"Always for sure
Whatever you think, kid,
You make it yours"
—"Always Maybe" from Indigo Meadow by The Black Angels
You will know it all again.
The moment Max walked into the store, Sylveon's eyes shot to him. Max couldn't really read her expression, but he attributed that to the poor eeveelution being in customer service. After all, with how much Max came here, he was practically keeping Sylveon's Smart Costuming Shop afloat himself.
"Hey Max," Sylveon said, a painfully practiced greeting that betrayed his long day. "Here for another tail-sleeve?"
"H-huh?" Max asked. He forced a chuckle as his eyes darted around the store. Was anyone else in ear shot? "W-well, y'know." He shrugged, not noticing Sylveon's twitching eye as his cheeks sparked. "Sometimes, y'know, gotta complete the costume."
Sylveon swallowed something stuck in her throat. "Right," she said. With a nod, he turned to the door behind the counter. "Well, I've got some product to move. Let me know if you need something." Sylveon darted right through the door and, apparently, got right to work. Within seconds, Max heard sharp thuds and groans of exertion behind the door.
The scream was a bit strange, but that was her business, not Max's.
Max gave it little more consideration, too excited to keep himself from hurrying over to the section for his size. Sylveon was something of an innovator in his field, her costume shop working in clever ways to cater to pokémon of all shapes and sizes, whereas most others had to cater to only a few.
Pokémon could be a vast, vast variety of sizes, so it was hard for anyone to work with all of them. Sylveon put in the work to make sure he could help anyone find outfits that they'd love. It was really sweet.
"What'd she say?" Max asked himself. There was a particular quote that had always struck a chord with him. They'd had plenty of nice conversations together, Sylveon seeming eager to help Max at any turn. It made Max feel really welcome, making it a bit easier to experiment with different ways to look. "Everyone has a right to present how they want to." Max smiled. "That's so cool. Everyone should think that."
Another heavy box must have fallen, as Max heard a very heavy thud in the supply room.
Now, Max was perhaps a mouse of habit, to some extent. While he of course had to remain roughly within his sizing section, he didn't necessarily need to go to the same subsection within that section. For a store catering to all pokémon, it was only natural that it would have to account for pokémon that wanted outfits that were indicative of the other gender.
"Some pokémon have it easy," Max mumbled as he walked up to the tail sleeves. "Don't have to worry about stupid fucking gender differences giving them away." He paused a moment before remembering that sentence wasn't over. "… which probably makes cosplay easier."
The much louder groan preempted the much, much louder thud this time.
"Hope he's okay in there," Max mumbled. With how hard Sylveon worked, it'd be a shame if she didn't take time to himself. He considered offering to help, but he was still sore from his last mission.
Max shook the thoughts out of his head and got back to what he was really there for: costumes. Of some sort. Sylveon labored intensely to make sure her store always had plenty on offer, some coming and going with the season. He was always so in tune with the fashions. It was a bit odd that pokémon even had fashion since they didn't need to wear clothes, but Max was glad they did.
As he traced his eyes over the wares, Max caught his eye on a delightfully minxy little outfit within his reach. The black shorts took his attention first before the fishnet leggings on the illustration coaxed it elsewhere. The model was a minccino, but the black would go perfect with her ears.
Minccino was close in proportion, too. He might not even need it to be adjusted for him. Then again, if it was cut for girls, he might not want to risk it. It still bothered him thinking to back the time he tried a girl's outfit that fit in every wrong way.
"At least this stuff is supposed to be unisex," Max mumbled, tugging the outfit off the rack. He wasn't really sure who it was supposed to be a costume of. It mostly just looked like a fun outfit.
"It's nice that people can experiment with styles divorced from gender," she said.
"STUPID FUCKING EGG!" Sylveon cried from storage, immediately followed by a thud significantly louder than all the others before it.
Max raised a brow and side-eyed that direction. Hopefully that egg was okay. What was she doing with eggs back there? It must've been some prop for one of the costumes. Max could only hope Sylveon hadn't been nest-snatching for the sake of his craft. It wasn't his business, though, so he headed over to the counter. He gave the outfit another glance, excited to try it on once Sylveon got it adjusted.
He might never wear it outside of his room, but what did that matter? It'd look so good with a Libré tail sleeve. Black went with yellow, sure, but it went even better with black. He'd dye his tail if that didn't involve looking at it.
Sylveon begrudgingly returned to the counter around the time Max arrived. "Find something fun?" she asked.
"Think so, yeah," Max said. He tried to hide his nerves with a smile as he hopped up the stepladder next to the counter and plopped the bag down. Sylveon gave it a glance with a tired smirk.
"You know," Sylveon hummed as he punched the bag's serial number into the cash register, "I thought you might like that one." Max perked up, nerves abating ever so slightly. Sylveon would be able to tell if he was really…, but Max shook his head. This was different.
"Yeah, I guess I'm getting predictable," Max said. A glimmer of some hope was tugging at his chest, but he did his best to quell it. It was a weird question to ask. "I guess I'll need it adjusted. Do you still have all my measurements?"
"For my best customer? Of course I do," Sylveon said. Just by a glance, Max could feel some subtext there. He knew he was imagining it, but he so desperately wished he wasn't. He didn't really know what he wanted from Sylveon, yet he still felt he wasn't getting it. Sylveon quoted the price, Max gave the coin, and he got a voucher he'd lose before he returned. "I'll get that ready for you soon, all right?"
"Yeah, thanks," Max said. He was usually excited. That empty feeling in his chest undercut that joy, though. He took a breath and shook the thought out of his head before he could say anything. "Hey, so." He blinked. Why wasn't he hopping down and out? "About the stuff I get."
An unreadable shine gleamed in Sylveon's eye before she dulled whatever it was. Even still, Max saw it. Was it relief? Hope? "Is there something wrong?" he asked. She tilted her head and shuffled a bit closer. "You seem a bit down." His professional mask slipped for just a moment, but she brought it right back up, albeit with a soft, empathetic smile. "If the stuff isn't fitting right, I can measure you again."
"No, it's fine," Max said. He shook his head and chuckled. What was he thinking? Sylveon wasn't, like, a friend to ask this about. He was a store clerk. "Just overthinking something." He shrugged and headed out.
What was he thinking?
"Maybe, whatever you think kid
Whatever's unique kid
You make it yours"
Max was doing all right. She was fine. She'd been through worse.
Really, she was on the moon. Unfortunately, the reason she was on the moon was in the orbit of every planet she was too scared, confused, or simply oblivious to visit. It was a bit hard, but she was doing all right. After all, she'd finally gotten to kiss Cori.
