Me: Now to write a chapter while in the most uncomfortable pose possible.
Ashley: hahahah—
Munchie: ASHLEY
Me: I HIGHLY DISLIKE CAR+WRITING ON LAPTOP THIS IS PAINFUL
Ashley: TAKE THAT FUCKER
A Deaf Flame's Flicker
Chapter Three: I am Disgusting Guilt Monster
Painfully wincing, Munchie's head fogged in and out of exactly that forest. Foggy Forest. Their last leg of this accursed exploring that Spirit casually said would take less than a day and they'd get back at night and be not-nocturnal like good guild members, but he'd lied, because in the end they had taken however many extra days swam around in front of his dark eyes that could barely glimpse what was in front of him as it was, fogging in and out of sight and momentum—what momentum?—and he could hardly feel the world pass him by as it was. All the poor, pathetic munchlax wanted to do was pass out somewhere, anywhere, and forget about everything because his brain was tired. Not of just remembering. Life, mostly, he guessed. Just life. Munchie swore, if he had happened to be one of those huge brutes everyone was scared of and didn't mess with, he would've showed Spirit what's what. But he wasn't, and the guilt of that thought capsized him into a stream of mental fog once more. It seemed he was trapped there.
Oh geez, the scruffy thing had never been struggling so hard to plow through this tired stretch of plain struggle. The Struggle. He could hardly hold open his dull orbs and the lids kept flopping over like they knew very well what he wanted to do and didn't understand that was the last thing he could deem possible. Shaggy head loftily shaking like he had even a miniscule clue of what was going on and it messed with him, Munchie's dull, dark orbs scoped about and he found with a cold icicle stab of fear that nobody showed beside him. The recognized faces vanished to mist. Just mist—all of that fog swamping about him and he felt like choking in mounds of milk, curdled, disgusting, stomach-acid-chewing milk that made him lose his breath and stumble over the pebbles in the worst places and slam into chocolate tree trunks that sent stars shrieking across his gaze for a good few seconds. Recovering didn't seem like an option until out of nowhere the blackened dots whizzed from orbit and Munchie was left to he, himself, alone, all over again. Then he'd ram into another tree without seeing it like an idiot. A cycle. A very ugly cycle that clashed well with his crooked teeth. Brown and white, like a cookie, a bitter cookie made from tree trunks and a diseased munchlax's teeth. Maybe... someone would find it tasty. He could always hope.
It dawned on him. The best way to reunite with his... his friends. Right. "Helloooooooo?" His voice stretched thin like patches of fog that he kept using like doorways. Might've been going in circles, for all he knew. The soft tone with the rough husk washed away with the funneling currents of wind, and with what again felt like a curdled-milk breath and then cough, Munchie tried again. He had nothing else to do, nothing else to lose. Well, but his life, but he'd rather not imagine losing that thing just yet. "HeeelllooooooooooooooOOOOO! G-gu... Guys! Wh-where a...are you! Where! I can't find you aaaa-aaannywhere! This is r-really fr-freaking me out! AGK!" Zilch. Not a catcall swung his way. Munchie was just about ready to crumple into tears, he felt awful enough, and his fur looked like he'd swum around in the curdled milk used to dip in his tree-bark Munchie-tooth cookies.
"O-oh, p-please, guys! Anyone! I'm freaking out!" And he was. "I hate this!" And he did. "Please, please—say something!" And did they? No, they did not. Words did not fall into his ears like his had to the soft, mushy ground. In a burst of fiery frustration, a fist went out and swung and cracked into the nearest tree trunk with an ugly BANG. Oh, that didn't sound very good. Munchie painfully flexed his hand and one of his fingers went with some numb cruh-crah-craCKS that sounded really really bad but he couldn't even feel how painful they might be. Didn't seem that bad. Maybe. Without moving those sore, numb sticks of hands, he could still feel the aching throb in some part of his palm, reverberating out to the trunks, then tips of his fingers, each one of them. Tears beaded in Munchie's eyes, and he had to bite his lip to stop from howling in even more sadistic, pathetic pain. It just like hurt a lot. He was so so so stupid and ugly and ow ow that hurt ow stop aching you crudely-bent pinkie.
Oh. He waved his hand to ward off fog and stared at the throbbing, blue-layered pinkie beneath the fuzz. Oh geez. That was not how a pinkie was supposed to bend. His stomach curled over. That was not the way the pinkie bent. Nope. Not at all. How the heck was he supposed to—but just staring at it, trying to think of how to bend... bend it back in place, he felt ever the sicker at each passing second and his eyes tipped, he went woozy. Hazy. Could hardly stand. The entire arm went into hiding behind his back after awkwardly crossing over the pale circle on his chest, and he knew he wouldn't find it again. This was a hide-and-seek game that couldn't be allowed to end. Munchie, as seeker, knew he'd be terrible, and he couldn't bear to watch anyway. What kind of sick hand played this jaunt anyway? His stomach burbled and acid burned in a rush down his throat, and something crawled in his ears. Munchie felt obviously at ill will. His face flushed. He missed everyone in the guild. He wished he could ask Byrender to help, just to hear that deep, jazzy tone get all the way into his new injury and become excessively thick and sicken him all the more. Munchie wanted to hear that. Oh yeah did he want to listen and be sickened by the bibarel. You bet. And no, he couldn't do sarcasm—just the truth poured from this pathetic thing's maw and mind.
"F-f-fffriennds?" Oh no, he'd used the word. No going back. The rest of the past didn't matter anymore. That could have been a lethal mistake, to call them friends. Ohhh no... "Are you... there?" He didn't even care how piteous he must have sounded, or ugly, or sad, or stupid. "Just... where are you! I don't wanna lose you guys now! COME BACK!" Did they show up? Good joke—no they did not. "Wh-why... are... y-y-you doi...ng... th-thhiii-ssss! Aahahahhhhh..." Hysterical laughter. Usually the last piece before spontaneous tears and insanity. Oh no, not insanity. Munchie grappled his ears high above his head, splattered them to the sides of his face, and trotted in a circle, mumbling to himself about how scared he was. Pathetic. Yes. Then again, this was Munchie, and for him, this was normal. And pathetic—but also normal of a response. He should have been used to this, but instead whimpered, "Where... are you..?"
A pule slipped from his lips. He wanted to slap himself for that, but both hands were busy plastering his ears to his face as he slowly succumbed to the delirium smothering him, rising up in him like anarchy, taking over and painting his insides every other color than what they should have been. The vile scent of bile slipped through his throat and squeezed in him like a compressed sneeze. It stuck to him and peeled like skin, inside skin. Munchie wanted his friends to show up... he'd really grown attached to being near those other guys... and then he didn't like this sudden depart of pokemon that both liked him and cared for him. He couldn't have been duped... Munchie's heart sunk. No, he couldn't have been duped, squeaked his mind. They'd welcomed him, and kept him from dying, and had him company, and they even dismissed Ashley's curses. Munchie felt... a little special to be with them. To... belong? Did he belong? Yes? Yes. And yet here he was, nobody in sight but the fog and the throbbing of his pinkie to keep him company. Quite the sadistic crew; Munchie had nothing else at that time. No clue where his dear first friend, the smudge-orange chimchar, had skylarked off to, and he just sat there like a complete idiot when he backed up.
Thuk. Scruffy dusk blue back, head, and that hand smacked against tree bark just behind him, sending leaves spiraling down his way. A few lucky ones even managed to take a swipe at his face, causing a cut or so. Maybe. His fur was a bit deep, deep sort of like oceans, so maybe it just nipped at one of his layers of fur. One of the however many. Those layers had an original purpose, to keep the munchlax and its body heat from how much foot and flub wrapped in one place. Then Munchie came along, and now it contributed to his ridiculously high metabolism. So ridiculously high, his needed body fat as a munchlax to survive by normal means in the wild had all but burned away like peeling back layers. Now he had fur, but he had no potbelly or flub composure. Admittedly, he wanted to know why he wanted something that made him so large—seriously, a potbelly, out of all things to wish for—but it would have made him fit in. But would it have let him become where he was now? He didn't dwell on the matter.
