Chapter 8—Déchiré
(adjective)
—French for torn , riven , agonized , and broken
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The hospital smelled like antiseptic and disinfectants and everything Celestine hated. It was just too clean-smelling, too unnatural, and if she had to stay here much longer, she was going to break something.
White, white, white, all around her. It was suffocating, claustrophobic. Hospitals always unnerved her (how can you feel comfortable in a place where people die and are euthanized almost daily?), but there was a difference between walking into a hospital as an observer and being confined to a white cot, forced into a papery gown, with an IV jabbed into your arm. When you were an observer, you could remain detached. You didn't watch the nurses and think to yourself, this one is mine, she's coming in with bad news or news that she thinks is good but is actually meaningless to me and a smile that is definitely patronizing. You didn't feel trapped, didn't feel like you were in an ivory cage, and the smell of cleanness—of an absolute lack of dirt and filth and all the things that make life real—wasn't quite so unnerving.
But she was a patient, now. A patient with a medical chart clipped neatly to her bedpost detailing how she was administered under what is being called "blood sugar crash", but was actually code for "almost passed out from Transcendence-overexertion". Which, okay, was really stupid—Transcending three times in a row is a strain even for a well-trained Aesith, and she was not that. If anything, she'd only gotten so practiced and precise from continuous trial and error (the results of which she still has nightmares about, but, anywho). But they couldn't write down anything involving Transcendence or the media would have a field day.
Hell, they were already having a field day, Celestine mused grumpily. Greenaway was doing her best to keep the vultures at bay, as per her designation of damage control. Celestine may not like the woman particularly, but she had to admit, she was doing a good job of turning away reporters chasing the scent of blood and keeping Alexa Dupuis's death labelled accidental. A stress-induced heart attack. That was the official story. And Celestine had been administered into the hospital on account of low blood sugar, or anemia, or something else involving blood, because anything involving blood was immediately plausible for why people grow dizzy and their knees tremble and why they stumble drunkenly into the arms of the paramedics.
When she closed her eyes, she can almost picture herself back in that arena. One hand clinging to the corrupted Keystone, how it burned hotly against her palm (its heat was nothing new, she must have held dozens in the last five years) and Delphi's broken body cradled in her trembling arms.
The Keystone was currently tucked away safely in her pocket—the pocket of her jeans, anyway. She'd feel a lot better once she got her actual clothes back and ditched this paper-thin replacement dress they forced her in. It didn't even fully cover her body, dammit. Her ass was completely exposed.
At least you couldn't see it under these scratchy covers. But it'd still be a shame if some camera-wielding freaks burst in, eager for a shot of the foreign girl who claimed the Gym Leader title.
Thank god I got rid of that as soon as I did. She flashed back to yesterday morning—Calem coming in, dropping a thick stack of documents on her lap, eyes ringed with shadows as he explained to her that he spent all night haggling with someone he knows in the League system just to get the files there and a promise that they would be notarized by the end of the week. Which was, to her understanding, lightspeed by bureaucracy standards, so she'd nodded and offered him a twitch in her lip that wasn't quite a smile when he told her she'd better be fucking grateful. With the sloppy hand of someone who wanted to be over and done with everything, she signed and initialed every dotted line and x-marks-the-spot place and anywhere that demanded ink meet paper. He d labelled them with color-coated little tabs, and she couldn't decide if that was OCD behavior or him just insulting her by thinking her incapable of deciding what to do where.
She'd decided on feeling insulted. It was always safe to assume people were insulting you, even when they didn't realize it.
Then she'd come to the last page, and blinked.
"This says I have to give a statement to the press." In hindsight, there was a note of something like betrayal in her tone. It was slightly shameful to admit that now.
And he'd looked at her with dark eyes that were just so, so tired and responded flatly, "My contact also works in the media."
"Calem."
"Look, it doesn't have to be a whole recounting—you can just write one sentence. But you have to write something if you don't want this to end up sitting on someone's desk for a month." When she'd still looked unconvinced, he'd sighed heavily and began massaging his temples. "Originally, she wanted an interview. Like, the on-camera kind. This a compromise."
