It was rare for Palutena to take pity on anyone. The Goddess of Light had many supporters, but she treated them much like subjects under her jurisdiction. They were all her pawns and the greatest satisfaction came in playing them against the other gods.
Especially Medusa.
The goddesses were once civil, but after Palutena saw no more use for her when she was human, she disposed of her. But with great anger comes great power, and Hades, hell knows where he was now, sculpted her into a new being.
Medusa often took picks of Palutena's leftovers, the stragglers who abandoned the Goddess of Light's way. It never bothered her nonetheless. But scraps are always as incomplete as they seem.
A family suffered daily from sickness. Their money dripped from their loose pockets and their son picked worms from the ground for dinner. Desperation took hold, and they offered up their son to the goddess. Not in need of the child, Palutena accepted the gift and left the boy in the infertile valleys, keeping up her reputation, but discarding of what she didn't need.
She assumed she'd never see the boy again.
But, of course, they always find a way to strike back. He was their first attempt at a monster. Medusa invited her over for a little presentation. Curious, she obliged, lining up her troops behind in case things turned sour.
They met on top of a hill, Palutena staring up at the facade of her gigantic projection. The goddess rested her elbows on the mountain top and snickered. "You sure know how to throw away your ugly seconds, don't you?"
Palutena mused, "You've called me here to address one of my leftovers? What is your plan here?"
Medusa beamed, gesturing her hand over the grass as the small image of a boy appeared, chowing down on a bar of chocolate. He looked thirteen, but the boy was unmistakably the son of years prior that the family gave away. Palutena eyed him, but pulled back and motioned at him with her staff.
"I get it, I left him for you. They don't do much out in the wild like this. If it's a political ploy you're after, he's just a boy."
"Just a boy? Just a soul. Souls, you know, are quite malleable. Much more than I bargained for. Why don't I show you?" Medusa laughed.
The boy yelped in pain, his chocolate dropping from his hand. He suddenly became aware of his surroundings and panicked. Whatever was happening to him, his fear didn't help. His skin grew scaly and thick, eyes pulsing red. On his back, two huge wings ripped through his skin, fleshy and thin like a bat's.
Palutena lined her staff up to the boy, hesitating, but lining up a shot of light. She shut her eyes as the boy's screams reached a peak, then ceased. Warily, she moved the staff out of her sight and observed him sprawled out in the grass. Medusa watched with contempt on her lips.
Slowly, Palutena moved across the mountain top to the boy, leaning down and cradling him slightly in her arms. She moved a puffy strand of brown hair from his wide blue eyes. With her fingers, she shut his lids and held him to her chest. Whatever had struck her, dug deep into her soul. The boy was nothing to her, yet she felt a shock at the pain in his eyes.
"Don't tell me the Goddess of Light has gone soft," Medusa mocked. She pushed herself up and chuckled at the sight. "Next time think about what you do with your lousy seconds. They're not just a banana peel at your feet, they have a soul. And all the souls in the world can make millions of monsters just like him. Imagine."
Her projection faded, as did her presence.
Palutena laid the boy on the grass and took pity on him. She could feel his soul trapped in his chest, in limbo between life and death. Among his was jumbled a million weaker souls, all dead. Medusa interrupted the cycle, stranding them all until the boy was killed. All she had to do was release them.
But she didn't want to.
She placed a hand over his chest, controlling her divine power through his veins. The souls darted between her reaches, but with a breath, she hooked onto them, leading them to the boy's soul, nurturing his body. A bright light tumbled through him. The souls depleted, leaving behind the strong pulse of the boy's, thundering back to life.
His skin returned, a pale but pinky glow. The bat wings had changed, shrinking and growing white downy feathers. They were small and weak, she felt the muscles hitch as they twitched. The boy stirred, but quickly, his consciousness left again.
Palutena scooped up the small angel, holding him close to her chest as she teleported the two of them to her temple.
The boy woke up hours later, faltering for words and faltering for his memories. They never did come back to him, and he asked the goddess he politely deemed "Lady Palutena" to give him a name.
She recalls not naming him for quite some time. They were well acquainted when she finally thought of one. Doubting she ever would've come out her pit of anger and deceitfulness without him, she named him "Pit" affectionately. The angel gave her a soft side. He exposed her to jokes that she laughed at while turned the other way, he made her smile, he was a beam of light at the temple.
Looking back at the family, the goddess realized she never helped them. Pit didn't know where he was from, and Palutena adamantly refused to tell him, but whenever the small family slipped into hunger or sickness, she sent them help. She debated telling of his little sister, of his nieces and nephews. Every generation she watched and wondered, but he would never know. She had given him a new life, the one back home wasn't his to live anymore.
So, Palutena took pity on him, and rarely discarded the people's small offerings. She'd learned to cherish the meager human's attempts to fancy her, because she understood their capacity of love was simpler than hers. Her love for her little angel grew every day, branched and weaved into her soul.