As much as Aidinza might have wanted to linger in Mistralton, and he really did want to linger, he knew he had to keep moving. Knew that the Sun loathed indolence in all its forms.
So, here he found himself walking down route seven, kept company by only the sound of his boots crunching through waist-high, wet grass and by the shiver sent up his spine by the ice-touched wind. For the first time in the two months since he had left his mother desert behind, he felt the pull of sáh t'áá, of being one. Chasing a phantom idea of a given duty alone.
He stops for a moment, eyes falling closed, his head tilting back, warmed for a moment by the sun breaking through the sleet clouds. A hint or comfort? A coincidence or accident? His hand falls to Sandile's cool pokéball, and he struggles to find even the questions to ask in his own head.
Then the sun slides back behind the grey clouds of route seven, the unknown question left to fallow on Aidinza's tongue. He sighs and turns an eye onto his surroundings, sighting an area hidden from the intermittent sleet by several tall interlocked trees. It was getting late in the afternoon, and he did not wish to be caught in the cold again.
Besides, he had not been able to properly introduce the entire team to the new member. Now was as good a time as any. It took him a few minutes of wading around the small forest to find a good place to set up camp, with somewhat more manageable grass.
With a flash of red, Sandile appeared on the tarp of Aidinza's tent, eying the sea of grass surrounding him with distaste. Aidinza sits down next to him, pulling his poncho tight against the chilly wind and running a hand down his starters scaled back. Without a word, he unclipped Fletchling's pokéball and presented it to Sandile.
The ground-type reptile eyed it with gleaming black eyes, head tilting to examine it from different angles. "I caught a new pokémon; remember what I said last time?" Sandile nodded slowly as he stretched out his back legs and yawned. "You said that last time, and you got into a fight the moment I turned my back."
Sandile slumped against Aidinza's side, head craning upwards. The reptile blinked at his trainer guileless as a toothy smile spread across his snout. Aidinza bonked him on the nose. "Just because Naazin tricked you two doesn't mean you didn't let a fight happen." Sandile bonelessly slid off Aidinza, thudding on the ground with a pout. Unfortunately for him, in doing so, he put his nose right up against the edge of the tarp and the wet grass beyond it.
His sneeze shook his entire body, and the confusion on his face afterwards shook Aidinza's shoulders.
"Just try harder for me this time, okay, bud?" Tanned fingers played across the Sandile's eye ridges, massaging the tough flesh to a content purr. For a few minutes, he just sat there, enjoying Sandile's presence, even as the chilly air raised his skin and a light drizzle threatened to send his teeth chattering. "Come on, time to stop delaying things."
Three identical red flashes illuminated the dwindling light of the forest, dancing off the droplets of rain as they formed into three distinct figures. The first coalesced into the familiar form of Naazin, yellow eyes sliding around the clearing with expectation, and then pleasure when he realised it was empty. The second pulled itself together into a much less familiar sight; Fletchling appeared mid-flight with a twitter and a roll, climbing into the trees in a moment.
The third formed with a triumphant screech as his wings beat once in the air, flattening the grass and sending droplets of dew splattering everywhere. Astazhei dove forward and crashed into Aidinza's chest, sending both sprawling backwards into the nomad's tent.
The young nomad laughed as his hand came up to run through the rufflet's downy feathers, and he glanced down to meet the question in Astazhei's white pupiled eyes. "Could hardly even fly after what you did to her. Naazin didn't even break a sweat." He answered it to another victorious screech and a pleased coo as his hands massaged into Astazhei's tense wing muscles.
Then his eyes fell to Astazhei's talons, and his left hand traced along the slightest hint of the damage the rufflet did to himself. The use of a skarmory's feather as a sword was not hyperbole. In centuries long since gone, the nobility would spend fortunes of gold and armies of lives to have a single feather worked into a peerless blade. A blade that could cut stone and steel with the same brevity they cut human flesh.
It had done a number on even Astazhei's thick talons, cutting a rivet into the nerves and tendons underneath. Thankfully, Nurse Joy had fixed it with little issue. But it had left Skyla's words echoing in his head; flying types willing to go that far… they're the type of pokemon to get hurt in a serious way.
