Wow. WOW. THIS CHAPTER GOT LONG WITHOUT ME KNOWING IT. 9K WORDS. There's no way another chapter of Pawstep will be as long as thing one, aha. Enjoy the extra long chapter! X3
Chapter 2: Sightseeing
In every direction, snow and ice glowed hopefully with the stars and moon. Axel and I stomped and stomped with the vaporeon leading forward, but I had no idea where forward led to. All the same, no sign of something new. The emptiness of the tundra mostly distracted me from the new emptiness of my life, so I welcomed it until hillier country disrupted the flatness. We treaded the curves of stranger territory, the land erupting into lively, icy slopes that obscured how far I saw into the distance. It showed just how far we had travelled, how far my tiny paws wandered from my home in ashes. I paused with every rise and fall of the hills, scared and awed and stunned, bursting with so many feelings that clashed with each other in a beautiful but dizzying way. Axel carried on with a strong, raised head and attentive fins, his pawsteps knowledgeable and precise. He was a good leader. He'd been through these hills many times before, I could tell, and he memorized their weaving paths well.
The gloom hung so heavy all this time that neither of us said anything, only occasionally throwing out basic questions to make sure neither of us were dying, and I loved this silence: at first. Then, my thoughts hurt my own head. If thoughts could hyperventilate, that's what was happening, all of these ideas mixing and switching around, my mind almost as disorganized as Uncle Citrus' treasury of technology. I kept thinking back to the explosion, the death I left behind. My entire world was melting behind me, and the always icy land and always snowy air wouldn't stop reminding me of it. This wasn't even my world anymore—I faced a new future, a new life, a new world, all alongside some sketchy vaporeon with sporty sunglasses. Yet, every step felt so familiar and automatic, just like moving through town on the typical day.
I needed conversation. What was one of Uncle Citrus' super fancy words for unbearable situations? Harrowing—the silence was harrowing.
"Um, Axel?" I struggled speaking loud enough over the screaming wind, which whipped dunes across the snow and sparkling dust in the air. "What do you think of the gold in my fur? Do you have any idea what it means?"
"I'm sure you're slowly becoming one-hundred-percent yellow, from golduck gold to a pikachu hue, because Citrus influenced you too much with Sitrus berries. It's like a special kind of allergies, ya'know?"
He had answered so confidently, so seriously, without even once peeking back at me. "Really, you think so?"
The vaporeon's head snapped back, his muzzle exploding with laughter. "Ahaha, you're just priceless. Pokémon that grow up in the middle of nowhere end up so gullible. You have as much innocence to lose as you do baby fat!"
With my steps growing heavier, I realized this sketchy vaporeon wanted the conversation dead, so he toyed with my feelings as the best way of doing it. I nearly accepted this, returning to silence and gusts for noise. Then, with a determined inhale, I vowed to trigger some form of meaningful conversation.
"Um, Axel? I… I really miss my family…"
"Yeah, and I miss my bed. Just kidding, I don't have a bed. To be honest, I kinda miss us being quiet."
…Really? Did he really just say that?
"You're really mean."
"Aha, I haven't met a girl that's thought otherwise. Ya'know, in a lot of ways, I act like a stupid guy on purpose to get out of sentimental talk. I'm not a diary for you to cry on."
"Girl? Whh, but—Axel, I'm a boy!"
"And I'm the prince of Timburrtu." He blinked, he snickered, and he howled with one giant laugh. "That was a good one, Cha. Not exactly comedian material, but you're on your way."
"I'm not lying!"
"Oh, really? Like I said, I'm a stupid guy." He paused, rethinking. "Wait, no, I take that back. You look and act more like a girl than any guy I've ever met, except for this one gay umbreon. Princess, how was I supposed to know that?"
"Hey, don't call me nicknames, dumbo!" Before I found a proper way to vent, I lifted two claws and pinched a tiny part of his finned tail. His entire body swerved in one frightful jump. His yip echoed far and his paws scrambled fearfully, snow flying, and he faced me with eyes ablaze from behind those sunglasses. "You're stupid and annoying," I said, giggling despite his rage, "but so am I, and I think you're funny. I like you."
His muscles dropped out of a natural attack pose, and he cracked a light smile. So did I. "Hmph, fair enough, fair enough." He nodded a few times as if we reached a compromise. I thought we reached good terms because of this, but then the vaporeon sighed. It was an irritated sigh, and his fogged breath smeared his sunglasses quite a bit. "Are you sure you wanna talk?"
An easy response itched my chest—"Why wouldn't I want to talk?"—but then I clamped my teeth down. His voice had iced over, vague enough that I questioned it and understood what was unspoken. Axel held the encyclopedia of answers ripe for the page-turning, but the knowledge would change my entire perspective on my life, or whatever was left of it. I craved answers, but my shoulders hunched at the thought of actually discussing them. I wasn't ready for the truth. I wasn't ready to leave my destroyed life yet.
My silence was my answer. The vaporeon sighed again. "Honestly, I think we should save all the important plan stuff and blah blah blah for later. Whoever or whatever blew up your town might be following us, so we need to focus on travelling for now. Follow closely, Princess, and let's move with a little hastier, shall we?"
My eyes sleepily fluttered. "Don't call me Princess," was all I could say before we trudged faster than ever.
Not long later, we reached the top of a hill that rolled down to snaking water. I had never seen a river before. With my limited sights, I frankly hadn't seen much, but seeing this with my own eyes really baffled me. Back in the village, my parents taught me of their pristine blue waters and of the marine life—with both vaporeons and a buffet of Pokémon seafood—powering along the currents, a symphony of Pokémon and nature.