Instead, the continuous contribution of his mushed pinkie sandwiched between the body Munchie did have, as thin as it was, and the trunk of a prideful tree, sent splintering pain to go spiraling and stars to scar his vision and rip him in half until he slipped an unruly fall to the ground with a bump right on his rump. More stars. It died. And... nothing. Nothing at all. Rubbing at his eyes contentedly, for those few glorious seconds, the thin munchlax had completely forgotten what ailed at him. Then it came back, a thunderous cry, maybe the flash of realization lightning, and that same, bent hand shoved into Munchie's mouth to stop him from bawling. He mumbled the names of those he lacked, happening to be everyone, through his lips and through his hand, but of course nobody once again had the ability to respond and assure him and keep him from losing his mind. Then again, for all he knew, he could have already lost that too. Sanity, oh sweet, precious, succulent sanity, where have you gone?
It sure felt like he'd been ditched by it alongside those pokemon so hearty and happy and lax, labeling him as friend. Friend. Munchie wanted to cry, but his fist clawed at some organ or another and he didn't. "Damn, it didn't..." The voice sent shivers down his spine. He recognized those curses, fluent as the language she spoke, that everyone spoke and understood so easily. "That was really fucking wrong alright. I dunno why the hell it didn't show up, but what the fuck. It could have been thanks to damn old Influence, for all I very well fucking know." She spoke like this... this Influence... was a pokemon too. "Damn bitch boy. I bet it was him." Yep, Influence had a life. A real life. And Ashley knew that life relatively well enough to curse about him. Then again, she cursed about everyone. He could have been a random passerby she hardly even knew. "He better not have lost his fucking memory, dammit! I told him what we were supposed to do, but I come and wake up in this hellhole and WHERE THE FUCK IS HE, HUH? DAMMIT, INF!" Inf. A shortened version of Influence. Ashley therefore had to know this guy. Munchie's heart sank. "Hey, Munchie, can you help me out with this damn thing?" His hand fell out of his mouth in surprise.
She saw him? She knew he was stuck there, trapped with a broken pinkie? She... she... Hey, Munchie, can you help me out with this damn thing? H-how the heck did he know anything at all to help her? How the... how could he help her out? He was pathetic and dumb and guilty and—what could he do..? "M-Munchie!" Something, no, someone, slammed to his side, That pinkie seemed to bend a little more with each moment arcing down on him. And still, Ashley... what did he know? How could he help her? "Hey." Hands, those long ones, cupped his face. He couldn't see her through the film of fog, of the film of his tears he struggled to hide, but the dull dark fur caught the feeling. No one... touched him... and there she came all like hi I'm going to touch your face now okay Munchie. And it was... it freaked him out, one, but if he moved his tears might spill out and his face warmed and itched and it was uncomfortable and he felt terrible. "Hey, Munchie...
"You don't look so hot." She hadn't even cursed, and a sliver of a sweeter tone trembled in. Those flaming orbs, he just felt, burned through the film of tears. "You... uh... okay, or something?" Of course, a little awkward, a little confused, a little unable to try and be nice to him, without knowing, Ashley's attempt at being soft and kind to him. It only lasted a sentence or so, not even a complete conversation, much less than a trailing thought, but an attempt. She cared. She... actually cared.
Like the pathetic morsel he was, the tears eked out and Munchie finally threw back his head and sobbed to himself, to the guild members, to his newfangled friendship, to his sudden and shocking sense of loneliness, to his wrong-way-bent pinkie, to Ashley a little too. Lines of tears marked like tattoos tracked down his face in what must have been odd, clumped, disgruntled patterns that could have looked like anything, really. Probably terrible. Obviously pathetic. But Munchie couldn't stop the ensemble of emotion, and for a moment he understood how he felt at those lonesome times, how much he must have cried ago. And how much he cried then, and the sweet, salty lick of tears down his face and traveling onto Ashley's placed hands that didn't even move when the wetness seeped into her. He could have sworn the chimchar didn't like water. She'd said so. Through the emotional blunder fogging up his senses worse than the environment, Munchie had mumbled through trembling lips, "I... sorry, I'm so pathetic... ugh..." And just ugh. His insides felt trashy like ugh. Here he was, crying in front of his first friend like a nincompoop. What in the world would she be thinking of him now?
Being deaf, even if his words were drowned out by voice, she read by lip. "Munchie... oh my gosh, it's... fine, dude, seriously. We all have to cry sometimes. Maybe some of us have to cry more than others, and that's okay, too. You've probably been through a lot. I dunno. I just popped into your life and here you are, saying I'm the first person to've actually gone up to you at all. Well, I like you, and I think I wanna stick around, either way." He could've sworn he saw a little smile. "You're not as pathetic as you think." It sure felt like it, though. The way that Ashley spoke to him begged to differ but he just couldn't help it. Still... she never... talked like that. Like she had this softer version she shoved down inside of her, or just couldn't find. And it only came out in certain moments. Like then. And Munchie felt a little special imagining the situation like that. Maybe if he imagined himself being a little special over being a lot pathetic, maybe that'd help his self-esteem. It sounded like... an idea. Maybe. But Ashley had to be present if he was going to try something as stupid as that. He was not going to take this on alone. He decided being alone was something he really didn't like.
Swiping at his tears, Munchie struggled to nod, then the wrong hand intercepted with his face and a certain pinky went crack all over again and it was a bad idea. Crying out a sudden jerk of pain, Munchie scrambled to his pale toes again and blundered into another tree, thankfully without his pinky being one of the victims. "Oh geez, holy hell, let's go find Jordan or something. I heard she can repair broken shit with her teeth!" Oh no that sounded like a horrible idea but if Ashley was staying with him and Ashley wanted to help him and they'd meet up again with Jordan in the process, it didn't seem so bad. He could live with it. At least the fog would finally dim from around here. That hazy thing, lingering into every sensation of his and melding with his being and not even leaving, it darn right scared him. Fogs shouldn't do that to entities. It was creepy, end of story.
Grappling onto the right hand, thank goodness, Ashley's long fingers clamped unto Munchie's incredibly layered and fluffy ones and she scrabbled onward and he followed her, and there was no one else he'd rather be following. Her odd waddling step, transferring to slower pace since she couldn't use her hands with one on Munchie's, kept it gentler, tepid, but Munchie didn't mind. Her fiery tail lit like a path for them to follow, enshrouding their figures and holding at least some of the fog at bay, and a nice distance away as well. He smiled a little at that, crooked teeth fanning out. "Dammit, where were... uh... I think our buddies went off further. I remember you getting lost. Then everyone else got lost—fucking clueless. Then... maybe I got lost. Because I'm pretty sure Spirit was lost, which meant we were all fucking lost and there was no way out of it, and because they were bumbling like bitches I decided to go look for you. Hah, what a smart idea." And in the end, she was happy about it. Munchie puffed a sigh of relief. His pinkie continued to ache, like a circle of reminders for what they had to do. Stupid pinkie, making him feel pathetic. Ashley's hand comfortably held on too tightly, but it revealed she was there, so he liked that too. Even if it hurt a little bit, sort of like a split pinch of sorts. Not really bad though. Usually... he would've flinched back. It was nice and it was there. That was that, in the moment.
Shuffling like greenies through the fog—he still hadn't seen any since way back when in Beach Cave, like they'd all been voided or something—ambling past trees, Ashley's tug of her hand somewhat saving him from running into one of those deadly trunks, even saving his pinkie a few times, Munchie felt thankful for that moment with the chimchar. Guilt amounted, sopping up in his throat, but he felt a whole entire step closer to her persona, and he felt like she trusted him more, and that they'd figure it out in the end. Out of everyone else he knew, he was happy his first actual friend happened to be this chubby chimchar with long hands and feet, and the orange bob of hair up until that flickering point that fell from such hair in a small tumble of knots and longer fiery strokes. Munchie felt quite satisfied for himself at the moment. All he had left to do was figure out why this crashing wave of guilt was now surmounting him and taking over his figure.