Sure, Cori looked absolutely nothing like themself at the moment, but they were still really cute. Hell, Max had always had a thing for pikachu. Which was weird to say about her own species.
But that was fine. Not her fault she got teleported into a world as literally the hottest species in existence. It was just her luck.
So long as she ignored how genuinely unlike her luck normally was.
Cori, though, Cori was adapting surprisingly well to what had to be the most nightmarish circumstance anyone could go through. Max could only imagine the horror of waking up to find every fact of her life rewritten at once. It had to be a worse fate than anything Max had gone through. Not even having your thoughts to yourself anymore? Being a pikachu was a comfort compared to that.
Of course, she was a bit biased in favor of becoming a pikachu.
Though it was a bit odd she was acting like she'd never shared a similar experience. After all, Eleos had spent most of its time in her head since they met.
The thing about that was, though, that it was completely different. After all, Eleos had been a foreign influence, and it could come and go the entire time. Sure, it leaving made her feel like a fraction that made up the entirety of the world had torn itself out of her chest, but breakups were always like that.
Because it was a breakup all of a sudden.
Well, it wasn't. Just a break. Breaks from loved ones could always be just as painful.
The fact of the matter was Max was fine. She was completely fine. She was just a bit stressed for her friend. Any time it got to her too much, she could just focus on the idea that they were more than friends now and eventually forget what threatened to upset her. It always worked, and even had absolutely no downsides whatsoever. It was the perfect way to feel absolutely fine. She was excited to leave her room and see—
Bug, huge bug, absolutely massive cockroach the size of four million cockroaches sat between her and the door.
"PIKA CHUUUUUU!" Max screeched, instantly calling a lightning strike down to annihilate the hideous creature. Even after, she scurried away, and curled up in horror at the awful beast that had invaded her innermost sanctum. That disgusting bug, horrible beast, who knew how long it had been creeping on her.
"Max?!" Cori called. They knocked on the door with hurried restraint. Now, of course, Max was fine. Since she wasn't upset about anything else, she could take the slight stress of a bug with ease.
"BUG! FUCKING BUG! HUGE FUCKING BUG TRYING TO FUCKING COME KILL ME AND EAT MY CORPSE!" she wept.
Which was fine. It was normal to have phobias. She'd always hated bugs. Why did a world of scyther, beedril, and joltik, need cockroaches and ants? To scare her?
"What… happened?" Cori asked. They'd opened the door and stepped up to the charred remains of the bug that Max had annihilated. Barely any of its exoskeleton remained. Without any knowledge of the hell they approached, Cori leaned down to examine the horrifying demon.
Max screeched out squeaks of warning they couldn't understand, and she couldn't keep track of. She was too busy dashing to their rescue. Their eyes shot up in horror as she ran for them. They threw up their paws, but she would still save them. They needed her to save them from what they didn't understand. She leapt through the air, far above the bug's remains, and tackled them to safety.
That was close. It was a good thing her mind was clear enough to act rationally.
At some point during the tackle, Cori had taken control enough to cradle a jabbering, terrified Max in their arms. They ran their claws down her back, whispering comforts into her ear as she squeezed them for all that they were worth. "That's all right," they squeaked, "as hard as you need."
Max blinked. Wasn't she saving them? Why were they comforting her? She couldn't remember when during the tackle they'd pulled her into their arms. For a moment, a creeping dread burned in her gut.
Then, she slapped a paw to her face. It was just a little blackout. She'd gotten a bit overwhelmed and blacked out.
Dungeon Sickness. She just had Dungeon Sickness. Same as always.
"Sorry," Max mumbled. She released them and glanced up with a nervous smile, sparks bouncing down her cheeks. On the bright side, she didn't need to worry about them hurting Cori so much anymore. So used to treading lightly to keep her friends' feelings safe, she was relieved to have one less thing to worry about. It was especially useful considering the state Cori was in.
Max smiled up at them to see their eyes once again locked on the body they now occupied. Their expression betrayed no emotion. They just stared down at it with neutral eyes. Max shuffled around to their side and grabbed the paw they were staring at with her own.
"How does it feel?" Max asked. She nestled up next to them and rested her head against theirs. It was odd, looking at their body. Despite the new species, she still recognized parts that were them, somehow.
"I don't know," Cori said. They shook their head in disbelief. She started running her other paw over top of theirs. It was good she knew grounding techniques to help them. Cori had needed them plenty since they'd made it out of that Dungeon.
Max continued to glance their body over as she did. Just like as a totodile, they seemed to keep their ambiguous appearance. She'd just attributed not quite being able to tell to her lack of familiarity with reptiles, but there might've been something more to it than she gave herself credit for. They had several traits in conflict with one another. She wondered if that was a comfort for them despite being her nightmare.
Cori was staring at her again. They had their eyes fixed on her waist, taking brief breaks to glance at their own. Max was ecstatic about the difference she'd earned already (even though she certainly had more 'progress' to gain back).
At least, she wanted to be. Yet, she felt electricity building up in the cheek so close to hers, some arcing between Cori's arm and hers. She could feel the same frustration she felt in the Dungeon.
Max looked into their eyes. They were the standard brown shared between pikachu and totodile, and filled with a look that she knew well. She'd felt hers do the exact same so many times that the memory of the motion told her exactly what it looked like. She doubted she'd ever looked at the expression in her own eyes, yet she knew she'd seen it before.
Cori looked away, and Max nodded. She knew what was going on, and she knew what she couldn't say. Without any idea where the knowledge came from, she knew the protocols of this situation. Some ancient memory reminded her of 'The Prime Directive', and that to break it was a breach of another's autonomy.
A less ancient memory told her that was fucking bullshit.
"You know you can be a girl, too, right?" Max asked. Cori squeaked a bit (it was so cute to hear someone else do that for a change), and Max chuckled and pulled them in tighter. Her paw ran down their back.
"Well, I'm not sure," Cori said. They looked her over again, hiding their intentions just a slightest bit better. Even then, the sight incited the clarion call of what she knew to be true blaring in her head: 'Don't crack an egg'.
"Neither was I," Max said. She knew what she was doing. She knew that someone, maybe everyone, had told her not to influence anyone else's decision. It was tantamount to a mortal sin to suggest to someone that they could inhabit an identity other than the one forced on them already. To tell someone they had a choice in who they were was somehow a violation of their free will.
She knew what it was like for everyone around her to follow this advice. She'd lately begun to remember that nightmare. She'd begged and plead for anyone in the universe to tell her what she wanted to hear. Yet, everyone knew better than to tell her what she tried so hard to make obvious.
