TEEN: Kanto: There and Back Again

[Beth Pavell]

From coast to coast and to the heart of the countryside, along ancient trackways and through the celebrated streets of the cities, Bethany Pavell sets off to rediscover the essence of Kanto: the legends, the history and the people that flavour the region, and the tension between humanity and the natural world that has come to define it.

May I present, at long last, my second fanfiction project. There and Back Again is a little unusual as fanfiction goes, taking the form of a travelogue around the Kanto region written by my wittier, prettier alter ego Bethany Pavell. The story is set in the same universe as my other story The Long Walk, visiting game and anime locations with a similar approach to the worldbuilding. The chapters are intended to be read in any order (You'll find the Table of Contents after the Introductions below).

Spoiler: Rated TEEN for:

• Substance use - infrequent consumption of alcohol
• Moderate suggestive themes - infrequent mentions of sexual behaviour

Kanto: There and Back Again​

Miss Bethany Pavell​

This journey started at the end of another.

I was sitting outside a café in Aquacorde Town, feeling very tired, thoroughly frustrated, and altogether far from home. It was a fine, sunny day, as it always seems to be in Kalos (They must manufacture sunshine here), in a pretty, Neo-Romanesque town, charming in that carefully calibrated, faintly smug way Kalosian towns are. Squadrons of rollerbladers glided along the bank of the Chartreine, dodging around people crossing the Pont du Quarellis.

I took a few photos, for the look of the thing. It’s not like I had anything better to do. I should have been on the 8am coach to Lumiose City, but the ticket officer who had printed my return in the first place had somehow managed to print a ticket for the 8pm departure instead. Naturally I carefully explained this to the conductor, who bluntly pointed out that this was the 8am departure, not the 8pm departure. I pointed out that this was clearly the ticket officer’s mistake, as evidenced by his signature here, see? A classically Kalosian shrug. In desperation I put on my best cute voice and told him that I really needed to be in Lumiose that evening for work (Which was true, by the way).

“J’en ai rien à foutre,” he said.

So, there I was, killing time and cursing the sheer wooden-headed obtusity of Autobus Nationale employees. I hadn’t any idea how I was going to properly finish my article for Near and Afar without Madrigal Madness – instead I nursed my frustration and savoured the prospect of having a good shout at some Autobus Nationale employees who really deserved it. Oh, they’d give a foutre then.

These days most of my work is written for magazines. Now, it had been a couple of years since I wrote my first book, 30 Days of Johto. 30 Days had sold moderately well – itself an achievement in the travel writing world, one I’m proud of – but nothing like well enough to put it anywhere near the bestseller lists. So when my agent phoned out of the blue it was very much a double-check to see if I'm dreaming moment.

“Beth Pavell. You were trying to call me, Simon?” I said.

“Collingwood want you to write another book,” he announced.

“They do?” I said.

“They do. They want to commission you to write a travel piece in the style of 30 Days.”

“So … they want me to do Kalos?” I said uncertainly.

“No!” he said, squashing that notion. “They want you to do Kanto.”

Kanto? I thought. I could hardly think of a more tired region for a travelogue. Kanto was so familiar, so usual, her paths trod and re-trod by countless writers before me. What was there to find in Kanto that hadn't been found a hundred times already? I accepted, not because I expected to be surprised, fascinated, or delighted by the Home Region, but because a commission is a commission and I never like to turn down work.

But still, it would be a clichéd commission, a banal journey around a banal region, right?

* * *​

As it turned out, my perception was wrong. I'm not sure I can claim to have discovered anything like a hidden, unexplored Kanto, but on my journey I was genuinely surprised, fascinated, and sometimes really quite delighted.

Habitually we speak of a united Middle Kingdom, and indeed Kanto and Johto have a lot in common. But Kanto has its own subtle identity. For good or ill, the Home Region looms large in our shared Imperial culture, praised by Nationalists, mythologised by Romantics, and, of course, chronicled by travel writers. And, not without reason. Kanto is a land of natural beauty married to human endeavour – Cerulean City shining between the mountains and the sea, Fuchsia of the million flowers, green and glad Celadon City. Humans have lived in Kanto since the Stone Age, each successive generation leaving behind a new page of the long story inscribed upon the landscape.

After years of travelling the Middle Kingdom, I've found that's what these regions are – story after story, laid down over the centuries like layers of chalk.

Some of these Kantoese stories have been told and retold so often that they, and the associated wonders they describe, have become stale through repetition, clichés. I'm not a Kantonian – actually, as a native Johtoan I am very nearly honour-bound to expound at length about how Johto has its own unique charm and fantastic wonder. But I’ve realised a couple of things on my travels. That the clichés, dry and tired though they may be, are usually true. And that clichés are not all that Kanto has to offer.

It is this diversity of spirit (And, it must be said, of people), the clichéd and the novel, the charming and the odious, that makes the Home Region anything but banal. Clichéd, odious – unflattering adjectives, and I make no apology for them. In writing There and Back Again, I’ve been determined to write with sincerity. My hope is to have written a book with a broad appeal – not merely a paean to Kanto, but an honest snapshot of the history, geography, and culture of the region. For broad appeal, too, I’ve tried to include plenty to interest readers both national and international. To help me with this, my friend and fellow author Nine Pretty Butterflies has contributed some supplemental information for the international reader.

* * *​

I'm doing the final edit of this introduction at my desk, back home in New Bark Town. Rain drums at the window pane, flung onto the glass by the winds of new beginning. One of my favourite little ironies, being in New Bark at the end of a journey. I tap my pen fruitlessly on my cheap, battered MDF desk, wondering what I can say to round this introduction off.

In desperation I turn to the quotation book in search of ideas. Oh, dear me. I hadn’t hitherto realised how pompous my fellow travellers can be. ‘The world is a book, and those who do not travel have read only one page’. ’Don’t tell me how educated you are, tell me how far you’ve travelled’. I won’t even bother telling you the attribution to these – neither saint nor prophet said either. The real source, I suspect, is probably some upper middle-class hippy drunk on homemade rice wine and second hand Dharmic koans.

It doesn’t really get much better. The next one really gets on my tits:

‘Travel while you’re still young and able. Don’t worry about the money, just make it work. Experience is far more valuable than money will ever be.’

How supercilious! How completely inane! Just make it work? I’m lucky enough to get paid to travel, and I pay my bills in dollars, not cute stories about cycling around Tianxia.

It’s in the midst of my quotation-inspired bad temper – mentally composing savage diatribes against it – that I realise what an ideal region Kanto is to explore. You can wander the region for months at a time, footloose and carefree, but you can just as easily explore an interesting corner of Kanto in a weekend. It’s definitely worth looking into. If you do manage to visit, be open to surprise, fascination, and certainly, delight.

Bethany Pavell
September 2014
​

 

[Beth Pavell]

And Did Those Feet …
These Sunset Isles​

Like so many immigrants to the Empire, I don’t remember my homeland.

My parents emigrated from Haizhou in the early nineties. The city had been unstable for many years, and after the latest convulsion of unrest my father decided enough was enough. Leaving one empire for another, we left Haizhou for Vermilion City.

I was six at the time. My few memories of the city are hazy and fragmented – to me, Haizhou feels more like an anthology of stories than a real place. I grew up in Kanto, and gained a distinctly Kantoese identity. Over the years I have fallen in love with these Sunset Isles, a culture composed of mingled cultures, possessing a rich, deep, often bloody history.

The Sunset Isles is the ancient name of an archipelago situated about three hundred miles off the west coast of Medi-Terra, made up of the regions of Kanto, Johto and Misho; the island regions of Hoenn and Sinnoh; as well as the hundreds of smaller isles, among them the Principality of Alto Mare, Cinnabar Island and Sootopolis City. In the furthest north of Sinnoh the Isles draw closest to the continent, a mere eighty seven miles of sea between Sinnoh and the Haakono region. Away in the south the subtropical Hoenn region sits neatly on the 40th parallel.

In Continental culture the Sunset Isles have typically been regarded as unimportant, a trivial patchwork of bickering little kingdoms on the periphery of the civilised world. For many centuries there was a loud ring of truth to this view, until the unification of Kanto and Johto shook up the balance of power across the Isles.

And yet this archipelago holds an undeniable mystique. The legends of these cloudy islands on the periphery of Medi-Terra have long reached as far as my former homeland in the Tianxia’n empire. The Sunset Isles, which until the Age of Exploration were thought to be the very edge of the world, with nothing beyond but the endless Great Western Ocean. The Sunset Isles, those magical islands inhabited by a heathen commonwealth of old heroes and older gods. The Sunset Isles, where the roots of the World Tree are sunk deep, and giants lay hidden beneath the earth.

“And did those feet in ancient time,
Walk upon Johto’s mountains green?
And were those shining chariots Divine,
On Kanto’s pleasant pastures seen?”

As a historian, I have to say “Probably not”. But it almost doesn’t matter. The story itself is powerful – its endurance has nothing to do with truth or falsehood. Stories are powerful, far more powerful than we commonly realise. History itself is a story, a narrative rewritten and reinterpreted with each new generation.

Bethany’s one of those people who tends to think in stories. We’ve corresponded for years, but until now have never had a chance to collaborate. And what better way to start than with an exploration of my adopted homeland? It’s been a pleasure, really, to write for this book. I hope you become as fascinated by these mystical isles as I have.

Nine Pretty Butterflies
November 2014​

 

[Beth Pavell]

Table of Contents

Brittanay Sound
O, I have but one notion, for to be beside the ocean

Almost half the miles of the Kantoese coast line the Brittanay Sound, the waters between peninsular Kanto and Vermilion City. This sea represents the maritime heritage of the region, a place where industry, war, commerce and pleasure all come together. A place of contrasts, maybe, but also of connections. Brittanay has been Kanto’s gateway to the world, bringing both prosperity and conflict. The Sea giveth, and the Sea taketh away.

1. Vermilion City Pt. 1 Pt. 2 Pt. 3
2. Maiden's Peak
3. Button-on-Sea

 

[Beth Pavell]

Spoiler: Version History

1.1 : Moved Gunwharf Quays section to Part 2. Moved Blue Planet section here from Part 3.

Vermilion City
Birthplace of an empire​

People call Vermilion City the port of exquisite sunsets, but I thought it looked best in the early hours of the morning. My first sight of the city was from the foredeck of the liner Goldeen on a cold, clear April morning. In the early morning the city is coloured a subtle shade of dove grey, bordered by the slate blue waves of the Brittanay Sound. It’s a strangely tranquil scene for one of the busiest ports in the Empire.

Sharing the deck with me was my bellossom, Bella, pretending not to notice the cold and the salt spray. She’s a tough little monster, from the aggressive Ilex Forest troupes. Behind us to starboard was an amorous weepinbell, sulking because a disapproving Bella had taught him a lesson in chivalry at the point of a Leaf Blade.

Westwards, way off to my left, I could see the shallow curve of Vermilion Bay lying perhaps half a league distant. Vermilion on the Bay is the new, modern city, characterised by neatly laid-out suburbs and airy parkland. At the eastern side of the bay the coast bends south and becomes a wide headland that dominates the centre of the panorama.

In the crook between the bay and the headland is the container port of Anchorage. The cranes tower over the warehouses, their steel-latticed masts and jibs shining pearlescent in the light, distance making them look like impossibly spindly twigs against the sky. Even at that early hour there was the slabby bulk of a cargo ship sailing into dock, her decks piled bow to stern with multicoloured intermodal shipping containers.

Across the headland is the heart of the city, Old Vermilion, Nazeton on the north side with its streets crammed with tall turn of the century terraced houses, medieval Chesilby on the south. As the Goldeen drew nearer to port the squat round shape of Nazeton Castle became steadily more obvious. Four hundred and fifty years ago those thick stone walls housed batteries of heavy culverin, poised to blast marauding ships to splinters. Nazeton Castle isn’t the only surviving fortification in Vermilion. Between Nazeton and Chesilby a short channel splits the headland in two, linking the sea to Vermilion Harbour. A stretch of superbly preserved medieval town wall stands near the entrance of the channel at Chesilby; a brace of seventeenth-century artillery forts guard the harbour mouth.

Entering the channel seemed to transform Vermilion from a quiet, almost impressionistic cityscape into a living, working port city. Yachts lay sleepily at anchor in the channelside marinas. Tugs and pilot boats chugged back and forth – a blue-liveried Ranger patrol ship sailed out, possibly on the hunt for smugglers. I realised then that I was glad to see Vermilion for the first time from the foredeck of a ship, rather than from the gondola of a zeppelin.

Glad, yes, but also flagging somewhat. The journey from Aquacorde Town had been a rough one. At this point I was running on coffee, croissants, and an uncomfortable catnap in Nina d’Lanclos Terminal 4. Presently we came up on Horsea Island, a shred of land standing just off the south side of the harbour. You won’t find any horsea there nowadays, not least because the island is the docking place for international passenger shipping. Liners from all over the world dock at Horsea. They come from Shinikara, Unova and Lemuria, from Kalos, Megalio and Storm Island. My Imperial passport sped me through Immigration – welcome back to the Empire – then I sped myself on past the usual port retail on the main concourse. These always mystify me. I can see why you’d want to buy a paperback or an overpriced sandwich, but who the hell buys a designer suit before boarding ship?

