sub rosa, for nekusagi
Title: sub rosa
Author: rhubarb_tart
Rating: PG
Verse: Games [Gen IV/V]
Characters: Caitlin, Darach
Summary: The roses are always in bloom this time of year. For nekusagi. ♥
Warnings: N/A
At her birth she is given the name Caitlin Rose, in honor of her grandmother. It is the first rose she is ever given.
✿
On her tenth birthday Caitlin’s father presents her with a pokéball, sleek and black with rings of gold and red. She brightens when she releases it, her first true pokémon, not borrowed or traded or bought but one her father sent the butler to capture, just for her. All for her. It’s small and simple and white with green; her father tells her the species is named ralts.
Caitlin bounces on her heels, begs her father for just one battle with a real trainer, after all, there is plenty of daylight left, and just one, please daddy-
She’s out the door within two minutes, pokéball in hand, the butler following closely behind.
It isn’t long before she runs into other trainers but it takes quite a while for her to find one that doesn’t own such powerful pokémon. Though she’s certain her new pokémon could take them on, the butler forbids it and Caitlin knows better than to disobey her elders. Instead she finds a nice young boy with a kricketot and challenges him to a battle.
She loses.
The boy is lucky to be alive.
Her ralts, feeding off of her emotions, flees.
She runs, too.
She runs, away from the battle, from the boy, from her pokémon, and she doesn’t look back. She runs until she reaches home, runs into her mother’s arms and cries, cries, cries because what happened, how could this happen?
When she wakes in the morning, her ralts is perched on the end of her bed, along with a rose.
✿
On her thirteenth birthday Caitlin becomes the Battle Castle’s princess. She isn’t allowed to battle, hasn’t been allowed to battle properly in three long years, so she sits atop a throne and oversees the battles of her butler.
(She hates him, how dare he, she should be the one battling there, blasting sense into those trainers’ heads, fighting them, beating them, winningwinningwinning-)
“Lady Caitlin?”
Caitlin startles, fingers tightening around the armrest until her knuckles are white with restraint. She swiftly reviews the battle in her mind, noting and calculating and double-checking, ignoring the stares from beneath her.
“Twenty-six CP for this trainer,” she orders. “At once!”
She can’t say his name. She’s never said his name. She’s afraid of what will happen, afraid of her hatred and her power and why, oh Arceus, why does it have to be this way? She deserves to battle, deserves to win, and who does he think he is to stand between her and her dreams?
Caitlin twists between her fingers the rose she discovered on her seat earlier that day, before tossing it to the floor below.
✿
On her fifteenth birthday Caitlin is offered a position as the head of Johto’s Battle Castle. She’s visited a few times, filled in between Frontier Brains after they were fired or simply left of their own volition, but she’s less than certain that it’s the place for her.
“Darach,” she begins carefully, pausing to sip her tea, making a point of avoiding eye contact, “shall we go to Johto?”
She sees him set his own cup down in her periphery, hears it clack against the plate, but he doesn’t answer. She takes another sip of her tea and waits, waits as always, his responses to her preceded by the utmost thought and concentration. She can appreciate the care and consideration he takes for her, can appreciate the thin line his mouth forms mid-rumination, the slight furrow of his brow, the curve of his jaw-
Well.
Caitlin takes another sip.
“In my opinion,” he begins, and she promptly glances at him, releasing her breath, “you should follow your heart.”
Her heart (foolishly) skips a beat, then plummets. She relies on Darach, more than she will ever admit aloud, and this is the advice he gives her? How... how...
“Unacceptable!” she declares, placing her cup on the table a little more forcefully than she intended. She flushes at the crack along its side but is undeterred still. “Speak freely.”
Darach seemingly ignores her as he stands and exits the room, returning with a towel. Caitlin watches, lips pursed, as he wipes drops of tea from the table and collects their dishes in his hands. She watches as he turns to leave, making it as far as the doorway before pausing, looking back. She flushes anew at being caught.
“I suggest a good night’s rest, Lady Caitlin,” he says, and then he’s gone.
That night she finds a rose on her pillow and a blank postcard of a land called Unova.
✿
On her nineteenth birthday Caitlin applies for a position at Unova’s Elite Four. She’s ready, can no longer find a reason to return home other than the occasional visit to her parents. There’s nothing else left for her in Sinnoh. Not anymore.
It takes a few months after she submits her application, months of advanced training, a background check, questions about her past she feels prepared to answer at last. She can do this. Her name is Caitlin, she possesses psychic powers, and she is in control.
