"Yo-ho, yo-ho! A piiirate's life f'r me! Ahaheheheh—hic!"

The rear of the boat butted up against the front of another, jostling Serena from sleep—again. It was the same motion she had felt moments earlier, but this one was much rougher than she had expected and come to be used to—and it finally woke her up.

Serena's eyes fluttered open, feeling the weight of a long sleep still settled on them. Her eyes crossed as soon as they opened, seemingly the result of every single muscle in Serena's face having been relaxed, making her vision blurred until she had the chance to rub them properly and blink a few times, letting them straighten. As she did, the hazy orange atmosphere of everything around her came into view, giving her the chance to adjust to her surroundings and truly see what was going on.

She was still in the boat, still on the waterway track for Pirates of the Caribbean—the fresh smell of the water reminding her of that—but everything was seemingly wrong. The stone foundations that constructed all of the walls, the same kind through the town scenes, were all ajar like they were about to collapse. Stacks of old stones and broken beams braced what were collapsed sections of the wooden roof. The flickering, orange atmosphere around it all suddenly became clear to Serena—there was a fire. On the other sides of the stone walls, through cracks and through open windows, flickers of orange light suggested flames all around them. The timbers that had fallen, from the old wooden structure that supported everything behind them, glowed at the ends where flame had charred into the broken beams and was turning them into glowing orange coals.

To Serena's side, outside the boat, a drunken pirate laid on top of a cannon on his belly, the whole cannon barrel tipping up and down gently and moving him slowly, wielding a nearly empty glass bottle of booze in one hand of a crossed arm and a loaded pistol in the other. As he mumbled something incoherent out of his rubber lips, his eyes slowly wandering as he looked around the room, the barrel of the cannon thudded and pumped out smoke, booming as it fired something from the end that pointed at Serena. It made her flinch, getting up quickly as to dodge the invisible cannonball—only to hear it splash in the water on the other side of the boat, right on the side of several other drunken pirates that sat on shore.

"A piiirate's life—ehehee!—a piiirate's life for me!"

Ash's coat fell to the bottom of the boat, piling up down by his sneakers. The infectious warmth that had kept bringing Serena back into the lull of her nap was gone now, and though the chill of the A/C of the ride was refreshingly brisk it wasn't anything that set Serena on edge. It was then that Serena remembered: she had been cuddled up next to Ash.

"Oh, hey Serena! That was a long nap, huh?"

Serena turned to face Ash. He was slouched, leaning back against the back of the bench in the boat, a bunched-up portion of his shirt the only evidence that Serena's head had been resting there moments ago. He looked relaxed, grinning, though it looked as though he had been sleeping too.

"Ash…! Did… Did you nap too?" asked Serena, incredulously. It was dawning on her that she was on Pirates of the Caribbean—not that she didn't know she was on it before, but that she had fallen asleep on it, and they were still on it, not moving at all.

"No! But, I guess I was being a pretty good bed or something for you to sleep the whole time, right?"

Serena chuckled. She stretched her arms, yawning. "Yeah, something like that..."

Up above them, a grip of barrels dangled from a fraying, old rope, swinging gently in the firelight and perpetually threatening to drop on them. Their boat wasn't moving any further down the track, and it couldn't. Just ahead of them, dozens and dozens of boats filled the waterway and backed up to the ramp that lifted the boats out of the waterfall. The ramp itself, lined with boats up its track, was stopped.

As Serena sat herself up in the boat and gauged their surroundings with tired, baggy eyes, she saw the scene around them continuing to unfold, with the pirate on the cannon continuing to swing his pistol mechanically and bob on the cannon, and the pirates on the shore opposite them behaving equally as drunk as they threatened to teeter into the water, their life-like movements perpetually on loops. Above the crackling, artificial sound of flames that filled the room, the singing of 'yo-ho, yo-ho' had become deranged and drunken as it came from the loopy looking pirates figures, their lips appropriately out of sync—all as the room had been designed for a single pass-through of a boat.

"How long have we been down here…?" asked Serena.

Ash seemed distracted, focused on something happening just past her shoulders. "I don't know—maybe fifteen, twenty minutes? The worker guy said it might be like another ten minutes before they got the ramp working again, but I figured you were still sleeping so I'd wait for you to finish, you know?"

