Pokémon Zion's Bingo Drabbles

[zion of arcadia]

Drabbles are based on moments from the PMD games. The poetry originally had a much stricter meter, but for the sake of time decided to relax that element and just enjoy myself.


"Fireflies above the Lake"


[. . . truth, whose mother is history, who is the rival of time, depository of deeds, witness of the past, example and lesson to the present, and warning to the future.]



The light of the fireflies turns your scales

the color of burnt cinnabar, reflections

of the soul and of the phantasmal and

all good things to come



Five pillars form one great fountainhead

indigo coated in a clear resin

the only blue an iridescent water-

blood that gushes forth



The light of the fireflies gather round;

through the translucent wings of their echoes

the kaleidoscope bends again

I look and think rainbow, rainbow, rainbow!

Everything is rainbow!



I can see in your horizon-eyes

the desire to wade out into the

dark lake, the churning mass at its center

a shrine to time itself, its webwork of

endless convergence



Pairs revolve around and around the geyser

there must always be one and the other

red and blue; diamond and pearl; you and me

the future is now



And yet I cannot quell this mute unease

I do not recall the promise to end the flood

instead, how light glances off oil-slick puddles

the sense that my soul is a vat buried

beneath the still earth



There is a sense either I exist or

it exists or neither can exist, an

error somewhere, haunted by the terror of

obliteration: by a silent unending scream

I don’t know who I am



But then I look at you again

and think

if I could capture the light of the fireflies

I would use it to always see you better

 

[zion of arcadia]

"Time Gear"

All was calm, all was still. In the aftermath of the storm, the silence seemed louder than the booming thunder and frenzied winds; the lashing fury of the skies replaced by a prickle along the nape of the neck. Beyond the cave where Grovyle had taken shelter, a water droplet was forever frozen in the act of falling. It hung there, iridescent in the early morning sun, even as the light strained through it to settle on dull gray surroundings. Treeshroud Forest was suspended in a motionless space where only phantoms lingered.

Grovyle stared at the Time Gear nestled in his hand. It was smaller than expected, but heavier too. One green talon curled to trace the patterns engraved upon its metal surface, follow the line of the arrow from the teeth of the gear to the hole at its center. He felt as though he had a hole inside him too, born from a stagnant future and widened by the sight of the sunrise, by the sense of desecration as it rose to cast its light upon his deed.

What if he returned the Time Gear to its pedestal? Grovyle could see it so clearly in his mind’s eye. Only not as a new act, because it was not an act he could ever bring himself to commit, but as a reversal of memory. Of him, the only green creature left, scuttling backward out the cave, through the frozen trees, past the fearful faces of pokémon waking to a world gone wrong.

Backward to where the Time Gear would be put in its proper place and the halo of patterned light would surround it again and he would move backward, backward, into the pouring rain and out of frame, past the pair of ninetales huddled for warmth in the brush. Where they seemed cold and uncomfortable and yet happy in each other’s company, content with the world, a world he had not trespassed upon, if only for a little while.

 

[zion of arcadia]

“Paradise”

The waiting was the hardest part. Keldeo, by his nature, strove to participate in the events of the world around him. It was one of the main reasons he had become a wanderer. To always be the subject, never the object. But in this instance, all he could do was wait for Axew to bring her partner home again.

Keldeo had taken to patrolling Paradise in a restless facsimile of previous habits. There, he would watch the teeming assortment of pokémon tend to their plots of land with a serious, warmhearted intensity that both impressed and baffled him. He could not imagine waking up every day to do the same thing, again and again. It was inconceivable.

He liked the Oran Orchard best.

If asked to articulate why, Keldeo did not think he could provide a concrete answer. It was just something he felt in his tailbone, an inimitable pleasure; a desire to prance, all while Panpour continued to move through the budding bushes, to shower them with water and care. Keldeo would flare his nostrils and let the scent of the Oran berry buds fill them: slightly more acrid than when in bloom, but still a primarily balanced sweet-spicy tang.

One day, Panpour spoke:

“You can help too, you know. If you like.”

Keldeo started. Beyond a polite greeting, Panpour had never acknowledged him before. The water monkey was kneeling beside a bush to inspect it, prune its size if deemed necessary. He looked up at Keldeo through the slits of his eyes, smiling softly. In the smile was the answer.

After a moment to consider, Keldeo stepped out into the field. The loam was rich and damp between his cloven hooves. He bent his head to let his lips brush the leaves of the nearest Oran bush. Water pushed its way up his throat and out his muzzle to cascade through the bush to the loam beneath it. Sunlight caught the water droplets as the fell at different angles; with each different angle Keldeo found something new to appreciate. They became diamonds with infinite facets until they struck the ground and vanished forever.

So this is what it means, he thought to himself, and was satisfied.