Thank you for reading. Hopefully you enjoy. If you REALLY like it, I have a P-a-t-r-e-o-n, under the same name, where you can read 5 chapters ahead.
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"No."
"Mr. Periwinkle-"
"No."
"Please, let me-"
"No."
"I-!"
"No."
"STOP IT!"
"How about you stop following me!?"
"This is not what I paid for!" Clair Blackthorn whirled on Bill, her long legs easily letting her keep pace with me as I hurried through Saffron, ducking through alleyways and side streets to try and lose the two adults trailing me without breaking into a sprint.
"Peri, mate-" Bill huffed, red in the face as he tried to keep pace.
Spinning on my heel, I shoved my finger in his face. "Shut up! You dumb, pushy-grrr!" I bit off the rest of the sentence with a growl before I said something I'd regret at a later date. In that exact moment, I felt like he deserved all the insults. "In fact!" I ripped the sponsor jacket off and threw it at him. "Here, take that shit back! I don't want it, I don't need it, screw you!"
Bill seemed taken aback by the genuine vitriol. "Come now, no need to-"
"There's every need, you greedy bitch! You're lucky I don't cut you off and find someone less dickish!"
A glint appeared in Clair's sharp eyes. "If you're looking for a different sponsor, the Blackthorn Clan-"
Bill didn't take kindly to the attempted poaching. "Oi, do not-!"
"Both of you shut the fuck up!" I snapped. "Fucking vultures!" I tried to calm myself with a deep breath, but ended up snorting it out in agitation. "Bill, just… go away."
"Come on, lad," he tried, but I think the defeat in my tone finally got through to him, "it is not that-"
"No, you cross-!" I reset at a lower volume. "You crossed a line. Th-the jacket, the reporters, yeah, okay, fine. I don't like it, but it's part of our deal. I have to do some actual advertising, I get that."
"Then why-!?" He threw his arms out, but I kept cutting him off, not allowing him to get a word in.
"Because this isn't about me working for you as a Trainer!" I shouted, pointing a finger at the lurking Clair. "You sold out my private information to this pushy hag-!"
"Hey!"
"-and profited from my private life! Not your company, not me as your sponsored Trainer, but me outside of you! You don't decide what I do with my Pokémon, and you don't get to decide who I meet with regarding my Pokémon! There's a fucking line, Bill, and setting up meetings with potential buyers, when I've made it perfectly clear that it's not an option, crosses that line! My team is not your fucking product!"
"..." For the first time, I had the opportunity to see Bill Masaki, inventor and businessman extraordinaire, lost for words, his jaw opening silently, lips moving to form words without sound.
It wasn't a flattering look.
"...alright. I-uh, I suppose that is fair." He scratched at the back of his head awkwardly. "Guess it is a little much, innit? Bollocksed it up, is what I did."
"If you don't get out of here, I'm gonna scream at you," I warned him in all seriousness. Good for him that he seemed to realize that I wasn't just going to let him off the hook. I was still pissed, though. "Seriously, I'm not in a place where you want to have this conversation."
He nodded in a forced casual manner. "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I hear you. Let tempers settle, emotions calm, all that good shite. You, uh, you have my number for when you want that chin wag." He gave a grimaced smile and turned around to head back towards the Gym, probably to deal with the squad of reporters he'd paid for to be there and then just ran out on.
Leaving me behind with Clair Blackthorn.
"Excellent!" She sniffed. "Now that the distractions are out of the way-!"
"I don't know, you're still here!" I snarked, and then realized how that could sound. "I meant that in a derogatory way, not that-whatever."
"I'm gonna do you a favor and move past that," Clair granted. Straightening her back, she took a deep breath and tried again. "Mr. Periwinkle. As I've said, my name is-"
"Not for sale."
"Motherfuc-!" She pinched the bridge of her nose. "Listen to me-!"
"Not for sale."
"I DON'T WANT TO BUY YOUR STUPID BALL!" The people of Saffron looked over, Clair's scream cutting through the clamor of the busy street. "What!?" She snapped at them, making them avert their eyes from her glare and hurry along. "That's what I thought!" She snorted before closing her eyes and breathing deeply through her nose, holding it and then exhaling heavily.
