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kiyfra · 1 year

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The third and final chapter of Katatsumuri is finished! It can be read here or on A03. Pokerus AU belongs to @monsoon-of-art.

"A creature given to melancholy. I suspect its metallic shell developed as a result of the mucus on its skin reacting with the iron in Hisui's water."

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Gaeric’s tent was still coated in ice, a thick sheet of it forming a few days ago. The warden’s remaining hand had fallen off just as his arm and leg had, this time during the clan’s communal dinner. A loud crack was heard through the dining hall and the hand shattered like glass upon hitting the ground, drawing everyone’s attention. Gaeric had solemnly gotten up and announced he was going to bed, managing his crutch as best he could and ignoring his concerned clan mates offering to help. He kept his head down and headed to his tent with a thousand yard stare.

A heavy snow storm raged that night and come morning the tent was cocooned in a dense layer of ice, separating it from the outside world. Neither fire nor steel could put a dent in it; a complete black box where Gaeric was presumably undergoing the final stages of his metamorphosis.

Shouts asking if he was alright hadn’t produced a response, indeed nothing could be heard from within the ice chrysalis. Even if Gaeric was attempting to ride it out as stoically as possible, he would have wanted to reassure his worried clan members. Either he couldn’t hear them or he couldn’t answer, neither was comforting. There was an eerie stillness in the air as the clan waited.

Lian almost envied the solitude. He spent most of his time in his tent, withdrawn into his shell, hoping to blot out the world around him. He didn’t want anyone to see him like this, slimy, immobile, unable to fulfill his duties as a warden and completely dependent on others.

He had been transformed completely into a sliggoo, the painful process finally at an end after so many weeks. It had felt like a Fox resided in him and took delight in tormenting him. Lian could imagine sharp claws slowly dragging organs into place, muscles being stretched and molded. His entire body being rearranged as it saw fit, heedless of his cries begging it to stop. A metallic shell grew out of his skin, spiraling around his lower half as his legs atrophied.

With his transformation complete the thing had gone dormant, evidently satisfied with the new arrangement. Enzymes had finished dissolving his skeleton, his flesh was gluey to the touch and muscular tissue affixed to the absurdly heavy shell.

Lian just didn’t want to think or feel anything. Not the vicious cycle of his body excreting acidic mucus when he was stressed, then the awful disgusting feeling stressing him out more. Not about how he couldn’t keep being Lord Kleavor’s warden and how he’d be stuck like this forever. If he kept trying to retreat further back and concentrate on the smooth curved interior of his shell, he could pretend he didn’t even have a body.

People still came to bring him meals and check on him before Lian quickly dismissed them. He knew if he didn’t he’d have to endure awkward attempts at conversation and answer unwanted questions.

“How are you doing? You really shouldn’t spend all your time moping. Why don’t you join everyone else for dinner?”

What was he even supposed to say to that?

The clan respected his need for space and Lian knew he wasn’t the only one suffering. Very few across Hisui had escaped the bizarre infliction turning people into pokémon; PokéRus, as the Galaxy professor called it. Those that worked closely with pokémon turned first, meaning the wardens and clan leaders, but it soon spread to everyone. Snovers, bunearys, piloswines, sneasles and an assortment of others at differing stages of transformation became a common sight at the settlement.

It wasn’t much fun turning into a quadruped, losing opposable thumbs or gaining bizarre new dietary needs. Many had been trying to ignore their newfound desires to eat grass or raw meat. Lian himself found that anything with salt made him violently ill, so that meant he couldn’t eat any of the clan’s cured meat they had stored. He had mostly been eating soup, the liquid diet being the easiest on him since his teeth fell out.

A bowl of mushroom stew sat uneaten by his bedside, having gone cold an hour ago. Lian couldn’t stand the goopy squelching noises that came from him when eating. Eating sounds had always bothered and disgusted him, but were now unbearable. He was repulsed by the urge to let his own acid dissolve the food before eating or needing to use a chitinous tongue to eat anything solid. He could barely bring himself to eat the meals brought to him, only doing so at his partner’s insistence.

Goomy hadn’t left his side since he was brought to the settlement, frequently leaning against him in an attempt to comfort him and kicking up a fuss if he thought Lian was letting himself waste away.

