Long were the hours of darkness, it was cold and something smelled bad. I couldn't sleep, but was too weak to be awake, I was in something between reality and dreams, where time seemed not to exist and no information could be remembered. I couldn't keep my eyes open and I feared to keep them closed, it was night, that much I could see. The white snow under the sky of stars shining brightly, undisturbed by any other source of light. I felt I changed multiple times, swinging between bewinged and normal form. I didn't know how many times it happened, all I could say is that it was many and something was telling me it wasn't good. However, I couldn't think about it, remember it. There was a reset, another dark sky full of stars and white snow that almost covered me fully.
Snap.
It seemed like a blink of the eye, yet felt like days of waiting when I opened my eyes again to look at the new dark sky full of stars and snow that started to hide the sky away from my view.
Snap, another restart.
It's cold and dark. I can't move, with open or closed eyes I see the same darkness. A sporadic shiver shook my body, ears are filled with thunderous noise of blood being pumped through my veins with rising effort. Every breath became a great effort of pulling the tons of air mass into my lungs and felt as running a marathon in which I could only grow weaker, until I won't be able to keep going. Another change in my appearance, every sense of staying alive seemed like too much weight for my strength. I would like to see the sky again, I would reach for it. I thought I did, I didn't know, I couldn't feel anything anymore and my eyes were too heavy to open.
Then I felt only warmth.
Something smelt sweet, not as sweet as berries that ripened in the warm rays of the summer sun. It was delicately sweet, like a perfume that's used when someone wants to smell pretty, but also avoiding making it official or making others in its environment think that today is some special occasion. A sweet, daily perfume that doesn't catch too much attention, but marks its presence. It smelled much better than rotten beartic, that's for sure.
The images of fighting with the corrupted ice type rushed through my head and my eyes shot open just to meet another two eyes looking into mine, each was different, one was red as if a hailstorm of fire was rolling inside of them, the other was white as if said hailstorm had frozen over with ice.
"Ah!" I squealed, jumping on my paws, but a sudden wave of exhaustion made me clumsily fall backwards on my bare back, my vision was covered by dark for a moment.
Lying still I waited for my vision to come back.
"I see you're awake," said a soft, feminine voice before my sight returned, but the resonance of her voice told me we are in a cave or something of the kind. "There is warm food, maybe you want to eat."
There was indeed food that looked as if cooked in an oven, very human-like. A brown, juicy corpse, carefully peeled and prepared for consumption. I wasn't even sure what it was, it looked completely like humans used to prepare their food. The hope built up in me, but quickly fade away when I looked at voice's owner.
It wasn't a human, she wasn't even human alike. It was a quadruped creature with a wildfire of orange fur and two differently coloured eyes, one quite normal for a ninetales, the other was white as frozen in ice, yet alive, moving and working. Though the ninetales was lying right now, I could judge she was taller than me yet less bulky, in case of combat I should go for her legs. It was hard to say what was her age, the fur gleamed and shone beautifully, the skin seemed to be firm and the sight clear and penetrating. Yet, it was a ninetales, it could have fifty or five hundred more years and still looking the same. What she was capable of, what she could do or knew was an absolute secret.
However, I woke up next to her, in a warm cave, and with food. I could guess that we were friends for now, and neither she nor I should react aggressively now.
With a nod, I accepted the offered food and got closer to take a bite.
Heck, if it's poisoned.
Again, if I had to have trouble, I wouldn't awake, for a second, ninetales didn't have much in common with poison. I begin to eat, and it was incredibly delicious. The meat was just so fragile, warm, full of taste and juicy, that I didn't even notice when I devoured the whole portion, leaving only white bones. The fire type for a moment was looking at me while I was eating, but later she rested her head on her front paws and pretended to be asleep, only the rhythm of her breathing told me she was still awake.
I licked my mouth, memorising the delicious taste of the meat and how greatly the fire type was able to prepare it with her fire. Then I looked over the place, it wasn't any deep cave. The exit was small, not allowing much heat to escape, but it was just three steps away from me, and four from the ninetales. I also noticed she wasn't bothered with my presence, it annoyed me a little, but also raised my curiosity.
Maybe she's lived too long to be surprised by anything someone like me could do?
I looked at the exit again, there was a strong wind howling in the deep night outside, but the cold air didn't invade our hiding place, and seeing as it was all ice and snow, I decided to not call it a cave any longer, it was possible that the ninetales just dug it.
"You can live if you want," said the fire type softly, probably seeing me looking at the exit. "The night is your realm after all." She continued. "But it isn't the night you know."
