Chapter 3: A new day
When morning came, I wasn’t really sure where I was at first, and I definitely didn’t remember how I got there. I wasn’t even sure I was conscious for several minutes until I realized I wasn’t imagining the slow breathing. It sounded like a baby’s breathing…but I was quickly remembering that it was my own voice, coming from my new younger self. I groan and roll to my side, an unfamiliar weight shifting under my tail that I didn’t really bother thinking about. I just catalogued it away for later’s concerns. I still wanted to sleep.
Unfortunately, I had rolled directly towards the window I didn’t know was there. And though the light coming through was dim, it still caused me to cringe and immediately whine in response. I turn the other way, but slowly begin to blink my eyes open anyway. I saw bars, first and foremost, and then the rest of the nursery slowly blurred into view behind them. It was darker in here than I remember, aside from a green light coming from somewhere above me. It was soft, not disruptive, and for some reason provided me with comfort… That was until I looked up to see its source.
It looked like some kind of a walkie talkie, but had no buttons or knobs on this side. So its channel couldn’t be changed, which means it’s probably already paired to something else without any need to tweak it. It had to be a baby monitor; there was no other explanation. So, rather than staring at it, and trying not to think about if any of the noises I just made waking up would be considered “cute” or not. That was when I spotted another item with me in the crib.
It was a little blue thing, made of plastic and with a bulb sticking off of it. The bulb was shaped for a tongue to rest under it while the top bump rested behind your teeth. There was no mistaking it for anything other than a pacifier. I started thinking about how it got here, and then realized my cheek felt a little weird. I reached up to touch it, and found one side of my face to be pretty wet! The movement had dislodged my blanket, which made me want to stop moving because it was so cozy.
But I couldn’t just give up and relax. This was no place to relax! So I’ll find something to do. I’ll simply have to track down that foul smell that just wafted past my nose. If there’s another “baby” in here, I definitely want to talk to them before Auran reappears! Could it be a Stunky? It really does smell pretty bad.
I start sitting up, doing my best to keep my blanket with me. Just because I didn’t want to relax didn’t mean I had to forgo my cloak entirely! My diaper feels odd again, thicker under my tail. I must’ve peed while I was on my back. Wetting the bed is hardly a surprise… Why would my asleep muscles have any idea what they were doing if my awake muscles couldn’t even figure it out?
As I scanned the room again, I couldn’t see anyone else in here. I had to turn around a few times just to confirm that finding. Then where could the smell be coming from?
Maybe Auran can tell me. I already hear the door beginning to click open. “Phew, smells like you’ll need a change before you go down to meet the rest of the crew for brekkyfast.”
I…what?! There’s no way I could… How would I not even realize it after I woke up? “Wait, you can’t mean that…”
“Of course I do!” He closes the door, starting to come closer while I shrink into my blanket, letting the it cover the back half of my head and part of the sides and front. “We better get started so I can see how bad the damage is. Would hate to have to explain to everyone why you were so late.” He reaches down and flicks a rugged looking switch on the side of the monitor. The thunk it made suggested it might be hard even for me to move.
I wanted to run away, to hide, to declare to all the world that I did not poop my pants, and never ever would! But I could kinda feel it now that I knew what the feeling actually was, and I definitely didn’t want that either! I was very quickly feeling overwhelmed, and small. So small. Tears were welling in my eyes again… I had to take control or else I might just die of humiliation right here and now.
He was already picking me up before I could find my voice again. I apparently left it in the pit of my stomach. “D-do I have to meet the others?”
“Well it wouldn’t be much of a group experience if you never met anyone but me, would it?”
I don’t think I was really panicking. Once he was holding me, my emotions calmed a little. Probably his manipulation again… But it helped me focus. I don’t really know if he means to do that or not, but I have to follow this line of thought. My feelings are my own still, and as long as I know who I am and what I want, they can’t turn me into a baby. That was the logic I decided to settle on.
Looking inward, I found a Charmeleon. He was upset about his evolution. All around him, Pokemon were reaching their adult stage evolutions. Some didn’t even have to go through an awkward middle stage first like he did! Even his best friend evolved already, though it only happened last weak after turning 25. But the Charmeleon was only 22, and wasn’t expected to evolve until he turned nearly 50. 50! It wasn’t fair! Everyone was going to treat him like a kid forever. Maybe that was correct for other Charmeleon, but not him. He had been a human first. And he grows way faster than his body is allowing him to. So he started pushing himself, and pushing everyone else away. He had to be strong. He had to bury his emotions and do whatever it took to achieve adulthood. Even break his body.
