Chapter Text
Myths and superstitions often took root in things which humans do not understand. If, for example, the mountain that was actually an extinct volcano had hollow lava tubes under its surface, and the residents of the surrounding forest had an unfortunate tendency to disappear into them via holes in the ground, never to be seen again, it was generally a good idea to avoid the forest. And those who survived such an environment tended to be hypervigilant, paranoid, and distrustful. Hence, the area around Sendoff Spring was dangerous to travel through, especially off the established paths.
The boy didn’t know the specifics, only that the parts of the woods past the pollards were unsafe even in daylight; that hadn’t stopped him from sneaking out of bed and out the window in the middle of the night, the egg he’d found earlier bundled up in his arms. It wasn’t until bedtime that the egg – his egg – had been discovered, so he’d been allowed to keep it until the morning. He was “too young” and “not responsible enough” to take care of it, even though in other regions he’d be old enough to have his own pokemon and travel alone!
He walked into the woods behind the house, so familiar in the daylight but so alien in the dark, wrapping his jacket tighter around his body and the egg. He knew that the main road shouldn’t be too far in this direction, on the other side of the woods, but it was much harder to make sure he was going in the right direction now that the trees blocked out the moonlight. A flashlight would’ve made the walk easier in theory, but he knew the little light in his pocket would’ve attracted the attention of bugs, or worse, adults.
Unfortunately, the boy’s presence hadn’t gone unnoticed.
Half a dozen zubat had flapped down to land on him at once, nibbling curiously in their search for blood, causing him to scream and take off running. This, in turn, had startled other pokemon hiding in the dark, causing a feedback loop of everything scaring everything else.
He ran, he ran, he ran – and he fell. The dirt underfoot gave way suddenly, and he was sliding through a crack in the ground, jacket and shirt hiking up as he slid on his back, one arm protecting his face while the other desperately protected the egg. Dropping out of a cave wall and landing on his rear, the boy could do little but gasp and shake at first. Nothing had ever made him genuinely fear for his life like that!
As panic over the situation started to wane, a new fear took its place: the egg!
He dug the tiny flashlight out, turned it on, and unwrapped his egg, more concerned about smearing his bloody knuckles on its lovely white shell than of his own injuries. Its shell was mercifully undamaged, the red and blue markings as crisp and clean as when he found it, still warm and occasionally rocking.
The full-body relief (read: adrenaline crash) led to him passing out against the cave wall, curled protectively around the re-bundled egg.
—
They sensed a disturbance in their cave. A human.
Humans rarely ventured into their labyrinth, and even rarer did they leave. But this time, something felt different. The old ghost followed the smell of fear and blood.
—
Disoriented, the boy woke up with an involuntary shiver. The egg was still warm in his lap, the little flashlight doing its best to illuminate the opposite wall of the underground tunnel he found himself in, but he had this crawling, itching feeling that he was being watched.
He carefully sat himself up straighter, having slumped over against the cave wall, and slowly reached for his flashlight. When he scanned up and down the dark tunnel, keeping the light where it was, he found a pair of glowing red eyes looking directly at him.
With a cry, he whipped his flashlight up to this unknown watcher and immediately regretted it. The creature reared back with a snarl, red eyes narrowed, head scraping the ceiling, flaring out a massive pair of black ‘bat-like wings with glowing red claws on the lower edge, some kind of metallic armor reflecting back gold. Between the sudden reveal, the sudden movement, and his shaking hands, he didn’t get much of a cohesive look at the thing before he flicked the light off and cowered against the wall, hugging his egg as tightly as he dared.
He waited, heart in his throat.
An exhale from the creature. Wings folding with a sound like an old hardcover book being closed. Surprisingly light footsteps, moving closer.
Something nudged his shoulder, and the boy couldn’t hold back a whimper. Risking a glance, he found those red eyes and the glowing seam of its slightly-open mouth within arm’s reach and choked on a scream. The mouth closed and the eyes retreated; he ducked his head and braced his body around the egg.
—
Were humans supposed to be this tiny? It had caught them off-guard with the artificial light, but the little creature had corrected its error and made itself even smaller in deference.
