Rieka is an OC belonging to Kamzez97 on Deviantart. You can find her bio there.
AU - ancient past, no pokemon apart from Reika and a few other eevee
Rieka huddled in the den, waiting for her parents to come back. It was only a little while ago that she'd gotten old enough to venture out with them, and she still felt safest inside. Snowy wind whirled outside, but the cold didn't penetrate very far past the cave's small entrance. Food had been scarce, so both Father and Mother were out foraging and hunting. They'd gone out into the blizzard that morning. They would be back. They always were. Rieka still felt lonely.
Once or twice, she padded to the cave entrance and poked her face out into the cold, searching for the brown and cream pelts of her parents. Nothing so far. It wasn't until the snow stopped and the sky cleared that they returned. The deep snow hid the sounds of paws until they were just outside the den; Rieka pricked her ears in recognition and bound to her paws from where she'd been laying. She ran to the entrance and took a hesitant step into the snow. She was still unused to going out. A whimper of happiness escaped her as Mother stepped inside, followed by Father.
Her parents had brought back a laden branch off a bush and a rabbit. Rieka turned to the rabbit first, eating what she could and leaving the rest for her parents. She tore one of the frozen berries off the branch and crunched down on it. It started to melt as she chewed it into smaller pieces.
Once she was done, Rieka stepped aside respectfully and curled her tail around her paws while her parents finished the rest of what they'd brought back. They all lay down after that. Winter was long and cold; there was no point in wasting energy. They all lay together for warmth, with Rieka in the middle.
Unease woke her. All three stirred at once; nothing was obviously wrong, but instinct ran deeper than that. Father picked his way to the entrance and bristled, the fur rising on his shoulders and tail. Soon after, they could all hear a measured tromp, and Rieka knew instinctively that it was tracking. She and Mother both edged closer, trying to see.
The thing outside walked on two legs; that was where the rhythmic tromp came from. It slowly approached, head down. Rieka made out a set of pawprints Mother and Father had left in the snow, and a chill passed over her as she realized they were being hunted. Father and Mother gave her a worried look and turned back into the den; Rieka scampered after, afraid to be left behind. The three of them pressed into the back of the den, huddling in silence as the tromping came closer and closer. The strange intruder stopped, its shadow falling into the mouth of the den. A face came into view and it peered inside, where Rieka's family was hidden in the darkness. None of them moved; they barely breathed. There was a grunt, and the head withdrew.
That was the last they saw of it for a while. Life went on; they ate, drank, and slept. Winter deepened, bringing colder winds and heavy snowdrifts. Rieka started accompanying her parents as they foraged for food, though she always stayed close to them. She got more used to cold and traveling in the snow as time went on, and the fur on her paws started to turn white like Mother and Father's. Once or twice she got the feeling that she was being watched, but she never saw what was doing it.
Rieka was mostly grown now. She could almost catch rabbits with her parents, but she still wasn't experienced enough to tell which way they would run, so she usually found something else for them to eat. That morning, she was on one of these trips. She padded through the snow with morning sun slanting down through the trees. It was a cold morning, but Rieka felt all right as long as she kept moving. Mother and Father were a short distance away; she could sometimes see them on her left through the trees. She was looking for a bush with something to eat on it, maybe a rabbit if she was lucky. Her breath puffed out in frosty clouds, sparkling in the sunlight.
A shiver of danger ran down her spine and she instinctively froze, listening for danger. There it was, a slight creak to her left. She glanced in that direction, her eyes settling on a bush. She couldn't see anything, but her instincts told her that was where the danger was. Everything had gone silent, and after waiting for several seconds without hearing anything, Rieka lifted a paw and took a cautious step back.
