a/n: draws from Japanese mythology, but does not adhere strictly to the texts. here, I portray 'susanoo' and 'tsukuyomi' as counterparts, and instead of being siblings, they are not related to each other and are instead re-classified as lovers. also has influences from Tanabata festival, which celebrates the love of two deities, Orihime and Hikoboshi (the festival originates from the Chinese Qixi festival). so, yeah. enjoy.
*for Pokewrite Writing Challenge #4; dedicated to Light, Ebaz, Chocolate, reppad, and Aph. for the flower that blooms eternal even when shadowed by clouds of pestilence.
.:black moon cherry tree:.
tonight you're mine completely
you give your love so sweetly
tonight the light of love is in your eyes
but will you love me tomorrow?
-Lykke Li, "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?"
: : :
In the beginning of time, the Creator set about making the gods from his precipice atop Mt. Coronet. The Legendaries scattered once the other regions were formed, dispersing and making their homes in various locations. Some chose to stay in Sinnoh, the birthplace of their creation, for the sole purpose of being closer to their Father.
The god of death chose to stay to watch over his beloved through his many mirrors, for the water was his eyes and in his halls of bone and shadow, he saw more than most of the other deities did.
But where there is an ingress, there must also be an egress, correct?
: : :
He watches her again as she crosses the night sky, resplendent her flowing dress and silk scarves and feathers woven into her lustrous golden hair. She is dancing, her slipper-clad feet touching the stars and then hopping away with the grace of a swan, leaving scatterings of light in her wake. Her elegant scarves sweep around her like wings, and her hands, white and delicate and porcelain, draw shadow-animals and shadow-people in constellations for the mortals to see.
As always, he can't help but feel a terrible longing for the moon-woman, his counterpart, the lunar goddess Tsukuyomi.
They are both two halves of the same whole, but while she is as radiant as the sun and cherished by all the living, he is a sleeping shadow gazing lonelily out at the world through his endless spyglasses, a creature of the night who has no bearing with the light. He is Susanoo, ruler of the realm of the dead, and he can only sit on his throne and hope for something more than perpetual midnight.
With a sigh, he turns away and the lake reflects the full moon once more.
On the nights of the black moon, he is given free reign to roam the earth, walking where he pleases, for it was ordained by Arceus that even a god of the dead should be given at least this modicum of freedom from his duties.
These nights are despised and feared by all the common people, for it is well-known that where the god of the dead walks, nightmares follow in his footsteps. Whomever he touches will be given a terrifying glimpse into the depths of Yomi itself, where they will be inexorably forced to gaze upon the deceased in their bareness and look into the darkest pits of Hell. Their limbs will lock up, their eyes will not open, and for those wretched days and nights until the black moon abates, they will not be able to look away.
This time, he wanders aimlessly through the cities and towns, a wraith clothed in the darkest shade of black imaginable, swirling with phantoms. Every home, every building he passes is adorned in colorful feather-woven charms, painted with wards drawn in blood, anointed with blessed oils, marked off with sigils and barriers, and guarded against any of his supposed machinations.
Giving a cry of despair as he sees the hatred that the mortals hold for him and his domain, he flees, flying all the way to a remote mountain in the region on which a cherry tree grows. As he lands, the pink petals, miraculously preserved even at these heights, float towards him, only to frost over and crumble when he tries to catch them in his fingers.
Sitting on the precipice as far away from the tree as possible, he hangs his head and wonders. Wonders what it would be like to be loved instead of hated, to be accepted rather than cast out as a monster. Because he isn't a monster; he simply can't control the extent of his powers whenever he walks the world as a god.
Perhaps it would be better if he never left Yomi again, he thinks. Perhaps they would not hate him so much then.
He hears a flutter behind him, the sound of tinkling bells, and he turns around to face the glowing form of Tsukuyomi, replete with her two shining wings and veil. Rising, the contrast between them is visceral and palpable, a thrumming sensation of conflicting powers. She emanates brightness, while the air around him seems to grow darker and darker with each passing second, like a bruise.