They settled themself and slowly approached, drawing in its scent. Pain and fear, a little blood quickly drying, loam, soap, hints of human foods, and… a pokemon egg? They tried to coax the human into unfolding, but that just seemed to make things worse.
Being huge and intimidating was great for the 99% of the time where they wanted to be left alone, but it made interacting with any of the mortals frustrating on the rare occasions they desired to do so.
—
He heard the monster huff and flop over like the luxio back at the home, only a dozen times larger. Was it waiting for him to drop his guard or fall asleep? Did it want to chase him through the tunnels, work up an appetite before eating him? Was it after the egg, since he was all skin and bones?
Questions and gruesome scenarios buzzed around the boy’s head, only to suddenly stop. The creature had already crept up on him before he woke up, and despite the reaction to being blinded by his flashlight, it hadn’t retaliated. The luxio comparison came to mind again; that pokemon spent most days lounging in the sun with an eye cracked and an ear cocked, putting up with the grabbing hands of the younger kids, but was absolutely ready to fling itself at any stunky or geodude that got near any of the children under its care.
Mind made up, the boy unfolded his stiff limbs and aimed the light at the floor, flicking it on. He eased into a sitting position and slowly moved the beam of the flashlight toward the red-eyed watcher.
A gray tail, gray and black flanks, golden hoof-like claws, folded black wings, more legs, gold bands sticking out from its legs and neck, framing the blood-red and black stripes across its long throat. The helmet-horns-framing of its face shon gold around a dark beak and bright red eyes. He avoided aiming the light directly at its face, not that he needed it to make out the shape of its eyes nor the tilt of its head.
“Um, hi,” he said to it shakily.
The dragon – what else could it be, but a dragon? – responded with a chuff and a slight nod.
“You’re not gonna eat me, are you?”
It snorted like someone trying not to laugh, and gave a brief shake of its head.
“That’s good, that’s good. Do you know how to get out of this cave? I kinda just… fell in?” When it nodded again, he dared to ask, “could you show me the way out? Uh, please?”
Moving slowly, the dragon got to its feet and stepped past the boy to turn around within the tunnel, its body large but flexible. The turn brought it close again, and it arched its neck and tilted its head to look at the seated human upside-down.
Giggling, he adjusted the egg in one arm and coaxed his body into standing up. When he lost his balance, he ended up grabbing onto one of the dragon’s legs, quickly apologizing and checking its face; the indirect lighting made the details hard to read, but it didn’t look annoyed to him.
—
They led the tiny human through the maze, at a few points picking it up by the scruff of its fabrics to carry it across cracks in the floor or up to ledges. The little thing barely reached their shoulder, barely weighed anything.
When they got to the mouth of the cave and its lake, the human carefully set aside the egg and the artificial light so it could messily scoop water to its face with its little hands, and they stood by to fish it out of the lake if need be.
—
He hadn’t realized how thirsty he was until he saw the water at the mouth of the cave. Warnings about drinking untreated water echoed in his head, but he didn’t have anything to collect or filter it and he was thirsty now. The dragon watched him, and carefully herded him back to the mouth of the cave before it flew off.
Before he could start to feel completely abandoned, it was back, a whole branch of oran berries clutched in its beak. The boy decided not to think about the strength needed to break the branch and just ate the fruit.
Medicinal berries weren’t as quick or effective on humans as they were on pokemon, but they still soothed his aches and scrapes. The inside of the cave was actually warmer than the outside air, though not as warm as his bed back at the home.
The boy aimed his light at the back of one hand, wincing at the lovely sight of purple berry juice and the dried blood that hadn’t been washed off in the lake. Having been watching him, the dragon, too, inspected the hand, and started gently licking his fingers clean.
—
They settled around the tiny human – could it be a hatchling? – and followed the odd compulsion to groom the poor little thing. They didn’t need to eat, not the way the mortals did, but enjoyed the contrasting tastes of sweet berry juice and the sharp notes of metal and power held in human blood. Very few humans could use their own power, aside from bonding with pokemon to give it away willingly. Metaphysical power, usually, and not blood sacrifice; they themself were more familiar with the latter, the humans having once worshiped them as a god.
