hmmm?

Serena herself belonged to no house, but as a mere Royal Cup Bearer that was to be expected. All she had ever been told in life was that she was one of the many bastards who lived in Kalos — a child who was given up for one out of many reasons. In another world perhaps she would have lived happily under the care of a mother, but in that world the society of Kalos would have to not bring shame to unwed women who would suddenly find themselves with a child.

Serena had lived the first six years of her life in a children’s home in Lumiose City, where she would survive off scraps of bread and bowls of brown pottage masquerading as stew. Then one day the head of that home decided to sell her to Shabboneau Castle to clear off some debt. From that day on she found herself existing within the walls of the Castle kitchens, where her tiny nimble hands were responsible for cleaning the glasses and goblets that the King drank his wine from. Despite the sudden change in her life, she found the upsides to such a drastic life change. The servants at the Castle, while adamant that everything be up to royal standards, treated the younger servants with kindness — the same could not be said for the people who ran the children’s home in Lumiose. They also made sure that she was well fed, because King AZ fully believed that a good set of servants ran on their stomachs. It was also quite fortunate that the bowls of brown pottage at Shabboneau Castle were much more palatable than the ones at Lumiose.

Upon turning eleven she had been promoted from her job as the Royal Cup Washer. King AZ needed a new Cup Bearer after his last one was banished from the Kingdom. Apparently the old Bearer had been accused of treason and faced either permanent banishment or execution — he clearly chose the former. Serena was picked because she was careful with the glasses she handled and had never broken one in her life. King AZ had also been convinced that a mere eleven-year-old girl was not capable of betraying Kalos much like the older Bearer.

So Serena went from spending her days cleaning in the kitchens to holding a pitcher wherever the ruler of Kalos went. King AZ was rather fond of wine from Ambrette Town and thus wanted his trusty goblet to be filled with it at every second, something Serena was rather competent at doing. She initially expected the job to be monotonous and repetitive, but a week in she discovered just how interesting the life of a Royal Cup Bearer could be. When she was not serving rooms of Royals and Nobles, she was accompanying King AZ on trips around the region, as the King could not stand a day without a pitcher of wine by his side. She was even permitted to join the King on military related missions, where in between serving up drinks she would explore the Kalosian countryside and watch the soldiers train.

When she was not serving the King she was resting in the Servant’s Quarters, the place where most of the Castle gossip spread. When Serena was not in the Servant’s Quarters, she was exploring the Shabboneau’s Courtyard, which was often the second best place to hear gossip and lore. The only difference was that a Lord or Prince could easily take a midday stroll through the area, thus risking a noble hearing the words that the commoners loved to spread around. While King AZ had more important things to worry about than mere gossip, the Lords in his court were less tolerant. The last servant to speak ill of the higher borns was sent to a place that was considered to be the second closest place to hell — Galar.

With King AZ busy making preparations for the return of his nephew — including creating a feast fit for a Prince — Serena’s role as a Cup Bearer was rather underutilized. As a result she was granted a few hours of freedom in the midst of a busy work week. She spent her free time roaming around the castle grounds as many castle workers were permitted to do as long as they did not interfere with any royal operations.

With a buttery brioche bun in the pocket of her dress, Serena made her way to the castle gardens where the shrubbery and flowers were as lush and green as the fauna in the Winding Woods. North of the garden was a mill with a water wheel where a babbling brook would push the large circular contraption around and around, thus giving King AZ the freshest flour one could find in Kalos. Once the wheel was spun the water would simply flow down the brook once more, weaving itself through the greenery before flowing down to the moat beyond the wall.

It was in this brook that Serena often found friends. There were a variety of amusing little creatures that called the water their home, creatures that the older castle servants taught her the names of. There were adorable spherical mammals with twitching ears called Azurill and Marill and Azumarill, finned creatures called Magikarp and Carvanah, two-footed yellow things called Psyduck, and small stubby creatures with oval-shaped heads called Wooper.

But one creature in particular was a short little thing that many called a Froakie — this blue-skinned being had two long legs and a longer pair of arms, as well as a pair of large yellow eyes and a froth of bubbles on its back that partially resembled the cloak of a knight.

Serena always found herself coming back to the garden brook for this creature in particular — not just because it was an utterly adorable little one, but because Serena noticed that it was the only one of its kind that lived in the brook of the garden. The Wooper and Marill and Magikarp and Psyduck all had others with them, whether they be friends or potential partners. Froakie did not have such a thing and was often alone when the others were not around — sometimes there were even days when Serena arrived at the brook to see the blue creature waiting for her. Perhaps in Froakie’s eyes Serena was one of its closest friends.

So in her free time Serena came to the brook. She removed her shoes and pulled up the hem of her dress, sitting on the bank to dip her feet in. She spent a few moments alone accompanied by nothing but the lush greenery and the sound of rushing water. In time she saw some bubbles arise from where the wheel met the water, knowing full well that her old friend was near.

A pair of yellow eyes upon a light blue head rose out of the stream, with glee and swam over. Froakie leapt out of the brook with grace, landing on the bank and immediately snuggling against Serena’s leg. With a grin, she gently pet Froakie on the head.

“Missed me, didn’t you?”

Froakie didn’t nod, but simply kept snuggling up against the fibers of her dress, getting it damp but she couldn’t care at all. Sometimes it was nice to know that Froakie always wanted to be by her side. There were days where she wished she could bring Froakie into the castle with her where it could be her partner for real — however servants were not permitted to have a creature with them unless it was to help with work.

So for now, Serena was content with what she had. She sat in the garden with a lovely Froakie on her lap, the sound of the rushing water filling her ears and letting her relax for what felt like a single moment of her life. She took the buttery brioche bun out of her pocket and tore it in two, letting Froakie eat the bigger half while she took the smaller. She could not remember the last time she felt this peaceful.

The sound of a twig breaking was heard.

With haste, Serena glanced up to see a person standing by the tree. Had it been a stranger, then she probably would have dashed away in fear. However, her knowing the person did not make things feel any less strange.

Underneath the leaves of the tree was the Royal Squire to Sir Wikstrom, the main Knight and leading general of King AZ’s army. Just like her Calem was fifteen and was another orphaned bastard sold to the castle, except he was quite a bit taller with a dark head of hair that went just below his ears. For his age he was quite tall, almost as tall as his master, and his face was rather fair and youthful, something many people did not expect from a Squire of such an esteemed Knight. On Calem’s torso was a blue gambeson that fastened in the front and in his hand was a blunted sword that his master used to train — perhaps he had been doing some practice of his own.

Calem was lankier when they met years ago, back when she was a Royal Cup Washer and he was a Not-So-Royal Stable Boy. The year of working in the service of such a valiant knight had made him more physically capable than back in his days of tending to Skiddo and Gogoat. But all that armour scrubbing and flag carrying and sword sharpening seemed to do to sharpen the one thing Calem had trouble with — social skills.

“Were you a Vullaby in a past life?” Serena asked, amused.

Calem was caught off-guard and blinked, but in seconds he managed to recollect himself. “Why do you ask?”

“Because you appear to have a fondness for lurking,” Serena said in a voice more cheeky than what was expected for a Royal Cup Bearer. “And here I thought we were friends.” Her playful tone was something she only ever used for the people who knew her.

The Squire rolled his eyes. “And here I thought you were busy.” He took a few steps forward, leaning the practice sword against his shoulder. “Our Majesty would be saddened to know his Wine Courier has disappeared.”

Serena chuckled. “Our Majesty does not require my services right now,” she explains. “I figured that I’d see a friend.”

Calem’s eyes looked down to Froakie. The expression on his stony face morphed into a mild smile — as stoic as he was, he often reminded the world that he was not entirely heartless.

“Are you planning on standing there all day?” Serena asked. Her good-natured tone did little to douse the sarcasm in her voice.

Calem shook his head. “Only until Sir Wikstrom needs me again.” As he continued to walk he removed his well-worn leather boots and placed his practice sword onto the grass. He then rolled up his stockings to expose his rather shapely legs and sat next to Serena, dipping his bare feet into the babbling brook as well.

Serena moved her legs back and forth in the water, then eyed Calem. “Where is your Master anyway?”

“He is on rest from an injury,” he explained. “He hurt his ankle the last time we sparred.”

Serena raised an eyebrow quizzically. “Because of you or because of something else?”

For a few seconds Calem went silent, he let his eyes glance down to the rushing water.

“...I may have gotten a lucky blow on him.”

Amused, Serena laughed. “You’re much too modest,” she said cheekily. “Do not look so glum — at this rate you could become a Knight at sixteen.”

Calem seemed unconvinced, yet humoured. “That could never be — bastards don’t become knights, nobles do. I should be lucky they let me be anything but a Stable Boy.”

As she gently caressed Froakie’s head, Serena found herself nodding along. To an extent she knew what Calem was talking about. To her knowledge, she knew that Squires were often promoted Page Boys, and that Page Boys were often the sons from one of Kalos’s high born families, a bloodline that neither him nor her hailed from. Similar to how she became a Cup Bearer, Calem initially found himself performing the job when Sir Wikstrom’s original Squire left after an accident. A mistake while training caused the poor young boy to mar his dominant hand, leaving him unable to properly perform the duties of Squirehood.

Now without someone to tend to armour or sharpen swords, Sir Wikstrom employed the hardworking fourteen-year-old Stable Boy to fill the role until a replacement was found. Seeing as Calem always performed his duties to the best of his abilities, Sir Wikstrom grew rather fond of the boy in the short time he employed his services. In the Knight’s two decades of service to the Kalosian Crown, Calem had been the fastest armourer in all of the region, often getting his master suited up in the nick of time. He was also exceedingly adept at the other jobs of Squirehood — which included things like scrubbing armour, keeping swords sharp, and occasionally keeping a Knight well-shaven and clean.

When a dutiful son from one of Kalos’s most esteemed houses was sent to Shabboneau Castle to fill the Squire job, the mighty Knight discovered that the life of luxury that had sheltered the young boy had left him inept at the jobs bestowed to him. The noble son was sent back to Coastal Kalos in a week and Calem was offered the Squire job permanently — tradition be damned.

Although Serena did not know much else about Knighthood, she believed that Calem was fully capable of attaining it. Sometimes when she was travelling from King AZ’s study to the kitchen, she would glance outside to see Calem and his Master fencing in the courtyard with wooden weapons and shields. Additionally, if Sir Wikstrom and King AZ’s other soldiers were sent out for any military operations, Calem would be following on a Gogoat of his own carrying the valiant knight’s flag. There had even been a day where the Knights of Kalos were invited for a feast — instead of spending time being wined and dined by the King, Calem was outside in the courtyard, practicing his sword drills and striking a dummy with a blunted weapon.

Squirehood certainly seemed more interesting than being a Royal Cup Bearer, that was for sure.

With curiosity in her steely eyes, Serena glanced at Calem's practice sword. It was made of metal and not wood and the tip was rounded to avoid any accidental skewering of King AZ’s mighty soldiers.

Serena stood up and pulled her feet out of the water, causing Froakie to suddenly slip and tap its head against the ground. The poor thing looked up in confusion as Serena walked over to the sword sitting in the grass, Calem doing the same.

When she took the weapon in her hand, the first thing she noticed was how heavy it felt. Calem and Sir Wikstrom often maneuvered their weapons like they were made of nothing, whether warhammers or swords or spears. With one hand grasping the handle and the other holding the pommel, she used all of her strength to hold the blade up as if she were as fearless of the knights of yesteryear.

Suffice to say, Calem and Froakie were less impressed and more perplexed.

“What in Yvetal’s hellscape are you doing?” asked Calem.

“The latest ballroom dance,” replied Serena dryly. “Or is it not proper for a Lady to handle a Squire’s sword without position?”

There was a beat while Calem glanced to the ground with a kind of awkward grace, blinking as he did so. “I do not know,” he ended up saying. “Sir Wikstrom has not told me yet.”

In moments Calem pulled his feet out of the babbling brook. He did not bother to dry off as he stood up and walked to Serena, getting behind her and touching her hands with his.

“But if you are to use a sword, you might as well do it properly.”

He adjusted her grip on the handle — knowing that she was right handed, he placed her dominant hand underneath the crossguard and her left right onto the pear-shaped pommel. Although the sword could be used effectively with one hand, a beginner would benefit from using two.

Curiously, Froakie hopped a few feet forward as it watched Calem teaching Serena the ways of the blade. Had the creature been capable of human speech, perhaps it would have asked what on earth the Royal Cup Bearer was intending to do with a sword.

“Keep your feet shoulder’s width apart, it’ll help you stay balanced,” Calem explained. With his head situated just by her ear and his arms guiding hers, he showed her a few basic attacks — while thrusts were more effective, strikes were not to be ignored either.

