childhood's end (i.i)

[macbeth]

You're beautiful, but you're empty.

One couldn't die for you.



------------

Somewhere along the way, success had lost its correlation with happiness. Days regained their rhythm as life faded back into a semblance of cyclical normalcy. But something was missing. Something was missing and she hated herself for carrying on like nothing was wrong.

She used to be somebody. She knew what she wanted, and she had full faith that she’d manage to reach the lofty expectations set before her. And slowly, that lost its worth. Towering heights made for spectacular falls. One by one, cherished connections were allowed to wither until she was completely, irrevocably alone.

Perhaps what left her the most defeated was that she had nobody to cast blame on besides herself.

…

……

She couldn’t carry on like this.

Something needed to change.

Someone needed to change.

But how?

~~~~~~~~~~~~

A small head butted against her stomach. The white plating that covered the little specter's face was more cute than intimidating, and the pinkish eye that gazed up at her from within seemed to burn with curiosity. Or... something like curiosity. The ghost type didn't have the facial muscles or body language necessary to communicate as easily as other pokemon, and despite how long they've known each other there were still moments where they weren't on the same page.

"Yes, we're on a walk." she replied easily. Even if the two couldn't communicate exactly, she was mostly sure that Cei appreciated being talked to. She hovered at her side contently, attracting a few odd looks from pedestrian traffic. Supposedly, the Lady Shizune gardens were having a charity event of some sort- both of them enjoyed flora, and she'd never been to the titular park despite the several months she'd spent in Godai. The natural solution was to volunteer, and if it also fulfilled the added goal of getting her out of the apartment, that was her prerogative.

White clouds crossed over the sun, temporarily shading the city block from the growing spring heat. It looked like it might rain later- a pleasant drizzle at the worst. Hopefully, Cei wouldn't mind. She tended to be pretty apathetic to most things, but there wasn't always a consistent way to gauge her reactions.

The two of them arrived at the gated entrance. The scent of greenery was noticeable, despite the bustling life of the city that surrounded it. The ghost type paused for a moment, probably curious as to why they'd stopped, before proceeding to phase through the gate anyway.

"Hello? I am looking for volunteer." her accent wasn't as thick as it used to be, but she still tended to stumble head first over words when distracted. A gardener at the gate nodded, taking a brief look at her trainer ID.

"You'll be looking for the Niwa Reservoir, then. It'll be to your left if you keep following the largest path." the stranger replied, opening the gate with a glance at the Duskull that had already made her way in.

Well-maintained metal slid open without a sound. The gate wasn't opaque by any stretch of the imagination, but layered and artistic curves of metal made it difficult to see through. With her line of sight no longer obstructed, two conflicting thoughts rose to the forefront of her mind.

I could never do something like this.

It's beautiful.

[WC: 547]
[Total WC: 547]

[glen]

Gilbert clutched a trowel to his chest, which he held onto with a heavy pair of gardening gloves. The gloves went up all the way to his elbows and were supposed to keep his hand dirt free and his mind insanity-clear during the mission he was assigned to today; making something pretty out of something messy, such as the dirty Earth.

This day of volunteering at the Lady Shizune Gardens was going to grind against his gears. If the gardens themselves had not been a memorial to the gorgeous Lady Shizune, a gem for history geeks like him, the day was going to only get on his nerves. Gil held fast to this belief despite the various voices that had spoken to him before he left the house. 

"You'll do fine! Enjoy it." Gracie said to him as she whipped him his favorite ham and cheese omelette. His mother put together his kit of sunscreen, gardening gloves, a gardening hat, and his Garbodor-decorated gardening galoshes. The two caring women in his life spoke highly of the times they had gone to such an event the previous spring, how rejuvenating the experience was for them. His father merely sat in the background watching his favorite crime show, Squirtle P.D.

Standing now, with the sun beginning to peek over the skyscrapers, the Lady Shizune Gardens shone with its beautiful flora. The Azalea danced with the Leppa. Large Cyprus trees loomed in another corner of the garden. The reflection of a few ponds lit up the overhanging branches of a few willows. Gilbert shook in intimidation. To try and add to such beauty would be a meaningless endeavor given his poor gardening skills, even at the direction of experts. 

