TEEN: Flying in the Dark [COMPLETE]

[diamondpearl876]

Flying in the Dark is an epistolary slice-of-life fic starring a young, naive trainer named Haley Zamor and a man named Markus Samaras, who is in prison for drug addiction. While a story told in letters has many limitations, I hope that the revisions I have made will have added to each character's voice (particularly Haley's) as well as the worldbuilding aspect that the original version was lacking.

Any and all comments are appreciated. Further edits will be made based off of reader comments.

Rating: TEEN for swearing, references to deaths violent in nature, lots of themes on addiction but nothing super graphic yet (and if there are graphic scenes, it'll be rare), references to abuse (parental neglect and emotional abuse in particular).

Nominations
Best new pokémon-chaptered fic (serebii)
Best pokémon chaptered-fic (serebii)
Most original overall (serebii)
Best writing style x3 (serebii)
Most memorable quote (serebii)
Best trainer fic x2 (serebii)
Kenneth for best supporting character (bulbagarden)
Haley/Markus for best character dynamic x2 (serebii)

Awards
Best character development (serebii)
Haley/Markus for best non-romantic relationship/interaction (serebii)
Markus for best protagonist (bulbagarden)
Markus for best character (bulbagarden)
Best alternate fic (bulbagarden)

Index

[1 - haley] - anything to take my mind off of what i was running away from
[2 - markus] - i would give an excuse but there is none
[3 - haley] - call it in the air! heads or tails?
[4 - markus] - one letter for each lost piece of my humanity
[5 - haley] - for what it's worth...
[6 - markus] - the night makes us who we are
[7 - haley] - i'm like a walking contradiction, i guess
[8 - markus] - illusions are something of a specialty of mine
[9 - haley] - so now you know
[10 - markus] - think rationally, think slowly
[11 - haley] - seeing all over again
[12 - markus] - a past that feels not like my own
[13 - haley] - i'll take the risk
[14 - haley ] - in a different light
[15 - markus] - i chose a long time ago
[16 - haley] - a single person on the other end
[17 - markus] - but what i need right now is your words
[18 - haley] - i haven't found an answer yet
[19 - markus] - perhaps i can rouse the sleeping courage in me
[20 - haley] - we were never strangers
[21 - markus] - there is but one illusion that i would welcome
[22 - haley] - the truth is where it belongs
[23 - markus] - i cannot allow myself to falter
[24 - markus] - a growing, growing, growing sense of dread
[25 - haley] - please don't retreat into total silence
[26 - haley] - i don't know what to do with the knowledge that this happened
[27 - ???] - this is the space between us
[28 through 32 - haley] - waiting, waiting, waiting for you
[33 - ???] - words only from now on

FLYING IN THE DARK
[letters one and two]

*​

April 21

Dear Markus Samaras,

I know I’ll be lucky if you even open this, but if you’ve gotten this far, please don't throw away my letter until you read it all! My family's been telling me that writing to you is a stupid idea, but I don't think so. They say I should want nothing to do with a prisoner, and that people “like you” (their words, not mine) don't want an outsider's pity. But I'm not here to give you pity! I'll explain why I'm writing to you later. I need to get your attention as soon as possible.

Anyway, I'm sorry if that wasn't the best way to start a letter. I just don't like to sugarcoat things. I want to be a realistic, honest person, so let me tell you about myself. I just had my golden birthday. I'm 18 now! ...Which would be exciting, except lately I've been thinking about my life and wondering if I'm where I should be. Anistar City hasn't done much for me, mostly because I've been homeschooled since I was a kid. And Anistar City is known for having the best schools in Kalos... Ironic, isn't it? I'm a sheltered girl who's been waiting for something to happen. If anything interesting or exciting has happened, I must have missed it.

I've realized that it's up to me to make something happen. Yesterday I told my parents that I wasn't attending university this year. Instead I'm gonna explore Kalos with my pokémon, since pokémon have always been there for me and understood me. Not that I don't like people or anything. It's quite the opposite. I want to know everything about everyone and then some. My brother asked me about being all-knowing once, but I know that's impossible. ...I crossed that out because I didn't mean to talk about my brother so soon. Sorry about that. What I want is similar to omniscience, though, I guess? By the end of my journey I'll be that person who's heard all kinds of stories... including yours, if you'll write back to me. Obviously you don't have to tell me everything right away. I'm really hoping we can do this in the long run.

Am I saying a lot all at once? That's just how I am. If it makes you feel better, I could be a bit more simple. Hmm... My father is my teacher and a stay-at-home dad. My mother works as an nurse at our local Pokémon Center. Both of them are against what I want to do. Traveling is dangerous, I'll give them that, but why can't I take what I've learned in school and apply it to the real world? Isn't that why we learn in the first place?

Well, I've always been different from the rest of my family. I get along with my grandmother, but that's it. I used to run to her house in the middle of the night twice a week or more. She would force herself to stay awake and we would bake oatmeal cookies, watch horror movies or listen to music soft enough for only us to hear. Anything to take my mind off of what I was running away from. Thankfully she's kept this a secret from my parents.

What's even better is that she's tried to help me be less lonely. She works for Anistar's school system too, but instead of focusing on history or literature, she raises baby pokémon to be tame for younger trainers like me. I wasn't surprised when she gave me a pidgey on my 13th birthday. She loves holidays and special occasions, so she found it appropriate to celebrate my becoming a teenager. After some convincing, my parents let me keep the pidgey.

That pidgey is now a pidgeotto. I call him Seybs, which is a shortened version of my grandmother's surname. My parents think this is weird, but I'm sure other trainers nickname their pokémon after humans. I did it in honor of my grandmother, so why are they complaining? I know she's not 100% supportive of me either... She's giving me a chance, though. That's what counts.

When she heard the news, she went so far as to buy me another pokémon. Ribbons, my natu, was born in Johto with the help of a professional breeder. The red spike on the back of his head reminded me of a ribbon, hence his name. He's protective and alert, unlike Seybs... Sorry, Seybs, but you're a lazy battler and would rather sleep on my shoulder any day. I've only had Ribbons for a week and I already know he'll be a great addition to the team.

Okay... I guess I should tell you why I'm writing to you at this point. Basically I want to see sights I've never seen before—festivals with bright lights and firework shows, crossroads with high plains on one side and rocky mountains on the other, pokémon overcoming type disadvantages… I don't think those memories should be left to the eye alone. The view becomes especially spectacular when you can describe it to someone else and make them feel the same as you did when you first saw it. That's the kind of connection I want with someone.

But why you, of all people? Well, now’s as good a time as any to talk about my brother for real. Joey’s a year younger than me, and he's been in a whole lot more trouble than I have. He thinks writing to you is risky too, but that's besides the point. He's handled drugs and sold them for money, and says he knows you because of that. He says you probably got caught and sent to jail for rehabilitation. I don't want to make assumptions... but if it's true, I don't mind. I feel safe enough. I chose you because I had to choose someone, and someone my brother knows is the best it's gonna get. I feel that you might appreciate my company and descriptions of the outside world more than other people might.

Take Anistar City, for example. The starry timekeeping city... Seat of the Kalos League... Home of the famous sundial... Anistar City is where I live, so it should be easy to describe. Guess not. What I said is true enough, but let's try again. Before I forget, though... Sorry if you know about the city already!

We do have the sundial on the northwest edge of town. Two simple beam bridges, said to signify unity between Kalos and other regions, lead to a cul-de-sac lined with shrubbery and stones with ancient engravings on them. The Gateshead River coming from the nearby mountain flows in between the bridges, and people throw amulet coins into the water after making a secret wish. The area is kept clean in case Diancie, the legendary jewel pokémon, comes to bless us with its presence.

Every evening the sun falls into a perfect position, and light peaks through the sundial's center, causing it to spin. The wind it creates stirs up the snow from Mamoswine Road and by the time night comes, it looks like it's snowing all over, even if it's not winter. Evening is also when the most tourists gather and train pokémon that can mega evolve, as the golden rock in the cul-de-sac's center is said to be cut from Diancie's body itself and will grant great power to those with potential.

I don't think Diancie will ever visit, though. The way it releases carbon from its body to make diamonds would be bad for Anistar City, which has already been polluted for several centuries thanks to the old coal mines. Our natural ventilation system is even worse because we're located within the Vallée Étroite Way and surrounded by mountains. The sundial's winds can only do so much. Recently we've been trying to cut down on heavy industry and have gotten rid of our ports.

Since then the city has been trying to save face by building landmarks that honor our role in the Kalos League as well as our history with the war from 3,000 years ago. The League Council is the most famous example, as it's where the gym leaders meet once a month to discuss the state of the region. There are all sorts of arches and fortifications left over from when Anistar City began as a military outpost, and you can see artifacts and stained glass in just about every museum. Oh, and all of our houses are black and white, framed with timbers. We don't have yards. Outside our windows, we see castrum-patterned pavement, medieval-themed streets and, if you're in a notable district, Gothic Cathedrals.

We also have parks with swing sets and small zoos, which doesn't sound as cool, but it encourages kids to become trainers when they're older. Training is a common full-time job, and if we're taught anything about the Kalos League, it's that the gym leaders keep the region safe. So my journey shouldn't be all that worrisome. I couldn't tell you why my parents are the only ones that don't support pokémon training...

I should probably stop here, on the off chance that you didn’t open this letter at all and I just embarrassing myself nonstop. But I hope you’ve gotten this far, because I don’t know anything about you and I’d like to, I really would. Write back to me?

Sincerely,
Haley Zamor

*

May 10

To Haley,

You can call me Mark. The sound of Markus rolling off the tongue reminds me too much of my pseudo-advanced age. I am already in my thirties and struggle with moving and moving on, if you know what I mean.

Former drug addict isn’t the most elegant of titles, but it is accurate in the instant case. I’m equally ashamed to admit that part of me that still craves the stuff once in a great while. You say you want to know about me, so I start with that, which you addressed in your letter. I don't believe in sugarcoating either, and as you may learn, I am very blunt. I don't leave room for questions or daydreaming, but I have been known to stray far from any given topic. If anything, I will be an enigma of sorts, a puzzle you'll have to figure out since I can't quite do it myself. Are you still interested in talking to me?

I’ve been thinking a lot about what I could say to you. There is not much to say. I too see the same sights every day, the difference being that this fact won’t change for me anytime in the near future. I hear inmates yelling obscenities and I see cold, gray bars. I see blurry, orange jumpsuits or the unforgettable shade of blue of a cop's uniform when they swing by each hour. All I’ve been doing is lying on a thin, uncomfortable cot and looking at the ceiling. Above me is a vast sky, but I can’t see it, and, even if I could look through walls, first I’d see my neighbors, more ingrates that society deems unworthy of life itself! But you are different. For some ungodly reason you want to talk to me… I do not recall your brother, I must say… Nonetheless, you are sweet for wanting to help a lonely man such as myself, and even if you change your mind, I will not forget you.

In return, I suppose I can offer stories of my own life. Though it's been many years, I once traveled around Kalos. I've been in the big cities (Lumiose) and the small towns (Santalune). I’ve dabbled in the freelance field as a performer, probed my way into in the shadier but more official business of breeding, and more. It would be impolite of me to not admit up front, however, that I tend to exaggerate certain details. My own parents exaggerated the most insignificant incidences. If a glass of milk was spilled, then the whole house was drowning. Do you get what I mean?

Let me tell you the story of my birth, and maybe then you'll know where I went wrong.

My mother was pregnant with quadruplets. She experienced a premonition that told her not all of us would live. Sure, she foresaw that we would all be born, and we were, but my three brothers did not last long. She was a woman who could spit out fire in her sleep, after all... The fire struck all of us after one week of her trying to suppress her powers, and I was the one who survived the wounds. What really happened, I cannot tell you, but here I am, with no kinship to hold or scars to prove there were others like me. Again, are you interested in talking to me? ...You can still leave.

Regardless, I will not be like other adults and tell you what you are doing is silly and wrong. I have no place in telling you anything regarding morals. From your words about Anistar City and your sheltered upbringing, I understand that you know only the bare minimum about what a culture might entail. I understand that you want to know more. Why do people act the way they do? What do they believe in? Those kinds of questions seem to be the ones you are asking. It may not be so obvious, but culture cannot simply be described by the language you speak or the kinds of food you eat every day.

Cultures are all integrated. Each culture bounces ideas off of another, and then the cultures alter themselves according to what they've learned. I will not give specific examples. I will leave it to you to experience the many cultures here in the Kalos region.

Cultures change constantly, as they are fluid and negotiable. What Lumiose City was like for me could be different from the Lumiose City you will see on your journey. Do not fret about this and think you are being cheated. It just means that you are seeing a different, perhaps improved version of the city, and you should be grateful.

What else can I say? Cultures are strengthened by their values. Each individual you meet may act in a specific way—either because of their culture, or the way they were raised, or a combination of both.

Oh, and absolutely, cultures are unique to us human beings. Pokémon do not experience cultures the way we do. They experience communities, yes, but nothing as expansive or as wild as a culture. Perhaps, however, you can teach them what it is like to be you. Assuming you can’t talk to your pokémon yet, they will appreciate it on those days where they cannot communicate with you through gestures alone.

It’s almost just as important to know what cultures are not. A person’s culture is not the sole explanation for anything a person does. Culture is not the result of a complete consensus, as you will definitely meet rebels and outcasts. Culture is not the same thing as civilization or society, nor is it the same as being refined or sophisticated, as some may think themselves to be. Do not fall into these traps. One culture does not define us all, and one culture cannot make another look inferior or superior. This is the best advice I can give you.

…You must forgive me for taking so long to write to you. I would give an excuse but there is none.

Sincerely,
Mark

 

[Beth Pavell]

Apparently I read this before and pronounced it “weird”, but I honestly don't recall. Anyway

Technical Accuracy/Style
Funny thing is, given this format I'm not sure if I can really pick on technical accuracy the way I usually do. If anything, the style could do with more revisions and mistakes. I suppose the letter format is almost the ultimate expression of the unreliable narrator – but a point in its favour, I think, given that we know this is going to be the case from the get-go.

Story
Well, this is one that could go anywhere. Apparently Markus' mother was pyrotechnic, so it's obviously not standard pokémon fare either. The cliché of the young, naïve girl writing to the jailbird is one that can have a lot of pitfalls, but then knowing you I'm pretty sure you won't be taking it in the obvious direction.

Characters
No two ways about it, Haley is an odd one. I suppose she has to be, to want to write to an essential stranger right out of the blue, and one banged up at that. I think her arc will probably be in the relationship with the parents, whatever that turns out to be. Markus … well, he's got something of the philosophy ham in him, doesn't he? I think the essential disbelief to suspend here is in his immediate openness, given the habitual insularity of the “average” prisoner. But there's always some disbelief to suspend at the core of almost any story.

Final Thoughts
As is so often the case with first chapters, the proof is in the pudding. There's not really a lot to say here, other than that the style and structure of the story is really going to rely on some damn pithy observations of humanity – it's brave, really.

 

[Life]

Let me first say real quick that this is really only a few comments I have and nothing close to a review. Sorry; I guess Mark and I have more than one thing in common then.

First off, I think you have a real knack for writing characters and coming up with fantastic/unique back stories, and I say this after reading your other two stories. Haley and Mark both seem to be quite the characters, and frankly I envy how fast you can get their personalities across. d:

I think it'll be interesting to see how you tell the story through letters. (When I first read your note I thought you meant letters as in "a, b," etc. and I was pretty wowed, to be honest.) If I had one worry/comment, it would be that I can't see there being many action scenes (including pokemon battles) in the story. Or, at least if there are I'm not too sure how they'll read, but again that's assuming you go that route. Not that you have to have action scenes, of course, but I'd be curious to see how you handle Haley's journey without them being shown.

That's really all I can say, especially since there's only one chapter up. I eagerly await for the next installment, however!

 

[Legacy]

I love the originality of writing the story through the letters. Haley reminds me of Charlie from Perks of Being a Wallflower. I'm excited to see how this evolves. Nice work.

 

[diamondpearl876]

Technical Accuracy/Style
Funny thing is, given this format I'm not sure if I can really pick on technical accuracy the way I usually do. If anything, the style could do with more revisions and mistakes. I suppose the letter format is almost the ultimate expression of the unreliable narrator – but a point in its favour, I think, given that we know this is going to be the case from the get-go.

If you mean more strike-throughs and whatnot, I think that could easily be overdone and be considered tiresome to read. If you mean intentional spelling errors or anything else... I'm not really sure that'd go well with readers in the long run, either.

Story

Well, this is one that could go anywhere. Apparently Markus' mother was pyrotechnic, so it's obviously not standard pokémon fare either. The cliché of the young, naïve girl writing to the jailbird is one that can have a lot of pitfalls, but then knowing you I'm pretty sure you won't be taking it in the obvious direction.

XD I don't think any of my stories go the way anyone thinks they will, so hopefully what I have planned for this particular fic is a pleasant surprise (or a cool plot twist, whichever).

Characters

No two ways about it, Haley is an odd one. I suppose she has to be, to want to write to an essential stranger right out of the blue, and one banged up at that. I think her arc will probably be in the relationship with the parents, whatever that turns out to be. Markus … well, he's got something of the philosophy ham in him, doesn't he? I think the essential disbelief to suspend here is in his immediate openness, given the habitual insularity of the “average” prisoner. But there's always some disbelief to suspend at the core of almost any story.

You should have seen the original version of Haley, she was awfully poetic and had a similar writing style to Markus's. Why, I couldn't tell you. XD And that disbelief is something nearly everyone's pointed out, but I'm not sure if that's really a problem that can/will be easily explained until the near end of the story. Only one person knows the full plans I have for this fic, so I may ask him to see what he thinks at some point.

Let me first say real quick that this is really only a few comments I have and nothing close to a review. Sorry; I guess Mark and I have more than one thing in common then.

If you have things in common with Markus, then you and I have a lot in common as well, probably. XD

First off, I think you have a real knack for writing characters and coming up with fantastic/unique back stories, and I say this after reading your other two stories. Haley and Mark both seem to be quite the characters, and frankly I envy how fast you can get their personalities across. d:

I do appreciate this comment. My characters mean the world to me, and to tell portray their personalities and stories effectively means so much to me.

I think it'll be interesting to see how you tell the story through letters. (When I first read your note I thought you meant letters as in "a, b," etc. and I was pretty wowed, to be honest.) If I had one worry/comment, it would be that I can't see there being many action scenes (including pokemon battles) in the story. Or, at least if there are I'm not too sure how they'll read, but again that's assuming you go that route. Not that you have to have action scenes, of course, but I'd be curious to see how you handle Haley's journey without them being shown.

Well, I have up to letter 10 written, and there's 2 action scenes. We'll see how well those go over on Bulbagarden, since my reviewers here always have something different to say than my reviewers on Serebii. XD

I love the originality of writing the story through the letters. Haley reminds me of Charlie from Perks of Being a Wallflower. I'm excited to see how this evolves. Nice work.

Heh, I liked that book, though it's been a while since I read it. May have to revisit it sometime. Thanks for reading/commenting!

 

[diamondpearl876]

FLYING IN THE DARK
[letters three and four]

*​

May 13

Markus... Mark... Markus...

Hmm. I don't think your name makes you sound old, so I'm going to call you that. I think it makes you sound kind of wise, actually. I need someone wise in my life.

I'm still interested in talking to you, of course! Just because you're not confident in yourself doesn't mean you'll scare me away. If anything, going off-topic means you're interested in a subject. Nothing to be sorry about. You might forget to say some important things... and your bluntness could clash with mine... and I don't understand the story of when you were born... Well, we'll see what happens. Even if you don't get to say everything you want to, I'll just form my opinion of you based off of what you do tell me. From what you've said so far, I get the feeling that I can learn a lot from you. ...I guess I meant what I crossed out earlier. I really need someone wise in my life.

I can't tell you how excited I am! It's not exactly the same as having a traveling partner, but it's close enough. My brother's been begging me to find a friend before leaving Anistar. You don't remember my brother, though... He has a pretty good memory. He was able to remember you by name, after all! Anyway, Joey hasn't had a breakthrough with the whole pokémon journey idea yet. Says it’s safer with someone else looking out for you and keeping you from diving headfirst into stupid stuff. If he wants to harp on the idea, why doesn’t he offer to be my traveling companion himself? His reasoning is sound, but still. I got the message the first time.

My grandmother used to tell me about how my parents seemed so excited to have kids... I believe it because I've seen my baby calendar. My mother wrote all about her pregnancy, while my father wrote about every meal I had, my first word (which was no) and everything else! They did the same for Joey. But things changed and that excitement went away.

My father shadowed the licensed audiologists at our local elementary school for a while, then worked full-time as an assistant. He couldn't financially afford to tackle the doctorate level, so this was the next best option. My mother worked as an assistant nurse there while she studied. I don't know much about how they met, so I'm gonna skip that part. All I know is that they were young and eager to get on with their lives, and so they moved in together. Then my mother became pregnant with me—right before earning her credentials.

They had to make a decision. Going on maternity leave so soon after starting her career wasn't a risk she wanted to take, and even if it was, my father's job wasn't enough to support all of us. So my father made a sacrifice. He offered to give up his job and take care of me full-time, or at least until the situation calmed down. The situation never calmed down, not for them. When Joey was four and I was five, my father looked for a new job in the schools, but he had been out of work for so long that he wasn't even called for an interview. He came to resent the public school system after all he had done for it and he decided to homeschool us. My mother kept working.

Over time my father became more bitter about not being able to pursue his own dreams. It had been a financial problem before, but now she was in the way. My mother's long work hours and unpredictable shift schedule, along with mine and my brother's tantrums, drained him. He wasn't satisfied, but couldn't catch a break in life; she was satisfied, but wasn't willing to give up that happiness for anyone else. Daytime fights happened daily. Those fights were stupid: “You killed all the houseplants while I've been working!” “That goddamn clock with the swinging litleo tail has got to go.” “Why are you takin’ Xanax and then sleeping twelve hours every night?!” ← That last one influenced Joey a lot.

