Post by thecurtain on Oct 31, 2011 11:35:32 GMT -5
It was said, often with pride, that there were two ways to get out of Cherrygrove Orphanage: Either you were adopted, or you were chosen to go on a Pokemon journey. Which was more difficult to accomplish depended on whom you asked. The younger you were, of course, the easier time you had with the former; babies were snatched up in an instant, and cute younger children with golden curls and rosy cheeks almost as quickly. And, as logically, the older and more mature you became, the more seriously you were considered by Professor Elm, in his annual visits, to be chosen as the recipient of a Pokemon companion and venture out into the world on your own.
As years came and went, the children of the orphanage--quietly, and behind the shields of hands--began joking that there was another way to get out of the orphanage: wrapped up in a sheet and carted out in a long wooden box. But those that weren’t quiet enough about their joking often found themselves on the floor, against the wall, and in serious need of medical attention.
The girl had never been cute, or so the rumors went. Her blood-red hair didn’t lend itself to being curled into pigtails, and any dimples that once might have considered taking up residence on her cheeks were soon scared off with a mere scowl. She was one of those children who was dropped off at the orphanage’s door one gloomy, cold night wrapped in insufficient blankets and crying into the wind with no one to hear. It was said that that was the last time she’d ever cried. Her bad attitude had gained a reputation ever since.
She would never be adopted, according to the staff as they sat around the fire some nights chatting over tea--or, for those who had been dealing with the girl recently, something stronger. And even if the girl hadn’t snuck out of bed to listen to them gossip and maybe try and snag some of that stronger stuff, she’d have figured it out sooner or later. As she grew older, she was mean, and sullen, and manipulative of the younger children. And she was violent.
But she was seven, and what could the staff do? Kick her out? They tried punishing her, but the girl soon discovered her willingness to cause trouble far exceeded their willingness to discipline her. She hit puberty, and things got even worse. Her violence gained direction, purpose, vehemence. She was bitter, already, hating their trying to control her, hating their pandering, their attempts at appeasing her. She raged against them, occasionally with minions tied to her with fearful bonds, but usually alone. No amount of time-outs or isolated seclusions or withholding of privileges had any effect. She simply didn’t care, and spent her alone time plotting better ways to make their lives as miserable as they made hers.
She only began regretting it all at the age of nine, when she became aware of Professor Elm’s visits.
It wasn’t that she was terribly interested in setting out on a Pokemon journey. She was way too good for that, she often thought to herself; she was destined for greater things. Better things. More important, powerful things.
But it would get her out of here, and she wanted that more than anything.
She began attempting to be nice. She stopped flinging her food back at the cook whenever she found too many vegetables on her plate. She stopped grabbing other children in the hallway just to terrorize them. She allowed the nurse to give her a flu shot and only flinched involuntarily. She stayed silent at lessons and actually did her work once or twice a week.
The orphanage employees began to fear that this was just her latest horrible scheme to make their lives a living hell. The alcohol bill at the place doubled that year.
But then she was ten, and eligible to be chosen by the Professor, and it was simply too late. You had to be nominated for the selection, and none would dare do so. The following year, through clenched teeth, she stayed behind to tell her teacher she was interested.
They laughed about it that night around the fire, and once again the girl sat through the selection ceremony on the sidelines, her name never having once been considered.
She was fed up.
For their transgressions, the girl redoubled her efforts. Gone was that façade of pleasantness; it was too late to work on them, and she was sick of showing them weakness. If they weren’t going to help her get out, she would find some other way. In the meantime, she’d make them wish they’d chosen her, if just to be rid of her.
---
The girl was fourteen, which meant she had sat through four Pokemon journey selection ceremonies, and four times she had watched her increasingly younger peers get chosen above her. She wanted this. She coveted it. But it was out of her reach, out of her scope of acceptable behavior to try to achieve. And anyway, all her efforts had proven futile.
She was sick of watching. By now, she was one of the eldest children at the orphanage, and she had been here the longest. She had caused twenty-three employees to leave their posts, four explosions, more than forty broken bones (only two her own), and the liquor store down the street to offer the orphanage a special discount for valued customers. She was sure they wanted her out as much as she wanted to leave, but keeping her here was their only successful punishment, and it was ruining all of them.
Aside from the adoption of a child, the selection ceremony was the most officious occasion the orphanage had, and aside from crashing it, which she had considered, the girl figured the worst thing she could do to them was not attend.
