Palemoon mostly stayed back from the play session that followed. Not because she didn’t want to contribute or was bored by it, but because she wanted to give all the ground possible for Kaori to interact with her son in a way he’d been deprived of for so long. Despite their combined efforts, what transpired was still quite awkward, but that was okay. Not even Ren was under the delusion that his mom would be perfectly capable of playing with him on his terms, but that didn’t matter. He could just show and tell, and that in itself was just as fun—if not more so—than the imagined adventures of heroes fighting against robots.

  That’s not to say that Palemoon didn’t contribute at all, though. Once the cast of the action scene was explained to her and Kaori, she continued asking questions about them, both the relevant sort and the kind both humans had clearly taken for granted. She probably shouldn’t have been as surprised at the lack of detail regarding language as she ended up being, with the source material not delving into that topic at all. Team Rainbow, superheroes they were, could just freely talk with each other, but not the humans. Somehow.

  Or at least, that was her understanding before Ren asked, in his usual unparalleled innocence, whether all mons could understand each other. And once Palemoon was done un-smacking her gob, she could gently inform him that no, they very much couldn’t. Not even all mons of the same species were guaranteed to share a language, though they often did if they lived in the same area.

  To no surprise, that ended up being true of humans, too. They referred to their language as ‘Hoennian’, named after the very island under their feet. Palemoon took a while to process that she’d been unknowingly living on an island her entire life, but ultimately, even that addition to her knowledge tracked. Just like with most other species, though, ‘Hoennian’ was but one of many languages, and hardly even the only one used in the area. Providing examples of others proved tricky, with Ren unfamiliar with any of them, and even Kaori only knowing a couple of their names.

  Everything in their lives was based on Hoennian, and there was neither the need nor any desire to expand their horizons to include the smaller, local languages. Even the second language she’d sensed Ren learning earlier was not one of those local ones, but one from elsewhere in the world, a much larger land across the sea, spoken by many more people than even Hoennian. The offhandedness with which a place so far away had been invoked gave her a pause. She’d imagined that anywhere this far away would be solely a domain of myth, requiring perilous voyages into the unknown to even sneak a glimpse of.

  Its name was ‘Kanto’ and it was half a day’s worth of travel away by ‘airplane’. What either of those proper nouns meant she had no clue about, and the latter one piqued her curiosity in particular, especially once Ren pointed at a spherical, ornate-looking object that stood on one of the high-up shelves.

  Any further investigations were, unfortunately, nipped in the bud.

  *DI-DI-DI-DING! DI-DI-DI-DING!*

  The loud, repeating noise was interspersed with a human voice reciting something. And upon closer focus, it wasn’t just any human voice—it was Kaori’s voice, gentle yet firm. Whatever it had said, it made Ren groan out loud and put the doll he’d been holding back on the ground as Kaori chuckled softly. “You hear it, Ren, it’s 3pm.”

  The boy wasn’t about to go down without a fight, though. “But moooom, we’re having Luna over!”

  “Then maybe she could help you with it!” Kaori suggested, proud of herself. “How’s that sound?” she asked the Gardevoir in question, the only one to have zero clue what the ‘it’ in question even was.

  She was about to make that known, but Ren preempted her. “But she won’t wanna do homework, please! Maybe I can do it tomorrow?”

  “You already didn’t do any of it yesterday because of what happened,” Kaori reminded. “I don’t want it to start piling up too high, for your sake.”

  That was a point the boy was more amenable towards, but which he still didn’t like. Feeling out of options, he turned to the only person he thought could actually influence what would happen, hopeful beyond hope she would choose the correct, play-filled answer. Sock-clad feet raced across his room before he pulled all he could reach of Palemoon into a gentle hug, mindful of her injury, and pleaded: “Lunaaaaaaaa, do I have to do homework today?”

  His mom burst into laughter as his friend tried to piece the situation together, before finally asking, “^What is ‘homework’?^”

  “It’s bad,” Ren simply answered, his voice the most serious whisper he could put on. “It’s really, really bad.”

  “It’s just some learning for kids to do at home, rather than when they’re learning at school,” Kaori more helpfully explained. “Mostly practicing certain things, especially at Ren’s age.” That framing helped a little more, but Palemoon’s understanding was still murky. Less so regarding the ‘essence’ of homework, but more so in Ren’s apparent vehement objection to it. Sure, practicing her moves or healing techniques was often tedious, but the feeling of improvement that came afterwards was more than worth the effort.

  “^What’s so bad about it?^” Palemoon genuinely asked, one arm holding the boy closer.

  “It’s so boriiiiing! It’s always just reading boring stories for babies or drawing these dumb patterns over and over again!” Ren continued to object, the inhumanity of the exercises described self-evident to him. “A-and even if I do it, I just get more afterwards!”

  ‘Reading’ received a figurative question mark, but unfamiliarity with that noun didn’t discourage her. “^Yeah, that’s what practice is, Ren. You repeat something to get better at it.^”

  “But we already do that at school! And I’m fine doing it at school, I just don’t wanna keep doing even more of it as homework...” he grumbled. That was a much more reasonable point, at least as far as Palemoon understood. If ‘school’ was a place for learning and practice, then it made sense for Ren to be annoyed that he had to keep doing it even outside of it. How justified that annoyance was, Luna had exactly no idea—but all the desire in the world to help him out.

  “^But I’d love to help, however I can!^” the Gardevoir excitedly chimed in, validating Kaori’s earlier idea. Even Ren lit up at the idea, before one tiny hitch presented itself.

