Chapter 4, peoples! Be happy, because I defied my mother's wrath to get this out today. (I'm kinda supposed to be working on my chemistry project right now... shhh...) Plus I did awesome at the swimmeet today, so I felt inspired. Don't ask why.
So, you know how I said a lot of Shakespeare was gonna be used in this chapter? Yeah. That's why the GiraLatios part was so fun to write, because the Taming of the Shrew so parallels their relationship. And I've had the PalkiaDialga part in mind for a while now, so that came fairly easily as well.
Enjoy!
Disclaimer- I do not own Pokemon or any RL things that might pop up in here. Like Shakespeare or any of his brilliant works.
"Giratina?"
No response.
Latios sighed, bringing up one claw to his face and rolling his eyes. "Giratina."
No response, although she did let out a small puff of breath that sounded suspiciously like "hmph".
"Giratina?" Latios tried for perhaps the thousandth time that night. Or maybe it was just the twentieth; he'd already lost count.
"You're making it extremely difficult for me to ignore you," the basilisk grumbled without turning around, and her act of responding startled Latios to the point of actually grunting and floating a ways backward in the illusion of stepping back.
Then he frowned, crimson eyes narrowing, as her words sank in. I guess I don't have to ask why she's doing this, he mused, though a bit of irritation at her still remained, prickling hotly at him. She probably still felt some remnants of annoyance from earlier, when he had kept pressing her about her life here.
When he considered it, though, it was no wonder Giratina always acted perpetually put out and impatient all the time. If every day promised as much monotony and loneliness as the one day Latios had spent with Giratina, then the azure dragon could glean some semblance of understanding of her behavior.
He sighed, taking the moment that Giratina's attention wasn't focused on him to momentarily lose himself in nostalgia. If things without his sister were this bad already, then he didn't even want to consider the days ahead, without Latias near him and brightening up his day just by showing her face.
Because, he reflected dryly, he could really use Latias' never-failing optimism right now.
Latios found his gaze drawn to the mist around him. Though it still unnerved him – almost to the extent of the thought of Rayquaza staying with Latias, although the latter still remained as the trigger of Latios' temper – Latios had all but gotten used to the constant presence of the spiritually-condensed air around him in the past day.
Struck by a sudden thought, he glanced over his shoulder, toward the nearby entrance to the cavern. That was another thing that unnerved him, that the worlds of the living and the dead were kept apart by a barrier as thin as a cavern's mouth. The lack of light shining through to pierce the thick fog informed him that it was getting close to nighttime.
A sudden noise from in front of him caused Latios to look back, eyes widening just a bit at the sight of Giratina's broad shoulders heaving in another sigh. Without warning, she whipped around to face him, glowering in a way that very much fulfilled the "if looks could kill" saying. Since her body was currently contained in her origin form, the force created by her whirling around was created in the air whooshing around him. Latios couldn't help it; he levitated back a ways at the obvious animosity blazing in her wine-colored eyes.
And then he frowned to himself. He was Latios. He had taken constant attempts to steal the Soul Dew; children insisting on hugging him when he showed himself on the streets of Alto Mare; had kept up his end of a debate between him and Arceus himself; and had endured Latias' antics for Arceus only knew how long – and yet the eon dragon was quailing from a single glare on Giratina's part?
Latios was so caught-up in his self-reproach that he almost missed Giratina's snarl, but he caught it just as she began to speak. Her tone carried impatience and just a hint of dry sarcasm. "If you're going to follow me everywhere I go, could you at least make yourself useful?"
He blinked. "And how do you suggest I do that?" he queried, narrowing one eye in the act of "raising one eyebrow". She may have wormed her way past his defenses, but that didn't mean he had to like it. "In case you haven't noticed, I am a spirit. I am no longer of the world outside. How am I supposed to 'make myself useful', as you so bluntly put it?"
