Author's Note: Sorry about the wait on the chapter... But then again, those of you who follow any of my other works are used to waits! *snort* This chapter breaks some of the ice...pun intended! This is also one of the few times in my life when some of my longest paragraphs in a chapter are dialogue.
Chapter 9: Frozen Memories
The silence was broken by Sophia and her empathy. In front of her, head laying on her writing desk, sobbed a woman who was colder than ice. Sophia felt that what Lady Valkyrie needed was some warmth and comfort to raise her spirits. She carefully stepped around the governess' desk. "There there, my lady, please calm down. I'm sure your daughter's alright." She lowered her hand onto Lady Valkyrie's back, but quickly recoiled and clutched her hand in pain. "My lady, you're... You're so cold!"
"Of course I'm cold," Lady Valkyrie cried in between tearful sobs, "I'm the Ice Queen. My entire life is one of subzero temperatures. I am forever frozen to that fate."
"Please, my lady, do try to calm down. Do you think you could tell us why you killed Clarice? Maybe you could let some steam out or something."
Lady Valkyrie sat up and wiped her bloodshot eyes. The area of her desk where she had cried had already frozen into a small sheet of ice. She did her best to stop crying, though it didn't do much good. "I... I suppose there's no fooling you now... Alright, I'll... I'll tell..." she sniffled. Lady Valkyrie waved her hand and mentally carried Graham and Sophia onto a chair and a stool respectively. "There's no point in avoiding it any longer..." The Ice Queen blew her nose into a tissue and composed herself as best she could.
"It all started when I sent a letter to the Peruvian embassy in Washington D.C., requesting a Xatu to assist me with some 'business.' They complied, and soon I got word that a man named Clarice Voyalatl was sent to visit me this month. I purchased him a room to stay in in the hotel so that he'd be comfortable, and for the next few weeks he was to work with me in trying to figure out what sort of future I'd have--Xatus are world renowned for their ability to see into the future, you see. I was really, really desperate to find out the results--for reasons I'd rather not say. Unfortunately, I did not expect Clarice's personality to be so...so awful. I hated the man, but when I first objected to the way he treated my staff he told me that if I gave him any trouble he'd head back to Peru immediately. It was very expensive bringing him up here, so as you can understand I didn't want to put my money to waste. Clarice's demands grew bigger and bigger as soon as he realized this. He still did his work, but he became more and more troublesome. Soon he decided he didn't like his rooming conditions, and insisted he move into the castle--for the time being, of course."
"Not exactly," Graham interrupted. "We investigated his room. According to what we found, he never planned on leaving at all."
"It doesn't surprise me," Lady Valkyrie sniffed. "The way he held me, he could certainly do it."
"But all this doesn't exactly give you a reason to kill him, my lady..."
"Oh, he deserved what happened to him. Two weeks ago, I barged in on him in his room; this is my castle, after all, and therefore nobody's privacy is safe from my presence. I have no need to knock. He didn't expect me, however, and I walked in on him writing something in his journal. I thought it was just some personal things, but as he hurriedly closed it I caught a glance of a drawing of my daughter, Catherine. And worse yet, it was a nude picture. I didn't believe what I saw, but just to be sure I ordered him to show me what he had just written. He refused, and we got into a struggle. Fortunately, my Psychic powers were far stronger than his. I succeeded in discovering what was on that page. What I discovered angered me. It made me furious! The fiend! The monster! The MONSTER!" Lady Valkyrie banged her fist on the table in rage. "I hate him! I hate him!"
"What did you discover?" Sophia asked cautiously.
"See for yourself." Lady Valkyrie opened a drawer and took out a few papers. Graham recognized these as the missing pages in Clarice's diary. She mentally handed the papers to Graham and Sophia. The papers were in Spanish or Portuguese, though, so neither of them could read it. "What's the matter?" Lady Valkyrie snapped. "Can't read his language? Here, I'll tell you what those papers discuss. That monster of a bird brain planned on raping my daughter! Not once, but ten times!" Her mouth trembled, not in sorrow now but in utter rage. Sophia and Graham's jaws dropped. "That man was a pedophile, and the whole reason he even came was not to help me, but was because he heard I had a daughter!" She pounded the table again.
"When I found this out, I was thrown into a blind rage! I used Thrash and pummeled the man! It was a blow to the head that killed him. I didn't feel the least bit sorry for him, but I knew the reality of what I had done. I couldn't be taken away to prison, not in front of my own daughter! So I hid Clarice in that room, somewhere nobody but Goliath and I can access. I forbid anybody from entering the room, and declared that Clarice had left for an indefinite amount of time. Oh, if I had only known Catherine had seen it..." But this time she didn't cry. Lady Valkyrie froze her troubles, and rose from her chair. The look of sheer power and ice cold intellect returned to her face. "Graham, Sophia, I can't thank you two enough for helping me."
"Huh? How did we help you?" asked Sophia. "I would have thought we hurt you..."
