Fixed Paths
“
Let me hear your voice.”
Our wings shoot out wide and we almost fall from the air. Had it all been our imagination, or had this strange human before us with his shock of green hair spoken to us with his mind’s voice?
No, that couldn’t be right. We carried memories from our prior fledgers of the rare humans who had mind’s voices of their own, and theirs were still in that jumbled, arrhythmic tongue that humans spoke in. This stranger’s voice wasn’t like that, and everything about him was all wrong for that sort of human.
Black spherical necklace aside, his clothing wasn’t particularly different from the humans who crossed our flight paths lately. He wasn’t capable of doing things that humans with mind’s voices typically could like levitating the red-and-white sphere he’d bound us to just earlier. And we
definitely couldn’t remember the last time such a human kept the company of a Scraggy like the flabbergasted-looking one by his feet—still visibly worn down from the cutting gusts we threw at him earlier in battle.
And yet, as his lips moved, we
understood him. Clear as day.
“Human, how did you-?”
“
I don’t know the answer to that myself, really,” the human’s voice comes, resonating with some deep fiber within us. “
It’s a gift that I have that’s allowed me to befriend Pokémon like you in the past.”
Clearly, even after accumulating thousands of years’ worth of fledgers’ memories, there were still things for us to learn. The desert sands around us are
vaguely familiar. Somewhere along the southern flight paths that our kind keeps here, not far from the ancient walls and squares that were there in our earliest memories.
Even so, it’s jarring being plucked from the place where we ought to be. Or at least the place we’ve
accustomed ourselves to being in. Given the ball in his hand, this human likely intends to take us much further away to still more disorienting places. A part of us wants to turn and fly away, but from the pattering and slight distortions of light near a patch of sand off to the left behind green-hair that shifts every now and then, we doubt we’re truly alone with just him and the Scraggy.
The other part of us beckons to stay a little longer, curious as to what this peculiar human’s voice has to say. We beat our wings briefly as we use our mind’s power to levitate from the ground slightly, raising our spoken voice.
“Our kind does not have memories that belong to us alone,” we explain to him. “We pass them down to the best of our abilities, from fledger to chick, to preserve them for time immemorial.”
The human blinks at the response, and the suspicious patch of sand off to the left shifts a bit again with a stifled grunt. We can’s speak for whatever lies there, but the human’s reaction is only to be expected. Even the other Pokémon that live in this desert find the way we Sigilyph make our fledgers’ memories our own peculiar, not least of all the cohorts of the Scraggy who is presently rolling his eyes up at us.
“... Yeah, these birds are all just kinda crazy like that, just saying,” the lizard harrumphs.
The human clearly understands the Scraggy from the brief frown he shoots at him, but strangely enough, he seems curious.
Eager even, to hear more as he approaches and warily raises a hand out.
“
Well then, let me hear their voices that they passed onto you. I’m about to impose a heavy burden on you and take you from your home for a time. Before I do that, I’d like to understand them first..”
And there it is, the human’s intentions laid bare. We don’t know what to make of it, but if we truly will be departing our set paths, perhaps it is best to fly about them one last time.
… And to get to know this most peculiar of humans a little bit better.
“Follow us, then. As we fly, we will show our voices to you, much as our fledger did to us as a chick.”
We turn, and focus our mind, pushing our body over the sands in a slow glide as the crunch of overlapping sets of footsteps against sand follows after us.
As we fly over the desert sands, we begin telling our memories with our mind’s voice—it allows our kind to share our words on a more intimate level, and it is the voice that humans—this green-haired exception aside—generally best understand. As we fly along in search of a familiar path to follow, we opt to start from the very beginning: with our first fledger’s memories. They are hazy and sparse—much like our own memories as a hatchling were before our fledger passed their memories onto us to carry on:
We were fully grown then and fell from a hole in the sky with many others into this desert. Many things have remained much the same since then: the midday heat, the nipping night’s chill, but we had no paths to fly back then. We flew about in aimless confusion, searching for roosts and paths from another place filled with tall cliffs we had the only vaguest memories of.
The desert is a harsh place. Both then and now. The predators that dwell in this desert were strange and unfamiliar then, and for us, the time was full of bewildering terrors that whittled our numbers down.
