FOURTEEN: NIKAIf you want to get right down to it – if you really want to break it down – then the worst thing about the dream is that it tells her where everything began. Daughter, trainer, sister, lover; Gwyneth failed at everything, and she did it wilfully and of her own volition. And it all starts there, with Juniper and the offer of a pokémon. Welcome, she says. What's your name? Are you a boy or a girl? And Gwyneth knows that this is it. This is the moment of truth, and if she answers she commits to a life of mistakes that will take her, in the end, down the line to an apartment shared with Nika, and though this is what she wants – what she's always wanted – she can't do it. Not knowing what she does now. If she could take it back, if she could return to that day in Nuvema and say to Juniper no, please, I've changed my mind and I'm not going, she would. If she could cut herself out of the last decade, she would do it in a heartbeat.
She would save Blossom that way. She would save Corbin. She'd let Hilbert be a hero and she would be proud to know him.
She would spare Nika everything, and that, in the end, is worth any price she can think of.
So Juniper asks, and Gwyneth stays quiet, and waits for Hilbert to take her place. He goes with Juniper and she watches, terrified and ashamed and secretly, perversely glad, because if there's anyone who deserves this – to be a trainer, to be Nika's – it has to be him.
Some people get chosen and some do not. Gwyneth has had a long time now to come to terms with this.
*
Something roars. Gwyneth hears it at first without comprehension, but the venipede stiffens in her lap and scratches urgently at her arm, and then she blinks and feels the world fade back into existence around her.
“What is it, dude?” she asks, and then she remembers the roaring. “Oh. Right.”
The venipede hisses. Gwyneth sighs.
“I'm sure it's nothing,” she says, although she isn't sure of that at all: it was a big roar, the kind that has to come from a very big animal, and from how close it sounded it had to have come from elsewhere on the beach. “We'll be fine.”
She hears a voice, distantly, and a rough noise of uncertain meaning that must come from whatever it was that was doing the roaring. Must be someone with their pokémon.
“See?” she says to the venipede, but she keeps scrabbling at Gwyneth's arm, and actually it's starting to hurt, so Gwyneth sighs again and gets up. “Okay, dude,” she says, too tired to argue. “Okay, I'll go check it out.”
She cradles the venipede in her arm and starts limping along the beach in the direction of the noises. She doesn't take her backpack. It's heavy, and there's nothing in there worth stealing, even if by some unlikely coincidence someone does come along and find it.
It's not so bad, this walk. The sand is easy on her feet, and the surf makes a nice, soft sound, like the sound of someone's breath when you share a bed with them and wake before they do. Gwyneth could fall asleep to that kind of noise, even standing up as she is, and her eyes are in fact starting to close when she sees something move in front of her and she flies back to full consciousness with a jolt.
She can't be sure what she's looking at, in the dark, but it's about nine feet tall, and has the unmistakeable six-limbed profile of a dragon.
“Hello,” says someone, in a soft, gentle voice. “Please don't be afraid. They won't hurt you.”
Gwyneth blinks. In her arms, the venipede freezes. They have both just become aware of the man standing next to the dragon. He is tall and slim, with a Henuun cast to his features and long green hair tied back behind his head.
She knows this man. Everyone does.
“You're N Harmonia,” she says. “You're … and this …”
She stares. The dragon inclines its huge head, and she sees the blue sparks burning in the depths of its eyes. Yes. It is exactly what she thinks it is.
“Yes.” N shrugs, a little embarrassed. “Sorry if we startled you. We've tried to travel by night, to avoid trouble. I don't know if I'm welcome in Unova these days. We just stopped here for a quick break.”
“You disappeared,” says Gwyneth. It isn't what she means to say, it just sort of comes out. “My brother, he said …” She shakes her head. “Sorry.”
“Your brother, did you say?” N looks at her. She's glad she can't see his eyes properly in the dark. In the pictures, they always looked so piercing. Gwyneth would hate to be seen through so completely like that. “Oh! You're Gwyneth, aren't you?”
“Yeah. I guess so.”
N smiles.
“It's nice to meet you,” he says. “Hilbert never said anything about his family. And it's nice to meet you too,” he adds, bending to address the venipede. She clicks at him, moves her legs and her antennae, and N starts, a little taken aback. “Uh, okay,” he says. “Is – maybe I misheard. She says her name is … Asshole?”
It's so unexpected that Gwyneth can't help but laugh, even here with N and Zekrom in front of her, enigmatic and heroic.
“Oh god,” she splutters, through her laughter. “Jeez. No. No, dude, I just call her that a lot because she is one. Her name's―” (and for a moment, just a moment, she hesitates) “―Griselda.”
“Griselda?” repeats N.
“Yeah, Griselda,” says Gwyneth, testing it out to see how it sounds. She has no idea where it came from. It isn't the sort of thing she feels she should question. “Zelda for short.”
She is suddenly aware of the venipede's eye on her, watching carefully. She knows, thinks Gwyneth, wondering. She knew all along. Clever little monster.
“Well, then. It's a pleasure to meet you both, Zelda and Gwyneth.” N smiles. “I suppose we're heading in the same direction.”
“Huh? Oh. Yeah. The wedding.” Gwyneth's heart skips a beat. N must be flying to Humilau. If N is flying to Humilau … “Yeah,” she says, trying to be casual. “I guess we are.” She pauses. “I didn't even know anyone had found you yet.”
N shrugs, and leans against Zekrom. The dragon doesn't move an inch.
“Your brother found me a long time ago,” he says. “I just didn't want to come back. I suppose I was afraid. I miscalculated badly, back when I was younger. My formulae led me to some unfortunate conclusions …” He sighs. “You know, I'm sure,” he says. “You must have been on your journey at the time.”
“Yeah.” Gwyneth hesitates. She could tell him the full story, but there's no point. N has suffered enough, and she is not that cruel, not really. “Yeah, I was,” she says instead. “You know there are some Plasma people in Driftveil trying to return all the pokémon they took?”
“Really?” N stares. “So some of them really were following me, and not – him?”
“Yeah.” She doesn't tell him about the other rumours she's heard, of new Plasma activity down near Virbank. “People seem to be okay with them,” she says. “I think they'd like to see you too.”
