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Akari remembers every second of her fall to Hisui.
At times it seems like a particularly cruel twist of irony that she can recall it so clearly. That she can picture the dark void she’d found herself in, the golden light shining down at her and the glowing figure of the Being that had called her there. That she can remember its voice and recite the words it said to her; the mission it gave her and the cost it levied upon her.
That she can remember not remembering.
Remember the way that voice dug into her mind, soft and shining and oh so cruel as it dug further and further into her soul and washed her memories away. Remember how she fought, how she tried to hold onto her memories, pulling every trick of mental resistance and memorization she knew. How she failed and failed and sometimes succeeded, hanging onto parts of her memories by her mental fingertips and knowing she’d only managed it because the shining white figure robbing her of herself had allowed it.
That she can even remember falling afterwards, feeling the air start to rush past her body as the world went dark and dim in her exhaustion.
However, above all, she remembers that the pokémon had called itself ‘Arceus’ and that she hadn’t recognized it at all.
Sometimes that’s all that lets her sleep at night.
Akari is not her name.
She doesn’t know her name.
She doesn’t remember what she’d been called before her fall to Hisui. She’s forgotten it - been made to forget - like so very many other things. She tries not to show it. Tries not to let on how much of her memory is in ruins, how many holes litter her head. She introduces herself as ‘Akari’, makes sure to listen for her new name and joins Jubilife Village. She makes herself useful, helps people, smiles when she only wants to scream and tries to never, ever, show any sign of how much she doesn’t know.
She remembers some things at least. She clings to that, reciting what facts she recalls obsessively in her head.
She’s fifteen, an only child and her mom is called Johanna. She lives in Twinleaf Town with her two best friends and has - she thinks - traveled a bit. She doesn’t recall their names, where she went or anything besides what happened in her hometown. She remembers some of her schooling - math and some medical lessons for example - but most of the subjects are gone. She recalls a lesson plan but can, for the life of her, not remember what she’d learned in geography or history or even literature.
In some cases she can tell that even what little she does remember has been altered. There’d been pokémon in her life, loyal creatures that she knows she’d spent a lot of time with. But they’ve been removed from her memory, their shapes blurred and twisted as if badly scratched out, and so she only really remembers one of them, an Empoleon named ‘Captain’. Even so she doesn’t know why she can remember him and not the others. Doesn’t know if she’d held onto his memory with greater strength than she did with the others or if he’d simply been less important and she'd been allowed to recall him because of that.
She names her new Oshawott ‘Chief’ in his memory.
It’s not much but it has to be enough.
Sneasler’s warden scares her.
He’s nice and helpful, worried for her safety and willing to go out of his way to help her navigate the Coronet Highlands and he scares her.
He has amnesia.
He admits it freely.
Talks about it like it isn’t a big deal, like it doesn’t matter that he can’t remember anything past the last couple of years, can’t recall who he was or what he did before being found and taken in by the Pearl Clan.
He- he almost confides in Akari, telling her about the two measly things he remembers - a partner and someone ‘precious’ -, taking her into his confidence as if they’re alike, as if Akari is anything like him, as if she doesn’t remember so much more than he does, as if their situations might be the same and-!
He scares her.
For numerous reasons.
That’s all she’s willing to admit.
She tries not to show it though. It seems …rude. And like she’s borrowing trouble. So Akari tries to act as if everything is fine, as if her heart isn’t racing in his presence and as if she doesn’t spend every other second looking over her shoulder when she doesn’t have him within her sight.
It’s a relief when he teaches her to summon Sneasler and tells her that he won’t accompany her any further.
She still makes sure to thank him for his help. She’s made a habit of being polite and nice these past few weeks. So she pastes on a stilted smile, prays it doesn’t look as fake as it feels, thanks him and pretends like she doesn’t notice how he falters. Pretends like she doesn’t know that he saw right through her facade, like she doesn’t see how his bright eyes darken with something almost like sadness or resignation as he tips his hat before turning and walking away.
It’s better this way.
She doesn’t need his help anyways.
