Story Notes:
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.Author's notes:Guess I'm back from my hiatus. A surprise for all those who were waiting for my other chapters, and a thanks for all those who had supported me till now.Thanks for reading anyways.Writing this story was a real cool experience, my first ever serious attempt at romance, so I do hope you guys can enjoy reading this as much as I did writing this. This songfic was supposedly based off Slipped Away by Avril Lavigne, and if you don't know what this song is or who the artist is, I've got a link below. And for those real emotional people who can actually get themselves crying by reading some story, you know what to expect (oops spoilers).Slipped AwayAvril Lavigne
Oceans Away
Oceans Away
The horizon looked just the same as yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that. It had looked this same way for the past month in fact, except for once when a sandstorm had merely crossed into the horizon, leaving behind a trail of dust for the rest of the day to see. And the dry sensation on her tongue, she had gotten used to that too. Days of the same cycle, it had a strange numbing effect. It was almost like waking up to find the time had rewound itself twenty four hours before, and knowing it would the same when she wakes up tomorrow, and when she does the day after that.
She imagined beyond that, somewhere along that horizon, but not quite merged between the sky, would be the human region of town. There would be the city hall, the market place, people waving with clumps of vegetable clasped within their browned hands, the houses they pleasantly resembled the summer resorts she had seen somewhere else, and the clock tower, or maybe it had been demolished to give way for the tramway construction. One month ago she had been there, and had she not been a Sceptile, something slower like a Marshtomp perhaps, she would have had more than just a bullet chipped almost though her tailbone.
Somewhere far away, somewhere part of the horizon, the sand dunes wavered, almost beckoning.
There would be no sandstorm today, and probably not tomorrow either. And she would still be here to see the same distorted sky, tomorrow, and the day after that. After all, she had nowhere she wanted to go.
She climbed from her seat, brushing her cloak of the sand, and turned away, further into the desert.
She took her time, every few hundred feet, pausing to pick at the sand grains that had trapped between her toes, or to look back and wonder how much smaller the human town looked than the last she had stopped to do the same thing. She could see her town before her â�" if she could even be considered part of the town residents in the first place, she had actually lived in Sherrom for a good part of her new life, until the Sherrom Massacre that had happened about two months back. She had been frightened, when the maniac Lucario had killed off the town's entire human population in one night, along with a few other Pokemon who had tried to stop her. So it happened she had decided to move into the Yukado region, and she could have seen that motor hijack a mile away, but it had still happened anyways.
As she approached a dull olive pickup appeared through the town's main path, barrels loaded to the back, picking up faint clouds of dust after it. It slowed to a halt beside her, and she laid her arms over the scrolled down windshields, looked at the hooded Granbull who was driving. The interior smelled softly of cigarette smoke. She eyed the ashtray on the dashboard beside the wobbling Gible bob-head figurine, it had speckles of ash.
"Hi Rauer."
"Hi Shiku." He placed his arms onto the steering wheel, and lifted the edge of his hood with a thumb, revealing to her the deep gray eyes beneath. They looked tired and lively at the same time, a strange mix she thought.
"So, how much did Yuryuu offer?"
"What? What about Yuryuu?" Beneath the hood Shiku could see the same gray eyes narrowed. For that moment he looked as if he aged ten years instantly. And by the corner of her eyes the Gible bob-head continued to wobble with its giant clown grin.
"I mean he bribed you. To do the loading."
"No way he'd ever do stuff like that, he's not that kind of person. People need money, and money comes from work, especially in a small town like this. Anyways Yuryuu had a fever last night, and I happened to be the only one who could drive a car at that time, so yeah."
"That's sad."
"By the way, Arden was looking for you. He told me to tell you if I saw you. Think he had something he wanted to give you."
"I see ... good for you."
"What do you mean good for me?"
"You know what I mean."
Rauer sighed. "I don't, that's why I'm asking. No offense, but I've always thought that you were kinda weird, even though you're unusually nice. I believe Arden thinks the same, I just don't see how you had managed to hook him up in the first place. I mean, he'd never shown any interests to females, not to mention you guys just don't seem to ... click together."
"We never even hooked up, so that explains everything."
"Exactly what I mean." Rauer lay back against his seat and rapped his fingers against the steering wheel, pinkie to center. "I didn't see you at the market this morning. Where were you?"
"I had Cean cover my shift, so I was writing songs."
"How much did you offer?"
"Not funny. And not original."
