Dinner had been a veritable feast, three large stone tables filled from edge to edge with a genuinely unrestrained amount of food, enough to feed an entire army, in stark contrast to the atmosphere. Conversation was sparse and quiet, most concerned with eating their fill, or in Jha’y’zé?a-den’s case, consumed by anticipation.

  Anticipation for what, Aidinza was not quite sure. The slightly younger boy had been all but vibrating in place ever since he had sat down, stealing glances at Drayden whenever the Gym Leader ever so much as twitched.

  Going from being inundated with questions from Jha’y’zé?a-den to being borderline ignored was jarring and slightly hurtful if Aidinza was, to be honest. But he distracted himself with a slow conversation with an older woman that used to dive for a living with her Kingra, sometimes recovering valuables from shipwrecks, other times harvesting clamperl pearls.

  “Keh Waka?u?ci was never a great battler, too concerned with his scales getting scuffed, but he had the finest control over water I’ve ever heard of.” The woman paused, slowly cutting the chicken leg in front of her into tiny pieces. “He once held an air bubble around me for three days, long enough for me to rig up something to get to the surface.”

  Aidinza leans forward, he did not exactly know if Wacis’a-m?i was telling the truth about her many great escapes from peril underneath the waves, but they nonetheless made for gripping stories.

  Unfortunately, before the old woman could continue, the sound of a spoon tapping against glass filled the room. Wacis’a-m?i immediately turned to look at the front of the tables, something complex flashing across her face.

  Aidinza followed her gaze. An old man, well into his eighties, had stood up and drawn the entire room’s attention, his skin thin and translucent, but his eyes sharp and jaw set into a determined line.

  “Ita?ca? wica?ta otokaha?.” His voice rattled through the room, as rough as sandstone. “U?kitawapi hok?ina ode owu?ke ko?ka.”

  From the corner of Aidinza’s eye, he could see Jha’y’zé?a-den freeze, and a broad smile breaches his face. He snaps to his feet, head held proud. “Ita?ca? wica?ta otokaha? mitawa Hi’Ha?hépitúwe-e’e.”

  The boy did not stumble for a moment over his words. Unlike every other time Aidinza had heard Jha’y’zé?a-den speak his mother tongue, he sounded truly confident in what he was saying.

  A murmur spread through the room, an electric undercurrent of anticipation gripping those assembled, silenced when Drayden stood from the head of the centre table.

  “Hiya, nitawa Ha?hépitúwe ecu??ni hie’e niye wiyeyakeni.” Drayden’s voice was not loud, but it carried through the room with commanding ease and carried with it the unmistakable tone of rejection.

  Aidinza did not need to even look at Jha’y’zé?a-den to feel the devastation that wracked the other boy. The boy’s proud stance melted away. His head falling, his shoulders slumping.

  “Unktehila, wohdakapi. Wa?na.” The elder stares at Drayden’s back as the gym leader leaves the table, his weathered face stoic. Aidinza catches the elder’s eyes glance towards Jha’y’zé?a-den before he follows after Drayden.

  Silence reigns over the room as Jha’y’zé?a-den sits back down, staring at his half-eaten meal.

  A beat passes, then two, before he stands again and stumbles over words under his breath, wincing as he does so before he leaves the room with as much haste as he can manage without sprinting away.

  Aidinza half starts to stand, eyeing his own food with uncertainty. Not finishing your meal was a sign of disrespect, but he did not want to leave Jha’y’zé?a-den alone.

  “Te?iya, follow him. Kakija koda.” Aidinza glances at Wacis’a-m?i as the woman pushes a bowl into his hands.

  Then he was gone.

  -

  It took him nearly an hour to find where Jha’y’zé?a-den had disappeared to. He had to blindly fumble through the dark of the Village of Dragons until he found this half-cored overhanging hill, staring off into the dark forests north of the village. If Aidinza was in a joking mood, then he would perhaps say that it was harder to find Jha’y’zé?a-den than it had been to track down the poachers.

  As he approached Jha’y’zé?a-den’s curled-up form, his brown eyes staring listlessly into the distance of a dark, frozen forest, humour was the furthest thing from his mind.

