At first Kirikai latched onto Frostfire's blasphemy, searching greedily for the perfect biting retort he knew lay within the annals of his mind.

  Demons? he thought. The only demon here is you. And he smiled at his own wit.

  Then he registered what exactly his opponent was proposing. His jaw fell open.

  "That - that isn't possible," he stammered. "How would we ever pull it off? They won't know what we want."

  "I am fass-ill-it-tated ," Frostfire yowled again, his eyes closing in self-satisfaction. A shooting star's tail of sparks flew past him. "It is my weight to carry. He will know."

  "You know that won't last forever. It won't last after the battle."

  Frostfire cocked his head. "After battle? Why us need wait?"

  He wanted to switch right this moment? For all of Kirikai's fears, he couldn't gather why Frostfire would find it so urgent, especially now that he...

  He will know. Sun, across the strip, still alive with energy. Energy going nowhere as Frostfire stayed his claws. Sun... why Sun? What did Sun have to offer him that Aldina couldn't?

  The answer slipped in at once, swift and unbidden: Love.

  Aldina - no. Mizuki. Her Name was Mizuki and she wasn't his creator, she wasn't a goddess, she was a person. And not even a fully grown person. A mere pup. She hurt and hated and blamed others for her own flaws. Perhaps the Incineroars' name for her kind truly was more apt. Demons.

  But the word demon implied an evil she simply did not possess. Would a demon be able to feed Kirikai, and give him shelter, and grant him their energy without requiring something in return? The Incineroars did not know what demons were. Demons only had the capacity to take, and take, and take.

  But, he considered then, Mizuki knew exactly how to take. The cost of her energy was life. A flower wilts. Beauty dies against them.

  Didn't she love him? Perhaps not enough to respect who he was, but - but, maybe she had been right all along. He was a weapon. He had been born a weapon, a tool, the same as the Litten facing him now. They were the same soul in different skins. If he couldn't act as what he had been created to be, he didn't deserve love or grace. For her to afford him her power would be for her to waste it.

  "We have no voices," he protested, resigning to his fate. To his emptiness. The end was in sight, and he could nearly feel its embrace. Aldina - Mizuki - would take him to the Pokémon Center, and she'd forgive him and tell him it was alright and she loved him. And maybe, just maybe, he'd rediscover some once-lost strength inside himself to squeak to her the same.

  Frostfire smiled sadly. "Not as they do, naaa. But you have many feelings... that's what matters right here, right now. Not good form to give up."

  Kirikai's eyes wandered to the red, which had come to wind down his flipper and stain the ground. In the corner of his eye lurked the clockwork doll's shadow. The spikes of fur on Frostfire's back had flattened, making him appear much softer. The river of moonlight warped around him, as if he were but a pebble in its way.

  "You must be..." he paused, searching for 'deceiving' and settling on the closest approximation he knew. "...Doing wrong... to me. I don't think you would give up 'facilitated'. I know I wouldn't."

  "You know not me," Frostfire said. "You know not my life, my past. You know not my want."

  Not for certain. But Kirikai did believe he had an idea.

  "You have always been... wanted," Frostfire continued. "My kind kills us white ones. Only demons stop them. You know not what it is to be not wanted anywhere. But her wants me. Sun not want: he think me bad. He think himself bad too."

  "Bad? Why?"

  "Do not know. Demons demons for a reason. They no know laws of nature. They make selves complex and world is simple." Frostfire smirked again. "Stupid demons. Stupid Sun."

  The excitement of the gathered children had come to wane over the course of the battle, and now they started to simmer with actual anger. Mizuki clenched her jaw and dug her heel into the ground. The sandy-haired boy had taken a seat against one of the headstones and appeared to be dozing. Marion, too, a little ways off from him.

  The only one to retain their focus was Sun. He was... elsewhere, Kirikai thought. Beyond. He felt if he were to look into his eyes he might be able to steal a glimpse of some higher plane.

  C:\humans\keon> 'Holy shit, when is one of them going to do something? '

  Sun rolled his tongue, mulling over his response to Keon's words. But Mizuki beat him to the punch.

  C:\humans\mizuki> 'Harmony's got a lot left in the tank. Don't underestimate her.'