Instead, with the river that Axel and I approached, I nearly squealed in fright. The water shone black in the night, too spunky to freeze over. It all roughly shifted and churned: strong, constant, choppy, the antonym to the lazily gleaming stars above. Crescents of moonlight circled around the edgier waves, the contrast of black and white seeming to confirm death to all that strayed nearby. It looked too dark for life to swim through, too scary to ever wade across out of fear of being sucked in like quicksand.
"Staryu Strait," Axel breathed. His sunglasses twinkled as darkly as the fiercely-tossing waves. "Now, thiiis is the hardest part."
"Hardest part?" I squeaked. I almost sweated despite the billowing snow and the ice wedged inside my claws. "You said getting out of my house was the hardest part!"
"That was the hardest part for me, leading a baby like you out of there. Ahaha, Princess, this'll be the hardest part for you, so I recommend either jumping into this satchel or holding on tight." He said it so casually, so welcoming, despite the real danger to his words.
"D-Don't call me that," I whispered through jittery teeth. I sunk to the icy floor, whimpers tearing at my throat. My ears flattened so they nearly touched the ground.
All of the things I didn't want were happening. I didn't want to go. I wanted my village back. I wanted my family and my pet and Uncle Citrus and happiness back. All at once, instead of choosing to ignore the truth, I wanted certainty. Certainty meant the first step into whatever my scary future held, but in that moment, certainty outweighed my stubbornness of staying a carefree cub. "Why are we going in there, and are we really swimming across? That's scary! Why's it so black? Where the heck have we been going this entire time, Axel? Do you even know or are we just walking around until we die and that looks like a really cold and scary river and I really really don't, want, to, touch, it!"
His laughter echoed around in spite of my worry, which made me want to pinch his tail again, or pinch his eyes. Whichever made him yelp louder. "Again, we need to focus on travelling. I swear, once we get through the roughest parts of this river, I'll tell you anything. Staryu Strait heads through the mountain range and away from the tundra, so once we make it out of these hills and mountains—"
"No! I won't wait!"
"I'm going into this river with or without you, so make your decision." Glancing past my shaky paws, I caught his glare, and I debated whether to call out the bluff or not.
"J-just… please, tell me something… I-I'm falling apart, I'm gonna faint… pl-please…" After a quick breath and noisy sniffling, I managed to talk a little better. "Where are we going?"
"We're going somewhere safe, okay? At least, I'm dropping you off safe and you're going to be staying with nice, caring Pokémon. I'd love to elaborate, but—"
"W-where am I going…?"
His paw glided up, rubbing his scrunched-up forehead as he pleased my desperate ears. "We're going to the biggest urban success around: Prairie City. It's named after the fact that the majority of a prairie was destroyed to make room for civilization. We're currently in the Highlands, an icy area at a high elevation, and Prairie City is in the Lowlands, which is easiest to reach by swimming to the end of Staryu Strait. It weaves down through the mountains—much better than going over them—cuts across the rest of the land as it levels out, and empties into the ocean. From there, it's easy to find the lagoon that's part of the city's outskirts. Okay? Happy now, Princess?"
"E-eheh, yeah, th-thanks…" I sniffled so many times. It was embarrassing. "B-but Axel, if you have to call me a nickname, at le-east don't call me a girl, please, maybe...?"
"Okay, Princess."
I didn't even bother to groan.
Gathering up all the courage that a cub could possibly have, I climbed onto Axel's back with a tired, "Oof!" The vaporeon's teasing melted away in an instant, his fins stunned with worry. "Hey, I was kidding about this being an option! It's much safer to be in the satchel—and I brought it along just for carrying you, too! You sure you wanna do this?"
"Mhm! I'm sure!" My paws scrambled for his white collar, and poor Axel yelped for the moon.
"'Grr, that hurts—paws off the merchandise! There's no way you can afford it, anyways!"
I moved my paws, awkwardly hugging the vaporeon's waist. "Let's go, please," I said, before my instincts could scream a reminder of how much trouble I just committed to.
Without a decent warning, his body jerked below me, and pure darkness blasted my face. The world instantly changed. The busy buzzing of the river thrashed from all directions, scary and loud and eternal. The scent of freshwater. Sprays of water so cold, it stung like tiny icicles. Axel swam so seamlessly with the stream that he nearly slipped free of my paws, but I dug my claws in enough to not fall into the black, even at the cost of piercing his hide.
This was the coldest, darkest, scariest thing. Nothing could top Staryu Strait, not in that moment. Everywhere, water water water, moving faster, so swift and dangerous. So dark. I lost my sight, I slowly lost my touch, and all other senses were pretty much useless anyways. It was just me, my deep-clawed grip, and the splashing darkness from all around.
I wasn't thinking, wasn't moving, doing one thing and one thing only, yet that one thing drained energy from every fiber of my crumbling being. I held on, but I grew close to failing, so I concentrated less on the task. Even as my ears and paws numbed, making me unable to notice if my claws still held on, I tried my best to think instead, feeding myself hope. My head repeated This is the hardest part and It'll be over soon. When the mantras became too dull to inspire me anymore, I thought of pleasant memories. With my family. With Uncle Citrus. With all of Icecap Village.
Then, my ears flicked with dying life. I heard Axel's smooth voice in pieces, something about a faster river. Falling water, and lots of it. He sounded completely relaxed, but my every fur stood static-straight, as if as physically shocked by his words as I was emotionally.
