18. In Which Twig and Darkrai Embark

Twig wasn’t exactly eager to bring Darkrai along on the expedition to track down Cresselia, but it was difficult to turn down the fact that he was pretty much a living Cresselia tracking device. She wondered if the ability to sense one’s counterpart went both ways. She never did understand how Cresselia was able to track a single pokemon down across time and space. Admittedly, Cresselia was a Legend, and had unknowable powers as a result, but Twig was still baffled by the complexity of it. Though if she had a Darkrai-detecting sonar built into her head, it did make significantly more sense how that worked. 

Darkrai watched as she packed a bag full of enough essentials for a two-person team and then some— she wasn’t confident in her ability to evade many attacks when she was so haggard as she was— and offered help wherever he could. He insisted on carrying the bag when they set off. Twig didn’t begrudge him the chance to be helpful. She knew how desperately one could feel a need to help— and she was also too tired to refuse the chance to travel without the heavy weight slung over her shoulder. 

They trekked through multiple mystery dungeons on the first day, and Twig had to stop Darkrai from walking into traps on several occasions. 

“How can you tell when they are there?” He asked as she took up the lead once more. “The traps, I mean.”

“There was a special workshop at the guild one day where a guest speaker came and taught us about how to identify and evade different traps. I decided to swing by as it started and copied another apprentice’s notes when I couldn’t keep up with what the speaker said.” She motioned for him to step around a sleeping pokemon, lowering her voice as they passed. “That student was always kind of seen as the worst one out of everybody, but he took the best notes. He knew what he was doing, even if he was a bit slower than the rest of us. He just needed time and a bit of extra training, and now he’s an apprentice to the Guildmaster himself.” 

“You speak of him with pride.” Darkrai’s quiet rasp was pensive, thoughtful. 

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m proud of him. He’s a good friend, and I’m stoked that he’s doing so well for himself.”

“What was your apprenticeship like? What did the training entail? It’s all very fascinating.”

“Getting up at dawn, saying morning cheers, taking jobs for the guild on a self-directed difficulty level, receiving only ten percent of the profits from said jobs, doing the same thing day in and day out… that sort of stuff. It was nice.”

“You only kept ten percent of the income yielded from the jobs you took?”

“Yeah. Turns out using Exploration Team Federation amenities, networking, training, expedited opportunities for jobs, healthcare, and other services meant we had to pay a lot of money, so they just took it out of our wages.” She sent a glare at a pinsir sizing them up from a ways off in the chamber of the dungeon. “Don’t try me, pal, I’m not feeling like playing nice today!” She hollered, then turned her attention fully to Darkrai. “Is it still this way? I can’t remember which fork you said to take back there.”

“This is the correct direction. I would have said otherwise if it wasn’t.” He peered over her shoulder, eyes narrowing in a familiar glare. “Ah. Pardon me— duck?”

“Duck?” She echoed, then dropped to the ground when she felt heat building at the back of her neck. He melted into the shadows before her as a blast of fire burned through the air where their heads once were. 

She whirled around, readying her claws to send an attack back at the salamence who just sent a flamethrower her way, but Darkrai reappeared in the shaded corner of the dungeon behind their foe. He crossed his arms and flung a dark orb forward— it caught the salamence’s back, and he collapsed in a fidgeting, groaning tangle of wings and limbs. In an instant, the enemy was disabled— stuck in a nightmare, and without landing a single physical blow.

She nearly shrieked when Darkrai’s whisper came from behind her. She didn’t notice him reappearing again at her back. “We have little time before he wakes. I’d recommend that we move quickly.” 

Terrifying display of Darkrai’s powers aside… Impressive. That was impressive. Good to know that the random pokemon who had the misfortune of picking a fight with a Legend wouldn’t be stuck in a nightmare for all of eternity, but also concerningly impressive. She wondered why Darkrai was so beat up when she first found him in Mount Travail when he could just trap every foe around him in their sleep— even if temporarily.

She found it simple enough to bury the fear of whether that salamence’s twitching and muttering was how she looked to Kip and Cresselia while wrestling her way out of her nightmare in Dark Crater by reciting expedition safety mantras in her head.

***

Darkrai eagerly assisted as they set up camp for the night at the base of the mountain where Cresselia dwelled— his very being was prickling uneasily with her presence, even at the distance, and it was a great distraction to focus on tying knots and setting up tents as Twig instructed. She swept the perimeter of the camp, making certain that there was no chance a forest fire would break out from any slumbering embers and that they would have a means of escape in the unlikely case of an ambush. He asked about why she kept pacing at the far edge of camp, gathering stones and branches.

“I’m getting supplies for a fire. Wish I knew where some flint was, though. I can’t believe I forgot it at home… Ugh. How are we going to have a fire without something to start it with?”

“Is the flame at the end of your tail somehow insufficient?”

She paused, then muttered a quiet curse he didn’t recognize beyond the venom with which she spat it. Something from her days as a human, perhaps? Regardless, she swiftly arranged the stones in a fire ring and turned some fallen branches and kindling into a proper campfire using her tail. Soon enough the camp was properly set, and they were able to rest. 

Twig clearly needed it. She had become slower in her reactions as of late, and the weariness in her face was undeniable. Darkrai couldn’t ignore the guilt he felt at this, but was unsure of how to remedy it when he knew Twig’s anxiety tended to spike almost concerningly high whenever he was out of sight. 

