"I set off to find the two, like you told me!"
Murkrow began recounting — stuttering and trembling — under the combined scrutiny of Gallade, Gothitelle, Scyther and Leavanny, all hiding away in the Shelter to avoid his story causing panic... or a certain presence pressuring him into manipulating its details.
"And..." the bird leaned deeper into the hay cushion of the chair he was laying on. "And I flew over the fields... then... there was a shimmer... down there, where I flew over. Foolish me, my curiosity was piqued!"
Seeing that the avian was still not fully well — fanning itself with its wing, clutching its hat, mumbling about how foolish it was over and over — Leavanny stepped forward to take it into her arms.
"There, there," she straightened its feathers, wiping away its tears. "Calm down, dear, breathe a little."
"I... uh... uh-huh," it nodded and attempting to assume a more dignified posture. "I approached it. It was crystals! Beautiful crystals, shining, sprouting from the dirt and piercing through the darkness of the night! Beautiful crystals, like a mirror, down there on the ground!"
The momentary hints of excitement faded, followed by its joyful grin soon after.
"I... I approached, even closer, and it caught me!"
"What did capture you?" Gallade intervened, while Leavanny was still gently stroking the raptor's head.
"I... it... the thing!" It flailed its wings in the air, startling the bug. "You know the thing! The ball! The orb!"
"Did it appear on top of you, or from the crystal, or from behind you?" The warden stroked his chin.
"Do you agree that it looked very much like the energy conjured by a powerful, Dark-type attack?" Gothitelle interjected.
"Please, let's get the story first," Gallade replicated, much to her annoyance.
"I fell into this cavern — but the fall didn't hurt at all! — and it was crystalline, and sparkly, and there were diamonds, and... I... I was enjoying myself there! I even found Drifloon and Chatot you sent me to look for! And I became a Honchkrow! Like a dream come true! Like every dream come true!"
Once the bird ran out of breath, Gallade, Gothitelle, Leavanny exchanged glances.
"I... it... I... Dar... Darkrai arrived then... and when he arrived, he destroyed it all! It started to crack — everything around me did! — to crack and explode and be destroyed, with this burning ooze dripping out from it! It caught me, again! I was drowning! And... and... that's when Scyther fell in... and then Darkrai... returned, and got me out of there..."
"Wait, Darkrai only appeared after I did," Scyther chimed in.
"No! No! He was there before! First came Espurr, she became lost, and then came Darkrai! They later both left, and left me in the evil mud! And then you came, and then he came back!"
"Pertinent testimony," Gothitelle said. "I think we've heard enou—"
"No," the warden cut her off. "We did not. Thank you for recounting this to us, Murkrow, it was obviously very hard for you to do, and I respect your bravery in still going through with it. Scyther," he turned to the bug, while Leavanny carried the bird away. "Your turn, please."
"Ah... well... you see, I got stuck in it and—"
"How? The kids said you lunged into it."
"I did! I wanted to get him," he pointed to the raptor being rocked like an infant by Leavanny in the other room. "Out. And I got stuck!"
"What happened to you inside... it?"
"I... I fell into the same cave as him. With the crystals, but they were all... mourn, and, and dying and... he was stuck in the ooze, I tried to get him out, but it swallowed me again. After that, I felt better, somehow, and we were both in this village... it felt like Haven, but... but none of the buildings looked like it, at all, I'm not sure why I thought it was Haven, but I did."
"Like in a dream," Gothitelle commented. "Or a nightmare..."
Gallade rolled his eyes, but couldn't help slightly nod along in agreement. "You said you attacked Darkrai when he came in to help you?"
"Piss off! I was scared!"
"Anything else to add?"
"No..." Scyther folded his arms, as if cold.
Gallade's eyes veered away from the insect, and to the ceiling. He rubbed his chin, leaning against a wall of the Shelter, apparently doing so long enough for it to peeve Gothitelle. "Stop feigning being lost in thought, you haven't got a clue about what's happening!"
"No," he sighed. "I haven't a clue about anything, if I'm being honest."
"No, you do have a clue, actually," she snapped. "You do know who caused this, and you know that you have to start thinking about how to get rid of him."
"Why did he cause it?"
She flinched, before retreating into thought for a moment. "Perhaps there is such thing as a Lunar Feather... perhaps it is... something vile, which Darkrai would not have wanted the Murkrow you sent to find out about... perhaps it has set out to isolate us, to cut us off from the rest of the world for good," she made a sudden, cutting motion with her hand. "But I do not believe that I need to offer an elaborate hypothetically here, in order to support my assertion that the carrier you sent out to find the purported panacea getting swallowed by what seemed to be an incredibly powerful Dark-type attack is more than simply suspicious."