"A waterfall?!" I shouted, or at least I tried to shout until water flooded my mouth. I spat and coughed painfully, so consumed by the motions of it that I've easily forgotten if I yelled anything at all.
"Hold on, Princess!"
I heard Axel much better this time, but only because we were in air for a few long heartbeats, the stream only a distant murmur. The only thing I could feel was my crazily thumping heart as we fell for the black waters below. Axel thinned out as he dove down, probably looking like some elegant creature with purpose as we fell, but I only dropped with him as a weight of soggy, terrified fluff.
If I saw our splash as we landed, it probably looked amazing from all angles. Bubbles rushed around us, around me, loud and frothing. I realized my paws glided through water without aqua hide to hold on to. Axel had disappeared just like my village, like my family, just poof.
It was like I entered another world. I needed air. Which way was up? Everything was dark. How could Pokémon breathe in here? Flailing, screaming, drowning. I tried to move—I needed to move—but I couldn't move. My entire body ached, urging me to open my mouth, to inhale deeply and greatly because maybe, just maybe, the water would turn into air if I did. Was I dying? Was I already dead? If so, did this mean I would see my family again? Would my family tell me which way was up?
But, Axel was determined to go against the oxygen-deprived thoughts. Teeth latched onto my mane and tugged me up, up, up, wherever that was, refusing to let me die on his watch. He held me above the surface and I could hear and understand the world again, water emptying from my ears. I coughed, I breathed, I coughed, and I breathed. All of my insides felt sore from working so much harder than normal to stay alive, shuddering an insane amount to spread warmth through my body again.
"Put me… p-put me down…" That's probably what I said. Probably. I felt so light-headed at the time, so the memory is incredibly foggy right here. I kinda remember Axel trying to put me in the satchel, but I flailed with my limp limbs—I refused!—until he gave in to my half-drowned wishes. I ended up on somewhere dry soon enough, and I did nothing but shiver for who knew how long. Axel licked my fur in his lame way of cleaning me faster, and I'm sure he'd act different if someone he knew was nearby.
Eventually, I stood with enough strength to shake my thick pelt dry. I looked around, then I looked at Axel. The ground was wet and green. Axel looked inexplicably calm, just like when Icecap Village went up in flames. This is when it finally clicked to me that Axel wasn't quite the emotional type—maybe that's why he always wore those sunglasses.
"Where… are we…?" I could hardly believe my voice, all raspy and gross. Was I really the one talking?
"We're on one of the ridges to the side of the waterfall. After going along the river for a while, it's literally all downhill from here, but it's kind of a steep drop, so it happens over a series of waterfalls. There's at least a couple more to go…"
He gave lots of useful info to pay attention to, but my slightly drowned brain could only focus on the green around my paws. "No, I… I meant…" Seriously, what was this green? I like to think I'm great at describing my surroundings, but I struggled here. It was soft like snow—no, not soft: smooth. Slick. An aurora of different shades of green. I dripped water everywhere, and the puddles made it curl up around me.
"What is this green, Axel?"
He glared disbelievingly from over the top rims of his glasses. The fins lining his head flared like nostrils, widening and flexing in what was probably anger.
"What? Did I say something wrong?"
"My dear Goddess, you can't be serious. You nearly died, but you want to know what grass is, of all things."
"Grass?" The word rolled so weirdly on my tongue. "Grass. Grass! Grass is really cool."
The vaporeon shook his head, rubbed his forepaws together, tugged at his ear fins and the back of his neck and tail—many things, except look directly at me. "Wow. Just… wow."
From there, Axel rambled and rambled as I returned to thinking normally again. I stared at the grass instead of Axel like it was the most interesting thing in the world, which was one-hundred percent true at the time, until the vaporeon said, "This time, you're going in the satchel," and I remembered he mentioned more waterfalls were in my future, and I loudly went, "No!" because forget more waterfalls, that sounded scary, and since I voiced that really furiously, he wouldn't fight my need to rest. In fact, he wandered a few paces away, leaving me alone with my loopy thoughts. With my grass fascination still at an all-time high, I messed around with the blades some more until the green, green, green became as uneventful and tedious as with everyone else. With that stupidity out of the way, what was I supposed to look at now?
Sleepily, I looked up to the stars.
Strange, was my initial thought, because my surroundings had changed so drastically. The last time I saw the sky, ice scrawled out in every direction. River sounds over blustery wind, steep mountains over flat land, and green, lots of green and brown, like all the places where white should've been was instead copious with grass or dirt.
I guess this meant I really wasn't going back home, no matter how much I missed it.
When I remembered why, I struggled to look away from those bits of gold, the little touches of color responsible for my ruined life. Tears rushed down my face, from the freezing wind and freezing water and my slowly freezing heart. After looking back and forth between the stars and my mane, I plucked out one of the accursed, shiny furs exactly like a piece of grass. My squeaky, "Eep!" voiced my regret.
"Geez, cub, don't hurt yourself like that." My tail shot alive with twitching as I located Axel, his sunglasses glinting in my direction. I must've looked sad, too weak to rebel against him any longer, because he padded silently to my side. His long tail waved around me, pulling me close. I couldn't have pushed him away if I wanted to. I gave one pathetic bat with a paw and didn't try again.
"You've been going through a lot right now, and I know you didn't ask for any of this, but neither did I, all right? We're all suffering tonight. But I'll take all the blame 'cuz I'm the adult and I'm responsible for you. Heck, I was supposed to cubsit and I nearly killed the cub! I think that goes to show I'm not exactly qualified for this."