A huge, two-legged shape exploded out of the bush. It rose into the air in a leap, blocking out the sun for a moment. It would have landed on top of her, but she was already running at the first sign of movement. It landed heavily behind her, spraying snow as it charged. Rieka felt a searing pain through her right leg; a hasty glance back showed that a piece of wood had stabbed through it. The pain made her cry out, a shrill call for help. Mother and Father's answering bark came through the trees, and she could hear them charging to help her. She kept running; the stick dragged awkwardly in the snow, slowing her down and wrenching her leg with each step until it ripped out, making her collapse in the snow from shock. Her parents flashed through her view, running past her and leaping on the creature. Driving it away from her. More of them came into view, holding sticks like the one that had pierced her. They stabbed them down, and Rieka heard growls change into yelps of pain.
She struggled onto her paws again. Fear kept her going, and she limped into the forest, trying to keep her balance on three paws. Pounding steps came after her, making her shy away, further down the slope. She lost her balance more than once, falling against rocks and trees before getting up to limp further away from the predators. The pursuing footsteps slowed, but they continued down the slope, following the redstained trail she was leaving behind.
A misstep plunged her into a snowdrift deep enough she couldn't walk through it. Rieka scrabbled in desperation, clawing her way forward. Yelps punctuated her efforts each time her movement twisted her leg. One of the creatures leaped down behind her, landing with a heavy thump. The impact made the snow give way; there was no solid ground underneath her. Rieka slid downward, helpless. There were a few seconds of paralyzing fear, nothing but snow cascading around her, and then a heavy impact and a snap as she hit the snow-covered ground below. The rest of the snow slide hit, instantly burying Rieka as she blacked out.
It was later when Rieka regained consciousness – how much later, she didn't know. All she could see was a diffuse dimness. She tried to turn her head and look around, but she couldn't move. Something was in the way. Surprised, Rieka stirred. The rest of her seemed to be trapped too; she could only move a little. What was this? Rieka licked at the surface in front of her, and her mouth filled with the taste of snow. She wasn't sure what to make of that; she didn't feel cold. She writhed, trying to move again, but pain flared up in her back, and she stopped again. She was completely covered.
Rieka eyed her prison. There was a spot that was brighter than the rest, and she bit at the snow, slowly carving a hole until she could move her head a little. After a few minutes, she broke through the top layer and could see outside. All Rieka could make out through the hole was a wall of rock and a bare tree branch. She writhed again; pain came again, but the snow covering her shoulders shifted, loosening around her forelegs. With a little scrabbling, Rieka was able to get her head out of the snow. As she raised it, she felt an unfamiliar pair of tassels unfurl where her whiskers had been.
What is that? Rieka looked down at where they lay on the snow. They were covered in fine, ice-blue fur, with darker diamond shapes where the tips came to points. Now that she was aware of them, Rieka realized she could tell how cold it was, even though she wasn't uncomfortable. The wind was picking up, and her new feelers warned that a blizzard was coming. Rieka needed to find shelter.
She worked the back half of her body out of the snow. It was slow going, and she yelped a little whenever the movement aggravated whatever had happened to her back. Finally, though, Rieka pulled free. The first snowflakes were dancing on the wind, swirling around her. She limped away from the cliff, intending to shelter under a pine tree and lick her wounds. Her leg still hurt, though not as much as she remembered.
There were no trees in the shadow of the cliff; the rock face wrapped around, blocking sunlight from reaching them. Rieka was carefully making her way to the forest's edge when a sound stopped her. A rhythmic tramp sounded over the rising wind, carrying echoes of terror. Rieka looked wildly around, and her gaze fell on a line of the two-legged predators in the trees ahead. Panic froze her. There was nowhere to hide. As her fear flared, a sudden wind whipped up the snow around her. Through it, she could see the creatures, but though they passed close, none of them seemed to notice her, even though they glanced in her direction occasionally.
Eventually, the whole line disappeared from sight, and their steps faded. Rieka slowly relaxed, and the thick swirl that had kept her hidden whirled away again. The blizzard she'd anticipated was starting to pick up now; larger flakes blew past, driven by the wind. Rieka picked her way forward, sheltering under the low, wide canopy of a pine tree.
Rieka didn't have much to do for the rest of the day. The blizzard roared around, but not much got through the pine tree, and she felt comfortable. Once she had settled down and assured herself she was alone, Rieka turned to examine her leg. There was still dried blood on it, but the wound didn't look or feel as bad as it had before. She licked it as clean as she could, noticing that the fur underneath had all turned white, except for her paws, which were now a deep, cold blue. The rest of her was the same; Rieka didn't know why.
