Ecruteak

The crisp autumn air greets your face as you step out the door.  You take a deep breathe, allowing the scents of the season to fill you.  As you look around at the older architecture around you, a smile comes to your face.  Ecruteak’s famous fall appearance is well underway, with the golds and oranges and reds of the fallings leaves coating the streets.  You’d grown up here, and this was always your favorite time of the year.  And it wasn’t just for the look of everything, or was it for the delicious food that came with this time of year.  There’s something that tugs at you, like a sense of longing, that makes it feel all the more connected.

You set off at a casual pace, your clothes keeping you warm and quite cozy as the sun dips towards the horizon.  While it had been a long day, you don’t feel all that tired.  Instead of taking the direct route home, you decide to take the scenic route and pass by the famous landmarks of the city:  the towers.

Smiling to yourself, you make your way through the streets of town, passing others by with the slightest of smiles exchanged.  You know the way to the towers, you had been countless times growing up.  Not just for school trips, where they hammered in the history and cultural relevance of the towers to Ecruteak and Johto as a whole, but also for festivals.  The annual autumnal harvest was coming soon you knew, and with it would come tourists from around the world.  The streets would be strung up with lanterns and decorations, music would fill the city for days on end, and everyone would come together for a week to celebrate.

As you continue to walk alone, you smile to yourself  as you’re reminded of harvest festivals gone by.  One of your favorite traditions was getting new paper lanterns with your siblings, each of you finding some cartoonish yet charming ones made to look like Pokémon.  Maybe you could pick one up, for old times sake, you think to yourself.  You think of how the simple lantern could spruce up your small porch for the season.

The Burned Tower is clearly ahead now, it’s trademark appearance still clear in the late afternoon light.  This part of town thins out, not nearly as condensed with homes and businesses.  You sigh.  You had been here countless times before, but still you felt pity for the tower’s state, perhaps more so now.  You hear the caws of Murkrow nearby, watching some fly into the ruined structure to take roost for the night.

You don’t go any closer to the Burned Tower than the stone steps leading up to it.  There’s no use visiting at this point in time.  Especially at this time of day, when it was closed and would likely be more dangerous with wild Pokémon becoming more active in the ruins.  You take one more look up the hill and try to visualize what the old Tin Tower may have looked like.  Books in school always made it seem like the Bell Tower, but made in honor of Lugia so it was more silver in color, hence the name.  You only wish you could have seen both towers in their heyday, when even the two birds were said to have roosted at the tops.  What a sight, indeed…

You decide to hurry along from the Burned Tower, wanting to visit its companion again during your scenic walk home.  Thinking better of things, you decide to let out your one trusted companion:  a furret whom you had raised from a sentret years and years ago.  The slender Pokémon leaps out of its ball with a mewl, looking around its surroundings curiously before laying its eyes back on you.  With a cheerful cry it dashes over, darting in and around your legs as it works out some pent up energy.  You laugh.  This furret had always been rather excitable.  You remember how even as a sentret it would act like this, some days even standing on its tale to watch you come home, before nearly breaking down the door and tackling you once you came close.  The Pokémon seemed to calm down and instead took to rubbing its cheek against your hand, breaking you out of your memories.  You move your hand and scratch the Pokémon behind the ears, listening to its sounds of contentment while it curled around your legs, contorting itself to get scratched in every spot it could get.  Laughing, you pick the furret up and hug it softly, telling it how much you missed it today.  The Pokémon responds by nuzzling you, then scampering out of your arms and around your shoulders, almost looking like a fancy fur scarf.

You roll your eyes and start walking again, reaching up to scratch the furret’s head again once more as you make your way towards the path to the tower.  It’s grown quiet on the streets north of Ecruteak, as many turn in to join their families for dinner and relaxation in the cool evening.  The leaves crunch as you take a left, a sign indicating the trailhead for the Bell Tower nearby.  It’s not a terribly long walk from one tower to the other, but the walk is one of your favorites in all of Ecruteak.  Furret decides to join the walk and hops from its cozy spot on your shoulders, walking just a few steps ahead while its lithe body sways along the path.

An older man appears on the path ahead, dressed in the more conventional garb of the monks and keepers of the towers.  As he comes near, furret darts ahead and greets the man much the same as it did when you released it earlier.  A jolly kind of laugh is heard from him as he reaches down and gives furret the attention it wants.  You smile and greet him.  He does the same while he continues petting your Pokémon.  Inquiring about your walk, the man smiles softly and simply reminds you the tower is already closed for the evening, though you’re still more than welcome to visit.  You shrug and laugh.  You hadn’t wanted to go in to begin with, but at least you weren’t having to cut your walk short.

With a final few words and well wishing, the man continues on his way.  Furret chases after for only a moment, before turning tail and running back to you, still as energetic as ever.  Its running kicks up a torrent of leaves in its wake, some of them already starting to cling to the rambunctious Pokémon’s messy fur.  You try calling out to it, hoping you might be able to calm it down some, but it’s a lost cause at this point.  Then again, it’s not like Furret doesn’t deserve it.  After being cooped up in a ball all day, it would only be natural that it would be wanting to burn off all of this energy.  You are doing much the same thing with this walk after all.

