Chapter Five: Harmony Seeks Resolution

The last Primarina colony, the very last remaining ember of their kind, lived on a ranch in the heart of Akala Island, in the prosperous land where the flocks of Mareep wild and tame frolicked without a care in the world. This place was a haven for all those who sought refuge, whether they understood it or not. Many of the other species who had come to live here dared struggle against the gods' attempts to save them, yet ignorant to their divinity. But the Primarina understood they were forever in their debt, and there was very little in the world worth more than a Primarina's loyalty.

For eons their kind had thrived in their ancestral waters in spite of the countless predators who wished to feed upon their flesh. But their most fearsome predator had not emerged from any ocean abyss but from deep within them: from their own genetic code. What plagued those afflicted wasn't madness, but a cruel rationality driving them to view their own kind not as the comrades they had always been, but as competitors, or even adversaries. Brother turned against brother; parent against child; child against parent. Violence and debauchery, once foreign to them, came to reign.

Timbira wasn't present the night his firstborn son came to hatch from his life-container. He lived alongside his divine guardians in their quarters, not in the stable with the others. However, in their kind's culture, the name was always to be chosen by the father. No one knew exactly how this custom had come about, but it was said to be as old as the Primarina line themselves, and thus sacrosanct.

Timbira's own name, given when his father had given up the last of his hope, had been intended as a cruel joke: "eternal flame". He had been only a few weeks old that fateful night twenty-five years ago, when the gods had plucked him and the other survivors of what their own had wrought against them and brought them here. To safety. Safety - so sweet to the young one, who until then had believed his generation was to be the very last.

And here he was, father to another.

It didn't take long for him to decide the name: "Kirikai", "revolution". The most basic truth of nature, Timbira believed, was the world's revolution: earth, sea, forest, air, fire, stone, ether. All of nature's children existed in harmony with one another, and the gods as well. The gods, endless providers, who had rescued their kind. Who always knew best.

The one Timbira trusted to act as mentor to the young one was the ancient Tauros with the stately overgrown horns. As much as he and his mate Ikirai might have wished otherwise, it was unlikely their son would remain on the ranch with them for long. The gods would send them to grow up alongside one of their own pups, as they once had Timbira himself. So it was imperative Tauros prepare Kirikai for all the wondrous and terrible sights he would encounter outside their haven: the abyssal forests of the dead with trees like deformed flippers reaching to heaven; the gatherings of ten thousand gods or more, bearing witness to their rites of passage; the recreations of mortal beings, living out their lives in tiny boxes, ignorant to all who watched.

But when Kirikai did experience one such miracle - being unmade and remade, tossed into a river where days flowed as seconds - he understood that the gods' acts defied explanation, and was as awestruck and pious as one of his kind ought to be. The luster did dim on subsequent occasions, but, against all odds, the gods forgave him. After all, it often seemed as if they themselves did not fully appreciate their own splendor.

The moment he'd met the one made to be his master, he'd been newly remade, and hadn't any idea of his place or time. But he'd found it in him to face her gray eyes, so big and wet and full of heart, and his own heart thrummed steadily as she appraised him. He held his head high, unyielding to his fear.

And a nod. Her seal of approval.

C:\gods\aldina: 'Harmony.'

Just as he would call her 'Aldina', in his language, 'creator', his name was to be 'Harmony'. This was Aldina's will, and Aldina's will was not to be questioned. Her decisions didn't always make sense to him - it confused him when she called him a her. The very first time she'd done it, a terrible blasphemous thought had entered his mind: that he didn't want to fight by her side, that he wanted to run home and hug his mother and never, never let go. But, ultimately, Aldina knew best. If she willed Harmony to be female, then she would not fight back.

So on that very first day, after she had saved her from the wrathful guardian, Aldina had taken her home and told her all about herself: about her life, about her family, her sisters, her other sister, her friends, and most pertinently, her dreams for the future, which she had shaped into plans. Of course Harmony would be her most important asset, her right hand pup. Her sacred strategy guide had foretold as such.

But what bit at Harmony's brain the most was what went unspoken. Aldina knew Harmony was imperfect yet. Aldina understood she must put her through many trials and tribulations. This was as the old Tauros had said: the gods are pleased when we listen. When we resist, we receive what we deserve. I know this well: when I was young, I was very prideful, and I believed myself above them. Do not make the same mistake, young one.

