Now, then. Shall we begin?
Under the Willow
I have been asked several times, since those seemingly long weeks, to retell my story with the thought-of harbinger of death. In all honesty, any account given will never be accurate. These kinds of events are not those that one documents for years to come. They are not ones that one takes notes on to review at later times. They are the moments you simply feel. And, by doing so, never forget.
But, at the same time, never remember.
The following events might seem fragmented, even meaningless at times. But is that not a side-effect to these things? If every account was accurate with surgical precision, who would ever want to experience it? Fear, anger, and sadness have been so clearly and painstakingly described countless times before now. And now that we know what they are, we strive to avoid them.
My goal with this story is to avoid that. I aim to make you understand nothing, yet feel everything. To remember, and also forget. So that perhaps one day in the future, however close, you yourself will strive for it.
I suppose that is something he would want as well.
What follows is the account of what I can remember, and also what I have forgotten, from those seemingly harmless nights under the Willow.
-/…\-
Peace.
I sit alone beneath the swaying branches. Waiting.
I remember the past encounters. But it appeared as though I had forgotten the dialogue. What one might consider the essential parts of our meetings, I considered unimportant.
The details were the only things that mattered. I only remembered uncertainty. Fear. Exasperation at times.
Warmth.
That warmth did not accompany this peace, however. Was the peace pleasant? Of course.
Was it the same?
No.
-/-\-
Suspicion.
"Why visit one such as myself?" I had asked, fully prepared for him to lash out, as the countless legends surrounding him assure he would.
Instead he sits, his massive bulk making the lightest sound possible, as if he cared for the grass that swayed under him. The leaves rattled lightly, as if warning me to be afraid.
"Why not?"
-/-\-
Wisdom.
"Rationality makes reason," Giratina tells me. "Without it, chaos rules."
"Chaos is not bad," I say. "When taken advantage of, it can be our greatest asset."
He breaks contact, both ocular and physical. A cold front sweeps through me at his absence, and I know deep inside that the soft autumn breeze was not the cause.
I speak again. "To say that Chaos is bad is to say that Order is good. Is Order not the reason you were condemned?"
His fog-colored head turns towards me. Conflicting expressions collide and reflect off the mask that concealed his truest feelings.
A chuckle. Quiet and resigned, it catches me off guard.
"That would make me the enemy of Order, and by extension good," he says with tired amusement. "Would it not?"
I smile, sensing a breach, however temporary, in the Renegade's façade. For I knew it to be a façade.
"I care not for Order," I say. "For if Order had its way, where would you be now?"
A smile finally returned.
"Alone," he says simply, and I sense he expects more comments from myself. Pride and acceptance swells in my soul. Never before needed, I complied with his voiceless request, and our banter, however playful or meaningless, continued until the departure of the basilisk at dawn.
It never occurred to me that I had read the expression, and by extension soul, of the harbinger of death.
-/-\-
Confusion.
He stares with eyes a deep crimson shade. "You truly believe that?" he asks, wings of ebony gently waving in the breeze.
"Of course," I state simply. "Am I not with you?"
The slightest flicker of emotion crosses his harsh, wounded face, before it is cleared as if it had never been. "You seem to have a habit of stating the obvious."
I smile warmly, my small body not caring that it was in the presence of a scarred creature that was more than thirty times my height. "I take comfort in the fact that you can take notice of those details."
A twitch of ash-colored lips.
"I am not one to be comforted by," he insists coldly. I am unperturbed, however.
"I am not one to be noticed," I countered, slyness lurking in my voice. "Yet you seem to be a willing exception."
He raises an eyebrow. I believe that he will see the truth in my statement.
A shake of the head.
"I do not visit of my own free will," he says, spreading his wings of night as if to leave.
"Then what compels you?" I ask, mild annoyance from yet another denial blossoming within.
A sigh, before the flapping of powerful wings.
"Fear."
He does not look back, leaving me beneath the leaves.
-/-\-
Caution.
As Giratina lays on the harmless blades of grass, coiled around the thick trunk of the hanging tree, I stand not twelve inches from his draconic snout.
Asleep, he seems almost peaceful. Without hate. Without anger.
Without fear.
Oh, yes. The lord of death felt fear. I knew it not then, nor do the other legends know now.
Fear is the basis of anger. That anger will fester, condense, and boil over until it consumes the mind and body. Then, it is released through suffering, be it self-brought or inflicted upon others.
