The roaring of his heart repeated, louder and louder, that this was a turning point. He could go back and nothing would change; he could continue life as he knew it, but in so doing, this path would be closed to him forever.
Or, if he decided, he could walk on, toward the unknown. Maybe it would carry him toward the purple light and flash of a smile, or maybe he would simply become lost, forgotten by time.
"Choose now," It told him-- his heart, mind and spirit, all at once-- “Make your choice, believe in it. Don’t look back.”
When Ingo first woke up, it had been as if his mind was wrapped in wool. Sensation made it through, but was distant and fuzzy. The biting cold turning his fingers a deep, unhappy red beneath his gloves had come as a surprise-- to him at least-- and he hadn’t even noticed the wounds scattered across his person until they were being treated. He was numb, mentally and physically, and while the latter improved marginally, as he was given time to acclimate to the cold-- to reacclimate to his body-- the mental fog never fully dispersed.
It made life in Hisui hard. He knew enough to get by, but just as much was inaccurate, causing him to second guess anything that intuitively came to him, and whenever someone asked him how he felt, he genuinely didn’t have an answer for them. He did feel, however distantly, that much wasn’t in question… he just wasn’t sure what words to put to it. It was like living with a full color palette one day, and being pared down to primaries the next-- though he didn’t even have the words for that until the day he passed the small photography studio in the village, and could have sworn something about it was off.
That was another struggle: he couldn’t trust his instincts, but it was just as dangerous to ignore them. The hesitation he found in himself had nearly gotten him killed on more than one occasion, and it was only thanks to his Pokemon and Sneasler that he’d made it so far.
With time, he was able to work on most of it. He relearned how to live, so he could move ahead without doubt. He admitted to himself when something felt wrong-- went so far as to share with a member of Galaxy Team that he found the handling of Lord Electrode’s frenzy unjust and cruel. Try as he might, he couldn’t make any progress with his memory... until that same surveyor was following him through the twisting tunnels of the Wayward Cave. The sound of footsteps beside him, the second presence as he walked through the dark, shook something loose.
Those thoughts that surfaced were fleeting, vague impressions-- and, concerned that they might run through his fingers just as he’d managed to grasp at them, he’d spoken them aloud, into the world, so that someone else might remember if he lost them again. To his immense relief, they stayed with him as he stepped into the light of day. It was as if the wool in his mind had once threaded down, catching his hands in a length of woven twine-- but now two strands of it had worn clear away, and the third finally frayed past the point of containing him.
He couldn’t believe how much easier it was to directly address the matter of his waylaid torches, to ask the surveyor for a battle, to-- to remember that he wasn’t delusional or lacking a survival instinct, just that he came from a place where people lived peacefully, side-by-side with their Pokemon. The loops of twine still encircled his wrists, but he found that it was possible to unwind them or shake them loose, and he tried with all his might.
Pokemon helped-- battling, seeing them interact with humans, or just existing in the same space-- and so he pursued that lead; when he was offered the opportunity to stand as a representative to the village, he accepted. At first, it was difficult to balance against his duties in the Highlands, but Sneasler was somewhat unlike other blessed Pokemon: less a ward and more of a partner in arms. He thought that was a large portion of why they worked so well together. So long as they were aligned on the same tracks, the arrangement was perfectly functional-- and so he used his opportunity to the fullest.
The paddock in the village was interesting, and it was nice to watch the Pokemon it held mill about, so at ease in a human settlement, but he was fascinated with the battleground. In actuality, it might be more accurate to say that he haunted the battleground, hovering around at the edges whenever a corpsman was working with their Pokemon, or-- on rare occasions-- a battle happened to take place. He didn’t escape notice for long. The captain jovially called him on it after he spent a full day spectating, leaving his post only for a mandatory break. Not long after, the nature of his station there changed: he got to be the person directing the flow of traffic in the arena, drawing up a schedule to determine who got to use the space, when, and for how long. It was work no one else wanted, but to him, it was wonderful. His vocabulary for what he felt was still lacking, but he might go so far as to say that he loved watching people bond with their Pokemon, and found it incredibly satisfying to keep operations running smoothly.
