of enthusiasm hadn't dented her desire to talk to me.

"Well that seems to be common knowledge now." My reply sounded acerbic, even to me.

"What's it like?"

"None of your business." I had intended to tell her she was too young to be asking before remembering that she was probably close to my age.

"I'm not too young to ask. Besides, I already know about that. And mind reading is just faster. Everyone does it."

"I don't. And you shouldn't."

"Well everyone here does. What's your swamp like?"

"I don't live in a swamp."

"Traum says you did."

"Did he actually say that to you? Or did you just extract it?"

"Same thing, he tells me lots of things."

I wasn't sure what that statement confirmed, but I decided that because she was annoying and Traum was too, they probably had a lot to say to each other.

"Traum's like my brother, that's why he tells me things he doesn't tell anyone else. "

"Good for you. I had him pegged as someone who liked mystery."

"He just likes making you confused, because he's jealous."

"Great, what a probing dissection of his character." I suddenly realized that I actually wanted to know what he was jealous of. I felt a little guilty once I realized how satisfied the thought of Traum being discontented made me feel.

"He wishes he came from a swamp."

"Great, I hope he finds one. And sinks in it."

"You're not very nice."

"That's a stupid thing to say. How do you know?" It was like bickering with a child. The fact that this place was also stripping me of any semblance of maturity made me feel depressed. Which was, in turn, irritating.

"I know you want to leave, but you're scared. Which makes you a baby. Like on TV." I didn't really understand her reference, but the reasoning was apparently solid enough for her. "You don't know anything. Your swamp sounds boring. Why are you scared to run away?" Genuine curiosity apparently breaking through her blithe dismissal of my intellect.

"Aren't you scared of being alone? Like, without other Hypno? Out there?" I decided it would be pointless trying to explain the protection tribes offered.

"I wouldn't go outside. It's boring out there. I wouldn't be scared, though."

"Have you ever been out… Away from humans?"

"Yes. Of course!" She found the question annoying enough that I assumed her answer was a lie. At first I felt superior in the life experience I had, that she lacked. Then the implications of her being with humans her whole life made me sad. She'd never really grown up; she was a pouty child in an adult's body. Not normal.

"Where are your family, Mimpi?"

"I don't have a stupid family. I don't need anyone. I take care of myself."

"You don't have anyone?"

"I'm not needy like Dormi, or sooo sad and useless like you." She rolled her eyes. "You come from a boring swamp, full of boring people like you. I know things only the humans know, like Traum. You think you're so smart but you don't know anything. Go away! Or go back to that lady. Only she likes you." Her truncated tantrum fizzled before she could inject it with much emotion.

"Ow. You wound me so." I wasted some sarcasm on her.

"What? I didn't hit you!" Then she did.

"Should I go?"

"Yes, because I'm bored, and you're stupid to talk to." She turned around and started scribbling on the wall with a marker.

Feeling more annoyed than I probably should have I crawled out from under the table. Sono was asleep now, and Alvas was staring blankly out the window. I crept out.

I wanted to talk to someone who wasn't Mimpi, and order my thoughts. But potential colleagues in this pursuit seemed limited. Lazlo probably wouldn't want to hear me mope and plan an escape I'd likely be too cowardly… cautious to follow up on. I wandered the empty house. I felt uncomfortable in it, wary. I couldn't understand why. The humans had brought me here, given me the right to exist here. Given me no say in the matter. Why did I feel so ill at ease? I felt lessened by this house. Like some creature, without a mind. I wasn't a human, and this was a human place. Why did not being human suddenly make me feel so flawed?

I found myself at the foot of the stairs. I could hear the humans, Tadao and Norio, talking animatedly upstairs. About unusual readings and data that didn't fit expected patterns. Traum was apparently up there. I stood at the foot of the stairs. Waited for them to come out, see me and use my brain, for whatever they did. My readings would be obediently fitted to existing data patterns. They wouldn't confuse any readings or make life hard. I'd quietly belong, and be a good pet and exemplary subject. No one came out of the room. My wish to be of service was dashed.

There was a tap on the window behind me. I jumped. It was Dormi. She smiled reassuringly and gestured for me to come outside. I wandered to the door and met her in the garden.

"You looked, I don't know, gloomy. I thought I should get you. Sorry."

"Why sorry?"

"I don't know. Just… I don't know."

"It's okay. I don't know what I should be doing."

"Mimpi doesn't mean to be rude. She's just, I can't explain it."

"You're mind reading me?" I just wanted to be sure.

"Sorry. Hard habit to break."

"Don't worry." Since she's know anyway, I said what was on my mind "Why's Mimpi… Not grown?"

"In the mind? I don't know. She wasn't cared for very well, for a long time. It's hard to tell what's a lie and what's not with her. I don't think you ever get the truth from her. I don't think she can tell anyone."

"Why didn't they care for her? Why would they…" I stopped.

"Raise her if they didn't need her for something? Don't worry, I won't be offended." She smiled slightly "Humans aren't always careful with Pokémon. I think Mimpi was a failed breeding."

