Mute
To: AmericanPiDriftveil City was gray in wintertime, its boat-sails lowered and stored, skeletal upright masts in a thicket around the docks, their wings clipped. The sky was the same dirty gray as the fossilized piles of slush along the street, the wind stirring desultory whirls of snowflakes down empty sidewalks. Even the pennants on the lampposts, snapping and straining in the wind, were dull and washed-out in the dim pre-dawn light.
Pidgeot soared above it all, his crest a splash of color in the murk. He swept down to the boardwalk along the harbor, landing heavily on a metal railing and waiting.
"Come on, lazybeak," Falkner said once his jogging had finally caught him up to his friend. "You know you get grumpy if you don't get the chance to stretch your wings before a fight. Keep moving."
Pidgeot was fluffed nearly spherical, eyes reproachful and beak disappearing into his chest-feathers. Those feathers swayed and rippled in the cold wind, lightly snow-dusted already.
"I know. It's early for me, too." But this was the only time Falkner could get away from the tournament without being mobbed by fans and admirers, same as any one of its stars. The silent hotels along the street were full of people who'd come halfway around the world to watch him and the other gym leaders fight. Later in the day the sight of a pidgeot overhead would bring them all swarming, and neither he nor Pidgeot would get any peace.
Pidgeot fluffed again, shaking off snowflakes, and gripped the railing under him all the tighter. His narrowed eyes dared Falkner to dislodge him. He wasn't moving from this spot, not until, maybe, the sun came up and the bitter wind ceased.
Falkner grinned and took a couple of broad, tiptoeing steps forward, his hands raised. "Okay," he said. "If that's how you want to be, we can--"
"Mister?"
Falkner froze, then turned slowly, finding behind him a child so bundled it was nearly as round as Pidgeot. "Yes?" Falkner said.
"You're the famous bird master, aren't you? From Johto?"
Falkner gave a mental sigh of exasperation and glanced back at Pidgeot. No point denying it with the big bird sitting right there. Pidgeot's narrow gaze now seemed smug. He certainly would have seen the child coming, but hadn't warned his trainer. "Yes," Falkner said.
Mittened hands gestured vaguely in the direction of the street. "My pokémon..."
Falkner's heart lurched. It was definitely too early for this, for examining some sick or injured bird, someone suffering. But he had to go, of course. He couldn't simply leave them. "Show me," he said, and the child scampered off down the road, boots crunching in old snowpack.
Falkner turned his head briefly, just to be sure Pidgeot was indeed rising from his perch, broad wings beating against the cold air. He'd follow.
The child hurried on ahead, and Falkner kept one pace behind, trying to control his impatience. It couldn't be an emergency, no trainer would come to him before the pokémon center for something serious. Probably just a pokémon who didn't like the food their trainer was buying for them, who was missing home, something along those lines. That's what he told himself, and still he longed to move faster.
The child made for a trainer hotel up the street, small and shabby-looking between high-rises that had sprung up to house World Tournament spectators. It would be packed too, of course, and expensive despite old and tatty rooms and a lack of amenities. At least it was warm in the lobby, Falkner taking a moment to stamp snow off his boots while the child ran on ahead. Pidgeot landed behind him in a whirl of backbeats, stalking into the lobby and then pausing to shake himself off, vibrating from head on down to tail, scattering droplets from every quivering feather.
"Well, you got what you wanted," Falkner murmured to his partner. "We're out of the cold."
Pidgeot ignored him and started after the child, head bobbing as he went. Falkner followed until Pidgeot forced his way through a hotel room's small doorway. Inside Falkner found the child shedding hat and boots and mittens, unwinding an apparently endless scarf.
"Saw you were going to be battling here this week," the child said. With the outerwear shucked it proved to be a young girl, frowning to herself while she crammed discarded clothing onto the narrow bed. "I had to come down here, to ask you, but--always so many people around after your battles--Here--" She grabbed a pokéball from the belt coiled on the room's battered desk and released a small blue bird. "It's my swablu. She won't sing!"
Falkner frowned and leaned forward, holding his hands out together. The swablu hesitated for a moment, black eyes alert and wary, then hopped up into them. Falkner brought her up to eye level, checking for obvious problems, running his thumbs down the pokémon's sides, feeling where the cotton-fluff wings met her body. The swablu weighed hardly anything at all, her tiny body warm against Falkner's fingers.
