Froslass Yukimenoko
and the Meaning of Life
It all started when Froslass Yukimenoko started wondering what she was doing in this world.
Or anyone at all, for the matter. Of course she had known that they were mortal. However, until that particular incident, the full weight of the very word had not really sunk in.
What does mortal mean?
What does it mean to be mortal?
Froslass was such a detail-oriented young lady that she had looked up the meaning of the word in a dictionary. "Mortal" meant "certain to die". OK, sure, so they would all die someday. However, that had only faced her with another question.
Exactly when is "someday"?
Froslass would have kept on assuming that that day was still a long way away had that particular incident not happened. It was what made her realize all too clearly that "someday" could jolly well mean this very day. It made her realize that as mortal creatures, their "tomorrow" was actually never guaranteed.
That particular incident had not only made her realize what fragile beings they were, but also that she was very small. She was only a speck in this universe. She was only one speck in a world of millions of specks.
Did one speck really matter that much?
Froslass suddenly grew more and more afraid that she would leave this world an ice ghost. She came alone, she did nothing of importance, and she went alone. But then she would think about how small she was, and then would doubt that she was capable of making a change. She was afraid that she was only an ant trying to move a boulder.
And on and on it went in a vicious circle.
It all started when Froslass Yukimenoko began to question everything that wasn't supposed to be questioned by Pokémon her age. She questioned spacetime itself, she wondered what memories really were. She wondered why there had to be bad people in this world. She wondered why they had to get old and finally wither and die. She wondered if that really was all there is to a Pokémon's life. She wondered what the very meaning of life was.
And while she was doing so, her beloved teammates Roselio and Staraptor were having a burping contest.
"I bet you can't beat that," said Roselio de la Verde smugly. He is the leader of Team Red Bow, the rescue team made up of the three of them. He is a Roselia with French blood who is far less classy than his name.
Staraptor Mukuhawk, the last member of the team, is a rebellious Pokémon who's usually a pro at burping, but this time he was strangely silent. When Roselio followed his gaze, he saw that the Flying-type was staring at Froslass, who had not budged an inch from the sofa in their team base since they first started their disgusting competition.
She was staring at nothing and fingering the white bandage that covered her whole side.
Staraptor's face softened. He already had an idea what she was thinking about. "Is everything all right, Fro-Yo?" he asked, abandoning the contest.
The Ice-type's eyes snapped to meet his.
"Oh. Yes."
The ice-cold fingers left the bandage and positioned themselves neatly on her lap.
"Everything is fine. I was just... deep in thought is all."
"Nothing you want to talk about?"
"No, no. It is fine," she said quickly.
"It's OK if you want to tell us something, you know," Roselio spoke up lightly, seemingly oblivious to Froslass' somber silence. "You can tell us anything. Right, Staraptor?"
"Yeah. Anything. No need to be shy."
"Hmm."
It was the only response Froslass gave. It made Roselio and Staraptor assume that she was not going to say anything else, so of course they were surprised at the bluntness of her next question.
"Roselio, Staraptor, do you know what the meaning of life is?"
"Pardon? The meaning of life?" Roselio repeated blankly. "Uhh, I'm not sure. Why should we think about such philosophical stuff in the first place, anyway?"
Froslass didn't answer. Her eyes were focused on something other than Roselio's and Staraptor's puzzled faces. Finally, she spoke, but her voice was only above a whisper.
"We are all going to die," she said.
"Someday," Roselio added, seemingly reading her mind.
"Yes." Froslass' head suddenly snapped up so that her pale blue eyes stared straight into Roselio's.
"But when exactly is "someday", I wonder?" she went on slowly. "It just occurred to me how frighteningly fragile we are. If we are lucky, we survive until old age when we slowly wither and die. But if we are not, that "someday" may well be tonight. But in the end, we all die, eventually, and in the end nothing even matters anymore. Furthermore, we are just tiny fragments compared to the universe, and I doubt if anything so small could make a meaningful change. In short, we exist and then we die. I was wondering if that was all there is to a Pokémon's life."
