The Dock of the Bay

A Clover Guild Story
By Ribombee-anon

Sneasel sat alone at the Capim Town docks. Her partner Booker was busy helping the cartographer Macom at the guildhall. Since she and Booker preferred to stick together, Sneasel had tried to stay there and help them, even though she found the work boring. But after she poked one too many holes through the maps with her claws, Macom gently yet firmly asked her to leave.

With a huff of disdain, she reluctantly left her partner and came out here to do something else. Despite the docks’ proximity to the bustling town, the area was usually quiet, aside from the rare boat or aquatic Pokemon—and this morning, the docks were deserted. The waves and sea breeze offered a calming atmosphere. It was a good place to practice her moves.

With Booker’s aid, she had been trying to improve her signature Ice Shard attack. Forming rough spikes of ice was easy, but summoning them in a more specific aerodynamic shape was a desirable skill she never mastered. Booker could offer a second set of eyes and some basic advice about aerodynamics—but most importantly, he could share tips for energy manipulation and self-control he was learning while training with the guild’s Aura expert, KFC. Even though Sneasel wasn’t Aura-sensitive, she could benefit from some of the tricks utilized by Aura users.

Sneasel held her hands close together and concentrated, remembering everything she had learned. Icy energy flowed through her body and out of her hands, forming a faint cloud of mist. Within it, tiny ice crystals slowly coalesced into a gleaming and jagged spike as long as her claw. She tried to adjust the movement of the energy and build the shard in a specific shape. In the end, it looked vaguely similar to what she hoped for, but not satisfactory.

She dropped the shard into the water, where it floated and slowly melted. She tried several more times, always meeting with mediocre levels of success. And each time, she felt her frustration mount and her focus slip; in reply, the shards began looking more deformed and uneven, until she ran out of energy at last. She grit her teeth as she realized she couldn’t summon any more ice. She stared down at the miniature ice floe of failed shards floating around in various stages of melting. None of them had looked right. In fact, they looked worse than the ones she made when Booker was with her, providing live advice and keeping her from getting angry. She wished he was here now.

She sighed. She held on to her final shard and began absentmindedly scratching at it with her claws. As if whittling a chunk of wood, she started forming it into what she had been aiming for, a shape her partner had described to her: a four-finned dart.

Although she was focused on this task, she never let her guard down, so she easily heard the faint steps behind her. She quickly looked over her shoulder. An Oshawott stood there on the dock, a startled look on his face.

“O-oh,” he said quietly. “Sorry. I... I was coming here to relax, but if you’re here first, I guess I’ll go.”

He quickly turned to leave, but Sneasel called out to him. “Hey, Gus! Why’re you running off?”

The Oshawott looked back. “I don’t want to bother you. Sorry.”

“I don’t mind. It’s kinda boring without anyone else here. Come on, there’s room for both of us.”

Gus wavered, but soon came over and joined her at the edge of the dock, sitting a short distance away. He confusedly glanced at the swarm of melting ice floating around below him, then gazed out at the bay while Sneasel concentrated on her sculpting again. She paid little mind to her guildmate, but the presence of an acquaintance did help her relax. Perhaps it was due to her upbringing on a hostile island, but she often felt much better when she had friendly people around.

“What are you doing?” Gus eventually asked.

“Making a better Ice Shard,” she replied. “Booker gave me some advice.”

“Oh, Booker—your partner. Yeah. He’s a nice guy.” After a long pause, he asked, “What’s it like to have a partner?”

Sneasel almost dropped her shard at the sudden question. “Huh?”

The Oshawott fiddled with his scalchop as he turned to face Sneasel. “Having a partner... how’s it feel? Having someone who cares about you, and you care about... like a best friend. You know what I mean.”

Sneasel looked at him in silence for a bit. Then a knowing smile grew on her face. “If you’re lonely, all you gotta do is say so,” she said.

Gus stammered, “I-I’m not lonely! I’m just curious!”

“And I’m curious why you’re hiding the truth. I’ve seen you staring at our guildmates—and it’s always the ones with partners. I can’t read emotions like Booker, but I can tell you’ve got some sorta... longing? Or jealousy?”

“No, I’m not jealous,” Gus insisted. “I’m fine being alone. I’m fine not having a partner. But... I feel out of place. So many people in the guild have someone. And most of them even got their partners right away, from what I’ve heard. But me... I’ve got nobody.”

“Don’t say that. You’ve got the entire guild with you.”