"Greetings, Susanoo," she says, giving a slight bow in deference.
"Tsukuyomi," he replies, bowing as well.
"What brings you to this mountain?" she asks, smiling. "Not to mention my cherry tree?"
"The tree is yours?"
"Indeed," she answers, giving the trunk a loving pat. "A gift I took from Shaymin, after I asked for a fruit tree and he provided me with this. It's been blessed by him, of course, so it is able to thrive in conditions where other plants would die. A spot of life on a mountain devoid of it."
Taking a drifting petal, she examines it, watching it waver between solidity and insubstantiality, the deep pink turning a paler, ghostlier color at her touch. "But you did not come here to simply admire a cherry tree, did you, Darkrai?" she questions, addressing him by his godly name.
He stiffens. "No, my lady, I did not. And in the future, I would appreciate if you would not speak to me as such. Names have power, you know."
She nods. "I do. But I see no point in addressing you properly." She inclines her head, shifting the veil over her eyes. "You may call me Cresselia, if you so wish. We are-"
"-connected. Yes, I am aware. But different, also."
"How so?"
"You are admired by the living and the departed." He pointed at the hundreds of blinking lights in the valley below, where the villagers and their beasts were undoubtedly waiting for the night to end and for daylight to return, because light conquers darkness. "See how they bar their doors to my presence? They despise me for what I do, for who I am. I am ugly, and you are beautiful."
He feels a pang of surprise upon hearing himself utter those words, and is even more shocked when he feels Cresselia's gentle fingers wrapping around his black-robed arm.
"You are not ugly," she whispers. "The night has beauty within it, a speck of light at its very center. All things are not without beauty of their own, and you..." She breathes, hard. "... you are as strong as a storm, as mysterious as the reaches of space, but you are undeniably beautiful."
"The people treat me as a devil."
"You are only a devil if you believe it so." She places a cool hand on his cheek, a strange kind of warmth flooding through him at her touch. "I see what they cannot see, Darkrai. You are a kind master, a fair one to the dead. You treat the righteous and punish only those who deserve to be damned."
Against his better judgement, he allows himself to tilt her head up so that they are staring at each other, eye-to-eye.
"You believe this?" he inquires, the twinkle of the stars catching her face in their glow and turning her blonde tresses a lovely silver color. "On this earth, I only cause pain. I am a demon in their midst, a bringer of torment." He brushed aside her veil. "They use your fallen feathers as barriers to my power."
"It is not your fault that you cannot control yourself!" she cries, and the warmth spreads when he hears anger in her voice; not at him, but for him, and that is the most curious sensation he has ever felt in his aeons of existence. "They ostracize you because they do not understand, but they will, in time, see that you are as just as Arceus."
"An exaggeration."
"A reality you are too blind to see," she presses on, and he realizes that the two of them are suddenly very, very close together. "You must stop hating yourself for who you are. You must learn to love."
"Perhaps I already know how," he says, and her breath catches in her throat.
Tentatively, they draw ever closer, their eyes wide and fearful and excited, and when they finally kiss, it is a meeting of Life and Death.
The repercussions of a romance between gods spreads its far-reaching fingers across the globe. They cannot see each other enough, the moon goddess who ferries souls to the afterlife and the death god who rules over the dead, and so every night, they meet on the mountain again. Always on the mountain under the cherry tree, while the moon, black or white, shines bright in the sky.
When they cannot meet, he watches her lunar progression with his water spyglasses, gazing affectionately at her flowing form as she ascends and dances across the midnight sky, colorful silk enveloping her in a blazing cocoon, her feathered wings spreading and leaving a trail of stars behind for the mortals to catch.
She is beautiful beyond compare, he thinks. The most beautiful goddess he has ever seen, ever wanted, and he loves her so much that he makes countless tributes for her.
