Chapter 17 - Drifting
Es wird gesagt, dass die Götter, die sie als Schutzherren verehren, ähnlich wie ihre Gründer, bevor sie sich in den Ländern der Wahrheit und der Ideale niederließen, aus einem gemeinsamen Land stammen. Ein entfernter Ort, so weit jenseits von Meeren aus Wasser und Wolken, bis zu dem Punkt, an dem unsere Schiffe ihn nicht erreichen können, den wir als „Einall" kennen.
Wenn es um dieses ferne Land geht, sind Fakt und Fiktion schwer zu trennen. Es gibt nur Fragmente von Geschichten, die angeblich aus der Zeit vor den glühenden Blitz stammen, und Geschichten von fragwürdigem Wahrheitsgehalt von Entdeckern, die angeblich über Verknüpfungen in den Mysteriösen Orten darauf gestoßen sind der Gottdrachenforst, die längst verloren gegangen sind.
Was wir über dieses Land wissen, ist, dass die Götter, die Wahrheit und Ideal in ihrem Gleichgewicht halten, in einem früheren Leben weitgehend dasselbe getan haben sollen. Nachkommen eines namenlosen Drachens, die scheinbar immer im Widerspruch zueinander stehen und dennoch dazu bestimmt sind, sich gegenseitig auf den Weg zu bringen.
Während das Wirken der Götter, die wir „Wunsch" und „Wirklichkeit" nennen, vielleicht nur allzu gut verstanden ist, ist das, was manchmal als „Schwelle" zwischen ihnen bezeichnet wird, für diejenigen, die in ihrem Schatten leben, immer noch irritierend und schwer fassbar. Ein Wesen, von dem man sagt, dass es nach Wahrheit oder Idealen hungert, um sich selbst zu vervollkommen, wobei sich seine stärkere Sehnsucht in seinen Merkmalen beim Erwachen widerspiegelt, sich aber ständig zwischen beiden bewegt. Eine Stärke, die gleichzeitig schwach ist und unter den richtigen Umständen die Macht besitzt, „Wunsch" und „Wirklichkeit" nach Lust und Laune unterzuordnen.
Es gibt kaum etwas Demütigenderes für ein Pokémon als die Anwesenheit einer unvorhersehbaren Macht. Aus diesem Grund gab es, abgesehen von verstreuten Weilern zwischen Wahrheit und Ideale, kein Königreich, das zu Ehren dieser Schwelle zwischen ihren Schutzgöttern gegründet wurde.
- Auszug aus »Ein und Alles - Von Göttern eines Landes von Schwarz und Weiß«
"'They won't be paying attention to ones leaving anywhere near as closely,' huh? Scales, I oughta punch you in that broken arm of yours for this."
Kate brushed water off her pelt which somehow had stayed stubbornly stuck onto her since pulling Dalton aboard the raft, and flicked it off with a dirty glare off at the Heliolisk inside their hiding place between the raft's crates. She wasn't exactly a stranger to tight escapes, but even so, it wasn't her idea to take the escape route that'd lead to them getting soaked. Dalton briefly shielded his splinted arm, evidently a bit on-edge about the idea of getting it smacked as he answered back with a flustered protest.
"Look, the point is that we managed to sneak away and didn't get hunted down in some field in the outskirts," he insisted. "We could be doing a lot worse right now."
"Oh really?" the Sneasel shot back. "How's that book with our map doing right now from your little swim earlier?"
Dalton grimaced before looking at his ripped bag, which was still visibly dripping water. Based on how wet it looked, Kate assumed that meant 'not well'. Her fears were confirmed when the Heliolisk pulled the Hunters' handbook they'd stolen out of it, whose covers and edges of its pages were all visibly damp.
"... It could've been worse, at least," Dalton sighed. "I doubt it'll be worth much after the water damage, but it should at least dry out enough to be readable."
Kate briefly spotted Lyle's face falling into a frown at the Heliolisk's reply at the other end of their hiding place, and Kate felt her own doing much the same. Though she wasn't sure if it was the book that Lyle was the most upset about. Knowing the Quilava and the way they were stuck in the middle of a river, he probably had a knot in his stomach right now. The Sneasel turned away with a scoff, when she noticed Irune pawing at her pendant and looking down at it worriedly. So the Axew had managed to hold onto it through that entire fight jumping from boat to boat. Kate supposed that Irune keeping it safely tucked under her scarf was good for something other than poking at her scales after all.
"What's the matter, Irune? Is it chipped or something?" Lyle asked.
"No, it's fine," Irune replied. "I just… thought that I'd lost it in the water for a moment."
… There clearly was a story of some sort behind that rock, but what on earth was that thing anyways? Kate swore she'd seen a pendant in that shape and design before but he couldn't peg where. Was it a lucky charm of some sort?
But Irune had insisted that she needed it for when they got to the Divine Roost. What for? And did it have something to do with that first treasure that she wanted before everyone else?
Maybe she was just full of it and it was something with sentimental value to her. A keepsake from a time in the past, or a token of a place or moment that she'd never go back to.
The Sneasel thought to ask further briefly, only to catch herself. No, everyone had their own secrets. Those trials and heartaches that they kept to themselves. Irune was clearly new to being an Outlaw, and if the Axew's start was anything like her own…
Well, Kate couldn't blame her for not really wanting to talk about it.
"I think that the coast should be clear now."
Kate snapped back to attention, and turned her head over towards Dalton as he crept out from their hiding place. He turned his head to scan his surroundings, before poking it back into their space between the crates.
"We'll need to figure out a way to get this raft closer to shore and sneak off," the Heliolisk said. "It looks like we're already drifted a ways away from that village. Just keep an eye out, they might have dispatched Air Marshals or other guards to come and look for us."