My father's Xanax bottle disappeared was stolen and he couldn't get a refill for another month. Late night fights became a thing. They were loud and vulgar, and there was talk of separation. “Who would take the kids? You work all the time and I have no money.” “I'll keep the mementos from our trip to Johto.” “Fuck you. I'm being serious here!”

The divorce obviously isn't official yet. I'm not sticking around to watch for however many more years it takes for them to realize they shouldn't have rushed their relationship. I've done enough of trying to convince them their constant bickering is hurting us more than they realize, and I'm rewarding myself with this journey. They tell me that it's dangerous, but they're just afraid I'll be more successful than them. I get to live my dreams while my father sits at home. I get to live my dreams and accomplish more than my mother.

...I think my father being an audiologist would have been ironic, since he never hears a word I say. Why my mother takes care of strangers instead of her children is a mystery. The two of them fight day and night, over the phone and face-to-face... My brother hides and I have to

Never mind. Let's just say that being home all the time isn't any fun.

I just laughed a bit. Can you believe that? Words can only do so much, but here I am, wanting to give you—with words and nothing else—a different perspective on life. I should've gotten the hint when you told me I couldn't learn about a culture without experiencing it for myself... Your first letter was a bit short, probably because we just met. Try not to be shy in the future, though! Your experiences will help with my experiences... or something like that. If I'm not making sense, it's because I haven't been able to sleep. I want to get going right away! I haven't decided when I'm leaving yet, but I've figured out my plan of action, at least.

First I should try to describe Anistar's culture, see if I can’t challenge myself to look outside the box and consider the advice you gave me. Maybe I'll get homesick and change my mind. Doubt it. Should I start with its history? You could skip my “lesson” if you know it, but what happened a long time ago meshes with what Anistar is like today.

The books say traces of life date back to 600,000 years ago. I don't know about that, but let's roll with it. An ancient version of Kalos became the home for two legendary pokémon: Xerneas and Yveltal. Xerneas wanted eternal life for all while Yveltal insisted on mortality. Xerneas and Yveltal fought for several decades to decide the fate of every living being on the planet. Yveltal won and created the concept of death, simultaneously putting Xerneas to sleep for over a thousand years. There were those who couldn't forget what the fairy-type legendary believed in, though, and they worked to wake it from its slumber.

War was declared between Xerneas and Yveltal worshipers. As time went on, the king couldn't resolve the conflict. The gym leaders called him a failure for being unable to bring peace to Kalos. They tried to dethrone him, and the war became less about religion and more about political power. The king's factions and the league's factions fought against each other, the main question now being whether or not the gym leaders should have power as opposed to a single authoritative figure. The outcome seemed pointless after entire cities were destroyed.

Diseases and famine spread, and the tension grew stronger. Anistar, being an empty, unpopulated land, became a military outpost for the gym leaders. Even though military outposts are supposed to be prepared for surprise attacks and invasions, Anistar's land was burned to the ground and rebuilt 8 times throughout the war. The Kalos League likes to brag about how there are 8 gym leaders because of Anistar's persistence to flourish. This is also why the monthly council meetings are held in Anistar City!

But like I said, hundreds of thousands of people died in the war. Generals on both sides grew tired and desperate. To get more ammunition, wild and trained pokémon were forced to fight alongside the soldiers. Most of them tried to run away or break their pokéballs. The king, in a moment of desperation, did something he'd come to regret. He sent his own team of pokémon to fight at the front lines, so that other pokémon might have a chance at freedom and safety. Unfortunately, one of his pokémon, Floette, died in the middle of a crazy battle, which made the king himself go crazy.

The king's known as AZ these days. I don't know if AZ worshiped Xerneas or Yveltal. Maybe both, since he wanted to reach a balance that would let him and Floette live together, then die together. When that didn't happen, he resigned and disappeared to create the ultimate weapon. This “ultimate weapon” is said to collect life energy that can revive the dead and grant eternal life, and it's said that the king is still living today with Floette. I think Floette was bitter about being revived or something. I forget that part of the story.

With the king gone, the gym leaders were able to win easily. The Kalos League was established and the champion made a public speech on Anistar's land, announcing that every city would be governed with care and that Kalos was a region that should work to build good character, not despair.

The king's followers were pretty mad. Mad enough to make fire-type pokémon burn the gym leaders alive, anyway. If the gym leader was too strong, they damaged property and publicly humiliated the townspeople. Another war might have broken out if the champion had forbid the king's followers to live in the region anymore. Instead the Kalos League agreed to let some places (like Geosenge and Camphrier) have their freedom, on the condition that a nearby gym leader could interfere if needed.

So that's why Anistar's considered a historical landmark. The Kalos League worked to help the city progress, and it's no surprise that they tried to commemorate their win by keeping the historical feel we started with. It's said that the legendary Diancie showed up to build the city out of unbreakable diamonds, but after the sundial was built, the gem-loving sableye from Terminus Cave appeared and stole Diancie away. No one's seen the legendary since, which is probably for the best, given the pollution dilemma I talked about in my last letter. For some silly reason, we preserve Diancie's keepsake anyway.

Oh, right... Anistar's culture. I think it could be summed up this way: everyone still tries to plant flowers and gardens each spring, even if we know they won't grow. I'm not into flowers and gardens, but our obsession with preserving a history we want to repeat has caused problems for me personally in the past.

...I haven't really told anyone this before, but I think you'll understand.

When I was a middle school student, my father would take me and Joey on “field trips” to the sundial. One day I lost sight of them. I was on one of the bridges, distracted by a young boy leaning over the ledge. I stopped to watch him because he was making a wish, but he wasn't trying to throw a coin into the water. He placed it carefully so that the coin floated on the surface. I'd never seen anyone do that before! I stood there as he ran away and to his mother with a wide smile on his face.

Then I did something really stupid. I went to the ledge and leaned over like the boy had done. I grabbed the coin. It was mine now... but I must have been too excited and moved too fast, because next thing I knew, I was hanging over the edge. When I was about to call for help, I was pulled back by a strong man in a uniform I'd seen only on TV. He set me down, and I was about to use the manners I'd learned to thank him until he scolded me.

“How old are ya, miss?” he said. “Shouldn't be trespassing upon Diancie's sacred grounds.”

“Uh,” I said, caught off guard. “I'm twelve.”

“A bit older and I'd be able to arrest you on the spot, ya know that?”

“N-No, I didn't know...”

“Prison's a bad place. Stay away from here, got it? You'll dirty up the city.”

I was about to make a comment about how the city was already dirty, but I changed my mind. I ran away to find Joey and my father. My father didn't notice how frantic I was, and Joey knew better than to ask. He was a good brother, keeping Dad occupied while I got into trouble. It's upsetting, knowing I couldn't be there for him when it mattered. A few minutes later and I noticed that I had been holding onto the coin so tight, it made marks on my skin.

The coin is my lucky charm. It's worth one pokédollar and has a picture of a clefairy on one side, a dratini on the other. I did some research not too long ago and found out that it's made of aluminum, which is why it can float if you're careful. I sort of feel bad for the boy, but he should've known better. He didn't know that if you have a wish, you have to wish hard and work for it. It won't come true if you don't.

I've never told anyone this story because I've been afraid to find out what would have happened to me if I had gotten into real trouble. ...So I wrote to you. You're sheltered like me and, believe it or not, you live a life that could have been my own, had I not been scared out of my wits. I hope that doesn't bother you, but I'll try to understand if it does.

I'm taking the coin with me on my journey. I don't plan on going back home, so I might as well take everything I can! We could try to make a game out of it too. Just pretend I'm throwing the coin toward the sky as you read this and call it in the air! Heads or tails? Fairies or dragons? If you win, I'll go to a city you want me to explore the most, and if I win, I go wherever I want—

Oops. I told you earlier that I have a plan already.

I plan on leaving Anistar City as soon as possible, but I'm slowly easing my parents into it. I can't make things worse for Joey, after all. So I'm gonna travel south toward Terminus Cave, where I'll catch a flying-type pokémon called noibat. Then I'll challenge Olympia. She's seventh in the traditional gym circuit, which means she'll be super tough. Seybs has experience and Ribbons has ghost-type moves to use against her psychic pokémon, but I don't think it'll be enough. A noibat's bite attack will help, assuming that it'll be strong when I catch it.

After that I'll head west to Dendemille Town, and then even further west to Lumiose City. It wouldn't be a real journey without visiting the largest city in the world, would it? And I'll branch out in all directions to visit Santalune, Laverre and a few other places. Maybe I'll branch out more... Should I visit anywhere else? I'll think about it too. I do know that I want to love all the cities so much that it'll be hard to choose where I want to live once I'm done traveling, so choose only the best cities for me!

If I want to settle down after traveling, though, I'll need a lot of money... I'm gonna make Seybs and Ribbons battle every day so they can get stronger and win us the money we'll need. Oh, and if you haven't noticed, I'm gonna be a flying-type trainer. If my grandma hadn't given me Seybs and Ribbons, I wouldn't be going anywhere. There's something interesting about birds, too, that makes me want to keep them. The way they travel in flocks, calling to each other, searching for food to collect and share with each other… Not to mention their singing voices are beautiful, and they have the freedom to fly anywhere in the world if they don’t want to be bound to a trainer or a specific place... It's all fascinating. Honestly, I could go on and on!

The downfall to having bird pokémon is that... Well, the world isn't nice to them. I've never seen thieves or hunters, but I know they're out there. The question is: do I let my pokémon fly free or request that they stay near me, where they can be safe? Cities don't consider flying-types either. Birds don't have depth perception and they perceive colors differently than we do... yet we just let them crash into reflective windows and move on with our lives. We could build skyscrapers and stations and homes with different materials, but... we don't. And I couldn't tell you why.

So if traveling routes and cities can both be dangerous, where will my pokémon fly? Where will they be happiest? I could return them to their pokéballs, but what happens to me if danger shows up and I can't release them in time?

I don't want to talk about that anymore.

Speaking of pokéballs, though... Have you ever wondered just how many pokéballs are used in a single day? Trained pokémon have to be let out or called back to stretch and eat and battle, bathe, play, sleep—some of these every few hours! Or at least, that’s all what’s recommended to trainers. Doesn’t mean everyone’s doing even these common sense things. And all the pokéballs that are used to try to catch pokémon... I mean, they break easy, and there’s always a trainer who wants to add to their team, a professor who’s looking for a specimen for research, kids practicing their throwing aim for when it’s time for the real deal, and, well, I could go on and on about this, too!

You get it, though, don’t you? Sorry, if not. I think of strange things like this sometimes. People call me naive and young. I call myself curious. That's why I have to ask you a few questions before I send this letter. Were you ever a pokémon trainer? If so... what happened that made you stop? Where are your pokémon now? And do you think you were destined to be a trainer... or something else?

I don't think anyone who isn't destined to be a trainer should go on a journey. If their gut tells them to be something else—an architect or a gardener or a priest—then I think they should do that. Traveling is fine, but to do nothing else seems like a giant waste of potential. A trainer should be flexible, smart, dedicated and strong. I like to think I'm all of those things, but what if I'm wrong? What if I should be a nurse like my mother, or a teacher like my dad?

Just look at the statistics! 90% of new trainers never get more than 5 badges. 80% of Kalos League competitors never get to fight the champion. Seems like no one's meant to be a trainer these days. But I don't think I'll collect all the badges anyway. I'll raise my pokémon to give them a good life. I'll take them to only the best places so that we can find the best home.

Which reminds me... Don't forget to call it in the air! Heads or tails? Fairies or dragons? Life's no fun without taking risks, don't you think?

~ Haley

*

May 17

To Haley,

If you wish to talk to me, then there’s nothing I will do to try to convince you otherwise, and I will stick to my word when I say I will write you back. In response to your heads or tails question, I can't choose at this very moment. I am determined to say that it does not matter where you go, but instead you should try to make the best of wherever you go. I only ask that you not romanticize places due to your want of exuberance and novelties, and that you should not think too little of why you are writing to me in the first place. I don't mean to warn you about dangerous people, as you've heard it all before. Remember that I know what the world is really like and the idea of forcing me to have a “new perspective” is futile.

I have been to Anistar City, a long time ago. You might have been just about a year old, in fact. Back then the city was full of life with the ports and manufacturing companies still standing. The pollution was worse than it is now, however, and it was hard to breathe. I did not stay long, and I daresay that it was no place for a child to be brought up. It seems to have worked out, as destiny would have it. Perhaps I was even one of those people you saw and stared at as a baby, wondering who I was—or who anyone was, especially yourself. Who knew that our lives could change to such a degree? It seems odd to think about, and I try not to dwell on it too much.

Your plan is sound. It seems you are making an attempt to stay close to home rather than traveling to the far ends of the region. You may, however, change your mind about visiting Laverre. If you weren't aware, Brun Way Correctional Center is located on the outskirts of Laverre (which adds to society's stigma that says prisoners should be put to the wayside, but I digress). I don't think I would be able to keep that a secret from you for a variety of reasons, not least because I would feel guilty for it. Whether or not you would truly want to be in the vicinity of the most horrible men in Kalos, it is too early to tell. Please do not be rash about such a decision. I am almost inclined to request that you stay away. To have you see me, then turn away would break my heart. I don't think I could write to you then, as there is not a successful way to disguise a breaking heart.

Let's move on. “Curious” and “naive” are not things people call themselves, as they're too busy being those things to realize what they are. You hint at being a heretic by the age of twelve, for example, but you don't explicitly say you are a heretic. Should you say that you are a heretic to most people, though... Most likely they will not understand you. It is only those who know, deep in their unconscious, that that is what they are too, who will seek out your demise as a supposed heretic. That being said, it is impossible to think about strange things too much. Those strange things exist to be thought about, and by denying their existence you are doing yourself a disservice.

...Your curious, naive self wants to know if I have pokémon, I see. The short answer is that yes, I do and no, I don't. My life revolved around pokémon at some point, which ironically led to the onset of my drug use. It became inevitable that the two should go hand in hand. I wasn't interested in the pokémon themselves, though. Later I used them as a ploy to gain they money I needed to sustain my drug addiction. I can explain for your benefit.

I'm sure you've heard of Professor Sycamore. If you haven't, don't bother starting your journey just yet. If you have, that means you know about the three mainstream starters. “Which one should I choose?” Such is the biggest concern of a nine-year-old on the eve of his birthday. All three were innocent and had potential, so much so that my brain couldn't comprehend only having to pick one. ...Oh, how my heart maintained a most fascinating glow that night. The glow lit up the whole sky, but you weren't alive to see it. It was a phenomenon as great and rare as the Millennium Comet that summons Jirachi every 1,000 years.

I'll pause here to point this out: my parents, unlike yours, didn't mind if I went on a journey at a young age. They told me stories and tall tales, as if to encourage me. I would tell you these stories, but I'm afraid the finer details have lapsed into the deeper, forgettable crevices of my mind. That sounds poetic, but prosaically, I can only say that I felt superior to my parents as I took advantage of their carelessness.

When I walked into Professor Sycamore's lab, I hadn't yet made my decision. I asked him, “Can't I just have them all?” How lucky for me, after all, to be the one child in Lumiose City with a birthday on July 10, during the summer when school wasn't in session. Of course Professor Sycamore said no. He might have expected me to whine, but I asked him how much time I had until the next trainer's birthday. I had one week.

In the end I took all three starters with me. ...Did I steal them? Did I bribe or threaten Professor Sycamore? I'd like to tell you, but the difference between dreams and reality isn't always obvious for me. Sometimes I feel a little out of it and memories blur together. When that happens I can tell you my personal truth, but it's not the same as telling the truth. I may simply be assuming I went down the traditional trainer route rather than receiving a pidgey from my grandmother. The police didn't come after me, which makes me think Professor Sycamore was afraid to report me. It is of no concern to me now.

Have I gotten off track here? I must tell you that those three starters... Well, how happy they were not to be separated! They grew up together, learned together and trained together. But while they were close to each other, they were wary of me. I was their trainer for six years and I never learned to understand their language. I was quiet and they would not talk to me unless I spoke to them first.

There's been research done about this. A pokémon feels like an alien in the presence of his trainer when his trainer doesn't manage the team well enough. Fennekin was a nervous wreck, but what did I know of psychology at that age? Froakie was strong and fought the most, but I never had money to buy supplies, leaving his body to fend for itself naturally until we could reach a Center. Chespin was the most peculiar of all (and I will get into that soon). Research tells me that they adapted to my solitude and survived without the help of anyone but each other. Relationships with others are one of the key factors to contentment in life, given any living creature’s inclination to want to form connections with others, and to travel with a neglectful trainer after being in the care of a loving professor was detrimental. As a result their physical, mental and social development must have suffered, and perhaps this is why they died prematurely.

Do you perhaps believe in demonology? Demonology suggests ways in which a malevolent spirit can control your actions in life. If we accept that this area of study has even a sliver of merit, then it follows that a man who commits a crime could’ve been unable to restrain himself, and therefore, he can plead insanity as a defense. ...I'd like to believe in this concept. I'd like to believe that my parents didn't care not by their own free will, but because an invincible force was preventing them from doing so. I'd like to believe I was a bad trainer because I wasn't meant to be a trainer (which you asked about). I'd like to believe that my starters' deaths weren't my fault.

I had been hiding in Santalune Forest for about two months, quite tired of civilization and capable of holding my own in the wilderness. I hadn't released my pokémon during that time, and indeed, the idea of exercise of feeding failed to cross my mind. And somehow, no trainers approached me for a battle or mere small talk (or, if they did, I must have ignored them willfully and dismissed the memory of their existence), until that fateful day in which I threw a cold pokéball out on a battlefield.

I shuddered when I realized Froakie wasn't moving. Decayed and immediately attracting the local bug-types, I wondered when this had happened, and how. The same was true of Chespin and Fennekin. The other trainer rode away on his gogoat as fast as he could. I collapsed, unable to process the situation, but soon I had to bury them and pay my respects.

Chespin's death hurt me the most. The grass-type had a tendency to ram into anything he was angry at. Sometimes he bashed his head against trees, sometimes against buildings. Sometimes he spilled his food just to have an excuse to trample on it. Sometimes he targeted me and struck my knee, causing it to dislocate. I was never prepared for such outbursts, but no medical intervention was necessary, as it took but a moment for my knee to slide back into place. At any rate, Chespin seemed to want to teach me an important lesson. I couldn't figure it out. I sent him out to battle often so that he could perform his antics in a more productive setting.

Once he climbed a tree and jumped off, hitting me on the side of the head. I was so disoriented that when I looked at Chespin, it seemed that he had grown to human size and now had a human voice. He told me he hated me and that he'd met me in all his previous lives. He tried very hard to ruin me in each and every life. When I came to, he was a normal creature with a joyful grin on his face.

After they died, I retired from training. I traveled to Laverre, a safe haven for those who have nowhere to go and are not bound by the prison system. I refused to go back to my parents, so I made the streets my home and dug in the garbage for food. Prostitutes and policemen approached me daily, but the former learned that I was broke and the latter couldn't do any more damage to me than I had done to myself.

What did interest me was the move tutor. Trainers went to him so that their starters could learn powerful attacks. I wandered past his house a few times, debating whether or not to knock and introduce myself. It took almost a year of gathering the courage and energy to not only say hello, but also to explain why I no longer had Fennekin, Froakie or Chespin by my side.

When I told the move tutor my story, he wasn't surprised. He told me that he couldn't have taught my starters the aforementioned attacks because it didn’t sound as if they were content being in my care. Those pokémon usually become destructive and rebellious, and their lifespan expectancy drops if the problems don't improve.

But even when he teaches pokémon who are content with their trainers, consistent use of the attack puts strain on their bodies and their lifespan expectancy drops anyway. He hadn't found a way to deal with the stress that came with his profession. After a few months of visiting him and holding numerous conversations about the apparent futility of living, he told me how he kept himself afloat: through recreational drug use. And soon...

Well, drugs make pain disappear and take you into another world. How could I say no?

How the move tutor didn't become an addict, I don't know. What I know is that I did, and it wasn't pleasant. Addiction is why the inner workings of my mind are distorted; I see no alternative explanation for such that seems plausible. I exaggerate facts to convince myself that I experienced something real. Obsessions, cravings, the never ending search... It's nothing to joke about.

I couldn't face the move tutor anymore. I had disappointed him not once, but twice. I told him this and he wished me good luck, offering me enough money to travel and take care of myself. I fled to Lumiose and came to the unfortunate realization that I would need more money if I wanted to continue scoring drugs.

This is when I returned to pokémon training. At that point, it was the only lucrative path I knew of. But I refused to battle, thanks to the terrible images of throwing Froakie’s pokéball constantly invade my headspace whenever I entertained the prospect, and so, I had to resort to unconventional means. With the small amount of the move tutor’s money I had leftover, I bought a zorua egg from a professional Unovan breeder. The species intrigued me because of its stereotypical personality, as well as how its evolution sells for several million pokédollars on the black market due to how rare it is to find a trainer with the perseverance to train them to that point.

I hoped to be one of those trainers. I named the little zorua Enmity, and I fully expected him to live up to that name. Oh, the mischief we could get into! Oh, the money we could earn with all the tricks up his sleeve until he evolved and we’d strike it even richer!

But Enmity wasn't like normal zorua. He wasn't hostile toward humans, he didn't cause any trouble and he wasn't reckless. He was shy and often hid behind my legs when anyone walked by. ...And you must understand another thing: Enmity was a mute. I don't know what his voice sounds like, nor even what it sounds like to hear him grunt.

