The Spine of the World had provided decent hunting grounds in the past if you knew the habits of all wild game and it seemed as if time hadn't changed it in the years that she had been gone; though if one had the proper eye and patience then any land would yield game with the exception of the heartland of Orre, the game trails provided the quickest routes up and down Mt. Chimney and over the foothills, the forest and steppe that separated the volcano from the Falls.
This time of year the land smelled sweet and the softness of the last few weeks had begun wear away into the lines and angles of summer. She felt no need to return to civilization just yet when and wasn't required to be anywhere for the next six days at the very least, the Bicentennial festivals never started on the assigned date in the entire history of the Dragon's memory. In any case minimalist mentality was the world that she lived in these days so she took it upon herself to return to the wild roots and hike out to the Falls and climb back up onto their shelf allowing him to eat whatever he caught without fear or reprimand by anyone and he deserved it. There are those that do not understand that the meat on their tables belong to the creatures they share it with and the creatures that they intentionally capture as pets or as battling companions.
They cut across the open country of the steppe and she had taken only enough game for herself and established no camp for the treacherous two day journey across the disastrous land far from any route or mapped path that any sane human being would ever take. The route that she had chosen led up to the gentle rolling hills that held a danger that most would never expect, underground springs had eroded away the soft dirt in spring leaving leg shattering holes in their wake when the earth became like bedrock when baked in the summer heat, one misstep would leave you stranded with a broken femur and in between radio towers unable to contact help for days, the help you need within hours to save your life.
Heedless of the danger that every sign for the last four miles had insisted that she was in she maintained a swift clip up the ever increasing incline to the purple shapes of the mountains far ahead of her. This was Lynch land and her grandfather had left her alone at night in this place, taken her away from her bed and left her here for a full year as was customary. Only the strong survived the trials of Lynch land and those who failed were never seen or heard of again though occasionally the bleached white bones of the unfortunate failures were found on wanderings.
Another two days without incident and she had made it to where she intended to be from the beginning, the place she had been called to check out three months ago and just hadn't had time to so much as make a pass in the general direction in all that time. It made her blood run cold to see the remains of a fire not too many days old, maybe three or four on the western edge of the mountains near the tunnel that most travelers used to pass to Rustboro.
"Someone is hiking down to your place, Cher." her father's words echoed in her skull as she sat forward flat footed on the earth in a low crouch. She should have made time the moment the message had been passed through the channels. Under normal circumstances word that travelled mouth to mouth to mouth was not reliable but the chain moved from clan to clan until it had reached her in Forina, the message had originated with her mother's father in Opelucid.
Their fish never changed size as it moved from person to person which seemed to stun most of the populace. She didn't understand why.
She paused to examine the trees while sifting her fingers through the smoothness of the ashes, savoring the texture and memorizing it, seeking the little pieces of wood that remained charred or not. A specific signature that detonated the heat and the way that it was burned, a fire type she guessed which meant that whoever it was would be easy to find. Tonight they would look overhead and try to find them, something that would be tempting to do now if she wasn't absolutely sure that the Swellow wouldn't have a field day and raise the dead with their noise at seeing a dragon flying during the day and if there wasn't a high chance that the shining gloss of Shannis' scales wouldn't make him easy to see from the ground even with his back to the sun.
Setting up a temporary camp she found a stone large enough to suit her purposes and dug a pit at an angle beneath it carefully she wiggled a tiny flare into the space fitting it in with the head facing the stone she briskly struck the top against the underside of the stone and withdrew her hand as a brilliant red light ignited the hole. By the time she stood she could already see steam rising from the rock as the heat destroyed all impurities, when she got back it would be a nice cherry red and read to be used as a stove.
-ooo-
Escaping the vigilant eyes of one's lover must not be a problem for many people but the assumption is that men and women of a specific age that grew up with a specific value are possessive. This was true of Jayr and while she couldn't really bring herself to blame the upbringing of the First Kingdom she could revolt against her touch the same as a loyal hound revolts against anyone but their erstwhile master. Her introduction to the darkness did not begin with Jayr and Jayr did not possess her heart, in fact by law what Jayr was doing was illegal stealing the property of one she had not fought in even combat and won. The hierarchy of the Void Touched was absolute confusing but their law was not, because she was not one of theirs she was the property of the individual who had claimed her. That individual had not been Jayr.
