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149 » slip softly to that place
[It ends the same way it begins. Or perhaps it'd be more accurate to say that it begins the same way it ended. But — the way that Akari once woke on the shores of an unfamiliar land to someone peering down at her in concerned curiosity — that's the way that she finds Volo now, camping beneath the stars near the Verity Lakefront. Maybe he thought he'd be able to avoid her by staying close enough that she wouldn't think to find him there; indeed, her first impulse had been to scour all the farthest corners of Hisui, and not that he'd be just a stone's throw away. But. She followed her heart. Found somewhere serene. Thought he might like the peace and quiet — thought his Pokémon would want that, too.
She's been looking for him ever since their battle at the peak of Mount Coronet. Why? Rei had asked, confused and wrinkling his nose in the way that he does when he thinks, plainly, that she's being stupid. It's not like he wants to see you. Rei's like that sometimes, always saying the bluntest possible thing. She doesn't hold it against him. Sometimes, the bluntest possible thing is what she needs to hear.
But even so. She wanted to see him again. Even though he tried to kill her; even though he tried to take the world by force. Maybe she's naïve. It's not like she doesn't understand that those were his real feelings, in the Temple of Sinnoh; it's not like she doesn't know that he meant it, that he really did manipulate her the whole time, that she really was just a pawn in a grander scheme of his that she didn't even understand. She knows all of this, but even so — the way that he looked when he smiled at her, and the way that he'd babble on about ancient ruins and history and the secrets of the old myths...
It ends the same way it begins, and when she steps, almost soundlessly, towards his camp and peers down at where he's lying in the grass, she says the same thing he once said to her, when she'd been thrown out and down on her luck.]
Found you at last, Volo.
[She'd thought of him as her savior, then.]
I've been looking all over for you, you know.
She's been looking for him ever since their battle at the peak of Mount Coronet. Why? Rei had asked, confused and wrinkling his nose in the way that he does when he thinks, plainly, that she's being stupid. It's not like he wants to see you. Rei's like that sometimes, always saying the bluntest possible thing. She doesn't hold it against him. Sometimes, the bluntest possible thing is what she needs to hear.
But even so. She wanted to see him again. Even though he tried to kill her; even though he tried to take the world by force. Maybe she's naïve. It's not like she doesn't understand that those were his real feelings, in the Temple of Sinnoh; it's not like she doesn't know that he meant it, that he really did manipulate her the whole time, that she really was just a pawn in a grander scheme of his that she didn't even understand. She knows all of this, but even so — the way that he looked when he smiled at her, and the way that he'd babble on about ancient ruins and history and the secrets of the old myths...
It ends the same way it begins, and when she steps, almost soundlessly, towards his camp and peers down at where he's lying in the grass, she says the same thing he once said to her, when she'd been thrown out and down on her luck.]
Found you at last, Volo.
[She'd thought of him as her savior, then.]
I've been looking all over for you, you know.
no subject
Volo, the great wielder of Pokémon, bested by this outsider, listens to the rustling of the blades of grass in the breeze, their whisper against the soles of Akari's sandals. How grating these quiet sounds seem now, disturbing the stillness of the lakeside. He doesn't care for the reminder that they both stood here not so long ago, when everything appeared to be progressing nicely. He can't discern what Akari could possibly want. That, an unanswered and unfathomable question, prickles beneath his skin like a particularly persistent unpleasant itch.
Found you at last, Volo. I've been looking all over for you, you know.
In anyone else's mouth, that greeting would be the snide gloating of the victor come to rub salt into a defeated opponent's wounds. The words are a deliberately-chosen echo, to be sure, Volo's own turned against him now, but where his dressed up the truth, cloaking it in the guise of a friend's determined concern making way for relief, hers sound as sincere to a fault as ever. He found her without going to great lengths to do so back then, in reality; she could well be honest and earnest enough to scour the entire world, though the Obsidian Fieldlands alone are vast. There isn't the slightest trace of veiled smugness in her tone, and he has had plenty of time to observe her to feel certain that she lacks the guile to wear any mask that wholly obscures her true self.