“I see.” N fidgets nervously. “Well, maybe I … maybe I'll visit. After everything. I have some business to take care of here in Unova first. But thank you,” he adds. “Really. It means a lot that you told me.”
He smiles. Gwyneth smiles back. She even means it, mostly.
“Hey, well, no problem, dude.”
There is a pause. N seems to be thinking about something, and Gwyneth waits for it to come out.
“You haven't heard … anything else, have you?” he asks at length. “About Plasma, I mean. I'd heard some rumours …”
Gwyneth sighs.
“Okay,” she says. “Sure. I heard that some of them are causing trouble again, down near Virbank. I don't know any more than that, sorry.”
N nods.
“No,” he says. “Thank you, Gwyneth. That's a direction, at least.” He claps his hands together. “But that can wait. Tomorrow your brother is getting married, and unless I am mistaken you have missed the last boat out to Humilau.”
He is very kind, and very clever. He says it just like that, as if Gwyneth has just got her timings slightly wrong, as if she isn't covered in bruises and dirt. For a second, she actually thinks he might not have noticed, and then she sees the look on his face and knows that he sees her exactly as she is, and he would like to spare her the indignity of begging him for help.
She's a little ashamed. But mostly she is grateful, and amazed that someone like N survived someone like Ghetsis Harmonia with his love for other people so perfectly intact.
“Yeah, she says. “I kinda have.”
“I can offer you a lift, if you like.”
“Well, thanks,” she says. “That'd be cool of you. Uh, I left my bag back there, so …”
“That's fine,” says N. “Lead the way.”
Gwyneth heads back, and he keeps pace alongside her, Zekrom stalking behind them with the same unnatural lightness of step she noticed in Reshiram. It always feels wrong to her when something that big moves that quietly.
She glances down at Zelda, but she doesn't seem to be afraid at all. It's probably N. She's heard he's supposed to put nearby pokémon at their ease. Cheren always said that the rumours about N weren't anywhere near as weird as the truth.
“Have you come far?” asks N. “I'm afraid I don't know anything about you. Hilbert is not a very talkative person.”
“You can say that again.” She sighs. “I came from Aspertia. It's taken a while to get here, but I did it.”
“That's quite a trip.”
“I bet you came further,” she says, to shift the conversation away from herself, and he chuckles.
“Yes,” he says. “You'd be right there.” He glances out to sea, across the silver-flecked darkness of the water. “When I got the invitation, I was in Johto,” he says. “In Ecruteak. Parts of its history are very interesting to me. Hilbert of course didn't know, and I was always on the move, so the only way he could get a message to me was to give it to Reshiram and say, 'Go find N.'”
“It can do that?”
“Zekrom and Reshiram can always find one another,” says N. “They are two halves of a whole.”
He says it with a solemnity that makes Gwyneth feel vaguely embarrassed to have asked.
“Anyway, it caused quite a stir,” he goes on. “Reshiram descending on the Bell Tower. Some people thought Lugia had returned.” Gwyneth doesn't know what that is. She doesn't ask. “I left as soon as I got the message. I have to say I was surprised. Hilbert … I guess there's no reason why he couldn't marry, but somehow I wasn't expecting it.”
“Huh,” says Gwyneth. “Yeah, me either.”
They reach Gwyneth's backpack, and she hands Zelda to N for a moment while she puts it on.
“Zekrom flies … rather fast,” he says. “You'll want to hold on. Does Zelda have a poké ball?” She shakes her head. “Ah. Then … maybe I should carry her for you, so you have your hand free.”
“Okay. You're fine with that, right Zelda?”
Zelda clicks and wiggles her antennae. She seems perfectly content in N's arms. Don't be jealous, Gwyneth tells herself, and doesn't quite manage to obey.
Zekrom drops to all fours and crouches, flattening its wings against the ground as best it can. N climbs up in between its shoulder blades, then extends a hand to help Gwyneth up after him. She'd be lying if she said she wasn't a little nervous, but she does it, and sits behind him, feeling a faint buzzing warmth rising through her jeans from Zekrom's back.
“Are you ready?” asks N. “Please do hold on tight. You won't hurt me, and you really don't want to fall.”
She puts her arm around his waist. Beneath the white linen shirt – and who wears those, she wonders – it is hard and taut, like she's looped her arm around one of those sculptures of classical heroes.
“Ready,” she says, because although she probably isn't this is a chance she cannot pass up, the universe throwing her a bone after the hell she's crawled through to get here – and then Zekrom kicks away from the ground in a cloud of flying sand and its tail ignites and she can't think of anything but the speed.
*
They blaze across the night sky like a shooting star. Gwyneth expected to be deafened by the wind, but in reality most of the noise comes from Zekrom's tail, crackling and whining like an electrical storm, glowing blue and spitting sparks that explode noisily in the air behind them. Her legs are boiling with the heat coming off the dragon's skin; her face is frozen with the cold air rushing past. She doesn't know what she was expecting, but she had an idea that riding the legendary dragon might be a bit more elegant.
The lights of Undella vanish quickly behind the hills, and then between the darkness and the water streaming from Gwyneth's eyes she can't see much at all. This goes on for a few seconds, or a few hours, she can't tell which, and then at last when her arm has begun to ache from clinging to N so tightly Zekrom flares its wings and dims its tail, and slows as it begins the descent towards the city below.
Gwyneth blinks water from her eyes and stares as it comes into focus. There it is, spread out beneath them. It's real. It's really real, and it's right there.
Humilau.
*
Zekrom lands in an isolated cove on the southwest corner of the island, where rocks and palm trees shelter it from view. It crouches, and Gwyneth slides unsteadily off it into the sand. The bones in her legs feel like they've been replaced with jelly, but they hold, and she doesn't fall over.
N hops down alongside her, irritatingly sprightly, and hands her Zelda.
“Here you are,” he says. “Safe and sound. I hope you weren't too uncomfortable.”
“Nah, dude,” she replies, putting Zelda on her shoulder and trying half-heartedly to sort out the rat's nest the wind has made of her hair. “I'm fine. Better than fine. I mean, I'm here, I …” She stops, aware that she is starting to give away more than she intends to. “Thanks,” she says. “I really appreciate this.”
N smiles.
