Ch. 79
Imported from SF2 with no description.
Trainer
I'd taken the lapras up on her offer of finding us a little shade, and found myself comfortable on the sand of an empty, tiny cove. She seemed comfortable enough halfway between sand and shallow, and we both agreed that lunch was in order, just as soon as we could get it.
She'd volunteered to go for a swim, see what she could come up with, and for my part I'd offered to have everyone forage about for whatever they might find in the brush. Which left me to my own devices, setting up camp early in the day. It was a surprisingly nice change of pace. I wasn't tired and harried to get things done while I could still see my hands in front of my face. The mid afternoon sun was welcome company and I found a perfectly comfortable spot of flat-enough above the shore, where high tide wouldn't reach us.
By the time I'd had the tent set up, and my cookware out, she'd come back with a mouthful of fish. The first of several, I'd soon realize, a playful splash of her flipper catching me unawares and drenching me head to toe. I couldn't be too mad, it was just water, I'd dry, and besides, she was having fun.
Still, I'd have to think of a way to get her back for it. Fair was fair, after all.
Claire and Tempest had skipped out on the prospect of gathering lunch, opting to stay near me. A thinly veiled excuse to get into the water before the scent of stale sex and enjoyable nastiness killed anyone's appetite. Soaking wet from sea water, it wasn't much of an improvement, all considered. The aroma of wet fur lingered heavily in the air and the two settled in to dry off in the sun.
For my part, I'd set to work immediately. Cleaning and scaling the fish, and setting the waste off to the side, in case the lapras might want it. I'd had my cookware out and heating up in anticipation of the work ahead when Belle and Helena came back, a bounty of berries, and a bundle of branches in tow. I'd need to wait for Cocoa to get back before working on any sauces properly, but I could do the grind work while I waited.
Mira had found edible greens, Cocoa did her best to carry an armload of them but had to pause more than once to pick up bits she'd dropped. I was glad I didn't have to go try and figure out what was good. I guess they probably saw other pokemon grazing and took it as a sign. Or... it's what I'd do, if I was the one searching for food.
Sybil on the other hand came back with fruit from the trees. It made sense, her claws would have made her a dab hand at climbing anything she could get a bite into. I'd have to remember it, see if we could work out some kind of strategy around the activity. She even made show of dicing them up after I'd seen to the first. A grin and a nip at my fingers as I reached for the second. "Oh no you don't!" She scolded, as she set to the task.
Mira and Cocoa had already settled in on getting the fresh milk base for the berry sauce I was halfway through preparing when Penance made her way back to us. Seeing how successful everyone else was, she sulked as she settled in near the fire. "Fat lot of good I did. I'm sorry." She apologized, with a heavy sigh. "Couldn't find one thing worth bringing back that someone else didn't already have."
"Nonsense!" I'd replied, tossing a fresh seared chunk of fish at her, which she caught deftly. "You brought you back! Can't tell me that's not worth anything. Dinner's gonna be great. Be a dear though, and take this bucket to the shore? The lapras should be back soon, she said she was going to bring enough fish for everyone, so... expect a lot of fish... and mind the splash."
It was a warning well heeded, Penace duly forewarned had no trouble evading the water, and retaliated with a pawful of sand. An immense pawful that left a stark divot in the shore, while the lapras sputtered, spitting out a thousand grains, dismayed at having the tables turned so deftly. But she didn't get mad, just laughed, and dove into the water again, easier to rid herself of the dirt than an arcanine to dry her fur, at least!
Smug as could be, Penance returned, her tail betraying her excitement. "Fixed her wagon good!" She exclaimed once I'd relieved her of the burden. "And hey, you're almost dry, too." She added, nuzzling at my shoulder with enough force to almost bowl me over.
"She'll probably stop now." Sybil said, scraping the diced fruit into a bowl for me. "Those kinds of pranks are only fun until people start catching on. And she's not doing it to make a problem of herself. Wouldn't do that and go fishing for you." She paused, and winked at me. "But if you want to get her attention, and I know you do, you fucking perv, you need to come up with a prank to get her back. Nothing mean spirited, and don't fuck with the food. But show her you can play on her field."
