Pokémon Silver Raft

[love]

Silver Raft

A vaporeon feels like he's forgotten something, but it's hard to care on such a nice night.

A Pokemon Mystery Dungeon microfic. Thanks to Slink34884 and SnapDragon for beta reading.
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A distant voice nags in the vaporeon’s head, but before it can be interpreted, the tide rushes to him like a long-lost friend and drowns it out. The vaporeon’s attention turns outward. Amidst the water’s echo, the close darkness, and the yielding sand, he feels swaddled. As the tide retreats, a gentle bassline of mantine’s underwater wingbeats emerges. The sound is new to him; he’s never listened so closely as to hear it. With each beat, the voice in his head quiets.

When the moon emerges, full and bright, the vaporeon wavers on his feet as though struck by a wave. The light’s reflection forms a beam linking him to the horizon, smoothing with distance. Perhaps, if one swam far enough, it would prove solid enough to board, like a silver raft. Perhaps it could sail far away, somewhere nagging voices couldn’t follow.

A voice—a real voice—calls out to the vaporeon just as he submerges himself. It sounds familiar, but the feel of the water captures his attention before he recalls why. The water is lovely tonight, dark and luxuriantly thick from cold, almost syrupy, reminiscent of—

The voice in his head flashes like a lightbulb that’s just burnt out, gasping one last, clear reminder. It reminds him that his name is Cove, that he’d explored dungeons, that he’d stayed in one too long. That it had done something to him. That he had a partner, a partner who really loves oran syrup. He gave her some for her birthday about a month ago. She kissed him.

And then he forgets, for the last time. Fascinated by the sea floor, he explores and finds some mussels to eat. He sleeps on a bed of seaweed and dreams himself atop a silver raft, riding waves as tall as mountains.

 

[K_S]

Silver raft
Review blitz one shot

As a water type, and remembering vaporeons dex entries the water vulpine is quite at risk of being washed away by a tide. And how the narritive starts, a voice that loses coherence, a distraction, then a mention of identity... Theres no name dropped, no history beyond thr immediate to tie present sensations to something bigger. Theres only a call out to the vaporeons spiecies... Something has been lost along the way and per setting i suspect it is going to be the poor vaporeons identity.

Thier fixation on the water makes perfect sense. Not only for the speicies amd typing but the theme of rebirth. With the near smoothering, the loss of senses, and swaddling. The dungeons water is slowly becoming everything in the cove's world. Providing both playground, distraction, and sustience all at once.

Yep as the critter focuses on the purely physical and the mental tells of "who" are ignored i suspect we got a feral to be. One that seems content to swim off into a silver streaked horizon, towards an optical illusion to get away from all reminders.

Initially i wondered if perhaps cove was fleeing the loss of thier partner but the fact someone is physically hollaring makes me think they might be with that partner. For the last time. And i suspect that that partner who loves oran syrup might not be making it out either. That the rescuer might be doomed in a failed rescue attempt themselves. Because if one went feral how far behind is the other to losing thier mind?

 

[Nekodatta]

This was a really interesting piece, short and poignant!

At the very start, my first thought for some reason was that the Vaporeon had just evolved, and that they were so lost in their new body that they would dissolve into the water but it turns out that they lost themselves in a much less physical way, and I didn't really pay much attention to the detail of the "voice".

Then when the narration mentions a "partner" I realized that this was about a Pokémon that was probably becoming a "feral" into a dungeon, or getting assimilated by it in some way. I went back to reread and really liked how every little sentence seems to get a new meaning know that you know what it's about: the "voice" being that of their partner/rescue team member, feeling "swaddled" by the water as if the dungeon is doing everything to pull them in, not recognising the mantine calls because they are actually from outside the dungeon, it's really great!


I find it interesting that he thinks of the voices as "nagging", it really sells the idea of the dungeon itself as some kind of malevolent force that wants to pull everything that stays too much inside to them. I haven't read many mystery dungeon fics but the idea that just staying inside one for too much makes you lose yourself is really interesting and has quite a lot of potential (I have to wonder how it would work for Pokemon that have to get rescued in one though, would those rescue missions pretty much have a time limit before the very Pokemon you have to rescue becomes feral? Grim)

This was really good!

 

[Spiteful Murkrow]

Heya, I was on a bit of a marathon across 15k words of oneshots earlier today and decided to take a brief intermission with something short and sweet in between to clear my head. I happened to spot this little ficlet of yours and decided that I’d give it a shot:

Spoiler

A distant voice nags in the vaporeon’s head, but before it can be interpreted, the tide rushes to him like a long-lost friend and drowns it out. The vaporeon’s attention turns outward. Amidst the water’s echo, the close darkness, and the yielding sand, he feels swaddled. As the tide retreats, a gentle bassline of mantine’s underwater wingbeats emerges. The sound is new to him; he’s never listened so closely as to hear it. With each beat, the voice in his head quiets.

Oh, so our protag’s out swimming for fun, huh? Or at least I think he is?