At the very least, the mountain’s base was beautiful. The stars were bright overhead, and the trees whispered in the breeze. It was chilly, yes, though thankfully not enough to truly bother him. Twig had to wrap herself in several blankets to keep warm, but they worked well enough that he found no cause for concern when she stopped shivering— the source of the change wasn’t hypothermia, she was simply protected from the cold by the quilts she had wrapped herself in. Strange, though, that a fire-type couldn’t keep herself comfortable with the heat she naturally bore power over… Ah. But she wasn’t always a charmeleon, nor had she begun life as a charmander. 

Twig was watching the fire with a look so misty eyed he found himself compelled to ask if she was well.

“Huh?” She blinked a handful of times, seeming to come awake. “Yeah. I’m fine. Is something wrong?”

“You seem disheartened by something. Are you perhaps homesick?”

She stared at him in open surprise, eyes wide and mouth agape before she burst into laughter. “No way! Seriously, no way. I’m having the time of my life being on an expedition again, even if it’s not with a real team. I’m just thinking about my partner. I miss him. He’d love all of the ruins that cropped up in the last mystery dungeon we went through.” She shifted her weight where she sat, pulling her tail in closer and bundling the blankets higher up around her neck. “What, are you homesick?”

“Not necessarily. I’ve not found much of a connection to locations in my time— more so to people.” He took up a nearby branch and prodded at the fire, shifting the charcoal and branches so that they’d reflect heat toward Twig instead and warm her directly instead of himself. She had built the fire so that it would send most of its heat opposite of where she sat— was it because of her old partner? From what he’d gathered, Kip was a water-type, mayhaps a mudkip in particular, and would no doubt feel the cold more keenly than even Twig as a result. Her constant quest to care for others was as endearing as it was worrisome. At what point would she advocate for herself? She seemed ready to starve to death if it meant providing a single morsel for another. Resuming his spoken train of thought, he said, “Many find it somewhat strange, from what I’ve seen, to possess no loyalty to a location… Do you feel similarly to those who find such things odd?”

“Eh, not really. Sometimes I get a craving for Chimecho’s cooking at the guild, or maybe the sights and sounds of the town square back home, or the chance to people-watch at Spinda’s Cafe, but it’s not as much about locations as it is about people for me. I miss Chimecho calling everyone for dinner, and seeing so many smiling faces as I shopped for supplies, and Kip trying his hardest to order food for us both on his own.” She shifted again, posture bowing in a newfound melancholy. “It’s not places I get homesick for, it’s people.”

Silence.

“What about you? I mean, you already kind of said, but—”

“People are the ones I find myself caring for most, yes. Though I’m not too sure that others feel the absence of company quite as keenly as I do.” The wind picked up slightly. He pulled back further within his tent. “It seems if I’m even away in the next room that they’re gone entirely.”

“Gone entirely… Wait, are you talking about why you’re always, like, a foot away from someone at any given time?”

It took a moment to gather his thoughts in the face of such blunt, tactless honesty. “Ah— I suppose so, though I would have phrased it differently.”

“I’ve wondered about that. It seems to bug you a lot— I could tell you were upset when you offered to go in the other room when Dusknoir visited.”

“I was, but I knew you prefer to have the distance when conversing with the members of that particular social group.” He considered how to describe his discomfort. “It is an unpleasant experience to be alone. Almost painful. I am unsure of why, however.”

Twig frowned. “I’ve… I’ve got my own stuff like that. I lost my memories and forgot so many things about myself that I didn’t know anything but my own name and that I wasn’t supposed to be a pokemon. For you, it’s kind of…” She paused for a moment, melancholy, then pivoted the direction of the conversation with forced jovialness, “I-Its like how I forgot I’m allergic to this one type of herb, but I didn’t know why I’d always get so sick after eating them. Not until Kip said it might be a reaction of some kind, and then it sort of clicked for me.” 

He didn’t speak. She was about to say something about him that he seemed to be unaware of and which related to his past, judging by her sudden reluctance and caution with touching on the topic. He hoped that the silence would encourage her to fill it with the truth. 

She sighed. “We’ll head up the mountain at dawn tomorrow, if that works for you.” 

“It does. Please greet Cresselia on my behalf.”

“You’re not coming?”

“No, I don’t believe that would be wise. Just being this close to my counterpart has me feeling— to put it in the most mild terms possible— exceedingly ill at ease.”

“Dude, you literally just said you hate being alone. You gonna be okay when I go to talk to her?”

“I’ll manage. It’s not forever, and I can survive the discomfort knowing that.”

She watched him for a time, a gentle worry painted across her features. He found himself softened by it, not knowing how long it had been since someone had regarded him with such kind concern.

“I’ll keep watch for the night. Do not worry about waking to trade shifts— I do not require sleep, and you need whatever of it you can earn,” he offered. 

Again she watched him, though this time with a brief suspicion. That suspicion quickly fell away, though, and she bundled herself up within her tent. “Promise not to kill me in my sleep?”

“I would never,” he said, aghast. “Why would you think that I’d—”

“Yeah, I dunno. It was a dumb thought. You’re a bit of a wimp. A wimp in a nice way, but still a wimp.” 

Twig curled up tighter and fell silent for a time, seeming to drift off, and Darkrai was left to ponder their interaction.

She spoke up after a vast expanse of silence. “Hey, Ark?”

“Yes?”

“Thanks. For everything you’ve been doing.” She sighed. “It means a lot. More than I think you know.”

“The same to you. Your assistance and patience has been important to me as well.”

A pause. “I’m going to sleep now,” she said abruptly, sounding flustered.

“Ah. Rest well?”

She didn’t reply, and he took up his watch in silence.