Ch. 67
Imported from SF2 with no description.
Trainer
I had asked for their patience. For a little time and a little space. Led Tempest away, away from the hushed murmuring, the pointing and gesticulating. Led her away, her anxious hand clutching at mine, half blind by her own distraught tears. Led her well and away to a quiet corner mid level, where we could look out on the sea through the windows. Let her cling to me, and cry it out for a little while. Until the stress cooled down a little.
It was only then I spoke.
"I get it." I said, as I helped her sit down, slumped against the wall, a frustrated, messy mass of lycanroc, leaning shoulder to shoulder against me as I joined her. "I've been where you are. Took a tournament too personal, took it too far." I said, reaching out to take her hand. "Even if nobody else is calling foul, you know, right? It's going to stick with you, for a long time, probably." I said, as I brushed my hand through her fur, checking on her wounds now.
"He got you pretty good, too." I said, as she winced, a hiss of breath through clenched teeth. Spray medicine was something I always kept handy, a habit from the very first day as a student trainer. In a pocket, on your belt, tucked into your sock, never leave home without it. Because you don't know. You can't know. And the difference between having it and not can be living or dying.
I did my best with the worst ones, the deeper gouges she'd taken. She'd need real treatment, but it would clot for now, help her start knitting. Hurt like hell, I knew it first hand, but it would do for the moment. I knew she needed the talk more, for all that she was in rough shape, herself.
"It was a fight, Tempest." I said softly. "Tournament went out the window as soon as you two were on the ground. He went as far as you did." I said softly. "It doesn't excuse it, it doesn't make what you did any less. But you were both playing by the same rules at that moment. You both lost yourselves a little bit. You just came out on top is all. " I paused, turning and fussing at a stubborn wound at her side that had already begun seeping through the medicine. Took my shirt off, put pressure on it. She was okay for the moment, but I knew our time was going to be a bit short. "I know you're ashamed right now. I know you're hurting. I understand. I promise I do. I've been where you are. I'm just glad you're okay, and I'm grateful you brought us through with another win, even if it didn't happen in a way you can be proud of. I'll pull you out of the matches, and we'll talk it out, and we'll get you some help. Okay?"
She nodded weakly at that, and clung to me tightly. Wrapped her arms around me, sobbed, wept. Treatment could wait, I guessed.
Sharon
I'd wanted to be angry. To track them down, and yell at them. Scream at them. Zorah had to be carried off in a stretcher. Forget the tournament, they had to set his bones, maybe pin him up, they weren't sure yet. I'd wanted to be angry at them, but I saw how hard she'd taken it. I'd seen how hurt she was. Not in the ways he had clawed and bit and bloodied her, but in seeing what she'd done. I followed them, when he led her away. Watched. Listened.
My heart broke for her. My heart broke for him. I could see all the blood he was wearing now. Watched him do his best with the medicine he had on hand, while he tried to treat the way she was really hurt. It could have gone the other way around. He wasn't wrong. Zorah got too wrapped up in it, too. Tried to make me proud. Tried his absolute best. And it got him hurt. Got him injured. Could have injured her, even worse than she already was. That was... a lot of blood, honestly.
What were we doing, as trainers? What were we doing to our friends? It was moments like these that made me doubt. We took chances, all of us. Trying to prove our strength, trying to learn and grow and for what? What was the goal? Was it worth moments like this? Was it really worth this?
It was only in the aftermath of it I could see where I went wrong. Where he and I both had gone wrong. And I could see how we began to make it right again. So I went to them. I introduced myself. Healing had to be something I helped with, too.
"Hey, good match." I said, as I took a knee next to the lycanroc. She looked to me, her ears pinned back against her head, shook her head in denial. The muted sound of her voice, a quiet, shamed 'roc', somewhere between an apology and a refusal. The trainer flinched at my approach, but didn't push me away as I came over.
"Sharon." I said, introducing myself to the trainer, he raised a bloodstained hand, apologized for not shaking mine, but I didn't let him get away that easily, my hand grasping his. We'd share this moment, the pain, the bloodstains, all of it. "No, it's okay. It's... well. It's just how it is right now. I'm not mad at you, at either of you. It's a thing that happened, and I don't want this to be worse than it is, okay? Here. Take mine, she's still seeping there, see?" I asked, pointing to a rough, ragged cut at her side, where the hard, stony protrusions hadn't quite been enough to protect her. "Zorah really did a number on her, too." I admitted, apologetically. "He was so wound up about getting us to the finals. He really did his best. Just got unlucky. Maybe we all did."
