world – game
characters – Hibiki, Kotone and Marill
notes – for kouriko on lj, part of a summer fic exchange; the prompt was 'for better or worse, our future is determined in large part by our dreams and by the struggle to make them real.'

Orbit
no matter how far she goes, he still stays within her gravity

He doesn't tell anyone except Marill that he dreams to marry a girl with the smoothest pigtails and prettiest eyes in the whole of Johto. The blue mouse is skeptical when his trainer imparts this rare, selective piece of information to him, for where on earth could someone find a perfect girl in a cosy little town like the one they were living now?

Hibiki scoffs loudly, a slight huff of arrogance slipping through a mouth of milk teeth as he shoots a confident finger out of the window of his room. The little marill stumbles as he waddles over to clamber onto the wooden window sill and take an eager glance at the girl – the pokémon can almost picture her dancing in a summer dress with silk hair and enchanting eyes, and maybe a white hair band that brings out her clear face.

The mouse peers curiously out the window to the paths winding through the quaint town, and he squeaks with a start – he only sees a girl caked in mud, the dirt printed down to her dark blue pinafore and sandals. The large white hat she attempts to balance on her tiny head droops over her eyes, and the pokémon can hardly tell she's even human.

Hibiki laughs at the apparently attractive scene, and waves at his neighbour of seven years. Marill can't quite believe what's about to happen now.

Marill learns that while Kotone is not necessarily a stereotypical girl, she certainly bears a criterion that far exceeds Hibiki's initial expectations. She is kind, quiet and adventurous, though mostly wary. She is a carefully constructed girl as a child with short, shoulder length hair. And she grows into a larger mould of this as the years edge on by and her hazel hair experiences fluctuations in length. One summer, she cuts it so short that Hibiki mistakes her for a boy and that is the first time she shows sad tears in front of them. Another three years later, she nearly trips over a trail of plaits. Through all the soul-searching and rediscovery of her identity as a child, Hibiki stays diligently at her side, and Marill at his – it becomes a pattern they sustain religiously.

After the age of eleven, the two start talking about becoming pokémon trainers and catching pokémon in the wild with their own two hands; just like the reports on the telly and the printed ads on the newspapers. Marill harrumphs and folds his arms to show his discontent with the idea – wasn't he enough for Hibiki? Why would his trainer need to add other pokémon on his belt when it was clear that he already had the perfect partner to grace his side – it is scandalously offending in some ways, hurtful in most. But as the marill watches on intently, he soon realises he probably wouldn't be able to win over Hibiki from those eyes and that hair, and that shy smile. The boy probably doesn't even know he is in love (the seven-year old promise long stored under dust in his memory) and the girl probably doesn't try to notice either. They are in the prime of their childhood, blissfully unaware of any society outside of theirs. Marill sits himself down between them to bask the warmth of their hands, and he allows himself to slip into that dreamlike space for a few hours on the laziest of afternoons.

He watches Hibiki and the faltering smile that appears on his face for a moment – and those gold eyes flicker with fear and reluctance, or something like that.

One day, Kotone packs up her bag and breezes out of the town made of memories.

Marill prepares to follow his trainer with his most disgruntled face ready to display.

The problem is, Hibiki doesn't leave with her.

He shakes his head and says that it is okay – he doesn't want to travel.

He's scared, Marill thinks, but never repeats it again. Truth has the tendency to hurt.

The town of memories starts to fade, and Marill dismisses his fear as a bad case of stomach-aches.

Hibiki is the one that embodies the fear of leaving their hometown, Marill has no qualms.

He goes to the daycare centre sporadically to catch a glimpse of her, Marill condones it.

He goes to hear his grandmother call Kotone his girlfriend one more time, Marill sighs.

She calls him and laughs into his ear. Marill can tell.

But she is too busy to visit them anymore now. Champions tend to be far too caught up with matters that are bigger and more important that a marill and small-town breeder put together – yes, even Marill finds it hard to believe.

He sees the entranced look on the fifteen-year old's face as he mumbles into the receiver of the pokégear, and the pokémon is vacantly reminded of a promise that had been left idling on a shelf at the back of his trainer's head.

He can smell her presence in the cologne Hibiki wears; it's the musky scent that makes Marill's nose twitch, the bottle his trainer sprits on himself even when there are no women around – except teeny boppers requesting for his autograph at the door of the lab. Hibiki wears it on the days she calls, and the smell permeates the room for the whole afternoon, fading only by night.

Marill tries not to laugh at the idiocy of it all, and at the same time, he tries not to taste the bitterness of pity in his dry mouth.

There is a knock on the door, a reminder of the existence of the rest of humanity.

The male gets up from the desk, skilfully avoiding the stacks of paper that are positioned about the room, even the wave of his labcoat makes little contact with the important documents. Marill lounges at the windowsill, chewing on his tail and thinking about times better spent. Hibiki reaches for the doorknob with sturdy arms and tall frame, the more mature his trainer gets – the more delusions haunt Marill about being tired and having aches and sores all over his body in places that did not exist ten years old.

His trainer freezes at the door and the pokémon cranes over even though he knows it is just another trainer searching desperately for advice about breeding.

For once, Marill is happy to be wrong.

There she stands at the doorstep, a guilty and apologetic look painted on the canvas of her face. There is no more mud or milk teeth or ambiguous hair. There is just a girl with eyes that are bright, and hair that portrays itself to be smooth. The knot between her eyebrows relaxes as Hibiki steps towards her quietly, almost as if he is drawn towards her, an unconscious smile touching his face.

Marill feels that that afternoon lasts for a lifetime, though in reality, it is only about four hours and ten minutes. But he does not take into account the time – he watches as his trainer holds her hand and brings her into a hug that spans across eternity. It really does last forever, if you give or take a few moments or so and remember happier times where skinned knees and hungry tummies were the hardships that decorated the constellation of life. It is no longer like that now, and the water-type does not know what else to do about the march of time. He takes Kotone's wrist and Hibiki's hand in his old paws, and he grins unabashedly like an aged pokémon with no remaining care in the world.

They play for an afternoon that spans across an empty space.