Ryme City Corviknight
Affection can be hard to realize.
I can be a reserved, self-centered man. The ways I show love reflect how I’d like to receive it in kind: I like touch, I’m a hugger, I like good food, I like quietly being in the same room as you. If your love language is different than that, then the adjustment period for me to get used to that can be rough. For a blessing, most of my Pokemon partners share and revel in the ways I show affection. Vivi, my Sylveon is an incorrigible cuddle bug. Aka and Kati, my Gengar and Zoroark, respectively, are always content to hang out around me. My Lycanroc, Strider, loves pets.
And then there’s Jeanne.
Bird-Pokemon already operate on such a different wavelength than is standard for humans and even other Pokemon. I met most of my team, and they met me, in a pacifistic, harmless manner. I hatched Vivi from an egg, I met Aka at a trainer school under disguise, I pulled Kati from a cage and met Strider at a shelter.
Jeanne I met violently. Literally woke up one morning to her pecking incessantly at my window and the moment I opened it to try and shoo her away, she instead flew INTO my house and started pecking me. It wasn’t until I literally wrestled her out of the air, after getting covered in scratches, that she calmed down enough for me to even analyze her. After that she just refused to leave, so into a Pokeball she went, and I registered her as a partner.
Jeanne loves violence. She loves fighting and battle perhaps more than most Pokemon I’ve ever met. The first time I took her out to the wilds to train her, she straight up killed the Caterpie and Wurmple I had her fight, and started eating them on the spot. Cycle of nature and all that, I suppose, but it was still a shock, none of my other partners ever went for the kill like that. But that was quick and easy to understand. “Bird likes fights, got it, can do.”
That I was able to steadily provide for her battles, I think, was the major reason she latched onto me. Everything else about her is and always has been difficult. If I touch her wings I get pecked or scratched. The sweet foods and treats I normally feed my team, she rejects. I’m not kidding, this bird hates ice cream and cupcakes. If she’s in the same room as me, it’s so she can bother me for food or provoke a fight. Or she’ll stare.
She stares. She stares a lot, and if anyone that’s not my own team members approaches me, she’s liable to protest and even attack unless I quickly call her off.
Past all this though. I know she likes me.
She has to, right? She would’ve left me months ago if that wasn’t the case.
When she became a Corviknight, I was so excited. I was moments, days away from experiencing one of the highlights of many ace trainers’ careers. Flight. On the back of your own partner. Soaring through the skies to get to wherever you need to go. No traffic, no roads, unquestioned freedom.
But Jeanne refused. And she did it in ways that baffled the experts and instructors. Normally when a bird is deemed unfit to bear a human, the signs are clear and obvious, they refuse the saddle or glider, they buck off the human, they protest loudly, they make it clear they don’t want to fly with humans.
Jeanne made nothing clear. She wore the saddle with no issue, and would even perch on a cab or a glider without issue. However she refused to move when a human got involved, and more specifically would roll to get me off of her, and she’d remain stone-faced the entire time. If she was saying no, it was in the most smug, quiet way possible. Not a “no” like “I do not want to carry you” and more a “no” like “earn it.”
None of the instructors in Ryme were able to parse this from my bird’s impeccable poker face. All signs pointed to her being willing and able to carry me, except for the fact that she wasn’t carrying me. None of the instructors could figure it out…
Except Aeron.
Aeron Instruction, who had a concerning list of poor reviews from former students who had either fallen off their birds or were just simply turned away.
Aeron took one, hard look at Jeanne and simply said “Yeah, she’ll fly you.”
I was baffled. Perplexed! The audacity of this man. I pressed him for more details, but he held off and insisted “business first.” So we scheduled it for this weekend, today, in fact, and he told me to do some bonding exercises with Jeanne.
Admittedly, his claim made me doubt my Corviknight, and what I thought would be the right bonding exercise instead led to a fight and a cracked rib.
Jeanne left.
I’d never had a Pokemon leave me before.
Let them roam? Sure. Go free range? Absolutely. Have we had moments I’m not proud of? Yes. But no one on my team has ever just… left. And it was my fault. I had an outburst. A moment of weakness. I think I broke her heart and she couldn’t deal with it.
It’s there in the name, Corviknight. I was her ward, her liege, and I betrayed her. I wanted to go where it was dangerous and she thought I was too fragile, unprepared for the skies, not ready for that risk. She was protecting me from herself, and when I attacked her, her worst fear was realized, and we both languished.
It wasn’t until I spoke to Aeron that I realized why she was like that. I had the right idea, but the wrong execution. Corviknight do indeed respect bravery, having gall, but they’re also defenders, and way smarter than they let on. When she was born, here in Ryme, her instincts drove her to search for someone who could help her grow strong, to challenge them to realize her strength, and I just happened to catch her eye. She drove me up a wall as I trained her and watched her grow. Whatever she wanted, she took. Whatever she hated, she destroyed. She became a gorgeous, strong, indomitable Corviknight with my help, and for that, in her own way, she vowed to protect me. Always.
Even after I betrayed that trust, she held to that vow. I was wrong to challenge her directly, and never should have. I had to challenge her vow. She left me for three days, but also never really left. Aeron knew that, and he only had one way for me to prove it.
This is Jeanne.
She’s my Corviknight partner.
She’s not fond of hugs. She’s difficult, violent, and hard to read. She’s not the greatest at expressing her love, but that’s fine. I raised her well, and I love her.
And she’ll defend me with her life for it.
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