Rising Ashes

Tapping filled the silence of the room as Kai drummed a paw against the desk, mind wandering off as he sat there in silence for several long minutes. A part of him regretted coming here if only because of the excessive paperwork he had to assist his new partners in filling out. Lance was directly to his right, his azure tail flicking behind him. He felt a vague sense of camaraderie in not being the only one completely bored out of his mind. Coral was on the other side of Lance, being seemingly the only one who could fake her interest in this stodgy meeting.

“So,” the Gengar’s voice suddenly jolted him to attention, “You’re all fourteen?”

That was the minimum age for being part of an exploration team. Kai snuck a quick glimpse at Lance, who was the only one of them not quite old enough. His tail twitching seemed to pick up speed as he took a deep breath, preparing his tongue for the lie.

“We are.” The Milotic beside him answered easily.

“You are,” He repeated, voice flat, “And you, Dratini? You’re small for a teenager.”

Lance stayed quiet as the Gengar leveled him with a long stare; even he was intimidated by the spooky Guildmaster. “I’m not small.” he mumbled.

“Dratini take a long time to evolve. It’s normal for an adult to still be in their first stage.” Coral supplied. “We have our school records to verify our ages if needed.”

A twinge of anxiety churned in Kai’s stomach at that. They’d made forgeries but he doubted it would hold against much scrutiny.

The other Guildmaster–a vivid green Espeon–cut off whatever his partner was about to say, “Can’t we just get this over with already, Grels? This is taking too long. I don’t care about all of this junk.”

The Gengar’s face made a deadpanned expression aside from his mouth which was twitching into the ghost of what was either a grimace or a smile. “Ransa-”

“What was your name?” Ransa used his psychic to snatch the papers away from the other Guildmaster’s hands and briefly scanned it. “Team Champions? Whatever, sure. Welcome to the Ransgrel guild. Are you three staying in our guild rooms?”

“Finally. Yeah, we are.” Lance’s gruff voice held a hint of relief in it that he was surprised they didn’t catch. “Are we done then?”

Grels was exasperated, brows raised on his stoic face, but he made no protest as his fellow Guildmaster nodded and swung open the office door.

“Hey! Who’s going to show these guys around, huh?” Nobody even flinched as Ransa started shouting, completely unfazed by their Guildmaster’s boisterous, familiar voice. “Oh, come on! You, Myrtle, you’re not doing anything important, right? Thanks!”

The Totodile looked up from her conversation, mouth flapping open a couple times before finally stammering out, “Wait, what?”

Coral slithered over to greet her, a polite smile on her face. “We need someone to show us around the guild. If you’re able?”

“I don’t really…” Myrtle gave her teammate a desperate glance, but the Bayleef just nudged her closer with a mischievous grin. “I, um- I mean, if you- uh- if you’re sure. Yeah, I can… you want me to help?”

Coral’s head tilted a little. “Why would we not?”

“Um-” the Totodile’s eyes darted around the room, searching for something she didn’t find, “I suppose there isn’t any reason you wouldn’t want me to, huh? Sorry, I’m not good at this stuff.”

“Not good at… showing us around the place you live at?” What was this Totodile’s deal? Kai wondered.

A scaly tail lightly whapped against the back of his head and Kai scoffed at Coral’s withering glare. “Hey! What’s the matter with you?”

“That was rude, Kai. You shouldn’t insult the Pokémon that’s being kind enough to help us.”

“That wasn’t an insult! That was a genuine question!” He rubbed the back of his head, pouting.

She hadn’t actually hurt him, but still!

The Totodile snickered before covering her mouth with her claws. “Sorry, uh- I can show you guys around, yeah. I don’t mind.”

Kai grinned. “Sweet, thanks.”

“Now, where should I show you guys first?” Myrtle muttered to herself.

She hadn’t intended to be heard, but Lance’s head poked up behind Coral. “You could start by showing us where my room is.”

“Oh, uh…” she let out a nervous chuckle. “They aren’t, like, separate rooms. Each team gets one room for every three Pokémon. We don’t have enough space for, um- for everyone to get one.”

Lance scowled, grumbling. “Of course. Shouldn’t have expected something better.”

Coral continued to talk with the Totodile. Kai turned to Lance and frowned as he saw clearly the disappointment on his face. He wasn’t sure why it was such a big deal to him, but his proud friend was slouching now and that just wouldn’t do. He took a paw and started poking at Lance’s face, who let out an affronted squawk, batting his arm away with his tail.

“What in holy Arceus’ name are you even doing?” His voice lifted at the end as he broke into a fit of chuckles.

“You don’t want to be roommates with me?” He asked with a grin, determined in his incessantly poking, “With the greatest and most powerful explorer who’ll ever live? You don’t want to be roomies? I’m not that boring, am I?”

