Chapter 25: Release
Patches of white and yellow—other gentle pinks and purples lope aimlessly as well—sit in the frame of the universe staring above me. I know not of where I am, just that these clouds are far away from where my black-furred and hardhearted troubles lie. If only the slight, airy breeze could whiff them away from me. Remove him. Remove him: a chant in my head. It won't come true; I can wish.
Fists clenched beside me, angular nose pointed up in the air at the sky—the higher sky, as this is all sky far as I can tell—the waves of air seem to assure me: of what, exactly? It's a blanket of safety with no known purpose, just assurance.
Perchance this nonliving substance has connected thoughts, spun a thick sense of realization and saw that its time has come. Is coming. Close. Little things: chinks in the towers, bubbling bits of puff tumbling apart, loss of valor, of color. Enough to provide sense, that this is going away.
Nothing in my heart pleas for this; rather the opposite clangs inside. Don't do this... don't hurt this—don't take this away from me. But the question ensues: take what away?—it's already going—it never was mine. And it shall leave: a natural Mystery Dungeon demolished by the changes of life.
Life is full of changes—but some changes don't—but this change does. It will happen, and I will be left in the black-pitted nadir of reality once more, the monsoon tersely labeled life to pick me up and sweep me off my feet. I don't want Tim to show again; I don't want to see the blood drawn; I don't want pain to touch my face and whisper again that Burr and Mina are dead now.
Because Tim in fact killed them.
They will not return. Not ever. Corpses mindlessly, numbly tossed into a grave, a yellow blanket frozen from my touch cast upon them and the permafrost dug above them. Elijah died there too. He lost his life in the same barren wasteland of ice.
Stella once told me to never go there upon my own will; but after the desperation—what we thought Bittercold, darkness—had fled, it was safe; we could emit hope.
Then the true Bittercold chopped up that hope and tossed it. All for naught.
Why does he break us apart—why does he enjoy this? One of the clouds hovering above me takes on a lily-like sheen, a misty purple and the bent shape resembling the long, flowing petals. Another like the fang of a great creature beaming down upon me, his face alight like a star's. Another with the arcing accuracy of a hunter, plowing down upon its fallen-kin. Then yet another puffing like an oshawott as it skylarks in the fields of destiny.
Thundering clouds roil from behind; shards of ice stick to it: I furiously shake myself because those ones don't exist.
This bucolic landscape providing me safety won't last. I struggle with the emotions where I lay, rolling and squirming in my belly-up position. Perchance I should yell no or plea why, but I understand this case perfectly: I simply don't want it to happen.
Life is hard, sometimes: choosing betwixt one bad choice and one bad choice, which one seems less horrendous. But—right now I don't have a choice. Just time. Time that slips through my fingers and leaves me chasing nothing because it's already gone, melded, stamped into the past, carved to memory, and then nothing more but a stray memoir to occasionally stumble upon and recall those times again.
Life is hard, sometimes.
I shake myself and stand, rubbing my hands over the small of my scaled back in a feeble attempt to scrape out the pouf that smothers me. It sticks, oddly, then melts from my grip and sails into the clouds above, or below, or straight-out toward, simple and professional of a cloud.
The cumulonimbus creatures have become kind to me. In sudden recurrence, I recall the dream I'd had, where I'd screamed and rolled out of my hay bedding back... back at home. Back in Paradise. With Darkie in it. And her... her pet; as much as I will the pastel-colored bubble beside her had been not whom I'd thought it was—it was. These sorts of clouds had been floating, accumulating, prior to when the black one of shards of ice splintering inside of me with the thundering, stifling nothingness and bitter, wracking cold.
Glacial; Kindred. The palaces... collide. Is that what will happen when my own palace falls, just as... Darkie's did? Or will there be the actual, true opposite lying in wait? I recall in a white shock Tim never actually told me if the castle had been his.
