Her earliest memory is the faint feeling of a splitting head and mass confusion. After those feelings swirl away there is the vast hollowness within her chest, like something important to her has been taken away.
That, she thinks, is her birth.
After her thought-to-be birth where she crawled out of something that was once great and mighty her memory becomes clear – because that is the truth.
The truth is that she sees white wings and white scales shaped like delicate plumage on herself. She sees two men fighting and arguing and feels the urge to protect and follow one of them to the death, be it the death of the man or herself. The urge is consuming her like fire spreading through dried grass and that is all she can quite think about – or it would be within a lesser creature's mind, but she is no lesser creature and she notices other things as well, such as the land that is vibrating with energy, the other man who she instinctively cringes away from, but mostly her mind focuses on the man while her eyes search for any potential dangers.
The truth is that she finally lays her eyes on a black creature she knows that he is the missing thing within her.
The truth is that the man she has to obey no matter what orders her to attack, to fight for the sacred name of the truth.
The truth is that she strikes first and he strikes in retaliation and suddenly the world is filled with fires coloured like red and blue gemstones, in lightning that flickers with the colours of the golden sun and the summer sky above them.
After that her memory is blurring again and she can't rely on it for the truth. She remembers triumph and pain, screams and roars, destruction and despair.
Then there is exhaustion and a flickering consciousness that she struggled to be rid of.
And that is the last thing she remembers before she slips away into the dark cracks of eternity, her vision fading into black, the dark colour like the impregnable armour of scales on the other dragon.
You have a duty, a ghost whispers to her from the depth of her dreams. You must find the Hero of Truth and become their Champion. Protect the Truth.
Who are you? She cries into the darkness. Who am I?
I am Giratina, the ghost states as it begins to fade away. And you are Reshiram.
Then the ghost is gone and she is left alone in the darkness far too much like that unnerving black dragon that has something to do with her.
She just doesn't know what.
After the Hero of Truth awakens her from that world of eternal black she does her best to be the Champion of the girl whose heart she touched and felt to be true. She still remembers the voice she has heard, telling her the true name and her duty in life. She knows that humans, even with their incredible wills, are still quite fragile and delicate.
She most definitely remembers the black dragon. Greetings! He roars at her when they finally face each other. I am Zekrom, Dragon of Ideals!
She roars back because she is intimidated by him – it is the truth – but she is not willing to let him push her down. And I, she hisses after the initial answering roar. She may have raised her own answering challenge to match his volume, but her words will be sophisticated and moderate. They will ring true, like the girl's heart did when they touched. Am Reshiram, Dragon of Truth.
Much like when they first met such a long time ago the world explodes in sapphire and ruby flames, in golden and azure lightning and in the cries and roars of battles. She feels the pain and the rush and the exhilaration, true feeling for the first time in what felt like eons as she strikes over and over again and she knows it is the truth when she sees that he, too, enjoys this.
And then somewhere along the line of the battle something in his red eyes gives and he is abruptly on the ground, crumpled and unmoving.
Her hero returns her back into the orb that lets her move around without causing ruckus with her large size and that is the last she sees of him.
And this time nothing fades into black but she wishes it does because the next time her hero calls her out she does not feel the presence of the other dragon near her – her other half is not near her.
Do you not understand how this feels? She nudges her hero, but the brown-haired girl cannot understand her and only pats her snout and speaks in the words accented with the modern pronunciations, telling her about how friends will always be friends.
This is not true. The hero of truth seems quite idealistic.
She is not angry about this, however.
. . .
She tenses when she feels the unknown being present in her dreams because this is the realm of dreams and her dreams should not be invaded by foreign presences. Who goes there? She calls into the realm of dreams, her dreams.
. . . come to me.
Who are you? She cannot help but think that this voice calling her is familiar. It is familiar, that there is no doubt of, but she cannot imagine how she knows this voice. This is not the hoarse voice filled with shadows of Giratina's, is not the strong, thunderous one of Zekrom but a feathery one that reminds her of ice and snow falling to the ground with a vague, blurry purpose. It is one that would belong to a god's, certainly, but she does not recognize said god.
Come to me, the voice repeats insistently and she realizes that her dream self's heart resonates with every word, every sound. Come to me.
She knows why she is disappointed when the tugging at her heart that acted as a compass lead to a gray dragon living in an icy cave instead of a black dragon who swore to defend his green-haired hero. Her own hero sucks in a breath and gasps, the human mind clearly blown away by the magnificence of this other deity.
She is not. You called me, she notes.
The other being has yellow eyes and is covered with large pieces of gray armour that isn't like her white feathers or Zekrom's black scales. I did, the being with the husky voice notes and she thinks that this gray dragon is a female – she knows. You know of your own history?
It is not an insult and she does not bother pretending it is for the sake of some flimsy pride. Falsities will only make something shine for a small amount of time before leading to tarnish. Truth, as painful as it is sometimes, does not taint as easily. Of course.
And she does. Her hero has read upon every piece of legend she could find and told her about it.
The gray dragon raises her head a bit further up, holding it higher. Then greetings, Reshiram, Dragon of Truth, she says to her. I am Kyurem, Dragon of Balance. We have much to speak of.
Her hero is human, she cannot stay in this environment for long. She expresses her sincere regrets to the other dragon, hoping she'll understand.
She does. Kyurem allows her to attack and weaken her – though not without putting up a difficult fight – and allows her hero to capture her.
Zekrom? The gray dragon is within her dreams and teaching her further about her own history. Their lesson has come to this and for once the wise dragon that can see both sides of any conflict, any story has held her tongue for more than a few seconds when she asked the gray dragon a question regarding the black god that left. He is you, and you are him, she says finally. You are whole when you are together.
And yet we are not together.
No, the other dragon's ghost self shrugs her wide shoulders. But that is the truth, yes?
It is. But for once the truth is not satisfactory.
"We're going to go look for him."
She looks at her trainer – she has long since stopped calling the young girl a hero, for though she is one, she is also a young girl who would like to live life as one. She would respect the girl's wishes.
"We're going to look for N."
Her fellow 'team members' all turn to look at her, for she is the most likely form of transportation their trainer will use – Kyurem has deemed her well learned of her own history and the story of Unova and has returned to her icy home with blessings and hugs from their trainer.
She stretches her wings and shakes out her feathers. Truthfully, she does not particularly care about the green-haired boy who is probably a man now. She cares more about learning what happened to the black dragon with him.
Let us go, then, she says, not bothering to care about her trainer lacking the ability to understand her speech. It doesn't matter.
Truth is, she just wants to see Zekrom at the moment.
Inspiration: Bad Apple, both the original version and Cristina Vee's amazing English cover.
Written because as of today I am on the favorite authors list of a hundred people. Also, I've been meaning to write Reshiram x Zekrom for a long time now.
I own nothing.