Chapter 4: Clarity
Ren's reaction to the revelation that had so utterly terrified his parents was... a confused blink, followed by steadily growing surprise. Contrary to the other humans in the room, however, that's where his emotions stayed, not making the leap into the pits of all-consuming terror. He eyed her up, trying to spot something not even he could put words to, before finally admitting, with the bluntness only a six-year-old is capable of, "That's so weird!"
Is it weird? Is it really weird to not be owned by human standards? I'm not sure if I even want to know the answer to that question.
Not noticing Palemoon's dismay, the boy continued. "Does that mean you're wild?"
Palemoon got all the way to preparing to send her words into his and his mom's minds before stopping herself, flinching at how even that obvious question was made so much more difficult in the current context. Because no, she wasn't a wildling,
of course she wasn't! She had nothing against them, of course, but living in her people's commune, in that fixed spot, was very different from the nomadic, transient lifestyles of most other mons. To her, the answer was as simple as 'no', but she and the humans weren't interpreting the question in the same way—that much was clear to her.
For a moment, she wanted to go into that detail, to explain that she wasn't 'wild', that her people had customs and culture, but... but. The more she thought about it, the worse that idea sounded. After all, if the concept of 'wildness' as humans used it was related to being 'owned', then her people not being 'owned' could have bad consequences for them considering how terrified Ren's parents got when they realized she wasn't 'owned', either. It would track, but with how immensely unpleasant thinking about it was, Palemoon deeply hoped that wasn't the case. Ultimately, all she could do was ask while not revealing her hand. And that's what she did, after an overlong moment of thought. "^Well... what do you mean by 'wild', Ren?^"
The boy didn't expect that kind of question. To him, the distinction lived in the same group as other concepts adults used—unchanging, absolute, downright inscribed in the fabric of reality, even if that's not how he'd describe it. He wasn't used to people using different definitions for the same word, or even to anyone not being familiar with such pervasive concepts as that. He didn't let that stop him for long, though. If Luna didn't know what 'wild' meant, it meant he could do his favorite thing in the world—explain! He looked up at her with an eager smile before reciting what he remembered. "My teacher told me that the wild mons live in forests and in mountains and in seas! And that the do-dom-duh—"
"'Domesticated'?" Kaori hesitantly cut in. It was only then that Palemoon noticed that the moving pictures Hiroto had been watching had disappeared in the meantime, leaving the glossy black canvas empty.
"Damasicateded, thanks mom!" Ren confidently replied. "They live with humans and mostly stay in pokeballs!"
It was a very simplistic, downright childish description of that topic. As far as Palemoon was concerned, a perfect match for the division she'd just heard described, woefully inadequate for any practical purposes.
And not just because it placed her and her entire people in the category of 'wild'.
That detail was disappointing; the mention of the 'pokeballs' sent a shiver down her spine despite it being Palemoon's first time hearing of that kind of item—but her attention was somewhere else entirely. She kept a close watch on Ren's parents' emotions throughout, how they shifted at their son's explanation. How they turned even more scared, especially at that last word. It was a different fear, though. It wasn't aimed at her inherent nature anymore, not caused by her 'just' being dangerous, but specifically afraid of her reaction to what their son was talking about.
Palemoon wished she could say it was entirely unfounded.
As much as it hurt her to admit, it wasn't. There was something seriously wrong going on, both in this very room and in the human society at large, and her patience—vast as it was—wasn't bottomless. The steadily building frustration made her want to up the heat, to go from beyond this meekness and on the offensive instead; to start demanding answers. About them, about how they and humanity as a whole treated mons, about why they were thinking in the terms of 'wild' versus 'domesticated'. About why they saw themselves as so inherently different from other living beings as to make their mere presence 'domesticating'.
None of that would accomplish anything, and the awareness of that hurt even more than all the surrounding fright. She'd maybe find out something terrifying, something that would inevitably prove her elders right despite her sincerest wishes—and for what? Terrifying these random people who, despite their messed up attitudes, saved her life? Antagonizing the only people she knew that could offer her insight into not just the 'what's, but also the 'why's of human existence?
This was the most justified opportunity to let all the murky, negative emotions roam loose she'd had in ages. But, even here, they'd do the only thing they always do—hurt and destroy. Palemoon didn't want to destroy, she wanted to build. Build understanding, build compassion, maybe even rebuild trust between herself and the humans—both ways. It'd be the trust that would have to come first, no matter what. She neither knew nor cared for any move nor trick of mind that would help with that. The only way to build trust,
real trust, was the oldest and slowest way.
And she just got an idea for how to start that process. "^I think I'd be wild in that case, Ren,^" she answered calmly. His fascinated gasp might've been a much more positive reaction than his parents', but ultimately came from the same spot of expecting her, as a 'wild' creature, to be inherently different to them. It was understandable. It was disappointing.
It didn't matter, because she continued before the boy could say anything in response. "^Ren, could you go sit closer to your parents?^" Her question was as calm as she could manage in the moment, not revealing the roiling murk in her head.
That didn't make it any more understandable, though. "But why?" he asked, disappointed.
So that your parents don't fear me as much.
