Then, came the growlithe's turn. He straightened when they all turned to him, and the crowd jostled and joked. In better times, they would have ignored stories from knights like him. But these were dire times, and they all welcomed a too-noble story to help their spirits.
He sighed. Tomorrow would be victory or death, but even if they won, there would be no life for him afterwards, no one left for him, and no one who needed him.
"I have been to the edge of the world," he said to them. "I suppose the edge has come to us now."
The Growlithe's Tale: And so I left, Alone
They had left. The last thing we shared was laughter but now I heard only their ghosts in the wind, put my gaze on the road and saw their rain-washed paw prints all pointing south, south towards the sea. It was good, they would be safer away from here where the storm whipped its gales, at the edge of broken-through oblivion, they came prepared, they saved the people, fulfilled themselves like the brave souls I wasn't. I was a liar, a dirty traitor. I promised them, her, to be a savior, I postured and swore and they waved me off in good faith but now, now I was alone with the wind, fleeing from justice for my vices. The smell of mud and rot clung to my fur, ragged breaths against my dry, sore throat, claws dulled against a month of hard dirt road as I scrambled through a dead and quiet land. Perhaps it would have been better to not try at all.
It was the latter days of doom, our battles lost and the shadows swept through. It was a surge of clouds ascending from the valleys and grasping at the sun, churning and roiling with muck and bile and melding with the shadows and it began to eat the people—they said, the wind would rend your flesh from your bones until you were only a skeleton with a bloody sputtering heart—so the king sent the courageous to beat it back whence it came. Those brave explorers never returned, so they sent us, the swift of the guild, to march out here and escort everyone to safety. Here, the Grand Marchlands, the kingdom's northern borders, where the restless and intrepid came for adventure and new life, a land where rainstorms deafened, moonrise blinded, and the air was fresh with anciency—the villages here even younger than I and yet, there were families here already. At every town, a team stayed behind to help the people flee, I and Tail team arrived at the farthest settlement and it took us two days to start on the road back home. Half of the village had already left and the rest were scared, they wanted to march even faster than we would let them. But there was this nidorina girl, Flaxfield was her name—she did love flax flowers too—but she couldn't keep pace. We couldn't stall everyone, but her walk was enough to outrun the storm anyways so I stayed with her while they trudged ahead. The long days and sweeping plains lended us to much conversation, I promised we could sleep on the beach while we waited for the ships to pick us up when we arrived, enjoy the weather, all that. Now, I was alone, stepping through the echoes of what once was.
The ceaseless sky, the perfect autumn wheat, far from the cities was land so fertile it could feed everyone twice over. They had tilled it, sowed it plump, and polished their scythes for reaping, and yet, now that the crop shimmered like gold, none were left to harvest it. Perhaps it was better for this place to be swallowed while it thrived, its grace would never falter anymore. The crops soared above my stature, their stalks like an impossibly dense forest with treetops pointed like little golden spear-tips of plenty and bounty. The sunlight made everything glow a little, pleasant upon my back, and banished all shadows on the staff-straight path. It wasn't a dream, I was awake. And yet, to run endlessly through ripe fields into the horizon and beyond and chased by death that lagged but a day behind.
The storm, like a tempest from Rayquaza but draped to the ground to scour the land, like a wound slashed in the heavens which bled black and hot in boiling torrents onto us, like a rift plunging into the fires beneath the world and disgorging out smoke until the sun would die wrapped in a skin of ash, whose clouds boiled and flashed with thunder, lashing out with shadowy tendrils to maim the land. I had seen mangle forests and shattered mountains with terrible blows, lakes boiled when it neared them and the rain that came from it was bitter and black, what force was hidden in that storm? Those who tried for its secrets were dead though, so I kept my eyes ahead upon the trail—the roots upon it were crushed into pulp and the stones were pressed level with the dirt, a tide of carts and farmers and adventurers abandoning their homes onto ships to cross the sea to safety, and left out here were but the shadows of their lives and passions. The trees shook only with the breeze, grasslands with an empty silence, the scents inescapable clean, I would be the last to gaze upon where they once toiled, smiled, died, and I might have the rest of my life to do so. Months of this flight ahead, led by the faded lines on a withered map, an even thinner line between me and the storm.