Kate straightened her feathers and sharply exhaled, stepping back out alongside her teammates from their hiding place as they slumped to the deck, exhausted. The Sneasel propped herself up against the shade for a moment, as Lyle shook himself dry a few paces away. Götterblüt, that was way too close. If this raft hadn't been close enough for Dalton's Surf to push it over…
She shook her head as she tried to blot the thought from her mind. Danger was just part of an Outlaw's way of life, much as it had been for her parents. All things considered, she supposed she could be having it worse. Why, Lyle looked like he was about to keel over right now. Knowing how squeamish he was about water, he was surely trying to think about anything at all other than being stuck in the middle of a river where all that separated him from drowning was a few planks of wood…
She made a note to stop going down that train of thought, since now she was starting to get worried.
Kate sighed and moved along, annoyedly brushing some lingering water off herself as Dalton pawed at his injured frill. The Sneasel carried on a couple paces, when she noticed Irune was by the rim of the raft, with her eyes closed and visibly shivering.
… She couldn't tell whether it was from the water, or from how harrowing their ordeal was, but even after the way she'd blown up at them in Primordial Woods something didn't sit right about seeing her like that. The Dark-type shuffled over, pawing tentatively at the Axew's shoulder.
"Hey, are you alright?"
Irune cracked her eyes open and looked over warily, seemingly unsure what to make of Kate's concern. She said nothing for a moment, before turning away with a low grunt.
"I-I'm fine," the Axew insisted. "The water was just a little cold."
"Huh?! Who's there?!"
Kate froze and stiffened up, as they saw the groggy form of a Feraligatr in a plain blue scarf shuffle up with his jaw hanging open, his yellow eyes staring at them as he held out a claw and gestured with an incredulous splutter.
"Who are you and what are you doing on my raft?!"
There was a lingering moment of silence as Kate let out a hissing "Gottverdammt, I knew I saw red spikes near those crates…" under her breath. The Sneasel stared ahead, fumbling and failing to find words to try and explain their presence. Her teammates all looked downright petrified, though strangely enough Kate couldn't shake the feeling that she'd seen this 'mon somewhere before…
"... Wait a minute," the Water-type said. "I saw you four at that tavern last night…"
… At same tavern at The Green Dragonite? Kate admittedly didn't remember a whole lot about her visit there since those beers were something else, but from how groggy and sluggish the Feraligatr looked, he'd probably gotten smashed by the barkeep's mix himself.
Kate briefly sized the Feraligatr up as her claws began to quietly extend from her paws when she felt the strap of her bag tug at her shoulder. The Sneasel blinked and eased up when an impish smile spread over her face. It was a gamble and it'd be costly even if it worked, but there might just be a way of getting this 'mon off their tails without a fight.
"We're your passengers, of course! You were supposed to pick us up from Errberk Village, but we found you dozing off at the dock," she explained. "Sorry if we startled you. We were running a bit late so we kinda pushed off without waking you up."
The Feraligatr blinked, before tensing up and slipping into a guarded stance, eying Kate warily.
"This is a cargo shipment," the Water-type said. "And I don't remember agreeing to take on any passengers last night-"
"You must've blacked out from drinking since we saw you hitting the sauce pretty hard. We admittedly got a bit sloshed ourselves since I'm drawing a few blanks on your name," she insisted, giving a wave of her claw in reply. "But you really don't remember anything about our deal? Because I know we talked it over. Maybe you just needed a little reminder to jog your memory."
Kate fished through her bag and pulled out a pair of small coin purses—hers and the Eiscue's from earlier—before she dropped them onto the deck with an audible jingle. The Feraligatr took the bags with a puzzled tilt of his head, before giving them both a brief inspection. The pilot looked over with a brief moment of incredulity as his features eased and a toothy grin spread over his face.
"Heh heh, well I suppose I can't argue with that!" the Feraligatr chortled. "Though the name's 'Boudewijn'. Make yourself at home! It'll only be a few hours before we reach our destination in Newangle City!"
Kate noticed a brief grimace came over her teammates' faces and for a second felt her own eyes widen, before she gave a cheery smile and wave at the Feraligatr. Yeah, the pilot wasn't exactly headed for a safe harbor, but it wasn't as if they had to go with him all the way there…
Right?
Kate waited for the Feraligatr to turn and head back for the raft's tiller before the four let out a collective sigh of relief. The Sneasel flattened her ears, blowing a puff of frigid air up at her head feather as she stooped down with a shake of her head.
"Thank gods," she muttered. "I was worried for a minute that we were going to have to conk him upside the head and push him overboard."
Kate saw Irune shoot a sharp glare back at her. She frowned back, before rolling her eyes and turning away. What was that look supposed to mean? Sure the pilot was a Feraligatr, but they had numbers and Scales had his electricity that he slung around, so they'd have a fighting chance, right?
"Thankfully, there's no need for things to come to that," Lyle harrumphed. "Since the 'mon looked tough enough to wash us all overboard without really trying."
… Kate was going to chalk that one up to Lyle being in a foul mood from being surrounded by water. Even if he'd always been a bit of a naysayer, he didn't use to be that negative back when they were both on the Foehn Gang.
The Quilava sighed and made his way over to the raft's port side, peering over the edge. Kate followed after and gaped off where the stoat was looking, where she saw the fuzzy image of white and green spires poking over the horizon.
… That was the same direction that that blinking light came from last night. Were those buildings that she could see from such a distance? If so, just how big were they?
Kate's ears pricked at the sound of approaching footsteps, and turned to see Dalton making his way over. The Heliolisk lingered a moment resting himself against a few nearby barrels, careful to avoid putting weight onto his injured arm.
"Newangle City…" he murmured. "The Founder's City and Throne of Truth."
Kate noticed Dalton pausing and letting his gaze linger off at the spires in the distance. He seemed to have a wistful look in his eyes, which couldn't help but strike her as strange.
"Scales, why are you waxing poetic about a place that by your own admission is a Pyroar's Den for Outlaws?"
Dalton didn't say anything for a moment, when he sighed and shook his head.
"I spent a few years living there," he replied. "From better times when I was younger."
Kate gave an askew glance at the Heliolisk. She knew that Dalton struck him as sounding like a bit of a priss from his accent, but somehow she didn't peg him as having once lived in the capital. What next, would his family turn out to be royalty or something?
"Wait, that's perfect!"