"Can we take this somewhere else? You hungry? I'll pay." She tried, and I would give her that. She sure was trying.
"No."
"Fuckin-!" She mumbled under her breath while shoving her hands in the large side pockets of her durable, somewhat baggy pants. With a pissed 'Ah!' she found what she was looking for and threw it in my face. Literally, the flexible, yet stiff thing hit me between the eyes, and I had to catch it before it fell to the ground. Inspecting it, I saw that it was a bundle of folded bills. "How about that, huh!? Is fucking payment good enough, or are you so stubborn you won't even take that for a 10-minute conversation!?"
… shit. As much as it galled me to admit, she had me there. Cash wasn't an issue since I signed up with Bill, but we were on somewhat shaky ground professionally, and it wasn't in my nature to be completely beholden to someone.
Money meant food and health items for the team, and I'd do worse for them than having a brief talk with someone related to a different person I didn't like.
Sounded petty as shit when I put it like that.
"Apologize for calling Betty a stupid ball," I demanded.
"I'm sorry that her Trainer's shitty personality ended up affecting your Shelgon."
I narrowed my eyes, but gave it up. I genuinely just wanted to get it over with.
And so, we quickly found ourselves seated across from one another at a small diner that reminded me of Delia's, back in Pallet. Clair had sniffed disdainfully at the quaint and kind of cheap interior, but hadn't complained overly.
"Say your shit so we can get this over with," I practically demanded, dividing my plate up into portions for me, Espeon, and Zorua in my pocket. "You're paying, by the way."
The rest of the team would have to wait until a Nurse Joy had looked them over. Nobody was particularly hurt – other than maybe Siren after her encounter with the wall – but better safe than sorry.
Betty would also need to be far away from anything I didn't mind seeing smashed to smithereens. I doubted she'd take her loss to the Hypno graciously.
"Please!" Clair scoffed and waved me off, nothing in front of her but a glass of Cheri berry juice. She'd scowled at the menu as if it had personally offended her. "I doubt this whole food cart is more than 10.000, knock yourself out. The less of this… food that exists, the better for the rest of us!"
Again, the place was a 4.5/10. Slightly grimy but perfectly serviceable.
"Your 10 minutes are running," I warned her, Espeon smearing a piece of food along the underside of my lip before getting it in my mouth as she tried to feed me with her telekinesis. I didn't protest; one, it was cute. Two, it was decent practice at Psychic fine control.
"I saw the battle. You fought well, but your Shelgon – Betty, I believe you called her?" I grunted at her barely hidden disbelief.
"Short for Behemoth."
"Better," she nodded, like I needed her permission. "Anyway, Behemoth clearly has some obedience problems-"
"It was a one-time thing-" I tried to cut her off, but she continued.
"-and temper problems in general. To be fair, it's not necessarily your fault. Shelgon are some of the more grumpy and stubborn dragons. Not as aggressive as something like a Deino or Zweilous – or even as quick to anger as a Bagon, to be honest – but they are ornery bastards. A Bagon's greatest dream is to fly, and being wrapped in a big, heavy cocoon is the opposite of that, so they're having a perpetually bad day, and that's a normal-sized one."
"I noticed," I admitted. Despite my remaining annoyance with the situation, I couldn't help but notice the constant underlying anger and smugness in Clair's tone vanishing when she talked about Dragon-Types. "I figured she would calm down a little as she got used to it, but we're coming up on a month now, and if anything, she's getting worse. And it's not-like you said, she's less likely to try and bite everything near her, but it's more because she's not in the mood to be curious than because she's nicer."
"The Salamence line was a bad choice for your first Dragon-Type," she held up her hands at my instantly suspicious glare. "For fuc-I'm not trying to buy her! I'm just saying, it's the third or fourth hardest dragon to handle. Salamence has nearly as bad a reputation as Gyarados, and the only reason they're not as bad or even worse is that there are so few of them. Proper habits and behavior must be ingrained before her final evolution; she will kill you." I wanted to believe she was exaggerating for effect, but I knew better. Betty had been close when she evolved into a Shelgon, and that would be a picnic compared to the notorious rage machine that was Salamence. "Even in the Clan, Trainers can be rejected by their dragons, and we're literally the experts on the subject." Completely of her own volition, she rolled her eyes and preempted a correction I wasn't intending to make. "Yeah, yeah, the Draconids are better with Salamence, blah, blah, blah – look, if you want to get shanked and fed to wild Pokémon, be my guest. You think Blackthorns are bad, you don't want to meet the Draconids, cave-dwelling lunatics that they are. No, if you want to train Behemoth properly, Blackthorn is your best bet."
