#sinnohanmythos

Treasure meme

Lillie brought the next box of files up to the desk space she'd cleared off to work. Most labs she had visited had a problem with papers piling up, and Burnet's lab was no exception. Sorting through old files might not have been exactly what she was expecting when she volunteered to help Burnet out with her research, but she was still learning interesting things just skimming through the notes as she organized them.

The next paper was a bit difficult to read. The handwriting was messy, informal, and the page seemed to have been torn out of some sort of journal. Lillie squinted at the scribbles until they resolved themselves into words, but what she read made her drop the page as if it had stung her.

Thoughts flew through her mind as the paper fluttered softly to the desk. Professor Mohn. Her father. She barely registered anything but the name scrawled across the top. The rest of the writing had something to do with Ultra Wormholes, probably some of his first observations of one.

She wanted to burn it. She wanted hold onto it and never let go. This was the beginning of her father's life's work. This was start of a chain of events that had stolen her father away from his family, a prelude to what her mother nearly lost herself in.

The letters swam back out of focus as her eyes filled with tears. It wasn’t fair. She knew this already. Crying wouldn’t bring him back. She knew this already, since surely if it could then she had shed enough tears already. One dripped from her chin and onto the paper below, spreading the ink out along tiny feather strands.

She didn’t want to stop. But she had a job to do, and that was preserving documents for Burnet’s lab, not destroying them. Working deliberately, she copied the written observations and sketches onto a new piece of paper and attached a note explaining that a transcript had been made of the document for purposes of legibility. Then she stuffed the original page into her backpack and tried to forget about it as she finished categorizing the rest of the files.

By the time she left Burnet's lab, the sky was dark and stars were sparkling in the spaces between the clouds. Her wandering feet eventually brought her to edge of the ocean. She placed the journal page at the edge of the water’s reach and pinned it there with a rock, then watched as the waves swept over the words again and again, blurring them further each time. Eventually the ocean water finished what her tears had started, and the notes were reduced to a uniform dingy gray.

Lillie picked up the damp paper and crumpled it into a ball. It would find its way into a trashcan at some point. It didn’t hold any particular meaning anymore; any that it once held had been pulled out to sea. The words weren’t coming back, any more than her father was.

Gladion groaned softly as he shoved the shovel into the ground again. Wicke had instructed him this morning to go dig in a marked spot, apparently when he was little he left a time capsule there to be uncovered on this date. He cursed his young self for having that bright idea. However, soon enough, the little treasure chest was uncovered. Gladion got down on his knees and carefully tugged it out, dragging it onto land. He picked up the key he was handed and unlocked it.

Most of it was pretty typical, a letter, a couple once cherished objects that now just made him blush before throwing them back into the hole – he couldn’t be seen with them, and…

No.

No. No. No.

He picked up the framed photograph on the bottom. It wasn’t professionally taken, none of their family portraits ever were, but somehow just made it worse. He couldn’t have been any older than five in the picture, and Lillie almost looked like a baby! What would she have been if he was five… three? Time flew so fast…

His mother was smiling, she almost seemed to be laughing at the antics of her kids, and Gladion didn’t blame her, he was grinning too, even if it was a sad one, Lillie was clinging to him tight, and he seemed to be caught a little off guard, but… he actually had a smile himself. For once.

Gladion’s eyes traveled up to the man in the picture. He was the tallest, a bit chubby, and he had a gentle, fond smile. He wasn’t as reactant as the other three, but Gladion remembered that he never was. His eyes filled up with tears that threatened to spill over, and he hid his face away in his arm, shuddering. He couldn’t cry. He couldn’t cry. He couldn’t cry. Crying was weak.

His body convulsed and he gasped. He was crying. But he missed how things were. Maybe he never got along with his mother much, but their relationship at least had upsides at some points, unlike now, where he didn’t think he could even be in the same room as her, but he’d take that over all this.

He’d do anything to go back, really… he missed his close bond with his sister. Being a brat to her, but then the next minute hanging onto her and laughing, because they were just that close, close to the point where they rarely got into fights over that sort of things. He missed getting the both of them in trouble, he missed crawling into bed with her and reading stories until they fell asleep snuggled against each other. He wanted that relationship back… but he ruined it now, didn’t he?

Above all else, though… he missed his dad. He was always a little distant, but gentle when he had been around. He never expected perfection from his kids, unlike Lusamine, and he always told the best stories! And gave the best hugs… a type of hug that Gladion could really use right now… he missed him. And he would most definitely give anything to get him back. Maybe… maybe if he still had him, he wouldn’t be such a wreck…

Actually, that wasn’t a maybe, that was a he wouldn’t. Because Mohn started all this, and yet… he couldn’t be mad. He was a better dad than most people had, and for that, he was thankful.