  Aidinza sits next to the boy, staring into the same distance, struck silent by the uncertainty of what to say.

  “It’s not fair,” Jha’y’zé?a-den mutters after a long stretch of silence, but when Aidinza glances over at him, his head lowered into his knees again.

  “What’s not fair?” The boy tenses, his frame shuddering, before going still.

  “N-never mind.” The younger boy breathes in sharply. “I guess you want a lift back to Opelucid, huh?”

  There was something that vaguely horrified Aidinza as Jha’y’zé?a-den’s voice suddenly shifted to something upbeat and bouncy. Maybe it was the way his face still twisted in despondency, half hid as it was; maybe it was just how good he was at hiding what he was feeling with his voice.

  “Not until you tell me what happened back there.” Aidinza kept his voice calm and soothing as he leaned back into the broken hill behind him. Making it clear he was not planning on getting up any time soon.

  “You don’t care.” Jha’y’zé?a-den hisses, frustration and anger bubbling over as he rounded on Aidinza, eyes wild and fierce. Aidinza met them evenly, and a moment later, the Pheyan’atho glanced away. “I’m telling you not to care.”

  Rather than replying, Aidinza simply continued to settle in, one knee drawing up into his chest as he stared out into the great darkness he found Jha’y’zé?a-den looking into, the bowl in his hand placed by his side.

  “Look, if you want I can take you to O-Opelucid, but if you don’t just… just… just get lost okay?” There was something vulnerable in his voice now, fragile and delicate. He collapses in on himself again, hugging his legs to his body protectively. “Please?”

  Silence claims the night once more, long and oppressive, as Aidinza struggles to pull together an idea of anything to do or say. He had never been particularly good with emotions, only his sister was an exception, and that was because…

  Aidinza resists the urge to flinch away from the thought. He forces himself to look away from the tempting void of darkness that beckoned for him to get lost within.

  He slowly breathes in.

  “The Ya’an-ah have a belief that you are only bound to bonds that you chose. We believe that if you ever decide to no longer be bound by those bonds, no one can stop you.” Aidinza traced a formless shape across his knee, an echo of a half-remembered comfort, and for a moment, he could almost swear that he smelled Apache Plume. “Whether that be unbinding yourself from a tribe, a friend… or your family.”

  “Leezh bi? hááyol. In one sandstorm to the next, my parents were gone.” Aidinza fell silent; it had been a long, long time since he had openly talked about his situation with his parents. Longer still since he had willingly done so. “I still try to remember them sometimes; I was told I have my father’s jaw, but I always thought I looked like my sister and Tsesei says she looks like our mother.”

  Perhaps that said all that needed to be said, that Aidinza needed someone else to tell him if he looked like his father or that his sister looked like his mother.

  Aidinza hoped it did; he was not sure he could continue digging at this.

  A moment passed, then two.

  “I used to live in the Opelucid Orphanage.” Jha’y’zé?a-den’s voice was quiet, but he looked up, and Aidinza met his bloodshot eyes. “I remember my mum, but she wasn’t Pheyan’atho. My dad…” He shrugs helplessly. “When she passed on, no one knew there was anyone else. I didn’t know there was anyone else.”

  “Then, one day, an old man sees me in the streets, marches right up to me and tells me that I was Pheyan’atho.” He smiles a tenuous flash of white in the dark. “He was adamant. It was unmistakable to him. Told me he was Elder Unktehila. I couldn’t pronounce it. Called him Elder Urkle.” He gave a huff of laughter, but there was something grim in his eyes. “Couldn’t pronounce a lot of things.”

  He looks down, visibly gathering himself, scratching at his arm. “It was hard at the start, Elder Unktehila had so much to teach me. So much that I missed. So much that someone of the Pheyan’atho had to know. Told me that one day I would have my own Ha?hépitúwe and would be a full-fledged member of my people. Somewhere to belong.”

  “I tried so hard.” Aidizna could see his eyes flash in the dark, his nails digging into his flesh, sending bloody rivulets oozing down his hand. “Every lesson I tried so hard, I tried to memorise every word and every name and every place and… and….”

