Work Text:
“There’s been a lot of movement lately,” Akari tells him, a curiously-patterned egg cradled gently in her embrace. “It must be close to hatching.”
Volo smiles, sitting down next to his wife and letting her rest her head on his shoulder. “I’m excited to see what’s inside,” he says, laughing as Akari rolls her eyes. “I’m serious!” he insists as Akari shakes her head in amusement. “Don’t you get excited whenever another egg hatches? It could be anything!”
“My dear, we both know that what comes from this egg will be the same thing it’s been since you breathed this universe into existence in the first place,” she sighs, the great coils of her serpentine body flexing as she adjusts her hold. “For all that you’re the Creator of All, I have to say you’re rather lacking in creativity.”
He shrugs, light rippling outward from his body as he moves. “What’s wrong with my universe?” he asks curiously, knowing her words weren’t meant to hurt. “Isn’t it a good one?”
Akari stares at the glittering shell of the new universe, claws gently running across the tough carapace. “It is a good one,” she agrees softly, because she loves the same things he does. “It’s just that…” Volo waits for her to find her words. She sighs and sits back up as she rests her cheek on the egg’s shell. “Don’t you think it’s time to try something new?” she eventually says. “We’ve watched this story play out for aeons. Don’t you think it would be fun to write a new one?”
To be honest, he’s considered it before. He’s watched this story unfold hundreds upon thousands upon millions of times, an endless parade of familiar and beloved faces saying the same lines, performing the same actions. Perhaps it would be good to craft something new. Perhaps it would be fun to weave the fabric of fate with a slightly different pattern and see how the changes ripple out. The egg hasn’t hatched yet. There’s still time to change things.
But he doesn’t want to.
“This story is my favourite,” he says, nebulae swirling beneath his hands as he lays them upon the warm shell, “because this is the story where I meet you, over and over again. Through the endless aeons we come together, fated halves of a whole. I… don’t want to give that up.” He stares into Akari’s eyes, admiring the way they glimmer like rubies beneath the light. “I want to keep meeting you for the first time,” he tells her, voice full of affection and longing. “I want to battle you for the first time, kiss you for the first time, propose to you for the first time, marry you for the first time. I want to live and grow old and die with you, over and over until the stars burn out and we’re right back here where we started. How could I…” He cups her cheek, heart thrumming as she nuzzles into the touch. “How could I ever give that up?” he whispers.
Scales softly hiss against each other as Akari winds herself around him, weaving her tail through his forelimbs as she places the egg in his outstretched arms. She constricts her lower body around his waist and drapes herself over his back, resting her chin upon his shoulder. It’s a comfort. “I’m not asking you to give it up,” she says gently. “I’m just wondering… if you could change things a little bit.”
“Change them how?” he asks, because no matter how much he adores the well-trodden paths they walk with each cycle of rebirth, he wants Akari to be happy. And it’s not as though she’s asking him to rewrite the entire narrative of the universe. If it’s something small… well, he’s nothing if not a gracious husband.
She hums playfully, fingers running over the place where his human torso morphs into a more equine shape, gently combing through short, coarse fur. It feels nice. Soothing. “…ever considered being a girl instead?” she asks slyly. “Just wondering. No reason or anything.”
Volo groans. He should’ve seen this coming. He pours his heart and soul out in a moment of tenderness and this is what he gets. “You just want to suck titties, don’t you,” he grumbles without heat. “I know you. I know you. I’m not stupid, beloved.”
“C’mon, you’ll love it!” Akari pleads, slithering over his shoulder to lie face-up against the vastness of space, eyes glittering playfully. “It feels so good, I promise you’ll love it — you don’t know what you’re missing out on~”
He can’t believe he’s considering this. He really, really can’t, and yet — “If I am to spend the next eternity as a woman, would you like to change as well?” he asks, because he is nothing if not fair. “I’m not letting you be older or taller than me though,” he immediately adds, because he’s also a little bit selfish.