Rauer sighed again, longer this time. He pulled out a tube of green bonbons from the pocket of his khakis, sucked on one, and offered the tube to Shiku, to which she refused. Lum flavored, Shiku could smell. Not that she didn't like Lum candy, she didn't like bonbons. Too hard to chew.
"Songs again ... you are skilled at that I suppose."
"And so I wrote the verse for my new song, want to hear?"
"No thank you. And I believe I really should get going, or I'm not gonna catch my supper."
Rauer eased on the gas pedal, and Shiku stepped back from the pickup, waving at the Granbull as the vehicle rolled away in the direction she had come from. She waited for the olive pickup to disappear, halfway into the horizons perhaps, when the dust clouds that followed the truck were tiny puffs. Behind her, she could hear the sounds of the market.
She turned down the main path into the town, and ran.
*****
Blood had an overwhelming smell Genner just couldn't understand. It smelled too sweet. Not only that, it tasted too sweet.
He looked at the person on the ground behind him, his face half-torn and bloody. He looked dead, and if he wasn't, he would be soon enough anyway.
Genner pulled the body, the body, not the person anymore, further back into the alley, and laid it near the dumpster and the trash bags. The blood smelled out of place among the stench of rot, but there was nothing he could do about that. He stood back to survey the work he done. There was the long trail of blood from the Fourth Square, for after all he had dragged the body the whole way. Check. He had created the lacerations on its body with a steel claw, but they still looked slightly out of shape. Not feral enough. It wasn't like anybody would ever bother to perform an autopsy for something like this though, so check.
Genner squatted by the corpse, and stared at the one-eyed man, who had the left side of its face dug out. Ain't we just got the shittiest luck? He smiled, pulled its other remaining eye loose, and let the white sphere hang by its fin blood vessels. He moved on to its diaphragm, pulled the skin apart from its lacerations, reached in, and grabbed a handful of intestines to leave lying over his abdomen. Check.
The traitor was lying here, dead. And so would that damned Pokemon shithole across on the other side by sunrise. And tonight would give them enough time to make their move. It was like killing two Pidgeys with a stone. Or perhaps three. He just had to wait for someone to find the body.
Genner pulled his hat over his wide laugh.
*****
In a way, the market was the same as the desert itself. The market stayed the same way it had yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that. Perhaps on another day, she would be missing from the market in the morning, writing songs in her bedroom, perhaps the young Aipom who loved his bucks would be there to help with her stocks and washing, or perhaps the Floatzel who owned the kitchen beside her stand would be away, and her daughter would be the one who would be taking the orders instead. Otherwise everyday was the same people and the same faces, and it would stay this way tomorrow, and the day after that, and for month after that.
About five hundred feet down the main path, a few crates of fruit lined neat before a stand, the Feraligatr behind the crates having a talk with a probable customer, and a Luxio bent over a basin washing Aguav berries. The smell of mushroom soup was strong, as was the sound of running water and the clatter of dishes and the song in the air as a Floatzel hummed to herself, collecting bowls from tables outside the neighboring kitchen. For a moment the Luxio looked up from her work, noticed Shiku running by, and gave a wave.
"Hey Shiku, you coming back for the evening shift?"
"Probably, if Kya's not coming. Help yourself to some berries, Cean. I'll pay for them later."
The Luxio gave another wave, and bent back over her work, though not before picking an extra large Iapapa berry from the crates and stuffing it between her jaws. Shiku laughed and continued down the market path.
Another three hundred feet perhaps, Shiku turned to a path down the right, and stopped before the sixth door beyond the row of houses. She tiptoed and reached to the top of the doorframe, found the key lying amongst the thick layer of sand and dust, pulled it from its hiding place. She unlocked the door, and replaced the key above the doorframe.
The first thing she thought of when she stepped into the room was something smelled very much like the tattered book she had borrowed from the library when she had still been in Sherrom. A Blaziken sat on an armchair to the right half of the room, besieged with large cardboard boxes and rough stacks of books, flipping through what looked like a century-old manuscript. And he had the Elecannons playing on the hi-fi.
"Kya."
The Blaziken turned around, and dropped the book on the stack to his right, toppling the tower over. The book landed five feet from Shiku's feet, face-up with its ugly cover staring back at her. Living and Death by Mereo Villana.
"Stop calling me that. Sounds like some fan-girls screams."
"It is your name." Shiku picked up the book, and looked at its cover of a zombie lineup, all arms outstretched towards the reader. She had an idea she would find something like, Copyright 4013 by Mereo Villana. The Blaziken stood up and pushed his hair back, did an arms stretch.
