A distant voice nags in the vaporeon’s head, but before it can be interpreted, the tide rushes to him like a long-lost friend and drowns it out. The vaporeon’s attention turns outward. Amidst the water’s echo, the close darkness, and the yielding sand, he feels swaddled. As the tide retreats, a gentle bassline of mantine’s underwater wingbeats emerges. The sound is new to him; he’s never listened so closely as to hear it. With each beat, the voice in his head quiets.
When the moon emerges, full and bright, the vaporeon wavers on his feet as though struck by a wave. The light’s reflection forms a beam linking him to the horizon, smoothing with distance. Perhaps, if one swam far enough, it would prove solid enough to board, like a silver raft. Perhaps it could sail far away, somewhere nagging voices couldn’t follow.
A voice—a real voice—calls out to the vaporeon just as he submerges himself. It sounds familiar, but the feel of the water captures his attention before he recalls why. The water is lovely tonight, dark and luxuriantly thick from cold, almost syrupy, reminiscent of—
The voice in his head flashes like a lightbulb that’s just burnt out, gasping one last, clear reminder. It reminds him that his name is Cove, that he’d explored dungeons, that he’d stayed in one too long. That it had done something to him. That he had a partner, a partner who really loves oran syrup. He gave her some for her birthday about a month ago. She kissed him.
And then he forgets, for the last time. Fascinated by the sea floor, he explores and finds some mussels to eat. He sleeps on a bed of seaweed and dreams himself atop a silver raft, riding waves as tall as mountains.