"How the hell should I know?" Giratina snapped back, and then a taken-aback look crossed her features, as though she had just instinctively snarled that at him. Latios felt his lips quirk in the beginnings of a smirk.
"Well, I can't exactly stop following you, can I?" When she narrowed her eyes in questioning bemusement, he continued. "You can't let the newest, most valuable arrival to the underworld wander around alone and possibly get himself into danger, can you?"
"You're just making excuses to follow me," Giratina grumbled.
Latios opened his mouth, shaping it into an "o" in the beginnings of a vehement "of course not". Then a thought struck him and he closed his jaws, his neck curving ever so slightly as he tilted his head to the side.
"Perhaps I am," he replied at last, causing her eyes to very nearly extend past the top of the holes her mask created. He grinned at the comically-surprised look on her face.
"Che," she grunted, turning her regal form away from him and beginning to move through the corridors again. "Well, come on, if you're going to."
"All right," he answered calmly, following after her at a steady hover.
They moved through the freezing cavern for a while, silence reigning more lightly than the fog between the two Legendaries – or former Legend, in the male's case. Latios found himself glancing around to get a better idea of his surroundings and discovered, to his mild shock, that there was something to see beyond the constant cover of fog. He caught sight of a few crystals glowing in the half-light along the walls, crystals that glowed many varying hues of sapphire, emerald, and golden-topaz; gems that caught his gaze so that he nearly crashed into Giratina's back.
"What is going on with you?" she demanded when he almost hit her for the third time.
"Didn't you notice these?" Latios asked, nodding at the crystals adorning the corner where two walls adjoined. Giratina rotated fully around so she could follow his gaze. Latios half-expected her to snort and dismiss it as just a cave-jewel before moving right along, but strangely, she remained rooted to the spot. She floated a bit closer, squinting in an attempt to get a better look. Latios followed suit, a small grin tugging at the corners of his lips as he realized what the fragmented gems reminded him of.
Latias' eyes.
Indeed, the precious objects he had in mind held the same pale golden color, and the crystals even curved in an almond-like manner to fit snugly against the wall. Latios tore himself briefly out of nostalgia so he could see Giratina's reaction. To her credit, she didn't look too shocked or indignant that he had caught something she hadn't noticed even after millennia of living here; an expression of contemplation simply covered her countenance, her brow furrowed in thought instead of its typical form of irritation or impatience.
"Hmm," she grunted, pulling back after a few moments. Latios thought he caught something flitting over her face – something soft that he couldn't put a name to – but just as quickly as it had appeared, the expression was gone, to be replaced by her typical mask of pessimism. Latios decided it must have been a trick of the light – the golden glare that the jewels had cast in the air. "They're pretty, I suppose."
"They're beautiful," he couldn't help correcting her.
Her gaze darted over to meet his, that same soft emotion shadowing her eyes, if only just as briefly as before. Then she let out a "che" and looked away again.
"Whatever," she growled. "I can't believe I didn't notice those before."
Maybe you just didn't take the time to look, Latios thought, but he said nothing.
He could hear the basilisk move away – rather, felt her move, due to the stir her body's movement created in the air. However, Latios kept his eyes on the dimly-glowing crystal. As he watched, it seemed to brighten, then dull again, almost as though there was a pulse dwelling within. Staring at the golden gem, Latios, struck by a sudden impulse, moved closer.
"Where are you –" Giratina's demand petered off into silence when her gaze lighted on him, and she watched as he reached forward with one hand.
Abruptly he turned to face her. "Can you help me with this?" he asked.
Giratina blinked. "And what, pray tell, would you require my help with?"
"Oh, stop talking like that," Latios huffed, rolling his eyes. "Can you help me… um…" He gestured helplessly toward the pile of topaz crystals.
Giratina could only stare cluelessly at him for a few moments; then his intentions hit her. "You've got to be kidding," she snorted, shaking her head. "You can't possibly… you're dead, it's not like…"
But again, her voice trailed away when she saw the firm way he was staring at her.
