ErazonPo3
Bug Catcher
- Pronouns
- She/her
Heyo! This is a short piece I made for an exchange with a worldbuilding prompt for the study of Pokemon. Given that my original character Luculia has a background in studying the Unown, I thought it'd be fun to write something with her-- you can read this standalone but it can also work as a prequel of sorts to Past, Present, Future given that it's the very same Luculia, just a little younger.
Summary:
PhD student Luculia Hiver had taught herself the letters of the Unown alphabet by the time she was ten. The language itself was far more difficult to master, but if she can finish her doctorate thesis in Diachronic Linguistics, then she’ll finally have proof that she’s among the leading experts.
Rating: G, Word Count: 1,664
PhD student Luculia Hiver had taught herself the letters of the Unown alphabet by the time she was ten. The language itself was far more difficult to master, but if she can finish her doctorate thesis in Diachronic Linguistics, then she’ll finally have proof that she’s among the leading experts. Professor Sato has faith in her, if the amount of work that he leaves for her to complete in his stead is anything to go by.
Her thesis is still in its early stages— an eventual treatise on the misrepresentation of certain passages of the Solaceon Ruins influenced by cultural biases— but in the meantime she still needs to write an essay on the widely debated relationship between the Unown script and the Pokemon themselves; for the extra credit, of course.
The Solaceon Ruins are just an hour’s drive from her apartment in Hearthome, so she’s become something of a regular there now. The dim halls and dusty air is a comfort, and the local chapter of Unown that haunt the ruin have slowly become more bold in approaching her before teleporting away. There are some in her field who fear them, because while they’re relatively impotent alone, when they link together in chains and clusters, a group of Unown can rival some of the strongest Psychic types.
At least one incident has been reported of a large swarm of Unown teleporting a researcher across Hoenn, who was later found lost and disoriented. Unown who frequent busy tourist locations like the Ruins of Alph or the Solaceon Ruins, however, are much friendlier than their shy and solitary Mirage Island counterparts.
A loud squawk echoes in the cavernous walls of the ruins’ entrance, and Luculia jolts as Viola chirps straight into her ear. Her Chatot seems satisfied with the result, preening her trainer’s white hair back into place.
“Alright, alright. We’ll get going,” Luculia huffs, scratching the bird’s ruffled collar. Double-checking that she has all her supplies in her bag— pen and paper, flashlight, her pokéballs, potions and an escape rope just in case— she heads down the stone stairs into the depths of the ruins, towards her first destination of room B3F-4. Though the ruins are an elaborate labyrinth to most, she’s developed enough of a muscle memory for when to turn right or left to get to where she needs to go, most of the time. She hardly ever gets lost anymore.
The first Unown to float her way is in the shape of an A, which is also the arbitrary first letter of the Unown alphabet. Reflexively, she forms the vowel sound in her mouth. Viola echoes her, as if they were practicing with flash cards in her bedroom again. The Unown wheels around in the air, warbling a high pitched sound that almost resembles a giggle. The commotion draws a few more Unown; she spots the forked Y and the R— no, the letter P, and then the last one has the characteristic fat tail of the L.
They rearrange themselves in front of her, the debated vowel-consonant Y hovering by the end, and the P and L taking the front. Luculia’s eyes follow the newly made string, reading left-to-right the way the script is always structured, and reads out the word as it would be spoken.
"Play?" she says, tilting her head. “You want to play?”
In a blink, the ruins disappear.
Viola shrieks as nothing but empty void surrounds them, only for it to quickly take form in the shape of the Hearthome Contest Hall. Luculia wobbles on her feet as the stage appears beneath them, but somehow manages not to fall over. She reaches for Viola’s stiff body on her shoulder, petting her feathers down partly to soothe her but partly to ground herself. Floating above her, countless Unown blot out the auditorium’s ceiling. Why would they bring her here? Hopefully they don’t expect to battle— she’s always been a little terrible at it, and Viola’s not trained for anything stronger than two gym badges.
Luculia squints at the audience seated before her, and checks to see if she’s still wearing her glasses before squinting at them again. It’s a sea of amorphous, blurry faces, and she realises they aren’t real people. She hasn’t been teleported to Hearthome, nor has the audience been teleported to her. This must be a construct of the Unown’s collective imagination, a fantasy based on her imagination, if her guess is correct. Watching livestreams of Pokemon contests are something of a guilty pleasure of hers.
