Hi, it's Tamah, with another oneshot! *sweatdrop* This is the fourth installment in Mantineus' and mine PokeCraft series, based off of The Cats Of Ulthar, by H.P. Lovecraft. I apologize for the shortness. . . XP
Disclaimer: I don't own. If ever I did, I would die a happy girl. :D Haha.
In the land of Ulthar, far to the west, there is a peculiar law. Up there in Ulthar, no-one may kill a cat Pokémon. Where I sit now, with my Skitty lying languidly in front of the well-lit fire, I can almost understand. A Pokémon, especially a cat, is a mysterious creature at heart, and their grudges last.
When I was a small lass in the old country did I first hear of this fable. An old gypsy woman told me it while I sat eagerly in front of her little campfire. So, now, I relay this tale to you.
There was once an old cotter and his wife who relished the killing of cat Pokémon. No one in the village knew precisely why they did, perhaps they did not like the sounds made by the creatures in the night, or maybe even that they even regarded them as an ill omen. But, whatever the reason, they sadistically killed them, and left their pelts on the fence the next morn. But the villagers would not ask, for they feared the cotter and his wife. The look of them were just evil, and their house and yard was unkempt, with ancient oaks with their boughs spread wide. Their grass stood tall as well, and little children imagined nasty things hiding in it.
One day, as the story goes, a strange group of gypsies arrived. Unlike most gypsies, who worshiped Suicune, Raikou, and Entei, and painted their wagons in that fashion, that band painted their wagons with an unknown deity to the villagers, a little pink creature that the villagers found to be adorable. The caravan's leader was painted in the strangest fashion, and had the brightest blue eyes the villagers had ever seen. He also had a bright headdress of solid gold upon his head.
They made the merchants very happy that day they arrived, for they bought simple trinkets for much more than what they were worth, and bought many. They would also predict the future for a small piece of silver.
And in this caravan of gypsies, there was a little boy, with no parents nor siblings, only a small Meowth that the boy lavished affection on. The plague was not Menes' friend, but he was happy, for little children are so simply amused by a Pokémon's antics. So the boy, who the others called Menes, smiled more often than he cried on the foot of his strange painted wagon, playing with his Meowth and a strange music box he loved to show off. The music box also had the strange pink creature on it, and it played a beautiful, haunting melody. The boy once let someone else play it, and to the villager's shock, it played different music.
On the third morning of the gypsies' visit, Menes could not find his Meowth. He ran to the market-place and searched in vain, for the villagers took him to the old cotter's house, where his dear little creature's skin lay spread on the fence. He and the other gypsies gathered in a group, and their chanting could be heard from afar, and people swore that there were strange things in the sky, then. People woul exclaim that they even saw the pink Pokémon show itself to the gypsies during their ritual. But peoples mind have a habit for fancy, as my father told me.
That night, the curious band left, forevermore.
The next morning, when the villagers awoke, they were troubled to find that there were no cat Pokémon to be found. From each house, they had vanished: the Meowth, Skitty, Glameow, and the Shinx were nowhere to be found. The old men said that perhaps it was the gypsies, in revenge for killing Menes' kitten, while the old women whispered that it was the cotter and his shrew of a wife, who had been getting ever bolder with their cat hatred. Yet, no-one came to their house to complain, even when a little child came and told them that the Pokémon were all out there at the cotter's house, they preferred not to confront the cotter.
So the people of Ulthar went to sleep in anger, but when they awoke, they were greeted with loud melodious purring. To their amazement, the cats were not just back, they had changed somehow! The elder consulted his ancient tome, and found that they had evolved. The Meowths were now Persians, the Skitties, Delcatty, the Glameow were now Purugly, and the Shinx had jumped straight to a creature called a Luxray. The villagers had never heard of a Pokémon evolving before that day.
They also appeared fat and sleek, and they wouldn't accept food for a whole two weeks. By that time, they had noticed no light shined in the old cotter's house at night, nor were there any sound. The bravest man in the village took it upon himself to search the house, with two other men as witnesses.
They found, simply, two skeletons lying on the floor, picked clean and white. The walls, were stained with blood, both old and new, and the tools of torture on the counters made them shiver. They summoned the coroner, and they promptly buried them, and sent word to the capital. And so, to this day, there is a law in Ulthar stating that no man may kill a cat, or so the old woman told me. And that was the beginning of my infatuation with the paranormal.
So that's that. I'm thinking of perhaps making the narrator a reoccurring character, but I haven't decided yet. Oh choices, choices.