Comfey
Coronaflorum coronaflorum

Overview

Comfey were once the partner of choice for healers in Alola. Their ability to distribute injuries made them one of the most effective options for immediate healing. Their eccentricities and bargaining meant the humans who partnered with comfey were often held at arms length by the rest of the society. They were critically important as healers and revered as such, but often avoided during everyday life. The introduction of blissey to Alola led to comfey fading in prominence.

Comfey still have their admirers. They are beautiful pokémon with a pleasant floral smell. Comfey are also usually willing to heal their trainer and teammates at minimal cost. They aren't the strongest fairies, but they also aren't the most dangerous. Plant enthusiasts and fairy specialists alike can find something to live in comfey.

Physiology

Comfey are classified as pure fairy-types. There is a strong argument that they should be dual grass-types as foliage is incorporated into their body. However, comfey do not photosynthesize and can survive indefinitely with no foliage in their body. The Department of Agriculture has scheduled a hearing on the matter for Spring 2022.

The physiology of the fey often defies easy categorization. Many are tied to emotions for existence like the ghosts and true psychics. Some do not rely on food for survival as much as a nebulous life force gained and lost through unconventional means. Their anatomy is often literally alien.

Comfey fits all of these descriptions. They are endemic to Alola. The many eccentricities in their biology have led scientists to believe that they were originally an ultra beast that managed to adapt to and thrive in Alola's rainforests.

Comfey's body consists primarily of a head segment and a tail. The head segment is roughly spherical and contains eyes, a mouth, and two arms. There is usually mossy hair on top of the head. The tail is pale blue and far longer than the head.

Comfey can attach objects, usually flowers, to the tail. These flowers will then become physically fused with the organism and be sustained by the comfey. Some of the flower's physical and cultural traits will be transferred to the comfey. The color, demeanor, and abilities of a comfey are all partially determined by its flowers. Comfey are capable of attaching non-flower objects. to their body. The most common are fruits, leaves, mushrooms, pearls, and gemstones. All of these are still comparatively rare compared to flowers. Studies have even shown comfey readily absorbing to objects taken from the worlds behind ultra wormholes. In the process, the comfey gains adaptations that helps them survive in that world. The anatomy of their head also shifts towards something more typical of that world, particularly focused on the most numerous and intelligent species.

Comfey appear to have cells and organs based on terrestrial plants. This breaks down the moment they are analyzed under a microscope. Comfey have plant cells that show no activity whatsoever. They appear to be frozen in time, neither living nor decaying. The organs do nothing, with the exception of the sensory organs. Comfey appear to have functional sight, smell, and hearing. How dead cells make functional organs is an open debate. One hypothesis is that they don't and comfey replicate these senses through psionics or some other ability.

Comfey that incorporate objects other than flowers can gain bark, pearl, or stone armor. This also affects their (still dead) cells. Comfey incorporating pieces of other pokémon gain some aspects of that pokémon. They will routinely attempt to bargain for hair or blood in exchange for healing, traits that may grant them abilities, intelligence, or even memories matching that of the target.

Do not trade bodily materials with the fey unless doing so is absolutely necessary to save a life. Even then, only do so with the utmost caution.

Comfey can grow to be up to three feet long, including the tail. Excluding the tail they are only about six inches long and seven inches tall. Comfey's weight depends on their adornments. Wild lifespans are poorly understood. Captive lifespans vary wildly for no discernible reason. Most comfey live for about thirty years. Some have allegedly lived for over two hundred.

Behavior

Many fairies bargain. The terms, objects, boons, and enforcement mechanisms vary, but the bargaining remains constant. It is usually not something they need to do so much as something they can do and enjoy doing.

Comfey depend on bargaining to survive. They have the ability to facilitate nebulous transactions of things ranging from health to intellect, talents, power, agility, and sensory acuity. The ability to exchange things other than health depends on the comfey's age, power, and adornments. These bargains mostly follow the rule of equivalent exchange, although comfey takes a fraction of the exchange for itself as a facilitator fee. These fees of life energy are how they survive.

Comfey typically establish themselves in central locations and common thoroughfares in a forest. People and pokémon in need of healing can approach a comfey to bargain. While comfey ordinarily do not communicate telepathically, anyone who approaches them with the attempt to bargain will receive a temporary telepathic link for an unknown (but likely trivial) cost.

The most common transaction for comfey is that of health or life injury. They can nearly instantly cure wounds with the caveat that the cost must be voluntarily transferred to another. The wounds can either be inflicted nearly 1:1 on another party, can be dispersed over many, or be paid in something other than health such as age or a temporary or permanent loss in elemental energy or physical strength.