"If he had wanted to buy time for himself, and there is no such thing as a Lunar Feather, he could have just let the Murkrow try and find Chatot and Drifblim, which would have taken a day or two, then those two would also need to spend time searching for it. They would just be lost, and he would have all the time in the world, without prompting any suspicion. He had no reason to do something so brazen," Gallade responded, beginning to pace back and forth through the room. "If the Lunar Feather was something nefarious, but he didn't need the Murkrow to return it here for him, then why mention it? He could have made up any other item that could heal nightmares, and then send us on a wild chase for it. If he wanted to cut us off, then why take such a risk to prevent Murkrow from leaving, knowing that he would return anyhow, and lure back Chatot and Drifblim on top of it?"
"Well I'm not certain of everything, no!" Her frustration had reached its limits. "If we knew anything for certain, we wouldn't be in this mess to begin with! However, following your course of action, giving him the benefit of so, so many doubts had lead us down a path where two members of the village were almost eaten by a black hole!"
"I've understood the caution around him since day one and at no point have I forced anyone to interact with him, nor have I been anything other than vigilant," Gallade bit back. "Darkrai again deserves the benefit of the doubt because he's the one who went into there and actually saved Scyther and Murkrow. What if we hadn't been lenient with him, and had made him leave, and this had all happened just the same? Would we ever have been able to retrieve either of them from the darkness?"
"That's wishful thinking."
"Not... exactly. That being said, we have nothing concrete for the moment, not even a concrete reason to distrust Darkrai. Therefore, I'd like to honour his request and let him speak to Scyther and Murkrow as well, if he's able to piece together what's happening."
"That's out of the question," Gothitelle hissed. "If there's even a chance — which there's a pretty big one! — that he did... all of this, then leaving them, Scyther and Murkrow, the foremost victims, with him, or letting them interact with him, would not be prudent. If he is lying to us — which he is! — allowing him to have more information is not a good way to find out, or to curtail his deviousness! He should be wholly sequestered, and then questioned until something in his story is found to be off!"
Gallade sighed and looked to Scyther. Scyther shook his head in agreement with her. Gallade's gaze shifted to Murkrow. Murkrow nodded along.
Another sigh.
"Well, we're stuck then. I don't know what you want done if you're blocking me like this."
"We are 'stuck' because you're unwilling to move forward with the truly productive issue: finding a way to remove Darkrai from our peripheries!" Gothitelle fumed, receiving cautious encouragement from Scyther and Morgrem.
"Is it safe to do that?"
Her previously stringent demeanor faltered. "No..."
His eyes wanted to veer towards all that he knew to be in the room around him, all of those small, wooden sculptures he had seen lining the shelves when he had entered — the stacks of Mareep, the piles of Chingling in the box, the short drove of Arrokuda, the Pansear covering its ears, the Panpour covering its eyes — but he could not, they wouldn't budge.
On the opposite end of the table he was stuck on — having been too cowardly to protest having to be sat at all, considering how uncomfortable it was for him — Ursaring was in the process of carving another figurine, one the wraith was too fixated on the bear's eyes to clearly see either. Staring at Darkrai, and carving. Staring at Darkrai, and driving his claws into the log with ease, running them through to tear the wood apart, with ease.
This could end badly. If the necessity arose, Darkrai would have to defend himself without holding back. Even the Hammer Arm could be endured, but he did not wish to have to endure it... again.
"Yeah, I am pretty scared of you, if that's what you're wondering," Ursaring unexpectedly spoke up, startling him out of his skin. He set aside the latest of his creations: a Pansage, holding its mouth shut, completing the set. "A bit more after today and... whatever that was, if I'm being honest—"
"Ursaring... I do realise that the... the circumstances, or..." blast it, he couldn't think straight! "I do realise that it is rather easy to... to lay the blame, for this, on me, however, I am wholly incapable of doing... whatever that was, as you dubbed it..." Darkrai stumbled through his words, seeing this as an opportunity to spew out the yet to be refined string of excuses and defenses he had been considering only in silence thus far. "Has my entire stay here not been mired with misunderstandings so far? With all of the hostility seeming to have been on the verge of fading... before this happened? I implore you all to lend me your trust, so that we may understand the issues of the village, together!"
