Shane didn't mind how soothing warm sand had become as the years went by. For a decent while, it disoriented him. Ice ninetales and necrozma instincts clashing until he either found a shady tree to lie under or Ultra Burst and make himself an eyesore for anyone in his immediate vicinity.

The sand between his paw pads was less fun, but that was a Future Shane problem. Present Shane was content to bask in the sun's soothing rays, watching the ocean gently inch forward and back along the shore. Forward. Back. Forward. Back.

Enough of a rhythm to lull him to sleep, save for the nearby plinks and plops making his ears twitch. The warm sand was too relaxing to lift his head off, but fortunately he didn't need to move to see who was responsible: a riolu with white paws and white tail stripes with a stack of pebbles and small rocks beside her.

She picked one up and slung it at the ocean. It landed in the water with one splat.

"Boo!" Riolu stomped on the damp sand, then immediately picked up another pebble. She tossed it at the water sideways but it landed in roughly the same spot as the last pebble. "Aww, c'mon!" Riolu stomped twice, then looked over her shoulder.

"Mooooom, it's not working!"

"Keep trying, Stella. It's not supposed to work right away. You've got to train your wrist like any other set of muscles."

Tessa's soft voice was enough to get Shane to roll over in the sand so he could see her. Or at least see the lucario's legs, waist, and the navy blue towel she sat on.

"Remind me again why she's doing this? At this rate, there's going to be a new pyukumuku nest by the shore."

"Wrist dexterity." Tessa pivoted left and leaned over. "Learning Force Palm is about more than jutting your paw out forcefully, you know."

"No, I don't. I don't have wrists," Shane said. In fact, he hadn't had wrists for years now. He was starting to forget what it was like.

"I'm teaching her a little flexibility." Tessa playfully flicked her wrist, tickling Shane's nose.

"H-Hey! Th-thaaa... aaaa... waaaaahchooooo!"

The ensuing sneeze came with enough Icy Wind to coat Tessa's arms in a layer of frost. Though with the sun as strong it was today, the frost quickly melted. The lucario looked at her damp arms, then at Shane. "Really?"

"What?" Shane rubbed his snout. "You flicked sand into my nose."

"I would think the big psychic light dragon would have a way to control that." Tessa tapped her own snout with a glowing digit.

Shane puffed his cheeks out. "Bully."

"Wimp."

The two held a smirk until another plop rang out in front of them, followed by a "Mooooooom!"

Chuckling, Tessa shook her head. "I guess I'll need to be a bit more hands on here, huh?"

"It's your fault." Shane tsked at her. "Could've just brought some pails and shovels and let her build a sandcastle. Y'know, like most kids want to do at the beach."

"MOOOOOOOM!"

Shane's ESP pinged him seconds before the giant splash made his ears stick up. Every instinct jolted to attention and he was on his feet in seconds, ready to open a wormhole and yank Stella back from the large mound rising up from the water.

The large, black and yellow mound. With four pincered arms.

"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Shane's breath caught in his throat and his tails instinctively puffed out. He hadn't had to deal with Guzzlish in quite some time. Was that an angry yell?

"Shane..."

"I'm thinking!" the icy ninetales squeaked. Guzzlord hadn't moved. He wasn't even looking at Stella. Rather, he eyed her pile of rocks.

"AAAAHHHHHH AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Guzzlord pointed at the rocks with one arm, then at his gaping vortex of a mouth with the other.

"You want these?" Stella pointed to the rocks.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Okay, that was happy Guzzlish. Shane's stance relaxed. His tails drifted down. "It's fine. We're fine. She was feeding him. Accidentally." He laughed nervously.

Tessa sank back onto her towel. "Do you suppose he lives there or..."

"I don't know." Shane took deep breaths to try and stop his core from pulsating wildly. "We're not on the clock. If he wandered in from somewhere else, there'll be an Ultra Recon Squad showing up soon enough."

"Who will probably chew us out for not reporting it."

Watching Stella happily toss pebbles into Guzzlord's mouth, Shane flopped onto his belly, groaning. "Did you have to tempt fate like that?"

"It's not tempting fate when it's happened how many times now?"

"I stopped counting two years ago."

