Pokémon New Moon

[seatherny]

Spoiler: author's notes

This was written for the 2022 Mischief and Malice contest, although I ended up taking this in a more Sad than Villainous direction, then submitted it for feedback purposes. So I'd say the story is best read without the contest theme in mind. Any comments are welcome and appreciated! <3

---

☾ NEW MOON ☽​

---

“Why did you leave me?”

Again it was dusk. Again it was time for every visible thing to disintegrate. An impulse driven by panic, Alianna swallowed—as if her words needed to escape back into her throat to hide. Perhaps the night would spare her if she remained still.

Alianna scanned the varying terrain from her perch at the top of a steep, jagged crag. She had yet to break the habit of visiting this place, this monadnock settled within the arid steppe spanning the mountain which overlooked Rock Tunnel. Travelers en route to Lavender Town were not impressed by the ridges beyond. But it comforted her, the way they resembled a mass of carved bones placed in uneven rows.

She watched spearow and doduo forage for seeds in switchgrass growing at the edge of a salt flat, the gleam of which was disappearing with the sweltering sun. The rest of the steppe was dominated by a mosaic of dying sagebrush and wildrye stretching to the flank of the mountain.

“Why did you leave me?” she asked again, once all hints of daylight had given way to petaled moonlight.

The moon’s crescent shape looked to be cradling the sky and the stars with great gentleness. Choked tears welled up in her, seemingly siphoned into her lungs in place of oxygen. She barely felt tangible, let alone held.

The moon responded deliberately but with considerable reluctance.

I had no choice. You know that.

“Then why did you have to go?” she squeaked.

Alianna had never been brave enough to articulate these lingering questions of hers, and now they spilled from her mouth without permission as hate weaved itself around her body. The skull protecting her—reminding her—rattled with unbearable noise. Still she heard the words spoken to her with clarity.

The world turned bright and marowak called to me. I heard them for the first time. Really heard them, after a lifetime of isolation...

“I don’t understand. Why did you have to go?” Alianna rubbed the small bone in her hand, trying to distract herself by counting the number of cracks and dents and holes.

You are asking the wrong questions, little one.

A quick, clean snap resounded in her head. Convinced that it was her heart finally breaking, she did not check to see she had handled her bone too roughly without meaning to.

“Why did they take you from me?”

Because they didn’t know.

She hadn’t yet carved a notch on her bone to signify tonight’s moon phase, as she’d been taught. It had been an accident, unlike—

Her eyes squeezed shut. “They knew exactly what they were doing!” she said.

But they didn’t know. They’d never seen your kindness, your strength. If they could see—

“I wouldn’t let them! Not ever…”

Alianna stomped and raised a cloud of dust in a pathetic show of defiance. Indifferent to her transgressions, time kept marching on.

But if they could see, her mother’s voice urged, they would regret what they did. They would regret believing that our bones were worth stealing. That we could be separated from them. And they would love you instead.

She imagined herself leaving the monadnock, plodding over to where the mountain was dotted with buttes, rolling hills, and cliffs with wind-worn rock faces—all of which, as every cubone and marowak knew, housed stones perfect for sharpening bone. The thought of starting over with a new bone was inviting but unspeakable.

So she would fix hers instead. She would swing and shake it violently enough to force the grief away from her body and into the air to dissolve. She would banish her pain if, in reality, it didn’t root her and cling to her with a fierceness that only the strongest of marowak should have been able to possess.

“Did you have to go?” she whispered, desperation having reduced her earlier fortitude to something unknowable.

Would you have noticed if I stayed? With all this anger draped over you…

Alianna said nothing, now.

I’m not saying it is fair or right, little one. But humans… they don’t see themselves like we see them. Where they saw worthiness, we saw greed. Where they saw opportunity, we saw threats.

They could change, and I hope they will.

“Yeah. Yeah, I do, too,” Alianna said, lifting her tiny paws to wipe her face. A few tears slithered past and stained the hard dirt below.

And it’s my fault for overestimating their intentions, isn’t it? They would have left us alone if I hadn’t fought back.

Silence.

I did have a choice and I made the wrong one. I’m so sorry, Alianna.

Silence.

Not for trying to protect you—

“No!”

I’m sorry for not waiting. Another second… Just another second, and we could’ve had years more together.

The shameful buzzing in her head evolved into high-pitched wailing. She keened and keened, trying all the while to stifle herself into a mere, quiet sob.

“N-No! No, it’s… my fault. You said I was a fighter, b-but if I really had strength, then—”

Then it hit her, the fact that her crying could attract predators. Danger. So she opened her mouth as wide as it would go, not caring how far the sound reverberated.

Her mother’s voice intruded, but Alianna blocked it out and focused on a question that only had one answer.

Why did she deserve to live when her mother was no longer allowed to? When she was weighed down by crushing guilt and blame? When she deserved to be crushed just as much as those humans in dark uniforms, if not more?

