Trial of Color: Tuesday

Tuesday's meta commentary does not go unnoticed, and suddenly the hall stretches. She is further from Seta, further from entrance, than she was before.

"I am aware of the nature of change," Seta says, their voice as loud as a whisper in her catlike ears, despite the growing distance between them.

"You have taken the first step, as you say, but so has everyone who comes to these halls. I do not ask for you to show potential, but introspection, empathy, and foresight."

Seta repeats themselves, drawing Tuesday's attention to the vital part of the question. The truth needed for entry to what lies beyond the vermillion halls. "What makes you think your ghost wishes to return after what happened? What will be different this time?"

Seta sightless gaze regards you solemnly, weighing your response.

They turn, and the grayness moves down the hall. They lead you to a door-shaped hole in the wall, Not a door, because that would require a barrier of some sort. Wood, a hinge. This is more like a taught black curtain strung up in a rectangular piece.

Seta stands next to the door, ushering you through. "I pray you can fulfil your promise."

You pass through the darkness. It's as brief as blinking, and you find yourself in a new world.

TRIAL OF COLOR
You're in a familiar room. Perhaps your childhood bedroom, perhaps another place which lives just as vividly in your memory. Its contents are a mishmash of scenes, sights, and furnishings pulled straight from your subconscious. Everything here feels familiar, important, and often out of place.

In some part of the room lays your Pokemon, gray and still.

Return the color to your Pokemon through the objects in the room.

SPOILER: Click to show

{THEME}

Tuesday

The thread is about to snap; the tether a frayed rope, barely holding Mars' mind back from falling into the ceaseless spiral. Droplets of sweat mark Tuesday’s brow and her petite body trembles with a foreign frailty. Her mouth is dry, every breath feeling as if it’s not enough; as if she were running out of air. What is happening to her? What is happening to him? A gloved hand reaches for the nearest wall, dreading what feels like an imminent collapse—...

It's then notification pulls eyes of ruby and sapphire away from the scene.

Return the color to your Pokémon
through the objects in the room.

Pokémon…

His Pokémon…

Her Pokémon…

Aesop.

The rope strengths. The tether remains firm. A heartbeat steadies.

She’s here to find Aesop. She’s here to bring Aesop back. None of this is real. It’s all the game’s doing. The game is pulling from deep in Mars’ mind.

Fucked up. It feels invasive. Like a transgression. It makes Tuesday fucking mad.

Focus.

Fists unclench even if she’s not sure when they had been clenched to begin with. Tuesday takes a deep breath, ignoring the nauseating scent of roses, and after letting go of the wall she had been desperately holding onto, she takes another look at this replica of what had been Martín Marzán’s room throughout most of his childhood.

It’s not real.

No, it’s not. There’s too many inconsistencies. Too many things out of place. Too many which do not belong in the same timeframe. But… It still feels like that place. It still brings back memories all the same. It still makes her want to turn on her heels and run away.

Find Aesop.

Aesop.

Aesop does not belong in this place... and neither does Tuesday.

Where is he?

It takes her a moment. In one of the corners of this memory, near the tall windows that never opened, there is a rug that is perhaps one of the most colourful things to be found in the room; a playmat Mars had loved when he was a small boy. It depicts a cartoon version of the street map of a city, complete with stop signs, zebra crossings, a bank, a gas station, and a multitude of other buildings. There, right on top of the roundabout, a fox peacefully sleeps – its tail bushy and its ears almost too large for its small body.

A grey fox. Desaturated. Robbed of all colours.

Will she really be able to return them to him in this room where there is no brightness or beauty?

¿Qué haces?

Inhale. If not the roses, then what? What in this drab room could bring Aesop's colours back? Clothes? In the closet? No... even kneeling by the small fox's side, Tuesday can see it clearly without a need to stand: the white door and the hasp where a padlock had been once. Mismatched eyes fixate on it; on that small and insignificant piece of stainless steel that had instilled fear in a young Mars' heart long before he even called himself that. Fear of it and fear of what it represented. Punishment. Freedom stolen. Screams. Anger. Tears. Hours locked in the darkness. Loneliness. Helplessness. Dread. Claustrophobia.

