35.

Sekki and ɅrezU


No one knew where Cranidos had come from.

The Diamond Clan had never seen such a Pokémon. It stood on two legs, with the claws, scales and beak of a lizard, but without the airy powers of Dragon-types. The four horns circling its blue domed crown of a skull could tear stones to splinters, yet it only ate leaves and berries. (Ravenously, but still.) Its beady red eyes held intelligence. Enough to attack when commanded, and heel when hostility diminished.

It was forbidden for girls who weren't Wardens to train Pokémon in the Diamond Clan. arezU wouldn't have cared to train one anyway. Ever since she could handle a pair of scissors her passion lay in making people beautiful.

There was always a routine. After she cleaned and exfoliated a face, she crushed dried flowers into powder and dusted it across the eyelids, (with a bit of rose oil so it would stick.) Then she thickened lashes with tallow and beeswax while preparing camellias for the most fragrant hair soak. And when her client's hair was clean, she dyed and cut it. She layered waves over shoulders. She framed faces — made them sharper. Redirected warmth for the winter and made a nest for the breeze to caress in summer months.

(arezU always had a nasty sunburn on the back of her own neck from keeping things short, but that was the price of fashion.)

When Cranidos appeared upon the Diamond Heath out of a faint purple hole in reality, it smelled the home-brewed bath salts in young arezU's satchel and ran up to gently nuzzle her.

Most had been unnerved. But the way it went was that Almighty Sinnoh appeared to The Sekki in a dream and told him Cranidos was His gift for the girl — a Pokémon from a distant time no one had ever lived to see. This made her a vision-seer. A Warden. A special little child, whom age and relevance would save in the pages of history.

And then, around the Fire Clock late that night, with the whole Clan gathered, The Sekki raised his arms to the unfeeling stars and said this:

"At this very moment, with I, myself, cabronuS, The Sekki, which is what we call the Leader of Hisui's diamonD claN, who reside here in the southeastern crimsoN mirelandS of Hisui in opposition to those heathen infidels the pearL claN in the northern alabasteR icelandS, led by their Kkai whom I will indecently refer to by the familiar name of sandarA, for I do not acknowledge her authority nor her taste in perfumes, do identify in this ten-year-old irrelevant daughter of Sinnoh known to those in her periphery as arezU, the eventual procreative partner of my first male offspring we familiarly refer to as adamaN!"

The whole crowd silenced, and arezU had gone pale as the fur on a Snorlax's belly. Raising her hand, she dared speak:

"I, myself, arezU, raise an interrogative pronoun requesting further information to specify what it was you, The Sekki, just stated in front of all of us diamonD claN gathered here before you!"

adamaN, who was the same age, said the same. But only arezU was scolded. No one challenged The Sekki, or Almighty Sinnoh, who sometimes spoke through him.

Cranidos, still by her side, stuck its beak into arezU's pocket and munched on the berries she'd been going to use to dye tsubakI's hair a brighter lilac. From that day on she'd cursed the little dino. It had no hair to wash or cut or dye or style. When one day it evolved into the bulky, six-horned Rampardos this fact was made even plainer. Her powders made it cough, and the makeup she made was better off as a snack in its cold, stony stomach.

And that accursed adamaN. adamaN, who became The Sekki himself because nothing his father ever said or did made him relevant enough to remain the leader of their Clan — that accursed adamaN, whose betrothal she could not refuse because the Ruler of Time had gifted her a bald-headed Rock-type

The Fire Clock lay at the center of the Diamond Clan's largest settlement. It was a set of twenty-four torch poles stuck in the earth in a vast ring, with smaller communal fire rings on the ground beneath their flames. Between the torches were sunk pillars of iron tipped with real diamonds — positioned just right so that a much larger diamond atop the roof of The Sekki's Lodge would catch and direct the sunlight each day, lighting the torches as each hour came to pass. When all had been lit, a prayer was said, and The Sekki extinguished them himself.

To worshipers of Time, this was the second most sacred place in all of Hisui, after the Temple of Sinnoh atop Mount Coronet, where Almighty Sinnoh Himself had appeared to adamaN's ancestor sazariN.

One golden summer evening an older arezU placed a cauldron full of hair dye over a lit fire in the center of the Fire Clock. She sat adamaN on a stool and tipped his head back into her concoction, dipping strands of his lengthening hair into the richest teal. While she waited for the dye to take, she cupped his face with her nails and carefully painted the rims of his warm brown eyes with wings.

He smiled at her, then winced only slightly when she tugged at his scalp to comb the color through.

Without returning the smile, she asked, "Did the former leader of this claN who caused your mother to conceive you ever make clear in your presence exactly how he perceived, in a dream, the incarnate nature of our Almighty Sinnoh on the day in which it was decided I should eventually become a Warden and your procreative partner?"

adamaN shrugged, and his smirk fell at once. "I don't know," he answered.

arezU paused. Her own red hair was blazing in the sunset. She'd cut it all off if she could with this drought, but beauty had to come before pride.