"And why would you help me with that, hmm? The goodness of your heart?" I mocked. Oh yeah, I'd just pop over to Blackthorn for a bit, the hometown of the guy that tried to blackmail me for my Pokémon, and get some free training from their Gym Leader. "What do you want?"
"One," she started slowly, looking around to see if anyone was overhearing us. Despite not seeing anyone, she still leaned in closer and lowered her voice. "One, as I understand it, you have a… certain recording of my dear, beloved cousin." The way she talked about Lance felt loaded, but I didn't know the context.
"I already made a deal with Bruno not to release it," I admitted. Probably smarter to double dip and make a second deal, but I liked Bruno more than I disliked Clair.
"I know." She said to my surprise. "He told me as much."
"You guys friends?"
She sucked air in through her teeth. "Friends… is a strong word. I know him, of course, me being related to the Champion, and him following Lance around like a shadow. He's in Blackthorn nearly as much as my cousin is. That being said, our conversations have mostly revolved around him trying to recruit me for his little alliance."
"Shit, you too?" I questioned. "I figured Lance himself would be enough of you guys."
"Not that simple." Again, she didn't elaborate, but internal Clan issues fit with what Koga had told me, "no matter how much the muscle moron tries to say otherwise."
"He's a good guy." My voice was a little overly defensive.
"Look, Bruno is a nice guy, I'm not saying he's not," she reassured, sensing she was on shaky ground, "and I admire what he's got going on – genuinely one of the hardest working people in Indigo. The sacrifices he's made, the amount of times he has to fix Lance's shit: I could never, I'm woman enough to admit that. It's just…" she hesitated, but surged on. "Bruno sees the world in a very black and white way."
I said nothing, having to concede the point, but not wanting to.
She went on with the rest of her reasoning, smart enough to take the win and move on.
"Beyond that, however, I want your breeding rights." I blinked at her slowly, watching her words catch up with her. "By which I meant that I wanna breed your Shelgon-you know what I mean, whatever!"
"You gave me one earlier, so I'll return the favor and ignore that," I magnanimously allowed. So that was what it looked like from the other side. "That being said, Betty's much too young for that sort of thing." I'd say that I'd kill any suitors that came for my baby, but she'd do that herself.
"Thanks," she snorted. "And yeah, I didn't mean now. Obviously." I clearly wasn't meant to hear the last part.
Yet I did.
"It's really a moot point for a while," she hurried to explain before I could take offense. "Shelgon can't mate. I mean, technically, they have genitalia and impregnating can occur, but not only is the… act itself difficult," she tried to stay tactful for some reason – she obviously meant that being big bone balls made boning ironically hard. "Plus, Shelgon don't molt, or shed their shell. They can heal it to some extent, produce more to fix cracks, but they're not going to grow until their evolution, stockpiling all that energy until then. So, the shell is kind of a set size for a set sized Shelgon. If it's suddenly pregnant and starts expanding in there…"
"What the fuck," I breathed, horrified. "They just get crushed?"
Clair nodded solemnly, both of us dropping our usual nonsense. "The mother is often okay after the… leftovers have been discarded, but the offspring doesn't make it. It's part of the reason there are so few Salamence in the wild. Even if they survive being practically abandoned after hatching, they need to either get to a decade old before they can reproduce as Bagon, or manage to evolve fully, which most often takes longer."
"No boinking as a Shelgon, got it." I stared firmly, the words coming from the depths of my soul. Absolutely not.
Nope.
"I wouldn't recommend it, no. Therefore, this is more about the future than right now. I just want to get in before anyone else. The Titan gene isn't inherited, but there's decent evidence that it does increase overall size and may make it more likely to develop the Alpha gene. Lance's main Dragonite is a descendant of a Titan."