Furret continues its prancing through the leaf-covered path, though it never leaves your sight thankfully.  With the darkness beginning to set in, you’re grateful for the waxing moon rising in the distance, the light from it really helping to help you see your way along the otherwise dark path, with only a few rustic electric lanterns barely providing lighting every so often.  The sounds of the evening, from chirping bug types to the calls of Hoothoots have really become noticeable as they echo through the forest surrounding you, drowning out the sounds of the city beyond.  It’s calming to hear, as is seeing your Furret so joyously play through the leaves.

In time, the familiar Bell Tower shows up, the dark silhouette blocking out the night sky above.  Around the base, the soft glow of more lamps illuminates the clearing, helping it feeling warm and inviting as you come closer.  The simple and rustic exterior looks worn from the many years the tower has stood, and yet it still holds strong, filled with a history of times longer than you can imagine.  Spying a bench by the tower, you decide to sit down.

Staring into the starlit sky, you can’t help but put on another bright smile.  You can’t be sure why.  It could be the good mood autumn has put you in.  The walk tonight probably played a role, letting you clear your thoughts and spend a peaceful evening out.  Perhaps it’s just because life has been easy for you recently.  You’ve been able to relax a bit more, spend more time with friends and family, and just enjoy life for yourself.  More than likely, you realize, it’s a mix of all three.  Everything just came together to give you the kind of evening you didn’t realize you needed.  A night where you can be left to your thoughts, and all that matters is the world around you, and those close to you.  Speaking of which, you look around for furret, realizing the normal type had disappeared.

You call out for the Pokémon, hoping it comes scurrying back into your lap like it always does.  Silence greets you instead, causing you to worry.  Did a wild Pokémon attack it when you while you were caught up in your thoughts?  Jumping to your feet, you call out for the normal type again, this time hearing its call from the left, around the corner of the tower.  Running over, you expect the worst case of some vicious houndour or even a weavile from the mountains, only to find your furret dashing around in a circle while a gastly happily floats above.  While furret appears to be okay, you remain cautious; gastly have had a reputation for causing a whole host of troubles.  Attempting to get furret to leave the ghost alone, you call it again, this time getting it to stop and look at you.  The gastly looks at you as well, curious about the new visitor.

The two Pokémon look back at each other and smile, with furret crying out something before dashing back to you, clambering up your body until it’s nestled in its favorite spot around your shoulders.  Gastly floats closer, smiling cheerfully.  Despite your inhibitions about the ghost type, you can’t deny how friendly it appears, in particular thanks to how it seemed to be so friendly with your furret.  For a wild Pokémon, it certainly wasn’t as skittish or even malicious as one might have expected.  Furret waved at the ghost from your shoulders, seeming to encourage the ghost to come closer, even as you tried to hush the Pokémon.

Gastly decided to hover nearby, laughing and talking to your partner Pokémon.  Deciding to take advantage of the situation, you think to pull out a tin containing some Pokémon food.  If this gastly was as friendly as it appeared, it may have been tamed before.  Both furret and gastly seemed to catch on quickly, for no sooner did you pull the food out that both Pokémon were whining for a taste.  Hushing furret for a moment, you pull out a piece from the tin and hold it out for the ghost type.  Sure enough it floated down, happily taking the piece and swallowing it. Furret’s own jealous whining was getting tiresome though, so you opened the tin and pulled a couple of pieces out, giving a few to the ferret Pokémon and then a few more to the gastly. While you couldn’t say you were the greatest fan of ghost types, you knew a Pokémon that had been raised by humans when you saw one.  Even a gastly shouldn’t be left to fend for itself you knew.  And it got along with furret, only making the decision of what to do even more obvious.

With a smile, you pull out a pokeball, enlarging the device and letting it tap the top of the gastly’s head while it eats to its heart’s content.  In it went, disappearing into the ball in a bright red flash.  The ball shook a few times in your hand before a final satisfying “ping!” rang out, signifying the Pokémon’s capture.  You can’t help but smile as you release the gastly from the ball.  You hadn’t quite planned on catching another Pokémon tonight.  But it was clear this one had been released by another trainer.  You didn’t know why, nor did you really care.  This was, as far as you could tell, the right thing to do.  You felt weight shift on your shoulders as furret drops back to the ground and runs, calling out to the gastly.  You call after them, and motion for them to follow as you decide to start walking back towards the path.  Meanwhile the two Pokémon start their own game of tag, weaving around the clearing and onto the trail, sometimes dancing around you as they laugh and play their game.  Eventually you get involved, chasing the Pokémon and getting chased by them.  This continues the rest of the way back to Ecruteak, with the loud, raucous laughter from the three of you filling the trees and streets, catching smiles from onlookers as you all continue your way back home.

Tonight may not have ended quite the way you had planned, but could you really be disappointed?  It was, for all intents and purposes, better than you planned.  You had left looking to spend some time out and with your thoughts, reflecting on the good feelings you were having.  Now you had another reason to feel good, and another to share that with.  Smiling at the two Pokémon ahead of you that had taken to the city sidewalks, you realized this was just the start to another autumn.  Another season of change had begun, with new memories to be made to complement those of years past.