Fiery Lands and Stormy Seas (Pokemon Watty Award Winner 2014)

Chapter 31

LUNA

 

            The guards came and got her as she saw the sun setting behind the wall-like cliffs that encircled Sootopolis.  She limped along slowly in their wake.  Gardevoir was to be left behind in her room, wrapped in her blanket of iron chains.  The Pokemon still had a healthy body, but her Psychic powers were muted from the power of the shimmering chains.  She’s so brave, Luna thought of Gardevoir.  The bravery in the Spirit Pokémon’s face told Luna that her brother would come for her, she could feel it.

            Although the room she had been kept in was luxurious and comforting, Luna knew that she was still a prisoner.  The maids never spoke to her, and her window was barred so as to prevent any kind of escape.  Even if the window was bar-less, it would be a long, hard fall from the marble castle into the lagoon below. 

            Yet while her days were spent in solitude, her nights were a terror. Ahab always came into the room in the dead of night when the rest of the town slept. At first, she had shrank away from his touch.  His breath was always rank with ale and his voice raspy and angry.  She had gotten a beating the first night from Thomas, Ahab’s pet.  The half-brother of the Glamour Empress had promised never to lay another hand on her, but each time he snapped his fingers, Thomas would deliver another blow or hold her down.  That was the worst.  After the fifth night she stopped resisting, not for fear of being hit again, but for the shame of Thomas being present when Ahab forced himself on her. Even then, it was Gardevoir’s eyes that kept her strong.  Hold on, they said.  Your brother is coming. Don’t lose hope.

            It had been thirteen days in all. Now, she was being escorted to have dinner with the Empress herself.  Luna tried her best to hide her limp from her injured legs.  The leg that she sprained when the Gyarados blasted her on the beach was still hard to bend, and the leg Ahab had dislocated clicked and sent waves of pain throughout her whenever she tried to walk.  I will meet her with pride.  I am not defeated. I will not let them break me.

            The Empress was alone in the clean and sparkling marble dining room. “Leave us,” she said to the guards in a pleasant, sing song voice. “We have important matters to discuss.” 

            Luna looked around, she sat at the end of a long table, Glamour at the other.  She saw a shallow fountain trickling water in a pool, below a small balcony on the outside.  In the pool, the Empress’s elegant Milotic stared up at Luna with sapphire eyes.  The Empress herself set her tall, golden trident in a stand right next to her.  The large round blue jewel between the prongs danced in the light of the setting sun. 

            Glamour was already eating her food, fresh smoked fish and olives. Nowhere had Luna ever seen a lady with manners so perfect. The captive Queen of Slateport gazed at her own food suspiciously. 

            “They’re safe, I can assure you,” said the Empress as she plopped another olive into her mouth.  “We don’t want you dead, my dear.”

            She speaks as if she’s older than me, Luna observed. Was she, though? Her hair was perfect as if she was still in her early thirties, and her body still full and vivacious where Luna had recently begun to count the wrinkles and signs of age on her own face.  “Then perhaps you might tell your half-brother to stop paying me his midnight visits.” She glared at the Glamour Empress with spiteful eyes. 

            The Empress, however chuckled as she dabbed a cloth handkerchief at the corner of her mouth.  “Now, be fair to poor Ahab. Men are full of baser needs. Savage needs.  And men of his own birth more so.  My own lord father never found satisfaction with my mother, and in his lust he created little Ahab.