For all of three minutes, Serena managed to make herself feel like a warrior, one that could slay dragons and go on endless adventures. As she swung the weapon at an imaginary beast, she glanced over to her teacher — Calem kept a watchful eye on her, much like Sir Wikstrom often did with him during training.

“That’s it,” Calem said. He stepped away from her and watched as she struck air on her own. “At this rate you shall be saving maidens in no time.”

Serena smirked. “Why wait?” She stopped swinging the sword and rested the practice weapon against her shoulder, looking at Calem playfully. “Why don’t you climb up to the tallest tower? I can rescue you by dinner time.”

Calem rolled his eyes. “Assuming I can play the role of a maiden, how original,” he spoke dryly.

With a laugh, Serena replied, “You’re certainly fair enough to be one.”

Amused, Calem gave her a quizzical glance. But before he could say anything else, the sound of a servant’s call garnered both of their attention.

“Serena!”

The two turned around to see an older maid running out of the servant’s entrance — specifically the one that gave access between the castle gardens and the kitchens.

“The King requested an early lunch!” the maid explained. “Please come!”

With a nod of her head, Serena turned to Calem and gave his weapon back. “Fear not, Fair Maiden, I shall be back another day.”

Calem managed a subdued chuckle as he took his sword in his hand. Before she left, Serena stepped forward and gave Calem a cheek-to-cheek kiss, a customary gesture between Kalosians. With a grin, she patted his shoulder and left him by the babbling brook, following her colleague through the servant’s passageways and disappearing into Shabboneau Castle.

Once she was gone, Calem glanced around. He immediately made eye contact with Froakie, who did nothing but stare at him with a vacant expression on its adorable face.

“What do you want?” the Squire asked, confused.

Had Calem’s mother knew what the deceitful nobleman truly had in store for her, she would have never let him into her world. Viscount Trevelyan had drained the Bellamy-Beaufort fortune, squandering the riches on horses and wine and women despite the wellbeing of his wife and child being at stake. Nowadays Kalos did not recognize the title of Baroness Bellamy-Beaufort, especially after her husband abandoned her and her four-year-old son to join his lover back in Wyndon. The impact of his actions had been enough to sully the Bellamy-Beaufort name, causing his once affluent wife and child to live in squalor.

As a result, Calem has few memories of his father. He only knows that the peaceful life he used to live in Camphrier Town had suddenly ended when his mother sold all her belongings and moved them to a desolate shack outside of Coumarine City. He was too young to comprehend what exactly his father had done, only that all the shouting matches between his parents had culminated in the man leaving and his mother breaking down in heavy tears.

From the moment Calem could walk, he began to work. Before he could read, he learned to shine shoes, usually cleaning the boots of soldiers and brogues of noblemen. His efforts had earned him enough francs for food as well as the affectionate nickname “Xav” amongst the troopers stationed near Coumarine. He earned coins by selling newspapers to the citizens of the city. He would stand on street corners with a paper in hand, giving out news of Kalosian Lords and Dukes as if he was never one of them in the first place. His mother took up honest work in a manor, where she served those who turned their noses at her and would never even think that the scullery maid ever lived a life amongst the diamonds.

At the age of thirteen, Calem had decided that his future resided in the heart of Kalos. The stories of the great city of Lumiose had clouded his mind and refused to leave. He did not even know exactly what he wanted to do with his life, just that the key to his life resided in the city of lifes. All he needed to do was actually make the move to discover that dream. His mother told him to stay with her, as she believed otherwise and that his future was by her side, but Calem persisted until his mother gave in. All young boys left home eventually, she just didn’t think that it would happen so soon.

To fund his move, he began working harder — selling more papers, shining more shoes, and even taking up work at a nearby Skiddo ranch to earn extra francs.

Calem went from a quiet little boy who shined shoes in street corners to a tall, admirable young man. His hair was black like the night’s inky skies, his face was sharper than the blade of a soldier’s sabre, and his eyes were blue like the water off the Ambrette coast. In another life where the world would acknowledge him as the handsome young Baron of Rivière Walk, he would have made strides within the Kalosian ballrooms and could have attracted many pairs of eyes to his angelically handsome face.

He left at age fifteen and never looked back. He kept his mother in his heart and sent letters to her as often as he could. He promised her that he would send a small percentage of his earnings, praying to Arceus that it would somehow keep her afloat.

Calem was not formally educated, but he could read and write and his arms and legs were as strong from his years of physical labour. He first found work at a shoe shining stand near Lumiose Station, occasionally playing with the napping Skiddo between shines. Six months later, his employer let him go due to the Kalos monarchy’s insistence that its citizens pay even more taxes. That left Calem to find work as a courier, where he would travel the city delivering packages and messages to Lumiose’s countless citizens and visitors.

…

…

…

A year into his stay in the city of lights, Calem comes across something digging through the garbage in the alley behind his apartment. Despite his muscles aching from a long day of work, his curiosity gets the best of him and he approaches the rummaging stranger.

After getting closer, he discovers that the thing rifling through food scraps and broken furniture is a little creature no taller than his knee. Its body is brown, but the claws on its feet are pale white and the spikes on its head are green. Calem is taken aback, as he has never seen a creature like this before — it differs greatly from the Skiddo and Gogoat he had grown up around.

Eventually, the tiny creature stops rifling through the pile of trash and looks up at Calem — its eyes are black and beady and frightened. It shows fear in the presence of a person who means no harm.

Calem acts on his first instinct.

“Hungry?” he asks. He reaches to his satchel and pulls out a half-eaten loaf of bread, a tip granted to him from a particularly happy client. The bread is unlike the soft and buttery brioche given to the more fortunate, but the few bites Calem has taken has given him enough strength for the day and he no longer needs it.

So Calem kneels to the ground, holding the bun out to the little creature with green spikes on its head.

“There is nothing good in the garbage,” he explains. “That’s for sure.

Curiously, the creature takes a few steps towards Calem and sniffs the bread curiously. Before he knows it, the creature starts nibbling on the loaf. Judging by its reaction, the bread is clearly more desirable than the rotten cheese and veggie scraps in the trash.

An hour later Calem has brought the creature into his minuscule apartment — a living space that only really has room for a cot, a desk, and a stove. He has nothing else of value on him but a few borrowed books, a stack of stationary, the blue overcoat his mother had given him before he left, and a little bit of food to get him through his days. He lets the little creature have some grapes and cheese while he reads his books, attempting some research to better understand the situation. After flipping through enough notes written by men more brilliant than him, Calem finds some information on the creature in his room.

Its official name is Chespin — the green spikes on its head are soft but when flexed grow hard enough to pierce a rock, its curious tendencies get it into trouble, its optimistic nature makes it an uplifting partner creature for anyone to have.

It takes no time before Calem decides to keep it.

…

…

…

(she has burst like the music of angels, the light of the sun)

…

…

…

On an autumn's day, Calem is seventeen. The soles of his well-worn boots slap the cobblestones as he heads towards Jaune Plaza. At his feet is a never-ending ball of energy that refuses to stay down, yet Calem absolutely loves it to pieces. At one point, Chespin climbs up the tails of Calem’s coat and perches on the young man’s shoulders, garnering a soft smile from his master.

“The view must be better from up here, is it?” he says.

The two walk south on Hibernal Avenue, where the whole street is aglow with citizens and creatures. Locals argue with food vendors, tax collectors roam around alongside their fearsome Houndoom for protection, and scholars walk upon the cobblestones with a vacant pondering in their eyes.

Calem passes by the more well-dressed men who walk alongside well-groomed Furfrou and pampered Pyroar. In his heart, he knows that they would never look twice at a young man like him, with his ratty blue overcoat and scuffed boots. Yet somehow, Calem finds himself listening in on their conversation. For all the disdain they may show him, his curiosity persists.

He hears the two men talk of books and writings that are only valuable to those who can afford it. They are too old to be students, so he guesses that they are perhaps professors, maybe of medicine or art or breeding of the creatures that surround them in this world.

Soon enough, the two wealthy men pass him by. Like the young man had suspected, they do not look at him twice.

Calem then hears the sound of splashing.

He glances across the street to see another creature running amok — this one is short, blue, has a cape of bubbles hanging off the back of its neck, and owns a pair of bright yellow eyes that crinkle as it smiles. The creature currently splashes about in a puddle, rolling around as if it were an infant just learning how to move. Calem can’t help but stop and watch it go — he’s never seen a creature like that before.

“Froakie, you silly thing!” says a voice.

The creature rolls out of the puddle and shakes the water off its skin. Using its skinny legs, it hops over to the bottom end of a dress skirt and leaps into the arms of the wearer.

Then Calem sees her.

Her hair is golden blonde and sways in the wind, her eyes grey like steel, and her smile as she holds her creature is absolutely delightful. She wears an immaculate black dress and ornate hat in a scarlet hue, something that could seem so common yet makes her stand out like she’s the only person on the street.

Like a fool, Calem can only stand there and stare. To say that she looks beautiful is an absolute understatement. His heart beats faster than a star falling from the sky, his world feels like it's spinning around.

Then she looks up.

The stranger’s eyes meet his. They widen slightly just like his as she takes him in from across the street. As she holds her creature in her arms, her mouth is open but still, as if she’s looking for the words but does not know what to say. Calem doesn’t know what parts of him make her look at him that way, but he doesn’t question it.

The two make no sound as the world of Hibernal Avenue moves around them like a clock.

An older man then taps the young woman’s shoulder. Just like her she is very well dressed with a spotless tailored coat and a top hat that makes him look rather tall. She looks to him as one would to a father and he motions for them to go down the street. She nods politely and follows, giving Calem one more longing glance before disappearing into an alleyway.

But as she walks, Calem notices something falling from her person, an item seemingly slipping out of the basket she carries.

Acting indifferent to his own rationale, Calem takes a few steps forward. He arrives at the spot of the dropped item and picks up, soon learning that it is nothing more than a simple white handkerchief. With the little cloth now in his hands, he looks down the alleyway in search of the girl with the golden hair.

But to his despair, she’s gone.

…

…

…

Calem meets arrives at a Jaune Plaza Cafe, a small establishment that sells things like ale and wine and a stew that is rather palpable as long as one doesn’t question what’s in it. He finds his friends sitting at a table in the corner and takes the empty chair on the right. Chespin then hops off his shoulder and decides to sit on his master’s lap.

His friends do not press as to why he arrived late and continue their conversation like nothing has changed. As Calem orders a meal, he hears one of his more talkative friends tell an amusing tale.

Shauna Jan is a short girl of only fifteen, her eyes are bright green and her hair is deep brown and long enough that it goes to her waist. When she speaks, she always does so with a happy spirit to her high-pitched voice. When she smiles, her eyes get small and crinkle at the corners. She works at an Inn in South Boulevard, an establishment run by her parents that is a far cry from Hotel Richissime, but known to the common-folk as a safe place to stay in such an unpredictable city. Her partner creature is a chipper little thing called a Skitty, which prefers to nap near its master’s feet as opposed to doing anything else. She currently tells a tale of an incident earlier today where she caught a customer trying to pilfer some wine bottles that he did not pay for. Calem listens and learns that Shauna got to chase the man away with a broom, something her father was rather proud of her for doing.

The story garners a laugh from Calem and his other two friends. Sitting beside Shauna is Tierno Todaro, a paunchy seventeen-year-old who loves life as much as he loves a good waltz or schottische. With a grin, he puts an arm around Shauna and congratulates her for a job well done. He then goes on to say that his job — a sanitation position at a shop on Hibernal Avenue — is not remotely as interesting. The most amusing thing he sees is rich merchants and scholars roaming the streets all day, as if their lives are so unfulfilling that they must walk around the common folk to feel alive again. Even his own partner, a clawed creature referred to as a Corphish, gets more out of its own existence than the wealthy.

When Tierno expresses his thoughts on scholars, Calem looks over to the more silent friend of the group, the shy and brainy Trevor Pascal, a young fifteen-year-old who is shorter than Shauna and has a head of bright orange hair. He is the quietest friend of the group, but that is only because he does not speak unless he sees it necessary. He’s a boy who dreams of studying Pokemon and prays that his job selling newspapers will somehow fund it. Knowing that it is Trevor’s goal to become a scholar, Calem wonders if the boy will say anything in the event of Tierno’s comments about them, but upon glancing over he only sees Trevor with his eyes glued to the pages of a book. Even his partner Flabebe seems more interested in reading than paying attention to anything else.

Calem and Trevor’s dreams are awfully similar, the only difference being that Calem simply wants to discover what other creatures the world has to hold, whereas Trevor is content with studying what humanity has already found.

The friends continue to talk about their current lives. As the conversation goes on, Calem feasts on a bowl of stew — or as Shauna likes to call it: brown mush. The taste in question is rather unremarkable, but it’s something Calem looks forward to after a day of work. It’s his usual meal when he doesn’t have any extra coin on him, meaning that he eats it quite often. Despite the dubious origins of the stew’s meat and vegetables, it has kept him alive for this long and his stomach has yet to reject it. Even his Chespin doesn’t refuse it when Calem offers up a spoonful to his partner.

