[Tanith arrives in Falia in mourning dress and remains suitably done up for the duration of her stay. How unfair, thinks a part of her born when she was a child that never grew up, that she must put appearances on over her grief.
She would have told Vasarely as much, from a world away in a short, clipped text message, and they would have sent a joke and made her smile or said something understanding and private and Tanith would have allowed herself this one small weakness in the face of someone she loves.
Loved.
Ah.
For now, she is alone but for the Dragonair snaking along her side. She refused guards when she left the kingdom—"six dragons," she had scoffed, "six dragons in my possession, and you think any one of you can protect me better?" Seven, at least, now, that she's come to collect Vasarely's Pokémon. The old estate is so empty, and Tanith counts the echoes of each click of her heeled steps. Poise and balance and grace, even in her mourning. Always, always.
She calls the Dragapult by name, and hears the echo here, too. Never has she so loathed the sound of her own voice, calling back to her, reminding her that she is alone.]
Draaaa... [According to the gym trainers, no one's been able to get close to their former leader's Dragapult since their passing. Myrrh (they always did have eccentric taste in names) has been seen around the gym, but it only appears for short periods of time, acting up and then vanishing.]
[General agreement is that it's lashing out with petty tantrums out of grief, understandably upset by Vasarely's sudden death. But it's an odd reaction for such a normally steady, caring pokemon...]
Drag! [Then again, Tanith may just have the chance to ask it herself, because it just appeared right in her face.]
[It... doesn't seem angry? If anything, it seems relived to see her, and excited about something.]
[Tanith knows that the Dragapult has been misbehaving, but she goes in with full confidence—she remembers it being so small she could scoop it in both her hands, and she'd pass it into Vasarely's and show them where to support the little creature's weight and where to scratch it without disturbing its growing scales. No, she has never feared dragons, and she certainly cannot imagine herself unable to calm the ire of a creature she helped hand fed when it was at its smallest.
"It is baby," she had huffed at the gym trainers who tried to warn her after she finally got the gist of what they meant, and she spoke through her thick accent and with all the confidence in the world despite only barely knowing how to put this language's phrases together.
So she isn't entirely surprised by how quickly the Dragapult comes to her. The excitement can easily be chalked up to the sight of a familiar face. She can't help but smile, too.]
How big you've become, old friend! [She speaks in her mother tongue, and reaches out with both hands to pet the sides of the Dragapult's sharp face and under its chin.] Those silly apprentices. I knew they just did not know how to say hello to you. No wonder you have been so grumpy.
[Aurora gives a long, friendly coo, and snakes and winds in Dragapult's direction. She was smaller, too, last they saw each other.]
And what has you in such good spirits, hmmm? Is it really so exciting to see me?
[Myrrh does appreciate the pats, leaning into the touch for a moment- but only a moment, before it starts chattering loudly again, looking back and forth between Aurora and her trainer several times in quick succession.]
Drag, drag...!
[It squirms out of Tanith's arms again- keeping hold of a pokemon that isn't always entirely tangible when it wants to get away is difficult at best- and floats towards a door at the end of the parlor, then flits back to her quickly. It nudges at her hands, gentle but urgent, then turns back to the same door.]
[It almost seems like it wants to be followed...?]
[Though Aurora might understand better, it's still Tanith who steps forward first.]
I'm coming, I'm coming. Have you something to show me?
[She can't imagine what her cousin might be keeping in their gym that's so pertinent to show her, that the apprentices either didn't know about or didn't deem worth mentioning—that takes precedence, it seems, over mourning.
Tanith follows steadily, this time not counting the clicks of her heels, while Aurora snakes along right beside her.]
[Mizar Manor is ancient, a big gothic mausoleum of a house pulling double duty as local gym and funeral parlor- an odd combination, to say the least, but one that seems intuitive to Ghost-type specialists and has persisted since long before Vasarely's father left his country behind to marry a foreign woman with a gentle voice and a knack for channeling spirits. The two sides of the business have separate, clearly-labeled entrances to avoid unfortunate mishaps, but it's not uncommon for gym trainers to work in both halves of the house.]
[Vasarely was rumored to have once said that anyone who couldn't do the solemn, patient work of caring for the dead would never truly understand the full potential of Ghost-type pokemon.]
[Myrrh is making a beeline for the main gym area, going just slowly enough that Tanith won't fall too far behind, but clearly impatient.]
