Pokémon Foregone Conclusion

[HelloYellow17]

HELLO I AM HERE

Okay so. I knew this was going to be a dark and gloomy fic before I came into it. I knew my emotions were gonna get wrecked. But I was still not prepared, ouch. There’s some heavy stuff in here, but you handle it beautifully. I feel so badly for Forsira. Poor thing just needs a hug. And a friend that won’t die or abandon her. :(

That said, I’m enjoying the story a lot! Your prose is excellent—not that this comes as any surprise, since I’ve loved what I saw of Mafia!Tefiren and you always have very based takes on writing from conversations in the server. More specifically, your scene-setting is lovely, your characterizations are vivid and distinct, and I especially love your descriptions of Pokémon physiology and evolution. This is a very solidly written fic, and I am hooked.

Now, let’s dive into specifics!

Spoiler: Line Quotes

From the moment her parents’ panicked voices woke her in the night, she knew they were going to die.

WOW okay, what an opening sentence! It certainly did its job. I was instantly gripped.

“It’s Them,” said her father, his voice so full of dread that he barely sounded anything like the Archopy she knew. Just hearing that word gave her a terrible feeling of finality. She knew who They were. They were the ones who would come to take her parents away. Now They were here, creeping around below, waiting for Their chance to strike.

Really love the capitalization of Them. It makes the enemy feel more like a faceless, malicious presence than an actual tangible foe you can fight—and in some ways, this is technically true, if you choose to view the enemy as bigotry and prejudice rather than just a group of Sceptile.

“I don’t want to help!” protested Resten, his voice high and desperate. “I want to live!”

Forsira flinched, pressing herself back into the trunk behind her and trembling. Below, the sounds of movement drew closer. She stared at Resten, finding that he terrified her more than anything else. She couldn’t bear to see this frightened shadow of himself that her father had become.

This hit hard. It’s one thing to watch your parents get murdered; it’s another to see your father, your role model, your protector, crack and crumble and fall apart in the face of death. That would certainly stick with you.

She opened her eyes slowly and forced her shaking body to turn around and look down at where they’d all been fighting.

Ohhh baby no don’t do that—

She didn’t know how long she lay there, still staring dully at the tree trunk in front of her nose. It might have been days. She’d given up trying to get her parents’ bodies out of her head – no matter how hard she tried, it didn’t seem like it was going to happen. She wasn’t even sure if she wanted to forget those images, horrible as they were. It would almost be like forgetting her parents had ever been there.

Oh man. Those images are going to stick with her for a long, long time. I have similar feelings about death—I struggle to be present when someone is on their deathbed, largely because I don’t want my last memories of them to be…that. Even with house pets, it’s very difficult for me. I really really feel for Forsira here.

Zathern didn’t let up. He took a slow step towards her, still smiling that welcoming smile. “Aw, come on,” he said. “It can’t be that bad.”

Well, sir, I have news for you!

She didn’t know if she wanted to see someone else’s mother and be reminded that hers wasn’t there anymore. But still she followed him.

Aw baby. 💛 I JUST WANNA HUG HER

“My name is Azma. Zathern here is my son.”

Random note, but can I just say I LOVE your names? Because I love your names. They’re all unique and have so much character. I feel like I know the gist of each character’s personality just by learning their name, somehow. It’s really satisfying.

Azma had nonetheless insisted that Forsira sleep in a tree close to hers and Zathern’s, so that she could keep watch over her in case anything happened.

Azma is a good mum, bless her.

She wondered if her parents had been the same, but already her memories of them were beginning to fade. She could only recall certain moments with them now, times they’d reassured her and made the dangers go away, times they’d made her laugh – moments that really shone.

Oh this made me so sad. :( memories of a loved one fading? That’s gut wrenching stuff.

Forsira thought about the Grovyle form – she’d met quite a few of them on Zathern’s tours, too – the taller, sleeker shape, the leaves, the claws. It would be nice to be something other than a tiny little Treecko. She nodded slowly. “Yes.”

Oh, so normal Grovyles exist! I thought Archopy replaced Grovyle, but apparently not!

But after more prompting from Zathern, some kind of inner drive overtook her and she leapt out of the tree, falling towards her foe. She found herself flipping over in midair before she met it – somehow her body just knew what to do – and her tails slammed the Zigzagoon against the ground with all the power from her fall. She leapt away and landed, if a little unsteadily, on her feet nearby, panting but pleased with herself.

Love this touch of Pokémon naturally loving battling, and instinctively knowing how to!

Forsira stared down at the ground, embarrassed. “I didn’t know,” she muttered. “And… my parents…”

“Oh.” Zathern grimaced awkwardly. “Yeah. I guess. But still!”

Lolol Zathern means well but he has about as much tact and sensitivity as a brick.

Racing through the treetops, Forsira realised dimly that she was headed towards where Azma usually was on the edge of the clearing – that in the absence of her real parents, she wanted Azma to comfort her and tell her everything would be okay.

Awww baby. It’s okay to need comfort from someone else.

Azma lifted her head from a brown and stripy carcass as she heard them approach. “Hello, you two,” she said. “Have some of this Zigzagoon if you’re…” She broke off, frowning with concern at Forsira. “What’s wrong?”

Huh. The fact that she’s eating a Zigzagoon after the two Treecko just battled a pair of them, and we know they are equally sentient…that’s kinda disturbing haha. Sure raises a lot of questions!

She took in the Zigzagoon carcass as she ate, seeing an empty, half-eaten shell of the same species that she and Zathern had been battling for fun just a moment ago. It felt strange.

Ah, Forsira acknowledges this!

“Then there is nothing wrong with that,” said Azma. “It’s less important when you’re a Treecko, as you don’t have any deadly weapons you can hunt and kill with, but once you are a Grovyle, it is vital when you’re not hunting that you make it clear to a wild Pokémon that you just want a friendly battle. That way, the Pokémon knows what it’s fighting for. Asking for a battle is like a promise that you’re not going to kill them. You should never break it.”

Love this bit of lore. That’s a lot of trust to put in someone who could easily lie and kill you, but it’s clear that this is some kind of unspoken code and to break it would be extremely taboo.

Azma gazed solemnly out towards the other side of the island. She didn’t answer for a moment. “They’re convinced that a Sceptile is better than an Archopy,” she said eventually.

Forsira felt tears pricking at her eyes. It didn’t make any sense. Her parents had died because of that? “But then… why kill us?”

Azma closed her eyes and shook her head. “Some people need no more reason than that.”

I do wonder if there is more reason to it than that, but…at the same time, I’d buy it if this really is the only reason. Sadly, it’s realistic enough. 💔

“You’re still a Treecko. The Sceptile evolve from Grovyle, just like Archopy do. Treecko and Grovyle are safe from Them because you’re exactly like Their own children.”

Ohhhhhh it makes a bit more sense now. Archopy are evolved from Grovyle. Also, oof. They’re so closely related.

“They won’t kill me,” said Azma darkly, in such a way that Forsira knew she utterly believed that. “Not for a long time.”

Oh!? MA’AM I HAVE QUESTIONS

As they sat in companionable silence – the silence was unusual, but Zathern had his mouth full, and that had been known to keep him quiet on occasion –

Ahahaha I loved this line

“Sceptile,” he said, grinning.

Forsira tried to keep the disappointment out of her eyes. She believed what Azma had told her about not all Sceptile being Them, but still, the thought of Zathern turning into one made her uneasy. But she didn’t want to upset her friend, so she said nothing except, “How does she know?”

Zathern shrugged. “She’s my mum.”

OKAY SO THEORY TIME. I was wondering earlier where Zathern’s dad was, since there’s no mention of him ever, and Forsira had both of her parents present. I think Zathern’s dad is a Sceptile, and the only reason they won’t kill Azma is because they have some sort of deal where she won’t die until after Zathern has grown and evolved.

Part of Forsira wanted to say something to him, but she couldn’t speak; her body had control, lengthening her fingers and toes to turn them into claws, her head becoming flatter and longer. Her tails shrank away into nothing, and she felt creepily empty without them until two leaves grew in their place, joined by another extending from the back of her head and a cluster of three emerging from each wrist, each of them instantly feeling as much like a part of her as her tails had once been. With what seemed like a huge sigh of exertion from her body, the blinding light faded and she could see again.

Love this description!!

Azma somehow seemed to understand what she meant. “Oh, no,” she said. “Germane’s an adult. He should have evolved into Archopy a long time ago, but he stops his body from doing so. He thinks that way he’ll be safe from Them.”

Oh boy. I’m sure that won’t have horrible consequences down the road. *unquag*

“The point was to show you the state of mind you need to be in when you hunt. If you kill while you are still yourself, the guilt you would feel from ending another sentient creature’s life would build up each time and destroy you from the inside. You have to distance yourself from everything that makes you you and call upon the… ah… predator within. It’s a natural part of all of us.”

Oh wow. Genocide is a heavy topic all on its own, but you’re also tackling the existential crises of predators! And I love it. The way it’s described is a great way to portray it, with the “hidden predator within”. I always thought it would be interesting to see a story from a predator’s perspective, specifically focusing on the fact that they have to kill to live.

Don’t ever lose what makes you you.” Her gaze lingered on Zathern for a moment, before she suddenly blinked and looked away.

So this chapter is PACKED with all kinds of foreshadowing for Zathern and I DO NOT LIKE IT, NOPE

Forsira frowned. After what she’d seen happen to her parents, she just didn’t want to kill anything, whether it was ‘her’ doing the killing or not.

Poor girl has so much trauma, it’s honestly brutal that she has no other choice here.

Forsira sighed and stepped off the Zigzagoon, letting it go free. With a final frightened squeak, it scrambled away, so desperate to get away from her it wasn’t even looking where it was going –

– and a Grovyle leapt out of cover in the undergrowth as it ran past, pinning it to the ground, one of his blades already glowing. He looked into his prey with a predator’s cold eyes for an endless moment before drawing the blade across the Zigzagoon’s throat, ending its life.

The Grovyle leapt back from his prey, shook himself down and became Zathern again, standing there looking somewhat stunned. He glanced over towards Forsira and gave a vague wave of acknowledgement. “Hey, Forse.” He looked back at the dead Zigzagoon as she came over to join him. “That… it… you know, it wasn’t actually too bad,” he said eventually, sounding as though he was struggling to get words around it.

Oooof. I was not expecting Zathern to swoop in like that. The differences between him and Forsira are growing more and more stark by the minute, and I can’t help but think that just spells out bad news.

Azma busied herself with tearing off and eating another piece of Swellow flesh and didn’t answer until she’d finished it. “Nothing,” she said eventually. “Just the ramblings of an old girl. Well done, Zathern, really.” The look of anxiety came back. “Just remember to only let the predator out while hunting, and never at any other time. Please.”

Zathern still looked puzzled. “Yeah, of course.”

MORE FORESHADOWING, PLZ NO

“Have you ever been,” said Raphyn, his eyes twinkling, “to the sunrise side of the island?”

A sense of dread crept up Forsira’s spine.

“The side with all the Sceptile?” Zathern looked puzzled. “No. Why?”

Lol why yes this sounds like a fantastic idea, I can’t see any possible way this could go wrong!

“This is it,” came Raphyn’s voice from above her. “The ridge.”

Elephant graveyard from lion king vibes

The Sceptile took a step back, looking down at her as if she were mad. “What goes on on the other side of the island in the middle of the night has nothing to do with the rest of us,” she said firmly. “It’s not our fight.”

It’s really infuriating that such a small group of mon on the island have SO much power, all because nobody else will lift a finger. What about the other species? They should care if their ecosystem gets messed up, no? Are none of the other Sceptile saying anything at all about this? Are the bad ones really that strong? And why don’t the Archopy band together? Aaagh it’s frustrating.

“Forse! This place is awesome! Well, not this whole place, but we met this Sceptile called Tharann and he was great! We really got on – he seemed really interested about the Archopy side, asked me loads of questions about my mum and stuff.

Oh. Oh no. Nooooononononono. Either that Sceptile is his dad or he has Very Bad Plans and will use the information Zathern gave him. Or both!

Zathern’s face fell. He suddenly looked really guilty. “Oh, Forse, I’m so sorry! I didn’t think – I was too busy talking to – but your parents – I should have thought – you should have said something, Forse!” He fidgeted on the branch. “You really seemed fine earlier, before we got split up. A bit nervous, maybe, but I thought you were just… I’m sorry. Let’s just go back, shall we?”

Zathern, I love you, but maybe stop putting the blame on Forsira every time and try using your head for once? It’s no secret that she’s deeply traumatized by her parents’ deaths. She’s with you every second of every day! Come on, dude. It shouldn’t be that hard to remember.

“Tropius!” Zathern exclaimed gleefully, looking up at the nearest one that still towered over him even with its long neck lowered. Forsira could see it eyeing the two of them warily from underneath the makeshift shelter of its own leaves. She nodded, confused; she’d heard of Tropius, although she’d never actually seen one up close before, and she wasn’t sure what Zathern was getting at.

TROPIUS YESSSS I love seeing my banana tree dinos get some love :D

Leaping backwards out of the fray, Forsira opened her mouth to let out a high-pitched garble of noise directed at the Tropius. As it cringed and lowered its head in discomfort, she grinned; this was something she’d been able to do for a while now that seemed to make the target more susceptible to attacks.

I love that you describe attacks without ever using their actual name. It’s always clear enough that I know exactly what move they are using even without it being directly said.

She watched helplessly as the white shape that had been Zathern grew taller and more angular, realising far too late that she needed to act. “No!” she cried desperately. “Please! Stop! I don’t want you to evolve!”

WHERE IS THAT B BUTTON WHEN YOU NEED IT?

The predator’s gaze in the Sceptile’s eyes made Forsira shiver.

Without warning, he flared into action, lighting his blades so brightly and shooting off the branch so fast that Forsira flinched, barely managing to stay in the tree. She watched in horror as the Sceptile struck the Dustox in midair, flinging it towards the earth and pinning it down with a savagery that gave Forsira flashbacks to a dark night, shining blades slicing through the air as tall figures leapt upwards, knocking her mother to the ground.

Love the tiny detail here, that when Zathern is in predator mode, he is no longer Zathern to her, but “the Sceptile.”

The reaction was mixed – only a small few had been envious, and many were just indifferent or perhaps slightly uncomfortable, as they had never known a Sceptile to live permanently on the sunset side before.

Azma’s reaction had been to smile, calmly congratulate her son and then excuse herself and leave because she hadn’t eaten in days and needed to hunt.

Further confirmation of my earlier theory about Zathern’s dad!!

Zathern poked Raphyn in the back with his claws. “Hey, Raphyn,” he said, grinning. “Wakey wakey. Been battling too hard again?”

Raphyn’s form remained limp, not so much as stirring.

Oh gosh, this hit me like a punch to the gut. I mean, I’m not exactly surprised because Raphyn had “death fodder” written all over his character, but…for this to happen right after Zathern evolved? Ouch. My heart. :(

“I’m not like him,” Zathern said, pointing at Raphyn’s body, his arm shaking, “or like them –” he indicated Raphyn’s dead parents – “or like you’ll be when you evolve. And don’t try and tell me you don’t know what you’ll evolve into until it happens. You’ve always known you’ll be an Archopy, I can tell. So has everyone else on this side of the island. You’re all going to become Archopy, and you’re all going to die, and I’m not.” The hard edge to his voice had begun to crack towards the end, and he turned away from her shakily, averting his eyes. “I can’t do this.”

But why??? Why is it set in stone? You’re a Sceptile now, why can’t you try to use your influence to put a stop to it?? Why is everyone just laying down and accepting this.

Azma wasn’t there in her usual tree when she arrived, so Forsira made herself comfortable on a branch and gazed out at the sea. It was nothing like the calm, peaceful view it had been when Zathern had first shown it to her. With the sun hidden behind dark clouds and the rain hammering down on the water’s surface, the ocean seemed restless, turbulent.

A lovely bit of scenery here!

Once its squeal of pain had died down, the Bellossom shot her what might have been an indignant look, backing away again and throwing a cloud of golden sparkles into the air. Wary that this might be some kind of distraction, Forsira watched the tiny pinpricks of light rise up, turning the raindrops to steam as they touched, floating higher and higher until they reached above the canopy and into the clouds. The rain around the battlers petered out, the clouds above dissolving as they came into contact with the sparkles, and suddenly the sun’s rays were beating down on them through the gaps in the trees.

OOOH. I really like this depiction of Sunny Day!!

Thinking of her two former friends reminded Forsira uncomfortably that fully-evolved life was not all joy and freedom, as much as she might have liked it to be. Raphyn had been killed by Them simply because he was an Archopy. And now she was one too.

Her exhilaration suddenly dampened and all but gone, Forsira sullenly wheeled around and pointed herself downwards, back towards the island and reality waiting for her below. She folded her wings as she dropped through the canopy, landing with an ungainly skid, and looked around at the familiar array of trees. They’d always felt so safe to her and still did on an instinctive level, but she knew that nowhere would ever be completely safe again.

Forsira just can’t catch a break. :( SOMEONE GIVE HER HUGS AND LOVE AND SAFETY PLEASE

 

[kintsugi]

Hi. I read this fic in 2011/2012 when I was much younger than I am now. I'd never considered pokecentric as a concept, in part because my mother thought that Pokemon was satanic + videogames caused school shootings, so I barely even knew PMD even existed and the idea of pokemon having thoughts was a big ?!?!? for me. I actually read this fic on a rec from an online friend, who meticulously crossposted all the chapters to a (private, and since purged) proboards forum for me since I couldn't even access the Serebii version due to the internet blockers my parents had put on my computer ... All this to say that when I read this as a kid my sheltered mind was considerably blown.

I find myself in a weird position ten years later, where I'm questioning the validity/point of saying thoughts on a fic that's been done and shelved like this, and specifically my thoughts on it, for reasons that are muddled but hopefully become more clear over the course of this review. I don't know. The best time to write a review is ten years ago; the second best time is now, I guess. This review has zero structure truly I don't think I've ever successfully structured a review, less than zero attempts at crit, and is, per the author's note, mostly just a bunch of my thoughts on how this story spoke to me.

Reading this again, I'm able to appreciate a lot of the gameification elements a lot more. I remembered mostly just Tefiren's avoidance mechanisms since they're so prevalent to the plot and he's constantly in a position (via Forsira) to have someone question him on them. But things like Karsa smiling proudly and saying "that's why we're winning", Zanthern rationalizing Tharann/Azma's confrontation as a game to see who can raise him to be good, Forsira latching onto the idea that life doesn't have to stop being fun even after pesky events like your parents dying in a genocide and your realization that you need to kill to survive--thematically things landed on me more easily this time, probably because I'm not literally a child reading this by metaphorical flashlight. Coping mechanisms are a helluva drug. This is the kind of game that you can never really master because the rules will keep changing until everyone's in the ground.

I think the more subtle lies hit a lot harder this time as well. Karsa's speech about how forgetting is a survival mechanism is a little on-the-nose for me in this readthrough, but in general I think I only feel that way because I was able to pick up on the more nuanced lies/forgetting/erasure that's happening in the background (which, while I don't have good notes, I think more or less went over kid!me's head pretty hard). From the opening scene with Leathra saying that Forsira will have a great life, to Draern telling his mate that yeah, he totally cared for Forsira even though he spends most of their convo giving her the verbal/archopy equivalent of a middle finger, culminating in the big lies like Tefiren Totally Not Caring About Anyone and Zanthern convincing himself that it's better this way. Tefiren's the most obvious about it, but it's everywhere, and honestly the beauty of characters lying to themselves is as a reader I never really know the extent to which they're even doing it--maybe Leathra really does believe that things will be different for Forsira, maybe Draern actually changed his mind later, maybe a different Zanthern wouldn't have killed. Maybe Zanthern remembering will be enough. But ultimately we don't know their intents. We just know what happened.