The bear thought for a moment, his eyes veering towards his left, towards various, odd sculptures he had carved — overrunning the uppermost shelves — of a deformed, monstrous... thing, which Darkrai could only guess to be a representation of himself. "I agree, I feel that, too, that you aren't up to no good, for the most part. That being said, I am pretty damn dumb, so I'm not putting way too much stock into my instincts on the matter here."
"Truly?" Cautious joy gripped the wraith, though the monotony of his voice did not reveal it. "You believe in my... my sincerity, my good faith, still?"
"Well, I'm sticking to the best rule of thumb here: I saw — felt — that you could kill us all, if you wanted to do that, so if you planned on it, or subjugation us, you'd just have done it by this point, you could well figure out how," the bear responded, leaning on his chair. "Like I said, I'm not too smart, but I think I know a thing or two about when someone's obviously holding back like that. Otherwise..."
He loomed back in, putting his claws on the table — making Darkrai, in turn, put some distance between them, lightly melding into the shadow of the stool — and took another statuette near his desk, that of a crudely made, tentacular creature.
"Maybe you are evil, and so conniving or something, and this is all a scheme... but if you were that smart, you'd be doing something better with your time than messing with us here, I feel... I wouldn't be able to really get our significance for you to do this to us, to take so much damn time with it," he rubbed his ear with the wooden figure. "You know, I met a Malamar with that sort of personality once, a lad so devious, conniving — whatever, you get the type — that he ended up fooling himself into becoming the head of a respectable guild... and then didn't end up actually doing anything nefarious, because that was too much of a risk to his 'grand plan' of dominating the regional economy by providing quality services through a highly respectable and honest institution," the ursid chuckled. "Anyhow, that's a tangent, but a pretty funny one, love telling it," the itch under his ear seemed to get stronger, so Ursaring scratched with more fervour, abandoning Darkrai for a second.
...
Ursaring was very, very good at hiding how afraid he was of the Nightmare Weaver, it seemed. Spectacularly so, once one knew that there was a spectacle taking place at all.
"Gallade may not be able to sense your emotions or thoughts," eventually, he set the object aside, with enough force for the thud to frighten the Moonshadow. "But I could tell that you were exaggerating your wounds—"
The wraith tensed.
"—not that I have any issue with it, it's good that it didn't get you in trouble. Simmer down."
The wraith relaxed.
... and realised that Ursaring had just noticed his tensing. Quite astute.
"Trying to be helpful constantly, the awkwardness, the hesitancy to defend yourself," he enumerated on his paw. "Respectively, those are things that a vile Pokemon trying to trick us wouldn't necessarily bother with, wouldn't experience, and wouldn't stand for... is my gut feeling on the matter. They're all the hallmarks of a... thing, trying its best to fit in, but being held back due to its own demeanour—"
The permanent, asocial disposition of Darkrai was, indeed, an incontournable problem for him—
The permanent, asocial disposition of Darkrai... and the irritable, short-tempered one of...
"—and also because anything that looks that way ought to want to kill a person, obviously."
'Anything that looks that way'... that way. Like a monstrous, disheveled wraith... or like a... gargantuan beast...
What did he mean by—
"Damn right. I used to be a feral before I got here," casting doubt on where he truly couldn't read minds like Gallade, Ursaring replied to his thoughts. "A secret, obviously, one I was sure that even you wouldn't know. When Bisharp kicked the bucket—"
"Please... may I request that you do not use such a disrespectful turn of the phrase?" Even as the bear jumped from one point of discussion to another — without a worry for whether the carefully analytical wraith was following along — Darkrai knew that he would not stand for such a sentence to be uttered.
"Sure, sure, but you have to keep in mind that I didn't know the guy. Anyhow, when you killed Bisharp," the Moonshadow's gaze fell to the ground... "They didn't have much of anyone left to protect the place, apparently. Luckily, on one of his missions, Chatot managed to almost get mauled by a bear."
Ursaring had to physically hold in a chuckle, but a snort still managed to get through.
"Now 'that doesn't sound lucky', is what you might say, but Chatot was crafty, though, good at pleading, good at flattering strength, and had a good deal in mind to propose to the beast, to get off the hook of trying to raid a berry stash while on his long journey."
He took a handful of berries from a tray by the side of his table, devouring the few dozen in a single gulp.
"The bear accepted, and came to enjoy the place he had arrived at, even if he had to try very hard over the years not to act like an obvious feral, which was hard, and had to get used to a good sleep schedule, like his life depended on it, because it did."