Is he still at large?—am I still at risk? Could be; could be. Anxiety festers like a bruise that only blackens and burdens and blooms inside of me, filling up the space left and then taking more, tearing into whatever it can in order to stick me in on my hands and feet, consume me.
This worry should abandon me by the time I drop into reality again.
I'm fretting for my beloved friends. Please—Tim didn't kill another one. These are... strong entities... with hopes and dreams entwined with mine; just because I'm not around can't mean he's just got to chop off more heads or some vile premonition referring to such. Besides, he didn't see where I've gone. He might assume I'm waiting, just waiting, for him to make a move so that I can use it and die.
Horrid, horrid—morbid—of a thought, but it's all I can hang onto whence I must return home.
Which will be soon. Too soon. Not soon enough. The blood in my veins rustles, then breaks into a full-out sprint.
"Oh my stars! Llana, you look like you just saw a ghost!—though I guess you have—oh, you know what I mean! Dear, what the heck is going on in there?"
FUMP.
The landing of a white-furred fluffy one disturbs my thought system. Stella. I relax.
"It's... I... ah..." My slightly-royal tone shifts, cracks. "I don't... I..." A struggle to pour out the words, one that chokes me and demurs me, bemused with my pawing flail: I'm drowning inside. Bathypelagic nonsense clogs me.
"My... stars." With a wave of her body, Stella buffets me using her warmth and layers—waves—of white. Thoughts slow; time ticks to a stop; I catch my breath.
It's calm.
Even for singular instances, air has cleansed me and sifted unto me, bestowed onto me: I can breathe. My browned orbs close, I cover my face, and I whisper quietly. "I... found you again. I've missed you—I've missed you more than I could imagine. Stella... and he... you brought Elijah—and it's peaceful here, and it's glorious. And soon it will all fall apart..." Without momentum, just emotions, heartstrings plugging into my basic movements, I cling to Stella and cry into her chest. "And I don't want to lose you ag—ain—!" And I don't.
She and Gerald were my rock. I always relied on them for that expanse of forever until he grew old and he left to pass away where I wouldn't have to see his cold, dead corpse. Stella dispersed to deal with Lady Munaah and her tyranny. And then I was alone until I found Zoey—but here I am again. And here is Stella again.
Half of my rock.
More than nothing.
It's still something—something important to me—something I need—something I refuse to release even though I have to and what if I never see her again? I... don't want that.
Still half of my rock stands; Stella lives on forevermore. Don't... stay here... and let me go... if you love me too... You know I don't want to leave...
Stella... I don't want to lose you...
A paw drapes about her side, touches me, caresses me. "I'm here now."
Right now, I'm safe.
"Stella!" My cry, wet, disgusting, dripping, painful, alone, needy. "I always want you here!"
I want you always safe!
Can the moment even matter when I'm going to lose you anyways? What do I have to hold onto if half of my rock is gone now? Stella... you mean more than you could imagine to me... My fists cling to her furry body and I weep.
"Ah..." A breath. "Llana..." A pause. It stretches, clings to me, draped unto her, til we're stuck together in the wet silence, my tears unyielding, raining and shattering and losing, losing, losing. I lost Elijah. The words echo back.
Stella... you can't... you're... you can't...
You're half of my rock; you can't leave me...
"I've never heard you speak of me so kindly... To hear now... to hear how you feel... how much you've missed me... how much you've missed Gerald and me—us—to see it flung back to me with this emotion in your soul, embedded there, from him, from me...
"Llana..."
Her muzzle traces down the side of my cheek and that little, pink tongue flickers out, lightly strokes me.
It's not much...
but it's enough.
It's enough.
"What we brought you up with, Llana... it's inside of you. He knew who you are; he always knew, one way or another. Gerald was... a good man. Will always be. And what we've shown you, you can spread to others. I'm—he's—always there, in your heart. Even if we can't be there any longer.
