Hello. I haven't written any fan fiction before so I would really appreciate some critique (constructive, that will help me become a better writer, not rants about how horrible it is). Thanks for reading this story anyway. Here's the disclaimer…

Pokemon and all of its characters and creations do not belong to me. The only things in this story that are my own are original plots, characters and settings.

Well that was alright, I guess. Enjoy the story!

*oh and this is important

BOLD=human speaking

Italics=pokemon speaking

Italics/non-dialogue= thoughts and flashbacks

Thanks!

Ch. 1- Curses, Gifts, and Mistakes

"Thrilling trilling in the air, hear me beat my wings and fly"

"See my feathers float to earth, hear my bright and joyful cry"

Against the cerulean blue of the sky I could see him fluttering on the breath of the wind. Sunlight shimmered on the tips of his gossamer feathers, as he dipped and dived between the branches of the ancient oaks. He sang his twittering little ditty with such pride and joy, utterly free and jubilant. So marvelous! So odd that he did this! How miraculous it is that his life is so rapturous! I marveled at how different this was from my caged existence. The Pokémon's frantic wing-beats were wild compared to my careful tread. He warbled again-

"I will play amongst the leaves, whirling on the autumn breeze"

I leaned from the window until I could no longer see my little prison, just the wooden walls outside and the world beyond. I felt the Pokémon's autumn breeze caress me and almost believed that I could fall onto it and soar away from my pitiful little home in my destitute town. I leaned much too far to be safe from plummeting to death, but not far enough to escape from this life. How far do I dare reach? When will I fall…or fly? My fingernails stabbed into the wood of the sill, leaving a new set of indents, and my hands left defined prints in the dust. I closed my crimson eyes and fantasized myself as a graceful bird pokemon leaving my nest on the window sill, and never returning.

I wished the wee starly would fly closer to let me gape in awe at his brilliant black, grey and white attire. At his shimmering eyes, dainty claws and magical wings that could carry him to infinity. I wanted him to speak to me, so I could know what the sky felt like, and the sensation of freedom whistling through his feathers. I needed to ask him what a purpose is. I listened in bliss to another verse…

"Freedom sings beneath my wings, songs of-"

"LAUREN! Get your freaking carcass downstairs, that miltank ain't milking herself!"

I clenched my teeth in irritation, as Elsa's shrill screech mangled the morning's peace. I glared at the stairwell with a blazing red fury that would have melted her to a lump of sludge, if she had been within range. I peered at my window to heaven one last time but the starly was long gone, leaving a silence and void behind. The trees seemed to weep forlornly in the breeze and another batch of leaves twirled away. I would never speak to the joyful bird.

I huffed moodily and tossed my night-clothes onto my meager bed (More like my crappy bag of junk with a sheet). I despised the scratchy…potato sack (?), almost as much as I despised the hastily embroidered flower-print on the tattered sheet. It was probably once finery but now resembled dishrags. Delicate blossoms of periwinkle, and the satin pink of ballad shoes filled the fabric. They fell in neat little rows, so tame and fragile, just like my sister's vision of an ideal "lady". YUCK! Like she'd ever be more than a snorlax in a dress!

I hastily threw on a ragged navy blue t-shirt and some comfortable tan pants. My faithful and rancid white sneakers (now a sooty grey color) were slipped onto my feet. The clothes were pleasing to me, not because of their style, but simply because Elsa would resent them. I reveled in wreaking havoc on her "perfect" life. Technically it was just returning the favor.

I shoved my ancient leather bound notebook and pencil into my oversized pockets, checking vigorously for holes first. I could never bear to leave my notebook in this room, let alone this house, despite my tedious booby-trapping. The things that were written… no soul should ever bear witness to them.

I stepped an inch clear of an upright nail that I had set as a trap for my demonic sister. I had always feared she might try to do me in as I slept, so I had set a little minefield of rusty nails from the barn rafters into my splintery floor. I knew each ones position, even in the pitch darkness of night, but it had been proven several times over that my sister had yet to memorize my layout. She hadn't come into my room since I was seven, due to the painful scars her visits to my lair left. You call it cruelty, I call it precaution.