"Failed?"

"Not the right stats or something. So she was just left in a daycare."

"You've lost me."

"A place where they breed us. I guess she wasn't up to scratch. They didn't leave her with anyone who could… civilize her. No Hypno. No humans who trained her, either. I eat her dreams, because it's better if she doesn't have them," She was suddenly angry "that's how bad it was. Sorry. I don't mean to scandalize you. It's just, she can't dream in a healthy way. It's all bad. Her mind isn't well."

"What's it like to eat one of our dreams?"

"You never have? I thought…"

"No. I never have."

"Not with the pink girl?"

"Oneira. She's Oneira. No. We're not… No."

"Oh. I thought… I'm not sure."

I couldn't think of anything that would bridge the gap between our worlds for a while. But it was okay. Dormi was a calming presence.

"Come on, come see this." She beckoned me forward, until we were standing under the garden's one huge tree. She leant in close, and, for a second I was confused. "What?" she said softly "I want to climb up." She laughed slightly and leapt up into the tree's forked trunk, unsteady for a second. She extended a hand magnanimously, and we climbed up until we were lost in the leaves. Sitting in the tree, with Dormi the admirable climber, I watched the sky. This tree must have been old, far older than the house. The ancient gnarled branches seemed so much more solid than any of the human constructions; they'd weathered countless seasons the house could never endure. I wondered if the humans ever climbed the tree, or gave it much thought at all- this ancient wild thing in their neatly clipped and trimmed garden.

"How did you learn to climb Dormi? I thought, you, well… You'd be more comfortable in the house."

"I am," she said lightly "But I've been outdoors before, obviously." A mischievous half smile spread over her face "Come on, really?"

I felt stupid.

"They didn't keep me locked up or something. There were trees where I grew up. I was told we Hypno climb trees, so I tried it a few times. I liked that, if you got high enough, no one knew you were there and it was like you really weren't. You were just...part of the world. Sorry, that sounds pretentious."

"Who told you?"

"A wild Musharna. I was wandering around outside and she was there. There was a forest near the house I grew up in. I was kind of scared of it, really."

"We don't climb much, you know. At least, not where I'm from. Have you ever fallen out?"

"No. But you have." She laughed, then tried to stifle it, but couldn't. "No, no, I didn't mind read, I could just tell."

"Yes, well, I'm not as practiced as you are." I tried to affect wounded dignity but couldn't manage it.

"But there are so many trees where you're from, why don't you?"

"Well, I guess, when you're living out there, trees don't seem that exiting."

"I always liked them. That sounds stupid. I always liked pretending I was from out there."

"You never tried to go?"

"No." she sounded a little sad "I thought about it, but, I don't know, I was raised by humans… I thought if I got traded away, I might see more of there, the world. But it… scared me. And Alvas, obviously. Why would I go?"

"Did he ever want to go away?"

"Kind of. I talked him out of it, a bit. I was scared. He kind of wanted to go, but not entirely, like me. It's like a desire that comes and goes. We were scared of you… wild ones. Sorry, I don't mean, it's just…"

"I know, I suppose."

"Me and Alvas used to fight and fight about stuff like that. He thought we'd find… your kind of Hypno, and then… I don't know what he thought. I thought we'd be chased away, and it would be embarrassing. And we'd have to go back to the humans anyway, so why, why go?"

I couldn't explain the suspicion she would have faced if she had met a Hypno tribe. I'd never thought about the equation from the other side. I wondered for the first time why we hated the human raiseds so much. We sat in the tree silently after that, Dormi leaning on my arm in a companionable way. The sun arched through the sky.

"We should go down. It's going to get cold." She said finally.

On the way down I was glad I was behind her, so she wouldn't see my wobbly, white knuckled climb down. When we were on, thankfully, solid ground she said something vague about checking on Mimpi and crept into the house. She looked almost furtive, which made me feel suddenly, inexplicably, guilty.

"I see our Dormi is working her magic." Traum hissed. I hadn't heard him behind me and jumped, then felt foolish. "She's a nice girl. Taking you up to her tree of seduction."

"She…" I had no idea how to finish the sentence. I wanted instinctively to defend Dormi, but couldn't understand why, entirely. It was, perhaps, more of a reflexive desire to disagree with Traum.

He continued, smiling a particularly venomous smile "Oh, but I guess I shouldn't be ungrateful, myself. Dormi's always so good to talk to, after all. And her mind reading habits are so convenient."

"Really, with you?" I said coolly. "Poor girl, she must be bored."

Traum switched tack. "Well, I'm sure her homey charms won't do it for you, now, of course. Now that you've had more transformative experiences."

I glared at him. Which probably indicated that I'd lost that altercation.

I heard the crunch of gravel, Kaoru had arrived back.

"Come on, let's go up and help with the research." Traum said sourly. I followed him, as silently as possible back into the house. As we reached the stairs, and I heard the car door outside shut neatly, a feeling of foreboding settled over me.