That… was more digestible than trying to buy her. "Why do you want to pay for me not to release the recording if Bruno's already done so?" I didn't get an answer for that.
"Blackmail so I can become Clan Head." She stated bluntly and with zero fucks given.
I choked on a vegetable, Espeon psychically hitting him on the back as he coughed. "What the hell!?" I gasped into my own glass of Oran juice. "Aren't you already the Clan Head?" I frowned. "I mean, you're the Gym Leader. I know it was different for Brock, but everyone else seems to follow the 'Gym Leader = Clan Head' principle. People dislike the Sisters, but even they are Clan Heads."
"Misogynistic assholes!" Clair snorted, shaking her head in annoyance, wild blue mop haloing her face like a mane before she brushed it back. "You don't hear half as much bitching about Surge or Falkner as you do about the girls and Erika!" In all fairness, Surge at least fought his challengers, I admitted in the privacy of my mind. He was probably worse than Erika – at least Sleeping Beauty didn't traumatize kids as often – and the Sisters should be allowed to go for a more Contest-focused thing, but they did deserve criticism.
Like a balloon deflating, Clair slumped in on herself. "But you'd think so, wouldn't you? That I'd be the Clan Head as well if I were the Gym Leader. You know why I'm not?" I shook my head. "Because Lance is."
I frowned. Beyond the scary thought of that guy being in charge of a major Clan – arguably THE Clan, based on the way everyone talked about them – that also just sounded like a bad idea. "That's allowed? It's not a conflict of interest?"
"Sure it is," she shrugged, looking a little confused. "The Clan Head is almost always top five in strength, and they often end up with additional titles. I don't understand your question."
She wouldn't. The concept of 'conflict of interest' probably didn't mean much in a Might Makes Right type of society. "Then, why is it a problem that he's the Clan Head? Other than by being Lance, and that sucking for everyone."
"Because if he's the Clan Head, then I can't be!" She proclaimed, deadly serious.
I waited for elaboration.
It didn't come.
"That's it!?" I questioned, incredulously. She frowned, face taking on a more grave expression as she opened her mouth, but she stopped herself. A grimace flashed across her features, as if she just caught herself before she overshared.
"W-well, something like that. Do I need more reasons!? This is how it is, the strongest stand at the top, and the weaker try to reach them! It's the natural order of things!" I hated how much that extremely simple reasoning made sense. It was the exact type of thing I'd expect from the dragon-brains, and it stirred my snoozing Aura in my chest. "Besides, I figured you'd be pleased with the idea, being all buddy-buddy with Bruno! The higher ranked that I am, the better I can help with the whole 'not warring' thing." The quotation marks around 'not warring' weren't reassuring, but I got the point.
I tilted my head back and forth, mulling over her words. Damn her if she didn't make a reasonable argument. It didn't even sound like the tips and training for Betty were bound to the breeding thing or the video. I really didn't stand to lose anything.
But it was suspicious, and I didn't want to.
Eventually, my musings just kept going in circles, and I did something I should honestly do more often.
Get a second opinion.
I ignored the notification that Bill had wired a hefty sum and found the number I wanted. Sorry, dickhead, but money doesn't solve everything – not that amount of money, anyway.
"This is Bruno's number. You are talking to Bruno." The monotone voice cracked through the speakers. He didn't turn on the camera, but I still found myself smiling. I'd missed the brute.
"Hey, Bruno, this is Peri. I'm here with Clair Blackthorn, Gym Leader of Blackthorn. She says-"
"I'm aware of her offer." Bruno cut me off. "You should take it. She's a better Trainer than you, and it would help further integrate the two of you into my plans, making it more likely that you'll help me."
"... don't say the quiet parts out loud, dude." I rubbed my forehead.
"Is there anything else?"
"I guess not, but you didn't really say anything-!"
BEEP!
I stared at the PokéDex as it turned off after the call ended. "... hold on."
That deserved a redo.
"Hi-!"
"-Peri-!"
"-good to hear from you!"
"Hey girls," I greeted. It was actually getting wild that I hadn't ever caught any of them alone. Even then, both Daisy and Lily were on screen, with only Violet missing. "Quick question: you guys know Clair Blackthorn?"