He was set on this, it was clear.
And for some strange reason, that weird feeling of… of… of caring that had flowed through her when she had seen the crystals returned with a vengeance.
"Oh, all right. All right!" she growled, as much to stave off the feeling as to fulfill his demands. "Just give me a sec; I don't have that much psychic power to begin with."
"Let me guess: all of my powers went away when I died, right?" Latios asked, a sort of resigned defeat clear in his voice.
Giratina rolled her eyes. "How'd ya guess?" she muttered. The words turned into a grunt of concentration as the crystal's very edges began to glow a faint dark red, a color that contrasted sharply with the original topaz-gold. "But you'd be right, I suppose. You can really only float around and hold objects still for a small period of time – though I guess the former comes with becoming a spirit, so it really doesn't count." She narrowed her eyes and furrowed her brow in concentration, staring unwaveringly at the crystal in the process of getting it to move. So far, she had it a little less than halfway dislodged from its fellows on this section of the wall; a little more and Latios could get it the rest of the way.
"Really?" Latios hesitated. "If that's the case, then I can get it the rest of the way out of there –"
"Stay back!" Giratina snapped in his general direction, for he had already started moving toward her. "I can get it, all right? I only have a little ways anyway."
"All right, all right. It's just that –"
"Aww." The ruler of the underworld allowed a smirk to curl her lips. "Were you worried about me?"
"No, I was not," Latios retorted.
Giratina felt her smirk widen. He was obviously lying; the common courtesy within him apparently just wouldn't allow her to help him.
Actually, no; help wasn't the right word. Get him to shut up about the whole thing was more accurate.
With that little satisfactory knowledge in her head, a final grunt of exertion escaped Giratina as her powers pulled the crystal to its designated path. "I'll let you take it from here," she muttered, fighting the urge to pant breathlessly as she drew back.
Latios gave a single nod, his muscles relaxed as he approached the crystal. However, his brows knotted in concentration, little groans of exertion escaping him; and the jewel still moved only a bit. Giratina hesitated, strangely struck with the urge to assist him, but that little impulse was snuffed out when he lifted his prize up a few inches off the ground.
"That was harder than I thought it'd be," he murmured, eyes widened slightly in surprise.
Giratina couldn't resist rolling her eyes. "Now you know what it's like for us non-psychic-types."
"I didn't actually think you had any psychic power," Latios commented, choosing to ignore her disparaging comment. However, he still felt a small twinge of regret at remembering how easily he could have picked up the crystal when he was alive; he would miss the abilities he'd taken for granted back then.
That feeling softened into a gentle wave of sadness and nostalgia when he fully took in the crystal. The breath caught in Latios' throat at seeing how similar to Latias' eyes the topaz really was.
Then he heard Giratina chuckle beside him and he turned, eyes narrowed. "What?"
"'The jewel that we find, we stoop and take 't because we see it; but what we do not see… we tread upon and never think of it.'" Her words made Latios blink, and he almost dropped the crystal onto the fog-encased ground in surprise. However, he chose to place it on a nearby ledge so he could find it again instead.
"Measure for Measure," he remarked, still a little taken aback.
"Yes," Giratina confirmed, a little smugly, Latios thought. She flexed her wings and angled her head condescendingly at him. "What, you didn't think I knew Shakespeare?"
"Honestly… no, I didn't," Latios confessed.
The basilisk sighed, shaking her head with her eyes closed in annoyance. "Just because I act like an illiterate, grumpy bitch all the time doesn't necessarily mean that I don't wear a mask."
Latios narrowed his eyes, lowering his head ever so slightly so that he was looking at her through his lashes. Those scornful wine-colored eyes were still fixed on him, and although he knew the obvious truth of her words, her tone still rankled him.
An idea struck him.
