From the Vast

Chapter 30: Sunrise

The first thing Anne heard was steps.

Distant, muffled through layers upon layers of linen, Safeguard, and fluff. On dirt, on snow, on carpet which increasingly became more of the former two by mass with each passing day.

Eventually, other sounds began to join in as well. Shuffling, clanks, thuds of wood against wood and flesh against flesh. Squeaks, growls, rattling of rock against itself in a way that most only perceived as intimidating noise but which was only meant as the warmest, most sincere greetings.

Voices.

She had no idea for how long she laid there, or even if she'd truly heard any of it. It was too vague to make much out of; could've been her mind playing tricks on her in hindsight. Ultimately, it didn't matter either way—she was here, on something soft, surrounded by blissful warmth, and so, incredibly, exhausted. The more her consciousness returned, the more she wanted to recede further under the thin blanket, to stem the unwelcome tide of awareness that refused to let her rest in peace.

It only worked for a few moments, and even that was an overly generous description.

Eventually, her tired self had no choice but to finally give in, to face the new day and its—

...

...

Wait.

Anne came to with a gasp, eyes snapping open before immediately clenching shut at all the light that assaulted them for daring to do that. Removed from the numbing fog of unconsciousness, her mind soon snapped back to action, resuming from the last thing it remembered.

The thirteen voices, loving and cruel and everything in between, debating on her fate.

Was it over? Had she just dreamt up the vote, and it was still yet to happen? Was everyone preparing to toss her out of this sanctuary to tend for herself? Was she—was she safe?

Even as Anne's heart jumped to full intensity in response to these thoughts, her mind found itself unable to dive deeper into them right away. Not with the sight that awaited her once she'd finally paid attention to what she was looking at.

A second bed, awkwardly placed a few feet from hers, at an angle. On it, Aria, asleep and disheveled. Anne didn't think the Gardevoir hairdo would always remain as well composed as it was in the textbooks, but this was something else, something messier. Unkempt, shinier than before, shaking. Her expression was tense and narrowed, her breaths as rapid and anxious as Anne's were just moments earlier.

She was still asleep, and yet looked like she was panicking—

"^She is exhausted, and struggling with a bad dream right now.^" - The dry voice took Anne aback; her throat only barely stifled the gasp that almost left it. Before adrenaline could even finish grasping her body, the girl was already scanning around the room for the source of the sound. She could've sworn she'd heard it before, but who... oh.

Despite having her glasses on, Anne couldn't make out all the details of the Delphox sitting in the shaded corner. They looked... calm, as far as she could tell, but that in itself clarified woefully little. The more she stared at them, the more her recollection tingled, taking its sweet time pushing through the quickly solidifying concrete slab of traumatizing memories of the vote and the discussion that preceded it.

Guess Ember's mom sitting here and looking after her made some sense with what she'd said yesterday.

Both because of her promise to look after her, and—as her senses soon pointed out to the girl—because of Ember being here, too. Anne could feel her shuffling behind her, slowly following her towards awareness. The Delphox being here made sense, but wasn't any less unnerving because of that.