We had some success after we began flocking together, fighting attackers off with sheer numbers, which worked until the day the humans in black first came to these lands. We drove a few of their scouts away and they massed against us. Marching alongside strange Pokémon from the north: snarling dragons with jagged blue and crimson scales that spewed strange fire, short and tall with red and lavender fur which stood out against the sands that struck with blows swift enough to be difficult to follow with our eyes, and green wraiths with clay-like bodies that lumbered along with them that threw crushing punches.
But the Pokémon with them we remember most is the Volcarona who flew at the side of the Hero of the humans in black.
“Burn!”
The strength of his fire along the cliffs they had us pinned remains seared in our mind. We struggled to stay in the air after our attack failed. The humans’ spears, bows, and clubs studded with black earth-glass, we could fend off. We managed to do the same with their other companions. Some lacked strength of body against us, others were faint of heart against our numbers. But the Hero and his Volcarona were relentless, and soon we discovered that they had the ear of a still-higher power.
A blinding blue light filled our vision, as the sky split with lightning and the black dragon descended upon us. The frightened shrills and cries of our flock filled the air as the inner tail the black dragon had spun and came aglow in blue and the seconds and sparks seemed to slow down before our eyes.
The black dragon was a being of great power, unlike any this place has seen before or since her time here. She could have reduced us all to ash right where we flew back then.
And yet, when she had us at her mercy, she stopped, and the Hero and his companions did too. The black dragon approached and looked at us with much the same bewilderment as green-hair did.
“What
are you?” she asked. “And why did you harm my Hero and his acolytes when they were wanderers without shelter?”
Some in our flock shrilled, others turned and tried to fly away. But with all the strength we mustered, we flew forward, looking up into the towering dragon’s red eyes.
“We are much like you,” we said. “Strangers without a roost and without paths to fly, trying to survive in this strange place.”
She hesitated. But I distinctly remember the way her scowl and glare softened as she stooped down and rumbled out the offer that has set our paths since:
“Join us. My Hero and his acolytes are in need of helpers,” she said. “With time, they can provide the shelter and direction you seek.”
The black dragon and her humans came to this desert from a colder place in the north. She once had a roost there, one which she shared with another dragon that had a Hero of his own—from the same clutch as the black dragon’s Hero.
There had been a fierce quarrel between the two dragons’ Heroes, which had prompted the black dragon and her followers to journey south in search of a place to make a realm to their liking. A place from which they intended to build an ideal world, a place they trusted our psychic power and wings to defend.
We chance to come across one of our paths that was set for us and turn and follow it, as it stirs up memories of when the humans in black began establishing that realm. They built remarkably quickly, in ways that were alien to the Pokémon that dwell in this place. Along the path we lead green-hair along, we tell him of the things that we saw them build here. Of how they cut channels for water that made the desert bloom in terraced strips. How heaped up stones to make buildings and walls like the ones that used just a short flight ahead. How they even made a roost for the black dragon in the likeness of the one she once called home somewhere far to the north.
The black dragon is in a number of our second fledger’s memories, which stir from the desert sands as we reach the place where tall walls once stood and follow the course it once took. We had a human as a companion then, a warrior posted at the walls who, much like the others, regarded the dragon and her Hero with awe. Encounters with her were joyous occasions for him, and one day in particular when we were by his side lingers in our mind. We watched the dragon together as she looked out past the walls, alongside her Hero and the Volcarona who was his most loyal companion.
The Hero had what humans call a ‘son’. He was still callow and not yet a warrior, though he had already started accompanying his father. The paths for his own life were laid down in those days, including with a Larvitar that had been chosen as a companion for him and dutifully stayed at his side.
“The acolytes are acclimating well to their new home, My Lady,” the Volcarona said. “And they’ve been filling our ranks with new allies, too.”