"^I could use a bit of alone space at the moment.^" Palemoon's explanation wasn't even 'technically' truthful. She'd have loved for someone she trusted to slide up to her and offer her comfort throughout all this. Hell, she'd have loved for Ren to stay where he was, his nigh-unstoppable warmth making the freezing fear that bit easier to manage. Alas, she wouldn't have the former for a while, and the latter would be better spent reassuring his parents.
Ren groaned, but didn't question the excuse. "Awwwh... okay." He twisted his face into a grumpy expression as he slid off the couch and walked over to his parents, blinking in surprise once his father suddenly wrapped an arm around him and held him closer. A part of Palemoon expected that kind of reaction, but that only slightly dulled how much it hurt.
Fortunately, Kaori caught onto her intent. She watched as the wild Gardevoir on their living room sofa calmly asked her son to get back to his parents, taking away the singular biggest source of her and her husband's unrest. The situation was still terrifying, the power imbalance as stark as ever, but at least now she
knew the feral psychic was operating in good faith.
The words that followed only reinforced that.
"^Kaori,^" Palemoon began, her tone direct yet calm. "^I—I can feel how terrified you and your husband are, and... it doesn't feel nice. I'm unfamiliar with how human society works, how humans think of other mons, and I'm just… incredibly confused right now. I have no reason to hurt any of you, especially Ren, even if you were to tell me about something awful that humans do. I don't want you two to be so scared of me, I just—I just want to talk.^"
Unemotional as Palemoon's mental words were, her body language was anything but that. She was slightly hunched over, her attention shifting between the floor and the opposite wall, not wanting to unnerve them all by as much as looking at them. Her eyes were glazed over, maintaining composure with increasing difficulty.
More than anything else, Kaori couldn't help but be reminded of her son when he got especially scared but tried to tough through it. And yet, she knew the situations weren't easily comparable. One was her little human son, the other was a powerful, wild psychic.
And yet, they both spoke. They had both shared breakfast like equals; they both cried and bled and acted compassionately towards the other. They were more alike than she would've ever expected, more alike than she could've ever
hoped. She was as baffled at all this as she was scared, even after the worst of the earlier terror had cooled off. A
wild pokemon was speaking at her, pleading to talk to her, deliberately avoiding any displays of force in order to calm her and her husband down. This shouldn't have been possible.
...
Just like psychics shouldn't have been able to 'talk' like this, according to her high school education. The unquestioned lesson about psychic telepathy being merely a mimicry of speech used to lure their prey or frighten away predators was easy to discard in light of first-hand evidence. The equally unquestioned lesson about wild mons being feral, predatory, and lacking higher order thinking? That one was much harder to get rid of, try as she might. She was finally picking away at the edges of that bigoted mental sticker, though. Just had to keep trying until she could get a good grasp on one of its corners.
Ren hadn't reacted at all to Luna's words, still squirming uncomfortably in his dad's protective embrace. There was no way Kaori could respond to the Gardevoir's words without her son overhearing. Might as well speak clearly and out loud. "Luna, we..." she began, flinching at her boys' surprised gazes—one of confusion, the other of terror. "We are afraid, yes. You—you are so much more powerful than us. If you wanted to hurt us,
kill us even, there would be absolutely nothing we could do to stop you. We've been taught our entire lives wild mons are unpredictable and dangerous. And... that isn't fair. It's not true, either, r-right?"
Kaori flinched internally at her own rhetorical question, regretting framing her words like that. Of
course it wasn't true, how could it have been true? "You saved Ren, it's obviously not true, I'm—I'm sorry for that, Luna."
Just a few feet away from her, Palemoon was focused on an entirely different part of Kaori's response, enough so for her faux pas to not even register. The assertion that Kaori and her family wouldn't have been able to do anything to her was absurd on its face. Sure, they haven't given off the impression of being anything but Normal-types, but even those still could Tackle, or Body Slam, or one of the myriad of other basic moves to break out of her psychic grip and dodge her attacks. And would've been
if she could draw from her psychic strength and it hadn't been completely shot from overexertion, on top of her other injuries.
Kaori's words frankly made no sense. Which sucked for Palemoon, because they were said as truthfully as possible. The ball was in her court to explain how that could be true, and she was drawing blanks. Left with no likely explanation, she mumbled, "^I'm not sure why you consider me so powerful. I'm not a fighter, I only know a couple of offensive moves, I'm—I'm a healer in training.^"
Ren tried to chime in, utterly confused by the discussion he was only hearing one half of. As had happened many times before, though, his dad held him that bit closer once he was about to speak, wordlessly cutting him off. This wasn't the time. It never was the time.
His mom just chuckled sadly in return. "Well, that's a couple more than we do. We don't know
any moves; we can't do any of that magical stuff you can do.
We're just humans."
'Just humans' echoed in Palemoon's mind, as did the assertion that they weren't capable of using any moves. The former was telling, the latter absurd. It
couldn't have been true. For a moment, she tried to entertain the idea that Kaori wasn't lying, but simply misinformed, but that made little sense either. The Gardevoir closed her eyes and concentrated, plunging the room into a tense silence as she focused on the three humans. Fueled by the most outlandish idea she'd heard in her entire journey so far, she tried to find
any sign of that energy that coursed through the veins of all the other creatures, from the lowliest insects to the most fearsome hunters.