As the friends talk, Calem stirs the brown mush boredly as the sound of his companions and the cafe’s other patrons turns into plain ambiance against his ears.

“Calem?” says Tierno’s voice.

He does not hear him the first time.

“Calem!” Tierno’s voice says once more. He reaches over and taps his friend’s shoulder. “What’s wrong with you today? You’re not usually this silent.”

“Have some wine,” Shauna suggests, motioning to the bottle in the middle of the table. “Tell us what’s going on.”

Calem glances up and meets his friend’s gazes with his own. Even the shy Trevor looks worried for him.

“I had a long day,” he tries. He pats his Chespin on his lap, as the little one has started to nap. “We went all over the city searching for one customer.”

His friends nod along. They understand his job, as it’s a hair more physically more involved than their own. He spends his days running across the streets of Lumiose with packages or messages in his satchel. People call on him to deliver because they know he’s fast and dependable. When they need an object or letter sent inside city lines, the citizens of Lumiose simply call for the boy with the blue coat and the head of dark hair.

Today was no different, as it took Calem and Chespin hours to track down a man named Clemont Charpentier, an apparent inventor who dreams of making mechanisms to improve humanity’s life among the fantastical creatures.

Calem tells the tale and hopes that it will be enough for his friends. His better judgement tells him that they do not need to know of who he saw today, and how in a single moment, his entire world felt as if it had changed.

…

…

…

Throughout history, the strange creatures that inhabit the world — despite all their differences — had one shared trait: an eagerness to fight. So in the basement of the Jauna Plaza Cafe is an illicit operation, a tournament of sorts where people put their partner creatures against others. What started as a form of entertainment for the commonfolk evolved into a game for people to play in order to show off the strengths of their creatures. Tournaments like this were popular with the more wealthy folk, but are nigh impossible for a working person to spectate, let alone participate.

Despite his young age, Calem has built a reputation for himself in the basement of the cafe. Every week, he and his Chespin will see what opponent they can take on. The first had been a man with a creature called a Litleo, another had been against a winged being called a Noibat, and the most memorable was against a bulky pink beast referred to as an Audino. Those who do not know him as the messenger boy in the blue coat know him as the one commanding the mighty Chespin to victory. Although he gets mere coins for his fights, Calem accepts any winnings in stride and tucks them deep into his pockets.

Tonight is no exception, as after the meal, he and his friends head down to the basement where a world of competitors awaits him. Tonight he and Chespin go against a creature they have never seen before. The opposing creature’s master calls it an Azumarill and despite its stubby legs and floppy blue ears, it proves to pack quite the punch.

But Calem and Chespin persevere. In the cramped walls of the cafe basement with a crowd of people cheering them on, Calem and Chespin ride on a wave to victory. Calem fights as if he is a soldier and keeps up a sense of honour as if his family’s title had never been sullied.

…

…

…

Night comes and Calem walks Shauna to her home on South Boulevard. Skitty and Chespin walk in front of them like guards in Parfum Palace. Calem keeps his hands in his coat pockets as Shauna leads the way and proceeds to chat his ears off. They walk down the street and pass a street performer, a young girl no older than ten who sings a wistful song for the citizens of Kalos to drop coins into her tattered brown hat.

Lumiose is always dreary at night, a harsh contrast to the lively city it becomes during the day. What once was a bustling metropolis feels like the depths of the desolate woods once the citizens retreat indoors. The street lamps can only do so much to let the life of the streets survive.

Calem cares for Shauna like one would a little sister. He protects her like a young Pancham that has only been brought into this world. He watches over her like any big brother would.

It helps that she knows of his past, knows why he has come to Lumiose, and knows why a child with a double-barreled surname like his has been taking up work as a lowly courier in a tattered coat. She knows that his mother gave her own name in order to avoid any association with his bastard of a father.

“Calem, what’s wrong with you?” Shauna suddenly asks.

He blinks, then eyes his friend as they continue to walk. “What do you mean?”

“You’re still lost in that haze,” Shauna says and she knows she’s right. “What’s really wrong with you today?”

Calem sighs and digs his hands deeper into the pockets of his coat. He knows that Shauna will simply press even more in any attempt to hide. Most people see Shauna’s excitable and impatient nature and assume she is not as bright as her disposition, but those people would be very surprised to discover just how good she is at getting secrets out of a person. The Kalosian Army would make a good spy out of her.

“Promise you won’t tell the others?”

Shauna puts her hand on her heart. “Not a soul.”

“I saw a girl today,” Calem explains. He tries to remain calm as if his words mean nothing at all.

Shauna begins grinning like a fool. “Was she pretty?”

“She was…” Calem starts, but then struggles to continue. “She was a girl I have never seen before.”

He thinks back and tries to remember the face of the girl, from her long flowing hair to the wistful look in her pretty eyes. He tries to recall if he had ever delivered letters to either her or the older man who appeared to be her father. For the life of him, he can’t remember a thing.

“I only saw her for a minute there,” Calem tells Shauna. “And she was gone.”

Shauna lets out a laugh of disbelief. “Good Arceus, is Calem Bellamy-Beaufort in love at last?”

Calem eyes her quizzically. “What do you mean by that?”

“She must have been heavenly to have caught your eye,” Shauna suggests, motioning forward to Chespin and Skitty in front of them. “Tierno says that you carry yourself like you’ve never seen a woman in your life.”

He scoffs and sharply says, “That’s absolutely preposterous, my mother raised me.”

Shauna lets out a laugh and Calem finds himself smiling. He avoids her gaze and looks down to the Lumiose cobblestones. “That girl though, she wore a black dress and a red hat… and I may never see her again.”

“A love story for the ages,” Shauna comments in a playful voice. With a cheeky grin, she strides forward and leads the two on their way down the streets.

When they get to South Boulevard, Shauna asks Calem a simple question.

“Can you tell Tierno I won’t be able to make it next week?”

Calem nods his head. “Are you busy?”

“I have to take some extra shifts,” she says in a tone that’s less bright than her usual voice.

Concerned, Calem begs another question: “Is something wrong?”

Shauna looks down. “My mother has fallen ill. Father needs me to cover more shifts so we can afford medicine.”

To see Shauna looking so downtrodden is strange. She may very well be the most cheerful person that Calem knows, yet even her sunshine demeanor is susceptible to the reality she exists in.

Calem starts to think, which causes eyebrows to knit. As he and Shauna get closer to her family inn, a choice dances in his head. He turns to Shauna and looks her in the eye.

“How much money do you need?”

Shauna blinks. “What?”

“How much does the medicine cost?” Calem tries again. He turns to her and speaks with conviction in his voice. “I can cover it.”

Shauna shakes her head. “Calem, I cannot take anything from you.”

Calem stops walking and begins digging through his pockets. He pulls out some coins and a single banknote. It’s nothing compared to the fortune his father gambled away, but he holds it to Shauna like it’s fit for a king.

“You can pay me back later,” he says. “Shauna, I trust you.”

Shauna looks hesitant as she eyes the money. Eventually, she starts counting in her head, then takes most of the coins that her friend holds. She counts the coins with the same unsure look in her eyes. Once she’s done, she looks up to meet her friend’s gaze. Although she still looks uneasy, she says:

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Calem says, nodding his head.

“I shall pay you back as soon as I can,” Shauna promises. “If there is anything I can do for you now, please tell me.”

For a second, Calem thinks. He then says the first thing on his mind. “Actually… is there someone you can find for me?”

…

…

…

Calem’s apartment is a hole in a wall in the otherwise vast city of Lumiose. For all the city’s talk about beauty, the accommodations for the commonfolk were often dingy and infested with small creatures they referred to as Dedenne. Calem’s place in particular is cramped and constricting, but it’s enough for him and his partner.

When Calem returns to his abode, his Chespin is absolutely exhausted. He removes his coat as his partner creature stumbles through the room and hops onto the bed.

Calem wastes no time in finding the loose floorboard by his bed and lifts it up, revealing his hiding place with all of his valuable belongings, like his life savings and the wedding ring that his mother told him to save for an important occasion. He empties his pockets and places the money that he has next to the rest. He then replaces the floorboard back over his valuables.

As his Chespin naps, Calem goes to his writing desk, procures a piece of paper and a pen and writes a letter to his mother apologizing for not being able to send funds this month.

…

…

…

(tell me child, what is your name?)

…

…

…

Serena Johanssen was born in the dirt, but raised among diamonds. Nowadays she lived a happy life under the loving eyes of Augustine Sycamore, a scholar who had taken under his wing and loved her like they were father and daughter.

Of course, Sycamore wasn’t her actual father. While their eyes were the same shade of grey, her hair was bright like honey, his was dark like a shadow. Her smile was soft and gentle, his was charming and alluring. She spent her days reading stories and reports from lands beyond the city, he spent his days researching and studying. But that did not matter. They might as well have been related by blood because Sycamore raised her like she was his own.

They had met years ago outside of Lumiose, at a time of Serena’s life that was very unlike the way it was now.

For as long as Serena could remember, she was not like the other girls she knew. Instead of having ribbons to tie in her hair, she had shoes so thin that her little toes would turn red in the cold. Instead of having a loving Mama or Papa, she was watched over by the owners of the Dendemille Inn, a husband and wife who had taken her from a children’s home and promised her shelter as long as she did what she was told.

Serena could not remember her life before, even the supposed memory of her living amongst other orphans and street rats felt fuzzy in her head. All she could ever really acknowledge was that despite Kalos being a region of beauty, Dendemille was a city under constant cover of clouds. Even if snow would not descend from the frigid skies, the ground would be cold.

Sometimes Serena asked her caretakers where she had been before she had been placed in the children’s home. What they told her was that they were actually old friends of her Mama, that connection being the reason they were able to adopt her and have her live in the Inn. When Serena asked about her Mama, her caretakers would never answer beyond giving her name, which was Grace.

Serena’s days were often cold, but the nights were even colder — during evenings where she would sweep and scrub every corner of the Inn with her tiny hands, she would huddle near the hearth of the fireplace in a desperate bid to bask in the remaining warmth of the embers. Her meals consisted of a thin gruel that was varying shades of grey and brown but mostly grey.

Sometimes Serena would let herself dream. There was a shop in Dendemille with an open window, and in that window was a doll clad in a pretty pink dress and blue bow. Its hair was tied in a braid and its feet were small, just like hers. She dreamed that maybe one day if she saved enough coins from Inn guests, she would be able to buy the doll for herself. At the very least, she would have a friend with her while she slept at night.

On a winter’s evening when Serena was eight, the Inn was exceedingly crowded. Travellers from near and far had gathered in the main tavern to eat the food her caretakers provided, that being a bowl of stew with meat of a questionable origin and a cup of wine diluted with liquid of a questionable origin. Serena walked around the tavern, gathering dirty dishes as the guests around her told tales of adventures from far away. Serena often liked working on nights like this because she could eavesdrop on conversations from the travellers, then later on as she slept on the hay in the stables, she would dream about the stories she heard. The travellers often spoke of creatures she could never even imagine — dragon-like beings that could circle the globe in one second, long serpentine beasts with flesh of stone and steel, large avians that could soar through the sky.

At one point of the evening, Serena’s caretaker pulled her aside, reaching into her dress pockets for extra coins. The wife of the Inn ordered her to get some water from the well, which anyone would have abhorred on a freezing night like this, let alone a small child.

But she couldn’t say no — or risk the firm hand of the husband of the Inn — so barefoot in the snow Serena grasped a bucket in her hand as she headed up north to a place colder than the town, a cavern of frost that not even the locals ventured into.

The world around Serena was cold, yet as she trudged through the snow, she knew she was not alone. The creatures she found up in the woods were not as fantastical or viscous as the ones she heard of from the mouths of travellers, but they were no less sentient and alive. As Serena fished up a bucket of water from the well, a small horde of ice creatures surrounded her. She had seen some of them before — a few little white bears with runny noses, short pink birds with yellow hair and an adorable waddling gait, and the most peculiar of them all, a seemingly sentient chunk of ice with purple around their bright eyes.

Serena called these creatures her friends because she had no one else. Not even the people who were supposed to act like a Mama and Papa to her. She sang sweet soft melodies to them as she did not know any real songs, but they listened and appeared to be enjoying it as they gathered around the little girl by the well.

Then suddenly in the midst of the night, Serena saw a figure walking in the dark. One of the bears with the runny noses alerted her, and when she saw the person walking she gasped, dropped her bucket beside the well, and hid behind the closest tree she could find. Her creature friends fled as well, scattering back into the woods.

