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Cosette, who had been at the pianoforte a good twelve minutes, finished playing with a crash of chords, causing Perrault to leap onto the bed, fangs bared in surprise. It was no good; the window was flung wide; the sun was fluttering in the branches, the bushes were chattering with unseen creatures, and she wanted to be out in the heady dance of battle.
She had done her best to spend the afternoon in other pastimes -- singing her lungs hoarse, dressing up herself and her companions, reading tales of bold ladies in dire peril, but none of it would satisfy her. To battle, above all, was her joy, and she would not be denied it on a day such as this, with Lumiose brimful of breeze and light.
‘Come, Perrault,’ she said; ‘Father will be be gone for hours.’ The Sylveon made a questioning sound, curling its ribbons quizzically in the air around it, as Cosette chose a pink bonnet adorned with matching - although inanimate - white and blue ribbons of its own. ‘We’re going to the Jardin des Batailles.’
The shortest way to walk was down a set of thin and twisting alleys; these held no fear for Cosette, for all she had been forbidden to enter them by her father. What could an alley do to her, with Perrault at her side -- and reinforcements in her pockets? Other young women would walk abroad with well-trained Pokémon for their chaperones, and she could see no harm in it, provided father didn’t know. She did not deceive him without guilt. It had long been her greatest pleasure to chase the shadows from his brow, and how she cherished the knowledge that she could do so out of simple proximity! To cause him a moment’s consternation was the last thing she wanted -- only now she had a rival pleasure. It was not that he denied her the chance to battle whenever they went out together; on the contrary, he would stand close by with words of encouragement, would smile fondly at her victories and ensure that she was never hurt or distressed. It was this last that vexed her: among the ladies who strolled in the Jardin des Batailles, she felt unseasoned, trivial, her progress curbed by her father’s attentive gaze.
Passion for the fray had made a cautious rebel of this loving, obedient heart.
On reaching the park, Cosette felt her frustration melt utterly away. There were flashes of light and colour as people and their Pokémon engaged each other in battle, and others strolling or standing about, seeking or awaiting a challenger, fine fashions on display. It was not enough to be present at the Jardin des Batailles; one had to be seen. Cosette, knowing this, and knowing she must make use of everything at her disposal to ensure that her all-too-infrequent jaunts to the Jardin were worthwhile, had made herself a master in the science of the bonnet, the gown and the boot. She was precise in her calculations, well aware of the respect that could be won among trainers with the right combination of a handsome face, an arresting costume, and a pretty Pokémon.
Today, she decided, she would make a leisurely promenade, and see how long it would be before someone found the way her ribbons matched Perrault’s irresistible.
As she thought this, she took a turn by a bed of rose-bushes and stopped short, a flash of something fire-bright catching her eye. She crouched, bringing her face level with the creature that was watching from among the velvety-red roses. A vulpine face, white and pale yellow with tufts of brilliant red, and eyes like live coals. They both kept perfectly still, eyes burning into each others'. Rare to see a wild Pokémon here -- the city's rangers kept most of them confined to the Jardin des Monstres -- and rarer still to see one as powerful as a Braixen.
'Are you lost?' Cosette asked, gentle and low, and the moment broke: the Braixen whipped itself around and ran.
Although Cosette, as we have observed, was one of the age's foremost students of style and seemliness, the core of her being was one of wildness and bravery. She kilted up her skirts and gave chase.
The creature was a streak of yellow-white, always just ahead of her, cutting through the beds of heavy-scented lavender, past bushes trimmed fantastically into the forms of Pokémon from foreign legends, and finally vanishing into a copse of trees by a shimmering pond. Pausing among the trees to catch her breath and let her vision adjust to the gloomier light, Cosette became slowly aware that someone else was there, watching her. An almost skeletal figure, wreathed in rags, the burning eyes of the Braixen peering from behind its form. She shivered, but stepped forward and curtsied.