  “Yay!” the boy squealed. “The homework is on writing, and it’s really hard and boring. Can you help me with writing, Luna?”

  “^What is ‘writing’?^”

  Silence fell over the room, only interrupted by a muffled sound of Kaori pressing her face into her palm. To the best of Palemoon’s ability to tell, it wasn’t caused by her ignorance, as much as Kaori’s own on the extent of her knowledge. The awareness helped, but only made the situation marginally less awkward. What helped much more, instead, was Ren’s mind getting lit up with a brilliant wisp of light. “Wait! You don’t know what writing is, Luna!?” he asked in disbelief, the realization forcing just as much shock in him as some of her earlier revelations had in his parents.

  Thankfully, that shock didn’t come bundled with any fears or other unsightly associations—just plain, fascinated surprise. One that deserved an answer, however disappointing it was. “^I really don’t, no!^” she answered, letting herself be amused at the situation without any more tension adding to the scene. “^I’m guessing it’s very important, though.^”

  “It is, and everyone tells me it is! And that we have to learn how to write to do our taxes and even more homework!” Ren informed, forcing a guffaw out of his mom.

  “And to communicate with others, Ren. That’s the most important part,” she chided, much too amused to be anywhere near annoyed.

  The boy saw that reasoning as nonsensical. “But I can already speak! A-and call my grandparents on the phone!”

  “What if you have to send a letter someday?” his mom continued, some of the levity draining from her voice.

  “Who does that anymore?” Ren immediately questioned, baffled at the very idea.

  All the while, the hole of understanding in Palemoon’s mind only continued to grow, every interjection from either human muddling the waters even more. With how important the topic was, she would really need a demonstration of some sort, and... and maybe that was the exact right thing to ask for. “^Ren? I’ve never done or seen any ‘writing’ before, maybe you could show it to me?^”

  It was a trick about as blatant as placing the world’s juiciest treat in the world’s largest snare, but the opportunity to show off to someone was one Ren wouldn’t ever tolerate wasting. Without skipping a beat, he detached himself from his friend and ran up to his desk, climbing onto his chair. He then pulled out a white, mostly clean, rectangular sheet, and grabbed one of the elongated objects Palemoon had seen earlier.

  And then, the magic happened.

  Luna had walked over in the meantime, curiously observing Ren’s handiwork as he brought the elongated object’s tip to the white sheet. Similarly to the charcoal sticks her people had used, it left a trail as it was dragged along the surface, but was incomparably cleaner and more colorful than even the nicest drawing medium her people could manage. But Ren wasn’t drawing, per se—instead, he left a series of symbols on the sheet, one after another, none of them ones Palemoon had any hope of recognizing. Her people had used symbols and markings too, of course, but they were straightforward and denoted universal concepts. Sun, moon, stars, psychic aura, running water, food, meditation. The ones Ren was using were incomparably more abstract, almost looking like an art form than something utilitarian. Palemoon was impressed.

  Kaori, less so. “Yep, more practice wouldn’t hurt. You missed a stroke in ‘I’, and that’s not how you write ‘wa’.”

  “Awwwhh...” Ren groaned, some of his excitement smothered at having made a mistake while trying to impress his friend.

  Said friend, however, didn’t know anywhere near enough to recognize any such mistakes in his handiwork—or even for the mere idea of such mistakes to make sense in her mind. She squinted and leaned in, stretching her brain in a desperate attempt to match the assortment of lines and curves before her to any objects or ideas she could think of. No success, again and again. “^I’m not entirely sure I see these mistakes, Kaori. Though, admittedly, I’m a bit lost as to the purpose of those characters...^”

  Palemoon’s words made sense to her, but much less so to the mom of the household. For a moment, Kaori interpreted her words to imply that she did know Hoennian script, and took another, closer look at Ren’s handiwork to double check if it wasn’t her who’d made a mistake here. Thankfully, her pride would remain intact—those writing errors were inarguable. Familiar, too; she used to make very similar ones all the time when she was Ren’s age. A good reason to be more understanding and less ‘I told you so’, she supposed.

  “Right,” Kaori began, clearing her mind and bringing her finger to Ren’s drawn cursive. “This is Hoennian script, Luna. It’s how we write down our language,” she explained the trivial—to herself—concept. “Each of those characters has a meaning. Either a word, or one or more syllables. With them, we can write our words down, and then someone else can read them out loud at a later time.” She considered adding a cheeky remark about each character only having said meaning if it was written correctly, but stopped herself; she was already regretting her earlier words to Ren, no need to rain on his parade further for no reason.

  Palemoon was mostly following. “^I see! We use a few symbols like that as well, but they’re much more... self-explanatory.^”

  “Ooo, like what?” Ren asked. Learning the only language he knew was boring, but hearing that his friend might’ve had her own secret writing no other human likely knew about? Now that was cool.

  His excitement was palpable, getting a warm, amused chuckle out of the Gardevoir. She supposed she could demonstrate, yeah, though wasn’t immediately sure what was the ‘correct’ tool for her to choose. Her eyes swept the dizzying arrangement of elongated, pointy objects, trying to find one that looked the most similar to a good ol’ charcoal stick. Kaori picked up on her confusion, making the executive decision to offer her what looked like an entirely random one. Better choice than Palemoon could make herself either way.

