Chapter 34: En Rose
Lusamine could not hide forever.
Or rather, she
could hide forever, but it would not be a feasible plan. Not if she intended to retaliate appropriately against the indignity she suffered.
She at first thought she would make Guzma
rue the day he thought he could manipulate her so. Guzma wanted her to choose, did he? Then she would choose. But the choice would be a bitter one, and she swore she would find a way to crush him with it. Perhaps she ought to renew every bit of loathing she felt, heap abuse on him, treat him like the wretch that he is―how easy it would be, then, to banish him from her sight. Or she could seduce him all over again, be as sweet as roses, and charm him so perfectly that he will take it all back and
beg to stay with her. Then she can enjoy his watching his expression when she destroys him.
However, these choices, the more she dwelled on them, felt increasingly tired and unoriginal. These were tactics practiced by a heartbroken, overlooked, or misused teenager. They could have been a salve to the pain of a boy asking another girl to the school dance, but they would be pitiful fixes for a marriage in shambles. Besides, Guzma would see her plot coming and ignore it. She'd played her hand too soon; he knew her techniques too well.
So for a time, Lusamine hid and wallowed in her misery. No one came to her room to bother her; Guzma had evidently found other activities to occupy his time, and no one else on the ship had reason to search her out. In the hours that slipped by without event, her suite's morning color faded into an ashen pallor. Far away, and even in the suite corridors just outside her room, there came the steady wave of now-ubiquitous sounds of children: giggling, chatter, vulgarity, complaining. Footsteps and doors opening. She covered her head and did the best she could to ignore these reminders of her current state, but no bed coverings could block out her knowledge of what she faced outside.
She came out of her room only once that afternoon when the ruckus got to be unbearable to the point of shaking the entire boat. She caught sight of the finishing act of a pokemon battle between her children and Guzma―and what a sight it was! The spectacle roused the entire ship into such boisterous braying and stomping, that she feared the whole vessel might be knocked off-balance. In the end, she couldn't tell who won, but only saw the three meet furtively and hurry away together.
To make plans, she thought.
To plot against me.
...It was their fault. She knew that. Had known it. Her marriage plans began to unravel the moment he gave those two any time at all. He trusted them more than he did her.
With those defeatist thoughts swirling in her head, she slinked back into her room and returned to her bed, which now served as an altar to her suffering.
Thump-thump-thump. A laugh, a pokemon cry, something fragile breaking.
Lusamine threw a pillow over her head to stifle a self-pitying sob.
-
By the end of the party organization, it became clear to the Aether siblings and to the ship's staff that Guzma was not entirely sure for whom he planned the event. Most of the decorations and style had been cobbled together and refashioned from discarded wedding materials: white linens on tables, flower arrangements, dinner plates and silverware, amber string lights suspended between poles and dangling against the deepening blue skyline. It seemed awfully formal, considering the majority of the intended guests. That it had class was no real credit to Guzma, though―he left the detailed decisions to the hosting crew and guided them only with generic requests, such as "make it look good."
It ended up appearing much like the wedding reception that would have been. The tables were lined in rows, and open space at the opposite half of the rooftop deck remained open as a dance floor.
(
Who's going to be dancing? Gladion privately wondered. He hoped it wasn't the grunts.)
Afternoon started to lean into evening hours, casting longer shadows over the floor and richer color where the sun broke through clouds low in the sky. With nothing else left to do, Gladion and Lillie had seated themselves at the edge of the deck, Lillie in a chair she had pulled away from a table, and Gladion, more aloofly, on top of a liquor crate. Things were nearly ready. But before Guzma returned from whatever last-minute fussing he was up to, Gladion slid open a crate beside him to free a beer bottle for himself. He cracked the cap off.
Lillie only lifted her head a moment at the noise, saw what he was up to, and chose not to comment.
"All right," a voice said over the lingering breeze. Guzma, having finished a quick chat with culinary staff, trailed back over to them. He walked casually, shoulders slouched and hands in pockets, and paused before them to report, "Just waiting on food. I'm gonna go round up people―and hey, what is
that ?"
The reason for Guzma's sudden spike in indignation was Gladion's rather brazen decision to start drinking the beer in front of him. The boy blinked at him, examined the bottle sarcastically, and said, "I believe it's called 'beer.'"
"Quit playin'. Whadda you doin' drinking? You're like twelve."
"Thirteen," Gladion corrected crossly. "And that's a judgmental tone, considering you're the one who gave me my first beer."
Now that he mentioned it, Guzma did have a vague, distant memory of handing the new recruit a bottle and belting out a laugh when the child made a weak, gagging attempt at drinking from it. "Well, yeah, but―that was just a joke."
"Yes. Hilarious." Gladion tapped the crate underneath him with the heel of his shoe. "You had me carry three cartons of the stuff up here. I think I've earned it."
"You…" Guzma paused, ruminated on his logic, then sighed. "Okay―fine." He amended, as to not seem like a pushover, "You can have
one."
Gladion just rolled his eyes and took another glug.
"Um…" Lillie hesitantly raised a finger to get Guzma's attention.
Guzma threw eyes on her, aghast. "What! Don't tell me you want one."
She shied. "Oh, no… I don't do… that. It's gross, anyway."
"Aw, see! That's smart! Glad, why can't you be smart like your sister!?"
Before Gladion could snipe back―and by his frown, Lillie could tell he meant to―the girl ignored Guzma's teasing and piped up with inordinate hope. "Will Mother be here too?"
"...Huh?"
"Are you going to get her?"
Guzma flattened his brow and tightened his mouth. Great uncertainty clouded his expression and his verbal answer, which came out to, "Uh, maybe. We'll see." He squeezed his neck and avoided looking at them as he thought it through, and eventually added, "We'll get there when we get there."
From atop the crate, Gladion gave the party set-up one last glance. For him, the arrangement still didn't add up. He grimaced. "You aren't doing all this to woo her, are you?"