Sneasler carries her up the cliffs, the Galaxy Team’s survey and security corps have her back, her pokémon roll over any competition and even pacifying Lord Electrode isn’t that hard. She manages.
Even if it hurts when she meets Lady Irida the next time.
Because Lady Irida is angry with her. Or maybe disappointed. Either way, she’d pulled Akari aside and, well, scolded her for her behavior towards Sneasler’s warden. She’d told Akari that the warden was a good man and that she shouldn’t assume things just because he couldn’t remember anything past the last couple of years. That sometimes people just forget and that there isn’t necessarily a malicious reason behind it.
Which…, well…
Akari knows that.
It’d been part of her medical lessons at school. She’d listened to all the usual lectures - ‘your body will start changing as you get older’, ‘drugs are bad for you and this is why’ and ‘people sometimes forget things for medical reasons and this doesn’t mean anything is wrong with them aside from those medical reasons’ - so of course she knows this. She’s even lived it.
When her old neighborhood lady had started to forget where she’d left her glasses and such, Akari hadn’t held it against her. No one in Twinleaf Town had. They’d been kind and understanding and had taken care not to be cruel. They’d also known better than to leave children like Akari alone with her any longer. It’d been common sense not to risk anything, no matter how much her son had shouted when he’d come to take her away to the big city.
After all, even among old people only some forget things.
Not that Sneasler’s warden is old. His gray hair might fool people at a glance but he doesn’t have any wrinkles so Akari doesn’t think he’s very old at all.
Still.
Lady Irida looks so disappointed in her. Akari doesn’t like it. And she doesn’t know if she can afford it, not when Commander Kamado is hinting at sending her to the Alabaster Icelands, the very home of the Pearl Clan, next. It would feel dishonest to change how she acts just because of that, to- to play-act simply to get the clan’s favor and help in her next assignment but Irida looks sad and, well…
Akari can make an effort for that.
Can take care to act a bit less guarded around Sneasler’s warden if it makes Irida less sad. Can chose to be a bit more trusting and work on being a bit less worried, no matter how much her mind screams at her to be careful.
Can call him Ingo, maybe.
Besides, she’ll be moving on soon. The commander is always pushing her to advance so Akari expects to be ordered to the Icelands within the next two weeks. She can be brave for that long, can stand to be around Sneasler’s warden and do her best to trust that he’s harmless enough that long.
She can.
After the Coronet Highlands come the Alabaster Icelands. Just as she’d predicted, Commander Kamado sends her on as soon as Captain Cyllene admits that Akari has filled the Highlands’ pokédex as best as can be expected within two weeks.
She’s glad to move on, even if the Icelands are cold and unforgiving, their hostile environment pushing her to her brinks. Akari can manage it. She manages the low temperatures, the aggressive pokémon, the dangerous weather conditions, the lack of cover, the icy crevasses jawing open beneath her feet, ready to swallow her whole, and more.
Like the Pearl Clan’s hostility.
It’s nothing much. Nothing too …overt. But it’s there, evident in every guarded smile and reserved greeting, unmistakable in the way they hesitate to trade her much needed supplies and utterly obvious in the way the clan asks her to sleep in the survey corp’s camp instead of inviting her to stay in their village.
Akari can only guess why the clan doesn’t welcome her. There are, she supposes, multiple reasons possible. Maybe they don’t approve of how she trains pokémon. Maybe they’re wary of the Galaxy Team. Maybe they’ve heard how the Diamond Clan had welcomed her and decided that they didn’t want much to do with a stranger associated with their longstanding rivals.
Maybe they’ve heard of how she treated Sneasler’s warden.
Akari doesn’t think Irida would’ve told her clan, but she could be wrong. Maybe someone from the survey corps inadvertently revealed her actions or maybe warden Sabi really is psychic and plucked the knowledge right out of her head.
Or maybe there’s another reason altogether.
One time she spies an elder signing a gesture at her back from the corner of her eye, so painfully familiar to the gesture of warding she faintly remembers from her own home, and - chilled to the bone - has to admit that maybe there is another reason altogether that has the Pearl Clan acting so wary.
Maybe it’s just about her.
It hurts.
But Akari manages.