"Compromise," she'd repeated incredulously.
Something on his face had changed. "Look—you've made your bed, so you re going to lie in it, because I am not fucking changing your bedsheets for you. So write a damn sentence."
She remembered pursing her lips and feeling oddly guilty. Remembered being acutely aware of the circles around his eyes, how his annoyance was born from sleep deprivation—and she'd felt a thrill of stifled gratitude. She allowed her shoulders to slump in defeat, thought for a moment, then scribbled something down across the paper. Folded the documents back up, and handed them back to him.
"A complete sentence," he'd said, eyeing the documents skeptically.
"I did," had been her flat response. Prick.
He flipped through to make sure every "t" was crossed and every "i" dotted. When he reached the back page, his brows arched inquisitively. He'd held it up for her to see. "What are these?"
And she'd smirked. "Kanji."
"What?"
"Kantonese writing symbols," she'd clarified. "You said write a sentence—you didn't say which language."
Calem had scoffed, then folded the packet back up. "Bitch," he said, but there was a note of something like longsuffering amusement in his tone rather than annoyance.
He hadn't been her only visitor. Serena showed up with word from Hakase, who wanted her in Lumiose the minute she was discharged. "The sooner you're out of Santalune, the better," were his exact words, according to Serena. He'd thought that the story might die down sooner if she weren't there for questions and comments. Celestine couldn't decide if that was naïve or not, but she consented nonetheless. It wasn't as though she had anywhere else she could go—going back south was out, and even then, Lumiose was logically the next step. She gave Serena her word that she would make for Lumiose once discharged, and the blonde girl had left slightly unconvinced but, for some uncomprehendable reason, willing to trust her regardless.
Trevor and Tierno had both come in after that. Tierno first, and he d sat on her bed and asked how she was feeling. Nice guy, Tierno, but his attempts at small-talk were met with general annoyance, and he d eventually taken the hint, departing with news that her team was recovering well and a "get well" that seemed to fall flat. Trevor, however, had arrived with the express purpose of finding out what the hell had happened, and though he stumbled over his words uncertainly, faltering repeatedly and trailing off, the intent and determination behind it were clear. He had a scientist's curiosity and it would not be sated until she gave him a proper answer. She'd turned him away, knowing full well that this was not over.
That was yesterday. Today, Shauna parked herself in a plastic chair at Celestine's bedside with a bouquet of crocuses in her arms.
Celestine blinked at them dully. "You shouldn't have."
"I didn't." Shauna plucked a card from the tissue paper wrapping and handed it over. "A secret admirer. According to Miss Greenaway, a lot of people have been sending you gifts."
That didn't make a lick of sense. Celestine turned her head the nurses insisted she lie down, even though she was fine, but she was tired of scolding looks and patronizing reprimands and she was tired overall, so hell, she wasn't moving her head from this pillow. "Like who?"
"People who lost Pokémon to Alexa, mostly. Or... loved ones." There was a deep note of sorrow in the way Shauna said that. Celestine looked at the linoleum tiles to avoid the way her eyes misted, but she recovered quickly. "The Gym staff, too. Basically anyone who's thankful that Alexa's been evicted."
The card was very general. Store-bought, the font glittery as it delivered its platitudes. There was no proper signature, only a "Sincerely, a well-wisher" penned at the bottom.
She closed it with a snort. "Evicted" was too weak a word. "Am I getting hate-mail, too?"
The fact that Shauna didn't answer immediately said everything.
Celestine's chuckle was dry and scratchy, like barbed wire in her throat. The card made a light, dry thwacking noise as it fell into the nearby trashcan. "They think I killed her, don't they?"
"...no," Shauna said, but it was meant as reassuring. Reassuring in a way that meant someone needed comforting, which meant she was lying even more than the pause indicated.
Well, it wasn't like Celestine could blame them. She remembered the fabric of the choker beneath her fingers, the way the Keystone burned as it ate up Alexa's life, how she screamed and writhed and—then went abruptly still.