Her back was starting to hurt again, so Rieka lay down on her side to wait out the storm. She passed into a doze, drifting in and out of sleep and hardly noticing the wind that ruffled her fur or the snow that was blowing into a drift behind her back.
When she woke again, it was nighttime. The blizzard had stopped; the air was clear and still again. Rieka got up, shaking piled snow off her fur. Her back hurt less now, although her leg was the same. Rieka mostly felt hunger; she wasn't sure when she'd last eaten anything, so she made her way out into the snowy forest to look for food.
Nothing had come out yet; hers were the only prints she saw in the snow, and she wouldn't be able to catch anything anyway with her leg hurt. After a while, she found a bush hiding frost-covered berries beneath its leaves. She breathed on one, trying to melt the frost, but nothing happened. She tried again and again with the same effect. That was enough to get her curiosity for a moment, and she turned away from the bush into a patch of moonlight. Exhaling again, she saw that the plume of mist that came with every breath outside wasn't there. Cold, she thought. I don't feel cold, but I… am. It was an unfamiliar feeling; Rieka wasn't used to thinking about herself. Her world had always been feelings and instincts; this being different, having to think about what she was, was something new. But it was true, too.
Rieka knew she was different from her parents now, different from any of her kind she had seen. She didn't know how, but cold didn't affect her anymore. Does that mean I don't need shelter anymore? That thought was alien to her as well. Questions were something her simple existence had never brought.
She might have sat there for a long time, but hunger reminded her why she was there. Rieka pulled several berries off, eating them still-frozen. She didn't bring any with her; Rieka didn't have anyone else to feed.
Where were her parents? Rieka looked up, her eyes tracing the outline of the cliff she had fallen from, hard darkness against the night sky. They would be somewhere up there, and so would her den. If they were alive. There was no way to climb the rock face; Rieka would have to find another way up. She limped a little way along the base of the cliff before giving up. It was too dark right now. Rieka lay down again, this time in the snow, and curled up to sleep.
That night, Rieka dreamed for the first time. Her mind filled with images of snow and ice. In her dream, they responded to her thoughts, spinning around Rieka in her own personal storm. She was filled with an exhilarating sense of possibility, like she could do anything. The dreams stayed with her the next day, making her wonder what they meant.
With the sun up again, Rieka resumed her search along the cliff bottom. She had to stop and rest sometimes when her injuries started to trouble her, but she was able to move more easily than she'd hoped through the snowdrifts. The ground started to slope up. That slowed her down, but it also meant she was getting closer to the top of the cliff. She reached the side of the rock face, rested again, and then turned to follow the slope to the top. It was steep, but Rieka, like generations before her, was born to survive, and she didn't give up. She made it all the way to the top and started back in the direction of their den.
Along the way, her attention was drawn to a spot in the snow-covered forest. It looked the same as the rest, but something made it stand out to her. Prints… Rieka shook her head. There were no prints here. Last night's snow lay undisturbed. Still, the impression persisted. Rieka took a step forward and felt a hard crust underpaw. As soon as she touched it, she felt, like an echo, a line of pawprints stretching back behind her. They ran forward only a few steps into a mass of confusion. Rieka followed them, and things started to come into focus. There were two – no, three – sets of pawprints here. More prints, larger, came from different directions and left again. One set of pawprints leaving – Rieka's breath caught. There was blood in the snow. My prints. From before.
She surveyed the scene below the snow with new eyes. Her prints coming, stopping. The two others, Mother and Father rushing to her. Large prints from the two-legged predators that had attacked her. And… Rieka's heart sank. Her parents' prints never left. She knew what that meant. The two-legged creatures had been hunting. She was alone.
Rieka retreated forlornly to her den. The scents were a few days old. A few days… that's how long I was under there, she realized. In that time, her whole world had shifted into a place she didn't fully understand.