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Vermilion’s History I: The Red Town
According to the Annals of Sarbury, in the 7th century CE Vermilion was part of the petty Kingdom of Lindsey – though at this time the town was known as Rēadtūn, the Red Town. Folk etymology holds this is due to King Theodric the Bloody (629 – 648), who used the harbour as a base to raid his neighbours up and down the coast. Legend has it that Theodric would display the gory swords of his defeated foes above the gates of the town.

Thanks to the depredations of war and the neglect of kings, Vermilion then fell back into obscurity for much of the medieval period. In spite of this, growing sea trade and a robust shipbuilding industry kept bringing wealth into the town. Sincere work to fortify the town began from 1539, commissioned by Edmund Holmwood, Count of Lindsey and royal favourite. By 1556 the town was surrounded by stone ramparts, and a chain boom spanned the harbour mouth.

The 17th century cemented Vermilion’s status as the Kingdom of Kanto’s premier seaport. Over the course of the century Kanto’s need to compete with the navies of the other Sunset Kingdoms brought Vermilion into unassailable prominence. The key to the port’s success as a naval base lies in her geography. The twin arms of the headland enclose a deep natural harbour nearly two miles across at its widest point, narrowing to a mere 1,500ft at the harbour mouth. Aside from being able to shelter a great number of vessels, the narrow channel is easily defended from the sea through the use of chain booms and shore forts.
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Beyond the concourse a concrete bridge links Horsea to the mainland. Halfway across I stopped for a few minutes to take some impromptu photos of the harbour, trying to capture its appearance in the early morning light. There was an interesting view of His Majesty’s Naval Base to be had from here – the drydocks and basins, the ugly squat barracks and oddly handsome warehouses, and the orchard of cranes peering over the jetties. The vast, imposing grey slab of the aircraft carrier HMS Conqueror dominated the panorama. At nearly 1000ft long she dwarfed intrepid HMS Thunderchild moored at a nearby jetty.

An inelegant yawn reminded me that I still had to find accommodation, so I left the sea behind and went into the city. In this city it’s quite hard to leave the sea behind. There’s one thousand years of maritime history almost everywhere you look. You can see it etched onto the fabric of the buildings, see it displayed on statuary and monuments, hear it in the forlorn cries of the ever-present wingull. You can read it on the street signs – Rope Street, Fusee Square, Orange Lane. The prevailing impression is of a jigsaw city, sewn together from too many periods and cultures. It all makes for an interesting aesthetic, but not a pretty or even a magnificent one.

* * *​

The original plan had been to stay in a chain hotel outside the city centre. As fortune would have it, though, a stone’s throw from the bus station I stumbled across a surprisingly cheap B&B. At less than $60 per night I doubted I was going to find a better deal. The proprietor, frankly, was a dreadful harridan. Mrs Hauteclaire, as she insisted on, didn’t smile or even greet me at reception. She had an inordinate number of rules, most of them strict. “Wipe your feet thoroughly.” - that was number one. Breakfast between eight and nine am, no exceptions. Guests must be back by ten pm. No men – Mrs Hauteclaire threw me a suspicious look with that one – Pokémon must be fed in the guest kitchen. Pokémon must be confined to their Poké Balls. No cursing …

After a short nap I headed out to explore the city (Breaking three and a half rules, probably), taking a circuitous route in order to see the town wall. Sights like this remind me of why I love the Middle Kingdom. For just under three-quarters of a mile the street runs in the shadow of a twenty-foot high medieval wall. In their heyday the walls would have formed a 2.5-mile circuit around the town, including thirty two octagonal bastion towers and two gatehouses. Each bastion would have been topped with a formidable ballista – the floor below housed a Flamethrower charmeleon. Many medieval fortifications incorporated Water-types to discourage undermining by Ground-types. Vermilion’s town walls had the sea to protect them.

Aside from some modern safety rails on the inner edge of the parapet not much has changed in six centuries. Even the tower-top ballistae have been restored. Say what you like about Middle Kingdom vanity, we preserve our heritage better than anyone.

The Castelia of the Seas
Whatever the Royal Navy might say, in the popular imagination the jewel of Vermilion City is a civilian vessel. She was back in her home port for general downtime, anchored up with quiet dignity in the shelter of the breakwater by No. 6 Pier. Her lines were classic, a high freeboard on a black hull, a tastefully restrained double row of balconied cabins lining the upper decks. About 350ft from the forecastle rose a stout funnel in the distinctive scarlet livery of the Hepburn Line. Her name was discreetly stencilled on her prow in Hepburn red: Anne.

But you didn’t need me to tell you that. SS Anne, the Castelia of the seas, still the gold standard of cruise ships after more than thirty years afloat, and the last oil-fired steamship still in service. By all accounts financially she’s still going strong. You can see why, comparing her with the modern cruise ships by No. 2 and No. 5 Pier – vast, gleaming white monstrosities, towering decks crammed with cabins like floating condominiums, massed glass balconies glittering (Appropriately enough) with all the soul and charm of a corporate office block.

When Hepburn Line launched Anne in 1976 she was widely considered to be a gamble. Disregarding the conventional wisdom of the three-class model, Anne was built to highlight an excellent ‘second-class’ experience to appeal to a middle-class market. As the sport of pokémon training grew in prestige, Anne kept pace, holding tournaments and conventions, and hosting some of the best trainers in the Empire. From 1994-98 she even had an official Indigo League Gym (At the turn of the millennium it was converted to a Contest Hall). Unlike the modern megaship, she retained premium first-class suites. Perhaps unintentionally, the ingredients for success were all there – a ship that retained the high-class glamour of yesteryear, crucially placed within reach of a mass market of petite bourgeoisie.

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Vermilion’s History II: Sovereign of the Seas
Kanto arose as a nation betrothed to the sea – her destiny was to rule the waves. It’s an idea at the foundations of Kantoese identity. And it’s a myth. Until the Union of the Roses in 1655 Kanto was at best a second-rate naval power, not safe behind a saline moat, but wary and fearful of the violent Sunset Seas.

If anything, Kanto married Johto’s navy. From the Union of the Roses a national conviction developed that the Middle Kingdom had a right, indeed a duty, to rule the sea. The belief in the Middle Kingdom’s ‘sovereignty of the seas’ was a core belief for the Empire to come. And the Empire was not shy about invoking it, imposing Imperial civilisation and order on the world’s oceans, by force of arms if need be.

The Maritime Supremacy Acts controversially revive this centuries-old ideology. The Acts mandate that passenger ships using Imperial ports must fly the Imperial flag – and, therefore, submit to Imperial taxation, industry regulations, and legal jurisdiction. The Acts have since been accused of naked imperialism, an accusation that’s difficult to refute, but the benefits to the oceanic traveller are just as difficult to ignore.
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Unfortunately, Anne’s prestige attracted the tackiest kind of petite bourgeoisie – organised crime. The competition for a glamorous place to conduct illegal business, beyond the reach of the police, led to a spate of flash in the pan mob wars in the 80s. Ironically just as the Rockets apparently came out on top Parliament passed the first of the Maritime Supremacy Acts. In the long run the Team Rocket association has only added to Anne’s sense of glamour. The newly-installed Station Marshal of the SS Anne signalled the end of the mob’s golden age with his arrest of Rocket Executive Sunny “Antares” Falzone. Though Falzone’s arrest made a national hero of Marshal Juniper Device, Anne’s fortunes continued to take a turn for the worse while the crackdown continued. But organised crime + enough time eventually = colourful history – a history that Hepburn is quick to celebrate.

* * *​

It had been a long day, full of the sort of nettling misfortunes that every travel writer learns to expect. I headed back to the B&B by an unintentionally circuitous route, stopping briefly for a mediocre burger and to pick up a few beers. Kalosian beer’s all very well but I’ve missed Kantoese brews.

I had intended to organise the day’s notes and photos in my room, but on a whim I decided to work in the guest’s lounge. A lounge as old-fashioned as the owner – I hadn’t seen a floral print armchair in a long time. The magazines on the coffee table were all without exception stiflingly dull: Classic Boat – The world’s most beautiful boats (I’d seen the SS Anne that afternoon, no comparison), Locomotives Illustrated (With pull-out diagram of a KR Class 56 shunter!), Angler (Mostly magikarp). After about half an hour another guest ambled in, starting as if he’d discovered me in his shower. He proved to be a nice man, though perhaps the most neurotic I’ve ever met. It took him a full twenty minutes to work up the courage to ask me what I was doing, and when he did his speech was riddled with tics (“I say, a travel writer! How, um, very interesting. Yes? Interesting, mhm, mm.”).

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Vermilion City: Pokémon to Catch

#73 Tentacool – Haliorubeus haliopsis
Tentacool are almost axiomatically common, happily tolerating the conditions in and around Vermilion harbour. Tentacool are easily landed with a simple rod or net, though they do tend to drift in blooms, which can make singling one out difficult.

#74 Tentacruel – Haliorubeus polycrinis
Tentacruel are rare close to Vermilion harbour. Shortly after evolving they rise to the surface and begin to migrate out to sea. It takes a patient and observant trainer to catch one, not least because tentacruel almost never stay within easy reach of the shore.

#96 Drowzee – Baku oneirophagus
By day drowzee spend most of their time resting on Route 11 – in the small hours of the morning the bravest of them wander into the city in search of dreams. The best time to catch one is the last hour before dawn while they’re tired and inattentive.

#83 Farfetch’d – Anas pterocheirus
There’s still a small breeding population of wild farfetch’d inhabiting a secluded part of Route 6. It’s illegal to catch farfetch’d in the wild, but you can buy ducklings in the city anyway. Most licensed breeders advertise in the Pokémon Centre.
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If there’s one thing I ended up learning it’s that Mrs Hauteclaire had a talent for tarnishing otherwise pleasant experiences. She bustled in halfway through a nice, if staccato, conversation and immediately gave me a dark look as if she suspected I’d smuggled a man in. Actually she had a problem with my drinking beer in the guest lounge (“This is a dry Establishment.”). Apparently I’d already been informed of this particular rule amid the swarm of other rules that morning. Yes … it had been a long day.

The Blue Planet
I’ll admit I have a soft spot for aquariums. There’s something so peaceful about the glow of the water, the waver and shimmer of the light. The silence of the gently shoaling fish. Gazing into Marvellous Coral Sea was almost mesmerising in its … well, hugeness. The tank was designed as an all-encompassing experience, nearly 300ft long; almost 130ft wide; an immense two storeys deep. It was like someone had picked an acre of coral reef from the tropics and replanted it here in the Blue Planet Aquarium.

Marvellous Coral Sea was a world of its own, an almost overwhelming kaleidoscope of colours and species. Colonies of plate corals grew mushroom-like in overlapping layers, clustered together with knobby acropora. Schools of bright damselfish, angelfish, and fusiliers drifted gently through the anthozoan forest. A delicately branching sea fan stirred and turned out to be a corsola, disturbing some lurking horsea. Silver-blue shoals of remoraid toured the tank in the clear water over the reef. And above them all, the great carcajet circled.

This one was merely bus-sized at 32ft long, a tiddler by carcajet standards. Carcajet (Aquamachina giganteus) are among the largest pokémon we know of, great flat-headed, blunt-nosed sharks closely related to sharpedo. But these are peaceable giants, spending their lives travelling the world’s oceans following the densest plankton blooms. The carcajet cruised lazily past me, a rather sweet, dopey expression in its small round eyes. I could see with wonderful clarity its wide, rigid pectoral fins, and the hydrojets recessed beneath its vestigial tail. Mysterious pokémon, carcajet. Most of what we know about them comes from when they gather near the coasts to feed. We still don’t know where, exactly, they spend most of their lives. Recent research has at least revealed how they apparently appear and disappear at will. When ready to migrate they’ll dive to around 3,000ft, to the dim mesopelagic zone, where they’ll then use their hydrojets to cruise at an impressive 23 knots.

The aquarium wasn’t originally on my itinerary, but I had time to kill before the evening. You need a full day here, really, but with only a few hours available I had to pick and choose. I spent an hour at Marvellous Coral Sea (It’s an immersive experience, if you’ll forgive the pun). The next tank was considerably smaller, although still more spacious than a lot of people’s apartments. The room was dimly lit, the tank itself illuminated with red light. An oozy, muddy floor, bare rock at the back. And the biggest kingler I had ever seen.

Kingler (Cancer megachelae) are usually the warlords of the sea floor, growing to between three and four feet high, weighing around 130lbs, and armed with claws that can crush with more than 16,000 newtons of force – there’s not a lot that can challenge one in its home environment. They’re not picky eaters, either, though pokémon invertebrates like shellder and starmie are favourite foods.

In the blackness of the deep sea, kingler grow to be giants. The aquarium’s specimen, named Big Bob for some reason, is a six-foot monster and lives in a tank to himself. He was hunched in the ooze near the rocks at the back, slowly shredding apart what looked like half a pig. He watched me just as intently as I watched him. How well could he see me? I wondered. Eyes have no use on the abyssal plain.

