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It was a slow day at the Sycamore Pokémon Lab. No major studies were being conducted, no new projects to kickstart and no reports getting dangerously close to their deadlines. All the employees at the lab currently had to worry about was the day to day care of the pokémon of the facility and the occasional new trainer who stopped by to choose their starter and get a pokédex.
Those occurrences were getting rarer though, which wasn’t uncommon this time of year. The weather was getting harsher. A cold gale swept through the snaking streets of Lumiose City carrying dry leaves of reds and oranges like dust through the air, while the grey clouds above — blocking the sun — warned of coming rainfall.
Professor Augustine Sycamore was very aware of this: being the primary Professor of Kalos and thus responsible for providing any new trainer who so wished, one of the region’s customary starter pokémon. So practiced was he at this, that he even tended to advise trainers — who came to the Lab in the fall or winter — to postpone their outset until spring, where weather conditions would be more favorable. This, he especially did with the younger kids. The ones who had plans to camp out in the wilderness in order to get the full experience of a journey; to really get that feeling of growing up and gaining their independence.
Fortunately, Augustine was usually quite successful in his persuasion and the kids left — maybe a bit disappointed, but not defeated — to come back another day.
The people who it concerned knew this; meaning that the tally of people paying the Lab a visit in these seasons had dwindled even further the last couple of years. Which was why Augustine was just a tad bit surprised, when he suddenly found himself with two kids in his foyer.
Well, the one was expected, considering his young assistant, Alain, had ventured out a couple hours earlier in search of wild pokémon to observe. But the other one? Not so much.
She looked to be a girl around Alain’s age and was clad in black boots, a long white dress and a dark coat with a brown satchel slung over her shoulder. Her long dark hair flowed freely down her back, though a red ribbon tied in a bow adorned it atop of her head.
Both kids seemed to have had quite the encounter with the rain, but only Alain was shivering like a snorunt. The girl — Homura, as she’d introduced herself — was standing completely still and unbothered, almost to an eerie degree.
The same couldn’t be said about the sylveon leaning against her leg. The poor creature was thoroughly soaked and looked rather miserable about it too: its long ears were drooping and three of its feelers were wrapped around its trainer's leg, while the fourth encased her wrist. Probably to keep itself from shaking too badly.
“Well, come along you three. Can’t have you catching a cold.”
Alain looked very grateful at that declaration and Augustine held back a chuckle, when the boy let out a sigh of relief, as they ascended the stairs. The subsequent walk that took them to the residential part of the Lab was otherwise spent in silence.
For a moment, Augustine just stood quietly, watching curiosily as Homura helped her sylveon dry off with the towels they’d been provided. The girl had shed her coat and boots and was now kneeling on the floor, expression rather blank as she gently dabbed the white cloth across the back of her pokémon.
The action in and of itself wasn’t all that curious. Of course a trainer with a sylveon would care enough for said pokémon to help them this way. No, what was curious was that this action was needed in the first place. Most trainers would simply return their pokémon to their pokéballs to avoid such a situation as this, but for some reason Homura hadn’t.
Augustine supposed it could have to do with the sylveon itself. After all, when it, along with Alain and Homura, had stumbled into the Lab, the pokémon had been clinging to the girl rather insistently.
Still…
Letting one’s pokémon stay out in the pouring rain just because they were clingy…
“She’s not her trainer.”
Augustine turned his head in surprise, as Alain’s voice sounded behind him. The kid had changed clothes and dried his hair.
“What do you mean?” Augustine asked carefully.
He didn’t want to sound accusatory, but he could admit to being just a bit worried at the implications of that statement. Of course, he could be jumping to conclusions and the sylveon could be a family pet and registered to someone else, while Homura was just borrowing her. The responsible thing to do in that situation would still be having the girl hold on to the pokéball, though.
“Madoka isn’t my…pokémon.” Homura’s voice was quiet, but still cut through Augustine's thoughts like a knife. She didn’t sound defensive or angry, rather, she actually came off as more uncomfortable than anything.
“Then whose is she?” Augustine questioned, his eyes now on the sylveon curled up in Homura’s lap — one of her feelers still keeping a hold of the girl’s wrist, even in rest.
While the Intertwining Pokémon were known to be mediators and peacekeepers, they also tended to be rather selective, when it came to their own relationships: often bonding with a singular person for life. So for Madoka to display this much affection for Homura, when she wasn’t her trainer, was either really peculiar or really concerning depending on the circumstances.
“She’s no one’s.” This time Homura didn’t sound the least bit uncomfortable, a surprising amount of steel behind her words.
Augustine hesitated before continuing. The girl still didn’t sound angry, but her tone echoed in his head like a warning nonetheless. Had she curled her hands into fists at his inquiry? He couldn’t be sure, what with her hands lying in her lap shielded by Madoka, but it sure seemed like it from the way she’d tensed — purple eyes meeting his unwaveringly.
Something felt off and Augustine didn’t want to antagonize or distress a young girl over what was probably just a misunderstanding on his part; therefore he shifted his gaze back down to the resting pokémon in her lap and tried to sound as light and curious as possible with his next question.
“She’s a wild pokémon then?”
Homura didn’t verbally respond immediately, but her hands did unclench and she lifted them out of her lap to rest on top of Madoka’s back.
Augustine couldn’t help but take notice of the ring adorning her left middle finger then. It was a silvery metal band, nothing special really, except the spherical stone embedded in the top. Encircled by darker engraved patterns, it was the centerpiece of the jewelry: shining iridescently and glittering with sparkles like stars in a galaxy. It was hard to make out, considering the stone’s size and his distance to it, but Augustine swore he could also make out a certain black symbol placed dead center in the shifting sea of colors.
Surely not….
“…I suppose she is.”
Homura’s voice snapped Augustine out of his thoughts and he blinked before lifting his gaze. She met his eyes again — and this time he gleaned something he hadn’t expected: fear. It was quick, fleeting, gone almost faster than he could even register it had been there and then her expression was back to being blank. Carefully so.
Now he was concerned. But before he could do more than recognize that, Homura broke their eye contact, letting her eyes wander to his left and then she spoke.
“You wanted to show me around the Lab, yes?”
Thrown off by the sudden change of topic, it took Augustine a moment to realise that the girl had directed the question at his assistant.
“I..uh..Yeah. You don’t mind — right, Professor?”
Alain sounded just as off kilter as Augustine felt.
“Of course not. Go ahead and have some fun.”
He tried to slip some of his usual enthusiasm into his voice. Because off kilter Alain might be, but it didn’t appear like he’d picked up on Homura’s distress or the tension that had begun to build. Furthermore, Homura had seemingly felt threatened and Augustine had no intentions of making that situation worse.
Alain gave him a smile. Augustine smiled back.