The closet is just a closet, Mars knows that, just as he knows that if Tuesday approaches, it is sure to be full of his childhood clothes. There’s sure to be colour. There’s sure to be a way to end this trial... However, for every piece of clothing there is sure to also be ten horrid memories of the dreaded interior of this closet. There is sure to be marks on the walls, just like there will be marks on the hasp — the signs of a boy's desperate attempts to escape a place he could never leave until he was let out.

They wanted to break me.

They wanted submissiveness. They wanted apologies. They wanted him to beg to be let out. He remembers. He remembers that he was too stubborn to do so even as a child. He remembers that instead he responded with anger. Rage and hatred and lashing out. Outbursts. Anger management issues, a school counselor would call those outbursts years later, when he became prone to getting into fights. The small boy who got locked in this closet, though? That small boy wasn’t ready to fight. No... He'd cry hot angry tears instead, in the darkness of that small room where no one could see those tears that he knew to be an indisputable sign of his weakness, and even back then, even back when he was small and sad and angry and loneliness and miserable and helpless, he'd promise to himself that one day he'd make his grandfather pay for locking him in this place.

Se lo merecía.

They both did.

The grandparents who raised him.

Now... People say that books are an escape; that when reality gets too tough or too sad to handle, stories can take you to a faraway place and — even if only for a moment — distract you from all your problems.

Mars had never been the most avid reader, but as a child even he found an escape in some of the tomes that now fill this memory's shelves. It's the reason why back when he had first started playing UNOVR, when Professor Ash had asked Tuesday about her favourite fairytale, the answer had come easily enough: The Goose That Laid The Golden Eggs... Of course, the fact that she would soon become an Alchemist should have been obvious to all of them from that very moment, but instead this fondness for the fairytale had been the reason why Aesop — a flippant fox and her very first Pokémon — had been given such a name.

The Aesopica. Aesop's Fables. Fábulas de Esopo. Even now, after all these years, through Tuesday's eyes the old leather-bound tome is so easy to recognize right next to a dozen tattered textbook that Mars never treated with any appreciation or care. An old tome that belonged in the villa's library, among the proud collection of the Marzán Family, but that he taken as a child and had kept in his room for years. One among the few books he had chosen to bring to this room, in fact. It really is a shame that Tuesday doesn't even need to open it to know that in its yellowed pages she won't find the pure white of her Aesop.

Is it in another one of those books, then?

When she steps towards it, its pages oxidated by time await her on the oak desk, darker even than the wood's stain. There is no white in them anymore, Tuesday doubts there ever was, but it is the last book Mars ever opened in this room, settling for one simple quote to read during his grandfather's eulogy:

"Qué bien pagó a sus vasallos mismos.
A caballeros y a peones los ha hecho ricos,
entre todos los suyos no encontrarían un mendigo:
quien a buen señor sirve, siempre tiene buen beneficio."

El Cantar del mio Cid had been Emilio Marzán's favourite book, their mutual fondness for epic poetry having done little to form even a semblance of a positive bond between grandfather and grandson. No, Emilio spoke of Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar with the admiration of a passionate nationalist, mentioned at every formal dinner hosted by the Marzán family (in particular when at their estate near Valencia, doubtlessly), yet when Mars attempted to find a single quote applicable to his grandfather in this poem that retold his beloved Cid's courageous and selfless deeds, he had to settle for one that mentioned how wealthy the Cid made those working for him. He was a good businessman — in the end, that's the one good thing Mars had to say about the man who raised him.

And so, eyes close to tear themselves away from both the pages and the infuriating memories attached to them, a steading deep breath being taken while a gloved hand firmly holds onto the back of a chair as if it were a physical object anchoring Tuesday in the present. It's not, however. Just like how Tuesday does not exist outside of the game's simulations, Mars knows well that everything in this room isn't there anymore — that all of those books on the shelves over the desk have either been tossed away or returned to the library where they belonged. Textbooks on Biología, Física, Quimica, Historia, Lingüística, Geometría, Aritmética, Calculo, and even some of the books he had to read when studying Lengua y Literatura during his Bachillerato. He remembers many of them, recognizing the titles written on their spines:

La casa de los espíritus by Isabel Allende

La vida es sueño by Pedro Calderón de la Barca

Crónica de una muerte anunciada by Gabriel García Márquez

La venganza de don Mendo by Pedro Muñoz Seca

Titles which on their own are ironic considering Tuesday's current situation and the memory in which she stands, yet next to them, another: the one which had been reason for the name given to her Rapidash. El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes. A newer edition, pages white, and among them a single dog eared page because back then Mars sure didn't bother with bookmarks. This time Tuesday also knows what she'll find, but she reaches for the book all the same, the lightest of chuckles escaping her lips when reading the words on the page. Part II, Chapter XI, marked because of one simple thing Sancho Panza had said to Don Quijote. Something that had been so meaningful to Mars that he had underlined it with a blue pen (needless to say: he seriously didn't care for the condition of books back then). Out loud, she reads, a Madrilenian lilt ringing even in this sweet soprano of hers:

"Señor, las tristezas no se hicieron para las bestias, sino para los hombres; pero si los hombres las sienten demasiado, se vuelven bestias."

"Do you know what that means, Aesop?" The Alchemist finds herself asking when walking over to where the colourless vulpine slumbers with no motion, sitting by his side, book in hand. She strokes the Fennekin's fur, soft even now, and after careful tearing the dog ear off the page, she runs it through the dainty muzzle that she knows to be white — gentle, as if the small piece of paper could crumble to dust in her hands. "Melancholy was made not for beasts, but for men; but if men give way to it overmuch they turn to beasts."

Mars has always thought it sounds much better in Spanish, but even back when he was a teenager he knew the truth when reading those words: that all of the anger he felt, all of the rage and hatred, where caused by an unbearable sadness that would cause him to become a beast one day. Even now, that beast is within while Tuesday pets the Fennekin: rattling its cage and calling for him to lash out and destroy this game that is fucking with his head.

It’s a shot in the dark.

Here’s a not-so-interesting fact in the company of an anecdote: even back when Mars was a kid, winters in Madrid were never all that cold. The average temperature was always around 10ºC at its worst, and although that was much lower than what you would expect from Spain’s sunny summers, it never rained much and it rarely snowed. The problem, though? Well, the problem was that Mars’ grandparents were — as the title tends to imply — quite old, and so was their villa no matter how magnificent, grand, and extravagant it was. So, of course, on one particular year his grandfather decided that their home needed a more reliable heating system than those of old, and renovations took place that very summer, giving a teenage Mars the opportunity to sneak out often thanks to the distraction provided by all this chaos.

In an ironic display of 'out with the old, in with the new', La Villa de Marzán upgraded to a better home heating system, and beside providing Mars with what back then was the best summer of his life and with comfortably warm winters, it also came with one unexpected advantage for the then-teenager. See, the villa may have no longer relied on an inefficient boiler and radiator, but there were remnants of the system still, such as the little vents on the walls of rooms like Mars’ own, through which warm air no longer flowed. A vent a resourceful teenager (inspired by movies, no doubt) could easily unscrew, making use of the small space to hide a secret or two.

Back then, Mars would make sure nobody was around and close the door before doing what Tuesday is about to do, and even though he's well aware this is not really his room and that he's not in the villa, the Alchemist does find herself instinctively looking back towards the door. It's closed. Good. Sneaky like the great felines from which she borrows certain features, she approaches the bed with the most quiet of steps, using her body to push it away from the wall and reveal an ornate brass vent cover. Just as she had expected, the screws are loose, and oh how easy it is to pull them off and let the vent cover fall.

Two things await her within the vent: an envelope and a small box.

Evidently, the envelope is not what she's here for. It contains all of the money a younger Mars had saved over the years, earned mostly thanks to illicit sales at school — all of the money he planned to put to good use one day in order to break ties with his family and get as far away from this place as it was humanly possible. That money had been put to good use indeed not long after he left for university, and it had eventually lead to him fulfilling his goals. That's the reason why, even though it's not what Tuesday is after, she still treats the envelope with care, taking a moment to stare at it before reaching for the box.

