Chapter Five-Homecoming
Kojau trotted along behind Firra and Azour. The two eons were walking leisurely along the alley ahead, having lost their pursuers long ago. Both seemed to shine with radiance, Firra from her inner fire and Azour from his rings. They seemed quite comfortable together, Kojau thought, and she wondered vaguely if they were mates.
Her pace was considerably slower than theirs. Her paws moved steadily over the ground beneath them, and the light in her eyes had faded somewhat. She wasn't losing energy, but the tingle going from her head to her spine was still there, and it was making her feel odd to say the least. At any moment, it seemed to would snap free and tear her apart from the inside, casting her limbs across the earth. But it didn't.
She wondered if perhaps it was some sort of other her, like another being inside her body. But that was silly-there could only be one you, right? She was sure she had never met a pokemon with more you's than itself…not counting doduo and magneton and possibly girafarig. That pokemon like that had other selves was a given. But there was that odd feeling in her spine…and it seemed to her sometimes as if she had something other, a different persona buried deep inside her, another side she didn't want to remember at all…
"Errancho! Walk with us, we don't want you left out!" Kojau was snapped out of her rather dark musings by Firra's voice, which seemed to be the opposite of her thoughts, bright and cheery. The mightyena's weary heart lit up a bit, and she jogged forward to the couple's side, trotting next to the umbreon, Azour.
He offered her a smile, eyes scanning her carefully for the first time. He did not much like what he saw. The creature beside him was emaciated, bones showing clearly through her pelt. Her breath whistled faintly in her throat like a wind blowing through a desert, and her step was mechanical. But, despite all this, she seemed to radiate life somehow, and there was a vague sense of importance about her he couldn't quite pinpoint. At the same time, however, there was something awfully dark lurking in those large, too-bright eyes.
However, Azour decided to ignore this. He didn't care at all for the way the poor pokemon shied away from him whenever he so much as looked at her, as if she was afraid he would deal her some sort of physical or mental blow. As he gazed upon her, he decided that she must have seen some rough times, and resolved to find out about her and try to help her with them.
"Kojau, was it?" He asked gently, wondering how to phrase the question of her origins without upsetting her or putting her on the defensive. As she nodded shyly, he continued. "I have to thank you again for saving me. I fear I did not make my gratitude for your heroic feat known satisfactorily back there, as we had little time." He allowed a small smile to come across his face as he saw a flicker of elusive happiness in the mightyena's eyes, and he continued, encouraged. "I owe you my life, and if you ever want anything at all, all you have to do is ask it of me."
Kojau took a while to find her tongue. He was actually thanking her, and profusely! But…she hadn't really done anything. All she had done was smile at the granbull, and he had run away, and... She decided she had a hard time accepting good things when they came along, and determined to try for a better state of mind with those matters. "It…it was nothing, really, I did not fight…" Her voice was soft and oddly unsteady.
"Oh, but you must not be so modest!" Firra spoke from the other side of Azour in a laughing voice, peering over the umbreon's back at Kojau. "You didn't have to stop to help us at all, and that in itself is encouraging. I doubt I could have saved Azour without you, and both of us probably would have perished." Her looked turned serious. "Never underestimate yourself, young Kojau. Others would…take advantage of one such as you."
Kojau looked back at her, blinking a bit. Firra's last words rang oddly through the mightyena's consciousness. Others who would take advantage…take advantage… Her gaze became oddly soft and introversive as she thought to herself. That seemed too terribly familiar…but she wouldn't let anyone else take advantage of her, right? How could she? She was just a lone pokemon, she couldn't…but she had. Somewhere she had, she was sure of it. It related to that dark image of herself that she dreaded to bring up, that inverse image of…of…
Azour watched in no small concern as Kojau's gaze turned soft and troubled, and her ears gradually lay back on her head in fear. He looked up the alley, searching for something for her to be afraid of, and found nothing of substance. But when he peered back at her, he saw the look of nervous anxiety on her face as clearly as before, pained and tight. He couldn't stand that pained visage, and so began to speak once more, as if to snap her out of whatever dark thoughts she had immersed herself in. "So…Kojau. You're not from around here, are you?" He tried to make his voce as soft and non-threatening as possible.