At the basin on my night table I somewhat sloppily brushed my teeth, and grinned into my dusty and cracked piece of glass that, I referred to as a mirror (just to be generous). The uncontrolled buzz of the bristles against my teeth and gums reflected the messy globs that occurred on my mouth and night table. I looked like some species of rabid pokemon with the mint flavored froth coating my lips and dribbling down my chin. I was thoroughly pleased by the thought. Maybe I would be more loved as a rabid poochyena. I spat in an equally vulgar manner, barley making the basin. I would cleanse it when I returned home.

Leaving my filthy night-clothes for later attention I made to creep stealthily down the wooden stairs that led to the living chamber. My sister was most likely stuffing her face with whatever junk she could find in the cabinet for she had forgotten to force me to make her breakfast. I did not want her to hear, or see me so that she might begin ranting again.

Thankfully I was the local ninja. I had mastered the art of treading on the creaking boards, with a bit more than a decade of practice. Archeus forbid, I was ever caught sneaking out at night by my sister's nocturnal husband as they acted like idiots on the sofa. They were a match made in hell! Twice a week, I found Richard's stinking pants under the cushions, as I cleaned this pigsty. It was a miracle that I wasn't an aunt (considering their not-quite exceptional parenting skills with me)! New couples are revolting! When I reached the bottom of the stairs I crept towards the door but not before I heard a raucous, "look at that human scowl! She's redder than a wurmple in love!"

"Think the bloody brat'll blow? She looks like an emboar's ass with her pudgy frown!"

"Yer right Bro, that bloody, big maw of hers is just like some butt-hole!"

I chuckled softly at the spearow calls. As dirty and contemptuous as those pokemon are I have always found solace in their sense of humor. The bird's remarks were priceless.

"Ruddy vermin, you'd think those spearow were insulting me, cussing at me maybe, from that tone!"my sister snarled.

Often they do! I thought gleefully. They were being rather polite today. I wondered if these were the brothers Flap, and Windy. They had been mobbing Richard around the barn lately. I had no personal connection to the spearow brothers but they were excellent for a good laugh if they happened to show up. I always enjoyed deciphering which was the curse word of the week. They had a habit of making it difficult to tell. Before my sister could shriek another order at me from the kitchen I fled from the house still chuckling.

Fresh air overwhelmed my keen senses. The house was miserable. My olfactory chamber registered the hopelessness of the place. It held the buried scents of my sister, her husband, and even deeper what I assumed could only be my parents. I decided never to pay attention to that scent, or the corresponding memories (or lack of). I was not your typical orphan though. Instead of moping over the people I didn't know I despised the one's I did. It's much more productive. I had to admit though, the whole house reeked of sweat and despair. The air here was rich in the fragrances of grass, tree sap, and turned earth from the nearby farms. It was a deep, strong aroma that made me lust to abandon my work and run off in search of even wilder and deeper ones. I started down the dirt trail to the barn.

"Lauren, ya freak, your bloody sis been drinkin?" one of the spearow's voices chimed overhead. I grinned, as I loped down the path. The word of the week must be "bloody". It was indeed Flap. His rough brown plumage thrashed in the wind, and his call rang very different from the starly's. His little brother drifted behind him almost lazily, admiring a particularly shiny paperclip that glinted in my pocket.

"Nah, she's her normal sober self, and watch it flap. The freak has some moves. You'll find yourself as a scorch mark on my wall if you take to insulting me." I countered. Thebirds seemed to find this insanely hilarious and reeled off into the wind screeching to their twisted heart's content. I almost missed them. I rolled my eyes as the barn loomed overhead.

I smiled as I inhaled the usual fresh miltank manure, and sawdust aroma. The barn was a welcome sight, no matter the fragrance. Its chipped red paint, broken-hinged doors, and cobweb pendants were glittering steel, and bright banners to me. In fact they were better. This was my home and mine alone. My sister and her arrogant husband left it completely to me to tend, as work was another vital part of life that they didn't understand themselves. I was blissfully solitary…almost. I snatched up the steel milking bucket from the outside hanging hook and strode inside.

"Well it took you long enough, I've already done the shoveling for you, and I was about to start the milking!"