"But you didn't need to do that." Astazhei paused his snuggling into Aidinza's chest, glancing up to meet his trainer's eyes with confusion. "You did great, and don't tell Naazin," not that the lazy water-type would care or was even listening in "you won that fight single-handedly. But you hurt yourself doing it." The rufflet stood up, claws digging softly into Aidinza's rumpled poncho, and puffed his chest out. "Even if you would do it again. You did not need to. Naazin could have handled the Skarmory. I should have been quicker, but you should not have hurt yourself." Aidinza sat up, hand cradling Astahzei close to his chest as the corners of the bird's eyes began to water. "Htu dadzólí." He mutters as he presses his forehead into Astazhei's feathered crest, staring into white pupilled eyes. "I cannot rely on you if you are hurt." The two of them stayed like that for a moment, as Aidinza just let his fingers slip through Astazhei's feathers and relief slips through his heart.
This was why he had not introduced his team to their newest member yesterday. Or even the night that Fletchling was captured. He did not know what he would say to Astazhei, both with Skyla's warning in his ears and the guilt for sluggish reflexes eating at him.
Though he should probably stop leaving the fletchling in suspense - he should have released Astazhei earlier, he chastised himself - and make some proper introductions. He straightens up, pulling Astazhei away and letting him down onto the tarp next to Sandile.
It was then that he made a somewhat distressing discovery. Fletchling, who had flown up to roost on one of the many high branches, was now nowhere to be seen. "San-" He pauses and thinks better of it. "Naazin, where is Fletchling?" Half hidden by the thick grass coating the forest floor, the water type makes a vague gesture behind Aidinza. His head whips around, the beginnings of panic stirring. Not just at the idea of Fletchling deciding to just up and leave, but at the prospect of trying to explain that to Skyla next time the-
Something tugged on his hair as he twisted around, pulling his head backwards slightly. Aidinza blinks and reaches over his shoulder, into his swiftly getting out-of-control hair, but before he could run a hand through it, a sharp beak pecked him.
"Fletchling, are you in my hair?" Aidinza's hand hovered over his shoulder. Struck still by surprise. A series of whistles Aidinza could only describe as laughter was all he got in response. His hand closes around the surprisingly hot body of fletchling, pulling the chuckling bird into view in front of him. The weightlessness of the bird, especially compared to the hefty bulk of the rufflet, surprised Aidinza. It hardly felt like he was holding anything at all. It probably helped that Fletchling was not struggling, simply going boneless in Aidinza's hand and glancing around at the other pokémon with gleaming black eyes.
"Everyone, this is the newest member of the team. Fletchling." Aidinza feels the tiny bird struggle out of the light grip on his body, pulling his way onto Aidinza's arm. For a moment, he simply surveys the other pokémon again, and they examine him in turn.
Sandile breaks the silence with a pleased rumble, mouth pulling into a gummy smile that exposes his rows of razor-sharp serrated teeth as he lays his head down on Aidinza's shoulder and stares up at the new pokemon. Fletchling chortles back, and Aidinza slowly brings his arm closer to Sandile to give them a decent view of each other.
Though he does not focus on them, he keeps his attention on Astazhei. If any of his pokémon would make meeting a new team member… volatile, then it would be his most rambunctious pokémon.
But unlike any other time Astazhei had seen a new pokémon in his life, his hackles were not raised, and his white eyes did not glint with that spark of challenge. What they gleamed with… Aidinza was not sure he could place. Teetering on an emotional edge from before, not yet dulled, and tinged with something just about half-formed.
Aidinza reaches out with his left hand, weaving it through soft white feathers. "Htu dadzólí." He repeats. Astazhei glances away, and his eyes are far more self-assured when he glances back. Aidinza's lips pull up into a smile that slips away as a moment later, the rufflet's challenging cry rang out through the small forest they were in.
He should have expected that the moment Astazhei was feeling more like himself was the moment he would want another fight.
Fletchling gives an answering chatter, flaring out his wings to expose the white underside. It was considerably less impressive than the rufflet's posturing, considering that Astazhei was easily twice the size of the tiny robin, but no less eager.
Then again, Astazhei's posturing was ruined slightly by the fifteen kilograms of desert reptile that slammed into him. Aidinza's first two pokémon go toppling into the long, wet grass with a squawk, a tangle of feathered wings and scaled limbs. With a sigh, and a hand stopping Fletchling from joining the two wrestling pokémon, Aidinza looks towards the lazing Naazin off to the side.
"Water Gun." He instructs, to a lethargic shrug. He watches as a highly pressurised spray of water is spat out of Naazin's claw and sends the two pokémon tumbling to the side once more, though this time separated. "Astazhei, training will come later. Behave."
