A flash of a Rhydon. A flash of a plain, burnt and blackened ground under a gray sky. A bit of her home. The massive trees she knew were only seen in a precious few other places in the world. Then, Hannah was three.
Hannah wasn't sure how these families normally were, but everything seemed normal to her. Her mother, a Rhydon, rarely went out to work. She left about two or three times a month. From what Hannah gathered, she punished bad pokemon and got rewards.
Every other day, her mother taught her about life. They lived in the Verde Woods. They were alone here, besides the birds and animals she learned how to hunt. When she wasn't being taught about surviving on her own, she was being taught the names of different kinds of pokemon species. Since before she could remember, she knew most of their names, though.
Hannah was a Minccino with eyes like deep water who loved to talk. She didn't understand why she enjoyed making her voice wavy and loud until her mother explained what singing was. She started to do it every day, all day. Her voice started to get sharper as she changed it to sound nicer to her mother's ears.
Sometimes, Hannah asked to leave the forest. Her mother promised that they would when she was old and learned enough to protect herself and survive. Hannah decided to trust her.
When Minccino Hannah turned eight, her mother started to explain more about what she did for them. Rhydon sat the Minccino down in front of a small fireplace during the winter months of her eighth year and told stories of how she was a "bounty hunter".
Bounty hunters would get rewarded for bringing down bad people and making them atone for their crimes in different ways.
During one of those talks in front of the flickering fireplace, Hannah came up with a question. She sat side by side with her mother. Hannah copied how she sat with her legs crossed.
"What's the difference between someone good and someone bad?"
"Well," Rhydon answered, "good people are nice to others because that's how we're naturally supposed to be. Acting out of negative wants makes a person bad, but it can get complicated."
"But how can I know if I'm good or bad if there's no one else to be nice to?" Hannah asked.
"Train your connection to our creator, and I'll take you from this forest out into the world when you're ready."
"When?"
"I still have things to teach you. You'll know when you're ready."
The following spring, Rhydon strangely began to teach her how she might have to hurt other people if she wanted to do the right thing. It didn't make sense. Her mother compared it to how families of animals defended each other. She taught how to use moves and abilities, then made her do challenges with them every day in the woods.
On her tenth birthday, Rhydon had baked her a cake from the things they grew around the woods. It tasted different somehow.
Minccino Hannah sat in front of the fireplace facing Rhydon instead of sitting on her lap. Her mother explained that there were groups of people called nations. They were all across the world, and made because living together with others was easier than living alone.
Her mother reminded her of bad people, and explained that bad people created disharmony between these nations. Hannah learned what war was.
As the days passed, her mother continued to explain that one of these wars had happened on their same continent, between two kingdoms called Valor and Verity. Hannah understood how kingdoms functioned as she read books her mother brought her from outside of the woods.
Hannah began to think about her mother and how she acted around her. She asked her directly, "why do you look tired when you talk about the war? It's bad, but I feel like something's wrong?"
Rhydon turned from the plants they were gathering for dinner at the bottom of an ever enormous tree. She promised to explain that night, and she did in front of the fireplace facing her again.
Her mother had been a part of that war, so she knew things. Hannah asked a question she hadn't in years after her mother reacted negatively.
"Who's my father?" Hannah asked.
Rhydon's face stayed calmer than last time; she had prepared.
"You remember how I explained where eggs come from?" she asked.
"Yes," Hannah said.
"Well... I didn't create your egg, so physically speaking. Well, I mean... Physically, I'm not…" She cleared her throat. "I'm not your… biological mother."
Hannah thought about it for a short moment, but it didn't mean that much to her in the end. She was still her mother. But now, she grew curious.
"Then who are the two that made my egg?" Hannah asked.
Hannah felt Rhydon's heartbeat jump. She waited patiently for the answer. She kept her eyes focused ahead and her voice soft.
"Do you remember the stories about princes and princesses I told you when you were younger? And that Valor and Verity are kingdoms?"
"Yes," Hannah answered. Chills swarmed around the edge of her fur.
"Your parents were in the war. They were both royalty but they met secretly by chance. And they did something against the rules... But they made you in the process."
"I'm a princess?" Hannah asked. The sentence sounded weird after she spoke it.
"Yes," Rhydon answered.
"And what happened to my parents?"
"Valor and Verity are nations that take their bloodlines seriously. I'm sorry, but your parents aren't here anymore."
A deep pang of disappointment rolled through the air. Hannah breathed in deep.
"I love you, Hannah," her mother said, "but I stole you from them because they weren't going to let you be born, and that wasn't fair to you. You should be living your own life like how you are now. No one knows you're still alive, and that's why you're safe. But I want you to promise me you'll only leave when I say you're strong enough in case anyone finds out."
The woods looked the same as they always did, but the Minccino's training got ever more serious. It was a rare occurrence, but she would fight wild bears for practice while her mother wasn't looking. Someday, beasts much more dangerous could come for her. Soon, they began to stay away from her, so she found paths to take and rocks over gentle rives to jump over and balance on.
Hannah's efforts increased with her desire to see different places and as her mother told her new kinds of stories. The Valorian soldiers had lots of heavyweight fights while the Veritan soldiers usually had superior strategies. Their cultures were radically different, but changing rapidly as war time began to fade away.
The two kingdoms had their first trade deals around when Hannah turned eleven. After she asked her mother to evolve, she went out on a trip for three days and returned with a Shiny Stone.