Largely, anyway. She no longer pretends to be perfect. (She was never perfect, never in control, never enough, not for her pokémon, not for herself, not to keep him from leaving-)
Caitlin takes a deep breath.
She decides on her pokémon, her gallade.
Alder selects his escavalier.
She loses.
This is acceptable.
“Congratulations, Miss Caitlin,” Alder says, smile reaching his eyes, stepping forward to shake her hand. Caitlin is baffled.
“I did not win.”
“Winning isn’t everything.”
She knows. Oh, she knows.
On her first day as an Elite Four Caitlin prepares to face a trainer. Instead it’s a boy who delivers a rose, refusing to disclose the sender’s name.
✿
On her twentieth birthday Caitlin sits atop her bed and waits for a challenger she’s heard is coming. Saving her for last, it seems, a situation that has always perplexed and intrigued her. Does the trainer perceive her as strongest? Weakest? Do these trainers even consider an order or do they simply choose at random?
It no longer matters when it is Darach standing at the top of her platform.
She doesn’t know what to say, what she is supposed to say, what does a person say at a time such as this, and the room shakes and lightbulbs shatter and she burns and hates and what right does he have, barging in here after-
“You left me!” she accuses, only a thin psychic barrier keeping him from her, away from her, just go away-
“It was necessary.”
“You left me!”
“It was necessary!”
“For what purpose?” she shouts. And just like that, he pulls a rose from his jacket.
Caitlin collapses to the floor.
She doesn’t know what to say. She’s never known what to say, what to think, what to feel. She’s unstable, a flurry of emotions and thoughts and yet he’s been there all along, her own personal guardian, protecting her from the world. From herself.
Darach’s shoes come into view and she wants to run, scream, cry, sleep. He leans forward, presents the rose to her with bare hands, and she plucks it gently from his fingers.
“You would have never bloomed otherwise, my lady,” he says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world, and perhaps it is.
She feels exhausted.
He kneels on the floor beside her, like a knight in shining armor; she’d always held a fondness for fairy tales. “I am quite thankful you were born during such a beautiful month.”
Caitlin laughs hoarsely. “Why so?”
He smiles, presses a kiss to her temple. “The roses are always in bloom this time of year.”
Author: rhubarb_tart
Rating: PG
Verse: Games [Gen IV/V]
Characters: Caitlin, Darach
Summary: The roses are always in bloom this time of year. For nekusagi. ♥
Warnings: N/A
At her birth she is given the name Caitlin Rose, in honor of her grandmother. It is the first rose she is ever given.
✿
On her tenth birthday Caitlin’s father presents her with a pokéball, sleek and black with rings of gold and red. She brightens when she releases it, her first true pokémon, not borrowed or traded or bought but one her father sent the butler to capture, just for her. All for her. It’s small and simple and white with green; her father tells her the species is named ralts.
Caitlin bounces on her heels, begs her father for just one battle with a real trainer, after all, there is plenty of daylight left, and just one, please daddy-
She’s out the door within two minutes, pokéball in hand, the butler following closely behind.
It isn’t long before she runs into other trainers but it takes quite a while for her to find one that doesn’t own such powerful pokémon. Though she’s certain her new pokémon could take them on, the butler forbids it and Caitlin knows better than to disobey her elders. Instead she finds a nice young boy with a kricketot and challenges him to a battle.
She loses.
The boy is lucky to be alive.
Her ralts, feeding off of her emotions, flees.
She runs, too.
She runs, away from the battle, from the boy, from her pokémon, and she doesn’t look back. She runs until she reaches home, runs into her mother’s arms and cries, cries, cries because what happened, how could this happen?
When she wakes in the morning, her ralts is perched on the end of her bed, along with a rose.
✿
On her thirteenth birthday Caitlin becomes the Battle Castle’s princess. She isn’t allowed to battle, hasn’t been allowed to battle properly in three long years, so she sits atop a throne and oversees the battles of her butler.
(She hates him, how dare he, she should be the one battling there, blasting sense into those trainers’ heads, fighting them, beating them, winningwinningwinning-)
“Lady Caitlin?”
Caitlin startles, fingers tightening around the armrest until her knuckles are white with restraint. She swiftly reviews the battle in her mind, noting and calculating and double-checking, ignoring the stares from beneath her.
“Twenty-six CP for this trainer,” she orders. “At once!”
