4.

KkɅi and Sekki


"Right," said Eiffel, a few mornings later, when he was considerably more rested and had seemingly forgotten all about the conundrum of evolution. "You and I are having breakfast together."

He stood on the other side of Cyllene's bureau, where she sat scratching Xs on spreadsheets. Mid-morning sunlight streamed through the grand windows behind her, lighting up her office in summery blues. "The Exploratorium," Eiffel called the high-ceilinged space, though it was almost all empty carpet, with the few tables shoved to one wall and nothing declaring it exclusively the Survey Corps's headquarters.

"I already ate breakfast today," Cyllene said. She frowned. Rei's research points weren't adding up again. The teenager caught Piplup and conducted several field exercises with it… but was that enough for another promotion when yesterday his own Pikachu had shocked him into the infirmary?

"What did you have, then?" Eiffel asked cheerfully. "Toast and jam? Berry granola? Sticky rice with tofu and Basculin whiskers?"

Cyllene's stomach gurgled. She put down her inkwell pen and looked up at him tiredly.

"I didn't eat breakfast," she said.

Eiffel beamed and patted his belly. "Righto. I haven't either. Which means we can enjoy it together. I'm feeling partial to honeyed and roasted granola. Perhaps you could stretch your legs and buy some from the Guild whilst I scrounge for fresh berries?"

He was trying to be friendly. Cyllene might have enjoyed it, had Zisu not seen them sharing breakfast yesterday and teased her. Luckily neither Zisu nor anyone else knew about the kiss. The two had agreed to put it behind them, and pretend no such awkwardness had ever existed in Galaxy Hall.

But if memory served, it had happened. At a certain time and in a certain place, Cyllene Selenelion had kissed Eiffel Laventon in the library.

"We'll make it brief," she said.

"Splendid, splendid! I'll set Cyndaquil's nose right to it!"

"Don't lose her."

Steam puffed out of Eiffel's Poké Ball, forming into a teal-and-yellow rodent with a snout almost as long as its body. It sniffed the air, and a thin yellow flame grew out of its rump. Cyllene didn't bother with explaining the fire hazard. Surely if Galaxy Hall burned down at this point, it was all the Commander's fault. Instead she banished the thought, stood up from her desk, and walked away from the dizzying piles of paperwork.

In the mornings, Jubilife Village was full of activity. Anthe the clothier was draping newly dyed strips of fabric over drying racks outside. Rye and Colza the gardeners marched around with backhoes and trowels and baskets of potatoes. Beni the cook was buying mushrooms from Morel. The guardsmen discussed the previous night's suspicions, bragging of bravery. Zisu was helping her husband Bonn haul bags of sugar back to their quarters for work on another batch of candy. And the village's many children ran around in wooden masks, playing games with river rocks and circles drawn with fingers in the dust.

Cyllene breathed in the scents of wet earth and pollen. The morning breeze tingled in her throat. Stepping out of the shadow of the largest building, she felt the sunlight intensify.

Summer. A time of abundance. A time for peace, and reassurance.

"Hey, browless. Where's that beautiful smile?"

There is no peace for me, Cyllene thought then, her grimace unchanging.

She whirled around to face what still lurked in the shadows below the grand brick building. A two-wheeled wooden caravan, currently unattached to a labor creature. The canvas sheets covering the top were emblazoned with a faded golden logo of two intertwining ginkgo leaves and a nut.

First the fire hazards and now these greedy vagabonds.

"This is official Galaxy Expedition Team property. The Guild has no right to park caravans right out front for business," Cyllene said.

"Is that one of the rules you made up?"

He was an ancient gray merchant, slouching on a stool in front of the caravan with his gnarled hands dangling between his knees. The blue coat and breeches of the Ginkgo Guild looked baggy on him, with the large, square knapsack and bundled-up blanket weighing heavily on his spine. Beneath the wide brim of his blue-and-gold cap, he leered at her with sunken eyes and a small smirk puckered with wrinkles and scars.