“Fear not, I mean no harm!” said the voice of the stranger. He took a few more steps, the moonlight illuminating his face. He wore a clean, fancy coat that reminded Serena of the richer travellers that would stay at the Inn, as well as a pristine top hat that only exuded the idea of wealth. Even if this man was not as rich as he dressed, he could still afford many comforts.

Serena stayed hidden behind the tree, peeking out just in time to see the man removing his hat, a sign of respect if she ever knew one.

“Bonsoir, my name is Augustine Sycamore,” he told her in a soft voice. He knelt down to her, yet kept a good distance away. His eyes were unlike the ones she was used to, soft, gentle, and inviting. “You can call me Gus. Tell me, Child, what is your name?”

“I am called Serena,” she told him.

Augustine smiled, then noticed her bucket on the ground by the well. “That looks very heavy, Serena. Would you like me to help?”

“You do not look very strong, Monsieur,” Serena said, still hiding behind the tree.

The gentleman laughed. “Oh my, what an honest child you are. It’s nothing I cannot handle, though.”

Serena thought for a few seconds, then stepped away from the tree. Together with Augustine, they fetched a bucket of water from the well, then with one hand on the handle and the other around hers, escorted her back to Dendemille Town. Although they were strangers, Augustine was warm — the way he looked at her made Serena think of the Papa or Mama she had been dreaming off her whole life.

When they got back to Dendemille, Serena showed Augustine some of her favourite parts of the place because he would listen — like the street lamp that glows the brightest even in the late of night or the doll in the shop window she would always look at.

Then as they approached the Inn, Augustine looked down to Serena and put on a more serious face. “Now, Serena, listen close to what I have to say. I am an old friend of Grace’s.”

“Of Mama’s?”

A soft, but sad smile crept onto Augustine’s lips. “Yes, of your Mama’s.”

A rush of excitement ran through Serena’s heart. “Is she coming to be with me?”

That was when Augustine’s face got more and more dour. He stopped walking, then kneeled down in front of the little one. “Serena, it breaks my heart to say that your Mama is not with us anymore. She is… she is no more.”

Serena went still. Her arms felt like ice colder than the snow in the city. She did not know what to think now and could only look into the eyes of Augustine, the dark pools that almost glistened in the moonlight.

“But in lieu of death, there is space to make life,” said Augustine. “And I promised her that I would take care of you… but only if you, and your caretakers, will let it be.”

Serena thought for a few seconds, then asked curiously, “So you’ll be my Papa?”

“Of course,” Augustine assured. “Like a Papa and a Mama to you. Is that okay?”

And with his hand in hers, he took Serena to the Inn where she lived to talk to her caretakers. Serena did not hear much of the conversation, only that Augustine had a letter from Grace allowing Serena to be with him. He tended to move around the region for work, but had the means to make sure that the little one could be cared for wherever they went. Serena’s caretakers ignored his main intentions and tried to bring him into the Inn for some gruel or watered-down wine, but Augustine refused. Serena sat by the hearth, taking in the last bit of warmth by the fire as the adults spoke. Eventually, she witnessed Augustine nod sternly and pull out a wad of bills from his pocket. He counted off a rather handsome amount of francs, then handed it over to the husband of the Inn.

Then without waiting another second, he made his way to Serena by the fire. He took off his coat and put it over her. “We are to go now, Serena,” he said, taking her hand.

With a nod, Serena stood up and walked with him to the door of the Inn. Behind her, she could hear the sounds of feigned cries from both her caretakers, something that felt as unreal like the creatures she heard about from faraway lands.

Before they left Dendemille, Augustine made use of the time before their carriage arrived. With Serena’s hand in his, he brought her to the store with the doll in the window, handed the old clerk another fraction of the bills in his pocket, and took the pristine doll in his hands. Then immediately, he knelt down to Serena and held it to her.

Serena could only stare in surprise. So many things had happened, some felt as make believe as a dream, yet others reminded her that this was very much real. She looked at the doll, then up to Augustine’s eyes.

“Take it,” he told her in a voice as gentle as a little fall of rain. “It is a gift from me to you.”

With a small smile, Serena took the doll, holding it like it was made of gold. It was heavier and bigger than it looked in the store window, but she held it tight nonetheless. As they waited for their late-night transportation, Serena held the doll close to her like it was her line between life and death. Augustine asked if she wanted to play with it, but she replied that holding it tight to her was playing.

Once the carriage arrived, Augustine carried her on board. His plan was for them to stay at a place in Couriway Town, a settlement known for the gorgeous waterfalls that cascaded off the cliffs. With her new doll in her grasp, Serena leaned her head on Augustine, closing her eyes as she let the gentle lull of the carriage’s wheels put her to sleep.

Her heart felt warm and full of light, the world around her was cold yet somehow she could feel the chill slowly seeping away as she entered her new life. All at once in the midst of the night, Serena finally understood what it was like to be loved.

…

…

…

Years later and Serena is fourteen, yet there is only an echo of the lonely frigid girl she used to be. She proves to be rather tall for her age, rapidly growing from a small underfed child to a young girl rapidly on the path to womanhood. Augustine even jokes that at the current rate she just might become taller than him.

Augustine is not of noble birth, but he is from considerable wealth. His great-grandfather had concocted a formula for a pristine tonic that would bring life to even the baldest of heads and a wax that could tame even the wildest of hairs. After charming a horde of Kalosian nobility with the product’s effectiveness, the Sycamore family had amassed enough wealth to allow Augustine to spend his life travelling throughout Kalos and researching the creatures that live in the region. And of course, his wealth allowed him to keep Serena as safe and as loved as he could. Although Serena is not a Sycamore by name, Augustine makes plans to change her name legally to guarantee her inheritance in the wake of his death.

When Serena is not travelling around with Uncle Gus, she’s being taught by various tutors in as many subjects as possible — literature, latin, arithmetic, calligraphy, history, art, science, and music.

Ever since she learned to read, she had been absorbing the words in the books that Augustine uses for his studies. Each one is full of wonders and sketches of creatures around the Kalos region and beyond. There’s something called a Bunnelby with floppy ears and a coat of short grey hair and there’s another called Dedenne that’s so small that one could fit it in the pocket of their coat.

She cannot help it, there is something exceedingly alluring and fascinating about the creatures. In particular, she comes across a page in a book regarding a trio of green and red and blue. According to the notes scribbled in the margins, the creatures hold abilities connected to grass, fire, and water. The tiny fire fox-like one is said to spout fire from its mouth, the blue frog can leap dozens of feet into the air and generate bubbles at a whim, and the one with the green head can shoot spikes of wood. It’s fascinating to think that creatures like this can live all around the world, but it’s even more fascinating for Serena to acknowledge that they very well may live outside of her window.

One day when Serena and Augustine are staying in Lumiose City in an apartment connected to a gated green garden amongst the sea of cobblestones. After a calligraphy lesson with her tutor, the young girl heads to a lab on South Boulevard where she had planned to meet her Uncle for an afternoon stroll. Upon entering a building made with white marble beams, Serena discovers an unusual sight for such a well-structured place — shards of glass are scattered upon the floor in the foyer. There are a handful of maids cleaning up the mess and they urge her to be careful or risk pricking herself upon the sharp edges.

A confused Serena holds onto the hem of her dress as she dashes through the building, searching around the rooms in a fervent haste. She heads to the second floor and soon finds who she is looking for at a room at the end of the hallway.

It appears to be a library of sorts, as various thick books line the walls. Augustine is standing with a group of other well-dressed men, no doubt the scholars he spent his days studying with. On the ground are more shards of glass, all culminating in a broken window above the highest shelf.

“Uncle! What happened?!” Serena asks with the utmost worrying in her voice. “Were you robbed?”

Augustine takes his eyes away from his notes and looks at his ward. A similar look of fear slips into his gaze. He walks to her, setting his hand on her shoulder and quickly guiding her out of the library.

“Let us speak outside,” he suggests in a soft voice. He takes her out into the hall, where things are more quiet.

Once they are out of the room of scholars, Augustine tells her what he can.

“You can rest assured that we have not been robbed,” he starts. “We simply had an accident, nothing more.”

His words do little to quell Serena’s fear. “What in Yvetal’s hellscape happened in there?”

“I can assure you that no one was harmed,” Augustine continues. His gaze upon her is plagued with intensity, such a vast change from the warm way he usually looks upon her. “We brought some specimens into the lab and they may have… escaped.”

“Exactly what specimens did you bring?” Serena asks, her fear now changing into curiosity.

“Ones in the books that you read so much,” Augustine says. “A Chespin, a Fennekin, as well as a Froakie — fine specimens, they are, such a shame we could not keep them under control.” He places a hand on her shoulder again and plants a kiss upon her forehead, something he had been doing since she was a young girl. “I know I promised you a stroll by the tower, but I must tend to this matter. Perhaps we can meet in an hour?”

Serena shakes her head, then leans in to give him a hug “Do not fret, Uncle. Take as much time as you need. What exactly made the specimens run?”

“I do not remember that well,” Augustine admits. “But you know how some creatures like to fight — we believe that they have taken things a bit too far. The Chespin apparently took some food from the Fennekin and they got a bit… rowdy.” He pats her on the shoulder again, “But this should not bother you, please head home and I shall meet you there.”

Serena nods her head. After Augustine gives her another forehead kiss, he walks back into the messy library to rejoin his colleagues.

Serena leaves the lab with much calmer steps. As she passes by another broken window by the front of the building, she begins to wonder just how far a small trio of tiny creatures could go in a city so vast.

She had read in her favourite books that Chespin liked to live in forests underneath trees, but the closest forest to Lumiose is outside of the city lines. Fennekin enjoyed living in fields, but Lumiose had no such things. Froakie would often make their homes in rivers and lakes and ponds, but the river that ran through the city seemed too touched by man to let nature thrive.

With her bonnet over her head, Serena makes her way back to her and Augustine’s home, an apartment north of Autumnal Avenue. She makes her way through the city streets, passing by merchants and street performers and students. Even under the current circumstances, she appreciates the liveliness of the city. Lumiose had its own heartbeat, very much like a human body made of flesh and blood and bone. Even the imaginary stories she read often spoke about how Lumiose could hold the key to one’s heart.

Serena walks with the wind blowing through the ends of her hair and the hem of her dress. She comes through Bleu Plaza, one of the least crowded plazas of the city. Unusual for the place, there is a group of people huddled around a fountain in the middle of the street. In no time her curiosity gets the best of her and she walks towards the horde, her heart practically begging to find out what’s going on.

In the fountain that has garnered such attention is something that surprises her — playing in the water is a creature with blue skin and large yellow eyes. It is rather small, but its legs are strong and bendy, allowing it to jump in and out of the water with ease. Its hands are white and on the back of its neck are a small collection of white bubbles reminiscent of seafoam.

Serena knows for sure that it is a Froakie. It is much more lively than it could ever be in writing or sketches — it breathes the same air that she does, it lives in the same place she does, and it is made of flesh and blood and bone like she is.

Her gut instinct tells her that the Froakie currently frolicking in the Blue Plaza fountain is one in the same as the one that had escaped a building filled to the brim with scholars. Serena reaches into her satchel and pulls out a slice of pound cake wrapped in old newspaper, something she had bought for her and Augustine but would give to a friend if they really needed it. She breaks off a piece of the sweet treat and holds it out towards the creature in the fountain, ignoring the prying eyes of the Lumiosians around her.

When the Froakie notices her, it is quick to stop hopping about in the water. Its large eyes settle on her with pure intrigue.

“You look like you’ve come a long way, little one,” she greets, giving the adorable creature a smile. “Why don’t you come along with me?”

…

…

…

The rest of the day is filled with Serena dashing through Lumiose City like an explorer on an adventure with a Froakie perched upon her shoulder. She tries to think of where a Fennekin and a Chespin could end up in such a place. She searches through a street lined with vendors, wondering if a little hungry creature would try to steal a bite of food from an unsuspecting merchant.

The little Froakie proves its skill when it hops off Serena’s shoulder, urging her to follow as it heads down South Boulevard. In no time the two come across a Fennekin basking under one of the trees in front of Lumiose Station, bits of bitten twigs scattered around it as it sleeps.

Happily, Serena rewards Froakie with a few more bites of cake and gently scoops the napping Fennekin into her arms. The creature proves to be a heavy sleeper and does not protest.

Serena and Froakie look around even more, wondering if the third missing creature will make itself known. But despite all their efforts to find a wandering Chespin in the city of lights, the two are unable to find a single clue. Serena ends up heading back to the marble building of scholars with only a Froakie on her shoulder and a Fennekin in her arms.

When Serena comes back to the second floor library with a broken window, she is greeted by Uncle Gus and a gaggle of his very surprised colleagues. They thank her dearly for her help, one older scholar in particular smiling like a fool and planting a kiss on her cheek. Uncle Gus pulls her into a hug, smiling at the wit and talent of his young ward.