Dusk fast approached and mist rose up and simmered among the tops of the wheat. I glanced down the road and saw over the grasses the peeking wooden rooftops of a town. Down the path littered with fallen grain and stepping beyond the farms where the wheaty corridor dropped away and once again laid bare to me the blooming prairies, grand as the sky and fresh like limes, and over the splinters of an archway that once guarded entry. 'Thresher Town, home streets,' the words were rotting away. I went down the first road on the right, round cottonwood homes that just large enough for a couple and some kids stood at both my left and right, shadows spilling under the squat, rusty-hinged doors. At the end of the street and into the town square where stood barren market stalls, the smolder of ash and taste of food would have once drifted from chimneys and inns but now there was only the salt of my sweat and all I heard was my heart and my breath. Beyond, towards the other end of town and past a billowing flag still at half-mast, past the stone-built mill spinning its clothy arms, there plumed some distant smoke, and trekking closer, the gentle lights of a cottage. This building was the shortest of all, still fashioned in the same style as the others, but more like an elaborate well-loved hovel than a house. Its front door opened into a roomy garden that ran with the length of the path, fenced off on all sides except the wide berth open to the street, three barrels standing beside the door where the fence met the home and four beanstalks rising from a long planter. In the open doorway sat an old stoutland, inkwell beside one paw and a working-scroll in the other. His fur was tousled in the weather and a little grey around his nose, mom and dad would've told him to get a groom but I wasn't much better off, he at least was clean. Even from afar, I heard a fire crackle from inside and smelled the savor of meat and the musk of the ink. He didn't see me 'till I was near, but he stopped his work when he heard my voice.
"Aged sir, get up and run. The end is nigh!"
"Oh? Hello, young son, you're quite far behind the others. Or perhaps you're a wraith from the clouds? No, I see, you're running from it too. Why, but it's late, so come inside and rest your soul, I have enough to provide."
Despite the peril, the old stoutland spoke kind and slow like the hushed evening glow, made a courtly nod as if I already bowed to him. My knees were weak and tender, and while the storm drew nearer with every moment, I rather wouldn't tip over exhausted either. Two dogs at the end of the world, I hadn't the temper to cry up or fret, the looming death was almost a god to me, steady as the sun above me, tremendous as the caves below me—a dread-wreathed power who both followed me with a child's loyalty and called for me as my hangman. By now, both it and I had chased so much that we must have earned our own victories and if I would die in the end might be a matter of chance—the storm might get lucky and I'd break a leg, perhaps I've been lucky to not have broken one already. Either way, there was no more virtue in panic, and it was better to sleep with fire and company than without.
I stumbled to the fence and crumbled against it, slouching to help the ache in my neck, and unslung my bag. It fell lightly down, better for my back, poor for my stomach. The grass on the lawn was up to my knees and was well-watered and soft, I could lay down and watch the world slip away, could imagine the pastures of home – but that was just a memory, a dream with a smudged name on the edge of the map, that pace would be gone even if I survived, swallowed into the storm. I unwrapped half a ration, only two left after this. But the stoutland came and brought over two dishes of stew, heartened with some fresh beans and old jerky with a scattering of berries to make it sweet. He gave me a share and bid me, and I did, go beside and bask in the dying light.
"Sir," I told him, "Come with me tomorrow, I know the way by day and night, I know a place to go to."
"Then you must flee with all the heat in your blood."
"You must come too, we must go, it's our last chance."
"Worry not for me, I cannot go."
"But it comes straight for you, believe me, I have seen it and all the horror it bears, run with me."
"Oh I know, I'm not all blind. Worry not, I won't halt your escape."
"Yes, worry not for me, but for you! Won't you come?"
He chuckled and rolled up his parchment, sighed so comfortably then met my eyes. "No, I cannot go. See, my daughter and her pups have left me, and it is good that they escaped. I wish I could have followed, but here I must stay, they knew it too. I shan't cry about it, wise pokemon have grace and so shall I, wise pokemon have peace, and so do I. They knew to leave me and you will too. I will never see them again, never hear their giggling mischief, but it is fine, they deserve my life more than I.
Say, boy, you ride so close to the edge, you must have good grit to be giving the storm such a chase. What kept you behind, why so far from your pack?"
"I came out with the procession."
"The last of those passed through long ago. You are alone, tell me why."
"I was helping someone who fell behind, okay? But this doesn't matter, you must pack your sentimental things, we will leave early tomorrow."
"Young growlithe, you are alone. I beckon, your story."
"That is my story, she's simply dead, sick and collapsed by a lakeside. I couldn't bury her because shadows were lashing at our heels, but you're still here, so please, come with me. I cannot fathom why they abandoned you, but I will not do so too."