Technically she had been registered to Winter and Winter alone and the protest that had come up was quickly swallowed alive by the brutality of the battle that had erupted between the two of them. Jayr had been rushed to a hospital and Winter left to claim her prize in a most intimate and relatively exposed way all things considering.
Either of them would like her wandering around the city with the state of the relations between the two: psychics and Those of the Void; being what they were. Jayr because she was a possessive creature and wanted assert dominance and Winter because she was more than certain that the Seconds and Fifths and maybe the Fourths, the rumor had not been proven either way, were targeting her for assassinations.
The city was not the same as the other had been, not quite as quiet as Mauville and no were near as comforting as Fallabor Town but somehow they managed to invoke those memories, memories of a time before time managed to surface in the same intensity as they had been when she had first experienced them. Something completely unknown to psychics, the technical details of a memory being the only thing that could be successfully recalled with any accuracy besides the biting sting of fear, the startling emotions inside of her were enough to wring her heart and tear open the wound that had never really had a chance to so much as scab over.
Jayr had attempted to offer her company but she had refused the polite offer with a vehemence that had startled her as much as it had Jayr, the taller girl was undoubtedly injured but she had most likely sensed something that had not made her press the issue. Without speaking Sundown had fallen in line with her offering the silent comfort she had come to expect from him, she felt a queer emotion that had until that moment not been something that she could have ever imagined as being real.
A surreal experience that she supposed that many teenagers had as they broached the cusp of their maturity and understood just what was expected of them and just how much the world had changed in the eighteen or nineteen years since their birth. They stood on a precipice that threatened to throw all that they had known and would ever know, or so they felt, into a black vastness the likes of which only the infinity of the Universe and human stupidity could ever hope to match. It sped her heart as she tried to capture those moments for only a moment because they would be the only thing that was real to her, the only thing that she could count on as being true and just even if it wasn't.
These were the things that stuck on the hearts of men and women, the only things that could be trusted when the path before you threatened to crumble beneath your feet like the stones of civilizations long since destroyed. Memories that could be triggered by the slightest of things, things that could only be preserved for a short time while they held those things as close to them as loosely as possible because they were afraid they would shatter if they clutched them too tightly.
It was hard and it brought tears to her eyes, why did anyone feel that way. Why does anyone ever feel this way?
Sundown was a comforting figure from her life before; the things that they had endured together had bound them together for the duration of eternity. She wanted to reach for his hand but she knew that if she dared she would shatter the fragility of this state of mind and the panic would creep up on her slowly but surely. They were meant to bear this in silence, suffer unable to reach out to one another… the human condition made to struggle in the ether.
She was a well-respected member of the Psychic society, held in the same esteem as Sabrina of Saffron City and he was a Third. In that heartbeat she feared that if they embraced they would become one and the only one she could bear to entwine together with was her Winter.
No one less than the Leader of the Void, the established ruler would cast down Holen if he so much as stepped out of line and claim all of the world for herself.
In the Hierarchy of the Void there was four kingdoms ruled by five monarchs called for some strange reason that no one ever explained to her ALICE; she didn't know if it was some strange kind of acronym or if there was some kind of significance to ALICE or even if Alice was a real person. It was something that she was not meant to know, something they guarded jealously as a mother guarded her child.
From what they could gather however none of the rulers was the true ALICE at least that's what she had gathered even as they desperately searched for the one that would lead them safely either into or out of the Void, that much was lost in translation. There were four independently governed colonies referred to because of their independence as Kingdoms that had a base in Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, and Sinnoh.
In Kanto they found a home between Saffron and Lavender in the form of a mansion that drifted in and out of existence similar to the Mirage Island in Hoenn that had been converted into a dance club dubbed "The Void"; In Johto they found residence outside Goldenrod in the Ilex Forest a strangely comforting place where they tended the Forest Guardian from time to time; somewhere inside Old Mauville where the extensive underground caverns created by man and the deeper depressions created by nature served as a battleground which they could hold for all eternity; and around somewhere around Jubilife but that had been mainly a rumor that had been neither confirmed nor denied.
Each kingdom gave homage to a different ruler though for different reasons.