And there's the central lie that I think is inherent whenever you've got characters doing murder happening left and right--that it somehow is more tragic when it happens to you specifically. Karsa saying she killed three kids as if the pain of the kid-killing guilt is somehow on the tier of the pain of being a dead kid. Zanthern's breakdown when he sees Karsa dead on the ground. It isn't real until it happens here; it couldn't happen here; until it does. And of course the premise of hunting is a lot different than the premise of genocide because you biologically need to do one to survive and not the other--but I'm always hit hard by the idea that the real you wouldn't be such a bad person, that you can attribute all the guilt and ugliness to some fictional version of yourself that you keep locked away from your intimate moments. In a fic about characters closing themselves off from caring for one another for fear of hurting when that's taken from them, the dark mirror of characters closing themselves off from caring so that they can hurt one another lands really heavily here.

Things that hit me really hard, to the point that I'm not really sure if I learned them from this story or liked this story because they were here--the idea of restructuring stories to have a foregone conclusion, so that the why takes a more prominent space than the what; different characters having different nicknames for one character so when it's Forse/Sira it literally feels like she's in two halves being torn between these two people; environmental effects reflecting the reality of the situation (the dramatic storm at the end, the temporary warmth of the bellossom's sunny day fading after Forsira evolves into an archopy and realizes what will inevitably happen to her). Structurally this story still hits hard and everything rhymes, so to speak. It's good, it's sad, it makes me think and feel.

Part of why I was hesitant to return to this fic is specifically the emotional weight that it imparted on me--I'm not going to say that reading this single-handedly changed my outlook on the world, but it was a lot more of a factor than I think the average person would say is reasonable for fanfic. The fic holds up to time and the prose is still really solid; I don't doubt that you've progressed as a writer in the past decade but you had a really good spot to progress from. The characters and the setup hit hard the first time, and they still do this time. The insidious cruelty of Forsira's world slowly builds across the course of the story, and it's to me very much been about growing up and realizing your world is irreparably broken--something that hit hard as a kid, but that still hits hard today. I found myself hesitating on the sidelines more from the marketing side of things--where this fic is advertised as apolitical, about being focused on the characters and not the genocide, about explicitly not being a fic about capital-letter Social Commentary. It's an interesting reminder for me that art doesn't have to have a reason to exist, and it certainly doesn't have to justify itself to me personally, but also that the story I read and the story the author intended to write can be quite different. As an author I find that sort of dichotomy fascinating but also terrifying; as a reviewer I found myself not really knowing what I wanted to say here instead.

Because to me this fic was incredibly political, in a way that I needed to hear at the time and in a way that changed my outlook on life and fanfic for the better. Azma making rallying speeches about how it's necessary to fight back for the future of their children, how the urge to defend the future will outweigh meaningless prejudice in the end--this is probably more political than any other book I've read about genocide, since the ugly reality of those situations is that it strips away the ability for people to even attempt those big dramatic changes, and those speeches never get made because there's never the chance for them. And that's totally fine; this is a situation that's different from our world's genocides for many reasons, but books that exist solely to explain and record and demonstrate the mechanical reasons behind why genocide is bad are just history books.

We read stories for the characters, and I think the reason we find stories effective is because they briefly make us feel like we're experiencing things that we've never actually experienced. And it's true that this is a story about individuals unsuccessfully "dealing" with genocide, in the sense that genocide isn't fixed/dealt with on an individual level and all you can really do is try to cope--but that's kind of what all stories still are, at the end of the day, with varying levels of successfully eliciting sympathy for those characters. Characters don't sit around having somber speeches about how genocide is bad until things boil over and they do, Azma because people don't really do that; there are some disasters that are so much larger than you that you can only quantify them in the sense that they impact you. But that doesn't mean that describing how they impact you specifically somehow makes the disaster no longer exist, or unimportant, or not central to what you're doing. I'm drawn back to the idea that fiction is about making people feel things they've never experienced; while we don't have to live through this, we can imagine what it's like to be an archopy constantly looking over your shoulder. And we as the not-archopy get to close the page at the end of the day because this isn't our reality and we have the luxury of being able to debate if this is sufficiently removed from politics enough or whatever to really be about the genocide or just happening next to the genocide--but ultimately to me the venn diagram of [contains characters a reader can relate to] and [is a functional story] and [is about a world] is basically three overlapping circles, and not the implied dichotomy of [being about characters feeling the effects of genocide] not [being about genocide]. There are other elements at play, of course, but organized racial genocide is one of those things that's ugly enough that the people who aren't forced to experience it don't really want to think about it, and the (fictional or otherwise) people who are forced to experience it end up having it permeate literally every aspect of their lives. They're suffering because of the genocide. Genocide makes people suffer. This is an instance of plot/world shaping the characters, specifically because they're in a situation where they're powerless to shape the world.

I don't really know if there's a way to write a fic about organized racial genocide that doesn't make some sort of commentary on society or politics, even if the politics of genocide usually boils down to "it has happened many times and every time it is terrible". We don't go around waving copies of The Diary of Anne Frank saying that it's not really about politics, it's about the people. Not every story is going to be Animal Farm on the scale of explicit commentary, but good stories say something, and good stories that show a world inherently say something about their worlds--which is to say, plot/character/world are often intertwined and I don't really know if there's a way to have characters suffering from the effects of organized racial genocide without inadvertently making relevant commentary on the society that conducts the organized racial genocide. So I keep returning to this idea that I really appreciated the message that I got from this story, and then getting stuck because it seems like you didn't really intend for that message to be at the forefront at all.

And I guess ultimately I don't think it's worth your/my time to watch me try to quibble over definitions here, to try to say what a word like "political" isn't--instead I'd much rather spend the words talking about what this story means/meant to me, and perhaps try to approach my thoughts from that direction instead.

I think maybe there's an argument that this story isn't asking you to do anything but read it and watch the characters suffer; there's no onus on you to go out into the world and stop the sceptile from murdering the archopy since they don't exist, and even if they did, this happened so long ago that there's no undoing it. There's something almost reassuring in a foregone conclusion because your actions inherently stop mattering and you can tell yourself that all you need to do is live in the present, because your future's been stolen from you. But then there's that voice in the back of your mind that sounds like Azma realizing what it means when they start killing the children, that sounds like Forsira begging Tefiren to come to the clearing to see what the archopy are planning--the climax of this story is Tefiren making a choice. I admit I forgot that Forsira flew off to the northern horizon and not the sunset one, but I never forgot the image of Tefiren glowing so brightly that you can't see his face, desperately falling. "Tefiren was the most afraid of them all", Forsira realizing that her father didn't want to die but still leapt forward to protect Leathra--to me this was a story that acknowledged from the very first scene that you can (and are often circumstantially forced to be) passive/afraid/powerless your entire life, but that there are moments in which you can still choose to be brave, that courage is a choice. And maybe it does matter; it probably doesn't; the world is bigger and uglier and crueler than one person can ever hope to be. But there are those moments where the choice to matter is offered to you, where living for the present and living for the future are one and the same--because you can't change the entire world, but you can change someone's entire world.

So, I suppose to conclude on the notion of changing someone's entire world: the most interesting character for me is probably firmly in the list of "nobody's favorite, probably ranks below several characters who participated in racial genocide". And while I still adore Tefiren and pity Zanthern and feel my heart break with Forsira--I've never really forgotten Germane.

To go full circle on the circumstances in which I first found this story: I read this story in a school district that was fielding requests to remove To Kill a Mockingbird from our curriculum on the grounds that it contained the n-word. The same year that I read Foregone Conclusion, my social studies class had an unironic debate on whether or not the confederate flag--which we'd proudly driven across our football field at home games as recently as ten years prior--was a hate symbol or a sign of cultural heritage. I was carefully peeling off the library book jackets to swap The Golden Compass and one of the randomly enormous Warrior Cats standalone books because the former was banned in my house and the latter wasn't, and because I was only barely beginning to question the idea that stories shouldn't intend to make a point about the world or imply to children that some parts might need fixing. When I saw Germane for the first time, I honestly thought his approach was reasonable, that it wasn't such a bad idea to be "one of the good ones", that there had to be a reason that the sceptile were conducting this genocide, and that the reason was simply that only the bad ones were being killed, that it was just being an archopy that was the perceived crime here. Despite all physical evidence to the contrary, I thought (and wanted) to be white-passing in the school environment I described above, and while this wasn't so much a conscious line of thought to me at the time because I was more or less a child, I believed that as long as I acted the part I'd be one of the good ones as well, safe while the Azmas of the world got all uppity asking for things like "stop killing us, and definitely don't kill our children".

Then they fucking slit his throat.

When it finally happened to me and I realized that you can't be good enough for the people who see you as other, I thought about a lot of real people/events/things, but I thought a lot more about what it means to be the first dead grovyle at the beginning of the end than I think anyone else would've in that moment. "I don't want to die" / "None of them ever do" hit particularly hard in a story that inherently works on the premise of characters selectively refusing to see certain people as people--it's hard but expected when Zanthern learns how to do it, it's cruel but realistic when Tharann/Skorrhen explain it so callously, but it's ugly and painful to realize that Germane's been doing the same thing the entire time. This was a sentiment that lingered with me for so long, because ultimately it's true in a way that I'd never thought fanfiction would be.

I wrestle a lot with the idea of what we take away from stories, and what we were meant to take away from stories--if there's a correct way to enjoy art, if I was just being childish when I drew greater inspiration from what it means to choose what kind of lizard you die as + applied those lessons to my world. I'd read books that spoke to me about deeper concepts before, but I'd never really experienced that specifically in fanfic. Death of the author is a lot harder to think about when I'm in a community that facilitates direct communication with the author. At the end of the day I'm left in the awkward position of feeling like I fell in love with a story that might've been different from the one you intended to write, even if it's the one I read--which is fine, and I think a natural part of reading and writing in a world that's bigger than ourselves--but it leaves me awkwardly kicking a lot of thoughts around when it comes to thanking you directly for writing this. I think sometimes "social commentary" gets conflated with "saying things I don't want to hear", and I think in that light I can see how this fic would be interpreted as not making much social commentary for most readers--but I keep returning to that sickening feeling when I first read Germane crying out like he was special for not wanting to die, how reading that was definitely something that kid!me didn't want to hear, but needed to. Regardless of your intents here, of my misinterpretations, of whatever middle ground actually exists between, I do want to close with thanks. This was and is a story that shaped a weirdly large portion of me, and I'm glad both to revisit it and to hear that you're still chugging away and doing neat things in your life.

 

[Pen]

Accepting

What a wholesome chapter about Zanthern and Forsira finding new friends

I’d had my suspicions that Tharann was Zanthern’s father, and his behavior at the start of this chapter pretty much confirmed it. It was also equally clear just who Zanthern’s new friends spent their time hunting. This stuff is readily apparent to the reader, but because Zanthern is oblivious, the result was a big dose of creeping dread and dramatic irony.

This is the first time we’ve gotten to hear from Them—or as Zanthern is beginning to see, from us. It’s pretty sick that the sceptile seem to shun new evolutions from the archopy side, leaving those sceptile to get snatched up by the only group interested in taking them. (I wonder why the other sceptile hold themselves aloof like that. Tharann suggests some cultural differences, like teaching your children to hunt, but it seems more likely to me that sceptile who aren’t Them don’t want to have any connection with what’s going on on the archopy side, even through contact with sceptile who have left there.) We get to hear Their justifications, such that they are. The logic is basically nonexistant, but that’s not really surprising at this point. Because archopy would stop existing naturally through breeding, killing random archopy is justified. This ‘foregone conclusion’ becomes the justification that then makes it a foregone conclusion.

You do a disturbingly good job capturing the contradictions of racial supremacy. On the one hand, archopy are biological losers, too weak to fight back, destined for failure. On the other hand, archopy are arrogant, think they are better, look down on sceptile because they can fly. The sceptile are able to hold these viewpoints simultaneously: archopy are too strong to be pitied and too weak to be feared. (Tefiren’s mastery of air slash was interesting to me because it underscores a meta imbalance that favors archopy—presumably they can all learn flying attacks which are very effective in combat. So why haven’t they?)

Zanthern continues to be someone who just wants to go with the crowd. He’d rather be complicit in murder—or himself a murder—than live life on his own. That’s a pretty brutal truth to place at the center of a character. The moment he hears the archopy crying out and reassures himself that it’s not Forsira or Azma hit hard--it's such a deeply selfish viewpoint, that deaths only matter if they are personal.

Forsira’s new friendship with Tefiren is a lot more wholesome, but even there a lot of self-deceit seems to be going on. He was definitely not ‘just testing’ her when he flew off and it's a little sad how readily she accepts the excuse--she can't handle another friend running away. I enjoyed Forsira’s increasing willingness to be forthright and aggressive in pursuit of what she wants here, first tracking down Tefiren, then arguing, and lastly, sniping him with air slash. She's always held back in the past and always was less interested in Zanthern's battling practice than he was. Tefiren really does seem to bring out a different side in her.

Tefiren’s portrayal continues to be excellent. He really doesn’t want Forsira intruding on his game, but he finds her intriguing—a puzzle in her own right. And, more importantly, she found him when she was trying not be found and she stopped him when he tried to get away. It feels like Forsira is learning to speak Tefiren’s language. My overall sense is that he doesn’t really know what to do about this. Learning her name and giving her a nickname are going to make it very hard for him to just cut her out again.

The structure of this chapter worked really nicely, the parallels between Zanthern and Forsira as they struggle to find new friendship and meaning in life after parting ways. The moment when Zanthern's crew passes beneath the tree where Forsira and Tefiren are hiding underscores where that parallel stops dead. Zanthern's now a murderer-in-training, and Forsira is their victim.

 

[Pen]

So, after I read Doubting I did not stop and I read the all the way to the bitter end. This is a really brilliant story and a very hard one. I'm not the kind of person who cries after reading things, but I felt the kind of dazed grief and anger that's often as close as I come. Here's some thoughts, which I attempted to place in some semblance of coherence.

The Children

“But… you don’t kill the children. You never kill the children, because they look just like your own children.”

Is it surprising, that They do this? No. It's the logical, if that word can be used, escalation to their genocide. But it's a betrayal of the rules we've learned since the beginning of the fic. In the very first chapter, one of the sceptile wants to kill Forsira and is reminded that they "don’t kill the children or the adolescents." That saves Forsira's life and gives us this story. It's the foundational rule that gives her a childhood that somewhat approaches normal. But Germane is wrong about the reason. It turns out to be a tactical choice, not a moral one. Isolated parents and adults being killed wasn't enough to make the archopy band together and fight back--attacking their children does that, but by that point it's too late. It's chilling how well thought-out it all has been and how it converts sceptile like Vardan, who appeared earlier in the story as approachable, non-threatening examples of sceptile, into some of the cruelest of them of all, spying to determine which children are marked out for death. There's something so real about the line-drawing Germane has tried to do, that if you just stay a grovyle you're safe and the moment that safety net completely breaks, because the logic of racial extermination is a logic of taint and contagion. What Germane will be, not who he is, is all that matters to them.

It was just horrible reading as the realization spread across the archopy community, and the moment where Forsira thought that she was lucky to have been able to grow up free of the constant threat of death really hit hard.

Tefiren

Suddenly he wasn’t such an enigma after all. It all made sense with that one, simple reason. She’d thought Tefiren made the life-or-death chases thrilling and exciting because he was just that fearless, but in fact it was the opposite. He did it because he was the most scared of them all.

Tefiren's character is so well done. His whole character is about running away, but in the end, he comes back. It was a beautiful moment. In so many stories, characters do 'brave' things and risk their lives, but the narration treats it like it was expected to happen, and it doesn't feel like a big deal. Here, we know how terrified Tefiren is and how hard he's worked to survive. The fact that he comes back despite everything is an act of true courage and self-sacrifice.

I enjoyed Tefiren every time he was on screen and I love how you showed the shift in his attitude towards Forsira. Again, the contrast between him trying to sneak away from her that first night they sleep together to coming back for her says it all. I liked how quietly their love builds, and how it takes push and pull on either side. Forsira's choice to run away with Tefiren, despite how much she loves and respects Azma, was hard to read, but it showed an interesting reciprocality. Forsira loves Tefiren enough to run away, and he loves her enough to not.

Zathern

“Why, Zathern?” he heard the Archopy – his mother – say. It took him a moment to realise that she was asking him.

“It’s easier,” he said distantly, not quite meeting her eyes. She still looked mostly like a target, so long as he didn’t look too closely at her.

I mentioned how Zathern's obliviousness in Acceptance creates a nasty sense of dramatic irony. But what really got to me was the moment it began to sink in that Zanthern’s obliviousness is more than obliviousness. It’s intentional. He’s deliberately trying not to understand, because he doesn’t want to. It was interesting how Zathern engages in the mock battles he did in childhood in order to try and forget. It felt like he's trying to take refuge in his past, when he was naive and the genocide didn't impact him. He really spends the whole story trying to ignore it--I remember how in the early chapters, he's almost miffed that Forsira's parents died because it makes her less fun. Zathern's arc is almost like him realizing that it's unpleasant to live in a world where people he cares about are going to die and that the solution is to not think about it. It's really impressive that you managed to write a character who feels like a person and cares about others, but when pushes comes to shove, is so deeply selfish and morally bankrupt that he'll turn his back on his mother in favor of the murderer who raped her. His many justifications and rationalizations are so well done. I'm thinking of the moment he accuses his mother of making his upbringing a game. It's so far from the truth, but it's the kind of way he needs to think in that moment, a terribly brilliant way to strip the love from years of parenting--it was just a game. His outburst about the world being unfair rang particularly hollow--his mate died on a voluntary mission to murder someone. He killed Forsira's mate for existing. Even his choice to remember the archopy is tinged with something selfish. When they were alive, and it would have mattered, he flinches away from thinking. It's convenient to remember them now that they're dead and his actions won't change that.

Zathern is a pretty gut-wrenching study in the mundanity of evil. Tharann embodies everything a classical villain should be: he’s cruel, manipulative, uncaring, takes sadistic pleasure in murder and rape. But Zathern is also a villain in this story, because in the end, he murders and becomes complicit in murder because it is easier than not doing so. Genocides happen because of the Zatherns.

Foregone Conclusions

“If I don’t,” Zathern said slowly, not opening his eyes, “someone else will. He’s going to die anyway.”

He remembered his mother begging him to come back to her even though she‘d have been killed either way. And in the end, what had it mattered that he hadn’t? It was the same here. Someone was going to kill this Archopy; it didn’t make a difference who.

So, this story is called Foregone Conclusion and it's on-point title if I'd ever seen one, because it's the prediction and the problem of the whole fic. I finished the story with the feeling that the very idea of a foregone conclusion is the insidious lie that animates so much of the story. Again and again, characters tell themselves that the conclusion is foregone as a way to absolve themselves of any responsibility. If a comet is about to crash, wiping out all life on the island, would it really be wrong to kill someone five minutes before the crash? If that comet is going to wipe out only archopy, is it wrong to kill them first? But it's not a comet and has never been. Every choice that Zathern and the rest make are steps towards the conclusion, which is made inevitable by their actions, not by anything else. It's particularly insidious how the argument is rooted in 'inherent biology', in the way so many real-world genocides are.

But it was never a foregone conclusion. Azma fights. Tefiren comes back, and because he chooses to fight, Forsira survives. Maybe she does the next day, drowning in the ocean, but it mattered that he gave her that time. In a fic that's so crushingly, relentlessly cruel, Tefiren's fighting back and making a difference felt so important. Zathern realizes he lives in an evil world, and from there decides it doesn't matter whether he adds to that evil. But how you confront an evil world matters. In the end, Tefiren proves that.

Misc

I really tried to keep to chapter-by-chapters so I could comment properly on individual scenes and stuff, but since I read this in one fascinated blur, I'm less able to pick that out. What I can say was that you did an incredible job structurally. The pacing always hit just right--I never felt like a chapter dragged, and the lighter moments were always given texture and shadows by the darkness surrounding them. The amount of foils and parallels is just great, particularly in Zathern and Forsira, who both find mates who distract them from reality, except oops one of them is killing people. Characterization was fantastic--nuanced and terrible in its realism. I really liked how you brought back and tied in minor characters from the start--Vardan and Germane. Every interaction feels like it's in the story for a reason.