"Barely any civilization around here. How much do you think those rules matter?" he asked, in a thin, reedy tenor. Then he coughed hard into his right sleeve, grunting at a sheen of mucus left staining the fabric.

Cyllene scoffed. "Well, what do you think we're trying to do here? It's only been two years since we arrived in Hisui. Are you expecting an entire business district?"

"A decent tavern, at least," said the old merchant. "Something more than shrubs and manure."

That was the attitude of the Ginkgo Guild. Scout out sapling towns just gaining their bearings, peddle them "rare wares" mixed in with useful goods, (to prove they were more alluring than other companies,) and then suggest they build a tavern and get them hooked on "hard-to-find ales and spirits," which would sell like mad when frustration was the flavor of the air. It was a difficult game dealing with the Guild. They had everything the Galaxy Team needed, yet their philosophy was profit first, pleasure second, and prosperity dead last, if at all.

Cyllene bought all her beer from Ginkgo Men. It was the only way she could taste Fall Harbor dark lager, and a slick way to evade being seen indulging at the canteen.

"What," said the old merchant. "Don't stare at me. If you're going to take up space, then at least smile."

She was quick with the reply. "Don't tell a woman you don't know to smile. It's impolite."

The old man stretched out his arms and yawned, jaw opening so wide his gray beard tickled his neck. "You think I'm being impolite? Miss, I'm a seventy-seven-year-old geezer whose heart is slowly killing him. I'm going to say what I want. This whole village is depressing. I've sat here long enough to think you're the culprit. You never smile."

Cyllene put her hands on her hips, giving him that glare. "Do you really think you're going to draw in more customers with that attitude?"

"Now, I heard your professor talking about how he's studying Pokémon evolution. Wouldn't you like to have a magic stone that causes certain Pokémon to evolve on the spot just by touching it? I sell them. And I'm the only one who knows where to find them."

"What does that have to do with your attitude?"

"Nothing. I've been to a lot more places than you have. I know attitude is carrots when you have what people want. You're powerless to stop me from intriguing you, and I will have your money in my hands. Now… what do you want that the Ginkgo Guild has this fine, Hisuian morning?"

Cyllene was speechless. The Ginkgo Men were pushy, especially when bullied, but never malicious. And now this one! With his couldn't-care posture! The soft voice spitting out insults! Even the gall to park his caravan right outside Galaxy Hall, as if challenging the Commander directly!

"Who do you think you are?" she asked. "The Ginkgo Guild's leader?"

He tipped his cap and grinned with yellow teeth all crammed together in a too-small jaw.

"Ginter. At your service."

"And that'll be enough, Ginter," came a loud, stern voice. Zisu marched forward, placing a hand on Cyllene's left shoulder and squeezing. "Cyllene's one of the most respected members of our community. If she's getting prickly with you, we're going to have problems."

"I'm not afraid of you, Captain Perilla."

"And I'm not afraid to fight an old fart getting on my best friend's nerves, so watch it."

Cyllene pushed her away. She stepped toward Ginter, holding out two small copper coins. "One sack of granola, please." Then she whispered, "and a case of Fall Harbor dark lager, delivered to my office in an hour."

"That will be more," he softly growled.

She dug in her satchel until a silver coin spilled out right into his waiting hands. The old man tipped his hat again. He groaned as he rose from his seat, then stumbled around to the open barrels behind the caravan and pretended to lug a one-pound burlap sack of granola over into Cyllene's arms. She nodded toward him, then promptly turned and…

Headed in exactly the opposite direction of Galaxy Hall, into the sunlight.

"What a Ginkgo Grouch," Zisu said, catching up behind her. "Sorry, Cy. He just showed up a few days ago, and he knows he attracts more customers in that spot. Should I get the Commander involved?"

"No, and I'd rather you don't threaten to beat up an old man in the middle of Jubilife Village either."

"Oh? You think you could take him?"