One bespectacled scholar takes the sleeping Fennekin out of her arms and returns it to its large roomy cage. When another scholar comes back to take the Froakie perched on her shoulder, Serena feels the creature suddenly tightening its grip on her. Its tiny hands grasp onto the material of her dress and bonnet, clearly resisting any intention to drag it away from her.

Augustine is quick to notice the phenomenon in front of him. With an honest smile, he places a hand on his ward’s shoulder and looks his colleague in the eye.

“It’s no use, Marceau,” he says. “I believe Froakie won’t be able to help our research after all — this little one has found its match.”

Marceau looks unsure. “But what are we to do then? Find another water creature in the middle of Lumiose?”

“I shall figure it out,” Augustine assures. He looks at his ward with pride, then gently pets the top of Froakie’s head. “It would break many hearts to know I had to separate two friends.”

Marceau can only sigh, but without further questions he nods his head and leaves Augustine and Serena be. When Augustine looks at his ward, he is quick to see the look of confusion in Serena’s eyes.

“Uncle… I’m not sure what you’re implying,” she says. She reaches up and pulls Froakie off her shoulder to hold the creature in her arms, where it is very happy to be. “Do you want me to take care of this little one for a few days?”

“You can if you want. However, I was implying that you take care of it for a lot longer.”

Serena’s eyes widened in surprise.

“That is, if you want to,” Augustine clarifies. “You would be caring for this one under me, my dear — I can help if you need it.”

With a bright grin on her pretty face, Serena looks at the Froakie in her arms with glee, then looks up to meet her beloved Uncle Gus’s gaze with hopeful eyes and a nod of her head.

…

…

…

(and my life seems to stop as if something is over and something has scarcely begun)

…

…

…

The citizens of the city are caught in a buzz as news regarding King Lysandre V has reached the streets. The beloved leader of the country would be leaving his home in Parfum Palace to spend a week in the city of lights, apparently to learn more about the people he rules over.

Calem believes it to be a load of Skiddo droppings, seeing as that same King lived in luxury as the working-class of Kalos slave for a meger wage, only for said wage to disappear once the tax collectors come around. It is moments like these that make Calem rethink the life he could have had, the one where he would have been so wrapped in a world of opulence that he was blind to the suffering of the people. Sometimes he thinks his family name becoming disgraced is a blessing in disguise.

At the end of a day of delivering gossip-filled letters and fortune-filled packages Calem and Chespin get challenged to a battle in an alleyway. There’s an old Sot from the Jaune Plaza Cafe claiming to have seen Calem in one of the basement battles — the Sot is tall and gaunt, his face tinted light pink after one too many glasses of wine. He approaches Calem with a wobbling gait and a creature that he has never seen before. Its body is pill-like and on its back is a pair of bright pink wings. The Sot calls it a Vivillon and Calem thinks it’s one of the most fascinating creatures he’s ever laid eyes on.

His fascination with a new creature aside, Calem and Chespin accept the challenge and engage in a battle. It becomes quickly evident that some of Chespin’s attacks do not work on the Vivillon. The spikes of green that shoot out of Chespin’s head are nearly worthless against the winged creature. Vivillon releases a shower of sparkling purple powder down onto Chespin, when it graces the bipedal creature’s arm, the poor little one cries out in pain, causing a sudden rush of fear to pulse through Calem’s veins.

The two are forced to find other ways to fight. Chespin proves to have a fighting spirit stronger than a thousand hussars. The creature rolls itself into a ball and bounces off the walls of the alleyway, using its speed to dodge its enemy’s wind and powder attacks. Building momentum, it manages to ram its spinning body directly into Vivillon, sending the two tumbling to the ground with the winged creature taking most of the impact.

With a lively grin on his face, Calem sings the praises of Chespin as the creature rolls back towards its partner and hops onto its feet.

The Sot is left aghast, falling to his knees next to his Vivillon. Calem picks up his Chespin and approaches the drunkard, reaching a hand out to end the battle peacefully. To his surprise, the Sot swats Calem’s hand away. With a look of disgust on his wrinkly face, he throws a handful of coins at Calem and soon leaves the alleyway, picking up his fainted Vivillon as he goes. He bitterly mutters words about challenging Calem to a rematch, vowing to beat him that time, then disappears from sight.

Without a battle to continue, Calem shrugs his shoulders and gathers up the fallen coins. Although battles between creatures is something only done in dark alleyways and basements, a certain kind of etiquette has developed in place — it is expected for the losing person to give the winner some kind of reward, whether it be an extra flagon of frothy ale or a handful of coins or a stomach full of food.

As Calem slips the coins into his pockets, he notices that something is wrong with Chespin. He looks to the little one and cradles it in his arms, asking what may be wrong and checking its every limb for any abnormalities. Soon enough he spots a collection of purple powder sticking to Chespin’s left paw, most definitely a remnant from Vivillon’s attack.

Without hesitation, Calem immediately cancels his plans to meet his friends at the Jaune Plaza Cafe. With Chespin in his arms he rushes directly to his apartment, knowing that time is of the essence if he wants to keep his partner alive.

…

…

…

Between the walls of his small apartment, Calem tends to Chespin. The poor thing’s breathing is laboured and uneasy, its energy sapping away as the moments pass. Calem’s books tell him that his partner has been poisoned, so Calem rifles through his collection of berries until he finds the one that can act as an antidote. After feeding his Chespin a handful of pink fruit, the little one starts to feel better. Its breathing evening out as its strength returns. Calem lets his partner sleep on his bed, covering Chespin with a blanket and patting its head with the gentlest touch.

His heart is beating fast as unknown anxiety pulses through him. Even though Chespin appears to be making some semblance of a recovery, Calem cannot help but fear the worst. He ends up opening a cheap bottle of watered-down wine to calm his nerves, something that stings and burns on the way down but manages to keep him sane. To satiate his own hunger he digs into a bag of apples he has on hand — it had been a gift from a happy client he had met on a delivery job, while Calem decided to use it as food for Chespin it ends up becoming his dinner for the night.

The night drags and Calem keeps himself huddled in his own corner of Lumiose. As Chespin rests, the building’s landlord comes up to the apartment to deliver a letter that had arrived earlier that day. Calem sits on a chair by the open window as he reads the latest update from his mother, his hair a disheveled mess and the upper buttons of his collared shirt remaining undone. Her loopy handwriting tells him of a recent interaction from his father — Viscount Trevelyan had sent a letter all the way from Wyndon asking how his son was. Calem is used to sporadic updates from the man who disgraced the Bellamy-Beaufort name, he no longer has the energy to get emotional over them. His interest is piqued when his mother’s message tells him of an invite to travel to Galar, as the Viscount is curious to know if the young man would like to meet his little half-brother — the honourable Victor Trevelyan.

Before Calem can contemplate a theoretical trip up north, he hears a familiar voice calling from the city streets below.

“Calem! Calem! Are you in there?”

He puts down his letter and glances out his window, leaning on the ledge as he looks around. On the cobblestones is a large woolen overcoat with Shauna standing inside, she looks exhausted enough to make him wonder if she had sprinted all the way here.

“Calem! You weren’t at the cafe tonight!” Shauna calls up, ignoring the various Lumiosians walking around her.

“I could not,” Calem explains, looking down at her from three floors up. “Chespin was hurt, did something happen?”

“I shall explain inside!” Shauna declares. “I am coming up now!”

After a few moments Shauna arrives at the apartment, evidently having run up the stairs. She catches her breath and he offers her a seat at the chair at his desk, wondering if he should get her some water or wine. She refuses his attempts at hospitality and once her breathing evens out, she says:

“Calem, I found her.”

“Who?”

“The girl,” Shauna elaborates. She walks to him and gestures wildly with her hands. “The one you asked me to find, the one with the red hat and the black dress that was so divine to have made you fall head over heels with her! That girl, you fool!”

There is a beat of silence between the two friends, then Calem replies dryly, “Well… you certainly make me sound daft when you put it like that.”

“That’s not my point,” Shauna prods. “The point is that I found the girl you ran into. Or at least… I think it’s her.”

Calem eyes her suspiciously. He usually trusts the information Shauna can overhear from her family Inn, but he cannot help but inquire just a little further. “How do you know for sure?”

“There’s no way to truly tell,” Shauna explains. She reaches into the pocket of her ratty overcoat and hands her friend a piece of parchment crumpled and compressed beyond all measure. “I wasn’t able to find her name, but I have this.”

When Calem slowly unravels the paper, he finds a hastily written name of a garden written on the page.

“Autumnal Gardens,” Shauna says. “It’s just north of Rouge Plaza. Rumour has that a girl with golden hair visits on some nights to watch the stars. By day she dons a black dress and a red hat, just like your description, but at night she is said to be clad in white. It’s not much, but if you come there tonight then perhaps you may find out the truth.”

Calem is unsure what to do. For the briefest moment he paces across his apartment, running his hand through his dark hair as he thinks and further rumpling it. He begins to contemplate the logistics of such an act — wondering what it will be at best or at worst. To quell his raging thoughts, he walks over to his desk and searches through the drawers — what he finds tucked away is a simple white handkerchief, the unspotted square of cloth that he kept in his pocket for a week, then finally hid away thinking he would never find the owner again.

“The least I can do is return this to her,” he says as he eyes Shauna.

She gives him a nod as Calem puts on his coat. Once the garment is on, he steps towards his friend and presses a gentle kiss to her forehead.

“Thank you.”

Shauna seems more amused than anything else. “It was nothing, really.”

Calem glances to his bed, where his Chespin now sits awake with a curious glow in its beady brown eyes. He walks over and kneels down to the little one.

“Mon amie, want to go on an adventure?”

…

…

...

(so many questions and answers that somehow seem wrong)

…

…

…

After dinner Serena finds herself in the apartment drawing room. She is dressed down for the evening, free of her stays and clad in the linen fibers of her chemise. On the floor by her bare feet is Froakie, currently napping on the rug without a care in the world. In her left hand is an embroidery hoop and in her right is a needle — with the use of the two she attempts to guide a piece of scarlet thread through the stiff canvas. When she pricks her finger and draws blood for the third time, she lets out an utterly loathsome groan. Frustrated by a piece of thread and canvas, she stands up and goes to the nearest drawer to dispose of the damn thing. She shall deal with needlework tomorrow.

In the moment she slams the drawer shut, Augustine enters from his study. To come out of hours of work to see his ward so fraught has caught him off guard in a rather entertaining way.

With a lively grin on his face, he asks: “What’s gotten into you?”

Serena puts her ring finger in her mouth to stop the bleeding. “Needlework,” she tells him bitterly.

Augustine lets out a laugh. “Nice to see that you have taken to it well.”

Serena seems unconvinced. However, she spares shooting him the glare she’s tempted to give in favour of looking at the open door of his study. “Mind if I take a book?” she asks, quickly slipping in.

Like always, Augustine nods his head. “Of course.”

Inside the walls of the study, Serena moves past the various notes of her Uncle’s research in favour of perusing his collection of books. She has always found that he has good taste in tomes, specifically the ones about old Kalosian legends. She ends up picking one that depicts the tales of Kalos’s past, a saga of a raging war between life and death that could only be quelled by a creature of order.

When she returns to the drawing room with a book under her arm, she finds Augustine rifling through the cushions of the couch, possibly on the look for something.

“What are you doing?” she asks curiously.

“Have you seen my white handkerchief anywhere?” Augustine questions. “I have not been able to find it for weeks.”

Serena can only shake her head. “I will be on the look for it, Uncle.”

With that said, Serena heads to her bedroom and Augustine keeps looking around the apartment. He soon gets to the drawer housing the cause of Serena’s previous ire, promptly fishing up Serena’s less-than-stellar embroidery project. When Serena gets a second look at her dreadful work, she notes that it looks worse than before and sighs like a dour ogre.

On the other hand, her beloved Uncle thinks differently. “Do not fret,” he assures in a voice soft like the sun. “You will get better with practice.”

Serena can only stare at the floor with a bitterness in her eyes. “I do not see why you think I would be good at it.” Her voice is low.

Now Augustine is the one who was unconvinced, yet he still gives her that same cheery smile and says, “Your mother was good at it.”

“Or so you say,” Serena retorts sharply. When her eyes meet his, she is less downtrodden and more… curious, as the mere mention of her mother has a habit of awakening this side of her.

The truth remains that she still does not know much of the woman who brought her into this world. She knows that her name was Grace, she knows that Augustine had befriended her back in their youth, she knows that Grace had been shunned for becoming with child while unwed, she knows that needlepoint was a favoured hobby of hers, and she knows that she loved her to her last breath, having begged Augustine to promise to care for her flesh and blood before she left for another world.

But Serena knows not much else, such as her mother’s favourite colour or how she wears her hair or how she likes her tea. She doesn’t even know who her father might be, only that he spent a summer by Grace’s side but was gone when autumn came.

