Chapter 55

Hayden was in her bed when Julian entered early the next morning. The next morning for him, anyway. For her—maybe a little longer.

Physically she hadn’t changed much, except that her hair was brushed and trimmed instead of the frizzy mess of a thousand different transformations. Well that, and new set of pajamas with little ribbons stitched under the collar, a sleeveless tank top and shorts. Both words that she hadn’t even known the last time she was in that bed.

It wasn’t long after sunrise when she heard something creak on the nearby wooden deck, and finally opened one eye. Julian stood there, entirely unchanged from their last meeting. Well—maybe not quite. Despite the environment, he smelled like fresh soap. Always the same kind, from a plant she had no name for.

"Hayden? Hayden, wake up. The sun is coming up, it’s time to go on our adventure!"

She yawned, then rose into a sitting position. "Morning Julian. I hope you… I hope you slept well."

"Y-yeah." He shifted awkwardly from foot to foot, looking away. "Are those what girl underwear looks like? It’s so weird."

He reached for her, tugging on the thin straps. She caught his hand after the first pull, before he could break it. "I guess so, yeah. Walk over to the door, then turn around. Gimme a chance to get dressed."

He obeyed, so eager for their adventure that he couldn’t even muster his usual argument whenever she asked for something. Hayden exchanged one new outfit for the other one she’d brought—a tough dress, with lots of buttons and little jagged metal lines on the inside.

The result was the same as the last time she’d worn something like it, albeit much lighter and flatter. A few zipping sounds, and she was ready for adventure. "You can look now," she said, hurrying past him. "Was there anything you wanted to see? Or just… whatever we find?"

Julian spun, a grin spreading across his face. "Mt. Quena? Mother said you can meet the Ancestors up there. If they decide to visit us, which they will, because I’m here."

Hayden nodded eagerly, taking his hand firmly in hers. "Ancestor mew, out here?"

He led her to the kitchen, where Ilene already waited with a pair of plates packed with food. "Kittens shouldn't go down to the ground on an empty stomach."

Hayden accepted her plate, hovering in the air beside the table. Ilene eyed her dress, eyes lingering on the little metal line running down one side.

“Someone had an interesting night. How many nights, I wonder.”

She pretended to be fascinated by Julian's favorite fruit pancakes. They weren't bad, though the sweetness was a little much for her early in the morning. “A few. Is that bad?”

Ilene offered a pitcher of water, then did the same for Julian. “So long as you remember your contract with the young master, no. You will produce an heir for him before any other kittens. I recall nothing in that document about respecting the traditional flow of time.”

Hayden emptied her glass, grinning back at Ilene. “No one noticed me either! We stayed as one thing the whole time.”

It didn't take long before they were out on the ground, seemingly wandering through the reserve. But Hayden knew better—despite how wild and untamed the space looked, she knew that Ilene's attention would be on them with every moment.

Either hers, or something even more powerful. Lady Moonstone had made that much clear, in just how much hope rested on the life of little Julian.

I wonder why the great families are having so much trouble having more kids. They used to have huge families, since none of them died…

Her daemon shrugged, darting through the air ahead of them. Occasionally she caught Aerie, or else vanished with her behind a nearby bush. They never got far—Aerie had even less range than Hayden.

Not sure, but he said something about it. She didn't say a name, but she didn't have to. Hayden knew exactly who her daemon meant. She couldn't ever forget.

They didn't talk about anything in particular, with her companion focused more on the novelty of their exploration. He wandered up and down, hopping onto things, climbing rocks, or else stopping to interact with wild pokémon.

Curiously, they took far less interest in Julian than they had to Hayden herself, at least during her previous experience. Maybe they too felt something must be wrong, in some subconscious way that they couldn't quite describe. Did they feel the Eldest's watching influence, ready to crush any who caused harm to the precious heir?

As they hiked, they climbed gradually higher. The air got thinner, and the plants less dense. But even a less Unified mew like Julian had no trouble with either. Aerie gradually reduced the distance between them, sustaining her human.

Hayden didn't need Liz's help with gravity or breathing, which left her daemon free to explore. She didn't though—she couldn't go anywhere without Aerie wanting to follow, leaving poor Julian gasping.

So she stayed close, hovering around Hayden instead of directly atop her shoulder.

As they climbed, the sound of rushing water gradually joined them, a distant rumble that left the air somehow charged with life and purpose.

"My mom talked about you a lot," Julian said, as the waterfall finally came into distant view. It must have been several hundred feet high, cascading down a mountain of rich green trees and swaying leaves. There was something up there, tugging on her chest in a way she'd never quite felt before.

"Says you're the most 'versatile' mew born in her lifetime. That you can make a perfect change into anything you want."