So yeah, thanks for ripping out my heart, I didn't need it anyway. I know you haven't written pokefic for ages, but if you ever decide to start again, I will be here, with a second heart for you to stab.

 

[elyvorg]

Thanks everyone for your reviews! I really enjoyed reading them and will get around to replying to them all at some point, I promise. However, I didn’t want to let the need to do that cause me to put off posting this other thing in here for even longer than I already have been.


Foregone Conclusion: the Musical

So, this is a… I dunno, a bonus feature? which I’ve been meaning to get around to posting in this thread at some point. (In fact, having an excuse to post this thing was literally the reason I started reposting Foregone Conclusion on TR, believe it or not.) This was inspired by some conversations on the TR Discord about hypothetical musical versions of our fics, and in particular by my friend Dragonfree, who is a nerd for analysing musicals and who did this herself with her own fic Morphic.

And, for anyone who’s seeing this and might be assuming I’m about to make a silly parody hijinks thing out of my very sad and depressing fic? Ohohoho, no, let me stop you there; I am deadly serious about this. Quoth the introduction of Dragonfree’s Morphic musical post, because she explains this better than I could:

Musicals are a good and interesting medium for serious fiction […] and I am going to serious this up.

See, to me, the musical format has two major strengths as a narrative medium. The first is that it can explore the inner worlds of characters in a pretty unique way. Characters get to monologue in a sort of heightened, non-literal manner, intensified by music: we can learn what they’re about, what makes them tick, what’s going on in their heads in a particular moment, in a way that wouldn’t really make sense presented as actual inner monologue in another medium. The music aspect itself then adds a layer to it that’s impossible to replicate in any other.

The second strength of the musical format is that it’s really good at highlighting recurring themes, parallels and contrasts. Reprise the same melody, the same lyric, a parallel but opposite lyric, and you’ve instantly connected two things together. Is there a character arc? You can highlight what has changed. Are there two characters going through something similar? You can draw that out. Is there a recurring theme throughout? Use a recurring lyric, a recurring melodic phrase! Nudge the viewer into forming connections! Delicious! And you can do subtler things on the music level itself - particular instruments with particular connotations, recurring motifs…

And, see, all of this happens to be perfect for the kind of story Foregone Conclusion is. I honestly think that a musical format might be literally the best possible format to hypothetically tell this story in, better than even the prose fiction format I actually wrote it in. That's what compelled me to do this, and I went quite hard on it, as you'll see.

If it wasn’t already obvious, this summary of the hypothetical musical will contain spoilers for the entirety of the fic! No matter how curious you are about this concept, I highly recommend you do not read it until you’ve finished reading the fic itself, as I’m about to basically summarise the entire story here.

So, without further ado, the tracklist for Foregone Conclusion the musical!

Spoiler

(The musical is sung-through, meaning that everything happens in a song of some kind and there are no scenes with unsung dialogue between them.)

Act I

That’s The Way Things Are (Forsira, Leathra, Resten)

Forsira’s parents teach her about Them, about the inevitability of all Archopy being killed one day, and then get murdered. Certain discordant instruments/motifs are used during the murdery part that can then come up in other Act 1 songs to symbolise Forsira’s trauma about Sceptile. Also, from the Sceptile, after the murders when they see Forsira: “We don’t kill the children. That’s the way things are.” At the end, Forsira sings a few brief, sad lines about how she’s Alone.

Life Is Fun (Zathern, Azma, Forsira)

A montage song as Zathern meets Forsira and shows her around the sunset side. Contains a lot of That’s The Way Things Are, as well, as Zathern teaches her things about the world – most Sceptile are peaceful, Grovyle has a split evolution, he’s going to evolve into a Sceptile because his mum says so – but in a more upbeat and positive way. Featuring some Azma, who does some somewhat more sombre That’s The Way Things Are-ing at Forsira, and yet also affectionately agreeing with Zathern that yes, for now, for them, Life Is Fun. Forsira mostly just passively listens and asks a few questions as she’s dragged around by Zathern, but by the end she’s tentatively joining in and agreeing, in a more subdued harmony, that life is fun.

Nightmares (Azma, Forsira)

An Azma song, as she comforts Forsira about her nightmares of the past and hints that nightmares of the future are the ones to worry about – but not yet.

Changes (Zathern, Forsira, Raphyn)

Zathern is excited to evolve! Contains the bit where they find Raphyn harmlessly fainted, because I did that as deliberate foreshadowing to his death so damn right we’re keeping that kind of thing in the musical. Upbeat and positive about the idea of evolution, only some slight discord as Forsira evolves first and Zathern is overcome with jealousy for a bit, but that’s quickly resolved. Changes are good and exciting!

Old Comrades (Germane, Azma, Forsira)

Germane talks with Azma about her old comrades being killed off one by one. He sees the newly-evolved Forsira and kinda condescendingly tells her she should make that her only evolution if she has any sense, like him, because him staying in this form keeps him safe from Them.

He leaves, and Azma explains to Forsira that Germane is an old comrade of hers from back when she opposed Them; she sounds less confident about his staying-a-Grovyle tactic than he does but otherwise seems to regard him fondly, explaining that he can spy on Them for her. There’s a motif in here somewhere that I’ll call the Azma’s Activism motif, which’ll come up a few other times.

Changes (cont.)

Changes/Old Comrades would have to go together as one combined song on the soundtrack, because there’s another verse or so of Changes to finish it off here, as Zathern shows up evolved.

(I can’t reorder events so that Zathern evolves right after Forsira does and before she meets Germane, because if Zathern was in earshot for the Germane part, Azma wouldn’t talk about any of this stuff.)

Inner Predator (Azma, Zathern, Forsira)

Azma teaches them how to hunt. The words “inner predator” feel suspiciously squeezed into the lyrics they contain, like they’re too many syllables and another phrase would fit better. (The lines with it in probably don’t rhyme, but would do if you substituted “Monster Inside”.)

The Sunrise Side (Raphyn, Zathern, Forsira, Tharann)

Raphyn takes them on a rebellious teenage adventure. We get to see Zathern’s first encounter with Tharann in this musical format, because things aren’t restricted to Forsira’s POV here! That deserves to be covered. Tharann should get a motif, which starts out sounding vaguely sleazy but essentially positive and friendly, and will gradually degenerate into the most sinister and evil as it gets reprised.

Changes Reprise (Zathern, Forsira, Azma)

In which suddenly the changes are bad and uncomfortable and unwanted. Zathern evolves and creeps Forsira out, then finds Raphyn dead and breaks down and leaves (a sad reprise of Life’s (not) Fun, also Forsira gets some kind of “no don’t leave me” motif), then Forsira tells Azma about his departure (a brief hint of Inner Predator in the bit where Azma says she was out hunting to clear her head, and then some hints of Nightmares towards the end).

Alone Again (Forsira)

Forsira misses Zathern and prepares for her evolution and to break ties with Azma. Reprises and builds on the Alone part from the end of the first song. Maybe including some of her own Life’s (Not) Fun. Ends with a pretty direct reprise of That’s The Way Things Are as she evolves and knows this makes her a target now.

Act II

Catch Me If You Can (Tefiren)

Tefiren’s intro song! Starts with his battle with the Tropius as he playfully, boastfully wins the fight and evolves. Descends into bleak frantic terror for a single verse as he realises Verdan is about to kill him, then veers very abruptly back into the same gleeful confident tone as he realises he has wings. The words “catch me if you can” have exactly the same musical motif as “that’s the way things are” (but more upbeat, so one might not spot it at first), because Tefirenlogic. All Tefiren’s escapes and victories are inevitable and obvious and just a fact of life!

Distanced (Forsira, Draern, Zathern)

A song showcasing Forsira and Zathern’s lonely lives on either side of the island, missing each other’s company and not feeling properly connected with the rest of their own kind, for very different reasons. Features Draern for the Forsira part; this song could kind of be his motif. Some kind of Lies motif comes in at the end of Zathern’s part as he learns his mother hid the truth about his father.

Life’s A Game (Tefiren, Forsira, Draern)

Forsira meets Tefiren and he helps her escape Them! Suspiciously similar to Life Is Fun, but maybe with kinda different instruments to make it Tefiren-flavoured instead. Also with a lot of Catch Me If You Can as Tefiren brags about the inevitability of his escapes. Forsira’s “no don’t leave me” motif shows up as he refuses to let her stick around.

She goes back to the clearing, finds Draern, sings to him about how Tefiren taught her than life can be a game, life can be fun again, and Draern shoots back that Tefiren’s insane, introducing a new motif – a twisted version of the Distanced motif – that we’ll hear more of in a bit.

Here to Stay (Zathern, Tharann, Skorrhen, Karsa, Forsira, Tefiren)

A lengthy, multi-scene song covering all of Accepting. Probably the longest single song in the musical, and right at the midpoint of it.

Begins with Zathern meeting Tharann again and being introduced to his group of “friends”, meeting Karsa, figuring they seem all right and willing to accept him and maybe he’s finally found somewhere he can stay. Tharann’s motif is in here, still sounding relatively positive and welcoming.

Cut to Forsira, finding Tefiren again and asking to live with him, refusing to take no for an answer, insisting that she’s here to stay, Tefiren eventually gives up protesting and insists that if she’s going to be here to stay, she needs to learn how to use air blades.

Back to Zathern, he’s about to go on one of their hunts and is excited, knowing this is what real members of the group get to do, feeling like if he does this, it’s proof that he’s here to stay. The Inner Predator/Monster Inside motif returns for a bit here as Karsa advises him to let it out before the hunt begins, to make it easier. (Whenever a character’s taken over by the monster inside, their singing becomes a monotone chant with no melody to it.)

Back to Tefiren, we get his POV as he’s waiting for Forsira to fall asleep (his singing is non-diagetic and she can’t hear it), lengthily Tefirationalising away that she can’t be here to stay, that’s idiotic, why couldn’t she see that (probably featuring some Tefiren-flavoured That’s The Way Things Are motif) and then he flees once he figures she’s soundly asleep. Forsira hears him and wakes up, panics in verse about how he’s not here to stay with her after all (maybe her “no don’t leave me” motif shows up again), catches up to him and confronts him. He insists that no he wasn’t running away, of course he’s here to stay. (This has a bit of a desperate tone to it in the music, because now the audience knows that Tefiren doesn’t want to be.) They hide as they hear Them approach.

Sinister Monster Inside instrumental for a while as Zathern’s group chase down a different Archopy and he snaps back to himself and watches in horror as They kill them.

The main melody of the song becomes more ominous and helpless as Zathern is persuaded in turn by Tharann (his motif returns, but becomes more sinister), then Skorrhen, then Karsa, that he really is here to stay, and Zathern can’t do anything but accept it.

Insane (Arkesra, Forsira, Tefiren)

The two Tefiren scenes from Doubting, combined into one song that explores how strange and messed-up Tefiren is.

Tefiren kills prey without using the inner predator and shrugs it off when Forsira questions it. Forsira rationalises to herself that, okay, it’s a little odd, but it’s just a different way of doing things; it’s not like he broke a battling pact; it’s not like he’s insane.

Arkesra shows up to talk about Draern’s death; some bits of Distanced are reprised and inverted as she talks about their relationship. Then she shifts into insisting that Tefiren’s insane and Forsira’s halfway there herself. Then Arkesra gets suddenly killed – Tefiren’s “Sira, move!” is in there, as a non-sung line.

This segues into the Vileplume chase sequence (I had to cut the Tropius one to merge these two scenes). We still get the bit where Forsira suggests fighting Them because they’re not outnumbered for once and Tefiren tells her she’s insane for even thinking it.

Perhaps Forsira comments that Tefiren’s crazy as he leaps into the Vileplume horde, in a casually appreciative way like usual, but then kinda stops as she realises the full meaning of that word.

“Who stops flapping? Have you stopped flapping?” is very definitely a lyric, because I say so.

As Tefiren realises he’s fatally poisoned and Forsira offers to take a risk to go fetch a Pecha berry, Tefiren tells her again that she’s insane, but relents and lets her go. The focus switches, perhaps overlapping, between Tefiren, curled up and dying from poison, insisting to himself that risking your life for someone else is insane, and yet… (and yet, in that case, he’s glad she’s insane), and Forsira, questioning if Tefiren’s gone insane to try and tell her not to save him, still haunted by Arkesra’s words, but concluding that no, he told her to help in the end, he isn’t insane.

As Tefiren eats the berry and recovers, Forsira begins to bring up Arkesra, then drops it when Tefiren doesn’t seem to get the gravity of it. Tefiren changes the topic to some definitely-just-logical musing that this proves there is some value to her being here, and we get a brief Here to Stay motif, with Tefiren finally admitting for the first time that she’s here to stay.

Forget (Karsa, Zathern, Tharann, Germane, maybe Skorrhen)

Karsa teaches Zathern her go-to coping mechanism as we see his daily life hanging out among Them. A lot of it is positive and friendly, but occasionally things get mentioned that make Zathern uncomfortable, and every time, Karsa’s there, telling him to forget. Maybe slips into the Monster Inside melody for a bit as Zathern tries to insistently remind himself that being here makes it easier, makes it all not hurt.

Germane being there and spying for Them can be established in this song and provide a source of several of the uncomfortable topics, but by the end, Zathern’s singing along with Karsa about forgetting every bit of it. He’s fine here; he’s got friends, and his father, and he feels like he matters and is here to stay. It’s not hard to forget the rest.

Germane’s Betrayal (Germane, Skorrhen, Tharann)

(Is Germane the one doing the betraying, or the one being betrayed? Both, it turns out.)

At the end of Forget, Skorrhen and Tharann pull Germane aside into a private meeting. When questioned as to if he really doesn’t care about Azma, he insists – in the same melody in which Azma spoke fondly of his co-operation in Old Comrades - that of course he doesn’t, that Azma was stupid to let herself evolve and even stupider to try and actively oppose Them and her impending fate is no concern of his at all.

Then he realises Skorrhen and Tharann are about to kill him, and as he flees in terror he reprises the bit he sang to Forsira about how staying in this form was supposed to keep him safe, this isn’t supposed to be happening to him.

Act III

Nightmares Reprise (Azma)

Azma finds Germane’s dead body and realises what it means, for the Archopy in general, but also for her own personal nightmares.

For Our Futures (Forsira, Tefiren, Azma, Crowd)

A song about the Archopy’s decision to fight. (Also features a lot of “for the children”, with the same melody and rhythm as “for our futures”).

Starts with Forsira persuading Tefiren to come to the meeting, brushing off his protests by insisting it’s for the children, maybe with some lines about her own childhood in there. Hints of Insane in lines that are Forsira thinking to herself, because Tefiren coming to this will prove he isn’t.

The main part of the song is led by Azma (with occasional dismissive scoffing from Tefiren), rallying the crowd into a hopeful, heroic chant about fighting back, protecting their children and fighting for their futures. (Maybe it’s a variation on the Azma’s Activism motif?)

The crowd’s rallying chants begin to overlap with Tefiren singing lines about how insane they are, until he suddenly cuts off the crowd entirely by breaking out into a whole fanatical reprised chorus of Insane – deciding to fight Them, risking your life to save someone else, they’re all insane. After he flees, the whole crowd (except for Azma and Forsira) then do their own reprise of Insane, about Tefiren, for running away, for not caring about protecting the children. They’ve heard about this guy; he just proved he’s the sick freak they always knew he was. Maybe at the end it gets directed at Forsira – she’s the one who lives with him; is she insane, too? She leaves to follow Tefiren without answering them.

I Don’t Want to Die (Tefiren, Forsira)

In the cave at the cliffs, as Forsira sees Tefiren’s true self. Mostly a sad reprise of Catch Me If You Can (“I don’t want to die” has the same melody), also with some Insane, as Tefiren agrees that he’s insane and she shouldn’t want to stay with him, and then Here to Stay as Forsira stays for his sake anyway. A “live for today” lyrical motif first shows up here.

The Battle/Azma’s Despair (Skorrhen, Zathern, Karsa, Tharann, Azma, Crowd)

Begins with a sinister echo of For Our Futures (not those lyrics, but musically) as Skorrhen rallies the rest of Them to fight. Also some Monster Inside, because that’s how most of the Sceptile are going to cope with this.

Cut to Azma, with the final, fullest reprise of Nightmares as she waits for what she knows is coming and finally exposits in song why They did this to her. (There some hints of the Azma’s Activism motif here.)

Some For Our Futures and the sinister Them version clashing as the fight begins, then this moves into the background as Tharann confronts Azma. Perhaps chants of each can still be heard in between the “family” confrontation, the Archopy one getting feebler and being drowned out by the Them one as the battle progresses.

The confrontation has a lot of Monster Inside, as Zathern insists that this is easier for him this way – by “this way” he means joining Them, but that’s also what the monster inside is for – hopefully making it clear why Azma was afraid to call it that when teaching him. Also Tharann’s motif, the Azma’s Activism motif, the Lies motif, some lyrical echoing of “my life was a game to you?” (but not with the melody), probably some more Nightmares somewhere, maybe a very subtle, sad musical hint of Life Is Fun, because poor, poor Zathern.

Forget Reprise (Zathern, Karsa)

A lot less upbeat and more desperate than the original. Zathern and Karsa try to help each other cope with their increasingly horrible reality and the knowledge that it still isn’t over. The Monster Inside part isn’t here in this version. There’s some Here to Stay, because Karsa’s really the only reason Zathern’s still here at this point.

Life’s A Game/Life Is Fun Reprise (Forsira, Tefiren, Karsa, Zathern)

A very desperate, wishful tone to the reprise, as we switch between Forsira/Tefiren and Karsa/Zathern trying to cope as the end draws near. This time it’s Forsira largely leading Tefiren’s version as she helps prop up Tefiren’s defence mechanisms (some more “live for today”), and Karsa leading Zathern’s version as Zathern finally snaps that he doesn’t want to forget his old life. A unified line between both pairs something like bad things might come tomorrow, but for now, for today, [life is fun/life’s a game].

After the song crescendos to a big swelling double-duet of both pairs singing that (okay, not quite, Tefiren does not sing the part about bad things coming at all, he Cannot), things settle down into just Forsira and Tefiren in a quieter, lighthearted verse. She playfully tells him that, hey, the rain’s stopped, today’s a beautiful day, they should enjoy the sunshine and the flying while they can instead of hiding all the time like he keeps wanting to. She sings again, bad things might come tomorrow, but for now, for today, life’s a—

—and she’s abruptly cut off with a scream as one of Them grabs her. Immediate abrupt transition into the next song.

Today (Tefiren, Forsira, Zathern, Tharann, Crowd)

The song of the final climactic kill.

Tefiren’s frantic breakdown and bravest ever decision contains motifs from Catch Me If You Can/That’s The Way Things Are (he loves Forsira, he can’t let her die, and that’s just the way things are), Insane, and a big focus on why does it have to be *today*?

The rest of Them chant as they attack Tefiren: today’s the day it’s over, today’s the day they win, today’s the day they catch the one who can’t be caught. Verdan’s been around as a minor character getting constantly outsmarted by Tefiren; he gets a few solo lines in this bit. It’s interspersed with Tefiren’s completely-no-longer-sung screams of desperation and pain and run, Sira, please

There’s some lines from Forsira here about how she knows she should run but she’s frozen in horror, unable to look away from Tefiren’s final fight, knowing They’re only ignoring her because he’s the one who’s hard to catch, not her.

Then Tharann, with the most twisted and evil version of his motif, singing about his frustration that Zathern didn’t kill Azma, but still, there’s two more chances left, he’ll complete his revenge and get Zathern to finally kill someone, today, today’s the day he’ll win at last.