"I am Hoenn's greatest swordswoman."

Zisu raised her eyebrows. "You're being masterful."

"I'll spare him for now. One Ginkgo already lost his life this week."

She said it in a deadpan alto that had Zisu clutching her face to keep from laughing. But only for a moment, when they'd crossed over one of the little bridges on the creek and Cyllene suddenly realized she had no reason to be out and about.

"I should be working right now," she said.

"Working? I thought you were having breakfast with Eiffel."

"I was going to have breakfast regardless of who else showed up."

"I'll cook you two a nice hot meal."

"Now you've ruined it," Cyllene said, raising hairless brows and tossing the whole sack of granola in the creek.

"I know," Zisu said smugly. "But he'll lose track of that Cyndaquil, don't worry. I know you'll be far more interested in our very special guest. It was a whole debacle early this morning slipping her in. She didn't want anyone to see her."

Cyllene stared at her. "Who?"

Zisu leaned in close. "The Kkai," she whispered.

"The Kkai is here already!?"

"She plans to speak with the Commander privately. If we weren't concerned about the sky caving in, I would've left her outside to climb the walls. And I bet she would've tried."

"Where is she now, then?"

"Well, that was the debacle. I said she could stay in my quarters, but she wanted more 'space' to wait for evening, so we eventually let her plop down right in the middle of the biggest pasture. She's still there now. Would you like to see her?"

Cyllene nodded. "I would, actually. I have some things I want to ask her."

"As long as you're careful."

"Well understood."


The Kkai was a slim, pale girl of eighteen, who wore a tiara made of red-stained nacre and ate lightly-salted ice chunks for breakfast.

She was exactly where Zisu said she would be — sitting in a rusted yellow wheelbarrow left in the middle of the Survey Corps's Bidoof pasture. A whole herd of Bidoof surrounded her, sniffing and clicking where her tiny blown-glass slippers had squished in the soil. She was cross-legged and straight-spined. Her eyes were closed. As Cyllene approached, she was holding both arms out wide with her fingers stretched tightly, as if waiting to get crushed in a hug. In her lap was a Glaceon, blowing out snow crystals as it slept.

"They could've brought her a chair," Cyllene muttered.

"I WILL NOT BE A FOOL WHO DEBATES ABOUT CHAIRS! AAAAHHHH!"

The Kkai screeched in a flutey soprano, opening her eyes and flailing all her limbs at once. The wheelbarrow tipped over on its side, crashing down with a clang on the rocks that had tried to keep it stable. The girl and her Glaceon spilled out too easily. Both tumbled through soil and mud, punching the ground and kicking at weeds, until Cyllene stopped the girl with her sandal and offered a hesitant hand.

"Chairs," said The Kkai, petting Glaceon between the ears. "He would have you debate definitions for hours, on basis of faith and devotion. 'If it's simply a seat, then it could be a stone. And if it has four legs, should it lack locomotion?'"

Her face twisted up in embarrassment. She ignored Cyllene's hand and brought herself to her feet, shaking out the shining red sash tied taut around her waist, (and patting down the back of her bright white shorts.) Then she turned the wheelbarrow right again and climbed back in, standing this time. Glaceon leapt far up into her arms, wagging its tail and sneezing out frozen soil.

"My apologies, surely. Twas all a mistake," The Kkai said. "I once was a victim of that kind of take. The Sekki is clever. His words are like vines, and he'll suffocate those who think shrewdly of time."

How does she do that!? Cyllene thought. If she were trained in such verbal acrobatics, perhaps she wouldn't fumble so much with her intentions. Find the perfect words and place them exactly where they needed to be, for context and tone and…

And she'd probably still have felt Eiffel Laventon breathing into her mouth.

"My apologies as well," she told The Kkai. "I wasn't aware even a topic like 'chairs' would relate to your feud. The Galaxy Team intends to remain impartial."

"Suspiciously partial to visit me here. All places have purpose. Where words are shared matters."