The berry planting event was happening at the Niwa Reservoir, so Gil took his trusty trowel in hand and made his way past more beautiful flowers to which he could not find the names for.

"I can't believe they made me do this alone." Gilbert took a few calming breaths. The chatter of excited people began to fill the gardenspace and he began to feel a little crawl of anxiety reach up the back of his neck. He walked up to the sign up sheet on one of the tables, upon which sat a sign that said 'Happy Planting!' with a Cherubi and Cherrim owning the speech bubble.

"Sir, would you like to meet you partner?" A man with a full beard and square glasses came up to Gilbert after seeing him place a sticker on his chest that said 'Volunteer'. Gilbert nodded, only with hesitation. "Oh, looks like you arrived here first. If you stand over there, where the blue ribbons are marking that open patch, I'll bring your partner over to you when they arrive, alright? Feel free to read the instructions placed on a table beside your supplies. You can start anytime."

The idea of doing this with a total stranger made Gil's skin crawl. Once he arrived at the table beside the blue ribbons he took out the pokeball of his favorite amorphous green glob and set out the Gulpin. He hugged Schmidt with his gardening gloves and the sticky glob of familiar goo let out a sloop-like sigh.

"We can do this, Schmidt. Yes, we can."

---

[Word Count: 549 Words]
[TWC: 1,096 

SPOILER: Click to show

{Pokemon Declaration}

Pokemon
Gulpin Received at Level 5 Nickname: Schmidt Gender: Male Type: Poison Ability: Sticky Hold Height: 1'7" Weight: 32.5 lbs Health: Intermediate EXP Rate: Fluctuating EXP Gauge: (6/8) EXP Gained: 0 Level: 5 Division: D9 Total Stats: 50 Attack: 5 (10%) Defense: 10 (20%) Sp. Attack: 7 (14%) Sp. Defense: 13 (25%) Speed: 15 (30%) Vitamins Used: None	Moveset: 1. Pound 5. Yawn Unique Moves: - - - - Item:

[macbeth]

The trowel rested in her hand like a dagger.

A blade meant to pierce the ground, true, but a weapon all the same. She wasn't sure if she enjoyed the feeling. Her assigned partner's discomfort at meeting her was both relieving and unsettling. She understood the feeling of unease when meeting a new person, but.

What if he hates me? What if he thinks he'd be better off wi-

The thoughts were interrupted by a nudge from Cei. Cosette brushed imaginary dust off of her cheapest white button down and let her nails gently run over the ghost type's back. The glowing eye seemed to waver in place- a sign she enjoyed (or at least didn't mind) the contact. If she didn't want to be touched, the Duskull would just phase herself around her hand.

Her eyes trailed downwards to meet the gaze of the stranger's pokemon. It was green in color, and although she knew the species' name in Beliae (Gloupti, a poison type, not very effective against her ghosts but resilient enough to take a beating-), she wasn't sure she could remember the Godian equivalent.

"Good morning," she spoke up after a moment, voice hoarse from disuse and keeping her eyes at about nose level. "My name is Cosette. I look forward to working with you." She found it hard to look forward to anything, but such a statement of fact felt too personal to express to a stranger. Looking down, the various gardening equipment and supplies were organized neatly into piles, one per volunteer group. There were four planting pots as well- three filled with flowers and one with what seemed to be an oran berry plant. A pile of landscaping rocks and bags of mulch sat innocuously next to them. Rarer berries were likely only trusted to be grown by experienced gardeners- which she supposed neither of them were.

After a moment of silence in which she tore her gaze away from her feet, she noticed that her pokemon partner was no longer at her side. She was leaning her torso into a large, flowering bush- one that had likely been finished earlier today- letting its branches come through her eye sockets and phase out through her back.

It wasn't bad for the plants, per se, but it still seemed impolite. "Cei!" she whistled sharply, getting what she thought might have been a blink for her efforts. Cosette could practically see the gears turning in the ghost type's head. After a couple of moments, she delicately extracted herself from the plant and hovered halfway back to her.

This time, her eye was focused on the stranger and his pokemon. There were no human emotions that passed across her visage, and it was only their months of cohabitation that she managed to recognize the curiosity for what it was.

Who?

SPOILER: Click to show

{Declaration, because I forgot last post}

Party