The rufflet squawked again, shaking himself like a lillipup, sending droplets of water flying. "Now come here and introduce yourself." Hopping on powerful, literally steel-crushing talons, Astazhei approached. Sensing that he was not about to start a fight for once, Aidinza lowered Fletchling to meet the senior flying type.
Critically, forgetting that Fletchling had been just as eager to start a fight as Astazhei. He watched as the robin, half the size of Astazhei and maybe a tenth of the weight, snapped forward and pecked Astazhei right between the eyes.
Proudly Fletchling began a loud birdsong, and Aidinza had no doubt that if he was to look, the bird would have that same smug gleam in his black eyes.
He wondered how long that would last, as Astazhei, with all the stealth of a sneaking Onix in a river, slowly reared back before slamming his entire head into Fletchling. Immediately the bird song stopped as the fletchling was sent tumbling off Aidinza's hand and landed heavily on his lap.
Ignoring the - probably deservedly punished - bird for a moment, Aidinza stared at Astazhei and struggled to not laugh. The eaglet's eyes were wide and innocent, glancing around as if he had no idea where Fletchling had gone before shrugging his wings at his trainer. It seems that he thought he had managed to hide what he did from Aidinza, despite doing it right in front of him. To something that Aidinza had been holding in his hand no less.
Rather than say anything, Aidinza simply poked him in the forehead hard enough to send him sprawling backwards in the wet grass. Then he reached into his lap and picked up the dazed fletchling. "You deserved that." He informed his newest pokémon as the robin managed to focus on him for a moment.
"Well, now you've met everyone." Fighting Naazin counted as meeting him, right? Aidinza shrugged and lifted the robin up to look at him properly. "Now, how about a name?" That managed to snap the fletchling out of his daze, and the increasingly familiar gleam in his dark eyes worried Aidinza. The robin twisted its wings so that it drew instant attention to the brilliantly orange feathers that crowned his crest. The second time it had done so.
It took Aidinza only a moment to realise what was happening. "No." The Fletchling did not waste a moment in leaping into flight, circling the clearing with what little sunlight that broke through the canopy at his back.
"No," Aidinza repeated sullenly.
Fletchling chortled as he dove, landing on Astazhei's shoulder and burying himself in his hair once again, hiding away his lower half, leaving only his orange upper half visible. His orange upper half was remarkably close in colour to Aidinza's hair.
Aidinza tries to look away from the flying-type towards his starter for moral support. Unfortunately for him, his starter had been, in a word, triggered by the grass once again and was in the process of tearing up massive clumps of the thick grass that made up the forest floor.
Fletchling whistled.
"No," Aidinza repeated weakly.
-
Gowteel, in another time, to another people, would be a prodigy. From raising herself and her brother from when she was eight to crushing the gym circuit in her first year and bowing out of the conference in the semi-finals to the eventual winner of the tournament in a twelve pokémon, brutal slugfest. She was the model of what others could only hope to be. Strong, independent, and dependable.
She had once been poised to be someone. Stood on the precipice of the sort of strength and authority that every trainer begins to dream of.
In another time, to another people, Gowteel would have been a shining jewel.
In this time, the Ya'an-ah did not need Ace Trainer Gowteel. They did not need in-time elite four hopeful Gowteel.
What they needed was the Gowteel that was there. There to help the elders and the young ones. There to pick up the pieces left behind by the adults as they slipped away into the deep desert.
Gowteel wipes her forehead with the back of her hand, the sweat matting her sun-lit hair to her skull, before she lifts the last of the crates from the desert floor onto the cart, like she had lifted every other crate that was unpacked last night.
Like she had unpacked every crate last night.
Not for the first time, Gowteel feels the keen absence of her brother. The boy got underfoot and was a clumsy ditz when distracted, but he was someone to split the load with and someone Gowteel could relax with.
Now that he was gone, all that was left behind were brittle-boned elders, children more liable to be crushed by a crate than lift it, and the crushing worry of an elder sister.
The young woman adjusted her belt, hand tracing along the cool metal of Bika's pokéball. The temptation to send him after Aidinza, just to make sure he was doing alright, was strong. Was this what he had felt? When she left on her own journey? This unquellable concern, tinged with a questionable powerlessness?