That was it. I don’t feel afraid of what everyone will say or do. This was a baby’s body. I feel sad that all I worked for had been erased. The adulthood I tried so hard to achieve. And that’s the secret! Buried under all this mental fluff and missing knowledge, they were hiding what they actually took away from me! Hoping I wouldn’t notice until I turned just as baby brained as everyone else. Well it wasn’t gonna work on me. I’ll be sad, dangit, and there’s nothing they can do to stop me!
The tears were back again, but they’re okay. They’re real. I can hide them after I’ve done the hard part; Talk about my feelings with another Pokemon. After a brief sniffle, and the ripping over diaper tapes, I finally spoke up. “Um. …Auran? You said, uh… You said we could have quiet time by ourselves, right? If we’re…if we’re feeling too overwhelmed. I don’t wanna go down there. All of this…it’s too much. You’ve turned me into a freaking baby. I mean, how did you expect me to feel about that? I wanna stay in here. Maybe sleep all day.”
“Sorry, bud, but I can’t break the schedule. I’m sure it’s gonna be hard meeting everyone, but remember that they lost the same things you did. All of you are in this together. Just be glad you didn’t poop yourself at breakfast. A lot of first years do that. Maybe I didn’t make it clear, but while you’re here you are not an adult. And you’re not going to be until you grow back into one. You are going to go out there and be treated like a baby. You will only do things babies can do. Maybe you’ll always hate it, some do. But it’s important that we do this, and then when you go back out there, you’ll be the best you that you can be. You may not believe it, but trust in the system. It works, and it always has. If you hate the baby treatment, strive for graduation. Be good, get good grades, go to all your therapy, and reform yourself. Then, when you’re the right age, you can go out there and rejoin the school kids. You’ll be a big kid again. Well on your way to your old age, but as a better Pokemon.”
None of that made me feel better. It was amazing to me how he could say all these supposedly encouraging things, while still teasing me and showing me what’s really expected of me here. And still he was so vague about everything. He doesn’t want to tell me anything, and is annoyed that I keep asking for everything.
“And one final thing. Your treatment? It starts today. Once your diaper is changed, and you’re being brought back down there, I’m not going to have these grown up talks with you anymore. Not unless you actually need them. Can’t have you falling back on this as a way to retain your old ways. Even if I’m not babbling at you and ignoring everything you say, you can bet you’re not really going to feel like a grownup whenever we talk. I know you had a rough life, so I’m offering you this warning as a courtesy. But if you need me, I’m still gonna be there. Even if just to give you hugs and kisses to make bad things go away. Starting with this dirty diaper.”
He kissed me on the forehead, leaving me stunned for the rest of my diaper change. No more mature talk? Did that mean baby babble, or something else? It’s not much of a warning if you’re still vague about it! I guess…maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on him. His paws are tied. This place is clearly sinister enough to control even its designated “grown ups”. They’re using magic to disguise the true layout of this place from me, after all. They want escape to be the last thing I ever think about. At least he has the courtesy to pretend to be nice to me. I’ll latch onto him, like he wants me to, but only to give me another thing I control here.
I will not let them take away my right to choose things. They’ll have to fight me for it.
“That diaper wasn’t very full. Maybe I spoke too soon and you will be stinky at breakfast. You’re not constipated, right? No hurties in your tummy?”
I could feel the heat rising to my cheeks as I meekly shake my head. I couldn’t really find my voice while I was focusing on preparing myself to be exposed to the public. So he’ll just have to get a gesture and just figure out what it means! Should be easy if he’s so confident in his caretaking abilities.
He seemed satisfied at least, and didn’t pressure it further as he took the diaper away and disappeared it under the table. I must still be sleepy, or maybe I’m just too distracted, because I hardly even noticed the cold air or wipes this time. If only I could always be so lucky. Babies go through a lot of diapers in a day, so there’s no chance I’m making it through the whole day to next bedtime without needing another diaper change. I can only hope he’s wrong about breakfast. The last thing my pride needs is to poop myself in front of everyone within an hour of meeting them! That would be horrible.
