...
Maya's cerulean eyes reflected back up to her from her fresh cup of coffee, its steaming surface as black as the bones of a Darkrai, the memory of the night still stinging on her face.
She finally peered up, locking with Clair's turquoise eyes across the table.
"I haven't spoken to him since."
Clair sat silently, digesting the story slowly, her body leaning forward in the Goldenrod Café's little wicker chair. Thankfully for them both, the Café was otherwise empty & barren of any watchful eyes or listening ears, save for the Smeargle barista who was manning the front register. Maya had even found a way to dodge the G-Men security detail with a few clever teleports out of Kadabra.
"I'm so sorry, Maya," Clair began, reaching a hand across the table to comfort her, "I know how unfair it feels."
Maya's eyes peered over to the large bay window beside them for a moment. The little side street of Goldenrod just on the other side of the glass was teeming with passing tourists, walking past without a care in the world.
"Lance told me you follow the Code too," Maya hushed quietly, "Do you... are you... with anyone? I just don't understand how you make it work."
Clair's brilliant blue eyes widened with a new little smile. She quickly pulled out her Rotom Phone and after a few taps at the keyboard, she brought up a photo on the screen. She placed it on the table and slid it across for Maya to see.
There on the screen was Clair, her face positively bursting with the widest smile, and a man with his arms wrapped around her with pride. He wore a stylish, edgy-looking hoodie lined with white fabric dragon-like teeth along the collar, and a matching edgy orange hat. His eyes; they were the brightest aqua blue that Maya had ever seen, and were slyly gazing down upon Clair with reverence.
Maya recognized him; it was Raihan, the Dragon Gym Leader of Galar!
"That's my Raihan," she said with pride.
Maya smiled softly.
"Your Raihan?" she gazed upon the photo softly; he looked positively stricken by her presence.
She nodded, her smile growing now, matching the one in the photo.
"He's my bonded partner. The love of my life."
Maya's eyes peered up from the photo, watching the glow shine in Clair's eyes as her mind was filled with thoughts of him.
"We met a few years ago, when I took a trip to Hammerlocke to do some training at his gym with a few other members of the Dragon Clan." She chuckled with the memory, "We did not get along at first. We were always fighting and bickering over something... our battling styles were just so different, and we both thought we were the ones doing it right."
Clair rested her head into her hand, peering down now at the photo in a soft bliss.
"But then one night. It was really late. I went out to his gym's arena so my Dragonair & I could practice Rain Dance. But he was already down there with his Flygon, practicing their Sandstorm attack. So of course, we started fighting, again, but he said he wasn't done and that he wasn't gonna leave. He's so stubborn... So after a few minutes of yelling back and forth, he just started ignoring me and kept training. And I was like... okay, you want to fight? I'll give you a fight. So... I told Dragonair to use Rain Dance anyway, and soaked all of Flygon's sand so it was too heavy to fly around."
Her smile; it beamed even brighter.
"He got so mad," she chuckled again, "that he threw out his Turtonator, and told it to use Sunny Day. And that, dried up our Rain Dance. But I just told Dragonair to do it again. So there we were, fighting in a half-rainstorm, half-sunshine, and we're yelling at each other over the sounds of the storm... when the loudest rumble of thunder just SHOOK the stadium. We both froze... and then we looked up. And there was this enormous rainbow, stretching across the entire arena. His Sunny Day and my Rain Dance had collided together."
Clair fell quiet now, remembering the moment.
"It was so bright. It was so beautiful."
Maya pictures this; the two of them standing quietly, for the first time in silence, watching the rainbow shine above them & all the empty seats of the stadium.
"The rain was still falling. But we just kind of... looked at each other. And for the first time, I saw him. The real him. This passionate, amazing man who never wanted to give up or give in. And he finally saw me too."
Clair leaned back in her chair now, lost in the thought of him.
"We sat down in the dirt together. In the rain, under this rainbow," she hushed out with a smile, "and just started to talk. We talked about everything. And before we knew it, it was morning. We were soaked with the rain, I remember it was freezing. But I also remember thinking to myself... I don't ever want this night to end."
Maya's eyes peer back down into her coffee, now remembering Lance's parallel words:
"That night at the Preserve; I didn't want that night to end."
She never wanted it to end, either.
"So you two... decided to stay together?" Maya asked slowly. Clair nodded.
"Yes. We're actually in our third year right now. But when I first told him about the Clan's customs and about the Longing, he was not happy." Her eyes peered up to Maya's, "I think he envisioned me leaving Blackthorn altogether to move in with him in Galar. But it wasn't that simple. He was feeling exactly as you are now. Just, confused and hurt, bewildered really, that our Clan does things this way."
"How long did it take him to decide?" Maya asked curiously.
"Not long," Clair chuckled again, "Two or three days. He may be stubborn, but his thoughts are always so clear. So decisive, so full of conviction, my Raihan is. He told me that if the choice was between doing it this way, or never seeing me again... then there wasn't really a choice. Not seeing me ever again, was not an option. Pretending like we didn't happen, to each other. Was not an option for him."
Maya thought on these words carefully as she recalled Lance's whispering declaration into the Vermilion winds:
"I don't know how not to think of you."
She sighed heavily.
"That's very sweet," Maya hushed out, "If you don't mind me asking, though. Isn't it... just awful? To be so far away from him all year? Don't you miss him, all the time?"
Clair's face grew serious, the stoic family look crossing over her as her gaze turned to peer out through the glass, to the dozens of strangers passing by the window outside on the Goldenrod street.
Her voice fell to a whisper.
"I miss him every second. Of every day."
Her turquoise eyes; they paled with a dreary line of purified heartache as her vision blurred against the window.
Maya could see it steeped deeply within her; written in the lines of her face.
The grief,
The Longing...