“You think you’re all that.” Lance bounded to the side with a laugh as he tried to dodge his paw. “Living with you sounds like my worst nightmare!”

Coral raised her head from her conversation with Myrtle to speak to them. “Are you two ready to go look at our room?”

“Yeah!” They both responded in unison, ceasing their roughhousing to follow after her.

Myrtle took the lead until she stopped in front of one of the empty rooms, making a weak gesture towards it, a shaky smile stretching across her face. “Here it is! We don’t have many empty rooms left, but I tried to find you guys the best one. This one’s slightly bigger than the other rooms because of how this place was built so you’ll have a bit of extra room. And it’s pretty close to the main guild room, so you won’t have to walk too far in the mornings. And- ah- sorry, I’m rambling.”

“Don’t apologize,” Coral assured her, “This is great. Thank you for your help finding us a room.”

The three peered inside to see the space they’d be living in. Moonlight was coming in through the window, illuminating everything in a soft glow. Kai had lost track of time during that dragged out meeting but he hadn’t realized just how late it’d become. Three untouched nests were on the ground several feet away from each other, all roughly the same size. It was the perfect size for an average sized Pokemon. The Quilava could fit inside of it with room to spare, but it might be an issue for Coral, whose tail made her more than twice as large as him.

Myrtle seemed to realize this too, because she straightened up, “Oh! Sorry, don’t worry! I’ll go get some of the spare bedding from the storage room for you.”

Coral leaned down so her face was right next to the Totodile, her gaze soft. “Thank you, but before you do that, I believe there’s more to the tour than just our room, right?”

She nodded, “Right! I still have to show you the Notice Boards. And the dining room and the- uh- oh, do you need to unpack first? Did you leave your luggage outside or something? I’ll go- I can bring it up here for you guys. I’m happy to help in any way I can.”

“Luggage?” Lance’s nose scrunched up a bit, “Why would we bring luggage? Isn’t the guild supposed to provide everything?”

Myrtle froze for a few long moments, caught off guard, “Well, yeah, Ransgrel Guild will provide your necessities, but you don’t have- you didn’t have anything you wanted to bring with you from home?”

“I didn’t have much stuff of my own and I didn’t really care too much about anything.” The Dratini replied.

“When I left my house, I never looked back. Didn’t have a chance to grab anything.” Kai put his paws against his face, tilting his head back and groaning dramatically, “I had to leave behind my Walkman–my baby! And my entire cassette collection. I had a whole shelf of them.”

The reaction was exaggerated, but the thought of his Walkman being left behind did send a pang through his chest. He loved that thing. Music had been his escape from everything, and he’d been proud of his little collection. Sure, it hadn’t been the biggest, but he’d worked hard for every single one of his tapes. Some had been Hatchday presents, but most of them were from old school buddies who found out he’d trade chores for unwanted tapes. There were many fond memories associated with them. To think that they were now just sitting there in his parent’s house–well, he doubted he’d ever see them again.

Lance smirked, getting in his face, “Of course you collected cassette tapes. Bet you had a bunch of emo music that you cried to, thinking it was the most profound thing you’d ever heard in your entire life, right?”

He scoffed, but he couldn’t wipe the grin off his face from his friend’s teasing. “Hey, ouch! You better be careful, or you might wake up with ashes where your wings used to be, buddy.”

“Is that a challenge?”

Coral sighed, “You two can fight with each other all you want after the tour, alright?”

“Fine.” Lance answered in a long, drawn out whine.

“Yeah, alright, I was looking forward to seeing the dining room next anyway.” Kai remarked.

“So was I.” Coral said with a teasing smirk. “Since that means we don’t have to taste your sad attempts at cooking.”

“Amen to that.” Lance laughed, “Talk about turning things to ash.”

The tour didn’t last long after that. Myrtle showed them to the places they needed to know, awkwardly explaining things as she went. A couple Pokemon waved to them or offered brief introductions but nothing too noteworthy happened.

Kai thought it was completely unnecessary to have a tour guide when there only a couple rooms they needed to find, but Coral was hanging onto Myrtle’s every word and he didn’t have the heart to tell either of them that he really didn’t need a five minute explanation that the dining room was where the guild ate or that the giant notice board with jobs listed on it was where they went to find the listed jobs. He hardly listened to a word of it, content to stay in the back and keep messing with Lance.

It took half an hour to be shown around to what totaled to be four rooms if the Guildmaster’s office was to be counted, but eventually the tour ended back at their new room. The Milotic’s nest was still much too small from her so Myrtle did a quick salute and ran off to get more bedding.

“She seems nice.” Coral commented, gaze focused on where the Totodile had just been.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. I’m tired.” Lance flopped down onto one of the nests.

Kai laid down in one of the other nests, fluffing the material up before settling down, curling up comfortably in the soft bedding. The aches of the day seemed to ease as a wave of tiredness washed over him. He was almost asleep when he heard muttering from a couple feet away.

