Communication

Chapter 1 - Foreign Relations



Seven years into his life, Solonn was finally old enough to go up to the snowgrounds, where he could meet and play with other children. But to get to the snowgrounds, one first had to make one's way through a rather long series of tunnels.

The young Snorunt tottered alongside Azvida, consciously keeping her in his sights at all times for the sake of his own security. This was quite easy, given that his mother was somewhat large; larger than himself, at least.

Her size compared to his own was just one of the many ways in which she differed from him in appearance. She was quasi-spherical rather than conical. She had horns, which he did not; short, conical ones that were the same shade of grey as her hide. Her shell was made of pale, semi-translucent ice rather than yellow-and-red chitin. Unlike himself, his mother possessed no hands, no feet, no limbs of any kind. Hence, rather than walking, as he did, she instead floated, suspending and propelling herself through the air in a way that seemed impossible.

As Solonn gazed at his mother, he found himself wondering, as he often did, about his father. How might he have differed, both from Solonn and from Azvida, as well? Solonn knew, though, that he would never see the answer to this question, for he had learned long ago that his father had died shortly after witnessing his son's birth. Azvida had told him this when he was very young.

Difference fascinated Solonn. Conversely, he disliked sameness. Hence, the fact that the tunnel through which he and his mother traveled looked exactly the same through foot after foot, yard after yard, was doing nothing to boost his enjoyment of the trip. This was the furthest he had ever had to walk, and he was not liking the experience very much. It was tiring, not to mention ridiculously slow compared to being carried in his mother's jaws. But since he was getting too big for that, moving himself by the power of his own two feet was the mode of transportation with which he was now stuck.

"Are we there yet?" Solonn whined for the eleventh time since heading out.

"Almost," Azvida answered, gliding along a few inches off the ground at less than half of her usual pace so as to let the Snorunt's tiny feet keep up with her. "I told you, you will know right away when we get there. It's very different from this place, and from every other place you've seen."

Better be, Solonn thought grumpily.

Shortly thereafter, they arrived at last at the snowgrounds. Solonn saw at once that his mother had been right about this place - it was different. It was a huge, open space, nothing at all like the close confines of the winding tunnels and small caverns that made up the warren in which he lived.

The most remarkable thing about this place was not its size, however. Rather, it was the fact that the floor of this vast cavern was entirely blanketed in sparkling, white snow! Soft, wonderful snow, everywhere, just begging a Snorunt to dive right in. Which is precisely what Solonn did.

Azvida laughed. "Have fun wth the other kids," she said, her son poking his head out of the snow at her words. "I'll be back soon." With that, she turned and exited, leaving Solonn behind in the field of snow.

Solonn watched her leave, wishing that she would stay and wondering why she didn't. He wondered also where those "other kids" of which his mother had spoken were. He didn't see anyone else here...

POP! With absolutely no warning, something burst out of the snow, launching out right in front of his face.

"Aaah!" Solonn was scared right off of his feet. He tumbled over backwards and landed upside-down, his pointed head sticking in the snow, his short legs kicking uselessly.

He then heard a sound - laughter. Someone was laughing at him...and grabbing his feet! He screamed again as whoever-it-was started pulling on his legs, which was rather painful. His ambusher didn't relent until Solonn was quite suddenly extracted from the snow and sent flying from his ambusher's grasp, landing in the snow several feet away with a whumpf (and, blessedly, not landing on his head this time).

Solonn managed to right himself fairly quickly. As he was doing so, he heard footsteps approaching him. He turned to face the sound. What he saw was another Snorunt, who came to a stop a short distance before him. It seemed that he was the one who'd given Solonn that awful scare.

Solonn's eyes flashed angrily. He lunged at the other Snorunt, snapping his teeth and missing him by only a fraction of an inch.

