Normal 1.7: A White Muk
Genesis
October 11, 2019
You aren’t sure what you were expecting to feel. But calm? That never occurred to you.
There’s wind in your hair and you know that your locks are only held in place by the weight of the water in them. You closed your eyes a long time ago because water droplets kept flying into them. And you’re standing up on the back of a pokémon on the high seas with giant waves beside you and you feel nothing at all. You almost want to laugh but that would break the moment. So you’re just grinning like a madwoman as water rushes by beneath you and wind beside you. Hours in the temple every week of your life and somehow? Somehow this is the closest you’ve ever been to Xerneas.
“FUCK!”
The peace shatters. You turn around and the mantine beneath you groans. “Oh. No! Not a command. Stay forward.” The mantine purrs again and you keep moving at a noticeably slower pace. You glance back over your shoulder without shifting your weight and accidentally giving an order. Kekoa’s in the water, a receding splotch of orange with his mantine and the guide beside him. The guide looks at you and whistles; your mantine swerves away from the biggest waves and comes to a stop.
Kekoa struggles to get back on his pokémon and then slips off again while trying to get into the harness. It’s mean but you giggle. He can’t hear you anyway. A thought comes to you, a meaner one, and your smile starts to strain your muscles. You practice the line in your head, refining it and thinking of all the variations for when he finally gets on his mantine and comes over towards you with the guide.
He stops right beside you, the guide drifting in somewhere behind. Kekoa frowns. “What are you so happy about?”
“I just love this time of year, y’know?”
He glances up at you. While he’s really hooked up to the harness and you’re standing you absolutely tower above him. More than usual, anyway. “Really?”
“Yeah. I like watching the fall.”
Kekoa just stares at you. For long enough that your mantine gets a little restless and raises a flipper up before splashing it down. The impact sends water straight into his face. He blinks and reaches up to wipe the seaspray off.
“At least I’m trying to do tricks. You’re just gliding along like an idiot.”
Something wells up in you. Something so foreign you don’t quite have a word for it. “Oh yeah?” You get down and start pulling the straps onto your legs until you match his position. “I was just warming up.” This is dangerous. You know it’s dangerous. And yet you’re too calm, too… something to care.
Kekoa taps twice on the harness and his mantine takes off. You follow suit and then go back to gripping the harness’s handlebars for dear life as you quickly reach your comfortable speed. Kekoa’s going much faster ahead of you and starting to head up the slopes. Two more knocks on the pokémon’s back; your hand flies back to the grips right before you go faster than you’ve gone before. Kekoa does a short jump off the slope in front of you and starts rushing back down. Can you do better? Another two knocks says yes. A slap of water in your face makes you realize that you totally forgot to close your eyes. Your hand rises and you almost knock once—slow down—but it quickly flies back to the grip. No. No slowing down. You don’t want to accelerate like that again. You blink rapidly, holding your head down and letting your hair fall in front of it in like a solid wet curtain in a vain attempt to keep more water from coming in. It works okay. You’re probably good to go.
The speed is really something. Every time there’s a crease on the surface your body lifts up and then comes crashing down. Your hands are already getting tired and you haven’t even tried to jump yet. You smile. If you’re going to do this, you’d better do it soon. A hard lean to the side sends you sailing right onto the face of the wave. It takes you most of the way there to realize that you’re screaming out some sort of primal war cry. Right as you start to process that there’s a moment of stillness and you realize that you’re entirely out of the water.
You come crashing back down a second later, another jolt coursing through your body. But you hold on even though you can barely feel your hands anymore, just some generalized pain at the end of your arms. You lean left and mantine follows. A tilt right sends you back up the slope—and you tilt left. No. time to push your limits. You take a deep breath. And then another one. Then you lean right for a fraction of a second, long enough for the mantine to react. Then you shut your eyes and start yelling, yelling to scare the sea or Kekoa or your fears. You feel weightless for a little longer this time before gravity reasserts itself.
Your reaction is faster. One down. One up. One down. One up. One down. One up, roaring again to make sure the wave knows who conquers it. This time you keep your eyes open. It seems you went higher this time. Whether that’s real or it just looks higher because you saw it, who knows? Does it matter?
You can feel the bones in your hand and their lock on the grip. You think your feet are slipping in the harness’s boots. Your knees have taken far more impacts than they’re used too. It doesn’t matter. You lean left and ride on.
*
Everything is sore, your hands most of all. Yet for some utterly baffling reason you’re still smiling like a kid at a candy store by the time you get to land. It almost feels bad to take the ugly and awkward-fitting life jacket off, and not just because your fingers struggle with the buckles way more than they did a few hours ago.