Kojau started a bit as the umbreon's voice broke into her thoughts. Her worried mind seemed to cool a bit as his soothing tone registered in her head, and her eyes lost their pained look. "I…" She turned to look at him, fully intending to answer…and found she had nothing to say. For all she knew, she could be 'from around here'…or not. She had no way of knowing. But if he knew this, he might become wary of her, might outcast her from this fragile web of friendship she had established with the two of them. Then the shadows would come again, entwining her in their darkness, and she would be caught like a fly in a spider's web and never be free again and…
"What's wrong, Kojau?" Firra's voice snapped her back to reality again, and she took a long draught of air in as she realized she had not been breathing. As she turned shamefully to the flareon, the concern she saw reflected in the eon's eyes made her feel very guilty indeed.
"I'm…it's…nothing." For some reason, that made her feel even more guilty. She didn't want to deceive them, but the lingering fear that they might desert her if they knew of her condition kept her from telling the whole truth. There was another fear there as well, though…the fear that they might know more about her than she did, and tell her something she didn't want to know about that other side of herself. "I…I just…I'm not from around here. You were right in that assumption, Azour." Her voice was thick and hesitant, and she couldn't look either of them full in the face.
Azour sensed she wasn't telling them the whole truth, and he knew Firra knew as well as the two traded a sidelong glance. The umbreon studied the mightyena as the three walked on in silence. He noted the way the shadows seemed attracted to her; being a darkness pokemon, he could see how the darkness just barely became blacker around her body. And yet…and yet, there seemed to be a frail light there, radiating around her, like static. And there was that odd feeling there, as if she wasn't quite what she seemed, as if she was something more. But she was just so innocent seeming, so naïve…
"I think you'll like where we're going," Firra said softly, her words shattering the uncomfortable silence that hung around them. Kojau twitched an ear and peered up at the flareon as she spoke, listening. "We live with a clan of other eons, just a little further into this maze of alleys."
"An eon clan? Here?" Kojau's words were soft and depressed sounding. She was even a bit surprised at herself as she heard what she sounded like, and berated herself mentally. They were worried about her, she could sense it. She didn't want to have to worry them anymore, because she wasn't really worth worrying about, at least not in that sense.
"Yes, it does seem a bit odd that an eon clan would be in a city such as this, does it not?" The umbreon's voice was as soft as before, and Kojau enjoyed listening to its rich depth. "I believe it all started out with an eevee breeding facility that began long ago somewhere in the middle of the city. Quite a few of the eevees and eons escaped one day, I think, and roamed free. Though many were caught, a few of the most wily ones were able to evade capture and eventually paired up and had pups. Not too long ago, only a few generations, we came together again and formed a family. Though there are not many of us…" Azour looked a bit sad. "And we become depleted every month. People want to catch us, and when we fight back, they label us 'Dangerous and to be Destroyed.'"
Firra nodded sadly. "Yes, humans are a greedy species. It's in their blood." The glow around her intensified a bit. Kojau was beginning to think the strength of the glow depended upon her moods.
"And it's not in ours as well?" Azour laughed lowly. "Judge not lest ye be judged." He gave the flareon a playful bump with his muzzle, and she poked him right back, laughing.
Kojau watched them both, feeling as if there was a chasm opened in her heart and not even knowing why. They were so happy with each other, so open and trusting. She, on the other hand…she wasn't. She didn't think she'd ever be, unnatural thing that she was. The mightyena hung her head low to the ground, wondering if life would ever be satisfactory for her, or if, for that matter, it ever had.
The alley the three walked was about to emerge onto a sidewalk. Kojau glanced about, sensing people not far ahead. She really didn't want to be among humanity again, for they might try to catch her or her two acquaintances. She shrank back, watching as Firra broke away from Azour and nosed around the brush at the side of the alley…revealing an entrance, so thickly covered by weeds that it looked to be a part of the alley itself.