  Kirikai struggled upright, gritting and gnashing his rows of flat teeth. An odd sensation came over him, as if he had become the axis of the Earth's orbit and could feel the stars spinning around him in the Above. And their eyes.

  Oh, their eyes.

  C:\humans\sun> 'You're bluffing. There's no way you honestly believe that. You'd have to be blind not to see she's this close to fainting.'

  (So that was what the spinning meant. Their eyes, so eager to bear witness to his glorious defeat.)

  C:\humans\sun> 'You've been overworking her, haven't you? She couldn't have gotten this way from only one or two battles.'

  C:\humans\mizuki> 'It's true we've been training a ton. But I wouldn't call it overwork . It was only a little more than I do on the regular.'

  C:\humans\sun> 'But Harmony isn't used to your schedule. She isn't used to training for hours and hours on end.'

  Kirikai shut his eyes. I am not weak, he thought, trying to will it straight into Sun's mind. Imagining it as an arrow aimed to pierce the veil of flame surrounding him. I am not weak.

  C:\humans\mizuki> 'Well, she oughtta get used to it. A Pokémon's a reflection of her Trainer. Everyone knows that. Even you.'

  The sparks around Sun seemed to gain minds of their own: they swirled around him, shielding him like a curtain. A few stragglers blasted straight into the dust, persisting for a few moments longer before finally dying out. Sun arched his shoulders and raised his balled fists. Mizuki stumbled backwards, spooked by his sudden animation.

  C:\humans\sun> 'No, no, no, they aren't! That's not how this works. That's not how ANY of this works. She's not a toy for you to play with or a screen for you to project what you like onto. And - and, yes, neither is Frostfire. They are what they are. Not what we are.'

  C:\humans\mizuki> 'You aren't even proud of him, are you? You can't even appreciate what you've got right in front of you. That's pretty damn sad.'

  Sun softened, but disappointment marred his voice.

  C:\humans\sun> 'That's rich, coming from you. Don't think I don't remember what you were going to say back at the malasada shop.'

  What Mizuki had been intending to say. Kirikai had tried to shove it away into the back corner of his mind, where he could safely forget all about it and call that forgiveness. He ought to curse Sun for picking at the scab. For making it real. His heart cratered.

  With a single sentence, she had let her mask slip. Shown him a glimpse of some shadow-creature underneath, rumbling with unspoken loathing. He could call it a trick of the light, or a fault of his vision, or a nightmare his mind had made a memory. But the memory would always linger.

  C:\humans\mizuki> 'If I hadn't been so set on getting a Popplio, one of you'd be stuck with...'

  C:\humans\mizuki> 'stuck with'

  C:\humans\mizuki> 'stuck with'

  stuck with him.

  But she hadn't really meant that -

  Don't kid yourself.

  Eyes on his back again - Mizuki's, Sun's, Frostfire's, all the others'; those of the god living in the moon, those of the stars, and those of the dead under his flippers. He wanted to crawl into the earth and join them down there forever. Then they'd really be stuck with him.

  He recalled Mizuki wild and manic, ordering him to slam his flippers against an unlocked door. Remembering the fluid, her wails, his wails, vision going black. Why had that happened? This world puzzled him at every turn and she wouldn't be the one to help him solve it. She wouldn't care for the answer. If anything, she was the question.

  What had Frostfire said? The world was simple? What a joke.

  When he turned back to him, Frostfire dipped his head, his mouth still cut into a smile. "Not worth it," he said. "Better this way. I didn’t get before, but now I respect."

  Kirikai drew in a breath. Find his strength. Find his strength. It was in there somewhere: he was a fount of it. Why had he ever allowed her to plant those insidious seeds of doubt in his mind? "I... I respect you as well."

  "We both respect," Frostfire said. "Let us do it."

  He wound his agile body into a ball, his mouth moving. No sound came to accompany it apart from his ragged breaths. The world paused under Kirikai’s flippers.

  Nothing moved.

  Then -

  Mizuki, Frostfire, proxy. Triad, activated.

  Sun, Kirikai, proxy, and her. Tetrad, activated.

