Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I don't own Pokémon. If I did, there would have been a BW version of what Pokémon Origins was, with Hilda as the player character. Seriously.
Reshiram remembers.
Back when she was still new-Reshiram, and Zekrom was new-Zekrom; before the Light Stone and Dark Stone — after they had stopped being Kyurem's single, beating heart.
She remembers the hero — the "twin of truth", is what Unova had called him then. He had been so very lovely to her, this man-king-master-partner who had called her forth from such a blue, blue flame, out of the ashes of her original form.
He had smiled, had stroked her fur so gently. He had loved her.
She had loved him.
Reshiram remembers — they had been beautiful once. Beautiful and terrifying, as the truth naturally was. A whole half-life, the world burning so blue and bright and white, and flames — flames everywhere.
And then, just as quickly as her fire had been sparked, lightning flashed, and it was over.
Her hero had a son, a son hungry for war, and a nephew equally as ravenous. And they hadn't wanted to fight, Zekrom and Reshiram — not now, not ever, they are the same and forever would be — but the heroes wished, and they would grant those wishes.
There was only darkness after that — darkness and the keening cry of her other half, her brother of ideals. The memory of a lovely laugh and gentle hands, and eyes, eyes so, so blue.
She lays in the dark for an eternity and a half, cradled by the void until she hears a voice cut through the endless silence — she stirs in her sleep. The voice is different now — higher pitched, the tiniest rasp in it, excited, feminine.
She poses a question. Oh, Mr. Hawes, what about this?
There is another voice, muffled, unimportant, but Reshiram strains to hear the response: Oh, this? It's just a white stone we found in the desert. It doesn't seem to have any meaning, but it's rather pretty, so we keep it on display. Carbon dating shows it's almost as old as the Relic Castle itself —
Oh, how cool!
Reshiram stirs again. It is her hero — different-sounding, but she is sure it is her hero. They sound excited, beyond the darkness — all twittering excitement and awe, and Reshiram longs for their blue eyes, for that lovely laugh without the void barring its path.
Reshiram tries to wake up, she does — but just as soon as her hero is there they are gone, and she is alone again. The darkness lulls her back into slumber.
She is passed on.
Hand to hand. First are kind and weathered ones, and two voices — one, sweet and slow, like honey. A woman. And another, more excitable, a pitch higher than normal, talking fast — a man's.
More voices. Another woman, calm and collected. Another man, the same. Tones laced with worry. Hurried voices, talk of choices. A girl, and a boy — children? No, not really. They had been not too long ago, probably, but they are not children any longer. And then there is —
There is.
That voice. Familiar. Smaller, but now-familiar. Higher pitched, with the tiniest rasp.
This is… the Light Stone. This is Reshiram?
"I am Reshiram," Reshiram says, but her hero does not reply, because her hero cannot hear her. "I am Reshiram!" Reshiram bellows, eager, panicky.
Her hero says nothing, but she takes the Stone in her hands. Reshiram can feel it — their palms are smaller, fingers more slender, but they are still gentle, and the dragon relaxes in the unwitting embrace around her soul.
She craves to be set free.
Zekrom already is — she can sense it. She is not entirely sure how, but she can sense it, her brother half soaring back outside, claimed by his hero.
Why hasn't Reshiram's hero claimed her?
It is a simple answer, of course, one she has always known — the simple fact is that Reshiram's hero has not yet accepted the fact that they — she, Reshiram knows she's a she now and her name is Hilda — are a hero, much less Reshiram's hero.
And the vast white dragon is the dragon of truth — she will not ideally show herself to anyone who merely wants to prove something. They must show they can — they must accept it themselves, as much as they want others to accept it.
Until then, she cannot move, no matter how much she wants to.
Her hero — her Hilda — carries her a very long ways away. Into a castle.
Into a throne room.
It is there Zekrom's hero waits — it is there they are going to prove themselves. And Hilda is determined, Reshiram can sense that — but she is also terrified.
Why is she so terrified?
Reshiram waits in the dark, and does not feel anything more until the other hero murmurs the words: Reshiram has not recognized you as a hero.
How disappointing.
I actually kind of liked you a little.
