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randomwriteronline · 2 years ago

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One day, when Irida was little, the Freak went out and didn't come back.

He was sitting all jittery yet still in a corner of the hut, looking into the floorboards with his hands rasping his knees; then he stood, said nothing, went to the door, and left.

Irida did not think much of it: when one wants space, one seeks it - and that's that. But that had happened in the morning, and she had passed lunch and the first half of the afternoon, and the Freak still wasn't back, and now it looked like the Bird of the Storm was going to start a fuss of frigid winds and snow, and so she went outside to Avalugg's legacy, to see what had become of that weird thing.

She spotted his footprints in the white and began following them, jumping into them for fun when simply walking by them started getting boring. Then at one point she heard something behind her, and turned: the Freak was walking over to her, arms folded on his chest to scare off the cold, feet slotting perfectly in the imprints of his shoes - she didn't know it yet, but he had been walking in hexagons for hours.

"Hello," she cried out to him.

"Please," he shouted back as he approached faster and faster with his stiff gait, "Remove yourself from the tracks before you get hurt."

"The Bird of the Storm is going to make a big fuss soon," she replied as she stood her ground fearlessly - certainly he would have swerved away from her, and if he didn't then she would have stopped him right there: "You should come back to the settlement."

"Please, remove yourself from the tracks," he only repeated. Irida noticed that he wasn't looking at her, that he was gritting his teeth like a Snorunt, and that he sounded angry.

When he finally arrived up to her, the Freak did not stop. As a matter of fact he trampled her and kept stomping into his own footprints without so much as sparing her a glance, not even grimacing when she shrieked or turning around when she threw a snowball at the back of his head, making him shiver and stumble.

Irida showed him her tongue and threw more snow at him, furious. Then she ran, because he was very quick and she had short legs that weren't as fast, and he was walking right into the coming storm.

"You'll freeze to death, Freak!" she yelled as he closed in his own shoulders: "Teacher will find you in a block of ice, like the waterfall!"

"Return to the station," he yelled back at her without facing her, "It's dangerous out here."

"It's dangerous for you too!"

"Return to the station!"

"You need to come back with me! You're running into the storm!"

"Return to the station! Leave me be!"

"I'm not going until you come back with me!"

"Leave me be!"

"You need to come back!"

"Leave me be!"

"Come back!!"

And at that the Freak screamed.

He screamed so loud and strong that she fell back on her bum for the fright and the coming snow held itself up in the air for a moment, as if even the Bird of the Storm had been taken aback; then his cold hands, all white and red, started scratching at his face and neck and hair in a frenzy like he was trying to rip himself to shreds, clawing right into his mouth to either dislocate his jaw or bite his fingers off, and he screamed and screamed and screamed so angrily --

So Irida ran away from the storm and from the howling Freak.

Big Sister Lina saw her when she came back home, scared and jittery and crying, and asked her what was wrong.

"The Freak went out in the storm," Irida sobbed, "He went out this morning and before the storm I went to see where he was, and he screamed at me, and I think there's a Fox in his head now!"

"Calm down," Big Sister Lina said, combing through her hair while she cried, "Why would there be a Fox in his head?"

"Because he was so angry! And his hands were all red and he scratched all over his face, and he didn't want to come back and now he's out there in the storm!"

Then he's dead by now, Big Sister Lina thought but did not say, because Irida would have just cried harder: "Then we must wait for the storm to end, and then we will tell your teacher and we will see what to do."

Teacher came back all covered in snow, so the storm was still going strong even after all that time.

"He's a fool to think he could walk through that with how scrawny and unprepared he is," he said solemnly, very much not happy. "But we can't look for him now: the Bird is right above us and more furious than ever. I will go look for him once it quiets down a little, and it's less dangerous."

The storm howled the whole night, and began stopping only when the sun began inching again at the center of the sky.

Irida knew Teacher would be going soon, so she prepared herself to go with him; but as she was going for his hut Little Lian approached her, stumbling around in his boots because he was still small and unsteady.

"I wanna see the Freak," he sentenced.

"The Freak went out in the storm yesterday," she told him: "Teacher and I will go look for him now."

"But I wanna see the Freak."

"You'll see him when we find him."

"And where is he?"

"Out there."

"There where?"

"We don't know. That's why we're going to look for him."

"I'm coming then."

"No you're not, you're too little."

"But I wanna see the Freak!"

"You're too little! When we find him, you will see him!"

"I do not remember saying you would come with me," Teacher said at that moment, closing the door to his hut.