The other Snorunt jumped backwards away from Solonn, and for a moment just stared back in surprise. Then, bizarrely, he burst out into laughter again. The moment he did, though, Solonn looked as though he might try to Bite him again, making him fall silent in a hurry. He held out his hands as if to keep Solonn at bay (he was lucky not to lose one of those hands right there) and said, "Hey! It's okay! I didn't mean to scare you...well, not that badly, anyway..."

Solonn hesitated. He gave a frown of uncertainty.

"I'm sorry," the other Snorunt said earnestly. "It was just a joke." He approached Solonn, albeit a bit gingerly. "I'm Zilag. Who are you?"

Solonn hesitated a moment before answering. "...Solonn," he said finally. "Are there any other kids here?" he then asked warily.

"Yeah. They're hiding," Zilag answered. "Come on out," he called out, then added, "DON'T SCARE HIM."

At Zilag's call, twenty-seven other Snorunt popped up out of their hiding places beneath the snow. Solonn remained quite wary of them at first, but as the minutes passed, they seemed to heed Zilag's advice; no one attempted to frighten him or to otherwise make a joke at his expense. By the time his mother returned to take him home, Solonn had managed to shed his distrust and reluctance almost completely. As he departed the snowgrounds, he found himself looking quite forward to returning there.


* * *


Solonn was brought to the snowgrounds almost daily from that point forward. As the weeks went by, he and Zilag became very good friends. Every time Solonn returned to the snowgrounds, Zilag was there waiting for him.

Solonn liked Zilag for the same reason everyone else seemed to like him: Zilag was the one with all the ideas. However, not all of them were good ideas...

One day in the snowgrounds, Zilag gathered eight of his closest friends, including Solonn, to hear his announcement of how they were about to have the "best day ever".

"I've found something so awesome, you'll go crazy when you see it," he said.

"And what's that?" Solonn asked.

Zilag smirked. He rolled up a snowball, turned around, and chucked it with full force into the ground. The snow it struck crumbled away on impact, falling into the very deep-looking tunnel that was now revealed. The other eight Snorunt all drew closer to the hole in order to try and peer down into it, but all of them were wary of getting too close to it.

"Right down there is a portal to another world," Zilag said in a grand (and ridiculous) voice.

"Yeah, right," Raecirr sneered skeptically.

"There is!" Zilag insisted. He grabbed her and pushed her face toward the hole, eliciting a very sharp little shriek out of her. "All you have to do to see it is to just go through there."

"No, thanks!" Raecirr squeaked as she managed to wriggle away from Zilag.

"You're gonna miss out," Zilag told her. He cast a glance about at each of the others, seeing a lot of uncertain faces looking back at him. Their clear trepidation did nothing to deter him from putting on a huge grin and going on to say, "Okay. Who wants to go first?"

The others all exchanged nervous glances. Then, in unison, they took a sizeable step further back from the hole.

"Oh, come on. It's so cool, I promise...Sical, how about you?" Zilag suggested.

"No way," she refused firmly.

"Davron?" Zilag tried.

Davron responded by shaking his head (insofar as a Snorunt can, anyway).

"Faroski?" Zilag attempted next.

Faroski just turned and left, deciding that he'd be better off just watching the others from the opposite side of the cavern.

Zilag made a noise of frustration. Then, he turned to Solonn, who was standing at his immediate left, and said, "I know you'd love it. So, go for it. Come on."

"Uh..." Solonn began doubtfully.

"It's just a little slide, and then a little climb," Zilag said with a slight air of impatience, then added, "You're not a wuss, are you?"

"What? No!" Solonn said, sounding flustered. He peered down into the hole, wondering just how deep it really was. "I guess I could..."

"That's the spirit!" Zilag said cheerfully, and then shoved Solonn into the hole.

"Aaaaaah!" Solonn screamed as he found himself rushing down a very long and steep slide whose walls were coated with tightly-packed snow. He met with a rather rough landing at the bottom, smacking right into a stone wall.

Solonn stumbled backward, his face smarting badly. After a few moments, he came to his senses and became fully aware of his surroundings. He was in a very small, dark chamber made of stone. Before and slightly above him, he saw a hole in the wall, one which was more than wide enough for him to enter.

