Fanfiction Weekly Prompt Responses

Hi guys! Lately, I abandoned my fanfiction because I felt my characters weren't fleshed out enough and like I didn't know them well enough to write them. So I thought, why not use weekly prompts as exercises to develop my writing? A special thanks to @WavePearl for putting out these creative weekly prompts, and to @BraviaryScout for his support

Spoiler: Grocery Store

It was the time of year where the air turned bitter cold and dead leaves spiraled towards barren ground. Snow began to dust the dry, dull grass and heavy clouds obscured any sign of the sun. A young girl shivered as the wind battered her coat, and hurried through the snow.

Her name was Piper, and although she had grown up with Unovan winters, the eleven-year old was still unprepared for the frigid weather and grey skies. Her mareep-wool sweater and denim jeans were not enough to keep the icy gales from biting at her skin, and her parka sat at home on a chair in her room, neglected. But she knew that she was headed towards warmth as she approached the Driftveil City Christmas market.

A million candles seemed to burn from the wooden oak stalls set up adjacent to the real city market: a large, steel shopping center that supplied exotic herbs, spices, and battling goods from every corner of the world. Piper visited there often during the summer, but in winter she preferred the warm glow of the Christmas market. Others did too, and it was as though the entire city lived in the market when December arrived.

Piper squeezed her way past strangers bundled in swaths of wool and cashmere. Masses of people were crowded around a handmade-poffin goods shop, their wisps of breath rising in the air and gathering into one cloud. Next to them, a merchant sold wooden eevee evolution line sculptures in his own stall. And closest to Piper, a vendor leaned back in his chair, proudly displaying a singular scarf that had yet to be bought.

The scarf was two-toned, half indigo and half orange, with an embroidered moon and sun on opposite sides. Piper shifted from toe to toe in the uncomfortable cold, when suddenly, the vendor caught her eye.

“This is my last scarf!” he called out, a puff of air escaping his mouth, visible against the cold winds. “It’s only twenty dollars, and made from premium caterpie silk. All my other scarves sold out, but this is one is my best by far!”

Piper moved towards the stall, but a boy exploded from the depths of the crowds of people, as though he had been spit out, and ran towards the merchant waving a stack of money in the air.

“Hey, mister,” he panted, shoving his money towards the vendor. “Don’t give that scarf away just yet! I need a present for my mom!”

Though he spoke fluent English, a slight accent gave away the fact that he was clearly foreign. Piper guessed that he was Alolan from the warm tones of his skin and a picture of an icy Ninetales embroidered on his parka sleeve. The boy’s dark eyes glinted in the light of the candles in the stall, and he stared at the vendor with glowing determination.

The vendor chuckled, shuffling backwards with the scarf in his hand as if he thought the boy would steal it from him. “Y-you really want this scarf, don’t you?”

The boy nodded, reaching into the pockets of his white parka and revealing several more dollar bills. “How much did you say it was worth? Twenty? I’ll give you two hundred!” Piper gaped as the boy practically forced the money towards the merchant, whose face turned as white as the snow outside.

“I don’t think I can accept this money,” he rambled, quickly adding, “sir.”

While the boy begged and pleaded with the merchant, Piper glanced around to see if anyone else had noticed the boy’s overdramatic display of wealth. Some customers at the poffin stand eyed them curiously, then turned back to their steaming food.

But from the depths of the bushes near the market stalls, a clever cottonee was much more observant. It squeezed itself between a crack in the wooden shop and snatched the scarf from the merchant’s hands, triumphantly whizzing away with the silk firmly in its mouth.

“My scarf!” the young boy cried.

“My scarf!” the vendor echoed, his eyes widening.

“I could go get it,” Piper offered, through chattering teeth. She was cold, and needed a good run anyway.

“You just want the scarf,” the boy complained, taking after her.

The cottonee was barely visible against the darkening clouds, except for the vibrant green leaves on the sides of its fluffy body. Piper dashed after the thief, accidentally bumping into strangers as she weaved her way through the crowds. Some smaller children laughed and pointed at the cottonee, which looked like a clump of snow as it floated towards the center of the market, stringing the scarf along.

“It’s going to the Christmas tree!” Piper cried, waiting to the boy to catch up. To her amazement, he hadn’t even broken a sweat and continued to run past her, turning the corner ahead. Piper frowned.