He opened one of his eyes to see what it was. Coral hadn’t moved from the doorway, still awaiting the Totodile’s return. Lance was curled up, facing away, but the voice had definitely been his.

Kai sighed, “What?”

He didn’t budge, not even to face him, “I said, ‘why do we even need separate nests anyway?’ We could combine them into one. We’d have enough room for all of us.”

Kai snorted. “Because you’re tiny.”

Finally, he whirled around, brows pinched together, “I am not tiny!”

Coral hummed. “You are rather small.”

“Am not!”

Lance tried his best to glower at the other two, and moments passed where they all pretended to be taking the argument seriously. Soon, though, laughter escaped the Dratini’s throat and the rest of them broke into a fit of giggles too.

Eventually the sound died down and Lance went back to looking down. “Seriously, though, I mean… could we? I’m not used to sleeping alone.”

“Says the one who acted all disappointed we didn’t get our own separate rooms earlier.” Kai teased.

When Lance didn’t respond with his usual indignation or sarcasm, he went quiet. Seeing the little Dratini wrapped tightly in on himself–Kai was suddenly reminded of how young he was–how young they all were. He pushed himself up to his feet, grabbing an armful of his nesting and dropping it unceremoniously beside Lance’s.

“C’mon, Coral, you joining us?” He asked with a lazy grin as he fell backwards, causing the nest to make a small rustle at the motion.

After a brief minute of deliberation, she used her large tail to push the empty nest over, combining it with theirs. Once it was all together, Coral curled herself around the edge of the nest, circling around the two. Lance let out a small huff before shifting a bit closer to her, allowing himself to relax at the contact.

Growing up in a small household meant that Kai wasn’t used to such closeness–his parents certainly hadn’t been the most affectionate type–yet the other two had no reservations about it. He wondered what it was like to be so comfortable around someone. What was it like to be held by someone and be enveloped by feelings of safety and love?

Hesitantly, he reached a paw towards Lance, but stopped it just above him. They were sharing a nest yet he couldn’t find it in himself to get closer? The three of them were partners now; they all shared one team. However, there was some small, vulnerable part of him that feared any sort of affection. Even this proximity felt suffocating. After a minute of being unable to tear his gaze away from the large tail encircling him, he could feel a heavy weight pressing down on him, his throat tightening.

It’s going to trap him. It’s going to wrap around him. It hurts. It hurts. It’s going to-

He couldn’t handle it–not as well as he believed he could when he first suggested she join them. It was just fine when it was just Lance. There was no reason to feel threatened around a Dratini much smaller than him. That wasn’t to say that he believed Coral would hurt him, but the fear boiling in his veins cared not for rationality.

Kai shot up from his spot in the nest, carefully stepping over the mottled tail. He stood there, crossing his arms together, his foot tap, tap, tapping on the ground with an anxious pace. His ears shot straight up at the clicking of footsteps sounding behind him. Flames flared to life as he twisted to face the intruder.

Myrtle stood in the doorway, head turned high to see over the sizable pile of bedding in her arms. A Bayleef was beside her, vines tied back to secure the stack of nesting material being carried on her back. Kai stilled, leering at the two for a long moment before finally his flames died back down.

Silence filled the room until the Bayleef growled. “Hey, watch where you’re aiming those flames, you-”

“-We brought the nest!” Myrtle cut her off with a strained laugh, “U- Um- so, you- is Coral already- do you still need it?”

He followed the other’s gaze towards the Milotic still curled around Lance, already asleep, “Yeah, I just gave her my nest while we waited for you. But I’ll take it.”

“Oh, um-” Her glance shifted between the both of them a couple times before finally landing back on him, “-Okay.”

“Thanks.” He muttered.

Myrtle handed her armful off to him, which he gently grabbed. Kai walked over to where his nest had been, just a single stride away. Just as he dropped the armful down and was about to approach the other for the pile she had, he was pelted with a faceful of straw.

“Gold!” Myrtle chided in a harsh whisper. “You can’t just do that!”

“Well I did.” The Bayleef sneered, sending one last glare at him before walking off.

“Gold, wait!” Myrtle piped up, taking a few steps in her direction, before turning back briefly to apologize. “I’m so sorry about her.”

Before he had a chance to assure her that it wasn’t her fault, the Totodile had already run off after her partner. He sighed, brushing the straw off of his face. It wouldn’t be a surprise if he found excess strands stuck in his fur well into the next day. The material was scattered all over the floor now, which took him several minutes to rearrange into an acceptable nest.

Kai plopped back down once it was ready again, gazing over at his two teammates cuddling close together one last time before closing his eyes. He needed to be well-rested.

Tomorrow would be Team Champion’s first day as an official Exploration Team.