I wanted to release him, but it would have been a waste of the move tutor's money. I kept this in mind and it became easy to form a bond with him that I didn't have with my starters. So I taught him tricks—real tricks, ones you'd see in a circus. I used his dark-type attacks to create illusions. He made his body look like a human's, or he looked like an inanimate object. With the ladies he used fake tears to earn their admiration. We dressed him up in clothes that would attract an audience and when we had some money I bought a stage near the park on the northern end of Lumiose.

It was because of him that I wanted to clean myself up in the first place. Enmity didn't talk me down from the stuff. He helped me through it, and he didn't have to say a word. ...It's a shame that prison was what made that final decision for me. I wish I knew where he was now. He was with me when I was arrested and I haven't seen him since.

And that’s that for now, I’d say. I’ve seen the sun four times since I’ve started writing this letter. I think that makes it Thursday. That’s a long time to be writing, but I had to think long and hard about what happened. I could write one letter per day, one for each lost piece of my humanity, but then you would probably start to think I forgot about you.

Sincerely,
Mark

 

[diamondpearl876]

FLYING IN THE DARK
[letters five and six]

*​

May 20

Markus...

Your last letter was heartbreaking and not what I was expecting at all. I mean, I started my journey, so I can't look back now... But if I had gotten your letter before leaving, I'm not sure I could have made that first step past Anistar's gate. I just can't believe your pokémon are gone already. Didn't you try to figure out what happened to them? Isn't there someone you can ask about Enmity? Doesn't the move tutor know where you are? He could've bailed you out with all that money he has!

Don't get me wrong, though. I am so glad you'll keep writing to me! You've had a rough time and maybe I should find it amazing that you were able to survive on your own in a world where pokémon are stronger than humans, especially when wild. I wouldn't be able to make it without Seybs and Ribbons. I think that's the difference between us. I was raised to be too dependent on my parents and now I'm afraid to be alone. I’m not sure you’re much afraid of anything and I need someone to show me that's actually possible. I'm not sure what makes these letters so special... but please don't give up on sending them to me. I'm counting on you.

I'm gonna ask for a second favor too. I don't want to sound like a stalker, but I already knew about the prison in Laverre. I found your contact information on their website. Anyway, please don't try to keep me away from Laverre! Like you said, that's where people go when they're lost. Well, I'm lost. I want to fix myself, but I can't fix myself if I don't know what's missing from my life. I won't decide right now, though, if that's what you want.

Oh, and I was wondering... I don't know when you're getting out of jail. I don't know if it's soon or in a few years. I don't know anything about life in jail, even though I could've ended up there myself! But when you get out, first you should find Enmity, and then you should visit Anistar. I promise you'll have a better time than you did before.

So... I started my journey, right? Part of me wishes I could meet Professor Sycamore so I could get one of the Kalos starters. Or maybe I'd get all three somehow. I would've taken care of them for you and made you feel a little better about their passing. Yeah... I'm sorry I can't do that for you.

For what it's worth, I don't think you're a bad person. If demonology is something you want to believe in, I'm not gonna stop you. I'll just keep hoping you'll reunite with Enmity someday. I'm sure he's lost without you. ...I'm actually a bit surprised that the prison doesn't hold and/or raise your pokémon for you. Did he run away or something? I'd appreciate it if you could tell me.

Okay, yeah. I went to Terminus Cave a few days ago. I sneaked into my dad's bedroom before I left (my parents have separate rooms) and took out an old textbook about pokémon behavior. I read up on noibat and how they like to swoop down and steal food from people passing by. I wasn't going to let one scare me like that!

I made my way to the edge of Anistar, memorizing the same sights I'd seen for eighteen years. I hate to admit it, but I might miss the place. Seybs and Ribbons, on the other hand, flew without a care in the world. They flew past the gate, into the Vallée Étroite Way, and past a long, narrow hill down to what seemed like a dead end. I tried to catch up with them as quick as I could and nearly lost my balance.

Our view after that was blocked by patches of tall grass. I knew that was where wild pokémon hid, and I didn't want to disturb them. I had no choice if I wanted to find a noibat, so we trudged on through and came to a rickety bridge that crossed over a deep river surrounded by spires of rock. The water gleamed a silvery sort of blue that day, which made me even more giddy!

Seybs, of course, chose that moment to not be lazy and flew across the bridge, landing on the roof of an abandoned house while I stood at the edge of the bridge, afraid of falling through the planks. I scolded him for flying away like that. He pouted and flew back to my shoulder. Ribbons was nice and hopped in front of me, as if testing the bridge's strength. I told him that I weighed much more than him, but he cocked his head in confusion and continued. When I crossed I let out a sigh of relief and looked at the house, which told me that Terminus Cave was nearby. The house once offered a place for coal miners to rest, but now all that's left of that profession is the trolley and scattered remains of the railroad. Just a little further and I'd be in real adventure territory...

But things never go as planned, do they? In the end I met the noibat outside of Terminus Cave, and oh boy, was he ever bossy. And very, very destructive.

A group of graveler and lairon surrounded the noibat. They roared and braced themselves from the noibat's gust attack, which stirred up dirt from the ground. The noibat squeaked, trying to project his voice to be powerful too. He seemed to be demanding something, but I didn't know what. I got my answer when one of the lairon gave in and rammed the nearest tree, which caused a few apples to fall from the branches and onto its head. The noibat dove in, but could only hold one of the apples with its tiny paws. Satisfied, he headed back inside Terminus Cave, the other pokémon following him shortly after.

What made the noibat confront those rock-types, I don't know. Noibat are supposed to use their good vision and sense of smell to stay away from danger, but they're also part dragon. Dragon-types seem to always fight against other pokémon they can't win against. That kind of determination and persistence is exactly what I need for my journey! So after watching in awe as the pokémon went their separate ways, I chased after the noibat. Ribbons blocked the noibat's path by flying ahead and guarding the cave's entrance. Maybe it was harsh to not let the noibat go back home if that's what he wanted, but who knew how long it would take to find another one inside the dark cave?

I ordered Ribbons to use confusion. His eyes glowed an intense shade of blue, and he transmitted that psychical energy to the noibat, whose body also began to glow. The noibat dropped his apple and held his head, whimpering.

“Ribbons, tone it down a little bit...” I said, knowing my pokéball would most likely break if I tried to catch a fainted noibat. If I remember right, the world inside a pokéball is perceived differently by each pokémon, and that world is created based off of the pokémon's favorite memory, so that the positive emotions of a pokémon help it maintain the will to live if severely injured. If a pokémon is fainted when caught, though... The world is created with unconscious memories instead, which are usually horrible to remember and keep the pokémon from ever wanting to be recalled. Gym leaders and researchers are studying to see if that situation affects emotional development as well, but I'm not sure how much progress they've made on that yet.

Anyway. I got sidetracked again. Ribbons listened to my request and the noibat flapped his wings hard so that he could escape. I wasn't going to let that happen, so Seybs chased after him. Oh, shoot. Is it illegal to fight with two pokémon at once? Seybs was slow and I thought we were going to lose the noibat until I saw that he was darting straight for Anistar's gate. He probably thought he was clever, trying to lose us in a maze, but little did he know that I knew Anistar like the back of my hand!

The noibat traipsed between buildings, but the unfamiliar territory forced him to slow down and decide where to go next. To my surprise, he stopped entirely to sniff the air. I thought he might agree to come with us, but that was silly of me. Soon the noibat was off again, and he hovered outside the pokémart. First he was obsessed with apples, and now the pokémart...

Then it hit me. Why didn’t it hit me sooner? This is what I looked up in my dad’s book! Perhaps I was too surprised he owned a book about pokémon to digest what it actually had to say. Basically, noibat are known as fruit bats. Over the years their sharp teeth have adapted to consume berries and apples. The noibat must have smelled the fruit stand inside the pokémart and went there, and it explained why he was outside of Terminus Cave and harassing those pokémon to shake the fruit off the tree branches for him.

I was more than happy to buy the noibat some fruit, but it proved to be a very big mistake. I told Seybs and Ribbons to back off, and then we walked slowly toward the automatic door so that it could open and let the noibat inside. As soon as the door opened, though, he bolted and attacked the fruit stand. The customers yelled, deserted their carts and fled the store, while the cashier took a broom and tried to swipe the noibat away.

“No! Don't hurt my noibat like that!”

“Your noibat, kid? Get that damn thing back in its pokéball!” the cashier cried, but he didn't stop swinging the broom.

I fumbled with my backpack and pulled out a pokéball, then rolled it around in my hands restlessly. How was I supposed to throw it at the noibat if he kept moving around so fast? Seybs dove in and pecked at the noibat but was struck by the broom a few times himself. His focus turned toward the cashier. The noibat took that opportunity to sink his teeth into an orange, suck away the nectar and then flee (but not before grabbing another orange to go). It was now or never. While the noibat was weighed down by the fruit, I chucked the pokéball in his general direction. I’d never even practiced before, but my aim was fantastic! The pokéball opened and the noibat transformed into a red light before disappearing inside. The ball swayed back and forth for a few seconds, then stopped and gave way for the victorious ping to indicate the pokéball had registered the noibat’s info.

I couldn't celebrate yet, because the cashier decided to be a jerk. I hadn't seen the sign that said pokémon weren't allowed! It wasn't really my noibat! But he pushed me out of the store and told me I wasn't allowed to shop there ever again. Well, that's just fine. I'm not planning on coming back anyway, right? It just goes to show how uncaring Anistar is about its longtime residents, too. He must have recognized me! Not that I remembered his face or name or anything…

Ugh. Fast forward a bit. I was back at home, in the comfort of my room. This was the last night I'd sleep in my own bed. Tomorrow I would battle Olympia and be on my way. Excited, I wanted to leave then, but first I had to introduce myself to the noibat.

“I'm gonna call you Kai,” I said. The noibat cocked his head to the side. “Not impressed, I see...”

I brought Kai to my grandmother the next morning and she said that Kai is a boy. Kai means “lovable” in another language I knew when I was younger, and apparently the way I pronounce it makes it sound feminine. I would have changed the name, but he already seemed used to it and I didn't want to ruin that little bit of trust we had. That trust may or may not have been due to all the fruit I left for him to eat overnight.

I decided to do a bit of training before challenging Olympia. I wanted to make sure Kai knew shadow claw and, well, he didn't know it. I gave Joey enough money to buy the shadow claw TM from the pokémart I was banned from. It cost a lot, but I had enough in my savings account to last a while.

TMs are weird, I'll tell you that. From what I know, TMs alter multiple brain processes, including motor memory skills and the cognitive ability to understand the move when I command it. But all Kai had to do to learn shadow claw was press his face against the device for a few moments before he jumped back. He had a wild expression, as if he had just witnessed a life-changing revelation. I wonder what he was thinking? Wow, I'm really strong now! I can take on anything! Or maybe he just wanted more fruit.

Then we did some basic training. Kai clawed some trees, tearing into them with a shadowy energy most flying-types aren’t capable of use, and his reward, of course, was fruit. When he got the hang of it, he focused on speed and accuracy. “Get 'em where it hurts,” I told him, and I think he grinned at me. That's the only way to win a battle, and he knows it! You can't win by being nice. I learned the hard way with Seybs, but I'll get into that in another letter. In short, training isn't my strong suit. Just another thing to work on, I guess.

So we battled Olympia later that day. Olympia's a psychic-type trainer, and her gym layout is... unique. I've been in there before, just for a tour. I was there again, ready to leave Anistar with a bang. It's strange because her pokémon use their psychic powers constantly to make the gym look like outer space. I mean, doesn't that make her pokémon too tired to fight? Or are they that strong?

But I think you'd like the view, Markus. It's a small building when you look on the outside, but inside you're surrounded by an endless blanket of stars, which are set in the same patterns you'd be able to see at night. Time seems to come to a standstill when you're there, even though everything around you must have taken billions of years to form in reality. The different winds, coming from all directions, are the only things that tell you that time is moving. You mentioned feeling “out of it” sometimes, and I wasn’t sure I knew what you meant. But I think I got it when stumbling my way through Olympia's gym.

The gym's vastness got to me, and I almost cried. I was supposedly in space, but gravity was still there, and somehow I feel this ruined a childhood dream of mine. Not only that, but I walked for what seemed like miles and miles. My plans for setting out that day were crushed. I went this way and that, forward and backward, coming full circle once in a while. I only knew I was going the right way when I ran into Olympia's gym trainers. I wanted to keep Kai at full strength, so I used Ribbons when I fought them. I couldn't help but focus on how Ribbons interacted with another psychic-type. For some reason I think I'm gonna be in trouble sometime in the future, and Ribbons will be the one to save us, if only because of his powers.

Olympia's gym trainers complimented my pokémon. I wonder if they were just being nice, since they've heard stories about me from my parents and other townspeople. Gossip spreads fast in Anistar. I didn't want to hear anything bad about being homeschooled or anything like that. I thanked them and moved on before they could strike up another conversation, my excuse being that I was a new trainer excited to challenge her first gym.

I reached Olympia several hours later. She greeted me with her silly robotic/poetic voice. Oh, this is a good time to mention that I'm bringing a voice recorder with me on my journey, so that I'm able to write down awesome conversations I have with people. Does that sound creepy? I hope not. I didn't get to record the battle, but I can remember it pretty well.

Olympia sent out her female meowstic. I know it was female because my neighbors always marvel about Olympia's meowstic pair. They're surprised that the same species of pokémon can look so different, and they bet even Professor Sycamore can't explain that phenomenon. I keep my mouth shut because it's not that big of a discovery. I mean, no human looks exactly the same, so...

But this is why I like Olympia. She understands the world and acts accordingly. The way she commanded her pokémon was great! Instead of yelling out an attack, she used a calm voice that was barely audible. The meowstic was eager to listen. She attacked Kai with a dark purple ray of light—a psybeam attack. Kai flew into the air to avoid it, and I told him to do what we practiced, hoping that would keep Olympia guessing what we'd do next. Kai was flawless and perfect as he took his claws and collided with Meowstic's psybeam, creating a burst of black clouds. Meowstic staggered backward, a bit of blood dripping down her cheek. Kai huffed with pride.

I started to wonder if I had made a mistake... I had shown off our trump card at the beginning of the battle, after all. It could have doomed us later on, but Olympia was kind enough to agree to a one-on-one battle, and so time was “precious” (her words, not mine). “I know that preserving a pokémon's health is essential to fledgling trainers,” she had told me, and she had pulled out a single pokéball with such grace it made me think she had chosen to use Meowstic days before I had arrived.

I was nothing like Olympia. “Kai, use supersonic!” I cried, with enough vigor to have Kai obey me though I hadn't known him long at all. He wasn't eager to listen, but his earlier success encouraged him to help me win this battle. Did I just give away the ending? Where's an eraser when you need one?

Okay, yeah, we won... but it wasn't easy. What happened next was this: Kai let out a scary cry that spread throughout the whole gym. Meowstic tightened her closed ears, and when this didn't drown out the noise, she resorted to floating upward and out of our sight. Even this backfired, as she came crashing down about a minute later. I thought she'd fall through the floor and never come back... as the floor was transparent and below all you saw was stars. Anyway, Meowstic spun in circles, but Olympia wasn't worried. I hadn't expected Meowstic, a psychic-type, to be confused by a normal-type attack.

I made my move as soon as I could. I told Kai to use shadow claw again while he had the chance. He sped forward, claws spread out as Meowstic automatically went into defense mode. A light blue barrier assembled itself in front of her, protecting her from harm. Kai slammed into it, unable to see it from such a close angle. He wailed and flew back to his side of the battlefield.

Meowstic was still confused, and I think her survival instincts kicked in despite that. I asked Kai, in a more friendly tone, to use shadow claw one more time. “This time, it has to hit,” I said. I swear I saw him nod to me, but it may have been wishful thinking. Either way, he was in the middle of his strike when Meowstic's reflect attack reappeared. Kai didn't attempt to stop. He trudged on through. When he was close to the barrier, a ripple was made, and then another ripple, until the barrier was wrecked and Meowstic was struck with more black clouds.

Meowstic fainted shortly after that. Had Olympia treated me like a new trainer, even though she was the seventh gym leader in the circuit? Did it have anything to do with me living in Anistar? I chalked it up to the idea that using reflect requires an awful lot of energy, and that being confused eventually took its toll. Olympia recalled Meowstic back to her pokéball and walked over to me with a smile on her face.

“Your pokémon’s ability. Did you know it existed?” she asked me.

“Kai’s ability? No…”

“Noibat have an ability called infiltrator. It helps with barrier attacks.”

“Does it?” I said, too stunned to say anything else. So Kai was the perfect choice after all! He flew over to me and circled my head in his excitement. (He isn’t comfortable perching on my shoulder yet, and he doesn’t like to nuzzle up to me like my other pokémon do, I guess.) He totally knew he deserved all the credit. We won our first gym battle, and in only one try, just as I had planned, thanks to him!

Olympia pulled me out of my ecstatic thoughts. “You did not know. If one wants to travel on a journey, then one must know certain things about the world. I would like to educate you. Will you let me?”

“Uh. I’m not interested in schooling anymore—”

“Not that kind of education. I want to teach you something else. Will you let me?”

“...When would you need me?”

“Come by tomorrow night to the gym. You will perform a task for me, and then you will be free to leave on your journey.”

I agreed because I look up to her as a leader, a sort of icon that I had grown up with. I don't know what she has planned for me! Do you? ...Probably not, but it's worth a shot.

~ Haley

*

May 29

To Haley,

I cannot imagine what Olympia would want from you. I can, at least, apologize for my misbehavior. I am not a friend that knows when to be quiet. That role belongs to the sky, or more specifically, the nighttime sky, which leaves you alone long enough for you to daydream about the unknown. Olympia's gym seems to recreate that atmosphere for you. It's sad to say that I experience that vastness each day, as well as the sense of detachment it brings. That kind of haziness may not be temporary. If you must know about prison—a life you shouldn't be preoccupied with—then you might want to remember that feeling.

I can, too, answer your other questions. Indeed I miss my starters and Enmity, but I can barely describe what I saw when I learned of their deaths, let alone the emotional state I've been in since. It was daytime, though. I know this much. The world spins a little faster then, and I tend to lose myself in the highlights of the sun's rays. That afternoon, chilly and with clouds spotting the sky, I was meant to judge Chespin's performance with a critical eye during a battle. Instead I released him, saw his body and the other bodies, and my face fell, suddenly submissive to gravity along with the rest of me.

In my mind I must have been on vacation, in a faraway town in a faraway region, one rich with resources and a history void of war. I must have been consumed by a new, unfamiliar but welcomed view, one with wild, white clouds dotting the sky, and trees standing on hills, tilted slightly to the right with full, flourishing branches. When I try to envision this again, I think of blood, though I'm unsure whether my starters bled at all. If they did, would I have noticed? And if I had noticed, would I have held them close? ...No. I'd have been afraid of their pain latching onto me. Most likely I was under the influence, to the point where I could feel the drug piercing through my system as I walked.

You say you want to know about Enmity. There should be more to say, as he was my lifeline for a few years, but when you're high, moments blend together. All is lost to you when you recover. This means I cannot recall where Enmity was, or what he was doing... If I cannot tell you about the past, I cannot tell you about the present. There is more of a difference between us than you think. All you've ever wanted is a chance to prove yourself, and now it's here. I've had so many chances but I've always turned the other way to go down a different path. Because of that, I lost Enmity, the last promising thing left in my life.

I apologize for any confusion that comes from the lack of information. I have many regrets, many visions of how things might’ve been different, but the one wish that has a chance of coming true yet revolves around Enmity's evolution. As you know, I wished for him to become a zoroark when I first bought his egg, so that he may perform more tricks aside from his usual flips and pranks. Zoroark are known for their ability to imitate human speech, to steal anyone's identity and other such miracles. If I could find him, it may still happen.

Now I have a question for you. Which of your pokémon sends me these letters? From my window I do not get a glimpse of the flying-types that bring the mail each morning. It may be for the best, since I've been defined as a threat to society. Still it brings me great peace of mind when I receive a letter from you, and I am asking because, should I ever see a flying-type approaching, I would like to know if it belongs to you.

I am feeling particularly down today. I cannot explain why, not entirely, though I may say that the prisoners here are reminding me of the outside world's extravagances by sharing their life stories. I understand this is why you put certain facts and topics into your letters—to make me feel better, that is—but I find myself wishing and daydreaming more after I set them down. It's not your fault, and by no means should this discourage you. This is simply one of the few truths I can offer you and feel confident about.

I believe I owe you an explanation about prison culture, given how I’d forgone the explanation in my previous spiel about cultures. Plus, it appears to intrigue you for a mix of reasons, and you have offered to me more than I can say. To give you the most appropriate and accurate representation of what it's like here, I will use prison slang as it is used by my cellmates everyday, and I will explain those terms the best I can.

First, have I not mentioned my cellmate yet in passing or otherwise? Surprising, given how they’re the closest in proximity to me and, I’m sure, have taken a glance at me writing to you once in while. Bouncer (which means, to him, move along and get lost) is one of the toughs around here, and he has the reputation and body to prove it. His sentence was lengthened after he assaulted a police officer who also had no choice but to lock him into solitary confinement at least five times prior. He stands a foot taller than me, is broad-chested and has a strange, moon-shaped scar above his upper lip. He speaks with an accent none of us have been able to recognize thus far, and while the rest of us make guesses, Bouncer learns more slang that turns life into a game he thinks only he can win.

