Inspiration

Missy was done. Fed up. She simply could not handle another moment of those awful Zorua children.

It wasn’t their fault, of course. She had to keep telling herself that. They’d been raised by a bad, a very bad Pokémon; a Pokémon mean-spirited enough to harm a small and defenseless creature like that Jasmine, a Pokémon with enough hatred to demolish half the village and almost kill Sorbet. These children needed more support than any other children would, and Missy the Blissey would be damned if anyone was better at supporting children than her.

But it was so hard.

It was so hard to be understanding when every time she turned around, another normal, good kid was trapped in some delusion of blindness or deafness. Normal, good kids play normal, good games, eventually get tired, and fall into normal, good sleep. They don’t steal toys or pick locks or make you think the kitchen caught fire only to lock you in. Missy could deal with normal, good kids. But when it came to those evil-hearted Zorua, she was done.

Fed up.

In fact, the Blissey’s only reprieve was the upcoming visit from that nice painter from the studio by the memorial. Palette the Zoroark, while not particularly good at painting herself, was the student of the renowned Pal, and she was supposed to paint a beautiful mural for the kids of the daycare. Now, Missy was hardly the catty type, but she couldn’t help from overhearing some juicy rumors. Apparently that Zoroark had been involved with some really suspicious things in the past, embezzling or fraud or something official and criminal-sounding like that, and on normal circumstances Missy would hardly allow a criminal to approach her impressionable charges. Oh, no, not at all.

But Palette had changed, now — she spent her time doing honest (though maybe not the most stylish) business, and even a bit of community service. And even besides that, nobody could really bring themselves to dislike her anymore, what with all that presumed-dead nonsense. In fact, she made the Blissey feel a bit guilty; she’d just been through so much!

In short, despite her reservations about Palette’s talent, Missy simply had to give the Zoroark a chance. It just wouldn’t be very charitable of her not to.

She could only hope the artist would show up soon.

~~

Palette hesitated, then rapped twice on the dainty wooden door with two out of three claws on her open hand.

“Miss Michelle? It’s Palette, I’m here for the mural?”

The daycare had already been emitting quite a ruckus, even outside, but the noise level suddenly spiked. Palette imagined the complaints of fifty tiny assailants being suddenly shaken off in favor of the undeserving doorbell and the undeserving Zoroark behind the undeserving doorbell. It was kind of awful, actually; all those kids, forced by curiosity to stay awake while some strange ‘mon fooled with paints for what would seem like days.

She was interrupted in her musings by a jolt to the snout when Missy finally pushed the door open without much regard to the position of Palette’s face.

“Oh... oh dear, did I hit you there? I’m terribly sorry, please come in, I’ll fetch you some ice...” Missy nearly fell over apologizing, as if her entire reputation was staked on how polite she was to her guest. Palette picked her easel up and let herself be dragged across a small front hallway and off to the right, into some sort of homely, white-tiled kitchen where Missy quickly began digging in a brand new walnut ice chest.

“I’m fine, really, Michelle...” Palette glanced nervously back at a sudden throng of curious children, peeking out from behind the doorframe. Wait, were... were some of those eyes staring at her with... malice?

“No, please, call me Missy!” Missy demanded, oblivious to her guest’s discomfort. “Ah, here we are.” She straightened and thrust something freezing and hard into Palette’s face.

“Hold that, would you?” Palette tried, but it was difficult to juggle an easel and a crate of paints in the same hand. She ended up surreptitiously leaving the pack of ice on the counter behind her. “And, uh, come with me, I’ll show you to your wall...”

---

“You what?!”

“Ce n’est pas grave, Michelle told me that the daycare required a new touch. Something to give it the warmth it used to have. And I have so many commissions, you know?” Pal had looked away from his canvas for a moment, then occupied with an almost-complete portrait of a serene-looking Persian; the Smeargle had seen Palette’s expression, and his voice had softened considerably.

“Listen, ma petite chou, you will do fine! You have been improving rapidly lately! Just make sure you remember what I have been saying about the anatomy, and you will not fail.”

Palette had been unconvinced then, and she was even more unconvinced now that she found herself in a staring contest with the area Missy had chosen. The wall was completely monstrous; it dwarfed her by two high and ten wide at least, despite her height, and it was clear-cut that same barren white as the rest of the circular, carpeted play area. No, there was absolutely no question that something had to be done about it. She set her crate of paints down by her feet, and her easel in front of her, and hesitated before lightly unleashing her pencil on it.

But before she could really get properly started on her design, her mane was tugged hard: so hard the painter actually crashed backwards onto the floor, and hit her head. The carpet was soft, but it still hurt, and she instinctively curled into a ball, terrified.

“Hey, lady, stop that!”

Palette cracked her eyes open.

“P-PK?” she whispered.

The Merchants’ leader disappeared (as if the first time wasn’t enough), and an imperious-looking Zorua was standing over her. The markings on the Zorua’s eyes were the dark sides of two half-moons, and the little tuft of fur on top of her head — bound by a huge, iridescent bead — made an almost perfect paintbrush point, just like Palette’s had. She poked at Palette’s face like a Delcatty playing with her prey.