She manages Sabi and Gaeric and his bare chest and scaling her way all the way up to Snowpoint Temple and even fighting fucking Avalugg.
She manages to pacify the last noble, manages to fill out the pokédex, manages not to cry when she returns to Jubilife and the sky turns red overnight and Kamado exiles her from the village. She manages not to scream at Rei and Laventon and Cyllene when they protest against her treatment and tell her not to die but don’t help, sending her out of the village as well. She manages to walk away calmly instead of breaking down, some vestige of hidden pride making her set out into the wilderness.
She doesn’t quite manage not to cry when Volo finds her but he doesn’t mention it so it’s alright.
He takes her to safety and she meets Cogita, who actually knows what to do about the red sky, and Captain Cyllene sends her Abra and Adaman and Irida are here - the clan’s haven’t washed their hands of her, not really - and then she’s off to Lake Verity in the Fieldlands and Lake Valor in the Mirelands alongside Adaman while Irida leaves to keep an eye on the Galaxy Team.
Akari manages.
Until she doesn’t.
When Cogita had told her to seek the beings of the three lakes, Akari had been startled. Disquieted by the parallels to what little she remembers from her own home but little else. When she and Adaman had actually gone to the first of those lakes, however, her disquiet had evaporated.
And made way for a deep-set, lurking fear, an inkling of terror at what she’d already known was to come.
Because at Lake Verity, inside its grotto, they’d met Mesprit.
Mesprit.
The Being of Emotion.
The godly fairy who’d granted humans the ability to feel. To experience joy and sorrow, love and hate, acceptance and rage and all other emotions in all of their myriad facets. Who’d blessed humans so grandly, who’d given them one of the things that makes them human: Emotions, one of the mental pillars that define a human. That make a sentient and sapient being.
Who can, it is said, take those emotions away again with a mere touch.
Akari doesn’t remember any stories that tell of Mesprit ever doing so.
She can only hope that this isn’t only due to her faulty memory.
That Mesprit truly does not take what it has given, despite possessing the ability to do so.
Either way she’d breathed a sigh of relief when they’d been able to leave the cave, clutching the token she’d been given in her hands and hardly able to comprehend that she’d somehow convinced Mesprit to help her.
She’d still been reeling when they’d moved on, swiftly traveling to Lake Valor in the heart of the Mirelands.
Where they’d entered another cave and all her fears had come home to roost.
Because there, in that wet and dripping grotto, they’d been met by Azelf.
Mesprit had been bad enough. Akari could’ve dealt with it. Could’ve - eventually - even felt blessed by the encounter. But to meet another of the fairies? To meet the Being of Willpower within a day - she thinks it’s a day but who can know with the sky this strange - of finding the Being of Emotions? At two out of three lakes she was to visit in order to forge an artifact of cosmic power?
Akari had known.
Had known just who she’d encounter at Lake Acuity in the Icelands.
She’d known even as she was tossing balm after balm at Azelf, the frustration of the exercise the fairy had set her suppressing the panic threatening to well up inside of her.
She’d known.
And it still hadn’t prepared her at all.
Later, Akari will not be able to describe Uxie. She’ll remember how Mesprit and Azelf had looked and find the courage to carefully and reverently ink a picture of each into the pokédex. But she won’t be able to describe Uxie, who she'd met in the cave at the last lake.
She’ll pretend she does.
She’ll dredge up her faint memories of the life she had before Hisui, of a wooden idol displayed in a shrine and a cutesy little charm meant to help with tests that she’d tucked into her school supplies, and pretend she knows what Uxie’s body had looked like and what colors the fairy had sported.
But she won’t know.
Because she’d never looked at Uxie at all.
Let it be known that, no matter how much the idea of meeting Uxie had terrified her, Akari had still done her best to meet its challenge. Had still flown up to Lake Acuity, crossing its icy waters with the help of Braviary’s wings. Had still gone into that cave and battled the frankly disturbing alpha zoroark within.
She’d done it.
Quite successfully, too.