I was used to Claire playing wingman, but it took a different tone with the weavile's sharp toothed grin. I figured she was right though, and spent my time alternating between cooking and racking my brain for how I might catch the lapras off guard. By the time dinner was ready I was no closer to an answer than I'd been at the start.
At least the food turned out! We had settled on the beach, with only the mildest protest from a still half-dripping delphox who was instantly mollified when Tempest told the sulky girl to sit on her lap instead of the sand. The tone left no room for argument, and through our collective link I could feel the flush of her embarrassment, and warmth from between her legs. It was a new feeling, her subservience to Tempest, but it came with a side of a deep yearning to find herself between us, the way her thoughts and mine mingled in that moment were filled with promise and yearning.
Conversation was animated, the lapras had already asked the obvious question of whether we eat this well every night, before settling into an easy rhythm with Penance and Helena, swapping stories from the road and no few scandalous little misadventures she'd witnessed fairly recently from humans passing through the island chain.
While the trio were enjoying their meal and the company, I'd settled in with Mira on my lap, idly stroking through her silky fur. She was as impeccably clean as ever, her ribbons wrapped up one arm and with a playful bit of writhing, snuck a lazy loop up my thigh beneath my shorts. Her thoughts were delivered in images. Promises of all the things she'd do with her ribbons, if I was a good boy. She wanted me to watch Tempest put Claire to use. To make Claire watch as I took my pleasure in tight, silky sylveon pussy right in front of her. To let her enjoy the embarrassment, the want, the ache to be filled by me even while Tempest was giving her all she could possibly handle and more.
I was trying not to betray my thoughts in return, but there was no way I could hide the obvious signs. Fortunately Mira knew exactly what to do, and with a sigh and a languid stretch she tugged my hand to rub her belly. "Sooo full..." She murmured, as she made me pet her. Splayed out in her usual boneless way, it hid me readily enough for all the way she was writhing wasn't helping. I wasn't sure if I wanted to scold her more, or really fill her up! Mostly I didn't want to offend our guest and find ourselves stranded on a beach I didn't know on an island I knew even less!
But the lapras was thoroughly engrossed in her conversations, now with Belle, Sybil and Helena, who were commiserating with her about dumb human shit, and the entitled crap they always try and pull. "It was a happy surprise that your human could carry a damn conversation without drooling all over himself." She'd said, flashing me a wink. "And it was nice to not be rushed for a change. To be able to just... enjoy the day, fuck around, you know? Shit, he didn't even get mad when I splashed him, that's a first!"
"But there's one thing that's driving me crazy." She said, turning her head to look at me. "All this time, you don't even want to know my name? Rude!" It was playfully given, but I knew there was at least a little sting there. Still, I didn't struggle to reply; "You hadn't asked mine, either. We were too busy telling jokes like old friends!"
"True, true. Still, you aren't even a little curious?" She asked, a little swat of her flipper at the shallow water the waves carried to shore. "Rude!" She scolded playfully. "Come on, don't make me beg!"
"Alright, alright." I said, in mock resignation. "What should I call you?"
"Bunny!" She replied, with a laugh. "No, no, honestly it's Alcyon."
"Oh no. You can't take that back. From now on, you're Bunny!" I teased, to her feigned dismay and a cry of "Nooo, now people will assume I'm a lopunny and you have absolutely no imagination!"
"Alcyon..." I repeated to myself. "It stands out almost as much as you do. You must just love the attention."
"Oh you have no idea." She replied, dripping with sarcasm as much as sea water. "Every idiot and their pidgey lobbing pokeballs at me without so much as an 'alola', people gawking at me for being a different color, and absolutely insisting on taking pictures like I'm a tourist destination. If it weren't for Akoni, I'd have probably drowned someone by now. Which is... why I want to say thank you. You didn't make things weird, you know?" Alcyon replied, with a nod.
"He's a weird-ass human. Don't be fooled!" Sybil chimed in, with her toothy grin. "And I'm still going to get him back for the shit he pulled in the canyon!" she added, to Alcyon's laughter. "Just dangle us all out over the side of the cliff, why don't you? What could possibly go wrong, huh?! Arceus, NEVER AGAIN."