Pidgeot pushed in around Falkner's side. He stood at least a head taller than the child, and the swablu was smaller than even one of his taloned feet. Bite-sized. She pressed herself down into Falkner's hands, trying to shrink away from Pidgeot's gaze, so he could feel her pulse racing under the thin layer of feathers.
"Don't mind him, he just wants to get a look at you," Falkner said. He shifted to put his shoulder between Pidgeot and the swablu, and Pidgeot gave him a reproachful look.
The child was babbling on at his elbow. "The nurses say there's nothing wrong, but she's quiet all the time! Swablu are supposed to love singing, but she won't. I don't know what's wrong!"
The bird appeared healthy. "Can you try to sing for me?" Falkner asked.
The swablu considered him for a few seconds, then finally opened her beak and produced a few high, clear notes. Nothing out of the ordinary. Falkner raised an eyebrow at the girl.
"She can sing but she won't," she said in the exasperated tone of someone who thought he hadn't been listening at all. "And she watches other birds that are singing and acts all sad. Sometimes she goes over and tries to fight them! I don't know what's wrong."
"Mmm." The swablu was looking up at him with those alert, dark eyes. Falkner could already tell that what was going to come next was going to be exhausting. "Well, I agree with the nurses. She seems perfectly healthy to me. Beautiful plumage, especially for her age."
The swablu fluffed herself up and fussed with her wings, looking smug. Her trainer beamed. Yes, well. That was the buttering-up part. No one was going to like what came next. "The singing, though." Falkner brought the swablu up to eye level. "Is there a reason you don't want to sing?"
Now the black-button eyes wouldn't meet his. The swablu made a half-hearted chirp. "Do you miss home?" Falkner asked. "Do you feel tired? Lonely?" More vaguely negative noises, maybe a bit annoyed. "If there's anything you want to say, you could tell Pidgeot, if you would be more comfortable. Or my xatu." Xatu tended to put pokémon more at ease than Pidgeot did.
The swablu gave another half-hearted chirp and turned to the side, wouldn't even look up at him anymore. Didn't want to talk about it.
"Any ideas?" Falkner asked Pidgeot. The big bird leaned in, immediately bringing the swablu out of her aloof funk with a nervous glance and ruffle of her feathers. Pidgeot clucked a couple of harsh syllables at her, and her burbled reply sounded as dismissive to Falkner as the one she'd given him. Pidgeot settled back on his talons again and made a kind of muffled grunt before digging at one shoulder with his beak. No idea.
"Well," Falkner said, "If I had to guess, I might say your swablu was stressed. Sometimes pokémon that haven't been on the road before don't really know what they're getting into when they choose a trainer. She might be better off returning to her home, at least for a little while. Taking a break--"
"What?" the girl said, and the swablu took off from Falkner's hands with a couple quick fans of her cotton-puff wings, drifting over to her trainer. "Are you saying it's my fault?"
Yes, it was definitely too early to be dealing with this sort of thing. Especially since Falkner had to be ready for his first match at nine, a match against Jasmine, of all people. "No, it's nobody's fault. I'm not trying to say that you're a bad trainer or anything of the sort. Sometimes things don't work out, and it's nobody's fault. But if your swablu isn't singing because she doesn't feel well, then maybe the best thing to do would be to take her back--"
"That's stupid!" the girl snaps, face starting to flush. "I thought you were supposed to be the master of bird pokémon! That's the best you can come up with? She needs to go home?" The swablu chirped derisively.
Far too early. Falkner resisted the urge to rub his eyes. Next to him Pidgeot made a gruff noise that shut the swablu up, at least. "That's the first thing that comes to mind, yes. I know it's hard to hear, but these things happen. If you want, I can spend more time with your swablu later to see if I can pick up on anything else, but that's all I can think of for now."
The girl was actually glaring at him, nostrils flaring and face darkened with anger. "No," she said tightly. "No, I think we're fine." Her swablu whistled loud agreement, then shrank hastily back against her trainer's side, anticipating a glare from Pidgeot.
"Very well," Falkner said tightly. "Best of luck to both of you, then. We have to be getting to the stadium soon. Pidgeot." The big bird warbled something low and definitely did give the swablu that glare before turning to follow Falkner from the room.