  He lets out a frustrated noise, and drags his hand away from his arm, visibly restraining himself. “When that was not enough, I started doing as many chores as I could. I would feed Ha?héda?zé?a no matter what mood she was in. I would collect the groceries from Opelucid every day, I would clean up the plates and repair the fences and houses, but none of that is worth anything, is it? None of it is enough to wipe away the fact I stutter when I speak the mother tongue. None of it is enough to wipe away the fact that I wasn’t raised here.”

  “It’s just… not fair.” He hangs his head once more, shuddering as he breathes in heavily. “I just want the chance. I just want to earn my place here. I want to be Pheyan’atho.”

  “You have fed the tribe with your food, helped them with your work, and chosen to live among them. You are already Pheyan’atho.” Aidinza speaks as it becomes clear that Jha’y’zé?a-den is not going to continue. “More than that, you want to be Pheyan’atho; to the Ya’an-ah, that would be enough.”

  Jha’y’zé?a-den breathes out slowly and manages a half smile. “Must be nice to have it figured out like the Ya’an-ah, hey?” Aidinza glances away, shamefaced, into the inky darkness of the vast forest before the two of them. “Grass is always greener, huh?” The redhead turns back, hiding the ache behind a single raised eyebrow.

  “Means that it always looks better when you are looking at what someone else has. The matron used to say it all the time.” Aidinza hums, and the two fall into a comfortable silence.

  “Thanks for sticking around. I was being a bit of a brat, hey?” The facade was thin but not as horrifying as the switch Jha’y’zé?a-den managed before. But… worn.

  “Everyone deserves their time to get everything out.” The young nomad shifts, and knocks briefly against the bowl by his side. He glances down at it and picks it up. It was cold and had strange white food in it that looked half melted. Jha’y’zé?a-den looks confused when he offers it to the younger boy but takes it.

  “You brought ice cream?” There was a note of incredulity in his voice as he picked up the spoon from the bowl with bloody fingers.

  “Wacis’a-m?i gave it to me.” Another moment of uncertain silence before a tiny smile flickered across Jha’y’zé?a-den’s face. Tiny, but sure.

  -

  Astazhei had been removed from medical stasis late last night, under close overnight observation by the pokécentre’s doctors. Aidinza had been told he would not be allowed to see his rufflet until well past noon.

  That did not stop Aidinza from arriving at the pokécentre early in the morning, cold and tired from walking from the Village of Dragons, instead of Jha’y’zé?a-den bringing him in on his bike.

  He waited silently in the foyer, as unobtrusive to the healers working as he possibly could be, pulling together some facade of patience that he certainly did not feel inside. It had been a long week without Astazhei, and every second that passed where he did not see the bird was agony.

  “Trainer Three Two Zero Two Zero? Aidinza?” A young woman with her dyed pink hair styled into an undercut called out, and Aidinza leapt to his feet. “Doctor Adrien has approved your rufflet for an hour-long visit.”

  The nomad nods and looks over the healer’s shoulder as if he would catch sight of his first flying type, despite being nowhere near his room.

  “Now, some ground rules. There will be no training in the pokécentre. Your pokémon is here to rest, not to strain himself. Any food you want to give the pokémon has to be screened by a Nurse before it is fed to the pokémon. Do not attempt to unhook the pokémon from any machines, or attempt to adjust them in any way, and do not attempt to return the pokémon to his pokéball unless there is a clear and present threat to his life.” Aidinza pays close attention, despite all this and more having been said to him when he had visited yesterday by Doctor Adrien. “Am I understood?”

  “Yes, Healer Joy.” The woman gives an amused half-smirk for a moment before turning around and gesturing for Aidinza to follow.

  “I’m not a Joy.” Aidinza’s eyes flick to her dyed hair, but he decides not to ask, too consumed by anticipation to see Astazhei again. The healer leads him deeper into the pokécentre, and soon enough, he finds himself standing in front of a solid door labelled Otolaryngology Care. “I’ll be watching from the other side of the two-way mirror.” She nods at another room and opens the door for Aidinza.

