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19 Animus, 2312 AF (19 / 08 / 2312)

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Pikesfoot City smelled.

It didn't smell particularly bad, nor was its smell harsh or abrasive. But it still smelled, and there was no other city in the Xernea region that smelled like it.

It was a dichotomous smell: it combined a vanilla-like aroma with the stench of a sweaty Swalot. It was light, and it was easy to ignore once your nose acclimated to it. But it was difficult to kick out of your memory, especially if you grew up on the streets that harbored the fragrance.

It acted as a good preview for what the city had to offer, and how its denizens were characterized. The sweaty Swalot stench was produced by a popular plant in the city known colloquially as "ivy," which many people liked to use as an herb in their home-cooked meals. Meals like brownies, and cookies, and small flammable paper burritos that altered one's mood when smoked. Production and distribution of ivy was supposed to be regulated by the city government, but in practice, most ivy was distributed by anonymous entrepreneurs who interpreted those regulations more as suggestions.

The vanilla smell came from a large flower that people planted on their window sills, which as far as Mayra could tell, was mostly just a public apology for the ugly smell of their ivy. Pikesfoot City harbored a sea of delinquency, but nobody wanted to be a bother about it.

For Mayra, the smell was not the only unforgettable thing about Pikesfoot City. Most of Pikesfoot City was unforgettable to her, perhaps literally. It was a city wherein she walked the streets for many of her most formative years. It wasn't until she'd completed her law degree at Pikesfoot University and became a travelling judge that she finally left the city more permanently. Her memory of it still lingered, though: even today, after eight years of travelling the region, she could still figure out where she was simply by walking on the ground and feeling the texture of the cobble beneath her feet.

And the cobblestone told her that she was close to a part of Pikesfoot City that she wished she could forget. An old home of hers, in an old neighborhood of hers, filled with happy, painful, memories. And just as the slightly noxious aroma kept a burnt scar in the recesses of her mind, so too did the hoity-toity friendliness of Lotus Lane, with its wealthy residents and well-kept sidewalks and public tennis courts and money laundering chiropractors.

Not much had changed by way of atmosphere from when she'd lived on Lotus Lane twenty years ago. But by way of inhabitants, a substantial change had occurred since she left her home here to study law.

Her old house was no longer standing. That was partly why she left it: it had burned down in a fire while she was still living there. And from the ashes, a foster home was built. The new building looked just a little out of place: it was taller than its neighbors, and had a pair of large rounded cupolas on its rooftop, rather than the encompassing rotundas which were characteristic of the Xernea region's architectural culture. There was a large sign at the front of the building that said, "Madame Elaina's Foster Home," and a metal gate surrounding much of the front yard, with an opening archway that made the house uniquely inviting.

Over her past eight years as a travelling judge, whenever Mayra came back to Pikesfoot City for her legal duties, she stayed far away from her old home and the foster home that had replaced it. She had many good reasons to do this, but perhaps a bad reason was that she didn't want to distract herself from her job. She'd always been a studious person, and made it a point to never shirk her work or give anything less than her all.

But lately, she started to realize that she had responsibilities to herself as well, and that she'd been neglecting these responsibilities when she overwhelmed herself with work. The briefing for her cases wasn't due to begin until tomorrow, and she was completely free until then. So she decided, for the first time, to pay a visit to the foster home that she'd been anonymously donating to ever since she became a judge.

Or at least, she was considering visiting. Now that she was at the foot of the gate, she found it curiously difficult to go any further. Suddenly she started coming up with reasons to change her mind. It would be awkward to just stop by and say hello, right? What if she got pressured into volunteering for a few days? Honestly, just looking at the new building was satisfying enough for her.

The front door opened.

Mayra jumped, and promptly started looking in another direction, pretending to be completely infatuated with the top of that tree a few hundred feet over yon.

"Have you made up your mind?"

Innocently, Mayra looked back at the front door. A middle-aged female Sceptile was looking at her, grinning like a shrewd fox.

Mayra briefly looked behind her to see if there was anyone else she might have been looking at, but she was alone. "Were you talking to me?" she asked the Sceptile.

"I was," she said. "Have you made up your mind yet?"

"About what?"

"About coming in. You've been standing there for the past ten minutes at least."

Although Mayra was outwardly calm, she could feel her heart starting to race. "Oh, have I?" she asked. "I must've lost track of time. I was just passing by, and I stopped to catch my … would you like for me to come in?"

The Sceptile folded her arms, still smiling. "How's about you come in? You look like you could afford to spend a few minutes out of the summer heat."

Mayra shrugged and walked forward. "Alright, if you insist." And she walked up the front path and stepped inside.

The inside welcomed her with the smell of cantaloupe and fabric. Mayra was surprised to see that there wasn't any receptionist desk behind the front door, but rather a small foyer. There was a circular rug on the polished hardwood floor, and to the right of her was a carpeted stairway leading up to the second floor. A balcony overlooked the entrance, and an ornate chandelier hung over the center.

"I'm Elaina, owner of this foster home," the Sceptile said as she led Mayra down the hall to what appeared to be a living room. There was a green carpeted floor, a fireplace against the wall, and several cushioned places to sit. "Have you been thinking of adopting?"

"No, no, certainly not," Mayra said promptly. "I'm a travelling judge. My work days are long, and I'm never in the same city for longer than a month. I doubt a child would be happy being raised in my care."

"A travelling judge? That's quite the noble profession. And I bet many children would enjoy travelling around like you do. It'd be exciting for them, visiting new places all the time," she said. "But I didn't ask if you thought you'd be a good parent. I asked if you've thought about adopting. Most people who visit here have."

"Well, I suppose I'm an exception," Mayra said with a light chuckle. She took a seat on one of the chairs and watched as Elaina drifted towards the kitchen area on the opposite side of the room. "I just wanted to see what this place was like. I heard it was only built around ten years ago."

From the distance, Mayra could see Elaina's eyes brighten at her as she poured a glass of water. "Ah, you must be the young Meowstic who lived here before this place was built. Come to see how things have changed, have you?"

Mayra shook her head. This was something she had to keep secret. No living person knew that she was the same Meowstic that had lived here, and it was going to stay that way. "You must be thinking of a different Meowstic," she said, keeping her voice calm. "I never lived here."

"Is that so? Why, you had me all excited. I was ready to swarm you with questions about what it was like living here. Anyway, here: this is for you."

Before Mayra could say her thanks, a tall glass of ice water was placed in her paws, and she was reminded of her thirst. She emptied half of her beverage, a wash of satisfaction rushing over her. She'd just finished a hundred-mile hike from the city of Emerson Valley to the south. She'd spent the past five hours walking, and ran out of water two hours before stepping into Pikesfoot City. "You're being much too hospitable to me," she said with a courteous smile.

"Oh, it's just a glass of water, dear," Elaina said with a wave of her hand, before sitting down herself. "I'd need to bake you a pie or two before you get the right to say that. Anyway, would you like to see more of the place? The kids are in the backyard playing with my husband if you'd like to meet them."

"I'd rather not," Mayra said. "I don't want to get their hopes up by making them think I'll be taking one of them with me. But if you would be so kind, I'd love to see the rest of the house."

It took Elaina a few seconds to respond to her request. She was giving Mayra this look of intrigue, as if her question had accidentally revealed a juicy secret. She simply nodded, though, and with a chipper voice, said, "Of course! Come, let me show you the library. My husband is quite the book collector."

The large house was gaudy and spacious, and had just about every room a house could have. She felt certain she'd get lost if she didn't stay by Elaina's side the whole time. There were parts of it that reeked of the presence of children — like the playroom, which was filled with half-broken toys; and the pantry, which had brownies on the high shelves that actually smelled like normal brownies, and not like the ivy edibles that helped make Pikesfoot City smell the way it did. But aside from that, the place felt welcoming and cozy, and the foster home seemed indeed like it was much more "home" than "foster."

"You know, I don't think you're being perfectly honest with me about why you're here," Elaina said as she started showing Mayra the bedrooms.

Mayra's heart skipped a beat. "You don't? Why ever would I lie to you?"

"Well, maybe you're not being perfectly honest with yourself either." She traced one of her talons over a wooden drawer, where there was a painting of a baby Treecko resting in the arms of its mother. "People like you have come here before with the same sheepish outward intentions that you have, but trust me when I say that none of them showed up just to see what our home looks like. I think you really are considering adopting, and you're just waiting for someone or something to convince you that it's a good idea."

Mayra smiled, feeling relieved. "I assure you, then, that I will be a first. I have no interest in taking a child with me."

Elaina gave Mayra a sharp smile. "Do you like children?" she asked.

"Oh sure, I have nothing against them," Mayra said. "They're a handful all the same, but a joy to be around."

"Have you ever considered having one of your own?" she asked.

Mayra held her breath. She very nearly considered answering honestly. "You're asking some rather personal questions for how long you've known me," she said instead.

"In this business, you get to know your clients very quickly," Elaina said, sounding fiercely unapologetic. "It wouldn't be very wise to adopt from a stranger, don't you think?"

Mayra shrugged. "I wouldn't really know. I haven't thought much about it."

Before she could change the subject, a voice intruded into her mind. Hey, miss? Did you used to live here?

Mayra blinked. "Is one of the children here a psychic-type?" she asked Elaina quietly.

It was interesting how telepathy worked. Even though she never actually heard those words, they still had a tone to them. And the tone in this case was childish, curious, and male.

Elaina tilted her head at Mayra. "I don't think I'll ever understand you psychic-types," she said. "Yes, we have a psychic-type. How did you know?"

"It's not some sort of mystery: he just spoke to me telepathically." She turned her head just in time to see the shy gaze of an espurr disappear behind the corner.

Mayra couldn't help but feel her eyes brighten just a little bit. I saw you, she relayed back to him, keeping her telepathic tone playful. No need to hide from me. I can't answer your questions if I don't know where you are.

… I'll stay here.

"Cai?" Elaina said. "Why aren't you out back playing with the other kids?"

My name's actually Caius, the espurr promptly telepathed to her. Cai is just a nickname. It's short for Caius.

That's a pretty name, Caius, Mayra told him. Mine's Mayra. It's not short for anything.

Okay,Caius relayed nervously. You can call me Cai, though. Everyone calls me Cai.

Mayra was about to telepath something back to him, but Elaina started towards the corner, where Cai was hiding, and Mayra chose to follow her instead. "Cai, you know it's rude to eavesdrop on others. Why don't you show yourself?"

After a few seconds of silence, Cai did as asked and stepped out. He had a rock in his hands that he was fidgeting with, and he couldn't seem to make eye contact with either Elaina or Mayra. "Sorry for eavesdropping," he mumbled.

"It's okay, sweetie," Mayra said, beaming at him. "I don't think you were eavesdropping, actually. I think you were just waiting to speak to me and you didn't want to interrupt us. What's that you have in your hands?"

Cai didn't answer, and instead just held the rock closer to his body.

"That's his favorite rock," Elaina answered for him. "He carries it around with him, and pretends it has a piece of the spirit of the person who lived here."

"I'm not pretending!" Cai protested. "She's really there. I can hear her with my psychic powers."

"Oh, yes, of course," Elaina corrected with a giggle. "That's what I meant."

Mayra tilted her head. Is that why you asked if I lived here before? she asked Cai.

Cai looked at his rock, then up at Mayra. "The spirit was trying to tell me something when you came in. She seems to really like you."

"Oh, really?" Mayra said. "Now I really want to see it."

Cai shook his head, shielding the rock from Mayra's view further.

Elaina frowned at Cai. "Cai, why don't you share? She won't hurt your spirit friend."

"He doesn't have to if he doesn't want to," Mayra insisted. "I think it'd be very nice of him to show it to me, but it's his rock, so it's his choice."

Cai kept his eyes on his rock. Mayra could tell he was starting to contemplate showing it to her.

She couldn't help but be genuinely curious. Yes, it was just an imaginary friend. And the accidental connection that his imaginary friend had made with Mayra wasn't inexplicable at all. Mayra could tell from their telepathy that Cai's brain was very active, even for a young psychic-type like himself. So it was very possible that he might have subconsciously caught wind of something in Mayra's mind that told him she had a connection to this place. Nonetheless, it was the mere fact that the connection was there that made her want to learn more about this 'spirit.'

"Alrighty then," Elaina said, before placing a talon on Mayra's shoulder. "Now, I'm not going to kick you out, but I do have to make dinner for the children soon."

"I'll leave you to that. I'm about ready to leave anyway," Mayra said, making her way to the stairs. "Thank you for showing me the place, Elaina. And thank you for being so friendly, Cai."

Cai gave her a sheepish smile.

"You're welcome to see us again during visiting hours, Miss … I'm sorry, did I get your name?" Elaina asked.

"It's Mayra," she said, extending a hand.

Elaina shook it. "Miss Mayra."

"Miss Mayra?" Cai asked as he tugged on a tuft of fur on Mayra's waist.

Mayra looked down at Cai. "Yes, dear?"

"I'd like to show you my rock."

Mayra giggled. She thought so. "Ooh, thank you. Let's see it."

She crouched down to Cai's height and held out her hands, and Cai gingerly placed the rock in her palm. "Don't drop it: you'll hurt the spirits."

"I'll be very careful," she said, and he let go of the rock, letting her see it.

She was surprised she didn't recognize its shape earlier. When she did, she felt her heart folding in on itself, and her eyes stretched wide. It was a piece of diorite, speckled in black and white, shaped to the letter C.

And it was familiar. Painfully familiar. Because it was hers. She remembered buying it from a local crafter. She remembered gluing it to the front of her mailbox, making it a part of her house — the one and only part of it that had given the outside world any indication that she and her mate were there.

She remembered more and more — breath by breath, the first days of her old life in this neighborhood came back to the forefront of her mind.

(\ /)

Her name was Clara back then. And her mate's name was Chance. And he was the most handsome, quick-witted, daring, hilarious Weavile she'd ever known.

She stood there by the front door, admiring the new decoration on their mailbox: a small stone C, standing for both of their names, specked in white for her psychic element, and black for his dark element.

"You really don't need to be so worried," Chance said. "The neighbors aren't going to find out who we are if we decorate the front yard a bit more."

"Maybe not," Clara said. "But I can't help but feel a bit guilty, pretending to be another innocent person here on this innocent street."

"Why would you need to pretend?" Chance brought a hand to her shoulder. "You are the most innocent person I've ever met in Pikesfoot City."

"Oh, yes, I'm completely innocent," Clara said, rolling her eyes as she opened the door and stepped inside. "I'm only soulmates with a notorious crime lord. No big deal."

"You think the neighbors are any better?" Chance asked, closing the door behind him. "One of them's probably a serial cheater at gambling. One of them probably owns a slave. One of them probably operates a black market for unlicensed weapons. Clara, you realize this is the city people go to when they need to do something illegal, right?"

"Every city has its pockets of innocence," Clara told him. "And this street seems to be one of them."

"It's safe; that's all I'm gonna give it."

Clara hummed happily. "Yes, safe. I never thought I'd be somewhere safe again after learning about your profession."