Back outside it was biting cold as ever, and damp, and Falkner drew his coat up tighter, with little effect, as the wind came sweeping back through. "Some days I really hate being a gym leader," he muttered to Pidgeot, who nudged his shoulder with a beak, and turned back towards the bay. "Come on, lazybeak. We weren't done with your exercise."
--
"Swablu won't sing, huh?" Janine asked, pushing through the doors and back out to the snowy cold. "Like a grimer gone off her garbage."
"Something like that," Falkner said. It was hard to keep track of what Janine was saying amidst all the clamor, people packing in close, as always, trying to get a clear look at the gym leaders, despite the cordons separating the challengers' area from the public. Janine didn't appear to notice the crowd, but Crobat, flitting in circles overhead, was scowling the way he always did when things got too loud for his sensitive ears. "It's a pretty classic sign of stress. Cessation of usual habits, withdrawal, aggressive behavior--she mentioned the swablu attacks other birds for no reason, sometimes."
"But she said no, huh?"
"But she said no. No, it definitely had to be something else. Like she didn't come to me because I'm supposedly an expert and then reject everything I said."
"Hmm." Crobat got one blast of winter wind and then came zooming down, burying himself in the loose loop of Janine's scarf, upside-down so the slender blades of his wings stuck out from her back like a halo. Pidgeot made a laughing chirp at him, and the bat's eyes appeared briefly below the scarf, glaring, before Crobat retreated again into the warmth. "That's too bad. It would be nice it it was easy, but I'm sure you'll figure it out eventually."
"Figure it out! I already figured it out," Falkner said. "The problem is she wouldn't listen. It wasn't what she wanted to hear."
"Hmm," Janine said again. Falkner was content to follow her, doing his best to ignore the fans around them, clamoring for attention. Already the crowd had thinned dramatically; Janine had some strange intuition about crowds, somehow seeming to slip out from them, find little side-streets and redoubts where she could lose them, without even thinking about it. "Well, something about it must still be bothering you, if you're complaining about it to me now."
"What's bothering me is I couldn't help at all. She didn't believe me, she won't take my advice, so her swablu isn't going to get better. What's the point of being a gym leader if people are going to seek you out for your advice and then just ignore it anyway?"
Janine inclined her head. "My dad always says when you have a tough problem, sometimes you can't face it head on. You gotta sneak up on it. And what do you have to do to do that?" She put a finger to her lips, a shushing gesture, then broke into a grin.
"A ninja aphorism for every occasion, your dad," Falkner said, but he couldn't help but smile back.
"Like I said, you'll figure it out," Janine replied. "You don't have any matches until tomorrow afternoon, right? Want to do lunch? I'm going to be free."
"Sure. And good luck against Blaine tomorrow."
"Heh. You know I've got that one in the bag," Janine said. "Catch you later, then."
Janine had a way of somehow taking one step and being out of sight, some ninja disappearing trick. The next moment she was gone. Falkner pushed his shoulders up around his ears, tucking himself deeper into his coat. On the street behind people were still milling around, excited over whoever was coming out of the tournament building now, maybe another gym leader, maybe even a Champion or Elite Four. Falkner didn't much want to find out, or to elbow his way through the people who would collect simply to see him. "Let's fly," he said to Pidgeot, and the bird didn't consider for long before crouching, letting Falkner up onto his back.
It wouldn't be a long flight, with the cold air even colder up high, the wind strong and biting. Pidgeot was warm under the top layer of feathers, where Falkner had his hands dug in, holding fast, but that didn't do much to cut the winter chill. He'd need to bring real flying gear if he wanted to make more than a quick hop.
There are people below looking up, pointing, but with a few wingbeats they all fall away, the city's lights gliding past below, lamps and windows glowing halos in more of that spitty-drifting snow, like the clouds aren't sure whether they want to put in the effort for a proper storm or not. Falkner isn't sure where Pidgeot is going--not back to the hotel, that would be in the other direction--but lets him do as he pleases. As long as he can get away from the humming crush around the stadium, he's happy to have the opportunity to walk around a bit, clear his head.
It looks like they're going for the water. Maybe Pidgeot's hoping for a fish. The bird glides down, circling, his crest whipping in Falkner's face from the random cold cross-breezes.
