Fighting 3.10: The Summit

Kekoa

January 12, 2020

The dim glow and cool, moist air of Verdant Cavern would suck most of the year. Now it’s warmer and brighter than the world outside. Not sure why you can see by the light of the glowing moss but not the sun or electricity. Something about how Necrozma absorbs light, but not pokémon elemental energy. So light mixed with energy isn’t fully absorbed. Or something. Didn’t sound like the scientists had it figured out themselves.

Lyra is deeper into the cave watching her noibat meet his old friends. Good for her. You understand not being able to say goodbye. When it happens to you, anyway. For your pokémon… you can see where Cuicatl and Kanoa were coming from, and in hindsight it’s not a good look. Makani got sent over to Akala by ferry before you left. Hope he’s living his best life.

You still haven’t talked to Hekeli yet. It’s been months since you found out that a psychic translator was within shouting distance 90% of the time and you still haven’t had a real talk with your trumbeak. At first it was because you didn’t think you needed it since the birds are deeply connected to your people.

Now you’re scared of what you’ll find out. It’s cowardly, but deep down you don’t want her to tell you that she hates you. There’s still a false queen to dethrone and you can’t do that without pokémon.

You take a deep breath. After Lyra’s heart-to-heart with her team, you decided you’d do it. Eventually. When you reached Verdant Cave and there was light. Now you’re here and there are a half-dozen good reasons not to.

Food, for one. Trumbeak eat a lot of berries, but very few are growing in the darkness. Most of the bushes you’ve passed have long been picked clean. Some kids in Hau’oli were talking about how there are still berries to be found in the hard-to-reach places, but you don’t want to wander off trail in the dark. Fresh fruit doesn’t last long and still isn’t common outside the big ports. She can eat dehydrated fruit, but then she won’t get water from it, which is a problem because trumbeak don’t drink water. Even juicy bugs are still a little dry for her taste. It’s best to keep her in stasis as much as possible right now. Sending her out just to talk is selfish and bad for her health.

But you’ll gladly send her out for longer to battle the totems, a traitorous part of your mind replies.

“I think you should,” Cuicatl says. You glance over and see her sitting down, legs crossed, while she runs a brush through her vulpix’s fur. It’s weird but after just a few days of total darkness you’d started to forget little details of what she looked like. What anything looks like. You don’t like that. Your memory is, well, you, and it can only hold people in it for a few days before things start to get a little dicey. Her eyes are brown somewhere beneath the fog. You aren’t sure if you’d forgotten that are not.

What color are the Gage Heiress’s eyes, anyway? Green, right? Or blue… she didn’t like making eye contact very much. Neither does Cuicatl. Part of why it’s so easy to forget.

“You know the way to never forget anything you see?” Cuicatl asks.

You startle. Right, she can read loud thoughts. Not that you know how to think quietly. “Uh, no? How do—” Never seeing anything in the first place. You groan before she can even answer. She just giggles.

She tilts her head but keeps her self-satisfied smirk. “What are you afraid of?”

Spiders. Thunder. Ghosts. Earthquakes. Hail. Ships.

Failing your ancestors.

“Do you think she hates me?” you ask.

She hums in consideration. You can never decide if it’s annoying or not when she does that. “No. I think she’s irritated, but I don’t think she hates you. And she’s a bird so she’d definitely say so if she was.”

“Past experience?” Because she sounds sure of that.

“My mom’s swanna,” she says. “He was her starter and, um, he sort of loved and hated her at the same time.” She starts to trail off before finishing with a whisper. “We never really got along, but he didn’t leave after mom’s death. I think he blamed himself.”

You don’t want to ask how her mom died. It’s not something she wanted to tell you until a few weeks ago and she’s clearly still torn up about it, even though she says it happened a while ago. Probably violent if her starter could’ve stopped it.

“Childbirth,” Cuicatl mutters. “I never actually met her. ‘Chovsky couldn’t have stopped it, but I don’t think he accepts that.” She sighs. “Doesn’t matter; the flood’s left for the ocean and the fields are dry.”

“What?”

“Expression. It means that ‘it’s too late to do anything about it.’” She makes a mischievous smile. “You’ve stalled long enough. Ready?”