She didn’t deserve to live. That was the truth. It was a wistful truth. Elegiac, cavernous and fearful.

“I don’t know,” Alianna said, scarcely audible as she fought through stammer after stammer, “how not to be sad.”

Then use that sadness. Try to remember what those humans were thinking—

“I’ll never know!”

What they could have been thinking, then. Do you truly believe that they were malicious?

They were either malicious or scared, Alianna figured. And she could understand scared.

Try to remember. I know it is hard. Try to remember what they could have been thinking. How things could have ended.

“You could be real,” Alianna said. “You should be real, and actually guiding me… I shouldn't have to guess. And it’s only hurting me more, begging the moon for a chance to talk to you like this every night...”

See? You are doing what I’m asking already. In all situations you can act how you think they should have. The sadness might remain, but there will be joy, too.

Alianna shook her head, unable to make promises but accepting that she needed to absorb some sense of moving on, whatever that was going to mean. Whatever that was going to look like. If her mother did not know or would not tell her, then she supposed she would have to gather the courage to search for herself.

She scanned her surroundings again. It was time, for the first time, to see the mountain, her home, swathed in moonlight. The salt flat, shimmering. The stars, blinking, but more rarely than she’d expect. As if they were watching her. As if they were eager to see if she was truly ready to say goodbye. If she was going to travel and strive to understand—and maybe even forgive—the endless maze of potentially meaningless thoughts and behaviors that led to her loss, the most meaningful thing that would shape her life until she, too, ceased to breathe.

Alianna hobbled, slowly but steadily, off of the monadnock and did not return.

 

[K_S]

Alright, I'm tackling this review as a line-by-line reaction... and let's get started.

Initially, I wondered if this was literal or just an overblown fear of the dark per Alianna... well time will tell I'm sure...

Per the analogies our pov character is offering, comparing scenery to bones, ect we're definitely dealing either with someone with a unique viewpoint or someone a bit on the morbid side...

The fact we are conversing with the moon I'm voting unique and I think our protag might not be human but of the maro line...

Yeah, definitely a maro... now normally I'd say conversing with the dead full-on convos usually means that there’s some unhinging going on but since there's a branch of the maro line that's ghosts and vengeful fire all at once... I'm not saying that that's literally happening, only probable though the line about the "black-clad" makes me think this is a kantoian.. perhaps the kantoian cubone from the TR attack on Violet’s tower...

Overall this feels like the start of a journey fic, or this cubone’s journey into dealing with their life post huge loss, of overcoming the trauma of being assaulted by a villain group. The cutoff point felt a bit like “will be continued” than an actual end and I was wondering if you were going to spin this into a series or were planning to keep this a stand-alone.

 

[seatherny]

Alright, I'm tackling this review as a line-by-line reaction... and let's get started.

Initially, I wondered if this was literal or just an overblown fear of the dark per Alianna... well time will tell I'm sure...

Per the analogies our pov character is offering, comparing scenery to bones, ect we're definitely dealing either with someone with a unique viewpoint or someone a bit on the morbid side...

The fact we are conversing with the moon I'm voting unique and I think our protag might not be human but of the maro line...

Yeah, definitely a maro... now normally I'd say conversing with the dead full-on convos usually means that there’s some unhinging going on but since there's a branch of the maro line that's ghosts and vengeful fire all at once... I'm not saying that that's literally happening, only probable though the line about the "black-clad" makes me think this is a kantoian.. perhaps the kantoian cubone from the TR attack on Violet’s tower...

Overall this feels like the start of a journey fic, or this cubone’s journey into dealing with their life post huge loss, of overcoming the trauma of being assaulted by a villain group. The cutoff point felt a bit like “will be continued” than an actual end and I was wondering if you were going to spin this into a series or were planning to keep this a stand-alone.

Thanks for your comments! <3 This is just gonna be a standalone fic focusing on actively choosing to move forward rather than stay stagnant... although my other fics, if/when I post them, are journey fics featuring very similar themes.

 

[K_S]

well, thanks for clarifying. I look forward to your other works.

 

[kintsugi]

oho, grief fics and the voice in your head that probably isn't them and cubone ...

I had some incoherent thoughts pre-contest--I agree with your assessment that it's better read without the theme in mind, although I also think that the most interesting parts for me were Alianna trying to make sense of Team Rocket's actions--so in that regard, I get the prompt fill in hindsight; my small brain just kept expecting Alianna to be explicitly villainous here, which, oops.

The environmental scenery was really nice! I wasn't expecting that; really enjoyed seeing words like "monadnock" out in the wild. I liked the foliage bits especially, this image of a beautiful, vibrant world that's still living, still going on, while of course the cubone would be more reassured that the ground is shaped like bones. I think it was a clever choice to ground this one a lot more environmentally than you might've normally; the rest of the story is pretty internal and it helped a bit with the physicality.

