Music in media: Relic by Austin Fray

Arc 1 | Next to Normal
( by Lucius )

10 January, Monday, 10 a.m. | Winter

Undella Bay was no stranger to visitors swimming in its long stretch of golden beaches, only it was winter, a time when hardly anyone batted an eye at the tourist trap, which gave Lenora an excuse to be that special someone who would do more than swim — in fact, dive — among the floating, melting drops of snow.

A Wingull perching on a weathered rock glanced at her as she released her husband's Relicanth into the waters, clung onto its tan body and basked momentarily in the chill sunlight and the bay's mellow synth-led arrangement. Some feet away, a horde of Spheal stopped rolling in the soft sand to squeal at the splash she made as she disappeared underwater, her puffy teal hair rippling in the gentle waves. With relief she ripped herself from these casual judgements, and turned to the deep blue where the Pokémon were too engaged in their game of tag to acknowledge her presence. Lenora had had enough judgment when she retired her duties as a Gym Leader three years ago to pursue her passion in archaeology. While she received recognition as one of the best black female archaeologists in the world, a slew of criticisms came for her head simply because she was the first black Gym Leader in the world and held the record till, in their eyes, she lost her place to a young white man with the privilege of being a DexHolder. Despite the dissenters, some of her supporters thankfully backed Cheren up.

At this moment, she was the freest she had ever been, and could not be more grateful to Cheren for taking the mantle. Then there was his student, Whitley, who handed over Zinzolin's documents upon her departure from Team Plasma, the peculiar group who once fought for the liberation of Pokémon, and later, for control and power in the ugliest form. Team Plasma and their Seven Sages were finally put in place a year ago too, blessing all. Thereafter, Blake left for Alola, Black and White left Unova to make BW Agency global, and Whitley went on to explore the world with the duo. Everything was fine; when heroes fulfilled their duties, no one would need saving anymore.

Relicanth glubbed, as if partaking in her feelings of comfort. But the comfort only made more evident the love of her husband, Hawes, who, upon learning from her she would be off to put Zinzolin's documents to good use that morning, begged her not to go, out of fear of the dangers that could live in the abyss. And what was the peace enjoyed by a region to the peace from a dive into the unknown?

Lenora, slightly bogged down by her diving gear, though not at all trifled, headed for deeper waters. The Alomomola near the surface, the Basculin, the Wingull, the Mantyke and Remoraid, were soon replaced by Clamperl, Huntail, Gorebyss, Lanturn, Eelektross, all Pokémon of the abyss. With a school of Lanturn guiding their young Chinchou about the waters, Lenora was lulled into further comfort as their presence illuminated her surroundings like fairy lights in a dark room, the chipped-off steeple of an underwater temple gradually brought into view.

The Abyssal Ruins.

Seaweed clung to its brick walls and Lenora swore she saw a Dhelmise leisurely circling a corner of the temple, though it was no longer there by the time she reached the entrance and took in the apparent darkness and a howling rush of air.

According to the documents, I can take only 493 steps. Coincidentally, it's Arceus's number in the Pokédex.

Drawing in a deep breath, Lenora propelled herself forward, into the ruins. All around her, shy cracks shimmered with tiny bubbles. From the entrance, it was clear the temple was a labyrinth by choice, not by accident when it sunk to the depths of the abyss, causing bricks to fall and stack atop each other neatly.

Whatever treasure in there must be on the same level of mythology as the almighty Arceus.

As an archaeologist, nothing moved her more than the moments she caught the rendezvous between history and mythology with her eye, akin to a reporter chancing upon tomorrow's headliners. The Abyssal Ruins was often touted to the public as "an ancient tomb that is said to be the resting place of an ancient king", and any of today's youngsters would say even the king of old knew the best place for a vacay, and stayed there beyond death, hence the surge in visitors to Undella Town and Bay over the recent summers. Lenora came instead with a heart to prove the place to be more than an attraction to be shunned for sport.

She passed an arch and turned at corners, going left, right, left, at times heading straight. It didn't take long for her to lose count of the number of steps she took, though she easily reasoned with herself going with the flow would yield the best results. The best meant divine. Abyssal Ruins did exude a divine aura, perhaps a little unsettling too. Every wall or tile bore a frame like a camera's, four L's rotated in different directions, girding a square that had a circle with a dot inside, which had two lines sticking out on two sides, resembling the typical Pokémon battlefield. The motif rested on two rectangles that expanded to take two halves of every tile or wall. The symbols had to mean something, though she did not know what.