Forsira and Zathern have a desperate tragic counterpoint duet as she asks him what are you doing here? and all his justifications fall apart now that Karsa’s dead, the whole thing backed with Their sinister chant of today’s the day it’s over, today’s the day we win; they do not care about the estranged best friend drama going on here and just want the murder to happen already. (also still constantly interspersed with a terrified, broken Tefiren just desperately telling Sira to run)

(Some of the lost pressured Sceptile are instead chanting today’s the day it’s over, today’s the day we’re *free*, because they so badly don’t want to be stuck in this horrible murder cult any longer)

Alone Again, Forever (Forsira)

Forsira’s swan song, including a sad reprise of Life’s a Game as she mourns Tefiren and concludes the only way to win.

Don’t Forget (Zathern)

Zathern’s final scene, another Forget reprise with a sombre but more hopeful tone, also with some references to Life’s (Not) Fun. Maybe ends on some That’s The Way Things Were – there were Archopy, they did exist, and he won’t forget it.

 

[Venia Silente]

I didn't expect this story to be here and, well, I know it's long done and finished but I wanted to say a few things about it.

The story is good... goodly sad. It's solidly crafted, with practical foundations for why things are going the way they are for both "sides" of the species involved. Not only the biological factor that spells doom for you no matter how strong is your will to change, but also the social factor that promotes what is, in my experience so far, the closest thing I've seen to right-wing neonazis in modern Pokémon fiction (barring stuff like more proactive takes on Team Flare). It includes even the realities of a "civil war" such as the rape and the social profiting from the children by raising them to be "of age". At least in the literary sense, a pretty well crafted take.

On an emotional sense, I hate that I couldn't unhook myself from this story when I read it. It was obviously depressing, obviously gritty, obviously deadly, and obviously not a thing to read if you care strongly about how you look when you are reading something in public or with other people, but also didn't really leave enough emotional (not narrative! "lulls" to disengage from it for a while. It's (or it was, back then) a very good drug: once it hooks you, you're in for the final death.

I already disliked Sceptile before I knew of this fic (which was in about 2015), largely because Grovyle was just all around better. This fic certainly didn't help, and neither did ORAS giving Sceptile a mega. So on that end, that's a pretty good work, too! This story taught me to dislike Sceptile even more. About the only way the effect could have been stronger would have been if the story had been about a lost alternative to Charizard or Greninja.

Now, you do mention on your intro (I assume is also copied verbatim from back then from your first releases), that this Archovy is a Fakémon of yours. However, you happen to be a very lucky person. I'd like to ask your opinion on the unreleased development data on Ruby and Sapphire, leaked sometime ca. late 2020 if I recall correctly (sorry, time has been a haze since COVID began), which includes a description for what originally a different evolution path for Grovyle which resulted in... what do you know, an Archæopteryx Pokémon — described as such in the data files and with flavour text describing both their flocking behaviour and their standing as remnants from the prehistoric age. Sceptile definitively didn't exist back then! It's a shame so far there's no sprites released from those dev files.

So, what is your take on this idea not only having been yours, but also its general foundation had been intended as the original canon?

Just about finally, and the other big reason why I wanted to comment on this, was to ask if you would be okay with granting a permission to eg.: me adopting Archovy to fill that "lost Pokémon slot" in a reconstructive Pokédex project I'm working on that also includes stuff like the unreleased G2 mons. it's not something that's gonna definitively happen (it's only 2020-something, there's still time for more leaks) but this certainly caught my attention enough that I'm interested in the option.

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Howdy, ely! Been excited to read this one for a long fucking time, I hope that I'll be quicker to finish it and that you'll enjoy my responses. The A/N has me pretty hyped! That one thing in the spoilerbox might trouble me some, but I have every confidence your handling of it will be solid and that I'll be alright when it turns up.

Strong fucking opener, I'll tell you that. A story about genocide, indeed. Each new piece of information delivered deftly, by internal narration, by speech, or by implication, such as that meaningful capitalisation of Them. The moment in which Resten declares he wants to live in particular, that really landed with me. An uncomplicated desire expressed simply, but complicated by context, by parenthood, and made terrifying to Forsira by contrast with a fuller version of himself the reader hasn't even seen. This is dark as hell and I feel for these characters instantly, which of course, is very much the idea. The first scene ends with several really rather excellent lines that really fix that dark tone in place, while lingering not so much on the killing blows and combat, as on terror and on trauma, and on the terrible consequences of that violence. I can tell this is gonna deliver.

After that point, I just disappeared into the prose for a while, enjoying (if that's the word for appreciating something so deeply tragic) what I can only describe as Forsira's abject helplessness. She's very much a child in this, and in such a way as to make the knife twist successfully in my chest, which is a mark missed by a lot of stuff that runs at grimdark too directly and slams right into the fourth wall in the process. But no, this chapter slipped out of the screen and between my ribs to hurt me. The joyful, charming parts of the later scenes are riddled-through with trauma-induced tension and and I have a very good idea what Azma's cryptically certain assertion is about. Zathern's obliviousness to the darkness just makes it worse, honestly. Thank you for that, ely. Please, have some of my fuckin' blood. You've earned it.

 

[Seren]

Okay, beginning my long overdue reading! I've decided to start over rather than from where I left off, both because I only remember so much and also so I can comment on things as I go. Only doing "Learning" for tonight, but I'm hoping that getting this hurdle out of the way will kick me into gear and get me back to reading further. I've found myself having difficulty finding specific things to point out, and some of the points I had thought of were things I know we've discussed in the past and I just don't recall, so forgive me if there are some of those questions in here. (Also don't feel obligated to answer anything, I assume most of it will come with the story.)

From the moment her parents’ panicked voices woke her in the night, she knew they were going to die. She was still young and understood little about the world, but one thing her parents had stressed was that they wouldn’t be there forever. One day, they’d be taken from her. And that day was today.

I was going to say that this opening scene was really sad, but the entire first part as a whole was sad, really. Forsira's parents really don't sound like they taught her a whole lot before they died, but one thing they made sure she knew was that they were inevitably going to be taken from her (not just dying, but being murdered, no less). I think overall, the handling of the aftermath was very well done. Even the parts where Forsira starts to get over the loss of her parents doesn't feel rushed. She's still young, and the minds of kids are more easily influenced/distracted; yet even then, they're never far from her thoughts.

The Zigzagoon backed away a short distance and growled at her. Something in the noise made it more than just a normal growl, and Forsira shivered, not sure if she wanted to risk hitting this Pokémon as hard as she could. But at the same time, she didn’t like being growled at; she shot the Zigzagoon a look of disdain without thinking, somehow feeling twice as large as she did so. The mammal whined and shrunk back slightly, but then seemingly shook it off and rushed at her again.

I am mildly surprised that Forsira's parents never taught her things like battling and hunting, among other things (I don't recall exactly how old she is, but it's explicitly stated she's around Zathern's age and Azma certainly told him about such things). I don't recall if there was a reason for this, or if it was simply their choice in how they raised her compared to how Azma raised Zathern.

One thing I do recall from my previous reading was how you write the battles. The detail of asking a pokemon for a battle to assure them you're not going to try to eat/kill them is great. This paragraph here expecially highlights the moves Forsira and Zathern use without explicitly naming them, and it's not hard at all to figure it out.

“Nope,” he said. “Just fainted. Mine, too. They’ll wake up in a while and be fine.” He laughed. “That’s all that was going to happen to you if it hit you, Forse. You looked so worried!”

Forsira stared down at the ground, embarrassed. “I didn’t know,” she muttered. “And… my parents…”

Kind of relating to the above, I'm surprised Forsira's parents never discussed this with her. I'd be afraid too if I was thrown into my first battle, having never done it before, having just lost my parents, and wondering if I was about to die, too. Especially given that Resten and Leathra were so insistent that Forsira would lose them, they'd never think to wonder how she'd get food on her own once they were gone? I know they were insistent also that she'd find someone else to look after her, but that feels like an important skill to have.

“I told her he wouldn’t hurt her,” Zathern mumbled between mouthfuls of Zigzagoon. “It was only Verdan.”

I don't trust him. I recognize the name, but I don't recall enough about him, and given what I do recall about Zathern... I don't trust Verdan.

“You’re still a Treecko. The Sceptile evolve from Grovyle, just like Archopy do. Treecko and Grovyle are safe from Them because you’re exactly like Their own children.”

I love this little detail right here. As a whole, you did a good job of showing the sceptile as both deadly and somewhat maniacal (with their "we're better than archopy so they should all die" attitude), while also trying to portray them as not monsters - they have enough morals to not kill children, because they don't know what those children could become.

“They won’t kill me,” said Azma darkly, in such a way that Forsira knew she utterly believed that. “Not for a long time.”

I wondered this during the entire chapter, too; I forgot Azma was certain she'd be safe, and I forget why, but I do recall she sticks around for a while. And I feel like this was tied in to Verdan somehow; weren't they meeting in secret on occasion for something? Hmmm.

That's all from me for tonight!

 

[Seren]

Finally getting around to part 2 - Growing.

“Is he…?”

“’Course not,” said Zathern. “He’s just fainted. Totally normal. You worry too much, Forse.”

Honestly, I'm still with Forsira on this one. I don't know if grovyle have any natural predators, but I think even if that's a 'no', I'd still probably feel a little freaked out by seeing someone I know (or even imagining myself) just passed out on a road somewhere.

Forsira dodged to the side, summoning up her own inner speediness to race towards a nearby tree, Zathern hot on her heels. They both scampered up the tree trunk – but midway up, Forsira leapt backwards and fell, spinning in midair as she dropped past Zathern to smack him with her tails and send him sprawling off to the side.

I do love that Forsira starts off this battle just reading Zathern like a book. Shows drastic improvement on her part, both in terms of ability as well as confidence. Aaaaand then she falls for her own play immediately after, whoops! At least she had been distracted, Zathern just got flat-out beat. Also I do remember her evolving before Zathern, and it's just as amusing the second time. Poor guy.

I’ve heard talk – it seems pretty likely that Verdan is one of Them. Perhaps some of the others that hang around the sunset side, too.”

AHA. Called it. That's why I felt weird seeing his name. This confirms it. (Confirm being used loosely, as I don't think I actually read far enough ahead the first time to confirm nor refute this, but I feel justified enough for the time being regardless.)

“Germane’s an adult. He should have evolved into Archopy a long time ago, but he stops his body from doing so. He thinks that way he’ll be safe from Them.”

Forsira was surprised; she hadn’t realised it was possible to stop yourself from evolving. “And he’s still alive,” she said, almost thoughtfully.

Azma shivered and looked away, avoiding Forsira’s gaze. “I… I had Zathern.”

Forsira frowned. It seemed to make sense; Azma would never put her son in danger, but…

Oh, I forgot about this bit. I vaguely recall wondering why more grovyle don't stop themselves from evolving, too, but again I'm not sure I ever read far enough to get an answer on that. Also a little puzzled about why having Zathern would cause Azma to stop, though. They don't target the children...

(Hi future me here, realized that without Azma, Zathern wouldn't have had a mother, so that's probably a good reason, ignore the previous mental failure.)

“The point of the demonstration wasn’t to teach you how to catch prey,” Azma explained. “You already know how to do that from your instincts and the practice you’ve been doing – besides which this would have been a useless demonstration, as Swellow are difficult prey for beginners and the two of you can’t fly… yet,” she added, giving the tiniest glance to Forsira.

“The point was to show you the state of mind you need to be in when you hunt. If you kill while you are still yourself, the guilt you would feel from ending another sentient creature’s life would build up each time and destroy you from the inside. You have to distance yourself from everything that makes you you and call upon the… ah… predator within. It’s a natural part of all of us.”

Here's something I don't think I caught last time; Azma foreshadowing Forsira's evolution. I remember suspecting she'd be an Archopy the first time, since I knew she'd meet Tefiren eventually, but it was still stressful anticipating the possibility that I was wrong. Now, though, I do know/remember for sure what she becomes, so maybe that's why this stood out to me this time.

Also something I recall being fascinated by; the 'predator' switch all (well, many) pokemon apparently have to be able to hunt. It's fascinating how pokemon being sentient changes the way the food chain operates. I can't imagine a lion or dalmatian or something doing this. It's a clever way to explain how sentient creatures still kill each other for food.

Forsira learning to hunt herself was a sad scene. Can't blame her for struggling with it, even if she could rationalize it as not really being her actually doing it in the moment.

She was about to slump in defeat when she heard branches rustling behind her and a cry of “Hey, Forse!” ringing out through the trees. Relief flowed through her as she turned around to see Zathern rushing towards her, grinning madly, Raphyn following not quite as overenthusiastically in his wake.

“Forse! This place is awesome! Well, not this whole place, but we met this Sceptile called Tharann and he was great! We really got on – he seemed really interested about the Archopy side, asked me loads of questions about my mum and stuff. And he took us to see the sea on this side of the island. They don’t have beaches over here, you know – they have cliffs, these huge great rocky shapes just dropping straight down into the ocean, and they look amazing! I wish we could –”

Last thing I wanna poke about this chapter/part: Funny how Raphyn's and Zathern's attitudes pretty much reversed after their visit. Raphyn wanted to go originally and I think now he picked up on something I suspect... that being that Zathern was way too excited to answer Thatann's questions about the archopy side of the island and the archopy themselves. There's no way that comes back to bite him in a future chapter.

 

[Seren]

Okay! Sorry this one kind of took a while. I'm using it for the first Heartache challenge since I was in the middle of reading anyway, and apparently all four reviews have to be done in one post, so it kind of took a while to read that far. But that said, here's a nice, big collection of reviews! I'm just gonna spoiler each chapter + lines together this time to save space. (Also I realized the end of this first one says "end of part 1" so I've been labeling reviews wrong. I'll fix that. And I also hadn't been reacting to each post as I finished it, so I fixed that, too.)

Spoiler: Part 1.3 - Changing

Part 1.3 - Changing

Forsira felt that same pang of anxiety that came every time Zathern mentioned his nearing evolution, but as ever, she said nothing.

Ah, I do remember the tropius! I love that Zathern wants to fight one - not because he just likes to battle, but because it's grass/flying (presumably, like archopy are - I'm realizing I don't actually remember if archopy are canonically flying-typed). And he keeps losing to the archopy he challenges. So it makes sense that he'd wanna fight something larger and bulker to help him practice!

Also, my heart breaks a little bit every time there's a little buildup to their evolutions and Forsira's dread over it, especially knowing they branch apart...

“Forse?” he said, and Forsira tried not to shudder at his new voice; it sounded absolutely like Zathern, but it also sounded like a Sceptile, and she couldn’t help but be unnerved by it. “You… you didn’t want me to evolve?”

Subtle note here, but it's a neat detail that Forsira was first to evolve into grovyle, but Zathern got to evolve to the second stage before her this time.

The inner predator had to have been how They were capable of murdering Archopy without remorse. It chilled her to think that the capacity to do so lay within her friend, too, even if she knew he’d never let it out.

Not to mention the fact that They aren't murdering sceptile to eat them.

Zathern poked Raphyn in the back with his claws. “Hey, Raphyn,” he said, grinning. “Wakey wakey. Been battling too hard again?”

Raphyn’s form remained limp, not so much as stirring.

I know I'd read this part before, but this still came as a surprise. I'd totally thought there was another meeting with Raphyn between this. (Although, Zathern does say it's been a while since they saw him. Going from "he's an archopy now!" to "oh he's dead..." sure went from 0 to 100 real fast.)

For the first time since he’d evolved, Forsira was able to see completely past what Zathern was.

She made herself take in every detail of the Sceptile before her, never seeing quite how different her friend was from an Archopy more than now.

Having these two lines only paragraphs apart sure gives some whiplash (in a good way). Forsira goes from being reminded that this is just her friend in a different form to being entirely unsure of what he is.

You’ve always known you’ll be an Archopy, I can tell. So has everyone else on this side of the island.

Minor detail, but I was unsure about this part; Is Zathern saying "everyone on this side of the island knows you will become an archopy"? Or "everyone on this side of the island knows they each will become an archopy"?

If it's the latter, that raises the question... why is Zathern the only one who becomes a sceptile? (I don't think that's true, though, given that they didn't know what they'd become in earlier chapters, so why would anyone else? There had to have been other grovyle to become sceptile and leave the archopy side.)

She’d only just lost Zathern; she couldn’t lose Azma as well.

And this is gut-wrenching for an entirely different, yet still similar, way. :(

Battling was a means of escape just as hunting was;

Something that's just ocurred to me, and I don't know if it was intentional or not, but... when Forsira (and Zathern) battle for fun, they mostly battle other grass-types (early story zigzagoon aside... there's all the other grovyle, a tropius, and here a bellossom), but when they're hunting to eat, it's never a grass-type (offhand I remember zigzagoon, wurmple, and I think Azma killed a swellow on their first hunt?). Not really relevant to anything, just an interesting detail to note.

Everything was good in her isolated shaft of sunlight as she soared above the world, the rainstorm pouring down everywhere else, but not on her. That time that Raphyn had taken her and Zathern to the island’s ridge was nothing compared to this.

Thunder rumbled above. The sun’s rays on her back faded as dark clouds rolled in to fill the gap that had been there, and cold rain began to splash down on her new crest of leaves.

I definitely missed this little detail in my first read. The ray of sunlight from the battle and the temporary joy of evolution, only for that sunlight to eventually fade and the now unrelenting rain to return along with Forsira's realization of her new reality.

Spoiler: Part 2 - Discovering

Part 2 - Discovering

Tefiren

HE'S HERE!!

It was one he’d seen around the sunset side a few times, although he couldn’t quite put a name to the face – Vorden? Varden? – but then there weren’t many faces he could put names to, anyway. And even if this was one of Them, what did it matter to him?

I actually went back to check on that one suspicious sceptile's name (Verdan, so Tefiren didn't get it quite right here), assuming it's the same guy.

At the top of his arc, he hung there weightless for a moment – just a taste of what it’d be like once he evolved –

I'd forgotten he was stilla grovyle for this brief introduction to his character, whoops.

He caught a glimpse of movement off to the side and turned to look; the Sceptile had shifted, no longer leaning lazily against the tree, now eyeing him with… with something different, something new. The look unnerved Tefiren somehow, but it took him a moment to realise why: it was almost like the look he’d seen in other people’s eyes when they’d been looking at prey.

I feel like I had an "AHA!! I knew it!" moment the first time I read this, because I just had one now, too.

So this leaves a couple questions I don't think I ever read far enough to get answers to last time. I don't expect answers to these, I'll get them as I read, but just to give some idea of the things in my mind:
1. Why exactly are sceptile killing off archopy? Is there some reason other than just "they're not sceptile"?
2. Azma. Why did she send Forsira away? There's a lot of backstory here I don't remember learning fully. I do recall her having some connection to this Verdan, and especially her being sure he wasn't a threat for some reason. And speaking of which, now...
3. Verdan. Either he's just really annoyed at Tefiren personally for some reason, or he's actually one of Them. Which means either Azma was wrong, or lying. For what purpose, I couldn't say.

It wasn’t enough to put off the Sceptile; Tefiren could still hear his pursuer behind him, branches rustling as Varden took to the trees to stay level with him.

I assume this is just Tefiren not actually knowing this sceptile's name, and not narration confirming it's a different sceptile than Verdan.

Thunder rumbled in the clouds above, rain cascading down onto the island in sheets, but Tefiren barely noticed as he wheeled madly and aimlessly through the skies, consumed with gleeful, uncontrollable laughter.

Random thought here; I wonder how many archopy have been struck by lightning. Or if that might actually become relevant later. Probably not, but generally "up in the sky" is not a place I'd want to be in a thunderstorm.

I’m simply saying that I believe it is safer for us to stay together, and that anyone who wishes to live here is welcome.

I also recall being somewhat puzzled at this part; Azma specifically wanted Forsira to pretend not to know her, but then goes and welcomes them all into a community here. Couldn't Forsira just pretend to meet Azma here?

