Yay, Mew/Azelf! I didn't get to SU's previous challenge in time, but thankfully, I got all this out today. I think that's pretty good, considering that I'm typing this at a friend's house that actually HAS POWER XD
Don't worry, chapter 3 of RftL is coming soon. Some of you may have noticed that it's no longer a triangle fic anymore, and I guess that's my own fault. I wimped out, I suppose, because I realize I utterly fail at love triangles. So, now it's just gonna be a GiraLatios and PalDialga, to make all you CosmosShippers happy (and to try and make myself like the pairing).
At any rate, enjoy this rushed little angst burger. (Spoilers for the Diamond/Pearl game storyline too, I guess, though it's obviously AU.)
Disclaimer- I don't own Pokemon or the song "All We Are" by OneRepublic.
Azelf doesn't really know what's going on.
What he does know is that that Cyrus is starting to take things too far. What he does know is that he and his counterparts had been wandering the forests of Sinnoh and noting the human-wrought destruction upon the area; that he and Uxie and Mesprit had just passed a young oak tree – yes, he can almost place it in his agony-wracked, millennia-old mind, that tree right next to where the forest curves off toward Eterna City – and he was just making a sardonic remark about certain philosophical jaunts and Uxie was laughing (oh how she laughed, that rare lilting laugh of hers that made him sparkle inside) and then the cages had latched around them and they'd been taken away. What he does know is that electricity practically equal to that of Raikou is coursing through the trio's lithe, thinly-built bodies, electricity that's enough to temporarily forsake their psychic power for pain. Damn him, Azelf thinks dimly, damn Cyrus for making such a device, damn Team Galactic for doing this –
The reality of the whole situation hits him hard, then, and he spots Cyrus out of the corner of his eye. Uxie and Mesprit are screaming, their cries of agony renting the frigid air of the laboratory, and Cyrus' smirk stretches ever wider in a sadistic caricature of a child getting a piece of candy. Azelf focuses what remains of his exhausted conscious on the Team Galactic leader – it shouldn't be as hard as it is; he is the Being of Willpower, after all – and his eyes flick to the bookshelf directly above Cyrus' spiked sky-blue head. He screams a silent order for the shelf to conveniently collapse onto the leader's head so the scientists controlling the voltage can run over and demand to the status of their oh-so-powerful leader, but of course it doesn't work.
And in his hopelessness, Azelf gives in to the pain, obliges the Team Galactic leader and lets out his first scream. In the same moment, however, a feminine howl oozes out into the air, and the Being of Willpower painfully turns his head to look, though all his senses are ordering him not to. What he sees causes the sense of hopelessness, that this is the end and they're going to die in this to drive an even sharper wedge into his heart. Because Uxie – the Being of Knowledge, the female he'd always had to go after during Legendary meetings because she was always, never failingly late due to her poring over her many volumes of books – Uxie's head is lolling limply on her slender shoulders, and her body has stopped twitching.
No. He doesn't dare check his other side to see if Mesprit's suffered the same fate, because the sudden silence, broken only by the sound of the electricity surging and quick staccato pants that eventually peter off into nothingness, is answer enough. No. No. No. No. No.
"Stop!" Cyrus roars, pushing his way forward. "Turn down the voltage; we can't let them die! We need them for –"
Azelf barely raises his head, tears pricking at his eyes in hot little shards that blur the vision of the blue-haired man before him. A tight, close-lipped smile slowly appears across Azelf's countenance, even as the tears escape the confines of their ducts behind his amber eyes and slide freely down his cheeks, their escape unhindered by his currently-bound paws. There's still hope. It's not over. Cyrus hasn't won.
He takes comfort in that small mercy.
Startled and caught off-guard by their master's abrupt anger bursting its way through the surface, the scientists' fingers hastily flicker over the knobs on the devices in their hands. Azelf feels the electricity keeping him shackled her weaken, if only slightly, though the pain still lingers within that rare agonizing, time-stopping, white-hot anguish. He's sore all over, he's got a migraine equal to that of Arceus after Palkia accidentally ripped open yet another hole to another dimension, and the urge to vomit is straining mightily at Azelf's mental bindings – but he's alive. He's alive, and Cyrus hasn't won.
The electricity weakens a bit more, and Azelf realizes with the rational part of his mind that the time to escape is now. He pushes against his restraints, carefully subtle so as not to rouse the scientists' attention, and a roar of pain and exertion rips itself out of him as he suddenly, immediately, finds himself free. He allows himself one moment to stare dumbly down at the others – one moment to choke back a sob at the sight of his counterparts' limp forms, still mildly sparking from below, one moment to register the fact that since they haven't broken free as well so they must be d…
One moment to stop that thought in its tracks and fly off, the wind flattening his tails against his body with the speed at which he's going.
