You've made a promise - a foolish promise - of returning one day.

You will never see this Light. They have already forgotten you, it's only right for you to do the same.


"...hey there."

Sunlight scorches his back as his beak lies face-first into the black. In the distance was the sound of waves crashing against a shoreline, and the cool, ocean winds crept along his quills. s consciousness returns to him, so do thousands of theories of how he's ended up here. Maybe he's gotten too drunk, maybe he got thrown overboard, but this unknown voice was here to save him.

The voice wasn't of anyone he'd met before. He spoke in short quips as though he never took little time between even the pauses in his speech to even breathe, and never once did the voice change its perturbed inflection.

"Is he...?" the voice pondered, "His clothes aren't wet, so he couldn't have fallen off a ship. Are there even ships around here? Oh goodness. Maybe he's just tired."

"No, he isn't." the voice continues, "I just happened to stumble onto a stranger who's lying head-first on a beach, I should just turn around and-"

"But I can't leave him there, I gotta do something!" the voice grabs trots off, and drags something along the black sand. "I'll just check and, if he doesn't respond I'll just run back!"

A long piece of driftwood pokes his cheek, again and again, trying to stir him from his slumber. Eventually, this voice is successful in awakening him, as his tired eyes futter open and see a red sun cresting over the endless sea. And standing between this vivid horizon and him is a pokemon no less than three feet struggling to hold a chunk of driftwood in their flippers.

Even for a species he hadn't seen before the blue pokemon seemed slim, and their wings, or fins looked longer than they'd ought to be. The pokemon's feathers were of a deep, navy color, lacking in any sort of pattering save for his pelt becoming a bit lighter around his aqua eyes. There was this strange tuft tied around his neck in a color similar to yellowing paper, and a belt around his hip.

"Alrght!" The Prinplup dropped the driftwood he'd been lugging around, and breathed a deep breath "I thought you were a goner! I never thought I'd see a flying-type stranding themselves like a Wailord. You're okay, right?"

If hardly breathing constitutes being okay, then he's okay. His lungs weren't filled to the brim with water, he wasn't cold like all dead things are supposed to be, and he wasn't suddenly in paradise – all were surefire signs pointing at the fact he has one foot in reality.

"For starters, I can't say I know what being dead feels like," the pokemon grumbled, "but I ruled out you being a figment of my imagination after you poked me with that stick over yonder."

"Are you well at least?"

"Financially? I don't think I've had a coin to my name in years. Physically? I doubt it." It takes everything he can muster to stand up, and when he finally settled upright he could swear he heard something in his back snap. "So I reckon I feel the usual, how's about you?"

No answer, all he gets from the Prinplup is a thousand-yard stare. Prinplup's feathers began to bristle to a point where he nearly looked his height in width before they flattened out after a nervous sigh from the water pokemon. With all this talk about seeming dead for the last minutes or so, this Prinplup looks like he's seen a ghost.

"You're uh," the Prinplup raises an eyebrow, "you're okay, right? Is waking up on the beach normal to you?"

"Probably." Braviary shrugs

Prinplup keeps looking at him. Before he can get out of there, the water-type

"B-before you wander away, "Prinplup stuttered, "Can I get a better look at you?"

"Sure, whatever it takes for us to go on with our days."

The boy looks nervous, and as they look over him what they see is a braviary, a pokemon's vivid blue, yellow and red quills have grayed with age. Were it not for the fact he looks so miserable it'd be hard to ignore the torn-up wing hidden under his poncho, rendering the otherwise forcious pokemon nothing less than a one headed Dodrio who couldn't run nearly as fast on his massive talons. This Prinplup hardly pays any attention to his scars or his ridiculous hat, he's utterly focused on the solid brass badge holding his raggedy clothing together.

After what felt like hours of weird looks, and stares a wide smile spread over the pokemon's small beak.

"Hey! I haven't seen one of those forever!" The Prinplups points at the brass thing on his chest. "Nobody just stumbles on one of those things, what's your guild's name? Is it for sale?"

"I know what a guild is," Braviary sighed, "now could you stop beating around the bush? It looks to me you want something, and I reckon it has to do with this here badge."

"Is it for sale?"

Braviary's tired look runs into a disgruntled scowl so intense it could disintegrate the Prinplup where he stands. The conversation is over now, there's no way he's gonna sell this thing away, but Prinplup isn't going to let his opportunity wander off. As Braviary wanders away the boy follows him.

"You just said you're broke!" Prinplup keeps up, "I may not have much in the way of money, but with your badge I could get entry into the guild. I'll give you everything I've saved, please!"