"'Woo' her!" Guzma sucked his teeth at the boy. "Whatta you
talkin ' about! She's already 'wooed,' isn't she! Consider her
very wooed !"
"It's just… The whole thing's coming off as… conciliatory. All things considered."
"Well, whatta you want me to do! Chuck rotten fruit at her!?"
"I
want you to not marry her."
"That's not up to you," Guzma said. (He neglected to say who it
was up to). In any case, he ended the conversation.
Although Team Skull would normally shun such a transparent, desperate attempt at mending things, the fact was the children could always be lured with the promise of food and drink. So despite their suspicions about Guzma's motives and their vague distrust of any party he had arranged, they started to file their way upstairs after their former boss passed word of dinner and free liquor.
When the grunts arrived, they weren't sure what to make of the disconcerting rows of tables, the clean glasses and dishware, or the attempts at decoration. Some of the ship's crew, wearing suspenseful, intense looks, lined the outskirts of the rooftop deck to keep an eye on the event, but for quite a while, there was no need to worry. Team Skull was not in their element and thus not ready to throw things into chaos.
While they awaited the rest of the grunts, the present kids wasted no time tearing into the beer, scooping bottles into their arms and finding places to sit, snort, and cuss. Their pokemon frolicked under the white linens flapping in the breeze, the creatures zipping beneath the tables and snapping at one another in play. Already, the energy threatened to bubble over and rip the scene to shreds, so Guzma, upon spotting a grunt poking at and nearly tipping a glass vase, stormed over and made his expectations known.
"Break anything," he snarled, "and nobody eats! Got it!?"
The grunts, seated in both chairs and on the floor of the deck, mumbled, whined, and gaped up at him in disbelief.
"Day-yng, G, why you so pressed?"
"Yeah! Chill!"
Guzma glowered over the growing throng of partygoers. They filled seats and clicked their silverware on the table as they felt boredom and hunger creep up on them. He saw more grunts climbing the stairs and was mildly surprised to see Plumeria arrive; she had stayed out of sight that day, not bothering to attend her kids during the battle competitions or other mischief. She looked sour… but willing to give anything a shot at bringing up her mood.
Bully, as usual, climbed up after her, pretending to be a loyal cohort; Nanu wheezed and brought up the rear far below.
"Can we play music?"
Guzma, distracted, didn't even bother to check who asked. He just shrugged. "Sure, whatever." A few grunts subsequently began to rifle through and take command of the sound equipment, bickering as they did, and Guzma turned his focus on the new arrivals. "Plume!"
She looked up, now at the top of the stairs and meeting his eyes. She appeared surprised at being so casually addressed.
But Guzma suppressed any lingering resentment, asking with strange earnestness, "Can you keep an eye on them? I'll be back in a few. Just… Don't let them bash anything too bad."
Plumeria lifted an eyebrow at him. She might have questioned his idea of negotiating terms with his wedding crashers; at a quick glance over the event, she, too, read a stuffy atmosphere. She would sooner turn over the tables herself than defend them against the horde.
"Food'll be here any minute," he promised.
"...Ugh." She sighed and dropped her shoulders from their prior defensive position. "All right, all right. Uncle!"
She didn't need to yell; despite his slow movement, Nanu had already caught up and was puffing behind her. "I heard," he said. He winced when loud rap music suddenly boomed out from the sound system, and had to raise his voice to say: "And if you think you're putting me on babysitting duty, you've got another thing coming."
-
Though it had been many, many hours since Guzma last entered Lusamine's suite, he wasn't entirely surprised to find her position unchanged. He had given the door a feeble knock, waited, heard nothing, then breached the entrance anyway, and saw that she had her face planted against a pillow on the bed. She lay so still that from afar, someone could have mistaken her for dead, but a subtle, steady flow of breathing lifted her shoulders and back.
He almost didn't want to disturb her. He watched her for a moment as the room darkened. The very last of the day's light had waned, and at the last second, Guzma pawed for the light panel to make out the space more clearly.
The lamp turned on, but Lusamine didn't flinch or move.
"Miss?"
He sighed and approached the bed. When his presence didn't evoke a response, he escalated by sitting on the edge of the bed, which jostled the mattress just enough to make her shift her arms.
"You hungry?"
If Lusamine were honest―and really, when was the last time she'd been honest with anyone?―she would say she was starving, as she had not eaten since breakfast. But she was also nauseated and overwhelmed, her flesh clammy and hands trembling, so her appetite would not win out.
Guzma fruitlessly tried to read her body language in lieu of any of the verbal sort. "So you're not?" He hesitated. A warm, broad hand clasped the chilly flesh of her arm and stayed there, as if to defrost her. "Why don't you get up?"
She squirmed, a sound of contempt lurching from her throat. "Why bother?"
"Lu." After a moment, he chose to console her, rather than scold her for her unhelpful attitude. "You'll feel better."
"How can you be so sure of that…?"
"Well, it ain't like lying here's helping, is it?"
Because his argument was sound and she couldn't think of a way to answer him, she rebelled by crumpling even more stubbornly than before.
"I'll carry you," he warned.
"Do that, and I'll―" She meant to say '
scream,' but before she could finish her threat, he decided to follow through with his. His arms scooped down, seizing her about the waist and hoisting her up like baggage; as she had alluded, she released an indignant shriek and clawed for the bed, digging her nails uselessly into the sheets to fight against him. Of course he yanked her free, but in the midst of her flailing with her elbows jutting into his sides and heels landing blows at his ankles, he nearly lost his grip on her. He recovered enough to make a grab for her legs, though, until he had her captive in his arms in a bridal carry. "Put me―! Down this instant, you inbred!"
Guzma let out a harsh bark of a laugh and spun for the door while she kicked and protested. "What, this ain't romantic for you?"
