"There was a time, not so long ago.
Girls were nothing more than a little fun,
'Til you caught my eye.
Now all I see is you.
Never thought I'd be a fool in love.
I started thinking, since you came around,
I've never been so helpless in my life."

The early morning air was brisk, which was odd for August. Gold rubbed his arms and sucked in a breath. Dew coated the grass, clouds hung above, and he was waiting on a slightly damp bench. Not many people were out at six in the morning—the sun was hardly up—and those who were had already gone to work or were getting ready. The city streets were relatively empty. It was the perfect time, though, to catch who he was anticipating.

Footsteps clattered down a sidewalk, nearing with each step. Gold sat straighter on his park bench, a sly smile creeping onto his lips. He heard a few puffing breaths, and jogger with pigtails flew by. Gold wolf-whistled.

Jogger gal stopped dead in her tracks and whirled around, pigtails flying. A cross expression passed on her face, a thousand shades of blue in her eyes shifting angrily. That look was dangerous, but somehow it always made Gold smile ten times wider.

"If you wanted me to stop, you could've called out to me like a normal person," she snapped at him, and sat down reluctantly beside him.

"Ah, but this is the best way to get your attention!" She rolled her eyes.

Crystal Dallas was an unusual girl. The kind of girl you passed by as you strolled a city. She was bustling about like everyone else, but she had a clarity that surrounded her. Like she could see a stormy sky as cloudless. It wasn't that she was optimistic; just that she was a natural, independent girl following her own ambitions and minding her own business in a city of fakes.

And that was how Gold had found her.

She'd been on that very same park bench scribbling in a notebook. Very studious. It had been back in January, so she was bundled up, and snow was drifting down. It was picturesque; people building snowmen and sledding and having snowball fights all around, and a beautiful young woman with snowflakes caught on her eyelashes sitting criss-cross-apple-sauce on a white-blanketed bench.

He sat down beside her and introduced himself.

And she became his muse.

"So what do you want?" she asked him. "I don't have a lot of time before classes so you better be quick." Crystal had been brought to the city by the university within it, where she was studying to, hopefully, one day be a science teacher (she blabbed about it at least weekly to Gold). He was also attending the same school, but under a different major.

Gold rolled his eyes. "Why don't you just skip classes today? We could have a playdate!"

Crystal raised her eyebrows. "Um, we're not in kindergarten, and I'm not a delinquent like you so I can't skip."

"Whatever. On other notes, Red and Yellow finally got together."

Crystal smiled at the mention of Gold's oblivious friends. "Really?"

"Yeah. You know that girl Vy? Apparently she went all 'matchmaker' on them…but it worked! With the help of Blue, of course, the matchmaking queen. …And I think they dragged along Green and Shawn. Poor blokes."

Crystal shrugged. "That's good for Red and Yellow. It's about time anyways. Speaking of time, you're wasting mine. I need to go."

"But Silver will kill me if I don't have anything! And Thursday is my day off of class."

"That's not my problem!" She shoved herself up. "I'll be late if I don't go now. I'll talk with you later."

Gold stared after her retreating form. I hate writer's block, he grumbled mentally, and how do I write when my muse is being grumpy?

Gold threw open the door of the studio. "Hey, all!" Nobody replied; they concentrated on what they were doing. Gold shrugged and threw his trusty backpack on the coat rack, pulling out a notebook and plopping down in a swivel chair.

The studio had a musty smell that would probably forever hang in the air. It wasn't the greatest, but it had been the best that Silver could get. Gold, Silver, and the rest of their gang had taken the same classes and gotten schedules so that they all had Thursdays off. Of course, Tuesdays were always nightmares in result, but it was worth it to be able to rent the studio in all their free time.

Silver glanced over at him with a raised eyebrow, as Gold frowned at his blank notebook page. "You got anything?" Silver questioned, sighing when Gold shook his head. A sudden clatter of crashing came from the other room.

"Sounds like she's got something," Gold replied. "How ya doing, Sapph?" he called loudly, banging on the wall so she could hear him.

"I just knocked over some stuff…"

"So she doesn't have anything," Silver pointed out.

"Why don't you try helping out," Gold whined childishly. "I've got nothing. You write something about Lyra or something."

Lyra was Crystal's rather hyper sister. She was a literature major, and also Silver's girlfriend. Gold prided himself on the fact that he introduced the two. After knowing Silver for a few years, he had decided that the grumpy ginger needed someone like Lyra.

Silver rolled his eyes. "I can't, you idiot. Sapphire has to start off, and if she doesn't know the technicalities, which you are supposed to come up with, then she can't do anything. Can't you rack your brain for anything? We're already behind."

"I know." Gold leaned his head into his hands. The pose of a frustrated artist. "I know."

Crystal knew she would find Gold lingering around near their little park as she was on her way back to her apartment. After all, he knew when her classes were over. So she came around behind the bench, and there he was, slouching lazily, his messy hair shifting in the slight breeze.

