22.

KkɅi and Sekki on the Brink of WɅr


It was adamaN's nineteenth birthday, and he was spending it naked in a pasture with grass in bad places.

"I deign to speak the base language," he said a twelfth time. "I must needs beseech you."

iridA breathed slowly above in her wheelbarrow, looking too small within the borrowed red gi. She hadn't eaten since the ruined peacemaking, adamaN knew. Something about the Pearl Clan denying themselves flesh so the world could have more space. It was horrid and base and she would starve before peace was achieved, if he were brave enough to tell her. He wanted to tell her. In the past few days, he'd wanted to tell her hours and hours of things, if at least to bridge the gap between their creeds and allow for some kind of peace.

"I do not make haste," he said, "but I would you give me a sign you are listening. I do not intend to hurt you, Kkai. As I have said before, in the presence of that Galaxy woman's vision—"

"Her name is Cyllene," iridA said. Glaceon hissed from where it sat on her lap, and adamaN's Leafeon hissed in kind.

"But out of respect for her womanhood—"

"The Galaxy Team don't have the same rules as us. You can call her Cyllene. She has no other name to be called by."

"But I cannot call you iridA."

"You may not," The Kkai affirmed.

"Then what are we doing here?"

"I don't know. Why don't you go put some clothes on and give me the space I deserve? I can't even sleep without my bodyguard staring at me."

adamaN pushed two feet of mottled blue-and-beige hair over his shoulders, wishing he was allowed at least the dignity of a ribbon. The Sekki's hair could not be cut until the day he was deemed Completely Irrelevant. Then he would go by nothing, sleep on the ground, and spend his final years contemplating the time it would take for Almighty Sinnoh's stars to finish burning and the universe to continue forever in darkness.

"I am not granted the dignity of clothes while my cousin has challenged my Ultimate Relevance," he tried to explain again. "He summoned Lord Electrode to the village, and did so with Cyllene the blessèd as witness. It is a greater and more terrible feat than I have ever achieved. tsubakI is four years older than I — his usurpation is ill fantasy within our creed and he has no claim to the title of Sekki — yet if it is proven his name shall be written more into history than mine, then he has every right to lead my Clan. And murder the both of us the moment we walk out those gates."

"Then tell him it's Almighty Sinnoh's decree to wait a thousand years before acting on such bloodlust."

adamaN glared. "And what would your Almighty Sinnoh decree? The one who rules Space, that you call female?"

"She would reiterate to humans and Pokémon that war is not the spilling of blood, but rather the torment of the mind. You can kill a man without touching him. You can break his spirit, sparing his bones, and he will wish you had drawn a dagger. Space is what grants pain its power — the look of a tortured man seeing his captor's indifference from afar while he suffers."

"That is not what your ancestors would have said. You burned our forests."

"And you killed our children for us having done so."

"This is getting nowhere."

"You speak as if you have somewhere to be. Is that haste?"

"And where do you have to be, Space-Woman!? Leading your people!"

"Glaceon, use Ice Beam right on his—"

adamaN jumped up, cheeks flushing when he heard The Kkai's small screech at his indecency. Quickly, he turned and stood with his back facing her, yet still ultimately mortified when a frozen blast connected squarely with his ass and he stumbled down into the grass, sharp and dry as needles.

iridA let out a light puff of laughter. It was a weak one, however, punctuated by a violent growling in her stomach.

The contested leader of the Diamond Clan pushed himself up again. He could feel where the sun beat down on a pentagonal tattoo etched into his back — a calendar on skin whose temperature told him it was his birthday. He should've been in the Crimson Mirelands where he was born, trying not to writhe as another tickmark was carved along his spine. Not here. Not committing the sin of impatience. Not pretending he felt pleasured by a girl starving herself, even if she was an infidel.

Cyllene was an infidel too, he reasoned, clasping a sweaty hand to his forehead. And Cyllene had seen something involved in driving his destiny. Things were confusing these days. Things that should have been one or the other were strangely both at once. Lines were blurred. It wasn't good.

"Well then. You weren't taught to believe in violence. So if I promise to bring a knife to those that would hurt you, would you trust me with your life? If you are afraid of my cousin, and that is why you balk, thinking Commander Kamado will keep you safe from tsubakI's schemes—"

"I balk because I'm grieving, adamaN."

Her voice had changed. It was rougher. He turned and watched her shoulders loosening, red silk shifting its sheen as she became smaller and thinner right before his very eyes.

"One of yours?" he asked.

iridA quoted:

"gaeriC,
At night in snow
His blood all around him
Talons having torn through his chest
Sleeping."

News of death always arrived in cinquains. Brief, ironic, and nasty, never allowing enough syllables for the spilling of the heart that followed.

"gaeriC was Lord Avalugg's Warden," adamaN remembered.

"He was my uncle," iridA shot back, wiping her eyes. "And it wasn't Lord Avalugg who killed him, but Braviary. One of your Nobles."

"Ah," the young man voiced, suddenly feeling very stupid without any clothes on. "That complicates things."

"Or makes them easier. Whatever your cousin would say. An eye for an eye. An uncle for a sister."