I almost started laughing. Before I did, I started crying, and I pressed my head to Axel's side as if nuzzling into Mom's very warm fur. The vaporeon petted my head and then perked a bit.
"Princess, 'ay, I got a story for you."
"Stop calling me that…"
"That isn't an option by this point. Anyways, Princess, look around. I know you already did, but look farther, look past the horizons. You can see a lot more up here than back in the tundra, right? The world is truly a massive place. It makes you want to look around all night, too." To emphasize his point, he pawed off his glasses. His eyes shined like a river—not the nightmarish black one, but the rivers from my parents' stories, the ones with pristine blue waters. His eyes were like a very calm and shiny one, soaked in sunlight but glittering like a starry maze. It made Axel look a lot different, but a good different, and definitely a lot less scary. "I think nature will always be wonderful, even after little things like the waterfall shaking you up. For instance, a while back along the river, we went through something called a fjord. My dear Goddess, grass is nothing compared to fjords, Princess! Maybe I'll show it to you one day in a better situation, because everyone deserves to see such a breath-taking sight."
I'd been waiting for an opportunity between his sentences to ask why he explained this, but he had hooked my attention, so I listened closely like the awe-eyed cub I was. The waterfall, the explosion, the gold mane held fresh in my mine, but hearing something so irrelevant to all of that made me feel better. "Now, in such a massive world, there needs to be things living in it, or else it's an injustice, right? Well, well, we certainly live here. You can find eeveelutions at every corner of the universe—we're that great at adapting, after all. It's what we're meant to do. Yet, meeting strangers out here is very, very uncommon. It's mostly silent in nature like this, and to you, that's normal. For generations and generations, this has been normal.
"Princess, try to imagine this for me. Imagine a world when everywhere, in the streams and trees and clouds, there was the sound of Pokémon. The chirping of kricketune, the singing of swellow, the roar of a luxray. You might not even know those Pokémon, but a long time ago, everyone knew everybody, prey and predator, carnivore and herbivore, on and on. Back then, I could share the beauty of water with so many other water-types. Back then, hearing true silence was a frightening thing, because it happened so rarely! Can you imagine that, a world packed to the brim with noise, nothing but noise? And life! Packed to the brim with life!
"Now…? Now, us eeveelutions adapted a little too much. Now, the idea of wild Pokémon is so foreign, I bet you failed to imagine that. The world is so empty because hundreds of Pokémon used to be equals, but now only nine of them have any rights."
"That's so… weird?" My tired brain could only offer so many words.
"Weird indeed, Princess." And with a stylish twirl and a toothy grin, he flipped back on his sunglasses. "Yeah, I know that was very random, but I'm sure you feel calmer than before. Once, when I was as miserable as you, the Goddess told me stories like that to calm me down. It really helps, right? Stories can be an escape from reality, and all of us need an escape from time to time."
"Wait, you… you knew the Goddess?"
"And I still do."
This is where I admit I was so sleepy, so drained, that I could hardly stand on my own four paws anymore, swaying like a metronome. Was I seriously supposed to quiz him further? How? I still couldn't remember which way was up! There's no way I'd forget his words, though, and I saved the inevitable Goddess conversation for a better time.
As my head bobbed with sleepiness, the vaporeon easily switched topics. "Cha, on another note, I've noticed you've been pushing yourself a lot. You've been trying to ignore what's happened by doing other things, but it's tearing you apart! It made you think risks are actually genius ideas, like not riding in the satchel just to prove you can handle it." I'd never heard him sound so scholarly, so wise, and I never would again. "Just… know your limits, Cha, or else you'll push yourself to breaking point. You'll never be the same after that, and chances are this is a change you want to avoid. I should know." He lifted a paw on instinct, brushing it against the side rim of his sunglasses. His expression flattened, so longing and empty. I wondered, what could he be remembering, and when was his breaking point in life? "It's great to find an escape from reality, but if you do it too much, you'll never actually live. And honestly, the world isn't half-bad."
I expected anything else but that, but I hadn't been able to predict a lot of things lately. "Thank you?" I managed, but despite my uncertainty, I glowed with his genuine kindness and insight. I fidgeted a bit, too, squeamish from being inspected so closely without me knowing. To think, he observed so much from behind those sunglasses.
A smirk livened up his face again. "Now, let's try travelling again, and this time we'll conquer Staryu Strait with you in the satchel. I'll lock you in properly, I'll hold it in such a way that there's no risk of drowning… I won't let you get anywhere near death this time, Your Highness." He twirled his paw in a mock-bow, as if a servant submitting to his master.
I sleepily hiccupped. "Ehehe! That's a new one."
"Yep, and Your Highness isn't going away anytime soon." Even with his sunglasses, I could see his oceanic eyes sealing a promise. That sentence had a double meaning.
After a long, dreamless nap, I woke up with the worst stiffness in my neck and uncomfortably stuffy air. I noticed my paw pads wrinkled up a bit from water, and some fur seemed permanently plastered to my skin. "Ew, I thought water was supposed to clean Pokémon…"
My shifting around drew the vaporeon's attention, so he unbuckled the satchel and I groggily popped out. Sunlight overwhelmed my vision, hot and intense enough that I winced. My fur bristled with the humidity but no cold scratched at my skin, just heat and moisture and the tenderness of the wind. My matted tail fluffed in all directions, shocked at how warm the world could be.
"'Woo, Princess, you're awake. About time."
"Don't call me… pfft, I give up."