"C'mon!" She grinned at Kojau, light dimming a bit. "This is where we've gotta go…" Her voice trailed off as she nosed through the thick weeds and was gone, seeming as if she had never been there at all.
Kojau thought this was an interesting idea. What if you could just go through something and step into oblivion, removing yourself for all eternity, removing yourself from all worries? The prospect, though she thought it ought to seem spooky, tugged at her. If something like that ever presented itself to her, she thought maybe she would go. Leaving would be good…such a release…and walking the cool white sands of the desert of time for the rest of her life, without a worry or-
"Kojau!" She blinked as Azour nudged her. The umbreon gave her a friendly grin. "Don't space out on me now!" He laughed, nudging her toward the entrance. "I know you like to stop and think about things, but now isn't the time…I can tell Firra is just itching to introduce you to the rest of us…"
Kojau wondered dryly if the rest would see her and want nothing to do with her as she pushed through the weeds and into a very narrow, claustrophobic alleyway that led off to the east. She coughed slightly for no apparent reason, feeling trapped. The alley snaked off to the east and away from the noisy human roads and sidewalks, and eventually branched off into one that led straight, toward a bunch of ramshackle, tall buildings.
Kojau walked in silence the entire time, feeling detached from the world in general. She nearly forgot to stop her mechanical walking as the two ahead of her came to a halt in front of a huge, tall building and started nosing around the bottom of it, eventually kicking away some stray dirt and revealing a large hole.
"Abandoned. Humans like to abandon things and just leave them." Firra smiled, trotting up to Kojau. "Well, their loss is our gain. C'mon…" She turned and made for the hole. Kojau followed her uncertainly, peering up at the building. It went up many stories, but it looked old and warped and unsteady.
"It…won't fall, will it?" Kojau's soft voice held a good amount of worry as she followed Firra and Azour toward the hole, pausing near it. "I mean, it looks sort of unsteady, you know? I know you've probably been living in it for a while, but…" She trailed off, feeling remarkably lame and wishing she hadn't said anything at all. She hadn't wanted to show any distrust in Firra and Azour...she was just so easily intimidated.
Azour only looked at her understandingly, much to her great relief. "I can see why you worry. It is rather imposing, yes, but we have made this one of our scattered homes across the city of generations now, and it remains our most steadfast and undisturbed as of yet." He smiled. "It may seem odd that a clan of eons would deign to live here, but no humans ever come here, and everyone appears to have forgotten about it…" He made for the hole in the bottom of the building and was through in an instant, slinking through and disappearing along with Firra.
Kojau blinked, shifting uncomfortably as she stared at the hole, then the building, then the hole again. She wondered if she could perhaps make a break for it. She didn't like the idea of being trapped in there; it felt, to her, like being swallowed up by some great creature made of crumbling cement and stone.
Something was peering at her. She twitched a bit as she felt a set of eyes on her, and, without thinking, flinched away to the side, staring at the hole. Two large yellow eyes sparkled in that hole, studying her mischievously from the deeper shadows. Kojau knew those eyes didn't belong to either Azour or Firra, for Azour's eyes were a bright shade of red and Firra's were a dark brown bordering on black. Such electric golden eyes startled her a bit, for they carried a youthful curiosity and wonder at the world, and intrigued Kojau after a minute, though she dared not go any closer.
A second later, a soft blue glow slowly began to emanate from the hole, forming itself gradually into the shape of a ring between the eyes. Two others seemed to float oddly behind it, twitching a bit from time to time.
Kojau stared. She tried to think of a pokemon she had seen before with this sort of coloration and failed utterly. The soft radiance seeming to hang on the pokemon in the hole made her curious, as she had never seen a pokemon that seemed to have such a natural glow in spirit that emanated from its body.
"Hi." The voice was a bit high pitched and male, carrying an energetic tone to it. Kojau stared as the figure in the hole, obviously having studied her enough, began to emerge. The dusky black form of an umbreon flowed forward from the hole in the bottom of the building, moving with the sinuous grace that was so common to his species.