With them all so busy it was laughably easy to sneak away. She even swiped a pair of peanut butter sandwiches without any difficulty on her way out and stuffed them along with a jacket and a few other things into a small bag. She had few possessions and no money; the jacket was standard issue, and the bag she had swiped from a pretty little thing right before she’d been adopted about two weeks ago. Served her ass right.
She slipped out into the cool, early spring air, enjoying the feel of the chill on her arms too much to pull out her jacket this soon. If she didn’t look behind her, she could imagine for a moment that she was free from that place, just walking away like nothing had her tied down. If she didn’t look behind her, she could imagine the ceremony was not happening, that she had not been rejected now five times. If she didn’t look behind her, she could walk more securely in the words she thought to appease herself: that she was way too good for this place, that she had greater aspirations than to be adopted by shitty infertile parents or old codgers, or to be shipped off on some grand bullshit journey by some other old fart. Somewhere out there, there was a spot for her--no, not a spot, a line, a line that started somewhere and led up and up forever. Somewhere out there, she could be valued and wanted for being herself.
With enough distance between her and her prison, she stopped on a grassy bank under some trees and tucked her orphanage-issued skirt under herself. She took her first sandwich in hand but didn’t eat it right away. She had the freedom to wait, to watch the slow run of the stream past her feet instead. Rather than finding it calming, she felt enticed by the free flow of the water, heading in whatever direction for which it was best suited. She envied it, deeply, just as she envied those who had left the orphanage by those two standard means.
It made her angry to think about, and she pulled up on her sandwich to take a large, wrathful bite, but something pulled back.
She glanced down, too surprised at that moment to be angry. Nibbling at the sandwich as if it had been bait was a small blue creature with tufts of leaves sprouting from the top of its head. An Oddish, she remembered, from the year she had managed to pay attention to her lessons. Were they usually this bold?
Her shock didn’t last long, and she tried to yank the sandwich away from the thing, but it held on with a surprisingly tenacious grip of its jaws, and when it looked up at her, it was with stubborn eyes.
They were familiar eyes. Her mirror had the same ones.
“Ugh. It’s ruined, anyway,” the girl grumbled dismissively. She let go. The Oddish staggered a bit but maintained its footing and quickly gobbled up the rest of the sandwich. She took care to keep the other out of its reach while she ate it. Since she hadn’t thought to bring a drink along, the peanut butter sat in her throat, and she continued to swallow at it long after the sandwich was gone. The Oddish simply hopped over to the stream and drank from it. The girl made a face. It didn’t look all that clean, to her.
She was still hungry, but that was all the food she’d brought with her, and she wasn’t about to go back, not now, with the ceremony still in full swing. The Oddish eventually wandered back over to her, blinking brighter, more nourished eyes, and she glared at it.
“I don’t have any more food, you little shit,” she snapped at it. It blinked in response, making her scowl deepen.
“That’s it!” She threw up her hands, as if threatening it subtly with bodily harm. “No more! Now get lost! I came out here to be by myself!”
It blinked again, and edged closer. Oh what the absolute hell.
“I said scram! Beat it!”
No response.
Face scrunching up in growing fury, she finally lashed out at it, catching its small form with the back of her hand. Emitting a small, pathetic noise, it bounced away like a rubber ball across the grass and rolled to a stop against the nearest tree trunk. There. That should teach it.
The girl stood and gathered her bag. This was probably its territory or something. Not that she cared, but she didn’t want it bothering her, so she’d find somewhere else to sit and wait out the ceremony. While the little blue thing lay still in the grass, she walked on, slipping on her jacket to huddle in its questionable warmth.
“Fucking piece of shit Pokemon,” she muttered under her breath. “What, can’t find yer own damn food? I’m hungry too!”
The vehemence with which she spoke seemed to make the trees and grass wilt around her as she stomped through the trees, not thick enough to be called woods, but not sparse enough to be called a field. She stopped, briefly, crushing grass and early spring flowers underfoot as she looked around to try and find a good direction in which to walk. That over there looked better, thicker with trees and therefore with more cover. She took one step in that direction and found her other foot hindered by a tug on her ankle.
“Oh fuck you,” she snapped, turning to find the Oddish clinging to her loose socks with its teeth. “Fuck you! Fuck you!” she raged, trying to stay balanced as she shook her foot out. “You stupid. Piece. Of shit!” She punctuated each fragment of a sentence with another kick of her leg but just couldn’t seem to dislodge the creature.