Solonn was reluctant to go into the secret portal. He turned back around and looked back up the length of the snow chute...how in the world was someone supposed to get back up there? Zilag had neglected to explain those details...

Sighing, Solonn turned back towards the hole in the wall. There seemed to be no other way to go. So, he hopped up, pulled himself into the hole, and started crawling upward.

The climb upward through the secret tunnel was not particularly pleasant. At times, it was incredibly steep; Solonn feared that he could easily slip and go tumbling back down the tunnel. Furthermore, the rocky surfaces of the tunnel's floor and walls were not at all comfortable to crawl over - one wrong move, and those jagged edges could slice right into a hand or foot.

Why had Zilag thought anyone would like this?

Quite a while later, Solonn finally reached the end of the tunnel. Gratefully, he hoisted himself out of there. Fairly exhausted, he just lay still for a short time, glad to be on smooth, level ground again.

Once he'd caught his breath, he stood and took a look around. He was in a very large cavern which, just as Zilag had promised, was indeed like another world. For one thing, it was much brighter up here than it had been below. Solonn found the source of the illumination overhead: Strange, pale light was seeping into the cavern. This light was quite strong despite how few of its pale rays managed to penetrate the cracks in the ceiling.

The terrain of this cavern was also quite strange. As Solonn explored with growing curiosity, he found snow, ice and rocks - all of which he could find at home, of course. What was unusual about the materials within this cavern, though, was that they were just scattered randomly about; rocky, uneven surfaces abruptly gave way to vast, shimmering expanses of perfectly smooth, ice-coated floors, and mounds of snow rose randomly over both types of surfaces. This contrasted considerably with the way things looked back from whence Solonn had come - there, in the warren, every aspect of the environment had been adapted and conformed by Glalie to suit their tastes and purposes.

Solonn wondered to what sort of people and purpose, if any, a place like this could possibly belong.

Right around the next hill of snow, he got his answer.

He didn't move. He barely even breathed. The same was true of the creature that stared back at him through her dark-hued, non-luminescent eyes.

This creature was bizarre beyond anything Solonn could have ever imagined. She was almost perfectly round. She was colored in blue and a creamy shade of beige, with a few spots of white scattered here and there. She only had two feet as far as Solonn could see, unless that weird, wide, flat thing sticking out behind her was actually a third one. She seemed to have only two teeth, pointed ones that were very small compared to the rest of her face.

But the weirdest thing by far about this creature was the glow that emanated from her entire body. Solonn found himself strangely mesmerized by it. He'd never seen anything like it; he didn't have that glow, and neither did any of his friends. For that matter, neither did Glalie. What was this strange luminescence? What could it possibly mean?

"What...what are you?" Solonn finally worked up the courage to ask.

"What are you?" the creature countered.

Solonn was almost too bewildered to answer. This creature even sounded so different..."I'm a Snorunt," he said finally.

"Oh. Never heard of that...Anyway, I'm a Spheal."

"I've never heard of what you are, either," Solonn said. As he stared at this creature - this Spheal - his curiosity begat a compulsion. "Can ...can I touch you?" he asked tentatively.

"...Sure, I guess," the Spheal responded slightly awkwardly.

Solonn stepped forward, feeling quite nervous. His hand shook as it reached out to the Spheal. When he touched her, he pulled his hand back at once. She felt strange in a way that was very startling.

"What? Is something wrong?" the Spheal asked worriedly.

"No...it's just that you're so..." Solonn trailed off and stared with a hybrid of fear and wonder shining through his eyes as he realized that he had no word for the way the Spheal felt. He had no way of knowing it, but he had just felt heat for the very first time. Though it hadn't hurt him, it definitely made him uneasy.

In spite of this, however, his curiosity led him to touch the Spheal again. He was not so startled by he warmth this time. Rather, something else caught his fascination.

