Chapter Text
I cannot waste any more time. A month has passed since I was cursed, and I do not want to stay stuck in this life forever. The next morning, I immediately went to look for Y as soon as the broom stopped dragging me around. I swore I saw her this morning at breakfast.
I turned to Bianca, who was setting a plate of steaming soup out for her Serperior to bring to the table. “Bianca, have you seen Y?”
She nodded. “She just walked back inside.”
I went over to the reception room, where I saw her talking in solemn whispers with Red and Amarillo. When they saw me, Red and Amarillo quickly stepped away from Y.
“Excuse us, Prince Xavier,” Amarillo said.
I watched curiously as she and Red left the room without another word to me. What were they talking about?
Y turned to me with a grin. “Good morning, Prince Xavier.” She bent down to put some puppets on the table back into a box underneath it. “Lovely morning, isn’t it?”
“Are those toys yours?” I asked.
“Yes, they’re for my show later,” she explained. “I wouldn’t be playing with them though at my age.”
“Your age?” I asked without thinking.
Y frowned. “I did tell you I’m eighteen this year, didn’t I?”
I nodded. “Yes...you did. But how exactly does your curse work?”
“I presume you don’t know the story of Peter Pan?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.
I looked down. It is not my fault that Mother removed all the books about Fairytales in the library.
When I did not answer, Y only sighed and gave me a small smile. “That’s fine, I’ll tell you. Peter Pan is a boy who lives in Neverland. It’s a place where no one ever grows up.” She sighed sadly. “Thus, I’m stuck in this form until I can break my curse.”
I wonder what Y would look like in her true form. Perhaps not as different as this one?
“Anyway, I never like being treated like a child,” she admitted. “Even when I was one, I didn’t like it either.” She shot a glare at the door. “But it is much more annoying to be treated like a child by someone who’s younger than you, or not that much older.”
Is she talking about Karma?
Y straightened up with the box in her hands. “Now, if my prince will excuse me.”
As she left, I asked, “Where are you going?”
“I have a show to do today.”
Y does so many magic and puppet shows...how will she help me break my curse if she’s never around?
“I’ll go with you.”
Her eyes widened. “What?”
“I might accomplish a good deed if I come to one of your shows,” I explained.
She nodded slowly. “That’s true, but…” She sighed. “There are bad witches out there.”
I raise an eyebrow. “There’s a wicked witch in this very tavern right now, but no one is protecting me from him.”
Y looked at me with a conflicted expression. “Do you mean Red?”
“Who else do you think I’m referring to?”
Y set the box onto the table and stared at me for a long time, the conflicted expression replaced by a thoughtful one. Finally, she said, “Stay here. I’ll go ask Amarillo.”
She then left the room. I leaned over to the box on the table and saw a pile of carefully detailed puppets. Everything looks handmade. A pang of nostalgia hit me. I used to make my own puppets before Mother forbade me...she said that a crown prince should not be sewing.
“Interested?”
I startled, turning to Y with wide eyes. She walked so quietly that I didn’t even hear her coming. How does she do that?
“Permission granted,” she giggled. “Come on. The show starts in an hour.”
I watched as Y, Croaky, and Veevee set up a puppet stage on the street where I’d first seen her with Trevor. Back then, I thought I’d never see her again…
“It’s nice to see you actively try to break your curse,” she remarked.
I shrugged. “I am not convinced that this would work, but Amarillo said that if I partner up with someone, I’d break my curse faster.”
Her expression strangely grew sad. “So you chose to partner with me?”
For some reason, I was startled at the tone of her voice. She sounded happy but she seemed upset for some reason. Was she lying that she wanted to help me earlier? That everyone in the Marchen was willing to help me?
“Would you rather I pick someone else?”
She frantically shook her head. “N-No!”
I jumped at her sudden reaction. Y awkwardly cleared her throat. “No. I’ll...I’ll do whatever I can to help you.”
