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Ingo’s warden bracelet caught momentarily on the quilted blanket spread out between him and the snow.
It had splintered along the edges, and would need to be oiled and sanded.
Such was his duty, after all.
For the moment he had been tasked with watching the youngest of the clan. Babysitting duty, his mind provided. It made for a particularly harrowing task for the warden, chasing after the littlest footprints in the snow.
Ingo did not think he was ever trained in child care.
It was not something that came easily to him. But, like most things he had learned over his time in Hisui, he had grown apt at the task presented to him.
The celebration raging around him filled the settlement with the sing-song noise of overlapping chatter. As the whole of the clan enjoyed the rare summer months the Icelands provided.
He had been told of the festival many times, primarily the form of humorous anecdotes regarding the consumption of various wines given out to anyone of age.
Ingo had of course passed on the fermented berry-and-honey beverages. He took his task as caretaker seriously after all. He also did not find himself enjoying the bitter taste.
This was his first time experiencing the festivities for himself, so far it had not disappointed.
He had arrived in early fall, so he was only now experiencing the ‘sweltering’ summer months that took over the Icelands.
Ingo still found the cold near to unbearable, despite the way his leader described it. He found himself thankful to live in the highlands with his lady, despite how lonely the settlement-less domaine could become.
He did have Melli, of course. Perhaps he could invite his fellow Warden to a festival some time, the man would certainly enjoy the fermented beverages and dried preserves they provided.
The man bragged enough about the diamond clan’s jarred and canned preserves. His fellow warden would undoubtedly find the other clan’s own customs interesting, even if he brushed off said interest as snark.
Ingo held the bowl of dried berry-treats an inch farther away from the child in his lap, “you will finish them before the story even begins,” he warned in soft tones.
The child of course ignored him, simply reaching a grubby hand into the dried oran berries in her defiance.
Perhaps Lady Irida would grant them a pause between myths to retrieve more treats from the food-tent.
Lady Irida settled back into her own chair, it’s soft wydeer-wool blankets had been spread out on the fabric closest to her. The young Lady had loudly announced she wouldn’t be needing them in the oppressive heat. She had even pulled out her decorative fan to wave in front of her face in an attempt to cool off.
It was a ploy to capture the attention of any village children still wrapped up in games of their own making, Ingo knew.
Rema’s young ones, a gaggle of children no older than twelve and each younger than the last, tripped over their own stubby legs to gather before their leader.
The art of story-telling was near to central for the Pearl Clan’s festivities. The famed summer solstice was no exception. The solstice itself had been cited as having the very best of the clan’s myths on display.
As he was the newest to the clan, Ingo was grouped in with the Clan’s smallest. As a warden, it was imperative that he familiarize himself with the clan’s myths and stories. That was at least what the children’s mother had said, before placing a young one in his arms and heading off to the wine casts. She had joined the other elders in the more casual kind of storytelling, while Ingo looked after the children.
He did not mind missing out on the gossip, he quite enjoyed listening to his leader recite the hard-learned tales of their people.
The youngest of their clan, nearing four years this coming winter, was settled as a pile of thick coats and blankets in his lap. The tickle of her thick swinub-down hood left him trying not to sneeze.
He wiped the small girl’s wisp-soft hair and copious furs away from his face, holding the wooden bowl of candied treats in grabbing distance in the process.
At this point Ingo found himself to be a fine babysitter.
He had grown used to the task over the course of his time in the clan. He also found himself enthralled in learning their stories, even as the older children demanded their leader to skip to their favorites.
Irida did not skip any one story, though. She clicked her tongue in a ‘tsk’ before stating that every story had its purpose, unrelated to entertainment.
The fire roared on to their left, its light reflected out onto the seemingly endless snowscape of the icelands.
The Clan’s traditions were truly something to witness.
Ingo found himself entranced by the words of their storytellers, following the myths like a drifloon on a string.
Lady Irida’s voice rang loud, projected enough for anyone willing to listen. She spoke with the practiced tones of tradition, the words laced with the combined wisdom of the storytellers before her.
“Now listen close,” the story began, “for if you visit the lake above- stay close, hold tight your mothers hand, lest you forget the warmth of her hold on your own.”
There were fearful responses from her loyal crowd, the elder of which were practiced, having heard the story many times before.
-~-
Ingo was so cold.