Harmony did not deserve a bite of malasada. Harmony did not deserve to return home with Aldina. This had been decided, and the decision was final.

The other goddess in their quartet they called 'Lillie'. Tauros spoken once of a flower by that name - it grew on the dark side of the moon, he said. It was the sort of name Harmony, with her nasally squeaks and barks, could never dream of being able to pronounce. All breath and life and elegance. Lillie.

One of Harmony's divine caretakers back on the ranch had owned a little clockwork doll, a mechanical ballerina she called "Coppélia". When she had determined the class of Popplio had behaved appropriately well that day, she'd gather them into the barn and wind up the doll, and all of them would watch the toy spin, enraptured.

"Go, Coppélia, go! Go, Coppélia, go!"

While Harmony had enjoyed these showings, she had always felt bad for Coppélia. The doll had been created solely to dance, but would never be able to without the permission of a free-moving being. One day her joints would rust away, and she'd be discarded, forever unable to fulfill her purpose.

It was clear even to Harmony Lillie was not on equal standing with the others. She was Coppélia, somehow snatched up from her cold clockwork body and misplaced in the pantheon. She was contradictory: her skin so soft and tender; her touch soft as Rowlet's down; her lilting voice an anodyne. She knew grace, and this was why she had deigned to carry Harmony home despite her sin.

And yet she was gawky, long-limbed, and (as Harmony thought with shame) almost freakish. There was something repulsive about her: something that made Harmony want to sink into the deepest trench of the ocean and hide away there forever. She always held her mouth a little agape, her two front teeth poised upon her bottom lip. Some instinct bid Harmony to squirm in her arms: something had nibbled away at them, and there were a few bits of top-flesh missing. A closer look revealed the outlines of capillaries, the shade of red you only see in lucid dreams.

Her presence was a puzzle Harmony had no interest in solving. An inexplicable transgression against the laws of nature. Lillie intended to keep a close eye on her, and she intended likewise.

C:\gods\coppelia: 'Was it... this way? I don't see...'

Whatever mechanism propelled Lillie clicked and whirred. It felt ingenuine against Harmony's flesh and blood, and she shut her eyes.

C:\gods\coppelia: 'No, I don't... Excuse me, mister, have you seen...?'

An old man stood before them, his crooked finger angled towards the right side of the crossroads. Moments before he had been sitting on a bench, his legs crossed and his eyes closed like a ruler in repose. A similarly frail Furfrou languished by his side, its fur matted and unkempt. A scattered collection of assorted treats, like Berries, small bone-shaped cookies, and beans in various colors, lay before it. Harmony shifted in Lillie's grip, wishing to wave it a greeting, but she noticed then the odd way it stared straight forward, its eyes two puddles of milk.

C:\gods\unknown_location: 'That way.'

C:\gods\coppelia: 'Thank you, sir.'

Lillie started down the road again. She didn't notice the man's hand, wizened and threaded with veins, curling around a small paper cup that clinked as he raised it. Harmony did.

Another miracle - if it could be called a miracle - was the way the gods communed without words. They had their own elaborate system of unspoken rules and social taboos far more complex than any species' Harmony was aware of. Wasn't it bizarre the way Aldina spoke to her peers? At one moment crackling with fury; the next, tranquil as a summer evening.

Pokémon did not naturally know social deception. In the wild, there was no time for you to conceal your emotions: not when your only thoughts were need food and need shelter and watch out for those Sharpedo over there. But in rescuing the Primarina line, the gods had bestowed upon them the gift of complexity. Having been steeped in their culture, Harmony had been socialized to read what the poor clockwork doll could not.

There was a sign at the beginning of the forest path, where the thick flat steel trees met the thin-barked green-leaved ones. Lillie squinted and read it aloud:

C:\gods\coppelia: 'Route Two. A path through many grassy patches. Okay.'

A mottled veil of light and shadow draped over the path as a few sparse patches of clouds drifted over the sun. The blissful sunlight on Harmony's fur induced a lightness in her, and her consciousness waned.

C:\gods\coppelia: 'Mmphf... I told you, we have to get Harmony back to [Aldina]. I just don't know where...'

Harmony only barely registered Lillie's speech as she drowsed. She was murmuring, uncertain, and when Harmony looked up she saw beads of sweat forming on her temple.

