Lure (Silver/Lyra, for baka_tenshi)
Title: Lure
Rating: G
Verse: Games, Gen IV
Characters: Silver, Lyra, the elder in the Dragon's Den
Summary: In the Dragon's Den, there is a red-headed boy who stands behind the Dragon Shrine. He has no idea why he's there, but he feels like it has everything to do with a girl with brown eyes.
Author's Notes: For baka_tenshi, via the holiday fic exchange. Happy holidays! ♥
In the Dragon's Den, there is a red-headed boy who stands behind the Dragon Shrine. He has a feraligatr and a sneasel by his side, and together, the three of them train against the dragonair of the lake. Alone. The elders of the Dragon Clan know about him, but they don't bother him. After all, the head elder knows why he's there, and he says it's best to leave him be.
The chief of the Dragon Clan came to know who this boy was in exactly the way anyone else would have: by succumbing to curiosity. One night, when the temperature of the cave dropped until a thin layer of frost formed out of the wetness coating the rock walls, the chief stepped out of the Dragon Shrine to find the boy, as he tends to be, behind the building. As always, the boy sat quietly, a fishing pole in his bare hands and his red eyes fixed steadily on the calm waters.
"I'm afraid you'll be disappointed. The dragonair won't be biting tonight. It's far too cold for them to appear," the elder said.
A long pause fell between the boy and the elder. The only sound that echoed off the cavern walls was the steady lapping of water against rock. Eventually, the younger of the two flicked his wrists, and the bobber at the end of his fishing line pulled away from the surface of the lake. Attached to it was a bare hook and a feather lure. He wasn't even using bait.
Curious, the elder cleared his throat. The boy didn't turn to face his company. Instead, he whipped his fishing rod back and forth to cast his line. The thread glinted in the air as it snapped, and although the bobber was too small for the elder to focus on, he could hear the plop of it landing in the water.
"Young man?" he called, a little louder than his first comment. "Aren't you cold?"
"No."
The elder straightened his back a little. He hadn't expected a response so firm, and the red-head's quiet tone chilled him more than the cavern's air.
"What's your name?" he asked.
The boy looked over his shoulder. His red eyes glinted, and his eyebrows knitted together in a way that made the elder think he was about to receive a hostile response. He even turned to leave, but before he did, he heard the boy's soft voice utter one sentence.
"She calls me Silver."
---
The elder never learned from Silver himself who "she" was. He never felt the need to talk about that during any of the encounters he had with the clan chief, of which he had many. Every weekend, he found himself on that small island, casting his lure into the lake to fish for absolutely nothing, and every weekend, the elder was one of his two companions. Silver never mentioned it himself, but he took a certain pleasure in the man's company. He kept how much he revealed about himself at a bare minimum (out of habit), and for that, he never told the man why he was there - about his past, his defeat at the hands of one of the clan's sons, and that girl.
Lyra. He couldn't stop thinking about her. It wasn't as if he loved her - or if he did, he certainly wouldn't admit it - but there was something about her. Lance's words to him the time they fought in Mahogany might have struck something in his heart, but the look she gave him after she found him in Team Rocket's hideout, the way her brown eyes turned towards him and the way the corners of her mouth tugged slightly downwards, invaded every crevice of his brain. Even worse, he couldn't figure out why. As far as he was concerned, she was a sheltered child from New Bark. She had never experienced life outside her peaceful little hamlet. She had never experienced the secret shame of having a criminal father or the loneliness in never knowing a mother. She never had to hide her face in case someone recognized her from a wanted poster, to run away from her father's countless underlings, to taste utter humiliation induced by the Dragon Master.
Yet, when she found him with his feet dragging across the dirty tiles, with his red eyes even redder from exhaustion, with his ego thoroughly wounded, she didn't look at him with contempt or indifference. It was disappointment. Disappointment! He certainly didn't want her sympathy, but to give him a look that said, "I know you're better than this"?
He trained. Those following months, he trained harder than any other moment he could recall. He spent long nights with his pokémon to get to know them, their strengths and weaknesses, their preferences in battles, everything he could possibly know to shape them into a real team. Sometimes, he would go without sleep or food for days. Anything, he thought, to show Lyra he wasn't weak.