"Yeah, well don't let your guard down," Chance said. "If the guys find out we live here now, it's gonna be just as dangerous as the last place. And don't even think about kids until we get absolutely everything worked out."

"Oh, now that's asking far too much of me," Clara said, flicking her thick, bushy tail up to whack him in the face. " 'Don't even think' about having your eggs? Chance, I can't stop thinking about it!" She turned around, her eyes gleaming and seductive. She'd been with him for seven years now, and he still looked just as sexy and ravishing as he did the day her eyes first lit up for him. "My body wants your kids: my heat is getting stronger, my cramps are getting worse. I don't know how much longer I'll be able to wait."

Chance stepped away from Clara, raising an eyebrow at her. "You should probably see a doctor about those cramps," he said clinically. "That doesn't sound normal."

"It's just my uterus telling me that I'm ready to be a mother," Clara said, rubbing her lower abdomen.

"Well, your uterus isn't aware that kids are a liability in my line of work," Chance said. "They can be threatened or taken or hurt. They can be used as leverage. Heck, I'm not supposed to care about anyone, let alone have a child."

Clara sighed. "You should have retired a long time ago. There's a saying in the mafia, right? 'A friend who rats for you will eventually rat on you' or something like that."

"Yeah, that's right. Snitches get cut."

"Can't the same logic apply to everything else you do?" she said. "If they steal for you, they'll eventually steal from you. If they threaten someone for you, they'll eventually threaten you for someone else. You were never supposed to keep up this 'line of work' for as long as you have."

" 'Never supposed to—?' Clara, what do you think I am, a fuckin' summer intern with these guys? You think they planned on just hiring me for a bit to do some robbing and torturing part-time until I got a nice cushy job at the academy? My plan was the same as everyone else's. I was supposed to stay in this business until I got sliced open, or arrested, or until I made so much money that I could run away with a new identity and spend the rest of my life doing whatever I wanted. You weren't exactly supposed to come along and give … fuckin' value to my life."

Clara let out a light chuckle. "I will never apologize for my actions."

Chance traipsed up to the couch and collapsed in it. "You're right though. I've got enough money now: I'm ready to put this reckless shit behind me. And I'm ready to stop putting you through all this nonsense. But dammit, Clara, it's not gonna be easy. I'm valuable to them: they're not gonna like the idea of me quitting. My best bet is to try and make them forget about me. I'll start taking a lower profile, draw their attention away from me, let the others do the talking, take less of the dirty work, and hopefully they'll let me slip away without bothering to track me down. After that, maybe I'll give you those kids you've always wanted."

Clara huffed. "That's what you said when you talked about moving to a new part of the city, Chance."

After sharing a look of intimate contemplation with her, Chance closed his eyes and sighed, revealing a thoughtful smile. "I'll admit, you've been extremely patient with me. Maybe you've been waiting for long enough now…. I'll think about it."

Delighted, Clara climbed onto the couch and held him close, showering him with physical affection.

(\ /)

Bringing her headspace back to reality, Mayra tried to hide her surprise with a simple smile. "It looks like the letter C," she said, tracing her finger over the shape of the rock. "C for Cai?"

Cai nodded. "Did you hear the spirit too?"

"I think I might have," she said, playing along. "She told me that if you stay patient and if you always be polite, then soon, you'll be chosen by a wonderful family that will love you very much."

The response Cai gave was not one she was expecting. "Yeah, she says that to me a lot."

There was a powerful look on his face when he said that: a sense of longing that could only come from a child who never had anyone to call their mother or father.

Mayra felt her heart reach out to the poor kid. She knelt down and handed the stone back to him. "Listen to me, sweetheart," she said, clasping his hands. "There's a family somewhere out there waiting for you, ready to shower you with all of the affection that you deserve. Soon, they'll find you. And when they do, they will always be your family too."

Cai started looking her with appreciation in his eyes. Strong appreciation. One that had Mayra's heart fluttering a little bit too much. Don't even think about considering adopting him yourself, Mayra, she said to herself. You know that would be just about the stupidest idea in the world.

Swallowing what felt like a panicking chinchilla trying to jump its way out of her throat, Mayra rose to her feet. "I need to book a hotel room before it gets too dark out, so I'll be heading out now. It was wonderful to meet you," she said, both to Cai and Elaina.

"Take care, Mayra," Elaina said.

As she started going down the stairs, Cai called out to her with telepathy one last time.

You never answered my question. Did you used to live here?

Mayra paused, and looked pensively at Cai.

I won't tell anyone. I'm good at keeping secrets, he promised.

Mayra simply turned back and started down the stairs again. No, I didn't, she said to him. The lie felt slightly more bitter this time. But maybe your spirit friend was right about something. Perhaps you'll discover a connection between me and this place that I never knew I had.

And she left without another word.

(\ /)

The next day, Mayra was briefed on her assigned judicial cases. Three different people all had charges of aggravated assault and breaking and entering against them, although each case was completely unrelated to the other. She spent the afternoon scheduling interviews and forensic tours of the crime scenes, but decidedly chose not to work well into the evening, like she usually would. Once sundown came, she retired for the day.

Something nagged at her while she'd been working. She had to go back to the foster home. She regretted those last words she'd telepathed to Cai: they felt mystical in some sense, like she was implicitly promising him that she'd come back one day and carry with her the possibility that she'd tell him something new. It just didn't feel right to not at least come back a second time.

She'd come up with a decent excuse to return too. Well, it probably wasn't that good, but it got her up to the front door, which was all she needed from it. Gingerly, she knocked, throwing a look of appreciation at the family of flowers around the perimeter of the mansion and silently praising the groundskeeper for his or her diligent work.

Elaina the Sceptile opened the door about a minute later. "Mayra! Very interesting to see you again. Have you come for another completely innocuous tour of the place? I didn't show you the cellar yesterday, did I?"

"No, no, that's not why I'm here," she promptly said. "I actually would like to see Cai again. Earlier today, I had an idea for a little gift that I think he'd like."

The bright-eyed smile that Elaina gave her somehow communicated two ideas at the same time. The first was something like, 'Well, well, well, what do we have here?' and the second was something like, 'You just made today a very good day, and I am so grateful for that.'

"Well, normally this is the point where I would tell you that we have visiting hours," she said to Mayra.

"I'm almost certainly busy during those visiting hours," she insisted, which was a half-lie. Her schedule was technically flexible, but she wasn't in the habit of taking long breaks in the middle of the afternoon, or whenever these visiting hours were.

"And this is also normally the point where I'd tell you that Cai is a developing psychic-type and needs to go to bed quite early," Elaina continued.

"Oh, right." Mayra had nearly forgotten what she was like as a child. Sleeping for fourteen hours a day was quite normal for young Espurrs. The psychic-type's brain was complex and powerful, and needed to undergo lots of rest.

"But Cai is almost certainly still awake, and he would definitely like to see you. If you're quick about it, I'll show you to his room."

Mayra gave a small smile of gratitude to Elaina and followed her inside.

Cai's room was the furthest one to the right on the second floor. Mayra was expecting that he would share a room with many of the fellow foster children that he lived with, but was surprised to find when Elaina opened the door that there were only two beds.

She barely had time to examine the rest of the room before all of her attention was drawn to the Espurr on the carpeted ground playing with some figurines and a miniature version of the moon. And her attention was drawn to him because the moment Mayra stepped inside, he lit up like a Cyndaquil and ran up to her. "Miss Mayra!"

Oh, curse this child for the way he made her heart bubble up. Mayra crouched down and rubbed the fluff on his little head. "Hello, Cai. How are you doing today?"

"Good," he said. "Today was Isla's hatching day and we all had brownies for lunch."

Elaina inched closer to Mayra and said, "I'll leave you two for a bit." She leaned in closer and said in a quiet voice, "But I'll be right back with the adoption papers."

Mayra stiffened up and whirled around. "T-that's not necessary!" she said to Elaina as she started towards the door. "Elaina, please, I've already told you that —"

But her objections fell on deaf ears, and Elaina shut the door before Mayra could continue.

She sighed. She wasn't really upset with Elaina in that moment — who, for all she knew, might have simply been joking when she said that. She was more upset with herself. Already, she was regretting the decision to come back. Didn't it seem like she was leading them on by returning? She knew that she would not be adopting Cai, and yet here she was lifting his hopes. He was probably holding his breath right now, thinking that she might be the one.

She was also afraid that she might trap herself in this foster home if she didn't stop herself early. What if she ended up doing the same thing she did yesterday, and made her last words to Cai something that would make him expect her to come back? She couldn't just not come back if she did that.

She made a silent note to herself: do NOT promise to come back tomorrow.

Mayra brought her attention back to Cai. "Do you have your rock somewhere?" she asked.

Cai nodded. "Let me go get it."

He ran over to his nightstand, but his legs were stubby and adorable, and he took a bit of time to collect his rock. Mayra finally had time to examine his part of the room.

There was a celestial theme to it: his blanket was patterned with moons, stars, and planets on a dark blue background. A painting of the galaxy (which, judging by the messiness of the strokes, appeared to be made by Cai himself) was hung over the bed. And books about outer space and planets sat in the tiny bookshelf that he had on the other side of his bed, though Mayra seriously doubted that he was able to read them yet.

Cai returned with his rock in-hand. "He seemed really happy today," he said, handing it to her.

Mayra decided not to comment on how the spirit inside the rock suddenly changed sexes since yesterday, and simply took it from Cai with a smile. "I think I have something that will make it easier for you to keep your rock with you," she said.

She opened her purse and pulled out three things: a small piece of metal with a loop on one end, length of string, and a small bottle of glue.

"With these three things," Mayra said, "you can make your rock into a necklace. See? If you glue this piece of metal on the top of the rock, then you can thread the string around this loop, and then put it around your neck. Then your spirit friend will stay with you wherever you go without you having to carry it around."

Cai definitely looked interested in the idea. He took the objects from Mayra and opened up the bottle of glue. Within seconds, he was on the verge of spilling half of its contents onto the carpet, and Mayra quickly took the bottle back from him and offered to help make the necklace for him.

Cai nodded to her, and after using a more appropriate sized drop of glue, she attached the rock to the necklace loop. The glue started to harden quickly, and Mayra placed the new necklace around his neck. She was quite proud of her work: the C sat straight on Cai's chest, and the length of thread she chose for the necklace was perfect for him.

"It won't be until tomorrow before the glue fully dries," Mayra told him. "So if you decide that you don't like it, I can take it apart and your rock will be just like it was before."

Cai got up and walked over to the mirror in his room. He looked at himself, and fidgeted with the rock a bit. Mayra walked up behind him, looking a little concerned. Oh no, did he not like it? She really thought it was a good idea. And she really thought the rock looked quite cute on him when it was hung around his neck.

But once he was done inspecting his new necklace, Cai beamed up at Mayra. "It looks so cool!" he said, delighted.

Mayra smiled back with radiant relief. "I'm glad you'd like it."

"I'll never take it off for the rest of my life!" Cai then proceeded to start playing with his toys again, giggling at how his rock was still there on his person while he did so.

Mayra was about to approach Cai and ask about his toys and what he was doing with them, but she was interrupted by Elaina, who was just stepping through the doorway. "Come with me," she said.

Mayra nodded and stood back up. "Bye-bye, Cai," she said, waving to him.

Cai practically leapt back to his feet in a panic, and looked up at Mayra again. "Will you come back tomorrow?" he asked.

"I might. We'll see," Mayra said. No! No, bad Mayra! What is wrong with you?!

She gave one last look to Cai before following Elaina back into the hall and down the stairs.

"You didn't actually gather the adoption papers, did you?" Mayra asked quietly.

Elaina simply laughed at the question. "Ohh, Mayra," she said. "You came back here to see him."

"It doesn't mean anything," Mayra insisted. "I wanted to give him a little gift. So what?"

"It means a lot more than you might think. You may not realize it now, but you are eventually going to adopt him."

"I will not!" she retorted. "Look, I'm sorry if I'm giving you the wrong impression, but I really mean it. He's a charming boy, and I would love for him to be sent to a good home, but I'm telling you that I'm not interested. You wouldn't want him to get adopted by someone who wasn't interested in being a parent, would you?"

"No, of course not," Elaina said. She stopped beside a small table against the wall in the foyer. "Have you ever been interested in being a parent?"

Mayra frowned. "You already asked me that yesterday."

"Yes, and if I recall correctly, you never gave me an answer."

"I believe that was intentional."

"Well, it would be helpful to me if I knew," Elaina said. "If you tell me, I promise I won't bother you about adoption again. Even after you come back here tomorrow."

Mayra couldn't even put up a protest because she knew that she probably would come back here tomorrow. So she just sighed, and let Elaina have this one. "I have," she said. "A long time ago, when I was much younger."

Elaina nodded. "I thought so. What kept you? Never found the right guy?"

Mayra actually laughed a little at that. "I suppose you could say that," she said. "But I would say I encountered a more serious problem after learning that I was barren: I can't have kids of my own."

Elaine's smile evaporated. "Oh dear. I'm so sorry."

"Oh, don't feel sorry for me," Mayra said. "Arceus decided that I was destined not to be a mother, and I've ended up learning that I can live a meaningful life without becoming one."

"Well, I won't make any claims about what will make your life any more or less meaningful," Elaine started. She picked up a paper folder from the table beside her and handed it to Mayra. "But don't let Arceus decide what your destiny is. Your destiny is up to you."

Mayra felt her heart go still when she accepted the folder. "You … you did get them?"

"As promised, I won't bother you about adoption again," she said. "From now on, the decision will be yours and yours alone. If you ever change your mind, just get city hall's stamp of approval on those documents and sign the papers yourself, and he'll be all yours."

Mayra opened the folder to look at the paper inside. XERNEA REGION CERTIFICATE OF ADOPTION, the first paper was titled. All of the information regarding the child and the foster parent was already filled out. The only empty regions of the paperwork were for Mayra herself.

The folder included other documents as well. There were medical records, proofs of former guardianship, genealogical records, and a copy of Cai's birth certificate among the papers

Mayra closed the folder and handed it back. "I don't want these," she said softly.

"Then tear them up when you get home, and you'll never need to see them again," Elaina said, pushing the papers back Mayra's way. "The birth certificate is a copy of the original document, so we won't need it back."

Mayra's ears tilted back as she looked back down at the folder that Elaina refused to take back from her. No, she didn't like this. She didn't like the idea of it being so easy for her to make a decision like that. Even if her decision was not to adopt.

"Good night, Mayra," Elaina said with finality. "I'll see you when you come back."

And she led Mayra outside, where the only sound of the evening was the wisp of a gentle wind. That was one of the benefits of living on Lotus Lane: it was a quiet corner of a not-so-quiet city.

She stayed on Lotus Lane for a little while before returning to her hotel room, taking in the silence and remembering pieces of her old life here.

(\ /)

Clara would never forget the day she received her diagnosis.

Chance eventually convinced her that those cramps she was getting might not have been from her biological clock demanding eggs after all, and that it would at least be worthwhile to hear an opinion from a gynecologist.

And it turned out that her body had been quite rudely attacking its own eggs whenever she was ovulating.