C:\gods\coppelia: 'I'd really rather not go up that way. I don't believe she's in there. But, well, since you're so insistent…'

The duo turned onto a trail sequestered away in a cluster of backwoods. Here, the very air seemed dispirited: the palm leaves curled into themselves, as if caught in the thrall of a premature autumn. The clockwork doll's pace slowed as the incline increased; she fought to catch her breath, her grip on Harmony tightening and loosening with the rise and fall of her mechanical lungs. A large stone tablet met them ahead, and Harmony didn't need the girl to read the inscription aloud to know what it signified. This place, where the chaos of the living met the order of the dead:

C:\gods\coppelia: 'Hau'oli Cemetery.'

Sublime, wasn't it? Harmony could imagine Aldina visiting this place, weaving through the rows of headstones, ducking in and out of the lonely mausoleums. Somehow, she imagined she'd be indignant, enraged at the cruelty of nature. Swearing she'd never let any of her friends have to sleep here. After all, they were young, and they'd live forever and ever and ever.

C:\gods\coppelia 'This place can't be for just the city. There are too many...'

The doll wiped a bead of moisture off her brow as she stared down the seemingly endless expanse of necropolis.

C:\gods\coppelia 'Eh? Well, I suppose that is true... but I would really rather not think about that right now. I'm not... I can't be afraid.'

The shadows of apparitions encircled the cemetery. By their nature, Ghost-Type Pokémon were drawn to the auras of fellow spirits, and often made their homes among where the dead slept. Although they were masters of concealing themselves, a knowledgeable observer could discern their presence by the subtle vibrations in the air as they giggled and chattered in their shrill, unearthly whispers.

A few other mourners roamed the clearing, heads bowed in front of their loved ones' graves. Some had vases of flowers lain at their feet, and spots of decay marred their petals. A small Rockruff plushie lay on its side next to one in particular, having been knocked over by passerby. The doll stopped to read the inscription to herself.

C:\gods\coppelia: 'Oh, this one... That's... That's sad...'

Lillie bowed her head and moved on, gripping Harmony ever tighter.

C:\gods\coppelia: 'I don't think she's here. I don't care how interesting it is to you... Please, I don't want to be here...'

A few of the spirit Pokémon drew closer, their interest piqued. Ghost-Types and their ilk fed on fear, and the doll quivered more with each step she took. Harmony let out an alarmed chirp to warn her, but she didn't seem to notice, hopelessly absorbed in her own internal world. The Pokémon kept a moderate distance away; with little else to do, Harmony glowered at them, unsure of their intentions.

Could they simply be passive observers? With a few exceptions, wild Pokémon wouldn't initiate combat unless they felt their territory was being encroached upon. Wild Pokémon feared the gods rather than respected them: a domestic Pokémon like Harmony would have gladly allowed humans to pass through their domain. After all, they had a right to it.

A chill swept through the air. Darkness had descended over the clearing, and in the Above, where once an everlasting sun had shone through transient clusters of clouds, there now remained only a miniscule band of light. Like Mother Nature's own iris, assessing all creation.

C:\gods\coppelia: 'An eclipse? So fast?'

No sooner had the words left Lillie's mouth did she seize up, swivel around, and take off back towards the entrance. Harmony tensed. The spirits, entranced by the unexpected phenomenon, allowed them to pass through their ring. Lillie kept her head down, not watching where she was going - until she smacked straight into another. She didn't look up, mumbling a hasty apology:

C:\gods\coppelia: 'Ah… I'm sorry, sir.'

The stranger with hair the color of a rose's petals smiled.

C:\gods\unknown_location: 'There's no reason to apologize. You're called Lillie, aren't you?'

C:\gods\coppelia: 'What? H-how...?'

C:\gods\unknown_location: 'Your friend told me about you. I am Ilima, and I'm the captain of this island. I bid you a warm Alola to Melemele.'

He performed that odd gesture Alolans used to greet each other. Lillie's hands twitched as she relaxed, likely intending to reciprocate, but Harmony's presence thwarted her.

C:\gods\ilima: 'Beautiful day for an eclipse, is it not? And the perfect locale as well. What brings you to this place, my dear?'

He reached out to stroke Harmony's head. The movement was not quick and repetitive like the children's pets often were, but long and self-assured. Harmony caught a glimpse of a holding capsule on his belt, sensing the latent energy inside. She closed her eyes, focusing on discerning its attributes. Every type of Pokémon had a sort of 'scent' about them; this one was almost overpowering in its blandness. Like a freshly boiled pot of dry pasta. Normal-Type, she concluded, and quite strong, too.