While the map labelled areas where relic items could be found, Lenora was certain those vases and coppers, silvers and bands, golds and statues, were small fry to the treasure awaiting her. She would come across a few of these later, so she figured taking the shortest route was her priority, if it would shake off the feeling of her being watched, as if those strange symbols were alive, the dots shifting surreptitiously as she moved. The map did point out the dead ends, thank Arceus, so she wouldn't have to extend her stay here.

Some of the pillars she brushed against were purple rather than blue, marked with mysterious letters likely from the king's era. The documents came to her aid once again, providing a handy transliteration script and a cipher, and Lenora breezed from pillar to pillar, guided to a stairway to the floor below.

The words on the pillars, when combined, read: "Listen to King's words. Primes lead to truth. King is brave. King never loses hope. King is kind. King has a dream. King accepts all. King turns second corner. King turns third corner. King turns fifth corner. King turns seventh corner. Have the heart of King. Here we praise King. King's light shines. King moves his people. King acts with love. King fought hatred. Go on, brave King."

Lenora felt the urge to spasm and let loose a chuckle whenever she passed a pillar like that. Never in her life had she found the need to equate herself to a king, and now she was to take his position and enter his tomb, his temple, to uncover his treasures. Though, one sentence stuck out, prompting a raised brow from her: Primes lead to truth. Sure, it did relate to the corners mentioned later, but it was the only sentence that didn't mention the King, also the first sentence she was supposed to "listen". It must have a secondary meaning she was not made privy of for now.

Here I am, in the King's resting place. Too sprawling and labyrinthe. He must be afraid centuries later somebody would be invested in his legacy and scoot over to find it out. He was right to be afraid. That somebody's me.

Her descent was dampened by her gears. Going down the stairs, it dawned upon her that Relicanth had not made a single sound since they entered the ruins. Still, its presence was a comfort, and brought a sense of emotional support. Like the first floor, she turned on the second, third, fifth and seventh corners, and she was certain to repeat this process later.

The pillars on the second floor bore no mark of the King, save for the fact that these must be his celebrated sayings, for the most part, beginning with "Life is gratitude. Eating is receiving life."

Relicanth opened and shut its mouth. Bubbles drifted in and out. They popped noiselessly. Lenora paused in front of the pillar and took stock of her surroundings, now awash with a darker palette as if consumed by the abyss, as if the abyss was receiving life through its ingestion.

As if the abyss was grateful she was here. What a grating sequitur.

The next lines — "Good or evil isn't all. Do not be barbaric." — reminded her of enlightenment. Perhaps the King had been at the stage where he realised the world wasn't black and white, and one side needn't dominate the other. But the latter statement felt off-putting to Lenora. Was the King not implying good and evil? That to be barbaric was evil, and the King good? Lenora harrumphed and moved on.

"One must not waste. All is precious. War creates tears. Shine if agreed."

That marked the end of her journey. How was she to get past that stone wall in her path? And what were these truths, if not plain and simple statements even a five-year-old could utter? Lenora was certain if she ever had a baby, and if the first words her baby said were "One must not waste." instead of "Mama" or "Papa", she would not have any second thoughts that her baby was royalty.

From her pocket she retrieved a flashlight and shone a light on the wall. It crumbled.

Don't you love it when ruins become more ruins...

She was awfully prepared to deal with any obstacle that required Hidden Machines by bringing with her alternative items that did the job just as well. Her Normal-type Pokémon wouldn't survive well underwater for long and Relicanth's moveset was rather limited the way Hawes limited himself to be merely Nacrene City Museum's assistant director. Nonetheless, she never expected to put them to use.

Beyond the wall was the next floor down. Lenora couldn't hide her surprised grin when light still bloomed about the ruins. Was this place supposed to be luminescent? It was strange for light to exist where it ought to be dark. Lenora shrugged and kicked her legs towards the first purple pillar she could find.

"King talks to all beings," it read. Lenora recalled the past two years spent under Team Plasma's invasion. Its King, N, did talk to all beings, Pokémon especially. Perhaps the reason why Team Plasma and its head, Ghetsis, could be so daring was because they wanted to return the governance of Unova to its rightful ruler, a likely descendant of the King, maybe even the Prince of Truth. Yes, that made sense.

Or it didn't. For N was chosen by Zekrom, the Dragon of Ideals, initially, though he eventually crossed paths with the other Dragon, Reshiram of Truth. Lenora didn't quite get him. Was this a mistake on his part, led blindly by his ideals, or was it character development? Then again, the Dragons each sought the one in pursuit of Truth or Ideal at that moment.

The rest of the pillars were fine. "Saved all from waves" referred to the time of the Great Tsunami and how the King (who teamed up with his brother, albeit it was implied to be a one-man job here) worked with his Pokémon to protect everyone in Unova. "King is hope for all. Think, act with love." both continued to place the King on a greater pedestal.