  Who was that? By his side now. Orange sparks of light orbited him, too. There was a woman dancing around the edges of the strip, and the shape of her was blue fire. The word goddess, Kirikai thought, might not be such an exaggeration now. She waltzed to his side, picked him up in her elegant arms, and pointed to a tower of water, reaching to the sky, past the clouds, to the edges of the ever expanding universe. Like a mighty Milotic from one of the old legends, said to be the only Pokémon with beauty comparable to the gods’.

  This was it. This was facilitation. Kirikai stared at the tower, transfixed. With each beat of his heart it grew taller and wider and he could feel its ocean spray on his face and a hand on his back, stroking his fur the way the clockwork doll had. But with feeling. He blinked and he and the goddess were standing at its apex and Sun and Mizuki and Frostfire and all the others were ants and out in the distance Hau'oli was nirvana, teeming with a swirling neon luminosity. From this angle, he could cobble together an image of the whole shape of this island.

  Below him, the world was revolving.

  The two of them slid down the liquid tower wall, him tangled in her arms, her chuckling in his ear. Sun and Mizuki still stood deadlocked, still as statues and seeming just as tall, and neither spoke. The connection transfer was subtle to the outside observer and obvious to the both of them. Mizuki's eyes had gone wide. Sun...

  Sun was dazzling as he never had before.

  "You're a very kind-hearted little one," the facilitator said. She had no breath, and yet he swore he still could feel it on his ear. He imagined the lushness of her voice would make even a Primarina prickle with envy. "Aren't you? You are. Now, tell me: what's your name, little one?"

  A Name. What an odd little thing a Name was. A Name made something real, didn't it? Kirikai, 'revolution', around his Sun. How fitting.

  But... he wasn't meant to revolve, and he didn't want to be revolved around. He understood his father had intended only good when he'd selected his name, but he'd risen above the need for it, like a Metapod evolving, escaping its chrysalis. Sodden wings drying and unfolding to take to the sky: his birthright.

  No, the two of them should ought to live in peace, waltzing to the same tempo, the beat of their hearts in synchrony. This decision was the both of theirs, and theirs alone.

  That was how it was meant to be.

  So let it now be reclaimed:

  C:\humans\sun> 'Harmony.'

  Harmony resolved.

  And she was at his back, the boy’s mother, petting him, stroking his fur, whispering encouragements like incantations to stir his soul. Harmony, show yourself. Your very very truest self.

  C:\humans\sun> 'Harmony. Water Gun.'

  "I hear you loud and clear."

  Frostfire froze; then deftly juked aside to dodge Harmony's incoming spurt, his tail whipping away like a ribbon in a zephyr. But his eyes had gone to slits, and his smile faded.

  I've got you now.

  Harmony couldn't avoid another slash. As powerful as the energy was, it couldn't overcome his lack of mobility. But it could aid him in his recovery, and he leaped to the side, hydrant glands ballooning again. In his chest this time: there was a subtle burble as it expanded against his other tissues. In his excitement and his overflowing he hiccupped a bubble.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  C:\humans\sun> 'That's my Harmony.'

  "We are on equal ground now," he said in his own language. "We are -" another spurt - "One and the same."

  Frostfire shut his eyes against his water. At the points where it struck his fur, bursts of steam arose and snaked off into the gloom. "Of course," he said, catching Harmony off-guard. It hadn't been him he had intended to address.

  "You can speak Popplio? Why didn't you say anything?"

  "All the same to me," Frostfire said in between pants. "Language never come natural. Nothing ever do. Only battle."

  He stretched his legs, his tail winding upwards, his joints giving an audible pop - then dropped into the hunting crouch. The sound of his steps escaped Harmony's ear, but the blades of dead grass rustled slightly.

  The inevitable pounce wasn't as fluid - Frostfire stumbled, leaving an opening for Harmony to sweep him off his paws and onto the green. His flippers slapped against him in repetitive taps, tap, tap, slap, thwapp, thwapp, until Frostfire let out a tortured growl, sprung back to his paws, and tackled him. The both of them toppled over, tumbling and tussling.

  This was what it had come down to: a steam-powered catfight.

  And a catfight it was. The sparks flew to Harmony's aid, shielding his eyes from Frostfire's wanton slashes. He could only force one back open, and when he did he saw his water had a fresh tint of red. Or perhaps it was only the faint luminescence of the Litten's stripes bronzing it.