He knew it was wrong to worry his partner like that, especially after the stunt he pulled in the mire lands. It had given him and Calaba quite a fright when Lord Kleavor started bellowing outside Calaba’s tent, carrying him by the scruff of his tunic, half-conscious.

His partner abruptly perked up, noticing someone approaching the camp briefly before Lian did. A small dewott treaded through the Pearl Clan settlement carrying a heavy satchel. They were beating a path directly to Lian’s tent, the physical details filled in long before they approached the door. Black nub ears poked out from a head-kerchief and a long scarf was wound snuggly around their neck. The locks of hair adorning both sides of their face like mock lop ears couldn��t have belonged to anyone else but Dawn.

She had clearly been swimming recently; water droplets still clung to her fur and her scarf was frozen stiff. Snow stuck to her fluffed up coat and ice crystals formed at the end of her whiskers. She was still pretty, even as a dewott.

A small paw rapped on the door to his tent. “Lian, can I come in?”

He really didn’t want Dawn to see him. He spent several seconds trying to think of a response, some way to send her away that wasn’t rude before she asked, “Are you okay?”

He didn’t dignify that with an answer. She seemed to realize her mistake and followed up with, “Right, that was a dumb question.”

There was an awkward pause as Dawn deliberated on what she should say or do next. No one in the Pearl Clan would take kindly to someone entering their home, their sacred space, without permission. If Lian told her to leave, there was nothing she could do.

After some deliberation, she decided to just go for it and state the reason for her visit.

“I brought you something,” Dawn announced, lifting her waterlogged satchel up. She clearly went out of her way to see him and there was no polite way to tell her to leave. Besides, Lian would be lying if he said he wasn’t intrigued by the gift and what she went swimming in the ice lands for.

His curiosity won out. “Come in.”

The dewott opened the door, shaking herself to clear the water and snow off before entering.

It was completely dark inside his tent save for the afternoon sun pouring through the now open door, giving his living space a depressing atmosphere. He was resting on the floor next to his bed, peering out over the edge of his shell self-consciously, with his partner Goomy beside him. He still wore his hat, without it he’d feel completely naked.

Lian’s tent had fallen into a state of disarray with his Pearl Clan uniform tossed carelessly onto the bed that could no longer support his weight, blankets strewn about on the floor and neatly arranged shelves of stones and minerals gathering dust. A lantern that hadn’t been used in some time sat upon a table next to his uneaten lunch.

Dawn closed the door behind her to avoid letting the heat escape, once again plunging the tent into darkness. She strode towards him before stumbling, her foot caught on one of the many blankets he had left lying around for his makeshift nest.

“May I put on a light?” the girl asked, clearly not wanting to impose.

Lian had no need for a light source in his current state and his partner was unbothered by the dim living space so it failed to occur to him that his guest would need one.

“My apologies, the lantern is on the table,” Lian said, mentally kicking himself for his lack of consideration.

Dawn stood on tip toes as she lit the lantern, the orange glow illuminating the cluttered abode.

“Please do forgive the mess. I wasn’t expecting company.”

She brushed it off as not a big deal as she sat down cross legged beside him, setting the satchel down on her lap. Goomy was happy to see her, sidling up and clamouring for attention. Dawn laughed as she pat his head. “Sorry, I didn’t bring anything for you.”

She returned her attention to the gift and opened her satchel.

“I went diving for rocks for your collection.”

He hadn’t expected that. Nobody really payed much attention to his lectures on minerals or the importance of stones. He was used to being politely tolerated when he tried to share his knowledge about ores and later admonished for boring people with long winded speeches.

“I thought there might be some interesting ones underwater you couldn’t find on land,” she explained, looking for a stone she deemed a good one.

Under normal circumstances Lian would have been stoked. He’d always wanted to investigate underwater rock formations and having a friend to spend the afternoon with, speculating about their composition and formation would have been the cherry on top.

It almost seemed cruel the opportunity would come now when he couldn’t fully appreciate such a gift with the loss of his eyesight. Never again would he be able to see the subtle flecks of mica in a sun stone or the deep blue of a water stone. Lian hoped his despondency wasn’t too apparent; it was a very thoughtful gesture and he didn’t want to come across as ungrateful.

