Gardenia felt herself bump into an invisible wall whenever she had to pass by the Lost Tower. This tower means numerous ghosts are lurking mere footsteps away, ghosts who hardly need to step anywhere to get at her.
Thus she had to steel herself for the act of running by the place in terror, every single time. Gardenia focused on her breaths, hoping the placebo effect would at least kick in this time - when a sudden voice behind her made her leap half her height.
"Chérie!" The voice sounded concerned enough, it was the only reason she didn't additionally take off on landing. "What could be the matter? You seem scared half to death."
Over her speaking was the uniquely-dressed, Ghost-using Gym Leader of Hearthome.
Swallowing down her terror-saliva, Gardenia managed to croak her response. "Oh, I just. Find it hard to deal with this Tower."
"Understood. You need aid to ascend? Then indeed, you are lucky today. For I who makes the companionship of ghosts must too go up!"
Before Gardenia could respond to that, the other leader had curled her thin gloved fingers around Gardenia's hand. And begun to walk toward the tower entrance.
"Um, wait!" The last thing Gardenia ever planned to do was set foot inside a tower of buried Pokémon, full of Ghosts and restless spirits! But her thoughts were being rattled just by knowing Fantina had Ghost Pokémon on her this minute. (This truth, in fact, motivated Gardenia to spend as little time in Hearthome City as she could.)
"You cannot battle Ghosts yet? Not to worry! I, Fantina, will protect you."
She wanted to argue, or thought she did. But Fantina seemed certain that no harm would come to Gardenia with her there, and really the harm was the problem with ghosts, isn't it?
"Okay."
The Lost Tower, of course, is dimly lit, plus slightly foggy so that you can't fully tell it from spiritual wisps. Across from the door, perching on a gravestone, a judgemental Murkrow stared through Gardenia, watching motionless even as Fantina led her briskly by. Gardenia had already started dying of fright, so she could see details like these in high-resolution half-speed.
The moment Gardenia began expiring, Fantina had begun speaking. "Mon ami l'orange, have you heard of a charm known as 'cleanse tag'?"
She tried to answer, but gasped instead. Frightened of her own sound (and its liability to attract curious specters), she stopped trying and brought her free hand forth to show what she'd already clutched for dear life.
"Ah, you hold one this second! Magnifique. I too carry the cleanse tag." Together, they'd already peaked the first flight of stairs; it hasn't been that long, Gardenia knew, but to her it felt like they'd run twice this distance. "With these, we shall likely battle few Pokémon."
More gravestones on this floor meant more chances for restless spirit encounters. Gardenia thus shut her eyes and didn't watch as the taller woman led them through the forest of stone unerringly. That was the plan, but a keening voice above them peeled her eyelids back open, that she might at least see the source of her death.
"Don't worry, dear. That's just a guest! He was very fond of his friend, and still is."
Gardenia wanted to believe her, but on the next floor they ran into too much fog to see through, and the fearful mind isn't much rational. She thought she could hear whispers. To drive that thought from her head, talking the fear away like Fantina seemed to be trying to do seemed like her best shot.
Still, her own voice had been fixed to whisper-quiet.
"What business did you have here today??"
"Here to the Tower, I come often to give all the spirits a happy visit."
"N-not to train with Ghosts?"
"That we do, too!" Now Gardenia was sure she was hearing ghostly murmurs, subtle laughter. But nothing brushed her even in the stairwells, almost as if the spirits were cutting the guest of their friend some slack. "The fighting spirits, they miss Pokémon battles, yes? So always I see them gather to watch one."
"That's great!" It wasn't great at all, but speaking did help her ignore the fluttery feeling squirming in her gut as they went higher. (How many floors does this place have, exactly?!)
"Oui! If you know how to look, you can see smiles upon them when they watch."
Gardenia felt the grave arrangements becoming more maze-like around them; if not for Fantina's soft gloved grip, she would be feeling so trapped that her own Pokémon might have had to carry her back out of there. It's a miracle that the instant they entered the tower at all, she didn't faint. Thinking of this truth actually made her feel a little bit braver...
Unexpectedly, Fantina called out to somebody, or something, she excepted to find on this next floor. "Oh? The old grave-keepers, they are not here." They then stopped, somewhere in what Gardenia was sure was the center of the room. Without releasing Gardenia's hand, Fantina turned, a fact the former knew from the sound of heels clicking and the light tension bobbing through their arms.
"Well, chérie, look where we've come. The very top of the Lost Tower!"
Why're you reminding me?? Here, where the fog is thickest?
As if reading her mind, Fantina let out one of her Ghosts. A Drifblim from the sound of it, far away closer to a wall. Instinctively Gardenia shuffled slightly closer to Fantina, even though this dreaded and awaited spiritual encounter was the other gym leader's own partner. Fantina must've noted this fear applied to tame ghosts too, for after asking it to defog the room she quickly placed it back in its Poké Ball before the clearing mist could reveal it to her charge. Then the two humans stood alone in a space more sparse than the ground floor. Two headstones here, but even Gardenia's fear didn't seem to be picking up any metaphysical presences.
She waited, as if some final test of her nerves was coming next - but nothing happened and no one appeared. It was just her, her breaths, and Fantina. Fantina seemed to be waiting for her to process their journey, because she only spoke again after Gardenia looked at her as if for a prompt.
"Voilà! You've made it through your fear, Gardenia, and you did not die. How do you feel now?"
At first, she just didn't know how to answer that. She'd never really looked at the Gym Leader of Hearthome before; never watched the Kalosian immigrant and her Ghosts perform in contests. Never saw before that under the strange stage costume and ghastly specialty is a radiant, genial woman overflowing with life. Her hand was still warm in Gardenia's, who hadn't realized until now how corpse-like she just assumed a user of the Ghost type would be.
Gardenia forgot about the Lost Tower, briefly. She somehow forgot that below them were untold numbers of ghosts. The only thing that rattled her now was the blazing awareness of Fantina's hand in hers. And now, it felt like it would take more bravery than it took her to get here to say so.
She swallowed before a steadying breath.
"Well... right now, I'm not afraid of the ghosts."
|\ | \ <--- fin | \######
