Chapter 31

Quinn didn't leave that night. Yet no matter how much he didn't want to leave, he could make no argument to Avery's reasoning. To stay meant undermining her efforts to foster a new, more merciful faction among the Mew of Starfall. They could never learn that the cat arguing for a forced separation and exile for the persistent variants also had a family with one!

Every goodbye hurt—but one most of all. Mew lived a long time, he should see his mate and daughter again. Once he traveled forward enough to see what happened in their timeline, he would know where to find them, or intervene.

But his old partner Sirius was a very different story. Sirius lived on the surface with him, along with the fairly sizable extended family he had created with Baast. Surviving together until their rescue had fostered considerable cooperation between the two of them. Besides, after Sirius evolved, he was even Psychic too.

Yet now he was old, his limbs stiff and his fur silver-gray instead of bright orange. He spent most days reclining in the shade around the house, training or telling stories or just enjoying the company of his large extended family. Thanks to the natural patterns of Pokémon breeding, his children were all cats, so he towered over them almost as high as a human might.

Quinn had spent much time around him in the last few decades. Whenever he ventured away from the home on terraforming assignments, the fox was there. Sometimes he joined him on other missions too, out of loyalty that survived even the loss of Quinn's first species.

Still, that was no reason he couldn't bring something special for such an important day. A gift of real meat, fish taken from the nearby river. Quinn didn't have to understand the appeal of eating flesh anymore to know his old friend would appreciate the offering.

They sat together under the shade of a leafy canopy, with a few dozen cats sheltering around their seat from the low drizzle of rain outside. Some were evolved, many had not yet, and sat in poses of intense concentration. Their power required focus, or it turned destructive.

Many watched him with interest, just as they would observe Rose or Avery. "Master brings a gift," Sirius said. "You wish to ask me to journey with you again."

Quinn floated closer. Were this fox anyone else, he might've kept his distance from the heat of that flame. But his good friend was no threat to him, despite the type advantage. "Not this time, Sirius," he said. The older the Pokémon got, the more complex his vocabulary became. Talking to him felt almost human. "I would not ask you, because I know I won't be coming home."

He buzzed away from the chair, until he was looking up at the distant house. "You would rather spend the next few years here."

The fox said nothing for a long time. He reached for one of the nearby gray kittens, and ran a paw through their soft fur. "I can do more for my grandchildren than I can for you, master. I would like to teach someone, but there is nothing left for me to show you."

Quinn embraced the fox, as close as the heat of his fur permitted. "I remember the day we met. You were small enough to carry with one hand."

"Not that I would let you," Sirius said. "Now look."

Quinn sniffed. "I'm sorry I can't spend these years with you. But if I stay, many will die. Your children and mine. If I leave, I give them a future."

Could the fox understand something so abstract?

Apparently so. Sirius released him and stood, despite a brief struggle on shaky limbs. "I always knew master was greater than I. I grew tall and I grew stiff, and he barely changed. I knew you would endure when I was gone. Did I do well, master?"

"You were perfect," Quinn said. "But don't call me master anymore, okay? I was your friend."

"Goodbye, friend," Sirius said.

Of course it wasn't all farewells. For some, Quinn was only there as an observer.

Rose did not want to leave, nor could the little kitten understand why Quinn and Avery were separating. Even if she couldn't comprehend their emotions, the Mew way of sharing thoughts meant she knew they still cared for each other. How could they do this?

Avery tried to explain, but the kitten showed only confusion at the prospect. "Mommy is very good at hiding things, but Daddy and Rose aren't. You have to go away for a while so Mommy can save the world."

Rose cried a lot, argued, even threatened to run away. But she was too young to put up any meaningful resistance. Cedrin would be coming with, so she wouldn't have to say goodbye to her big brother.

"Mommy will see you again," Avery explained, her voice gentle but firm. "I might be a little older. But I won't love you any less."

Quinn was there until the end, until Rose made her last tearful separation from her mother, and floated over to him. He held her until Stella's teleportation carried them away to a familiar cave.

There were already bats living inside, though obviously not the same ones Quinn had last met. These took one look at the gathering of powerful Pokémon, and flew off with only mild protest.

"I'll be here when you get to the present," Stella said. She stretched in the air, yawning wide. "Don't worry about hiding me from yourself. I'll find somewhere out of sight to hide until we go back in time. I volunteered for this to… get some damn sleep, and now I will."

"Centuries of it?" Cedrin asked. He kept close to his new sister, as he often did when they traveled. Little Rose might not act afraid of wild Pokémon the way most kittens would, but she was still vulnerable. "Won't you get bored? Feels like a long time to sleep."

She stuck her tongue out. "You're plants. Plants move fast. You have to keep chasing the sun. I'm a rock. It's okay to rest for a while. I'd say I will last a lot longer than you, but…" She shrugged. "You cheat. You could probably go all the way to when I die now, if you wanted."