Doubly so, considering that she’d kept her eyes closed the whole time, trusting her ears, her pokémon and the training she’d given her partners to carry them through. And it had worked. They’d won, beating the Zoroark back until it fainted and her Samurott Chief had stood victorious.
It’d been what came after, that’d defeated her.
Uxie itself.
And its question.
Some would say it was an easy question. Or inane. What deity of knowledge asks after how many eyes a set of pokémon have? Uxie did.
Uxie did and Akari had shuddered at the question, panic clawing at the back of her mind as she tried to think past the fact that Uxie had asked after eyes.
Eyes like hers that she kept pressed shut with desperate force.
Eyes like Uxie’s that Akari never, ever wanted to meet.
Eyes that obliterate Knowledge at a glance, eyes that she’d maybe already met because she doesn’t remember where she came from, doesn’t remember much of her past at all and for all that she thinks she remembers the pokémon that stole her memories she isn’t sure she’s remembering it correctly. What if she’s wrong? What if it was Uxie that had taken them? Uxie that had met her and judged her and found her wanting, that read her mind and decided that she’s-!
That is judging her now, its telepathic voice repeating its question in her head. She needs to answer. But.
She doesn’t know it.
Akari doesn’t know the answer to Uxie’s question.
Think.
She needs to think.
And she tries, she really does, but it’s not working, she’s overthinking things instead. Do combee have two eyes or two eyes for each of their three combs? Do zubat have eyes or not? She doesn’t know but Uxie must be getting impatient so Akari shudders and forces out her best guess and-
And it’s wrong.
Akari breaks.
She can’t do anything else. Can’t hold it back, can’t hold it in, can’t control herself, can’t do anything but scramble blindly backwards, needing to put a wall against her back, tears stinging in her tightly closed eyes and the first of many, many sobs hitching in her breath.
She cries.
She cries so hard.
And as she cries she tries to stop, tries to get a hold of herself, tries to calm down because Uxie is right there and Akari still hasn’t answered its question.
But she can’t.
She can only cry and cry and cry for a long time.
At one point, she thinks of checking her pokédex for the answer. She’s worked so hard on it, spent so many hours inking and listing every detail of the pokémon she’d observed, it’s got to have the answer. So she tries to read it. She really, really tries. But even curled into a ball she cannot pry her eyes open to read the pages in the scant protection her curled body can provide. She tries and keeps trying, sobbing and crying freely, frustration and anger at her own cowardice mixing with her fear as she tries and tries and tries and fails.
Tears flow down her face and her nose drips as well and she must look so ugly, look so helpless, and surely she’s ruining the pokédex she’s labored over and now needs so much because she can feel the drops gathering at her chin and falling onto her trembling hand bracing her little booklet and that somehow makes everything even worse.
Akari cries harder, ugly sobs forcing themselves out of her lungs as she fights to breathe.
She cries and cries and cries, unable to stop her wailing and growing ever more fearful because surely - surely - Uxie must be growing impatient. She must answer it, but she cannot read the pokédex and every time she thinks she might get a hold of herself the realization that Uxie must be finding her wanting sends her into another round of panicked sobs.
She doesn’t dare think of what would’ve happened if Volo hadn’t been there.
Curious and inquisitive Volo, who’d accompanied her to the last lake when Adaman hadn’t been able to enter Pearl Clan territory.
Brave Volo, who doesn’t seem to care about the danger he’s putting himself in.
Volo, who appears at her side and pries the pokédex from her desperate grip, looking through its rustling pages for the information she needs. Volo, who whispers the answer to Uxie’s question into her ear and makes her repeat it until she can say it without stammering through her sobbing. Volo tells her that everything is ok, that it’s going to be alright, that she’s doing well and will be fine until hope kindles in her heart as she dares to believe him.
Volo, who saves her.
In comparison, closing the rift above Mount Coronet is almost easy.
The red chain works on Dialga, rendering it easy to defeat. Palkia - enraged and empowered - she needs to becalm before she can send out her pokémon but all in all it does not put up much more of a fight either. It almost feels comical. Like she didn’t need the red chain at all. Like it wasn’t worth all the fear she went through to assemble it.
For all that the clans call their respective Sinnoh a ‘god’, at the end they’re still just two pokémon.