"I don't know how not to be sad"--I think there's an entire story from these lines, probably longer than what you've got the space/inclination to tell here. It's hard for me to wrap my head fully around the emotional arc of this one--everyone feels grief differently, and closure comes in different forms, and honestly fucking off away from your homeland into the night isn't so much closure as beginning a whole 'nother can of worms. I did like the vacillation between guilt and trying to understand/be the better person here, as if there was one thing that you can do to have made things different. It's not true, of course, but it's not an entirely unreasonable thing to tell yourself when trying to cope ...

It's interesting to me to consider to what extent her mom is actually present. In the pokemon world, with the very confirmed haunted marowak lingering around Lavender Tower, it could probably cut both ways. imo it doesn't really matter if this is really Mom or of this is Alianna--what's more important is that she believes it's her mother. And there's something very cogent about wanting to hear these wise, comforting words, and instead getting "lol oops that was sorta my bad when i think about it ..." There's an odd point in which kids begin to realize that their parents aren't flawless, and I think having it happen here emphasizes how smol and unprepared she was for this.

big sads for alianna; fun (? is that the word?) read.

“Yeah. Yeah, I do, too,” Alianna said

your call ofc, and it's hard to establish character voice--but this felt a little too flippant, a little too like some different protagonists compared to the rest? this might also be because I read it with the same cadence as "Yeah, yeah", and generally just ascribe a really casual tone of voice to "yeah" that may not be universal.

 

[seatherny]

I had some incoherent thoughts pre-contest--I agree with your assessment that it's better read without the theme in mind, although I also think that the most interesting parts for me were Alianna trying to make sense of Team Rocket's actions--so in that regard, I get the prompt fill in hindsight; my small brain just kept expecting Alianna to be explicitly villainous here, which, oops.

Nah, you were definitely on to something! Alianna was initially meant to be more villainous than she is, butttttt when it was time to actually show that in-fic, my own small brain defaulted to More Sad + Understanding rather than Villainy. I didn't have time to go back and remedy it before the contest deadline, nor did/do I want to post-contest! That's big brain, catching on to both the direction I was going to take and the direction I actually took, lol.

The environmental scenery was really nice! I wasn't expecting that; really enjoyed seeing words like "monadnock" out in the wild. I liked the foliage bits especially, this image of a beautiful, vibrant world that's still living, still going on, while of course the cubone would be more reassured that the ground is shaped like bones. I think it was a clever choice to ground this one a lot more environmentally than you might've normally; the rest of the story is pretty internal and it helped a bit with the physicality.

Always glad to hear about my physical descriptions hitting well - I've been trying to balance them with the emotional bits for a long while now!

"I don't know how not to be sad"--I think there's an entire story from these lines, probably longer than what you've got the space/inclination to tell here. It's hard for me to wrap my head fully around the emotional arc of this one--everyone feels grief differently, and closure comes in different forms, and honestly fucking off away from your homeland into the night isn't so much closure as beginning a whole 'nother can of worms. I did like the vacillation between guilt and trying to understand/be the better person here, as if there was one thing that you can do to have made things different. It's not true, of course, but it's not an entirely unreasonable thing to tell yourself when trying to cope ...

What do you know, a certain fic I was talking about on Discord not long ago is (going to be) all about trying to figure out how not to be sad... and angry and resentful and self-destructive and

I suppose this is where the feel of this being the first chapter of a longer fic comes from, though, because this isn't meant to be an emotional arc that ends in closure, per se. Or if there is closure, it's only in the sense that she's now okay with leaving the place where she feels most connected to her mother. We just get insight into the internal turmoil that Alianna goes through before making an active step toward a new emotional arc, one that would encompass trying to find closure wrt her grief and Team Rocket... which, yeah, wouldn't go nearly as smoothly as she would want. :V

It's interesting to me to consider to what extent her mom is actually present. In the pokemon world, with the very confirmed haunted marowak lingering around Lavender Tower, it could probably cut both ways. imo it doesn't really matter if this is really Mom or of this is Alianna--what's more important is that she believes it's her mother. And there's something very cogent about wanting to hear these wise, comforting words, and instead getting "lol oops that was sorta my bad when i think about it ..." There's an odd point in which kids begin to realize that their parents aren't flawless, and I think having it happen here emphasizes how smol and unprepared she was for this.

I was interested to see what people thought about this, so I'm glad you brought it up! ...Though I didn't write with anything specific in mind, to be honest. I like that it could go either way. This actually being Alianna's mother means that they can't communicate anymore after Alianna leaves the Lavender Town area, but if it's Alianna herself, then she can keep talking to her mother. Both options would have interesting implications, I think!

Anyway, in either case, I was mostly focused on giving off the impression that she spoke with her mother very, very often, and that this last conversation on the monadnock was the culmination of their conversations having evolved over time.

your call ofc, and it's hard to establish character voice--but this felt a little too flippant, a little too like some different protagonists compared to the rest? this might also be because I read it with the same cadence as "Yeah, yeah", and generally just ascribe a really casual tone of voice to "yeah" that may not be universal.