"
Stop it!" From where she lay draped in his arms, she had vantage enough to grapple for his neck. She felt anger enough to choke him, and she managed to snare her fingers at the base of his throat, but in grabbing him, her strength and resolve came unglued. With a shudder of weakness, she managed only to pull herself up and place her face at his shoulder, and from there, she moaned in a pitiable, small voice. "Please. I don't want to go."
And so just as quickly as he had tried to pass it off as a joke, he slowed and stilled, creasing his brow. In a strangely intimate and comforting gesture, he fixed his hand more tightly at her back until he almost cradled her. "Why not?"
"I can't."
"But your kids are out there."
"How's that relevant?"
"Everybody's waiting for you," he implored in her ear.
"I doubt that," she snapped back.
"Okay,
I'm waiting for you."
"You!" In defeat, she crumpled her features into his shirt, leaving it sticky with tears. "You want to get rid of me."
"No." He squeezed his grip and put on a stern edge to his voice. "That's not what I said."
"It's what you
meant!" Though she had only seconds ago complained about being held against her will, now she encircled her arms about his neck to bring herself consolation. She muffled her sobs. "Oh, just go! Go and enjoy yourself while I rot away here! What good practice it will be! You know everyone would be much happier for it anyway!"
If she meant to elicit compliance, she failed; if she meant to elicit sympathy, however, she suffered a small victory, as Guzma sighed, allowed her to slip down onto her feet on the floor, and made his best attempt at comforting her. "That's not true," he lied. He thumbed away a mascara-laced tear. "Hey, listen. It's your party. Your wedding. If anybody's got the right to be there, it's you!"
Lusamine cast a doubtful, doe-eyed look on him.
"Look―it'll be good. It'll be a good time, and―if anybody messes with you, I'll pound 'em into dust, okay?"
A childish promise. The sort of vow a teenage boy would make for his new beau. Somehow it didn't bother her. Somehow―it seemed so ridiculous that she had to be pleased by its genuineness. Yet it struck her as an odd time to express that kind of loyalty. Her pleasure gave way to a bitter frown.
He saw her hesitance and put a hand to her shoulder. An errant slip of his finger on the bare flesh of her arm gave meaning beyond friendly comfort; she trembled. "One last night. And then after…" A strained silence hung above them. "After, you can decide."
When he said that, she felt all of it over again: the fear, rage, hopelessness, the illness swelling in her gut.
He didn't waste a moment to let her stew in it; he seized her by the hand and declared it was time to go.
-
Because food had arrived and Team Skull were desperately hungry, the event started off smoothly. Nothing inspired compliance quite like the promise of food―grunts who normally balked at authority regressed to childlike obedience, standing in line, waiting their turn, even mumbling their please and thank you's when old training kicked in. For now, so long as they kept chewing and filing into seats, they wouldn't be trouble.
Plumeria, then, didn't have to supervise too much. She ushered the food line some, barked a few orders, but within a few minutes she decided further assistance wouldn't be needed. Nanu picked his seating spot already, nursing his beer at the empty table furthest from the grunts and thudding speakers, so to thwart his isolation, she snagged a plate for herself and headed for him. On her way, though, she passed a table of younger male grunts where Bully had converged, and she noticed that they shoveled their greens onto the deck, where their pokemon scurried to eat it up on their behalf.
She paused to put a hand on her hip and play mother. "When's the last time any of y'all ate a vegetable?"
The boys looked up, saw her, and groaned.
"Aw, quit geekin', sis," one grunt answered.
"Chips are a vegetable," Bully said, thinking he was helping.
She settled a glare on him.
"What! They made o' corn, aren't they!?"
"And potatoes," another said.
The collection of them wore grins now and sniggered.
"Ketchup with my fries, yo. That's two right there!"
Plumeria, chagrined, shook her head. "Y'all dummies are gonna get scurvy, I swear."
"Girl, mind yo' business," Bully told her, voice drawled with whining. "Big G ain't never fussed at us about what we eat."
Plumeria could have taken offense, even chewed him out for mouthing off in front of the other grunts. He was subordinate to her as they were. But tonight, she felt at ease, so she merely smirked and explained, "That's 'cause he ate like crap, too. Where do you think I learned about scurvy, huh? Had to get him to the doctor when he broke out in hives."
As they laughed, Plumeria turned away; Bully, surprised, stopped her. "Hey, where you goin'?"
"Grown-ups table."
Bully followed her trajectory with his eyes, spotted Nanu, and grunted an acknowledgement. "Huh. Yeah. So, Plume. When's
y'all's wedding?"
"Euugh!" Chops gagged. "Don't do it, Big Sis! Them babies gonna come out gray-haired!"
Plumeria just shot him a warning, withering glance and tossed her head. It would do no good arguing with them; boys will be boys. Within moments, they would be cackling about something else entirely.
Besides, Nanu welcomed her, and within a few minutes, she eased into banter and forgot all about it.
-
The couple arrived hand-in-hand and time suspended itself.
The music, which was a mixture of thuggish chants, taunts, and boasting, didn't pause, despite how poorly it matched their appearance from the stairwell. Guzma wore a careful, serious look along with his conservative clothing style, all of which added together to make him seem at least a decade older; Lusamine, edging reluctantly along in her high heels, scanned her surroundings with a clear sense of nerves. Not all of the grunts paid them any mind, but a select few scurried after them like ducklings, squawking for attention, in particular from their new maternal figure. They called her and tugged at the end of her skirt, like they expected her to unwind from her partner and dote on them. In fact, she almost did. Before Guzma finally cussed at them and chased the grunts off, Lusamine gave a boy a pat on the head and let one girl cling to arm and babble at her.
Plumeria allowed herself a sliver of amusement at the spectacle, but it faded when Guzma locked eyes with her.
Oh, no.
And true to her dread, he started for her, dragging his dainty, porcelain doll of a fiancee behind him.
Plumeria tried to bury her horror by looking at the floor, but Nanu, tipsy from sequential beers and generally more open-minded anyhow, greeted them when they approached.
"Hey, lovebirds," he burbled. He pointed for the chairs across from them. "You gonna sit?"
