Splash of Sinnoh
Nubushi
しぶい
- Pronouns
- she/her
- Partners
-
Summary: Snow! Ghosts! Romance and not-quite-romance! Three shorts based on prompts from the TR Anniversary Bingo game, centering around Sinnoh. Rotom, Dawn, Lucas, Gardenia, Roark.
Thanks to Negrek for the fun and intriguing bingo card!
Author's Notes: Three shorts. First two are 250 words each. Third short is approximately 1,000 words. Story-specific comments at the end.
Genres: (1) Pokemon-centric; (2) romance (sort of?); (3) friendship/romance.
Rating: G
Content warnings: none
Status: complete
It could still remember what it felt like before. Back when its vessel had thrummed with energy, water swirling and swishing within it with such vigor that the vessel had rocked on its feet. The surge of power and the thrill of mischief when it spewed it out at its opponent.
Or there was the time it had bounced over grassy lawns, its face split with a toothy grin, spitting out leaves in a vortex all around it, channeling its telekinetic energy to form them into a funnel, a tornado of leaves slicing through the air at lethal speeds.
It had been ages and ages since then. Now there was only this snowfield of static, six walls in which whispering human voices echoed back and forth. It had seemed like a comfortable place to slip inside and nap, but it must have slept for longer than it thought—when it woke, the slim, black path it had used to slip into the device was disconnected. It had lost the way out. And now, it felt cramped. Rotom shifted restlessly, wishing to stretch its electric tendrils, to shift to a new machine, where it would fill every corner with itself.
Then through the ceaseless murmur of human voices powered by Rotom’s own energy, it heard something from outside. Was that a creak? The sound of footsteps on wood? A human?
Rotom strained towards the glass that held it in, wishing, willing for someone to come.
Hear me!
See me!
I’m here!
Gardenia looked warily around the dim interior of the Battleground, sighing with relief at a certain gym leader’s absence before she made her way to the counter to order her favorite latte.
They hadn’t always been this awkward.
Roark’s eyes had sparkled when he suggested it. A dash of mischief, a hint of something more.
It’ll be fun,” he had urged. “Besides, if anything appears, I’ll be there with you.”
That had been before the creaks and groans, the mysteriously floating furniture, and then … that.
She could still remember the sweat on the palm of his hand, the way when she had grabbed him for comfort, she had felt him shivering, too, even as his arms wrapped around her.
“Let’s get out of here!”
She couldn’t remember which of them said it, only the pounding of their shoes on the rotting plank floor, tripping over tree roots in the shadows of the forest as they ran.
Ever since then, his eyes had slid away whenever they met, his cheeks coloring in embarrassment.
The bell on the Battleground Café door tinkled. Gardenia looked up, but fortunately it wasn’t Roark. “Oh, hi, Dawn,” she said, greeting the young trainer. “Have you ever been to the Old Chateau? Um, well, my job as a gym leader, keeps me pretty busy, you know? Even though I have time to come here for fun—er, I mean, for extra training.” She gave a nervous laugh. “Ah, can you please forget what I just said?”
“Oof.”
Lucas chuckled as Dawn sank waist-deep, again, in a pocket of snow, but more in sympathy than anything. He’d been here many times before, but even still, it was a tricky route. Even in daytime, it was impossible to make out where the pockets of snow were unless you knew their locations by heart. At dusk, and with the wind whipping snow every which way around them, it was all but impossible.
“Is this a laughing matter?” she asked, cheeks flaming.
“Sorry. Here, I’ll help you,” he extended his hand, smiling.
“Thanks, Lucas.”
He pulled on her hand either with more strength than he realized or more than she expected, and then he was staring into midnight blue eyes, their faces so close that the clouds of their breath in the chill night air mingled. He wanted to reach for her face, to brush back a stray lock of her silky blue-black hair, so much like the color of her eyes, or the deepening blue of the sky above them.
“I…”
Kra-rarara!