She flickers a little smile. I feel like a child again, like the child I had been when she first found Gerald and myself, when my parents first lost their lives. Yes, it hurts when I think of them—but it hurts more to think of Gerald and Stella, and the love we shared. They are the ones I learned from, feared for, loved, slept with when there were shadows, they were the ones I grew up with, the ones in forever living memory inside of me.
"You will always have us, Llana. Always. You can spread what we've shown you to others—you can find those other entities you've grown to and you all can show others. Show everyone. Perish what seeps in your land, the strange magics of it.
"I will be there—we—will be there." A crack of a grin. "Course we will. I will see you again. Our fates will always cross, for as long as your life reigns, which... may be as long as mine. Maybe.
"But the filthy scum—desperation—whatever words strike your fancy—in your soil needs to be set cleansed by us. You will see me again. And I look forward to that. For now, while we are both here, try to smile a little more, enjoy a little more. I'll always be there, whether in person or not, and we both will always love you. Sullen Gerald has an odd way of displaying his affection, I must admit."
In her pause, he would have crankily whacked her rump and told otherwise. He's not here, though. "In my heart—he just did it."
"Yes, Llana, mine as well."
Soft laughter that I share with her.
After all I have come through, I never quite expected this waterfall of emotion to crash down upon me, though the rhythmic sense of the waves have grown, I have adjusted, I smile: how I miss him; how I missed her. It... it is true; I will see Stella again. Gerald... he lives in my heart. That is what counts, that is where he'll always be. He's there for me, even if he's not directly here.
"Thank you, Stella," again, a whisper I use, as I'm choked with the feelings crashing down on me.
"Thank you as well," is her reply. And we sit; and I cry; and I look up; and her lilac orbs leak tiny tears as well.
Thank you, Stella
Thank you as well
I leave a final space for Gerald, for I know he has a word or so to share in this area.
We stay like such for a break of space, as if time has given up and accepts a time of its own to stop working, to give us time, like the event looming above us doesn't have to happen soon, though it's right there.
Her white-padded paw feels muffled, squished, wrapped by my back. Her other paws stand still and unwavering. Her chest has become a wet, white mess of fur. The crescent medallion winks its purple prismatic sheen. Brilliance twinkles from its violet depths, as do her eyes above that continue to shed dots of tears that leave streaks. A soft, sad smile sits in betwixt the crossing of droplet after droplet. A lone figure, torn through by emotion.
As we lose our pace, the world seems to waken, an echo, a shadow, of our embrace remains inside of me. A bolt, then inferno, of emotion, threatens to tangle me again, but I waver, and it falls limply, and I cling to Stella.
We walk. It's solemn, the silent, puffy steps of fump, fump, fump that accompany her motions. The mistress of the clouds, huge and galumphing in the skies above, emits her sunny glow peacefully, blooming outward in chromaticism. It seems to help with a swipe to the tears. It seems to pat my heart on the head.
"There are no shadows here, but there's that," murmurs the fluffy one beside me. She's right; the yellow cascading down is as close to what I've seen of a fledged out bit of the black fear I'd keep spiraling into ever since I found myself in Elijah's arms and thus here. The Kindred Palace will serve itself well whence it collapses.
Upon meeting the purple door entrance to the palace in its late effulgence—cracks and beginnings of splinters, loss of valor, the same the same—we run into those others as well. Her friends. Herb. There. Chieftain. Further out: Elijah. He waves softly, ignores the tears on my face, comes closer to me, embraces. Stella doesn't move from my side. Her cloud of a tail whisks near and wraps about me, eventually tying the emolga in with me too, his white face and chest pushed against mine. Awkward, at first, but nice.
The fluffy ones share an exchange of muffled voices, each layering into others but also understandable at the same time. These celestial beings... I will miss seeing their faces, hearing their voices. This time Herb sticks out like the sore toe—her light, high-pitched squeak is easier to spot than Stella's royal drawl, or her father's stronger and royal and gruff laugh, or There's strong and gruff and barbaric kindness whispered in as well. She's a little different.
