ZISU
So Captain Zisu pitched the rock a little too hard and gave Ingo a gash that dyed his silver sideburns copper. That was all explainable if she talked quickly enough. Ingo wasn't one to complain. She wasn't one to attack a friend on purpose. And the muddy water spraying up to stain her leggings was a much bigger grievance in the moment. Not the smell nor the chill, but the way she'd have to beat the crusted mud out later and wait in line to buy another needle because her fat fingers kept dropping them down between the floorboards.
Ah, and the monster with the long legs was still chasing her.
WHUMP!
CRACK!
Lopunny jumped up and kicked her squarely between the shoulders. Which, again, wasn't a problem because she was still conscious, at least. Alert enough to recognize that she was tumbling forward, and in half a second she'd hit her head on a ripple of grassy earth still waiting for spring to make it softer. And she'd roll down, off that little ledge. Tear her coat. Muss her hair. Smear her face. Maybe break her nose. (She hoped she broke her nose. Wouldn't that make for a war story!)
But her right shoulder stole her skull's thunder, quickly twisting her limbs and dragging her onto her back. Her spine scraped against the little ledge, swinging parallel to perpendicular with the long grass feathering off the edge. Then her sandaled feet whipped wildly for a moment before her rump succumbed to gravity at last and she dropped down the four ceremonious feet to a dusty halt on the ground.
A few layers of sediment skittered down after her. Just small clods and grit. Nothing like the landslide she imagined. Disappointed, Zisu picked herself up and tugged at her scarlet curls. Two blades of grass fluttered down to rest in the grit. She stooped to pick them up, then pressed them under the black glass bangle clasped tightly around her neck. Medallions, she'd tell the village. The next best thing to battle scars!
"Are you unharmed, Captain?"
She whipped her head to spy the bent form of Ingo standing on the ledge. With a huff, he jumped down and stood beside her, only tentatively touching the warm, wet skin of his forehead before a crimson blob rolled off his chin and splattered in the dirt below.
"Ya know I didn't mean to hit you, Ingo. It was you or Lopunny. Somebody was gonna taste my aim."
"I conjectured as much. But I would appreciate if you helped with the wound."
"How's our friend up there? Still mad?"
"He retreated once he saw you fall. Perhaps he didn't find me worth the effort."
"I bet he was scared of you! You smell like Sneasler! Maybe you coming along wasn't the best new tactic. Dangit, n' I've been trying to catch that Lopunny all winter. Now that spring's here, he'd better watch his back."
Ingo couldn't protest. Though he didn't gossip, he often heard the folk of Jubilife Village call Zisu things like Wild Woman and Perilous Perilla. She shot pistols. She drank with the men. She cleaned her own dinner and pounded star shapes into the leather to make waterskins and sheaths. A morning meditation to Zisu was a trip around the perimeter of the pastures, decapitating dandelions with her sandals.
And every day after lunch she went and got kicked between the shoulders and grinned about it.
The Heartwood was framed by streams, and they hurried to the nearest bank to wash the blood off Ingo's face and tightly bind his balding head in bandages. (Preparedness first in the Security Corps!) Zisu squeezed the thin man tightly in her arms, then cupped his cheeks in both hands and gave his forehead a quick peck. (Tenderness first in her own household!) And then it was a long trek back up through the outcrops of the Obsidian Fieldlands.
"Come eat in my quarters tonight before you set off for the Highlands. I owe you," Zisu said as they drew near to the village gates. The guard had just changed. It was now Beauregard who greeted them. Acknowledged them more likely, Zisu thought. It wasn't a smile, but a salute and a nervous curl of the lips.
"Oh, the strong, silent Warden Ingo's not worse for wear," she said, patting her companion on the shoulder of his torn-up coat. "Not frowning more than usual when he spends all his time alone finding food for all those poisonous Pokémon. I only hit him with a rock. And not on purpose. Just trying to dissuade that Lopunny from kicking me too hard after it whapped away my Poké Ball. I promise we're still friends. Unless the wrath of the Pearl Clan comes for me in my sleep tonight."
"I'd say the Pearl Clan will only chase you down if you continue to be so reckless," Ingo butted in, a hint of humor in his voice.
"Why? 'Cause they want me to join 'em? Ingo, you tell Irida she can give me one of those pink tunics to wear as a nightshirt, and I'll run through snow to defend the Pearl settlement in the middle of the night if ya need me. That is, when I'm not keeping this place under control. Tsumugi! Round up that Bidoof!"
The Security Corps officer's scarlet coat was tied loosely around her shoulders as she scampered breathless down the gravel street after one of the plump little rodents.
Not surprising then, when Zisu suddenly narrowed her brows and bounded after it herself. A good five minutes of shouting and chasing around the same village block and she'd thrown herself under Anthe's display table trying to wrangle the snarling little thing. A stack of silk kimonos and a loom with a half-finished rug slid off into the dirt. Then the woman emerged panting from beneath the white tablecloth. Buck teeth dug into the back of her right hand.
"It's a biter!" she exclaimed at Ingo.
"Don't squeeze it so tight," he told her, and then offered to take it himself. "You must be gentle with little Pokémon. Even the docile ones frighten easily, and then their hazards come out."
He cradled the Bidoof under one armpit, and with his free hand stroked it between the ears until two new Poké Balls popped free of its cheeks. Tsumugi took it back, avoiding the stern glare from her superior as she threw the kimonos into a pile on the table and lay the loom sideways beside them.
