Distance over Time | Gladion & Lillie
gildinglillies:
Lillie bit her lip as Gladion mentioned the mutual hatred between him and their mother. She had hoped that the two of them would reconcile at least somewhat over the years, but she hadn’t actually checked up on the state of their relationship. From Gladion’s tone, it was obviously still strained. As much as the comment stung, she refrained from responding directly. She needed to focus on trying to rebuild her own relationship with Gladion before worrying too much about how well he got along with Lusamine.
“My friends are fine. In fact, I just visited them recently,” she said, tone defensive. Gladion didn’t seem to get along very well with her friends, for reasons she never fully understood, but he didn’t have to go so far as to assume that they would do something to hurt her. Still, she felt guilty admitting that she visited them more often than him, as if she were confirming his statement that they deserved her attention more, when that wasn’t the case at all. Of course Gladion deserved to be visited, he was still her family. Just because he’d left her at Aether Paradise didn’t erase all the time he had spent watching out for her. Did he think that she didn’t remember the time when they were each other’s best, practically only, friends?
“I’m not leaving!” She actually stamped her foot on the last word, unable to find another outlet for her frustration. Maybe she was acting a bit childish, but so was Gladion with his offer to refund her. It wasn’t as if she had traveled to Aether Paradise on a business venture, and he should know that they both had enough money set aside from the family funds that reimbursing a ferry trip back to the islands was an empty gesture. And maybe being around Gladion reminded her of being a child, when such outbursts were more common.
She took a moment to calm herself, face slightly flushed from embarrassment, before responding to his last comment. “I’ve been working on the Kanto gym challenge,” she said, a little stiffly. She was somewhat embarrassed that the challenge was taking her so long, since many kids younger than her were able to complete it in months, not years. But she tried not to be too hard on herself in that regard, and at least her and her team were continuing to grow stronger over time.
“And how has your presidency been?” she asked. Apparently Gladion at least liked the position enough that he didn’t want to give it up to Lusamine, although Lillie wasn’t sure how much of that was due to genuinely liking the work versus the apparent hostility he had towards Lusamine. She hoped that he found his work at least somewhat enjoyable.
Gladion was quick to pick up on Lillie’s defensive tone, and he couldn’t exactly blame her for it, considering he’d practically insulted her friends to her face, especially since he hardly made an effort to get along with them before making his judgments on whether they’d hurt her. The words stung a bit, too, and didn’t do much else than prove his point, which he’d normally be quite pleased about, but with a subject such as the current one, he just felt hurt. Instead of letting it show, though, he simply ignored it, since no matter what he could say, it didn’t feel right, and it was best not to make things more tense than they already were.
Gladion’s eyes widened a bit at the stamped foot, but they soon fell back down, giving his sister a bemused look, “Do you have to throw a tantrum in order to prove your point? You’re almost an adult now, so you’d best act like one.” He chided, and while it wasn’t his place, she was barely younger than him, and even then, if he wanted her to act like an adult, he shouldn’t be scolding her like a child. Yet, somehow it also felt like it was his place to do so, maybe something carried on from childhood, since he had a tendency to try and take over that job from time to time. Besides, he knew that she had the funds to take herself elsewhere, his offer was so that she wouldn’t have to, it just felt like something he was supposed to do, which… he really didn’t know what he should do anymore, especially not with Lillie, so he was trying (what he thought to be) his best. Not that he would ever admit that, but it was the unfortunate truth.
Gladion respected the decision, though, and didn’t insist that she leave. Rather, he just nodded to the chairs in the room. “Then would you like to take a seat?” Hopefully that would be a safe question, but at this point, he didn’t know, and would have to hope that even his attempts at being respectful of decisions wouldn’t be mistaken for rudeness, and forcing people to do things. He hated walking on eggshells like this, and typically would just stomp them to bits rather than trying not to break them, but this was his sister, the one person he could honestly say he loved and cared about, so he couldn’t just kill the relationship. That didn’t change the fact that he was certainly feeling the effects of the lack of practice in actually trying to salvage things now, however, but he just had to hope that eventually things would turn upwards, rather than take a nosedive.
The stiffness probably should’ve surprised him far less than it did. After all, he couldn’t expect the tenseness hanging on them to fall away like dried children’s glue on a rushed art project. At this point, it was more like carpenter’s glue had latched it onto them, and that would be far harder to peel off. Still, he had to try and get it off, somehow, “That’s… not what I expected, but it’ll be good for you, whether you complete it or not. How far along are you?” He asked, out of genuine curiosity. He’d heard the challenge was difficult, and he knew for a fact that it required Pokémon battles, so the fact that his pacifistic sister was doing it came as a bit of a shock, so he wouldn’t be too surprised if she hadn’t even gotten her first badge yet. Maybe it just showed how much she’d changed, though, and how badly they needed to try and get to each other, as hard as it was right now, but Gladion wanted to see just how much Lillie had grew, even if he struggled to properly show it.
The question proposed made Gladion flinch slightly, though. Did he want to lie or outright say that he hated every minute that he had to work? After all, he was only doing this until he found a suitable replacement, and he hadn’t expected that it would take so long to do just that. Taking a breath, he decided to just say his honest opinion, “It’s… not the worst, but it’s something that I hope I won’t have to do for much longer… but I’m prepared to take that if necessary. The last thing I want is for the Foundation to fall back into corrupt hands, and at least this way I can fix some issues I’ve had with it for the longest time.” His gaze momentarily fell to the floor, thinking, before mumbling, “Besides, it’s not like I know what I’m going to do after all this is over, so at least I’m not just wasted life right now.” He shook his head, though. It was probably best not to dwell on that thought.