As she paused to catch her breath and regain her balance, the Oddish made a noise at her. She couldn’t tell if it was a whimper or a growl or, if in between, where it fell on the scale, but either way it wouldn’t let go. Finally, she grasped it by the roots of the ridiculous leaves on its ridiculous head and yanked. With a cry she felt sure was of pain, it let go, and she flung it like a turnip as far away from her as she could. How she missed all those trees that could have broken its trajectory she had no idea, but then she didn’t really care. That would teach it to follow her.
Her stomping became more vehement and less concerned about direction as she left that place, fists clenched in impatience. She’d had enough of this. But surely that was sufficient to get it to leave her alone. Chucking a kid across the hall was usually her last resort, but it had a 100% success rate that she was particularly proud of.
Except there it was on her heels only five yards later, and now it was nipping at her calves, its teeth surprisingly sharp for a plant.
“Oh you little…!” She kicked it again, sent it tumbling away a bit but it sprang back, mirroring the stubbornness and the fury in her eyes again, and flew at her chest, knocking her onto her butt and winding her.
It had been a long time since anyone had fought back.
Before she could get to her feet, it was on her chest, its leaves suddenly razor-sharp and cutting little stinging welts into her face. Even as she knocked it aside, though, it simply hopped back up onto its stubby little feet and came after her again, the leaves propelled forward and slicing into her thin orphanage clothing, leaving them even more tattered than it had started out. With a cry of rage, the girl stood, protecting her face with one hand while her other busied itself chucking a rock in the thing’s direction. It hit the side of its cheek and left a welt, and while it was distracted from shooting those goddamn leaves at her, she grabbed it again by the plume on its head and slapped it smartly across the untouched cheek. It whimpered furiously and faced her, their eyes matching like two supernovas about to explode on one another. The girl opened her mouth to yell at it more, and suddenly it sprayed her with some weird yellow powder. Her muscles instantly went limp, and she collapsed onto the ground, unable to move, or talk. Her mind raced with confusion and sudden terror at what the thing planned to do to her while she was immobile, but to her great surprise, it merely tucked itself into the crook of her arm, murmuring its name wearily, and fell asleep.
The girl stared up at the cloud-flecked, tree-canopied sky, utterly baffled. But by the time she could move again and the Oddish had come to, they both merely got up and began walking together, and neither looked back.
As years came and went, the children of the orphanage--quietly, and behind the shields of hands--began joking that there was another way to get out of the orphanage: wrapped up in a sheet and carted out in a long wooden box. But those that weren’t quiet enough about their joking often found themselves on the floor, against the wall, and in serious need of medical attention.
The girl had never been cute, or so the rumors went. Her blood-red hair didn’t lend itself to being curled into pigtails, and any dimples that once might have considered taking up residence on her cheeks were soon scared off with a mere scowl. She was one of those children who was dropped off at the orphanage’s door one gloomy, cold night wrapped in insufficient blankets and crying into the wind with no one to hear. It was said that that was the last time she’d ever cried. Her bad attitude had gained a reputation ever since.
She would never be adopted, according to the staff as they sat around the fire some nights chatting over tea--or, for those who had been dealing with the girl recently, something stronger. And even if the girl hadn’t snuck out of bed to listen to them gossip and maybe try and snag some of that stronger stuff, she’d have figured it out sooner or later. As she grew older, she was mean, and sullen, and manipulative of the younger children. And she was violent.
But she was seven, and what could the staff do? Kick her out? They tried punishing her, but the girl soon discovered her willingness to cause trouble far exceeded their willingness to discipline her. She hit puberty, and things got even worse. Her violence gained direction, purpose, vehemence. She was bitter, already, hating their trying to control her, hating their pandering, their attempts at appeasing her. She raged against them, occasionally with minions tied to her with fearful bonds, but usually alone. No amount of time-outs or isolated seclusions or withholding of privileges had any effect. She simply didn’t care, and spent her alone time plotting better ways to make their lives as miserable as they made hers.
She only began regretting it all at the age of nine, when she became aware of Professor Elm’s visits.
It wasn’t that she was terribly interested in setting out on a Pokemon journey. She was way too good for that, she often thought to herself; she was destined for greater things. Better things. More important, powerful things.