The Christmas market was set up as a grid, and at the center of the grid, a colossal Christmas tree formed by many pine trees tied together towered over the bustling stalls and shops. The cottonee ascended to the top of the Christmas tree, as if it intended to hang the scarf as another ornament on the evergreen pine. Piper watched the boy pull a pokéball from his parka and hurl it towards the tree.

“Rocky, get that scarf!” he shouted, ignoring the stares of people nearby. Tourists posing and taking photographs stopped to watch the preteen release a blue canine pokémon at the base of the tree. It was almost like a lillipup, but with floppier ears and thicker paws.

“Tackle that thing,” the boy command, gesturing to the grinning cottonee. Piper ran up to him and watched his blue puppy hesitantly begin to climb the pine tree.

“What are you doing? Aren’t you worried that he’ll fall down?”

The boy scoffed and flipped his dark hair away from his face. “Rocky is a specially trained and bred rockruff. If he was ordinary, he wouldn’t be mine.”

Piper knit her brow in confusion. Was that why his pokémon was blue?

“Here,” the boy said, pulling a second pokéball from his parka pocket. “When Rocky uses tackle, throw this and catch the cottonee. It’ll keep it from attacking back. You can even keep it! I promise!”

“Gee, thanks,” Piper muttered. She guessed the cottonee was far too ordinary for a boy like him to catch, but really she didn’t mind being allowed to catch a pokémon. She had only ever watched people catch them, and she had none of her own. Of course, she would’ve preferred a snivy as her first pokémon, but a cottonee was fine too.

Several people began to form a crowd and take photos of the blue canine scaling the massive evergreen pine, and Piper couldn’t blame them—it was an odd sight to watch. The cottonee was also well aware of the approaching rockruff, and stuck its tongue out to taunt him. In doing so, it accidentally dropped the scarf and had to nose dive through the air to catch it again.

“Look!” the boy said, pointing. “It got closer to Rocky because it dropped the scarf! Rocky, tackle it now!”

The blue puppy tentatively wiggled his haunches, the leapt from the branch it had been clinging to and knocked the cottonee out of the air. Piper hurled her pokéball at the fallen pokémon, and it absorbed by a swath of red light. The pokéball wiggled once…then twice…three times…Piper heard the distinct clicking noise, and suddenly the market square began to applaud her and the boy. She blushed, hurriedly rushing to pick up her newly captured pokémon.

“Well done,” the boy praised her, returning his blue canine to his pokéball. He wrapped the scarf around his arm and added, “Although, Rocky did most of the work, I suppose.” Piper rolled her eyes, but not unkindly.

“Now I have to pay back that vendor,” the boy realized, “if I can remember where his stall was.”

“Actually,” Piper contradicted, “didn’t you leave him with two hundred dollars?”

The boy blanched. “That was meant to be a bluff. Mom’s going to be furious if she finds out I spent two hundred on a scarf, even if it was for her. It’s not like she can’t pay it back, but…” he trailed off, knitting his brow.

Piper snorted, then shivered. She’d forgotten how cold she was, after running like a ponyta through the streets.

“You look like you could use a warm drink,” the boy noted. “As a matter of fact, so could I. Any preferences?”

“Well, there’s a good hot chocolate stand nearby,” Piper suggested, surprised that he had stayed to talk. The crowd was dispersing now, and the tourists resumed taking photos with the colossal pine tree. “They sell tapu cocoa, or something like that. I’m Piper, by the way.”

“I’m Julian,” the boy responded, wrapping the sun and moon scarf around his neck. “But all my friends at home call me Sol. It means sun, and I think it suits me, because I am the center of everyone’s lives.” It took Piper a minute to realize the boy was joking, and she stifled a giggle at his stupid joke.

“Okay, Sol,” she said. “I don’t have any money for hot chocolate, though.”

“It’s fine,” he said, “I can pay for you, because now we’re friends, and I’m rich.” He smiled warmly. “That was another joke.” Piper shook her head, smiling, and together they disappeared into the crowds filling the market streets in search of a good mug of tapu cocoa.

It was the time of year where the snow dusted the rooftops until they were milky white, and candles burned in the village like hundreds of little northern stars. It was the time of year for warm hot chocolate, and new friendships.