"Screw it. It's probably something my mum happened to mistake for a name when my aunt was still screaming like some bitch. Call me Arden. I'm better with that."
"How many times have you told me that? I still like ...... Kya. Yes, it sounds much better. Arden makes you sound like some tree name, and so much for being a fire-type. Go figure." Shiku tossed the book back to where she had picked it up, this time facedown, and on the back was a gray portrait of a human in an ugly smile. "You wanted to find me for what now?"
Arden pointed to a guitar case in the corner. "Take it. I found it while I was clearing out my sister's room."
"You were what?"
"Clearing out my sister's room. It's a Koma Acoustic 400, or something like that."
"You sure you're okay?" As surprised as she sounded, Shiku kept her eyes unwavering from the black leather casing, as she unzipped it and pulled the beautifully lacquered guitar out from its sheathing. Koma Acoustic 400. She almost wanted to laugh.
Arden tsked, and entered the kitchen to the left. "Just because I hate cleaning, doesn't mean I never clean. You are going to stay indefinitely anyway, so I figured I might as well clean up her room for you. Better than having you hog my bed for the rest of my days. What sauce do you want with your salad?"
Shiku held the guitar, and weighed the thing in her claws. Spruce, and good spruce at that. About four and a half pounds. She strummed its strings, and they felt new, not even the least bit loosened, thought to herself for a moment. She thought of the tube of green bonbons as Rauer had offered it to her, his jaws working on the candy.
"Lum Tropical would do nice."
Arden pulled two plates of salad from the fridge, and a bottle of clear emerald sauce from the top drawer, dressed the Lum Tropical over the purple lettuce leaves. He replaced the bottle and drew another with Thousand Island dressing, which he placed on the dinner table along with the salads.
"Shouldn't you treasure your sister's stuff more? Seriously, I don't think she'd be happy if she knew you were giving her stuff away to random girls you picked up on the street."
"Random girls I picked up on the street?" Arden laughed loud and took his seat by the table. "That random girl happened to be the same girl who had half-died from dehydration and an infection of her tail. Besides, my sister gave up the guitar like, a month after she bought it."
Shiku paused, and just stared at the Koma in her claws.
"Your sister never learned guitar."
"Oh shoot. I said that before?"
Shiku smiled, and gave Arden a hug. He winced, and pulled his head away from hers, which was dangerously close in her position.
"Aww freak, it wasn't anywhere near free, so I still want my money back."
"Now you're selling your sister's stuff? What a way to treat the girl you like."
"Girl I like? You're just a random girl I picked up on the street."
*****
Rauer ran, or at least as fast as he could move with one leg fucking bleeding.
How could he have been so careless to miss the other pickup parked right across the oasis? The headlights had been turned off too, how much more obvious had he needed it before he realized they had been as good as screaming they were stalking?
He didn't stop to look back. If he did, perhaps he would see a barrel sticking out from the side of the pickup, ready to blast another hole in him, this time in his chest, or right through his brain. Perhaps it was right behind him, and he wouldn't know what had happened as it ran him over like some Skitty. But he knew, somewhere behind him, was his olive pickup, with some other human driving it, headlights off but engine roaring like a Luxray. Perhaps he was smoking a cigarette clamped between his curved lips, and the bob-head Gible would be wobbling like some fucker on the dashboard.
For the first and last time, Rauer understood what it meant to run for your life. Not for any stupid marathon, but for your very fucking life.
*****
Shiku's claws paused on her guitar, looked out of the window, and set the Koma Acoustic 400 down beside the armchair. Something was happening out there, and her senses were pricking up like a Jolteon. She donned her desert coat and stepped into the night, peered down the main path.
Her first impression was of a parade, but that couldn't be right, because the residents were waving about shotguns in the air. Somewhere, a shot sounded. And all of a sudden she found herself running as if for a marathon, straight down the main path, her ears somehow blanked to the screams in the air, and didn't stop three hundred feet down the road till she reached her stand.
Somehow she knew what had happened before she saw the body. She thought of the flaking olive of the bumper, the barrels rumbling by the back, faint clouds of dust swirling over the sand. She thought of the smell of cigarettes, the glass ashtray upon the dashboard, and the speckles of cigarette ash. She thought of the tube of green bonbons, as he pulled it out of the pocket of his khakis, and his jaws went working the candy.