I kept looking into the window to the world outside, hidden in darkness and lit by the stars and moon.
"In the shadows, difference waits for you, use the time I gave you to take a breath, because as soon as you leave, you start a marathon of exhaustion," peacefully informed the ninetales, not opening her eyes.
I looked back at her, considering if I should rather leave or stay. However, it seemed to be quite cold outside, and so I decided to stay in the warm a little longer.
"Different?" I questioned, repeating what she said.
"We can talk in the morning, Absol, give some sleep to the non-darklings," huffed ninetales, burrowing her nose deeper into her paws.
I didn't want to wait, but I could foresee that arguing about it now would end with me leaving, and I didn't want to go back on the trail. So I waited, I even napped, too, just before the morning, trying to stay silent so the ninetales could get her sleep.
When the sun shined from outside, with the first rays ninetales stretched and now, with a much clearer look in her eyes, she looked at me. Though the look of her icy eye seemed to penetrate me completely, making me feel that she was looking at the wall behind me instead of me.
"You had a question," she reminded me softly.
"I asked what's 'different'?" I answered right away.
"You know what's 'different', but you still ask me to be sure about it," laughed the fire beauty. "Corrupted, changed, and cursed pokemon, like the beartic you killed. Though I am not sure if they deserve to be still called pokemon, and their 'death' be called death. They died accepting Giratina's gift."
I heard the name Giratina before, Aria, my human, knew all the pokemon and those with Aspect always were getting some attention of interested in general knowledge about creatures living in this world. Aspect pokemon more often were called god pokemon, but I also could remember there was some 'god' pokemon so the role of god was taken. Aria used to call them 'Aspect' as each of them was only one of its kind and had some role. They were also called legendaries, but it was putting Aspects together with a few more pokemon that were less special than these few, but still very special. However it was all just Aria's knowledge, I knew as much as I heard sporadically giving to it any attention. Giratina was Aspect of antimatter.
"So, this Giratina, is it a real thing?" I tried to encourage her to tell me more, every bit of knowledge about the curse was precious these times.
"Weird you still have some doubts in her, after seeing so much of her distortion," replied ninetales, and her mouth formed a slight smile.
"I try to imagine what accepting her 'gift' looks like, I don't see something of this power walking around with boxes giving away her distortion," I said, embellishing. The fire type still had a slight smile, but didn't laugh.
"Everything happens here," she patted her forehead with one of her many tails. "Looking for the easiest way to reach your ambitions, goals, strength makes everyone fall for it. Why wait if you can have everything now? Why try if you can fail? Reach for the corruption, use its help, get whatever you want. That's how Giratina's gift is given, under the layer of promises. Greed is all it needs, how much you can sacrifice to achieve the 'dream'. Yet, it appears there is something more in it, you made it look... broken."
"Me?" I repeated, questioningly raising a brow of the eye not covered by fluff.
"You killed the beartic whose fear of losing its territory drew it to corruption. Seems like the changes didn't make him strong enough, you gave proof that it doesn't always work," said the excited ninetales, and her icy eye seemed to penetrate my soul with its gaze.
"Oh, it's not that, he just wasn't..." I bit my tongue before I said too much knowledge about anomalies. Of what I and Aria discovered a few days before the city was ruined.
Maybe if we would know how to use this knowledge, I would still have my place on the couch.
"Of course he was, he was corrupted to the bone months before you met him," the ninetales finished for me. "I never before seen or heard about someone able to defeat 'different' alone, these things can slay entire packs."
My horn itched at the tip when she said it.
She lied, she saw.
But the itch was a bit different from usual, as if she had seen, but didn't know about it. How would it be possible, maybe she wasn't sure if she saw or not or maybe she couldn't remember it. I hardly believed it, meeting anomalies was hard to forget.
What if she has lived too long to remember?
"Is killing the corrupted something you use to do?" she suddenly asked.
"No, but it wasn't the first one I killed," I said trying not to lie, she lied to me so I raised my attention, but I didn't want her to raise hers. I didn't know what tricks ninetales could have, they live thousands of years, so they have to have some.
"You have to be a great fighter than, good that I saved you in time, you almost froze to death."
"I am fine with the cold," I answered as my pride kicked in.
"Maybe. But you are not an ice type, your protection is your coat that, while wet with blood, makes you lose your heat even faster than you would without it," she marked. "Also, you still have to clean yourself, unless you want to pretend to be shiny now."