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
She sighs and runs a hand through her hair, shaking the sweat off into the sand a moment later. Part of it was worry about him not being by her side, and much of it was a worry for the… expectation that had crept into the Naisho'h in his absence. The tribe had suffered the most from this… Sun drought. Lost more blood than any other to journeys deeper into the desert, from people trying to hide from the perceived abandonment by the Sun.
Some of the elders, Gowteel knew, had been sure that the tribe would be washed away underneath the sands soon enough. That one day, all that would be left is the elders too weak to risk the deeper desert and the children not yet keen enough to navigate it.
But now, they mutter over creaking bones and sandy coughs. That he was going to change something. That he was ordained to fix the sinkhole that was consuming the Ya'an-ah.
Gowteel scoffs. Aidinza was meant for great things; she had known that since he toddled about the sands playing with even the grouchiest of Krookodile. But none of the elders could even begin to think of what he might do to fix that. None of the elders thought to do anything to make it easier for the boy. Just had goalless expectations.
"Gowteel! Gowteel!" A young voice snapped her out of her thoughts, and kicking up sand everywhere, Sʼoosei stumbled over the apex of a dune and into an uncontrollable descent. "Gowteel!"
Gowteel catches the young girl moments before she breaks her teeth on the cart the Ya'an-ah once elite-trainer had finished packing. "Sʼoosei, you need to have a firm footing in the sand."
"Gowteel! There's a strange man at meetpoint asking about Dzilmagi!" Gowteel ignores being ignored for a moment as her brow furrows. It had been a long time since someone had come asking after the Ya'an-ah legends, and Dzilmagi specifically…
"S'oosei, go tell Tsesei that the carts are packed. I'll go meet this man." She lets the girl squirm out of her grip, watching for a moment as she raced off over another dune.
Hopefully, it was some scholar with too much paper and not enough sense. If not… her hand falls to her starter's pokéball, then she would prove to the Sun that not all Ya'an-ah were yet keen to abandon their worship.
-
Shandíín was fast, the fastest of Aidinza's pokémon, though maybe Sandile in the sand could be comparable. But he was small and frail; even Naazin, focused as the clauncher was on his long-range techniques, could overpower him physically. Even at a distance, offensively, he was less than impressive. Sandile had spent nearly a month dealing with Naazin's incredibly potent, accurate, and effective water-type abilities. The little embers that Fletchling could spit out washed over his rough scales as little more than a pleasant warmth.
Simply put, the tiny robin was rough and needed a great deal of training.
It was not all gloomy for Aidinza's newest pokémon, however, Shandíín, barring the fact that he kept trying to physically fight much stronger pokémon, was a clever fighter. When his embers did nothing to Sandile, he set the grass - what little survives around Sandile - alight instead, using his fire as a spark rather than the power. Or, when his quick attacks only bounced off Naazin's thick carapace, he would find the largest rock he could pick up and drop it on the clauncher instead.
Granted, that usually ended with Naazin growing annoyed with the fight and ending it soon after. But Aidinza could undoubtedly appreciate the ingenuity; Shandíín simply needed the experience and strength to take advantage of it.
So Aidinza and his pokémon set about getting him that experience. For the days that they wandered the increasingly soaked, overgrown roads of route seven, Shandíín hardly spent more than an hour not training. Battling the many deerling and foongus that made the route their home during the day and learning at the heel of Sandile and Astazhei during the afternoons.
It was slow going. Often at the start, Shandíín just could not put and keep down his opponents, requiring Aidinza to swap him out before the robin exhausted himself. But as time dragged on and days turned into weeks, that had changed. Under the pressure of keeping up with Aidinza's team, Shandíín had grown much stronger and grown larger in turn.
Now instead of barely reaching half of Astazhei's height, the bird was only half a head smaller. Now instead of Naazin hardly budging no matter the speed that the bird built up, he was sent sliding backwards.
"Shandíín, flame charge, finish this." The fletchling sang back, throwing himself into a tight turn, the air around him beginning to spark and waver with heat. Then he dove towards his target, a Blitzle, the first that Aidinza had allowed Shandíín to face.
For most flying types, it would be a foolish move. Blitzle was a blisteringly fast electric type and would be easily able to react to most approaching flying types with an electric move that would leave them paralysed and unconscious.
Shandíín left the Blitzle dizzy trying to keep up with his speed, hammering into the wild pokémon and sending it crashing to the ground. It was too weak to continue even if Shandíín's fiery corona had broken before impact. He returns to the sky, letting himself reach an apex and stall out as he sings a victorious tune.