“I guess…” You let out Hekeli and prepare for judgment.

She glances between the two of you and towards the glowing walls of the cave. You don’t need a translator for this. “I don’t know why it’s glowing, either. And I wanted to talk.”

She trills. “Finally,” Cuicatl says, clearly trying to capture the character of the words. “Took you long enough.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that.” You scratch at the back of your head as the trumbeak keeps staring at you. Probably wants a longer answer. “I was just.” Deep breath. You can do this. “Worried. I’m sorry.” More staring. Finally gets a chance to talk to you and she decides she doesn’t want to, after all. Might as well get the hard question out of the way, first. “Are you happy with me?”

There’s a long series of trills, coos, and a peck to the ground.

“Uh, one sec. That was a bit.” Cuicatl closes her eyes and nods, fingers drumming along on the cave floor beside her. “You help her win and she likes that.” Another trill and Cuicatl turns to glare at something three feet to the left of Hekeli. “And apparently I’m not as good of a trainer as you are.” Another peck to the ground and something that sounds like a snort. “And she isn’t sure how I’m still alive. Which isn’t a very nice thing to say about someone who sings for you.”

One minute in and Hekeli is arguing with the translator. Great. You don’t point out that you’ve had the same concerns about her, what with the tripping and the love of murder beasts. Sometimes it’s like she’s trying to get herself killed.

“Do you like your name?” you ask. Somehow that’s more comfortable ground. “I can call you something else if you want.”

There’s a brief back and forth as Cuicatl and a bird talk to each other. Cuicatl sounds like she always does to you. Does she sound like another trumbeak to Hekeli? “She wants to know what it means,” Cuicatl finally says.

“Thunderstorm. It’s because you hit like lightning.”

There are a few sharp cracks of Hekeli’s beak hitting the ground hard enough to shatter part of it. Should probably tell her not to do that. Might count as vandalism or something. “She doesn’t like lightning,” Cuicatl says. “It hurts.”

“Well, she’s good at making opponents hurt.”

Another crack to the ground.

“She doesn’t like lightning,” Cuicatl repeats.

“You guys alright?” Lyra calls from somewhere in the distance. Her voice echoes again and again and again and again.

“We’re not hurt,” Cuicatl answers. There’s something strange in her echoes: you can hear her unaccented voice when she talks, but her echoes are different. You’re pretty sure they aren’t even in Galarian. Cuicatl cringes as she realizes the same thing. Well, hopefully Lyra won’t notice. You doubt she’d have a problem with it, but it’s Cuicatl’s secret to reveal when she wants to.

Lyra doesn’t answer so you carry on.

“What was your name before I caught you?”

She makes a very particular warble without Cuicatl even translating. Odd. How much Galarian does she know. “Moonlight,” Cuicatl says.

The Alolan phrase for moonlight is a bit long. “Does ‘Mahina’ work? It means moon in the language of these islands.”

A short chirp after Cuicatl repeats your words.

“She says that’s fine.”

Cuicatl reaches out her hand. For a shake or to get something or what? Or does she want you to guide her somewhere. You hold out your hand and run a finger along her palm. She stretches a bit more to grab your wrist and give it a slight squeeze. Oh. A reassuring thing. She’s proud you did the thing you should’ve done months ago.

“Seriously, you guys alright?” Lyra’s voice echoes less. You can hear her footsteps, too, as she rounds the corner and meets you in the entrance chamber. “There was a lot of something going on back here.”

“My trumbeak was attacking the ground.”

She doesn’t really need context.

Lyra walks up and examines Hekeli’s indent. She scowls. “Do you know how long it takes cave ecosystems to regenerate? That could be literal centuries of damage. Pretty sure there are big fines for that sort of thing.”

“Why’d you bother to learn about fines?” you ask. You’re being defensive and you know it, but she flies in from gods-know-where with her rich daddy and wants to lecture you about your own damn caves. At least the Gage Heiress never pretended she knew what she was doing. “Can’t you just pay them?”

She locks eyes with you and purses her lips. Another difference: the Gage Heiress would look away and stammer instead of gearing up for a fight. “Because I care about preserving irreplaceable geology. Unlike you.”