The Kkai grimaced again, seemingly unsatisfied with her slant rhyme. Her blown-glass slippers scraped against the rusted hull of the wheelbarrow. Her legs were all smeared with mud. Swiftly she jumped down, depositing Glaceon next to her and beginning to walk toward the nearest bit of fencing.

"You are Captain Cyllene," she said, thoughtfully.

"Did Zisu tell you?"

"I saw you the last time I visited here. You watch, but don't speak. And you drink too much beer. Could I sense that perhaps you are living in fear?"

"What would I fear that you'd notice?"

The Kkai was trembling. She kicked at the ground, lips curled up and head cocked to one side. Nervously, she brought her hands down and tugged at the knot keeping her sash in place. Then she spoke. Softer, this time.

"Drat. Just… just drat. I can never think fast enough. Ignore what I said. 'Fear' was the only thing that came to mind and seemed to fit. I shouldn't have gone for the triplet. Oh, I must seem like an ass."

Cyllene couldn't help herself. She smiled at the girl. Tried not to laugh, of course. That would've been rude. But she smiled.

"It's all formality, anyway," The Kkai kept going. "But I'm so nervous talking to you Galaxy people. You don't use rhyme and rhythm like the pearL claN. You're not overly verbose like the diamonD claN. Your speech is just… strange… It's why I want to speak with your Commander alone. I'll be less nervous."

"It's all right. I'm surprised you know how to speak like us. Your poetry is quite impressive."

But the girl still shuddered, crossing her arms again. "It's not speaking. It's only knowing the language. You must know the language before you can speak. Speaking is knowing the language and using the gift of spacE to give it meaning."

"But what if there's no way to convey the meaning you want?"

"Then we don't speak," said The Kkai. "Pokémon don't speak, and they still live in spacE. S…Speech is not everything. Only a part. The land and its people are Sinnoh's great art."

She began pacing, trailing her fingers along the grain of the fence while she circled its perimeter. Cyllene walked beside her, wondering if her presence itself was alarming to the girl so versed in the value of Space.

"That's why I came to find you here. I wanted to ask you about Almighty Sinnoh. Isn't it true the Pearl Clan believes it's responsible for creating Hisui, and rules over its vastness?"

"Almighty Sinnoh is vastnesS. Is spacE. She lives in all places and things. She is grace within dancing. She's music that soars through the air. And She's ships on the water. She's herE and She's therE."

"And you are The Kkai who… for Her… takes care… of… Her," Cyllene stumbled.

The girl turned. Her nervousness fell away suddenly to giggles, and she put her fingertips to her lips in surprise.

"Fellow women may use my familiar name. It is iridA, flared at the end, saving space for Her Vastness, who swims within thought and belief."

"iridA," Cyllene said.

"iridA, daughter of sandarA. Children and strangers and men call me Kkai and then bow. For I am the one with the red nacre crown, who keeps watch on all spacE and the pearL claN, my people, who are and live right beside Sinnoh Herself."

"But what is meaning?" Cyllene asked. "If Almighty Sinnoh is in everything — is everything — then how do I know what She's telling me? Is it all literal, or do I have to understand signs or find secret messages or try to see the supernatural in the mundane? iridA, out of everyone in your Clan, you would know the most about Sinnoh and Her ways. How does She speak to humans?"

Deciding she'd had enough of the pasture's space, iridA hauled herself up and hopped over the fence. Her glass slippers really weren't made for clip-clopping through dirt and tangled grass, and Cyllene had to stop her from tripping as she made her way toward the village proper.

"Are you looking for something specific? Arcane?"

"What I want to know is why I came to Hisui. What…" (She was embarrassed to admit it out loud again.) "What will become of me here. Because I do fear. And I drink too much beer."

iridA giggled again, shaking her head at the adorable attempts. "What's the obvious reason?" she asked.

"My best friend was marrying an idiot, and I came along as the voice of reason."

"I'll keep it a secret."

"You'll swear it."

