When Rockruff last mentioned taking the waterways to reach their destination, Von assumed the three of them would follow a river on foot so as not to get lost. He felt frustrated in himself for not piecing together what the lighthouse on the end of the cape implied. Nautical travel was possible, not only for Pokemon native to the water, but for those bound on land. Lapras waded in the shallows where the river met the sea. Rockruff and Ren looked so small in comparison as they sat in the sand before it, making travel plans with it. Von kept his distance, ever in the habit of not drawing attention to himself.

"Halfhenge by river? You have fare, I trust," it spoke in a series of cetacean clicks. It wore a bag woven from palm leaves slung around its neck.

"See this patch?" Ren rebutted as he pawed at the satchel worn by Rockruff. "We've paid for a pass already!"

"Passes are for Guild members, and I don't see a badge on your bag."

"Don't you know who we are?!" yipped Ren. "We're Night Vision! We're heroes!"

"Doesn't ring a bell."

"Need me to ring it again?" asked a confused Rockruff as she looked at the gong that called the ferry.

Fare? Don't tell me these animals use currency.

"Please, everyone. If it means getting these troublemakers to leave, I will pay for them." Typhlosion begrudgingly came forward, her paw dipped into what Von assumed was a coinpurse that hung from her belt. After she fished around, she pulled out a small glittering chunk of metal, and weighed it in her paw. “This should be enough for three passengers.”

"We don't need your generosity, Auntie," Ren grumbled, but his lack of an alternative proved him otherwise.

“Acceptable.” Lapras tilted its chin upward and Typhlosion dropped the piece of metal into the bag.

"You're not coming?" Rockruff asked.

Typhlosion stepped away from Lapras and returned to her resting place beside her wooden box. "I've business in the Cay. You'll see me again, at which point I ask you make this up to me, both for paying your way as well as rousing me from my nap."

"You're always napping. Naps are replaceable." Ren gracefully leapt up onto Lapras’ back. Rockruff followed suit, then both turned to look at Von expectantly. Throughout his time spent relearning how to move and readjusting his motor skills, he realized he hadn't jumped in his new body. As he hesitated, he became acutely aware of Typhlosion and Lapras peering at him curiously. He moved forward, tail dragging through the sand, and tentatively extended a claw into the chilly water of the estuary. Lapras waded in the deep of the river, and up close Von saw how quickly the shallows fell away.

His dextrous and daring friends leapt with such confidence, it was as if they were blind to the danger of a river that swept out to sea. Von's new height being what it was, he felt he'd drown in even the shallowest puddle.

"Salandit? Everything okay?" Rockruff cocked her head.

"First time?" Lapras' voice made him flinch. Everyone was waiting on him.

"First time for- for a lot of things."

"I'd like to return to my family before nightfall. May I help?"

Meekly, Von nodded. Lapras waded closer. "Keep still." Its voice took a soothing tone, though it didn't assuage Von's nerves as it loomed over him. Cast into its shadow, he could do naught but obey, whether by trust or by nerves he kept stock still as the beast craned its long neck and opened its maw. Its jaws closed around his middle. Lapras lifted Von off his feet and its long neck swiveled, setting the frightened lizard on its shell. His claws tightly gripped the hard shell beneath him and only relaxed once the beast had let go. Lapras' breath smelled of fish and brine, and the scent lingered on him.

Lapras carved a path upstream and set a brisk pace with ease. Upon its knobby shell, Von stared off in fascination at their surroundings. Their journey took them away from the ceaseless froth and foam of the sea and sliced into the mainland where the rolling rise and fall of the hilly landscape of the Cay gave way to windswept plains peppered with wildflowers beforel the river they followed delved into a verdant forest. Von’s reservations about riding a Lapras amplified when they were swallowed by the dark beneath the canopy. The temperature plummeted in the shade. The grand pine trees that flanked the river towered so high that Von felt a spinning sense of vertigo as he craned his head upwards to look at them. He wondered how much he should attribute it to his diminutive form.

The familiar feeling of fear returned as the noise of the forest gradually grew louder. Von was no stranger to trekking through the woods, the native wildlife was anything but familiar. The rustle of movement through the underbrush was ever present, and he kept catching glimpses out of the corner of his eye of the forest’s elusive inhabitants. It was difficult to see their entirety through the dense greenery, not that he could recognize most anyway. Shadows zipped between branches accompanied by the hum of insect wings. The sudden drumming of a woodpecker had him circling in hopes of finding its source. He swore that even the trees themselves would occasionally move.

The rare few Pokemon that he could see during this leg of their journey had all come to the water’s edge to drink. A distressingly large caterpillar covered in red spines looked up at them as they passed by, and Von shuddered in realization that he was the size of two Wurmple.