  Inside was a white room, covered wall to wall in odd machines and screens. At its centre was an upraised circular platform covered in cloth and swaddled in the fabric was Astazhei.

  A wide grin breaks across Aidinza’s face, which only grows as Astazhei notices his trainer and cries out, struggling to get up. In moments Aidinza was by the rufflets side, hand stroking through the rufflets fluffy mass of white feathers, stilling the flying type.

  “Shhh, Astazhei, ni hanályiih.” He mutters, holding the bird still as he simply takes in his warmth. Astazhei puffs out his chest, trying to untangle himself. “Still Astazhei, for me.”

  Astazhei’s wide white eyes looked up at Aidinza for a long moment before he relaxed into his swaddling petulantly.

  “Have you been behaving for the doctor?” Astazhei trilled mulishly, picking at the cotton surrounding him in a tight prison; his white pupilled eyes peered up at Aidinza, silently begging to let him out. “It’s just for another week.”

  Aidinza scratches at the bird’s neck, massaging a tight muscle knot that always bothered Astazhei. The two of them sat silently for a while, Astazhei leaning into Aidinza’s touch and Aidinza lost in thought, staring at one of the many beeping machines that lined the wall.

  “I need to say aplogi-” Aidinza starts before a sharp pain in his finger cuts him off. He grunts and glances down to see Astazhei has nipped his finger. The flying type met Aidinza’s eyes, proud and imperious despite being trapped in cloth. He squawks once and shakes his head. Aidinza snorts and examines the bead of blood on his finger. Of course, he would spend a week worrying about it, just for Astazhei to refuse to care. “Then I need to tell you, you did great. More than I could have asked for and then some. Just need to make sure you don’t end up here next time.”

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  Astazhei preened as much as he could with his wings bound tightly at his side, and Aidinza had to push him back down into his nest when he tried to stand again.

  “I caught two new pokémon. The pawniard and the mawile.” He started when the bird had settled back into his bedding. Astazhei perked up, his white pupilled eyes keen. Aidinza would bet all he had earned with that was Astazhei trying to figure out just how he was going to challenge the new pokémon. “Mawile’s… unique, I think. You’ll like him, or at least have plenty of excuses to fight him.”

  Astazhei’s eyes lit up with a pleased glint as he let out a low whistle. “The pawniard… Pawniard.” He corrects himself absently. “She’s very controlled. Only really does things when she’s ordered to.” Aidinza trailed off, glancing towards the door as he felt a stir of frustration cut at him. He had been trying for days to instil independence into the steel dark type, but everything he attempted just resulted in the same thing.

  Pawniard mindlessly doing whatever he told her to do and then waiting for more instructions.

  Astazhei whistled once more, sitting up as much as he could and puffing out his chest, and Aidinza could almost imagine him declaring he would fix Pawniard. He smiles down at the bird, running a hand along his red-white crest. Maybe Astazhei could manage what Aidinza could not. While he was far from as independent as Naazin, the flying-type would often fly off. Sometimes it was just to explore, but mostly it was because Astazhei wanted a fight, and none of the team was giving it to him.

  Come to think of it, perhaps Astazhei was not the best role model for Pawniard. But the proud determination in the flying-types’ eyes killed any attempt at even a gentle letdown. So Aidinza left it; even if the pawniard became as big a battle maniac as Astazhei, he would learn to deal with it.

  The two fell into silence once more, and Aidinza glanced at the clock on the wall. It had already been twenty minutes since he had arrived. He looks back at Astazhei, who had retreated into his warm bed, body drooping.

  “I’ve been spending time with the Pheyan’atho.” Astazhei perks up, his dull eyes meeting Aidinza’s with a spark of curiosity. “They are a tribe like the Ya’an-ah, like my tribe. They rule these lands and share a bond with the dragons of Unova.” Aidinza softly ran his fingers through Astazhei’s downy feathers, lulling him back into his cradle. “Ah-na-ghai Brycen told me there would be answers among them.”