"I will. And you've been here two years."

"That's… that is true."

"So your fears manifest from a purposeless life."

"And having to look at corpses."

iridA looked at her. The giggling was gone, replaced by mature concern. Perhaps too mature for one of her age, and that was her own quest for stability.

"She shapes death and strife as She shapes joy and life. Hmm, this is a puzzle. Perhaps there's a place where you'll feel that your purpose is right in your face? And it's your job to find it, if here or if there. In Sinnoh's Vast Hisui or maybe elsewhere. You cannot stay still when no meaning is there."

Cyllene's shoulders slumped. They had reached the bridge near the waterwheel, spinning slowly as the summer heat continued sucking the creek bed dry. What water did fall from its wooden spokes splashed and glittered rhythmically.

"I would also suggest that you breathe and eat veggies," iridA whispered. "And meditate mornings and get some good sleep. Sometimes feelings aren't deep. You just haven't had sleep."

"No, I haven't had sleep," yawned Cyllene. "Are you speaking now with the Commander, then? Everyone can see you now."

"Seeing is knowing," iridA said, straightening her spine and glancing up at the imperiousness of Galaxy Hall — so different from the yurts and cabins of her home in the Alabaster Icelands. "Seeing is knowing, and going is being. I will tell your Commander what I know of the storm."

Suddenly, the canvas curtains of Ginter's caravan rustled. The old merchant, as well as Cyllene, looked to see a young and very muscular man in a long blue coat emerge, rustling the structure. He looked like he'd just woken up from a very long nap, wild ponytail of blue-and-greenish hair all greasy and tangled where it bobbed off the top of his head. He carefully lowered himself onto his rump and slid off the caravan, swaggering over (very slowly) to the women and appraising them with a face caked in homemade clay eyeliner.

"And simply as expected," he said, pronouncing each letter with relish, "The Kkai has gone and placed ONE GRATUITOUS SYLLABLE carelessly within that self-contained syntactical structure attempting to serve as some caricature of dactylic meter lasting just shy of two seconds at a point in which it would be far more suitable in the context of the speaker's ancestry, rank within her community, relative age of that community to the embryonic foreigners she is attempting to impress, for her to make use of, (utilize, if you will, if I am to exist as a model of honest and good character and or behavior to be followed, which clearly I must, for she, by which I mean The Kkai, is being silly,) a singular word, apostrophized, splicing the iamb into a foot which fits—"

CRASH!

iridA took off one of her red glass slippers and hurled it right at the man's forehead. He walked so slowly he still hadn't come within ten feet of them, and the shoe connected with his skull so fiercely it cracked and he stumbled backward onto his rump.

Ginter launched himself from his stool, spitting in the grass at the sudden exertion. "What have you done!?" he growled. "He didn't do anything to hurt you!"

iridA seized her other slipper. She was suddenly ablaze with anger. "He is The Sekki! The lorD of the diamonD claN! My ancestors' blood is still rotting his stomach! He's evil in Sinnoh's vast spacE!"

The old merchant scoffed, helping to raise The Sekki to his feet. Hot blood dripped from his forehead, dribbling down and staining his blue coat. He glared daggers at iridA and spoke again:

"She, The Kai, today, at this moment, with the sun at this point in the sky, has produced a severe and singular wound upon my person. Let Almighty Sinnoh, He who is the passing of timE, the invisible incarnation of experience, wisdom, the patience of people and Pokémon, bear His entire witness to the atrocity I now speak of."

"You waste the time you value, adamaN. Almighty Sinnoh sees you in all places, no matter how much time you take to speak."

Now The Sekki's thick blue eyebrows raised. He cracked his knuckles — (wrapped in bands of cloth to cover other injuries, Cyllene noted.)

