Work Text:
I must create another story. A thousand arms demand it.
I must keep this world turning, to keep it present and alive.
So I work to make everything that matters. Palkia and Dialga will do the rest.
A villain, a place, a time, a goal, and more. There’s always more.
Giratina nestled closer to my side. The body made of stardust makes for a better pillow than the vessel bound by blood.
Giratina, my beloved Creation. They will play their part, to keep the mysterious balance.
Giratina understands less than I do, it is like my child grasps at my coattails as I stumble blindly. For this I am infinitely sorry.
It will have to play the villain. Playing pretend with a fool to teach humility. Hardly a monster and yet my child will rise to the occasion all the same.
Why? Do they worry like I do?
I carefully watch the vessel I would have chosen. A sleeping lab assistant / A new champion / A child that worships both space and time.
“Murrp?”
Giratina pulled me out of my feverish creation before I could commit such an unfeeling act, after all it was a child too.
Creation. Creation of a vessel will have to be done. Perhaps the player will be happy to make its own image rather than picking from a stack of cards.
Giratina falls back into sleep as unown spin and spin. The tapestry is almost complete.
I do not understand the world I weave.
Yet.
I must create another story. A thousand arms demand it.
Giratina was not enough.
It demands more.
heroes respond to cruelty. They won’t respond in a way that matters with a world already brimming with kindness. They need conflict.
I will play pretend too. For those not satisfied with a boisterous pretend villain.
Dialga huffs, Palkia fiddles, Giratina looks at me with their worries.
I’m sorry for the burden.
Someone agrees to help and their brother stays behind to keep the trains going. The man forgets on the way here. I could fix it, but I won’t .
The arms grow tired. A bright screen in the dead of night, a warm room filled with cloth, an announcement beneath unfathomable numbers of eyes.
The origin forms are a mockery, but hunger gnaws and the world threatens to slow and dissolve. Dialga has no voice to call upon time, Palkia has no claws to mold space. I could fix it but I won’t.
The story is deep as a puddle, the people are un-compelling beside each other, the creatures are too toylike to be animals and too animal-like to play like toys.
I could fix it but I won’t.
The spirits, the fans, the players like to fix the world themselves. Anything created with solid meaning may entice a fan but push away another. It is better to call them in with something shallow and allow them to dig the rest. After all, they will stare at their favorite trees and only see the forest if it suits them.
I’ve learned from the Truth and Ideals. You craft the story, some will weep for the setting. You craft the setting, some will weep for the story.
I could be better though…
I could fix it all…
But that wouldn’t feed the world.
No, cruelty calls to heroes.
I dissolve the blank slate intended for the player. They must not sculpt their own image until they do something very important.
The deck of cards, the champion and the lab assistant will cause the biggest stir.
They will have to choose and tear a child from home.
…
What an awful thing to do.
With growing nausea I watch my creator’s arm pretend to be the whole to placate the young trainer.
It's a puppet like the trainer.
I sit uncomfortable. It doesn’t hurt or matter that one of my parent’s arms is here playing games, so I try to be comfortable with that.
I’ve done my part. The story is over.
And my creator still works.
Sometimes when the player goes to sleep I slip out to visit home.
Neither me or my siblings are satisfied, it was too quick yet too slow and it was too much while being too little.
My creator isn’t satisfied either.
Why do they still work? The unown do little else, they have each other and have no need for rest, it is understandable. My creator works because of a thousand arms, I don’t think they get tired but I’d still like them to rest.
I wonder if they are disappointed with how paradoxical the world turned out to be. I wonder how it felt when they had to splinter the universe for the sun and the moon. I wonder how the world used to be. My parent says the source was like lightning in a bottle but I'm not sure what the source was.
I find Arceus and huddle against my parent’s side as I’ve done since birth.
I watch as my parent continue work on another tapestry.
I hear rhythmic clicks and scratches of paper.
I do not hate the story or the work. I do not mind the things projected onto me. It’s just
I do this because I love them and
…
I’m so…
Tired.
I wish… dad could be tired too.