Irida still ended up getting her way and coming with him, because Teacher loved her very much and could not tell her no, and she would have been safe and trained anyways; Little Lian got his way and came along too, because otherwise he would have made a scene that would have gone on for days and days and days, and Irida didn't want to be blamed for that - even if it meant she would have to carry him on her shoulders half the way through because he got tired.

They searched all throughout the Icelands. They storm had cancelled any footprints, and there were mounds of fresh snow where even Teacher would sink in up to his knees: they searched those too, just in case the Freak was curled up inside one, all frozen blue. But they didn’t find him in any of them.

“Last that you saw him, where was he oriented?” Teacher asked.

Irida thought about it and looked around. He finger stuck out right in the point she had last seen the Freak: “He was facing that way,” she answered.

“And when you found him, where was he?”

She pointed again: “Behind me,” she replied, “And he was walking in his bootprints. I know because I was walking in them too, and when he came up to me he walked all over me.”

“Liar,” said Little Lian: “The Freak is nice.”

“Well, he wasn’t nice at all! Because the Fox was in his head!”

“If that is the case, you two will have to be careful,” Teacher interrupted them with a very serious voice: “Foxes are very dangerous. Even when they are only in people’s heads.”

The last place they had not explored was the Snowpoint Temple: it did not seem like a place the Freak would go to, considering where Irida has remembered he was walking towards, but they had checked everywhere else and even asked Lord Avalugg, and he was still nowhere to be found; and the Southern Giant offered hospitality and safety from storms to all travelers who walked into its house; so it was no harm to visit it too.

It was cold inside. The Bronzongs made low ringing noises, like heavy bells; Little Lian insisted to be put back down on the ground and stared to the side insistently, pushing his lip around with his thumb.

“Stay close now,” Teacher warned them.

Irida held his hand tight, and grabbed Little Lian’s too so he wouldn’t get lost. She got tired of it quickly though, before they had even reached the stairs, because the smaller kid refused to walk and her arm was getting sore from having to keep dragging him across the floor.

She turned to him hissing angrily: “Are you going to walk or no?”

Little Lian looked at her and stayed silent: she pulled him by the arm, getting a low reprimand from Teacher for her bossiness, but the child turned back around, staring into a corner.

“What are you looking at!” she hissed again, “What’s so interesting?”

Little Lian raised his finger from his mouth and pointed: “He’s there.”

It was so dark and murky, it really wasn’t any surprise that they had missed the coat when they had looked briefly into the dark and murky corners by the entrance of the temple. The Freak was all curled up on himself with his face hidden completely in the tall black collar under his big black hat; he did not look comfortable, or as if he were moving at all - although they did see he was trembling once they got close enough (the children behind Teacher, just in case), so he was still alive, which was nice to know.

“Hello,” Little Lian said.

Something weak and not at all sounding like the Freak hissed back, and that same something skittered a bit and wriggled beneath the coat.

“Are you alright?” Irida managed to ask.

The Freak’s voice was hoarse like that of someone who had been crying for hours: “Leave me be,” he just muttered.

“Is that the thing to say to someone who’s scowered the Icelands looking for you after you went missing in a snowstorm?” Teacher reprimanded him, in the way he would reprimand Irida for not being polite.

The something in the coat chittered back, piqued; the Freak closed in on himself.

“Come now.” Teacher ordered. “We’re going back to the settlement.”

“No.”

“Come now, I said.”

“No.”

“Don’t act so despondent. Get up. The Sun is sinking and it will be much colder to stay here than in a hut.”

“I don’t want to.”

Irida would always find that such a surreal, scary thing to have witnessed. It was not at all a horrid vision in the real sense of the word, nor did it make her shiver in the way a ghost story would; but the Freak had never behaved like that before. He had been polite and loud and confused: but seeing his big long body all curled up like that, speaking with a voice so weak and words that sounded right out of her own mouth when Old Calaba would tell her to go foraging with her, it made him look like the image of a kid reflected by a pane of deforming ice that made him look far too big. Just like his furious scream as he tore himself to shreds, this was not how the Freak was: and it scared her awfully with a type of strange immoble fear that sat in her legs and made them cold.

A little pink head poke out of the dark fabric: a little Gligar showed them its tongue and clicked it angrily, telling them to get lost. The Freak buried his nose against its scrawny little pink back to hide behind it.

Teacher’s eyes fell on the hand all red from the chill wrapped around the little pink body, on the blood under the nails: “What is with you?” he asked cautiously.

The Freak shook his head.

“Something must be wrong for you to act like this. You might be ill.”

“Leave me be.” then, after a moment, very quietly: “Please.”

The Gligar rasped.