"But," she continued softly, "Sometimes... it feels like he never left me at all. Like I can still feel him, all around me."
Her eyes stayed locked on the window, before peering down to the table with a tiny grin.
"And sometimes," she whispered again, "I can actually sense how he's feeling. And I can feel it too, when he's excited, when he's battling or when he's anxious." She let out another chuckle, "Or when he's mad."
Her eyes then grew sly again, peering back over to Maya coyly.
"And that very first time," she whispered across the table, a growing smile creeping across the length of her face, "When we...danced like the Dragons. It was...
...Unforgettable."
Her eyes; they shimmered so brightly.
Though they shined like glass; as if they could shatter, at any moment.
"I won't lie to you, Maya," the seriousness came back over her, "It's not easy. There've been some very rough days, where I miss him so badly. And I worry about him so much. But in a way, I feel so honored to even know him. Just the thought of him... makes me want to be a better person. A better trainer. It makes me want to make my Gym better, to make all of Blackthorn better, in honor of him. And sometimes I think that's why the Old Masters wrote this in the Code to begin with. Because what is loving someone, besides wanting to make the world a better place for them to live in?"
Maya thought hard on this. The inspiration truly did shine in Clair's eyes now, replacing the grey of the Longing she had seen within her just moments before.
But it still didn't make much sense to her; couldn't the world become a better place if they were together more often?
Maya crossed her arms, holding herself in the chair.
"I just didn't see this coming," Maya hushed out, "I hate... Being away from him. But I know how much this means to him. Either choice feels like it could be torture."
She peered up to Clair again, her voice falling again to a whisper.
"Is it really true," she hushed, "About what his Father did. About how he broke the Code?"
Clair's eyes grew wide. She leaned in closer to close the gap, peering around suspiciously for any open ears, as if it was sacrilege to even think about.
"It's true," she hushed, "He was exiled for it. My Dad, who was his brother, would secretly send letters on his Dragonite to Kanto to keep in touch with him. But I remember that had to stay a big secret. If anyone had found out my Dad was talking to him, he could have been banished too."
Maya's brows twisted up at this; she hated how so much of the Clan's philosophy was based around such malicious punishments.
"I don't really understand," Maya hushed out, "how the entire rest of the Clan... the entire rest of his family, could just go dark on him like that."
Clair shook her head.
"I know it sounds cruel," she replied, "But it's one of the most important tenets of the Code that my Uncle broke. And he had only been with my Aunt for one year, for one Season, before he decided he couldn't handle the Longing, any longer. My Dad told me that my Grandfather thought it made the whole family look weak. And that Grandfather never truly forgave him, even after Lance was born, and after he began his training. Even after he became Champion. He use to tell the other members of the Clan that my Uncle must be miserable without us."
Clair's voice drew quiet.
"And after my Aunt got sick. Grandfather even told us that it was surely a punishment, for breaking the Code."
Maya's face turned in disgust;
How positive awful!
"Personally," Clair went on, "I think what my Uncle did was pretty romantic. Because he would have done absolutely anything for my Aunt. He gave up everything he knew. Just to be with her...
Because he loved her."
Maya's mind was suddenly flooded with him,
Memories of the Dragon Master,
His eyes full vigor,
His body at the ready on the field of Indigo Stadium,
Swimming gracefully in the inferno of his element as he commanded his strongest Dragon to the roar of the arena's crowd.
And the photo of him, that sweet little boy, the spitting image of his Mother who he had lost.
No... Maya could never ask this of him.
She could never ask him to give up anything else.
Her memories turned again to the raging fires of the Flare Blitz that had drawn her into his orbit in the first place, the tempting licks of the flames that had beckoned her closer, until their eyes had fatefully met.
His fiery spirit;
It was him, she was drawn to.
It was him, who she couldn't look away from.
Even as he stood, cold and defeated with his bloody hand welded to the metal tomb of the locker, his very indignity dripping out from beneath him, in the shame of this vast emptiness...
In the shame of yet another loss.
It was his fierce and unwavering spirit; his astonishing will to carry on & elevate himself again and again,
His brilliance on the battlefield; unmatched, unrivaled...
Legendary,
Elite.
So laced in his stoic resolve, that serious face,
And those shoulders, so tall and so broad,
That rest beneath that heavy midnight cape that billowed so valiantly,
As he stood beneath the charming white gazebo in the green Safari Valley, her gallant guardian of the unborn dragon breed,
And when he pressed so softly into the ancient ivories of the keys, to play out the songs of his Father,
His eyes, they're closed,
So gentle and serene...
And the look in his sly silver gaze when he had stolen her away across the fields of Route 11, with Charizard soaring above them and Kadabra's jumps blinking beneath the Vermilion light of the moon.
The single bloom of the Orchid,
The fireworks over the bay,
The pull in her chest; the steel beneath the stare
inside the eyes of her Dragon Master,
who in this moment,
Maya realized,
she loved so very deeply.
...
Thank you all for reading! Here's a sneak-peak for this Friday's chapter, entitled, "Discovery":
The office stairwell creaked beneath Maya's feet.
She tiptoed down the winding stairs, Kadabra floating just behind her, as she passed by the door that lead to the office's 4th Floor. Just on the other side, she could hear the mingling sounds of the Mt. Moon party, of soft crowd laughter & jazzy pokeflute melodies.
She pressed on and continued to spiral down to the next flight of stairs, to the 3rd Floor corridor, which had been under construction since the Saffron staff had moved into the building. She knew it was where a lot of the studio's extra equipment was being stored, as it was the proposed sight of the Saffron's Studio D, a state-of-the-art soundstage that would hypothetically be used as the new TV Studio.
But Maya had helped them move the extra camera equipment down to this floor, so she knew exactly what she was looking for.