"Oh relax Gale, Elsa wouldn't care if we died." I said bluntly. Gale shrugged and hung up the shovel. I silently cheered. I made a mental note of this, arriving late=exclusion from manure shoveling. Not that I was planning on arriving late often. I loved Gale far too much. She was the closest thing I had ever had to family. When I was but a babe, with nothing but an irresponsible sister and her temperamental boyfriend, she had coddled me and cared for me. She had probably kept me from getting tossed into the well too. It was the nature of her species to nurture children and infants, but I commend her for taking on my "special case". I'm was the kind of child that would make most nannies run for the hills, ripping their hair out. She was a Leavanny that had been my mother's pokemon before her death. Even though my sister had inherited her, I was the only reason she had stuck around. I would always feel guilty for that.

She was about three feet tall and looked vaguely like a feminine insect. She wore a lime hued leaf bonnet with a slash through the center. She had a yellow face, with kind rosy red eyes and leafy wings. Her thin legs, with large, dark green thighs were those of a lady and her half-leaf claws with indents were either open in greeting or full of house-work. She was, in my opinion, beautiful. She had a gorgeous soul, and was probably the only one ever to refer to me as gifted.

I was more than a freak. I was cursed. My red eyes that just screamed "abnormal" were bad enough. The curse had supposedly separated me from my parents, either through their death, or their sheer disgust to my ghastly affliction. I am, and never was startlingly hideous, but my heart, nature, habits and mindset apparently are. When I was a young fool I had told the other children about the pokemon in town. I told them about the conversations we had, and saw fit to express their opinions. I was a laughingstock.

"The caterpie's name is Rose and she wants to be let out now, you have to do it!" I cried to the other kindergarteners. The carterpie had been held captive as Tommy's pet for two weeks now, and the children were starving her. She was crying, that she missed the school garden. She begged to see the sun and to taste the rain. She said that she would die soon if she didn't go to find food.

"Help Lauren, tell him to free me! Help!"

Tears were streaming down my cheeks. I reached for the cage from tommy, but he held it high in his hands, and stood on his tiptoes. Curse his height! Even when I jumped with every ounce of strength it was out of my reach.

"Did the pokemon tell you that," he mocked? His gleaming caramel eyes scalded my crimson gaze. I loathed the boy. I feared his cruelty. How could he be such a monster?

I nodded frantically, but he only smirked and my classmates laughed hysterically.

"You're crazy Lauren. Pokemon can't talk! You're a freak, with devil eyes listening to little voices. You're a stupid animal Lauren, just like this one!" I screamed as he threw the cage and the caterpie through the classroom window. Not because of the insults he had scalded me with, but because I heard her faint voice fading as she fell those two stories down, asking why I didn't save her…

I shuddered at the horrible memory, but I wasn't a defenseless runt as I was in that classroom. Two days later, in fact, Tommy had been rushed off to the hospital in agony, as his bed had mysteriously been set ablaze while he slept, without a match or fire-type in sight. All of the kids were afraid of me then. They thought I was a witch, or a demon. Maybe both. I should have felt remorse and ended my antics, but it only escalated from there. The ones who persisted found claw marks on their walls and poisonous venonats in their closets. Chloe Sul woke screaming to a pair of glowing eyes in the darkness in second grade for an entire week. Her parents couldn't get a word out of her in explanation. One day Suzie Avans came to school tardy with the words filthy liar scorched into her arm. But no human being could do such a thing! No one had any evidence against me, and people would storm my house on those nights only to find me fast asleep in bed. Eventually people left me alone, and I stopped my negative behavior. By the end of second grade I had melted into a nonexistence of rumor and superstition. I had lived this way for five years. The only ones I ever struck conversation with anymore were pokemon, so I was never truly alone. I saw an upside own town. To me the pokemon were the intelligent citizens and the people just part of the background. I was positive sometimes that my life would be substantially better if I were a pokemon as well.

I knelt down beside Dotty, our miltank, and patted her pink flank. She was a huge, hulking thing but uncannily gentle. She had sweet sky-blue eyes, and velvety black spots on her pink fur. Her wide mouth had always been in a permanent grin.

"Please be sensitive, my udders are sore after that hooligan boy from next door yanked them." She intoned.