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Blue Planet Aquarium | The Waterfront | Weekdays 10am-5pm, Weekends 10am-6pm | $20 | T: 01964 237891 | Website: www.visitblueplanet.com
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Lining the edges of the tank, the mirrored panels of capture net projectors shone cheri-red in the light. Big Bob had a tank to himself for a reason. Deep sea kingler (C. m. abyssanus) are used to eating all they can, when they can – they can’t be trusted around other pokémon, and aren’t completely trustworthy around humans either.

Blue Planet aquarium sits right on the edge of a cove cut into the coastline of Vermilion Bay. I stepped out onto the chilly seafront terrace. The weather had changed during the night. A velvety sea fog had rolled in from Brittanay Sound that morning, masking the bay in a deep blanket of pearl white. From somewhere out in the cove sounded a high melodic call, a song not singable by any human voice. Five pale shadows distilled themselves from the fog – two large, three much smaller, swanna-necked with knobbled backs, fog curling about them as if reluctant to let go. Peaceful, half-lidded eyes, though always watchful, slightly wary.

Lapras (Plesiosaurus pacifici). Last of their genus, last of the plesiosaurs, surviving down the millennia while one-by-one their cousins died off, and now, they’re a declining species. Their ancient range extended seasonally from the grey northern Sinnovard shores to the warm seas of the Orange Islands. It’s said that pods seventy strong could once be seen passing by Cerulean Cape, especially in April when the females returned from the Orange Islands with their new calves. Lapras still make this migration – it’s an epic journey, mother and child travelling as much as three thousand miles to reach the fishing grounds off Sinnoh.

The modern world has not been kind to lapras. By nature gentle creatures, lapras invariably prefer to flee rather than fight. Pods of related individuals, led by the matriarchs, work together to the confuse and mislead pursuing predators. For millennia this strategy served them well – it took a skilled, determined hunter to catch a lapras that didn’t want to be caught. But the modern world, with modern Poké Balls, modern petrol engines, and modern firearms, has dramatically altered the balance of power. Caught between persecution from commercial fishermen and overcapture by trainers in the Orange Islands, lapras populations plummeted to critical levels.

Today, lapras are still an endangered species, protected by law. Their numbers have gradually ticked up from their doldrums in the early 90s, thanks to vigorous cross-regional conservation efforts. Poachers now have to contend with a specialised Ranger Union taskforce. In spite of these protections, the future of the species is uncertain. This little pod of five will be both ambassadors and ancestors for generations of lapras to come. They carry high hopes on their backs – only time will tell whether these gentle pokémon will be able to fulfil them.

Spoiler: Author's Notes

The obvious starting point for Vermilion City would be its probable real-world counterpart, Yokohama City. After a bit of reading I felt Yokohama was too young as a major seaport for my concept of Vermilion. Instead I turned to Portsmouth, borrowing much of the geography and taking inspiration from the city’s history. The main differences are in the details – hints at the historic use of pokémon, the Rocket connection to the SS Anne, etc. In some cases there was a lot of thought and research done to come to these details, most of which did not make it into the final version for fear of lecturing the reader.

The aim for Part 1 was to try and create a sense of a world with depth of the kind you don’t usually get to see in pokémon-centric fanfiction. A city’s a good place to do that, since you can hint at a lot of history with something as simple as street names. The mentions of foreign places were intended to serve the same purpose. Tianxia and Frankia, Lemuria, and Megalio are mine, but Sakala, Shinikara and Storm Island are creations of Misfit Angel (Used with permission). You can find those regions in her stories Storm Island and Land of the Roses.

 

[Beth Pavell]

Spoiler: Version History

1.1 : Moved Gunwharf Quays section here from Part 1.

One Star in a Constellation
219 years ago, a man stood close to this spot, gazing out into Vermilion Bay. Tears still stained his cheeks. His blue frock coat was full of salt, but the engraved silver buttons shone proudly in the morning sun. His name was Evan Roskilly, thirty three years-old, and one of the Royal Navy’s star captains.

Evan Roskilly was the only son of a well-respected Cianwood gentleman, Edward Roskilly. In the mid-18th century Cianwood Island was one of the Middle Kingdom’s poorest counties, and indeed the Roskillies were perpetually in financial trouble despite their social status. Evan’s father had to be resourceful, marrying off his first daughter; the second became a priestess; and for his son, Edward used the last of his savings to send Evan to sea.

This afternoon I was in neat, suburban Vermilion on the Bay – less of a jigsaw city than Chesilby, but still distinctly maritime. Speaking of maritime, it was from a little Heritage Trust shop on the Old Gunwharf that I picked up an abridged copy of Evan Roskilly’s diary. It’s funny what history ends up forgetting. Roskilly’s surviving diaries cover almost his entire career, missing only his teenage years as a ponytailed Midshipman, and later Lieutenant, aboard the 64-gun HMS Formidable. It’s an unusually vibrant insight into a gentleman’s life on the waves.

* * *​

“I never saw a more wild and free a landscape as this. Our first sight of this country was a deep sea inlet sided with lofty snow-capped mountains that the Sinnovards call gjos. It was a country that affected me deeply, at once reminiscent of the Cianwood heath and something autarchic and untameable.”

In the summer of 1780 Roskilly was cruising off the western coast of Sinnoh, serving as 1st Lieutenant aboard HMS Pidgeot, a frigate of twenty eight guns. This was his first real taste of command responsibility. Pidgeot was originally posted to the Sinnovard station to provide an escort for incoming convoys, but in the spring of the following year the posting was enlivened by the bloody chaos of the Bishop’s Uprising. After the loyalist victory at the Battle of Aikenkirk, Pidgeot, along with her sister ship HMS Interceptor, was ordered into the Hailie Gjo to cut off the rebel’s escape. The squadron reached the port of Roke Cross to find the town already in loyalist hands. Seeing the violence of the rebellion first hand seems to have shocked Roskilly:

“… the rebels having taken the abominable resolution to cut their prisoners to pieces in the main square, the flagstones of which were now awash with the forlorn and clotted blood of those who, in their savage passion, the rebels had massacred in cruellest revenge the day before.”

The day would not get any less grim. About a hundred rebels had been captured when the town fell. As second-in-command of the Pidgeot, Roskilly was obliged to be present at the executions:

“There not being sufficient gallows to hang them as traitors, they were taken out by tens and destroyed by means of the Interceptor’s electabuzz. After they were dead, the rebels were stript and flung into the sea. All this was most distressing to endure, for”

Roskilly seems to have redacted his diary here, later insincerely adding:

“Not the slightest degree of pity nor concern was shown to them at their deaths, theirs was a vile and beastly act not having advanced their cause one step.”

* * *​

Evan Roskilly was still a young man, twenty three years-old, when he was ordered to cruise the tropical seas of Ultramar. This time he was hunting for pirates, and this time he was given command of a ship of his own – the sloop HMS Seafoam. She was a very typical ship for an officer of his rank, armed with eighteen nine-pounder guns and carrying half as many pokémon, but Roskilly was delighted anyway:

“I think she is the finest vessel of her class I ever saw. Her copper is very good, and she sails like a fish against the wind.”

This was no empty posting. Roskilly made landfall at Muscavade to find Port Kanto buzzing. Two days previously, a West Lemuria Company merchantman was ransacked and burned within sight of the harbour. Only a handful of survivors were allowed to escape in the ship’s jollyboat to tell their story. The townsmen of Port Kanto were scandalised and titillated to hear that the pirate captain was a woman from Chaochang (潮昌). She was none other than Su Yanqiang (苏艳强), better known to myth as Marigold Sue.

Su was to become one of the most infamous pirate captains on the Ultramarean Sea. The Saffron newspapers would continue to scandalise and titillate polite society with stories of her brutal violence and flamboyant gallantry. It’s hard to say what shocked society more – that a woman would sail beneath the black flag, or that she wore male clothes while doing it. What the columnists didn’t know they gleefully invented for their readers. The Saffron Times later claimed she always wore a red damask waistcoat daringly stolen from the Governor of Melaço’s own wardrobe. That was probably untrue – Roskilly personally saw Su when he doggedly pursued her brig for twenty two hours in September 1785. His diary mentions no famous waistcoat:

“[She was] a most striking creature, perhaps the most beautiful I had seen since I left Kanto; she wore double cutlasses and a brace of pistols about her slender hips.”

Even now separating out the truth from the legend is nigh-impossible. West Lemuria tended to encourage big personalities, and Marigold Sue was no exception, with a larger-than-life persona fit for a legendary scoundrel …

… Off the coast of Île Paladin, Marigold Sue pounced on a Kalosian brig carrying a rich cargo of Decolore saffron and indigo worth more than 1,000 doubloons (About $60,000 at today’s values). To the astonishment of the crew, she ignored the dyes, taking only the captain’s oricorio-feathered hat before letting her prey go, apologising sheepishly for the inconvenience.

… In December 1785, Marigold Sue was locked up in a Muscavadean jail. Her luck had apparently run out – the Admiralty Court had convicted her of piracy. It wasn’t usually Imperial policy to hang women, but the infamous Marigold Sue had earned herself an exception. The Lieutenant-Governor of the island shrewdly ordered that Su be attended only by female jailers, rightly assuming she would try to save herself with an eleventh-hour pregnancy. His decision to visit Su’s cell was not so shrewd. Within a couple of days she’d seduced him thoroughly, playing on his lust for her money (And his lust for her body). Somehow believing he could clear her name, the Lieutenant-Governor arranged for her escape. The plan spectacularly backfired when Su recruited a skeleton crew in Port Kanto and sailed off with the finest Royal Navy sloop in the harbour.

… In the Bahía de Lâmpada, Marigold Sue captured the Braisilon Volant as she lay at anchor in the best-defended harbour in West Lemuria. Su led the boarding attack from the boats under cover of night, crossing more than half a mile of sea to get to the anchored galleon. The pirates overwhelmed the crew in a matter of minutes. Aboard, they found the back pay for the Joãozinho garrison, and none other than Antoine-Maurin Aubert de Bellegarde, the incoming Governor-General of Kalosian Lemuria.

The pirates had hit the big time. When the sun rose the next morning, Joãozinho awoke to find their new Governor-General a hostage. Su’s demands were simple: she would spare Aubert’s life in return for safe passage out of the bay. The captain of the garrison had no choice. Aubert de Bellegarde lived, but Su sailed away with an estimated 15,000 doubloons.

1786: Golden Opportunities
In the Spring of 1786, the colonies of Sunset Unova rose in armed rebellion – and for the pirates of the Ultramarean Sea, the golden years were beginning. Civil war meant a distracted Royal Navy, under-defended convoys, and plenty of smuggling opportunities in the colonies.

During this time Marigold Sue – still brazenly sailing her stolen HMS Challenger – began to keep company with the Anne Gallant, captained by Esteban el Rosado. Esteban was ambitious but none too smart, which probably explains why Su was prepared to sail alongside him. For half a year they plundered their way across West Lemuria, quitting the Ultramarean Sea at the start of the hurricane season, making landfall in the Orange Islands in mid-July. That cruise brought only middling success, so they were back in Lemuria by October. While Su set a course for the Nectarine Cays, Esteban sailed to Decolore to buy arms to smuggle into Unova.

Because he was ambitious and stupid, Esteban was also a braggadocio, crowing about sailing with the infamous Marigold Sue. His crowing reached the ears of a Royal Navy spy, who straight away rode to report it to the nearest warship in the islands – HMS Seafoam.

Roskilly immediately made sail for Wayfarer Island, determined to capture the pirates before they could disappear into the Great Western Ocean. Esteban fled the island too late. After a short and merciless chase Seafoam caught the Anne Gallant off the coast of Grand Spectrala. The wind was gusting towards the shore – Seafoam bore down on the Anne Gallant’s port quarter, trapping her to leeward. Now the pirates were forced to either fight or risk the gallows.

The ensuing action was brief but fierce. Seafoam engaged from a distance of about 50 yards, braving the Anne Gallant’s guns to stop her from escaping to windward.

“The blackguards gave a very spirited resistance, but we opened such a fire upon her as brought down her foremast within a quarter hour. I therefore ordered them to strike their colours, or else I would send them to the bottom.”

It wasn’t Esteban el Rosado who gave the order to surrender, but the Master Fernão Fernandes – sometime after the opening salvoes Esteban had been smashed overboard by a Water Pulse. Fernandes was much quicker on the uptake than the average pirate, quickly offering to turn King’s Evidence in return for Su’s whereabouts. Two words bought him his pardon – Isla Cangrejo.

* * *​

Meanwhile, in the Nectarine Cays, Su was hiding out on Isla Cangrejo. This little-known cay was where Su came to careen her ship and stash her share of the plunder. After their disappointing cruise in the Orange Islands the pirates threw a rum-soaked beach party, complete with prostitutes brought over from Decolore, and Marigold Sue lording it over them like a barbarian queen.