The inmate across from us, Eyeball, sports an angular face, a narrow nose and a small build, small enough to crumple in the corner of his cell and not be noticed—which has happened before, as he has the personality to match. In a sense, he reminds me of Enmity. He doesn't say much. He simply gives long, disparaging looks to officers and to anyone who tries to get his attention. On special occasions we're deemed worthy of a moment of his time, but even then the best we've gotten is an explanation for why he refuses to socialize often, said with a scowl and a twitch of his dark eyes: “Ya can pretend yer in the real world however much ya want, but ya still gonna feel what's missin' here.”

His words ring a sort of truth not many of us can admit to each other or ourselves. That's the common bond we share: we miss the outside world. We are kept away from liberty, everyday goods and services, autonomy, relationships... and there is such a thing as too much security. Everything is provided for us, which sounds fine, but this takes away things people like you take for granted—a simple trip to the grocery store, for instance. Someone is always watching you, sometimes out of curiosity, sometimes to spite you. We have little to no friends or family. Some of us had friends and family at some point, but inevitably they grew bored or frustrated, and decided to not come back.

So all we have is each other and a degrading, monotonous routine we follow. It is not enough.

5AM. The sun rises. The guards come around, bringing black coffee with a friendly enough smile. The coffee is hot, but there's no sugar, no cream, nothing to soften the taste of hell. Most sleep through the morning, as any request for a substitute drink cannot be considered. Breakfast consists of simple choices: toast and butter, spicy sausages, diced potatoes, a carton of orange juice for those avoiding caffeine—all placed in a small styrofoam box that radiates heat from the bottom. Only plastic cutlery is available to you; you can’t be trusted with the real deal.

6AM. The guards convince you to wait in the cafeteria as they finish searching each and every cell for illegal paraphernalia, you know, as a safety precaution for inmates like me. Inmates who have reason to want to sneak around and go against the adherence their rehabilitation asks for. They’ll confiscate everyday, mundane items if they locate any, justifying it by claiming the item can be forged into a weapon. A coin can be sharpened and cut through stone walls, for example. In the meantime, small talk passes the time, with those choosing to remain aloof looking on in interest in case a fight breaks out.

7AM. You take turns using the shower with everyone else. Though there are approximately thirty men on any given floor, there is only one shower room, and one toilet. There's no shower curtain and the toilet sits in the corner, also out in the open for everyone to notice and awkwardly avoid eye contact with you. Good hygiene is not an option. You have no choice but to keep yourself clean, for if you refuse, other prisoners will gang up on you. There are a couple reasons for this: one, if someone is affected by a cold, within days everyone will have it; and two, it is impossible for the guards to keep the showers sanitary at all times, so to keep yourself free of infection is to keep everyone else safe from infection as well. Soap, shampoo, and other necessities are provided by the commissary, but most of us have had sandals brought from the outside to prevent said infections when inside the shower.

8AM. Here’s a designated exercise hour, before the hottest time of the day sets in. Camaraderie out in the yard is exceptionally rare as well. This is the time of day where there is nothing to do but walk with no destination in mind; you’re not trusted with proper equipment, either. Nothing to do but wait until the hour passes, when that's already all you've been doing for years. You have to remember to be persistent. “Gets ya through,” Eyeball might tell you, and he's right. Persistence is the one attribute you should have that will get you through the rest of your sentence. Persistence helps you keep your emotions and thoughts on an even keel, and to not overreact to any particular situation that might otherwise drive you crazy. Persistence creates and enables a strong mind and a steady spirit.

9AM. Now there's a distraction to break the monotonous uncertainty plaguing your thoughts. Now is when the guards line up the prisoners and do a head count to ensure everyone is still present after the morning’s events. This is also when you get to see inmates you don't normally see at any other time. The sick inmates will have poor posture, and you briefly measure the status of your own health before retreating and shrinking back into your cell, your own little corner of the universe which, you remember, you can call your own, if nothing else.

10AM. Once a week you're given a laundry bag, one set of pants and one shirt, and one set of underwear you have no choice but to wear on a consistent basis. One size fits all. But by now you'll at least be showered, dressed and looking semi-presentable, enough to transfer over to laundry duty. Work details are limited jobs reserved for prisoners who exhibit the best behavior. For this you'll only receive about five dollars an hour, but something about that handful of cash makes you feel like a part of society again. That handful of cash, at least, funds items sent by the commissary. While on duty you'll often be appalled by what you find. I will spare you the details.

12-12:30PM. You have a lunch break at work, served the same way as breakfast. The prisoners become more talkative during this time. Bouncer discusses with me how the prisoners down the hall have been planning a breakout for years, though they are incompetent and haven't come close to coming up with a coherent, logical plan. Once they were going to tunnel their way through a wall in the laundry room, and they were ecstatic and prepared, until Bouncer pointed out that their tunnel would lead them straight to the guard's break room. Their stupidity astounds me, and I would be lying if I said I haven't participated in petty actions such as leaving their socks damp or dyeing them pink, then calling it an accident. It's hypocritical, considering my negative opinion regarding their behavior, but there it is. After lunch, you return to work for a few hours yet.

3PM. Another exercise hour to shake off the tension from repeating the same motions at work over and over, and after, you return to your cell to be called in another headcount. Inside, the sun beats down and shines through the barred windows like an angelic presence might, and it's still hot. You're sweating and paranoia sets in. If you're anything like me, you're thinking about ways to access hardcore drugs or prescription medications that might knock you out for the rest of the day. Faking a cold or food poisoning might be an option, if only the prison allowed you that luxury. As it stands, the guards are adept to identifying all forms of illness, especially ones far less imposing than the ill mindset that caused us to become criminals in the first place.


4-6PM. Some prisoners head to narcotics anonymous, anger management sessions, or counseling sessions. I choose not to disclose the experiences I have during my own counseling sessions. Outside of these rehabilitation programs, there are some ways to entertain yourself, but not many. An old-fashioned television with one news station sits in the corner of the hallway, inside an iron box, and through the thick plastic you can watch melancholy images unfold. If you don't want to watch, the reporter's voice echoes throughout the cells. It is difficult to drown out constant reminders of crime. Should you finish your session (or sessions, for some) before time is up, we have nothing but time, and so we become creative with ways to keep ourselves busy. Bouncer once made a checker board out of paper I gave him from my notebook, the same one I write to you in. Some of the men exercise, some create their own games, and some read. I myself would read, but most of the books I might be interested in are not on the approved reading list. On a particularly exciting day, in comes a new inmate, and the prisoners spend their time teaching him the ropes, which involves spewing harsh insults, asking personal questions, and making up strict rules.

6PM. Dinner comes, served the same way as breakfast and lunch. The day is winding down.

7PM. Head count. The sun starts to set and your thoughts drift further than normal.

8PM. Bedtime. Bunk beds are welded together, not with nails or bolts, but with sheet metal. Bouncer prefers to sleep on the top bunk, so I let him. It's easier for me to fall asleep on the bottom bunk, anyway. The lights are left on at all hours of the day so that the guards are able to keep a watchful eye on us, and so the light is blocked by Bouncer's mattress above me. Eyeball, on the other side of the hall, takes his mattress and puts it on the floor. To make a pillow he gathers his belongings and stuffs it under one end of the mat. Despite his efforts he grows restless and makes annoying, non-rhythmic tapping noises that keep the rest of us awake longer than we want to be.

I suppose it would be nice to have a cool, agreeable evening during which nothing goes wrong and all is forgotten… but it's not necessary. I don't deserve those rare nights when they do come to me. When my thoughts go astray during that blissful phase between wakefulness and sleep, I remember something my father told me, something about being a man one day and how that means doing terrible things. Perhaps he knew I would end up this way long ago.

8PM-5AM. You sleep. The night makes us who we are, and when the morning comes, you know the truth, which is that that sun will forever keep rising. I have to believe that's true.

I suppose that is all there it to say for now. Have I disturbed you? Please let me know. It is acceptable to acknowledge any awfulness you find in me.

Sincerely,
Mark

 

[Treble Tech]

Alright! Just finished reading all the letters so far. It's somewhat refreshing to see something written this way; not something you see very often. Anyway...

Your main characters are coming across very clearly so far, which is good since characterization is the bulk of your story at the moment. Their personalities are shown well through the letter format, and even though they aren't directly interacting with each other, I like how they've been responding to each other. Additionally, I actually didn't find it hard to believe that Markus would be this open with Haley at all. For one thing, I fell that it fits with his thoughtful personality. For another, I had the opportunity to visit a prison as part of a class I took in high school, and many of the inmates were actually very open with my class. The thing is, it was obvious that some of them were speaking genuinely while others were trying to drum up sympathy, and I look forward to discovering which of these Markus is. Frankly, I hope it's the former, I'm beginning to like him. One downside of the letter format is that it will be hard to characterize secondary characters, such as the Pokemon, but Haley's descriptions seem to be doing a decent job so far.

Grammar seems fine so far. I thought Markus could be a bit wordy at times, but given that it fits with his character and the fact that he's likely lonely, I think it actually works in your favor. Might help the reader develop some sympathy for him. The schedule at the end of the last letter was somewhat slow for me, but whatever, it's a one-time thing.

As far as content, there's not much I can say yet story-wise. Still waiting for it to really get started. Their correspondence seems fine so far, especially since it's mostly just been Markus answering Haley's questions. I am glad you managed to keep it away from a straight Q&A format and let them go off on their own tangents sometimes. I suppose it could be argued that Haley is being more descriptive than a normal letter would be, but honestly, I think it's necessary for the reader's benefit. We want to paint our own picture, after all.

You've definitely captured my interest. I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes!

 

[diamondpearl876]

Alright! Just finished reading all the letters so far. It's somewhat refreshing to see something written this way; not something you see very often. Anyway...

Your main characters are coming across very clearly so far, which is good since characterization is the bulk of your story at the moment. Their personalities are shown well through the letter format, and even though they aren't directly interacting with each other, I like how they've been responding to each other. Additionally, I actually didn't find it hard to believe that Markus would be this open with Haley at all. For one thing, I fell that it fits with his thoughtful personality. For another, I had the opportunity to visit a prison as part of a class I took in high school, and many of the inmates were actually very open with my class. The thing is, it was obvious that some of them were speaking genuinely while others were trying to drum up sympathy, and I look forward to discovering which of these Markus is. Frankly, I hope it's the former, I'm beginning to like him. One downside of the letter format is that it will be hard to characterize secondary characters, such as the Pokemon, but Haley's descriptions seem to be doing a decent job so far.

Heh, interesting, someone who likes Markus. And I also never really thought it'd be weird for Markus to open up, but I can see the concern for it - not many people seem to interact with people in prison for long, if my research results are anything to go by.

Anddd as someone who writes primarily pokemon-centric fics, the secondary characters are definitely not something I'll be putting off to the wayside. They may not be the most fleshed out, and their character development may not be as significant, but they're not just there for the hell of it, so to speak. XD

Grammar seems fine so far. I thought Markus could be a bit wordy at times, but given that it fits with his character and the fact that he's likely lonely, I think it actually works in your favor. Might help the reader develop some sympathy for him. The schedule at the end of the last letter was somewhat slow for me, but whatever, it's a one-time thing.

Wordiness can certainly be too much after a while, though, so I'm hoping to not take advantage of it, even if it does go slightly in my favor.

As far as content, there's not much I can say yet story-wise. Still waiting for it to really get started. Their correspondence seems fine so far, especially since it's mostly just been Markus answering Haley's questions. I am glad you managed to keep it away from a straight Q&A format and let them go off on their own tangents sometimes. I suppose it could be argued that Haley is being more descriptive than a normal letter would be, but honestly, I think it's necessary for the reader's benefit. We want to paint our own picture, after all.

Since this is slice-of-life, there's no real overarching plot that's going to be epic or soul-shattering. But there is something in the background, and subplots will be popping up often. I hope not to disappoint.

Thanks for reviewing!

 

[Flaze]

I just finished reading the first chapter, I am planning on treading the other two and I don't usually do reviews for fics till I'm completely caught up, but I guess I wanted to do one for this so...yeah.

Now I will admit, I actually don't have any experience with reading or watching a story where someone writes letters to an inmate and stuff like that, the closest I've come to something like this is a book I read in eight grade about two teenagers that become penpals and the book is about them talking about the events of theri days and stuff like that. So I was actually intrigued by this from the moment you first told me about this last year. This is mostly cause I like the focus you give to your character's emotions and psyche in your stories.

And well, I can kind of see that already here. Hailey is certainly and interesting case, someone naive that wants to understand a lot while knowing too little, with alot of hopes and visions for her future and for herself, her writing makes her come off as a very naive girl who thinks very highly of herself and people in general which contrasts with Mark's tortured soul and regret-filled (probably) voice. This also comes off on how Mark tends to trail off or put pauses in his words when his more insecure moments come out while Hailey just writes whatever comes to her head and then just crosses out what she doesn't want to talk about.

I think I understood what Mark was talking about in his childhood story, I don't think he meant that his mom literally breathed fire as much as...well something else. I honestly don't know if I should talk about it here xD; but if it is true that he used to have multiple siblings I might have an idea (or he's lying)

And that's all I've got for chapter 1 I'll be sure to read the others ones soon.

 

[kintsugi]

hiiiiiiiiii. I effing love the way that you write different points of view, so this style of writing seems right up your alley. This is an overdue, disjoint review that I'm scribbling between getting packed for the great wilderness, so excuse the massive disorganization going on here.

Um. First impressions, there were some damn good worldbuilding bits here. I don't know if you ended up studying prisons in-depth or something for this, but the routine Markus outlined in the third chapter and the general feeling of nonchalance and despair all felt terrifyingly real. Just imagining this building full of humans staring up at the sky and waiting for it all to end... wow. My one qualm with that section is that the word 'infection' is probably too cumbersome to be thrown around as frequently as it did in the shower section.

Other good worldbuilding bits -- the detail about how Pokeballs are crafted out of their inhabitants happy thoughts to give the Pokemon strength if they're almost dying. That's fucking terrifying, and I really hope you delve into the whole "hmm maybe we shouldn't enslave sentient creatures and make them fight to the death for our pleasure" in a non-awkward way. It would definitely make for an interesting parallel -- Haley unintentionally doing a lot of imprisoning, while Markus rots in prison.

Anyhow. The lore of Anistair was nice, and the whole retelling of the XY mythos was neat, but I started wondering why you included it. Surely Markus is somewhat familiar with this stuff if it's really so commonplace? This was my main thought when you started retelling the gym battle as well, as it felt like the style of your work was getting bogged down by the plot, weird as it sounds. Um. Trying to figure out how to phrase this. When we got to the battle portion, it almost felt like I was reading another journeyfic or something, when really this story is anything but. It just felt wildly out of place and overall unimportant compared to what else was going on. I get that this is going to be a major part of our story (maybe), but it's weird to follow.

That's actually something I found happening a lot, especially in Haley's letters. I'd be halfway through a paragraph (sections like the Olympia battle and XY Mythos come to mind again) when I'd ask myself 'how the hell did I even get here' and 'why is this here'? The former is actually a pretty cool feeling that I don't normally experience in reading, so kudos there, but I did get confused by the general lack of a centralized plot. Details got thrown around a lot, especially in Haley's section, but piecing together a whole story out of them was actually quite difficult.

That being said, I love where this is going. As always with you, the tone of these two characters is absolutely on point. Haley is unapologetically naive and making a lot of really dumb decisions, but she's also genuinely behaving the way I would've behaved if someone had given me a giant flappy bird and license to wander around the country. And Markus is unapologetically sinister and there's this almost slimy quality about him that I can't quite place, but at the same time I can't bring myself to hate him, either. Grah. Why must you pull at my heartstrings so.

Anyway. Fabulous work from you. Pls do more as you are able.

 

[diamondpearl876]

FLYING IN THE DARK
[letters seven and eight]

*
​

June 10

Dear Markus,

I got your letter a few days ago, but I've been putting off writing back to you. I just don't know what to say! Between the little lesson Olympia tried to teach me and your honesty, I'm not sure what to believe. I do know now that writing these letters is an outlet for you. For me, it's a way to forget. There must be some kind of theory out there, anyway, that says if you write something down and then stop thinking about it, it'll leave your mind forever. And then there will always be some official documentation ready in case you want to remember or prove the memory happened in the first place. My documentation would be in one big notebook with crisp white pages, some torn, some with folded corners, and most written with invisible ink and scrawly cursive...

Not that I don't appreciate you telling me what prison is like! I mean, I asked for the explanation, didn't I? And like I said, it was an outlet for you. I wasn't prepared is all. I'm like a walking contradiction, I guess. I want to hear about your life and then when you tell me things, I'm reminded that I'm nothing special, and it's hard. I wonder why you're telling me of all people. You have your cellmates, and the guards, and... Well, I guess they wouldn’t be your top choices when it comes to friends. Still, let's just say it's going to take a lot more than one teenager's wanderlust and determination to make a difference in such a crazy world.

Okay, I'm ready to write about something that's not annoying, and worth sending. First I want you to know I'm worried about Enmity, too, and I hope you're able to find out what happened to him someday. I won’t forget about him, okay? I care about you too much for that! Also, I don't think anything about you is awful, except maybe the way you think you're awful.

Oh, and Ribbons has been sending these letters so far. He can find his way around without a problem and I know he'll come back. My grandmother taught me how to train him like that, after all, and Seybs and Kai, too! It's strange when Ribbons is gone, though... Kai and Seybs are strong, but I don't feel as safe. So I might make Kai do it. Seybs could do it, but he doesn't care for all the stimulation. As a challenge I sent him to Laverre one summer with Joey and his talonflame, and trying to keep up with such a speedy pokémon was hard for him. Joey told me that Seybs had to exert himself to catch up with his talonflame to let him know they were going the wrong way, and really, each time Seybs complained, it was probably just to get a half hour's worth of rest. Seybs is observant, and he's loyal enough to get the job done. I'll give him that much credit! But he's lazy, slow, and will take any opportunity to show you how bitter he is when you try to make him be the opposite.

As for Kai... Well, he needs to burn off some of that energy he always has, and this seems like the perfect way to do it. Then again, he'd be the type to make a pit stop every twenty minutes just to eat some fruit... which, by the way, he won't share with his teammates. How am I supposed to make everyone get along when he's acting like that?

Seriously, though, sending Kai back and forth with the letters would be so easy. Ribbons always comes back with store-bought food in a small pouch, so I know the prison feeds them. Do you know if they give out fruit, though? I guess I could promise Kai a feast or something when he's back, and then he'd be set.

Anyway, trainers do stuff like this all the time to stay in touch with their families and friends all over Kalos, since cell phone service is pretty awful. The only problem is... Well, when a flying-type's flying alone, trainers see them and think they're wild. Even worse, predators think they're prey. At least pokéballs are useless, but my pokémon aren't safe from guns or electric-types or anything like that.

Whenever I think of an accident happening, I think of the war three thousand years ago. Flying-types during the war were used to deliver emergency medication between Pokémon Centers, which was really important when one town had less resources than another. Sending these letters to you is almost the same as sending medicine to a friend in need, and I have to remember that doing the right thing sometimes means taking risks and possibly making sacrifices. Strange rationalization, maybe, but there it is!

So far I've told Ribbons to stay away from areas where hunting is allowed—near the Lost Hotel and the route north of Lumiose, I think are the only ones on the way to Laverre—but that doesn't mean he's gonna make it alright...

Thinking about this is making me a bit depressed, so let's move on? Now is as good a time as any to tell you what Olympia's “lesson” was. I didn't like the way she went about it, but I guess taking care of trainers is what gym leaders are supposed to do.

So she asked me to come to her house and babysit her solosis. I didn't know she had a solosis at all, and that should've tipped me off right away. I believed her when she said she usually took him everywhere, but tonight was an exception since she had an important dinner date with a member of the Elite Four. She told me I'd be paid and everything, so I was happy to do it.

“When I am back, I will show you what I want to show you,” she said calmly.

The babysitting job went pretty well. The solosis was super energetic. He bounced around non-stop and it was a game to see which one of my pokémon could catch him in the air first. Seybs won a lot more than Kai or Ribbons, since he had the biggest talons and was actually able to carry the solosis on his back.

Ribbons also let the solosis practice his psychic powers. The solosis lifted some small decorations, like pictures hanging on the wall and a vase, and he was able to put them down without breaking them. After that, Ribbons gave the solosis some advice. I really, really wish I could have understood that conversation! There was so much smiling and giggling going on, I felt a little left out.

Soon enough Olympia was home and she motioned for me to follow her. I told my pokémon to stay put, but they seemed startled, and suddenly I noticed that the solosis was gone and had seemed to vanish into thin air.

I asked Olympia where the solosis went as she led me to the kitchen. It was a large kitchen, even though she lived alone. All the cutlery and the appliances were floating in midair, and the black curtains covering the door to the yard were swaying without the help of any winds. I opened my mouth to speak, but everything was so odd that I forgot about the solosis for a moment.

Olympia pointed to the room we had just come from and told me that the solosis wasn't real. The solosis was simply an illusion she had created for me. I didn't know what to say... Why hadn't Ribbons noticed? I mean, Olympia's powers were far greater than Ribbons's, but still. What was the point of me “babysitting” then?

Of course, she seemed to read my mind. “You will meet many illusions on your journey, ones made psychically or otherwise,” she said. “You must be prepared for any tragedy that awaits you.”

I followed her gaze and looked at my pokémon in the other room. They were searching for the solosis, and before they could find out the truth, I ran in and told them it was time to go. I'm not sure if the truth would have bothered them, but I knew I didn't like it, so I practically shoved them into their pokéballs. I stood there, wondering if this was the Olympia I had heard so many stories about from my parents and the townspeople. You know, stories about how she radiated kindness and changed people’s lives with her advice. I didn’t—don’t—think they were true anymore.

“Do not assume death means stopping. Do not assume existence means living,” Olympia said to me.