“Not at all,” he says. “It was my pleasure.”
They stand there for a little while, staring awkwardly, and then N clears his throat and offers her his hand.
“Well, it was nice to meet you,” he says. “I'll see you later, at the wedding. I need to make arrangements for Zekrom before I head into town.”
“Right,” says Gwyneth. “Sure. Uh – when is the wedding, by the way? I lost my invitation.”
“Twelve o'clock,” he replies, graciously pretending to believe her. “At the Church of St. Jude the Apostle.”
Nika's old church. It's going to be a Catholic thing after all, then. Gwyneth always wondered about that. Nika was always conflicted about the church in a way that Gwyneth, raised without religion of any kind, didn't understand; sometimes she hated it, sometimes she turned to it for consolation. Gwyneth guesses that if something like that gets its teeth into you when you're young enough, you're probably stuck with it for life, at least in part.
“Yeah, I know where that is,” she says. “Thanks, N.”
“Not at all,” he says again. “Goodbye, Gwyneth.”
“See you.”
She turns and begins to walk along the beach, around the rocks to where the steps lead up to the road. The air is warm and the silhouettes of palm trees wave gently against the moon; this is it, isn't it? This is really Humilau. She's really here.
At the top of the steps, Gwyneth stops and stares down the road. Beachfront cafés and expensive apartments. It's all just as she remembers.
“Dude,” she whispers, unable to raise her voice any further. “Dude, we made it.”
Zelda doesn't reply, but it's okay. Gwyneth doesn't need an answer. She doesn't need anything at all right now that isn't right here in front of her.
*
Gwyneth spends the rest of the night sitting on a bench on the seafront, splitting the food she has left with Zelda. The two of them chew and watch the waves change colour with the passing night. It's a long time till sunrise, but it's okay. They made it. From here on out, they can afford to stop and rest.
It's gorgeous. Sand, water, dawn. Palm trees like the long necks of lanky dragons, shaggy with leaves.
Unova, she thinks, and despite everything Gwyneth knows in her heart that she still loves it.
A little after seven o'clock, when she judges it late enough, Gwyneth takes out her phone. She knows that she has gone as far as she can, that there is at this point only one last challenge left to overcome, and now that she is here in Humilau she takes a deep breath and dials the number she has pretended for over a year now that she doesn't remember.
Gwyneth listens to it ringing, and then to a sleepy voice, angry to be woken, asking who this is.
“Hi, Mom,” she says softly. “I'm back.”
*
She is staying at the Belmante Hotel, on the corner of West Street and Rademaeker Avenue. Gwyneth finds it on her phone's map, and walks, and pushes through the revolving doors, and hears her name called out, sharp and relieved and fearful.
“Hi, Mom,” she says again, letting herself be hugged. “It's … good to see you too.”
Her mother pulls back, casts her eye over her. She looks older than Gwyneth remembered. How long has it been since she last saw her, anyway? Do people really age that much in just two years? Maybe they do if their kids disappear without a trace, thinks Gwyneth guiltily.
“Gwyneth, what happened?” she asks, staring. “You look …”
“Awful,” finishes Gwyneth, smiling crookedly. “Yeah, I know.” She sighs. “Is there somewhere I can sit down?”
She washes her face and free hand in the bathroom of her mother's hotel suite. Her face hurts wherever the water touches it, and it doesn't look much better when she's done, but she feels a little less like she might keel over and die.
In the cosy warmth of the hotel room, she tells her mother some things. She says she's been in Aspertia. She says she got the news late and hitchhiked up here. She says she caught a venipede by accident, was briefly hospitalised, and got into a small fight in White Forest. She says that N brought her the rest of the way from Undella, and her mother sighs, grateful and frustrated.
“God, Gwyneth,” she says. “Didn't you ever think to tell anyone?”
Apparently Nika came round to Gwyneth's apartment one day, hoping to apologise, and found someone else living there. It would have been after Gwyneth was evicted, either while she was homeless or after Shane took her in. Nika tried to make sense of the fact that Gwyneth had apparently moved without telling her, called her mother to see if she knew anything, and then returned to Nacrene, too hurt and confused to live in Aspertia any longer.
“Where were you?” her mother keeps asking, and eventually Gwyneth sighs and admits it.
“I lost the apartment. Didn't have anywhere, for a while. Then … then a friend helped me out.”
Her mother stares. With a sudden fierce anger, Gwyneth wishes she would turn those wounded eyes somewhere else.
“Gwyneth,” she says. “Oh, Gwyneth.”
Gwyneth shrugs. She cannot make herself talk about this.
“I'm okay,” she says. “I got your message. I mean, I have a friend Shane, he knows Cheren. Cheren told him about … this. The wedding.”
“Cheren knew where you were?”
Gwyneth can hear the anger in her voice, and much as she would like to get Cheren into trouble, she shakes her head no.
“He didn't know. He only knew that Shane knew me.”
“Who's Shane?”
“Friend of mine. The one who … helped.” Gwyneth looks away, at Zelde investigating some fluff caught in the carpet. “You don't know him.”
“I think I might like to,” says her mother, with an unmistakeable undercurrent of because he saved my daughter, and Gwyneth feels the anger kick at her insides again.
“Maybe,” she says, forcing it down. “Maybe.”
There is a long silence. The first of the morning traffic starts to go by below the window.
“You know you hurt Nika a great deal,” says her mother, and Gwyneth hangs her head, wishing she could just crumble into dust. That millstone is grinding on her gut again.
“Yeah,” she says, barely even whispering. “I know.”
*
After some coffee and a shower, and when the shops have started to open, Gwyneth goes out. She has a wedding to attend in a couple of hours, and she owes it to Nika and Hilbert to not show up looking like, well, like she does now. Her mother agrees with her, and so with some of her money in hand Gwyneth and Zelda set out to make themselves presentable.
She finds a hairdresser's minutes after it opens, and manages to get herself seen right away. Her hair is a complete mess, and she is sick of it getting in her eyes, so she has one side cut brutally short and the other not much longer, and the whole heavily bleached to get rid of the ugly remnants of the last dye job. This, as the stylist warns her, is kind of terrible for her hair, but at this point she couldn't care less as long as it stops filling her peripheral vision with fields of rust. It also takes a considerable amount of time, although she thinks it's probably okay. Her good dress is being pressed back at the hotel; all she needs now are shoes that aren't her beat-up old boots and some fresh bandages and make-up. She can do that quickly enough. It's not like the shoes need to be all that nice.
