Dark-types, they were always fascinating and full of wonders. Every type somehow effects the pokemon in its behaviour, but this certain one was going much deeper than others. Maybe if someone was like Sonya, their whole life a dark-type, and their personality were melded with their type from the beginning, that changes the typing caused weren't so visible. Knowing a pokemon before he went into the dark was marking a line between true personality, and what was visible 'outside', showed to the others in your environment. Though there are always needed specific attributes to evolve into umbreon, and evolution was making these attribute even stronger, there was always some unchanged piece inside. A soul, life force, spirit whatever, I am not the one who decides how this piece should be considered. For me, it was a mix of chemicals reactions, but whatever came out from this piece it needed to go through the evolved part and being expressed... well, like a typical dark type would express, happiness was dimed, jokes offensive (though I never really mind these kinds of jokes, I even liked them) and bad emotions easily overcame good ones. Words seemed not to weight anything and could be adjusted to the user's needs, the life of umbreons in the pack never was easy. They weren't made for it, rather, for living in small isolated groups far away from anybody. They were supposed to be evil and good at the same time. Their ability to grow the smallest worries in deep depression and a closed character was always a very troublesome combination.
Sonya wasn't an umbreon, she was absol, a dark-type from birth. Attributes didn't matter, life choices didn't matter, whatever she would do, she would still be the same dark-type absol as she used to be, even in this winged, oversized and armoured in more blades than deepest glaceon's hollows had icicles, form. Just like her, the rest of her entire species were subordinated to the same rules of being dark-type. Everyone with the same weaknesses and strengths, look and somehow proud but rude and grumpy attitude. If you are not as good as other at being dark-type, than you can't try to be good at something else. Just continue with being worse than everyone.
I thought about what happened to Sonya, anyways it sounds, she didn't fit her species. Yep, she was trying, but it was only trying. No one can do something just by trying, it needed to come from inside, be natural and smooth. Trying, again and again, could eventually make her take this nature, but it seemed that she has some anti-talent, as it didn't work yet.
What I had more to say? Serge was just a much better dark-type, so Sonya looked unconvincing and artificial to me. Or was I just thinking about nonsense? Because how could one dark-type be more dark-typed than another? Maybe I just spend to much time with them? Or was I right and it could work for me too? Like: somewhere in this world was more leafeoned leafeon than I was? Someone greener and more grassy? Like that light shining leafeon from yesterday? I should learn new abilities to be more of a leafeon than I am now! But what should I be like? More direct like a flareon or energised like a jolteon? How was I supposed to be like that? It would be much easier to ask someone about it, someone who may know the answer, best if it would be a leafeon too.
Would an absol be allowed to enter my pack? Alone, for sure not. With an eeveelution friend? If he would be from my pack than maybe, stranger, rather no. It could be seen as a trick. But with a little luck we would be allowed, under a watch of some escort, but still. We should at least try.
It was late at night, I stayed still, pretending to be a plant while Sonyia went hunting. My leaves were quickly adjusting to the environment colour, replacing shades of green with browns and yellows, however, the bottom part stayed white, as it always was. The white colour was easy to hide, it would be much worse if it was unnaturally coloured on the top side. I didn't like this colourisation, I looked faded, rotten and withered, even when I felt good.
Yet it was better to look like this, especially now when I wasn't in my safety home and stay hidden could keep me out of trouble. If Sonya was hunting now, then other pokemon would be too. I hoped that she wouldn't catch any eeveelution, it wouldn't be only horrible to watch, but also the plan of using short would lose any chance to succeed.
The forest wasn't completely silent, cold gusts of wind from time to time were whizzing between almost naked tree branches, silent rustles, slight and random moves of the poor overgrown or changing shades. They were reminding me that I wasn't alone. Even if these pokemon were probably small, and from the very end of the whole food chain, their presence was keeping me highly alerted, intently listening, trying to imagine trials they were walking depending on the sounds I was hearing. The darkness of the night hid everything from my view, besides the closest environment and shapes of bigger objects.
