Ch. 37 - Rejection
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Chapter Thirty Seven – Rejection (Version 1.0)
Chapter Thirty Three – Nowhere Girl
Chapter Thirty Seven - Rejection
Next Chapter: The Wandering Barque
Evelina
The conductor blew his whistle as a chilly breeze cut down the station platform. “All aboard!”
Aboard to where? Where, damn you! Her phone would not stop ringing. Eve stared blearily at the wall, wondering where the midnight black train had gone. Her phone’s alarm was piping incessantly. She focussed on the plain dojo uniform hanging behind the door. Oh. Cianwood Gym.
She cancelled the alarm, the dream only evaporating in detail, leaving her feeling unaccountably cold and angry and alone. She must have been redreaming the Nightmare again. Her sleeping cell was sparse, spartan even. No-one had actually called it a cell, but it had that character. Plain magnolia walls. Windows, desk, mattress. No wardrobe – everything had to be hung on the wall. She’d moved into the Gym yesterday, shortly after Josh left for the Whirl Islands, but she hadn’t yet started training of any sort. Chuck wouldn’t tell her what this would entail.
She dressed slowly, starting with her hair. The loose cotton felt a bit like she were changing into pyjamas. The quilted dojo jerkin looked a little warm for June, come to that. Not much in the way of pockets, either, she thought, trying to decide where to put her phone. There were a couple of texts she hadn’t replied to yet.
She stuffed her phone into a shallow pocket, texts unanswered.
The Gym had much the same monastic aesthetic as her cell. It was easy to take a wrong turn – the corridors looked pretty much the same, with an ambiguous attitude towards indoor and outdoor spaces. And yet the bones of the building reminded her less of a monastery than a mansion, or an Alto Marean villa. Some of the floors were decorated with mosaics, beautiful if austere. The corridors tended to open suddenly onto verandas beside strips of tranquil gardens, accented with fragrant berry trees. In the middle of all this, she found the central courtyard. This garden was also a henge – the path crossed a shallow moat before it passed between the menhirs. At the centre of the stone circle was a fountain, the holy water bubbling over pebbles. Narrow stone benches ringed it. Leppa and cheri trees partially shaded it.
Chuck was waiting there along with the Gym Master, whose name she couldn’t remember.
“Eve. Sit down, sport,” Chuck said. “Are you ready?”
“Yes,” she said bluntly.
Chuck said nothing for a long moment, apparently enjoying the sound of the fountain. “Cianwood Gym was training pokémon masters long before there was a Pokémon League. Ours is a noble and honourable tradition. Furio?”
Furio, that was it. He was a stocky man, not yet running to fat as Chuck was, but with a receding hairline and a sad ponytail.
“These are our fundamental rules,” he said, soft-spoken. “Break any, and you may be asked to leave the Gym. One: students will treat one another with respect. There will be no brawling, whether with words, fists, or pokémon. Two: we are the masters of the Gym, and you will refer to us as such. A third rule: we will ask nothing of you that is dishonourable – you will give your obedience. Four: within the bounds of the Gym, you will remain in uniform.”
So far, so anodyne, Eve thought, deciding to be obedient entirely at her own discretion.
“Five: you will not take care of your pokémon.”
“What? At a Gym?” Eve said incredulously. “Are you completely insane, Master?”
“Why, do you think there’s something more we can teach you?”
“Pokémon will be distraction,” Chuck said. “So I’ll ask you again: are you ready?”
“Fine,” she agreed, reluctantly.
“Alright then,” Chuck said, grinning. “Breakfast!”
Breakfast was served communally in the refectory. Eve sat herself at the foot of the table, saying nothing to any of the Gym trainers. She didn’t intend to make friends here.
“Good training starts with good food!” Chuck declared. Breakfast was otherwise a quiet affair – everyone concentrated on the business of eating. The food was uncomplicated and straightforward. The sort of food Josh would have approved of, Eve realised, the thought bringing a weak smirk to her face. Everyone had a sardine or three on a round of wholewheat toast. Eve would have passed on the fish and just had the toast, but Chuck’s wife insisted. The Gym didn’t believe in small portions. It didn’t believe in caffeine, either. She had to make do with green tea, as if that were a substitute.
“Can we get the hell on with it? What am I going to do today?” Eve asked.