When she leaves the hairdresser's and puts Zelda back on her shoulder, she runs her antennae over Gwyneth's new hairstyle and rattles anxiously to herself, picking up harsh new scents and colours and unsure of what it means.
“Still me, asshole,” Gwyneth tells her. “Not getting rid of me that easily.”
The friendly hostility in her voice seems to do the trick, and Zelda settles down, reassured. Gwyneth almost laughs. It's nice to have someone around who gets it.
On her way back, she almost buys cigarettes, but then she remembers the staff at the Pokémon Centre talking about Zelda's inflamed lung and decides against it. She's done without smoking ever since she was evicted, when it became more expensive than it was worth. She can keep going without it just fine.
Just outside the Belmante, her phone rings.
“Hello?”
“Hey, man. It's Shane.” (It's Shane again.) “Just checkin' in, Gwyn. How's things?”
Gwyneth runs her fingers through her new hair and sighs. She has no clue how things are. Where would she even start?
“I'm here,” she says, unable to think of anything else. “I'm in Humilau.”
“You made it?” He can't keep the disbelief out of his voice. “You're actually there?”
“Wasn't easy, but – yeah. I made it.”
(In the alley behind the video game store, the cigarette dangles loosely from his hands, a finger-twitch away from falling. Gwyneth in Humilau. It seems impossible.)
“Well,” says Shane. “Congratulations, Gwyn. That's quite somethin'.”
“Hah. Yeah. Yeah, it really is.”
“You found the place and everything?”
“Yeah. I … my mom's here. I'm with her.”
“Really.” Shane doesn't seem to know what to think of this. Gwyneth is with him there. She never thought she'd see the day, either. “And you're okay?”
“Yeah, I guess.” Gwyneth looks around. The street the Belmante is on is very fancy. Palm trees up and down the way, expensive hotels and boutiques. It's the kind of place you can buy your way into when you're one of the top professional trainers in the world. It's not Gwyneth's kind of place, but that's okay. Her mother deserves something good, after everything. “Yeah, we're all okay,” she says. “Haven't slept in a while, but I'll make it through today all right.”
“Good to hear, man, good to hear.” A pause. Gwyneth gets the feeling Shane is trying to say something that he cannot express. “And what about … after?” he asks, eventually, and she sighs.
“I dunno, dude. Let me just get through this, and then ask me again.”
He chuckles, although neither of them think she said anything very funny.
“Fair enough, man. Fair enough. Good luck, Gwyn. 'S a hard thing you're doin', and maybe I don't quite get it, but good luck.”
Honest words from an honest man. Gwyneth will take it. She can't even be angry about that.
“Thanks, dude,” she says. “I'll talk to you later.”
“Bye, Gwyn.”
“Bye.”
She returns her phone to the pocket of her ruined jacket and rests her head on her knuckle for a moment.
Then she straightens up and takes Zelda and goes inside.
*
Back in the hotel room, Gwyneth takes Zelda into the bathroom and gently cleans the accumulated grime from her shell, a process to which she submits with surprisingly good grace for a creature that has never even heard of baths before. Her burnt side is looking much better now, though Marsden said something about it not fully healing until she next moults. Gwyneth imagines throwing off your old skin, letting it carry with it all your scars and wounds and leaving you clean and new, and smiles grimly. It's a nice idea. Pity it doesn't actually work like that.
After that, she collects her dress, changes, and re-bandages her hand. The wound still looks nasty, and Gwyneth knows that she's going to have to see another doctor about it soon. Dr. ze'Naarat knew what she was doing, but her treatment did sort of assume Gwyneth wasn't going to try to hike through White Forest. She's probably already screwed up all the good work that ze'Naarat did back in the Centre.
She covers it up so she doesn't have to think about it and does her make-up, slowly. It's been a long time since she put more than cursory effort into her appearance. When she's done, she looks in the mirror and raises her eyebrows. There's only so much she can do about the bruises, but if you ignore them she looks slightly better than normal. At least the zits she just popped are mostly invisible now.
“Hello, Gwyneth,” she says, and watches Gwyneth say it back.
She turns away from her reflection, disgusted, and waits for her mother to return from whatever last-minute arrangements she is involved with.
And then she does, looking elegant in a floral dress, and finally it's time. She has the hotel call a cab, and sends Gwyneth and Zelda on their way to the church.
“You're not coming?” asks Gwyneth, when she says this, and she shakes her head.
“Not yet,” she replies. “I'm meeting up with your brother.”
She doesn't ask Gwyneth to come with her. Maybe she thinks she hasn't earned it, or maybe she really does see just how painful that would be for her. Either way, Gwyneth isn't complaining. She just nods, and leaves it at that.
“Okay,” she says.
Her mother hesitates, looks at her with eyes that Gwyneth struggles to read.
“You're taking this very well,” she says.
Gwyneth bites back a harsh, vicious laugh.
“I guess so,” she replies.
“It's … it's not like you think,” says her mother. “Nika wanted answers, after you left. So did your brother.” Gwyneth can't suppress a snort there, and gets a parental glare in return. “No, really, Gwyneth.”
“Yeah, okay,” she says, angry at herself for spoiling things. “Sorry.”
Her mother sighs.
“We were all worried,” she says. “Nika came to ask Hilbert about you, Hilbert came to ask her. It just – it just happened, Gwyneth. Nobody meant to hurt you.”
The words go in like a knife, swift and brutal. So it's her fault, then. Hilbert and Nika, united by a need for answers and a lost loved one. Searching for Gwyneth in each other's arms. Until, in the end, Gwyneth faded and all they needed was each other.
Or so she hopes. The thought that she might have failed even to make Nika move on is actually more unbearable than the thought of her marrying Hilbert, in its own way. Gwyneth pushes it away and smiles without feeling.
“Okay,” she says. “That makes sense.”
Her mother doesn't say anything. She looks like she might, but at the last minute she shakes her head and just tells her that the cab's here. Gwyneth says okay, she'll see her later, and takes Zelda downstairs to the waiting taxi.
