Just wanted to say thanks for still reading, everyone c: If you're here, OMG, hello! I trust you've been doing well and that you enjoy Filloma as much as you did Niri (although I understand if you don't because I mean she's got Lucaro and we just don't have Lucaro, man, I miss him so much haha)
Chapter 14: The Forest's Bitter Daylight
Upon reaching the trail, I slow down, gasping. "Wait—N, wait." To my shuddery call, he eases, altering his gait to match my own. A flurry of color flutters through his gaze, questions and fears, and I shake my head slowly, fighting to refill my lungs. "It's... I saw someone in robes. Their robes." Plasma robes. His eyes light up.
"Really. How... strange. I didn't know they left the Castle." N's face crunches together, a harsh motion that disrupts his otherwise soft, porcelain features. "I thought... I thought Father did not allow it."
"Perhaps they're looking for you, then." Since you clearly don't know anything, I stop myself from adding. What other sinister plans could be formulating in the depths of the Plasma Castle, just outside of N's ignorant periphery, just aching for him to see and yet sorely just being missed despite its opaque presence?
At the thought of it, my mind wavers, a banner of words stringing together before my eyes: The Dukedom of Plasma Bloodline—We are connected by our hearts. All who seek a perfect world are welcome.
If this robed figure finds me... they could... they could...
But if we leave them to their own means, there's no telling what they will do... and I know, I know what they are capable of.
And... there's something else I'm trying to find, nestled within the darkest nadir of the Dukedom's soul. Someone who—who saved me.
It couldn't have been N. N forsook me.
But there was someone else.
I remember it, stronger, harder, as the name Iris almost called me circulates in my mind—Filma. Someone called me that. Someone called me that... and these Plasma lords must know who.
My resolve tightens around my chest. I have no pokemon, no allies of my own... but there is something else. I sense it happening as the grass beneath me weakly reaches out to the call of my fading power. So little of it remains, but... I refuse to imprison a pokemon within a red-and-white shell. That is something the Plasma Dukedom and I share.
The thought of it strikes me, baffling, but I shake my head. Don't dwell on it now.
"N. They entered through this door." I raise an unnaturally pale hand and gesture toward the looming silhouette of a small village home. Have they taken control of the people who live here? Or is the village itself a farce intended to fake a village's existence, keeping Dukedom protocols hidden beneath these silent, unsuspecting trees?
I glance to him and say, "I'm going to follow."
His brow furrows, his nervous fingers diving for the strange cobalt bracelet around his wrist. "F-Filloma, you have nothing to protect you. Please let me go in first at least, they wouldn't expec—"
"They wouldn't expect me either." I stomp over his words, seething. "And there are things I need to ask them that they may not speak of in your presence." Things they want to keep hidden from their prized prince's wide, innocent eyes.
His mouth moves, but he cannot quite fit the words through. Then finally he emits the quietest whine and mutters, "I am afraid for your safety." Even now as we stand behind the trees ringing around the obscured village, I notice the subtle signs of robes fluttering in the breeze, moving from house to house. I didn't just happen to catch sight of a robed figure—they're everywhere, breaths away from surrounding us.
"Stay here and come in if necessary. I'll..." My eyes dart to and clutch at Asha's lithe form, from where she sits patiently at N's feet. "Asha, could you come with me, and wait near the house just in case?"
The zorua jumps to her feet, paintbrush tail swishing. Of course! I'm curious as well. I wasn't allowed into N's castle. Sat outside, like a sad little rock.
Now is not the time for laughter, and yet my lips threaten to give. "I think you were safer outside, Asha."
She rolls her sassy red eyes. You're probably right, but you really hate to see it.
Despite his closeness in proximity, N watches this exchange, his gaze bouncing between us as if he is excluded, a bystander. I look up to him and ask, "Is that alright?" and the suddenness as to which the light falls upon his face is breathtaking.
He almost doesn't feel... real. And yet, when I stand here next to him, sharing the same air, living under the same sky, fighting for the same future... I sense something akin to his heart beating, something like the life rushing profusely through him, something like his undeniable presence.
I swallow.
He wasn't the one who saved me.
Someone else did.
Someone else whose brown skin and dull eyes compel me closer, and I don't think it was Iris, but... wh-who else could it be? Oh, I've opened these thoughts from their cages so little that I can hardly piece them back together now when I actually want to see them, relive them.
But it may have been Iris. The reason she was raised by dragons may be connected to the reason I am here today.
Finally, with a reluctant nod, N murmurs, "But please be safe."
"You'll be right here." I dig my boot into the earth connecting us. "Not far away at all."