"It's quite uncommon for women with this condition to start showing symptoms at your age," the doctor said as she flipped through the papers on her clipboard. She was a rather tall Simipour. She wore glasses and a lab-coat, and the fur on her hands was always a little damp from her washing them so often. "Usually it doesn't become an issue of comfort until you're at least seventy or eighty years old — and even then, it only remains an issue until menopause hits. But your body is reacting a lot more aggressively, which is why your cramps have been so bad."

"Can it still be treated?" Chance asked. He'd only just been let in the room, but he sat down beside Clara and started holding her shoulders the moment he saw the emotional state she was in.

"Yes, but it won't be without complications. For women who are seeking to get pregnant, what I usually do is write up a prescription for immunosuppressants until they begin gestating, so that the body stops destroying the egg during ovulation. For everyone else, the easiest solution is a tubal ligation. It will permanently stop all symptoms, but it will also permanently prevent pregnancy."

"The first option," Clara said. "We've been trying to have kids for the past eight months."

The Simipour's ears fell. "I'm sorry, Clara. In your case, that's not going to be an option. Because of how virulent your immune system's reaction has been, we'd have to prescribe some very strong suppressants to counteract it. And any suppressant that's strong enough to do that will also render you too weak to keep an embryo alive."

No, Clara thought as she tried to claw for her heart before it sank deep into her stomach. No, this can't be it. "Are there any other options? Will the infection eventually go away, or start to remiss?"

"Not until things get worse," the doctor said. "As your immune system continues to get more proactive against your reproductive cycle, your cramps will continue to get more and more painful. After a few years, it will start to directly attack your ovaries. Once that happens, you'll become permanently infertile, and other complications may arise."

Clara gripped Chance's hand tightly. She was starting to feel dizzy — like she was falling down an endless cliff. Why was this happening? Why were the fates so cruel? What was Arceus punishing her for? Did He just give her a burning desire to have kids out of cruelty?

"I will give you some time to think about what you would like to do," the doctor continued. "Since having kids of your own isn't a realistic option for you anymore, my recommendation is to go with tubal ligation. Recovery is mostly painless, and the effects take place immediately. In the meantime, I'll write up a prescription for weaker suppressants: they won't do much, but they should make your cramps less intense. Just try to stay indoors more often because you'll be more susceptible to illnesses."

Clara didn't remember much of what had happened after she left the gynecologist's office. In fact, the only thing she remembered about the rest of that day was a brief conversation she had with Chance on her way home.

"Well, let's look on the bright side," she said dejectedly as she traipsed over the cobblestone street. "Now we won't have to think about when the best time to have our child will be anymore. We won't have to think about baby names either. And we won't need to worry about how we'd keep it safe after it was hatched. You're not under as much pressure to quit your job anymore."

"The pressure's still on," Chance responded. "Growler is starting to get suspicious of me, and I've got more eyes pointed my way than I've had in awhile." He looked sadly at Clara and said, "Look, I'm sorry about all this. We would have had something by now if I didn't sit and wait for so long."

"I don't blame you," she told him. "It's not like you knew this was going to happen. You were just trying to make sure our child would grow up safely."

"No, seriously, I want to take some responsibility here," he insisted. "I've been no good to you this whole time. I keep wondering why you haven't left me yet. I mean, look at where I've put you now."

"Chance, dear," Clara said as she leaned on his shoulder. "The reason I haven't left you is because I still want you. I'll always want you. And if being with you instead of someone else meant never having kids, then I still would have chosen you."

Chance took his head and leaned down on her as they walked. Clara could feel the warmth of his smile. "Hey, tell you what:" he started before stopping Clara. He reached forward and touched her face, his eyes glistening as if he'd suddenly fallen in love for the first time. "I'm gonna make it up to you. I promise to make passionate love to you every single night — no, twice a day — for the rest of my life. Even in futility, I will do everything I can to give you that egg."

Clara grinned shrewdly at him. "How noble of you to make such a promise," she said with a sarcastic smile. "But please, don't put yourself through so much suffering on my behalf."

"It is a sacrifice I must be willing to make," he bantered back with a grin of his own. "If it requires sweat, so be it. If it requires copious amounts of other fluids, so be it. I will make it my solemn duty to ensure that for every hour of every day, you will remain the most heavily fertilized person in the entire world." He leaned forward and seized her laughter with a kiss that brought Clara's heart fluttering out of the pits of her stomach.

Then he broke the kiss and said, "I think I owe it to you to get the efforts started as soon as possible. What do you say?"

Chance was an adventurous spirit, and his spirit of adventure extended into the things he liked to do in public with Clara. The street they were on wasn't empty, but Chance had become an expert in stealth after years of experience. As far as the rest of the world was aware, Clara spent the rest of her walk home innocently leaning on Chance's shoulder.

(\ /)

Since Mayra didn't have any interviews or tours scheduled for the rest of the early afternoon, she had time to actually visit during the foster home's visiting hours. She arrived at the doorstep at around high noon.

She thought that after the third visit, it would be okay for her to simply open the door and call for Elaina. That was a mistake.

"ELAINA, SHERRY'S LICKING ME!"

"I am NOT!"

"YES YOU ARE! I can feel your tongue and it's GROSS!"

"I'm just giving you a bath because you STINK!"

"That's LICKING ME, Sherry!"

"Sherry, stop licking Gavin," Elaina said firmly.

"Yeah, Sherry!"

Mayra slowly closed the door, trying to be quiet about it.

She then waited about a minute. She wasn't sure why, but it felt like the polite thing to do. The door was quite soundproof, and kept the bickering out of ear's reach. So when she chose to knock on the door and wait to be let in, she wasn't sure if she was interrupting the argument or not. Either way, it wasn't continuing by the time Elaina came around to open the door.

"Mayra!" she said, beaming. "It's so good to see you at a more appropriate time. Come on in; Cai is in the play room right now."

Elaina had shown Mayra the play room back on the first day she showed up. It was a big room, probably large enough to comfortably fit everyone who lived in the house. The whole ground was covered in a soft padding — the type that bipedal adults could jump up and down on without hurting their feet. It had a clean, fresh smell to it, and the overhead light crystals poured bright, white light into the room. There were tables and bins and chairs and costumes and toys everywhere in the room, though there was also lots of open space for running around.

A lot of kids were in the room, which wasn't something Mayra was hoping to see. She didn't want to run into the same problem with them as she was having with Cai. If any of them started growing attached to her, she was going to end up with a rather guilty feeling headache.

Of course, the kids didn't know that, and the two closest to her when she stepped into the room took no hesitation in giving her their attention. "Hello, miss," the little Glameow said, sitting politely and looking up at her. "My name's Sherry."

"And I'm Gavin," said the Shinx next to her. "What's yours?"

"Mayra, sweeties," Mayra answered.

"Oh, you're the lady that Cai talked about," Gavin said, his eyes lighting up from the memory. "Cai is kinda weird, isn't he?"

"Gavin, that's not very nice," Elaina said from behind Mayra.

"Well he is!" Gavin said defensively. "He never wants to play any games with us, unless it's Space Race."

"Yeah, and he's not even good at Space Race," Sherry added. "Even though he made it up."

"I thought I told you that you're not allowed to play that game anymore," Elaina said, glaring at them.

"What is 'Space Race'?" Mayra asked.

"It's a race to see who can touch the ceiling first," Elaina explained. "It's not allowed anymore because people have gotten hurt playing it. Multiple times."

"Only Cai, though!" Sherry chimed in. "I never get hurt because I can land on my feet after touching the ceiling."

"Cai is not the only one who's gotten hurt," Elaina firmly corrected.

"Cai's really good at making obstacle courses," Gavin said, as if that were a really important point that everyone else was forgetting.

"Oh yeah, they're always super fun," Sherry agreed. "But again, he stinks at doing them himself."

After the two kids shared a giggle, Elaina asked, "Do you know where Cai is? I thought he was in here, playing with the jigsaw puzzle he started working on today."

"He went to the observatory to work on it, I think," Gavin told her. "I think he just wanted to be alone to work on it or something."

Elaina let out a long sigh. "That child acts like the observatory is his second room," she grumbled. "Okay, thank you. We'll go find him."

The observatory was a room that Elaina hadn't shown Mayra yet. And understandably so: it was hard to get to. On the second floor down the hall, there was a second set of stairs. This led to a more vacant floor with only a couple of rooms. The first was a small storage room with a low ceiling and no lighting at all, save for the dusty window that let in a bit of sunlight. And the second was an even smaller room that housed nothing but a ladder.

Climbing the ladder led to the observatory. Elaina explained to Mayra that the only reason it was built in the first place when the house was being made was because her husband was a hobbyist stargazer. Since Cai had a notable interest in outer space, her husband sometimes invited him to go stargazing with him. It wasn't very often, though, since Cai was usually asleep during most of the night.

When Mayra finished climbing the ladder and stepped into the observatory, she understood why Cai would love it so much. It was cozy, it was isolated, it was quiet, and the ceiling was a big glass dome. It was a perfect place for a child to go to get lost in their own thoughts, especially if they had a particular interest in space. There was a big telescope on one side of the room, and star patterns on the carpet, as well as lenses and books loosely stacked all around the edge of the floor.

Cai was sitting there in the middle of the carpeted floor with a kid-sized jigsaw puzzle in front of him. Mayra used to enjoy solving jigsaw puzzles as a kid. She had to have completed at least a few dozen in her lifetime, some with hundreds upon hundreds of pieces.

But Cai, the poor thing, seemed to be struggling with a much smaller puzzle. At a glance, Mayra guessed that there were only thirty pieces in total that he was working with, and pretty much no progress had been made whatsoever on it.

Mayra felt a guilty feeling of superiority over him at that moment. Cai should have had something that size finished by now. If it were her solving that puzzle at his age, she would have been done after a few minutes maximum.

She didn't think too much of it, though. Perhaps Cai just wasn't used to such puzzles. Maybe this was his first one.

He was wearing the necklace she'd made for him last night. The diorite C hung from his neck as he worked on the puzzle. When he lifted his head, he beamed brightly at Mayra. "Hi, miss Mayra," he said excitedly. "I'm working on a puzzle."

"Yes, I can see that," Mayra said. "How's it coming along?"

"Alright," he said half-heartedly. "This is a hard one."

"It looks pretty hard," she lied. "There's a lot of pieces. Do you want me to give you some help?"

"Okay." He set the piece he was holding down and picked up the box for the set. "This is what it's supposed to look like."

When Mayra came over and examined the picture on the puzzle box, she understood a little bit better why Cai was struggling. It was meant to be a starry sky: a black background with sparse white dots. The pattern was completely homogeneous, and there would be no way of telling which piece went where based on the illustration.

Mayra wondered if that was intentional on the puzzlemaker's part. Maybe this puzzle was supposed to force its solvers to rely on the shapes of the pieces alone when figuring the whole thing out. Either way, it made it a bit more difficult to get started.

"Let's see," Mayra said. "The first thing we should do is find the four corner pieces. Then we can choose one of the corners and start connecting edge pieces to it."

Mayra then started to collect the corner pieces. Within a few seconds, she'd found all four and put them to the side.

"What about these two?" Cai asked, pointing at a pair of pieces still in the main pile.

"What do you mean? There should only be four corners." Mayra looked closer at where Cai was pointing. To her surprise, there actually were two more corner pieces there.

She re-examined the box just to make sure the final puzzle was, in fact, supposed to be rectangular. Indeed, it was. She also checked to see how many pieces the puzzle was supposed to have. It said thirty-five. She then counted all thirty-five puzzle pieces.

Finally, she examined all six corner pieces more closely. They were all unique in shape, and they all had the starry illustration on them, indicating that they were indeed all from the same set.

Mayra had no idea how to deal with this. She figured that perhaps two of the puzzle pieces were decoys, and that the puzzle only needed to be solved with thirty-three of them.

"We'll put them in the same pile too, then," she said after her moment of dumbfounded hesitation. "Now, let's choose this corner and find out what connects to it."

Mayra then proceeded to start testing possible connections to the corner pieces. She managed a chain of about five connections before she hit a dead end. None of the other pieces seemed to be agreeing with the solved pieces in any intuitive way. Elaina started to grow bored and went back downstairs to keep an eye on the other kids.

Another twenty minutes passed, and Mayra was starting to grow quite embarrassed. She started to think that the solution she ran into was a decoy, and just decided to start over. This was only a thirty-five piece puzzle: why was it so hard? There were only so many ways to put 35 pieces together. And she had no idea what to do with those corner pieces besides just ignore them for the time being.

After another ten minutes of fiddling around, Mayra felt herself on completely equal footing with Cai. The two of them were trying piece combinations with just about the same level of frequency and success. After spending close to an hour with the puzzle, Mayra was just about ready to give up.

"I think this is a defective set," Mayra said at one point. "These pieces aren't fitting together. I think some of the pieces are from a different version of this puzzle. That has to be why they're not fitting together."

Cai, in the meanwhile, didn't seem so ready to give up. He was starting to drool with concentration as he worked on connecting pieces to a middle piece, completely ignoring whether he was making connections with edge pieces or corner pieces. To his credit, he was finding some very creative ways to connect the pieces that Mayra never would have considered.

Still, there was drool on his face, and Mayra felt the need to deal with that, if only because it gave her an excuse to stop looking at the puzzle.

She opened up her purse and pulled out a wad of tissues. After isolating one of them, she leaned over the puzzles and pressed it to the edge of Cai's mouth, wiping the saliva off of him before it started dripping onto the carpet.

Cai looked up, dazed from his concentration. He tilted his head at Mayra, as if he had no idea what had just happened.

"You were drooling a little bit," Mayra explained as she crumpled up the tissue. "I wiped it off for you."

The little espurr shifted his seat so that his legs were crossed. There was something glistening in his eyes, something that touched Mayra in her core. Instead of going back down to look at the puzzle, he kept his eyes directed at her. "Mayra?" he said.

"Yes, dear?" she answered, leaning in closer to show him she was listening.

"Are you thinking of becoming my mommy?"

Oh, damn.

The problem was … the honest answer to that question was "Yes." She still probably wouldn't adopt him. She knew she probably wouldn't. Having a child would complicate her life way too much at this point.

She would have to figure out how to keep him taken care of while she worked. Her hours were long, and she didn't have a mate to look after him in the meantime.

She'd have to find out how to keep him socialized while he went from city to city, never keeping any friends for longer than a few weeks.

She'd have to forfeit all of the more … open-minded things she liked to do with her life when she was off the clock, like going to the bars, and spending the night in the bedrooms of handsome strangers she'd never see again.

She'd probably have to give up on walking from city to city by foot, since Cai would certainly get overwhelmingly bored and tired during the journeys. Mayra liked those walks. Walking made her feel empowered, and there were villages on the road she enjoyed visiting, and people she enjoyed talking to. She didn't want to give that up.

But she would be lying if she didn't admit that she'd been thinking about taking Cai with her, and imagining the sorts of memories that could bring about. She imagined sitting on the back of a Pidgeot as they soared through the sky, taking Cai out of Pikesfoot City for what might be the first time in his life.