I absently picked at my hideous fur as I gazed around. We drifted down a lazy river gleaming with the sun, Axel's tail gently swishing in just as gentle waters, and on either side of us were variant bursts of green. So much green, here and here and there, sprawled haphazardly all over the ground and perched in the tightly-packed trees. So many trees! So many leaves! I tossed out a paw and let it drag through the waves, which still felt cold but not drastically cold. It was a refreshing cold, a pleasant cold. We had travelled so far!
"'Ay, isn't this place much better than last night?" The vaporeon shone with the most leisurely smile. I nodded slowly, hypnotized by it all—I couldn't believe how nice it was! "I love the tropical feeling of this area. Whenever I can help it, I come through here during daylight, because no part of Staryu Strait feels better. This part should be renamed to Slowbro Strait, if you ask me."
"Wow, how can this be the same river?" I lifted my paw, invigorating drops racing down my fur and back into the stream.
"Don't ask that. I'll turn into a geek about water, can't help it."
I gasped. "You? A geek?"
"Deep down like a trench. See? Couldn't resist that comparison." Within heartbeats, he heated with embarrassment at what he just admitted to and submerged his head, bubbles swirling impatiently around him. I laughed with him. Even my laughter sounded different in this new environment, melting in with the warm winds instead of ringing emptily across never-ending ice.
The moment felt so amazing, so free of worries. The tranquility, the perfection—that's what reminded me of all my tragedy. My ruined village, my dead family, my new nothing of a life. My body stiffened with the alarming clarity o fit all, laughter immediately holing up in my chest.
Axel's head rose and it shook, drops skimming off his head fins, his newly washed skin like a shiny glaze in the sun. His smile was genuine. His relaxation was genuine. "Heeey, Princess, what's up?" He didn't even sound mocking or fake, just being a genuine friend with genuine curiosity.
It took me a moment to put my weird feelings into words. "Axel? How… how are you so casual, after everything that's happened? Even though Icecap Village is… probably gone?" I had to tack on probably, because the hope of everyone being safe burned stubbornly in my heart.
"Geez, why do you always ask so many questions?"
"Because I know nothing."
"Ha, good answer. Maybe I should ask more questions."
"Axel…?"
"Princess~?"
"How are you not bothered?"
My persistence ruined the mood, tension crackling between us. Axel huffed with a soundless snicker, his body heaving with the motion but not actually making any noise. "What happened was a tragedy, but I've seen a lot of tragedies in my life. To be blunt, I'm not affected anymore unless it directly impacts my life or my friends. I knew only one Pokémon in that town, okay? And that was Citrus. Princess, if I know anything in this life, you can count on me when I say… Goddess would never let him die."
With an assumption, my hope flared. I recalled that when I left stealthily with Axel, I hadn't spotted one family member, not any townsfolk. The excitement was thick in my voice. "Would she let everyone die? Do you think she knew about the explosion, and she evacuated most of the village before it happened?"
The vaporeon hesitated, his sharp teeth held open but his tongue frozen. That should've been indication enough, but my own faith blinded me, all up until he shook his head and mumbled a dreadful, "Probably not."
My ears drooped down either side of my head like dead weights, the truth brutal and unforgiving, but I still had some hope. We didn't know this yet—we hadn't seen them die. The chances were low, but what if they somehow escaped?
I refused to face reality. I'd cry on the spot if I did. "Why is Citrus an exception? How do you know…?" I flashed back to admiring the silent world with Axel on the ridge. I remembered when he mentioned the Goddess' storytelling, his affectionate but lonely tone as he recounted this. "Are you also an exception, Axel? Do you work for the Goddess like Citrus does?"
"Uh… frankly, this world has a weird mechanic. We all believe in Goddess, we worship Goddess, but we don't even know what she looks like. There are guesses—a specific eeveelution, a cool combination of all eeveelutions, maybe something else entirely—but no one really knows. Only a few lucky ones know more than the rest, and only the Legendary know her personally. Most Pokémon only believe in her, not know her, so most aren't exceptions, but… I know her quite personally. So, yeah, I work for her. I'd be an exception."
"What? So that makes you a Legendary? A Legend?" The title sounded mystical, and it seemed too big of a title for Axel while at the same time fitting him in a cool way.
"Weeell, I'm not really called Legend, but I'm part of a group called the Legendary. One of each eeveelution is a member of it, eight members in total. Citrus is part of it, I'm part of it. All of us love Goddess and she loves us back. She loves every eevee and eeveelution, obviously, but… we're like her hands for the world. Her delegates. We've been trained to manage the world with her in our own special ways."
"Wow, that's… cool." Again, my tired brain could only offer so many words. He finally told me the important stuff, but the info was so overwhelming.
"Princess, I'm gonna tell you something that'll make you feel like the most special eevee ever. Ready?"
"Um, I think?"
"The Legendary are going to be taking care for you. Ta-da! Cue the confetti or something." He slapped the water with his tail, the celebratory splash working well enough. "Well, technically, we've already been doing that all this time, with Citrus watching you since birth and me making sure you don't walk off a cliff, but the rest of Legendary hadn't even known about you. Now, we're all dead-set on protecting you, especially the ones living in Prairie City. It's not an order from the Goddess, but… Citrus has us all convinced. We believe there's something special about the gold in your mane, so we're gonna work with you to figure out the secret, okay? If it's major enough, maybe you'll become close with Goddess as well. We'll see what life tells us."
"U-uh, but will I be safe?"
"Safe? Of course you will! You couldn't end up anywhere safer, Your Highness."