Down below the sailboats still bobbed at anchor, waiting for the cold winter winds to pass. Here and there the round dome of a frillish or jellicent protruded above the waves, drifting silently. With sunlight beginning to tinge the sky, the swanna were beginning to dance before a watching entourage of ducklett.
That was the usual routine, anyway. Today there was disarray down in the flock, ducklett quacking, swanna cruising menacingly after something, long necks stuck straight out, now and again lashing out with a powerful wing.
And what had gotten them so agitated? "Of course," Falkner muttered, heart seizing in his chest.
Pidgeot didn't need the sharp signal Falkner gave with his legs, diving of his own accord. He flew straight through the middle of the clamoring flock, the wind of his passage ruffling waves and knocking ducklett away on its own. With a bank and a swoop Pidgeot cut the swablu off from the angry birds around it, sweeping clear a circle of water around it.
The swablu chirped loudly and threw herself forward, trying to get at the lead swanna, who arched his neck and hissed. Pidgeot put himself between the two birds, sweeping and buffeting with his wings to drive the swablu back.
She went reluctantly, still yelling at the swanna, flitting up and down in an attempt to see around Pidgeot's bulk. The larger bird kept pushing her back, grimly, towards the shore. Falkner scanned the shoreline and, soon enough, there was the young trainer, running back and forth and yelling in a voice lost on the winter winds.
Falkner was expecting her to run off when the swablu finally gave up and went floating over to her of her own accord, but she waited, the swablu cupped in her hands, while Pidgeot landed and Falkner dismounted. She didn't exactly look thrilled about it, lower lip jutting like she was keeping her head up against adversity, but she stuck around.
"Do you want me to take another look at your swablu?" Falkner asked.
"Not here," the girl said. "And not if you're not going to even try again."
It took some mental teeth-gritting of Falkner's own not to comment on that. He pried them apart only when he felt certain what would come out. "Very well. Lead the way."
--
Back in the small room at the trainer hotel, the girl sat on the narrow bed, watching warily while Falkner and Pidgeot hung around uncomfortably by the door, watching her. The trainer had found a classical music channel on the little clock-radio by the bed, and the swablu was now pressed up right against the face of the device, obscuring the time, and listening avidly to something dramatic and skirling with violin.
"I see it's not the case that she simply doesn't appreciate music," Falkner said.
"She loves music!" the trainer said. "That's why I don't understand it. She can sing and she loves music, but she won't anyway. And then sometimes it's like she gets mad..."
"Like with the swanna and ducklett out there."
"Right!" The trainer pressed her palms together, squeezing her hands between her knees. "I don't get it, though. Usually she attacks pokémon that are singing, but swanna don't even do that really. They just dance around in the evening."
"I don't suppose you have anything to say for yourself?" Falkner asked the swablu. She gave him a brief, dark stare and then stuck her beak in the air, fussing with her wings and closing her eyes, pointedly ignoring him.
"I wish you would just tell me what was wrong," her trainer said with a sigh, which got no response.
"It's dangerous for her to go out with you if she attacks other pokémon like that. It could have been a real bad scene with those swanna if I hadn't been there."
"I know that!" the girl snapped.
Falkner stopped himself just short of saying that if she understood that, then maybe the best thing would to be to stop bringing the swablu along with her, for her own safety. Instead he forced himself to think of something, anything that might be going on here besides an unhappy pokémon acting out for attention. "She's always been like this?"
The girl nodded slowly. "I mean, we haven't been together long. I've only been training for almost four months now. It wasn't something I really noticed at first, but no, she's never really sung. Even though she can! And she likes music!"
Falkner nodded and went over to kneel beside the nightstand so his face was on a level with the swablu. "Why did you attack those swanna?" he asked.
The swablu fluffed out her cotton wings so her face practically disappeared into them and gave a sullen chirp. Well, there was no way Falkner could understand if she wouldn't tell him. "Can you tell Pidgeot? Maybe he can help me understand what you mean."
Swablu peered out at Pidgeot, who stood quietly at Falkner's side, watching. She emerged slightly from the fluff and whistled a rapid string of notes. Falkner had no clue what she might mean.
Pidgeot raised his wings slightly, chattering back at her. The conversation went back and forth, Pidgeot seeming bewildered, the swablu's chirps growing increasingly hostile, until finally she disappeared into her fluff again, sulking, half her body pressed up against the side of the radio.