Aidinza watched Shandíín's victory lap for a moment - hardly even sparing a thought to the fleeing blitzle - a sight that had become increasingly common as they progressed through the route, with a smile. As mischievous and smug as the bird could be, something was mesmerising about seeing him happy and celebrating.
Rather than saying anything, Aidinza just holds his arm out. After a few moments of continued freefall, Shandíín recovers, flaring his wings out and landing on the proffered perch. Aidinza reaches out with his left hand and scratches along the flying type's nape. "You did well. But you need to keep focus during your flame charge, if you want to take out stronger pokémon."
The fletchling chatters, flaring his wings before settling in to continue getting scratched.
"Mother fucking shit house route with shit house pokémon and shit house ghosts." An unfortunately familiar voice interrupts Shandíín's reward, and Aidinza looks up to see a dishevelled figure stumble into the clearing that he was fighting in.
It was Rosa, the girl's usual sock-bun and twin-tailed hair was instead a half-burnt tangled mess, and the look on her pale face was beyond furious. Her dark blue eyes swung around the clearing, lighting up with a cruel gleam when they landed on Aidinza. "You, desert boy. We're fighting."
Aidinza did not bother replying, just letting Shandíín take off into the air. If Rosa's pokémon were in a state half as bad as she was, then the fletchling should be able to hold his own. A moment passes while Rosa holds up a tiny machine towards Shandíín flying overhead before her hand falls to a pokéball by her side.
"Panpour, stress relief!" A flash of red filled the clearing, and short tan simian pokémon, with a tall blue wave-like crest and large blue ears. Maybe in another circumstance, it would be an impressive specimen. In fact, Aidinza vaguely remembered it from Driftveil, and back then, it was only half the size it was now. But now its coat was scuffed, and it looked like it was barely managing to keep itself upright.
Aidinza honestly felt sort of bad for the monkey.
"Acrobatics." Not bad enough to give Rosa of all people initiative, obviously. Shandíín screeched as he rose into the sky before flicking into a dive, crossing away from the panpour's line of sight in moments.
"On your le-." Rosa tried to warn the Panpour, but the water type's reactions were too slow, and it could not turn anywhere close to fast enough to stop Shandíín. It goes stumbling to the side, off-balance and unprepared for Shandíín's follow-up, sending it crashing to the ground.
"Water Gun." Rosa commands, and to the panpour's credit, despite being obviously exhausted, it still managed to roll to its feet and spat out a heavy stream of water. Unfortunately, it is too exhausted to have anywhere near the aim required to catch out Shandíín.
"Peck." Shandíín raced forward, rolling around the Water Gun in a fit of showmanship, before stalling right in front of the panpour. His beak glowed white before he slammed it several times into Panpours face, the pain causing the monkey to collapse to the ground, unconscious.
"Urgh. You're lucky Panpour's tired from the tower, or he would have crushed your bird." Rosa returns the panpour, and with another flash of light, the familiar sight of Servine appears, who, unlike Panpour, was in a far better condition. "Vine whip!"
Four vines exploded from the graceful snake's body with shocking speed. Individually they might have been slower than the fletchling, but together they closed in on Shandíín like the jaws of a trap, each moving independently of the others to corral the bird into the grass-type's reach.
"Ember, burn through the vines!" Aidinza ordered, ignoring his opponent's exasperated scoff as he did so. Shandíín rolls underneath one of the vines and dives towards one as it closes in on him, an orange glow shining through his closed beak. The vine surges forward, Servine sensing an opportunity to cut the fletchling off, but the sweltering heat as the tiny robin snapped open its beak and spat out a ball of flame caused the vine to wither and burn and with it, the energy animating it was seared away. Shandíín raced through the ashes of the blockade, out of the reach of the grasping tendrils chasing his tail feathers.
"Leaf Tornado!" Even annoyed as he was by being rudely intruded upon, he could not help but admire the control and focus the Servine had. Even as its vines continued to relentlessly hunt Shandíín, it wasted no time following its trainer's instruction. Glowing green leafs floated in the air for a moment before they surged forward in a dervish of grass energy.
"Agility, then Flame Charge!" Shandíín's body shudders in the air before his already insane speed all but doubles as he throws himself into agility. It was the sort of move that would exhaust the fletchling if used for too long, but the insane speed it offered, comparable to a sustained quick attack, was invaluable.
Something that Shandíín proved immediately, blurring between the encroaching vines and out of the path of the powerful leaf tornado tearing through the air.
