Author: Ai no Kitsune Rating: G
Finding the Heart Stone
This is based on a really weird dream I had, which I just had to use for something. It gets pretty surreal.----- Jessie sat up. She didn't cry out, for fear of waking the others, but sat slutching her chest, waiting for her heartbeat to subside.
She inhaled deeply. The smell of the forest surrounded her, peaceful and soothing in a way that no wilderness should have been. The wind blew abover her, high overhead, stirring the leaves and letting the moon peak down on the camp.
She stood up, letting the blanket fall to the ground. The rest of the group slept peacefully, or, in the case of Brock, snored gently. She smiled a little at the sense of peace that enveloped her, chasing away all remnants of the dream. Dream. She looked up at the sky. The moon was low, and false dawn had already begun to lighten the horizon. James was nowhere to be seen: his blanket was folded neatly in the place that he had slept.
She started walking to the east, where the sun was rising. She found James not far away, on an exposed hill surrounded by forest. He was doing the laundry, in his way, which meant for him very badly.
"'Morning, Jess," he said, cheerfully mangling one of her favorite shirts as he did so. Jessie winced, though not so much at the damage she was witnessing as at his early-morning cheerfulness.
"It's too early to tell if it's good or not," she muttered, rubbing her eyes. The sky was growing gradually lighter as she watched, the day sneaking up in a most unobtrusive way.
She stood there in the growing light, leaves and twigs in her hair, silently watching James scrub the clothes in an old metal basin. The sound of the water was hypnotic, and after many minutes she began to feel herself slipping into a sort of waking trance.
"James!" she blurted suddenly, sharply, to break the spell. The sound of the water stopped, and he looked at her in surprise, suds up to his elbows.
"Don't scream like that, alright?"
"James," she said, "James, I had a terrible dream."
He continued to look ar her, in a quiet and disturbingly penetrating way. Jessie looked away, suddenly unable to bear the intensity of his gaze.
"I mean, it wasn't *scary* or anything," she stammered, "Just, um, just, I felt like, like I was somewhere else." "Where?"
"I don't know. Not here. A city or, or another place. Another life." She looked up. The expression on his face was one of engaged curiosity.
"I'm not explaining this well."
"No, go on. I'm interested."
"James, was there ever a time when we were somewhere else?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, were we other people, ever? Did we have different lives?"
"I don't understand."
She ran a hand through her thick hair.
"I feel like I don't belong here. I feel like I don't have an anchor. I feel like I used to be somewhere else, living a different life."
He stood up, came over and put a hand on her arm. "Do you feel like that all the time?"
"NO," she siad, "Only when I wake up, sometimes." The laundry water soaked through her shirt and warm suds dripped onto her feet. "I keep seeing us, you and me, working together. Like, partners, or something. And everyone else isn't there. Or, they're there, but kind of on the other side. We have uniforms...." She trailed off. The logic was ridiculoius, and she knew it. Worse, James' expression had gone from amused curiosity to outright concern.
"Jessie, we've always been here, there's never been anywhere lese. I don't know why you'd have these dreams, or why they upset you so, but this is where we belong."
She smiled a little and looked out over the forest. It stretched on endlessly, a green ocean beneath a pristine sky. Dawn was making scarlet streaks on the horizon, and the morning star was piercingly bright. "I don't know why I'd want anything else," she said softly. But in her heart, she heard resignation.
At that moment a sound came that could have been only one of two things. It was either a bison crashing through the underbrush or--
Misty burst into the clearing, clawing bits of foliage from her hair.
"What are you two idiots doing?" she demanded. Her hair stuck out all around her head like an angry cat's.
"I'm doing the laundry!" James protested.
"Well, Ash is making breakfast, and if you think me and Brock are gonna eat it all by ourselves, you're sadly mistaken. We're gonna spread the misery around.
"Alright alright," Jessie said. "Don't bust a gasket already. We're coming."
James upended the washtub, sending warm soapy water pouring down the hillside.
"You are way too high-strung for a twelve year old," he said.
To Part-2
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