Thank you for reading. Hopefully you enjoy. If you REALLY like it, I have a P-a-t-r-e-o-n, under the same name, where you can read 5 chapters ahead.
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"What else did he say!?"
"Nothing!" I tried to reassure Clair as she paced back and forth. It was a few days after the dinner, closing in on day 10 of me staying in Blackthorn, and Clair had finally shown back up after avoiding me for a while. "I told you, he dragged me to the Holy Land, showed me some huge, old skull-!"
"Which is dragondung, too! He never took me to see Old Mother!"
"-and gave some weird, semi-emotional monologue! Then we got back to the cave we entered, he Teleported away, and I had to find my own way back here! Which took hours, by the way, thank you for asking!"
"I don't care about that! What! Did! Lance! Say!" She clapped between each word for emphasis.
"He talked about the Clan, and that he doesn't like them that much," I said, both hands up like that might slow her pacing down while I tried to find some meaning in Lance's seemingly random words. "About the skull – Old Mother. About some Dragon clan out in Hoenn who he was jerking off over, while rambling about strength and shit. I don't know, it was a lecture, Clair, just another one of his little, insecure tantrums." That description didn't sit well with me, Lance's almost pencive face flashing through my mind.
But it had been uncomfortable, and oddly private, so I didn't particularly want to talk about it.
"That's the thing, it wasn't just him showing off, at least not only! You're leaving something out."
"I'm leaving out the part where he nearly smacked me off the side of a mountain in the dark, if that's what–"
"I can tell when you're doing it!" There was a growl in her voice as she loomed over me, the resemblance to her cousin never more apparent. "You have a face!"
"Yeah, thanks, Captain Obvious! Did me using it to talk to you tip you off?" How dare she!? I was an excellent liar.
"Shut up! You have several faces, and this is the lying one!"
I opened my mouth to continue arguing that point on principle, yet that was when something across the room made a small, energized-sounding crackle. We both turned in time to watch Siren wobble mid-air, a fist-sized knot of green light gathered in front of her that pulsed once, twice, like it couldn't decide whether it wanted to exist, and then exploded instead of firing – close enough that static prickled up my arms from ten feet away, a small shockwave of dust covering my pants.
Siren dropped out of the air with an offended gurgle, catching herself before she hit the floor.
"...Okay, no, that's-that's actually better," Clair said, distracted despite herself, already crossing the room before I'd fully registered that the subject had changed, which, if I'm honest, was a relief I wasn't in a hurry to examine.
I didn't owe Lance shit; I didn't have to keep his 'secrets'.
Newt had hidden behind a nearby jagged stalagmite, and beside her – coiled loose across a pile of furs as if she owned them, which she probably actually did – Saya lifted her head at Clair's approach and made a small, precise motion, chin dipping toward Siren, tail flicking once.
"She says you're holding it too long," Clair translated, crouching down to Siren's level. Absentmindedly, she reached out and straightened the Prism Scale headband. "You're circulating it and waiting for it to settle like it's a Water Pulse, but it's not water. It doesn't want to swirl around smoothly; it wants to come apart if you let it sit still too long. You've got to throw it before it settles."
Siren gave her a scolding look for just repeating Saya's advice, which made the woman chuckle and gently brush her scales while I watched. Clair was good with Siren, which gave her more points than just about anything else could've. I hadn't seen her team, but I was pretty sure there was a Gyarados among them, given how patient she was with the little fish.
On the other side of the new training room we'd moved to – the Blackthorn Clan had started returning to the Den in numbers after whatever special event that dinner had been about, and they wouldn't leave us alone – Betty tried hard to look like she wasn't listening in, but the slow shuffle closer gave her away. Hearing the advice, she stilled and gathered her energy herself. A torso-sized sphere sizzled into existence under her will, the center a deep indigo that slowly changed to blue and then green towards the edge. It shook and undulated even more than Siren's, the Dragon Pulse near vibrating with the amount of energy packed into it, and Betty wasted no time, unleashing it with the sound of a cannon going off-
-and it instantly lost all cohesion, dissipating into a wave of draconic energy that hammered into her own boulder like the tide, sweeping over and around it, chips flying off as the rock was ground down.