Kate stiffened up as Irune's voice piped up and the Axew darted over to Dalton with beaming excitement. She noticed Lyle's expression fall at the Dragon-type's remark. Did it have something to do with something they'd talked about before—
"Newangle City's a place with a bunch of libraries and places where scholars gather! There's bound to be books with all sorts of old legends in them that would help us get to the Divine Roost easier and understand what's been going on with me!" Irune insisted. "If Dalton already knows how to get around there, then wouldn't it make sense to just go along with this raft?"
Kate felt her jaw flop open and stared at the Axew with a furrowed brow. She knew Lyle gave her an earful sometimes for taking risks, but holy crap, this kid was something else right now. There was a moment of incredulous silence among the three, before Lyle cast a glance off at Boudewijn at the stern of the raft and shook his head with a low grunt.
"... We'll discuss this later, okay?"
So they had talked about this earlier. But Lyle wasn't dismissing the idea out of hand? He didn't seriously think they could pull this off themselves, did he?
"Huh? But Lyle—!" Irune started, only for Dalton to sharply cut her off.
"Lyle, what is there to discuss?" the Heliolisk demanded. "Just because I've been in Newangle City before doesn't mean it's a good idea for us to go there!"
"Uh… yeah," Kate muttered. "Lyle, I know that you were there for the time that I got that loot of ours back from an army base, but this is a bit riskier than that."
"... Compared to trying to slip off into the countryside when for all we know every Hunter's Guild in this Provinz has seen our wanted posters by now?"
A tense silence hung in the air after the words left the stoat's mouth. Kate had to admit, when Lyle put it in those terms, she was suddenly a lot less sure about if it was still a lesser risk to try and sneak off.
Kate sucked in a breath and hesitated, when the Quilava turned and stared off at the cityscape off at the horizon. There was a brief pause, before Lyle hung his head with a low sigh.
"Let's take some time to think things over a bit," he said. "This isn't a choice to make lightly either way."
The sound of burbling water and a damp splash pricked Kate's ears. All of a sudden, Lyle's vents came alive and he jumped back from the raft's edge out of reflex. Kate looked down and saw fresh water where his toes were just moments ago, as the Quilava looked down at the river's surface with a nervous grimace.
"Along with some ways for us to get off this raft. The sooner, the better."
Kate supposed it was a sensible enough plan. All they'd need to do was to stay alert for prying eyes and just wait a bit.
Simple, really.
Two hours later, "a bit" had yet to come for Lyle and his fellows, as Boudewijn's raft made its way down the twists and turns of the river, passing plains and fields with the occasional village coming into sight before drifting away. Every now and then, stranger landmarks would pop up along the riverbanks. Here and there, the landscape would be punctuated by the remains of some human ruin, like a line of ruined concrete pylons they were passing in the water that appeared to once be a bridge. Stranger still were the parts of the land that looked unnatural in their own way, much like the slab of earth just downstream of the pylons which overhung the river from one bank to the next like a giant stone table half-buried in the dirt.
Lyle stared up as the raft slipped under the stony overhang and held his breath. Such formations were said to have been left behind by unnatural means, whether as aftereffects from the Great Flash, or from Mystery Dungeons that used to be present and had since dissipated or shifted to another place. He supposed the shelter from the sky ought to have been comforting, since for much of the trip, he and his teammates found themselves stealing nervous glances back towards the south, half expecting a formation of Grünhäuter in the skies—Air Marshals as they were called—to pop over the horizon. Or gods forbid, Lacan himself along with a dozen underlings swooping down on them. Not that the lingering worry of being buried alive by a veritable mountain of stone and dirt was much more pleasant to deal with.
"Something wrong, Quilava?"
Lyle blinked up and looked up over his shoulder where he saw blue scales and large fangs. The stoat stiffening up and reflexively letting out a startled puff of fire out from his vents before realizing from the blue scarf that it was the Feraligatr pilot. Right, that was 'Boudewijn', who from what they pieced together from idle conversation over the past couple hours, plied the river with his humble craft floating cargoes down the river to Newangle City and while towing others back up to the smaller towns and villages upstream. He had apparently been a 'mon of the sea in an earlier season of life, but discovered he was content to drift along with the rivers of the Kingdom and try to float out of the way of its troubles as best as he could.
It almost sounded charming the way the Water-type put it, if it didn't involve being constantly surrounded by death from drowning just a slip of the feet away. And then there was that constant, lingering unease in the air, that kept making Lyle worry that the Feraligatr had seen through Kate's story about them hiring his services. Unease that flared whenever Boudewijn shot askew glances at him or others from Team Forager much as the Feraligatr was doing right now.
"Though watch it with the fire," Boudewijn insisted. "If you set something on alight here and it gets out of claw, you'll wind up getting soaked even if I don't throw you from the raft."
Lyle looked back at his rump and saw that his vents were pouring out nervous fire that lit up the entire end of the raft he was on like a lantern. He supposed he should've expected it from the way his stomach was knotting up. The Quilava sucked in a sharp breath and smothered the flames from his body, glancing aside with a paw at his shoulder.
"... Sorry," he muttered. "I'm just not used to being surrounded by water like this. It stirs up bad memories."
It wasn't exactly a lie, as even in the present day, being surrounded by water deeper than what he could ford on his own always made him feel like he was standing next to a cliff. He usually tried to avoid the feeling on bridges by not looking down, but Boudewijn had put them to work helping to keep an eye on the sides of his raft. Kate had initially protested the arrangement as being a ripoff for having to pay to do work, which was swiftly quashed by a gentle and pointed reminder from Boudewijn: that between Wilders in the water and the danger of Outlaws lurking in wait, that not taking a stake in the raft's well being was a fast way for everyone to wind up needing to swim to shore.
… Not that they wouldn't wind up needing to do that anyways if Boudewijn ever got wise about their backgrounds, since those Outlaws the Feraligatr was worried about were far closer to him than he'd suspected. But fortunately, the raft captain hadn't put two and two together, not that Boudewijn's temperament didn't help. The captain, while gruff, was of a more good-natured sort. And as the sun came out again as the raft exited the other end of the earthen overhang, the Feraligatr stooped and raised a claw to motion off at the river's bank.