Then I step into the perimeter of the house, Asha nimbly darting between trees, sticking to the dark undersides that do not taste the sun. N's silhouette stands behind me, a forgotten shadow, and he waits with a stiffness overflowing his form, rendering him a stark statue.
When I glance back, the sharpness of his worry clutches at my chest, tugging me closer. Scoffing, I shake my head and face forward, to my future. My fists furl, and, gently, I test the reach of my nature-given gift: focus on a singular strand of grass, implore permission, gently, gently, gently weave my own psyche into its being and nurture until, all too quickly, a spurt of grass grows at a shocking rate between my feet.
I gasp, my cheeks burning and yet somehow frigid to the touch.
That's it. That's it. Now somehow I must harness this power into a much more useful medium rather than elongated grass.
Asha watches all of this happen with a keen eye. Huh. That's sure something.
It's the... the old part of me, capable of encouraging nature into a stronger form. It's not much anymore, however. I was hoping I'd have something a little more promising, but... w-well, no matter.
I spent so long hiding from the Dukedom it's a little surprising how quickly I jump to their arrival. But maybe that's why I hid from them. Maybe it had nothing to do with fear of them and everything to do with fear of myself. Fear of what I would do if I saw them.
Today I-I suppose I'll learn the consequences.
Surging ahead, I step to the front porch of the homely wooden shack that houses a menacing nightmare. My breaths come out as quickly as I try to recapture them. Sweat pools in the pits of my clenched hands, slicking my palms. The silence of the village has overcome me, and all I can hear is the sound of utter nothing in the very back of my head. The faintest breeze tugs along my skin, and I shudder in place.
Slowly, as if outside of my own control, my arm raises. There it hesitates, on the cusp of an irrevocable decision.
There is a faint tinge of pain behind my eyes. Cold, like tears, yet the tears do not come.
When I exhale, I pump as much air as possible out of my fidgeting lungs. Then I knock with a barred fist, the smack of wood cutting into my knuckle and budding a violent lilac bruise.
Somehow the forest grows quieter... as if it is listening to my every movement.
Oh dear.
The house has grown still, and any slight sounds indicating movement have chilled to icy still.
My cheeks pale.
Nothing left to do.
Forcibly I knock into the door, one two three four times.
They have no reason to let me in. But I do not want to break into the house...
The moment I turn away to assess the surroundings is a mistake. My eyes alight to a nearby tree just as my entire head shifts into that direction, shoved towards it by a dull, aching force. The sky spirals out of the atmosphere above and comes crashing below me when I hit the ground, the wince tight in my teeth. I struggle to pull myself up as Asha's growl breaks into the air, alongside a shriek from the one her teeth have sunk into. My breathing settles to the beat of the throbbing in the base of my skull.
The robed figure looms over me. I can't make out a face through the combined efforts of their hood and my blurry pain. There is a displacement of breath and a cringe. "Sh-Shay... it can't be..." Then a slow, soft moan as covered arms collapse to the head and clench around the obscured face. "No... Lord Ghetsis w-w-will kill me if he knows what I've..."
The man slinks to his feet and releases a hideous groan.
I am above him now.
My fingers twitch and the grass wraps around him, slowly at first, then faster, faster as he does not move and does not try to stop the fronds from tying his hands together, locking around his arms. I push at the wills of the trees, trying to convince them to bend over and shove the man into his house, as to hide his crumpled form from the rest of the village, but they laugh and do not budge. So much for nature powers.
Thankfully someone had already blanketed my side. N, his hand hesitantly reaching up to touch my cheek. "Filloma, I-I'm sorry I didn't arrive in time. Are you alright?" He whispers it, the question fleeting in his pale, withered eyes.
I shake my head. "Don't worry. I made my own mistake."
He visibly relaxes, but he still mutters, "I should have helped in some manner..."
"You helped by giving me a little bit of space."
"You mean I helped by letting you sustain an attack," he says, his tone low and unable to hide the self-disgust.
My eyes dart back to the man on the ground as I struggle not to let my mouth explode in laughter. The pain is a dull reminder of my bad decisions, but in the end it appears the man has crumpled to the very act of seeing my face.
I wonder why. It's not like he has to tell Ghetsis what he did... He could have killed me and in the same breath notify his lord that he'd never seen me. Nobody would have to know.
How peculiar. Perhaps Ghetsis has finally unlocked the ability of controlling his people like toy puppets.
With N's help and Asha as lookout, we heft and carry the man into his household, slamming the door shut behind us. It's of course entirely possible that another lord of the Dukedom saw us, but the silence of the village convinces me that we could have been hidden by the trees and the deafening quiet.