She imagined tucking Cai into bed after he'd spend his first day in a new city like Fairhall or Ivy Falls Village.

She imagined him hugging her deeply, tenderly, as he said "I love you, mommy" to her. And she imagined herself saying, "I love you too, my darling son" back to him. She didn't think of him as her son yet, but she realized the potential was there.

And that right there was the problem: the potential was there. The option to take him in was available, and she was actually seriously considering it. If she knew with certainty at this point that she wouldn't adopt him, then she would stop these shenanigans and say goodbye to him once and for all. Because at this point she would rather kick a Pichu in the gut than keep giving Cai a false sense of hope.

But alas, she didn't know with certainty anymore. She only knew with confidence. She knew that she probably wouldn't adopt him. She knew that on a pragmatic level, it wouldn't be a good idea. She knew that even though her heart was changing, her mind probably wouldn't.

But it might. And because it might, she didn't want to leave yet.

She decided to answer pessimistically. "Maybe a little bit, sweetie. But I'm not going to adopt you."

Cai took it surprisingly well. "Oh," he said, looking down. "That's okay."

It was still enough to make Mayra feel terrible. She opened her ears to listen into his mind, trying to listen in on what his true emotions were. He might have been hiding them, but if she was able to pick up on any intense disappointment, she'd have to make it a point to give him another gift before she left him behind.

It was not easy to read. His mind was just so active — so all over the place. His brain was acting as if it were on stimulants, and the neurons firing sounded like white noise to Mayra. It was strange, because Cai himself wasn't being hyperactive or jittery: just his brain was.

But from what Mayra was able to gleam beyond the noise in his head, he really wasn't particularly distraught. He was used to being rejected. It wasn't a surprise to him that the next prospective parent he encountered would reject him too. And as unfortunate as that reality was, it did make Mayra feel a little bit better about herself, and about what she told him.

It didn't make her feel any better for Cai, though.

Cai looked up at Mayra again. There was a small green dot of light reflecting on each of his pupils. "Why is that glowing?" he asked, pointing at Mayra's ear.

Cai was referring to the glowing emerald brooch that Mayra had clipped to her ear. Normally it looked like a simple piece of jewelry, but as Cai discovered, it actually served a specific purpose. "That is because I'm using my psychic powers," she explained, though she disengaged her psionic link as she started talking, causing the gemstone to stop glowing. "I wear it so that people know when I'm looking into their minds."

Cai blinked. "But then, won't they know when you're looking into their minds?"

"Uh, yes, that's the point," Mayra said. "I don't want people to think they can't trust me, so I wear this brooch to let them know that I won't look into their mind without them knowing. It's not very nice to read people's thoughts without asking them first."

"Did you read my thoughts without asking me first?"

Mayra realized to her disappointment that she did. Honestly, she said, "I guess I did. And I guess I shouldn't have. I'm sorry, Cai."

"It's okay," Cai said, looking down at the puzzle pieces again. "I was reading your thoughts too."

Mayra frowned. "And what did you see?"

"I don't know," he said. "I'm not very good at reading thoughts."

Mayra didn't like that answer. She wanted more. "Did you pick up anything?"

With big, guilty eyes, he glanced at her and said, "I could tell that you were a little sad. But that's it. I promise."

Mayra's shoulders lowered. Maybe that was why Cai didn't make himself look disappointed when she said she wasn't going to adopt him. He realized that it made her feel guilty to answer that question, and he didn't want to make her feel any worse.

Mayra lifted a hand and put it on Cai's shoulder. "I hope you know how sweet you are, Cai," she said. "If I were going to adopt anybody in the world, I promise it would be you."

Mayra didn't need to activate her psychic powers to know that that warmed the cockles of his heart with a bright fire. The look he gave her — it was so grateful, as if she'd just said the nicest thing anyone had ever said to him in his life.

She felt herself blushing a little bit at the look. To break his silence, she fiercely rubbed the top of his head, summoning a musical giggle from him. "Listen, sweetheart," she said to him. "I'm not going to stay in this city for a very long time. In a couple of weeks, I'll be going, and I may not see you again after that. But if it's alright with you, I would like to stop by and spend some time with you every single day until I have to go. Would you like that?"

Cai nodded, his eyes shining bright. "Will you let me know when you're leaving for good?"

Mayra gave him a single nod. "Absolutely. But don't worry about that now: it's not going to be for a long time. Why don't we get back to solving this jigsaw puzzle first?"

"Mhmm!" Cai agreed. And at that his eyes were back on the puzzle. He picked up a piece from the pile, and found the perfect place for it in the chunk of the puzzle he'd already solved. When she looked closer at it, she realized it was one of the corner pieces. It was definitely not in the corner of the puzzle, but it definitely was the right fit.

With virtually no help from Mayra, Cai managed to solve the rest of the puzzle over the next ten minutes.

The solution warped her brain. Half of the edge pieces didn't end up fitting along the edge of the board, and half of the center pieces (the ones that didn't have a flat side) ended up actually fitting along the boundary of the puzzle. Of course, two of the corner pieces ended up somewhere in the middle as well.

It was a completely devilish solution, one that warped with one's expectations. Mayra was convinced that Cai would have solved it on his own faster than he did with her help. She brought in a host of preconceived notions for how jigsaw puzzles were supposed to be solved, but she should have realized from the start that this puzzle was meant to be a direct assault against these notions. She had a newfound appreciation for Cai's puzzle-solving abilities.

She wasn't expecting to spend well over an hour on a single thirty-five piece jigsaw puzzle, but she was perfectly happy to have had it turn out that way.

But she had to go now: she had lunch to eat, laws to study, and a witness interview in two hours that she needed to be twenty minutes early for. So, with a quickness in her step, she said goodbye to Cai, made her way down to the first floor, said goodbye to Elaina (while ignoring that smile she was giving her), and headed outside, making her way for the library.

(\ /)

Life didn't always go the way it was planned.

Clara knew this. She knew this when she found out that the man she fell in love with was actually a hardened criminal who was a high-ranking member of the Pikesfoot mafia. She knew this when she was told that she was suffering from an autoimmune disease with no cure that rendered her infertile. She knew this when she started questioning how she was going to define her life, now that she no longer had the ability to define it through the care and nurturing of her offspring. She knew it when she permanently turned her back on her old plans and got her tubes tied.

She didn't need to be reminded again.

"Yep, there's no doubt about it," the Simipour doctor said as she examined the charts in her hands. "You are with egg."

"How did this happen?" Clara fumed. "You said I'd never be able to have kids!"

"I thought you wouldn't," she told her. "I was certain of it. Your eggs were being destroyed pretty much the moment they hopped out of your ovaries." She flipped a page on the clipboard she was holding. "According to the readings, your egg was fertilized about six weeks ago, which was before you got your tubal ligation." She shrugged, looking completely lost. "I guess with the weaker suppressants you were given, there was a small window of time when you were able to get yourself fertilized before the egg got cooked. Still though, this is nothing short of a miracle."

For goodness' sake, if Clara believed miracles were real, she never would have gotten that blasted surgery. "Will the egg survive?" she asked.

"It should, as long as nothing else happens to it," said the doctor. "You're expected to lay in about two months. After that, for your species, nine months is the recommended waiting period before hatching it."

"Yes, I know," Clara said. She knew the rules for handling her own offspring like she knew the outline of Pikesfoot City. She didn't need to be reminded by this idiot, who didn't even know that her egg could exist before today.

The Simipour didn't say anything after that. Once Clara noticed the silence, she looked up at her, waiting for her to say something.

She tilted her head and frowned first, tapping lightly on the clipboard she was holding. "I was expecting you to be … happier about this."

"Under normal circumstances I would be," Clara said with a huff. "But this time, the fact that it's true simply means that you gave me terrible advice."

"I still stand by what I suggested," the Simipour said with a toxically clinical timbre. "Your condition would have worsened over time. You would have been in a lot of pain, and the odds of you making another egg would have been virtually zero."

"I don't trust your odds anymore," Clara said bitterly. "I should have taken the risks. At least for a little bit longer."

She let out a sigh, indicating clearly that she disagreed. "Then I'm sorry. I wish the best to you and your child."

She kept herself from slamming the door shut by a hair of her remaining patience. She stormed out of the office and into the waiting room, where Chance was boredly playing with one of the kid's toys.

He looked up when she walked out. "So were you right?" he asked.

Clara didn't wait for him to follow her: she went straight for the door. "Yep. I have an egg."

Chance scrambled to his feet. "Well hey, that's good news!" he stammered as he raced over to comfort her. "You got your wish after all."

"My wish would have been to have as many eggs as I wanted." Clara stepped outside, feeling the sun penetrate her fur. It was a bright day: she remembered that much. Bright and hot and completely cloudless. "And that doctor tricked me into only having one."

"Well, would you rather have not had any eggs? Because no eggs would be like, one egg less than what you have now."

Clara stopped. She placed her hand on her lower abdomen, where the baby was. It was a little strange how just earlier this morning, she wasn't even sure if anything was there. She only had a feeling — an instinct, backed by some evidence in her bodily behavior. But it was still an instinct that could have been proven wrong, and she would have stood here feeling exactly the same.

But she wasn't wrong. There was a child inside her. She knew it was there now. And that made all the difference: that alone filled her with all the love and motherly heart-fires that she could hold.

"Of course not," she whispered as Chance rubbed her shoulders and leaned his head onto hers. "But … two would have been nice. Or three. Or five."

"Oh, Clara, life is too short for regrets," Chance told her. "Look, we proved everyone wrong. Arceus gave us a chance at being parents, and this is the only chance he's giving us. We need to make the most of it."

"It's not going to be easy," Clara said flatly. "Aren't you still on bad terms with your colleagues?"

"It — it'll work out," he promised. "I'll find a way to break off from them. And if I don't, then … you can always find a way to break off from me."

Clara turned her head, confused. "What do you mean?"

Chance grasped Clara's hands and squeezed them tight. His fingers were comfortingly cold. "If I end up stuck in my position, then I'm not gonna be able to keep you innocent forever. Heck, it's amazing you've been so innocent for this long. But for the sake of our kid, you need to stay that way. If it gets to the point where my dumb-ass affairs start to pull you into the fray, you need to leave me. Because I promise you it won't get any better."

"Chance …" Clara looked down at her hands as he let go of them. She noticed that he'd slipped something into her palm: a ring, with a milky white gemstone on it.

"That's a pager," Chance told her. "It has a psionic link to a button that I keep with me at all times. When I press that button, the ring will turn black, and it'll get cold. If that happens, you take the egg and you leave. And I mean leave everything. You remember that guy I told you about, who we'd talk to if ever had to start over?"

Clara nodded.

"That's who you go to. He'll keep you and the baby and the money safe. You should be able to figure things out on your own from there."

No, Clara couldn't do that. The mere thought of abandoning Chance made her sick. "Are you insane? I couldn't leave you like that on such short notice. Chance, I love you."

"I wouldn't push the button if I didn't think it'd be too risky for you to ever see me again," he said. "It's a last-resort, but I need it just in case. If that ring turns black, do not go looking for me. It could get you killed."

Clara hesisted. She turned the ring over many times, and considered just refusing to put it on. If she didn't wear it, then she wouldn't need to decide whether or not to obey Chance if it activated.

And she would have done just that if it were just her. She would have happily put herself in harm's way to stay with Chance. She would have gotten involved with his crimes if she had to, or let herself get beaten and abused. She would have gotten herself killed before leaving him behind. She was prepared for those possibilities, perhaps more prepared than Chance knew, given how often he talked about her supposed innocence.

But it wasn't just her anymore. Her love was bound to two people now — to Chance, and to her child. And if there ever came a point where she had to keep one and let go of the other …

Clara put on the ring. "I will resent your existence every day for the rest of my life if you ever use this on me."

"And I will deserve every drop of your resentment," Chance said. "I won't let it come to that."

"Good." Clara lifted her nose and started walking. "In that case, I think we have some books to read on parenting."

(\ /)

Sticking to her word, Mayra visited every day.

After only a couple of days, she felt like she knew Cai better than Elaina did.

She learned that his favorite food was sardines, but it had to be given to him with the head and the tail already cut off, otherwise he wouldn't eat it.

She learned that his best friend in the foster home was a Snivy named Liam. He was half-a-year older than Cai and was basically the main reason Cai would ever go outside. Liam was able to use his vines to pick Cai up and lift him to higher places, which Cai loved. It must have been his feline instincts calling to him, but being outside in the highest location he could find was where he was always his most comfortable. Sometimes Cai and Liam would sneak out of their rooms to go outside and climb up onto the roof. They'd been doing this for months now, and Elaina was still none the wiser.

She learned that his love for outer space and the stars was something of an obsession. He made almost everything in his life space-related, and whenever he played pretend with her or Liam, it usually involved the same scenario of flying to the moon, looking for the spirits that lived there, and doing nice things for them, like making them a delicious anchovy-sardine pasta or solving an outer-space puzzle with them. Even his rock, which was still hanging on his neck, was something that he insisted was from the moon. It even looked like a crescent moon, according to him. (Only to him, though: Mayra steadfastly believed it much more closely resembled the letter C.)

After just a week, Mayra started to learn some of the most intimate details about him.

She learned that he harbored some bitterness towards his biological parents, who — according to him — just abandoned him for no reason at all after they had him for about a year. Mayra was a little bit doubtful of this: he wouldn't have been old enough to understand why they gave him up for adoption, or even what was happening to him. But he would have been old enough to remember their faces, and to remember the fear and uncertainty that he would have experienced when they left him behind.

Mayra was glad to see that he didn't seem to consider their decision to be his fault, but it was saddening to see him with emotions like that at such a young age. Children weren't supposed to have emotions that lasted longer than a few minutes. Their anger was supposed to last until they went inside and pouted for a bit, not stick around and remind them of its existence a few times every week.

She also learned that he never really considered Elaina to be a motherly figure to him, not even a little bit. He never stated this outright, but it was clear enough to Mayra through his thoughts and behavior, and it came to her as a bit of a surprise. Elaina was the one protecting him and feeding him and telling him what to do: she played the role of his mother for years now. But Cai never loved her. He seemed to see her as a daycare worker who was just doing her job of holding onto him until his parents came to pick him up.

She also learned that he was terrified that he would never get adopted — that he would die without a mom. He actually imagined himself on his deathbed sometimes, passing away alone and sad and unloved.

A strong instinct in Mayra forced her to speak out against this line of thinking, for she thought it completely inappropriate for a child as young as Cai to be thinking about his own death. She told him that even if he ended up never getting adopted, he still had a long life ahead of him: he would live for another hundred-and-twenty years at least, probably more, and make lots of wonderful memories and meet lots of incredible people. Even if he never had a mother, there would still end up being others in his life that he would learn to love just as fiercely.

Mayra could tell that Cai didn't believe her, though. Or if he did, it didn't change his mindset. Perhaps young children were just like that, lacking any concept of personal change or growth. In their own heads, they would remain kids forever. And if they eventually did die, then they would die exactly as they were today.