The final pillar of the floor stumped her once more: "Act strong if agreed."

In her years of being a Gym Leader, Lenora knew well enough this meant Strength. It was the word "act" that boggled her. The notion that the King of Truth (she now believed this to be the tomb of the once-prince-turned-King of Truth) even acted would've brought a blow to his genuine self. Lenora now thought back to the previous statements. Were they indeed truths, or hyperbolic, ideals veiled as truths? A twin couldn't be too different from the other; they must have similarities.

I wouldn't be surprised now if the brothers were buried together. But it makes no sense. Then again, no one knows where they are really buried.

With a sledgehammer, Lenora smashed the tile beneath her and dropped to the final floor, finally somewhere clearcut, a room with but five purple pillars whose texts were readable from her spot. In the middle of the room was a golden crown encrusted with eight gems of different colours: red-brown, purple, green, yellow, brown, light blue, red and dark blue.

So this is the prize. The Relic Crown.

Lenora felt the faint tremors of her heart as she inched closer to grab the crown. This had to be the real thing. The one she saw Ghetsis put on N's head didn't have any gems at all. This one was the real thing, in perfect condition!

She looked up. The pillar before the crown read "The Great King ••••••••" followed by a logogram resembling the Eternal Flower or the like. There was nothing like it in the documents. Then she realised the cold reality that there were symbols unknown to her, unknown to Zinzolin.

"King defeated ••••• alone." The mysterious logogram seemed to be a five-clawed or five-tailed creature.

"••••• joined King in a day." This logogram appeared to be two eyes stacked atop each other, the one below having its two ends extended upward as if to hold the upper eye.

"King called ••••• beings." Lenora didn't know what to say about the logogram. A fish with a whisker? It couldn't be Magikarp, could it? The king couldn't have declared "I hereby decree that Magikarp are beings!" It was a ridiculous thought, alright. Sure, sure, the weak needed validation as much as the strong, but this was going too far.

Her only consolation came from a pillar on her right: "King is hope and future."

But why would Zinzolin care so much about the King of Truth? Is Team Plasma involved, or is this a personal matter? Probably the former.

Lenora cradled the crown with a frown and exited the room. She had collected at least one of each type of relic in the Abyssal Ruins but none of them offered any context of why Team Plasma would bother translating ancient glyphs to a modern tongue. These relics only told her some of the items that existed in the King's era, in the era of discord between truth and ideal, which ended pretty much in a stalemate and both sides conceding.

All of a sudden, a gushing torrent pushed her from behind, and she'd pass every wall, every pillar, every tile, all of them blurred motions, going left and right and left and right till she was spat out of the Abyssal Ruins, her grip on Relicanth loosening midway that the poor Pokémon tumbled out a few seconds after her, disoriented and shivering. Lenora's teeth chattered. Good thing she had a bag to store the artifacts or she would have to go back in again, to feel watched again, to be vomited out again.

The waters were the same as before. The Pokémon still didn't pay her any mind. The seaweeds and sand dollars and corals still swayed and shifted at their own pace. The Dhelmise, she could now see, was at the top of the symmetrical ruins. Symmetry must be an important concept even in the past. Or it could mean something more.

Feeling the red itch on her throat, Lenora knew better than to fight against the need to resurface, as much as she's come to love being underwater, under the radar of the world. Ultimately, life must go on. She had more mysteries to unearth and uncover out of her new finds. Lenora patted Relicanth's head twice and they swam upwards.

When they finally broke the turbulent surface, lashing winds without a storm sent a Wingull her way and she barely dodged its frenzied approach in time. The waters rippled. On the bay, the Spheal were gone. She supposed this Wingull was the same one she saw perching idly on the boulder, or it was not.

Then she heard it. Mixed into the mellow synth-led arrangement made for spring, autumn and winter, a chill vibe that, if she had been here for rest and relaxation, she would curl up for a beach read, was the cheerful calypso tune for summer, as though the four seasons were fighting to stand out as best debutante at the season's ball, displaying their musical accomplishments all at once, a fraught duet.

Her hair dripping wet, Lenora glanced at Caitlin's villa, a place she once visited when she was still Gym Leader, whenever Champion Cynthia came from Sinnoh for a vacay, and clicked her tongue. The lights were off. The curtains were still. Cynthia wasn't in, and so was Caitlin. A heavy emotion she could hardly describe, only that it tinged every vein and made her lips purse, overcame her.

The sun harsh on her back, the winds whipping in her ears, the waves restless about her, Lenora sang to no one in particular:

"Come unto these yellow sands,
And then take hands:
Courtsied when you have and kiss'd
The wild waves whist,
Foot it featly here and there;
And, sweet sprites, the burthen bear."