Damn the appeal of human connection. Even they were susceptible.
Careful of the hatchling and its already-bonded unhatched friend, they nosed up the fabric covering the human’s back to continue cleaning its injuries.
—
He didn’t know why the massive dragon was babying him, but he was not going to look a gift ponyta in the mouth. Its tongue was warmer than its scales, and wasn’t rough enough to reopen his newly-healed scrapes. The boy squeaked in surprise when it hiked up the back of his shirt and jacket, disrupting some of the dried blood and scabs he’d forgotten were even there, but then the feeling of it cleaning his skin was oddly soothing. Nostalgic, like a wet washcloth.
After checking over the egg again, he clicked his little flashlight off to save what was left of the battery – it definitely wasn’t as bright as it had been earlier – and returned it to his pocket. Satisfied in its work, the dragon coaxed him to tuck up against its shoulder and covered him with one massive wing, acting like a tent to hold in more of his body heat.
Exhausted from everything that had happened, the boy fell asleep.
—
Daylight was creeping in above the caldera that framed the lake when a gentle crackling and peeping woke them both. The dragon lifted the leading edge of their wing, bringing their head around to peer at the now pair of hatchlings. The boy peeled the blanket away from the top of his egg, dislodging clean chips of eggshell, and the small peeping creature popped its head up from within the remaining shell.
The newborn opened beady little eyes and gave the boy an excited trill, downy head spikes and simple front paws wiggling as he pressed a kiss to its forehead.
“Hi, little guy,” the boy murmured, “you look like a togepi. Are you a togepi?”
“Toge pi pi pi!” it confirmed. A togepi. His Togepi.
The thought made something relax in his chest, for the first time since…
“Rrrrrr?” came a surprisingly high-pitched query from the dragon. The boy hadn’t even registered their face at his shoulder, but he didn’t startle. Togepi tipped towards their beak to pat its little paw fearlessly on their snout. The tiny fairy had been basking in the bond being forged between the lonely human child and the forgotten elder god, what did it have to fear?
“I wish I knew what to call you,” the boy said, tentatively touching the golden armor of the dragon’s face. “I should’ve introduced myself last night. My name’s Volo, I’m ten years old, and I was running away last night because my foster-dad didn’t want me to keep Togepi’s egg.” The drop in the boy’s mood, the defensive hunch of his shoulders, caused the newly-hatched egglet to make concerned and distressed noises.
They swung their neck over to grab the berry branch and drag it over within human-arms-reach and nudged him with their shoulder against his back. The boy Volo got the message and soon he was biting a berry into small pieces to feed to his Togepi. After both hatchlings were fed and cheered up, when the dragon made moves to lick him clean, the human hastily wiped both of their faces but submitted his hands for cleaning.
Volo watched in fascination as a tongue wider than his shoulders appeared, the point of it exploring his fingers as he peered into their open mouth. In the daylight, their mouth and eyes barely glowed, but he could see rows of small, sharp teeth set behind the dragon’s beak. Last night’s fear felt distant compared to the awe of being handled so gently by something so ferocious-looking. In that moment, he thought he could stay here forever.
—
They knew they couldn’t keep the boy. As much as they’d enjoyed doting on him and seeing the little egg hatch, the effort of keeping such precise control of their limbs and of reining in the pressure of their ghostly aura was tiring. Their inborn ability to break the laws of physics and tear through the veil had likely caused the fissure that dropped their new friend into the cave system in the first place. Not that they were capable of guilt, but they understood responsibility.
From what they understood, there were likely other humans looking for the wayward hatchling, which meant more human activity in their territory, and more chance of those humans and their tamed pokemon falling into the ever-shifting labyrinth around their caldera.
Really, returning Volo to the humans was the best course of action for all parties involved. He’d willingly given them his name, his blood, and a silken thread leading to his soul; enough to find him even from the Distortion. If the humans tried to separate the boy from his tiny fairy, they could return it to him, over and over until the message was clear.