"He didn't, really!" Penance chimed in, coming to my defense between immense mouthfuls of dinner. "We were just in a hurry to leave, so I might have taken a few shortcuts on the way out. A few... narrow... high short cuts. Quickly. I didn't know Sybil was afraid of heights, I swear!"
Alcyon's laughter only grew, before she shook her head and sighed. "See, this is the kind of stuff I envy you landlocked types for. don't get me wrong. I love the water, but... it's a little hard to bring friends down there, you know?" She grinned and waved a flipper. "Best I can do is bring the water up to you now and then."
She was good natured about it, but there was no hiding the tinge of sadness she'd had for the truth of it. What we had was what we could look forward to. Brief moments lingering at a barrier between worlds. She could no more follow us on land than we could follow her to the bottom of the sea. Sybil thought I needed pranks to make a friend of her... I thought maybe there was another way.
"Right. Tomorrow, if you don't mind, I'll pick up a diving mask, and we'll go together. What do you say, Alcyon? Mind spending another day in the company of a weird-ass human? Stay with us tonight, what do you say? I mean, we're still pretty far from where we were headed, anyway."
"Really?" She asked, immediately excited by the prospect. "You'd go diving with me, just like that? What's the catch?"
"You miss the part about spending another day with me?" I replied with a grin and a shrug. "But aside from having to haul me around to actually find a little diving kit, and putting up with more lame human jokes, none, I guess?"
"Twist my flippers, why don't you." She said with a nod before dipping her head back down, gulping down another mouthful of fish remnants. "Alright, but you don't get to choose where we dive. I don't want to go to the spots everyone else does. No crowds, no gawking, no idiots taking pictures of me, just the two of us. I know some good places of my own. Deal?"
"As if I'd object!" There was nothing else to say on the matter. The two of us diving away from the tourist haunts? No crowds or competition? That sounded like a little slice of paradise, right there.
Alcyon - Lapras of Alola
It was strange to feel among like-minded company. For everything to be so easy for a change. To be welcomed, included, involved. I was used to being reduced to a glorified flotation device. Existing only in being useful, or ... well, being a freak. You get used to it. I mean. That's what I'd always told myself. But it never felt any better, the way people stared and whispered.
"A weird-ass human." That's what the weavile had called him. What everyone just kind of seemed to agree about. Nobody rushed to say otherwise, and that said everything. My new friend. It was bittersweet, at best. I wanted it to last, but I couldn't join him on land any more than he could join me at sea.
Until he suggested doing exactly that.
I had to look away, focus on dinner, try not to get caught with tears stinging my eyes. He didn't seem to notice, or he did a good job pretending he didn't. Conversation picked back up, but it was hard to fall into the flow of it again. My thoughts were a jumbled mess.
When he was cleaning up, getting ready to bed down for the night, it was the absol and the weavile that stayed behind to talk to me. Made me promise I wouldn't hurt him. I should have guessed they weren't talking about the water. It kind of clicked afterward, all of it. The way he talked to me, got to know me. Didn't make a thing of the color of my skin, or tread on my privacy. Asked me real questions, and opened up. Sybil was right, he was weird. But in good ways.
The thought that we'd part ways after tomorrow... it hurt. He had his life, I had mine, but somehow it hurt to think that was it. All the oceans I ever swam, and I couldn't make it half as far as I could splash, once ashore. I'd seen people come and go my whole life, but they were always held apart from me. Either they were tourists who didn't give a shit, or they were locals who didn't think anything of it when they said they'd see me tomorrow.
"Don't you dare hurt him." The absol's stern warning lingered in my thoughts as they changed the topic when he returned, tossed a thin blanket down on the beach above the rolling waves. They were protective of him, way more than he was of himself. Maybe ... maybe that was why he felt like he could be. Why he didn't need to keep himself tucked into a shell.
I envied it. I envied how honest he was able to be.
More than that, though? I understood. I could understand how they felt. How close they must have been to him. I'd known him less than a day and already he felt like an old friend. Treated me like he'd known me forever. Invited me. Included me. Talked with me, not around me. Respected me. Accepted me. I wouldn't hurt him... but he was going to hurt me. And there was nothing he could do about it. So I'd smile, splash him goodbye in the end, pretend I was fine.
We were going diving tomorrow, and I'd show him my world. I'd show him as much as I could, as long as he'd let me, and I'd have to hope that was enough.