“This one came from Heart’s Crag. I found it on the way over here,” Dawn said, passing one of the rocks over to him.

He accepted the gift and turned it over in his hands. It was a flat disk shaped stone, one that had been smoothed out by erosion at the bottom of a riverbed. A pleasing streak of quartz ran through it with a small pocket of crystals that hadn’t been worn down in the center.

Was it a pale grey, a dark black or perhaps a ruddy red? Would he forget what those looked like with time?

“So, what do you think?” Dawn asked, looking up at him hopefully.

He considered his response for a long minute.

“Thank you for the gift and for taking the time to visit me. I truly do appreciate your concern.“ Lian said finally, sounding too careful, too rehearsed.

He didn’t seem inclined to say much more, but Dawn wasn’t giving up that easily. Ignoring the implicit rejection, she searched her bag for another rock, one she brought specifically for this purpose.

Time to bring out the conversation starter.

“You know, I think I actually found gold!”

Dawn removed an ore from her bag and Lian’s senses informed him of the rigid cubes composing its shape, immediately guessing the girl’s mix up. She handed it to him for appraisal, confirming what he’d already suspected.

“This is pyrite, fool’s gold. The most obvious giveaway is the cubic structure, but if you look closely you can see striations on its surface,” he lectured his impromptu student, pointing to the parallel lines covering the exterior.

“Wow, you can tell all that just from touching it?” She sounded genuinely surprised.

“Sure I can, that’s child’s play! But this...“ he picked up the river stone to gesture with it. “I can’t tell you much besides that it’s probably igneous. The weight and density means it’s unlikely to be sedimentary and a cavity like this wouldn’t remain if it was metamorphic.”

Lian brought the stone in front of his face and squinted as if straining his eyes would cause them to miraculously start working again.

“I’d wager that a gas bubble was trapped in the quartz vein while it was still magma and a slow cooling process allowed larger crystals to form.”

It was clear from his tone that he didn’t consider the observation impressive. The girl looking up at him with wide eyes evidently disagreed.

“If you call that not knowing much then you must be a genius! It’s no wonder Lord Kleavor made you his warden!”

If the praise were coming from anyone else he would have agreed without hesitation. But praise from the girl turned dewott sitting cross legged in front of him caused his face to grow warm and he mumbled about how it wasn’t that impressive with uncharacteristic modesty.

Dawn rooted through her satchel again and brought out a handful of rocks. “What can you tell me about these?”

The two of them spent a solid hour going over the various stones collected from around Hisui, Dawn listening attentively as he lectured her about composition, formation and any other noteworthy facts.

Lian had a considerable base of knowledge to draw upon, but it was an interesting test of his abilities to identify minerals without visual information. He’d explain what he could discern about the rocks he had never seen before and account for how years underwater changed the ones he was familiar with, adding a new layer of complexity. He was surprised that he found himself enjoying the challenge.

Crystalline, gritty, porous; the shapes and textures told him a lot about their makeup and the environments they were formed in. He would speculate out loud and Dawn would interject with questions he was all too happy to answer.

A thought occurred to him. Did she deliberately choose stones that would be interesting from a tactile perspective? She’s so kind and intelligent...

Dawn finally brought out the last rock, a hunk of limestone embedded with many tiny shells. “They kind of look like helix fossils, but way smaller.”

“I wonder if they might have been juveniles of the species,” Lian pondered.

“No, baby omanytes are nowhere near that small,” Dawn said, recalling when Lucas bred one of his omastars and Professor Rowan’s lab was overrun by a swarm of the cute little buggers.

Lian looked at her incredulously. “How would you know?”

“Back home there were researchers that studied fossils. They could tell a lot about the pokémon they used to be and I was helping a professor with a research project.”

Dawn was careful not to mention she had live specimens to study. Explaining she was from a place where people had figured out how to revive species from fossils would sound far too suspicious, never mind telling anyone she was from the future.

Lian wasn’t wary or distrustful of her like some people were. There was already an amnesiac skyfaller that had been part of his clan for years, but Kleavor’s warden could still be rather prickly. A lot of people in Hisui were highly superstitious and Kamando had made it clear her place in Jubilife was conditional. No, the fewer people that knew, the better.