The monitor's beeping accelerated. Celestine squeezed her eyes shut and fought a strangling tightness in her throat. Death was nothing new, or spectacular. She should not be panicking like this, should not be fighting the hollow twist in her stomach for something she had to do.
Had to do.
I had to. There was no other way.
And something that sounded suspiciously like Calem's voice snorted inside her head, Keep telling yourself that, Lavieaux.
Darkness thrummed beneath her eyelids. The darkness didn't judge. It stared back, but it didn't judge.
"Celie." Shauna's voice hardened. "Look at me."
Dully, Celestine turned her head. Caught sight of the IV and the saline bags and the monitor beep-beep-beeping in tune with her heartbeat. And she grimaced, averting her gaze.
Puzzlement gathered on Shauna's expression. "You okay?"
"Okay" did not even begin to cover it. The white walls burned and every breath was filled with an unnatural cleanliness that stabbed her lungs. People thought that making disinfectants smell like citrus meant it was nicer, but it only served to make her nauseous. But Celestine was not going to tell Shauna this, though. Not going to share something so irrelevant to the situation, so all she said was, "I hate hospitals, and I hate needles."
Shauna's lip curled in halfhearted amusement. "You don't seem like the type."
"To hate hospitals?"
"To be afraid something as childish as needles."
Personally, Celestine didn't think there was anything childish about being afraid of needles, but that was just her. Instead, she turned back to the flowers bundled in Shauna's arms. The purple was much too cheery. "What do those mean?"
"Um." Shauna looked down helplessly at the bouquet. "I think glee'? I don't know. The whole 'language of flowers' thing isn't my forte. I'm Hoennian."
In the first place, Celestine found the whole language of flowers thing really stupid, so she could appreciate that. "If people're gonna send me flowers, they shouldn't send me something so inappropriate."
That elicited a laugh from Shauna. A nice, sweet sound of something not-quite broken, but not-quite whole, either. "Right? Some of these people are kinda psycho, too." She flashed a conspiratorial smile, then leans forward a little, eyes twinkling with mischief. "Like, there's this one guy at the front desk in a brown trench coat—kind of like Miss Greenaway's, but not really—and he's insisting that he's your guardian or whatever—"
What.
Something on Celestine's face must have changed, must shown the unholy horror rising in her throat to strangle the breath in her airways, because Shauna broke off. If Shauna said anything else, Celestine didn't hear, didn't see, because white noise settled in her skull and she could just imagine—just imagine a dark-haired man arguing stiffly with the nurse at the front desk. Pulling out paperwork and legal guardianship and his badge, to boot, if he really wanted to scare the old gal. He would, too. Guy loves flashing his badge.
"...Celie?"
"What's his name?" Celestine's mind raced. It couldn't be him, couldn't be. He wouldn't come all the way down here, potentially blow his cover and this whole operation, just for her, would he?
Oh, fuck, he definitely would.
"Um." Shauna looked uncertain. "I didn't really catch it—Um. Bel-something? I dunno. It sounded fake."
The thudding of Celestine's heart was making the monitor react. Badly. She was almost afraid to ask, but she does anyway. "Beladonis?"
Shauna blinked in surprise, and then looked concerned. "Yeah. How did you—"
A knock on the door cut Shauna off. Both girls turned as the door opened, and a nurse poked her head in, a little sheepish. "Um, Mlle Lavieaux? You have another visitor."
Oh Birds. Oh Genesis Almighty. Oh please, oh please, if there was any god out there with even a shred of mercy—
"It's your legal guardian," the nurse adds, uncertain.
Celestine squeezed her eyes shut and tried to press herself flat against the flimsy mattress. Shit.
The knot of horror and apprehension in Celestine's stomach must have shown on her face, because the nurse hesitated. "I can... send him away, if you like?"