I gritted my teeth angrily. The neighbor's little barbarian Soli had gotten a stone to the back of the head, for that. His parents had come demanding my apology but I had replied by strolling nonchalantly away. He had deserved it. He was a little devil.

I nodded to Dotty and placed the bucket underneath her. I gave the udder a squeeze and heard the satisfying tinkle of milk hitting the steel. I sighed and waited for Gale to begin chattering as she prodded the hay with a pitch fork.

"Anything new" Gale asked

"Not much, I almost fell out a window this morning but that's about it" I replied. Maybe I should have fallen from the window.

"Hmmm… that's what you consider an uneventful Saturday?"

"Yeah. It would have been better if I had slipped-"

"LAUREN!"

"Kidding," I murmured. Sort of.

"School sucks as usual"

"Why is that?"

"The teacher thinks I'm a psychopath."

"She does not!"

"Your right…she just called me a "severely troubled individual."

"Lauren! You're just a bit different."

"You could call it that."

"What about your gift?" Gale inquired.

I sighed. She was always poking around in my freaking curse! Didn't she have a life? No stupid, you're her life, I thought guiltily.

"I've been practicing Ember and the fence kind of…well mostly got burnt up yesterday. I told Elsa Richard's stuck up heatmor did it. He'd let that thing get away with murder."

"You should have told her!"

"Why? So she would string me up? Richard would never let anyone punish his pokemon."

"How have your dashes been going? Any faster?" Gale pried. I picked up another bucket as the first began to overflow with milk.

"I ran a 3.12 on my 40 yard, with the weights on my back," I responded.

She whistled appreciatively and I sensed her turn in my direction.

"Impressive, is barley even a human time. You're getting faster. Maybe you'll run a two something without the weights"

I couldn't help but grin smugly as I faced away from her. I could well be the fastest person alive. Okay, maybe I had an unfair advantage. My curse did have its benefits. Instead of swelling with pride I simply shrugged.

Dotty mooed in annoyance as I clutched her udder a bit too tightly.

"Sorry girl" I apologized. Gale took the full bucket and patted my shoulder. She ran her claws through my wild jet black mane.

"I know it's a gift, Lauren. Archeus would never curse you. You are the kindest human I've ever known except…perhaps your mother," Gale said.

I turned to face her with a bright smile on my pale face. The sour hay, and miltank manure suddenly seemed a whole lot more pleasant.

"Thanks Gale," I whispered contently. If families existed, I knew that this was it. I felt Gale pause.

"Hmm…this must be cut! What a mangy mess!" she wailed ruining the moment. I ducked and rolled, scarcely dodging a razor leaf attack aimed at my hair. No one touches my beautiful rats nest! I had kicked and screamed as a child at Gale for trying to forcefully remove my protective coating of dirt, and lethal claws. She had prevailed for about three years, before I became a bathtime ninja. It also helped that by time I was five I was already taller than her. I sprang up in defensive position, swinging my lengthy coal-black locks like a whip. This would be fun.

"Missed me you-"

My face turned to an ashy shade of grey when I saw Richard and Elsa spanning the barn entrance. Richard's mankey crouched on his shoulder like some ominous gargoyle on a cathedral roof. That thing may be fluffy as a cotton ball but it was mean as anything. His heatmor glared balefully as if deciding how best to roast me. Talk about a grudge! Standing up stiffly, I stared defiantly into Richards's icy blue eyes, and my sister's inane black beads.

"Leavanny return," Elsa sneered gaily, and Gale disappeared inside of the poke ball in her hand. I was shocked at the joyful grins on their usually grumpy faces. Where was that angry beet-juice color that my sister usually wore? Both of them giddy could only mean two things. One: they were drunk. Two: something terrible had happened, or was going to (most likely to me).

My sister had the physique of an overfed snorlax, with rosy cheeks, short cropped hair, wore flowery dresses, and two watery slit like eyes that were made to appear even smaller by her perpetual, suspicious squint. Her personality matched pretty well. She had a sort of lazy pride and couldn't get over her supposed "beauty". I, on the other hand, was described as having the physique of a meter stick that creeps in the shadows like some kind of phantom, with huge scalding eyes, and a tendency to communicate with the devil and swoop down on small children. I admit that not all of these descriptions are false. It's a wonder we are related at all!

