Happy New Year to all. I'm currently on vacation, and when one of my online friends informed me that the FFN stats were back online, I did not believe her at first. However, it's true. And I'm in a good mood, so I might as well post this sixth chapter of Zeraora's Promise.
I cannot promise that I'll be particularly quick for future chapters, but I'll do my best. Thanks for bearing with me!
Going back to our suite I felt pretty content, and I think (at least, I hope) that this feeling was contagious. Such things often are, but if I was happy, I wanted Amanda to be happy; that's the way relationships should work.
"That was fun, wasn't it?" I asked rhetorically, probably being a bit more over-the-top than I needed to. "Fireworks on the beach…nothing's better than that!"
"Yeah" my wife mouthed. "I'm glad we got to do that. It was pleasant."
"Awwww" I cooed. "Do you want to cuddle on the couch a bit? Maybe while we watch a sitcom or something? I don't know what TV shows this world has."
Amanda yawned, placing her right paw in front of her mouth as she did this. Right away, I knew the answer.
"I guess a lot's gone on today," I said. "I don't blame you one bit. Pretty overwhelming, hasn't it been?"
"Indeed," my wife responded. "I think I'll have more energy in the morning. I'll be able to do things tomorrow, but right now I need my beauty sleep."
Of course, being the good husband I was, I gave Amanda the space she requested. After all, she respected this boundary of mine, so why shouldn't I reciprocate? That was why we slept in different beds.
Climbing into the king bed was easier said than done. Normally, being a taller guy in my human form, I was able to leap into bed like it was nothing, because it wasn't far off the ground. But I wasn't human anymore.
After a Herculean effort to get beneath the sheets, I turned to face the lamp. I would have turned out the light and gone to sleep right there, drained from the insane series of events that had defined the day. (Seriously, had it only been a day? Had it really been the same calendar day that I'd left Boston for the "Virgin Islands"?)
But I wouldn't find sleep easily that night. The reason for this should become obvious pretty soon.
On a simple piece of white computer paper, perfectly rectangular without any blemishes, a note had been scrawled out and placed beneath the lamp.
I didn't think much of it at first. After all, most hotels had welcoming staff - that just goes with the job description. I shouldn't be surprised if they wanted to write me a letter to make me feel as though they cared about my well-being.
But that's not what this letter was for. When I grasped the sheet of paper in one of my paws, careful not to rip it up, I gasped at what was written there.
I had to read it carefully. And once I was done reading it, I reread it several times, each time believing its contents less and less. Surely my eyes were deceiving me, because there's no way they'd write this sort of letter…right?
Well, in case you were wondering, the letter read as follows:
Hello, Guest at the Alolan Castle,
If you are reading this, you have arrived safely in Alola. Congratulations, and thank you for choosing these islands for your vacation. They are truly gorgeous.
However, if you have read this far, you are one nosey piece of shit. You haven't learned one of the most basic rules of life, which is to respect other peoples' privacy. You're probably the type to sneak into the opposite-gendered bathroom and be a Peeping Tom, aren't you?
And before you claim that I'm trivializing such a situation…well, I'm not. That's a serious crime to be accused of, and I'm not saying you're doing that, but the activity are instead taking part in is arguably far worse.
Look: I could go on and on about your crimes. I could threaten dire, drastic consequences if you continue to cross me. But I won't, because quite frankly, you'd either think I was embellishing things, you wouldn't care anyway, or you'd just keep on snooping just to spite me. Please - don't do any of those things.
Suffice it to say the following: If you know what's good for you, you will stop snooping around. You'll learn to recognize when something does not concern you, and then you'll mind your own business. Because if you don't comply with this order…well, you don't want to know what will happen.
Enjoy your stay.
The letter was not signed. I suppose the reason for that is obvious - such a threatening letter was more than likely illegal, and the author didn't want it to be traced back to themselves, whoever "they" were.
"But I haven't been snooping around!" I exclaimed, far more audibly than I should have been able to given how tired I was.
The universe didn't seem to care. Amanda didn't say anything; by now, she had retired to her own room, and she probably hadn't heard me. Or, if she did, she was just as indifferent as the ceiling over me, and the sky above that.
So this is where we're at. I just received an ominous letter that threatens me in more ways than one. Not only is it threatening consequences if I keep "snooping", but it threatens to ruin my honeymoon. And I won't let it do that.