I folded my forehead on this remark and looked at myself. I couldn't agree I looked like a shiny, the beartic blood had already solidified, turning into a dirty deep red, almost brown colour. Without a word, I started to clean myself using the nearest snow and looked for some stone to take care of my horn, tail, and claws.
Ninetales observed me curiously, unwillingly annoying me greatly, but I acted as if I didn't notice. Trying to clean my fur, I melted some snow, discovering the bright shining rock underneath. I pushed my scythe against it, realising sparkles that hissed, landing in the snow. The stone was hard, and the harder the stone was, the easier my job was to get all my sharpness into good shape. My scythe required the largest amount of time, to bend it in the right curve, to shape it at every possible angle, for any possible cut I would want to do. It was this time when I didn't think about the fight marks on my blade as something nice. The single incision Zar left me with was just annoying. It was obstructive in every sharpening, making it harder to smoothly push the blade against some surface. The last fight left me with a broken horn, though someone who wasn't an absol wouldn't see a difference. Nothing in that fight had gone right, it was just an insane brawl. The curse pushed this beartic to the edge, making him throw himself on me without a second thought about his wounds. As the nameless ninetales said it, Giratina's gift was a parasite. Not some kind of bug in one's body but still, if hungry, it was going crazy but also weaker. To survive, it had to eat, and if there was no food, the corrupted become some.
"What!?" I barked, as I didn't manage to pretend I didn't notice her looking at me any longer. I was almost done with cleaning, even if my fur still was a shade of crimson.
"It's just the way you clean," breathed the ninetales.
"Put your criticisms deep into your fluffy ass," I answered annoyed, but the fire type smirked, seemed to be completely ignoring my tone.
"They way one groom its fur and takes care of itself is usually an achievement of its parents, you are rather used to a brush, towel and comb," said the pokemon before me.
I looked at her carefully, scowled, and rapidly released air through my nose.
"I am not interested in relations with other survivors," I said, guessing she had to have lived in the city too, yet I didn't remember myself of any domestic ninetales, but I also didn't know everyone. Still, ninetales were rare to amongst humans. Having it as a pet wasn't problematic, but not many want to have a pet that will outlive them, their kid, kids of their kids and the civilisation they live in. Taking a vulpix for humans was like giving a pet for ten or more future generations. Such ninetales with age also grew too intelligent to be in the role of a pet. Generally, they could be problematic when they were getting these two or three times older than their owner.
"Survivor?" she repeated. "No, I left humanity..." she made a pause thinking about right words. "... a long time before it collapsed. I mean, long time for you. For me too. I just want to mark that was a normal 'long time', not the overly long-long time one may think of, considering species things.
"Whatever," I responded grumpily, even if her explanation amused me. If she left humans before the city fell, she had to run away from her trainer or be left by one. Whatever it was, I wasn't in the mood to go into this right now.
I turned toward the exit, looking at the landscape burrowed in snow and ice, the sky was grey with clouds. Whole scenery in grey, black and white, I saw no different colour in my eyesight.
It fit my appearance.
I thought.
The sun wasn't visible thought thick layer of clouds even if it was still early. It took me a moment to understand where I was, the ninetales had to drag me longer while as I could see the beartic's mountain, but now from the opposite side.
Should I just leave, or should I say something to this ninetales? She annoyed me a little and somehow I felt that I don't like her, yet there was some warmth and food shared. Also, a warning that I am going to meet more of the cursed 'waiting for me in the shadow', there are no shadows too dark for dark type. Also, not that would change anything, no turning backs.
"Thanks," I shot back at ninetales behind. She nodded.
"Good luck there, lost absol. Till next time," she answered, and so I walked away.
It wasn't the best form of thanking for some hospitality, but we were strangers meeting at the edge of the world. I didn't feel obligated to do anything more. It was very unexpected to meet anyone here, especially a rare fire type far in the north, at the end of the winter, in the place that leads to nowhere, considering she came from the south. Just after fighting beartic about which she seemed to know a thing or two. She guessed I was domestic once, or already knew it and just pretended she was guessing using my cleaning as an opportunity to check my reaction. I also was guessing she was once domestic, saying 'I left humanity long before collapse' doesn't say it she was domestic or not. This meeting left an uncomfortable aftertaste in my mouth, that in exchange of information, she learnt more than I.
I also had an idea it was another creation of the curse, but from these intelligent, much more dangerous ones. Not everyone wishes to become strong and powerful, some wanted to be beautiful, smart, or cunning, whatever, none of them were less dangerous than those who wished for strength. The curse was always working in its twisted way to grant what one wanted and to take, trusting ninetales words, what Giratina needed. What could it be? Life essence? Soul? Another form of spiritual energy? Were any of these even real?