That sounded like a very, very good idea. Celestine would almost agree to that, except she knww it probably wouldn't work, and sending him away would only make her look guiltier than she already was, which would be extremely bad. Plus, she doubted it would even be possible, because in the cosmic game of rock-paper-scissors, IP agent definitely trumped small-city hospital nurse.
She opened her mouth, but there was no time for a response. The nurse let out a yelp as a man brushed passed her, and Celestine bolted upright with wide eyes. "M-Monsieur!" the woman cried, flustered and shocked and bewildered. "You can't just barge in—"
He didn't seem to here hear her. The subtle age lines of his face were set into a severe expression that would have been a cool, professional mask on anyone else, but his heavy brows and dull, dark eyes gave it a more ominous touch. His hair was short in the back and sweeped out in the front, and from the solid dark color of it, you'd almost have guessed he was younger than he is. But there was no mistaking the expression in his eyes—heavy, empty and full at the same time, the expression of a hardened man who's seen shit and copes with it thanks to liberal amounts of whiskey. Or cognac. He preferred cognac. She knew that much, at least.
Those dark, cognac-craving eyes roved her, and she tried to sink into her hospital sheets, become one with the paper-thin garment and the IVs stuck in her arms and her heart was thrumming wildly, the monitor giving a shrill beep with each frantic thud. His mouth thinned into a line (she noted, absently, that he looked in need of a shave, stubble didn't suit him), and he jabbed his hands into the pockets of the long trench coat that draped his broad shoulders. He held himself with all the dignity and poise of professional, but she knew him. Knew what's silently bubbling beneath the dignified set of his shoulders.
It dawned on her, then. Actually dawned on her. And she became fully aware that she was utterly, completely, royally fucked.
She cracked a nervous, god-fearing smile that she knows was very unlike her, and chuckled. Fucking chuckled. "Heyyy, Looker. Long time no see!"
Oh god. That was so lame. She was so fucked.
Looker—Agent Looker, distinguished member of the Valor Division of the International Police, veteran of over ten years—ignored her. His dark gaze flicked over to Shauna, then narrowed subtly. "Leave," he said, forceful but not unkind.
Either Shauna was psychic or Celestine was really bad at hiding how fucking terrified she was, because the Hoennian sent her an uncertain look. "Um..."
"Leave," Looker repeats. Then, he added, "Please."
Oh fuck.
Guys like him were not polite unless they were in a really good mood or phenomenally pissed. There was no way it was the former.
Again—oh fuck.
Shauna sent Celestine another concerned look, but she unfolded her legs and rose to her feet, all the while looking as though she'd rather be doing to exact opposite. She took Celestine's wrist, gave it a quick squeeze, and murmured, "I'll be back later, 'kay?"
Celestine wanted to beg Shauna not to abandon her, but then it occured to her that such a thing would be a sign of weakness. So now she was very, very conflicted. Fucking hell, why couldn't anything ever be easy.
"Okay," she said, and hopes the please don't leave me to face his wrath alone didn't ring through.
With another concerned look, Shauna shuffled over to the door, casting Looker a wary glance as she cradled her bouquet close to her chest. Looker watched her leave from the corner of his eye, and turned his head subtly to study her as she departed. Once Shauna has left, the nurse shot Looker a distrustful glare, which he returned disinterestedly. The distrust, however, was clearly not enough to escort him out, because the woman only huffed, then left him and Celestine alone.
The door closed with a soft click.
He turned back to her so sharply it was like cutting your finger on a knife, swift and clean and bloody. "What in the hell were you thinking?"
Celestine flinched. Actually flinched. It was like a slap to the face, coming from him. "Okay, wait—"
"Do not answer. It is obvious you were not thinking," he interrupted sharply. Sharp enough for her to wince. The apathetic poise in his shoulders had given way to a furious tenseness, and he removed his hands from his pockets, allowing her to see how they clench into fists. She wondered if this was what it's like to stare down the barrel of a gun and see your life flashing before your eyes. "Had you been thinking, you would have courteously informed me of the situation, rather than leap—headlong—into the danger you did!"