Somehow Ingo thought her living quarters would be bigger. Not that he minded a small space — the Pearl Clan yurts were very snug — but Zisu's home was just a bit cramped for a woman called Captain. Or perhaps that was because of the mess. One corner was piled high with leather scraps. Another was full of logs cut unevenly and left to roll around the floor. The floor itself was smeared with little muddy footprints and sprinkled white with flour, matching the grass stains smudged on the walls. And the whole place smelled like an assortment of syrups and sweat.
Already sitting on mats around the square indent containing the cooking pot were two small, wiggly boys, each with bushes of hair as red and curly as their mother's. Their father, an unassuming man with a black beard and a potbelly, was in the middle of cutting onions.
"I didn't know you had a family, Captain."
Zisu laughed — a loud, booming yet feminine peal of thunder from deep in her stomach. "Oh, these three? No, no, no, they're squatters. I make them do yardwork."
"We have a yard?" her husband mused, giving her a kiss when she sat down beside him.
"Do we? I wasn't paying attention. Ingo, sit down! That's an order! Bonn, this is Ingo, from the Pearl Clan! Warden Ingo. He serves the Noble Sneasler up in the Highlands. We have a real Hisuian Noble Pokémon Warden with us tonight. I didn't think I was so important."
Ingo tipped his fraying cap.
"I cannot say if I'm actually from Hisui, but it has welcomed me, and it's only fair to appreciate and honor a vast Space that is home to so many people and Pokémon," he said, placing himself beside the two fiery-headed toddlers. Then his hands trembled, and the silver discs of his eyes swelled to a disbelieving stare.
"Zisu, you have twins…"
"Well, they're not quite twins. Oba was born ten minutes to midnight, Crispus six minutes after. That was on Captain Cyllene's clock. It couldn't have been wrong."
"The Galaxy Team was still quite small, and Cyllene had to be the midwife," her husband explained.
"Oh, Bonn, why did you leave me with that woman!?"
"You were fine."
"Of course I was fine. I'm just worried she scarred the kids. Before they even looked at their mama they had to see that eyebrowless raptor… You don't have any eyebrows either, do you, Ingo! Well maybe they're used to it at this point with all the unfortunate foreheads in Hisui. Or my own eyebrows are just powerful enough to counteract the curse. Perilla oil. Like my mother said, and like I'll say to my own little fartcakes."
She had a pair of fetching arches above those steel-gray eyes, Ingo knew, but Zisu's unusual amusement remained in the background. For some reason, he couldn't tear his eyes from the boys. How identical they were. How perfectly balanced…
The elder twin born just before midnight, the younger just after… The suspenseful dark and the relieved new light… Interconnected and inseparable, like rigid Time and fluid Space…
"You have… very beautiful children, Captain"
is what Ingo would have said. But immersed in his poetry, his vision had slipped right through those children to the floor beneath them. And so he didn't catch when the elder twin, Oba, quickly dipped a spoon into the boiling pot of stew and stuck it in his mouth. Instantly, he tore it out and wailed, broth splattering everywhere.
All laughter ceased. Arched eyebrows sharpened, and Zisu rushed to scoop up her child, clutching him close to her chest. She leapt with a stamping grace over the flour and the tanning stain and raced out the door down the darkening dirt path. With each bounding step, she flew for a moment. Her scarlet curls bounced behind. Her breath came in confident bursts. Her new medallions chafed against the skin of her neck under the bangle. Not the best place to put them in retrospect, but the Security Corps coats didn't have pockets.
Pockets… she'd need another needle…
Zisu reached the wooden waterwheel. The stream running through Jubilife Village was raised from all the meltwater. It was impossible not to slip when slowing her sprint. Her left foot plunged completely into icy water, and a shiver wracked her entire frame. But her powerful leg muscles clenched at just the right moment, saving her from a mighty dive. She'd take the stabbing chill. That would make a war story! All that scratching when she got her foot warm and the vessels swelled back to life...!
But she'd entertain none of that now. No war stories nor medallions nor antics.
No silliness.
No recklessness.
No Perilous Perilla for the villagers to spin their legends around.
Slowly, surely, she waded completely into the stream. Her son she shifted to just one arm, and with the free hand she quickly dipped into a divot of the waterwheel, cupping a sparkling splash which she tipped into his mouth. Then another, and another, and then another one over his forehead for good measure.
"Are you gonna grow up to chase danger too?" she whispered, squeezing her toes tightly so they wouldn't go stiff.
"Cold, mama! Cold!"
A wistful smile formed on Zisu's face. She trudged up out of the stream and gave her son a soft little peck on the forehead. He tugged on her red curls, and she ran her fingers through his.
"Yes, Mama is cold. Because Mama doesn't know how to sit still, and neither do you, ya little pyro. Let's not make this a habit. You hear me?"
Oba cuddled into her chest and hid shy eyes from the gathering villagers and Ingo.
"Yeah, I know. No promises. But don't drive your mother up the wall when she's still built enough to do that herself."
~N~
I am making Flint content because I love him and the anime writers snubbed him and that includes his whole dang fiery family! (If you like how I write Pokémon, my main fic right now is My Previous Life Was a Thunder God — a Team Rocket thriller involving late-night snacks, messed-up mottos, solar panel cultists and a ball of plasma that dreams of eating hotdogs and driving a train.)
Published by Syntax-N on FanFiction . Net May 18th, 2022. Reposters cursed. Reviews are a cool pink nightshirt!
