Life – Celebi's Tale
I.
I.
The eternal curse of a legendary pokemon is life itself.
To keep on living, far past what is due for any pokemon. To outlive what makes life worth living. To watch your many mortal friends die one by one. To see their deaths written on the walls of the future while you, only you, must confront what comes afterwards.
To watch new life grow after the storm. To make new friends, while trying to remember your past ones fondly. To see the new age of peace rise, and vaguely hope you won't live to see it crumble.
It hasn't happened yet. I've lived through the best of times, and endured the worst for hundreds of years. I was alive when the first human was brought over into this world, and I was alive when Temporal Tower fell. I felt it when the earth stopped spinning, and the still-moving winds ravaged everything above ground. When a grovyle at death's door came knocking on my own instead, I took him in against better judgement. Together, we devised a plan along with his human friend: one meant to end this current period of hell. I was alive when the second human was sent to save the pokemon world.
I was alive to see my own death, in the arms of the grovyle I was determined not to love. He would only die, after all, and I wasn't prepared to handle the death of yet another friend. But, I thought at the time, if we were both going to die in just a few minutes anyway, then what did either of us have to lose except each other?
I was alive to see my first-ever wedding. When the both of us were cast back into reality, a reality filled with lush greenery and amiable pokemon instead of ravaged deserts and deranged bandits, Grovyle wanted to celebrate. We both did. The wedding was held only weeks after that, and just the thought of a mythical pokemon marrying a regular old grovyle was enough to preserve our marriage in the history books.
I was alive when Grovyle began to grow old. While I stayed forevermore young, as was my eternal curse, he began falter, both physically and mentally. He couldn't dart through the trees as fast anymore; couldn't endure mystery dungeons for as long anymore; couldn't rattle long numbers off the top of his head anymore. He never evolved into a sceptile, and I later learned to my sorrow that it was because he had grown too old to do so.
And only then, at the library of that quaint little jungle town we had made our home, I was reminded of my curse: He would grow old and die happy, while I would remain young, alive, and heartbroken. And I wasn't prepared to lose him. Not him, of all the pokemon in this town that I had grown to know! Not him…
I returned the book on evolution soaked with the water of my tears. The whimsicott in charge of the books must have been shocked that I would return it in such a state, but I was too distraught to care then; I teleported away without a single word.
That night, Grovyle must have noticed the way I was being far more affectionate than normal towards him, because he had a mildly confused look on his face the entire night even as I carted him on a round trip through all his favorite things.
At some point, he must have caught on, because halfway through he stopped me and asked me what was wrong. I couldn't tell him; how was I supposed to tell him I would outlive him by at least a thousand years? He was still insistent he would kick around until a hundred. That was why I eventually opted to stay silent, telling him I had just been in a particularly good mood that night. I could tell he didn't believe it, but he didn't press either. He must have known that whatever it was had hurt me greatly.
And so he let me guide him around from one fun activity to the next, probably garnering less pleasure from all of them than I did. And in the pure delight of that night, I was able to drown my present fears and future sorrows. I was able to forget the inevitable.
Until the inevitable came knocking on my door only a few weeks later. Grovyle had been laid off from his job. He told me over the ordinary dinner we had in our treehouse that night (If only I had known; I would have prepared something special). He was getting too old for dungeon exploration and rescue, he said, and the Wigglytuff's Guild had gracefully laid him off after seeing his latest monthly returns.
It didn't matter much to Grovyle; we had more than enough funds in reserve to last him the rest of his life. But for me, it was just another harrowing reminder that he was rapidly aging beyond my control. It kept me awake that night, and many more nights after that.
Following Grovyle's loss of a job, we now had much more time to spend together. We went out and did all the things we had neglected when he was young. We chartered a lapras, who ferried us off the Grass Continent and took us on a grand tour of the world. We saw the desert dunes of the Sand Continent at night, and the Windmills of Baram Town turning against the morning sun. We watched the wall of eastern morning mist rise over Post Town, and took a tour of the now-famous Pokemon Paradise. We travelled to Lively Town, the Pokemon World's new center of technology and advancement, and got to witness the recently established Expedition Society's archeologist Mawile giving a public lecture on rock formations.
It was on the Water Continent that I lost my way in a mystery dungeon.
I wasn't objectively in any danger, of course. It was a small dungeon that had just recently been an obscure forest, and the enemies within were a far cry from what I had seen when time stopped moving. But I had never been very good at finding my way out of places, and in the end it was a pair of children who came to my rescue. They claimed to work for the Expedition Society, and had the badges and gear to prove it. I thought it was extremely cute, and happily chatted with them all the way back to Lively Town. It was at only at the end of our short trip that the question of who had sent them came up, and my spirits fell at the answer: An elderly grovyle had approached them and offered them a sum of money to rescue a pink celebi from a nearby mystery dungeon.