[The door it stops at is sealed off with yellow crime scene tape.]
[The moan of the wind outside is abruptly audible near the marked door, no longer muffled by the thick walls of the manor like it should be.]
[There's no mistaking what room this must be- what must have happened in this room. Police and paramedics have long since come and gone, closing off the room in the wake of recent tragedy. But the door doesn't seem to be locked...]
[Of all things, anger flashes through Tanith first—that they could not even clean up after themselves, that they would leave this place her cousin so treasured with their tape still half-sticking to its doors. She has half a mind to rip it down herself, but before thought can become action her heart has sunk into her feet with the realization of what this place is.
The weight of it stops her in place. For just this moment, her poise and expression both fall. Aurora rubs her head against Tanith's hand, but Tanith doesn't reciprocate. After one beat, another, she turns to Myrrh.]
There's something in here, yes?
[She swallows, straightens her back and shoulders, and takes a steeling breath. She wants to think that if they have not cleaned up the inside there will be hell to pay, but she stops at if they have not cleaned up the inside.]
I trust you, then, old friend.
[And she steps forward and, slowly, pulls open the door.]
Shhh I didn't have to retcon the town's name no one saw anything.
[They've cleaned up... the worst of the "mess". It's hard to say whether it's better or not.]
[Merak Manor is a beautiful old building, but unfortunately, sometimes the key word there is "old". Vasarely had always done their best to keep it in good repair, but even in the best possible condition, it's a gamble whether any building that isn't made specifically to handle extreme conditions will hold up in a storm.]
[They'd said the squall that came ripping down from the mountains that night had been the worst the town had seen in years, if not decades, all the worse for being so sudden.]
[No one had seen it coming, and everyone had needed to take shelter in whatever building they'd happened to be closest to at the time. Of course they'd opened their gym for the night, like any responsible gym leader would.]
[One old, massive building- and it had made it through the storm with only one spot of serious damage.]
[It wasn't anybody's fault that the one thing that hadn't held up was the roof beam right where they'd been standing.]
[The storm had passed almost as quickly as it came, leaving behind less damage than it could have, but so, so much more than anyone had expected. The sky tonight is still and clear, visible through the hole in the roof. The floor has been scrubbed and swept, the scattered debris removed, but the broken beam is still dangling from the ceiling, loose splintered end resting heavily on the cracked floor.]
[The room isn't empty.]
[Flickering up near the ceiling is the unmistakable blue flame of a Chandelure. The ghostly light illuminates the tiny form of a Mimikyu crouched near the broken beam- next to it, easy to dismiss as a pile of uncleared rubble without the candlelight showing the serpentine markings, is a Runerigus. Myrrh floats up to join a gently-swaying Polteageist, hovering alongside a Drifblim bobbing steadily in place.]
[The gym trainers were wrong- it wasn't just one Dragapult floating around, causing trouble. Vasarely's entire team is here. And they're all positioned around the center of the room, watching.]
[Waiting for something.]
[...the air was still and the sky was clear, tonight.]
[So why is there still the sound of wind howling?]
[The noise gets louder and louder, until it suddenly cuts off all at once. In the center of the room, a figure steps out of the moonlight. They're as insubstantial as a shadow, as clear as glass.]
Her cousin died here. Here is where the beam fell. Here is where their body was. Here is where the storm came in. Here is the last thing they ever saw.
She sees it all only under the Chandelure's light. She watches them all and somehow cannot think of them as lonely. As Aurora winds herself around Tanith's feet, the gesture is one not of protection, but of comfort. Aurora has found nothing worth fearing here.
What are you doing, she might think to yell as the wind howls all around her, what is there, what can I do, she wants to offer her cousin's most beloved companions, but her voice is caught, she doesn't breathe, she can't breathe, and when the wind is so loud she couldn't hear herself if she could shout she realizes that she's waiting, too.]
Vasushka, [the word drops from her mouth almost involuntarily, like it had been waiting and blocking her this whole time, and the breath in is,] Cousin.
[Perfectly in sync, Aurora moves just as Tanith does, taking one step forward to free herself of the tangle of her Dragonair and the rest in long strides. Logic should slow her, doubt should make her pause, but instead Tanith crosses the room towards the shape of her cousin with intent to cup their face in her hands.]
