Disclaimer: Don't be a fool. I don't own Pokemon, and am not worth your legal time.
The following was found scribbled on parchment in a cave somewhere outside Viridian City:
THE LIFE AND DEATH OF A DRATINI
Dratini was cute, it knew that much. It woke up cute, it broke fast cute, it napped cute. The pool of its existence was awash in continual expressions of large eyes and pale blue fins, and a candy voice whispering its own name continually – albeit irritatingly (but if Dratini never wished to utter anything else, who am I to judge?).
Dratini was rare; it knew no other Dratinis. At one point it was and egg, but Dratini hatched alone and took its first tentative slithers upon earth alone. Did I say earth? I meant pond, because Dratini was born in a pond – but either way Dratini's first venture upon land was done singularly as well.
But its lack of company did not diminish the cute factor of Dratini. In fact, one might say the lack of any other creature near Dratini only enhanced its one defining feature by narrowing the focus of anyone within sight. For if you had a whole room of cute Pokemon, do not the individual Pokemon as a whole become less cute by law of comparison?
However, the conundrum here is that if there is no one to witness Dratini it could not possibly be cute, for cute is perception and someone must perceive it. That is, unless Dratini itself felt cute when it became aware of its reflection in the pond of its birth.
This is beside the point though. Dratini is the point, and the only point to be made here is Dratini. Or perhaps what Dratini did is more to the point.
Dratini woke up, its large sleep dazed eyes glazed over with remnants of lonely dreams. It yawned a tired yawn and uttered its tired word, "Dratini," and uncurled slowly against the soft cushion of pond moss blanketing the bed beneath it. Above Dratini's head swirled mottled patterned highways of light, translucent and reflective, painting green rock and dark water with bright and hopeful suggestions.
Dratini surfaced, the midday sun peeking out happily among a canopy of branches – walls of barked cocoons silent sentries for the dragon-child's glade. Those sentries, nurturing as always greeted Dratini with their bounty of nuts littering the lawn of luscious grass.
The nuts were delicious to Dratini – who happily consumed the same fare day after day. Without knowing anything else, it could not possibly dissent. Dratini did not know apples, or kibbles, or treats, or snacks. One single species of nut Dratini knew, one species of nut was all Dratini had for comparison.
For all of Dratini's consuming of nuts though, Dratini never grew any larger. Dratini never grew beyond the small limits of its pond – much like a tiny Goldeen housed in a glass bowl. In fact, Dratini didn't even know the shed-skin ability which as one may guess created yet another conundrum with Dratini's existence. Without the shed-skin ability, how could Dratini possibly contain its life-energy?
Here we find a Dratini entirely alone in a grove of trees, in a scummy little pond, far away from any other fresh water source like a river or a stream, let alone a waterfall. In all known scenarios for a Dratini, this was the unlikeliest. So for all unknown scenarios for a Dratini, the unlikeliest things happened.
Dratini didn't contain its life-energy which, contrary to Dratini's physical size and inability to shed-skin, continued to grow.
Thus explained the richness and the thickness of the grove whose trees formed an impenetrable wall and always bore the nuts which Dratini ate year round. The luscious canopy of said trees formed a dome of protection for Dratini under the influence of the life-energy, releasing faint scents deterring other Pokemon from approaching; letting shy Dratini live its life in seclusion.
A secret cloister in the winter woods.
Secret until I found it…
R&R if you wish. I don't really care either way, but I'll read it if you write it.