While I was touched he had made all that effort to bring me back safely, it hurt me that he felt he no longer had the strength to enter a dungeon himself. That he was too old and too weak to try.
Years passed. Years tainted and marred by the way Grovyle aged. He soon took to using a stick to get around, once that leg cramp he'd always had since that one time he'd fallen out of a tree began to hinder his walking abilities. He took an interest in writing, which I wholly supported, and couldn't help myself from secretly reading when he fell asleep. They were years that dulled the feeling of looming death on the horizon. And then one day, I realized that Grovyle was dying.
Sitting all on his lonesome in a wooden chair the village spinda had carved for him, he could barely muster the energy to get up any more. His life was coming to a close, and he knew it. He mostly only read now, or held waning conversations with me that I couldn't bear to return, or went over his notes on a handy pull-out desk in front of him. The thought to move the desk just so he'd have to get up to use it and prove to me he was still alive had crossed my mind, but I couldn't bear to be cruel to him like that. If only there was something I could do; something I could use to prolong his life, to make him younger, stronger…
And then it clicked. I was Celebi, the mistress of time itself. Of course I could help him become better!
Many nights after that were sleepless for me, but for entirely different reasons. Once Grovyle fell asleep, my work began. I practiced my ability to enter the timestream; using motions I hadn't performed in years, slowly reawakening the inherent ability to see time that lay in my blood. And, only a month later, I regained it. I successfully entered the timestream once more, feeling parts of me that hadn't moved in years finally stretch out and bloom.
In the timestream, I could see things many pokemon only wished they were privy to. I could see how long a pokemon had left to live, and trace their footsteps through time all the way back to the moment they were born. I could uncover the very secrets of history (And, once, before my first friend died, this had indeed been my dream) and even glimpse into the future if I wanted to. All this power, at the very tips of my fingers. The sheer possibility almost made being a mythical pokemon worth it. Almost.
But I wasn't here for reminiscing about the past. I was here to ensure the future of my partner. I flew over to the chair where he slept, his surroundings tainted an ethereal shade of blue. Even if he had woken up, he wouldn't have noticed me. It was impossible to see a pokemon once they had entered the timestream. Brushing the withering leaf off his face for just a second, I glanced at the numerals etched into his forehead; the numerals that told me how long he would live for.
A week.
My blood ran cold. I had to suppress the urge to laugh, despite laughter being the exact opposite of what I was feeling. Something had to be done. Something had to be done before the pokemon I loved more than anything left this earth forever.
Things were inherently malleable in the timestream. It was no wonder only mythical and legendary pokemon had been granted access to it, and age likely mellowed most of us out with time. But there had been one pokemon who had disregarded that unspoken code of honor, one that deigned messing with the timestream off-limits for any pokemon who had the ability to use it. To prolong his own life, which he knew was coming to an end, he had 'stolen' time from other pokemon, and had messed with the unseen numeral atop his own head in an attempt to add their life to his own. It had backfired for him, as no pokemon could see their own numerals in the timestream. No pokemon could know when their own life would close.
I would not be so unfortunate. I would draw the new number upon Grovyle's head, and the time would be subtracted from another pokemon's lifespan. It was a heinous act, I knew, one that would surely garner Dialga's wrath if he was ever to find out. But I only needed a week. A week to say goodbye. Surely that unlucky pokemon whose lifespan was subtracted would understand such a sacrifice was necessary.
And so, Grovyle lived another week. For another week, he had all his energy back. He was able to get out of his chair. He was able to talk with me. He was able to help me prepare the meals, and he was able to watch the summer stars with me at night.
Until, one week later, he wasn't. Slowly, but steadily, Grovyle began to return to his normal, dying self, and I was reminded that this was only a temporary fix. He would still die a week from now, and there was nothing I could do about it. Nothing I should do about it. What I had done the week before, subtracting life from another pokemon to further my own selfish advances, was something unforgivable. Even if it had bought me one of the greatest joys in the world. I was only able to forget it by drowning myself in his fading youthful embrace.
A while later, Grovyle had returned to the chair, and I had gone grocery shopping. Scarcely had I noticed how silent he was when I came back; for he never talked much in his old age anyway. I had simply assumed he'd gone to sleep, seeing how he had drooped over his desk, a filled envelope in his arms. It never once crossed my mind that he might have passed on until I had cooked dinner for both of us, and took a plate up to his desk. Only when I felt the coldness of his fingers; how they gripped the pen and the envelope like steel, did I finally realize the full truth, and I dropped the plate I was carrying in shock.