The moment was shattered by a pokemon cry like a fall of icicles. Dawn’s head snapped up at the sound, and in an instant she had flown from his arms and was crouching in front of a low-hanging evergreen branch, weighed down almost to the ground by a heavy load of snow.
“Oh, I’m sorry! Did we wake you?”
Lucas stood behind Dawn and bent to peer over her shoulder. Under the evergreen branch was a pair of snorunts, huddled together and shivering.
“Poor things!” she exclaimed. “I guess even ice pokemon can get cold, huh?” She turned to glance over her shoulder at Lucas.
“Guess so. They’ve got a pretty good idea, though. Maybe we can pack some more snow around this branch, to insulate them,” he said.
For a few minutes they knelt together, gloved hands busy piling snow around the branch to keep the wind out, leaving only an entrance for the two snorunts to go in and out.
“Sorry again! Have a nice sleep now!” Dawn said, waving goodbye as the two trainers walked back towards the main path through the snowy route.
But before they had gone far, Dawn paused. “Do you hear something?”
They both stopped walking, but there was nothing but the almost-silent fall of snow on snow.
She shook her head. “Sorry, maybe it was just my imagination.”
But when they started walking again, Lucas thought he could hear something, faintly, behind them. “Wait,” he said, and they stopped again.
Sure enough, there was the sound of crunching snow behind them. Turning, Lucas saw the two snorunt siblings making their way through the snowfall, paw in paw, to stop before the two trainers.
Kra-rarara!
“Why don’t you go back home and go back to sleep? You had a nice shelter, under that branch,” Dawn said.
The snorunts made no move.
“Or did you want something from us? Berries?” She rummaged in her bag and held out an oran berry, but the snorunt in the lead just shook its head.
“What do you think, Lucas?”
“Maybe they want to come with us?”
The two pokemon cried again, shaking this time with something that looked more like excitement than cold.
Lucas and Dawn glanced at each other, exchanging indulgent smiles, and reached for the pokeballs clipped at their belts.
One double battle later, Dawn looked at the pokedex screen for her new pokemon. She couldn’t tell the difference by looking, but apparently this one was a boy. She thought about what she would wish she had for this tiny monster, shivering even under the protection of his straw-like outer coat, and typed the letters Y-u-u-k-i, for courage.
“Did you know these pokemon evolve into two different forms?” Lucas asked.
“Really?” Dawn asked, looking over his shoulder at the screen of Lucas’s dex. “Oh, those!” she exclaimed, recognizing them. “I’ve seen those in battle, but I never knew what they evolved from.”
“You’ve battled both of these?” he asked, sounding impressed. “Well, I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised—you’ve probably seen almost all the species that live in Sinnoh in battle by now.” Between the two of them, Dawn had always excelled more in battle, while Lucas seemed content to assist Professor Rowan with his research.
She nodded. “But I never got a chance to train a snorunt, so I don’t know anything about how they evolve. How does this one pokemon evolve into two different things?” she asked, intrigued.
“Well, they can all evolve into this one,” he said pointing at a picture of a floating ball of ice, “but only females can evolve into this one,” he added as he navigated to a picture of an ethereal ghost in a white robe with long, trailing sleeves. “With a dawn stone,” he added, flashing her a smile. “So, is yours a girl or a boy?”
“Mine? It’s a boy.” She felt a faint twinge of disappointment. Really, it didn’t matter what a pokemon looked like, what mattered was what was inside, but she couldn’t help but find froslass’s mysterious expression and trailing sleeves more intriguing than something that looked like a soccer ball with a face. “How about yours?”
“It’s a girl. Say, why don’t we trade? That way, you can evolve yours into whichever you want.”
“Eh? Really? You don’t mind?”
“Not at all. I’m planning to evolve mine into a glalie, anyways, so it’s fine if it’s a boy. Besides, you should definitely have the pokemon that evolves with a stone named after you, right?”