"Why don't you try this? Try keeping an eye out on the riverbank," Boudewijn suggested. "If trouble comes around, it won't be hard to turn your attention back to the water if you have to. It works every time I have a 'mon like you that's squeamish of water as a passenger."
Lyle tilted an ear back puzzledly and gave a skeptical frown. He supposed it wasn't that different from just staring straight ahead while walking along a bridge, but would it really work if the water was there right below the riverbank?
… He supposed it couldn't hurt to try. After all, it wouldn't do any good to get on the bad side of a 'mon who was tough enough to knock him into next week in a straight fight. Let alone one who could do that in the middle of a river without missing a beat.
"I'll try it, but I'm not expecting any miracles here," the Quilava grunted, shaking his head.
Lyle shuffled back and sat a ways from the raft's edge, raising his eyes off towards the shore on the other side as Boudewijn instructed. It took a few minutes, but sure enough, if he kept looking at the ledge and stayed dry, it almost felt like rolling along a smoother wagon ride from the other shoreline.
If only Boudewijn could've given his advice just a few minutes earlier, since the earthen overhang wasn't something that popped up everywhere. Not that the scenery around was bad, it was just mostly the expected plains and occasional clusters of red-leaved trees… along with shrubs, fields, and the occasional hinterland burrow or nest. There was an occasional chunk of earth that had been churned up into impossible formations near Dungeon Fog like Raptor Rock off in the distance, and for a brief moment, Lyle spotted a set of riverside caves with walls that looked a bit too straight to be of natural origin.
Perhaps there was more of note already along the river than he already thought, not that he could tell half the time. Whenever Boudewijn's raft drifted too far away from the riverbank, Lyle's vision would grow hazy and things would blur together until it drifted back closer to shore. Just as it did when the raft floated past a field planted with Apricorns. The Quilava didn't think much of it, until he noticed that there were Pokémon in armor milling about and stiffened up.
"... What in the-?"
Lyle looked closer and noticed from the patterns on the armored Pokémon's scarves that they were obviously Grünhäuter, and the Pokémon milling about as pickers had banded scarves and looked visibly haggard and disheveled. Lyle got up, trying to get a better view of the field when he chanced to see a Vigoroth stumble and trip over with a bushel of Apricorns. The Vigoroth laid there a moment in a daze, when a Throh in army plates stomped up and summarily kicked the Vigoroth, drawing a sharp cry as Lyle faintly heard the Throh's barks from across the water.
"Hey! Nobody said you could take a break, you useless leech!"
Lyle flinched as the Throh struck the Vigoroth again, and again, the Normal-type yelping before hurriedly scurrying off with his basket in front of a few other weary-looking Pokémon in similar patterns. That was when he saw them in the background: long, low-slung barracks in the distance. The tell-tale sign that this Apricorn field was using penal labor to collect its harvest.
Lyle had no idea who the unfortunate Vigoroth was. Maybe he was a captured Röthäuter drug across the sea when the ships came back from Edialeigh for fresh bodies for the frontline. Maybe he was a local villager who had managed to say something stupid enough about the war to get a Gendarm riled up enough to drag him in as a Sympathizer. Or maybe he was an Outlaw who'd had a job go bad… like him…
Like Alvin…
Lyle hung his head and let his vision drift down to the floorboards. He didn't know whether being sentenced to hard labor slaving away picking Apricorns would've been a more merciful fate. Alvin would still be facing the prospect of a cold, dreary winter shivering his scales off in drafty barracks with danger hanging over his head at every turn, but at least he'd be in a land that was his, and there wouldn't be some asshole pushing him around treating his life like some piece on a board game.
… Or at least it would be one that would care enough to keep him alive to pick the next harvest.
The Quilava screwed his eyes shut. The voice of reason in his head told him that there was no guarantee such a reprieve would last since Varhyder convicts were subject to army levees themselves. Even if Alvin weren't about to be shipped across the sea, there wasn't anything he could do. The first time he'd had to leave Alvin behind, he was buried in the remains of a tent as a wall of soldiers were descending on him. The second time, he was bound with two Grünhäuter in the way, with gods-knew-how-many more right in spitting distance on the other side of the garrison walls they were at. There was nothing he could've done for him then, and if the situation were reversed, he wouldn't have blamed Alvin for slinking away.
… So why did still he feel so awful about it?
"Lyle!"
… Right, Irune was there to chew him out. To remind him that even with the odds as grim as they were, that he hadn't even tried to take them on. And here she was shouting at him again, probably ready to give him another earful about—
"Lyle! There's Pokémon in the water coming right at you!"
The Quilava jolted up and shot to attention with a start, reflexively letting a little fire leak out his vents. Sure enough, there were dorsal fins in the water knifing along its surface straight for them. Lyle's eyes widened as he hurriedly tried to build up smoke at the back of the throat. Before the smoke could leave his lips, a jet of water struck him in the face and sent him pitching into a crate with a yelp. The Quilava flopped to the deck of the raft, hastily rolling over onto his feet, when he saw green scales and white fins swarming his side of the raft. Furious splashes rang out as a mass of figures swiped and bit at the raft, when a red-striped Basculin from their number stopped to pop over the surface and snarl back.
"What do you think you're doing just barging through our waters like this?!" the Basculin spat.
An attack by Wilders, because that was just what they needed at a time when they couldn't run away like this. Lyle frantically spewed what remained of his Smokescreen back at the Basculin, only for the fish to hurriedly duck back under the water. Lyle panted as water dripped off him as his teammates hurried in to try and clear away other Wilders in the swarm. Kate spewed an Icy Wind, and Irune a Dragon Rage that struck a couple of Basculin but otherwise left the mass untouched. A cry from Dalton to "give me space!" prompted Lyle to duck back as the Heliolisk attempted to cast a Discharge over the swarming fish.
"Ack!"