At the same time, he tracked her every movement across Johto. It wasn't difficult. Once she freed Goldenrod City from the clutches of Team Rocket, she became a celebrity, and it seemed like Johto's media couldn't get enough of reporting her activities. Her battle against Clair was one of the most covered events in the history of the Blackthorn Gym, and every trainer she battled seemed to talk about their pleasure in being defeated by her. Aside from having to dodge guards, Silver found it was easy to follow her right up to Victory Road. There, he knew for certain he was ready for her.
Except he was thoroughly defeated. Her typhlosion's fire burnt half his team, and Feraligatr, his most trusted pokémon besides Sneasel, fell quickly to her jumpluff.
He didn't know how to respond. Instead, he left quickly after a rush of words he didn't commit to memory. Since then, he trained. It was the only thing he could think of doing. Train. Face Lyra again. Be defeated. Train. It was a cycle, and although he wanted so badly to break free from it, he knew he couldn't. He knew he wouldn't. He knew he was going to keep going until the day he could prove something to Lyra.
The problem was that he was growing increasingly uncertain of what that something was.
---
Every day, the visits from the Dragon Clan's elder became longer. Only the elder approached Silver. It seemed as if all the others felt it was best to leave him alone. He was grateful for that, but he never said it. Occasionally, the elder brought food, but more often, he simply sat next to Silver to meditate silently. Silver would continue fishing, eyes on his line, ears on the sound of the water lapping against rock. It was peaceful, and it let him sort through the things in his head - his past, Lyra, and the tangle of words and looks shared between them.
One day, the elder finally asked the question Silver wanted to hear.
"What are you searching for?"
Silver looked up, turning his eyes towards the elder. "Nothing."
The old man grinned, his snowy beard and mustache lifting upwards to highlight his expression. "Everyone is searching for something. Some simply don't know what that something is. Why are you here?"
"No reason." Silver turned back to his line. "I just like it here. There's nothing wrong with that."
"You're waiting for someone, aren't you?"
Instantly, Lyra flashed through Silver's head. He slouched a little and held his pole a bit tighter. Although he wanted to think he was careful enough to keep his movements subtle, the old man beside him caught it.
"You must care for this person," he said.
"Why would you think I cared?" Silver responded, a touch colder than he meant.
"You're very dedicated to them. Why else would you wait for so long?" The elder hesitated for a few seconds. "I wonder, though..."
Silver closed his eyes. He didn't want to say a word in response to his dedication. Of course he was dedicated. He wanted to show Lyra he wasn't weak, right? And this was the best place to train besides Mt. Silver, and he was certainly not strong enough for that place.
Except... he wasn't training. He was waiting. Just waiting. And that's the part that confused him about what he was doing.
"You wonder about what?" he finally said.
"What did this person do to affect you this much?" the elder asked.
Silver wanted to answer "everything," but for some reason, he couldn't speak. He could only stare at the elder for awhile because all of a sudden, his brain couldn't come up with an answer. Why was he there? He wasn't training most of the time, and every time Lyra encountered him, she would always be stronger. What would defeating her prove, anyway? That look of disappointment - it wasn't for the fact that he was defeated by Lance. He knew that, not because she told him but instead because he had a feeling in his heart that it wasn't so much connected to what Lance did as it was what he said: that Silver was cold, that he was distant, that he didn't know how to treat his pokémon.
Besides, the more he thought about those eyes, the more they turned into something else. It was the way he remembered how they glistened. The frown was the part that conveyed disappointment to him, but the eyes said something else - like, "I want to reach out to you, but..." And that pissed him off more than the thought that she was expressing disappointment.
Yet, he was waiting for her, wasn't he?
The elder sensed Silver's confusion - must have, considering he unfolded his legs and, with a groan, slowly pulled himself to his feet. As soon as he was stable, he turned to Silver with that same grin and motioned for the boy to stand.
"You have a lot to learn before you face her again."
Silver threw an odd look over his shoulder. "How do you know I'm waiting for a girl?"
"It's not that difficult to figure out," he replied. "Besides, Lyra comes here just as frequently as you do. She mentions you, you know. 'Did you see a red-headed boy come by? One that goes by the name Silver? Did he say anything? Is he okay?' It sounds like you made quite an impression on her."
Although he certainly didn't realize it, Silver's face turned as red as his hair. He looked away, pretending to concentrate on drawing his lure out of the water.
"Does she?" he asked quietly.
The elder nodded. "Oh yes."