  Her pale blue aura gently grasped the writing implement before bringing it down closer to the sheet that Ren had written on. The very first attempt at mimicking his efforts had failed—she vastly overestimated the amount of force needed to operate the sleek human writing tool—but the next one went much better. One after another, she went through the more commonly used symbols, naming each one.

  A circle inside a slightly larger circle. “^The sun.^” A waxing moon, complete with an impression of the most visible craters. “^The moon.^” An array of small circles, each with a cross inside. “^The stars.^” Two curvy lines, combining to resemble a path—or a river. “^Water.^” A simplified depiction of a Pecha berry. “^Food.^”

  None of those were particularly... surprising to Kaori. It was still fascinating to witness the writing of an entirety different culture—no, an entirely different civilization, but if she were to guess what kinds of symbols an apparently stone-age society would use, most of what Luna had written would’ve been in her first ten answers. Maybe twenty. Then again, apparently Hoennian’s own writing had descended from symbols not unlike Luna’s over thousands of years. Maybe looking at them as ‘just’ symbols as opposed to a nascent language, no lesser than her own, was wrong.

  Ren cared for exactly none of that, because these looked very cool! “Woooooow... I’ve never seen the Sun like that! Everyone draws it weird with those lines poking out but it doesn’t really have any, it looks more like what you drew!” In an act of unprecedented foresight, he scribbled the Sun he was used to beside Luna’s, a circle with eight equally spaced lines sticking out of it.

  It looked just about passable to Palemoon, if woefully crude and very over-exaggerated. “^That’s neat.^”

  “Mhm! Though it’s not a part of our writing,” Kaori added, throwing a wrench into Palemoon’s understanding. “It’s a symbol for the sun, but it’s not a character for the sun.” She grabbed a writing tool of her own and wrote down a pair of symbols, one simpler one and one so dense that Palemoon had a hard time figuring out just how many lines it had exactly. “This means ‘sun’.”

  Palemoon had so many questions, almost none of which Kaori could answer. What was the difference between the symbol Ren wrote and the one she wrote beyond one being more ‘correct’, how in the world was this random jumble of lines and curves supposed to represent the sun, how was anyone meant to remember anything this complex. The one that did eventually arrive at her mind’s mouth was, fortunately, one of the few that the human could answer. “^How do you even write something this dense?^”

  Through the power of nigh-infinite willpower, Ren’s mom resisted the temptation of a proud chuckle. “Well, practice! Exactly what Ren’s homework is for—and on that note, I suppose we should finally get it started.”

  The boy sighed quietly, having already accepted his fate. He reached into a small bundle of sheets nestled against the wall, and brought the topmost one closer, filled with repetitions of several much simpler symbols. They looked damaged to Palemoon’s eye, their lines broken. The purpose of that was soon made clear as Ren began his work. His writing tool followed these broken lines, filling the gaps to reveal what were presumably full characters. They were much more pleasant to the line than the dense one his mom had written, most of them only having a couple of curves and straight lines, but no more self-evident in meaning because of it, unfortunately.

  It looked straightforward enough. “^So—what does this one mean?^” she tentatively asked, pointing at the row Ren was diligently tracing. And then a moment later, fueled by her curiosity, “^And can I try doing it too?^”

  “This one is ‘ha’!” Ren explained with all the excitement and none of the helpfulness in the world. “Mooooom, can Luna do one sheet?”

  Kaori, having been gifted with the sense of hearing, was already thinking through exactly that. She wasn’t a fan of her son not doing all the homework he was supposed to, and slightly worried if he could get in trouble for it... but then again, this was just a kindergarten exercise. He’d get plenty of writing experience in the future. Missing out on one sheet wouldn’t be the end of the world.

  And besides that, she was quite curious to see how well Luna would do. “I don’t see any harm in that. Here, have this one—” she glanced at the top few pages before passing the simplest one she could find over to the Gardevoir.

  Palemoon was still processing Ren’s non-answer by the time the sheet was presented to her. She could wait for a moment before digging into the existential conundrum of “what do you mean by ‘ha’”—it was time to test her mettle. Not wanting to give herself an unfair advantage, she passed the writing tool into her physical hand and brought it close to the paper, trying to Trace the way Ren’s much smaller hand held it.

  Time to show off—wait, no. Another try—nope; the tool veered way off the dotted line. Another attempt, a wobbly but broadly correct line—before sliding way off once she tried to follow the curve. Palemoon squinted and leaned in close, the other arm keeping the sheet of paper pinned to the desk. She slowed down, way down, hoping that would help in following what had looked like a trivial exercise. And yes, it did—to a very limited extent. She was more stumped than frustrated, really. How was it this hard?

  “Tricky, ain’t it?” Kaori asked, amusement clear in her voice. A part of her felt weird about feeling pride in her son being better at writing than a wild, illiterate creature, but she didn’t dig too deep into that feeling. Ren wasn’t doing amazing either, and he was a fair bit off in some repetitions, but Kaori stopped herself before she went ahead in pointing it all out. She trusted her son to know he’d made a mistake, and that she didn’t have to remind him of it. Instead, she decided to do something else, express a feeling she felt often, but which—to their shared chagrin—she hadn’t reminded its recipient about anywhere near as often as she should’ve. “Good job Ren! Going well so far, I’m proud of you.”

  As positive as the words were, the boy couldn’t help but feel squirmy underneath them. “B-but I made a few mistakes here...” he muttered, the loss in enthusiasm noticed by his psychic friend.

  “And you keep trying! That’s what matters.” Kaori wasn’t used to being this positive, and had to forcibly suppress joking about how he was doing better than Luna. It would’ve been amusing, yes, but it would also give her son the wrong message.