“They made humans”, she tells professor Laventon two weeks later, sitting in his office with a cup of tea. Laventon had invited her, curious as to why Akari hadn’t done more than add a careful picture of each of the Beings she met during the red sky crisis to the pokédex. As if she could.
Dialga and Palkia, well, she’s willing to run the full pokédex study on them. Up to and including subjecting them to various attacks to determine any type weaknesses though that should, perhaps, be done cautiously. But the lake fairies? The mere idea of- of studying and cataloging them like common pokémon - like starly and bidoof for gods’ sake - is preposterous.
Akari could never.
But Laventon apparently thinks otherwise.
He’s curious about them. So, so curious. About her refusal to add them as well. Akari can tell that he’s baffled by it, not understanding where she’s coming from. He isn’t pushing though. He isn’t pushing her, cheerfully declaring that he can write the entries himself - joking that he should be doing some of his own field research for once - and telling Akari that she’s free to focus on other pokémon.
She should be relieved.
Comforted by the fact that she doesn’t have to write the full pokédex entries she knows Kamado is expecting.
However.
She owes professor Laventon.
He’d taken her in when she’d been new to Hisui, had helped her cover up the holes in her memories, had given her Chief for a partner and a job that meant she could stay in Jubilife. Laventon had helped her. So she should help him in turn. Or, at the very least, warn him.
That’s why she’s here, feeling distant and chilled despite the cozy afternoon atmosphere, looking unseeingly down on the slowly cooling cup of tea in her grip as she turns it around and around again, trying to put what she vaguely remembers but knows to be true into words.
"The lake fairies made us. They blessed us, gave us the three things that make us human. Mesprit granted us emotions - so we’re sapient and can feel. Azelf gave us willpower - the spark of a living mind, the ability to decide and follow through on a decision, the drive that makes us act. And Uxie, Uxie gave us knowledge. Not books or anything like that. Intelligence. The ability to solve problems, to learn from it and retain that knowledge as memories.
I don’t remember all of it, I can barely remember some of the lectures the priests who passed through my hometown held, but Uxie is the special one. The fairy that held humans above all others. Mesprit and Azelf blessed humans and pokémon equally - no one argues differently anymore - but Uxie was the one to give humans more. That’s why humans plan and do science and build up knowledge over the course of generations while pokémon don’t. Everything humans have, all the things we know because someone discovered it and taught that knowledge to someone else, is because of Uxie. Because of Uxie’s blessing we’ve been able to build our societies and all the things that make our lives easier. We’re blessed."
Her statement hangs in the air, ringing loudly like a bell in the stillness of Laventon’s office.
Akari swallows, feeling somehow like she’s overstepped, like she’s said something wrong or- or blasphemed somehow despite only talking of blessings. Her next words want to snag in her throat but she forces past the desire to keep silent and makes herself continue. This is important.
“But it also means that Uxie holds us to higher standards. We need to be good. Need to be thankful for what Uxie gave us. Need to be responsible and never ever abuse the Gift of Knowledge. There’s stories about what happens if we don’t. Uxie gave us knowledge. Uxie can take it away again if it wants to. Can take everything away. All- all memories.”
The tea turns round and round in Akari’s hands, little ripples spreading across its cold surface. She watches them, enraptured, preferring to focus on them instead of the things she’s saying.
“That’s… that’s supposed to be a blessing as well. That’s what the priests say. A blessing to all other humans and a mercy to the one it happens to because Uxie only does it to evil people. To- to make them stop being evil.”
The ripples are growing stronger now.
“You can’t be an evil person if you’re not a person anymore.”
Professor Laventon is very silent.
Akari sits very very still, pretending that she isn’t afraid of what he’ll say, that the ripples in her stone-cold tea aren’t from her trembling.
Finally, Laventon speaks.
“You’re not evil, Akari,” he says and it should feel relieving, shouldn’t it? Laventon is a professor, he’s smart and kind, has worked with her and surely knows what he’s saying. He’s saying she isn’t evil, is saying what Akari has been telling herself this whole time, and surely hearing it from someone else will finally quieten that doubtful little voice at the back of her mind that keeps saying ‘but what if’?!