He swallowed another handful of what the wraith now saw to be Chesto Berries.
"That being said, I was never picky. A small chance to pass in my sleep or not, this place has always been nicer than having to deal with the Houndoom packs and friends infesting the wilderness. Not sleeping as much as I'd like is barely an inconvenience next to that. What I'm getting at here for your case is obvious: I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt and kinda trust that you aren't actually up to something."
Satisfied with his impromptu meal, he went back to fidgeting his carved toys, making the little Pansage and Pansear and Panpour dance and knock against each other.
"Not that I'm promising any meaningful help, because I can't argue you case — or any case, really — at all: I'm not a good talker, and seeing you get dragged through the village and forced to hold conversations with the dozens of half-incoherent, small creatures this place houses... is what made me sympathise with you first. So take this only as me wiping my hands from any responsibility for if you end up getting booted and then bitten by Houndooms out there, or something."
"I..." what? "That is... very relieving to hear, Ursaring, that some, at least, are not solely suffering here, and do hold organic sympathise... but... my presence torments most others, my nightmares are a risk that most others are not willing to endure, and... I do not know how to coexist with them knowing that. I do not think that I ever will be able to."
"Well, I can't do anything about that but wait for those Lunar Feathers, either," Ursaring sighed and shrugged. The Moonshadow hadn't really expected guidance, or any sort of productive answer from him on the matter, but it being confirmed that there was none to offer did sting. "Take it from a — now former — feral, then, if you do nothing, lie low, and just make yourself useful for some time, it'll all — maybe — end well, you already know that from instinct."
Not necessarily from instinct, Darkrai was very well aware of how to act around others, how to endear them to him, if such a possibility exists... in theory... and with a lot of time to prepare... and an excess of courage he needed to cultivate for himself... nothing about him was spontaneous anymore...
"At least, that's the theory, I'm not too sure how to account for 'getting blamed for doom portal that only you seem capable of conjuring' with it, and... that's about it, I can't help you out too much with that, but I think you're a good lad at heart, so I'll be rooting for you as long as it's reasonable for me to play the Beyond One's advocate on your behalf. If you do end up staying here, I'll have the honour of selling you a place to sleep, if you have the gold for it, which you don't," he cackled, much to the wraith's continued discomfort in this conversation.
The door — which Darkrai hadn't realised had been locked behind him to begin with — was unlocked and pushed open.
Arms crossed behind his back, Darkrai hovered across the street, his eyes scanning his peripheries, attempting to appear serene as he gazed at shops, and buildings, and streets... even though his claws were tensed, prepared to strike back against the plethora of traps and ambushes he couldn't help but fantasise being lured into. The Nightmare Weaver's caution did not feel unjustified, not this time, no: their unpleasant looks — those of the villagers, of Ariados and Arbok and Oricorio and all of them — their unpleasant looks of anger and fear and worry had returned to them. Those same, tyrannical stares from before.
He had been returned to the very start of his endeavour, and could only hope that he wouldn't be sent further back, that their reactions to him wouldn't degenerate from terror at the sight of the creature of the woods, and to that of a threat needing to be swiftly acted against.
He had done so well. They had done so well for him. It was all going to be rendered null, it was all being rendered null in front of his very eyes. What had returned him there? What had undone his careful work? The careful work of his friends who had exerted so much effort for him? He did not understand what was happening around him!
Reflecting on it only filled him with more dread at the tragedy inching ever closer. This wouldn't end well, not for him, nor them, and he wanted it to end well for everyone. He loved them, and he wanted to stay with them, and he wanted to make sure that they would not hate him instead. Hate him for something which this time he had truly and fully not done.
Darkrai's mind raced to find an explanation for... all of this... for a space-time anomaly gnawing its way into an open field!
There was one awful, most awful theory: he had been made the target of holy terror. Had he angered the Beyond One, by divulging something he oughtn't have to Lampent? What could he have divulged?
Even in his exile to the far fringes of existence, and even in the absence of the Creator, the wyrm was still powerful enough to exert his might and make a mockery out of those laws of reality one would have thought fundamental... and always most willing to do so, to hammer down the first, perceived, loose thread, in his perpetual quest for repentance.
Had Darkrai offended in a way which would have justified intervention?
...
No! He had told Lampent nothing of cosmic worth! Only the history of his own home! Besides, would this be the way in which Giratina would go about punishing him? Seizing control of the Dream Realm from him, only to give the Nightmare Weaver but a temporary fright? Ironic, mayhaps, but did Giratina deal with infractions in such a mild way?