“All in good time,” Furio replied, sipping at his tea. “And all things in their proper time.”
Aboard to where? Where, damn you! Her phone would not stop ringing. Eve stared blearily at the wall, wondering where the midnight black train had gone. Her phone’s alarm was piping incessantly. She focussed on the plain dojo uniform hanging behind the door. Oh. Cianwood Gym.
She cancelled the alarm, the dream only evaporating in detail, leaving her feeling unaccountably cold and angry and alone. She must have been redreaming the Nightmare again. Her sleeping cell was sparse, spartan even. No-one had actually called it a cell, but it had that character. Plain magnolia walls. Windows, desk, mattress. No wardrobe – everything had to be hung on the wall. She’d moved into the Gym yesterday, shortly after Josh left for the Whirl Islands, but she hadn’t yet started training of any sort. Chuck wouldn’t tell her what this would entail.
She dressed slowly, starting with her hair. The loose cotton felt a bit like she were changing into pyjamas. The quilted dojo jerkin looked a little warm for June, come to that. Not much in the way of pockets, either, she thought, trying to decide where to put her phone. There were a couple of texts she hadn’t replied to yet.
She stuffed her phone into a shallow pocket, texts unanswered.
The Gym had much the same monastic aesthetic as her cell. It was easy to take a wrong turn – the corridors looked pretty much the same, with an ambiguous attitude towards indoor and outdoor spaces. And yet the bones of the building reminded her less of a monastery than a mansion, or an Alto Marean villa. Some of the floors were decorated with mosaics, beautiful if austere. The corridors tended to open suddenly onto verandas beside strips of tranquil gardens, accented with fragrant berry trees. In the middle of all this, she found the central courtyard. This garden was also a henge – the path crossed a shallow moat before it passed between the menhirs. At the centre of the stone circle was a fountain, the holy water bubbling over pebbles. Narrow stone benches ringed it. Leppa and cheri trees partially shaded it.
Chuck was waiting there along with the Gym Master, whose name she couldn’t remember.
“Eve. Sit down, sport,” Chuck said. “Are you ready?”
“Yes,” she said bluntly.
Chuck said nothing for a long moment, apparently enjoying the sound of the fountain. “Cianwood Gym was training pokémon masters long before there was a Pokémon League. Ours is a noble and honourable tradition. Furio?”
Furio, that was it. He was a stocky man, not yet running to fat as Chuck was, but with a receding hairline and a sad ponytail.
“These are our fundamental rules,” he said, soft-spoken. “Break any, and you may be asked to leave the Gym. One: students will treat one another with respect. There will be no brawling, whether with words, fists, or pokémon. Two: we are the masters of the Gym, and you will refer to us as such. A third rule: we will ask nothing of you that is dishonourable – you will give your obedience. Four: within the bounds of the Gym, you will remain in uniform.”
So far, so anodyne, Eve thought, deciding to be obedient entirely at her own discretion.
“Five: you will not take care of your pokémon.”
“What? At a Gym?” Eve said incredulously. “Are you completely insane, Master?”
“Why, do you think there’s something more we can teach you?”
“Pokémon will be distraction,” Chuck said. “So I’ll ask you again: are you ready?”
“Fine,” she agreed, reluctantly.
“Alright then,” Chuck said, grinning. “Breakfast!”
Breakfast was served communally in the refectory. Eve sat herself at the foot of the table, saying nothing to any of the Gym trainers. She didn’t intend to make friends here.
“Good training starts with good food!” Chuck declared. Breakfast was otherwise a quiet affair – everyone concentrated on the business of eating. The food was uncomplicated and straightforward. The sort of food Josh would have approved of, Eve realised, the thought bringing a weak smirk to her face. Everyone had a sardine or three on a round of wholewheat toast. Eve would have passed on the fish and just had the toast, but Chuck’s wife insisted. The Gym didn’t believe in small portions. It didn’t believe in caffeine, either. She had to make do with green tea, as if that were a substitute.
“Can we get the hell on with it? What am I going to do today?” Eve asked.
“All in good time,” Furio replied, sipping at his tea. “And all things in their proper time.”
*
Furio held out a broom. “Sweep every hall and corridor till it’s spotless.”
Eve glanced around the apparently random stretch of corridor. The rich, dark lacquer of the wood floor stretched to either side. She’d seen a lot of it this morning. “Sweeping?”