I napped, I didn't know how long I was asleep, but it still was dark. Rhythmic steps awoke me, they were closing in my direction. From the sound, I judged that it was a quadrupled and it could be actually Sonya, her large paws made a specific sound of something much bigger than she was, but they also weren't filled with heaviness. However I expected more from her, even I knew that steps should be sporadic, so for other listeners they wouldn't make any sense. But maybe she didn't find it necessary, the night was her dominion. I couldn't see her, but I heard that she should be now visible to me, or she would be during the day. Only after a closer look, I found some moving shadow that could be somehow familiar to Absol.
"Boo," whispered the voice straight into my ear, at the same time pinning me to the ground with a heavy paw, preventing my sudden jump. She giggled and lied next to me.
"I thought that I would melt with the environment better," I hissed, still with a nerve in my voice.
"You were, but those moving ears demasked you, with that white colour they seem to emit its own light," she said. I completely forgot that my ears also have the white bottom, which was actually its front, and I was just moving them in all direction, thinking that I was invisible putting them down only during the nap.
"Well, now it is better," Sonya said when my ears went down from embarrassment, but I kept them this way acting as if it was planned. She was laying so close to me, that from her mouth I could smell the odour of food, the hunt must have succeeded.
"Did you find anything interesting around?" I asked, keeping my voice low.
"Hmm, not much, from tracks and scents I can say that there is no pokemon we should be afraid of in the area, it's filled with pokemon that are too weak to live in any other better place than this. It's annoying, I like to catch something in the size of a meal, not running after niblets," she whispered back. "However places like this have their predators too, from the tracks it's an ekans or something similar, the track wasn't clean, also I always find it hard to recognise marks of something that doesn't have limbs. Though they shouldn't be a real danger, however it would be a pity if some poison type would bite you. Had you ever experience with poison?"
"Yeah, when umbreon are nervous than on its fur appear some poison, I once breathed in one scent," I remembered the event from Serge's den.
"And how did you feel later? Did you feel confused or have a headache?" she inquired.
"I passed out for at least a day, I am not sure, I don't remember most of it, my friends were rescuing me" I answered honestly.
"For at least a day after just smelling it? Well, you are supposed to be vulnerable to the poison, but that can mean that one bite could be your last." I couldn't see her face, but I guessed that my answer worried her. I couldn't decide what I was thinking about her. Was she already my friend, or was she with me just because of her promise or was there even a third reason? Sometimes she was friendly, tempting with her shape and nice words, other times it seemed that she wanted to kill me, and even other times she wasn't caring at all.
"One moment you seem to care, another moment you treat me as if you would like to just leave me. What's with all these sudden changes?" I questioned, irritated and was immediate silences by a paw, as I hadn't lowered my voice this time. "Sorry, but what is the point of this all bipolar personality?" I whispered as I was only able to.
"Bipolar?" she frowned.
"Yes bipolar, it's very hard to recognise when I have to deal with grumpy and angry Agaar or with the bit nicer Sonya," I said.
"Oh, so that's how you see this? Don't worry, I am not crazy." she pushed back.
"You know that wasn't what I meant!" I said, and she sighed taking a while to look.
"Would you be able to say why you helped me for the first time? You could have left me there, but you healed me instead, not knowing what I will do when I get my strength back. Then you helped me for a second, third and fourth time, you shamed me multiple times."
"Shamed you multiple times?! Sorry that I saved your life!" I tried to whisper, but ended with some kind of pitched hiss.
"Getting help from the weaker pokemon is a shame, it means that you are not able to defend on your own, but I am only helping you get back so I can get my pride back! Also, there are too many weird things happening since our first meeting to let you go alone now."
"Still, I can't understand why you can't be just honest."
"Because it's the way I used to be." She spat, and rested her head on the ground, not facing me, visibly wanted to quit this conversation. However I was now even more sure of my own theory, she didn't fit her type. It wasn't something rare, eeveelutions also sometimes chose wrongly or had evolved unplanned, I was an example, though I had never planned to become leafeon.
"When I saw you wounded and dying I didn't think what you would be able to do when I heal you, I was lost and alone so instinct guided me and I helped," I said, nuzzling her friendly.
I wanted to lay my trust in her, not be afraid, to be left behind or betrayed when the occasion strike. She was opening herself only a little bit, not enough to allow me to call ourselves truly friends.
"Instincts don't work like that, they would order you to end me, eat or be eaten. Ever heard about that?" she answer back.
"I heard but. . . do you know the taste of blackberry in the sunny morning?" I asked, suddenly changing the theme. I hoped to knock the thought out of her.