HMS Seafoam arrived at the cay in the dead of night. Challenger was careened up on the north side of the island with those few men who had the unenviable job of scraping the weeds and barnacles off her hull. The rest of the pirates were raucously gathered on the beach, getting rascally drunk and probably contracting chlamydia. Roskilly wasted no time in springing his trap, dispatching thirty men under the 1st Lieutenant to seize HMS Challenger while he landed the marines and his forty best sailors on the eastern shore, under his personal command. Roskilly led his men into the tropical forest, intending to attack the pirates from the cover of the trees. The sounds of sixty men picking through the undergrowth were ignored. Each assumed the noise was just their fellow pirates, tired of barnacle scraping.

The Seafoam’s crew were almost in position when one of the pirates realised their ‘shipmates’ were armed. He raised the alarm – the wrong alarm. The pirates lurched to their weapons, believing they had been betrayed by the Anne Gallant. Their drunken anger turned to panic when Roskilly’s marines opened fire. In the midst of the rabble Su cursed and screamed at her crew, a drawn cutlass in each hand.

Her screams and curses did her no good. The fight soon went out of the pirates with nine dead, twice as many injured and their pokémon either dead or fled. Su meekly surrendered at the point of Roskilly’s sword. Playing the longer game she tried to pull the same trick that sprung her from jail on Muscavade. It didn’t work this time. Roskilly claimed his duty kept him loyal, but I suspect the lad didn’t know what to do with a woman like Su. He had been at sea since he was thirteen, an environment typically lacking in assertive women.

On the 6th December 1786 Su Yanqiang was hanged from a short rope below the low-water mark at Stonebeach. The atmosphere that day was celebratory. Pirates were the not the rock stars of their day, glamorous bad boys who antagonised authority in exciting but harmless ways; they were more like the terrorists of their day, elusive and savage murderers who preyed on the innocent. The Kantoese public might have paid to be scandalised and titillated, but they still mercilessly cheered as Su was escorted to the gallows. There she was left to swing, washed by the grey winter tides of Vermilion City. Not even the infamous Marigold Sue of Chaochang left a beautiful corpse.

* * *​

Imagine, for a moment, an imperial naval dock circa 1790. What would you see? Sailors hauling barrels of navy issue beer and salted meat? Miles of coiled rope, endless acres of folded canvas sailcloth? Maybe sailor’s wives and ship’s boys, pedlars hawking hot pies, old men married to the sea and marines with shouldered muskets? In truth you would have seen almost none of this. The quays, along with the yards and warehouses, belonged to the Ordnance Board. Usually the big ships of the line would be kept “in Ordinary” - i.e: in dock with their masts taken down, skeleton-crewed, their guns removed and stored in an Ordnance Board warehouse. Cannon, shot, and barrels of powder would be what you’d see, admittedly with marines on guard.

They call this estate “Historic” Vermilion, but in reality it’s not so much historic as gentrified. Until recently the quays were just another thirty acres of centuries-old brownbelt junk. Redevelopment has turned the Old Gunwharf into a modern retail park – high end stores, high end restaurants, an IMAX cinema, swanky condos. The original perimeter wall, now restored, still encircles the estate, pierced by the original gatehouse. It’s a physical boundary that marks a kind of temporal-cultural boundary as well. On one side the streets all have old salty names – Ordnance Row, Fishbourne Street, Cloystercatchers. On the other, clean modern names – Gunwharf Boulevard of course, Hibiscus Arcade, Jacaranda Square.

If you like shopping, there’s a lot to like on Gunwharf Boulevard. I had another destination in mind, on the south side of Quinoa Street – the Fields of Neptune.

Officially it was called the Pokémon Marine Training Yard, but it didn’t take long for the nickname to stick. It’s a pleasant place to sit, an acre-sized basin surrounded with park benches. Originally it had a more utilitarian purpose, because this was where the Royal Navy trained and drilled its pokémon marine. Pokémon have aided sailors for time out of mind, of course, but the Royal Navy was one of the first in the world to bring their training under the auspices of the Navy Board.

It’s easy to forget, in these times of mass-produced, easy monster capture, that the pre-Poké Ball age was nothing like as convenient. Even aboard a mighty first-rate battleship space was at a premium. Pokémon serving aboard needed to be versatile, easy to control and simple to feed. Wartortle was traditionally considered the ideal naval species – strong enough to help haul a ship off a sandbar, tough enough to take its place alongside the guns when the decks were cleared for battle, and yet not so large or mercurial as to be unmanageable at sea.

The developers have actually done a decent job of preserving the Gunwharf’s heritage. Most of the fine old naval buildings are still there, now serving as mementoes of Vermilion’s past. Here you can find the Regional Maritime Gallery and the Royal Marines Museum. Bella’s favourite was obviously the Royal Marines Museum. It was all those trophy weapons on exhibit that roused her excitement: Frankish sabres, Sakalan tulwars, Tianxian jian, etc. Roskilly probably took his Lieutenant’s exam here, and it was here that he was summoned, in the winter of 1789, by the Lord High Admiral himself.

* * *​

Roskilly was twenty six when he received the promotion – from Master and Commander to Captain. Thanks to the ongoing war his new command was not to be some third-rate battleship, but the frigate HMS Galatea. On paper she was a sweet lum, a newly refurbished fifth-rate mounting a main battery of twenty six eighteen-pounder guns, fitted with a blastoise embrasure at the forecastle. Unfortunately for Roskilly, her crew was less than spectacular:

“We are very indifferently manned. There are almost forty on the sick list, in general affected by casual maladies the consequences of their unsupervised drunkenness and debauchery in port.”

Roskilly immediately wrote to his friends in the Admiralty, begging to be allowed to transfer his crew from Seafoam. His request was predictably denied – Seafoam was now a crack ship after all – but he was allowed to keep twenty of his best men to help make up the shortfall.

His success as Master and Commander of the Seafoam would come back to bite him. Every frigate captain’s hope was to be posted to the Storm Island station, but Roskilly was ordered back to Ultramar. In the eyes of the Admiralty, a successful pirate hunter with three year’s experience of West Lemuria was too useful to waste in Medi-Terra.

* * *​

If you stand in the midst of Jacaranda Square and look west, you’ll see two interesting sights. First, the Customs House, now an incongruously handsome pub for the likes of the Old Gunwharf – and second, a trio of masts peering up over the skyline. If you follow the path between the pub and the condominiums on your right, you’ll come to a park by an eighteenth-century ship in dock. Take a look at the name painted neatly on the stern, and you’ll see why you’re here. This is HMS Galatea, a little restored and repaired, but appearing more or less as she would have done when Roskilly was in command.

In any other port Galatea would be a star attraction. Here she’s just another museum ship, so under regarded that the Heritage Trust doesn’t even try and charge admission. I couldn’t help but have a look. Scale does strange things aboard a tall ship. All the space is vertical, masts towering like conifers, draped in the bewilderingly complex cobweb of rigging. Lonely and deserted though it is, the weather deck nonetheless feels narrow, claustrophobic. Even the embrasure on the forecastle looks barely wide enough for the blastoise it once housed.

I wandered below to the gun deck, trying to imagine what it would have been like to live, work, and fight here. The ceiling loomed oppressively low. Almost half the deck space was taken up by the rows of cannon. There were fold-down tables slung in the narrow gaps between the guns, a couple of benches squeezed into what space was left. Ten square feet for at least four men to eat and sleep in. I made my way towards the midshipmen’s berth at the back of the gun deck – twice the space, which they shared with the pokémon locker.

But right at the stern is the captain’s cabin, flooded with light from the stern gallery windows, a stateroom in miniature. Most of the furniture is a modern restoration, with the notable exception of the writing desk. A real antique, worn smooth by age, tethered to the deck to stop it from sliding about in high seas. I ran my palm over the dark wood. This is where he wrote in his diary, almost every night for seven years:

“… men of simple and modest manners, who have gained the offices they hold, by their hard service and skill in the essential duties of their profession: to see such men made the sport of such reptiles, as are most apt to make them feel their deficiencies, fills me with indignation.”

“… the part of a rejected lover, whose vanity led him to think a pretty woman had some love for him, when the utmost she felt was a friendship founded on long acquaintance.”

“… While we lay at Ginger Point I had the displeasure to find it absolutely necessary to flog four men. They had got beastly drunk and behaved in a mutinous manner.”

Seven years was a long time to serve in a frigate. HMS Galatea was at the Siege of Oswego, where the Royal Colonial army retreated from the besieging rebels; she was at the Battle of the Numbers, where Imperial and Kalosian ships clashed between the Sevii Islands; she intercepted and sank the frigate Belliqueuse, temporarily preventing news of the Imperial defeat from reaching Medi-Terra. Apparently without realising it Roskilly forged Galatea into a crack ship, another Seafoam.

But even a star captain wasn’t truly in command of his own destiny. On 12th August 1795 Roskilly received orders to return to Vermilion City, where he was to leave Galatea and take command of the 74-gun third-rate HMS Dragonfell.

On the morning after making landfall at Vermilion Roskilly called the men to the weather deck to give them the news.

“… [I told them] that I believed I had the most gallant, the most dutiful, and the most skilful crew as could be wished for, and I believed the man who superseded me would be the luckiest officer in the service. I was so affected in my leave taking that I burst into tears while addressing them, and when I recovered myself I saw many of them were as affected as myself. My sentiments were interrupted by their declaration that they would serve as diligently as if I were still their master, after which I was saluted with three such cheers as went to my heart.”

Later that day I stood looking out into Vermilion Bay, much as Roskilly did 219 years ago. I was thinking about the story Galatea’s curator told me. Sometimes, in the brief hours of twilight, you can see the ghost of Evan Roskilly on the dockside, gazing at the ship he once commanded.

Spoiler: Author's Notes

The character of Evan Roskilly is heavily inspired by the life of Captain Sir Graham Moore (1764-1843). Moore's diaries of his life as an officer in the Royal Navy offer a fascinating insight into the life of an officer who was the contemporary of Nelson, when the Royal Navy was reaching the zenith of its power. Though I don't think he realised it, Moore was one of the star captains of the period, though he has been overshadowed by the likes of Lord Thomas Cochrane or Sir Sidney Smith. Moore's talents lay in his ability to lead men through the daily grind of naval life; his sense of fairness, respect for the common sailor and attention to duty were qualities that made for not only cheerful but effective ships.

Unlike Roskilly, Moore was born to a respectable if not rich family. Though he did achieve some notable successes (Acquitting himself well at the Battle of Tory Island, for example), Moore didn't have a glamorous bone in his body and was often blighted by bad luck during his career. Roskilly's career is therefore heavily inspired by the real careers of Navy officers of this period. My main sources have been The Star Captains and Frigate Commander by Tom Wareham.

The decision to base the design of ships in the Pokémon world on real ones was a difficult one to come to. In the end, as usual in warfare, it comes down to a question of logistics. Pokémon still require space, food, water and training, the same requirements that humans have. The technology of the Poké Ball changes a lot in this regard, but you still have the question of when Poké Balls become available and how widespread the technology is. Would Kanto have been able to mass-produce Poké Balls in 1780?

Studying the lives of the Royal Navy's star captain led me to conclude that in any case, what the average captain would want most out of a pokémon would not be the ability to smash a hole in an enemy ship, but the ability to get away from a reef he didn't know was there. There's a lot pokémon can't do at sea as well. A Lapras might carry you for a short distance conveniently, but in the open ocean there's nowhere to rest, no protection from the cold and the spray, and nowhere to store anything to eat or drink.

Su Yanqiang is something of a pastiche of piratical characters. I have tried to capture the spirit of those larger-than-life characters of the so-called "Golden Age" of piracy, with a bit of 17th century highwayman thrown in for good measure. Her brief career and sticky end are entirely authentic - very few of the most famous pirates ever managed to escape a violent and ignoble death.

 

[Beth Pavell]

Spoiler: Chapter rated MATURE for:

• Strong Suggestive themes
• Themes of sexual abuse

Butterflies and Roses
I think I liked Anna pretty much immediately, from the moment we met in that crowded Rozhithe coffee shop. She stirred her coffee like it was a ritual, applying all the meditative concentration of a photographer trying to frame the perfect shot. Her lips often curved into a little smile, as if everything I said were faintly amusing. She was a bit of an odd pidgey, I suppose. Or perhaps this was just an odd conversation – because Rozhithe is Vermilion’s historic red-light district, and Anna is, in her own words, a prostitute.

There’s a reason I was meeting with Anna. A few years ago I was collaborating with my friend Adelaide, on an article about Goldenrod’s nightlife. Adelaide had decided the story needed a sharper edge, so we ought to visit the Blue Luxray ‘burlesque’ Club.

“It’s not seedy, not seedy at all!” she insisted. “It’s all a laugh.”

That was nonsense, right there. The ‘burlesque’ consisted almost entirely of men sculpted like Renaissance marbles, with tiny campy costumes and unreasonably large cocks. Even if the women were cackling like a murder of murkrow, it was still seedy. I couldn’t help but wonder, why were male strippers (Supposedly) tongue-in-cheek entertainment, while female strippers were (Supposedly) seedy and exploitative? What’s the difference? Is there a difference? What’s the reality of the sex industry, not the version parcelled out on crime procedurals?