Duskull Raised since Level 5 SPOILER: Click to show {Biography}Wooo~ Wooo~ A white skull with a single red eye and the sound of a lonely cry. Many people might be scared, but this gal isn't going to hurt anyone. In fact, she seems pretty apathetic to most things involving people. She seems to really adore natural things though, especially flowers. Sometimes she will sit for hours staring at them. One wonders what goes on behind that single eye. Cosette has only had Cécile for about a year, but she dotes on the little ghost like she would her own child. The singer loves to take her around to explore the gardens and cook pokemon-friendly dishes catered to her tastes, but it's unclear if these feelings of affection are reciprocated to the same extent. Either way, despite her unreadable demeanor Cécile seems to be content with her place in life. Nickname: Cécile Gender: Female Nature: Quiet; highly curious Type: Ability: Levitate Height: 2'7" Weight: 33.1 lbs Health: Weak EXP Rate: Fast EXP Gauge: (24/27) EXP Gained: 17 Level: 11 Division: D8 Total Stats: 125 [121+4] Attack: 15 Defense: 40 (30%) [36+4] Sp. Attack: 20 Sp. Defense: 36 (30%) Speed: 14 Vitamins Used: 1x Iron (+10% Defense)	Moveset: 1. Leer 1. Night Shade 6. Disable 9. Astonish Unique Moves: - - - - Item: N/A
? Hatched at Level ? SPOILER: Click to show {Biography}It's an egg. Nickname: ? Gender: ? Nature: ? Type: ? Ability: ? Height: ? Weight: ? Health: ? EXP Rate: ? EXP Gauge: ? EXP Gained: 0 Level: 1 Division: ? Total Stats: ? Attack: ? Defense: ? Sp. Attack: ? Sp. Defense: ? Speed: ? Vitamins Used:	Moveset: 1. ? Unique Moves: - - - - Item: N/A

[WC: 473]
[Total WC: 1,569]

[Personal WC: 1,020]

[glen]

When Gilbert was twelve, he and his mother had taken a trip to a community garden space, where mothers and an occasional dad came together once in a while to place potted plants in the ground and water the flora already set. His mother tried to show him how to dig a hole in the ground, sprinkle in a layer of mulch, then place a potted plant into said hole. She had worn a yellow, frilly shirt that day. At the end of the day Gilbert saw the shirt in the laundry hamper, with dirt stains all over it.

Now, his partner reminded him of his mother in pictures way back before she had given birth to him. In a way, he was comforted by her presence. In another way, he didn't want her to be as concerned about him if he did something wrong. The woman was also wearing a white button-down, an easy canvas for dirt stains.

"Hello. I'm Gilbert. This is Schmidt." He took Schmidt's thumb of a hand and waved it for the Gulpin before setting him down on the floor.

"That's a pretty name. Cosette. Like the character in the book about a peasant uprising in Beliae." Gilbert had wanted to reread that book today, actually, before he was encouraged to spend it depotting plants that had grown asphyxiated in their tiny pots.

Now that they had made their introductions, Gilbert allowed his shoulders to slack as he regained his calm. Meeting strangers were always an ordeal for him, but thankfully they had one task to do and it would simplify the process. He leafed through the instructions on the table with the oran berry plant and potted flowers. The task seemed just as simple as the day his mother joined the community garden. After that first day, however, Gilbert had found every excuse not to go until today.

"This shouldn't be too hard." Gilbert held his trowel in one hand and took a potted flower in another. He then knelt on the ground in his oldest pair of jeans where the instructions indicated for him to place the plant. Gilbert hadn't noticed that Cosette's pokemon had wandered in through the foliage. He was too focused trying to get the trowel into the rim of the potted plant so that it could come out. Then he remembered he had to dig a hole in the ground first.

He placed the potted plant to his left and the trowel on the ground to his right. "This is how to do it, right?" He asked out loud, partly to Cosette, partly so that he could assure himself he was doing the right thing. Once he knelt forward to start digging, Cosette called out "Cei!". The Duskull's face popped out through the flowers and it caused Gilbert to fall back on his rump.

"Aaaah!"

---

[Word Count: 479 Words]
[Personal Word Count: 1,028]
[Total Word Count: 2,048 Words]

[macbeth]

A stammered apology fell from her mouth before she gently tugged the ghost type back from the stranger. Cei's tendril felt more like tissue paper than skin under her fingers. After a few moments, her partner evidently got the message (or otherwise lost interest entirely), because she slowly drifted away from both humans to investigate some freshly planted gardenias across a small artificial pond. It was lush with greenery, she noted with mild curiosity. Most of their side, on the other hand, was partially trampled grass and piles of mulch. The landscaping had yet to take place.