A party of humans happened to be making their way through the city’s gates under our watch. Laborers in shawls with crops slung upon them in baskets, accompanied by the Pokémon who they had made cause with in their new home: some like Sandshrew and Darumaka who came from the sand to make cause, and others that we didn’t recall see living in the desert in those days like Claydol and Yamask—their kind seemed particularly close to those humans, for reasons why after all these years even
we don’t fully understand. There were other companions with the humans who came from further afar, like an orange-and-black boar reared up on two legs that lugged along a large grinding-stone. Others still were ones who had begun their lives after arriving in the desert, including a red-and-yellow furred weasel that was a chick of parents from the north that we saw accompanying a human who was similarly young in years.
We remember the black dragon’s shift in her mood after seeing the last pair pass, along with the disappointment in her voice.
“If the others would’ve just followed us south, they would have loved this place...”
Even well after the black dragon and her acolytes came to this land, there was a part of her that was upset that the Pokémon that she once knew from her roost largely didn’t follow after her. Instead, they had opted to stay at their grounds, or worse still, to follow after her rival in the north. The Hero saw her change in mood then and soothed her, as his companion flitted up and interjected with a low buzz.
“I understand that it is disappointing, but in the end, it’s for the best,” the Volcarona reminded. “You said when we set out for this place that you wanted followers who would join you because of their ideals. Those Pokémon simply didn’t have them, so there’s no need to force the matter.”
That normally would’ve been the end, and the black dragon would’ve moved on into a short flight to quell her mind, but for a stroke of fate that day:
“
N-Noooo! Let me go! Let me go!”
Our human grabbed a spear at the outcry and called out to us, pointing our attention downwards towards the base of the walls. It was a group of the Hero’s warriors, wielding spear and bow, accompanied by an Onix and Druddigon who snarled for silence at a set of squirming nets.
When we flew down at our human’s request, we saw the culprit of the outcry: a small bask of Krokorok ensnared in ropes and nets, with one of their number thrashing particularly desperately in a bid for freedom. Their cries fell on deaf ears, as the Druddigon with the humans flared his wings with a low snarl.
“Should’ve thought about that before trying to take a bite out of us!”
While some of the desert Pokémon the Hero and his people had encountered had been quick to join them as allies, the Krokorok and their kind had been particularly stubborn foes that skirmished with tooth and claw. Even back in those bygone times, there were humans who deemed defeat in battle as sufficient grounds to force Pokémon to make cause with them.
We’ll admit that we weren’t particularly sympathetic to the Krokorok in our memories. But at once the air split with a deafening roar, and lightning swirled about as the black dragon was suddenly no longer on the wall and in our midst.
“
That’s enough!”
We flew back with a squawk, as the black dragon landed among us and threw the warriors into disarray. The Krokorok flinched and cried out, expecting a swift end. It didn’t come, as the warrior’s gaze turned to their captors and their Pokémon, as she loomed over and leveled a piercing glare down at the Druddigon and the Onix.
“Tell your humans to let them go.
Now.”
There was a moment of squeaking confusion from the pair, and their humans were similarly taken aback. The Hero and his companion flew down in a hurry. Then as now, humans generally couldn’t understand we Pokémon well, and it fell to the Volcarona to try and serve as a mediator for them.
“My Lady, what is-?”
“I want followers that fight for Ideals beside me because they
want to. That includes
them.”
Suffice to say, her acolytes swiftly heeded her wishes. Though perhaps it was for the best, since the black dragon’s humans would later owe this desert’s Krokorok and their peers their lives:
We unfortunately don’t have memories of the pivotal moment when those Pokémon delivered the black dragon’s humans, but our fledger from that time gave us ones from the period just afterwards. We were an emissary then, more accustomed to following paths that were given on the fly. As we reach the remains of what was once the main gate, we follow our path with a sharp right, flying over dunes where a great avenue had been and recount the scene that once unfolded here long ago:
We had been tasked to bring a tablet with human glyphs to the black dragon’s Hero, flying between the walls towards a great square set out in front of the black dragon’s roost. The Hero’s warriors in their black garb were all gathered there, along with their Pokémon, leading a procession of scale and fang forward:
Sauntering Krookodile tailed by small basks of Krokorok, with even their young having come along for the occasion. Our once-enemies gathered before adoring crowds, and all stood tall and proud under the gaze of the black dragon, who beamed at them with an approving growl.
“Thank you for heeding my pleas, brave and noble hunters. Your teeth and claws have saved my acolytes from those who bore evil intent against them,” she said. “For that, you will always be welcome inside my roost.”