He was an interesting specimen, that was for sure. As Kojau had noted before, his eyes were an odd electric yellow color, not the deep red eyes that others of his kind sported. His fur was a bit longer than other umbreon's, or perhaps it was just scruffy. A large tuft of it hung over his head, slightly obscuring the ring there. But the oddest thing about him by far was that his rings were a soft blue color bordering on white that reminded one of new fallen snow.
"You're Kojau?" That high voice again, grating on her nerves. He almost squeaked when he spoke, and his blue rings dimmed and flared up again with every word he said…or maybe it was just when the volume of his voice changed. He seemed not to notice her discomfort, for he continued blithely on. "Firra and Azour told me about you, how you saved Azour and all, and how you were still outside, and they told me not to bug you, but I just had to come out." He paused for a breath, eyeing her. "You're skinny."
"Umm." Kojau tried to collect herself, feeling a bit frazzled over the whole situation. "Yes. I…I suppose I am." She stared at him oddly, feeling at a complete loss for things to say.
Apparently, this was not true for him. He only smiled and started to talk once more, high voice almost carrying a sing-song quality to it. "Well, anyway, I'm Kiete. And you're Kojau. Yes, you are." He seemed to fairly tremble with pent up energy. His rings continuously shifted in their color from a bright blue to a light blue to a white color, and sometimes they suddenly winked out and didn't show up at all, only to flare up again full force the next moment. Kojau found it quite disconcerting to try to keep up with their shifts in brightness and color, and it gave her a headache to look at them too long.
"Why are you not coming in?" His voice softened up a bit, tone revealing him to be a very young umbreon indeed. "The rest of us would like to meet you. I mean, if you think they wouldn't like you or something…they will like you." He grinned mischievously, yellow eyes sparkling a bit like flecks of gold caught in the sun. "And if they don't like you, I'll make them like you. I can do that, you know. I'm very annoying sometimes." He seemed to bounce up and down in front of Kojau, who had no doubt what he spoke was true.
"I…I don't know…" The mightyena refused to meet his gaze, thinking about how she had lied to Firra and Azour earlier about not being from around. They had trusted her, DID trust her, and she hadn't told them the whole truth. And, despite that, they had taken her with them, shown her this place, trusting her not to reveal them. And the knowledge that she didn't trust them, could not trust them…it ate at her like acid.
"What's wrong?" A nudge aimed at her shoulder sent her yelping off to the side, whirling around to face a very surprised looking Kiete. He blinked at her, a slow grin stretching over his face. "Hey, you wanted to play? You didn't tell me…" His grin widened, and he leaped at her.
"But…" Kojau flung herself out of the way, dodging a playful slap from his paw. "But I don't…AH!" She flailed about as he suddenly shot up underneath her, bonking his head into her chest.
"Your fur smells weird!" He bounced out from under her, leaving her to sit down with a thump on the ground, confused and frazzled. What had that been all about…?
He simply sat across from her, grinning lopsidedly. One ear was cocked to the side, the tuft of fur on his head messed up and tossed carelessly into one of his inordinately large, yellow eyes.
"You…you are…" Kojau panted harshly, unable to find her tongue. He was such an enigma to her! She had never met one like him, so carefree and playful. What was more, he had taken her mind off feeling sorry for herself. For that was what she had been doing lately, she thought wryly, though she had tried to disguise it as being thoughtful or worrying. She had to stop feeling so sorry for herself.
"Kiete!" The laughing voice from the hole unquestionably belonged to Firra, and both pokemon turned their heads to look at her at exactly the same time. "I told you not to go out and bug that poor thing until she was ready to come in!" The flareon tossed the flame-like tuft of fur on her head, ruffling up her luxurious mane. "You two look like two peas in a pod!"
"He…he wasn't bothering me." Kojau let a small smile spread across her muzzle, finding to her amazement that she wasn't worried at all anymore…well, at least not as worried as she had been before. The young umbreon's sunny disposition seemed to have taken a weight off her shoulders, for the time being.