“Wasn’t this place a trial site a few years ago?” Totem gumshoos if you remember correctly. Or was it raticate? Whichever it was you remember that the captain just oozed holier-than-thou rich kid energy. “I’m sure it’s taken worse hits than that.”

Lyra huffs. “Don’t get me started. This place never should have been a trial site. No cave should be. Forests, fine, those regrow eventually.” She breaks eye contact and starts pacing, throwing out her arms in dramatic poses with every point as she goes. “Seashores and sand dunes change shape all the time. You can’t burn down a mountain. Buildings can be repaired. But the one thing that can’t be replaced? That’s where they put a trial site?”

Great. Now she’s insulting the ability of Tapu Koko and his kahuna to pick a trial site. Before you can tell her off Cuicatl interjects: “Can we get going? We still have a few miles to the Center and I’d like to sleep in a real bed tonight.”

A bed would be nice, and they might have fruit for Hekeli—for Mahina.

“Sounds like a plan,” you mumble. You’ll fight Lyra the next time she gets on your nerves. The part of your brain telling you that her team could kick Mahina’s ass, and she might be able to kick yours is ignored.

Darkness smothers you again after you leave the cave. There’s no difference in looking forward with your eyes open and closed. So you close them. When your open eyes see total darkness, your brain freaks out a bit. It’s normal to see nothing with your eyes closed.

The cold air coils around you, pressing into all the exposed skin it can find. The temperature dipped below forty last night. Once you get to the eastern highlands of the island it’ll be even colder. If this keeps up you’ll need to get proper winter clothes, not just the half-assed getup you could find and afford in the time it took VStar to get a new mission sent out.

As you hike you can feel Lyra’s eyes on your back, somehow boring into you in total darkness.

[January 13]

You will never again make fun of Cuicatl for tripping.

Your boot catches on the loose pebbles of Mauna Pāhili and sends you cascading back down a few body lengths. At least your pants prevented your legs from getting slashed up like your friend’s can get. And you didn’t go over a cliff face. You remember that happening to Cuicatl on a little one back on Ula’Ula. You’ve heard some people have gone over much, much taller ones in the dark. You’re glad that at least some of the pokémon in your party can still get around and you’re on easy routes. Otherwise, this could’ve gone much, much worse

“You okay?” Cuicatl calls down from above. You can’t tell if she’s mocking you. Doesn’t really matter If she is since you deserve it. Nah. You’re a lot more worried about the outsider below you. The image of Lyra holding a hand in front of her mouth as she stifles a laugh flashes into your mind. It’s definitely what she’s doing and you hate that you can’t lash out without proof of it. Not without Cuicatl giving you a talk about biting the hand that’s paying half your bills.

“Just give me a minute,” you yell back.

You reach out your hands and her beldum slips between them. You pull yourself up with a surprisingly powerful assist from the steel-type. You can feel the heat they radiate through the gloves, but it’s not bad enough to burn.

On the way up you make sure to take things slower. You still trip and almost fall.

“Never making fun of you again,” you repeat aloud, so that she actually knows if she wasn’t reading your mind.

“Maybe you could get a cane if this goes on long enough.” You shiver, both because it’s fucking cold and because that doesn’t sound like a bad idea. A perfectly healthy teenage boy needs a cane just to get around his home country. What a world.

“Or a walking stick,” Lyra adds. That is a more masculine option. But since she suggested it you can’t do it for a little while. This had better be fucking over soon. Damn ‘Queen’ sits on your country’s throne but can’t even keep the lights on. Least she could do is stop the winter that started on her watch, but she’s not even up to that. You can get hypothermia at sea level now. Maybe frostbite in a bit. And the meteorologists are already talking about what a hard frost would mean…

The winds on the mountain pick up the higher you get. It’s a distinctive feature of the peak. Mauna Pāhili is the northern guardian of Melemele. Like the larger Hokulani and Lanaklia there aren’t really plants on top. The fearskmlime winds and dry soils make it hard for large plants to hang on. Unlike Lanakila and Hokulani, the top of Pāhili is pretty much just a giant pile of loose gravel. It’s a difficult hike in the best of times. Now is not the best of times. But it was either scale this monster or go the long way around the coast and spend extra days out in the cold. Cuicatl didn’t want to spend more time in the cold than she needed to after her brush with hypothermia on Route 2. Because she’s a dumbass who won’t tell other people what’s wrong until she can’t hide it anymore. Anyway, she thought that if she could survive Hokulani then she could survive Pāhili. She was right. She’s doing fine.