In contrast to him being wound up like a spring, his companions lounged comfortably on Lapras’ back, curled up with one another. Occasionally an ear would twitch in response to a snapping twig or rustle in the brush near the water’s edge, but neither moved a muscle otherwise.

Von curled his tail around one of the knobby protrusions on Lapras’ shell just to find comfort in anchoring himself. “Are you two even awake?” he whispered to the snoozing pair.

“Mhmm,” snored Ren.

“Shouldn’t we be on the lookout for predators?”

Ren cracked an eye open. “You’re already doing such a good job! Didn’t want to interrupt.”

Lapras turned its head to look at the passengers on its shell. “What are you afraid of, Salandit?”

Once more put on the spot, Von shrank against the shell. “Don’t Pokemon hunt each other? A-and we’re out in the open, and I can hear so many in the trees…”

Lapras dipped its head in a nod before it faced forward, once more focused on the river it swam through. “Some do. But you’re safe with me.” Von caught a hint of the Lapras smiling. “Where did you find this one, Zorua? Rare do I meet a grown Pokemon so new to the world as this one.”

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Says he washed up on the shore, wandered into the Cay. Used to be human.”

“That explains much. Do you prefer being called Salandit, or Human?”

“I have a choice?” Von fidgeted as he looked between Lapras and his friends.

Both Ren and Rockruff looked at Lapras, confused. “But he is a Salandit.”

“Is he not both?” countered Lapras. “One in mind, the other in body?”

“Would you still call a Lycanroc by Rockruff?” quipped Rockruff. “Never mind any stranger that knows what a Salandit is would call him Salandit by appearance regardless.”

“Strangers don’t decide these things for us-”

“Salandit is fine!” Von spoke up, eager to end the debate. “For now. I still prefer Von, but for the sake of compliance with cultural norms, Salandit.”

“Does this make us friends?” asked an amused Lapras.

“You’ve known each other for half a day!” whined a bemused Rockruff.

“Maybe I’ve just got one of those friendly faces, y'know?” Von offered. “I’ve been here a day and a half, and I’ve already made two whole friends.”

“But you’ve known me longer!” Rockruff whined louder, ears folded.

Von couldn’t help but grin. “It’s like you said this morning, once I earn your friendship. You’ve already earned mine, so just tell me when.”

Rockruff’s muzzle wrinkled in exasperation. “Until then you’re just going to keep making friends within a moon with everyone you meet, is that it?”

“That’s it, that’s my devious plan to make you jealous,” Von said solemnly. He caught a glimpse of Ren who snickered with approval of his teasing.

Rockruff growled at her mate. “No wonder you two are already on a true-name basis, pulling my tail like this.”

The forest around them thinned, the old-growth trees fading in favor of fresher growth. By the time they began seeing sprightly saplings, the sun broke through the canopy once more, and the world opened up beyond the treeline. The river they rode stretched onward into the horizon, toward a distant snow-capped mountain, whose grassy green foothills rolled from its base and descended into brown and barren flatlands. The waterway bisected the moorland and the vast plains, and along the natural border, Von finally saw their destination. Where the river swelled into a lake, there rose a castle of stone. Halfhenge.

The closer they drew to their destination, the more Von could make of its namesake. The massive stone structure had fractured a long time ago. It no longer served as a fortress against outside elements, as half of its walls had sheared away. Rooms were open and exposed to the outside, once grand hallways since faded and weathered. The waters of the lake itself lapped against the rocky foundation. It was as if half of the castle; the half closest to the water; had been swallowed by the lake.

“I think you’re missing a piece,” he said.

“It’ll turn up.” Ren noticed the perplexed expression Von wore. “Torterra walked off with it. Bit of a mess.”

Von looked from his friend back to the castle as the weight of the implications gnawed at him. So it wasn’t erosion, but a Pokemon? Pokemon were strong, he knew, but the scope of such a feat was distressing to comprehend. This world new to him served the basis for the impossible, it seemed, between its impossibly shifting mazes that swallowed travelers and its apparent knack for drawing in unsuspecting humans to transform. “Torterra walked off with it?”

“Seasons and seasons ago, there was no lake,” Rockruff began. “Torterra bed down into the mud of the riverbank for the winter. On the longest night of the season, the guild woke to an earthquake, and found Torterra had grown to an immeasurable size. He walked off with half of the castle on his back. The lake formed from the crater he left behind.”

Von fell quiet as he processed the tale. Sounds like one of those weird gimmicks they added to the series. “Where did Torterra go? It must be easy to track a Pokemon of that size.”