Except, once again, the Electric-type's injured frill got in the way and the range of his attack to fall far shorter than expected. Enough so that all but a few of the swarming Basculin were able to avoid it by just swimming a few paces back in the water.
Lyle readied fire in his mouth when he saw red spikes in the water knifing towards the Basculin and froze. B-Blauflamme, he didn't see that Wilder earlier! How were they supposed to fight off something that big?! Except, after a moment's notice, Lyle realized that the red ridges weren't headed for them, but rather straight for the school of Basculin. A few startled cries rang out and the school of Wilders began to grow visibly spooked at its approach.
"E-Eek! M-Monster!" the earlier Basculin squealed. "Swim away! Swim away!"
The Wilders turned and fled, splashing and crying out in fright as they hurriedly fled upstream from the pursuing spikes. Lyle blinked and sucked in an uneasy breath, waiting for the Wilder in the water to surface when he noticed soaked blue fabric near the creature's head. It stirred, when the familiar form of the Feraligatr pilot surfaced from the water, waving back with a toothy grin.
"Hah! Nothing like a good set of teeth to scare the fins off a fish when you have to!" Boudewijn chortled.
Lyle breathed a sigh of relief as he flopped to the deck with a wet thump and saw his companions ease out from theirs fighting stances. He turned on his side against the deck where and saw Boudewijn climbing aboard from the river, still dripping water and making the raft tilt to one end. The Quilava sighed and pinned his ears back before attempting to shake himself dry. Getting soaked wasn't his idea of a good time, but things could've gone worse, he supposed.
There was a faint creak, and then a low groan of stressed wood that sent a shiver up Lyle's spine. He blinked and looked up, seeing that the top of the crate behind him now seemed to overhang him. He was almost ready to dismiss it as his lingering discomfort getting to his nerves when he Irune seemed to have noticed it too, as she looked off at the crates, and at the raft's deck before pointing off at them with a wide-eyed grimace.
"U-Uh… is the raft supposed to be tilted this much?" the Axew asked.
Lyle followed after the Dragon-type's gaze along with Boudewijn and his teammates and looked down the length of the raft.
That was when they saw it.
Sure enough, the entire port side of the raft was listing in the water, and the angle seemed to be steepening as it drifted along. Boudewijn looked over the sight and blinked a moment, before screwing his eyes shut with a low grumble.
"Those Wilders must've done more damage to the pontoons than I thought," the Feraligatr sighed. "Go and stand on the starboard end to shift some weight around and pull some crates towards you if you can. It'll help even things out until I can tow us to shore. Just hold on tight."
Those last four words spoiled all of Boudewijn's earlier reassurances as Lyle's heart began to pound in fright. Just how badly had the raft been damaged if Boudewijn was forcing them to a specific side. Lyle briefly opened his mouth to press Boudewijn further about their situation when the Feraligatr slipped back into the water and his companions were already beelining for the starboard side of the raft. A quick glance at the rising water along the port side was enough to get him to follow suit.
He hurried over just as Kate and Irune were already pushing a hefty crate towards the edge, which were it not resting against others, looked as if it'd have kept sliding from the angle the raft was starting to take. The Quilava hurriedly ducked behind another crate that Dalton was trying to throw his weight behind and pushed it out, every pace towards starboard being a treacherous slog until they couldn't go any further, and left it pinned up against a small stack of others.
The starboard end of the raft was aloft now, and as Lyle went up to the edge, he could see exposed cylinders of some sort lined up in a row. Probably those 'pontoons' that Boudewijn was talking about. Lyle clung to the aloft edge, crouching and holding tight with a frightened shudder as he looked out and saw they were still a good ways from solid land, with murky water in between.
It was like when he'd gotten trapped in the middle of that stream as a Cyndaquil all over again. Except this time, his father wouldn't be there to save him, and the water looked deep enough for even a Typhlosion to drown in it.
Lyle screwed his eyes shut and let out a low whine, when he felt the raft lurch and turn sharply towards the right. He cracked his eyes open to see the raft swing out, and off towards its front, Boudewijn was towing them with a cable towards a rapidly-approaching sandbar just offshore from a riverbank. He saw the Feraligatr's pose change as the Water-type's legs found purchase against solid land, the gator clumsily lumbering backwards, holding the tow cable with claws and teeth as the raft followed his wake when it hit something that almost threw Lyle off the edge.
After a moment to get back onto an even keel, Lyle recognized that the raft was suddenly a lot more level and he was hearing grinding noises coming from its bottom. A look down revealed that the raft had run aground, close enough to shore that one could make it onto land with a little jump. Lyle took off running, using a Quick Attack to help build up speed as he leapt the gap and onto the damp sand onshore, his teammates wading after him in the water when Boudewijn motioned after them with a low grunt.
"Help me prop the port side of the raft onshore," he insisted. "From the way it was listing, I'm pretty sure that that's where the damage is at."
Lyle and his fellows from Team Forager made their way onto dry land and lined up with the lower portions of the tow cable one by one, pulling it aground with concerted heaves following Boudewijn's cries. Little by little, the raft's right side came into view as the pontoons came onto the sand: a set of floats made of metal and scavenged ancient resin that were now riddled with tears and gouges. Lyle turned up towards Boudewijn, and from the toothy grimace on the Feraligatr's face as he went over to trace a claw around the damage… he could tell that it was worse than the captain had expected.
"Bah, I should've known better than to try and make this run without Marianne," the Feraligatr sighed. "You never know when you'll accidentally rile up some Wilders while drifting along like this.
"Oh? A colleague of yours?" Dalton asked, tilting his head. "Does she normally help you keep watch over the cargo?"
"That's actually my job most of the time. Marianne's normally my hull defender. Sticking to the water fits her better as a Primarina," Boudewijn explained. "She fell ill the night right before our run, and if we backed out, we were going to be out a good chunk of this month's income."
Lyle raised a paw and ran it uneasily underneath the gouges along his raft's pontoon himself. With how much the raft had started listing just after those Wilders tore up the pontoon, they'd likely have sunk in the middle of the river had Boudewijn not pulled them to shore.
Even so… perhaps there was a silver lining to all of this.