After he put me in one of those thinner diapers again, he picked me up. But this time he didn’t sit me on his hip. Oh no, it was so much worse. This time he cradled me in front of his chest like an infant. “Figured you’d need some snuggle time on the way down~” he teases me. It really was already beginning! And it was only then that I noticed I lost my blanket somewhere between the crib and the diaper change, so I had no choice but to bury my face in his fur if I wanted to disappear!
I really must be a bit scatter brained. I wasn’t like that before, just letting things slip by without noticing them. I’ll have to try and keep myself more aware so that stops happening. Who even knows where that slippery slope might lead me if I let it.
The trip to the cafeteria was uneventful, of course, and I was starting to hear more and more voices and noise as we got closer. I had my face buried so I couldn’t really see where he was taking me, but it was easy enough to guess, and it’s not like the layout of this place matters if it changes literally every time he opens that stupid door.
Does it smell like waffles down here, or is that just his shampoo?
No, I definitely smelled waffles. It got stronger when I heard a door open, and I prompted myself to curl up tighter against Auran. Who gave me reassuring headpats I didn’t want! It was very loud in here, and I couldn’t really pick out any individual thing being said. But it was definitely a lot of kids talking all at once. I couldn’t pick out any adult voices, though, just being drowned out in the cacophony. At least, until a voice very close by spoke up.
“New kid feelin’ shy today?” said a new voice I didn’t quite recognize. It was deep. Male? No… The accent was throwing me off a little, but I think it might be female. Just a little on the deeper side. She sounds like she could be from the countryside, almost straight out of a western movie.
Auran spoke up next. “Yup. Looks like he’s got a little stage fright. Hardly surprising, given who he was. Hopefully we can get him to open up a little today. It’ll be good for him.”
Who I was… So I guess my former life is common knowledge. I was pretty famous… Did my downfall end up on the news? …And when did I start thinking about it as “former”? I’m still Firestorm. They haven’t broken me yet. But still, the way they talked about me like I wasn’t here made my stomach feel heavy. I was sad, I guess, but I don’t really know why.
Regardless, I do kinda want to know who I’m dealing with. So I slowly move my head, just enough to let a crack of light reach me, and open my eye. I see a tall and imposing figure with brown scales slowly coming into view. It was a Kangaskhan, who smiled at me the second I could see her face. So I quickly looked away from that, even pulling my whole head away from Auran so I could look down instead! At least it was better than curling tight again. Feels like that would have earned me some “awwws” I didn’t want.
Her pouch was empty; no. Wait, I think I can see it moving some. And it’s not flush against her belly, so there had to be something in there. Something I just couldn’t see. Was it her own child? That could be it. This is a daycare, too, so if she’s a mom she could just bring her kid to work with her. That makes sense, I think.
My theory doesn’t quite pan out, though, as I see something aqua colored shuffling about in there. I’m just barely looking at the top of it. Wait, no, that’s a…foot? Whatever it is is squirming up a storm, until it finally frees its top half and reclines along the rim of the pouch, a purple baby’s bottle stuffed in its ravenous maw.
It was a Totodile! An aqua one. It looked kinda similar to Finn maybe. And I found myself instantly curious. Was this a real baby? It has to be. There’s no way any adult Pokemon in their right mind would just…act that way. He didn’t even notice me, keeping his eyes completely closed. But I knew he wasn’t asleep. He’s just enjoying himself.
“Well, hate to cut meet-cutes short and all, but we need to get some food in your tummy. Don’t want a grumpy baby on my paws,” Auran interjects. And I very nearly whine in dismay! But I was able to control it, feeling it only just beginning in my throat before I put a stop to it. At least I was getting better control of my instincts, but that was way too close. Wait, did he say meet-cute?
They were both watching me! That definitely brought the blush back to my cheeks. “Alright. We’ll have to save introductions for later, then. You were a little late getting here. Little guy make a big mess?”
Auran began walking, heading to where my high chair was. It’s in the same place, even with the room so full. Must be assigned to me, to make this all a routine. Are they hoping to numb my mind by making everything I do the same all the time?
“There was hardly anything but pee in his morning diaper,” Auran says casually back to her while he passes. Could he not discuss the contents of my underpants so openly?! “Somehow I don’t think he’s completely done.” Great. And he gave her a front row ticket to my impending accident.