That wasn't fair. "It just happened, okay "
"No! It is not okay!" He shook his head, brows furrowed. He was upset you could tell by how thick that fucking accent is, how it was harsh and heavy and corrupted the vowels. His Common was already broken, but the accent bled into it all the more heavily, now. "This is not condonable behavior! Have you any idea the sort of mess you have created "
"No, I don't." Something hardened in her gut. Maybe it was the word "mess" that set it off, because that was always been a trigger word for her. Mess. Don't mess around, mess with me, make a mess. Your mess to clean up because you don't finish that thought. "But I do know what could have happened."
There was something derisive in the way he regarded her. "Enlighten me, then."
Oh, wow. Okay. She was actually being given a chance to speak her piece. Emboldened and trying not to let her nervousness show, she breathed in deep and kept going. "I've seen abusive Transcenders, Looker. It's not pretty, and Alexa had all the signs of impending burnout."
"Burnout" is such a mundane term—it sounds like something reserved for college kids who don't get enough sleep, not people who turn into monsters.
"If I let her keep going on any longer, she was liable to start attacking things at random." Like challengers, like her own sister. "Anything that fucking moved. It's a miracle she stuck to the arena as long as she did."
What Celestine didn't say was how fast it progressed. How the Keystone had exacerbated Alexa's jealous tendencies, her natural envy. How constant use had blackened her soul until she didn't bat an eyelash at murdering her only family. If Celestine thought about that, she would just get nauseous, and she didn't need to vomit right now, thanks. Didn't want to dump her stomach contents all over that sparkly card from an anonymous well-wisher.
Looker's eyes narrowed. Like he knew every single thought in her head. He was a damn good detective, after all. "Celestine. The circumstances, they are not lost on me. My concern, however—it lies in the recklessness with which you acted."
She opened her mouth and searched for a way to defend herself, but nothing came out. Closing it again, she glared down at her hands, fighting back the helpless frustration that rose in her chest. The IV protruded repulsively from the pale, tender flesh of her arm. It sickened her.
"You did not think."
No. I didn't. I'm sorry.
"You only reacted."
Okay, well—
"With no plan in mind, you put yourself in harm's way."
...there's a term for that—
"My superiors are fairly furious."
Well, fuck, I can"t control how they feel.
"They want," he says, with deliberate slowness, "to take you off this case."
Celestine's head snapped up.
"They can't." It was her automatic response. She knew, logically, that the Director of what-the-fuck-ever could take her off the case if he chose. Knew he had that power. But. But—he couldn't.
He closed his eyes and exhaled. All the tension melted off him, seemingly, and he suddenly just looked very tired. She hated it, hated how old he looked. "The Director was not thrilled, in the first place, that you were brought here, Celestine. Your case, this does not help. Not at all."
"He can't," she said. It was all she seems capable of saying, right now. "He— He can't—"
"You are no agent." There was no apology in Looker's tone. Just fact, just unbiased truth. "Or freelancer. You are a civilian, lacking of sufficient training."
Her fists gathered bunches of scratchy fabric and she thought back to literal years of smelling metal and blood and the antiseptic that tried, in vain, to mask the prior two scents. "You need me."
"You were not asked to do this." His voice was soft, but not kind. "You volunteered."
"Because "
He interrupted by holding up a single hand, and the sight of it snapped the shock out of her. All the rage came back, hot and bloody and like an inferno just got lit in her belly. The fumes of it itched in her throat, choked her lungs, made her mind burn. She wanted to snarl and foam at the mouth and snap the fingers off his hand, but she restrained herself because she was not a wild animal, dammit.
"I know why." And there was something profoundly sad and mournful in the way he says it.
Right. She staved off the rage by panting, by expelling the hot air building inside her lungs. Staved it off by listening to her pulse roar in her skull and thinking about blood, about death, about dismantling everything with these red-slicked hands of hers and laughing at the beautiful destruction. Yes that was truly something worth living for.
Then Looker closed his eyes, and he suddenly looks tired. "But, you did not have to kill Alexa Dupuis."
