Chapter One: Single Daffodil

One might think it was empty, in the dark tower.

Dark silhouettes, barely visible against the night, were inanimate. Silence reigned; not a breath nor a heartbeat sounded in the circular room. The glass tables, lavish couches, tall book-cases; all perfectly undisturbed, as if no-one had laid eyes on them in years.

Yes, a curious onlooker would immediately make the presumption that there was no life in the dim room.

And that curious onlooker would be wrong... or would he?

If that curious onlooker was perceptive enough, most unlikely, he would see one of the silhouettes give the slightest twitch. And if that curious onlooker had sharp enough vision, he would see that it was the silhouette of a wing, and that silhouette of a wing was attached to the shadow of a girl, who glided down from her perch on the windowsill to stand, or float, really, no more than two inches off the ground.

The strange winged girl half-walked, half flittered over to where two other shadows hovered over a chessboard, spreading her iridescent dark-violet wings to lighten her step. The two figures, a boy and girl, remained inanimate, not even bothering to acknowledge her presence, focused on the mismatched black and white squares. The onlooking girl frowned; she had never really understood the confusing game. However, the two playing seemed to enjoy it.

"Check, Gyrfalcon," said the girl playing, as she daintily moved her white Nidoqueen to pressure the boy's black Nidoking. The boy spread out his white dappled black wings as he shifted his position, a thoughtful look coming upon his face as he contemplated the move. The girl, his opponent, twitched her opposing black dappled white wings happily.

"Clever, Loon," Gyrfalcon complimented, and the girl, Loon, smiled dazedly, not even looking at the board as she anticipated her opponent's strategy. Gyrfalcon's light smirk faded as he analyzed the board to find an escape route for his king.

"You're getting rusty, Gyrfalcon," said a voice from behind the winged girl, along with a light laugh. "If you didn't even see the blatant opening to capture Loon's rook."

Gyrfalcon ran a hand through his hair as he examined the board, eyes glittering ruefully at his ignorance. "Sharp as always, Nightingale," he acknowledged, moving the marble Rapidash to take Loon's rook, at the same time freeing his king from the check. "Though you're right. The next Cereus Calluna is coming soon. I'll need to tune up."

"Of course. This one is special, after all," the black-winged man called Nightingale said with a sinister chuckle, which Gyrfalcon joined in, before returning to his game.

The girl frowned, irritated at the fact that she didn't understand something. "Nightingale, what's 'Cereus Calluna'?" the little girl asked, nibbling on her nails, a bad habit Skylark always reprimanded her about.

"Hmm, that's right, you're new, aren't you?" The black-winged man chuckled slightly. He stopped in front of a simple round glass table, on which a glass vase perched. A single flower rested inside, its pitch stem, darker than the night, arced towards the ground, contrasting with it's pure blossoms, which appeared to have a slightly silver glow against the shadowy darkness. Nightingale plucked the bloom from the vase, lifting it to street-lamp eyes to examine.

"White Heather," he answered simply, an eerie smile coloring his features. The girl pouted slightly, stretching her jewel-colored wings to their full span, a pitiful meter compared to Nightingale or Gyrfalcon's.

"I don't get it," she said in childish irritation. Nightingale laughed lightly, placing the soft plant back in its vase, where it arched back down to bow courteously.

"Of course you don't, Hummingbird," the man said, smiling slyly in response to Hummingbird's bird-like twitter of annoyance. "Cereus Calluna. It means white heather in Latin. And in the language of flowers, the white heather holds the meaning of 'Making wishes come true'." At this statement, Hummingbird perked up noticeably.

"'Making wishes come true'..." The amethyst-winged girl smiled angelically. At the same moment, Gyrfalcon spoke up from across the room.

"That's checkmate."

Sienna did not like waking up. Nor did she like getting prodded multiple times in the stomach, having water dumped on her, or Loren. No, she did not like Loren. Not at all. At least, for the moment, anyway.

Ugh... Who's poking me? I swear to Arceus I'll tear their head off. Sienna flipped over in her bed, trying to get away from the prodding finger. ...Later.