Hannah's usually messy fur started to gain a sheen as Rhydon showed her how to take care of it as a Cinccino. The habit of using plant oils and her black brush became daily, enjoyable habits.
In the spirit of teaching her more things about herself, Hannah's mother explained why the Valorian and Verian royal families were particular about their bloodlines. They spoke after dinner on a rainy evening. Two empty plates sat between them on a short table. The pitter patter of rain on the roof soothed the cool air.
"There are these special traits that run in the Valorian and Veritan royal families," said Rhydon. "They're called the Valorian and Veritan blessings. They were inherited from the first king of Valor and queen of Verity, Azelf and Mespirit. People with the Valorian blessing don't feel fear. Their bodies are incapable of it."
"Fear?" Hannah asked. "Like, being afraid?"
"Like when you see a deer, and it runs away," she explained. "When it sees you, it thinks you're dangerous. Its body reacts to this thought by making it feel jittery and having more energy to help it run."
"Oh."
"For the Veritan royal blessing, they are able to read other's emotions and have stronger ones 've had some tantrums in the past."
Hannah shifted, embarrassed.
"If you don't have good maintenance, you can often feel like you've lost control," said Rhydon. "It's very dangerous. When you feel like this, remember to wait out your feelings and make decisions without them sometimes."
"So, the whole families have these blessings?" Hannah asked.
"Not entirely. In order to pass it down, the person outside of the family has to go through a ceremony. They have to drink the energized blood of their partner. Only after that can they have a son or daughter who will inherit it. Because of this ceremony, the blessing does not travel outside of the royal family. That's usually how it is, but your parents didn't do that."
Confusion passed through Hannah. She waited for an explanation.
"Somehow," said Rhydon, "the Vertian and Valorian blessings passed down by themselves when they had you together. I don't know how this happened, but… Well, this information points towards the royal families having some common ancestor. It's not information that your families wanted to get out."
As the next months passed, Hannah's mother started to get very confident in her. For some reason, Hannah couldn't get herself to feel the same way. It was hard to relate her skill to an outside world she had never been to.
When Hannah turned twelve, her mother said she was said she'd be comfortable in a few more months. All over the house, she could constantly feel the ripples of worry, and stress ebbing off her mother from that answer.
On Cinccino Hannah's fourteenth birthday, she felt something woke her up in the dead of night.
Hannah stood up from her bed, and went outside of the small circular house. Her mother was away on a short trip overnight, so she was alone with the crickets and fireflies. Cool fog fluttered against her skin as she swayed. Invisible droplets of water formed on the edges of her fur.
Hannah grew accustomed to taking walks without having a destination in mind, but that feeling eluded her. She happened to be walking in a certain direction. Nothing called her there but her empty mind.
The fog made the woods seem different, but Hannah knew the layout too well. She didn't recognize how the trees were positioned here, even though she knew what was normally in this direction. It disturbed her and forced her onward.
A tiny mound of soil that caught her eye. Hannah noticed some kind of object's shadow sticking up from on top of it. She slowly stepped up to the mound to get a closer look.
It was a dark blue, or kind of a purple color. It had a strange shape, like a normal horn but made from triangles. It reached up past her stomach.
Hannah picked it up out the mound. She could almost make out something from it when she felt it's smooth surface. It faded quickly; the ghost of some strange, powerful emotion.
The fog had slowly started to clear when she made her way back towards her house with the muddy horn in her hands. Before heading back, Hannah cleaned off the mud in a nearby river. It gained a bit of sheen in the light of the fireflies.
Hannah barely remembered going to sleep, but she woke up to a small, distant noise of footsteps. She took the horn that was leaning against the dilapidated wall inside her house walked outside.
Rhydon approached the door from a short distance away across the grass. She smiled with a bag slung over her shoulder. Cinccino Hannah ran up to her with her usual excitement and welcoming smile.
"Welcome home!" Hannah said.
"Thank you, Hannah," Rhydon returned. "Did you sleep well? What do you have there?"
Hannah presented the horn to her mother. Rhydon set down her bag, held her eyes close to it, and scanned it over.
"I found this last night," Hannah explained, "it was pretty foggy. Do you know what it is?"
"I think I do..."
Rhydon reached for the horn. A miniature, gold lightning bolt lashed out at her hand. She retreated with a small, quick cry of surprise. Hannah retracted it back while Rhydon rubbed her hand a bit.
"Mom!?" Hannah asked. "Sorry, are you okay?"
"Yes, yes," her mother said. "I'm fine. I think it only likes you, though."
Rhydon shook out her hand and looked up and down the horn again.
"It's a horn of a mythical class pokemon species called a Keldeo," she said. "They say that after a Keldeo dies, their spirit can stay in their horn if they feel like they haven't completed a mission in their lives. Centuries can go by without a single Keldeo being born, though... I don't know how you managed to find something like this."
"Can you teach me how to use it?" Hannah asked.
"You mean for fighting? I could, but..."
Hannah strangely detected a bit of aggression coming out soon. It captured her attention.
"I could teach you just about everything, but it's not the same as learning," her mother said.
"Then I can just teach myself, or something," Hannah said. "I mean, with some more time I'll learn how to use this."
"Hannah..."
Rhydon bent down to Cinccino Hannah's eye level. Hannah trembled.
"It's time to leave," her mother said.
"I'm not ready," Hannah said.
"Hannah, it's time to pack our things."
"We can't take everything with us."
"Then leave things behind. Hannah."
Rhydon pulled Hannah into a big hug and kissed her forehead. Rhydon rubbed her back comfortingly.
"Pack your things."