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Arya woke before the sun on the morning she was to receive her first Pokémon. For several minutes she lay perfectly still beneath her blankets, staring into the blue-gray darkness of her bedroom. The house hadn’t started its morning routine yet. No pipes groaned inside the walls, no cupboard doors opened downstairs. Even the flock of Fletchling that nested beneath the neighbor’s roof remained silent. She could hear only the soft ticking of the clock hung above her desk.
Arya had turned ten three days earlier. Since then, time had moved slowly. She had survived her birthday dinner, the congratulations of relatives, and two nearly endless nights knowing that her parents had arranged something for Saturday morning. They had refused to tell her what kind of Pokémon she would receive. Her mother had only smiled and said that choosing a partner was not the same as buying a bicycle. Her father had added that the Pokémon deserved a choice too.
Arya understood that, knew a partner Pokémon was a bigger responsibility than most things, and she was ready. She just wished she wasn’t expected her to sleep before meeting them. She rolled over and looked at the empty Pokémon bed beside her desk, it was round, blue, and large enough for several different species, though Arya had spent weeks wondering whether it was too small. If her parents brought home a Growlithe, she might need a fireproof blanket. A Rowlet would probably prefer a perch. A Wooper might want a kiddie pool instead.
On the wall above it hung a poster of Champion Cynthia standing beneath a bright stadium sky, her long coat lifting in the wind while Garchomp roared beside her. Arya knew every one of Cynthia’s recorded battles. She’d been lucky enough to watch one of the battles live when they were visiting family in Sinnoh. She knew where Garchomp placed its feet before using Dragon Rush and how Cynthia rarely raised her voice, even when the odds were turned against her. Beneath the poster, Arya had taped a handwritten goal: BECOME CHAMPION.
Arya heard a door open and her dad call out for her from downstairs. She threw off her blankets and reached for her clothes. She dressed in the clothes she had arranged the night before: sturdy trainers, black shorts, and the red jacket she had chosen because it looked like something a trainer would wear while standing on a cliff. Her hair refused to cooperate like it always did, she dragged a brush through it, tied it into a crooked ponytail, and hurried downstairs with one sleeve still bunched around her elbow.
“Arya?” Her father’s voice came from the garden.
She reached the back door, stopped, and forced herself to walk through it instead of running. Champions, she thought, probably did not fall down their own garden steps on special days like today. Her parents waited near the old apple tree. Her mother had dressed despite the early hour, Sorbet, her mom’s Cherubi, was sat at her mom’s feet. Arya’s father was still in his slippers, his Sizzlipede was wrapped around his neck like a scarf, keeping him warm from the cool morning air.
Between them sat a woman in the green-and-tan uniform of the regional Pokémon sanctuary. A Corviknight stood behind her with its wings folded, black feathers gleaming blue wherever the morning touched them. At the woman’s feet rested a travel carrier. Something inside it moved. Arya forgot every greeting she had practiced for this moment.
The sanctuary worker smiled, “you must be our new trainer.”
Arya nodded so quickly that her ponytail struck her cheek. “I’m ten.”
“So I heard. Happy birthday.”
“Thank you.” Arya looked at the carrier. A narrow shadow shifted behind its mesh door. “Is that—”
“Why don’t you sit down first?” Arya sat on the grass immediately. Her parents joined her, although her father winced when the damp seeped through his pajama trousers.
The sanctuary worker placed the carrier between them and rested her hands loosely on her knees. “This Pokémon hatched at the sanctuary in early spring,” she said. “We don’t usually place Pokémon with trainers this young without several meetings first, but your parents have visited, and I’ve spoken with your school’s Pokémon-care instructor.”
Arya was glad to hear her hours of studying and schoolwork paid off. The instructor continued, “I also read through your plan in the application.”
Arya glanced at the carrier, already thinking about her plan and how it would need to be modified for the Pokémon inside it.
“Your plan was thorough,” the instructor continued, “but plans aren’t promises. Raising a Pokémon can be frustrating, sometimes it can be frightening. Your partner may dislike the training you planned, she may not want to battle every day, and there will be times when you need to care for her even if you’re tired, angry, ill, or losing.”
Arya’s attention returned to the carrier. Whoever waited inside had gone still. “I know.”
“Knowing before it happens is easier than actually doing it,” her father added.