Comfey may also agree to take on some loss of life energy themselves in exchange for something highly desirable, such as flowers from a pokémon, an evolutionary stone, or a flower they want but would not otherwise have access to. Bargains that do not involve healing wounds will usually require a gift such as these.

At night comfey sleep in the canopy. They curl their tail around them and rest on a tree branch, preferably on a bed of leaves. Very few things will attack a comfey as they are borderline inedible and can become extremely vicious when avenging slights against them.

Husbandry

Comfey are surprisingly friendly companions for being as alien as they are. Most happily bond to a host who seeks them out provided that adequate care is given. Comfey primarily expect opportunities to either bargain or otherwise drain life energy to subsist on (see Battle). Second, comfey cherish all kinds of affection and may be able to partially subsist off of it. They value gifted items far more than traded or found ones. Gifted creativity, such as a made item or a song composed for the comfey, put them in exceedingly high spirits. Sometimes that which is gifted is lost, however. The singer might forget the song or the knowledge of how to make the item will be lost. The broader skills – music and craftmanship – almost always remain intact. How else would the giver make more gifts?

Gifts of affection, objects, and ideas create a debt from the comfey that can be repaid over time in the form of healing or other assistance. How much comfey value gifts and repayments is difficult, if not impossible, to understand. Unless a gift physically contains bodily material it is rarely dangerous to give. The payment is assumed to be ingenuity and time rather than any kind of ceded ownership of the person.

Other cherished gifts include beautiful things that provoke an emotional response, however fleeting, such as shards of stained glass, wildflowers, and origami. Be very careful gifting pieces of things that used to be living pokémon such as feathers, scales, pearls, or insect wings. The equivalents from non-pokémon species are usually safe to live so long as the trainer accepts that the gift might cause the comfey to take on traits of that species. Pokémon-derived gifts can only be given if the item was originally gifted consensually or if the trainer personally killed the pokémon it was taken from. This will cause the comfey to take on behaviors or abilities from the original creature, although it is impossible to predict which ones in advance.

While working with a trainer a comfey can either heal injuries under the usual terms of a wild comfey or completely with no drawbacks as a debt repayment.

Comfey require a great deal of attention. If toys are used for enrichment, they must be rather complex as comfey are too intelligent for simple ones to hold their attention. They seem to dislike television and other videos as a form of enrichment. Live theater is fascinating. Comfey are capable of distinguishing between a freely given gift intended to create a debt and an exchange of money or services the comfey incidentally benefits from.

Most pokémon get along with comfey. The exceptions are dragons, which are rarely fond of fairies, and other healers. Comfey resent pokémon that heal for free and will attempt to undermine them at every turn. Wild populations are known to instantly attack any member of the blissey line that enters their forests as retaliation for being replaced as the region's go-to healers.

Illness

Comfey rarely sustain serious injuries for long. Very powerful fairy attacks can damage their body and some elementally-charged slashing attacks can cut off attached flowers or even cut the core body. Comfey usually play in battle (see Battle) but will become extremely serious if they are wounded, doing their best to heal the injury by draining anyone remotely responsible for it. If matters escalate the trainer could receive league sanctions, criminal penalties, or be held responsible by the comfey themselves.

If a comfey runs low on life energy it will become listless, fade in color, and stop responding to most external stimuli. A well-timed gift or a small exchange to facilitate can restore their reserves.

Despite being aminovore-adjacent, comfey rarely suffer from the diseases common among true psychics, phantoms, and even other fairies. The disorders that have been documented have almost always been brief and mild.

Comfey with no more room for adornment may sometimes exchange one of their existing flowers for a new one. The existing flower will have an invigorating scent and can be used as a healing artifact. A petal put into a bath can cure minor injuries, soothe emotional pain, and even partially counteract some degenerative diseases. Be warned that comfey's petals will resume decaying when they are removed from the pokémon.

The nebulous concept of life energy that comfey work with has long been a subject of curiosity among researchers. Fairies, including comfey, often work as much with a physical object as the connotations that humans and pokémon attach to it. A rose is a flower but also a symbol of affection. A comfey with rose petals, and especially roselia petals, can sense and even manipulate attraction to a limited degree. Life energy and health may just be another connotation that comfey can manipulate because humans believe that comfey can do so. Research into this manipulation led to the development of a few cure-all potions for fairy-type pokémon, phantoms, true psychics, and other pokémon keyed into attributed meanings. Comfey stopped cooperating with the research when they discovered that it could make them obsolete and work has stalled. The potion is still now only manufactured in very limited quantities and can sell for tens of thousands of dollars a dose. It has not yet been made useful for other pokémon, much less humans.

Evolution

Young comfey are just smaller versions of adult comfey.

