Beast Speaker, Monster Tamer

65: Those Goodbyes That Seem So Permanent

Elise woke up with a jolt, tumbling off the surface she was lying on.

The blanket on top of her was dragged along as she hit the group with a 'phwumph'. Thankfully she didn't fall on her bad arm but the jolt sent a fierce bolt of pain that made her hiss and locked up her body for the duration it lasted. Slowly, it faded and she could focus outside of her body. In the pre-dawn darkness, it took the girl a moment to reorient herself and pull away from the grips of panic. Finding the dim silhouettes of the furniture around her, she let her head drop back onto the carpet in exhaustion.

Today...

You can sleep for a bit more, Elise.

It's way too early for this.

Sighing in disappointment, Elise curled deeper into her blanket bundle. Last night was one of the best nights of sleep she had had in recent days, but now that she was awake, Elise knew there was no way that she would be going bad to sleep. She allowed herself a few more minutes of respite. However, excitement began to bloom, pushing the tiredness into the back of her mind. Elise sat up and disentangled herself from her little nest. The blanket was painstakingly folded and deposited back on the couch and she headed up to her room.

Pan lifted his head in sleepy curiosity as she padded past him, but went back to sleep after she paid him no mind. Upstairs, she opened the door to her room—though she would be calling a new room hers by the end of the day. The wind rustled through the curtains as Elise crossed the space, pushing them aside as she leaned forward to look out the window. A final sunrise from this view.

Everything's changing yet everything feels the same.

But Elise knew that she was lying to herself. It was not the same anymore. Maybe the circumstances had turned on their head. Perhaps it had remained the same but she, herself, no longer experienced it the way she had before. But it was a fact that something had fundamentally shifted away from its original position.

Before she could get too lost, Elise pulled away and closed the window, heading to the bathroom.

No use thinking about that too much. We have a lot to do today.

Elise took one more look at the room around her. Silently bidding it farewell for now. If she had the time, she knew that she would come back, but it still felt wrong to leave without at least acknowledging the first space that she had truly called hers after leaving her parents. As she got ready for the day, the girl began to go over the itinerary.

It would be a final quiet breakfast together before the day would start off. She would get her cast removed and a final checkup, and then the drive to Musustafu from the hospital, with another stop in between. Hopefully, the gifts she was going to pick would help the fact that she took so long to come back.

Her throat itched as she arrived in the kitchen so Elise plugged the kettle in, knowing the rest of the household would need it too. Mugs were fetched from the cupboard and lined up in a row. Mentor's gunmetal mug gifted from his colleagues in the lab, Lucas's chipped one from all the times he knocked over his cup or when a machine exploded too close to it, and Elise's flower-painted one she got from a friendly old couple running their secondhand shop.

The first problem that came to her was uncorking the jar of honey lemon on the counter, the lid glued shut by the dried sugar. A few twists with it wedged between her knees yielded no result, frustration building and building until she wanted to shatter the thing against the wall.

Here, let me do it.

She relented, slamming the thing a little too harshly onto the table and bringing up Blaziken's Pokéball. With a flash of red, he was out and took the jar away from her. The flames on his wrist ramped up as he twisted it, unyielding despite the force. For a moment nothing budged until it snapped open with a 'pop'. Blaziken squawked as the lid flew out of his hand, fumbling before snatching it out of the air before it could hit the ground. The simmering anger dissipated at the spectacle, her lips quirking up in a small, tired smile.