Well, yes, Ashley had seen him weak and vulnerable and exceptionally pathetic. She'd been the first—and she knew it—to befriend him, the first to actually reach out and touch him, and though it obviously unnerved him—although everything, she lived with it. Continued being swanky, continued smiling, smirking, cursing. And in those pockets of moments he had a chance to show off to her, to be helpful and kind to her, especially her, well, yeah, he screwed up bad. It wasn't meant to be... was it? He hoped it was. He wanted to actually do something nice for that forsaken girl. Yeah, she made a flame in his chest burn sometimes like he wanted to punch something and either further bust his pinkie right off or perhaps bust the other one nice and knobby, just like the first, but still. He could look past that. For now. Worry nibbled as his crooked little rows, the peaks of his teeth, grazed his lip. He was surprised it hadn't started bleeding yet, even after all of the attacks he'd driven into it. Good lip, it was. Very good lip.
Smiling like a doofus to himself about his lip, Ashley had managed to both let go of his layered hand and antagonize their friends until one of them, very tall and angular, lots of turquoise hair, still couldn't see her eyes or the color, sauntered up to him, leaned down, deliberated against it, and sat with her knees on the ground. Still with Munchie standing, her head bobbled above his. Then with an apologetic smile, hands fastened to his arm and yanked to see his pinkie, only she'd taken the wrong finger and suddenly bent a tiny knobby nub of pinkie in the wrong place and stars stars stars burst and collected and little tear rinds fuzzed onward. "Oh—ah—I'm so sorry, Munchie! Let me try to..!" And again. CRACK. And... fixed, was it? His eyes squinted, but he pierced his good pinkie and yep, already fixed. The stars didn't descend so heavily, just a woozy aftermath, until that hand was dropped and the other finger came up and with an "ooooooh..." something slobbery and wet nipped his pinkie—oh gosh it was Jordan's mouth, her teeth—and she fastened tightly. "Yuh ruudy?" No. He was not ready, don't do this, Jordan. But the gallade shrugged, offered a smile between his freaking fingers, and yanked her head back like a cord was glued to it and it had been yanked.
CR-CRAAACCCKKKKKKKKkuh. Munchie had been forced forward at her sudden movement, and his face met a billow of the earth, of the ground, where he could do nothing but give a horrendous sneeze and itch awkwardly at the nub of a nose concealed by layers of dark blue fur. Just dark blue all over but not the bottom of his face or his feet or the circle on his chest. Those had been a dusty cream, but now they looked kind of pale... maybe even a... a little... nice? Maybe? No, not really. Ugh, no don't even think of that, Munchie. He winced at himself to spite it and mounds of dirt entered his mouth. His hand fell limp from his friend's mouth and she mumbled an apology where he mumbled back how his pinkies were both good as new so whatever. Plus he'd never had a friend bite his finger, and it was kind of nice. He should have left that last part off, but Jordan just smiled some and said she didn't mind. Made her feel kind of special, which made him feel kind of special, so therefore it worked out in the end. With an awkward grin, he shook himself and bumbled straight into another brown trunk but his head registered that he'd hit fluff, not trunk, and sighed into Byrender's stomach.
At least, it might have been his stomach. The bibarel was kind of huge, and Munchie knew he went at least halfway up to him, but not really where the stomach or the spleen or all those wonderful things would have gone. "Eeyy, Munchie ol' friend ol' pal, what's up? Ya look kind of tired and twisted. Jordan didn't accidentally break your other finger too, did she? Once, see, I had this toe I'd gone messed up, so, you know, asked Jordan to help me with it but she accidentally broke my entire foot." How did someone with that sweet, jazzy tone still continue its contentedly deep roots when speaking of something so painful? "She unbent it in the end, but that moment really took my breath away. I kinda sorta freaked out a little. Buuuut I'm okay. Buuuut I lived. So it's all ya do. Plus, I can't stay mad at Jordan! Haahh..." His dark, beady orbs released pent-up emotion, and the bibarel went and smiled at Munchie, who trembled with an awkward smile of his own back. All ya do, all ya do...
He liked these pokemon, honest, but sometimes he didn't see how they could be so different and yet fit together so well. And yet it worked out in the end. Sometimes the stellar opposite pokemon were the ones that were the closest. Opposites attract, as they always say. Still... it was kind of weird, how the pokemon were all so different. And how they all came together to the guild—running away from home—still the same. Even he and Ashley... had technically run away. In a way. He'd run from his last life and who knew where Ashley'd run from? It looked like she was trying to escape something. The secrets he felt were holding her quiet—as did everyone, everyone had secrets; himself... not as many—could prove that. She burst into Zundentun via her lightning shock of white light. Seriously, that had to mean something. Pokemon didn't spontaneously fling themselves into the world like that, not without combustion on the spot. And then she did. Meant something. Munchie had absolutely no idea what, but just... something. As an embarrassingly talented eavesdropper, he knew these things. It got to him, it did. He felt guilt, again—when would he learn to conquer it? But it was all he could do. With an awkward blink, Munchie pressed his lips together and turned toward Ashley's cream face, who pressed her lips back and smirked. He didn't know what to do in response; her long fingers lifted and as a whole, they honked his nose. No idea what to do. His tongue flickered out; she smirked back again.
"Hey, look, I found everyone! Wow, aren't I so great, Chindu?"
"Sp-Spirit! You were the one that got everyone lost here in the first place! I'm sure they all met up in the end on their own terms!"
Another voice slithered through. Male, soft, cold, gentler, acceptance, happy. "Ah... Spirit, you didn't. You simply didn't. Don't question it any further."
"Aaah-ha ha haaaa! Drynt, you silly boy! Well, everyone's here. So that's all great! Woo-hoo! We should party or something really fun like that, yeah?"
Spirit snorted. His white figure approached like a ghost's, and the heart now lodged in Munchie's throat beat horridly. "Oh, come on, are you kidding me? I think everyone here needs to sleep. Aaaand we have to get back before, you know, morning. So we don't become nocturnal? Duh?" Other snorts followed the odd-colored wigglytuff's remark, and the family-like formation ensued after, with everyone merrily meeting up with the rest of their lost pack and Spirit lifting a puffy paw to point in the direction he'd come, letting everyone know he'd found their way back home. Oh sweet, sweet sanity, it trickled back into his brain, nigh sound and complete. His brain continued to ache with each step, like it was torture to continue on, but it was also all he could do, to continue. He felt that much safer though now that all of the pokemon he'd come there with had returned.
As prior, the tiredness descended on him like a dark, soupy night, which they would end up wobbling into too, after the final stretches of Foggy Forest misted by. This had been his first exploration route, these rounds, as they called it, and oh, was he tired after all that had gone on. Ashley sometimes materialized to his side, and she'd mumble about how she was so tired, only with curse words studded in, and that she couldn't wait til they slept. Munchie couldn't, either. Every member of this team had taken those rounds as the first stop in their Mystery Dungeon exploring venture, and they all must have understood how slumped and beat up the munchlax and the chimchar were. They seemed a little... closer, too, just because of the shared experience. That was smart of Spirit, to do that. Gave them a reason to bond over: the tiredness. The aching pain. The sudden seeing of how they would one day be less tired doing this, and the thrill of exploring would shock them into it. Munchie's biggest shock was still Ashley, though. This was close, but... he didn't like to think of where he'd be without her, and he knew where too. But it... wasn't the most pleasant memory.
Honestly he couldn't pinpoint when and couldn't believe it happened, but eventually the fog about them lifted, and the trees did as well, and then suddenly Munchie realized that they'd actually... like, made it. Alive. All of them. And he was going to sleep soon and it would be good. It would be very good. It would be the best sleep in the world, and he bet the weirdest dreams would show as well, because of all of this sudden change. Stumbling, mumbling, shaking, rubbing at his eyes, snorting, Munchie ambled on after his friends, their cast shadows in the night, alongside the blooming of a fat moon itself, which lighted his way enough. He managed to go on, even as his limbs felt weak on the edges like they'd fall apart. His toes wanted to split, but they didn't, wouldn't, stuck together somehow, as much as they felt like the opposite. They stuck together like the group of Spirit Bright did, and he found that a little inspiring.