"Ah, then you know too why I cannot follow. See, that my coat is grey, my sight is dull, and my body even weaker than that. If I tried to travel, you'd find me panting by the fifty chain mark. Even now, I only sit in the breeze because I have a fire inside to warm me. I praise your bravery to try and take me along, but I will only weigh you down while your chance to survive dries up in the roaring gales. I am already lost, so leave me be."
"We are stronger than that, we will find sanctuary."
"Think with an even mind, it will be the fate of us, or the fate of only me. I told the same to my oldest grandchild, and you two are so very much alike, it will hurt dearly to see you go too. But do not condemn yourself for my frail bones. The clouds will come, I have been too slow, too weak, but let us not share a grave."
"No, we must!"
He only shook his head. "Eat, you must be strong for tomorrow."
He had no hope, no desperation to try even as he stared down his end. No one around to soothe him, nothing to do while he waited, nowhere to look but at his grave. He was right, wasn't he, I would have to leave him behind, let him suffer alone, run away while he faced it all without sword nor shield, only the wide teary eyes left by a shattered love and snuffed dreams. What if he listened, marched with me through the morning and camped with me? I lost her and nearly myself too, would I strand him when the weather got hard or would we die together in the shadows? But he was wise and he knew this, knew that in his death, I could be saved. But I couldn't not take him and strand him here before we even began when we could try and chance and pray that we would stumble into his salvation and escape together, whether by miracle or incredulous endeavor to grasp in our paws the brighter fate he deserved. I could cry and grovel or give up—I must, I can't, I must, he will die—but his victory glowed only in my fantasy, and weather dreams could come true mattered not for I couldn't devise any method better than praying and guiding him anyways, a scene that ended with my deceit being paid in blood. For all who died in peril, for all the brave and all the timid, that the gentle stoutland would be condemned so wholly. Not that his salvation was implausible, but utterly, unchangingly impossible.
When I finished my dish, he gave me his portion too, although he'd drank but only a sip, wasn't hungry, he said. The stars were out now and we began to go blind in the night so I lit a bowl of oil to see by. Beyond the shine of our little beacon, the darkness was complete, only the bitter wind endured out there. We huddled close. If he would come with me, we would die like this, fading away with the last flicker of our light. The stoutland spoke to me, and he had a very long breath for a gloaming beast and he showed me the lights you could only see in the far reaches of the world—the bright-shining Adventurers' star who swung like the end of a rope and twinkled when disaster came, and the rose-glowing star of the Firekeeper, a bold ruby in the moon's crown, never strayed, never faltered...
"And the clouds will swallow them all," I said. "Sir, at least let us try, if you must die, do so trying to live."
"My fate is set, I will face what lies in the clouds. As I watch the storm loom closer and see the shadows that prowl near it, I do not know whether my death will be harrowing or swift, whether I will be pierced through the chest or choked in thick fumes. But I will be patient and brave, and I will kiss death's hand as he takes me lest I struggle and squirm in vain. This is my courage, and let my courage inspire and impel your flight."
"Let it be more courageous to try."
"It is more courageous to let your kin live on. I cannot defy anymore, that the clouds should come when I am old and tired, it is time for me to lay down. Some fights cannot be won, so say your prayers and carry on." He picked up his things and went inside. I was alone again, my heartbeat tapping on, and the winds still wailing so fiercely.
I would see it all again, the pity, the panic, the broken hopes they leave behind. Another one lost by my paws, another I would not save, perhaps it would be better to not try at all. And yet, if I had never hoped, Flaxfield would have been left there without food or friend, lost in the expanse, doomed to be taken by the storm. Even if I knew she would die, I would've chose the same. Perhaps our fallen explorers found their peace because they fought and met destruction with resistance. The stoutland was robbed of that and without the bluster of hope we felt his final fear. He could have come with me, fought against it with me, but just so we died together? Now, he gives his last for me as wholly as martyr for their home.
Before I followed, I washed our dishes with water from the barrels, although, the flow from its spigot was weak and there would not be enough to drink in the morning. I doubted the well here was still good, or that he could wind the rope at all.
Inside, his home had only one room, but it held five tidy beds, a shelf with rusty trinkets, and paintings showing five faces. Despite the lively fire against the far wall, the air was fresh like the mountains, a breeze entering from the right through the splintered hole of what once was an unglazed window—the snapped shutters pushed into the corner where they could not trip him. He had a white charm on that windowsill, one shaped like the crest of Jirachi, meant for safety and purity. Inky paw prints patterned the floor and marked a trail from the beds to the fireside to the door, save for a confused path in the middle of the home that had been paced so many times it looked like a large black gash. Little scratches marred that place too, like the kind made when confessing a lie.