"Soft," Solonn remarked, "and fluffy...What is this stuff you're covered in?" he asked.

"Er...that's fur," the Spheal answered, giving him a funny look.

"It's neat," Solonn answered.

"Uh, sure it is...Hey, could you stop petting me already?" the Spheal finally demanded irritably.

"Oh...sorry," Solonn apologized, embarrassed. He took his hands off of the Spheal in a hurry.

Just then, a voice sounded from not too far away, another strange, foreign voice. "Sophine? Where are you?" the voice called out.

Before Solonn could wonder about the voice's owner, she came into view. She was like the Spheal, but somewhat larger, with long, white fur growing from just above her pointed teeth. Like the Spheal, she also possessed the glow of heat. Solonn supposed that she must be an evolved Spheal.

"There you are! You can't keep wandering away from me like that!" the newcomer scolded lightly. Then, her gaze fell upon Solonn, and it froze there. "Sophine, get away from that," she said tensely. "Now. Those things are dangerous."

"What? I'm not dangerous!" Solonn protested, stepping forward with his arms outstretched. "Honest!"

"You stay away from my daughter, you little monster!" the evolved Spheal who was apparently Sophine's mother cried, and then lunged suddenly at Solonn.

But just then, Sophine screamed, and the sound jarred her mother out of her charge. The evolved Spheal looked to see what had frightened her daughter, and then she screamed, as well.

Confused, Solonn followed the others' gazes. Now it was his turn to scream - hovering there with an absolutely livid expression was none other than his own mother.

"Leave. Him. Alone." Azvida's words were nearly unintelligible through her furious hissing. With no further warning, she darted forward. Her massive, terrible incisors snapped together with bone-shattering force bare inches away from the face of Sophine's mother.

The evolved Spheal gave a yelping bark as she staggered backward, away from the striking Glalie. She then gathered up her daughter in a single flipper and waddled frantically away with her.

Solonn watched them leave. Then, very nervously, he turned and approached his mother. She turned to face him in an instant 180, badly scaring him. Azvida then opened her jaws and grabbed Solonn up in her teeth by the top of his head. It hurt him, and he cried out. But she did not put him down, not for the entire duration of the trip back home.


* * *


"For the love of all gods, what were you thinking?!" Azvida demanded.

It wasn't my idea! Solonn thought but didn't dare say, feeling as though doing such amounted to betraying Zilag, and he didn't want to do that. "...I don't know!" he blurted finally.

"Well, you're not going up there again, that's for sure," Azvida said, her tone one of strong displeasure. "In fact, you're not going to be going anywhere for quite a while, not even to the snowgrounds."

"But...Mom, no! You can't!" Solonn protested. Surely, she had to be bluffing - she would never keep him from the snowgrounds for any real length of time...would she?

"Oh, yes I can, and yes, I will! It's for your own good, Solonn. You have to learn that there are places where you don't belong, places that are not safe!"

"Not safe?" Solonn questioned. The cavern above into which he had ventured hadn't seemed dangerous, just rather weird...

Azvida lowered her massive, skull-like face. Her eyes seemed to burn right through Solonn's. "You think you're the first who's ever gone sneaking about up there? There have been plenty of kids before you who've had that bright idea. And you know what? A lot of them never came back."

"What happened to them?" Solonn asked in a very small voice, though he wasn't altogether certain that he really wanted to know.

"They vanished," Azvida replied simply. "Taken away by the creatures from above, we suspect," she elaborated.

"You mean the Spheal? Spheal took them?" Solonn asked incredulously.

Azvida shook her great head. "Other beings. Stranger beings."

What could be stranger than a Spheal? Solonn wondered, finding himself rather amazed by the notion. He wondered about something else, as well. "Mom?"

"Yes?"

"That Spheal's mom...she called me dangerous. But I'm not dangerous at all...am I?"

"What? No, of course you're not!" Azvida said.

"But...then, why would she say that?" Solonn asked.