He didn’t often, because it felt like an abuse of his position, but sometimes he left room in the margins to challenge someone to a battle, himself. Oftentimes, the challenge went unanswered, but on occasion, his opponent would step up. Even if the battles here felt different, he relished every chance he got to face another Pokemon trainer, and it inspired him to make a change in his own team. His Gliscor, Tangrowth and Machoke battled so wonderfully, but sometimes struggled against a flying or ice type foe; he wanted to do something to take that weight off of them, and… and there was something there. Something about the number of Pokemon he should carry with him. He didn’t examine that too closely; the number was six, and he was sure of it.
With time and consideration, he filled his team out. He ended up finding rock and electric to help combat flying types, and steel for ice. It was a strategic choice, but he was picky going into the decision. Not all Pokemon felt as familiar to him and-- as a matter of fact-- some of the Pokemon in Hisui pinged as being fundamentally different than he expected. Since he didn’t have anything to compare them to, however, he kept quiet on the matter. Who was he to say a Pokemon was wrong? What an awful way to think.
After some time, Galaxy Team’s commander approached him with a proposal-- to add different battling formats to the agenda. It would be his responsibility to schedule appropriately, but also to coordinate with the other trainers and, ultimately, train a variety of Pokemon to battle with one-on-one. It was irresponsible not to think it over, but Ingo had agreed immediately, finding the prospect a natural fit. Of course they should have more than just one route open to travel! Variety was important, it kept one from stalling out on the tracks! Through this new line of work, he had a chance to interact with the skyfaller again and again. He would be hard pressed to say they were much more than friendly acquaintances, but the regularity of it was nice.
One day, however, they didn’t turn out to battle. No one in the village thought much of it at first; the surveyors vanished for weeks at a time, out in the field conducting their studies, so it was only natural to assume that this was an extension of that work. The only problem was that the professor had never received any word that they were out on a research mission. A number of Galaxy Team’s members kept an eye out on their own commutes, and like his fellow Wardens, Ingo was more than willing to sweep through the Highlands, but neither Galaxy Team nor the clans found any trace.
The skyfaller never returned.
It was strange to experience such a tragedy from the other side.
Not for the first time, Ingo wondered about the fire type Pokemon and the man who shared his face. He didn’t know what they were to him, but they had been the very first thing his smothered mind reached out for, so they had to be important. He’d just lost a… a rival? No. A-- commuter? Challenger? Regardless of the exact terminology, he’d lost someone he’d only interacted with for a handful of months, and not knowing what had become of them wore on his heart in ways even he could recognize. If these two were as dear as his faulty memory suggested they must be, what were they going through?
He… he couldn’t let them endure that kind of pain any longer. He had to find a way back to them.
It took time to find a viable lead. He knew he was odd by Hisuian standards, but no one could identify a culture that shared his peculiarities. Even years after immigrating to Hisui, those from Johto or the neighboring Kanto region spoke with distinct accents completely unlike his, and when he’d tentatively broached the second in command to ask after her homeland, she’d described a temperate climate the likes of which he could hardly believe. While he certainly didn’t hail from a region so bitterly cold as Hisui could be, he doubted his home had been a tropical one.
The closest he’d gotten was in speaking with the professor, not for the culture or Pokemon that he described in his tales of Galar, but for rail system. He was kind enough to lend Ingo a book on the subject, and while it had been utterly fascinating, there was an uncanniness to it-- as though its contents weren’t inaccurate, but somehow still wrong. When he realized he was getting distracted-- devoting his attention to a track that guaranteed him nothing in the way of answers-- he regretfully closed that point of interest and moved on to something more tangible.
For the first time in many, many months, he revisited the occasion of his arrival in Hisui, looking for any clues he might have missed, anything that might make one iota more sense than it had back then.
