Ah Cy. The eldest Benga/Iris fankid. He’s been an interesting one over the years in terms of development. Initially he was a version of the fankid who is currently Laurel (though without a twin to keep him grounded). Then I became inspired by @pkmn-thenextgeneration‘s character Harper who was raised by wild dragons and implemented my own take on the idea with him. Over time, I built up his story, thinking about how he came to be abandoned or left behind in the first place that he had to be raised by pokémon, and from these musings I came up with the idea of his parents being a forbidden human/supernatural being couple who eloped and lived a happy life travelling the world with their baby son, until tragedy struck. This idea stuck with me though. I wanted to develop these characters more and I had just struck them completely from the story with my current state of things. Cypress had no relationship or memories with them, so even trying to bring one or both back later on would prove rather challenging, simply because Cy had no desire to meet them and never longed to know them, simply happy with the families he already had.

So we come to the present. I have now grown attached enough to two OCs I made to be dead parents that I changed Cy’s entire backstory to give them more room to shine. (I also wanted to try and explore a different background for him, rather than simply have a very similar scenario to something another great blog has already come up with.) Thus, the current (very cliche but I know what I like) story is that Cypress is the result of a love affair between Khuzaimah, a young man dissatisfied with his life and wanting more, and Nasir, an old, arcane being who’s lived so long he’s forgotten most of his past, even his own name. They met by chance, but their romance blossomed quickly, Khuzaimah eventually convincing his lover to elope with him. They go to Almia first, which is where they soon have their only child, Cypress, named after the trees under which they first confessed their love (and used as a meeting spot many times afterwards). Khuzaimah had cast off his clan name after eloping, so the couple picked out a new surname, Vallas, since they loved to dance together. After Cypress’s birth and once he was old enough to travel, the couple decided to move on, wanting to see the world. Cypress grew up never staying put in one place for long, so he developed an open and playful personality, knowing that he had to make friends fast since he’d be moving on soon enough. Despite this, he loved his little family and their lifestyle, always being able to see new places and meet new people.

When they are staying in Opelucid, Unova however, around when Cypress is 10-11 years old, things go terribly wrong. One day, when Cypress comes home from playing, his parents are gone. They had said that they would be back from shopping when he came home, but they still hadn’t returned even after Cy waited hours for them. Scared and unsure of what to do, Cypress recalls his parents telling him to go to the local pokémon center if anything ever happened, as it made for an easy meeting point. When he arrives and tells the Nurse Joy there his story, she lets him stay the night there. In the morning, he’s escorted home by a Jenny, but their temporary house is still abandoned. At this point, a missing persons case is sent out, and the authorities now have to find a place for Cypress to stay until his parents can be found, the Center not being the best place for a child to stay for what could be days on end. Enter Benga. He had met Khuzaimah a few times in the past, the two being friendly, so he offered to take Cypress in for the time being. Iris is a bit stressed at the idea of having another child to look after when they’ve already got Acacia and baby twins on top of her work as Champion, but she would never turn out a child in need of shelter, who is missing his parents and needs love and comfort. So, Cypress stays with the Pendragon-Redwood family for days… then weeks…. then months… then finally a year has passed and there is still no trace of his parents. At this point, with Cy’s permission, Iris and Benga decide to take full custody of him as his foster parents and, as the years go by with no updates, they eventually adopt him when he’s around 15 years old. 

There’s a lot more to Cy’s story, how he investigates his parents’ disappearance as an adult and finds out just how much they were hiding from him… his involvement in the main plot… and much more, but this post is long enough as it is! I’m very excited about all the new developments this story has been going through behind the scenes and wanted to share a little bit.