“Well, if you’re sure.” Dawn looked down at the pokeball in her hand. “I hope they don’t mind, either.” But the snorunt inside, tired from his battle, seemed to be comfortably asleep.
“Just one quick thing first…” Lucas said, typing briefly on his pokedex before trading his pokeball for Dawn’s.
Dawn opened her own dex again to see what it said about the female snorunt Lucas had caught, planning to take a glance at her nature, her strengths and weaknesses. But her eyes stopped on the monster’s nickname.
Miyuki. Beautiful snow.
“What a beautiful nickname,” she breathed.
“I thought it suited.” But the warmth in his eyes when he smiled was all for her.
She flushed. “Take good care of Yuuki, okay?”
He nodded. “You too! Once we’ve trained them a while, we can battle each other and see how they’ve grown…but we’d better get going, or it’ll be midnight before we get into Snowpoint.”
He held out his hand, and she took it, and hand in hand, they made their way through the drifts and hollows of the snowy route.
A/N:
Ghosts in Static: More of a vignette than a story, really, but I guess you could take it as an explanation of how Rotom got there.
Haunted Mansion: Sorry, Roark! Actually, I like Roark as a character, but couldn't resist the plot bunny of a guy offering to be the strong one who will be there for the female character if she's scared, but then getting scared himself. Also you could take this story as kind of an explanation of the background behind Gardenia's out-of-the-blue line about the Old Chateau.
Slumbering Under Snow: Some tongue-in-cheek fluff and sincere fluff to balance out the previous story. Actually, from a "leave wild animals wild" perspective, I don't think that what Dawn and Lucas do is a great idea, at least not with real animals. >.> But pokemon are different, sort of? Anyway, that's my excuse.
For a bingo card that was Sinnoh-themed, not ghost-themed, this ended up being quite ghost-centric, but no ghosts + romance this time, sadly. Maybe some other time.
| Ghosts in Static | Fresh Winter Morning | Forgotten Temple |
| Haunted Mansion | Secret Society | Unfeeling Genius |
| Slumbering Under Snow | World-ending Plan | Truth in Legend |
Thanks to Negrek for the fun and intriguing bingo card!
Author's Notes: Three shorts. First two are 250 words each. Third short is approximately 1,000 words. Story-specific comments at the end.
Genres: (1) Pokemon-centric; (2) romance (sort of?); (3) friendship/romance.
Rating: G
Content warnings: none
Status: complete
Anything, as long as it is kind! That said, these stories are all pretty rough-around-the-edges, since this was more of a brainstorming/flash-writing exercise than anything, so probably general comments rather than really digging in with an extended c/c is best.
Ghost in the Box (Ghosts in Static)
It could still remember what it felt like before. Back when its vessel had thrummed with energy, water swirling and swishing within it with such vigor that the vessel had rocked on its feet. The surge of power and the thrill of mischief when it spewed it out at its opponent.
Or there was the time it had bounced over grassy lawns, its face split with a toothy grin, spitting out leaves in a vortex all around it, channeling its telekinetic energy to form them into a funnel, a tornado of leaves slicing through the air at lethal speeds.
It had been ages and ages since then. Now there was only this snowfield of static, six walls in which whispering human voices echoed back and forth. It had seemed like a comfortable place to slip inside and nap, but it must have slept for longer than it thought—when it woke, the slim, black path it had used to slip into the device was disconnected. It had lost the way out. And now, it felt cramped. Rotom shifted restlessly, wishing to stretch its electric tendrils, to shift to a new machine, where it would fill every corner with itself.
Then through the ceaseless murmur of human voices powered by Rotom’s own energy, it heard something from outside. Was that a creak? The sound of footsteps on wood? A human?
Rotom strained towards the glass that held it in, wishing, willing for someone to come.
Hear me!
See me!
I’m here!
Fainting Hearts (Haunted Mansion)
Gardenia looked warily around the dim interior of the Battleground, sighing with relief at a certain gym leader’s absence before she made her way to the counter to order her favorite latte.
