Pokémon A Glimpse Across the Threshold (2021 Bingo Prompts)

[Phoenixsong]

Yo, it a me, doin' a bingo. Because dangling another potential recruit for the Skiddo Army in front of me is apparently the only way to get me to actually write actual fiction word-having stories.

Breadcrumb Trail	Taunting Lights	Poisoned Fruit
The Stolen Child	Otherworldly Architecture	Happily Ever After
Beauty of the Court	Enchanted Wood	Otherworldly Procession

The two teensy flash-fics are... not what I was originally working on for those prompts, but unfortunately this was a busy week and I'm out of town at the moment (literally posting this from my hotel room), so I had to pause those ideas and throw together some tiny alternatives because seriously, you don't understand, I need more companions, y'all. At least they touch on some additional angles that I would like to mess with, though! I intend to finish the "proper" versions of those prompt fills as soon as I'm able.

Content Warnings:

I don't believe any should be needed? The biggest thing that happens here are some surreal creature descriptions, little hints of otherworldly strangeness, but they're brief and quite vague. If you did find something upsetting, however, I'm happy to amend these warnings.

Feedback:

Always welcome! I don't care overmuch about the two tinyfics because they're rushed and they weren't what I'd really wanted to do, so don't feel like you need to go out of your way to sink your claws in for my sake. But if they inspire you to say something all the same, by all means, I'm happy to hear it! If you're at all inclined to give constructive feedback (not necessary, either, but hey), I'd prefer it go toward "Breadcrumb Trail" and/or the other pieces that will hopefully cross the threshold and appear in this thread later.

Spoiler: Brief, unnecessary author's notes about the theme, if you're at all curious

This is stuff that's at least loosely associated with the PMD-meets-fae-realm-inspired setting that Skara (my Blacklight Eternal character—don't worry if you don't know who that is) is meant to be from. I say "loosely" because I still have no blessed idea what exactly I'm doing with any of this! The things that happen or are implied in these pieces may or may not remain "canon" by the time I've actually decided on anything. Hell, Skara herself and whatever the heckle is going on with her in Blacklight might change dramatically or disappear! Consider these more... testing the waters of style and flavor and concept, I suppose. An opportunity to take my weird, silly fairy ideas and see how well I like them in practice. Who knows how any "proper" "final products" might turn out?

But in the meantime, I'm glad that I finally had a little push to actually take a peek through the fairy ring and try a few things out, however ephemeral—like the presence of the mistfolk in mortal lands—some of them might be.

 

[Phoenixsong]

Otherworldly(-Accessible) Architecture

Troops of mistfolk didn't take kindly to obstructions on their routes, to the tune of stolen things and blighted gardens and, sometimes, damaged walls. Molka knew this because they were currently sitting out in front of their new house, admiring the second doorway that had been smashed into the left side of the facade. It even came complete with a lovely view of the matching one in the rear. How they'd slept through that, they had no idea. The holes had to be the size of beartic.

The other townsfolk helpfully suggested that they give up, tear down, and rebuild someplace else. But Molka liked this spot, damn it, and would not be so easily deterred. So the scrafty squinted at the breach, tweaked a sketch, and, satisfied, headed back to the bibarel lodge.

The renovations took a little while, sure, but when Molka finally moved back in they were plenty pleased enough to wake up not sprinkled with splinters. A scrafty's head with a beartic-sized scoop out of the left side didn't look much like them anymore, but it was good enough if they got to keep their home. Good enough for the mistfolk, too, if the little scrap of parchment half-frozen to the ground nearby was any indication:

"Thanks, neighbor."

 

[Phoenixsong]

Otherworldly Procession

There was nothing but rain and then they were there, the storm-shrouded clearing suddenly awash with amber light traced with white. Bright, golden mist-shapes darted out of the trees, then across, then vanished when they reached the clearing's edge: indistinct, quick as lightning, and yet with a crackling, sizzling presence that she felt even as she pressed herself further into her barely-dry alcove. A long creature swam sharp zig-zags through the air, back-forth-back-forth-back-forth-back, like an eelektrik made of angles. Another hulking figure loped past with its massive arms swinging, many sparking, snapping tails waving on its back. She almost wanted to lean out of her tiny shelter, see where the procession of storms would strike next, but the wet grass seemed to burn beneath their feet and her fur was already standing on end. If she got too close—if they saw that she was watching—she'd likely end up more than thunderstruck.

So she made herself as tiny as she could, telling herself that she really ought to shut her eyes but unable to tear them away as a pack of shining almost-boltund crossed the clearing with jagged leaps and bounds, as a graveler-shape rumbled past, a literal roll of thunder. Not a one stopped or slowed. As the last leaping raichu flashed by, the amber light dimmed and she remembered how to breathe. She'd just about managed to unfold herself when the clearing went pure white.

Something towered above her alcove, blazing like a lightning bolt that struck and refused to stop burning. Its shape never quite resolved, always sizzling and shifting, something almost tall and catlike with arcs of electricity striped around it, then snapping back to buzzing white. Two searing blue lights gazed down, locked with her eyes, held there, she could almost smell the smoke rising from her back as it glared, blue points stabbing down like bolts, and then—

The clearing went white. She sank back down, panting, shaking, staring wide-eyed out of the alcove.