Once Munchie found himself walking up a familiar trail, up the hill, down the ladder, clambering and slipping over wood and rope and then on the bottom with grass trickling under his toes, and then into those holes. He chose a random one. Supposed they wouldn't judge him for it. And once Munchie stumbled into some room, and he saw the hay on the ground, didn't matter where, didn't matter anything, just the fact that there was hay and he could pass out, that's exactly what he did. Consciousness took off like a leaf in bright winter and Munchie went out like a light, splayed among the tatters of hay, drool inscribed to his lip. A stream about to open wide.
The banner that once hung so gleefully above his head lie in tatters on the floor below, melding with the grass easily. Munchie stared like an idiot at its disheveled confines, just sitting there, littering, wasting the old leaves that had once made up what had to... had to be maps. Soiled maps. Broken maps. Old, watered-down, torn maps. Droplets of spilled, curdled milk made their green markings run the most horrendous color, then cycle, then smell, this rancid odor that trailed up his nose and caused some gag reflex or another to react strongly. He choked on his own spit, then the odor, then his spit again, and it burned and it tasted particularly nasty in his throat. Another gag; choke. Munchie's face pinched and turned, and he came straight up to looking at a tall, angular thing with a red blade shoved through its chest and a strange, green beard trailing down its face. His face. Her face? What?
"Feel this," it told him, then used its mouth to bite Munchie's arm and somehow force his fingers against the beard. Soft... too—oh no, too too soft, no, yuck, no mold mold mold no get the mold away right now. But the beard didn't leave and mold bloomed and leaped all the way from that chin to his hand and eventually began slowly taking over his body. Icky, fuzzy, yucky, disgusting, old, dirty, gross MOLD. GET THE MOLD AWAY, RIGHT NOW. MUNCHIE HATED MOLD VERY MUCH. His stomach curled and suddenly the mold was inside of it. Just suddenly.
And then Munchie blinked and for some reason he was in the sky, blazing clouds trouncing about him and chanting at him, a few of them fat and puffy, with the oddest stripes of color in them. Like they were rainbows, but the rainbows only had one color. And it striped with the white of the cloud. Either way, nothing made sense. Munchie didn't know how reality could do that, but yeah, nothing made sense. A puddle frozen in one of the clouds, this one bright orange with fluffy hair and long edges for some reason, though it was heavy and fat in the middle, revealed the munchlax to himself—no, herself. How did she forget she was a girl? How did she do that? Apparently it was possible. Munchie shook her delicate girl head and brushed off her chest, then waddled from the cloud and fell off the edge, only to be buffeted by a chubby primate, like an orange smudge, with long fingers and feet. She smirked and said, "There you are, Spirit. You wouldn't leave your boyfriend like that, would you?"
What. So she had... what. The chimchar didn't look like a liar, though she had really fiery orbs that could have been lying for all the heck she knew. Wait though—so she was Spirit too? Munchie had this feeling Spirit was a boy... which made her... her gay? She was... what? When did this stop making sense? Why hadn't she been questioning it earlier? Why was it now that she realized, of all times, she wasn't even a guy? Then out of nowhere the chimchar flung herself against her and set Munchie on fire.
With a screech, Munchie flung himself at his hay bedding on the ground and choked slightly, tears in his eyes from the intensity of that dream. He felt like screaming, but remembering all of his friends, and also the fact that he had an ugly scream for a girl, he didn't. Wait... wait—wasn't he a girl? Or... was he... what was he? She? Munchie's face bloomed red at the thought that she... he... it couldn't even remember its own actual gender. That... that had to be a problem. So, sucking in a breath, Munchie asked conscience whether the gender male or female was right. For some reason, she kept leaning for female... a girl, then? She seemed to have a thin enough composure for that. To be a pretty thin girl. A thin male munchlax would be sad, but a thin female munchlax might look like pretty or something? She didn't remember fashion or anything like that. Honestly, Munchie was guessing at this point.
"Munchie, what the hell? You look like you just swallowed my fucking fire tail! Damn, my friend!" Wait... that voice... it rung some rusty bell or another in her head. Then Munchie's face lit up all over again and she remembered that she was not a girl but a boy. How did someone manage to forget their own gender after having a dream? Then again... a dream that intense seemed very very capable of doing crazy stuff like that. Munchie continued choking on his own bedding that he apparently shared with his friend. Andrew. Yes, that was her name—wait no it wasn't, it was Ashley. Munchie's eyes started streaming and he coughed piteously. He didn't want to have another dream again. Never. "Shit, man, you look fucking twisted."
Rubbing through his wet orbs, Munchie's dull eyes fixated upon the chimchar staring incredulously at him with flaming orbs. They both, he saw, sat in slumped positions on the large hay bed spread out before them. It looked like Byrender should have been sleeping there, rather than them. "I had the weirdest dream." He tried to scramble for recollection. "There was... Jordan. And she had a mold beard. And the mold got everywh...where... And then, um... I looked in a frozen puddle, and it was in a cloud, and I thought I was a girl. And then you came up and said that my boyfriend was waiting for me. But that I was Spirit. And my head just really, really ached, but then I woke up and it was so confusing. I could hardly handle all the pressure that came down on me." True. It seriously ached, and still felt like a boulder'd just come out of nowhere and smacked him upside the head. As hard as Munchie looked, he couldn't find the boulder. "Oh, um... were we... sleeping in the same bedding? It kind of looks like Byrende—"
"Ohhh my fucking goodness Munchie he was supposed to sleep here, dammit! Well, no, not dammit, just... pffft... it was kind of funny. Byrender saw that you'd randomly passed out so he took the couple of other beds in here, mushed them together, and passed out." A long thumb directed backwards pointed out the slumped, brown figure snoring with its foot up and twitching in a deep sleep. Like he was kicking the air. "Then since he'd taken what was supposed to be where one pokemon and another should've gone, I decided to do the honers and share the big-as-shit bed right here with you. You're very fucking welcome. Smile for the Ashley." He didn't feel like smiling though, and it hurt to think of using his lips at all, until he remembered a stomach that had lost its appetite from the multifarious of Mystery Dungeons, of exploring and stumbling and so much, too much movement. But his priority, a sack of rumbling hunger, plopped into his metaphorical hands and it ached to think of how much he needed to consume food before his stomach consumed the next thing: himself. Oh, no, wait, he wouldn't go first: Ashley or Byrender would. Or the hay. Being a non-predatory pokemon with pointy-though-dull crooked teeth meant he kind of couldn't eat meat first. And he didn't want to! No way! Just... when a munchlax goes hungry, a munchlax goes rogue.
Flaming orbs blinked his way. "You look really fucking hungry. Wanna go get some shit from the shit hall or something?" Uh... were they even allowed to do that? Munchie wasn't really sure. The only time he'd eaten at this crazy place was when Spirit called everyone out and they feasted upon apples. Would it work that way? Can they just... can they..? "Geez. You also look really confused. Damn, it's like something came and cracked your eyes open. Like they're little blueberries letting out blueberry ooze—shit you're not crying are you? Fuck. I don't know how to stop you from crying." All Munchie needed to do was flump out and hug the chimchar close to him. "Oookaaaaay? Uh... whatever the hell helps you." He liked knowing Ashley was helping him by just being herself. But then that stupid guild clogged his throat up; what had he done for her? "Well, I'd gone looking for Inf, who you'd heard me screeching about. And I didn't find him but I found these funny things that look long and squiggly and... blue. And green. Wonder what the hell they could be." She placed an assortment of squishy things in his face, that appeared sugary and longer than Ashley's fingers, even.