It was to my surprise that after the sun had set, he approached me, surprised me again.
"Hey, Alcyon? Want to go out to sea a bit? Watch the stars together?"
I wanted nothing more.
Helena - Trainer's Absol
"Don't you dare hurt him, Alcyon." Sybil was right. He was gentle, he was too soft in a lot of ways. And I knew that if she let herself get to close to him, he'd regret it. She couldn't be to him what we were. No matter what she might have wanted. Or he, for that matter. So I tried to warn her away. I tried. And then he caught her attention, and left us at shore to tend the camp.
"Motherfucker!" I swore, as Sybil watched the two glide out over the waves. "Nothing we can do about it now." She said, with a shrug and a grin. "Except enjoy the show, I guess." She added with a flash of teeth and a wink. "Come on, no sense thinking about it now. They're roasting berries over the fire. Let's go."
She was right, as maddening as it was. There wasn't anything we could do once he had his sights set on something. I loved that about him, but fuck's sake that was such a pain in the ass. My horn was almost buzzing with ominous prognostics. What it meant was anyone's guess. More than sadness, I could feel twinges of anger, and fury. I could feel a deep hurt, and also an anxiety, I could feel so many things and not one of them was good.
No sense thinking about it. Except I couldn't do anything but think about it.
The berries might as well have been sand for all I tasted them, as I gazed up at the stars. It wasn't her fault. Whatever happened, I knew it wasn't Alcyon's fault. He was a force of nature when he wanted to be, and this was all on him.
All I could do, all any of us could do, was support him now.
Trainer
You think you've seen the stars... cold nights atop a mountain, or a ways out in the desert, between cities. I thought I had too. I'd never seen the sky like this before. I didn't know. I thought I did, but I really didn't know. We were far out now. It was absolute blackness. I could hardly see Alcyon in front of me, with my arms wrapped around her neck. The sky was flecked with thousands of tiny pinpricks of light. A beautiful, calm black canvas, and the rolling of the sea beneath us.
"See that spiral there?" I asked, extending my hand for all the good it must have done. To the left from Tauros. Five stars, a bright one in the very center, then up, left, left and down, down and right, right; another bright one." I described as best as I could. After some moments Alcyon murmured an approving sound. "Think so, yeah."
"Omanyte. Upside down. He's crawling along the heavenly ceiling above us, searching for food." I said with a chuckle. "He devours dying stars. Or that's what the old stories had to say." It's how we'd spent the past hour, alternating between telling stories, counting stars, and her listening to me ramble about constellations.
"Where did you learn all of these?" Alcyon asked, with a nudge from the back of her head. "You look like one of those beach muscle jerks. No offense."
"None taken. I ah... well, I spent a lot of time studying martial arts. But all my teachers wanted me to learn more than just that. So, I know a lot of weird stuff because they were more than just their punches and kicks, too." I replied with a grin. "They taught me to cook, taught me some constellations, taught me how to sing, too, if you believe it. Not that I'm any good at it."
"Sing? You're kidding." She said with a laugh, and a splash, turning us in the water a little. The only way I could tell was that the stars above spun. Truth told, I had no idea which direction we came from, or how far we'd gone. I was in her world now. As dark and scary as that might have seemed... with her there it just seemed peaceful, calm and warm. "I'm ... I don't sing." She said, falling quiet. "I used to. Not anymore."
"That ... sounds like a story you don't want to tell. But sometimes, those are the stories that most need heard. I know I have a few, myself." I said, reaching up blindly with one hand to rest closer to her head. "I won't dig it out of you, but it is just us out here, if you wanted to talk about it."
"Not tonight." She replied, after a moment. "Honestly, I just want to watch the stars for a while longer... then maybe bring you somewhere peaceful and quiet before we go back. You can sing for me... and maybe, if you're not terrible at it, I'll share a song of my own. Just one."
"I'd like that. It'd mean a lot to me." I wish I understood better, what was on her mind, what she was going through. But what we had was what we got, and I knew better than to try and pretend it was different.
I wished it could have been different. The shooting star that went past at the moment was enough to make me laugh.
Maybe ten years ago I'd have believed in the magic of it.