The refugees flooded into Rota in dirty, starving droves. Thousand, then tens of thousands, until the streets of Rota swelled and overflowed with the men, women, and children fleeing the advance of the God-King as he marched south. Tani's people, already vagrants and outsiders, quickly found themselves forced out by Queen Yoshima and her stone-faced knights in favor of the nobles and wealthy merchants who had fled the upheaval in their kingdoms.
Tani cared little for it. She was one of the last to leave Rota's towering walls, dragging her feet as the knights of Rota prodded at her with spears and kicks. It was irritating, so she left with the rest of her people. Kings and gods meant nothing to them. They would wander the mountains, or the plains, or the coast and Tani would be at their rear.
"They say the God-King stands ten feet tall!" One of her clansmen, a storyteller whose name she didn't care to remember, whispered to his brothers and friends. He captivated them, his words given weight by the light cast by the flickering campfire and smoky air. "He leads an army of beasts and wise men. He's never lost a battle!"
Another man scoffed. "Lies. No man is invincible. Queen Yoshima has stood against Cerulean for decades. This 'God-King' will fail just like the others."
The first shook his head. Tani just wished they would quiet so she could sleep. They'd had too much ale and what wine they could hide from the guards. They were bothered that they couldn't hide behind the knights and Guardians.
They would be far from this place in a month, returning to their ways. It had only been a few months since they'd settled in Rota as simple merchants and peddlers - Rota was never their home. Tani thought they were fools. Why bother? Even when they settled, they were never accepted. They were only strangers in stranger lands.
If Rota fell, she would not mourn.
"He conquered everything!" The first man insisted. "All the way from snowy Sinnoh to Gora! He's days away...he's conquered the whole world in a year!"
Other men snorted and laughed. Could they not go to bed? Their drunken boasts and fears were unseemly. "Not Rota. Not Kanto or Johto."
The storyteller grumbled. "Oh, he'll get them…" he leered at the others. "You weren't there when his herald arrived! You didn't see him, hear the things he's done. He's flattened mountains with a breath, forced armies into submission with a wave of his arm. Rota will fall."
The other men tossed clumps of dirt, bones, and ash at the storyteller. They assailed him with mud and slurs.
Tani only looked up at the starlit sky, her eyes sharp and alert despite the late hour and long trek through Rota's mountainous lands. She liked to walk. It was no bother. Despite that, she longed to rest.
If only these drunks would go to bed, she could as well…
Perhaps she should reprimand them, but what was the point? They scarcely knew her, and would just laugh at the thin woman with no status, no family, and no husband. She was a straggler, an outsider amongst outsiders, and her word held no weight.
So why bother?
XX
A new sun rose, Lord Ho-Oh smiling down on them, two days later. She ignored the heat and light and just walked in the rear of their caravan. More and more refugees passed them on the roads, all from the countless kingdoms that filled the vast lands between Rota and far-flung Sinnoh in an unbroken chain. They spoke of armies kneeling with a word, endless deserts remade into fertile soil, and the unearthly power of the God-King and his bejeweled staff. He was said to not truly need his own army, and simply cast out those who would rebel against him. Magical beasts flocked to him and swore themselves to his service in adulation. Kingdoms surrendered at his appearance.
She was rather tired of it all.
Her people refused to speak of anything else but this God-King of Sinnoh. It grated, even though she walked alone. Their whispers and rushed exchanges constantly assaulted her. What did these great men matter to her lonely people? They were born nothing and they would remain nothing. No kingdom, no land, no power.
The turning of kingdoms was a natural thing, and eventually this God-King would fall as well. All the while they would drift, making no mark and sowing no seeds. Drifters one and all.
By twilight, they had ventured some distance from Rota. Their warriors fought off several wild beasts, fearful and half-starved, that threatened them. Men were not the only thing to flee the God-King's advance.
They rested upon the hills, observing the heaping pile of stone the Rota worshipped as the Tree of Beginning in the distance, and she tried to sleep. Her people whispered again among their campfires, and she steadfastly closed her eyes. Sleep would come eventually.
Tani did not have the means to keep a tent, only a frayed old bedroll she had taken from beneath the cooled corpse of an old woman in her clan. The dead would not miss it.
As a result, as twilight's orange and violet scattered across the horizon, she felt the first faint drops of rain that fell upon her bare skin. It was irritating, but she ignored it. Tani rolled over and tossed her hole-ridden blanket over her.
