37.
Limericks
It had always been a misconception among the Ginkgo Men, when they foolishly braved the north, that the Pearl Clan had more than one village.
Earlier in the strange, snowy summer, a one-eyed merchant had approached iridA outside a small cluster of cabins spaced evenly among the drifts. He asked what village this was, and nervously she recited a couplet:
"In Melomak, pentameter is key —
"This village teaches meter easily."
They wanted nothing to do with the Guild's trinkets, and so he pressed further north, where he found her again at another small ring of lights. Again, iridA spun a spontaneous haiku:
"In Melomak we
Count our syllables wisely
When learning to speak."
So this, too, was the village of Melomak, and would not accept trade from pernicious Ginkgos.
The merchant continued on. When he finally reached the very northern tip of Hisui, where Lake Acuity's icy waters spilled over into the dark, churning ocean beyond, he found another cluster of cabins, and there iridA recited for him:
"All the merchants who search Melomak
For a woman in need of a snack
Will find nothing but snow
And a fair bit to go
Before anyone won't find them quack."
It was all Melomak. One settlement, spread over the whole of the Alabaster Icelands and reaching as far south as Firespit Island in the Coastlands. There was joy in allowing great space between dwellings. Space to think and breathe. Space to cultivate genres of poetry and master them in solitude.
"iridA!"
calabA watched the thin girl come towards her. The Machamp carrying the caravan had turned around, and the one-eyed merchant disappeared into the shadows with it.
iridA barely shivered. She scooped up her Glaceon and disappeared with calabA into the smallest, most dilapidated cabin, whose logs and moss had started to rot away, letting drafts and dampness haunt the place constantly. A pathetic few embers glowed in a pan in the corner. The rest of the place was festooned with pairs of leggings tied off on the ends to keep the old woman's collection of herbs and berries as dry as could be.
"You gave him a leek," calabA said.
iridA nodded.
"You said it could cure his pain," calabA added.
iridA nodded again, kneeling over the pitiful brazier and struggling to make her fingers touch when they were so numb and stiff. Glaceon began to lick them with its rough blue tongue.
"Then no more shall come. Hisui goes on well enough without outsiders thriving."
Thirty-one syllables. calabA closed her tanka with a nod. It was true — before the Ginkgos and the Galaxy Team there had been others looking to claim Hisui's Space for themselves. Hundreds of years didn't leave the island or its Pokémon a secret. It was free as far as criminals and kings were concerned. But one vicious tuber had done the trick every time. A wicked panacea. Only troublingly, that Kamado had thought to bring a Medical Corps along.
calabA slipped a pair of gloves on over her gnarled brown hands and began to unfurl a roll of burlap, where dozens of leeks had been carefully left to dry. She watched iridA closely. The girl was like her mother. Naturally slender and delicate. The red nacre crown fit her well. But while sandarA had been obstinate from birth, her daughter was somewhat… softer. Hurt when the old Kkai had gone. Often lost between cabins and found shivering and sobbing in the snow—
"That merchant spun poems with me in the snow, and his meter was shaky but there. Is a stranger an enemy worth a dried leek if he's curious, eager, and rare?"
calabA set her jaw. Her bones weren't what they used to be. She no longer towered over the girl, and that made it difficult to set things straight when strangers like that found their way into Melomak.
The old woman ground her words as she recited:
"Does The Sekki speak of lightning in those volumes after death?
Does it spark and sputter violently or quote in idle breath?
What about that grand concession? What horizon shall we meet?
When two million words dissolve in water following defeat?
Shall we violate the skies that others seem to find profound?
Endless paragraphs and passages with characters to round?
What have dramas done for anyone? Or crises for the soul?
Strike a couplet. Get it done with. Now before the end times roll."
iridA huffed. "You've recited that warning since I was a girl. About prose and its squandering of time. When The Sekki concedes, is he no more to me? Is the land of Hisui then all mine?"
She'd been asking many such questions lately. Because of the hole in the sky. Because of the merchants. Because of the Galaxy Team, who had learned to use the leek juice sparingly enough.
Because adamaN had grown up, just as iridA had, and the time was drawing near. This time, in this generation, something had to change for good.
The old woman shrugged. "Go south, if you wish. Dirty your mouth with long words and let Sekki live."
"I don't want to kill adamaN."
Glaceon stopped licking. It whimpered, dragging its tassels of fur along the ground. calabA inhaled slowly.