The Firsts Kingdom was ruled by a madwoman who slaughtered everything in her way and so she was respected by those who feared for their lives, the Seconds Kingdom was ruled by a man of words and he was quite the poet but he had spun such convincing lies that the people were unable to tell that he had broken into that most precious of sanctuaries and altered their memories and thoughts, the Thirds Kingdom was ruled by a true madwoman who was on a scale from 1 to 10 totally bat shit insane though she ruled fair and just when she could and was respected for decisions made despite the madness, the Fourths Kingdom was ruled by a set of twins who bickered back and forth and never got anything done and they weren't respected at all their people doing as they wished.
There was no Kingdom established in Unova, Alma, Fiore, The Sevii Islands, The Orange Islands, Oblivia, The Southern Islands, Holon, The Ranger Union, Guyana, Lucario Kingdom or Rota which were inhabited at least half the year by bands of pioneer Thirds. However the true seat of their power was in Orre, somewhere beneath the Under and far beneath the Deep where the physical door into the Void resided. A place where no psychic since the beginning of time, since the start of the unending wars, had ever graced the Door into the Darkness.
Her hand reached out for empty air unable to stand it anymore before she remembered that she was with Sundown and he was completely loyal to Charlie and no matter how much he knew she wanted the comfort he would not grab her hand because he was not sure how to go about being affectionate or comforting. The hard life that most of those of the Void lived had done some things to them that made them almost completely socially inept although there are a few that behave normally.
Most of the time Sundown was a functioning member of society but an entire childhood spent amongst those who did not understand trapped on an island full of the bane of the Void's existence, psychics. It wasn't exactly a sense of hatred but a sense of deep betrayal that kept the groups apart from one another and living as they did, most wanted nothing to do with the others although she was trying to build a bridge between the two siblings.
Yes. Siblings.
Many psychics did not understand that their power was so similar that it seemed different, like two different sides of a coin. That was how some things worked; they were so close to one another that they couldn't stand one another and rebelled against the other with all the force in their bodies. It was sad, they were meant to live in harmony and she knew that better than anyone else in the world because she loved one of the Void and had spent many a tour of duty in the mind of her beloved.
There was a hand in hers, fingers twining together to rest in the space created by the other's knuckles, a hand that was large enough to obscure her entire palm but not so large as to hide it inside like Devyn or Erin's hands could. She felt for Sundown but he was no longer there, he was moving away and his distance meant that he had broken off from her some time ago, more than that he had seen Dawn and was curious as to how she was navigating the streets without Cynthia at her side. Frowning to herself she felt for the mind that was attached to the hand and found absolutely nothing, her eyes flew open and she turned her head to stare into sea foam grey eyes that shone with an inner light that she didn't think was possible for the Void.
Her heart fluttered painfully in her chest as she drew closer into the warm body just inches from her, the free arm coming up over her shoulders pressing her into the living furnace that burned beneath pale skin. Sugar brown hair fell into her face as the figure leaned down and pressed soft lips gently against hers and she sighed forgetting for a moment where she was and who she was in favor of living for this moment. It wasn't often that she could see the true mate of her soul and the kiss that they shared was such a stark contrast to the hot passionate emotions that boiled between herself and the other. Though it wasn't her fault and neither of them blamed the other or her for the situation they were in, they gave one another respectable distance and avoided the other when they could.
They were different as night and day, one turbulent and harsh a Firstling who solved everything with fists and raged like a storm on the ocean or a hurricane breaking over land. Dark murky water that refused to stay still, whipped up into white water rapids that cascaded faster and faster downhill with each passing day. And then there was this, this feeling that was her night calm and cool and collected despite the hell that the world had thrust upon her shoulders from birth having been given a poor hand being born of the Void. This was like the pools of water within the caverns beneath Forina, deep and crystal clear, you could see all the way to the bottom as you could see the soul deep within those clear eyes. Her hands clutched almost painfully at her true mate's wishing for the moment never to end, for this break in the storm to last forever but it couldn't be like that.
She had after all discovered both the mate of her soul and mate of her heart during this life time together in one place, one day she would have to abandon her heart in favor of her soul. She would weep for Jayr's inevitable loss.
-ooo-
The night before had yielded no fire and so she continued onto the shelf and began to climb upwards.
She could've asked him for a ride but that would defeat the purpose and so she began to climb, the memories of previous climbs to the place she'd first seen him hurl himself off the mountain side when they were young. Her fingers took a grasp on the protrusions of granite and it was like she was a soldier returning home from war taking ahold of his wife for the first time in three months, the sea polished rocks fit her hands now as they had before and as the wife's hips fit the man's hands. This place was waiting for her like expectant hookers wait on every corner of the major city hiding their flaws and the burning.