There had been a crushing weight and dread in and around the Hero’s city for weeks beforehand. An army from the north with warriors clad in white had marched against them and intended to despoil them, with such strength in their ranks that even the black dragon feared she would be overwhelmed. The fear in their ranks had been so severe that some of the humans had proposed performing old rites from before the black dragon came to live with them—ones meant to appeal to absent gods to make themselves known which commanded a price in flesh and blood. They were stopped only by the black dragon’s snarling and thundering displeasure, along with her insistence that even if she too was worried, that their deliverance would come through staying faithful to their ideals.
As the joyous mood that day proved, she had been vindicated. And that deliverance was the reason why we had flown to their high place: to relay a report that had come because of her and her Hero’s doings. She had gone out into the desert in search of allies for her Hero’s people, and had not been left wanting.
We remember the way the Hero’s son marched forward before the crowd, Pupitar at his side, raising a torn white cloth stained with deep red up for all to see.
They and their allies had emerged victorious, and the desert had eaten well because of it.
The crowd roared its approval, both the old faces in it and the newcomers from the desert. Yet throughout it all, the black dragon’s Hero looked ashen and his attention remained elsewhere.
It all seemed so strange. Curiosity got the better of us, and we approached his companion as the Hero’s attendants took the tablet from our mind’s grasp.
“Why is your path-giver so troubled?”
“He is troubled by what happened. Our victory came at a terrible price, and burned away many lives,” the Volcarona explained. “Whether or not the arrival of that army was truly his brother’s doing, he will not be able to overlook its fate.”
The attendants’ own eyes grew wide after seeing the tablet, as they spirited it over to the black dragon’s hero. The air around turned grave as the Hero took the tablet and the others about him gathered around as the Volcarona shook his head.
“He will need to march his people out to war against his brother. He fears what will become of them.”
Back in the dunes, green-hair and the Scraggy continue following. The human nods along with our memories, while the lizard with him folds his arms with a disbelieving scoff.
“I’m sorry,
why are we supposed to believe this again?” the Scraggy demands. “Every story I’ve heard about the black dragon and the old humans said they were here an uncountable number of years ago. And you just
happen to have a memory from all the way back then of your ancestors of meeting her face-to-face?”
We ruffle our feathers and let out a sharp squawk. We Sigilyph pride ourselves on passing our memories on as completely as we can onto our chicks, and we can’t help but feel offended by the Scraggy’s accusation that this is just another desert tale.
We flare out our wings, as green-hair raises his hands and tuts for calm.
“
Easy there. You shouldn’t dismiss stories so quickly, Scraggy. Sigilyph’s story happens to line up with many I’ve heard as a human, if with greater detail,” he says. “
If there wasn’t some level of truth to them, my friends and I wouldn’t have made it this far.”
We aren’t sure what to make of that comment, other than to note that the Scraggy relents—turning away with a quiet pout. There’s a brief crunch of sand as the strange-speaking human raises a hand, seemingly towards empty air. We wonder what that’s about, when green-hair turns to us and speaks again.
“
I assume that your fledgers were also there to see the Heroes’ war for themselves?” he asks.
We flit in place uncomfortably.
Some of our peers have tales of memories of battles from those times, but
we don’t. Our memories are more distant ones that this human likely isn’t expecting to hear and would surely find disappointing…
“We’re afraid that we do not. We primarily flew the paths over and about the Hero’s city during that time, watching warriors march out from the black dragon’s roost and watching diminished numbers return,” we explain. “A few of our fledgers acted as emissaries for the city’s warriors and relayed messages back and forth. The closest we can recall of actually fighting in those battles was at the time of the black dragon’s final clash.”
And yet, much to our surprise, the human’s interest piques. He looks at us, with a curious spark in his eyes.
“
I’d like to hear more about that final clash, actually,” he says. “
What do you remember from it?”
It takes us a moment to recover from the moment of surprise, but we begin recounting our experience—of being in an unfamiliar and strange place where greenery sprouted all around and not just along channels dug to let water pass. We were on a broad, rolling plain left pitted and scorched by fire and lightning. The Hero’s warriors clad in black were massed on one end, while his brother’s clad in white were massed on the other, both armies in tense anticipation.