Plumeria's fists tightened as she felt the overwhelming urge to knock him upside the head. But she didn't have a choice to even open her mouth to object; Guzma mumbled his assent and seated Lusamine at the table. To Lusamine's credit, she looked just as uncomfortable with the arrangement as Plumeria did, though she said nothing.
Then Guzma did an even worse thing: he left to retrieve food.
Nanu didn't seem bothered or concerned, though that was likely a side-effect of his drinking; he tilted back his bottle, scanned the skyline, and seemed to find amusement in private thoughts. Plumeria did her best to shovel food and pretend the woman wasn't there. Lusamine, sensing how unwelcome she was, sat glass-eyed and silent, enduring stares and the unrelenting thud of the grunts' music.
Out of boredom more than out of discomfort, Nanu broke the silence. "So what's the plan?"
Lusamine jumped in her seat, saw Nanu looking at her, and paled a little.
"You know. After the wedding? You could adopt all these gremlins; that'd give you something to fill your days."
"Ah―" She fluttered her eyelashes at first in confusion, then in gentle amusement when she realized he was joking. "Y-yes. It certainly would."
Plumeria released a singular, disgusted snort to express her feelings on the matter.
All of a sudden, Lusamine found strength to continue the half-hearted conversation. "How about you, Officer? Do you have plans?"
"Me? I'm too old to have plans."
"And you? What's in your near future, young lady?"
It took Plumeria an incredibly long, drawn-out second to notice that Lusamine had shown the
gall to address her with a question. The girl drew up her eyes, darkening them with with a low, hateful blink. She swallowed the food in her mouth and answered, "Hire Guzma a divorce lawyer."
Pleased by the fact that the girl spoke at all, Lusamine at last overcame her numbness and offered a sweet smile. "You have those? Lawyers crawling about in Po Town… I suppose I wouldn't be shocked. They are disgusting lowlives."
"A-men," Nanu crowed.
Plumeria glowered at him, as if to say,
Just whose side are you on!?
But Nanu must have known what he was doing; he smirked at her and drank his beer.
Thankfully, the conversation ceased in time for Guzma to reappear with Gladion and Lillie reluctantly in tow.
"...But do we
have to?"
"Yes."
"If I'm going to sit here," Gladion said, "I'm going to need another beer."
"No you
don't." With a free hand, Guzma scuffed the hood of Gladion's shirt. "Quit bein' a drama queen."
Nanu, reading the additional bodies as an ever-growing intrusion on his privacy, eyed them as they settled into seats and nearly said something before he thought better of it. Thus, with no more interruption or protest, the whole lot sat for supper: Nanu and Plumeria on one side, Gladion and Lillie tucked on another, and Guzma with his arm around a tolerant Lusamine's shoulders.
Though Guzma had orchestrated this arrangement by force, he did not readily confess its reasoning. Despite time passing, the awkwardness didn't lift, so they ate in pensive silence, clinking their forks against china and shifting their eyes in a desperate attempt not to engage one another.
Guzma at last shot a glare around, attempting to understand their body language before abruptly yawping, "Why's everyone so quiet!?"
Plumeria snorted and stuck a bite of food in her mouth; the children shared looks; Lusamine sighed; Nanu, of all of them, had the gall to answer him: "You ain't very good at reading situations, are you."
Guzma glowered.
"Don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining."
"Okay, G, enlighten us. What's with the powwow?" Plumeria asked, raising an eyebrow in suspicion. "Like, you got something you wanna say?"
"No," Guzma said. All of a sudden, the frustration marring his expression crumbled. He dropped his hands. "No, not really, I…" When he read their faces now, he could see their confusion more clearly; he struggled to put words together. "It's just, this is our last night, and… Tomorrow, everything's gonna be different. We're all goin' different ways, and it might the last time we… Anyway, I get it, y'all don't really like each other, maybe you don't even like
me all that much, but it doesn't matter because, because you're all important to me―"
The discomfort at the table only exponentially grew as he rattled on, so Lusamine attempted to save them all some face by touching his arm and whispering in falsely-cheerful manner, "I think… You've had one too many drinks…"
Like a rolling boom of thunder, his fist struck the table, shaking the plates and glassware and successfully startling all of them.
He roared. "Can I just! Be serious for one minute of my stupid life!?"
His fiancee recoiled. The rest of them assented through silence. He was clearly shaking and puffed from exertion, but relaxed when he saw he was not to be challenged.
"Alright! So! I'm gonna need everybody to just
chill and pretend to get along!"
After a bit of uneasy shuffling, the quiet resumed. Guzma took that time to replace his arm at Lusamine's shoulders, cross his legs, and eye them as if they were a pack of miscreant children about ready to squabble.
"Glad."
Gladion twitched his head up.
"Talk." The order was spat, not said.
"...Uh… About?"
"I don't care," Guzma vexed. "Anything. Just
talk."
"Um…" The boy plucked at his food, saw the trepidation in everyone's faces, and decided to fight back. "So about that battle―when's our rematch going―"
Guzma broke; all his dire attitude flew out, replaced with a more relatable, and certainly more familiar, air of petulance. He threw up his hands. "Ugh! Never mind. Lillie! Your turn."
-
The night burned out at last, having started with a powerful, scorched red bronzing the horizon before succumbing to black smoke. As the last of the sky's blue wrinkled away and the last of the stars showed their timid faces, the luminescence of the decorations came into fuller view, casting blonde, milky light over the ship. Despite the fact that the grunts didn't change their behavior (especially as the food disappeared into their hungry maws), and despite the continuing lack of real conversation aside from Lillie's patient babbling, Lusamine could feel her muscles relaxing a little. The harshness of the day slept; tomorrow began its proud, forward stride.
If she shut her eyes, she could feel the subtle rocking of the ship above the inky waves of night. She nearly dozed off when Guzma gave her a nervous shake.
"You okay?"