But it would get her out of here, and she wanted that more than anything.
She began attempting to be nice. She stopped flinging her food back at the cook whenever she found too many vegetables on her plate. She stopped grabbing other children in the hallway just to terrorize them. She allowed the nurse to give her a flu shot and only flinched involuntarily. She stayed silent at lessons and actually did her work once or twice a week.
The orphanage employees began to fear that this was just her latest horrible scheme to make their lives a living hell. The alcohol bill at the place doubled that year.
But then she was ten, and eligible to be chosen by the Professor, and it was simply too late. You had to be nominated for the selection, and none would dare do so. The following year, through clenched teeth, she stayed behind to tell her teacher she was interested.
They laughed about it that night around the fire, and once again the girl sat through the selection ceremony on the sidelines, her name never having once been considered.
She was fed up.
For their transgressions, the girl redoubled her efforts. Gone was that façade of pleasantness; it was too late to work on them, and she was sick of showing them weakness. If they weren’t going to help her get out, she would find some other way. In the meantime, she’d make them wish they’d chosen her, if just to be rid of her.
---
The girl was fourteen, which meant she had sat through four Pokemon journey selection ceremonies, and four times she had watched her increasingly younger peers get chosen above her. She wanted this. She coveted it. But it was out of her reach, out of her scope of acceptable behavior to try to achieve. And anyway, all her efforts had proven futile.
She was sick of watching. By now, she was one of the eldest children at the orphanage, and she had been here the longest. She had caused twenty-three employees to leave their posts, four explosions, more than forty broken bones (only two her own), and the liquor store down the street to offer the orphanage a special discount for valued customers. She was sure they wanted her out as much as she wanted to leave, but keeping her here was their only successful punishment, and it was ruining all of them.
Aside from the adoption of a child, the selection ceremony was the most officious occasion the orphanage had, and aside from crashing it, which she had considered, the girl figured the worst thing she could do to them was not attend.
With them all so busy it was laughably easy to sneak away. She even swiped a pair of peanut butter sandwiches without any difficulty on her way out and stuffed them along with a jacket and a few other things into a small bag. She had few possessions and no money; the jacket was standard issue, and the bag she had swiped from a pretty little thing right before she’d been adopted about two weeks ago. Served her ass right.
She slipped out into the cool, early spring air, enjoying the feel of the chill on her arms too much to pull out her jacket this soon. If she didn’t look behind her, she could imagine for a moment that she was free from that place, just walking away like nothing had her tied down. If she didn’t look behind her, she could imagine the ceremony was not happening, that she had not been rejected now five times. If she didn’t look behind her, she could walk more securely in the words she thought to appease herself: that she was way too good for this place, that she had greater aspirations than to be adopted by shitty infertile parents or old codgers, or to be shipped off on some grand bullshit journey by some other old fart. Somewhere out there, there was a spot for her--no, not a spot, a line, a line that started somewhere and led up and up forever. Somewhere out there, she could be valued and wanted for being herself.
With enough distance between her and her prison, she stopped on a grassy bank under some trees and tucked her orphanage-issued skirt under herself. She took her first sandwich in hand but didn’t eat it right away. She had the freedom to wait, to watch the slow run of the stream past her feet instead. Rather than finding it calming, she felt enticed by the free flow of the water, heading in whatever direction for which it was best suited. She envied it, deeply, just as she envied those who had left the orphanage by those two standard means.
It made her angry to think about, and she pulled up on her sandwich to take a large, wrathful bite, but something pulled back.
She glanced down, too surprised at that moment to be angry. Nibbling at the sandwich as if it had been bait was a small blue creature with tufts of leaves sprouting from the top of its head. An Oddish, she remembered, from the year she had managed to pay attention to her lessons. Were they usually this bold?
Her shock didn’t last long, and she tried to yank the sandwich away from the thing, but it held on with a surprisingly tenacious grip of its jaws, and when it looked up at her, it was with stubborn eyes.
They were familiar eyes. Her mirror had the same ones.
“Ugh. It’s ruined, anyway,” the girl grumbled dismissively. She let go. The Oddish staggered a bit but maintained its footing and quickly gobbled up the rest of the sandwich. She took care to keep the other out of its reach while she ate it. Since she hadn’t thought to bring a drink along, the peanut butter sat in her throat, and she continued to swallow at it long after the sandwich was gone. The Oddish simply hopped over to the stream and drank from it. The girl made a face. It didn’t look all that clean, to her.