  Her son wasn’t used to receiving such positivity either, sneaking a glance at his mom to make sure she wasn’t pulling a prank or something. Nope, she looked as genuine as she got. It was weird to hear such things from her, and it would take many more repetitions for them to start connecting with him properly instead of sounding artificial. Nothing Kaori couldn’t help with in the moment by leaning in to pull her son into a gentle hug, the gesture of affection making everything right.

  Palemoon, on the other hand, increasingly wanted to eat the drawing stick she was torturing her hand with. It didn’t matter that she was putting in all the effort and focus she could; it didn’t matter that the symbol on the page before her was simple—she just couldn’t do it. Every attempt would inevitably veer off the page, each line would break apart into indistinct jittering. Even her ace up the nonexistent sleeve, telepathy, couldn’t quite match the results that Ren could do, let alone Kaori.

  The Gardevoir expected the former to some extent. Human hands, offputting and misshapen as they were, very much looked finely tuned, and the ease with which Ren could operate even the small, precise toys left an impact on her. What Palemoon wouldn’t have ever expected was the latter. She’d grown up assuming that her telepathy alone sufficed to make her mental movements more precise than any other creature could manage. And up to this very day, that assumption was entirely correct, and by a wide margin.

  And here was a human child achieving the feats of precision that she couldn’t match. Some of it was because of her exhaustion and the strain on her psychics, of course, but a very similar point could’ve been argued in Ren’s favor, too. Even with that consideration, she expected for their impromptu competition to not be remotely close; following a dotted line with a writing point looked like the most trivial task in the world not even five minutes ago.

  Palemoon definitely didn’t expect that loss to impact her as much as it had, either. Could be stress, could be her subconscious biases being directly disproven, could be many things. A few deep breaths later, none of them mattered anymore—it was a learning opportunity for sure, one that gave her some additional appreciation for those weird, reclusive yet omnipresent beings.

  And it made Kaori feel a fair bit smugger, too. Same with Ren, if to a smaller and better concealed extent. Considering that the Gardevoir definitely didn’t trust herself to not react the same way if she ended up winning that showdown... they earned it. “^Alright, I just can’t do it! This is ridiculous,^” she sighed, content.

  “Oh Luna, if you think this is ridiculous, then you’re in for a rude awakening,” Kaori chuckled. “There are entire art forms based on writing as intricately and ornately as you can.”

  Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  Palemoon rolled her eyes. “^As far as I’m concerned, all of your symbols I’ve seen so far are more intricate and ornate than they should be.^”

  “Maybe the Unovan alphabet would be more up your alley~?” Ren’s mom teased. The factual basis of the tease went squarely above the Gardevoir’s head, though—and Kaori was aware. “That one is supposed to be oh so much simpler. Here, lemme write it out...”

  The table of characters Kaori scribbled down was... kinda different to the characters Ren was writing. Or at least, so Palemoon guessed. She could recognize some artistic elements there that weren’t present in the symbols filling the boy’s homework: right angles, larger circles, non-uniform width. And one overarching issue with it, that, while being intensified by Kaori’s less than perfect familiarity with it, was clear even in the best-case scenario. “^Half of these symbols look the same.^”

  “I know, right!” Ren groaned, interrupting his meticulous writing to vent his frustration. “We have Unovan classes once a week and I hate them; it’s so hard and stupid! It’s worse than Kantonian! Stupid albafet.”

  “It’s ‘alphabet’, Ren.”

  “I know, and it’s stupid!”

  If nothing else, watching the humans share her frustrations, but only towards ‘other’ sets of characters, was quite amusing. For a moment, Palemoon considered asking them how they were doing it, how their writing efforts were so incredibly precise even without the use of psychics. There had to have been some trick to it. But, after glimpsing Ren’s focused thoughts, she realized said trick wasn’t something she could learn. He was paying attention to the same things she had been, except maybe the uncomfortableness of the writing tool. There was no magic involved; his hands were just way more suited to the tasks than hers were, so much more capable of fine motor control.

  Not something she could match even with telekinesis, but there she at least hoped she’d be able to, one day. She’d have to ask around her family for any guidance in fine tuning her mental grip, but that’d come much later. Right now, Ren was busy, Kaori stood by his side, cheering him up from time to time, and it was getting dark outside. The immediate effects of the last point were eased once Kaori bumped her hand against another of those light-summoning switches Palemoon saw earlier, replacing the outside twilight with a whitish, sterile light.

  “Oh, Luna—Ren will be going at this for a while longer, feel free to head downstairs and ask Hiroto to make you something if you’re hungry. I don’t think I’m much in a cooking headspace after all the mess today. I’ll order us something, but that’s in a couple hours.”

  Kaori’s instructions were appreciated, even if Palemoon wasn’t looking forward much to interacting with her husband. The follow-up point flew squarely over her head—or so she thought. She must’ve misunderstood it; of course they wouldn’t make fellow humans bring them food through the darkness and snow outside. That sounded like something out of her Elders’ caricatures.

  Ren, however, laser focused on the one unspecified part of that sentence. “Does that mean we can get pizza!?” he asked, keeping his excitement veiled with the grace of a sumo wrestler.

  His mom sighed, about ready to say ‘no’ to him on autopilot, but... she couldn’t deny being kinda in the mood for it. Definitely not a healthy option, but perfect as a balm for a frayed mind. Something they all needed and then some. “Well... I’m gonna check it online as well, but—Luna, what are the things you can’t eat?” Her words came at the same time as her pulling out the black rectangle Palemoon had seen used by Hiroto a few times, the item annoyingly nondescript.