You may have overestimated your own ability to hike in total darkness. Doing it on flat ground was one thing. Here, on a gravel pile that’s still a little slick from the rains, that’s another story.

Lyra pauses a short while later. She makes sure to tell you when she does. Another thing that you probably should have been doing. “Musei thinks we’ve reached the fork. One goes up to the peak, the other heads back down to the other side. Do you want—”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Well, I’m certainly not going to the peak for the views,” you tell her.

“Could be fun,” Lyra says.

“You’re welcome to go alone and freeze your ass off.”

{Kekoa.}

You ignore Cuicatl’s mental warning. Thankfully Lyra lets things slide.

“Hike on,” she mumbles. Cuicatl apparently hears it over the wind. You hear her cane sweep over the ground a moment later.

The road down is no easier, but at least your falls bring you closer to your goal. Even if you knock over Cuicatl once. That time Lyra does laugh after making sure you’re both okay. Bitch. First clearing after the fall Cuicatl declares that you’re stopping for the night. She says that the wind doesn’t feel as harsh. Like there’s something blocking the wind. You really should go down farther, but you’re too embarrassed to argue with her at the moment. Especially since she more than anyone gets the risks of staying out on the road for too long.

You don’t really want to start a real fire in this weather. Too much risk of it getting out of control in the wind. Cuicatl at least cooks dinner on the stove. You huddle in front of it in hopes of getting any warmth from the small flame. She’s cooking pidove—lab pidove, but still—today and the smell is heavenly. Some wild pokémon apparently agree and her team is kept busy scaring off intruders. Hekeli is still learning to fly in the dark. No, that’s not right. She knows how to fly in the dark; landing is another story.

There’s plenty of starving prey and frozen meat left on the islands for Pixie and Coco. Even the real stuff is cheap these days. Not many people want to risk cooking blind. Nocit-whatever doesn’t seem to eat anything. Or maybe they feed on the awkwardness people feel when something tries to watch them pee. That would explain a lot. Worst thing is that you’re pretty sure they do it all the time now since you can’t catch them in the act.

Lyra’s never complained about finding food for her team. She can probably afford whatever they need, even with apocalyptic price-scalping.

Your eyes wander up to the sky. The spiderweb of light seems to be changing over time. Fewer branches now, but they’re all larger. No idea what that means. “You plan on getting more pokémon?” Lyra asks.

She has a point. You definitely should catch another pokémon. A solitary trumbeak won’t cut it against the third and fourth trials, especially if you can’t give her much training right now. Relying on temporary captures was fine early on, but now you need a plan if you want to dethrone the False Queen. But after losing Makani you haven’t had the heart to make new plans. You can plan on getting anything you want, but if it won’t listen to you then you’re no better off in the long run.

“Maybe. I should pick up something or other. Jynx, maybe?”

“They’re psychics, right?” Lyra asks.

“Yeah. Might want some help finding whatever I decide on. Pixie or Coco to sniff it out, maybe?”

“You’ve got it,” Cuicatl says.

“Thanks.”

She turns the meat over on the stove. Something gets hit by a take down at the edge of the clearing as the beldum defends your dinner. Almost makes you forgive them for everything else.

“If you get a jynx, you keeping it long term?” Lyra says, contempt in her voice. What’d jynx ever do to her?

Jynx are a twisted take on a human woman with the body to match. You might need one to deal with the water trial’s toxapex, but the idea of spending lots of time with a jynx makes your dysphoria growl under your skin. You don’t look like that. You know that. Sometimes.

“Probably not.”

“Good,” Lyra says. “Beldum apparently aren’t very good telepaths, but I’d hate to be around an actual psychic.”

Wait, what?

“What’s wrong with psychics?”

