“You can call me Wyn.”
“And I’m Von!” He followed after Braixen as she led him out of one hall and down another. “I’m allowed to say that, right?”
“Only to other humans,” she winked, “But even then, use your judgment. Especially when there’s fairies about.”
“Sorry, fairies? Is Titania a Pokemon now?”
Wyn smirked wryly. “How much more disbelief can you afford your circumstances right now, Von?”
“Good point. Sorry.”
They stepped into the castle’s kitchen. A wide oak table dominated the center of the room, though it only rose a foot and a half tall. Wyn beckoned for him to take a seat on one of the low straw-padded stools, and he obliged.
“Where would you like me to start?” she asked.
“If I may make a guess; you haven’t found a way back to Earth yet?”
“Correct, though we are still searching.”
Von knew this answer was coming, yet his heart still sank. There would be no easy escape from a hostile world of powerful predators and warping landscapes, forever trapped in a toxic body.
Wyn was quick to read the despondency on his face. “Would you like tea, Von?”
“Oh, sure?” At least there were distractions. The last hot drink he had was burned coffee out of a styrofoam cup at a truck stop. Not like Earth is friendly either. But at least back home, I can be in my own skin.
Plenty of time to languish later. There was another human with him. He wasn’t in this alone. “Do you know how we got here?”
Wyn made her way to the kitchen’s fireplace. In one swift motion, she drew the stick of driftwood lodged in her tail and it lit up like a torch. One wave of her wand and the fireplace roared to life. “Nothing conclusive, but we’ve all got our own theories. How familiar are you with the franchise?”
“The franchise? Like the games?” He shook his head. “I played Emerald when I was fifteen. I gotta say, that didn’t quite prepare me for whatever’s happening.”
She tucked her wand back into her tail before she filled an iron teapot with water from a clay pitcher. “It’s difficult to quantify the vastness of what Pokemon are capable of. It sounds like you stopped playing the games before they introduced gods, yeh?”
“Yeah, how does that work? How is any of this real? Are we made of pixels on a cellular level or something?”
“You don’t need to get all existential, we’re still flesh and blood. Unless you’re made of steel, or a sentient rock,” she corrected herself. She hung the kettle above the fire and stepped back over to the table. “It’s wild to think about, right? Does this prove multiverse theory correct, were we somehow pulled into a parallel universe where Pokemon are real? Or did we all unknowingly get Sword Art Online’d?”
“I don’t know what that last one is.”
She sank cross-legged onto a seat beside him. “What was the last thing you remember doing on Earth?”
He had to think for a moment. He parked in a lot outside of a hardware store to use their bathroom, but his recollection grew foggy after that. “I stepped out of my car.”
“Nothing else? No portal to a magical land? No government goons jumping out of a van and strapping a VR headset on you?”
“I’m pretty sure I’m not an anime protagonist, no.”
“You never know. But we’re in agreement that multiverse theory sounds more plausible, yeh?”
“Sure, why not. Pokemon, though?”
“I’d rather this than a universe where everyone is spiders.” Steam rose from the spout of the teapot, and Wyn turned to tend to it. “Still, just one of many theories. When you introduce magic to a world, it makes it difficult to fully grasp all possibilities.”
“I’m getting the feeling I’ll be leaving with more questions than when I came in with.”
“Happy to help!” the Braixen beamed. She portioned out tea into a pair of small wooden bowls and slid one in front of Von. It smelled strongly of grass in summer. She lifted her own bowl to her muzzle for a small sip.
Von contemplated the bowl before him. Just that morning, he was eating fruit off the ground, meanwhile the fox beside him maintained her human decorum; the perks of being bipedal, he supposed. With one foreleg propping himself up against the table, his other gripped the side of the wooden dish with a claw as he considered lifting it. His forelegs couldn’t extend far enough to bring it to his snout.
"There's a reason we use bowls," Wyn said softly. "It's hard to adjust, I know. I was a quadruped too when I first arrived."