  The question was straightforward, though. “^Flesh. We’re herbivores by necessity.^”

  “I’ve gathered that much. I was more so thinking cheese or mushrooms... alright, found something. Cheese is ‘not recommended for its poor nutritional content, but will not cause any health problems if eaten sparingly’. Seems it’s your lucky day, Luna; you get to have pizza.”

  “YAY!” Ren cheered with all the intensity he was capable of, his hype infectious. “You’re gonna love it, Luna!”

  Human culinary horizons were one of those things she had given little thought to before, but she figured it would be much broader than her people’s. She wasn’t the best person to appreciate them, at least not in any deeper way than finding them tasty. It was hard not to get excited with Ren’s radiant enthusiasm, though. What she wouldn’t give to have her family there too for the tasting of that ‘pizza’. “^I hope I will!^”

  And to have her family here in general.

  The thought lingered in her mind as she finally left the boy and his mom alone, letting him focus on his ‘homework’. She realized she hadn’t given a lot of thought to what must’ve been going on with her family in the meantime. They were fine, of course, but they’ve certainly started worrying about her not having come back yet. She’d hyped her expedition for a while, yes, but even then it was supposed to be a one-day excursion, two at most. It was the day after, it was getting dark, and there was no sign of her back home. And in her current state, that might be the case for a couple of days more.

  Knowing her family, panic would start settling in right about now, plus or minus half a day. Not a maddened, aimless kind of panic, but one that would mobilize them to assemble a group to follow her tracks and find out what had happened to her. The thought brought Palemoon some concern—they’d easily make their way here, and what would happen afterwards, she didn’t know. She doubted it’d be anything drastic, though. Afraid or not, it wouldn’t be like her loved ones to strike first after realizing she was alright and being looked after. It’d certainly be a tense encounter, but only that.

  She really, really hoped.

  Trying not to concern herself with that foretold worry too much, Palemoon shifted her attention back to the corridor around her. It had grown dark with the creeping sunset, and while she knew how to get back downstairs, she’d be loath to not at least try repeating the... ‘trick’ Kaori had done with the poking bit of the wall.

  *click*

  And this time, she even had enough foresight to close her eyes first! After having successfully illuminated the corridor, she took the logical next step—and turned the light off. And then back on and off a couple more times, before finally settling at ‘on’. It was a weird feeling to be using these very human, almost magical devices, and to have them just work. On a rational level, she knew there was no reason they wouldn’t; there was no secret human technique to summoning the light that these clicky elements channeled. It was an assembled tool, not a practiced ability.

  Which raised the obvious question—how did it work? The thought perked her up, pushing through her bodily weariness as she headed downstairs. She had no ability to explain how she was capable of her psychics; they were no less an inherent part of her than her arms or legs—just like humans’ fine motor control. But this light wasn’t that, it was made, it was purposefully built by someone who knew how and why it worked. And now, she wanted to know, too. About everything she’d seen so far.

  There was the obvious hitch in the plan, and his name was Hiroto. Even beyond the earlier uneasiness, the man didn’t feel particularly welcoming towards her, and she doubted he’d be willing to answer her random, silly questions. She could, of course, wait for Kaori and Ren to be done, but had no way of knowing how much longer they would take. No way through but to find out if she could convince the cranky, distant human to spill some of their secrets for her—

  “...are you okay?” Hiroto asked, looking uncertainly up at her. Palemoon wasn’t sure how long she’d been standing there for, at the bottom of the staircase, but the answer must’ve been ‘concerningly long’.

  She wouldn’t get a better excuse to ask her question, that’s for sure. “^Oh, yes, I apologize, Hiroto. I was just lost in thought. Ren and Kaori are upstairs, working on Ren’s ‘homework’, I believe.^”

  “Would’ve thought Ren was old enough to do it himself,” Hiroto mumbled, shifting his focus back to the black rectangle in his hands.

  It was a weird response. “^He is. But she just wants to help him out some; bond closer with him. What’s wrong with that?^”

  Not a question Hiroto wanted to hear. His hand clenched for a moment, followed by unease darting through this tense expression. Palemoon’s heart hammered briefly, the man’s emotional response greatly unexpected. Thankfully, it mellowed back out before long, though with a sullen undertone to it. “Nothing, of course. Do you need anything... Luna?”

  She was unsure how to interpret his reaction, but there didn’t seem to be anything hostile to it. Somewhat annoyed, sure, but primarily... regretful. Part of her wanted to prod deeper about it, but she ultimately decided against it. There was plenty to talk about as is, after all. “^I am curious about some of the... human objects here, and how they work. Would it be okay for me to ask for an explanation?^”

  Hiroto’s emotional response was unexpectedly guarded. Definitely not anything he expected, and the flash of positive surprise made it clear he wasn’t opposed to the topic one bit, but said positivity was then forcefully smothered to maintain a neutral pretense. “I don’t know all that much myself, but I don’t see why not—assuming it’s something I have the slightest idea about.”

  Now that was a curious remark. “^Is it uncommon to know about how your inventions work?^” Palemoon tried to not be judgmental in her tone, since it wasn’t her intent at all—but that lack of knowledge just wasn’t something she expected. From Ren, sure, but not from the adults.