“Take all the time you need.”
“Every hall?” she said doubtfully.
“If it’s too much for you, you can always leave the Gym,” Furio said mildly.
Eve snatched the broom from his hand. “Every. Hall.”
With Furio gone, Eve was left alone in the hallway – silent apart from the sound of her own footsteps and the shushing of the broom on wood. At first she swept in broad strokes, but after a while she started to methodically quarter the floor in an attempt to occupy her mind. Even so, it was almost purely physical work. Once she hit a rhythm she started to zone out, leaving her mind free to wander. Sweeping, for fuck’s sake. I don’t need a Gym to teach me how to sweep a floor! The great and famous Cianwood Gym training – I’ve done dirty work before. Evelina Joy is not a delicate orchid. Scrubbing down an exam table, now, that was noble work. The professions, get pregnant, or win something …
Where were you? Why didn’t you call? The thought a memory – maybe it augured something -
Sweeping, come on, that was janitor’s work. Gods, if Sonia, Riley, any of them saw me now. I’d been on such a high, the golden sheep for once. Myriad flakes of blizzarding confetti, orange and white, like petals. Lovelace sobbing openly into Winters’ arms. Invicta vanquished. Tigerlily Champion. Tigerlily Champion. Tigerlily Champion who can’t battle.
The dark-coloured wood managed to hide an annoying quantity of dirt. She’d watched Lyra bounce the length of the field like a kicked pebble. It was just a Counter. It should have been obvious. Tigerlily Champion who can’t even battle. You didn’t call, Joshua Cook. I needed you.
Loneliness, bubbling up from deeps of Nightmare. Gusting wind against her skin. Rippling meadows at the edge of the mind’s eye. Loneliness wild beauty hollow loneliness - Eve angrily brushed away a tear.
Furio hadn’t given her a dustpan, so she had to keep sweeping and resweeping the same pile. The corridor opened onto a veranda overlooking a rock garden.
[Killing something always cheers me up,] Meowth suggested. Eve turned round – there he was, lounging on the floor like a dandy on a divan. [That, or f-]
“Get the hell off that! I just swept!” Eve snapped, literally sweeping him right off the veranda onto the gravel. “Have you escaped from somewhere?”
[The big fat bloke gave us the run of this place. What happened to the other one?]
“I made – Josh went to the Whirl Islands. What, do you miss him?”
[No.]
“Yeah, right. Now piss off. And stay off my floors!”
The morning seemed to stretch out relentlessly. She unearthed a dustpan in an unguarded cupboard. The clock was finally creeping past noon when Furio turned up again. Eve ignored him. She hadn’t finished sweeping yet.
“Why do you suppose we had you sweep the floors?” he asked eventually.
“Because the floor is filthy.”
“Well, that’s one good reason.”
“To teach me discipline,” Eve sighed half-sardonically.
“What were you thinking all this time?” he continued calmly.
Loneliness, just a Counter, Tigerlily Champion who can’t battle. “Everything.”
“Everything but sweeping, hm? Thoughts swirling? Anxiousness? Never concluding your train of thought?”
“… how did you know?”
“Wisdom,” Furio said gnomically. “Come.”
Furio led her back through to the now-empty refectory.
“We are not training you to be a Gym Master,” he said. “We are certainly not training you to be a Champion. We are giving you everyday tasks because we are training you for the everyday.”
He pushed open the door to the kitchen at the back of the refectory. “You can find healing within the everyday, if you have the proper perspective.”
With a different perspective will this kitchen look like a clinic? Eve thought. Chuck’s wife was faffing around in the pantry.
“Second pair of hands, Laurel!” Furio declared.
“Oh. A fresh spit girl,” she said dryly.
“She can peel spuds as well,” Furio said. “As you work, focus on the task at hand. As to your negative thoughts, merely allow them to be. The goal is not to block them out, but to acknowledge their existence.”
“A-ok,” Eve replied blandly.
Such a short reign as the golden sheep. A short, golden reign as Tigerlily Champion. Tigerlily Champion, not one of the professions. The professions, get pregnant, or win something. Get pregnant! Rosemary from Olivine City got pregnant by her idiot boyfriend on prom night, but the family had just rallied around her like candyfloss, just because she had a girl -
Damn it. Concentrate on prepping those vegetables. She shoved the intrusive thoughts aside and unceremoniously hacked a carrot into randomly-sized chunks.
