15.
BetrɅyed
"Why?" Cyllene asked.
Deadpan. With an edge, even. With the bite of two years' misery, weighed against sunsets and sea breezes and the perfume of woodsmoke still soaking her short hair at dawn.
"Because that's what we've decided," Zisu said as she folded another blanket. Her curls bounced like a wild mane, freed from the ponytail.
"I didn't decide that."
Her best friend shrugged without even looking at her. "I'm not staying here any longer. I've had it. Bonn and I are taking the boys to Johto. We're going to stay with his brother and his wife in the capital, Gilderang."
She straightened, then, a bundle of clothes in her arms. "You need to come with us. It'll be easy to find clerical work in the city. You can grow your hair out long again, too."
You hate loud, cramped cities, Cyllene thought. Or some sector of her galaxy brain thought, because the fuzzy stars in that corner were urging Your husband is a lazy coward who follows your every whim, while the chorus of space dust went back to the argument of You're talking down to me again. You think you know what I want. You've decided? I didn't decide. I didn't decide anything. I think I even like my hair this short. Better for the summer.
"It's time for something different," Zisu said while Cyllene was too busy thinking of how to respond in the snippiest way possible. "It's another big change, but that's just the adventure of life."
"It's been two years."
"I thought that was too long for you."
"It's been a harrowing two years, I'll admit. But I still want to believe the expedition can be successful. I want to be part of the future, like Kamado said."
Her friend shook her head, gray eyes smoldering. The lid of her trunk swung down and shut with a satisfying thunk. She looped one thick hand through the rope handle on the side and began dragging it toward the door.
"Kamado told me if I put these muscles to work, then in one year I could bake my own milk buns in a house with carpet and indoor plumbing, and he'd have the plans for two more villages paid for by the Kantonese elite. Two years ago, when I was a foolish bride-to-be, I believed him. Now I'm a mother, praying to 'Almighty Sinnoh' that a wild Pokémon takes my children from me before that sick man does."
At that, Cyllene crossed her arms, incredulous.
"Kamado knows he's sick. He knows he was grieving when he launched the expedition. Obviously he didn't think everything through at the start. Not everyone here is a 'Shining Star' in his Galaxy. That's why he made me his counselor—"
"Shame on you, Cy! Open your eyes! No one here is a 'Shining Star!' Kamado didn't set out to gather a 'Galaxy of Shining Stars!' He took anyone he could dupe into following him! You're not a swordsman! You're a scrivener! You used to forge receipts for my father's shoddy foot cream business!"
The trunk scraped and against the floorboards. Ash and grease smeared along its winding track between twin cradles and the dusty, puckered shreds of fabric stitched into a quilt. Cyllene waited until the noise ceased, and calmly shot back.
"I'm Kamado's counselor. I'm conducting a biological survey of the entire Hisui region. I can face down violent Pokémon the same way you can, being only half your size and strength. And I'm a scrivener, and I've survived this long, being only a scrivener. Don't think I'm that awkward, bookish girl you can just drag along on all your adventures, Zisu. I'd like to view our bond as something stronger than that."
She realized she was now blocking the door Zisu wanted to exit through. And staring at the splitting, splintered floorboards. Cyllene tried to lift her chin, but she knew she couldn't look Zisu in the eye. It had been building for so long — this regret — this bitterness — this grudge against the one who held her close and told her she was beautiful. And now… faced finally with the chance to start again, somewhere far away, somewhere safe…
Zisu dropped the trunk. She let out a long sigh, slumping against the wall next to her friend.
"You know, for a very long time, I'd hoped Eiffel would marry you and we could all get out of here together. You wouldn't have to feel 'dragged along' then."
"Oh, what utmost charity, woman," Cyllene bit.
"You realize we might never see each other alive again."
"If you leave me."
The tall woman joined in looking at the floor. When she finally responded, her voice was deep and full of sorrow.
"I haven't even told Bonn this, but I dream when I sleepwalk. I have these vivid dreams that I'm wearing a crown and people are trying to steal it from me. And there's fire. So much fire. It's all around me. It's burning my clothes. I'm breathing in smoke and coughing cinders."