As they drive, she realises her mother didn't mention the scars on her arms, although she's not naïve enough to think she didn't notice.
They arrive early. A lot of other people do as well, hanging around in the sunlit churchyard and talking. They must have done a good job keeping this under wraps; there aren't any photographers. Many of those present Gwyneth knows; others, she recognises from pictures. The Elite Four are here, and some of the Gym Leaders, and the current Champion, Iris, who once beat Nika in Opelucid's Gym. And so are Nika's friends, Aster and Leo and Georgina and Dmitri and the others, and assorted relatives, including of course Aunt Natalya. Gwyneth feels all their eyes upon her as she gets out of the car, and sees people mutter. Yep, she thinks savagely. It's her. She came crawling back after all.
Hilbert is not here, not yet, and nor are Nika or her parents. (Gwyneth doesn't bother wondering why. Hilbert probably has a country to save or something.) But Cheren and Bianca are, and Bianca is about the only person she recognises who isn't looking at her like she's a stain on a new carpet, so Gwyneth drifts towards her with a strained smile.
“Hey,” she says, trying to be casual. “Um. Long time, huh?”
“It sure has been!” says Bianca eagerly. She looks just the same as she always has, energetic and delighted to be alive. It makes her very beautiful in a way that makes Gwyneth faintly angry. “Where have you been, Gwyneth?”
“Oh, just … in Aspertia.” She shrugs. “Working in the Pokémon Centre.”
“Have you like started training again?”
“Huh? Oh. No. Zelda would fight her own shadow if she thought it looked at her funny, but she doesn't battle.” Gwyneth reaches up without thinking the way she used to do with Blossom, runs her fingers along the side of Zelda's carapace. “She just hangs around and eats all my food.”
Zelda chitters in what sounds uncannily like self-satisfaction. Bianca laughs, and when she does that it's hard not to smile as well.
“Are you still working with Professor Juniper?” she asks, and Bianca nods seriously.
“Yep! There's been a lot of new pokémon showing up recently. Not sure why. It's interesting, but maybe worrying. Like the oshawott census shows their numbers are down since other water-types started moving into their territory.”
Gwyneth snaps her fingers.
“Oshawott,” she says. “Did you ever hire a trainer named Saadiyyah to come with you when you went out to those islands?”
“Yeah, actually.” She looks surprised. “You know her?”
Gwyneth smiles.
“Yeah,” she says. “I ran into her on the way here. She was going to that new tournament thing in Driftveil.”
“Oh yeah, that starts today, doesn't it? That's why Clay didn't come. Well, she seemed good. I'm sure she'll do fine. Uh, maybe not as well as you, Cheren, obviously―”
“That's all right, Bianca, I think I'll probably do just fine without your approval,” he says, stepping forward. He has been silent so far, watching. He looks just the same, too, although he also looks better; he always seemed like a kid dressing up as a bank manager before, but now he's old and tall enough to pull the look off. “How are you, Gwyneth?”
His smile is forced. It's okay: so is hers.
“I'm all right,” she says. She can see how hard he is concentrating on not looking at her arms. If it was someone else, she might be appreciative, or annoyed; since it's him, she's slightly amused at his discomfort. “You're making a name for yourself, huh. The kids at the Centre say you're real tough.”
“And they're right, of course,” says Bianca loyally. Cheren, for his part, pauses just long enough to communicate that he knows the comment isn't entirely positive. One point to Gwyneth.
“Thanks,” he says. “So. You got Shane's message?”
“I did, yeah.” She returns his gaze levelly. “Had some trouble getting here, but I managed.”
“I can see that,” he says, and scores a point of his own.
“So are you like best man or whatever?” she asks, changing the subject, and Cheren nods.
“Yes. For some reason.”
“Well, you're like Hilbert's oldest friend,” suggests Bianca. “That probably has something to do with it, Cheren.”
“I know.” He seems a little agitated. Gwyneth doesn't think it has to do with her. “Would you excuse me?” he asks. “It looks like Juniper's just arrived.”
“Oh,” says Bianca. “Sure. I'll catch up.”
He rushes off without another word, and Bianca watches him go over the top of her glasses.
“He gets nervous,” she says absently, as if to herself. “I don't think he means anything by it, Gwyneth.”
Gwyneth blinks.
“Huh?”
“You know.” Bianca turns to face her again. “Are you okay? Really, I mean?”
Gwyneth feels herself staring. She'd forgotten about this. In her mind, Bianca is always the clueless girl who somehow fought on through her trainer journey anyway. But that's not who she is really, is it? She's as sharp as Cheren, just in a different way. She went out into the world to find her own truth, and she succeeded.
“I … well.” It's not a yes or a no, but it speaks volumes. Bianca puts a kindly hand on her arm.
“Can I tell you something I promised Cheren I wouldn't tell you?” she asks.
“Uh, sure. Shoot.”
“I'm not convinced yet.” She looks across the churchyard at Nika's family, mingling with graceless awe among Hilbert's League friends. “I don't know, Gwyneth, maybe it's just me being silly again like usual, but … okay, look. What I want is for everyone to make their own choices and be happy. I don't know if both of those things are happening here today.”
Gwyneth's pulse quickens.
“Meaning?” she asks, but Bianca shakes her head.
“That's all, Gwyneth.” She looks past her, towards Juniper. “I better say hi. See you in a bit.”
“Okay,” says Gwyneth. “See you later.”
She watches Bianca go, then turns away again so that Juniper doesn't see her and come over to talk. Right now she doesn't think she's quite up to that, not with Bianca's words still ringing in her ears. What I want is for everyone to make their own choices and be happy. I don't know if both of those things are happening here today. Meaning – that this is rushed? Is that it? In all honesty, it is weirdly soon for Nika to be getting married, considering everything. Gwyneth doesn't think it's just her who sees that. And what was it her mother said? That they got together because they were looking for her? And …
Well. Don't get ahead of yourself, Gwyneth. You're here to watch and support. Bianca wants people to make their own choices? Nika's made hers. And Gwyneth will turn up to support Nika's choices, every single time. It's the least she can do.