“They can get into your brain and change thoughts, feelings, memories: everything that makes you who you are.” She says it like that’s a perfectly normal thing to be afraid of. Why bother? Not the most dangerous part of training pokémon. Alakazam probably could twist your mind. It would also give you brain cancer, which is a much better reason not to train an alakazam. What else could even do that kind of shit? You vaguely remember some conspiracy theorist talking about the beheeyem rewriting memories or something, but that always struck you as tabloid nonsense.

{She really hates psychics,} you tell Cuicatl. Maybe she has ideas on how to proceed here. There’s a pop of oil or water and she hisses. “You alright?”

“I’m fine,” she says with her voice. {And I know,} she says with her mind. {Only found out after it would’ve been awkward to tell her off.}

{I can beat her up for you.}

{I’ll keep it in mind.}

You hope she’s serious about that. And that she doesn’t realize that it might be an empty threat until you get more pokémon to back you up.

“I’m pretty sure my current team can handle the next two trials,” Cuicatl says. It takes you a moment to realize that she’s picking up the subject you dropped because Lyra was racist. Do psychics count as a race? “I have a plan for the toxapex fight in Kala’e Bay. Might need to get another rock-type if the bug trial doesn’t go well. For the short term. Not permanently.

You’ve thought about catching a carbink to use for a little bit. They’re good against the bug trial and Hala. It just won’t hold up in the long term. Maybe you’d be the lucky bastard who figures out how to make it evolve into a diancie, but your luck’s never been that good. Not worth betting on. There’s always rockruff near Ten Carat Hill. A lot of strong Alolan trainers use one. And they’re dogs. Man’s best friend. You can’t screw that one up, right? Sure, it won’t pull its weight against Hala, but you have a bird for that. “Might get a rockruff. Don’t know.” Wait, what is Cuicatl going with? You’ve never actually heard her long-term plans now that you think about it. “What about your last three going to be?”

“I don’t plan on getting any more in the near term.”

{I have, but Pix starts panicking when I talk about it. Thinks she’s getting replaced.}

{Why?}

She turns the burner off and starts putting the food onto plates. It tastes as good as it smells. You’re really lucky that you got paired with her. Otherwise, you’d still be eating freeze-dried shit every night.

{Pokémon are a lot like humans.} Cuicatl finally answers. {But they don’t get us. Sometimes they get scared and angry because they think we mean something big when we do something small.}

You take another few bites. How many times have you pissed off a pokémon without meaning to? How does anyone avoid that? Magical bullshit. That’s how. And it makes you angry. You don’t know why, but it does. You shouldn’t be angry at her, though. She just made you food. You should talk about something else.

{You do know what you’re catching, then?}

Lyra chooses to interrupt your silent conversation. Rude. “This is very good,” she says. “Where’d you learn to cook?”

“Home,” Cuicatl says. Then she starts loudly running her spoon along her bowl to get Lyra to stop talking for a bit, because she’s definitely too busy eating to respond.

It doesn’t stop her.

“I think you’ll definitely need more pokémon soon if you want to win. Coco will be a monster once she evolves, but that will be at least a few months. Maybe a lot longer. And your other pokémon aren’t quite pulling their weight.”

Pixie yaps in protest.

“Noci is tough and Pixie has a lot of tricks,” Cuicatl says. “She can confuse, disable, and scare a totem. That’s a big deal.”

“Maybe,” Lyra concedes in a way that doesn’t sound like she’s conceding anyway. “If you did get more pokémon though, what would you get?”

Cuicatl sighs. She’s probably weighing if she tells Lyra what she told you. She decides not to. “I don’t want anything as big as Coco. She’s going to be expensive to feed. But if I’m already buying meat, it makes sense to get meat eaters. Already have a fox, dragon, and machine. Maybe a bear, amphibian, and bug? No more foxes, obviously.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works with meat,” Lyra says. “I think it’d just be expensive and the bulk discounts wouldn’t cover all of it.”

“I like predators,” Cuicatl says so quietly that you can barely hear it over the wind. “I’d find a way to pay for it.”

“You really don’t have a plan, huh? Like, something specific you plan on catching,” you ask before Lyra can question her money plans. Because you’re pretty sure she doesn’t have any and talking about it would stress her out. And the idea of Lyra chewing out Cuicatl on being financially irresponsible rubs you fifty different wrong ways.

“No. If I find a friend, I’ll ask the team if they can join. That’s all my plans.”