She can’t say his name. She’s never said his name. She’s afraid of what will happen, afraid of her hatred and her power and why, oh Arceus, why does it have to be this way? She deserves to battle, deserves to win, and who does he think he is to stand between her and her dreams?
Caitlin twists between her fingers the rose she discovered on her seat earlier that day, before tossing it to the floor below.
✿
On her fifteenth birthday Caitlin is offered a position as the head of Johto’s Battle Castle. She’s visited a few times, filled in between Frontier Brains after they were fired or simply left of their own volition, but she’s less than certain that it’s the place for her.
“Darach,” she begins carefully, pausing to sip her tea, making a point of avoiding eye contact, “shall we go to Johto?”
She sees him set his own cup down in her periphery, hears it clack against the plate, but he doesn’t answer. She takes another sip of her tea and waits, waits as always, his responses to her preceded by the utmost thought and concentration. She can appreciate the care and consideration he takes for her, can appreciate the thin line his mouth forms mid-rumination, the slight furrow of his brow, the curve of his jaw-
Well.
Caitlin takes another sip.
“In my opinion,” he begins, and she promptly glances at him, releasing her breath, “you should follow your heart.”
Her heart (foolishly) skips a beat, then plummets. She relies on Darach, more than she will ever admit aloud, and this is the advice he gives her? How... how...
“Unacceptable!” she declares, placing her cup on the table a little more forcefully than she intended. She flushes at the crack along its side but is undeterred still. “Speak freely.”
Darach seemingly ignores her as he stands and exits the room, returning with a towel. Caitlin watches, lips pursed, as he wipes drops of tea from the table and collects their dishes in his hands. She watches as he turns to leave, making it as far as the doorway before pausing, looking back. She flushes anew at being caught.
“I suggest a good night’s rest, Lady Caitlin,” he says, and then he’s gone.
That night she finds a rose on her pillow and a blank postcard of a land called Unova.
✿
On her nineteenth birthday Caitlin applies for a position at Unova’s Elite Four. She’s ready, can no longer find a reason to return home other than the occasional visit to her parents. There’s nothing else left for her in Sinnoh. Not anymore.
It takes a few months after she submits her application, months of advanced training, a background check, questions about her past she feels prepared to answer at last. She can do this. Her name is Caitlin, she possesses psychic powers, and she is in control.
Largely, anyway. She no longer pretends to be perfect. (She was never perfect, never in control, never enough, not for her pokémon, not for herself, not to keep him from leaving-)
Caitlin takes a deep breath.
She decides on her pokémon, her gallade.
Alder selects his escavalier.
She loses.
This is acceptable.
“Congratulations, Miss Caitlin,” Alder says, smile reaching his eyes, stepping forward to shake her hand. Caitlin is baffled.
“I did not win.”
“Winning isn’t everything.”
She knows. Oh, she knows.
On her first day as an Elite Four Caitlin prepares to face a trainer. Instead it’s a boy who delivers a rose, refusing to disclose the sender’s name.
✿
On her twentieth birthday Caitlin sits atop her bed and waits for a challenger she’s heard is coming. Saving her for last, it seems, a situation that has always perplexed and intrigued her. Does the trainer perceive her as strongest? Weakest? Do these trainers even consider an order or do they simply choose at random?
It no longer matters when it is Darach standing at the top of her platform.
She doesn’t know what to say, what she is supposed to say, what does a person say at a time such as this, and the room shakes and lightbulbs shatter and she burns and hates and what right does he have, barging in here after-
“You left me!” she accuses, only a thin psychic barrier keeping him from her, away from her, just go away-
“It was necessary.”
“You left me!”
“It was necessary!”
“For what purpose?” she shouts. And just like that, he pulls a rose from his jacket.
Caitlin collapses to the floor.
She doesn’t know what to say. She’s never known what to say, what to think, what to feel. She’s unstable, a flurry of emotions and thoughts and yet he’s been there all along, her own personal guardian, protecting her from the world. From herself.
Darach’s shoes come into view and she wants to run, scream, cry, sleep. He leans forward, presents the rose to her with bare hands, and she plucks it gently from his fingers.
“You would have never bloomed otherwise, my lady,” he says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world, and perhaps it is.
She feels exhausted.
He kneels on the floor beside her, like a knight in shining armor; she’d always held a fondness for fairy tales. “I am quite thankful you were born during such a beautiful month.”
Caitlin laughs hoarsely. “Why so?”
He smiles, presses a kiss to her temple. “The roses are always in bloom this time of year.”