"N... no, what kind of question is that?"
"It is bitter, you swirl your tongue and your whole body is shocked by spasm, you regret that you tried, that the oval shape and deep colour made you eat it. But just as the sensation passes, you take another one to feel the same once again, and you know what? It's absolutely the same, third, fifth, sixteenth, I can't count to a higher number but they are all the same, bitter and unsavoury. However, you still take another one from the spreading bush and eat it with enjoyment. You know that you can look for sweet presentable fruits that are nearby but you stay and keep eating. Do you know this feeling?" I said, staring into the darkness before me.
"No, I don't eat plants, I prefer meat," she said.
You fucking dumb shit, you are my blackberry!
I sighted. I somehow felt suddenly tired.
"That's your instincts, I am a grass-type and we see life a bit differently. It's not blood and flesh you see, heart beating or breath you hear, even sun's ray can be a life. If one ends, only sadness stays. You are not connected, so you don't see it this way, every type has its core that change depends on species,"
"The wounds I got there were made by a grass-types, how would you explain it? Why do you think that you can know something about it?"
"I lived all my life with a bunch of creatures that are one big mix of types, each of them lives in its own small world it created, not aware of worlds others created. No matter how long would I stay with my umbreon or espeon friend, I won't become them, but I become aware that my point of view is just one of many. The grass-types you met hadn't a chance to learn a different point of view, and knew only one that they were and probably are living," I actually guessed, I didn't know why they behaved like that, maybe I wasn't fitting my type because I was cursed by a culture of my pack? "How was it in your group?"
She lifted her head from her paws and sighed heavily.
"You are a good and brave eeveelution Zar, but you won't console me," she said with a tired voice. "We have different nature, mine is to defend my past with claws and fangs, so stop pushing."
"Brave?" I mumbled, not really believing.
"Yes, it's not something common to get near absol on your own not forced will. I wasn't born yesterday, I know the opinions about my species and I live with it. We don't even tolerate ourselves, so why other would tolerate us? It doesn't matter. You should sleep, the night won't be long and when the sun rises, that is your watch."
I hadn't anything more to say, I wasn't brave enough to risk, and with a feeling of loss, I placed myself in comfortable position trying to hide the white parts of my leaves, also on my ears, I tried to sleep.
It felt like a blink of the eye when Sonya woke me up with a strong jolt, I didn't even yawn before she curled up and close her eyes.
Why was the ground more comfortable every morning than at any evening?
I stood up and shook myself, getting an aggressive growl from an absol in response, but she wasn't motivated enough to do more. I forgot about the dew I had on myself, and with which I splashed her. Giving her some space, I walked away to stretch. Then I checked the area, Sonya chose a really good spot, we were hidden almost from every direction from the view, but also from the stronger wind by the slight depression in the terrain.
How long would Sonya need to sleep? What was I suppose to do in the meantime? I couldn't just sit in place and wait. Or I could and wouldn't really mind, but I hadn't a willingness to laze around now.
I slowly paced forward in an irregular circle around our hiding spot, finding the scent of a pokemon I heard in the night. Despite my earlier guessing, they were some distance away and I was unnecessarily worried about them, they wouldn't notice me even if I wasn't camouflaged. Yet again, I was surprised how good my hearing was.
Living in a pack I didn't need to depend on it too often.
However, even if I had fun wandering around listening to surrounding checking my hearing from the different distances, after doing it half of the sun's way through the sky it bored me completely. I returned to our temporary hiding and waited until Sonya wake up. Moreover, there were no signs that she would wake up anytime soon, so I helped her a little by 'not trying to be silent'. I spun around trying to catch some wind in my tail so it could make a whizzing sound, with the damaged tail it wasn't as easy as before, but I succeed a few times. It was a long time, but I finally noticed a slight movement in the absol.
"Oh! You're finally awaken!" I exclaimed loudly, imitating surprise.
"Fuck," she mumbled silently, heavily breathing out the air and opening her eyes, but she stayed laying not even lifting her head from the comfortable embrace of her front paws.
"Come on, time to get up!" I walked to her and nudged her, accidentally leaving a brown mark of my pads on her white fur. She didn't notice.
"Mhm," she purred, but stayed motionless on the ground, and I felt that she was getting close to sleep again.