"I don't understand how it got to that point though. I mean... sort of, for him. He's always like that. Really competitive, good at it, sure of himself. Beats himself up when he loses, you know? But what about her? She's so beautiful, but there's so many scars there." I reached out, my fingertips against the mottled places at her cheek and jaw. She didn't flinch, at least. It was a good sign. She wasn't afraid of me. Or instinctively afraid of people. So that... wasn't something he did to her, at least. I thought.
Until he said it was his fault.
Tempest
I knew he'd feel that way. Feel like it was his fault, his doing. It was the last thing I wanted him to think. The only reason he'd been down in that mine was because of me. Because I was so selfish, and so hurtful and so wrong. Because I'd hurt him worse than anyone else in his life ever had. Betrayed our love and our bond in the cruelest way anyone ever could. It wasn't his fault and I wanted so much to stop him from saying otherwise. But I didn't know how. I didn't know how and there wasn't time to, in the avalanche his words were.
It wasn't his guilt to carry, but I could hear it in his voice, the pain and the hurt and the rough edges. I hurt him, and he was the one who felt guilty. I said the most vile, disgusting things I could have to the man I wanted to be my mate, and HE felt guilty for them. HE felt ashamed for them. It made me feel sick, and dirty, and miserable.
If there were any justice in the world... but there wasn't, was there? I'd never be able to take that away from him, I finally understood. No matter how much time, or how far away we got, he saw it completely different than I did. He truly believed he failed me, let me down. Got me hurt. Gave me the scars I carried so proudly for him. I carried them proudly, and he hurt for every single one I had.
I'd have more now, and he'd feel guilty about these, too. Was... I only capable of hurting him? Was everything I tried so hard to be only destroying him inside?
Trainer
Grateful couldn't begin to explain it. Sharon, she'd said her name was. Couldn't have been a hair taller than five foot, more than a little chubby, a curtain of dark hair, like a veil. That was all I really got from the moment I'd looked up. That, and that she'd come after us, gentle and kind to Tempest, even after all of this. I could have cried. I might have. I was a little too concerned with taking care of the wounds I could at the moment to think about it. When she asked what happened, why Tempest had the scars she did, I just started talking.
I glossed over the how and why of it, but told her about being lost in the mine, about how I'd wandered into somewhere I shouldn't have been, too concussed and hurt to know better. About how Tempest had come after me, protected me, evolved to do so, and still almost lost her own life to a zoroark in the process. How we both almost died down there, in the cold and the dark, how close a thing it had been.
We couldn't have known. None of us, I think. Couldn't possibly have guessed. Everything was fine, until it wasn't. Nobody was at fault even if the outcome was a wrong thing. Maybe these were conversations we both should have had sooner. With each other. With someone. Anyone. But how could we have known how much of that cold, dark pit we'd dragged out with us? It wasn't like we hadn't had time. She'd always been there, by my side. Through the very worst of it. Through all the scariest times, all the loneliest ones. Took on so much of the burden, that I wouldn't even know who I was without her anymore. One of my very best friends, one of my fiercest protectors. She'd have fought the whole world for me, and today was no different.
So we patched her up, Sharon and I worked together, to at least do the basic things we could, and then we helped her to the pokemon center. For her care, and to check in on Zorah. My turn to be there for his trainer, while we waited for the outcome. The staff were confident, but I knew what I saw in the arena. I knew the measure of the wounds I had seen to, and knew I had not seen to all of them.
She'd needed stitches. A lot of them. It was bad, worse than she'd let on. She was definitely out for the tournament, even if I thought she was emotionally ready to continue. More scars, more memories. But she hadn't been in a mindset to understand how hurt she was, he'd done a number on her, in that scrap. She was just tougher, and got lucky with the bite. They were both out for blood, I'd come to understand.
When we were finally able to see him, I immediately felt guilty, but also relieved. A cast. His arm and shoulder held still. No surgery. No pins or screws. Just time. That's all he needed. Tempest cried, immediately began apologizing, but Zorah waved her off. Asked about her cuts and scrapes. Asked if she was okay. More worried about the new stitches in her side than the bone she bit through.
"Let's let them talk, I think." I said to Sharon. "I can understand what they're saying, so ... let's give them a little space, okay?" I admitted, before giving Tempest a scratch behind her ear. "We'll be in the hall, alright? If you need us. We're right there."