Those words rang in my head, but I had no idea what they meant then, and I have no idea now. She held out a small amount of pokédollars, and I thanked her, then left. Before that, I'd never fought a gym leader, or even met one in person. If I did the gym circuit, and if during each battle I was judged by a gym leader... Well, I don't want any part in it, honestly. So I probably won't fight many of them, unless something changes my mind. And before you ask, I won't be telling my pokémon what happened. Now that I've written it down, I'll forget it anyway, right?

I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep that night, so I skulked on home, woke up my family, murmured goodbye, then left again. Dad and Mom and Joey didn’t give me much hassle—probably, definitely because they were sick of it—so it worked out. And my grandmother… I didn’t stop to visit her. I was torn on it, but I didn’t think I could face her without losing the resolve I had.

Moving on... Again...

We're in Dendemille Town now. Altogether it was a five day journey, and we've been here for what seems like forever already, since the cold weather's mostly been making us feel bored and miserable. Luckily I remembered to pack my winter coat and warm clothes, otherwise I would have had to backtrack all the way to Anistar just to get some!

We traveled through Route 17 (or Mamoswine Road). When we first showed up, there was a mamoswine sitting patiently by the gate entrance, as if it had been waiting a long time to see me. It nodded to me, lowered itself and turned to its side so that I could climb on. It was strange, riding on a wild pokémon, but during the summer all the townspeople in Anistar would talk about going this way to take a mini-vacation to the wintry areas of Kalos. Because of that I figured that the mamoswine was trustworthy.

The mamoswine was only able to take a step before we heard a boy calling out from behind us. The mamoswine stopped and stared straight ahead, like it was used to this kind of thing. I'm not sure if there's a set schedule for the rides, so I didn't blame the boy for not wanting to wait. He was out of breath by the time he caught up, and he looked me in the eye and asked if he could ride. Confused, I told him of course he could, what kind of silly question was that? Then he pointed to my pokémon. There wasn't any room for him to sit if my pokémon were there. I returned them... reluctantly... but keeping flying-types out of the freezing weather is for the best. Their safety is more important than mine, after all.

When the boy hopped on the mamoswine's back, he tried to be nice about it but ended up digging his heel into the mamoswine’s skin by accident. The mamoswine grunted and got no apology from the boy. I offered him a smile to be polite, mostly since I didn't want the ride to seem long and awkward. I asked him his name, and he told me. Kenneth Chitenay... A Kaloseux name, but he had an accent I couldn't place at the time. I looked him over. He's a bit on the short side, with neat, curly black hair and hazel eyes. He wore a white neck scarf, which, to my surprise, he didn't use to cover his face. I assumed it was just there for show. He wore a long, red and expensive-looking trench coat, with dark pants and boots to match. I could smell some light cologne on him. The scent reminded me of grapefruit. None of this hinted as to where he might actually be from, but I got the impression that he cared about his appearance a lot.

“You're not from Anistar, are you?” I asked him. I felt like I already knew the answer, since I hadn't seen him around before, ever. I think I'd remember someone like him if I had.

Kenneth shook his head, then motioned for me to look ahead. My legs were dangling over the mamoswine's body and, if I didn't move them, they'd bump into a wild bergmite sleeping on top of a tall mound of snow. Either the mamoswine didn't see the bergmite, or it didn't dare to stray from the path even for a moment. I kept my legs up as we left the peaceful bergmite behind and passed through more mounds of snow at least three times my height.

I asked him where he came from, then, if not Anistar.

“I'm from Hoenn,” he said, frowning. “Rustburo, to be exact.”

I waited for him to go on, to explain why he didn't seem too happy about it. Do you think he expected me to figure it out myself? I put on my best thoughtful face for a few seconds, then opted to say, “I'm not too familiar with Hoenn, sorry. But it makes sense now.”

He raised an eyebrow. “What does?”

He pronounces some words wrong. Like, really wrong. He puts no emphasis on different parts of words, too, and his voice is full of... anything but life, I guess? It's more monotonous like I'm used to hearing, anyway. Of course, I didn't make a scene of it. I told him he had an accent and that was it.

“Makes sense indeed.”

He peered over to the mountains towering over us. The view made me think we were at the bottom of a canyon and that we'd never get out. All around us were thick blankets of snow that drifted when the wind picked up. I shivered and pulled my coat tighter against my body. I changed the subject. “So what are you doing in Kalos?” I asked.

“Well, I worked for Devon Corporation for a while. Then my mom retired and wanted to move to Aquacorde, so she did. I didn't want her to go alone, so I came with and decided to try to the whole traveling thing. Though I'm heading to Lumiose now, just to see what the job market's like.”

“What about your dad?” The question came out before I could think it through. I hadn't expected him to spill so much information about himself at once, and so I assumed he'd just be willing to tell me more, no matter what it was.

“Don't know about him. Can't say I care, either.”

I apologized to him and looked away, too ashamed to make eye contact. I wasn't sure what I'd have done without my dad, even if living at home was usually overwhelming.

Then a thought hit me. “You said Devon Corporation, right?”

He nodded.

“Did you know the famous Steven Stone?”

“Of course,” Kenneth said, waving a hand around. “His father hired me, and once in a while I got a glimpse of him walking around the office building I worked at.”

“My mother works in a hospital. When she's not with the patients, she buys medicine from the Devon Corporation. She said that he was a great guy who traveled through Hoenn, digging through the earth to find minerals and herbs that Pokémon Centers took advantage of when developing their healing machines.” I never did understand, Markus, why I wasn't allowed to journey when she fawned over a famous traveler, but anyway...

Kenneth grinned. “He's a respectable man. One of the few that doesn't take Hoenn for granted.”

I asked him what he meant.

“Hoenn is unique to the rest of the world due to it's tropical climate. Instead of thinking he's always on some grand vacation, he finds beauty in the seemingly mundane. Hence his rock collection and fascination with steel-types.” He paused. “Not to mention he's the region's champion, yet he doesn't let the power go to his head. He helps others, as you noted, and goes where he's needed.”

Suddenly the mamoswine mounted itself up high and lurched forward with one sharp motion, causing me to start sliding off of its back. If Kenneth weren't there, I might have fallen right into the snow. Or I would have been paying attention to where we were going. It would have been nice if the mamoswine had given us a warning, don't you think?

I asked Kenneth the same thing.

“Agreed,” he mumbled, dusting himself off as if a bunch of snow had gotten on his clothes. “Anyway, are you okay?”

I said yes and mentioned how I wish my pokémon could be out with me, but they're flying-types.

“One Kantoan species, one Johtoan species... Nothing from Hoenn?” he said, pointing to the pokéballs on my belt. I wondered aloud about how he knew that stuff and he answered, “If you look hard enough, you'll see that the top of each pokéball is translucent, more or less. I've tinkered with and made enough pokéballs in my lifetime to know.”

And it was true! I held Kai's pokéball in my hands and was able to see him nestled inside, curled in on himself, like he was sleeping and dreaming about something nice. Who knew? Besides checking to see they can’t fall out of my pockets or backpack, I barely remembered they existed. Well, outside of releasing and returning my birdies, of course. So it made sense I’d never noticed before, as stupid as I looked right then.

I smiled at Kenneth and said, “Did you make those special apricorn balls and everything?”

“Yes. Even the master ones.” What was so special about those? I didn't know, and he blinked, then laughed at me. “A master ball can catch any pokémon without fail, even legendaries.” The idea of me catching a pokémon as amazing as Diancie baffled me. Anistar sure wouldn’t take too kindly to me coming home with the sundial’s paragon and telling a tale about how the capture wasn’t difficult at all. He continued, “They're usually only given out to champions or winners of tournaments.”

“Usually?”

Frowning, he said, “Groups like Team Rocket and such have stolen and replicated them before.”

I didn't know what this Team Rocket was, either, and rather than making myself seem stupid, I told him that no, I didn't have any pokémon from Hoenn.

“My mother has a volbeat she's been trying to find a home for,” he said. “If you're wanting to make your team more diverse.”

And again, I didn't know what a volbeat was.

“The firefly pokémon.”

“You mean lightning bug?”

“Maybe in Kalos, that's what you say. In Hoenn we'd call it a firefly.”

Uh huh... So, I'm not getting a volbeat because it's not a flying-type. I learned very quickly that Kenneth is the argumentative type, and even though the whole conversation was recorded, I only told you what I did so I didn't make him look bad. He's smart and nice... most of the time... but he acts smug when you don't go along with what he wants, or if you don't know what he's talking about. Sorry if I’m painting him in a bad light, because I don’t mean to, but, you know, everyone’s got something about them that others tend to cringe at. I can’t pretend otherwise.

I did mention that I was heading to Lumiose too, so we're considering traveling together. I can show him around Kalos that way, and he offered to help train my pokémon, since he's more experienced than me. What do you think? I mean, he seems reliable, doesn't he? Or do you need to know more about him first?

During the rest of the trip, he told me all about Hoenn's culture and its people. I'd go over what he said, but this letter is already getting long as it is! Sometimes I write and write and I get lost in it, especially when the weather is so dull. With the snow and the townspeople shut in, it seems that all Dendemille has is dull days, but me and Kenneth found a few things to do. I'll tell you about our visit to Frost Cavern and whatnot next time, okay?

Until then!

~ Haley

*

June 16

To Haley,

You may put in your letters as much information as you'd like, and you may take as much time as you need to do so. I will be here, sitting in this cell, regardless of what you decide to tell me or not tell me. While your fear mirrors that which I felt at the beginning of our correspondence, you need not pressure yourself into thinking that if you wait too long to reply, I will believe that you have forgotten about me. I have been hoping that your visit to Dendemille has turned out to be more fruitful and fair to you compared to your experiences in Anistar.

I must advise you to, at the very least, be careful around this Kenneth Chitenay. What worries me is the intentional withholding of the later conversations between you two, but as you trust me, I suppose I must trust that you left those parts alone for no other reason than the ones you stated. Barring that, I'd say, albeit with hesitation, that he presents himself decently. Knowing he had a part in a renowned corporation dedicated to pokémon training seems promising, but, paranoia prevailing again, I am compelled to consider any hidden motives.

Now that that is out of the way, I cannot say much about what Olympia demonstrated for you. Perhaps she has given you more to think about than you originally planned for. I wonder how this will affect you in the long-term, if it will at all... Illusions are omnipresent for some, whether they ask for them or not...

Sick, slow, slick and clean. That's the gist of how they work. The pit of your stomach feels awful at first, and your thoughts come to a near halt. Then your mind begins to process information at a faster pace; your thoughts suddenly turn profound and assertive, above all else. You begin to understand—subtly, no less—what you should have understood at the start, though your emotions had gotten in the way of your practicality. Then the illusion disappears and you are either left with a sense of clarity or hazy memories that your subconscious locks away for future use.

Illusions, as you might have guessed, are something of a specialty of mine. Either you will dismiss illusions as they come or you might ponder what they mean. Re-reading your ideas regarding forgetfulness, I assume you will find a way to mix the two options. Or perhaps you will ignore all I have just said and find your own path.

But Olympia's words... Do not assume death means stopping; do not assume existence means living... There rings a certain amount of truth to them, a sense of caution worth listening to. And that is all I have to say on the matter.

Ribbons has been sending these letters? I see... I was under the impression that natu cannot fly well because their wings are not fully grown... You must forgive me, but at the moment I am finding it hard to imagine a small, unevolved pokémon traveling such long distances. I am picturing Ribbons taking off and rising in the crisp morning air, then, after flying about forty, fifty feet, he tumbles slowly, and he is forced to land on the nearest branch or roof. After several days of this, I would safely assume that the time in between flying spurts increases. That doesn't even account for time spent sleeping or searching for food. If I were you, I would watch out for excessive panting, squinted eyes, and other signs of overexertion or sickness. If any of these signs are present, then you should end his adventures to Laverre before worse symptoms befall him. Send someone else in his place, as you have been contemplating. I would suggest Seybs. Kai might struggle just as well.

I do, however, vaguely remember you telling me of Ribbons's origins. Your grandmother—I believe she is the one who gave you Ribbons—retrieved him from a professional breeder, correct? If so, I might vouch for his skills based on this fact alone. The most exceptional breeders adopt special routines and tools necessary to maximize a pokémon's strength before it is born and while it is still growing. I would assume, too, that Ribbons is a bit older than you might expect. ...I daresay he may evolve relatively soon, should you train him properly and continue the gym circuit. But you have already deemed the gym circuit unworthy of your efforts, and so I will not argue with that.

At any rate, your grandmother offered only the best to you, and I commend Ribbons for doing the same given the restrictions he faced. If I may say so, on the assumption that saying so will make you feel better about the matter, it should be noted that laws were passed years ago for trainers who wished to communicate on the road. Hunting along the outskirts of Laverre and the northern ends of Lumiose may be allowed, but aiming to kill a trainer's pokémon for sport is a serious offense. To separate the wild birds of prey and trained flying-types, trainers are advised to have their pokémon wear bells or whistles. Predators, then, can identify targets easier, and at the same time, birds of prey might be persuaded to leave Seybs—or Kai—alone.

And as a final note, do not worry about sending these letters if you are worried for the safety of your pokémon. Around the time of the war three thousand years ago, flying-types transported medication on an emergency basis, yes, but they certainly did not extend that service to prisoners like me. It was, rather, the worthy members of society that received such attention, and I feel that that was the correct decision. Sacrifices, even now, are very unnecessary. You may deem me cynical, considering how I simply let the world conspire against me. So be it.

I must admit that I was bothered when I heard about Ribbons traveling to Laverre, and not solely because the aforementioned rationale. I do not meet the pokémon who send your letters, as you know, but I have a personal vendetta against Ribbons... Actually, it is not Ribbons I have issues concerning, but psychic-types in general.

Don’t fret just yet. Let me explain.

In your last letter it was implied that you and Kenneth visited Frost Cavern at least once. I do anticipate the retelling of your venture to the most nebulous area of Dendemille. I would be worried, but it seems the two of you made it through safely, nor do you seem to harbor a grudge for the place, as I do.

As you might know, inside Frost Cavern lies drifting snow and deep fog, both of which grab at your soul and nip at it with fierce persistence so that you are given little choice but to experience absurd, yet breathtaking illusions. When I still had my starters, I had come to Dendemille to experience the sharp change of season. To the west, Brun Way always has the appearance of fall. The view consists mostly of scattered leaves, crunchy, dainty and tinged with reds and golds, as if the route could be set ablaze at a moment's notice. To the east, Mamoswine Road is where all becomes downright cold and dreadful. All is bereft of life on that formidable mountain.

Dendemille is a curious mixture of the two, which, I suppose, seems appropriate when you know the town's origins. The town was created to unite the two adjacent routes. For a while, pokémon from the surrounding communities were able to live alongside humans. Then Frost Cavern was discovered, at which point Dendemille became known for puppetry and other performances involving deception by psychic-types. Psychologists and philosophers interested in existentialism are drawn to the place, while residents catch or import pokémon from outside the area, as the local species have a reputation for being untrustworthy.

I leave to you the more precise descriptors of Dendemille and its history. That is your passion, which you should seek to evaluate with a clear head and unbiased mindset so that you do not fall prey to any illusions as I have. Olympia failed to mention this in her lesson.

I, of course, did not believe any blasphemy about the power of Frost Cavern. The way I saw it, nothing could overpower the high brought on by my choice of drug, that sublime spell I succumbed to each and every day. But what Frost Cavern had to offer was a hypnotic, wintry atmosphere that stole from me my senses. I do not remember walking along the edges of Halfpoint River to the cave's entrance, for my toes were too numb and my vision too blurry to perceive my surroundings.

When I arrived at my destination, a hypno was waiting for me. A sudden, overwhelming shift in my attitude toward drugs took over. With my whole being I now believed that if I continued to go under the influence—which I would—an overdose was inevitable. The paranoia was remarkable. It felt real, even though the thoughts were beyond my comprehension, beyond rationalization. If it weren't in my nature to be as disconnected from reality as I am, I might have noticed something was wrong. Or perhaps the illusion was that strong after all. The hypno motioned for me to follow, and I, strung out and feeling brave, obeyed.

The hypno's psychic hold drew me closer and closer to the heart of the cave. On the way there, he explained to me using telepathy other aspects of my fate as a drug addict. His words had a sort of transient beauty about them as they invaded my mind, but I couldn't confidently say that I agreed with them. There was a certain detachment in his eyes, and his features were set off-kilter as he told me that my long-term plans—as if I had had any to begin with—were now out of reach. Short-term goals were possible, but also difficult to attain. Friends and family would desert me, I'd be unable to maintain a permanent home, and I'd soon be an unwelcome member of society. There was no doubt about any of this.

New emotions stirred within me as I listened to the hypno's spiel. My passion for life became exceptional, and I was determined to change myself, to redeem myself in the eyes of everyone who had come to know me. I would swear off of drugs and remember what it was like to hear my parents say I could be anything I wanted to be, as long as I avoided trouble...

Lo and behold, as I write this now, all of this has come true since then regardless of the warnings.

Back to then, however. My aforementioned passion dissipated as quickly as it came. The hypno had a hold on me now, not my parents. To console me, the hypno offered to teleport me anyplace I'd like to go with the limited time I had left.

His kindness did not serve to soften the desolation that followed.

The full realization hit me. I would not be able to fulfill my dreams, small or big. Though exhausted, I became fully alert. I was witnessing a profound understanding of weariness... and when despair takes over, you have nowhere else to go. You are ready to go anywhere. The rest of my life dissolved into oblivion, and I wished to die.

The hypno nodded and said that if I really wanted to die, he could make it happen—sooner rather than later.

In the deepest corner of Frost Cavern, a claydol awaited us. The pokémon, essentially a doll made of clay, symbolized Dendemille's love for puppetry. I knew it was a psychic-type, but the fact that it was also part ground-type living in a cave filled with ice did not strike me as odd at the time.

The hypno communicated to the claydol my despair using a regular human's speech. The round protrusion on the claydol's head detached from the rest of its body and spun in circles. “Death is the best possible outcome. It's the only darkness you can't come back from,” the two of them said to me, also in a human's voice, though it sounded like multiple other voices were speaking to me at once.

I imagined the claydol using its rainbow-colored psybeam attack to pierce me through the heart, and the hypno standing by, watching intently. And then the claydol would use my body to turn me into a clay doll myself...

Life never felt more somber, then.

I didn't think anyone could—or would—save me, and even if they tried, they'd use the chance to run away and leave me in the dust. But Chespin, Fennekin and Froakie abruptly popped out of their pokéballs and each let out a worried, yet resolute cry. I was shocked, and had not a clue as to where they had come from. Under the hypno's spell, initially I didn't even recognize them as mine.

I found my own voice or, at least, I think I did. The corners of my vision were starting to fade, but I could still remember that Fennekin was a fire-type and could melt this whole area if need be. “There's nothing you can do to stop Fennekin once I give the command,” I tried to say to the hypno.

The hypno stopped, contemplating what to do about this unforeseen circumstance. The psychic-type undoubtedly knew about my starters, but wild pokémon who have never been captured or confined in a pokéball, of course, don't know about the concept of potential energy. It is safe to assume that all three of my pokémon had been watching and listening carefully from inside their pokéballs. Once they heard the hypno's threat, they created a burst of energy within the sphere's force field, which allowed them to escape without me needing to release them. Unlike the time they passed in Santalune, they had the strength and the will to do so.

Slowly I was able to control myself again. After what seemed like an eternity, the hypno mumbled to itself, relenting and admitting defeat by teleporting all of us toward the entrance of Frost Cavern. I vowed never to come back, and to this day I haven't set foot in that wretched place, despite its allure.

I didn't know my pokémon cared about me until that incident occurred. Or perhaps they sensed their imminent demise and wanted nothing to do with it, my own safety be damned. Outside the cavern, Chespin rammed into my legs, presumably either to shake off the rest of my confusion or to scold me, though he only added to the disorientation. Later on I'd learn from the move tutor that the chespin line does this both as a sign of anger and devotion, and also to strengthen their lower bodies as they prepare for evolution. Chespin was a leader and had the traits to show it. He represented the group while Fennekin and Froakie stood by, the former licking her paws idly and the latter blowing bubbles from his mouth as a sign of contentment.

Perhaps they, too, were deluded in their attachment to me, but that is not for me to decide. When caught in a pokéball, a pokémon feels a certain bond with their trainer, which is strengthened by the type of ball used but is prone to fade or strengthen over time, depending. You can ask your friend Kenneth Chitenay about that, if you would like. If he is of any worth at all, he will understand the importance of the work he does.

One last mention of my pokémon before I end this letter: the prison guards should have Enmity's pokéball hidden somewhere, but I doubt they would give it back, not even after I'm a free man. I don't suppose Kenneth Chitenay would know anything about that as well, but I fear that last piece of Enmity is gone.

What else can I say? I've left so many friends behind. I can't forget that. You know I can't forget that.

Sincerely,
Mark

​

 

[diamondpearl876]

FLYING IN THE DARK
[letter nine]

*​

June 25

Oh, no, Markus...

Where do I start with this letter? As usual, you leave me wondering about a lot of things I'd never have thought of on my own! My pokémon have been looking at me real confused-like, and Kenneth asks about your letters all the time. He's too observant, always pointing out when I'm distracted, when I forget to eat, and whatever else. He's convinced you might be influencing me so I'll hightail it back home, too afraid to confront the real world again. ...So, yeah, that means I told him about you. But I'm just taking his opinion at face value, since he doesn't know your story.

I mean, I think I know enough about manipulative people to trust that you aren't one of them. For example, street vendors roaming around Anistar's Bottomford Bridge would ask trainers passing by to show their badges and pokéballs, claiming that they knew cool tips and tricks to keep them clean and intact. Then the liars would run off with the stuff! I mean, police are there to deal with this sort of thing, and pokédex data can prove that a trainer earned their badges, but still... If that's not an act of deception, I don't know what is.

