Chapter Text
It was the tenth anniversary of Akari’s fall from the rift in the sky.
She looked at the sky above Mount Coronet, pink with the early dawn and reaching and perfectly intact and it was hard to fathom that she hadn’t been born here.
This time of year always made her morose, nostalgic. When she’d first come to this place, she’d been afraid, naive, desperate for a home she couldn’t remember. After everything, she’d made a home for herself here. She loved it, so much so that she barely ever longed for the place she’d once known but forgotten. But during this day, she ached with want for it.
“Come on, girl, let’s go out, yeah?” She proposed to her Samurott. The pokemon purred lightly and placed her head against Akari’s shoulder. She smiled and recalled the pokemon into the pokeball before standing and entering her room again. She quickly collected her supply bag and locked her door behind her. She’d packed it the night before, just in case the mood struck her as it usually did on this day. She loved Jubilife Village, her friends and her life here, but on this day it was hard to bear.
So she left, every year, with the excuse of researching.
No one else seemed to remember the exact date of her arrival so it was easy for her to make the excuse and leave without anyone realizing what really drove her out of the village for the week.
It was still early, the early risers only just starting their days. The sun had just started to peak over the horizon, casting a golden hue on everything. Her footsteps echoed on the gravel path and Rei, who stood guard at the gates called out to her.
“What did you do to get stuck with dawn duty?” she teased him as she approached.
“Axel’s wife went into labor last night, so I took his guard duty from him so he could stay with her,” he said through a yawn.
Oh, she thought. I’ll have to craft Rose a doll for the baby.
“That was kind of you,” she said. “Softie,” she jostled his shoulder and he blushed.
“Yeah, well, he wouldn’t have been any good here today anyway,” Rei tried to justify. They both knew it was a waste, that she knew him too well. He changed the subject.
“Where are you off to?” He asked, pulling out the book to record her departure and estimated return.
“The Mirelands, research, for about a week,” she said automatically. She hadn’t been sure where she’d be going, but the Crimson Mirelands seemed a good a place as any. Hard, rough, hot this time of year. She tended to stay away. Rei whistled and wrote it down
“Be safe, yeah?”
“Course, got my team and plenty of supplies,” she said, patting her pack.
“Right, then, do good work!” He saluted her and she laughed and gave him one in return before she stepped out of the gate and started her journey across the Hisuian wilderness.
The sun hadn’t risen to it’s full height but it was already hot. She debated calling on Wyrdeer or Ursaluna, but she thought they must be bedded down already trying to avoid the worst of the heat. So she trudged along on foot. Maybe she’d take a swim with Basculegion to cool off later.
By midday she’d nearly cross the Obsidian Fieldlands, but was ready to stop for a break. Her skin was sticky with sweat and it made her clothes cling uncomfortably to her skin.
She stopped in the shade of one of the rocky hills and set her pack down and was about to sit when she heard someone call out.
“Papa! Look, a girl!” It was young, childish. She looked around her but did not see anyone.
“Mari, what have I told you about going too close to the edge?”
That voice. It couldn’t be. She stood still, not daring to move, as though an alpha pokemon had spotted her.
“Come here, you devilish- Akari.” Her name was breathed, barely a sigh. A prayer on Volo’s lips. Finally, she looked up and saw the face of the friend she had missed so dearly.
Volo had imagined this moment a thousand different times.
Imagining was good, cathartic. Imagining didn’t force him to utter the apologies he knew he owed and it certainly didn’t come with the possibility that those apologies be rejected. That he be rejected.
He would never admit to himself that he wanted those scenarios to fall from his imagination and into reality, the way that she’d fallen into Hisui. He’d never admit it and yet here it was.
Every scenario he’d ever dreamed up, conjured right here in front of him. It crashed into him like a wave. He was drowning in all the words that wanted to rush forth from his lips. Instead, he just said the one thing he could force out. He said her name.
“What are you doing here?” he asked a moment later. Mari looked between them.
“Papa, do you know her?” She asked. Volo, seemingly propelled out of his inertia by his daughter’s voice, leaned down and picked her up, cradling her against him.