I had to distract myself from that, so I start scanning the room while I’m being lowered down into my high chair and strapped in. Thankfully my diaper was entirely dry this time! There could easily be 40 to 50 kids in here! With maybe…10 or 15 grownups? It was like looking at a sea of shapes and colors. Hard to process it all, and even harder to count it. Maybe that’s just a side effect similar to my inability to read clocks. It’s just too hard for my head to hold all that information right now, so I can only guess and not actually count everyone. But I really did wonder…how many of them are real babies? Are there any? Plenty of them were certainly acting like it… Being fed by their caretakers, or chatting away with their friends. It seems like the ones in the booster seats might be a little older. They acted kinda like school kids. Maybe pre school or kindergarten… Definitely no older than first grade.
I couldn’t really hear their conversations. There was just too much noise going on all at once in here. But not a single one of them looked as uncomfortable as I was to be here. At least not until I looked at the high chairs. We were all lined up against one of the walls, and it dawned on me that maybe there’s multiple groups all staying here. Because there definitely can’t only be 10 high chair kids besides myself! And two of them were looking around like I was, while a third was trying in vain to chew their way out of their high chair. It seemed to be a Poochyena.
But I couldn’t watch them for long before Auran was back in front of me. When did he leave? He had a plate with him, and set it down in front of me to reveal a big waffle covered in messy syrup that he had cut up into tiny little squares. What was strange, though, is that there isn’t a fork. I looked up at him and was about to ask, but then I saw he was holding the fork, and already reaching for one of the bites! Oh this is going to suck.
He started the whole airplane routine on me, and while at first I didn’t want to open my mouth for such a babyish display, my tummy actually was starting to hurt. And it hurt really bad. I don’t think I’ve ever been so hungry… It’s like I was overly sensitive to it or something. And that got me to reluctantly comply. But I kept my smile away! I frowned the entire time to let him know I hated it.
But instead of giving me the fork, he’d just rub it in. “Awww, somebody’s a grumpy baby, huh? Bet he wishes this would be over with already. Bet he does.” Somehow while saying what was actually going on in my head, he still made it sound like I was just a baby.
After what felt like ten thousand years of darkness and torture, the waffle was finally done, and I felt more normal. Not bloated or over full, despite how much food that was… But at least I didn’t feel hungry anymore. And he was already taking the plate away so I could look back at my fellow inmates. The two who had been looking at me had sour looks on their faces. I think they were angry, but it’s hard to tell. Their baby bodies make it look just kinda pouty. Did I look like that right now?
They were a Treecko, and a Cubone. I’ll absolutely have to remember their faces so I can find them again. Maybe we can help each other.
Little did I know how much worse this could all get. When Auran comes back, he’s holding another of those aquatic themed cups, only this time it was decorated in fish. And it was a bottle, not a sippy cup. Okay, so maybe not the most mature thing to drink from, but at least I could still do it myself, right?
Nope. He’s picking me up now and cradling me again. My cheeks were so hot they might just catch fire now! And that was even before he shoved the nipple of the bottle into my mouth. He didn’t even need to try that hard. I’m not as strong as him, and my squirming protests had me tensing my jaw and moving my mouth some. So he found a gap and pushed it right in! He definitely used his aura on me. There’s no way he’d stop doing that after just one day. But it’s too late, I’m already doomed.
Instinct took over, and thirst consumed me as I began nursing on the bottle. I didn’t even have to find a rhythm or figure out how it worked, the rhythm found me instead. An instinct this baby body has, I guess. At least I wasn’t alone. Several of the high chair babies are being picked up and given their own bottles. That definitely makes me think that Totodile was probably a kid from home, since he’s allowed to feed himself. Wait, does he even have a high chair here? He could just have his entire meal from inside the pouch, can’t he? What if he’s not the only pouched Pokemon?
I try looking around, but the bottle and Auran are kinda keeping me way too still for that. I think my chance to see everything going on here has passed me by. So it wasn’t as embarrassing as I thought it would be. I guess I kinda thought I’d be put on a stage and paraded around as “Hey everyone, look at the baby Charmander!” But that didn’t really happen. I spent the whole meal locked in my own head about mostly everything, and barely even focused on everyone else.
It wasn’t special or embarrassing. Just a normal day. Just a baby Charmander being fed his brekkyfast. So it was terrible. Just in a different way. I can’t let the magic dissuade me. I must escape from here.