“I used to spend a lot of time in the Underground and I’d find a lot of fossils to bring back. I think you’d really like it there!”

Lian listened, enraptured as Dawn talked at length about the massive tunnel system that ran under her home region and how plenty of people built secret bases and went treasure hunting there. She spoke of rare evolution stones, rocks with mysterious effects on the weather, ores valued by collectors and fossils she sought after for her research.

“I’ve never found a skull fossil! My friends find them all the time, but I’ve never found one!” Dawn ranted, throwing her hands up in frustration.

Lian swung his head towards her, his eyes narrowing gave the impression he was staring straight at her.

“Didn’t you say you lost your memories?” he blurted out, his tone probably sounding more accusatory than he meant it to.

“Well, er-“

In her excitement, Dawn had forgotten she was supposed to be playing the role of a poor amnesiac girl.

“I- I started remembering some things recently!” she hastily explained.

A flash of inspiration struck her. “After my first battle with Ingo I started recalling some things about my home. Battles have been jogging my memory lately.”

Lian’s expression didn’t change. Dawn wasn’t sure if he believed the lie or not; either way he didn’t challenge her on it. It’s not like he could prove she was lying.

Itching to change the subject, she asked, “Actually, I’ve got a question. Obsidian is formed by volcanoes right? But I’ve seen scythers and gravelers carrying pieces of Black Augurite. So how does it get all the way to the Fieldlands?”

“There are large deposits in the Obsidian Fieldlands.” Lian accepted the change in topic, eager to discuss anything relating to his passions with such an inquisitive student. “That’s actually where it gets it’s name! My current theory is that they were picked up and moved by glaciers during the ice age.”

Goomy had started to doze off, content to leave the two of them to their geology lesson. A thick bubble of snot formed, expanding and deflating with his snores.

“But not all obsidian is Black Augurite. Every warden to a Noble Kleavor has to learn how to distinguish the evolution stone from regular obsidian.”

Lian had extended pretty far out of his shell, drawn up and excitedly gesturing for emphasis.

“Of course, I learned long before anyone ever considered me for the position. It was only natural Lord Kleavor recognized my aptitude and chose me to be his warden.”

He already had several pieces stored away for when the Lord of the Woods chose his heir. Lian was quite familiar with the largest and most powerful of his children, an alpha scyther that he allowed to share his territory.

They were quite an impressive specimen with a sturdy carapace and serrated scythes who the Lord wouldn’t even considered for the position, for the usual reasons alphas were passed over. Far too aggressive and preoccupied with their own standing, they held little appreciation for the duties and expectations the Noble title conferred. Lord Kleavor and his warden would just have to keep an eye on his offspring to determine which of his children was a worthy successor.

Would he ever ever get to present his Black Augurite to an heir? Lian tried to imagine tending to his Noble as a sliggoo and nothing seemed right. How could he possibly gather the plump beans for Lord Kleavor and his children, let alone present offerings covered in cold snot? A sliggoo couldn’t socialize baby scythers and get them used to humans.

Lian retreated back into his shell, his eyes barely visible from under the brim of his hat. “I might have to give mine away...” he said, his voice tiny.

“What? Why?” she exclaimed, her eyes wide with surprise and worry.

He took a deep breath, hoping his words would convey his conundrum and testiness wouldn’t creep into his voice. “I don’t believe I can continue being a warden in my current state. Lord Kleavor deserves to have a warden that can properly tend to him.”

Dawn stared at him quizzically. “Because you turned into a pokémon? I don’t know who you think would replace you then. Everyone has been infected.”

“Someone who wouldn’t offend Lord Kleavor with offerings covered in mucus!” Lian would have grit his teeth if he still had any, feeling a surge of irritation at her failure to comprehend his predicament.

She blinked. “Then wear gloves!”

Dawn had stood up to shout, startling Goomy awake, his sleep bubble bursting with a loud pop.

Lian was running out of patience. “I have to fill and bring a basket to Grandtree Arena at least twice daily, often more. How do you expect me to carry it?”

“You can work something out!” She let out an exasperated sigh. “Lian, what exactly is your plan here? Are you just going to spend the rest of your life sulking in your room?”