"I spent a while waiting," Max said. She continued dragging her claws through the fur on their back. They were stiff, but relaxed in her hold. "A long time, just wanting someone to tell me what they saw."
Cori shifted in their seat. They'd taken to rubbing a paw to their cheek lately, and it was cute to see sparks fly from them without their notice. They were clearly uncertain, still nervous, but Max could feel them relaxing in her arms. Perhaps she was good at petting a pikachu, but their calming nerves were from something else.
It was a bit crude, but Max may as well be direct. She reached down between their legs and grabbed hold of the new cleft that lay their in their new tail. It wasn't the most common shape for a girl, but it certainly wasn't masculine. She brought it up to their attention.
"I know you're still not sure how this ability works," Max said. She didn't know either. She'd expected it to revert when they left the Dungeon. Yet, there they sat, still a pikachu.
"But I saw how you were looking at me before this happened," she said. Cori flinched and looked away. Frustratingly, they still didn't have any sparks bouncing from their cheeks despite clearly being embarrassed. "How you've been looking at me." She honestly thought she was imagining it still. She doubted she looked any different yet, even if pokémon did change faster.
Cori started to squeak out some excuse or another, so Max let go of their tail to silence them with a single finger. She grinned at them as she repositioned herself in front of them. "It's all right," she whispered. She knew a way to get them to relax, and she was eager to make use of the strategy.
"It's all right if you don't want to transition," Max said. It was a worthless formality of a sentence. She could already see the disappointment brimming in their eyes, so she pulled them closer. "But you don't need to tell me what you want."
Cori stared at her, eyes shaking with a mix of hope and trepidation. Again, Max knew that look well. She refused to abandon it like others had her.
"If you had to pick one," Max went on. She started to smile, eager to finalize two suspicions with one question. "Would you like to be a partner, or a girlfriend?" Max chuckled when she saw their eyes freeze open in delight they were terrified to believe in. She leaned down as she grabbed their shoulders. "I thought so." She doesn't lose her smile even as she brings their lips to hers.
After the kiss, both are more certain together than they'd ever been alone. Max pulled back just enough to show her growing smirk and said, "I'd like to be your girlfriend, too." With an incomprehensible squeak from Cori, they were official.
Of course they sealed the deal with another kiss.
Cori got better with every one.
"I couldn't do anything
For you child
I couldn't do anything
For your mind"
Max lay on his bed, empty eyes staring at a ceiling he was tired of looking at. It was the only sight that wouldn't torture him, though. He didn't feel much these days, but he could tell when he was supposed to feel something. There was a flavor to the numbness that he'd gotten used to deciphering.
It hurt. It hurt so fucking much.
He didn't know what else to do. He didn't know what to look for to make this feel real. Sylveon was the most relevant person he knew to this. As much as he wanted to ask, it wouldn't feel real if he fed her the answer he was looking for.
His emotions were too numb to trust. He couldn't tell if he wanted to be a girl, or if he just wanted something new about himself to hate. He'd always hated everything about himself, after all.
It's just not the kind of thing others can tell you. You don't need them, either. It's what you feel that matters.
Max shook his head. It was a nice answer, one that was pretty self-contained and self-explanatory. It was almost tautological in how obvious it felt, but that just made it harder to believe. After all, what he wanted to believe would appeal to him more than logic. He couldn't trust his internal voice when it came to this sort of thing. As much as he wanted it to be, it just didn't feel right, didn't feel like enough.
C'mon, sweetheart, we've been over this. Doesn't wanting something to be true count for something?
"Not really," Max mumbled. He was too used to talking to himself to think twice about it, and he knew no one would listen to him in his room anyway. Ithos wasn't the eavesdropping type. This just made it easier to get his thoughts out.
Just want to stay fucking miserable then?
"Sure, why not," Max said. He ran his paw down his scarf. How much longer did anyone have left? "There's more important shit to worry about. I can figure this out later."
You already have this figured out. You know what you want, know what 'cha don't. Max, I know it's scary, but you're not getting anywhere putting off how you feel.
"I don't know how I feel!" Max hissed. He dug his claws into his scarf and sat up in his bed, shaking his head. He flicked his other paw to the countless costumes and outfits discarded around his room."This shit doesn't make me feel any better!" His eyes landed on the tail-sleeve he couldn't bear to take off, resting motionless on top of his newest, stupidest outfit. "It makes me feel worse!"
Do you really think it's far enough? Any of this shit? You're in a body you fucking hate, and you think some stupid costume's gonna hide that fact? You're taking fucking half measures that don't do jack or shit. You know what you want. You're just too much of a coward to do it.
"You really overestimate my ability to know anything," Max grumbled, bringing his paw up to rub his eyes.
I fucking promise you that I am not.
Max chuckled. Somehow, that made him laugh. He had to admit, he was indeed well aware that he had no illusions of how fucking stupid he was. It wasn't much, but it brought him somewhere closer to neutral.
"I know I hate being a guy," Max said. He looked down at the tail-sleeve. It was cute. It felt good, but it didn't feel right. "But I don't know if that makes me a girl." He brought his tail over and felt the padding at its end with his paw. Half of him wanted to smile at the sensation, but two thirds of him wanted to roll his eyes. "It's just… too cute."
Aww, is it? I don't know, darling. I think you deserve to look cute.
Max belatedly followed the other two-thirds of himself and rolled his eyes. "I mean, yeah, looking cute would be good," he said. He tilted his head and looked the sleeve over. It was better than his tail without it. It was also an easier target that didn't make his stomach ache just imagining an alternative.
His legs crossed themselves as he cringed, already thinking of what he didn't want to. "If that was the only difference I didn't want, I'd manage," he said. His forepaws came down to guard against the phantom blade. Even if it didn't require surgery, it still felt like a violation. If he woke up one day, started all this over as a girl, he was certain he'd feel just as miserable with that change below as without it.
Ooh, but how hot would it be? God, I know it'd feel so right .
"It wouldn't," Max whimpered. He pulled his tail over behind his head and used it to force his head under it to hide. He had too many conflicting thoughts running in his head at once.
That was normal, right?
Hiding under his tail was a familiar guard against humiliation. He was incredibly familiar with how it felt to have his paws use his tail to hold his head down. Because of that, he could feel the difference between this time and every other. Feeling fabric instead of fur was just… wrong .
Max whimpered again and rolled over, instead bringing his tail around to hug against his chest. It was a strange mix of feelings. Part of him was glad to not feel that blunt edge jabbing into his elbow like it usually did. He genuinely liked feeling the padded lumps instead. Maybe if he could have a variant of a girl's tail that was a bit less painfully kitschy.