So standing in front of Augustine now, Serena looks her uncle in the eye and asks:

“Why won’t you tell me anything else about her?”

The scholar looks uneasy as he glances away from her. “Serena, you are too young to know,” he tries. He faces her again, taking a few steps closer. “It will make you sad and pensive, something you should not be.”

“But I know so little about her,” Serena reiterates. “Give me something, Uncle, something more to dream of.”

Hesitence hangs across Augustine’s face. But yet he shakes his head. “Not tonight,” he decides in an affirmative voice. He then presses a kiss to her forehead like he always did at night when she was young. “You should sleep.”

Without another word, he retreats off into his bedroom and shuts the door.

In her loneliness, Serena can only languish for more. Her grip on her book tightens as she mutters, “So many questions… yet not enough answers.”

She considers for a moment staying in her room to submerge her mind in tales from the past, but a look outside at the clear Lumiosian night makes her think otherwise. She ends up walking over to her napping Froakie, gently nudging her partner awake.

“Come,” she says. “I need some air.”

…

…

…

(i’m doing everything all wrong)

…

…

…

The city is dark as Calem rushes across the cobblestones. He fears nothing with Chespin on his shoulder, yet as he gets closer and closer to Autumnal Avenue, he feels the knot in his stomach growing tighter and tighter. His breathing tightens as he goes more and more north, a fear that he is not used to feeling. In his coat pocket is the handkerchief that he has been holding onto for weeks, his hand grasped around it so firmly that it may permanently warp the garment. With his nerves getting dangerously close to taking control of him, he starts to regret not taking in another goblet of watered down wine as good luck.

Soon enough he arrives at the Avenue. As he walks down the streets, the buildings around him change from shops and offices to homes — some eons more lavish than the ones in his own neighbourhood and some dreadfully uncared for. As Calem wonders if he is lost, he suddenly comes across a large metal gate taller than two men, on the other side of it are the overgrown greens of a lush garden, an oasis of nature amongst the city’s stones.

And in the depths of the flora on this clear Lumiosian night sits a girl with golden hair amongst the daisies and lilies and violets. Her shape is cloaked in a spotless white dress and protecting her from the chill of the night is a large woolen coat that looks a few sizes too big for her.

Shauna’s words prove to be true.

The knot in Calem’s stomach gets bigger.

…

…

…

(for it isn’t a dream, not a dream after all)

…

…

…

In the garden between buildings are vines that cling to the sides of the apartments and flowers of many colours (Serena fancies the red ones the most). In the center of the flora is a bench made of stone, a place often occupied by the tenants of the connected buildings. But at night it is empty, leaving Serena to enjoy all the space to herself. She sits on the bench with her book in her lap, alternating between reading some of Kalos’s folklore or staring up at the twinkling stars.

There is also a bird bath near the bench, something meant for the Fletchling that visit the garden during the day, but is often used by Serena’s faithful Froakie for a midnight soak. As Serena reads in peace, she can hear the sound of her companion splashing around. She looks up to see Froakie clinging to the rim of the bird bath, happily basking in the water and giving her a smile.

“I guess the water needed changing anyway,” she says, feeling joyful like a fool. She gestures for her beloved partner to come to her and Froakie obeys, hopping off the bath and skittering over. The creature climbs up her nightgown and perches itself on her shoulder, as if to read along with her.

With a grin, she playfully strokes her Froakie’s chin. In her mind she cherishes moments like this, times where she could feel close to someone who knows her for who she is. Not to say that Uncle Gus doesn’t know her at all — he knows as much as any good guardian would. But there’s some kind of unspoken understanding between her and Froakie, an acknowledgement of her unmasked self — a self that dislikes needlepoint and dreams of adventures beyond her own existence.

Sometimes the way Uncle Gus looks at her makes Serena think that he still sees her as the helpless little girl he had met on a winter’s night. Sometimes he tells her that one day she’ll grow up and become a woman, perhaps finding a successful, suitable husband and settling down with a family.

But part of her knows that it’s not her — in her heart all she wants is someone who sees her for who she is, whether it be a friend or a lover. Not even her beloved Uncle seems capable of that.

Suddenly Froakie leaps off Serena’s shoulder. The creature hops across the grass of the garden with startling speed. It takes mere seconds for it to arrive at the gate of the garden, where apparently something is so interesting it warrants startling Serena.

“Froakie!” Serena yells. She closes the book and drops it on the bench, dashing after her partner with haste. “Froakie! Come back!”

When she gets to the gate, she sees Froakie situated at the bottom of the structure, down there it looks through the metal bars to greet another creature. Said creature is small, roughly a foot tall, and has a brown body and face with pointed ears tipped with green. The creature looks rather familiar to Serena, as memories of her Uncle’s research books start to jog in her memory.

Dumbfounded, she says, “It can’t be, is that-”

“Chespin!”

Startled, Serena looks up and sees someone running towards the gate of the garden. His features are illuminated by the lights of the street lamps, proving him to be a sharp set of eyes upon a youthfully charming face and a head of dark hair pushed back and barely combed. Despite the elegance of his features, he looks just about her age and stands just a bit above her. He dons a blue coat with signs of wear over a corduroy vest that has seen better days.

The young man looks at her and he looks just as stunned as she is. The mere look of the awe in his eyes is enough to make Serena remember. There’s just something about the boy behind the gate that looks familiar.

Serena grasps onto the metal bars as if to steady herself in the storm she’s become trapped in, and then he speaks —

“Bonsoir, uh… forgive me, dear Mademoiselle,” he greets, giving a polite — albeit nervous — bow. He then lets out an unsteady laugh, as if to alleviate the situation. Had he a hat on then perhaps he would have tipped it towards her. “I cannot control the little one sometimes.”

“It’s not a problem,” Serena tells him. Her grip on the bar tightens, but she doesn’t know why.

The two then look down to the pair of creatures — Chespin and Froakie appear to be getting along fine. Judging by the little croaks and squeaks the two make at one another, it is fair to say that they are getting along.

“Curious,” Serena says.

The stranger looks up. “What is?”

“They seem to know each other,” she explains, meeting her eyes with his. “Or they just get along well.”

The stranger nods in agreement. “Connections can work like that sometimes.”

Serena’s grip on the bar of the gates loosens, as with every word she can feel her initial fear fading away. “Forgive me, Monsieur, but what is your name?” she decides to ask, feeling somewhat brave in such a moment.

“I am called Calem,” says the stranger. “And you are?”

“Serena.” Subconsciously, she moves just a bit closer to the gap in the gate, her forehead barely an inch away from the iron rods. “You…” she starts, but finds herself stuttering. How unladylike of her. “You… uh, you look rather familiar.”

“I would say the same to you,” Calem says. Suddenly he reaches into the pocket of his coat, digging around for moments before pulling out a white handkerchief. “Perhaps you will recognize this.”

Serena is surprised, but smiles widely. “Uncle’s handkerchief!” she exclaims. “He’s been looking for that for weeks!”

Calem seems caught off guard. “Uncle?”

“I borrowed it for a day,” she explains fervently. “It broke my heart to tell him I had lost it — I’m glad that it managed to turn up somewhere.” Moments pass and her mind finally slows down enough to put the pieces of the puzzle together. “That means…” she begins, then a look of enlightenment takes her eyes. “You were the boy I saw at Jaune Plaza! That’s where I know you from!”

Calem nods his head, a small simper forming onto his pretty face. “It is good to hear that you remember.” He holds the white handkerchief up and through the gap in the gate. “I suppose you would want this back.”

A rush of hesitance surges through Serena’s every nerve, an abrupt sensation that surprises even her. Coyly, she eyes the handkerchief, then looks up to meet his gaze. She reaches over slowly, taking the cloth in her fingers. Their hands graze when they pull away from each other, something that makes Serena’s skin twinge in a way she cannot quite understand.

“Thank you for returning this,” she eventually manages to say. She looks down at the fabric, feeling the soft material in her palm. “Gentlemen like you are a difficult find nowadays.”

Calem looks amused, then lets out another laugh. “How brave of you to think that I am anything near a gentleman.”

“You are much too modest,” Serena remarks, unconvinced of his words.

After another honest chuckle, Calem absentmindedly places his hand on the bars of the gate. When his fingers graze hers, both Serena and Calem pull away from the cold iron. It is a quick event that is over as soon as it starts and Calem quickly thrusts his tingling hand into his coat pocket. Serena avoids his gaze, her hand touching the gate again but only to slide down to where the metal is forged into a spade-like shape.

“Perhaps I should go,” Calem suggests. His voice is shaky, nervous.

When Serena finally glances up, she is quick to see that he is avoiding her gaze too. A part of her begins to wish that she had not looked away.

He speaks once more, “Have a nice night, Mademoiselle.” With his last word stated, he turns around and begins walking away, the soles of his boots tapping against the street and his loyal Chespin following at his feet.

Serena is quick to call out —

“Wait!”

Calem halts his strides and turns to eye the girl behind the gate.

Serena is uneasy as she speaks, every nervous pang in her body fighting to get the better of her. “You came all this way to return my Uncle’s handkerchief,” she starts, fighting back her own fears. “There has to be something I can do to repay you. Would you perhaps… like to come up for some tea?” she suggests. Then restlessly, she begins to retract her offer very slightly. “If you drink tea, that is.”

Calem’s unease fades into a smile. “I drink tea,” he answers, relieved. He turns around to face her. Even in the dark of night, the look on his face is astronomically bright, something that highlights his angelic face even more. “Something warm does sound heavenly right now.”

So inside the guest bedroom of Riley’s cottage, Dawn sits on the cot with her Pokegear in her hand. The screen shows Lucas Diamant in his natural environment, between the walls of the Rowan Laboratory in northwest Sandgem. Presumably he propped his Pokegear up on something. He’s currently wearing his glasses, something he only ever does in private despite his rampant nearsightedness. He’s sitting in the kitchen of the lab, on the table is a steaming cup of hot chocolate and a mountain of paperwork.

Despite his hefty workload, Lucas listens to her. He finds that the sound of the voice helps him focus when he has to organize field notes and other various papers.

So as Lucas works, Dawn relaxes on the cot and tells Lucas about her day, during which she had learned more about the lifeforce of every living thing than she ever thought she could.

Aura training was a lot more difficult than Dawn expected. The folklore she had read as a child only told the world that Aura Guardians were capable of things that seemed out of one’s wildest dreams. However, they were quite rare in the modern day as the art of Aura Guardianship was becoming lost to time. No text had mentioned that actually learning how to sense and control Aura involved many many hours of constant meditation.

Dawn explains that the first four hours of her Aura training involved Riley helping her meditate. She had laid down on the cool ground of Iron Island’s exterior with Riley monitoring her, focusing on nothing but the sound of the waves and the cool Sinnohan air. It was meant to help her understand her senses and how to use Aura to map out the world around her — giving her a radar-like ability to see farther than her eyes could see. According to Riley, it was one of the first things upcoming Aura Guardians would learn.

After that, Dawn was able to take her Pokemon out and begin working with her Togekiss. It seemed that Aura Guardians were better off training alongside ‘Mons who could use Aura Sphere.

When Dawn gets tired of recounting her exhausting day to Lucas, she changes the topic slightly. She instead tells him of all the newer tales Riley had told her about the life force of everything living thing. She had borrowed an old book from his shelf and had perused it ever since retiring for the day. She explains to Lucas one interesting tale of a past Aura Guardian who learned to manipulate the aura of other people and Pokemon so well that he could essentially control them, apparently once taking over the Aura of his Blastoise and literally slipping into the skin of a different Pokemon. Dawn herself doubted that the tale was actually true, but found it amusing that the end of the tale mentioned the poor fellow vomiting after the experience.

Throughout her tales, Lucas does his duties as Professor Rowan’s youngest aide. His inexperience essentially destined him to organize papers, fetch coffee, and keep Rowan’s fridge stocked with sweets, but Lucas takes it in stride. He manages to take in every word of Dawn’s story, even if his hands are busy shoving papers into folders.

When she feels that she’s bored him with tales of aura for too long, Dawn asks Lucas how his day was. With a chuckle, he admits that his wasn’t as interesting as hers. The most peculiar thing that happened was his Shinx learning how to undo the zipper of his backpack and eating all of his snacks. The little glutton had managed to finish off a whole bag of Sandgem’s Signature Saltwater Taffy, proving to have an immense fondness for the candies just like its trainer.

The story makes Dawn laugh, the first time she had done so since retiring for the night. Lucas on the other hand rolls his eyes and says that now he’s a whole can of candy short.

It’s strange that she misses him now. In fact, it feels illogical. Two days ago they were hanging out within the walls of her villa, drinking tea and enjoying what the resort area had to offer. It was not long ago that Lucas had been sleeping next to her with his arms draped around her form, a part of their routined they eased into the second they decided to be together.