  “But it’s been a week, and I am no closer to understanding what I am meant to see. I have eaten their food and walked among their pokémon. I have seen their leaders battle and sat beneath the stars with their young.” Aidinza pauses, listening as Astazhei’s breathing evens out, and his eyes flutter closed. “I see them but don’t see what Brycen wants me to.”

  “Their Elders are as full of wisdom as my own. But it’s not the wisdom I need. I ask about Opelucid, and their words grow distant and unsure.” Aidinza pulls his hand away from Astazhei and chuckles when the bird’s head follows. He continues patting the bird. “I have made a friend, Jha’y’zé?a-den. He sits with me while I train the others, asks questions and gives company in exchange. I think you would like him; he often encourages me to have the team spar. Sometimes I wonder what he would tell me if I asked; other times, I fear his answer.” Aidinza pauses and stares down at his lap. Even in the silence of an empty hospital room but for his half-asleep pokémon, he did not want to say why he feared the answer. “I would ask their Ah-na-ghai, but Drayden… he is as distant to me as the ground to the stars. He spares me little time and fewer words. Brycen told me to challenge him, and when you are better, I will. But watching his fights, I see nothing. I only feel empty.”

  “I worry, even if I do fight him, that nothing would change. Every day that passes that I find nothing, I worry more and more that I cannot find anything.” Something prickles at Aidinza’s eyes, and he swallows a lump in his throat. “I’m not sure if I can find nothing. I’m not sure the Ya’an-ah… I can’t just find nothing.”

  He finishes in a whisper, voice hoarse.

  His eyes drift to the clock once more; the hour had disappeared on him so very quickly. He stares down at Astazhei for a long moment, watching the bird sleep peacefully and briefly wonders about the pokémon’s own family. Was there a tribe of larger Astazhei out there? A family of braviary that one day expected their son’s return?

  Did he have expectations of him? A people’s fate laid at his feet with no direction?

  Aidizna hoped he did not.

  A knock on the door interrupted his thoughts, and he softly pulled the blankets tighter around the bird and stood up.

  He would find his answers.

  -

  Aidinza had spent time among many of the Elders of the Pheyan’atho; he had helped Opa?’ta cut firewood for the winter. Had baited the traps that Wacis’a-m?i set up among the ponds scattered through the forests surrounding the Village of Dragons, and on and on. Whenever he was not training, he was helping the Pheyan’atho.

  In many ways, it was a familiar routine. An echo of the dunes of his home and the choring needed for the Naisho’h to move each day.

  But he had never spent time with Elder Unktehila. The man who had found Jha’y’zé?a-den in the streets around Opelucid’s orphanage. The elder was seemingly constantly on the move; he would travel to Opelucid before dawn was even a hint on the horizon and return only in time for dinner. Even after dinner, he would seek out other elders, talking to them in hushed and sometimes heated tones.

  That was not to say that Aidinza did not get to know Elder Unktehila; it took little for Jha’y’zé?a-den to start talking about the man, gushing that even at the tender age of eighty-seven that he did everything he could for the Pheyan’atho.

  Which meant it came as something of a surprise that Unktehila had asked for Aidinza to meet with him today, alone, at noon. Despite him usually spending that time to gauge his team’s progress and adjust their training, Aidinza agreed to meet with him readily. Partly because he was interested in meeting the man personally and partly because he was pretty sure Jha’y’zé?a-den would beat him unconscious and drag him to the meeting if he refused.

  So here he was, seated on top of a quiet hill underneath the shade of a large gnarled tree, staring out into the dark snowy forests surrounding the Village of Dragons.

  “Forgive me for being late; my legs do not move as they used to.” Aidinza breathes out sharply as an old, rough voice makes itself suddenly known. He glanced over his shoulder; Elder Unktehila stood behind him, his aged face stoic.

  “Cool sands and wet winds, Elder Unktehila.” Aidinza stands smoothly, turning to face Unktehila. As he does so, he studies the older man. There was not much to say beyond that he was a man who looked his age. Thick wrinkles masked his facial features, his skin translucent and varicose, and his hair a bare wispy hint.

  He was an old man. Perhaps the oldest that Aidinza had ever seen, well past the age where the average Ya’an-ah would simply decide to not follow as their tribe left for the day.

