Chapter Text
Akari had always liked to lie in the grass. Feel the sun-warmed earth below her, look up at the bright sky above her, letting the hours tick by. She imagines she can feel a heartbeat, deep below her. Whatever space or time she came from, that same heartbeat would have echoed to, connecting two distant worlds in an unbroken line.
The earth around her now was cold, and the thin strips of dim red light filtering in from the single, high window felt like a mean joke. She ran out of tears a while ago, but it still hurt.
She didn’t even know Jubilife had a prison. But Commander Kamado had herded her off here, taken away her flute and her Pokéballs and even the strange white-and-gold device she’d been carrying since she arrived here (even though she’d tried to explain that that one didn’t even do anything, it just showed her a map). Rei and Cyllene and the Professor had all given her apologetic looks as she’d been walked down the main road, but none of them stepped in to help her. They were all treating her like a dangerous unknown, something volatile that could turn on them at any moment—or perhaps someone who already had. She’d done everything they asked! They told her from the start they didn’t trust her, because of some origin she didn’t remember, but she’d tried so hard! She’d been useful, she’d followed orders, she’d done her best to never put a hair out of line. But this town—the only family she’d ever known—had still turned on her, every one of them.
She was done crying. But it still hurt.
Sparse grass crunched under Ingo’s boot as he paced through the highlands.
His Lady had separated from him a ways back, off to settle some Pokémon that were agitated by the current condition of the sky. He’d opted to continue forwards, looking for the person they’d both briefly seen wandering on the top of this cliff. It was dangerous for anyone to be out there without the Nobles watching, especially right then. He wasn’t even sure how they’d gotten up the cliffs without Lady Sneasler’s aid.
It was possible, he supposed, that they’d both been mistaken about what they saw. In which case, Lady Sneasler would be catching up with him in a few short minutes once her own task was completed, and they could confer on their next route together. For now, he would continue on his current track.
“Y’know, if you ask me, the Commander should’ve had me do this a long time ago,” said a voice off to his side.
He turned, startled, to see a vaguely familiar face standing there. It was difficult to place with the mask. The stranger was in a combat stance, a long metal chain in his left hand.
“Well, better late than never,” he said, shrugging, and then a cloud of smoke overtook the surroundings.
It was Beni, that’s where he’d seen the name and face before, he connected a bit too late. The cook in Jubilife’s canteen. That couldn’t be right.
That was more or less his last thought before metal wrapped around his throat, constricting his windpipe, and then everything went dark.
Footsteps approached the door to her single cell. She made out Beni’s stooped figure against the bars. He was shuffling, dragging his feet with long, loud noises.
“B- Beni? Are you here to let me out? Please let me out, I want to help-“
The door opened roughly with a loud clang, cutting her off, and with surprising strength Beni tossed something into the cell—a large bundle she hadn’t noticed him dragging in the low light.
“Really, you should be begging us to stay in here,” he said, in his characteristic raspy old voice, at odds with his current position blocking her exit. “Whole world out there’s gone mad…”
She barely heard him, because she was too busy scrambling over to see what he’d thrown in with her. Closer up she recognized the off-white clothing of the Pearl Clan, underneath a familiar worn coat. Ingo wasn’t moving—of course they’d gone after him, if Kamado was worried about strangers from the rift. It was awful, but she felt selfishly grateful that they had, so at least she wouldn’t be all alone anymore.
Not caring if Beni was leaving or not, she curled up against Ingo, relieved when she felt the rise and fall of his chest under her head.
Please don’t hate me, she thought at him. Not you too.
Ingo woke up somewhere dark. His head was pounding, his throat hurt, and there was a shivering weight pressing down on his chest. He assumed it was Lady Sneasler at first, but when he looked down, he recognized the mane of black hair tied up with a white kerchief. And the walls around him were too smoothly rectangular to be a cave, and it certainly wasn’t his home.
After another moment, he was able to retrace the last thing he remembered. Searching the highlands with Lady Sneasler, splitting up while she dealt with the Pokémon, finding… Beni…? and being attacked. And now, when he shifted, he could feel a chain wrapped loosely around his wrists and more tightly around his ankles.
Akari hiccuped, and he realized she was crying. Deciding for the moment that the strangeness of the current situation could wait, he worked his hands out of the chain and went to hug her. She whined when he pulled her close, gripping his shirt like she was afraid he’d get up and leave.
“I h-hate them,” she mumbled before he could ask anything. “I hope th-they all go fall in a rift and get stranded somewhere and nobody comes to help them. See how they like it.”
“Akari, that’s an awful thing to wish on anyone.” He sat up a little bit, pulling her with him. “Why would you say that?”
