Disclaimer: Puppy: I'm glad! Ebaz: *Picks you up and spins you around* And seeing your review gave me major nostalgia, back to two summers ago when I used to grin like an idiot whenever I saw that someone had reviewed this fic. Kasumi: *hugs you back* I've missed you, too! I submitted 'Short-Circuit', which was an Oldrivalshipping prose-y type drabble. Thanks : ) Tri: THANKS TRI I MISSED YOU TOO. Mocking J: Thank you so much! Mitsy: GUESS WHO'S BACK. BACK AGAIN. *squishes your cheeks* Your reviews always make me grin; thanks~ And I hope we get 3D R/S/E, too! How cool would that be? Pokekid and Ji Shi: Thank you both so much for all your reviews! They were incredibly fun to read, and I'm very grateful for them. Olih: Thanks! Oh, and Marlon and Roxie are gym leaders from B/W2 : )

Question: How would you react if they made a new Pokemon series targeting teen viewers? What would you want the plot to be? (From Pokekid)

My Answer: Well, considering the Pokemon Origins special is coming out in October, I'm pretty happy with that! Personally, though, I wish that they would convert Pokespe into an anime.

Characters: Dawn X May, for Jack.

Summary: High school AU.

Lionhearted

She trembles, when all she wants to do is roar.

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It didn't start at a young age {or at least, May thinks it didn't}. When they were all children playing pretend, she was happy to play the princess, locked away in her imaginary tower and waiting for her prince to save her.

{She still finds beauty in that fantasy; still imagines how it would feel to have strong arms around her as they ride into the sunset, still sighs and smiles when she imagines Prince Charming kneeling with flowers in hand. But there's another part of her- an achy, still-budding part- that finds the idea of a girl rescuing her just as appealing, if not more.}

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How it did start {or so she thinks} is like this: when she's sixteen, a new girl moves into town. May doesn't think much of her- she has hair like the calm waters of Lake Rage, and eyes even bluer than that- but she doesn't catch May's eye right away, and May's not interested in getting to know her. Dawn, someone says her name is, and May shrugs it off; she has her own friends, and doesn't really need any more.

Until they get paired up for an assignment.

{It's such a cliché; May should have saw it coming—but she didn't, and so it took her off guard. It took her off guard how much they had in common, and how quickly they became friends. Thinking back to it, she can't even remember how exactly they became friends: it was like they fell into step with each other immediately. And that was how May thought of her: as a friend.

{That is, up until she realized that that wasn't how she thought of her at all.}

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They aren't that close {which rings the bell that is her heart, and sends disappointment pealing through her body like sound} and don't see each other often, and it doesn't bother May at first. But there are moments- moments where Dawn lays her head in May's lap, moments when May's cheeks burn in not-quite-embarrassment- that make fear wake in the back of her mind. Dawn is beautiful and May finds her eyes lingering places they shouldn't, and wearen'tevencloseI'mjustoverreactingthisisn'twhatI thinkitis.

{Feelings are like weeds, May finds: you don't have to nurture them for them to snake up and around your heart, looping around and around until they have you in a stranglehold. But she doesn't admit it, even to herself, because she's sixteen and she just isn't ready for that yet.

{She isn't sure that she ever will be.}

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"My dad almost saw the cuts on my wrists today," Dawn says, and May freezes in more ways than one. Words collect in her cheeks but she can't breathe them out, and her hand reaches, only to let it fall. {She's happy that she's being confided in but she's so very sad and scared and all the emotions tangle on her tongue, rendering it useless.}

"I'm sorry," May whispers, useless, and she wants to put her hand over Dawn's but just can't bring herself to. She doesn't want to fix Dawn but she wants her to be happy, and she doesn't know how to go about making that happen.

"It's okay," Dawn says. A smile cracks across her face, made to appease, but May stares through it with an unconvinced smile of her own.

{May can't remember how it got this way, and she doesn't know how to help. She doesn't want to fix her, but she wants her to be happy: she wants to soothe and comfort and make her laugh, but May knows that she always flocks towards broken birds and it's a slow knife to her stomach.

{May just doesn't understand how Dawn can make her so happy, when she herself is so sad.}

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If Dawn is sunlight then May is an overcast day, tentative and bleak and wistful. May watches as Dawn walks into the classroom, and things don't get brighter but May can feel a grin warm her face, impossible to reign in.

Dawn leaves her a note every once in a while, trite and silly and brimming with inside jokes. White starbursts bloom inside May's heart, white-hot and fleeting, and she tucks each note away for safe-keeping.

"If you could kiss one person in our school without any repercussions, who would you choose?" someone asks during a sleepover, and Dawn's face is the first thing May thinks of. She tries to think of someone- anyone- else, but can't.

{Idon'thaveacrushIdon'tIdon't she thinks, but cries anyway because it's impossible to fool yourself. The facts come crashing onto her head, and she twists and turns and wants to scream because all the beautiflies in her stomach are making her sick and she hates it when she catches herself worrying about what to wear around her. She hates herself and hates these feelings and hates the mere thought of admitting it out loud, because she can just picture her parents' faces and the shock taking root in her friends' expressions. They'd feel awkward swimming or sleeping in the same bed together; they'd single her out, avoid her gaze; they'd treat her differently, and the knowledge is a hammer to her heart.

{I don't, she thinks again, but I can't is what echoes sadly through her mind.}

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"You're brilliant," Dawn says.

"You're so cute."

"You're amazing."

"You're gorgeous."

"You are, too," May says back every time, because she's a rabbithearted girl and it makes her sick to the core. {She falters, when all she wants to do is flee. She trembles, when all she wants to do is roar. She wants to kiss her cheek and hold her hand and stroke the hair back from her face, but there is a vacancy in her heart that tells her it's all for naught and she was never one to take chances.}

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"What are you writing?" Dawn asks, and May's eyes catch on her face because Wow, I never knew you wore glasses, and they're so incredibly lovely on you; I wish you wore them more often.

"Something unimportant," May answers, and she hopes that the breathlessness in her voice goes by unnoticed.

Dawn leans closer, smiles. {And it takes May back to the time where their embrace lasted longer than it should've, and finally, finally, gives in and admits to herself that it meant something more.} "Is it finished yet?"

"Not yet, no." May flips the journal shut, slips the pen between the pages. "But I hope I end it soon, one way or another."

{Back when she was a child, it never occurred to her that a princess could fight, but it occurs to her now: donning a gown and wielding a sword, May wishes that someone had painted that picture for her as a child. Maybe she would have grown up stronger, braver. Lionhearted.

{But, she thinks, she's not done growing yet. There's still time.

{And she'll do all she can to grow into the person she wants to be, whether other people approve of that person or not.}

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fin.