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Hilda stares at her boots as the Shadow Triad drags Ghetsis away, kicking and screaming. They’ve gotten a bit scuffed, she notes absentmindedly as the four of them teleport out of the cave and the last of Ghetsis’s profanities - still echoing - fade away into silence.
Maybe she should polish them and get a new pair of laces.
“Hilda?” N’s voice startles her out of her thoughts.
“Uh- yes!” She snaps back to the present and laughs nervously, turning to face him. “What’s up?”
N gives her a sad little smile.
“I’m sorry about… Father. I wish I could’ve done more to help-”
“No, N, you did more than enough,” Hilda says, cutting him off mid-sentence. “You were a great help.”
An awkward silence descends upon the two of them. Hilda looks back down at her shoes as N fidgets with his hands, covering a cough.
“I’ll… best be going then,” N mumbles, stepping away from Hilda. “Take care of yourself.”
“Sure,” Hilda says distractedly, looking back down at her scuffed boots as N, awkward as ever, climbs onto Zekrom and flies away for the second time in her life.
There's nothing to do and nobody left, so Hilda hitches a ride on her Sigilyph back home, watching the sun sink beyond the horizon, staining the sky a pretty pink.
There's no one at home.
Hilda sits on the steps outside her house, staring off into the distance at nothing in particular. The beginnings of another snowfall make its way down onto her bare legs. It’s been a cold, cold winter in Unova this year, she thinks, eyeing the mailbox stuffed with her mother’s postcards from Humilau. She’d respond, but she isn’t sure how feasible it is to write about her complex relationship with Ghetsis in 50 words or less.
Of course, she could always call on the X-Transciever, but she doesn’t want to talk about it. It’s…
She sighs. It’s too difficult to talk about out loud, that’s all.
She’s been sitting out on the steps for a while when a person materializes out of thin air next to her, white-haired and clad in black and Hilda realizes belatedly that this is one of the Shadow Triad.
“Come to kill me?”
They shake their head no. “Not tonight.”
Hilda can’t quite help the laugh that bubbles up from her, and she scoots over on the steps to make room for the person.
“Sit,” she says, patting the spot next to her. “Talk to me.”
What a strange sight this must be, she thinks as they sit down next to her. If anyone had told her that in a year’s time she’d be sitting in front of her house - in the middle of winter, no less - with a member of the Shadow Triad, she would’ve said they were batshit crazy.
“Funny how life works sometimes, isn’t it?” Hilda asks, more to herself than anything. “Never in…” She waves her hands around wildly, searching for the right words, “…a million years would I’ve thought that one day, I’d be the savior, if you will, of Unova. Twice, nonetheless! It’s all so… so crazy,” she says with a wry smile, bringing her legs closer to her body.
She hears the Triad member hum agreeably, and the two of them settle into a comfortable silence. Hilda points out some constellations. They point out some new ones to her. The snow keeps falling.
And before she knows it, the moon is high over their heads and Hilda thinks, ‘I’m freezing.’
She must have said that out loud, because she hears the rustle of clothes, turning her head to watch as the Triad member procures something seemingly out of nowhere.
“This is his coat,” they say, handing over the folded bundle to her. “Ghetsis… sent one of us to make sure you wouldn't be cold.”
Hilda, for all her faults, can’t find the right words to tell him.
“I must say, it was pleasant to sit with you,” they say, brushing their pants free of fresh-fallen snow as they stand up. “Many thanks.”
And the Shadow Triad member disappears like they were never there, leaving Hilda by herself on the cold stone steps as she, hesitant, carefully unfolds the coat on her lap.
‘God, what a gift,’ Hilda thinks, tearing up. It’s a long, intricate thing, the black and grey eye pattern, the thick, warm lining, and she slips it on without a second thought.
It even…
She brings a corner of the coat up to her face and inhales.
It even smells like him - like his cologne, the same one that had stuck to her and her clothes when he’d first seduced her and all the subsequent times since. The warm, fuzzy feelings Hilda stomped down when she was battling him resurface with the memories of them making love and making out and she laughs, almost delirious, wiping her tears away with the sleeve.
“I still love you,” she says to no one in particular; sucks in a shivering, shuddering breath. “I’ll always love you, Ghetsis.”
Her words - frosty, clouding up her vision for a moment - disappear upwards into the night sky, and Hilda wishes that Ghetsis will catch them in his palm when they fall back down as snowflakes.