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Eternally Vernal, Epilogue: Snowflakes on flowers, their souls preserved beneath glass, springtime forever.

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Fardeau, coming to realize the concept of context, felt frustrated. In the woods, a battle to the death to protect his partner would be allowed, but because the sawsbuck with a familiar scent walked into the ranger station, he was required not only to try not to claw its belly open, but to offer it something to eat. Warden, too, recognized a familiar scent, one that had been around from time to time but was last smelled when Mentor bid his dead vehicle farewell. Being a servant to the silly man who so often challenged and then fled from Mentor seemed to Warden to be a fitting station for this ursaring. Francois was furious. He had set an appointment in Linalool for some recreation and instead he was picked by Northerncourt to sit on these pokemon until their case was resolved because the other students, all fresh inductees, needed the experience of grid searching. “Don't think I'm fooled. I know Gates and I know that other guy, with the funny words, too, because he's the same type. Poachers can't be trusted. Now you know what I warned you about. You're lucky he didn't just plug you. In fact, that's the only thing that doesn't add up in this little mystery. Your coat looks like hell with all that scarring, but your meat must be good. Maybe…" he leaned back in his chair and thought further, “…maybe he thought the other guy might plug the both of you. Or, maybe he plugged Gates anyway. I'd have to go take a chunk out of him for killing Gates before I got a chance if that's what happened."

Warden stood beside a window, looking through it. Tizzy was satisfied to rest in her ball rather than to smell the odor of a bear not yet trained in human-level hygiene. “No. I knew his dog. She told me about him. He would steal from Mentor, but he would not kill him."

Lacroix left his chair. “Little Buck, humans will do horrible things when they're scared. Things they won't normally do. Pokemon, too, especially if they've gotten to be like humans. There's a rumor going around. Will you tell me what you know? About what's really going on?"

Warden craned his neck around to face Francois, who scratched Warden beneath his chin. “Take his machine out of my pocket. Before he sent me away, he talked to somebody."

The ranger complied, and spoke with a nonplussed intonation while reading the call log. “Ocimene Psychic Network?"

“The cat said that she sensed something bad when he was talking."

Francois redialed the last number. It ran many times before being picked up. “This isn't your phone," the woman said.

“You're right. I'm Francois Lacroix, Ocimene Ranger Service. I'm investigating a missing persons case—"

“He chose to surely save the one he loved most at the cost of drawing lots for his others." The line fell dead, and when Lacroix tried it again, the automation attempted to reconnect him to the same psychic operator, but that connection was now blocked.

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“I don't understand," Colette admitted as she exited her home office. “How can she be so torn up about one of my clients? She left to be on her own long before he ever called me. What's the connection? I've tried everything, even the arts that don't work, and I can't get a straight answer."

Kit had locked herself in what was once her room the night before, after breaking the rule about entering Colette's office. Aside from occasional bouts of crying, she had been completely silent for hours. Magdalene sat on the floor in front of her door, sorting a new deck of symbolic language cards into the order that she preferred; once done, she shuffled them and started over. She stopped when Colette spoke, and offered a response for her powers to glean. “I don't understand Psychics so I can't answer your question. But I do know how it feels to believe that you can save somebody from themselves, only to see them eliminate you from their life. It hurts like hell."

“Will she get better?" Colette asked, a question of the sort that betrays a suddenly insecure psychic.

Magdalene held up a card in her left paw and moved it in a slow curve around herself, from the right side to in front of her, and then to the left a little more, causing it to vanish from her sight. Between her digits, she rubbed it to feel that it was still there. “Better, but what's gone never comes back."

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Carlos regained consciousness in a fine hotel bed. He reminded himself of his injured ankle when he left the bed, and with that memory came some of the others. “Ruby? Ruby!"

A large television screen activated and displayed Maximilian as viewed through his communicator's camera. “A messy bit of work all that was. You'll forgive me that I spent all of your pay, and that of your less competent friend, toward ensuring that nothing more is made of this incident than ought to be."

“Where's Ruby?"

“Be calm and, excuse me." Maximilian suspended transmission from his side for a moment. “Your dog has been taken care of."

Carlos hobbled over to the screen and perused for its camera so he could stare into it. “What did you do to Ruby?"

“I said be calm. She required an amputation, but is otherwise healthy. There was no evidence of damage otherwise, to her or her pup."

Carlos's shoulders fell limp. “Pup?"

“Really, you should be responsible enough to know whether or not your pokemon is capable and interested in duplicating itself. Now, check out time is eleven, so clean yourself up while you can. You and your services no longer interest me, so, till Simian decides to put you to use, you're on your own. And don't forget your creditors, they'll surely read between the lines."

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Sending a message to Madame Wintergreen, the news read this morn, “Freja's, since, not been seen."

Released by Lacroix, Warden saw himself out. Deprived of his fight, Fardeau started to pout.

Riding atop him, Tizzy had naught to do, save to stay balanced and to enjoy the view.

Steadily he marched, never deigning to stop, as though driven on by an axe that could drop.

The meowstic wondered if forever he'd roam, till Guaiacol's sign: he had carried her home.

With their kind landlords, an arrangement was made, the flat remained theirs while the rent was kept paid.

Moraine Badges changed, the old stock was melted; New showed one edit, henceforth black stripe belted.

A mourning feline, with her claws she would rend prospective suitors not her Dark/Fire friend.

Once, nobody cared; Gates: a regular guy: seen walking his dogs, ate his bacon on rye.

Sometimes at the park, playing games in the sun; or at the gun shop, to go hunting for fun.

But now he was gone, leaving Warden behind, alone to attest the Gates-family mind.

Regarding himself the vicar of his blood, (I use the term loose, his genetics are mud)

Warden presented himself always with pride, including the marks perhaps others would hide.

Pink streaks on his sides and each knee a great lump, in games against death, twice he'd played highest trump.

“Third time is the charm," or so some folk have said; the sawsbuck cared naught: but for Gates he'd be dead.

Warden knew not why, but he felt it was true. Sending him away was the wrong thing to do,

Unless in his heart, Gates knew his time was nigh, faced it with courage, protege sent to fly.

In his battered frame, Warden carried them on, Mentor and Mentor were still with him yet gone.

First came in Autumn, Second, years later Spring; today arrived Winter, his pelt cared not a thing.

An antler for each, flowers perennial, kept—to honor them—eternally vernal.

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