"If we didn't have other places to be," Quinn said, before Cedrin could get goaded into it. The other Celebi could travel on his own now, as evidenced by his presence in the past. But he also still acted like a child. Mythical Pokémon lived a long time, and the time it took them to mature demonstrated that fact. "When we know we have a future, maybe we'll go look for you there. You can share your wisdom with us."

"That sounds fun!" Cedrin said, beaming. "I still wanna see the time you come from, Quinn! A whole planet covered in humans with Pokémon partners living with them."

He knew how upset Rose must be from her silence. The kitten kept her tail curled around herself, bobbing up and down close to her father. She watched Cedrin with big blue eyes, but said nothing.

"I hope we can go do that too," Quinn said. Cedrin's time in the past had given him something like the childhood he deserved. Long enough to forget about the Admiralty's plan, and the extinction they had brought. Cedrin spoke as though they had a future.

That was where they went—forward to the same day Quinn had first stepped back. No strange gods stopped his path this time. His bonds to the future meant an easy trail to follow, all the way forward to the moment they had left, and a little past it.

He still didn't know how paradoxes worked, and wasn't eager to meet himself. As it turned out, he would learn a little about them anyway, because someone was waiting for them.

Not just a sleeping Stella, tucked away in her crystal. Now the levels of mineralization around it made a lot more sense, knowing she had spent several centuries tucked away in the back of a cave. But Quinn already knew she would be there.

But Rose was a surprise. A bigger Rose, with a little uniform vest and a metal pin over her chest. Younger than her mother had been a few hours ago, though well over twice the size of the kitten. "Hi Dad. And… me." She waved with one little paw, grinning weakly at them. Yet for her emotions, Quinn felt almost nothing. Not even a flicker of something leaking from the edges of her mind.

The kitten whimpered, cowering suddenly against his chest. She covered her face, tail flicking rapidly back and forth behind her. "Who is that?"

Cedrin glanced between them, apparently sensing what Quinn had already figured out. He floated towards the strange mew, his eyes on her vest more than her body.

But now that Quinn had spent so much time with Pokémon, the cats didn't look the same. There was no mistaking her for anyone else, even if she insulated her thoughts.

"Isn't it bad for you to…" Cedrin looked between them. "What are you doing here?"

"Stopping my dad from making a mess." She brushed past Cedrin, close enough to touch her fur against him in a feline hello. "Mostly selfish. I'm sure my dad would figure out that I needed to come back here if this didn't happen. But just in case, here I am."

She floated over, until she was directly in front of him. The kitten in his arms shuddered, but she didn't retreat any further. Instead she whimpered, pressing herself flat against his chest. But that was all. "Don't worry, little me. You'll be ready when the time comes."

Quinn finally spoke, into her mind. The kitten wouldn't overhear. The others probably wouldn't either, though Cedrin's powers were getting stronger now. Maybe some of those emotions would slip through. "You're older than I remember."

She floated past him, without touching the kitten he held. Her scent was similar, though changed a little from her greater age. "Old enough to take her place. Old enough to master everything you taught me. To create the future I'll be raised in."

"Daddy, why does she smell like me?" Rose asked. Tiny Rose, tucked up against his chest.

The older one floated lower, stretching vertically so her soft pink fur didn't touch any of the dirt and worse things lingering along the cavern floor. "Because I remember seeing what I would be like one day," she said, out loud this time. "I grew up knowing what I could become. I grew up knowing one day I would need to be brave."

She leaned in close, embracing Quinn in the same way she always had, tucking her head under his. "Thanks for everything, Dad. You never told me what happens after today, but I'm sure I did my best."

"Sweetie—" Her weight vanished from in front of him in a little flash, leaving only a faint dust of pink fur behind her. Quinn spent a few stunned seconds staring at nothing, before he finally started moving. He held Rose off his chest, running one soothing hand down her back. "Guess you're gonna grow up to be brave," he said. "But we didn't have to travel through time to find that out. I already knew you were brave when you came with me."

"Yeah, yeah." She pushed away from him, tail trailing out through the air. "You always say things like that, Daddy."

And I was right to say them. After all these years, he hadn't even remembered. The original plan was to return here and put Avery back in her position, so she could covertly return to life among the Mew of Starfall.

Cedrin stared at the place she'd been, expression wistful. "I hope Mom—I hope Avery did it," he said. "I don't want to fight. I want to fly through time! See what my little sister is like, see how the world turns out. If the others are okay…"

"We're about to find out," Quinn said. "If they even still remember us. Avery's Separatists might've got their way by now."

"Maybe. I hope it gets less confusing. I'm still here. Didn't disappear because we didn't meet, or something. And Stella's crystal is still here. Does that mean she failed?"

"No way," Rose said, confidence in her little voice. "Mom can do anything!"