Battle

Comfey are very odd. Theoretically their ability to manipulate health should make them nigh unbeatable. It does not. To begin with, comfey are very intrigued by the idea of fair games. Competitive battling is a game to them with clear rules and expectations. They would not allow themselves to be maimed in these battles. As a result they will stop shy of maiming others. Without a debt to balance to a desire to bargain, comfey also have only a limited rate of draining. Their elemental wells are not as deep as other fairy-type pokémon such as florges, sylveon, primarina, ninetales, or clefable. Comfey have essentially no physical power. Even their offensive coverage options are a little lacking.

In practice, comfey are slow setup sweepers that use their draining abilities to keep themselves healthy while slowly wearing down opponents. Comfey can use the opportunity to set up with calm mind or support the team with healing options like aromatherapy. Once comfey is sufficiently boosted, they can attempt to sweep with weaponized draining attacks like draining kiss and giga drain or more offensive options like moonblast or stored power.

During this time comfey are still vulnerable to being overwhelmed by raw force. Attacking, boosting, and taking hits all drain into comfey's pool of vitality. They are reluctant to burn too much on a simple game. Any pokémon that can force the comfey to expend more energy than it is recovering can force it out quickly enough. Comfey can fly, but not quickly. Powerful physical attacks or, before calm mind boosts, ranged options like hyper beam or moonblast can knock out a comfey in a few hits. They are excellent when dealing with grounded walls or tanks like blissey or snorlax but struggle to do anything at all against more offensive teams. Some fairy specialists will keep one in reserve as a stallbreaker on the competitive circuits, but they are rarely a mainstay on a professional trainer's team.

In double battles comfey can drain multiple targets and actively heal not only their own injuries but those of an ally. Unfortunately, they can also be attacked by two opponents at once, making them equally vulnerable to being overwhelmed. An ally with follow me, ally swap, or other redirection techniques can make comfey much more difficult for enemies to deal with.

Comfey are perfectly fine on the island challenge. Fairy and grass coverage is a good combination against all four kahunas and many of the most difficult trials. Comfey can either rely on passive boosting and draining against opponents with no options to hit airborne pokémon, which are surprisingly common in the early stages of the island challenge, or use a more offensive moveset. Comfey's lack of natural firepower is much less noticeable on the island challenge compared to the professional circuits. Trainers who can afford the calm mind TM should buy it, but doing so will not be necessary until the third or fourth island.

Acquisition

Comfey primarily reside in the rainforests of Akala. They are capable of adapting to more biomes, especially wildflower meadows, but competition with blissey has limited them to the dense, tropical forests that their rivals tend to avoid.

Comfey are reluctant to become a trained pokémon without an initial debt being created. This can be in the form of a beautiful object with high sentimental value or a wildflower the comfey would not ordinarily have access to. This can sway a comfey into joining a team and staying until they feel like they are no longer getting enough from the arrangement to justify staying. Proving battles are unnecessary and counterproductive.

Adoption and purchase are occasionally viable options. It is nearly impossible to have a proper comfey breeding operation, but individual trainers will sometimes have young comfey for sale (see Breeding). Comfey are an endangered endemic species and the private trade is restricted. Specimens occasionally become available for adoption, but most comfey are releasable. Only specimens extremely reluctant to return to the wild or too powerful for the ecosystem to accommodate are held in shelters.

Comfey can be purchased, adopted, or captured with a Class III license.

Breeding

Comfey appear to reproduce asexually. The moment of birth or creation has never been observed and comfey are incredibly secretive about it. A sufficiently powerful comfey will sometimes produce offspring with seemingly no pregnancy period. Newborn comfey are only about six inches long. Their first petal is gifted to them by their parent. The comfey will stay under their parent's protection until they are around two feet long, at which point the parent will become increasingly hostile until their offspring leaves the area. This is typically when they are given to new trainers in captivity. Comfey breeding is impossible to prevent. Most comfey trainers will inevitably have to find a home for a new comfey on fairly short notice. Comfey do not tolerate conspecifics, including grown offspring, so breeding colonies are impossible without a great deal of land.

Genetic diversity is retained via mutation. Comfey's genetic code changes with each adornment, meaning that a comfey's cloned offspring will not have the same genetic code the parent did when they were born. Conventional cross-breeding is impossible, but the offspring will take on some traits of any pokémon the parent is adorned with.

Relatives

As extraterrestrials, comfey are difficult to place on a conventional phylogenetic tree with other pokémon. As flower-based fairies, florges are the usual selection for comfey's closest relative. Comfey adore florges petals and the two species can be quite friendly when they interact. Of course, comfey's tendency to adapt to the flora of their environment also means that the first specimens to come to earth may have been very, very different. Comfey's home world has never been discovered. It is plausible, if not likely, that it was not a variant of Earth.