"Well, are you coming in, Errancho?" Firra smiled welcomingly, moving aside. "I should hope you do not fear the building…or Kiete, for that matter!" She flashed a toothy grin. "Though he is definitely one to be feared, eh?"
The blue ringed umbreon growled and put on a ferocious look, though he couldn't hide that little smile of his for long. "Fear me!" He moved toward the hole, and laughed as Firra pummeled him lightly. Once there, he turned around and peered back at Kojau, who was still standing uncertainly outside. "You coming, 'Ko?"
Those large, hopeful yellow eyes proved to be too much for the mightyena to stand against, and she gave in and stepped forward, slinking into the hole in the building before she had any time to change her mind. Firra followed right behind her, and Kiete's bright blue ringed tail seeming to float along ahead was like a torch lighting the way.
"Well, here we are!" Kojau started as Firra's exclamation echoed in her ears and she stepped out into the first floor of an old building. Glancing around herself, she saw the door out front appeared to have been shoved into both walls a while ago as they nearly collapsed, and now was melded with them and impossible to open. The few windows in the room let in some of the early morning light, and the sight made Kojau glad. The rest of the large room looked pretty much done in, the few articles of furniture there sagging mournfully. The dusty peeling carpet beneath Kojau's paws might have been a shade of lavender once upon a time before fading to uniform grey with age. There was a staircase leading upward a little ways off, built into the old, cracked walls.
"It's…it feels ancient." Kojau looked awed. There was something about the room that felt very old, though not bad. There were no bad feelings about the place whatsoever, only a vague sense of happiness and just a hint of longing.
"We think it used to be a facility of some sort, a daycare and fitness center combined." Kojau jumped as a new voice came to her ears, and whirled about to see a very old looking jolteon standing near one of the windows and regarding her amusedly. His fur was grayed with age, spikes blunted a bit. There was, however, a good deal of cunning in his eyes, and Kojau reminded herself that elders were often the smartest of them all, and should be respected.
"Aruva!" Kiete obviously didn't think along those lines, for he went bouncing right up to the jolteon and attempted to tackle him. Kojau winced a bit as the eon gave a huffing breath and battered the blue ringed unbreon away from him, good humor shining in his eyes.
There were several other eons congregating around them, and Kojau could sense many different personalities. She could see a calm looking vaporeon out of the corner of her eye, and a young looking espeon who could very well have been Kiete's sister. Azour was there as well, and other eons were starting to trickle down the stairs, watching the group curiously.
The jolteon, Aruva, hopped up on an old couch and reclined on it, indulgently swatting at Kiete as the umbreon tried to pull him down again. The little thing was so full of energy that it made Kojau tired just looking at him, and she watched him in a certain fascination, wondering just how something so small could have so much energy.
"You seem a little more at ease after having been with young Kiete." Kojau looked over at Firra as the flareon spoke, sitting down beside her. "I shall have him introduce you to the rest of us, as he seems to have taken quite a liking to you."
Kojau took a great shuddering breath, feeling as if she had just been shoved into something a bit over her head and was being flung along without knowing quite where she was going to end up next. "I…I wonder why…" Her voice was a bit raspy and low, and Firra laughed at it.
"Oh, do cheer up." The flareon grinned brightly at her. "I'm sure everyone will like you. You've got a charming, unassuming personality."
Kojau felt oddly hot. "Well, that's just how I am, I suppose. I wouldn't want to hurt anyone by being snappy or stand-offish, though I fear I am a bit of the latter at times." She watched Kiete for a moment, wondering just how to phrase the question that had been gnawing at her ever since she had laid eyes upon him. "Ummm…Firra…what exactly is he?" That hadn't been phrased very well at all, and Kojau berated herself for not being smoother.
Firra, however, didn't seem irritated. "Oh…I suppose you've never seen a shining pokemon." She took a long breath, as though wondering how to explain shining pokemon to the mightyena. "See…a shining pokemon is a different color than a normal one. Shining espeons, for example, are rumored to be a green color, and shining umbreons are as you see Kiete. They have blue rings and golden eyes, instead of yellow rings and crimson eyes. And…it is rumored that they are born with a piece of starlight in their souls, a sort of odd radiance that dates back to a time when shining pokemon were common and revered as visionaries." She smiled. "But that's a tale for another time."