Dark types and their mornings in the middle of the day...
I nudged her a few more times, drawing a strange figure on her flank, I didn't know what it was even supposed to be, but it ended as clumsily made orbs set in a 'S' figure.
"Okay! Stop it! I'll get up!" barked Sonya, getting up, I was about to place another dirty mark on her, but due to the movement, my paw went through the all already made orbs, connecting them in a serpentine line.
Sonya made her daily stretches and rubbed her scythe on the nearby tree, grumbling something about the lack of some hard rock. I didn't like the damage done to the tree bark, but something was telling me that arguing with her about it wouldn't be a good idea right now. The atmosphere around the absol was tensed in incomprehensible irritation. Maybe I should let her sleep a little more?
After some more of Sonya's private morning needs, we were on the journey again, accompanied only by the loud, unmasked yawns of the dark type and sounds of the windy forest.
My morning energy happened to pass out, lowering my focus and making the environment less important to me. Besides being noon, today, as usual during this season, the sun was small and weak, too weak to power me up for more than short snap out from time to time. Sonya also stayed in the tired state, keeping her head and tail low, guiding peacefully and slowly. I caught myself each time I snapped out from the brainless walk that my eyes kept following one certain hypnotising point before me.
What am I thinking about? But my imagination was already playing tricks on me, behaving like a completely independent creature returning and mixing the views of today and yesterday's white-winged... beauty. To my own surprise, it quickly convinced me that dreaming and remembering couldn't hurt, but nicely pass some time. However, the second part of me didn't want these images, wanted to bury them deep somewhere at the back of my mind. Was I so easy? Just one smile, one word, one look was enough to fill my mind? But I wasn't so desperate! Or was my instinct telling me that I am and should try to use every, even the less noticeable, trace that someone gave me some attention? Maybe I was just wishing for it?
But I saw her yesterday, in this different look and it was beautiful and only blind could say differently. The aggressive sharp blades, the slickness of the long fur, proud glow of white and this surrounding chilling aura.
Wasn't it an act of betrayal on Cera?
But when did I laid my loyalty in Cera? Or was it closer to jolteon Navia? Maybe if I couldn't feel freely next to them, then maybe none of them? Why was it so hard?
I stumbled upon the rock, snapping out, I looked at Sonya, straight in her eyes as she turned her head. She only raised her eyebrow and turned away. She was much more awake now than she was this morning, or the time that she considered as the morning. She hesitated for a moment with choosing the way, but continued forward. Above the trees, I could see that we were slowly going into a mountain range already covered in white snow, but not completely, the mountains looked scratched by giant claws, there were places where the grey rock was too steep-up for the snow to lay on them.
"So, what are you doing in moments like this when there is nothing to do?" I asked, as I couldn't just walk without busying my mind with something, and to stop her yawns. They were making me yawn too. "You said that you wander quite a lot, you need to somehow fill your time."
Before answering, Sonya shook her head, correcting the fringe that kept covering her eye, and sped the walk up to a jog.
"I am thinking," she said.
"About?" I asked again after she didn't continue.
"Many things." Again, short answer.
"Wow, that proud to think about many things," I taunted, irritated.
"I wonder how you were able to lose yourself so much, as to end so far away from the place last known to you," Sonya said. "I haven't had a moment lately to really think about it, but do you even know how long it has been since you were in your home last time?"
It all was weird, like my memories were covered by fog, faces unclear, I wasn't sure if I remember them, or just remember that I had to remember.
Would my home just be my imagination? No, that was a ridiculous idea, even Sonya confirmed that she knows the place I was describing, so it had to exist, so it had to be my goal, so it had to be my home.
"I, I never thought that more than one day could have passed," I said.
"It isn't possible to do such a distance in one day, if it would be, then we already would reach the destination, instead, we still have some of the roads ahead."
"Is it really so far?" I grumbled.
"Yes and no, it is not so far away thanks to going through the hangman's forest, but the road isn't easy." Something was telling me that 'easy' wasn't describing correctly what was ahead. "You already saw the mountains range ahead? You can call it thirteen peaks if you want to add it to your Twelve-whatever-named-home. To the south, there is a mountain pass, and behind it, there is a small pack of eeveelutions I told you about. However on the opposite side of the mountains are huge ruins of what once was a city. You know what the city is?"
