#overworked and undercared for myself so i've been fucking high-strung all day

[druddigoon]

When Bede finally returns to Stow-On-Side, he finds they’ve cleaned up the mural. 

The clearing is smooth (copperjah footprints, stamping trenches into the earth), the walls paved (iron head, he says, and stone weeps like an open wound) until they almost gleam. Stow-On-Side’s prime tourist site has only gotten more popular over the weeks; the press had effusively covered its reveal while swallowing every finer detail. 

The statue simmers under sweltering canyon heat. Two men. Two dogs-wolves-beasts, sword and shield clasped in bronze maws. 

If he closes his eyes and digs deep, he can picture jagged pieces of rock, strewn like nameless gravestones. Digs deeper still and he tastes the tang of blood and sweat, skin split on shrapnel. Take out the keystone, and the rest of the foundation cannot stand. 

The ancient Galarian heroes, the newly minted sign reads, fabled to have stopped the first Darkest Day with two mythical pokemon. Until its excavation, it was thought that the hero was a single man. No names, no mentions. Excavation. 

In fine print, along the edge: This sign was generously donated by the Macro Cosmos corporation.

And where did all my wishing stones go?

(Only the winner gets to tell their tale.) 

What a sorry sight. Bede balls his shame at the tip of his tongue and spits it out onto the dirt.

Fuck the heroes. 

#drudwrites #rival bede #bede swsh #pokemon swsh fanfiction #pokemon fanfiction #overworked and undercared for myself so i've been fucking high-strung all day #have a more neurotic drabble than usual #might reuse for darkest day trilogy. dunno yet #wrote this in 1 hr and not gonna lie it's more therapeutic than stress art