Nah, this is valid. I distinctly remember ruminating over this line of dialogue for forever, then telling myself to just move on because the deadline was looming. I'm still not sure what I'd put instead... I'll keep thinking on it!

Thanks for dropping by and commenting (again)! I've missed kintsugi reviews. <3

 

[Pen]

Sad baby cubone fic, oh boy. I like the imagery you've sketched out in this. The world we're in feels very stark and lonely: the desolate steppe, the long cubone crying for answers from the moon.

I saw from the author's note that this was originally written for the Villain POV contest. That does explain something that struck me as odd on first read, which is how focused the moon-voice is on the motivations of Team Rocket. The conversation keeps redirecting to the idea that maybe the people who did this weren't bad people, deep down, which is an interesting thought in the context of a Villain POV contest but does feel like a strange tack to take removed from this context. Alianna is seeking some form of closure, and all her ghost-mom can say is "Try to remember what those humans were thinking—" I'm not sure it matters what they were thinking; it's hardly going to change what they did or what happened or that Alianna has to live with it. What she's really working through doesn't seem to me to be rooted in how anyone could have done this to them, but rather how her mother could have let this happen, failed her in this way. The POV she's reaching for is her mother's, and some of the stuff about the rocket grunts felt a bit like a distraction from that.

“You should be real, and actually guiding me… I shouldn't have to guess.

This was definitely the line that hit hardest for me.

I really like where the ending leaves us. Whether the voice in the moon is really the ghost of her mother or is just Alianna speaking to herself, it's not getting her anywhere. There's something simple but powerful in someone starting, literally, to move on.

Spoiler: Line-by-lines

“Why did you leave me?”

Again it was dusk. Again it was time for every visible thing to disintegrate. An impulse driven by panic, Alianna swallowed—as if her words needed to escape back into her throat to hide. Perhaps the night would spare her if she remained still.

This opening segment was a bit confusing. It wasn't clear for a while that Alianna was the one who spoke the opening words.

I also got tripped up on "An impulse driven by panic, Alianna swallowed"--the order seems reversed from what would make sense: Alianna swallowed, an impulse driven by panic. The idea of her words escaping to the back of her throat might also work better if there wasn't the initial opening dialogue. She's already spoken, so it's strange how the description after makes it sound like she's having trouble speaking.

monadnock

Very cool word!

She watched spearow and doduo forage for seeds in switchgrass growing at the edge of a salt flat, the gleam of which was disappearing with the sweltering sun.

The last clause is attached a bit awkwardly here.

Alianna had never been brave enough to articulate these lingering questions of hers, and now they spilled from her mouth without permission as hate weaved itself around her body.

From the narration about her coming here a lot, I wasn't sure whether this is the first time she's talked to the moon like this or just that this is the first time she's persisted in asking questions?

'Hate' also caught me off-guard here. It doesn't match the rest of the emotions we've been getting from her so far. She's mostly seemed upset, desperate, lost. Even later when there's anger at her mother, it didn't feel like hatred was the word for it.

She hadn’t yet carved a notch on her bone to signify tonight’s moon phase, as she’d been taught.

Interesting snippet of worldbuilding!

Alianna stomped and raised a cloud of dust in a pathetic show of defiance. Indifferent to her transgressions, time kept marching on.

Does stomping on the ground rise to the level of a transgression? Some of the language choices in this oneshot feel more formal and elevated then the story is able to sustain. More elevated language doesn't necessarily lead to more elevated emotions in the reader--very often, it has the opposite effect.

The thought of starting over with a new bone was inviting but unspeakable.

So she would fix hers instead.

Very symbolic, though . . . it sounded like her bone snapped--is that the kind of thing that can be repaired? I wasn't sure how big a deal a bone breaking like that is, whether it's something that happens all the time or a very rare thing, and that uncertainty left me unsure how much weight to assign to the bone breaking/bone fixing.

“Did you have to go?” she whispered, desperation having reduced her earlier fortitude to something unknowable.

I hadn't gotten the impression of fortitude from her earlier--she's seemed pretty scared and desperate the whole fic--so the reference to earlier fortitude confused me. I'm not entirely sure what it means for fortitude to be reduced to something unknowable.

But humans… they don’t see themselves like we see them. Where they saw worthiness, we saw greed. Where they saw opportunity, we saw threats.

I think you might want to flip the ordering here, so that the marowak's perception comes first. That's usually how people present things: we and then them. Where we saw greed, they saw . . .

Then it hit her, the fact that her crying could attract predators. Danger. So she opened her mouth as wide as it would go, not caring how far the sound reverberated.

Is this her trying to seek death?

See? You are doing what I’m asking already. In all situations you can act how you think they should have.