“What’re you doing, lying on the floor like that?” Palette’s assailant demanded. “I was just trying to ask you what you were drawing. Stop being a baby and get back to work.”

Palette was flabbergasted, but she sat up.

“I am... sorry? It was very rude of you to startle me like that!” She held her knees and stared at her assailant. “But, for your information, I’m trying to paint a mural.”

“You don’t look like you’re painting a mural. You look like you’re fooling around with a pencil!”

“Yes, well,” Palette chose her words very carefully, “looks can be deceiving. You looked like a Kecleon just then, but you weren’t really, were you? And you don’t look very cruel, but you did just interrupt an artist in the middle of creating.” The Zorua looked away.

“Yeah... whatever...” She stared back at Palette with a sudden ferocity. “You should just give up! This wall is huge, you’ll never paint all of it, and besides, us kids will mess it up in no time! You should give up, and get out of here, and leave us in peace!”

The Zorua’s tirade left her breathless. Palette leaned backward just a little bit less.

“Excuse me,” she ventured, “but, what is your name?”

“Name’s Charcoal,” the Zorua said, “and don’t you forget it, ‘cause me and my children– I mean, me and my siblings’re gonna drive you right out the door!”

“I highly doubt that, Charcoal,” said Palette. “Siblings?”

---

“Yeah, Hatch n’ Tohne are somewhere around here...” Charcoal looked around. “Hatch! Tohne! Get out here, boys!”

“You don’t have to shout,” said a quiet voice from behind Palette, “I’m right here, you know.”

The Zorua across her had the same round eyes as Charcoal, but with an extra maroon crescent around the outside of each one, as if his eyes were being forced constantly downwards and inwards by his markings. His fur swirled around like a stylized candle, but his face couldn’t be more put out.

Charcoal breathed out. “Oh... Tohne,” she said, explaining the panic out of her eyes, “I didn’t see you there.”

“That’s,” Tohne stated matter-of-factly, “because I wasn’t here. Who’s this?” he demanded, gesturing at the Zoroark between them.

“She’s our new target. Duh!”

“What’s her name?”

“You can’t properly antagonize someone if you know their name, idiot!” Charcoal jumped on Palette to emphasize her point, and looked the painter straight in the eye.

“You! What’s your name?”

But Palette was dumbfounded. She hadn’t worked with kids since fighting that Heatran when Sorbet attacked, but there was more than that. These children... were they familiar, somehow? She never knew many other Zorua, but those gold beads and yellow eyes...

Charcoal got bored of the older Pokémon’s unresponsiveness, and turned to Tohne.

“Where’d your brother run off to? I called both of you! He better not be jumpin’ off tall things again.”

Tohne sighed. “I don’t think he’s gone that far, this time. I think he’s tryin’ to see if he can ‘splode those kids outside with his mind.”

The female Zorua bristled noticeably.

“That little... Tohne, I’m gonna go deal with Hatch. Don’t let this,” she jerked her head at Palette, “get too comfortable.” Then she jumped off Palette and strutted toward the door.

“You can just leave whenever you want?” asked Palette.

“Yeah,” said Tohne, “I mean, it’s not like that Blissey’d stop us. She pretends to be all kind and understanding and everything, but she can’t wait for us to be gone. We cause way too much trouble.”

“So why don’t you leave?”

Tohne was indignant.

“Yeah, and where would we go? We ain’t got no home, nowhere! Not since Momma disappeared!”

“Oh, your mother was one of the Pokémon who disappeared? I didn’t hear about a Zoroar–”

Palette stopped. She knew why the kids seemed familiar.

Tohne laughed bitterly, and looked down at the floor.

“You mean you haven’t heard? Her name’s Shade, she’s the one who caused all this. Kidnapped some green fairy thing, and was gonna kill her, till the fairy screamed real loud and everything got all weird.” He paused to look back up at the Zoroark. “What’d you say your name was?”

“I’m Palette,” she said in a daze. “The painter...”

Tohne’s mother... she knew who that was, perhaps. Sometimes, when it was very dark, and she was very alone, she still thought about that dread ritual in the dead of night, when she’d almost died. When she’d met Pal.

If she was right, Tohne’s mother was an evil Pokémon; the sort that’d stoop to killing an innocent Zorua in a desolate patch of woods, or getting a poor painter violently exiled from her village, or making a talented artist break down in tears. But looking at this Zorua right then, and knowing why she felt so uncomfortable, she couldn’t be afraid of him anymore.

She just felt kind of sorry for him.

“You okay, lady?” Palette realized she was making faces, and got her snout under control.

“Yeah, sorry, I just... erm...” She groped and grappled for her next words. “I’m sorry, but... if you know that you need to stay here, why do you make it so hard for Mich– for Missy? She’s only trying to help, and it seems a bit...”

“Ungrateful?” Tohne offered. Palette nodded.

“Yeah,” he said. “It is a little, I guess. And everyone thinks we’re acting this way ‘cause Momma never taught us how to be nice, or something, but that’s not true at all! Momma taught us to be a lot better than this.”

“Then why are you–”

“Hatch n’ Charcoal think if we scare all the other Pokémon off, the nightmares’ll go away.”

Nightmares?

Tohne studied the carpet again.

---