Cyllene nodded, but still refused to look at her.
"It sounds like the tall tale you'd tell back in Hoenn. You're actually royalty cheated of your riches by fire."
"But it's not like the tale," Zisu said, her voice quavering. "It's so much worse. Because in the dream the crown isn't even mine to begin with, but for some reason I can't take it off. And… now that those frenzied Pokémon are hunting us…"
Us, she said. Sleepwalkers. Under a spell, or inhabited by spirits, or suffering from a disease no one knew how to cure. Cyllene wanted to squirm at the way Kamado had described it in private. The dead girl. The zealous young Warden. The beast with the augurite blades…
"Do you believe in curses?" she asked, remembering what Ginter had told her in the wagon.
Zisu couldn't respond. There was no more time for arguing. A flurry of bells was ringing right outside, with the guardsmen inviting everyone in the village to a mandatory meeting outside the sparring hall.
"We have to go," Zisu said. "I'm escorting iridA."
Cyllene nodded and shoved past her out the door.
It began like a ceremony.
And not just because Kamado was wearing a full black suit of armor.
I told him not to wear that, Cyllene thought, alarmed as the Commander marched in clunkily from the left, keeping a perturbed-looking adamaN's shoulder in a vice grip. The Sekki's Leafeon padded beside, and right behind them was that spindly, long-haired Warden of the Diamond Clan — tsubakI, and his brutish Skuntank.
From the right, then, came Zisu, a firm hand on iridA's back. The Kkai had donned a small red gi and leggings, hair pushed back by a ribbon rather than her broken tiara. She kept her expression as fierce as she could, her Glaceon keeping close with its tail in the air. Behind them marched a bushy-haired boy of about twelve, whose eyes were glued to the ground. He wore the white-and-magenta tunic of the Pearl Clan and kept his face hidden in the shadow of a wide-brimmed hat.
The two parties met in the center of the crudely-drawn battlefield in the front yard of the sparring hall. They turned, then, to face the crowd. The whole village had gathered, interspersed with people in tunics of deep blue and magenta. The setting sun made every face bronzed and sharp — fearful, or merely confused.
No one smiled. Cyllene, from her position at the front of the crowd, didn't expect it. Eiffel looked about as grave as she'd ever seen him. He'd dressed up in his best silk waistcoat and combed his curls into something presentable, bowtie cinched in place around his neck.
He stole a glance and sent Cyllene the flicker of a smile. Cyllene merely shifted her gaze back to the papers in her hands. In truth, she'd hoped to spy Ginter. Best to keep an eye on the Guildmaster in these moments of tension, she reasoned. He was mischievous, cursed and dying or not…
Cyllene straightened her spine and exhaled. Kamado was summoning her with his cold, dark glare. She matched it. Surpassed it. Calmly marched out of the crowd to the front, where she stood between two feuding Clan leaders with the weight of their war on her shoulders.
She took one last glance at the papers, then folded them and turned that glare to her audience.
"For the clarity of all," she began, her voice loud and unwavering, "we, the Officers of the Galaxy Expedition Team, must address all recent concerns brought forth by you, the people of Jubilife Village, and our courteous neighbors, the Diamond Clan and the Pearl Clan."
Instantly, the crowd shifted and whispered. The shrewd among them knew how dire things were — when the Commander wouldn't speak, deferring an address to a Captain and standing silent in the background. There would be further questions. Further doubts. Further concerns all directed at her. Unless they found her just as weak and fragile, what with her "beguilement" and not-so-secret crying spells…
Captain Cyllene spoke first of the drought. Of how the creek had lowered to a sloshing rivulet, just barely turning the waterwheel, and how the crops were withering. She listed the symptoms of dehydration and heat stroke. Explained how saltwater might be boiled, and the steam collected and cooled for drinking.