Her teammates were silent, astonished and at a loss for where this was going. It was Staraptor who finally broke the silence.
"Fro... you're talking about this because of that incident, aren't you?"
"No, I am not," Froslass claimed, but Staraptor knew she was lying, for her gaze traveled to the ground and didn't move from there for a long time.
When neither Staraptor nor Roselio said anything else, she went on quietly, "I ask for your forgiveness should I be putting a damper on what would have been a lively and happy morning, but everything suddenly simply loses meaning. It frightens me."
"Nah, c'est bon," Roselio said lightly. "I did say you could tell us anything that's bothering you."
He grabbed a handful of popcorn from the huge bowl he and Staraptor had been in the process of emptying and began with his mouth full, "Anyway, you were saying something around the lines of something as small and insignificant as us making a change in this huge world, right?"
Froslass played with her fingers. "Yes," she whispered. "I am afraid we might just be mere ants trying to move a boulder."
"Well," Roselio started, "mere ants may not be able to move a boulder, but they can move something else. Like, oh, I don't know... Dead grasshoppers."
Staraptor glared at him. "The heck?"
Roselio shrugged. "We may not be amazing heroes who go out there doing awesome things for a lot of people, but that doesn't mean we haven't been making a change, does it?"
"We have?" Froslass looked up. "Like what?"
"Take yesterday, for example," Roselio said. "We went to the Tiny Woods-"
"That wasn't yesterday," Staraptor interrupted in a matter-of-fact manner. "Yesterday we didn't do any rescue work because you didn't feel like getting off the couch."
"Oh, yeah. I totally forgot about that. Pardon. Fine then, the day before yesterday, we went to the Tiny Woods, where we rescued Caterpie for Beautifly. When Caterpie returned to her mother, she was so happy she laughed and cried at the same time, remember? My point is, we may not have made a big change for a lot of people, but at least we made a big change for Beautifly and Caterpie, right?"
He grinned. "Seeing them relieved and happy made me happy, too. I take delight in the small things like that, see! And by doing one small thing after another, before we know it, we'll have done something big. At least that's what I think!"
Froslass was silent for a while as she thought about the things he'd just said. As for Staraptor, he was scrutinizing the Thorn Pokémon with a suspicious gaze.
"Actually, what you just said makes a whole lot of sense. I'm pleasantly surprised, Ro. Does popcorn, like, power you up or something?"
Roselio was about to retort when Froslass went on, "However, that only takes us to the next question."
"Wad nff qstfn?" Roselio was already back to munching popcorn.
"You brought forth the subject of rescue jobs. They are often requests to help catch outlaws or retrieve items stolen by them."
Roselio swallowed. "Oui, et...?"
"I was wondering why there were Pokémon like those outlaws in the first place. Why do bad Pokémon have to exist in this world? Would it not have been better if everyone was good? There would not have been crimes nor war. There would have been world peace."
"World peace sounds très bien," Roselio answered. "That's been my goal for a long time. But there's something called... If I'm not mistaken... Dualism. You do know what it is, right, Fro?" He grinned innocently.
Staraptor was now casting suspicious glances at the bowl of popcorn. "No, I most certainly fricking don't know what that is. Seriously, is it in the popcorn? Why am I not acting smart yet?"
Froslass nodded. "Yes, I do know dualism."
"According to the dualism philosophy, there must always be two sides of something," Roselio said. "So if you have Good, you must also have Bad. The fact that there are Pokémon who steal and threaten others is the reason why we're considered good, right? Imagine if no one stole or threatened others - sure, there wouldn't be Bad, but Good wouldn't exist, either. It would just be a uniform mess of Pokémon who never did anything they weren't supposed to."
Froslass looked down at her lap, but when she brought her head up, her eyes had taken on a new shine to them.
"I understand," she said. "Yes, I understand what you mean."
Roselio beamed happily.
