Chapter Text
--
May 7
Once, these lusciously green lands of ours
lay barren. The grass wilted. Our crops withered.
This was a tundra shrouded in frigid cold.
Many days into a bleak winter, a Pokémon
appeared on the tundra—adorned with a regal
crown yet wounded and weak. Full of pity,
our people brought the Pokémon to our village
and saw to its care.
--
The village of Freezington, the only settlement in the Crown Tundra, was not a kind place to live - and not exactly the kind of place one would particularly want to live, Glaudusa of the Inn mused.
Of course, there were pros. Everyone in town was practically family to one another, and they bound together in celebration come birthdays or comings-of-age and held tiny festivals to honor the gods or Pokemon or even just life itself. No one was forgotten or left behind.
But even in the warmest and longest of summers, bone-chilling winds swept across the tundra, piercing the barrier of evergreens and slipping into the homes of everyone who lived there. And naturally, the winters were far worse. The families of people and Pokemon alike huddled together in their tiny homes before the hearth, unwilling to venture into the cold, and praying that their stocks of food and firewood would last until spring.
Come said spring, the villagers would jump into action, hastily planting seeds in the near-barren, barely-unfrozen fields in the hopes that enough would grow to put away for the next winter. The farmers’ field Pokemon (for the past few years, it had been Swinub and Piloswine) plowed straight lines into the ground, and the Gossifleur and Snover and other dextrous Pokemon planted seeds in neat little rows. Someone’s Spheal or Sealeo or Vaporeon would spray a gentle Water Gun every so often, and they would all work hard in the day and pray into the night.
In lucky years, enough crops would flourish so that no one went too hungry during the harshest months. It was still hideously cold, and cooking food with the wood stove wasn’t always feasible with the amount of firewood available, but they would get through the winter without dancing on the edge of starvation.
But in the not-so-lucky years, the town priority in fall shifted from farming to desperate foraging. Shaking Berries out of trees to dry, digging up painfully bitter Energy Roots, harvesting the occasional mushroom or herb or even honey if they were lucky… Hell, even squirrelling away the berries the local Snover grew wasn’t unheard of.
Those years were disheartening, especially to an older woman like Glaudusa herself.
Her family’s inn, passed through generations, didn’t see many visitors, but when the odd traveler from the north wandered into the tundra, it always had to be ready to receive them immediately - especially since they often were underprepared for the harsh weather and had to be taken care of a bit before they could continue on their way. The inn always had to be stocked with at least the essentials - to the point where in some of the more frugal years, she’d willingly surrendered her stock to be distributed to whichever villagers needed it most.
To live 68 years and see little improvement to the conditions they were all enduring year after year in the tiny town left her wondering when, not if, they would all finally be done in by a particularly harsh winter.
Leaving was near impossible - according to what the people who passed through had to say, it took weeks if not months to come across Freezington after leaving the previous settlement. To attempt a march of the entire village north to try and escape the tundra could end only in disaster - the older folks would never make it, and they could all meet their end lost in a blizzard.
And with their crop yields shrinking every year, it was only a matter of time in her eyes.
--
It happened one day, sometime in early May.
Glaudusa was mopping the inn floors with a rag at the time. Inglorious, but a necessary duty, as dust settled into the oddest of corners around the old inn and would cake into layers if it wasn’t dealt with regularly. She’d sent her daughter to do the same thing upstairs some time ago. Hopefully she was doing what she’d been asked to do instead of lazing around on one of the guest beds with her Zigzagoon.
She dipped the cleaning cloth into her wooden bucket and frowned. The water was completely filthy and opaque; it wouldn’t clean anything more without spreading just as much filth back down. Apparently the floor had been dirtier than originally estimated. She would have to dump and refill it.
Standing and donning her lighter coat, Glaudusa leaned towards the stairs and shouted, “Alison!! I’m going out to change the water, so mind the inn for me!”
A quiet confirmation wafted down from upstairs, so the innkeeper bent down, heaved the bucket off the ground (“Ugh!! Maybe I’m getting old, but this bucket is getting heavier every year…”), and elbowed her way out the front door.
“Come along, Beldum.”
After dumping the water into a pit they set out for the river. The closest body of water was the river bordering the southern edge of the Giant’s Bed, and to get there she would have to pass through sections of snow-encrusted tall grass. Thus, she brought her old Beldum. It wasn’t the strongest of Pokemon, only knowing Tackle, but its iron-hard body had always been a reliable line of defense.
The walk to and from the river was quiet. Utterly uneventful. ...perhaps a little too uneventful. Even the wild Pokemon seemed fewer in number than usual - which was odd, considering the sheer amount of hardy species that made the Crown Tundra their home.
Something wasn’t right. And yet despite her caution nothing happened, so by the time Glaudusa was nearly back to Freezington she’d almost brushed it off as her imagination.
Almost.