Though Anna cheerfully calls herself a prostitute, ‘escort’ is considered the polite term. Her straightforward disregard for euphemism, her blasé lack of shame, was surprisingly disarming. Anna is an independent escort – she doesn’t work for a pimp or an agency, running her business entirely by herself (It might surprise you to learn she pays income tax), finding her own clients and working from her own premises.

“Some girls rent a place together in Roz, but technically you gotta be licensed for that,” she says. “I work out of my house in Gunnersea [nearby], it’s more girl-next-door.”

Oh, I can see the girl next door in Anna. Twenty five years-old. An endearingly shy smile when she wants to show it. A body full of generous curves. When I first saw Anna, I was expecting someone svelte, albeit possibly with big tits. Anna has the tits alright, and a Reubenesque figure to go with them. She takes bookings at $120 per hour, a typical rate for Vermilion City; I later learned that elite $2,000 a night courtesans are largely a silver screen myth, as is the idea that ‘nice girls’ necessarily cost that much.

“In the beginning I was surprised how much work I got,” Anna admits. “I advertise as a BBW, and I get enough interest to keep me occupied full-time if I want to be.”

“How many clients do you see in a day?” I asked tentatively.

That little smile again. “In practical terms? Four is my limit. Clients don’t realise how much time goes into prepping for a booking. I need at least an hour to shower, change the sheets … more if the client has any special requests.”

Special requests … you can let your imagination go wild on that one. It makes you wonder, what kind of man goes to see an escort? The short answer is: all kinds. Aside from the requisite casual perverts; nervous young men and men from sexless marriages (“Allegedly sexless,” Anna said), venomous would-be alpha males and would-be white knights.

“You gotta be tough in this business. The white knights are as bad as the macho idiots in their own way. Half of them think they can rescue you, the other half expect you to give ‘em special treatment. They’re lookin’ down on you, just the same as the guy who thinks $120 means he can do whatever he wants to you.”

“Isn’t it dangerous?” I asked, remembering the venomous alpha male comment.

“You have sex with a guy you met on a night out, how safe is that? Besides, I don’t have to see anyone I don’t want to. Independents get to discriminate,” she added with a smile.

Watching Anna stirring her second coffee, a peaceful little frown on her face, I couldn’t quite decide what to make of her. A girl next door. Silk hiding steel. Never swears but frankly describes fucking a client silly. She’s a girl of apparent contradictions. In a sense Anna is representative of Rozhithe – curiously fascinating, full of character rather than caricature, resistant to stereotype.

________________________________________________________________________________________________
Vermilion’s History III: Port of the Roses

Rozhithe started life as a royal wharf, removed from the noise and crowding of nearby Chesilby. In 1625 it was sold to the West Lemuria Company by Henry, duke of Celadon. The WLC used their new acquisition as their principle port, importing vast quantities of sugar and tea from the colonies. All that colonial money flowing into the town turned it into a thriving mercantile centre. Rozhithe became the eleventh city ward in all but name – a henge of Ostaro was built and hallowed in 1632; a Post Office and Messenger Yard was opened in 1649, becoming busy enough to require oversight from a Postmaster Colonel by 1660; in 1675 the city council decided to establish the new Exchange on Rozhithe high street.

Between 1650 and the end of the century the population of Rozhithe more than doubled. Each time one of the great merchant ships returned from a voyage to the colonies, alongside the hundreds of tons of cargo (Sugar loaves, bales of tea, crates of ginger and chocolate, barrels of jam), brought almost two hundred bored seafarers with pockets full of wages. WLC officers bought modern townhouses around Rozhithe’s elegant new piazzas, while the common seafarer spent as only the common seafarer can. It didn’t take long for WLC directors to start buying up gambling dens, brothels, inns – squeezing their employees for the wages they’d just paid them.

Eventually the Crown annulled the company’s charter, and their monopoly with it. Rozhithe went into decline. The town already had a reputation as Vermilion’s premier red-light district, but with dwindling imports, sex work and smuggling was all that remained.
________________________________________________________________________________________________

By day Rozhithe looks a bit like the Old Gunwharf, characterised by independent coffee shops, little bistros and vegetarian restaurants, Sunday markets. And therein lies the contradiction. Well over a century of adversity remorselessly drove rents down, attracting theatres, struggling poets, artists … and in more recent decades, comedy clubs, LGBT bars, and independent film studios. A rich cultural history sits alongside Rozhithe’s historic red-light district status.

By night Rozhithe was bright and buzzing. It seemed that every bar and nightclub along the high street was doing a roaring trade, music spilling out onto the street along with the night's revellers. It looked like a normal Friday night.

“That would be a reasonably accurate assessment,” says Detective Inspector Violet Jenny. DI Jenny knows Rozhithe as well as anyone – she has to, as deputy lead for Operation Mayfair, the taskforce dedicated to policing Rozhithe’s sex industry. Her command invariably overlaps on other policing areas, tonight, neighbourhood policing in the town centre on piss-up night. Jenny stopped to talk with a human billboard (He was advertising something called Club Lush, a strip joint I thought at first). I counted about a dozen officers on duty, dotted around the street in hi-vis jackets. They had the subtly tired expressions of people who knew they still had a long night ahead of them. A girl spotted us and impulsively pulled out her tits, proudly hooting “Whooo!” as she did so.

“Day-to-day policing in Rozhithe isn’t significantly different from any other town centre,” Jenny said, watching her expressionlessly. “Our Friday night arrests are usually Breach of the Peace. Common Assault. Drunk and Disorderly, of course. Most will be what we call ‘de-escalation arrests’.”

There was a ‘but’ hanging in the air, and I said so.

“But Rozhithe is Rozhithe.”

* * *​

“It was all much worse in my mother’s day,” Jenny explained. “Organised crime effectively controlled the sex trade in Rozhithe. There wasn’t a brothel in this town that wasn’t backed by one gang or another. And no-one was safe. It became ugly, really ugly.”

Today, contrary to popular belief, across most of the Empire neither buying nor selling sex is inherently illegal. But Jenny is quick to insist that sex with someone coerced or underage is always illegal:

“Being paid doesn’t legally oblige you to have sex,” she emphasised. “Nor does payment legalise sexual assault.”

It was also here in Rozhithe that the great experiment of licensing was begun. Brothels were allowed to operate under a license originally granted by Vermilion City Council, whilst at the same time, massive crackdowns were launched against unlicensed establishments in an attempt to break the mob’s grip on the town.

“Mother broke the mob, in the end. I can’t remember how many times they tried to kill her,” Jenny said casually, raising her voice over a group of lads chanting what they believed to be a song, their t-shirts so tight it was a wonder they could lift their arms above their head. We’d reached the end of the high street where it meets FitzRegis Square. There was a taxi rank of ambulances presciently parked up on the eastern side. About three hundred years ago this was the most elegant, most modern square in Vermilion City, a now-overlooked masterpiece by Zelda FitzRegis.

You’ve got to wonder what she would have thought of the mansion she built for Baron Fauconberg now housing Club Lush. It’s not a strip joint. From the outside it doesn’t really look like much. The dignified palladian-style façade is surprisingly well-restored – with the discreet addition of the club’s orchid logo above the door, and scarlet drapes in every window. Lush is typical of the reformed brothel, though the club is very coy about what they actually do (Referring to itself as an ‘establishment’, insisting it employs ‘courtesans’). But the high street brothel, bordello if you really must, is on the decline. Most large brothels are really hotels, complete with spas and restaurants. Club Lush can tell you a lot about the modern Rozhithe: i.e. it’s not so much gentrified as rebranded. There’s something insincere about its infamy. It’s edgy, seeming to be dangerous whilst in actuality having no real sharpness. Edgy is titillating, not disreputable, a good dinner-party story. It would be easy to be scornful. Certainly the days of Rozhithe’s brothels being the stage for pitched battles between rival gangs are long gone. And while Club Lush is part of a decline, independent escorting is going through something of a renaissance.

“Patrons are more discerning than you might expect,” Jenny said. “The stereotype of the amoral sleaze is by no means universal. Many of them don’t want to support exploitation …”

“But …”

“But I have six detectives on-call tonight. When trouble starts I want an investigation started within the hour. Because Rozhithe is Rozhithe,” Jenny sighed.

Walking and talking with Jenny, I’m reminded again of Anna’s ‘venomous would-be alpha males’. Prostitution has a way of attracting trouble whatever the era. There’s something about paying for sex that encourages otherwise sane men to get unaccountably aggressive. It’s a category of client Jenny recognises as well – men who get violent the moment they’re told ‘no’ (No to what? No to being given a discount, no to an unannounced in-call in the small hours of the morning, no to unprotected sex, etc).

“I tell my detectives, if there’s not at least one sex assault arrest in the cells by the end of a Friday night, obviously they’re not trying hard enough,” Jenny said. I could tell she was only half-joking. Every escort seems to have a story about a client who becomes unexpectedly … rough. Anna insists that most clients are lovely, but what escorts call ‘boundary pushing’ in law is called sexual assault, battery, etc – or sometimes in DI Jenny’s eyes, attempted murder. Her smile thinly veils the bitter determination of a crusader. There’s still a lot to crusade against.

Escorts, including independents, are still a target. CCTV cameras make clients nervous, so it’s not uncommon for independents to keep Poké Balls on display. It doesn’t always work, when the unnegotiated choking appears halfway through sex. A typical trick for petty criminals is to first scout out a workplace by making a booking, then, armed with an exact address, to rob the place at a later date. This kind of violence against escorts, intimidating independents and robbing rival brothels, used to be a staple mob tactic.

When Superintendent Jenny snapped the mob’s stranglehold on Vermilion’s sex industry, she taught the bosses that bloody turf wars are more expensive than they’re worth. The modern mob rarely invests in brothels, except, ironically, as front businesses. The typical illegal brothel is small, unlicensed, selling services for $80 per hour or less. Invariably they’ll be full of foreign girls, usually Magyars or Langobards, with little English and no understanding of their legal rights. It’s easy for abuses to flourish – low wages, skipped health checks, violence.

* * *​

On 15th January 2002, two members of Team Rocket stood trial at Vermilion Crown Court accused of committing a crime that had shocked the region. Eighteen months previously, at around 10am, a local postman had discovered four men brutally murdered in a house in Nazeton. They were family men, well-respected, well-liked, all members of an amateur yachting club.

All four had been decapitated. Their severed heads were later found carefully displayed on-stage in a Rozhithe strip club. That was only the beginning. The next five days saw more murders – more beheadings – among them a property developer, a convicted drug dealer, and a wealthy Celadon housewife.

Under an atmosphere of intense public pressure, on 23rd May Celadon City Police arrested Benny Morobito and Anthony ‘Eggsy’ Russola during dawn raids on their apartments. That they were initiated Rockets hit the news within days. The sense of outrage and trepidation was palpable. The region had not seen gangland violence this savage in two decades. If respectable, bourgeois family men could get caught in the bloodshed, who was safe? Was a new mob war imminent? The murders stubbornly remained headline news for weeks, sparking demands for answers from the Home Secretary in Parliament. Amid the tension and fury, the real shock was that the murdered four were not respectable men at all. Their yacht club memberships were cover for a smuggling operation later known to police as the Nazeton Ring. And their contraband: people.

It’s an increasingly lucrative criminal enterprise throughout the Empire. Commonly run by small gangs, smuggled individuals (80% of whom are foreigners in pursuit of what they believe to be a better life) are invariably contracted to serve as bonded labour to pay off the cost of their transportation. The contract lasts for a specified period of time – a year is a typical length of service – so the gang will seek to maximise profit by demanding as much work as possible from the bondsman. The most lucrative type of bonded service, unsurprisingly, is prostitution. It’s a sad fact that for many foreign women (And a few select men), life in the Middle Kingdom means burning out beneath a conveyor belt of clients in an unlicensed brothel. What made the Nazeton murders disquieting was that usually the mob is content to impose a tribute, or ‘street tax’, on smuggling gangs. Why the sudden flare of violence?

On the 8th day of the trial, the region got the answers it demanded, when the defence barrister cross-examined Detective Superintendent John Lloyd. Reluctantly, Lloyd testified that the smugglers had been under investigation by His Majesty’s Special Constabulary. The Nazeton Ring’s greatest source of income, whose contracts were sold to secretive underground brothel owners, were children. Exactly how many children were smuggled into the region and subsequently sold remains a mystery, their identities hidden beneath protective pseudonyms. It’s likely that most of them were Langobards, mostly girls, lured away from dysfunctional state orphanages … though they could just as easily be Saxons, Alto Mareans, or even Kantonians.

At trial the Crown Prosecution alleged that the murders had been committed on the direct orders of a Rocket executive codenamed ‘Archer’. With the evidence against the Rockets rapidly accumulating, Morobito admitted the murders were summary executions (Though the elusive Archer was never arrested nor charged), implicitly a bloody message sent to those the Rockets decided had gone beyond the pale.