His wounds had suggested he’d run afoul of some manner of Pokemon, presumed to be the cause of his amnesia, but the direction he’d stumbled into the settlement… he hadn’t come from the deep tundra. Not directly, at least. He stared down the slope, all the way into the Icelands’ heart, and realized that it didn’t add up. He remembered standing numbly at the outskirts of the settlement while nervous scouts tried to figure out what to do with him. If he’d walked all this way, across the river, they would have seen him coming.
He let his eyes fall on the branching path to the west, and even though he knew exactly where it led-- that it terminated bluntly where the waterfall poured into the river-- he found himself following it. The native Sneasel tried to chase him off, but he scruffed one and had Gliscor frighten the other away, giving himself time to observe the water feature. It was a steep climb-- or fall, as the case might have been-- but it would be possible to go from one elevation to the other. They knew he’d been hurt, but could human eyes find a difference between wounds inflicted from an unknown Pokemon and those incurred from a severe tumble down a cliff? Perhaps it was a ridiculous thought, but…
But something told him he was on the right track. Ridiculous though it was, he pushed the remnants of his sleeves back and pursued the idea, methodically picking handholds out, one by one. Gliscor hovered at his back, unable to glide with his trainer at such a steep angle, but more than capable of acting as a fail safe. Lake Acuity perched at the top of the ascent, just as he’d known it would-- and nestled in its center, a nub of a cave.
Something about that struck him as odd. He’d never been here before-- not in living memory, at least-- but instinct told him it wasn’t meant to be open, for their sake. He gave himself a moment to regain his breath, trying to work out why his thoughts traveled that direction, but didn’t accomplish anything on either front; he had no idea, and his heart refused to calm. He felt something. Excitement or fear, he thought, but he couldn’t tell which one.
Gliscor swooped nearer, following its human’s line of sight, and settled on the ground, waiting. It would be an easy glide, especially with the air currents at this altitude, and even though the little islet sat just above the lake’s surface, they would be able to climb high enough to avoid a water landing on the way out. He ran a hand over Gliscor’s head, scratched it behind one ear, then grabbed hold and let the bat carry them.
The time they spent in the air was fleeting, their descent prompt and controlled. In standing before the cavern’s mouth, he was able to name the reaction that seized him prior: fear after all. What reason could he have to be afraid? Was it a survival mechanism, on the level of his learned aversion to persims after becoming sick off of one? Or was it the sixth sense all humans carried, an anxiety for danger lurking in the unknown?
He lingered in entrance for a moment, both to gather himself and to let his eyes adjust to the darkness beyond. His idle hand rubbed at Gliscor’s head, and the bat nipped playfully at his fingers before returning to the safety of its pokeball, escaping good-humored retaliation.
When he’d run out of excuses, Ingo stepped inside the cavern.
There wasn’t a lot to see inside. It was a rough, circular room with a low ceiling and standing water on the ground. He didn’t have to duck to cross it, but being inside was almost stifling after spending so long roaming Hisui’s grand spaces. His anxiety didn’t calm, even as he looked around to verify that he was the only one here, leaving his conscious mind to worry that he was missing something.
This concern was quickly proven to be a legitimate one; when he moved to step foot in the shallow water, he fell right through. He righted himself and then looked up, to where the veneer of water remained overhead, undisturbed. Not even a hint of rippling marred its false surface. Tentatively, he reached up. It didn’t feel like water-- it barely felt like anything at all. If he had to, he would compare it to the faint warmth of projected light, the feeling of casting elaborate shadows on the wall with one’s hands as they intercepted the glow from… from what, again? Not a campfire or a torch, he knew-- the diffusing light from either was hardly suitable for a distinct shadow, and a fire’s warmth far exceeded what he was trying to remember.
He withdrew his hand and put the matter from his mind for the time being, taking stock of this new discovery. The gap he’d fallen into wasn’t a simple hole; he stood at a dead end, and turned toward the cavern’s entrance, away from the tunnel sloping downward. The wall before him would be easy enough to climb-- not particularly craggy, but he could use the angle the walls met at to boost a bit higher and then haul himself up the rest of the way up.