The first ten feet were slow, the awkward crawl of the child whose just gotten on a bicycle for the first time in ten years and knows the basic function but thinks that they've forgotten how to ride, it was like she'd forgotten how to climb and in that first ten feet she remembered. Arms lift her effortlessly into the sky, feet finding purchase on what to anyone else would see as a shifty patch but was known to her as solid as the mountain itself; tirelessly she continued up to the shelf where he had perched himself looking down at her smugly. She imagined that is the look that men gave women when they stood in the alleys of Slateport, staring down at the woman waiting eagerly for her pay and taking private joy in the fact that this smug prick would be burning soon too.
He eased himself to the edge and peered down at her, long neck stretching down to her in an affectionate gesture, scaly nostrils twitching as he breathed a long puff of hot air down on her face. It was something that dragons did for their fledglings, an acknowledgement of their efforts and the encouragement to continue to achieve. "Okay then, Papa. When I get up there you're in for a surprise, I don't take kindly to that behavior I am older than you are." she half growled playfully under her breath.
Her muscles coiled tight in on one another, the muscles in her forearms and biceps bulging as she braced herself on her toes. For a moment she lost contact completely with the wall hands moving to the only place they would find a hold in a sideways scrambling motion that brought her five feet to her left, then she was up again taking hold of his dangling tail so that he could hoist her up onto the shelf. His nostrils flared again, his head moving around to nudge her shoulder the sharp tip that had been the egg tooth pressing into the place where the sleeveless shirt and flesh met. He had found something, something important that had not been here a year ago. Three round stones piled one on top of another in a small pyramid marking a tomb, she didn't have to dig up whoever was down there, she had a pretty good idea just who it was and how they had gotten there.
-ooo-
Her hand hurt in a way that she hadn't imagined it could, the crunching burning pain was instantaneous and brought tears unbidden to her eyes. She saw the bones shift and move, watched as her knuckle shifted out of place. Unfortunately for all her effort and the spectacular punch that had ground her attempts at retribution to a screeching halt he didn't even wince at the blow that landed squarely on a flexed jaw. She guessed that trying to a second one had been a bit much but that was the absolute beautify of hindsight, it was 20/20, so you didn't know that you fucked up until it was entirely too late.
One of his hands came up absently and seized her hand in a vice like grip at the wrist turning her palm completely over and staring at it with hollow eyes. "Don't tuck your thumb into your hands, move them underneath or press them to your pointer finger. Bring your punch up from just below the hip and use your core to put power behind it. Another tip hit the tip of the chin or where the neck meets the head or you'll break your hand if they have their jaw clenched if you aim for the middle."
The monkey grinned up at her as if this were a common occurrence, he seemed to know what he was doing and his little companion seemed to know as well, as if strange women he didn't know came up and tried for his jaw all the time. Then again from what she had gathered about him from Solidad it was quite possible that other disgruntled women tried for him, after all hell hath no fury like a woman scorned and if her friend wasn't willing to let loose her scorn on the man who was named Devyn then she would do it for her with all the holy justice in her body. "Do you want me to put it back in place for you?"
Her jaw dropped at his audacity, first he- and then- and he- that BASTARD! "You insufferable little cockroach I should squash you and put the world out of its misery. How anyone like you could -" her voice failed her as the indignation, pain, and fury welled up inside her painting her face with a heat either he didn't care to acknowledge or didn't see as threatening.
"Do you want to hurt your other hand on my jaw? After all I did just dislocate one of your fingers with my chin." the man spoke to her like she was an idiot and she was not an idiot or at least she didn't think that she was. He released her hand and she cradled it to her stomach, carefully pressing it into her skin in an instinctive if not exactly clear gesture of pain. "Do you want me to put it back in place, it will only hurt as long as its sitting to the side of its socket. You've stretched the ligaments and tendons around it and the longer they stay stretched the more you stretch it. It only hurts because it is not supposed to be in that position, put it back into place and it will be instant relief."