Eventually, the day of Deliberation came, which marked the end of Mayra's judicial duties for the time being. It was in Deliberation where the cases were closed and verdicts were decided by the eighteen judges on the council. And it was usually only a few days after Deliberation when Mayra would get a letter from the Department of Justice assigning her to a new court in a new city for a new set of cases.

And it was pretty much always either the day of or the day after Mayra got this letter that she would leave. Since she preferred to walk from city to city instead of fly, it was better to leave early and give herself more time to travel.

Thus, Deliberation came and went, and three days later, Mayra received her next assignment. She was to go to Sunbrook, a city far to the east. It would be a near three-hundred mile journey on-foot, and she only had ten days to get there.

Even if she hadn't met Cai, her plan would have been to do some of the journey on a flying mount. She would have left today, taking at least a few days to walk down Bekko Path before making it to Saint Jasper City. Then she would have taken a three hour flight to Ivy Falls Village (which, contrary to its name, was actually a small city) and spent the night there. Then, depending on how many days she had left to get there, she either would have flown the rest of the way — which would have taken another three hours, or she would have walked there — which would have taken another three days.

But, in this universe, she did meet Cai. And she wasn't quite ready to say goodbye to him yet. So her plan was instead to stay in Pikesfoot City for nine more days.

On the night she got her next assignment, Mayra snuck into the estate. Cai and Liam were planning on doing their routine sneaking out of their rooms to hang out on the roof of the house, and they'd invited Mayra to join them. Mayra agreed, but of course that meant that she wouldn't be able to let Elaina know of her presence when she came to visit them.

There was an easy way for a cat to get into the backyard that Mayra knew about. Along the fence surrounding the yard, there were two trees — one each side. All Mayra had to do was enter the neighbor's unfenced yard, climb the tree, hop branches to the other tree, and climb down.

She landed just as gracefully as she used to back in the days, with just a couple of leaves and small sticks caught in her ponytail to prove her treachery. When she landed, she spotted Cai and Liam already on the roof, waving her over.

As she approached, she started to realize just how high the roof was. It was a three story building, after all. Mayra didn't appreciate that fact until she was standing before the house and looking up, preparing to actually sit down on the rooftop. Suddenly, she understood very clearly why they would get in so much trouble if Elaina caught them up there.

She stopped beneath the two kids in a blind spot, where there weren't any windows nearby. As Liam lowered his vines to help Mayra up, she realized that there might be a major problem. Liam was just a kid: he had a lot of growing to do. It was true that adolescent Snivy were supposed to grow to be about as large as an adult Meowstic before evolving into their Servine form, but Liam was maybe half that size right now. How could she expect him to lift her up all the way to the roof? He seemed confident that he could do it when they were making their plans earlier that day, but now Mayra wasn't so sure.

The worst case scenario was that Liam would fall over while trying to lift her up, but Snivy were good at falling from large heights: he wouldn't be injured if this happened. Mayra lifted her arms, letting Liam wrap his vines around her chest. As he started to pull her up, she kept her legs springed, fully prepared to fall down once Liam lost his strength and let go of her.

But, as it turned out, Liam ended up having no trouble with the task, and Mayra soon found herself gripping at the shingles in front of the little Snivy.

"You're a lot heavier than Cai," Liam said to her, his voice sounding as critical as it possibly could with his childlike timbre.

Mayra let out a sigh once her center of mass was over the rooftop, and she realized just now how much her heart was racing. "You're a lot stronger than I thought," she replied as she pulled the last of herself up.

"Thank you," he said, smiling innocently at her. "My vines can squeeze really hard too. Wanna see how hard I can squeeze your arm?"

Mayra brought her arms close to her body. "I'll take your word for it, but thanks for the offer."

When she saw Cai balancing beside her on the roof, she approached him and rustled the fur between his ears, producing a giggle from him. "Stop it, Mayra!" he said, even though he leaned slightly into her stroking hand as she started to bring it back to her side.

Liam stepped closer to her and said, "Miss Mayra, thanks again for not telling Elaina about this. It's really cool of you."

Mayra smiled at the compliment. "I don't think this secret is hurting either of you. In fact, I think it's helping you two grow. Why would I ruin this special thing you two have by telling Elaina about it?"

She sat down far away from the edge of the roof and looked up at the stars. Cai sat down next to her, and Liam sat down next to Cai. "Don't get used to me letting you break the rules, though," she warned the little espurr. "I'm actually quite the stickler when it comes to following the rules most of the time."

"I usually follow the rules," Cai insisted. "But the bedtime rule is stupid and unfair. I wouldn't even be able to see the stars ever if I followed it."

"That does sound pretty unfair," Mayra agreed. "But sleep is fuel for the psychic mind. The more sleep you get, the smarter you'll become."

Cai let out a cranky pout. "Why can't I just sleep later? I don't want to do anything in the morning anyway."

Mayra laughed and brought an arm around Cai, pulling him closer to her as if she were trying to squeeze out all of his angry feelings. "If I become your mom, then I'll let you sleep all the way till noon."

Cai looked up at Mayra, his cheek pressed into the side of her chest from her firm embrace. "You said you won't become my mom, though," he said.

True, but the look you're giving me right now is making it very hard for me to not change my mind, she wanted to say. And even that wouldn't have been completely honest. An honest response would have been, I think I've already changed my mind, you sweet little thing. Over the weeks, her affection for Cai had only grown more and more. She knew in her heart that it was what she wanted. She just wanted to make sure it would be what Cai wanted too.

But still, she wasn't sure, and she didn't want to express any hopeful sentiments without being sure that she'd deliver on them. "Yes, that's right," she said softly instead. "But sometimes it's fun to imagine." Deciding swiftly to change the subject, she added, "Cai, do you know what my job is?"

"Elaina says you're a travelling judge," he answered.

"That's right. And do you know what a travelling judge does?"

This time, Liam answered. "They, um, they travel from city to city and do judge work, right?"

Mayra nodded, paying little heed to the fact that that much could have been deduced from the name alone. "My job is to sit on the city court as one of the eighteen councilors. So while I was here for the past few weeks, I was a part of the Pikesfoot City court. I helped find out if some people here broke the law or not, and how they should be punished if they did. Whenever I finish the cases I'm assigned, I move to another city for another few weeks, and the whole thing starts all over again."

"Does that mean you'll be leaving soon?" Cai asked.

"I'll be staying here for about nine more days," Mayra told him. "I received my next assignment earlier today, but I don't need to leave right away. I get some time to prepare and to travel."

Cai let out a rather adult-sounding sigh of longing. "I wish I could go with you," he said.

"I don't think you'd like it much, actually," Mayra said. "I don't have a home. Did you know that? I always sleep in the local inns and hostels. And I don't have my own kitchen, so I always eat at restaurants."

Cai lifted his ears. "That sounds awesome."

"I also don't have any friends," Mayra said. "Well, I do, but I don't see them for very long periods of time. Like you, Cai. When I leave here, I may see you again, but it won't be until I come back to Pikesfoot City, which may not be for many more months."

"Not if I come with you," Cai retorted.

Mayra chuckled warmly. "True, but if you came with me, then you wouldn't have any friends either. It would just be you and me. And since I have to work a lot, you'd be spending most of your day in daycare with kids you don't know very well."

Over the past week, Mayra had been looking into how exactly she might go about taking care of Cai if she became his mother. That was the biggest barrier currently in the way of her signing the papers. Money wasn't an issue: travelling judges were paid very generously for their work and sacrifice. She could afford to leave Cai in the caring hands of the most reliable daycare facilities in each city. And she could afford to hire private tutors when Cai was ready to receive a more structured education.

But was that really what would be best for Cai? Wouldn't he be happier if he could stay in a stable home, where he wouldn't always have to be saying goodbye to new people like Mayra did? Maybe the best thing she could do for Cai was let him stay here and wait for a better family to take him in.

But that was assuming that a better family would take him in. Cai could get adopted into a family that ended up not caring about him, or that didn't know how to satisfy his needs as a psychic-type. Or he could never get adopted and remain an orphaned child forever.

Maybe she was Cai's best bet at growing up and being happy. She knew what it was like to be an espurr, and she'd done the research on how to be a mother years ago.

Cai let out a yawn and rubbed the back of his ear. "That'd be okay," he said. "If it meant having you as a mom, that'd be okay."

Mayra's heart swelled with a tender yet guilty emotion that she couldn't quite identify, and she let out a gentle coo before squeezing Cai again. Cai gave a sudden jump as if he just realized something, then looked away, pressing his hands together and looking guilty. "Sorry."

Mayra softened her hold, giving a tilted look towards Espurr. "Sorry for what?"

"Elaina says we shouldn't make people feel guilty for not adopting us," Cai said. "I didn't mean to."

"Oh, Cai," Mayra said with a fierce rejection, "no, no, no, no, you don't need to …"

Before she could finish her thought, she noticed Cai had suddenly started … vibrating. It was soft at first, but it built and built over the course of just a few heartbeats until he was visibly shaking his entire body. His face was now stiff and his eyes were glassy.

Mayra straightened up in alarm. "Cai?" she said, tilting the child's head so that he was looking at her. "Cai, what are you doing?"

"He's having a seizure," Liam said, standing up. It sounded like he was trying to speak as urgently as he could while still staying quiet enough to not wake anyone up. "They happen sometimes. It'll go away soon. Just roll him on his side."

Mayra's brain did a somersault. A seizure? What? Why would he have a seizure? Was he epileptic? Wouldn't that have been something someone should have told her about by now?

Ignoring Liam's advice, Mayra went with what she was taught as a psychic-type. She pressed her head to Cai's and made a psionic connection to every part of his mind that she could reach.

Once the turbulent signals in his brain started bombarding her, she began to tremble too. Struggling to keep her focus, she attempted to neutralize the signals by producing counteractive signals of her own. Her head quickly began to feel hot, but the turbulence in Cai's mind also quickly began to soften. Soon, his seizure was gone, and Mayra was simply left with a headache that would go away in a few minutes.

Cai immediately passed out on Mayra's lap, falling into a peaceful and painless sleep.

"Did you just stop it?" Liam asked, leaning in to get a better look at his friend.

"Yes," Mayra said as he gently pet Cai. "It's a common technique for halting panic attacks. They also work for seizures, although those are much rarer in psychic-types." Speaking of panic attacks, Mayra felt like she was on the verge of having one right now. She had to get back to the privacy of her room and do some serious thinking. "Will he wake up soon?"

"Probably not. He's usually asleep by now anyway, and his seizures make him really tired after they're over."

"Can you get him back to his room on your own, then?" Mayra asked. "I … need to leave."

"That won't be a problem," he said. "Let me just lower him to the ground first, then I'll set you down after."

Mayra lifted Cai into her arms and handed him to Liam. He was limp as a ragdoll, his body in a torpor. A weird maternal instinct caused her to briefly panic, and she took a second to bring her ear to his chest to make sure he was still alive.

His heart was beating, of course, but only faintly. It was weak, and his breathing was slow. Mayra could feel a chill run down her bones.

"He'll be okay," Liam said, gently wrapping his vines around Cai. "You're listening to his heart, right? Elaina says that it gets weak after his seizures, and that's why he gets tired. It'll get stronger again when he wakes up tomorrow."

Mayra sighed, and let Liam pick Cai up. "You have been incredibly polite, Liam. I'm very proud of you for behaving so well," she said.

"Thank you," Liam said as he made his way to the edge. "Hey, um … are you really not going to adopt him?"

A second chill, this one running through her muscles. "I don't know," she said, her ears falling. "I don't know if I'm ready."

Liam slowly lowered him down. "You really seem to act like his mom. Did you notice that?"

"Yes," Mayra said, feeling genuinely guilty this time. "I really do like him a lot. He's such a sweet kid. I just … don't think I'm ready."

"You seem ready to me," Liam told her. "I'd trust you to be my mom, even if it means travelling all over the place with you." He made sure that Cai was safely on the grass before he undid his vines and lifted them back up. "I know it's rude to say this, but I really want you to adopt him."

"Oh, you're not rude at all, dear," Mayra said, smiling sweetly at him. "It's very kind of you to think about your friend's happiness like that."

Liam gently smiled back. "Ready to go down?"

Mayra nodded and lifted her arms, letting Liam wrap his vines around her and guide her down to the ground. Letting Mayra down was clearly more challenging for him than pulling her up was, as the muscles that controlled his vines were more suited for pulling than for pushing. She found him lowering her in little bursts of two or three feet. But she eventually landed quietly beside Cai, and gave Liam a thumbs-up before he unwrapped his vines around her and guided himself down to the grass as well.

"Good night, Liam," Mayra said. "I'll see you and Cai tomorrow."

"G'night, Mayra," Liam replied. "Get home safe."

"You too," she said with a wink before turning around and making her way to the tree from which she came.

It was a rough walk back. It was the type of walk where incomplete, unpleasant thoughts bounced around in the head and refused to escape until they were fully thought through.

She wondered if Liam knew how serious this was. She wondered if Cai knew. She wondered if Elaina knew. Seizures were extremely uncommon among psychic-types; this was a well-known fact. But perhaps it wasn't so well-known why this was the case. It wasn't because the psychic mind was more resilient to such disorders. Although that was partly true, it wasn't the main reason.

The main reason was that seizures killed psychic-types. With so much circuitry in their brains, and so many parts that were designed to be weaponized against other elementals, the possibility for serious self-injury was very real. A psychic-type with a seizure disorder was a ticking time bomb.

So many emotions were rushing through her; it was tough to keep track of them all. Was this why Cai's parents gave him away? Did they find him defective and decided he wasn't worth keeping? How could they be so cruel?

Poor Cai. He really needed to have a psychic-type taking care of him. His life expectancy would be so much longer if a competent psychic were in the house with him. How often were these seizures of his? Were they once a week? Once a month? Every other day?

And why didn't Elaina tell her about this? Elaina knew that she was interested in Cai. Elaina knew that this was something she would have wanted to know about. Elaina suspected that she'd adopt him eventually. She even gave the adoption papers to her, as well as —

She gave her his medical history! By the light of Cresselia, how could Mayra have neglected to read through his medical history this whole time? What sort of a mother was she going to be if she forgot to examine something that seriously important?

The moment she got back to her hotel room, she found the folder Elaina had given her, which she'd left on the desk at the foot of her bed. She opened it up and took Cai's medical history out.

And there it was: he was diagnosed with epilepsy a month after he was hatched. The seizures were sporadic and appeared to happen on average once every other week. They usually lasted one to three minutes, and often induced an arrhythmia afterwards, causing intense physical exhaustion. His condition had no known cure: it was only temperable with certain medications.

Mayra had no idea how long Cai's doctors predicted that he had, but she doubted they were optimistic. He was lucky to still be alive now. He was seven years old now, meaning he still had another eighteen years ahead of him before reaching adulthood. Since seizures were supposed to get worse for psychic-types as their brains continued to develop, it was a virtual certainty that he wouldn't make it that far.

Above the sadness and anger and fear she held in her heart right now, the guilt that swam amongst her emotions was the most painful.

