see you again } ;; (closed @ king-n)
It had been three or four years -- she had lost count in her search, lost count of the days spent waiting that eclipsed into days spent searching and long nights spent thinking about their adventures and everything in particular and nothing at all -- since she had watched the King of Team Plasma climb onto his friend's great white back, watched great graceful plumed white wings spread skyward and a tail ignite with red gold flames before said King and Dragon disappeared, shrunk from tiny specks in the vast expanse of sky before them till nothing remained. The sky today was quite like that one years ago, a virgin blue expanse where the horizon stretched for miles in every which way, no signs of a cloud anywhere. The sun was bright, sending harsh beams of white beating down upon the wandering trainer as she looked upward. Her fingers caught on the brim of her hat, pulled the cap tighter unto the top of her head and positioned the visor over her eyes in a dead ended attempt to shield her eyes from the sun's light.
Touko, spurred on by a tugging feeling in her gut, continued to watch the sky for movement. She could not explain the urge, but instead decided to indulge in it, settling upon the grass, arms and legs splayed out beside her, back arched over the slight bulge of her bag, hair pooling into a tangled brown mess, catching bits of dirt and blades of grass and the abandoned shells of bugs in its wild depths. Her breathing had slowed as she watched the sun's journey from the eastern horizon to the high point where it hung now, displaying its rays of golden light like the plumage of some bright exotic bird, boasting its beauty and its splendor to all who depended on its warmth.
A shadow fell over the planes of Touko's face as her Lilligant knelt next to her, scooping her head up between gentle leaves and tilting her neck upward, settling the wide bloom of her lower half under the weight of her trainer's head. The pokemon hummed a soft lullaby, filling the air around it with a soft fragrance and slight shade as it ran its leafy tendrils through its trainer's tufts of honey brown hair, straightening the soft curls and pulling bits of grass and flower petals from the tangles. Lilligant cast a disdainful, motherly look down upon her trainer, shaking her head and making a sharp trill that could have been compared to the sound of a human clicking their tongue. Her entire demeanor seemed to say, "Some lady you are. You really must take care of your appearance more." And, reading this, Touko let out a lilting laugh, cheeks wrinkling into laugh lines and eyelids squeezing taught as that childish grin of hers stretched from ear to ear. She threw her hands up, wrapping them around the arched back of her Lilligant, and pulled the great bell flower down to eye level, till the bridge of her nose rested against the curved planes of Lilligant's face. Touko nuzzled her pokemon and breathed in, immersing herself in the scent of Lilligant's bloom, before placing an affectionate kiss upon her pokemon's brow and freeing the smothered blossom from her embrace.
"But if I acted more like a lady, Lilligant, what would a prissy thing like you have to nag me about then?"
Touko laughed again. Seemingly offended, the Lilligant let out an indignant trill, and crossed her leaves over her flowery bosom, tossed her head to the side with such force that powdery pollen shook from the pistils of her bloom; a soft yellow snow fell upon Touko's nose. She sneezed, a motion that was immediately followed by the sharp pain and dull thud of her head hitting the ground as Lilligant, with too much pride to spare, sashayed off to continue its previous task of braiding flower crowns from the array of wildflowers that grew around the meadow.
Touko hissed and sat up, rubbing a gloved hand over the back of her head. The preening had left her hair a mess, and so she pulled her hat from her head, let it rest upon the tall blades of grass around her. Touko reached to the crown of her head, grasped the mess of curls in one hand and the twisted rings of elastic in the other. She pulled, and transferred the freed elastic to rest between clenched teeth while she combed her hair with her fingers. She gathered it all again, in a great fluffy rope at the crown of her head, and twirled the elastic between her free fingers, over the ponytail, tightened it, twirled again, and repeated, till her crown of curls sat neatly at the top of her head once more.
Touko reached for her hat, but a great gust of wind rolling off the area's hills picked up the league cap in its airy embrace and carried it skyward. Touko let out a yelp, scrambling from a sitting position to her knees, then pushed herself to her feet. She fisted the strap of her bag in one hand, pulling it jerkily to midsection and over her shoulders, uprooting a few blades of grass and flowers as she did so. She took off running after the hat-turned-airship as it rode the spring day's warm updrafts, carried through the meadow by the gales. Touko let out a yell for Lilligant, who eventually followed after (at a much more leisurely pace, however. A lady does not run so recklessly, after all).
"Oh come on! Come back! Not that hat!"
Touko held her temples between both of her hands and cried out in anguish as she kept running, feet pounding against the flowered ground and pushing off in great bursts. Her chest heaved, her lungs burned, but she didn't care. The chase was, in a way, exhilirating; a way to run with the wind and feel the sky rush past the apples of her cheeks. The feeling of frustrating gripping at her heart and stretching to her limbs eventually gave way to a childish feeling of joy. She made giddy leaps into the air, stretching her arms and fingertips skyward and felt the hair's breath of a distance between herself and that hate, herself and the boy, now a man, that she had been chasing all this time. Her cry turned to a laugh as she ran, her hair (now longer, oh so much longer) rushing out behind her like a great honey stormcloud.
The chase continued for goodness knows how long, with Touko sprinting, arms outstretched, through great expanses of green hills. Her original position at the mouth of the forest had been forgotten. Lilligant had retreated to her pokeball out of her own exhaustion, but Touko kept running. Something in her, that same feeling that kept her looking upward was pushing forward, no matter how much her thighs ached or the lack of air burned at her lungs. No matter how many times she stumbled to her knees, she pushed herself forward and kept running.
And somewhere, in the back of her mind, Touko wondered if this was the way That Man had began to think as well. She hoped.
The wind let up, her hat fell safely into the hands of another, taller figure, standing alone in the middle of nowhere, thrown into this world by winds of change, just as Touko had been. Her jaw dropped, her arms fell slack, and a good fifty yards away from him, she stopped still, fell silent in shock (and was that joy, excitement?). Many breaths passed before she spoke, her chest rising and falling in an unsteady rhythm as she attempted to gain her lost air, to breathe in the lost time that had creeped like a thick mist between them. But finally, finally, her arched shoulders fell, she forced her first foot to take a step forward, then her second, and broached the space between them, held her hand out expectantly for her hat.
"Well, it's been a long time, hasn't it?"