"What sorta guild makes you pay for admission?"

The two pokemon stop in place as cold waves roll onto the sand, settling gently only to be stoked again by the next wave following suit. Driftwood litter their surroundings, and clumps of dark seaweed lie like veins. Looking where the Braviary was heading, they can see the black earth going as far as their eyes could see, broken only by the irregularities in the surrounding cliffs and weather-worn spires.

Braviary pauses, taking good stock of where he was. The water-type speaks again.

"All guilds pay for entry!" Prinplup spoke innocently, "All guilds around here do so, the one I wanna join just asks more than usual."

"Good to know, but why fork up so much cash?"

"It's uh - a recruitment process! If someone's really serious about this guild thing, they shouldn't have a problem throwing down some money first to show they're committed to guild life." Prinplup points a wing at the old badge, "Were you to come wearing one of those then there's really no point in giving them money, they already know you were brave enough to earn it from somewhere else."

"Then what's the guild for: adventurers, rescue pokemon?" Braviary motions at his monochrome surroundings. "I don't think there's much treasure 'round here."

"They'r Scholars!"

Braviary scurries off.

"Hey!" the little bird scrambled after him.

Braviary didn't care to pick up his pace, he just wasn't having this conversation, the poor man was too tired to deal with the talk of guilds this early into the morning. Exploration, and Rescue guilds were easy enough for him to already understand but scholars are something else entirely. By leaving this boy, he's saving the thousands of Poke paying up to whoever heads the guild he wants to join.

The blue stranger's questions become lost in the roar of waves crashing along the black shores. There's no way he's gonna sell himself out, he barely knows where he is, signing up for a guild whilst inebriated - or worse is only going to spell disaster for him. And no matter how much this Prinplup begs him, he won't budge.

"Look," Pinplup keeps on going, "You're pretty much the most interesting thing that's happened this morning, scratch that, this entire month."

"I wish I could say the same."

The would-be scholar's eyes sink like bricks/

"I get it though, I reckon you're trying to get friendly with me so you can just ask me for the badge again, right?" Judging by the Prinplup's silence, Braviary seems right, "I don't want to patronize you or something, so pardon my rudeness when I say you're not gonna get anywhere sucking up to someone like that. I hardly know you, and you sure don't know me either. At the very least should at least tell a man your name before you go begging for favors."

"Prinplup." he stutters.

"I know what you are, kid, but I still don't know who you are."

"Prinn"

The Braviary was waiting for him to add a "plup" at the end of it, but sure enough Prinn is the fellow's name.

"I suppose there's a reason why folks call you Prinplup, right?"

"Other than being the only one who's really around, yeah." Prinn held a wing up to head, "I um, well my parents were never known for being a creative type."

"Noted. Unless you want to inform me that a whole flock of Braviary has swept through here, you can just call me Braviary."

"Yeah, noted too."

"Well Prinn, since I certainly don't know how I ended up on a beach smack in the middle of nowhere, how did you find yourself wandering down miles of coast to this spot? We'd have to be pretty far off if all it seems like it's just the both of us."

"I was just here mapping the coast, uh, I only went six or so hours before I found you?"

"Six hours? Did you leave at the crack of dawn or something?"

"Yeah! This whole part of the shore's uncharted so I wanted to chart it."

As Prinn walks Braviary can hear the sounds of a small, bamboo tube jostling around. Braviary looks at the boy's waist, seeing a bamboo tube painted the same yellow as his cravat.

"This place's pretty scary." Prinn laughs to himself, "I uh, just wanted to map this coast so I can present it to the guild. Then I found you."

"Personally, if I found a fellow sleeping away I would've left him alone." Braviary huffs, "You've got this whole leg of the beach recognized, don't you?"

"Yeah." Prinn smiles wryly, "I guess it makes me king of however-many miles of totally uninhibited coastline is on this end. I can show you the way I took here, it should lead us straight to town. There's just, erm..."

"I know I haven't encountered them - I'm thinking it's just an excuse some of the big guys made up so nobody's ever know they got roughed up by some feral wingull, but there's lots of rumos about bandits recently." Despite being in the presence of a pokemon known for their bravery, Prinn still asks, "If it ever comes to it, I know you can fight, right?"

"I can tussle about as well as any pokemon my age. How else do you think I got these scars?"

"If you'd let me take a look I could maybe diagnose you.."

"It's not worth your time." Braviary dismissed him, "Come on, let's get a move on boy. I think the smell of saltwater's starting to plug up my nose."


Part One: Beached