With a light smirk, the ghost beside me sifts into Stella's tail and lies unto it. "Mm." Shrugging, I scoot over next to his cheeky self and sit with him.
"I don't want to leave."
"I don't want you to leave."
Unlike Stella, unlike any of her fluffy friends, he doesn't remind me that it has to be, there is no other way. He states what's in his heart, what he believes right, not what has to be right. No barriers sift on the inside, but they spike on the outside.
This change will come. There is no other way. These clouds, this palace, willed to float and willed to fail by its kindred flowing within, must fall in the end.
My thoughts flicker toward Elijah, toward how joyous I am that at least I had these miniscule moments to share with him in the end. Later on, other ghosts, lost souls or not, had shown their faces and explored the realms and... experienced what I've done. They can't... truly feel, truly change, but they bobble their heads and assure this will be a bomb on the desperation soiling Truught. This—is—good.
Mina and Burr must still be finding their way. I didn't see them, in the least. I wish I had, but... they must be smiling, wherever they are: together, without the influence of Tim breathing down their necks and coating fear, rousing it. Nevermore.
As well—Gerald never showed. I never saw my uncle here. Stella... she told me what I already knew.
He doesn't want you to see him after he's died, not unless you do too. He doesn't want you to have to see something like that.
Kindred, in his own ways. Sometimes I stop and wonder about him more so. He's part of my rock; Stella's part of my rock: they are my foundation for who I have become.
I've missed them so. Even just sparks of thoughts, emotions, misses. I've missed them so.
It was... not as surprising to not see—or at least recognize—my parents as well.
They love you, but they don't truly know you. Gerald and I know you. They never got to.
Strange, to recall what I've become, who I've been made, now, of all moments, all times. All that I've gone through, leading up to here... and to when I leave... and I find Paradise once more.
A spark returns in my heart. I will see them again. I will be okay—a flash of Espa's lilac face, when I told her, when the unmasking occurred, and Tim was revealed. Where... is she now? Where are the others that I could not bear to lose—and when I did..? Perchance Tim's only left marks on Mina and Burr; perchance the others are okay.
I will find out soon.
The palace makes no sound, makes no sudden movements, but it swoons slightly, rumbles softly, proves that something is about to happen—something big, in fact. With a painful traipse, a limp, as if wounded, Elijah's hands find theirs around me and his face leaned into mine and he leaves quickly, turns around because it's too much not to. A wave; a smile; gone.
Stella's fluffy friends take a slurred, slow stroll over the bright gaping past of light liquid, and they stop in a massive, fluffy horde just steps off. Rumbling ensues, ensures. It's quiet, fluffy, but it shivers and shakes me and takes me by the hand and spins me and Stella's paw stops the spinning for a relieving moment.
"I—will—see you." A purple-flecked wink. Her tail retreats, and Stella joins her fluffy mob awaiting her arrival.
I
will
see
you
Assurance. I smile slightly to myself as the rumblings jitter me one way, then the other, backward, forward, up, down. My head spins; I slide to the cloudy grounds wrapping about the palace and sit and wait, as the world around me slides in and out of visibility.
All I can tell do exist are the yellowed highlights in the puffy clouds. Yellow permeates my vision easily, unlike the rest of what I grope for. And as I watch, the clouds THUNK and slide upward, first in a slow, easy spiral, then another THUNK... THUNK—THUNK and cumulonimbus clusters the color of dappled sunlight fade upward and out of sight. Acceleration accumulates; whirring zips past me; air whooshes and bellows and loses itself quickly. I sit. And I stay.
Ruby droplets of the sky shine to view, as if torn from my sight then violently stuck in again. The sky exists once more; I'm held in suspense of the free-fall coming. The ground, dizzying, sweeps and splits below. Where the palace goes splat and I... I... go back home.
Home: the word lodges in my throat; it hurts; I swallow. Home.