That every creature had an alignment with one of those energies, one of those 'types', Palemoon and everyone she knew took as an axiom. It was observably true. She often wondered
which type the unfamiliar creatures she encountered had, but only that. They must've had
a type, right?
Right?
…
The humans before her did not. And the more she thought about the implications of that, the more things fell into place.
Without that inner strength, they wouldn't have been able to either use or absorb others' moves. They would've been physically weak and way outmatched in any combat situation. They would've either had to avoid creatures that
did have a type, or find other methods to protect themselves against them. All of that was observably true, in their words and actions alike.
The only creatures that
didn't have that inner strength were supposed to be the lesser beings that crawled through the earth; the ones too tiny to even be sentient. And yet, the trio of macroscopic, intelligent creatures sharing the room with her also fit that category, tiling the field in her mind for an exquisite existential crisis down the line. Not now, though—the implications of human weakness came first, and they were telling.
The fear Ren's parents felt was still awful, but... it made sense, it made a
terrifying amount of sense. Of
course they'd be afraid, hopelessly paralyzed in fear at the thought of what was almost a demigod in comparison in their midst, 'wild' and uncontrollable. Even the 'wild' and 'domesticated' division made sense, terrifying as the prospect of the latter was. It wasn't a justification, it wasn't even an excuse, but it was an answer,
the answer she'd sorely lacked until now.
It was sobering. She wanted to cry. "^I... I think I understand now. I wouldn't have ever imagined myself stirring that kind of fear in anyone. It doesn't feel nice, but—but it's understandable.^" Between the unease in the room and how unavoidable said unease felt, what remained of Palemoon's cheer eroded fast. Was this really it? Was that mutual fear really the best things would ever get?
Kaori had no answers to those questions. What she had, however, was a pair of eyeballs, and those were keen to inform her that their guest was feeling even worse now. Between her somber tone and deflating posture, Luna wasn't hiding her reaction to the news at all—and it hurt to watch. With every exchanged word, with every shared revelation, with every tear the Gardevoir was valiantly keeping away from flowing down her face, the human woman felt for her more and more. She'd almost given her life to save someone she didn't even know the name of, only to be treated with suspicion and fear the second she clarified who she was. On an analytical level, it wasn't fair at all.
On an emotional level, Kaori dreaded getting a single step closer. The danger was obvious, and even in her understanding, Luna didn't deny it at all. She was still a wild psychic; she could still burn their house or fry them with electricity or even maul them to death, without them being able to do anything to stop her. All that remained true.
But, for the first time, Kaori no longer thought Luna
would do that. However intense the fear's grip on her mind was earlier, it had waned enough for her better nature to come out on top, and act on what she saw before her. Her son may have been way ahead of her on that one, trying to squirm away from his dad's arms only to be held in place, but she wasn't being restrained like that.
With her heart pounding, she stood up from her crouched position and approached the Gardevoir. Her husband stared in shock, Luna in surprise, and Ren, in envy. The psychic remained frozen as the human folded up her patched-up outfit before taking a seat on the freed-up space, not expecting that kind of reaction at all.
Neither did Palemoon expect the gentle embrace that followed, but that one had a much more stark effect on her. Without straightening her hunched-over posture, she returned the affection however she could. Her hands shook as she wrapped them around Kaori, her larger size and fuller build compared to Ren making that much less awkward. She could tell the human was still fighting internally about whether this was a good idea, still had to wrestle against her worse nature—but she
was fighting, she
was wrestling, and Palemoon appreciated that more than words could express. Kaori had every reason to distrust her, but here she was, actively putting herself at more of a risk to...
...to comfort her. To help her with her own fright, her own dread, her own sadness. It reminded Palemoon of when she was but a Ralts, getting scared as easily as she got fascinated, only for her family to help her process those feelings every time with affection. She wasn't a little one any longer; it wasn't her family, and the reassurance here went both ways, but the core was much the same.
And so would be her response. "^Th-thank you, Kaori.^" She felt the warmth blooming within the human at her words, and then felt it be mirrored back to her. Compared to the freezing coldness of just moments before, it was downright blissful.
"You're—you're welcome, Luna. I won't deny, I'm—I'm still not sure how to process all of this," Kaori admitted, her hands stopping as she sunk into her thoughts. "Everything I've ever heard about mons tells me I should be afraid of you. But it sure is growing increasingly hard to pretend the young woman sitting on my couch would ever just decide to hurt us on a whim, ha!"
"Of course she wouldn't!" Ren added with all the confidence in the world. His boldness stirred giggling in his mom and guest alike—as well as lowered his dad's guard enough to let him finally slip away. He heard the gasp behind himself, but paid it no mind, determined to help his friend feel better in this serious talk they've all been dragged into.
It helped immensely. "^Thank you for your trust, Kaori. And you too, Ren,^" Palemoon added as she expanded her psychic words to include the boy again. She closed her eyes as she savored the reassurance emanating from the humans beside her, their trust helping her overcome the worst of her earlier despair. Still, beside the two blissful presences, there was still the third, frigid one, and this one she had no idea how to deal with or reassure.