[If she tries to touch them, she'll find her hand going right through- not as though she'd tried to grab thin air so much as if she'd trailed her fingers into a very thick mist, a patch of atmosphere strangely cold and with an odd sense of substance to it, even though there's nothing solid there.]
Oh- [Their eyes are wide with sudden understanding. The last few days have been like some strange fever dream, flickering in and out, only seeing snippets of this room, of their worried team trying to anchor them enough to help, of the beam coming down over and over again.]
[But seeing Tanith, here and hurting and thousands of miles from where she should be, it's like the fever suddenly breaking. They've been a ghost-caller and a speaker-to-the-dead their whole life, like their mother and their mother's father and on back down that side of the family tree. They know what this means, standing here under the moonlight and seeing right through their own skin.] Then I must have...
[They reach out to brush their fingers gently against her cheek, mirroring Tanith's own instinctive gesture, as soft as the brush of a cloud.] Oh, Tanya. How long have I been gone?
[They're speaking in her native tongue, their father's language, the sound of home. She came here, to this foreign land, to meet them past all hope of meeting. The least they can do is meet her on ground she can understand.]
[Even as Tanith's hands touch mist, a full and present nothingness, her fingertips linger at the air of her cousin's cheek under Vasarely's own, and her other hand lowers in a way that means to hold Vasarely's free hand between them.]
A week. A little less. [The words come out as a breath, and a laugh—a laugh, of all things, only the thin exhale of one and a half-hysterical sound, because what else can Tanith do but laugh?] I came as soon as the news reached me. But—oh, but Vasushka, you're not gone! [Again, that breathy noise, wordless this time, but there's a joy to it. Her cousin is gone but her cousin stands before her and they know what's become of them and they call her by her name. Isn't that enough?] Myrrh brought me to you. I came here to make sure your team was taken care of and they were waiting for you. You're...you're here.
[They smile, a little sad but warm. Real.] Thank you. [They raise their head a little, looking at their team having come in to rest around them.] Thank you all.
I was... trying to find my way back, I think. But I'd gotten lost along the way, and I couldn't get through until I had a clear path to walk. You showed me the way, by being here. [A living voice, like a clarion call on a dark night. Reminding them of life and living, of what they were.]
[Myrrh lands on their shoulder without passing through as Tanith does- but that's one ghost touching another. It's different for the living, and they still hold her hand gently, their phantom fingertips resting lightly over her own solid, living flesh.]
[It will never be the same. But maybe it can be something good, still.]
They were keeping the door open for me, I think. Making sure I had the chance, if I was willing to take it.
[Their hair is still the same inky blue-black as it always was, a match for Tanith's own, but their eyes have lost all color. They used to be almost purple, several shades off from their cousin's bright blue- now they're a blank off-white, iris and sclera and pupil all one shade with only the faintest of distinctions to tell where one part begins and another ends.]
[But they're clear and lucid, not hazed like someone in a fever dream or cold like something uncaring, inhuman. They're changed, but they're still themself.]
[They can work with that.]
I'm not done. I don't know what I'm going to do, but I'm not done yet. Probably not for a long time yet, I think.
[They're here. And they're not planning on going anywhere soon.]
[The rest of the world is just going to have to get used to it.]
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no subject
She would have told Vasarely as much, from a world away in a short, clipped text message, and they would have sent a joke and made her smile or said something understanding and private and Tanith would have allowed herself this one small weakness in the face of someone she loves.
Loved.
Ah.
For now, she is alone but for the Dragonair snaking along her side. She refused guards when she left the kingdom—"six dragons," she had scoffed, "six dragons in my possession, and you think any one of you can protect me better?" Seven, at least, now, that she's come to collect Vasarely's Pokémon. The old estate is so empty, and Tanith counts the echoes of each click of her heeled steps. Poise and balance and grace, even in her mourning. Always, always.
She calls the Dragapult by name, and hears the echo here, too. Never has she so loathed the sound of her own voice, calling back to her, reminding her that she is alone.]
no subject
[General agreement is that it's lashing out with petty tantrums out of grief, understandably upset by Vasarely's sudden death. But it's an odd reaction for such a normally steady, caring pokemon...]
Drag! [Then again, Tanith may just have the chance to ask it herself, because it just appeared right in her face.]
[It... doesn't seem angry? If anything, it seems relived to see her, and excited about something.]
no subject
"It is baby," she had huffed at the gym trainers who tried to warn her after she finally got the gist of what they meant, and she spoke through her thick accent and with all the confidence in the world despite only barely knowing how to put this language's phrases together.
