1. Ash's Story (Part 10: Galar)

Chapter 91: The Lost Crown

The cold outside the Max Lair followed us like a second cloak, even after the cave mouth fell behind us. Snow crunched under my boots, and Freezington waited ahead in a pocket of white fields, old houses, and smoke curling from chimneys.

Peony was already hurrying toward the village as if he had spotted buried treasure. Elena sighed through her scarf, but she kept walking after him. Alice glanced at me, eyes bright despite the cold, and I nodded.

"If Peony is running that fast, either he found the base or he lost it already," I said.

Elena rubbed her forehead. "With Uncle Peony, those are not different possibilities."

Pikachu balanced on my shoulder and leaned forward, tail twitching toward the village, "The loud one is excited, but the snow is listening too."

I brushed one hand against Pikachu's back. The meaning settled through me with the same careful warmth that had guided us through stranger places than this one. Freezington looked quiet, but the silence did not feel empty.

A man in a heavy coat stepped out from beside one of the houses and blinked at us as if visitors had become the day's biggest surprise. "Hello, hello! What have we here? Another visitor?"

"You can say that," I answered.

"I am the mayor of this fair town of Freezington," he said proudly. "It is a surprise to have visitors arriving in our out-of-the-way town one after another. Might you be here to learn about the legend of the King of Bountiful Harvests as well?"

Alice and I looked at each other. "What is that?" we asked together.

The mayor chuckled, though it carried more habit than belief. "Ah, never mind. It hardly bears asking. There is very little otherwise to attract visitors to our sleepy corner of the region. People come all this way to investigate what turns out to be a mere fairy tale."

He reached into a package near his door and drew out a warm boatneck sweatshirt with a strange crowned Pokémon printed across the front. The head was huge, almost too huge for the small body under it.

"Since you made the journey, I must offer you this Freezington specialty," the mayor said. "A shirt emblazoned with the likeness of the King of Bountiful Harvests. It has not sold quite as well as we hoped."

Alice accepted it carefully. Elena studied the design with narrowed eyes.

"The illustration is based on extremely ancient accounts of the king's appearance," the mayor explained. "Hence the unusually sized head. We thought it might make the design a touch more modern. If you would like to see what the king really looked like, take a look at the statue by the fields in the center of our village."

He bowed politely and left us with the sweatshirt, the fields, and the feeling that Freezington remembered its own legend only because it had boxes of souvenirs left.

"Over here!" Peony shouted from somewhere ahead.

His voice came from a house with a flag stuck proudly out front. The flag snapped in the wind with such dramatic confidence that I almost expected it to belong to a ship instead of a snowy village house.

Elena stared at it. "What is it now? Does he think he is a pirate?"

"You really do have an interesting uncle," I said.

"That is one word for it," Elena muttered.

Inside, warmth from the fireplace rolled over us. We shook snow from our boots, removed our heavy jackets, and settled near the hearth. Peony stood in the middle of the room like he had conquered the place personally.