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Although he went to bed late, Luther still felt energetic when he woke up the next morning. The messages from the previous night had given him a wonderful dream.
By the time he arrived in Snowpoint City, dawn was just breaking. Along the way, there were quite a few Pokémon Trainers chatting with one another, exchanging stories of their travels.
Following Cynthia's instructions, Luther made his way to the Snow Veil Grand Hotel.
The hotel's name struck Luther as oddly theatrical; it immediately reminded him of a certain famous town from Skyrim.
After giving his name to a staff member, Luther was led directly to the hotel's restaurant. In the corner, Cynthia was already halfway through her breakfast. When she saw Luther arrive, she gestured for him to grab his own meal.
"When did you get here?" Luther asked curiously as he sat down across from Cynthia with his tray of food.
"A bit after 1 a.m. I finished up a few things and came straight over." Cynthia set down her knife and fork, rummaged in her bag for a moment, and took out a finely wrapped rectangular box.
"I figured since we'd be meeting today, I didn't send a message. Happy birthday." She wiped her mouth with a napkin. "Not sure if the gift is to your taste. Also, I'll be staying in Snowpoint City for a few days to look into the recently unearthed ruins."
Luther untied the ribbon and carefully opened the box.
Inside was a square jade pendant, about the size of three fingers across. It bore no carvings or marks. Its pale green surface had faint white patterns, and it looked translucent when held up to the light.
Luther didn't know the first thing about jade; he had zero appreciation ability. All he could instinctively tell, as someone a bit out of his depth, was that it probably wasn't cheap.
"Relax and take it," Cynthia said. "It's not that expensive. I used to wear it all the time; it was my good luck charm before I became Champion."
"I think I told you before, when I first debuted, I wasn't sure if I really had the ability to live up to all the praise and aura that people placed on me. I passed through a town known for its carvings. They were holding a competition, and I won the Champion title there. This jade was the prize, it was the first trophy I ever received as a victor."
Instead of reassuring him, Cynthia's words only made Luther even more reluctant to accept the gift.
"It has such sentimental value, I can't take it."
He pushed the box back toward her.
"You should take it." Cynthia gently pressed the box back toward him. "Sentimental value? I've got plenty of things like that. There are so many moments worth remembering, my first Gym Battle victory, the first Pokémon I caught in the wild, the first Trainer I defeated, the moment a Pokémon evolved for the first time… If I saved something for every one of those moments, just how much stuff would I be hoarding?"
"What really matters are the people and Pokémon who stay by your side. Jade is just an object, it represents a wish, a blessing. That's all."
Her fingers slid lightly over the surface of the jade as she smiled.
"This jade once carried blessings for me. Now, I'm passing those blessings on to you. And if, someday, you meet someone you want to pass that blessing to, you can give it to them. That's when this pendant will truly have meaning, something greater than its own worth."
Cynthia's gaze was serious. Luther had never seen this side of her during all the time they'd spent together.
"I'll take good care of it. And I'll make sure it's passed on to the right person when the time comes."
Luther took the jade out and put it around his neck. Cynthia nodded in approval, then stared directly at him.
Luther had just picked up his bread and was about to take a bite when her unblinking gaze made him extremely uncomfortable.
"Go ahead, eat. Once you're done, I'll continue."
Cynthia's words felt more like a command. Under that pressure, Luther could barely bring himself to chew.
He pulled out the Mega Stone and placed it in Cynthia's hand. She immediately wiped it clean with her sleeve and held it up to the light to examine it closely.
"The Mega Stone I found is on the smaller side, but it shouldn't affect its resonance with the Key Stone. By the way, have you found the Key Stone yet?"
Luther asked between mouthfuls.
Mai thought for a moment.
"I remember Diantha's Key Stone was unearthed during an archaeology dig."
"Key Stones are generally easier to find than specific Pokémon's Mega Evolution stones. With Cynthia's skills, finding one shouldn't be a problem. And as for the bond needed for Mega Evolution, she's got that in spades. I bet we'll see Mega Garchomp soon."
"Mega Garchomp vs. Mega Gardevoir. Cynthia vs. Diantha…"
"They should battle!"
"They should battle!"
Luther and Mai blurted it out in unison.
"Wow, you two are scary in-sync when it comes to stirring things up."
Cynthia rested her chin in her palm and looked back and forth between Luther and Mai.
Mai immediately fell silent and buried her head in her breakfast. Luther, on the other hand, ignored Cynthia's teasing and instead focused on what she had just mentioned, the ruins.
"What kind of ruins were unearthed in Snowpoint City that got you so interested?"
"Stone slabs. Two large ones. One of them is about as long as the dining table you're eating on. They're not inscribed with writing, but with illustrations."
"Illustrations of what?"
Cynthia thought for a moment, then asked: "Are you familiar with the folk legends passed down in Sinnoh?"
"A little."
"Have you heard the ones about marrying a Pokémon, or the water Pokémon whose bones are returned to the sea after being eaten?"
Luther froze; he suddenly recalled those very tales.
The so-called marrying a Pokémon legend essentially said that, in ancient times, humans and Pokémon falling in love and becoming couples was a common, accepted thing.
This folktale actually caused quite a stir in the academic world, because it seemed to imply that humans and Pokémon may have once shared a bloodline.
The other legend went that when a Water-type Pokémon was caught and eaten, if its bones were cleaned and returned to the ocean, the deceased Pokémon could find its body and come back to life.
Even today, some fishermen in Sinnoh still believe in this. They persist in collecting the bones of the Water-type Pokémon they catch and devoutly return them to the sea floor.
What Cynthia described matched Luther's own memories of the stories. The discovery of the stone slabs suggested these folktales might be even older than historians currently estimate.
"Honestly, I wish I could learn more about Sinnoh's creation myths," Cynthia continued.
"But I've already visited almost every ruin site, and I haven't gotten much useful information."
"Dialga, the Pokémon that controls time… Palkia, who distorts space… and the shadow dwelling in the Reverse World, Giratina."
"I really want to understand what kind of space Dialga and Palkia inhabit, whether they ever cross paths, and whether Giratina's Reverse World truly interacts with the real world like the myths say."
Cynthia's eyes sparkled with passion as she spoke, clearly enthralled by the topic. Luther, however, was at a loss for how to respond.
He really wanted to tell Cynthia:
It's best if Dialga and Palkia never meet. Those two hot-headed titans, whenever they do, it turns into a full-blown godly brawl. And once they've wrecked the place, Giratina, who has to clean up the mess they made of his Reverse World, goes berserk.
And then there's that llama, who may or may not ever wake up in this timeline. Luther sincerely hoped it didn't, because if it did, those three above were absolutely going to throw down over the chaos it stirred upon revival…
(End of Chapter)