There's no longer any reason for him to wear one, either. He blinks slowly, taking in Akari's gentle features as she looks down at him from above (simply and genuinely at him), and then he lets his eyes close, if only because the sight filling his field of vision stokes the embers of all those accursed emotions left roiling within his heart in the wake of their battle.
Why is she here, after that final exchange, borrowing a memory to speak to him like an old friend? ]
...Have you, now. Then you've abandoned your dreams?
no subject
Outwardly, Akari seems calm and unbothered, but — much as she is when she corners a Pokémon — each passing second prompts a new strategic line of thinking on her behalf. She's reading his movements, or lack thereof. She's thinking. About what she can say, and what she wants to say, and what she should say. There's so much when it comes to him, and he's so delicate, past the bluster. She doesn't want to hurt him, though maybe she already has.
You've abandoned your dreams, he says, and she only tips her head to one side, and crouches above him. She isn't going to pretend that she understands.]
I never said that you couldn't be in them.
[There's always been something like a polite distance between the two of them, their bodies. Even when they were traveling together, there were expected social customs, what with him being a young man and her being a younger woman. They set about separate tasks, at camp; they slept in different tents. But now — now, Akari reaches out. She doesn't stop his hair from being in his eyes, but she touches her knuckles against his temple, drawing a gentle caress over his brow. There's something chastising in it.]
You decided that all on your own.
1/2
These are the hands deemed worthy of the Azure Flute. By extension, Arceus supports Akari's dreams and aspirations. Does she even understand the weight of the privilege bestowed upon her, when she can't see the stark differences forming a chasm between her dreams and Volo's, between the two of them as individuals, impossible to cross?
(And yet, he could have taken measures to avoid her.)
As long as her goal is to preserve the world as it is, she knows and understands nothing — and she hasn't felt it, has she, what it means to walk this solitary path. He could test her resolve again, but overpowering her without relying on their Pokémon would be easy. What does she expect, that they would return to traveling Hisui together to learn the world's secrets?
(Unbidden, he thinks of her listening to his explanations, ever attentive.) ]
2/2
Without warning, Volo catches Akari's wrist in one hand, fingers encircling tender skin and fragile bones. Hisui's stalwart savior, whose story's chapters are written in divine ink, but it takes little effort to push her down into the whispering grass and hold her pinned there, against the hard ground.
Can she call forth her Pokémon? Will she? It's only a test, of course, one method to seek answers. ]
And you? Tell me, Akari. What exactly have you decided?
no subject
She's thought about it before. The way that they don't really need Pokémon. Or, to put it another way: if Volo did not believe wholeheartedly in his Pokémon, he would have simply taken the Plates from her by force. In the world she came from, even saying that would be unthinkable, but here, it's only a harsh reality. They live with Pokémon, but they're both humans, at the end of the day, and he has every physical advantage. If he'd wanted to, he could have simply put his hands around her throat and taken her life with his own hands.
But he didn't. They didn't. Because a world shaped by human hands alone would be every bit as cold and hard as the one that they are currently in, and the truth is that they both believe in the same thing: a world of unity, where no one has to consider driving Pokémon away from their settlements with weapons and walls.
She looks up at him, eyes unblinking. If he wanted to hurt her, he could. But she doesn't think he does. She doesn't think he will. ]
...I decided that I didn't want to leave you all alone.
no subject
Yet Akari hasn't summoned even one of them.
Instead of uncovering a single answer, Volo finds himself with more questions. The mysteries packaged in this human girl's form threaten to slip through his fingers, far beyond his reach. He can stare and stare, scrutinizing every detail of her face, studying the expression there, tracking the rise and fall of her chest with each unperturbed breath that she takes, but none of these things tell him the true meaning of her assertions.
In the absence of fear and hatred, there might be pity, he supposes. ]
...And then? You've found me, after all.
[ She hasn't left him alone, though another person's presence won't change a thing. She refuses to turn away, in spite of their final battle, and even now.