Once again, a long silence fell between them. Silver remained motionless, staring at the lure as it dripped from where it dangled off the end of his line. It steadied him, the sight of the hook and soaked feathers - like seeing something so simple and familiar could drag his thoughts into a comprehensible state. She worried about him? Him? Why him?
Yet, something about that fact stirred something in his head. It was a vague notion floating at the back of his mind, but for reasons he didn't know, it made him feel comfortable. The blush on his face grew redder, and for the life of him, he couldn't define why.
In the meantime, the elder began walking back towards the shrine. When he was almost halfway between Silver and the building, he added one more thought.
"If it helps," he said, "I can teach you some things that should make your next battle against her interesting. I'm certain she would like for you to be a challenge. After all..." He looked towards the cavern ceiling. "...Some wise men say that if a true trainer is at a loss for words, putting their heart into their battles will say everything for them."
Silver, for once, didn't hesitate. Instead, a smile spread across his lips before he realized what he was doing, and he bowed his head to fix his eyes on the water.
"Thank you," he murmured.
---
In the Dragon's Den, Silver stands behind the Dragon Shrine. He has a feraligatr and a sneasel by his side, and together, the three of them train against the dragonair of the lake according to the clan's traditions. The elders of the Dragon Clan know about him, but they don't bother him. After all, the head elder knows why he's there, and he says it's best to leave him be.
Every so often, only one person besides the head elder will come to see him. That other person is a young, brown-eyed girl with a typhlosion and a jumpluff, and everyone in the cavern knows her name. She doesn't speak to anyone but the boy, and when she does, the two engage in a fantastic battle that lasts for hours. There's many things Silver wishes to say to her - "thank you" included - but he doesn't say them. He doesn't know how to put his thoughts into words, not that he knows exactly what he thinks of her right now.
All he knows is she did something to him. Something that makes him think about her every single moment of his life. Something that drives him deep under the city of Blackthorn to train against dragonair for hours on end. Something that makes him wake up in the mornings and makes him feel comfortable and warm and confused all at the same time. It's not unpleasant, but Silver feels as if she haunts him every hour of every day, and the last thing he can do is tell her.
Instead, he puts his heart into every battle he loses against her.
Rating: G
Verse: Games, Gen IV
Characters: Silver, Lyra, the elder in the Dragon's Den
Summary: In the Dragon's Den, there is a red-headed boy who stands behind the Dragon Shrine. He has no idea why he's there, but he feels like it has everything to do with a girl with brown eyes.
Author's Notes: For baka_tenshi, via the holiday fic exchange. Happy holidays! ♥
In the Dragon's Den, there is a red-headed boy who stands behind the Dragon Shrine. He has a feraligatr and a sneasel by his side, and together, the three of them train against the dragonair of the lake. Alone. The elders of the Dragon Clan know about him, but they don't bother him. After all, the head elder knows why he's there, and he says it's best to leave him be.
The chief of the Dragon Clan came to know who this boy was in exactly the way anyone else would have: by succumbing to curiosity. One night, when the temperature of the cave dropped until a thin layer of frost formed out of the wetness coating the rock walls, the chief stepped out of the Dragon Shrine to find the boy, as he tends to be, behind the building. As always, the boy sat quietly, a fishing pole in his bare hands and his red eyes fixed steadily on the calm waters.
"I'm afraid you'll be disappointed. The dragonair won't be biting tonight. It's far too cold for them to appear," the elder said.
A long pause fell between the boy and the elder. The only sound that echoed off the cavern walls was the steady lapping of water against rock. Eventually, the younger of the two flicked his wrists, and the bobber at the end of his fishing line pulled away from the surface of the lake. Attached to it was a bare hook and a feather lure. He wasn't even using bait.
Curious, the elder cleared his throat. The boy didn't turn to face his company. Instead, he whipped his fishing rod back and forth to cast his line. The thread glinted in the air as it snapped, and although the bobber was too small for the elder to focus on, he could hear the plop of it landing in the water.
"Young man?" he called, a little louder than his first comment. "Aren't you cold?"
"No."
The elder straightened his back a little. He hadn't expected a response so firm, and the red-head's quiet tone chilled him more than the cavern's air.
"What's your name?" he asked.