"'And worse I may be yet: the worst is not, so long as we can say, This is the worst,'" he quoted, his lips forming a smile at Giratina's raised eyebrow.
"King Lear," she said, almost the instant Latios had finished speaking, and sighed. "Really, now, can't you do any better?"
Latios growled under his breath. "Well, I thought it fit, considering the situation… but now that you mention it, I think we can make this into a little competition," he muttered.
Raising his voice, he said, "The Taming of the Shrew. I would think that you of all Pokemon would know that one."
"Oh, ha, ha. Your wit is unappreciated." Giratina rolled her eyes. "All right, then…"
"Really, now, can't you do any better?" Latios interrupted mockingly, and at her answering glower, he spoke, laughter veiling his words. "Come, come, you wasp, i'faith you are too angry."
The basilisk growled in response, a sound that seemed to come from deep within her. "If I be waspish, best beware my sting."
"My remedy is then to pluck it out."
"Ay, if the fool could find where it lies," Giratina answered calmly, grinning smugly. She's enjoying this, she knows she is, Latios thought, a smirk wreathing across his own countenance.
"Who knows not where a wasp does wear his sting? In his tail."
"In his tongue."
"Whose tongue?"
"Yours, if you talk of tales, and so farewell."
"What, with my tongue in your tail?" Latios was actually giggling at this point, the laughter that occasionally slipped out from his lips inducing an irritated frown from Giratina.
"What the hell is so funny?" she demanded.
"Nothing," he laughed. "I just… I haven't had this much fun since…"
His voice trailed off and his smile faded at the thought of yesterday – dear Arceus, had he really only arrived here yesterday? If so, then truly, time was awesome. He was going to have to ask Dialga or Celebi about that some…
…time…
Oh… right.
"Oh, for Arceus' sake," Giratina grumbled. "You're not gonna start crying again, are you?"
"Of course not," Latios protested, lifting his head. He felt a pang of shame when he realized that he had been hanging his head in preparation to start crying. Well, he told himself firmly, that was going to have to stop. Now.
"Good," Giratina huffed. "I hate when you cry. It pisses me off."
"And just what is that supposed to mean?" Latios smirked. "I think you're worried about me."
"Then you think wrong," the basilisk retorted, and while the anger and firmness in her tone sounded true enough, her voice trembled just a bit.
The azure dragon let out a sound between a sigh and a chuckle. "'The lady doth protest too much, methinks.'"
"That's Hamlet, you illiterate dead guy!" Giratina instantly snarled.
Looking at her intimidating glower, her flared, ragged dark wings, and the way her armor was set off by the still-glowing topaz crystal in the corner, Latios, suddenly struck with amusement, started laughing.
"What is so…? Hey, stop laughing!" she ordered, voice high-pitched with indignation and bemusement. But strangely, Latios couldn't follow her command: it was a deep, from-the-gut laugh that seemed to continue without end.
And somehow, he thought he had discovered more about Giratina from their little impromptu Shakespeare-recitation contest than if he had offered to actually sit down to a heart-to-heart with her.
"Are we there yet?"
"No."
Palkia grumbled under his breath, crossing his arms in midair only to uncross them again due to the unbalance that the gesture created in his flight pattern. He would have allowed his gaze to wander over to Dialga, who was leading the way; but they were currently soaring through a copse of trees and he didn't want to risk the humiliating, painful action of ramming into a tree at well over seventy miles an hour.
Wonder what exactly it is she wants to show me, the lavender dragon of space mused. His powerful wings gave a single flap, pushing toward the ground in a way that caused the air around them to stir violently, as he barely cleared a sapling in time.
Whatever Dialga had woken him up so early for, clearly, it must be important. His time counterpart never flew so close to the ground – she preferred her metallic form to be concealed among the clouds; didn't even mind that the water-composed clouds soaked into her body.
