Another Day at Unity (31)

The strange ruin was unlike anything Coraline had ever imagined. Its many stone and metal walls each bore the marks of fine craftsmanship, beyond anything she had ever seen in her life.

Yet there were many signs of violence here—broken sculptures, shattered glass, and hackmarks on the wall near huge missing chunks. What had happened here?

Ilene took her to a huge bathroom of stone, somehow missing any modern appliances. It was all crystal and mirrors, with water flowing from great openings in the ceiling above. Or in this case, she suspected it had been carried in individual buckets.

Likewise, she doubted whoever lived in a place like this would ever have used bars of sharp-smelling camp soap. It was the same brand that Coraline had bought since things got bad, since she could make a whole bar last herself and her father for a whole month if she was careful. The only downside was just how strong it was, sharp enough to leave her skin red and cracked if she left it on too long.

It didn't burn her this time, strangely. Maybe this bar of soap had aged just like everything else.

"This is not how this palace should look, sister," Ilene explained. She remained close enough to speak, just around a stone divider in the bathroom to give her at least some feeling of privacy. "If you saw it when I was your age... you wouldn't recognize it. Not even Southern Island is as beautiful. House Millennium understood the precise balance between wealth and subtlety. When the Eons looted... they had no idea what they destroyed."

"This was... your house?" Coraline asked, leaning over the side of the tub. The water within was warm enough—much warmer than the freezing river-water she'd been bathing in for the last three months, anyway. "Can't be when you were my age. You're like... three years older? Maybe four?"

Except that number didn't make sense. Even saying it, something about it didn't quite balance with what she knew about the fall of House Millennium. It had been several centuries now, long enough that no one alive had ever met anyone who ever met anyone who knew what the old rulers were like.

Ilene laughed, quiet and monotone. But despite her voice, Coraline felt how genuine that amusement was. She just had a strange way of showing it. "In centuries, perhaps. Mythical pokemon have always aged slowly, and jirachi among the slowest of all. The Unified ancients sleep for all but a week in every millennium. I'm told the first jirachi ever born lives still, friend to the daughter of Arceus herself. But I did not have a chance to meet her this time. I shall have to seek her out when the comet returns."

She rounded the corner, holding a towel before her. "Please, dry quickly. There is one thing I wish to show you before we meet with... my friends? Or perhaps yours, I didn't ask. I know you will want to see it, as it concerns your father."

Just as Ilene was right about how much better she felt once she was clean, she was also right about her suspicion about Coraline's desires. She did want to see it.

The palace had a crypt, buried so deep that the walls felt warm to the touch, and Coraline imagined she could feel the heartbeat of the planet itself pulsing through the building. In this dark place were many crystal studs, forming a little trail of glowing stars.

"There are very few of my family buried here," Ilene said, as they walked. "We pass to Unity with our daemons in old age, as all mythicals do. Yet not all live long enough to reach that moment. Those who fell in battle, or to accident and disease, are remembered here."

She pushed open a heavy iron door with her shoulder, leading the way into the dark space. Except for the sky, which somehow flickered with starlight despite the vast depth. Someone had even arranged them into a false comet on the ceiling, with different shades of crystal somehow producing different colored light, like the comet's twin tails.

"There is no time to tell you their stories," Ilene said, leading her past various small doors, with openings high on the ceiling leading to a space beyond. Each was marked with a metal plate, covered in writing in a language Coraline couldn't read.

But past them all was something else—smaller, stacked rows two high, each one marked with a stone block, and with room for a little crystal statue in front of each one.

They were daemons, in a smattering of different pokemon. Not one had been a jirachi.

"These were servants," Ilene said. "All held positions of great honor to be remembered here. As I said, we live a very long time, and cannot possibly keep so many short-lived humans buried with us. But for those who served beyond their station, a place is given here."

She stood in front of one cell, where a block of stone now bore fresh carvings. More importantly, there was a clay statue here instead of one made from crystal. Coraline knew it well, since she'd fired it only the day before.

There were a few little urns just behind it—three in total, with heads her own father had made before his hands failed him and one had been removed. These kept the ashes of the dead together with the shape of their departed daemon—each a vibrava, except for the flygon shape of Mom's jar.

"I found little else of significance in my search. But I did not think you would want them separated."

Coraline ran to the spot, touching her finger on the stone block. There was no dust or cobwebs here, unlike most of the other spots. "You d-did this? Why?"

"I am sorry your family was taken from you, Coraline. I would be lying to tell you that I had not seen the world be so cruel to many others. But I gave my word he would not be left behind. I gave him the same honor Millennium House granted to those we wished to reward above all others. My only regret is that you shall not be able to often return to visit. Yet I hope one day this place will be a rotting ruin no longer. That was your wish, after all."

Coraline cried for a while. Not as long as she wanted. But this wasn't how she imagined saying goodbye to her father. There should've been a funeral, should've been family flowing from all over to pay their respects. Coraline should be much older, with children of their own to mourn their grandfather.

"It's more than I imagined," she said, lowering her head to Ilene. "It's still not fair. None of this is."

"That is so." Ilene took her gently in both arms, and held. It wasn't just simple affection—the air whipped past her, and they were somewhere else. A huge throne room, big enough to hold hundreds of people at once with plenty of room to spare. The ceiling had collapsed on the other side, and brilliant sunlight streamed down on a broken crystal throne. Vines now grew around it, as nature slowly reclaimed what the ancients had built.

"Yet sometimes, fate may balance in our favor, rather than against us. I've called in the help of an expert in that very field."