The boy looked over his shoulder. His red eyes glinted, and his eyebrows knitted together in a way that made the elder think he was about to receive a hostile response. He even turned to leave, but before he did, he heard the boy's soft voice utter one sentence.
"She calls me Silver."
---
The elder never learned from Silver himself who "she" was. He never felt the need to talk about that during any of the encounters he had with the clan chief, of which he had many. Every weekend, he found himself on that small island, casting his lure into the lake to fish for absolutely nothing, and every weekend, the elder was one of his two companions. Silver never mentioned it himself, but he took a certain pleasure in the man's company. He kept how much he revealed about himself at a bare minimum (out of habit), and for that, he never told the man why he was there - about his past, his defeat at the hands of one of the clan's sons, and that girl.
Lyra. He couldn't stop thinking about her. It wasn't as if he loved her - or if he did, he certainly wouldn't admit it - but there was something about her. Lance's words to him the time they fought in Mahogany might have struck something in his heart, but the look she gave him after she found him in Team Rocket's hideout, the way her brown eyes turned towards him and the way the corners of her mouth tugged slightly downwards, invaded every crevice of his brain. Even worse, he couldn't figure out why. As far as he was concerned, she was a sheltered child from New Bark. She had never experienced life outside her peaceful little hamlet. She had never experienced the secret shame of having a criminal father or the loneliness in never knowing a mother. She never had to hide her face in case someone recognized her from a wanted poster, to run away from her father's countless underlings, to taste utter humiliation induced by the Dragon Master.
Yet, when she found him with his feet dragging across the dirty tiles, with his red eyes even redder from exhaustion, with his ego thoroughly wounded, she didn't look at him with contempt or indifference. It was disappointment. Disappointment! He certainly didn't want her sympathy, but to give him a look that said, "I know you're better than this"?
He trained. Those following months, he trained harder than any other moment he could recall. He spent long nights with his pokémon to get to know them, their strengths and weaknesses, their preferences in battles, everything he could possibly know to shape them into a real team. Sometimes, he would go without sleep or food for days. Anything, he thought, to show Lyra he wasn't weak.
At the same time, he tracked her every movement across Johto. It wasn't difficult. Once she freed Goldenrod City from the clutches of Team Rocket, she became a celebrity, and it seemed like Johto's media couldn't get enough of reporting her activities. Her battle against Clair was one of the most covered events in the history of the Blackthorn Gym, and every trainer she battled seemed to talk about their pleasure in being defeated by her. Aside from having to dodge guards, Silver found it was easy to follow her right up to Victory Road. There, he knew for certain he was ready for her.
Except he was thoroughly defeated. Her typhlosion's fire burnt half his team, and Feraligatr, his most trusted pokémon besides Sneasel, fell quickly to her jumpluff.
He didn't know how to respond. Instead, he left quickly after a rush of words he didn't commit to memory. Since then, he trained. It was the only thing he could think of doing. Train. Face Lyra again. Be defeated. Train. It was a cycle, and although he wanted so badly to break free from it, he knew he couldn't. He knew he wouldn't. He knew he was going to keep going until the day he could prove something to Lyra.
The problem was that he was growing increasingly uncertain of what that something was.
---
Every day, the visits from the Dragon Clan's elder became longer. Only the elder approached Silver. It seemed as if all the others felt it was best to leave him alone. He was grateful for that, but he never said it. Occasionally, the elder brought food, but more often, he simply sat next to Silver to meditate silently. Silver would continue fishing, eyes on his line, ears on the sound of the water lapping against rock. It was peaceful, and it let him sort through the things in his head - his past, Lyra, and the tangle of words and looks shared between them.
One day, the elder finally asked the question Silver wanted to hear.
"What are you searching for?"
Silver looked up, turning his eyes towards the elder. "Nothing."
The old man grinned, his snowy beard and mustache lifting upwards to highlight his expression. "Everyone is searching for something. Some simply don't know what that something is. Why are you here?"
"No reason." Silver turned back to his line. "I just like it here. There's nothing wrong with that."
"You're waiting for someone, aren't you?"
Instantly, Lyra flashed through Silver's head. He slouched a little and held his pole a bit tighter. Although he wanted to think he was careful enough to keep his movements subtle, the old man beside him caught it.
"You must care for this person," he said.
"Why would you think I cared?" Silver responded, a touch colder than he meant.
"You're very dedicated to them. Why else would you wait for so long?" The elder hesitated for a few seconds. "I wonder, though..."