I didn't care to hear the resounding crash the plate made as it shattered upon the floor, nor gaze upon the mess that now decorated it. He was gone. My partner, my husband, my mate; he was finally gone. And I was still alive. Always alive. I felt my fingers tremble in grief, biting back tears so I didn't collapse into a sobbing mess right on the spot.
I couldn't bear it. I had gone all of five seconds without him, and it was worse than living in the ravaged deserts of the Dark Future. I couldn't. I just couldn't… I needed him back. Whatever the cost.
I channeled all my grief, my anger, my rage, my fury, into entering the time stream once more, performing the necessary motions like I wanted to rip a hole into the fabric of time. Only seconds later, I entered the blueish realm once again, wasting no time diving down towards Grovyle. He was nothing but a statue in the timestream, the numerals on his head glowing red: 0:00. I wasn't going to accept it. Not ever again.
I began to travel backwards in time, watching the stone slowly recede into his heart, leaving the Grovyle I had come to love fully intact. As he unsealed the envelope and un-wrote his final letter, I watched in joy as the counter atop his forehead began to go up again. 0:1… 0:2… 0:3…
I stopped once there was exactly an hour of lifetime left on his life clock, and he had not yet begun to write his letter yet. It was now or not at all. Do this, or live without Grovyle for the rest of my life. I swooped down, and dusted the numerals on his frozen forehead. In its place, I wrote not a number, but a symbol. The symbol of infinity. It began to glow a radiant blue, and that was how I knew that I had succeeded.
It was with a heavy heart and high hopes that I returned to the exact spot in time where I had left it, the smashed plate of food still on the ground. For a moment, it looked like it hadn't worked. Grovyle still lay keeled over at his desk. I fluttered over to him, dreading the feeling of deathly coldness coming from hands. But in its place, I felt a comforting warmness, and I could hear the sound of his snores. He was asleep. I hugged him tightly out of joy.
"You're never going to leave me again," I whispered in his ear, halfway to tears. I then set a new plate of food on his desk, and went to eat a well-earned dinner myself. That night's sleep was the most refreshing I had had in years.
II.
The next morning, I awoke to the smell of fresh berries being simmered in a pan. I smelled the air in confusion, before realizing the chair that had once held Grovyle was empty. My heart rose in joy. Had it worked? Could I have been so fortunate?
I zipped down the stairs on my wings, too impatient to bother with steps. Grovyle – My beloved, youthful-once-more Grovyle – was in the kitchen, preparing a breakfast feast of berry pancakes. I couldn't take it anymore. I flew up and hugged him tightly before he could respond or show any form of reaction. Grovyle seemed to be at a loss for words, but I felt him hug me back a moment later. I felt satisfaction brimming up inside me- We would truly be together forever. I would never have to worry about losing him again.
We spent our days helping out with various errands around the village. Many of the adults were astounded at Grovyle's miraculous recovery, none more than the village doctor, who had predicted his death within the coming weeks. I was grateful it had not come to pass after all.
But, after a couple of weeks, I noticed that Grovyle was not returning my love to him as much as he used to. He seemed saddened, as if he lacked purpose in this world and not even my infinite love for him could remedy that. More than once I tried to approach him about it, and he would turn me down, like he himself was not even sure.
Dungeon exploring held no value to him anymore, not even as his body slowly began to regenerate, taking him back to a younger stage of life. He no longer wrote. He no longer cared to write. He wouldn't talk to the village pokemon. He talked less and less to me. It was as if I had preserved Grovyle in body but not in soul. Some nights, I wondered if that was true. Maybe it had been wrong to keep him alive, wrong to mess with the timestream. Wrong to preserve our love.
I sat up from the bed I shared with Grovyle. It had been a month since I'd revived him, and the happiness had lasted only a week. The question had been pressing on my mind for the last couple of days: Would we ever be happy again? I had to know.
I began the process of entering the timestream again, more solemn this time than I had been the other two. I would go as far forwards as I could, to see if we were a happy couple then. I felt the sudden rush of energy that announced entry into the timestream, and then I willed myself further in time. Minutes, hours, days, weeks, years…
And then, out of nowhere, I met with a block. There was nothing to signal anything wrong with the timestream, or even the world ending; it was like time itself had simply stopped. I could go no further. Slowly, I allowed myself to exit the timestream. I was in our house, but everything seemed… different. Dustier. Less kept. There was a distinct lack of scent to the air; only a slight mustiness that pervaded the room. The pink curtains were drawn, drapes that Grovyle had bought for me many, many years ago. He'd known I would love them. To think, they'd survived all this time… We must be a happy couple in the future, I cheerfully thought to myself as I drew the drapes.