She settled into a routine again, foraging for food in the mornings and then retreating back to her den to rest, trying to forget the pain she felt. Her back healed, as did her leg, though it left her with a slight limp she would probably have for the rest of her life.
Just when she started to feel normal again, the hunters came back. Rieka found tracks, first in the trees, then out in the open near her den. They crossed her own sometimes, and Rieka knew they were aware of her too. She moved cautiously now whenever she ventured out, stepping lightly and frequently stopping to listen. Sometimes she could hear them through the trees, so she stayed away.
Rieka woke one morning in the back of her den, danger prickling her fur. She sniffed and immediately picked up the scent of two hunters. Moving on silent paws, she approached the entrance of her den and stopped again to listen. Silence. Everything was unnaturally still. She took a cautious step out – and jerked back, as some sixth sense screamed of peril. Something flashed past her den, and she heard a hunter's grunt of effort. They were right outside. Waiting for her. They couldn't get in, but something told her that to be trapped meant certain death, so she bolted, driven by fear, her limp forgotten for a moment.
Rieka tore across the open space, stopping short before she reached the trees as more hunters emerged. She spun; the other two were coming after her from behind. Rieka let out a cry of fear; something new stirred inside at her need. A sudden wind whipped around her, whirling snow up from the ground and surrounding Rieka in a miniature blizzard. Around her, the hunters stopped short, backing away a little. Rieka, breathing hard, tried to watch them all at once, even as her mind whirled, trying to process what was happening. It was like… that dream.
The hunters moved hesitantly forward again. One hurled another of their sticks at her. Rieka whirled, and a burst of wind slashed it away from her. Rieka retaliated with the newfound power from her dreams. All around her, the temperature dropped. The cold concentrated itself in front of her, and she turned it on her attacker in a flash of white-blue. He cried out and staggered back, one arm covered in frost, held stiff. Rieka let out a high-pitched cry like wind whipping through trees and the hunters fled, leaving her alone.
Around her, the wind subsided and snow drifted back to the ground. Rieka wondered again what was happening as she stood in the show, chest heaving in the aftermath of the attack. What… what am I? She had never experienced or seen anything like what was happening to her now. Hunger, running, hunters, pain… those were all part of life. You stayed out of sight where you could, ran where you couldn't, found what you could to eat, and if you couldn't, it was over. Swirling ice wasn't a part of her experience, until now. Hunters had run from her, despite their size, strength, and numbers. Rieka was different, unknown. What am I? she wondered again. She had no answer.
The hunters didn't bother Rieka after that. She saw them occasionally, but they avoided her whenever she came into view. Occasionally, her sensitive ears caught a fearful murmur, "glacii, glacii." Somehow she knew they meant her. To the hunters at least, she was the glacii. Rieka started living a solitary life; only ice and snow knew how she felt. Nothing threatened her, and so she left her den behind to roam the mountain. Every night she lay down to sleep in a snowdrift or under a tree, and every morning she went somewhere new, driven by a hunger for answers, to know what she was. Weather didn't bother her; she traveled in clear weather, blizzards, and freezing winds all the same.
Over time, she learned how to call the cold winds to cloak her whenever she needed. Hunting should have been easy for her; she could hide anywhere, and she could follow animals' tracks even when a new snowfall buried them. Memories stopped her; whenever she pinned a rabbit to the ground and felt its tiny heart racing, she remembered running alone with the hunters trying to kill her, and the loss after her parents fell to them. Rieka could never bring herself to kill them after that, even when she couldn't find anything to eat.
She sometimes found others of her kind – or at least, the way she had been, the way her parents were. They weren't usually afraid of her, but they never accepted her either, turning her away when she tried to approach their dens. Rieka kept wandering. Sometimes she saw her parents in her dreams.