It's tin, colourful, once belonging to a cologne someone or other had given him for a Christmas long ago. He had kept it and repurposed it; used it to hide things he hadn't wanted his grandparents to find out about for one reason or another. Some of those reasons seem silly in retrospect. Some he can't even remember anymore. It had been so long ago and yet back then he had been so afraid of them learning about the content of this box. They are as follows:

1. A small picture of his mother he had found once, most likely meant for something like a passport. He had never met her. He had only ever seen the pictures his grandparents had of her. This one, though? This one was his and his alone.
2. A receipt for ice cream, old, wrinkled, and damaged by a washing machine. It had been unknowingly kept in his pocket after the last time he would see his father for decades. He had found it months later. Being six years old at the time, he had hid it in all sorts of places before having this box to keep it safely.
3. A few dried petals from one of his grandmother's most prized roses, their pure white now turned to the colour of parchment. He had secretly destroyed the flower on purpose after a fight, out of pure spite, and he had let her blame one of their maids when she had realized her rose had disappeared.
4. A tiny bottle of Jack Daniels, the kind that belongs in minibars. He had taken it when touring one of his family's new hotels, unknowingly to everyone else (especially his grandparents and the hotel's management). It's empty. That had been the first time he drank.
5. A pack of Malboros, open and kept despite the fact that even back then he had decided smoking wasn't for him in any form (as an adult, he only does so on the most stressful days of all).
6. A couple of concert tickets. Another first. His first concert and his first date. Another thing he hadn't told his grandparents about, important even if he can't remember the band's name (it had been his date's favourite). Naturally, the date and breaking the rules had mattered more than the concert itself, and since he can't remember, the words are blurred when Tuesday looks at them.
7. A perfect 100/100 on a Calculus exam. It's only the first page and it's folded, but back then he only showed his grandparents the poor grades he mostly got on purpose and this one was one for which he actually studied to prove to himself that he could do well if he put in the effort. A reminder that despite how he acted, how he did the bare minimum to pass every class, and how most would think of him as a 'jock', he is incredibly smart. Later on his years in university would farther prove that.
8. A yellow scrunchie, last but not least. Still soft and elastic despite the years that have passed, and sure to still smell of jasmine and sandalwood.

These memories are painful in ways different than most of the ones this room awakens in Tuesday. These memories are warm with the fires of Mars' rebellion and filled with the comfort of representing moments he cherished for reasons that were as varied as they were complicated. These memories hit Tuesday like tidal wave when looking through the box, pushing her to end up seated on the bed as Mars had done countless times before.

She holds the scrunchie she had been looking for.

It's the answer and it's perhaps the saddest memory of all.

The fox is small, soft, and perfect to hold, even unmoving as he is now. She had taken a deep breath and gone back to where he awaited her, body grey and ears orange. He's not warm, not really, but perhaps that doesn't seem unnatural to Tuesday because she had never held him like this until now. She had picked him up as a threat or to stop him from running off, and he had struggled in her grasp, cursing her name and yelling for her to stop. Now, he doesn't move and she holds him because she needs something to hold. She holds him because the memories are painful and because she needs this to end once and for all. She needs the game to just be a game. She needs it to be Mars' escape as it had been before this moment.

And yet, perhaps even in the game, the choices she makes are influenced by the things Mars has been through.

And yet, she knows well Natalia would have adored Aesop.

Right here, holding him so close and with the scrunchie in her hand, right against Aesop's fur, she's almost certain she can still smell the scent of jasmine flowers despite the fact that it has been a decade since Natalia forgot it in this room the last time she visited...

<'Hey.'>

Oh.

<'...Hey... Hey, 'Sday. Lemme go!'>

For some reason — perhaps to mess with him, perhaps to make sure he's really awake, or perhaps because she simply wants to — Tuesday holds Aesop even tighter when he asks to be released, causing the Fennekin to struggle and whine while in her grasp.

<'Let! Me! Goooo! ...Ew, are you crying? Loser.'>

Just like that, the Fennekin is dropped onto the ogee carpet and Tuesday grimaces, lightly scrunching her small nose.

"Fuck no. I'm just allergic to your gross fur, when was the last time you had a bath? Let's just get out of here already."

One single tear is wiped away by a glove when she stands. Mars has always hated crying, and as it turns out, Tuesday hates it just as much. She is him, after all, and will always be. But, if out of all her Pokémon one has to see her cry, then she's okay with Aesop being the one. Not the most reliable among them, not the most useful, not even the most obedient, but a Pokémon for whom she has now gone to hell and back.