Von's throat tightened. It was one thing to join Night Vision chowing down in the burrow, but to debase himself in front of another human?
Wyn watched him hesitate for a few long moments and set her bowl back down on the table. She led the example and hunched over. Her tongue darted from her muzzle and lapped up a splash of tea.
As Von watched a droplet run down one of her whiskers, he realized he was being foolish. He dipped his head down to drink and supped green tea from the bowl. It tasted lightly of mint, but mostly of grass clippings.
“Better?”
“Better. Thank you.” Flavor aside, he was thankful for the kindness of a stranger.
----------------------------------------
“We brought you a human! We followed the rules!” Ren’s voice echoed up the stairway to the undercroft. Kaia waited idly outside. Her ears swiveled to catch snippets of Ren and Slowking’s dialogue, though her mind tended to wander. Her thoughts kept drifting to Salandit, to the lizard she happened to come across, to the human who never stopped asking questions. He wasn’t like the other humans she had met during her time with the guild. She wondered how long it would take for Salandit to get up to speed, or if he truly was as hopeless as he seemed, too scared and shy to do much of anything on his own. Half of her was against Ren’s idea of convincing Salandit to join their Research team. The pair of seasoned dungeon delvers didn’t need dead weight.
“-and that’s to say nothing of the destruction that follows you!” Slowking’s bellow was accompanied by a flash of eerie purple light. Kaia heard Ren yelp.
Humans were fast learners, or so she was told. Braixen demonstrated her adaptability with aplomb, and Jun was the strongest fighter among them. Yet all Salandit had figured out- with her help, no less- was how to vomit toxins. Even the youngest of pups in her pack knew how to roughhouse in order to develop their skills. For a moment, she wondered what the repercussions would be were she to goad Salandit into playing rough. Maybe then he’d learn how to defend himself.
She liked him well enough, and he wasn't without his merits. Humans, when they weren’t asking questions with obvious answers, were fun to talk to. More importantly, she was happy Ren found a friend.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
After a while, Ren hauled himself out of the stairway. His pelt gained an oily sheen, and he wobbled uneasily as he mounted the last step, but he carried in his mouth their old Research badge. He dropped it onto the stone floor and sank down after it. “Your turn to talk to him.”
She poked her nose into the satchel at her side and pulled from a pocket a pecha berry. She nudged it toward him, licked him on the brow, and descended into the undercroft.
----------------------------------------
Wyn led Von out of the cleaved keep and into the courtyard. Buildings similar to those he saw in the Cay all hugged the outer stone wall of the castle, though these were colorful facades of a village full of life, rather than the dulled mute huts of the ghost town. The residents of Halfhenge clustered in the courtyard, all leisurely socializing.
Their numbers pulled from Pokemon of all sorts of different species. While Von counted how many different kinds of sheep-like Pokemon grazed on the lawn, Wyn held out a paw to stop him from bumping into a passing Wooper. It looked at him with a dopey smile before it tottered off after its phanphy friend.
“Did the guild build the castle?” he asked his vulpine escort.
“Oh, absolutely not. Pokemon build ramps, not stairs, and none of the stone in Halfhenge can be sourced from anywhere nearby. We theorize it, too, got pulled into this world. The guild moved in when they found it.”
That’d also explain the church in the Cay, he thought. “I don’t remember hearing any news articles about entire castles disappearing from Scotland, or wherever.”
“France,” Wyn corrected him. “At least that’s what Fei thinks. Europe's got so many empty castles just laying about, a few missing here and there would go unnoticed.”
Von strained to look up at the massive keep. “Where did you say you were from?”
“I didn’t, but I’m from London. You?”
“Portland, Oregon.”
“An American, huh? I was wondering when we’d get one of those.”
“Oh, you know us Americans, always showing up where we aren’t supposed to.”