"You both have opened my eyes to the situation at hand. Our entire search was for a red Gyarados, yet the two of you have proven beyond a doubt the identity of my daughter's kidnapper. And on top of it all, you have lifted the weight of my crime from my back. I feel refreshed, and ready to help find my daughter in any way I can."
"Who did kidnap Catherine?" Graham questioned, hoping he didn't miss anything.
"Nobody to my knowledge captured her. I was the one who killed Clarice, and Catherine saw me. She never loved me, and after what she witnessed I probably terrified her. Catherine was not captured at all. She faked her capture and simply ran away."
"So does that mean she's alright?" Sophia grinned. "We just have to find her?"
"I think I already have..." Graham nodded.
"Huh? What do you mean?"
"Tell us, Graham, I demand an answer!"
"Well... For the last few nights--except for yesterday's night--my mind's been visited by the mind of a young girl. We've conversed, and she knows quite a bit about a few things. The only thing she wouldn't tell me was where she was or what she was. All she said was that her name was Cathy."
"That's her! That must be my girl!" Lady Valkyrie smiled a very warm smile, an odd thing for such a cold woman to do.
"Well then I guess we don't have to worry about much. It sounded like she was alright."
"Well, I can't say I agree with you..."
"Why is that?"
"She and I have a sort of connection. You could call it a mother's sense of her child's condition. Up until yesterday I somehow knew Catherine was safe. But now..."
"Yesterday you felt she was in danger?"
"Yes."
"That was the same day I stopped hearing from her..."
"You know what?" Sophia blurted with a great sigh of frustration. "I'm really wondering where the heck the princess exactly is. We can consider whether she's in danger or not later; right now, we need to find her. Possibly fast."
A light snow fell that evening. Citizens of the village roamed about, ignoring the weather and sometimes not even noticing it. One could pick out visitors by looking indoors. The cold, icy mountain weather kept most foreigners--even those from other parts of the state--inside and warm. Those who went outside dressed as warm as they could--citizens and foreigners alike--except for the Ice Pokemon, who dressed almost light. Even in the dark winter evening, life progressed. Glace picked his sister up from school; a mother Weavile ushered her preschooler Sneasel son to hurry up unless he wanted to be run over by a car; a large and snobby Lickylicky wiped his mouth with a napkin as he hobbled out of the town; Dr. Flarison drove his children and Graham back to the suite; an old Delibird mailman did his last rounds of the day. Nobody would have noticed if foul play had taken place a few weeks ago in the frozen Dancer's Castle. Nobody would have noticed if foul play were taking place just a few ways down the mountain at that very moment. Life just ushered on, with little to care about outside matters.
Dr. Flarison had swept up Graham and Sophia the moment they got out of Lady Valkyrie's room, and the two didn't have a moment alone until during supper at a restraunt, when they both "coincidentially" had to use the restroom. As soon as the two were alone, Sophia gave Graham a sharp look and annoyedly hissed, "Why didn't you tell me about Catherine?"
"I... Well, I was going to..." Graham sheepishly answered, hoping he hadn't hurt Sophia's feelings. "She wouldn't let me, though. Honest."
"Jell-O," agreed his tail.
"Well maybe you shouldn't have listened to her!" Sophia growled. She waved it off quickly however; Sophia wasn't the type of person to keep a grudge about such triffling matters. She smiled a toothy smile, revealing her sharp, glistening teeth. In some cases it would have been pretty, but she had just eaten Krabby and bits and pieces of seafood and shell debris was stuck on her teeth. "At least we've gotten somewhere. We just have to promise eachother we won't tell Lady Valkyrie's secret. Not yet, anyway. She needs to do that on her own."
"Her story actually surprised me; well, I'm sure it surprised both of us, but it surprised me in another way. I thought Jynx weren't able to learn how to Thrash."
"It's an old custom, only a few of them uphold it."
"Also, if Clarice was able to see the future... Why didn't he anticipate his own death?"
"He was probably busy with seeing Lady Valkyrie's future."
"And seeing up Froslass kaminos," added Graham, rolling his eyes. "Not a very pleasant person, that Clarice."
Sophia shook her head in disgust. She then looked behind her and tilted her head in the direction of her father. "Hey, we'd better head into the restrooms. We don't want him getting suspicious."
"Uno dos tres!" cried Graham's tail. The toilet worked alright for many Pokemon, but Girafarigs had to deal with squishing their lower head between their bodies and the lid of the toilet. And of course, then there was the less appealing parts too... A well-kept Girafarig secret, of course. But in any case, Graham's tail hated going through with any of it. He was just fortunate he didn't have a nose.
Graham and Sophia split up, going into their respective restrooms. Sophia came out all sparkling with her usual sunshine personality, but Graham came out with a look of angst on both of his faces. "There was a Glalie in the stall next to me. It froze my...well, you know." Glalies were Pokemon so cold they froze the air around them.