One night, she happened on the hunters' camp. There were lights there, flickering orange and yellow. Hunters walked here and there, but they didn't see her in the darkness. Instead of going to sleep, she watched them for a while. The lights flickered lower as stars came out, and eventually all the hunters disappeared into their round dens. Rieka limped into their camp, her paws making no noise in the soft snow. She was drawn to the lights first; they had an acrid smell she didn't recognize. When she got close, the temperature went from cold to uncomfortably warm, then to hot. Rieka drew back to a safe distance. These hunters had something different too. They brought heat into their camp, much like she carried cold inside her. Experimentally, she blew a frosty breath at it. Instead of subsiding, the light flickered brighter for a moment, heedless of the cold.
That was something new. In their own way, the hunters had mastered sunlight and brought it here to keep the cold away. They were different too, like she was. Rieka moved stealthily toward one of the dens, giving the lights plenty of room. When she reached the side, she could hear the hunters inside. Their tones sounded like any other creatures getting ready for sleep, and she moved around the side curiously. More light radiated from the entrance, and Rieka cautiously peered in.
It was a mistake. One of the hunters looked her way. Rieka ducked back, but not quickly enough. A scream pierced her ears, "GLACII!" and suddenly the camp came alive. Hunters emerged from dens all over the camp, quickly finding her. Some of them had sticks, and she pulled a protective whirl of snow around herself. They advanced, threatening but clearly afraid. Rieka would have retreated to the forest, but there were hunters that way too; she stood her ground, uncertain. Nothing happened for a few moments, but then one of the lights flickered to life again. As Rieka watched, the hunters took sticks away, each one carrying a piece of flickering sun. They came closer, holding these new sun-sticks out wardingly. Each step pushed her closer to the breaking point.
Finally one of the hunters came too close and the tension inside Rieka snapped. She turned her power to cold blue light and blasted at the nearest of them, dropping him frost-covered to the ground. A confusion of shouts rang out and the hunters all started throwing sun-sticks at her. Her wind whipped around, deflecting a few, but it didn't work as well as she was used to against the hunters' heat. Several of them struck her directly, and she shrieked in pain as the light burned her. It hurt, far worse even than having their stick pierce her leg and rip through her flesh. Rieka howled, a sound torn from the depths of her soul. A full-scale blizzard roared to life around her, sending her assailants stumbling back and ripping nearby dens right out of the ground. She used the cover from her outburst to retreat, running with an exaggerated limp from the hunters and their burning light. Nothing tried to follow her, but she kept going heedlessly until her flight took her unexpectedly off the edge of a ravine.
In shock, Rieka plummeted. Wind whipped around her again, deflecting her from the walls and somehow holding her up enough to survive the impact. She stumbled to her paws again, the pain from her burns mixing with the bruises she got from the fall, and stood there for a moment, just struggling for breath. Her chest and side were burned, as well as part of her tail and left foreleg. The pain threatened to overwhelm her, but adrenaline was still pumping through her, and she stumbled deeper into the ravine.
A wall of crumbled rock stopped her progress. Huge, unnaturally cut stones lay in a disorderly pile. Some of them had markings on them; Rieka had never seen that before. Something drew her onward, and she limped around them until she found a dark hole. She was instinctively worried, but again there was that feeling, beckoning her. With nowhere else to go, Rieka made her way around a final stone and slipped inside.
Polarissb's Notes on Glaceon:
Glaceon are adapted to survive in inhospitable arctic conditions. Apart from their immunity to cold, Glaceon have sensitive sight, hearing, and smell, which helps them hunt. They also have a unique ability to follow tracks hidden under snow, allowing them track prey when there is no visible trace of their presence. Pokemon Rangers in northern areas use them to find people who get lost in blizzard conditions.
Glaceon can also control the temperature around them and create miniature snowstorms, which they use both to hide and to attack. A Glaceon's dangles let them sense temperature variations; they are otherwise unaware of how cold it is. With training, a Glaceon can compress snow into ice shards and attack with those as well.
Wild Glaceon are reclusive, even somewhat shy, and tend to live solitary lives. When two Glaceon mate, they stay together, protecting their Eevee children from the cold, until they are old enough to evolve. Once their children evolve, all of them go their separate ways. Glaceon raised from Eevee by Trainers are generally much friendlier; however, the Trainer who captures a wild Glaceon will find it very slow to warm up to them or the rest of their team.