Serena looked aghast, a mixture of surprise and confusion appearing on her lips. She stared, somewhat confused, seemingly looking past Ash. "Then..." she began quietly, then looking to the front part of the boat, seeing that the first row and the first bench that had had both of their Pokemon on it—Ash's Pikachu, her Braixen, her Pancham and her Sylveon—was now empty. How could they have been alone? Where they did go? Before she could ask, her question was painted all over her face, and Ash knew exactly what to say.

"He took them with them, the worker guy. I had said they could go if they wanted, and he was totally in agreement—something about Pokemon being restless in stuck rides and getting freaked out by anima-somethings and causing 'happy accidents' with like blowing up things… Weird, but whatever."

A satisfying explanation, for sure. Serena was relaxed by the thought, choosing to sink back in her seat. As she did, the position slipped her back naturally against the plastic backside of the bench, but it also slid her back into the familiar, warm embrace of Ash's arm. The length of his arm that his t-shirt exposed felt good against the nape of Serena's neck, the skin radiating with warmth and touching the unusually cold part of Serena just beneath the trimmed length of her hair. She felt a shiver travel down her, her whole body resisting the urge to cringe or relax, not wanting to leave the moment but not wanting to enjoy it too much.

Serena could feel Ash's eyes on her again. He was looking past her, she knew it, looking at something just past her shoulders like he had moments earlier. Serena paid no mind to it, but she could still feel her looking at her—even if she deeply, deeply didn't think it. It came to the point where she couldn't let it pass, and she let her gaze wander as far as it could to the side before she physically had turn her head to look at him. Ash wasn't looking at her face, but he was looking at her—a spot beside her head. Gingerly, she reached a hand towards the space just behind her head where Ash was looking, eventually brushing against and finding stiff strands of hair sticking out from her scalp—she had bed-head, the result of napping on Ash's shoulder. It made her sit up a bit and flinch, trying to brush it down with the palm of her hand and flatten it, resulting in a few spare laughs from Ash.

"Sorry…" Serena mumbled out, fidgeting where she sat until the strands of hair on her head felt somewhat smoothed down.

"What? Sorry? Serena, it's fine! It's actually kinda…"

The trail in Ash's voice sent shivers down Serena' s spine, as in her head she filled in the end of the sentence with word choices of her own—like, 'cute', or 'beautiful', or—other words that made her heart thud and block out her imagination. Then, taking a breath, Serena came to her senses—Ash maybe meant 'funny', or 'natural'—some other word that would reinforce Ash's status as the thickest-headed guy in the whole Kalos region and set things back the way they were.

"Kinda what?" asked Serena, testing the waters as she looked back. She couldn't bear to face him then, but instead looked down at his knees.

"I… I don't know…?" Ash shrugged. His hat bobbed up a bit, resting on tufts of bushy black hair as he scratched behind his head for thought, moments before squishing it back down onto his head. "I… I guess the first thing that came to my mind just sounded weird… but I couldn't think of anything else to say…"

The complexion of Serena's face was practically purple, the entirety of her face having grown so dark a shade of red it looked unhealthy. She was steaming, stewing in her seat, her boots involuntarily fidgeting down on the floor of the boat. She couldn't take it too much longer.

"It couldn't be that silly..." said Serena, quietly. "What was it? You can tell me..."

When Ash hesitated, Serena finally gained the courage to look at him with her own eyes. Ash's face seemed to be glowing too—though Serena had silently thanked the orange glow of the firelight all around them for masking the intensity of her own flushed face, it tempted her feelings when she saw Ash and couldn't tell if he was even slightly red in the face, as it sincerely did look like he was blushing. It wasn't like he was hiding something, it was that he was coming to some kind of realization, his eyes searching the air in front of him like he was reading over something in his mind.

"It… looks…"

"Yes…?" asked Serena, her excitement making her inadvertently impatient.

"Really… really good…" Ash smiled gently, looking back into Serena's eyes.

The smile on Serena's face had grown to infectious lengths, seemingly infecting herself with each inch it grew becoming longer than the last by the second. It made her stir with excitement, her heart beating unabashedly in her tiny, bird cage of a chest.

"I… I know it sounds really dumb… the truth is, I… I just honestly feel that way, and I can't explain it any other way… you know…?"