Richard was a true-to-the-stereotypes, handsome blond idiot with blue eyes a fit build and nothing better to do than woo my revolting sibling and flex his muscles at strangers (especially girls) when, and when my sister was not looking.

"So, what are you doing here…?" I asked. I had decided that the awkward silence must be terminated and I was still unnerved by the fact that they were beaming mischievously. We definitely do not have the same idea of fun! I expected the worst but was startled by their response.

"You're going camping for two days, and you're all packed and ready with a map. We can handle the work while you're gone!" Elsa squealed enthusiastically.

I gaped, bewildered by the unexpected words. No doubt it was a clever disguise for get out of the house for a while so we can be inappropriate idiots in the middle of the night and escape your creepiness, and belligerence for two days, but I was thrilled. My prayers had been answered! Two whole days away from these nutcases! Two days away from endless chores! Two days away from pointing fingers, fearful eyes, and silence in middle school! This was going to be the time of my life! Of course I wasn't planning on thanking them. Their intentions weren't good, and if they thought I was elated they might just rethink their some warning signal clicked in the back of my head.

"Let me see the map," I snapped. I had a hunch as to where they were sending me. Richard shoved his hand into my bag and produced a slightly battered electro-map. He tossed it to me, not helping its condition and I studied the route. I was due at winger's cliffs, just as expected, and I was unimpressed by their lack of consideration or excess of evil.

"Isn't some sort of dangerous pokemon supposed to live there?" I inquired gesturing to my desired campsite. "You remember when they warned us about it in that school assembly a few years ago".

My warning signals were flashing but I couldn't quite remember which pokemon they had been talking about. Something massive, I think.

"It's dead now you idiot, that's why we didn't send you a few years ago," Richard hissed. Yeah right. It was most likely sitting there waiting for a victim to come and make its acquaintance. I wasn't deterred though. I could give it a good lecture in pokespeak and if it was a threat I would blast it off the mountain.

I responded to my "family" with silence just to be awkward and Elsa muttered "we'll like…um… like see you in a while," and the pair retreated giving me annoyed looks as they left. Richard dropped the bag in a heap of drying miltank excrement. Typical.

I retrieved the bag unceremoniously, and sifted through its contents. One change of socks and underwear, a dingy rag for a blanket, no sleeping bag, what could have been a tarp at one time (maybe a tent), the electro-map, my jacket and no rations were present. They obviously didn't expect me to survive considering my meager provisions. I was going to have to do some stealing before I left. I considered just staying on the mountain side forever and living off berries and my prey for the rest of my life, but eliminated the option when I thought of Gale's overworked lifestyle without me. I would go two…maybe three days at most, and come right back to my cage. Just the thought of it made me ill. Coming back.

I picked up the bucket of milk and waved to Dotty.

"Don't you get any ideas young lady!" she mooed. "I'll tell Gale the moment she walks in!"

"Love you to" I called as I ran down the dirt path. I sipped a bit of milk from the bucket mouth as I went, dribbling it over my shirt and neck. I needed to leave quickly before finicky Gale could pester me about danger and death, and whatnot. And then there's church, I could hear her whine, you can't miss church! It would break my heart to ignore the Leavanny. When I reached the house I slipped silently through the door and around the sofa where my stupid "guardians" were watching television and making lovey eyes at each other. When I reached the kitchen I stuffed a box of crackers, my pocket knife, a bag of dried fruit, rope and the last of the iodine and energy bars into my bag. Then I glanced back and took a plastic bag to waterproof my notebook. You never know what will happen. I then had an interesting idea. There would be most severe consequences when I returned but it would be more than worth it.

I counted down, 3…2…1…"HA!" With a satisfied smirk I guffawed raucously and jumped around the corner to raspberry at my sibling. She shrieked in outrage, an unflattering phrase. Before they were halfway across the room, I had bounded across the kitchen and crashed through the screen door to the side of the house. I leaped down the wooden stairs and calculated the damage as I sped away. Au revoir sis, I'll miss you! I thought as I kicked up dust and lost sight of her struggling through the new exit I had just installed in her flimsy screen door. I adore having an unhealthy dose of insanity.