Hm, but is that what she's doing? Alianna was talking about what she wouldn't have to do in a world where they hadn't acted like that. That's not the same as acting how she thinks they should have. Acting how she thinks they should have basically means not murdering any parents, which doesn't seem to be the danger here. That line feels like a bit of a non-sequitor.

Alianna shook her head, unable to make promises but accepting that she needed to absorb some sense of moving on, whatever that was going to mean.

This felt a bit 'tell' instead of 'show' to me. I wonder if there's a way you could lead us there without having to put it quite so explicitly.

 

[Dragonfree]

Ooh, Cubone fic! I wasn't quite sure at the beginning what was going on here, but once it became clear, definitely a story that tugs on the heartstrings.

I quite liked the somber atmosphere here, and I was touched by the themes it tackles. Taking a story about a child whose mother has been killed and who is suffering massive grief and survivor's guilt and having it go in this direction, where her mother (or her imagined version of her mother) urges empathy for her killers while blaming herself more than anyone else, is unusual, and I found it quite stirring. To remember what they could have been thinking - to think the best of even those who have committed horrible evil, and choose to empathize and imagine the most charitable interpretation, for one's own sake if nothing else. It sounds like Alianna's mother was someone who always thought that way, and so when Alianna thinks of her, and imagines conversing with her, that's what she imagines her telling her, even when Alianna herself is consumed with grief and desperation and hates that she even has to guess at what her mother might say to her. And that definitely touches me, as someone very inclined towards empathizing who generally finds peace in sympathizing and wishing the best for those who have done me wrong.

I found the prose here a little confusing at times, using phrasing that I had to reread a couple of times to understand what you meant by it, or that seemed to not entirely rhyme with what else was being said; I see Pen poked at some of the main instances of this I felt, so I won't repeat her.

One minor formatting error:

But if they could see, her mother’s voice urged, they would regret what they did. They would regret believing that our bones were worth stealing. That we could be separated from them. And they would love you instead.

her mother's voice urged should not be italicized here, since it's a speech tag rather than part of her speech.

Otherwise, it may not be a villain POV, but I did enjoy seeing a story that's about empathizing with villains even if not written from their POV. The themes here are definitely going to stick with me hard. Touching work.

 

[Umbramatic]

Here for Blitz! You fit Week 1! I have somehow never reviewed anything you've done before! Let's get started!

So like I was spoiled ahead of time that this was about the one Cubone from G1 whose mother gets killed by Team Rocket but I am not sure how much of that I would have gleaned from the story itself since it has a vauge, ethereal feel to it that is helped by the prose and also I am dumb. But what I Can TELL is said Cubone (who has a name apparently!) is having a conversation with her dead mom. Somehow. She seems to be a ghost again. Or a spirit in the sky Mufasa style. Or just talking in her mind.

Anyway the two have a pretty long and hefty and very heavy philosophical discussion- Cubone gal definitely blames either her mother or herself for said mother's death. Or both. Probably both. She questions WHY this all had to happen, which her mother reassures in a sense but it kinda bounces off at first. And you know, I can kinda relate to that - i can get really deepl,y entrenched in my feelings and even on the occasions people try to help with that I can kinda be resistant - and I imagine it's worse when you're talking to your literal dead mom who was taken from you in an act of human cruelty. The fic is mostly dialogue like this, bugt the emotional core makes it poignant and effective.

Anyway Dead Mom eventually gets to Cubone Girl and she learns to move on. In Let's Go Pikachu and EEvee the Cubone ends up with your rival and gets a happy ending with him - I like to think this happens here.

Thanks for the quick but feelsy read, and glad I got to review something of yours.

 

[Spiteful Murkrow]

Alright, so coming into this story, all I knew about it was that it was an entry from the Villain PoV contest in 2022 and that it’s about the RGBY Cubone from Lavender Tower and that it deals with grappling with loss. So I’m not fully sure what to expect from this story. So let’s just go ahead and find out how that works in the most reliable way possible:

Spoiler: Line-by-Line

“Why did you leave me?”

Again it was dusk. Again it was time for every visible thing to disintegrate. An impulse driven by panic, Alianna swallowed—as if her words needed to escape back into her throat to hide. Perhaps the night would spare her if she remained still.

Oh, so the RGBY Cubone in this continuity has a name, huh? I assume this is after she was taken in by Mr. Fuji?

Alianna scanned the varying terrain from her perch at the top of a steep, jagged crag. She had yet to break the habit of visiting this place, this monadnock settled within the arid steppe spanning the mountain which overlooked Rock Tunnel. Travelers en route to Lavender Town were not impressed by the ridges beyond. But it comforted her, the way they resembled a mass of carved bones placed in uneven rows.