"When Sinnoh first revealed Herself to me
I was a child hiding in a tree—"
"And you wrote me a sonnet of men who are dead, whose blood lingers in adamaN's veins. So I've waited for Sinnoh these eighteen short years. Is She testing me now when it ceases to rain?"
Their eyes met — old and angry, young and nervous. Tension only lessened by the howling of the wintry winds outside.
Some nights, when she was brave enough to try a sestina, iridA would argue about the inefficiency of their tongue.
Soon the door creaked open again. Into the cabin stepped a strapping and grinning young man, daring enough to bare his whole tanned torso to the cold. He smoothed his bright blue hair back and then dumped two handfuls of snow all over iridA's head.
"My niece once got snow in her hair.
She told me that it wasn't fair.
I gave her some more
And she called me a bore,
But in Melomak, what else is there?"
"Uncle gaeriC!" iridA cried, jumping to her feet. She threw her arms around him and buried her face in his pithy patch of chest hair, glad to have a living source of warmth for once.
calabA frowned. She tore a few pairs of leggings down from the ceiling and began to gut them down the side. Round yellow aspear berries tumbled out onto the dirt floor. She snatched one up and plopped it down on the embers to let it slowly sizzle.
"The Kkai and I were having an important talk about her future," she said. "I leave for the Mirelands soon. She wants to seek adamaN."
gaeriC's eyebrows raised. He looked down at the girl in his arms. iridA's smile was slight, but beautiful as fresh snowmelt. He bent down to kiss her forehead, then whispered in her ear:
"A Snorlax who lived in a rut
Could never quite fill up his gut
He gorged with a grin
'Til a Gengar slipped in
And soon Ghastlies popped out of his butt."
Now she broke into a full-on giggle. gaeriC gave his niece and Glaceon the mushroom cakes he'd been keeping in his pockets, then ushered her outside toward one of the warmer cabins so he could face the matriarch of Melomak alone. Now his toned muscles tensed, and he frowned, reciting:
"There was an old woman who plotted
To turn a bright, pretty girl rotted—"
"You quit those limericks," the old woman snarled. "Sinnoh the all-powerful tore open the sky and our iridA balks at all the training I gave her!"
She was shaking now. The aspear berry crackled, its thin skin wrinkling and splitting. A small hand reached for it, snatching it up, and old calabA took a harsh bite. The hardy fruit's flavor was gone. It tasted only faintly like iron and ash.
"She was a Wurmple. She became like a woman. How does the girl balk? palinA would not have balked. gaeriC, make her see some sense!"
gaeriC hovered his own hands over the embers for a few moments. When his fingers were more limber, he sat himself down on the sagging bench and began to untie his boots. His blood warmed. He scratched at his chest and thighs.
"The young Kkai is going to have a different path than the one you think you've chosen for her. sandarA told me she could already feel the world changing before she died. You might be unyielding, Old Warden, but I believe it's that very same strength within my niece that's going to leave things like 'dramas' and 'crises' in the past for good. What have they really done for anyone?"
calabA sniffed, astonished. "You dare use that tongue—"
"Let her go to Jubilife."
"I didn't say no."
"You told her she's a killer."
"I said Sinnoh helps us win."
Thirty-one syllables. The spar was moot. gaeriC stretched out his legs and gripped the bench to push himself aloft. He held the position, letting heat flood his muscles after a full three days marching from his dear Avalugg's seat. When at last he felt well enough, he stood and faced the old woman at the brazier, reciting:
"Give not into anger, give not into sorrow,
Let Sinnoh be glad for today and tomorrow."
calabA merely snorted. sandarA was a weak and foolish poet, whatever verses she left alive to fill the lungs of her brother. Now the old woman finished the fruit and let the core drop into the dirty snow at her own feet. She seized her basket of leeks and slung it over her shoulders, glaring daggers at sandarA's brother before she threw open the door and went herself into the empty space.
"I know what I saw."
~N~
Everybody sing it with me now. Ich… fühl… immer noch wie damals, noch genau so, du Idiot!
(This won't be the last time I use that "lightning" stanza, I'm sure. I plugged it into that weird TF fic a few months back, but it's actually an interlude for a song called "Saga" in my original novel that has some Pokémon references sprinkled in~)
Ach, finally another free weekend. I got an opportunity in a new city and I jumped on it, so lots going on! Also yay email alerts are back!
Published by scrivenernoodz on FFN/AO3 June 1st, 2024. Thanks for reading! Please don't repost.