Kekoa takes his off rather quickly and gets his phone and sandals from the waterproof bag. Without talking to you. Probably still mad that he fell five times and you only fell once (and honestly it was kind of fun once the shock wore off). You stagger back towards the guide’s mantine to return the life jacket and pick up your stuff. He hasn’t actually taken his jacket off yet. And he’s watching you as you approach. Which. Attention. Why? Why attention? Can he not?
“Hey, um, just dropping this off.” Which he knows. Of course.
He takes it as a cue to start talking. “You were pretty great out there.”
“I. What? I just did a flip and fell off.”
The guide laughs. “Okay, maybe not great. But it looked like you were having fun. Sounded like it too.”
You glance aside. Kekoa’s face is buried in his phone. No help. Or hurt. What should you do?
Your choice is made for you: “We could give you a job if you wanted it.” What. “Twelve bucks an hour. On the surf almost every day. Could be way worse.”
You have to consciously close your mouth. Your toes shift in the sand and you don’t bother to stop that. “But I’m not good at it.” Wait should you be arguing against it? Would it be lying if you didn’t point it out or.
“Oh, we can teach you how to do it. Can’t teach you how to love it. We can give you a stipend as you learn if money’s a problem right now.”
You almost keep arguing. But you don’t. If it takes Mom time to come around a job could be good. And it’s fun. But maybe you shouldn’t drop out of your journey without thinking about it?
“Hey, it’s fine if you can’t take it now. Just give us a call if you want it. Tell them Eric rec’d you.”
“Thanks,” you tell Eric. Because you don’t know what else to say. You pick up your phone and flip flops and drop the jacket before heading to Kekoa.
He glances up at you and then goes back to his phone. “Kiwi’s already at the Pokémon Center. Let’s get lunch there and then split up for the afternoon.
Under the tight shirt his pecs are way bigger than you were expecting. He’s not that buff anywhere else; his arms are actually kind of skinny. Kekoa looks up and glares at you. Oh. Yeah. You kind of are being gross. “Yeah, sure, sounds good.”
There’s a bit of silence. Right up until the concrete stairs rising out of the sand. “You taking the job?” Kekoa asks.
The streets are pretty enough. Cobblestone roads with clean concrete sidewalks. A mix of upscale boutiques and smaller touristy stores with surfboards and leis and inflatable sharpedo in the windows. You know he asked you a question but you still take a moment to look at the world before you answer.
“I don’t know. Maybe?”
You come to a stop at a crosswalk. The red hand is up but there’s not traffic. Kekoa looks at you with an unreadable face and then keeps walking into the street.
*
You peed an hour ago but you’re still staring at the ceiling. The phone clock says it’s only 1:47. You’ve barely had three hours of sleep and you should get more because tomorrow is going to be a long, long day and you’re tired now.
Not that the tiredness is helping you actually get rest. You’ve snuggled up under the covers, counted 120 wooloo rolling down the hill, closed your eyes and focused on the darkness, said the Resurrection Plea fifty times… nothing’s worked. And now you’re getting worked up because nothing’s worked.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Maybe you need fresh air? Is it safe, though? You know you’re near the beach, near Tidesong, but this isn’t your side of town. You really only came over this far to visit Aunt Diana and you never walked here. Or never went too far outside at night. Was that because it was unsafe? Or because you just didn’t want to?
Well. You also didn’t have a pokémon then. Maybe you should take Sir Bubbles out on a walk. He is nocturnal after all. Yeah. Yeah, you’ll do that. Just for a little bit. Then it’s right back to sleep for you and right back to the pool for Sir Bubbles. You slowly roll out, wincing at the creaking noises the bed makes. Right above Cuicatl. And she’s probably really sensitive to that. Your feet hit the ground with a thud after you leave the ladder a step early you glance at her in a panic. She’s somehow still asleep. But her vulpix is very much awake and looking at you like you just killed her entire family. “Sorry,” you whisper.
Thankfully you’re already in a t-shirt, skirt, and leggings since you’re sleeping near a boy. You really just have to grab your purse on the way out the door. And then the door booms shut behind you. Of course.
*
The streets are as dead as the halls and pool were. There’s one restaurant—a bar maybe—two blocks down with lights shining from it and a few people milling outside. Nobody between you and the water. You pull Sir Bubbles a little tighter to your chest and start walking to the coast. There’s a faint breeze, enough to make you a little bit cold. You glance up: the skies are cloudy and you can’t see any stars. Oh. Not great weather for a night walk. At least it’s not rain—you aren’t going to finish that thought. No wood to knock on.
Alright. Quick walk. Just the couple blocks to the edge of the beach. The same shops look almost ominous when the light only reaches into the display shelves with rope necklaces and tombstones and sharpedo silhouettes in the place of leis and surfboards and pool toys. You find yourself picking up the pace reflexively. It’s still fine. One car rolls past and turns on to a side street in front of you. It keeps moving so you relax. It’s too quiet. There should be birdsong or people or something beyond the rolling of the waves.