She felt guilty because this might change her mind. She already wasn't sure if she was ready to become a mother. She was willing to find out, though: she was willing to discover just how great of a mom she really could be, if doing so meant giving Cai the best chances of a great future.

But she also wasn't sure if she was ready to lose another child. And she wasn't sure if she was willing to find out.

(\ /)

It was the worst day of her life, by far. And it probably always would be.

Chance ended up being right to worry about the egg's safety, because of course he was. He was right about everything.

She couldn't remember what she was doing when the ring on her finger turned bitter cold and the gemstone turned a mortifying black. She only remembered the soul-crushing heartstop that arose from it. She remembered running to her house, beelining for her egg, absolutely furious with Chance for forcing her to leave without saying goodbye. She remembered fuming so hard that she couldn't even see straight.

When she burst open the door, she was immediately grabbed by an oversized Charizard.

Clara squeaked, and immediately started kicking. She squirmed and screamed and tried to dig her claws into her captor. But the beast's talons were like rope around her body, and there was no way to physically break through.

When the Charizard took her down to her basement, there was a Machamp beneath the steps. Chance was in the basement too. He was beaten thoroughly, his face swollen and asymmetrical, and his hands were shackled behind his back and bound to the metal support beam that held the ceiling up. His mouth was gagged with several pieces of tape, and he was clearly trying to scream through it. Tears were streaming down his face, and he was trying with all his might to miraculously break free from his chains.

Seeing him like that shocked her so horribly that she stopped putting up any resistance. Her blood ran cold, and she felt brief sickness before she began to put up a struggle again.

"I told you it'd work, you braindead fuck," the Charizard growled to his Machamp partner as he struggled to keep Clara at bay. "It was a pager, just like I said. This little bitch came running right to us."

"Where is my egg!" Clara demanded. "Show me where my egg is!"

"It's in the fucking basket, you crying cunt," the Machamp said, using one of his arms to gesture towards the side of the room, where a woven cradle was sitting on an old wooden table that Clara and Chance had left in the basement because they didn't have anywhere else to put it. That was the egg's cradle — the one they'd been keeping in their dedicated nursery for the past four months. Clara could see the shape of her egg peeking over the edge. It was gray with faded lavender freckles, and simply seeing it intact made Clara feel a hundred times calmer.

"Don't hurt it," she begged. "Please, don't hurt it."

"Calm your fuckin' mammaries; we're keeping the egg safe." The Machamp looked over at Chance, who was still crying and thrashing about, then struck him bluntly with the backside of his hand. It only caused him to struggle more frantically. "So long as this whiny bastard knows what's good for him!"

The Machamp then started to walk up to her, and there was a … silence to his posture. She'd been reading their minds subconsciously for subtle cues of danger, as psychics are wont to do when in a fight-or-flight scenario. And she picked up that he was mentally readying himself to hurt her. No — not just hurt her. Clara was about to die.

"Just so you know, this is just business," the Machamp told her as he placed a hand on her head. "Chance needs to know we're not fucking around with him here."

Adrenaline coursing through her veins, Clara released a psybeam at his head, hitting him directly. The Machamp wailed, letting go of her and stumbling back in a stupor. Idiotic brute.

At the same time, Chance released a weak dark pulse that emanated through the basement, causing everyone to flinch with rancid, penetrating thoughts. The pulse probably hurt Clara more than it hurt the Charizard or Machamp, but the pure level of stress she was experiencing in that moment was enough to let her ignore the blow. The Charizard let go of her, and she promptly swung around and delivered a disorienting psybeam to him as well.

She ran for the basket, ready to take her egg and flee. Her conscience reminded her that Chance might get killed if she managed to escape, but it was hard to let herself hesitate when this was the only opportunity she had to save herself and her child.

There was still a hulking Machamp between her and the egg though, and in his disoriented throes of pain, he stumbled closer to the basket.

"Don't touch it!" Clara demanded just as the Machamp started grabbing the egg. Her heart flared, and she charged at him. "Let it go right now!"

The Machamp whirled over at Clara. "Stay the fuck away from me, you psycho bitch!" he screamed, throwing the egg at her feet as if he were using it as a weapon.

Clara didn't even have time to dive for the egg to try and save it. It hit the ground at break-neck speeds and shattered before her feet.

"No!" she screamed, collapsing to the floor. Her hands reached forward with a mortified tremble. The fluids from the egg spilled onto the ground, matting the fur on her knees. She saw the Espurr fetus between the eggshells, feeble and tiny, its neck twisted in a horrifying way.

Her one chance … her one and only chance at having a child, decimated in the blink of an eye.

"Look what'cha fuckin' made me do!" the Machamp grumbled as he tried to get his footing. "That wasn't supposed to happen, dammit."

Simply hearing his voice again made Clara practically explode with rage. She released a strong psionic pulse — one that took nearly all of her energy. The attack was ingrained in the instincts of every psychic-type; it was meant to infiltrate deep into the mind and inhibit the function of base cognitive processes. The pulse gave her a skull-splitting headache, but the fear and adrenaline made it easy to ignore.

That shut them up. The Machamp soon fell to the ground, twitching his entire body, while the Charizard's head whipped around in a panic as he uncontrollably exhaled a plume of fire.

Every fire-type knew a universal rule about using fire breath indoors: don't. And it soon became clear to everybody in the room why this rule existed.

The growing inferno surrounding Clara prompted her to change her immediate plans, which involved finding something blunt and using it for face tenderization purposes. Instead she ran towards Chance and tore off the tape gagging his mouth. "Where are the keys?"

"What, to the fucking shackles?" Chance asked frantically. Clara knew he had an intense fear of fire — a fear that all ice-types harbored in the depths of their hearts. He'd never looked so terrified in his life. "They forgot to tell me when they tied me up, I guess."

In a frenzy, she started to search for a bag that wasn't there before — one that must've come from one of the two thugs. She found one behind the old table. It was a black leather sack that had been grayed out in several patches from wear and overuse.

As the flames started to climb up the walls and spread into the ceiling, she dumped the entire contents onto the floor and searched for anything key-shaped. She found a roll of tape, a hammer, a knife, and a piece of paper with their address written on it, but no key.

Making a quick decision between looking for more places to search and trying to break the shackles instead of unlocking them, Clara grabbed the hammer and went straight to Chance's bounds. She hammered away, trying with all her might to weaken the chains to the point of fracture. Chance did his part by pulling tightly against his restraints, adding tension and keeping his hands away from the hammer.

But it was only a few seconds later that the smoke started to become nearly unbreathable. Clara gasped for air, then sputtered out a terrible cough.

Chance collapsed in a fit of coughs too. "Just save yourself, Clara," he said weakly. "You can still get outta here."

"No," Clara said, making an effort to hold her breath as she swung the hammer again. "I'd rather die down here with you."

"You will do no fucking thing!" Chance demanded. "Clara, I've been a shitty husband. I gave you a shitty life, but that doesn't mean you deserve a shitty death. Get outta here. Take the money and run. Arceus knows you can do so much more with your life."

I don't want to do anything more with my life! she thought, fear and sadness welling in her chest. "... There's nothing left without you," she whimpered, using an arm to cover her mouth.

Chance was about to cough out a refutation when the Charizard whirled back around in their direction. He'd been crashing into walls and other stored furniture in the far side of the room, setting the whole basement ablaze. His hands clutched his neck as if he were choking, his lips and tongue were now charred a sickening black, and fire still spewed out from his throat. Whether by intention or not, he directed his fire at Clara, forcing her to jump back. When he continued to approach her, she ran for the stairs, which were thankfully only just starting to ignite.

She gave pause once she made it to the top. Chance's coughs spilled over the roar of the inferno, and she heard him croak out the words, "Don't … turn back," before he started wailing in pain.

The fire rose from the stairs, blocking her way down. Turning back wouldn't have even been an option anymore.

When she looked at the upstairs room — the kitchen — it was much less hellish. Burn marks and open flames started to rise up from the floor, and the air was even thicker with smoke than it was in the basement, but there wasn't fire spilling out everywhere like there was downstairs.

But it was coming. The fire was quickly spilling from the holes burned into the ground from below, and Clara could feel the heat approaching.

The horrible fumes drove her to the back door. She opened it up and threw herself outside, gasping for breath. She fumbled forward, dizzy from breathlessness, and turned her head. Smoke was rising from the door, sending a high plume into the sky. She didn't stay and wait for the smoke to blacken or for the fire to start leaking out. She ran. She climbed the tree in the backyard, hopped the fence, and ran through the neighbors yard.

Now in relative safety, she started to feel the weight of her headache. It made her nauseous and dizzy, but Clara forced herself to keep running. And just as Chance had asked her, she never turned back.

(\ /)

Mayra slept for a long time that night. Her dreams were filled with dreadful scenarios involving Cai's death, keeping her from enjoying even a moment's rest.

She had a small breakfast at the inn: a cup of green tea and a pair of oven cooked eggs spiced with black pepper and cayenne. She hardly had it in her to finish it. Her tongue lost its taste after the first bite, and she could scarcely even feel it filling her up.

She actually considered not going to the foster home for a change, just to save herself the burden of further complicating the matters within her head. But she couldn't bear the thought of abandoning Cai today and leaving him to wonder if his seizure had scared her off, and she found herself approaching Lotus Lane before fully thinking her decision through.

She found it difficult to make it past the front gate. Excuses allowing her to turn around began to pour into her mind, and instead of stepping through like she usually did, she paced back and forth for many minutes, trying to work up the courage to proceed.

At least until the door suddenly opened.

"Have you made up your mind?"

Mayra jumped at the sound. Looking up, she saw that Elaina was there.

"About what?" Mayra asked back.

"About coming in. It's been a while since you were this indecisive about stepping through those gates."

A wave of disorientation passed over her as she resolved the feeling of deja-vu in her head. She knew how it had gone down last time; she might as well skip the formalities the second time through.

She crossed the gates and walked to the front door, and Elaina graciously let her in. "Cai is still asleep, but he should be up and ready within an hour."

"Elaina, I have a question," Mayra said as she circled around the foyer carpet and stopped to face her directly. "Did you actually give me all the documents I need to adopt Cai?"

Elaina blinked once, slowly. Then she fell into a fit of giggles. "Of course I didn't," she said, covering her smile. "I may trust you Mayra, but I'm not reckless."

Mayra stood up straight. "What else do I need?"

Elaina cleared her throat. "A consent form, signed by Cai," she said.

"Is that it?"

"That's it. You can actually get the city hall's stamp of recognition before the form gets turned in, but the transfer of guardianship isn't legally recognized until they receive it. I could get you an unsigned one if you want," she started, "but before I do, there's … something important you need to know about Cai."

"He's epileptic," Mayra said.

Elaina appeared startled by Mayra's interruption at first. After a few seconds, though, she closed her eyes and nodded. "So you read his medical history already," she said. "That's very responsible of you."

"Do you know how much longer he's expected to last?"

Elaina shook her head. "Last year, his doctor said that he'd be lucky to last another year. Right now, he's changed his prediction to perhaps another six months. But it could happen any time. His heart has gotten so weak."

"You could have told me sooner," Mayra said, a little sourly.

"You said you weren't interested in adopting him anyway," Elaina said. "And even if I suspected that you were, I wanted to let Cai take the lead with his best foot forward. If I had told you sooner, you might have been too afraid to get to know him."

"Well, maybe I never should have," Mayra said under her breath.

That was a mistake to say. The look on Elaina's face — she was so disappointed. Mayra couldn't bear to look back at her. "Sorry," she said. "I didn't mean that. I'm just …"

"Wait here, please," Elaina said. "I'm going to fetch Cai."

"No, it's okay; let him sleep," Mayra started, but Elaina was already making her way up the stairs.

"He'll be happy to wake up a little early for you," Elaina promised before turning a corner and disappearing into the upstairs corridor.

A few minutes later, Mayra heard tiny footsteps running towards the stairs. She saw Cai's ebullient face poke around the corner and look right at her. "Mayra!" he cheered, making his way down the steps.

"Good morning, little Cai," she said, extending her arms and picking him up to hold him in an embrace once he came to the floor. "How did you sleep?"

"Good," he answered. Sorry about last night.

You have nothing to apologize for, dear. Nothing was your fault.

"Mayra, why don't you spend the day with Cai?" Elaina suggested. "You can bring him back tomorrow."

Cai's face lit up at the idea. "Yes! Can you, Mayra? Can you please?"

A surprisingly easy decision, now that Cai was in her presence once again. "I don't see why not," she said. "I'm not doing anything else today."

"Yaaaaay!" Cai hopped to the ground, bouncing with excitement. "Are you ready to go?"

"Are you ready to go?" she asked back. "Don't you want to bring anything with you?"

Cai shook his head. "I don't need anything."

"You might get bored," Mayra warned. "You won't be here to play with any of your toys for the entire day."

"I'll be okay!" he promised. "Now come on, let's gooo!"

"Why are you in such a hurry? I don't even have any plans yet."

"Because I want to go." To emphasize his point, Cai started to tug on the long tuft of fur on Mayra's waist, beckoning her towards the door.

"Alright, alright; I'm on my way." She pushed Cai's hand off of her and started towards the door. "I will bring him back safe and sound tomorrow afternoon," she promised Elaina.

Elaina waved goodbye. "Have fun, and stay safe!"

The two of them started the day with some breakfast. Mayra's mood had improved along with her appetite after reuniting with Cai, and she happily took him up north to her favorite café when she was studying law: The Greenstone Diner. It wasn't the most well-known diner in Pikesfoot City, but it made the best crepes in the Xernea region. It had gained a following among students at the University, mostly because of its hours of operation. Mayra had oftentimes found herself victim to a lonely order of hazelnut crepes with strawberries and ice cream at three in the morning during particularly stressful weeks of the year.

Cai, in spite of Mayra's recommendations, ordered chocolate chip pancakes instead. Mayra was a little disappointed, but she forgave him when she saw his meal come out from the kitchen. The pancakes were fluffy and thick, and smelled sweet and buttery — though Mayra's caramelized orange crepes smelled much the same as well.

As they ate, Mayra shared a story with Cai about her first year at Pikesfoot University. It was a nice change of pace, sharing a part of her own history that she didn't need to shroud in lies and secrecy. She'd told him that she moved to Pikesfoot City from the Selva region in the northwest. Before, she lived in a city called Newmarket where she worked as a librarian's assistant at one of the local schools.

There was a big cultural difference between the Xernea region and the Selva region. While the Xernea region was mostly composed of bipeds and quadrupeds, the Selva region was mostly composed of bipeds and birds. Most of the flying mounts that took people from city to city in Xernea were actually from Selva, and the reasons as to why were obvious to anyone who stepped foot into one of its major cities. None of the doors had push bars like they did in Xernea; they were instead sliding doors fashioned with lightweight latches placed closer to the ground, so that they could be opened by smaller birds with their beaks and by larger birds with their talons. All of the roads were flocked with well-maintained trees, and tall-standing perches stood in place of city benches. The entire region was built with avians in mind.

