I open my eyes. I'm awake. It's funny, really, because I don't remember falling asleep. I must have just dozed off while thinking. There's not really much to do in a cage but think.
I look around. There are trees surrounding me in all directions, and yes, even down if you count the roots, which I do. There's also a male sneasel. He sits against a nearby tree and stares at me quietly. Occasionally looking at his sharp claws.
"She lives," he finally says semi-sarcastically after staring at me for a very awkward minute or so. "Man, you were asleep forever. And, just for the record, you sleep insanely heavily. I don't know how you can sleep through all of that, I mean, seriously, I must have ran two miles. How do you just sleep on someone's shoulders for a two mile run?" I study him carefully, he seems calm, as if he has been my friend for a long time and he's joking with me. I don't know him though, I can search and search through my memories, but I do not know him.
"Who are you?" I ask.
"They call me Night. What about you?" He speaks in a calm tone, but one that is interested to know about me all the same.
"I'm called Emi." I stand up and look at him again. He just sits, his back against a tree, smiling at me.
"So what'd they take you in for? I'm assuming that being a beautiful snivy wasn't the reason, although you are." He asks me.
"Whom?"
"You know whom. That cage you were in, you're not going to just tell me that you live in a cage, are you?"
"They took me because..." I try to search for an answer. I try and try to search for one but none seem to come to mind. It must have something to do with Savan, right? Right? I don't know, I was placed in the darned pokeball too early. The few things I had picked up in my cage amounted to only one thing: I certainly wasn't there because I had done anything wrong. Wait! The Normality Test. They said something about Savan failing the Normality Test! "My trainer failed some kind of normality test. When they took him they took me too." He stands up, and smiles at me in a genuinely happy way.
"Then this is your lucky day. Now you're free from that trainer of yours. Free to live the real life of a pokemon, instead of some senseless sparring match that the humans seem to think of as fun. Sure, it's fun for them, they're the ones giving the commands, watching, feeling their hearts beat, the adrenaline rushing. Not the ones getting hurt, feeling the pain rush through them until they are helpless to do anything but wait for the moment in which their life ends, only to be brought back once again to repeat the cycle. Now, all of the trained pokemon seem to believe that they want to fight for their trainers, that they fight because of the bond and ambitions that they share. That's not true though, that has never been true. There's something in those red and white balls, dearest Emi. There's something that strips you of your dignity, and clouds your judgment. There's something inside the red and white that drills into your mind that you are a slave, that you are nothing but a loyal servant. There are few wild pokemon who wish to participate in the barbarous games that humans play. Few free who wish to give themselves into the slavery that is contained in the red and white balls. Oh, pardon me, I've been talking for quite some time now. Do you have anything to say on the issue?" I stare at him for a little while, some parts of his rant do make complete sense, yet the premise of the argument is not on solid ground.
"There is something inside us all. Something that wishes for something more. More than you could see with your narrow mind. I'll admit that some humans are slave drivers, but you seem to fail to see that not all of them are. There are humans out there who care about their pokemon friends, who love and protect them. You obviously don't know what you're talking about. You don't have no real experience in the field of what humans really are." I look him over again. He doesn't seemed shocked by anything I say, rather, he smirks at me.
For some reason, my legs don't want to hold me up any longer, they give way and I begin to fall to the ground. Night springs into action, placing his arms underneath me. I land on his arms and he looks at me in an odd manner. "What?"
"I could kiss you right now." I stare into his eyes, and he stares into mine.
"But I could not kiss you, unless I wanted to die here in your arms. Your lips contain nothing but poison, and I don't feel like going into the light today."
"I know. I didn't really mean what I said about humans and pokeballs. I- I just wanted you to stay here with me, you know? Beautiful flowers like you don't come around all that often. I was thinking that maybe I could convince you to stay with me by making you lose your trust in humans." I blush, I hope that he doesn't notice my rosy cheeks. Then again, now that I study him more carefully, his cheeks are the same color as I expect that mine are. He seems to have thought that my beliefs were weak and unfounded, something that could easily be destroyed. Oh how wrong he is. I decide to change the subject, there's no need to talk about this any longer.
"I don't get why I fell. I'm usually more coordinated than that. My legs just seemed to decide to give up on holding me up" He puts me down in a sitting position in which my back is supported by a tree.
"That's the thing about that place. They stuff you with energy until you fell full, but when the need is over you cannot see that you are as empty as you were before they stuffed you. They blind the senses and-"
"Why are you talking like that?"
"Like what?"
"You keep using metaphors, symbols and all that stuff. This isn't a poem, Night, there's no need to use that kind of thing." He puts his claw on the back of his head in an embarrassed fashion.
"Sorry, I guess I was just trying to impress you by sounding smart. I should probably stop doing this kind of thing to impress you, shouldn't I?"
"Yes, you should stop all of the acts now. I prefer real. If you're not being real with me than I'm not speaking to you at all." He sits down next to me, his side brushing against mine.
"So, in normal terms, the adrenaline shots keep your physical energy, but you're still mentally tired as heck."
"So, why am I here, instead of in one of those cages?"
"Let's just say, you're lucky your cute. I couldn't escape by myself knowing that a beautiful flower such as yourself was being left to rot in there." Once, again, I blush, but seeing as how he hasn't stopped blushing since I noticed it first, I'm fine.
"Thank you, for saving me."
"You should probably get some rest, you don't have any energy left to go on, do you?" I don't realize it until he points it out, but I'm still tired. My head ends dropping onto his shoulder, as if it was told to do that by some manipulating force. His shoulder is a pretty comfortable pillow. At this point I don't bother to move it, I've given up on trying to stay awake. I smile at Night, and he smiles back at me awkwardly. Then, I allow myself to give my consciousness to the sweet allure of sleep.
Sorry for the abnormally short chapter, and taking so long to update. I'm trying to get back in the swing of things, but school isn't making it easy to find the time to write as much as I'd like. Also, I tried out a new dialogue style, this will probably be the last time any of my characters say something hugely metaphorical, like, "There's poison on your lips". I understand that some of the dialogue is odd, but please tell me your opinion on the new ways I did the dialogue. I wanted to experiment around, and I decided that I had to try this at least once.