  Fluid erupted from Harmony's throat, and he couldn't recall ever having been able to produce so much of it. He was the ocean, long and deep and vast, carrying all Alola in his safety. There was no need for him to spare a thought to aiming with Frostfire this close; close enough for their ribcages to touch. By this point, Frostfire’s eyes had gone crossed, and he returned to speaking in tongues:

  "Grra... rrnya.... frrygraa.... paa-shaa... aaaaa.... vsaaa...."

  And in a flicker it was over.

  The tide receded, and the pain rolled in, seizing Harmony's muscles. He peeled off Frostfire, and Frostfire off him, and the two collapsed in tandem. Puffs of steam still blew from the spot where they had met, languidly rising, curling around the shape of the full moon in the Above. If he focused his good eye straight on it, on that island in the sea of dark, Harmony could almost believe he was okay.

  The two lay side by side, heads aching, bodies aching, souls aching. The kids trembled closer, and dared to peer through the light of the controlled flame. Chatter overlapped, and somehow, the children spoke in Harmony's language, soothing him. For the very first time, they were knowable.

  "- they were so close -"

  "...but what are we going to do? What's Ilima going to..."

  "...just downright evil, you know, to let him go for the eyes..."

  "We were so close."

  Mizuki.

  "We are so close."

  And Sun.

  A blur spindled around the edges of Harmony's vision, like the old Tauros' cataracts. He blinked over and over again but still it loomed there, a prophecy of coming silence. A dark little respite.

  You fought hard. You fought well. I'm proud of you, Harmony. You've got a lot to be proud of.

  The world revolved under him, and a faint nausea arose in the pit of his stomach. The blur deepened, cut apart to black threads.

  What did you think of... my true self? Did you like me?

  I did , Sun thought to him. I do.

  The Spinarak-veins took over, and Harmony's world gave to shadow.

  The kit was right in front of him. Eyes open now, and like mirrors, reflecting his own amber stare. The cut of his jaw defined in a way only the two of them shared.

  "Papa-shazaa," the Litten said. "Papa!" And he ran into He-Who-Wears' embrace. "Papa, when I can come home with you? Want meet everyone! Timbi-vasaa tell me all 'bout Clan Tykaa." He took a deep, sharp inhale, puffing out his chest. "Gonna be greatest warrior! To ever live ever! 'Cept you, of course. But me great too."

  His words were… nigh unintelligible. His motions slow and sluggish, like Timbira's. There was a transparency, a wet glimmer in his eyes - had Timbira been lying to him when he had said his son wasn't emotional? He thought, how exhausting it must be to be measured by such arbitrary standards. How crushing.

  "Papa -shazaa? Alright you?"

  He-Who-Wears snapped out of his trance. The kitten was frozen.

  "Perhaps someday you will, my kit," he managed, a purr rumbling in his throat. "It isn’t good form to give up. We are called the burning ones for a reason. Our souls..."

  He couldn't continue. But the Litten smiled.

  "Souls burn brightly," he said. "All of us. Thank you, Papa."

  "Yes; I thank you as well," He-Who-Wears said. "Now, you, um... why don't you go..." He cleared his throat, coughing out a bit of ash that had escaped into his windpipe. "Ah, ugh, 'Timbi -vasaa ' and I have much to talk about, and we'd like to be alone together. Why don't you go off to play over by the fence?"

  The Litten's eyes lit up. "Yeah, yeah! Let play!"

  He dashed off towards the edge of the corral, whooping and hollering. A flock of Trumbeak soared overhead, the sound of their wing flaps nostalgic to He-Who-Wears' ears. Even after they made their diving descent and the woods swallowed them up, his son sprung into the air, his tail a zigzag.

  "Hi, Trumbeak -rrnya! Got to meet me Papa -shazaa today! Bye, Trumbeak -rrnya! "

  "And there he is," Timbira said. A purr rumbled from his throat, natural in a way He-Who-Wears had not heard from an outsider before. Perhaps having the Litten bumbling around his fancy living quarters had stirred him to brush up on his Incineroar. The gesture might have made him feel honored if it weren't Timbira. "Your son. He doesn't have a name as of now - I assume that's your job?"

  He-Who-Wears cast him a slanted look. How like Timbira to assume the customs of his kind were the customs of the world. "He will not receive a name. Not from me."

