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Even if everyone was looking down on her youth right now, Zinnia had already lived enough to know no other matriarch ceremony had been so graveyard silent. Only the people whose attendance was obligatory were here, everyone else was resisting the idea that she, from all people, was the one taking after this role.
But Zinnia couldn't blame them, not even a little bit. If she figured out some way to time travel, her younger self would probably be incredibly disappointed as well if she saw her.
“Hey, you…” she could still hear Aster's voice in the back of her head, so evergreen. With that draconid tongue mixed with something from outside the village, from overseas, something their people tended to frown upon.
“Aster. Hi.”
She approached her, with her long black curls, the cape and the star shaped necklace hanging from her neck.
“Whatchu doin’? Slobbing’ around?”
“As much as I would like to say no… yeah,” Zinnia shrugged. “It's not like there was much more to do.”
“I've been thinking about it, actually, boo,” she started in a reflexive tone, adding one of those outsider words at the end of her sentence in a fashion that would've enraged many elders. “That you're the only granddaughter of the current matriarch. If she passed, then your grandaunt Ivy would be the next in line, and…”
Zinnia cut her off, “... And if Ivy unfortunately died, I'd be the next in line. I know.”
Her girlfriend giggled, shushing her, “you don't have to sound so satisfied about the possibility!”
“I'm sure my dear auntie feels the same about me.”
“Come on now, I do think you'd be an amazing matriarch!”
She rolled her eyes, clicked her tongue, crossed her arms and uttered:
“Never in a billion years would I be the matriarch.”
Even if her tone was bitter, ironic, Aster always knew how to handle her with a broad smile upon her lips.
“If they need you… it's in your bloodline.”
“Ugh, I don't care about that, Aster! Hopefully soon the prophecy will come true, you'll fulfill your lorekeeper duties and then we can elope somewhere the culture is clever.”
“Our culture is clever!”
“You're right, yes,” she corrected herself. “Somewhere people are clever. Somewhere we can get married and adopt a baby boy and be happy without all these sacred duties and moralist elders and grandaunts that frown upon everything you do!”
Finally the gleeful facade changed into solemnity; Aster rested her cheek against her shoulder and hiding it with her cape, she laced her fingers with Zinnia’s, sweetly.
“It’s true that the village is unbearable at times and it doesn't make justice to its beautiful history and traditions,” she admitted with a sigh. “And it’s also true that Devon keeps on hiding dirt under their fancy carpet and that’s somehow our issue. Yes. It's true that I want to run away from here because I hope our dear Lord Rayquaza forbids me from being here to see what the village will turn into whenever your grandma passes and it's up to Ivy to run it all…”
Still not knowing the weight of that affirmation, the premonitory air to it, Zinnia growled, “yeah, me neither. It's going to turn into a shithole, I know it.”
“That's why they will need you. The only one who can keep up the good job your grandma has done and do it even better, is you.”
“Never in a billion years, Aster. Never. You and I will be far away from here when that happens.”
“How can you be so sure about that?” her girlfriend asked jokingly. “Never say never!”
“I just know it, I can already see it, it´s like a prophecy for me!” She jolted, enthusiastically. “You and me, in Kitakami, raising a kid, just two retired lesbians.”
“Kitakami sounds like a nice place, not gonna lie. But what about keeping the bigoted elders at bay like your grandma does, huh?! That also sounds funny!”
“Nonsense! Whenever we get to Kitakami none of that will matter! There are no prophecies in there, no exploitative enterprises that need to be taken care of, no matriarchs and elders. Just wild pokémon, a legend about an ogre, and lots of apples to pick up and export. We could grow our own.”
“And let Hoenn burn.”
“Exactly!”
And so, Hoenn burned, not once but twice, and Aster wasn’t there to see it, but Zinnia was there, to live it, to try to turn the fire off, just to slowly realize she got engulfed on it, as a real burn that keeps stinging and coiling even if the fire isn’t there anymore.
Because everybody moved on, and she was still there, stuck: Wallace went on a soul-searching trip to try and find himself again, to see if he could get back his happy marriage by being away detaching from his parental role; Emily left to Alola, to have multiple days of sun kissing her skin indulgently, the sea dancing in front of her along the breeze…
But Zinnia couldn’t give up on duty. She was no one’s daughter, she had no partner who could hold duty and responsibility while she was away… Zinnia only had herself, the pride and lore of those who belonged nowhere, falling off again in her hands in the most ironic way.