Two weeks after the trial began, Morobito and Russola were controversially handed absolute life sentences. There were many who thought Morobito’s confession ought to have earned him leniency; others thought the murders had been nothing less than a public service. But when passing sentence Knight Justice Townsend insisted the Court would never condone cold-blooded murder.

* * *​

I’d set out that evening to find the truth behind the sex industry myths. I’m not sure what I found. I found that exploitation, unsurprisingly, is a thing of the present. DI Jenny’s stories of sexual assault, human smuggling and forced prostitution are very much what I assumed I’d find. Modern organised crime has evolved, become more secretive, adapted to hide in plain sight. And yet DI Jenny steadfastly maintains the industry’s dark side used to be that much darker.

I couldn’t help but think that for girls like Anna, escorting is just another job. Thanks to brothel licensing, decriminalised independents – and perhaps, modernised police attitudes – escorts nowadays have much better legal protections. I am sure I found that Middle Kingdom independents, at least, are independent in more ways than one. They want security on their own terms, and resent being treated like little girls. Silk hiding steel indeed. It occurred to me, much later on my way back to the B&B, that Anna was one of the most feminist women I’d met on my journey.

Some things, though, never seem to change. The stigma of prostitution is a persistent one, especially in the minds of people like Mrs Hauteclaire. I suspected something as amiss when I noticed the unaccountably bad bacon and worse coffee she served me for breakfast the following morning. That was confirmed when Hauteclaire frostily demanded that I check out by 10:30. I had actually forgotten about the 10pm curfew, but judging by the look she gave me I’m pretty sure she’d somehow found out I was working in Rozhithe.

I’d had enough. I was a paying customer, for heaven’s sake. It was childish, I know, but I went and bought a copy of Sizzle. And carefully hid it under Classic Boat.

The world’s most beautiful – well, I’ll let you guess.

 

[Beth Pavell]

Maiden’s Peak
Where young men fear the night​

It was a perfect August afternoon the day I visited Maiden’s Peak. By the time I arrived the day had already felt like it had gone on forever, as if it were some halcyon teenage summer. The bright, hot sun beat down from an almost cloudless sky, while spearow picked through yellowed grass after the stridulating insects. The day was Lammas Eve, on the very cusp of autumn.

It was also, if you believe in the legends, going to be a portentous night.

Maiden’s Peak is a quintessential, quaint seaside town. Ensconced on the estuary of the charmingly-named River Eden about twenty miles east of Vermilion City, the town is bounded on the west by chalk sea cliffs and merges into windswept sand dunes on the east. The modest harbour in the mouth of the Eden shelters a fleet of small fishing boats; grubby, well-worn vessels with names like Valerie II, Sea Spirit, and Maiden Summer. Uneven stripes of cosy lanes roughly follow the line of the river, punctuated by tangles of cobbled alleyways. The streets are crowded with picturesque old buildings – antique timber-framed fisherman’s cottages, eighteenth-century stone pubs and harbour works, Edwardian housing developments on the valley side.

For most of the year the quintessentially quaint Maiden’s Peak is an entirely quiet seaside backwater, esteemed mostly for the freshness of the fish landed in the harbour. In the spring and summer seasons the town livens up somewhat from the influx of holidaying tourists. I’ve called the town “quintessential” twice now – and I stand by that – but a blander description would be “typical”. Because there are a lot of towns like this on the coastline of Johto and Kanto. So why write about Maiden’s Peak on Lammas Eve?

* * *​

To see why, seek out the sign of the Green Man halfway along River Street. You can hardly miss it – it’s one of the oldest pubs in the county, late sixteenth-century, with the period’s distinctive exposed timber frame and overhanging upper storeys. The pub sign is magnificent, a beautifully painted depiction of a man’s face peering through a dense veil of leaves.

Put the Green Man on your left and take the short walk to the end of the road. There’s an ice cream parlour on the corner, but for now head down Forget-Me-Not Lane, lined with cheap and cheerful B&Bs. Left again, onto Sun Street running parallel to the valley side, the Edwardian terrace painted white, pastel yellow and blue, studded with semi-octagonal bay windows. The road rises steadily as you head down it, and at the end where it overlooks the harbour the street doubles back and runs further up the hill. Don’t go far – there’s an alley between No. 47 and No. 48, roofed over by a chaotic row of sycamore and crab leppa trees. That’ll lead you north out of the town proper and up to the B-road at the top of the Eden valley.

Stepping out from that arboreal tunnel, there’s a salty freshness and a coolness to the air, even in August, as the sea breeze comes rippling in from across the Sound. Over the road golden brown barley waves gently in the wind. You might see a spearow try its luck at the grain and get chased away by a farm magnemite. Looking behind you, you can see the terraces cascading down to the harbour, the fishing boats moored up on the quays, the medieval streets on the other side of the Eden. There, the church spire down by Paternoster Square. There, All Gods shrine by the shore.

Two minute’s walk north along the road brings you to a stile. Beyond that, the gravel path leads west across the headland and along the cliff. At the end of the headland, is Maiden’s Rock.

The Maiden of the Rock
If you believe in the legends, the Maiden of the Rock was once a young woman named Mary Grey. She was the daughter of the respected gentleman landowner Sir Competence Grey. Mary had fallen in love with a young man by the name of Samuel Littleton, who though not handsome was well-known to be both gentle and witty. Sir Competence was amenable to the match, so it was agreed that they would marry on Lammas Day.

The year was 1788. The Empire had been at war with her own Unovan colonies for two years. No end to the fighting could yet be seen – piracy in West Lemuria was on the rise and trade was beginning to suffer. Tasting blood in the tropical seas, Kalos and her protectorates declared war. In response, Parliament voted for a second Muster of the Regiments. Riders were dispatched across the Middle Kingdom calling men to arms. The young Samuel Littleton had a commission with the 121st Regiment of Foot as Colour Lieutenant. For duty and honour he rejoined his regiment, saying his farewells to Mary and postponing the marriage.

“And perhaps,” he said, “this service to the Crown will bring rewards of money and honour and so place me in better standing upon my return.”

Heartbroken, Mary vowed she would await his return for as long as it took. Every day she would go up to the headland, gazing at the sea with desperate hope. But as the months dragged on and became years, neither Samuel nor any man of the 121st returned.

Still Mary refused to believe that Samuel had been lost in action. Day after day she stood on the headland, waiting. By then, Mary had become as permanent and familiar a sight as the sea stack which rose dramatically from the waves that crashed foaming into the headland. Until, one day in 1790, there was a terrible storm on a summer’s night.

The next morning, there was no sign of Mary Grey. But when her anxious father arrived to look for her, he found that the very tip of the sea stack had been mysteriously carven into a life-sized image of his daughter.

The Ghost of Maiden’s Peak
Two hundred years ago, the town was known as Lytham-on-Eden. After the summer of 1790, the northern headland and Lytham itself were renamed Maiden’s Peak. Even after her disappearance, the story of the Maiden of the Rock would not be diminished.

Every year, on the night of Lammas Eve, the ghost of Mary Grey returns to Maiden’s Peak, looking for her lost fiancé. On this night, it is perilous for young men to be out of doors, for the same desperate hope burns in her still – and the passage of two hundred years has rusted her memory. It is said that she will mistake any young man for Samuel Littleton, joyfully attempting to reunite with him. Those unfortunate enough to attract her attention are struck with fey moods and ill luck.

Such was the bleak fate of Thomas Mincham. A somewhat romantically-minded lad, Thomas was just out of his teens when, one Lammas Eve, he went for a stroll in the twilight. As the sun set, he made his way along the coast path as far as the Staryu Crags. By the time he reached the Crags the stars were peeping out in the sky, so he made his way back across the headland in the dark.

The next morning Thomas was found lying in a meadow near to Maiden’s Rock, dishevelled and insensible. For many hours nothing could be prised from him, his wits slowly returning as the Lammas celebrations continued. A fey temper was on him; as though elf-touched he babbled unpredictably about his encounter with Mary Grey, prowling restlessly back and forth, insisting that he must see her again. By sunset Thomas would not be restrained or gainsaid, going back up to Maiden’s Rock in search of her.

Mary Grey did not reappear that night, or any night thereafter. Every night Thomas went up to Maiden’s Rock, hoping with a forlorn hope that she would. His demeanour became withdrawn and gloomy until sunset, when he would then roam the headland for hours until dawn broke.

A cold November dawn brought a grim revelation. Thomas Mincham had found his way to the Ghost of Maiden’s Peak – by flinging himself from the cliff edge into the foaming sea.

An Enduring Legend
The passage of two hundred years may have rusted Mary’s memory but her legend is as popular as ever. There’s something in a good ghost story that compels people to keep telling it year after year. Of course, if you tell a good ghost story often enough it’ll pay off in tourist dollars. Mary Grey’s rumoured reappearances on the night of Lammas Eve have given her a conspicuous role in the Summer’s End celebrations. Most of it is obviously enjoying a good story, just some eerie fun for the summer, but there’s a conspicuous atmosphere of earnestness about it, too.

The story of the Maiden of the Rock has grown in the telling. Young men now have more to beware than just being out of doors on Lammas Eve Night. These days it’s said to be perilous for a young man to look for long at the face of the Maiden. Every year someone, supposedly a tourist who doesn’t know any better, ignores the warnings and is ensnared by the Maiden’s beauty. They’ll be found gazing stubbornly at Maiden’s Rock, pining hopelessly for a girl they will never meet.

Well, if you believe in the legends.

Summer’s End
Walking through Maiden’s Peak on Lammas Eve feels a bit like a repeat of Midsummer. The festival pennants were out and floating in the sea breeze, vibrant flakes of colour against a clear sky; there was an abundance of bikini’d bodies, board shorts, and boldly-decalled wetsuits; the air was full of an exuberance of noise and chatter and music from itinerant buskers. This is the first day of Summer’s End, a festival that lasts till midnight of Lammas Day. It’s a joyous occasion, without the usual post-aestival melancholy. For my part I hadn’t felt comfortable with summery beach attire since I was eleven. By way of giving in to the season I bought a straw trilby from Rad Raichu and settled it on my head at a half-heartedly jaunty angle.

My little Bella loved the bright sun and vivacity of the festival. Her petals jingled and rang in my ear – keeping her on my shoulder stops her from wandering off and trying to pick fights with pokémon bigger than she is. She thinks she’s challenging them to duel. There’s a kind of quasi-chivalric logic to her chosen opponents – the bigger, meaner, and uglier the pokémon the better. I suppose it means she never picks a fight with a pokémon weaker than her, but I did once have to stop her from trying to cut down a typhlosion.

The sea was a vibrant ultramarine that day, a flotilla of yachts with brightly-coloured sails aimlessly cruising by. You can get a good view of the sailing from Fore Street down on the seafront. Drifting proudly through the flotilla was the Baron of Dunmow’s own vessel, the Riviera, her sails blazoned with a heraldic wartortle seen from above, its ears and tail picked out in silver that glinted and flashed in the sun.

Bella suddenly started jiggling and yelling, brandishing her Leaf Blade excitedly. Which made me curse in a thoroughly unladylike fashion, as she decided to steady herself by clinging on to my hair.

“Sheathe – ow!” I started. My hat tumbled off and landed on a passing wingull, which waddled off wearing it. I swatted angrily at my overexcited bellossom, trying to see through tear-rimmed eyes what she was challenging this time.

“Sheathe your fucking sword!” I snarled. Bella complied with more grumbling and backchat than I would usually allow. With my vision clear I discovered she’d singled out a hitmonlee for her glove slap. He glanced vaguely around as if to say ‘Who, me?’, his trainer looking more annoyed than confused.

“Go and find that wingull with my hat,” I growled. She’d turned her Leaf Blade into a Tianxian jian this time. I wondered whether I should have let her see the Royal Marines Museum. It seems to have given her ideas.
____
Maiden’s Peak: Pokémon to Catch

#98 Krabby – Cancer pugilis
Krabby are a renowned pest in Maiden’s Peak – fishermen will likely thank you for catching them. A simple baited line, cast from the harbourside, is all you’ll need to land one. The harbour krabby tend to be small and nimble rather than large and powerful.

#116 Horsea – Hippocampus kawaii
Horsea are tricky pokémon to find. They inhabit the seaweed in the shallow waters about 100m offshore from the Lytham Dunes. Characteristically shy, it takes a rod, good bait, and patience to entice them out. For most of the year cheap poké-fishing trips leave from the eastern end of Fore Street, near to the Old Lifeboat Launch.
____

I decided to leave the seafront and make my way through the town. Seabrook Road takes you right into medieval Maiden’s Peak. The bones of most of the buildings are well over four centuries old, rows of closely packed cottages with ancient timber frames lining the cobble and brickwork streets. The upper storeys hang over the ground floor on jetties, almost like the houses are leaning together in conference. Some of them still have their original tall, narrow diamond-pattern leadlight windows, occasionally decorated with panes of stained glass. Fixed beneath almost every sill is a windowbox crammed to overflowing with flowers. You might expect these streets to be gloomy, but the brightness of the day, the flowers blooming in the windowboxes, and the festival pennants strung from house-to-house made for a quaint, welcoming aesthetic.