"Oh, those are gummis." Munchie felt proud of upholding this knowledge. That he could help her there. Awkwardly slumping back from the chimchar, wiping at the sleep crust around his eyes, he continued in his softer but husk-lifted tone. "You, like, can eat them. And they're really healthy, even though they're full of sugar and stuff. I heard that there's this nearby underground parlor place where they take berries and gummis and all of the sort and blend them into drinks. That sounds... pretty... interesting." He squinted at the leafy green and sky blue and fiery red bits of jelly-like sugar sitting there in front of him and in front of her.
Ashley nodded a little, like she was trying to pretend she understood what he had to say. "That makes complete fucking sense. And by that I mean what the hell is that supposed to... How the hell do they stay alive if they make drinks for other pokemon? What the fuck, man? I mean, how do... don't they have to have some sort of system or another?" She really... didn't understand how Zundentun worked. She really didn't get it. Ashley had completely never ever been here prior, and she freely showed this off. Because she trusted him; the weight mobbed him. But still he was so guilty about everything she'd done and he couldn't help her in Beach Cave, and yes, he was a complete idiot to continue reflecting on that. But it was all Munchie could do; sour, sickly, burbled guilt collected in him, choked him, with a gook-sounding choke: internal gak, gak, gak. Guilt just burbling in there, broiling, roiling, cooking up a storm and it consumed in him. As well did hunger, he recalled. And with a suddenly very brave face Munchie wouldn't have believed he could muster, could he see it, the munchlax could explain.
An entire life of eavesdropping plain old pokemon swarmed in his head. "It's really quite simple." And it was; the elder to elder to the earliest elders who had heard of other pokemon and their changing ways of life had picked up that Warldo, the most blossoming of the others, had some sort of thing called e-ko-ko-no-me. And they like used treasure and... pay-de others? With treasure? And had... johbes? And... worked? Like with the johbes? Something in that area. Way too big on this one word: civilized. But Munchie didn't reflect on that. Didn't matter. Maybe Ashley was confused, but he knew the Zundentun way. "Everyone does their part in the community, and everyone is connected that way. When everyone has a part, we all have time to do that thing to help others, and we also get stuff from the other parts of pokemon, and we have a lot of free time too. It works so well, it's great! So maybe Mambo Bao doesn't even have food, she just makes what other pokemon give her, it goes so that others get her whatever she might need. It all balances out!" Except for the munchlax that had no part in such society, he quietly reminded himself.
"Oooh, that's so fucking cool! What'd you do before where you are now?"
She had to ask that question. She just had to. Munchie's fur twitched, crawled, at the thought of explaining just what did Munchie do—nothing—and he coughed awkwardly. Even more guilt choked in him, and he felt like he'd overflow with it soon, and it was a bad, gritty, mucus-lined feeling that made him want to spit. Many spit. All of the spit. "I... uh..." Guilt guilt guilt guilt guilt dizziness overtook him but he forced himself to stay sitting, staring at Ashley, her flaming orange bangs cutting over forehead, the bob of hair twitching slightly around her head, her knot of hair in the back shifting as she moved a little one way, another way. No one was motionless. "I didn't... reallydoanything..." A disease. There we go: that was his role. To be the disease and avoid all other contact and shy away from others. He couldn't do anything anyways, he was so ugly and dumb and annoying and bad. He didn't know why Ashley kept looking at him, smiling a little, biting at her pale lip, then exploding into fiery laughter. A combustion of sorts, and his face reddened more. He sniffed.
"'Ey, it's cool—er, hot, man! I shouldn't have asked, sorry, now you're really sad... Uuughh...I'm fucking sorry. I keep shitting everything up. Such a dumb bitch." She just... used one of her curse words unto herself. Munchie couldn't get the idea of Ashley holding a sharp rock up to someone's throat then forcing it to herself and still smiling, winking a fiery orb his way. "Seriously. I've hit the shitter. I'm sorry, Munchie. I shouldn't have just gone and burst out like that."
Icky, slimy, revolting guilt. "No no! I'm just... the one pokemon who doesn't even... do anything. I kind of... live off of my own will. So I don't rely on anyone else... but I didn't have any friends... I didn't know anyone until you... Which is sad but... uh... It's... um... it's me." His face reddened more, and that lump in his throat grew like a stone from the kidneys, gone and stuck up in the windpipes for some strange reason. Munchie choked on that stone. If he got much more of that emotion—he didn't want to think of it. It hurt some. Started to make him lag, make him choke more, make his eyes stream. How was he going to pop that stupid thing? Did he need a drainage pipe or something to get it out of him? He didn't care; he wanted it gone. Gone gone gone: away with the guilt already. But it just kept choking him. And that was that.
Embarrassed, confused, and dizzy—and guilty—Munchie's eyes wandered the tunnel they camped in, since he hadn't seen much but his heaping pile of bedding prior. About them circled the usual, chocolatey brown walls with the chunks of silvery rock, and the ground had grass again, soft, springy grass, there was a window conveniently cut into the wall which revealed the time being midday. So the fact that Byrender was still sleeping in that huge hump of caramel fur, with his thick, barbed, darker-brown tail wrapping about him, buck teeth tottering up and down in whistling snooze meant that apparently... he'd sleep until tomorrow morning, then? So that no pour soul would end up nocturnal? Listening intently, Munchie could hear the snuurrrrrfffs in all different tones of voice, and when he detected the simple, just leaning toward stuffy snore, he realized he could check up on Drynt and find out if the elgyem slept on the floor or in the air. The sudden notice of this sprung with an aching temple in his head, and he shook himself.
"Munchie, what'd ya hear?" His ears must have twitched or something for her to see that. Turning so that his mouth pointed closer to her face, trying to be easy on Ashley, as he always was, the munchlax smiled slightly. "I heard everyones' different snores. They're all so... lighter. Heavier. Lower. Higher. Snottier. Or breezy. It's weird."
Those flame orbs whizzed with sparks. "Hell, that's amazing! I don't know what the fuck any of you sound like, but just imagining it... pfft—fuck, that's interesting! So... uh. Right. You wanna stand around here, pass out, wake up and shit until it's morning again and these bozos are up, or like go try that Mam...whatever the fuck their name was. That place." She shook herself. "That place?" Tacking the question part at the end. Ashley... had just asked him what he wanted to do. She literally did care for his opinion, and his heart caught up in a tizzy and he swallowed that ball of salty shame for the time being. It'd show up again soon enough, but for now, it was just his newfangled burst of happiness. So many reasons to call all of these emotions newfangled. Well, except for the yucky, blundering ones like guilt and shame. Those always found their way in, especially in the old Munchie lifestyle. And apparently the new Munchie lifestyle too, at least when guilt swamped him for all he hadn't done for Ashley. Yeah, maybe he flapped his jaw and explained junk, but in the moments where he really mattered... when he should have reached out for her... it drove him insane. Yeah, he was getting a little more touchy; but touch still freaked him out. And Ashley did that all the time. And he always wanted to jerk back and it jerked in tears and he was awful.
"Munchie?"
"Oh, uh, yeah, sure."
"Yippeeeeeeee!" Whoa, she managed to go without cursi—"Fuck, yes." And nope, not quite. "This'll be a damn swell time. I am really fucking excited!" Yes, you look like it, Munchie mumbled silently to himself. Without moving his lips. Ashley read lips like some pokemon read their old mate's emotions. And this orange-fur limbed creature, long fingers and long toes already against the ground, ready to take off, glimpsing at him with those flaming orbs like he was her master and it was his call when they'd go, she was not an old pokemon with a mate. Just a strange sort of chimchar. Though he supposed everyone in this guild would be referred to as strange from the other pokemon. And that, he deliberated, was okay. He liked these guys way more than anyone else. "Okay come on dammit let's goooo!" She took off.