He now turned his attention to the almost catatonic red head and pressed the back of his hand against her cheek and the other to her forehead, she was flushed. His eyes shifted upwards examining the trajectory of the sun, making his body into a gnomon and estimating just how long she had been in the sun. Frowning he pulled a hand back and it to May, strange eyes focused intently on her Solidad face as the other pressed back onto her forehead. "Make up your mind we've got to get her out of the sun, the heat doesn't help and I don't think either of you has had any water. Chances are you're not used to living on the coast and as a result don't compensate for the humidity and how fast it dehydrates the body."
"But I don't feel-" Solidad started but a finger pressed to her lips and she stopped mid-sentence.
"I highly doubt that was the chief reason that she's how she is but either way it's not good for her to be outside like this." his eyes swept her face as if looking for something and the oppressive heat that had been building in the back of her mind for the last week began to swell. She had just passed it off as a stress headache but now she wasn't so sure as those misted green eyes focused in on her and the throbbing intensified. "You're sea touched, not a lot but enough. It'll get worse."
The expression on his face didn't change but he chanced a glance as May and she frowned, they were both treating her like she wasn't there. It was annoying. But it made her think, nothing was really wrong with her she was just sea touched whatever that meant, it was probably on the list of words that you only heard in Slateport City. That and the world commala which she wasn't sure was a word but whatever it meant it was used a lot on the pier so she figured that it had something to do with boating or fishing. She wasn't sure which, only sure that it was a word with which she had to get used to, the kind words of her home town lost and the vernacular as foreign to the people here as their vernacular was to her. They all spoke with a burr in their voice that made understanding the dialect hard but she knew that Devyn, was either well-traveled or he was tried very hard to keep Slateport out of his voice. It could've been both.
She heard it slip through once and just once and the accent was as thick as she had ever heard it.
"What the hell is sea touched?" May asked as she watched him guide Solidad away without a backwards glance back to where he had been before he'd come across the court yard. He didn't motion or say for her to follow but she picked up the implied meaning or maybe she didn't want to leave her friend alone, either way she followed his retreating back and silently understood by just looking at him what was wrong with him.
"I've got bottled water in the chilly bin, drink two completely down, the both of you." his voice left no room for discussion as he made his way around the plain white moving truck to an old but functional truck, he hadn't looked so she wasn't sure how he knew that she was behind him.
He opened the door for Solidad and leaned in to clip her into the decrepit old seat, he jimmied the old buckle and it clicked into place with a little work and closed the door. He moved to open the back door and gestured to May, she hurried in and he did the same for her closing the door and sliding across the hood to the driver's side like this was the Dukes of Hazard.
Devyn brought his hand up to retrieve the keys that the little Chimchar had been clinging to his belt the little monkey clung to his wrist and he easily lifted him through the window, he hurried into Solidad's lap and she stroked his fur affectionately, before Devyn climbed into the saddle. The truck roared to life as she learned just what a Chilly Bin was, apparently a chilly bin was what everyone else called a cooler.
She found a host of ice cold water bottles and passed one up to Solidad as the truck stopped beside the crew he had been with, May tried to catch onto what he was saying but the words were difficult to catch in the thick accent and she only managed to get one or two words out of the conversation. He smiled at the thickly set man who patted the hood of the car and nodded at both May and Solidad tipping his hat to her in the gentlemen like fashion of all Slateport men, he too bore the strand symbol she associated with the Guardsmen of all ports everywhere.
There was the sound of a dry bottle crumbling and she looked down to see that she had emptied the bottle, how thirsty had she been?
Quickly she retrieved another and saw Solidad reach to do the same, addressing their driver as he moved the ancient vehicle down roads that she wouldn't have thought that a group of five could walk shoulder to shoulder down with an ease that bespoke years of experience. "Where are we going?"
"Alexandria's where we can get you looked at by the best doctor in the city and set your friend's hand to rights, a bite to eat, real Slateportian cuisine." He smiled at her through the mirror, "If you have an open mind you're going to love it."
"Why did you do what you did Mr. Dislocate A Girl's Fingers on My Jaw?" May snapped referring to the now famous "Window Incident".
"I didn't want to." his voice was soft, far too soft, "For a time after I tried to get ahold of her and I did just once, she insured me that everything was okay and that nothing had happened though from your reaction it seems like I'm missing a chunk of your story and I know that neither you knows everything either to do with this either." there was bitterness in his tone as he spoke now, a bitterness that held a hint of something that was very important to her success in garnering information. Both of the women spoke at once.
"What don't I know?"
"How much do you know about the Original One?"