  Thankfully, the father of the household didn’t take it personally. He was too busy chewing through his words, trying to frame it just right. “It depends” wasn’t the most insightful seed of an answer, but it was far more truthful than either a ‘yes’ or ‘no’. “Most people have a shallow understanding of many topics; it’s no different from any other domain of knowledge.” He paused for a moment afterwards, before asking something he wasn’t entirely confident about. “Just like I’m assuming there are certain topics that others in your tribe know more about than yourself.”

  Obviously. It was the clear answer in hindsight, but it was easy for the otherworldly nature of these contraptions to make them come off as something beyond just tools, just one part of everyday human experience. “^Of course. Apologies.^”

  “It’s okay. But, on that note—anything specific that you’d want explained, to whatever degree I’m capable of?”

  Palemoon didn’t expect Hiroto to be the one bringing the earlier tangent back up. “^It’s hard to know where to start in all honesty. But...^” she trailed off as she scanned the room’s walls, before eventually finding—*click!*—and pressing the light summoning element. Hiroto squinted, confused. “^These lights caught my attention. How do these little levers summon them? Does it have something to do with the ‘light bulbs’ that Kaori mentioned to me earlier?^”

  She wasn’t sure what she expected him to do, but getting up from his seat and energetically walking further into the dwelling wasn’t it. For a split second, she worried about possibly needing to defend herself, before the real reason for the intensity of Hiroto’s response reached her senses. Not anger, but... enthusiasm. Not something she even expected him to be capable of, in all honesty.

  A few moments of clanking and rustling later, he returned to the living room, gesturing for her to follow as he sat down on the couch, several items in his hand. And once she caught up with him and rested her legs, the explanation could continue. “The bulb in this room is LED,” he began, showing off one of the rounded objects he was holding. It was almost spherical at the top and tapered off at the bottom, ending in a wide metal screw. “They are a bit too complex for me to explain, but I got an old incandescent bulb here instead, which is much simpler to talk about.”

  The second ‘bulb’ was, contrary to his assertion, more complex at a glance. Instead of the rounded part being cloudy and translucent, it was clear, showing off the insides. Said insides amounted to a handful of lines, strings if Palemoon had to guess. They looked very intricate, but explained nothing on their own. “Before I go further in... ack, I don’t know how to phrase it other than the direct way—your people have discovered fire, yes?”

  It was hard not to, with a couple of her cousins having almost started a forest fire once while learning Fire Blast. “^Yes, we have. We know how to start and control it.^”

  “Perfect. You know how, when burning wood, the logs don’t just give off flame, but they turn red and glow by themselves?”

  It was still weird to square Hiroto’s focus, excitement even, with how he came off earlier. He still avoided looking at her where possible, but was gesticulating more with the ‘bulb’ in his hand than Palemoon had seen him do earlier, much more. It reminded her of Ren, more than anything else. As to his question—“^I... I haven’t consciously noticed that earlier, admittedly, but thinking back, that is true, yes. Does that glow have something to do with this ‘bulb’?^”

  Hiroto tilted his head to the sides. “Yes, and no. It’s the identical physical principle at hand, but the lightbulb filament isn’t made of wood.” He had to put an active effort to avoid adding ‘obviously’ somewhere in that sentence, but Palemoon appreciated his effort.

  Even if she wasn’t sure about that ‘physical principle’ he mentioned. “^And what would that principle be?^”

  “Thermal radiation. It’s not just wood that glows when it’s hot, everything glows when it’s hot.”

  That was a curious insight. Palemoon didn’t have any experience with seeing anything non-wooden being burned to such a degree that it glowed, but she didn’t see why it couldn’t be the case. “^Uh-huh! So this ‘filament’ is intensely heated and, and glows as a result?^” It made sense, given what he’d said earlier, but was hard to imagine. No fire glow was anything like any of the lights she’d seen in the human dwelling, they lit up immediately instead of having to warm up, and with the ludicrous temperatures involved, it was hard to imagine everything around them not catching fire. Also, this little string inside was absurdly tiny, which couldn’t have been helpful either.

  “Exactly!” Hiroto passionately answered, corners of his mouth lifting in an unprecedented smile. It was almost cute for the fraction of a second that it lasted before being forcibly suppressed and replaced with neutrality again. “Does that make sense as a mechanism of function?”

  “^I suppose so, but how is it heated? Unless one of those tiny elements produces flames more intense than any I’ve seen in my life, I can’t imagine this string ever glowing. If anything, it looks like it’d fall apart at the slightest movement.^”

  However hard he tried to hide it, there was no denying the upbeat tone of his response as he offered Palemoon the bulb in question to examine closer. “The filament is made of metal; it’s not as delicate as it looks. There are no flames involved, but I can’t blame you for that assertion. You told me your people have discovered fire—what about electricity?”

  A glimmer of confidence flashed through Palemoon's features, pride at how well-practiced she was at Thunder Wave—only for the reality of how little that move amounted to yesterday to extinguish her spirits. Trying not to linger on it, she mumbled, "^Yes. We are very familiar with Thunder Wave for self-defense.^" Her wallowing aside, she wondered what the question had to do with anything. Metal or not, the string at the center of the ‘bulb’ was so thin it flickered in and out of her conscious perception. She was afraid to even touch it with her psychics, lest it would tear.

  The mention of a move and the stark reminder of her inhumanity made Hiroto flinch ever so slightly, but for both of their sakes, he didn’t linger on it. “I more so meant conceptually, beyond just using it in your moves.”