I blinked. That's all I could do: blink after blink. I tried convincing myself that Axel was lying. This sounded so lucky, and in the past, I was never a lucky eevee, so it also sounded impossible. Not being caught in my village's explosion might've been my biggest stroke of luck yet, but that paled compared to gold bringing me so much misfortune over fortune.
"That's a lot to take in," I said. I couldn't think of anything else but the blatant truth.
"You'll get used to it, Princess. This is your life now."
"Does this mean I'm going to be pampered, and stuff?" I wept a little at the idea. With my family dead and the village gone, I had no right to any special treatment. I deserved to be with my family, wherever they were, either lost in the tundra or forgotten ashes in the wind.
"Pssh! Pampered?" Spit flicked off his mouth. "Not where you're going. Princess, you're not actually becoming a princess. You're being protected, not promoted. You're gonna be expected to help out where you're going if you want to live there!"
While processing all of this, I stared hard at the river, and I unconsciously noticed that the current had quickened. I clenched my fangs tight, terrified of another waterfall. "A-Axel, are we—?"
"Nah, Your Highness, we're safe. Have you noticed Staryu Strait widening over time? That means we're reaching the end of the river. This is where it all dumps out into the ocean, and it's where we finally start walking again."
I freed my forepaws from the satchel to prop them on Axel's back, peering past his finned head. Sure enough, the land seemed to retreat away from us. It expanded into a very wide river and, on the horizon, I saw a definite line of luscious dark blue. Over time, the line grew, it sparkled dazzlingly—the ocean! It was everywhere like grass, even more so probably, and it continued to the left and right and straight, forever and ever.
I also spotted a heap of green—another land mass—splitting the river in two where it met the ocean. "Is that… an island?"
"Yep, Princess! That's Berry Island, exactly what the name sounds like. It's small, but its soil is very fertile. From pechas to orans to all those weirdly-named ones—they grow as many kinds as they can. They taste a lot better than store-bought berries in Prairie City, no denying that." As Axel sped up, I lazily curled into the satchel again. His paddles had a louder, hastier rhythm to them. "Ya'know, it's our last chance for a stop before Prairie City. Want a late dinner break?"
I nodded eagerly. "Yup!"
When we arrived where the stream forked, Axel swam up to the left side and dragged us onto the mainland. There was mostly rock instead of grass, because nearby it settled into unfertile, pure white sand, which the low tide lapped peacefully against. I tumbled out of the satchel so Axel could carry it with him, to fill it to the brim with fruit as we travelled.
"What's your favorite berry, Princess?"
"Sitrus." I beamed proudly with the answer.
"Wow, that glaceon has practically brainwashed you. At least he's a positive influence. Kind of."
After a playful salute, he dove into the stream and leapt up on the opposite side. He scaled a metal-linked fence before I realized his jump had ended, evaded barbed wire at the top, landed safely on the opposite side, and slithered away among the berry-plump bushes and trees. He did it all faster than I could blink three times.
I groomed my mucky fur in wait for the vaporeon, who very skillfully scaled the fence again with a bulging bag of berries. My eyes sparked with awe since fruit was such a rarity in the tundra. Diving across the river had soaked through the leather and thoroughly washed off any pesticide, making it safely edible for our greedy stomachs. We both wolfed down a few—dear Goddess, so much flavor!—before continuing our journey, keeping left and following the coast.
"If we follow the coastline here on out, then we'll wind up at a lagoon," Axel explained. Surrounding the lagoon will be all sorts of tropic buildings, the outskirts of Prairie City, and the city continues much farther inland. There are a lot of sights to see, so many nice and bad things… and don't be upset if you get overwhelmed, because nothing else can be more different from your tiny ice town." He went on a tangent about this urban area because when he wasn't too busy trying to act edgy and cool, he actually loved to talk. My focus easily drifted, thinking back to the explosion and Staryu Strait and the group called Legendary and Uncle Citrus and my family and Icecap Village and Berry Island with its spiky fence.
That fence. Gosh, that fence. That fence was inconvenient. Why wasn't there an easier entrance to the island? Maybe there was, but it had been built somewhere too bothersome for Axel to swim to. Still, nothing with such a dangerous design ever existed in Icecap Village. After all, no one worried about security back at home. We all knew each other, loved each other, looked after each other—I never heard the word crime even once in all my days there. Understandably, I was clueless towards these security measures. So, why was the fence so spiky at the top? Axel could've gotten hurt!
That's when I finally realized the fence was supposed to hurt Axel. He was just too swift for that, too skilled. Why was he so skilled? Had he done this before? He was babbling about Prairie City so innocently.
I watched the sand sifting between my claws, feeling lost and uncertain as I silently questioned this vaporeon. I hadn't dared really question his character too much since he seemed to know Uncle Citrus closely, and I always trusted that glaceon, so I assumed Axel to be an equally as good Pokémon. But as I thought and thought and thought, I realized I didn't know the vaporeon as well as I believed.
Why was he such an expert at sneaking around? How did he know all about where was what in the world? How did he know the story about when nature was noisy? How did he afford all of those berries? I hadn't heard or seen any Poké in the satchel, so how could he afford even one? Had he ever lied to me? If so, when? Was he truly my friend? And why did he always wear those sunglasses, even at night?
I had a nasty suspicion and it didn't settle right with my fur.
"Axel, did you buy these berries?"
He paused mid-description about some bakery, confused and then understanding. He didn't speak up for a moment. Then, he laughed.