The stoutland went to the fire and added enough coals to have some embers for morning, and he put some beans to simmer in the pot. He let me have the bed with the thick red quilt and pushed his own next to the hearth to help keep warm.
I went to sit beside the bed and spoke. "Is there much you still long for? I know minds are often choicelessly made."
"When you look out to see fate staring back, you certainly hope to have your affairs at peace. I always thought that meant a well-worded farewell and quiet wishes upon the stars, but my peace was won, perhaps with more sorrow than pride.
In these passing months, I've found myself picking up the parchment and writing with what little poetry I have. It's almost like sending letters, save that it will never reach them, but will be buried with me in the shadows. My father had said he would die when he had nothing left to teach, and he only survived a week after he shared his last secret. Here, at the jaws of the quickly coming shadows, I try to do the same, scrawling away in our old tongue, inking down what I could not teach them myself."
He passed me some dried meat and candied berries, insisted I pack them for my journey. "Your spirit will live on grandly," I said. "'The good shall live beyond death,' it was said by the gods."
"Do you trust that there is goodness for me in the storm? Even the stars fall into its maw, and my dim soul shall somehow live on in there?"
"That is what we tell ourselves when we are deep in the mystery dungeons, it is our courage into battle and faith in justice."
"Perhaps you adventurers squandered all that justice and there is none left for me? Ha, I kid, but see that I have waited for long, and yet there is no more light than on my first day alone. Even if I could name you my savior, it would not be from fate, but from solitude. My brief hours beside you have made the gales seem like breezes and makes the sunset as warm as it does frighten. And I hope we can part in tenderness and resolution and faith in you to survive. I will stay, and I will wonder in my dwindling hours whether damnation or banishment into oblivion awaits me. As the shadows writhe with the approaching storm, I will wonder how it feels to gasp when smoke fills my lungs and what I won't feel if my soul disperses into the wind, so perhaps it's better to say that my affairs have left me behind, so there is nothing for me to settle."
"Then so it is…"
A gust blew in, sharp like a winter night, scattering the firelight across the walls, our faces flitting in and out of shadow. My bag had taken all he gave, and yet some space was left. Its newfound weight was more like gravestones than gold, and its contents hadn't been this neat since I was sent out here to help them escape. But this bag wasn't mine anyways, gifted to the guild just before my mission in the will of a fallen courier, now passed onto me when I decided to keep with her—yet another memory to rest on my shoulders.
The hearth was bright, but the shadows were deeper still. I said, "I will pray for you when I reach asylum, and if I find your kin, they will know how bravely you died. Your legacy survives."
"Yes, perhaps as my final comfort, take my memory with you and let my sympathies give you valor. Elsewise, this scroll will be all that is left of me if my grave is ever even found." He drew a long, ragged breath and looked me over while I stared between my paws. The space between us seemed to disappear. I, a growlithe—supposed to be first in the fray and last behind the walls—him, a stoutland—watching his fate crawl closer from the horizon—and yet we were together, under the same roof, hearing the same fire, seeing the same stars. And we were for some time, his gaze was upon me and I was filled with silence. Then, he spoke. "Son, do you still have space in that bag?"
I nodded. "Yes, but there is nothing left to give, nothing left to take."
"If you could assume one more burden, please, carry on my scroll."
The resolve to lift my head welled from the bottom of my chest. He looked at me, jaw set firm, breathing tempered, and holding very, very still. Around us, the shadows writhed.
"I will take it, let me arrange the items now."
He slumped down with a small smile, puffing a little as if he'd seen a god. "Nay, it can wait 'till dawn. I wish to add one thing more, but I'm too tired to work now, I'll finish it when I wake."
I slept well that night, but when I roused in the morning, gusts had whipped through the window and the home was in disarray. The shelf had been thrown against the wall, and the shards of clay and copper were blown into a pile against the corner, and the pot above the hearth had spilled upon the coals and extinguished them. The good stoutland was still asleep, although he tossed and he quivered and his fur was damp. Outside, I could see the clouds coming, they seeped across the land like tar, and once again I was close enough to watch thin strings of shadow burst from the clouds to cut down the houses of the town.
So, I went inside and took the scroll from between his paws, I took the charm and placed it beside his heart, and I prayed for him and hugged him.
And then, I ran. I ran because the storm approached. I ran harder because there was hope on the horizon. I ran hardest because the stoutland couldn't run at all.