Prompt 8: Cozy

"I am Emmet. Remind me again what we are looking for."

"Twice-spiced radishes, sootfoot roots, muffin mix, some raw honey- oh! And potatoes! Lots and lots of potatoes!" Dawn led Emmet along by the arm, her eyes shining as they came across more and more stalls peddling out-of-season vegetables and once-in-a-lifetime cooking supplies. She swung her arms as she went, chattering about this and that as she led the much taller man through the open market.

Emmet wasn't exactly comfortable with his brother's newest charge. My brother's awfully young, very excitable, somewhat weird charge. He had been introduced to Dawn in the past back when Ingo had first returned from Hisui. It had taken Ingo some time to remember a young girl he knew. Somebody named 'Akari'. Funny, Emmet chuckled inwardly. It had taken Ingo an entire month to remember the familiar stops and schedules of their shared lives in Unova; it had taken Ingo only a single day to remember Akari- 'Dawn' as she was properly named in the present.

"What dish are those ingredients for?" Emmet asked innocently.

"Lots of things!" Dawn replied cheerily, sweeping an errant lock of hair out of her face. "We gotta get authentic ingredients if we really want to surprise Uncle Ingo! And I think he'd really like two particular dishes- he liked them a lot back in Hisui." Dawn paused, frowning. "Actually, I think he liked them too much… Did he actually ever eat anything else?"

"What are you referring to?"

"Potato mochi and tundra stew." At the mention of the latter, Dawn's face shrunk in on itself as if having tasted something sour. "Still have no idea why he likes the stew so much. Eugh. You wouldn't like it. It tastes bitter and horrible like gnawing on beetroots."

"What's in the stew?"

"Usual stuff. Cut-up potatoes, wild grains, sometimes rice, snow radishes and-" Dawn's scowl suddenly deepened. "Urm… Maybe I should just… get that particular ingredient on my own. It's nothing bad!" she squawked, rushing to explain herself as she fumbled with the hem of her dress, not quite meeting Emmet's eyes. "It's just… gross. I think it's gross! Some people like it! I just think it's nasty."

The two spent another hour or two gathering ingredients from the open markets of Driftveil before eventually finding a small ferry to get them back across the waters to the western ports of Nimbasa City before noon had broken. From there, Emmet helped wave down a tram for the two of them to make their way back home.

Emmet unlocked the door, blinking. Ingo's still gone. "Strange," he murmured, stepping to the side and allowing Dawn to pass him. Today made a year's anniversary of Ingo and Dawn's return back from Hisui. Dawn hadn't planned anything for herself and had preemptively decided to spend the day hanging out with Ingo after getting her mother's permission. Emmet was more than fine with the opportunity. If Ingo was happy, he was happy too. Of course, despite Ingo being back home for so long, Emmet had noticed that Ingo hadn't fully settled.

There were a few things here and there. Ingo probably didn't know it but Emmet had begun picking up on cues that his twin was hiding things; bad things. The body scars were the easiest to see. Tearing scars along his arms on hot summer days. A snippet of a criss-crossing scar across his back after stepping out of the bathroom for something or another. Electrical burn marks hidden well by his work gloves. Uncle Drayden had noticed Ingo favoring his right knee over his left during bad storms. Iris had noticed Ingo's tendency to hoard food and to that extent, old clothes. Elesa had noticed that Ingo flinched when the subway trains would roll into the platform too fast. Emmet had noticed that Ingo was quieter, never quite reaching the same levels of volume that he easily met and surpassed in the past. Emmet never asked. Ingo never spoke about them, almost as though he were either ashamed of doing so or that in doing so, he would stir up bad memories.

Ingo had his days. Some days, he would wake up and barely speak, still performing his job but with no life as though a ghost had possessed him. Some days, he wouldn't eat. He would pick at his breakfast and work straight through his lunch, going straight to bed after a grueling shift at the station without so much as washing his face or brushing his teeth. Some nights, Ingo would go for walks. Long walks. Long walks at night, specifically with the pokémon he had befriended in Hisui. The pokémon that Ingo confided his troubles in when Emmet couldn't overhear anything and the ones that often escorted him home in the dizzying hours of the early morning.

Both Emmet and Elesa had agreed to not smother Ingo and let him adapt slowly. And Ingo had been returning back to his old tracks gradually the more and more his family watched over him and ensured that he was seeking the proper physical and mental help that he needed after experiencing such a thing as amnesia-backed, time and space displacement. That they would support Ingo in his slow but steady recovery. And though Ingo was reluctant to speak about his experiences in Hisui, Dawn had come up with reintroducing the better parts of their joint-kidnapping by reminding him of the memories they both shared along each other: the food from Hisui.

"How are the muffins looking?" Dawn called, carefully checking the consistency of the stew that she had quickly assembled while Emmet hadn't been paying attention.

Emmet peered into the oven, nodding. "They're almost done. Are you making some kind of glaze or topping for them? Wait. I thought you said we were making mochi and… stew?"

"The muffins are the appetizer," Dawn laughed. She put the lid back on the stew and went to clean her hands. "My old friend Rei- he taught me how to make them so that I could eat while travelling to complete the pokédex. I got real good at it and eventually taught Uncle Ingo how to make them. We often shared them whenever we ran into each other which was a lot- way more than you think! He had a… specific way of making his. Something to do with pecha berries."

Emmet snorted. "Pecha berries? Yyyup. My brother has a sweet tooth." He carefully skimmed over the directions for the recipe he was about to prepare. "I don't doubt he would use pecha berries for muffins. Which are already sweet."

"The raw honey is gonna be the glaze and that's already kinda too sweet, even for me. He'll love these, I'm sure of it. Ooh! And I think they're done!"

The front door clicked and opened, Elesa's boisterous voice and Ingo's tired but slightly amused grumbles filtering into the house. Dawn immediately dried off her hands and flung herself out of the kitchen, nearly carrying Ingo off of his feet as she threw her arms around him.

"Uncle Ingo! You're back!"

"Ah, Ak- Ahem. Dawn."

Emmet only listened in, dropping the potato mochi into the pan to cook them exactly as the recipe ordered. And as he cooked, he could hear several more voices join in. Ah. There's Uncle Drayden. And Iris, too. He dropped the thoroughly cooked pieces of mochi onto a covered plate at his side, humming as he dropped in another piece. I can hear Cilan very slightly. Cameron sounds like he's here too.

He let his gaze travel over toward the packed party sitting in the living room, watching as Ingo and Dawn bickered over something small. And then Emmet saw exactly what he had been hoping for.

Ingo was talking. He was smiling, using his old over-exaggerated hand gestures as he spoke animatedly to Drayden and Iris who were staring at Ingo with amusement. Ingo's voice carried clearly into the kitchen.

He's… happy. Emmet supposed that if Ingo was happy, he was too. Ingo was safe and sound and happy, surrounded by people who loved him. And that eased Emmet just enough into carefully preparing a plate of muffins to take out to the living room.