In the winter, he crafts magnificent spires of snow and ice, and diamond-dust blizzards that are impossibly soft, like the downy feathers of a swan that still glitter with gem-like luster. In the spring, patches of black and white roses, as sweet as the fruits of the underworld and as beautiful to observe. In the summer, cooling rains and rolling gray clouds that water the soil and nourish the plants growing beneath. And in the fall, pomegranates that are juicy and red and filled with the most delicious seeds anyone has ever tasted, bursting with juice and staining the teeth of happy smiles a soft cardinal. Some of the villagers puzzle over these odd developments, wondering if the slew of sudden blessings is the work of Shaymin or Kyogre or Articuno, but the elders merely smile slyly at each other and give better offerings to the god of death, filling the bowls of incense with fresh sticks every day.
Love has brought him, after millennia of fear and loathing, a better public image, and with that, his confidence grows. He grows more lenient in his judgements, granting more and more souls a gate to heaven and damning fewer. The people cry out in joy, for the knowledge that their loved ones are entering the heavens in greater droves, and that less are forced into the circles of damnation.
For him, her lover, she weaves a pattern of stars in the shape of a raven, a wolf, a serpent, and a fox, for these are the animals embodied in him. Lights that shine brightly even in the darkness, parallels to the lesson she taught him on that mountaintop, wreathed in the undying petals of their black moon cherry tree.
Her dances are special, and not only for the mortals but for him, as well. She dances through the sky with a renewed vigor, sashes and belts and jewelry all clattering and flying with each graceful twirl or footstep. When she dances, a shimmering pattern of lights trails in her wake, what they call the aurora. This is her gift to man and beast, and to him. A reminder that even in the coldness of the Arctic north, something as beautiful as these lights can bloom.
Whether the moon is light or dark, they will meet under the cherry tree and dance the night away.
They dance so much that the time seems to slip away from their outstretched hands, trickling through like grains of sand.
And still, they dance, kiss, laugh, scream, and cry. Because love is as sweet as an apple and as deadly as snakebite.
"Beautiful. You're beautiful," he breathes, the two of them standing on the surface of a lake, their toes barely touching the surface of the water. Cherry petals fall from the sky like rain and land without so much as a ripple.
"Show me," she asks, and he shakes his head. "Show me your true form."
"It is hideous. I am hideous."
"Not to me,"she assures him, caressing his cheek, his silver-moon hair streaming behind him like a thunder cloud. "You must remember that you are also beautiful, no matter what you have heard. You are beautiful to me, always."
Gently, with a movement swift yet soft, he extricates himself from her grasp and floats up, his cloak writhing, his skin turning ash-grey and peeling off to reveal liquid darkness, icy blue eyes, thick white plumes of smoke, and a scarlet collar fitted around his neck. Two slender black legs emerge from his torso and lightly, he lands, ripples spreading from the center and setting the petals adrift in different directions.
She follows suit, her face blazing as bright as the sun, her multicolored dress merging into her skin, becoming part of her. Her limbs retract, her crescent wings spread fully and combine, her head becomes pointed and angular, and then she is swan-like and ethereal, her veil a shimmering aura of pinkish hues and indescribable colors, her wings glassy and the shade of ocean coral. She blinks at him with watchful eyes.
"Ugly, am I not?" asks Cresselia, bowing her head sadly. In a flash, he is by her side, embracing her with all the warmth he can muster.
"No, my lady. You are perfection. My angel, my flawless diadem, I love you so."
And the lake turns as solid as a layer of ice, spread through with billions upon billions of facets like some great diamond, each reflecting the tender scene above them. The trees turn a brilliant, stark white, the flowers a mysterious, penumbral black, and the moon above is an anomaly, a geometric aberration that is somehow magnificent at the same time.
Two curved drops that circle each other like koi in a pond. One is dark, one is light. At the head of each sits a single bead of the opposite color, a spot of defiance, a spot of remembrance.
In light, there is darkness, and in darkness, there is light. The wax and wane, the flux and flow.
Yin and Yang.