And he allows the tears to flow freely, brings his paw up to wipe away only a single tear in his typically stubborn manner before just letting it go.
Because Mesprit and Uxie are dead, and he knows that he let them die.
That, he knows.
Azelf knows what's going on. Arceus, how he knows.
Of course, the council being as large as it is, the news of what happened has spread like wildfire, and due to that, the goddess herself has called this meeting. Azelf, of course, is there first, mostly because just sitting in his lake-cave at Lake Valor reminds him too much of the books still in Uxie's cavern, and of the permanently-messy state of Mesprit's. Hell, Azelf doesn't even want to think of what would happen if he went to either of the other lakes to pick up his counterparts' things. Somehow, he doesn't think they would appreciate him soaking all their things.
At any rate, he's there early, and Arceus is the only one present due to the Hall of Legends being her permanent residence. Despite her brisk gaze washing over the room, turning to sympathy when it landed on him, Azelf manages to avoid the whole awkwardness of the situation by staring at the floor and trying not to think of his miserable failure. Besides, he's known that Groudon has had his eye on the goddess for a while, and the feeling is mutual, so it's not like Arceus would try anything.
But the other Legends begin to file in, and they thankfully skirt around any semblance of a conversation or anything leading up to it with Azelf; he guesses that the whole thing with Alto Mare and Latios' death has taught them not to approach someone aggrieved. Another small mercy.
But as the seats around him begin to fill up, Azelf's gaze turns to the two seats surrounding his, and those stupid tears fill up his eyes again, because the chairs are empty.
The meeting starts mostly without comment, as most everyone is too stunned to speak about the untimely deaths of the Beings of Knowledge and Emotion. Celebi actually breaks down, her sobs being the only sound that fills the spacious room, and not even Jirachi's reassuring embrace can serve its purpose in comforting her. Azelf bites his lower lip none too inconspicuously and hangs his head as Arceus' strong, feminine voice begins to speak.
He winces; her voice doesn't even carry strength now. Just the heavy burden of one who wants desperately to break down and cry, but can't due to being in front of others.
The following few minutes pass mostly in a blur, both audibly and visually speaking. Azelf really should have known that he wouldn't have been able to hold his sorrow back forever, but to his eternal shame, there it is - just spilling out on the reflective floor like that. Arceus gives her eulogies for Uxie and Mesprit, some crap about how we will move on and at least Team Galactic's plans didn't succeed. He supposes he should be happy he got out of that hellhole in relatively good shape - though he did have to make a small stop in order to empty his stomach and allow the dizziness obscuring his senses to clear away - but not-so-strangely, the grief takes over the sky of his mind in much the manner of thunderhead clouds and blots out room for any other emotion.
So dark and deep are those thunderheads that he doesn't notice the way Mew, the Legendary of children, keeps glancing over in his direction, her large azure eyes bubbling over with concern and something else, tapering tail flicking nervously. But as it is, he's too preoccupied with watching his torch-warped doppelganger that's reflected in the tile.
At last, though, after an eternity, it seems, Arceus is through speaking.
"I just..." Celebi hesitates, swallowing past the apparent lump in her throat. "I didn't know they'd all been kidnapped. If we had - if we had..."
Maybe you would've been able to save us, Azelf finishes for her, and he too swallows, if a bit thickly. They couldn't have know, he wants to say; it only happened a few hours ago, when Team Galactic had converged on the trio in a fate-sealing surprise attack. He doesn't speak, though; he doesn't trust himself not to break down when he speaks.
Arceus shakes her head, looking gently at the forest-time Legendary. "None of us could have known. Besides..." Her gaze shifts a little tentatively to Azelf, who looks up, feeling as though his head is made of lead and his neck of marshmallow, at feeling her emerald orbs on him. "At least Azelf made it out," she says, a small sigh embedding itself in her voice.
I know I failed, he wants to say. You don't need to remind me.
Because isn't that the job of a knight - to protect his princess, or in this case, princesses? Isn't that the way those knights in the fairy tales Uxie loves - loved to read behaved - they fought and protected and kept their princess(es) safe until the very end?
If that's the case, he sadly failed in that category.
He realizes that Arceus is waiting for a response for him, as is everyone else in the council. Briefly, he takes in the Legends around him, even challenging the limits of his grief by observing those sitting in the spots nearest Mesprit and Uxie's empty seats. Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres - in much the same formation as his own group had been, two females and one male - stand in their respective chairs; Articuno appraises him empathetically, while Moltres is crying quietly. Zapdos is looking away, glaring with his eyes narrowed at a fixed point on the wall, and Azelf thinks that's almost better that way, that the normally-taciturn thunder bird is avoiding his gaze. He's trying so so hard not to cry right now as it is.