Oh, right. Pokéballs. What kind did Enmity have? Let me know and I'll ask Kenneth for more information about it. He says the type of ball makes a huge difference. If it's a friend ball, the pokémon goes to help people in rehabilitation centers, or a water-type in a lure ball might travel with sailors until the prisoner's sentence is carried out. ...Sorry, I wish I knew more about this kind of thing myself.

Anyway, I've been meaning to bring up something you mentioned in your last letter, so now's as good a time as any:

...What can I say? I've left so many friends behind. I can't forget that. You know I can't forget that.

What I did was cut out the last part of your letter and tape it onto mine. Then I scribbled out the words to the point where you'll have to strain your eyes to read them. Don't try to do that! I'm not so silly as to request the impossible from you, though. Instead I give you permission to move on and forgive yourself! Remember what I said about writing down facts from your life, then having them leave your mind forever. Seriously, how's that for an illusion? The mind forgets, but the body remembers... or whatever that saying is.

I can't help but wonder if the saying rings true for psychic-types. A psychic-type's brain is way more advanced than a human's, and I'd find it hard to believe if someone told me they weren't capable of recalling memories pretty easy. When I think about that, though, I remember how I mistreated Ribbons by sending him so far away when he's still so little... What if he has nightmares, or what if he refuses to protect me because he doesn't respect me? I read that part of your letter and Kenneth asked me if I was all right. I told him yes! But he took my hand—gently, I promise—and showed me just how bad it was shaking.

I looked Ribbons over to make sure he wasn't sick like you said I should, and I didn't see anything, but Kenneth suggested we take him to the Pokémon Center anyway if it'd make me feel better. He explained to the Nurse Joy on duty what happened for me and everything. She smiled sadly, feeling sorry more for me than Ribbons, I think.

After a while of me walking up and down the hallways, refusing Kenneth’s efforts to get me to sit still, Nurse Joy brought Ribbons back to me. But he was in his pokéball, not out and flying to my shoulder so he could snuggle into the crook of my neck. I was more concerned than ever.

“Your natu is very active,” Nurse Joy told me, smiling again, friendly this time, “but it'd be best to let him rest more often than not over the next few weeks.”

Then she put his pokéball in my hand and demonstrated how I could gauge his health without releasing him. If the pokéball turned cold and darker in color, I should get another check-up done. And if it stayed warm and colored normally, I'd have nothing to worry about. Oh, the things you learn that you wish you had known sooner, right? I calmed down after that.

I gotta tell you, though, that Ribbons is nothing like the hypno or claydol you met! I mean, when he fluffs his feathers his eyes squint so much you get shaky, like he's staring into your soul... Oh, and I guess he kinda confronts inanimate objects and attacks them if his telekinetic powers aren't working. And it's true that trained xatu can peer into the past and the future, which I suppose is disastrous in the wrong hands... But I swear, Ribbons is a good pokémon! I'll take care of him and make sure he doesn't cause trouble for anybody. Just give him a chance, okay? My grandmother wouldn't have given him to me if he was cruel.

Ribbons isn't cruel, but Dendemille sure is. One step into that town and I knew my team would have a rough time of it. I saw the naked winter trees lining the entrance on Wyvernmere Avenue and the desolate streets beyond that, and I knew that we needed to buy a hotel room with a fireplace or make our visit quick. Searching for the hotel itself was no easy feat, either. No one wanted to be out in the cold, so we couldn't ask for directions! Knocking on doors didn't seem like an option, since all the houses had closed shutters, and the lights were off. Not a single resident had a balcony, or a fenced backyard, or anything that might suggest that they ever went outside. But shouldn't they be used to the cold? I'm getting worked up over this...

Back to my main point. My pokémon aren't familiar with fast-changing weather patterns like that. Snug in his pokéball, Ribbons fared a little better in Dendemille. The climate in Johto is much different, or so my grandmother's told me. But Seybs has only traveled in the fall, and Kai, I assume, stayed in one place his whole life. My goal became to train them in the winter wonderland that was Dendemille. That way, I can travel without worrying about them too much.

So after we checked in with the Lock Haven Hotel's receptionist—who was sleeping at the desk and glaring at us angrily because we woke her up—we traipsed through Dendemille's winding grey brick terrace. A giant windmill towered over us and spun slow, seemingly turning faster the higher we went. Snowflakes drifted down from Frost Cavern in the north and onto the bare gardens and uneven soil patches behind the ground-level houses. I have no idea how the farmers grow anything at all, but I guess they'd know better than I would.

We came across a bridge connecting the town to Frost Cavern... which, I assume, wasn't built when you visited, since you only mentioned the Halfpoint River. Anyway. With all its steel and cables, the bridge seemed safe enough, like it was built by the most skilled engineers, though the deserted atmosphere of the place in general might lead you to believe otherwise. I had a feeling that if Dendemille collapsed due to an earthquake or some other strong pokémon attack, the bridge would be spared and become the town's only namesake.

I tried to go on ahead, putting my hands to my mouth and breathing on them to keep warm. (The Beartic Cave clothing store in Anistar advertised wrongly when their commercials said that, even if they were thin, these gloves would make winter bearable for the rest of my life.) Kenneth stopped me before I got too far across the bridge, and at first I couldn't figure out why. Actually, I didn't figure it out until he just told me flat out, but yeah. He gestured for me to shush and to stay shushed the whole way ahead. We only heard clumsy flapping noises from two of my cold, tired flying-types.

Once we got to the other side, I was excited by the view of Frost Cavern. Kenneth certainly wasn't. He put a hand on my shoulder and turned me around, then asked me in a half-joking tone about whether or not I really live in Kalos. I told him I didn't know what he meant.

“That bridge is more famous than the actual cave up there. I'm from Hoenn and even I know that, for crying out loud.”

I looked back at the bridge, unimpressed. It was only covered in snow and foot tracks. “What's so special about it?” I asked.

He sighed and explained. “Many people and pokémon have died trying to pass through Mamoswine Road and Brun Way. Sickness takes hold, accidents happen, or they freeze, or... Well, you get the point. The townspeople first realized this was an issue when a body was discovered floating down there”—he pointed toward Halfpoint River; I shivered—“and then they built this bridge to honor the dead. It's been a tradition, albeit an unspoken one, to cross the bridge in silence.”

“I'm sorry. I didn't know.” I really didn't.

“Pokémon training isn't all fun and games.”

“Yes, I know.” Though I'm not sure if I know. I learned about world geography, but my father was my teacher and not once had he mentioned Dendemille's bridge of silence, or anything like it. I learned simple facts, town and city names, statistics about the industry... all of which meant little when compared to this. What else did he keep from me?

I didn't have time to think about it. It was cold, very cold, Markus! I hugged myself and peered downward. Kenneth's eyes softened. We had to keep moving or we'd have been stuck there all night, and the money we spent on the Lock Haven Hotel would have gone to waste. Or worse, we might have frozen to death. Kenneth was determined not to make the first move, though. We kept looking back and forth at each other, him turning in circles and me taking half a step forward as if to head toward the cave. Eventually he laughed and said that neither of us seemed to want to call the other's bluff, and I figured all was well between us again.

As we stepped inside the large, gaping mouth of Mt. Moretet, I saw how Frost Cavern lived up to its name, what with the icicles stuck to the steep ceiling and the melted water dripping and leaving wet marks on the snow. Kenneth rushed me ahead now, warning me how some of the icicles might be loose and how they could fall on us if we weren't careful. He didn't account for the loose pebbles scattered across the stone floor, though, and he almost made me trip over myself. He mumbled an apology.

When we were in safer territory, he pulled out a plain pokéball with a strange engravement above the button. I couldn't make out what the symbol was right at that moment, and I couldn't think of any reason for him to want to bring out a pokémon other than to hurt me where no one could see. I didn't—don't—know much about him, and his entire team was still a mystery. My body tensed as he released a fat yellow pokémon with dull, deep-set eyes and a green hump on its back. A flurry of fake, hazy blue flames emerged as well, then quickly dissipated. I was torn between fleeing for my life in response to the makeshift fire or standing my ground, because this particular species of pokémon seemed harmless.

The creature yawned, as if it, too, thought of itself as boring. “This,” Kenneth announced idly, petting it on the head, “is Donmel.”

I blurted this out without meaning to: “And?”

“Otherwise known as a numel in Kaloseux.”

“...Okay?”

“He's a fire-type, Haley.”

“Oh.”

Donmel didn't look like a fire-type. Flames weren't gushing from its mouth. No smoke, either. I moved closer and—nope, no heat radiated from his body! At least the blue flame spectacle made some sense now. I just always thought fire-types were fierce, like Joey's talonflame. (Your fennekin probably wasn't too hostile, though, was she? I imagine she would've fought with Chespin about being the leader if she was, but you've never mentioned that.)

Kenneth took a few steps forward and bent down to pick up Donmel's pokéball. Then he held it out to me, pointing toward its top, where a single blue flame was etched. “Not as hot to the touch as you might think,” he said, smirking. I gave him a blank stare. “...You must not know about pokéball seals. Am I right?”

I continued to stare at him, one eyebrow raised in confusion. Donmel's round ears perked up at the sound of his name.

“Why not orange flames? Red? Yellow? You know, typical colors,” I said, trying to keep my voice strong. I wouldn't dare admit that no, I didn't know about pokéball seals.

“As you can see,” Kenneth said, smirking more than ever, “Donmel's a bit slow and lazy... which, I'm sure you know, isn't very practical when you're trying to travel.” I glanced at Seybs and nodded. Kenneth went on, “Sure, he could stay in his pokéball, but that's not ideal, either. That's where this seal comes in. Seals were designed to work hand in hand with a pokéball's mechanics, so that a pokémon can absorb a seal's energy when inside the pokéball, and maintain that energy for use when outside the pokéball. I chose blue flames because... Well, the blue flame seal utilizes the basics of physics. On the electromagnetic spectrum, visible blue light has shorter wavelengths than red, and thus the amount of available energy is higher.”

He talked like he was confident, but his gaze shifted restlessly at the same time. His smirk faded by the end of his spiel, too. “Does the seal not work or what?” I asked, thinking I would have met Donmel much sooner if Kenneth felt as proud as he sounded.

“No, it works. Donmel has more energy than he did when I first got him, believe me. And I don't have to feed him as much to make up for his lethargy.”

I waited to see if he had anything else to add. He shrugged and said with a tone of finality, “I told you, the seal works. Sometimes it works too well, even. Blue flames are hotter than normal flames. Fire-types like that stuff...” he said, trailing off while balancing the ball on his fingertips, “but it can be dangerous.”

Markus, it wasn't my naivety that was annoying him for once! I was being too persistent when he didn't want to tell me something for one reason or another. It was my turn to smirk at him, to hopefully make him feel more comfortable.

“You couldn't have brought him out earlier?” I said, motioning to our wintry surroundings. The snow was so white it burned my eyes, and I'm sure there was so much of it that every nook and cranny in Frost Cavern was filled completely. It would have been nice for the little guy to use some of that energy to melt even some of the misery away.

Kenneth waved his free hand at me. “Let's just start our training,” he said. “Things'll heat up before you know it.”

We came up with a few training strategies that focused on our individual weaknesses and strengths. We also tried to plan out activities that used all of our pokémon (while keeping Ribbons's involvement limited). Originally I was hesitant to face Kenneth's team. What if his team could overpower mine, no problem? But if we were going to be traveling partners, I needed to know what I was dealing with. I asked him to introduce them to me, and he obliged without any hesitation whatsoever.

I was surprised when Kenneth's, uh, starter was a species I recognized. The sableye's strange, diamond-shaped eyes transfixed on me with an intensity that made me shudder. It fiddled with the red jewel on its chest possessively. Because of these strange details, I barely noticed the cloud of black smoke that floated upward and vanished in response to the sableye's pokéball seal. The whole scene reminded me of Anistar's folklore about Diancie being mistaken for a gem and locked away in Terminus Cave by a horde of sableye.

I made a joke about it, but I think Kenneth took me seriously because he gave me a list of all the reasons it was impossible for his particular sableye to have visited Terminus Cave and its surrounding areas. By the end of his argument I had spaced out and missed Kenneth explaining how sableye in Hoenn are called something different. (The species name in Hoennese, I was told again later, is Yamirami.)

Kenneth's shroomish, which has the unfortunate Hoennese name of Kinococo, popped out along with a volley of glowing projectiles. One of them struck Kai's chest, causing him to drop the half-eaten banana in his claws. I expected him to fret over the incident. But he acted like the banana didn't exist anymore!

I asked Kenneth what he had done, but he just claimed that it was Kinococo's secret power attack. After some prodding, Kenneth described what happened. He had utilized Kinococo's pokéball seal by requesting that she use her secret power attack before being released, a feat only made possible by the fact that pokémon can hear what's going on in the outside world when recalled. The pokéball seal absorbed the secret power and laced the attack with powders and a force that, when released, provided Kai with the extra boost of energy he was trying to gather by eating a crazy amount of calories.

Kenneth's last pokémon, a corphish—Heigani, I think?—could purify water with its pokéball seal. Not too useful for training, sorry to say.

We started with an agility competition, with Yamirami’s shadow sneak attack versus Ribbons’s teleporting abilities… at least until Yamirami reached a part of the cavern where a shadow was too far to jump to. Ribbons chirped triumphantly nonstop after! No doubt he’ll be back to full strength soon!

Then came Seybs’s turn. At the risk of sounding super conceited, he’d be the best battler if I put some real effort into training him! Of course, that’s assuming he’d go along with it. Pidgeotto are natural predators, right? You’d never guess, watching Seybs, but I’m pretty sure they are. Anyway, he flew around to practice maneuvering in a small space, carrying Kinococo on his back as the shroomish practiced his growth attack and increased the weight on Seybs’s back. Turns out Kinococo could only expand twice before having to call it quits.

At that point, I assumed Kenneth would be screaming and pulling his hair out in anger, but he did no such thing. He squatted down, scratching his chin as he considered other options that might help his pokémon succeed. At least he gained the upper hand in the last training session between Kai and Heigani, where the two squared off to see who could carve a burrow into ice wall fastest. But if you ask me, it was a pretty close match.

I didn't expect his team to be on the same level as mine or weaker, Markus. I told Kenneth this, which I shouldn't have told him, even if I did use more polite wording and an apologetic tone. I felt strong, much like Ribbons had, and I wanted to show it, but around Kenneth you get the feeling that you're not supposed to get too excited or else you appear selfish.

“I wouldn't underestimate my team like that,” he said, shaking his head. “We're very different trainers, and categorizing our teams or limiting our knowledge of their capabilities based on one training session is useless.”

“Different how?”

“We come from entirely different backgrounds, and have distinctly unique personalities. Not to mention that our pokémon are from different regions. All that and more effects the battling styles and strategies we use.”

I shrugged, unsure of what to say. I was curious to see if we could ever find a common ground between us. (Of course, it didn't take long for that to happen. I'll get to it later. The conversation we had, when I think about it, makes me sad and if I think about it now, I'll put the pen down and never get around to writing the rest of this letter.)

There should’ve been one more competition. Kenneth had another contender, after all. I was out of usable pokémon, though. Donmel had been sitting on the sidelines the entire time, not even offering Kenneth or his teammates moral support. Kenneth seemed to view Donmel in a different light altogether, a sad, unnerving notion I didn't know how to bring up in a conversation.

But I can't dwell on Kenneth's problems, Markus, just as I make every effort to not dwell on yours. I guess the important thing is that I succeeded in testing my team's skills in a town that is, as you know, wintry. Now I'm confident we'll be all right during the regular winter months and in Snowbelle City, should we ever travel south to the wintry-est region in Kalos. I mean, sure, birds wear down coats and produce oils in their glands to make their feathers waterproof... And they shiver sometimes to circulate heat in their bodies. All that's fine and dandy for a pet, or for a wild flying-type who adapts of its own accord. You just never know how much exertion you'll be using when traveling and battling.

So, uh. This might be hard to believe, but I've only described a day's worth of events. And really, it had just begun to turn dark once we finished training. We knew it was time to leave when even the cave entrance wasn't providing us with much light anymore. Kenneth asked to stay another five or ten minutes, but I had no interest in wandering and accidentally getting lost. (Kenneth claims that your previous letter may have had something to do with that, Markus, although I think it’s pretty reasonable to not wanna backtrack and burn more daylight.)

Walking back, I realized the hard way that starting a conversation with Kenneth is ridiculously difficult. Choosing a topic is impossible when you barely know someone, and, on top of that, I had to worry about making a fool of myself in front of him (again). With our pokémon in their balls, too, there wasn't a single distraction to break the silence. Eventually I asked him why he didn't have a traditional Hoenn starter. Ghost-types aren't the most popular species, after all. Not even for experienced trainers!

Kenneth ignored me, head held low as we crossed the bridge once more. Desperate, I looked around, searching for any source of inspiration that might make the atmosphere less awkward. Snow, a slow-moving river, steel cables, trees with bare branches... Nope, nothing was coming to me.

The last thing Kenneth had commented on with any emotion was your letters, so I'm sorry, Markus, but I kind of used you as bait. Maybe I thought this would be the ideal way to get him to sympathize with you, too, but if you were to ask me to be honest about it I would clam up and change the subject. I told him about your starters, all three of them. ...I'm hoping you don't mind. Kenneth, being the respectful guy he is, waited till we stepped off the bridge to reply. He didn't say anything mean, per se, but he was surprised that you had three, and then by the fact that they're, you know... gone.

He made eye contact with me as I explained everything to him (sparing the more gruesome details, I promise), and I thought he would lecture me on how I was overstepping my boundaries. Instead he shrugged and said, “You should tell this Markus Samaras friend of yours that I know such personal information about him.”

“Well, he knows you're traveling with me, so he knows you exist, and I guess that's a good start...” Whatever else I rambled on about isn't important. I wasn't keen on including this conversation in my letter, not at all, and, if it were up to me, I would've forgotten it took place completely.

“Does he now?” Kenneth asked, eyebrow raised. “It's only fair, if you think about it.”

I told him it was fair because he analyzes you, even from afar, even without you asking to be the center of attention and the target of intense scrutiny. The actual wording I used was hardly what I'd call elegant, but so it goes.

“Am I like that?” he murmured softly, and then he turned quiet again, like he was reliving his childhood and trying to pinpoint the exact moment that determined he would be the way he is today. He surprised me when he said, “All right, then. Tell this Markus Samaras friend of yours that I'm not perfect, either. I told you Yamirami was my starter, right?”

I nodded.

“I lied about that. Donmel was my starter, not Yamirami.”

...Markus, this didn't make sense to me, and in some ways, it still doesn't, knowing the facts of Kenneth's life that I'll explain in a minute. It's always been commonplace for trainers to have strong bonds with their starters, and to... not favor them, or treat them special... What I'm trying to say is that trainers put their starters on a pedestal one step higher than other members of the team, but to me, it seemed that Donmel could disappear into thin air and Kenneth could replace him without a second thought.

It was my turn to be silent. I had to listen if I wanted to begin to understand where he was coming from.

Kenneth sighed. “Donmel was my starter,” he repeated. “He used to belong to my dad. My dad... had this silly dream as a kid. He wanted to study the stars, wanted to be an astronaut so he could travel to space and see them up close. I'm not aware of all the details, but before he graduated with his astrophysics degree, he lost hope and suddenly considered the goal unrealistic. Then he dropped out and did what everyone does when they don't know what else to do in life: he became a pokémon trainer. He didn't forget about the stars, though. His team consisted of species that reminded him of them. Donmel, as a fire-type, was a fitting choice. He experimented with all the elements, but fire was his favorite. At the dinner table he'd boast about whatever crazy attack combinations Donmel had performed that day. They were more for show than for battling purposes at the time, but he never allowed me and my mom a glimpse of his self-proclaimed brilliance.

“He would have been good at contests if he pushed aside his pride, though I think he was planning on entering one in the near future, because one day he brought me to the place he'd always train with Donmel and his other pokémon. He needed to start accepting the idea of an audience if my guess was right. Or he finally woke up that morning and decided I was old enough to have a relationship with my father, I don't know.

“...Haley, I told you about the seals earlier, didn't I? He introduced them to me, said he wanted to demonstrate how Donmel could breathe blue fire in a pattern that mimicked the hottest stars within the constellations. It was his biggest accomplishment as a trainer to date, he said. Donmel messed up, though. Or I walked too close. I can't say I remember for certain. But I got burned and had to be taken to the emergency room. After that, Dad disappeared. My mom gave Donmel to me when I registered my license years later. For all I know, she did it as a consolation or a way to feel closer to my father.”

And Markus, what was I supposed to say to that? No thoughts were running through my mind. I only experienced what emotions washed over me: a twinge of loneliness intertwined with a sense of familiarity. My own father was a part of my life, more so than Kenneth's, but he was detached, and I'd argue that that's almost the same as being gone.

I wanted to ask why he'd use seals for his whole team if such bad memories were associated with them. I wanted to ask if releasing Donmel from his pokéball ever made him apprehensive, or angry. I wanted to ask what he'd do if he found his father. But I could only mumble that I was sorry.

“There's a lot that I don't know, but the scar is there,” Kenneth said, shrugging and, maybe unconsciously, holding his stomach. “I was near Anistar specifically to see if anyone knew about him visiting the sundial, given its connection to the most significant star out there. It seemed like somewhere he would go.”

He treated his story like it wasn't a big deal, Markus. Don't be fooled, though, okay? He told me when he met that he didn't care where his father was, but he just admitted otherwise. He didn't lie for the fun of it; he lied to protect himself. When you feel the need to conjure up a lie to tell people you just met, you know something's seriously wrong. And I have no right asking you this, but please be kind in your response. He wanted you, a complete stranger, to know. Surprising, to be sure, but I can’t in good faith turn him down. So now you know.