Still, one would be perfectly justified in asking me this question: If I felt threatened by the letter, why not report it to Grimlock? Or, if I didn't trust the hotelier with that information, why not call the police?
Simply put, the answer is that I didn't think it rose to that level. Most likely, it was just a prank, an idle threat, and the author of the note didn't actually mean to harm me. They just wanted to scare me into doing whatever they wanted…which was to "stop snooping."
Even with that explanation ready in my mind, however, sleep did not come easily. There was first the challenge of finding a comfy position in bed, which had to be done cautiously so as not to crush my little Litleo tail. More than once I ended up sitting on it, which made my eyes water.
Each time I switched positions, I got further and further from finding the gate to Dream Land, and I started to wonder if I wouldn't end up experiencing a sleepless night after all.
It took a while, but eventually I drifted off.
Officer Lee: You received the note on the sheet of paper from a criminal…
Mr. Snow: I didn't know it was a criminal. Yeah, threats are wrong, but writing a letter like that didn't feel like a felony to me. It seemed obvious they didn't mean it.
Officer Lee: Well, once you found the letter, it did not occur to you to contact the authorities in this exotic land you speak of? You didn't ask the hotel's owner if there were ghosts wandering about?
Mr. Snow: I don't believe in ghosts, Officer, even if I sometimes wish I did.
Officer Lee: Whatever. The point is, you didn't try to bring the letter's author to justice.
Mr. Snow: No.
Officer Lee: May I ask why you did not do this?
Mr. Snow: Quite frankly, I didn't think that was warranted. If I told Amanda about it, it would probably make the rest of the trip far less enjoyable.
Officer Lee: Just for her?
Mr. Snow: For both of us. I didn't want to dwell on something so silly. For all I knew, it could have been a prank left behind by the last person in that room.
Officer Lee: How likely did you think that was?
Mr. Snow: I'll just say that I didn't think the risk calculus was worth it.
Officer Lee: A risk calculus? Please elaborate.
Mr. Snow: Well, think of it like a table, two by two. If I contacted the authorities and was wrong, I'd suck all the fun out of our trip. If I neglected to do so and ended up being wrong, the result would be far worse.
Officer Lee: Based on that, wouldn't it make more sense to take the smaller risk?
Mr. Snow: Any risk assessment consists of two components, how likely something is to go wrong, and how catastrophic that something will be if it does go wrong. And I calculated that the former risk was very low.
Officer Lee: Calculated? What numbers did you use?
Mr. Snow: I didn't use any numbers, Officer. It's called "intuition", and some people would do well to bear it in mind.
Officer Lee: So your intuition told you that the note was most likely a prank, rather than an actual threat to you or your wife?
Mr. Snow: Yes.
Officer Lee: Why did you think that?
Mr. Snow: The resort had plenty of security. If they knew of any threats, they'd put the place on lockdown. The fact that this hadn't happened was a sign, in my view, that nothing was truly wrong.
Officer Lee: Do you stand by that reasoning, knowing what you know now?
Mr. Snow: They say hindsight's 20/20, but I think it's more like 20/200. I'd probably do it all again.
When I finally did dream, I dreamed about the day I first met the love of my life.
What you need to understand is that love isn't something you can engineer. If it happens at all, it's going to happen organically, and nothing you do between now and then is going to make it more or less likely.
So I was a student at college when I met her. I'm not going to say what college, in the interest of privacy - suffice it to say that it was a fairly prestigious university, and I was proud to go there. So were the other students, as far as I knew.
It was the fall of 2022. Due to the global pandemic all of you have no doubt heard of, or maybe even experienced for yourselves, club activity hadn't been particularly strong for the last two years, if not prohibited outright by the university. I didn't blame them - the contagion had to be contained as much as possible, and having students meet in-person any more often than necessary was antithetical to that goal.
However, once the COVID-19 pandemic had receded to the point that masks were no longer required on campus, my parents gave me an ultimatum.
"Lucas," my mother told me, "you need to be more active in clubs this year. It's your final year at college, and you want to make the most of it."
"She's right, you know," my dad said. "College is about two things: Academics, and making friends to last a lifetime. So you'd better start doing the latter right now."
When you're twenty-two, there's really nothing your parents can do to force you to take any action, particularly if you don't want to do it. However, my mother's words were pretty decisive. I hate to say it, but she'd shame me into pursuing more activities.