The rubber heels of his boots slid like blades on the ice and silt of the lakeside. His steps were met with little traction as rounded rubber met the smooth face of the ice. His thick shoes would clip against chunks of hard-ice or rocks buried beneath the snow, which would invariably send him into a staggering motion as he struggled to regain his footing.
He did not know where he was.
Each step was met with the slip-slide of half frozen drift, as the slush set upon the frozen waste shifted under his moving weight. Ingo could not bring about a guess as to how far down the ice went. Looking out from where he was now all he saw was the near-endless reflective face of a lake to his left. To his right, he saw much more. The air was clearer than he’d ever seen it, not mard by smog or the stray lights of civilization.
He was not in Nimbasa, not even close.
He needed to get back to Emmet, his brother would be worried about him. He had already stayed late at the station that day, working with a visiting trainer to master a complicated move.
Such a thing was not uncommon for them, but surely the city streets of Nimbasa had long grown dark, while Ingo pushed through the snow drifts.
It must have been hours ago now, he had fallen from the walk-way and onto the tracks he had been examining. But when he had expected to simply smack his knees on the metal a few feet down, he had continued falling.
And falling, until the thin material of his slacks hit the cold face of the snow with a harsh smack as he sunk into the muck.
His knees burned like they had touched a heated rail, where the snowmelt had sunken in against his skin.
He pulled his xtrans to his face, the wet-cold of snow accumulated on the screen. It had been spread about on his fingers, and had left his shaking hands barely capable of typing into it.
No service.
The machine would not last long, coated in this much water and ice, even with the protective case he had bought for use while battling.
The lakeside dropped away suddenly, not even at a football field’s length away from his person, to a waterfall of a dizzying height. He looked out from the cliff's edge, the snowdrift rounded the edge to a gentle slope that ended suddenly, at odds to the sharp edges of rooftops that usually accompanied the sight.
He was higher than any building in Castelia, whose towers had stood tall in the distance for the greater part of Ingo’s life in living in Nimbasa.
Ingo saw no buildings in the distance, he saw nothing that sparked with any kind of familiarity between the mountain and the trees.
Ingo did not enjoy heights, he much preferred the underground air of the subway, which was quite possibly the opposite to being this far up.
The air was thin at these heights. Ingo did not know how Skyla enjoyed such a feeling, it left him light headed and shaky in his bones.
Ingo pulled his coat tighter around himself, aiming to block some of the cutting wind that berated the landscape, this far into the sky.
The heights were dizzying as much as they caught his attention. Ingo pulled himself manually from the sight, turning to look once more at the lake whose shore he had so suddenly found himself on.
-~-
Irida smiled as she continued, her practiced voice grave, “there are spirits, beneath the waves of the lakes” she held one hand up, palm facing the audience, and pointed to its center with the other, “great spirits, capable of many a great things”
Ingo found himself blinking into the wisping of the reflected firelight, as it flickered against the snow. The buzzing of combee filled his mind, the noise covering the thoughts the words tried to dredge to the surface.
-~-
There were no lakes in Unova.
The thought was bizarre, rising to the surface of his mind above the many more pressing matters Ingo should have been focusing on.
No bodies of fresh water reached quite this expanse of size. There were ponds, littered across routes or connected by rivers and creaks. None reached anywhere near the size of the lake before him now.
It seemed to reach into the horizon, reflecting the light of the stars and the near blinding white of the endless snow.
There seemed to be an island at its center, just barely visible where it lifted the land from the depths of the water.
It was different from the ocean. The warm air that rolled in on the docks of Castelia smelled of salt and the savory-sweet scent of the sea.
The ice-clogged water was stagnant. The wind rippled weakly against its surface in lined shapes, but the water did not wave or churn as the ocean did.
Chunks of ice, ranging from shards no bigger than an ice cube, to hunks of solid ice larger than his fist, rose and fell with the water’s barely there-breath.
No great waves spoke up from its depths as the ocean was wont to. The waves had buffeted the supports off Castelia’s pier in a constant churn. The waves would rise high enough to throw sea spray at the passengers, all the way up on their wooden supports.
The continuous movement and sound of the waves had been comforting, sitting beside his brother watching the ships move by.
There was no such sound, now.
They didn’t visit Castelia often, to either challenge the battle company or for Elesa to visit her fellow gym leader in the city. The memories of his time there were cherished, even though they were rare.