She was still hungry, but that was all the food she’d brought with her, and she wasn’t about to go back, not now, with the ceremony still in full swing. The Oddish eventually wandered back over to her, blinking brighter, more nourished eyes, and she glared at it.
“I don’t have any more food, you little shit,” she snapped at it. It blinked in response, making her scowl deepen.
“That’s it!” She threw up her hands, as if threatening it subtly with bodily harm. “No more! Now get lost! I came out here to be by myself!”
It blinked again, and edged closer. Oh what the absolute hell.
“I said scram! Beat it!”
No response.
Face scrunching up in growing fury, she finally lashed out at it, catching its small form with the back of her hand. Emitting a small, pathetic noise, it bounced away like a rubber ball across the grass and rolled to a stop against the nearest tree trunk. There. That should teach it.
The girl stood and gathered her bag. This was probably its territory or something. Not that she cared, but she didn’t want it bothering her, so she’d find somewhere else to sit and wait out the ceremony. While the little blue thing lay still in the grass, she walked on, slipping on her jacket to huddle in its questionable warmth.
“Fucking piece of shit Pokemon,” she muttered under her breath. “What, can’t find yer own damn food? I’m hungry too!”
The vehemence with which she spoke seemed to make the trees and grass wilt around her as she stomped through the trees, not thick enough to be called woods, but not sparse enough to be called a field. She stopped, briefly, crushing grass and early spring flowers underfoot as she looked around to try and find a good direction in which to walk. That over there looked better, thicker with trees and therefore with more cover. She took one step in that direction and found her other foot hindered by a tug on her ankle.
“Oh fuck you,” she snapped, turning to find the Oddish clinging to her loose socks with its teeth. “Fuck you! Fuck you!” she raged, trying to stay balanced as she shook her foot out. “You stupid. Piece. Of shit!” She punctuated each fragment of a sentence with another kick of her leg but just couldn’t seem to dislodge the creature.
As she paused to catch her breath and regain her balance, the Oddish made a noise at her. She couldn’t tell if it was a whimper or a growl or, if in between, where it fell on the scale, but either way it wouldn’t let go. Finally, she grasped it by the roots of the ridiculous leaves on its ridiculous head and yanked. With a cry she felt sure was of pain, it let go, and she flung it like a turnip as far away from her as she could. How she missed all those trees that could have broken its trajectory she had no idea, but then she didn’t really care. That would teach it to follow her.
Her stomping became more vehement and less concerned about direction as she left that place, fists clenched in impatience. She’d had enough of this. But surely that was sufficient to get it to leave her alone. Chucking a kid across the hall was usually her last resort, but it had a 100% success rate that she was particularly proud of.
Except there it was on her heels only five yards later, and now it was nipping at her calves, its teeth surprisingly sharp for a plant.
“Oh you little…!” She kicked it again, sent it tumbling away a bit but it sprang back, mirroring the stubbornness and the fury in her eyes again, and flew at her chest, knocking her onto her butt and winding her.
It had been a long time since anyone had fought back.
Before she could get to her feet, it was on her chest, its leaves suddenly razor-sharp and cutting little stinging welts into her face. Even as she knocked it aside, though, it simply hopped back up onto its stubby little feet and came after her again, the leaves propelled forward and slicing into her thin orphanage clothing, leaving them even more tattered than it had started out. With a cry of rage, the girl stood, protecting her face with one hand while her other busied itself chucking a rock in the thing’s direction. It hit the side of its cheek and left a welt, and while it was distracted from shooting those goddamn leaves at her, she grabbed it again by the plume on its head and slapped it smartly across the untouched cheek. It whimpered furiously and faced her, their eyes matching like two supernovas about to explode on one another. The girl opened her mouth to yell at it more, and suddenly it sprayed her with some weird yellow powder. Her muscles instantly went limp, and she collapsed onto the ground, unable to move, or talk. Her mind raced with confusion and sudden terror at what the thing planned to do to her while she was immobile, but to her great surprise, it merely tucked itself into the crook of her arm, murmuring its name wearily, and fell asleep.
The girl stared up at the cloud-flecked, tree-canopied sky, utterly baffled. But by the time she could move again and the Oddish had come to, they both merely got up and began walking together, and neither looked back.