When the moon emerges, full and bright, the vaporeon wavers on his feet as though struck by a wave. The light’s reflection forms a beam linking him to the horizon, smoothing with distance. Perhaps, if one swam far enough, it would prove solid enough to board, like a silver raft. Perhaps it could sail far away, somewhere nagging voices couldn’t follow.

Ah yes, there’s our title drop there. Though I actually wonder what this scene would look like drawn out, since it sounds very dreamy and ethereal.

A voice—a real voice—calls out to the vaporeon just as he submerges himself. It sounds familiar, but the feel of the water captures his attention before he recalls why. The water is lovely tonight, dark and luxuriantly thick from cold, almost syrupy, reminiscent of—

The voice in his head flashes like a lightbulb that’s just burnt out, gasping one last, clear reminder. It reminds him that his name is Cove, that he’d explored dungeons, that he’d stayed in one too long. That it had done something to him. That he had a partner, a partner who really loves oran syrup. He gave her some for her birthday about a month ago. She kissed him.

Oh, well that got dark quickly there. Though at least on the positive side, this is an indication that the negative effects of Mystery Dungeons in this setting can at least potentially be reversed?

And then he forgets, for the last time. Fascinated by the sea floor, he explores and finds some mussels to eat. He sleeps on a bed of seaweed and dreams himself atop a silver raft, riding waves as tall as mountains.

Did… we just see a Dungeon feral have a flash of lucidity / his prior life? Since I kinda am feeling like we just saw that happen there.

Well, I’m not sure if what I just read was really cute or really, really concerning, but it definitely told quite a bit in the span of just under 300 words. I’m not sure what the context is behind this story and if it’s part of a broader corpus, but it does a good job at getting you sucked in quickly into the world.

I don’t really have any firm criticisms of this story, other than that I kinda wish that we had a chance to get to know Cove a bit more. But I suppose that that defeats the meta point behind this story, and what we did get to see of him was already fun to see.

Kudos @love . I’m unsure if I’ll have the time to come around to some of your longer works this Review Blitz, but just reading this was a reminder of what I like from your general corpus, and to come back to it sometime. ^^

 

[Starlight Aurate]

Admittedly I was about to turn away when I saw how short this microfic was, but I decided to give it a read-through--and I'm glad I did. I absolutely adore water imagery, and Vaporeon is one of my favorite Pokemon. You deliver a short but very tasty and luxuriously-told fic that has given me plenty to think about.

I find it interesting, as others noted, that the inner voice is 'nagging" at Cove, and that the sounds of the ocean (the gentle beat of a mantine's wings) are what sets him free from that nagging sensation. And how he thinks of riding the moonlight away from the inner voice--losing himself in the ocean, forgetting who he used to be, breaking off relationships that are no more. It reminds me a famous line by oceanographer Jacques Cousteau: "The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever."

And then Cove is going for stronger sensations to escape the voice and fully submerges himself. There really is nothing quite like going in the ocean at night; it holds a certain beauty that is totally transformed when the light fades. It's terrifying (for non-aquatic creatures like humans), but lovely. Yes, I can totally believe in losing himself in the beauty of the ocean, eating mussels and sleeping on a bed of seaweed. It truly captivates you.
I wonder if his partner was a human or another Pokemon. I get the sense that Cove was once a person, then was transformed into a Pokemon and explored Mystery Dungeons, and that his lover was a human woman who since disappeared since becoming a Pokemon. It's sad, but I actually find it bittersweet in a way: relationships end, and we have to move on. He still has the memories of her, of her kiss, but he's choosing to let them go and live the life he currently has. And I think there's something really noble about being able to let go and move on.

Because it popped into my head when I first read this, and because it feels so fitting, I'll leave you with the end of this poem about a young man torn between love and his duty, with themes of meaning (and meaninglessness) of life, The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock by T. S. Eliot:

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

 

[Flyg0n]

Oh boy...

When I started reading I was simply thinking, oh, that's nice, I guess he's having a good time relaxing in the ocean. But the more I read the more the sense of my dawning horror grew.

I love how you really paint a picture of sensations with your words. It felt really effective, and purposeful for this particular microfic. I found myself really sinking into that feeling of the lull of the waves and the temptation of the ocean (and the dungeon). The voices are nagging while the ocean is calming. The moon is captivating, the water lovely, and it feeels sooo good...

I also found that the piece had a strong kind of cadence, which kind of mirrors the sensation of waves. His memories and whatever he's trying to forget, or perhaps unwittingly is forgetting, comes in ebbs and flows. Memories, and waves, and memories and waves.

Also the effective use of linked words at the end. The water is syrupy, he gave his partner oran syrup. But then its gone, like a lightbulb burning out. And so is Cove, in a way. He's part of the dungeon now, a feral, or at least someone who has lost himself so entirely he may well be. Its deliciously uh oh cosmic horror moments. To lose oneself so fully, to spend too long in them and forget everything. It must have been their partner, the real voice calling out to them.

