Overlooked
Kellam sat down under a tree, watching as Nowi and Ricken were playing something in the fields. Laurent was taking notes on their actions, apparently finding their playful taunts and inane competitions somehow interesting and noteworthy. Kellam didn't quite see what it was that Laurent found interesting about the two childlike Shepherds, but Kellam continued to watch them, as he had very little else to do—his other options were to try futilely to stop Severa from threatening to kill everyone, or fail to prevent Kjelle and Sully from sickening the entire army with food poisoning, or watch Frederick clear away each of the pebbles from the path, or a number of other equally bad pastimes.
So he leaned back in his armor, meaning to rest up against the tree. But to his surprise, he felt himself squish against something softer.
He turned around—making a lot of clanging noises with his armor, but no one even flinched at the sound—and found him looking at a small tan winged snake that was maybe a few feet long at most. The snake looked up at him in surprise after being partially squished by a giant metal suit of armor. Then, it bolted.
Kellam got up in an unnoticed cacophony of clanking armor and watched as the little snake half-fluttered, half-slithered across the grass. As it headed for Ricken and Nowi, Kellam panicked a little—was it going to attack the children? But even as he yelled out a warning to the mage and the manakete (which was ignored), the snake just slithered right past Nowi's foot—across it, even. She didn't flinch.
The snake fluttered over to where Laurent stood, and hid behind his foot. Apparently enthralled by his note-taking, Laurent didn't react even when the snake peeked out from behind his leg and started to squeak oddly.
Kellam ran between Nowi and Ricken, neither of whom reacted. They just passed the beach ball they were playing with right over the armored man. He reached Laurent and said hi, but the scientist ignored the greeting.
"Hey, Laurent!" Kellam yelled in his ear, a little louder. "Laurent—can you hear me? There's a snake slithering behind you!"
He didn't respond, instead scribbling something down excitedly in his notebook, occasionally looking at the Nowi and Ricken, passing the beach ball. Getting really frustrated at being ignored, Kellam started to wave jump up and down awkwardly in front of Laurent.
Laurent looked up from his notes and, finding his view of the two children blocked, tried to lean to the side to see them. Then he realized that what was blocking his view seemed to move with his motions. Thinking quickly, he leaned slowly to the left before jerking back to the right and getting a precious glimpse of the game that Ricken and Nowi were playing. Ricken, accustomed to throwing fireballs from his hand, did, as hypothesized, seem to use his arms more than Nowi, who often head-butted the ball, as she was accustomed to a long neck in her manakete form.
Laurent suddenly became aware that his view was now completely unobstructed. Indeed, what was that obstruction? Taking a good glance around, he noticed an armored form lying on the ground, apparently having tripped on something.
It was Kellam. Laurent mentally scolded himself for having gotten so absorbed in his work that he did not notice the knight. A scientist's pride was his or her observance, as his mother used to say.
Laurent knelt down. "Kellam, have you injured yourself?"
The armored man sat up and shook his head. "I'm fine. But I was just making sure you were OK. There's a snake at your feet. It hasn't bitten you, has it?"
Laurent frowned, looking down. Indeed, there was a winged snake, with teal rings across its body. How had such an odd creature gotten to his feet without his attention? Curse his overwhelming affinity towards experimentation!
But leaning down towards the squinty-eyed snake, something jogged Laurent's memory.
"This…" he said cautiously. "This is a Dunsparce, a creature belonging to the classification of 'Pokémon'—creatures only of mythology, according to my readings, but evidently such a statement is untrue. Pokémon display many animalistic qualities, yet are mages in their own right—but in lieu of the four traditional types of magic (wind, fire, thunder, and dark), they have eighteen such types. Dunsparce, if I am not mistaken, have an affinity towards the oddly-named 'normal' type."
"Is it dangerous?" Kellam asked, crawling slowly towards the Dunsparce.