- Haley

 

[diamondpearl876]

FLYING IN THE DARK
[letter ten]

*​

July 10

To Haley,

When the guard handed me your most recent letter, I noticed immediately how unusually thick the envelope was. I would be lying if I said I weren’t eager to find out whether some great discovery or revelation had come to you early on in your journey. I could not imagine you devoting so much time writing to me for any other reason.

It wasn't possible to give your words my undivided attention at that moment, however. Imagine showing too much enthusiasm when you're among a large crowd that has little to do except remind you of life's more prominent miseries. I can forgo the details and simply say that your initial enthusiasm gives way to disappointment. If you're especially vulnerable, hopelessness finds its way to you as well. So I waited until the guard had gone, and because I couldn't avoid the prisoners’ prying eyes just yet I waited longer, past lunch, past dinner, and finally, past nightfall. Lying on the bunk bed's top cot, I used the light of the moon spilling in through the barred window to read.

You had promised to tell me about your visit to Frost Cavern... and so you did. I had expected anecdotes about your training, with a few unrelated but engaging tangents sprinkled throughout. But there were no tangents, only carefully constructed thoughts that led to the solid conclusions you came to about Kenneth Chitenay.

Kenneth Chitenay, it seems, has trusted people who were not worthy of his trust. Now he is certain that anyone is guaranteed to let him down, causing him to withdraw from others. Him being outspoken does not appear to be a facade, but I suspect that he still asserts himself with some reserve. Once you completely cease taking what he says at face value, he may grow scared and attempt to flee.

I know, Haley, that you believe he wanted me to know this truth about him. Let me cease taking what he says at face value and clarify that resolute statement of his: it is not my awareness that matters, for I am a harmless man locked away in a cell. You, on the other hand, are putting him in a very vulnerable situation with your presence alone. You have the power to notice when his physical demeanor contradicts his words, and you have the power to question him about such inconsistencies. In fact, you seem to have already observed such behavior. He has handled your latest predicaments with a surprisingly gentle touch, has he not? It was his harsh, bitter lectures toward you about your lack of cultural knowledge that convinced you he would act in a different manner. Whether you confront him and demand he be genuine is your choice. I daresay you have not been acquainted with him long enough for that conversation to end satisfactorily, but you might rightfully argue that your forwardness with me has brought about no ill consequences as of yet.

Yes, I suppose that means that I hold no grudge against you for returning to me and crossing out the emotional remark I made after ruminating on the disorientation I felt inside Frost Cavern. When I re-read my own words, however, it occurred to me that I had written them less than a month ago. The memory of doing so is vague, and when I attempt to visualize that day's events, I start to consider the notion that what happened to me, actually happened to someone else. The images blur together and no amount of focus makes them clearer. Because I acquired my literacy skills at a young age, the sensation of holding a pen and participating in the process of putting thoughts down on paper should be familiar. I seem to have forgotten how to hold on to the familiar. And can you blame me?

You tell this Kenneth Chitenay that he has every right to be as cautious as he is. You tell this Kenneth Chitenay that his warnings to you are not baseless. Arceus knows I have nothing to lose and nothing to prove, which is a strange combination that can yield unpredictable results. Think rationally, think slowly... and you will come to your own solid conclusions about me.

After that... Well, I suppose these letters would become a test of sorts. One of loyalty. (Yes, this is me assuming you will realize the worst possible conclusion.) Will you continue to trust me for no reason other than not knowing what else to do? Or will you be like Kenneth Chitenay, and approach things more skeptically? Perhaps I should take back my own skepticism regarding him. You could learn much from a man who chooses to be distant when for some, solitude is inescapable.

I wonder, Haley. What do you think is Ribbons's view on the matter? You have expressed numerous times thus far about how he will carry your team in the face of danger, if only because of his psychic abilities. Danger itself is the test, and how Ribbons reacts when it arrives is a test of loyalty as well. It may be as you claim, that he is not like the hypno and claydol I had the misfortune of dealing with. While I maintain my suspicions toward psychic-types in general, I am in no position to argue against Ribbon specifically. But like everyone else, Ribbons has the capacity to change drastically, whether it's for better or for worse.

What do you think? What drives pokémon to remain loyal to their trainers? How do pokémon determine which trainers deserve the assurance of protection that you yourself seek? Pokémon are so much more gifted than humans... How the idea of keeping pokémon captive came to be is a mystery, I must say. Should you ever break the language barrier between you and your team, you will realize that they are just like us, only with different body forms that allow them to make use of the elemental/supernatural powers they possess.

You might disagree with me when you look at... Kai, for instance. All living creatures consume food to survive, but you describe Kai to have an obsessive love of fruit. It's all he seems to care about. But what would he say to you about it, if he could? What does he already say to you, only to watch you wave him off with a hand because what you hear is mere gibberish? He might one day recite to you the history of his species and why it is they thrive best with fruit. He might even share memories with you, happy ones depicting special traditions upheld in Terminus Cave, or sad ones about how fruit was scarce for a while and his family was scared for the future. Until you know, his strange behavior will seem nothing but quirky to you.

If history hadn't taken the course it did... Why, it's not too hard to believe that pokémon could have been the ones to hold humans captive instead. That notion scares some trainers, and rightly so. I have known many that, upon encountering the truth, offered their pokémon not only an apology, but the chance to be released back into the wild, free to live the kind of life they wanted before circumstances swept them in the opposite direction. It sounds heartbreaking, but part of the truth is knowing that pokémon in general are more than capable of taking care of themselves, no matter how accustomed they grew to being dependent. There is some solace in that.

This is all irrelevant, however, when the statistics claim that a captive pokémon nearly always decides to stay. Statistics don’t numerate how long the pokémon takes to decide, but I would bet all I have and say the decision is made rather hastily.

Berate my pessimism if you must, but the bond between humans and pokémon is not as pure and unbreakable as the League would have you believe. Since the League was created, researchers and professors have been looking for ways to prevent pokémon from overturning the current hierarchy society relies on.

As an example: while trainers believe that berries are grown and genetically modified for the sole purpose of boosting a pokémon's energy, most of the research, in actuality, is devoted to reducing behaviors such as aggression and disobedience. Medicines—all of them, ranging from the low-grade potions to the potent elixirs—have ingredients that act the same way as a psychotropic drug might on a human. In other words, a pokémon's mind is quite clouded by all the substances we cram into their bodies after a battle. We all justify it by claiming we're healing them from the wounds they've sustained in battle, but we are only harming them further. We participate in battles at every given opportunity, and we justify that by claiming our pokémon will be stronger for it. But that is only true in the physical sense. A pokémon's mental clarity is forgotten for the sake of the sport. That is not a bond I’d wish to partake in, myself.

Simply put, captive pokémon are deceived in countless ways. The premise upon which the League was built is deceiving enough. The League promotes the idea that a pokémon’s power comes solely from the trainer. The trainer fights for and earns the badges; the trainer enters the competitions and claims the prizes. The trainer is the focus, no matter the context.

Again, I’ll mention releasing pokémon back into the wild. Did you know the League has no set procedure to follow in that situation? There’s a clear-cut explanation for that: they don’t need one. With every badge and competition won, a trainer is granted the opportunity to buy better, stronger items that diminishes a pokémon’s capacity to care, let alone retaliate. There’s trading systems, computer storage systems, and laboratories to utilize if needed. But once in captivity, it’s too difficult to turn away. It’s not difficult to understand why, when you know the facts.

All of this is why I don’t regret taking Professor Sycamore’s three starters. Or stealing them, or threatening him for them. Whatever I did, I’ve justified it by believing they were better off with me than they would have been with anyone else. Obviously, this was not the case. Humans involving themselves with drugs, medication, any self-harm method… is just as daunting a concept.

…I have written about this topic far more than I intended to. I derailed completely and took the focus away from Ribbons. I don’t suppose you’ll forgive me? Often that’s a strategy implemented in battle when the opponent is a psychic-type, anyway. If you haven’t attempted this strategy yourself, I highly recommend it, should you find yourself in a position where you no longer limit your participation in battles.

On the matter of sending these letters, you might also consider chain teleportation. He can use his teleport attack several times in a row to travel small distances. This is me assuming he still knows the attack from when he was a hatchling, of course. If his breeder was unskilled at honing psychic-type abilities, then he may need a refresher or two. And as a side note, I wouldn’t discourage flying entirely. He will have to discover his limits and balance the two methods so that he does not wear himself out physically, or mentally.

I may have mentioned this before, but do let me know if Ribbons is sent my way again. I would like to watch for him. He might not know I am awaiting his arrival, so it is a selfish thing to ask… though if one day I am able to speak to him, perhaps he can teach me how to master balancing the mind and the body. Perhaps my bitterness toward psychics will fade by then, or because of him. At the very least, watching would give me something purposeful to do. And I do miss witnessing sunrises and sunsets, dawn and dusk.

I guess I speak as if I haven’t cared to notice the time of day in a long while. Not true. In fact, I have been more attentive as of late. An interesting program for prisoners is being funded by Laverre’s gym leader, starting as soon as possible. I should explain it before I forget. I do think you will find it interesting, if only because I am suspicious as to what will come of it.

For your benefit only, I feel compelled to outline the situation’s background. I have my own opinion on this already, after all. Telling you the situation’s origins perhaps will help you understand my suspicion. Or… knowing you, you will adopt a perspective I had never even thought to consider. No doubt I will hear about it if that is the case.

To start with, you have to know about the nature trail that lies just south of Laverre. Laverre is currently responsible for taking care of the area, but this responsibility was only recently assigned by the League.

When you hear of a nature trail, you might think of taking a peaceful stroll in which you can admire all the prospering plants while experiencing the wind, the sun, the sounds of birds and bugs chirping. For Laverre, the nature trail was, in actuality, more of a hunting ground. There was a weapons shop somewhere along the trail, closer to Lumiose. It was not uncommon to hear of trainers or residents from either city applying for a hunter’s license.

Business was slow for the shop last winter. Laverre and Lumiose are not used to seeing extreme changes in temperature like Dendemille, so when the cold set in unexpectedly and brutally, everyone became preoccupied with figuring out how to survive the next few months. The nature trail was an afterthought, along with the weapons shop owner. No one thought to check on him.

Once winter gave way to warmer temperatures, hunters began showing up at the shop again to buy equipment, but the owner could not be found. He was eventually discovered by a concerned customer in the shop’s basement, huddled in the corner with a crazed expression on his face. He told the customer to flee for their life, or else they’d see the horde of faceless men like he had and wish they’d never been born.

Later, investigators would reveal that the “horde of faceless men” was a fake image created by a group of haunter that frequently roamed the trail at night. Surely the shop owner knew of the haunter population, but I suppose he had prepared inadequately for winter and paid the consequences. The lack of food and appropriate shelter had taken a toll on his well-being—especially his ability to think clearly. Even when he was no longer malnourished or a victim to the winter’s cold, however, the shop owner felt distressed beyond belief. Reluctantly he began working again, but intense paranoia gripped him at all hours of the day. Only when Laverre’s renowned gym leader approached him to discuss his trauma did he begin to feel more at ease.

Our gym leader, Valerie, had been trying for years to bring the nature trail under local jurisdiction so she could eliminate hunting as a sport there. With Lumiose being a popular tourist area on the other side of the trail, the League has chosen to decline her request each time. But because of the shop owner incident along with related concerns I don’t know the full details of, the government’s security agents investigated and decided that it would be in the League’s best interest to grant Valerie her request. The League, I’m sure, acquiesced to avoid worse repercussions.

Now, let’s see… I know I spoke ill of the League earlier in this letter. And I believe I told you once that Laverre was an ideal location for me to stay in when I was unsure of where else to turn. It is actually this nature trail I was referring to. Do not jump to conclusions yet. I am not trying to dishearten you about being a trainer or dwelling in self-deprecation here. Think rationally and slowly, as I wrote earlier too.

I had no money in Laverre, and I’ve never been interested in hunting. Seeing the wild pokémon roam about with their bodies always tense even in the absence of gunshots seemed like torture. Why would I go there? After the meetings with the city’s move tutor that escalated into late night talks about recreational drug use, I couldn’t resist going. Under the influence I could walk the trail feeling safe despite all the obvious tension surrounding me. I could see my three starters mingling freely with the other pokémon, living the lives I should have given them from the beginning. It was… nice. It was very, very nice. When the weight of my pain started suffocating me and I left to start over with Enmity in Lumiose, I vowed not to come back unless I could turn the hallucinations into a reality. Funny, how I ended up all the way back here regardless, and under the most unfortunate of circumstances.

If you did not know yet, our gym leader is a fairy-type specialist. Fairies are notorious for their superior defensive and offensive build compared to other types of pokémon, and there’s been folklore depicting them as rather deceptive creatures prone to bearing grudges. But a fairy also has abilities allowing them to alter others’ emotions, thinking patterns and the like.

You can probably see where I’m going with this now.

Valerie wishes to bring fairy-types into the prison as a form of rehabilitation. Here in the cells, there’s not much kindness, and very few of us know how to calm ourselves when emotions run high, a problem that has led to many fights and relapses. It is not uncommon to see prisoners released, and then convicted again awhile later because we are not prepared to deal with the outside world, nor do we have any motivation to try. The negativity inside the cells cannot be shaken off so easily without help. And it is not often we receive help, or know of anywhere we can find it.

One more thing, as I’m not sure I’ve connected all these ideas as coherently as I should have from the beginning. Several fairy-types live on the nature trail, or a bit off the trail, closer to the swamps that few visit unless trying to capture a specific species. I wish I could recall which species I saw, as that would give me a better idea of what to expect. Spritzee and aromatisse would be particularly useful for preventing negative mental states from overwhelming us with their aroma veil ability, while the togepi line is said to spread joy to others with its presence alone. Wouldn’t it be nice if the two could replace these intrusive thoughts of mine with pleasant ones? Memories wouldn’t seem so terrifying, then. Yet I see the irony in them living amidst a hunting ground. Kill them, and you simultaneously kill ‘mon with the most capacity for compassion and, by extension, the possibility of exposing your demons to another.

Of course, there’s always the possibility of the fairy-types refusing to cooperate, given the hunting dilemma they’ve had to live with up until now. I can’t know for sure what will happen, but with Valerie’s specialty, rehabilitation appears to at least be a possibility. Last I heard, she succeeded in helping the weapons shop owner recover from his trauma, and now he is pursuing another line of work.

I will keep you up to date with how the project proceeds, provided that you have no objections to me doing so.

Part of me knows you will not object. Part of me knows this letter should stop here or I risk never sending it at all. I have made myself far too anxious by telling you more than what was necessary about quite a lot of topics, which isn’t unusual, but this time I find my writing excessively… excessive, for lack of a better word. I am not sad or hopeful or angry or anything, yet something is holding me back from setting the pen down.

I suppose there is a simple question of yours I left unanswered: what kind of pokéball did Enmity have? But there is not a simple answer to that. Delaying the answer already brings up another question: why do I always delay talking about him? You spent but a small paragraph wondering, and I have spent pages and pages trying to forget that you were wondering.

Enmity’s was just a plain pokéball. When I bought his egg from a Unovan breeder, I was also given a pokéball and told step-by-step how to catch a newly hatched pokémon safely. Normally when you own an egg and know what species you are hatching—or at least its type—the kind of pokéball doesn’t matter. I used the plain one anyway because the egg was a hefty price to begin with, and anything leftover was dedicated to food or drugs.

So there is nothing for Kenneth Chitenay to analyze. He can tell you all about how breeders usually capture their hatchlings when they’re unconscious, since taking care of the hatchling’s basic needs comes first and the baby has no memories that will affect their perceived world in the pokéball anyway. But in the end, there’s no clue that will hint at where Enmity and his pokéball might be. And that’s fine for now. I am sure he is safe, wherever he is.

It would be natural for you to assume I delayed this answer because I wanted to avoid the truth, that discovering Enmity’s location is more likely than not a lost cause at this point. Well, I’ll say this: Enmity was mute. You know that much. Even if he wasn’t, I never did learn how to interact with pokémon speech. With him being my sole partner, and with me being who I am, I very easily became accustomed to silence. With drugs especially, your mind races and exaggerates the smallest of details and all you want is silence.

I do not want to be accustomed to silence, Haley. It seems you do not want me to be, either.

I will try to be as clear and concise as I can. But I want to talk, so if I deviate from the main topic again, I’m sure you’ll forgive me.

It's disconcerting, to say the least, having not just one, but two innocent people now becoming entangled in the convoluted wreck that is my life. Perhaps the most unnerving fact is that I did not put forth any amount of effort to make this happen. Kenneth Chitenay continually asks about me for reasons I cannot fathom, and you sought me out on your own time—for reasons I believe I am beginning to understand. I've considered concepts such as fate and destiny, but using them as an explanation for your presence in my life seems unfair, if only because it took you eighteen years to decide the kind of connections you want with others and to develop the confidence needed to write me at all. Yet when I dwell on the way society in general treats prisoners, I am thoroughly convinced that solitude for me would be justified and having mostly avoided it thus far must mean something.

The truth is beyond my reach. I am not sure I want to know the truth, assuming that discovering it is a possibility. Even with your very first letter, and especially with each one thereafter, you've been particularly intent on helping me envision the outside world as I used to know it, simultaneously presenting to me the opportunity to form new opinions and perspectives. I give you credit for trying, and succeeding, but when I say I am beginning to understand your motives, I believe that your goal has changed slightly in that now, you also wish to assist me with learning about myself. Or, at the very least, you aim to have me forgive my own faults and build some semblance of self-esteem.

But I must admit that I am not quite as eager to welcome new found information pertaining to the topic of myself. My own personal truth is this: I would be regarded best as a concept... which, if I may be so brash, is not too far from what I actually am. You see me as mere words on a page, crafted from the mind of a man you trust to not only be honest and receptive to what you have to say, but also real. Philosophy is certainly not my forte, so I will not argue about the logistics of reality. But your expectations for this written exchange require me to remind you of your limitations.

You may recall an important observation I briefly explained to you not long ago, that it is the night hours you spend awake which shape you into the person you will be for the rest of your life. When morning comes, you inevitably realize how the sun will rise each morning for eternity... with or without you. While I cannot relay this message to you the exact same way as before—you have the letter in your possession, if I remember right, and you are free to take a glance at it if that is true—I can tell you that I will always, in some way, encompass the desperation of the man that wrote those words to you. You cannot force the sun to rise and illuminate the darkness engrained in someone else.

…As a side note, I do not mind if you use me as the main topic of conversation with Kenneth Chitenay. You are not the only one who speaks of other people’s suffering to pass the time. It is just one subtle way in which humans tend to relieve themselves of their own burdens, and if I can help you in that small way I will do that.

I will stop now, truly. I don’t know if my words have sounded rude. What I am trying to say is that you are trying very hard to help me, and though you can’t cure me and it’s only been a mere three months since we started communicating, you are succeeding. There is no accurate, satisfactory way to prove that to you. This letter will have to be enough somehow.

Sincerely,
Mark

 

[diamondpearl876]

FLYING IN THE DARK
[letter eleven]

*​

July 20

I hope you don’t mind if I just skip the traditional letter format this time. Opening with ‘dear Markus’ sounds way too formal anyway, or it makes it sound like we started talking not too long ago—which is… true, actually, like you said. I dug through my backpack for a while to find your older letters, because I wanted to see what phrase you were talking about again—you know, the one about how the sun rises each day. I ended up piecing them all together in order, partly to reorganize my stuff and partly out of curiosity, and then I saw that you were right! It’s only been 3 months since I reached out to you! That means it’s been 3 months since I started my journey, too. Wow, can you believe

Yeah, I scribbled that out. I didn’t put anything bad, but I was going on a tangent about myself and I don’t want to make things about myself right now. I think that’s something I do… a lot. In fact, I just did it again. Sorry.

Point is, I don’t think we were ever super distant with each other or anything. That’s really amazing, you know that? And now it feels to me like we’ve been friends for years. You’ve been more reluctant than me, no doubt, but I’ve tried to encourage you not to be. You were trying really hard to be more open in your last letter, I think. That’s amazing too, but…

Well, don’t get me wrong. I’ll try to explain, okay? I’m still confused myself, so try to bear with me if you can! When I read through everything you’d written to me so far, I saw that you’d said you don’t like being called Markus. That was the very first thing you wrote and I waved you off like it was no big deal. How can I expect you to open up to me if it seems like I’m not paying attention or that I don’t care? Maybe that sounds silly… but the little details can be pretty important sometimes, too.

And maybe I’m overthinking this. Tell me if I am, all right? I just felt kind of guilty when you wrote how you rambled on because you didn’t want to tell me something about Enmity. If I’d been paying attention, I would’ve noticed that answering questions about Enmity was difficult for you from the start. Or, well, I noticed, but I wasn’t respectful about it. I shouldn’t have brought Kenneth into the equation without asking beforehand, either. As luck would have it, you were okay with it in the end, but what if?

I’ve been trying to figure out what I can do better. There’s only so much I can do through letters, after all. It’s hard when you’re not here with me. I’m sorry if this comes out wrong, but it’s easier to brush aside what you can’t physically see. I think that goes for everybody, to be honest. Maybe you can see where I’m coming from. Hopefully.

It was interesting, to say the least, seeing all over again how you write differently about your surroundings versus how you write about your feelings. I mean, I told you about my run-in with the police and how it still bothers me today, but you explained the jail’s daily schedule to me without much problem. The place doesn’t seem to affect you like I’d expect it to. Not that I want it to bother you and make you suffer more, of course…

So something tells me I should change the subject before I go on to say something beyond stupid. I’m having trouble with words myself, I guess, but I don’t want to put off writing to you—not after your last letter! Markus, you’ve told me your memory is pretty awful, and I believe you, but consider this for a moment: you recited the phrase about the sun rising in two separate letters almost word for word. That must mean it’s important to you, right? It could be especially important, since the sun isn’t something you can probably see from your

I’m going to have to cross out this whole letter, aren’t I?