Something occurs to you and you drop your fork. “Wait, you want a bear? Weren’t we nearly mauled by some on Ula’Ula? Why—"

“There are fluffy bears that like hugs. I want one,” she sounds like she’s pouting. Like a little girl who wants a stuffed toy. Except she’s a teenager who wants a toy that toy could murder her.

“They like hugs like sandaconda like hugs,” Lyra says.

Cuicatl pauses as she scrapes the last of her meal off of her plate. “Are those here? I thought they were just in the New World.”

“I think there are some in Galar,” Lyra says. “Escaped pets and all. None here.”

“Oh.” Cuicatl sounds very disappointed. It’s hard to get the image of her as a pouting child out of your mind.

“Please tell me you’re joking.” You say it even though you know she isn’t. Why wouldn’t Cuicatl want things that will crush her ribcage. And it’s somehow your job to keep her alive.

You reconsider if the food is worth it.

…

Yeah.

It probably is.

*

You’re woken up by the sound of something very, very big landing outside. Pixie starts yapping outside trying to scare off… whatever that is. Cuicatl comes to her senses faster than you. “Pix, stand down!” You can hear her rush out of her tent, fumbling with the zipper for a moment before getting out. You’re pretty sure that she didn’t stop to put shoes on. That’s got to be a pain on the gravel.

“Hello,” Cuicatl says. “I’m sorry if my friend attacked. Everyone’s nervous right now.”

The… bird gives a remarkably high-pitched shriek for something that large. You hurry to put your shoes on and head out of the tent. Might be a mandibuzz or honchkrow. That could be a problem for her.

“I know. Oh, I can… talk to birds. You can speak to me.”

Coco rushes by and starts making her own roar-chirp-rumble calls at the massive bird. The bird answers. You aren’t sure who it’s answering: Cuicatl or Coco.

“That’s Coco,” Cuicatl says. “I’m raising her with the male in our group.”

The bird clucks. Like a torchic. Definitely not what they sound like in movies.

“A tyrunt. She’s some mix of dragon and bird. Can’t fly.”

More clucks in a different pattern.

“Yes, she eats meat.”

Something smaller and angrier starts calling out. It sounds a little like the monster bird. A baby, perhaps? And if this is a giant bird that Cuicatl can talk to, it’s probably a braviary and rufflet.

The braviary gives a long series of trills, whistles, and clucks. Cuicatl listens, occasionally saying a polite word.

“I see. We can do that, yes.”

The parent and child talk to each other as your mind catches up. Metagross, tyrantrum, ninetales, and braviary, huh? It’s almost unfair.

With one final shriek the braviary launches itself into the air and soars away. The rufflet gets closer, nervously chirping. You can hear Cuicatl lower herself down, so you also crouch. “Hello, you brave boy. I’m Cuicatl Ichtaca. My friend is Kekoa Mahi’ai. He’ll be taking you down to other humans who can take care of you.”

Wait.

First of all, glad she didn’t list Lyra as a friend alongside you. You can hear her awkwardly standing around, kicking gravel away from her as she fidgets. Second, why is she giving it up?”

{Don’t you want a braviary? You said you wanted big predators and one just dive bombed you and dropped off its kid.}

{Can’t. I’d need a priest’s permission. Do you want him?}

Probably not? Braviary are powerful, sure, but rufflet take infamously long to evolve. You need to depose the False Queen soon. And. They like humans who look like mandibuzz. Long hair, jewelry, all that. You’re not doing that ever again.

{No.}

{Alright.} “Let me get some food out for you. You’re hungry, right?” The rufflet chirps and Cuicatl stumbles past you into the tent. “Alright. Just let me get some shoes on first.”

“How are you talking to him?” Lyra asks. She sounds dazed, probably because she’s just been woken up. Or maybe she’s catching on to Cuicatl’s secrets. Hopefully it’s just drowsiness.

“Coco talks halfway between a dragon and a bird of prey. Let me figure out a lot of that language,” Cuicatl seamlessly lies. You wonder if she’d come up with that up in advance. “And they’re starving. Sight-based hunters and all. Thought we might adopt their kid. I think they do that in the wild with other companies, but all the other companies are probably hungry as well.”