And, well, Iris and Marlun aren't in the periphery, so there's not a lot of other options. I can't imagine what they're doing while we're tying up a stranger but I sure hope it's not anywhere near as exciting. The thought of their potential makes my stomach curdle.
I hate the fact that I put that thought into my own head.
"Filloma..." N's voice, the clutch of longing pulling at my heart.
His eyes pull to me; lip curling, I think I already know what he's asking. "I wonder where Marlun and Iris are, and I hope for the sake of all good things that it isn't something too mature for a younger audience."
"A younger..?" His brow furrows, but the smile comes spilling outwards anyways. "Thank you. I like knowing what you're thinking."
I almost say the same of him until it occurs to me that his thoughts are probably almost entirely about me. To Asha's weak giggle from the outside, I realize I have struck a nerve without either of us acknowledging it. In the end I decide against bringing it up.
I hope I'm able to reconcile with the one who saved me soon...
Our eyes return to the man slumped over on the floor. Despite our banter and despite our tying him up, he has yet to respond to any of it. Gingerly I raise a foot and nudge at him with a toe. To his grunt, my heart pulsates: I'm not sure with relief of dissatisfaction, and that distinction makes my body freeze.
"You're one of the lords of Plasma, aren't you?" I ask, chipping into our frigid tension.
With a groan, the man concedes. "Yes. I am." His voice has slacked and sticks to the back of his throat, gritty and difficult to follow. "Killing me would be the greatest mercy you could give me, my lady."
I open my mouth. Then I close it.
"Wh-What?"
"Kill me," he moans into the floorboards.
There's a cold little trickle in the back of my hands that threatens to comply. Angrily I clutch my fingers into fists, shaking away the shivers. "N-No. I need answers, n-n-not corpses." As much as a tiny part of me wants to, a part of me I hadn't realized was lodged deep within.
No wonder I can't quite forgive N, nor forget what he did to me.
No wonder I didn't want to find Plasma again.
This... This sensation, this chilling touch that has begun to infiltrate my very bones... it's both sickening and an addiction.
I try to rationalize it. Of course I want to hurt them after what they did to me—but it won't get me anywhere. I need answers, not corpses.
I ask, "Why are you here?"
With a moan, he complies. "Lord Ghetsis sent us here. We are prepared to deploy into the public eye and preach the good name of our prince at any moment's notice."
Oh... goodness. "Have you been searching for me?"
"Yes... and no." His hands shift in the bindings, less to relieve tension and more to feel, it appears, the touch of my power. Why else would he rub against the grass bindings so... incessantly? "We are not allowed to hurt you, nor threaten you, nor touch you in any way. Any of these infractions will cause a certain death." A part of me almost asks if he's allowed to look in my general direction.
I break in before he can explain—"How would Ghetsis know?" The crunch of his name on my mouth burns an oddly satisfying kindle of hatred deep inside of me.
"Because Ghetsis knows all."
I wait for something more in-depth. Nothing comes.
Okay.
My breathing tightens. "Do the other lords know I am here?
Pause. I'm anxious, sweat slick on my skin, sticking to me like lies. "D-Don't make me repeat myself."
"Yes," he finally cries, his words a feeble crutch that, once released, make him sag into the ground.
"How," I breathe, hopefully before they get here with whatever sorts of mechanisms they have present to capture me. Digging my nails into my skin, I remind myself that I am not longer susceptible to a certain spherical red-and-white prison.
All he manages is "the link that binds us all" before the door slams straight to the opposite wall of the household. My eyes fight into the rest of the room, searching for a blunt object, a weapon, a—anything.
There.
A poke ball resting against the bedside table. I scramble over to it and release the pokemon, hurriedly throwing its ball beneath my foot, waiting for the right moment. Destroy the mechanism too soon and I could harm the pokemon. "Please help me" I manage through the shaking in my body, watching as a form encased in red slowly materializes, lodged in midair, its small form quickly settling.
The poke ball is beneath my foot. I gingerly press my weight into it, then—
NO PLEASE STOP! THAT'S MY HOME YOU'RE CRUSHING!
I—I gasp, and in my shock I stop. Wh-What?
DON'T BREAK MY POKE BALL!
It's the pokemon, the—elgyem in front of me, his green hide sparkling erratically, his bright green eyes flush with emotion.
If... it's what he wants...
My eyes flee to the commotion, three men filing into the household. The elgyem's thin arms raise, and his colorful fingers dance. A faintly luminescent wall erects between them and us. N takes to my side, gazing up at the pokemon that just bought us some precious time, and his eyes falter back to me. Asha must be outside, either... hurt... or surprised, trying to fight a way in.