Because, as the matriarch, she belonged there, in Meteor Falls, in the Draconid Village, for life. But nobody wanted her there and that was why that ceremony had been so unattended, because no one else was convinced that she belonged there.
It must have had flowers and claps, there should be a celebration, however, after the rite was over, everyone walked home, the new matriarch crowned by silence. She took off her new robe to put back Aster’s burnt one, she instinctively tried to grab between her fingers the star-shaped keychain that hung from Emily’s chest now, she sighed, and walked, walked and walked, until she reached that high spot of Meteor Falls, that old spot she had been visiting ever since she was a kid, the spot where she brought Aster once and they swore eternal love to each other… As lonely as always. Zinnia looked at the stars, and just then, she allowed the tears to stream down her face.
“Aster…” was the name that came from her lips, as it always did. “I… I don’t even know what to say…”
A sob interrupted her soliloquy.
“I told you I’d never do this… but if you only knew all the shit I’ve gone through… I’m so glad you didn't have to see it, and at the same time I’m so angry because why would you leave me if all of this was going to happen?”
Her lips trembled just like her whole body did.
“I can’t even sleep at night. If I hear the rain, my heart pounds too harshly, if I hear one single thunder I go into a frenzy, if I close my eyes, I get haunted by the look of Steven’s face about to die in the same way you died… I hate myself because I could save him thanks to the fact that I couldn’t save you…”
She fell to her knees, ungracefully, not being the matriarch, just being Zinnia.
“How am I even supposed to be the matriarch?” Her voice was drowned by desperation, by sorrow, by hate, “Everyone despises me, no one showed up to my ceremony, I’m stuck in a place that constantly reminds me that I don’t belong, and I-”
Zinnia sobbed. She sobbed into the ground, hitting it with her fists that soon enough turned red and bled, because she was haunted, because she never dreamed of this, because the word ‘matriarch’ fitted her like an oversized coat that belonged to someone else. Because Aster was never coming back, because Aster had been dead for so long now and still Zinnia was howling her name at the moon.
“At least, I hope there’s some other life…” she started. “Where we eloped to Kitakami and had a kid and nothing of this ever phased us. I hope… I hope so…”
Because in this life, her duty, her destiny, the reason she had been brought up to this world, were her very doom.
Some people said busy minds didn’t miss anyone.
But Zinnia had always been the exception to all rules.
And she was here, doing it all with a broken heart, or perhaps, a heart that never ceased to break, to bleed, a wound that would forever remain open.
Her team was fairly small, just the people that were forced by duty to accompany her in different quests and a couple trainers more that were assigned; Zinnia would prefer by all means to soar the skies all alone, like she used to, just Salamence and her watching Hoenn from the heights and fantasizing about all the lives they could not live. But no. Not even this she deserved as the new matriarch, if there was some patrol needed to be performed, if there were some wild pokémon creating a mess in the surroundings, if there was any need to visit Sootopolis or Pacifidlog or Rustboro, they tagged along.
In days like these, all Zinnia wished to do was to be back to the village to lock in her new matriarch house and down chocolate cakes and watch soap operas and silly reality shows until somehow she forgot about the doom that sacred duty was.
But no.
Today, she had a gathering with the new lorekeepers, poor young girls that had been doomed with something that seemed so relevant and so helpful, if only, to figure out later in life that some random foreigner would end up solving the crisis they were raised to handle and their sole life purpose would end up forsaken because of a foreigner that would be later held as a hero.
… If she wasn’t sounding like Ivy now.
However, those curious eyes as she spoke, from young things that didn’t look at her with nearly as much judgment as their ancestry, they dug like daggers in her heart, because these all felt like fairy tales, like black magic, like counterfeits of a life they would never get to live.
“When the shining lights up the endless skies, the sun shall burn brighter, the waves crash viciously and the land quake…” Zinnia cleared her throat. “Does anybody here know what this is ‘sposed to mean?”
“... A drought?”