She flinched, and looked away.
And there it was. There was the truth she couldn't fight, couldn't ignore. There was a person, out there, who was being mourned because of her. A set of lungs that were not breathing, a heart that was not pumping—because of her. Someone was dead, because of her.
This is not self-loathing, she tried to convince herself as her fists trembled and her chest throbbed and she wrestled with the urge to vomit. The white walls burned and she wanted to paint them red, wanted to paint them with blood, wanted to slather her life all over them. She could cut herself open, spill her insides out all over these scratchy sheets, but she would endure. She would live. Everyone else can die prematurely, but she couldn't. Not until her body got too old, to the point where it couldn't possibly function anymore.
I am Aesith. I am strong. I am meant to be a guardian against the corrupt.
"Yes," she said quietly, "I did."
"Celestine—"
"You didn't see her." Fuck. Her voice was trembling. Her throat felt tight. That only happened when she was going to cry and she was not going to do that, not going to cry over some random woman because she wasn't that weak. She wasn't. She's an Aesith, a fucking gardien, and this was her job. Her cosmic fucking duty, apparently. Not the one she wanted, or asked for, but fuck, only the strong are made Aesith (apparently). "Looker, I— I stared in her fucking eyes and there— there wasn't anything left of her, okay? There was nothing to recover."
The arena. The hot lights. Malachite eyes that swirled with broken humanity, splinters that would gladly gouge into anything they could and laugh as it bled out. (I don't want to see this—)
"She was gone, Looker. Fucking gone." It hurt, it hurt, her veins were on fire and she had no idea why. She didn't do that to Alexa, wasn't the one who dropped that Keystone in her palm or strapped it to her neck—but the blood was on her hands anyway. And wasn't that just fucking fair? "All her humanity, her capacity for love and compassion— It was fucking gone and that fucking stone ate it!"
"Celestine," he said, nice and soft. No more than a whisper.
Her fists trembled and her vision blurred and she hated her own weakness. Absolutely fucking hated it. Only the strong were born Aesith. What a fucking joke. "I had to get that stone off her. I had to! There was... there was no other way..."
She bowed her head, and it felt like an act of surrender. To what, she didn't know. Not to him. Never to him. He was on her side, after all.
"I am sorry," he tells her, and she didn't doubt that he meant it.
Celestine almost laughed. Sorry. Wasn't that a crazy notion? Apologizing to a fucking murderer. This world was so fucking twisted.
The flintiness in his gaze was unforgiving, but also pitying. "Such things are not a child s duty. No child should look at the world and see only evils needing purging."
"Yeah, well." The word "child" sent an awful tingling through her hands and feet. She foldrf her legs beneath the sheets to be rid of it, and the fabric scratched against her thighs. Her bangs dripped in her eyes as she looked up at him. "Like you said, I signed up for this, 'member? I mean, not the Aesith part—that just sucks. But the fact that I'm in Kalos in the first place. That's my decision."
"Of which, I was very much against," he said. Like that somehow absolved him. Which he probably knew didn't, from the weariness on his face. Did he know that he looked so much older than he is?
"You and Hakase both." Only Hakase didn't know the whole story. Just a fraction, just the tip of the iceberg. He knew she was working for the IP and he dodn't like that, didn't like children running around on government order.
But here's the thing—she hasn't been a child for a long time.
Looker shakes his head slowly. "Please do nothing like this again."
"I have to."
"You do not."
Maybe, technically, she doesn't. But, this was the real world, and technicalities meany shit. "I'm the beacon, remember? My whole job is to stir things up and draw as much attention to myself as possible." Her thoughts drift to a bellyaching laugh and screaming children and she calms herself with the fantasy of hands around his throat. "To lure that fucker out. So I need to do that, alright? I'm sorry I was sloppy, this time, but I'm not gonna apologize for doing what I'm supposed to."
He looks at her like she said bait instead of beacon. She may as well have. "What you are supposed to be, is smart."
