Work Text:
Let the Words of a Curse (Be My Deliverance)
By: Aviantei
A Pokémon: Legends Arceus One Shot
[Twelve Shots of Summer: Nine Tales 12-I/12]
[Parameters: “Carved in Stone”]
After all that had happened, Volo left Hisui.
It was too much to bear, the idea that, after everything he’d endured and persevered through, some child would be able to achieve what he had been hoping for. Before, he’d thought that just being able to witness the legends in person would be enough, that being in their presence would satisfy the hole in his heart that he’d had for so long, but it hadn’t. With each encounter, with each plate gathered by that child, the sense of disease inside him grew until he couldn’t stand it anymore.
Just bearing witness to the legends wouldn’t be enough. No, Volo wanted to be a part of the legend, as the lead, and not the friendly supporting presence he’d been passing himself off as.
And yet, despite all his struggling, despite being backed by Giratina, he had lost. Once again, the world and its gods had abandoned him, choosing another to instead bring into their favor. He was still angry, but it was fine.
Gods didn’t just exist in Hisui.
The question was where he would go next. Volo had been to many places in his lifetime, having wandered to some of the closest regions to see if he could find any clues to meeting the Original One, and, in more recent years, he’d followed along with the Ginkgo Guild’s activities to guide is wanderings. While he appreciated those places, they wouldn’t be enough. Their legends were interesting, but not a good fit for what he needed. So the next logical place to go was overseas.
Part of him was tempted to throw himself into the ocean and see what would happen. Despite every other way he’d been abandoned, Volo was still a part of the Celestica People, and that afforded him certain advantages. He could sink into the currents and wash up on some distant shore, not the slightest bit worse for wear. Maybe a couple of years floating around the ocean would help him cool his head.
Volo did not want to cool his head. He wanted to stew in his anger and resentment, nurture it into pure spite that would help him preserve. The child that had bested him would not live forever; whenever their time had passed, Volo could try again, could march to the top of Mount Coronet and show the Original One what he had missed out on.
Anger had helped him survive before, and it would help him survive again.
And so, Volo set his sights across the ocean.
Hisui and the nearby continent was rather isolated, all things considered. The regions interacted with each other, but they didn’t have much interaction with outside places. The professor that had been helping the Survey Corps was an anomaly, having traveled across the ocean to study there, but even his knowledge of foreign legends had been minimal. Stories from such far away lands were hard to come by, so Volo had no idea what to expect wherever he would end up, but he was certain he could make it work.
It had to work.
The first region he set foot upon was interesting, its history strong, but it wasn’t enough to meet his needs. Though before he could have spent several decades just researching a land and its stories, it wasn’t enough to keep him there. The pokémon were too interconnected with the people; even if some of them seemed that they could achieve what he wished, it would be difficult to bring those legendary creatures to side with him and no one else.
Volo left those tropical islands behind and continued to sail even further west. There were many more regions along the way, their stories plentiful and their environments a variety of gorgeous landscapes from desserts to mountains to lush forests and everything in between. Once upon a time, long before everything he’d known had been lost, he had admired such views along with his people, and he considered them a blessing.
Now they were nothing but a reminder of the sort of world that no longer existed, the one he wanted to erase everything for and bring back.
And then, several years past his defeat at Spear Pillar, Volo found it.
It was an ancient inscription in a castle by the sea, one that most people couldn’t read but Volo had studied before. His grammar was rusty, but, after comparing it to stories told by the locals, he was able to piece it together enough to understand the story of an all-powerful dragon that had once existed until its separation at the hands of opposing kings.
Volo could work with that.
(Damn it all, he would make it work.)
After all, while the stories of the past may have been carved in stone, the future was still malleable, to be crafted by those who were bold enough to forge such tales themselves. That was what it meant to become a legend.
No matter what Volo had to do to accomplish it, the next myth of that land would be his and his alone.