Sad and deeply terrifying. The shortness of it is really effective, it tells a lot with so few words yet also leaves a strong lingering impression in my mind. It leaves a lot of questions in a good way. Who was Cove, why did they end up in this dungeon. Did he get seperated, or did something that happen that made him want to forget and before he could take it back, it was too late?

We may never know, because now he doesn't know. Lost to the sea...

What a story.

 

[HelloYellow17]

Oooh this is hauntingly beautiful. I love the steady progression of the mood—at first, everything is peaceful, serene, and gorgeous. Then as the words flow (and they flow beautifully; your prose here is stunning), it begins to invoke hypnotic vibes, and you start to feel like something is off, somehow. And then the reveal—that he’s not supposed to be here, he has a home and a partner to return to, but he doesn’t remember them—is just the icing on the steadily mounting horror cake.

In particular, I love the way you describe the moon, the way it offers a connection between him and the horizon. That paragraph was so vivid in my mind, and you’ve painted a beautiful picture with your words.

If I had but one criticism, and it’s honestly a nitpick, but: it was difficult for me to envision whether he was above or below the surface at first, or if he was even just standing on the shore. By the end it’s pretty clear he’s in the water and deeply submerged, but the beginning made me struggle a bit to envision exactly where in this picture he was.

The concept of a mystery dungeon making you forget if you’ve been in it too long is outright spooky, and I love it. I’m curious if this is a canonical detail for some dungeons, or if this is something you came up with on your own? Either way, the delivery of this concept is perfectly eerie and otherworldly. This is a fantastic and effective microfic!

 

[Phoenixsong]

Wooow. It's so easy to see why you might just get swept up into becoming a dungeon pokémon with a beautiful experience like this one. The description here is practically hypnotic just to me reading this; if you're a water-type that can merge with the water itself? Forget about it. (Pun not initially intended but... oof.) I'm in love with the imagined idea that you could just walk or swim right up the moon's long, drawn-out reflection—it is so easy to picture as a bridge leading right up to the moon itself, now I think about it—or that you can hear the rhythm of mantine wingbeats moving through the water.

And then there's the real voice, oof. Cove's partner must be there watching him steadily lose himself and forget about her, right before her eyes. Lucky(?), I suppose, that she can't tell that her calls to him are even being twisted into sounding nagging, like something actively negative and annoying compared to the allure of the water. Wonder if that'd make it better or worse...

The water is lovely tonight, dark and luxuriantly thick from cold, almost syrupy, reminiscent of—

Ouch at the sudden recollection, but also luxuriantly thick from cold is magnificent. Really, really love the recollection coming like a lightbulb that just burned out, too—very much the opposite of the traditional "lightbulb moment" and yet it makes so much sense here. When he finally forgets for the last time, it's abrupt and direct, no more tug of war between the voice and the temptation of the water; it just is what it is. The lightbulb's burned out. It's chilling, for such a simple, direct sentence.

I don't think I've reviewed them before, but I know some of your other pieces I've read have touched on the loss of self like this. And they were lovely in their own right, but what shines about this one is that it's a really effective distillation down into a very tiny, bittersweet piece. Thanks so much for sharing it!

 

[love]

I want to thank everyone for their compliments on the prose.

Initially the voice is meant to be Cove's own internal monologue/lingering memories, only later accompanied by the literal voice of his partner (which is why only the latter is described as "real"). Maybe it's not unreasonable to interpret the voice as having been real the whole time, only breaking through his subconscious at the end. And I wonder if he really is still in the dungeon, or if he got out but the damage was already done, or if he got out but was drawn back to it later and his partner went to find him... But it's good to know the important things are clear.

From @Starlight Aurate

"The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever."

Ah yes, this is a fitting epitaph.

From @Flyg0n

oh, that's nice, I guess he's having a good time relaxing in the ocean.

Well, it can't be said that you were wrong.

From @HelloYellow17

If I had but one criticism, and it’s honestly a nitpick, but: it was difficult for me to envision whether he was above or below the surface at first, or if he was even just standing on the shore. By the end it’s pretty clear he’s in the water and deeply submerged, but the beginning made me struggle a bit to envision exactly where in this picture he was.

"yielding sand" is supposed to imply that he's touching the ground initially, and the fact that the tide rushes up to him and the water echoes is supposed to imply his head is above the surface initially. Maybe these logical leaps are unreasonably large.

I’m curious if this is a canonical detail for some dungeons, or if this is something you came up with on your own?

It is a fanon meme. The games are weirdly vague about why the dungeon pokemon are hostile and never make it explicit that they aren't intelligent. If you beat them up, sometimes they team up with you.

From @Phoenixsong

Cove's partner must be there watching him steadily lose himself and forget about her, right before her eyes.

Cove at least can't remember what he's lost, but his poor partner... I feel worse for her.

I don't think I've reviewed them before, but I know some of your other pieces I've read have touched on the loss of self like this. And they were lovely in their own right, but what shines about this one is that it's a really effective distillation down into a very tiny, bittersweet piece.

Stealth reader confirmed :o Is this perhaps the most quintessential "love" story? It does have lush nature description and ego death, two key hallmarks, both packed into 300 words.