Tigerlily Champion who can’t even battle, she thought, lopping the end off another carrot. It was just a Counter. She’d watched Lyra bounce the length of the field like a kicked pebble, and it was just. A Counter.
“There,” Eve said, as much to distract her own brain, “that’s the last of them – what do I call you?”
“Master Laurel. What else? Not ‘Mistress’,” she added.
One bad night, and this is where I end up? What was it Lovelace said? Being a Joy was ‘really domestic’. Maybe it is, I’ve just spend the day sweeping and cooking -
This isn’t working. Eve sighed in frustration. Domestic. And she’d been the best trainer in the pressure of that Finals struggle. Myriad flakes of blizzarding confetti like petals. Outfoxed Winters in the eleventh hour, turned Eelektross’ Thunderbolt against it. Could it be that this was all just the goddesses’ blessing? Did you raise me up Rhia? How high did you raise me?
Tigerlily Champion who sweeps floors. She didn’t know anyone here, either. The memory of a Nightmare – or was it a recurrence? Wild. Beautiful. Empty, lonely land!
A hot prickle of tears stung her eyes. The knife somehow slipped and cut the flesh of her index finger.
“Ow! Damn it!” she snarled. A bright bead of blood rapidly welled up.
“For heaven’s sake, girl, don’t stand there and drip!” Laurel snapped.
Eve glanced around the apparently random stretch of corridor. The rich, dark lacquer of the wood floor stretched to either side. She’d seen a lot of it this morning. “Sweeping?”
“Take all the time you need.”
“Every hall?” she said doubtfully.
“If it’s too much for you, you can always leave the Gym,” Furio said mildly.
Eve snatched the broom from his hand. “Every. Hall.”
With Furio gone, Eve was left alone in the hallway – silent apart from the sound of her own footsteps and the shushing of the broom on wood. At first she swept in broad strokes, but after a while she started to methodically quarter the floor in an attempt to occupy her mind. Even so, it was almost purely physical work. Once she hit a rhythm she started to zone out, leaving her mind free to wander. Sweeping, for fuck’s sake. I don’t need a Gym to teach me how to sweep a floor! The great and famous Cianwood Gym training – I’ve done dirty work before. Evelina Joy is not a delicate orchid. Scrubbing down an exam table, now, that was noble work. The professions, get pregnant, or win something …
Where were you? Why didn’t you call? The thought a memory – maybe it augured something -
Sweeping, come on, that was janitor’s work. Gods, if Sonia, Riley, any of them saw me now. I’d been on such a high, the golden sheep for once. Myriad flakes of blizzarding confetti, orange and white, like petals. Lovelace sobbing openly into Winters’ arms. Invicta vanquished. Tigerlily Champion. Tigerlily Champion. Tigerlily Champion who can’t battle.
The dark-coloured wood managed to hide an annoying quantity of dirt. She’d watched Lyra bounce the length of the field like a kicked pebble. It was just a Counter. It should have been obvious. Tigerlily Champion who can’t even battle. You didn’t call, Joshua Cook. I needed you.
Loneliness, bubbling up from deeps of Nightmare. Gusting wind against her skin. Rippling meadows at the edge of the mind’s eye. Loneliness wild beauty hollow loneliness - Eve angrily brushed away a tear.
Furio hadn’t given her a dustpan, so she had to keep sweeping and resweeping the same pile. The corridor opened onto a veranda overlooking a rock garden.
[Killing something always cheers me up,] Meowth suggested. Eve turned round – there he was, lounging on the floor like a dandy on a divan. [That, or f-]
“Get the hell off that! I just swept!” Eve snapped, literally sweeping him right off the veranda onto the gravel. “Have you escaped from somewhere?”
[The big fat bloke gave us the run of this place. What happened to the other one?]
“I made – Josh went to the Whirl Islands. What, do you miss him?”
[No.]
“Yeah, right. Now piss off. And stay off my floors!”
The morning seemed to stretch out relentlessly. She unearthed a dustpan in an unguarded cupboard. The clock was finally creeping past noon when Furio turned up again. Eve ignored him. She hadn’t finished sweeping yet.