Which, thankfully, couldn't be said for Kaori. "Hiroto, I meant what I said," she stated firmly, looking at her husband. His words were worried, uncertain—and above anything else, confused. "You didn't hear what Luna said because she can only talk to me and Ren right now. If you want to talk to her, you'll have to let her... uh..."
"^Establish a link between myself and him,^" the Gardevoir chimed in.
"Do the psychic... link, thing. I don't know how it works honey, but she does, and if we're gonna talk about all this, I'd rather we talk all together." Hiroto's response was predictably uneasy, bringing up a couple of points that each chilled Kaori's mind—for about half a second before being dismissed. "Look at her and tell me she looks dangerous, honey. Yes, she's a psychic, and thank the gods for that because otherwise we wouldn't have been able to talk at all."
The father of the family said something in return, and this time, it was Ren's turn to cut in. "But why would she do that, dad?" he asked, baffled. Palemoon wasn't sure she even wanted to know what these words were said in response to.
What they were responded to with, however, were more excuses; the tone of voice that aired them was even meeker than before. If not for everything else that was going on, Palemoon would've found it sad. Kaori, however, saw an opportunity. "I know it's hard, but... can you just trust me on this, Hiroto? Because no, I can't
prove to you she won't hurt us, any more that I can't prove to you that
I won't hurt us. It just comes down to trust, and if you could just hear her and talk to her, I don't doubt that said trust would be a lot easier to build."
Kaori's words plunged her husband into a thoughtful silence, eventually broken with a weak chuckle and a mumbled remark. For once, there was no more denial in it, nowhere near as much of unpleasant-feeling fear—just an uncertain, troubled acceptance. His wife wasn't feeling anywhere as confident as she would've wanted to either, nodding slowly and admitting, "Yeah. Have to take that leap of faith somewhere, Hiroto. That's just how it goes."
Palemoon watched in silence as Hiroto processed everything going on in his head, only occasionally finding the courage to look up at her directly. Some of her found it sad; some of her was morbidly curious just what he—and his wife, by extension—thought she
would do to them if provoked. Both feelings were dwarfed by her desire to not be feared, by a feeble hope that they would just end up all getting along, no matter the power differential between them. She glanced over at Ren, focusing on his affection and kindness instead. Anything to stave off the hopelessness just that bit more.
For a moment, she wondered where Ren's positive outlook towards her was coming from; what about him was so different as to not leave him as terrified as his parents. Was it just the bliss of ignorance? Did he just not know about all the
theoretical violence she and any other mon could inflict upon him, their improbableness not mattering as far as humans en mass were concerned? But, if that was the case, then he wouldn't have maintained that warmth even after she'd scared that Ursaring away, right?
There were holes in that possibility, other explanations than just these two, but Palemoon couldn't help but cling to the latter. Even if just as a coping strategy.
She wouldn't get much use out of it, though. The atmosphere in the room shifted before long, drawing her focus away from the psychic equivalent to rocking in place and towards Hiroto's actions. For the first time since she'd walked into the room, the human pulled his back away from his seat and leaned forward, if tentatively. He had his hand before himself, fingers shaking as he actively struggled to keep himself from retreating.
"Luna, my husband—" Kaori began, before going quiet as the Gardevoir took the initiative. She shuffled that bit closer to the final untranslated human, before extending her blue arm as far out in his direction as she could. Palm up, fingers splayed, ready to be touched. Ready to be trusted.
It was a task that said human wished was as easy as his wife was making it sound. He stared, conflicted, chewing through everything going on, both what he could see and what he had to trust his wife about. That Gardevoir's eyes were obviously intelligent, and yet so very different. Its expression
looked sad, but was it, really? What if all of this had been a trap all along; what if he was being actively pulled into a trap? What if all of this had been planned from the beginning, merely the first chapter of something far more sinister that started with the wild psychic getting into their heads?
In the most frank way possible, it made no bloody sense—nor did it have to. It was perhaps the single factor that made it harder than any other, one that not just added difficulty to the idea of him trusting the Gardevoir, but which sabotaged the very idea of trust. Pokemon didn't make sense, they didn't
have to make sense! Every single folk tale Hiroto had heard from his family up north, every single factoid he'd memorized for his classes, every scrap of procedure taught to him while he was studying to treat the victims of mon attacks—all were different, messy, often incompatible in details, but all agreed on one central point.
Pokemon weren't like them, didn't operate on the same logic as them.
They could never be trusted, not the wild ones, because they operated on fundamentally different rules. Rules of instinct, territory, battles, disproportionate retribution to even the most transient offense. Some people, like trainers, could understand them sometimes, channel their wild natures towards what they wanted, but their understanding would forever remain fragmented and their trust conditional. Even domestication with pokeballs and breeding didn't get rid of all of it—especially when considering how many Scratch or Tackle injuries he had to treat every day, all from people who wouldn't ever dream of being trainers.
