This was written for The PokePod Project, which means over on Ao3, there's a podfic version of this available along with 150 others.
"This bridge looks..."
The planking's worn but all there, and the bridge is wider than a human, just enough I might fit between the railings.
"Maybe going around is better?"
I put one foot on the edge, feeling for some evidence it'd hold. I'm short, but the railings will only be up to my legs, and small as I am, I'll be pressed on either side, and I still weigh far more than a human does.
"Going around's definitely better!"
The fearow said go this way. And I'm stuck in the middle of mountains right now. There's no way to know if there are other paths down. I suppose I could find someone else to ask, but it's not likely anyone I find will be able to give good advice about safe paths for me. What's a bridge to a fearow? What's a cliff? No, I'm on my own for this part of it. I have to find a path off this mountain myself.
It's true I might not die. If it doesn't get colder than it already has, and if there's nothing dangerous around because I sure can't escape.
"Staying here's smart. Find somewhere comfy, in the sunlight, windbreaks, hunker down. We're strong, right? Probably there's nothing that's a threat up here."
"An exeggutor in the middle of this place's gonna stand out..."
"Maybe that's good! Human bridge, human path, more humans coming through eventually, get caught and leave that way! Safely!"
No. I don't want to be alone any longer. I shift my weight slowly onto the foot on the bridge, hearing the planks creak, then lift my other foot and take a full step. The railings press painfully against my thighs and bits of wood splinter and scrape.
"No no no!"
"Go back!"
"It's going to break!"
A chunk of railing breaks.
Who knows? Maybe I'd survive the drop. It's not that far, the water might be deeper than I guess, I could miss the worst of the rocks if I'm lucky... Maybe that would carry me out of this place.
Maybe I'd be found at the bottom by a human, brought to a pokecenter and healed.
Maybe it'd also climb back up a mountain one day and decide that there of all places it was bored of having me around.
And I'd still be alone the whole time. I can't. I can hardly stand it now.
"We're getting torn up!"
"What infections does decaying wood cause?"
"We won't have time to get infections, look at how much we're bleeding!"
If I can't walk, I'm never getting out of here. So, even though it's not doing the bridge's strength any favors, I push at the railings ahead of me with taps of psychic pulses, trying to bow them out enough that my stripped legs can get through without being scraped further. The dead wood groans.
"I'm not dying for something so stupid!"
My vision on my back right side disappears. Out of the corner of my remaining eyes, I see Ha-woo fall. Maybe she meant to land on the bridge but she hits the side of the railing and goes tumbling down into the water.
How impulsive. Even if I did fall, she could've dropped off then, and she'd have been safer giving me a chance to reach the other side and then leaving.
But that's how things are when you're a kid. Two of me, Shu-hui and Ha-yoon, dropped off in a hurricane and forestfire respectively, neither of which were safer as a lone exeggcute than staying put, while Mei-ling and her siblings stayed on until her parent's death, which left them easy to hunt for the rapidash pair, and her the sole survivor. Of the other three, Ji-woo, Li-a, Seo-yun, well, nothing like that happened, so who's to say we'd have done better choosing in the moment if we'd been in those situations?
She bobs up and looks like she's mostly in one piece in the moment before she's swept away. She'll float, so as long as she doesn't get smashed further on the rocks, she could be okay. Maybe she'll even find a group when she washes ashore. Who knows?
"I can't believe Ha-woo's dead..."
"We'll be dead soon too!"
I'm more than halfway across. I can do this.
Maybe I'll die of an infection later. Maybe by the time I find other people I'll be half dead from fever and I'll tumble to the ground there. But I will find them.
I push too hard trying to clear the way for my legs and the railing in front gives on one side, dangling down and pulling on the rest of the railing.
"Ha-woo might've made it. And water is the best way out of here. This big body falling will hit harder than I will by myself..." and then my vision's gone from my left side. Shu-yun drops away into the water.
I'm not even big. I'm so much smaller than anyone I saw back at our homes. All the more reason I can't stay. Either it's so cold I stay stunted and weak forever, or I get bigger and I get even more trapped than I already am.
My vision goes in and out of focus as Ya-ling and Mei-hui flex their connection to me, considering dropping too.
But if I have to walk blind I'll do it. I take the next step, and the next.
The railing on one side keeps peeling, and the planks splinter where it's connected. Behind me, one plank snaps. Then I don't see what's next, because Mei-hui's dropped.
"Go go go already!"
I run, the wood breaking under me, and I reach solid, rocky dirt again.
I'm bleeding and shaking and nearly blind, but I can see enough that the path here winds down a slope I can walk, and beyond are green hills. Somewhere beyond that are other exeggutor. And I don't care if it kills me, I'm going to find my way to them.
Like various pokemon, exeggutor seems like it was likely changed around from the original concept, especially given the game art could go through a bit of an art telephone game, especially on the issue of their heads, a particular problem when that's such a major feature of them.
Exeggcute just further the issue. When it evolves, is it all of them or one? Well, the anime does all of them, but the anime also had weezing evolve like any other pokemon when the original entry claimed weezing are a fusion of two existing koffing, so it's plausible the opposite was the original idea for exeggutor where one would evolve at a time and where the rest of your exeggcute went wasn't your problem.
However...plants are a lot better at fusing together than animals and otherwise having more convoluted life cycles, and this is (in its original form) a psychic pokemon described as having a single shared mind.
Even if they have six upon evolving, these heads presumably didn't represent the original six exeggcute, but introduction of one-size-fits-most breeding in the second gen means there's now a way for more exeggcute to come into existence even if exeggutor never grow new heads, opening up that possibility of same head being recycled indefinitely, immortal jellyfish style. Which is also quite interesting, but I felt it didn't work as well for this. Instead I considered the various entries about the heads talking.
Red/Green/FireRed: It is called "The Walking Tropical Rainforest". Each of the nuts has a face and a will of its own.
Yellow: Its cries are very noisy. This is because each of the 3 heads thinks about whatever it likes.
Gold: Its three heads think independently. However, they are friendly and never appear to squabble.
Sun: Each of its heads has its own will. They use telepathy to discuss their plans before coming to a joint decision.
Ultra Moon: Each of its three heads has its own thoughts. When they want to go in different directions, Exeggutor becomes unable to move.
Sword: Each of Exeggutor's three heads is thinking different thoughts. The three don't seem to be very interested in one another.
So, they chatter aloud lot, but their decisions are made telepathically, and never disagree, except for when they disagree, and also the heads at least don't appear interested in actually chatting to each other. And bear in mind the human observers don't know what a pokemon is actually saying - how do they know why a pokemon isn't walking in a given direction? You'd just see a lot of yelling heads and an unmoving body.
In addition, the adult form lives in huge groups in the anime, which fits the idea that the heads talking to each other isn't satisfactory.
Here, the way to fit that together is that the original ones control the body and communicate solely by telepathy. Like anyone, they can be paralyzed by indecision, but they don't make decisions by committee, and the individual heads have no control over the body just like a baby someone's carrying isn't able to actually puppet their legs.