#hello happy belated spooky month have more chandelure head ingo

[randomwriteronline]

Iscan is worried about Melli.

He knows logically that Adaman and Mai are worried about him too, but they think he’s just being himself again - they think what he fears might have finally happened, that this is simply how he is; he fears he has managed at last to bury the original under a coat of heavy paint and made everyone forget that timid personality he grew to detest so much all of a sudden.

Iscan is not fooled by his flamboyantly carved mask, because he is older and kind, and wears his fears on his sleeve, and sometimes that is enough for some people to cuddle up to him and free themselves from the scripts of whatever play they are performing without rest.

So he goes to the Highlands despite the vicious Pokémon that haunt them.

Melli welcomes him with a face that is honestly surprised, hands playing anxiously with his long hair as he sputters about not having prepared anything for a visitor since nobody ever comes to see him - Iscan smiles kindly and assures him it’s alright, that it’s on him as he did not warn at all; he offers to help make supper and Melli’s shoulders lower, his smiles turns softer, his fingers stop pulling his hair and begin combing through it: there he is, Iscan thinks when he sees in his face something that isn’t practiced scorn or that strange hazy distance he’s had for a while now.

They forage a little before they can cook, and they talk. Melli speaks a lot, because he doesn’t get anybody who wants to listen to him except Lord Electrode or Skuntank, or the Zubat that followed him home, or the Skorupi brought to the settlement by accident; Iscan listens, happy to let him unwind and searching in his ramblings a reason for his recent peculiar moods.

Even at dinner, after rushing back in his hut before the Ghost Pokémon can come out, he feels like there’s something the other warden is purposefully avoiding to tell him, skirting around it over and over.

Then Melli leaves, quietly, in the middle of the night, when he thinks his absence won’t be noticed.

Iscan stirs from his pretend sleep and wills his nerves steady as he follows.

The walk down wherever they’re going is fortunately a slope, and is unfortunately littered with Ghosts. Iscan is immensely glad that Melli avoids the graveyard just next to Moonview Arena, where Mismagius and Misdreavus gather to howl at the dark new moon sky, instead treading carefully the rocky line of land that separates Stonetooth Rows from the small plateau in which Chinglings and Rhydons sleep. He watches the younger man slide down a steep rock wall, hissing and struggling before he falls on the cliff below (he had begun walking strangely, like his lower back and knees hurt, and his hands were covered in scabs and callouses, Iscan remembers) and moves on.

The older warden tiptoes his way to a slower, safer descent down a few tall steps of rock. It leads him further away, but there is tall grass in which to hide, and he can see very well from here how Melli reaches - through another half-fall - the other end of the spring, near a tree.

Then, as he tries to approach quietly, crawling his way around the small body of water strangely devoid of any critters, he hears Melli start to sing.

The first instinct Iscan has is to throw all caution to the wind, rush to him, and hush him. Sinnoh knows what Pokémon might hear him and make ribbons out of him for bothering them so late at night.

But a light appears suddenly, and a voice sings with him.

It’s a heavenly voice, as thin as the mountain air, as precious as a wind chime made of nacre seashells, as powerful as an earthquake, reaching for his snow pale cheeks like a caress. Melli turns to its source - there is a strange expression on his face, clearer and clearer the closer Iscan comes to him, a sort of gasp, a reverence: it carries a shyness reminiscent of when he was a kid, and the vaguest hint of an awestruck smile as his hands twist one another on his chest.

The light sways gently, purple flames licking the cold air as they escape an iridescent shell that almost resembles a lantern. Under their impossible glow near lilac hands stretch outward, towards the mesmerized warden, to catch him in them, to cup him in them, as he gazes at the figure transfixed, seeming completely out of himself.

Dull eyes of a burning yellow turn away from the young man with sudden alarm, sewn mouth interrupting its unknown song as the whisper of a flute distracts it.

Lord Basculegion appears from the waterfall with a terrifying leap, the souls composing his tail burning red against the dark sky and beady crimson eyes fixing on the Ghost with a growling fury.

The flames shoot upwards, bring their purple glow into the stratosphere as the Wave Crash falls upon them with a sharp sound: the dead hand reach for Melli, grab him, and he disappears in an instant before the impact send stripes of rust to the ground, writhing and shaking as if in pain.

Iscan bolts to where the young man stood, horror overtaking him - the stripes move again, and he realizes there’s a body under there, there’s a shape to the darkness that he had not recognized under the near pitch black color, a shape struggling to pull itself back up on its trembling arm and leg, and Melli is still under it Sinnoh bless him, confused and curled on himself and starting to say something before his voice is drowned by a howling chime coming from far above him viciously hurling a Shadow Ball that sinks into the water when Basculegion evades it.

Iscan calls for him, and the shape covers him again, leg of black climbing over him and trying to pull itself upright. For a moment he thinks the face is the white squre jutting out of the dark folds, now exposed as it turns to him, attempts to stand on its unsteady limbs, but there are no eyes, no nose, no mouth: and the shape reveals itself to be almost human despite the floaty mane that falls on its back and folds at its neck - despite the absence of a neck.

Of a head.

It feels almost like cloth under his fingers, like there’s flesh under it when he pushes the apparition away with little to no effort despite his terror. Melli says something, with a face pale and eyes wide like he’s out of himself, reaches out for the collapsing body as the older warden grabs him and makes a run for the water, jumping on Basculegion - the iridescent shell housing the flames hurries away, back to its anthropomorphic vessel, shrieking in what seems to be worry -

- the drop down the waterfall ends in a minute splash, much quieter than anybody would expect.

Melli remains immoble in Iscan’s iron grip, completely clammed up.

He doesn’t speak as he wobbles back to his hut behind Iscan, nor does he speak the whole morning after, air coated in unspoken tension and nervousness as the older man quiet checks to see if he is fully within his own mind - if he hasn’t been charmed, or hypnotized, or turned into a husk to puppet around.

He cannot make heads or tails of his situation.

But Adaman comes in a little later to accompany Iscan back to the Coastlands, because there is a mass outbreak across the Highlands and the man is not used to battling his way through hordes of Pokémon, and he only rolls his eyes at Melli’s usual despondency and pomp masking the glaze in his look as he waves while he descends the mountain with the other warden.

Completely missing how the thin body is strangely closed in on himself.

Iscan is worried about Melli.

(What Iscan cannot know is that the hellish flames will come to Melli’s doorstep the next night, singing with their otherwordly voice, and he will let them in.)

#pokémon #pokemon legends arceus #warden iscan #warden melli #submas ingo #chandelure #random writing #hello happy belated spooky month have more chandelure head ingo #melli has been Bewitched by the very sheepish ghost witha a lanter for head #iscan shits his pants and saves him #ingo gets fucking SMACKED #iscan (genuinely worried): are you ok??? did the ghost bewitch you????????? #melli (who might have. A Variety of feelings platonic or not for the singing ghost with a burning glass head): uhm. #melli and iscan are friends bc iscan is the only guy who can see through mellis bullshit and also hes the best man in the world