By now Lian was fuming at her, gripping the edge of his shell and wishing she could feel the rage that must be coming off of him in waves, lest he say something he would later regret.

Dawn continued. “Look, I don’t know what’s going to happen, maybe you can’t be a warden anymore. But there are problems of yours that you can solve.”

He had half a mind to yell at her to get out. This sort of discussion was exactly what he didn’t want and why he had turned everyone else away. Had she planned this from the start? Lian felt a sting of betrayal at her entering his home to talk under such false pretenses.

“All of this is easy for you to say when you’re still walking around, on two legs I might add, with all your senses working just fine and your skeleton intact.” Lian started, venom dripping from his words.

Goomy shrunk in on himself, trying to look as small as possible knowing this was going to turn ugly.

“But some of us have to face the indignities of not even being able to get out of our beds or homes without assistance. Do you know that when I have to relieve myself I need to have Paulina carry me away and bring me back? So don’t lecture me on what I should be doing when you had it easy!”

Dawn stared at him in stunned silence. He wasn’t sure if his rebuke had sounded as poignant as he intended or if he had sounded petulant to her.

“I had it easy? My mom and my friends don’t know where I am and probably think I’m dead and I’ll never get to see them again!”

Lian knew he screwed up. His anger quickly fizzled away and was replaced by an uneasy regret, but Dawn wasn’t finished yet.

“The Galaxy Team decided that I had to risk my life to save your Nobles and people still think that I’m to blame for all this! Do you think I can just mope around in my room? No, I have to work my butt off every single day if I don’t want to be left to fend for myself in the wilderness! And I've got to do all of this while knowing I’m never going to go home and I don’t even get to be a human!”

Dawn stood there with her hands balled into fists and shaking, looking like she was about to cry.

If Lian thought his ire was palpable, her rage could have incinerated him on the spot. He wanted nothing more than retreat into his shell to hide in shame.

“I’m not going to stand here and argue with you over which of us has it worse. But don’t you dare tell me I had it easy!” Her voice cracked as she finished her tirade.

Lian struggled to find the words that could properly express the guilt prickling at him. How could he have said something so blatantly disrespectful to the girl that had calmed his Lord and scoured Hisui for gifts to cheer him up? It was several agonizingly long minutes before he found the ability to speak again.

“I’ve allowed my frustrations to get the better of me and I spoke out of turn. You have my sincerest apologies for such unwarranted hostility.”

The mechanical sounding apology seemed horribly inadequate and Dawn remained impassive. He made a point of turning his face towards her to create the illusion he was looking her in the eye.

“I lost my mother too, several years ago. I understand what it’s like knowing you’ll never see someone again.” He pulled down the brim of his hat. “I’m sorry.”

Dawn sniffed and wiped at her eyes with the back of her paw as she sat back down. “Neither of us wants things to be this way, but they are and there’s nothing we can do about that. Why don’t we focus on what we can change?”

She opted not to mention her studies with Volo into the myths of Hisui’s legendary hero or both of their search for the plates. The merchant believed something similar happened long ago and the plates held the solution to Hisui’s current predicament. While Volo was convinced and Dawn was inclined to trust his judgment, she remained cautiously optimistic without much else to go off of. She didn’t want to get Lian’s hopes up in case that didn’t pan out.

“What would you have me do?” Lian asked.

Goomy squeaked for his trainer’s attention and drew itself up as tall as possible, swaying slightly before tucking his head down and performing the slowest somersault one could imagine.

Lian understood what he was suggesting. He had seen sliggoos rolling on the sides of their shells like a wheel as their primary means of traversal. It was such a bizarre form of locomotion and seemed so disorientating. How were you supposed to stop or steer?

“That’s a great idea Goomy!” Dawn agreed with his partner. “Lian, why don’t we spend the rest of the day figuring out how you can roll around? It would probably help you feel better about yourself.”

Previously, he would immediately shut down at the idea whenever he considered his mobility needs, a sheer gut punch refusal to entertain the notion. But he needed some way to get around. What other choice did he have? Besides, wardens don’t sulk.

He let out a beleaguered sigh. “Sure, might as well roll down to Avalugg’s Legacy. That seems like a productive way to spend the afternoon.”