“Good one, Primrose. Yes. A drought, so…” she got back to the rehearsed solemn voice. “From the deep, shall The Lord resurface, the long sealed creature unraveling its wrath over the land long occupied by the water,” and again, she shifted. “Any idea who The Lord is…?”
Primrose opened her mouth to speak, until Zinnia side glared at the other two girls.
“... Someone other than Prim?”
An even younger girl replied, “Groudon?”
“Yep. We know prophecies tend to address Rayquaza as The Lord, but sometimes they also call Groudon that, so study the context before you interpret it!” And again, her eyes lingered over that silly prophecy she had read over and over since she was young. “Humans ought not be afraid; abundance and death need each other, endless storms need a drought, nature balances herself. Shall the phenomena last longer, the chosen one, a man like any other man will use a treasure to seal The Lord back-”
“A man?” Primrose asked with indignation for evident reasons.
And that was exactly what Zinnia couldn’t spoil; none of these prophecies were for them to fulfill, if they happened to be more than the fever dream of some high rank from the past.
“Ancient texts use it as an umbrella term. A man could be literally anyone. Don’t worry.”
And then, she squeezed the book a little tighter on her grip, and kept going:
“... And the sun will shine normally again, and the crops will bloom again-”
“It will be the last time you’ll do something so deviant in front of everyone!”
What?
The three lorekeepers to-be and the former one ran silent, startled, when such words roared through the hall from the main patio. If Zinnia was about to let it slip, the tiny voices of two young girls sobbing made her drop the book like it wasn’t sacred and run to see what was going on.
“Is anything the matter?”
The old woman, with a harsh frown upon her wrinkled features spat, “these two here were holding hands and kissing in such a sacred place, bringing deviant traditions to the land of The Lord!”
She knew those girls… one was Charlotte, a girl whose father moved to Unova several years ago to marry an Unovan woman and start a family, until due sad circumstances they passed and Charlotte was sent back to the village, with one of her aunts, with her skin not being as dark and her eyes having a blue tone to them. And the other one was Dahlia, a girl of dark curls, dark skin, profound eyes… that happened to be Primrose’s little sister, here, waiting for her old sister to be done with her lessons.
“But look at you! That’s why this village should not accept intruders! With that dirty Unovan blood of yours, you’ll only pervert our fine ladies, born and raised here, and-”
“Enough!”
The lady thought this was meant to make the cries stop.
“Yes, enough, it’s enough, go apologize to The Lord-”
“No, you, cut it!”
“... What?”
“You will not make any kid feel like they do not belong here. I will not tolerate any bigotry towards the youth!”
The face contorted and everyone around gasped in a gossipy way as Zinnia expressed way more emotion than she had shown ever since she got the spot, however… a girl with an odd, mixed way of speaking and some other with determined looks… those could have been her and Aster. They spent several years hidden from those who didn’t understand and feel entitled to humiliate them, like Ivy. She had to redeem themselves.
“In any case, the people who are not welcomed here are those who believe they get to decide who gets rights and who doesn't, and that applies to aaaaall of you watching and whispering, too!”
Everyone got silent, very few out of respect, many others grudgingly.
“I would expect better from a matriarch. Ivy really left the bar too high for you, kiddo.”
“I am YOUR matriarch. Address YOUR matriarch with respect. I’m not a kiddo, I am The Lord’s very one representative.”
And if she could have left it at that, because she hated politics, she hated the hunger for power, she hated all of this…
“I’m the matriarch whether you all like it or not. I am and I’ll be until the day I die. I don't need anyone’s approval about that. This is my land and I’ll do whatever I want. And while I’m here, I will not tolerate discrimination, hate speech and bigotry. And if y’all don’t like it, you get to leave anytime.”
Zinnia knew these words would be carved in her stone, that this was the moment where she gained massive disrespect from everyone in the village. But young Aster and young Zinnia would have loved it if someone stood for them like that when all they had done was holding hands and pecking each other’s lips and figured, in the middle of an embrace, that the world was big, wonderful, beautiful.
When life felt like too much, Zinnia always went to her favorite spot in Meteor Falls, at the end of the day, to stargaze.