...
Was this but the beginning of the tribulations?
Evidently not. Giratina had nothing to do with this... he regretted even blaming him first. No, certainly not him.
"Darkrai," Gallade, who had been strolling alongside him, spoke up in the hints of a tone the Moonshadow felt familiar with by that point: the warden was going to tell him something, but it would be stated loud enough to be overheard by those other Pokemon along the path. "I... I'm having this conversation with you out here... because I would not feel comfortable with us talking alone, too often, anymore," the wraith was aware, but that Gallade was confirming such damning reservations directly to him still delineated a remaining degree of trust. "Still, I want you to tell me everything you know about what just happened."
...
Would he do so?
It was a spatiotemporal distortion, that much was for certain and obvious, though with the amount of different ways those could arise, it was difficult to pinpoint its cause. Creation was very fickle. He could tell Gallade as much — it was not as though him possessing such knowledge would necessarily be overly odd, was the wraith's first thought on the matter — but... Gallade could still doubt and query.
Darkrai had already treaded far too deep into certain quagmires this way... even before this, he had been exercising his communicative skills through simulations in the Dream Realm, but the stay at Haven thus far had shown him that was nowhere near enough. He was not prepared for the myriad questions a Pokemon blessed with free will could ask, and was not as skilled at pre-empting them as he would have hoped.
It was best to wholly deny having any modicum of experience, in this case, and... there was another angle, much more flattering, one which would show him in a much more positive light, something he desperately needed right then, he could tell.
"I hadn't a clue about what that was, Gallade," the Moonshadow whined. "I only wished to help, and help I did, and to help is still all I wish to do. Allow me it."
"Darkrai..." Gallade held in his breath for a brief moment, considering whether to keep talking. "You... it's obvious to everyone that you were confident enough in your ability to navigate it and escape. Please, if you know more, tell us anything. You have..."
'You have no judgement to fear', perhaps? Either way, Gallade did not finish his sentence.
"I repeat myself: I hadn't a clue about what that was, Gallade," and, now, for a sly phrase whose effect the Nightmare Weaver was counting on maybe too much. "I hadn't a clue about what I was getting into, and I am thankful that I could extrac— save them... and return."
A total lie, of course, Darkrai was well aware of how such things functioned: the very moment he had penetrated into the orb, his confusion and worries had evaporated, for it was mostly a corrupted portion of the Dream Realm, the most malleable and yet durable of the various dimensions, always the first to seep into and corrode the material plane, once a warping of space-time occurred. He could control it, sense within it, navigate it. The 'why' of the situation was most pertinent, however... and the 'how to undo the damages done, and prevent new issues from arising', as well, perhaps...
While he arranged his thoughts on the matter, there was nothing but silence from Gallade. The gears in his head were turning, the — quite unsubtle — message of Darkrai's apparent bravery had passed through... but the reaction was not sufficient.
"You have no clue as to what you are doing, or how to proceed," Darkrai snarled, shooting an icy glare at the warden, whose shoulders suddenly tensed, and expression retreated from clear vexation to equally transparent anxiety. This was a serious matter, even if he had a grasp on what was happening. "Perhaps if you would allow me to converse with Scyther and the effected Murkrow," the wraith had adopted the warden's own tactic, making certain to speak just loud enough for the surrounding Pokemon of the streets to become witnesses to his terms. "Then I could come to some sort of conclusion, but, as it stands, you are blocking any of my attempts at aid."
"Ah— once again," Gallade needed a moment to get a hold of himself, after that brief fright. "They do not want to talk to you... at all, and I can't exactly force them to, not in the current situation."
"I have nothing, then!" The Moonshadow snapped. "I did not cause this, and you will not allow me to research it, what more can I do? How am I meant to help when I am not aware of how it arose? Or what happened within the anomaly?"
"I... your willingness to help us is highly appreciated, Darkrai, but we will have to see once... if the moment arises... again."
...
Gallade did not trust him with this information, for some reason, and that he was still insisting on receiving it only made the warden more suspicious... interesting, but it was not as though there truly was anything more to it, no?
The wraith only needed this information to be able to elaborate a more... organic way for himself to seem experienced with this issue — some way which wouldn't beg more questions as to why he knew how to respond to the black holes he was being accused of creating — but Darkrai was confident enough in his vague experiences of distortions to not have to press on further.