Harming her wouldn't achieve anything. ]
What comes next?
no subject
[ Akari blinks. Keeps staring up at Volo with her painfully unjudgmental eyes. She thinks about faith, and the way that her journey has had to be an exercise in faith itself. Maybe that's the chief difference between the two of them, in the end: she has had the faith that things will get better eventually, whereas he believed that the world was so terrible that the only thing to do with it was tear it up and start anew.
Pinned beneath him, she could make moves to get up. She could push him away, now that he's decided that he isn't going to do anything. But she doesn't. She stays right where she is.
The thing about dangerous Pokémon is that you have to be patient with them. You have to wait. Because a cornered beast will lash out at any sign of movement, and Akari wants to make it clear that she's come with the intention of acceptance, not rejection. ]
I liked the nights we spent together. The ones where you told me about myths you knew, and I just listened.
[ Maybe she did come with pity. Maybe acceptance would be as good as pity, to Volo. But her unblinking eyes, soft and dark and sort of doe-like — there's nothing like charity in them. The way she feels, it might be something more like greed. Like the hunter, having conquered most of Hisui, has now set her eyes on her ultimate catch. ]
Maybe that's a little passive. But you seemed okay with that.
no subject
He might understand it, if she means to keep him company to keep an eye on him, not for his sake, but because she has learned not to trust him. But once again, that's not it. If it isn't pity, then, and it isn't wariness, what could it be?
Volo's thumb shifts slightly, just a twitch of movement brushing across Akari's wrist. What does he want her to do? Why, there's nothing left, not anymore, with the exception of making some sense before she drives him mad. Chosen by Arceus, how can her wishes be as passive as she portrays them when she finally confesses things better suited to a naïve, lonely little girl? ]
...That was then.
[ She listened closely all those nights — he noticed it himself, and he thinks it again. She looks just as attentive now, solemn, as if she's hanging on to his every word. Framing her face, her hair has a few blades of grass caught between the dark strands, and she must be uncomfortable on the ground, but she still hasn't moved to free herself.
The ends of Volo's own hair slide against Akari's cheek as he leans over her small form, too close, until his lips find hers. The girl's mouth is soft and warm. ]
no subject
She still thinks that his skin felt soft against hers, and that she'd do it over and over and over again, if only he let her.
When he pulls away, just slightly, she reaches up and wraps her arms around his neck. Loosely, of course. He has, again, every physical advantage; it wouldn't be hard for him to shake her off. But still. She looks up at him and she aches and she doesn't pretend, this time, that she isn't aching. ]
That was then. [ She agrees. ] But I still love you.
[ A naïve, lonely little girl. The hero chosen by Arceus to shepherd this land into a new age. Just a naïve, lonely little girl. He was ready to throw everything away to scoop out and devour the bitter innards of this twisted world, and yet here she is, saying that she loves him. ]
I thought about it for a long time, but I don't think there's anything you could do to make me stop loving you.
no subject
He could easily break free — Akari hasn't caught him like a cornered Pokémon, or has she? — but he doesn't draw back further. Another look at her earnest riddle of an expression won't change what he knows and what he doesn't. Nothing in it contradicts Akari's declaration.
Love. That's her answer.
Maybe she is a naïve, lonely little girl, even though she has her loyal companions with her, but she sounds sure of herself, content to search for him because she loves him, because she doesn't want him to be alone, despite the entire truth unmasked. Nothing more. ]
...How can you be so certain...?
[ Akari's warmth seeps into his skin. He feels too cold, in the clutches of a chill creeping through him, some part of him acknowledges. ]
no subject
You already betrayed me. Already tried to hurt me as much as you could. And I still love you, so what else are we supposed to do?
[ He is very cold. Despite his size and the thickness of his coat, he still seems cold. Akari reaches out with her other hand, too, using both to cradle his face. She presses her warm palms more firmly against his cool cheeks, in an effort to soothe the chill creeping through his body. ]
I don't think God had anything to do with this. But even if Arceus planned this, too, I still love you.