POV: Cyrus/ LOCATION: Crystal Cave (?)

"I've built my life up on lies. White lies. Harmless lies. Along the way, I've forgotten the ultimate reality: that the greatest of tapestries can be unraveled from one loose thread. Once the first lie fell, everything came undone."

I absently feel my swollen neck, tracing the trenches where fingers had dug into flesh. It doesn't hurt as much anymore. Or so I keep reminding myself.

"Why couldn't I call them back?" I whisper. "It was as though I'd lost the ability to speak. I was screaming in my head, but out loud, I heard nothing."

"The human psyche responds to emotional trauma in different ways, Cyrus. Your physical injuries only got worse."

I gnash my teeth. "Trauma? But nothing's wrong with me!"

An overly exaggerated sigh sends bubbles climbing to the watery surface as though an underwater volcano has erupted.

Heat sprints to my ears. "Okay, fine. I'm not fine at all! I tried my damnest to keep it together though!"

"You tried too hard."

There is a stiffness in my jaws. Again, I am grinding my molars to paste.

At last, Mesprit emerges from the lake. "What are you afraid of, Cyrus?"

One simple question with many conflicting answers. A paradox in itself.

I prop a fist against my chin. "Who isn't afraid of uncertainty? Especially when you don't know how much time the people you love have left. Should you invest in the present, knowing that they'll leave someday? Or should you invest in the future in case you leave first?"

Emotion blurs my vision. I wipe my eyes and pull back a sleeve stained with blood.

Then an onslaught of vacuous sentimentality overwhelms me. But now, I simply let it flow.

Nostalgia. Remorse. Heartache. Homesickness. My family is my home. My heart belongs at home. My home is long gone.

While I weep, Mesprit hugs me. For the first time in my life, I hesitate to push it away.

"It hurts, doesn't it?" it says softly. "A broken heart is as valid as a broken bone."

I dig my fingernails into my aching chest, piercing through coarse fabric. "It shouldn't hurt. The dead can't feel pain."

"In life, you've cherished family so strongly that you remember them in death. Without sorrow, you won't realize how much they've brought you joy. Without joy, you wouldn't comprehend how much it hurt to lose them."

Those words, once scorned, finally sink into my thick skull. What a cruel world. That makes every happy moment worth living, I suppose.

While I ruminate—no, while I sort out my muddled thoughts—Mesprit breaks from my side.

"I need to check on the souls," it says. "Some of them are finally ready to move on!"

But it's not leaving. Instead, it just stares at me. Wondering if I'm right in the head.

"Cyrus."

"What?"

"You're, uh, still holding my paw."

Ah.

Indeed, I am. So I let go. And I bash my forehead against a crystal.

Incredible. Once again, I've sunken to a new low.

To my extreme chagrin, Mesprit giggles sunnily like a fangirl touching her idol for the first time. "You're adorable. Let's go together then. I'll even hold your itty bitty hand!"

I bat it away. "S-Shut up! Don't ever call me that again!"

That pesky Pokemon latches onto my head, its soft, pudgy stomach wedging against my cheekbones. What left of my pride severely wounded, I grumpily trudge ahead to the lake with this pillow on my face.

"Hey hey Wywus, you know why this awea is called Cwystal Cwossing?"

"Stop."

"Because it's where souls cross to the next pane! Ba-dum-pah!"

I glare with the intent to maim until Mesprit deflates.

"Uh. It sounded better in my head."

"I have a question."

"My first question in a millennia of existence. Shoot."

Its cheerfulness hurts my brain. "Lately, it's been me rambling on about my insecurities. What about you? I don't know anything about you aside from what I've read of the creation myths."

Mesprit considers this as it rubs its chin. "Hmm. Another intriguing question from Wywus. My life is pretty stable compared to yours. I'm the middle sibling. Yuck. I've been stuck in Crystal Cave for as long as I can remember."

"Do you interact with your family often? Aside from Uxie scolding you?"

"Nah. It's more business-like between us, since guarding the Time Gear is our main priority. Plus, Arceus wasn't too keen on letting me go outside. Thought I caused more harm than good. Yeesh."

Arceus was wise indeed. If you need an example of Mesprit's interference, I'll be here until I kiss brimstone. "You talk to yourself a lot."

"Oh, like you never did."

"Did it hurt?"

"What?"

"Being alone for so long."

At last, Mesprit's eternal sunshine falters. A drop of water cascades down the contours of the stalactite and melts onto the flowers below.

"I can't imagine how agonizing it must feel to be confined to one place for so long." I absently wrap my arms around myself. "Isolated from others. Venting your frustrations to whatever will listen—"

"W-What are you spouting on about? I'm not sad! I'm the almighty Guardian of Emotion, mwahaha! All fear my curse—"

"You're not alone anymore."