Missions where he had to respond to such meager threats — ones unworthy of the his siblings' attention, but still far too hazardous for their lives to be risked — were a fairly common occurrence, back when he was a useful Emissary of the Original One. That confused expedition through space-time to retrieve a possessed Celebi came to mind most pertinently... the extended solitude and calm did put into perspective just how active he was, once upon a time, though not with any worry for those who would become afflicted due to his presence... not that he cared back then...
"Do you believe that we have anything to fear... still?" The warden spoke up. "Could a Pokemon have caused... that?"
...
"I am uncertain..." no, they needed to remain vigilant. "Though I do not imagine that could have been the end of it, at least for the moment," it was not as though he had been given any more time to think this situation through! He could have done so while staying with Ursaring, but no! "I would recommend a heightened degree of prudence, though your usual safety measures ought to be reliable as well."
"Could I ask you to alert the Murkrow to this 'heightened degree of prudence', then?"
...
There was an angle to this... Gallade wanted him to say more to the birds than he had told him, something to betray more experience of the situation than he had already shown... how sly.
What would the Moonshadow have given them as directives? 'Be vigilant' was not constructive, and... he had to admit that the eyes of the murder would be far too useful to necessarily pass upon... they could locate any disturbances very efficiently. But then what was 'constructive'? To look for any oddities in the terrain, anything which would be mirrored, or distorted, or the sky ripping apart, or an abyss gaping from somewhere... that was as pertinent as his advice ought to be... but it did, indeed, betray a level of knowledge Darkrai promised he didn't have...
Blast it, he had misstepped already! He could respond to any anomalies, extract anyone from them, if need be, but more eyes would not be a waste... and now he needed something to disrupt this scheme of Gallade's... he had no angle to it, so hopefully something would come to mind along the way, or something would undo the situation... blast it, again!
"Very well," the wraith bowed, and dove into the shadows.
"Say, are you feeling better by now?" Espurr flew up from the road and onto the overhang the combine of Murkrow were perched upon, easily locating the one that had been lost in the void, and held up its wing, sensing whether it was shaking. "You've stopped trembling, that's quite good," she groomed its feathers into place, flicking the loose ones down onto the road, to be picked up by the cleaning Skwovet.
"Is... is Darkrai... mad, at me?" The raptor dared to ask, with the rest of the murder assembling even closer around him, eagerly awaiting — and utterly dreading! — the coming answer. "For... disrespecting and... and screaming at him?"
"Well..." Espurr rubbed the back of her head. "I have sadly gotten quite little time to converse with him, but with how kind he's trying to be, and with so few being nice to him in return, he's surely a tad bit upset at your ingratitude, but—"
"HE'S UPSET AT ME!" The bird shrieked, making her jolt up into the air and Skwovet jump into an alleyway.
"Hold on, perhaps not quite—!"
"YOU'RE GOING TO DIE YOU'RE GOING TO DIE YOU'RE GOING TO DIE!" A second Murkrow cried as it shook the first.
"Absolutely not—!"
"YOU'RE GOING TO GET DEFEATHERED AND DISMEMBERED AND DECAPITATED AND DEBEACKED!" A third caught the first in its wings, hugging it while shouting its warnings.
"A GONER! A GONER! A GONER! A GONER!" They began to sing in unison.
"No! No one is going to get harmed, I promise you all as much!" After the commotion had somewhat calmed, and they had stopped wildly flailing their wings, Espurr flew back over to the initial bird, making her bell chime. "Calm down, you're going to be quite alright," she caressed its feathers, while the raptor began to simmer down. "Darkrai isn't going to do anything bad to you, I doubly promise, he's going to help us understand what happened, instead."
"C—Can... can..." the bird — with clearly quivering breath and voice — extended its trembling wing towards her, towards the ribbon on her ear. "Can I have the... bell?"
Espurr considered for a moment, looking up to her head, around her — to see just how many Pokemon were there, in danger of getting hurt, if she had a sudden outburst — and then to the bird, the terrified, teary, little bird.
"Aww, fine, you can have it for a short moment," she picked it out from her ear, and it was immediately snatched away by the now airborne bird. "Do give it back tho—!"
A shadow rose from below her and blocked the bird's path in the open sky. The terrified creature shrieked, and then bolted back, attempting to turn and fly off in another direction, but, again, Darkrai materialised in front of it, swiping his claw at the disoriented Murkrow.