'Afternoon, m--' she began, then bit her tongue; she was not entirely sure whether her new acquaintance was a boy or a girl. 'I am called Cosette Fauchelevent. May I request the honour of meeting you in battle?'
There was a barked laugh, and a low voice replied: 'No fear! We'd knock your little friend into a pulp, and then you'd go squealing to the rozzers. Do I look like I got battle papers?'
She could see the other's face clearer now: thin and proud, eyes deep and sharp, dark hair sweeping out of a boy's cap. 'I'm no tell-tale,' Cosette said. 'I just want a good fight. May I ask your name?'
'Eponine, if you must. But I ain't fighting you. You've got the pick of the park.'
'Why are you here, then, if not to battle?'
'It's a show, isn't it! To see the fine people out fighting on a summer's day. I could do that too -- give me a fancy getup and some words on a bit of paper, and then you'd see. But I don't care; I can't fight these pretty fashion plates, so what! They would bore me, I'm certain. Everything bores me nowadays. I've seen the city inside out and upside down, and all the people are copies of each other and every street's streaked with the same muck. But it's something to look at, all the same, and they do all wear nice hats.'
'I'm telling you, I want to battle!' cried Cosette. 'Who'll see us here?'
This earned her a suspicious glare. 'Why me?'
'Because I'm bored too!'
'Bored! As if you had any cause to be! No, I'm not your diversion. Go on, out of here with you, this is my spot.'
Cosette grinned. 'Fight you for it.'
'Ha! Aren't you clever,' said Eponine. 'More fool you. Pécho, go!'
The Braixen bounded towards her, and Cosette commanded Perrault forward at the same time. The thicket came alive with shouted commands and flashes of light, conjured flames leaping from the firebrand that appeared suddenly in the Braixen's hand, spectral stars bursting from thin air as Perrault countered. The fire had scorched it, Cosette could see, but it tilted its head towards her with sky-bright eyes full of such trust and determination that she urged it forward again with words of fierce encouragement. The Braixen summoned rushing flames once more, making Perrault rear back in alarm.
'You should quit,' said Eponine. 'I got better things to do than scrape you up off the floor when you lose.'
But Cosette caught Perrault's eye for the second time, and set her jaw stubbornly. It was the hardest battle they had ever faced, but wasn't that what she had wanted? And Perrault may be flagging, but so too was its opponent, she could see. 'No fear,' she said, and could have sworn that Eponine's smile held a touch of approval.
With a near-simultaneous shout, they continued the fight -- but Perrault's burn had got the better of it, and a final blast of fire from the Braixen sent it to the ground in a dismayed swoon. 'Perrault, no!' cried Cosette, rushing to catch it in her arms. There were tears in her eyes, she realised to her shame; she had lost battles before, of course, but never so brutally.
'I warned you --' Eponine began, but Cosette shook her head.
'You are a formidable opponent,' she said, rummaging in her pocket with one hand while keeping the other on Perrault's fur. 'Here --'
'I don't want your money,' said Eponine. 'No, don't you try any of that. I'm out of here. You --' she stopped, started again with agitation spiking through her words. 'Look, I didn't want to get into this, and it's not my fault you're in a state. But --' she reached into her own, rather more threadbare pocket, and brought out a shining vial. 'Reviving draught. But only so you don't go crying all over some ranger and getting me in trouble.'
'How did you get -- no, that doesn't matter,' said Cosette. 'Thank you.'
Eponine made a derisive noise. 'C'mon, Pécho.
Then they were gone.
That evening, Cosette sat in her garden, Perrault by her side. The night was full of stars, crowned with a creamy half-moon, and a warm breeze barely stirred the leaves. Her mind was more deeply shaken than anything in her tranquil surroundings; there were so many questions that had not occurred to her before; more occurred by the minute. What had that Braixen been doing, roaming alone like a wild thing? And what was someone with Eponine's skill doing hiding away in the shadows? Come to that, how did a girl with no battle permit come to have such skill -- or a Braixen?