  The Primarina squeaked, "Why not?"

  "Not now," He-Who-Wears said, casting his gaze to his son. The Litten pranced around, his tail high in the air, his paws crusted with mud from a recent rain. His white fur as well, in speckles and streaks and uneven-edged splotches. The earth suited him, He-Who-Wears thought. Accentuated him.

  Timbira cocked his head. "No name at all? Not even as a parting gift?"

  The shock in He-Who-Wears' features was more than adequate as a reply.

  "He will be going away soon," Timbira explained. "The gods plan to take him and train him as their own, as they did me. It is not normally in their nature to give away an oddly-colored Pokémon; but since he is less wild-natured than the others, I find it likely they will see fit to send him."

  He-Who-Wears shifted his weight. "And why do you believe that? You know little of our clans' Littens."

  "One of them scratched one of their pups. They consider the rest of them feral."

  "That's all? That's typical of our young ones."

  "I know these things," Timbira asserted. This was the sort of maddening thing he said when intending to shut down all further conversation. He-Who-Wears pressed on through his irritation and bowed his head.

  "I am in your debt, Timbira -shazaa, " he said slyly.

  Timbira's eyes turned to slits. "As you should be, Flame-Wearer-inya."

  He spoke it as if it were a joke, but there was no humor in his expression.

  He-Who-Wears took a step back and settled down onto his paws. "There was once a theory among our kind," he said, "that no matter how or when or where a Litten was raised, in their hearts, they would still always hold true to our values. They still would know our words from birth. If nothing else, Timbira -vasaa, I thank you for fully killing this belief."

  A yell sounded from out at the edge of the corral: a kit's roar of triumph. The two turned to see He-Who-Wears' son chasing his own tail, stepping in a puddle of sticky juices from a fallen ballnut nearby. He paused and stuck out his tongue to reveal the fruit's pit, which he'd pinched through its flesh with his needles of fangs to retrieve.

  "Got one," he said, the presence of the stone garbling his words. "Got one! Got a fruit, got a fruit, got a fruit!"

  The ballnut at his paws yet to ripen, but it had fermented in the heat and the exposure. Several spots of gray marred its skin, and one side had almost collapsed into itself, forming a blackening, squelching, almost waxy mass. The Litten gave one of his hind paws an eager lick, and his face scrunched up.

  "Kyuhhh... Guhh! Bitter, bitter, bitter! Not good! Don't want!"

  He flailed his body and tail about, as if the fruit had engaged him in some kind of full-bodied assault; in his distraction, he stumbled and smacked his head right into the side of the fencepost. He spat out an array of sparks (clear evidence of a lack of control) and scratched his ear. Timbira called out to him in his language - in their language - and he perked up, his eyes still crossed.

  "Papa -shazaa, " he said, shaking his chin. "Got a fruit?"

  "Eh?"

  The Litten angled his tail towards the mushy, flaccid drupe. "Ever had?"

  "No, I've never had one," He-Who-Wears said. "Our kind wasn't made to eat fruit... we should be eating meat. It's what fuels our flame best."

  "Never eated meat," the Litten said flatly. "Only other. Like Berries 'n Poffins 'n things."

  "But, but," he continued in response to his papa's fallen face, "I do it. Like to try."

  "Soon," He-Who-Wears promised, with a Xatu's confidence.

  Well, it was no wonder, then, the kit was so thin and bony. A Litten who had never tasted meat before. What had this world come to?

  "I think Poffins are delicious," Timbira agreed. "Can you believe your father's never had a Poffin either, kit?"

  The Litten nearly rocketed into the air. "Can't believe! Poffins best of all! Can't live without!"

  "Well," He-Who-Wears said, "my son, could you believe there's a meadow where Poffins grow on trees, and on vines, and under bushes?"

  Timbira turned to him, perplexed. By contrast, his son's eyes had gone wild with wonder. "Poffins grow?"

  "Past the top of Mount Lanakila is a place where anything you believe in will come to pass," He-Who-Wears told him. "You wander past slicks of ice and through drifts of snow and you look to the horizon - boop! Blam! There it is. Good things always hide where you least expect to find them."

  The Litten frowned. "That truth? Doesn't sound truth."