She hears a deep, throaty caw from above, and along with half the guests looks up to see a huge black shape descending from the roof of the church. Zelde shrieks, and Gwyneth takes her quickly in her arm as Hekate lands on the churchyard wall beside her, bone charms clacking as they settle.
“Hey, Hecks,” says Gwyneth, smiling. Hekate croaks and stretches out her neck to be petted as if it was only yesterday they last saw one another. “Hang on a minute. Zelda? This is Hekate. She's cool. You two are gonna be friends. Got it?”
Zelda clicks and eyes Hekate with distrust, but she doesn't scream or fire poison stings at her, and Gwyneth puts her back on her shoulder.
“Okay,” she says. “Now I got a hand free.” She rubs Hekate's leathery head and neck and the giant bird leans into her hand, eyes closed and something that might charitably be called purring rumbling from her throat. Gwyneth thinks people might be staring at her, but it's okay, they'll get bored in a minute. There are other pokémon here – Cheren's emboar, Bianca's musharna. A few others close enough to various guests that invitations have been extended to them. There'll be some open space at the back of the church behind the pews for them all to sit during the ceremony, so they don't block anyone's view.
“Where's your girl?” Gwyneth asks Hekate, and follows her eye up to the roof, where another mandibuzz is perched like a gargoyle in the shadow of the steeple. She sees movement and realises to her astonishment that there's a vullaby there too, shuffling around its mother's talons. “You got a baby now?” Gwyneth asks, and Hekate gives her a smug yes, I made it myself kind of look. “Yeah,” agrees Gwyneth. “'S real impressive.”
Hekate cackles and hurls herself back up into the air, lifting herself half with wingpower and half with timed pulses of darkness that compensate for her massive weight, until she finds an updraught and rides it up to join her family on the roof. Gwyneth watches her and does not know what to feel.
Better get used to that, she tells herself. It's going to be a hell of an emotional day, and at this point she's been awake for over twenty-four hours. If she gets through it all without either crying or shouting at someone she'll be impressed.
Actually, she thinks, probably it's going to be both at the same time.
She hears a whine like an engine screaming, and closes her eyes. She knows that sound. And that means it's finally time.
Gwyneth turns with the rest of the crowd and watches as the car pulls up and the dragon drops out of the sky above it to land at exactly the same moment as Hilbert steps out.
Tall. Handsome. An unreadable smile that looks no different on his wedding day than in the posters of him kids put up on their walls. Yes: this is Hilbert ze'Haraan, Unova's foremost trainer and the chosen champion of Reshiram, the white dragon of truth.
The two of them look posed, somehow, even with Gwyneth's mother getting out of the car behind them. Reshiram folds its wings back along its arms, then drops lightly to all fours and stalks into the yard, Hilbert at its side. It looks bigger than it is; it's only really about ten feet tall standing upright, like Zekrom, but those wings go on for miles, and something about it seems hot and dangerous even when its tail is unlit. And then Hilbert walks up alongside it, looking all nonchalant, and somehow it's just normal and everyone starts talking again, welcoming him and congratulating him on his big day.
He thanks them graciously, quietly, and then he sees Gwyneth standing at the back and his smile actually slips for a moment in his shock. Did her mother not tell him she was here? Maybe she wanted it to be a surprise. Either way, he's coming over here, although thankfully Reshiram is staying near the gate; Hilbert must remember she doesn't really like it.
He stands in front of her now, silent, looking at her. Everyone is staring. Yeah, it's me, the fuck-up little sister, Gwyneth shouts, in the privacy of her own head. I bothered coming after all.
She looks into his eyes, sees him seeing her. She can no more tell what he sees now than she could ten years ago. Gwyneth can read most people, but Hilbert is either completely opaque or completely empty. It's hard to know which.
“Hello, Gwyneth,” he says, in his calm, deep voice.
“Hey, Hilly,” she says. She always has some vague hopes that the childhood nickname will annoy him, but it never does. “So I heard you were getting married and figured I oughta show up.”
Hilbert glances over his shoulder. The guests hurriedly make a show of talking amongst themselves, and he looks back at her again.
“Are you all right?” he asks.
Gwyneth laughs bitterly.
“Sure I am,” she says. “I just walked into a door, is all. Like twice.”
“That's not what I meant.” Hilbert moves closer. He isn't smiling any more. “You went missing,” he tells her.
“What do you care?”
There is a long silence. Gwyneth has plenty of time to regret saying it.
“You're my sister,” Hilbert tells her.
She has a choice. She is tired and in a substantial amount of pain, which makes the easy option so much more attractive than the other, but it is a choice.
Gwyneth considers the two paths open to her, and sighs.
It has to happen sometime, right?
“I'm … sorry,” she says, with difficulty. “I haven't been … very good at being that.”
Hilbert has a choice too. He could, with his terrible saintly goodness, step forward and forgive her, and Gwyneth would not be able to stop herself from hating him even more. Or he could accept the apology the way it was intended, and prove he is in some way still her brother.
“Yeah,” he says, and Gwyneth feels a heaviness settle on her. “You haven't.”
It's not a bad heaviness. It isn't a good heaviness, either. It just is. Now she has to think of Hilbert as a person, and that's going to be hard, but it's probably for the best.
“I think maybe I've been a bad brother, too,” he goes on. “I'm also sorry.”
The corner of Gwyneth's mouth turns up a little.
“No maybe about it,” she says. “You have.” She forces herself to hold out her hand. “Truce?”
Hesitation. Then:
“Truce,” agrees Hilbert, and shakes it. “I don't think I understand you, Gwyneth. But I'd like to.”
Gwyneth snorts.
“It's not all that,” she says. “Congratulations, Hilbert.”
“Thank you.” Someone Gwyneth assumes must be the priest appears at his shoulder, and Hilbert nods at him. “All right,” he says. “It's time.”
Gwyneth takes a deep breath.
“Hilbert.”
“Yes?”
“Do you love Nika?”
She asks it with a quiet intensity he isn't used to hearing from anyone but himself. He looks like he might laugh, and then, when he sees her eyes and realises it isn't a joke, somewhat startled.
“Yes, of course,” he says.
“And she loves you?”
“Yes.”
Gwyneth listens carefully and she watches his face, and then with a feeling like something irreplaceable is tearing deep inside her she makes the hardest decision she has ever made.