Then he looks at Celebi and Jirachi; the former is still sobbing consistently into the wish maker's shoulder, and Azelf recalls that Celebi, Mesprit, and Uxie had all been close friends, close enough to merit "sleepovers" and "truth or dare" status, if Legendary life permitted such things. Needless to say, the intimacy between the trio is - was close-knit, and losing both at once has to be hard on Celebi. Jirachi is looking sadly down at Celebi's head as she nestles herself against him, but then the golden tassels adorning the wish maker's head sway as he brings his dark eyes to meet Azelf's. Within them is an unspoken message: well, Azelf - do what you must.
And Azelf wants to cry all over again.
The others all have varying degrees of grief, but they all look either sympathetic or tearful, shiny streaks already making tracks in their facial features. Azelf takes a deep, ragged breath and speaks. "Yeah," he mutters, and his voice cracks. Trying to maintain some semblance of his already-shattered dignity - an attempt to "gather up the pieces", if one went by the cheesy phrasings in some of Uxie's romance novels - he clears his throat and tries again. "Yeah. At any rate, I... I'm just... I'm just happy I'm alive."
The words sound forced, even to him, a tentative opinion strengthened when Giratina narrows one wine-colored eye in the illusion of raising an eyebrow. Even Arceus looks skeptical, but she lets out a heavy sigh. "Mesprit and Uxie will be missed," the goddess murmurs. "For now, we shall return to our posts on Earth."
It takes a moment before the remaining Legendaries seem to hear Arceus' decree, and they finally start sluggishly toward the exit. Azelf lingers behind for some reason - dammit, he doesn't want to head back to his cavern before he absolutely has to, because so many memories linger there.
"Azelf."
He blinks rapidly, trying to keep the tears from spilling forth; but again, that fails.
"Azelf..."
The repitition of his name rouses him, if only a little, and with the feeling of one who has surfaced from deep water, he turns his head. His amber eyes widen slightly with surprise when he sees who addressed him; he's not sure what he expected, but among those expectations, the pale, pink-white fur, the deep azure gaze, and the long, thin tail certainly hadn't appeared.
Mew?
Great, he thinks. Terrific. He knows what the Legendary of children could want with him, after brushing only briefly over the possibilities. He can almost hear her chirping in his mind: it'll be okay, you'll move on, you can't just live in the past forever, y'know, wanna go get some ice cream? I bet it'll cheer you right up!
"Look," he snaps, even as she opens her mouth, "just get away from me, okay? Nothing you say is going to make this situation any better. Do you know..." He chokes, but continues nonetheless. "Do you have the slightest Arceus-damn clue what it feels like, to lose your counterparts like that? Do you know what it was like, sitting there and having to watch them die right in front of you?!" His fists clench tightly. "I couldn't do anything. I just sat there and watched." His head jerked up, anger suddenly born anew at remembering. "We could've seen those bastards coming; we could've avoided this whole damn thing if only we had -"
"Azelf, calm down!" And Azelf blinks, a small grunt of confusion pulling itself out of him at the sharpness of her voice. Mew floats a bit closer, her tail extending out a ways in front of her, as if to try and touch him; she pulls it back when he shies away. Her eyes slip closed and her slim brows draw down in a frown as she shakes her head. "Azelf... I know you can't be feeling well right now. But you can't let grief cripple you... the way it has."
Azelf chuckles, an annoyed little sound that rends the air with its sarcasm. "Oh, I see. And you suddenly understand me? You suddenly know what I feel?"
"Well, I am a psychic-type, y'know." Some of the joy typical of Mew returns to her, and he angrily glares at her. A sad smile covers her countenance and she shrugs her shoulders. "Azelf, I hate to sound like that stuffy Dialga, but... you can't waste all your time sitting there crying."
Azelf is a bit put off by the thought of what Dialga would do if she heard Mew refer to her as stuffy, but as quickly as the mental image comes it is gone. He shakes his head. "I don't plan to."
"Then why are you leading everyone to think that you are?" Mew sighs. "Don't you think I miss Mesprit and Uxie, the way Celebi does? Don't you think we're all going to mourn their absences?"
You can't miss them that much, because you're not crying, Azelf wants to say, but then a shimmering droplet on her furry face catches his eye, and he looks on in shock as the tear slides down her face. It's so quiet in the room now that he actually hears the miniature splash as the tear hits the floor, and Mew gives a sheepish little grin - almost as if to say whoops, forgot about that - as she reaches up a paw and casually rubs at her eyes before lowering it.
"All you can do now as their counterpart is stay and be strong," Mew says, and swallows audibly. "All you need to do... is move on."
Orange eyes meet azure for a moment, and then Azelf tears his eyes away, suddenly feeling ashamed before her. All this time he's seen her as immature and childish, with no sense of pride whatsoever... But it occurs to him now that maybe she's not immature - she just hides the negative emotions better than others.