Staraptor had been watching the interaction between his two teammates and huffed. "Well, I don't have a single clue what the heck you were talking about." He turned away, not seeming to like what he'd been seeing.
For a few moments, it was silent in the Red Bow base except for the sounds of Roselio's popcorn-munching. Staraptor had his wings folded in front of him as if he was annoyed about something.
Suddenly, Staraptor turned back to Roselio as if he had just gotten an idea.
"Oi, Ro, get us some more popcorn, will you?"
"What?" Roselio groaned with his mouth full. "Why me?"
"Well, as far as I could see, you were the only one who's been eating it."
Roselio didn't budge, but Staraptor simply stared at him with a look that told him to "get it or else". He finally sighed and stood up. "Fine, I'm getting it." The Roselia took the bowl and went outside.
And again, for a few moments, it was all silent. Anyone could have seen that sending Roselio out for popcorn was Staraptor's ruse to have a chance to talk to Froslass alone, but at that moment Froslass was too preoccupied with her thoughts to notice.
Staraptor began, "Fro..."
The Ice-type looked up.
"I'm sorry." He refused to look at her. Instead, he stared at the ground, the tuft of feathers on his head casting shadows onto his face.
"What for...?" Froslass began, but suddenly Staraptor jerked his head up and signaled her to stop speaking.
"Wait." Raising his voice, he called, "Roselio de la Verde, I thought I told you to get popcorn. Why am I seeing a part of a red rose protruding in the doorway?"
The red rose promptly disappeared, but Staraptor sighed. He knew the Thorn Pokémon was still there, only he was more careful to keep his roses hidden from view.
"Roselio. Which part of "go get popcorn" don't you understand?"
Staraptor and Froslass heard grumbles coming from the other side of the doorway. "Fine, I'm going now! What's so private about the things you're going to say anyway? Acting like they're talking about some kinda secret. Pfff." Finally, to Staraptor's satisfaction, his footsteps got quieter until they couldn't hear anything at all.
"What an overcurious little Roselia." Staraptor shook his head, but Froslass was all business.
"You were saying that you were sorry, but what are you sorry for, Staraptor?"
"Oh." Staraptor went quiet again. He didn't reply right away. He got off the floor and sat on the couch next to the Ice-type. Even then, he didn't answer her question directly. When he did, his voice was uncharacteristically soft.
"I... I'm sorry I wasn't able to protect you, Fro. If only I'd prevented that Steelix's Iron Tail from hitting you..."
Froslass didn't reply. Her mind was replaying the events that had happened only yesterday. She remembered the painful CRRRAACK that had seemed to echo through her very being, a terrible pain that had lanced through her, and then the next second she had simply been... well, disintegrating.
There had been no blood, she remembered, because her species is hollow without a single drop of blood in them. Without blood, it wasn't messy in the least bit. But she remembered the horror on her teammates' faces as everything went black and she went slack in Staraptor's wings. She heard her teammates' voices, getting farther and farther away.
Crap, Fro's been hit!
Froslass, hang on!
But the forces that were pulling her under had been too strong, and Froslass had finally dropped into a deep sleep from which, it seemed, there was little hope of return. She had only woken up many hours later in Wigglytuff's Guild with a bandage on her side, the worried faces of Chimecho and her teammates staring down at her.
Staraptor was right when he guessed that she was beginning to think about existential matters because of her near-death experience. It slammed the painful truth that they were mortal and fragile right in her face.
Despite that tumult of emotions, the only thing Froslass said to Staraptor was, "It is fine; it was not your fault."
"I'm gonna promise you, Fro," Staraptor went on, "I'm gonna really protect you from now on. I'll do it even if it means I have to jump in front of that freaking Steelix to do it. Hell, I really will. Because..."
Froslass' eyes widened in utter surprise and she looked down. One of Staraptor's wings was wrapped protectively around her hand that was previously lying on the couch. Froslass' expression softened.