The closest large source of freshwater was Lake Verity — a high-walled caldera in the Fieldlands. The Security Corps were charting out a safe passage there, hopefully avoiding the patrols of hungry Luxray. Meanwhile, the Survey Corps had made strides in teaching Rain Dance to seven Buizel, who could use it when exposed to either fresh or saltwater. It was enough to create pools for cooking and bathing, but its problem was maintenance, as the creatures tired easily, and the clouds they created evaporated almost immediately in direct sunlight.
She spoke then of all that was lost in the fire. The Agriculture Corps's trowels and seed packets and gloves. The Supply Corps's spreadsheets and catalogs and pallets. Eiffel's diploma and typewriter and drafts of the Poké Dex, his library and all his research. Extra blankets kept for an unkind winter. Pesselle's poultices and potions. Kamado's official log of affairs…
Fearful faces turned to tears at these words. The matron's nose was scrunched up in anger. Tao Hua shook his head, then craned it, no doubt also looking for a thieving Ginkgo Man. More than a few stormed off, ignoring this fraud of a Captain — this farce of an expedition — this hubris of a Galaxy, this curse of wishful thinking…
Rei clung to Eiffel, who raked his fingers through his curls, exhausted. Three little Pokémon huddled at his boots and chittered.
"I'm sorry," the professor mouthed at Cyllene, and she tripped on her words, some sentence about stolen screws slipping back down her throat.
Crinkled papers fell from thin fingers and softly drifted to the ground, unread. She dared not look back at Kamado. Dared not show unease or confusion. She scanned the crowd harder — scouring for that blue-and-yellow cap. But her mysterious confidant hadn't appeared. Still too sick. She hoped, at least.
The setting sun shimmered like fire from where it emerged between the sparse and distant trees. It glared in her eyes, and the crowd turned to writhing silhouettes. Faces faded into shadows that told her nothing…
Nothing…
Nothing.
Don't stand so stiffly, said the burning sun, voice clear and cool and deep and very much amused. You can be yourself.
Be myself? she thought.
The red pair of eyes in the glare blinked slowly.
Who are you really, Cyllene Selenelion?
"N… Nothing," Cyllene resumed, a bit startled. "Tomorrow, we'll begin again from nothing. If you're brave enough."
Yes, that sounded punchier. More fitting. Don't fight the unease. Use it. Say what mattered. What the crowd expected and wanted to hear.
"You've heard it said already," Cyllene said, the hair on her neck raising, "that what happened between March of N4320 and August of N4322 in Hisui is nothing but a legend. No record exists to report that any "Galaxy Expedition Team" was here, or tells what they did, and why it would matter.
"For instance, Cyllene the scrivener didn't exist. Neither did Eiffel Laventon, the hapless naturalist. Forget about Guildmaster Ginter, who claimed he was cursed and stole screws from the craftworks every night. No Commander Kamado, who promised milk buns and delivered a drought. Nor Zisu, heiress to the charlatan Perillas. They were all there, of course, but right as they were growing content, the sky tore open, and a fire burned their great hall and their story to ashes."
Shocked gasps rang out. Beneath the sun's glare Eiffel's expression called her uncouth. Zisu's was hurt. But why not tear it all down? Start again from nothing.
Nothing can remain.
She began to pace back and forth, hands folded in the small of her back, a light smile teasing at her lips. She watched adamaN squirming, then iridA puffing her chest. The Wardens behind them narrowed their gazes, fingering the thin, silver flutes tucked in their belts.
"Some among them started to sleepwalk. For no reason other than to add another plague on their persistence. They had dreams about burning circles that spoke to them, or false crowns and fire that surrounded them. They wrote poems they couldn't decipher, but spoke of Almighty Sinnoh — a deity none of them knew, nor could conceptualize, when the Clans that worshiped it were at each other's throats."
"Cyllene," Kamado hissed behind. She heard the shifting of fabric — adamaN bracing under the Commander's grip. A chill went through her chest, but her lips kept moving. The words kept coming.
Dance in a lightning storm. Don't think about the consequences.