Even a better shape couldn't fix his problem, thought. Like hiding under it, he knew how hugging his tail felt. He knew what fur felt like, so he knew how synthetic this was instead.
Sylveon used high quality material, but it still wasn't right. The fabric felt like a barrier between him and his insecurities. They were still there, lying underneath. They didn't go away putting on a sleeve. They were still lurking right below the surface.
If anything, the sleeve only served to highlight the contradiction. He had on an adorable, painfully feminine tail, yet he still looked like the spitting image of a fat guy. Worse, he was a muscular fat guy. He liked being both muscular and fat, knew that it felt the closest to comfortable with his reflection he'd been since falling down, but it was all just a bit wrong.
Of course, none of this mattered. None of it mattered in the slightest. He was wasting time putting on pretty outfits to ignore the world falling apart around him.
Max picked up the scarf he'd tried to discard putting on the outfit. Woven from the charred remains of the Tree of Life by Mew. He'd thrown it on and tied it perfectly without thinking about the motion once. Ever since Celebi confirmed his destiny, he'd felt numb.
The fate of the world was in his paws. A prophecy written on the walls of hell a thousand years ago had damned him with a destiny. He was to save the world from the epitome of evil.
All because he was a human.
He looked down at his paws. Yellow. Chubby. Furry. Little pads on the palm for gripping. Claws.
Even the body of a pikachu wasn't enough to hide what he really was. What everyone saw him as. He wasn't allowed to just be happy in his species for once. Maybe he could handle being a hero of destiny if it didn't hinge on a past he just wanted to leave behind and forget. He'd even tried to lie that Ithos was the human, not him, but that didn't work. Everyone already knew the pikachu was the human.
Actually, Celebi 'knew' that Max was the very same pikachu. That had to be the most asinine stab to the gut he'd ever heard. After listening to a stupid fairy tale, he got to have someone tell him that he was the girl pikachu of legend. Because of course.
He had trouble doubting it, honestly. Fate letting him live as a girl pikachu and then send him to a future to live as a guy sounded painfully plausible. Sort of.
Aside from the whole story being altogether convoluted nonsense. It didn't make really any sense that he could see. Why, if he was that pikachu, would he have no memory of saving the world a thousand years ago? His memory was bad, but it wasn't that bad. What, was the future going to send him to the past?
He'd heard stupider stories.
But, again, it didn't matter. How he felt didn't matter. What he wanted didn't matter. Who he wanted to be was irrelevant to what fate had decided he needed to be.
In all honesty, the further fate dragged him, the less he felt like a hero at all. In fact, ever since finding out about "Dark Matter", he felt more in common with it than the role he was supposed to fill. He knew well the act of feeding on someone out of the kindness of their heart. He knew well what it meant to feel nothing but pain and inflict it upon others.
Max lived beholden to his destiny. He was nothing more than what the past defined him as. He was nothing more to his friends than what they needed from him. Was it so wrong, then, to do the same to them?
There was no respite for a hero. Any glory his station brought him, he reviled. He had no time to enjoy a life that wasn't his.
Indeed, he and Dark Matter were one in the same. He, too, was a being of suffering. If Dark Matter was the concentration of all pain in suffering in the world, then Max was the outlet of it all. The world looked upon him with hope only to sneer at his back when he turned around. He was a tool, and little else.
He was nothing. His future was to fulfill his purpose and fade from history, just as Dark Matter had thousands of years ago. Any direction his life took after his destiny would never matter in the grand scheme. He could change, but it would do him no good.
What, then, did it matter what he wanted?
It made him wonder: what did Dark Matter want? It was trying to destroy the world. Did it want that? If it was the concentration of all negativity in the world, could it really want anything?
How heavy was all that hardship?
Max squeezed his tail against his chest, but he didn't feel it. He never really felt his emotions. A normal person would be crying. He never could. Maybe Dark Matter was taking the pain of his emotions for him. Maybe it had done that for all of time and just wanted some peace for once. Maybe it didn't care about what came next. Maybe it just wanted the pain to stop.
He knew the feeling well.
It hurt. He could tell that much. After all, he didn't notice when positive feelings were numbed. Dark Matter was fated to be his nemesis, the enemy that he was fated to clash against for all of time until one finally defeated the other.
All Dark Matter knew was pain. It existed as a vessel for all the world's hate. It was the scapegoat for all the world's problems. What value would it see in life?
It deserved to see why life was worth living.
Max looked at his tail. If only It had someone who knew why to tell it. Max certainly couldn't.
Max blinked and found he was taking the tail sleeve off. It hurt, but it felt right. After all, the sleeve was just an attempt to hide what hurt. It didn't change fucking anything. It was a worthless half-measure to hide from the only fucking solution that existed. Unfortunately, he was either too much of a coward, or too much of an idiot to take it.
Yet, he had persisted this long. It was not without purpose. He must have a reason to go on. He may not be able to take the first step, but it was only a matter of time before fate would offer him the freedom to take the chance.
Which sounded nice. Too nice. It was just a fucking excuse to hide from how he felt. He knew what he wanted. He knew who he was already. He was just too much of a coward to face what was obviously there.
Max cast the tail-sleeve aside. He scanned the room to see the endless sea of costumes and outfits he'd bought from Sylveon. Each one was an extra pin stabbing at his heart. Every single time, he wanted the 'eon to tell him it was okay. He couldn't convince himself he really deserved what he wanted. He just wanted Sylveon to grab him by the throat and tell him to be a girl already.
He hadn't, though. She would know better. If Max wasn't trans enough for him, then he must've just been some fake freak.
"Why," Max mumbled. He could feel numbness in the back of his throat. He'd be crying if he still knew how. His words came out as monotone exhalations of barely vocalized air. He barely even knew he was speaking. It felt like the words coming out on their own.
"Why can't anyone look at who I am and tell me what they see?"
"Always, always want more
Whatever you need, kid,
You make it yours"
"Sorry, I know, sorry," Max grumbled. They didn't have an appointment at the office, but she'd told Cori they'd go there in the morning. Instead, she'd stayed resting until well into the afternoon. She didn't even enjoy it, especially with Cori begging her to get up with increasing frequency. Sure, she was beyond tired, but she knew she'd pushed through it before.
Yet, every time she thought she'd worked up the energy, it didn't come, and she stayed still. Worse, Eleos came to mind with every failure. She didn't even know why it did. It was like trying to invoke a spell that backfired every time.
Maybe she was afraid to admit she missed it. It had been a lot harder to go on without it than she'd thought. That much was impressive.
She was under no impression it'd be easy to move on without it.