Two Pokemon carried Rauer on a stretcher, back up the main path towards the clinic further past Arden's house. All around her, there were people screaming, people were waving shotguns in the air and firing, but she couldn't register any of those, she didn't even know of what species were the two Pokemon who carried Rauer. Or if there had been three who were doing the job. All she could see was the goddamn Granbull on the stretcher, as the gunshot rang over and over in her mind, and the holes over his body. Fucking bulletholes.
"Shiku. Go back to the house."
"The humans did this didn't they? They killed Rauer. They killed him just because he was different." Shiku felt Arden come from behind and squeeze her shoulders, as she watched the procession uptown, as she watched the limp paw, now stained a red-violet, hang from the stretcher, swinging melodramatically to and fro. "They killed him just because he was a Pokemon."
She waited for the olive pickup to disappear, halfway into the horizons perhaps, when the dust clouds that followed the truck were tiny puffs. Behind her, she could hear the sounds of the market.
"Go back to the house and stay there. Wait until I return. Stay there and don't leave."
The moment Shiku broke away from her silence, she saw it all. The Feraligatr who owned the fruit stand she worked at driving his black jeep, a twin-barreled shotgun strapped to his back with a belt of ammunition, the Ariados who worked by the Tailor's Den and had helped mend Shiku's torn coat, riding at the passenger's seats along with the Breloom who delivered Arden's post if he had any. The Floatzel whose mushroom soup Shiku so loved, slinging a rifle over her shoulder and two swords by her waist, her daughter who Shiku always saw doing the dishes over in the mornings, tugging at her mother's tails. The Kecleon who lived next door and had invited her over for lunch at times, passing firearms through the people by the storage, the Gardevoir who would always let Shiku read for hours on end at her bookstore without ever asking for a single cent, raising a pistol high into the evening air and firing while she screamed.
For a moment Shiku was back in Sherrom, by the cafe at night, waiting for her fries to arrive, and the Lucario appeared right through the glass door, smashed the waitress's head through a vacant table and into the flooring. She was near completely drenched in gore, and she was laughing the way one might have done if he were watching a comedy, unrealistically. But she was crying, that much Shiku knew. She was crying.
"WHY ARE YOU GUYS FIGHTING?"
Shiku spun around and slapped Arden's claw off her shoulder, and Arden took a surprised step away from Shiku, for he had never seen Shiku cry like this. He had never seen anyone cry like this. Her eyes weren't filled with hate, they weren't filled with sorrow. She had eyes of a person who perhaps knew everything and nothing at the same time.
"WHY ARE YOU GUYS KILLING EACH OTHER? IT DOESN'T MAKE A DIFFERENCE IF YOU'RE POKEMON OR HUMAN DOESN'T IT? THEY'RE STILL LIVES! SO WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU GUYS KILLING EACH OTHER JUST BECAUSE THEY KILLED A FRIEND?"
"Rauer isn't just a friend. He's like our family."
Shiku's eyes widened.
"Go to the cellar and stay there. I'm supposed to bring the kids over and stay. I'm not supposed to fight."
As Arden disappeared amongst the crowd, black jacket fluttering, she felt alone in the entire world. She didn't know a single thing. Nothing in the world. She didn't know Arden either, right from the start.
*****
It had occurred to Shiku to grab the Koma Acoustic as she made her way to the shelter, though she had no idea why she wanted to do so. She stared at the dark leather casing, ran her claw over the rough surface. The humans had killed Rauer, and the Pokemon had all gone for their revenge, that was all she could figure, and the cellar smelled strongly of all sorts of fermented berries, but those were the only things on her mind. Arden was opposite her, but otherwise the ones who were with them were no more than adolescents.
Tomorrow if she ever woke up, the horizon wouldn't look the same. It wouldn't look the same for the next month, and perhaps the month after that, and perhaps another month after that. It had been nothing more than a dream. And the dry sensation on her tongue, though it would be the same as she had ever felt, it would never be the same again. And she doubted she would still be here to see the same sky, tomorrow, and the day after that. She doubted she would still be at her stand the next day, having friendly conversations with the shop owner while she washed the fruit. She doubted if the Floatzel by the neighboring kitchen would still be there to provide her soup, or if the young Aipom would still be there to collect her bucks, or if the Kecleon next door would still be there to invite her to lunch.
"I heard you were from Sherrom?"
Shiku looked up at Arden, who had repositioned himself to sit beside her.
"Yeah."
"There were humans there?"