Ah yes, our first indication that we’re dealing with a Cubone here. Though given how much Alianna is afraid of the dark (and probably not without reason given that it’s great cover for nocturnal predators), that makes me wonder if going out to moongaze is something akin to a rite of passage for Cubone in this setting where one braves dangers in order to get closer to one’s departed.

She watched spearow and doduo forage for seeds in switchgrass growing at the edge of a salt flat, the gleam of which was disappearing with the sweltering sun. The rest of the steppe was dominated by a mosaic of dying sagebrush and wildrye stretching to the flank of the mountain.

“Why did you leave me?” she asked again, once all hints of daylight had given way to petaled moonlight.

Because some asshole Rocket electrocuted your mother to death with a cattle prod-

-beat-

Actually, how did Origins just get away with that plot point anyways considering Marowak’s a ground type?

The moon’s crescent shape looked to be cradling the sky and the stars with great gentleness. Choked tears welled up in her, seemingly siphoned into her lungs in place of oxygen. She barely felt tangible, let alone held.

Oh hey, it’s the last panel from the Baby Nargacuga Comic™ all over again.

The moon responded deliberately but with considerable reluctance.

I had no choice. You know that.

Alianna: “*W-Wait, you’ll actually answer me?!*”

“Then why did you have to go?!” she squeaked.

Alianna had never been brave enough to articulate these lingering questions of hers, and now they spilled from her mouth without permission as hate weaved itself around her body. The skull protecting her—reminding her—rattled with unbearable noise. Still she heard the words spoken to her with clarity.

Given that Alianna is meant to be getting a touch resentful here, it might make sense to make her dialogue a bit more exclamatory here.

The world turned bright and marowak called to me. I heard them for the first time. Really heard them, after a lifetime of isolation...

“I don’t understand. Why did you have to go?” Alianna rubbed the small bone in her hand, trying to distract herself by counting the number of cracks and dents and holes.

Wait, so how many times has Alianna had this conversation with “the moon” like this anyways? Since from her lack of surprise, I get the feeling that this isn’t the first time that this

moment has come up between her and it.

You are asking the wrong questions, little one.

A quick, clean snap resounded in her head. Convinced that it was her heart finally breaking, she did not check to see she had handled her bone too roughly without meaning to.

Would suggest emphasizing the ‘snap’ if it’s a sound playing back in her mind. Though I’m guessing that that’s related to how Lavender Tower’s Marowak bit it in this version of events, huh?

“Why did they take you from me?”

Because they didn’t know.

She hadn’t yet carved a notch on her bone to signify tonight’s moon phase, as she’d been taught. It had been an accident, unlike—

Fascinating bit of lore / xeno-culture there. Though that makes me wonder just how heavily notched the average Cubone’s club is just before evolving into Marowak if they do it 12+ times a year.

Her eyes squeezed shut. “They knew exactly what they were doing!” she said.

But they didn’t know. They’d never seen your kindness, your strength. If they could see—

“I wouldn’t let them! Not ever…”

Oh, so Alianna has some lingering bitterness issues with humans in general, huh? That actually makes me wonder if this is before or after she got taken in by Mr. Fuji.

Alianna stomped and raised a cloud of dust in a pathetic show of defiance. Indifferent to her transgressions, time kept marching on.

But if they could see, her mother’s voice urged, they would regret what they did. They would regret believing that our bones were worth stealing. That we could be separated from them. And they would love you instead.

Rocket in the Distance:

Alianna: “*”I… did not need that, thanks.*” >.<

She imagined herself leaving the monadnock, plodding over to where the mountain was dotted with buttes, rolling hills, and cliffs with wind-worn rock faces—all of which, as every cubone and marowak knew, housed stones perfect for sharpening bone. The thought of starting over with a new bone was inviting but unspeakable.

Oh, is that a social taboo in this setting? Since one would think that “bone was lost and had to ditch it” would be grounds for getting a new one, even if it might be a bit embarrassing when around one’s peers.

So she would fix hers instead. She would swing and shake it violently enough to force the grief away from her body and into the air to dissolve. She would banish her pain if, in reality, it didn’t root her and cling to her with a fierceness that only the strongest of marowak should have been able to possess.

Oh yeah, totally sounds healthy and like it won’t cause serious problems right now. /s

“Did you have to go?” she whispered, desperation having reduced her earlier fortitude to something unknowable.

Would you have noticed if I stayed? With all this anger draped over you…

Alianna: “*I wouldn’t have this anger if you were still here!*”

Alianna said nothing, now.

I’m not saying it is fair or right, little one. But humans… they don’t see themselves like we see them. Where they saw worthiness, we saw greed. Where they saw opportunity, we saw threats.

They could change, and I hope they will.

Somehow, I’m not sure that this is going to play well with Alianna here.

“Yeah. Yeah, I do, too,” Alianna said, lifting her tiny paws to wipe her face. A few tears slithered past and stained the hard dirt below.

And it’s my fault for overestimating their intentions, isn’t it? They would have left us alone if I hadn’t fought back.