Viola recognises the TV set, too, from evenings perched on her couch. It seems to pacify her, and she flies low over the crowd to sit on one of the simulated audience member’s shoulders, happy to recuse herself and watch the show as usual.
“Traitor,” Luculia mutters under her breath.
A cluster of Unown float down from the sky to hover in front of her, different to the letters she’d seen before. The word is one she’s encountered plenty of times, however, and she reads it aloud again without thinking.
“Sinjoh.”
The false crowd cheers, and Luculia startles. The Unown in front of her warble with approval in that sing-song way of theirs, spinning laps around her head. Then they float up to scramble amongst the swirling cloud above, and a new set of letters descends. This time, they spell out the word “Pokemon”. Luculia reads the word out, and receives the same fanfare. If this is the game they want to play, then she can play it. It’s still better than the Snowpoint Gym puzzle, anyhow.
The next round begins, and Luculia notices a pattern; each word so far has been relatively simple phonetically, always less than ten letters and under four syllables.
Born
Human
Anew
Alive
The crowd cheers with every correct answer, and while she’s the only real person here, Luculia can’t fight the urge to hide behind her hair. Viola sings a little tune from her seat amongst the false crowd, and the urge to smile at her sweet attempt at encouragement is even stronger.
The next cluster of Unown appear, only there’s a marked shift this time.
Night
Ocean
Create
The words are a little trickier, with phonetic rules that could trip up a beginner, but Luculia still clears them easily. It’s only when a seven letter word appears before her, familiar but uncertain, does she hesitate. She reads the individual letters first, then toys with the morphemes in her mind.
“Through,” she says, with a mild amount of confidence. She knows the pronunciation of though, and this is likely a homophone—
The Unown wobble and squabble in the air above her, evidently displeased with her answer. Luculia swallows down her nerves. The Unown of the Solaceon Ruins might be friendly, but that doesn’t preclude them from getting pissed off. She tries another variation, a rhyme with the more obscure pronunciation of cough.
Also wrong.
The Unown are vibrating insistently now, and looks to Viola for backup. Her useless Chatot shrugs her wings at her. Luculia bites her lip. She may well be out after three strikes, but she’s a master of this language, thesis or not. If her life depends on getting this right, so be it. Luculia tries again, sounding out the vowels slowly this time— and when the Unown begins to buzz, she changes course. Finally, through a gradual process of trial and error, she speaks the word to their satisfaction.
“Through.”
Luculia can’t think of anyone who could figure that out on their own. None of her peers, certainly. It is truly these Pokemon who are the highest authority on the language inspired by them (or created by them?).
Luculia pauses at the next word they form.
Arceus
“Okay, now you’re just being mean,” she chides up at the whole swarm, and they make a clicking sort of snicker in tandem.
In a sudden burst, the audience erupts into a standing ovation, and confetti rains from the ceiling. This time Luculia yelps, shocked by the noise. Above, the swarm of Unown begin to hum, and the contest hall begins to disappear just as it had arrived. Viola flies away from the stands to land back on her shoulder as the crowd evaporates, clinging to her as the dimensions of the world twists back into the shape of the Solaceon Ruins’ entrance hall.
From the doorway, the glow of the afternoon sun outside filters in. It’s hard to say how long she was in the… gameshow illusion? But regardless, it’s too late to start heading back down to the basement floors for her research now, unless she intends to camp overnight. Maybe some other time. At this hour the room is unsurprisingly empty of visitors, but there are still six Unown left, hovering together in a string. Luculia grins at the word they form, but doesn’t read it aloud this time.
Friend
“I’ll be back again soon, and I’d love to play again some time,” she says, internally reworking the title and introduction of her essay. The Unown chime pleasantly as she waves goodbye, and Viola does a loop in the air alongside them before flying out into the open air outside.
Luculia steps into the fading sun, her body still thrumming with the energy of a cheering crowd. In the back of her mind, she can’t help but wonder how powerful all those Unown could be if they worked in unison, guided by a talented trainer. There are so many mysteries still yet to be unraveled about their relationship to the historic language, and the possibility that there are more Unown letters and symbols out there than have been discovered. There’s also the folkloric connection between them and Arceus itself, but she can’t see herself solving that one any time soon.