Silver closed his eyes. He didn't want to say a word in response to his dedication. Of course he was dedicated. He wanted to show Lyra he wasn't weak, right? And this was the best place to train besides Mt. Silver, and he was certainly not strong enough for that place.
Except... he wasn't training. He was waiting. Just waiting. And that's the part that confused him about what he was doing.
"You wonder about what?" he finally said.
"What did this person do to affect you this much?" the elder asked.
Silver wanted to answer "everything," but for some reason, he couldn't speak. He could only stare at the elder for awhile because all of a sudden, his brain couldn't come up with an answer. Why was he there? He wasn't training most of the time, and every time Lyra encountered him, she would always be stronger. What would defeating her prove, anyway? That look of disappointment - it wasn't for the fact that he was defeated by Lance. He knew that, not because she told him but instead because he had a feeling in his heart that it wasn't so much connected to what Lance did as it was what he said: that Silver was cold, that he was distant, that he didn't know how to treat his pokémon.
Besides, the more he thought about those eyes, the more they turned into something else. It was the way he remembered how they glistened. The frown was the part that conveyed disappointment to him, but the eyes said something else - like, "I want to reach out to you, but..." And that pissed him off more than the thought that she was expressing disappointment.
Yet, he was waiting for her, wasn't he?
The elder sensed Silver's confusion - must have, considering he unfolded his legs and, with a groan, slowly pulled himself to his feet. As soon as he was stable, he turned to Silver with that same grin and motioned for the boy to stand.
"You have a lot to learn before you face her again."
Silver threw an odd look over his shoulder. "How do you know I'm waiting for a girl?"
"It's not that difficult to figure out," he replied. "Besides, Lyra comes here just as frequently as you do. She mentions you, you know. 'Did you see a red-headed boy come by? One that goes by the name Silver? Did he say anything? Is he okay?' It sounds like you made quite an impression on her."
Although he certainly didn't realize it, Silver's face turned as red as his hair. He looked away, pretending to concentrate on drawing his lure out of the water.
"Does she?" he asked quietly.
The elder nodded. "Oh yes."
Once again, a long silence fell between them. Silver remained motionless, staring at the lure as it dripped from where it dangled off the end of his line. It steadied him, the sight of the hook and soaked feathers - like seeing something so simple and familiar could drag his thoughts into a comprehensible state. She worried about him? Him? Why him?
Yet, something about that fact stirred something in his head. It was a vague notion floating at the back of his mind, but for reasons he didn't know, it made him feel comfortable. The blush on his face grew redder, and for the life of him, he couldn't define why.
In the meantime, the elder began walking back towards the shrine. When he was almost halfway between Silver and the building, he added one more thought.
"If it helps," he said, "I can teach you some things that should make your next battle against her interesting. I'm certain she would like for you to be a challenge. After all..." He looked towards the cavern ceiling. "...Some wise men say that if a true trainer is at a loss for words, putting their heart into their battles will say everything for them."
Silver, for once, didn't hesitate. Instead, a smile spread across his lips before he realized what he was doing, and he bowed his head to fix his eyes on the water.
"Thank you," he murmured.
---
In the Dragon's Den, Silver stands behind the Dragon Shrine. He has a feraligatr and a sneasel by his side, and together, the three of them train against the dragonair of the lake according to the clan's traditions. The elders of the Dragon Clan know about him, but they don't bother him. After all, the head elder knows why he's there, and he says it's best to leave him be.
Every so often, only one person besides the head elder will come to see him. That other person is a young, brown-eyed girl with a typhlosion and a jumpluff, and everyone in the cavern knows her name. She doesn't speak to anyone but the boy, and when she does, the two engage in a fantastic battle that lasts for hours. There's many things Silver wishes to say to her - "thank you" included - but he doesn't say them. He doesn't know how to put his thoughts into words, not that he knows exactly what he thinks of her right now.
All he knows is she did something to him. Something that makes him think about her every single moment of his life. Something that drives him deep under the city of Blackthorn to train against dragonair for hours on end. Something that makes him wake up in the mornings and makes him feel comfortable and warm and confused all at the same time. It's not unpleasant, but Silver feels as if she haunts him every hour of every day, and the last thing he can do is tell her.
Instead, he puts his heart into every battle he loses against her.