"Oh…" She leaned back into his arm. "I'm alright."
He made note of something and mumbled privately into her ear, "You didn't eat much, Lu."
Because her stomach still self-assaulted and churned with noxious juices. Not that she would say that.
But though she didn't say anything, somehow he knew. He took her by the wrist and interrupted Lillie, who was in the middle of describing her training with Hala. "We're gonna take a minute," he said.
He stood and brought Lusamine with him; both of them pretended not to notice the slackening of tension once they wandered away from the table, and they weaved between errant grunts until they reached the railing, at which he let her stand and suck in the dark, empty air.
Lusamine stood with her arms outstretched and her lungs subsuming air to the point of dizziness. Behind them, the grunts had taken to dancing to the racket they called music, and the cacophony filled her head with jarring crunches noises and hammers on nails.
Guzma stroked her hair and watched her suffering. "Anything I can do?"
"...The music is giving me a headache."
He jumped. She needn't breathe another syllable; he marched over to where the grunts were attempting a new dance set and made his claim, declaring that it was "time for adult music."
And so within seconds, the music clicked off, fizzled white, then washed in again like a lapping wave against soft sand. Instead of electrical thuds or harsh, combative lyrics, there came a twinkle of jazzy piano, the croon of sensual brass, the
tisk-tisk-tisk of cymbals, and the silken warble of a clarinet. Upon hearing it, she felt like she had fallen into the distant past; she recognized its perfect balance of sweetness, passion, and melancholy, the way both singer and band could summon the bitterness of past loss and a hope for present longings. It brought her mind back to countless other dinner parties, at which such music was drowned out by grown laughter, the pop of sparkling champagne bottles, the click of heels, and the clean clink of silverware.
Here, it competed with the complaining of obstinate thugs and pulling of chairs and dropping of items on the floor. Hardly a romantic venue. Still, Guzma pulled away from the sound system, ignored the plaintive whines of his former fellows, approached Lusamine, and watched her expression carefully to gauge her response.
"Is that... good?"
She held her breath for a few more chords, but came to only exhale and not answer.
His expression changed as a thought occurred to him. "Hey." Guzma stood before her and proffered a hand. "Dance with me."
"Dance?" She was shocked. In her momentary disbelief, she glanced about at their surroundings, which had not changed: children and teenagers. She noted their growing ogling at them and backed away against the railing. "...Everyone's looking at us."
"So!? You like havin' people look at you."
She flashed him a mildly offended look.
"I mean―you know. You like attention. Can't deny that."
Guzma may have been right to suggest her highest fantasy was sparkling pristinely in the spotlight, but he wrongly assumed this did not hinge on other factors. Her ultimate nightmare scenario, indeed, was not of being ignored, but of being unprepared for the spotlight―of it shining on her in a moment of weakness. She did not want her humiliation and shame broadcasted. And she felt sharp misgivings at the thought of waltzing with a partner who meant to leave her, and before an audience of slack-jawed delinquents, at that. A dance of defeat. What choice would the children have but to mock her? Pity her?
"C'mon." Guzma still had his hand out and began to bounce impatiently. "I promise it won't hurt."
...Unless he hadn't practiced his steps well enough; then it just might. She frowned and puzzled over his earnestness. Guzma couldn't be called shy, as he often called attention to himself in ridiculous ways, but like her, he resisted doing anything potentially foolish in front of others. The prospect of embarrassment usually paralyzed him.
He begged some more, then grabbed her when he tired of pleading. She didn't fight it, but allowed herself to be swept up against his chest. His solid, powerful hands pressed at her back and eventually cradled the softness of her right hand into his palm; her ear rested against his breast to hear the rattling of his heart and lungs; without much seriousness, he pulled her out into the middle of the floor, swaying her the best he could to the rhythm of the thrumming cello. She spun. Blood throbbed and swelled in her head, drowning her in a sudden influx of dizziness.
Suddenly, she snared his shirt between her fingers and pleaded, "Not so fast. Not so…"
After hearing her desperation and feeling the clamminess of her palm, he complied, slowing their movement to a sluggish, dreamlike rocking. Abruptly, he snorted and cried, "
Ah, shut up," which she quickly realized was not addressed to her, but to a pack of jeering boys. Their giggles punctuated the musical strains, but Guzma seemed happy to otherwise ignore them.
She thought she might pass out in the warm cusp of his arms, where her toes barely crossed the floor as he dragged her about. He could lift her so carelessly that she felt weightless, almost suspended.
She could take no more.
She crushed her face into the fabric at his chest and sobbed. "...Why are you doing this to me?"
Confused, he stuttered their dance to a standstill. He waited for her to lift her face and explain, but when she wouldn't, he worriedly touched her shoulders. "Doing what?"
"If you loved me, you'd make this easy."
"...'Easy'?"
"Can't you see? How much you're hurting me!?"
His fingers twisted in the skin at her arms. He murmured, "I just… I just wanted to do something nice for you…"
"Nice? Nice!?" At last she wrenched her face away, glared up at his puzzled expression, and snarled her words. "If you want to do something for me, then say that you hate me. Tell me the thought of me makes your stomach turn―"
"But I don't…" He chewed the inside of his cheek. "I don't feel that way."
"How can you say that!"
Guzma paused to look both ways past his shoulders; he uneasily returned her icy gaze to attempt, "Miss, you gotta chill. They lookin' at you―"
Indeed, true to his word, the lazy chatter of the grunts had disappeared, replaced with a tense, morbidly curious silence.
But Lusamine didn't care. Anger stabbed at her temples, stung her eyes, scraped her throat. She bristled and hissed. "Are you so addicted to being abused? Does it give you pleasure?"
Against the budding starlight, his face remained dark and cool as obsidian. His eyes watched her but he didn't even twitch his lips to speak.
She snaked her hands up to his chest. Wearing a cruel sneer, she teased her nails against the fabric of his shirt and purred too softly for anyone else to hear, "Tell me. Does it get you off, Guzma?"
