Chapter Ten: The Mountain

Larcen had something to prove.

He spent a couple days happening, as he did. Mostly he watched—Solder somewhere in his peripheral, sweltering beside a trail of Larcen’s own muddy pawprints. He focused on those.

Something had to happen here. They had to stop thinking about the guild—separate themselves from it entirely. Not forever. Just a day or two. Solder got a little control back after his breakdown. It helped a bit, but he didn’t talk as much as before, happy to communicate in glances.

Frustration came as Larcen sat beside him one day, both staring out at another rainstorm, having not said a word for an hour. Only once he looked to Solder and saw the questioning frown on his face did Larcen finally realise that he hadn’t wanted to say anything that whole time, either.

That was enough.

They didn’t speak a word as they got on the road. Not beyond, either. They hired a cart, two stoic mudsdale hitched across from each other, the wooden wheels and boards beneath them creaking and rattling as they worked over potholes and stones.

The fields looked so much nicer from up high. Larcen watched over the sea of grass, the wind making convincing enough waves he thought he might see fish leap out of the green. Solder relaxed on the other side, stretched against the guardrails. Serene.

They shared a look. A… smile, almost. He knew. Maybe he’d known since Larcen paid for the cart through charades. This had become a game, somehow. And with the mudsdale preferring to speak with their hooves, they might go the whole day without a word.

Larcen let his smile grow. It felt fractured, put together from pieces of a broken mirror, but he hoped it still worked.

Solder tilted his head back, resting on the bench. He closed his eyes.

~0~

Solder didn’t know where they were going. Nor why. He sat and watched the clouds, the fading sunlight reflecting off the bottom of the sky.

Hey, maybe it could be nice not knowing.

He’d been sick. He remembered the fever and hearing a lot he shouldn’t have. He tried not to hate himself for the things he said in turn, but they grew wild inside his head ,threatening to curl out of his eyes and nose and pool around his feet. By the time they approached a new set of mountains, Solder recognised he should probably hate himself more for going out in the storm in the first place.

He couldn’t. He barely knew who that person was. An unkind something had inhabited his body and forced him to crawl outside and hurt himself.

In the mix of things said and those words lost to the blur of sickness, he thought he deserved the pain.

The idea that hurting himself had been the goal remained silent.

So they clambered off the cart and stretched their aching limbs and paid for the mudsdale without a word or look in turn and felt the mountain breeze carry them through the little border town they’d stopped at for the night and watched, distantly, as the sun flickered and put itself away for the night and here came the moon.

He felt strange to be eating dinner in some dinky little inn, in the corner, under the shadows of lamplight. They built another world there—away from the bartender and scattered others that trickled in as night fell. They made it out of empty glasses and the little piles of crumbs off their plates. And back again in the morning—stumbling down the staircase with bleary eyes.

Hard to say they were in each other’s company while they ate. It had been a couple days since either of them tried to say anything.  Odd how easy a time he had. When he’d picked up on Larcen’s little game, he thought they could only last a couple hours, but temptation hadn’t struck yet. Even after a turbulent week, he could still be happy to lay himself out in the corner of some unknown inn and silently enjoy being by himself with Larcen.

Fucking crazy.

~0~

They climbed the mountain the next morning.

Dawn pulled them up alongside them.

It had been a long time coming.

~0~

Larcen had never been on the gateway arch—the last layer of mountains that kept Seafolk from the outside world, ringing all the way from one coast to the other side of the continent. Even on maps they looked huge.

So they could only manage the smaller cliffs on the outside. Plus, these smaller cliffs had walking trails that wound up and around the chunky spires of rock that built into a higher plane.

They ate once they reached the plateau. There, they could watch the shadows of taller mountains creep away as the sun settled overhead. They could sit on the flat edge of a rock—still cool from the morning—and open the packed lunch they bought from the inn. If someone else came along, they stared at them solidly until the pokemon got a nervous twitch in their eye and left.

Larcen wanted to say something. For the first time in a while. He just couldn’t tell if he deserved the first word.