I screamed banshee songs and cackled as I sprinted, earning disbelieving glances from travelers as they strolled along. I must have looked like some kind of deranged beast, with my psychotic grin, leering crimson eyes, and pace of about 27 miles per hour. A cyclist barely swerved to avoid me, and a houndour barked its displeasure.

"Human scum!" it called me. I laughed even louder as its trainer praised it for the racist remark. I sang carols, and shouted insults at a few officials but they lost track of me before they even knew what had happened. I sang the carols that Gale had taught me for no other reason than because I felt like it.

"Twiddle, diddle, with the twine, weave a basket to pass time"

"If yer done, and work is through, weave another one or two!"

"Up down through the middle"

"Just like fingers on the fiddle"

"If yer done and work is through"

Weave another one or two!"

I relished every note that I sang, and every stunned face that I time went by I ducked and dodged cyclists, pedestrians and pokemon alike, managing to avoid killing anyone. I didn't check my speed though, and my legs were beginning to complain so I came to an elegant stop and plopped down on a rotting log.

"What a thrill!" I yipped as I removed my electro map. "Whoa!" I hadn't even realized that I had been using pokespeak this entire time. No wonder those people had judged me as insane. Who knows what they had been hearing! I shook my head in humor and, I confess, slight pride, and examined my map. I was not far now, and the path had narrowed from the great cement road, to a gravel way, and finally to a haphazard slash through the grass, weeds, and decomposing leaves. It pleased me to be on the edge of nowhere. No one could possibly annoy-

"Hey!" I shot up and spun around to face the path. In bewilderment I watched a boy, maybe about 13, slide to a clumsy stop in front of me, grinning like a loon. What idiot would walk this far out into the woods besides…a trainer. The boy was tall and lean with long black hair, with unnatural emerald streaks. He wore a white dress coat and sleek black pants. He was obviously some rich prep, who had just been given permission for his "little adventure." His dark eyes had a cocky, enthusiastic expression. He doubled over panting from his "trek" and I glared down coldly at him. I turned to the tepig by his feet and observed it a bit less harshly. When the boy was finished hacking and salivating, he looked up and opened his mouth only to be interrupted.

"I'm not a trainer and I don't want to battle, so don't ask," I spoke coolly.

"Oh," he muttered his face falling a bit. He met my eyes and shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. I was obviously intimidating him, and rightly so. I just wanted to be left alone. He seemed to be rethinking his sudden approach.

"Sorry, I just assumed…uh…well trainers are usually kind of odd looking and…umm… are those contacts?"

"No," I growled icily. I was used to people commenting on my eyes. They are kind of hard to ignore, apparently. Crimson isn't exactly a normal eye color…for a human anyway.

"I'm Kodeo, what's your name?"

"None of your business."

"So, where are you going?"

"Why do you care?"

"I don't know, just cus'"

"That's moronic"

He appeared to double-take at my word choice and then breathed to go on again. I figured I might as well tell him. Stubborn things like him could keep at it for a while.

"I'm camping at Winger's cliff"

He gasped, "Why! That's suicide! You must know how dangerous it is? You're gonna end up as a pile of meat scraps!"

"And?"

He backed up a pace or so, perhaps fearing for my sanity, and muttered, "Uh…nothing, bye." I was relieved that he had come to his senses, and had begun a steady jog in the opposite direction of me, his tepig tailing. I loathed awkward conversations like that, and trainers…they just made me uncomfortable. I felt sometimes that my curse made more pokemon than person, and I worried that perhaps, I might fit into one of those pokeballs. I had dreamt something like that in elementary school and sometimes I thought about it when I saw the flash of an appearing poekemon, from a ball.

I sighed and peered at the route one last time, memorizing it, and took off again more cautiously than before as the rocky terrain sloped uphill. The map dangled in my hands, just in case a detail slipped my memory. The forest was becoming darker and wilder. Rocks jutted like the fangs of the mountain and I scaled them them when they appeared in my way. Some looked hazardous and I circled around instead. A poochyena yowled somewhere in the distance and a stunky glared defiantly at me from a bush, as if challenging me to brave a fight. I gasped as a venomoth swooped low over my head, its velvety lavender wings brushing wind into my hair. I watched the great purple insect drift through the trees and into the dark of a stand of pines. I felt intense, and alive here. I felt ready to face anything and I found myself sniffing the air and swaying off the path periodically to investigate sights and sounds. This place was a miracle. It was silent but cacophonous at the same time. I felt like a part of its heartbeat. I was just another pokemon making my way.

