Shadow
The story of a timid Dratini, caught as a Game Corner prize, who finds the perfect human trainer and, to his great distress, falls in love with her.

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Thumbnail art by kenket, used with permission

I'm changing how I post to FA by splitting this story into shorter, ten-minute-or-so chunks that are hopefully easier to read, and in the form of audio recordings (heard previously perhaps on
kenket's livestream), as I suspect 10,000+ word chapters in the FA description are irritating for everyone! I'll post PDFs of every chapter once they're complete and then move these to scraps, and start building a directory to the whole thing in my profile.

Please note that the audio DOES NOT COMPLETELY MATCH the text, as it represents a recording at the fifth draft or so, whereas the final text is the sixth or seventh. This amounts to something like a 1-2% difference, however, with almost no difference in the last half of this chapter. Hopefully this problem will go away by Chapter 5, though I can't guarantee it.

This chapter is in six parts, probably posted every other day or so until I find a good schedule.


___ Level 25 ___

Runa said they would reach Olivine City by noon, and already they saw the buildings and port down the valley ahead, the Magnet Line above it skirting the coast and returning inland either side. Some time on the beach, he thought; some break where Runa could be free of his burden, of carrying such a slack.

Could it have gone more horribly? It could have been a Moltres, perhaps, setting upon him, flying all the way to Hoenn to drop him into Mount Chimney, turn him to ash—it would be a mercy, rather, a benefit to Runa. Was there anything worse than that, to be an active detriment despite every effort to aid? They thought he was a waste: he lowered Runa, they had to feel, for keeping him. And nothing they said was too hard when every battle was a new exercise in fear, each in fact worse than the last, increasingly in need of rescue and a switch. Runa was above all that, of course. As he failed again to throw a twister, hardly flipped a pebble, she said not to worry, that he would improve, that he was improving. She said he grew much stronger since Ecruteak, that judging his powers he was bound to evolve (yet Gaia was still the same), that not a bit of it was for the guidance she gave but for an ability he found in himself. And Dyna screwed her face as if to say Runa was a foolish trainer! None of them saw that she was yet maturing even further toward the ideal, more and more the perfect trainer, bound to become one of the great champions. He’d been with Runa for three months already and still he grew more and more affected. She only wanted him happy and to grow, she said, as she thought was his dream.

—O, he’ll make a fine Spheal, some day, Rita said.

And Runa rebuked her, guessed the meaning from so little it was alarming. Was there a human with even half her qualities? Surely nature couldn’t survive with multiple Runas shaking up its order; Pokémon would be hanging off their humans wherever one looked. Not of course that they didn’t show affection, that their trainers weren’t fine—but they didn’t imagine Runa!

It was best for Pokémon, she said, that they went at their own pace. Forcing Pokémon through drills and gyms like a factory process (she meant her sister, but didn’t say), scoring them by numbers, was absolutely the farthest thing from a bond. If a trainer didn’t call Pokémon people, they weren’t fit to touch them—that was how Runa put it when she got excited. Pokémon were really everything to her, even though she might have been anything, done anything in the world with all her family’s resources. Everything she said somehow ended up on them. A friend (she said) who imposed her dream on others was not a friend at all; a friend by definition rather helped another’s. Then if her dream was to help Pokémon, they ought never to worry about hers, since her dream was fulfilled only by them acting to fill theirs. But then again—for always it reduced to this—what if one’s dream was impossible? Taking her literally she said she would be fulfilled only if the rest all disappeared, if she were alone with him in her arms, laying kisses all over—lowering herself, in other words, to nothing. But then to battle was only a little better; for if, she said, it was his dream to battle (so he felt rotten again), to grow and conquer his fears, she would help in every way possible; and nodding as if that were his only purpose, wasn’t he a wretch, and a liar? Only the sickness moved him; having thrown into it fully, it gorged and bloated, now it got a taste of the thing, of being held by her, being tended after a battle. He never actually feigned an injury for her attention (quite unnecessary with his weakness) but wasn’t that a feeble thing to raise? He ought to keep away from her; he had to restore some sort of defence, or wouldn’t evolution be for nothing? But then he would see Runa, and think of nothing but her arms and hair. If Torus did read minds, he thought, he must detect him the most corrupted thing alive.