"Half the population. They were really nice people too. The landlord was a human, and he cut the rent real cheap. The waitress by the night cafe was real nice too. Always offered me free tea to go along with the pastry. We talked a lot when she wasn't serving anyone else or doing her shifts. And the guy who lived in the apartment above mine ... he brought cakes down if he ever baked any. It turned out he was quite the guitarist too. He was the one who taught me to play the guitar. And ..." She looked at her guitar again, and gave a desolate shrug, hugged her legs to herself. "Humans and Pokemon aren't that much different. I realized that."
"I heard a Lucario killed them. The humans?"
Shiku noticed Arden was asking all the questions, but she didn't mind. She was pleased Arden still wanted to talk to her after her outburst, she almost wished he would ask more. Shiku nestled against his shoulder, and Arden scratched her head lightly. "All the humans. Some poachers apparently killed her mate."
"I can't stop thinking about Rauer."
Shiku noticed the Gabite opposite her, sitting in pretty much the same position as her, with Cean snuggled against his leg, and a Cubone by his other leg. Yuryuu, the Gabite who was supposed to have done the loading today.
"I keep thinking, if Rauer hadn't been driving the truck, if I had been the one driving the truck. Would he have died? Would I have died instead? And if you put it that way, it's as good as I was the one who killed him. And I can't stop thinking about that."
Yuryuu buried his head between his knees, and fell silent. Yuryuu, the Gabite who was supposed to have done the loading today. Yuryuu, the Gabite who was supposed to have died in his pickup. Yuryuu, the Gabite who was supposed to have been the one brought down on the stretcher, arm hanging limp from aside.
Shiku looked at the small group of teenagers, and at the Poochyena and Lennol, the Floatzel's daughter, cuddled upon a large cloth, and back at Arden. It seemed all of them were listening in to the conversation.
"So how's Sherrom like?"
"Sherrom ... It doesn't rain much even in the summer, but it snows a lot in the winter. And the trees ... just don't feel the same either. Even though they're just trees." Shiku raised her view to gaze at the ceiling lights, like a soft yellow ball of sun. "And the people are really nice."
Arden leaned to the wall, and for a moment, even for a moment, Shiku could swear he really smiled.
"I wanted to go there."
Three gunshots rang clear in the air. Lennol screamed. And Shiku was off and running again, past Arden and out through the cellar.
Four things happened at once, but Shiku thought they must have done one after another, for there was so much. Humans everywhere flung Molotov cocktails through windows and upon walls, sweeping the houses with flames. A human pulled back his shotgun and shot an Ursaring in its back, blowing gushes of blood through his diaphragm, and he fell among the rubble. A Heracross she recognized as the bartender on the other end of town slammed an axe right through the human, from shoulder to hip, and he screamed even as his severed body crumbled to the ground. A Murkrow cried into the midnight air. And the fire, there was so much of it.
All at once, Shiku saw her stand burning, she saw the crate of Iapapa berries burning, she saw the Floatzel's kitchen burning, she saw the plates in the sink burning, she saw humans burning, she saw bottles stuffed with cloth burning, she saw a violet-red paw, hanging from the side of a stretcher burning, she saw a green bonbon rolling astray on the ground burning, and she saw a face, laughing like a lunatic, her eyes crying, burning.
She must have blanked out for more than five minutes, for she remembered Arden talking to a Nidoking, and the next thing she knew, a pickup hurtled right past her before she noticed the Blaziken who stood by the back with two large crates. She didn't think any longer, she just ran after the cobalt pickup, jumped onto the rear platform, and held on.
"What the fuck are you doing Shiku! Get off!"
"What are fuck are you doing! Where are you going to go with that gunpowder?"
Arden tsked and looked away, hesitant, and Shiku knew instantly the answer before he said it. Shiku stared him down in his steel blue eyes, then she was crying again, with those same eyes, filled with neither hate nor sorrow, knowing and yet unknowing.
"Why can't you stop fighting? Don't you know how to treasure your lives? You don't get it, do you, there isn't going to be a heaven or a hell or an afterlife, you're not even going become a fucking hero if you die! Don't you want to live? Don't you want to see Sherrom? Don't you want to know how the sun will look when it rises again?"
"You really ... ask too many questions."
"Fuck you! Why're you still fighting even when you said you weren't going to?"
"Because that's how we live."
Once again as Shiku looked back at Arden, she felt reduced to a complete oblivion, nothingness. Arden lay his free claw on her shoulders and she wanted to punch his arm off, but she didn't, this time it was him who gazed into her with eyes of neither hate nor sorrow, knowing yet unknowing. She really didn't know Arden, she was well right about that much.