Suffering was something Giratina excelled at, as saddening as it was.
However, there is more than one child of fear.
I should have known it better then, but I was too absorbed in the moments. Even when asleep, he captivated me. I saw no cause for it. Only the effect.
Suddenly, he stirred, and the very parasite that was fear bit me in my bosom. What would the massive legend assume? What possible excuse could I make for watching over him as he slept?
Confessions were out of the question.
-/-\-
Wistfulness.
He lay near dead at the base of the tree. Wounds several times larger than myself crisscross his massive form, creating a twisted map for me to follow.
I pass his massive legs, scorched and bruised. I slip under a spread wing, the smooth membrane comforting me, enveloping me on all sides. I knew the seriousness of the situation. Giratina lay here, dying from an unknown encounter. This was not the time for hesitation, much less emotion.
However, I also knew that he never would let me stay in an embrace were he conscious.
So there I remained. Smothered by darkness, surrounded by wings of death. Fear still pumped through my veins.
But warmth spread as well.
I suppose it was ironic. It took death to make me realize who Giratina actually was. What he actually meant.
To me, at any rate.
-/…\-
Desperation.
"Arceus was angered greatly," he tells me. "He was close to the destruction of earth."
A pained sigh escapes from his mouth; a resigned sort of emptiness spread across his features.
I reach out with a paw, willing to do anything in my limited power to right whatever wrongs ailed him. He turns away, just as he did in every instance before then. Despite his deathly condition, I still feel resentment surge through me at yet another rejection.
It did not occur to me that it might be the last.
-/-\-
Anticipation.
"Are you cold, Shaymin?"
The question catches me off guard. He never made inquiries to one's health, much less mine.
I feel the whipping sting of Autumn's breath strike my back, relentless. I feel its chill seep into my bones, into my body.
Not into my soul, however. It was as warm as could be. I glance down at Giratina from my perch from on top of his head.
"No," I reply honestly. "Not one bit."
-/-\-
Resentment.
"Why even fight to protect this world?" I ask, resentment hot in both my words and bosom. "It appears as though you have nothing of worth left."
His massive grey brow furrows in what appears to be confusion.
"When did I give you that impression?"
The burning inside me swelled, clouding my mind with bluster and anger.
"Every living day."
He winces, though from pain or regret, I cannot say.
A chuckle. Just as resigned as the last.
"I may not have many of those days left."
-/…\-
Explosion.
His eyes close as yet another pained sigh escaped his lips of ash. "You do not understand, Shaymin,"
I glare at the basilisk that lay at the base of the tree, dying. "Then make me understand! Tell me why you fought! Why you will never give in!"
Carmine eyes lock onto mine. Waves of sadness roll over me, but the flames of anger and humiliation burn it away.
The harbinger of death closed his eyes yet again, turning his head away. A final rejection.
That was all it took.
Something snapped inside, like a chandelier smashing against the cold marble tile of a ballroom. A harsh warmth spread, searing my thoughts, frying my limbs. With the flames, I uttered three words to Giratina as he lay dying under the Willow.
You probably can guess the first and third word. I did not expect the second, however.
"I HATE YOU!"
-/-\-
Clarity.
He growls at me, as if I were a danger to him.
I suppose, then, I was.
"Do not delude yourself," he snarls at me. I blink once, the vegetation on my back swaying as his breath washes over my stunted form. The smooth scent of jasmine flows throughout me, and an unexplainable tingle courses through my veins.
"I am not the one who has been deluded, Giratina," I say, resting a small white paw on his pillar of a limb. "I have accepted this. You still resist. Why?"
He retracts his leg swiftly, but not before pressing against my paw slightly. "Do you forget how I have been condemned?" he asks, fully aware that I know the answer. "This is dangerous. This is unpredictable."
"Of course it is," I reassure him, placing another paw on his remaining front limb. "What meaning would it have were it rational?"
The Renegade glares down at me, and I expect pain soon. A Shadow Ball, perhaps? Some other means of Ghostly death? But it never comes.
He does not retract his leg. Instead he continues to glare.
-/-\-
Aftermath.
He blinks once. Twice. His face is unreadable stone masked in gold.
The fire fades, anger now replaced by its parent.
"Such a shame."
Fear. What damage had I just unleashed upon him?
He smiles sadly, and he chuckles. His reaction does not compute. He had nearly dismembered other legendaries for saying less than I had. So why did he smile?