"Now, listen to this twist. Each Clan hallows five Noble Pokémon. Ten altogether. They're apparently descended from ten Pokémon who witnessed Almighty Sinnoh long ago. You might remember that night when the lightning went wild. That was the night all ten Nobles were struck by lightning from that hole in the sky. Now they roam glowing and frenzied, and in the night, THEY HUNT AND KILL SLEEPWALKERS!"
The air exploded with curses. Rei whined and buried his face in Eiffel's chest. Zisu let go of iridA, marching over to where Cyllene had raised a fist in the air. Cyllene elbowed her hard in the stomach, sending a look that could freeze the moon. She ducked before Kamado could grab her shoulders, somersaulting to the left and grunting as she rolled in the dust and popped up again.
She didn't notice tsubakI creeping deftly out from behind adamaN and drawing his dagger.
"My knowledge of the situation is as good as yours," Cyllene told the agitated gathered, both fists clenched. "There were never any 'Shining Stars' among us. The expedition was always doomed to fail. We possessed something. We lost everything. Nothing has remained. Nothing can remain, unless you're strong enough to justify your existence in this cruel world."
Her heart was pounding now. Nausea rolled through her gut. She could taste her own pulse, and the dust in the air felt like fire against her skin. Thunder crackled in the distance. The dagger flashed in the setting sun, growing closer, raising…
"So tomorrow we'll reset everything. We'll start over again from zero. If you want to join me in that endeavor, I'll be happy to serve as your Captain. Otherwise, I won't judge you if you leave. I only ask that you remember my name, and pass it down to all of your descendants."
Something pricked her left shoulder, then. Not painfully. Just enough to sting. It was the dagger, which tsubakI intended to plunge through her back. And another sting. A bigger one, in her thigh, where Skuntank sank its teeth into her flesh.
She twitched that shoulder, and then flinched at the sound of knuckle meeting bone. The next second, Cyllene felt a heavy body shoving her to one side. She saw a pair of firm, bandaged arms clasp tight around her chest, and gasped in horror when she caught a glimpse of Kamado's huge hands clasped firm around tsubakI's throat.
adamaN wrenched her backwards, shoving her toward Zisu, and then stood, dumbfounded, at the scene before him.
"COMMANDER!" Cyllene cried. "DESIST AT ONCE!"
Now Kamado released his full fury. "YOU LITTLE IMP! TRYING TO MURDER MY FIRST OFFICER IN THE WALLS OF MY VILLAGE!?"
He landed a fist in tsubakI's gut. The spindly man folded and collapsed, heaving on the ground with all his teeth bared.
"Your officer, your Captain, your woman of authority, she has… insulted Almighty Sinnoh. She has offended… Him. She… has maligned Him. And she is a reflection, or a mirror, or a false image of yourself and your village… Commander."
Kamado stepped on tsubakI's chest, his sabaton pressing the creases out of the dark blue tunic.
"He's going to kill that Warden," Cyllene whispered. "Sekki, do something."
"I choose to respond in the negative," murmured adamaN. He stepped backwards, away from Kamado.
"What, are you scared?"
"I respond in the negative! You have received a vision!"
Cyllene failed to grasp his meaning. Quickly she undid the clasp on Abra's Poké Ball. The creature coalesced from steam, golden eyes open wide at the sight. With a sharp nod, she commanded it. Seconds later, it and Kamado had both disappeared into the oncoming darkness.
She then rushed to tsubakI, replacing that sabaton with her own soft sandal.
"Your war will not begin here," Cyllene told him. "Lord Kleavor's Warden has come to apologize for the death of maI. He will give penance in any way you demand, as long as it takes place away from the peace of our village."
The young boy beside iridA shivered and whimpered. The Kkai stepped forward, then, shaking her head.
"Over my silver-white carcass will my Warden suffer his fate at the hand of tsubakI. He is but a child, the servant of Kleavor, who suffered an injury, too, in his sleep."
She turned the boy around and lifted his tunic. Diagonally across his back was a long, thin slice wound sticky and crusted with scabs — a deep and rigid canyon in the flesh that shimmered blue-black with blotchy rashes around its rim.
