Music in media: Remedy by Adele

17 January, Monday, 5:30 p.m. | Winter

"Poor girl... Look at her squirm, Anthea!" The blonde lady's lips drooped as she knelt beside Rae, watching the girl throw her limbs about like a Chewtle flipped on its back.

"It's not the fits." Anthea tapped her chin and sighed. She tucked her pink hair behind her ears and knelt beside her sister. "Get the towel."

Neither moved, their eyes fixed on the girl, now coughing, now crying in her sleep. She had not a moment of rest since she sipped her tea.

"Concordia, get the towel!"

The blonde lady rose with a grunt. "It's not going to be of use."

Concordia brought the wet towel in a shallow pail nonetheless and wrung it twice before folding it into a rectangle and placing it gingerly on Rae's forehead.

Anthea shook her head and sighed. "She was distraught enough when we found her. She doesn't have a Pokémon with her either."

"Doesn't she remind you of those gijinka?"

"Oh, sister, what has gotten into your head nowadays?" Anthea got up as she pushed her hands off her knees. "I doubt it's Darkrai, but she does seem like she's having a nightmare."

"It sounds different."

"What?"

"The music."

"Well, that's been going on for days."

"No, listen."

Anthea frowned and perked her ears up. Then her eyes widened in surprise. "No way! It's restored to normal."

"But how?"

"Maybe we should check it out."

"But the girl."

As the sisters glanced uneasily between Rae and each other, the door opened. They averted their gaze to the visitor and gasped.

"N?" They exclaimed in unison.

The chartreuse-haired man smirked at their surprise. "My sisters."

"What's going on? Why are you back already?" pressed Concordia.

N harrumphed and tapped the coffee table, motioning to Rae. "I know her. We met in Nimbasa."

The two sisters exchanged glances.

Then N added, "Well, Meloetta has fled Driftveil, which explains why the lullaby has stopped. However, its effects remained. It was a good call to carry everyone indoors after the collapse."

They sighed in relief. Anthea and Concordia were his foster sisters and excellent caretakers at that. When Driftveil City was under the siege of the lullaby, they took swift action. However...

"I still find it strange," Anthea remarked. "Hey, have you figured out why the lullaby didn't affect us?"

N's face darkened. "Team Plasma. Zoroark was on the lookout, said the Shadow Triad escaped the lighthouse. It appears they had some business there with Meloetta."

"Aren't they..."

N nodded. There was no avoiding this, as much as he hated to utter that detestable name. "Ghetsis's henchmen."

Their father. Still, it was unexplainable. What were his men up to when he was still in the Opelucid Prison? No, perhaps this lullaby was no coincidence. Could it be practice to put the guards to sleep and sneak Ghetsis out?

But why now of all times? There was no special reason. Was it complacency? Were the guards becoming complacent enough for the Shadow Triad to manipulate? No, that sounded like a stupid reason. Well, such stupidity wasn't exactly beneath the trio.

"You've grown quiet for a while," Anthea observed.

"Say something," said Concordia.

N sighed and stared at Rae. Pressing the bridge of his nose, he stepped forward and ran a finger across her nails, razor sharp and very much unlike a human's.

"I'll take care of her. You should both rest in your rooms. You must be tired."

The sisters nodded and retreated with relief. N was always dependable. They could count on him to help the poor girl, perhaps.

Meanwhile, N wet and wrung the towel, his gaze fixed on the distressed girl. It was neither pity nor contempt. Curiosity perhaps? How do you explain the feeling that supercedes even your own lethargy, a feeling that climbs up the ladder of the heart as if it were a dry well you had wandered into in broad daylight, in a daze, how you had to live for someone else to survive, you had to find and replenish the water in the well, the dreary driness of life? N dug out a bottle or glittery substance from his pocket. He had found it at the doorstep with a stray strand a shade of green slightly darker than his. A colour so rare could only belong to him.

N snickered. "Icosa Kalomiris... Must you go to such lengths to avoid me?"

He rolled the bottle between his fingers. The substance swished about, liquid-like. N recognised it from years ago when he crossed paths with the heroes of Unova, one of Team Plasma's first missions which was unsurprisingly a failure.

Dream Mist.

Though, what good would it do to observe her nightmare? Well, if he remembered correctly, Fennel had once used some Dream Mist to restore an Archen from a Plume Fossil... No, it was too much of a gamble. But there must be something it was capable of for Icosa to drop it off.

He pressed the bridge of his nose as he shut his eyes so tightly his face contorted. When he next opened his eyes, he struggled to maintain a veneer of composure.