By the time you’ve worked yourself up enough that you don’t feel even a little bit tired you’ve made it to the plaza by the beach. There’s a short concrete wall to lean on and it’s wide enough to set Sir Bubbles down on. Let him look at the water. Not fresh water but he might not know that. And you can always withdraw him if he does make a run for it.
He doesn’t. He does look at you with his wide, expressive eyes for a fraction of a second before turning back to the ocean. After a second he wiggles and deflates a little bit as he lowers himself down to the railing. You giggle to yourself. He’s so cute. Wouldn’t have thought a frog could be but here you are.
Here. You. Are.
The thought isn’t depressing. Calming, maybe. Takes the anxiety and giddiness away in an instant.
Here you are halfway across town and a world away from where you were a month ago. For now. Your mother can be moody but she loves you. She’ll realize it was all a misunderstanding and come around. If she can find it in herself to visit Exodus once a month, she can find it in herself to forgive you. Still. Being with Sir Bubbles. The mantine riding. The job offer. You giggle again. It’s hard to imagine telling Mom that you’re going to be a surfer girl from now on. Would she even know what to say?
No. You couldn’t accept it. They’d spend all that time training you and then you’d just go back to the other side of town. But it was fun. Might be worth trying to get lessons once everything goes back to normal. It is exercise. At least your body feels like it was exercise. And it’s not manly like basketball or corrupting like cheerleading so Mom shouldn’t have a problem with it.
The wind picks up enough that you can hear it. Nope nope nope. Time to go back to your warm bed. After dropping Sir Bubbles off in the–is it a heated pool? Should it be? You didn’t catch him in a heated pond. Huh. You should do some more reading. Probably need to know it for your Class III anyway.
Oh. Right. Your Class III. That test that Cuicatl spent almost a week studying for. You should probably research for that on the trail but. You didn’t bring a guidebook. Were you supposed to? Can Cuicatl and Kekoa just fill you in on the important stuff? Is that cheating?
No. Not now. These are tomorrow thoughts. Or at least bed thoughts. You scoop Sir Bubbles back into your arms and turn around.
*
“You been in it?”
You do your best to blink the sleep out of your eyes before turning to Kekoa. Why did you agree to leave before dawn? “Hmm?”
“The hotel? You been in it?” Kekoa asks.
Oh. Right. The Tidesong. Big white building made of limestone or marble or whatever. Even the pavement’s made of something similar. It’s right in front of you, can’t miss it. Unless you’re asleep.
“Yes.”
“And is it just as pretty on the inside?”
It is. The lobby is six or seven stories high and has a series of beautiful waterfall-type fountains curving around it with canals and bridges on the floor. Always some lovely music echoing through it too. Grand Hano’s bigger but Tidesong’s probably prettier. Even if you’d never say that to Dad’s face.
You turn around and see Cuicatl’s vulpix staring ahead. She’s about five feet in front of her trainer facing the big white building with her tails drooping.
It probably reminds her of home.
*
It’s not that much farther to the gate of Route 4. And it is a very literal gate, ten feet tall and made of sticks and rope with a wooden sign dangling from the top. Is this how all routes start?
Kekoa just keeps walking through with no fanfare. You say a silent prayer for luck as you pass through. You might need it.
The start of the route is classic Alola with palm trees and broad-leaf rainforest plants. Then once you’re… five minutes? Ten minutes? A half hour? Honestly you’re too tired to think about much more than putting one foot in front of the other. Once you’re some ways in the plants just die. There’s grass on the forest floor, a few shrubs, even a small fern tree or two. But the tall trees bigger around than you are dead, their bark coated in black, charred ruin.
It’s quieter than you thought a forest would be. Or a route. And in the first however long it is until Kekoa steps off the path to take a break you only see a couple hoot-hoot flying home for the day and a few rattata scurrying along the path. It’s light now so maybe that will wake more stuff up?
*
Daylight does not wake much more stuff up. A few pikipek, especially around dawn. But as the day wears on and your eyelids get heavier there just isn’t that much going on around you. Cuicatl’s going kind of slow but she’s blind and you don’t really want to go fast so it’s all fine with you.
“What’s it like around us?” she asks from up front.
“Burnt as shit.”
“Controlled burn? Forest fire?”
“Blacephalon attack six weeks ago,” he answers.
You hear Cuicatl almost trip over something—again—before she steadies herself and moves on. “What’s a blacephalon?”
Kekoa sighs. In the dramatic way. “Oh, where to start… so three years back this billionaire chick broke a hole in reality and a bunch of monsters came through. And kept coming through. The bitch is safe in Japan, if you’re wondering. Never going to get at trial. Thousands of deaths and she gets off with less punishment than I’d get for walking past her house.”
You’re pretty sure it hasn’t been thousands. High hundreds maybe. But that’s a bad fight to pick. “Lusamine was sick,” you say instead. “Maybe even possessed.”