He should have broken. He should have lashed out and punished her, just as the familiar cycle went: the game she played with everyone.
I'll scratch you, and you scratch me back .
Guzma, though, simply put his hands on hers, twisted them away until their joints pinched in pain, and sank his eyes into hers like he meant to swallow her up in his shadow. He didn't make a face to imply disdain or wrath, but his uttering spoke for itself, as it came out crisp and daring over his lips: "There ain't
nothing you can do to hurt me anymore."
Like he had plunged a knife into her, she yanked her hands away and threw herself back, nearly losing her footing as she did. She whirled around. All their faces seemed to be locked onto hers, blank and terrifying as the gaze of the moon. She clawed at the air as if she could wipe their appearance away, or at least stir up the darkness to ripple them out of view, but they remained, judging, peering. She grabbed hold of something solid and cool―too late, she realized it was a crystal vase―and without thinking, hurled it in the direction of her attacker. But Guzma knocked her arm and the vase went fumbling and crashing onto the floor without any forward trajectory. Water and flowers and billions of sparks of glass splashed at her feet.
Yipes of excitement came from the crowd.
She screamed, even attempted to clobber him though his arms easily deflected her. "I thought there could be something good in you, but there isn't! You're a monster! You're worse than a monster!"
Guzma didn't answer. Wouldn't. He just wrestled her arms still and gave her a look of disappointment, as if she had failed some test.
That was when all the sickness caught up with her and she had no choice but to turn, crunch the broken glass under her feet, and run.
"Hey, no fair!" one grunt whined as she went. "How come she gets to break stuff an' we can't?"
Guzma shoved the kid aside and went after her.
-
She hit the stairwell, didn't take it―turned a sharp left and through a glass door, and then made it as far as the navigation wing when her stomach flipped and revolted. She stumbled inside, ignored the startled looks of the crew members, and promptly vomited into an available garbage can.
As if the humiliation of that wasn't enough, she heard Guzma approach from behind, sigh, and weave his fingers through her hair to pull it back and away from her face. She didn't wish to tolerate it, but the second wave hit, and she held the rim of the can in a death-grip as she emptied her stomach. He rubbed her back in tight circles, in a manner that suggested he knew it was a thing one should do, despite not knowing why or how to do it. It succeeded in recovering some of her strength, at least, so that she could begin to stand more firmly on two feet.
She heard the exchange of voices and queries fly over her head. A few grunts stuck their head in the door but were chased away by Guzma's verbal warnings; a few crew members ventured close to see if they could be any help; and finally, her children caught up to similarly gawk at the spectacle. She wanted to sink into the sea and never resurface.
"...Is she all right?"
"She's fine," Guzma said.
"Is she seasick?"
"She's
fine."
Gladion, after a moment of thinking on it, asked, "Is it a side effect?"
"He's poisoned me," Lusamine abruptly wailed. She gagged on the powerfully revolting taste scorching her throat.
"Nobody's poisoned you," Guzma scolded. He continued to rub her back and eased his words back into assurance. "Mr. Faba said you might get nauseous; you'll feel better in a second."
She moaned, but despite some hitched breathing and suddenly weakened knees, the worst seemed to have passed.
("Mr. Faba?" Lillie asked.)
("I'll explain later," Gladion hurriedly dismissed.)
The whole lot of them acted like this was an emergency affair. One crew member fetched her water, another found a cloth and wetted it to hold against her forehead, Guzma dragged her limp form toward the chairs lining the wall, and her children, unsure what to do, guided him and even maneuvered her limbs when she was spilled upright into a seat. It was a whole lot of fuss that Lusamine might have normally enjoyed receiving, if it weren't for the horrible indignity of it all.
She flopped, sticky with sweat and all a-flush, tilting with only just enough strength to sit up. The water was accepted happily, but only tentatively sipped at, and the cloth touched her forehead like a delicious, heavenly kiss, washing away the last of her dizziness.
After Guzma dismissed the helpful crew, she cracked her moisture-dabbed eyes open to see a row of concerned looks she hadn't asked for. She hissed. "You can all drop… Those unconvincing, worried faces…"
"Miss, are you all right?"
"
You ," she said, narrowing her eyes at Guzma, "did that on
purpose. Just so you can play the hero."
"You were stressin' yourself too much," he countered.
The plastic cup in her hand flew and clipped his leg, splattering the remaining water at his feet. "And what could possibly be the source of all that stress!?"
"Mother," Gladion said, "calm down. You'll get sick again…"
"This man is tormenting your mother! Why don't you do something about it!"
The dramatics finally got to Gladion. The boy put his hands to his hips and gave her a firm, unamused glare. "I highly doubt that's true."
Lusamine threw back her shoulders and head against the wall and made sounds of irreparable woe. "He's abandoning me! Leaving me to die alone!"
Understandably, Guzma was a bit put-off that their private, intimate conversation about the possible future of their relationship would be so wildly, inaccurately, and thoughtlessly dragged out before her two children. He fumed. "Would you
stop !"
"He's trying to assuage his conscience with all these gestures. Isn't it obvious? He knows he's guilty."
Gladion was about to cut in with a rather cruel, indifferent assessment of the situation, but Lillie, suddenly full of compassion, reached out and placed a hand on her mother's knee. She pleaded quietly, "Mama. Let me help."
Lusamine twisted her leg away like she was a germ. Disdain crossed her expression. "...You?
Help ? How could you possibly do that? What use are you to
anyone ?"
Guzma stepped forward. "All right," he grunted, taking Lillie's shoulder and prying her back, "forget it. Let's just go."
"Yes," Lusamine taunted. "
Do go."
But she failed to draw him into any further combat; Lillie gave a pining look over her shoulder, but allowed Guzma to lead her for the door in silence.
When the door opened, Guzma paused in the doorway and noticed Gladion still standing firm before his mother. "Glad."
"Give me a minute."