Y returned to the back of the stage. I began to follow her, but was forced to stop when she held out her hand. “You haven’t had enough training to be my personal assistant yet, Your Highness.”
I narrowed my eyes. “What? I never said I wanted to be your personal assistant.”
And training? Why would anyone need training to assist with a children’s show?
“You might be able to get a good deed if you become my personal assistant you know,” she offered, a teasing twinkle in her eye. She then waved me off as she turned back to her stage. “But until you’re ready, you should watch with the rest of the audience.”
Even though they don’t remember me, I still feel uncomfortable being in a crowd.
Y smiled reassuringly. “It’ll be fine, Prince Xavier. The children won’t bite unless you bite them. And you can stay up in the front if you want! Less people around you, and you get a good view of the show.”
I wanted to refuse, I really did. But the excited pleading in her eyes somehow convinced me to agree with her.
“Fine.”
Y smiled brightly as she clapped cheerfully. “Thank you X!”
That nickname...why does she call me that?
Before I could ask, she disappeared into the back, leaving me alone. I sighed, going to the audience area. I looked up to see Fletchy letting out a piercing cry. Everyone looked up to see her circling around the plaza. Excited murmurings filled the air as they pointed at the stage, then flocked closer to it.
I looked at the group of the children that are clustered as close as possible to the front. They were all clearly excited for the show to start, sometimes bumping into me. Even though their closeness bothered me, strangely enough, a pang of nostalgia hit me again. I used to do puppet shows with my dolls when I was young with Lil’ Kanga. I felt less alone when I pretended she and my dolls could talk.
And I’m still alone. Nothing has changed.
“Excuse me sir, can you move a bit?”
I sighed as I sidestepped to allow someone else to stand next to me. I was astonished to see it was an adult. I looked out to the rest of the crowd, which had about an equal number of adults and children surprisingly enough. Why would adults watch something as childish as a puppet show?
Y appears in the front of the stage, which has a background of a sunny village behind her. An excited silence falls over the crowd.
“Hello everyone!” she greeted. “I, Y, am here once again to share another story with you again! I hope you enjoy it!”
She then raised her right hand, revealing finger puppets of people. “Once upon a time, there was a village whose people were always happy.”
Her expression turned grim as she raised her left hand to reveal an angry woman in a black dress and with...Houndoom horns? “One day, an evil witch found the village. The evil witch carried darkness deep in her heart. She was jealous of the townsfolk who were filled with so much light and happiness.”
How can someone be happy all the time? I’d be a bit irritated as well.
“‘If I cannot be happy, then no one can!’ she declared,” Y narrated with a low, guttural voice, shaking her other right hand.
...How overly dramatic.
I almost jumped when I felt a tug on my pants. I looked down to see it was a little boy pulling at the side of it though his eyes remained focused on the puppets.
“I don’t like her…” he whimpered. “That witch. She’s bad.”
His grip on my pants tightened. He’s wrinkling it.
I tried to pry his hand off of my pants, but he was faster. The instant I pulled his hand away, he clutched onto my hand.
I startled, trying to pull it away. “H-Hey–”
The boy does not let go or move away. In fact, his grip grew tighter, so much that I found it impossible to get it out. There’s no way I can make him let go without causing a scene...so I’m going to be stuck holding the hand of a boy I don’t know until the end of this show.
I looked up to see that the background changed with the village now being dark and stormy, with Y’s right hand now below the stage and her left hand shaking as the witch’s arms raised up to the sky. “Darkness spread across the village. The people began to suffer. They forgot what happiness felt like.”
Y then grinned, putting her left hand down and raising up her right hand to be the puppet of a blonde man. “But one brave villager set out to seek help and save everyone from the wicked witch.” She sighed, bending the puppet down as if scared. “This villager knew the trip would be dangerous, for if the evil witch found out, he and his family would certainly be killed by her.” She smiled again as she straightened the puppet up. “But the man knew that he had to try hard if he wanted to see everyone smile again.”