Silence.

Though it’s fascinating to see how the presence of a language barrier influences the way Pokémon see their interactions with humans. Even if it’s a touch depressing to hear this spirit / voice in Alianna’s head come to the conclusion that “resisting was always a hopeless endeavor and I should’ve known better”.

I did have a choice and I made the wrong one. I’m so sorry, Alianna.

Silence.

Not for trying to protect you—

“No!”

I mean, yeah. I wouldn’t imagine “sorry for not cutting and running” would have a strong reception from someone who’s currently fairly bitter towards humans about your death, so…

I’m sorry for not waiting. Another second… Just another second, and we could’ve had years more together.

The shameful buzzing in her head evolved into high-pitched wailing. She keened and keened, trying all the while to stifle herself into a mere, quiet sob.

“N-No! No, it’s… my fault. You said I was a fighter, b-but if I really had strength, then—”

Ah yes, totally healthy™ thought processes right now.

Then it hit her, the fact that her crying could attract predators. Danger. So she opened her mouth as wide as it would go, not caring how far the sound reverberated.

Yeah, I’m convinced that this has to be some sort of rite of passage for Cubone in this setting, since otherwise why put yourself at risk for being potentially picked off at every new moon?

Her mother’s voice intruded, but Alianna blocked it out and focused on a question that only had one answer.

Why did she deserve to live when her mother was no longer allowed to? When she was weighed down by crushing guilt and blame? When she deserved to be crushed just as much as those humans in dark uniforms, if not more?

Ah yes, survivor’s guilt in action here.

She didn’t deserve to live. That was the truth. It was a wistful truth. Elegiac, cavernous and fearful.

“I don’t know,” Alianna said, scarcely audible as she fought through stammer after stammer, “how not to be sad.”

Then use that sadness. Try to remember what those humans were thinking—

“I’ll never know!”

I mean, that’s probably for the best if Alianna didn’t given that the average Rocket doesn’t strike me as thinking terribly much about the occasional Pokémon they have to run over to get what they want.

What they could have been thinking, then. Do you truly believe that they were malicious?

They were either malicious or scared, Alianna figured. And she could understand scared.

Though it’s admittedly a bit weird for me to process why Alianna / “her mother” would be this worried about the motivations of Rockets. Like they do run into other humans that they can use to form a baseline comparison… right?

Try to remember. I know it is hard. Try to remember what they could have been thinking. How things could have ended.

Alianna: “*Mom, that’s not making this better right now!*” >.<

“You could be real,” Alianna said. “You should be real, and actually guiding me… I shouldn't have to guess. And it’s only hurting me more, begging the moon for a chance to talk to you like this every night...”

See? You are doing what I’m asking already. In all situations you can act how you think they should have. The sadness might remain, but there will be joy, too.

Alianna: “*When?!*”

Alianna shook her head, unable to make promises but accepting that she needed to absorb some sense of moving on, whatever that was going to mean. Whatever that was going to look like. If her mother did not know or would not tell her, then she supposed she would have to gather the courage to search for herself.

I kinda wonder if this is a bit sudden of a realization on Alianna’s part, and if it should’ve come after a bit longer of a pause. e.x. hearing her “mother” stop talking and leave her alone for a while.

She scanned her surroundings again. It was time, for the first time, to see the mountain, her home, swathed in moonlight. The salt flat, shimmering. The stars, blinking, but more rarely than she’d expect. As if they were watching her. As if they were eager to see if she was truly ready to say goodbye. If she was going to travel and strive to understand—and maybe even forgive—the endless maze of potentially meaningless thoughts and behaviors that led to her loss, the most meaningful thing that would shape her life until she, too, ceased to breathe.

Alianna hobbled, slowly but steadily, off of the monadnock and did not return.

I mean, I’m not convinced that Alianna’s anywhere close to being over her mother’s loss, but it’s a start, at least? ^^

Though I suppose it’s time to get onto the recap. On the whole, it was a nice piece, even if there were a couple things about it that I wasn’t sure came through as intended.

That said, I did feel that you captured the sense of someone coming to terms with losing a loved one pretty well, with the sorts of jumbled-up and contradictory emotions one feels when trying to grapple with loss like that. Like Alianna’s thought process where she’s looking for someone to blame and struggling to make sense of why her loss had to happen or where to go just feels very true to reality. I also liked the glimpses of Cubone culture, even if I kinda wish there were more to them. It’s a nice reminder that we’re not dealing with a being with a human mindset and some of the thought processes were pretty fun to follow

As for weaknesses, I think that there are some bits about Alianna / her “mother”’s train of thought that I’m not fully sure whether or not add up. Like I get that Alianna’s “mother” has non-zero odds of ultimately being a figment of her mind, but some of her thought processes felt a bit odd to me. Since from the perspective of a Cubone in the wild and/or maybe bumming around with Mr. Fuji and sneaking out to be alone at times, why does it matter in terms of values if you never forgive the humans who stole your mother from you or what was really going through their minds at the time? Like if Mommawak was warned by her peers that she was repeatedly picking fights that would ultimately not end well and Alianna is on-track to repeat that, that’s one thing, but things weren’t really framed along those terms in the version of this one-shot I read.