He glanced over his shoulder, trying not to let the spinning gears of his thoughts become tangled in wool.
How the tunnel existed in this state, without being flooded, he had no idea. The gradient was shallow enough that he felt positive it should have opened up into Lake Acuity itself, and yet here it was, dry as could be. Knowing that, it seemed unwise to descend any farther into what could easily turn into a cold, watery end.
Ingo hesitated. He turned to face the tunnel in full and took two steps forward, trying to ascertain what had made it, why it was here. The illusory floor above him suggested that it was being deliberately hidden for some reason, but it seemed just as ordinary as the rest of the cave.
Two steps became twelve, became twenty. The logical part of him insisted that this was a mistake, and it was all but impossible to hear past his pounding heart. Like a slow thaw, his apprehension distilled, and as he walked deeper, he realized that he hadn’t felt anything like this… ever. Not that he could remember, at least. Why was it so sharp, so visceral? He’d been afraid before-- he’d fallen from steep inclines and borne the ire of alpha Pokemon head on-- so why had it only found him now?
Why… why could he move forward so easily? Why hadn’t he followed these tracks before? What about today made the worn twine fall by the side of the tracks, leaving him to progress unhindered?
He continued onward.
The roaring of his heart repeated, louder and louder, that this was a turning point. He could go back and nothing would change; he could continue life as he knew it, but in so doing, this path would be closed to him forever.
Or, if he decided, he could walk on, toward the unknown. Maybe it would carry him toward the purple light and flash of a smile, or maybe he would simply become lost, forgotten by time.
“Choose now,” It told him-- his heart, mind and spirit, all at once-- “Make your choice, believe in it. Don’t look back.”
His momentum came to a halt as he gave himself room to breathe, to think.
It didn’t last long.
He knew what lay behind him: a life of uncertainty and second guessing. Hisui itself was not the problem. It was a beautiful place, full of unique Pokemon and wonderful people. The problem was that, no matter how hard he tried, no matter how deeply the feelings were buried within him, it would never be his home. He would never rest easy so long as stayed there.
Under no circumstances would Ingo describe himself as a gambling man, but in this instance, he would embrace the unknown.
He began to walk again, and despite himself, his thoughts tended toward those people and Pokemon he was leaving behind. Sneasler and the clan, of course, who had been so gracious to take him in during his hour of need, and the hospitality he’d found in the village. Just like the skyfaller, he was going to disappear, well beyond their reach. In pursuing those he’d left behind, in hoping to quell the suffering of a lost loved one, he was leaving that same void in his wake. It seemed cruel to knowingly do so, but it was a harsh truth of the world: at times, one didn’t get a goodbye. He was already evidence of that fact.
He kept moving.
The tunnel was deeper than he could have imagined, dark enough that, without reaching to touch, he could barely make out what was open air and what was one of the walls. At one point, he stumbled, unprepared for the increased gradient, and had to adjust his pace. As it continued to lead downward, the temperature steadily dropped, which was saying quite a bit coming from the depths of the Icelands. The hand that traced along the walls, keeping him oriented, began to sting from the exposure; he tucked it away and switched to the opposite side.
Ingo’s internal clock told him that hours had passed, and still the tunnel remained the same as ever. It occurred to him, then, that this could also be an illusion; he could be treading the same ground over and over, walking in circles beneath the eyes of some unseen Pokemon. He dismissed it almost immediately. With his blank mind, the Zoroark found him distasteful prey and a Froslass would have struck by now. He understood ghosts well enough-- there was always a reason for their trickery, a means to some end.
He wasn't sure how it came about from that tangent, but he found himself grasping for the company of his friend, the light in the dark. It wasn’t because he wanted her help, but because the unrelenting darkness and frigid, still air made him grasp at the memory of patrolling with her, reminding him how much he missed her.