Kojau blinked, digesting this information. "So…that means he's special?"
"Not in any sense that he's better than any of us," Firra replied quickly. "He's just a normal little energetic eon underneath that odd coat of his, nothing more and nothing less." She heaved a great sigh. "He's going to have problems with humans wanting to catch him, though. We've taught him how to dim his rings and change their color. He can make them a near white color, and, with the right amount of energy and dimming, give them an almost yellow look. But still…if humans got a good look at him, especially his eyes, they'd see him for what he was. It takes him a lot of concentration to hold that image, and he's going to have to be very careful…very careful indeed…poor little oridos…" She shook her head sadly.
Kojau blinked. "Oridos? I though his name was Kiete…"
"Oh!" Firra laughed heartily. "Oh dear, I suppose I have been dreadfully confusing with my fancy words and all." She smiled. "The legend I was talking about relating to shiny pokemon also relates to the olden language, in which I know a few words. Oridos generally is a term of sympathy for a friend, ketting literally means idiotic, Errancho means friend or companion, and roghat is a sort of curse or an exclamation of disgust. Generally, ro can be added onto the beginning of a word to show strong feeling." She chuckled as she saw the confused look on Kojau's face. "No need to remember all that, though. Now is not the time to explain it in detail, and that jolteon over there, Aruva, knows how to tell a good legend better than I do. But, like I said, now is not the time."
Kojau blinked after her as she swept gracefully away from the mightyena's side and wandered over toward Kiete. The wolf like pokemon suddenly felt oddly alone and unprotected, with all these strange eyes boring into her. Paranoid musings began to infiltrate her brain, fear of not being accepted and being cast out and-
"Kojau!" Firra was at her side once more, along with Kiete, who looked as though he was feeling very important. "Kojau, Kiete is going to introduce you to us all."
Kojau blinked as little Kiete nudged her in the side and skipped off toward the vaporeon she had seen earlier, motioning for Kojau to follow. "C'mon!" He squeaked happily, voice gaining in pitch as he grew excited.
Kojau tried not to flatten her ears to the side of her head, and shot Firra a nervous look. A barrier in her outer appearance came down suddenly, and allowed the eon to see how frightened she really was. "Firra…what if…what if…" She was a bit surprised at how dismayed her own voice sounded.
Firra looked sympathetic. "Kojau, it will be all right. You're the hero of tonight, and no one here would even dream of snubbing you, must less casting you out." She flashed the mightyena a dazzling smile, nudging her toward Kiete and the vaporeon, the former of whom was bouncing excitedly and a little impatiently and the latter just smiling calmly and welcomingly in Kojau's general direction.
Feeling somewhat encouraged, Kojau walked slowly up, introducing herself to the vaporeon in reserved tones. The finned eon was surprisingly warm toward her, quite the opposite of what she had feared, and before she knew it Kiete was leading her off once more to introduce her to a grizzled looking flareon.
The hours after that passed by in a haze of happiness, the first true happiness Kojau could remember experiencing. The eons there treated her like a long lost sister, and seemed to actually want to talk with her. By the time the introductions had been made, Kojau felt safe and protected at long last, as though a chasm in her had been filled. She wondered about it all as she lay down beside Kiete and Firra, listening to Azour speak of common things happening in the city, surrounded by warmth and friendship at last…
Whoo, that was fun to write! . I just love shining umbreons, with those big golden eyes and all. Negrek, you have a talent for picking up the most miniscule, obscure things. Thank you for pointing that out to me, I hadn't even realized I had done that! 0.0 To all the reviewers, thanks for reviewing, it does me good! Till next time! (Oh, and by the way, since I'm a sucker for asking people about their favorites, who is your favorite character so far? I'm going to ask this every five chapters or so, because it is an intertesting question and I can't stop myself from asking it. )