I dunno, maybe it’d have hit a bit harder if Alianna was starting to get a bit reflexively rabidly anti-human and “mom” had to talk her down with “kiddo, humans aren’t all like that, you know that, and going down this path isn’t going to end in fewer tears”, but it just feels a bit weird for Pokémon to be so concerned about “well, what was really going on with the Rockets?” when presumably they don’t fit the range of what a “normal” human encounter is for them.

Also, in general, I wonder if things were a little too compressed, since we get a lot of really tantalizing glimpses at various topics such as Cubone culture and what Alianna has been through, but it feels like things kept getting cut short. To the point where the ending is kinda ambiguous since Alianna basically lets go of things enough to slink off for a night, but hasn’t really come to terms with things beyond an intellectual “yeah, I shouldn’t let this take over my life”. I dunno, it just felt like this one-shot could’ve easily been two or three times as long, fleshed out the moments it deals with a bit more, and it’d still feel like a pretty short and bite-sized read.

Sorry if the feedback was a bit more critical than expected @seatherny , though while I think that the one-shot needs some tweaks to bring out its full potential, I would like to emphasize that I enjoyed the one-shot overall and thought the basic premise behind it was touching. Enough so that I hope this isn’t Alianna’s last appearance in your writings.

Hope the review was helpful, and best of luck with Review Blitz.

 

[Sinderella]

Hiya Sea!! I've never read anything of yours before so I'm coming for your one-shot here! For such a short story, there was a lot to unpack and I felt all the things!!!

First and foremost I want to credit your little bits of worldbuilding. The Cubone/Marowak line definitely isn't one of my favorite 'mon, but the little bits of I guess....."witchy" vibes you give them here have made me very Like, them carving the phases of the moon into their bone staffs (or....yk whatever they're called) was REALLY cool!!! Or just the general story of Alianna having to go up to this high point to "beg the moon" to talk to her mother is just giving the vibes I crave. Not things I would expect in a story about a Cubone/Marowak (unless I'm a fucking moron??? I don't recall their dex entries mentioning shit about praying to the moon, so I think you're just a worldbuilding god, no takesies backsies) but I very much enjoyed them.

I also just generally enjoyed your prose. Simply put, you write very well. Your descriptive language is pretty damn stellar, and I am taking notes.

After doing some research about the Cubone/Marowak line and how it might relate to Lavender Town/Pokemon Tower, I've discovered that there is a Marowak ghost that lingers there (I'm relatively braindead on/have forgotten everything before Gen 4 don't roast), and said Marowak was killed by Team Rocket, which.......seems to line up a little bit with what's happened here if I used my context clues correctly. Alianna's mother WAS killed by humans, so was it the Team Rocket fucks? I admittedly didn't get that vibe at first, because she says:

I’m not saying it is fair or right, little one. But humans… they don’t see themselves like we see them. Where they saw worthiness, we saw greed. Where they saw opportunity, we saw threats.

From this I was under the impression that there was a misunderstanding. Like, some dumbass humans came along and tried to catch Alianna and her mother and they took it as an attack and the humans killed Alianna's mother in defense. BUUUUUT now that I know of this little C-plot FireRed/LeafGreen/Pokemon Go story, I can definitely reread this part as "Team Rocket hoes came along to steal Cubone skulls for money (worthiness/opportunity) and we fought back because we didn't like that (greed/threats)."

Buuuuut then she asks:

What they could have been thinking, then. Do you truly believe that they were malicious?

And Alianna thinks:

They were either malicious or scared, Alianna figured. And she could understand scared.

Which leads me to believe my FIRST hypothesis?? Because....if Team Rocket was there to steal shit then yeah that's pretty malicious. And pretty presumptuous to assume that if they hadn't "fought back," they'd have been left alone. I feel like they wouldn't be having this conversation if they were aware of the fact Rocket was there to steal their shit. So maybe it truly was just some dumb humans trying to catch them/do something with them??? But then they still wouldn't have been left alone if they were going to be caught???????

Or I'm reading too far into this and it's just a dead Marowak trying to shed some sage wisdom on her grieving daughter, who fucking knows

All of this to say that I did have a good time with this one-shot and it taught me some new Kanto lore today!! Thank you very much for sharing your work and I hope to see more from you in the future!

before I go, one thing I noticed:

But if they could see, her mother’s voice urged, they would regret what they did. They would regret believing that our bones were worth stealing. That we could be separated from them. And they would love you instead.

This part was italicized along with the rest of the "dialogue" and I assume this was meant to be NOT italicized.