“Why do you suppose we had you sweep the floors?” he asked eventually.
“Because the floor is filthy.”
“Well, that’s one good reason.”
“To teach me discipline,” Eve sighed half-sardonically.
“What were you thinking all this time?” he continued calmly.
Loneliness, just a Counter, Tigerlily Champion who can’t battle. “Everything.”
“Everything but sweeping, hm? Thoughts swirling? Anxiousness? Never concluding your train of thought?”
“… how did you know?”
“Wisdom,” Furio said gnomically. “Come.”
Furio led her back through to the now-empty refectory.
“We are not training you to be a Gym Master,” he said. “We are certainly not training you to be a Champion. We are giving you everyday tasks because we are training you for the everyday.”
He pushed open the door to the kitchen at the back of the refectory. “You can find healing within the everyday, if you have the proper perspective.”
With a different perspective will this kitchen look like a clinic? Eve thought. Chuck’s wife was faffing around in the pantry.
“Second pair of hands, Laurel!” Furio declared.
“Oh. A fresh spit girl,” she said dryly.
“She can peel spuds as well,” Furio said. “As you work, focus on the task at hand. As to your negative thoughts, merely allow them to be. The goal is not to block them out, but to acknowledge their existence.”
“A-ok,” Eve replied blandly.
Such a short reign as the golden sheep. A short, golden reign as Tigerlily Champion. Tigerlily Champion, not one of the professions. The professions, get pregnant, or win something. Get pregnant! Rosemary from Olivine City got pregnant by her idiot boyfriend on prom night, but the family had just rallied around her like candyfloss, just because she had a girl -
Damn it. Concentrate on prepping those vegetables. She shoved the intrusive thoughts aside and unceremoniously hacked a carrot into randomly-sized chunks.
Tigerlily Champion who can’t even battle, she thought, lopping the end off another carrot. It was just a Counter. She’d watched Lyra bounce the length of the field like a kicked pebble, and it was just. A Counter.
“There,” Eve said, as much to distract her own brain, “that’s the last of them – what do I call you?”
“Master Laurel. What else? Not ‘Mistress’,” she added.
One bad night, and this is where I end up? What was it Lovelace said? Being a Joy was ‘really domestic’. Maybe it is, I’ve just spend the day sweeping and cooking -
This isn’t working. Eve sighed in frustration. Domestic. And she’d been the best trainer in the pressure of that Finals struggle. Myriad flakes of blizzarding confetti like petals. Outfoxed Winters in the eleventh hour, turned Eelektross’ Thunderbolt against it. Could it be that this was all just the goddesses’ blessing? Did you raise me up Rhia? How high did you raise me?
Tigerlily Champion who sweeps floors. She didn’t know anyone here, either. The memory of a Nightmare – or was it a recurrence? Wild. Beautiful. Empty, lonely land!
A hot prickle of tears stung her eyes. The knife somehow slipped and cut the flesh of her index finger.
“Ow! Damn it!” she snarled. A bright bead of blood rapidly welled up.
“For heaven’s sake, girl, don’t stand there and drip!” Laurel snapped.
*
Later that evening Eve sought out the solarium on the west side of the Gym, for her final lesson. Summer light streamed through the clerestory windows, turning the drifting motes of dust into golden firefly-lights. The noise of the Gym, muted to a relaxed murmur. Incense sticks on a wooden shelf. A couple of wheat-coloured cushions laid on the otherwise bare floor.
It wasn’t Furio waiting for her, but Chuck.
“Sit. Get comfortable,” Chuck said, selecting a cushion. His voice was surprisingly mellow for such a brash man. Eve settled onto the other cushion.
“On Route 42, by the Borderland Water, there is a Dharmic monastery,” Chuck said. “There, the monks practice fishing meditation to emulate and honour the slowpoke. Do you know why?”
Eve shrugged.
“A slowpoke is a creature of the now. It recalls much as it needs to; predicts as much as it needs to. Herein lies a noble truth,” he continued. “The key to inner peace is to live in the present.”
There was a moment of silence. “Slowpoke,” Eve said.
“Have you ever known a slowpoke to be depressed?”
“Well, no, but …”
“Out with it, sport.”
“I have a medical problem, not a spiritual one. Master.”