At first she thought they were alone, but no. There was motion on the far side of the room, something so green it first blended into the undergrowth. Ilene led her across the room, approaching the figure there.

It was... a boy? He couldn't be very much older than Coraline herself, with that scrawny, too-thin look of a kid who wasn't quite old enough to be out on his own.

Except he was, with tan shorts, and a button-up shirt in a slightly antiquated style. He had a backpack too, resting on the seat next to him. "Don't be afraid. I know him... or know of him. We have not yet met in person. I politely ignore his visits, so long as he returns the lady to her quarters before she is needed. Lord Cody Springwood, I presume."

The stranger sat up in the throne, then jerked out of it to his feet. It wasn't just his clothes that looked strange: his hair was dark green, with a pair of little blue things sticking out from within. They twitched and moved on their own, as though part of his body.

But if that wasn't strange enough, his daemon certainly was. She peered out from behind him, before zipping directly over to the two of them, and hovering there long enough for Coraline to get a good look at her.

"You aren't extinct?" she asked, tilting her head to the side. "Celebi?"

The pokemon hovered a little higher, floating over her head to stare down at Lamplight. "You're not extinct, Jirachi?" She put tiny hands on her hips, glaring with mocking sternness. "See how rude that sounds? Obviously we aren't extinct if we're standing right here."

Meanwhile, the boy stuck out his hand to Ilene. "I thought maybe you saw me sometimes. I appreciate you not killing me, Miss Ilene."

Ilene took his hand, and shook politely. "For her sake. She's very fond of you, as I'm sure you realize. If I ever hurt you, it would break her heart."

He blushed, releasing Ilene's hand. He turned towards Coraline, advancing on her. "Then we're here for the same reason. She said if I didn't help you, you'd probably cry for a thousand years. And if you were heartbroken, she would be too."

His daemon landed on his shoulder, just out of reach of them. "I don't know what she can see that I can't."

Ilene shrugged. "The first daughter loved her father's house, Celebi. I'm told you wildlings carry fresh blood in your strange souls, more like your ancient counterparts than those who now rule in their names. You cross through time so cleanly that even Lord Moonstone cannot follow. Perhaps you could teach Lady Hayden this, and learn a little of her love."

The celebi shrugged dismissively. "Haven't had a lot of luck with either of those so far. Hayden's DIFF-EQ is straight garbodor. And every time we love something a little too much, your families take it from us."

Ilene gestured, and Coraline felt herself moving without meaning to. Something lifted her just off the floor, floating her over to Cody just as Ilene and their daemons were floating. "You and I are not enemies, Celebi. But if you wish to hate me, spare Coraline your loathing. She is another of your kin, and will soon suffer an agonizing death."

"I can read a newspaper." He looked past Ilene, tilting his head sideways at Coraline. His expression softened instantly, and the daemon on his shoulder lifted back up again. "You owe us for this, Jirachi. One day, I don't know how, I don't know when. But Sierra and I are going to screw up, somehow. We'll be screwed, and we'll need you to step in and cover for us. We agree?"

Ilene nodded. "So long as you can deliver her to me, when it's safe. I can't care for her now... Lord Moonstone would force me to turn her over to the Eons. It's their right to judge. Bring her to me in an era where I can protect her. I'm sure you know the future well enough to find one. Do that, and we have a trade."

The boy nodded once. "Favor for a favor."

Then Coraline felt something against her mind—just as when Ilene did it, these were words somehow spoken without sound. Yet this was the boy's voice, far less practiced than Ilene. "I wouldn't leave you to die even if she said no," he thought. "But when you're running for your life like Sierra and I, we have to take whatever advantages we can. I'll make it up to you when she leaves, promise."

Coraline wanted to reply—but she wasn't sure she could, not without sending what she was saying to everyone. If she depended on this boy to save her life from execution by Eon House, the last thing she should do was upset him. "Where am I going?"

Ilene spun, dropping down to one knee in front of her. "This is a celebi, Coraline. He's going to bring you through time, somewhere you can grow up safe. It might seem strange, but the alternative is letting Eon House find and execute you. I will not allow that to happen."

She touched her shoulder once, holding close. "Can you promise me to go with Cody, and do what he says until we meet again?"

Coraline nodded. "If it's... this or get killed by the royal family, it isn't much of a choice."

Ilene hugged her. She wasn't very close, and she didn't hold very tight. Ilene was a stranger she'd only known for a few hours.

But Coraline needed a hug very badly just then. "Thank you for saving me, Ilene."

"You're welcome." Ilene stood up, and floated off the dirty floor. She turned her back on them all, bringing both arms together in front of her. "I will see you soon, sister. From your perspective, no time at all will pass. You will not be alone."

She vanished in a flash of white light.

"For what it's worth, I think she's sincere," Cody said, holding one hand towards her. "But she can't stay with you right now. She's Steward of Mew House. Not everyone has the courage to go it alone like Sierra and me."

Coraline took the offered hand. The stranger might have an extinct mythical daemon... but so did she, apparently. They weren't that different. "Where are we going, Cody?"

"Not where, when." He beamed, and his little daemon fluttered in close. "A time where that jirachi can give you a better life than she could right now."

Coraline did not return to Petalburg for a long time. She never found out which of her extended family got the land from their house, or what happened to it.

Much later, she did hear stories of the town, a new center of reverence for the Millennium Comet. There it was said that a girl had lost her father to the plague, and prayed to the Millennium Comet for relief. They said it was so touched by her pain that it carried her away with it to heaven, leaving no trace behind.

In a way, the story was true. Coraline wouldn't be the one to correct it.