What would Aspect pokemon want in exchange for her gift? Was her life fading away so that she had to look for a way to steal doubt-exciting life energy from regularly mortal creatures?
Was she hungry for the power to rule? I could imagine the pokemon of Aspect had to be too busy to deal with the Aspect she had and did not need even more duties. Did she just need some minions to roam around? As humans used to say 'another pair of hands to get dirty' so she could stay clean. After all, pokemon like that couldn't do everything alone, she needed some unquestioning supporters that would be free to roam and deal with less necessary stuff, so the world wouldn't boom with information after information about Giratina showing here and there.
In this case, why there was only one curse? Giratina's curse? There were many Aspects, many legendaries that had to do their businesses. Each of them could spread its own corruption to lead mortals to its own goals, yet we had only Giratina's curse.
What if not every legendary legend was real?
The thought struck me out of nowhere.
What if none of them were real?
Another one came to me.
The dream, an illusion. Scary shadows of the night, that disappear in the morning's shine of truth. The darkness always has an opportunity for confusion and misleading.
After all, the ninetales didn't have to know the truth. I may not sense a lie if the speaker truly believes in what she speaks. The ninetales truly could believe that behind all of the curse, there is Giratina, but I didn't know her. I couldn't just believe her in whatever she was saying, I had to keep some distance in all of this. Like, she could say some of the real truth, but at the same time some of it could be the truth she believed was true.
One was sure, the curse was much too visible this year, It doesn't even feel like I left the Edge of the World, I barely entered Northern Oblast and shit happens. But there is no turning back on this journey, no more running and hiding. I am a leaf on the wind, I float with the wind, and if I fall, I fall, but as long as I float, I float. I am a leaf on the wind, sharp and dangerous leaf that gonna butcher its way forward if forced to. I will never again be forced to hide on the edge of the world.
However life didn't have anything for me now, I wasn't struck by a dozen challenges and didn't need to fight for survival. Keeping pace, I reached the edge of icy desolation going between the rarely growing needle-leaved trees. The ground was still covered by snow, but it was just twenty or thirty centimetres deep, it felt warmer too.
I decided to walk for the rest of the night, having a meal in the morning, I didn't need to start hunting after just arriving these grounds. I could enter deeper into the forest and do it tomorrow night, somewhere where lived more potential prey.
I wasn't thinking about it earlier, but how did the ninetales hunt something on this land of nothing but snow? Like, there could be some prey to hunt, after all, beartic had to live somehow all these years, but for someone who wasn't living here, it wasn't so obvious where to find something to eat. I also doubt she was caring it with her, everyone would salivate by holding food in their mouth for so long.
Maybe she could be more of an interesting pokemon than just fancy outlook. I usually returned from my hiding in the later part of the year, so maybe she was usually here and so she knew where to hunt. All I could do was just to keep guessing.
Instead, I decided to leave it and focus on looking for tracks of aurorus. For killing beartic there shouldn't be any problems getting information about whatever interesting happened from here to the edge of the eeveelution pack and sometimes inside of their society. I didn't exactly know how they collect all this information, but I could guess enough to be quite close to the truth. They were a herbivorous group that could provide some protection in this dangerous land for different passing herbivore pokemon. Being guest, such pokemon always had to say something he or she hear or saw on the way. The group of aurorus walked long distanced from east to west and in opposite directions, so others could travel with them for long distances safe from predators, or most of the predators. Said beartic and other big predators still could be dangerous, but chances of survival still were higher than travelling alone. Herbivore pokemon were kind of blind to the marks predators made, they couldn't smell them or see the tracks. They never hunted, so they never knew what they should be aware of while being hunted. However no matter what, in the role of predators, still the most dangerous were pokemon that were rare, as it's hard to look for something no one had ever seen before. Like me for example. Or even more, every corrupted pokemon as it's almost impossible to know what kind *gift* it got. Maybe it could use different than original type, attacks. Maybe it had new hidden limbs or already was so far away from what it originally was that it could be anything. Simplifying, I felt dangerous, but they were always stronger.
Even though I was surprised I dealt with that beartic quite well. I smirked to myself despite all awareness how much luck and improvisation it costed me. It would be quite a short journey if I died from the claw from first met pokemon... changeling.