They had a great view as they waited, at least. No true forests grew out by Seafolk, so looking out to the greater world felt like hovering above an alien planet. The hills rolled and tumbled over each other, collapsing occasionally into a wandering river or grey smear of road. All those lines drew to the forests in the distance. Some scattered homes and ranches followed, too. Far enough in the distance, the spires and faces of buildings only just peeked from the treetops. Gatetown. One of the satellite cities orbiting Treebow. Larcen had been a couple times when he was much younger—he couldn’t say Gatetown had much to offer. As a lumber town, they were industrious and didn’t bother catering to tourists or having much for a young buizel to do.

Mostly it was on the road to Treebow. That was the draw.

But Larcen didn’t really want to think about Treebow.

Alright. He’d had enough.

“Thought we could start something new,” Larcen said.

“Yeah?” Solder confirmed. He’s picked up on the conversation quickly—it may as well have ended a week ago, but he came back to it like an old friend. “What’s new about it? I thought we were going somewhere you were familiar with.”

“Nah. Never been up here. Only through. Heard lots about it though.”

Solder hummed in agreement.

That’s that. He thought he might have more to say, that breaking the dam would release a flood of ideas, but up on the plateau it felt like time bent for them. As if they’d already been sitting there for the eternity that created the mountains, and would be there until eternity destroyed them. He’d be happy to be long dead by then.

An odd tickle brushed against Larcen’s side. He’d been staring out over the landscape so long he barely noticed, but Solder had sidled up to him on the rock. He blinked. Froze as he felt Solder perch an elbow on his shoulder.

Huh. That’s different.

Once Solder noticed him staring, the quilava shrugged and leaned in further.

“You said you wanted something new.”

Oh.

But he didn’t quite know how to respond. It would be weird to lump on the affection now that Solder was taking initiative, right?

“Oh, don’t tell me you’re shy now.”

Well, alright. Larcen tilted his head against Solder’s arm. He found no comfort in the bony elbow or how Solder’s scratchy, dust-covered fur tickled his whiskers, but—hey, the kid wasn’t an expert yet.

“Anything we should talk about?”

Yes. But what to choose? Larcen had desperately wanted something warm and unconditional and spread out before him like this landscape—he’d wanted it, so he told himself, since before his father died.

Auloin’s truth came back to him. He could’ve had that. In so many ways. His stealing has always been an issue, but he couldn’t pretend to think that deeply about it all the time, and neither could he pretend it prevented him from getting friends or having a loving family.

He also knew the happy, warm things he pretended to want would not help him or Solder. Maybe they could be a reward. Or maybe he could get nothing. He thought, somewhere in the future, he’d be old enough to be happy getting nothing.

“Yeah,” Larcen said, “tell me the worst thing you’ve thought.”

Solder turned to him. His flat expression distorted against the tilt of Larcen’s view from his arm.

“We’re going to ruin the view.”

“Never been here before. If we gotta ruin this new thing we’ve got right away, that’s fine. Kind of the point. It’s our place to destroy, now.”

Solder snorted. He sniffled, shifting uncomfortably against Larcen’s side. But he didn’t draw away.

“I hate myself.”

Larcen kind of expected that. Hearing it was something else. He felt a little tight in the chest. Weird to be sitting there, talking as if validating it, making it normal and expected even for how awful it was. But, really, should he make a big deal out of it?

He didn’t, but not because he found some great insight.

“You don’t have to make an argument,” Solder continued. “I guess I know there are worse pokemon, and you like me, so I’m clearly doing something right, but I always feel like such a useless idiot. It doesn’t even matter if I get my memories back. That Solder seems like just as much of an idiot.”

“You want to be someone different?”

“I do.”

“You’re fine by me, for the record.”

“I know. I’m not doing it for you.”

Oh. That’s probably for the best, but Larcen couldn’t help sighing as he heard it.

“Your turn,” Solder said.

Larcen hummed, hesitating. He should’ve expected that. But for some reason, he never thought Solder would be that interested. He welcomed the appearance of a lone pokemon passing by on the trail. It gave him some time to think. He watched the stray pokemon take a few moments to look out at the view and sigh, only opening his mouth as they took off.

“Sometimes I’m happy my dad died.”

