And just like that, Devonshire was there, in the daycare. His wide grin, his shining cravat, his perfect hips were unmistakable. But... it wasn’t a perfect Devonshire; his eyes still retained that unnerving feral yellow, and the Sableye hadn’t had a grey-black tail the last time she’d seen him. But, if Tohne could disguise himself as Devonshire...

Wouldn’t that mean he was the one who ordered the Rogues to knock over PK’s item stand? Wouldn’t that make it his fault that she was exiled?

“Yeah,” Tohne said, still in disguise, “I can’t figure out how to get rid of the tail, or the eyes.” He reverted in an instant. “And I think I got his laugh wrong, too, all that time ago. I don’t think I’ll ever really be as good as Hatch,” he mourned. He looked up at Palette, quizzically. “Is something wrong?”

“I, er...” she stammered, “I just thought of something awful, actually, but it’s not something I want to talk about at this moment. Anyway... anyway, you can’t just use white and black for a big mural like this, because people do not like looking at things that are in black and white! Color makes everything much more interesting.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Tohne admitted, “but why would you just use those three colors, then? Other than white and black, I mean.”

Palette was confused for a moment, but when she looked in her crate, she realized what he meant.

“Oh! You mean the primary colors, right? Red, blue, and yellow are very special to a painter, actually. You see,” she fumbled around for a clean palette, “I can make any other color by mixing two or three of these together.” Palette demonstrated by just barely touching the tip of her braid to the bucket of blue paint and making a little dot on the wooden board. “You see, this is blue, but if I add a bit of yellow...” She wiped her hair off on a rag and dipped it in the pail of goldenrod, though maybe not quite as thoroughly as with the blue; so, when she mixed it into the azure dot, it made a decidedly teal shade of green.

“Oops! Haha, I suppose I didn’t proportion that exactly right. But this is a great demonstration of something I was about to say anyway, which is that if you experiment with how much of each primary you use, you can paint with just about any color in the rainbow!”

Palette looked down at Tohne to gauge his reaction, and she half-expected him to look bored and apathetic. But, she only saw wonder in those wide yellow eyes of his. He reminded her of–

Well.

“If you want,” she said, “I could take you back home, to the studio I share with a... with a friend. Not for a very long time, you know, just to show you some more of the things we do as artists. It isn’t as though I’m making very much progress here anyway,” she sighed. “And... also, maybe...” she added hesitantly. “There are not so many Pokémon living at our studio, so maybe, if the three of you did sleep there, you would not have such awful nightmares?”

Tohne shivered.

“You’d do that for us, really?” he said, looking down bashfully. “I’ll definitely ask Hatch and Charcoal if they’re okay with that... I mean, sure, they pretend to be tough and all, but really they’re just as scared as I am. Even Hatch, I think... I don’t think Hatch is tellin the truth right now. I mean, not to me, or to you, but...”

Palette nodded. She understood.

====

Part 5 of "Inspiration" by
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