But it was undeniably a failure, as Betty's deep, tired, and angry growl announced. And not only was it a failure; it was worse than Siren's.
Seeing her teammate's even worse result, Siren perked up a little and re-aligned with the mostly-crumped boulder that served as a target for another go, the green specks solidifying and gathering back into that same ball, the wobble and unevenness starting almost immediately. That time, as soon as the outer shell came together and the tiniest little bit of blue collected at the core, Siren let it fly, the recoil pushing her back a bit in a cloud of debris.
It hit the wall with more of a smear, the attack compressing weirdly against the stone– thin, wobbling, more shadow than substance. It erupted more in a fart of energy than an explosion and barely left a crater, but remained stable until then.
Siren let out a noise I'd never heard from her, a delighted, absolutely undignified wheezing keen, and did a full corkscrew in the air out of sheer excitement.
"Wha-!" I gaped at where the flimsy Dragon Pulse had landed. Even Newt's was stronger. But it was a Dragon Pulse. "... YEEEESS!" Drunk on her own accomplishment, Siren basked in the praise as I raised her high, twirling around while laughing. Saya crooned gently in congratulations, Newt chirping happily as she slowly slithered closer, almost close enough to touch me. The Feebas and Dratini had bonded quickly during training, their inherent weakness and desire to push beyond it resonating.
CRRAAACKKK!
"HOLY F-!" I bit off the rest of my scream as Sol, hearing the commotion, Telported in with a blinding flash and thundercrack. "STOP THAT!" The Arcanine didn't pay me any mind, jumping around in excitement at the general mood.
Aurora and Zorua had been training nearby, the Ice-Type trying to get the Dark-Type to fight her beyond desperate Fury Scratches whenever she got close, and also came over, Siren's success invigorating everyone.
Almost everyone.
Betty's eyes stared from across the room with the intensity of a Hyper Beam, the ground vibrating with her fury.
I felt for her, despite our recent.. difficulties; I really did. She'd been training non-stop every single day to try and show us up, to prove to herself as much as me that she didn't need help, yet, with nothing to show for it but frayed nerves and one memorable explosion that threatened to bring the cave down around us.
Yet Siren – a Feebas, a Pokémon she still hadn't fully forgiven for existing in a shape that wasn't intimidating, never mind a species essentially destined to be beneath her – had just managed a wobbly, half-formed, barely-there version of the exact move Betty couldn't get off the ground at all.
She didn't roar. It was scarier, somehow. She went very quiet, and very still, and that stillness had a weight to it that made the celebrations stop, a heavy tension replacing the cheer.
"Betty," I started. She could be upset, but she didn't get to ruin Siren's moment, though I still put her down.
She wasn't listening. Her claws flexed against the stone floor and dug in, four fresh gouges next to the litter of old ones across the ruined surface of gouges and craters, testaments to Betty's lost temper. She stomped hard enough that dust sifted down from above us, cracks tearing the floor apart while a slowly building rumble shook her massive body.
For a second I thought we were back at the full-blown tantrums of the early days, my hand on her PokéBall when she suddenly moved.
16 eyeballs followed the Shelgon as she stomped over to the far side of the cave, slow, heavy panting being the only sound. Getting there, she ignored us for the painful seconds it took her to slowly shuffle around to face back the way she came, stomping forwards with force again when she managed it. Small tongues of fire flicked from her nostrils, claws flexing, and when she came to a stop to try again, she did a weird rolling hop with her shell, lifting it and dropping it by tensing her muscles.
She was pacing, clenching and unclenching her 'hands' as best she could and rolling her 'shoulders'.
The realization struck me.
Wait a minute. Was she doing an impression of me!?
It went on for an almost awkwardly long time before Betty came to a halt, breathing hard, glaring at nothing in particular.
Then, slow enough that I watched the whole thing happen in real time, she deflated, sagging until her belly brushed the floor.
She turned, glazially, eyes on the floor and a sneer distorting her face as she crawled across the room with her head down in a way I'd genuinely never seen on her before. She was trembling, anger and shame radiating from her like a physical miasma. Still, she slinked forward and stopped in front of Siren, claws still flexed hard enough into the floor that I could hear them scrape with every step.