"Grass knot." Of course, Rosa's Servine could not let things be that easy. The serpent let its vines finally slacken as Shandíín closed in on the grass-type, the air around him flickering with flame. But before he could make contact, the ground exploded with wild growth. Grass lashed out and caught Shandíín's narrow feet as he flew overhead, dragging him to a dead stop in moments. "Energy ball."
Aidinza's hand snapped to Shandíín's ball. Before the Servines ball of green energy had begun forming, he had the fletchling's pokéball primed and ready to return.
But something strange paused his hand. Shandíín began glowing a piercing white light. Aidinza watched transfixed as the light grew harsher and harsher, becoming an implacable, searing brightness that somehow contained all the luminescent glory of the sun yet did not hurt his eyes to look at.
Then the metamorphosis began. Shandíín's shape, so clearly outlined in the marvellous light, began to contort and bulge, growing in size and length. His beak, a cute little outcropping of keratin, sharpened into a long, sharp point. His legs, tiny straight sticks, grew to nearly twice the length as the digitigrade knee that had previously been hidden beneath blue feathers was exposed. His head perhaps changed most of all, the smooth uniformity gaining a taller crest and a sharper shape.
"Evolution." Aidinza breathed out, his voice raw with undisguised emotion. He knew about the phenomenon, obviously. He knew what happened and why it occurred, but never before had he seen the miraculous sight first-hand. Never had he seen a pokémon become another with his own two eyes.
Then with one final shine, the process was over, and where there was once a fletchling was now a fletchlinder. Shandíín's wings flared, exposing a newly yellow underside, as he tore through the grass holding him still and surged back into the air, gracefully avoiding the Servine's energy ball.
For a moment, it was all Aidinza could do to admire the flying type's new form. He had pressed the bird hard in the last few days, and to see the fruits of that labour blossom so directly…
It brought the young desert nomad a visceral sense of joy and satisfaction.
"Of fucking course it evolves into a fucking fire type after beating my water type. Because of fucking course, that's the kind of day I'm having." Unfortunately, like many things, Rosa chose to quickly ruin his good mood. The dishevelled girl had the machine back in her hand and looked utterly done with the day. There's a flash of red, and Servine disappears back into its ball. Rosa turned around and stormed out of the clearing. "FUCK CANDLES." She shouts over her shoulder as she disappears from view, leaving a stunned Aidinza and Shandíín behind her.
Unsure what to say following that, Aidinza simply stuck his arm out, letting the newly evolved fletchinder land on the outstretched limb with a grunt. He was much heavier than he had been previously. Probably almost as heavy as Astazhei. Though, it was clear that the fletchinder was still built for speed, not raw brute strength.
"You must have been pretty close to evolving for a while, huh?" Aidinza mutters to the preening bird as he traces his fingers along the far more defined pattern on the new fire-types chest, marvelling at the incredible warmth that radiated from the bird. He had noticed that Shandíín ran hot while he was still a fletchling, but now it was like touching a rock that had sat underneath the midday sun, teetering on the edge of discomfort.
Shandíín cood, eyes glittering with pride as he flared his wings once again, letting them flutter in the air. He was as pleased with his new form as Aidinza was. Then as Aidinza traced along the newly blackened coverts of Shandíín's wing, the look in the bird's eye turned mischievous.
Aidinza only had a moment's warning before he had ten kilograms of bird attempting to crawl into his hair. Caught off guard as he was, he had no hope of stopping the bird from getting up onto his shoulders and grabbing at his hair with sharp talons.
"Ow Shandíín, no! You're too heavy." Aidinza hissed in pain as his hair was pulled taut by the flying-type's weight. He bends forward to try and at least get Shandíín's weight onto his back instead.
Rather than doing anything as helpful as getting out of his hair, his blasted fire-type instead crowed victoriously, and then broke into high-pitched chuckles.
Aidinza knew, as he strained to reach behind him and get a hand around the bird, that his revenge for this was going to be sweet.
-
"Aidinza! Darling! Dinner!" A soft feminine voice rolls across the desert sands, and a young boy with hair as bright as the sun rides the dunes to its call, the desert itself pulling him closer and closer.
"Hey there, Tyke, got lunch?" The young boy turns as a deep voice speaks from behind him, a tall man with hair that glittered and danced like an inferno, an easy grin on his smooth, pale features.