Blue, roaring like a tide, returns as well; violet slips between, nigh unseen until it coalesces, covers, consumes. Bright, light pinks splatter. A leafy green chases it, coats edges, tacks off bits of other colors.
Orange, brown.
Yellow. The yellow beckons to me, welcomes me. I like the yellow. Tints of white dart past and fleck. The black doesn't show until the end, where it flecks into shadows and I try to pretend it doesn't actually exist, isn't actually there. It works... slightly. Somewhat.
My head rushes; colors speed until I can hear them; the sounds in my throat push through and explode in my chest; kapow kazam kaput kazut splatter; I spiral out of control. It hurts to take in breaths, to move, to whisper, to blink, to think, I struggle.
BLLOOOOOWWWRRRRNNGGGGGGGHHHHTHHHHHHHFFHHHhhhhhhh... ..hhhh..
My footing, painfully obvious, loses itself and I fall somewhere along the lines. My eyes squeezed shut. My body tucked tightly into a ball. My nose profusely squirting droplets of the ruby—blood. Things ache. Many things.
I don't want to move. To do. But I have to.
Not yet.
In this aching ball of nothing but pure Hope energy tangling within me—Sweethot, I call, and think of Stella—I lie in wait. In wait of... recovery. To find the strength. To do. To be. To open my eyes.
To open my eyes.
The troubles build from that one simple task. What... what am I supposed to do after my eyes are open? Step-by-step: but what comes after one? What's next? What else do I have to do—is it a must? Must I? I ache and I don't want to think about opening my eyes or anything after opening my eyes: so I don't. I sit there. Weak. A little cracked; a little broken; incredibly hopeful on the inside.
The word strikes another word from the deepest mush in my heart.
In-cre-di-bly
In-du-bi-ta-bly
Simple. Similar. Different. Indubitably: yes. Yes. Yes.
It pours in: I miss Mary; I miss Quagsire; I miss Vivi. Bay, Umbre, Jen, Espa, F, Gurdurr, Roland. Zoey. Oh... the word cools me, fills me. Zoey. For a moment I struggle to count the names, nitpick, be sure I didn't add one of the dead characters I love so that... aren't on this earth any longer.
Then I think of Gerald. Snivy; strong, grassy green build; scaled body; puffy, white mustache lingering over his lips; older; classy; distinguished; easily annoyed; uncle; I miss you; I love you. Gerald. It... I... have I... thought of him so painfully much since he... since Stella told me he died? I may have. I may have not.
Gerald, I promise not to stop thinking of you. You or Stella or either of you. You are my rock. You are my rock. I don't want to... stop...
My heart beats faintly; I feel its tottering step moving in me, working, trying, failing—succeeding. A breath; a breath; I swallow; I'm breathing. Breathing. Supposedly I had stopped but I can't die, what's inside of me will supply me til Tim cuts it open and poisons me with his Bittercold. I am not dead. I am alive. And I cannot die. I cannot die.
I recall... when Lady Munaah lost her life, and Ember and Cheeka presumed I had to die. Thought I would be taken away, I would lose myself... never be seen again. Whatever they expected to happen did the exact opposite and I found myself breathing again.
Supposedly—if I wanted to, I could stop breathing. Nothing would happen. I would continue to live. The thought crawls up my throat. I continue breathing.
Somehow, under yellow eyelids, one amber orb the color of a healthy tree pries itself open. Blurry surroundings. Dizzy. Color like puke sprawled over everything. Warmth. Heat. Shadows—shadows—shadows. Its partner pries as its first did, like lovers.
My eyes are lovers.
I struggle to remove the thought from my mind.
Fingers the colors of leaves wriggle, force themselves to pop open like shells on nuts and spread evenly, coating into something soft. A little soft. My head rocks itself one way, then another. Legs bend. Squeak. Kick under me, pull. My hands push onto the earth and my head raises and I have stood. The world outlooks about me as my eyes grow used to their act of seeing once more.
