Another Day at Unity (32)

Julian always got what he wanted.

It had always been this way, from his very earliest days. Back then, his world included only Aerie, his parents, and the house steward Ilene.

Every one of them wanted to give him whatever he desired, usually in exchange for petty promises that were easy to accomplish or later ignore. So long as he was moving towards the pokémon he was meant to be, everyone was helpful.

Then Aerie finally settled, and other people entered his world. They were all servants, of course, people useful to the family who relied on House Moonstone for everything in their tiny, insignificant worlds. Most were psychic types, and they used these powers to always know what Julian wanted and fulfill his needs before they were even spoken aloud.

Years passed that way, more years than common pokémon took to grow up. But that was the natural way of their kind, better and stronger than the pokémon they ruled over. It went on like that long enough that those patterns became thoroughly entrenched in his mind, true statements of reality.

There were only three types of people—himself, who would one day rule all the world and to whom all beings must give obedience, then his parents, who were so desperate for his future that they too did what he wanted, despite their greater power. Finally, there were servants, some greater and some lesser, but all inferior to himself.

Until, with barely any warning, his and Aerie's world changed, and a girl broke the rules.

Hayden was a servant first, like everyone else. She was a mew, with Julian destined to one day become Eldest. Hayden came to entertain him, for reasons similar to Ilene. Even powerful pokémon could obey.

Yet that impression did not survive for long.

Hayden was another mew, not like him and Aerie, but better than them at everything in the world. Hayden was more interesting to talk to than they were, Hayden could fly all day without getting tired, Hayden had traveled all over the world and could change into any pokémon she wanted without even trying.

But most important of all, Hayden didn't just care about him. Time and again he told Hayden how the world worked, demanding that she follow his rules. Time and again, she broke them. The mew wouldn't trade powers with him, insisting that she teach him for nothing and accepting any teaching he wanted to give in return for nothing. She could argue with him too, insisting on silly things like that servants could do all the same things as normal people.

With her, Julian discovered another group of people: equals.

He had seen them before, though never known it. Twice a year the Great Families got together to meet and discuss the important matters of their world, organizing various political things that he had never cared to learn. But now he realized that all those other people he saw there—they were like Hayden, if somewhat less interesting.

Not everyone had to give him what he wanted just because he asked. Wanting something more, or louder, just wasn't enough to force them.

That was all bad enough, but almost nothing could prepare him for the changes that came to the world the year after Hayden appeared.

He learned something else at that Spring Equinox Ball, when a terrifying monster of the past appeared in the center of every important pokémon in the world: people could care about things other than him.

Then his father did something terrible, and changed the rules for everyone. No longer would the children of the Great Families be able to grow up peacefully on their own lands, they would all have to go for training in the same place. Even Julian was not immune to that stupid rule.

Julian had a year or so to prepare, before getting ripped away from his palace and his toys and all the servants he liked, and had to live somewhere else. Naturally, he wanted to know who had made it happen, taking away the world he wanted and forcing him away.

The answer was not an easy one for him to swallow: her. His mom had explained it gently, the same way she always did when there was something she thought he wouldn't like. But there was no gentle way to say what she was thinking.

"It was inevitable, dear. The wildling children can't be left to individual families to deal with. Otherwise, many will go untrained, and some may oppose the established order. The world might not survive that conflict. If they were successful, they would be unprepared to contain the Ancients, plunging the planet into an inescapable Dark Age."

He barely heard any of those words, though. Instead, Julian had only one thing to say: "I thought Hayden liked me."

"She does like you, sweetheart," Mother said, running one hand through his hair in her usual soothing way. "I'm sure if she could, she wouldn't want you to have to go. But no house gets to make exceptions. If one of us doesn't go, then the others won't either. Eventually it will just be the wildlings there. Instead of helping them become part of our society, we would only be introducing them to each other, making a much stronger enemy than would otherwise exist."

Reasons didn't matter—Julian was mad, and he intended to make sure Hayden knew about it. The trouble was, such a world-changing upheaval made it more difficult to travel between houses. He wasn't even allowed to see Hayden until the school called Unity finally opened, and they walked into its first ceremony together.

In that moment, other things seemed more important, like fear. Julian and Aerie knew very little of the world's other mythicals, and neither had known just how big and dangerous many of them were. Now suddenly he was locked into a building with all of them, without Ilene there to protect him from danger.

Instead of yelling at Hayden, he clung to her through much of that first day, the only person there that he and Aerie knew would not let anyone hurt him.