He said it. Hard to believe the words left his mouth—exiting like a sickness. At the same time, having someone else hear them made him shiver, feeling so much lighter afterwards.

“Really,” Solder said. Casual, responding as if talking about the weather. “I thought you loved him? Well, wanted to love him, I guess. Is that easier if he’s dead?”

Yes, it was. Something he didn’t want to admit out loud was thinking about a world where he didn’t die—constantly. Not an image or hallucination late at night when he can’t sleep, but a daily fantasy. An annoying thought when he should be eating or shopping or working instead. What if he hadn’t died?

Does life continue on as if years of heartache never happened? Does his father even fix anything? Even in the wildest, most optimistic fantasy where he breaks down the door, smile breaking across his muzzle, arms open and ready, can Larcen take it?

He taught Larcen how to swim. It took years after for him to feel comfortable in the water again. He found himself stuck needing to be with someone else, floating down as bubbles rose and broke against the sun.

Even if everything went right, loving him would never be simple again.

“Can I tell you a story?” Larcen asked.

Solder nodded.

“When he first started coming back to port, he’d talk about bein’ on the boat a lot. He hated Seafolk, I think. Something about the natural beauty of the mountains and how it got ruined by all that development—I dunno.  He had this thought, about how he could hold up a paw as the boat came in and block out all the things he didn’t like—all the ugly buildings and dirt stains and stuff.”

Larcen mimed the idea, holding a paw up against the landscape, letting it waver between the rivers and the roads. It cast a long shadow against his collar and down his chest. Just as it began to shake, Solder took the initiative to prod it down until it sat on his lap.

“I wish I could do that for him—hold up a paw to my memories and just… not see the bad anymore. Easy enough then, huh? Even if he lived, got no worries about facing him anymore.”

“You’d be happy when I leave. That would be easy, too.”

“Yeah.”

Larcen almost regretted saying it, but as he looked in Solder’s eyes, he knew they were on the same page.

“I can’t believe I’m happy to talk about this shit,” Solder said after a while. He let out a small huff of laughter. “I actually feel good, for once.”

“Yeah. Oh yeah.”

A caravan rolled through the forest somewhere in the distance, kicking up a flock of birds and sending them scattered into the sky. Even kilometres away, the screeching and cawing echoed through the mountains. As they disappeared off into the distance, the sound went, too. It only highlighted how serene the mountains were.

Larcen should do this more often. All his problems were away, back in Seafolk, across a field and far away. Even if he wanted to dive back into them, he couldn’t. Not from here. Kind of weird for him; he was used to sticking around the same places.

As a soft breeze picked up and brushed across their fur, Larcen took a deep breath and sighed.

Yep. He felt pretty alright.

“Are you as bored as I am?”

.”Eh, yeah. I probably shoulda picked somewhere more interesting.”

“And that cart ride screwed up my back.”

“Alright, so maybe It was a little bumpy.”

“That sandwich was trash.”

“Oh, come on! Don’t start complaining now, it was going so well!”

Solder looked back to Larcen with a smile. He felt faintly giddy at the sight.

“Ready to go?” Larcen asked.

“I’m not taking the cart again.”

“And what, just walk two days back?”

“Yes,” Solder answered. But he paused just as fast, breaking eye contact and staring down the mountain. “Sorry, It’s a stupid idea, isn’t it?”

Well, they did have a lot of things to do at the guild: the recruitment and cleaning, primarily, plus some personal stuff Larcen wanted to take care of in town. And he couldn’t imagine the walk would be great. They didn’t bring a tent, they’d have to sleep out in the grass, they’d be tight on supplies—not to mention the possibility of encountering ferals wandering outside the dungeons.

Overall, just another dumb impulse decision.

Fuck it, why not?

“Nah, let’s do it. And if it goes wrong, you can apologise to me as much as you want.”

Solder laughed. It was nice to hear, nice to know Larcen could make at least one pokemon happy. Not too long after, they made their way back down the trail.

He’d come to the mountains meaning for something to change. Or to find out what had changed. He didn’t, he only found they were drifting somewhere either way.

If only he could figure out where.