"... Will we still make it to Newangle City like this?" Lyle asked.
The Quilava was answered by Boudewijn raising a claw and pointing off at white spires in the distance. They were much closer now, enough to clearly see their towering, rectangular frames, along with the gray, ringlike base at the bottom that marked the city's walls. The strongest and tallest ramparts in all of Varhyde with nothing like it built prior to them, not even from before the Great Flash… and in all likelihood with nothing like them that would ever match them in the future.
Even so, it still looked like it'd take some time to reach the city on foot. If they were going to try and slip away before reaching the gates, this was likely as good of a chance as they were going to get.
"Yeah, we will. Marienne and I've dealt with worse scuffs to the raft than this before," Boudewijn reassured. "But between patching this up and waiting for the pitch to set we'll still be stuck here for about half an hour. My gear to do the repairs should be up on the raft next to the spare pontoons. I need to make sure the raft doesn't drift off, but if you dig my tools out, I can get started."
Boudewijn motioned off at a crate on the raft with faded red paint with a worn gangplank wedged next to it, prompting Lyle and his companions to clamber aboard and with heaves and tugs, pull it out. There, they took the top off and began to sift through its contents—a few extra pontoons, along with a sealed bucket of pitch, a brush, a set of wooden struts, and a short metal blade that looked like it'd been patterned after a Skarmory feather. After a moment to lower the gangplank down, the four set off up and down the passage, bringing the crates' contents over to the Feraligatr a few pawfuls at a time. Boudewijn set to work as soon as his tools reached shore, starting by wedging the wooden struts to hold the raft and prop its damaged side up, absentmindedly taking his repair kit's blade straight out of Irune's hand much to her blinking surprise.
"Wait, how is that knife supposed to help you?" the dragon asked. "Isn't there already a hole in your raft? How would that make it better?"
"The floats are segmented so they can be detached from each other for repairs," the Feraligatr explained. "I mean, sure I've got a set of claws and teeth, but for a job like this, I'll need to make cuts that are a bit more precise… like so."
Boudewijn stooped and crawled back under his raft where he wedged the knife in a gap between two pontoons and after a few tugs, the ends of both pontoons to the side visibly sagged. He scooted over and repeated the process again at another gap between segments, when the pontoon above him came loose and fell into his waiting arms.
Lyle blinked as the Feraligatr crawled back out along with the pontoon. Boudewijn had made taking the pontoon apart look so effortless. He wondered if the 'mon had been apprenticed himself when he started his trade… or if these repairs were just so frequent for his raft that they were second nature for the Water-type. A loud thump rang out as the Feraligatr set the pontoon down on the ground and rolled it over to drain it as water came gushing out.
Lyle reflexively jumped back with a yelp, flinching a bit from draining water as it came up and wet his paws. Fortunately, the water's flow began to slow down, and soon enough all that remained were a few last stubborn trickles. The Quilava and his teammates eyed the pontoon curiously as the Feraligatr rolled it over onto its side with its holes facing them, before the raft captain stooped down and grabbed a large canvas patch from his repair kit.
"Here, you four take a corner and hold it tight against the pontoon, since this one looks like it's still in good enough condition to patch up," Boudewijn insisted. "It's a temporary fix, but it should seal it up good enough to make it to Newangle City."
Lyle stared down skeptically at the patch as Dalton went over and ran his uninjured arm's hand over it, before his eyes briefly widened and he gave a curious glance up.
"Was in aller Welt…?₁ Boudewijn, where did you get this?" the Heliolisk asked. "This fabric's woven tighter than what most machine looms can manage! I thought the army normally had first dibs for fabrics made like that…"
The Quilava quirked a brow and cocked his head over at the Heliolisk. 'Machine looms', huh? So Dalton worked with textiles in the past? He supposed he could kinda see it since the few fabs with more complicated machinery in them around his hometown and Moonturn Square drove them with Pokémon in running wheels or mills of some sort. And Dalton was both of a species with strong legs and scarily at ease moving about water for a 'mon that was supposed to be most at home in deserts...
Though still, something about it didn't add up with his mannerisms, or that accent of his.
"You'd have to ask the salvager I bought it off of in Port Reyn. The story I was told was that it turned up from a shipwreck from the last invasion," the Feraligatr replied. "But I wouldn't be using it if it didn't do its job at keeping water out. Though take a corner and hold it tight up against that pontoon for a moment."
Lyle nodded back and went over alongside Kate, holding the corners as Boudewijn dipped a brush into a pitch bucket before he spread pitch over the sides of the patch. The Quilava pulled his paws back as the brush moved past and the patch glued in place, Boudewijn doing much the same on Kate's end before covering it up entirely. Two extra patches later, and the pontoon "was as good as new" and ready to be put back into place. Allegedly. Lyle skeptically eyed the repaired segments. Would that little bit of caulking really be enough to keep things afloat? Boudewijn seemed convinced, as the raft's captain dusted his claws before giving a satisfied grunt.
"There. Not the prettiest patch job, but she'll last a hell of a lot longer than an ice plug," he remarked. "Once I've got it back in place on the raft, it should take about fifteen minutes to set before things are good enough to push back out onto the water."
Lyle bit his lip and grimaced. He supposed fifteen minutes could've been worse, but that was barely any time to put distance between themselves and the raft, and if they didn't take off, it was just long enough to go stir-crazy from sitting around and waiting knowing Lacan was out there with his goons. Lyle felt a prod at his shoulder as Kate stared at him with a quiet grimace, as the Sneasel looked at the Feraligatr and pinned her ears back with a sigh.
"... What are we supposed to do until then?" she asked.
"Make yourselves comfortable, I guess?" Boudewijn shrugged back. "Though if any of you needed to heed the call of nature, now would be as good a time to get that squared away. Since I'd prefer if you didn't do that from my raft."
Lyle reflexively flattened out his ears and screwed his eyes shut. That certainly was a mental image he could've gone without. But even if Boudewijn was a bit blunt about it, he supposed now would be as good as any to tend to themselves in between legs of their journey, as the quiet growl from his stomach reminded him.