Of course, she refrained from telling him that she'd actually moved to the Selva region from Pikesfoot City beforehand. And that she'd only lived in Newmarket for two years. And that she only ever lived there as part of a broader plan to completely erase her identity as "Clara" and replace it with a new identity as "Mayra." She had organized a plan with an underground customs agent to help her create fake Selva region documents affirming her identity and guaranteeing her eventual citizenship into the Xernea region once again. Those fake documents were eventually exchanged for real Xernean documents once her citizenship was officially transferred. Her immigration certificate and identity number were both completely genuine, even though the means by which she got them weren't; and it was a secret she'd have to keep from most of her friends and coworkers for the rest of her life.

It was well, however, that she'd refrained from further elaborating on her past. Cai wanted to stay polite and listen to her, but his attention span clearly didn't allow for him to maintain an active attachment to what he was hearing, and he already inadvertently broke his promise to not get bored. Instead they talked about their breakfast as they ate, and how pancakes were yummy, and how these pancakes were way better than Elaina's pancakes.

After breakfast, Mayra pondered over how to spend the rest of the day with Cai. "Have you ever been to the Pikesfoot Science Museum?" she asked him.

Cai shook his head.

That didn't take long to figure out.

The museum was a short walk away from the diner. It was built close to Pikesfoot University, as it knew it would be frequently collaborating with researchers there to manage new and existing exhibits. It had a huge section dedicated to astronomy, including a fully functioning planetarium, so Mayra was certain that Cai would enjoy it.

When they got to the museum, Mayra started by showing Cai the exhibits dedicated to psionics: the study of psychic abilities. It was a multifaceted field that had innumerable applications in virtually every other science. While training to become a judge, Mayra had to spend a year doing a psychic-type self-defense seminar, where her abilities were trained quite rigorously. In the process, she learned much about the developments in modern psionics, and gained a massive appreciation for it.

They checked out many exhibits in this part of the museum, and Mayra spent the first twenty minutes simply letting Cai wander around the showcases to examine things at his own pace. When one of the displays caught Cai's attention, Mayra would pick him up to give him a better view, and explain in more detail to him what the display was showing. This here was an old hypnotic charm, which was used to put people in dream states. That there was a model of the psychic brain: the part of it that was colored in red was the telekinetic lobe, and the part of it that was colored in blue was the telepathic lobe, and the part of it at the bottom that was colored in yellow was called the kalamaraki, which Cai thought was a hilarious name.

At one point, Mayra ended up getting distracted by a newly installed exhibit on the Imbuement Problem. The Imbuement Problem was a longstanding question in the field of psionics that asked whether or not it was possible to imbue objects with psychic power, allowing non-psychic-types to control it in psychic-like ways — and if so, how. There was a lot of motivation to answer this question, in particular because of telekinesis. If non-psychics could harness telekinetic capabilities, even extremely limited ones, then their daily lives could be radically improved. Quadrupeds and avians would be able to do complex tasks despite their lack of opposable thumbs. Industrial machines could be built to be safer, and would allow for more nuanced internal maintenance. The ability to write would no longer be limited to those who could grip a pen.

For the majority of civilization, it was thought that solving the Imbuement Problem would be impossible, and that such imbuements simply couldn't be done. Uninspired elementals of the early centuries allowed humans to become the first species to make a true scientific breakthrough towards solving this problem. In the 15th century, they discovered a way to detect and measure psychic energy, and later went on to invent the first psiometer. This invention was used to prove that psychic energy was capable of being imbued into objects, and further experimentations identified which forms of matter most stably held a psychic charge.

The next major breakthrough wouldn't be made for another several hundred years. Scientists knew how to imbue objects with psychic energy, but they didn't know how to actually utilize the energy after it had been imbued. This changed in the 1750s when psychic-types started to make discoveries in the field of psiobiology. They identified the components of the psychic body that enabled it to manipulate psychic energy, and it became hypothesized (and later confirmed) that these components were capable of manipulating psychic energy outside of the body as well. A few decades after these major discoveries were made, researchers invented what they called the "energy-free pointer." The device resembled a compass, but it didn't point north. Instead, the pointer was imbued with psychic energy, and a psychic-type could control which direction the arrow pointed using telekinesis. This alone wasn't anything new; psychic-types used telekinesis to move things all the time, whether or not they were already imbued with energy. But what made this pointer special was that the psychic-type didn't need to expend any of their own energy to change the arrow's direction: they could change the arrow's direction merely by accessing the energy already in the device.

The final step in solving the Imbuement Problem involved translating the process psychic-types used to manipulate psychic energy into a mechanical form that was accessible to non-psychic-types. This step ended up requiring the most work, as it required numerous prerequisites. Firstly, scientists needed to have a much more complete understanding of how the energy mechanism in the psychic body worked, which would end up requiring modern psiometric imaging tools that wouldn't be invented until the early 23rd century. Secondly, scientists needed to discover a way to replicate this mechanism in a way that allowed non-psychic-types to access it, which ultimately would end up requiring scientists to create an entirely new field of biophysics called white aura theory.

For a long time, no research institutions or universities made any direct progress in solving this last step (with the exception of the Solaris Fellowship in Excalibur City, which reportedly solved the problem in its entirety in the 21st century: Solaris was renowned both for its impressive scientific advancements and its draconian refusal to share its knowledge with the rest of the world). It was only during the mid 23rd century — just two decades before Mayra was born — when a Golduck inventor by the name of Raymond successfully created the first self-contained psionic imbuement. It was the first telekinetic device that all sentient creatures could control, including humans and dark-types.

The mechanism became known as a PSI: a Psychomagnetic Synchronous Imbuement. And as predicted, it turned out to be perhaps the most world-changing advancement of the entire century. While PSIs weren't as widespread and commonplace in the Xernea region as they were in the wealthier metropolises of the world, they were still a necessary part of many quadruped and avian daily lives. Most such creatures had at least a few personal PSI devices that they carried with them everywhere they went, and learning how to write with PSI pens (which are simply called psy-pens nowadays due to a corruption of the initialism) has become a part of every elementary school's curriculum.

Mayra didn't realize how long she'd been absorbing the content of the exhibit until she felt Cai tugging at her fur. "Can we go check out the planets now?" he asked, looking like he was about to collapse from boredom.

Mayra nodded immediately, feeling rather guilty. "The astronomy section is this way," she said, taking Cai's hand and leading him through the museum. Cai promptly lit right back up, and he was bouncing up and down while they made their way there.

There was a cool, low-lit atmosphere to the astronomy section. The walls, ceiling, and floor were all painted a deep blue, with tiny light crystals embedded in them to resemble stars. The exhibits were more brightly lit, and were numerous. Cai ran ahead in a fit of excitement to check out the first one he saw.

When Mayra caught up with him, she saw that he was looking at a display of Amadeus's Comet. It was the only comet that was visible to the naked eye when it reached its perihelion, but it was dramatically visible when it did so. It had an orbital period of ninety-eight years, and it lit up the night sky for eight days, usually glowing brighter than the full moon.

The replica on display looked like it was made from a hardened resin. It showed the body and tail of the comet as a bright blue-white smear, looking much like the concentrated fire that is emitted from a gas burner in a chemistry laboratory.

In case Cai didn't know what he was looking at, Mayra explained for him. "That's Amadeus's Comet," she told him. "It's a giant snowball that orbits the sun. But its orbit isn't circular, like our planet's: instead, it gets really really close to the sun, then gets flung out way into outer space where we usually can't see it."

Cai pointed at the comet. "That's not a snowball. Look at how hot it is!"

"It does get very hot; you're right," Mayra said. "That big long tail is a trail of water vapor that the sun vaporized from its surface. But when it travels off into space, it flies so far away from the sun that it gets super cold all over again."

"If it gets so close to the sun, why doesn't it all melt?"

"Because it's very, very big. Every time it passes the sun, only some of the comet vaporizes: the rest of it is buried beneath the surface and stays nice and cold. Eventually, it will all burn away though. But probably not for many thousands of years."

Cai admired the comet for a little bit longer, then started walking towards another exhibit. This next one was of the moon. The model was remarkably detailed, with craters and colorations closely matching the very same moon that was visible on most nights. The far side of the moon was intricately detailed too. Mayra remembered how it looked when she saw it for the first time at this museum, and found it disappointing. It was mostly uniform in color, and its surface was characterized by several small craters rather than large maria of dark and light that the side facing the planet displayed.

Humans were the dominant species in the field of astronomy. Their engineering marvels enabled them a long time ago to build things that could actually be launched into space. It was quite likely that every single exhibit in the astronomy section here was informed by human discoveries. The illustration here of the far side of the moon certainly was.

Cai was staring at the display with bright eyes of admiration and a small smile fixed to his lips. While Mayra's heart was sweetened to a honeydrop by the look Cai was giving to the moon, she couldn't help but find it a little out-of-place. It wasn't the gaze of a child who was awestruck by an awesome display of science. It was the same gaze that Cai would give her sometimes, like when she was about to pick him up and place him on her shoulders for a piggyback ride, or when she took his hand to lead him somewhere new.

When Mayra walked up beside Cai, he reached up and took her hand, not taking his eyes off of the moon. She beamed at his gesture, and leaned down towards him. "Let's go see the planetarium now."

Cai tilted his head up towards Mayra and nodded in agreement.

It was there at the planetarium where Cai wore that exuberant face of amazement that she was hoping to see from him. The location of the planets were controlled by finely tuned gears, running like complex clockwork beneath them. Each known object was labelled, from the stars to the planets to the planets' moons. The planetarium even included a display of what Amadeus's Comet would look like the next time it crossed the night sky. Cai's eyes were wide as saucers, and he watched the rotation of the stars religiously, nearly hypnotized by their movements.

There was a guide present, narrating the details of each celestial occurrence on display. He covered the age and history of the solar system, solar eclipses, and even a hypothetical simulation of one of the nearby stars that was expected to go supernova within the next million years.

After the planetarium tour ended, Mayra and Cai scoured the rest of the astronomy section for the remaining exhibits they didn't see yet. They stayed there for hours, stopping only once to break for a late lunch. And once they'd finished going through the astronomy section, Cai still had enough energy and motivation to check out the rest of the museum. She let him stay for as long as he wanted, and it wasn't until the sun began to set when Cai was finally ready to call it a day.

Mayra, deciding to treat Cai to a fabulous dinner, brought him to an establishment called the Crystal Barn. Farm tools on the walls paired with chandeliers on the ceiling, and the food was both phenomenal and phenomenally overpriced. Mayra got a pan seared halibut with charred and seasoned asparagus, served with a bagna cauda sauce. Cai got a plate of spaghetti and meatballs.

After dinner, it was dark out, and Cai sat atop Mayra's shoulders as she walked back to the inn. She was expecting Cai to be tired from such a long day, but whenever she probed the outside of his mind, she found it active as ever. His eyes were directed upwards at the waning gibbous moon. He didn't stop staring at it.

When Cai noticed Mayra was looking up at him, he scowled and gently smacked the top of her head. "Elaina says to always look where you're going when you're walking outside."

"I don't need to," Mayra told him. "I have this entire city memorized."

"No you don't," he challenged. "This city's ginormous!"

"It's also a city I'm very familiar with. I can tell exactly where I am from the cobblestone beneath my feet."

Cai brought his arms around Mayra's head and covered her eyes. "Prove it."

Mayra was startled by the audacity of Cai's challenge, but luckily for him (as it was he who was on the shoulders of the cat he'd just blinded), this was actually something she ought to be able to manage. "I accept your challenge," she said as she began walking again. "But next time, please ask permission before blocking my eyesight."

Cai giggled a little bit. "Sorry."

They walked for a few heartbeats as Mayra read the ground for directions. The stone patterns changed when she stepped upon a sidewalk or when she came to an intersection, so she had a good idea of where she was.

"How was your day?" she eventually asked.

"It was great!" Cai said. He tried to kick the air to release the excitement in his voice, but Mayra had a grip on his legs and he only ended up squirming slightly. "Can we go to the museum again tomorrow?"

"It's not going to change, sweetheart; you won't see anything new if you went tomorrow."

"I don't want to see anything new. I want to see the planetarium again! And the thing that spun around and around and around."

"The artificial tornado?"

"Yeah, the armatissal tomato! And I want to see all the other things again too, like the big thing on astronauts."

Mayra smiled at that. "Do you want to be an astronaut, Cai?"

"I guess," he said. "But you need to be a grown-up to become an astronaut, and I'm not gonna be a grown-up."

It was the casualness with which he said that that caused Mayra to shiver a little bit. Children really had no filters, did they? "Well, don't say that," she said to him. "Who's to say a kid can't be an astronaut? Maybe you'll be the first ever Espurr to step foot on the moon."

Cai didn't respond to that, but he did telepathically send over a warm emotion as a show of appreciation.

Then Cai asked her something. "Do you want to hear a secret?"

Mayra figured that whatever his secret was, it couldn't be too scandalous. "Sure thing, Cai. I won't tell anyone."

Cai lowered his voice and said, "I'm best friends with the moon."

"Really?" she asked, playfully acting surprised.

"Yep," he said. "We've been friends ever since my old mommy and daddy left me. He noticed that I was alone and sad, and he tried to cheer me up. Now, he's always there for me. He even follows me wherever I go."

Mayra slowed down a little as a chill ran down her spine.

"My rock is actually a piece of the moon," Cai went on. "The moon gave it to me when I moved into the foster home. And he put a piece of his spirit inside of it, so that I could talk to him whenever I wanted."

"I thought your rock held a piece of the spirit who used to live at the house."

"It does," he said promptly. "The moon invited her to live with him in the rock, because before she was all alone and didn't have a home anymore. Now, they share the rock with each other, and with me."

"Like one happy family," Mayra cooed.

"Yeah. We all used to be so lonely. Even the moon was all alone, because he's up there in the sky all by himself. But now we made a family. So even if I die before anyone adopts me, it won't be so bad. Because when I do, the spirits will be right there, waiting for me."

Mayra was trying hard to hold back her tears. This sweet, darling child. How dare he be so lovable? How dare he go this long without another parent falling smitten for him? How dare his parents give him away like they did? How dare anyone in the world ever make him feel unwanted and unloved?

After feeling a softer padding of cobble, Mayra knew that she was at an intersection, and turned right.

"What?! No way!" Cai shouted. "Mayra, you're cheating!" He flattened his hands more tightly against her eyes.

"I am not!" Mayra insisted, thankful for the distraction. "I told you, I have this city memorized. We're on Opal Hill Road right now. We'll be on this road for about half a mile, then we'll turn left onto Arrowhead Lane. I'll know we're there when we reach an intersection where the stones are longer and thinner than usual."

She was so eager to impress Cai when she would reach that intersection. Unfortunately, that moment never happened. Halfway down the road, Cai's hands fell limp. Mayra slowed down just enough to hear the sound of his deep, peaceful breathing. She let out a happy sigh, and continued down the road to deliver the sleeping child to his bed.

(\ /)

The next day, Mayra brought Cai back to the foster home. Cai didn't want to go back, but Mayra insisted that if she didn't do so, then Elaina would be quite upset with her. "I also have some personal matters to attend to," she told him. "But I'll be back tomorrow. I promise."