The dragon growls — Hilda is a hero, and the world would know it already if the girl would only realize it herself. The annoyance Reshiram feels is short-lived, however, when Hilda's determination suddenly flares up — her determination, her resolve, the realization: I will do whatever I need to to stop him, because I am right and I know I'm right and this world is the right world, I know it is, I know it is.
And it is enough.
Reshiram roars in triumph, breaking through the silver shackles and bursting forward in a flash of pearly-blue light.
The boy, N. The other hero. There is something about him… something almost pup-like, something Reshiram can't remember her brother's former hero having.
She does not understand, but she can tell why Zekrom had been drawn to this incarnation so — his heart is as pure and untouched as her own vast white feathers, and his intentions are more than good, and he believes irrefutably in them.
And he understands, more than any human — even her hero — ever had before. He understands when she faces her hero — her Hilda — in battle, understands when she tells this newest incarnation she only wants to be her ally.
But she doesn't think Hilda ever needed the rough translation — she is looking at Reshiram with such tender eyes, and seeing her for the first time, Reshiram knows she had not been wrong when she'd heard this girl's voice.
My hero, she thinks breathlessly, as the battle begins.
The light of the device — the "pokéball" — that ensnares her does not hurt half as much as she had initially expected it to; it is warm and surprisingly not-dark, comfortable and encapsulated. She can hear the outside world clearly, and it is not a moment later that she is called back out for battle.
Reshiram fights.
She is rusty; untrained, unlike Zekrom, however short of a training it was. But Hilda is calm; her soul has always been calm, and it soothes Reshiram, pushes her forward, allows for her dragon-breath to gain enough momentum to knock Zekrom out in three or so hits, despite the flurries of Fusion Bolt raining down on her.
She had trusted her hero, as she always had — she had been powering up a Fusion Flare when Hilda had stopped her and instructed her to use dragon-breath.
The attack is one of Reshiram's weakest, but it cuts her brother-soul to his core, and she has no time to feel sorry about it.
Reshiram understands truth, and the truth that unravels after the battles are the ones that brutalize the worst. Zekrom's hero is broken, and Reshiram's hero is breaking, and they are not meant to be apart, just like the twin entities of black and white aren't supposed to be apart, either.
But apart is what they are becoming — because fate is fickle and Hilda is too alive, and N is learning how to be like that, too. The Pokémon of truth and her hero watch as the boy-king flies away, on Zekrom's back. Only the final electric shock from his blasters is the evidence they had ever been there, even a little, even at all.
Hilda is crying.
The hero looks up at the dragon with wide blue eyes, and trembling, pale lips. She nearly died today, Reshiram remembers, and that is considered a Very Big Deal for many humans.
She nearly died today, nearly signed the death certificates of many others, too.
"Let me show you home," Hilda says quietly, giving a soft tug on a tuft of Reshiram's fur. The dragon growls, low in her belly, and follows behind her hero.
Trainer.
There are five other Pokémon with her - on her team. A playful Stoutland that enjoys the hunt, likes the sound of her own baying when she finds something worthwhile. An orphan separated from the pack, found as a pup and gently raised through the motions. She is stronger for it now — strong enough to do what her mother couldn't. Protect. Love. Defend. She walks with a limp, a mutilated paw a souvenir Reshiram had seen her obtain from the large castle, before.
A Krookodile with a swaggering step and flirtatious tendencies, and a battle-scarred face courtesy of Ghetsis's Bisharp. He waggles eyebrows at Reshiram until her obvious disinterest sways him back towards the dog, Alala's, direction. The Krookodile is called Hawthorne. He is power-driven; not exactly in a bad way, but he had sensed strength in the human called Hilda and her compatriots, and had joined them as a result.
The third one is quiet. Serious. A Carracosta, called Aster, who is apparently, arguably, older than Reshiram herself. They were both there before humans, anyway — Reshiram wonders for how much longer. Hilda had helped him grow, he says, had saved him from a girl who didn't mean any harm, really, but couldn't understand that some Pokémon needed a life outside of penthouses. Scratches and grooves criss-cross over his shell.
The fourth one has three heads. Freshly-evolved, elegant in her own brutality. Forever murmuring atrocities under her raw breath, tumbling through the sky. Unnerving. Beautiful. Relentless. Restless. She had been with Hilda since she was small, since she'd been a Deino, and the only reason she is still alive today is because of their trainer. Because she had not given up, because she had been patient, because she had feared Andromeda when Andromeda had evolved the first time, but had only love and pride when she evolved for the second time. She is the only one without scars too bad; but Reshiram thinks that's only because she is the only one who had been completely willing to kill before being killed.