"Some things don't really need an explanation…" Serena said, the words coming naturally out of her, unscripted but all the more truthful. She seemed even a little surprised at what she was saying, and her boldness. "They just are, and… and that's okay… the heart wants what it wants…"

A warm, tingling sensation sprouted on the edge of Serena's lips, trance-like and enchanting. The feelings that came to her usually were accompanied by a strong desire to look away, but Serena didn't feel that—instead, she felt a new gravitation, a new warm sensation flooding her insides as she kept her eyes on Ash's and never looked away. Something strange and magical was happening in that moment, and though Serena couldn't pin her finger on what it was, she knew exactly what was happening deep down—it was natural and something that had always been present.

Serena scooted her body around on the bench, her leg folding beneath hers and sliding a little more onto the bench, her hands finding the rails on either side of her that lined the tops of the boat benches, gripping for what was seemingly the wildest moment on the ride. She took a deep gulp of air before raising her head, looking up to Ash—he too had turned himself, facing Serena, looking down into her eyes and seemingly becoming nervous as well.

Then, slowly, Serena and Ash craned their heads in together, moving naturally in until their lips brushed against one another—they felt warm, wet, gentle, the electric moment suspended for a bare second until they completed the kiss, aligning the folds of their lips for a gentle kiss. Eyes shut, bodies dangerously close, they held their lips together for a long moment. A shuddering sensation built through Serena, inexplicably, as she felt where Ash's hand came over hers and rested atop it. For once, she could fully relax around Ash—even though her body told her to be excited—and feel the closeness of his body to hers. Her hand turned and faced upward on the rail, his fingers sinking into hers and locking.

Taking in a small, smooth breath of air, Serena let her eyes gently peek open, feeling Ash's lips pull away. It felt like her heart had stopped, and even the thick breath of air she had taken felt like it could've been the last she ever needed. The scent of Ash was filled with the strong stench of boy—all of its good flavors and bad, and Serena couldn't possibly let go of it.

"I… I know you weren't cold… earlier... you just went along with it…" Ash said, quietly.

Serena's eyes had been transfixed on Ash's lips without her even knowing it, her mind repeating every second of what had happened not even a moment ago. As she looked up, she looked into Ash's eyes and saw the knowing look in his eyes. Somehow, it made her feel like he could see everything she was thinking, like every part of her had been lain naked in front of him, and somehow she was okay with that—it was a trust she hadn't ever felt before, knowing comfortably that her affection for him had been returned, and that he meant it.

"You're scared of pirates…" said Ash, his smile becoming cheeky.

Serena giggled, hardly believing that Ash was ready to make jokes after that—but, somehow, remembering that was part of his charm. As her brief giggling fit subsided, she realized that Ash wasn't laughing, and when she looked up into his eyes she saw that Ash still looked genuine and that his smile was really teasing, she looked indignant.

"W-What…? Are you serious…?"

The conversation went on, with the two of them happily chatting and bantering with each other over whether or not Serena was really afraid of pirates, and why Serena really did end up lying. They were plenty happy, but there was chemistry between the two of them that was unspoken.

But all of it was unheard, at least to one person in the background.

A prop barrel stood near the mouth of the entrance where the 'burning' room that Ash and Serena were in began, and the room before it ended—the burning jail cell where three unlucky pirates were trying to get the attention of a dog who had the key to their cell. Slowly, the top lid on the barrel rose up, pushed up by a head that rose. Someone peeked out of it—it wasn't one of the many human-like Audio Animatronic figures that filled the passageways of Pirates of the Caribbean, or a more marketable character from a very successful movie franchise of the same name—it was a real flesh and blood human being. A pair of red eyes gleamed beneath a ragged head of jet-black hair, staring out and watching the only two humans in the whole room as they chatted, laughed, then kissed again.

The head ducked down back into the barrel, disappearing from sight. As it did, the mechanisms of the ride's ramp up out of the last room turned on with a powerful hum, switching on and beginning to move the lone boat that was on it. Then the next boat started to rise up it, and Ash and Serena's boat coasted ahead, moving to be one of the many boats in line ahead of them.

As Serena broke from another kiss, her eyes wandering up towards Ash and meeting his eyes, she smiled gently, daylight from the ramp up above them casting down on their faces as their boat jerkily moved onto the ramp in front of it.

In Serena's head, there was only one question on her mind: how did they get here?