Part 2: A new coat of paint
After I was fed my bottle, Auran lifted me up onto his shoulder and patted my back until, unfortunately, I let out a small burp. It wasn’t even big and manly. It was the most pathetic little burp I ever heard. But he seemed satisfied with it, and started taking me out of the room. I couldn’t get the look at all the grownups that I wanted, but we did pass by the Kangaskhan again. She waved at us, and her Totodile waved us off too. I couldn’t help but find it a little cute.
Auran turned a different way in the hallway. By so much as I could even tell which way was different from normal at this point. I wonder if the layout changes all the time for him too and he just knows where to go off instinct, or are the adults immune somehow and they can see the real layout of this place? Regardless, he knows where he’s going and I don’t. So I just have to wait for him to get there.
What we come up on is a small tiled room with a normal ‘human’ bathtub/shower combo off to the side by a counter and a sink, with a changing table opposite. And in the middle was a large sloped pit, which would be kind of like a pool if the shallow end completely encircled the deep end on all sides. But the shallow end did start off a little deep, maybe about up to my neck if I was sitting down in it at my current height. So it doesn’t necessarily transition smoothly into the floor.
I know this structure. It’s a bath found in nearly every full bathroom, meant for larger Pokemon so they can get bathed if they need it. But most Pokemon who use it can definitely bathe themselves! It’s just convenient because it’s so large and has so many varying depths with its stepped slopes. The shower head, attached to the ceiling, was absolutely beyond my reach, but I bet Auran could reach it.
“Well, little guy. Normally I wouldn’t have changed your diaper yet unless it was actually full, but I think going to your first breakfast stinky would have been one heart ache too many. You’re welcome. But now, we gotta get you clean for your big day.”
How is it that he can talk to me while still talking like I’m not here? It was all so matter of fact, with no room for argument. I’d look silly even trying to argue! So I’ll just hold onto the hope that maybe he’ll let me bathe myself. I’m small, but not that small, right?
He brings me over to the changing table and sits me down on it. Only then do I notice that my diaper feels weird, so I look down at it and give myself a kind of diaper check. …Why is that the description I thought of first? R-regardless, there’s a little yellow stain on the front. I’m wet? When did… Oh no, I may be able to feel the signs, but if I’m distracted by something, will I miss it entirely just like the other things that disappear when I’m distracted? How often is that going to happen? I can’t potty train myself if I miss the warning sign 9 out of 10 times! It won’t happen for that…other thing, too, will it? I told myself it couldn’t, but I can’t seem to shake those butterflies from my stomach.
He leaves me while I’m thinking about that and turns on the smaller tub. That made sense. They’re treating me like a baby, and I could very easily drown in the big tub. Even though I’m not a real baby. So I spend the time just investigating my diaper instead.
It wasn’t exactly uncomfortable, in spite of the pee stain. It’s like wearing a pillow. Maybe it’s not as thick as one, but the concept is the same. It has a little give to it when I sit, and when I wiggle it wiggles with me. Even though I’m a reptile and my legs are attached more at the sides of my body, it seems like the wings hug the very top of my limbs, probably on purpose. I bet that makes it more secure. Always giving my butt a warm hug. But I definitely don’t want to be wearing this thing. I’ll set a record for potty training at this place, just watch me! At least it doesn’t rustle too much. The cover seems almost like fabric, but doesn’t feel at all like the undies I remember from my human life.
Lots of Pokemon in this world wear clothes. Even full on human outfits with pants and underwear. But those Pokemon have jobs or otherwise almost human-like lives. I wasn’t going to be like that, or else what was even the point of being a Pokemon and no longer human? I guess they do make it work, though. Pokemon sound like animals, but you can still talk to them if you know how to read between the lines. It’s like understanding why their bark has a bit of a lilt to it, or why they paused between noises for a second there. You connect with them on an emotional level and that lets you understand them.
Of course, some Pokemon can just speak human languages. I learned the languages are actually pretty much the same here, even if all the region names are different. Like Kanto or Johto instead of Japan. Alola instead of Hawaii, and so on. And some magic lets you talk with Pokemon or humans like you were one of them. There are so many different ways to connect with each other in this world.
My introspective on the intricacies of diapers is cut short, because Auran is back. Yippee.