Which leads me to believe that Azma has some deeper reason for urging Forsira away specifically.

He wished he didn’t. He really, really wished he didn’t, because Forsira was going to die someday whether he missed her or not, and that knowledge would have been so much easier to handle if he could just stop caring about her and move on. Same with his mother – oh, sure, she seemed pretty certain that she wasn’t going to die any time soon, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to die ever, did it?

This kinda struck me in a weird way because Zathern is almost unusually self-aware here? Not sure that's exactly the term I'm looking for, but like... the way he's thinking here, he shouldn't get close to anyone, because they'll eventually die. And he's sure his mother will too, only not soon.

But in a way, that's also... life. Everyone dies eventually... so do people need to not ever make connections with others, because eventually they'll be gone? What is Zathern's reasoning here? He doesn't want to care about others because their death will happen sooner?

This one's not really a question, more a... sad observation. It is interesting to note, however, that the sceptile, too, don't seem super keen on caring about others (hence Zathern having difficulty making friends with them), and they're not being hunted constantly, so... there's gotta be more going on here.

“Wait… so…” It suddenly occurred to Zathern that this didn’t ring right with the way he understood things, and that it never had – if what a Grovyle evolved into was meant to be random, why were the Sceptile and Archopy so neatly separated? “So… all the Grovyle from this side that evolve into Archopy have to leave as soon as they’ve evolved? But…”

The female Sceptile began to laugh. “Oh, no!” she said. “The children of a Sceptile never evolve into an Archopy. That would be ridiculous.”

The female laughed again. “Oh, I dunno what your mother thought she was doing, but she must have got around a bit when she was younger. You’re a Sceptile – that means your dad’s a Sceptile too.”

Oh wait. I do vaguely remember having this discussion before, now. Cause I recall thinking that Verdan was his father, and that's why Azma was so sure she was safe; and it also explains how Zathern became a sceptile, if his father had to be one.

She’d never imagined lightning could strike inside clouds. This escape ploy was even more crazily dangerous than she’d thought.

Well at least it was brought up!

As she landed rather clumsily among the ferny plants, Forsira felt the first ray of sunlight on her back in what felt like ages. The clouds above were beginning to thin out, the sun poking through them. The rainy season was coming to an end. Things were looking up.

Here's that sun imagry again! Now that I actually caught on to it, I'm really enjoying this symbolism. It's subtle, but effective.

“I’m not,” the Archopy said. “You met him – you must have seen. The way he treats this whole thing like a game. Archopy are dying nearly every day and he doesn’t even notice. He just carries on pretending like it’s some big friendly battle between him and Them, never mind that everyone else around him is being killed.” He nodded up towards the various Archopy mulling around in the clearing. “He’s even worse than that lot.”

Not sure why, but this annoys me, too (I might be biased). Tefiren's got the right idea - there's nothing anyone can do about Them. Even if he did care about others, this fact doesn't change. So why shouldn't he try to have some fun with it? What good is sitting around being mopey about it? It's not stopping Them.

Spoiler: Part 2.1 - Accepting

2.1 - Accepting

“Oh, yeah,” Tharann said. “Long time ago. Before living memory, but talk gets passed down. But then, well – with the way the breeding works, it’s not hard to see how we’d overtake them, back when the two species were apparently mixed together all over the island.” He paused. “Then more recently there’s been… something else cutting down their numbers.”

This part's interesting to me honestly, because... how were there so many archopy in the past, then? I guess they used to keep breeding between their own species before eventually branching out until it was too late over the generations to stop the decline in their population.

Zathern nodded; Tharann must have meant Them. But if the numbers of Archopy had been falling anyway, didn’t that make what They were doing slightly less wrong? Just slightly? Zathern almost shuddered to think that he might be beginning to agree with Them, but then again… since one lone Sceptile could hardly stop Them, did it really matter what he made himself think in order to keep the inevitable deaths of his old friends from hurting? It wasn’t as if he was going to hurt anyone else just by thinking that way.

Zathern's already got such a twisted way of thinking. And it still doesn't really answer why They are killing archopy... unless we're to believe "they used to look down on us so we're just getting revenge/defending ourselves" is their reason here.

“Don’t worry,” Skorrhen said, patting him on the back and smiling. “You’re one of us now.”

One of Us, one of Us, on-

“Always looking down on us because they think we look strange and we can’t fly. They have no right to do that.”

Noteworthy in that, to my knowledge, we haven't ever seen any archopy acting this way in-story. We've only heard about it. From sceptile. Which makes sense, given by the time the story starts the whole 'Kill All Archopy' thing has been going on for a long, long time. Still noteworthy.

Zathern was a little sceptical, but then he remembered Verdan and some of the other Sceptile who’d occasionally been known to wander harmlessly around over on the sunset side – they’d said the hunting was better there too, hadn’t they?

COVER UP! God, I can't wait to learn what Verdan's story is.

“See you, Zath,” she said, grinning and watching him go as he moved away to talk to Tharann.

Heh. She gives him a nickname the first time they meet - just like he did with Forsira.

“You were looking…” Something seemed to occur to Tefiren. “And you found me. That’s not supposed to happen. How did you find me?”

That moment when Tefiren realizes he'd been caught.

Honestly Forsira said something I've been thinking, too. What if she had been one of Them? It looks to me like Tefiren's 'claw my way out' backup plan was somewhat improvised in the moment here - if he had that plan to begin with, he wouldn't have waited for Them (or Forsira, in this case) to climb into the burrow to make sure it was Them before trying to flee. He'd have just left when he realized they'd found him. He was effectively trapped there, except since Forsira wasn't one of Them (and she'd given him the motivation to), he'd had time to figure out an escape.

“No,” he said fervently. “No, if I hang around with someone too many times, sooner or later They’ll find a way to exploit that against me. There’s a reason I never do the same thing twice. It’s too risky.”

This is cute, in a way. Despite Tefiren being in a world of his own... he's still just like every other archopy. Perhaps even more so. Just like all the ones in the colony, he refuses to make connections with others, except he turns it up to eleven - he hardly even interacts with others. But in the end, what it boils down to is that connections to others are still harmful to himself. Just like all archopy think connections are. (Except Forsira, really.)

“To see if you could hear me leaving even in your sleep, to see if you could hit me with an air blade from that distance.” His face lit up. “Congrats, Sira! You did well.”

“You really weren’t running away?” Forsira asked.

Poor naive Forsira. Wonder if he's gonna try this again.

The night was suddenly lit up a blazing green as four Sceptile shot past directly below the tree, filled with deadly speed and purpose, making Forsira’s heart lurch in terror. In the corner of her eye, Tefiren’s gaze never left Them as They rushed by.

Ooooh. I think this is about the part I last read up to last time. (Maybe not this part exactly, but this 'chapter'.) I do remember there's more here after this scene, at least.

Zathern didn’t even look at him. “You’re Them,” he said hollowly. “All of you.”

Called it.

It seemed bizarre at first, but the more he thought about it, the more sense it made. That was why Tharann had been so friendly to him, why he’d been so eager to recruit him. His father. He’d been right there all along.

Oh. Maybe I didn't read up through this scene. This is news. Oh dear.

“Nope,” Tharann said. “I never said I wasn’t your father. For that matter, I never said we didn’t kill winged freaks in our spare time. I never lied, as such – I just didn’t tell you the whole truth.”

Just like Azma.

“Shouldn’t we?” Skorrhen replied evenly, his voice level and calm. “Nature’s already decided. The way we breed – one Archopy, one Sceptile, and the child is always a Sceptile. You’re living proof of that. We’re the winning species. We were already wiping them out just by breeding with them. If we hadn’t started speeding things up, they’d still be living among us – and soon there’d be none left anyway. They’ve already lost. We’re simply finishing Nature’s job for her.”

Hm. Maybe Their reasoning really is just this. I still get the feeling there's more to it, though. But now I'm also feeling like... there's a possibility that maybe there's not, too.

Spoiler: Part 2.2 - Doubting

Part 2.2 - Doubting

She kept running, focusing on keeping herself alive. Tefiren was ahead of her, his feet beginning to lift off from the ground, but only slightly. “Is it just the one?” she called to him, her voice coming out far higher and more frantic than it usually did.

Okay, I 100% know I didn't make it this far last read. The rest of the story is for sure new to me!

Anyway, this section made me think. They spend a lot of time running and not actually flying; it must be a lot harder for archopy to lift off than I thought. I knew they weren't birds, but they've never seemed to have this much trouble before.

Jumping hastily away from the purple cloud of dust it produced, she managed to pinpoint Tefiren ahead of her. He was already well into the field of Vileplume, gleefully bouncing off one huge flower after another, his eyes wild and gleaming.

I love him

This whole scene was tense and exciting and fun! There was cleverness from both of them here, and Tefiren even admits Forsira was helpful! Progress!

“You were right,” he murmured.

Aww, this bit was cute! Not the bit about Forsira wondering whether Tefiren would have gone for the berry for her, but the rest of it. Even if it was one of those half-awake blabs, Tefiren still admits he needed Forsira here. I am somewhat surprised there was no trouble gathering the pecha berry, though! I fully expected Forsira to be attacked.

“Okay, yeah, you win,” admitted Zathern. “Come on, get off me.”

It only just occurred to me.. this is building up to a Forsira vs Zathern ending, isn't? Oh no.

“See, Zath?” Karsa said, coming up behind him and resting a hand on his shoulder. “You’re really getting to be part of the group now. I said it wasn’t so bad.”

Of course it wasn't, Karsa! He hasn't been on any hunts since he blew his first chance!

At least I assume not... the narration makes it slightly confusing. Zathern makes it sound like he hasn't been hunting since then, since Skorrhen hasn't asked him to join one yet, but then there's the part where he says he can "ignore what they do on hunts" which I assumed meant his fellow sceptile, but I don't really know.

“Ah, Germane,” Tharann said, his voice taking on the tone he used when he was talking to anyone other than Zathern. “I suppose you have something to tell me, then?”

Oh? This is that old grovyle who refused to evolve, right? What is he doing here... telling Tharann things??

“I’m not actually sure where she is right now,” Germane was saying above them, a little nervously. “She doesn’t hang around the clearing any more. I heard she ran off with some male – possibly that one your lot is having such trouble catching.”

Oh. He wasn't actually on the archopy side at all, that's it, he was a spy. I guess that shouldn't surprise me, but I guess it threw me off since Verdan had already been proven to be one of Them by this point, so I wasn't expecting another twist like that.

“Germane! I want to talk to you.”

It was true. He wasn’t really sure why. Maybe it was because Germane had clearly changed sides too, just like he had, and he wanted to see if they had anything else in common now.

Huh. So not a spy, he just switched sides. Not sure I buy that, honestly? I think there's probably more here, too, but I guess I'll see.

With a strangled wailing noise, the Kecleon fell from the tree, its body becoming visible as the camouflage on its skin drained a sickly white in terror.

I always hated this bit of kecleon lore. What's the point of being able to camoflage if you are still easily visible while doing it? So dumb. Honestly my first thought when Forsira mentioned not noticing it was 'that's because it wasn't there before' because honestly how could you miss that?

Anyways, add kecleon to the list of non-grass-types that are Food!

Forsira thought back, remembering the Archopy who’d shared his feelings about the emptiness of his life with her. He’d told her that Tefiren was a sick individual and that she shouldn’t go after him.

This was that lone archopy from the beach, I think? I feel like I remember the name (and I should, I only just read that scene not too long ago...)

Out of nowhere, a tall green figure grabbed her from behind and drew a glowing blade across her throat. Forsira froze, staring in horror at Arkesra’s final fixed gaze of surprise as her body slumped lifelessly to the ground.

Oh.

I feel for Forsira here. I mean, it's kind of a similar feeling when you see a plane crash or something. You kinda feel bad, but like, what are you gonna do, sit around and cry about it? No wonder the archopy are so sad. That said, yikes. Poor Arkesra. She and Draern were just beginning to start something, and then he dies. And then this.

The name sounded familiar to Forsira – did he mean Verdan, the one who’d used to hang around apparently harmlessly on the sunset side?

Apparently harmlessly. Forsira's on to it now, too! Still no further details yet, though.

“Tropius country!” Tefiren declared triumphantly. “Come on, Sira, I’ll need your help with this.”

Tefiren's come so far!

Forsira had been pleased with her idea before, but she couldn’t feel quite so enthusiastic about it the other way around. “They thought you wanted to kill them,” she said. “Even though you didn’t.” She knew first-hand the terror of running for her life – while Tefiren managed to make it exciting, it wouldn’t have been that way for these Tropius. It seemed a little cruel.

Gotta say, I agree with Forsira here, too. On one hand, you gotta do what you gotta do to survive; but there's a difference between doing something out of necessity and taking joy in it. Not that I blame Tefiren at this point for not thinking this way, but I'm glad to see Forsira still has that sense.

He didn’t even know why he felt anxious around them. They were never actually going to kill him, after all.

This basically confirms that they will, imo. He's still wired to evolve into archopy, and I guarantee you that They aren't going to even let that slide, once he's no more use to Them.

“Don’t fuck with us, Grovyle,” he hissed, his face glaring into Germane from an uncomfortably short distance. “You know exactly what he meant.”

Yikes. I don't think there's been a single curse this entire fic (far as I can recall, anyway), so having this sudden F-bomb does exactly what it's supposed to.

“I do believe there are less than you now, if I’m not very much mistaken about just how many recruits you have these days.”

Oh no. They're just going to flat out attack the archopy clearing out in the open now, aren't They?

“Ready? Wait, what does this have to do with the Azma plan?” Germane asked. “I thought you couldn’t find Forsira…”

The... Azma plan? What? Something beyond Germane just betraying her and passing along info, or is that exactly what 'the Azma plan' refers to? But then, how does that involve Forsira?

oh I can't wait for all these questions to pay out...

“Oh, but we do know,” Skorrhen said silkily. “We can tell from the parents, can’t we? We know every child on this island who will evolve into an Archopy. What did you think Verdan and the others were doing on the sunset side if they never took part in any of the killings? They’ve been watching the children.”

AHA and there's one answer!

Well, I called they weren't going to let Germane live, but I wasn't expecting it this soon. And for some reason, it also never hit me that eventually they'd start killing the unevolved ones, too. I figured Germane was doomed purely because they knew his heritage. But now that we know what Verdan was doing over there... yeah, that's a link I didn't even realize was missing. But I guess it wouldn't have been possible to know which kids to go after without knowing what they'd evolve into anyway, and I also didn't consider They'd be keeping track of that. Huh.

And with those four 'chapters' done, HA challenge is complete. Sorry this is so long. I'll be going back to posting one or two chapters per review now.

It looks like I only have two left to go from here, though, so maybe I'll stick them together, anyways. This has been such a wild ride so far, and I am dying to get some of these puzzle pieces put together!

 

[Seren]

Alright, this seems to be part 2.3 - Breaking

Spoiler: Part 2.3 - Breaking

Another rumble of thunder came, louder this time, as an Archopy crashed through the trees at the top of the clearing. He glided above them in frantic circles, his eyes wide. “Alarm!” he cried out. “Alarm! They’re coming!”

Yep, saw this one coming. Really feel for Azma here. She got close to Forsira and since then has been trying to avoid repeating that mistake while still taking in probably every child on the island. Aaaaand now they're all doomed.

They would appear in the clearing and find no-one there save the hidden children, who were not Their targets.

Oh this is even worse. They are targeting children now. But Azma doesn't know that. So they're gonna start slaughtering them in front of her, aren't they? Wonder if that'll bring any other archopy back to defend them. Azma probably will step in (although... I am oddly less certain of this than I probably should be).

It wasn’t long before the place was full of Archopy clamouring to see

Oh no. It's coming. I know it's coming.

Azma couldn’t quite bear to look at them, so she turned miserably back to Germane, who still lay limp in front of her. The first drops of rain were beginning to fall.

Huh. Okay. This is how it's gonna be. We're gonna draw this out. Okay.

It's still a threatening message, though, so. It's coming soon. I wonder what kind of plan Azma has for this.

“I can’t make you come with me. But it would mean a lot to me if you did.”

“Fine,” he mumbled, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye. “But seriously, Sira, you’re being boring. We’re doing something fun after this.”

This little section here kind of poked something. Up to this point, Tefiren has outwardly expressed a connection to Forsira basically once, when he was poisoned and she got him the berry. It's hard to exactly gauge how much time has passed since they've teamed up that first time, but it does feel a little bit odd for Tefiren to be swayed into doing this for Forsira. I'm blaming that on the overall focus on the story being, by necessity, not focused on that part of their relationship. The fact that he does eventually agree to go does show he cares, but it's still only the second time he's actively shown that. It makes things even more sad, knowing he's finally opening up this close to the end...

Until now, we have been dully, miserably accepting our fate, but no more. We have to act, before They wipe us out entirely.”

Okay, maybe I've just forgotten, but this does make me wonder why they've just rolled over and accepted it up until this point. Especially if Azma suspected the children wouldn't be safe forever. This is a terrible time to decide it's important to fight back. Why wait so long? What is she planning?

“Why is this such a big change? Can’t the kids just start running and hiding now, like we do?”

We're in agreementm then, pal.

“That’s not a bad idea…” Azma began.

AZMA WHAT

“There is nothing else for it,” Azma said eventually. “We will have to fight Them. All of us.”

Hm. Still wondering why it took this long to fight back. What is Azma's story??

“We cannot let ourselves be lost! We cannot let this become a world where future generations of Pokémon live on oblivious, not even knowing what an Archopy was!”

This one hurts.

This was unheard of for Tefiren. He’d never, ever flown above the Sceptile’s side of the island before. The very notion of it would have been unthinkable to him.

This is interesting. They've never flown over this side before - despite being unreachable in the air - but Tefiren still must have been here before since he knows about the caves. So why did he never come here with Forsira? Possibly to keep his ultimate hiding places from even her, in the event of exactly what's happening now...?

“We had to take a stand, Tefiren,” Forsira said. “For the children. And for our species’ future. Couldn’t you see that?”

I'm suddenly getting the feeling that Tefiren is going to be the last archopy. I know Forsira is technically the MC but... or maybe Tefiren tries to help Forsira and she ends up last? I dunno. I'm going to be mad either way.

She’d thought Tefiren made the life-or-death chases thrilling and exciting because he was just that fearless, but in fact it was the opposite. He did it because he was the most scared of them all.

It's all spilling out now, huh. His reasoning does make a lot of sense, and it's amusing in a twisted sort of way to see Forsira realize this.

Tefiren managed half a grin, but his eyes were still pained. “No, but that’s not… That’s not true. You know that. Even I’m… even I’m not going to…”

Oh, he means like. Die die. Not from Them. But like, just in general. So even if They weren't an issue... I wonder if Tefiren would still act the same.

My friends Verdan, Gartane and Elthorn here –” he indicated three Sceptile standing near the front of the group, all of whom Zathern vaguely recognised from his childhood – “have been sacrificing a lot of their time over on the sunset side for us. They know all of the wingless Archopy by sight.”

I KNEW IT oh I knew it. That evil little mofo. I mean it was basically confirmed when he went after Tefiren, but this is just. Nasty. I hope Verdan gets his dues before this is over.

This is only natural of them; it is their children at stake

Hm. I mean, yeah, this does technically answer my question. And I did figure that much. It just feels a little like... that's all? Surely the archopy knew this was what it would come to eventually... hm.

“Not all of us,” Tharann said slyly. “I mean, most of them’ll just be killing the children – Skorrhen and Verdan are heading that lot – but I’ve got a very particular task in mind. And I need your help for that, Zathern.”

Oh no. They're going to kill Azma together. Aren't They.
You know, I've never considered that Zathern might hesitate, might change sides somehow. The thought has crossed my mind once or twice, but I've never seriously entertained it - I feel probably because the ending to this story is inevitable. But he's still hesitating and uncertain here, despite his efforts to hide it from his fellow Thems. I wonder... maybe he's going to hesitate and end up dying too.