Arya folded her hands in her lap, there were a million things she wanted to say. She wanted to say that she would never become tired of Pokémon. That she would train every morning, win all eight badges on her first journey, and stand beneath the stadium lights before she was fourteen. The promises crowded behind her teeth, shining and enormous and desperate to be spoken out loud. But this moment wasn’t about the future.
Then something inside the carrier gave a faint, uncertain scratch, reminding her that it was a living creature she would be caring for Arya lowered her voice. “I’ll learn.”
The sanctuary worker studied her for another moment then nodded. She reached forward and opened the door. Nothing came out. Arya could see two eyes watching from the darkness. They were large, red, and fixed upon her with such intensity that she held her breath. A small blue nose appeared first. Then a round head covered in cream-colored fur, two dark ears, and the beginnings of a black mask around its eyes. The Riolu crept forward one paw at a time. She was smaller than Arya had expected, with long legs she had not quite grown into and a thin blue tail held rigid behind her.
A Riolu.
Arya knew everything about them—or everything that books and battle recordings could teach. Riolu sensed aura. They understood emotion with a keenness that made lying to them nearly impossible. When they trusted their trainer deeply enough, they could evolve into Lucario, one of the strongest Fighting-type Pokémon in the world. Champion Cynthia had once trained one.
Arya’s heart began to pound. The Riolu stopped in the carrier’s doorway. For one terrible moment, Arya was afraid that the Pokémon would feel the size of her ambition and retreat from it. She imagined how she must seem: too eager, too loud inside, already picturing distant stadiums before they had shared a single morning. Her dream had always belonged only to her. Now she understood that if she asked another creature to walk toward it, the dream would have to make room for two.
Arya lowered her gaze so the Riolu would not feel stared at. She placed one open hand on the grass. “My name is Arya,” she said. “I want to be Champion someday.” The Riolu’s ears turned forward.
For a while, nothing happened. Moisture gathered on the grass beneath Arya’s palm. A Butterfree drifted over the garden fence, its wings scattering pearls of dew from the lavender. Somewhere along the road, a Machoke called as it helped unload the morning delivery truck. The town was waking around them, filling with doors, voices, bicycle bells, and the cries of Pokémon beginning another ordinary day.
The Riolu stepped out of the carrier. She sniffed Arya’s fingers, her nose cool. Arya stayed as still as any ten year old full of excited and nervous energy could. The Riolu circled once, inspecting Arya’s shoes and the hem of her jacket. Then she placed one black paw in the center of Arya’s palm. Warmth traveled up Arya’s arm, not heat, but it was familiar. It felt like recognition, two living beings understanding each other. The Riolu’s eyes widened as if she had felt it too. Her paw remained in Arya’s hand.
“Hello,” Arya whispered. The Riolu gave a small bark. Arya laughed, and the sound startled a pair of Pidgey from the apple tree. They burst upward through the branches and Arya’s father clapped, Sizzlipede jolting from her nap, and Arya’s mother pressed both hands over her mouth, her eyes shiny.
Even the sanctuary worker smiled openly now. Arya reached beneath the Riolu’s front legs and paused, giving her time to pull away but the Riolu didn’t. Arya lifted her into her lap. She was heavier than she looked. Her fur was coarse along her blue legs and wonderfully soft around her neck. She smelled of straw, clean earth, and the faint medicinal soap used at Pokémon Centers.
After a moment, the Riolu leaned against Arya’s chest and gripped the front of her red jacket. Arya looked over the little blue head at her mom, Arya knew her face was too small for her smile but she couldnt’ help it. Somewhere out there were routes she had memorized but never walked, cities with Gym towers rising above their roofs, caves full of wild Pokémon, and stadiums so large that thousands of voices became one.
For years, she had imagined herself crossing and imagined many shapes walking beside her. She never really knew what Pokémon she wanted. Some of her classmates had drafts for their dream Pokémon teams. Arya had tried to make one, but she never knew where to start.
Now her first Pokémon shifted in her arms, nervous and real. The dream did not seem smaller. It seemed farther away than it had yesterday, more difficult and more alive now that the gravity of responsibility fell on her. Between this garden and the Champion’s arena waited thousands of mornings: meals and mistakes, muddy roads, lost battles, bruised paws, apologies, and the slow work of learning what another heart needed from hers. Arya bent her head until her cheek rested against the Riolu’s fur.
“We’ll take the long way,” she promised. The Riolu’s paw tightened in her jacket, Arya thought that she would need to trade it out for a blue one soon, and together they watched the sun rise.