Nothing out of interest strikes me: white—ice—snow—permafrost coating outdoors. Small patches of grass, or possible dirt particles. A hefty scent of ice washes over me. A sunset glitters coldly abo—
cold.
Cold.
Cold.
It wallops me, a punch, a covering, a sneeze, cold, everywhere, gelid coating and stealing of my coldblooded warmth and I can hardly feel anything but it is cold and I am shivering and somehow I'm not frozen to nothingness. I can't die from cold—but I can feel it. Of course I can.
The pink blanket tossed to my side, dusted with frost, diverts my attention. I pluck it, dust it off, shoot streams of warm breath in my hands, wrap the blanket about my body. The thing lying in front of me, I see, happens to be a bed of flowers with an imprint in the midst. Like a grave.
Oh.
I step back, shivering slightly, and turn until the black eyes staring at me capture my sight and the tall, shadowy figure takes me. Thick, powerful smoky arms lace about me and he hugs me closely, his head on top of mine, assuring me.
Cold, wetness leaks down my spine. "Tears..." he whispers.
I don't know what to say.
I don't know what to do.
Of course he... missed me. Somehow, I don't flinch away. The warmth in his fur, in his body, collects into my loss of body heat and regenerates. "It splattered like a cake from the sky." The palace. It's the palace. "Llana... Llana." His hands touch my spine.
"I am a monster.
"You were all right. You all were. You saw it.
"You all saw it.
"I am a little crazy. I am desperate. I am lost. I am looking for some way to find a path again that will not show up.
"I did fester the wrong emotions for you, until I saw. And I still do."
A pause.
"Tim," I squeak.
"I kill others."
"T-tim."
"They bleed. They die. I kill them they don't come back, you do the opposite, you aren't mysterious then scary then depraved then... a monster. You are mysterious then adorable then lovely then righteous then...
Quietly, "What are we?"
His eyes lead down toward me. "We... we are strange, magical mutations of sorts of... creations. Like Mystery Dungeons."
"What are we?" he echoes. The deep, dark tone has never weighed so heavily, so broken, so sad.
"We... are..."
And he looks at me, and I cut off. "We're twisted, but you're twisted in a good way. I'm not. I'm twisted another way. I'm dark. Mysterious. Bad. You're light. Palpable. Good. Much more good. And yet... I'm the one that's taken over this place. I'm the one that first took over, first shed the world with blackness... with this difference than what you've got in you."
Indubitably. He... is... correct. In some areas.
It dawns on me; I'm not only agreeing but trusting Tim, and he is hugging me and he is crying.
Tears...
"We're opposites, and I love you, and this... magic, in us," he whispers, a sort of malice egging him on, "this mutation, we are, like Mystery Dungeons, like fluffy ones, like these... things, that exist, create us. Your realization came late, and thus you struggle to change what I already control.
"But now I want to help you. I don't want to be me, I want to be with you. I want to... see... you smile... without the pain in your eyes... I want... to stop... killing... but create—as who I am...
"I killed Burr. I killed Mina.
"And I set fire to Paradise.
"And now, more than anything else, I want to stop. I want to undo what I have done.
"It hurts."
"It hurts," I echo softly, "it hurts."
But inside of me, I've already been set to flame.
Well... that's quite the colorful ending.
-everything crashes down on me-
Wh-whoa... I already finished this story. In like two months... w-wow... what am... what am I... what is this... WHO IS WHAT IS... -brain combusts-
So... I trust you enjoyed this story, and if not, at least got in a laugh or something? X3 I dunno. Tim's a funny guy.
Don't tell him shh.
So that's... the end... of the story Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Fates through Sky.
HAH BUT NOT THE SERIES OF PMD. PMD2 IS DONE BUT PMD3? OH YOU HAVE SEEN NOTHING THAT IS GOING to eventually come out once I write a couple other stories I have planned before it. ewe It'll be fun.
Thank you! :D