CAITLYN

            She sat silently on a wooden bench outside of her sister’s chambers. Absol laid its head silently in Caitlyn’s lap. She tapped her foot anxiously on the stone floor. The air was cold in Mt. Pyre, and it chilled Caitlyn and it made her wait all the more tense.

            Nurses and handmaidens rushed in and out of Susan’s room. At first, the young girl tried to force her way in to see her, but the nurses wouldn’t let her. Eventually, a couple of Chief Specter’s guards showed up to stop her from entering. 

            Finally, Caitlyn saw the head of Chief Specter’s nursemaids emerge from the chamber, her face solemn.

            Caitlyn stood up, jerking Absol to its feet. “What’s happening?” she asked.

            The nurse spoke in a stern voice. “The boy is small, but healthy. He’s resting now.”

            Caitlyn tried to meet the nurse’s gaze. “And Susan? What about my sister?”

            The nurse looked down and softly said, “She’s lost a lot of blood.”

            The young Princess of Foretree’s heart stopped for a split second. All the stories flooded back to her. Ever since Caitlyn was little, she wondered why she had no mother. Eventually, it had been Susan who had broken the news.

            “Our mother is in a better place,” Susan told her.

            Caitlyn couldn’t have been more than five or six at the time. “Where is she? Why did she go?” she remembered asking.

            “She cared so very much about you, that she sacrificed herself so that we would get to meet you.”

            For a while, Caitlyn puzzled at that. It wasn’t until she was older that she learned that there had been complications when she was being born. To hear Bessie, her father’s head nurse tell it, Lyanna Forrest had lost too much blood before a fever took hold of her and killed her within a matter of days.

            Caitlyn felt tears welling in her eyes. Somehow, this was her fault, just like Mother had been. I can’t let it happen again, she told herself. “Make her better,” she told the nurse.

            “I… We’re doing the best we can,” she said. “Chief Specter said we aren’t to sleep until his lady wife has come back to health.”

            Caitlyn ran up to the nurse. The older woman was still a good half of a foot taller than her. The young girl grabbed the nurse’s garments and began to shake the woman in rage. “It’s your job! Promise me you’ll make her better! Promise me!”

            She felt herself get pulled back and fell onto the stone floor. She looked up at Absol, who had torn her away from the nurse. The lady looked at her with revulsion in her eyes, turned, and entered the room again.

            “I’m in pain too, girl,” came a voice from behind her. Caitlyn turned her head, and there was Chief Specter, her sister’s husband. She almost didn’t see his Dusknoir levitating behind him in the shadows of the torchlight. His belly was big and round as ever, and in his arms, he carried a grey egg.

            For an instant, Caitlyn wanted to cry, to share her pain with somebody. Fury took hold of her instead, and she rushed at Chief Specter. This time, Absol bit into her sleeve just in time, as in an instant Dusknoir materialized in front of its Spirit Partner with a menacing look in its eye.

            “No worries, Dusknoir, the child is frightened,” Specter’s voice was raspy, but sad at the same time. “Caitlyn, I too pray for your sister’s health-”

            “NO!” Caitlyn yelled, her voice echoed off of the stone walls. “You did this to her! If you hadn’t have married her, then everything would be fine, but it’s not!” Her yells became sobs, and her voice began to croak and crack. “My sister could be dying in there. She’s dying because of the baby that you made her have!”

            Her sleeve ripped as she yanked it out of Absol’s mouth and rushed at Specter again, but felt herself get lifted off the ground and frozen in the air as Dusknoir stopped her once again.

            A tear appeared in the Chief of Mt. Pyre’s eye. “You break my heart, child. All I’ve ever done I’ve done for Susan. Yet still, you hate me. I can promise you, the best nurses and healers in a hundred miles are here, helping my love back to health.”

            Caitlyn’s feet touched the ground again, and she collapsed into tears. She felt so weak, and so helpless.

            Specter handed the grey egg to Dusknoir and lumbered over to the crying girl. He struggled to his knees as his weight wouldn’t let him bend like he wanted at first. “It is because of your mother?” he asked.

            For a second, Caitlyn wanted to punch him; to rip his face off. How dare he talk about her mother? There’s no way he could understand, how anyone could understand.

            “It’s not your fault, Caitlyn,” he said softly as he laid a chubby hand on her shoulder. Absol whined in consolidation as well. “It was known in the Foretree Kingdom that your mother was the most beautiful woman in the world, but that she was sickly as well. Even as a young girl.”

            Caitlyn looked up at him with watery eyes. What was he trying to say?

            He continued, “Sharing these complications with one’s mother isn’t uncommon, but your sister’s strength is. Susan is a strong woman.” He chuckled. “I mean, look what she has to put up with. It’s a good thing I’m highborn. Would you want to marry me?” He stood up and pointed at his belly.