I discovered my favourite Summer’s End custom at the corner of Seabrook Road and Lower Mollymog Street. All the way north along Seabrook and west down Lower Mollymog people were enthusiastically parading the most beautifully painted model pokémon, lovingly constructed from balsa wood, paper and cardboard, flaunted from atop yard-long wooden poles. I saw a seadra painted a deep thalassic blue, a rearing ponyta with a fluttering tissue paper mane, a tentacruel with wobbling rubber tentacles. A three-man team carried a magnificent four foot long articuno between them, making it flap and soar with the tail streaming out behind.

This is a custom unique to Maiden’s Peak, and my, how they embrace it with a shameless glee. No-one’s quite sure how old it is. Some say late medieval, others hardly more than a few generations old. Superficially, the custom is a craft competition, with people giving small change to the bearers of their favourite models (Voting with their pennies, as it were). Until recently, each pokémon would be built with some kind of coin slot to collect donations. At the end of the day the pokémon would be broken open and the money invariably spent on beer. Nowadays – well, it’s still usually spent on beer, but people tend to carry coin tins rather than tear open their models.
____
Lammas Day
Celebrated each year on the 4th August, Lammas is a Heren festival marking the start of the harvest festival season. The day is also one of the historic eight Imperial public holidays: thanks are given for the fruitfulness of the summer, with songs sung and prayers offered up in honour of the two principal gods of Herenism, Ostaro the Horned King and Eostre Queen of the Fields.

Lammas is the festival of the grains, a celebration of the grain harvest, when traditional breads and oatcakes are eaten and gallons of beer is drunk. As a potent symbol of fulfilment the day is considered especially blessed for marriages and births, and an unlucky day to break a promise. Lammas customs often vary. Common rites include the slaying of the Barleycorn Man, taking the holy waters, and the breaking of the blessed bread. The celebrations are customarily led by the huscarls and handmaidens – the mortal servants of the gods.
____

Before the arrival of the railway Maiden’s Peak was just a small subsistence fishing village. Nonetheless, despite the village’s obscurity the River Eden does provide a good sheltered anchorage. Because of this, the Navy Board in 1794 established a Messenger Yard on the quayside. It’s still there, a utilitarian stone box of a building with a slate roof. Once, the Royal Navy’s packet ships sailed to and from the Yard, carrying letters and news to the corners of the Empire.

Rather pleasingly, the Yard is now the town’s Post Office. It also houses the Mary Grey museum, a frankly amateurish farrago of assorted memorabilia. The real jewel of the collection is the painting The Tempestuous Maiden by the otherwise undistinguished artist John Reynolds.

And oh my, what a jewel it is! It’s almost as if Reynolds was determined to upstage Maiden’s Rock – the canvas is simply huge, almost floor-to-ceiling in height and proportionately wide. As you might expect, The Tempestuous Maiden depicts a life-size Mary Grey on the night of the fateful summer storm of 1790. The storm-riven sea is painted with loving, terrifying passion, the furious sea blending promiscuously with the midnight sky, black waves plumed with rolling crests of churning foam reflecting the milky moonlight shining through ragged gaps in the racing clouds. In the background you can see the waves venting their rage against the Staryu Crags, smashing into the cliff face in great, foaming, protean eruptions. Mary Grey stands on the right of the composition, dramatically shielding her face from the lashing salt spray, her elegant ringlets in disarray. She holds a dainty little tricorne in her shielding hand; her blue-grey gown is stained dark by squalling rain and spraying sea.

I can see a lot to be impressed by in The Tempestuous Maiden. The overriding impression is of a window onto the past, the great storm of 1790 almost spilling out into the room. And yet, wonder. Is this the ghostly siren that unwittingly cursed so many young men? Is this really the face that entrances young men each Summer’s End, dooming them to sit and stare endlessly at Maiden’s Rock? She is cute, in a rather idealised kind of way. But in that moment, I was the only one looking at her.

* * *​

It’s a shame there weren’t more visitors to The Tempestuous Maiden. I’m reliably informed that at this time of year the Staryu Crags, usually a lonely stretch of coast, are busy with ambling tourists. And yet up on the headland you’d be hard-pressed to find a young man seeing Maiden’s Rock. This admixture of contradictions was making me curious. Where to start combing them out? Ah, of course – upriver.

* * *​

In the late afternoon the Pokémon Centre was relatively quiet, the resident nurses relaxed and hanging around the common room. Joys are always good for a chat, if you can get them talking. There are three at the Maiden’s Peak Centre – the primary nurse, Susan; her sister Freya the resident surgeon; and her teenage daughter Chloe. Susan was a lot more talkative than her sister in scrubs. To get her talking candidly I used one of my favourite ice-breaking tricks and told her I was writing a book (Don’t ask me why, but this one brings down even a Joy’s sturdy professional guard). I asked her about the legend of Mary Grey.

Susan affected an indifferent expression, tugging at her uniform sleeves. “She brings in the tourists, I suppose,” she said primly.

“I see you’re enthusiastic about her,” I joked.

“The Grey girl is just a bit annoying,” Susan admitted. “Honestly, standing around all day staring at the horizon? Looking for a man? She’s lucky she was well-born, that’s all I can say. True love is all very well, but when you’re mooning after a man who’s putting the dinner on?”

“No daughter of mine is going to put her whole life on hold for a boy,” Freya flatly stated.

Freya didn’t have any particular sympathy with the fate of the cursed Thomas Mincham, either:

“We ought to have renamed that place Dickhead’s Leap,” she said sourly.

I couldn’t help but like the nurse’s bluntly practical, unromantic attitude. Or maybe it’s the story that’s unromantic, once you look at it from a Joy’s point of view.

I spent the rest of the afternoon in the Pokémon Centre, talking to passing trainers about Mary Grey. About half were of the eerie fun opinion – among the other half almost nobody would outright admit they believed in her as the Ghost of Maiden’s Peak, instead making hedging comments along the lines of “I’m a spiritual person” and “The world’s a mysterious place”. Actually, most of those comments were from the girls and more mature boys. There was plenty of laddish bravado from the rest, especially the teenage boys, assertions that no woman would scare them, that sort of thing. Except for one boy who sagely warned his friends: “Live or dead, bitches be crazy” (He didn’t dare say this in front of me).

____
Maiden’s Peak: Places to Stay

Maiden’s Peak Pokémon Centre
If you have a Trainer Card, then there’s almost no better place in town to stay than the Pokémon Centre. The Centre is on River Street, just north of the bridge, about ten minutes from the train station. An easy southward walk brings you nicely into the middle of the town – west, and you’re up on the cliffs in fifteen minutes. Most of the rooms are dormitory-style four-bed rooms, but there are a handful of singles and doubles on offer. Showers are available, as well as the usual canteen – though you will probably want to try the many places to eat around town.

Dorm rooms $18/night, others start from $50/night. Breakfast not included
16 River Street
MP8 7TD
01912 660922

The Rose Inn
The Rose is an inn with a story. You’ll find it right in the centre of medieval Maiden’s Peak on Upper Mollymog Street. County records show that there’s been a pub on the site since at least the 14th century. King Geoffrey the Arcanine probably stayed there before the Great Tournament of 1353. The story of the inn is what gives Mollymog Street its name. Molly Mogg was apocryphally an especially pretty barmaid of the Rose, dubiously celebrated in folk ballad:

“Says my uncle, I pray you discover,
What hath been the cause of your woes?
Why do you pine and you whine like a lover?
I’ve seen Molly Mogg of the Rose.”

The modern Rose makes for a perfectly good B&B. The inn has a charmingly traditional atmosphere preserving many original features, including the great stone fireplace in the comfortably appointed common room. The bedrooms are no less cosy, designed around antique four-poster beds. Don’t forget to check out the range of real ales!

Rooms from $80/night
34 Upper Mollymog Street
MP8 3NH
01912 252187

The Angel Hotel
I recommend the Angel with one small caveat – as a three star hotel with aspirations towards four star, it’s a bit upmarket for both my taste and budget. The hotel commands unmatched views of town and sea from its position on Cross Lane, just off Sun Street. Most of the hotel grounds once belonged to the Abbey of St Martin-in-the-Cabbages, and some of those medieval buildings are still there. The dormitory has long been redeveloped into the hotel, but the cloister and church are both listed as Grade II sanctified ground.

Rooms from $130/night
6 Cross Lane
MP8 2BE
01912 469325
____

Who really believes in the legends?

Later I went out for a walk, feeling curious and not sure what I’d find. Nights are always darker on the coast. A smell of warm earth was fading from the air. The waning moon loomed amid the velvet night like a sickle. As I wandered through the town centre I realised I could hear the festival pennants snapping sharply in the breeze. The wind had picked up since sundown.

Maiden’s Peak was quiet for a town on Lammas Eve night. Quiet, but not entirely deserted. There as a triumvirate of middle-aged women sitting outside the Rose, clutching gin and tonics between twiggy fingers, their conversation an indistinct murmur. All three stopped talking as I passed by, leaving me feeling like an intruding outsider.

Somehow I ended up on Fore Street, confronted by the wine-dark waves of the Sound. I suddenly felt strangely exposed. Or – not so strange. From the shadows of an alley a vulpix was watching me, unblinkingly. Its eyes shone yellow-green, its intentions inscrutable. Was that wariness, or hostility? I glanced away, distracted by the chiming clock tower – when I looked back the vulpix was gone.

I couldn’t help but gaze to the north, to the end of the headland where the Maiden of the Rock stood black against the sky. At this distance she was small and silhouetted, drawing the eye like a compass needle. Cold starlight prickled the heavens behind her.

You could almost believe she was still alive.

The Blood upon the Corn
In a little hollow sheltered from the sea is the local holy well. The spring water rises into a stone basin before cascading chattering over a rockery down into a small bathing pool. The rising sun steadily creeps into the hollow, the holy waters shining like glass when they catch the first sunshine of the day. This is when the waters are at their most powerful – because, unusually, the well is dedicated to the Horned King in his aspect of the Youth. The holy waters are believed to invigorate the body, arouse the libido, and aid the mind’s capacity to learn.

Confession time: I was only there because of this book. With a fairly vigorous body and an entirely manageable libido, I hadn’t much use for the well. Even so, it was a pleasant place to start the day, on the cool grass listening to the music of the water, the clear morning sunlight presaging a hot August day ahead. Afterwards, I walked the mile-long gravelled path back to Maiden’s Peak while the morning breeze brought the smell of the festival to me before I could see it. Burning, baking and beer: the three smells of Lammas.

I was walking alongside the Eden when I inevitably ran into a wild pack of Eostre’s handmaidens, conspicuous in their loose white dresses, dancing and singing joyously to the enthusiastic beat of their drummer. Each girl was elaborately henna-tattooed on their face and arms with red spiral designs, with straw circlets on their heads since it was Lammas Day. Some of them carried wooden aspergillums (Globose blood-sprinklers with an elastic hand strap on top). You can never be quite sure what a handmaiden will do on a festival day. They’re in touch with something ancient, and barely controlled. Bella felt it as well, I’m sure. She fidgeted back and forth to the beat, her petals chiming and ringing sweetly.

The mob of girls streamed around me like Featherdance in the wind. A tall, freckly handmaiden skipped by with a wink, her dress trying to slip off her shoulder. Another boldly picked up my delighted bellossom and whirled her around. The tall girl prowled back towards me, a mischievous glint in her eye, shook her aspergillum and sprayed me with blood, singing:

“Spill the blood upon the corn! All that dies shall be reborn!”

Don’t ask me why, but I couldn’t help but giggle like a schoolgirl. I picked a drop off my cheek and tasted it – ahh, woody sugariness.

Yes, alright, I lied. It wasn’t blood at all, but maple syrup and food colouring. Not that Eostre’s handmaidens care – they seem to delight in spreading a little chaos wherever they go. Try and get a kiss from one of them, it’s said to be a lucky charm.

Smoke rose from the votive bonfire in All Gods shrine. The festival was opening, the smell of baking seductive to the empty stomach. With the sweet woody tang of the ersatz blood on my tongue, time for breakfast. Ahh, fresh bread on a bright August morning, with the sea air to whet the appetite! I followed my nose down Cockle Alley through to Mercer Street and back into the bright sun and vivacity of the Summer’s End festival. Here along Mercer Street, in Market Square, down Florin Alley and Metheglin Street the Lammas celebrations join the Summer’s End festivities: games and gewgaws, Lammas beer and bread. I had mine with a spiral of razzberry jam, wolfed it down and then wolfed an oatcake for seconds (Dignity? On this day, with this bread?).

At its most prosaic, of course, breakfast is about filling an empty tummy. But on Lammas it can also be an act of communion, one that doesn’t require priests. I’m reminded of the character Threadgold in Stephen de Roscoff’s The Niece of Time: ‘On Lammas Day, every loaf is blessed’. In these plentiful days it’s a link back to a past when a good supply of bread for the winter was far from guaranteed. In essence this transcends Heren – people have always taken time to celebrate a successful harvest. The gods praised may differ, but the inspiration remains the same.