There was another lengthy pause then as she froze, an internal battle raging. I could see Sol start getting bored, but for once, the canine didn't make a scene when I grabbed him by the scruff of his neck.
"shhhee."
I leaned forward unconsciously, the quietest sound possible leaving Betty. She stared around challengingly, only to realize that no one understood.
She roared at us, cratering the ground beneath her as she made to storm off. Only, mid-step, she stopped, limb shaking.
She put it back down. With about the same rotational speed as the Earth rotated the sun, she turned back to us, eyes bloodshot as Espeon came sprinting and jumped to my shoulders, Hercules coated with Quick Attack and right on her heels.
The whole team, plus Newt, Clair, and Saya, stared at the Titan.
She made the sound again, louder and low in her throat, eyes glaring at a pebble on the ground. It wasn't a threat. Not a challenge or an insult. It was warbling, closer to what she'd sounded like as a Bagon.
She was asking.
Shaking with what it cost her, looking like she'd rather go another round with Saya than be doing it in front of an audience – she was asking Siren, and by extension the frozen Newt next to her, to teach her.
Siren went very still, staring up at the humongous Pokémon towering over her. Then, with more restraint than I, or basically the entire team, would've shown, she didn't gloat, didn't so much as flick a fin in triumph. Just drifted closer, leaving the frozen Newt behind until the fish bubbled for the Dratini to follow.
I bit my lip, watching the three slink off, Pygmy and Titan following the tiny Feebas away from the rest of us. I wanted to join them, say something, but I knew better. Betty was one wrong move away from saying 'screw it' and just settling for violence.
So, I'd just silently cheer to myself in the corner and leave it to Siren.
Instead, I looked over at Clair, who'd gone very quiet next to me.
"That's-... huh," she started, and stopped.
Fair.
The room settled after that, my Pokémon slowly returning to their business, though Espeon stayed wrapped around my shoulders and I could feel Honedge's agitation. Clair sat down on the roughly bench-shaped rock next to me instead of resuming her own pacing, which felt like its own kind of statement.
"I'm impressed. I didn't think she would actually do it, not without you kicking her ass a couple of times. She's got more nerve than half the Clan put together," she said, eyes still on Betty, who was hunched over, still not looking at her new teachers. Siren tried again, only for her Dragon Pulse to fizzle out just before hitting her target, to her huffing displeasure. She nudged Newt instead, almost tipping the frozen Dratini over. "Asking like that. Humiliating herself in front of people. That's-" She stopped again.
"That's what?"
"Nothing." A beat. Then, quieter, not quite looking at me. "Hard, is all."
I grunted non-committally, unsure what to say. I didn't want to scare her off – I'd grown… somewhat fond of her – but I also really didn't want to get dragged into any more inter-Clan drama that I couldn't do shit about.
How'd I become everyone's unwilling confidant?
"Now you're sounding like Lance."
"So he did say something!"
"I already told you that!"
She huffed, crossing her arms. We sat in silence for a moment. Predictably, however, she didn't let it linger for long.
"... I used to follow him around, you know. When I was little, I'd sneak after him when he came up here. Even back then, he liked dragons more than humans." She wasn't looking at me at all, eyes on the crackling fire in front of us instead. "Every time I could slip away. Which wasn't often, even then – my father was Gym Leader, presumed to be the next Clan Head – but when I could, I'd trail him around for the whole day, watching everything he did, trying to copy it. How he stood. How he talked to the dragons like he wasn't scared of a single one of them." A short, humorless breath that wasn't quite a laugh. "This one time, I saw him climb down into the Pit, even though we weren't supposed to. I figured 'if he could do it, so could I!' – never mind that I was seven and Saya was three. Even if anything happened, I thought, he'd save me."
"Did it work?"
"Nah. I broke my arm and almost got eaten by a Gabite. Would have, if not for Granny saving my ass. Got herself a new scar for the trouble, but the crazy woman thanked me for it, so, you know." She said it flatly enough that I didn't know if snorting was the right response. The ancient, one-armed lady sure was a character. "Lance didn't even notice. I mean that literally – I sat there with Granny realigning the bone, crying my eyes out, and he walked past on his way out, not a scratch on him. He glanced right at me, and just… kept moving. Didn't ask what happened. Didn't ask if I was alright. Just – kept walking, like I was furniture that had fallen over. Like he was ashamed to look at me."