"Can I do it now, Sealy? Please," a voice whined, annoyingly close to her ear. Sienna heard a rueful sigh, then a voice say dryly,

"Fine. Knock yourself out. But remember, the blame's on you." There was a short squeal of excitement, before...

"Ahh!" Sienna bolted up, bed-head hair soaked, along with her bed-sheets, the clothes in which she slept in, and pretty much everything else. Two girls, her room-mates that helped her pay her rent, stood nearby, one being a ginger that was laughing so hard she had to clutch her sides, the other a more subtle blackette who remained aloof, but was smirking slightly. The ginger held a bucket now half-full of water.

"Loren you asshole!" Sienna shrieked, attempting to hit the still-snickering redhead, who danced out of the way gleefully. This continued for about five more seconds, before the onlooker spoke up.

"Before you start ripping into each-other's throats," spoke Sealy, the black-haired girl. "You have mail, Sienna." Sure enough, Sealy held a crisp envelope between her fingers.

Sienna frowned, irritated at Sealy for prolonging her fight with Loren, but snatched the envelope anyways, not bothering to care that her hands still had drops of water on them.

"Read it!" Loren piped excitedly, leaning over Sienna's shoulder to examine the mail she held in her hand, and received an elbow to the solar plexus.

"Ha," Sienna laughed darkly, satisfied with her revenge. She turned her attention to the envelope. It was certainly different from the usual rental bills. The paper it was made from was a light gold in color. Oddly, there were no stamps or addresses, regular or return. Instead, an intricate wreath of black vines and white bell-shaped blossoms encircling a simple outline of a seven-petaled flower occupied the front of the envelope. When Sienna turned it around, a wax seal of the same seven-petaled flower sealed the envelope shut.

"Did you open it?" Sienna asked skeptically.

"Sure did, because of course the seal is perfectly untampered with, despite the fact that we opened it. Oh, and Loren just asked you to read it, because we totally opened it and already read everything it said. We just happen to love hearing your voice in the morning," Sealy said with dry, biting sarcasm. Sienna chose to roll her eyes, slipping a nail underneath the envelope flap and breaking the seal.

The parchment she pulled out was as fancy as the envelope it came in. It was fancy, stiff and crisp white in color, fancily folded into three perfectly equal sections. The writing was fancily hand-written in fancy pitch black ink, which probably came from a fancy feather pen, with fancy cursive calligraphy, and a fancy gold seal with the fancy seven-petaled flower emblem fancily stamped into the bottom corner. Basically, it was pretty damn fancy.

Sienna began to read. "Dear Sienna Roux."

"How exciting, it seems you have been invited to the upcoming Cereus Calluna, a competition that takes place only once every thousand years. How lucky you are. Of course, this is not your regular tournament; that would be rather boring, and I despise things being boring. No, this competition is not of the norm. For one, all the participants, including you, of course, have been specially selected for their skill and desire. This tournament will be taking place in Nusquam Locus, a little-known place that you will be transported to, free of charge, from a specially selected location in your vicinity. Now, you are probably wondering, 'What's the prize?'. Of course, the prize is something of high desire; after all, you can't have an entertaining tournament without something to fight for. The prize, my dear patron, is your deepest desire granted. In other words, a wish."

"Thank you for your cooperation, and I do hope to see you there. If you would like to contend, please pay a visit to the location below."

Halfway through the letter, Sienna had obtained a sarcastic aristocratic accent, mocking the writer's formality, but towards the end, her voice shifted to a more uncertain tone. There was silence, before Loren burst out laughing, and Sealy smirked.

"Wow, how stupid is that?" Loren scoffed, rolling her eyes. "It's probably just a ploy for some pedophile to rape you. Having your wish granted? Please. At least he could have come up with something more believable."

"Yeah..." Sienna agreed, though somewhat dubiously. A voice in the back of her head nagged, If it's just some random junk mail, why did they bother to go through the trouble of making up that whole story, and using such fancy paper?

Sienna frowned at her internal thoughts, and to get away from the curious eyes of her room-mates, suddenly said, "Hey, y'know what, I'm going to go and train. See ya'."

