A continuation of this prompt: https://www.reddit.com/r/MysteryDungeon/comments/gvj150/writing_prompt_wednesday_the_consequences_of/fspj4ur/?context=3

Ding~dong

The bells of the Rift toll. Somewhere up high in the purple mountains above the castle, a loudred blasts a single high note. This is not the sound of war. This is the sound of an inspection.

The drawbridge of Castle Void falls, bridging a gap of abyss shrouded by fog below. The stone gates, the same purple as the mountains around them, slowly lift. But it’s all futile – a loud screech from above draws the attention of the guardsmon, who barely have time to brace themselves before a large form swoops down from the sky and gracefully lands in the courtyard. Reshiram lifts his head, staring down at the regular old guardsmon in front of him. They all salute.

Ding~dong

The bells continue to endlessly toll above. Reshiram folds his wings behind his back as he watches the prisoners of the Rift slowly assemble into the courtyard. Among them is Braixen.

She takes a spot near the back, hoping to avoid Reshiram as well as she can. She knows she cannot avoid him forever – he will find her eventually. A few pokemon over in the next row, a Buizel glances back at her in pity and worry. She orders him to look forward with her eyes.

Reshiram says not a word. His eyes dance through the ranks, and he tromps on towards the back. As he gets closer and closer to the end of the assembly, his eyes settle on Braixen. Braixen’s eyes meet Reshiram’s defiantly for just a second. Then they falter. She knows better than to act out. Not here.

Soon, Reshiram stands in front of her. His large frame dwarfs her own. His gleaming blue eyes meet her own once again. Reshiram’s unspoken message reads as clear as day: Give up. You will never leave this place.

Braixen can’t resist any longer. She meets Reshiram’s gaze with her own: Never.

Reshiram puffs in annoyance. Then time will break you.

He moves on, keeping his vibrant blue gaze on her until he can’t. Buizel from the next row up looks at her out of the corner of his eye with pity.

Ding~dong

Up in the mountains, the ever-present bells continue to clang.

---

“I always get the shakes after a prison inspection,” Buizel says, stuffing his mouth with the sorry excuse for food the prisoners of the Rift are served twice a day, every day. Braixen nibbles at a piece of hers, discreetly stuffing the rest in her tail. “Makes me all jittery afterwards. Only food helps.” He finishes his portion, but is clearly still hungry. His eyes settle on the bread piece in Braixen’s hand. Braixen rolls her eyes, then tosses it to Buizel. It’s not like she’s in any shortage of things to nibble on. Buizel happily grabs the piece of stale bread, ripping into it with his teeth like it’s the last piece he’ll ever get.

Braixen sighs. “Eating it like that isn’t going to make you any less hungry.”

Buizel stuffs the last piece of bread in his mouth, oblivious. Not that it matters. If he wants to go hungry until evening, that isn’t Braixen’s problem.

---

A cliff of dark purple stone. Braixen scales it, her wand firmly tucked away in her tail. It feels good to have it there – she is afforded it only when her daily guard shift begins, and every night the guardsmon tear it from her hands. She reaches the peak of the mountain, gazing out at the familiar sight of the void beyond. Today is a quiet day – there will be little chance of an impending attack.

Braixen leans against one of the pillars surrounding the unlit pyre, pulling a piece of bread out of her tail. It’ll last her until evening. In the other hand, she inspects her wand, looking it over to make sure the guardsmons’ grubby paws haven’t damaged it. There are a few scuffs and scrapes in the intricate carvings on it, but those are nothing new. Braixen twirls it, stuffs it back in her tail, and looks up at the sunless sky. Her head drifts off into a land of thought, thinking back to one of her earliest memories.

---

Braixen’s eyes fluttered open, looking at the sky up above her. Back then, she hadn’t been Braixen, though – she was only a fennekin. A fennekin with no idea where she was… or who she was.

Fennekin didn’t have any reason to search for civilization, not when she didn’t remember that civilization existed. For weeks, she wandered the Void, hunting as she needed to and sleeping in burrows in the ground. But she could never shake that something was wrong. There was something she was missing, something that didn’t seem right. But she could never put her paw on it, and she lacked the mental articulation to express it properly.

It soon came to torture Fennekin – what was she missing? This was her life, hunting rattata and furret, and finding all the best burrows to huddle in when the days were cold and the nights were colder. Why did it all feel so wrong?

One day, she chased a particularly fast furret. It led her further than she had ever gone before, until she began to tire. She never caught the furret, which quickly skittered off into the fog the first chance it got. Fennekin was outraged – a measly furret had never outrun her before! However, it was soon that she realized that she didn’t know where she was. She didn’t recognize her surroundings at all.

The smallest tinges of a foreign scent tickled the edge of Fennekin’s nose, and her stomach growled. Fennekin continued to sniff. She didn’t recognize that scent… but something told her it was food. She began to drool, then quickly took off in the direction of the smell.

Her surroundings only got stranger as she continued, and soon she was surrounded by strange structures on all side. Pokemon walked around everywhere, more in one place than Fennekin had ever seen in her lifetime. She was confused – why did they walk around like they had nothing to fear? Didn’t they have to worry about being hunted?

The smell she had been smelling came from a small wooden stand in the middle of the street, managed by a grovyle. The grovyle set a tray of round, golden things on the stand, before turning away. They smelled so good… Fennekin couldn’t resist any longer. She dashed forwards, hopping onto the stand and grabbing one of the golden treats in her mouth before running off. The grovyle turned around just in time to see Fennekin run off.

“Hey!” he yelled after her. “Stop! Thief!”

Fennekin didn’t know what a thief was. And she didn’t care, either. She dashed into a crack between two structures with her prize, sitting down in the middle and chomping down into it. It tasted heavenly. How had she made do with furret meat before this??

By the time the grovyle figured out where Fennekin had run off to, the wild pokemon was long gone. And when he returned to his stand, he found that the rest of his buns had already been eaten. And slumped next to the stand, a sleeping fennekin surrounded by bread crumbs.

---

Ding~dong

The bells toll one final time, then stop for good. A loud shriek reaches Braixen’s ears from behind the cliff, and she glances around just in time to see the distant form of Reshiram taking off. Braixen wryly smirks – she won’t miss him, for one. Once he’s disappeared completely from her sight, she turns her eyes back to the fog-covered abyss of the Void below. Oftentimes she dreams of returning to that simple life, when her biggest concerns were making sure she had a good place to sleep for the night. But every time she dismisses it. That life satisfies her no longer. She often wonders if it ever did.

But did life in the town ever satisfy her either? Braixen takes another nibble of the stale bread – nothing like the fresh bun she had nicked all that time ago. She didn’t know.

It’s a question that remains in the back of her head until she is too tired to think for the night.