“If you thought a pill would cure you, why didn’t you stay at the hospital?”
She didn’t have an answer to that.
“We call slowpoke’s state of mind ‘mindfulness’. What comes naturally to a slowpoke, for us is no easy skill to master. As you have discovered, the mind will seek to wander. Meditation will help you bring your mind back to the present moment. Let us begin. Hands resting on your thighs. Mind relaxed, but attentive,” Chuck said, his voice slowing in tempo. “Focus your awareness on your breathing …”
Drifting dust motes meandered softly towards the floor as if through warm oil. Somewhere, other trainers were sparring, honing their skills, mastering the Fighting-type. This is supposed to stop me from remembering that night? Eve suppressed an angry sigh. Doing nothing changes nothing, which was damn silly.
Chuck seemed to notice her inattention. “When your mind wanders, simply allow those thoughts to be, and focus again on your breathing. The object is not to control.”
This is so self-indulgent. She stared at the slightly coarse texture of her cushion. A bland shade, the colour of ripe wheat. Or dull blonde. Something about it -
It wasn’t Furio waiting for her, but Chuck.
“Sit. Get comfortable,” Chuck said, selecting a cushion. His voice was surprisingly mellow for such a brash man. Eve settled onto the other cushion.
“On Route 42, by the Borderland Water, there is a Dharmic monastery,” Chuck said. “There, the monks practice fishing meditation to emulate and honour the slowpoke. Do you know why?”
Eve shrugged.
“A slowpoke is a creature of the now. It recalls much as it needs to; predicts as much as it needs to. Herein lies a noble truth,” he continued. “The key to inner peace is to live in the present.”
There was a moment of silence. “Slowpoke,” Eve said.
“Have you ever known a slowpoke to be depressed?”
“Well, no, but …”
“Out with it, sport.”
“I have a medical problem, not a spiritual one. Master.”
“If you thought a pill would cure you, why didn’t you stay at the hospital?”
She didn’t have an answer to that.
“We call slowpoke’s state of mind ‘mindfulness’. What comes naturally to a slowpoke, for us is no easy skill to master. As you have discovered, the mind will seek to wander. Meditation will help you bring your mind back to the present moment. Let us begin. Hands resting on your thighs. Mind relaxed, but attentive,” Chuck said, his voice slowing in tempo. “Focus your awareness on your breathing …”
Drifting dust motes meandered softly towards the floor as if through warm oil. Somewhere, other trainers were sparring, honing their skills, mastering the Fighting-type. This is supposed to stop me from remembering that night? Eve suppressed an angry sigh. Doing nothing changes nothing, which was damn silly.
Chuck seemed to notice her inattention. “When your mind wanders, simply allow those thoughts to be, and focus again on your breathing. The object is not to control.”
This is so self-indulgent. She stared at the slightly coarse texture of her cushion. A bland shade, the colour of ripe wheat. Or dull blonde. Something about it -
Chapter Thirty Three – Nowhere Girl
Evelina
Fuck!
Her heart thumped, her hands trembled. She was blonde. Not an exciting blonde, like honey or gold, but a dull, commonplace, wheaten blonde. Her curled fringe was gone, her long tresses were gone. How did this happen? She hadn’t been blonde since she was four years-old. Her heart thumped, her hands trembled. She just didn’t look like herself.
No matter what she tried, the shower remained stubbornly lukewarm. Unobscured by any steam she kept catching sight of her body in the bathroom mirror. Just a moderately pretty girl. The ass was the dull, uninteresting epitome of it. Her ex had lost interest on it. Her. The feeling hit as a wave, that strange loneliness when you technically had a boyfriend but he only reluctantly paid attention to you. Eventually he’d only come round to see me as Plan B.
She glanced at her clothes puddled on the floor. There was no tell-tale smooth glint of plastic. Oh no. Where were her pokémon? She leapt out of the shower, still dripping. They weren’t under her clothes. They weren’t in her pockets. She ran back into the room, leaving wet footprints on the carpet. She ransacked her backpack in rising panic, rifled madly through the drawers, the pockets of her spare clothes, the bedclothes -
They weren’t there. They weren’t anywhere! She pressed the tips of her fingers into her eye sockets. There were no pokémon in Qara.
Smell of incense. Incense.