The rain fell harder. In seconds it grew from a few scattered drops to sheets upon sheets of water falling in an unending wave. It drowned the land, hills scoured of dirt in moments as the great floods began, and thunder boomed like thousands of the drums she heard in Rota. Despite her closed eyes, lightning flashed and struck madly, and she could see the light as if it were day.
A cry like thunder ripped the earth, shaking her bones, and her people screamed and cried and fell in the mud. They whispered prayers and begged for mercy. More thunder, and more rain. Her thinning clothes clung tightly to her skinny frame and she shivered with the cold.
Tani cracked an eye open. The sky and its gentle twilight were gone, replaced with endless black clouds that crawled across the sky. They blocked out every bit of sunlight, and all that lit the skies were hundreds of lightning bolts that struck and danced at random, shattering trees and smashing mountains and spitting thunder. Only the Tree of Beginning was untouched, and the clouds broke around it.
Her bones shook, her heart pounded in her chest, and her breath was stolen away.
A creature, composed of bright lightning and black wings that stretched into the endless stormclouds, flew across the skies to the west. Its golden beak opened, and thunder rolled. Stone cracked. Tani's ears threatened to bleed. Her people cried out to the Thunderbird, fear and awe combined in their pitiful words, and prostrated themselves into the mud.
Some were swept away by the floods. One man was struck by an errant bolt of lightning and collapsed to the ground, smoking and dead. Their elders clutched their chests and fell lifeless as thunder shook them. Children cried and men and women clutched each other, sobbing as the Thunderbird, Zapdos, flew by miles away.
Tani ignored them. She stripped her soaked clothes and bedroll away and climbed to higher ground. Her vision was ruined by the unending torrents of rain and blinding lightning that left spots in her eyes, but she climbed to a higher point that would not be flooded. When she was secure, she rolled onto her side and closed her eyes despite the rain and thunder.
It was relaxing, in a way, and Zapdos would soon pass them by. What use were prayers? The lightning didn't listen. The thunder wasn't an answer.
She would sleep and let it move on. In the morning they could bury their dead and continue their trek. There was no use being afraid. They would die, or they would live. Either way, the sun would rise and the seasons would pass.
Thunder boomed. Lightning struck a tree near her and it exploded. A few splinters of bark struck her, but did not pierce her skin. Tani rolled the other way. The lightning grew brighter, the thunderous cries of Zapdos only became louder. It was coming closer.
More cries. Fear, then wailing. Perhaps another elder had died. They'd run out of them soon at this rate.
Light flashed brightly overhead.
Tani covered her eyes with her arm. The rain only fell harder, and the wind screamed. Rocks and debris pelted her. Her people screamed as their tents and livelihood were stripped away in the gale and floods.
They would recover. They were already poor. What did it matter if they had a little less?
Endless streams of lightning fell like rain around her. Her ears bled and deafened and her bones shook and something deep inside her was afraid and Zapdos flew overhead with golden eyes and wings of stormcloud and thunder and lightning. The soil beneath her back gave away, fragmenting and washed away by the floods that would drown this land.
She laid on the rock beneath, the floods parting around her due to her high position, and kept her eyes closed. Lightning struck one last time near her, blinding her and bursting her ears, and she kept her eyes closed. The pain was horrible, stealing her breath and tears away, but she did not look.
Tani did not care to see what Zapdos had done to her, her people, or the world.
No matter the pain, she would rest.
Like everything else, this would pass.
XX
She awoke the next day, or perhaps the day after that. Or perhaps it was night. It was impossible to tell Her body ached from the beating rain, her eyes were scarred and blinded by lightning, and her ears deafened by thunder. Tani had nothing but her mind and her touch.
It would have to do.
Tani's hard hands wandered. Mud and stone, and the scent of past rain in the air. Pools of water had formed everywhere, the dirt too saturated to hold more. The floods were harsh and unrelenting.
She touched something soft and clammy. After a moment her fingers brushed fingers, and she pulled away. A corpse. Tani didn't care to find out who it belonged to.
Her fingers explored more. Stone, mud, fabric, another corpse. Finally, she found something new. It was cool and wet like fog, yet as her hand neared it she could feel flashes of heat every few moments.
At last, she reached past the soft fog and a scream loosed from her lips. She could not hear it, but her throat was raw before she calmed herself. Lightning poured into her from the thing, flooding her with energy and power like the rains had flooded this land, and the fog clung to her arm.
She tried to fling it off, but it refused. Lightning poured into her continuously, sparks flying past her sightless eyes and a hum echoing in her deaf ears. Tani could only feel and she felt it all. Pain. Heat. Power.