Until she saw someone barrelling in her direction from the Giant’s Bed carrot field. A few moments later and she identified them as Ailfrid of the Beds, one of the Giant’s Bed farmers, and from what she could tell he was holding something about the size of a large flour sack-
Oh gods, was it a child? It was shaped a bit like a child.
“Ailfrid! Did something happen with the- children...?!” Glaudusa’s yell trailed off as the man hesitantly slowed to a stop next to her, giving her a better look at what he was holding.
A Pokemon.
An injured Pokemon.
She wasn’t an expert on Pokemon by any means, but even she could tell that it was not well. Blackish-brown, rough patches were blooming down the sides of the huge bud on its head, and its tiny face and even tinier paws were turning a raw red. Scratches and scrapes from what was either a bad fall or, gods forbid, a bad battle criss-crossed its beige fur.
“My Gossifleur found it in the bushes behind one of the storehouses. I’ve never seen anything like it, but I couldn’t just leave it there.... I’m going to get it some help,” Ailfrid explained hastily, before breaking back out into a run towards the village.
For a moment Glaudusa stared after him. And then she was hurrying after him as fast as her old legs could manage, Beldum dutifully trailing behind her.
Some water sloshed out of the bucket.
For once, she didn’t care about being neat.
--
It wasn’t hard to figure out where Ailfrid was taking it - the residence of Bhaltair of the Clinic. As Freezington’s only doctor, he handled treatment for both people and Pokemon on the regular. He didn’t usually treat wild Pokemon, citing the danger involved in treating something that wasn’t used to humans, but hopefully he’d be willing to help the poor thing the farmer had found.
Glaudusa passed by the inn entirely and barged into the tiny clinic, bucket and Beldum and all, to find Ailfrid in the middle of explaining the situation to Bhaltair as his Audino busied herself with helping her guest. She was holding one of her feelers to it. His Riolu, too, was hovering worriedly and rubbing at its face gingerly.
The doctor himself was already rummaging through his supplies.
“-and it looks like it’s got frostbite, and I don’t even know what’s going on with its head. Do you think you can help it?”
Audino stepped back to nudge Bhaltair. “Au-dhiii…” The odd Pokemon had been swathed with the gray Wooloo wool blanket that she’d seen used a few times to warm children who’d been out in the cold far too long. It lay engulfed in the too-large blanket on the exam table, far too still. Riolu remained crouched on the table, leaning against the patient.
Bhaltair set a well-worn pestle and mortar aside, along with a few old, tiny ceramic pots. “You’re prolly right in saying it's frostbitten ‘n deep-chilled, and we all know how to handle that. I can fix the injuries right up with some Heal Powder. As for its head…” He stood to get a closer look at his patient. Audino stepped back as Glaudusa and Ailfrid joined him, crowding the table a bit. “Looks kinda like the leaf rot we get on your Gossifleur when it’s sick, Ailfrid. Can’t know for sure without knowing what Pokemon it is, though.”
“You don’t know either, eh?” Glaudusa hadn’t had high hopes, but it was starting to pique her curiosity that no one knew. Maybe the Mayor might know.
A sigh. “‘Course, it doesn’t matter what this fellow is if the chill gets ‘em - Riolu’s actin’ like it’s real weak already. Thing is, I can’t get started without no water. Can’t clean those scrapes without hot water, an’ definitely can’t fill hot-water bottles without hot water.”
The innkeeper looked down at the bucket she was still carrying. “I just got back from the river,” she said slowly, “I was going to use this for cleaning the inn, but I believe this is a little more urgent.”
She held out the mostly-full bucket.
And so, the water Glaudusa was going to clean with ended up boiling over Bhaltair’s stove and used to clean the numerous wounds on the finally-shivering Pokemon’s body, with the remainder poured into several small containers and placed adjacent to the poor thing.
Now that it wasn’t being cradled in the arms of a man in action or fussed over by Riolu or Audino, she was finally able to get a good look at what was visible of the Pokemon. Its face resembled something of a cross between a Sneasel and a Linoone - rodentlike, with a long snout, and white cheeks. The lower half of its face was nestled in a ring of green bead-like buds that completely surrounded its neck.
The huge green bud on its head looked almost like an inverted Bulbasaur bulb, but darker, and cradled by four ears… or antlers? It wasn’t entirely clear, but then again, Pokemon’s bodies weren’t always comparable to each other.
“Now that I think about it…” Aildrid mused after a long period of silence, “Doesn’t that big head of its look kind of like a crown or something?”
The other three looked at him, then back at the Pokemon. “...I almost see it,” Glaudusa agreed. Indeed, the green bud vaguely reminded her of the plush red velvet cap, and the four ears or antlers of prongs. Together it resembled a simple, if very large, coronet.
The little Pokemon curled in on itself a little.
“Whatta fittin’ visitor to our Crown Tundra, then,” Bhaltair grinned.
It certainly was.
--