It doesn’t.
It doesn’t help at all.
“I know that,” Akari answers after a too long second, speaking past the lump in her throat as she forces a smile on face and hopes against hope that her voice sounds as bright as she tries to make it. “Besides, people have been calling me the ‘hero of Hisui’! If I’m a hero I can’t be bad.”
Somewhere out of her line of sight, Laventon sighs.
“That is… good,” he says, slow and hesitant as if picking his words like a route past a sleeping alpha. “It’s, I mean,” Laventon stammers, struggling to coral his thoughts before blurting out, “You have been struggling with this, haven’t you? With your amnesia. I mean, I know you have - who wouldn’t - but it’s not just the amnesia, isn't it? It’s been, well, this.”
Well.
Of course it has.
Who wouldn’t worry if there was something wrong with them if they just lost their memory like she did? That’s the natural response, isn’t it? So Akari really doesn’t know why Laventon sounds so taken aback when he says it. And so sad. And why something about his tone makes the lump in her throat grow and tears burn behind her eyes when Laventon’s reaction is the strange one and not Akari’s. She shouldn’t feel like crying because of it. Like it takes all she has to keep from breaking down. Maybe it shows. It must show because the professor makes a startled sound, sounding alarmed and, well…
Akari doesn’t want to talk anymore.
So she doesn’t.
If her travels through Hisui have taught her anything then it’s how to move and keep moving no matter what happens.
So she lifts her head and beams, squinting her eyes so she doesn’t have to look at Laventon too closely. Setting down her tea and getting up is the matter of seconds, stepping away from the table and towards the door takes barely longer.
“Thanks for the tea!” Akari chirps, as cheerful as she can make it. “I hope I helped you with the pokédex but I have to go now. I’ve got an appointment to keep.”
“Ah- of course,” Laventon stammers, thrown off, “I suppose you’re heading out with Volo again?”
“Yeah”, Akari grins, her smile shifting to something genuine, “I am. He knows so many places to explore, it’s great! I’m having a lot of fun and learning tons. We’re going to the Fieldlands today, Cyllene wants me to look into something and he has an idea on where to start. I can’t wait!”
It’s not the only chat Akari has with Laventon.
Of course it isn’t.
Laventon is curious and Akari hasn’t told him all she knows yet. So it’s only natural that he is eager to talk to her whenever she comes by. It remains awkward though. Laventon tries to act natural, outwardly as cheerful as ever but Akari can see the cracks in it. Can see past the facade of normalness he puts on, how he’s just a bit too high spirited, a bit too forced in how he acts.
Can see how Laventon is struggling with what she’s told him, what she’d essentially confessed to.
He doesn’t seem to hold it against her though. Laventon doesn’t treat her differently. Doesn’t seem to watch her warily when they meet. If anything he seems worried for her. The way he keeps plying her with tea and treats and frustratingly ineffective reassurances makes it more than clear. They never quite work, but the fact that he keeps trying tells Akari that maybe Laventon somehow really doesn’t seem to mind her amnesia. As strange as that is.
Akari can’t quite comprehend it. Why doesn’t he care about what she’s told him? Why does he keep saying that her missing memories don’t matter? Why isn’t he pushing her away?
Doesn’t he get that Akari is dangerous?
Apparently he doesn’t.
And neither does Volo.
Or Rei.
None of them mind, all of them keep talking to her and inviting her to hang out. Rei keeps challenging her to pokémon battles, working to improve his relationship with his Pikachu. Evenings at the Wallflower become a regular thing, the two of them enjoying some tasty potato mochi together as they discuss battle tactics and pokémon care.
Volo keeps inviting himself along when she goes out on missions for the survey corps, looking into the various legends of Hisui. He’s always been a friendly face and helpful encounter but since he helped her get the red chain he’s become a friend, someone she enjoys going out adventuring with. After their trip to the Fieldlands, where they’d asked Cogita about Dialga and Palkia and found another of those plates she’s been collecting, they’ve been all over. From the Highlands, where they investigated the ruins scattered around the cliffs and fought Cresselia on Melli’s behalf, to the Coastlands, where they’d met up with Irida and even back to the Icelands.
