Vaniville Town, My Four Pokémon, The Visit

I rang the bell, standing on the slightly familiar doorstep. Vaniville was empty at this hour – the air heavy with dew and the sky only starting to awaken amidst a chilly fog: I wasn't sure I could call it morning yet, though the breeze felt a lot like the earliest one before the sun starts peeping through the mountains. As I waited for my mother I looked around in the neighborhood and tried to count in my memory how many nights – how very few! – I spent there before I was summoned by Sycamore and departed... it didn't feel like home yet! That thought made my chest constrict.

...But one look at that dizzy, sleepy, messy mother on the door broke the spell of strangeness, and I was home at once!

"Anne! Is it you?!" She moaned scratching her eyeballs out, still half-asleep.

"It's me, mom!" I replied with a choked voice, trying my best not to let it break down as much as my spirit had been doing.

"Oh dear..." She was awake now, and not only that: she was pretty aware!

I gave her a half-smile that, based on her expression then, only looked the more tragic, and she stretched her arms and pulled me by the neck into a hug. "It's okay..."

I held her too, hiding my face against her sweater and locking the tears in my silence.

"You're okay..." she repeated, petting my head.

____

Good parents, in general, have a way of not asking too many questions. I was privileged for having a mother like that! She respected my pain, probably regarding it as a broken heart of the simplest kind, and asked not after the reason for my sorrow nor the one for my return. I didn't have to instantly come up with a plan and explain that I was going to stay forever or was going back to travelling Kalos in two days just to answer breakfast table questions – I had the space to be quiet and to think about those things bit by bit in the very brief moments I felt like doing so.

And though that first day passed on miserably – after all, I had not slept a wink last night, and couldn't bring myself to do so now because the day was too bright and my mind too restless with reminiscing -, the night in my bed was comforting, rewarding, making up for the tiresome journey back.

It was good on my feeble nerves to sleep without planning where I would be in the next day – to know I would stay right there where I awoke in the next morning, and I would do so again and again... No battles to worry about! No gym badges to earn, or strategies to stress over...

...But I did miss my Pokémon!

My mother gave me exactly two leisure days – for grieving or whatever else I decided to do with the free time - After that, it was time to start helping her around the house.

At first she demanded I cleaned my room and the upstairs bathroom. The next day she dedicated to lecturing me about doing some studies, after all, she was a mother, and now that she felt I might give up on the whole Pokémon trainer thing, I had to "do something else with my life". But that didn't stick for long, either... It was, after all, just a misled manifestation of her fear for my future. With a sad sigh, she gave up on being a stereotype upon seeing me bent over a history book, and smiled at me with a freely-given approval on whatever I wanted to do or not do from there on... With that smile, she was giving me the time to calm down and slowly rediscover myself in the comfort of my nest, under her protective wings. For me, things had just started to look less dismal.

It was a very hot afternoon when I went out for groceries for her. That day, she amusedly announced she would teach me how to cook. I bought everything on the list in a small shop in Aquacorde, and stopped for a second to gaze at the fresh water sprouting from the fountain in the middle of the small town. For some reason, that gentle gurgling made me sullen... Since the bag I was carrying was light, and I had taken so little time, I decided to stretch my afternoon stroll and walk to Santalune – There was a Pokémon Center there, and I really wanted to see my Pokémon again before returning to Vaniville, as I had left them in the PC.

The short encounter was both joyous and sad for me and the party. It did not, however, stir my will to return: their expectant eyes when I was about to leave reflected what drove me away from my journey the most, and resolution was still firm on staying away from all of that.

So with the evening fast descending – and the weather getting no cooler – I walked the lone way back to Vaniville. It was dark when I reached the front of the house again, with a quiet night air that welcomed the peaceful and shunned agitation – no better place to be than home with my single mother, appreciating the silence and solitude of our uneventful evening!

...Or not!

I rang the bell, and my parent was more excited than usual when she opened the door.

"Oh! Anne!" She smiled effusively, with a flustered face and a soft tone "What took you so long?!" she frowned and grimaced in a fast change of mood that seemed to blame me for a hidden inconvenience.

"I had stuff to do...?" I raised a confused eyebrow.

"Oh well!!" she amended, looking back over her shoulder "Not that I mind being here, of course... In the company of your friend..."

"Friend?!" I inquired, stretching my neck and trying to spy inside.

"It's just so... so impolite!" she sighed, tensed her eyebrows and held a laugh. It was clear she was making an effort to pretend something she was not, pressuring herself over action and speech. My mother had been single since I was a small child... and I had seen that same behavior enough times that I was able to pin it down as nostalgic, at the very least...

"What friend?!!" I inquired, following her as she turned her back and walked inside.

"You should have mentioned he was coming, too! I would have prepared better! Forgetful girl..."

"I didn't know anyone was coming!!" I defended myself with a moody groan.

"He said he was worried because you disappeared without telling anyone... How very rude of you! Tell him you didn't get that from me, please..." this last part she turned quickly to whisper at me, then talked back to thin air: "He came to say hi, isn't that right, mister?"

Any hope I had of the visitor being no other than Calem, or someone else in the gang, died long ago as my mother stressed and blushed for the sake of the visitor. She would also never call any of my friends 'mister', unless they had done something to cross her... Her excited smile and anxious voice gave it away, even though it was hard to believe: My mother had a tendency of only acting strange near men. So when we reached the kitchen and she moved to the side, it wasn't entirely a surprise to see Sycamore seated at my table. Can't say the suspicion prepared me to how unnerving it would be though.... Or to how much my legs would freeze and the cracks on my chest would throb.

"Wrong, madam!" He smiled charmingly, getting himself up "I have rather come to retrieve her..." he pulled down his coat, straightening it, and offered me his hand. I glanced at it, then back at his daring eyes.