In Your Head; A Pokemon Sword and Shield Tale

(3)

You stood back up carefully and looked over at Hatterene standing a few paces away. She hadn't moved from her spot next to the telly. Anybody looking in the windows would've thought she was just a lamp sitting in the living room, but this one had its eyes open, using her long arm to wave at you quietly. She never liked much commotion, but you knew she was happy to see you again regardless. To your slight surprise, she came forward a bit to you, bringing up her hand ever so slowly and bringing it to a rest on your arm over your sling. Since she stood at a pretty sizable 6'11" or 2.10 m she was at about eye level with you. She looked at you oddly for a moment before suddenly taking her hand away, slinking back into the corner of the room where she was standing before. You frowned. 

"What was that?" you heard a voice from across the room. Bede had been standing at the counter starting to brew some tea and had turned around to look at you. You stood there, bringing up your good hand and half shrugging.

"I uh..?" you looked back at Hatterene. You expected her to look at you with maybe some irritation, like she usually did if you or Bede was getting too rowdy for her taste, but instead she looked a little bewildered. Now that you thought about it, you started to notice Sylveon and Mawile also starting to take notice of something strange. The absence of your other half. The only logical thing you could think of is that when Hatterene had put her hand on you, she had maybe gotten a vision of what had led you to having to stay in Bede's house for a couple months. Maybe she had gotten a glimpse of the same choppy memories of your arm getting broken and wasn't expecting it to be that terrible. 

"How much did you tell them?" you looked at Bede, who had come back to see what happened, stopped to study Hatterene as she stood there, just looking at you. 

"I just told them I'd explain it to them later." he said, not moving his gaze from Hatterene. "I understand that you were curious, but could you have been more polite and waited for us to tell you ourselves?" Hatterene finally tore her gaze off of you, looking at her trainer. She looked apprehensively back at you one more time before fully shuffling back into the corner again.

"Tch. You? Talking about being polite?" you joked quietly, trying to lighten the mood. He shot a side glance at you, his eyes narrowing into a firmer scowl which you'd half expected to get anyways. "Okay...yeah. Sorry," you muttered.

"Yeah, I'm talking about being polite." he grumbled, irritated. He unzipped his jacket and walked over to hang it above his shoes, wearing just a pink short sleeved t-shirt underneath. "I'd call polite inviting you to stay at my house while you sort your business out. We still need to think about finding Zoroark and figuring out the why and the how. Then, we can talk about me not being polite." He made his way back to the kitchen, opening the cupboard and pulling out a couple mugs and placing them on the counter.

"Arceus, it was just a joke, Bede." You sighed, dropping your eyes to the worried pokemon below you, having heard that Zoroark had to be "found". You didn't honestly want to tell them the whole truth, as you didn't want to scare them as Hatterene had done to herself. You patted their heads carefully before making your way to the kitchen next to Bede, standing next to him as he leaned on the counter, staring at the tea pot and waiting for it to boil. He bit his lip, thinking of what to say to you. You ended up speaking up instead.

"I know you've been trying," you said to him quietly. "I really couldn't thank you enough for taking me in. I'm sorry I tease so much." 

"No, don't be." he replied just as quietly, sitting up a little more to ease himself up. "I'm just not in the best of moods, really. I'm happy you're here, but I'm still riled up about all of this. I shouldn't be though. You've been through a lot more than I have the past two days."