Pidgeot shifted on his talons and sneezed, and glanced away when Falkner gave him a meaningful look. The bird raised his wings again and clapped them once, clearly meaning I don't know, then settled down watching the swablu.
The bird's trainer, meanwhile, had been sitting forward on the edge of the bed, watching the whole exchange while chewing on her lip. Falkner could tell she already knew what that meant, but she gave him an anxious look anyway, waiting.
"I don't know," Falkner said. The trainer slumped back, looking sadly over at her swablu. "I'm sorry. Pidgeot doesn't seem to understand what's going on either."
"Well, then what am I supposed to do?" the trainer asked. The swablu had retreated even farther under her wings and resembled a small, lost drift of fluffy cloud.
Falkner bit his tongue before he could say anything too biting. "I don't know. I don't know that we're going to be able to do anything unless Swablu is able to tell us what's wrong."
The bird's beak emerged enough to emit a brief, angry chirp, then retreated again. The girl kicked her heels, her feet not reaching the floor even on the hotel's low bed. "I thought you were supposed to know everything there was to know about bird pokémon."
Falkner's false smile felt thin and tight. "That would be nice, wouldn't it?"
--
The restaurant is one of Crobat's choosing, and Falkner has a strong suspicion that the bat picked it simply because it has chairs tall enough for him to hang from.
"You were great, though," he said. "The way you had Crobat use wind to control Rapidash's flames--you'll have to help me teach that to Pidgeot at least. It seems like it almost makes battling fire-types too easy."
"I told you it would be a piece of cake," Janine said, grinning. "Blaine's an old friend of my dad's. I know all his tricks already."
"Still, it was a great battle."
Janine makes a dismissive gesture with her chopsticks. "Thanks. But what about you? Did you make any progress on your swablu problem?"
"Not really." Falkner leans back in his chair, grimacing and with his tea in his hands, forgotten. "Something's up, obviously, but I can't figure out what. She won't tell me what. Or Pidgeot. Not anything he can understand, anyhow."
"My dad everything is simple if you look at it from the right angle," Janine said. "If something seems tricky, you must need to change your point of view."
"I think I'm getting a sense of why your dad decided to become a ninja instead of a nuclear physicist."
Janine laughed. "Stop. I mean it. Maybe this is such a puzzler because you're asking the wrong question."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, like... So what if the swablu doesn't like singing? Is that a crime?"
"It's like grimer and garbage, isn't it? Like you said. If a pokémon stops doing something it normally does, that's one of the best signs that it isn't feeling well, physically or mentally."
"And singing is something a swablu normally does?"
"Yes, of course."
"Mmm." Janine has a distant look in her eyes, like she's thinking. She's not convinced. "Think about if the swablu was human, though. If you said, 'Oh, all humans like pokémon, this one doesn't, there must be something wrong with her,' that would be weird, wouldn't it?"
"It's not the same thing at all. Swablu do like to sing. It's more like if a human stopped eating."
"Well," Janine says, "I'm sure you'll figure it out."
"You say that just because you know I'm going to go crazy thinking about it for days after this, don't you?"
"Hmm, sounds like I might be on to something!" Janine clacked her chopsticks at him. "Anyhow, did we agree that you were picking up the check for this one?"
"I don't know why I put up with you sometimes," Falkner said, but he was smiling as he waved the waiter over.
--
Falkner's own room, in the hotel attached to the stadium, was so large it made him feel small and had such elegant furniture that Falkner was afraid to actually use it in case he messed it up somehow. The huge and squashy bed was the kind you could fall into, and possibly drown in, but Falkner was feeling far too restless to go for a swim. He wasn't sure whether he was really this anxious about the swablu problem or whether he was anxious about his match the next day and trying to distract himself
"But she can sing. It's obviously not a physical problem," Falkner said aloud to the room, and to his pokémon, whichever of them were listening. Xatu always looks like she is, while Pidgeot was preening, drawing one feather at a time through his beak.
"Why attack other pokémon over it, though? She says it isn't jealousy, but what else could it be?"