He imagines that he must resemble a Carvanha out of its natural habitat at this point, and immediately closes his mouth. "I just - that's easier said than done, you know," he mutters.
"I know, don't you realize that? But there doesn't have to be black-and-white to this, you know. You can't just go from grief to happiness in one night; it'll take time. And Azelf, I know you're not exactly patient."
Damn straight there.
"But that's exactly why you can wait." Azelf raises his head and sees her soft, warm smile directed toward him again. A strange feeling of warmth that has nothing to do with the sun leaking in through the windowpanes rubs tantalizing fingers up his back, and he shakes his head to clear it.
"Besides, no one wants to see you like this forever, y'know." Mew puts her paws on her hips and rolls her eyes up to heaven, causing Azelf to jerk slightly backward in midair in his surprise. "Azelf, do you know how much strength it puts into the others - Celebi and Jirachi and Mesprit and Uxie... and me - do you know how much it heartens us to see you raring to go and being all sarcastic like always?"
Azelf blinks. He wasn't exactly aware of that.
Then again, though, wouldn't it explain... well, a lot of things? Like why Uxie and Mesprit always seemed to brighten up around him. Like why meetings always seemed to take a turn for the better when he made a dry remark as to Raikou's competence or Giratina's job, or why he had so many friends among the council.
That little realization hit him hard. I'm... not alone.
Mew huffs out a long sigh at his apparently dumbstruck expression, and he wonders whether or not he should take a snapshot of his face. "You're such an idiot sometimes, Azelf," she chides, shaking her furry head. "I think what you fail to realize is that you won't break; you won't ever die among us. That's why a life's vanishing from the planet has so much significance, isn't it - because of the ripple effect it gives to other souls, because of how it impacts others?
"At any rate..." Her azure eyes are suddenly gentle as she makes eye contact with him, levitates closer. Azelf flinches when she brazenly reaches forward and places a paw on his cheek, but relaxes when tendrils of warmth suddenly seem to spread themselves over his face and into his body. He doesn't know whether or not Mew has applied some of her own power to soothe him, but either way, it serves its purpose.
"I don't want to ever see you sad, Azelf," Mew breathes, and takes a shuddering little breath before continuing. "Not now, not ever."
There's concern and something else in her blue eyes, but he can't quite catch what it is; just stands there dumbly as she removes her paw. Oddly, it feels a bit colder on his face now. Must've been her power, he decides.
"Don't think you'll be getting away with that 'idiot' comment," he suddenly says.
The somewhat off-color comment makes Mew blink, and for a fear-inducing moment he suddenly feels that he's said the wrong thing; but then she pulls back a little and laughs, a full, from-the-gut laugh. "That's what I meant," she says, still grinning. "Keep going. Just like that."
Azelf's brow crinkles in a frown, but her happiness is contagious, and he finds himself smiling as well. He hesitates, but then speaks. "Thank you... Mew."
Mew stares at him, then she brightens - hell, her entire face just lights up like a neon sign. "You're welcome!" she chirps, and floats toward the door, making complicated little loop-de-loop formations in the air along the way. Azelf's always wondered how she manages to do that without getting nauseated; he's going to have to ask sometime. Then she stops in her "tracks" and looks back, a teasing grin on her face. "Wanna go get some ice cream?"
"Of course not," Azelf groans, rolling his eyes as he comes to her side. "Arceus, I couldn't eat right now if I tried."
But then he's overcome by a sudden urge - an impulse, maybe, or curiosity that suddenly needs to be satisfied. He suddenly feels filled with hesitation - he's never really done this before, and isn't really sure why he wants to do it now, with Mew, of all Legends; he's always pictured this with Mesprit or Uxie. But he speaks anyway. "Hey, Mew?"
Thankfully, she reacts like he'd anticipated; turns fully to face him, face still breathless with laughter. "Yeah, Azelf?"
The last word somehow morphs into a little murmur of surprise as he lunges forward; manages to wrap his arms around her little body and sweep his tail against hers in one clumsy, fell swoop. He swears he feels a little drum beating against his chest, isn't really sure whether or not it's her heart or his, and isn't sure whether or not the heat rushing over him is coming from her face or his, but both his heartbeat and his blush intensify when she returns the embrace.
"I think ice cream sounds good," is all she says.
Azelf doesn't really know what's going on. He doesn't know how Mew somehow fell for him, doesn't know why Team Galactic managed to catch them that day, doesn't know what horrible hand of Fate took the lives of Uxie and Mesprit.
But he does know one thing.
He won't break; he won't die.
It's the least he can do for Mesprit and Uxie, after all.
And through Mew, I basically rant about the workings of death and grief and everything that comes with it.
Ever notice that the guy Legends I write are mostly oblivious morons? -sweatdrop- I really need to change that...