Chapter 59

Hayden landed in the grass, surrounded by… basically nothing. A short circle of low moss and comfortable green extended beneath her, with much taller reeds not far away. Those formed an obstructing barrier like walls. Nothing that would stop her from walking of course, though at least it gave her privacy.

She couldn't hear any other voices, not the servants or the conversation of many watching pokémon—but she could feel their minds, almost all in the same direction, off on her right. At a guess, they were a few kilometers away through the fields, far enough that they couldn't easily walk to her.

Not everyone was so far, though. The grass rustled and shifted, and a handful of people emerged.

Boys and girls from the serving staff, each one holding little bundles for her. They stumbled forward, disoriented from their own teleportations, then dropped to the ground in front of her.

"The lady may dress as she chooses," a girl said. "You are told… that a gown will not serve with the trial. Choose something that makes you more comfortable."

Poor girl sounded like she might break into tears if Hayden got near her. She nodded gratefully, but passed by her offering. Whatever this “trial” was, she didn't much feel like wearing a simpler version of her kimono for the experience.

Two boys, two girls, all with servant daemons. She passed them in turn, feeling the not-quite-formed mercurial reality of their spirits. Of course she didn't get anywhere close to touch them by accident, even floating.

She stopped by the boy on the end, eyeing his daemon. "Leafeon. That's a challenging daemon for someone your age."

He held out both arms for her, proffering the short pink sundress in her direction. It wouldn't even reach her knees—better if she had to do any fighting.

The other kids each lowered their arms, backing out of her way. Even so they remained, holding their own offerings in case she changed her mind. They seemed relieved by her choice, somehow.

"I dunno," the kid answered. "Easy for us. All of 'em are. Grasses."

She held the light fabric to her chest. It was a perfect fit—might have come straight out of her own closet for all she knew. Liz, meanwhile, was totally uninterested in her, and instead drifted closer to the little leafeon.

She was a curious pokémon—the size of a child's daemon, but so well developed. Many children didn't have the imagination to capture an evolved pokémon like her at all.

"You recreate the likeness perfectly. And I should know—I grew up an eevee."

Hayden gestured to the assembled children, commanding. "I don't know… exactly why you're all here. But if you could turn around, that would be great. I won't take long."

Three obeyed instantly. The fourth went slower, to her growing annoyance. He was nearly old enough to settle, with an evolved daemon and all. He knew why she didn't want strangers watching!

"That ain’t never happened," he insisted. "It's not real what they say—people don't settle as just anything. You're something of your station."

Finally he turned. Hayden waited to make sure none were peeking at her, then slipped out of the intricate kimono. She held it carefully in the air, where the beautiful silk wouldn't be soiled on damp ground. The new dress went on much easier, just had to hold her arms up and lower it down. She ditched the fancy shoes and socks completely—bare feet would do better, if she even had to walk at all.

"It's not normal," Liz said, mostly to the leafeon. For a stranger, she was quite close to the little daemon, brushing along her leafy tail. "But it can happen, if you have a good reason. Did for us."

The kid spun back around, sticking out his chest. The others looked too, mostly to stare in horror at their companion's boldness. "Sure it did. You ain't halfway from one of the big families at all. Just a normal eevee. That's why you've got a tail and those ears like a pokémon, even though you're same age as us. All that… magic they have. Just came to you natural too."

Hayden glared back at him. No servant had ever dared to talk to her like this before. In Shaymin House, she would be disciplined if she let it happen. A house of order required that some basic standards be maintained.

But no matter how badly she wanted to start yelling at him, or at least pretending to yell, the anger wouldn't come.

"Shut up!" The girl beside him whispered, harsh. "They can do anything they want to you. Do you ever want to see your parents again?"

"Too late! Never got none."

Hayden opened her mouth to reply—and she was somewhere else. The center of the dance floor now, in a teleport so smooth that her dress didn't even ripple in the breeze. Liz dropped sideways onto the floor, falling off a leafeon that wasn't even there anymore.

She wasn't alone on the dance floor. A great metal box rested there, covered with rust so thick it flaked off onto the ice on either side.

People and daemons gathered around the floor, packing in to watch in dense groups. Not all even cared—a decent number of guests were too interested in their meals to observe Hayden's struggle.

The lesser families probably didn't think about how this went—the presence of one more mew in the world was too far above them to make a difference.

No mythical was absent—the high table was now positioned at the edge of the ice floor, with chairs arranged for many of their other members.

Another seat on that table was empty now. Lord Iron stood beside the box, in his simple smock. In the light of full sun, his body reflected more glare than the floor beneath them.

"Right of trial is granted to Lord Iron," the Eldest said, his voice echoing through the clearing. "Its terms are his to dictate."

"Simple," he said, rapping two fingers on the box. With his touch, something shifted inside—something heavy, flowing as though it were just coming to life. "A challenge fatal to lesser liquids. A chance to surrender and return to the collective, if she wishes."

Hayden floated forward, head down. Every person in this room could make her life miserable—one of them already was, at that moment. She had no desire to provoke more hostility.

But Lord Iron was already putting her on trial. He couldn't hate her more. She whispered to his mind, in the passive way that one legendary could speak to another. If he didn't want to listen, he wouldn't have to.

“You can't think that all these pokémon were wrong about me.”

To her surprise, the thin line of his features formed into a smile. Almost like Loch, though far less cute. “A new candidate to our assembly may face only one trial, shapeshifter. By facing mine, no other may speak.”

That stopped her dead, her tail stretching out vertically behind her in a sudden burst of shock. "We're ready. We claim the right of… reincarnation. Ahuiliztli and I aren't deceiving. We have nothing to hide." There were probably more specific words she could use during an occasion like this. But there wasn't supposed to be a challenge. How could she even know to be prepared for it?