“The water’s plenty hot enough now, but maybe not as hot as you’d like it. I’m sorry, but I don’t wanna burn myself, so we’ll have to compromise.” Auran starts to untape my diaper while I’m sitting, which feels very weird in a way that makes me realize the regular way of changing a diaper got normalized in my brain somehow. So I’ll just ignore the weirdness and try to make every change feel weird going forward! N-not that I’m going to have many!
“You could just let me bathe myself.”
“Not a chance, buddy. You won’t do it right. I can already tell. Even if you weren’t a baby, you neglected your personal health all the time, didn’t you?”
“Not all the time!” I find myself shouting instead of thinking. Oops.
He taps me on the nose, which actually makes me feel worse than I probably should about it. “Inside voice. And it doesn’t matter how you spin it. I can tell. A daddy always knows when you’re fibbing about brushing your fangs. So I’m going to be in charge of cleaning you until I’m certain you can handle it.”
I bet I’d never satisfy him… “You gonna keep me from graduating if I never meet your cleanliness expectations?”
“I’ll definitely have to think about it! A big kid that can’t bathe himself is hardly a big kid at all, in my eyes.” He grabs me under my armpits and lifts me off of my diaper, just leaving it there on the table where I used to be sitting, and carrying me away. It feels almost like I’m leaving a part of me behind somehow.
I didn’t have long to contemplate why being naked feels so foreign now before I’m being set down in room temperature water… Oh, wait, no, there’s definitely steam coming off it. So it’s probably hot, but I do have to wonder why it didn’t feel different from the air by that much. There’s a couple theories I have, but I can’t focus on them while there’s something cold trickling onto the top of my head!
I look up at Auran, ready to complain or ask for more time before he cleans me, but I stop myself wondering what possessed me to want more time naked in a tub with water that barely goes up to the middle of my belly, where a button would be if I had one. I’d at least want it to sit at the top of my belly.
So I don’t complain, and I just let it happen. Once he’s done pouring scale soap onto my head, and I catch the strange squiggly lines on the bottle, I put together that I must not be able to read at all anymore. I didn’t have long to cry about my lost maturity before I felt his pawpads start rubbing the top of my head, making me feel all those suds as they start forming from the motion. It…felt kinda good, actually. Caring, gentle…
I felt myself relaxing, and let my eyes droop while I just enjoyed it. I didn’t even care if it was my baby body that liked all these things. I deserved this after the two days I just had! And I can at least enjoy the fact that I’m creating more work for him by just existing. So there, Lucario! I mean, uh. Oh, right, well, guess I can’t tell him what I actually want to say to his face, but I know what I wanted to say! …I think.
After he started moving to my back and shoulders, some instinct in me started to panic a little and made me whip my head around to look at my tail, which has been a part of my life for so long I hardly think about it. And what I see gives me pause, and somehow I instantly calmed down again. There’s this blue ring around the tip of my tail. It kinda looks like it’s not glowing, but instead it simply is light. Like just actual light made into an object. And even though my tail could move freely, I felt the faintest tug at it every single time it got near the water, even when I tried on purpose.
I looked back at Auran, uncertainty written all over my face, but I was already feeling calmer when I just saw him smiling. “Don’t worry, bud. I got you covered. Just go back to relaxing.” He knew I liked being washed. He had to have been reading it all over my body language since the moment he started. And the way he spoke about my tail made me feel so…safe.
Safe? That word was barely in my vocabulary anymore. But it was my everything right now. More than just being all lathered up, I just wanted to melt into that word and be a bucket of water for a while. No thoughts or worries. Just held still, away from it all, and still existing. Okay, this bath was giving me a lot of confusing emotions I’ll have to unpack at a later time. It was so hard to process them right now, while they were actively still coming at me. So for right now, I’ll just relax, and get bathed.
Auran’s got me. He’s protecting my tail.
As Pokedex entries go, it turns out most of them are wrong. But this one may be the most wrong of them all. They weren’t made by asking the Pokemon what made them tick; they were made by just watching and guessing. Or maybe Pokemon in this world are really just an entirely different beast from the ones in my games.
The flame on a Charmander’s tail measures its life force. Full stop. That’s all it really does. Its fuel source is my soul. Or aura, or power, or mana, or whatever any culture wants to call it. The point is, its heat and intensity are directly tied to my life, and it grows or shrinks with my emotions and state of being. It can rage when I’m full of adrenaline and give me strength I could only ever dream of, or it can shrink and wither as I suffer injuries or illnesses. But the flame itself doesn’t impact those things, they simply manifest through it.