That also elicited no response from Guzma other than a skeptical look. He sighed, and the two disappeared back out onto the ship's deck.
-
Though Gladion could have started his planned appeal immediately, he stood with the patience of a saint, his hands folded behind his back, his eyes trailing along the blank wall of the hallway. If he was waiting for her to say something, then she was determined to let him continue; she squeezed the last of the water droplets from the cloth at her forehead and shut her eyes to sink into meditation. His presence proved annoying, but not disruptive. She could stay here. Hide from the noise and the staring from her guests. Hide from fate.
He watched her carefully in spite of it, a fact she only discerned because whenever her eyes flitted open, his studious, iron gaze was upon her. That, too, she tried to ignore.
A minute or so passed. He decided not to stall any longer. "Mother. I know you may not want to hear it now, but time is running out. I have a proposal to make."
She felt her lip curl. "Oh?"
"I've been following Aether Paradise. The circumstances there aren't good. Its new direction has jolted investors; donations are down. Employees―including, apparently, top brass―are jumping ship. It seems to me new leadership might be in order."
"New. Leadership." The two words bounced back-and-forth in her brain. She scowled. "I see. And I suppose you have a suggestion."
"A suggestion… A request."
Because Gladion had floated this particular idea before, she silently awaited his reiteration.
"Let me run Aether."
She stiffly turned away and gurgled, "...What a joke."
Like he hadn't even heard her, he tapped his chin with thought and elaboration. "Of course there would be stipulations. This isn't a request to be your son again; I would want legal independence, my own living quarters, control over my own finances…"
"What makes you think you can manage any of it? You're merely a child."
"I'm your son. You raised me to be ready to hold the Foundation. Or are you suggesting you failed?"
"You…!" Had she the strength, she would flown at him and taught him a lesson in getting smart; as it was, she clutched her skirt and growled. "You… You and your Type: Null… How alike the two of you are… All the intricate planning that went into you, and what became of it!? Both of you were monumental failures!"
"I think it rather depends on your perspective."
"You could have been like your father," she roared. "You could have been
so much more!"
The transparency of the comment made Gladion fold his hands and blink at her. "Instead, I turned out like you." His stern expression softened with strange sympathy. "That must have been disappointing."
She nearly shrieked. In lieu of throwing anything else and screaming, she punctured her palm with the edge of her fingernails. Pain rolled in with thick slabs of tears coursing down the slope of her cheeks. She couldn't hope to respond to his harsh utterance of truth, so she resorted to whining again. "It isn't
fair ," she sobbed. "You don't know what you're asking of me. Aether is all I have left. It would be easier to ask for me to carve out my beating heart for you."
"This isn't a robbery."
"No, it's
murder !" She collapsed into her seat and threw her face into her hands, and she wailed, overwhelmed with grief. "How can this be? How can my own child be so
awful and
cruel ?"
Gladion had no marveling or disapproval left. At that moment, he felt he had seen and heard everything from her. He put his foot down. "You think I'm your enemy. But you've always been your own worst enemy, Mother. On the one hand, you want people and pokemon to be your playthings―but on the other, you can't help yourself, can you? When you love something, you slave over it. You make improvements, build on it… You bring out its strengths, and then those strengths come back to bite you." He dwelled on this fact for a while, then began listing examples: "You could have spoiled me, but you pushed me instead. I grew stronger for it… Strong enough to push back. Lillie, too, in her own way. Perhaps you thought you were crushing her, but she learned to stand up for herself. And Guzma… You trained him well, didn't you? Now, he doesn't even need you. Then there's Faba―" He stopped there, figuring she got the point. "Children grow up. Relationships change. People move on… That fact is not a personal slight. Maybe you ought to learn to appreciate rather than resent it."
Gladion found it impossible to tell how much his mother had heard, and even more impossible to tell how much she had understood.
She gave some hint, though, when she complained, "And what of me? What happens to me?"
He shrugged. "You might try your hand at changing, too. Who knows what might happen." He almost let himself smile, but kept himself serious so that he could plead, "Promise me you'll consider it."
Lusamine went stone quiet.
He took it, at best, as a willingness to try. "Well… I can see you have plenty to think over. I'll… I'll leave you to it."
-
Life, or death?
Meaning, or annihilation?
Her foes put these before her and acted as if they represented true choices, rather than traps meant to snare her into compliance. And by each choice, they pushed her to destroy another part of her.
As she sat entirely alone now in the hall, with only the shadows of people moving outside the windows, casting their undefined shapes on the wall, she could not summon any more anger. All that was left was self-pity, coming in the form of dribbling tears.
She gripped her stomach and cried out to no one.
"Is that all there is? Is that my fate forever? To cut and cut and cut away at myself, until there's nothing left!?"
No one answered.
Outside, just visible under the faint glow of the display lights, she could see Guzma and Lillie. It took some careful watching to discern that they were dancing. The music hadn't been changed over from the smooth jazz, so the two were alone in their revelry; perhaps Guzma wanted to cheer Lillie up. In any case, neither dance partner seemed to be taking the activity very seriously, as he flung and spun at rather dangerous speed, and she screamed―then laughed―then screamed again.
Like a hungry worm, the thought of Mohn burrowed into her brain, and it took everything in her not to vomit once more.
She stepped outside. The wind threw her hair about, momentarily blinding her, but she was able to maneuver it until it billowed as a steady, gold banner against the breeze. The dark had swallowed up everything; there was little to see but the suggestions of light coming from the celestial bodies.
A woman's voice, distorted by the speaker's blaring, sang of sweet love amidst the passionate swelling of strings.
Lusamine took hold of the railing like it might save her. But the tune weakened her knees, and her head rolled, her body swayed to the plucking of her strings. A smell wafted over the air, indiscernible, and she felt a sudden mad, animal desire to strip off all her clothes, and stand naked and open to all the elements.
Every bit of curling, knotted blackness in her began to jerk and unwind itself.