The problem was, none of the clubs piqued my interest. The university had a Young Democrats club, but that mostly involved phonebanking for the upcoming midterm elections, and if there's one thing I hate more than phone calls, it's making the same phone call over and over to a potentially hostile audience.
No - that wouldn't do. Sports clubs were out of the question too, as I just wasn't athletic enough. Besides, it would detract from my academics, still an important part of college.
During a phone call sometime in October 2022, my mother sounded very disappointed in me. "You're just not trying hard enough, Lucas," she told me.
"I'm trying, Mom," I insisted. "I just haven't found any interesting ones yet."
"Just go to a random club," my mother suggested. "If nothing else, you'll make friends there, even if you don't love the activity."
My memory is that I headed to an unused classroom one day for the tabletop RPG club. There was a projector in the corner, and it was playing a debate between two United States Senate candidates. (In hindsight, it was the debate between Mehmet Oz and John Fetterman, which dates this meeting to October 25.)
Being a Poli Sci major, I was far more interested in the debate taking place on the big screen, less so in the trading card game. (The game, by the way, was the Pokémon card game, a subject I didn't know much about. My parents would have told me to just learn it.) But it was hard to focus on the Pokémon cards when a pivotal debate was being shown, one that could decide control of the Senate.
And then a girl walked in.
She was probably about my age, maybe five foot eight or so (in contrast to my six foot two), with flowing brown hair and piercing blue eyes, the same color as my own. She carried a set of books in one arm, cradling them against her stomach like a baby.
"Oh, look at you," I said. "You must love books, don't you?"
The girl snorted. "Well, I would hope so. This is an educational institution, after all, and studying is paramount to success here."
"It's n-nice to m-meet you," I stammered. It was difficult to speak coherently thanks to the butterflies (or Butterfree?) in my stomach. But why was I so nervous?
She smiled. "It's nice to meet you too. I'm Amanda."
Amanda reached out her hand for me to shake it, but I instead brandished my right elbow. "I'd rather do it this way," I admitted.
"Oh, of course" she replied, extending her elbow, which I bumped with my own. "And what might your name be?"
I chuckled anxiously. "There's no need to be so formal, Amanda. This isn't graduation."
"Fair enough. Still, what's your name?"
"It's Lucas. Lucas Snow" I mumbled, feeling my face grow hot as though something embarrassing had occurred. (For all I know, maybe it had, for I was surely making a fool of myself in front of this young lady.)
"Lucas" Amanda cooed. "That's a nice name, isn't it?"
"Eh. Doesn't age well. Have you ever met a fifty-year-old named Lucas?"
"I guess not. My last name's Mariner, by the way."
"Huh. That's nice" I acknowledged. By now seemingly the whole room (which admittedly wasn't very crowded) seemed to be watching the exchange between Amanda and myself. The one between Pennsylvania's Lieutenant Governor and a celebrity doctor no longer mattered.
"Let's head out of here," Amanda muttered. "I can tell you're not interested in tabletop games, and quite frankly, I'm not either. We can talk more there."
"Okay" I said, not wanting to make a scene. (Though I guess that ship had sailed.)
So we headed out onto the common green, and then we started hitting it off. That's when I started learning more about this girl who had so abruptly walked into a club that didn't satisfy her interest.
Amanda was from a New England family that was previously known for being merchants. During the nineteenth century, they'd sailed the Seven Seas in search of new lands to sell their goods. That's where her surname, Mariner, came from.
"So…you must be rich," I blurted out. I cringed almost immediately upon hearing those words exit my mouth.
Amanda blushed, and I was forced to qualify my statement with, "there's nothing wrong with that. If you've got it, flaunt it. I'm upper middle class myself."
"I get it," she responded. "But no, we're not rich. We live within our means. But we don't need to talk about money too much unless we get married."
"Wow, you're already going there, huh?"
In all seriousness, it wasn't much longer before Amanda and I started dating. We were still feeling one another out - I'd never been in a relationship before, and neither, apparently, had she. As such, we didn't know "how" to do it.
We had dinner together a few times a week, and that's when we opened up even more. I told her I was a Political Science major studying the causes and effects of political polarization in the United States, to which she replied, "That's pretty complex, isn't it?"
I shrugged. "Not really? Elections have gotten more and more predictable."