Volo had been with her throughout it all. He’d braved the heat of Firespit Island alongside her, held her hand as they walked past Lake Acuity on the way to Snowpoint Temple to meet with Adaman and even shouted at Kamado for her after the old commander had made her battle him on the beach for the plate in his possession. She’d wiped the floor with him of course but it’d been nice for someone to take her side for once.
Gods, with Volo by her side she’d even managed to bring herself to face the lake fairies once more, this time battling and catching the three deities that still haunt her dreams every night.
If… if they’re deities.
Akari thinks they are.
But the people here don’t.
And she beat them.
That has to mean something, right? Surely it has to count for something?
Akari isn’t sure.
And she thinks that, maybe, it doesn’t matter.
They’re deities to her and to wherever she came from. Every time she talks with Laventon that becomes achingly clear. How they’re worshiped. How Akari has worshiped them, largely still does and in some ways feels everyone should.
It would be safer that way.
Which is what she tells Laventon in his office and Rei during their suppers and Volo as they talk on their way to whatever destination they’re heading towards on any day. She tells them, doing her best to pass on all the warnings and appeasements she can dredge from her memories. The stories and lessons that come to her when Laventon plies her with tea and coaxes her through telling him about, well, a lot of things.
Not just the fairies or what she observes from the other legends she keeps catching but also whatever mundane little snippets she remembers from growing up. Things she only vaguely recalls and finds she remembers far more than she’d thought once she tries, Laventon’s patient coaxing drawing them out. Strangely, he seems almost more interested in her favorite foods or what she did with her free time than the curses one should never ever say out loud less one calls the wrath of Uxie, Azelf and Mesprit down on some poor soul.
It’s kind of like he thinks Akari - and what she remembers of her family and pokémon - are more important than which crimes will get the fairies to pay attention and unmake a person. Which is silly. Akari isn’t that important. No one is.
But it, too, feels nice.
So does Rei’s nervous offer to help her measure Dialga and Palkia.
Or Volo’s joking reassurance that he’d fight the fairies on her behalf should they ever come for her.
Or even Cyllene’s appreciative nod whenever Akari reports some new discovery, the captain thanking her for her efforts and giving Akari some lighter work when she starts looking too tired.
It - every time someone does something like that - just feels so very very nice. She has friends. People who are willing to help her. Who care. Who will have her back and whose steadfast support has started to do something amazing.
Because, day by day, something settles in Akari.
Something she hadn’t even really realized had been unsettled, even though it’s so, so obvious in hindsight. Made clear by how much it lessens and the relief it brings.
Day by day Akari feels lighter.
It’s like each day - each show of care, of acceptance - drops some little weight from her shoulders. She feels less burdened. Less anxious. Less like she’s desperately treading water and still barely succeeding at keeping her head above water. Less like she needs to hide, hide, hide in some corner or behind a fixed smile. Less hunted. It’s good. For the first time since she woke up in Hisui, Akari feels like maybe she’ll be alright.
Like everything will be fine.
Nothing is fine.
Akari is standing in the ruins of the Temple of Sinnoh, hiding behind the remains of its once proud pillars as her pokémon desperately try to slow down Giratina. It’s a hard battle. They’d been tired even before the dark legend had ripped its way into the world and the way they have to keep protecting her from its attacks isn’t helping. Even right this second Chief bravely throws himself in front of a shadowy orb heading her way, taking the devastating attack in Akari’s place. He squeals in pain when it hits, barely able to remain standing, even a Samurott’s type advantage not enough to shrug off the powerful ghost attack.
At the front of the temple Volo keeps laughing.
He laughs as Akari runs from pillar to pillar, seeking shelter from Giratina’s attacks. He laughs when she bangs into the rubble lying all about in a rush to escape, stumbling and bruising herself. He laughs when her pokémon fall one by one, when she has to brave the open air in order to throw one of her increasingly sparse healing items her faltering team’s way. He laughs when her breath rasps harshly in her throat, bitingly cold and painful in her overtaxed lungs. He laughs when the dry sandy dirt of the temple starts sticking to her sweat-soaked uniform, when her Staraptor takes an Earth Power to the chest and doesn’t get up, when she cuts her hand on a sharp piece of rubble in yet another desperate dodge roll, when her blood starts dripping to the once white temple floor alongside that of her partners.