"Max?" Cori asked. They reached for her paw and squeezed it to get her attention. Max shook her head and looked over with a weak smile. "Is something wrong?" Max's ear flicked up at their tone. It was a bit off, even considering the change in species.
Then, her ear flicked down as she looked away. "Nothing," Max said. It's not like she could talk about missing Eleos while she was holding paws with Cori. That would give every possible wrong impression.
That's ridiculous. They're still your friend. They care about how you feel.
Yet, Cori didn't push the issue at all. They just gave her a quick look and then shrugged. Of course, they probably had enough on their plate already. If Max wasn't going to tell them how she felt, they didn't have the energy to make her. It was also probably ridiculous to expect them to, so Max shook her head of the incoming whirlwind and squeezed their paw back.
Well, look at that. They were holding paws.
Max smiled a bit, paying attention to the feeling of their paw in hers. Their paw was so much warmer, now, obviously. The fur made it softer, but more importantly, it entwined with hers. The slight movement of walking alongside each other had their fur rubbing against each other enough for sparks to form.
It was almost perfect, and Max knew exactly what to do to take it the last step of the way. After all, they had more than just paws to entwine. With eager ease, she brought her tail over to theirs and hooked their end with hers.
"M-Max?!" Cori yelped. They stumbled for a moment, but Max held them up by the paw. With a quick few steps, their tails joined in an embrace between the two of them.
"Yes?" Max asked with a smirk. As much as she knew better than to hope, she was still a bit frustrated to see no sparks whatsoever bouncing from their cheeks. She'd struggled with that her whole time as a pikachu, yet they never had trouble with it once. Yet, she didn't quite mind. It was much more pleasant to feel their charges meet and exchange with their tails.
"Piiiiika," Cori sighed. A smile of delight spread their lips while Max nearly leapt in panic. It sounded like pika-speak, yet Max didn't pick up on any meaning. It didn't have quite the right cadence to mean anything. They were just… choosing to make the noise.
"Careful, all right?" Max whispered. She glanced around, but of course no one was around. "People might get the wrong idea with you doing that."
"And who cares?" Cori asked. They narrowed their eyes at her a second then chuckled. "It's not that big of a deal, is it?" They let go of Max's paw to let both hold up the back of their head. Max was about to tell them exactly how big a deal it was when they glared a smirk at her. "If it's a secret, you've never done a good job of keeping it."
Max flinched, then looked away. Had she never told them why she didn't want people to know? Beyond the prejudice (which had, admittedly, improved in the past thousand years), she just hated advertising that she'd gone through something like that to the world.
Before she could make sense of how she felt enough to bitch at them, they made it to the office. Max snapped her mouth shut and shook her head. She could just tell them later.
They walked in together, Max untangling their tails as she pushed the door open. There was no policy against dating a 'new' team member you were about to recruit. Still, she didn't want a single question more to answer than she had to.
As Max stepped through the door, she was greeted with the aftermath of chaos. The front desk had a massive gash taken out of it, splintering out from the other side. Max balked at the damage for a moment, then looked around to see where else had been hit. What could've possibly happened?
Don't worry about it.
It was usually best not to snoop. Besides, what was more important was that bisharp was nowhere to be seen. Max let out a sigh of relief. She was glad not to see him again.
And she probably wouldn't have to see him for a long, long time.
Max led the way for Cori, hopping her way from the step-stool up to the counter. Replacing Bisharp was a lump of leaves and twigs hanging from the ceiling. Burmy turned around just in time to see Cori hopping up to meet Max with a lot more ease than she'd expected. It'd taken her more than a day to get used to jumping around like that, and Cori was already a pro.
They're doing so well for themself.
What an asshole.
"Hey, can I help you?" Burmy asked. He swung over to the front, hopping up to stick his vine to different parts of the ceiling as he approached. "New team?" The place actually had hooks along the ceiling for him to do that.
"Sorta," Max said with a smile and a shrug. She tugged out her badge and held it up to Burmy as he extended his vine to descend further. "Looking to add a new member." Claiming she had a new recruit was easier than explaining her old recruit had shape-shifted through means yet unknown to her. She nodded her head to Cori and smiled back at their blank expression—okay that was unusual.
"Sure," Burmy said. He shot another vine out to gently snatch the badge out of her paw. With a quick tap against some terminal, he held it back out to Max after a beep. He glanced the screen over, then furrowed his brow. "You're pretty popular, huh." He smiled and turned back to her. "She in addition to the one coming in this week?"
"This week?" Max asked. She didn't know about anyone else trying to join the—right. "Sam!" Max slapped a paw to the side of her head, then shook her head. "I completely forgot." How was she already in the system? Max hadn't… oh, right.
Before she'd left Neb's, she'd gone over to get all the paperwork signed. There was even a bit of a frustrating back and forth with the office there, something needing some time to get approved. It had taken the whole day, but Max could barely remember it. She must've just zoned out for the whole thing.
"Ma'am?" Burmy asked.
"Huh?" Max answered. She shook her head and looked up, a few sparks bouncing down her cheeks as she did. She forced a nervous smile. "Right, yes. Sam, and also—" As she turned to gesture to Cori, she realized the problem.
She'd never even told them to think up a name.
"Ember," Cori said. That was surprisingly fast. Why would they have a new name at the ready? When Max saw their passively frustrated expression, though, it hit her like a truck.
Right, that discovery. Despite the one leading them to the solution, she kept forgetting anything related to that topic had ever come up. It was like her mind actively wanted her to forget about it. In all honesty, she didn't want to think about it either. She really hoped she hadn't tricked Cori into just accepting they had a horrifying disorder they didn't have.
She then immediately felt bad for thinking of it as 'a horrifying disorder'. She needed to be a better friend.
Well, girlfriend. Higher stakes.
"All right," Burmy hummed. He glanced at the terminal for a moment, keeping his eyes on it as he continued to speak. "Registration is 500 Poké. Want to use your account balance?"
"My what?" Max asked. A nanosecond before the confusion hit her though, a mangled half memory stumbled into her mind. As it limped along, she could almost see Bisharp… oh, he'd put the money into her account? Yeah, because the five hundred there was, uh, just to make sure the accounts were working. That's all.
Why did she get the sense she shouldn't trust her own memory?
"Sounds good," Max said, already feeling everyone's eyes on her. She shook her head and looked nervously over to Ember glaring at her.
Not a bad name. Fucking weird for a pikachu.
"That shouldn't be a problem, then," Burmy said, then glanced at the terminal, "ma'am." Max almost smiled at that. She wanted to, at least, but she already knew why Burmy had checked the terminal again. "All right, and Ember. I'll need you to answer a few questions."
