The quiet was nearly overpowering in the carriage, much more so than usual. Not just from the imperceptible humming of the Magnet Train as it streaked across the base of Mount Coronet, leaving the Sinnohese countryside a blur as it went by, but from the palpable tension among the occupants. Heading to Hearthome so early, they were able to have a compartment almost to themselves, but not one of them accepted the freedom to relax and sit back after the last madcap month or two. Roisin and Laurie, the battlers of the group, had split away and taken a seat toward the far end, their subdued voices joined by a tinnier third, as Rocky helped the duo plan out some strategies for the battles in the upcoming tournament.

That left Skye and Diane together at the opposite end of the carriage, paired off with one another, but either unable or unwilling to speak for the longest time. The Lanturn had spent that time in silent sorrow, staring mournfully at the delicately carved seashell cradled in both hands, while the Gligar had been a frenetic and barely restrained wreck, constantly shifting in her seat, eyes darting from one point in space to the next, claws gently dragging themselves across her skin, breath coming in a deliberate, rigid rhythm, gradually deepening and quickening for a moment before slowly being forced back into line.

"Diane, please stop." Skye said softly, the Lanturn choosing to be the one to break the silence.

" Skye!" Diane hissed, trying to keep her voice down as best she could lest the handful of others in the carriage overhear. "The statue, it was..."

The Water-type's solemn expression didn't change, her head still hung low, watching the shell in her clutches as if hoping for it to chime itself back to life. "I know..." she replied, hardly above a whisper.

"No, I mean-" the Gligar interjected, between short, anxious gasps. "I-I saw it, but there was..."

That certainly caught Skye's attention, her gaze lifting from behind her dimly illuminated esca. "You were there?" she pressed.

Diane opened her mouth to answer, but the words didn't come. There weren't even any words to come at all. In the scene beyond the shattered head of the Dialga, in front of the glowing moonlight, was nothing. A void where clearly once a memory stood, an image scratched away from her psyche, obvious enough for her to know that something should have been there. "I......I can't..." she stammered, the heels of her claws pressing against her temples as she hunched over the table between her and her companion, desperately twisting and stretching her thoughts to find her missing piece of mind. If that mind was a diary, this was half a page torn clean out. "Why can't I remember?!"

The Lanturn was only able to sit and watch as her friend continued their descent further into panic. "Diane..."

"Can't you ask Cresselia about it?" she pleaded, looking up to Skye with eyes full of fear.

"I..." she began, but quickly stalled, her attention returning to the seashell around her neck. "...I can't hear her..."

The frantic breathing of the Gligar suddenly hitched in her throat. "...what do you mean, 'you can't hear her'?"

Skye didn't reply, or rather, couldn't bring herself to. For as long as she could remember, she had been cultivating this connection with the unseen energies swirling all around her, learning to hear, and later understand, what the words of those high above were telling her. Every step she took was linked in some way to Her will, was intended to spread and share Her graces, had faith in Her path. She would guide her friends by the light that guided her.

And now, just as with the Gligar, there was nothing. The word she had come to rely on had vanished, the connection she had felt for years by this point severed. The Lanturn was left with that same void, but this time deep in her soul, leaving her with an unshakable sense of cold, of emptiness, without any direction. The light she led her life by had been snuffed out.

And so, silence fell back over the duo, each slipping back into their own woes as the train calmly whisked them onward. The one thing the two of them both needed, more than anything, was answers, and while they were each stranded on their own island of worry, the world flashing past them in the blink of an eye, they were almost certainly not going to find any.

Maybe, in Hearthome, they would.

---

000 - New Arrival
020 - The First Scar
022 - ???