MINE IS THE FURY - 1
A story about cubones and marowaks from their own perspective, a pokemon journey for a pokemon, set before Red and Blue.
The day he was born was hot in the high, dusty mountains of Kanto's eastern shore. Not a single cloud graced the arching blue vault above the boneyard. Here the Guyi gathered to care for their eggs amid the sacred bones of their ancestors. Of course, the humans of Kanto had other names for the Guyi. They called them by the noises of their cries, "cubone" for the smaller and "marowak" for the bigger, but this was not what they called themselves. Humans had yet to discover how to glean this information from the Guyi.
On this day, there were seven eggs and the parents, both greater Guyi and lesser, had arranged skulls of their own ancestors around the eggs. His egg was beneath an overhang, his single parent, his mother, arranged his father's skull on the left with exacting care. The journey to the boneyard had been difficult with both her mate's skull and her egg, but if their child hatched male, she hoped he would pick his father's skull. If he could not offer guidance in life, perhaps he would in death. On the egg's other side she had placed her great-grandmother's skull. The old Guyi had lived a full life and would have much wisdom to impart if the egg hatched female.
The mother looked out from under the shade of the overhang at the bleached bones of the thousands of Guyi who had come here to die or had their precious skulls brought by any who found them about Kanto. The day was too hot for her liking and she withdrew again. She was thinking of going to one of the cave pools to drink when she heard the faint crack of eggshell behind her. She turned in a hurry and drew her tail around the egg to keep it from tipping over and rolling into the harsh sunlight. She could not otherwise interfere. Hatching unaided was a Gu's first trial. It was her first and she was nearly overwhelmed by her desire to reach out her clever paws and prise the shell fragments aside but the whispering voice of her great-aunt's skull over her own head told her to check that feeling.
_'The egg must be strong enough to hatch unaided. Do not bring your child lasting shame by emotional weakness. Trust.'_said the skull.
His mother dug her paws into the gravelly ground and watched.
Pieces of shell were soon kicked out by energetic feet and hands, and soon her child emerged into the world, laying in the shards of his egg and covered with the sticky fluids that had nourished him. His mother licked him clean and on checking what she took to be his sex, nudged his awkward, clumsy body towards her grandmother's skull. Her child bumped into it and made a_qu!_ of objection. The translucent skin over his half formed inner skull rippled with displeasure and he fumbled his way from the skull, at first aiming for his father's skull, then seeming to change his mind.
His mother watched with growing concern as her child rejected both skulls and started to make his awkward, tumbling way over the gravel towards the piles of bone. Guyi separated the skulls by gender, placing the female ones on the eastern wall of the valley and the males on the western wall. This they had always done and not even the voices of the ancestors inside the skulls could remember when it had started. The mother Guyi followed in concern, fighting to hold back her fear and maternal desire to stop her child from entering the harsh sunlight. This was the most important choice any Guyi ever made. The skull they chose would be their mentor and guide, their closest companion and confidante.
But when her child screamed a pained _quuu! i_n the scorching light she nearly dishonoured them both by rushing over like some absurd Kangaskhan. It took all her self disciple to walk quietly in his wake. He would come to his senses, turn around and pick up his great-grandmother's skull like a good girl should.
But he didn't. After his first scream, he did not make a sound. The sun burned his translucent skin, she could see his blood vessels pulsing with his exertion and he pushed his tiny body further and further to the north wall of the valley, baked all day in summer until the air danced off the rocks in a watery frenzy.
The mother Guyi turned to her great-aunt's voice in desperate need of some direction.
'What should I do?! She's going the wrong way!'
'I don't know ... '
The mother was horrified as she followed her child. The ancestral voice in the skull she wore over her own head had always known, having the instructions and guidance of her own ancestors before her, and they theirs. It was how it had always been.
'Perhaps there is some way you can turn her to the skulls of our mothers without interrupting this time?' never had her great-aunt's voice sounded so worried. The mother paced ahead of her child and blocked his way gently. Her child stumbled under her belly and kept his course.
By now the other parent Guyi were watching with growing fear. This egg had clearly hatched mad or deformed in some terrible unseen way. None wanted to see the little one die before even reaching the skull that called it so powerfully.
It seemed an eternity before suddenly the mother saw what her child struggled towards. A skull half buried in a landslide ancient beyond counting. The dry summer had loosened the soil and stone so much it had fallen away from this skull, revealing the hard ear horn. The child scrambled faster, cutting his burnt paws on the scree as he clawed through it. Enough of the skull's hollow was revealed that he plunged his head into the blessed, blessed shade and sagged, bleeding and sunburnt. His mother's shrill scream bounced off the valley walls, up to the merciless sun.