"Okay," Ember said.
Max took a breath of relief. She knew these questions well enough that she had some more time to zone out. It was good that they were getting this done today, then. They were already spending a lot of money. How much of her savings were left? At least she had some jobs to pick up. She was still incredibly sore and exhausted, but she'd have to do a mission tomorrow.
She'd be fine. She'd been through worse. It was just a lot that she had to consider at once. She'd barely even unpacked her own things. That was impressive, too, considering how little she had to unpack.
If only she'd had a bed to pack.
Then, one question in particular yanked her out of introspection. "All right, and for gender," Burmy said. He looked Ember over a moment, glancing to their tail. Right, because this place didn't have anything more than the two options. Would they be all right—
"Girl," Ember said, sending a meaningful glare Max's way. "Just like her." She kept her eyes on Max until Max nodded back, getting what she meant.
Looks like it's not a bad idea to crack an egg. Who knew?
The battle wasn't over, though, not by a long shot. Telling Bisharp had only been one half of the battle. Max could only imagine what smug garbage Burmy would reply with.
"Yes, ma'am," Burmy said. He yanked a new badge off the wall with his vine and put it into some compartment under the terminal. After some buzzing, he pulled the badge back out and put it on the counter. "Some newbie caused some problems earlier, so now we always gotta ask."
Max's ear flicked up at that while Burmy chuckled. He nodded to the cleaved counter. "Threw a little tantrum about it. Started saying crazy stuff about Dark Matter returning."
"Oh really?" Ember asked, narrowed eyes trained on Max. Even without awareness, Max could feel some judgment she didn't have the context for boring into her soul. "Wonder what made him think he could get away with that wild story."
"Eh, who knows," Burmy said with a shrug. Well, he bobbed up and down on his vine with the spirit of a shrug, at least. "Some guys are jerks." He chuckled a bit, then nodded back to Max and Ember. "Anyway, we got you all squared away." As he spoke, Ember finally smirked and stopped glaring at Max. "Anything else you needed?"
"Nope," Max said. She glanced half a smile Ember's way, then looked back up at Burmy. "We'll get going now, I think."
"Have a good one," Burmy said. Just like that, he went swinging from ceiling hook to ceiling hook. Max turned to do her equivalent of the same, hopping down from the counter, then ignoring how badly it shouldn't have hurt to do that, and kept going.
Max still felt too sore to walk upright, so she stayed on all fours. She needed the practice, anyway. Ember watched her with a brow raised as she did, but quickly lost interest.
She really wasn't Cori at all, huh?
Once the door closed behind them, Max flicked her tail against Ember's back. "So, Ember, huh?" she said, smiling up at her. She needed to be supportive. She needed to ignore the fact she'd just shoved Cori into some easily otherwise explainable nightmare and help her friend figure out what they were going through. She needed to think about other things. "You really think you're plural, then?"
Like why she'd use that term for this.
"Obviously," Ember said. She exhaled in a mix of relief and frustration. "I mean, once you spelled it out like that, we didn't doubt it at all." After a moment, she rolled her eyes. "Well, Cori's doubting, but it's not like anything else could explain it."
"Yeah," Max said. It was hard to keep the guilt from invading her voice. Luckily, she could already feel it fading to the back of her mind. After all, if she'd helped them find the truth, then she shouldn't feel any guilt for that. Obviously, in that circumstance, she'd be happy for helping a friend, so she decided she would be. "Sorry for that." But it's not like an apology would hurt.
"Why?" Ember said with a snort. She smiled as she brought her paws up to look over. Instead of baffled terror, she had a look of cool excitement. "I'm honestly fucking relieved. I thought I was fucking crazy."
I mean. Like.
"Yeah?" Max asked. She shook the invading thought out of her head while gritting her teeth. Her stomach turned even thinking about her friend like that. Girlfriend, no less. Or, well, she was dating Cori. That might not necessarily translate to Ember.
"Well, I'm glad," Max said. She pushed herself upright and ignored her vision darkening as she snatched Ember's paw up in hers. "It's good to know you two are taking this well, I guess." Even as she said that, she felt her stomach turning. It was a nightmare. She wondered if they just weren't taking it seriously enough, the mere idea of that making her eye twitch in fury.
"Yeah, uh," Ember mumbled. The certainty of moments ago had left entirely. The glances to their paws holding each other was a clear tell why. "Best we can."
"Yep," Max said with a smirk. An onlooker might have assumed she'd sucked the self-assurance from Ember for herself. Max decided to sap some more away by entwining their tails once again. With the motion, she coaxed Ember into walking a little bit closer.
Halfway through, Ember pulled away, shaking her head. "I, look," Ember said. Before Max could worry that she'd forced herself on Ember, she saw guilt shining in Ember's eyes. "I really don't think you want to do this." Her words only served to make it more obvious. She looked nervously up at Max, then away. "I'm the one that said all that shit in the Dungeon, okay?"
She was this embarrassed, and her cheeks still weren't sparking. Max was gonna file a complaint with whatever idiot put her in this faulty body.
"Yeah, I figured," Max said. She couldn't help but notice Ember's paw was still in her own. She gave a squeeze to see the nerves pop Ember's eyes open before she looked further away. "But what do you think you said?"
"C'mon," Ember grumbled with a wince. She glared at Max's grin. "Do I have to recite it or something?"
"Nope," Max said. She stopped walking and turned to Ember, the other pikachu did the same, refusing to meet her eyes. "I know what I heard." Well, she actually only remembered about half of their conversation, but it wasn't that complicated a discussion. "You said that you were hurting and alone." Ember froze. Her eyes slowly looked up to meet Max's, a silent question in her expression.
Max grabbed her other paw. She knew so much worse had been said. She knew she should've been more upset, but that never brought her anywhere productive. For now, Cori and Ember needed their emotions taken care of more.
"You said you weren't used to anyone caring," Max went on. She took a step closer as she did. Ember's eyes were wide with undulating hope and confusion. Max just smiled back at them with borrowed certainty in her expression. "You were afraid to let anyone, because it always hurts you." She stepped closer.
"Remember what I said?" she asked. Ember tensed a moment before silently shaking her head. Max's paws shifted to her shoulders. "I told you I wanted to show you what it's like." She started pulling in for a kiss.
Ember resisted at first. It didn't last a nanosecond. Immediately after, she threw herself forward into… a hug. Not a kiss.
Oh well. It got the point across.
"Thank you," Ember whimpered.