Feeling rather mischievous, Crystal snuck up to him and put her hands over his eyes. She felt him jump in surprise beneath her fingertips and couldn't help but laugh. Gold grabbed her hands and pulled them off his face. "Hey!" he complained. "That wasn't nice!"

"Who said I had to be nice?" Crystal asked and maneuvered around the bench so she could sit down. Gold still clung to her hands.

"Just the gal I was waiting for," he said. "I really do need your help. Silver's being a stubborn little brat and insisting that I have to do something. Rah. So you, as my muse, have to help me."

"Really, I don't see why I'm your muse." Even after months of Gold calling her that, Crystal still found that she couldn't get used to it.

He pouted. "Because you're my friend and because I'm so uninspired. So I'm forcing you to help."

Crystal sighed. "Music majors are so aggravating. Make someone else in your little group write something for once. Just because you're the vocalist doesn't mean you always have to write the lyrics."

"I know, but no one else wants to. I'm the only one with a life."

She rolled her eyes. An unsettling feeling slowly crept up upon her that she didn't quite understand, but one she had felt for a long while; the unsettling feeling of being stuck in a reality that wouldn't ever change. She wanted to tell Gold to settle his own problems, to see that what was right in front of him could provide him with a thousand lines, but she didn't do any of that.

Instead, she took initiative and solved her own problems.

"You want my help?" she asked. "Fine then." From her bag, she pulled out a notepad and tore a sheet from it. Extracting a pen, she scribbled the only words she could think of since January down and shoved the scrap of paper towards the amber-eyed boy before her. Without another word and wanting to get away fast, Crystal leapt up and disappeared in the constant crowd of the city streets.

Gold stared after her retreating form. Then he glanced down at the paper. There were three little words written down in her fancy handwriting;

You're an idiot.

Gold rolled his eyes and chuckled. He wondered how on earth that was supposed to help him. Maybe he just had to solve his writer's block himself. He heaved himself up and started walking back to the studio. He'd been there with all his other classmates—Sapph, Ruby, Red, Yellow, Green, Blue, and of course Silver—all day, but it was one of those cloudy grey Thursdays where genius refused to spark.

But as Gold treaded slowly back to the studio from the park, he noticed that when the whitish, cloudy light of day caught on the little slip of paper Crystal had given him, it looked like she'd written on the back. Curiously, he flipped it over, and found the rest of her message.

But I love you.

He stopped dead in his tracks, staring at the paper. I didn't see her write this…does that mean she wrote it before? That's just like her to confuse me like that…But he had a spark of hope—a spark of hope that would turn into the spark of genius that he indeed needed—that maybe what she had written was truthful. Maybe she did love him.

Gold had never really known love, but when as he had become closer with Crystal, he always had a fluttery feeling within him, and the desire to be with her. He didn't know if that sufficed as love. But he knew it could grow into it.

He took off down the streets, racing back towards the studio, a thousand lines of lyrics echoing through his head. Crystal had shown him exactly what he needed.

After all, she was his muse.

And she had shown him that maybe even someone like him could end up being a fool in love.

"Tonight will be the night that I will fall for you,
Over again.
Don't make me change my mind,
Or I won't live to see another day,
I swear it's true.
Because a girl like you is impossible to find.
You're impossible to find."

A/N:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO POKELUV101!
I am so sorry about the quality of this story...I'm so hopeless T^T At first I was dwelling on the little pretty details like the brisk air and the snow in the flashback, and I think the colour of Crystal's eyes but then I got so super lazy I'm so sorry T^T And it didn't even have that much fluff! Wah...And the muse title is decieving XD it has nothing to do with The Muses...but I got the idea from my friend who's a photographer and has a caterpillar as his muse. Go figure!
I really hope all those reading it enjoyed...I had so many drafts of this before I finally settled on this. One was similar but spread out between seasons...one was the characters as fishermen (not pirates, fishermen! XD pirates are better). But then I just did this. That's all thanks to Ed Sheeran, because I had his songs on a constant loop when I was writing this...And I got the whole music major idea from a really old draft from like a year ago where the Pokespe characters were in a band ^-^"
I WAS SO CLOSE TO PUTTING AQUA IN THIS. She would've just appeared in the studio and Silver would've said, "How's my favorite niece?" but I couldn't fit it in, and for some reason I just barely mentioned the other characters, which was a failure...
But all that aside! EVERYONE MUST GO WISH POKELUV101 A VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY AND GO READ ALL HER STORIES BECAUSE THEY'RE BEAUTIFUL AND THEY HAVE WALLY IN THEM AND SHE IS SUCH A TALENTED WRITER AND VIDEO EDITOR AND MENTOR AND AN AMAZING FRIEND!
Aaaand I used the quote at the beginning because it's in one of her videos and I literally cannot stop watching it /"
Very long rant over! Thank you for reading.
Happy birthday to all, and to all a good night!
-Silvia

Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon or anything else.