  Aaaaand back to being utterly lost. “^In that case, I suppose not.^” Palemoon felt even more deflated, but... this was curious. She had previously assumed the power of electricity to be a power with no purely physical equivalent, one Electric-types and others could tap into, but not humans—much like her psychics and her special bond with the Moon. And judging by the way Hiroto was talking about it, that assumption was way off. “^Have humans?^”

  “Eh, it’s only the most important discovery of the past three hundred years,” he answered somewhat smugly. “I wish I had a flashy way to demonstrate it, but alas—any electric arcs large enough to be visible are incredibly dangerous, so it’s probably for the best that we don’t. To the point—yes, we know a lot about electricity and it is responsible, in one way or another, for almost everything around you.”

  Palemoon blinked. “^Even the seat we’re sitting on?^”

  “Electricity made it possible to mass produce them, to turn what was once a work of multiple skilled laborers toiling for weeks into a product that anyone can afford. To clarify—it’s not that this material itself has anything to do with electricity, but that we can construct machines that consume electricity to do work. Sewing machines, chainsaws, lathes, cutters, assemblers, looms, all those tasks that once took the labor of thousands and millions can be replaced by devices that use electricity and do it faster and better.”

  It was easy to dismiss as exaggeration to an extent, but Hiroto was genuine—more genuine than how she’d seen him earlier, even. Palemoon was uncertain what to think. If the impact of those electric machines was as immense as the picture he was painting, that would definitely explain a lot of the human weirdness around her. No wonder their dwellings were obscenely massive if they had contraptions to do everything for them! Of course, that simplified picture still left quite a few unknowns. Some that were answerable by the deployment of more of the aforementioned machines—acquisition of raw materials, large-scale construction—and some that weren’t, such as the ownership of said machines and what happened to the humans that used to do their tasks.

  The revelation was paradigm shifting for sure, but she had a hard time really letting it sink in. It was one thing to hear about those downright magical contraptions that could do labor for humans, and another to grasp just how much of a foundational pillar they were for their society. Not anything Palemoon was really equipped to process fully right now, but it had lodged itself firmly in her head, ready to be dissected and blow her mind at a later stage.

  And in the here and now, it was time to go back to the little bulbous trinket. “^Soooo—what does electricity have to do with this ‘bulb’?^”

  The rhetorical nudge was plenty sufficient for Hiroto to rein his zealous excitement in, almost literally shaking it off before focusing back on the object still in the Gardevoir’s hand. “Right. Have you ever seen a fire being started by a lightning bolt?”

  “^Not personally, no, but I know it can happen. Does the electricity strike this metal string, then?^”

  “It flows through it,” Hiroto clarified. It largely went over Palemoon’s head, the word choice not making immediate sense to her. She had seen plenty of Electric-type moves being used, and she wouldn’t have described them as ‘flowing’ through anything. They arced through the air, sure, but that happened instantly. There was one other thing she was aware electricity could do, but it felt different enough to be unrelated.

  ...

  Though it could’ve been something not even humans knew about! Fat chance, but one she was still willing to take. “^I have no clue what electricity ‘flowing’ through anything means. I know it can fill water, though! Always unfortunate when that happens, really messes all the Water-types up,^” she clarified, trying to put on some confidence of her own.

  Hiroto stared blankly at her for an uncomfortable amount of time. “That’s,” he eventually continued, dumbstruck. “That’s the same thing, Luna. What you saw was electricity flowing through water.”

  Huh? “^But it happened instantly.^”

  The human’s head perked up in understanding. “Ah, right. Yes, to us it looks instantaneous, but in reality it’s not. The physics of electricity get... pretty advanced, but suffice to say—it’s not instant, it can flow through substances, and it heats the medium it flows through.”

  Just the tidbit of info she needed, letting her finally put together the titanic mystery of a four-piece puzzle set. It answered the ‘why’, but also created an associated ‘why not’. “^If that’s the case, how come your machines can use it? Wouldn’t it set them alight?^”

  Judging by Hiroto’s shifting expression and meandering hand gestures, it was a good question. “It’s complicated, as most things are, but the gist is that the amount of heating depends heavily on what kind of substance the electricity goes through, how much of it, the diameter, the amperage and voltage, and so on and so on. In short: all of our machinery is designed to not catch on fire because of electricity, and if it does, then something terrible has gone wrong. The filament in this kind of light bulb was made specifically to heat up as much as possible, so that it can glow as bright as possible. That’s why it’s so thin.”

  A perfectly satisfactory answer. Palemoon wished she got to learn more than just the broad strokes, but considering she started with much less knowledge than the usual human, there was probably a lot more she needed to get a handle on before it was time for specifics. That doesn’t mean her curiosity was satiated or diffused, though, nowhere near. “^How hot does this string get, then?^” she asked, staring closely at the hair-thin wire.

  “Two thousand, two thousand five hundred Celsius. Uhhh, thrice as hot as a fire pit burning wood, I think? Something in that territory.”

  “^How come it doesn’t catch on fire, then?^”

  “Oh, the bulb is filled with argon, an inert gas,” Hiroto eagerly explained.

  Palemoon only blinked in response, looking at the bulb again in case she missed something. “^It just looks like air.^”

  “Argon is a part of air, so it checks out.”

  If the previous clarification gave her a pause, this one utterly stumped her. What did he mean by a ‘part of’ air? That implied that air was some kind of composite substance, like how the gray pigment was a mix of soot and ash, but—that just made so sense!