"I am not my cousin. I do not want to wage war on infidels, especially if they are starving little girls mourning their uncles."

"Especially if!?"

"Well, tsubakI is crazy enough to lack any discernment—"

"tsubakI doesn't want to wage war either. He just thinks it's right. He just… looks at that hole in the sky and has faith that it's Sinnoh calling him…"

iridA clutched her middle, shaking.

"I have never heard such a call. I was too young when I became The Kkai. I follow tradition. I make poetry and music. But when Cyllene asked me what her purpose was the night after the fire, what was I to say? Could I have an answer, other than to treat her body well and travel until she finds what she's looking for? Has your Almighty Sinnoh ever spoken to you, adamaN? How do you know that what you're following is real?"

adamaN stared. Was she, The Kkai, iridA, the one he was staring at… granting the Almighty Sinnoh of Time legitimacy? In front of him? He wished someone was there to witness it. His cousin. His Clan. Cyllene! (He had to find Cyllene!) Damn it all. He had cast out his earrings with his underwear and this was as close as he had ever come to avenging his ancestors.

And then he realized something that made all of his bare skin crawl.

"tsubakI wants me to kill you. He wants me to prove I'm brave enough to face my destiny, while making sure he doesn't have to squirm spilling your blood. That's why he didn't kill me outright when he had the chance."

iridA swung her thin white legs over the edge of the wheelbarrow and stood in the grass, her sash flowing in the morning breeze behind her.

And she looked at him. All of him. Taking him in. Her nemesis. Her poetry. Her own personal prophesied downfall.

"Clocksucker. Does it take that much more time for your brain to warm up?"

He stepped backwards. Her glare was like a storm of ice. The Glaceon that paced beside her was a literal storm of ice. One he was feeling in all the wrong places as it approached.

"We could end this now," iridA snarled. "We could walk outside the village gates. Out of Kamado's cursed little haven. You could tie me to a tree and club me with a dull stone for hours. I could encase those diamonds between your legs in ice and watch you puke until you die of dehydration. We'd let our successors figure out what to do with themselves. War. Peace. Whose Sinnoh is watching, anyway? Mine? Yours?"

"I am not going to fight you, iridA!"

"Destiny says you must! Almighty Sinnoh says you must! Or are you no true believer!?"

"I'm only nineteen!"

"I'm only eighteen," she said sadly. She closed up the last bit of space and curled two small, freezing hands around his biceps, feeling his breathing quicken.

"Take Cyllene to see The Foundling in the Highlands. He can interpret visions from Sinnoh. He'll be able to explain what she saw at the peacemaking."

adamaN shook his head. "I cannot leave you or the village. My cousin—"

"—is afraid of killing me, right?"

"He's crazy, iridA! He'll do anything to become a Year-Song! He tried to run me through when we were children playing Kill-The-Kkai with sticks! And besides…"

"Besides what?" she asked, shifting her hands to his quivering shoulders in such a way that it would be way too easy to make him cry with one swift kick of the slipper if he said something stupid.

Still, he deigned to give a smirk and cock his one sliced eyebrow.

"You're recognizing that I won because I pointed out Cyllene's vision was one of Time. You are granting my God legitimacy—"

She punched him in the chest.

"You swallow your hubris. We both saw what happened that night. Cyllene looked at both of us with those blood-red eyes. Some version of Sinnoh is among us, and it's chosen neither of us as its proxy. It's chosen her."

"Good word."

"Focus, son of cabronuS. This isn't a game anymore. We both came to Jubilife because Kamado wanted answers about the sky. We're stuck here because our Noble Pokémon are sick and rampaging and some people are taking that the wrong way. I'm not afraid of your cousin. I am afraid of turning into a sleepwalker."

"You haven't turned either?"

"It's not everyone," iridA said. Finally she took her hands away from his muscles, hoisting herself up gracefully over the fence and beckoning for Glaceon to follow.

The crunch of leather boots on grass was quickly approaching, and adamaN gave a quick and sinful curse. Diamond Clan "drafts of sleep" could only last for so long before their victims grew used to it. This was the fourth time he and iridA had managed to elude their bodyguards, and the first they'd been able to meet face-to-face. In the small of his back, below the tattoo, he formed his hands into the latent signal of a Leaf Storm. He'd vanish within the wall of green and sneak off to where he could find the Captain alone... perhaps after making himself a little more decent.

"Be careful, iridA," he said.

"You be careful waving that thing around plants you don't recognize."

It was difficult speaking without so many words as to convey anything and everything time would allow. adamaN swallowed, and clarified his warning:

"If I'm gone past sunset, beware the Commander in his sleep. And for the love of Eons, eat."


~N~

Ha, yeah, that's different than the dialogue we got in game... Any guesses as to who "The Foundling" is?

It's my birthday on Thursday! I'm going to be 23! Going to read Howl's Moving Castle with pizza and receive visions from the universe.

Published by Syntax-N on FanFiction . Net and on Ao3 as scrivenernoodz on September 25th, 2023. Please do review! Please don't repost.