“Okay,” she says, nodding. “Okay, let's go in.”
*
Inside, the church is cool and blotched with colour from the light shining through the stained-glass windows. Gwyneth sees stories in them that she cannot identify. It's okay. They're not really meant for her. Someone else's Aân Hen.
The guests file in and take up their seats, Hilbert's on one side and Nika's on the other. The big pokémon – the emboar, the musharna, Hekate and her family, Reshiram and Hilbert's serperior, along with Iris' haxorus – wait patiently at the back, and the small ones sit in the pews alongside their human partners. Zelda stays on Gwyneth's shoulder, eyeing up the bigger pokémon and rattling aggressively at them until Gwyneth tells her she can go and sit with them if she doesn't shut up. Maybe she gets the threat, maybe she just gets the tone; whichever it is, she quietens down.
Nika's mother arrives and sits at the front, on the other side. She doesn't notice Gwyneth, which suits her just fine. A little while later, Gwyneth sees a pale shape pass silently through the doors out of the corner of her eye, and knows that N is here. She resists the urge to look back, not wanting to draw attention to him, and imagines him sitting unobtrusively among the pokémon, half-concealed by the bulk of Cheren's emboar.
The priest places a sheet of paper on his lectern and has a brief word with the organist. Hilbert takes up his position.
There are noises outside, and a whispered murmur, she's here, and then the music begins and Gwyneth sits on her hands to stop them shaking as with everyone else she turns her head – and sees her.
Nika is so beautiful. Gwyneth knows she doesn't see it, is hung up on her weight and the asymmetric tilt of her nose, but she is, and today as she and her father walk down the aisle everyone in the church can see it too.
She makes Gwyneth's heart ache along with the rest of her. Nika. Here in the same room as her again after all this time. She looks exactly the same, and everything is different.
She sees Gwyneth looking and for a moment they lock eyes, Nika's mouth opening slightly in shock, but she recovers herself quickly and moves on, keeping her gaze forward.
Gwyneth's mother touches her hand, questioningly. Gwyneth nods, I'm okay, and returns her attention to Nika, approaching Hilbert now, face turned so she can't see it. She can see Hilbert, though. He is smiling that enigmatic smile, and it makes her want to take back her apology and break his teeth. Doesn't he get it? This is Nika. Not some trainer facing off against him in a tournament battle, not some journalist who wants a quote for an article, but Nika. It's Nika's wedding day. Don't you dare ruin this, Hilbert.
Gwyneth uncurls her fingers from the edge of the pew and puts her hand firmly back in her lap. Breathe. It's okay.
There is an opening hymn. Apparently it's that kind of wedding. Zelda, who has coped admirably with the organ, finds this a little too much, and Gwyneth has an excuse not to sing along, holding her close and muttering to her instead. She keeps her calm until the end, and returns her to her shoulder when the priest asks everyone to sit.
She watches Hilbert and Nika, tastes the excitement in the air. She listens to the priest and eyes the guests, paying particular attention to Nika's parents. She takes deep, shaky breaths, and waits.
It's going to be okay, she tells herself, without conviction. It's going to be okay.
The priest introduces the bride and groom, as if anyone here doesn't know their names. He moves through his preamble, and Gwyneth doesn't know if this is going agonisingly slowly or all too fast; it's both, it's neither, and Nika is up there by the altar with Hilbert, and as the tension grows, as everyone's excitement fills the room like a choking fog, Gwyneth feels certain her head is going to explode.
The moment comes.
“And now,” says the priest, “if anyone knows of any reason why these two people should not be wed, speak now or forever hold your peace.”
There is a long, unnaturally extended moment of quiet, and a little nervous ripple of laughter. Something beautiful has been shown to everyone here, like an ornament of blown glass, and this is the moment where someone, if they dare, can swing a hammer and send the shards flying across the room. And yes, there are people looking at Gwyneth, too, Cheren and Bianca and even Hilbert, out of the corner of his eye; and her mother and Nika's parents, who have noticed she is here; all of them staring and wondering and probably hoping that she says nothing―
Gwyneth breathes in. She breathes out.
She does not move. The priest smiles a little in relief; he does not know Gwyneth, but he has sensed the atmosphere.
“Well,” he says, and Zelda screams.
The noise is ear-splitting after the calm, particularly when she is right up against Gwyneth's head like that; it echoes off the walls and sends Hekate's daughter into a twittering panic. Everyone stares – Nika stares – and Gwyneth is about to snatch Zelda from her shoulder, red-faced and mortified, when she decides no. She is not going to apologise. She made a decision out there before she came in and she is going to stand by it.
Slowly, half-convinced this isn't happening, she stands up.
“Thanks, Zelda,” she says. “So to finish that thought, I object.”
Time seems to freeze. She sees Cheren flinch and cover his eyes, shaking his head; Bianca staring, encouraging or condemning, who knows; Nika's mother and father, horrified and furious; her own mother, pale and shaking; Hilbert, for once completely stunned; Nika herself, wide-eyed, blank.
Gwyneth breathes out. She is not afraid. She is not even angry. She is having a hard time putting a name to this feeling, but it's there, and it's not going anywhere.
“Nika,” she says. “I owe you an apology. A big one. I'm sorry. I did a bad thing running off like that, and it was one hundred per cent my fault. I'm an asshole, I guess. Not an excuse, just an explanation. It's something I'm trying to work on.”
Nobody has jumped up to intervene yet. Nobody even seems to have breathed. It's as if they are all as uncertain as she is that this is something that is actually happening.
“I'm not saying marry me,” she goes on. “I'm not even saying take me back, you know? What I am saying, if my advice means anything any more, is don't marry him.” She nods at Hilbert. He shudders slightly, and Gwyneth senses Reshiram shifting on its haunches at the back of the room. She doesn't care: she keeps going, gambles everything on this one hunch that she's been nursing since she spoke to Hilbert outside. “I'm not claiming that really you love me, or that I have some kinda special insight into you or anything. But I don't think you two love each other. Not for me to say how all this happened, exactly, I'm not saying I know all the facts, but I am saying I think I know you two, and I think that maybe you should know that you don't have to do this. If you don't want to.”