It'd better be important. Palkia narrowed his eyes at the thought, eyes that were still gummed a bit with sleepiness. He'd gotten so used to rising from slumber at an actual reasonable hour over the past millennia that Dialga's action of rousing him at the ass-crack of dawn severely upset his body's clock.
"Dialga?" he quipped, speaking to break the silence.
An irritated sigh was his response. "No, we are not there yet, and if you ask me one more time I swear to Arceus I'm leaving you right here."
"I wasn't going to ask that!" Palkia protested, though he had to admit that the thought had crossed his mind. He smirked at the thought, but forced the expression to leave his face at once. After a complicated maneuver around a series of close-together trees, he asked his true question. "Where exactly are we going?"
"You'll see," Dialga answered smoothly.
"Oh, come on," Palkia snorted. "We've been flying for ages. Can I at least have some idea as to where you're taking me?"
"First of all, it's only been about twenty minutes. It might just seem that way because according to you any sane Pokemon is asleep right now."
"Well, it's true," he muttered, feeling a bit childish as he did so.
Ignoring him, Dialga continued. "And second of all, we're almost there. I've been to this area enough times to know how to get there, thank you very much."
Palkia blinked; it occurred to him that he had next to no idea where he was, but their journey to the mystery destination had begun after Dialga had unceremoniously shoved him awake, and he had taken the night's respite near Blackthorn City in Johto, so wherever they were going, it had to be close to that part of the region.
He opened his mouth in preparation for a response, but at that moment the trees cleared out, and the two lighted down on the ground. Palkia's annoyance at Dialga's refusal to reveal anything died off instantly when his eyes landed on the area, and he made an unusually-clumsy landing, mouth opened stupidly in a murmur of wonder.
The dawn sky caught his eye first. Normally, Palkia awoke so late in the morning that by that time, dawn had slipped away to be replaced by the pale blue of the early afternoon sky; but, needless to say, that wasn't the case here. Streaks of cloud shot through the reddish-gold pallor cast by the rising sun, which was even now peeking halfway up over the horizon – a horizon that was lit in a bright golden hue, trailing like a thin string along the line that separated the sky and land.
Then a near-blinding reflection of light caught his eye, and Palkia brought his gaze down to the reflector of the sun, squinting his eyes as he did so. The waters of the lake calmly rippled, causing the doppelganger of the sky above it to tremble slightly.
"Pretty, isn't it?" he heard Dialga ask.
An unexpected emotion rose up within Palkia's chest, and he got the feeling much like one who is emerging from deep water as he faced his counterpart. He frowned when he didn't see her form, but then the idea struck him to glance down. The biped chuckled to himself then and rolled his eyes, shaking his head at Dialga's cautiousness: despite Arceus' rules, she had reverted briefly to her human form.
Palkia closed his eyes and concentrated briefly; when he opened his eyes again, he found himself closer to eye level with Dialga. Though her human form still stood about five inches or so taller than his, it certainly was now much easier to hold a conversation.
"What's with the human form?" he queried.
Dialga shrugged. "This is kind of a public place, you know," she sighed, bringing up one fingerless glove-clad hand to brush her side-swept, silvery bangs out of her carmine eyes. "People usually come here to hunt the Gyarados." As she spoke, Palkia followed her gaze and sure enough, he spotted a thin tail snaking into the farther waters of the lake.
"Wait – this is the Lake of Rage?" Palkia's sudden question seemed to take Dialga aback. She blinked at him, then folded her arms.
"Yeah," she said, and a slender eyebrow rose mockingly slowly over her uncovered eye. "Honestly, Palkia, why did you think it only took twenty minutes or so to get here from Blackthorn?"
"I'm bad with directions, okay?" Palkia instinctively defended. He shoved his hands into his pockets, noting with some dismay the paleness of his skin as he did so – I look like a nerd, he thought – and turned his lavender-haired head away.