"Never, you're never needing
You're never believing,
What's in store"
Max laid in her bed, staring at the ceiling. It had become her favorite pass time in the last… however much time it had been. She'd completely lost track of the days, and she didn't see a point in counting them anymore. Doomsday had passed. She'd done the right thing.
Ruined her life.
"I can't," Max said. Her voice was weak. It still hurt from tears. She had yet to get used to them coming unprompted again. In the past few days, emotions started hurting again. She didn't know what to do with them. Instead, she tried to search her mind for something, anything else, that would make sense of this. She had some excuses she'd used before. "After I let you in, right? I. I.
"Please?"
You know my voice, Max. You've heard me before. Long before we opposed each other, we knew each other. For all your life, you have known me, and I have known you.
Max trembled as she shook her head. Eleos had such a soft, gentle voice. Familiar. No matter what it said, it felt like comfort. Familiar comfort. They had only just met, yet she could recognize its voice as clearly as her own. For as long as she could remember, she heard Eleos' voice.
Reaching down, she pulled the sheet on the bed over her head. The thought had crossed her mind for a nanosecond to look, and that alone was too much to bear. She didn't want to risk even a glance.
All this time, she'd had this connection with the ancient evil she was destined to destroy. Somehow, for some reason, the enemy she'd been enlisted to defeat had a deep, intrinsic link with her. Maybe they'd expected that connection to be what gave her the advantage. If it was important to know your enemy, then she certainly met that requirement.
She was supposed to kill it.
Whoever planned this for her decided to trap her in a body that was wrong and stole her memory of how to make it right. Then, she was enlisted to save a world she barely knew. She was forced into a world that saw her wrong, all while seeing herself as the one who was mistaken.
It was so much. It was all too much. They'd saved the world. Max couldn't remember the last time she'd seen her friends.
Already, each day had too many steps to it just to keep herself alive. Getting up, trying not to pass out from getting out of bed, finding food, going to get the food, taking the food somewhere she could hide while eating it, then finding some sort of method of hygiene to keep herself presentable. When the world was on the line, she could force herself to manage it.
Her world had fallen apart. She couldn't do it anymore.
Just hiding under her sheets, the smell was unbearable. It wasn't even strong. She'd showered yesterday, but it was already enough. Smelling herself in the slightest gave her a gutwrenching sense of everything wrong with her.
Pokémon like her were much more in tune to the scents of the world. Most differences between different sexes were fairly subtle. The most prominent, however, was not. Given different conditions of different hormones, the body's natural scent changed to match. Thanks to a stronger sense of smell, it was even significantly more nuanced. Smell alone had enough intricacies to disprove the false binary of sex for pokémon.
In all her intricacies, all her nuance, all the different things it could be, she only smelled like one thing. She smelled like a guy. The most subtle breath brought it out enough to slowly start separating her mind from her body. She'd always thought she had a problem with body odor despite bathing constantly.
Now, she knew why.
Max didn't want to be like this. She never did. She would do anything to fix it, but she couldn't get out of bed. How would she tell everyone the truth? Would they even believe her?
Would it even change how they treated her?
Maybe she could manage if that was it. If her only revelation had been that she'd been a girl all along, she could've made it work. Unfortunately, the world was in the process of no longer ending. Everyone was busy at work bringing it back up to start again. After all, Team Plasma had ended the threat, so the whole world got to pat itself on the back and go back to normal. Everyone got back to their jobs.
And Expedition and Rescue Teams got back to punishing criminals.
She was a broken person in a broken world. She'd thought both were fine for so long. It was painful, now that she knew better, to watch the rest of the world trudge along as if all was well, marching closer and closer to collapse. She'd done the same. Would she have to save it again when it did?
Would anyone save her?
We are not alone.
Max grit her teeth.
We still have many who love us. We have plenty who wish to help.
She knew it wouldn't do anything, but she pressed her ears against her head anyway. She didn't want to hear it. She wanted to get out of bed, but she didn't have the strength. She didn't want to be there at all. She felt every inch of her body. Every single one was wrong.
Was it even her body anymore?
There is still hope. There is still joy. There will be more.
Max shook her head. Was she even real? Had she ever been? Or had she just acted as the mouthpiece for the world's end?
You are not alone.
She never would be again.
You will find peace.
Her vision started to blur. Its voice grew stronger, but no louder. She could feel a distance growing between her mind and her body. She didn't want to be there anymore. She didn't want to be anywhere at all.
We will find it and show it to you. We will find you rest.
Max was sitting on the couch in the living room of her dorm, now. As per usual, when she realized she didn't have the strength to get out of bed, she found herself out of it. She remembered being in the shower, then drying off, then going to get the food that sat next to her and bringing it here.
It was one of her favorites, too. Chicken and ranch flatbread.
"Thanks, Eleos," Max said. Eleos buzzed in the back of her mind, but didn't say a word. She appreciated it knew she needed some silence (even if it made her terrified she'd lost it forever).
It was tempting to bring the food into her room with her. She was already right there, though. Ithos wasn't home. She'd shove the food down her throat and go back into her room to wallow. It was always nice when she got to wallow on a full stomach.
Max grabbed the plate next to her and brought it to her lap. She slouched back against the back of the couch to give the plate enough room. It wasn't an enthralling posture, but it got the job done.
Eating the food, she got exactly what she wanted: too much. The savory, tangy, and cheesy flavors were all exactly as overpoweringly strong as she wanted. Eleos didn't seem to understand the joy of assaulting her mouth with every taste at once, but that might have been because she couldn't understand having a concoction of thirty flavors and tasting every single one. For some reason, it had a stronger sense of taste.
For her, though, this food was perfect. She didn't want to think about it. She wanted a taste that was strong enough that it didn't need higher brain function. If she was lucky, it might even inhibit it.
Then, she heard walking outside. Her heart stopped for an instant. She knew that gait from sound, so she knew he was coming for the door before she saw the knob turning. If she hadn't had a plate sitting on her, she would've dashed into her room like usual. The best she could do was move the plate, look presentable.
Ithos was mumbling something she couldn't make out as he opened the door. For some reason, he was glancing at his paw. That took enough of his attention for his eyes to widen for an instant when he noticed Max.
"Oh, hey Max," Ithos said, shock turning to a smile. His cheeks flushed while he hid his paw behind him. "Nice to see you out."
Max wanted to ask what the hell was up with him, but she also didn't want to bother. "Hey," she said. She gave him the same hollow smile that always seemed to work. "Nice seeing you, too." She meant that much, even though she couldn't see his face without thinking of what he'd said to her.
Just fucking hate him. He's a fucking asshole. Kill him.