It could be not the last one. I really should find these aurorus packs to learn if it was just my bad luck and tendency to draw trouble like a magnet, or this spring is a spring of anomalies and there are a lot of them wandering in Northern Oblast, or whole north, or maybe everywhere and while I was out there sleeping over the winter the world managed to end under my dreaming nose, leaving hungry and slowly fading away leftovers. Great disaster would spare me for a second time.
My eye caught a sigh of some broken twigs on the snow-covered bush. After inspecting it closer I could see that it wasn't done by mistake. Broken were only the thinnest and softer twigs that could become food, thicker and more wood-like parts of the bush were undamaged. Carefully digging in the snow I revealed the part of the bare ground finding there, steps of mostly round shape, but with long blunt claws. The pokemon needed to be quite heavy to leave a mark despite the layer of snow and the fact of frozen ground. Highly probably it was aurorus judging from the claws which they used to rake in hard frozen ground to find tasty goods underground, even in the middle of the coldest winter. The smell was weak, these pokemon weren't sweating to leave a path of smell and so the snow kept washing everything away. The mark could be made yesterday, but also could be made last year. A clue that was no clue.
Maybe not the most helpful, but always some track, at least I knew I was already on their living grounds. Because of the enormous size of mature aurorus finding them was just a matter of time, but I also didn't want to waste too much wandering through the forest.
I returned to walking south, looking for some more promising tracks. Besides aurorus's, I was also looking for different smaller pokemon I could probably eat. Eating every day wasn't a must, however, was more pleasant than walking on an empty stomach.
Luck wasn't on my side, apparently, as I didn't find anything before nightfall. I wasn't about to sleep just yet, waiting with it till morning, but it was easier to catch something while it wasn't hidden deep in some tight hole. I hate digging, even if I was better at it than most of the quadruped pokemon of similar size thanks to my claws, yet I was getting furious whenever I had to do it.
The night came fast, but it wasn't dark. The moon shined brightly and the sky was full of stars barely covered by the clouds. The snow was reflecting the stars and moonlight and so was gleaming my white fur that still had some shades of red here and there. In such a night even someone without great night vision could walk without stumbling and only the places under thicker, but still bare tree's crown or deeper ravines could be mysterious.
Besides such great conditions, something shined in the forest and I couldn't see what was it. The shine was weak, but still somehow oblong in shape. To check it, I moved through the bushes making some rustling noise getting closer.
Between trees, I found the weird formation of long and, seemed to be, sharp objects. Only while standing just next to it I realised these are bones I look at. The skeleton was placed upside down and I was looking at it from the tail side. I judged it from the missing skull at the tip of the 'tail' that could be also taken as 'neck'. Ribs that caught my attention in the first place were four or five times my height pointing in the sky but one was missing. Moving to another side of the founding I found its skull on the very long 'neck'. The lower jaw was broken and few teeth were missing. Moving to another side and taking a look at another angle I decided it moved on all four. Inspecting the 'leg' I also found out one of them was broken, but signs of teeth and claws. In the bush nearby I also found missing rib under the snow by stepping on it. Pushing the snow off it I saw how beastly it was broken at its end.
"It had to be a fight, predators able to hunt something so large as aurorus," I hummed to myself thinking it had to happen this winter as I didn't remember any aurorus's bones lying in the area. They were hiding their dead, they had a tradition to bury them at the bottom of the river so no one will smell rotting flesh. Was this one an exception? Was he or she kicked out of the group? There was only twelve of them last time I saw them and they were family, it rather hard to be kicked out of such group one grew up with and know since egg.
I pushed the snow from the second side of the rib finding out that part was missing and what was left were sights of powerful teeth and tearing.
What an abominably strong predator, was this rib pulled of still living aurorus?!
The idea was rather stupid, but I hadn't any others. Breaking bones had a sense if one wanted to eat them, but here I found them all in one piece. This rib had to be broken during the fight and threw away. I returned to the rest of the corpse and tried to judge its size to guess its age, however it was hard without all flesh and skin. It was mature and couldn't be amaura, that much I could tell.
I started to push the snow away, finding more tracks proving it was a fight. There were a dozen steps everywhere and it was hard to tell anything detailed from them besides those predators were in a group and it wasn't a single species. Many sizes, many claw shapes, I also had to remember only heaviest left their steps under the layer of snow. I followed the trail pushing against another wall of dry frozen bushes.
I stood in place and breathed deeply.
Before me was a forest of bones, ribs jutting into the night sky, reflecting moonlit skulls and broken environment. I was looking at the place were all twelve were slain together. I found them, pity that I won't be able to ask them anything in the moment when my question list doubled.
What slays the biggest?