            Caitlyn tried her best to conceal it, but the smile broke her lips. “No, I suppose not.” She took Chief Specter’s hand as he pulled her to her feet.

            “Susan will be alright, she just needs some rest. Now,” he gestured at Dusknoir. “How would you like to meet little Alexander?”

            At first, Caitlyn didn’t know who he was talking about, but then she understood. The baby’s name is Alexander. She was relieved that she hadn’t asked out loud. What a stupid question.

            Her mood picked up when she walked into a chamber adjacent to where the nurses were treating her sister. Inside, there was a young nurse next to a single crib made out of dark wood. Chief Specter, Caitlyn, Dusknoir, and Absol took quieter steps when the nurse shushed them.

            The girl and her older, fatter brother in law peered over the frame of the crib. Baby Alexander Specter was sleeping peacefully, as if it hadn’t another care in the world.

            Is this what I was like when my mother lay dying? Caitlyn couldn’t help but think.

            “He’s small, isn’t he?” Specter asked the nurse with a whisper. She nodded her head in silence as she respectfully put a finger to her lips again. “Maybe he won’t be prone to fatness like his daddy’s family then,” he smiled at Caitlyn. “And thank the gods, he looks like his mother too.

            That was true, Caitlyn noted. Alexander had dark hair like Susan, not the rich brown of Chief Specter, as well as the Forrest’s almond shaped eyes, his skin a shade darker than the olive color of Susan’s skin. “He’s beautiful,” Caitlyn said.

            “Let’s let him sleep, then,” Specter said. He nodded at Dusknoir, and his Spirit Pokémon put the grey egg into the crib with the sleeping babe. “In a few days, maybe even tomorrow morning, the Duskull egg of my family should hatch, and my son will have his Spirit Pokémon.”

            Caitlyn looked by her side and locked eyes with Absol. She couldn’t remember the moment when they bonded, as with most of the children of Spirit Families. She had been so young. Perhaps not even a week old, like Alexander.

            She scratched behind the white Pokémon’s horn as she followed Chief Specter out of the room.

            “I love you, Absol,” she said when they were alone. She embraced the Pokémon’s warm, furry neck in a hug. “Thanks for always being there for me, no matter what.” The Pokémon licked her face in response.

            The next morning, she rose early. Caitlyn was going to see if baby Alexander was awake. When she rounded the corner into her sister’s hall, however, she heard a happy laughter. Instead of entering into the baby’s room, she knocked on her sister’s door.

            To her surprise, the door swung open, and the same nurse who hadn’t let her in yesterday beckoned her inside.

            Caitlyn felt herself smile from ear to ear as she saw Susan smiling and sitting up in her bed, in her arms was the squeaking sound of a laughing baby, and a greyish purple blur appearing and disappearing around the child. Her sister's Grovyle lay sleeping on a makeshift bed of pillows next to a group of small scented candles.

            When they locked eyes, Caitlyn though her heart was going to leap out of her throat.

            “How are you feeling?” she asked Susan.

            “Better.” Susan was more beautiful now than she had ever appeared before, and even Caitlyn felt the slightest bit jealous of her own sister. “The nurse says the worst of it is over, but I still get so tired…” There came another squeak and Susan looked down and smiled at the bundle in her arms. “Yes, Alex, where is the Shuppet?”

            Caitlyn froze for a second, confused. “Shuppet?” Caitlyn had gotten to know a few of the Ghost-type Pokémon that inhabited Mt. Pyre, but she knew the difference between a Shuppet and a Duskull. “Did the egg in the crib hatch, then?” she asked.

            “What egg?” Susan asked, oblivious. “This morning, the nurse brought Alexander in to see me. He won’t stop laughing at the Shuppet that’s been following him.”

            The small, purple blur materialized into a strange shape. Two big cute eyes and a soft horn made up its appearance. It was definitely not a Duskull.

            Instantly, the wooden door swung open again, and Chief Specter entered. When he saw the Shuppet, he seemed to flinch. Dusknoir simply floated there, staring. The Shuppet appeared intimidated and hovered closer to Alex, who had stopped his adorable laughter.

            “Susan,” he said. “My son… Alex… Has he bonded with the Shuppet?”

            Suddenly, Susan had a look of realization in her eyes. “The nurses seem to think so.” She began to adjust the baby’s wrappings earnestly. “Is something amiss?”

            “My family has bonded with the Dusknoir line for generations… hundreds of years,” the slightest look of disappointment crossed his face.

            There was an awkward silence that filled the air when Chief Specter and Dusknoir made their way over to Susan, the baby, and Alex’s Shuppet. “But then again, no one in my family’s history has had a wife and a son as beautiful as the two of you.” His lips curled into a slight smile as he looked at Dusknoir and the Pokémon nodded.