There was no hope, really. It was too late.

It was her own fault that it was too late, she knew.

Ah, I wonder if this is where we're gonna get all of Azma's secrets out.
At least she realizes they dug in their heels too late, if even the grovyle are being recruited to fight back.

Certain members of Them had been so angered by her defiance once upon a time that They had decided simply killing her wasn’t enough of a revenge. They intended to destroy everything she cared about and leave her with nothing before giving her the release of death. She’d known that all along, ever since Zathern had hatched and rekindled a spark of light in her life

Oh. That explains a lot, actually.

There may be more of Them than us, but we have so much more to fight for!

And a type advangate. And a quad resistance to grass moves.

Unlike the rest of the Sceptile, his eyes were not taken over by the monster inside. They didn’t need to be. He was a monster already.

“Hello, Azma,” hissed Tharann in a voice of pure malice, sending a horrid shiver down her spine. “Long time no see.”

They are what the fuck nooooo

He heard the sound of a body slumping lifelessly to the ground and flinched.

This was a hard conversation to watch. At least it seems like Azma got through to Zathern... even though now I suspect all it's done is make him vulnerable to Them, too. Can't say I expected Azma to do this to herself, either... given her newfound (well, revived) desire to lead her fellow archopy. I guess she just wanted to spare Zathern from having to do it to her. Or at least to watch Tharann do it.

“I forgot!” Karsa protested. “Well, not actually, but I made myself forget. You know how it is. You do it too. It’s easier if we just forget anything we don’t like about this. I like you, Zathern. I didn’t want to remember the real reason you were here. It didn’t matter. It still doesn’t.”

Aw man. They all do it. This "lying but not really lying, just lying via omission" thing. Azma, Tharann, now Karsa. Technically Tefiren, at least up until... was the poison last chapter? Either way, I guess that one doesn't technically matter, since all these other ones have personal significance to Zathern. Everyone important in his life has done it to him. (Trying to think if Forsira ever did, or if she even matters in this case either, since she's not important to him anymore.)

And that's is for this part, huh. I may have gone a little overboard in my what is Azma's deal thoughts during this, but at least now I have answers. Seems their defense really did boil down to "try to put on a facade to protect the children". She did know all along that they were doomed, and fighting at the end was just... well, purely just to go out fighting.

I don't have much else to add at this point, other than... god this is so sad.

I should probably stop now and go to sleep but. I feel like I need to keep reading at this point. May not get to finising this sitting, but if not then I'll absolutely be finishing up tomorrow night.

 

[Seren]

And finally... Part 2.4 - Losing.

Spoiler: Part 2.4 - Losing

“Of course,” she said. “It is the best way to take off, after all.”

Forsira's really adopted a lot of Tefiren's mannerisms by this point. It's kind of endearing.

She was too far to properly make out their faces, but Forsira could imagine the predators’ gazes, just watching, waiting for their prey to come back to the land.

There's something else that, at this point, is probably moot, but I'd been wondering... surely the sceptile could see a general area of where Tefiren and Forsira land after they escape into the sky. Kind of a minor miracle they were never tracked down afterwards.

She was still staring in wonder at the cloud they’d just flown out of. “I never realised there was anything above a cloud,” she murmured.

“Neither did I!” Tefiren said excitedly, circling closer to her and looking down as well. “Good, isn’t it?”

Oh, interesting. I hadn't realized they hadn't actually flown through the thundercloud that first time. I thought they had gone up above it. Part of me also wonder why they don't just try to leave the island and find somewhere else to live.

It was here that it occurred to me that Forsira hasn't thought of Azma even once so far in this section. I assume (based on Zathern and Karsa's conversation at the end of last chapter) that this scene is happening after the attack in the archopy clearing. So she must know, or at least suspect, that Azma's gone by now... wonder how this is going to hit her later.

But now he remained engrossed in his burrowing, leaving the task of lookout entirely to her. He trusted her.

He's come so far in such a short time. I know last chapter I was kind of hesitant on if it felt like enough time passed for him to change, but for some reason it doesn't feel like that here. Maybe it's just the meta knowledge of knowing we're on the last chapter...

“Live for today,” she murmured.

I do love this little phrase they're using to get by one day at a time now.

“Yeah,” Zathern said flatly. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

ADD HIM TO THE LIST

“You still haven’t actually killed any of them yourself,” Karsa said eventually.

Oh, interesting. So Tharann hasn't kicked him out or punished him or anything. He's still going on hunts, even. Clearly Azma's death got to him, but not enough, it sees.

“What does Tharann have to do with anything?” Zathern spat. “He’s got what he wanted from me already.”

Oh, right. He still wants Zathern to kill Forsira, doesn't he?

The sun was out again, warming the backs of her leafy wings. They’d made it through the rainy season – Forsira had felt they should enjoy the sunshine while it lasted.

Oh, yeah, so they'd gotten through an entire season. Definitely after the clearing battle, then. And sure enough, they're the last two archopy (or so they suspect, anyway).

She threw a helpless glance up through the canopy, seeing the receding shape of an Archopy shooting upwards and away, before she crashed to the ground.

Yeah, no, he's coming back for her. Silly mistake for her to fly that close to the treetops, though!

He should have been fleeing. He wanted to, needed to flee, to get out, get away and put as much distance between himself and Them as possible before They caught him too. It was what he’d always done. It was the only thing to do.

But They had Forsira.

It was stupid of him. It had been such a foolish move. Despite his best efforts to avoid it – it shouldn’t even have been hard in the first place – somehow, somewhere along the way he’d grown to care about her. He’d given Them an advantage over him, someone whose death was just as unthinkable as his own.

Ahh, this hits really hard with the mafia game context (or... well, this finally puts that scene into context).

The first Sceptile grinned, something about him seeming familiar – Forsira realised that this was Verdan, the first of many to fail to catch Tefiren, and now the first and last to succeed. “You have no idea how much you’ve been getting on my nerves, Archopy,” she heard him hiss, leaning close to Tefiren. “In fact, I still don’t trust you not to suddenly escape.”

I'm finding it difficult to pick out bits of this scene to react to, because I'm just so invested in the moment. But this one here was easy - come on, they at least gotta take out Verdan before they die! (They're not actually going to die here, now, in this scene, with the sun all bright and all that, are they? It feels like they shouldn't, but at the same time, knowing how little story is left, it's hard to imagine them escaping this only to be re-captured soon after. No, I suspect more likely is that this scene is going to be drawn out, as long and torturous as possible.

He’d torn Tefiren’s wing leaves to shreds, leaving him a shadow of the elusive, uncatchable Archopy he’d once been. There was nothing Tefiren could do now.

Oh. Well. Yeah, no, that pretty much answers that, doesn't it? This really is It.

saw him leaning over the unmoving body of the female that Tefiren had struck in the throat.

Oh. Tefiren just killed Karsa, didn't he? Oh dear. Whatever shred of himself Azma had gotten through to isn't gonna survive this.

The deadly sharpness took over, and before he even knew what he was doing, he’d lashed out at his father, his blade lunging forwards to where he wanted the Sceptile to be.

It was Tharann’s cruel chuckle of satisfaction that jolted him back into the reality of what he’d just done.

Ugh... I knew this was coming, it was inevitable from the shredded wings line, but that didn't make it hurt any less. So it turns out it was Forsira after all who was the last archopy.

Letting the extra energy out of her wings, Forsira turned to the sea and began to glide calmly towards it.

Ah, so that's the narrative reason they'd never actually left the island. Not that it matters in the end; being the last archopy, it's not like Forsira could have even considered rebuilding her species. But at least she surviveda while longer. Does make one wonder if she ever actually found land or not, though.

With new resolve, Zathern began to walk into the forest, the trees that had once been home to the species of Archopy.

He wouldn’t forget.

Huh. So it only took losing everything that mattered to him to snap Zathern out of it all. Kind of poetic that he's going back to the archopy side of the island... although at this point, the whole island is sceptile territory, so I imagine he'd not be as alone as he's hoping to be for very long. I'm actually kind of surprised that was the last we saw of Tharann, too. I guess he really did only want to use Zathern to get at Forsira (and I guess Tefiren, although that was more of a bonus after he'd killed Karsa). And even so... the archopy will only still exist as long as Zathern lives. Even assuming none of the sceptile (Tharann, Skohornn) just kill him themselves, he's not gonna live forever, so eventually... They really will have finally won.

Okay, so... final, overall thoughts. Firstly... how dare you.

I hate this story (I don't), I hate you (I love you), and you're horrible for writing this (you're not, it was amazing). I am very bad at expressing just how morbidly poetic this all tied together in the end, and I'm sure there's a ton more symbolism that just went over my head, but the parts I did catch were freakin' tear-jerkers. This was a wild ride, beautifully depressing, hits right in the feels. It's genuinely super impressive how you brought everything together at the end. It all just made sense.

Tefiren, being the reason I was so invested in reading this to begin with, was everything I'd expected and more. I love him, and I'm going to be broken over his death for a long, long time. I was honestly kind of hoping he and Forsira would end up managing to outwit Them unti dying of natural causes or leaving the island or something, but really, that was never truly a possibility. And his death was tragic, over an accident by the girl he allowed to join him - she really was his undoing in the end, just as he always feared.

Forsira and Zathern made for perfect contrasting PoV characters. Their two sides of the story was woven together nearly perfectly. It was, again, tragic to follow them all the way from their childhoods right through to their final meeting. I'd anticipated some kind of direct confrontation between them, and... I guess we kind of got that, in a way. Less of a fight than I'd thought - Forsira had wanted to join the battle, after all. But Tefiren wanted her to flee, so she did. Their relationship felt real. And Zathern, for his part, managed to hold on to some part of his real self through it all, which was nice to see.

There were a couple of things I do feel could have used some more narrational clarification throughout (Azma's backstory, why no archopy thought to just flee the island, etc), but nothing that comes to mind is highly significant, rather than just some nitpicks I stumbled upon. Azma in particular felt like there was more to her than it ended up being, and though there's nothing problematic about that, I was expecting more. Considering her buildup and her "I know they won't kill me yet", the moment itself actually felt somewhat... not out of the blue, but rushed. Hasty. Like it was over too suddenly. I did enjoy her, though, and I do understand her reasoning for quitting the fight when Zathern was born.

I'm still salty that Verdan at least didn't get his head chopped off or something, that bloody spy. Especially when he was the one who attacked Tefiren as soon as he evolved. At least Germane got what was coming to him... but that was, again, inevitable. More due to his heritage than getting his dues.

And finally, Karsa, Zathern's Forsira replacement. There's part of me that was glad he had someone to support him, and even understand him a little bit, throughout his half. I do feel like, out of the main "prominent" characters, she'd got the least development, but she did what she was there to do. Kind of a shame she had to die (when Verdan was right there!!) but that absolutely gave that scene a heavier impact. (Because while Tefiren was a goner anyway at least maybe Zathern wouldn't have been taunted into doing it himself. He'd been the only one to not kill an archopy to that point, so no matter what, from that point onward, he'd never be able to forget that he had ever been one of Them.)

One final thing that I'm vaguely wondering and was never answered... where exactly is this island, anyway? Is it intended to be a canon location? Somewhere in (ancient) Hoenn? Somewhere else?

Aaaanyway... that about does it for me. It was honestly very emotional, and it's left me wanting more of your writing. (Which means I'm going to have to get to playing DR at some point so I can finally read your torture fic, hah.) I'm sorry it took so long for me to finally catch up and finish reading this - it was never from a lack of desire, though. I was alway going to do it eventually. (One could say it as a Foregone Conc- okay I'll see myself out.)

 

[elyvorg]

Hello! I am finally coming into this thread to reply to... one (1) person's reviews. @Seren 's reviews are recent enough to be on my mind and had a lot of things I wanted to clarify, so my brain was actually able to get itself to write up a response in a vaguely timely fashion. Apologies to anyone else who may still be interested in a response, but do know that I greatly appreciate all your comments and have read them probably multiple times over! There is still a non-zero chance I may get around to responding to them someday, but if I required myself to reply to every review in order to be allowed to post here at all then I probably never would.

Spoiler: Line-by-lines

Subtle note here, but it's a neat detail that Forsira was first to evolve into grovyle, but Zathern got to evolve to the second stage before her this time.

Yep! Forsira battled a lot more as a Treecko when she discovered that battling helped distract her from her grief, so she evolved before Zathern there. Then, Zathern was determined not to let her beat him again, so he battled even more, and that plus Forsira occasionally feeling weird about battling just after hunting (which Zathern never did) meant she battled less than him as a Grovyle and he overtook her again.

Minor detail, but I was unsure about this part; Is Zathern saying "everyone on this side of the island knows you will become an archopy"? Or "everyone on this side of the island knows they each will become an archopy"?

If it's the latter, that raises the question... why is Zathern the only one who becomes a sceptile? (I don't think that's true, though, given that they didn't know what they'd become in earlier chapters, so why would anyone else? There had to have been other grovyle to become sceptile and leave the archopy side.)

It's the latter. You obviously know what the deal is with what determines the evolution now, but one thing of note is: this is common knowledge to most everyone on the Archopy side, too. Azma just deliberately didn't mention it to Zathern (or Forsira) and let them assume the evolutions are random because she didn't want Zathern figuring out that his father must be a Sceptile and possibly wanting to seek him out.

Something that's just ocurred to me, and I don't know if it was intentional or not, but... when Forsira (and Zathern) battle for fun, they mostly battle other grass-types (early story zigzagoon aside... there's all the other grovyle, a tropius, and here a bellossom), but when they're hunting to eat, it's never a grass-type (offhand I remember zigzagoon, wurmple, and I think Azma killed a swellow on their first hunt?). Not really relevant to anything, just an interesting detail to note.

Honestly, this wasn't even deliberate of me. I just picked whatever species felt right for any given situation, and other grass-types (aka basically plants) didn't feel like "prey" to me. (Tropius would be, but it's also big enough to be risky for an Archopy to hunt.)

Random thought here; I wonder how many archopy have been struck by lightning. Or if that might actually become relevant later. Probably not, but generally "up in the sky" is not a place I'd want to be in a thunderstorm.

Given that this is Pokémon, I imagine being struck by lightning would just be similar to being hit by a powerful Thunder attack - painful, but not life-threatening.

This part's interesting to me honestly, because... how were there so many archopy in the past, then? I guess they used to keep breeding between their own species before eventually branching out until it was too late over the generations to stop the decline in their population.

Archopy came first - in the beginning there were nothing but Archopy. Then some kind of Pokémon-flavoured Darwinian-evolution happened to create Sceptile, which very slowly began to catch up in numbers due to interbreeding before any genocide started.

(shush I know Darwinian evolution shouldn't create something that different that fast, blame fourteen-year-old me/handwave it away as weird Pokémon genetics)

“Always looking down on us because they think we look strange and we can’t fly. They have no right to do that.”

Noteworthy in that, to my knowledge, we haven't ever seen any archopy acting this way in-story. We've only heard about it. From sceptile. Which makes sense, given by the time the story starts the whole 'Kill All Archopy' thing has been going on for a long, long time. Still noteworthy.

Archopy looking down on Sceptile presumably happened way back when, when Sceptile were relatively new and seen as weird and different, and may have been used to justify Their actions when They originally started killing. They then passed this concept down among Themselves and kept using it as an excuse even once Archopy no longer even remotely did such a thing. Karsa here is definitely just parroting what she's always heard others in Them say, and not anything she's personally experienced.

Hm. Maybe Their reasoning really is just this. I still get the feeling there's more to it, though. But now I'm also feeling like... there's a possibility that maybe there's not, too.

Interesting how you seemed to have been expecting some kind of deeper answer to this question, when really, there isn't one. There is no good reason for genocide, after all.

Anyway, this section made me think. They spend a lot of time running and not actually flying; it must be a lot harder for archopy to lift off than I thought. I knew they weren't birds, but they've never seemed to have this much trouble before.

Shush this is definitely not just me wanting to make the chases tense and exciting but also not wanting to bother writing them taking ages to take off when they're not being chased. That said, Archopy are very much meant to not be particularly strong fliers, just like early avian dinosaurs probably weren't.

This little section here kind of poked something. Up to this point, Tefiren has outwardly expressed a connection to Forsira basically once, when he was poisoned and she got him the berry. It's hard to exactly gauge how much time has passed since they've teamed up that first time, but it does feel a little bit odd for Tefiren to be swayed into doing this for Forsira. I'm blaming that on the overall focus on the story being, by necessity, not focused on that part of their relationship. The fact that he does eventually agree to go does show he cares, but it's still only the second time he's actively shown that. It makes things even more sad, knowing he's finally opening up this close to the end...

This isn't just about Tefiren's growing attachment to Forsira - it's also that there's a very buried part of him that does understand that children being murdered is Bad and he ought to Care. Forsira making this appeal gets through to that just barely, at least enough for him to begrudgingly agree to go to this stupid boring talky meeting (that definitely isn't going to be making him feel guilty about his cowardice the entire time).

This is interesting. They've never flown over this side before - despite being unreachable in the air - but Tefiren still must have been here before since he knows about the caves. So why did he never come here with Forsira? Possibly to keep his ultimate hiding places from even her, in the event of exactly what's happening now...?

Tefiren had in fact never flown over the sunrise side before - finding the cave in the cliffs was pure luck on his part! He was simply trying to fly as far away as possible from the people trying to get him to fight, except when he started going over the ocean he realised, whoops, wait, not quite this far, and he turned around, and - bingo! Best hiding place ever!!!

I'm suddenly getting the feeling that Tefiren is going to be the last archopy. I know Forsira is technically the MC but... or maybe Tefiren tries to help Forsira and she ends up last? I dunno. I'm going to be mad either way.

Heh, it's fun watching you speculate on this not knowing the answer, given that the original readers of FC who came here from reading Lost Evolution already knew that it was going to be Forsira.

Tefiren managed half a grin, but his eyes were still pained. “No, but that’s not… That’s not true. You know that. Even I’m… even I’m not going to…”

Oh, he means like. Die die. Not from Them. But like, just in general. So even if They weren't an issue... I wonder if Tefiren would still act the same.

Oh no, he still absolutely means "be killed by Them". He knows deep down (a deep down that he's a lot mentally closer to right now than he ever usually is) that he'll never be able to evade Them forever. All it'll take is him messing up just one time...

Aw man. They all do it. This "lying but not really lying, just lying via omission" thing. Azma, Tharann, now Karsa. Technically Tefiren, at least up until... was the poison last chapter? Either way, I guess that one doesn't technically matter, since all these other ones have personal significance to Zathern. Everyone important in his life has done it to him. (Trying to think if Forsira ever did, or if she even matters in this case either, since she's not important to him anymore.)

It's mostly meant to be an Azma and Tharann thing, to have Zathern be torn between his two parents. (Except for the part where Tharann absolutely did tell a huge fat explicit lie about the circumstances of Zathern's conception; his claim that he never directly lied was another lie.) Karsa's more just... lying on behalf of Tharann, with a side-dish of lying to herself about it to feel less bad.

There's something else that, at this point, is probably moot, but I'd been wondering... surely the sceptile could see a general area of where Tefiren and Forsira land after they escape into the sky. Kind of a minor miracle they were never tracked down afterwards.

Tefiren is very good at finding hiding places!!! And also the clouds help give them cover to make them more difficult to spot in the air.

It was here that it occurred to me that Forsira hasn't thought of Azma even once so far in this section. I assume (based on Zathern and Karsa's conversation at the end of last chapter) that this scene is happening after the attack in the archopy clearing. So she must know, or at least suspect, that Azma's gone by now... wonder how this is going to hit her later.

Oh, she definitely knows that Azma wouldn't have made it. No doubt it's something she just Doesn't Like To Think About, in true Tefiren style. Taking on a lot of his mannerisms, indeed.

Oh, right. He still wants Zathern to kill Forsira, doesn't he?