Blinking slowly like a fool, Munchie lifted his feet and scrambled on after her, panting slightly, dull orbs shining with what he hoped to be strength or pent-up energy ready to be let out. Probably just guilt, though. Guilt, for some strange reason, could make a creature's eyes really shine. Not exactly with tears. Just shine whatsoever. And oh, did it make Munchie queasy. He shook off the feeling and continued to pretend energy shimmered within him as he paced into the outside room of the scooping holes in the wall where everyone slept and the holy door where Spirit and Chindu slept behind and the scooping hole out to the mess hall. He clambered up the ladder offered, encountered the smaller map place, still stuck with maps sewed with green leaves, melding it all together quite nicely due to sap and then the markers to put up where the maps went, but he went up even further, lifted the flaps of Spirit Bright's guild entrance, and ran off into the high-up sun hanging out in the sky like the world was beautiful and not a skinny, shadow-like munchlax to be seen but he was. He flinched a little at that and continued moving on, because it really was all he could continue to do. He followed the bobbling flame of a tail protruding from Ashley and her scrabbling, now quadrupedal form, his feet making the skish skish skish skish sound of feet moving in gritty pathway the colors of orange and brown mixed relatively well.
Down, to the left of the sloping hill, then down more and into the very heart of Treasure Town, where all the happy folk smiled and gossiped freely, Munchie wandered behind Ashley enough that he wouldn't come in contact in her but still easily saw her, even as his odd, fluffy, angular ears picked up the words of the other pokemon around there. This time around, he didn't catch words of secrets or affairs but a lot of the same thing, really. There was this shadowy green guy pokemon snorted over, how he'd replaced the thin munchlax running past them just then, and I mean yeah we're happy he's gone to whatever buneary hole he's fallen to but seriously the grovyle ninja butthead thingy can't just go and replace him we don't want another of those suckers in our town it's beautiful and huge and we want all hard-working fellows. Just toss 'im in the guild, I say. That's where all the idiots should go. Munchie silently corrected whoever just spoke all of that without even stopping to breathe—his chest ached at the thought of it—by thinking about just how idiotic his friends were, which made him think of the quite logical elgyem on his side and how he'd forgotten to check if Drynt did actually sleep while floating in the air. Darn it. He'd have to remember for later. Munchie tucked that little thought in his head nice and neat and tidy for whenever he could recall it again and find out.
Other voices that picked up in his head were of the usual things. Family members. Friends. Who was dating who. Who wanted to become mates already. Who liked—why were there so many topics on romance alone? Munchie shook himself. This one weird conversation was one asking the other what their favorite gummi flavor was, but apparently the other couldn't hear them very well, and they were blind, and they were very confused and very angry. He would've listened longer, just standing in the middle of the light brown-soiled pathway like a fool with his mouth agape, but long fingers snagged his furry arm and plowed him onward. Munchie hardly recognized this until it was too late and yanked back, squeaking profusely. Moments like this really did make him wish he was a skinny female munchlax. He might've fit the role a little better than where he was then. Would always be, as he saw it fit he'd never manage to get enough weight in him.
Crossing a few other roads, taking a barren lane, Munchie used the real pathway—not his sneaky side ones when he wanted to spy or just because they were his and no one else saw them—down to the shifted boulder in the ground of iron, large enough to reveal but not smother the hole that led with steps down, down, underground, to a cooled room of various shades of brown with wooden tables on the floor to use, much nicer than the guild's, and smoother, and also round, and some booth at the front of smooth pine wood with a spindly figure, long, lanky, red-spotted ears. Actually, her entire body had those red spots. She happened to be bipedal, and her eyes were odd, spindly colors that didn't sit still. Actually, she didn't sit still either, and spun around and around, a miniature hurricane that spun into Munchie's sight and sickened him. That was Mambo Bao. And she was a spinda, the spindliest of all spindas, no joke.
"Heeelooooooo, pokemoooonnnn~" she crowed, still going round and round. Her paws never left the ground and her hands opened freely, stretched like wings, spinning. Then out of nowhere she stopped and her freaky, multicolored gaze locked with his and Ashley's. Unlike Drynt's own gem-like eyes, those things made him freeze up. Plain freaky, no other words to describe it. "Suuuuup?" Mambo Bao pressed her head forward, lanky ears swinging, as she offered a chipper smirk and watched with those creepy eyes following Munchie and Ashley. He did not like that look. He did not like that spinda. Oh no.
"Oh, hell, yes! I like the way this bitch talks!" Ashley's own smirk sent her grinning cheekily. Squeaking at the sight of it, Munchie felt as if he had yet another reason to be different from her. And then yeah, he did. She liked Mambo Bao. The girl made him sick. But he still liked Ashley, of course, for some reason. His first friend, that chimchar, as aggravating as she could go, she was still Ashley, and he still liked her. "So... mmmmmmm... we've got... this." An unruly splat, and Ashley's outstretched hand dropped the slightly-sweaty clump of gummis. "So how the hell does this work?"
Mambo Bao watched creepily, then snatched all of the freaking gummis with one of her tiny, pale hands and mashed them together rather melodramatically, giggling at each squerch, squerch, squerrrchhhh noise. Her multicolored orbs sparked out on their own, twirling eagerly in different mixtures of colors, from purple to gray to a bright, milky, sickening white, then red like there's nothing wrong. Then blue. Which was a little more normal. Also Munchie had blue eyes, so he could understand that; though Ashley did have that strange, fiery mix of orbs that related to the red earlier; but Munchie didn't want to think of it. Fuzzy dusky blue hands rose and covered the hope-rimmed orbs with more dull dark colors, like he was the shadows the others talked like he was of. Ashley, on the other hand, was not a shadow but a bright almost terrifying firework that sparkled on its own. He was the shadow beside it. But he liked Ashley, and Ashley liked him, and there was peace. There wouldn't always be peace, but there was then.
Once that sickening spinda moved her paws off of his chimchar friend's gummi paste thing—thing—that utterly disgusted him, she mashed the mixture into a little, wooden cup drawn with a hasty spiral of purples and pinks, and twirled around some more, and stopped. "And dooneeee!" Mambo Bao pawed the cup over to the left of the booth, where Ashley impatiently waited, long fingers tearing into the milky-colored wood with a scraaaaaaannnch. Then she dropped it in favor of the cup and seemed ready to dunk the entire mix into her face but stopped, hesitated. Turning toward the shadow-like munchlax beside her, she mumbled a few hesitant words—and curses—and pointed awkwardly to the top of the cup. Sample it. Try some. She was giving him a bit of it to taste. Squeaking, Munchie took the cup in his shaky hands and found it a smooth, gentle surface that was a little hard to grip at first, but he grew used to it as the swirling mixture of blue, red, and green drew up to his lips and he swallowed a small portion. Good seemed a little like an understatement as the sudden rush of colors and fiber and anti-indigestion kicked in, sending quite the flavorful mixture up his mind where the sugar rush was resting until it set up by the smack and Munchie fell straight to the floor on his knees. WHUMP. Ashley, giggling beside herself, scooped up her cup and tried it herself. Sluuuuuuuuuurrrr—puh.
Licked her lips. Looked thoughtful. Then, "HOLY HELL. I have NEVER BEFORE IN MY ENTIRE FUCKING LIFE TASTED SOMETING THIS HOLY." Then she crashed into the ground, straight on her face, and Munchie winced at the crack of tooth on floor. She didn't spit any of the small, neat, little nubs in her maw, but his own crooked slits ached at the sound of what hers must have felt. The sickly sweet scent of that gummi mix spiraled up his nostrils, and he nearly fell on his face too. Somehow Munchie balanced on the balls of his knees. No one could see them underneath his layers of shifty blue fur, but he sure felt how jarred they were that point on, a jolt tearing from the tongue he'd bitten to those knees. "SHIT." Aaaand she was done. "FUCKING SHIT." Nope, then she was—"BITCH FUCKING MORSELS OF PURE ASS JOY." He couldn't tell any more when Ashley would finish. A cute little baby burp boomed from her mouth. Was she done? Probably. Maybe. He was done guessing and failing. In the corner of his eyes, Mambo Bao was shoving her paws into her mouth and loudly slurping all of the juices off. Thank goodness he'd only had a small lick of taste, because his appetite only went downhill from there. Yes, a munchlax could lose his lunch. Not often, but that disgusting spinda could have made him barf right then and there. He didn't, though. Not then.