It worked, and he made it through that first hard day unscathed, even in a place he didn't like. But he never got to tell Hayden just how upset he was. The other mew didn't seem to even realize why she should be sorry.

It festered for a while, unexpressed and hidden by his powers. Julian decided that he wouldn't tell her. It was Hayden's fault he was upset in the first place, so it was up to her to realize that she needed to fix it.

There was just one problem: she didn't. As the days passed, his betrothed became more relaxed around the other students, learning their names and their interests and their habits in ways that eluded Julian completely. He tried refusing to see her sometimes, simply not showing up to their meetings.

But instead of seeing her upset in the hall, Julian would see her fly past his window with someone else, or playing games with his staff in the servants' quarters.

Holding that anger for weeks and weeks gnawed at his insides, until eventually Julian found he started avoiding her on purpose.

Hayden always wanted to be doing something, learning something, exploring some new place. He could avoid her if he wanted, but he couldn't stop her perspective from rubbing off on him a little. Knowing her had stolen his ability to be content doing nothing by himself.

It was on one such Saturday he finally gave up, and rolled out of his little nest of books and papers under the bed.

He wasn't flying down there yet, no matter how many times his teachers told him he would have to master that skill. Having everything comfortably on the ground meant it was all exactly where he wanted when he came back for it.

Aerie floated out after him, brushing her coat free of a few tufts of paper and bits of fluff. "I know where Liz is playing. Are we gonna—"

"No," he said, stopping over to the closet and flinging it open with his powers. He pushed hard enough that it bumped harshly against the wood, denting the paint. Just another problem for the servants to fix. "Not her. We don't need them."

Aerie bobbed up and down while he dressed, selecting a warmer outfit for the oppressively cold weather of Unity.

His own tower was heated to a comfortable temperature, and always felt nice when he stepped inside. But the instant he left, he knew how awful it would be; one more reason to hate this place. Why couldn't they have built it closer to his home instead? Let other pokémon be the ones to feel miserable!

He zipped the long jacket all the way up, then secured the buttons with his powers. There were no special accommodations in the jacket, just as he didn't need special hats made. Julian's only marks of Unity were his eyes, which had gradually stained blue since meeting Hayden had pushed him to develop his powers more quickly.

He would not be able to go further, until his father yielded the position of Eldest and joined their honored ancestors beyond the separation of bodies. Otherwise, he would change into a girl like Hayden had, and no longer be the most important person in the world.

Aerie flew closer, nudging one of his pockets open and squeezing herself inside. Mythical pokémon or not, the bitter cold outside Unity was particularly hard on her, and would be until they learned any fire-type moves to keep warm. But the girl who probably would've taught them had been so awful at fire-type moves they hadn't learned yet.

"We could find someone else," Aerie thought, poking her head out the little flap. "Everyone wants to help us. We don't need her."

His daemon might've said it, but the thought was his too. Yes, that would get back at her, showing her that he could get things on his own! And who should they ask?

Julian was not dumb, no mew could be. He knew all the great families, and their various gifts. Just because he sometimes had trouble with their names didn't mean the rest of their history and abilities were hard for him. 

The answer was obvious of course: he needed to find Fae of Victini House. Others knew fire-type moves, but Fae was more than that. He represented something, the oldest student currently forced to attend Unity. He would agree with Julian about how stupid the whole thing was.

Julian didn't have the map memorized, but he did remember where to find one. His own servants kept one in the hidden room in his tower, where they spent their time when he didn't require them. He'd gone in there chasing his betrothed at least once, and saw the detailed map they'd drawn directly on the wall.

It was still in there today, along with a terrified raichu who bowed and scraped and pretended she hadn't been reading a book instead of working.

Julian didn't care about that today though, he only needed to see the wall.

Whoever had drawn this also marked it with Julian's own schedule, more details he didn't need. Let them worry about struggling to find him across Unity.

The academy was arranged in a circle, with private towers and public residence halls along the outer rim. They'd been sorted by type and thus house, so Psychic was on one side, with Dark exactly opposite. Similarly, if the Grass type of Shaymin was one direction, all he had to do was walk the other way, and he'd find Fire.

Julian had come up with worse plans before.

"I will not be needing anything," he told the servant. "Do not follow me. But if I'm not back by supper, find me and deliver something. Bring enough for two, just in case."

The raichu bowed low to him, scraping her face against the hard floor. But she had still obeyed, that was the important part.

It was time to find a victini.