Author Notes: To be honest, I haven't actually finished playing the game. I'm close to the end, just not actually there, although I do know what happens…sob. But anyway, N x White/Touko/Hilda is my obsession right now, my burning OTP. I just have SO MANY FEELINGS…;A;
But anyway, when you have feelings like this fanfiction is an outlet, so here's something that came out fairly cohesive in the jumble of ideas inside my head.
Story Notes: I guess this is slightly AU; it ends with the ferris wheel scene in Nimbasa, although in actual gameverse they still wouldn't know each other that well. So, it is implied that Touko sees N around just randomly enough times for them to become more acquainted/friends.
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Hold the Universe Upon Your Throne
.
.
.
hold the universe in the palm of your hand
and sit upon the throne;
embrace the sky, embrace the world
but never forget to embrace
love.
.
.
.
N Harmonia is a king.
And he is not just any king—he is the King of Team Plasma; he is the King of a just and right cause, he is the King of something he truly and wholly believes in.
He holds the sky in his arms; he has the universe in the center of his palm. He is surrounded by faithful believers, the pleading of abused Pokémon beats on his eardrums, crying for liberation.
He drapes a cape over his shoulders; the golden crown gleams atop his head. When he raises his arms, the symphony begins and he is the conductor. There are no flaws in his musical, it is a perfect equation.
That is, it is a perfect equation until he meets a single girl by the name of Touko White.
The first shocking thing are the words of her Pokémon the first time he sees her in Accumula City. He knows she is a new trainer; she only has one poké ball clipped on her belt, the actual Pokémon—an oshawott—being in her arms. She and her bespectacled friend listen to Ghetsis' speech attentively, and out of the corner of his eye he sees her incline her head ever-so-slightly to the water Pokémon.
"What do you think?" She questions, ever-so-softly. Her voice is simple; it's not musical or chiming, husky or surprisingly deep. Her voice is just a voice.
N waits to hear the voice of her oshawott; he expects him to say that of course he'd like to be set free; of course what the man is saying is right.
It replies the contrary.
Not really sure what he's saying, the oshawott begins, and it starts to shift its position, reaching up as if to climb onto her neck. The girl giggles, letting it do so to indulge its energy. But I like you. I like staying with you, Touko. Being set free doesn't sit well with me, not after what we've been through.
The girl called Touko grins and reaches up and plucks the Pokémon off of her head before it falls; she cuddles it into a hug. It squeaks with happiness. "Thank you," she says softly. "I like staying with you, too."
And N cannot fathom how their bond is so friendly already; she's new and in the other direction she can only have come from Nuvema Town, and the path is short. At most they've only had a handful of battles together, and yet the oshawott rejects liberation to remain enslaved in the hands of that human girl. Although it appears that the girl called Touko can hear their voices as well, he overlooks that because the Pokémon is rejecting liberation to be with her.
The King does not understand.
/ /
She shakes his grip on the universe. It begins to roll, nearly falling through the cracks of his fingers before he catches it, and yet his grip is not quite so tight anymore. His arms can no longer engulf the sky in an embrace; suddenly, he is too small and the sky begins to stretch further than he can reach.
He sees her often as he travels for both observational purposes and for his cause.
Ever since he approached her briefly that day in Accumula Town, she takes it upon herself to smile at him and say hello, or perhaps invite him for lunch. N is at loss with how to respond every time, but she doesn't appear to mind.
The girl called Touko is just a simple teenage adventurer like any other; her eyes are blue and her hair is brown and tied into a fluffy sort of ponytail; she wears ripped denim shorts with combat boots and a black vest over a white shirt with a hat on her head. She sports kind of a bad-girl look, not that he really knows what it means, but although her style is not quite like one he's seen before it's the closest he can describe it with references from those obscure fashion magazines he's seen.
But he can agree that this girl called Touko is bad—bad for him, bad for his cause. She shakes his grasp on the universe; she pulls his arms back from his tiny sky to show him the world that he does not want to see.
With every sentence she says, she breaks each and every one of his fingers, the fingers that he uses to keep track of all his ideas and ideals.
Pokémon liberation is for the best, he might say, you can hear the voices of Pokémon like I do, correct? Can you not hear their cries?
And she would give him this pleasant pleasant smile with no response, and he knows what she implies, that yes she can hear their voices, but her Pokémon have explicitly told her that that would never wish to leave her. And he cannot deny it.
I want to see things that no one can see. The truths of Pokémon inside poké balls. The ideals of how Trainers should be. And a future where Pokémon have become perfect... do you feel the same?