And again a shock wave—what had he done for her..? For Ashley..? Snorting, trying to conceal a sniffle, Munchie decided he'd one day get over this guilt somehow. Figure it out. Do something. He'd... get over not touching her. It'd take awhile, but Munchie had to. This guilt wallowing inside of him was relying on it. Yes. Reliance. On him. He sucked in a breath, pulled himself to the ground again, and with his feet safely on cool, packed dirt, Munchie brought a hand toward the deaf chimchar in front of him, still collapsed. His eyes caught her hands, flung weakly in front of her, the cup dribbling a small residue of the sticky, sweet mixture. Munchie was tempted to lick the rest of it out but decided against it. Right. Mambo Bao. Right. Help Ashley up. He could... do... this. Hand extended, shivering, shaking, he would move downward slowly and snatch her hand up and therefore pull the orange smudge of a chimchar up to her long toes. He chewed on his lip with those crooked teeth, brooded over it. Brooded over what? All he had to do was move his stupid fingers. Munchie, move your fingers. Move them down. Come on, come on...
They inched downward a little. Just the slightest. Yes. He scooted them further. Yes yes yes. Just a... a lot more. And he'd be down on the floor, and he'd help his friend up—he could do this. Yes yes—oh. Oh no. What was he thinking? This was a horrible idea and he would be so so hated for this he was dumb and ugly and no don't do this Munchie stop. And he scrambled back and fell on his rump and sighed slowly, falling back down onto his back, eyes widening and shrinking then dilating again at a slow, inconsiderate pace. His head throbbed. What he'd just done... was he so close, or so far? Or... How come he couldn't do anything for Ashley? Why did he have to be so... dumb? So mean to her? It smashed his heart open. He'd never be able to do anything for the poor girl... and no matter how badly he wanted to, she'd never realize... It killed him on the inside. Smacked his heart right open and fell out of his hand. Dumb Munchie. Stupid Munchie. And he stayed there, flat on his back, until Ashley stirred, Mambo Bao stopped creepily slurping on her hands, and he tried to hide his emotions. Ashley must have felt something was up—she wasn't stupid—because she was quieter on their trip back to the guild, maybe a little colder. He didn't listen to what anyone had to say about the green ninja butthead or any other affairs, or anything. He just felt heavy and terrible.
Time passed.
Munchie and all of his buddies of Spirit Bright got into a few scuffles, he saw, but not all too many. All cheerful banter that meant nothing. Mystery Dungeons were explored rather regularly after the wigglytuff was completely assured that nobody had gone nocturnal. There was not another chore-like time from what he saw, realizing everyone procrastinated for the last possible moment, against Drynt's or Chindu's not very hidden grunts about how they should, and no one did anyway, as if they were being ignored—though they weren't. It just seemed like Spirit Bright wasn't much up for chores. He and Ashley slept in the scoop of a cave with Byrender, and they would continue to sleep in that area until another chore-like day occurred and the beds were accidentally-on-purpose rearranged. Byrender, even in sleep, had a deep, jolly sort of snore that was comforting to listen to if either he or she randomly woke in the middle of the night. Ashley found it amusing as well; Munchie just saw it... nice. Strange, sure, but he found it nice. The snoring. Byrender's voice was always in perfect tempo, and he didn't seem to realize how popular and beautiful it was, but that just made it seem even better. A real and natural beauty, oddly enough.
Spirit only introduced Munchie and Ashley to the nearer places first, and always, always, the whole guild went to places together. They did disappear a few times, and sometimes Ashley would disappear too, and she'd come back grumbling about Influence or just Inf, whoever he or she happened to be. If that even was a pokemon at all. It sort of, just... sounded like it, odd enough, even with that funky sort of a name. Influence. Munchie had this bad, sinking feeling she liked Influence a lot, and if Munchie went missing, she wouldn't be crowing about him like that, no way. Then again, he felt that way about everything. But still, that especially. Even his... closest friend. Sad. Sad of him. Oh well.
Jordan and Mystic and Drynt and Byrender and Chindu and Spirit, with Ashley and Munchie, saw the plains of the Foggy Forest, and something after it that held a sheen of rainbows. They heard the whispers in the Brine Cave and felt swirling, burning flames of the Northern Desert. The Southern Desert, who they called the older sister, lay a tangled, twisting mass far below that Spirit deemed fairly obvious he had no hope of going to. For some reason, they avoided going on those rounds and the Waterfall Cave, pretty as it was, specifically. Munchie found an odd liking to the shining waves dashing down by the flow of gravity and verses of nature, and the silvery cave melded as one to shining edges. He just did. And yet they didn't go back. He'd tried asking little blue-finned Mystic why, but her head shook like this was seriously annoying to her. He didn't think the mudkip found anything annoying, having a chance to gabble the most especially. But it looked as if she wanted to spill. Spirit, at those times, especially had something funky clogged up in those cloudy, green orbs.
Munchie hated that part of him, that eavesdropper part of him, but he could just tell they were hiding something big, shifty, and heavy, something incredibly important about the guild, from him and Ashley. But they wouldn't even spill. Not a little. And Waterfall Cave continued to be voided like the plague, like the plague he'd thought he was. Still... he felt as if there was something with those pokemon of Spirit Bright, no matter what went on, they couldn't say. He wanted to know, wanted to be united with those guys, but they felt obliged to stay silent. It made him sad. And that surprised him; was he a disease now? Now that... these emotions really choked on him. Guilt and anger especially hardened. He was upset about something, and it boiled, and... ugh. Just... ugh. Munchie blinked tired eyes. Days bore on, and he couldn't tell what to feel. It eked up inside of him, pent up, spilling with other internal emotions.
And then suddenly something snapped because he was alone again and he hated it, he hated being alone, hated being flung apart like this by the other pokemon and having to call out for them and have one of them find him. Yep—he was right. It'd happen, but it fizzed over and howled a wicked storm in him that he couldn't keep his fingers wrapped around, couldn't control even. His heart was seized in a tizzy and he didn't want this to happen anymore, tired of just sitting around and letting this happen to him without doing anything. "Aah... why do thiss..? Why... do... this..." Guilt seeped in him like a sponge coalesced his figure and you know what: the sponge was too full to handle it, this time around. "A-auUGH!" Guilty for missing them, for wanting to be with them when he couldn't always, for having friends and then screwing it up, doing all of this, he cried out in spite of himself and his hand crumpled against a wall of watered-down stone. Drenched Bluff. They were in Drenched Bluff. Munchie's mouth screwed up and he punched the wall again, couldn't take it. "Why do you have to leave me?" he wailed softly to himself. It was like claws stabbed through his heart and worked at disconnecting it and they didn't even know hearts couldn't be disconnected.
"There you are, my favorite fucker!"
"Stop... stop leaving me alreaAADY!" Munchie didn't really feel it, but she did.
"Uh, what? I always do this. And you're always fine with it. Hell, everyone disappears for some reason. You know why I do, not a damn thought why they do. And I thought you were okay. You look fine. Don't you feel fine? Good enough? Yo—"
"No." Simple. "No, I... Ashley, stop it!" Her attitude lit up in him. "Stop it! Stop being so casual and sassy and uncaring! I have feelings, and you all just... just..! Look at you! I hate being left out! I've... I don't! I don't like this, I don't like you, I don't want to care and now I do and it's killing me!" He could hardly tell what he was saying, just that words fell out and charred his heart with every screech. "YOU ACT SO CASUAL LIKE I DON'T MATTER! DO I MATTER, THEN? DO I EVEN... DO I?" He couldn't feel it. Couldn't feel... something... Something sticky and knobby in his throat. Couldn't feel it. Coughed. Guilt. Fire. Anger.
"A-ah! Munchie! What the fuck are you talking about?!"
"YOU ALL KEEP DISAPPEARING ON ME AND I HATE IT! I FEEL LIKE YOU'RE ALL JUST HIDING THINGS AND IT SPITES ME AND..." He sucked in a breath, turned around, head rested against the soppy walls, feet grinding over tears and over water. Mumbled a few words. Mumbled them louder, though she read him fine. "Go away."