"So...how'd you succeed in your, uh, task?" Sophia blushed, embarrassed to have such a discussion but aware that being Graham's guide to the World of Pokemon it was her responsibility to solve such Pokemon-related problems...or at least talk them out.
"Well, the, uh, liquid didn't completely freeze, it was just in the process of doing so. So it came out really slow... And it hit the water almost like drops of ice."
"That's unlucky. You have to watch out for those things when you're around Ice Pokemon, especially here where there are a lot of Snorunts." Snorunts, of course, evolved into Glalies; though some female ones evolved into Froslass. "I don't have those problems, though, because I'm a Fire Pokemon." She snorted a small flame to emphasize her point. "Come on, let's get back to Danny and my father."
They returned to the table just as Danny was finishing his self-cooked Tauros steak. Fire Pokemon had the benefit of being able to cook their own food instead of needing the chef to do so. That way, they could burn their food to just the right temperature, cooking, etc. They didn't have to go by limitations of Well Done, Rare, and Medium. Dr. Flarison smiled as the two adolescents sat down in their seats and slipped their tails through the tail holes. "Well, it took you two a while. I was just telling Danny that tomorrow we were going to search the grounds outside of the castle. According to a detective, Lady Valkyrie has reasons to believe that the princess may have run off on her own. There may be footprints outside her window."
Sophia's eyes beamed as she munched on her Krabby. Graham couldn't help but smile too. "That sounds like an excellent idea," he nodded. He took one last bite of his salad, and decided he was done.
The snow continued to fall the next morning. Sophia sighed in frustration the moment she lazily peeked out the window. Snow would melt when it got around her tail, and that meant more patches of frozen water wherever she went. "Morning, Sophers," Danny yawned, walking up beside her. The contrast between his bright orange scales and her deep maroon scales was remarkable in the morning light. Danny rubbed an eye with a fist, and looked out the window. "Aw geez, snow again?"
"Hey, you've been in snow before. It snows in the winter at our place."
"Yeah, but it's not winter yet!"
"Technically, it almost is. Don't forget, we're almost reaching the end of November."
"Do you know if it's snowing in our town yet?"
"I asked Arthur about that last night on MSN. He said it was on the forecast. It's been pretty cold down there lately, so I wouldn't be surprised. Andrew is already preparing his snowman gallery for this year's show." A Water and Ground Pokemon, Andrew the Marshtomp was very skilled at manipulating wet dirt and mud. Which there was a lot of during the first few weeks of winter. In their neighborhood, he was renowned for his bizarre and artistic snowmen made of slush, the dirty, wet brown snow that most people--especially Fire Pokemon--detested. Danny made a face at the thought of it. "Hey now, be nice," Sophia scolded lightly. "Andrew's my best friend."
"Yeah, well his brother's one of my friends, and he doesn't like the snowmen either."
"I suppose everybody has their own opinion. But it's good use of slush, you know."
At that moment, the door to the suite thrust open and in walked Dr. Flarison and Graham carrying bags of food. "Hey Sophia, Daniel," Dr. Flarison greeted. "We're back from the grocery store."
"Obviously," Graham's two heads chuckled.
"Oh yes, and we brought donuts!" Dr. Flarison reached into one bag with his hand and pulled out a box full of warm donuts. "I tried my best to keep them warm; it's very cold outside, so it wasn't easy."
"Oh yeah?" Sophia smirked with a raised eyebrow as Danny dove for the box. "What's the temperature?"
"Five below, I'm afraid," Graham sighed.
"Seriously?" Sophia moaned. This was the coldest day on their trip in the mountains yet! "Ugh, and we're going to look for footprints in that? UGH!" She stormed out of the room to get her clothes.
"It's that time of the month, Dad!" Danny mumbled, his mouth full of warm old fashioned donut.
"Daniel!" Dr. Flarison snapped. "Be nice to your sister!"
"I heard that, Danny!" Sophia roared from the other room. "You better watch your back today!"
After breakfast, Graham sighed in despair and put his heavy coat back on. One of the things he didn't like about winters in this world was the footwear. In his world, people could wear boots to keep the snow and ice off their feet. But because of the intense variety of feet in the World of Pokemon, boots and most shoes for that matter simply didn't exist for all but the human-like Pokemon such as Machoke or Hitmonchan. So his enormous, bony feet and small hooves were doomed for contact with cold icy snow, as were the Flarisons' scaly, clawed feet.
Sophia grumbled too as she put her parka on and helped Danny with his jacket. "Why did it have to be in the winter?" the quietly asked herself. "Why couldn't it have been in the summer? The Rocky Mountains are so nice in the summer!"
As soon as everybody was ready to go they all left the suite and went down to Dr. Flarison's car. Everybody had a feeling of anticipation about them. Finally, they felt, progress was made to the search. As they drove up towards the Dancer's Castle, each one knew in their own little way that this would be their lucky day.
Disclaimer: I never write these, even though I probably should, so here's one now. Pokemon are copyrighted by Nintendo, but all the characters and locations in this story are copyrighted by me!