The cold syrup of fear winds through my veins, replacing the fire, replacing the warmth. I can only voice one word.
"Why?"
Giratina does not look at me. Instead he looks at the Willow, its branches swaying in the bitter Autumn breeze. Then he spoke. I would have fled to the other side of the planet to avoid hearing it. I knew what damage it would do to me.
But I also knew what it would do for him. He needed me to hear those three words.
"I love you."
-/…\-
Shock.
To this day, I cannot describe what flowed through my veins in that moment. It was not fear. Not anger. Nor was it warmth.
I love you.
Whatever it was, it felt horrible.
"What?" The question barely squeezed past the confines of my constricted throat.
No answer came. It would never come.
Giratina had given his final rejection. However, it was not the rejection of affection. It was of the rules.
In his dying moment, the Renegade had broken his only moral.
I ran to his side, pawing his face. I know now it was hopeless. But emotion trumps intelligence, I'm afraid.
Even if it destroys us.
-/-\-
Impulse.
Crimson orbs eyed me, for once at my eye level.
"Why gaze upon me?" he asks tiredly, as if drained of any and all energy required to move. His wings of nightmare shift gently in the breeze.
I provide no vocal answer. What sufficient answer can be given to that inquiry through words? I acted instead. I had never acted on many things before then, keeping my paws as clean as possible, so to speak. But now I felt compelled to act instead of speak. Perhaps fear was the reason, but I doubt it.
I prefer to think that it was one of its offspring.
Before the basilisk can react I set my stunted legs into motion, closing the foot of distance that separated the two of us. I scale his head, slipping right past the gap made between his mask-points.
Giratina snaps upright as I settle down on the crown of his dark head, closing my eyes.
"Why do you persist with these antics?" he asks, annoyance evident in his tone. I, however, am not concentrated on his voice. A warmth has spread through me. Do not ask what it felt like.
Only know that it came from him.
-/-\-
Regret.
I weep.
Rivers of pain, droplets of agony, cries of despair. They well in my bosom, searing my lungs, stealing my breath. Then they flow forth from my body, my soul.
For I had killed the only thing I lived for.
Death spread from me. The gentle grass turned to crusted, sharpened blades. The sky darkened, and the wind savagely bit holes into my soul.
Vision blurred, mind in splinters, I happen to glance upwards. Something had survived the wave of death and despair that had drowned my universe.
The Willow.
It stood, tall and proud. Its leaves cast thin shadows of darkness, blood-red light smothering the places it left untouched.
I cast one more glance at his face, now hollowed like the shell of an ancient tortoise.
"I'm sorry," I told him, even though I knew he would never hear me again. "I do, too."
-/-\-
Morals.
The gentle leaves sway in front of Giratina's view, occasionally blocking his sight of the horizon. But he does not move. He remains, a pillar of certainty.
"I will not give in to this," he claims strongly, refusing to meet my gaze.
"You will not," I agree somberly. "Perhaps that is for the best. The universal laws forbid it anyways."
He looks down at me, and his entire form seems to soften, along with his gaze. "You know how I feel about laws."
I smile at him, knowing exactly what hid behind his scowl.
-/…\-
And so ends my tale. If you feel unsatisfied, unfulfilled at this ending, I cannot apologize.
For I am unfulfilled.
Some of you may be under the impression that legends do not die. The truth is, we only do when we have exposed ourselves to something. If we were to all stay in the Hall of Origin and sit proud and isolated, like Arceus, we would never die. We would be immortal.
Giratina became exposed. He had thrown away his isolation. He died because of it.
Because of me.
His exposure will close me off. Cold and emptiness will envelop me, until I am as lifeless as the stones underneath my paws. I will live forever, and I will never live again.
I will remember, and forget.
Perhaps one day I will die. Perhaps I will find the capacity to feel again.
When that day comes, for I sorely hope it does, I hope and pray with all of my soul that he forgets. When I see him again, we will both remember nothing.
We will forget everything.
We will feel once again, and simply live.
Until then, I wait, haunted by memory, image, and emotion. But I will remain diligent. I will see him again. I will feel his caress, his breath, and his fear.
So I will wait.
I will wait under the Willow.
E/N- Please review. I cannot stress on how much I would appreciate that. This story… it's giving me an odd feeling. I need input on what you guys think about this story.
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EyeofAmethyst07