"Clair-"
"And that's the thing." She pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around them, which was such a small, un-Clair-like posture that it made the words hit harder than shouting ever would've. She still wasn't looking at me, and I wasn't sure if she remembered I was there despite speaking out loud. "Everyone in the Clan holds me up against him. Every single day of my life. Be more like Lance. Show some of that Blackthorn fire, girl, look at your cousin. My own father, tonight, practically gagging on Lance's cock before you'd even sat down." She didn't pay attention to my grimace. "And Lance-" her jaw worked, muscles tight. "-Lance doesn't even want it. Doesn't care. Never has. I could spend my whole life chasing after some idea of him that he doesn't even believe in himself, and he wouldn't even blink."
I thought about the way Lance's voice had changed, just slightly, talking about her. 'Could be something, if she let herself'. The thing that had sat under his words that wasn't quite anger.
I didn't tell her that. It wasn't mine to hand over, and I wasn't sure it would be as comforting even if I did – might just sound like Lance had opinions about her either way, which was sort of the whole problem to begin with.
"For what it's worth," I tried instead, "I don't think your way is worse, and I'm not sure he does either. Working towards who you actually want to be, when there's something in you that'd make it so easy to just let go, that's not… that's not nothing, Clair. I can't do it, not really, not yet. Lance sure as shit can't and, no offense, your Clan seems shit, so who cares about their opinion! If you-I-!" I frowned, trying to find the words. "... fuck 'em!"
She didn't answer right away, beyond a snort at my fumbling, but something in her shoulders eased, just slightly.
"That sounds like a kind way of saying I'm a coward who cooks her meat too long," she said, finally looking at me with the ghost of a smile.
"That's not close to what I said. I don't even know what that means!"
"I know." The small smile was gone as fast as it arrived, replaced by the usual set of her jaw as she pushed up onto her feet, dusting off knees that didn't need dusting; the conversation closed the way she always closed things – abruptly and with anger. "Don't tell anyone you tricked that out of me!"
"Tricked!? Bro, you're a leaking sieve of personal information! You fold under no pressure and just randomly trauma dump on me, just like your shit-head cousin!"
"Only I can call Lance that!"
"Not to his face, apparently!"
"FUCK YOU!"
—-
Word traveled fast, and to the surprise of absolutely no one, getting personally hauled up to the head table by the Indigo Champion – and then vanishing off into the night with him afterwards – was exactly the sort of gossip that traveled the fastest.
By the fourth day back in the Den, we had an audience beyond the young dragons. If anything, the new crowd pushed most of the hatchlings away, their stronger – if mostly still first stage evolutions – dragons scaring them away.
It wasn't a friendly one, either. A rotating cast of Blackthorns, mostly the same mid-tier NPCs, something to prove, crowd from dinner, drifting down to the training grounds with openly hostile expressions, envious curiosity trying to work out what their idol saw in me so they could decide how much to resent it, and how to replicate it. Bald Guy, with the burn scars, showed up twice, and left both times looking more offended than when he'd arrived.
Few had directly challenged me, but they were gaining courage when Lance didn't phase through the wall and beat their ass for looking at me wrong.
Such was the case with the Bagon I was facing. Young yet thick-necked, it belonged to a boy around my age, which obviously made him feel like he had something to prove. The very tall, yet gangly, boy had barged in with a small entourage, loudly declaring that his Bagon would 'put the outsider and his coward in his place.' His pink hair was styled like Lance's, his clothes were a knock-off of Lance's, hell, even his squeaky voice sounded like a shitty replica.
I'd heard worse insults from the ones around him. Yet, something about him bothered me. He'd swaggered up while I was working with Zorua, taking the fight with a condescending expectation of an easy win.
Unfortunately for him, when his Bagon face planted through the illusory Zorua, the real one hadn't vanished.