"Stop!" Espurr shouted from below, but the wraith only gave her a quick look and then turned back to the bird, even giving chase with heightened vigour.
She repeated her call for him cease, but that meant the Moonshadow gave the Murkrow one last, apparent chance to escape — with this all having been but a game, to wear it off — before snatching the bird with one of his claws, while the other dislodged the bell from its beak.
He let the avian return to its flock, and then descended with the Soothe Bell in hand, just as Espurr — distraught, but keeping herself from tears — hovered up to him.
"But, Darkrai—" she landed on the palm the wraith extended to her, attempting to explain the mistake he had just made, but he cut her off by placing the chime back onto the red ribbon around her ear.
"There, all is well!" He exclaimed, petting her on the head, which made Espurr give up on what she was trying to say, rubbing her ears against his hand and purring instead.
"Is this not evidence enough of his ill intent?" Gothitelle had already arrived to ruin his mood, and a look into her direction revealed Gallade to be there, as well... and a sizeable portion of the village, too, likely attracted by the commotion the birds were making in the sky, still...
Dread gripped him.
"I am dearly sorry for the disturbance this caused," Darkrai hovered down to Gallade — who stepped back — and bowed. "But it was they who started it, by pestering Espurr," he found the need to extend the kitten in his hand towards the warden and point at her, as proof.
"Darkrai..." Leavanny sighed and shook her head.
"I, for one, am utterly befuddled, then," dazed by a confused sense that he had made a mistake, Darkrai did not back down, and instead hissed at her, making the bug's antennas stiffen. "Is thieving not universally regarded as improper behaviour?"
"Well... uhm, no—" she stuttered.
"But they weren't stealing it, silly!" Espurr adjusted her ribbon, removing the item from it once more.
His eyes widened, he looked back to the flocking, wary birds in terror.
"It was quite alright that he took it, because I gave him the Soothe Bell," his friend levitated over to the distressed avian, handing it the item, making it chime to calm him. "He was feeling a small tad stressed, so he asked for it politely..."
"I..." Darkrai's heart hammered against his chest. He felt ill. "I..."
"Darn, first Gallade stays silent when we ask him whether theft is bad, and now he's saying that we don't support bullying those annoying birds," Ursaring remarked, fine with breaking all rules of the warden's primacy in speech during tense situations. "Gothi, you like connecting dots and stuff," she grimaced in response. "You'd better get on this case, we have to figure out whether he's being mind controlled by them before they turn this place into a mess."
Right, he was joking. Some cackled, Darkrai would not dare.
"Ursaring, now's not the time for you to become a joker," Gothitelle fumed.
He snorted. "You didn't have a clue about what was happening before turning around that corner and screeching about ill intent, now you have to go ahead and argue that of course he should've assumed that they were taking off with that after having politely requested it from her."
"No, there's no need for that, you're right. This was... excusable... in my opinion," Gallade said, with another tone whose function the wraith felt he understood: this one was weak, quiet, attempting to remain discrete, to not be heard, though certain parts were pronounced loud enough for the warden to be given the benefit of the doubt.
Still, Gallade's sights lingered on him, and Darkrai knew what that meant. The day was over with.
Something had disrupted him, at least.
Dusk's last, few rays of light grazed his skin, while he laid there, stroking the grass of the patch he was resting on. Darkrai looked to the dimming sky, nowhere close to being at ease, no matter how hard he was attempting to fool himself into believing that he was: he had so much, so, so much on his mind, and even more churning in his gut. Frustration made him momentarily drag his claws through the dirt, deracinating the foliage, before he heaved himself into the air once more.
The wraith extended his legs and perched himself upon a tree branch with arms crossed behind his back, looming over the little village down the hills, already with its lamps lit. Smoke was not yet rising from the chimneys, so he knew that Espurr — and the other Pokemon he intended to visit — were yet to go to sleep... and resting until then would not clear his mind at all, evidently: he had to do that himself.
So what did he know for certain? To begin with the 'what': a space-time distortion had occurred — and it was obviously nothing if not a space-time distortion — close-by to him, close-by to his village.
The answer to the 'when' was twofold: both this morning — though the anomaly had likely formed the night before, come to think of it — and, for as far back as he could suspect, during the night he had fainted, when he had found himself strangely warped — and he was now certain that he had been warped out of there — from the insides of the Sanctuary, and onto the streets to be discovered.