C:\gods\coppelia: 'I was trying to find [Aldina]. She left her Pokémon with us on accident. You haven't seen her, have you?'

C:\gods\ilima: 'She isn't here. But...'

Ilima narrowed his eyes.

C:\gods\ilima: 'I'd like to know the real reason you've come here.'

It was a moment before Lillie responded. Judging from the renewed tightness of her embrace, the request caught her as off-guard as it did Harmony.

C:\gods\coppelia: 'That... that is the real reason.'

C:\gods\ilima: 'No. Tell me the real reason.'

Lillie tensed, taking a step back. She floundered, opening and closing her mouth, and Harmony could feel the rapid ticking of her clockwork heartbeat against her back.

Then the ticking slowed, as if she had gained new confidence. The voice that came out of her body next was hers, but... different. Almost bestial. Oozing malice. The furs on Harmony's back stood on end.

C:\gods\coppelia: 'Oh, so it's a crime to watch an eclipse now, is it?'

Harmony slammed into something - something hard. Bits of cyan dotted over her vision, increasing in number and size until she was blind to the browning threads of grass before her snout. The stone she'd smacked into loomed over her, and when she used it as a support to herself back up, its rough, uneven surface scraped her flipper.

Discarded. Tossed aside, like a bit of cracked eggshell, without a shred of remorse.

Ilima gaped at the doll's sudden callousness. The iris of light leered at them from the Above, and Harmony shivered in the newly frigid false-night air.

C:\?\coppelia: 'It isn't any of your goddamned business why I'm here. I don't have any interest in dealing with you brainwashed cultists, and I never will.'

C:\gods\ilima: 'Brainwashed.'

He spat the word with his whole throat, as if it were a curse. The doll shook her head.

C:\?\coppelia: 'It appears there is something you have yet to learn. There are three types of people in this world: the Mareep, the Lycanroc, and the Mandibuzz.'

She put up one finger as she spoke each name. Her voice was even, and Harmony understood this was not the first time she had recited this.

C:\?\coppelia: 'The charitable reading of you is that you're a Mareep, taking Tenshiro's word as gospel because you earnestly believe it's the truth. The more likely one is that you're a Mandibuzz, sucking the marrow out of the bones he spits out. Either way, you deserve to rot.'

C:\gods\ilima: 'Only three types? If that's what you truly believe, then you've told on yourself.'

C:\?\coppelia: 'Well, it takes one to know one. But at least I've never pretended to be anything other than what I am. I know exactly what you're planning. I have a vested interest in these children's success, and I will not allow you to stand in their way.'

C:\gods\ilima: 'Oh? And what is it that I'm planning?'

C:\?\coppelia: 'In the years in which the preliminary trial was held, it was held in a neutral location - certainly not in a cemetery full of restless spirits. You want to put them off Pokemon Training entirely - to scare them straight, if you would. And...'

The doll grit her teeth, her voice laced with pure hatred.

C:\?\coppelia: 'Tenshiro put you up to this, didn't he? It would be a win-win scenario for him. If Mizuki were to pass the trial, she'd get recognition and be able to spread his propaganda across Alola. If she were to fail, he'd be able to use it as evidence she was wrong for ever even thinking about leaving her family's little bubble of delusion. Not to mention what will happen to the others with their hopes and dreams now crushed: vulnerable, and ripe for the picking. The Children of Starlight are no better than the very Team Skull gang you condemn in how they prey upon the lost and aimless.'

Silence. The shadow and light continued their celestial waltz.

C:\?\coppelia: 'Like I said. Mandibuzz.'

C:\gods\ilima: 'And how exactly do you plan to prevent the preliminary trial from commencing?'

C:\?\coppelia: 'I'll leave it up to you. It's your decision: you're free to keep sucking those bones dry. But if you do…'

She shrugged.

C:\?\coppelia: 'Sleep with one eye open, Ilima. That's all I have to say.'

Light came to illuminate the clearing once more as the sun and moon drifted back to their usual positions. The doll seized again, then relaxed, like someone had flicked off a switch. She glanced down to her now empty hands, then over to the headstone where Harmony stood.

C:\?\coppelia: 'Oh, Harmony! You... did you... how did you get over here? You aren't hurt, are you?'

She started to approach the Popplio, but Harmony shuffled on her flippers, dragging herself away. In the time since she'd tossed her, the doll's skin had gone quite pallid, and she only paled further when she saw the trickle of blood running down Harmony's side.