It took entirely too long for him to realize just what he’d managed to reclaim: she was his friend, his partner. The very thought of her caused tears to carve burning tracks down his face, a grief he couldn't yet grasp in its entirety. He prayed that she was better off, but what hope was there when he could still feel this loss through countless layers of wool?
He wiped fruitlessly at his eyes as he walked, until the tattered ends of his sleeves became damp and irritating against his skin. At that point, he resigned himself to the way the cold bit into the wetness on his face and pressed on.
The tunnel continued, still deeper, until Ingo had to move carefully on every step, struggling not to overbalance and fall down the rest of the slope. It was strenuous in a way the rest of the walk hadn’t been, and it was just beginning to dawn on him how much time had passed and how little he felt the commute. He should have been exhausted, in dire need of a break, and instead, his calves burned a little bit from moderating his descent.
He inched onward, privately a bit frustrated with how much his progress had slowed. He didn’t know how much farther he had to go, how much of the distance he’d already crossed, and it rankled at him. While he didn’t have a timetable to keep, it felt like a diversion that he had to chart around and compensate for, but he didn’t have any of the information that would allow him to do that. He just had to keep going, keeping a numb hand on the wall to prevent himself from--
His next step found open air.
He--
Fell.
A startled shout ripped its way from his throat, echoing up and growing increasingly distant as his body plummeted through the darkness. Before he knew it, it was silent, save for the air rushing past his ears and his coat flapping wildly around him.
The simple fact that he had time to process the fall meant that he wouldn’t survive it. That was… unfortunate, and he dearly wished it wasn’t the case, but he could accept the outcome. He regretted that he wouldn’t be able to help those that he’d lost; if he’d known the path would draw to an end here, his decision would have been different, he’d have looked elsewhere instead, but… but at least the yearning for something beyond his reach would die along with him. Not knowing what he’d given up here would have haunted him, and if he never found another track forward…
He landed, and it knocked the breath clear from his lungs, but that was orders better than what it could have done.
Something fell over his eyes, and one hand flew up to remove it; what it found was the worn fabric of his hat. He hadn’t even realized he’d lost it in the fall. Usually, he’d take the time to observe the poetry of it, but it was emphatically not the time for that, so he secured his cap and reached to his belt to ensure his pokeballs and satchel made the trip intact.
...he did regret that. He wished he’d had the opportunity to confer with his Pokemon and allow them to choose for themselves, but by the time he realized the stakes, it had been too late. It was selfish of him to force the matter, and he didn’t know how he would make it up to them, but when they got where they were going, he would do his best to apologize.
It took him awhile to regain his bearings, even just to sit up and try to figure out what was going on-- and, more to the point, why he wasn’t dead. There was nothing to explain the latter, but he could quite literally live with that.
The tunnel-- or whatever the tunnel fed into-- was just as dark as before, and so he had to feel around for any idea what new situation he’d found himself in. It was quite easy to figure out where he went from here, because on one side, he felt a rough but climbable rock wall, and to the other, absolutely nothing. He inched away from the pit as soon as he was upright, feeling blindly for any crevices he could use to haul himself up. If he’d thought it had been slow going before, this was agony: moving hand over hand, feeling for a safe grip, and then taking just as much time to ensure his feet were firmly planted, too. Basic logic told him it had to stop eventually, there had to be an edge to grasp or a ceiling to meet, but it kept stretching upward, and he kept following it.
The only saving grace was that, due to to the heights he’d scaled over the years, he could recognize the slope’s angle was shifting, ever so slowly. He wasn’t sure of it at first, and only became sure when he focused on how he had to pull himself and the way his muscles shifted to accommodate. His arms burned, and it traveled all the way back to his shoulders and spine. There were moments where his grip wavered, either due to his numb hands or fatigued arms, and he feared for what might happen if he were to fall now. It was a different fear from what he’d felt before-- a logical, pedestrian fear and not the low lying dread as he’d gazed out at the lake.
How odd. At the beginning of this, he wouldn’t have made that distinction.