For an eternity she convulsed. Her head smashed against a rock and began to bleed. Her fingers scrambled for purchase and only found slippery mud and bloated flesh that gave way beneath her grip. Tani screamed soundless screams. She tried to let the fog go, but her fingers did not listen to her. They clenched the thing even as it killed her, and her entire body spasmed and convulsed.
At the peak of the torture, when she begged for death, a great clarity fell upon her. A sharpness of the senses and a peculiar focus. The pain was harsher and unrelenting, accentuated by her clear mind, yet it did not burden her. Tani's thoughts raced with new speed. The world slowed and she quickened.
And then it was over.
Tani rose from the dead, or so it felt. The pain lingered. Her muscles cramped and shuddered. She couldn't move the hand that the fog and its terrible core had clung to. That whole arm was useless, still tingling and trembling.
Sounds graced her deaf ears. Beasts sang in the distance. The wind whistled merrily and grass rustled in the far distance. Tani froze, bewildered, and listened. Despite her injuries, she could hear. She could hear it all. The hum and crackle of the fog clinging to her hand, the rustle of every leaf and blade of grass, the heartbeat in the Tree of Beginning, the stamp stamp stamp of the men preparing Rota's walls, and the wailing of the refugees.
She dared to hope.
She opened her scarred eyes, mutilated by witnessing Zapdos. Though a darkness was cast upon the world, filled with bright spots, Tani could see. Everything was visible to her. Individual blades of grass were picked easily and counted with her quickened thoughts, the Tree's green tinted stone stood in breathtaking detail, and the remnants of her people etched into her mind.
Dozens lay dead amongst their caravan. Many were buried beneath the mudslides. She could see the odd limb or head sticking from beneath the black mud at unnatural angles. Others lay in deep, stagnant pools of water nestled between the hills. Their corpses were bloated and pale. Some had been gnawed upon by beasts, others torn apart by Zapdos' short-lived passing.
Tani frowned as her lightning-quick thoughts recognized that there were too few corpses. They numbered hundreds. Where were the rest? The strong and hearty men should have made it through the storm. Her eyes quickly picked out a massive trail of tracks that would take the survivors to Rota. There were indentions in the mud that marked where they had pulled themselves and each other from the mud.
None had come for her. She was an afterthought and passing thought, just as she had always been.
She was disappointed, but could not focus on the sudden pit in her. Tani looked instead to her white hand, and stared at this strange thing that had both taken and returned her life.
Tani could only call it a feather, though that failed to capture the nature of the thing. It was primarily black, rippling stormcloud that roiled and twisted at random, moving with the breeze that caressed her. At its core was a vane of writhing, dancing gold lightning that arced across her flesh, stabbing and piercing and shocking. It burned, but left no marks or scars.
She did not dare touch it. The lightning filled her as Tani stared into it, an overwhelming tide, and she sank to her knees in the mud and screamed. Yet Tani continued to stare into the lightning and stormcloud, deeper and deeper until the power embraced her and its truths unveiled itself to her quickened mind…
Her every thought filled with Lightning. It burned her from the inside out, devoured her whole, and she fell convulsing into the mud, her limbs twitching and clenching until her exhausted muscles gave out. All the while she could not help but embrace the Lightning, her mind coming to comprehend it and seeing a burgeoning connection to the Thunderbird.
A Feather of Zapdos - no, of Lightning. It burned and hummed and bolted in her hand, consuming her mind, body, and soul, and she stared deeper into it. The connection was there, the uncaring Thunderbird that had left this piece of itself here as a whim on the other side, and Tani rolled in the mud. Mad laughter poured from her as knowledge and truths and comprehension touched her all at once, things that she could never truly know.
The Feather was a piece of Lightning itself. It thrummed with untold power, power she couldn't imagine. It needed to be used.
She was a dead woman. The Feather had returned her senses and body to Tani, but it would devour her whole. It was only a matter of time…
Lightning had left her with a choice to embody Lightning and strike with a golden flash or to allow it to wholly consume Tani and burn her away.
Lightning did not care which she chose.
The madness set in.
Tani's tears became rain.
Tani's breath became wind.
Tani's cries became thunder.
She rose from the mud, straightened, and looked far to the north as a gale whipped around her. Past the Tree and its Guardians, past the farthest reaches of Rota, and to the God-King marching south. He was near, and she could feel him.
Rota and the petty lords to the south feared this God-King. Her people scurried away from him like hunted beasts.