"If we do nothing, we won't be able to achieve anything, will we? Better to try and fail, than to watch as the world around you breaks apart and the things we love fall away, and regret that you didn't do anything. Shiku, you have to take care of the rest, can you understand that? You have to take care of them if I don't come back."
Shiku stared into Arden's eyes, and for the first time, felt an explosion of emotions she had never understood all her life.
"I DON'T WANT TO UNDERSTAND!"
"I love you."
The moment Shiku opened her eyes, Arden pushed her off the pickup.
And as she fell, she saw his smile again, the same smile she had seen before when she talked about Sherrom. About the waitress who offered her free tea, and the guy who brought her cakes and taught her the guitar. She landed on her feet, skidded a foot forwards, and watched as the figure diminished slowly, till he disappeared complete into the horizons, and the dust clouds the truck picked up faded into the dying moonlight.
A jeep pulled over to the Sceptile's right, but she never really did notice it as it did. Neither did she notice as the flames in the night waned slowly to a flickering light behind her.
"Shiku, you okay?"
She never heard, all she saw was the moon, hung dead center above the horizons of its resonant darkness, where the clouds had faded into eternity.
"Shiku ... we've got everyone who's still alive. Do you need a moment?"
She gazed back at Yuryuu's face, and she saw the Feraligatr who owned the stand and who she talked to when there were no customers, she saw the Floatzel whose mushroom soup she loved, she saw the Breloom with a bag the shape of a block slung over his shoulder who turned up in the mornings to deliver Arden's posts, she saw the young Aipom who transported the stock over the weekends, she saw the Granbull as he lifted his hood with the edge of his thumb to reveal his deep gray eyes, and she saw the Blaziken himself, and his smile as she talked about her past life.
Shiku flung her fists at the sand and cried.
*****
"Where're you taking that?"
Shiku turned back as she slung her Koma Acoustic across her back, at the Feraligatr who held a mug in one claw and the papers in the other.
"Nowhere much."
The Feraligatr squared his shoulders and drained half his coffee. "Hmm. Just don't break it or something."
"As if it's yours, why would you care if I did?"
"Because it's important to you. Why else?"
Shiku smiled as she pulled on her jacket over her shirt. "Thanks, Fencen."
The leaves rained from the trees like a morning spring shower as Shiku walked down to the Ganlon Cliffs, occasionally pausing to gaze at the reddened canopy and collect fresh fallen leaves. The sound of the waves roared as they raged against the foot of the cliff, and the squawks of the Wingulls and Pelippers filled the cloudless skies above.
Shiku stood for a moment by the cliff to feel the sea breeze against her scales and took her seat by its edge, unzipping the Koma Acoustic from its leather casing. She positioned the smooth spruce waist on her right thigh, and swept her claws down its strings a few times. And as she looked into the horizon where the turquoise of the ocean merged into the blue of the sky, where the faint traces of clouds faded into the light, she played her last song.
She thought of her mornings by the market, as she would have the young Aipom move the fresh harvests over to the stand, and she would scrub the berries clean. And somewhere in between the Feraligatr would start talking to her, or perhaps the Floatzel by the kitchen would bring over a bowl of soup. She thought of her mornings sitting by the armchair, as she would take notes on a random envelope while she hummed to herself, and Arden would still be sleeping by his bed, because he had given up his to Shiku. And perhaps there would be mail and the Breloom would come knocking on their door, with his block sling-bag. She thought of the afternoons as Rauer would stop by her stand to have a short chat and perhaps buy some Lum berries, and Yuryuu would wave at her as he drove by in his olive pickup. And perhaps she would have a lunch invitation from the Kecleon next door, and would spend the rest of the day feasting on pastries and scones. And she thought of Arden's smile as she talked to him about Sherrom, the waitress who gave her free tea, and the guy who brought her cakes and taught her the guitar.
"I'm right back here, Arden. I'm right back in Sherrom."
She placed a claw over the humming strings, and took one last look at the Koma Acoustic 400 she had never really paid Arden back for. And she let the thing fall off her thighs and down the cliff.
Three years ago she might have jumped off along with the Koma Acoustic if it ever fell off a cliff. Two years ago she might have done the same thing. Not to mention six months ago. But she just watched as it fell. Her heart skipped a beat, or many beats for this matter, but she stayed by the edge, and watched as the guitar faded into the waves.Chapter End Notes:I apologize for any confusion in the story, cos I know there were loads of loopholes