After All This Time

You were the one

The soft grass crumpled quietly under Speed's feet as he walked. A light, cool breeze rustled the leaves in the trees all around him, concealing his footfalls. Besides the walking and the rustling, no other sounds disturbed him as he ventured deeper and deeper into the woods.

The tranquility of the forest belied its dimness. The canopy above swayed calmly in the breeze, dancing to the whims of the air. The leaves blocked out much of the early evening light cast by the falling sun, leaving small beams that pierced through the trees and allowed the Jolteon to make out his surroundings, though not much else. The small glowing lights of bioluminescent flora were just beginning to emerge, appearing as little pinpricks of color that illuminated the ground and trees around him as night fell. The scene would have been beautiful if Speed had only been in the mood to take it all in. As it was, the Jolteon kept his quick pace, eager to as much distance between himself and his home as he could.

Speed was just barely aware of the direction he was walking in amid the buzz of his other thoughts. He had hoped that his anger would ebb out into the grass as he walked, but he had no such luck. Every ounce of anger stayed firmly sealed in his head, along with the guilt and the hurt, to form a mental cocktail of negativity that kept his blood fluctuating between boiling and freezing. Jolteons as a species tended to be rather emotional, and this did not work in Speed's favor; all he could do was keep walking and trying not to dwell too long on any one emotion until they all would subside.

The sun had already set before Speed had finally calmed down enough to actually pause and take stock of his surroundings. By now he had already ventured deeper into the woods than he had ever been before. The multicolored dots of color given off by the plants provided the only light to go on. Speed paused, the first time he had stopped walking since he began, and looked around. He knew which way he had come from, but nothing looked familiar. Just as he had decided to finally give up on the walk and head home, he noticed something odd about the plants around him. Whereas before the dazzling light they gave off had been barely a pinprick few and far in between, the number of them had steadily been increasing. Squinting his eyes, Speed saw what looked to be where the plants had originated from; several hundred feet ahead, the forest was lit with all sorts of different colors, dyeing the trees dozens of different hues. Slowly, the Jolteon resumed his path, his interest now piqued.

The light around Speed grew brighter and brighter as he pressed on, now much more aware of the situation he found himself in. The air seemed to grow increasingly still the further he went, but for whatever reason he wasn't worried. The years he had spent as an adventurer had taught him how to trust his gut, and his gut was telling him to keep going. The trees seemed to grow thicker and thicker as he went until they nearly formed a wall on either side of him. The path they made became more and more narrow, threatening to collapse inwards onto him, when suddenly they parted and opened up into a huge clearing.

The cloud of negativity around Speed's mind dissipated, replaced by sheer wonder as he saw what the forest had been hiding. All around him stretched a meadow of soft, emerald grass, its edges painted all the colors of the rainbow by glowing flowers. A gentle gust of wind swept through the grass like a wave, carrying Speed's gaze towards the center. There in the middle was a glowing pond of crystal-clear water. Upon closer inspection, the pond was quite deep, extending far enough downwards to dive into, and was lit on every side by glowing water plants that clung to its edges like webbing. Stepping up to the edge of the pond, Speed followed the lights down into its depths with his eyes, until the finally settled on something at the bottom. Craning his neck, he could just barely make out the shape of what seemed to be a chest of some kind resting on the bed of the pond under the still water.

For nearly ten minutes Speed padded along the sandy edge of the pond, carefully dipping his paws into the cool water with each step he took as to not splash too much. He watched as the ripples he made distorted the surface of the water while he thought of how he could possibly extract the chest from the bottom.