Her people had been forced from Rota. Her people had abandoned her to her fate. They had left her bones to be picked clean and forgotten.
She knew they would not remember her.
It would be justice to leave them to their fate, to let the walls they hid behind topple at the God-King's word. She did not care what happened to them. They could live, or they could die. Tani wouldn't be bothered with either.
Tani looked to the Feather that bound her to Lightning. It stung and ate at her even now, and her body shuddered with its power. It begged to be unleashed. Lightning struck hard and fast and vanished away in a brilliant flash, leaving behind only thunder for the world to remember it by.
If she had died on this hill, nobody would remember her. She would've just been another corpse to be eaten and buried. Tani would die a woman of no status, no family, and no husband. There was nothing to remember her by, and the world would not mourn her passing.
Lightning had ended her old life and granted her this new, brief, glorious existence.
Justice would be to let nature take its course. Justice would be to let her people fall.
But when had she ever cared for justice?
XX
Hours passed. She ran, carried by wind and rain and the endless energy conferred upon her crumbling body by Lightning's Feather. No matter how fast or hard she dashed through the hills her limbs never tired or slowed - if anything, they begged for more. Tani's thin legs and sunken frame would have given out in the first few minutes a day ago, but now she could run forever.
There was a freedom in it, a lightness that she could revel in even as she sprinted past streams upon streams of exhausted men and women fleeing just hours ahead of the God-King. Many called for her to join them, begged her not to return to their fallen kingdoms, but she paid them no heed.
Soon she had reached the northernmost point of Rota, several hours north of the Tree. The land was flat and rocky for miles around, sloping into great mounds and rolling hills on either side of the plain. Tani had wandered this place with her people many years ago. Gora. It was the first of countless kingdoms connecting southern Kanto and Johto to Sinnoh in an unbroken chain.
It was an unforgiving land, but the people were giving. They had been kind to her people despite their poor means.
The road was empty for miles around. The last refugees had passed long ago. Ahead of her lay an empty expanse and unbroken blue sky, the sun shining warmly overhead.
Behind her swirled a great expanse of black and grey stormclouds that twisted and turned upon itself, writhing at her word. The winds howled and a gentle rain fell.
She waited.
A time passed, then a small black dot became visible on the horizon. The sun brightened and the earth itself shuddered, as if yearning to embrace the newcomer. It approached at a steady pace, and her ears picked out a jovial tune whistled by the dot. The wind itself sang and danced in tune, and the earth pounded with the figure's heartbeat. Flowers turned to face him and fluffy white clouds trailed behind him.
Its steps were those of a man, yet took it farther than they should. In minutes the figure had come to stand before her, a curious look on its face.
The God-King of Sinnoh.
Tani was disappointed that he wasn't ten feet tall. Despite his reputation he appeared as a normal man: of average height (perhaps a little shorter), built strong and broad, with plain brown hair and sideburns. His eyes were blue, as was a strange medallion on his chest. The man's clothes and sandals were of fine make, but plain and simple. They were what a successful farmer or craftsman would wear, not a king.
She noted only a single exceptional thing: the walking staff he carried. It was a normal length of wood, perhaps carved from oak, yet at its tip was a small, brilliant viridescent jewel. Tani could not help but stare at the beautiful item and gasped as her Feather resonated with it, a painful lance of electricity surging up her arm.
Lightning dwelt within that jewel, and so much more…
"Hello!" He stopped and greeted her. The God-King stared at her. She was an odd sight with her muddy rags, pallid, bruised skin, and lank hair. Tani was no beauty before Lightning had flown overhead, and her blank, scarred eyes and scabbed ears did her no favors. He did not recoil in disgust, but simply rested his staff against the earth. "It's been some time since I met a fellow traveler."
A storm brewed behind her.
"You are the God-King?" Her voice was thunder, and the God-King nodded. His fingers clutched his staff, but he did not threaten her. The rain fell heavier, though it did not touch the God-King. It bent around him unnaturally. "Where is your army?"
The man smiled. "They're resting after a long journey. They have followed me for a year now. I thought it prudent to grant a reprieve."
Her winds howled and wrapped around Tani like a cloak. Black clouds surged, rain fell harder, and thunder rumbled in the clouds. They did not so much as ruffle the God-King's clothes. Tani's fingers twitched, and she felt the call to action. To take her power and unleash it into the world.
As her Feather thrummed to life and her thoughts quickened, the God-King looked curiously at her. "Lightning? Curious," he said quietly, though his every word was carried far and wide by the wind. The God-King looked piteously at her. "You're dying. You don't have long now. Hours, perhaps."
