Flurry | Travel Preparations | Day A2, 3:00 AM
There was no explanation for it, but Flurry had the easiest time waking up at unreasonable hours. She told herself before falling asleep that she'd sneak around that night, and lo and behold, her eyes fluttered open to a darkened room and a view of Shaymin snoring in the other bed.
Silently, she leapt to the ground and scurried to the window. Unlike the boys, she and Shaymin had a window large enough that she could fit through. It was one of the benefits of sharing a room, she supposed.
Snorting as Shaymin let out a particularly loud snore, Flurry fumbled at the window until it slid into the icey wall above it. As it slammed open, she flinched and glanced back at Shaymin.
Another snore.
Flurry grinned and pulled herself to the window sill. Trying to still her heart, she thought cold, frozen thoughts and took a few deep breaths. Then, she blew a stream of snowflakes at the wall beneath her.
They stuck, and Flurry focused her breath so that a triangular block stuck out of the fort's side. She jumped out and blew herself a path to Riley's window, then reached up with her knobby hands and pounded.
It was slight, but she saw movement under the covers on Riley's bed. Then, he groggily heaved himself up and glanced around.
Flurry waved, and he froze. (Pun intended.)
Riley raced to the window and opened it, wrinkling his snout as the cold blew over him.
"What are you doing?" he whispered.
"I'm helping you and Gabriel get away from your guards for a bit. Now come on, we still have to wake him up."
"How-" Riley cut himself off as he leaned out. He groaned in that I'm-so-stupid way that people use when they type the wrong numbers into a calculator. "Oh, right."
Oh yes, Flurry was very proud of her snow-making abilities, even if it left her feeling a little dehydrated. She puffed herself up and made a smug face as she led Riley along her ledge.
"So, what are we doing after we get Gabriel?" Riley asked.
"We're going to the library. I just found out that there is one here, which makes total sense, because the building is gigantic." Flurry paused to freeze more walking space. "And there's a basement too, but it's got a combination lock on the door."
They reached Gabriel's window, and Riley gave her a funny look.
"Does the combination lock part mean something important?"
Flurry shrugged. "It means I can't make a key to get in, but that's about it." Knocking on the window, she listened to Riley cough. He must have choked when she mentioned the bit about making keys.
"You broke into rooms?"
"You and Gabriel were stuck in training all day, and I'd already explored every unlocked room in this fort. I needed something to do."
He sighed, and whether it was from exasperation or something else, Flurry didn't know. She didn't even bother to dwell on the thought, because at that moment, Gabriel was calmly arranging the blankets on his bed so that they stood up like he was actually sleeping.
When had that guy even woken up?
Eventually Gabriel made his way to the window and slid it open. His mask was stretched up in curiosity.
"Should I be concerned?"
Flurry waved a hand as though climbing around the sides of snow forts was a totally normal thing. "Nah, we're just going to the library to do research. Care to joi-
When Gabriel suddenly heaved himself out the window, Flurry silenced herself. She tried to offer a smile, like "look, Gabriel! We're going to help you get Xerneas back! Isn't that great?" but he paid no mind.
Though she had it in her mind to point out her good deed, she reconsidered when Riley grinned instead.
"How do you plan to get us to the library?" Gabriel asked.
Flurry smirked. Sometimes, being an ice-type came in handy. She opened her mouth as wide as it would go and imagined gallons and gallons of snow flying at her command. Then she blew towards the ground, and a pile of soft, fluffy snow grew up beneath them.
"I was thinking of asking Fleur to come," Flurry said, considering the height of her pile. It was very high; they would probably be fine jumping onto it. "But I didn't want to put a grass type through all this cold. You don't mind, right, Gabriel?"
The answer was a short, clipped "no." Flurry shot Riley a look, wondering if the other riolu knew why Gabriel was so terse.
Riley shook his head; evidently, this quiet was new for him too.
Well, it was better than bickering. Flurry shrugged and jumped off the ledge, relishing the freezing air that swirled in eddies around her. With a whump, she landed in the pile. Two more thumps echoed hers, and she heard Riley trying to stifle a laugh.