  The man’s mouth shifted into a slight smile at the greeting, exposing teeth that had long since rotten away and black gums. “By lash and flame, walk welcome here, Aidinza.” The old man limped forward, taking a seat in the grass that Aidinza had just been sitting on with a long groan and a creak of ancient bones.

  Aidinza sits down alongside him. The two just sat there for a moment as Unktehila stared out across the forest, face solemn and introspective. Aidinza joined him; there was something enchanting about the dark woods that encircled the Village of Dragons. “Forgive an old man for his moments; it’s rare I get to see this sight these days,” Unktehila spoke after several minutes of silence.

  “You wished to meet with me, Elder?” The old man shifted at Aidinza’s prodding, turning to face the Ya’an-ah boy.

  “You have been asking my brothers and sisters about Opelucid.” Aidinza nods, unsurprised that the other elders would have told Unktehila. Even the Naisho’h elders were incorrigible gossips.

  “Ah-na-ghai Brycen told me that I would find answers here, answers that I need.” The elder hums, a noise that sounds like two rocks being murdered against each other.

  “The Tly’an-yeh do so like having someone else answer for them.” Aidinza’s lips twitch downwards, and his gaze turns frosty, but Unktehila presses on. “You do not believe you have found those answers, do you?”

  “Have I?” Aidinza returns, half out of curiosity, half out of an urge to act out.

  “Keh, you would not still be here if you had. I see it in your eyes; they’re restless. Driven by something you refuse to let down.” The two men, separated by generations of years, watch each other for a long moment. “The weight of a people’s future is a heavy burden.”

  Aidinza leans back. He had not been particularly subtle in his questioning of the Pheyan’atho; it made sense to him that at least someone had guessed at what he was searching for.

  But it still came as something of a shock to have it laid out in front of him. Which made the implications all the more tantalising.

  “You think you can help me then?” He manages to mask his ardour behind ire, his words restrained. Something flickered across Unkethila’s face, a spark of hesitation in his half-clouded eyes before he straightened his already impeccable posture.

  “I cannot give the answers to you.” He hedged, and Aidinza scoffed.

  “Maybe the Pheyan’atho also like to have someone else answer for them.” Aidinza knew he was being unfair and, in many ways, was being a brat. But something had his hackles raised. Maybe it was the subtle insult to Brycen; maybe it was just centuries of his blood fighting against the Pheyan’atho alongside the Tly’an-yeh coming to the fore.

  Maybe it was something else.

  “The Ya’an-ah are still as prickly as the cacti that grow in their sands.” He mutters, something like an amused smirk crossing his face for a moment. Before his face turned to stone once more. “The only answers you’ll find here are earned.”

  “And how do I earn them?” Aidinza straightens up, his eyes intent as his mild animosity falls away.

  “Ha?hépitúwe.” It took a moment for the word to register. Ever since the first dinner that Aidinza had spent with the Pheyan’atho nearly a week ago, it had been a word that people seemed to avoid. Especially around Jha’y’zé?a-den.

  Drayden’s cold rejection still stung the boy harshly.

  “I am Ya’an-ah.” It was a quiet declaration, but a deeply important one to Aidinza, something that he would never let change

  “You must have your Ha?hépitúwe to stand among the Pheyan’atho; you do not need to be Pheyan’atho to have your Ha?hépitúwe.” The elder’s voice was gentle and understanding. Tinged with what Aidinza thought was approval and something else that was lost on him.

  Unkethila sighed and looked away from the Ya’an-ah boy towards the dark forest, his eyes going distant.

  “What is Ha?hépitúwe?” The elder stays silent for a long moment. “What is Ha?hépitúwe?” He repeats, he was not typically one to get impatient with an elder, but the anticipation in him was too much.

  “It is a journey of self-discovery. A night to learn who you truly are in the face of frost and peril.” Unkethila echoed the words of Drayden near a week ago, but his telling lacked the hypnotic demand for obedience. Instead, the rough grind of his voice was almost like a story, enthralling to the attention of any who heard it. “Ha?hépitúwe, the night of who. Who you are. Who the world is. Who is important.”