Azvida sighed. "It's all right, Solonn. She meant nothing against you personally. It's just that...well, her kind fear ours. They always have." She sighed again. "To be fair, they do have a perfectly good reason to."

"Well...what is it?" Solonn asked, a little afraid of the sort of answer he might receive.

Azvida broke eye contact with Solonn. This was not a discussion she'd been in any hurry to have with him - she'd dreaded it as much as the eventual discussion of where eggs come from.

Reluctantly, she sat down beside him. "There are certain things which every living creature must do to stay alive," she began uneasily. "We have to breathe. We have to sleep. We have to eat. When living creatures are different, the ways by which they keep themselves alive are different, as well. The Spheal and their evolved forms, the Sealeo and Walrein, are different from us, and so, they have their own ways which are right for them. Likewise, Glalie are different from Snorunt. And we have our own ways.

"Now, one of the ways that living creatures can have different needs is that for some creatures, like Snorunt, the things they need to eat in order to live are not alive themselves. But for others...like Glalie...well, the things that beings like us need to eat in order to live are alive."

Solonn absorbed that. Then, his heart froze. "You...you eat the Spheal?" he ventured in disbelief, his voice cracking.

"Yes," Azvida answered honestly, "sometimes. But not usually. Usually, we take the winged creatures instead. Zubat, they're called."

"It doesn't matter what they are. You still kill them!" Solonn said accusingly.

"Yes," Azvida said, feeling and sounding very flustered. "Yes, we do, but we do it quickly. We do it gently. It doesn't hurt them. They just...stop. It's just like going to sleep, only permanently."

"How can you know that?!" Solonn shrieked. Azvida did not answer. Solonn said nothing more for several minutes, sitting and shaking silently. Then, with barely any voice at all, he asked, "Why can't you just eat the snow? Why?"

"It's just not enough for us, Solonn," Azvida said quietly. "Someday, once you've evolved, you'll understand."

"No, I don't want to!" Solonn protested vehemently. "I don't want to grow up and eat people!"

"Listen, I know how it sounds, but there really isn't anything wrong with it!" Azvida appealed, exasperated. "It's just a part of how nature works. And a lot of creatures live this way, too, not just Glalie. Even the Spheal you met and her people, they feed on creatures called Magikarp..."

But Solonn was not listening anymore, and Azvida knew it. She sighed and spoke no more, and neither of them said anything to one another for the remainder of that day.


* * *


After the long weeks separating Solonn from the snowgrounds were finally behind him, he returned there to find Zilag, and Zilag alone, who was just sitting there and doing nothing else.

Solonn was immediately wary. "Where is everyone hiding?"

"There's no one else here," Zilag said gloomily.

Solonn walked over to him, frowning. "You got me into huge trouble, you know," he admonished Zilag.

"Hey, I didn't get away with it, either!" Zilag shot back.

"But I didn't tell on you!" Solonn insisted. "I swear!"

"You didn't have to," Zilag said grimly. "My big sister came in and saw me trying to get Dileryx to go down that hole. She went straight home and told Mom everything." He sighed. "And then, everyone else's parents found out, too. Now, no one wants to hang out with me cause they're all scared of getting into trouble again."

"Oh..." Solonn sat down beside Zilag. "Well, I'm not so worried about that," he said, although a small part of him really was. "I'll still hang out with you."

"Really?" Zilag's eyes sparkled, and he broke out into a huge grin. "Thanks!"

Suddenly, there was a strange sound, a sort of fluttering from above. Both Snorunt looked up. A small, blue, batlike Pokémon was flying about overhead. It was yet another creature that shone with that strange glow - the glow of heat, Solonn now knew.

"A Zubat," Solonn guessed aloud in a hushed voice as he gazed up at the Poison/Flying-type. "What's that doing here?"

"I don't know...I've never even seen one of those before," Zilag said.

"Bet your parents have," Solonn said darkly. "My mom told me that the Glalie eat those things."