"The mew will face this collective. First, she will prove the flexibility of her kind." He gestured, and something leapt out of his arms, landing on the ice in front of her. It impacted with enough force that the ice cracked, sending a spiderweb of white splintering out from the point of impact. The creature there was among the smallest pokémon she'd ever seen, a silvery blob of metal with a yellow head and a tiny sphere at the center.

"Become us."

"That request is not reasonable," said a voice from the crowd, emerging on the floor. Lady Gracidea had her daemon balanced in her arms. She didn't fly, though of course she had the form to do so if she wanted to. "Mastering a mythical form requires great study. My adopted daughter can't be pressed to do so in seconds."

Maybe I shouldn't be, but here we are again.

Hayden looked between them, the lord of metal and the blob at his feet.

"Yet it is what I require even so," he said. "If she was not powerful enough to be here, perhaps you should not have presented her. She may always fail and try again."

Fail. If she failed to get formal recognition here—it would mean any of these other legendaries would have free reign to attempt anything they wanted. Fae wouldn't be the only one to try something on her in the next six months.

“Tell me about your kind,” she thought to him, keeping her head down respectfully. “Liz and I don't know what it's like to be… Meltan?”

“We are far simpler than most. There are no complex organs or organ systems to duplicate. We have no bones, no sinew, and no muscle. Even a ditto could do it—though they could not survive what waits inside that box.”

"I am ready, Noble Mother," Hayden said, loud enough for everyone to hear. She floated up into the air an inch or two, her tail moving gently back behind her.

But privately, her attention was still on the metallic lord. “That isn't what I mean. I mean the experience of being one. Not the… guts. How does it feel?”

She could never read such a simplistic expression, and with a powerful legendary, she felt none of their emotions they did not wish her to know.

But when the pokémon chose to share with her, there was almost nothing she couldn't experience. In this case, that meant the profound, twisting, warping feeling of a body that refused to settle into a single shape.

But unlike her sister, that instability came with hunger, gnawing at her insides and demanding greater satisfaction. Energy churned within, always fading, demanding a renewed source of fuel. How could anyone stay sane against such force?

“Oh.” She shuddered, nodding weakly. To become one of these creatures would not be as simple as the many other transformations she used.

She let it happen anyway. Lost her ears, lost her tail, lost all but the suggestion of definition. All color faded from her world, replaced with a sense that was entirely different, yet somehow overlapped. Instead of light reflected, she saw the metal within. The faces of others became veins.

Only one being in all the world still looked human to her eyes—Lord Iron, whose entire face still had the requisite shape. She bent down, scooping her own daemon up into her arms.

Where her skin touched Liz, their bodies passed freely through each other, merging and melting and reforming with no clear boundaries. What had once been only her mind was now true for her body too.

"Surely this is enough to satisfy you, Lord Iron," the Eldest said. While other sounds now seemed shallow and empty, his voice remained clear. The intention behind it was as powerfully electrical as any current. "Unless you propose a fragment of the collective could wield mew powers. If so—they would be indistinguishable from our own kind. This is not possible."

"It is not," he agreed. "Yet I am not satisfied. I will be, in a moment." He reached down, grasping a lever on the side of the metal box. With a heavy tug, the top opened, revealing silvery liquid within. It frothed and boiled, until a few yellow bolts floated to the surface, with a single drop of metal within.

Meltan, without humans.

“You keep your honored ancestors in a box?” Liz asked.

“Sometimes it's easier to travel this way,” said one—not the lord's daemon.

"Step inside. If your mind is mythical, you will endure. If not, you will be devoured."

Somewhere deep inside, Hayden still knew fear as she'd grown up with it. But the form she wore didn't experience that feeling in the same way. There was only higher and lower levels of certainty—in her case, she was entirely certain of her safety, no matter what the lord declared.

She stepped in over the edge, onto what should've been the surface of a liquid sea.

Only her bare foot passed through it, parting around her to either side. For a few seconds, until the creatures resolved into individual shapes. Not a few meltan—but hundreds of them, each with a single watching eye. They dragged her downward, into depths of the container that defied the measurement of space.

Or more likely, nothing of the sort. They were melting her, another liquid into the mass. Wait until Eleanor hears about this, she thought, or maybe Liz. She couldn't quite tell which was which right then.

"This is cruel, even an imposter shouldn't die this way—" someone said. Someone else screamed. It wasn't her though—if they thought melting into metal was hurting her, they obviously hadn't tried it recently.

She could only describe the sensation as pleasantly cool, falling asleep in a room filled with a dozen friends all in their own little sleeping bags. Then they woke up.

Who is Eleanor? one asked.

She conjured the memory to answer—her sister, more flexible by the day, and her melting daemon. She showed them some of the adventures they had, trying different things.

That's why you're here, another said. We are something different.

You are, she agreed. I don't know very much about you. I just know that you're powerful.

We're hungry. That chain you brought isn’t enough. Want something else.

Chain… it took her a moment to remember—but then she did. The chain on Julian's moonstone necklace.

Please don't eat that! It's very important to someone I care about! I'll bring more metal later. Just tell me where to find you.

So they did. She saw their domain, heard the drumbeats of the blacksmiths constantly working in their forges. She tasted iron and bronze and tin and copper, and knew the best parts of each.

The demonstration is complete, kitten. You should get up now, before they think you died.

She didn't want to—but Liz was there to urge her, and so she moved. She made fingers, a hand, an arm—and all the rest of it, more or less the way she usually did. The dress was still there, since it wasn't made of anything good for eating. They had even left the necklace!

She rose to cheering, hollow sounds echoing from thin metal lines in the faces of people she couldn't quite see. Except for Lord Iron with features and voice still clear. "My ancestors and I are in accord. The kitten is accepted. We welcome her to our council."