"It's not that bad," he mumbled, so quiet that my ears twitched to hear him better. He started rambling again, nervously. "I know the owner of Berry Island. He's the leafeon member of Legendary. He'll know that I took the berries, because he can always tell when I come and take some, and he's always okay with it because we know each other so well and—"
"A-Axel!" I tried to sound assertive, demanding, but that's obviously not a strong point of mine. Surprisingly, he still shut his maw and he listened. "Did… d-did you buy those berries, Axel? Give me a direct answer."
His snicker wasn't mocking this time, but scary. Cutting, like an icicle. Strong with shame. "…No, I didn't buy those berries, Princess. Goddess has given me a lot of money for all the hard work I do, but I never withdraw any of it from its safe."
With that line, I was ready to ask a lot of things—if he thought I asked a lot of questions before, he was in for a treat—but Axel couldn't just pause and listen anymore. "I know, I know that makes absolutely zero sense. So why did I steal? Why am I a criminal, but I'm part of the Legendary? I know how crazy this sounds! At least hear me out before you say anything." I finally closed my muzzle and plopped into the sand, ears shoved forward in attention. The vaporeon took a calming breath like Citrus always did.
"For the longest time, I didn't know Goddess, and the Goddess didn't even rule yet. I had no money. Dirt poor. Just barely before I reached the preferred age for evolving, my parents were caught in some brawl with brutally trained Pokémon from what I've heard, and we never even found their bodies. I became the oldest one in the family, and I had a den filled with five starving younger siblings. What was I supposed to do, Cha? No one would help us. No one would give me a job.
"I grew up rough. If you couldn't steal a meal, you were worthless. Pathetic. Having a nickname like Princess was a blessing. You starved, no one helped, and no one had your back, ever. I evolved into a vaporeon to make taking things a little easier—vaporeons are slippery, sly, edgy. It worked, but it worked too well. I started stealing stuff that I didn't even need, and the first thing I stole"—he tapped his sunglasses, my paws flying to my mouth—"were these. So, I'm a kleptomaniac. Ya'know, someone who tries to stop stealing things but they can't? It's is just too ingrained into me. It's instinctual. Some habits never die, Princess, or they die hard."
I waited for more, but he merely clasped his forepaws together and flashed me a defeated grin. "Whaddya have to say about all'a that, huh? Whaddya think of me now?"
"Um…"
"What, vaporeon got your tongue?" He chuckled cruelly at his own joke, and I didn't join him, instead settling with silence. "Ahaha, nah, I steal things but tongues is not one of them. Anyways, that just goes to show you that I'm insensitive about this subject, though I probably shouldn't be—just… don't be afraid to say something bad. I can take it. I can take anything."
I smacked my dry lips together a few times before I whimpered, "Why do you still wear those sunglasses? Isn't it just a sad reminder?"
"Oho, why here's a story for ya! I haven't told anyone this in a long time." He carefully took off his shades for this, revealing his icy eyes swimming with years of suffering. "By this point, I was beyond dirty. I was scum. There's only one sibling left to take care of, the rest all grown up and taking on the world somewhere else. I'm out and about doing whatever when pretty lady soon walks by me, nicely groomed and definitely privileged in some respect. I go up, I nearly mug her, but when I try stealing from this beautiful creature, she pounces me. I never expected someone so pretty to be so strong, and she went and broke my tail! It was agony. She approached me as I writhed around and whimpered like crazy, she stared hard at my stupid mug, and you know what she said? She said, 'You have been through a lot, and I want to help you.' You thought I was crazy, huh? And you know who she turned out to be? She was the Goddess.
"She asked me to take her to my home, but I wouldn't calm down enough, my tears wouldn't stop. So, she dragged me behind the nearest shrub, and she told me stories. I lost myself in her words and I felt a lot better after she did so. I led her to my crummy house and introduced her to my one sibling. I told her about my situation, my dead parents, my kleptomania, how I just wished for my siblings grow up safe and happy. After listening to me for so long, Goddess spoke for the first time in that afternoon and said, 'Those sunglasses over there look very well-made. They're not yours, are they?' I told her, 'It's the first shiny thing I ever stole,' and she asked, 'Do you remember where you stole them?' and I just shrugged. She then said 'Since you can't do anything else, I want you to wear these sunglasses. Wear them no matter what, during night and day, through snow and rain, because this shows how dark the world is when you're a criminal. When you finally beat your stealing habit, break them. Break them into as many pieces as possible and throw them away.'"
The vaporeon stare at the eyewear on the ground, and he wiped the lenses a bit before putting them back on. "You still have a long way to go from breaking those, huh?" I asked. He nodded once.
"Soooo, where was I? Ah—after that, she invited me and my little sibling to live with her, and then to join something called the Legendary. Of course, we both agreed because we'd earn money and be well-fed, and we've been part of the Legendary since that very day. I've found out my siblings have all wound up in good places, and my littlest sister and I are both going strong with working for Goddess. It's pretty… 'ay, Princess, what's with the waterworks?!"
Embarrassed, I quickly brushed away the tears still on my cheeks, sniffling crazily like the emotional mess I was. "You w-wor-rked and s-suffered for so long, and it really paid off in the end… a-and… I really wish I could've worked hard, t-too, because maybe, somehow… I could've saved my family like y-you did…" I laid belly-down in the sand with a paw pressed against each sore eye, feeling tired and drained all over again. Axel closed the distance between us, and his slick touch rubbed gently along my back. "Axel, I-I miss… my family… so, so much…"
"It's gonna be okay. Princess, look at me. They're in a better place. Just keep marching on for them, okay? Hey, don't look away yet! They'll want you to keep going and keep living. You're going to a better place too, but a different one, and I know it's better because my sister owns it. You'll love her, Princess. She's a lot nicer than me! And she probably won't call you Princess and know you're a boy from the get-go, so I bet that'll be nice."
