[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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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.]