"I…" She nodded absently. "So can you. We do it all the time. Or we did. Since you don't get to see ordinary daemons otherwise. Maybe this trip means you won't have those rules anymore? You should get a chance to meet my sister, I think you'll like her!"

He stopped on the edge of a sharp drop. It wasn't far, maybe twenty feet down, before it reached a pool of crystal water. She could see so far, to the swaying bodies of numberless luminescent fish, the hidden coves and passages and caves. Her brother Hunter would kill to go down there. And now she could swim with him!

Except… he wasn't now. That was the whole problem.

"I don’t mean that. Transformation is easy. But you can do legendaries too. Some mew take years to learn a single one of those forms."

She shrugged, then skipped casually over the edge. She didn't fall of course, just hovered there over nothing as though a floor waited beneath her boots. "I bet you could do shaymin too if you practiced a little more. My sister can do them, and she's a ditto. She does have… more trouble with mew though." Loch did have a lifetime of being a shaymin even before he settled. The one time Eleanor managed to copy her, she also copied her memories and personality too. For a little while.

"She says you can do any of the great families with ease. Like… hours."

She lowered her voice, staring down over the edge. "It took… way less than that, last time."

"But there was a lot of pressure," Liz added, whispering over her shoulder. "We had to."

"I wanna see." Julian gestured to the steps leading up. They extended towards the cliff, so steep in places they were more a mountain climb than a trail. But considering the nature of mew, that wasn't a problem. The trail itself might only be a decoy, there to catch intruders who didn't belong in such a sacred place.

"You're already a mew, so that's easy. Then there's celebi. But those are extinct, so I'm not sure how you could. Unless you can copy from a book. Can we do that?"

"Not with something so complicated," Hayden said, leaping on that excuse before he could linger too long on the reasons. Hayden could try to hide her real feelings, but even Julian had enough power to know she wasn't being fully honest. Once she lost his trust, she might never get it back. "Mythical pokémon are ten times harder than a regular pokémon. Maybe even more. Celebi can… see through time. That would be really hard."

We could do it now, Liz thought. You know what it's like to be Cody. I know what it's like to be Sierra. We could go anywhere we want.

Ability didn't bind them, but promises did. They had given their word.

"So you get a pass on that one, for now," Julian said, grinning sidelong at them. "Okay, next! Jirachi. Be Ilene! Or… not her exactly. You know."

She caught his shoulder. "I can. But if you expect us to start sweeping floors and making lunch… I don't mind cooking actually, but sweeping is lame. And I'm not making your bed. Bet it smells like boy every morning!"

"So what if it does?" he demanded, floating a few inches off the ground. "You did too when you were littler. Maybe you miss it!"

She didn't continue the argument, instead focusing on this new challenge. It would've been harder for her—except that she'd been with Ilene more than she had seen Cody. Of course their relationship was not as intimate, she'd never felt a jirachi with her bare hands before. But she'd seen Ilene do it often enough to know how he worked.

Everything got… dimmer, somehow, more distant. Julian's feelings were still there, the only color in a world of gray. Where he stood, the jungle foliage was bright and green, and the waterfall sent a cascade of rainbow light through the air. Everywhere else, she saw only gray, pale fragments of light drowned into meaningless blurs.

Without intending to, Hayden's clothes were different now—a servant's dress, but the elegant white cut that Ilene wore. She was older, the same apparent age as the Mew House steward. But that was far less dramatic than some, with a girlish frame and short hair. She didn't even have a tail anymore, only a strange line across her belly where something else moved.

An eye. She felt it watching Julian even when closed. That was where the color came from. "Woah! You did it! You look just like her!"

In the satisfaction of his desires, Hayden too felt fulfilled. Warmth flooded her, warmth she had not even realized was missing until that exact moment. How could she be so cold?

If Ilene feels this way all the time…

Except when she's doing things for us, Liz whispered, settling gently onto her shoulder. The daemon's touch was light and cool, with skin of metal instead of flesh. Maybe hers was a little like that, too—like Eleanor with slime.

"You… want to take me to the top of the falls," she whispered. "You're going to give me a piece of jewelry you made, and tell me you like me. You've been planning this for—"

He shoved her mouth closed with one hand, frustrated. "Hey! You're cheating!"

"But that just means it worked," Aerie said. "They see wishes. Just like if they were real."

Hayden nodded. "We are real, Master Julian. We feel the same need to…" She shook her head once, forcing both feet onto the ground. "Do we have to stay this way?"

Though Ilene might enjoy it. When was the last time someone tried to satisfy her wants instead? Does she even have any? Liz asked.

"It is impressive," Julian admitted. "But no more reading us. Next is… Manaphy. Or all their little ones. If you wanna count phione, that's okay too."