“I’m just trying to help...” Dawn looked away, hurt in her voice.

“I-I wasn’t being sarcastic!” he clarified. “I appreciate your help and I truly am sorry for acting like such an ingrate.”

She cheered up immediately. “That’s okay!”

The dewott girl marched over to the door and swung it open, a gust of cold air sweeping through the room.

Wait, right now?

“Don’t worry, you’ve got this!” Dawn grinned as she gave the thumbs up with both hands.

Now wasn’t the time to get cold feet. Taking a deep breath to calm his nerves, he gripped the edge of his shell and hoisted himself upright in one motion, balancing precariously on his side.

Lian had no idea what to do next and remained there, paralyzed by indecision until he felt himself starting to tip over. He gave an alarmed shout and flailed uselessly before Dawn and Goomy rushed over to catch his fall, Dawn straining under the weight as she tried to push him over with her back and shoulder.

It was clear he couldn’t balance on his side and he needed momentum, so he withdrew into his shell and took a guess, throwing himself against the inside of the shell to roll forward. He moved forward slightly, and feeling encouraged, tried again.

He started to pick up momentum as he rolled towards the door, the weight lifted off of Dawn and Goomy. He felt like he was starting to get the hang of it as he tried to time his forward pitches, his friends cheering as he gained speed. With an air of confidence, Lian rolled straight out the door and into the frigid afternoon air of the camp. As the winding path through the settlement and tents dotting the hill stood before him, he realized his mistake.

The boy panicked as he slowly rolled over the crest of the hill with no way to stop or slow down. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion at the precipice and gave him plenty of time to understand what was going to happen next. One moment he was barely moving, then all at once his heart plunged as he rapidly gained speed and was sent barreling through the camp.

Lian shouted as hard as he could to warn anyone that might be in his path, his voice echoing inside his shell deafeningly. Pearl Clan members in various stages of metamorphosis looked up from what they were doing, eyes widening in alarm and diving out of the way of the steel juggernaut heading their way.

More voices joined in the panicked shouting as he smashed through a water barrel and a clothes line, scattering clean laundry to the wind. It barely even slowed him down as he whirled past clans folk exiting their tents to see what the commotion was.

His brain was swiftly processing every bump and dip in the terrain, but he had no idea what to do with it. There was no way he’d be able to follow the footpath that wound back and forth, instead his route to the camp’s exit would take him over several harsh drops and dangerously close to many people’s tents.

Experimentally, he tried to lean to the side to turn. When that threatened to tip him over, he over corrected and added a dangerous wobble to his trajectory, swerving wildly back and forth.

The pandemonium went unnoticed by a snorunt boy only a few years older than him who was preoccupied with chopping firewood. A bolt of panic went through him and he screamed at the top of his lungs for him to get out of the way, terrified his warning wouldn’t be heeded in time.

The kid looked up and dropped his axe before throwing himself against his tent, just barely clipped by the five hundred pound armoured wheel barreling past him. The kid screamed as they narrowly avoided being flattened.

The spike in adrenaline from the close call caused something to shift in Lian’s brain, some pathway that was previously closed was now open. Lian gasped as claws raked through his mind like those of a Fox, or something equally as angry and spiteful. They gripped and dug into him to tear him away from his body, to leave something else at the helm.

The world faded away as those claws dragged him down, made him small and rendered him a passenger in his own mind. Lian tried to scream but no sound came out, his voice and psyche swallowed up by the darkness.

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It all made sense now. He knew exactly how far to lean in order to turn, how to compensate for every irregularity in the terrain. How to work with the momentum and how he could stop on a dime. His shell wasn’t a ball and chain restraining him, it was freedom, it was movement itself. Just as his legs had been before, his shell was a natural extension of himself; a self-contained world, a shelter, a shield and a weapon.

With his mastery, he’d see prey driven before him. Unable to escape in time before he chased them down, painful squeals as their bones cracked, bursting open and steam rising from the entrails as they were crushed. Delicious meat would spill out onto the ground then he and his odd pack would feast.

His kind were not avid hunters, typically feeding on plant matter and carcasses left behind by other predators. But he was no ordinary sliggoo, he was part of a pack of alphas, larger and more voracious than other members of their species.