She stops. It isn't a great speech, but it's hers, and nobody interrupted. She'll take that, any day of the week.
Nika moves her head slightly, and suddenly all eyes are on her.
“You've got a fucking nerve, Gwyneth,” she says, cold and angry, and Gwyneth stands still, lets the wave break on her face. “You disappeared. For eighteen months. And now you show up here at my wedding and ask―?”
She breaks off suddenly, and for a long moment there is silence. The priest hovers awkwardly in the background, unsure of what to do.
“You're right,” she says suddenly. “You are an asshole. And I'm not marrying you, Gwyneth, you've got that damn right.” An outward breath; Nika's parents seem to relax slightly. “But,” she continues, and then falters. Gwyneth is utterly still, heart hammering on her ribs like it wants out of there. Is this it? Did it work? Has she given Nika the opening she so desperately needs? “But …” Nika bites her lip. “I – look, I'm sorry, I'm not marrying you either, Hilbert.”
That one gets a shocked gasp. Her mother looks like she might faint; her father stares, frozen. Gwyneth does not do anything at all.
Hilbert looks at Nika, and Gwyneth sees the first faint signs of that smile playing around the corners of his lips.
“I'm sorry,” says Nika again, turning to him. “I …” She sighs. “I shouldn't have let it go this far. I just thought, after …” She shakes her head. “I'm sorry.”
He smiles, beatific, unbearable, and he nods, and as everyone watches Hilbert ze'Haraan, unchosen for the first time since he was born, walks calmly down the aisle and out of the church into the light.
*
“Gwyneth.”
She turns. It's Nika, approaching from the direction of the church. Gwyneth is standing by the steps leading down onto the beach, staring out at the ceaseless motion of the waves and stroking Zelda. After Hilbert left, the ceremony collapsed in tatters and she couldn't stay; she thought either Nika's father was going to kill her or her head was going to come apart in pieces like a smashed melon.
“Nika,” she says, a little afraid. “I'm sorry.”
“Yeah, well.” Nika folds her arms. “Apology accepted. You did what had to be done, I guess.”
Not what Gwyneth was expecting. She hesitates.
“Okay,” she says.
They look at each other for a while.
“What you did was inexcusable,” says Nika. “You really are an asshole. And I can't go through that again, Gwyneth. I … I can't.”
It sounds like an apology. Gwyneth nods; she understands.
“It's okay,” she says. “I wasn't asking you to come back.”
“Weren't you?” Nika's gaze shifts, becomes intent and piercing. “Because Gwyneth, you're an asshole, sure, but … you are probably the best asshole out of all the assholes in the world. And I … god fucking damn it, Gwyneth, if you really are working on it, if you're really trying to change, then I can't help but think maybe it's not impossible to forgive you.”
Gwyneth takes a beat. Everything seems suddenly very slow and very clear. The sun, the sand, Zelda on her shoulder, Nika.
What she says now could change the whole future course of her life. It's terrifying. She speaks anyway.
“I walked here from Aspertia, Nika,” she says. “I got poisoned and I accidentally caught a venipede who got hurt when someone tried to mug me and I got beaten up by some guy in White Forest. Maybe that's just an obsession. Maybe that's inexcusable too. But I … I came a long way and I met a lot of people, and most of them were better to me than I deserved.” She closes her eyes. Names and faces float before her. Shane. Maxine. Saadiyyah. Rood. Concordia. Tor. Ze'Naarat. Nick. Cheryl. Zelda. “Nika,” she says. “I think you know how I feel. I think I might be different now, too, but I'm not gonna ask you to take a chance on that. I'm not gonna refuse you the choice either, like I did when I ran away. I'm gonna stand here and let you make the call, and then if you say no I'm gonna just get out of your way and go.”
She says it calmly, but after she's done speaking she holds her breath. The beach seems eerily empty all of a sudden, as if this is somehow being staged. In front of her, Nika furrows her perfect brow and sighs.
“I think you know how I feel too,” she says. “But like I said, I can't go through that again, Gwyneth. Nobody is worth that.”
“I understand.” Gwyneth feels like she might choke. “Good luck, Nika. Good―”
“I'm not done.” She has already started to turn away; Nika grabs her shoulder and turns her back again. “Nobody's worth that, and that's why I have two conditions,” she says. “One, you have to see a doctor, Gwyneth. No more excuses.”
Gwyneth nods. Her blood seems to have turned to electricity, quick and painful in her veins. Something in her screams to argue but a larger part tells it to shut the hell up.
“And the other?” she asks, or gabbles really, through lips that move too fast for her voice to keep up.
“Don't die,” says Nika, pleading. Her hand is tight on Gwyneth's shoulder. “I'm sorry, it feels so selfish to ask, but please, Annie. Don't die.”
They both hear her mistake. It's okay. They both knew how she felt anyway.
Gwyneth swallows.
“I think maybe 'Gwyneth' is okay for now,” she says. “Until … until. And” (the bitter thing inside of her is in full bloom, its flowers whispering that she cannot make that promise) “I promise, Nika. I won't die.”
She can promise, and she does. Fuck the bitter thing. Fuck the poison. Gwyneth is a bad person and she is so sick of it. She will be better. She will.
Nika looks into her eyes and sees the truth of her belief.
“I missed you so much,” she says, and her voice sounds like Gwyneth's heart feels.
“I missed you too,” says Gwyneth.
They do not kiss. They do not embrace. There will be a time for such things, and it will not be any time soon. They have a lot of work to do before they get there, if they ever manage it at all.
They stare, until Nika looks away.
“I think we better go talk to our parents,” she says. “And Hilbert. I … kinda abandoned everybody to come look for you.”
Gwyneth makes a pained face.
“Yeah,” she says slowly. “I think, uh, I think I might get murdered if I show up there again.”
Nika smiles.
“Only one way to find out,” she says, which Gwyneth cannot deny is true, and they start to walk slowly back towards the church.
On Gwyneth's shoulder, Zelda rattles happily, as if this was all her doing.
“I can't believe you have a pokémon,” says Nika.
“Neither can I,” says Gwyneth. “But I guess I'm really glad I do.”
Nika makes a noise that is halfway to a laugh.
“Yeah,” she says. “I guess I am too.”