The locations were rather varied: in the isolated fields, in the Sanctuary, and in the Dream Realm. Anomalies tended to effect the last quite acutely — the Moonshadow had visited multiple dreams since then, and had suffered bizarre nightmares of his own, which made sense, with hindsight — this signalled to him that these occurrences had only just started taking place within the last week or so as, before that, all had been fine.
The list of implicated characters was as followed: himself, as he had been warped out of the Sanctuary, and then had suffered through afflicted nightmares and distortions, Espurr, due to the latter as well, the Murkrow, as it had been captured by the most important of the anomalies thus far, and Scyther, who was rather less important, as he had only stumbled into the latter as well.
'Why' and 'how' were both vague and of incredible importance. Was the reason for this occurrence natural — for as natural as a mangling of reality could be — or not? There were many ways this could occur.
It truly could be but an arbitrary event, the fabric of reality was not made equal in all areas of the cosmos, after all. How likely that was, however, he hadn't a clue...
The second was interference from a powerful sort of Pokemon. Admittedly, a series of anomalies such as these, perplexing even him, could only be conjured by his siblings, and none knew of his whereabouts, and neither did they care to pester... or interact with him at all. It wasn't them, they did not care, they had no reason to care.
...
There was one, other Firstborn who could have caused this, potentially: himself. Not that he wished for it to happen, nor did he know himself to be capable of doing such a thing willingly, but, during the brief... escapade with Hoopa, where that thing had pulled many of his siblings into one region, it had been shown that a large congregation of his family — even of those who did not naturally cause such issues — could lead to spatiotemporal warping.
The corruption seemed to always implicate him, or the Dream Realm... so, was it Darkrai's protracted presence in a single area what had lead to the stability of its reality corroding? A dreadful thought, he dared hope that he wasn't about to discover some new defect of his...
The last option was something or someone else entirely, though not an accident of the cosmos. Right before the New Moon Festival, he had kept himself from verifying the imports and exports from and to Haven — something he usually monitored — due to his time spent with Espurr, and the oncoming, short period of anxiety and increased risks of townsfolk being afflicted by nightmares. Had something been brought in while he hadn't been looking?
...
The Sanctuary was one of the implicated areas on his list, and the Murkrow was the one meant to debut the search for the Lunar Feather... when he had last visited the Sanctuary, looking to excuse himself and converse with her, Gothitelle had seemed terrified of... something, so much so that she had almost ignored him entirely for a moment, falling into his arms instead...
...
What could she have done to induce this scenario, however? Nothing... and the fuss she made over the Life Orb was evidence enough that she would not risk interacting with any peculiar items at all. She was far too afraid of any of the things he knew capable of distorting space-time, and it was not as though any were subtle and easy to dissimulate. And neither were they easy or even possible to procure!
What was he on about? There wasn't anything anyone could feasibly get his hands on to do this! He didn't know what was taking place around him, but he would keep himself from accusing the only Pokemon he had a negative, emotional reaction to. Obviously he wasn't thinking clearly: if she were the one dissimulating anything, Gallade would have sensed it, right? Darkrai was not aware of the scope of the warden's capability all too well, but he ought to have noticed the odd anxiety of someone trying to hide that they had ripped apart the fabric of reality at some point.
Gallade could sense any lies, or anxieties of being discovered, and that someone was lying or anxious about such a thing would he obvious, even to onlookers, especially when from a village known for its nervous and paranoid populace... still and again, any such devious behaviour would be easy to sense, no matter the methods, if the anomaly had been caused by someone, rather than something, then the most effective course of action for the wraith at least would be to err on the side of caution, and wait for it to be revealed.
Ought he ask Gallade to be more vigilant of this, then?
...
Well, it would seem like an accusation, and the need to be vigilant of someone would, itself, raise the question of whether it was someone who could have caused it, rather than it being a quasi-natural, inexplicable occurrence. If Darkrai pressed such a possibility... and Gallade did not stumble upon the culprit by chance... well, there would be but one suspect.
Prudence, once again, was advisable, as it had been on many more occasions which the Nightmare Weaver had come to fumble. If anything else were to happen to anyone in the village, then — as shown with Scyther and the Murkrow — Darkrai could easily intervene. In spite of the situation's appearance, commencing an investigation would not end well for him, and might not even be too useful for anyone else.
...
Well, that was not entirely true: with the smoke now rising in the distance, he would hold his usual conversation with Espurr, and then could proceed with a... limited operation. Murkrow did not sleep, but Scyther did, and Darkrai could not be prevented from interrogating him in dream... and erasing his memories of it, if by the end he judged it expedient.