They hadn't gotten a chance to eat anything since leaving Errberk Village other than a few scraps they had leftover in their bags, and most of the berries they did have didn't justify scarfing them down for a meal unless they were in a real pinch. The riverbank seemed nice and quiet, so maybe there were a few berry bushes that had managed to go unpicked by Wilders or hungrier fringe-dwellers to work with.
"We'll see what we can do," the Quilava said. "Though we really don't want to just linger around here for too long-"
"Huh? What's that?" Irune asked.
Lyle trailed off as Irune pointed off towards the treeline deeper inland. The Quilava followed along, when he spotted a gray pointed roof poking up over the treetops. Dalton and Kate quirked a brow, seemingly surprised by the presence of a rooftop of slate-colored shingles this far out as Boudewijn stepped forward and studied the sight of the rooftop for a moment, before having a moment of dawning realization.
"Oh, that? It's a shrine to Kyurem that the locals from the village past the bend upstream put up," the Feraligatr explained. "I personally never really counted him as a patron, but the pitch does need some time to settle, so you might as well take some time to take a peek."
"... Wait, but I thought that there were stories of Kyurem also being a girl."
Lyle shot an askew glance over at the Axew, and so did his teammates. He hadn't heard that many stories about Kyurem himself beyond the ones that involved his home village, but in those, he distinctly remembered that Kyurem was supposed to be male.
"Maybe in the really old myths, since I've heard the Kyurem of the Founder's time was a she," Boudewijn replied. "But I don't know that much about the gods beyond the kingdom's patron and the one my hometown had. So you'd know more about Kyurem and what to expect from those myths than me."
Lyle let his gaze linger on the Axew with a curious frown. So… Irune had heard stories about Kyurem before? Did that mean that she grew up here? If so, why did she seem so unfamiliar with her surroundings?
An elbow at his shoulder snapped Lyle to attention, where there was Kate, and Dalton stepping forward with a subconscious paw at his splinted arm.
"I think we'll take your advice, actually," Dalton said. "There… were some things that we needed to discuss between ourselves for our trip anyways, and it couldn't hurt to give some thanks for our good fortune either."
The Feraligatr blinked briefly, before turning aside with a low grunt to pick up the pontoon laying on the ground.
"That should be fine, just don't wander off too far," Boudewijn said. "I know that you paid me well for the ride, but I do have a schedule to make. If you get lost, I'll only have so much time to come and look for you."
"Understood."
Dalton drifted off as Kate followed along, along with Irune, and Lyle at the end. He quietly breathed a sigh of relief as at last, they could focus on going back to ground…
"Irune, what are you doing headed towards the shrine?" the Sneasel asked. "Shouldn't we be focusing on slipping off?"
Lyle's ears flicked and he looked up to see Irune at the mouth of the dirt path, whirling around with a startled cry.
"Oh! Uh… w-well, it's just that the shrine's right here," she explained. "And I figured that before we made a decision of where to go, we might as well check it out."
Lyle pinned his ears at the Axew's reply, letting out a quiet grumble.
"Gods, Irune, this crap again?" he muttered. "Look, our priority should be finding a place to lie low and then find a Mystery Dungeon to get us-"
"Things aren't that simple, Lyle."
Lyle blinked, before glancing over his shoulder at Dalton, who stared at him with a serious frown.
"I'm… not sure if we'd necessarily be better off parting ways here with Boudewijn in our present circumstances," the Heliolisk said, which drew a puzzled stare from Kate.
"Wait, but I thought that you said that the capital was a terrible place for Outlaws and that going there was a terrible idea," she insisted.
Dalton stepped forward, passing Irune as he looked back with a motion with his good arm to follow.
"It is, but it's not necessarily the worst option we have right now," he said. "I'll explain on our way to the shrine, but it's not as black-and-white of a decision if the towns in this Provinz have already been told about us."
Lyle flattened his ears as a moment of worried quiet settled over the group, before Dalton turned away with a low sigh.
"We should talk it over before we jump to a decision," Dalton insisted. "Since we'll be taking a big risk either way."
The path towards the shrine wasn't terribly long, if still enough of a walk for Dalton to lay out the particulars of how they were caught between a rock and a hard place right then. They were presently in a Provinz situated on plains directly east of the Kingdom's capital. Normally, that wouldn't be the end of the world for Outlaws on the run, but no matter how any of them tried to spin it, there was no getting around the fact that a little riverside village of all places had gotten word of them. If a garrison for a little hamlet like that knew about them, gods knew how many garrisons other towns in the Provinz had been similarly tipped off.
The more the Heliolisk spoke about their predicament, the smaller and more alone Lyle felt. To the point that he almost wished that that god the shrine at the end of the path had been built for really could hear his pleas for divine assistance.
He and his teammates came upon it before they knew it. Sure enough, nestled among a small cluster of trees, there was a small wooden pavillion with timbers that had been painted in light grays. It sported an open entryway with windows on its sides that had reed shades—rolled up to let the air and sun in. Lyle was pretty sure that this shrine still counted as a Bildstock, even if it wasn't a neat little column like the ones he usually ran into closer to Moonturn Square. A 'Kapellenbildstock₂', as he vaguely remembered someone, maybe his parents, call them once in the past. Why, the shrine most like it he could recall offhand was the one in his hometown, except it wasn't a shrine for Kyurem, and nobody went into it.
Not that anyone would want to even if it weren't sealed up, especially with the god it had been built for. And yet, for whatever damned reason, the dilapidated thing had just been left to rot there and never been properly torn down.
A brief check revealed the smell of food by the shrine's entrance, except there was nothing left of it aside from a few stray crumbs. There would be no gnawing indecision over whether or not to steal from the gods' offerings today, somebody—probably the local Wilders—had already made that decision for him.
Lyle's attention turned to the little shrine's interior as they drifted past the entrance and looked around. The pavillion's flooring was made out of gray stone, with the beams of the ceiling rafters painted a matching shade. Curiously enough, running along the eaves of the roof, there were a set of white and black bands that had been neatly painted. Lyle admittedly hadn't been to many Kyurem shrines before, but he could've sworn that they were usually decorated mostly in shades of gray.