They hadn’t always been this awkward.
Roark’s eyes had sparkled when he suggested it. A dash of mischief, a hint of something more.
It’ll be fun,” he had urged. “Besides, if anything appears, I’ll be there with you.”
That had been before the creaks and groans, the mysteriously floating furniture, and then … that.
She could still remember the sweat on the palm of his hand, the way when she had grabbed him for comfort, she had felt him shivering, too, even as his arms wrapped around her.
“Let’s get out of here!”
She couldn’t remember which of them said it, only the pounding of their shoes on the rotting plank floor, tripping over tree roots in the shadows of the forest as they ran.
Ever since then, his eyes had slid away whenever they met, his cheeks coloring in embarrassment.
The bell on the Battleground Café door tinkled. Gardenia looked up, but fortunately it wasn’t Roark. “Oh, hi, Dawn,” she said, greeting the young trainer. “Have you ever been to the Old Chateau? Um, well, my job as a gym leader, keeps me pretty busy, you know? Even though I have time to come here for fun—er, I mean, for extra training.” She gave a nervous laugh. “Ah, can you please forget what I just said?”
Love in Snow (Slumbering Under Snow)
“Oof.”
Lucas chuckled as Dawn sank waist-deep, again, in a pocket of snow, but more in sympathy than anything. He’d been here many times before, but even still, it was a tricky route. Even in daytime, it was impossible to make out where the pockets of snow were unless you knew their locations by heart. At dusk, and with the wind whipping snow every which way around them, it was all but impossible.
“Is this a laughing matter?” she asked, cheeks flaming.
“Sorry. Here, I’ll help you,” he extended his hand, smiling.
“Thanks, Lucas.”
He pulled on her hand either with more strength than he realized or more than she expected, and then he was staring into midnight blue eyes, their faces so close that the clouds of their breath in the chill night air mingled. He wanted to reach for her face, to brush back a stray lock of her silky blue-black hair, so much like the color of her eyes, or the deepening blue of the sky above them.
“I…”
Kra-rarara!
The moment was shattered by a pokemon cry like a fall of icicles. Dawn’s head snapped up at the sound, and in an instant she had flown from his arms and was crouching in front of a low-hanging evergreen branch, weighed down almost to the ground by a heavy load of snow.
“Oh, I’m sorry! Did we wake you?”
Lucas stood behind Dawn and bent to peer over her shoulder. Under the evergreen branch was a pair of snorunts, huddled together and shivering.
“Poor things!” she exclaimed. “I guess even ice pokemon can get cold, huh?” She turned to glance over her shoulder at Lucas.
“Guess so. They’ve got a pretty good idea, though. Maybe we can pack some more snow around this branch, to insulate them,” he said.
For a few minutes they knelt together, gloved hands busy piling snow around the branch to keep the wind out, leaving only an entrance for the two snorunts to go in and out.
“Sorry again! Have a nice sleep now!” Dawn said, waving goodbye as the two trainers walked back towards the main path through the snowy route.
But before they had gone far, Dawn paused. “Do you hear something?”
They both stopped walking, but there was nothing but the almost-silent fall of snow on snow.
She shook her head. “Sorry, maybe it was just my imagination.”
But when they started walking again, Lucas thought he could hear something, faintly, behind them. “Wait,” he said, and they stopped again.
Sure enough, there was the sound of crunching snow behind them. Turning, Lucas saw the two snorunt siblings making their way through the snowfall, paw in paw, to stop before the two trainers.
Kra-rarara!
“Why don’t you go back home and go back to sleep? You had a nice shelter, under that branch,” Dawn said.
The snorunts made no move.
“Or did you want something from us? Berries?” She rummaged in her bag and held out an oran berry, but the snorunt in the lead just shook its head.
“What do you think, Lucas?”
“Maybe they want to come with us?”
The two pokemon cried again, shaking this time with something that looked more like excitement than cold.