We were with his son at the time, as the Hero left his Volcarona companion to watch over his chick as he warred in the air alongside the black dragon. We remember the way his son bristled with impatience, as his own partner, who’d grown into a towering Tyranitar, mirrored his human’s mood as sand swirled about his scales.
“Just how long are we supposed to wait like this?” the Rock-type snarled. “We’re wasting precious time to strike!”
“Haven’t we seen enough of the consequences of trying that by now?”
The Volcarona gravely gestured up above, where the black dragon and her rival dueled in the air, trailing blue and orange in the sky. Fire and lightning rained down, with charred lumps scattered about the plain marking those who had let their impatience get the better of them and attempted to march forward to attack.
“There’s no way forward until Our Lady emerges victorious,” the Volcarona buzzed. “Perhaps you are content with squandering your human’s life, but I will sooner set this camp ablaze before allowing that to pass.”
The Tyranitar let out a low snarl as his human tensed up and grabbed for a glass-studded club. Up above, we could see the white dragon faltering and retreating. All around us, the warriors and their Pokémon readied to charge, as the Tyranitar lumbered forward with a bellowing cry.
“Our Lady has triumphed! Time to-!”
“Wait! Something’s not right!”
It took but a moment after the Volcarona’s cry for us to also see it. Up in the air, the
black dragon had also faltered and turned back. She swooped down low, visibly tired and coated with scorched scales and burns.
And then much to our confusion, her Hero dismounted and in his tongue, he called off our attack.
Little had we known it, but that stillborn battle had been the end of a great war. Through another set of eyes, we were present to witness the black dragon’s Hero mustering all his warriors and their Pokémon together in a quiet place a couple hours’ march south, as he appeared before them and spoke to them:
He declared that their war was over. That the black dragon’s ideals and the white dragon’s truth were both incapable of prevailing over each other. That neither was right over the other, and that it was folly to continue fighting to prove otherwise.
We were deeply confused when the Hero’s words were eventually passed onto us in our tongue, with both human and Pokémon alike in the gathering growing similarly befuddled. Some of the voices carried growling and grumbling tones, not least of all the black dragon’s own:
“What is this nonsense?!”
The black dragon stomped the ground, giving a sharp glare down at the human she called her Hero. The onlookers around her shrank back, as irritated sparks danced on her hide.
“Our ideals built your city! It’s the start of the ideal world we’ve dreamed of!” she cried. “Why would you just yield and give that up when we could’ve renewed our battle with our full strength after a bit of rest?!”
Her own grumblings were echoed by others in the gathering, as accusing words in a human tongue long lost swirled around. The grumblers were largely gathered with the Hero’s son, who leveled a sharp glare at his father, which his Tyranitar companion matched.
“It’s worse than that,” the Tyranitar harrumphed. “We were prepared to aid you right then and there. If we and our humans had but been given the chance to fi-”
“
Enough.”
The Hero’s Volcarona flared his wings, scattering singing scales as the crowd fell silent. The Hero went up to the black dragon and uneasily patted her, saying words that after a moment’s pause, the moth put his companion’s remark into words that we and the other Pokémon could understand.
“He didn’t yield for any lack of faith in you, My Lady, but for the sake of your servants,” the Volcarona said. “They are tired and weary from many battles, and have suffered greatly for that ideal world we wished for. As unpleasant a truth as it may be, if our ideals compel us to reduce ourselves to ruin and ashes before such a world can be born, what good will it do?”
The black dragon glared, before her attention turned out to the crowd. Her attention fell on a green serpent with a leafy tail that visibly trembled in dread, before turning to a human warrior struggling to stay upright from a fresh shoulder wound. Other faces echoed theirs: human, Pokémon, from those coming from the desert, and from coming from her former roost. Her expression softened, and she held her head low with a grudging murmur.
“I… understand,” she said. “I won’t pretend that this decision pleases me, but I will accept it. For your sakes.”
The gathering returned to peace afterwards, though we distinctly recall the Hero’s son turning away and leaving in a sullen mood. We did not think much of it back then, as we saw the quiet relief on other faces among our human and Pokémon allies.