She'd bolted from worse than a Bagon before. A raised voice was all it took, most days. But we'd been working on it. Against the team, against wild Pokémon, we'd slowly, ever so slowly, been building her confidence.
Something about that boy in particular must have hit a nerve with Zorua, just like with me. Maybe it was the words, maybe the attitude, maybe it was the human onlookers. I wasn't sure. But something hardened in Zorua's eyes, a savage glint.
The Bagon, true to form, ran head-first straight through the illusion and continued on unimpeded straight into the cave wall with a crack that made half the onlookers wince in secondhand sympathy.
Normally, that would be the end of it, and I'd send out someone else – often Aurora or Honedge for the experience – but not that time.
By the time the Bagon staggered back upright, shaking its head, disoriented and thoroughly unamused, Zorua had darted around behind it, low to the ground, and leapt up on its back. Her claws carved long, bloody grooves along the reptile's back as her jaws clamped down on the back of its neck, teeth held at bay from the Bagon's spine by the bottom of its bony crest. Usually, I'd have stepped in to prevent the near murder, but before I even could, the Bagon went down with a cry, Zorua jumping off and vanishing mid-air before I felt her fur brush against my legs as she sprinted past to hide behind me.
The boy's confidence and ego did not survive.
"Man, I don't know how you managed to piss her off like that, but I've gotta thank you!" I told him, entirely honestly. "Little one usually runs the second things get loud, but she really wanted to mess you up."
"Bu-bu-but… it didn't run," he said, somewhat redundantly, staring at his Bagon struggling to get up, blood running down its back in thin rivers, as if it had personally betrayed him.
"No," I agreed. "Guess she didn't. Sucks." I'd hoped that would signify a permanent change in the Dark-Type. It wasn't to be, as a few minutes later, she dodged a fight with a Seadra, of all things – good levitation, though.
Aurora had a better week than the Bagon, generally speaking, for the extremely simple reason that the entire place was stuffed wall to wall with Dragon-Types and she'd honed an Ice-Type moveset that made most of them visibly regret their life choices the second she opened with anything colder than a light breeze. She'd been a little shy about it at first, which confused me. If anything, once the fighting got going, she had a habit of getting too eager. Yet, something about it being dragons interfered with her normal emotional mirroring. It still worked just fine with the rest of us – she'd go from Espeon's aloofness to Sol's silliness in the blink of an eye when it came time to eat – but not on the cold-blooded reptiles.
Beyond that, I could swear that whatever draconic attacks did hit her didn't do quite as much damage as they should, or as much as they did day one.
It wasn't confirmed. It was much more likely that it was my own imagination.
And yet.
Despite all the good training we were getting in – even me, for all that my emotional control was tested to the limit and I failed more often than not – it also became clear that I was starting to overstay my welcome.
In fairness to me, it wasn't like I went looking for it.
It was the same boy from earlier, the one with the Bagon and the surly attitude. He just kept coming back, watching me with a sneer, throwing out insults at all times. He watched Newt the same way, it turned out, when Newt drifted too close during a lull between matches, despite her best efforts to stay away from the Blackthorns. I'd incorporated her in the matches against the weaker Dragon Trainers, as a thanks for the help, and to piss off the dickheads watching.
It was incredibly satisfying to see their superior attitude crumbling when they lost against what they considered 'thrash'.
"Didn't realize the Gym Leader's been running a shelter for rejects!" The boy boasted loudly and bombastically. He'd been getting worse the more I brushed him off. "Whole Clan tossed that thing for a reason. Kindest thing anyone could do for it would've been to not bother in the first place."
"Kindest thing would be to hide you in the basement, keeping the rest of us from having to look at your ugly-ass face." I grimaced at my words while the crowd jeered. That wasn't… that wasn't very controlled.
But he just wouldn't stop.
Face furious, he stepped closer with gritted teeth and a vein throbbing in his forehead. Honedge went taut in my shadow, but I mentally waved him down.
"Say that again, bitch. You've got a big mouth for Gible food."
The comeback was on the tip of my tongue, the aggression that hadn't left since I stepped foot in the mountain of Blackthorn throbbing under my skin.