And now they were here — not even a region apart yet somehow missing each other enough to talk into the late hours of the night.

She knows she’ll see him again soon. Once her weekend of Aura Guardian training is over and she’s back at her Champion duties, she’ll be seeing Lucas whenever they can find the time.

Their conversation drags on and they speak of more random things, such as the new Diantha Dubois movie or the next charity event Dawn will be attending. The idea of asking Lucas to come with to the next outing dances in her head, but despite their closeness Dawn knows that Lucas values his privacy. She also knows that the simple Sandgemian lab assistant might be bombarded with paparazzi for having the audacity to be associated with her. She’s quite sure of it, as she’s been dealing with the press since she was thirteen years old.

Eventually, the young couple decide to call it a night — Dawn has a full day of Aura training ahead of her and Lucas has all the duties of an overworked assistant piled onto his plate. Before they go, Dawn suggests that they visit Seabreak Path soon — she could really use a day away from the world for once. Plus, she’s been wanting to show him the path for a while. With a smile, Lucas says that he looks forward to it.

Currently, the little troublemaker keeps her eyes closed and rests her head on her mother’s shoulder. May takes it in stride as she heads straight to the coffee maker, grabbing a mug and pouring her a rather large amount of caffeinated bean juice.

“She’s finally asleep,” May says, not taking her eyes off her coffee mug. She then grasps it by the handle and walks over to the kitchen table, gently handing her daughter off to Brendan with the utmost care.

Brendan grins as he takes baby Melody into his arms. “Hey there, tater tot,” he greets, letting his pet name for his daughter ring out with ease. “Wow, one lullaby from Mama and you’re out like a Snorlax.”

May settles into the seat in front of them, blowing some steam off her coffee. “Maybe it’s genetic, my mother used to sing the same song to me.” She takes a short sip of her brew, “Could you put her down? I have a web meeting in like, ten minutes.”

Brendan nods and lets the infant rest on his shoulder, handling her with the utmost care. Melody is currently at the stage of life where she cannot do much except for drool, babble, and roll over — she’s looking less like a newborn every day but taking on the appearance of a pudgy potato with arms, making Brendan’s nickname for her rather fitting.

“Will do,” he promises. As the little one snuggles against him, he reaches for his coffee once more. “Are you meeting with the Interdimensional Research Lab again?”

May nods and takes another quick sip. “Yes, Professor Burnet is still interested in working with me.”

“Hey, best case scenario you get a better paycheque, right?” Brendan proposes, giving her a goading shrug.

May doesn’t appear too excited as she shakes her head. “I don’t know, how much does an interdimensional xenobiologist earn after taxes?”

Brendan thinks for a hot second, then proceeds to blurt out the first answer he has: “You might need to ask Burnet about that.”

With a chuckle, May rolls her eyes. She takes another sip of her coffee before standing up. She takes a few steps towards her husband and child, then places a kiss on Melody’s forehead. “Sleep tight, Mel,” she says. Then she places a quick peck on her husband’s lips. “See you later, Bren.”

And with that she’s gone, having left the kitchen to disappear into her study once more. Technically speaking, the room started its life as the loft’s guest bedroom, only turning into her home laboratory once Brendan realized that it was better suited for that purpose. So far May’s experiments have yet to burn the place down, so all is fair in love and xenobiology.

Now alone, Brendan lets himself enjoy a few more sips of his coffee, his daughter sleeping like a stone as he does so. Soon he stands up and leaves the kitchen as well, walking through the hallway and up the stairs to Melody’s nursery. He enters a room painted with soft pastel blues reminiscent of the Hoennese sea. He walks past the various toys on the floor and brings little Melody to the crib in the corner.

With the most gentle touch, he places Melody down on the soft mattress, where she sleeps surrounded by soft blankets and a doll made to look like a little Trapinch.

With a grin on his face, Brendan gives her head a gentle pat and turns on the baby monitor.

She claimed to be working on an EP and wanted a lower male voice for her sound, presumably someone who could hit the notes she couldn’t. When she told him this over text, Jean had been very tempted to snarkily reply “Oh, did every other baritone in the city die?”

To say that Jean admired her was a bit of an understatement. He first learned about her in his music school days, when at a party he saw his classmates drooling over some viral clips of a prodigal voice student in Toronto rearranging the standards they loved so much. Back then, her claim to fame were videos in her dorm room where she would enhance the sounds of Ellington and Evans with microtones, either detuning her synths to play in the notes between notes or adding multiple layers of her own voice. When she would sing, she would get lost in her own sound, giving herself into the rhythm and almost disappearing entirely. It was an incredible feat to witness, especially from a first year student doing it in her spare time. She always wore a red scarf when she performed, even if it was to a camera in her room, and it soon became a staple of her musical persona.

While Jean pursued his own academia in Montreal, he occasionally kept tabs on the incredible vocalist in Toronto, always taking a moment to listen to her work whenever he perused social media. He left likes here and there, knowing it probably didn’t mean much when he was just one of thousands.

He caught himself up on her story every once in a while — she had evidently been swept into a touring gig the second she graduated music school, having been asked to perform with a group of other esteemed Canadian jazz musicians to share their unique sound around Europe. Perhaps someone had witnessed her perform in a showcase or even seen her rearrangements on Youtube. Either way, she had hopped across the pond and spent 18 months performing in her own corner of the sky. The tour had ended recently, leaving her back in the west coast with new experiences under her belt.

Of course, Jean had his own life and career to focus on. After things like graduation, moving to Vancouver, and participating in a few failed bands, he was now in the same city as her and she was asking him to write songs. Apparently she thought the sound of his voice bearable. Somehow it felt like a cross between a dream come true and an absolute nightmare.

…

…

…

Jean offers his own apartment as a workplace. With his roommate busy with rehearsals and gigs, it’s fair to say that they’ll have the place to themselves until about 3 in the morning. He doesn’t have too much gear with him, just about 3 guitars and 1 bass, which in the guitar world is considered minimalism. Fortunately he has enough of a recording set-up to create demos and he knows that Porco won’t mind if he borrows a synthesizer or two.

In the days leading up to their songwriting session, Jean finds himself feeling more nervous than usual. In the past, Mikasa Ackerman was just the girl in a dorm giving her own take on Mariah Carey songs, now she was the fellow musician who decided to take a chance on Jean’s untrained baritone and wispy falsetto. He finds that his ability to focus flickers here and there — he loses himself in his work as per usual, but his morning jogs and daily chores are plagues with fears of failure. He even gets dangerously close to actually cutting himself while shaving.

At several points, he has to remind himself that the worst thing that can come out of a songwriting session are a handful of shitty demos, not the apocalypse. No one dies when you hit the wrong note or play a little off-key. Most of the time, that os.

Now if only Jean can completely convince himself of that.

…

…

…

Mikasa arrives fifteen minutes early and catches Jean off guard. He hastily rushes towards the door, his heart beating so hard that it dares to leap out of his ribcage.

When he opens it, he sees Mikasa Ackerman standing in the hallway of his apartment. She has a messenger bag slung over his torso and a pair of white wired headphones plugged into her ears. She looks rather well rested for the afternoon, yet that stoic look in her eyes remains. Her jet black hair is cut short and hangs it neat strands over her pretty face. Jean soon realizes that he has yet to see her in the scarlet scarf she had worn back in her dorm room days.

“Hey,” Jean greets, surprised. “You’re early.”

Mikasa nods and takes out one of her earbuds. She eyes Jean in a way that looks intrigued. “You shaved.”

Jean blinks, then raises his hand to touch his chin. “Oh, uh… yeah,” he says, nervous. Miraculously, he had forgotten about almost slitting his throat in the bathroom that morning.

“I guess I got tired of the chin strap look,” he tells her. “You like?”

Mikasa narrows her eyes at his face and appears to be thinking, then replies, “It suits you.”

Jean grins and wonders if the heat in his face is just coming from his apartment.

“Thanks. Why don’t you come in?”

…

…

…

Jean had expected a musician of Mikasa’s calibre to bring some top-of-the-line music producing equipment. But instead, all she has on her are the old earbuds that probably came with her phone and a laptop that’s about six years old.

As Mikasa gets herself settled in the living room, Jean makes tea and nervously wonders if his rather blatant Quebecois accent sticks out like a sore thumb when he sings. When he comes into the living room, he finds her sitting on the couch, her laptop on the coffee table as she opens her digital audio workspace.

“Ah, so you’re a Pro Tools gal,” he says. He sets down two steaming mugs of tea on the table — blueberry for her and green for himself.

“Have been for a while,” she replies. She opens a new project in the software. “What about you?”

“Logic all the way,” he tells her, walking off to his bedroom to grab his guitar. He raises his voice slightly so she can hear him. “Although sometimes if I’m making demos and I’m feeling real lazy, like real real lazy, I’ll use Audacity.”

Jean exits his bedroom with his trusty steel-string acoustic and his music notebook. He returns just in time to see Mikasa giving him a rather quizzical look, then letting out an amused scoff. Of all that he’s seen of her, it may be the closest thing to a smile.

He takes a seat on the recliner across from the couch, the place that’s often occupied by the rear-end of Porco Galliard. He places his notebook on the coffee table and his guitar on his lap, then begins to tune his instrument.

“So… is there anything in particular you’re working on?” Jean asks.

“There’s this one thing,” she starts, focusing on the screen and typing like mad. “I showed it to Sasha last week and she said it sounds like something off the Wii Sports soundtrack.”

Jean lets out a chuckle and Mikasa wastes no time in shooting her a glare.

“What? Wii music slaps,” he defends. “Can I hear it?”

Mikasa doesn’t nod, but silently plugs her earbuds into her laptop. She hands them to Jean and he gives it a listen. Her words ring true, as bouncy beats and bright piano riffs resonate between Jean’s ears. The cheap earbuds do a competent enough job bringing the sounds to life, but he finds the bass to be somewhat lacking.

Once Jean listens through the whole two-minute demo, he looks up and notices Mikasa reading his notebook. He gulps nervously and pulls out the earbuds.

“Whoa, what are you doing?”

Mikasa ignores his main question. “There’s a lot of random stuff in here.”

“Yeah, like most of my theory homework,” he explains. He can see into the book just long enough to notice an array of random notes and chords scribbled onto the staff. “I used to jot down any riffs that I came up with.”

Mikasa continues to flip through the notebook, passing by old random licks and a diagram of the circle of fifths. “And lyrics too, apparently,” she says once she comes across a paragraph of words scribbled onto the page.

When Jean sees the title of the song written on the top of the paper, he immediately feels his stomach clench in embarrassment.“Oh, don’t read those, they’re all-”

“Vancouver Girl?” a confused Mikasa asks, not taking her eyes off the page. Soon enough, she glances up and meets his gaze.

Jean is pretty sure that he’s beet red, but he swallows hard and tries not to stammer while answering.

“I uh… I wrote that a long time ago,” he explains. “A long, long time. Like, back in my second term of uni. I was uh… going through a pretty bad break up at the time, and my ex who dumped me was from Vancouver. That should explain… everything.”

Mikasa seems to me in the middle of a thought, then nods at Jean with a kind of softness in her eyes that she had yet to show him. She gives the lyrics another read, this time with an air of caution in her gaze.

Jean sighs and begins absentmindedly strumming on his guitar, fingering chords and plucking strings to play a rather plain, uninspired chord progression found in 90% of pop songs. He remembers some of his old lyrics, some are angsty and others are so abstract that they may as well have been incoherent babbling.

As Mikasa reads the lyrics, he finds himself telling more and more of the story behind the song.

A few years ago he dated a girl named Annie for a few months, she was a term ahead of him and dedicated her life to playing the violin. Things had not been too serious, but there were times back then where he thought he loved her. When she got the opportunity to study in New York, she evidently forgot to tell him before hopping on a plane and crossing the border. Jean supposed that maybe she just didn’t agree with the Montreal weather, or maybe she just didn’t like what their current school had to offer — either way, the day that Jean came upon her dorm to discover that she had packed her things and left was enough to make him shut down for an hour.

Break-ups were never taught in school. Even when surrounded by other artists and being staunchly invested in a life of expressing himself, Jean hadn’t the faintest idea on how to carry himself through his life. His closer friends told him that it was okay to fall apart during a break-up, whereas his less closer ones told him to be relieved, since at least Annie hadn’t cheated on him. The one silver lining to the situation was Jean realizing that maybe he needed new friends. For the next two weeks, he slogged through his classes like a zombie and ran solely on coffee. ‘Vancouver Girl’ was written in a haze on a night where he couldn’t sleep, the words on the page being the one thing between him and a mental breakdown.

When he finishes the tale, Mikasa finally puts the notebook down. She doesn’t look him in the eye as she refocuses on her laptop, typing like mad.