"She," he began, "She, The Kkai, iridA who is a short-in-stature human person of the nature to give birth, uses her tongue-in-cheek tongue in three insolent syllables to convey such foul dissonance and disrespect as to call my person by my own familiar name. I, adamaN first son of cabronuS—"

"You lazy diamondS! Garrulous and dry!
You let your rice crop desiccate and die.
You fail to paddle fast enough to swim.
You sleep 'til creatures eat you limb from limb.
You eat so slowly that your muscles shrink,
And wait until it rains to have a drink.
And no camellia could clear the air
Of poison stench that floats from unwashed hair,
Because you say 'tomorrow, not today'
On any burden standing in your way —
Procrastinating summer into spring,
Until your bones are fables in the fall,
That pearL claN elders pick and peel to string
And sew your skin into a winter shawl."

"You, I mean by which the singular person I am referring to in the second person, that in third person I would otherwise refer to as The Kkai, iridA, silly girl, worshipper of a false and imaginary deity, immer weiter and so forth, you are specifically and in explicit, witnessed, catalogued and undeniably verifiable cases — also documented extensively, of course, in many books and upon stone tablets and perhaps even in ancient cave paintings, you are responsible for the conflagration, the definition being the horrific consumption by fire, flames, smoke, spark and smoldering, and cataclysmic destruction of your own dear vast swaths of the land in which we all reside. I must state that land is known as "Sinnoh's Hisui" by both my claN, your claN, and a third party which we shall refer to as these aforementioned embryonic foreigners who refer to themselves as the "Galaxy Expedition Team," comprised of the southern Johtoans and Hoennese, a scattering of Alolan Islanders, and unique among them one very singular Galarian male scientist who is thirty-seven years old. I must also mention our present representative from the Ginkgo Guild, who graciously carted me here safely from the Obsidian Fieldlands at his convenience in his caravan, which you see behind you now. Let Almighty Sinnoh bear witness to my stating of these facts which I have just relayed to you, again known in the third person as iridA, silly girl, the Kkai. I am aggravated, alarmed, disparaged, verbally assaulted, (not to mention recently physically assaulted,) that you would make light of my people's — the diamonD claN's — connection to Sinnoh's Hisui, which we, the diamonD claN, worked tirelessly, over centuries — eons in our own mortal human eyes — in Almighty Sinnoh's eyes — He who is heartbeats and chances taken and untaken — to dig into the earth a hand's length deep and deposit the seed of the cone — by hand—"

"We burned the woods to make way for spacE."

"We planted the woods to worship timE."

Now they were inches apart, so close the blood from adamaN's forehead splashed upon iridA's chin, running thick until it dripped and splattered heavily in the dust between them.

"Fall Harbor dark lager," Ginter muttered to himself. And to Cyllene, who had backed away from the exchange, now perilously close to the old merchant, who didn't smell so nice himself. More like something burning, and sweat from places she didn't want to think about on an old man's body. He'd grabbed a bottle and twisted it in his hands, feeling the liquid slosh within.

"Does Fall Harbor dark lager work for you?" he asked, just as adamaN's Leafeon bit into the tail of iridA's Glaceon, and the two were sent brawling all over the dirt.

Cyllene scoffed. "Well, it's not a potion for longer life."

"I'm dying soon anyway. Have mercy on an old man. One copper coin back if I can try some too."

"Don't test me," she said, snatching the bottle out of his crooked fingers and tearing off the ridged metal cap with her own.

She nearly choked. The stuff was sickly sweet.


heaven can always turn around...


~N~

Hisui doesn't really have trees...

*For the Celestica (Diamond and Pearl) language:

iridA, adamaN: Familiar names, capitalized at the end "to save space" or "to extend time."

pearL claN, spacE: Important words, capitalized at the end for the same reason

Almighty Sinnoh, Kkai, Sekki, Hisui: Titles, important enough to capitalize at the beginning

Published by Syntax-N on FanFiction . Net May 28th, 2023. Do not repost on other sites. Please review! Also please come hang out in the Pokémon Fanfiction discord server, and if you like this fic, recommend it on the Pokémon Fanfiction Reddit!