Forced to join the circus for the convenience of the clowns.

Ivy paced around in a circle in front of the table her remaining family sat at. Most of her relatives had left and gone off to who knows where so that her mother could hold a little “council meeting” to decide what to do with the sad excuse for information the kids had given them.

The dinner was over. Maple’s friends had all left. They’d barely told them ANYTHING about where her son was. All they did was say they knew where Maple was but they couldn’t tell her family anything! Don’t worry, though! They’ll find Maple themself! And her mother did NOTHING to stop them! She just let them leave peacefully so that the Hounds could talk about it. Talk. As if they’d actually gotten real information. 

At Ivy’s feet, Tami followed her, the absol walking in the same circles she did. 

“You seem stressed…” her sister said, carefully, like she expected Ivy to explode if anyone said anything to her. To her credit, she was right. Ivy was not in the mood for a peaceful conversation after still not knowing shit nor fuck about what was going on with her fucking kid! 

“I seem stressed because I FUCKING AM, ACORN!” Ivy yelled, a growl rising from her throat as she whipped around and slammed her hands on the table right next to where her sister sat. Acorn flinched back in her seat at the loud noise and frowned at Ivy. Behind her, Ivy was vaguely aware that Tami had jumped in surprise as well.  

“I’m just trying to comfort you! I know this is hard-” 

“I don’t want comfort!” Ivy snapped, cutting off her sister. “I want to know Maple is safe!” It was FINE when she didn’t ever see Maple and only got the occasional updates on her! At least she knew Maple was FINE! Venus kept an eye on her…

She turned to to face Venus

“HOW THE FUCK DID YOU LET THIS HAPPEN!?” from his spot at the table, her friend seemed surprised that she’d suddenly pivot to yell at him over their missing son.

“I was in Area Zero for a month?” Venus said, clearly worried for her. “Ivy you’re lashing out right now, calm down-” 

“I AM CALM-” 

Other voices began to rise up, arguing, trying to get Ivy to take a seat and calm down. Even Tami began to yowl, making noise just to emulate the humans. 

“I thought we were supposed to be discussing things like sane adults?” Ryoko’s voice cut through the rest, silencing the group, absol included. Her mother waited a moment to make sure everyone was silent, taking a puff off of a cigar and slowly letting the smoke escape from her mouth. 

“We’ve all calmed down?” Ryoko asked, but it wasn’t a question, more a command for them all to behave. “Good. Ivy, take a seat.” 

“But-” Ivy’s protest was quickly silenced by her mother. 

“No ‘buts’. Take the seat across from me. If you have a point to make, you’ll make it like an adult, not like a scared dog or a child throwing a fit” Ryoko gestured at the seat with her cigar before taking another puff. 

A quiet, frustrated growl rumbled through Ivy, but she did as she was told and sat across from her mother. Tami followed soon after, settling at her feet, while her houndoom, Marrow, made its way over from across the room to sit beside her and rest its head on her lap. Ryoko watched this before speaking again. 

“So, what did we learn from this?” her mother asked, looking around the group. 

“The kids supposedly know whe-” Phlox began, but Ivy cut her brother off before he could finish. 

“We learned nothing! NOTHING!” She wanted to stand back up again, she wanted to yell until it felt like her family actually took her seriously. Somewhere through the anger there was a small voice that reminded Ivy that her family DID take her seriously, but she was far too emotional to think rationally right now and they just wanted her to calm down a little. Unfortunately, being far too emotional to think rationally also stopped Ivy from listening to that small voice. 

“Ryoko, could you imagine if you acted like this when Ivy went missing?” Ivy heard her auntie say softly with a little laugh.

“We’d be missing half the cities in Hoenn if she did!” her Uncle chimed in, equally amused by the little joke. It was just the gentle teasing that family was good at, a little joke to take the edge off, but in that moment, Ivy felt like her family didn’t give a single fuck about Maple or her. Was she insane? Was she in the wrong for being this concerned?

Beside her Venus cleared his throat. “Can we please actually discuss our missing kid?” Phlox and Acorn soon joined in, requesting for the conversation to get back on track, clearly picking up on Ivy’s ever growing frustration over it all. 

“Fine. The kids are hiding things from us. They’re going to do something stupid, and we should follow them,” Ryoko finally said bluntly. No more bullshit or dancing around the actual point. Ivy’s mother had actually said something worth listening to. 

The rest of the people in the room immediately jumped into questions and arguments. Ivy stayed silent. 

“Why do we need to follow them? Surely their family will know where they are!” Ivy’s uncle said, being the first to disagree with the plan.

“They aren’t telling us where they’re going, and we’re the ones with the missing child. What makes you think they plan to tell their families what they’re doing? If they don’t trust us with the information about where Maple supposedly is and the way to find her, why would they tell their families?” Ryoko responded, blowing out more smoke. 

“Well they only just left the dinner! We probably have time to convince them before they leave, no need to follow,” Acorn argued. 