So she isn't entirely surprised by how quickly the Dragapult comes to her. The excitement can easily be chalked up to the sight of a familiar face. She can't help but smile, too.]
How big you've become, old friend! [She speaks in her mother tongue, and reaches out with both hands to pet the sides of the Dragapult's sharp face and under its chin.] Those silly apprentices. I knew they just did not know how to say hello to you. No wonder you have been so grumpy.
[Aurora gives a long, friendly coo, and snakes and winds in Dragapult's direction. She was smaller, too, last they saw each other.]
And what has you in such good spirits, hmmm? Is it really so exciting to see me?
no subject
Drag, drag...!
[It squirms out of Tanith's arms again- keeping hold of a pokemon that isn't always entirely tangible when it wants to get away is difficult at best- and floats towards a door at the end of the parlor, then flits back to her quickly. It nudges at her hands, gentle but urgent, then turns back to the same door.]
[It almost seems like it wants to be followed...?]
no subject
I'm coming, I'm coming. Have you something to show me?
[She can't imagine what her cousin might be keeping in their gym that's so pertinent to show her, that the apprentices either didn't know about or didn't deem worth mentioning—that takes precedence, it seems, over mourning.
Tanith follows steadily, this time not counting the clicks of her heels, while Aurora snakes along right beside her.]
no subject
[Mizar Manor is ancient, a big gothic mausoleum of a house pulling double duty as local gym and funeral parlor- an odd combination, to say the least, but one that seems intuitive to Ghost-type specialists and has persisted since long before Vasarely's father left his country behind to marry a foreign woman with a gentle voice and a knack for channeling spirits. The two sides of the business have separate, clearly-labeled entrances to avoid unfortunate mishaps, but it's not uncommon for gym trainers to work in both halves of the house.]
[Vasarely was rumored to have once said that anyone who couldn't do the solemn, patient work of caring for the dead would never truly understand the full potential of Ghost-type pokemon.]
[Myrrh is making a beeline for the main gym area, going just slowly enough that Tanith won't fall too far behind, but clearly impatient.]
[The door it stops at is sealed off with yellow crime scene tape.]
[The moan of the wind outside is abruptly audible near the marked door, no longer muffled by the thick walls of the manor like it should be.]
[There's no mistaking what room this must be- what must have happened in this room. Police and paramedics have long since come and gone, closing off the room in the wake of recent tragedy. But the door doesn't seem to be locked...]
no subject
The weight of it stops her in place. For just this moment, her poise and expression both fall. Aurora rubs her head against Tanith's hand, but Tanith doesn't reciprocate. After one beat, another, she turns to Myrrh.]
There's something in here, yes?
[She swallows, straightens her back and shoulders, and takes a steeling breath. She wants to think that if they have not cleaned up the inside there will be hell to pay, but she stops at if they have not cleaned up the inside.]
I trust you, then, old friend.
[And she steps forward and, slowly, pulls open the door.]
Shhh I didn't have to retcon the town's name no one saw anything.
[Merak Manor is a beautiful old building, but unfortunately, sometimes the key word there is "old". Vasarely had always done their best to keep it in good repair, but even in the best possible condition, it's a gamble whether any building that isn't made specifically to handle extreme conditions will hold up in a storm.]
[They'd said the squall that came ripping down from the mountains that night had been the worst the town had seen in years, if not decades, all the worse for being so sudden.]
[No one had seen it coming, and everyone had needed to take shelter in whatever building they'd happened to be closest to at the time. Of course they'd opened their gym for the night, like any responsible gym leader would.]
[One old, massive building- and it had made it through the storm with only one spot of serious damage.]
[It wasn't anybody's fault that the one thing that hadn't held up was the roof beam right where they'd been standing.]
[The storm had passed almost as quickly as it came, leaving behind less damage than it could have, but so, so much more than anyone had expected. The sky tonight is still and clear, visible through the hole in the roof. The floor has been scrubbed and swept, the scattered debris removed, but the broken beam is still dangling from the ceiling, loose splintered end resting heavily on the cracked floor.]
[The room isn't empty.]
[Flickering up near the ceiling is the unmistakable blue flame of a Chandelure. The ghostly light illuminates the tiny form of a Mimikyu crouched near the broken beam- next to it, easy to dismiss as a pile of uncleared rubble without the candlelight showing the serpentine markings, is a Runerigus. Myrrh floats up to join a gently-swaying Polteageist, hovering alongside a Drifblim bobbing steadily in place.]