The only mystery that matters to her right now is the question of how she’s supposed to credit a chapter of Unown as a source in her essay.
Summary:
PhD student Luculia Hiver had taught herself the letters of the Unown alphabet by the time she was ten. The language itself was far more difficult to master, but if she can finish her doctorate thesis in Diachronic Linguistics, then she’ll finally have proof that she’s among the leading experts.
Rating: G, Word Count: 1,664
To The Letter
PhD student Luculia Hiver had taught herself the letters of the Unown alphabet by the time she was ten. The language itself was far more difficult to master, but if she can finish her doctorate thesis in Diachronic Linguistics, then she’ll finally have proof that she’s among the leading experts. Professor Sato has faith in her, if the amount of work that he leaves for her to complete in his stead is anything to go by.
Her thesis is still in its early stages— an eventual treatise on the misrepresentation of certain passages of the Solaceon Ruins influenced by cultural biases— but in the meantime she still needs to write an essay on the widely debated relationship between the Unown script and the Pokemon themselves; for the extra credit, of course.
The Solaceon Ruins are just an hour’s drive from her apartment in Hearthome, so she’s become something of a regular there now. The dim halls and dusty air is a comfort, and the local chapter of Unown that haunt the ruin have slowly become more bold in approaching her before teleporting away. There are some in her field who fear them, because while they’re relatively impotent alone, when they link together in chains and clusters, a group of Unown can rival some of the strongest Psychic types.
At least one incident has been reported of a large swarm of Unown teleporting a researcher across Hoenn, who was later found lost and disoriented. Unown who frequent busy tourist locations like the Ruins of Alph or the Solaceon Ruins, however, are much friendlier than their shy and solitary Mirage Island counterparts.
A loud squawk echoes in the cavernous walls of the ruins’ entrance, and Luculia jolts as Viola chirps straight into her ear. Her Chatot seems satisfied with the result, preening her trainer’s white hair back into place.
“Alright, alright. We’ll get going,” Luculia huffs, scratching the bird’s ruffled collar. Double-checking that she has all her supplies in her bag— pen and paper, flashlight, her pokéballs, potions and an escape rope just in case— she heads down the stone stairs into the depths of the ruins, towards her first destination of room B3F-4. Though the ruins are an elaborate labyrinth to most, she’s developed enough of a muscle memory for when to turn right or left to get to where she needs to go, most of the time. She hardly ever gets lost anymore.
The first Unown to float her way is in the shape of an A, which is also the arbitrary first letter of the Unown alphabet. Reflexively, she forms the vowel sound in her mouth. Viola echoes her, as if they were practicing with flash cards in her bedroom again. The Unown wheels around in the air, warbling a high pitched sound that almost resembles a giggle. The commotion draws a few more Unown; she spots the forked Y and the R— no, the letter P, and then the last one has the characteristic fat tail of the L.
They rearrange themselves in front of her, the debated vowel-consonant Y hovering by the end, and the P and L taking the front. Luculia’s eyes follow the newly made string, reading left-to-right the way the script is always structured, and reads out the word as it would be spoken.
"Play?" she says, tilting her head. “You want to play?”
In a blink, the ruins disappear.
Viola shrieks as nothing but empty void surrounds them, only for it to quickly take form in the shape of the Hearthome Contest Hall. Luculia wobbles on her feet as the stage appears beneath them, but somehow manages not to fall over. She reaches for Viola’s stiff body on her shoulder, petting her feathers down partly to soothe her but partly to ground herself. Floating above her, countless Unown blot out the auditorium’s ceiling. Why would they bring her here? Hopefully they don’t expect to battle— she’s always been a little terrible at it, and Viola’s not trained for anything stronger than two gym badges.
Luculia squints at the audience seated before her, and checks to see if she’s still wearing her glasses before squinting at them again. It’s a sea of amorphous, blurry faces, and she realises they aren’t real people. She hasn’t been teleported to Hearthome, nor has the audience been teleported to her. This must be a construct of the Unown’s collective imagination, a fantasy based on her imagination, if her guess is correct. Watching livestreams of Pokemon contests are something of a guilty pleasure of hers.