She floundered through the pile, swimming towards solid ground while reorienting herself to the fort's layout. If she remember correctly, the library should be towards her left...
When the boys finally stood beside her, snow sticking to their arms and faces, she pointed to the left.
"That way. Let's go."
The walk was silent mostly, except at the beginning, when Riley and Gabriel threatened to get in an argument about the merits of jumping into snow piles. Thankfully, Gabriel did not press the matter.
The library windows were a cinch to squeeze through. As long as one had a key, it was possible for even a pokemon as small as a dedenne to reach and open them, and they were just wide enough for Flurry to fit through.
Obviously, she provided the key. She wondered what kind of excellent morals the locals must have had for the Resistance to use keys around a bunch of ice pokemon, but the thought was a fleeting one.
As the group entered the library, they took a moment to gape at the bookshelves that stretched up and down and around the room. A collage of spines in every color, many of them gilded, glowed in the dark. Ladders sat atop rails that swirled about and crisscrossed the aisles, and a grand staircase led to the tables on the second floor.
"I think they catalogue the books the same way humans do, because I had no trouble figuring out the system," Flurry explained, starting towards the biography section.
"I don't even remember how we organized books in the human world," said Riley.
Flurry laughed. "Neither do I, but I just get that feeling, you know?" She pointed at a shelf and looked back at Gabriel, who lagged behind. "There's stuff about geography in there, if you want to search it."
He seemed to jump at the chance to be alone again, or maybe he was just that excited to find a way to help Xerneas. As Gabriel stepped into the noted section, Flurry and Riley continued along the aisle.
"I found some books on famous poison-types earlier. I mean, these guardians can't be just anybody. Maybe there'll be clues there."
"You found them and didn't bother to read any?" Riley walked right next to her, his gait even.
"Well, no. I thought it would be more fun if everyone worked together." But as Flurry said that, she glanced backwards.
Riley did as well, clearly thinking the same she was. "But you had Gabriel look into something by himself."
They reached a shelf of books where the dominant color was purple. It came in all shades, from lavender to near-brown. Flurry paused before entering, and Riley stayed by her.
"Listen, Riley. I think that fight yesterday really affected him. I mean, obviously you took the brunt of the physical pain, but we both know something's different."
Flurry didn't think either of the boys had the courage for it, but Riley looked her straight in the eyes before speaking. "So we're giving him space? To sort it all out?"
"Right. Unless you think he would be better off with a good talking-to."
Simultaneously, they turned towards the geography shelves. Gabriel wasn't in view, but Flurry could imagine him flipping through the pages of a thick book, all by himself.
"I-I think I would rather be left alone if I was feeling upset," Riley said. "If he wants to talk, he'll come to us first."
A thought in the back of Flurry's head told her that wasn't true. Leaving a problem alone was like leaving a garden to the weeds; if it wasn't fixed early enough, you had to kill the whole plot and wait a year before planting anything new.
She pushed the thought away. "Let's do that, Riley," she said, walking into the aisle of purple books.
It didn't take long for Flurry to settle on the floor with a thick collection of biographies laid on the floor in front of her. She'd picked out something akin to an encyclopaedia, figuring it might be the best way to sort through a large number of pokemon all at once.
It wasn't. She found every short paragraph, every detail intriguing. There was just so much history, so many amazing, brilliant pokemon. A team of three poison pokemon had tried to thwart the early successes of a famous exploration team. One roserade had founded a potions college in the Marsh of Light. There was even a tale of a villanous tentacruel pirate who ravaged the seas for decades.
She wasn't shaken from her awe until Riley touched her shoulder and asked if she'd found anything of note.
Flurry blushed, though her face did not heat up (thank goodness). "Uh... not really. I mean, there weren't many locations mentioned except for this ruined mansion at the top of some huge waterfall and a college for making potions." She didn't want to admit that she'd been so absorbed in reading that she forgot what she was looking for.
"I think I saw something about the college," Riley said. He climbed up a ladder and plucked a thin, magenta book from the fifth shelf up. "Here. It's a brief biography of each professor there. Who built that mansion you mentioned?"