He heard Dialga emit a chuckle from beside him, but he didn't look up, except when she spoke again. "I always use my human form when I come here," she explained, arms still folded. She gave him a little smirk. "I think it helps with the whole 'mysterious Legendary' thing. And who gives a damn if I'm disobeying Arceus? It's not like he has a rule-breaking radar built into his head or anything."
The mental image of the qilin Pokemon strutting about with the antenna of the "radar" protruding from his skull entered Palkia's mind, and he found himself bursting into laughter at the thought. "Yeah," the ruler of space chuckled, shaking his head. "Although he really does tend to come along and ruin fun at the worst times…"
"Do I even want to know what story's behind that little comment?" Dialga asked, and although her words were dry, laughter was audible in her voice.
"In my defense, the dimension was made of food. Food! And it was lunchtime, too."
"Excuses, excuses," Dialga sighed, waving one hand as though to dismiss his reasons. "Arceus does his job, and he does it well at that. I know for a fact that I could never run this forsaken universe as well as he does."
Was it just Palkia's imagination, or did a small burst of… something run through him at the reverent tone in Dialga's voice?
"Anyway," she said, looking out at the sunlit sky, "some days I just come out here to think. It's really quiet in the morning; before all those hunters arrive and break the silence, at least."
"It's beautiful," Palkia murmured, and then abruptly felt like shoving his own hand over his mouth. Had he really just said something like that – something so effeminate?
"I figured you'd like it." When Palkia let out a bemused grunt, Dialga continued, holding his crimson eyes with her own amber-scarlet gaze. "Remember that time Arceus had us all meet out here, so we could catch up on what the others had been doing?"
"And Raikou fell in, and Lugia had to go swim out and save him?" Palkia snickered as the memory of decades before replayed in his mind. "How could I forget?"
Dialga rolled her eyes. "That does stand out as the main event of that morning, but anyway." As she resumed, her words became gradually more and more subdued, until Palkia had to strain to hear her. "I… I couldn't help but notice that… you were looking at the sky, and you got this look on your face. Like… like this made you see that the world you helped shape is much more complex than you first assumed."
Her explanation startled him more than he could ever say. Suddenly feeling abashed, he stared down at the grassy plain beneath his feet, just letting the wind buffet his spiky lavender hair so it blew across his eyes.
"That's actually why I became so interested in this place," Dialga muttered, sounding a little embarrassed now. Palkia glanced up and saw her looking down at the ground in an imitation of his previous position, kicking out at the ground lightly with one foot. He could actually see a little tinge of red staining her pale cheeks, which shocked him even more.
Because Dialga never… she would never allow herself to blush.
Let alone in front of him.
But then again, everything he thought he'd known about his counterpart was starting to change lately.
Not to mention the questions this raised in his mind, like a heavy object striking the sand at the bottom of the ocean, with much the same impact. Like, had she loved him even then – what felt like so long ago?
As he watched Dialga, his eyes following her hand as it brushed her hair away from her eyes yet again, Palkia suddenly became aware of a strange feeling tracing warm fingers up his spine. A feeling that seemed to stem from watching her.
He quickly glanced away as her eyes darted over in an attempt to meet his gaze. After a few moments, he allowed himself to look back, only to be greeted with the sight of her true, draconic quadruped form.
"Let's go," she called down to him, as he craned his neck in an attempt to look back at her. "The hunters are going to be out here soon."
"R-right," Palkia murmured. An odd sense of vertigo briefly overtook him as he transformed into his own true form, but it was gone when he became used to the abrupt increase in height.
They took flight, traveling on in silence. Palkia realized that the meeting at the Hall of Legends was going to be held tomorrow, and for some reason, that thought made him wince.
He wasn't looking forward to tomorrow, because then he would have to present the image of loving Dialga to the other Legends. And then he would truly have to confront his lie.
Palkia is such a 'tard when it comes to the thing with Dialga. I adore him, yes I do. :3
Next chapter should be the meeting, if I get off my ass long enough to write it -sweatdrop-