However, she was headed there much earlier this time around, risking the possibility of anyone in the village finding it out, because she had too much already; elders absolutely hated her, all of those fanatics Ivy left behind, people who twisted the words of Rayquaza to their convenience and attacked younger people and divergent adults and elders. All that Zinnia had to face, to confront, to argue against…but today, someone crossed a line.
“Watch your mouth, matriarch. That’s how your dear Aster got killed.”
She didn’t know if they really hit a sensible fiber, if she was more sensible that day or if it was the tiredness of constantly needing to do this… but she was tired. She wanted to reach her spot and cry, cry and cry until her eyes went dry and nobody missed her.
However… as she reached it, she saw some intruder there; an intruder of silver blue hair, of a fancy suit, of steel ornaments, looking up to the sky, as well.
“Oh…”
“Steven.”
As jumpy as always, the man stood to greet her politely, “Zinnia, hi.”
She shook her head, “you shouldn’t be here. This has been MY spot ever since I was a kid. This is where I cry.”
“Sorry, I was looking for rocks, as always, and I ended up here, drawn by how different the soil here is. But if this is a bad moment…”
“It’s fine. Just don’t tell anyone…” she sighed, defeated, not finding the energy to argue with him or poke his pride. “Figure you also had something in your mind if you ended up all the way here.”
Still trying to keep the facade, Steven replied, “maybe, yes.”
Zinnia sat down over a boulder near where Steven had been previously sitting: once he made sure there was no issue with it, Steven got back to his former position.
“Well, I heard you adopted a new daughter. Congrats!”
“Ah, yes, Sonia. Thanks.”
“She literally fell from the sky, didn’t she?”
“So Emily told you?”
“Yeah… that girl of yours has some guts saving her. That’s why I adore her. I guess Wallace must be over the moon, right? Now he won’t miss Emily when she’s away…”
Steven sighed deeply, “we adopted her because we had no other option. In spite of the unusual time traveling circumstances, I was happy to, she’s charming, quirky, but Wallace… he was going on and on about how that was much of a responsibility, of how we weren’t up to the task… and I mean… What responsibility is he talking about when he left for a whole year in his soul searching trip leaving me with the responsibility of a broken land? Now he acts like I didn’t have it in me to raise another girl, please…”
So… Zinnia wasn’t the only one who felt like everyone moved on a little too quickly.
“I had to stay here, unraveling Devon’s dirty secrets while also facing the Sootopolis community still mourning… and still I’m all over the moon about the idea of another daughter. Because if she fell with us it must be some fate we have to fulfill.”
But the fact Steven was venting to her was what truly amazed Zinnia. Never in a million years she imagined this possibility. He must be really fed up to rely on her so randomly, and that was why she felt forced to say something nicer:
“I know he had it hard understanding Emily was growing… maybe he's scared of going over the same thing with another girl.”
Steven sighed, “I agree. But it still is draining…”
They went silent for a whole minute.
“And what about you? You did say you were here to cry.”
She tried to see the humor in the whole situation, “why, I’m afraid to tell you my sad story beats yours. As always you're just moping over the privilege you have, to have a husband and two daughters and deal with the daily trials of all that…”
It was a joke but it didn't quite land like that on Steven. He squeezed his lips and seemed regretful, however, not really knowing how to say sorry, Zinnia simply skipped to her story;
“Everyone in the village hates me, I think I might be the most infamous and cringy matriarch ever registered in the story of matriarchs.”
The man cocked a brow, half amused, as if he was trying hard not to agree, “why?”
“Because Ivy left behind several fanatics… they torment younger people with bigoted commentary and aggressions and well… I call them out every single time. They think I’m just bickering and being some woke weakling.”
The matriarch expected the Devon heir to chuckle discreetly and rub to her face how she in fact had always been too woke and cringe and out of her own mind… however, he looked down and solemnly replied;
“That's sad, because I think you're metal as hell.”
She rolled her eyes at the pun, “Steven…”
“I mean it,” he chuckled halfheartedly. “You know you're not my favorite person and that you and I will bicker until the end of times. But Emily loves you and you gave her a different kind of confidence that neither Wallace nor I could ever give her.”
Right now, it was so hard to believe she could inspire someone all that much.
“How’s she been, though? She hasn’t written much ever since she became an eldest daughter.”