And beneath the questions, a deeper disquiet. There was something about Eponine that tugged on the nerves in her brain, as if she almost knew her. But no; it seemed impossible that she could have forgotten ever meeting such a singular individual.
Perrault, ever sensitive to her moods, butted its head against her shoulder. 'I'm sorry you were hurt so,' she murmured, and got an indignant chirrup in return. It brushed her face with the tip of a ribbonlike feeler, and she shrugged it away ticklishly. 'You want a second try too, do you?'
Perrault nodded, and Cosette sighed. 'How do we know we'll ever see her again?'
The garden gave no reply: there were only the soft cries of insects, and moonlight and shade shifting gently on the grass. For a moment, Cosette almost fancied that she saw a darker shadow moving there -- but the moment passed, the garden's nighttime peace unbroken, and she shook her head. 'You're seeing things, Cosette,' she said.
But the next night, when she stepped out to walk in the garden under the growing moon, it was the same: a flicker of shadow that seemed to have nothing to do with the leaves, the branches, the motion of the breeze. This time she ran to the gate, and almost cried out loudly enough to wake her father when she saw an unmistakeable figure vanish around the corner.
In the light of day, Cosette wondered if she had been dreaming. It seemed too much to hope for, that Eponine could have found her, would even have wanted to find her, and yet the thought set her heart racing. But what good would it do, after all, to meet again if she could not better herself in the meantime? She asked her father to take her to the park, but he had business elsewhere, and Toussaint was seemingly all-present that day, offering Cosette no opportunity to slip out. She the afternoon hours in the garden, pitching Perrault against the endless Scatterbugs and Combees that thrived among the wild riot of flowers that grew there. It was pitifully easy; Perrault was bored and grumpy with her for it, but what other chance at practice did they have?
That night, she went out the gate. A feeling, vast and trembling, had settled about her: a sense that this little world of hers would not, could not be the same for very much longer.
What was to be found beyond this little world? Lumiose, once hailed as the city of ideas -- city of advancement! -- was in that epoch a city of monsters. The reader should understand that these monsters were not the kind that man has mastered and pocketed, but the kind that man will never master: ourselves. Here was a populace that shared its streets with creatures brimming with power, and here was a social order that threw up bars between the people and that power. Here were the academies of the age, unlocking the secrets of electricity, of the elements, of evolution; here were officers of the law engaged to persecute the unlicensed study or battling of such creatures; here were desperate outlaws who raised their creatures harshly, who took their revenge on society where they could. There was hardly a citizen, at that time, who did not at some point utter the name of their native city with a tone of heavy irony. Lumiose! Light! Home to the night-embalmed heart, the blindfolded mind.
But also to the torch-bearing soul.
The effect of light in a benighted society can be likened to the effect of a signal fire: when it is seen by the right person, it mirrors, then propagates itself. This was known to certain students of the age, who sought to illuminate the world by igniting it, one mind at a time. But there were also those who, unbeknownst to themselves, made beacons of their souls through love, kindness, or bravery. The most frequent and unacknowledged tragedy of human history is undoubtedly the failure of those souls -- through isolation, or misery, or simple happenstance -- to come into the sights of those that might have been lit by them in turn.
Cosette had been lit by the man named Jean Valjean, and she bore this light, without knowing it, to the garden gate.
'Eponine?' she called, softly. 'I know you are there!'
When she got no reply, she looked once over her shoulder to check that the house was as quiet and dark as she had supposed, and then she thrust aside the bar of the gate and let herself out into the street. As she did she saw a figure disappearing at a run into the night, a pale companion at its heels. 'Come on, Perrault,' she whispered, and gave chase.
Spurring herself on with no heed to the bursting pain in her lungs, she caught up a few streets along. 'Eponine,' she panted; 'will you do me the honour of giving me another go?'