He still had no idea what it was that instilled the reaction in him… and, he supposed, it was unlikely that he’d ever find out now.
After far too long, the cliff became something easier to traverse. While Ingo was relatively sure there was enough room overhead for him to stand, it wasn’t his best option yet. Without any visible cues, it was too dangerous get up and walk, and so, until he was absolutely certain it would be safe, he reached one hand out at a time and moved on all fours.
Time crawled along with him, giving him a chance to notice the wear in his limbs and the bruises forming on his knees. The lingering chill in his hands kept him from feeling them, but the grit accumulating beneath his nails stung in ways he could hardly believe. He was immensely grateful for it when the climb leveled to a walkable incline, and had to hold onto the wall to push himself to standing, knees complaining all the way.
It wasn’t lost on him that, where the first portion of the commute had been relatively painless, he felt every inch of forward progress now. He tried to put his growing exhaustion from his mind, but it was something of an exercise in futility.
There was a part of him that screamed this wasn’t sustainable, and that he didn’t know how much farther he still had to go-- or if it would ever end. If he didn’t turn around and cut his losses, there was every chance he could still die here.
He paused for a moment, hand flat against the wall, staring out into the never ending darkness.
Certainly, he could admit to himself, he didn’t know how long the track before him stretched-- but he would never know what lay at the end without first reaching that end. At this point he didn’t-- couldn’t-- know what waited, but he knew it… knew they were important enough to continue onward.
And so he did just that, one heavy foot in front of the other.
Slowly enough that he didn’t notice as it happened, the chill in the air began to ebb, and a painful throbbing replaced the nothingness in his fingers. He abandoned the practice of keeping a hand against the wall as he moved forward, choosing to clasp them together instead. It didn’t help for the tenderness, but there had always been something soothing in the gesture, hearkening back to when they would hold hands to comfort themselves.
Ingo was too busy fielding the physical warning signs to take notice of that mental slip. And why should he? They fell into using plurals too often to worry over it.
While it had never quite settled, his heart began to flutter as the terrain, paradoxically, flat-lined. He was almost done, almost there.
He--
He walked directly into a wall.
Ingo reached up and rubbed at his nose, trying to ignore the streak of dirt his hand left behind, and belatedly felt in front of himself. As if he hadn’t already confirmed it with his face, he found solid stone, identical to the walls that made up the rest of the tunnel.
After spending a moment to soothe the bruises to both his forehead and ego, he looked up, and found a shimmering facsimile of water. It was tempting to turn around from there, to face the ordeal he’d endured, but the unspoken words from the first leg of the trip lingered: don’t look back.
Stubbornly keeping his eyes ahead of him, Ingo reached up and hauled himself out of the tunnel.
On its surface, the cave he climbed into looked quite a bit like Acuity’s-- rounded stone walls, low ceilings, the appearance of puddles-- but it branched off into two opposite directions. He barely gave them a second thought, attention honed in on the mouth of the cave, where light beamed in.
With a painstaking deliberateness, he stepped around every puddle, going so far as to take a running jump in those places he found himself unable to skirt the water. His legs quaked at the aftershock, but he forced himself to keep going until, finally, he emerged from underground.
His first thought was that there was no snow here. The cave opened into a view of a thick evergreen forest, and not a single one of the trees before him bore any trace of frost. He felt a pang, and now he knew enough to ascribe it to two very different emotions: grief for what he’d given up, and a painful, sudden wave of homesickness. There was something else in there, too, quieter than the others, budding beneath his breastbone. The fact that the trees here made him feel so abruptly heartsick meant that he was on the right track; he just needed to figure out which was his way forward.
The little islet he stood upon was set into a river, water moving past it and audibly crashing down somewhere nearby, so his only recourse was to ask for Gliscor’s help again. At first, the bat seemed confused as its head swiveled, taking in the unfamiliar environment, but then it got a look at its human and it clicked rapidly, worried for him.
