When Dawn was 14, she adventured across Sinnoh.

When she was 16, she got to do it again, 200 years in the past.

At 18, she finally came home, and proceeded to do her best to find the friend she’d departed with. Every search was met with a train schedule, some [x] miles away.

It took 9 years for her to hear so much as a whisper, which quickly coalesced into a blaring horn.

Through the grapevine, she learned that Unova’s battle facility, new though it was, was undergoing rebranding– not due to faulty planning or scandal, but because the Subway Dames had come to the realization that ‘Boss’ fit them far better.

That, in and of itself, would have made sense. It explained why she had been unable to find results with a name that hadn’t seen use since before any of them were born. When she’d tentatively hunted and pecked for the old one, she found exactly what she’d expected: outdated league stats, aside mentions from friends and family, and an article on the facility’s founding, among others.

What puzzled Dawn were the relative ages involved. Subway Bosses Ingo and Emmet were purportedly 25 years old. Not only younger than herself, but far younger than the Warden she’d met. Granted, she knew he’d lived in Hisui for some time prior to her own arrival, but she’d never asked how long. Even if it was a surprise, she could understand having been plucked from different years entirely– it was just odd to think.

In a sense distinct from transition, the Ingo she knew… didn’t exist yet. From everything she read or watched, he’d hardly changed at all– the gestures, the syntax, the overall demeanor– but he wasn’t the person she knew. He was someone else. And she felt horrible for thinking it, knowing the toll it took, but she missed her Ingo. Not the Subway Boss– the Warden who could scruff a misbehaving Sneasel before it lifted a claw, who would posit half-nonsensical-half-sad rhetorical questions without prompting, who trusted her to take on 3 highly trained alphas at once and greet her at the battle’s resolution with his best attempt at a smile.

Looking at the person who came before, she could see where it all originated; she could see the traces that couldn’t be erased, be it through head trauma or arcane [interference]. It kept her up some nights, knowing that, someday, this person would be a casualty of cosmic interference– that, even if he did somehow remember himself after years of nothing, Hisui’s claw marks would always be there.

Just once, Dawn thought to meddle, herself. She’d been swiftly reprimanded– the number an unknown several phones after the fact, but unmistakable nonetheless– and directed to the Canalave Library.

And, oh, she knew, Arceus. It didn’t have to remind her. She’d spent a summer hounding through books at a pace that even made Lucas raise an eyebrow, searching for evidence that it had been real. She’d found plenty. Censuses, folktales, epitaphs, records of dispute. She found pictures she’d been present for, and ones she was actually in. She found the conclusions to stories she’d never even thought to follow. She found an open ending: the high-ranking Galaxy Surveyor and the Warden of the Highlands who’d vanished, never to be seen again.

She was already well aware, thanks. But if It was so concerned about the damage she could do… did that mean she stood a chance at changing things?

…did she even want to?

It wasn’t a matter that consumed her every waking moment, but she returned to it frequently, mulling over the ethics and potential consequences. In the end, she was convinced not to [interfere]. That’s what Dawn told herself, at least, because it was easier than facing the reality that she couldn’t have done anything– not when it happened without cause or warning.

What she could do, however, was offer some measure of solace.