He knew Tessa wasn't getting on his case. Just reminding him of the awkward parts of their job. Things that didn't even have to do with his big ass light dragon transformation.

Shane sighed. "It's funny. We've done this longer than the whole 'exploration team' thing, but my first instinct is still to wing it."

His back tingled, then got hot. Shane looked up to see a golden wing happily waving at Tessa. "Oh, for pity's—" He craned his neck and bit the wing. "Diduhn't meah it liherahly!" It retreated into his back, allowing him to slouch over on his side.

Tessa had a brow raised.

"What?" Shane wasn't sure if she was going to tease him or scold him.

"I don't like dealing with all their rules, either, but sometimes it's less of a headache."

Okay, so it was neither option. That was good, at least.

"It's not that the rules exist, it's that there's too many of them for me to keep track of."

"Isn't that why they gave us that digital handbook?" Tessa said.

Shane opened his mouth to retort, but something told him "I don't want to have to search through that thing" wouldn't fly. He instead glanced at Stella, who was about halfway through feeding Guzzlord her stack of pebbles.

This time it was Tessa who sighed. "You ever find yourself wondering what it'd be like if things went differently?"

Shane's brow furrowed. Hadn't they had this conversation plenty of times before? "You know I wouldn't—"

"Not like that." Tessa held her right paw out. "I mean small changes. Like if we moved away from Horizon. Or didn't work for the URN. Or, I dunno, had another kid."

Shane's fur puffed out. "Y-You want another kid?"

"Huh?" Tessa looked down, face reddening. "N-No? I mean, uh... I'm not sure. It was just, y'know, an example! Of different things!"

Then what's with the shouting?

Shane saw Stella staring at them, before she shrugged and went back to feeding Guzzlord. Several magikarp had gathered around to watch the strange event.

"Okaaaay. Is there, uh, something that brought this on? Specifically?" Shane wondered.

"No. I mean yes. I mean, uh, maybe?"

Well, that wasn't a good sign.

"Is something wrong?" Shane wondered.

"No." Tessa paused. Shane thought he was meant to interject, but he had nothing. "I mean it this time. Nothing's wrong. I just... keep having these funny dreams."

"Funny?" Shane lifted his head up. "Like me getting soaked or dunked in mud funny? Or weird funny?"

"The latter." Tessa smirked at him. "And you haven't had problems with the former for a while now."

"And yet I still live in fear of it."

They shared a laugh at that.

Tessa braced her paws on either side of her. "It's more like... I dunno, my mind going in crazy directions."

Shane struggled to think of what would qualify as crazy with all the adventures they'd gone on. "Such as?"

"Me becoming friends with Nicky. Not you."

Shane's rightmost tails twitched. "Uh-huh." He blinked a few times. "I mean, he kinda gave what was left of his soul to me, so that's not too crazy."

"What about if the name wasn't spelt the same way?" Tessa looked right at him. "And he was a she?"

The icy ninetales shifted a bit on the ground. If there was a point Tessa was trying to make, it sailed far over his head. "Still seems possible for a dream." He slowly slid to a sitting position. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah." The lucario nodded slowly. "I'm sorry if I'm worrying you." She poked the edge of her towel with a digit. "I guess..." Her voice trailed off and she took a deep breath.

"I do want more kids, yeah." Her aura feelers twitched. "But when we had Stella's egg, I got these really strange dreams. Names and figures I swear I recognized, but always too hazy to make out all the details. I'm just worried... they might get worse if we try to grow our family."

Shane scooted over to Tessa's side and rest his head on her shoulder. "Aww, Tess, I'm sorry. I had no idea—"

"Because I never said anything." Tessa's shoulders sagged. "I didn't think it really mattered. And Stella kept us busy enough as a pup to where I never really thought about it."

Shane was pretty sure he knew where she was going. "But she's older now."

"Old enough to feed a guzzlord like it's a feral magikarp, apparently." Chuckling, Tessa gestured toward the coast. Stella had gone through all the pebbles and Guzzlord, seemingly satisfied, had retreated underwater, leaving the white-striped riolu to toss pawfuls of wet sand at the magikarp that stayed behind.

"So, it's back on your mind."