[The gym trainers were wrong- it wasn't just one Dragapult floating around, causing trouble. Vasarely's entire team is here. And they're all positioned around the center of the room, watching.]
[Waiting for something.]
[...the air was still and the sky was clear, tonight.]
[So why is there still the sound of wind howling?]
[The noise gets louder and louder, until it suddenly cuts off all at once. In the center of the room, a figure steps out of the moonlight. They're as insubstantial as a shadow, as clear as glass.]
[They're unmistakable.]
Tanya...?
i've seen nothing
Her cousin died here. Here is where the beam fell. Here is where their body was. Here is where the storm came in. Here is the last thing they ever saw.
She sees it all only under the Chandelure's light. She watches them all and somehow cannot think of them as lonely. As Aurora winds herself around Tanith's feet, the gesture is one not of protection, but of comfort. Aurora has found nothing worth fearing here.
What are you doing, she might think to yell as the wind howls all around her, what is there, what can I do, she wants to offer her cousin's most beloved companions, but her voice is caught, she doesn't breathe, she can't breathe, and when the wind is so loud she couldn't hear herself if she could shout she realizes that she's waiting, too.]
Vasushka, [the word drops from her mouth almost involuntarily, like it had been waiting and blocking her this whole time, and the breath in is,] Cousin.
[Perfectly in sync, Aurora moves just as Tanith does, taking one step forward to free herself of the tangle of her Dragonair and the rest in long strides. Logic should slow her, doubt should make her pause, but instead Tanith crosses the room towards the shape of her cousin with intent to cup their face in her hands.]
no subject
Oh- [Their eyes are wide with sudden understanding. The last few days have been like some strange fever dream, flickering in and out, only seeing snippets of this room, of their worried team trying to anchor them enough to help, of the beam coming down over and over again.]
[But seeing Tanith, here and hurting and thousands of miles from where she should be, it's like the fever suddenly breaking. They've been a ghost-caller and a speaker-to-the-dead their whole life, like their mother and their mother's father and on back down that side of the family tree. They know what this means, standing here under the moonlight and seeing right through their own skin.] Then I must have...
[They reach out to brush their fingers gently against her cheek, mirroring Tanith's own instinctive gesture, as soft as the brush of a cloud.] Oh, Tanya. How long have I been gone?
[They're speaking in her native tongue, their father's language, the sound of home. She came here, to this foreign land, to meet them past all hope of meeting. The least they can do is meet her on ground she can understand.]
no subject
A week. A little less. [The words come out as a breath, and a laugh—a laugh, of all things, only the thin exhale of one and a half-hysterical sound, because what else can Tanith do but laugh?] I came as soon as the news reached me. But—oh, but Vasushka, you're not gone! [Again, that breathy noise, wordless this time, but there's a joy to it. Her cousin is gone but her cousin stands before her and they know what's become of them and they call her by her name. Isn't that enough?] Myrrh brought me to you. I came here to make sure your team was taken care of and they were waiting for you. You're...you're here.
no subject
I was... trying to find my way back, I think. But I'd gotten lost along the way, and I couldn't get through until I had a clear path to walk. You showed me the way, by being here. [A living voice, like a clarion call on a dark night. Reminding them of life and living, of what they were.]
[Myrrh lands on their shoulder without passing through as Tanith does- but that's one ghost touching another. It's different for the living, and they still hold her hand gently, their phantom fingertips resting lightly over her own solid, living flesh.]
[It will never be the same. But maybe it can be something good, still.]
They were keeping the door open for me, I think. Making sure I had the chance, if I was willing to take it.
[Their hair is still the same inky blue-black as it always was, a match for Tanith's own, but their eyes have lost all color. They used to be almost purple, several shades off from their cousin's bright blue- now they're a blank off-white, iris and sclera and pupil all one shade with only the faintest of distinctions to tell where one part begins and another ends.]
[But they're clear and lucid, not hazed like someone in a fever dream or cold like something uncaring, inhuman. They're changed, but they're still themself.]
[They can work with that.]
I'm not done. I don't know what I'm going to do, but I'm not done yet. Probably not for a long time yet, I think.
[They're here. And they're not planning on going anywhere soon.]
[The rest of the world is just going to have to get used to it.]