Jean starts to worry — perhaps he had upset her or just weirded her out with his old story, although his feelings towards Annie were less sour and more bittersweet. He had moved on, but the evidence of the fallout was written on the page.

Looking over, he sees Mikasa opening up a tool in her digital audio workspace that shows a piano on the screen. Using the buttons on the keyboard, she plays a short tune, fingering a chord in her left hand and a melody with her right. It’s a far cry from the 88 keys of a piano, but nonetheless she creates a little tune.

“What do you think about this?” she asks him. “For the lyric: elusive girl, fade from my eyes, on the west, of the world.”

Jean blinks. Not once had he considered actually turning the ramblings of a heart broken music student into a song. He certainly never thought of himself as a lyricist, that’s for sure.

Despite his reservations, Jean finds himself nodding along. On her laptop, Mikasa opens her composing software. Without even referencing the digital keys, she jots down the notes of the melody and the chords onto the staff. Perhaps the rumours regarding Mikasa Ackerman having perfect pitch were true.

From there on, they manage to get working. Jean gives his old lyrics another pass, cutting out the more melodramatic words and replacing them with things that were much less cringey for his taste. Mikasa diligently stays at her laptop, continuing to add more notes to the staff. At some points, Jean strums the chords on his guitar and does his best attempt at singing, his mellow baritone resonating between the apartment walls. Mikasa does so as well, her soulful soprano melding surprisingly well with his voice.

She arranges the vocals in the best way she can, wanting to give Jean a try at actually singing lead instead of having him sing harmony. The notion sends a nervous pang through his stomach, as even at this point Jean has yet to believe that his voice is good enough for her. But like a good sport, he gives it his all.

…

…

…

Suddenly three hours pass, yet the two musicians in the apartment haven’t slowed down once. When they sing, their voices move like the steps of a dance. Sometimes Mikasa slips into her siren-like head voice and Jean follows with his own falsetto.

Mikasa had been surprised to learn that he was a choir boy in his youth — his mom had signed him up with a boy’s choir to keep him out of trouble and he had managed to rack up some experience as a boy soprano. He stopped doing choir once (in his words) his balls dropped and found that guitar suited him better.

They work on other songs too, Jean digging up old lyrics he wrote to mix with random experimental melodies Mikasa has hidden inside the depths of her hard drive. They even managed to match some words to Mikasa’s previous ‘Wii Sports’ demo.

After creating a good enough arrangement, Jean and Mikasa record a quick demo of ‘Vancouver Girl’ using an old USB mic Jean keeps around for when he’s lazy. The current product proves itself to be more of a folksy nature, but neither of the songwriters are complaining. Mikasa has Jean’s steel string acoustic guitar on her lap while he himself uses his trusty old Telecaster, a gift from his mother that he used all the way through music school. Mikasa strums the chords and Jean plays a countermelody, a soothing stream of notes that dance around the chords like an elusive fox.

After a few takes, Mikasa hits a button on her laptop and stops the recording. There’s a soft smile on her face as she does so.

“Send me one of those demos,” Jean asks. He turns off his amp and settles back on the armchair, feeling satisfied after a successful songwriting session.

“I can do it now,” Mikasa replies. She leans towards her laptop, typing on the keys as she saves the audio file and prepares to export it. As she waits for things to process, she strums Jean’s guitar again. “I can bring a MIDI controller next time.”

“Why so?”

“Because I suck at guitar.”

Jean stares at her in disbelief. “What? No way, you did great today.”

“I did okay,” she clarifies. She looks down at the instrument on her lap. “I keep telling myself to take time to learn guitar, but I keep forgetting to actually go out and buy one.”

Jean hums, then begins to think. After a few moments, an idea slips into his head. “What do you got planned after this?”

Mikasa is quick to shrug. “Nothing, why?”

Jean stands up and puts his guitar down. “I was gonna swing by the guitar store after this, wanna tag along? Maybe check some things out?

There is a beat of silence after Jean’s question. She looks at him with a mildly befuddled look in her gaze, but suddenly she nods her head.

…

…

…

The walk to the guitar store takes about ten minutes. During that time, Mikasa gives Jean one of her earbuds and lets him listen to the music that has been inspiring her of late. Her playlist is filled to the brim with ambient dream pop, lots of Sigur Ros and Cocteau Twins. The occasional R&B track is in there as well, as Mikasa makes it clear that Mariah and Whitney and Brandy are key inspirations of hers.

When All Star suddenly appears on her playlist, a mortified Mikasa is quick to change the song and Jean has to stifle his laughter when he realizes that jazz virtuoso Mikasa Ackerman is a Smash Mouth fan.

When they arrive at the store, it’s an hour to closing, but it leaves enough time for Mikasa to get familiarized with the guitar section and for Jean to grab some new strings… then proceed to get distracted by the plethora of gear decorating the store’s walls. The elaborate hollow-body guitars seem to be calling for him the most, as the warmth and thickness of the humbucker sound had been tempting him for a long long time.

In order to not blow a chunk of his rent on an instrument, Jean pulls himself away from the glorious rack of beautiful pristine electric guitars and tries to find Mikasa.

He finds her sitting in the acoustic section with a brand new steel string in her arms. The way she works her fingers around the strings is surprisingly hesitant considering the calibre of musicianship that she’s currently at. She plucks this time, letting more simplistic tunes ring out from the instrument. Jean grabs another guitar off the rack — a fancy-looking archtop that he could probably never afford — and plays along with her, flexing his old improvisational skills to go along with her tunes.

As Mikasa goes from instrument to instrument, trying out guitars of all sizes. When she gravitates to more of the mid-priced instruments, Jean can’t help but wonder just how deep her pockets are. Perhaps those touring checks were rather generous.

She ends up deciding on a parlour-sized guitar, something a little smaller but not lacking in tone. It’s a Takamine with a body made of sapele wood. She doesn’t take on the kid-in-a-candy-store mentality that afflicts many when stepping into a guitar store, instead considering what she actually needs to benefit her sound.

As Mikasa waits for some assistance from a store employee, she finds Jean in the midst of a section full of smaller instruments. In his arms is a baritone ukulele, which he plays with gentle strums. When he turns to see her, his hazel eyes meet with hers.

“Hey, doing well?” he asks, grinning.

“Some guy is ringing me up,” she explains. She then eyes the instrument in his grasp. “Do you like that?”

“Yeah, it’s nice,” Jean agrees. “I could go all Jacob Collier with this thing.”

Mikasa nods, then looks at the price tag. “How much is it?”

Jean shrugs. “It’s in the budget, but y’know, I don’t really need it, so-”

Mikasa immediately takes the ukulele out of his hands and walks to the checkout counter. Jean can only stand there in surprise, blinking at the events transpiring in front of him.

“Hey, Ackerman!” he calls, walking behind her. “What are you doing?”

“Consider it a gift,” she tells him, the ukulele still in her grasp. “If you’re okay with it, that is.”

Jean’s surprise doesn’t fade away, but somehow without thinking he nods back, giving her a solid enough confirmation to go to the counter at the front and reach for her wallet.

“Who am I to refuse a gift?” he says with just the slightest bit of snark.

“If we use it in a song, then it’s technically a business investment,” Mikasa points out.

Amused, Jean grins and taps his temple with his index finger. “Ahhh, you’re thinking ahead, smart.”

When Mikasa looks back at him, she manages a small, slightly shy smile before pulling her eyes away and focusing on the employee ringing her up.

Somehow, Mikasa Ackerman is still full of surprises.

…

…

…

The world is dark when they leave the store, yet there is no doubt that the city around them is alive. Cars on the street move swiftly as Jean and Mikasa stroll down the sidewalk, a guitar on her back and a ukulele case hanging off his shoulders. From then there on as their shoes tap against concrete, the conversation flows with ease.

“I better get home,” Mikasa starts.

Jean walks with his hands in the pockets of his jacket. “Where’s that?”

“North Van.”

“Oh, really?” he replies, an eyebrow raised. “Damn, those touring checks must be nice.”

“That’s one way to put it,” Mikasa says, looking down with an air of dreariness in her eyes. “Ever since the tour ended, my Aunt Kiyomi has been letting me stay at her place. She’s travelling right now, so it’s basically house sitting.”

The two find themselves at a crosswalk when Jean asks, “What’s she been doing?”

“She’s a piano teacher, she goes around giving lectures and promoting new musicians,” Mikasa explains like it’s the back of her hand. “She should be in London right now.”

She digs around her pocket and pulls out her phone. She pulls up an old picture of her and her Aunt Kiyomi standing in front of the Vancouver Public Library, an apparent selfie instigated by the older woman herself. Mikasa appears to be younger, sporting a rather gentle smile on her face. She looks no older than sixteen.

“My parents died when I was nine,” Mikasa explains. “She lived in Sapporo, but let me live with a foster family for a while. She kept contact with me constantly.”

“You didn’t wanna live with her?” Jean wonders out loud.

Mikasa is quick to shake her head. “I wanted to, but she figured that forcing a traumatized nine-year-old to learn a whole new language and a whole new culture would… not end well.” Her words are somewhat blunt. “Besides, I like my foster family.”

As they walk, Mikasa shows him a few more photos, such as her and Kiyomi sitting in front of a piano, one of them on the University of Toronto’s campus, and one of the two fawning over a rather cute husky puppy. In the old memories she’s still wearing the red scarf that Jean just can’t get out of his mind.

“I owe her a lot,” Mikasa adds as she puts her phone away. “She’s the one who helped me get into music school.”

Jean can’t help but blurt out the first question on his mind. “Did she help you get that touring gig?”

There is a beat as the two begin to walk across the street, cars moving with the current flow of traffic.

Soon enough, she replies in a dry tone not dissimilar to his own.

“Sometimes nepotism helps.”

Somehow it brings an entertained smirk onto Jean’s face.

The two walk some more, passing by other citydwellers — some are running to bars and clubs on a weeknight, others are just trying to get home after a long day. It’s less like a sea of people and more like a stream before it trickles into a river, an echo of what the sidewalk is like during the peak of rush hour.

“Can I ask you something?” Jean brings up somewhat randomly.

Mikasa says nothing, but gives him a curious and inviting look that appears to be a yes.

“I used to watch your old youtube covers back in music school,” Jean starts off. “I remember you wearing this old red scarf in every video. What happened to it? Did it like… fall apart or something?”

Mikasa seems caught off guard, like a layer of herself had been suddenly taken down. There’s a tinge of embarrassment to her befuddled expression, so much so that she has to look down again to collect herself.

“Oh, that,” she says. She reaches for her neck as if to touch the garment that’s no longer there. “The scarf, it was…. It was a gift from uh… a friend. It’s a long story.”

Jean feels that she hasn’t given the complete answer, but he knows better than to pry more. So instead, he nods his head.

“I see.”

“I might write a song about it,” Mikasa says in a demure tone, although there’s a good chance that she’s joking. “Then you’ll find out.”

Jean can’t help but smirk. “Ever the mysterious one, aren’t you, Ackerman?”

For the first time of the day, Mikasa meets a smile of Jean’s with one of her own, eye contact and all. “It’s part of my charm.”

In no time, the two arrive at one of the city’s many skytrain stations. It feels like a ghost town at this hour of the night.

“This is me,” Mikasa tells him. She continues to look Jean in the eye, deep brown meeting with hazel. “We can meet up again to work on more songs, what are you doing in two weeks?”

Jean shrugs, trying to run through his schedule in the span of a second. “I can do Thursday,” he answers. “Then I’m off to Tofino for the weekend, I got a wedding gig. You know how it is.”

Mikasa nods in understanding. Most musicians could understand the life of a wedding band member, an existence that involved trekking out to random locations for a weekend but bringing home a decent paycheque.

“Thursday works,” she says. “Today was… nice.”

Jean fights the urge to blush like a lovestruck schoolboy and gives her an honest smile. “I hope it was. It’d suck if we ended up making shit, y’know?”

Mikasa takes a step forward, then abruptly stops, obviously hesitating.

“Uh…” she stammers out, avoiding eye contact again.

A confused Jean can only stand there, but soon Mikasa steps forward again, pulling him into a hug and wrapping her arms around his shoulders. Her limbs feel awfully stiff and Jean wonders if she does this often, but hugs her back nonetheless.

“See you later,” she says, pressing a sudden kiss to his cheek before pulling away.

Jean’s confusion persists as he keeps his eyes on her. He begins to worry that he had done something wrong as he watches her walk towards the entrance to the skytrain station, swiping her transit pass against the automated gate and stepping into the building. In seconds, she’s gone from his sight, having disappeared into the flow of the city.

Unsure what to think, Jean walks home with a sense of bleakness digging at his heart and a brand new ukulele hanging off his back. He returns to an empty apartment, not questioning whether Porco is still working or living it up at some kind of afterparty. He makes himself a quick dinner of leftover pad thai, then takes a long-needed shower, all while trying to ignore thoughts of the day behind him.