“He wanders every now and again, but he spends most of his time asleep. A Pokemon of that size must require a lot of energy, it’s no wonder he spends so much time pretending to be a hill soaking up sunlight.” Rockruff stretched and shook her coat. “Poor guy.”

They broke from the current of the river and swam through the lake. The crystal clear water darkened beneath them into a deep blue. Von spotted a pair of Lapras, both smaller than the one they rode. He wondered if the size discrepancy was due to age, diet, or environment. They didn’t pay the travelers any mind. One dove beneath the surface as he watched, resurfacing half a minute later with long stems of waterweed in its mouth.

Von looked over the side of the shell to peer through the water to the muck of the bed beneath. He searched for glimpses of rubble remnants from the castle’s rupture, and instead caught sight of silvery scales and swishing tailfins. Pokemon he couldn’t know the names of, but resembled the fish he witnessed Cramorant consume. They hid from his view, all darted into the shadows of the depths. He couldn’t blame them. For a moment, he considered what his time in this world would have been like had he awoken in the body of a Goldeen. It would have been a short time.

As Lapras pulled alongside the castle, the guts of the building came into the diminutive Salandit’s view. Every room and chamber exposed to the outside appeared empty. The central structure of the keep towered tall despite its compromised hull, grand central pillars luckily intact. One of the chambers at ground level appeared to serve as a dock of sorts as a wooden pier jutted outward and gradually dipped down to water level. The planks were roughly hewn and bound together by tightly strung fibrous cord.

“Here we are,” clicked Lapras as they pulled up alongside the pier. The wood bobbed gently in the tide.

“Thanks for the ride, Lapras!” Rockruff was first to disembark; one hop and she trotted away up the sloped dock. Ren jumped off behind her, though he turned to wait for the Salandit.

Von hesitated once more as he tried to gauge the distance. The physics of his new body made it hard to calculate his trajectory. If embarking was hard for him, leaping from the elevated height of Lapras’ shell made it even worse. He didn’t know how to swim with tiny lizard claws. He wasn’t sure if he could hold his head above water, much less if he could tread effectively.

“Isn’t this your stop?” asked Lapras.

“I don’t know how to swim. If I miss-”

The sea creature rolled its eyes before it craned its neck and once again plucked him off of his feet. It dropped him beside Ren. Von shivered once the jaws around his middle relaxed and withdrew.

“Night Vision, was it? Remember your badge next time.” Lapras smirked to the trio as it turned to rejoin the current of the waterways.

“Thanks,” grimaced Von as he swiped a claw along his side to wipe away seaweed-scented spit.

He followed Ren up the dock and stepped onto the stone floor of the keep of the castle. They entered through a massive hallway through which they could see a gateway leading into the castle’s courtyard. The barren walls stretched into a tall vaulted ceiling, bereft of heraldry or pageantry, save for one piece of canvas hung high on display. Upon a blue field an icon of a gold-yellow Mobius strip looped in on itself.

“Oh, it’s you .” A voice that dripped with displeasure tore Von’s attention down from the flag overhead. A Pokemon lounged on a mat against a wall, an orangutan-like beast with a white and purple coat. It lazily fanned itself with leaves woven together from its own fur.

Ren stepped forward. “Surprised? I even wrote ahead. Don’t tell me we got here faster than the mail.”

“Don’t pride yourself,” the beast snorted. It pointed at Von with its fan. “You. I suppose you’re the human these two roped into coming here?”

“Ah- yes, yes I am.”

It turned to the gateway leading outside and bellowed “Braix en! ” Its voice rumbled through the stone hallway, the loud and guttural hoot of an ape.

The trio waited for their ears to stop ringing. “We’ve got no issue showing him around-” Rockruff began.

“Absolutely not. You wouldn’t want to deprive Slowking of the warm welcome he’s been saving for your return, would you?”

Von looked between his two companions as they both shuddered. He knew the pair were hiding out in the Cay for a reason, but the specifics he could only guess at.

“Well well, the castle has a hooligan problem again.” Another voice, playful. In the gateway stood a bipedal fox of yellow and red. Crimson wisps of fur poked from its ears, and a stick of driftwood poked from its tail. A thin purple shawl obscured most of its upper body, and the fur around its waist flared outwards as if to almost resemble a skirt.

“Been a while, yeh?” The fox’s eyes moved from the accused troublemakers and settled on Von, and the smirk on its muzzle turned gentle, sympathetic. “You- you’re human? A new arrival?”

"I- yeah." Does everyone know?

"Doubtless you've got many questions. I might have answers for some of them. But before that, I've a question of utmost importance for you."

Von could only nod.

“Did Berserk ever get finished?”