He'd spent his entire life assuming all that without a second thought—and yet, his own partner now disagreed with that. The idea of 'talking' to a wild psychic like that was outlandish on its face, as was it ever being a 'young woman'. That term was meant for
people. Which was the entire point.
Hiroto didn't,
couldn't trust the Gardevoir sitting on his couch. But he
did trust his wife, now and always, despite how immensely difficult that feat was in the present. Maybe nothing would happen. Maybe he'd be immediately enlightened, suddenly capable of perceiving the world from the perspective of a being so inherently different to him that certain parts of Hoenn used entirely different verbs when talking about them. Maybe they'd all fall asleep and never wake up again. There was no way to know but to make that leap; to reach his hand towards 'Luna's' blue one; to surrender, even if for just a second, to a force their entire civilization was built around resisting.
It felt nice to the touch; he had to admit that.
Palemoon's head spun at the barreling train of thought inside Hiroto's mind. Even the glimpses of it she could faintly sense were laced with so much distrust she just wanted to withdraw completely and spend the day crying. And yet, she didn't.
He didn't, either, the eventual touch of his rougher, more weathered skin on her own immediately cutting through her mental murk. She refocused her gaze on him, their eyes eventually locking together.
"
Their eyes are so, so weird," thought both of them.
Shocking as Hiroto's willingness to continue was, Palemoon soon finally got herself together to act on it. She closed her eyes and held his hand as gently as she could, anything to avoid further unease or fear on his end. The extension of her mind, strained and bruised as it was, took its time traveling through him, making the hair on his arms stand on end.
And then, at last, the sensation he feared, something being done to his mind. A pressure on the back of his head, first dull, then sharp, and finally absent altogether once more, all of them happening too fast to even give him a chance to react to them. And then... the wild psychic let go of his hand, withdrawing its own back to its lap. He followed in kind immediately afterwards, heart hammering in his chest as if only narrowly avoiding being run over by a car.
The words that followed didn't help any with his heart rate, but at least they utterly distracted him away from any further colorful mental imagery. "^Hello,^" a young, feminine voice spoke. It wasn't quite disembodied, but he could only vaguely narrow down where he thought he was hearing it from—the Gardevoir sitting on his couch. "^Can you understand me?^"
He could. This shouldn't have been possible.
Palemoon and the rest of Hiroto's family watched as their husband and father reacted to finally hearing Luna's voice. His wide eyes and shallow gasp drew giggles out of his son and a faint, but visible, smirk from his wife. The Gardevoir herself wasn't feeling as upbeat as either of them, though. She was still on edge about whether Hiroto wouldn't end up lashing out at her after all. She stiffened as she watched him lift a hand from the sofa's armrest, then examine it—and finally, do the unthinkable.
"Ow," Hiroto grunted, not expecting the pinch on his neck to be anywhere near this painful.
His son just found it all even funnier than before. "Why'd you do that, dad?" Ren asked, peeking from behind his cool Gardevoir friend.
"I thought I was dreaming there, in all honesty." Hiroto's tone was dazed, somewhat disbelieving, but nowhere near as tense as it had once been. Palemoon thought it didn't come off as particularly masculine—not by the standards of her kin, at least. Very elderly, if anything, what with its lower pitch and a bit of huskiness.
"I envy your dreams then," Kaori chuckled. "Mine are all showing up late to high school classes and forgetting to put my pants on before going outside. A-are you feeling alright, though? Still processing it? What about you, Luna?"
Palemoon closed her eyes and breathed deeply, shaking off whatever stress she could, now that nothing terrible had happened. "^I'm—I think I'm alright. It was just... hard for a moment, with all the fear and all.^"
Luna was obviously not fully alright, even after trying to ground herself, and Kaori noticed. She slid closer to the Gardevoir, and offered her a shoulder to lean on—which the Gardevoir immediately took. This had all been a lot for all of them, even ignoring the incredibly heavy topics from earlier, but Luna had to have been taking it especially hard. "Right, with your... psychics, right? Well, I hope that now that we can all hear each other, it'll get easier for you as far as all that fear goes."
If Hiroto had been listening, he could've noticed the heavy-handed allusion to him in his wife's words. Alas, he was still processing her earlier question, still trying to cram the fact of being able to understand Luna's words into his mind alongside the preexisting knowledge. Somewhat predictably, he couldn't—by design. These just didn't fit together, which only left two options for whoever had found themselves at these mental crossroads. Either everything he knew had to be discarded, or what he was seeing and hearing had to be discarded.
Hiroto chose to skip his turn for now, finally coming up with what to say soon after. "I'm quite lost, in all honesty, and unsure what to think right now."
"I can only imagine, ha," Kaori chuckled, herself having already begun to dismantle the mental bookshelf that held the facts she thought she knew.
"^About what, if you don't mind me asking?^"
Luna's question dragged Hiroto's attention back to his living room, and then to the Gardevoir leaning on his wife. Normally, a wiser, more cowardly part of him would've intervened, prohibiting him from bringing up the topic he was about to at all cost. Fortunately for the rest of him
and everyone else around, said part of him was lying down in the basement of his mind, tied to a chair after having been knocked out in one fell swoop of a gesture.
