Genre: Angst
Characters: OC* [See below]
Rating: T to be safe
Warnings: Angst, discussion of blood
Wordcount: 643
A/N: *This character is Calufi "Calf" Falkenrath, a character created by Loffyglu (of Tumblr as loffyglusnotepad; go check her out, man). At age 10 or 12 when her story begins, young Calf has been convinced to kill her Mareep, Baby, upon his conversion into a Shadow Pokemon because she believes he is beyond saving. (Daisy is Calf's Herdier, whom Calf ordered to kill Baby, and Wulfie is her faithful Mightyena.) Calf becomes the Champion of Loffyglu's fictional region Eldeia when she is about 15.
I did not create the universe or the character; that's why we call this fanfiction. Posted fully upon Loffyglu's express request. This is for her convenience in displaying this bit of Calf's story, since I wasn't going to post it myself, but since it's here now, please enjoy. c:
"Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red."
-Macbeth, William Shakespeare, .60-3
It was a tableau that sparked and flamed against the backs of her eyes every time she tried to sleep.
It was the only way to save him.
Calf sat up for what must have been the hundredth time, taking deep, calming breaths and feeling Wulfie's furry warmth along her side. Again and again she had tried to dream, for hours, days, weeks—but her dreams were nebulous and shadowy nightmares filled to the brim with one tarnished golden figure, one sacrificial lamb.
She rubbed her sleepless eyes, wiping the ache away in tears, rose gently, and padded to the window. There was silence in the room aside from four sets of snuffly breathing. One fewer than there was supposed to be.
It was the only way to save him.
Quietly she turned her back to the window (the moonlight was too yellow tonight, unbearable, like a spotlight on her face; yet she did not draw the curtains) and sunk down the wall to the floor. Only a girl, she still did not entirely understand the gravity of what had happened, only that something was missing from her now, and in her despair, all that she could think was that it must be Baby.
Baby. So named because he was indeed her little baby, too weak and helpless to do much for himself, but precious somehow, perhaps because of his youth. It was a kind of eternal youth and charm she thought he would never outgrow; she had imagined him an Ampharos still trotting along behind her with the cutest bleat in the world, and now he truly would never outgrow his youth.
Daisy growled in her sleep, and the sight of her teeth made Calf flinch. She rubbed her hands together nervously and felt the distinct sensation that they were filthy. When she lifted them into the moonlight, they were a dull red from her squeezing and washing and rubbing them together.
Had the last thing Baby had seen been those teeth?
She couldn't wear her yellow hair ribbons anymore; they felt too fleecy to her fingers.
Trembling, Calf stood and wrapped her arms around her stomach bracingly, biting her lip. As she paced across the floor back to her rented bed, her leaden feet felt like lumps of stone tied around her neck.
It was the only way to save him.
She finally tumbled onto the bed, shaking with sobs, and fell into a fitful semblance of sleep.
Champion Calufi Falkenrath stooped and kneeled in the grove she remembered, brushing away the dirt and thorns from a gravestone long-forgotten. Long-forgotten? It was several years old and yet it was new-born as an infant, and Calf was not sure which was true.
The name that she had scratched in the rock had long since worn away, and the rectangular stone that she had placed there was rounded off at the corners, but in her mind's eye the site was as freshly-shoveled as if she had only just finished digging it.
"I'm sorry," she mumbled into the Leppa Berry plant that has sprouted up in front of the stone, and stroked the petals of one of its smallest blooms. She was older and wiser and more knowledgeable, and her stormy regrets may have even been blacker now than they had been then, but she wore her hair ribbons again.
The watering can she used to cultivate the young plant was a bright ducky yellow.
It wasn't okay, but it was done. Perhaps it would never be okay. Perhaps it would never be over, but it was done, and what was done could not be changed, only accepted.
It was the only way to save him.
And maybe at the time it was even true.
"The Leppa Berry. It takes longer to grow than Berries such as Cheri. The smaller Berries taste better."