"Some nidoking... I forget his name, but the mansion was named Pa-Patchemwork? I have trouble with the pronunciation, even if the language itself makes sense. Weird, right? We can read a language we don't even remember." Flurry laughed and watched Riley push the ladder along the rails in the floor.
She opened up the book he'd given her and leafed through it. The roserade's portrait was in the very beginning, along with a list of incredible discoveries and advancements. Every other pokemon mentioned was also at least partly poison-type, though some had clearly achieved more than others.
At the end was a blank space with the name Algol written in. Unlike each prior entry, Algol was given no date of release, retirement, or death. He had no portrait, no biography, and only one achievement: Last headmaster of Mistress Gifter's College of Alchemy, a position he attained a very long time ago.
From the top of his ladder, Riley called out to her. "Patchemwork is in shambles now, even though it was built less than a hundred years ago. I don't think it's the dungeon, but we don't actually know that much to begin with, so I could be wrong."
"It's not the Patchemwork mansion."
Flurry and Riley whipped their heads around to place the voice. It was Gabriel, standing in the dim light that shone through the windows. How long had they been in the library?
"The mansion is under restoration efforts, despite the war. Apparently pokemon running from the battles in the Greatwood Jungle decided to fix it up and begin living there, like they had when it was first built." Gabriel gave the facts only. He did not offer anything else, and no tonal changes indicated what he found important or interesting.
It was strange, but Flurry and Riley had agreed not to press. "Okay," she said, "what else did you find?"
"There isn't an abundance of poison-types to begin with, so there are only three locations truly connected with poison pokemon."
A beat of silence passed, and Flurry felt unease pinch her stomach. She couldn't place why.
"They are the Patchemwork mansion, the Alchemist's College, and a region of Death's Forest."
"And where is the forest?" Riley asked.
Gabriel looked up, and Flurry caught the blankness in his expression. She wondered if it was something she'd said, or if her attempts to comfort Riley had resulted similarly and that Riley was just pretending for her.
"It's in the Land of the Dead, near the sea."
"That's not even close to the Marsh of Light... we probably can't visit both."
Everyone was silent until Flurry looked at the windows again and gasped.
"We have to get back to the rooms soon." She piled up her books and handed them to Riley. "Otherwise you two will be in even more trouble than you already are."
She and Gabriel waited a few seconds and Riley replaced the books, and then they raced through the halls of the shelves. Their feet were quiet on the soft, carpeted floor, and they slipped through the window into the red light of a new, rising sun.
When they reached the pile of snow beneath their rooms though, they were met by Shaymin's shrill, accusing voice.
"You three snuck out again!" she shouted. "Do you never learn?" A white snout poked out of Flurry's window, though Shaymin clearly knew better than to perch on the window sill, so that was all that could be seen.
"Well? How did it go? Did you find what you needed?"
Flurry shook her head. "No, but we narrowed it down a lot. Do you know anything about a college of alchemy or Death's Forest?"
She felt Riley panic behind her. Had she forgotten to tell the boys that Shaymin approved of their activities?
"You mean Mistress Gifter's? I used to deliver some of the hard-to-get items they used in their experiments. Too bad they had to shut the place down under Algor. Poor guy didn't really deserve that, and he was so eccentric that I bet he stayed there all by himself anyways. I wish I knew where they'd buried him, you know?"
Both Flurry and Riley gawked. Had the information really been so close?
"Granted, he probably isn't really dead yet, that Algor," Shaymin continued. "He really did love the college, and after all his days as an adventurer, I'll bet he turned the place into a mystery dungeon. Plus, he's a ghost-type. His life is... extended."
"Shaymin? Why didn't you tell us this earlier?" Flurry yelled.
The hedgehog frowned. "You didn't ask. Now, if you want to know about Death's Forest, then I'm afraid I can't help you except by saying it's a safe-haven for anyone with regrets. Anything else?"
A grin spread across Flurry's face, and when she looked at the boys, she saw Riley beaming, and a spark of determination in Gabriel's stony expression. They were all on the same page.
Riley put a hand to his mouth and shouted, his voice clear as the winter air. "Can we borrow the bag again?"
It was time to leave.
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