Black-grey fur grew in place of Rae's skin, her hair which once had but a few streaks of red, now became almost reminiscent of a Hisuian Zorua's. Her cries began to sound inhuman, a strangled wail more bestial than anything he's heard. Now she clawed and kicked at the air, her bones clicking come every locked elbow and knee, now she strained her throat to make sense of stray syllables, now she plucked her hair left and right, the strands falling off like helpless sand in a tight fist, all this happening too fast, too fast, that N could barely clamp her down, for she'd bite his arm or growl in his face, her ashen spit pelting on his cheeks, his brows, his Adam's apple, all over him, how she'd size him up like a prey in the wild then howl in laughter so hideous and sly, all this happening for minutes on end without catching a breath, as if she was made of something even beyond breath. So when N finally steeled himself for a gulp of air, he, betrayed by consciousness, emptied the bottle of Dream Mist over her and fell backwards on his hip, groaning in despair. It was an instinctive act. He didn't know if it was right, but instincts never cared about right or wrong, only safety, only insurance and assurance.

"What..." He wheezed as some of the purple substance wafted into his nostrils. Anthea and Concordia must be in deep sleep to not rush out in a frenzy.

N crashed onto the coffee table, his mouth half-ajar, his mind unhinged just enough to register the room warping before him, as if he had stepped over a threshold into a Trick Room. If he didn't know then, he would know now this was an experience of liminality, an opportunity for transformation between before and after, between reality and dream.

A field of red and white flowers planted to look like a Poké Ball from a bird's eye view flourished about him. A manifestation of the Dream World. The air was crisp and cool with a hint of smoke and ashes, cinders tasting of cinnamon dancing over the far horizon like some apocalyptic vision. Shadowy tendrils slithered about his feet, multiplying fast in numbers the closer he got to the white button of the Poké Ball. A portal hovering in the air above that circular patch tainted him.

N was, however, more fascinated and frightened by what was inside the portal. Aomine Rae, all curled up in jet black snow, her Hisuian Zorua couchant and asleep beside her. The disquietude of the sight was too quiet he feared it would infect him. Rae and Zorozoro had each other's limbs and shade of skin.

He tried calling out to her, but it seemed neither Rae nor Zorozoro could not hear him. He tried putting his hand through the portal but it was no different from a hologram; his hand had passed through them, then his body, in amazement. N gulped. Was there no means of remedying this situation after all?

"Are you a Zoroark or a human?"

N's eyes bulged at the question, then at the source of the voice. Zorozoro was by his feet now, restored to its form of a Hisuian Zorua.

"Weren't you in there?" He pointed at the portal, only to see that only Rae remained trapped inside, still in her perplexing hybrid form.

Zorozoro frowned. "By your response, you must be more human than Zoroark."

"How did you...?"

The Pokémon licked his paws. "When I wake up, will I return to my body?"

"That's an impossible question to answer, if you ask me."

"Very well," murmurred Zorozoro. "Why don't we stay trapped here forever then? Better to crave the certain than face the uncertain."

N hissed through his teeth. Never had he met such an imprudent Pokémon. It was amazing that Rae could befriend the Hisuian Zorua at all.

"I suppose if your trainer wakes up, things will surely be back to normal," N said after a moment of deliberation.

He couldn't have known, for sure, but it was an educated guess. The Zorua shook shadows off his fur and N had a hunch it had more to do with bitterness than illusions.

"I understand your uneasiness, but if you'd like your original body back, the only way is to tell me how you got out of the portal," N pressed the Pokémon gently.

He had a Zoroark after all. No, not in the sense of ownership, but companionship.

Zorozoro glanced at the portal. "I accepted it. That's all."

"You're saying the only way out is yourself?"

Zorozoro nodded. "So how do we get out of this place?"

N frowned. From what he knew of the Dream Mist, those who inhaled it at the same time would have to meet up here where the centre of the Poké Ball field was whilst in the Dream World. They had to wait for Rae to wake up.

"What's that then?" He asked, gesturing at the thin strip of shadow sprouting out from the floor.

"Bitterness."

The strip, N realised when he fingered it, was tangible. His heart leapt into his throat. In that moment, the shadow strip crackled in his grip and encased him, the rebellion of lightning that was once in a bottle. An impeccable sensation.

Then he froze.

Zorozoro was nowhere in sight. Meanwhile, darkness trickled into his ears, flowed all about him like grime over walls.

Worst still was the hourglass that substituted the strip in his hand. Black sand was funneling down to the bottom of the hourglass, and at the top of it all, was Rae, half-Zorua, half-girl, lying motionlessly as sand rained onto her. It was like being buried alive.

"What in the world..." N gasped.

Rae raised her head. The sand trickled down her long hair, covering her face in bits, but her smile was unmistakable.

So was her voice, albeit melancholy, calling out to him.

"Icosa, it's too late..."