C:\?\coppelia: 'Harmony? Why...'

Lillie, then spooked, raised her hand to her mouth. Ilima reached out after her as she stumbled towards the side of the path, emptying her stomach into a deadened patch of grass. She covered her face rather than allow him to look upon her, mortified.

C:\?\coppelia: 'I don't... I'm truly sorry, sir, I...'

C:\gods\ilima: 'There's no need to feel ashamed. I'll have my Smeargle clean this up, and then I can take you back to the Pokémon Center…'

Harmony didn't resist as he picked her up with one arm, using the other to massage the disoriented doll's shoulders and back of her neck. The doll stared down at the puddle of liquid in disbelief, quaking, her blinks hard and rapid.

C:\?\coppelia: 'But... but Harmony...'

She repeated the mantra over and over, Harmony, harmony, harmony, she has to go home. A deep and supernatural mist tickled the gods' ankles, and the crackling chatter of spirit Pokémon melded into the sound, harmony, harmony, harmony...

C:\gods\aldina: 'After an outbreak of the dangerous genetic syndrome pZS, Popplio and its evolutions no longer live in the wild. They are solely bred in captivity to keep their numbers stable and prevent the spread of the condition. In an attempt to raise their numbers, they are sometimes given out to young Trainers in the Alola region as First Partner Pokémon. Once their population has reached an adequate size, they will be reintroduced into their former habitat.'

Aldina looked over to Harmony from atop her bed. The magazine she'd been reading from lay open in front of her, and she rested on her stomach, her swaying legs kicked in the air. A wistful expression came over her.

C:\gods\aldina 'pZS, huh? That must have happened before I was born, or else I'd have probably heard about it. It must be really bad if it made them take such drastic measures.'

Her bedroom wall had been painted a vivid cerulean, the same color as Aldina's T-shirt - a hand-me-down from Mizune. The shirt was worn and fraying, and she fidgeted with a stray strand sticking up from her collar.

C:\gods\aldina 'I bet you'd like to go back to the ocean. Makes sense. I mean, life is supposed to have originated in the sea, so I guess everyone feels a sort of pull towards it…'

Aldina clapped her hand over her mouth and flipped the page quite hurriedly. She quieted as the image before her caught her attention: a two-page spread of an imperceptible moment: the very fraction of a second in which a Trumbeak took flight, so that it looked to simultaneously be still on a branch and taking off. Harmony believed her to have lost the thread of her previous monologue until she spoke again.

C:\gods\aldina 'What I mean is, um, everyone I know loves the ocean, so you're not alone. Would you like to go to the ocean too?'

Without knowing it, Aldina had vocalized the unnamable yearning Harmony had felt since she had been but a half-formed yolk in her egg. Mother, Father, her half-siblings and cousins; all of them knew it well. Though the gods may have purged the doomsday gene from their kind, they could not quell the silent anamnesis - the sighs of waves swelling onto sepia-toned sand, a pale sun burning deep overhead - these were the images passed from parent to child, composites of all that had come before.

So although Harmony had no voice that mattered, her tender nudges of Aldina's arm were more than adequate as an answer. In an elusive moment of physical affection, Aldina smiled and ran her hand down her spine, her thin fingers lingering on each vertebra. The aroma of creamy Clamperl chowder wafted in from the kitchen, and she licked her lips.

C:\gods\aldina_mother '[Aldina]! Miki! Dinnertime!'

Aldina's head snapped up to the open door. She sat up, ushering Harmony to her side.

C:\gods\aldina 'Ahh... coming! Come on, Harmony!'

The old Tauros had spoken, too, of the terror of losing his sight. He was a big creature, he knew - the world revolved around him, around his speed and strength. The gods admired him and feared him, and he had done nothing to earn either except be.

In his old age, the inky blackness had begun to close in on him. It had already snatched away his peripheral vision, and the gods said he'd lose it all within the year. The rest had not been meant for his ears - a blind Tauros, rumbling with barely suppressed speed and strength, would pose a danger to itself and others. Once his vision failed, the gods would lead him away to paradise at last.

Harmony, or Kirikai - (the little lost way/upon your psyche is a puzzle to solve) - listened enraptured by the stories Tauros told of paradise. A place beyond reality, where the arbitrary boundaries separating Pokémon were torn down - where everyone, from the grandest Wailord to the tiniest Joltik, was truly equal. To its inhabitants, earthly ills such as pain, suffering, and conflict were all but a fading dream.