Wyn snickered. “Not like I’ve got a leg to stand on, either. Maybe it was the Queen’s will to colonize that threw me into this dimension.”
They resumed their trek through the courtyard to a bastion in the castle wall. A cob house rose tall, built up against the preexisting stone, the red-brown clay glued firm against gray brick.
Wyn brushed aside the woven straw curtain that covered the door. “And this is my home sweet home.”
Von ducked inside and into a cluttered workshop and walked into a cloud of incense. A cauldron took up the center of the room, and the rest of the interior appeared to be built around it. Wooden shelves and low tables encircled the cauldron, all laden with raw ingredients. Lines of twine criss-crossed from wall to wall from which plants hung to dry. A rack of empty glass vials was set into a ramp that circled upwards to a loft, presumably the vixen’s sleeping quarters. She certainly wasn’t one to waste space.
“The brewer before me used to have a proper laboratory in the castle, before Torterra took it with him. They wouldn’t let him rebuild in the keep, something about the smell bothers one too many folks.”
Given the decor and the herbs crammed into every nook and cranny, Von could only assume that Wyn had become an apothecary of sorts. He sniffed, and picked up a faint whiff of sulfur beneath the incense. “Rude of them, the keep has better ventilation now than ever before.”
“Ha! To be fair, Pokemon have better noses than humans.”
“How many humans are there, by the way?”
“With the guild? There’s three of us regulars, and two others come and go. Halfhenge is the safest place you can be, but that doesn’t quash the wanderlust in some folks. You’re welcome to stay with us, of course. In fact, I insist, at least until you get your bearings.”
It’ll be a lot nicer than sleeping in a hole in the ground. “I’d like that! I like not dying in the woods.”
"You and I both. We'll sort out specifics once the captain gets back, yeh?”
“The captain? That your boss?”
“Not my boss, per se, but the one with seniority.” Wyn circled the shelves, selecting an assortment of boxes and bundles to spread out on a worktable.
Von tried to keep himself out of her way as he idly snooped through the inventory of the lower shelves. “Five other humans, huh?” A handful of questions percolated in his mind. He wasn’t sure how to broach the topic. “Have any of them noticed anything weird when they woke up? Like, moreso than becoming a Pokemon.”
Wyn squinted at him from over the lip of the cauldron. “Other than being a Pokemon? No, I was pretty preoccupied with being a quadruped. Why, what weirdness? Did you see something when you arrived?”
Von stared into a round glass bottle, his reptilian face distorted in its reflection. “Out of you five, ah… how many of you woke up as the wrong sex?”
Wyn fell quiet, and Von’s stomach knotted. The few seconds of silence that passed was enough for his mind to race into countless wrong conclusions. She thinks I’m a freak. I’m being too pushy. I crossed a line.
“What?”
Von raised his gaze to meet hers, a look of befuddlement on her features. “I-I’m-” Rockruff puts it so bluntly. “Apparently, its-” I hate this. I hate this so much. Deep breath, stop shaking. “This body is- it’s not mine, it’s- I’m? Female.”
Wyn only stared in wide-eyed fascination. “That’s possible? Oh, weird! ” She stepped out from behind the cauldron to crouch down before Von. “I- no, I don’t mean that in a rude way, just the phenomenon itself… hmm! None of us ever discussed the possibility before. As far as I’m aware, you’re the first case. If any of the others have undergone that change, they’ve kept it to themself.”
Von didn’t want to be approached. He scuttled backwards until his tail bumped against the wooden shelf. Only then did Wyn notice the discomfort he held. “Oh, goodness, sorry, I- sorry.” She stood and abruptly turned, moving back to her workstation. “Sensitive topic, I should have been aware.” She gave an apologetic smile over her shoulder. “Ah, but hey, if it’s any consolation- only female Salandit can evolve?”
Evolution can rot. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”
Wyn’s smile faded, and her shoulders grew heavy with guilt. “Let’s drop it for now, then.” It was clear he needed a distraction, and an escape route to be alone for a while. “Oh, hey! In the meantime, why not wander? I know I was curious as could be when I first got here."
