Changing Larvesta
A short story that I wrote for the "Changing Seasons" contest on Agn.ph, and is also my first clean story, when I think about it. A Larvesta makes a long journey, heading out on a trip that his kind has made for countless generations.
Days pass. Everything outside is silent, the only noise that of the quiet, almost unheard, subtle bubbling of the lava deep within the cave.
The snow floats down, the powdery white flakes lazily settling on the ground. It falls slowly, yet heavily, coating the trees and grass in minutes. It keeps falling, casting a chill over everything, keeping the warm-blooded Pokémon huddled away in their dens. Those that could fly had long since flown to warmer climates. The Pidgey, the Starly, the Spearow, all of them had already migrated to avoid the imminent snowfall, clearing the area.
Those that couldn't fly, or would rather stay behind for their own reasons, hunkered underground, burying themselves after gorging on grub to get plump. Nice and fat, they settle in for the winter. The snow seems to block all sound, the occasional crunch breaking the serene blanket of white as a soft-footed but stocky Pokémon pads through on his way to wherever he is headed.
It's time.
The snow is deep, and he has put it off for too long by now. It is time for him to prepare, long overdue for his own special brand of hibernation. He walks across the top of the snow, the mild heat his body puts off enough to melt down a few inches, causing him to tread in a puddle. The cold is intense, refreezing the water back into ice as he walks on, leaving a clear trail through the snow marking his path.
He makes his way further north, following the instinctual path his kind has followed for generations, engrained in his very DNA. He never tires, walking the miles to his homeland, back to where he was born. Where he hatched. One day turns into two, two into four, and still he trudges on, the air getting colder and colder as he heads ever north, into the mountains, yet still he trudges on. A week goes by as he walks on, drawing nearer to his destination. Finally, the bug Pokémon reaches the cave of his ancestral homeland, only to find that he is, in fact, terribly late.
Looking around at the other Larvesta already hanging up, he gets restless. He should have left earlier, but he got held up. He's arrived, though, and better to be late, than stuck when the big freeze hits. This far north of the Sinnoh region, the winters are brutal. Nothing survives. Not even the evergreens. Everything green is hibernating, gone to sleep to await the warmth of spring when they can burst from the ground and grow. For now, they wait.
Just as he must wait. He doesn't know why. Only that he must. Just one more thing engrained in his DNA that he follows without question. He's the last to arrive, and he's eager to get started. Eager to catch up with his brothers and sisters.
The Larvesta climbs up the walls, clinging to the rough stone to make his way to the top. When he reaches the top, he clings to the opening, ejecting a string shot attack, affixing the incredibly special thread to the rock. He can only make it once in his life, and he only has enough of the fireproof string to hang himself up with it. Turning upside down, he affixes it to his thorax. Once suspended, he relaxes, letting his horns erupt with fire, the flames blazing intensely, quickly consuming the Larvesta in the glow. It swirls around him, the mixtures of oranges and blues quickly blurring together to form a fiery cocoon.
As it engulfs him, he lets it take over, giving in to the loving embrace of the fire that has no intention of doing him any harm. He knows instinctually that it is a good fire. A cleansing fire. A changing fire. It finally settles, covering his whole body with the living flame. It crawls up the special thread, the first of the many, many layers catching alight.
He settles in for the long wait, knowing this will take time.
Around him, the snow still falls, piling up into drifts to stack against the outside of the cave, reaching and covering the bottommost branches of the evergreens dotting the land as far as the eye can see, especially from his vantage point, not that he is able to see anything from inside his enclosure.
The snow is unable to penetrate very far into the cave. The chosen cave is a very special one, chosen specifically for the hidden pool deep in the recesses of the cave. The warm air wafts out of the entrance, heated by the lava deep inside. This heat is important to the life cycle of the Larvesta hanging up. Without the much needed heat it provides, they would quickly get very ill, unable to complete their change. As the snow piles up outside, the different bug-type Pokémon nice and snug inside their cocoons, settle in for the long winter.