She did not care. Lightning surged within her. It nearly brought her to her knees, yet her body had begun to adapt even as it was seared inside and out by the infinite power channeled through her.
"Have you come for healing?" The God-King looked to her Feather, which sparked and danced beneath his gaze. Her left arm went numb, and blisters began to form on her flesh. She ignored the pain, though this time she knew she could not rest. "I could remove the Feather. I could reshape your flesh and make you whole, should you wish. It would take but a moment."
"No." The sky thundered with her, and lightning flashed in the clouds. The God-King frowned, his heavy eyebrows narrowing.
Realization appeared. The God-King sighed, yet did not move to strike her down. His staff remained clenched in his hand. "You do not want this fight."
Lightning consumed her nearly utterly, the Feather a blinding white, and her flesh sizzled and burned. Her senses heightened to impossible levels, the storm surged, and the unrestrained power of Lightning filled her body, mind, and spirit at once. Tani barely remained in control, a focus of powers far beyond her human body's abilities to handle, and embraced it wholeheartedly.
"You're a vagrant, not a princess or noblewoman! Why do you fight me? They won't respect your sacrifice. They won't care for your bravery!" The God-King's words rang true, yet it did not matter to her. He gripped his staff, and the jewel at the tip shone with a brilliant life. Around him the earth shifted and churned. Mountains crawled forward, forests twisted into giant limbs and grasping claws that rushed to their creator, and the sky behind him stilled and flashed with countless arcs of lightning that pulsed with her Feather. "Surrender, and I will let you go free. I will heal you."
Tornadoes fell from the storm-ridden sky behind her. Lightning came to strike her and vast thunderclaps echoed through the empty lands of Gora even as their hills and mountains and plains and forests rolled and twisted to the God-King's will.
"You gain nothing from this, Champion of Lightning," the God-King whispered, eyes hard. His staff burned green. "My power is a gift from the Alpha for my service. Stand aside or I will slay you. We stand on the precipice of a better world, and you will not stop me. These lands will be united under my rule!. Don't throw your life away for these people - I want their service, not their lives."
The thunder quieted. The tornadoes slowed. The rain stopped.
Tani smiled at this God-King beneath her cloak of thunder and lightning. Her skin was wrinkled and seared all over, and her heart raced so quickly she thought it might explode.
"I do not care if they live or die," Tani admitted. The God-King frowned deeply, then Tani allowed herself last words. "They will not remember me. But you will."
She cast aside her humanity then, manifesting only the full power of Lightning to bring to bear against the God-King. Her body was little more than a conduit for the power, and only the last remnants of her mind and will would direct the godlike strength consuming her.
They would fight for hours, perhaps days.
Perhaps the God-King would live, perhaps he would die to unrestrained Lightning.
It didn't matter. Either way, she would find her long rest. She would be remembered.
The stormclouds blackened, and thousands of blinding lightning bolts erupted from the clouds, arcing at the God-King with enormous speed. They converged into one single lightning bolt of untold might and smote the God-King with all her fury. A blinding flash, a thunderclap that would rip a normal man to shreds, and enough heat to vaporize them.
When the dust cleared, the God-King stood untouched. His staff was held in both hands now, glowing faintly, and the world roared to life at his will. Mountains, trees, wind, and lakes...they all heeded his command. The God-King set his staff into the ground, met her eyes, and nodded with a stern cast to his face.
He raised his staff, and their battle began.
A/N: Here it is! This is a sort of random plot bunny that I've had in my head for a while now. It's a cool look at VERY ancient Indigo, Rota, and Sinnoh (centuries before the Wataru or Taimu existed) and offers a lot of hints in terms of the God-King, why he was stopped before conquering Rota and Indigo, and a look at a bearer of Zapdos' Feather. Also an interesting, final piece of the puzzle to see the differences between Champions of Moltres, Articuno, and Zapdos and how their Feathers are handled.
...and I realize that if you haven't followed Traveler or aren't very deep into its lore this will probably not have that much meaning to you haha. But anyways, I hope everyone enjoys it! I just got a little inspired tonight and decided to belt this out really quick. It's probably not my best work (I probably shouldn't have started writing at midnight and ended at 4) but I had fun writing it!
For those who are interested in joining the Traveler Discord, please PM me! It'll be a while before I'm able to respond to any reviews since I have a good amount to work through.
Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed this bit of randomness! I might go back and rework it at some point. This is basically my rough sketch of what happened.