My Name is Loto [Pokémon Fanfiction]

09| They Let Me Call it Home

"After trekking through the Red Desert for days and crossing a mountain range, the adventuring group came upon something wonderful," Cyryl read dramatically, their eyes sparkling with excitement. "It was like a paradise."

"Oh yeah?" I asked, laying my book down on my lap.

Cyryl nodded. "It was unlike anything else that had been seen on Rubrelum up until that point. There were trees with sprawling canopies and beautiful rivers winding between them, and fierce-looking yet gentle Pokémon called it home." They swept their arm out as they spoke, gesturing to the landscape they surely were picturing in their mind's eye. But as they did this, their hand almost knocked over the cup of tea beside them, and they flinched back.

"You okay?" I asked.

"Y-yes, I'm fine," they said, sighing. Apparently the bandages on their fingers covered up scars they'd received from spilling boiling water on themselves, and I could sympathize with why they didn't want to really mess with anything hot. As such, Alan had boiled and poured the tea we were drinking. "Anyways, th-this adventuring group had discovered what would eventually be known as Rubrelum's Crystal Savannah," Cyryl continued. Their eyes had regained that starry glint they'd held moments before.

"That's pretty wild-sounding," I said.

Cyryl grinned. "Isn't it? And there is so much more than just that on Rubrelum alone. I have everything in this book memorized." They stood and pulled a thick blue-green book from a nearby shelf. In cursive font the title read, Exploration and Discovery: A Chronicle of Verelum's Locales. "We just got the first volume of the Verelum set in last month, and I haven't been able to read it until this week," Cyryl beamed.

"Because I'd like our customers to get ahold of the merchandise before you," Alan said from the back of the store. "You have a habit of leaving pages dogeared!" Cyryl sulked, clutching the book to their chest.

The Noseks owned a bookstore, appropriately named "Nosek's Books." The place was small, but no space was wasted. There was enough paper packed in here to be a pretty serious fire hazard, and the air was thick with that inky, papery smell I adored. Because of the aforementioned hazard, windows and, as a byproduct, natural light were aplenty. Beyond those windows snow swirled, laying on the ground four inches deep.

A month had passed since I decided to try and turn over a new leaf, which took us deep into winter. Iga and Alan took turns manning the store with Cyryl while I tried to help out where I could. It turned out that I was pretty good at categorizing and sorting books, and I understood a lot of words that Cyryl couldn't even pronounce. Whatever the hell my life was like before, it must've involved a lot of reading.