  “I know who I am.” Came almost unbidden to Aidinza’s lips, and all he gets in return is a knowing look from Unktehila. “You think this will teach me something then?”

  “Where else will you look? In Wacis’a-m?i’s traps once more? In the splitters of Opa?’ta’s firewood?” Aidinza looks away, his silence telling.

  “What about Jha’y’zé?a-den?” The words sound weak in his ears. He knew as well as anyone could that he had been ensorceled. But he had to at least ask for his friend’s sake, even if he knew in his heart that it would change little about his decision.

  But the question seemed to please Unktehila, who smiled wide at the reminder of the young Pheyan’atho. “It will help him more than you could guess.”

  Aidizna waited for the elder to explain, but he turned back to the forest again, watching out over it with a strange hope. So Aidinza turned to his own thoughts, mulling over what he had just heard.

  “When will it happen?” Unktehila breathes out slowly before rising to his feet with a pop of cracking joints. He rubs his hip for a moment before turning towards the Village of Dragons.

  “Come, you have much to be told before you can know when.” The elder takes off, setting a surprising pace for a man his age, without even waiting for Aidinza to stand. The nomad watches the old man’s back for a moment, feeling something unsure slither down his spine before he stands.

  And follows.

  -

  It was rare that Aidinza got a moment alone with his pokémon in the past week. Jha’y’zé?a-den was an ever-present shadow, keenly interested in absorbing anything he could about pokémon training.

  But at Aidinza’s request, Jha’y’zé?a-den had left to help Opa?’ta on his own this afternoon. He only managed it by telling Jha’y’zé?a-den that he would not be doing any ‘secret training’. Which he supposed was true. He was giving his team a break; they had done well over the week in keeping themselves on track without his direct oversight.

  He watches with some amusement as Mawile menaces Shandíín, the fire-type hovering in the air before a ‘cowering’ Nihanlo. It was a favourite of Mawile to rescue Nihanlo from the evil ‘dragon’ of Shandíín whenever the fletchinder deigned to join in the steel-type’s plays.

  Something cold pressing against his side interrupts him, and he glances down to see Sandile’s eyes glittering up at him. He gives his starter a half smile and hefts the reptile into his lap, stroking a finger down the ground-types rough ridges to a pleased growl. Sandile stretched across Aidinza’s lap and sniffed at the blue fabric bound around the nomad’s wrist.

  The reminder prompts him to glance over to Pawniard, where the steel-type was silently waiting. Her form is tense and ready, sharp eyes surveying the entrances to the room, flicking over to the Ya’an-ah boy every few seconds. Rather than telling her that it was relaxation time alongside the other pokémon, Aidinza had just released the pawniard without instructions. Hoping that in the absence of orders, the steel-type would do… something.

  But no such luck.

  But maybe time would change that. A theory that Aidinza would be testing soon enough. The reminder caused him to tense, and Sandile looked up from his puddle of bliss, eyes keen. Part of the reason he had sent Jha’y’zé?a-den away today was to give his pokémon a well-deserved rest; the other part was time alone to tell them of the decision he had made.

  But now that he was in the perfect position to do so, he found himself hesitant. Unsure of where or even how to begin. There was so much to say, so many thoughts to explain.

  So many reasons and excuses.

  “I will be leaving for three days tomorrow morning.” So rather than doing any of that, he simply went with the most direct approach as he scratched along Sandile’s ribs. His voice hardly made a dent in the din of the room, and for a moment, he thought his pokémon were ignoring him. “I will be leaving alone.”

  The room went silent nearly immediately, only Mawile continuing on. Until a quick blast of water from Naazin silenced him

  Aidinza found himself still as six sets of eyes stared at him in silent disbelief. “I have something I must do. I wish I could, but I cannot bring you.” Noise filled the air, a bedlam of strange grunts and panicked growls, as everyone seemed to try and protest at once. Carefully Aidinza looked around the room, meeting five pairs of eyes in turn, his posture firm and his eyes unyielding, and slowly the commotion died down.