  It making no sense was written so plainly on her features, orange eyes jumping back and forth between him and the bulb, that Hiroto had no choice but to address it right away. “Right. So, I’m not sure how to introduce elements into the mix. The—the whole ‘type’ thing you’re familiar with is a start, but not everything reduces down to these types,” he began, clearly uncomfortable at having to discuss something he knew so little concrete about.

  Still, it was enough to provide a jumping off point. “^Of course, yes. Plenty of matter around us escapes simple type classification, and types are only tenuously related to material properties.^”

  “Yes, exactly! Going beyond them, we set out to find the actual building blocks of everything around us.”

  The Gardevoir had almost no frame of reference for an undertaking like that. “^That sounds incredibly challenging.^”

  “It took us, as a species, some few thousand years, yes. In the end, we have discovered one hundred and eighteen of them—” he began, before redirecting at seeing Palemoon’s shock only deepen, “—but most of them are metals. Air is mostly nitrogen and oxygen, with a bit of argon and other trace elements. Almost our entire bodies are these two, plus hydrogen, carbon, phosphorus and calcium. Water is oxygen and hydro—”

  “^Water isn’t an element!?^”

  The sheer surprise in Luna’s voice startled Hiroto, especially with him looking at her and not seeing her mouth move. It took a few alarmed moments for him to realize that the mon sitting just a couple perilous feet away from him wasn’t hostile, just living through what had to have been a world-shattering revelation. “N-no, it’s not. We thought it was for the longest time too, but it’s not. It’s fascinating.”

  ‘Fascinating’ was an excellent word to describe not just that nugget of information, but everything Palemoon had learned in this extended lesson. She expected to learn a lot in the event she met a human and could talk to them, but she didn’t expect it to be this earth-shattering. Telling it to her friends and family would be fun—assuming they’d believe any of it.

  ‘Fascinating’ was also an appropriate descriptor for not just the content of the lesson, but the demeanor of its teacher. It reminded Palemoon of her grandpa when they really got into healer lessons; there was that exact same excitement there—not just about the topic, but also about getting to pass the knowledge on. Seeing Hiroto like this made his earlier aloofness, not just towards her but towards Ren as well, all the weirder. Knowing the boy, even the little she did, he would’ve loved learning about all this.

  She wasn’t sure how to bring that topic up, though, instead trying to tackle it in a roundabout way. “^It really is. You know a lot about this!^”

  Hiroto chuckled nervously, eyes darting as far away from her as possible, some of the coldness returning. “Nothing I’ve said goes any further than pop-sci junk. It’s just something I’ve always enjoyed reading about, but I don’t have any formal education in it.”

  The two parts of that sentence didn’t add up. “^If you’ve always enjoyed it, why not make it your life’s calling?^”

  An uncomfortable silence filled the room afterwards. The topic was much more sore than Palemoon anticipated; the emotions flashing through Ren’s dad were messy and conflicted. Anger, surrender, insecurity, dismissal. “Physics and electronics used to be my hobby, but they’re just that, a hobby. The world needs nurse practitioners more than it needs losers mangling breadboards in their parents’ garages.”

  Palemoon understood almost nothing of that remark, but its specificity was well apparent—as was how personal the topic was for him. “^Is that... the entire reason?^”

  Her telepathic-word investigation into Hiroto’s psyche wasn’t exactly subtle. “What, are you trying to play therapist with me?”

  “^No, it’s not my goal to provide counsel. But I can physically feel how painful the topic is for you, so I got curious. I can cease, if you’d prefer that, Hiroto.^” Of course, her curiosity went further than that, but she was being truthful and her offer was genuine.

  Despite his earlier distrust towards her, Hiroto could tell. “My parents—convinced me to pursue a respectable career in medicine. Considering I ended up with a well-paying job, steady income, and loving family, I’d say they were right and I ought to be thankful towards them.”

  ...

  “^But do you actually feel that way?^”

  The sharp inhale Hiroto let out at the question took Palemoon aback—and this time, it was backed by a few drops of anger. She knew better than to dig at what was an increasingly visible mental scar deeper, apologetically looking away.

  Before either she could apologize or Hiroto could chastise her for overstepping, though, a loud creak came from upstairs, followed by a set of rapid, excited steps. Ren had to forcibly stop himself from sprinting down the stairs under his dad’s vigilant gaze, the awkward shift in his mannerisms stark and much more painful to see for his dad than ever before. Even if his childish energy was subdued, his excitement at getting to hang out with his magical friend again wasn’t. “Luna, Luna, I’m done with homework!”

  A part of her wanted to leap up from her seat and dart off with Ren away from the stuffy living room, dive into anything the boy felt like doing away from his parents. But she also had an opportunity, one the family was unlikely to take on their own. And she very much felt like taking it. “^That’s awesome! Your dad was just telling me about how ‘light bulbs’ and electricity work.^”

  Even if smothered, Ren’s curiosity still shined through. Any earlier idea for the next thing they could play was discarded at the mention of learning about something as cool as electricity. And from his dad, no less! “That’s cool!” he squealed, before catching himself as he was about to ask a question. His self-consciousness was strong, but despite everything, his child spirit was stronger, ultimately. “D-dad, can you tell me how electricity works too?”

  Despite her earlier insistence, Luna had to admit to something.

  “Sure. Hop on the couch, Ren. I’ll see if I can condense it somewhat this time...”

  She really enjoyed giving counsel, deep down.

  Discord server for it! (and my other writings)

  From the Vast! and