All we have is this tiny elgyem.
Marlun
"Why, hello!" I call, jumping into the clearing. That must be the girl—the one with the super floofy purple hair. She's still sitting there, her cute feet swaying in the faint forest breeze. Gosh, she's cute. So cute. She's got this pink skirt and a pretty flowy lacy shirt and her eyes are like—like eyes, but cuter than every other pair of eyes I've ever seen, like ever. So she's basically The One. Not just that but The Perfect One.
The girl stares down at me, her brow arched in a curious little question mark. "Hi?" she asks, like she's not sure if she should greet me.
Zipping over to the foot of the rock efface, I plant my hands over its cool sides, just below the girl's swaying feet. Iris. That's her name. Iris. I can almost but not quite see up her skirt—not that I would if I could. Definitely wouldn't do that. Nope. Not me. "My name is Marlun! You're Iris, aren't you?"
Her brows shoot straight up her forehead. I probably shouldn't have told her that I already know her name—but I just wanted to make sure this was the girl Fillmy was talking about. A better plan would've been to ask for her name, but it is too late and I am too impulsive to make the right decision first.
Finally Iris asks, her voice thin and gentle and resting on the cusp of a threat, "How do you know my name?"
"Oh uh—My friend told me she saw a cute girl in the clearing right here." I throw her my biggest, cheekiest, happiest smile. "You saw her, didn't you? She has these weird, uh, flower barrettes in her hair that always get tangled up in there. Very distinctive."
Steadily her guard lowers. She does recall my best friend. Good sign. "Ah, okay. Well, hello to you as well! I'm... Yes, I am Iris."
She's quieter than Fillmy made her seem. Fillmy talked these big imaginative horrors, morphing Iris into a secretive witch villain, someone lurking in the shadows, waiting for the perfect moment to ruin Fillmy's life. Like she knew Fillmy's secret.
She's just freaking cute. Fillmy needs some therapy or something.
Gazing into her warm brown gaze, I ask, "Are you single?" because I am very subtle like that. Hey, there's no reason to wait and feel her out; I need to know now if there's a chance.
Her cheeks explode pink. Geez, who is she, Fillmy? It's not that embarrassing at all.
Swallowing, she says, "Well, yeah. I mean I grew up pretty isolated, so it's not like there's anyone out there who would—"
"Then would you like to be my girlfriend?"
I trample over her voice, but only because my question is incredibly important.
Iris stumbles, slipping off of her rock perch. Frantically I step forward and reach out my arms, grabbing and holding her snug. The way she seamlessly falls into my embrace and lands without a wound to her name like a fairy princess just tells me that this was the smoothest pick-up ever and there's no way I will ever top this. Basically if she says no, it means that the universe is fighting tooth and nail to keep me from ever dating a cute girl (or boy... or anyone in general).
Yes, there was Fillmy, but... I've decided that Fillmy is altogether way too weird to make a good girlfriend. Plus she's moody. I can't handle moodiness in a significant other. Makes my hands all clammy, my thoughts a befuddled mess, and I constantly feel like I'm messing things up. Moody people... ugh.
Iris gazes into me, our noses practically touching, and my thoughts of Fillmy all but melt away. Her breathing is soft, rhythmic, and I feel it on my lips. Her soft umber skin is warm to the touch, lustrous.
And Fillmy was wrong. Her massive purple hair is poofy, but it is also incredibly soft.
Finally Iris whispers, "You know what, why not? I'll be your girlfriend."
It takes everything in the world to keep me from screaming into her face.
As it is I grab her tightly and Iris squeaks "No no too tight! Too tight, Marlun!" and I awkwardly release her, laughing into her hair.
"Sorry, sorry. I'm just—I am very excited." My mouth squirms into a nervous grin. "So uh, what kindsa things do you do around here, Iris? Show me all the stops! It can be our first date!" Okay yes maybe I am horny for the first date—but everyone knows that first dates like to end with first kisses.
And I would love to know the feel and taste of Iris's subtly pink lips. My priorities are in check, that's all.
Iris gasps, breaking into a marvelous little spring of warm rushing laughter. "Um... okay, sure! You can meet my dragon parents! That's, um, that's a thing people do on first dates, right?"
I am about to lose it. "You have DRAGON PARENTS? And didn't tell me... UNTIL NOW!"
Her eyes keep flickering over to me, hesitant, questioning, but it's almost hidden behind the clever quirk in her lip. "I'm sure they would like to meet my new girlfriend too."
And thus I proudly take my new girlfriend's soft little brown hand, and we take the worn trail beaten with broken sticks and rocks to the cavern labyrinth Iris calls her home.