"I mean, how did we get here? It used to be that you could have a civil conversation with someone on the other side, even if you didn't agree with them on everything. It's not like that anymore."
I couldn't help but roll my eyes. "Well, if you look at the scientific literature on the subject, you'll find that there are some very divergent conclusions. You might find an answer that is satisfying to you, or you might not."
"Scientific? Lucas, yours is a soft social science, of less value than real science like geography. You understand that, right?"
I could tell it was all in good fun, of course. Amanda would not have made a joke like that to hurt my feelings on purpose. Clearly, she felt we were good fits for one another.
Honestly, I believed the same thing. To be good partners in a relationship doesn't always require identical personalities; it merely necessitates compatible personalities. Amanda and I fit together like peanut butter and jelly.
Just like the stickiness and salt of the peanut butter merges perfectly with the sweetness and slick mouthfeel of the jelly, so too did our personalities complement one another. My new girlfriend was the bookish, hard-science sort of gal who'd probably find herself in a lab one day; I felt more at home in the library, or in a monastery filled with people who pondered the why of it all. (Their answers may not have been compelling, but at least they were asking the big questions of life.)
Officer Lee: Why are you telling me this about how you got together? Does it have anything to do with what happened on this fantastical island?
Mr. Snow: In my mind, it does.
Officer Lee: Why would that be, Lucas?
Mr. Snow: You see, it's important to have some background. Amanda was the science geek, not me, but it had the side effect that she'd worry about every little thing. That's why I didn't tell her about the note.
Officer Lee: Are you just trying to throw me off? Are you trying to distract me from questioning you about the matter at hand? Or is this truly important?
Mr. Snow: Wouldn't you want to talk about your wife too?
Officer Lee: I suppose. Let's continue.
After we both graduated from the university, our relationship strengthened considerably. No longer were we obligated to complete mountains of homework every week; though other demands on our time arose, we still had more time to see each other.
It wasn't long before we made it official. I'd been hiding from the truth for so long - that I was madly in love. And yet, I faced it for the first time upon leaving my dorm room for the last time.
"I'm in love with you, Amanda" I said one day as we were walking to our date, dinner at a fancy restaurant in the Seaport District of Boston.
My girlfriend turned to me, clearly more than a little startled. "Say what?"
"I'm in love with you" i repeated, grinning from ear to ear like a kid at a candy store.
"You just now realized it, didn't you?" she replied with a hearty laugh. Her tone was not sarcastic, but playful, and for the first time I understood in no uncertain terms that she loved me back.
"You know," I said, "I'm starting to wonder if I should use a word from that game. Do you remember when we first met?"
"Vaguely" Amanda responded. "Wasn't it at some club back in college?"
I nodded, smiling. "It was the Pokémon club. And I'm not much into Pokémon, but I remember the word evolve. We're always evolving, every one of us."
My girlfriend snorted. "This sounds like some New Age shit, Lucas. Are you sure you're sober?"
"I haven't had a sip of alcohol tonight, Amanda. Hear me out. We're always evolving, that's the natural order of things - that there is no order. So…".
"So what?"
With a wink, I responded as follows: "I think it's time to take our relationship to the next level."
Amanda's jaw dropped. "Did you…are you going to…?"
"I didn't bring a ring with me," I admitted. "I'm not much one for the rituals of marriage. It's a sacrament for a reason."
"I didn't know you were Catholic, Lucas."
"No, I'm not. I'm just saying it's not all about the ceremony. It's about what it means for both of us."
With every word, my heart hammered yet more forcefully against my ribcage. It was hard to believe I was actually taking this step, making a move as some would say. And yet, here I was.
"Look, Lucas," Amanda responded eventually, giving me a cross between a smirk and a standard, bewildered smile. "I think I know what you are about to ask me."
I winked at her. "What's that?"
"You're about to propose to me, aren't you? You're about to ask if I'll marry you."
The fact that it had been said made me flinch. Make no mistake, I was thrilled about it, but there still existed that sliver of doubt. That small, nagging feeling that no matter what, she wouldn't accept me for who I truly was.
To make a long story short, I took a deep breath, followed by the plunge. And she said yes.
In months to come, there would be ample time to plan the wedding. I'd have plenty of chances to think about the implications of the decision we'd both made to commit to one another. But for now, it was pure bliss.
If only the bliss could have lasted just a little longer…