"Yep." Tessa sighed. "I know it's stupid. I've proven I know how to be a good mother. This isn't some mental block. It's just... I don't like not having an explanation for it."

Shane rubbed her back with two of his right tails. The lucario leaned a bit more into the embrace. "I'd rather have an answer," she whispered. "Even if it's something stupid like 'the aura-melding egg thing makes you sometimes have funny dreams.' An explanation is better than no explanation. Because the dreams are different enough to bother me."

"Then we'll look into it."

"We?"

"I mean, like, find a specialist?" Shane laughed nervously. Just because he was a psychic didn't mean he was all that good with headspaces. And dreams were something he'd never really taken the time to learn about. "I'll go with you to the appointments, at least. If that's what you want."

Tessa looked forward, watching her daughter scooping up sand for the feral magikarp swimming in circles.

"Yeah." The lucario took a deep breath. "I'd like that a lot, actually. Thanks."

Shane nuzzled her cheek. "You're welcome."

They continued to lean against one another silently, until...

"... hey, do you think we can try for a vulpix kit this time?"

Tessa rolled her eyes. "You're enough of a handful."

"But I'm your handful." Shane fluttered his eyelids.

Tessa responded by pouring sand on Shane's head.

Guiding Light debuted on Serebii on August 2nd, 2017. Which means the fic turned six a year ago.

It also means I missed its five-year anniversary. Oops.

In my defense, I was quite busy at the time. Still am, but I'm now used to my workflow as opposed to trying to acclimate to a new job like I was last year. Medicine ain't easy, kids. Don't go into it unless it's what you are truly passionate about. And even then, you don't have to be a doctor.

I'm happy to see that there are still some folks out there discovering the fic and enjoying themselves with it. Speaking personally, I find it hard to look back and actually read any of this. I think my writing style has changed considerably in the time since this fic ended, to the point where over ninety percent of this story feels like it was written by an entirely different person.

In one sense, I suppose this means I've grown as a writer. Which is nice. On the other hand, it gives me... mixed thoughts about the sequel.

And yes, I did say sequel. Maybe I should've said from the beginning that Path of Valor is this fic's sequel, but I didn't. I was too worried I'd alienate people who would want to read it because they'd think they'd need to know this (giant) fic. They don't. You can get more out of the sequel knowing Guiding Light, but it's not required.

In aiming for the best of both worlds, I got neither. I personally think the sequel is better from a quality standpoint. I can actually reread the chapters I put out there. But content wise it has a lot more things I personally enjoy, which I can now safely say are things you folks reading PMD fics do not enjoy. In hindsight, the lack of interest in the first half of special episode three was a warning sign I didn't catch.

Hilariously, that means I've come full circle. Path of Valor is practically getting posted into a void just like Guiding Light did for, like, its first 25-30 chapters or so. I think something like 40-50 percent of Path of Valor's comments are just the first ten parts, which mainly introduce the story and setting. Hell, new chapters of the sequel are typically followed by comments on this fic instead, generally critiquing the early chapters (which I deserve). It's, uh, funny I guess?

Oftentimes PMD fics gain a bit more traction as they get longer, but the opposite actually happened to the sequel. Which, again, most likely speaks to the content only jiving with a couple of people at best. I'd ask people to seriously give it a chance, but I feel like everyone already has. I can't force anyone to like my stuff, ha ha.

"But Amby, if you're writing what you love, isn't that fulfilling enough?"

Sadly, no. Medical residency in the United States is a system where you're under constant performance evaluation. Basically everything you do you get direct feedback on in some form or another. Not the healthiest thing in the world since it conditions you to think being ignored means at least you're not screwing things up. It's quite difficult to dissociate from that mindset, meaning it is very hard not to compare Guiding Light and Path of Valor's performances. If I was getting evaluated on the sequel's performance as if I were paid to do this, I'd have been fired a while ago.

I realize this isn't the most optimistic sixth birthday message. So let me, again, say a hearty thanks to those of you who took the time to read and comment on this fic. And this little extra. And especially the sequel. I would not have made it this far without you guys. Hopefully, I can see the sequel through to the finish line, but this time around I'm making no promises. We'll have to see what happens.

So, again, many thanks to those who've been supporting me along this wild ride.

~Amby