The souls of the dead groan restlessly, shuffling in the halls and caverns of Yomi with impatience. Tsukuyomi is not there to carry the newly deceased into the underworld, nor is Susanoo present to admit them into heaven or hell.
And on the mortal plane, there are shiftings and changes. Alterations of reality itself. Auroras that snake and swim through the air even in daylight, and a moon that is both black and white. The tides are surging higher and higher.
Something must be done.
A bolt of light, dazzling and scorching, bursts from the sky and cleaves into the lake's center, disrupting them mid-embrace and throwing them back with a spectacular burst of wind, the waters rippling and sizzling as heavenly fire descends.
Darkrai howls in anguish, and Cresselia screams at the pain of loss, but a thunderous voice booms, "You have neglected your duties. Your love has distracted both of you from your responsibilities and gods, and for that, you must be separated."
Hissing in anger, he throws a nebulous cloud of darkness at the bolt, sending viscous black streamers up to the skies and turning the world as dark as an inkblot. Ice pours from the void, hail and snow and ancient storms of winter, but the darkness is soon dispelled as radiance leaks through and the night is restored once more.
Slowly, inexorably, he is drawn back into the waters, back into Yomi, his empire. She is floating upwards, sheathed in dresses and silks once more, and she is crying for him. For them.
"I love you!" she cries as she disappears into the full moon.
"I love you too," he whispers before he is submerged beneath the lake and knows no more.
: : :
But the Creator was not without mercy, no. In the timeless waters of the ocean, he placed two islands near the then small dwelling of Canalave. Two islands, intertwined, duality in the form of aggression and pacifism. Two islands that served as two halves of a whole; two parts of a single bridge stretching across a fathomless divide between the heavens and hell.
And so, it was decreed on the seventh day of the seventh month each year, the bridge would be allowed to lower and reform, sealing the chasm for a single day so that light and dark could meet once again. And so, the law was given. And so, with aching hearts, they returned to their appointed tasks as the full moon and the new moon, guiding the dead and judging them.
All the while waiting for the day when they could be reunited.
: : :
She is, beyond a doubt, flawless.
In the chambers of his dark castle, he peers through a water spyglass into the night sky, and for a moment, the pond is not a pond but an extension, another eye.
Languidly, she dances around the crescent moon, adorned in her finest clothes, while leading a procession of the dead to him. As they sink into the earth and file into his halls, he allows himself one last glance at his lover before turning away. Sensing his presence, she arches her back and flies high into the air, her wings unfurling and showering glittering dust onto the forest below, instantly causing the trees to glow white before regaining their natural color.
"Soon," he whispers.
"Soon," she replies.
Always, on the seventh day of the seventh month, they return to the site of their black moon cherry tree, where the tree still grows. It is a magnificent thing, laden with the fruit of the gods, and the peaches that grow on its branches are sweeter than honey and softer than the finest silks in the world.
He picks one for her, and miraculously, it does not decay in his hands. They smile at each other before sharing the fruits together.
Later, they will return to the lake where they were first torn apart. Though he once harbored loathing for the location, he no longer does. He only recalls fond memories of them dancing, gods of death so different and yet so fitting at the same time. Where their footsteps touch, the lake cracks and turns diamond-like, a million facets reflecting them as they glide and spin and kiss giddily.
Every time, on Sendoff Spring, they will part with tearful exchanges, but always, they will wait for the next year to come around so that they will be reunited again.
"I love you, Darkrai," she tells him, their lips locked.
"And I love you, Cresselia," he answers, kissing her deeply.
He once detested his true name. But when she speaks it, it is less of a name and more like a song.
"Goodbye, my love."
They depart once more, their hands still outstretched as they fade into fog and smoke. Their tears fall as rain, and the cherry tree shivers.
can i believe the magic of your sigh?
will
you
still
love
me
tomorrow?
a/n: so, a bit jumbled and odd, but I tried to go for something more poetic this time. :) please read and/or review.
darkrai is watching yoouuuuuuuuu~