  He-Who-Wears smiled. "It's all true. The truest thing you’ll ever hear. The very first one of us to walk this earth, He-Who-Dreams-Of-What-Is-Beyond-The-Mountain, found it, and it gave him the power to make us what we are. And..."

  If anyone overheard what he was to say next - anyone from Clan Gryaan, from Clan Tykaa, from any of the clans, even his beloved Rezaa - he would be dead. The burning ones would dare slaughter even their savior for such blasphemy, and slaughter him gladly.

  He-Who-Wears took a breath.

  "They say he bore a coat of white."

  It was likely to be at least a week before they finally took him away, Timbira assured him. Ten days. A fortnight. He had nothing to worry about.

  But it was the very next morning that Timbira glanced into the makeshift Litten-bed they'd given him, come to sing him his daily morning-lullaby, and found nothing there.

  The shadow of the trial captain descended over the clearing. Ilima stood in the corner behind Mizuki and Marion, his Smeargle at his side; no one had noticed his arrival, or seen from which direction he had come. His mouth was cut into an impartial V.

  "A mid-battle trade," he said. "I've never seen that with my own eyes before. How intriguing indeed."

  "I didn't even know that was possible," Mizuki said, breathless. She bent down to take Frostfire's fallen form into her arms, and gently ran her fingers down the length of his body. His skin was like burlap, wrinkling and folding against her.

  Ilima smiled. "There are a great many things, my dears, that you have yet to learn are possible. But it won’t be long before you have the opportunity to discover them for yourself."

  A moment passed before Sun caught on to Ilima's implication. He squinted, searching through the eigengrau for evidence of the captain’s sincerity - then a grin overtook him.

  "Wait! Does that mean, even though we tied...."

  "Yes," Ilima said. "Yes, Sun. You will both be receiving your island challenge amulets tonight. You've both done very well."

  Euphoria. Perhaps it was only her by his side, but Sun swore it had never come to him with such intensity before. He couldn't even find it in himself to care that Mizuki didn't share his smile. She closed her eyes and put her palm on Frostfire's cheek, brushing his whiskers to one side.

  "Frostfire," she said. "That's his name, correct?"

  He hardly realized she was addressing him - it seemed so trivial now, with Ilima taking the others aside into the darkness. Yes, he mumbled, that was what he had called him, and she could change it if she wanted - but she said it again. Frostfire. Coming from her it sounded natural.

  "Hey, Mizuki," he said, a blush painting his cheeks, "why did you call Harmony a girl all this time?"

  "Hmm?" Mizuki buried her nose in Frostfire's fur. "Oh, that? Well, I mean... I guess... I know, like, Primarina, and stuff... I mean, I always thought about having a Popplio, and in my mind it was always a girl Popplio. Hau said he always had wanted a Rowlet, too, so..."

  She wisely cut herself off and procured a shrunken Poke Ball. It rolled pathetically around her sweat-covered palm. "It doesn't matter. She's all yours now."

  The protocol to make the transfer official was simple. The two both recalled their new Pokémon, and pressed their thumbs onto their respective Poke Balls. A voice erupted from Sun's Pokedex:

  "Registered to Trainer no. 9981527: Harmony. This Pokémon's Original Trainer is Trainer no. 9945162. This Pokémon's data has been added to the Pokedex."

  The two let out synchronized sighs. Exchanged glances.

  "Well, that's it," Mizuki said, clutching the strap of her purse closer to her side. The motion didn't escape Sun's notice: it comforted him to believe Lillie's habits had persevered at the Children's compound long enough for Mizuki to mimic them. "Um, see you soon. On the island challenge, I guess."

  She wore the shadows as her cloak. Before Sun could respond, she turned and marched away, allowing them to swallow her. He stared out after her for a heartbeat... then grabbed the brim of his cap and settled down, pivoting on his heels to where he knew it awaited.

  "Hey."

  The voice was gravelly, like the roll of steps over cobblestone. He'd never heard it before in this way, with the only sound in concord being the distant chirps of Zubat answering other Zubat, conductors and performers of their own perpetual night symphony.

  No, he'd never heard it before at all.

  "Hey, Mom?"