And so; he was honest. "I find it so hard to believe that I'm hearing and understanding a wild pokemon."
Here was that 'wild' thing again. Palemoon knew better than to take offense to these words, despite having every reason to do so. She was much more curious about that fundamental division they had brushed on earlier, and now that the room wasn't being suffocated in fear, it was her time to find out the 'what' and 'why' behind it. "^Would it have been more likely if I hadn't been 'wild'?^" she asked, trying to keep her voice as free of judgment and veiled anger as possible. It wasn't meant to be an accusation. Though, considering that genuine questions about the subject ended up
sounding like accusations, it didn't leave her with a lot of optimism about what she'd end up hearing.
Hiroto didn't spot that veiled anger that Luna tried to avoid—but his wife did. "Oh dear, I'm sorry Luna. That's not what he—"
"^But it is,^" the Gardevoir cut her off. "^I know it is. I'm not angry, I'm just... lost.^" Ren didn't know what to add to the conversation, the bulk of it going way above his head, but he knew he could make his friend feel better by holding her closer—always a good idea, that.
Hiroto, on the other hand, put words to what had been drilled into his head his entire life, and aired it out for the Gardevoir to see. "Possibly... Luna. It's hard to say, though. To some extent, I wouldn't have ever expected to be able to understand
any pokemon, but if I were to understand any of them, it'd be a domesticated one." It was a suitable answer to Luna's question. It was also completely insufficient at covering the
real reason she'd asked it, and the father of the household knew.
He continued, "As to why, well. I've always been taught that humans and pokemon are inherently different on every level. Not just in what we can do, but in how we think, why we act, and all that. It's much harder to trust something—someone if you just
can't understand why they do the things they do. And since domesticated mons spend much more time with humans, and are friendlier with pokeballs, I figured that was in part because their way of thinking had become more human, more backed by reason."
The well that fueled humanity's fears had turned out to be even deeper than Palemoon could've ever expected. Hiroto's answer was nonsense, harder to understand than even Kaori's earlier explanation about humans not being able to use any moves. Sure, many, many different kin did different things she couldn't, and likely wouldn't ever 'get'. She didn't understand why many birds migrated, the intricacies of why many predator species were as territorial as they were, and plenty of other behaviors—but that didn't mean they weren't derived from the same needs as her own behavior. Sustenance, comfort, safety, belonging, happiness, reproduction, all those and more.
Learning that she, and her kin as a whole, weren't all that different from others was an eye-opening lesson when she was still a Ralts. If anything, humanity at large had internalized the precisely opposite message, one that was as incorrect on its face as it was being diligently sustained by every single facet of how they lived and organized.
If it hadn't been so monstrous to think about, it would've been so, so incredibly sad.
Palemoon nodded firmly and looked straight at Hiroto. "^From what I've seen and talked to you all so far, that couldn't be further from the truth. Yes, you all have been acting differently than, say, my family, but only in how all kin act differently from one another in certain ways. No more, and no less.^"
Kaori looked at her husband as they both chewed on Luna's words, its message clear. And yet, neither of them fully took it the way Palemoon had intended—still, close enough for the time being. "Hard to think like that with how separated we are from them for the most part, heh..." Kaori chuckled under her breath. She only needed a glimpse of Luna's curious expression to elaborate on what she meant, airing another piece of the puzzle.
"Well, we typically live far away from any wild mons. Or I guess, any dangerous wild mons—obviously there will always be some Taillow on the lampposts or the occasional Zigzagoon behind the dumpster, but for anything larger and more threatening, trainers push it away from human towns. Even here, there are a handful of trainers that come along and scour the side of the road next to us every few months, scaring away any mons that try to move close enough to the road to be a danger to us."
With the human powerlessness established and the intimidating steel beasts she'd witnessed earlier, Palemoon immediately associated the term 'trainer' with the latter. It made her even more glad in hindsight that none of those 'trainers' had spotted her while she walked along the black path—another piece of luck in her initial journey. No matter what the 'trainers' were, the thrust of the message was well received. Humans lived far away from most mons and deliberately maintained that separation. Simultaneously understandable and only making things worse.
But those were the 'wild' pokemon, only one of the two groups of the all-encompassing, and yet utterly nonsense division humans had devised. "^If all you ever see are Zigzagoon and Taillow, I can imagine why my sudden appearance here gave you all a scare, heh...^"
The remark broke through the room's silence. Kaori laughed the loudest, and her son wasn't far behind. Hiroto only chuckled quietly under his breath—still a massive progress considering his immense, almost dissociated seriousness from earlier. "No kidding," Kaori summed up.
"^What about those 'domesticated' pokemon, then? You mentioned them a few times, that and the 'pokeballs', and I've no idea what you meant by either.^"
Judging by the parents' flinching and the transient flash of fear that went through both of their minds, this topic was somehow even dourer than the ones that came earlier. Their worry was familiar, a much weaker version of the same one from when Ren delivered his oversimplified answer. A fear of her reaction.
This won't be pretty, will it.
"Do you really not know what pokeballs are, Luna?" Ren asked with all the tone deafness only a six-year-old was capable of.