Lucas and Dawn glanced at each other, exchanging indulgent smiles, and reached for the pokeballs clipped at their belts.
One double battle later, Dawn looked at the pokedex screen for her new pokemon. She couldn’t tell the difference by looking, but apparently this one was a boy. She thought about what she would wish she had for this tiny monster, shivering even under the protection of his straw-like outer coat, and typed the letters Y-u-u-k-i, for courage.
“Did you know these pokemon evolve into two different forms?” Lucas asked.
“Really?” Dawn asked, looking over his shoulder at the screen of Lucas’s dex. “Oh, those!” she exclaimed, recognizing them. “I’ve seen those in battle, but I never knew what they evolved from.”
“You’ve battled both of these?” he asked, sounding impressed. “Well, I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised—you’ve probably seen almost all the species that live in Sinnoh in battle by now.” Between the two of them, Dawn had always excelled more in battle, while Lucas seemed content to assist Professor Rowan with his research.
She nodded. “But I never got a chance to train a snorunt, so I don’t know anything about how they evolve. How does this one pokemon evolve into two different things?” she asked, intrigued.
“Well, they can all evolve into this one,” he said pointing at a picture of a floating ball of ice, “but only females can evolve into this one,” he added as he navigated to a picture of an ethereal ghost in a white robe with long, trailing sleeves. “With a dawn stone,” he added, flashing her a smile. “So, is yours a girl or a boy?”
“Mine? It’s a boy.” She felt a faint twinge of disappointment. Really, it didn’t matter what a pokemon looked like, what mattered was what was inside, but she couldn’t help but find froslass’s mysterious expression and trailing sleeves more intriguing than something that looked like a soccer ball with a face. “How about yours?”
“It’s a girl. Say, why don’t we trade? That way, you can evolve yours into whichever you want.”
“Eh? Really? You don’t mind?”
“Not at all. I’m planning to evolve mine into a glalie, anyways, so it’s fine if it’s a boy. Besides, you should definitely have the pokemon that evolves with a stone named after you, right?”
“Well, if you’re sure.” Dawn looked down at the pokeball in her hand. “I hope they don’t mind, either.” But the snorunt inside, tired from his battle, seemed to be comfortably asleep.
“Just one quick thing first…” Lucas said, typing briefly on his pokedex before trading his pokeball for Dawn’s.
Dawn opened her own dex again to see what it said about the female snorunt Lucas had caught, planning to take a glance at her nature, her strengths and weaknesses. But her eyes stopped on the monster’s nickname.
Miyuki. Beautiful snow.
“What a beautiful nickname,” she breathed.
“I thought it suited.” But the warmth in his eyes when he smiled was all for her.
She flushed. “Take good care of Yuuki, okay?”
He nodded. “You too! Once we’ve trained them a while, we can battle each other and see how they’ve grown…but we’d better get going, or it’ll be midnight before we get into Snowpoint.”
He held out his hand, and she took it, and hand in hand, they made their way through the drifts and hollows of the snowy route.
A/N:
Ghosts in Static: More of a vignette than a story, really, but I guess you could take it as an explanation of how Rotom got there.
Haunted Mansion: Sorry, Roark! Actually, I like Roark as a character, but couldn't resist the plot bunny of a guy offering to be the strong one who will be there for the female character if she's scared, but then getting scared himself. Also you could take this story as kind of an explanation of the background behind Gardenia's out-of-the-blue line about the Old Chateau.
Slumbering Under Snow: Some tongue-in-cheek fluff and sincere fluff to balance out the previous story. Actually, from a "leave wild animals wild" perspective, I don't think that what Dawn and Lucas do is a great idea, at least not with real animals. >.> But pokemon are different, sort of? Anyway, that's my excuse.
For a bingo card that was Sinnoh-themed, not ghost-themed, this ended up being quite ghost-centric, but no ghosts + romance this time, sadly. Maybe some other time.
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