“That is quite the story you’ve got there,” Professor Carolina chuckled after I finished with my tale so far. I wasn’t offended by her amusement, as even for me, the events that had occurred were somewhat unbelievable. If not for a few, scattered and disjointed dreams, I could have come into existence during that cold winter night, born from the winds on the slopes of Mount Coronet.

“There are a few curiosities I noticed about you,” she continued, her eyes studying me, “One is your accent, or rather the lack of it. You speak our language perfectly fluid but I can’t, for the life of me, find any trace of a regional accent. For most people, I’d be able to at least get an idea where they hail from by listening, but you? I just don’t know,” she shook her head with an expression of disappointment.

“But I can see why my granddaughter wanted me to take a look at you and have a talk, especially if we keep that hypothesis of hers in mind,” she continued studying me, focusing on my face and eyes. I felt myself frown under the close scrutiny but kept quiet, curious where she was going with her thoughts.

“You see, one of my areas of expertise is the study of history and the investigation of myths and legends. It’s often difficult to figure out what is truth, what is an exaggeration and what is pure fiction. For example, there is the tale that Arceus came to the top of Mount Coronet and there, atop the Spear Pillar, he formed Dialga, Palkia and Giratina, and in doing so, he ordered Space and Time, while separating our world from the Distortion World, I’m sure you’ve heard of the story, right?” she asked, to which I nodded, remembering the story from Claire but also from the Church in Eterna City.

“Now, if we look at that legend realistically, you’ll immediately notice a glaring flaw. Namely, if Space and Time were in chaos at the time, and the Distortion World not yet separated from ours, how could Mount Coronet be there and who made the Spear Pillar, an object we can still visit and investigate today? The Spear Pillar is clearly made by tools, though quite advanced ones we don’t really understand, but it’s almost certainly not a naturally formed object,” she paused, looking at me with an amused grin on her face.

“Would it make sense for a being that was planning to put order to Space and Time, quite the monumental task if I’m to judge, to take a moment and create a mountain first and even put a nicely carved pillar and shrine on top of that mountain?” I chuckled at the idea, the image quite funny to me. A purely chaotic space, one that I imagined with swirling colours and a whole lot of nothing, but some incredibly powerful being put down a mountain first thing, so he could relax on the slopes or something? And not only that, he even put down a nice marker, so future beings would have a nice spot to venerate him.

Yeah, that didn’t make any sense, unless there were some warped priorities going on.

“I see what you mean,” I nodded, pushing down my amusement.

“I thought so, but fact is, the Spear Pillar is there and it is mentioned in various ancient texts, quite a few of which also reference Dialga, Palkia and Giratina. In addition, the locations of Celestic Town, Eterna City, Hearthome City and even Oreburgh City to a lesser degree all hint at the importance of Mount Coronet. There are other places where one could set up a reasonably serviceable pass between Eastern and Western Sinnoh, especially in the far south but the main routes are between Celestic Town and Eterna City or between Hearthome and Oreburgh. All places around Mount Coronet and all somewhat suitable to facilitate the climb. Especially Celestic Town and Eterna are ancient places, their location only useful if one wants to climb Mount Coronet. Otherwise, there’d be plenty of other, better locations to settle,” she explained, giving me quite a bit to consider. Nothing of immediate relevance, but it was an interesting topic, why did people settle where they did, and why did certain sites, like the top of Mount Coronet, gain cultural significance.

“I’m sure you wonder how that is all relevant to you and your situation?” she paused, an amused expression on her face. She seemed to have that one quite frequently. “You talked to Rowan already, I’m sure of that, and he should have told you a bit about the Lake Guardians. He even sent me a letter, inquiring about those legends, but didn’t mention why he did, as if my Granddaughter wouldn’t have given me the heads up,” she rolled her eyes, before shaking her head as if to drive the thought away.

“The Lake Guardians are an incredibly interesting tale, for multiple reasons. The primary is that sightings of them are, comparatively, common. They are never obvious but there are a lot of stories around the Lakes that hint at them, or that describe mysterious figures floating about or vanishing between the trees or into the mist or snow. Few mention them in an overt manner, but the hints are there. They seem to be somewhat interested in humans, especially Uxie, the Guardian of Lake Acuity near Snowpoint City. They even have a shrine dedicated to it there and I’ve seen stories that describe his appearance in detail as if someone had direct and prolonged contact.” she explained, as I nodded along, wondering when she’d get to the point.

“Anyway, the important point is, they have shown interest in humans and there are tales of them helping others. If you are interested, I can give you an introduction,” she explained, finally getting to the interesting point.

I eagerly nodded, curious about what tales she had for me.

As we slowly drank our tea, she told me one tale after the other, slowly pointing out the common points between them. The various tales all had a few of them, they all featured a person with exceptional skill or knowledge, such as a travelling craftsperson or scholar. At some point during their journey, they would visit Snowpoint City and wander in the woods of the area, often to look for some specific material or on the hunt for some lost knowledge.

In those forests, they all met some sort of disaster. It might be an attack from wild Pokémon, powerful enough to cause their own Pokémon to faint if they had any and force them to flee, or it might be a sudden snow storm or some other sort of disaster. Either way, they would be forced to escape and fall into a strange world, not quite dream, not quite awake, as one account put it. The descriptions varied quite a bit, but they all spoke of floating or drifting sensations, of a limited field of vision due to mist and ethereal music. After those dream-like experiences, they came back to their senses, having escaped from the disaster they had originally fled. One other, quite common, trope was the passing of time, that the people had lost a few days or weeks unknowingly, but during that time, they had mastered some new skill, an extension of their previous ability or knowledge.

One story spoke of a weaver who had been a master craftswoman but after wandering through the mists, she learned how to weave a wholly different cloth and became famous for it. None of the stories could explain the origin of the new skills or knowledge, but they always proved to be pivotal. One story spoke of a doctor, heading into the forest to search for a cure to heal his sick wife and not only did he gain the ability to do so, but he also learned where to look for the ingredients necessary for that cure.

“I see what you mean,” I mumbled after Professor Carolina had told me the tenth story. “Those dream-like events, what do you think they are? And do you think they have something in common with the odd dreams I told you about?” I asked, referring to the strange, contradictory dreams I had been having.

“They are a common theme and the theme of Pokémon having the ability to impart knowledge and wisdom to humans in their dreams is another common one. It’s most prevalent in the stories of the Eon Dragons, Latios and Latias, but it might apply here, too.” she paused, looking at me with a frown as if she was deep in thought.

“Honestly, you are an enigma. From what my Granddaughter told me, there are hints you are from Kanto, so quite a distance away from here. But she also mentioned that there are hints you are from the past. Now, the dreams you told me of, might indicate something else entirely, or they might simply be that, dreams. Figments of your imagination, attempts of your mind to tell you something or even induced by an outside force,” she shrugged.

“The problem is, they are completely subjective and even your memory of them might be imperfect, simply because it’s your memory. Either way, I believe your best bet would be to follow up on the tales I told you about. The dreams might contain hints and I would suggest you start keeping a diary to record them and your first impressions after waking up, simply to prevent time from influencing your memories, but I wouldn’t try to use them as evidence for anything,” she let out a sigh.

“If I have learned one thing, it is that people are horrible eye-witnesses, especially after a bit of time passed. They might convince themselves that they have seen or heard things that were patently impossible, for one reason or another. If you want to investigate, try to stick to things you can corroborate as much as possible,” she advised me, before letting out a sigh.

“I know, it’s not always easy. But none of the truly worthwhile things is, or everyone would be doing them.”