  He stood there bathing in the darkness, the stillness, the chill of the night, and he had to wonder whether this life was nothing more than a series of sufferings, razor blades strung along a wire. But his voice stayed with him.

  "Thank you. Thank you for forgiving me. Thank you for helping us find each other. I love you. Forever."

  The sparks around him at last drifted to the ground. He sought to cup one in his palm, but there was nothing material in it for him to hold. So he just stood back and watched them sizzle and shrink. Fade into wisps and then into nothing. Fading, fading, fading, and the afterimages too, wobbling and indecisive, like a toddler taking its first steps. Before realizing what he’d done, he wiped his forehead, thinking he might have felt a pressure there. A kiss from the beyond.

  Then - a crunching of leaves. He turned around to see a figure emerge from behind the curtain of shadow. Mizuki.

  "Sun! I, I..." she panted, taking a moment to catch her breath, and held something out to him: a gallon-size plastic bag. "This. We still had a few from when my - my sister, and..."

  Sun took the bag. He pressed his fingers into the bottom, and its contents had the texture of one of those toy rolling pins made to mash putty, odd and spiky. "Your sister?"

  Mizuki went flush. "I - ugh. Your stupid star candy! Just take it already."

  The star candy? Konpeitō. Bits of crystalline sugar, red and blue and green and yellow. They were translucent in the midnight, like tiles on a stained-glass window.

  "Oh, I don't..." he stopped himself and took a step back. It couldn't hurt to have. "Um, thank you. Seriously, thank you, for this, for Harmony, for..."

  The two of them. They'd connected during that battle too, hadn't they? There was, he supposed, a sort of tenderness to be found in the relationship between two rivals. An odd camaraderie. Like Red and Blue.

  No. His lip curled at the thought. No way in hell he would ever think about marrying Mizuki. It wasn't like that.

  "Oh," Mizuki said, impassive. "It's fine. It was nothing. Nothing at all."

  Through the trees, the wind picked up, tousling both of their mops of black hair and forcing Sun to hold his cap steady.

  "It was Frostfire," Mizuki said. "Frostfire, you know? I think I was right all along. You were so concerned with yourself, you never thought at all of him." She shook her head. "Play with Harmony a lot, okay? Read him books. He likes those. Fiction more than strategy guides."

  "I... I can do that."

  "I know you can." She brought her face close enough to his for him to make out her playful smile. "I don't want a rival I know I can't lose to. I've got enough to worry about already. You can be my barometer." She chuckled, her features softening. "Yeah, my thermometer! I'm going to blaze brighter than you, Sun!"

  Sun stood there open-mouthed, scrambling to think of another word ending in "-ometer"... but her two-fingered poke to his forehead tore him back.

  "Tag, you're it!"

  Mizuki skipped back across the strip, her hair bouncing with each step. Sun broke into a peal of laughter and took off after her, and the night and the garden and the stones faded around them, blurring, with only the moon and stars as their constant. The air smelled of fresh rain and ripened fruit.

  >

  >

  >

  It feels good to at last be with the right person. It feels good to be seen as an equal, and not a tool. It feels good to be facilitated.

  That's what it is, isn't it? The humans say, "love conquers all". Love perseveres. Love can bind us all together. If only we’ll have it.

  I don't know. I don't really see myself as 'male' or 'female', to be honest. Our species doesn't see it in such black and white terms. In fact, when I think of 'me', I don't think of a Popplio at all. I see a nascent sunrise sweeping over a valley. I see my friends and my family, lounging by a lakeshore and enjoying each other's company. I touch and hear and taste of all the world has to offer. I feel much more of a connection to these images than I ever will to my body. Is that strange?

  It's hard, because I don't feel as if anyone would understand. Not even Sun. And that's lonely.

  What the old Tauros said, about 'paradise'. Even my father calls these islands paradise. But this isn't paradise, is it? Even if we could create peace on earth in this lifetime, it wouldn't be paradise. Not when we're still stuck in these arbitrary bodies with arbitrary boundaries. People and Pokémon look at me, and they see a Popplio. They don't see all the emotions and desires and ideas making up Harmony.

  That is my name. Harmony. This is the name you have given me, and this is the name I will accept. I will follow you. But I will not allow you to bend me to your will. I will not permit you to make me your weapon.

  Never.