Before she even realized what she was doing, Hayden found herself bowing, so low she almost fell over on the trail. She would have fallen over, if gravity was still holding her down. Thankfully it wasn't, and she still had her full range of motion. "Apologies, Master Julian. I've only seen… fleeting reports of manaphy. But if you would like to introduce us, I'm sure I could… learn their kind."

He rolled his eyes. "Right. Because you're super new. You've never been them. Darkrai?"

She bowed again, this time fully floating. "I was not even aware they were real. I have heard certain stories about them since I was young. But the Shaymin House always ruled Sinnoh."

He shrugged. "Figured. You started off good, but… now you're disappointing me. Shaymin?"

She wouldn't want to disappoint him.

Hayden settled both feet firmly onto the trail, then changed. She caught Liz, then got taller. She wouldn’t be wearing a dress, not in a place like this—a pair of colorful overalls would work much better, sleeveless and without covering her knees either. Better to feel nature all around her than hide away from it.

"I could show you our other forme, but we would need gracidea. Your family has a garden of it growing near my quarters at my request, but I would never pluck it to bring it with me. That would kill the flower." She recoiled as she said it, as though speaking of some terrible ecological catastrophe.

"You look exactly like a shaymin," Julian pronounced. "They even walk like that. All… balanced. They hold their daemons in all the portraits."

"I didn't know you could see those," Hayden said, surprised. This forme was several inches shorter than Julian, but maybe that was just the shaymin she picked. His playmate, not some lady of the house like she usually imagined. Some stuffy houseplant like Lady Gracidea would never come up here!

"I couldn't before," he admitted. "But after I settled… Ilene sometimes lets me. She never leaves the books, but we do get to read them. History books sometimes have portraits. Anyway, do the other one. I think you don't need a flower. Don't transform like they do, transform like mew do."

He floated up onto a nearby outcrop, where the trail became particularly steep. Changing was probably a good idea anyway—if she climbed that with her own strength, she might take a nice long fall over the edge.

"I never… thought about it like that," she admitted. Technically, there was nothing more or less her about a land forme than there was in the sky forme. Just because she saw Lady Gracidea in one more than the other…

Because Sky Forme is male. The leader of her house clearly preferred one body to another, no matter what she said about plant flexibility.

"You sure you want to see him?" Hayden asked. "Sky forme can't just fly, they're guys. Always."

He nodded again. "Just like how land forme are girls, even if the Eldest looks like one. I knew before I asked! Just don't expect to get to stay that way. You're betrothed to me, not the other way around."

She had trained with the other forme often enough. But what would it feel like to shift directly?

She got taller, her trousers got longer, and suddenly she found out. No flowers needed, because this was a whole new person. More adventurous, louder, and braver. Otherwise, they would stay a girl like Hayden did. This version of her wanted all those things.

"Alright kid, here I am." He landed on the outcrop beside Julian a few seconds later, stretching both arms. Partly to stretch the flower around his neck, and partly just to feel what it was like. "Sky forme, Liz and me. Do you really need to ask? We're gonna get it right."

Julian looked up, imitating his pose, stretching one arm to either side, then resting the other on his hip. "That barely took you a second!"

He patted Julian's head, before circling past him. "Just because I didn't train this way doesn't mean I didn't know how. I just stayed away from it most of the time. My sister used it more than I did. I didn't realize she was my brother back then. Mythicals are weird."

He retreated near the edge. He couldn't just step out over the edge and float there anymore, but he also didn't want to. Why walk up this hill when he could feel the wind whipping through his hair the whole way up? There was no need to clean the air here, it was already as pure as anywhere could be. But he could still experience it!

"I honestly thought this would… mean something." He looked down, past a flat frame to where all the other male things ended up. "Maybe Lady Gracidea was right. It's all just clothes to wear. I remember how much it mattered before… but it just doesn't. Hey kid, wanna race?"

Julian caught his wrist with both hands, tugging him back. Despite far weaker psychic powers, the mew had a very different kind of pull, one that would not be easy to resist. "Not right now! I want to see the next one. Victini."

Hayden wilted. Literally in this case, his leaves losing much of their green. He backed away from Julian, all the way to the cliff. "Nah. You don't want to see that. They're… jerks."

"No they aren't!" he pressed. "A whole kind of pokémon can't be mean or nice. They just are! I know you can do it… Ilene said she saw it happen."

She saw, and didn't help me? One hand balled into a fist. She felt entirely abandoned—if the other pokémon had been there, maybe she wouldn't have felt so desperate!

But whatever her anger, Julian had nothing to do with it. "You won't be mean, because you're Hayden," he continued. "Go on. I want to see."

He probably would have, if another voice had not joined them.

"I'm sure she can do it. But here it would be better if she looked right. This is a sacred place, divided ones. It deserves respect."