"My father described Sinnoh's human shape in his dream the same way it is written in the tale of sazariN, my ancestor." adamaN offered. "When Almighty Sinnoh descended and spoke to sazariN in the Temple of Sinnoh, he became like a man without—"

"What you, adamaN, My Sekki, are telling me, is to our claN a myth and a fable upon the subject of relevance. sazariN did not truly survive to explain to his family exactly how Almighty Sinnoh appeared to him, and anyway—"

"Why are you so concerned?"

The settlement was empty at this hour. All were in the middle of pacing with slow-motion steps toward the river for a dictionary-copying ceremony, and The Sekki was not expected until well into the procedure, if not missing it entirely. adamaN lifted his head up out of the cauldron and dripped saturated blue all over his bare shoulders.

"I…" arezU started. "Well, that storm up there just heebies my jeebies, and I was wondering if you've seen any visions about what it could mean."

They stared at one another for a long moment. Her work on his eyeliner was impeccable as always. He looked sharp as a raptor and frightening as an untimely death.

"I have never seen a vision," he whispered.

arezU took his hand in her own. "What?"

He smiled at her again, but less confidently this time.

"I must be the most unenlightened Sekki ever. I've never had anything I would call an out-of-body experience. No specters, apparitions, eidolons nor phantasms have made themselves known to me. I cannot prove to you or anyone else, least of all to those infidels in the Obsidian Fieldlands or ir—The Kkai, that there's anything outside our perception guiding our people. It was my father's judgment that appointed sabI a Warden. I don't even know if I could recognize someone else having a vision, much less pick out Sinnoh's dire face in a crowd. I just feel far too callow for any of that, and by the time I'm wise and experienced enough it will be someone else's turn. It's… not my destiny to be the most sung-about person in history, arezU. I just want to keep everyone safe."

arezU huffed. She took a thin brush and dipped it in the steaming dye so she could touch up the uneven bits of eyebrow surrounding adamaN's scar. Her long nails gripped his right arm where the tree spiraled upwards to the future.

"When you got these tattoos and starved yourself for however many days, and you started speaking gibberish and claiming you'd seen eons into the past and future all at once—"

"Fat lie."

A fragment of a sentence.

arezU almost dropped the brush. No one dared in the Diamond Clan, least of all the great pontificator himself. adamaN, who had studied the dictionary since he could speak. Who had once explained in no less than fifteen thousand words the correct way to sip cold broth, beating out his cousin tsubakI, who could only ramble for ten.

"adamaN, why are you going to the Galaxy Team's village? Why would you get all cuddly with their Commander? You know they just see us as these weird, slow-moving folk occupying land they'd like to turn into Ginkgo-funded taverns."

"I am going," said adamaN, pulling his coat tighter around his shoulders, "because maI tells me The Kkai has also been summoned, and because it's the kind of frivolous adventure I'm naturally attracted to. Would I refuse if there was even the smallest chance I could acquire knowledge about what fashioned that gargantuan celestial fracture!?"

He didn't need to point for arezU to feel the storm's swirling weight above the mountain. Instead he came up fully to sit on the stool and leaned in to press his lips against hers. His wet bangs brushed her forehead, and she shivered.

"Let me just give you a cute little trim," she whispered when they parted. "Just snip off those ends. Then I can pull it all up and The Kkai will see your face when you expound."

He started to lean back again. "The hair is sacred."

"Not if it's an accident. Rampardos?"

The big bulky therapod was keen on nibbling adamaN's Leafeon's tail, but when she snapped her fingers it turned and trundled up near. With her own smirk, arezU crushed a bright blue oran berry all over adamaN's split ends. It took only a second for Rampardos to latch on and sever the hair away with its beak.

adamaN went still, not even noticing when arezU flicked him in the nose and her partner chewed triumphantly.

"Now hold out your arms," she said then. "We already cut these wrappings to length. If you want to learn something, you might try the Commander's version of modesty."


And adamaN hadn't returned and now Rampardos was hurt. Hurt because of her. Because of Almighty Sinnoh. No, because of her. Because…

arezU whimpered, taking her sharpest scissors and snipping off another red dreadlock from her forehead. Her frenzied Lady Lilligant had been dancing nonstop for hours now — spurned on by the strange, bleeding sky. Leafy arms whipped around like swords, and shoes made of petals had grown tough as bludgeons. Kick and spin. Bend and pounce. Leap and dive and scorch what little remained of Brava Arena's verdant and flowery plateau.

Even the silk banners painted with her Lady's image were shrunken against their posts — all turned to soot. arezU shrank against the trunk of a long-dead tree. Rampardos lay its head in her lap, breathing quickly and struggling to flex its right ankle.