"Oh, Clair?" Lily lit up at the name.
"Yeah, we know Clair!" Daisy agreed.
"Great Trainer-"
"-massive bitch-"
-DAISY!"
"I meant it as a compliment! Peri's an asshole, he gets it!"
Clair herself folded her arms with an unimpressed expression that spoke of an impending second video call once we'd parted ways.
Daisy also wasn't done.
"Terrible taste in men, too! You know she used to have a crush on Bugsy!? You know, the rollercoaster Bug guy!?"
"Bugsy is a perfectly nice guy-!" Lily came to the Johto Gym Leader's defense.
"Hate to interrupt," I cut in before they could get lost in the sauce. Also, Clair was clearly on the verge of letting them know she was there, and I wasn't sitting through that mess, "but what you're saying is that it's safe to go to Blackthorn with her?"
Silence.
"Uh, no!?" Both Daisy and Lily sounded extremely unimpressed for some reason.
"What do you want with that old hag-!?" I could see the Blackthorn's face get increasingly red, her hands trembling where they were clasped around her berry juice, threatening to spill the red liquid. I opened my mouth to try and save their friendship – or whatever – before anything that couldn't be taken back was said.
"She's way too old for you!"
My jaw stayed open, the words lost. "Wha-?"
"You're supposed to marry Misty!"
"Yeah, we finally found someone for the runt-!"
"-and you want to run off and get molested by a geriatric witch!? That cradle-robbing slut!" Daisy seemed furious at her own idea that I was pursuing a romantic relationship with Clair.
"I really thought better of her." Lily, on the other hand, seemed genuinely disturbed and sad at the thought
"Alrightgirls, thankyou, Ihavetogo!" I rushed out and hung up before Clair could get any redder and explode.
Another silence. Unlike the brief early one, it hung over us like a weighted blanket, a nearly physical thing between us.
"… putting that aside," Clair forced out through gritted teeth, nostrils flaring and pupils the thinnest of slits. Something vibrated in her pocket, and she reached in to turn it off without looking at who it was, interlocking her fingers afterward so hard the knuckles turned white. "That's two character witnesses who vouched for me. Is that enough?"
I took in the fury she was constraining with admirable effort. She was really trying.
"Look," apparently, she took me not responding instantly as further reluctance and leaned forwards again, spreading her hands wide, "I get it. I do. Lance is… a lot."
I snorted. "You can say that again."
"Lance is a lot." It was her turn to smirk at my glare. "He's… he's the best and worst of us. He's the one whom everyone wants to be. The children run around, taking turns being 'Champion Lance', laying waste to scores of challengers. When they get their Dratini, the first words out of their mouths are about how they're going to beat Lance and his Dragonite. He's the one who, after decades, reminded the whole world of our power. Just because we lost and signed the treaty doesn't mean we're any weaker or have been left behind by technology. The Blackthorn Clan stands at the top of the world, as firmly now as ever, and he is the shining symbol of that."
Her voice was thick with emotions, too many for me to count or make out, but it was clear that her relationship with Lance was anything but simple.
"But?" I prompted.
"But," she agreed, "He's also everything we're warned about. You know that Blackthorn kids start emotional training at seven?" I shook my head. "Well, we do. Stuff like, how not to punch everybody who annoys you, that there's more to life than fighting, how to concentrate on something non-violent for more than five minutes." Sounded like something I could've used. "As far as I know, they're the only lessons Lance ever failed. More dragon than man, the Elders whisper, like the legends of old. The type of person who would carve a kingdom out of nothing or rule the ashes left in his wake, up there with Laionus, Victoria, The Crimson Wing, fucking Blackfang himself. Power and violence incarnate, someone who takes what he wants and kills anyone who gets in his way until he burns out, taking as many as possible with him on the way down. A king. An emperor. A man a thousand years too late, shackled to a desk and asked to play nice."
We sat there, her words lingering as she swirled her drink around, lost in thought, while I gazed out of the window.
"... I'll go with you to Blackthorn for now," I relented. I wasn't going to pretend her speech didn't have an impact, but at the end of the day, it was the potential benefits to my team that decided it. "The… breeding thing," I shuddered at the thought, "and the video… we'll see."