Sharon
You hear about it now and then, trainers who can understand the pokemon. Hear their speech for what it is. Unusual, but not impossible. Must have been a real boon for him. I could understand Zorah, but that was because of what he was. I was more surprised that his reaction was to give them space to talk privately. Made it less surprising to me that she'd have gone so far for him. The way he looked at her, looked after her, I knew what they had was something special. There we were, standing in the middle of a pokemon center, his shirt in a trash can somewhere, wearing her blood, and his only concern was to make sure she had time and space to talk things out. To make things as right as they could be.
It was more than that he understood what she was saying. No. He understood what she was feeling. That was magical, wasn't it? And despite what he thought, I didn't really think it was his fault, either. He fell into a mine, he was lucky he even lived through it. Poor guy. Poor Tempest, too. Having to go in after him. I'm sure it was frightening for both of them.
"I'm not mad at you." I said, again, looking him in the eye. "At either of you. Zorah isn't either, I can tell. He was just as worried seeing all that blood on you. Probably ought to get a wash before you go wandering around. People might get the wrong idea."
"Occupational hazard." He said with a shrug, glancing over his shoulder into the room. The two had become fast friends, it seemed. An easy banter between them. "I'm gonna stick with her today, as long as she needs me, until she's ready to lay down and get some rest. Probably then, too. You know, she never left my side when I was in the hospital after the mine. So I'm not leaving hers."
I could understand. I wasn't about to be that far away from Zorah either. When his lycanroc finally came out of the room, she just pulled him into her arms, held him close. A softly spoken few words in her language. An apology from him, and a long moment spent nose to nose with her, before he apologized to me, and went into the room to apologize to Zorah as well.
Trainer
"I'm sorry, Zorah. I'm glad you're going to be alright, but it shouldn't have been like that, and it's my fault." I'd said, as I approached the bed. I'd extended my hand and he took it, a toothy grin, and a tilt of his head as he did.
"What's done is done. Sharon's okay, your friend is okay, I'll be fine. I like her, by the way. Tempest, right? She's got some guts, I know I got her good, but she didn't let up at all." He replied, with a chuckle that ended in a pained wince. "Damn but she got me back, that's for sure. Felt a little personal in the end there."
He sighed, and shook his head dejectedly. "Guess that's it for our tournament aspirations, though. Sucks I'm gonna spend the rest of the cruise in this." He added, tapping his free hand against the cast he wore. "I was really hoping to spend some time by the pools. There was this lopunny and... well, hey, you know how it is."
I couldn't help the grin, myself. It was infectious. "Yeah, I get it. But I wouldn't write it off, you know? You put on a good show, and... well, I wouldn't presume to know her, but casts get sympathy, in general. You might be able to work with that." It was playfully meant but honestly his affable demeanor made me think he had a real chance. "I'm just saying it's maybe not as hopeless as you think."
"Sharon could use a friend, too. This whole thing was ... well, that's not for me to say. Just don't write her off 'cause we met how we did, alright?" Zorah said, with a nod. "But look, I'm feelin' kind of loopy from the pain killers, so I'm gonna take a nap and maybe we'll catch up some other time. Tell Tempest I said hi. Goodnight. What ever."
He'd said what he wanted to, got a read on me. That he wanted to be done with us fussing over him was fine. I could take a hint, at least. When I came back out, it was to Tempest and Claire talking with Sharon, and a good natured shove toward the bathroom to clean myself up and put on a shirt. I was grateful for the thought, and didn't protest it. They'd be fine. Claire could take over.
Claire
I could still feel it, in her thoughts, in her tone even. The guilt was heavy, but the pain of it had at least dulled. She'd been stitched up, nobody was angry at her, not even the zoroark she injured. She'd be okay, even if she had to take the hard lesson and the feeling of loss from this one. She'd let me know what she'd needed, what he needed, as I waited for them by the stands. A simple enough thing to run back to the room and get him a clean shirt, and hold on to her pokeball, in case it got to be too much.
But it seemed like the storm was blowing over. For now at least. I didn't really know what else to do, so I translated for her, as she apologized to the trainer. Her brown eyes glistening with tears, torn between wanting to give Tempest all the room she needed to say anything she felt she had to, and wanting to shush her and just hug her and let her cry it out.
So I hugged them both. Let them both do exactly that, while master was getting cleaned up. A quiet thought to him, to take his time, let them have this moment. Seemed Sharon needed it as much as Tempest did. They both wanted to apologize, and both had reason to. That was the feeling I got.
The storm was blowing over, and we'd be able to figure out where we were once it had. For now, it was enough that they could cry together.
It was enough.