Interlude: Compass

The fisherwoman lived alone in a cabin on the northern edge of Cianwood, and Suicune liked her instinctively. She liked her quietude.

For a time there was also a man, then there was only the woman and the growlithe. Every morning she put on her wide hat and her oilskin coat, rowed out past breakers, and sat for hours with her line in the water and a pipe in her mouth. The growlithe either curled in the front of the boat or put its paws up on the edge to watch the mantines. When it rained, the growlithe stayed in the cabin.

Suicune watched her the way one might watch an ant trail, with both interest and distance. Without regularity. There was nothing she wanted from the woman, and she offered nothing in return.

And all at once, the woman was old and then gone. That was the way it was with humans.

What Suicune felt was not quite sadness. Things died and then other things lived. But she breathed the door open and entered the salt-worn cabin for the first and only time. The growlithe cowered in a corner, and she ignored it. She bent her head over the body and, like the gods that came before, she ate of what was offered. She left the door swinging open when she left.

She suspected but did not know with certainty that someday she too would die in a way that lasted.

I could find out for you. Celebi, appearing from nowhere, from elsewhen.

Suicune paused on the lake in the clearing, twitching her tails. Then she continued towards the tree line. If you like, she answered.

Celebi's giggle was a sound like summer sky—and wasn't a sound at all. I'll be right back! With a whir of wings and a mid-air somersault, they tore through the air itself as easily as a child might tear through a spider web, and they vanished.

She did not wait, trusting that Celebi had already gotten bored or forgotten. Or perhaps they had already told Suicune the answer long ago without her realizing.

Any encounter with Celebi was a losing game of tag. They cheated. The only possible approach was to let them come and go as they pleased, because that was what they would do regardless.

Suicune also came and went as she pleased. The miles melted under her.

Once, she chased the sun to find out whether she could outrun its setting. She could. But then she lost interest in the chase and let it fall away ahead of her.

Sometimes she felt called to a particular place without knowing why. Something on the wind. Or perhaps something else.

There was a great deal of smoke this time, leaving little doubt about what had called her toward the village of Azalea. She felt what had happened as much as she saw it: there was no water here. No rain for months. This season the humans had cut too many trees for building their homes and burning for charcoal, and there was too little left to hold moisture in the ground. All that was needed was a spark from a charcoal kiln. Or another source.

She scrabbled up the slopes to observe from afar, and she found him already there.

They do not respect the forest, Entei said, an explanation and a judgment.

Fire swept down the hill, licking the edges of the houses, swallowing them up. Suicune heard the roar and crackle of the flames, the sounds of Entei's rage. And then the faraway screams. All the futile little lost things.

Some do, she said.

He turned and regarded her, flame reflected in those golden eyes. How strange that face, even to her, so unlike anything that had been before or would likely ever be again. You love them too much, you and Raikou both.

Raikou loved men with ideas. Their kites and their keys, and then later their tiny lights against the darkness. And she ….

She thought of the boy. She wondered if what she loved were the things that needed healing.

Perhaps, she said. She felt a wash of distant heat. Does it not remind you of the tower?

Yes. Entei rumbled so low and deep that Suicune felt and did not hear it. They make war against everything they encounter. Even themselves. They do not respect life.

Perhaps, said Suicune again.

Entei turned away from her and cleaned one paw with his rasping tongue. Will you save them then?

Below, humans ran back and forth with buckets, and a handful of slowpoke sprayed water on the buildings. Much would still burn.

Suicune could call down the rain. She had done it many times before.

She had also walked atop the waves when the water shimmered wrong colors and all the creatures below choked on it and died. She had seen wars of many kinds. She wondered if, miles to the north, there was anyone left who still struck flint on rock and prayed, "North, south, east, west—cleanse us with fire."

No, she said, and she left Entei to his own devices.

There was no real animosity between the three of them, but neither was there love. Three beasts of no home, each the only of their kind.

Now and again Suicune returned to the scabbed-over tower ruins, and always the other two were also there, answering the same wordless call. They shared no words. They attempted neither to restore nor destroy. They bore witness to the new kinds of ivy and fungal blooms that grew along the support beams. The people that built it again. The people that burned it down again.

South of Ecruteak, in the woods where they had first met, where they would meet time and time again, Celebi tugged on a hank of Suicune's mane. Found you!

She rolled her head slowly to one side. Were you looking for me?

They drifted upside-down. Oh, maybe I wasn't yet. I'm not sure. Then, with a burst of laughter, flew circles around Suicune.

She ambled down the creek bed, leaving Celebi to follow or not. Behind her, the water flowed clear. Ahead, dark.

Celebi settled itself on her back, two hands in her mane. I think I misplaced something.

Most likely, said Suicune.

I forget when I will have put it.

Suicune had nothing to say, so she did not answer.

Celebi slept as Suicune picked her way over rock and between trees. When, finally, they let go of Suicune and slipped sideways into another place and time, they left her mane a tangle of tiny, sporadic braids.

She ran for a time, letting the world unfold under her. She ran, and in the wind the knots eventually came undone.