The boy's mom cringed, and Palemoon chuckled. "^No, I really do not. They don't sound like a good thing, though...^"
"I guess they really aren't, huh. Can't say I ever
liked them, but always thought they were a necessary evil of sorts," Kaori pondered. "As to what they are—I'm not sure how to explain them, actually. Traps, you could say? They trap pokemon."
"'Contain' more so than 'trap'," Hiroto corrected. "They let people store the pokemon they own, among other things."
Kaori shuddered at the word choice, one she'd heard thousands of times in her life but which had been given a wholly new terrifying dimension. "The 'own' part... gods, now I'm thinking back to when my manager told me her cousin 'owned' a Kirlia. That's such dehumaniz—uh. How would you phrase that instead, de-personifying, perhaps? Either way, it just paints that Kirlia as if they were an object, that's messed up with a mon as intelligent as them."
Indeed, it was really messed up—though not exactly for the reasons Kaori was thinking about. "^I'd say it'd be messed up no matter the species. Can't say I've ever felt particularly intelligent. Many mons outside of my kin, even some wildlings, have taught me a lot—about foraging, and safety, and how to find my way around.^"
The human woman blinked at Luna's words, taken aback. "F-fellow psychics, I'm guessing?"
Palemoon had legitimately no idea where that idea came from. It was baffling, and more than anything else, it was incorrect. "^No, of course not. One of my closest friends outside my people's commune has been a Beautifly—if not for them, I don't think I would've known how to find my way here. Why would you assume they were psychics?"
For the first time since Palemoon had interacted with the family, it was Kaori that was more scared than her husband. The Gardevoir watched as the human's unspoken assumption about the mon intelligence was violently shattered in front of her, destroying the compartmentalizing she'd been doing in the background for the past couple hours. "Well, I-I—I assumed, incorrectly, I guess now, that your kind of intelligence was something that only psychics could do..."
The Gardevoir was too baffled to even try to be offended. "^No? I can't imagine why you thought that, in all honesty.^"
"I—" Kaori began, before deflating with a drawn-out exhale. "I don't think there's even a specific reason I thought that. Just some more assumptions I've picked up over my life, heh. Though, if that's really the case, then... oh. Oh, no. Oh no no no no no."
Palemoon watched as Kaori's eyes went wide, the fearful realization that filled her mind so intensely freezing it subconsciously made the Gardevoir lean away from her. The shift in the woman wasn't missed on her family, either. "M-mom, what's wrong?" Ren asked, unnerved.
"If that's true, then... all the balls and catching and—and breeding... oh gods. What are we doing?"
"^C-catching?^" Palemoon tentatively asked, the word alone invoking terrifying associations.
Distressed as Kaori obviously was, Hiroto wasn't doing much better anymore. Still, he answered, "Indeed. Trainers catch wild pokemon after battling them, using pokeballs. The way we've always heard it was that wild pokemon had an inherent desire for battle, and by satisfying it and triumphing over them, they would then allow themselves to be caught. I never understood it; it made no sense, but—but that was the point, I realize now. It was just yet another weird thing that wild pokemon did..."
Kidnapping. They were describing kidnapping. The Gardevoir's stomach sank as she processed Hiroto's words, the actions described within nothing short of cruel. This was wrong, this was obviously wrong; how could humans think pokemon would just allow themselves to be kidnapped like this!? Palemoon's body tensed up as her body fixated on what it had just comprehended. It couldn't have been just that; there had to have been more to this, some reason behind this brutal madness! "^H-how many are 'c-caught' like that? I find it all so hard to imagine...^"
Hiroto shuddered. "I wish I had a concrete answer. Tens of thousands every year in Hoenn? Hundreds of thousands?"
Hundreds of thousands. The number alone was hard to grasp for Palemoon, and so was the full extent of the tragedy even a single act of 'capture' like that represented. Combining them together was something she was just incapable of, the cruelty of it all literally unimaginable. That didn't mean she didn't try, again and again, each attempt making her feel more and more ill. More and more wanting to scream at it all.
This was it, wasn't it? Underneath the surface level glamour of their creations and technology, underneath their niceness as individuals... she'd finally found it.
The truth about humanity, one her people had no specific and concrete terms for, but whose monstrosity was conveyed all the same. She'd failed at her mission, hasn't she? Despite all her determination, despite all her good will... she'd been wrong. She'd just been wrong. Maybe humans were monsters, after all.
"Luna, why are you crying?"
For the first time since she woke up here, Palemoon was of half a mind to just blow Ren off. He didn't understand, but she couldn't understand his lack of understanding. She shuddered in place, choosing to not react at all as tears streaked down her face, showing no signs of stopping.
"Ren, it's... we humans have been very mean towards pokemon. Luna is realizing it now, and—and so am I and your dad, too," Kaori admitted, voice breathless. "It's not something we thought much about, but it's hard not to, now..."
Now that the problem had been explained to the boy in terms he could understand, he could join the rest of the room in a distraught reaction. His were for... different reasons, though. "Humans have b-been mean towards pokemon? B-but not us, r-right? Not you, o-or dad—or me, r-right?"