We trusted the black dragon’s judgement. That even if it wasn’t satisfying, that halting that great contest of truth and ideals would work out in the end.
The Hero’s son was never quite the same afterwards, and he grew deeply bitter after the war’s abrupt end, which he saw as nothing short of a betrayal to the sacrifices they had made. It shook the Hero’s confidence as well, as our fellow watchers and guardians from that time told tales of him spending long, fretful nights with the black dragon, discussing matters that remained known only to them.
And then, one day, we were met with the shock of hearing that the Hero was sending the black dragon to fly away. He revealed to all that it was her power that had convinced him to do so. It was such that she could lay waste to armies with bolts that could arrive sooner than one could form a thought. She and her rival had already seen what had happened when they wielded their strength from up close, and they feared what would become of their Heroes’ peoples if for whatever reason, there came a time that a Hero who followed them that wouldn’t have the sense to act as a voice of reason for their stubborn natures.
All the city was in an uproar afterwards, but the Hero could not be dissuaded, and the black dragon herself revealed that she had given her assent to the Hero’s wishes. And so it was that the day came for her to depart. As we lead green-hair off to where the great square was, the way she stood in it before her roost is as clear in our memories as the ones we have formed with our own mind. All the city’s people and their Pokémon looked on that day. A few wept and others cried out pleas for her to stay that made her falter and shake her head.
“Don’t cry. Even if I will be away, this won’t be the end,” she said. “As long as you keep your ideals and the righteousness in your hearts, I will watch over you.”
She beat her wings and rose into the air. After she rose sufficiently far above the ground, her tail spun and lightning crackled about her with a wooshing hum.
She shot up into the clouds, and then she was gone.
“This is where the square was. The place where we saw her depart.”
We fly over a crown of stony outcroppings. It’s a little off course from where we
should be flying, but not far enough to be unduly uncomfortable. To our left, there’s a faint hint of moisture on the wind from the river a short flight northward, while the dunes that have swallowed up the black dragon’s roost are piled up in the distance ahead. Green-hair takes a moment to look about in quiet awe, while his Scraggy gawks about, before turning to us with his face screwed up into a disbelieving scowl.
“Okay, now I
know you’re just going and pulling our tails,” he huffs. “This is a bunch of dunes and rocks!”
Green-hair shakes his head in bemusement, as he opens his mouth to speak, and in parallel with his human tongue, that strange, deeper voice within him speaks, too.
“
Time has a way of wearing down even the mightiest fortresses, Scraggy. This story happened so long ago, that it’s a small miracle that there’s anything left from it.”
We puff our feathers out and have half a mind to squawk in protest. Even if the black dragon’s Hero and his city are long gone, their works are very much still remembered among our kind. We notice the sands near green-hair are still shifting like they did earlier, with the feeling of a peculiar void in its place. We start to go over to investigate, when the human notices us and steps in our path, before speaking up again.
“
The stories you speak of are known far beyond this desert, Sigilyph. By humans and Pokémon alike,” he says. “
It’s partly what brought me here in the first place.”
We hesitate and look back at him, unsure what to make of him stopping our investigation, but even more so his comment. We have seen humans come through here for many reasons through our fledging-cycles, but rarely do they come for anything related to the times in our early memories. The Scraggy seems similarly confused, but his attention doesn’t linger on green-hair, but instead drifts back towards us.
“So wait, if you loons had your territories given to you by humans to begin with, why
are you still here in the desert, anyways?” the Scraggy asks. “Shouldn’t you all have followed them after they wound up angering the black dragon and left the desert for good?”
We hesitate since the memories concerning the Scraggy’s questions are difficult ones. The green-haired human notices our hesitation and cocks a brow at us, before his face curls into a serious frown.
“
... I presume that happened sometime after the story you told us.”
“It did, yes. The time that Scraggy speaks of came a few fledging-cycles after.”
“
And during that time, the humans abandoned your kind to their fate?”
“Hardly. Though I suppose the full answer is a story in and of itself,” we reply. “Our path here circles about the places where much of those times happened. We will tell you of them as we fly.”
(Continued in next post)