“Oh,” she says. “So did his mom just drop him off with the first travelers to walk by? That sounds risky.”

And lucky. Or unlucky. That could’ve gone badly.

“I think she sensed Coco. Thought we were already caring for a young… bird of our own, so she decided we’d do,” Cuicatl says as she gets back out of her tent. “Alright, let me see how much meat we have left…”

*

It’s a little hard to get back to sleep. It’s not just you, either. The rufflet is wide awake outside wrestling against Coco. You can hear their squabbling, hisses, and chirps as they fight. Sometimes they crash into the side of the tent before rolling or jumping away. Cuicatl insists that they’re probably fine, no need to supervise. You’re pretty sure she just doesn’t want to get out of the tent again. Neither do you. She moved back into your tent for the night so the rufflet could see Coco with both of her ‘parents.’ This will help him, for some reason. Honestly, it’s too early in the morning to even bother trying to understand it. She’s the pokémon whisperer here.

“You still awake?” you whisper. Like it’s a sleepover and you’re both ten.

“Yes.”

“You recording human myths about pokémon for your thesis?”

“No. Too many of those.” She yawns. “You can tell me if you want. I want to stay up a bit longer to make sure things are okay out there.”

There’s a particularly violent wave of hissing outside. She doesn’t move, so you assume that’s also “okay” by whatever definition she’s using.

“The Tapu used to fight a lot. But they were too strong. Lots of stuff died whenever they fought. Eventually they made champions to fight on their behalf. That would later turn into training, but at first it was just the pokémon themselves. Tapu Koko, the spirit of war and storms, he picked braviary. Let them fly in the fiercest of winds and gave them the souls of true warriors.”

Cuicatl’s quiet for a long time. You wonder if she fell asleep despite herself.

“You need a priest for rufflet, huh?” you whisper, just to see if she’s still awake.

“Yes.” She shifts around. Maybe getting comfortable. Maybe uncomfortable if she really wants to stay awake. “Huītzilōpōchtli sends braviary as signs. Where to build cities. Where to fight battles. Who the next tlatoani should be. You can only use one in battle with his permission, and to get that you’d have to ask for it. The asking requires… sacrifice.”

The fuck.

“So you’d have to just, what, kill someone to get a bird?”

“Sort of? Mostly you’re making a sacrifice for an unrelated reason, and just ask for the braviary alongside it.” She says that like it isn’t batshit insane.

“You don’t actually believe this shit, do you?” Of course she doesn’t. She’s smart. She has to get how fucked up this is.

She shifts beside you. This time you really doubt it has to do with the gravel. “You respect your gods, I respect mine,” she whispers. There’s no confidence behind it. You can still pry away the bullshit excuses.

“Mine don’t ask me to rip hearts out.”

She takes a deep breath. “If Huītzilōpōchtli were to weaken, then the world would fall into endless night.”

It takes you a long moment to connect the nonsensical dots on that one. “Wait, you think Necrozma is here because you didn’t rip enough hearts out?”

“There’s a dark time approaching, one where evil is unleashed and the sun could burn out,” she says with unnerving certainty.

There’s a terrifying moment where it actually sort of clicks. You can feel the logic deep down. If the tapu asked for it, well, you’d say no, obviously. Any god who asks for that kind of shit isn’t a god you want to worship. But if you’d been told from birth that Tapu Koko could keep the night away if you did it, and then you didn’t and this happened… it’s still wrong. She’s still wrong. There are things you shouldn’t do.

“It won’t be our blood we shed,” she says. “We’ll start a war. Invade one of the southern neighbors. Provoke a rebellion and crush it. Whatever we need to do.”

That’s chilling. A war on the other side of the world because one trainer couldn’t do her job. As if this nightmare needed to be worse, somehow. And her use of ‘we’ when talking about mass murder is just as terrifying.

Coco lets out a small rumble of victory before rushing the tent entrance and demanding to be let back in. Cuicatl leans over you and undoes the zipper. The two baby birds tumble in. Coco leaps up onto Cuicatl’s lap while the rufflet hops over to the corner of the tent.