She sighed, a massive amount of tension leaking out of her. "I'll take it for now."
"You'd better, since it's all you're gonna get," I grumbled, somewhat annoyed with myself for giving in. "We can leave in the morning, after my team has been looked over. Meet you by the Gym, I guess."
"7 AM, sharp!" I rolled my eyes and ignored her, leaving the diner behind.
I took my time, walking through the bustling streets of Saffron for the last time – for a while, anyway. I didn't know how long I'd be spending in Blackthorn, but I didn't intend to swing by Kanto's largest city on the way back.
Walking into the PokéCenter, I had to wait in line for a while, but it was nothing terribly inconvenient. After seeing Nurse Joy pale a little and brace herself when she saw me depositing Betty, I decided to hang around a while – just in case. I'd relied on Potions for most of the few scratches she'd picked up over the two weeks in Saffron, so it was the first time the Nurse had to deal with the Titan.
In the end, we decided it was probably best for everyone involved to keep her asleep while she was quickly checked over. She hadn't taken any damage anyway; it was just a good habit to have. You never knew when something small could become a problem.
Plus, it was 'free' anyway. Hell, it was paid for with a percentage of the prize pool of official battles, like Gyms or the Battle Courts, and with the work I'd been putting into the latter over my time in Saffron, I'd earned it.
It would also be my first time in Johto, I realized while checking out of The Milotic. That was kind of exciting, though I doubted it would be that different since it was still part of the same landmass as Kanto.
Opening the door to my room, I was instantly on guard, Espeon standing up on my shoulders, Zorua going invisible with a squeak, and the tired Honedge – who had refused his ball in favor of my shadow – coming up to hover in front of me.
Someone had been in my room.
I spotted the package on the bed, a note on top of it, and relaxed a bit. Unlikely to be an ambush, unless it was sneaky as shit.
Soothing my Pokémon, I walked over and picked up the piece of paper, noticing that the package itself was a TM disk and a 'Data Drive' or, as I called it, 'more universal USB stick'.
The handwriting was neat and straight, almost machine-like, and I had a feeling I knew who it was from before even reading it.
And I was right.
'Have fun in Blackthorn. I don't like it. The people are illogical and emotional.
Moon-Soother is annoyed that you interrupted her new attack. She wants a rematch.
I don't like Bill.
Regards, Sabrina.'
Chuckling to myself, I confirmed the TM was the Teleport I'd asked for, and – a quick insertion later – that the data was about Espeon. And not just widely available stuff you'd find on the PokéNet, I noticed while skimming over a section on 'inherent use of Detect', but real training tips.
Unironically in my top three Gym Leaders, and it was only partially because most of the others sucked.
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"You ready?" I nodded at Clair's question, smirking at her droopy eyes. She'd thought 7 AM would screw me over, but jokes on her, I'd been awake for over two hours by that point.
"Sure am. Are you?" She sniffed and mumbled something under her breath while rubbing her eye, cutting herself off with a yawn. Instead of trying again, she grabbed a PokéBall and released an Alakazam.
I was a little disappointed, I'd admit. I'd been curious what kind of Dragon-Type she'd taught Teleport.
"Normally, I'd-Haaahhh!" She yawned again. "Shit! Stupid Daisy, keeping me up all night with her stupid words. Anyway, normally I'd fly, but it's a bit long for your first time. Unless you've ridden a Dragonair before?"
"Nope." I agreed.
"Cool. Grab on and let's go." I did as instructed, and despite my hopes of something different, there was nothing to scoff at about Alakazam's Teleporting skills.
One minute, we were in one place, the next, somewhere else, with only the slightest tugging sensations and swirling colors.
What was on the other side, however, was cold.
"Brrrrrrr!" I complained, swinging my backpack off and setting it on the rock beneath us. It wasn't freezing, and as I looked around while putting on my jacket, there wasn't that much snow to be found either, though there was some. "No thanks for the warning!"
But it was a hell of a lot colder than Saffron's reflecting buildings of glass.
"Ahhhh!" Clair, on the other hand, seemed invigorated by the low temperatures, taking in a deep breath. "That'll wake you up! Welcome to Blackthorn! Kind of."