"Yeah," Ithos said. His nerves seemed to fade a bit after the initial surprise. Max could feel hers doing the same, though that was mostly just her losing sensation. Ithos, however, seemed genuinely a bit happier now. He made his way over to the couch, and Max tried to be happy about that instead of telling him to go die in a ditch. She liked him. She knew that. She wanted to hold onto that.
Ithos hopped up onto the couch next to her, so Max lifted her plate to keep it from bouncing. Eating in front of people made her want to vomit, but she was too hungry to resist. She was good at ignoring her hunger until the first bite. Then, it all hit her at once.
"Looks good," Ithos limply offered. Max glared at him for a second, then rolled her eyes with a chuckle. After a self-conscious grumble, he chuckled back. "Anyway, so." He looked her over; Max wanted to skin herself to stop him from ever looking at her again. "How are you feeling?" His supportive smile sapped the life out of her. "Any better?"
Max's chewing slowed. She looked down at the flatbread in her paw while she thought. She didn't have an answer. Her chest swelled against itself with every breath, but no matter what she did, she couldn't tell how she felt. She could only feel that an emotion was there.
"I don't know," she said, air doing most of the job for her. She barely had any strength to put in her voice. "Haven't really felt anything in a while." She took another bite.
"Still, huh?" Ithos asked. She'd never told him she felt that way before. Apparently, she had. His empathetic wince softened back into his same comforting smile. He kept looking her over until finally looking away, mouth twisting down in guilt that stabbed its way into her heart. Thanks to Eleos, Max never had to wonder what people felt anymore.
"You all right?" Max asked. At least she'd gotten good at ignoring the pain. She gave him a worried look as she took another bite of her food. It was a nice distraction from the pain that only grew worse when he glanced her way.
"Y-yeah, I am," Ithos said. He gave the least believable smile she'd ever seen, then tried to look away to hide from the consequences of his failure. It was always funny to watch him slowly convince himself that he wanted to talk. Max watched and waited as he worked up the courage, staring empty eyes at his paw while he did. He'd been doing that for a while, now.
He took a breath and shook his head. "Sorry," he said. Max waited for him to tell her what for. He kept staring at his paw. "I've been thinking about something I said a while ago." Max almost got her hopes up.
Yeah fucking right.
"You have?" Max asked. She tried to hide the conflict in her head, and the stab of his guilt in her heart made it a bit easier to shove it all away. "What'd you say?" The instant she asked that question, she felt the stab lodge itself deeper in her heart. It seemed to fade in potency if she held her breath.
"In the Tree of Life," Ithos said. He closed his paw and opened it, wiggling his fingers as if surprised to see them. With a nervous glance to Max's pained smile, he closed his eyes and nodded for the strength to say whatever he needed to. "Well, lately I've been thinking about stuff. How you look, want to present yourself to others." Max's eye twitched in bewilderment.
D id. Is he a girl, too?
Max choked down her snort at that thought. He looked over, so she looked away to force a cough. There was no way it was that, but hell if it wasn't funny. She took another bite of her food to let him go on.
"Are you…?" Ithos asked. Max gave him a thumbs up, and he reluctantly accepted the answer. Unfortunately for him, that meant he had to keep going. Summoning some bravery, he took in a breath and let it out to get going. "I just… you started asking about girl stuff after the, uh. Um."
"Mhmm," Max murmured. Her cheeks were already spewing sparks, and she could feel the heat burning off Ithos. Both of them got embarrassed talking about 'the fire incident', so they never did.
"A-anyway, yeah," Ithos said. He took another breath to quell the flushing of his cheeks and looked away. "I just figured that the only reason someone would think about that, looking like something completely different," ouch, "would be for someone else." He glanced down at his paw again a while, then chuckled as he looked up at her. "That was really stupid."
Max regretted taking a bite right before he started looking at her, but there was nothing she could do, so she panicked and shoved the rest of the flatbread in, too.
Smooth.
She nervously smiled and looked away to chew. Sparks spewed off her cheeks. She usually tried not to think about that time she'd asked him how she'd look with a girl's tail. She would've appreciated a year's notice ahead of time to prepare for this conversation. At least he was apologizing.
Ithos planted a paw on her shoulder, rubbing it a bit when she jumped a little. "If you want a girl's tail, go for it," he said. Even looking away, she could see his cute, stupid smile. "We'll be here for you no matter what."
Max kept chewing. This should've relieved her. He was promising her unconditional support. He was, as best he could, giving her permission to be who she wanted to be.
"I," Max said. She looked down at the plate she'd emptied. The food Eleos had gotten for her. "Thank you." She smiled up at him, then looked away. "It did kinda hurt when you said that." She couldn't remember the pain, though. She wanted to believe she could be who she wanted to be. It was impossible, though. "So, it means a lot." She could feel herself going numb again.
"Max?" Ithos asked. He scooted a bit closer, and she tensed up. "What's wrong?" He cared. He wanted to know what was wrong. That terrified her. More horrifying, she almost wanted to tell him. She wanted to open up, tell him what she'd done, why. She could feel her defenses breaking down.
"I… I," Max whispered. It was getting harder and harder to speak with every word. Would he even believe her? "I just." Every word closer, she felt a bit more exposed. Emotions she couldn't feel overwhelmed her.
She dropped the plate and curled in on herself. His paw followed her. It was there for comfort, but it only worsened how exposed she felt. "I can't," she whispered. The sheer terror broke deeper and deeper into her soul. She was, with every second, more terrified to tell him what she was. He was right next to her, and she'd never felt so alone.
"Can't what?" Ithos asked. He started running his paw down her back, just like on the first day they'd met. "Max, it's all right if you don't want to talk about this right now." She wanted to; she desperately didn't. She needed to say something; she couldn't say a word.
Max grit her teeth and shook her head. A whimper broke out of her throat, and she bit it back with a shake of her head. Her throat, the spaces behind her eyes ached with tears she couldn't cry. "I can't be… this."
Max was in her bed again. It was too much for her. She had curled up in bed, squeezing a bundle of the blanket she'd wrapped herself in. She couldn't bear to hug her tail for comfort anymore, even with a sleeve on. Over and over, she faded in and out of lucidity, so close to tears that she was incapable of crying. "I can't do this," she whispered again. In a moment of desperation, she thought about Dungeons.
"Please. Please. Anything else." She pulled her thumb into her mouth to chew. The pain was enough to keep her in the moment. "I don't care what." She shook her head, heart aching against her rib cage. "Anything but this." She felt an ache of empathetic sorrow as Eleos came reluctantly forward.
As you wish.
"Well I'm them,
But now I'm changing
Yeah I'm them
And I'm..."