Since Falkner wasn't taking advantage of the bed, Dodrio had claimed it for himself, tail-feathers overflowing one side and lanky legs the other, despite its size. Two was clearly asleep, but One made encouraging noises, eyes following Falkner as he went over to the window.
"I don't get it, and apparently she can't even explain it to other pokémon. Or maybe she's just afraid of Pidgeot."
The big bird huffed and stretched out a wing, working steadily down his primaries. Outside yellow streetlamps cast the fallen snow in dirty colors.
"So what is it? Why can't she just say what's wrong?" Falkner drummed his fingers on the windowsill. "Well, maybe she doesn't understand, either. But if she's unhappy, why...?"
Three spoke up from the bed, a few morose caws. It was all pointless anyway, might as well just give up one now. One started in on scolding him--or suggesting opportunities for improvement. One wouldn't like him putting things so negatively. Falkner stared absently out the window, lost in thought.
"And she likes music!" Falkner said. "It's not like Janine said, it's not like she just doesn't enjoy it and is tired of people bothering her about it, it's--"
Pidgeot made some kind of muffled noise into his feathers. "What? That's not right?" Falkner asked. "She likes music. You saw how she was hanging out with that radio."
Pidgeot made an annoyed noise and folded his wing back against his side. He whistled a couple of notes, then tipped his head towards Falkner.
"Ringtone?"
Pidgeot gave him a look like "I can't believe you think you're the one in charge when you're this stupid." He jabbed his beak at the phone, then at Falkner.
"Phone. My phone. Call? Calling. No." Pidgeot swept a wing at him, then spread both wings wide. He repeated the process, an opening sort of gesture. "Me, uh, wide? A lot of me? And the phone?"
Pidgeot screeched and beat his wings, which Falkner didn't think meant anything except exasperation. "Sorry, you know I'm not very good at this. Something to do with me?"
Pidgeot screeched again and took off alarmingly, so Falkner had to duck as he went past in a whirl of feathers. Pidgeot tried to alight on the windowsill, but his claws kept slipping; it was much too narrow. He hunched over awkwardly and rapped his beak against the glass.
Falkner came forward cautiously, trying to see out of the window again. Pidgeot had to keep scrambling to stay upright on the windowsill, and he was obstructing most of the view. Outside it looked like the same as ever, quiet with no battles going on in the stadium. Pidgeot twisted his head around and tapped insistently on the glass, in the general neighborhood of a couple of trainers walking down the street, their purrloin bounding along beside them.
"Trainers? Do you want to tell me something about Swablu's trainer?"
Pidgeot screeched in annoyance again and almost fell off the windowsill trying to make a negative gesture with his wing. It took him awhile to climb back up again, but Falkner hardly noticed, deep in thought. "So like me and like them, but not trainers. Do you just mean people?"
Pidgeot's chirp was encouraging, and he jabbed towards Falkner with his beak again. "Okay, so just me. Person. People, person, person like me. Oh, did you mean human?"
This time Pidgeot's screech was delighted. He was getting warmer. "Human ringtone? No, okay. Human, human... I was saying she liked music. Human music?" Pidgeot crowed and beat his wings, and from the bed One cheered him on, while Three grumbled that it probably didn't matter anyway and Two blinked around sleepily. "She doesn't like music, she likes human music? I still don't understand what you mean."
There was something there, though. Something that felt just out of his reach, but the glimmer of an idea nonetheless. "Okay, you troublemaker," Falkner said to Pidgeot, who was still prancing around and enjoying compliments from One, "I hope you're ready for another trip out in the cold."
--
"All right, one more time," Falkner said. He was leaning against the railing around the bay, tapping a conductor's baton against one of the railing's columns. "When I do this"--he pointed the baton at a swanna floating in front of the group, then moved it left--"you do...?"
The swanna rose and gracefully quick-stepped in a line to the left, wings held up in a halo around her head, webbed feet barely touching the surface of the water. The flock of ducklett and swanna behind her watched, a few giving appreciative quacks. One of the other swanna provided a bit of constructive criticism, and the dancer wheeled on him, hissing, and a flurry of jabbing necks and ruffled wings ensued.