The volcano and Lance flashed through my mind, followed by Clair, and all the dipshits around me, practically drooling at the promise of violence.
I took a deep breath. And stepped back.
"Not worth it," I said, and turned to walk away – the single most mature thing I'd done in… a while. I felt proud of myself.
"Don't turn your back on me! HEY!"
That feeling lasted almost four seconds.
"Guess the Gym Leader's got you trained good, then. Heeling and everything." A pause, timed with a hard shove to the back that sent me forward a step. "Maybe while you sleep, I come up, and I'll finish what the Clan started with that little worm you hang around with. Save everyone the trouble twice."
I don't remember deciding to turn back around.
I do remember my fist against his face.
CRACK!
It caught him across the jaw, and he staggered backwards, some instinct making him raise a forearm up to absorb the second one.
He swung back, wild and faster than I expected – no stance under it at all, just weight and anger. I read it a half-second before it landed, and still took it clean on the cheekbone, because some things you see coming and still don't get out of the way fast enough.
SMACK!
The world flashed and rang on that side, forcing me back a step before I caught myself and surged in again. He wasn't that much taller than me, meaning my forehead cracked against his nose in a spray of blood.
He wasn't trained. It wasn't his first fight, blood running down from his broken nose as he kept swinging, red teeth bared. He knew how to take a punch and keep trucking, and fought like his dragons, all force and no economy, telegraphing every shift of his weight a full beat before he committed to it.
BAM!
BA-BAM!
Three of mine landed for every wild one of his, short and mean as I kept close, within his guard. I was younger, slimmer, and shorter. A straight slugging match shouldn't favor me.
One of his fingers snapped when I ducked my forehead to meet it. I accepted the other hand to the face without budging in order to get him across the temple, his head swaying dizzily.
His knees buckled, dropping him to the ground as I leapt atop him. The cheering crowd faded, the room narrowing. There was only the pounding in my ears and vibrations through my bones.
BAM!
He grabbed a fistful of my jacket, desperate. I drove my forehead into his already broken nose instead of fighting the grip.
CRACK!
It gave further, his eyebrow splitting. He let go by reflex, hands flying to his face with a muffled scream.
BAM!
BAM!
BA-BAM!
He got one good hit into my side that I felt in my teeth. I answered with three of my own, faster, uglier, every small, humiliating thing the Clan had said since I'd first laid eyes on ugly-ass faces, all of Lance's bullshit, being on constant edge.
How was that for 'might makes right'?
Somewhere far away, a voice was calling over the whooshing sound of the hollering audience.
He stopped fighting back around the fifth or sixth hit and tried to curl defensively, forearms up over his face. I noticed that – and kept going anyway, until a pair of hands closed hard around my arms from behind and hauled me off him.
"That's enough." Clair, close to my ear, not letting go. "Peri. That's enough."
The boy on the ground wasn't getting up quickly. A Vibrava had landed beside him, wings half-mantled over him as it chittered low and anxious.
I looked down at my own hands – shaking now that there was nothing left to hit, blood dripping in a slow rhythm – and felt the adrenaline drain out fast enough to leave something colder underneath it. Around me, the Blackthorns laughed and complained, not a care given for their kin lying in a pool of his own blood, the blue fungi reflecting off of white enamel in the puddle.
I pushed Clair off of me and left them behind, shaking my sore hand as droplets of blood splattered the ground.
Fucking assholes, pushing, prodding. Maybe now they'd get the idea.
The adrenaline held out for maybe thirty seconds past pushing Clair off, long enough to put some distance between the crowd and me, but not long enough to actually get anywhere. Then it just went, all at once, like someone had pulled a plug, and I was left tired and panting, forcing the inner fire down.
My hand hurt, and I hadn't noticed until right then, throbbing in time with my pulse, knuckles split open enough that I was leaving little dark spots on the stone every few steps. I flexed it once and immediately regretted the decision.
Leaning against the wall, I sighed, sliding down to sit on the floor.
'Maybe now they'd get the idea.'
I'd meant it. In the moment, standing over him with my knuckles screaming and the crowd yelling, I'd meant every word of it, and some small, ugly part of me still did, sitting with it now – the part that had enjoyed it, actually enjoyed the way his nose gave under my fist and forehead, and that part scared me a lot more than the guilt did.