That isn’t to say protecting it isn’t important. See, scientists must’ve thought we protected it because we’d die if it goes out, observing how it shrinks when we get cold or injured. But that isn’t true. We protect it because it is a physical part of us that can suffer from the physical world the same way any organ can.
Simply put, if it touches things that can harm or extinguish it, which is fairly small in number since it is made of fire, it will sting. Badly depending on how damaged it gets. And if it gets put out completely, it will hurt like we got stabbed for the entire time it’s gone, and we will struggle to relight it ourselves because it affects how much fire we breathe too. But we must get it lit again, or that pain won’t ever stop. And, I guess, that pain could maybe kill us, eventually. All pain can do that.
But the fire going out isn’t really the problem. And Auran knows that, probably. But still, he’s protecting it. He’s using his aura to tug it away from the water before it could even try touching it. That wouldn’t even sting very much unless it got submerged, but he’s still thinking about it on my behalf. And the way his tugs at my tail are just as gentle as his massaging my scales… I hardly even noticed it without seeing it for myself.
For the first time in maybe decades, I feel…loved. Even with all the context surrounding this place, I wanna hold onto that feeling. I just hope it’s real. So I’ll enjoy this bath for now… But once I’m on my own, it’s back to trying to escape. Maybe I just need to find a way to include love in my life again, but I’ll do it on my own terms.
Once he was done with my upper body, he helped me stand up. He used one paw to brace me the whole time while the other continued spreading those suds. My tail was now no longer even a moment’s concern in my head as I just went through these motions. This was far less enjoyable than just sitting there, of course…
Going through the movements like this felt like being a toddler again, because how could it not? I wasn’t massaging the soap into myself, he was. I wasn’t telling myself when to stand or what leg to lift, he was. I felt humiliated and small, and now I want the experience to be over. Doesn’t matter what I thought just a few minutes ago. This sucks. Way to ruin the experience for me, Auran. Couldn’t just let me have this one.
He very carefully washes along the length of my tail, and then guides it down until the ring is sitting on top of the water, and then he lets it back up so I can raise it again on my own. Which I do, promptly. Even though I know he’s being careful, some primal part of me got scared when the flame got that close to the water, and made me instantly pull it away the second I was allowed to. Where I could feel safe again.
After that, he sits me down and takes a bucket from the side of the tub, filling it with water. “Now close your eyes and hold your breath for a second.” I comply, and cringe as water is poured over me. It doesn’t hurt, but it’s very uncomfortable. Water type moves hurt, but this feels like that without all the pain, and was my least favorite part of the whole process.
Before I can cough and sputter on the water left over on my face, since apparently my little lungs had next to no capacity, a washcloth pressed to my face and wiped towards the left before it was removed. I gasped in just as it left, as if the timing had been practiced for years, and he starts drying the rest of my head. “There you go. Steady breaths. For a first timer, you were very well behaved! That’ll be a gold star for this morning. Keep that up and maybe you can start earning treats like the other kids. Gotta build a backlog of good behavior first, though~”
He gives me a pat on my head, and I pout at him. Then he unplugs the drain and starts letting the water out. He doesn’t leave me there to get cold and pulls me up into a towel as the ring around my tail pops like it had been made out of a floating water bubble.
This part was pretty good. The towel was warmed like it had spent time next to a fireplace and it was so soft and didn’t scratch or tickle as it rubbed all over me. It was all perfect and practiced, and I found myself actually giving a honest for real happy giggle when he poked my tummy after.
So that was enough feeling good for myself today, and I went right back to pouting while he “awwwed” at my frowny face and brought me back to the table. My diaper was gone, and there was a shirt laying next to the pillow now. It was green, and had a few flowery grass types in a meadow with a Bulbasaur singing to them on it. When did all that happen? Did someone else come in here? …Did they see me?
“I know you might want pants when you hear what’s in store, but you have to earn pants privileges by taking steps in your rehab. You may have figured it out by now, but embarrassing you is the point. And now that you’ve experienced it, telling you isn’t gonna help you resist it. You’ll just have to be my cute, bashful little guy all day for your first day at daycare~”
Daycare?!
