You are floating in a vast expanse of space, filled with stars and galaxies as far as you can see. You simply float and let go of your troubles for a while. You don't know how much time passes, and it doesn't matter, you are calm, you are at peace. It's a feeling you don't get much of in the waking world. Suddenly you realize you've started falling backwards, slowly at first but getting faster and faster. You roll over so that you are falling forward, only to immediately wish you hadn't. Your falling towards an endless expanse of a darkness so deep you can't even imagine escaping. You wake just before you fall in, sitting up in a cold sweat.
"Ethan?" Mira is kneeling next to you with her paw on your forehead, "Are you alright?" you breathe heavily
"It was just a nightmare, but it started out really nice," you shake your head, "Usually I just wake up like normal,"
"I'm sorry, it was probably me, you looked happy, I wanted to see what was making you so happy," she frowns "What were you dreaming about?"
"Just a place where I don't have to worry about losing my cool, where I can really relax," you sit there for a minute allowing your heart to slow back down. Her ears flatten out as you explain, and she avoids eye contact.
"Do-do you hate me?" For the first time since you got here she doesn't have the brazen overconfidence that you remember. If anything, she seems afraid of your answer.
"Why would you care?"
She begins to tear up "You were the most important person in my life, leaving you was the biggest mistake I ever made. I wanted to run back to you the very next day, but you would've never taken me back," she spills her heart out as she begins crying, exposing all the regret she had been dealing with, "I missed you so much, and I hated myself for abandoning you. You were my best friend. You only ever did what you thought was best for me, and I betrayed you. I can't fault you for hating me, how could you not hate me. I-I just want things to go back to the way they were," she wipes away her tears "I'm sorry, I'm so selfish, I made you suffer so much and I still want you to not hate me,"
After a moment of silence "I did hate you, for a while," you tell her, "But hating someone hurts, the more you hate the more it hurts, and I hated you with every fiber of my being. I realized one day that it hurt a lot more than it helped. So I let it go, little by little. I don't know if I'll ever be able to forgive you for that, but I don't hate you," you go silent again "Things aren't going to be the way they were, it's not possible, we've both changed," you pull her into a hug, "but that doesn't mean we can't be friends again," Mira lets out a soft cry and hugs you back with all her strength. You hold her until her sobs stop and she falls asleep. You pick her up and set her in her bed, before crawling back into your sleeping bag for another few hours of rest.
Your sleep is disturbed once more by someone calling for Mira, "Alpha? You're needed in the meeting room, there's been a dispute," at some point during the night she had gotten up and lain down using your stomach as a pillow. You gently shake her awake "Hey, get up they need you" "Hmm? Oh, right. Coming," she gets up and straightens her fur, "Help yourself to the fruit, I'll give you a full tour later, and Ethan?" she turns back to you before leaving, "Thank you," you get to your feet and stretch out your muscles, stiff from sleeping on the floor.
You take a moment to look around the room, having been too tired the night before. The room still smells wonderful and you are now able to place the scent, lavender. There is a small vase of the purple flowers on a wooden stand next to Mira's bed in the back of the room, which is more like a nest than a bed. Circular in shape and concave like a bowl, it's filled with various soft leaves and plants, and actually seems quite comfortable. Near the front of the room there's a small table with a few stools. In the middle of the table is a bowl of various fruits. Across the room from the door is a large circular window cut directly out of the tree and overlooking the forest to the east.
Now fully awake you're at a loss for what to do. Wandering around the tree would probably draw a lot of attention, and you're sure you'll get lost on your own. On the other hand just sitting around waiting would drive you crazy. Unable to decide you settle for doing some simple exercises, pushups, situps, squats. You finish up a few sets without really breaking a sweat, and decide to slip out of your shirt so it doesn't get soaked as you continue.
For years you had been using exercize to try to burn through your considerable anger, and as such you were in good shape. As you turn back to the center of the room you hear a quiet gasp from the doorway.
"Who's there?"
"U-um I was l-looking for Alpha, I-I didn't mean t-to stare," a small Whimsicott peeks through the ivy curtain, "A-are you Ethan?"
"Yeah,"
"Do you know where Alpha is?"
"She was called to a meeting a while ago,"
"Th-that scar," the whimsicott shuffles it's feet "How did you get it?"
"It's not the kind of story you'd want to hear," you brush off the request "And I don't feel like telling it either" just thinking about that day riled you up and you dropped into another set of push-ups.
"But that scar is huge! There has to be a good story behind it," Whimsicott insists.
"I said no," you growl and continue with your exercises.
"Please?" You reach the bottom of a push-up, pull your legs up under you, and stand in one fluid motion.
"You wanna know how I got this scar? Fine. My chest was ripped open by an angry Zangoose. Can you even imagine what that felt like? What it felt like to look down and be able to see your organs exposed to the air? No, you can't," You practically explode on the small Pokémon.
"Someone saved me but, sometimes I wish they hadn't. My brain got all fucked up, I can barely control myself. It was the worst thing that ever happened to me, so thanks for making me remember it," As you ranted you'd gotten closer and closer to the grass and fairy type until it was backed up against the wall, nearly cowering from your rage. You take a few steps back and pinch the bridge of your nose. "I'm sorry, it's a sensitive subject,"
"N-no I shouldn't have kept asking," the small Pokémon admits.
"Yeah, weren't you looking for Mira anyways?"
"Oh gosh, that's right!" Whimsicott jumps and dashes out of the room, leaving you alone once again. Your outburst had burnt up some of your anger leaving you relatively calm. You felt bad about yelling at the windveiled Pokémon, but there wasn't anything you could do about it now. Pushing those thoughts aside you focus on a more pressing matter, how you'll respond to Mira's offer.
She was essentially offering you asylum from the world of humans, where you were no longer welcome. You had made plans for this situation, knowing that it was a possibility, but this was a completely unexpected development. You had a lot to consider. They were lead entirely by Mira, who had apparently brought them all together and enforced some kind of government. She had even created currency, something unheard of from wild Pokémon. However you also had to consider that you were not a Pokémon and the chances of you being accepted without friction were next to none, your encounter with the Staraptor had shown you that much.
Thinking hard, you sit down on one of Mira's stools and grab a piece of fruit.
From what you had seen they were advanced culturally but not technologically, which made sense, most Pokémon had no use for technology.
"If I could provide a unique service that was useful, that would go a long way towards convincing them to accept me," you think aloud.
"I don't know, some of us really despise humans," you jump at the voice that appears right behind you. "It would take a lot to convince them," you steady yourself and turn to see who had snuck up on you, however there appears to be no one there. "Up here," you follow the voice up to see a Noivern hanging from the ceiling.
"Why are you up there?" You ask, slightly frustrated. "Because I can be, so why not?" You don't really have anything to counter that so you move on. "Okay, why did you scare me like that?" "I wasn't trying to scare you, you were just so absorbed in your thoughts you didn't hear me coming," the Noivern responds with a small smirk.
You grit your teeth, "Alright you're starting to piss me off, what do you want?" Instead of answering, the sound wave Pokémon flips off the ceiling and grabs a piece of fruit from the bowl.
"Alpha's a little busy at the moment, so she asked me to give you the tour," Noivern explains between bites of the Nanab berry, "And of course I had to see the human Alpha is so infatuated with,"
"Arceus, our relationship isn't like that," "Hah, then why did she have your scent on her?" "She used me as a pillow," you grumble. "See? That's my point, She's never been close to that intimate with anyone," you groan "Well we're friends and that's it, I still don't know if I should trust her,"
Noivern finishes its berry and leaps back onto the ceiling, "Alright, there's a lot to see so we should get started, now where to start?"
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