  “You will be staying here with Jha’y’zé?a-den, and I expect you to behave.” Carefully he breathes in and does what he knows would be the hardest thing he has ever attempted. He glances down to his lap to meet Sandile’s eyes.

  The reptile was distraught, his eyes wide and uncomprehending, as moisture built at the corner of the black membrane surrounding his eyes. Whatever Aidinza was about to say was lost to his mind, as it felt like something punched him in the gut. His will nearly collapsed in a fraction of a moment.

  It was all he could manage to not immediately capitulate in the face of Sandile’s despondency. “It’s only going to be three days.” He utters softly, running a hand down Sandile’s spine. But his starter only whined, shaking his head. “I need to go, Sandile.”

  Aidinza wiped away some of the tears as they spilled from Sandile’s eyes, his hand falling to cup the ground type’s jaw as the desert croc’s claws dug into Aidinza’s trousers. “If I could, I’d bring you Sandile, but I can’t.” Sandile lashed out, his teeth flashing as they bit down on Aidinza’s poncho, the material tearing easily as the croc locked his jaw.

  “Sandile.” He warned, firming his heart against the relentless assault, trying to tug his clothes out of Sandile’s mouth.

  A deep primal growl fills the room, rattling bone and wood. A territorial noise that hacked at the primordial part of Aidinza’s mind that remembered being a monkey fumbling into an apex predator’s land. It was a sound of pure, aeons refined dominance.

  Aidinza straightens up, ignoring the way his poncho ripped. His green eyes flash down at Sandile as his chest rumbles in answer, the Naisho’h blood in the veins thick and potent.

  There was a moment of intense silence as the two locked eyes as Sandile tried to command his ‘property’ to still, and Aidinza asserted his own dominance.

  Then Sandile seemed to realise what was happening, a soft whine building at the back of his throat as he let go. Aidinza holds his stare for a long moment before his hand falls to soothingly rub at Sandile’s snout.

  “I will be back in three days. Rest up, and behave for Jha’y’zé?a-den.” He announces to the room again, and after a moment, the pokémon return to what they were doing.

  But now, there was an undercurrent of tension.

  -

  Three nights, in Ca?a?akeha?ska Ca?ta?ka, the deeps of the forest encircling the Village of Dragons.

  No pokémon, no food, and with only the trousers wrapped around his legs as the winter chill wrapped its hand around Unova’s throat in truth.

  He would be led blindfolded into the forest at the dawn of the first day and would only be found before the birth of the fourth day.

  Three full days, three full nights.

  A trial of survival in a forest that raised brutal dragons and those hardy enough to cull their numbers.

  Anyone would be mad to agree to it for any reason. The Pheyan’atho must be mad for it to be something so critical to their very survival.

  Aidinza must be mad because as he quietly knelt in a freezing, dark room and awaited the arrival of Unktehila, there was no stir of fear or apprehension in his stomach. Just the pull of sleep at his eyes and the warm consumption of determination burning away at the chill caressing his exposed chest.

  His pokémon had been left with Jha’y’zé?a-den, and Naazin had been coaxed to promise to keep them in line, with the threat of intense training and the temptation of a nice long day to relax in the clear ponds of the Pheyan’atho when Aidizna returned. Last night he had returned to Astazhei’s side, telling the bird what he had to do and promising that he would be back as soon as possible.

  It was something he was paying for tonight; he had only managed to return to the Village of Dragons past midnight. But he refused to leave Astazhei in the dark.

  Carefully, he breathes in and out. A fleeting white mist curling in the air as he does so. The sound of the door unlocking thuds through the room, and two men and one woman step inside, their bodies hidden underneath thick covers and heavy staves held at their side.

  Aidinza smoothly rises to his feet but does not greet them. They move forward and offer him a blindfold. He takes it and ties it around his head, blocking out all vision.

  The woman begins to hum, the noise low and primal. The men start a sombre chant, their staves beating on the ground.

  The sound of a fourth person entering touches the edge of Aidinza’s hearing, and he feels a light pressure on his back prodding him forward. He waits for a moment as the chanting grows louder, digging into Aidinza’s bones and rattling his lungs.

  He steps forward.