She didn't want things to untangle. By the very binding and twisting up of everything inside her, she felt safe, woven into place, like nothing could ever budge or change.
Change. That was the smell passing over her. Sickly sweet, dangerous, and tinged with uncertainty. It drowned her in possibility and filled her lungs. She couldn't escape it. Even if she ran now as fast as she could, it would catch up to her, knock her down, and show her a thing or two about the folly of eternity.
If she could bottle up the essence of this night, its pearly moon and dewdrop stars, its salty breeze, hissing waters, and vibrant song, and bottle it all up into an elixir to be kept forever, she would. But all she had now was fickle memory, which would surely corrupt the details, confuse colors, faces, and words. This night would never happen again, and she would never truly know what it was.
One by one, the cords untangled and went hissing over the edge of the ship, only to plunge into the black waves. And once it all went away―what could possibly be left?
-
Over the next few hours, the party resumed without her. There were fits and spurts of drama and intrigue. Arguments and jokes. Different dances and music. At one point, some grunts arrived with full-size display fireworks that they had liberated from some storage area, and Plumeria had to play the role of stern mother before anyone could blow the ship to smithereens.
"No. Somebody's gonna
die. Or lose fingers."
Nanu unhelpfully said, "Aw, let 'em at it. Losing limbs builds character."
(The grunts, hearing this, decided to do something else.)
But upon nearing midnight, activity began to wind down. Despite their bragging of their ability to party all night long, most of them were children, after all, and they started to lag and droop as the early morning edged in. Full of food and liquor, and spent of their excess energy, they draped over chairs and floors and vehemently denied being tired. Even when eyes were rubbed and yawns got longer, or when heads lolled heavy, they didn't move to vacate the premises.
It took executive action to shoo them away.
"It's time to go, y'all," Plumeria said.
They moaned.
"C'mon, c'mon. I ain't sayin' you gotta
sleep, just go to your rooms or whatever. It's lights out. You know the drill."
So began to trailing of feet down the stairs. Plumeria circulated the rooftop deck, spotted slumbering or distracting bodies, and shook them awake. Nanu didn't help and hurried out of sight; he had sworn off babysitting. Guzma, then, as the only other person who could remotely qualify as an adult, took to shaking off young people's sleep as well.
Gladion and Lillie had nodded off―the boy with his head on a table, and Lillie, clutching her snoring Yungoos, conked out on her brother's shoulder.
Guzma briefly thought
blackmail material , then let the amusing thought go.
"Hey!" He shook both their heads, successfully mussing their hair and startling them awake. "Up 'n' at it. We're outta here."
Gladion, for a second, looked entirely stupefied by his surroundings. He blinked away the grogginess gumming his eyesight. "Huh?" He glanced left, then right. He saw mostly empty seats, as most of the grunts had left already. "What time is it?"
"Obviously
way past your bedtime." Guzma disregarded the expected withering look. "We're goin' downstairs. Come on."
Lillie yawned and rubbed her eyes, but refused to open them, like she thought she could cling to her blissful sleep a little longer by staying in the dark. She whined, "Can you carry me?"
Guzma appropriately balked. "
No. Nobody's carrying you, ya spoiled princess. You gotta walk like everybody else."
She released a complaint in the form of a mumble and groan, but within a few seconds of being conscious, she gained the strength and faculty to find her own footing and trudge vaguely zombie-like after her brother.
Guzma tracked back to the navigation hallway which had gone dark and left Lusamine to doze off in her chair. Guzma had seen her venture out earlier in the evening, but she never came close to mingling or rejoining the festivities.
She looked so peaceful, slumped over where she was, that he almost didn't want to wake her, but she couldn't well spend the night like that. He shook her by the shoulder, and she slid her eyes open in a graceful movement, like she had stirred from a pleasant dream. She looked up at him, doe-eyed and spent.
"Time to go," he told her.
Lusamine scraped at the very bottom to return with a sliver of humor. "Bedtime?"
"Yeah."
"So it's over?"
He began to wonder what these questions were really about. "Uh, yeah."
"And I missed it," she said, sounding a bit sorry.
"Uh-huh. Okay,
come on."
She held up limp, pathetic arms and pleaded, "Help me."
Guzma started by lifting her by her arms, but she wound them about his neck and began to tug herself upward, at which point he realized what she meant by 'help.' He rolled his eyes and compliantly scooped her up beneath her legs and balanced her at his chest. "Spoiled," he uttered.
Before he hoisted her outside, she fixed her nails against the thin skin of his neck and circled. He paused only because he recognized it as a gesture of contemplation.
"So… You decided?"
"You already know my answer," she said bitterly.
"Then…" His chest compressed with the release of a sigh. "We'll have to… Work things out for tomorrow…"
"I don't want tomorrow to come."
"Well, uh…" Guzma hesitated. "There's no delaying the ship―"
"No, no, not what's happening tomorrow―I don't want tomorrow, the day, the very idea of it…"
"Oh." He thought long and hard on that. "Uhh, I can't really do nothin' about that. I think they got legendaries that can control time out there, but they ain't in Alola, so…"
Was he teasing or being earnest? Either way, she felt her heart swell, and overcome by it, she buried her face in his shoulder. "You're a sweet boy."
"Mmm." Guzma grunted and didn't sound happy. "If you say so."
Lusamine put a hand to his boney cheek. He had corners and flesh, softness and roughness. The strength of a bear ready to crush her, but without the malice that would drive him to it. He was―infuriating. And addicting.
She didn't understand the meaning of letting go. But she knew fairy tales: the stories of princesses who loved beasts too much, and tethered them to their thrones until the beasts turned and devoured them. The wiser ones feel the tension in the chains and cut them loose before it was too late.
She told herself that―to lie and say she was afraid, and not courageous. Because it was easier to be afraid than brave.
-
"Guzma."
"Yeah?"
"Have you ever traveled overseas?"
"Nope."
"That's a shame. Alola―is a beautiful region, but there's so much in the world to see."