"Looker "
"Celestine." There was an intensity in his gaze that makes her throat close up. Because it was not harsh—it was gentle. "Your current team, it is severely underleveled. If more strength you had, there would be less issue. But now, you are unprepared. It is too much, this danger level."
She knew. Maybe if she was stronger three weeks ago, she could have saved Alexa. But she knew she wasn't, and even then, the chances had been so remote it almost wasn't worth bothering.
Heh. Not worth bothering over—a human life. She really was a monster.
"Right now, lie low and get strong." His dark gaze bored into her. It slipped through her defenses with the masterful ease of someone who knew her, and left her very, very exposed. More exposed than she would have liked. "Then we talk stirring trouble."
Celestine was not a fan of vulnerable. She was a fan of multiple layers of emotional barbed wire, not exposed skin and a beating heart visible through her ribs. She looked away with a huff. "Whatever."
He looked like he wanted to reach out and touch her, like he wanted to clasp her shoulder or pull her into a hug, or some other form of physical comfort that would only make her cringe. But he seemed to think better of it just as his hand lifted, because he paused, fingers curling and his face flashing uncertainly, and then his hand dropped back to his side. She watched all of this and wondered—wondered what he was thinking, what was going on through his mind. It was strange how you could know someone so well, but when it came to that stoic expression of his, all his innermost thoughts were a mystery her. She wondered if he saw her the same way, an enigma that you know like the back of your hand.
Finally, he heaved a sigh, and ran a hand over his face. It was the only time in her life that she had ever seen him slouch. "In the meantime, s'il vous plaît—do nothing reckless."
"I make no promises."
Looker leveled her with a look of absolute exasperation. "Celestine."
"Kuso! Fine. Yes." She crossed her arms and did her best to ignore the tug of the IV while maintaining her petulance. "What are you, my fucking father?"
Something like wry amusement curled his mouth. It made him look younger, almost. Like ten years just fell off him. "If only. Perhaps, then, you would be much less of a warugaki."
"Fuck you," she snapped, but there was no force behind it. Her mouth was not curling. It was not. "Why the hell did you even come down here, you weirdo? You could ve said all of this to me in a memo or some shit. Or called, like a normal person."
"I recall," he replied, rather dryly, as he made his way over to the chair at her bedside and sat down, "that you were not answering your Caster."
Chikusho. That was true. She winced. "I— You— Shut up."
"I shall not." He schooled his expression, once again became stern and serious. "I came, Celestine, because I worried over you."
Fucking hell. Even in broken Common, he was good at guilt-tripping her. She looked away, desperately fighting a rush of heat to her cheeks, and scoffed. "T-The hell you were."
Looker arched a brow. "Do you not recall? I am your legal guardian."
"Provisionally," she grumbles, as though that somehow absolves him. It didn't. There were legal documents with his signature all over them (his real name, not his codename, though he refused to divulge it to her) that made her his responsibility. And if that wasn't just dandy.
"Still, you are most important to me." It was a rare admission of something deep and tender, but he said with a straight face, which was completely unfair. "I have known you, since you were but a child."
Celestine would just like to remind everyone that feelings sucked and she would rather no one ever express anything remotely personal. What a perfect world that would be. "All the more reason to avoid me. I was a dumbass kid."
He gave a wry tilt of his head. "And now, a moody teenager."
She glared.
A small laugh left him, but he took her petulance in stride. Beneath it all, he was professional, if nothing else. "Rest," he told her, though his tone was more endearment than the command suggested it should be. He rose to his feet, making his way over to the door in long, smooth strides. "Once discharged, you must make for Lumiose. Understood?"
Rolling her eyes, she gave a dismissive wave she he probably couldn't see, with his back to her. But yeah, sure, she was headed to Lumiose anyway. Not for him granted, and not because she felt obligated to—visit him, or whatever. Even if it was nice talking to him again, after all this time... "Whatever."
His hand paused on the door handle. "And the Bureau. You must stop by."
"Do I have a choice?" she asked, even though she knew the answer.