Days pass in a blur, the snow coming down near consistently. The snow is relentless, falling without any signs of stopping for weeks on end. Despite the near constant blizzards, the heavy, all-encompassing fire surrounding the Larvesta protects them from the horrible chill seeping into everything. Any snow that happens to fall on the cocoon melt immediately, sizzling with the impact.
As the days transition into weeks, the snow does eventually have to let up, stopping suddenly one day. Seeming like the sky had given up at that point, it clears, having finished blanketing everything with its' pure whiteness. It's not long afterwards, after the sky is empty, that it started to shine. With nothing to block it, the sun shines freely, bathing everything in its' warm, golden brilliance.
With nothing blocking the sun, it quickly heats up, the snow getting that liquid sheen to it that can only come from repeated melting and refreezing. The sun rises and falls with clockwork precision, as it is ought to do, causing the mornings and days to melt the snow, inches at a time, all while the Larvesta continue slumber on.
As the snow level falls, the air gets warmer in contrast, still leaving the ground beneath unbearably frigid. Within a few weeks, Spring breaks through, and the snow melts away, clearing the open fields and the mountains, the water flowing through the valley to follow the path it has followed for generations.
Once the water flows away, the only thing left behind is a muddy wasteland. The sun beats down, turning the barren wasteland into a fertile field, ripe and ready to grow. And grow it does, right along with the slumbering Larvesta, twitching and changing inside their temporary homes. Anxious to break free, they can only wait still, unable to watch as Spring unfolds around them, the world continuing while they undergo their transformations. From beneath the soil, the flowers and grass erupt. Spreading around the recently empty fields; all along the rolling hills, color spreads. Tulips and roses. Daisies and orchids. Lilac and golden rod. Lavender and snapdragon. Clover and dandelions. Dozens of different flowers and weeds alike, bursting forth and covering the ground like wildfire, spreading almost as fast as the living fire had to form the flame cocoons.
As quickly as everything forms, it all blooms just as quickly. Flowers crack open. Vivid blues and reds, yellows and violets, indigos and oranges, and every color in between unfolding to soak up the sun's rays. When the flowers awaken, that gives off the sign for those sleeping in their dens to rise. Ready to take on the new year. They feel this inside their prisons, unable to join the outside world yet. Still changing, still transforming, still growing up. Their bodies melting. Reforming. Changing.
All winter, huddled together for warmth, they emerge. All the hidden Pokémon coming out for the year, hungry and in search of food. Food and warmth. Basking in the sun, most find it. Others, seeking food as the more important resource, seek out the berry bushes that survived the cold snap and subsequent flooding. Days pass. Legs form. Weeks pass. Heads form. Eyes forming soon after.
As they grow, stirring inside, the small Pokémon, and smaller animals scurry around, going about their daily lives once more.
The time has arrived. Spring is at an end. The days have only been growing hotter. Only been growing longer. It's the Summer Solstice. What better time for the Sun Pokémon to emerge than the day with the longest sun?
Fractures emerge in the living, roiling flame of the cocoons, random cracks spreading over the surface. In a brilliant display of color, the outer layer shatters. The embers drift to the ground, winking out of existence before they can reach the dirt. From within, they burst forth, leaving their self-made prison to join the summer heat.
The last to arrive, is the first to escape. Breaking out of his cocoon. Wings unfolding, they spread out, the six wings opening to the outside air for the first time in months.
They give a shake; the intense heat the thin membranes give off drying up any moisture nearby almost immediately. The only thing affixing them to the rock of their ancestral home snaps, one by one as they start wiggling, bouncing up and down on the thin string, the last layer of the special thread burning through. As they fall, they catch themselves, flapping their wings to right themselves in the air. The lava colored wings leave trails in the air, blurring afterimages from the heat as they take to the sky. Embers fall the ground with each flap of their wings, turning the grass black where it touches. Flying in different directions, they all head their separate ways, flying over the fields of green with streaks of fire in their wake.