After collecting some extra papers from Elaina, Mayra said goodbye to both of them. She spent the rest of the day making plans for her upcoming trip to Sunbrook, including booking her flight. She'd nearly forgotten how important it was to schedule the flights ahead of time, since a few days were usually required to process and update the paths. She was only barely able to schedule a ride to Sunbrook in time for her case briefings next week.

At noon the next day, Mayra left city hall and eagerly made her way down to Lotus Lane. She didn't realize until now just how grateful she was to Elaina for letting her spend the day with Cai. The time they spent together really caused her mood to brighten, and Mayra was once again looking forward to seeing Cai for as much as she could.

When she reached the front porch, Elaina wasn't there to greet her like she usually was. Instead, there was a note taped to the door:

Mayra,

Cai had a major seizure this morning. Elaina took him to the South Pikesfoot Children's Hospital. Directions are on the back. She asked you to hurry.

Bradley, Elaina's husband

Before she could even process the thoughts going through her head, Mayra took off, beelining towards the hospital as fast as she could run.

She tried to fight off the immediate worries that thundered through her brain. There wasn't any reason to assume the worst; lots of people who went to the hospital came out of it alive. Most people probably did, in fact. Why would Cai's case be any different? He was going to be taken care of by some of the most competent doctors in the city. And yes, one of his seizures would eventually kill him, but how likely really was it that it would be this one? He'd suffered so many of them in the past already; what was one more?

And yet, that fear still gnawed relentlessly at her, trying to prepare her for the possibility that she'd burst into the hospital only to be told that Cai had already passed.

When she entered through the hospital doors, a young female Mienfoo behind the check-in counter waved her over. "Are you here to visit someone?" she asked.

"Caius," she answered between deep breaths. "An Espurr, seven years old. My name is Mayra. I've been helping take care of him for the past few weeks."

"Let's see …" The receptionist some papers at her desk for a few seconds before raising her eyebrows. "Espurr Caius, admitted at ten fifty for seizure-induced heart failure. Ah, yes. It looks like you've been granted visitation rights by Sceptile Elaina, his current caretaker." She looked back up at Mayra. "You may see him. He's in urgent care, down that hall behind you: room 311."

Without skipping a step, Mayra started down the indicated hall. Every surface was painted white, making it hard to tell the doors on either side apart. The numbers on each of the doors were small and hard to read, and the hallway was quite long.

She turned a corner and saw a male Simisage approaching from the other direction. He stopped once he spotted her. "Mayra?" he asked.

Mayra nodded. She didn't recognize this man, but she could only assume he was the doctor. "How is Cai?" she asked.

The Simisage clasped his hands together, softening his eyes at her. "He's been awake for the past half hour, and we've managed to keep his heart pumping. But he's not stabilizing."

Mayra felt herself grow pale. "He'll be okay though, right?"

His eyes only softened further, which only made Mayra grow paler. "His status isn't looking very hopeful," he said. "The neural pathways connecting to his heart have deteriorated to the point where he can't hold a steady pulse anymore. When this happens, the heart will continue to pump blood, but it'll get weaker and weaker until it just … goes." He placed a hand on her shoulder and told her, "He has maybe another half hour left before he won't be able to hold on anymore. I'm very sorry."

Mayra felt herself backing away from the doctor, even though she didn't feel herself consciously deciding to do so. "There's nothing you can do?"

"We're trying to keep him as comfortable as possible," he said. "I'll be back soon with a nurse to help monitor his condition. You can go in: his room is that one right there." He pointed behind him at a door with an extended red flag sticking out next to it, indicating occupancy. Then he started down the hall in the other direction.

Gingerly, Mayra approached the door. There was a window on it, as there were on the other urgent care doors, allowing her to look through it and see the patient inside.

She saw Cai, though Cai didn't see her yet. He was on a huge bed with white covers, talking to Elaina, who was sitting beside him. He looked so frail, like he just barely had enough energy to breathe.

At the sight of him, Mayra grew dizzy. Incredibly dizzy. Nauseatingly dizzy. She brought her gaze away from him and started down the hall in search of a bathroom, but her vision was fading. She only made it a few more steps before she tumbled off of her feet. She crawled over to the wall and sat against it, covering her head as she hyperventilated.

This was why she was indecisive. This was why she'd refrained from telling herself that she was ready to take him in. She'd known she was ready for another chance at motherhood if it meant mothering Cai. But she hadn't known if she was ready to lose another child.

Now she knew. And she knew that she wasn't.

Her gut told her to run. It told her to get out of here and forget about this and never come back. It told her to do whatever she could to protect herself, to save her mind from the trauma that lay behind that door.

The thought of it actually gave her a little bit of comfort. She could leave now, cut the threads instead of tying them. Poor Cai would die without her by his side, but at least he'd have Elaina, and at least he'd have his spirit friends waiting for him. It'll be hard to forget about him — very, very hard. She knew that the guilt would stay with her for years. But her other choice was facing Cai. And that just wasn't possible.

The dark blobs in her vision started to recede, and she felt herself calming down. She unburied her head from her arms …

… and was greeted by Elaina looking down at her, frowning.

Mayra looked back at the floor, feeling like she'd just squished a baby Joltik. Elaina offered a hand to help her to her feet, and Mayra took it. "Does Cai know I'm here?" she asked.

"No," Elaina said in a no-nonsense yet gentle voice. "But he thinks you're on your way. I think he's been consciously holding on to wait for you."

Ah, and just when the panic was starting to recede! "No," Mayra said, shaking her head and starting to back up. "No, I can't. I'm too weak."

Elaina's eyes softened greatly. "Oh, Mayra, dear—" she started as she advanced towards Mayra again.

"—I can't," Mayra said again, shaking her head and covering her eyes. "Why does Arceus have to be so cruel to me? Why is it that every time I get an ounce of hope, he rips it from my heart? What did I do to deserve this? What does he want from me?"

She stood there and cried. And Elaina let her. She wrapped her arms around Mayra and let her sob into her chest. The tears were painful: each one stung of shame and anger and guilt and terrible, terrible sadness.

"Every time he gives me a child, he takes it away — first by killing the only egg I'd ever make, and now by killing Cai." She shook her head fervently. "I can't do it again, Elaina. It was too painful the first time."

"Oh, Mayra," Elaina cooed. "I can't make you go in there and see him. Even though I don't know what you've gone through, I can tell that it's much more than you deserve." She let go of Mayra and knelt down to meet her eyes, keeping her talons on Mayra's shoulders. "But I do know this: you are the best thing that has ever happened to Cai. He spent his whole life feeling discarded and unloved and forgotten about. But then you came along, and all of a sudden he had a reason to wake up every day."

Mayra closed her eyes. The pain in her heart was just getting worse. It was too much to bear.

"Both you and Cai have prayers that Arceus needs to answer, I know," Elaina continued. "But neither of them are going to get answered if you run away from this. You're the only person that can give Cai what he needs right now. Because what he needs right now … is a mother."

Mayra looked behind Elaina at the door from which she came. The brief view of Cai that she'd seen earlier still made her shiver. She didn't want to go in there. She really, really didn't want to go in there. The thought of doing so still weakened her legs.

But Elaina was right, and she knew it. Cai needed her. And she hadn't turned him away when he was in need before.

She took a deep breath, wiped the tears from her eyes, and walked to the door.

She summoned all the courage she could and used it to open the door and step inside. The way Cai filled up with joy when he saw her — she'd seen it so many times at this point, but it got more and more beautiful every time. "Mayra!" he squeaked, lifting his arms to reach for her.

"Hello, my little dear," she said, her voice soft as silk. She stroked the fur on his forehead, and he let out a gentle purr. "How are you feeling?"

"Good," he said. "I'm a little tired, though. Elaina wanted me to stay awake until you came."

"Well, I'm here now." Mayra beamed at him. "I'll let you take a nap soon."

Cai shook his head. "I'm staying awake." His voice was as frail as his features — like it had been aged by a millennium of wisdom. "I want to spend some more time with you before I go to sleep."

Mayra took his hands and sat down beside him on his bed. "Then I'll stay here with you until you're too tired to stay up," she said to him. Her own voice was growing frail too. "And I'll still be here when you wake up, okay?"

He looked up at her with big, sad eyes. "Are you sure I'll wake up?"

"I am," she promised. "Because your spirit is still alive and strong. If you don't wake up here, you'll wake up with the moon and the house spirit. And then you'll always be with your family."

Cai looked over at his necklace. It was sitting on a little table next to his bed. Mayra took it and gave it to him. He held onto it, and gave it a gentle smile.

As he looked at the rock and spoke with the spirits, Mayra opened up her satchel. "I have a surprise for you, Cai. Are you ready for it?"

Cai put on his necklace and nodded eagerly at Mayra.

"Okay: here it is." She opened the folder that Elaina had given her all those weeks ago and pulled out a piece of paper, showing it to Cai.

It was the certificate of adoption. Mayra had filled the rest of it out.

"You've finally been adopted, Cai. And do you see that?" She pointed to the city hall stamp at the bottom of the paper. "That means it's official. All you need to do is sign this piece of paper, and I'll always be your mother."

She took out the consent form and held it flat against the folder, then handed it to Cai, along with a psi-pen that was in her purse. Cai stared at the paper for a few seconds, not saying anything, not even moving. Slowly, he seized control of the pen and wrote 'CAIUS' in big, sloppy letters on the line.

"That's it," Mayra said, setting the papers aside. "You're mine now."

She saw how his eyes slowly started to fill with tears, and how he choked back a sob when he looked back up at Mayra. "Mommy?"

Mayra nodded. "Come here, my child." And she wrapped her arms around him and held him tight.

"Thank you," Cai whimpered into her shoulder as his sobs started to seize control of his voice.

Mayra blinked away the tears that were forming in her own eyes, and leaned into the little Espurr. She held him until he stopped crying. When they let go of each other, she looked him in the eye. "You need to know a secret, Cai. You were right about me on the first day we met. The house that was there before the foster home … it was mine."

Cai gasped slowly.

"The spirit of the house that lives in your rock: it's my spirit." Through her tears, she gave Cai her brightest, most sincere smile. "So when your body won't hold you anymore and you join your family in the spirit world, I'll still be there, waiting for you to join my family." She leaned in and kissed him on the forehead. "But I don't need to wait, do I? Because you already are my family."

Cai extended his arms around Mayra's neck, using all of his strength to pull him into another hug. "I love you mommy."

Mayra closed her eyes and brought Cai closer to her once again. "I love you too," she said. "I love you so much … my darling son."

In that moment, she felt closer to Cai than she had ever felt towards anyone else in her life. She held him close, felt his gentle breaths against her fur. She even felt the steady beating of his heart. It was a soft, slow, and frail beat, but there was a strength to it as well, like it knew that it was beating for a great purpose.

And it thumped …

and thumped …

and thumped …

… and stopped.

(\ /)

Mayra spent another three weeks in Pikesfoot City.

She cancelled her flight to Sunbrook and sent a message to the judicial council letting them know that she wasn't coming. The council disliked sudden cancellations, but they disliked judges who were not in a good emotional headspace more. Judges were always granted permission to cancel their assigned duties when they needed time to grieve the loss of a loved one.

Cai's funeral was held two weeks after his death. All of the children of the foster home attended it, as well as Elaina, her husband, Cai's doctor, some families of children who had been adopted from the home while Cai was still there, and a number of other faces that Mayra didn't recognize. One attendee, she learned, was the puzzle maker that had designed most of the puzzles that Cai loved so much — including that devilishly difficult jigsaw puzzle. Another was a librarian who lended picture books to the foster home every month. Mayra had the feeling Cai would have been surprised by just how many people he touched in his short life.

Mayra paid for Cai's tombstone, and chose the design for it: at the front there was an etching of the moon, and atop the moon there was a house. And sitting on the roof of the house, looking at the stars, was a little Espurr. After the burial, Mayra stayed in front of the tombstone, reading and rereading the words on it:

Espurr Caius

14 / 4 / 2305 - 12 / 9 / 2312

A spirit that will forevermore be with his family, and will nevermore see a moment of loneliness

Some time after the burial — Mayra wasn't entirely sure how long — a visitor came up behind her.

It was Elaina. She had something in her hands, and when she grew closer, Mayra realized that it was Cai's necklace. It had been on his body during the funeral, but she must have arranged to have it taken off before he was buried.

She knelt down beside Mayra and handed it to her. "I think he would have wanted you to have it," she said. "For better or for worse, it's something to remember him by."

Mayra accepted the gift. "It's for the better," she said, lightly caressing the smooth stone. "This rock was where all of Cai's spirit friends lived, and it's where he believed he'd go when he passed on. He would want to stay close to me, I think." She smiled up at her. "Thank you, Elaina."

Elaina smiled back. "You know, I'm proud of you, Mayra. I couldn't imagine how much strength it took you to be with Cai in his final moments. And I couldn't be more thankful to you for finding that strength."

"I'm thankful too," Mayra agreed. "It hurts, but I feel better than I thought I would. I think it's because I was there for him when he needed me. When I look back and think about the memories I made with him, I'll remember how I did everything I could to brighten his life. And I'll remember how much happier I really made him — right up until his dying breath. And I think that'll make those memories a little less painful."

"That's good. We have so much to be grateful to you for. It would have been a pity if you had walked away from here regretting your choices." She gave Mayra a crooked grin, and added, "I know it's a little too soon to say this, but in case I don't get the opportunity again … I told you so."

Mayra let out a scoff-laugh. "Yeah, yeah, rub it in."

"I knew from the moment you decided to come back that you were destined to take him in. You denied and denied, but I've seen the patterns. I know when there's chemistry, Mayra, and you and Cai had it in bunches."

"Yes, I was wrong indeed," Mayra conceded. "I suppose I'm glad that I was."

"May it serve as a lesson to you, Mayra. You will always be ready for motherhood, no matter what Arceus has taken from you."

"Well, maybe not right now," Mayra said, turning her attention back to the gravestone. "But Cai gave me hope for the future, and I refuse to let that hope die with him."

They shared a moment of silence as a gentle breeze stroked the grass around the grave.

Elaina eventually stood up. "Well, I have some mouths to feed, I'm afraid," she said. "I don't know if you'll ever come back to the foster home, but you'll always be welcomed with open arms. And if this ends up being the last time we meet, then it was a privilege to bear witness to the impact you have on the lives of those around you."

"And it was a privilege to be a part of your life, and the lives of your children," Mayra returned. "I'm sure we'll meet again."

She stood up, gave Elaina one final hug, and watched as the Sceptile turned around and walked out of the cemetery.

She then looked down at Cai's final resting place once more as she reached over her head and hung his necklace around her neck. So many memories rested in that diorite C — that little piece of the moon. Memories that she would carry with her for the rest of her life, that she'd never known she was making at the time.

They would fill her with pain on some days, she knew. They would knock her down, bruise her heart, and keep her up at night, even after her grieving passes.

But they would also remind her of who she was, and how she got here, and what she was capable of doing. They would let her know that the trials ahead of her could be overcome — that Cai and Chance and even Clara were still with her in spirit, rooting for her.

And she wouldn't have it any other way.