Okay. Um. What I was getting at is this: you remembered one sentence you wrote to me several weeks ago practically verbatim, but you don’t remember other things very well, like your starters. I can’t help but wonder if you remember what’s important or what’s unimportant instead. There’s a reason for everything you do and don’t say/remember, and I… don’t know those reasons. I just know there’s not much point in telling you every detail about stuff outside Laverre anymore, if it doesn’t mean anything to you. Part of me must have realized that sooner, because yeah, like you said, I’ve been leaning toward helping you boost your self-esteem and whatnot.

You made it clear about how you’re not interested in that, though, and I should respect that. What am I supposed to write about, then? You say I’m succeeding, but… how?

I’m going to ask just one favor, if you don’t mind. I hope you don’t mind. I realized something else when re-reading your letters, and maybe it has something to do with why writing your last letter stressed you out so badly. Maybe not. Anyway, will you just think about what it might be when you’re reading the rest of this? Was Enmity really the issue or was it something else?

Well, onto some lighter topics now! I’ll try to keep this letter short and sweet if I can. You know I’m not too good at that, but yeah. A lot of things happened ever since my journey really got started, so I’ve had more to write about. Besides, it’s helpful to stop running around once in a while and have some downtime. That’s what you told me to do, right? Think slowly and rationally. So I’ll do just that. Ribbons has needed the extra rest lately, after all, and Seybs loves being able to preen or nap without getting interrupted. As for Kai… I give him a piece of fruit, then he’s content.

Oh, right. You mentioned a lot of tough facts about the League I haven’t really taken too seriously, to be honest. Don’t worry about Kai, though. The fruit I keep with us is from the store. I stock up on our favorite apples and pears if the town I’m in has some fresh ones on the shelves before I leave. Sometimes Kai will pick berries off a tree, but I always make sure they’re wild and not from someone’s farm or garden. He hisses at me whenever I try to explain why he can’t swipe every berry in sight, but what can I do? I don’t want him to get into trouble for trespassing… and now, I don’t want him consuming any berries that might hurt him in the ways you described. Though him becoming less sassy wouldn’t be the worst thing…

Hmm. I kind of feel like treating Kai tonight now. Me and Kenneth can go collect some wild berries and make a giant fruit salad to split between all of us. Tamato berries would be nice to eat, I think, since they taste best in the colder weather, and of course we’ll get chesto berries, too. They’re Kai’s favorite. If he tries to talk to me, I won’t understand what he’s saying exactly, no... but for now, he’ll reveal how he’s feeling through his body language. It’s similar to our letter exchange, really—we don’t have to be face-to-face to get the gist of the conversation. The more we interact, the easier it’ll be to understand the bigger picture.

I worry sometimes about pokémon speech, though. Seybs has been my partner for years now and I still only pick up a word here and there, which is better than nothing, I guess. I just thought we’d be having full conversations by this point. I hope that won’t be the case for Ribbons and Kai. It’s just… It’s sad that I can’t even tell you if Seybs misses Anistar because he’s so hard to read. Him being so introverted isn’t usually a problem, but what if he loved Anistar and didn’t want to leave at all? He didn’t make a fuss about traveling, and he seems pretty laid back no matter what he’s doing, but I can’t know for sure unless he tells me. And if he does tell me, I might miss what he’s saying anyway. He could lie, too. I try to listen when he actually does talk, and I’m trying my best to keep him happy, and—

—and that’s… all I can really do, I think. I’ve gotta show him and the rest of my team that I deserve their trust. Promises about how I’ll be there for them forever, no matter what, aren’t acceptable. Not because I wouldn’t mean it, but because what if I suddenly have no money to buy groceries or a hotel for us to sleep in when it’s going to storm all night? I guess not being able to support my pokémon would mean my parents were right in saying maybe I shouldn’t have gone off to be a trainer in the first place. I’m lucky I’ve gotten this far, and I’ve only gotten this far because I’ve made my pokémon battle other trainers passing by.

And that’s not even entirely fair. I don’t want to do the gym circuit! Me fighting Olympia was just a way for me to gauge how much experience Kai had while saying goodbye to Anistar. There’s no real reason to make my pokémon exhaust themselves day in and day out when all I want to do is see what the other cities in Kalos are like. Because for me, Anistar wasn’t home, and now that I’m practically an adult I’ve gotta figure out where I want to live and what I want to do for the next several decades of my life.

Kenneth’s told me that the more badges you have, the more impressive your resume looks for League-related job, apparently, and the League always has opportunities open for traveling trainers. So I guess there’d be some perks to battling, huh? But… why should I work for them if they’re deceiving trainers about anything they possibly can? And what does it say about Kenneth if he works for the Devon Corporation?

Well, look at that. I’m wandering off on another topic now myself. Some of your habits are rubbing off on me! Or maybe it’d be more accurate to say that your last letter really got me into thinking what it’s like to be in your shoes?

My point is that Anistar wasn’t home for me. I doubt it’s home for Kai or Ribbons. Like I said, they’ve made it seem like they’re happy to stick it out with me, so I’ll do my best to not worry about it until I’m proven otherwise. There’s just Seybs. So… if Seybs thought Anistar was home and wants to go back someday, I’ll have to be ready to say goodbye to him then, too. Just the idea of it makes me want to

Okay, I don’t have to get that emotional over something that might never happen anyway. I’m at least smart enough to know the bonds between pokémon and trainer are pretty fragile. It’s nice to think the opposite, though, isn’t it? But whenever I look at Kenneth and Donmel now, I just can’t feel the same about it. Something between them broke and it wasn’t because of anything either of them had done. Their past history just happened to form between them a shaky bond that Kenneth feels obligated to protect for whatever reason.

Just the other day, it was so cold and the heat broke in the hotel we’ve been staying in. I suggested that Donmel could keep us warm, because that made sense, right? Kenneth just kind of stared at Donmel’s pokéball for a minute, then released the numel without properly greeting him. That blue flame seal did its thing and made Kenneth change his mind, I think. He never did end up asking Donmel for help. We spent a couple hours roaming around town trying to find a decent space heater to buy instead.

Um. You said that Ribbons might change someday, right? Doesn’t the same go for Kenneth? And for me and you, too, Markus… Kenneth could make amends with Donmel someday. Seybs could grow out of his shell. I could go to Anistar and feel comfortable there, and you could be… somewhere better, and someone you’re happy being. And Ribbons could become a monster, yeah, but couldn’t he also evolve into a xatu and not take advantage of his psychic powers?

Anything can happen. My parents could get along or finally get the divorce they’ve mentioned when they thought I wasn’t listening. Joey could start actually doing drugs instead of just selling them, or he could leave the business altogether! And there’s my grandmother, of course. Hmm… I can’t say I’ve seen a bad side of her, really, but now that I think about it, she does work for the League, raising baby pokémon to be tame enough for new trainers. I must’ve told you that already when I first talked about Seybs and Ribbons, since I like to brag about how amazing she’s been to me whenever I get the chance to.

You know… Actually, no, I

I’m not sure I should

Why did I just

Okay, forget it. I thought of something terrible and I can’t get it out of my head now, so I have to bring it up or I’ll go crazy. What if Seybs is the way he is because of some of that GMO stuff you mentioned? If the League tries to mess with a pokémon’s behavior and personality on purpose, wouldn’t starters be the main target so that new trainers are less likely to give up early on in their journey?

I have a question for you specifically, and you can ignore it if you want, but I’d appreciate it so much if you could answer… If you don’t know the answer, though, don’t sweat it! I’m just assuming here that you met different breeders when you were looking for a new pokémon. Did the breeder who raised Enmity’s egg give you information about what to do when he was born? Were there certain steps you took when deciding which breeder to buy from?

That’s two questions. Oops. I’ve definitely overdone it with the questions in this letter, so I won’t bug you with anything else, okay? It’s just that you seem to be a bit knowledgeable about the breeding industry, and you could give me some insight about drugs and how they mess with brain chemistry. I wish you didn’t know about the drug stuff, but…

Maybe I should send a letter to my grandmother herself. Even Joey might be able to point out a useful thing or two, since he’s met Seybs in person before. Eh… Whatever. I trust you to reply the fastest and I already know you put a lot of effort into your replies. Besides, I haven’t spoken to anyone in Anistar since I left, and I never know for sure where my grandmother’s gone for her job. Last I heard she was off to Ambrette Town for a summer class about breeding fossil species.

So, yeah. I’m gonna try not to worry about it while I wait for you to write back. I know there’s no way for you to figure this out, but I just took a break from writing this letter to go be with my pokémon, mostly Seybs. Sadly, him and Kai and Ribbons have been stuck in their pokéballs a fair amount, only because it’s been cold and the sight of them all fluffed up and listless makes me feel guilty. Kenneth still won’t ask Donmel to heat up our hotel room, which sucks ‘cause we never found that space heater… He did at least keep us company, and he’s totally on board with the berry-picking plan. Now our goal is to collect berries while traveling closer to Lumiose, where the cold fronts coming from Frost Cavern don’t quite reach. And then we can prepare the biggest feast ever once we can stop at their department store for more food.

I did stop for a second at some point and wonder where we would get the money to buy so much for one meal. But Kenneth said it won’t be a problem, emphasizing how the League’s to thank for that.

…You know, when I met Kenneth, he didn’t have the look of a traveling trainer, because his clothes were spotless and fashionable. He’s always checking the mirror and making sure he’s presentable, like a super famous person from Hoenn like Steven Stone might show up randomly. Seems silly, right? Well, get this: he says he gets a paycheck just wearing brand name clothing for the Devon Corporation! And he said he’ll help me gather some other things I can flip for money down the road!

My pokémon must’ve noticed my swift change in mood when Kenneth mentioned helping me, ‘cause they seem to have gotten a boost of energy despite the cold. Kai probably perked up at the thought of berries, and Ribbons won’t stop flying in circles. Seybs isn’t too active, unsurprisingly, but he’s alert and turning his head to stare at all of us like we’re nuts. And maybe we are. I just feel lucky right now, having someone friendly like Kenneth around, I really do.

Do you remember I told you about my lucky coin? I’ve been holding on real tight to it the last few days, ever since I received your last letter and started writing this one. I guess now’s as good a time as any to let you know what else I noticed, AKA what I asked you to think about a few pages back. I can’t believe I wasn’t more attentive to it, but, well, things have a way of working out without you having to do much about it. Like you said, both me and Kenneth are part of your lives—in a strange sort of way, sure. Still! We’re here, and it’s unsettling for you sometimes. I get that. And maybe you’re right. Maybe I’ll scare Kenneth and we’ll travel separately again. Maybe he’ll stop asking about you. Right now, though, he talks an awful lot about you to think you’re just a harmless man in a cell—your words, not mine! Maybe you remind him of his dad and it keeps him motivated while he searches for him. I don’t know.

Maybe… Maybe there’s a reason pokémon and humans need to spend a ton of time together before really hearing each other, before understanding what’s being said. It’s a long road and anything can happen in that time, but it’s gotta be worth it in the end.

Some people, though, don’t wanna travel down that long road. Or it’s not that they don’t want to… but they feel like it might not actually be worth it, you know? I think this is just what people that click right away do: they open up to each other really quick because they finally found someone who will listen to what they have to say and they don’t stop talking because who knows if the other person will stay long enough to hear everything they need to get off their chest.

I got off track (again). Surprise, surprise.

The day you last wrote me was your birthday, Mark. July 10. You told me that, remember? You told me when you got your three starters, you were happy about it still being early in the summer because you could be with them and not have to deal with school, too. Adults usually insist birthdays don’t matter at a certain point anymore, but… I think they’re pretty important. They make you think back to everything that’s happened in the past, and I know that’s hard for you. I mean, just look at what I decided to do on my golden birthday. I don’t want the rest of my life to look anything like the last few years have, and now I’m traipsing through Kalos, one city at a time.

Okay… I actually have one last question for you—but only because you didn’t answer me the first time I asked you forever ago! I want you to call it in the air—heads or tails? You were completely spot on when you said I should make the best of wherever I go, and that it doesn’t matter where. Dendemille’s taught me as much. Just call it, because I’m gonna flip the coin and send it to you as a gift with my next letter. The side it landed on will still be facing up, of course.

Anyway, the coin’s been lucky for me, but I want to share some of that luck with you now. Keep an eye out for Ribbons after you write me back, because he’s almost healed and he’s ready to practice that chain teleportation technique so that he doesn’t wear himself out flying so much again.

Till next time,
Haley

 

[Persephone]

OMG Owl did a story about birds!!!!

Or at least a girl who trains birds, but, it's pretty much the same thing.

To start with, I must say that I'm a sucker for experimental narration. So I'd been meaning to properly read this for some time. Glad I finally got around to it.

Perhaps what I like most of all is your world building. The descriptions of Anistar were beautiful, and you've put a lot of thought into how prisons and Pokemon rearing/the Pokemon league work. I'm impressed by it, really. It's certainly a darker world than LaON, but there are still some of the same themes (re:mental health, particularly).

I'll get around to Haley in a second.

Markus' letters are generally great. They have a good voice and length, and provide fascinating exposition and subtle hints at his mental health problems. Easily the best part of the story.

Haley's are... more hit and miss. It's a very interesting narrative style and in small doses it's fine. Where it becomes problematic is that sometimes the chapters feel very, very long. I'm not sure what the actual word count is, and it could just be that letters aren't a great way to tell a coherent story, but... I don't know. It just didn't work for me. I found myself losing interest midway through her letters, where that seldom happened with Markus. I'll think more about it and maybe message you some thoughts later when I figure out what didn't click for me.

Final note: Natu are adorable and you're making me like Noibat far more than I already did. Good work there, Owl.

 

[diamondpearl876]

OMG Owl did a story about birds!!!!

Or at least a girl who trains birds, but, it's pretty much the same thing.

You know me so well. I gotta find a way to include Rowlet in this fic, and then it'll be perfect.

To start with, I must say that I'm a sucker for experimental narration. So I'd been meaning to properly read this for some time. Glad I finally got around to it.

I'm a sucker for the experimental stuff as well. And it seems I've done well overall, so hooray!

Perhaps what I like most of all is your world building. The descriptions of Anistar were beautiful, and you've put a lot of thought into how prisons and Pokemon rearing/the Pokemon league work. I'm impressed by it, really. It's certainly a darker world than LaON, but there are still some of the same themes (re:mental health, particularly)

Thanks, this means a lot. Worldbuilding isn't something I used to put much thought into, but I've really tried to remedy that in my more recent work.

Markus' letters are generally great. They have a good voice and length, and provide fascinating exposition and subtle hints at his mental health problems. Easily the best part of the story.

Subtle hints indeed... I'd be interested to see if you have any thoughts as to what they're hinting at.

Haley's are... more hit and miss. It's a very interesting narrative style and in small doses it's fine. Where it becomes problematic is that sometimes the chapters feel very, very long. I'm not sure what the actual word count is, and it could just be that letters aren't a great way to tell a coherent story, but... I don't know. It just didn't work for me. I found myself losing interest midway through her letters, where that seldom happened with Markus. I'll think more about it and maybe message you some thoughts later when I figure out what didn't click for me

That makes sense. Her letters are indeed longer than Markus's in word count, though I think the last two letters (10 and 11) were about the same length this time. So I'm not sure if those two seemed different, or if there was any letter of Haley's that seemed better than her others in terms of being able to hold your interest?

Final note: Natu are adorable and you're making me like Noibat far more than I already did. Good work there, Owl.

I try my best. Thanks for reading&&commenting!

 

[LightningTopaz]

Post Awards feedback!

First of all, I clearly have to commend you for writing such a strong character in Markus--I don't know if you toured a jail or not, but you managed to capture the monotony of prison life perfectly. Markus himself may have a tendency to ramble, but his rambles are not over the heads of the audience, nor are they boring to read. In the last chapter I read, I saw some glimmers of a possible romance between him and Haley.

Kenneth, meanwhile, I want to know more about--how did he get to where he is today? Why does he want to travel with Haley? There was just too little for me to go on based on what I read, but he has promise to become something better.

 

[AetherX]

Awards review here.

The way this story is written, it seems to be less about the plot and more about the characters. There isn’t a lot of progression or things happening beyond character discussions, but that’s just a symptom of the format. Stories like this that focus on the characters as the real reason for telling the story require characters with a lot of depth, and so far the two main characters do seem very deep. They have concrete backgrounds that have very clearly led them to be the people they are. Even this early in the story there has been development that makes sense and makes the story more enjoyable. Notes on the two characters who got nominated:

Markus Samaras - It’s hard to rate someone so secretive on their depth. I see it in the context, but in the careful, pre-meditated writings that are his letters we only get to see so much. his development is coming along. He was clearly a bit more careful and fearful in the beginning, but now he’s grown to look forward to his exchanges. I'm curious as to where he'll go from here. He's very original for a character in a Pokemon story, which allows a refreshing perspective on the world. His letters are more introspective and should be boring, but really they end up being more interesting. I prefer them, to be honest. His influence on Hailey is clear, and since her story is pretty much the plot, that’s important. But I think he could have more of his own story as well.

Kenneth Chitenay - I guess there’s a bit of mystery about him because he’s not one of the POV characters, but I haven’t seen many implications of depth. His development has been negligible so far. He hasn’t been around for long and can only develop in Hailey’s letters anyway. I like the idea that he’s pretty much a walking advertisement for Devon. Also I like the fact that a trainer can have another job. But outside of those things, nothing speaks to me as being exceptionally original. He forces some development out of the main two characters, which is an important role of supporting characters in my opinion, but overall he doesn't really strike me as anything special.

Moving on to style, you always deliver with interesting and original writing. It's very introspective, which plays to your strengths. I’m worried that it might grow stale after a while, but it hasn’t happened yet. The format of personal letters might make it hard to establish a setting, yet somehow this version of Kalos seems very real. Perhaps it’s because of the way that the characters reference places and the world, but it all seems very believable.

 

[diamondpearl876]

Post Awards feedback!

First of all, I clearly have to commend you for writing such a strong character in Markus--I don't know if you toured a jail or not, but you managed to capture the monotony of prison life perfectly. Markus himself may have a tendency to ramble, but his rambles are not over the heads of the audience, nor are they boring to read. In the last chapter I read, I saw some glimmers of a possible romance between him and Haley.

I have not toured a jail, but I've done a fair bit of research on the subject and watched a few documentaries. I don't think romance is going to be my goal, but rather a comfortable, intimate platonic friendship. At any rate, it's going to know Markus's rambles aren't awful. I know they're fun for me to write, but that doesn't mean they're just as fun to read.

Kenneth, meanwhile, I want to know more about--how did he get to where he is today? Why does he want to travel with Haley? There was just too little for me to go on based on what I read, but he has promise to become something better.

Makes sense. He's been introduced fairly recently still, after all. Hopefully you'll like how his character plans out. Thanks for the feedback!

Awards review here.

The way this story is written, it seems to be less about the plot and more about the characters. There isn’t a lot of progression or things happening beyond character discussions, but that’s just a symptom of the format. Stories like this that focus on the characters as the real reason for telling the story require characters with a lot of depth, and so far the two main characters do seem very deep. They have concrete backgrounds that have very clearly led them to be the people they are. Even this early in the story there has been development that makes sense and makes the story more enjoyable. Notes on the two characters who got nominated:

It seems I tend to write character-focused stories overall. But as we discussed, things will start happening, but reading about plot-related things will feel different in epistolary form compared to a regular novel, so we'll see how that goes.

Markus Samaras -

It’s hard to rate someone so secretive on their depth. I see it in the context, but in the careful, pre-meditated writings that are his letters we only get to see so much. his development is coming along. He was clearly a bit more careful and fearful in the beginning, but now he’s grown to look forward to his exchanges. I'm curious as to where he'll go from here. He's very original for a character in a Pokemon story, which allows a refreshing perspective on the world. His letters are more introspective and should be boring, but really they end up being more interesting. I prefer them, to be honest. His influence on Hailey is clear, and since her story is pretty much the plot, that’s important. But I think he could have more of his own story as well.

One thing that's been really hard for me to portray without going overboard or revealing too much is just how secretive he is, yeah. >_> A writing style that implies there's something NOT being said despite all the words written is, uh, one that's difficult, but it seems readers are picking up on it and still enjoying his letters regardless.

Kenneth Chitenay -

I guess there’s a bit of mystery about him because he’s not one of the POV characters, but I haven’t seen many implications of depth. His development has been negligible so far. He hasn’t been around for long and can only develop in Hailey’s letters anyway. I like the idea that he’s pretty much a walking advertisement for Devon. Also I like the fact that a trainer can have another job. But outside of those things, nothing speaks to me as being exceptionally original. He forces some development out of the main two characters, which is an important role of supporting characters in my opinion, but overall he doesn't really strike me as anything special.

Will have to work on his character a bit more, then. That'll be another challenge, since like you said, he's not a POV character. Hopefully your opinion on his character will change positively as the story goes along.

Moving on to style, you always deliver with interesting and original writing. It's very introspective, which plays to your strengths. I’m worried that it might grow stale after a while, but it hasn’t happened yet. The format of personal letters might make it hard to establish a setting, yet somehow this version of Kalos seems very real. Perhaps it’s because of the way that the characters reference places and the world, but it all seems very believable.

We talked about the potential staleness of the letters in the future already, so... I'll just say that I'm glad the setting seems real, since that was a weak point in my writing for the longest time. Thanks for the feedback!