Having spent the greater part of his time here following Pokemon around, the freedom to do as he please sounded nice. "Only if no one out there eats Salandits."
"No one's allowed inside Halfhenge if they eat meat."
"Or souls?"
"Right, right, you washed up by the Cay? Real rough luck there, mate.”
“Or souls, right?”
“Or souls! No eating meat, no eating souls. Go on, poke about! I’ve got some work to do before Jun gets home, and we can come up with a more long-term plan for you, but if you never need anything you know where to find me.”
He wasn’t sure if stepping out into the public eye would help or not, but curiosity gnawed at him. This world had no shortage of dangers, but if Halfhenge was as safe as Wyn said, he had a castle to explore. Ren and Rockruff are nice. Familiar. “Fair enough, I’ll leave you to your-” he cast another look around, and his eyes settled on the cauldron she began filling from a pitcher. “Cooking?”
Much the same as her lighting the fireplace, all it took to ignite the flame beneath the cauldron was a wave of her driftwood torch. “My artifice ,” she corrected him with a flourish of her wand.
“Artifice,” Von repeated. “Right. I think I’m going to check in on my friends.”
“Have fun exploring the castle!”
A couple curious critters had crept close to Wyn’s lab, hoping to glimpse the newcomer. They scattered when Von ducked through the curtain and stepped into the sunlight. He watched a furret bound off across the lawn before his attention strayed back to the one Pokemon that remained nearby. A leafy stick-bug towered above him, three feet of insect shrouded in leaves. Its antlike head, a yellow bulb, watched him as he froze in place on the grass. It strung a series of ticks and clicks from between its mandibles. “Query Braixen busy?” It extended a leafy forearm in a slow sweeping gesture at the lizard.
Thankfully, it kept its distance. It took several moments for Von to find his voice again. “H-hey Wyn?” he shouted shakily over his shoulder.
The Braixen poked her head through the straw curtain. The scent of fermentation drifted through the doorway. She took in the sight of the insect, and the quivering lizard whose eyes were wide with fear. She drew the straw covering aside and made room for her apparent guest to pass through. “Don’t mind him, Sza-Tza. Here for a resupply?” She shooed Von away with her paw, but not without a reassuring smile.
The insect bowed its head to the newcomer as it strafed around him to join Wyn. “Newness.” It looked at him expectantly.
“It’s his first time meeting a bug,” Wyn whispered to her visitor. Its antennae twitched.
Since his arrival, Von had spoken to mammals, ghosts, and a dim-witted bird. It stood to reason that an insect would sound alien to a mind unattuned. "Uh… Salandit," he said, and tapped his claw to his chest.
"Forward as Leavanny." It crossed both forearms over its chest before it turned to join Wyn. They withdrew into the workshop and left Von to ponder the exchange.
The lizard trudged his way back to the keep, grass tickling his underbelly as he went. He kept his eyes peeled for Night Vision, half expecting Ren to leap out in front of him in the guise of another ghost, yet he reached the shade of the keep's entryway undisturbed.
"Hello?" the hiss of his voice didn't carry far down the stonework corridors. I guess I'm meant to explore?
The enormity of the keep weighed down on him. Much like his stay in the church in the Cay, everywhere he looked was a reminder of his loss of humanity. Windows placed far too high to peer through, stairs whose steps he had to haul himself upwards climbing, everything felt so far out of reach.
Braixen's been here for years , he bemoaned, having climbed one flight of stairs only to give up on the first landing. This can't be all there is. Just a courtyard, empty hallways, and insurmountable towers. He tested his claws against the stone wall, and carefully clambered his way up its side. He pressed his snout against the black iron grate of the window and peered over the Halfhenge courtyard.
I want to crawl out of my own skin. I want to live and breathe.
I will find a way home.