Imagine my horror, when I met not with the lush green hovels of Capim Town but with a field of withered trees under a scorching sun! Sand covered the entire area, and there was no-mon in sight. Not future Grovyle. Not future me. I gasped in horror, the sheer shock of it all almost knocking my off my wings. What had happened, to cause such a disaster? Was this simply what the Grass Continent looked like, hundreds of years into the future? Or did the whole world look like this? When did it happen?
I shakily threw the drapes closed, drowning the wasteland outside in layers of pink fabric. This was too much to bear. Maybe… maybe I had moved somewhere else with Grovyle. Gone elsewhere, with all the villagers before this travesty befell our poor village. Sitting on the bed that had formerly belonged to myself and Grovyle, I took notice of a letter that sat on the bed. It was unaddressed, but the one word written in Grovyle's instantly recognizable handwriting on the envelope caught my attention: Grovyle.
In an instant, I took it, practically tearing it open and pulling out the paper contained within.
Everymon is dead,
It read. My heart sunk all the way into my stomach in dread.
Everymon but me. Me, and Celebi. I used to love her, but now… now she's changed. She's the one keeping me alive, I'm sure of it. Just yesterday, Dialga showed up outside our house and demanded to see her, but he never got past the door. I watched him and his flunkies turn to dust, just like every other 'mon in the village. I think… I think she killed him.
I struggled to keep back tears of horror and grief as I read. How could the future be so horrible? How could I be so horrible?! I had saved Grovyle. I had saved him. I had saved him, dammit!
By the time you read this, Celebi, I will be dead. Don't feel sorry for me. Don't try to bring me back. There's nothing you can do anymore. No more mon left to turn to dust. No way to make me love you again. It's over. I'm sorry.
The note ended there, without even a signature to finish it. I put it down, my mind registering nothing but shock. The future wasn't happy, not for me and not for Grovyle. Especially not for Grovyle… For Grovyle, it was downright dreadful. But the worst part, by far, was that Future Me seemed to be responsible. Future Me caused all this… just for the luxury of being selfish. It was too horrifying to even comprehend. In saving Grovyle, I had singlehandedly doomed everymon else.
I knew it was time to go when I heard the door of the house swing open. But the ritual to enter the timestream took a few moments to perform, and there wasn't time to complete the ritual or even hide before I was met face-to-face with the intruder: Future Me.
She hadn't aged well at all. Like everything else around her, she was withering away. A crazed, desperate look gleamed in her eyes, and it took me all of a second to realize that this wasn't me. This was what I would become, and in an instant my heart filled with nothing but contempt and pity and hate for it.
"IMPOSTER!" Future Me yelled, suddenly tackling me. Caught off guard, I was taken with her and pinned to the ground.
"WHAT did you do with Grovyle?!" she snarled, trying to keep me in one place. But I had no answer for this soulless husk of my former self. I instead pulled my arms out from under her own, easily resisting her attempts to pin me down again. The withering that had overtaken her body had diminished its strength as well, and I had no trouble pulling myself out from under her. She snarled and howled at me like a wild animal, zipping around the room until her eyes settled upon the opened note.
I watched as she picked it up and read from it, her eyes filling not with any kind of remorse but only anger, anger at Grovyle for leaving her. She tore the note into little pieces with a shriek of rage, lopsidedly fluttering into the air with her withered wings and beginning to perform the ritual for entering the timestream. I realized what was about to happen, and I couldn't allow it to finish. She was going to bring Grovyle back!
I tackled her out of midair, pinning to the bed. She struggled wildly, her eyes still flashing with glints of insanity.
"You can't keep me from him…" she growled insanely. "I'll kill you. I'll kill you. Just like I killed Dialga. Just like I killed all the villagers. Just like I killed that pitiful human who was sent to stop me. I am Celebi! I am the mistress of time incarnate! I… Am…"
She didn't get to finish her sentence. I pressed one of the bed's dusty pillows onto her face, holding it there no matter how she struggled. I tried to hold back the tears, but they came anyway as I watched Future Me's body convulse violently, then finally go limp. I was finally left to cry in peace as the body of Future Me slowly withered to dust, with nothing but sand and Grovyle's suicide note for company. Deep down, I knew this was a direct result of my actions in the timestream a month previously. As long as Grovyle lived… the world died. And I became a monster. The best choice was to erase him, to let him die of natural causes like he was always meant to. But that didn't make it hurt any less. I cried, and I mourned for him for hours, until I was all curled up on the dusty bed, and my stomach physically hurt from all the sobbing. The dust had gotten in my eyes and my mouth, and it was still the same time of day it had been when I got here.