“They’ve probably already left,” Phlox joined the argument, countering their sister. “Miguel left with the rest of them, and they live here. They could be well on their way to Kalos by now if they took the train, and we wouldn’t know.” 

“Then we just have to let them do something stupid! It’s too dangerous to follow them!” Ivy’s Uncle chimed in again, slamming his fist on the table. 

Ivy heard Venus speak up from beside her. “And it’s not dangerous for them to go alone?” 

“If they go missing after Maple, it’s suspicious, but we’re not,” her uncle began, “If some of us go missing at the same time as the other kids, their families will all look at The Hounds.” By now Ivy could tell he had made his choice, and likely wouldn’t change his mind. 

“He’s right,” Acorn Agreed with her uncle. “We could be putting the family in danger by following them. After everything with Lucian, the Wyrmwoods have become extremely protective over those kids.” Ivy didn’t like how her sister seemed to be against this idea. How she seemed to be content to just let Maple stay who knows where for who knows how long. 

“The Wyrmwoods wouldn’t go after us,” Ivy said firmly, finally joining the argument. 

“What about the Velascos then? We have a much less positive relationship with them!” Acorn shot back.

“The Velasco’s know better than to try with us. They know damn well we know how to kill a psychic,” their aunt replied, making her distaste for the family clear in both tone and body language.

“This isn’t a conversation about killing psychics!” Ivy’s brother jumped in, trying to steer it back towards the discussion on if they should follow the teens or not. 

“If you follow them it might have to become one, though,” her aunt argued

“The Wyrmwoods and Velascos won’t think we’re at fault! Maple’s missing too!” Phlox crossed his arm as he gave his rebuttal. At least one of her siblings seemed to want to help, Ivy thought. 

“And what if they think Maple’s only missing because we decided we were done waiting for her to come back to us?” Ivy’s Uncle jumped back in, coming up with a new what if to add to the scenario as an argument against his sister’s plan to follow the kids. “If they begin to think we’re at fault, all logic will be thrown out! Our genuine concern will start to look like an elaborate show in order to draw suspicion elsewhere!”

Acorn continued to bring up the other families, which as far as Ivy was concerned, was the opposite of contributing to this conversation meaningfully. “We’re focusing too much on Wyrmwoods and Velascos. What about the other families? What about the Delgados?”

“If they’re as passive as Reina’s boytoy is, then they’re irrelevant to this conversation,” Ivy responded quickly. 

“Miguel’s family?” Acorn tried again.

“They’d understand if Ivy and I explained it to them,” Venus replied. Ivy nodded her head in agreement. 

“One of Nihilego Boy’s parents is in law. Do you think he’s good enough to win?”

“I think he’s smart enough to be quiet if push comes to shove,” Ivy’s aunt responded. 

“Auntie, can you stop coming up with solutions that involve threatening their parents?” Phlox asked, clearly wanting this conversation to stop being about the other families. 

“She’s right. Keahi, stop coming up with solutions that involve threatening their parents,” Ryoko stepped in, chastising her sister. “Aspen seems like he has reasonable parents anyways” 

“I just… I don’t think this is a good idea! What if the kids don’t even actually know anything and lead us on a wild swanna chase!” Acorn leaned her head on one hand propped up on the table. Why was Acorn so good at making Ivy feel so bitter about her? Did she know she was doing it? Did she know she was the sibling who always had the least struggle? She was clearly pissing Phlox off too. 

“Then we go on a wild swanna chase! I would have torn up all of Spikemuth if I had to in order to find my kids after the Darkest Day, and honestly I think it’s only fair that we let Ivy follow them to her kid!” 

“This is different than the aftermath of The Darkest Day!” Acorn argued, stumbling into a fight like an idiot. “How!?” 

The Hounds began to descend into chaotic arguing again, everyone with different ideas on how things should be handled and why. Ivy ignored the loudness as best she can, focusing on the houndoom begging for pets and the absol laying across her feet. 

Maybe the stress of it all was getting to more than just Ivy. She couldn’t remember the last time a discussion like this had gone so off rails so many times.

The arguing got louder and louder until Ivy was pretty sure they were all arguing about completely different things, when Ryoko finally made the choice to silence them all again.

“All of you! Quiet! We’re done arguing!” Ryoko had put her cigar out and stood up, towering over the people sitting at the table. “We’ve wasted enough time tonight. We’re putting this to a vote. Whatever wins out among the seven of us is our final decision. Is this clear?” All around Ivy she saw her family nod. 

“Good.” 

Ivy sat silently as her mother went around the circle, staring down at her hands as she pet her Marrow to try and calm down. Ryoko gave her own vote before taking the votes of the others. By the time everyone but Ivy had voted, it was an even split. Her sister, her aunt, and her uncle had all voted to just sit back and let it play out without getting involved, while her brother, her friend, and her mother all voted to follow the kids. 

Ivy felt her mother’s gaze on her. Ryoko said nothing. She didn’t have to. Ivy knew she got to make the choice on what they did. She stood up, Tami and Marrow moving aside in response to let her.