Hello! This is actually a combination of two drabble tag entries, with a little extra scene added at the end to tie things together a little better. As such the prompts used were candy from a stranger, snake in the grass, gild the lily, and three scenes from Fire Emblem (the links are in the Pokewrite drabble tag if you're curious). Enjoy!
Disclaimer: If I owned Pokemon, then I would not be writing here. I would be riding my dragon Pokemon :P
Meteorous
"In love the paradox occurs that two beings become one and yet remain two." -Erich Fromm
You, the wild one, just realized that you are not what you thought you were.
Surely you were a Pokemon. You loved them, and understood them, and they loved and understood you. You frolicked with them in the fields and forests, far away from people. The people who didn't want you, because you were not like them.
And yet, one day, as you lay by yourself on a mossy rock, you stare at yourself. You stare at the tiny hand before you like it's a mutation and not the same limb you have had since birth. And you realize, then, that you are not a Pokemon, but a human.
You know it's a mistake. A Pokemon soul bound to a human body. You're not human, nor more than a Pokemon dressed up in human clothes is. Your Pokemon friends politely ignore the unfortunate cosmic error, but sometimes you still ponder. It doesn't change anything.
Then he comes, that man in the strange robes. The one who calls himself Ghetsis. Why did humans always try to make themselves so different from each other? He whisks you away to a great pile of buried stone called a castle, and puts you in a small space called a room. You cannot leave as he brings in tortured after tortured Pokemon, your kin, and says how terrible the world is, and how you are destined, how you are their savior, how you will be king of all.
How you will be called N.
Names are a strange human thing, but you accept it. It is a small humiliation to suffer for the sake of saving the world. Your world of Pokemon friends. But now the greatest task comes: hiding your inhumanity from all the other humans, including Ghetsis. For if anyone knows you are a boy with a beast's soul, no one will listen. They must listen.
It is nice, pretending to be human. Some days, you almost feel human. But you know that is a lie. And someday those lies will break, like a Zoroark's illusions upon a faint touch, revealing...
Humanity is fascinating for you. They are so like you, and yet not at all. The sheer power humans wield over Pokemon and the environment, the absurd yet brilliant things they invent out of only their minds...you are not used to that. You are used to adapting to nature, and not making nature adapt to you. And there's a girl that makes your heart go thumpthumpthump, as if you're about to evolve, as your body loses control of itself and you're about to turn into...
Your true form? What is your true form? You don't even know anymore. You are evolving now. But you don't know what you are becoming.
IIIII
You, Touko White, have just realized that the world was not what you thought it was.
You had always considered herself an adventurous spirit, but it was because of him that you were transfigured into another being. Him, N, the man-child, the boy who was both artificial and natural, chosen and not-chosen, a knotted web of bitter truths (reality) and sweet ideals (lies) that was unafraid of petty things like unquestionable rules and traditions.
You didn't trust him, of course. Who would trust someone so undefinable, uncontainable, so wild yet controlled all at once? Don't take candy from a stranger, no matter how nice they seemed. Well, it seemed liked sound advice, especially when N revealed one of his bitter truths to you as you gazed at stars on the Ferris Wheel. And yet...somehow, you couldn't despise him. You could be confused, or greatly irritated, or even outraged at his pompous words, but you couldn't hate him. Somehow, through all of his elaborate rambling, something he said resonated with you. So you accepted the bittersweet candy of his beliefs, but you weren't stupid enough to eat them, make them a part of herself.
You thought yourrself a rebel, as you explored dark caves and chased off members of Team Plasma. But you realized that wasn't true. Everyone became a Trainer. Everyone caught Pokemon, fought with them, and explored countless areas that countless others had explored before them. Even fighting bad guys was a part of the design: how many times had you heard of the heroic kids who defeated the evil, uncomforming bad guy, who of course should be punished because he was different, because he did not fit into society as he should? You were just the newest cog in the system, where people and Pokemon alike were kept firmly in their places. Your freedoms and choices were all repulsively sweet, cotton-candy lies that envenomed every meal, every song, every word. Meanwhile the snake in the grass watched you like a camera, ready to bite and sicken and mark you as the next different target to defile if you dared to step off of the paved pathway.
No, N was the true rebel, not even bothering to conform to the masses' wishes. He walked into the tall grass and glared at the snake, not even flinching as the serpent tried to strike him. And even bitten, even sickened and marked by the snake's fangs, he kicked the serpent aside and kept walking in the untamed grasses, roaming far beyond the path to places never even seen, thoughts never even dreamed by others, Pokemon or people. The only thing that restrained him from leaving everything behind entirely was a sense of duty, an obligation to everyone still on the paved road, still being herded by snakes. An obligation to make them see that this wasn't the only way to live.
You nibbled away at the idea like it was a foreign treat, unsure sure if it was to your taste or not. You hated the idea that maybe, just maybe N was right about some things. But you hated the idea of being controlled by a system even more. And now that N had left his samples of bitter truth and sweet ideals, you could not ignore the lingering flavors they left on your tongue and on your mind. Why did Pokemon always have to fight? Why do we always try to raise ourselves above Pokemon, even though they are clearly stronger in almost every way? What would Pokemon be like, if they were left in a pure state, if they were allowed perfection without the taint of humanity?
You saw others beginning to question it too. It was rarely vocalized (except maybe in whispers) but there was a visible shift, like the way snow scents the air before it comes. Slowly, rumors of the mysterious green-haired boy rose like heat from a stove. There were those who abhorred change, and those that abhorred Team Plasma, yet even these people were left struck when they encountered N. They knew, you believed, that what N was saying was true.
Team Plasma was gilding the lily. N was already changing the world with his own inexplicable power. And you, who was supposed to oppose him, had already swallowed the candy. How quickly its sugar was melting into your blood and heart.
IIIIII
We wait.
We are still, like fireflies in amber, but we dream, and we know we dream. We dream of the ones who have left us, and the ones who are coming. We clash, like licorice and milk. We coexist, like breath and heartbeat. We are one impossible creature now housed in two bodies, two minds with different beliefs but the same goal: for the ideal to be the truth, and the truth to be the ideal. Unity.
But we do not have unity, yet. Our chosen are coming, the super-organism that is all of us is forming, but each of us functions independently, alone. Only when the bond becomes fully cohesive, only when all are gathered and awake, will we become the deity of fate.
IIIIII
I decided to combine these b/c they felt redundant on their own, and I think they turned out well. I was aiming for whimsical prose for all three sections. Hope you enjoyed!