Mind made up, they gently disentangled from the boy and moved out to the lakeside to stretch their frustratingly corporeal limbs.
Volo followed, egglet in hand. “Oh wow, you have extra legs! I was so confused last night, when I couldn’t see everything.” He yelped in surprise when he was, once again, picked up by the back of his jacket, but he cradled Togepi and tucked his knees up like he had when the dragon had carried him across the rougher parts of the cave.
This time, he got to see their wings shift, more like arms with massive clawed paws, as they grabbed the rim of the caldera and walked their massive body up the steep slope. Likewise, they used those claws to moderate their descent into the forest beyond.
When he was set back on his feet, Volo straightened out his jacket and looked back up the mountainside. “Aw, I was hoping we could fly.” Togepi giggled in agreement.
The dragon tucked in its wings, crouched, and extended one wing toward the boy’s feet. They chuffed at him and tilted their head, and he got the idea to climb aboard. They raised their wing up after him, giving him a boost the rest of the way to their shoulders; they let him sit there awkwardly across their broad back, not sure how to hold on to both Togepi and the dragon, before folding their wings around him to hold him in place.
“Okay, okay, I see how hard it would be to hold on back here,” Volo conceded as they brought him into the forest. They’d noted where they’d found the boy underground and headed back along that course.
—
Judging by the limited sunlight filtering through the trees, it was mid-afternoon when Volo and the dragon heard the voices of other humans in the forest. The boy and his Togepi carefully slid down their wing and hugged their neck.
“Will I be able to see you again?” the child asked in a sad voice, looking up the arch of their neck. They hummed and preened the little human’s hair before nudging him away.
After a few paces, Volo stopped and looked back at his new friend. The dragon’s red eyes glowed in the deep shade of the forest; he saw it turn to shadows and blink a few times before melting away and seeming to seep into the earth. He petted Togepi and turned away, walking toward the sound of people looking for him.
Time to face the music.
—
The next few hours were a blur. He’d been scooped up by loud, excited strangers. Ginter and his luxio had checked him over and asked him questions; police and medics had then done the same. “I’m fine, really,” he’d insisted with a smile, “I fell down a hill in the dark, but I found some water and some berries, and then I stayed put until I heard people calling my name.”
Ginter had given the boy a look that said, I know you’re not telling the full truth, but I can’t figure out enough to call you on it. Volo stuck to his story, because running away to keep Togepi’s egg was the truth, and all he’d really done was trim the dragon and the cave out of his story and smooth out the edges to keep the adults from paying extra attention to him.
By the end of the day, he’d been released back to Ginter with Togepi (who was diagnosed as a perfectly healthy baby girl) and a medicated cream to keep his hands and back from scarring. Turns out that newly hatched togepi imprint very strongly, which was why Ginter had been against letting him keep the egg; the species needed constant attention and care, and were practically impossible to rehome. Volo went back to Ginkgo House in time to shower and join everyone for dinner, where he had to apologize for making everyone worry and tolerate some fussing from the rest of the household. Everyone was jealous about Togepi, up until Tulli offered to take over feeding the baby pokemon, and they all got to experience the sheer volume of heartbreaking distress the little egglet could produce.
—
Once everyone was satisfied that Volo wouldn’t keel over or disappear when left to his own devices, the boy searched the bookshelves for a book he’d seen some of the older kids reading: Rare and Legendary Pokemon Around The World. He thumbed through the pages until he reached the start of the Sinnoh Region, scanning the words and illustrations until a newly-familiar face was looking up from the page. Volo drank in the two-page spread of myths and glyphs and sightings and illustrations, then read the entire Sinnoh chapter, and then he judged.
While the visual depictions mostly matched the giant dragon he’d met, its monstrous depiction didn’t line up with the gentle, intelligent being that had cared for him. The thought of maybe having the blessing of one of the gods of this world, though…
As he fell asleep that night, Togepi tucked against his side, he imagined that the shadows of the room were there to guard his sleep. One name sat on the tip of his tongue, unsaid:
Giratina