Logically, there was no further danger in looking back the way he’d come, but Ingo made a point to keep his head raised and eyes on the sky as they passed over the cavern.
As soon as they touched on solid ground, Gliscor was withdrawn and he was off, filled with a drive he’d never felt before-- eclipsing even the willpower needed to make it through the tunnel. He felt wetness on his cheeks, and didn’t bother to wipe the tear tracks away, attention fixed on the increasingly-blurry city that stretched out before him.
He didn’t know the path he took, but trusted it. Even though it led him back beneath the ground, his faith in what lay ahead outweighed his reluctance to duck away from daylight so soon. A number of people stared as he tore through, and he barely registered any of it, mind occupied with rapid fire calculations: that was an outgoing train, eastward bound. From here, the red line only had one destination, and no stops along the way. It was a straight shot.
On some level, Ingo knew that he was skipping quite a few steps to this process, but he didn’t exactly care at the moment. He darted through the double doors and situated himself in an easily defensible corner. All he had to do was stand his ground until they were in motion, and then the train was locked on course with no way to toss him out. He could do that. His hands pulsed painfully, but he managed to curl them around a hanging strap; even if he couldn’t grip properly, his fingers were stiff enough that they would resist letting go.
No one tried to remove him from the train. The agents on duty openly gawked, but mostly whispered among themselves and gestured furiously in his direction. He stared back at them, daring them to do something about him, and none of them did. He needn’t have worried about being ousted at all.
What followed was, quite possibly, the most confusing train ride he would ever experience-- familiar as his work in the Highlands, but also completely alien. His body wanted to ease into the rhythm as it chugged forward, conflicting against a building anticipation that wouldn’t let him rest. His hands idled on the grip ring, but he himself barely even swayed.
The agents watched him like a Braviary, and when he saw them begin to tense, he preemptively freed the ring from his grasp. Sure enough, one of them lunged as the train slowed to a halt, and Ingo had to weave around them.
As soon as the doors opened, he dashed through, running straight toward his destination.
He couldn’t remember ever seeing so many people in one place, but the crowds posed no obstacle, and before he knew it, he was flawlessly navigating the employee-only hallways.
...well. Almost flawlessly.
Ingo all but flew around a sharp corner at the same time someone else made to round it, causing them to collide in spectacular fashion. As the party with the most momentum behind him, he completely bowled the other person down, causing them to land in an undignified pile of limbs.
It was the third and final time he would fall over the course of his commute.
“Running is against the rules.” His victim grumbled, monotone, “Running people over is even more against the rules.”
Ingo barely heard any of it, too caught up in hearing his brother’s voice for the first time in years. He had a brother! A twin! His twin brother was right here!
The budding relief bloomed in full. He made it.
He was home.
When Ingo failed to right his mistake-- or right himself-- Emmet shoved him off, muttering under his breath.
It was so familiar. He knew that behavior, and he knew it well.
Oh… he was crying again, wasn’t he?
He made the effort to clear his vision this time, irregardless of the muddy streaks it would leave, and froze when he felt hands on his wrists. There was no fight in him as they eased his arms away from his face; he was completely pliant and trusting, willing to cede to anything they wanted from him.
Wide, disbelieving eyes stared down at him where he lay, still splayed out on the floor. Ingo was pretty sure he smiled back up, but even now, it was difficult to know-- something told him that was normal, though. It wasn’t a limitation put on his mind, just the limitations of his face.
Emmet tugged at his wrists, urging him to sit up; it was good that he was there because, now that Ingo had the chance to rest, just for a moment, he wasn't entirely sure that he could get back up on his own. A new set of tears trailed down his face at the realization: he didn’t have to get up by himself. He didn't have to be by himself. Neither of them did.
His body ached distantly, his hands were mottled red and blue, and he barely even noticed the scrapes that littered his form, but he was so, so far from being numb. While the wool hadn’t fully lifted from his head, he found himself ensconced in something far better.
He was where he belonged, wrapped tight in his brother’s arms.