It's not so much specifically about Forsira - he just wants to make Zathern kill someone, to complete his "revenge" against Azma by turning her son into a murderer (since he didn't manage to get Zathern to kill Azma himself, grumble grumble )

Silly mistake for her to fly that close to the treetops, though!

A silly mistake that Tefiren would never have made! Even when he's having fun, he still remains focused on important things like that!!!

Ahh, this hits really hard with the mafia game context (or... well, this finally puts that scene into context).

It's been a while since I've read the mafia game, so I'm curious as to which scene you mean here!

A lot of the reason I wanted to reply to you specifically was to give you a clarification as to what was going on with Azma and why the Archopy didn't try to fight back more, since you seem to be wondering about that a lot.

Spoiler: Azma's story

Before the beginning of the story, Archopy were fighting back against Them, mostly in peaceful protest, and the one spearheading that resistance was Azma. They (and Tharann in particular) became so furious at Azma's defiance and so determined to stamp out Their opposition that Tharann... did what he did to Azma, in order to break her spirit and make her too afraid to continue the fight. They figured this would be a better approach than simply killing Azma, because then she'd be a martyr and her followers would fight even harder in her name. This way, Azma simply loses the will to fight and gives up, while being too ashamed to tell her followers why, and the whole revolution just quietly fizzles out as everyone who stood behind Azma feels betrayed and let down and unsure what to do next.

Then They deliberately set out to kill those who were Azma's closest followers, just to make sure none of them get the idea to start things up again without her. (Leathra, Forsira's mother, was one of these - she settled down to have a child with Resten only after Azma gave up, making Forsira just a little bit younger than Zathern. There's a conversation in one of the early parts where Germane talks to Azma about how They're killing off all of her old comrades, although the significance of this goes over little Forsira's head.)

Azma having a child was not a planned part of Tharann's actions, but since Zathern did come into being and manage to bring a spark of light and hope back to Azma, Tharann (less out of necessity and more just because he's an evil bastard) made it clear to her that he intends to take that away from her as well. Hence Tharann going to considerable lengths to recruit Zathern into Them and trying to get him to kill Azma and then at least somebody, and Azma being overly paranoid and sheltering of her son, which tragically made the whole thing a self-fulfilling prophecy.

So the reason for why we never saw much of Archopy trying to fight back until the end was that They deliberately went to calculated efforts to snuff such resistance out, and the story that we see takes place in the phase after that, in which most Archopy are lost and aimless and dully accepting their fate. (I have no idea how realistic this is to real-life revolutions, but I was seventeen with zero political awareness when I wrote this.)

There's no deep or meaningful reason why Azma spurred everyone to finally fight back again only once the children were under threat, either - it's simply that she was too scared to do anything for so long, and so freaking tired, and it's only when things have reached breaking point that she's able to finally get herself to at least try one more time, even though she knows it's really too late.

So... that's the idea of all of this. How well it came across in the story is another matter (evidently not necessarily that well!) - but I also do think that it being kind of obscured could be seen as part of the point, since most of the story is from the perspective of these kids who were born just after these important events, into a now-inevitable spiral towards extinction, and never quite understand what they missed out on.


I'm honestly surprised that you ended up hating and wishing horrible fates on Verdan the most out of all Sceptile, given that pretty objectively the biggest fucking scumbag in all of Them is Tharann. Interesting to see different readers having different emotional reactions, I guess!


As for why no Archopy ever fled the island... it was mentioned briefly in a conversation between Forsira and Tefiren in the final part that they can't fly out far enough to reach somewhere else. There's no land visible on the horizon from any part of the island, and Archopy aren't very strong endurance fliers. In hindsight, perhaps this fact ought to have been established better and earlier on, perhaps with little Forsira asking Azma or something, but there it is. Any attempt by an Archopy to fly out into the sea would have been an act of suicide... which is very much what Forsira's final flight deliberately was.

(This is also something that ye olde days' readers of Lost Evolution knew about! Since Forsira died in the ocean, her body was able to be fossilised, and that fossil being revived millions of years later is the plot of LE.)

Due to this connection to LE, I can also answer your question as to where this island is! Geographically, it's the part of Hoenn between Routes 119 and 120 - the contours on the map denote that the land there is higher altitude. Way back in FC's times, the sea levels were higher, and so that mountain was an island, with the beaches on the sunset side eventually becoming Hoenn's desert. None of this was indicated in FC because it doesn't mean anything to the story of FC itself, though.

Anyway, I am thrilled that you finally got around to reading the whole fic and seeing Tefiren in his full Tefireny glory, and that I gave you many emotions! <3

 

[HelloYellow17]

Here we go: reviewing all of part 2 in one fell swoop! And wow it was a doozy. I KNEW this was tragedy, I knew it would have an incredibly sad ending, and yet I still wasn’t prepared for the full range of emotions this story would give me. From sadness, to anguish, to anger, to infuriation and more. There are so, so many painful parallels here, and oh, they are beautifully written.

I selected my quotes a couple days ago and I’m having a hard time remembering which chapter they belonged to—so rather than split it up into chapter chunks, I’m just gonna review it all in one big blurb, heh. Rest assured, I have plenty to say!

Spoiler: Quotes

With the slew of multi-coloured leaves gaining speed behind him, Tefiren loosened his grip a little and leant to the side so that he swung around and ended up dangling from the underside of the Tropius’s neck. Slippery from the rain and bowed low with his weight as it was, he slid down it until he was hanging onto the Tropius’s head, grinning into its face from close range. Just past it, he could see the magical leaves zooming towards him, clearly not caring what got in their way.

The Tropius’s sly smile turned into an astonished gape.

“Boo,” said Tefiren.

Ahahaha what an entrance!! I finally get to OFFICIALLY meet Tefiren, and he’s everything I expected and more. This particular scene was honestly so vivid! Every detail leaped out at me, it really felt like I was actually watching an animated clip of this rather than just reading it. Considering action scenes are hard to write so fluidly, this is really impressive! I love it, and I love how effective of an introduction this is to Tefiren and what his personality is like.

He caught a glimpse of movement off to the side and turned to look; the Sceptile had shifted, no longer leaning lazily against the tree, now eyeing him with… with something different, something new. The look unnerved Tefiren somehow, but it took him a moment to realise why: it was almost like the look he’d seen in other people’s eyes when they’d been looking at prey.

It all clicked horrifyingly into place. Tefiren was an Archopy now. This Sceptile must have been one of Them. He was going to kill him.

Oof, I saw this coming, but that immediate shift into predator mode is chilling. Crazy to me that everything changes upon evolution. Still the same person who impressed him a moment before, but none of that matters now. Awful.

Azma gazed sorrowfully at the young Grovyle, who looked up at his parents with a sort of naïve confusion in his eyes. It reminded Forsira of an almost-forgotten time when she’d been incredibly young, not able to get her head around the fact that her parents would one day not be there.

“Naive confusion” is such a heartbreaking way to put it. I love the parallels Forsira constantly draws upon when looking at the young ones: she remembers her childhood and how happy, carefree and blissfully ignorant it was, and yet, somehow…having that happy childhood makes the current situation feel even worse, because those happy days are just gone. Gone, and they can’t come back. And now these poor kiddos don’t even get to have that luxury. They don’t get that protected naivety, that sense of security that Forsira had. Perhaps, if they’d been able to live to adulthood, it would be a blessing, in a really messed up way—they wouldn’t have happy memories to mourn in the way Forsira does. Unfortunately, they never make it that far. 💔

Some of the gathered Archopy nodded their agreement; others looked sceptical. “What if we want to stay where we normally live?” one asked.

It’s crazy to me that there are still Archopy—grown adults!—That don’t seem to grasp the severity of the situation. Honestly, the Archopy should have banded together long before now! Why haven’t they??? Aaagh it kills me. Sadly, as baffling as it is, it’s not unrealistic. One only has to look at the real world and how people handled COVID, lockdown, mandated masks, vaccines, and more to realize that…yes, some people really will go out of their way to bury their head in the sand, even at the expense of others.

Forsira was left on her own, raindrops falling onto her as she sat in the wet sand. The Archopy had a point, really. Her life felt horribly lonely and dull like this, doing nothing but trying to avoid her death for as long as possible – because she knew in her heart, and so did all the others, that they’d never escape it forever. She missed the days in her childhood when she’d explore and battle and enjoy herself with her best friend, not a worry in the world about what might be around the corner.

She missed Zathern.

Gosh it’s so sad. Something that strikes me about the writing through this whole story is that…idk how to describe it, but the story arcs not only have an atmosphere, but a lighting to them. Forsira’s childhood was in a lush green jungle full of sunshine and warm tones. And now, everything is grey, cold and rainy, and subdued in color and mood. It’s such a vivid visual contrast to me, even though you never really go out of your way to spell it out like that. I can’t even put my finger on how you accomplish this, which is incredible to me. You’re an expert at making an atmosphere all encompassing.

“Oh, it depends on both the parents for that lot,” she said. “If one’s an Archopy but the other one’s a Sceptile, the kid’ll be a Sceptile. Always.” Something of a smirk passed fleetingly across her face. “That’s why we’re winning.”

Winning? Like it’s a game? Gosh that’s so disturbing.

It would almost have been the easiest thing to do to just give up and surrender herself to Them, but her frantic, terrified mind wouldn’t listen to reason. The life she’d been living recently suddenly didn’t seem so bad compared to the alternative, and some primal spark within her refused to let go of it no matter what. It was this that kept her running, kept her burning muscles working flat out even as she knew it was pointless, hearing death grow ever closer behind her.

That last line about death hits hard. And yeah, what a way to depict that powerful survival instinct. Thankfully I have never been in a situation like this, but I know enough to know that this is a powerful instinct in all animals, even humans. It’s kind of surreal to think about how effectively it can take over and drive one forward.

“It’s Them,” she panted desperately between heavy breaths. “They’re after me.”

Somehow, to her complete bewilderment, the stranger’s face lit up in a massive grin, as though this was the most exciting thing in the world.

Bahahaha yesss Tefiren! He’s up for a new challenge.

She stifled another shriek as suddenly she was face to face with one of Them, seeing it pause, its terrible hungry gaze flickering with surprise for the briefest of moments. Before it could snap out of it, and before she froze completely in terror, the thought of the stranger spurred her to dart off to the right after him.

For half a second I wondered if this was Zarhern, but no—she’d had recognized him, surely. She just caught this one by surprise! It’s interesting to note that she almost seemed to manage to surprise this Sceptile out of their predator mode. Also: I’m definitely noticing the use of “it” in place of pronouns here, which shows the depersonalization isn’t one-sided; it goes both ways.

A small but fervent voice inside Forsira told her that she could never, ever have enough of this kind of fun with him, but nonetheless she nodded, still grinning a huge grin.

Awww Forsira 😭 she’s just been so starved for interaction, for connection, for joy. I don’t blame her in the slightest for getting so immediately attached to Tefiren. He represents the ability to truly live again, or at least, he does to her.

“He didn’t give a damn about you,” the Archopy said. “You could turn up dead in front of him tomorrow, and even if he realised it was you, he’d just laugh and carry on his little game without even blinking.”

No. He couldn’t be right. Tefiren wasn’t like that. The incredible exhilaration she’d felt in the chase – they’d both felt it together. It couldn’t just be meaningless.

Ooof. This is harsh…but probably not entirely untrue. Tefiren definitely has commitment and attachment issues like the rest of them—he just covers it up with a jovial facade.

That said, I have to wonder why this Archopy cares so much. Didn’t he just admit to doing the same thing? Avoiding learning names or talking to others, basically avoiding attachment or caring, so that the deaths will hurt less? Tefiren may be doing it in a more carefree way, but isn’t it more or less the same thing? Interesting to me that to this Archopy (and probably others), it’s preferable to resign to fate and be miserable rather than do it Tefiren’s way, despite the fact that they ultimately have the same effect.

He just hoped the predator wasn’t going to make a habit of sticking around longer than it was welcome. He didn’t want to lose himself entirely.

Something tells me this is exactly what’s going to happen. :(

Zathern’s grin grew wider at the compliment. He’d always felt he was particularly good at hunting, and although he’d never really brought it up in front of his former friends on the sunset side, something about Tharann made Zathern want to impress him. “I got the hang of it on my first try,” he said, his mouth full of Swellow.

At this, Tharann grinned as well. “Nice one,” he said. “Azma taught you?”

Hmmmm Tharann is his dad, isn’t he. Oh boy.

Zathern nodded; Tharann must have meant Them. But if the numbers of Archopy had been falling anyway, didn’t that make what They were doing slightly less wrong? Just slightly? Zathern almost shuddered to think that he might be beginning to agree with Them, but then again… since one lone Sceptile could hardly stop Them, did it really matter what he made himself think in order to keep the inevitable deaths of his old friends from hurting? It wasn’t as if he was going to hurt anyone else just by thinking that way.

Gosh the slippery slope of one justification after another is just CHILLING. It’s so well done, and while the reader can see exactly what’s happening and where it will lead, it makes sense that Zathern doesn’t. He’s lost and vulnerable in a way that he has never been before, which makes him a prime target for this kind of…conditioning.

Karsa hesitated briefly before answering. “Well, we battle a lot,” she said. “Against each other, to train and get stronger. And we…” She paused again, her gaze flickering across to Tharann for the tiniest moment before looking back at him. “We hunt. It’s easier in larger groups, and it…” She glanced at her feet awkwardly. “Well, it makes me feel like a part of something, you know? Important.”

Really. Just hunts? Nothing more sinister than that? You suuuure, Karsa? Yeah they are definitely hiding something, and that something is “we kill all your old family and friends for sport.”

Forsira paused for a moment in front of the burrow. She could barely believe that she’d found him, that this uncatchable Archopy was right there, in a hole merely a wingspan away from her, and as far as she could tell, he hadn’t even noticed her approach.

It fleetingly crossed her mind that it could just as easily have been one of Them standing here instead of her, but she shook the thought away before it could lodge anywhere and crawled forward into the hole.

Oof this feels scarily like foreshadowing. Perhaps Forsira being around Tefiren does ultimately lead to him letting his guard down, and this becomes his downfall (and by extension, hers as well.)

“You were looking…” Something seemed to occur to Tefiren. “And you found me. That’s not supposed to happen. How did you find me?”

“I…” Forsira almost trailed off, but in the dim light Tefiren’s gaze looked oddly urgent, as if the answer was incredibly important. “I saw you flying, then I followed a Linoone.” She tilted her head in an unspoken question of why it mattered so much.

Here we see that first glimpse of what Tefiren really feels under the mask: fear. He’s not stupid. He knows what’s at stake. He knows that he just messed up here, and that it could have easily been Them instead of her who capitalized on that moment of weakness. Man, I can’t imagine living like that—always on edge, always watching, never truly fully at ease. It’s no wonder Tefiren chooses to laugh at it all; one might go insane otherwise.

“Forsira.”

He grinned. “Right then, Forse…”

She felt her insides do a sudden, painful jerk. “Don’t call me that,” she murmured. “Please.”

Oh ouch, my heart. :(

“You really weren’t running away?” Forsira asked.

“Nope. ‘Course not. I just wanted to see if you were a light sleeper.” They began to creep back towards the tree they’d been sleeping in, Tefiren’s eyes darting constantly around the darkened forest as he kept low. “Second most important thing after the air blades – actually, probably the first, but I couldn’t exactly teach it during the day – is to be a light sleeper.”

Hmmmm yeah I’m not buying it. He totally was running away. Something tells me Forsira doesn’t totally buy it either, but she’s gonna take whatever excuse he gives because she’s so desperate for connection, to believe somebody cares.

“I really, really wouldn’t bother if I were you,” he said eventually between breaths, his voice sounding unnervingly amused. “Your father’s standing right where I am.”

Zathern’s eyes widened. It took him a moment to realise what Tharann meant.

“You?”

Yyyyep there it is!! Ugh it’s SO frustrating that this is more or less the final straw that gets Zathern to stay. You already have a parental connection! The one who literally raised you! Surely the fact that your dear old dad never bothered to stick around should be some kind of clue?

But then again, I’ve never experienced this kind of situation irl regarding an absent parent, and I know that the longing for acceptance from the other parent is a very real and powerful thing. Just like Forsira is desperate to believe Tefiren really cares, so too is Zathern desperate to believe his father cares about him.

This was all wrong. Members of Them were supposed to be creatures that slunk in the shadows, monsters from horror stories of the worst kind. They weren’t supposed to be ordinary people, like Tharann had been when they’d met, like Karsa was right now – like him. Life was meant to be more black and white than this; it should have been easy to choose.

Gosh, this hits HARD. I feel like the true moral of the story can be boiled down to this paragraph: that people, perfectly ordinary, normal people, are capable of rationalizing and justifying absolutely horrific things. Monsters don’t spring spontaneously out of the shadows; they are formed little by little, with excuse after excuse, until they don’t even realize what they’ve become.

“You do, Zath,” said Karsa simply. “You’d never have left the sunset side if you didn’t want to forget. Stop struggling and let go. It’ll be so much easier.”

Zathern remained tense and defiant for a moment longer, but then he just let the fight drain out of him. It would have been so hard to keep resisting forever.

With a miserable sigh, he turned around to face Karsa. “Where’s my father, then?”

Smiling sadly at him, Karsa turned and began to lead him away through the forest.

Ughhhh I hate it! I hate it so much!!

The worst part is, I believe Karsa really is sincere. Maybe she has ulterior motives to some degree, but she does truly, genuinely seem to care. She has a soft heart. In fact, I’d even argue that at her core, she’s capable of being a very good person—is a good person, but has been so thoroughly corrupted into Their mindset that it doesn’t matter anymore and she will still do terrible things. A stark reminder that good people are not infallible, and good people are still capable of committing atrocities.

“I’m fine, really,” Tefiren insisted, his grin beginning to look a little forced.

Hooray! Tefiren gets to join TR’s “I’m fine” club! (Let’s be real he’s been a member all along, heck he might even be the founder.)

“I think this poison’s going to kill me.”

Forsira’s heart lurched horribly in her chest. “No,” she said instantly. She rounded accusingly on the nearest Vileplume. “Is this true?”

The Pokémon shrugged. “Not our problem,” it said, turning to wander away into the masses of its kind.

Wow, this world really is so harsh and cruel. If other Pokémon species cared about each other, the Archopy likely never would be under such a huge threat like they are now. However, this isn’t PMD. This world closely follows the way Mother Nature works irl, and that includes…species looking out for their own, individuals looking out for their own, and being very cold and callous about anything else.

He stood up slowly with his back to her, taking a deep breath, and something about his manner made her ask, “Are you okay?”

Tefiren whirled around to face her, his usual grin lighting up his face, the lingering pain in his eyes barely visible. “I’m fine,” he said, as if there had never been any question of it.

Yeah, sure you are, buddy. You almost died an incredibly painful and gruesome death, but you didn’t, so it’s fine! Everything is great and dandy!

Karsa caught his eye and smiled at him. She was right, after all. It really wasn’t so bad here, with his friends, with his father, with her. He had a good time; it felt like the others knew him and cared about him. As for what they did on the hunts… well, it was easy to gloss over that. He’d known it would be. It didn’t change the fact that he belonged here.

“Everything is perfect except for the part where I go commit murder every night!” The sheer amount of denial Zathern is in is astounding.

He hadn’t misheard, then; this must have been the same Germane that Zathern remembered from his childhood, the adult Grovyle who used to meet with his… with someone else he’d known back then.

Germane, you little freaking rat. As if the Archopy needed yet another disadvantage? I’m so upset over this hhhh

“Well, yes,” Germane was saying. “I don’t have anything new, as such, but I recently remembered something about Azma that you may find… relevant.”

There’s definitely more to the story here. Of course ratty little Germane isn’t going to reveal it and he’s gonna be coy about it so he can keep some kind of advantage over Zathern (or maybe he just likes knowing more than others and feeling smug about it.) But Tharahnn is deeefinitely not being totally honest with his son.