He’d learn to hunt and hone his skills as a predator to prove he deserved his place amongst them. Dragging back the large kills dripping with viscera would show everyone that he wasn’t a runt that constantly needed to be looked after. Tearing and battering, he’d bloody himself fending off their rivals as many times as he needed to until they never looked down on him again.

And he’d do it because he loved them.

Because he wanted to provide for his kin, to be able to protect them when needed. His body flushed with warmth at the thought of his pack feeding from his kills, growing stronger from the meat together.

And he’d do it to the impress her.

The mighty huntress whose prowess in combat dwarfed that of even the Nobles. A warrior that presided over an enormous pack that brought so many alphas to heel and a roaming territory that spanned all of Hisui.

As he matured into a proper alpha, he would approach her looking to be accepted as her mate. Already she had brought gifts for him to decorate his nest; she was considering him as a potential suitor, he was sure of it.

They were both juveniles, but had already proven so much to their respective packs. Fearless, they defied expectations and met challenges their contemporaries shied away from, ascending the ranks.

What had he done again? It didn’t matter; he would kill and kill again until everyone had their fill, then he would start his courtship.

He would need to bring an appropriate gift to demonstrate his caliber as a mate; fresh meat from a hunt would display his aptitude as a predator and show he was worthy of being consort.

He could start with the dewott that had wandered into their territory...

“WATCH OUT!”

The shout from the Survey Corps girl snapped Lian back to reality, with such alien, animalistic thoughts already fading from memory and leaving a cold uneasy dread in their place.

He had no time to ponder what happened as he was still steamrolling through the camp, now on a collision course with Gaeric’s tent.

The frozen obelisk was fast approaching, the boy rattling inside his shell with the ground becoming more uneven. Lian remained petrified as he rocketed over a large bump and he was suddenly launched airborne. He helplessly sailed through the air like a shot put, spinning head over tail as he braced for impact.

He ricocheted off the pillar of ice with a loud clang and landed hard some distance away on the packed snow, the crash knocking the wind out of him.

Dawn trotted down the slope towards the crowd that had gathered, carrying Goomy in front of her with two paws.

“-ian! Lian, are you alright?”

He was still too dazed to process what she was saying and was busy trying to understand the strange gap in his memory. There was an odd jump where one moment he was on the foot path towards the camp’s entrance, then the next he was careening towards the ice chrysalis.

“Lian?”

Right, he needed to answer her.

“I’m okay. It just stunned me.”

“No kidding! You got quite a bit of hang time!” she exclaimed, setting Goomy down beside her.

All things considered, Lian supposed that could have gone much worse. Already he was thinking of what he could have done better. The boy turned sliggoo now had some understanding of what proper direction and movement would entail, more than his practice session alone could have taught him.

Deep down, Lian knew that if he looked inside himself he’d find all the information he needed. His body would no longer feel like a stranger to him and he would be free to use any move he had at his disposal. Everything about being a sliggoo would become second nature.

Such a deal would come at a terrible cost, one he’d never willingly accept, but Lian was beginning to suspect that he frankly didn’t have a choice in the matter.

There was a loud crack that rang through the camp that sounded like an ice sheet breaking. Lian and the rest of the Pearl Clan immediately went on the alert, always vigilant for such a sound as it signalled the possibility of an avalanche.

The mountains surrounding the camp and their slopes were shaped in such a way that they usually directed avalanches away from the settlement, having been sculpted by a Noble Avalugg long ago. The camp was not at risk of being buried, but even the small ones that came down the settlement’s side could be dangerous.

The gathered clan members were trying to locate the source as they rounded up children and elders, prepared to evacuate them to safety until a girl with buneary ears shouted “Look!” pointing to a large fracture in the ice encasing Gaeric’s tent.

D-did... did I do that?

As the minutes crawled by, more tiny cracks spread out and bits of ice chipped and broke off. Though a slow process, the shards that fell off melted supernaturally fast, gone in a matter of seconds.

Any thought of spending the afternoon on practice was long gone as the Pearl Clan gathered, barely daring to breathe as they waited to see what emerged.

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“It has trouble drawing a line between friends and food. It will calmly try to melt and eat even those it gets along well with.”

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