"No, I have no idea," I answered truthfully.
"A concentration of humans, with a concrete ground and high buildings made of glass, but now in ruins," Sonya explained and I nodded, it still wasn't clear to me what 'concrete', 'ruin' or 'glass' is, but Sonya commonly says words without a meaning, and doesn't explain them, even asked.
"So how it supposed to make our walk longer?" I asked.
"It's a long story..."
"Then say it, we have a lot of time before we get there," I cut her off, before she could put the subject aside.
"Eh, okay. So, it wasn't as long ago as it may look. Besides the human's globalisation, this one city was very distinct from any other. Some say that's because of the distance, others that's because this city was different from any other. People use electricity as a power for most of their devices, not all but most. In this place, it got replaced by some secret energy similar to the kind dark-types use for their powers," I was listening to her, trying to somehow get along and guess all new terms she was throwing at me and to glue together all this information in some way reasonable, but her words were entering my mind through one ear and leaving it with another. How could any pokemon living in the wilderness understand it? Sonya, however, without any bother if she was giving any sense to me, continued speaking about burning liquid inside of metallic rolling things, complicated "buildings", "shops", "equality" and "clothes". It was kind of stupid, who would need all of this, what was the reason?
"How you know all of this?" I asked when her story become nothing more than mentioning more and more mystic elements about the alternative evil world, times of the end of the world and more common for dramas, stuff. She was making it more and more unbelievable and imagined, like a fairy tale.
"Don't ask, it's the past," she snapped suddenly, cutting her monologue and getting in her 'don't annoy me or you would regret it' state.
"Why are you avoiding it so much? I am not asking about anything sensitive or suggest you cry about it now, I just would like to learn something about you," I said.
"The past is dead, it's what faded and won't come. There is no sense in talking about it," she barked, getting angry. I was surprised by her sudden change of mood, what was the thing she had to hide? She was behaving as if this information would make the sky fall down. It wasn't me who banished her from her pack. Besides, she was talking about it peacefully earlier. Would it be then something before the pack event? That would mean that she only joined it for some time and the real feelings were placed somewhere elsewhere. Maybe it wasn't anything big and only her dark type nature made her grow it into something problematic. "Doesn't matter, forget about it," she added, after a moment.
But how I could forget about the past? What were we without it? Only fallen leaves carried by the wind of time, aimlessly spread and pushed through the world. The past couldn't change the wind, but could give us a meaning, could become the tree of the fallen leaves, could become a benchmark of our life and show the way we are going or what leaves are we. It is what makes us who we are, creating our own personality, gives meaning to the places, to the roots. Life without a past is like life without a part of your soul, every progress lays in the past, repeating it, again and again, every time with better effect. Like learning to walk, who would try to walk if they didn't know that someone already walks? Who would try to eat if no one never before tried to eat? There is always the option to wait for the accident that makes you do some progress, but the past is much better. Whatever happened to Sonya in the past can happen again in the future, if she forgets she can repeat it, maybe now it would be even worse?
I tightened my mouth from the anger, I was proud of every piece of my past and for some reason, I felt that Sonya's meant a lot too.
I shook my head and left it for later, maybe it just wasn't the right time for it.
I followed the absol silently, looking into the dirt and grass below my paws. My mind was somewhere far away from me, in my home. I thought about the new den I needed to build. I will build it differently now, not in the middle but somewhere on sidelines, closer to the river or other water. The entrance will be hidden between the roots of the willow trees, so it would be protected from water. Willows are crazy and drink a lot of water, they usually grow on swamps, its leaves are small, so they allow me to catch some sun, but also provide some shade if it gets too hot. I would need to dig between the tree's roots, creating sensible rooms, but at the same not cause damage to the tree. Later, I would gather some flat rocks to lay. as a path from the entrance, so I wouldn't be taking all the mud inside everytime I would come back. I would need to find something I could warm my den up with. Leaves and grass dry off with time, becoming useless, and I am too lazy to replace it with some new ones every few days. I may use some flareon or umbreon fur, but it was always a problem gathering it, and it would be irritating for few weeks to smell strangers in my own den. Also, the fur is very light so it would be flying around with every move. Besides that, I thought that after sleeping in fur layer I would wake up all covered in it.