"You do not." His tone had gone stiff again, cool and sharp and crisp. He cast her a look over his shoulder, dark eyes worn and world-weary and serious once more. It felt a little like looking in a mirror. "Be careful, Celestine."
Her throat tightened. She looked anywhere else.
The door gave a soft click as it closed behind him, and the silence reached out to crush her.
Be careful. How the fuck was she supposed to be careful? Okay, yeah, jumping into that situation probably wasn't smart but—
I couldn't save her.
Celestine squeezed her eyes shut and tried to breathe around the breakage in her chest. But she immediately regretted it, because the darkness behind her eyelids took the shape of Viola in the maze, her voice soft and her eyes fervent, a hand on Celestine's shoulder, Be careful. And— bring my big sister back.
She gasped and her eyes flew open. White. Air that was too sterile because it was covering the scent of death and disease.
There was a whimper in her throat. A feeble, faltering noise that was pure weakness and she couldn't believe that such a thing came from her. She brought her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, buried her face in itchy fabric.
She was alone, now, and no one was there to witness all hell breaking loose.
Sobbing echoed off the walls.
Current Team:
Delphi, Male Braixen
Docile, Takes plenty of siestas
Ability: Blaze
Moves: Scratch, Howl, Ember, Flame Charge
Met: Vaniville (Aquacorde) Town
Max, Male Pidgey
Naïve, Very finicky
Ability: Tangled Feet
Moves: Tackle, Sand Attack, Gust, Quick Attack
Met: Route Two
Tanner, Male Pidgey
Hasty, Scatters things often
Ability: Tangled Feet
Moves: Tackle, Sand Attack, Gust, Quick Attack
Met: Route (Three) Two
Tyler, Male Psyduck
Naughty, Proud of his power
Ability: Damp
Moves: Disable, Confusion, Tail Whip, Water Gun
Met: (Route Twenty-Two) Santalune City
Retired: 1 Dead: 0 Boxed: 0
Author's Note:
First, let's get the translations out of the way (they're all Japanese, by the way):
—Kuso = A curse on the same level of fuck or shit. Translations are used interchangeably.
—Chikusho = Oh, shit.
—Warugaki = brat
Okay, so firstly I want to apologize for the monumental lack of activity. I'll be honest—I've spent the last few months writing in present tense for a while, to the point where I began to struggle with past tense. I tried several times to get back into the groove of C'est La Vie, but it felt like trying to jackhammer my way through a brick wall. Of course, that's not the only problem I've been having, but I'll get to that in a bit.
I have been wanting to write this since forever and I m so glad I finally got around to it. And I m thrilled with how it turned out. But...
I'll be honest here. Somewhere along the line, I've kind of lost my enthusiasm for this project. It's not that I don't enjoy writing it, because I do! But on Nuzforums, I've been getting a startling lack of response. The last chapter I posted was a Wham Episode and I got almost absolutely nothing in return. In the beginning, I did get some love for this story but then it started to trickle down and now there's pretty much nothing and...
It's disheartening.
I know the whole point of writing is to write for yourself but after pouring so much into this and getting almost nothing back, it's just starting to feel like more effort than it's worth. It doesn't help that the limited word count on that site has made me very cautious while writing this so I find myself unable to operate under full creativity (here, I can combine two iterrations together, but I did not have that freedom on Nuzforums). I've tried to shorten chapters but it feels choppy and forced and it bugs me to write like that. As much as I hate to say it, I just can't find the enjoyment or passion I once had for the story. Plus, it feels strange to write the characters now, like I've somehow lost touch with them or something. And it frustrates me.
Maybe, at a future date, I'll come back to this. But right now, I don't think I can move forward. I loved working on this and I am thankful that working on it has helped me improve into becoming the writer I am today. Honestly, I look at the prologue I posted, like, two years ago, and I'm cringing and banging my head against a wall. But for now, I think it's best if I just put it on hold.
So thank you to everyone who supported me in the beginning of this project, who enjoyed it over time, and has stuck with me for so long.
Sincerely yours,
Luna