In before November.
And yes, this part's supposed to be short.
Silence before the Storm 嵐の前の静けさ
Cotton and Sandals
‘Cotton and sandals,
Drifting by.
Never too cold
And never too dry.
When the wind comes,
Picking them up,
They’ll sail the world
And bless the pups.
Cotton and sandals,
In the wind,
Falling down,
In little bits.
Sad it may be,
How the angels die,
Yet giving us all,
The window’s blur,
I’m sure they’ll love the off-screen stir,
Cotton and sandals…
Cotton and sandals…
Cotton and sandals…
This Winter now,
Be the angels’ grave,
Leave them be
And watch us play…
Never forget their cottony ways…
Cotton…falling…
On sandals…’
by Yonowaru in Chaos
Through the thick and thin of the blizzard, the soothing, yet hollow voice circled through the ears of the refugees in the storm. As the Froslass approached her final chord in her song, the winds stopped howling, and the breezes continued on from where she left off, tickling the snow to dance with the notes.
Like silk in the wind, the ghost, a violet bouquet of robes and ribbons, glided over the snowfields, a mist that converged with the white stormy aura that was slowly dying down as her cloak fluttered. Despite her relatively indiscernible aura, her wavering did not go unnoticed, especially when the harsh winds, however tranquillised, were blowing her apart; beady eyes flashing in the darkness of night followed her windswept path and kept the Froslass alert. The blizzard would continue to shield her as long as it continued to rage, and it was not getting anywhere near as tranquil as the singing was meant to achieve.
Eventually, the Froslass had reached its refuge, a small cottage, its sole window emanating a warm yellow glow that flickered with the fire’s dancing. A thick amount of snow rested on its roof like icing on an already overflowing cake, but there were no icicles where the melting snow had spilled over before it refroze. Just its mere presence was enough to warm up the otherwise harsh atmosphere of biting cold and relentless snow.
As if to receive the Froslass, the door opened and a young girl appeared. Her streak of silky, black hair danced in the light breeze, blowing innocent snowflakes in to her woollen coat. Her face conveyed tranquillity as much as the blizzard was trying to tame itself, her dark opal eyes focused on the Froslass rushing in. She smiled at her, but she dismissed it and rushed back inside the warm cottage and towards the fire. The girl’s eyes followed the rushing Froslass inside; she was shivering by the fire, bathing her face and hands in the warmth of the fire.
‘Close t-the d-door, Yuki…’ she stuttered.
Yuki smiled and closed the door, before another breeze came in to bellow. Except for the crackling of the fire, all it could be heard now was the twisted whispers of the outside wind and Froslass’ shivering by the fire. The room they were in were small, there was no hall, but had all the necessities for a reception room, a waist-high bookshelf that doubled as a Pokeball storage shelf by the wall on the side of the door and a central sofa facing the fireplace on the right-hand wall from the door. Another sofa, back-to-back to the one facing the fireplace was propped to face a plasma LCD television that took up roughly half of the wall. That wall was otherwise predominantly adorned with photographs, all depicting snow-white scenery. There were two other doors on the opposite side of the door, both were open, but the left was more ajar than the right. The walls, the ceiling and the floor were all wooden and somewhat polished, but it surprisingly did little to leave a rustic impression.
After a while, the Froslass stopped shivering and floated over to Yuki, who had turned on the television and was watching the movements of complicated lines and symbols over a map of the entire region. Judging by the coughing and hoarse voice of the woman beside the map, she had probably been talking for the entire day now.
‘You’re obsessed with the weather,’ the Froslass said, with a wavy and slightly echoing voice.
‘Well, this
is Kryosios,’ Yuki replied, matter-of-factly. ‘Blizzards in winter and typhoons in summer, you can’t really live here and not get obsessed with the weather.’
Froslass replied as she had always done when Yuki had complained about how she was always complaining about her obsession with the weather.
‘...so how long is Kaburus gone for?’ Froslass added.
‘Until the morning,’ Yuki replied, intent on the weather report.
‘Tell him to bring more firewood next time...this winter’s gonna be a cold one.’ Froslass gave a shudder at that thought.
‘You really need to act more like an Ice-type,’ said Yuki, still focusing her eyes and ears on the television, ‘what kind of Ice-type hates the cold?’
‘I do,’ Froslass snapped, ‘it’s genetic...not my fault...’
Froslass approached the fire again, wrapping her cloth-like appendages around tightly like a cloak. Yuki didn’t continue the conversation.
Later in the night, Froslass gave a yawn that sounded like slicing melodic ice, and hovered over to the rack of Pokeballs that lay on the top of the bookshelf. With a clink indicating the press of a button, she returned inside the confines of the Pokeball with a characteristic red laser.
‘Good night,’ Yuki called absent-mindedly, while still focused on the report of the weather.
‘…record blizzards this year, scientists so far estimating an approximate 1000 centimetres of snow in the coming forty-eight hours, especially in the areas concentrated around the Lake and surrounding areas. It’s recommended that-’
Quite abruptly, the television had turned off as Yuki suddenly heard a violent cough that disrupted the wind’s whistling. Though Froslass’ singing had tranquillised the storm for the while, it seemed that the blizzard had come upon some new-found energy to fuel its raging. Blasts of snow and air rattled the windows, but this did not frighten Yuki; these weren’t uncommon and she knew that this was not enough to blow the cottage down- not that easily.
Seeing as her only source of entertainment had been cut off, Yuki figured that it would be better to grab some early sleep, catching a few glimpses of the photographs hung on the walls as she did so, which she usually didn’t do as a pastime, as Yuki generally went to bed when the fire died down. But the fire was still unwaveringly emitting its brilliance, and it was hard not to study the contents of the photographs when distractions were down.
If one were to squint their eyes to closely observe the contents of the pictures, they could easily discern between the white of the snow and the white of fox fur. In the photograph that Yuki had taken off the wall to closely observe, stood two large foxes, each with a bundle of tails fanning out in a brilliant shape, and with fur that was only slightly beige. Their cheeks were caressing each other while the photograph was taken, while their feet stood closely together, rooted on to the flat seemingly endless plateau of snow. The day was beautiful, the sky was as clear as the crystal beneath it with the daylight crescent moon above them.
Yuki smiled as she reflected upon the contents of the photograph; it had been one of Kaburus’ more romantic moods and he had decided to take her out on a trip to the Plateaus, a region often battered with storms and only leaving a few hours of total serenity after the storm had immediately passed off, before another one quickly arrived. Behind them, there was supposed to be a lake, but it was primarily frozen and snow-covered during the colder two-thirds of the year. Even in Summer, the lake served as a lively picnic spot; few could come up to the plateau without suffering some degree of difficulty in breathing and the Pokemon that emerged from hibernation provided wonderful company.
Yuki smiled at the pair of Ninetales, it had been one of her happiest moments in life, to spend the entire day with the person she loved most, and yet, she could not help but to not recall the major mishaps that had happened during that day.
It was funny, she thought,
that the happiest day of my life had to coincide with one of my unluckier ones. And with that thought still lingering in her mind, she hanged the photograph back on to the wall and sleepily walked to her bedroom, a flash of white fur barely making through before the door closed.
The fire died down, not eventually, but by a thump of snow, as its weight broke the barrier and landed right on top of the fire.