Kekoa whirls around to face you. Cuicatl keeps walking for a few seconds before she realizes that the footsteps have stopped. “Who says that? The psychologists she hired?” A step forward. “The politicians she bribed?” A step forward. “Grow up.” He’s staring up at you now, close enough that you can see the sweat rivers on his face and feel his breath. “She was no more fucked in the head than any other asshole with a billion dollars and no real work to do.”
You never met Lusamine. Or her kids (although they’re supposedly nice). His tone still stirs something inside of you. Like you’re the one being attacked. “I choose to see the best in people.”
He actually laughs. Not real laughter. A quick, mocking “hah!”
“Oh man, must be nice being the kid of millionaires, huh?”
Billionaire, actually. Again, not the fight to pick.
“You don’t know me.” Your voice is flat. And… colder than you knew you could make it. You should stop. Draw in someone else to tell Kekoa he’s being rude again. “Cuicatl, you have anything to add?”
“I don’t know the details but I will side with Kekoa here.”
“Eyy, high five—uh, I mean… can I just touch your hand?” Cuicatl holds her hand out and Kekoa slaps it. You’re still registering that she’s on his side? Why? You thought she disliked him?
“I’ve never understood why you let your merchants get away with so much,” Cuicatl answers your unspoken question. “We have businessmen in Anahuac. No billionaires. If someone did that well they’d give the money to the community or the priests or the treasury. The rich serve the people. Not the other way around.” She sounds very proud. Like she built the system herself.
“Yeah, well, that’s why you don’t have any food.”
Crap. Shouldn’t have said that. Couldn’t have. You. You wouldn’t. You’re a good person. And you’re not a racist!
Kekoa stares at you, mouth hanging open a little. Crap. You were mean enough that he’s shocked. Eventually Cuicatl kicks one foot behind the other and spins around in one fluid motion before she starts walking down the trail in silence.
*
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Kekoa grins. “Hey, don’t worry. Kiwi won’t peek.”
“What’s going on?” Kiw—Cuicatl asks.
“Oh, the only toilet in camp is just a seat on the hillside. No outhouse or anything. Hell, not even a back.”
You make eye contact with him for a second before glancing away. “You sound way too happy about this.”
He sticks out his hand. “Hey, you don’t look at mine, I don’t look at yours. Deal?”
“Deal—” he pulls his hand away right before you can shake it.
“Psyche.”
“Girls,” Cuicatl says, “I know you love each other but if you can keep your hands to yourselves while I’m around—”
Kekoa crosses his arms and takes a step back so he can properly glare at. Glare at the blind girl. He turns on you. “What are you giggling about?”
“Nothing,” you answer. Right before an idea hits you! You start walking up the hill to the toilet, letting Sir Bubbles out as you walk. “Sir Bubbles! Use hypnosis on anyone who looks this way!” He croaks, which honestly could mean anything, and you keep on moving, basking in your brilliance.
*
There’s a row of stumps arranged around a weird metal ring half-buried in the ground. Cuicatl and Kekoa are sitting on two of them when you arrive so you sit on a third that forms a roughly equidistant triangle for optimal socialization. That is how you’re supposed to sit, right? Or were you supposed to sit between them?
Kekoa tosses you a white bag. You aren’t good at catching things so it sails right past you. You stand up, pick up the bag, and sit back down. Thankfully he doesn’t throw anything else at you.
“Freeze-dried potato salad. Just pour in some water, shake and, voila, instant haole food.”
You follow his lead. Pour in about a third—about half of your water bottle and shake it for about thirty seconds. Then you pull out the spoon in your mess kit. The smell hits you before you even see it. It’s not rotten. Just… it’s hard to describe. And the looks. A few clumps of white powder in a soupy liquid. You take another thirty seconds to shake that out and at the end it’s better, but not good. The smell only got worse. You take a moment to look at the other two. Kekoa has a look on his face that you’ve never seen before. Cuicatl is negotiating with her vulpix; the fox has her fur fluffed up in alarm and her eyes are wide open in shock.
“It’s okay,” Cuicatl whispers. “You don’t have to do it.” She stands up and starts walking to you before dropping her sealed white bag in your lap. “Here. Wouldn’t want you to starve or anything.”
“You know,” Kekoa follows up a bit too loudly, “we have to pack out what we don’t eat. If you don’t want that to explode all over the inside of your backpack…”
You look down at the bag. The bags. This is fine. You can do this. You put a spoon in and take it out with your eyes closed. It goes into your mouth and. The taste is bad. Like chugging a white muk. Not that you’ve done that. You can still guess how it would taste since smell and taste are linked. It is those two, right? Might be touch and taste. And if the taste is bad the texture is somehow worse. Grains of sand in a watery goop.
You swallow it down and vow to never do a racism again.