Steven shrugged, “what can I even say? I’m happy she’s busy being an older sister, I was afraid such a fine young girl would reduce herself to her romances. She’s still so, so, so heartbroken over that Lillie girl.”
This time around, Zinnia couldn’t help but laugh, “you’re a man, you won’t ever know what being a woman loved by another woman feels like.”
“I guess not! But I wouldn’t have expected a teenage relationship to hit her so, so hard. I didn’t see her being so low when Kyogre almost killed her. Yeah, she seemed phased for a while, but when a girl broke her heart…?”
Because everyone moved on too quickly and the doomed by sacred duty remained frozen in time.
“And I think it’s only the beginning,” Zinnia added. “She loves traveling, she’ll come across bigger heartbreaks on the path.”
“I know, but…”
“If I were you, I would prepare. Because you and I know where she comes from, and teenage years are the years we can expect for all her trust issues and trauma to burst in her face. She’ll want to explore and try out different things… some she will be prepared for, some she won’t…”
Steven sighed, “that’s why I’m afraid she will reduce herself to that,” but there was the indulgent fatherly undertone. “And at the same time… I hope she will reduce herself to that. That she is no longer in the position where she needs to handle crises and wrestle legends and risk her life for the sake of others. She’s a guardian now, I know, but sometimes, I think… keeping her far from that for a little longer could do no harm. Maybe it’s better that she simply cries over boys and girls, if that will keep her safe and alive, where I can see her and be happy for her.”
Why in the world did she feel like crying over something Steven said?
Maybe because it was moving to see how much a father could love a daughter… and maybe, because she also wished the same, for Emily to not be doomed by duty, for her to be able to be silly and meet someone and elope to a distant land and live a life in which they could pick up apples together.
To tone it down because that had been something truly vulnerable to confess to someone who was his rival, Steven joked, “tell me there’s no prophecy I should worry about, that Kyogre and Groudon will sleep until we all die and it's someone else's problem.”
“Steven. There are hundreds of prophecies about that, for this year, for the one that follows, for a 10 years time. Many of them I’m starting to believe were written while someone was high. Instead, you better tell me, have you dreamed of any of that lately?”
Because she knew that for some odd reason Steven had been granted that gift, randomly, even if no one admitted it as such.
“No. Fortunately it’s just the memory of that day…Nothing else.”
Zinnia sighed, “yes… same. Every day when I wake up I still hear the rain…”
The conversation could have ended up there, with Zinnia leaving for the day, to go home and chug on some chocolate cake… but after biting his tongue several seconds, Steven spoke:
“Speaking about dreams. I never, ever told someone, but…”
“... what?”
“I had a dream the day I almost died.”
“You… you did?”
“I don’t remember it well anymore. But I saw Wallace’s mom, I saw Emily’s mom…”
And why had he acted all along like she would call him crazy over that?
“They spoke to me about… energy. About auras getting thin, because they saved us with their energy… they said they would no longer be visible… because they would save me from dying…”
“Steven…!”
“And… you know? I think it’s make believe, but they also dropped something I wouldn’t be able to make up based on my memories alone.”
And then she heard it, the words that re opened the wound that never ceased to bleed.
“They said…” his voice was quivering. “Emily didn’t die by Kyogre’s hit because Aster gave her remaining energy to save her.”
And there she was… the tears falling uncontrollably from her red eyes, before her lungs and mouth realized they were supposed to sob.
“Something about that… felt real. Because I never met Aster, I don’t know what she looked like, what her voice sounded like, but…”
And Zinnia finally sobbed.
“Your Aster lives through my Emily… and maybe that’s why I desperately want her to live a peaceful life from now on, why I’ve considered sending her to a boarding school at Paldea, why I’ve thought of all sorts of ways to keep her safe… because… if Aster died how she died and you could save me because you learned all the steps in such way… doesn’t a part of Aster deserve to just be happy? To have a silly, little life and be away from sacred duty?”