“Yes,” he said. He didn’t offer any other information. He waited for Akari.
“I’m researching,” she said in answer to his question. That was a lie, he noted. She had the same tell she’d had all those years ago, taking her bottom lip between her teeth and biting. He wondered what else had not changed.
There were many things that had changed. She was older now, having matured into her beauty. She’d lost the last remnants of baby fat that had clung to her face when he’d last seen her at 16. She didn’t look much taller, but it was hard to tell from his vantage point above her on the rocks. She was gorgeous, new and familiar all at once. It was disorienting.
“Why are you back?” She asked. “Laventon said we’d never see you again.” There was an accusation in there, but he wasn’t sure of the crime. Her eyes had not left his.
“Plans, circumstances,” he shifted Mari forward ever so slightly. “Change.” Her eyes shifted from him to his daughter. The girl, impervious to the tension, raised her hand and waved.
“Hello, my name is Mari.”
“Hello Mari, I’m Akari,” she said, offering the little girl a small smile. She was the spitting image of Volo, from her golden hair to the tilt of her smile. It made Akari wonder if her mother was blonde as well. Was she here with them?
“How do you know my papa?” she asked.
“We were friends,” Akari said quietly. Were. That single words made Volo’s chest ache in a way he didn’t want to dwell on.
“Oh, that’s good,” she said. “You’re really pretty. Do you have pokemon?”
Akari hesitated. The last time her team had seen Volo, he’d been trying to bring about the end of the world. Samurott, at least, might not react hastily and hurt the girl trying to get to Volo. She’d been there for most of Akari’s musings about Volo over the years. She knew her trainer harbored no ill will towards the merchant.
“Would you like to meet one?” She asked. Mari nodded her head vigorously. Volo shifted her in his arms and exposed his own team in their pokeballs on his belt. He didn’t trust her, but she couldn’t entirely blame him for his suspicion. She didn’t trust him either.
She pulled out Samurott’s pokeball and released her. She shook her head and took only a moment to get her bearings. Mari gasped.
“Papa put me down!”
“It’s Volo,” she whispered to her partner pokemon. The pokemon snorted and glared up at the man on the rocks. But he didn’t notice, too busy watching his daughter crawl her way down the rocks. She stopped directly in front of Samurott, who lowered her head to be at eye level with the little girl. SHe stared for a moment, and Volo looked like he’d stopped breathing. Samurott blew a puff of air into Mari’s face and the little girl giggled. Volo exhaled audibly.
“She’s very pretty, too,” Mari said.
“And very powerful,” Volo said. He hadn’t moved from his place on the rocks above them, instead watching his daughter play with his one time enemy’s pokemon.
“She won’t hurt her,” Akari said quietly. Volo started. “She’ll be fine,” she assured him as they watched the child and the pokemon start a game of chase. Volo hesitated, then moved carefully down from the rocks to stand next to her. He’d been right, and she hadn’t grown much from the last time he’d seen her. Her forehead would only just brush his chin, if he had to guess. She looked up at him, seeming to study him as well.
He was older now, his face covered in blond stubble. He still wore his Ginko guild uniform, though it was worn and nearly bleached by time in the sun. He looked hot, tired, but healthy. He had a calm about him that she never thought she’d see. He’d been crazed the last time they’d met.
“Why are you back?” She asked. He shrugged.
“Hisui is my home, it’s the place I want to raise my daughter. Why are you really out here?”
“It’s the anniversary of my fall,” she said after a moment. “I don’t like being in Jubilife Village on this day. It’s hard.” She wasn’t sure why she was being so honest. The shock, she supposed.
“I see,” he said.
“Is that where you were going?” she asked. They watched Mari climb onto Samurott’s back.
“Not yet,” he said. “I’m going to see my grandmother first.”
Akari was struck by a wave of guilt. In the years since Volo had disappeared, she hadn’t been able to bring herself to visit the old woman. There were too many memories, too many associations that Akari was too much of a coward to face. But she had to admit that she missed the woman’s stories. She’d thought about her often.
In a moment of either pure stupidity or desperate hopefulness, she took a deep breath and turned to face him full on.
“Can I come with you?”