And the scene at Route 38, he thought. He couldn’t bear to think about it! It was his fault entirely—some wild notion of going off and demonstrating himself, exercising even after dark rather than sit about the camp so that returning he would eat the meal Runa made with gusto and fall right asleep, not even think of negotiating himself slowly toward her lap. For just inside the long grass there swept down the Noctowl, who, being after all many times his size and power— He wouldn’t think about it. And that cry as Runa saw him carried off into the sky! all of them chasing after until he was out of sight, carried off for who knew what purpose into the forest until finally (he was pathetic) he wriggled out a Thunder Wave and the Noctowl dropped him, falling hundreds of feet into a tree where, even if he was large for a Dratini, a few boughs broke his fall. He didn’t know which way was which, already past the hill; every wilder’s instinct seemed forgotten, except to hide and wait, for what if he missed Runa? But in a few hours’ time (it was far longer in his mind, he thought, time, they all said, being subjective) he saw a little fire, and fell to rush toward it: Tanwen, at one end of a sweeping line Runa set up to find him. —Come on, the Quilava said. For Runa was so frightened they were all too shocked to abuse him. —It’s my fault, Runa said, hands all over him: —I should have seen. She forbade them to speak ill, not as an order but a rule of good behaviour everyone followed: it was horrible, she said, to abuse a victim. So they said nothing, only comments to the effect he was lucky not to hurt himself in the fall (all that padding, Rita said). Still Runa took him off battling until he was recovered, she said, and for a week hardly let him go. It’s nothing, was all she said; Dratini were practically made of air; he could lay on her all he liked. And yet it was, he knew, an indelible mark on him in all the others’ eyes; for Runa was perfectly fair and always treated everyone fairly, but now, they all felt, she had a favourite on whom to dote, and like a spoiled rotten rot he soaked it all up.

But Olivine City, ahead, was on the sea, and Runa said they may swim. For it was the beginning of summer, and they would be near the beaches, Runa thought, until the leaves were falling. He would swim every day: he would train and get very fit: he would build up a reserve and be good for Runa.

___

Runa took them to the Pokémon Centre. There was little need for it, the nurses said: they were all in fine shape, so far as injury or illness went. Again Runa had to explain her arrangement (it was shocking, said the day manager, outrageous—to pay at a Pokémon Centre!), saw they accepted her compensation for extra supplies, for didn’t her family profit on the Centres somehow? This was to give back and be less of a drain. But wasn’t it easier from a shop? Runa said she believed in the Pokémon Centres more than private enterprise. After that they went to the hotel overlooking the waterfront (already booked in advance for a month), left Torus behind to sleep as, Runa said, he wanted nothing, and then on the promenade they met the minders.

It was her family’s condition, Runa said, that other humans entered the scene. It was possible, even likely, that after a month in Olivine someone may recognise her and, wanting something of the Pondelores, step in to impose or bother them; so they hired a couple of trainers for the summer, students in some higher education who happened to battle, who would read books on the beach but keep an eye on Runa. That was all he needed, he thought: more eyes watching. They had an Arcanine and a Blaziken both taller than Runa. And they were friends, Runa said, only to help them as they needed; but he could not let go her leg.

—I’ve got to go to the markets and it’ll just bore you, she said. Why don’t you go with Miyuki?

For they had to want to explore the big city, she said: they could keep an eye out for anything interesting, and tomorrow they’d have a day. The girl Miyuki said they would return at the waterfront at five, that she’d make sure no one bothered them (she looked at Gaia as she said it). And as she read his want, but not his reason, feeling his alarm Runa said:

—You can stay with me if you like, Shadow.

How quick they all were to leave her! Dyna wandered off at once, Tanwen following and frowning up at the big Blaziken—Gaia looked back once—and Rita, drawling after, said she wanted silks for the sand.

Runa could have suggested he go, a part of overcoming his fears—the others joked about it, how he flew into a panic if she was out of sight for any length at all, even washing herself—but the truth was she liked him near. A mother’s warmth perhaps, he thought, as she lifted him up in one arm, lay him against her shirt. (The Arcanine and the boy, Stefan, followed at a distance.) He could help her decide on new clothing, she said; they would have a lot of time to swim.

But the city he began to see as Runa spotted things: the first modern city since Goldenrod, he recalled from the guide, another beat of civilisation. Along the market row, the air of cooked foods lingered around the tables they passed, caught under the umbrellas it seemed, humans and Pokémon dining, enjoying company even if not the same dishes. All the trees were in full green; there, one with flowers all short and bunched and lilac-coloured. That was the name, as Runa said: —Ah, lilac! It was growing all about but, as he had looked, still she bought a bunch to give him; he held it in his coil. It was like her hair, softly sweet. But this was his first time alone with her (the boy some way behind)—everything, he felt, was framed in terms of Runa. That tree rustled (a perfectly natural action) in a way like her hair; that shop, the scent of her poffins and Poké Puffs (spent all that effort just to feed them); a passing Pokémon, possession; a male human looking at her, piercing dread. Runa said they had better go indoors, to get out of the heat; she meant his skin, never shedding properly. It was better not to be around so many people, he thought, all free to look … yet none of them knew her … he had all her attention, so why did he have to worry, tense against her? It’s all right, she said, checking the map on her phone: they were nearly off the street, what had filled with humans disgorging out of Olivine Station Tower, just arrived from half an hour’s travel on the Magnet Train from Goldenrod.

[scene continues in next part]