Maybe if I dig a bit deeper, made a layer of fur and then cover it with rocks and sand, then it would work? Oh, and I would need a lot of golden-white sand from the lagoon, rough dirt isn't very nice to lay on. If I already want so many things in my new den, then maybe I should try to make more than just one room. But what would be the use of them? One for sleeping, this one needs to be the warmest place of the den. The second one would be for...? Maybe also for sleeping? Somewhere closer to the entrance where it would be a bit colder in the hot days of the sun season. I always hated waking up in heat, as my previous den was so small that it heated up very quickly in the morning. I would need to have a lot of stones in that room so it would stay colder for longer. What about a third one? I felt that three is somehow a fair number of rooms but I hadn't an idea what could I do there.
Though I wasn't sure if it was possible, but maybe with some help? I usually help Cyrus with healing, but from time to time there were wounds I couldn't heal just in one moment, there was always a problem with eeveelutions with wounds like that. I needed to go to their dens one by one in my free time, or rather be dragged to them by this sylveon. If I had a place where I could 'store' eeveelutions to heal, it would be much easier. It would be even possible to heal two or three of them at the same time! The problem was that a room that could house three eeveelutions plus me and still have some space so everyone would feel comfortable required a lot of work and was beyond my possibilities. I didn't know how to warm up such huge space, as I rather thought about using it in colder seasons or how to make a ceiling that wouldn't fall down, but let's consider that Serge would help me and he knew such things, then there was the problem with the pack leader, who won't allow me to have such a big den.
At the memory of Sogot, I felt lucky that I didn't return to the pack so fast. If I remember correctly there was the punishment I had to do, but I simply forgot.
I shook my head once again. I really had a problem with focus today. Leaving my worries for later, I made a step forward, to find out that we finally got to the mountain ridge, we were standing in the last line of trees and before us was only a large and dark tunnel, that was like a large worm penetrating the mountain inside out. Through the tunnel, I could see a dim light covered by the smoke that seemed to be inside of the mountain. It was oddly familiar to something, but I had never been here before, maybe just the mountain were similar to the types I used to see around the pack.
"Before we go any further, I need to go for a while," said Sonya, making an ashamed grimace. "Don't go anywhere, and don't go into this mountain without me, it's dangerous!"
"Number one or two?" I asked.
"Fuck off, you don't need to know," she spat, and without a word, walked away, to a distance she considered I wouldn't be able to hear her and I wished it would be the distance I couldn't hear her.
I tried to busy my mind on something other than hearing Sonya, and the first thing I looked at was the round and regular entrance of the cave with the light on the second end. It was weirdly fascinating, it was going up and down like a tiny yellow flame, sometimes it was getting stronger and bigger, other times I was losing it with my sight. The light was so absorbing and mind filling, I felt somehow happy by just looking at it.
I was disturbed by the change of taste in my mouth, my tongue was invaded by nice, warm and a bit metallic taste. I licked my mouth and nose and found even more of this taste. I checked with my paw and now I was sure. I was nosebleeding. It wasn't for the first time, but it also didn't happen too often, maybe only closely after evolution.
I used the leaf on my forehead and inserted it into the bleeding nose hole, trying to stop the blood, unfortunately too deep. The tickling sensation turned into a sneeze that I tried to stop by burrowing my nose into my chest, but it didn't help and the sneeze came out. If I already looked terrible by not having enough time to fully heal my leaves with missing plates and fur so messed that my mom would burn it all and made me wait until it grows back, that now from the chest through whole bottom and the longest leaf on the forehead, I was covered in the dots of blood. My closest friends wouldn't recognise me in the state like this, I was just like a living nightmare. Only real cuts and wounds could make me look even worse.
With irritation and a curse, I put my leaf in my nose again, but now more carefully. I couldn't allow myself to bleed out and die here, it would the most stupid way to die I'd heard about. Would it be considered suicide if I bled out by the weak vein in my nose?
I waited until I stopped bleeding, before glancing at the flame again. It was so inviting.
I will just take a closer look, only a little closer. What was the difference if I would stand here or few steps closer to the light?
I stepped forward into the dusk of the tunnel, the smell of the fumes increased and mixed with the smell of blood I had still in my nose, creating a disgusting combination of organic decomposing smoke and something I couldn't identify, but was kind of sweet. The leaves absorbed the smoke too, giving me a bit more information about what the air contained. Most of it was what left after burned wood, but some of it was new, I actually wasn't sure if this thing ever existed in nature.