The lake was stagnant, the wind rippled weakly against its surface in lined shapes, but the water did not wave or churn. The wind brought with it the frozen air that cut against his face like a thousand tiny escavalier using their strongest fury cutter. The cold-snap smell of the snow-laced air hurt his nose, turning breathing into a chore.
The lake was silent, as it was pelted by the still falling hail that left marks of spreading circles along its surface.
The lake was dead, compared to the life of the sea.
Transfixed on the horror of the unknown, his eyes swam through the near to still waters of the lake. He had almost turned back for signs of civilization, when Ingo saw it.
-~-
“The Spirit of Acuity grants us mind, thought, and memory,” Irida spoke, “it builds the paths our thoughts walk along with a twitch of its many tails, allowing us to learn, with a flash of its thousand gemstones.”
Her audience was wrapt in their attention, child and adult alike. Many of the clan had abandoned their gossip, brought their mugs of wine to listen along,
Ingo found his eyes to blur, unblinking, as he listened to her words.
-~-
Movement, over the water’s surface, the flickering and not-quite-there of an illusion. It reminded him of childhood, faceless laughter and the trickster illusions of zorua haunting the forests of Anville.
His sight caught the yellow form of a pokemon, dancing in the fading illusion of its complicated movements. It was near see-through, as if it was sparking in and out of existence, using teleport repeatedly, or had camouflage similar to the most adept of kecleon.
Ingo’s eyes were almost pulled unwilling in the movement’s wake.
The sight of the Pokémon, if it was one, filled him with an indescribable dread. It felt as if the floor had been whisked away from under him, leaving his stomach to drop from phantom heights.
The contradictory nature of the fear that both pushed and pulled his attention left him frozen in fear but unable to look away.
The yellow-white blur continued its dance, appearing only as flickers of light across the water’s surface.
-~-
“Though keep yourselves from playing along the lakeside…” a pause, deliberate in length, “do not go looking to glimpse one of its many yellow tails, or the shine of its red-gem stones.” She added fleurish to her words with practiced gestures, “if you are to happen upon the spirit, my dear ones, close your eyes.”
The story took on the tone of a desperate beg. “Close your eye against the shine of its red-stones, hold them closed against the swish of its yellow tails, for you open them you may see something you shouldn’t”
The children made their own objections of confusion, some were practiced in the dramatics of storytelling, while others were in genuine upset.
-~-
The Pokémon’s swirling movement left a wake beneath it, running along after its path, a divet of movement against the eerie-still face of the lake’s surface.
The cries and screeches of the few and far between rufflet fell quiet, he could not see the shadow of braviary circling above. It was as if they too felt the pressure in the air, as the pokemon circled the island at the lake’s center with its dance.
Flashes of red, power-bright and the shine of ruby jewels caught his eyes.
He saw movement, the glimpse of what could have been tails reaching from the small mammalian body of the pokemon.
It was mesmerizing, the bone-deep knowledge that this was something he was not meant to be seeing.
The Pokémon stopped, the illusion of its fragmentary visage falling to reveal its true shape. Small bodied, white with yellow accents, unclear in shape from the distance, but burned in negative against the back of his eyes.
It looked at him, and fear-frozen as he was, ingo could do nothing but look back.
-~-
“For if the spirit sees you, if you see it” the practiced words held wisdom beyond their speaker’s own years, the audience was held tight in their timber, “just as the spirit gives, it will take your thoughts, take your memories,” She shakes her head, the motion as practiced as her words, “it will take your mind from your hands and throw it into the ice laden waters of the lake.”
-~-
The strange Pokémon’s eyes met his own.
“No” the word did not enter his mind as a sound, but instead as a feeling aimed at him from all directions. It was deafening, despite the silence of the lakeside. The lapping of the water was the only sound, as his ears were shredded by the Pokémon’s telepathic words.
A yellow glow, two spots of lights originating from above the Pokémon’s small muzzle had spread to encompass the entirety his vision.
The flash of yellow from the Pokémon’s eyes shocked the cold from his system. Some latent primal instinct to freeze under such a gaze, to stop moving even at the loss of that slight echo of heat shivering allowed him.
He felt cold.
He stood for what felt like eternity, locked in a game of a staring contest with a gaze that did not move or blink.
The light did not fade, ingo was unable to blink, an almost physical reaction as the snow continued to skirt just close enough to his eyes to try and trigger the reaction.
