“My group was surrounded, with no chance to escape. Our lives depended on me being able to stealthily sneak behind our foes, so I…” The man with the cross inhaled, leaving in a dramatic pause, only to realize he wasn’t being listened to. “Hey! Wake up, brat, I’m telling you a story!”
“...Huh? Oh, right…” Sabrina blinked back into consciousness, slightly ashamed at first, though that quickly turned into righteous anger. “Well, tell a more interesting story next time.”
For the past few weeks, sitting together under the gentle shadow of the oak tree following their Pokemon battles had become something of a daily routine. They talked about plenty of things and saw, within the dusty yellow-paged books Sabrina always carried around, a multitude of places, situations and people completely foreign to their little world. A window into another reality.
The man never told Sabrina about the poem he found, but he often heard her talk about this ‘other life’ she sometimes dreamed about, this shining horizon blocked by a large, impassable wall.
All he could do was smile sadly every time she brought it up.
“Makes sense you wouldn’t appreciate my tale, you’ve got no manners…”
After a moment of silence, the man’s eyes widened and he couldn’t help but laugh. The sound instantly soured Sabrina’s mood.
“What’s so funny?” she asked, hostile.
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“Nothing, it’s just… you were sleeping, right? Doesn’t that mean I earned your trust? I bet you don’t lower your guard around anyone else, hehe…” Now the man’s smile was wide and stupid, and Sabrina couldn’t stand to look at it. “That means I’m special! That makes me happy.”
“I-of course I don’t! Stop getting ideas, I just… I’m tired!” She slammed one of the books down onto the pile, eyes wide with embarrassment. “Who would ever trust a twisted priest like you? I… Stop laughing!”
It wasn’t all a lie, however. Sabrina looked genuinely exhausted; her voice lacked energy, her face was colorless and there was a stained bandage hastily placed around her neck. And it wasn’t a one-time thing. Lately, she often got so engrossed in her own thoughts that he had to shake her to bring her back to reality.
“...What happened there?” the man asked, pointing at the wound on her neck.
“Hm?”
Sabrina blinked a few times. Just then, a small ray of sunlight had filtered through the leaves, falling right on top of the silver cross hanging from the man’s neck. She’d never realized before, but there was a small indent in the metal, like someone had taken a nail and hammer to it.
“Ah… this,” she finally said, looking down at her collarbone. “A challenger’s Sandslash got out of hand today, so…”
But the man had stopped listening at that point, a sudden, dangerous shadow falling over his black eyes. Alarmed, Sabrina followed his gaze and her heart jumped. There, under the sill of the door leading to her room, past the edge of the garden, stood that older man with salt and pepper hair; Azure’s right hand, and the one who always followed her around and told her of new challengers.
After a moment, he shot Sabrina an odd look, a warning, before turning around and disappearing.
The man with the cross didn’t know what that meant, nor why Sabrina, all of a sudden, looked as though an unbearable weight had been dropped on her shoulders.