The spindly Warden wriggled beneath the sandal. He was strong, and Cyllene required Zisu to place her own just a bit lower on his body to keep him in place.
Cautiously, adamaN approached. He pushed up his sleeves, face solemn and loose — none of that cockiness he'd kept upon first arriving. Instead, it was a quiet pride, a wisdom too great for his youth.
"I choose not to pursue revenge, nor begin a bloody war, Warden tsubakI. This ordinary woman of the Galaxy Team has seen a future that will take painstaking months and years — ages of patience and sacrifice — to see emerge. She speaks of erasing two years' memory and toil from her mind and this village, to begin again from nothing, with such assurance and authority in her heart that I believe Almighty Sinnoh has chosen to bless her with a vision, before us, today, right here. As His chief witness and servant, I, adamaN, son of cabronuS, The Sekki, do choose in this moment we all observe and recognize, to show The Kkai and her claN mercy, at least to perpetuate this peacetime the Galaxy Team woman speaks of, and prove that Almighty Sinnoh is the God of all timE."
tsubakI wriggled fiercely, but now adamaN joined in, pressing his slipper between the two women's feet.
"adamaN, you are projecting. Grief for our sister affects you too soon. Would you have this interloper, or alien, or stranger, this enemy of our claN, our ancient people, become a Warden? Only Wardens receive visions from Sinnoh."
"That which you speak of now has yet to be determined, as all things are. But you have shown a great wickedness in the eyes of Sinnoh. The mortal sin of Haste. You shall be punished for it slowly and mightily, as all punishments are."
"No one will be punished in this village," said Cyllene.
"That remains to be seen, as all things are," tsubakI choked out. He turned his large lavender eyes to her with a wicked kind of brilliance. No one had thought to bind his arms, and now he raised his sliver flute to his lips, forcing what breath he had into a loud, shrill tremolo that seemed to echo upon the final rays of sunlight.
"The night approaches," he murmured then. "With this instrument, my Celestica Flute, I have just summoned my Lord Electrode. In his frenzy, or fury, he will come, hungry and hunting for the blood of those who fall prey to sleep. Our ancestors' war will resume. As The Sekki, leader of the diamonD claN, I will command it."
adamaN pressed his foot deeper, until a sharp crack split the tension.
"Still too hastily you make that claim, cousin. I am not too old yet, nor am I a sleepwalker."
"That does not stop us from seeing if the blessing will raise you tonight. Skuntank, use Yawn."
Cyllene covered her ears just before the brutish Pokémon opened its jaws. She watched, too late, as both adamaN and Zisu collapsed, letting the spindly man climb jerk her away and climb to his feet. He towered above her, one hand cupping his cracked rib.
With a hiss, he tore the pentagonal pendant from adamaN's neck and slipped the chain on over his own, then took the great blue coat for himself, and with the tip of his dagger blade, cut a slit in the ridge of his left eyebrow, only wincing slightly at the bead of blood that trickled down his long and delicate nose.
"The wait begins," tsubakI told Cyllene, sparks and static flickering along his clothes and hair. A shaking grin spread across his pale face as Zisu suddenly shook herself to life and rose to a slouch, muttering about fire with glazed and frightened eyes.
"Electrode is coming. He can feel my heartbeat, my pulse, the electric energy thundering through my heart, and sends me his own jolt of excitement. You can try to wake your friend before he gets here, or allow me to take The Kkai and her Warden outside the walls of your village. As your vision from Sinnoh told you, Galaxy woman, nothing can remain."
you are the future world...
~N~
Almighty Sinnoh is the God of All Time.
I truly love Melli. I had a glitter charm of him on my college ID lanyard, and I followed the fic Friends From Odd Places until it stopped updating. (PorterHawk, stop writing about turtles, you fool.)
(Skuntank cannot learn Yawn in any way, shape, or form. But it's just Yawn, and he appears to be a quite sleepy boy.)
Published by Syntax-N on FanFiction . Net August 6th, 2023. Do not repost. Please review!