“They deserve it, they were awful first! They- th-the whole town put me down here, they said I was lying to them that it was my fault that I wanted the rift to- a- and they wouldn’t listen and I just wanted to h-help! And then they went and got you and… I- I’m sorry I’m sorry please don’t leave…”
Akari wasn’t even sure why she was apologizing, but some part of her muddled brain said that maybe this was her fault, somehow, that they were right or that maybe if she wasn’t here they wouldn’t have been able to find Ingo either. She couldn’t stop herself from saying it when all her words were just tumbling out.
At least Ingo seemed to disagree with her. “You have nothing to apologize for. And I have no intention of departing without you.”
Not that he could even if he wanted to, neither of them bothered to say.
They were silent for a moment, until her crying had softened to quiet sniffling, and then she felt his head move off the top of hers. She looked up to see him staring intently at the single small window.
“What are you-“
But he brought a finger to his lips, eyes flicking down at her for just a moment. “Shh.”
Now that she was listening, she could almost hear something that could have been a trick of her own mind—an echo of an echo, a distant mrr-mee! from who knew how far away.
“What’s that?”
“Lady Sneasler is calling for me.” He began to rummage in his coat, but she already knew what he was looking for.
“They took my Flute too.”
“Ah.” His frown deepened. “Then I suppose we are stuck waiting at the station. However, if my Lady is calling for me, it will not be long before she comes looking. She will not stand to see us both imprisoned.”
She wanted to believe that, even as her imagination was filled with visions of the Galaxy Team trying to drive Lady Sneasler away. She saw the Noble refusing to leave them, and getting injured, because of them, because of her…
Shivering, she turned her face away from the window and back into Ingo’s chest.
He hummed in response, wrapping his worn coat around her shoulders.
Sneasler paced up and down the Highlands, her call echoing off the cliffs. It was the unique call that bonded a Noble and their Warden, a signal for the Flute that both of them could hear from anywhere in Hisui. Hers was an imitation of the odd whistle her Warden had done to call for help when he’d first appeared. Even without the Sinnoh-bestowed power of the Celestica Flute, she’d heard him clear across the Highlands just from sheer volume. Now he wasn’t responding at all.
Even if he’d lost his flute, unless he was very far away, her signal should have been able to reach him and tell him to come to her. And he shouldn’t have been that far away, they were together not too long ago—but she’d turned her back for a minute and he’d vanished. What was that thing he was always warning her when she ran ahead? Take care not to come uncoupled from me, my Lady! Now she’d gone and done just that, and the only indication that he’d been here at all was the smell of Sootfoot Root, scuffs in the dirt from a brief struggle, and the hat he was always so careful not to drop, sitting discarded on the ground.
That hat was now held carefully in one clawed hand. She was stuck somewhere between scared and angry, both emotions unfit for a Noble. The other Nobles and the Pearl Clan was probably hearing her calls, at this point. If one of them came to investigate what was going on, and they couldn’t find Ingo either…
She was starting to lose hope, when finally there was a response to her call. Not a Celestica Flute, but it sounded just like her Warden’s fluteless whistle. He’d been asked not to do it, because it was, to be honest, distressingly loud, but at this moment she was nothing but grateful for the ear-piercing shriek. She took off, following the echo of the sound. It sounded like he was at the foot of the mountain, and almost at the border of the Icelands. She sprang up the cliffs in her way in record time, calling back and forth with the whistle.
One more cliff was scaled in a few bounds, and then she came to a screeching halt when she saw the source of the sound.
A white coat in pristine condition, free hand held at the side like it was a moment from reaching out and snatching whatever came close, a smile twisting features that should have been her Warden’s into something else entirely, as he lowered his hand from his mouth. She’d seen this form before, on Zorua attempting to trick Ingo, but this wasn’t a Zorua. She let out a little hiss as she drew near, more warning than threatening. The smell of the Rift was hanging in the air here, clinging to the man in white just like it had done to Ingo and Akari.
“Hello!” He seemed unfazed by a large, clawed beast hissing as it approached him. The smile didn’t move. “This is a strange place. You are a verrry strange Pokémon. Do you know where we are?”
His voice wasn’t the echo of a Zorua or the loud demand for attention of her Warden. Every word was clipped, like it had been cut out of paper with exacting care. She didn’t know what to do with it, but it wasn’t a threat for certain.
She made her Warden call again, confused. He whistled just like Ingo.
His brow furrowed a bit, maybe in confusion, and then he caught sight of the hat still in her hand. His smile got just a touch wider, strained.
“That hat does not belong to you,” he said, voice even colder than before as he indicated it. “Where did you find it?”
She perked up. She still didn’t know what this strange not-Ingo was, but she knew the look in his eye and the tone of his voice well. It matched her own current feelings.