He did not move, as the figure drew closer to him, in the blink of the eye he refused to give.
It was close enough that he could have touched the Pokémon, if he were willing or able.
Its twin-tails flicked in an apparent impatience, or perhaps discomfort. Its shining-light eyes did not move.
The yellow-white light grew suddenly, escaping the confines of the Pokémon’s eyes, or where he would assume them to be, and pushing out to take over his vision nearly completely.
He could not see the reflection of ruby-red gems or the sway of twin white tails.
He could not see.
He felt his knees drop, his frozen red hands gripped uselessly into the snow, scrambling for purchase he couldn’t find.
It felt like he was falling. It felt as if he had fallen from the tallest skyscraper in the city, only to never reach the bottom.
He felt his stomach threaten to send its contents spilling out onto the snow.
He could feel the pressure of acid pressing insistent against the back of his throat. Just barely over the fire-burn spreading out from his eyes to envelope the whole of his head.
It felt like they were melting, like his silver-grey eyes would be spread out against the snow like melted wax.
He heard the screeching of a braviary, it may have come from him.
It hurt.
He was no longer cold. He was burning, enveloped in the burn of yellow-white light.
He was dying, he must have been. The only explanation for such full-body pain. All he saw was white, he could feel the way snow pressed against his numb hands, his nails pushed through it to press sharp against his own palms. The pin-prick pain of the nails digging into the soft skin was minimal, barely noticeable over the cacophony in his mind.
He pulled on the hair of his head roughly, he did not feel the pull on his scalp over the cracking of his mind. His hat had fallen off at some point in his distress, the fact hurt to notice, even over the pain.
He felt the tears begin to freeze against his cheeks.
He wanted Emmett. He didn’t want to be alone, not for this.
Honesty to his ideals, this hurt. He felt like he’d been run over head first by a high speed rail, barely recognizable as a smear against the electrified tracks.
Where was Emmett? His brother was never far, where was he now? His hands, that wanted so desperately to cling to his brother's coat like a desperate sewaddle, grasped uselessly against the snow.
Where was his brother? Where was-
-~-
Irida moved with practiced motions as her story drew to its close, “the lake’s spirit will take not just any memory, but the one you hold most dear” her voice was even, “the spirit knows you, as your mind is of its gift, it knows what is best to take away”
“Stay close to your mother, do not near the water’s edge, lest your memories of her sink to the bottom of the lake of Acuity.”
-~-
“A brother.” The voice- the echoing in his mind, his own thoughts but foreign, like an echo of intrusive thoughts just loud enough to scrape the walls of his mind. “No more.”
“Punishment” “human” “punishment” “mind” “forget”
A thousand voices coalesced into one sound that scraped and tore and rend his thoughts from his mind, destroying them before they could even begin.
The yellow-white of the light fled from his vision, the pain with it a soon after. As the pain left bit by bit, he could almost feel the static that replaced it, clogging the space between his ears with the thick down of sewaddle-silk.
He just wanted to see his brother.
His brother. The thought was painful, staticky and buzzing in his hands like an enraged beedrill.
It was a horrifying feeling, to actively forget. By definition the process was prolonged, not spontaneous. It felt comparable to trying to pick up water, only for it to leak inevitably between the gaps between his fingers.
Forgetting was not meant to be noticed, the feeling of knowing something, of feeling it with absolute certainly, only for it to be gone a moment later. Ingo’s burning forehead pressed into the cold of the snow, as if the heat centered there would begin to melt it.
The immediate way the feeling clamped down on his attention with a lock-jaw was all that kept him from spiraling into panic worse than he already had.
His hands were cupped, he held his mind in his hands as it slowly melted like hot-wax, burning his fingers as it dripped to the snow below him.
He missed his brother. He held Emmet’s voice in his hands while he screamed his own hoarse.
He didn't want to forget. He refused to- he-
The last of the burning light fled from his vision, leaving two spots of bruised-purple floating across the white of the snow as he looked around.
Whatever had set off that wave of horror was gone, he found himself catching his breath on the banks of an unfamiliar lake.
He was cold.
What had he been doing, a moment ago? A part of him waited patiently, his wet eyes blurred against the snow. As if he expected some sort of answer.
The snow of course ignored him. It continued to flit by him in sheets, coating his shoulders in its slight weight.
He needed to find shelter, before his engines froze on their tracks.