And she had nodded, slowly, with a smile on her face. He thought that he might be getting through to her, but when she replied, she was breaking another one of his fingers. But I don't believe that Team Plasma is right.
Team Plasma is for the best. They are just.
They're disillusioned. Perhaps some wish to be liberated, yet they do not consider the possibility that some do not wish to be liberated. Times have changed since Terrakion, Cobalion, and Virizion's feats. Humans and Pokémon have learned to live together.
He wasn't sure what his expression was at that moment, but she looked at him with a grave face before offering a sunshine smile.
He hastens to leave.
::
(His grip on the universe slips once more—
He is dangerously close to dropping it)
::
/ /
They sit in the ferris wheel. He coaxes her into doing so in order to search for Team Plasma, but in truth it is simply to divert her from his comrades. He knows how strong she is, being on the losing end several times himself.
She looks out the windows as they rise higher into the sky; the sunlight dances across her face, brightening it. There is the ghost of a smile on her lips as she observes the sights.
And he tries to break her, he tries to shatter the girl who had caused an earthquake to the castle he's built, the girl who has broken his fingers with every word.
"First, I must tell you... I am the king of Team Plasma."
He drops it like a bomb to startle her, to break her fingers like she did his. He finds some satisfaction in the widening of her eyes, the opening of her delicate lips.
But then she smiles, a slow spread of that infuriating smile; she leans back in her seat and puts aside looking for Team Plasma, because she's got their naïve and innocent King to talk to.
"I thought it might be something like that," she muses, and N raises an eyebrow. "I always thought you might be part of Team Plasma. You praise them highly. You wholeheartedly support their ideals. And the way you speak is more than just the fleeting ideals of a hopeless dreamer." She tilts her head to the side, and scrutinizes him. He suddenly feels naked under her gaze, and shifts ever so slightly. "I just never imagined you'd be the King. I guessed one of the Sages, perhaps."
::
(She cracks, but doesn't shatter;
He finds that he is relieved)
::
There is a long, long silence as their car slowly continues to rise. "N?" Touko asks, and his skin crawls in a not-so-unpleasant fashion at the sound of his name on her tongue. He sighs, leans back as she had done, and flicks his own blue eyes out at the scenery.
"I cannot understand you," he tells her.
She smiles a soft smile and gives no response.
"…Are we friends, Touko?"
Out of the corner of his eye he can see that she is startled. But she does not hesitate to say, "yes".
::
(And he cannot help but smile,
Smile a bright little-boy smile that he's never quite smiled before;
He
Slips—
.
.
But doesn't quite fall)
::
The ferris wheel is stopped momentarily at the top, and he feels her shifting. What he is not prepared for is her sudden close proximity; she has a knee resting on the remainder of seating next to him. She is so close he can smell the scent of berries and sunlight. His eyes are so wide it is almost comical, but Touko is doing this for a reason, because she has something she wants to confirm for herself.
When she touches his cheek, he flinches horribly, but she gently, oh so gently, draws back the tendrils of his unruly green hair to reveal a dark bruise. N looks at her quickly with something like shame or embarrassment before casting his eyes down; her eyes are terribly, terribly sad. She reaches for his hand and grasps it tightly, and, again to his surprise, leans in to plant a soothing kiss to the ugly mark upon his face.
::
(He
Breaks
.
.
Just ever so slightly—)
::
When he lifts his eyes, he doesn't know what kind of expression he shows her, but she embraces him with a crushing hug; a hug that hurts in a different way than his bruise, and he isn't sure why. N grips at her shirt like a little child, as if he is not two years older than her, as if she was not both his friend and his enemy.
She cries, and he lets her shed the tears in his place; yet he is surprised to realize that there are tears rolling down his own cheeks— (tears he has forbidden himself to shed because he does not dare anymore, not after how Ghetsis punished him last time—) he shudders and grips her shirt tighter. She responds by pulling him closer to her warmth, her kindness, her strength; and as they lock each other in a deathly tight embrace, they are just a broken king who longs for love and a girl who is willing to give it to him.
/ /
When the time comes that they part from this short trip that jumbled his formulas and equations into something entirely new, they stare at each other for a long time—an unspoken conversation. The things between them have changed, but the situation still remains the same.
But before he leaves, N holds her hand for a short moment and whispers "Thank you."
Touko just gives his hand a squeeze and replies a simple, "Anytime."
So as he walks off into the burning sunset, he knows that he cannot abandon what he has started,
(Not yet; )
But he hopes that when the time comes and she appears to catch the universe falling from his hands,
when she comes hold the vastness of the sky the proper way he never did,
She'll have enough room to take his hand, as well.