Zinnia, not even for a second believed this was fake, that this was just a dream; Steven had premonitory dreams and he could be visited in dreams. It was real. And to think Aster had been around all along and made such a big sacrifice in the name of Emily, because Zinnia gave her the star keystone, because she was reckoned as one of those who belonged nowhere, just like that, and now Emily’s legacy would be also Aster’s…
She cried, and cried and cried. Until Steven hugged her and his earthy scent filled her senses, until he didn’t know what else to do and the scent left her, until the first stars of the night sky appeared, until it was cold and her body was shaking, until her eyes ran dry…
Because Emily was blessed by Aster to fulfill a sacred duty. And maybe, for once, there was nothing rotten nor doomed in said fate.
Even if Aster lived through Emily and learning about it gave her a new sort of solace never known before, the duty in the village still felt doomed.
But Zinnia knew she had to keep going, to push it until she died. To come to terms with the fact that people like her, or like Steven didn’t get to move on, that the storm would be forever raging inside their veins.
The lesson about prophecies and legends with the lorekeepers had finished for the day, and when she was about to leave, Primrose approached her with a low voice and said:
“My lady Zinnia, excuse me, before I’m dismissed, I’d like to introduce you to someone.”
She had grown silent, tired of trying to live up to Aster’s legacy, to fulfill a fate she never wanted to be hers, of arguing with all the bigoted people who wanted her dead. She just nodded and waited for Primrose to bring along whoever.
“Say hi to the new matriarch!” Primrose commanded excitedly. “Lady Zinnia, this one here is Canna. My older brother.”
“It’s an honor,” he bowed. And that was rare.
“Oh, hi, Canna. It’s nice to meet you.”
“I know you don’t know me, but I wanted to formally introduce myself,” he insisted, humbly. “I left the village years ago with no intention of ever coming back.”
Primrose nodded.
Zinnia just chuckled, “guess we all had that dream, right?”
He nodded, “I always loved it here. Always. But I will never forget the day Ivy threatened to revoke my magic just because I fell in love with a Sootopolitan man.”
Oh…?
“That was why I left. Because I felt targeted, bullied, like my life was at risk here, like his life was at risk here. Mom and dad wanted to support me, but they were so afraid of Ivy and all her followers they stayed silent. I was so angry at them… I spent many years angry at them… hating them, thinking of how cowardly they were… until I saw everything that Ivy was capable of.”
Yes. Everything that Ivy was capable of… was terrible. It was ingrained in the back of her mind forever.
“All these years I’ve missed my family, my sisters, I’ve wanted to be back…”
At this point, Primrose was shedding some tears, silently.
“I felt like it would be admitting my defeat, coming back to everything I ran away from… but then… Prim told me about a new matriarch who stood up for Dahlia when she was ‘caught’ with a girl… a matriarch that went around arguing with all of Ivy’s followers… Prim told me how some more people felt free to show themselves because they didn’t fear their integrity anymore, she told me how parents were speaking up a bit more, how mom and dad broke ties with those ‘friends’ who judged me, who judged Dahlia…”
It fell upon her like a bucket of freezing water.
“Being away and meeting the word sure is amazing. But you always know there’s a place where you belong, where your memories, your tradition, your lore, your loved ones remain, no matter how much you’ve seen. For me, that is Meteor Falls, the Draconid Village, and…”
He teared up as well.
“I’m glad the village is finally changing for good. That it is again the beautiful place where we all grew up. That there’s a matriarch who cares for those who seemed to belong nowhere. Thank you, my lady, for giving me the privilege of returning to where I belong.”
“Yes, thank you, lady,” Primrose followed. “I’m so happy my brother is back, I’m so happy to see Dahlia happy with Charlotte… I’m so happy that many others are considering returning… and I’m so happy I get to be a lorekeeper at this moment.”
Zinnia didn’t say much more except the basic courtesy, that it was her duty, that she was just doing what a leader must do. She dismissed them later, finished her work, headed back to the depths of Meteor falls and… visited her special spot.
Just to fall to her knees and look up to the sky and say:
“Never in a million years did I want this…” she chuckled, some tears falling from her eyes as she smiled triumphantly, just in case it all had been a lie and some of Aster’s energy still remained in this world, floating, lurking around her. “But maybe… maybe, since the very first time you looked at me, since the very first time I touched your hand and knew that was eternity, maybe since that second I was blessed by the sacred duty of turning this village into what we needed it to be all the way back when you first looked at me and I first touched your hand.”