It’s not only the bread that’s blessed today. Already plenty of people were out drinking in communion the oldest and greatest of the grain drinks: beer. Today the pubs would do a roaring trade. In a tradition easily as popular among non-Herens, with each round of beer the drinkers toast each other with a collective cry of “Here’s one o’ John!”. Excuses to drink transcend Heren too.

That afternoon Bella and I watched the Youth’s Tourney from a shady café balcony in Market Square. Martial arts and mock battles are a favourite Lammas celebration in honour of the Horned King (Traditionally it’s considered a good chance to show off to the girls). The competitors were all from the high school duelling club – not enough for anything other than longsword, but at least there were enough for a Fawns (13-15yrs) and a Bucks (16-18yrs) division. Girls are hardly ever allowed to compete on Lammas, though I did see a Does and Hinds division in Cherrygrove City once.

Along with the officiating huscarls, there were a few handmaidens lurking at the edge of the crowd. The Bucks division put on an enthusiastic display, though much of it was more posturing and bravado than skill. It looked like they enjoyed themselves, which is really the main thing. The victor of the first match kept taking high guards to make his blade flash in the sun. His opponent ought to have punished him for it, but he kept falling for feints. The applause from the adult spectators was a tad more desultory than the lad really deserved. I’m not sure if he noticed, saluting and bowing till a huscarl shoved him from the ring.

Later on, I found myself reminiscing about my high school duelling club. Sword-and-buckler was our town’s speciality, something we shared with Mulberry Town. I followed the sound of marching feet round to Florin Alley and joined the flock of people at the sides of the narrow street. Only at the sides, because from the eastern end of the alley, the huscarls of the Horned King were approaching. They danced as much as they marched to the music of a deep bass drum and warbling fife, clashing their drawn sabres together in choreographed duels. Every one of them wore a green surcoat blazoned with a white spiral on their chests and a set of wooden antlers on their heads.

“Summer passes away, a-way!” they sang in chorus, sabre blades flashing in the sun. In the largest shrines the huscarls are picked men, uniformly tall and athletic, supposedly appropriate for King Ostaro’s household. The huscarls in these small town shrines tend to be a more representative sampling of masculinity. Among the Maiden’s Peak chapter were an old man singing in a rolling baritone; a heavyset young man who danced with surprising grace; Freya Joy’s husband, no doubt enjoying time away from his wife and daughter. For some reason (They do this every year. Nobody seems to know why) a scatter of handmaidens followed along in their wake, their excitement a wild, unpredictable thing. Their singing mingled with the chorusing men:

“Summer passes away, a-way!”

* * *​

The noise of Summer’s End softened to a dull roar as I headed northwest along the coast path. The fierce evening breeze had already destroyed my hairstyle (Dignity? On this day, on this cliff?). The westering sun beamed out from between broken clouds, Jacob’s ladders cheekily poking me in the eye. I wasn’t alone. On the evening of Lammas, people were returning to Maiden’s Rock.

How are we to read this festival? It would be tempting to write Summer’s End off as just an excuse to drink gallons of beer, but I think obvious piety isn’t necessary to prove sincerity. You can hear it, in the cries of ‘Here’s one o’ John!’, hear it in the joyful singing of the huscarls. I think that, for many people, Lammas is a time to reflect, to remember the simple pleasures of beer and bread.

“If nothing else, at least we have enough to eat.” So the parish priest back home in New Bark Town used to say – usually when giving away bread to anyone who was hungry. The humane spirit of Summer’s End crosses the boundaries of religion.

The ghost of Maiden’s Peak is harder to puzzle out. No-one seems to believe in her, and yet the young men stay inside on Lammas Eve Night – just in case. Perhaps the reason why Mary Grey’s legend endures is because it’s a story of true love gone wrong. There’s something deeply uncomfortable about Mary’s corrosive devotion. At the heart of the story is Mary’s inability to move on, even in death. Maybe Susan and Freya Joy were right, and this never was a romantic story.

At long last I saw Maiden’s Rock up close. It’s hard to imagine, at first glance, anyone falling in love with her, a column of stone hewn from the headland leaning delicately over the foaming sea. It doesn’t look particularly mystical. But in the right light, with the rock gilded by the sunset, you can see the shadow of Mary Grey.

Spoiler: Author's Notes

Maiden’s Peak appears in the anime in EP020 The Ghost of Maiden’s Peak. This chapter is loosely based on the episode with the eponymous ghost taking centre stage. The bones of the legend are the same, featuring the ghost of a lovesick girl; the mysterious statue on a sea stack; the association with a summer festival. The changes I made were to make a better ghost story. The ghost was too old, the Shinto shrine too official.

The town is only sparsely detailed in EP020, as usual for the early anime. The main obvious change I made was to identify the Summer’s End Festival (I seem to recall reading somewhere that it was the beginning of summer in the Japanese version, but I can’t find evidence for that) with Lammas. This is to stay consistent with the established ideas I’d come up with for The Long ‘Verse. Lammas, probably from the Old English hlaf-mas, loaf-mass, was historically a Christian festival. But as usual for harvest festivals, older, pagan beliefs and folk customs crept in, and today it is probably as much a Neopagan festival as it is Christian.

The Lammas customs in this chapter are mostly inspired by a mixture of Christian and Neopagan customs. I know I did invent some of it, but I honestly can’t remember what is an invention and what is a reference to something I found in a book of folklore.

 

[Beth Pavell]

Button-on-Sea
Psyche’s Paradise​

A fallen blossom
Returning to the bough, I thought -
But no, a butterfly

Thirty thousand pairs of fluttering wings, scattering clouds of errant scales that fall like diamond dust from a clear sky. Thirty thousand butterfree fill the sky, flirting and courting, the constant swirl of movement bewildering to the eye. Hot air balloons bob amid the dancing insects like candy thrown at the sky. I watched from the downland turf as a fierce wind came rippling in from across the sea, the kind of wind that slaps the hat from your head. It’s early August on a high headland north of Maiden’s Peak, and I’m here for the annual spectacle of the butterfree cotillion.

For most of the year Button is an idyllic little village on the western periphery of the Farthing Downs, an ancient land of rolling chalk hills and gentle valleys, the downland turf spreading for almost twenty miles in every direction like a rumpled blanket. These open, mostly unfenced meadows have been called temperate rainforest thanks to the rich diversity of life living among the grass. Life that lives more readily on the downland than anywhere else in Kanto; notably wildflowers such as as bellflowers, rock roses, so many orchids, the especially rare and marvellously unlikely Tickia orologica; and mundane butterflies, the colourful marsh fritillary, delicate chalkhill blues, and the elusive silver-spotted skipper.

I got to Button well before the coming butterfree cotillion, grabbing one of the tiny rooms at the tiny inn. Until the butterfree arrive, the skies above Button are clear all the way to the horizon. Look up, and you can see the obviously untrousered form of the Long Man. He’s a huge drawing of an antlered man cut into the chalk of Barrow Hill. He – who is he? Most likely he’s a Bronze Age image of Ostaro the Horned King in an early primal form. On days like this he glows white against the green hillside, his expression perpetually ambiguous – is he stern, or amused?

Most visitors don’t notice his expression. They notice his untrousered nature, because this 180ft giant has a giant 36ft erection. It is said, and more than half believed, that the best way for a woman to conceive is to have sex atop the phallus (Plenty of space there, I suppose). A few years ago this became a popular craze, much to the annoyance of the locals. Ironically the litter from all the condom wrappers was the straw that broke the numel’s back. In the end the manor council decided to introduce the position of Warden of the Giant – an official killjoy with a big stick. Sounds prudish on the face of it, but you can see their point.

But for just one week of the year, look up, and you can see the thirty thousand pairs of fluttering wings. Look carefully, and you can see butterfree from Kanto, Misho, Johto and even some from the Sevii Islands. Each each year they come to cotillion to mate, pairing off over the course of the week before dispersing far and wide to lay their eggs.

* * *​

Butterflies are so familiar to us, entirely unthreatening with their gorgeous wings and ditzy courting in the sunshine, that it’s easy to forget what truly remarkable creatures they are. Butterfree (Psyche leucopterus) belong to the Papiliomagna family, the Great Butterflies, along with beautifly, vivillon, and glorikite. When they start their lives as squirming caterpie they are very vulnerable, pretty much eating machines on legs. If they can make it to their pupal stage as metapod they’ll have a much better chance of survival. Metapod are all but invincible to mundane predators, and even pokémon usually consider it too much like hard work to eat one.

When mundane butterflies reach their adult, or imago, stage they become part of the ephemera of summer, flakes of colour lasting only for a few weeks. The Great Butterflies are different. In the wild butterfree can live for ten years, subsisting primarily on rotting fruit and invertebrates and hibernating through the winter. The imago stage is also when they reach sexual maturity. Breeding takes place over the course of the summer, hatching two broods per year on average.

But some butterfree will instead come to Button. How they decide when to do this is still a mystery. The males dance to impress the females, showing off their strength and aerobatic skill. Before long, battles break out as the males try to sabotage each other’s dances. The competition only gets fiercer as one-by-one the butterfree pair up and mate. And at the end of the week those couples will disperse far and wide to raise the next generation of caterpie, together. Aw, how romantic.

About 65% of the female butterfree will mate with another male after selecting a mate. Oh, how scandalous! The reasons for this level of infidelity vary. Perhaps she’ll select a strong battler for a mate but a skilful flier to fertilise her eggs. Perhaps she’ll mate with three or four different males to nurture the greatest possible genetic diversity in her brood. The cotillion phenomenon facilitates these mating strategies, and to an extent the males also benefit since logically some of them will also be getting some on the side.

* * *​

Butterfree are the reason for the village’s name: the butterfly-town by the sea, Button-on-Sea. A cute village name is just the surface of the rich symbolism and poignant romance of these alluring insects - ‘flowers that fly and all but sing’. Why, in a world so full of strange and beautiful creatures beyond count, would such a thing as a butterfly gain such a prominent place in human culture? Perhaps it’s their ephemeral nature, frivolous, fragile avatars of the summer. Perhaps it’s because they are, from an anthropocentric point of view, apparently purposeless creatures. In the words of one churchman:

“You ask what is the use of butterflies? I reply to adorn the world and delight the eyes of men; to brighten the countryside like so many golden jewels … To gaze enquiringly at such elegance of colour and form designed by the ingenuity of nature and painted by her artist’s pencil, is to acknowledge and adore the imprint of the art of God.”

And yet butterflies have not always been depicted as mere innocuous jewels. They were also complex metaphors, living bridges between the material world and the spiritual. In Herenism the butterfly sometimes symbolises the circle of the seasons – it dies each autumn to be reborn every spring, its life a brief and inevitable thing. Typical of Heren myth, the butterfly is an ambiguous figure. In John Florin’s The Lady of Fay butterfree is an empyreal pokémon with the power to guide pilgrims to the World Tree, slipping effortlessly between dreams and reality. To Evangelists, the humble meadow brown was once the spy from hell, its wing-spots believed to be infernal surveillance cameras watching for sinners. Examine a Burgundian painting from around 1500, and you might find a lurking beautifly monster, a chimera of man and pokémon.

The names of the butterfly have their own mythologies. In Kalos they are papillon, related to pavillion; in Saxony milchdieb, milk-thieves; in Haakono, sommerfugl, the birds of summer. It has been suggested that butterfly is a corruption of flutterby, a charming thought, but alas, wrong. Butterfly probably derives from butorflēorge, the butter-fly, referencing the bright yellow male brimstone butterfly.

Perhaps the most fascinating of names is the one from antiquity. Psyche, ψυχη: life, spirit, consciousness – soul. Psyche was the unwisely curious princess of Classical myth, tasked by a jealous goddess to retrieve a box of beauty from the underworld. It’s revealing that when Psyche opened the box to take a peek, she immediately fell into a deep sleep. The reformist Heren theologian Thyme Malby rewrote the myth, in which Psyche ultimately achieves immortality as a result of her discovery of sexual pleasure. Like the rose, the butterfly is a sexual symbol, emblematic of feminine sexuality.

Ψυχη can also be translated as “breath of life”, the ineffable animating spirit that powers life’s engine. Through this word-play butterflies have also become wind symbols. This is why the nymphs of the eight winds are archetypically depicted as having butterfree wings. Metamorphosis, wind, spirit, sex, summer, soul. There’s a lot to these creatures, dancing on the uncertain boundary between reality and dreams, the material and spiritual.

* * *
​

And so, to the last evening of cotillion. Where once there was chaos, now I see order, thousands of butterfree couples dancing together, the failed males lingering at the edge having finally given up. The butterfree flutterby, departing as the dusk deepens, till by the following morning the Long Man has the downland to himself again. The sight reminds me of a poem from a poet who says it better:

What joy awaits you, when the breeze
Hath found you out among the trees,
And calls you forth again!

This plot of orchard-ground is ours;
My trees they are, my Sister’s flowers;
Here rest your wings when they are weary;
Here lodge as in a sanctuary!
Come often near us, fear no wrong;
Sit near us on the bough!
We’ll talk of sunshine and of song,
And summer days, when we were young;
Sweet childish days, that were as long
As twenty days are now.