Zilag turned, and for a moment, he merely stared at Solonn incredulously. Then, he laughed. "That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard! They do not!"

"Oh, yes they do," Solonn said as he continued to watch the bat flit around, seemingly without direction, near the ceiling of the cavern.

"No way!" Zilag said, still laughing. "I know! Let's ask the Zubat if it's true! HEY, ZUBAT!" he shouted at the bat.

The Zubat steadfastly ignored the Snorunt below. She just wanted to focus on getting out of this place. It was bad enough that she'd gotten herself lost here - she didn't want to add to her troubles by getting herself mixed up with those creepy locals.

"The Zubat's not listening, Zilag," Solonn pointed out.

"Well, maybe this'll get that thing to listen." Zilag fashioned a snowball and chucked it into the air. He missed the bat entirely. His second shot missed, too. "Come on, hold still!" he urged irritably, throwing a third snowball. This one very nearly didn't miss, whizzing past the Zubat's face just a hair's breadth away.

The Zubat shrieked, then turned on Zilag. Chittering angrily, she fired a spiraling, sparkling discharge of strange energy at him - a Confuse Ray. It struck him before he could do anything to avoid it. It instantly and severely disoriented him, leaving him staggering around and screaming intermittently in a spontaneous panic.

"What did you do to him?!" Solonn demanded of the Zubat, both scared and angry. The bat's response was a Wing Attack, forcing Solonn to duck in a hurry to avoid her as she dove at him, her wings glowing.

As the Zubat arced back up towards the ceiling, Solonn got back up onto his feet, gathered a number of snowballs as fast as he could, and began throwing them at the Zubat. His aim was rather better than Zilag's; one of the snowballs struck the bat in the back. She screeched in pain, then wheeled around for another Wing Attack.

Solonn decided it was time to get serious. He began to gather Ice-type energy...then lost it as Zilag, who was still very much confused, came stumbling right into him and nearly knocked him over.

"Hey!" Solonn exclaimed as he got himself out of the way of his brain-addled friend. He tapped into the power of his element once again, and this time, he managed to summon a Powder Snow attack. It scattered snowflakes all about as it whistled towards the Zubat on a small gust - but before it could connect, a much stronger attack, a Blizzard, came howling in and blew the Powder Snow completely off course.

The Blizzard was the work of Azvida, who had apparently just arrived and was clearly most displeased. "Solonn Ahshi Zgil-Al!" she shouted thunderously. "You stop picking on that poor Zubat; she's obviously lost here and needs help, not harrassment!"

Azvida's shouting brought Zilag back to his senses. "Ahshi?" He exploded into giggles. Azvida and Solonn both glared potently at him. He shut up quickly.

"But Mom, she did something to Zilag! She made him freak out - I couldn't just let her get away with it!" Solonn said defensively. "And what do you care what anybody does to her, anyway? She's just meat to you."

Azvida's eyes tripled in width, and their light intensified dramatically. "How dare you say such a thing!" she hissed, appalled. "I would never think of such a creature as 'just meat'. They give us life, and so, they are to be honored and respected!"

To the Zubat, Azvida then said, "You'll certainly die from the cold if you stay here much longer. If you'll follow me, I'll lead you back to where you belong."

The Zubat made no response, no sound other than the flapping of her wings as she hovered warily in place.

"It's all right," Azvida said, trying to sound as pleasant and soothing as possible. "I won't even touch you."

The Zubat hesitated at first, then flapped a short distance forward. She hesitated again, for longer this time. Finally, though still obviously very uncertain about the whole thing, she descended and began to follow Azvida out of the cavern (though not too closely).

"Please stay put until I return," Azvida instructed her son as she left. "Please." She and the Zubat then vanished into the tunnels of the warren.

As Solonn watched them leave, he found that he could no longer be certain of whether he was more confused by other species or by his own.



Next time: Solonn discovers a peculiar talent, and faces the horrors of...the Most Annoying Person Ever and the Sister from Hell! See you then!