Rain Dance

Today was Mizu's big day. She was standing alongside other Azurill behind a large, green bush. She smelled the warm, spring air as the scent of freshly bloomed flowers breezed by her two nostrils the size of pinholes. As the sun gleamed down, Mizu's tail, which was as large as the rest of her puny body was combined, glistened and glowed a faint light blue hue. Mizu gazed up at a nearby twig in the ground. Even the twig, which was being used as a makeshift sundial, was taller than her. As long as Mizu performed well, that wouldn't be the case by the end of the day. Mizu and her comrades were lined up to perform the Rain Dance, a rite of passage that Azurill practice and perform. At the conclusion of the dance, a rain storm can start even on days with perfectly clear skies. When an Azurill performs this successfully, they evolve into their next form: Marill. Mizu's two small, blue feet quivered in nervousness as she waited and waited.

Eventually, Mizu glanced at the sundial, and the stick's shadow lined up with a line drawn in the dirt. It was time. Mizu filed into a line with the other Azurill, who marched around the bush and to the side of a short, wide, brown tree stump. They hopped on top of it, and arranged themselves on one of the orange, concentric circles that lined the top of the stump. As Mizu looked across the riverbed in front of her, she saw a crowd of hundreds of other Azurill, adolescent Marill, and adult Azumarill. Mizu spotted her family several rows back on her left; her older sister Shisuta, who had completed her Rain Dance last year, and her mother Haha, and her father Otosan.

Along with the other dozen or so Azurill, Mizu began her dance. She and the other Azurill began to move in a circle counter-clockwise while spinning clockwise. Mizu had practiced the dance enough that it was practically muscle memory. She occupied her mind by gazing upwards. The blue sky gazed down back at her. Not a single cloud could be seen. Mizu began to worry if the dance would even do anything. Was she really capable of starting a storm on such a sunny day?

The Azurill had completed their circle, each one spinning into the positions they began in. Each of the Azurill tied the wiry bases of their tails with an adjacent participant. The orb-like ends of their tails were pushed against each other as the dancers spun in circles. Mizu's lower lip curved inwards as she began to worry. She knew that she could dance well enough, but what if her partner messed up? With her back to her ally, she was unable to see how well they were upholding their half of the dance.

As each pair of Azurill were spinning, they moved closer and closer. Eventually, they all converged at the center of the stump they were performing on. Mizu untied her tail from her partner, jumped into the air, brought her orb-like tail under herself, and landed on it. As she made her leap, so did every other Azurill on their own respective tails. Each of the Azurill clung on to their tails with their feet and began to bounce up and down. Mizu and the others turned to face the outer edge of the stump and bounced forwards. Mizu clung tightly to her tail as she bounced, making absolutely sure to not let go.

Mizu looked up into the sky once more as she made her way to the edge. Clouds were approaching quickly from the horizon. Mizu was relieved that she no longer had to rely directly on a partner for the remainder of the performance. Mizu would be able to rely solely on her own execution, and she was confident that she practiced long enough. The Azurill reached the border of the stump, hopped off their tails to land on their feet, finished their dance, and stood proud in front of the audience. The Azurill in the audience began to jump up and down in excitement as the Marill and Azumarill clapped their tiny arms together to congratulate the successful performance. The clouds began to roll in faster and faster, and the sky quickly transitioned from blue to white. In mere moments later, the clouds turned into a dark gray, and rain began to pour from them. The rain dance was clearly a success.

The worried look on Mizu's face vanished as she let out a great sigh. Her mouth curved into a smile and she closed her eyes. Beads of rain were pelting her small, circular, red and blue ears and her blue, round head. Mizu began to become dizzy. Her skin felt weird as it began to harden. She could feel her white cheeks shrinking, eventually submerging beneath her skin. Arms sprouted out of the sides of her body. As her new appendages dangled by her side, Mizu began to open her eyes. Before the rain dance began, she was unable to see the front rows of the audience. Mizu felt herself standing twice as tall, and could now clearly see the front rows from her new vantage.

Alongside Mizu, the other Azurill were also transforming. A white glow emanated from the Pokemon as they morphed in the rain storm. Mizu's family looked at her as her changes completed.

Mizu had evolved into a Marill.

Character count: 5013

Target: Azurill (Simple 5-10k)

 

claiming this here lil story!

 

Alright, since this story is very much of the short and sweet type, this will be a pretty short grade.


Plot: Not super much of a plot here, more just one cute, fluffy scene. And that’s absolutely fine, I’m not expecting a novel-length epic from a story meant to catch an Azurill. What you do have is a very sweet and an interesting take on how Pokemon might evolve in the wild, when not under trainer care. I do think you could have expanded on it a bit, maybe showing a scene before or after, but this is totally fine for just a simple-ranked Pokemon.

A bit off topic, but I also absolutely love stories that show different potential uses for Pokemon and their moves and abilities and think outside the box, and you did that here with Rain Dance, so thumbs up! Nice little story!

Grammar: I didn’t see any major or recurring mistakes here, aside from one thing: in the first paragraph, there’s a brief, awkward switch from past-tense into present-tense. The switch happens in the middle of a sentence, too, so it’s particularly jarring to the reader. Specifically, this sentence:

The first part of the sentence is in past-tense, while the second half is in present-tense. Switching tenses, even though I can sort of see why you did it in this case, is just something to be avoided in general, especially when it happens abruptly in the middle of a paragraph or sentence.

One other super minor thing- you have a lot of two or three word descriptive phrases made up of a few adjectives, and sometimes you put commas in there when you don’t need them.

You don’t need a comma between large and green, or between warm and spring. Figuring out when you need a comma and when you don’t in English is really hard and mostly guesswork, cause English is an awful language, but a good rule of thumb is that if the two adjectives sound better with the word ‘and’ between them, then use a comma. For example, ‘warm and spring air’ just sounds weird, so you wouldn’t use a comma.

Description: You don’t have any really in-depth or flowery description in this story, which is totally fine because like I said in the grammar section, you have lots and lots of quick little descriptive phrases made up of two or three adjectives that do a good job of setting the scene without spending too much time of description. I would say that doing your description that way is actually probably better for a very short story, because it doesn’t take up too much of your limited text.

Length: 5013 just barely passes the minimum. Since this is a simple-ranked story, I’m not gonna make a big deal of it or anything, but putting in minimum effort is something that won’t work for higher-ranked stories. Go bigger!

And... Azurill is caught! In conclusion, this was a really cute, short, fluffy scene, and aside from a few nitpicks and grammar tweaks I have no problems with it. Have fun with your new lil fairy!