"Okay, right, mostly. When the pointer goes left, you go left," Falkner said hastily over the honking commotion. "Now you try." He pointed at a flock of pidove Pidgeot had rounded up, sitting in a neat gray line along the rail. Pointing the baton at them made them let out an uncertain, warbling collective coo, on no particular note. Moving it towards One or Two made the respective Dodrio's respective head sing a note, but Falkner had never gotten Three to do anything on command but complain. A kind of squiggly flourish made Xatu's low hum escalate to a theremin wail. "Yeah, good, you just... good," Falkner said. "I think we're all ready. We just need to wait for the others to get back."
There was a pretty limited time for that to happen. Falkner was afraid the swanna contingent might fall apart completely in the next five minutes if something didn't happen to distract them from their squabbling. He'd sent Staraptor out to look for Janine a while ago, though, and turning to scan the streets he was relieved to see the big bird headed back, Janine so far behind that she was hard to make out, but following for sure.
A tremor of apprehension went through the gathered pokémon when Pidgeot winged down, settling himself on the railing just beside Falkner. The pidove shifted and cooed and looked like they felt they might have business elsewhere, but when Pidgeot looked over at them they settled down again, huddling closer and muttering amongst themselves.
"I'm guessing this means you've got your bird problem worked out?" Janine asked, jogging up to join him.
"I hope so," Falkner said. "We're just waiting on the bird in question, and then we'll find out."
"So what have we got going on here?" Janine asked, considering the array of pokémon. "Group therapy? Or, what, a choir?"
"Close," Falkner said, tipping the baton at her in a small salute. "Let's wait and see. I think our quiet swablu should be getting here soon."
He wouldn't have had time to explain anyway, with the commotion Staraptor caused when she thudded down next to Pidgeot. The pidove liked this even less, the swanna were still circling and shooting each other dirty looks, and then the young trainer was there, breath misting in the early-morning cold, with a chilled- and grumpy-looking swablu in her hands.
"Ah, there you are," Falkner said. "Can you guess what we've got going on here?" He gestured to the assembled birds.
The swablu regarded him cynically and chirped a negative. Falkner grinned and waggled the baton at her. "Watch."
A gesture and the pidove gave another nervous coo-chorus. One and Two hummed together. Staraptor and Pidgeot screeched and melodiously as they could. "Well, I don't really know how to use this thing," Falkner said, "but you get the--hey!"
The swablu lunged from her trainer's hands, grabbing the baton and sweeping over to land on the railing where Falkner had just been leaning. She wrestled with the baton, which was longer than she was, and accidentally set off a couple of pidove and sent a swanna gracefully pirouetting right into a ducklett.
She wrestled for a couple of minutes, setting a chirping cascade under her breath, but finally figured out how she could wave it, set up a wavering, shuddering beat. A couple of birds took their cues, hesitantly. Something like music began to arise.
"What's she doing?" the trainer asked quietly.
"Bird pokémon usually sing alone, not together. When they get together they're usually all just trying to talk over each other," Falkner said. "I figured your swablu was going after other birds because she wanted them to try one of her ideas, to sing together, and they didn't really understand what she was talking about. She got angry when she couldn't make them understand, they got angry when she got angry... you know. But listening to a trainer for commands is something they understand, so when I put it that way, they understood better."
"So she didn't want to sing because she didn't want to sing," the trainer said, watching the swablu hopping around, exhorting one of the ducklett. "But she still wanted to make music."
"More or less, I guess."
The trainer was silent, watching as the swanna finally got together with the rest of the group, beginning to catch the beat and match it with their dancing. A couple of early risers had stopped along the boulevard, taking in the spectacle. The swablu sat at the center of it all, carefully sweeping the baton, swaying gently with the beat.
"Thank you," the trainer said. "Thank you. I--she looks really happy. I never would have thought of that."
"It took me a while," Falkner said. "But I was lucky I had help." He grinned at Janine, who had a finger to her chin, considering the miniature concert.
"And what did I say? You figured it out," she said, elbowing Falkner in the ribs.
"I did, I did. But your dad's advice wasn't helpful at all."
"Well, you probably just didn't understand it well enough. You're not a ninja, after all."
"Jerk." Falkner watched the impromptu concert, which by now was starting to develop some actual harmony, the swablu getting a better feel for the baton. The beginnings of a swooping, dramatic melody began to emerge. Falkner felt like he'd heard it somewhere before. "You were definitely right about one thing, though. Most swablu might be meant to sing. But this one, I think this one was always meant to conduct."