You feel a pang of sympathy. Poor kid. Just got abandoned by his mother with strange humans, and they’re just going to drop him off downhill later because of gods and queens he knows nothing about. You stare into the darkness above you for a long time before you finally have to speak.

“Hey, um, rufflet. You can sleep near me if you want.”

The bird clucks. Cuicatl repeats your offer in a whisper, probably so Lyra can’t eavesdrop.

You can hear the rufflet settle down in place, the offer ignored.

It’s cold on that side of the tent. The hard, cold rock below isn’t helping. You’re sleeping in the middle so you can at least get some of Cuicatl’s warmth. You want to bring him over, but you don’t want to get pecked. And it’s a little cruel to bond with something you’re just going to drop off at the Center.

Cuicatl starts softly snoring beside you. Not something she usually does. You shouldn’t wake her up to translate, but… maybe you don’t have to?

A long time passes before you get up the nerve to say what you want to say.

“You still awake, rufflet?” You hear him shift in place. Good enough. “Look, I don’t know if you can even understand me.” No answer. “You can come with me if you want. But I won’t be a very good trainer. I have short hair. Always will. I’ll still feed you and fight with you or whatever you want.” The rufflet screeches.

“What’s going on?” Cuicatl murmurs beside you.

“Just talking to the rufflet.”

“Want me to translate?”

She sounds exhausted. You shouldn’t make her.

“Yeah.”

“Cool.” She slowly pulls herself upright. What you want to say… you aren’t sure if you want her hearing it. But you plow on anyway, because you probably should.

“Uh. My parents couldn’t care for me anymore, so they gave me to my brother. And he gave me to strangers because he didn’t want to raise me. I kind of get what you’re going through is what I mean. And you can stay with me if you want. I’m not going to wear my hair long or—”

“Slow down.” Talking through a translator isn’t nearly as fast as you were hoping for. You’d somehow forgotten that already after just two days.

She eventually catches up. Or gets close enough to caught up. She asks you to continue. “I’m not going to wear my hair long or dress like you want, but I can still give you food and battling advice or whatever.”

Cuicatl repeats everything in a whisper you can’t actually make out. Just tell that she is talking. The rufflet hears and answers, anyway.

“He wants to know if you’re his new father.”

What. Uh. Is that what you were going for?

“Sure,” you say, still unsure if you mean it.

The bird squabbles back.

“He doesn’t want a weak father. He wants you to fight him to prove yourself.

Well. He’s tiny. How hard can that be?

*

You hiss as you rub an alcohol wipe over one of your many, many peck and bite wounds. Sure, you won because you can still kick harder than a baby bird can peck. Doesn’t feel like a victory.

“You did win, though,” Cuicatl tries to reassure you. “He’ll respect you now. Stay with you for a while if you can keep him happy.”

“And you’ll help with that?”

She huffs. “Duh.”

“Please tell me I don’t need to chew his food.”

“His mother said he was too old for that.”

Thank the gods.

“And you could always use a mortar and pestle.”

Wait what.

“Why didn’t you do that?”

“Important to build bonds. Not too much risk of disease.”

That. Kind of makes sense? In her weird way. You sigh. Not the only way her life is weird.

{This is the kind of shit you meant by stumbling into things, isn’t it?}

{Yup.}

{And this just happens to you?}

{Pretty much. Same for my mom.}

{How?}

{Helps when you can bargain with pokémon rather than just taking them away from home and hoping they go along with it.}

That feels like a dig against you. Kanoa would tell you it isn’t, but the captain hasn’t actually taught you shit yet. Just dangled the promise in front of you.

“I’m proud of you,” she says, like you’re four or something.

“Okay.”

She yawns deeply and settles into her bed.

“Not proud enough to stay up longer. If he acts up you’re on your own.”

“I think I can handle it,” you say, deeply unsure if you actually can.

“Good night. For real this time.”

What time even is it? You reach for your phone before deciding it doesn’t even matter. There’s no dusk and dawn anymore. You’ll eat when you’re hungry and hike when you’re ready. Doesn’t matter if Lyra objects.

You finally disinfect and bandage your last cut. You’re going to need to refill the first aid kit at the meadow center. “Good night,” you say just before lying down to try and find rest yourself. Just before you drift off you feel the rufflet lean against your leg.