It was there, and then there was nothing but rain.

 

[Phoenixsong]

Breadcrumb Trail

Papa told Ruri that she'd get lost, that the ley lines in the forest were shifting and mistfolk might be waiting to snatch pokémon who wander too long, but Ruri is far too clever for that. "Getting lost" just means not knowing how to find her way home; all she has to do, then, is make sure that she knows. The mistfolk can't catch her if she doesn't linger, and she can't linger if she isn't lost.

So the marill gathers up her satchel, takes the little loaf of bread Papa had baked and, when his paws are full kneading dough for the next, she bounces through the fields and into the cool, green shade of the treeline beyond. And then—this is the clever bit—every so often she plucks a smooth, white river-stone from the satchel and drops it to the forest floor behind her. (Stones rather than breadcrumbs, of course, because the birds would eat those up, and that wouldn't be very clever at all. It would also be a terrible waste of Papa's nanab bread.)

With the trail of pebbles leading straight back home, Ruri is free to marvel at the colors of the forest flowers, try to guess how far away the tops of the trees really are, chase shadows and butterflies around the roots and fallen trunks until she has to stop from laughing. As she takes a break and nibbles at the bread—and places another pebble, for she is far too clever to forget—she catches the whispering and burbling of water over stone. A stream! A little secret stream, running through a clearing just ahead!

Ruri springs forward, casts her things aside the moment she breaks through the trees, and rolls down the bank and into the stream. Now this is a discovery! A whole stream, all to herself, full of pretty speckled rocks and little silver fish that glitter every time they dart away from her splashing. She spins around, giggling with surprise, when a frog sings out from the shallows. Ruri doesn't get to see many frogs in the river by the village; the current runs too fast for them. Her eyes twinkle as she watches it. How far can this frog jump, she wonders? She puffs herself up, blue energy shimmers around her, and she blows a playful stream of bubbles in its direction—

—and stops, dead still, breath caught, eyes wide, the only sounds the murmuring stream and the pip-pip-pop of the last few bubbles. She shouldn't have done that, she remembers. The ley lines in the forest are shifting, the elders had warned. The magic flowing through the lines rises up to reach for the magic in pokémon and amplifies, changes, opens doors. It might be flowing right under her feet, right now.

Ruri whirls around again, and again, splashing frantic circles in the shallows as she scans the trees for signs of something wrong. Is she still alone? Still in the forest? Are there any bursts of power, any flowers sprouting up in rings, any signs of watching things that hadn't been there before? There's a sudden, dazzling flare somewhere off to her side. Ruri shrieks, but then relaxes. There's nothing there behind her but the stream, late-afternoon sunlight flashing on the water as a cloud scuds away.

Her gaze flits back and forth for a few moments longer, but the thunder of her racing heart is settling now. Were there even any ley lines here, in this clearing? Surely not, if nothing's different. The elders said the lines were shifting, but they could just as easily have shifted away, couldn't they? They didn't know for sure, not really. It wasn't like anyone was brave enough—or clever enough—to spend any time in the woods actually checking the specifics.

She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. Nothing has happened; nothing has changed. She is herself, Ruri, enjoying a cool, gold-tinged afternoon in a clearing with a chorus of frogs and the scent of fresh-baked nanab bread.

Ruri huffs and shakes her head, supposing that she's had enough adventure for one day. She really mustn't linger, after all. She finishes the little loaf, retrieves her satchel, and takes her leave of the clearing. A clever marill knows to head home while it's still light enough to see.

The trail of river-stones is just as she left it: bright white against the loam, spaced out just so, leading back through the roots and trunks and the tall, tall trees and the flowers slowly curling up to sleep, until at last she sees the sun setting behind the fields and the village rooftops. Her ears twitch at the sound of her father's distant voice, calling her name. There's a note of worry in it, as she'd sort of expected. He needn't be so concerned, of course. His daughter is very clever.

Papa is worried, whatever she may think, and he gives Ruri a thorough dressing-down as he shepherds her through the door. There'll be no wandering tomorrow, he insists; she won't have time for it with all the sweeping and scrubbing the bakery needs. Ruri pouts, and sighs, and yes-Papas, but as she cleans up for dinner she finds she isn't really that upset. At least she'll have the memory of her secret stream to keep her spirits high through all the chores. Her clever trail should still be there in a few days' time, anyway, ready to lead her back to another wondrous afternoon.

As she watches the stars from her window that night, imagining that their twinkling is just like the little silver fish, Ruri catches a rustling at the edges of the fields. Three shapes—dark, hazy blue, indistinct, as though their silhouettes are fading into curls of mist—emerge from the stalks, drawing closer and closer to the village's lantern lights. A huge, fishlike shape swims through the air, long whiskers snaking out toward houses as though reaching for them. A tangle of legs, too swift and erratic for Ruri to count, skitters off toward the village square. A four-legged shape, covered in waving fins from head to tail, lopes forward, nose to the ground like a rockruff with a scent, then stops. It raises its head, revealing blazing sapphire points of light where eyes should be. It fixes those points right on the bakery.

The fin-folk grins at Ruri, the edges of its smile curling back behind the blinking pinpricks in its head. It holds up a paw, as if to show her what it has. There, pinched between its long, webbed claws, a smooth, white river-stone winks cheerfully in the lantern light.