"I really l-like you, Axel…" His paw froze along my back, obviously expecting anything but that. "You did a lot of bad things, and you still do bad things, but you're a good guy." I thought back to our tranquil dozing along Staryu Strait, how we both admired the scenery, how we both probably wouldn't trade that moment together for anything. Being with Axel was like moving from out of the tundra, going from sameness to a world of ups and downs. At first, I hated the world outside of Icecap Village, especially after enduring Staryu Strait, but I loved the lazy part of the river and the sparkly ocean and Berry Island and so many berries and all this green, so much happy and hopeful green. I decided the ups of the world were worth the downs.
"Can you please stay my friend? Axel?"
The aqua paw unthawed from its stupor, patting me roughly and playfully like a true buddy. That's how he answered my question, which was a strong, silent yes. He didn't want to admit something so sappy. Instead, he said, "Get up, Princess, 'cuz we still have a journey to finish."
When the sun barely touched the ocean on the far horizon, we had miles left to go but we still spotted the city, soft specks of light chiming from the windows and streetlights. As we grew closer and the sky grew darker, the lights multiplied, little sparks keeping the town bright. Entering Prairie City felt like night and day at the same time. Darkness coiled along every corner and sidewalk and alleyway, but a rainbow of lights stained the ground and walls, keeping absolute darkness at bay. Pokémon still wandered the lamp-lit streets even under the stars, which was rarer to see than berries back in the tundra. Just like Axel claimed earlier, the city advanced the further we walked, buildings being made of sturdier material and in bigger, taller portions.
The vaporeon trotted a little ahead of me to scout the area and encounter any possible dangers before I did, but he stayed close enough so his tail waved by my flank, so no one could confidently nab me from behind. "There are sometimes dangerous Pokémon out here in the city," he insisted. He had acted so easygoing in the country, but this urban life made him very wary and anxious, which quickly rubbed off on me.
"Am I really gonna be safe here?"
"Oho, like I said, you can't be any safer."
"B-but it doesn't seem like—"
"Princess, your tail is freaking out."
That effectively shut me up, too busy fretting over the long furs twitched into disorder.
My new home dwelled in what appeared to be the shopping district of Prairie City, all the buildings made of decent material and standing at a decent size. Just one of these stores equaled the majority of Icecap Village combined into a giant mass, but compared to those darkly looming skyscrapers so high in the sky, they weren't nearly as daunting. Our aqua and caramel paws trekked until landing on a stone porch, standing before a simply square building made of light tan birch wood. In a lovely, girlish style of handwriting with thin letters, Kit Kat Bakery spelled across the top in a royal purple, and the door had an adorable heart window carved into it. A beaten closed sign dangled on a tiny hook just below the heart, swaying softly in the nighttime city air.
Axel took a deep breath, and he exhaled all the stress and responsibility of transporting an orphaned cub. It took a few years of age off his face. "Welp, here you have it. This is my sister's place. They should still be up late expecting us, so just knock on the door and you should be fine. Good luck with the new life, be healthy, be smart, make good choices, yadda yadda. See ya later, Princess." He turned, already strutting away, and my ears flattened on either side of my head.
"See ya? But—you're not even staying the night? Why do you have to leave so soon?"
"Well, I need to head back to Icecap Village, or whatever's left of it. Do you think I'm not gonna look into what happened? There've been a lot of mysteries lately that we're short on answers to, and only so many Pokémon care to investigate an isolated town in the tundra. I need to find out what the Goddess knows about the incident, where Citrus is, if there were any other survivors, any clues to the explosion…"
"Um, d-do you really think he's still alive?"
"Citrus? Of course. Like I said, the Legendary is so close to the Goddess' heart, there's no way we'd be allowed to die."
Relief flowered across my fur. He sounded so uncertain on everything except for that specific detail, and knowing I might've been able to see my precious uncle again, even if not the rest of my family… It was something. "When do you think I'll see him again? What did you think caused the explosion and what about—?"
He held up a shushing paw, knowing I'd ask him anything and everything until sunrise. "I dunno when you'll see him, and from what I know, the explosion was probably caused by a who, not a what. I do have my theories, but I can't really speculate right now with so little to go on. Please don't ask anything else, because I know zilch, zero, nada."
Axel did everything except satisfy me, but I blinked back tears and gulped down my anger. He's gonna find out everything, I told myself, and I thought this over and over until I actually believed it. I had to be a big cub. It's what my family would have wanted.
"If you find out something really important, can you tell me?"
"Sure. Look forward to a visit from me or something, or maybe a letter."
"Do you promise?"
"Whatever you like, Princess."
As quiet as can be, I inched towards the door with the heart, tiptoeing as if I'd step heavily on glass shards if I wasn't cautious. I evened my breath on the doorstep before I turned around to wave goodbye, but had Axel disappeared from his spot. Realizing he already departed on a more difficult journey for the truth, I missed him immediately, the mischievous twinkling of his sunglasses strong in my mind. Maybe he missed me even more, so he left so quickly to make it as painless as possible.
I raised a balled-up paw, ready to confront Axel's sister and her friend and whatever new life had been set up for me. I almost didn't knock, twitching everywhere in paranoia, but even if I didn't and walked away, where else was I supposed to go?
Thmp thmp went my paw, and within heartbeats I heard noises clamoring inside.
This was where the adventure really started.