"That is my namesake, yes," she answered after confirming that her pokemon was thoroughly occupied. "although I'll admit I'm better at pruning than I am at planting..." perhaps it wasn't that good of an idea in hindsight to have randomly assigned partners. Occasionally, it left amateurs like the two of them to fend for themselves. "It seems correct- are there any tags in the pot that say how much space it needs?"

Her eyes found their way across the pond. The grass is literally greener, she mused. A pink iris met her own- the ghost type meeting her gaze with eerily little movement. She'd never win a staring contest with the duskull- one of the perks of not having eyelids, she supposed- so she leaned over to pick up a flower pot and began to dig on the opposite side. The two would be working towards each other, where in theory the oran plant would go in the middle of the flowers.

The trowel clanked disappointingly against the dry earth. She wasn't driving it hard enough, but she didn't have a lot of muscle mass to work with in the first place... On a whim, she scooped up some water and splattered it on the designated area. It only made it mildly easier to dig, but that was all she needed to get a small hole started. "Do you think these flowers will get trampled?" she wondered aloud. Their spot was closer to the main path than other locations, and the grass at their feet was clearly used enough to make it patchy. She supposed that's why there were volunteers- the gardeners couldn't possibly maintain every inch of this space every hour of the day.

A fat cloud passed in front of the sun. It wasn't raining yet, but she'd give it around ten minutes. She set the trowel down next to the hole, now adequately sized, and let her gaze fall halfheartedly towards the flowerpot. What was the point of planting all of this if it'd just get stepped on, anyway? A single bead of sweat ran down her neck- a result of the labor. Cosette shooed away her runaway thoughts with a forceful blink that left her seeing spots. Gilbert and Schmidt seemed to be doing well- why couldn't she step up her game?

[WC: 483]
[Total WC: 2,531]

[Personal WC: 1,503]

[glen]

Gilbert pressed his hand against his chest, as if he could stop the rapid beating of his heart like one would stop a dribbling basketball by holding it down. The pink eye that phased its way through the plants stopped to stare at Gil before returning to its trainer, Gil’s partner. Once the pokemon established its familiarity with Cosette, Gil’s freeze response waned. The pokemon was a friendly. He was fine.

“Sorry for being startled, Cei. You didn’t mean it, I hope…” Gilbert motioned his apology to the ghost type and Cosette to show that no hard feelings were held on to. He returned his attention to the hole digging. After a few futile scrapes against the tough ground, Gil stood up and took a breather. He turned to see how Cosette was doing, realizing he had just thrown himself into the task instead of generating further niceties with his new companion.

Upon observing Cosette, Gilbert sought to replicate how she poured some water over the cracked ground and then stabbed his trowel into the earth. “Ah, that’s so much easier!” He exclaimed aloud. Despite him toiling in the dirt, a pastime he was only barely getting used to, he did feel a rush of excitement when the hole in the ground he was working on began to actually look like a hole in the ground large enough to house the flowers.

The next step was to take the flowers out of their vase without cracking the dirt beneath. Gil took the trowel and smoothly extracted the root system from the base, keeping a smile as hidden from his partner as he could. He wasn’t quite sure why, but he felt as if any expression of progress on his part could be misconstrued as gloating.

“Shall we work on the oran berry plant next? The pots don't really have any tags on them.” Gilbert stood and dusted the dirt from his jeans. He walked over to Cosette who had just finished placing the flowers into the ground. “They look really pretty and I don't think anyone would trample such pretty flowers.” Gil managed to share a compliment before he turned to the table with their supplies and noticed the familiar green blobby mouth of his companion expanding to twice its size. In front of him sat the oran berry plant they were supposed to plant.

“Schmidt, no!” Gilbert called out, but it was too late. The Gulpin had already done what it was renowned for doing, taking a big gulp and consuming the leafy foliage of the oran berry plant.

Gil rushed over to stop him but he was too late. The oran plant was already in Schmidt’s belly.

“Um Cosette… We have a problem here.” Gilbert wasn’t even sure how Schmidt had climbed up the table in the first place. The scent of Oran must have compelled him strongly enough to pull him up and onto the table. But now, the four of them were Oran-less and they needed the oran plant to finish the sequence of flowers.

---

[WC: 516 Words]
[Personal WC: 1,544]
[Total WC: 3,047]