Without giving either girl a chance to question her, Sienna darted out of the room, out of the house, and eventually, out of Blackthorn, and into Route 45, where rock cliffs and tall grasses surrounded her, and she could think without the prying eyes and distracting antics of her friends. The Hikers and Picnickers had not yet staked their position, or perhaps they had just accepted that nobody wanted to go down a cliff to battle them. Either way, the Route was silent, save for the chittering birdsong of Pokémon.

A wish, any wish, granted. Sienna paced, mulling over the contents of the letter. I could bring her back. She would be here and he would be happy and we could all be together again, Sienna thought. At the same time, another voice reprimanded her.

Yeah right. Even if there's such a thing as making a wish come true, it's still your fault she- Sienna shook the thought away before it finished, but not before the meaning had come across, causing Sienna to frown, sigh loudly, and consider punching the rock face she stood next to, but she decided against it.

She reached into her shoulder bag, dusky brown with a yellow sunflower pattern stitched into it, and pulled out the letter again, scanning the bottom. There was no signature, but in the corner, the words 'Dark Cave' were scrawled in neat handwriting. This only increased her apprehension. What sorta place is this 'Nusquam Locus', if you get there via cave? And what kind of name is Nusquam Locus, anyways?

She stared across the valley, where a black indent in the rock face signaled the entrance of Dark Cave, and then at the rickety wooden bridge that she would cross to have to get to that entrance. She sighed yet again. You know what, I don't know why I'm stressing over this. I just go in there, see that nobody's there, and walk off. And if somebody tries to rape me, I'll sic Singe on them.

However, her confidence was not completely renewed. As Sienna marched across the bridge, her feet were heavy and hesitant enough to bring the creaking wood down, but miraculously, it stayed together, and she made it across safely. However, she hesitated in front of the entrance to the black cave, before making an irritated noise at herself.

Stop hesitating! It's not like anything's going to happen when you go in there, she told herself in annoyance, ordering her stoic legs to move forward. Gathering a deep breath, she gathered her courage and walked into the inky blackness.

She wasn't sure how she knew her eyes fluttered shut; the darkness made it impossible to tell, but she remembered crashing to the ground, though not before seeing a pair of wings, dark even against the blackness of the cave, and a sinister laugh.

Trivia:

~The title of the chapter, the daffodil, symbolizes beginnings, rebirth, and regard. However, when it's a single daffodil, it can also symbolize misfortune.

~The place mentioned in the letter, Nusquam Locus, is Latin, and it means 'The Nothing Place'.

~This is the third tourney fic I know of that starts with a chess game.

Haha, first published writing in over a year~ And a tourney fic, nonetheless. I'm pretty sure this is a fic I plan on completing, but I say that about most of my stories, so just ignore me there. I'll be working on it over the summer a lot. I plan on breaking that habit of procrastination with this fic.

Moving on to the only reason you even read this fic, the OC form. All OCs must be sent via PM, or I'll eat you. And your little OC too. If you have any questions, those can also be sent by PM.

NAME: First and Last

GENDER: Male or Female. No hermaphrodites, sadly.

AGE: Thirteen and up.

HOMETOWN: Stick to the five major regions, please.

APPEARANCE: Please be detailed.

PERSONALITY: Again, detailed. I want a variety of colorful and unique personalities.

HISTORY: Let's not have too many Mary-Sues, shall we? I'm fine with boring histories as long as they aren't Mary-Sue.

WISH: This is one of the most important parts of the story. What is your OC's deepest desire? Also, don't give me a ton of "I want to bring my love/friend/pancake back to life" or something like that. If you want reincarnation as a wish, please PM me first. Other than that, be as creative as you wish.

POKEMON: At least three Pokémon, up to nine max. You're allowed to have Unova Pokémon. No legendaries. Include nicknames (if any), gender, and a short personality. Moves are not necessary.

You may submit up to three OCs. Please be creative and unique; your OC will have a better chance of making more appearances. Also, detail is love.

OCs will begin appearing in every chapter after this one. Also, while on the subject of OCs...

The people in the beginning belong to me.

Sienna Roux belongs to Chewy-bakaa, or Chewpacabra, as she is known as now.

Despite the fact that I made almost everything about her, it's still her character. BUT, Sienna, or any of my OCs, are NOT going to be winning the tournament, nor will they be the total focus of the story.

Thanks for reading, and reviewing is lovely.