She moved the puppet across the stage until it disappeared. Then, she moved it and a new puppet from her left hand, a witch in a dark blue dress and with the horn of an Absol. “Many days later, the man finally returned with a good witch whose heart was as filled with light as the evil witch’s heart was filled with darkness.”
Y brought the hand of the man down, then soon raised it back up to have sad finger puppet people, all “looking” down at the ground. The “good” witch looked down at them. “The good witch, unable to bear the sight of the villagers’ suffering, decided to help them.”
Y brought her right hand down and raised the arms of the other one. She then raised her right hand to hold the evil witch. She then shook the other one vigorously as she dramatically blew the evil witch off the stage. “She cast a powerful spell that sent the witch away, but…”
The “good” witch fell back down. “It was done so at the cost of her life.”
The sky slowly transitioned from dark and stormy to bright and sunny as Y narrated with a bright smile, “Once the evil witch was gone, darkness disappeared from the village. To this day, the people of the village are said to carry the good witch’s light within them. And everyone lived happily ever after.”
The audience broke out into applause. Soon after it died down, a boy nearby me asked, “But aren’t all witches evil?”
Y flinched for a fraction of a second, before she recovered with a smile. “That is simply not true. I’ve met a witch, one with a heart more light and loving than any fairy’s.”
More of the children began asking questions. I sighed, unable to do anything except wait until Y was finished answering all the questions bombarding her.
When they were done, I suddenly heard someone say, “Thank you!”
I looked down to see the boy next to me beaming. He squeezed my hand one last time before he ran off to join his friends. ...What did he thank me for?
Once the audience finally left, Y came out from her stage and grinned at me while her Pokemon dismantled the stage together.“The show was a success!”
Why does such a small gesture matter so much to him?
“Prince Xavier?”
I was startled out of my thoughts. “That boy...he thanked me even though I did not do anything for him.”
“The little boy who was with you?” she asked.
I nodded. Strangely, her grin grew. “But you did do something. You held his hand.”
“I did not want to,” I pointed out.
Y frowned. “I realized that when I saw the annoyed look on your face. It would have been good if you did it in an attempt to calm him.”
“What?”
“That boy was really frightened by that evil witch in the show.” She then smiled a little. “He thanked you because you held his hand and stayed with him the entire show. Sometimes just having someone beside you is enough.”
Having someone beside you?
I thought about all the times that I was scared. Mother always told me to hide my fear and never cry because it made me appear weak. I could never ask for her help, and the king was never there for me. Only my Pokemon were, but even when they tried to comfort me, I never cried in front of them. I am their commander, after all. And even though they were there, I still felt alone.
I shook off the memories when I heard Y ask me a question.
“What did you think of the show?”
“It was short,” I answered. “And simple.”
“That’s it?” Her eyes narrowed. “I created the entire show, you know. The story, the characters, everything.”
“It could’ve been better,” I simply replied.
Y bristled at my words, but suddenly, she calmed into a very strained smile. “Well, I would like to hear more detailed feedback from you about that. In fact, I would like you to help me make a puppet show in several weeks if you believe I could do better.”
I didn’t say anything more. I don’t have any other comments about the show, and I’m indifferent to the idea of helping her make a show.
Y sighed wistfully. “You know, you always complimented my stories even when you thought they were silly.”
I looked up, eyes widened. “What?”
Why does she act like we’ve known each other for a long time?
Y looked away from me, turning to her Pokemon who had finished dismantling the stage and collecting all of its parts and the props into three boxes. She played her flute, summoning her Rhyhorn. She then placed two of the boxes on his back and tied them down, the last one in Croaky’s hands. Soon after she did that, she played her flute again, sending all of her Pokemon but Fletchy back to the tavern. “Want to go to the toy shop before we head back?”
“Do I have much of a choice?” I muttered.
“Oh come on now, Prince Xavier!” She took my hand into hers, beaming at me. “It’ll be fun.”
Probably not, but I’m not going to argue with Y right now.
And with that, we went to the toyshop together.