"Rrr," it growled. "Rrrr-ramp. Ramppphhh!"

She petted its skull. Her chest went cold when Rampardos' red eyes made contact with her own.

"Every time I sleepwalk you follow me and fight her off until I wake again. Rampardos, I don't deserve you as my partner."

Rampardos whined in protest. arezU shakily pulled herself to her feet, and the Pokémon tried to follow before its ankle gave out and it slipped, beak crashing down in the dirt. She knelt instantly, petting its horns until it closed its eyes and gave a tired purr.

"You're hurt, and I'm not dreaming about the sun coming to kill me anymore. You don't have to keep—"

"Raampphhhh. Ra… RAAAMPARDDDHHH!"

It roared as Lady Lilligant sliced right through the dead tree trunk. arezU somersaulted forward, shielding her eyes and screeching when she felt her bag come loose and her collection of tools scatter all over the ground.

Rampardos had latched onto one of Lilligant's stalky legs and was digging into her chest with its horns. It closed its eyes to avoid the blinding light, but one more well-timed kick struck its bad ankle in exactly the right spot, and it crumpled to the ground. Moments later, the deadly dancer broke away again and leapt high up over the trees, disappearing for good.

"Rampardos!"

"Rraamph."

She ran to its side, hugging it close and feeling the heat of its scales bristle against her face. Rampardos didn't seem to notice. It was growling toward the scorched path. Hating its own weakness.

"We did our best," arezU tried to reason. "We contained her rage as long as we could. But now…"

Rampardos' ankle was broken. It couldn't stand. It moaned pathetically, breathing hard and thrashing its rocky tail.

It could heal itself, if she let it be. Pokémon were miraculous creatures. She'd been intrigued upon learning the Galaxy Team's Professor Laventon intended to study them thoroughly. But this would take longer. Rampardos wouldn't be able to defend itself or her the next time she succumbed again to sleep.

Then there was the matter of Lilligant's rampage…

arezU crawled around and cupped Rampardos' beak in her hands.

"I'll traverse again to calabA's grotto. She made you a remedy last time. She'll fix you up in a jiffy if I can explain everything well enough. Can you stay strong until I get back?"

The beak lashed out and nipped at the front of her tunic. Last time Lady Lilligant had given Rampardos a nasty cut. It had still been able to walk beside its mistress and protect her. For as strange as it sounded keeping a Pokémon contained, she wished she had one of those wooden capsules the Ginkgo Men had been raving about.

"adamaN will come back to us," she whispered, kissing Rampardos' horns and fighting not to cry. "I know he's still out there. If he doesn't return, then we'll find him. Even if he doesn't know what he's doing, I still believe in him. He'll find a way to keep our claN safe."

A teardrop landed in the ashy dust of what was once a flower garden. With a hot breath, Rampardos relented and lay its beak down, shifting its weight until it was curled up comfortably.

The Warden took her scissors and began to trim the surrounding thickets wherever they were greenest. She made a pile of it close enough so Rampardos could help itself, then began to tread nervously down the steps of Brava Arena toward the dried-up bog of the northern Crimson Mirelands.

"My Sekki, Sekki I possess, leader of the people who worship an Almighty Sinnoh of Time, whether he sees visions or not, who belongs ultimately to me…"


Not too far away from Brava Arena, beneath another deadened tree, a shadow was convulsing as if alive. It had shrunken down and condensed into a shade of black so deep it seemed to suck all the light around it into itself. Every shadow of every tree bent toward the infinite darkness, and it greedily drank them in, growing even larger and darker.

Then, the flat patch of darkness spread. The ground it occupied grew damp, and the earth began to bubble and steam. The blackness took on not just a flat shape, but a touchable form. It rose up from the sodden pool of shadows like a goopy, amorphous slug. It then molded and morphed, splorting and squelching and squishing in on itself at every angle.

"G-gengggh..."

All at once the blob of darkness condensed once more until it was thin and glossy. It had begun to solidify, and it pulsed and twitched with a deep umber light. Its newest shape was unmistakable. It had four fat limbs, with tiny fingers and toes bubbling out at the ends. A moaning face was forming out of the black sludge on the head, and two ears were pulling themselves out of the muck.

Streeeeeeetch-pop!

A massive Gengar struggled to slip itself out of the ground where it had been sleeping. Its ears twitched twice, and it flopped down in the dirt, exasperated.


~N~

And of course the email alerts stop working again when I finally get a quiet weekend to write. But hey, ILikeShorts and CitrusChickadee both have new fics out as well, so allow me to promote them!

(I do need to note the final three paragraphs of this are shamelessly ripped from my 2019 fanfic Hetafata. Only OG Noodz fans will remember that scene where Gilbert delivers a baby. :)

Published by scrivenernoodz on FFN and AO3 April 29th, 2024. Thanks for reading! Don't repost.