'Give it up!' Eponine said, bursting into a laugh. 'How you hound me! The police should employ you. What is it you want me to battle you for? You've showed you can't take it. Go on home, I've places to be.'
'What places are those?'
Eponine turned and gave her an inscrutable look. 'You wouldn't like it.'
'Let me be the judge of that,' said Cosette.
'What! Aren't you a bit scared? These alleys reek of danger, and there you stand -- I'm a beast and the daughter of worse, it's nothing to me, but you! Yes! Yes, I'll take you along, you're not a bit as dull as I thought. Come then, but keep quiet.'
Eponine took her down a twisting labyrinth of backstreets, stopping here and there to stare at her, cajole her, laugh at her and shush her. They had reached a neighbourhood where shouts and rough laughter seeped out alongside smoky light through grimy windows, and there was the noise of a crowd somewhere up ahead. Eponine led her around a corner, and there at the end of a cul-de-sac was a wreck of a house, its facade gaping open. It looked to Cosette like a ruined face, lamplight malicious and glinting in its smashed-out eyes.
She suppressed a shudder, and pressed forward.
There was a man leaning by the entry, watching the street, but he nodded them through when Eponine greeted him. The interior was full of people, but no-one seemed to notice them: everyone's attention was fixed on the centre of the room, where a trimmed and coloured Furfrou and a lean, wild-eyed Litleo were at each others' throats. Cosette and Eponine pressed their backs to the dimly-lit wall and watched through the shadows of the crowd. Men and women were leaning forward and urging one or the other on, passing bottles of wine between their themselves, naming amounts of money.
'They're betting on the fight?' she asked.
'Now you're shocked! How's it any different from your Jardin des Battailes, apart from how it's not pretty?'
'Or -- or legal, surely!'
'Ah! Your bits of paper, that's right. All the difference in the world.'
The fight ended with the Litleo fainting dead away, and the triumphant yells of those who'd bet on the Furfrou. A young man stepped forward, dressed better than anyone else in the place, a funereal dandy with an discomfited-looking Flabébé fastened onto the side of his hat. 'Who's next?' he asked, summoning the Furfrou back to his side.
'That's Montparnasse,' Eponine whispered to Cosette. 'Thinks he's the worst kind of villain, but I can beat him.'
'Go on, then,' said Cosette.
'And leave you back here!'
'If you don't challenge him, I shall.'
'What! There's bold, and then there's stupid. I won't have the law after me because I dragged some bourgeoise blockhead with a death-wish into the claws of the Patron-Minette.'
Perrault pressed against Cosette's side and whined softly.
'Your beast agrees with me,' said Eponine. Then, 'Devil take us all. Montparnasse!' she strode into the ring. 'You're a good enough fellow for a fight, I suppose.'
'Ponine!' He grinned prettily, teeth white and shining. 'Haven't seen you around much. What've you been up to?'
'Nothing at all,' she said. 'Let's battle.
When Cosette woke in her bed the next day, a strange sort of dread gripped her heart at the sudden memory and fleeting question of whether it had all been a dream. But no: dreams cannot make hair smell of tobacco-smoke, or leave the taste of pilfered wine on the tongue. The events of the night before unravelled themselves in her mind. True to her word, Eponine had won, and afterwards they had found themselves in a deserted square, sharing wine and watching as Pécho and Perrault had a chirping, barking conversation of their own. She had reminded Eponine that she still wanted a rematch, and Eponine had laughed at her -- again! It was getting to be infuriating! -- and said, perhaps.
Once, Cosette had dreamed of being born a wealthy boy, of being able to tour the regions and battle as she went. And all this time adventure had been here in Lumiose! And what else was waiting to be discovered, perhaps only a few streets away?
Perrault jumped up onto her bed, leaving dirty pawprints. 'We'll find out, won't we?' she said, and the Sylveon's wide blue eyes sparkled.