"... Because what happened yesterday scared the living daylight out of me." Froslass was again surprised to detect tremors in his voice. "The thought that we might lose you... Heck, that was too much to bear."
He swallowed, and it was silent again. Although Froslass' head was usually filled with clever phrases, she was now at a loss for words. In the end, the only thing she did was hold his wing in return and whisper, "Thank you..."
But Staraptor wasn't finished yet. The Flying-type turned to look at her. "I hate to say this, but I unfortunately don't have Roselio's ability to say smart stuff after eating popcorn, so I can't answer most, if not all, of your questions. I don't know why bad Pokémon exist and I don't know yet the meaning of life. I don't know what dualism is, and I most certainly don't know what dead grasshoppers have to do with anything... But you can count on me when it comes to one thing."
Froslass' pale blue eyes locked with his own red ones.
"You can count on me to be there," he said. "You can count on me when you need a shoulder to lean on."
He paused. "OK, so you can actually do that with Roselio, too, but since he's so small, you're gonna have to bend down pretty far. So I suggest you do the shoulder-leaning-on with me, yeah?
"When those deep questions start plaguing you, you gotta remember that you're not alone, OK? When the weight of those questions start getting too heavy for you, you gotta remember that you don't have to carry it on your own. Roselio and I'll accompany you wherever you go. You can drag us on an adventure to find the meaning of life anytime. After all, we're Team Red Bow! We stand forever."
Froslass' eyes were glistening, and for a few seconds, she found herself tongue-tied. Finally she was able to utter in a shaking voice, "Staraptor... thank you. Thank you for being a really good friend... both you and Roselio. I do not know what I would have done without you."
In the silence that ensued, she rested her head against the Flying-type's wing. Both were staring straight ahead, lost in their own thoughts, but Staraptor's thoughts were ultimately of Froslass. Even his feathers weren't very effective in keeping the cold out, but he didn't mind. He could have chosen to stay like this forever.
And the next second, Roselio ruined everything by barging in through the door.
Automatically, Froslass straightened up, a curious pink hue tinging her pale cheeks. The hold, much to the disappointment of Staraptor, was broken.
"Ah... Err... Where is the popcorn, Roselio?" Froslass quickly stammered upon seeing that the Grass-type came in empty-handed.
"That's the problem!" the Roselia cried. "I was going to make it when... you know..."
"What?" Staraptor's eyes narrowed. He sounded very annoyed - and he was. This was the first time Froslass actually reciprocated his feelings. Of course Roselio had to ruin it.
Staraptor's menacing expression put Roselio on edge. What he was going to have to tell them wasn't going to help.
"The microwave exploded and right now it's kinda..."
He laughed nervously.
"On fire."
Staraptor practically flew off the couch and out into the hall.
"The heck, Ro!" he exploded. "What were you trying to do? Make popcorn, or set our base on fire?!"
"Pardonnez-moi!" Roselio exclaimed as he ran behind Staraptor, this time using the more polite version of "you" to address him than the previous time. "But it really was an accident and it wasn't my fault."
"'Course it wasn't, Ro." Froslass, who was still in the living room, could still hear Staraptor's fading reply. "'Course it wasn't."
Froslass stood up from the couch, listening to her bickering friends as their voices grew softer and softer until she couldn't hear anything else.
"What happened back then?" she wondered. "What a weird feeling. For the first time since perhaps forever, I did not feel like shouting at Staraptor. For the first time in perhaps forever, what he did was not stupid or immature at all... in fact, it was pretty... pleasant."
She shook her head, trying to ignore the heat on her cheeks. She was really bad at this "feelings" thing.
Someday, she thought, remembering what Staraptor had said. Yes, someday she and her teammates would go on an adventure to discover the meaning of life. Someday, she would be able to answer all those difficult questions. She would gain knowledge on why everything just was.
But for the time being, she would go on with life as usual, in the burping-contest-filled company of her teammates, Roselio and Staraptor.
And to tell you the truth, that didn't sound too bad after all.
the end.