The fighting was one thing, but I'd wanted it to hurt. I'd gotten what I wanted, and I didn't know what to do with that afterwards.
I'd been doing so well.
I realized I was on my feet again, pacing. Six steps one way, turn, six steps back, shoulders rolling as if I could physically work the tension out of my joints if I just moved long enough.
Heavy thuds alerted me that Betty had found me maybe ten minutes later. I would've been surprised at how long my team left me alone, but I'd seen Siren peek around the corner and retreat again.
Apparently, Betty had been chosen. That made me a little happy, honestly, that the others trusted her enough for that. It wouldn't have been that long ago that they'd have refused to let her be alone with me.
She didn't say anything, obviously. Just settled down a few feet off with a low boom! and stared at me.
"What are you looking at, huh?" I asked tiredly. "Come to gloat?"
She huffed once and jerked her head toward the ground next to her, which, from Betty, was about as close to 'sit down, idiot' as a gesture could get.
I sat.
"... you were doing the same thing earlier," I said, after a while, staring at my own busted hand instead of at her. "The pacing. Picked it up from me, huh?" I snorted. "Guess I've got some of your worse habits as well."
Her eye twitched. She didn't look away from me, though.
"I told that guy it wasn't worth it. Walked away and everything, felt real proud of myself for a second." I flexed the hand again, hissed through my teeth. "And then I wasn't better than that. Not even close. He said one more thing about Newt and I just – went. Didn't decide to. My body just reacted before the rest of me caught up, and even that… I could maybe forgive myself for that. They're Blackthorns; they probably punch each other daily. Except I didn't stop when he stopped fighting back. I had to get pulled off." I let out a breath that wasn't quite a laugh. "You've spent our time here working on your temper, while I've been standing here acting like I already know how, and today I'm reminded that I… I don't. Not really. Not when it counts."
Betty made a low sound in her throat and shifted closer until her boney flank pressed against my side, solid enough that I had to brace against it to keep from tipping over.
"Yeah," I said, quiet. "I know. Shit's rough."
We sat like that for a while, the two of us, neither one of us particularly proud of ourselves. There was something almost funny about it once I let myself see it that way – the great and terrible Titan Shelgon and her extremely fallible trainer, both of us hotheads who'd spent a whole training arc getting handed the same lesson and both flunking.
Betty made the sound again, lower this time, and turned her head to look at me directly.
"What?"
She held my eyes a beat longer, and then, haltingly, made the warble again – the same small, almost-childish sound she'd used asking Siren to teach her, except this time it wasn't aimed at Siren, it was aimed at me, and underneath it I felt something land that didn't need translating.
"For what it's worth," I said, "you've done more work on yourself than I've managed here. I'm not saying I've got any of this figured out. I clearly don't. We're both just – winging it."
She snorted cynically.
"Yeah," I sighed. "But what else do we have other than each other, eh?"
She butted her head against my shoulder, gentle for her, which still nearly knocked me sideways, and huffed out something that sounded almost like relief when my questing fingers found exposed skin. Her shell was healing nicely, thanks to Clair opening up the Blackthorn apothecary. The rough edges were smoothing out and slowly filling in, the cracks filled with an expanding, biodegradable foam to prevent dirt and debris from being trapped and causing an infection.
She wasn't healed, but within a week or two, it would be basically unnoticeable.
"I think our time here is about up," I mumbled, leaning against her more heavily. "Before we go, though, there are a couple of things I wanna wrap up. That being said," I raised my voice, looking down the other direction Betty had come from, seeing a bunch of differently colored shapes – most notably a huge yellow and black striped canine – trying to hide around the corner, "are you gonna come over here or just lurk?"
I should've known better than to tempt them, I mused, while getting buried under Pokémon.
—-
Kinda shoddy, but I injured my finger and writing sucks right now.
Plan to wrap up the Blackthorn arc next chapter and get back to the main plot.
Thank you for reading. Hopefully you enjoyed. If you REALLY like it, I have a P-a-t-r-e-o-n, under the same name, where you can read 5 chapters ahead.