"—because after three days, all emotion—"

That sentence is never completed. Mesprit's golden eyes slowly slide to me, bright and wide. Brain struggling to process the absurd sentimentality that just frothed from my mouth.

I coyly flick its forehead. "Dearly beloved Mesprit, I know you better than you think I do. You and I are more alike than I care to admit. 'Yuck' indeed."

Swirling above Crystal Lake is a rift in time and space. A portal of light, milky and white, drawing the souls upwards like a field of fireflies during a humid summer night.

What a breathtaking view. A million spirits hungering for the midnight sun. Signatures sprinkled like stardust; thousands and thousands of stars rotating around a spiral galaxy.

Oh?

Someone is singing. Someone beyond the center of the nebula. As I stray from the shadows, the melody vibrates in my core. Transcending in elegance, poignancy, and meaning from the one murmured by the sea.

This lullaby is not cold nor cruel but warm and merciful.

"Cyrus, my child." Tender, ghostly hands bloom from the light, entwining mine like a parent supporting a child during the first stage of walking. "Let's go home."

My heart sprouts wings and leaps free from its cage. Home. I'm coming home. Everyone I've loved and lost awaits me back home—

Suddenly, I am sucked back into the darkness of space. Frigid water slaps my face and smoldering golden eyes burn me in place.

For the longest time, no one speaks. Mesprit's glare darkens with each hammering heartbeat.

Then I flick its forehead. "I'll walk around," I grunt.

When I'm a good distance away, I dunk my head into the freezing stream, pull it out, and wonder what the hell I have just witnessed.

Mesprit. That selfish, impulsive Pokemon. Was it that lonely? Desperate enough to pull me away from my fate? Me, a damned soul who took his own life, who has no business on these hallowed grounds?

Tch. Mesprit's foolishness dredges up memories of my own Pokemon. I had become so lost in my own despair that I've neglected their feelings. Failed to acknowledge what I had, what was right in front of me.

I'm a fucking mess. Stupid introspection.

My head heavy with thoughts, I rest at the waterfall area, which is now aglow like constellations in a moonless night. Souls are escaping their crystallized prisons. As they leave, those crystal flowers melt back into water.

Might as well help out. I always did feel bad freeloading in someone's residence.

While I scoop out some lost souls from the bubbling brook, one spirit bumps against my knuckles. Teetering clumsily like someone who had lost their glasses.

A new arrival. "I'll bring you to the lake," I say.

The spirit nuzzles my palms, infusing fragments of its memory into my stream of consciousness.

Chairs and tables against a lamp-lit sky. Wingulls gliding down a canal, wings dipping into the undulating currents. Nestled within an ancient forest, a pagoda sways with the footsteps within.

Oh? Isn't that Canalave? And somewhere in Johto, from what I've seen of postcards.

There's more: a castle steeped in sunlight. A spiked fortress in the sky bursting into flames as it topples over the Veilstone bund.

Suddenly, I feel very, very cold.

"Cold. Can't see. My glasses."

A lone voice sneaks through the din of static murmuring. One so horrifyingly familiar.

"Will. Tell Mom… I love her…"

Because I have a penchant for completing a self-fulfilling prophecy, I whisper his name. Please please don't—

And his soul responds with mine.

Oh.

Oh no.

When I run back to Mesprit, it greets me with a giddy grin. As if everything is as peachy as ever.

"Heeeeewo Wywus! Glad to see you're still dead. Did that soul get stuck in the waterfall?"

My voice escapes a shaky wheeze. "Why is he here?"

"Hmm? This one fell from the sky. You of all humans should know that your fragile bodies cannot survive the impact. Now hand it over."

"Where is his body?"

"In one piece."

"I need to see it for myself."

"Cyrus. Stop dilly dally shilly shallying around and give me that soul! The portal will close soon!"

I make a break for it. Unfortunately, tendrils of water shoot out from the lake, break my ankles, and drag me back before I can escape.

Mesprit's disapproving pout hovers over me. "What has gotten into you now, Cyrus?"

"What sick prank are you pulling?" I snap. "Return him to his body, now!"

"He's dead! Not alive! Gone! If you care, let him move on—"

I grab its arm. "Mesprit. Please."

At its name, Mesprit falters. Minutes bleed by in a long, pensive glare where steely eyes drill into my heart, peeling layers off like onion skin.

Then it groans. "Sheesh. Normally I like it when humans bow to me, but when you do it, it feels so wrong."

I squeeze its paw. "S-So you'll help?"

Mesprit sighs so loudly that its pudgy stomach deflates. "Yesssssss! But on one condition!"