Heliotrope

Chapter 1: Spring Crocus

I was so happy.

It was springtime, the flowers in full bloom. Our wedding was outside, in Vaniville Town. You can probably guess who our flower girl was, a blonde twelve year old who was only getting more boy crazy by the moment. Hair, just like mine, but lighter. The girl who every day I wish and hope and pray doesn't follow in my footsteps.

"I take you, Serena Yves-Petit, as my lawful wedded wife."

"And I take you, Ashley Ketchum, as lawful wedded husband."

"To grow."

"To journey."

"To discover and wonder."

"To blossom like the flowers in the forest."

"To stand tall against time itself with you, like the pyramids in the ancient desert."

"I do."

"I do."

We wrote our own vows. When we kissed, it was a hurricane in itself. Sudden, but yet so expected. Passionate, but yet so mesmerizing. I was now well acquainted with the soft feel and chocolate ice-cream taste of his lips, but it still managed to make me feel on top of the world. Perhaps even more so because this was the kiss that turned me into Serena Ketchum, the wife of a handsome and exotic young man from Kanto. This was it, we belonged to one another forever, now.

The last I thing I saw before we sealed that moment was the colour Ash's eyes. Golden brown. Like a henna tattoo.

The people around us cheered. Clemont, Bonnie, my mother, Ash's mother, Augustine, Tierno, Trevor, Shauna, Iris, Cilan and Ash's old friend, Misty, from Kanto. Even Miette was there. She had grown up a lot since we were both lovestruck teenagers vying for the attention of an older boy. Would it be immature to say I won? I was too happy to care. Yes. I won. Miette was finally accepting that.

There were of course many others there, Ash had friends in pretty much ever region, but those were the only people I knew well.

I pulled up my wedding dress. We sat with Clemont, Bonnie and Miette after our first dance. "I always knew you two would end up together." Bonnie loved anything and everything romantic. We always knew that she would be a handful to whichever lucky suitor ended up with her. "And Ash you finally found a wife!"

Ash chuckled, he nudged his blonde best friend, who was dressed in a smart, white shirt. "Don't worry, Bonnie, I'm sure your brother will soon!"

He laughed weakly, "I'm pretty sure Bonnie will be married before I am."

Miette was sat next to me, "Thank-you so much for inviting me. I'm so sorry. For everything."

I extended my hand for her to shake it, "It's alright. Forgive and forget. I hope we can become better friends."

"You know," she gratefully engaged in a handshake with me, "I would really like that, Mrs Ketchum." She smiled genuinely. I smiled back at her. This was proof that the love Ash and I shared could well and truly conquer all. It was so powerful even Miette and I were on good terms.

"Hey, you know it's true, Bonnie." Clemont was trying to calm down an angry girl with short hair.

"But if you think like that you'll never find a wife!" She huffed with puffy cheeks.

"I saw you flirting with a boy just then!"

"Oh really?" Ash playfully raised an eyebrow. "Who might that be?"

"Not telling." She crossed her arms and stared straight forward.

Later that night, I noticed Ash talking to Misty at the bar. Both a little tipsy, they were definitely great friends. The way she looked at him intrigued me. Just what was in those green eyes if her's? Was more than something simply platonic? No. Even if it was, what did it matter? He was my husband. Not her's.

Clemont sat beside me. It was now just me and the still seventeen-year old scientist. I was eighteen. Ash was twenty. You can drink at sixteen in Kalos. He had two drinks in his hands. He hands me one. "Strawberries." He said.

"My favourite." I took a sip. The music was booming around us, the chatter of the slightly drunk people at the party almost as loud. "How did you know?"

"You always loved strawberries, Serena." He tapped me on the shoulder and whispered, "Look. What did I tell you?" He points at a table in the massive function room.

I see his little sister sat with indeed, a boy. Blushing and giggling. Oh yes she was into him, alright. "Woah, he's like sixteen!"

"Fourteen actually, just tall." He looked down at the cream table cloth, then at the flowers in a vase on the table. "Two years, like you and Ash." His voice was curiously monotone when he said that.

Just like me and Ash. I hope not. I don't even know much about this kid but nobody deserves to feel like that.

I shrugged it off, "You asked Ash?"

He was dead serious, cold blue eyes. A very rare shade of blue, unlike any other. "Of course I did. He says he's mature, though. That's my sister over there, I'm not letting her get with just anyone."

I drank again. "You do realise you're trying to tell her who to marry, then? You're just as bad as she was when she used to ask random girls to 'be your wife'."

"Maybe it's genetic, but at least he has glasses. She seems to have a thing for men with glasses, which I can respect." He giggled at his own awful joke.

But my eyes wondered to something else. Ash. Now with Dawn, May and Misty. Had he ever liked them? Even just at one point? I felt like I was being irrational. But it wasn't cute or endearing like when Clemont did it.