Viola recognises the TV set, too, from evenings perched on her couch. It seems to pacify her, and she flies low over the crowd to sit on one of the simulated audience member’s shoulders, happy to recuse herself and watch the show as usual.
“Traitor,” Luculia mutters under her breath.
A cluster of Unown float down from the sky to hover in front of her, different to the letters she’d seen before. The word is one she’s encountered plenty of times, however, and she reads it aloud again without thinking.
“Sinjoh.”
The false crowd cheers, and Luculia startles. The Unown in front of her warble with approval in that sing-song way of theirs, spinning laps around her head. Then they float up to scramble amongst the swirling cloud above, and a new set of letters descends. This time, they spell out the word “Pokemon”. Luculia reads the word out, and receives the same fanfare. If this is the game they want to play, then she can play it. It’s still better than the Snowpoint Gym puzzle, anyhow.
The next round begins, and Luculia notices a pattern; each word so far has been relatively simple phonetically, always less than ten letters and under four syllables.
Born
Human
Anew
Alive
The crowd cheers with every correct answer, and while she’s the only real person here, Luculia can’t fight the urge to hide behind her hair. Viola sings a little tune from her seat amongst the false crowd, and the urge to smile at her sweet attempt at encouragement is even stronger.
The next cluster of Unown appear, only there’s a marked shift this time.
Night
Ocean
Create
The words are a little trickier, with phonetic rules that could trip up a beginner, but Luculia still clears them easily. It’s only when a seven letter word appears before her, familiar but uncertain, does she hesitate. She reads the individual letters first, then toys with the morphemes in her mind.
“Through,” she says, with a mild amount of confidence. She knows the pronunciation of though, and this is likely a homophone—
The Unown wobble and squabble in the air above her, evidently displeased with her answer. Luculia swallows down her nerves. The Unown of the Solaceon Ruins might be friendly, but that doesn’t preclude them from getting pissed off. She tries another variation, a rhyme with the more obscure pronunciation of cough.
Also wrong.
The Unown are vibrating insistently now, and looks to Viola for backup. Her useless Chatot shrugs her wings at her. Luculia bites her lip. She may well be out after three strikes, but she’s a master of this language, thesis or not. If her life depends on getting this right, so be it. Luculia tries again, sounding out the vowels slowly this time— and when the Unown begins to buzz, she changes course. Finally, through a gradual process of trial and error, she speaks the word to their satisfaction.
“Through.”
Luculia can’t think of anyone who could figure that out on their own. None of her peers, certainly. It is truly these Pokemon who are the highest authority on the language inspired by them (or created by them?).
Luculia pauses at the next word they form.
Arceus
“Okay, now you’re just being mean,” she chides up at the whole swarm, and they make a clicking sort of snicker in tandem.
In a sudden burst, the audience erupts into a standing ovation, and confetti rains from the ceiling. This time Luculia yelps, shocked by the noise. Above, the swarm of Unown begin to hum, and the contest hall begins to disappear just as it had arrived. Viola flies away from the stands to land back on her shoulder as the crowd evaporates, clinging to her as the dimensions of the world twists back into the shape of the Solaceon Ruins’ entrance hall.
From the doorway, the glow of the afternoon sun outside filters in. It’s hard to say how long she was in the… gameshow illusion? But regardless, it’s too late to start heading back down to the basement floors for her research now, unless she intends to camp overnight. Maybe some other time. At this hour the room is unsurprisingly empty of visitors, but there are still six Unown left, hovering together in a string. Luculia grins at the word they form, but doesn’t read it aloud this time.
Friend
“I’ll be back again soon, and I’d love to play again some time,” she says, internally reworking the title and introduction of her essay. The Unown chime pleasantly as she waves goodbye, and Viola does a loop in the air alongside them before flying out into the open air outside.
Luculia steps into the fading sun, her body still thrumming with the energy of a cheering crowd. In the back of her mind, she can’t help but wonder how powerful all those Unown could be if they worked in unison, guided by a talented trainer. There are so many mysteries still yet to be unraveled about their relationship to the historic language, and the possibility that there are more Unown letters and symbols out there than have been discovered. There’s also the folkloric connection between them and Arceus itself, but she can’t see herself solving that one any time soon.
The only mystery that matters to her right now is the question of how she’s supposed to credit a chapter of Unown as a source in her essay.