His mom had wanted to reassure him that no, obviously not,
they hadn't personally hurt any mons, but... she couldn't be sure anymore. "I-I don't know, Ren."
As dismissive as Ren's counterpoint was, and as childish as the tears that followed at his mom's words were... he had a point there, Palemoon realized. She grasped onto that strand of thought, holding onto it for dear life to not drown in a vortex of despair this entire discussion had plunged her into. This wasn't this simple, couldn't have been this simple.
Because Ren was right. His family weren't monsters. They'd been misinformed, taught bigotry which they acted on, but... they could
and did realize that it was wrong. They could change. Humans could change.
As much as Palemoon wanted it to be, that fact wasn't that much of a relief. She still hurt, she still hurt so much, for all the obvious reasons and more—and she figured that, at this point, there was no reason not to share that 'more' with Ren's family. "^H-have I told you all why I'm even here?^" The Gardevoir's question took everyone out of their own respective murk. None of the three humans had given that question any thought, and the two adults grew worried about the potential answers. Kaori shook her head.
"^I-I heard my entire life, from my family, from my people, that humans were evil, and that their lands meant death. I didn't believe that, didn't
want to believe that. It couldn't have been the truth; I refused to believe humans were as monstrous as everyone else was painting them as. So I set out to find out for myself.^"
Palemoon paused, a painful grimace flashing through her face. "^A-and now I have. I know that none of you would support that cruelty anymore, that 'catching', but... why do other humans do? I just—I just can't understand...^"
The Gardevoir's words were half factual admission and half emotional cry for help—one that both Ren and Kaori picked up on, passing on any affection they could. A voice deep inside Palemoon shouted at her to push them away, to reject their attempts to suck up to her after she'd found out about their evil ways. But she wanted this. She didn't want to be angry; she didn't want that righteous fury. It wouldn't make anything right, wouldn't help anything but fuel her emotional impulses further.
Hiroto thought through her words, mostly arriving at all the factors they'd mentioned before. "It's easy to justify, both internally and to others, when it's being framed as keeping us all safe. I mentioned how many people think wild mons are illogical. Add to that the difference in power, and their supposed battle-hungry nature, and the course of action paints itself."
"^Is it all just lies then? Is the entire human world built on a lie after a lie?^"
"I don't know," Hiroto quietly admitted. "Possibly. Even if that is the case, I'm not sure how much it can be changed. Even just the lie about wild pokemon being eager to fight, and dangerous to be around because of that. At some point, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, doesn't it? If your family knows that humans are dangerous, then I can only imagine how much more acute that knowledge is in wild mons that deal with pe—humans more. I can only imagine the hostility that would breed after hundreds of years."
He admitted it. Humans are dangerous.
...
...
But 'dangerous' isn't the same as 'evil'.
It was an important point to focus on, that distinction between humanity's actions and their inherent nature. It was also a point Palemoon had barely any strength left for anymore, feeling utterly drained from all the tears she had shed. From all the suffering she'd been confronted with. Her empathetic side was keen to point out that the humans around her were feeling much the same way, the shared pain growing that bit lighter. But it could only do so much. This conversation could only do so much.
She wanted to keep going, to keep prying, to pull on each of the dozens of loose threads she'd picked up on in her conversations so far. She had to know it all, to learn about the entire extent of humanity's danger and how she might protect those she held dear from it. It was her duty, self-imposed, but no less real because of that.
She wanted to curl up and cry.
And, of the two, that latter desire, to not have to face the unspeakable anymore, was stronger right now. She felt defeated. She was defeated. "^I-I don't know how much more of this topic I can take right now...^"
Her words registered as little more than a sad whisper for the family of humans. Concern filled Kaori's expression immediately, with the entire family's warmth—Hiroto's included—pushing against the overwhelming coldness inside her. "Would you want to take a break then, Luna?" Kaori asked in the most motherly tone she still had in her.
"^Yes, p-please.^"
Her wish was respected immediately, helped no doubt by exactly nobody else being any more eager to keep discussing the worst of human actions against the world. Hiroto leaned back into his seat, still unnerved but now also concerned about his guest. Kaori got up and walked away, mentioning something about hot drinks.
Ren remained at her side, still processing everything that had happened in his own little way. He only left briefly, before coming back with a large blanket in his hands, and carefully wrapping his friend in it. She might not have been cold in that way, but... she appreciated it all the same, the action pushing the weakest of smiles on her face. "^Thank you, Ren.^"
"Are you mad at us, Luna?" the boy whispered, holding her close.
"^No, not at all. I'm just... sad.^"
Ren nodded firmly. He knew sad; he knew exactly what to do in that situation, in fact. Still, he hesitated before bringing it up, remembering his parents' less than enthusiastic reactions at the idea each time he brought it up. "When I'm sad, I play with my action figures, and it helps. W-would you wanna play with me?"
The Gardevoir looked towards the boy, only now paying conscious attention to the handful of dolls he'd brought with himself before they had their talk. For how excited he was about them earlier and yesterday, he now felt... uncertain, self-conscious, even. The distraction would be good for her, of course.
"^Sure! What's this one's name?^"
But something told Luna that Ren would appreciate it even more.