“Yeah, but I don’t have an actual partner. Not like you and Booker, Nick and Amelia, Chespin and Wooper, Charm and Natu...”

“Hey, plenty of us don’t have partners either. Kina, Skiddo, Macom—even the big bad guildmaster himself doesn’t have anybody. At least, I think he doesn’t. He always gives me kinda weird vibes, so who knows what he’s hiding.”

Gus nodded. “Yeah, I get what you mean. Still, the point is... I don’t know why I never got my own partner. And I wonder what it’s like to have one. That’s all. It’s not that I’m jealous or sad, but I’m just... curious, like I said.”

Sneasel sighed and set her last ice shard down on the dock. “Listen, Gus. Nothing wrong with not having a partner. Having one is great, but even if you ain’t got one, it’s fine, cuz you’re not alone. You got a whole freaking guild at your side. And cuz we’re all guildmates, we’ll always be with you. Sorry if that sounds sappy, but that’s the truth.”

The Oshawott meekly looked away. “Y-yeah,” he said. “I guess. Thanks. That sounds nice.”

Sneasel resumed sculpting. After a bit, she resumed talking: “Back home, on the island... in my tribe, we all had to stick together, or we’d die. But we didn’t really have ‘partners’ there. We couldn’t get attached to each other, cuz that would make us weak. Enemies could use it against us, or we might do dumb stuff by letting our emotions get the better of us. Even my parents didn’t get super close to my littermates and me. But here, we don’t gotta worry about that. It’s not as rough as the island, so we can loosen up. We can all have partners, and that’s great. And I bet it’s only a matter of time until you get one too.”

“I don’t know about that,” Gus muttered. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get one at this rate.”

Sneasel glanced over at him, a glint in her eye. “Y’know, Gus... you’ve gone along with me and Booker on some jobs before. Why not go a step further and actually join our team? Then all three of us can be partners. Most people have teams of two, but I bet a team of three would be fine. I mean, we’d have to ask the guildmaster to make sure, but...”

She noticed Gus perk up at her offer, but he quickly restrained himself and shrugged. “I’m not sure. You and Booker have a good relationship, so I feel like I’d be a third wheel with you two. I don’t know if I should actually partner up with you guys like that. But... thanks for the offer. I’ll think about it.”

“Alright,” Sneasel said with a grin. “Cool. Give it some thought. But even if you don’t officially partner up with us, you can keep tagging along on missions anytime you want. I always love having an extra fighter to help us out, and I’m sure Booker feels the same way. Plus, you’re a Water-type, so that’s even better. Me and Booker are weak to Rock- and Fire-types, and you help us deal with those. And my ice can beat your Grass-type weakness.”

“Good point,” said Gus. “We support each other pretty well, huh? Yeah... maybe I’ll talk to Lliam and see what he thinks about us three partnering up. I don’t know if I’ll actually do it, but maybe...”

Gus fell silent, deep in thought. Sneasel went back to work and finally finished shaping her ice shard to Booker’s specifications. It was almost perfectly symmetrical, with a frighteningly sharp tip, a narrow body, and four fins on the back end. It was no longer a shard—it was a dart. She held it in her hands and examined it, trying to memorize its appearance. One day, she would be able to summon an ice shard in this shape, without needing to carve it, which would theoretically improve the range and damage of her attacks. That would take practice, but she had time—and a partner to help her.

Once she was satisfied, she lifted the dart up and flung it over the bay. It soared a lot farther than she expected. She and Gus watched it fly and eventually make a tiny splash off in the distance.

Sneasel stood up and stretched. “Alright. I’m outta energy, and I’m hungry. I’m gonna head back and get some chow. And I’ve gotta see if Booker’s done with Macom. You coming back too, Gus? We can go together.”

“Actually, I was thinking about floating out in the bay for a bit,” Gus said. “I mean, that’s why I came here in the first place. I’ll come back to the hall later.”

He slid off the dock and landed in the cool water, where Sneasel’s failed ice darts had drifted before they all melted. He floated on his back and let out a long, relaxed sigh. “Oh, by the way... thanks for the talk, Sneasel. Maybe I’ll partner up with you and Booker someday.”

“Sounds good to me,” Sneasel said. She turned to go, but then paused. She kneeled down at the edge of the dock and looked down at the Oshawott. “One last thing. I never actually gave a straight answer to your question about having a partner, huh?”

“Oh, right,” he said. “You have an answer now?”

“Yeah,” she replied. “I can tell you how it feels to have a partner: it’s the best feeling in the world.”