"Yep! Gowteel and I caught a Basculin by the oasis." The man's grin widens across his weathered, tanned face as he holds the fish like it is some grand prize and his green eyes glitter with pride.
"Aidinza! Darling!" The feminine voice calls once more, and the young boy is pulled along and along, the desert pulling away. The woman's dark hair was like the inky blackness of the empty space, her soft… features dimpling as she smiled.
"Dinner!" She calls, and Aidinza feels excitement build in him as the sand pulls them away and away. To an empty eating mat, to a silent tent.
"I'm home!" Gowteel calls out, her own hair as bright as the sun and her shoulder darkened by the cool form of her corvisquire. "Atsilí! You didn't come to see my match against Tsesei." She snatches him up, warm and comforting and solid and there. Her delicate features - like his mother's, while father had your jawline - beaming as she held him close.
"Hey there, tyke." The four of them sat around the mat, and a feast of half-eaten food was spread in front of them. The young boy picks one randomly and can almost swear he can still taste it. "Did you see the sandstorm?"
The boy blinks, the voice was strange, the memory not there. "It's going to be a big one, Atsilí, better not forget to tie up the bags." Gowteel half hugs him to her side, the scent of sweat and steel filling his nose for a moment.
"Aidinza! Dinner!" The woman, his mother, calls and he pulls away from Gowteel and reaches for an embrace. Empty arms, with empty warmth, wrap around him. "Darling!" He chases the half-remembered scent of Apache Plume before the sand pulls him and the rug away and away.
"The sandstorm?" Echo's in an endless desert, as the sand began to shift and shake and thunder and rock. A wind only known to silica tore into dunes, whipping up dervishes and terrible, choking clouds of sand. Aidinza attempts to push through it, the sand underneath him falling away with every step and the sand whipping at his skin, eyes, and mouth.
"Aidinza!" He looks up at another call, a woman that looked like Gowteel with… blue eyes. Stood there in the raging sandstorm, moments from being hidden away beneath a tide of sand. "Din-." Her voice is cut off as sand spills from her lips.
Aidinza desperately tries to reach out to her, but single, massive pillar of chitin smashes apart the desert in front of him, sending him hurtling back, before the sand once more dragged him far, far away, to stand behind a broad figure, his hair styled into a long ponytail, with five tufts of red-orange hair jutting from his crown. The figure, in turn, stood cast in darkness in front of a twisted, rotting thing, with stretched tendons suspending it in their air, its lower half oozing incandescent blood that sizzled at the ground.
"There is no regret more bitter in this world. No word you can utter that would hurt me more than I have hurt myself." Aidinza's heart ached as the figure spoke in a low rumble, crushing defeat weighing at his shoulders, as his shirt fell away exposing a back of weeping lacerations.
He reaches out, but he's pulled away, and away and away and away, until he stands alone in a cave of unwrought blackstone and heat. Heat so oppressive that it weighs down on him, down and down as he melted into the floor and went deeper and deeper until he falls, falls and falls through a vast caldera, as he twists in the air to face the oncoming magma, and a face forms, a deformed jaw large enough to engulf buildings wrenching open as long strands of molten steel dripped from its maw.
Then it was dark. Dark and more blackstone and hard rock that scraped and pulled and heat and heat that pressed in on him, and the walls moved and collapsed as they grew orange and molten pressing down onto him and burning and burning and crushing him. His was burning and melting and his bones were ash and dust underneath a sunless sky.
Aidinza gasps as his heart hammers in his chest, and he jolts up in his sleeping pack. For several long moments, he sits there, gasping for breath and desperately teetering on the edge of panic. His shaking hand slowly lowers to where Sandile is curled on his lap and strokes along the reptile's cold scales.
He sits there for a while, just trying to regain his breath, trying to fight back the all too real feeling of burning magma flowing across his body, trying to fight back the mounting panic. As his heart finally calms down and his breaths feel like they fill his lungs, he glances at the mouth of his tent, where a wind had blown the flap open, leaving the moon to shine down upon him.
Aidinza shakes his head, a moon-addled dream. Of all the things…
He sighs before he hears the sound of fluttering wings and the crunch of grass outside the tent. He slides towards the door, poking his head out into the freezing cold of the dead of night. It was an exhausted-looking Astazhei clutching a…
Ice cube?
Aidinza slowly blinks and realises he is still dreaming. Carefully he pulls the tent flap shut and slides back into the spot he has warmed all night, curling up with Sandile.
He's gone in moments.
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