Akari steals the egg from him as she thinks, coiling around it protectively like a nesting mother. It glows brighter when she holds it, an ever-changing kaleidoscope of stars and galaxies waiting to burst, the shell covered in microscopic cracks from which light spills forth. Volo supposes that means it’ll probably hatch soon. “I… suppose it wouldn’t be terrible to be male,” his wife says thoughtfully. “Change isn’t in my nature, but if it’s for you…” Her eyes glimmer like rubies along the shore of fate, the blood to seal a vow, a heart that beats for two. “If it’s for you, I could become anything at all.”
He presses his lips against her forehead as he changes their futures ever so slightly. A changing of genders — that isn’t so bad. It won’t do anything to break the narrative, at least. The great wheel of fate turns behind him, a massive, weightless thing that shines brighter than any star. Reality shifts imperceptibly. They both know the deed has been done. “I wonder what we’ll look like at the end of this cycle,” Volo muses as the wheel of fate shrinks back into its passive state, comfortably snug around the barrel of his equine chest.
Akari hums. “We probably won’t even have the same names,” she remarks casually. “It’ll be interesting, at the very least.” Small fangs flash beneath the shine of Volo’s halo as she smirks. “To think the great Arceus could finally rouse itself to finally change something…” she teases, running her hands over the chipped, cracking shell of the new world. There’s a soft yearning in her voice as she adds quietly, “How wonderful it must be to create instead of destroy.”
His heart aches for her. “There’s no one I would trust more with the end of all things than you,” he says with tender sincerity, stomping his legs to shake them free of sleep as he finally stands once more. It’s nearly time. “Do you resent your role in this?” he asks curiously as Akari unwinds herself from the hatching egg, rising up on her tail until they’re eye to eye.
Akari’s form wavers at the edges as the appointed time comes, but she’s still humanoid enough to cradle his face in her hands and he’s still humanoid to lean into it. “For all that I’m jealous of you and your creations,” she says, “I’d never want you to die by any hand but my own.” She kisses him because it’s the last chance they’ll get before the end — and beginning — of everything. Smoke and ash, blood and metal — his wife is made of terrible, destructive things and yet she kisses him like he’ll break, gentle and soft and yearning, pouring out all the feelings neither of them can say in the moment before everything is reduced to ash.
How silly it is, that they cling so tightly to their favoured mortal forms right up until they can no longer hold up the pretence. How ridiculous it is that they play at humanity when no one is watching, only revealing their true forms when the universe is about to be reset. Volo — Arceus — watches his final creation chip away at its shell. His golden hooves dig into the fading fabric of reality as he waits.
Akari — Giratina — swims through the dying cosmos as she waits, slithering between his legs and wrapping herself through the wheel locked around his torso. The egg shudders and rocks in place, pieces of shell flying off into the reaches of space. Light drips from the holes in the carapace, galaxies oozing out to consume the old world. It’s time.
Giratina rubs her head against Arceus’ cheek affectionately. “It’s just like going to sleep,” she whispers, a familiar assurance repeated throughout the millennia, the end to their story — the beginning of everything. “Close your eyes and go to sleep, and we will find each other in the next life, over and over again, until all the stars burn out and we are right here again, waiting for the egg to hatch.”
Arceus closes his eyes. Light burns behind his closed eyelids, galaxies and stars and a thousand possibilities bursting into existence as the egg begins to crumble. Giratina takes a deep breath, squeezing him tightly and then —
“I don’t understand your motivations,” Cynthia says, staring at Giratina in confusion and no small amount of hurt. “There were so many moments where you could’ve intervened that would’ve led to less suffering. Why did you wait until the calamity at Spear Pillar to appear? Why not earlier?”
“I don’t understand what you want from me!” Rei screams, staring at Arceus in confusion and no small amount of hurt. “I suffered so much trying to complete your tasks! I have been cast out, betrayed, hurt over and over again, and for what?! Why?! Why do you ask this of me?!”
The god stares down at her, shadows dripping from its form like physical things. It feels as though those crimson eyes are piercing through her body to dissect her soul. Giratina lowers its great head, resting it upon the floor of Turnback Cave with a silent sigh as it meets her questioning gaze.
The god stares down at him, light radiating out, bright enough to blind. It feels as though those gemstone eyes are piercing through his body to dissect his soul. Arceus bows its great head, meeting Rei’s tearful gaze with a silent sort of acknowledgement as auroras burst to life in the skies of the Hall of Origin.
ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ ᴀʀᴇ ʀᴜʟᴇꜱ ᴛᴏ ᴛʜɪꜱ ᴡᴏʀʟᴅ, Giratina says calmly. ɪ ᴄᴏᴜʟᴅ ɴᴏᴛ ɪɴᴛᴇʀꜰᴇʀᴇ ᴜɴᴛɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʙᴀʟᴀɴᴄᴇ ʜᴀᴅ ʙᴇᴇɴ ʙʀᴏᴋᴇɴ.
ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ ᴀʀᴇ ʀᴜʟᴇꜱ ᴛᴏ ᴛʜɪꜱ ᴡᴏʀʟᴅ, Arceus says remorsefully. ɴᴏ ᴍᴀᴛᴛᴇʀ ʜᴏᴡ ᴍᴜᴄʜ ɪ ᴡᴀɴᴛᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ, ɪ ᴄᴏᴜʟᴅ ɴᴏᴛ ɪɴᴛᴇʀꜰᴇʀᴇ.
She considers its words, casting her mind back to that terrible day. “But you specifically came when Lucas and I were threatened,” she remarks. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”
He ignores its words, too consumed by terrible memories. “Don’t lie!” he snarls. “You didn’t even show up when Giratina was summoned! I almost died! There’s something you’re not telling me!”
Giratina tilts its head as though mulling over its words. The silence stretches comfortably before it moves forward, pressing its forehead against hers. The god is cool to the touch, like lake water in the heat of summer. Cynthia shivers beneath the god’s regard.
Arceus kneels down as it considers Rei’s words. A tense silence stretches out before it presses its forehead against his. The god is hot to the touch, as though he’s sitting too close to a campfire in the Icelands. Rei trembles beneath the god’s regard.
ɪᴛ ɪꜱ ɴᴏᴛ ʏᴇᴛ ᴛɪᴍᴇ ꜰᴏʀ ʏᴏᴜ ᴛᴏ ᴋɴᴏᴡ ᴛʜᴇ ᴛʀᴜᴛʜ, the god says, voice echoing like thunder in the cavern. ɪᴛ ɪꜱ ᴀ ᴛʀᴜᴛʜ ꜰᴀʀ ᴛᴏᴏ ɢʀᴇᴀᴛ ᴀɴᴅ ᴛᴇʀʀɪʙʟᴇ ꜰᴏʀ ʏᴏᴜ ᴛᴏ ᴄᴏᴍᴘʀᴇʜᴇɴᴅ. Cynthia shudders at the implications of those words.
ɪᴛ ɪꜱ ɴᴏᴛ ʏᴇᴛ ᴛɪᴍᴇ ꜰᴏʀ ʏᴏᴜ ᴛᴏ ᴋɴᴏᴡ ᴛʜᴇ ᴛʀᴜᴛʜ, the god says, voice thrumming with barely restrained power. ɪᴛ ɪꜱ ᴀ ᴛʀᴜᴛʜ ꜰᴀʀ ᴛᴏᴏ ɢʀᴇᴀᴛ ᴀɴᴅ ᴛᴇʀʀɪʙʟᴇ ꜰᴏʀ ʏᴏᴜ ᴛᴏ ᴄᴏᴍᴘʀᴇʜᴇɴᴅ. Rei shudders at the implications of those words.
“Is there anything you can tell me?” she wonders, stroking the destructive god’s cheek.
“Is there anything you can tell me?” he begs, clinging to the god for hollow comfort.
(Across time, across space, across countless intertwining lives, there is one truth that remains constant even as the universe collapses inward on itself at the end of all things.)
ɪ ʟᴏᴠᴇ ʏᴏᴜ, the god says with uncharacteristically soft eyes —
— ᴀɴᴅ ɪ ᴡɪʟʟ ʙᴇ ᴡɪᴛʜ ʏᴏᴜ, ᴀʟᴡᴀʏꜱ, ᴜɴᴛɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ᴠᴇʀʏ ᴇɴᴅ ᴏꜰ ᴛɪᴍᴇ.