He had wondered what distinguished paradise from the theater of his very own mind. There was no pain or suffering in his daydreams, and he didn't need to pass on to access them. Still, the idea appealed to him - but there was something missing. Wasn't there?

"Do the gods get to go to paradise, too?"

The Tauros had smiled wryly.

"The gods built paradise. But they've locked themselves out, it seems…"

When Kirikai asked Tauros what he meant, the older Pokémon simply shook his oversized head and huffed.

"Never you mind, little one. It's not for you to know."

There was a faraway look in Aldina's eyes as she took Kirikai into her embrace. Embarrassed by her own display of negligence, maybe. She'd stuffed a pair of black earbuds in, piping some soft lull directly into her brain - the Pokémon Center was playing a crude top 40 hit over its speakers, and the Children of Starlight believed pop music could cause irreversible spiritual corruption. It was only a precaution.

The one she called 'Dad' had accompanied her here, and she clung to his arm like a trembling leaf to a branch. She'd made it all the way home, he said, before receiving the call from Ilima asking for both of them - wanting to speak with Dad about an odd incident in the cemetery. This girl, she was terribly sick and needed healing...

C:\gods\aldina_father: 'How bad is she?'

Ilima averted his eyes, seemingly unwilling to discuss it further with the children right there. He ushered Dad outside, leaving Aldina, Lillie, and Kirikai to their own devices. As soon as the automatic doors had closed behind them, Aldina removed her earbuds.

The two sat at one of the little tables in the Pokémon Center's dining area. The doll rubbed her temple, sipping from a cup of Roserade Tea Ilima had fetched her from the joint cafe and convenience store. He'd brought back something for Kirikai, too: a delicious Casteliacone, its neon packaging finished with fine flakes of frost. Vanilla flavor, he'd said it was. Were there other flavors out there waiting to be discovered and devoured? With two words, the simple treat had conceived in Kirikai's brain a whole new class of gastronomic delight!

C:\gods\aldina: 'So, you're really liking that, huh, Harmony?'

Kirikai bwarked his acknowledgement. Lillie set down her tea, taking interest in her fingernails: rosy unblemished half-circles. It must have been such a hassle to have such claws - how did the gods avoid inadvertently scratching themselves?

C:\?\coppelia: 'I've had a real one before. Not a packaged one like that, but a fresh one. They sell them on the streets of Castelia City.'

Aldina's eyes narrowed.

C:\gods\aldina: 'Ohh, you've been to Unova before?'

C:\?\coppelia: 'Yes. It was, for, um, one of my mother's business trips; a meeting on the eastern side of the region. It was really fun. It was fall, so all the leaves were really pretty colors, and someone collected them into a big pile for us to jump in. It was like diving into a pool of foliage…'

Kirikai had observed the way Aldina conversed with her sisters enough to know Lillie had walked right into a trap. When she asked a question like that, in that disdainful tone, she didn't do so because she wanted an actual answer. She did so because she wanted you to shut up.

Now she would employ a much more aggressive tactic. It was imperative that Lillie know all about her trip to the capital - the capital of the WHOLE COUNTRY - because Dad had needed to speak with the head of state. He knew too much about the true nature of the universe, so the powers that be had sent their fiercest assassins after their family. But it was all okay, because the head of state heard Dad speak the Truth, and he'd prostrated himself and wept his apologies right there on the spot.

That was how her father had recounted it - of course Aldina had been back at the hotel with her mother and sisters. But it had been a fun trip. It had been spring, and the cherry blossoms were in bloom, and if you stood in front of them at the right angle with the breeze scattering the petals it looked like a love confession scene from an old anime. And there was a big obelisk, and -

Lillie took another sip of tea and rubbed her forehead. Kirikai followed her glass-eyed stare out the far window to where Ilima and Dad conversed, beautifully ignorant to any such talk of national monuments. She didn't look away as she spoke again.

C:\?\coppelia: 'Sometimes it feels like all my emotions are fake.'

Aldina's irritation had reached its peak, and she had one last clever maneuver up her sleeve: she slipped her earbuds right back in, spiting the world entirely.

Apologies for the delay, but I was a little nervous about posting this chapter. In fact, I wrote a whole long spiel here in these notes about it, explaining my intentions. But to be honest, I trust you guys to understand.

Also, please note I wrote this chapter all the way back in September.