"Yeah," I agreed, taking in the scenery. "Kind of. Where are we?"
We'd materialized on a wide, flat shelf of rock jutting out from the mountainside like a natural platform, worn smooth by what had to be centuries of use, judging by the grooves worn into the stone where feet had stood and landed. Below us, the mountain dropped away in a series of staggered cliff faces, each one darker than the last as the rock changed composition going down, from the pale grey-brown of the upper-altitude stuff to something almost black further below, shot through with veins of reddish mineral that caught the early-morning light.
The mountains themselves were enormous. Not in the way that Mt. Moon was enormous, all tunneled through and tame, full of Clefairy and fossil hunters. These were the real thing, the kind of mountains that didn't care that humans existed, jagged and ancient, covered in a thin skin of snow that stopped partway down and became spotty. The peaks above us disappeared into low clouds – black dots too far away to make out swarming around the tips like bees, and the wind coming off them carried an actual bite, the kind that found the gaps in your jacket like a knife with a personal grudge.
Between the summits, the valleys were deep and dark, filled with pine so dense the canopy looked solid from up high. Now and then, something large shifted in the treeline far below, the canopies shaking with far-off roars.
"Home sweet home," Clair said, with the tone of someone who meant it completely and was slightly daring you to say something about it.
I didn't.
Blackthorn city was visible in the valley below us and off to the east, maybe a twenty-minute walk if the path down was straightforward – which it very visibly wasn't. From our perch, it looked small, built along the valley floor with the mountains rising on three sides like walls that hadn't decided to stop. The few features I could make out were dark-roofed and sturdy-looking, built to take weather rather than to look good in it, with none of Saffron's glass and steel or Celadon's manicured prettiness. A river caught the morning light somewhere near the town center like a band of diamonds, snaking down the left mountain and bringing fresh water to the dragon Trainers. Smoke was already rising from a few chimneys, and indistinct shapes moved among the buildings despite the shadow of the mountains casting their homes in shade.
To be fair, with the height of the peaks, Blackthorn would only get a few hours of sun a day.
It looked like the kind of place that had been exactly where it was for a very long time and intended to stay there. "You can see the Gym from here," Clair pointed, though I could only tell what she was pointing at because it was larger than the surrounding buildings and set back from what looked like the main road.
That wasn't the nearest source of interest, however.
Behind us, partially built into the mountain itself and partially carved out of it, was a cave.
A big one.
Wide and low-mouthed, the entrance was hewn into the rock face with excessive force, the edges worn and blackened along deep claw marks, slag and molten stone cooled mid-drip and ground by centuries. Two pillars framed it, carved directly from the mountain rather than set in place, and intricately carved. Whatever had been etched into them had been worn down to mere suggestion by time and weather, the surface nearly smooth with age. That being said, the repeated patterns of a humanoid shape and another four-limbed, large and bulky shape with something on its back pointed towards the origins. The darkness beyond was complete, the kind that didn't resolve into shapes no matter how long you looked at it, and the air coming out was significantly warmer than the mountain air.
A scent tickled my nose. Fire, ozone. Reptilian.
And a lot of it.
"Dragon's Den," Clair said, looking into the darkness with me, the words carrying a certain amount of weight to them, a hint of reverence. "Your home for the upcoming bit."
"Right," I said.
She rolled her shoulders and turned toward the entrance, the cold morning air ruffling her blue hair.
"Grab your bag, Periwinkle. We're not tourists."
"I go by Peri," I said, for approximately the fortieth time to approximately the fortieth person. She walked into the dark without answering, and a second later, a deep, bone-rattling vibration rolled from the Den's depths, somewhere between a purr and a warning. Then it was amplified by something else joining in, and before I knew it, it was a symphony of rumbling, almost clicking growls that shook the ground beneath us.
I picked up my bag and followed Clair into the black.
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IT'S HOT AF, DUDE, SAVE ME, I CAN'T WRITE LIKE THIS!
Thank you for reading. Hopefully you enjoyed. If you REALLY liked it, I have a P-a-t-r-e-o-n, under the same name, where you can read 5 chapters ahead.