Volo laughs.
Smug and satisfied and gleeful as he enjoys her struggle, only stopping when Akari does, coming to a halt in the middle of the temple. Only then does he stop, magnanimously gesturing for Giratina to halt its attacks, feasting his eyes on her panting form.
She should move.
She’s right out in the open, a sitting duck beneath Giratina’s looming shadow. She should take off running again, look for some more cover or maybe try to escape the temple like she should’ve done at the start of this disaster. But she can’t bring herself to do it. She’s exhausted. Clutching the unresponsive pokéballs housing her fainted team. Out of healing items and out of options. She’s beaten.
And unspeakably furious.
How dare he.
How dare Volo do this to her.
How dare Volo look at her like this. Like she’s nothing. Like she’s someone, something undeserving. Like the only thing she’s good for is her pain and struggle, offering his haughty being some entertainment through her suffering.
Like everything they went through together means nothing.
Was any of it real? Any of their encounters on the road, meeting again and again as Akari worked her way through pacifying the nobles and surveying Hisui? Any of the smiles, the encouraging words, the advice and support freely offered, the days spent together looking into legends? His help during the red sky, against Kamado, with Uxie?
Maybe not.
Probably not.
Not when Volo smirks at her like this, so close to the teasing smiles she’s become familiar with and utterly alien at the same time. Not when the warmth in his eyes is replaced by - revealed to be - dancing triumph, manic enough to court the edge of insanity. Not when he looks like all his dreams have come true even as Akari’s world is crashing down around her, as he gloatingly lifts his chin as if to silently ask her ‘Well? Why aren’t you pleading for your insignificant life yet?’
How dare he.
How dare he look at her as if Akari is the one somehow lacking when it’s Volo who is in the wrong? When it’s him that’s throwing away everything they mean to each other, that’s trampling their friendship beneath his ridiculous sandaled feet? When it’s him that’s betraying her?!
Akari can not.
Can not take it.
Does not want to take it.
And yet she has to because she’s here and he’s here and this is happening. He’s betrayed her, he’s fought her, her team is down and Giratina is waiting for the go ahead to kill her and he’s gloating while she’s at his mercy.
She has to take it.
But she doesn’t want to.
Does not want to give him the satisfaction.
Does not want to give in, to admit she’s beaten, to bow down and plead for her life.
No.
Akari wants Volo to plead. To suffer. To go through something even vaguely like the devastation she’s experiencing right now. She wants to shout. To scream at him. To sling insults at him, calling him every dirty name under the sun, and throwing in some other curses to boot.
And oh - ooh - isn’t that an idea?
A terrible, wonderful idea.
She’s not supposed to say it.
Everyone always told her that.
It’s a curse.
An ill wish.
A call for doom to fall upon a person and a terrible risk to take because to say it reflects on one’s own character as well, might reveal envy or hate or some other loathsome flaw and doom oneself just as easily. Because the curse calls upon higher powers, on beings beyond human ken and such beings are rarely known for being understanding. Or prone to discerning between mortals. It’s too risky. And too harsh a curse. So you’re not supposed to say it. No one decent says it.
But Akari is so angry.
Furious and betrayed down to her core. The words come easily, tumbling from her lips almost without her conscious input. Low and dark, furious hurt and bitter betrayal mixing, turning her voice into something unrecognizable and wretched.
“I hate you.” She says. “I hope you find judgment in Uxie’s eyes.”
The words hang in the air between them as if caught between her furious and his amused gaze. Volo’s grin twitches, edges curling upwards in hilarity as if he’s entertained by a clever joke she’s told.
And In the pouch at Akari’s waist a forgotten pokéball, taken along on a whim because she needs to get used to its godly occupant and when she’s with Volo it’s safe to do so, eases open.