"Munchie..?"
His mind lashed out, lashed at him, lashed at him, flogged him, hit him, bit him. "Go away. Go away. Go away." He took a step back blindly, bumped into something, spat out the words again. "Go away. Go away." And he ran off before she could lift a finger to anything about it. Down slippery corridors, past the idiot bumbling pokemon, over cliffs that shocked him with pain as he fell down, jolted through his bones, and he kept on going. Water seeped into his limbs, made him feel the chill like a bite of poison. Cuts scraped over his cheeks until a patchwork of red—yes, red—messed clotted him and his mouth ached from doing nothing. His knees could easily be seen by the colorful assortment of bruises lining them. Tears came and went. Emotions swerved. Munchie felt terrible, and he couldn't figure out why, he just kept going. Didn't run into anyone and eventually fell out of that Mystery Dungeon and slipped through to another. And another. And another. He didn't even stop to name them as Chindu'd taught them to, just kept going. His eyes watered and something sucked on his throat from the inside. It was cold and sad and angry at him, angry at everything. He was angry too. At himself. He didn't know why but he was and it felt righteous.
Munchie didn't stumble upon any food. His stomach gnawed hungrily at something inside of him, and he cried a lot still. Emotions left in fleeting glimpses and he ached. He just ached. Everything ached. Life was washed out of his eyes and all that remained were the eggshell-blue lines, like rings on a planet, that held into his orbs because they couldn't leave, not even if he wanted so badly. They'd never leave his eyes. Munchie didn't feel very hopeful but he looked like he did, and he didn't. His pangs and aches came and went, and he spent more time sleeping than moving at some point, but found something icky and purple on the floor, hard as a rock, gnawed at it, and then he was moving again. Grimy tongue from the arid taste licked at a dry mouth, dry lips, dry, crooked teeth: always crooked.
Where was he? Munchie immediately from even the slight training he'd had from Spirit Bright could label it as the Landslide Cave—why so many caves—and he had no idea how long he'd been out, but everything had started aching in one go. He choked on his own spit and tears and blood and whatever other fluids contaminated him. He felt like he'd been crying a lot but that he'd stop now and he'd be okay. He also missed his friends. It pounded in him. The guilt he'd been idiotically storing had all but deserted him, all but the seed of Beach Cave. He wanted to be nicer to Ashley again, but it was less a guilt and more a need, a want, to... be kinder to her. He hated that shock of emotion he'd seen on her little, pale face when he yelled at her and ran off and he felt horrible then, too. He missed jovial, outgoing Byrender, and cynical Jordan, sweet, glittery Mystic, and soft-spoken Drynt. He missed the gay leader and next-in-command. He missed them, but he'd been crying so long about so much that he couldn't muster much else but a weak sigh. "I should go look for them now." And it was decided. Right then. He would go look for them now. Shaking his twisted head and sticky, dusky fur, Munchie weakly blinked his hope-rimmed orbs and smiled crookedly to himself on the musty ground filled with odd, jubilant music. He could've sworn a second ago it was a mournful whisper, but then bam not so likely.
Wandering with aim, with real aim and real reason, Munchie croaked to himself, gently coaxed his soft voice with the husk to come back out again, and eventually he could whisper to himself, then bloomed and he could talk in that soft tone and he smiled to himself even at the tiny accomplishment of his own crummy voice recovering. The aches and pains quickly demolished, as Mystery Dungeons quickly healed—thank goodness, as everyone always accumulated enough scratches to kill a handful of small bugs in there and would be in bad conditions throughout if not for the quick recovery—and the cuts, and the bruises, and everything else, withered, until Munchie was left with smooth, silky fur again, the color of the ocean at midnight. He smiled to himself. Better. Then... there was that problem, and it sunk to his stomach.
Would... they still like him? After deserting Ashley like that? Being so... mean and rude to everyone? Would they like him or hate him now? He shuddered, because he saw the outcome very well. Hate blew into his ears like a stream of fire. He shuddered again, but shuffled on, because he still wanted to make amends and apologize and hear them out and let them torch him with their anger. He wanted to be... nice like that. Sort of. Munchie wanted to let them do whatever they deemed fit to him. Maybe... he'd befriend that green ninja butthead. They could be lonely together and live through their lonesome lives not alone but with the other. Yeah, but... he... really liked those guys... and now he was going to say good-bye to them because he was so dumb... Munchie didn't like that. He tried to stifle a sniffle, but it didn't really work and he coughed on a sob, started choking on it. It was sad. Real sad. Pathetic of him.
But he had nothing else to do, so Munchie wandered on, hoping they maybe might like him a little bit still. Maybe a little. He sauntered out of the Landslide Cave and its warped music and yellowed halls, then fumbled through a small Steam Cave route filled with orange cracks and steam and all of that wet stuff, jumped past any sides of Waterfall Cave, remembering what Spirit had said, and continued searching onward. He didn't go near the north, since he'd last seen his friends relatively close by—Drenched Bluff was only... slightly north of their home, so he saw no reason to try Northern Desert, little sister of Southern Desert. And no, he wasn't checking the elder of them either. Both deemed bad ideas that probably wouldn't work anyways. No. Wouldn't work whatsoever.
Munchie began treading past this meadow area with daisies he hadn't seen prior, but recalled what its name was... well. What do you know—Tiny Meadow. Yep, that had to be it. Blueberry Park, if he recalled correctly, was to the right somewhere. His right, from where he stood. And the Apple Woods must have been nearby as well. Chindu kept heavily hinting they might need to restock soon, which Munchie found crazy because how many apples did they have in that mess hall already? But... they'd go there, if they ever needed it. Munchie didn't understand how Chindu could be considering that. How... when... would they ever need more of those apples? Shaking his head giddily, Munchie's eyes traced and suddenly the wind was out of him and something slumped over and red glinted by his chest and turquoise like curtains billowed over him. An embrace; a hug. Squirming, Munchie might have fallen out of that grip if it wasn't so... killer. Like... someone he knew. He took a glance at the red dagger in the chest, realized that he shouldn't look there this was a lady, Munchie, for crying out loud, and he laughed awkwardly.
Jordan just pursed her lips and muttered, "Where have you been? We've been worried sick." They... what? "Munchie, we've been searching all over for you. Chindu even got crazy enough to search Northern Desert. We... oh my goodness we were so worried about you. We haven't even seen Ashley yet, but last I'd heard... her face was ashen and she was really... upset. And she said she was looking for you, so said Byrender, but she ran off." Oh... no... he'd upset her... His heart, like a stone, hit rock-bottom and sank and filled with holes. "Thank goodness you're not harmed anywhere. Oh... my gosh... I told Spirit we should just let you guys in, but he has to be so careful about who to tell that... it's hard. I felt like we should, Byrender felt like we should, the others felt like we should, but there's also how careful we have to be. I... we have to find the others, but I can quickly let you in. I trust you. We all trust you. You should have seen how much Drynt was crying"—wait, Drynt was crying? He actually... had tears in his eyes because..? Him?—"I'm so thankful. You're definitely part of us.
"Basically, the Mystery Dungeons are a lot more important than you'd think they are. There's a spoke in the middle of Zundentun, in the midst of all of these Mystery Dungeons, so it's kind of far off from that little point of Treasure Town. It's surrounded by some strange... very strange lands, but in different parts of Zundentun, there are... these things. Time gears. They're... basically the same color as a greenie's eyes. Or Spirit's eyes. And there's one in... a few different places. Bad things are supposed to happen if they aren't maintained or go missing. And we don't know what happens if we lose that spoke, by losing those time gears, and we really don't want to. So we disappear to protect them."
They...
They...
"Munchie, we need to find the others."
He nodded numbly. They did. His head ached. He blinked to himself quietly. Yeah. They did. His head hurt. Yep. Yeah. Ow.
Me: Aah... thank you Jordan for ending that.
Jordan: don't mind if I do~
Me: hwaah, so regal and cool.
Jordan: Uh okay.
Me: yes.