The fifth is the most like Hilda, Reshiram thinks. A Serperior, named Lily, who had been there from the very start. She is quiet, much like her trainer — she is kind. A matriarch, and for all Reshiram is several thousands of years older and quite a bit bigger, she still treats her like a pup. Her vines are currently damaged; unusable, slashed right off, but they will grow back, as will the scorched scales of her underbelly that are still healing.
There is a word for this, Reshiram thinks, curling in on herself the first time Hilda lets her out of a pokéball — there is an event happening — something called a "picnic". All the Pokémon help, even the feisty, irate Andromeda, who snaps at everybody but adores them all, anyway. Reshiram is too big to properly help, though she does look inquisitively at Hilda, at first — don't worry about anything, Resh, we're okay! — she stays silent and tries not to be too burdensome.
They sleep curled around her that night — Hilda tucked into her side, Reshiram's lush fur pillowing her delicate head — Lily curled around her, lean body cradling her against the cold — Hawthorne curled up protectively against Alala — Aster closest to the stream, half-tucked into his shell — and Andromeda, three heads breathing easy, so peaceful.
It is here that Reshiram thinks she remembers what the word is called: family.
They travel, for a very long while.
Hilda is not one to play favorites among her team, and Reshiram tries not to be jealous about it. She tries to remember — although Hilda is her hero, she doesn't remember the other time, the one before.
She does not remember being a king, or a conquerer, or a war general. She does not remember N from before he was N — when he, too, was a real king, when he doubled as a blood-brother.
They are modern souls, here. Equally as tethered as they had been before — but in different ways, Reshiram thinks. There is something odd about it, something… something.
"They're in love," Alala yawns one day, curled up beneath a tree. Hawthorne has one clawed hand tangled in her fur, stroking.
Reshiram tilts her head to the side. Love. Love?
"Like two other idiots I know," Andromeda growls, tumbling through the sky before swooping back down to Earth, two of her heads snapping a greeting at her fellow dragon.
Alala laughs good-naturedly; Hawthorne sputters, embarrassed.
Hilda takes them all to a place called Undella. Most of the team likes the salt air and the waves, with the exception of Hawthorne, who sulks in the sand away from the water, with Alala laughing at him from the place where the sand meets the shore, water weighing her fur down.
Reshiram lingers a ways away, too; she is part fire-type, after all, and water has never agreed with her. Hilda joins her for a moment, a silent vigil over her team.
"They adore you," she confides, with a small smile. "The rest of the team. Really, they do."
Reshiram is surprised — but she does not think Hilda is lying for her sake. There is only sincerity in those words, and Reshiram would know, wouldn't she?
"I miss him, sometimes," she continues, after a moment. "N. I wonder — do you miss Zekrom, too? I bet — I bet you do."
Reshiram dips her head in a nod.
She does.
For five months, it is this; for five months, it is waiting. It is winning the thing called the "Pokémon League" and capturing new partners for the "Pokédex" and living, and loving, and waiting, until one day Hilda calls Reshiram out of her pokéball and tells her they're going on an adventure.
Reshiram is not so sure what that means, but she knows her heart beats a little faster when Hilda settles on her back and tells her to fly east, that the Kanto region is in the east.
A black dragon-type Pokémon was spotted flying above Cerulean Cape, according to the Unova Times.
Reshiram cries out, and follows her heart — and her hero's heart — into the vast unknown.
Because I wanted to, and I also wanted to wade slowly into this fandom. I just love the idea of Reshiram/Zekrom and Hilda/Hilbert bonding, tbh. There won't be any part two to this, but I am definitely thinking of writing more stories within the Pokémon game-verse. I'm thinking of a novelization of Pokémon FireRed/LeafGreen (with eventual Conflictshipping/ORS) if you're interested, and probably an eventual BW novelization if anyone's interested in that, too.
Of course, it will feature Ferriswheelshipping.
Anyway, thank you so much for reading, if you've made it this far! Lots of appreciation coming from me, and have a good day!