Forsira shuddered inwardly. She didn’t think she’d ever get used to that term for it.

“Nah,” Tefiren said, apparently not quite getting the gravity of the question. “I just… don’t like letting it out much. I prefer to be me.”

“And you can kill like that?” Forsira asked.

He shrugged, still seeming confused. “Well, yeah.”

There was an awkward silence as she stared at him.

I find this really fascinating! Every character has a slightly different approach or mentality to their predator side, and it’s super interesting to see. Tefiren prefers to be himself to the very end—perhaps he doesn’t want to feel like Them, or he worries he could lose himself if he gave in too often. Zathern easily gives in to it, because, well, it makes things easier. Just don’t think about it and everything is fine. (How’s that working out for handling the rest of your problems, buddy?)

And then there’s Forsira, who is torn between the two the whole time. She never really does seem to find a perfectly happy medium with herself—always wanting to care less, but never quite able to. Meanwhile, Zathern and Tefiren are interesting foils to each other, because they both overcome the inner conflict about it in opposite ways. And yet, they both have the same tendency to run from their fears and pretend they don’t exist.

“What?” said Forsira. But she didn’t need an answer; she remembered now what Arkesra must have meant. Draern had been convinced that her becoming like Tefiren would lead to her feeling nothing upon the news of his death. Her reaction to it just now surely wasn’t one most Archopy would have given.

She stared towards Tefiren, not sure what to make of it. Had he really changed her that much?

And this is a perfect example. Tefiren has committed to his lighthearted, detached mentality, but Forsira is unable to. Once again she is torn within herself, not sure what to do or which option is “right.” Choose to care, and suffer for it? Or choose not to, and retain your sanity for another day?

“If there’s just one of him and two of us,” she said breathlessly between frantic wing-beats, hearing Verdan take to the trees to climb up after her, “couldn’t we just fight him?”

Man I’d really actually love to see the Archopy fight back and take an offensive approach. Take him down! Obviously that won’t stop things and will probably only make it worse, but man it is killing me that they’ve been so passive all this time. Just running, never fighting back or even trying to figure out how they can fight back.

Germane shrugged. “If you want to tell me, go ahead.”

Skorrhen gave a tiny, dangerous smile. “It starts with your death.”

Something jerked horribly inside Germane. “No,” he said instantly. He choked out a laugh. “No, you’ve got to be kidding. You are, right?”

“Really, Germane?” Skorrhen said, still in that frighteningly soft, quiet voice. “Did you really think we were just going to leave the Treecko and Grovyle forever? We’d never manage to completely wipe them out like that. They’d just keep breeding.”

Gosh this was just ice in the veins. The way they instantly shifted to predator mode, but especially the way it was done subtly, with Skorrhen talking softly, is just so dang creepy. As much as I hate Germane, I can’t say he deserved this. He really was just trying to survive the best way he knew how, so I sympathize there—but the fact that his method of survival came at the cost of others makes me far less sympathetic. Still, this is a brutal way to die, and the fact that his refusal to evolve only made him easier to kill in the end only makes it even more bitterly ironic.

“But…” Germane gabbled. A terrible cold shiver had descended over him. “But… you don’t kill the children. You never kill the children, because they look just like your own children.”

Tharann laughed. “And you think we care that they look the same? They’re not the same at all. They’re still winged freaks. Just small, wingless winged freaks.” He was staring at Germane with what should have been a smile but couldn’t have been further from one. On Tharann’s face, it just looked sinister. Hungry. “That’s all you are too, little Grovyle.”

Ah yes, now we’ve rationalized the killing of children. But everybody is so thoroughly indoctrinated now, it won’t even be hard to convince the rest to follow. Awful.

Azma shuddered, pushing those dark feelings away. She wasn’t going to let them consume her. She was stronger than that, even after all They had done to her.

My heart goes out to Azma, perhaps more than any other character. She has seen so much, has even temporarily given up, but is still choosing to stand and fight again. I can feel how tired and weary and hopeless she feels, but she won’t let it stop her, not anymore. Azma is a queen. 💛

But then, that was what the alarm had been planned for – They would appear in the clearing and find no-one there save the hidden children, who were not Their targets.

Hhhhh this hurts so much, knowing that they don’t know the children aren’t safe anymore. Nobody is.

The Treecko and Grovyle themselves stared up at their parents, if they still had them; the orphans turned to Azma. Some looked frightened, but the worst were those whose eyes still held the innocent shine of someone who hadn’t yet grasped that their life was one day going to end.

The sheer contrast between the frightened adults and confused, innocent babies hurts so much. They don’t even know, they don’t understand, and somehow that makes it worse because it just shows how pure and innocent they are. They don’t freaking deserve this. None of them do. 😢

“We need to discuss this properly, of course,” Azma went on. “But there are many of Them and so few of us left. If we want this to have any chance of making a difference, we need every single Archopy on this island to come. I would be eternally grateful if a brave few could fly out to find those that they know live outside this clearing. Tell them the news. Implore them to come. We need everyone here.”

Why, why didn’t they do this ages ago? It’s too late now, far too late. Why did they wait so long to do something? And why is Azma the only one organizing any resistance whatsoever, out of the whole population? Perhaps, if someone else had been brave enough to take charge or lead alongside her, they’d have had a much better chance. One person just can’t do it all alone.

“We cannot let this happen!” Azma called, her voice rising high, ringing out across the clearing. “We cannot let ourselves be lost! We cannot let this become a world where future generations of Pokémon live on oblivious, not even knowing what an Archopy was!”

Knowing the ending makes this speech feel like a stab in the gut. It hurts, and hurts even more so when you think of other stories and how usually this show of courage results in something. That the massively outnumbered underdogs eventually have something to show for their bravery—a miracle happens, something gives, someone or something swoops in at the last second to turn the tide and save the day. But they don’t have that here, and it won’t happen. They will not manifest a miracle just for their courage. And that is just…such a cold, sad, lonely thing.

“They’re insane,” Tefiren muttered from beside her, his voice high and shaking. “They’re all insane…”

Forsira turned to him helplessly. “Tefiren…”

His head suddenly jerked around to face her, something desperate in his gaze that she’d never seen before.

Then, faster than anything, Tefiren turned and leapt from the tree, spreading his wings to flee away from the clearing.

Ah man, I knew he was going to bail. He was flighty from the second the idea was proposed. It’s not just that he doesn’t want to fight—he doesn’t want to care, and seeing them all rally together like this against impossible odds probably tore him apart inside.

There were no tricks or gimmicks to his flight now. Forsira had seen him escape Their clutches countless times, but this was the first time it had ever seemed like Tefiren was running away.

Gosh this hits hard too. The mask is finally down, and it isn’t as brave or fascinating or glorious as Forsira had believed it to be.

“Please, Forsira,” Tefiren cut her off, his voice shaking. “I can handle everyone else on this island thinking I’m a sick freak, but please, not you.”

Ugh this HURTS. Not only is he well aware what everyone else thinks of him…he does care. If he didn’t, then it wouldn’t matter if Forsira saw him the same way. This speaks so many volumes about how much he cares about everything. Despite trying so, so hard not to.

Suddenly he wasn’t such an enigma after all. It all made sense with that one, simple reason. She’d thought Tefiren made the life-or-death chases thrilling and exciting because he was just that fearless, but in fact it was the opposite. He did it because he was the most scared of them all.

Yep, there it is. I have to love Forsira for her empathy here—the person she’s held on a pedestal all this time has finally shown his true colors, and they aren’t all pretty. She could have been disillusioned or angry or betrayed, but she doesn’t. Because she understands, has probably known this about him all along somewhere deep down, and this revelation doesn’t change their bond.

“You let me join you,” she said. “You thought that was a risk.”

“But I never wanted you to!” exclaimed Tefiren. “That night just after you found me again, when you thought I was running away. That’s because I was. I was running away. I didn’t want to risk being with you.”

Aha yep, there it is. I knew he was running away for real, and Forsira knew it too, even if she didn’t want to acknowledge it. I’m glad he came clean about it, though. That shows a new level of emotional vulnerability, to come clean about the worst parts of yourself to someone you love.

But then, none of the others in this gathering were the son of one of the two Sceptile standing atop a fallen tree at the front of the clearing, head and shoulders above the rest. That made Zathern matter. It had to.

That last line is sooo telling. Even now, even after everything, he still isn’t convinced he belongs. Still isn’t convinced that he matters to his own father. How sad.

“Not all of us,” Tharann said slyly. “I mean, most of them’ll just be killing the children – Skorrhen and Verdan are heading that lot – but I’ve got a very particular task in mind. And I need your help for that, Zathern.”

“Really?” Zathern tried not to show it, but he couldn’t help feeling a glow of pride. His father needed him. “What task?”

“That would be telling,” Tharann said with a thin smile. “Think of it as a surprise.”

100% he is gonna be asked/forced to kill Azma or Forsira or both. This is red flag central.

There was no hope, really. It was too late.

Yes. Yes it was. 😢

If only Azma hadn’t been so afraid herself, back then, when They’d broken her spirit, causing her followers to lose all hope as their leader simply gave up. It had worked just as They had planned; had They killed her, it would have inspired her comrades to fight with even greater vigour in retaliation, but this way, the resistance had been quietly snuffed out.

Oh, Azma. 💔 It truly was brilliant of them to break the rebellion at its core—not by killing her, but breaking her. But poor Azma is being so hard on herself here; if her giving up was enough to kill the whole rebellion, then it was already doomed. Like I said before, one person can only do so much. If the others didn’t believe in it enough to carry on after she fizzled out…that’s not on her. It hurts to see that she alone feels solely responsible for all of this. It shouldn’t be that way.

After what They’d done to her, it was all she could do simply to raise Zathern, trying her best to make him someone she could be proud of. She hadn’t even managed that, in the end.

Oh gosh the last line! The sheer heartbreak in it. The sense of all-encompassing, soul-consuming failure she is feeling is palpable. I want to cry for her.

Somewhere back in the dark areas of her mind, Azma only hoped that her own child would not be coming anywhere near this clearing today.

I have very very bad news for you. :(

Unlike the rest of the Sceptile, his eyes were not taken over by the monster inside. They didn’t need to be. He was a monster already.

Absolutely right. It would require someone who is a monster inside and out to spearhead this whole genocide in the first place.

The Archopy shrunk for a moment as she looked into his eyes, but then turned urgently back to Zathern. “No!” she said. “Zathern, you mustn’t believe him. He was already one of Them – I was fighting so hard that They thought they had to stop me. He thought he had to stop me.” She paused for a moment, closing her eyes as a shudder went through her – seeing his mother like that almost made him shudder too. “He raped me, Zathern.”

The way my stomach freaking DROPPED at this reveal. I’d suspected as much from all the context clues we’d received along the way, but it still hits hard. And yet, somehow…this still isn’t enough for Zathern to turn on his father. I’m freaking FURIOUS with him. Yes he’s been manipulated very thoroughly, but how, how can you still stand with him after such a reveal? He doesn’t even deny it! Zathern, you’re a freaking coward. I’m ashamed of you.

He was still on the sunset side, he dimly realised as he stared around through the rain. But it wasn’t like it mattered now. No-one else lived here anymore.

Heartbreaking and infuriating all at once. You could have done something about this! Literally anything!! And you chose to hide behind excuse after excuse, because…you were salty that your mom didn’t tell you everything? You’re mad that your friend had an outburst? So an entire race has to die because you were too big of a coward to face your own issues? Cool, bro. My sympathy for you only extends so far. You knew you could have done something about this the whole time.

Karsa edged tentatively closer to him, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Zath,” she said, with genuine sympathy in her voice. “I probably should have, you’re right. But that’s not how I work, is it?” She gave a dejected sigh, staring at the ground. “I find something I like, then I hide from and forget the things about it that I don’t like. I was only ever in this for the power it gives me, you know. I’ve… I’ve never been in control of my life like I am during the hunts. I need something like that. I can’t help it. So I just forget everything else about it that makes it bad. Like today. Today I overpowered a bunch of children. They were younger and weaker than me; of course I did.” She let out a mirthless chuckle. “So what was that really going to prove? But I went and did it anyway.” Karsa looked desperately at him. “Three. I killed three children, Zathern.”

Karsa is clearly messed up, too, and her method to “just forget” clearly doesn’t work as well as she claims it does. I want to admire her care and loving patience for Zathern, because that’s an admirable quality to have, but I just can’t. Because it’s all rooted in terrible, childish advice (just ignore your problems and they’ll go away! Genius!) and at the end of the day, she’s as big of a coward as Zathern is.

Tefiren let out a half-chuckle. “They don’t give up easily, do They?” he said, the cheeriness in his voice sounding a little strained. “That’s the thing about this game. We can win for a while, but it never lasts. Even if we find the perfect way to lose Them, They’ll be back again later.”

When the relentless optimist starts to falter, that’s when you know things are really, truly dire. It’s both sweet and tragic how Forsira takes up that mantle in his place.

“It’s like we could just fly away and go and live somewhere else.”

I wish you could. 😭

“Don’t talk,” the Sceptile told it flatly. He wasn’t sure if he was saying that because talking couldn’t help the Archopy now, or because it made this easier for him.

A hint of a grin passed across the female Sceptile’s face as she knelt down in front of the prey, her blades lit. He closed his eyes just before he felt the Archopy go limp underneath him. There wasn’t any particular reason why; he just happened to close them briefly at that moment.

Ah yes, that’s all. The constant justification and contradictions in this narration are brilliant. Even while in predator mode, he can’t completely shut it all out. And he shouldn’t. He deserves this guilt.

Karsa had her arm around him. “Hey, Zath,” she said softly. “You shouldn’t think about that. There’s nothing we can do to change it. Just forget.”

“No!” he protested, breaking away from her. “I don’t want to forget that! Not the times when life was good, when I really enjoyed myself.” He looked at Karsa emphatically. “This right now isn’t good. This is just making the best of a bad life. And all this time I’d forgotten that life used to be good – really, properly good – and I didn’t even realise what I was missing. Don’t you dare tell me to forget that again.”

Honestly THANK YOU, I was getting so fed up with hearing her repeat that over and over like a broken record. He came to the realization far, far too late, but at least he told her off about it.

And Karsa takes it all in stride. She’s so loving, so caring, so supportive…it’s just twisted that it’s all for justifying genocide. She’s a fantastic partner in so many ways, yet it doesn’t matter because she’s been the biggest brainwashing tool for Zathern all this time. She doesn’t fully know it, because she does sincerely care, but that’s all she ever was for Tharahnn. The fact that she is sincere only made her a better weapon for his schemes. A stronger leash to tether Zathern with.

It was stupid of him. It had been such a foolish move. Despite his best efforts to avoid it – it shouldn’t even have been hard in the first place – somehow, somewhere along the way he’d grown to care about her. He’d given Them an advantage over him, someone whose death was just as unthinkable as his own.

But that was just the way things were now, and although it was ridiculous to think it, part of Tefiren wouldn’t have had it any other way.

He loved her. He couldn’t just let her die.

They’d already won.

Hhhhhngh 😭 it’s so much better/worse than I had feared. He CHOSE to sacrifice himself. After spending his whole life running away, he finally chooses the opposite, because he’s finally found something—someone—he cares about more than himself. It’s beautiful and tragic and I love it and I hate it all at once.

Except it wouldn’t, would it? If not today, then another day, someday, he’d lose, and Their blades would be waiting for him. Tefiren had always known that – he’d just done everything he could to run and hide from that terrifying truth, the foregone conclusion that was his eventual death.

And there it is, the title drop. And what a moment to have it, too. In a story where everyone finds different ways to run from or ignore their problems, we finally get the honest truth from the one who chooses to face them.

But Forsira still couldn’t. Her gaze was fixed on the Sceptile at the back of the group. A fresh wave of despair was beginning to overtake her as she heard him muttering desperately, saw him leaning over the unmoving body of the female that Tefiren had struck in the throat.

The voice was familiar. The face was familiar. She hadn’t seen him in such a long time, but she knew who this was.

What on earth was Zathern doing here?

Aaaah shoot, as soon as it was specified that a female Sceptile had fallen, I’d started to worry. And here it is. In a way, Karsa needed to die if Zathern was ever going to come to his senses. She was always there to smother his conscience whenever he was on the brink of waking up and doing the right thing. And now, he doesn’t have that anymore. I’d be a lot more sad about her death if she hadn’t been such a relentless force of regression, always pushing Zathern back into his “place,” even if it was done so in a tender way.

And suddenly it didn’t matter that this Archopy looked just as frightened, if not more so, than Karsa had in her final moments.

He’d killed her.

You FREAKING HYPOCRITE. So it’s fine to watch your mother die, to kill dozens of innocents, to aid in the slaughter of children…but as soon as your mate dies, killing is unacceptable? Screw that. Screw you, Zathern. You’re a hypocrite and a raging coward and I can’t stand you.

Tefiren had actually died for her, even though death was the one thing that terrified him more than anything else.

😭 characters die for those they love in media all the time, but it hits on a whole other level when said character has been absolutely terrified of death, has made it his whole purpose to run from it, the whole time.

And while he may not have bought Forsira a longer life (at least, not by much), he did give her perhaps the best gift she could have gotten in these circumstances: she got to choose her death.

It’s pretty morbid that this was the best case scenario, but, well, that’s the situation. She was going to die, one way or another, and like Tefiren, she decided to stop running. Like Tefiren, she got to choose the way she left the world—and in a way, even if flying out to sea was suicide, it feels rebellious even then, because there’s the tiniest spark of hope that maybe, just maybe, she did fly far enough to escape. To find life elsewhere. We’ll never know.

Drawing in a shaking breath, Zathern stood and turned back towards the sunset side. His heart was heavy with loss – it would be every single day, he knew – but he had to start facing up to that if he wanted to remember his friends. He wasn’t going to run and hide from it any more.

With new resolve, Zathern began to walk into the forest, the trees that had once been home to the species of Archopy.

He wouldn’t forget.

And ultimately, more than anyone else, it’s Zathern who pays the heaviest price of all. Because he gets to live. Live with the memories, with the regret, live with the fact that he has truly lost everything, even his mate. It’s such a tiny thing that it’s barely any consolation at all, but I can at least respect that he finally comes to his senses—even if far, far too late—and takes upon himself to shoulder the burned of remembering. It is quite literally all he can do to make up for his mistakes. And it will never be enough…but it’s something.

Gosh, what a ride. I have so many feelings. Every character here has done something that warrants some condemnation, but some far more than others, and for all of them—save for Skhorren and Tharann—truly have understandable reasons for their conflict. I want to hate Karsa for being the one thing that stops Zathern every time. I want to hate Zathern for being so cowardly. Want to hate both of them for the absurd mental gymnastics they go through to justify it all. “It’s easier this way,” and yet it really isn’t, because they are constantly conflicted, constantly having to remind themselves over and over and over, constantly fighting to ignore their own consciences.

And yet, the others aren’t blameless, either. If Forsira and Tefiren had been less passive—heck, if any of the Archopy had been a bit braver, had chosen to fight like Azma, had chosen to keep fighting even when she gave up—it might have been a very different story. But then again, maybe not. And I really can’t fault them for being scared, for choosing to flee, for chasing the possibility of one more day of surviving over almost certain death.

To a much, much lesser extent, I can even understand Karsa and Zathern’s desire to belong, their yearning for purpose and direction, their need to feel needed and important to somebody. It doesn’t at all justify what they’ve done, not even remotely, but, well…it’s painfully realistic. Horrific acts are committed by people like this—lost, vulnerable, desperate—than they are by pure monsters like Tharahnn. And I think, ultimately, that’s the real message here. That if we don’t actively choose the kind of person we want to be, then we will not be immune to sliding into corruption and/or cowardice.

Anyway…wow. What a fic this is, so visceral and vivid! It’s a truly amazing and unique story, and you should be very proud. Thank you for sharing this with all of us, it was a treat to read. 💛