I wished that I could belong to a place such as this one. The town had never suited me as the wild did. I wondered if I would even feel remorse for leaving my sister for this, if not for Gale. I wanted to love her, and know in my heart that she truly did care for me, somewhere in that selfish shell of her's. I wanted to have someone in my home that I could ask about high school, laugh with and chase in the park, but Elsa just…hated me. I knew that Elsa did not love me and that I detested her for all I was worth. It was tragic really. I had a sister, something that most in my position would long for, but I would be better off as far away as possible from her. I doubted I would miss her even minutely.

The incline became steeper and I knew that the campsite was just atop the ridge. There would be a flat-topped cliff with a small grove of willows, near a pond. There was supposedly a cave system a few hundred meters above. Perhaps I could explore later. I saw a radiance emanating from the gaps between trees and walked out from between two trunks into the clearing itself.

It was stunning. It really was a sheer drop to the bottom of the cliff, and the base to the horizon was nothing but an untamed ocean of wilderness. So this was what the pokemon dubbed the deep wild. I sensed if I somehow managed to survive a fall and got lost in that sea of trees I would never see civilization again. The wild's maw would swallow me up and never let me go. I would be its prisoner for eternity. The pond was a sublime crystal blue. I cantered up to it and inhaled its scent, as clean and transparent as its appearance. I grinned, delighted. It was a spring. I didn't even have to purify the water. I cupped some of the freezing liquid in my hands and brought it to my mouth. Delicious and crisp. The pond was about three feet deep at the center and salveyo weed waved as a lively poliwag nibbled its fronds.

I chose the grove that encircled the pond as my campsite, deciding that the battered tarp/tent would be best utilized as a hammock. My rope lashed the hammock to a pair of sturdy willow trunks that bent close to the water. It would be splendidly chilling to know that if I rolled in my sleep, I would tumble into the freezing water. A strange philosophy, but I liked it. There were already enough punctured holes in the plastic for me to string the rope through. I nodded satisfied with my work. It was not a sturdy contraption but it would do. It certainly looked more comfortable than my bed! I slung my supplies over my back and plucked up a piece of dried apple to much on as I surveyed the land below the cliff. I plopped down right on the edge. A Braviary cried into the sky below and far off some mandibuzz descended in a tight circle over some trees. I wondered with morbid fascination what pokemon had just fainted or was wandering weak and weary below them.

I observed the soaring majestic bird pokemon in blissful silence allowing their calls to ring uninterrupted by my human voice. I listened to the poliwag splash about in the crystal pond and dreamt that I was a poliwag myself, cradled in the salveyo during the night, and frolicking in the wet during the day. I revered the silence and the stillness I had created for myself. It was so alien from the chaotic creature I usually was.

I sighed as I heard a whoosh of air coming up behind me, secretly hoping that the bird pokemon might land next to me or pass by my shoulder in its flight. I wondered if it might talk to me like the melodious little starly never did. Instead I heard a dull thunderous thump, and felt a vibration through my bones. The whoosh ended and I dared not breathe. I felt the presence, whatever it was, lean closer and hot breath played amongst my neck-hair. An ominous growl resounded near my ear and I almost yelped. Stay calm, move slowly. I knew immediately that this was it. This was the dangerous pokemon I had been warned about. I needed to give it no reason to harm me. I rose deliberately and gradually and slowly turned on the spot to come face to face with a pair of great, pale, furious eyes. I knew then that I had been mistaken to ever have left the barn.

So I hope you like it so far. The real plot hasn't quite started yet. It might take a while to get it into full swing, but you kind of needed to know how it all started and a bit about Lauren's lifestyle and personality. I left you kind of hanging there. Sorry. It's just too much fun.

Please offer criticism. My strengths and weaknesses are vital knowledge to me. Thanks, and I hope you continue!