I concentrated on the dim light at the second end of the way and tried to limit my breathing, depending mostly on the leaves through which I could filter the air. The ground here was hard, made of concentrated tiny gravel, not so hard like the rock, but also not soft. There were sharp irregular cracks from time to time, but the limited light didn't allow me to see more detail and the further inside I was, the less of light I had.
Great place for a trap. Those who enter the tunnel are on the open sight coming from the light side while those who wait inside are hidden in the dusk, and they don't even need to be dark-types, it could be any type hidden here. Before eyes adjust to the dark there was enough time for an ambush and the victim would never know what happened.
I shut my imagination down, these thoughts were making the hair on my back to stand up. I would be so doomed if something like that would happen. I could dodge some attack or answer with something simple, but this scenario wasn't giving me any chances of success, even screaming wouldn't do because who would help me? I was alone now.
At first, I thought it was just a very tight exit, but after a moment my last doubts disappeared. The light wasn't an exit, it was a reflection. Orthogonal reflection like a floating sheet of water was reflecting light from the entrance I used. I could see myself in it, my white parts were slightly shining with the light. I needed to admit that I looked surprisingly good with all these damaged leaves, a slight smile I was trying to keep on my face and slightly gleaming with light. Like one of my imagination of heroes of the stories. With the visible sights of tiredness that affected the look, but didn't affect the spirit. But the look was all I could share with my imagination of the mighty eeveelution. What was I doing? Why did this reflection make me worried so much? Was it because I looked so different than I used to? That I didn't used to see myself like that? With a dirt in my fur, with darkened eyes, leaves out of the form. I had luck, all over this time, since I fallen into the river I was living on the luck. Every day I was closer to the death than I realised, I was improvising. Trying to grasp everything that was giving me a chance to come back to home. Now I could see it in the reflection.
The changes had begun. I was changing, every day I was further from what I used to be. How much would I change before reaching my home? Would it be my home anymore?
I can't go back in time, the Zar that was taken by the river will stay here in the wilderness, the question is who will return? Would my friends even recognise me?
I closed my eyes, trying to get rid of the dark thoughts. I was, am and will be Zar, the heat, ardour and cinder in green appearance. Whatever I would return to it always would be me.
Even like that?
I opened my eyes looking straight into the blue and green, brown and grey eyes of the leafeon that was all covered in white. Its fur was white, his skin was white, only the eyes were showing the different colour. My colours, from times before lightly brown layer covered my eyes. Before my tail was a long leaf and when my fur was brown. Before evolution, they had more detail back then, back then my eyes were light blue on the edges turning into light grey in the middle to end as weakly visible green in the middle, with few small brown dots in the left one. Some called it blue-khaki, others just as grey colours. But I left them without the name, for me, there was no such colour, no scheme that could describe them. There were mine, one and original.
It was always so complicated, as an eevee, I always believed I was different than everyone and every mark that was making me, at last, a little different was becoming my hidden obsession. Few single dark hairs on the back, few yellow on the sides and the eyes. The hardest question was: what really makes me different and what's only my wish. I wanted to keep track of my own personality, I didn't want to become arrogant or considered myself above others, but the question was raising questions, I lived the world of doubts, what part of me was really me, what was just temporary thought. When adults have two personalities it doesn't surprise anyone, one for strangers, one for friends or my mate, but when I started to have multiple faces still as a pup, how I know which one was my real one? Maybe I learned just to act. Was I the only one who seeks the truth? Or am I the only one who hadn't found it yet? What did it mean to be Zar?
What did it mean to be anyone?
When you are one of many with the same stuff, it's easy to become someone else and to be someone. When you are one and original you see many roads before you and are lost in wonders which one you should follow. Maybe you already decided wrongly and are on the wrong road?
It was all turning to the one simple question, question everyone heard about once. What's the meaning of life? Is it death? Reproduction? Fighting and survival? Was I just a continuation of those who were lost and hoped that the future would bring them answers? Just forward with hope that something finally happens?
"What's it means to live? What does life means?" I asked my reflection, I didn't expect an answer, I just felt touched by the moment.