And of course, there was the centerpiece of the shrine that Bildstock of this style usually had inside them, in this case it was a gray statue which stood in front of the back wall's middle behind a protective grate. Still visited by locals based off of the scattered slips of paper pushed past it. It was a sculpture of a craggy, vaguely draconic creature with misshapen wings and horns, along a tail that looked almost like a three-pronged dart. That was certainly a Kyurem statue, alright.
"Place sure is swanky. I haven't seen one of these in a while."
Lyle blinked and turned his head as Kate murmured to herself, and walked up to inspect the statue. As Kate ran her claws over the bars of the grate, Lyle could've sworn that she had a glimmer of familiarity in her eyes. Kate had always never really liked talking about her childhood, but he couldn't help but wonder…
"Oh? Brings back memories?"
"... Something like that, even I don't really put much stock in that whole 'getting helped by dead 'mons' thing," the Sneasel replied. "I just always thought that Kyurem was a bit of an afterthought since… well, you know, Varhyde's already got a patron goddess and all that."
"There are other gods that Pokémon in this land hail. And Kyurem is said to have the power to be a boundary between wish and reality, between truth and ideals," Dalton explained. "Sometimes leaning towards one or the other in life, but always able to step in and rein things in when one or the other was out of balance."
Dalton's face fell for a moment, before he closed his eyes with a low grumble.
"Not that getting killed off while trying to intervene between Reshiram and Zekrom fighting over some miserable little hamlet really is much to show for it-"
"Enough."
Much to Lyle's surprise, that wasn't his voice cutting in with the sharp huff, even if he'd had half a mind to do much the same at Dalton's mention of the 'miserable little hamlet'. Instead, it was Irune, who had her eyes locked with the Heliolisk's with a sharp glare.
"Things could've gone better back then, we get it," she said. "You don't need to be so pointed about it."
Lyle couldn't help but give an askew glance back at the Axew. He knew that Irune put a bit more stock in the gods than he did from her reaction to them stealing from the Bildstock outside Moonturn Square, but she sure took Dalton's comment more personally than he'd expected.
There had to be some sort of story behind that, even if it wasn't hard to fault the Heliolisk for his train of thought. Pokémon in Varhyde tended to regard the icy drake with suspicion, an unpredictable loose cannon who would at times step in and come to the aid of their patron goddess, but would just as frequently come to blows with her. He'd heard that those who hailed Kyurem as a patron insisted that it came with their god's duties of overseeing a balance between wish and reality, but that had always smacked him as being ass-covering to not wear out their welcome with those who held more popular patron deities that didn't cause problems for the Kingdom's inhabitants. Clearly even a more idealistic type like Dalton thought much the same.
Still, Lyle couldn't help but be quietly grateful that Irune had cut in when she did. After all, the 'miserable little hamlet' was his hometown. All his life, all his father's life, and all the life of his father's father's life, Pokémon from Freeden Village had grown up receiving reactions of some mixture of pity and suspicion whenever the topic of their home came up. A place that for all its sleepy tranquility, had earned the disfavor of the gods, both during their life and during their death.
… It was probably best not to dwell on the topic too much. Even if they made it to the Divine Roost and cleaned it out like Irune planned, there simply wasn't anything waiting for him back home. So it didn't make sense to sweat it too much about whether its the folklore was true or not. The Quilava grunted and turned to leave the shrine, when his eyes noticed a strange design on the base of the statue just underneath the Kyurem's head.
"Huh?"
Lyle stopped for a moment and looked closer at the design, where on closer inspection, it was some sort of triangular spike with horizontal bands. The same shape, the same stripes, the same bands of black, white, and gray as…
"Wait. Irune, what is this thing?" the Quilava asked. "And why does it look so much like your pendant?"
Author's Notes
Words and Phrases
1. Was in aller Welt…? - "What on earth...?" lit. "What in all (the) world...?"
2. Kapellenbildstock - A type of Bildstock built as a small chapel enclosing a shrine or relic.
Teaser Text - Special Thanks to TorchicBellow for Translation
It is said that before becoming settled in the lands of Varhyde and Edialeigh, that much like their founders, the gods whom they hail as patrons both hailed from a shared land. A distant place so far beyond seas of water and clouds to the point where our ships cannot reach them that we know as 'Annal'ᵃ.
Fact and fiction are difficult to separate when it comes to this faraway land, with only fragments of tales said to predate the Great Flash and stories of questionable veracity by explorers who alleged to have stumbled upon it through Links in the Mystery Dungeons that feed into the Divine Roostᵇ that have since been long lost.
What we do know of that land is that the gods who hold Varhyde and Edialeigh in their balance are said to have done much the same in a prior life. Scionsᶜ of a Nameless Dragon that are seemingly ever at odds with one another and yet ever fated to be brought to each other's path.
While the workings of the gods we call 'Wish' and 'Reality' are well perhaps all-too-well understood, those of what is sometimes called the 'Threshold' between them have remained vexing and elusive to those who dwell in their shadow. A being that is said to hunger for truth or ideals to make itself whole with its stronger yearning reflecting in its traits at awakening, yet ever-shifting between the two. A strength that is at once feeble, and under the right circumstances, possessing the power to subordinate 'Wish' and 'Reality' at its whim.
Few things are more humbling to a Pokémon than being in the presence of an unpredictable force. It is for this reason that barring scattered hamlets amongst Varhyde and Edialeigh, that there was not a kingdom founded in honor of this Threshold between their patron gods.
- Excerpt from 'Ein und Alles - Of Gods from a Land of Black and White'
a. Derived by phonetic corruption from terminology from the German franchise localization.
b. This name is flatly different from the one given in Hightongue, which refers to a forest whose name is a story for another day. In German, forests are commonly named with Wald, with Forst more typically associated with managed forests or those set aside for conservation or owned by royalty.
c. "Nachkomme(n)" is more typically translated as "offspring" or "descendant(s)".