"Mayhap. But Dunsparce, I believe, are not particularly aggressive, but instead prefer to stay hidden. They reside underground, out of sight, though nearly always present in the earth."
"Out of sight but always present…" Kellam muttered. "Sounds like a certain someone I know."
"I do apologize for not having perceived you earlier," Laurent said. "It was an oversight on my part that ought not to have occurred."
"Nah, it's fine," Kellam said distractedly. He turned towards the Pokémon, which seemed to have attracted all of his attention. "Come here, little guy. Sorry for nearly squishing you earlier."
The Dunsparce looked at Kellam's outstretched hand nervously and squeaked.
"I think you and I have a lot in common," Kellam continued. "I mean, you managed to sneak your way across the field without Ricken or Nowi even flinching. You're just like me."
The land snake Pokémon slithered towards Kellam and sniffed his hand. For a moment, Laurent and Kellam both stared at the Dunsparce nervously. Then it let out a happy laugh and fluttered up to land on Kellam's armored shoulders.
"It appears that the Dunsparce finds you affable, Kellam," Laurent said. "Perhaps you ought to keep it as a domestic companion."
The Dunsparce let out a cry that Kellam interpreted as a yell of agreement. "I think I will keep it as a pet," Kellam said. "Come on, Dunsparce. I'll show you to my room."
The Dunsparce yelled happily once more and jumped off of Kellam's shoulders, into the ground. A cloud of dust formed, and when it cleared, Kellam and Laurent found a hole in the ground.
"Er… Dunsparce?" Kellam stuttered.
"As I said, one of Dunsparce's abilities is to dig deeply and quickly."
Suddenly, Nowi gave out a yell as she was knocked onto her bottom. Dunsparce had decided that her feet were a good place to come up from underground. Kellam ran over to her.
"Hey, are you all right?" he asked Nowi, but she didn't seem to hear him.
"Ricken, can you help me up?" Nowi asked.
"Sure thing," the young mage replied, rushing over to his friend. "Oh, hey, what's that snake thing?" He and Nowi turned to the Dunsparce and watched it as it giggled and did a backflip. Suddenly, Ricken turned his head. "Hey, Kellam. Did you see this snake thing?"
"Yeah," Kellam said. "It's called a Dunsparce, as Laurent just finished explaining to me. I'm going to keep it as a pet. …Wait, you noticed me?"
"Well, yeah," Ricken said distractedly. "You're standing right there, looking at this Dunsparce just like me and Nowi."
All of a sudden, Dunsparce let out what sounded like a battle cry, and rocks rose out of the ground and threw themselves at Ricken, who stumbled away with his arms up. "Hey, there, Dunsparce!" he complained. "What was that for?"
"I think it's just playing with you," Nowi said, giggling. "Maybe it wants to join our game?"
"Well, then let's get back to it," Ricken said. He scrambled a little ways away, towards where the beach ball had landed, and Nowi and the Dunsparce joined him.
"Well, it appears that your Dunsparce is quite mischievous," Laurent observed, approaching Kellam. "You might have your hands full with that one."
"That's fine," Kellam said. "As unobtrusive as it is, it seemed to have gotten me noticed a little more."
"Intriguing," Laurent said. "One person and one Pokémon, each of whom are all but invisible to an external observer, together can be much more noticeable." He jotted this note down in the margin of his notebook. "This phenomenon requires further investigation."
Kellam shrugged. "Go ahead. I'm just glad that it will hopefully let me be less overlooked."
Author's note: This fic started as a vague comparison in my head between Kellam and Dunsparce, both being easily overlooked. The initial idea was a Pokémon Conquest-like idea of simply letting all the Shepherds have partner Pokémon, but for some reason, it didn't really work out. But when I changed it to having Kellam find a Dunsparce, the story just about wrote itself—now, it's almost a support conversation between Kellam and Laurent, even though the latter was not a part of the initial idea. But writing is funny like that.
Published October 22, 2013