I looked once again in my white reflection, deprived of a leafeon's colourisation. It was the leafeon Sonya saw in the dark forest, it was the one I saw in the water on the underground. Who is, or was he? Is it alive or just a ghost?
"Am I dead again? Have I to find a way back again?" I asked again the reflection. Maybe it was some of my image of me? Of what I was before leafeon?
It was all a great irony, me, always wanting to be different evolving into the type no one was before, making my life harder. But how it even happened that this way of evolution never was used before in my pack? There was a lot of eevees and eeveelutions and no one ever evolved that way but me. I wasn't trying, my actions were supposed to push me into fire-type, eventually, dark-type due to staying long at night, but parents were always helping me in my way to flareon, a creature I once considered as the best.
The cave seemed to light up, the ground tightened and became smooth, from the rock pended bushy grass and I suddenly found myself in the forest. I sat down as my head seemed to spin and I was losing the balance, I felt confused.
The white leafeon become more real, he sat close next to me. He was warm and his fur was nice. He wasn't bothered that I was all dirty and that his fur can be dirtied too.
"You like to talk with yourself, don't you," the leafeon said, and his voice rang through the forest and my mind like an echo. The voice was nice and friendly, encouraging to talk.
"Yeah, am I only one?" I asked and caught myself on this that I was only asking, again and again.
"I don't know, maybe. You think that others also need to face their worries, they just picture them differently. You are split, you can't agree with yourself, doubt in things you think and do. You would like to say that having worries makes you smart, above those who only follow others, but at the same time, you wonder if considering yourself as smart isn't stupid because those who are stupid think that only their way of thinking is right. But all of it turns into one simple question everyone heard at least once. What's the meaning of life? You know the answer and answering yourself for another time won't make you feel better about it. Just start using your own definitions!" the white leafeon said, and his leaf tail rapidly flopped in the air.
"It's hard, it's always easier to say other's what they should do…"
"This talk takes you anywhere, but not where you want to go. What is worrying you so much about your definition of the meaning of life? There are millions of creatures that want to know that from the thousands of years. What holds you so much for giving them an answer?"
"There were so many before me, it's not possible that I say the sentence unspoken, word undiscovered or the thought no one thought about earlier. I am the generation of repeat, I was born when the pack was formed and achieved limits of its expansion, I couldn't see its beginning or end. I have to just live and even if I found something new, I would be shouted down by others who build this world. Shouted down be the past that still is alive and still has something to say. In weird times I have to live, where truth and lies mix with each other, when 'old' is creating the 'new' and when unit seems to mean a lot and nothing at the same time."
"What's the meaning of life?" repeated the white leafeon
"Even if I say it, what is the point of it? My definition is empty, it answers without the answer! Everyone likes when it's simple, when the definition doesn't leave any space for thinking or interpretation. Everyone wants to just hear and immediately know. I never was the saddest or happiest creature alive, so what can I know, what my definition can stand for? The biggest tragedy I survived was losing my favourite stick or having to eat something I don't like. Who would even listen to someone like that? How can I say anything about life to someone who lost someone loved? I am just not allowed to do it!"
"No you are not, but standards are made by minds like yours. Does someone need to set the normality in a place, who can do it better who never was on the edge? You will be criticised and hated, but time forgives you. When emotions fall down and only cold calculation will be visible, you find out you had right. So, what is life?"
I hesitated, this wasn't happening. All of this was just my imagination, the white leafeon couldn't be me. Or I was him?
"Stop wondering about it, my white friend is coming for us, but her heart is black, this what is black can be easily lit up if you know how to start the light. But before she finds you, what is life? Do you remember what you found out?"
I remembered, how I could forget? It was hope in hopeless words, definitions generally are known but unspoken. But how could I be sure that I say anything that never was spoken? But even if, fuck it, my mouths my words. I took the air in my mouths.
"The life. It is the river that flows at every time of the day, it's the sun that rises and shines for everyone, it's the blue or cloudy sky, it's the green grass you walk on and the meat you have in your mouth. It's what makes you natural and what makes you a continuation of those who were before you. Life is the path of chances and those who we meet, our opportunities. We come and go to this world without anything, the point is to leave a mark that others can follow. Then death is an only short moment of pain and life is eternal. The meaning of life? There is no meaning until you make some."