Time was broken here, I realized despite my grief. It was better to leave while I still could. I went through the motions of the ritual, struggling to keep my eyes dry as I began to enter the timestream once more.
I flew through the blue realm, racing back to my time. Every now and then, I could see flashes of how the world had met its eventual demise; all the unforgivable acts I would perform in the future. Unless I changed it now. I zoomed back past the present time, catching a glimpse of my dear Grovyle sleeping on his lonesome in our bed. I wanted to be there with him more than anything, even if he didn't want the same. But I knew where that path would lead me.
I took a deep breath as I reached my final destination: That fateful night, two weeks after I had first discovered the timestream. Grovyle was at his desk, about to pen a letter. He died tonight.
I would murder him.
My breath caught in my throat as I floated over to his forehead, the infinity symbol glowing a radiant blue. I raised my hand to dust the symbol…
But it never came down. I was visibly shaking. I didn't want to do it. I didn't want to lose him.
And then I did. My arm came down, and the symbol of infinity floated away, lost to the abyss of the timestream forever. In its place, I shakily traced the fateful number. 1:00.
In one hour, Grovyle would die. My murder would be complete. I dried my eyes, no tears coming out despite still grieving. I had none left to give. Quickly, I floated away from him, exiting the timestream 50 minutes later before I had the chance to change my mind. I wanted to see him one last time before he passed.
Past Me was still in the kitchen, cooking. I slipped in quietly, hiding in the closet so neither Grovyle nor Past Me would spot me. I peeked out of a crack between the closet doors, watching Grovyle work. A smile was on his face as he penned the letter, a smile I hadn't seen in what felt like forever. A smile I would never see again. He looked happy. Didn't he know he was about to die? Didn't he know that?
Grovyle sealed the envelope. He wrote a single word on it. Then, he sat back in his chair, and I watched him close his eyes. The look on his face was peaceful, and soon, it stayed that way. Grovyle was dead. I somehow knew. There was no encore of grief, no floodgates of tears. I had given those to the world already. There was only an empty spot in my heart where Grovyle once was, a spot I knew would never be filled again.
I watched Past Me open the door, and walk in with a plate of food. I watched her flutter up to Grovyle, and feel his hand. I watched her drop the plate in shock, ignoring the mess it made. I watched her shiver in grief and fear, like I had done not so long ago.
And then, I watched her fade away into thin air. Her future had been erased, for I had changed my own.
I fluttered up to Grovyle's desk, for the first time taking a look at the last letter he had written before his death.
Celebi, the envelope read.
III.
I was alive to see Grovyle's funeral.
I watched as his body was set in the casket, and as the casket was set in the ground. And then I cried, like I had cried at all my past friends' funerals. And as I dried my tears, I remembered the contents of the final letter my beloved Grovyle had written me.
The eternal curse of a legendary pokemon is life itself.
To keep on living, far past what is due for any pokemon. To outlive what makes life worth living. To watch your many mortal friends die one by one. To see their deaths written on the walls of the future while you, only you, must confront what comes afterwards.
But it means other things, too.
It means to watch new life grow after the storm. To make new friends, while trying to remember your past ones fondly. To see the new age of peace rise, and vaguely hope you won't live to see it crumble.
I know my life is coming to an end. I know that my death will hurt you, far past what I can even imagine is possible. Maybe you'll be tempted to do something irrational. Stupid, maybe. But before you do, I want you to know that I enjoyed every minute of our marriage. I want to you to know that however I died, I died happy. You made that possible. You made this all possible. And my dying wish is for you to keep moving on. No matter how it hurts. No matter how much it seems like it isn't right. Find new places. Make new friends. Remember your old ones well, because they'll stay with you. Always.
Life isn't worth living if you're too sad to live it. So after I die, do me a favor: Live in my place. Be happy. I'll always be cheering you on from my special place in your heart.
~Grovyle
It hasn't happened yet. I've been alive for hundreds of years. I'm still alive. And I won't die anytime soon. But as I write the final pages of this tale, I'm finally confident I can close the cover on this chapter of my life, and open the pages of the next one. I'll never forget my beloved Grovyle, nor all the happy memories we shared together, both in life and in death. Sometimes, I watch our past antics through the timestream, and I cry. But they're tears of happiness for all the time I was granted with him, not tears of grief for the time I never had.
I'll be departing for the Expedition Society in Lively Town come tomorrow. There's a historical-mapping project involving a certain Mawile I've been invited to help participate in. I wonder if I'll meet those two children who rescued me there years ago… They must be all grown up by now.
~ Celebi, Mistress of Time
