Pokémon Deadheading (drabble)

[surskitty]

"The flower it’s holding can no longer be found blooming anywhere. It’s also thought to contain terrifying power." Eternal Floette, Ultra Sun.

Content note: kind of dark.

Florges grow flowers, but they also weed them.

When she chose it, her flower was special only in being hers; her human was, as well. No one picks her flower anymore. When it goes to seed, she burns them before they sprout.

If it were up to her, she'd simply be Floette, special only in the way every garden is special. Every being still living she passes knows who she is, now.

The soil will heal in time, but the trees remember. She can't bring back the dead.

But she can weed what's hers, and he'll never get it back.

---

Floette was on her own for 3000 years. I'd like to think she had her own stages of grief, and maybe made a mistake she can't take back.

 

[Negrek]

Oof. Love how you imply so much in the short space you have here, which is of course one of the things that makes for a great drabble. You do a lovely job of capturing that sort of vicious, destructive (and self-destructive) act of someone determined that someone else will take nothing more from them.

I am a bit puzzled by the "trees remember" line, though... not totally sure what you were getting at there? In general the plant and garden theme ties everything together well, though. A neat little drabble. Thanks for sharing!

 

[surskitty]

Thank you! :)

I was thinking about how you can see times of stress in tree rings! And burls around infections. I don't know if it actually makes SENSE, but ... drabble, so.

 

[Negrek]

Ohhh, got it! I was kind of hung up on "but most trees don't live thousands of years?", haha. But that doesn't matter for tree rings, of course... Neat idea!

 

[surskitty]

Aaaah. See, I was thinking she's not thinking on the scale of thousands of years yet. Florges canonically live hundreds of years, and regardless if Floette knows she's immortal, it's probably going to take a while for her to understand she's going to outlive even things like olive trees or some pines.

 

[IFBench]

While I don't know much about the story of AZ and Floette, this is a fascinating take on what Floette had done for those 3000 years.

That beginning line is a great way to start this off. It hints to the reader what the topic of the story is, and is a neat extension of Floette's dex entry.

Every being still living she passes knows who she is, now.

The wording of this, particularly the "still living" part, is very intriguing, showing how the knowledge of AZ, the Ultimate Weapon, and Floette has gone on for many generations.

It's very interesting how Floette is preventing any more of her flower species from sprouting. There's also the implication that she destroyed every single other instance of her flower species, completely driving it to extinction, which is utterly fascinating.

It shows that both AZ and Floette have made major mistakes (albeit to very different degrees) in their rage and grief. Both have caused great losses of life. AZ killed an untold number of humans and Pokemon of many species by firing the Ultimate Weapon, and Floette completely eradicated one specific flower species, causing perhaps drastic effects on the environment.

And going by that final line, it seems that she's doing this almost entirely out of spite for AZ. All of this, all the prevention of new flowers, environmental destruction, complete species eradication, it's all solely to deprive AZ of the flower that Floette carries.

This is a story that thrives on implications and reading between the lines, and it pulls that off excellently.

Overall, I really enjoyed this! Great job!

 

[WildBoots]

I don’t think I have 250 words to say, so this one isn’t even for the blitz! Just wanted to say I enjoyed this and I’m glad you shared, especially after talking about drabble prompts in the discord chat. The one part that gave me pause was the line about burning seeds. Seems extreme, and I feel like there might be other ways to keep them from sprouting. (Or to just ... not put them out?) Great ending line.

 

[Spiteful Murkrow]

Heya, dropping in for a quick and dirty review of a drabble off the beaten path, and figured that I'd try something new tonight. Though... Eternal Floette? I didn't realize that it had a Pokédex entry in USUM. Though 'Deadheading' huh? As in plucking out flowers?

Sounds like a good enough reason to check this out, so let's blow some dust off this thing and dive straight into things:

Florges grow flowers, but they also weed them.

When she chose it, her flower was special only in being hers; her human was, as well. No one picks her flower anymore. When it goes to seed, she burns them before they sprout.

Oh, so AZ's Floette just didn't take the whole "genocide a region with a death lazor" all that well and can't bear to see her flowers again, can she?

If it were up to her, she'd simply be Floette, special only in the way every garden is special. Every being still living she passes knows who she is, now.

Which is probably just AZ at this point, unless if this is set in the immediate wake of the Great Lazoring.

The soil will heal in time, but the trees remember. She can't bring back the dead.

But she can weed what's hers, and he'll never get it back.

... Wait, so is the death lazor of Kalos itself just a giant version of Eternal Floette's flower in this continuity? Or else is she just destroying her flowers out of spite so that way AZ can't have them? Though I would suppose that this would explain why this drabble is called 'Deadheading' here.

Though all-in-all, it was pretty imaginative as a drabble. The one complaint that I have about it is that it's a bit hard to peg when this happen, since I could've sworn that whatever their mutual fallout, that AZ and his Floette canonically made peace with each other at the end of XY when they reunited. That, and the mention of "being still living" made me think that it was supposed to be set in ancient Kalos, but a little more clarity might have been nice.

That said, I can't judge too hard @surskitty , you set out to tell a story in 100 words, and I'd say you succeeded fairly well. With one of the more interesting little flourishes of 6th Gen (which went criminally unexplored in canon), to boot. Dunno if you're still active as a writer or not, but good work.