“No can do,” Teacher replied. “Come on now, get up, Freak. We’ll get something to make you feel better.”

“My name is Ingo,” the Freak replied with that voice that wasn’t his.

Irida trembled a little.

It struck her that he had told her already, but nobody had ever called him that as far as she could remember; and that he had never corrected anyone before when they had called him the Freak.

Teacher must have realized that too, because he was honest when he talked: “You’re right. I’m sorry, Ingo.”

“My name is Ingo,” the man repeated. “I want to go home.”

“Where is it?” asked Little Lian.

He wanted to be helpful. Maybe, if it was close enough, they could have walked him over there and gone back home before it was too dark.

The man stopped shaking suddenly. The Gligar turned to him, confused by his stillness, and Irida looked as he pulled his dark clothed legs up closer to his chest and leaned his head on his knees, holding the little blood-sucking beast tighter, until he was so tense he looked about to burst into a thousand strings like a woven basket pulled too much.

“I don’t know,” he sobbed.

It was quiet.

It was really quiet after that.

They watched him sob in silence. Even the Bronzongs didn’t chime.

Then, after a while of sobbing quietly, Teacher did something that looked strange to Irida at first: he let go of her hand, and got on his knees, and put his hand out. The Gligar hissed at him, but he paid it no mind.

“It’s cold,” he just said - with a very gentle voice. The kind of voice adults use for deeply upset children.

The Freak Ingo remained still.

"You look hungry, too. Let's get you something warm," Teacher continued, gently. "And then we'll see what to do."

He knew they could do nothing, because they had tried to take him home already, but they had no clues and nobody could find any either way; but after a good cry children like to be reassured, and promised comfort, and he wanted to provide it.

So the Freak Ingo turned to him with his white eyes all red and droopy, sniffling behind the little pink body of the Gligar he was holding tight, and then looked at Teacher's kind outstretched hand. He took it; and as Teacher rose to his feet murmuring 'up you go' he followed suit, his legs a little wobbly, and he held tight onto the strong palm and fingers and did not look up, even when Little Lian gaggled over to him to grab his torn coat and tried to speak to him. Irida did not come close, because there were still scratches on his face from when he had screamed in the storm and his cheeks were all shiny with tear salt; so she held onto Teacher's other hand, and like that they walked back down to the settlement as the Sun sunk away behind the mountains.

The Freak Ingo fell asleep curled on himself on the floor after dinner, all dressed, far away from everything and everyone except for the little Gligar he wouldn't let go of. Teacher bundled him in a thick blanket so he would be more comfortable.

Irida watched him wake up in silence the morning after. He stayed laid down with his eyes open for a while: she did see his mouth open, but it still spooked her when he actually spoke.

"I apologize for running you over and yelling at you, Miss Irida," he said, slow and rumbly and still a little hoarse, and very honestly sheepish: "I should have not taken my anger and restlessness out on you. It was awfully rude of me, as well as unprofessional. You were very kind to worry for me."

She did not know what to say to that. So she looked down and asked, after a moment: "Is it still asleep?"

He scratched at the little Gligar's ears: "Yes," he muttered, "She is very tired."

It was a really pink Gligar. And very small.

"Where did you find it?" she continued, because she didn't remember seeing many of them in the Icelands.

"On the path to the Temple," he replied. The little Gligar made a chittering sound and rubbed her fangs on his palm. "She was caught in the storm before she could safely hide away."

"Do you want to keep it?"

"I hope I'll be allowed to."

"Why?"

The man hushed for a moment, like he hadn't expected her to ask why, or like he was a little afraid of telling her because he found it to be a silly reason. He sat up very slowly, cradling the little Gligar in his white hands with blood still under his nails so he would not wake it, and Irida stopped staring at the ghosts of healing scratches on his face and throat and stretched her neck to better look at the sleeping menace.

"She has a very nice smile," the Freak Ingo told her simply; and he sounded so very terribly sad.

The little Gligar snuggled against him perfectly happy.

Irida looked at it, and nodded: "She does."

#pokémon #submas ingo #pokemon irida #warden gaeric #warden lian #random writing #blood mention #local man has SUCH a case of the Feeling Like Exploding that he loses his composure completely and almost dies #partially based in feeling on be nice to me by the front bottoms #also did i accidentally write ingo as age regressing (the coping mechanism)#if somebody could tell me and if i wrote it offensively id be very glad to be told abt it #a fuck i forgot to tag palina and tornadus. fuck it #in this fic ingo will be in hisui for several years hence why irida is still little #also he was walking in hexagons bc thats the shape of the single line trains tracks! the more you know #ableism tw

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