Her heart thumped, her hands trembled. She was blonde. Not an exciting blonde, like honey or gold, but a dull, commonplace, wheaten blonde. Her curled fringe was gone, her long tresses were gone. How did this happen? She hadn’t been blonde since she was four years-old. Her heart thumped, her hands trembled. She just didn’t look like herself.
No matter what she tried, the shower remained stubbornly lukewarm. Unobscured by any steam she kept catching sight of her body in the bathroom mirror. Just a moderately pretty girl. The ass was the dull, uninteresting epitome of it. Her ex had lost interest on it. Her. The feeling hit as a wave, that strange loneliness when you technically had a boyfriend but he only reluctantly paid attention to you. Eventually he’d only come round to see me as Plan B.
She glanced at her clothes puddled on the floor. There was no tell-tale smooth glint of plastic. Oh no. Where were her pokémon? She leapt out of the shower, still dripping. They weren’t under her clothes. They weren’t in her pockets. She ran back into the room, leaving wet footprints on the carpet. She ransacked her backpack in rising panic, rifled madly through the drawers, the pockets of her spare clothes, the bedclothes -
They weren’t there. They weren’t anywhere! She pressed the tips of her fingers into her eye sockets. There were no pokémon in Qara.
Smell of incense. Incense.
Chapter Thirty Seven - Rejection
Evelina
Drifting dust motes meandering as through warm oil. A cushion the colour of ripe wheat. A thin streamer of smoke twirling upwards.
“Eve? You with us, sport?”
Blood still pounding, hands still trembling. She felt somehow blurred, as if in two places at once. Her heart insisted her pokémon weren’t anywhere. Even Lyra, who was first. She thought Chuck was saying something, his voice somehow distant and irrelevant, like a murmuring TV set.
She reached up to her hair and twitched out a strand. Pink. The feeling of spatial dissonance blurred away. Cianwood Gym. Not an inn on the hill of Qara. But the isolation and sense of loss lingered.
“I can’t do this!”
“Eve? You with us, sport?”
Blood still pounding, hands still trembling. She felt somehow blurred, as if in two places at once. Her heart insisted her pokémon weren’t anywhere. Even Lyra, who was first. She thought Chuck was saying something, his voice somehow distant and irrelevant, like a murmuring TV set.
She reached up to her hair and twitched out a strand. Pink. The feeling of spatial dissonance blurred away. Cianwood Gym. Not an inn on the hill of Qara. But the isolation and sense of loss lingered.
“I can’t do this!”
*
Eve sighed heavily. It was still a lovely June evening, but she’d had enough. She stared listlessly at the plain magnolia walls, the faux pine desk, the mattress bed. Monastic asceticism. She undressed slowly, starting with taking down her hair, almost absently tugging out another strand of hair. Pink. Her phone dropped out of her pocket and clattered on the floor. It occurred to her it hadn’t rung all day. Where were you? Why didn’t you -
Damn that boy. Having fun are you? Maybe 2nd Mate Francesca bloody Livesey was still in the islands, the smug satin-haired, tight-arsed tart -
Seized with a sudden fury she hurled it at the wall. It merely bounced unsatisfyingly instead of bursting into fragments. Fuck the meditation. That night had been at the forefront of her mind all day.
Vision blurring, she made damn certain the door was locked before she wrapped herself in the duvet. It was bad enough the Gym had seen her fail.
Damn that boy. Having fun are you? Maybe 2nd Mate Francesca bloody Livesey was still in the islands, the smug satin-haired, tight-arsed tart -
Seized with a sudden fury she hurled it at the wall. It merely bounced unsatisfyingly instead of bursting into fragments. Fuck the meditation. That night had been at the forefront of her mind all day.
Vision blurring, she made damn certain the door was locked before she wrapped herself in the duvet. It was bad enough the Gym had seen her fail.
Next Chapter: The Wandering Barque
Normally I prefer to leave it up to the reader to decide how to read my stories, without me explicitly laying out my intent. In the case of this coming arc, I'll make an exception. Eve's problems in this chapter are inspired by real conditions. Her reaction to them is informed by real experiences of anxious thoughts, flashbacks, and disassociation. However, the cause is essentially supernatural, and on this basis I have decided to take some creative liberties in their treatment.
I shall return to this subject again at the end of the arc
I shall return to this subject again at the end of the arc
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