This is for my buddy, Glory For Sleep. It's uber short, but it's meant to be more like a drabble. I might add another chapter in Darkrai's POV later... :D

Disclaimer: I don't own Pokémon.


It was fate.

Fate was what drove her here, urging her to race through deserts and forests. Fate was what pushed her to calm the terrible nightmares left behind in his wake. Fate was the reason she soared through the night sky now, waiting for a glimpse of tattered black cloak, or perhaps the illuminating gleam of eyes the color of blue ice. And if he appeared, she would give chase. It had always been that way. It was set in stone. It was the sole aspect of her life, and his as well, that would never change.

And what would she do, she often wondered, if she finally defeated him? Would he sink into the shadows, no longer able to use his powers to create dreams of terror and pain? Would he fade away, slowly disappearing from memory until he became a being only living on in myth and legend? Would he leave this world, seeking a sanctuary from a land where his appearance caused only fear and despair?

He lived a sad and loveless existence, and sometimes she felt pity for him. But she always rationalized that this was for the best. If he faded from this world and ceased to live, then the nightmares would stop. The humans and Pokémon would sleep peacefully, their dreams untainted by distorted visions of darkness and ruin.

But if he disappeared, then her role in pacifying those hundreds of troubled, terrified minds would end. Her job of halting those nightmares would no longer be needed, because the nightmares would no longer come. Would her purpose in this world then die, if her were no longer here? Would she become an unnecessary burden, doomed to wander without a path to follow for the rest of time?

If he ceased to exist, would she fade away as well?

Could she still chase him, knowing that his destruction would, in a way, end both of their existences? Could she really hunt the being who provided the sole purpose in her life?

A flash of movement up ahead, a dark shape darting through the clouds, ragged and cloak-like. Eyes the color of ice, with glowing slits for pupils, piercing through the lightless sky. Him.

She gave chase, because that was what she always did. And he flitted away, as he was destined to always do. She would not catch him tonight. Perhaps, she would never catch him. Perhaps, she didn't really want to catch him anymore, because he gave her a reason to live in this world. But despite this, she would still race his elusive shadow until the end of time. Because he was her reason to exist. Because it was scripted, as inevitable as the sun's rising in the morning and the moon's reign at night. Because it was destiny.

Because it was fate.