A Faraway Place - NPC Account (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ulternnpc) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
farawayplace2022-08-20 11:59 pm
ulternnpc) wrote in farawayplace2022-08-20 11:59 pm
Entry tags:
Suddenly in the midst of a Summer Festival--
There's a distinct sound of waves, and bustling of people nearby.
In the coastal city of Turnbloom the sun is bright and warm, and the scent of the sea wafts through with the cool gentle breeze that makes the glittering pinwheels spin, and the leaves on the palm tree dance.
Today the streets are extra decorated with these cute, colorful and floral shaped pinwheels. It seemed the people who were out in the streets were dressed in colorful summer attire--either casual, or the more traditional yukata. It seemed like with the booths were set out for both food and games for festival of some kind that was currently underway.
Just how did you get here, and why? A mystery, and it seemed the people in the streets didn't seem to notice anything out of the ordinary as they go about enjoying their time out on this bright sunny day.
In the coastal city of Turnbloom the sun is bright and warm, and the scent of the sea wafts through with the cool gentle breeze that makes the glittering pinwheels spin, and the leaves on the palm tree dance.
Today the streets are extra decorated with these cute, colorful and floral shaped pinwheels. It seemed the people who were out in the streets were dressed in colorful summer attire--either casual, or the more traditional yukata. It seemed like with the booths were set out for both food and games for festival of some kind that was currently underway.
Just how did you get here, and why? A mystery, and it seemed the people in the streets didn't seem to notice anything out of the ordinary as they go about enjoying their time out on this bright sunny day.
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All of that flashes through his head in the instant he's lifting it to get a look at the person addressing him, and when he sees him, it all evaporates immediately.
Who is this?]
—Who are you?
[That's much more sudden and to the point than he'd normally be in this situation. But it's all that comes to his mind, and it's out before he can overthink it. This man's presence is overwhelming in a way Saturn can't put his finger on. Instantly, and with an uncanny familiarity.]
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He steps forward some more to face Saturn properly, staring hard into his face. His shadow stretches long and dark and unaligned in the sand.]
You're more perceptive than you look.
[Well, he'd have to be for Azelf to choose him after all that, Tina thinks. If he is completely honest Saturn has done very little to deserve attitude bordering on animosity, but wearing that outfit and carting around That Pokemon is enough reason for Giratina to intimidate the man a little. It's a lesson that Azelf will have to forgive him for teaching.
He frowns.]
Speak. In pursuit of what purpose do you wear that insignia?
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But even the mental gesture steels Saturn to a degree. It's a willpower placebo effect at this point, and that's good enough for him. His expression slowly settles into something guarded, but intent and interested.]
. . . So you know of Team Galactic. I don't know what you know. If you're being demanding of me, I imagine it's nothing good. I can't blame you for that. And I don't expect to convince you easily even with the truth, but all the same—here it is. My name is Saturn. The head of Team Galactic. Our only purpose is the research of clean and sustainable energy sources to make Sinnoh a greener place.
[That is true. Any other purpose is Saturn's alone, and has nothing to do with the insignia he wears.]
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[Saturn provided plenty of information (bless him)-- but this particular point sticks out the most. Giratina begins to look more curious than stern. His head tilts, looking Saturn over carefully.]
Then you do not intend to retrieve your previous commander?
[Giratina would actually like to keep that guy.]
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[Saturn almost just answers that like it's a normal question. Like it's an entirely pedestrian conversation for an imposing stranger with a mysterious aura to just walk up to you and imply that he knows what happened to your missing ex-boss. Retrieve. Not "seek out" or anything like that. Retrieve Cyrus. He cuts off, eyes going slowly wider.]
Who . . . and how . . . ?
[But the man is familiar, isn't he? Doesn't he remind Saturn of something he's seen glimpses of in books, and flashes of in a memory that wasn't his own?]
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[Ah... he's having fun with this. The creature-masquerading-as-human's eyes glitter. Can't you feel it? Volo would have said. The chill creeping through your veins-- the eldritch presence icing your heart?]
My name is Giratina.
[The shadow he casts is much, much too large for his stature. His smile is all sharp teeth.]
Cyrus was quite the foolish man, wasn't he?
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[The possibility hadn't quite presented itself to Saturn yet. He'd only been very, very certain that he knew who this was. And, for Saturn, a legendary god-dragon taking the form of a human is far from impossible—but he's never seen it with a Pokemon before. But of course they can. Of course this is what's happening. It's—
Maybe this is why he's here.
That thought strikes a spark in him, but it doesn't make it any easier to wrap his head around the immediate situation. Still. It's not exactly that Saturn is intimidated—a little, maybe, how could he not be, but he really has shored up his mental fortitude immensely since Cyrus vanished—but it's so much. He's fascinated, horrified, thrilled. How is he supposed to sort out all of these emotions at once? Or say everything he needs to say?
One thing at a time, as always.]
. . . Yes. He was. Was?
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Saturn seems quite sharp. Perhaps, despite the man's hubris, Giratina owes Cyrus for this pleasure. Discomfort and trepidation are not exactly friendly terms of recognition, but what is horror to a ghost except worship?]
You might say he still is. [Giratina turns his head to observe Bronzong, expression mild. Right-- clarification-- Cyrus isn't dead. Technically.] But on his own there is a limit to his impulse.
I intend to keep it that way. [A glance back to Saturn. So Don't Get Any Funky Ideas, says his tone.]
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. . . I see. And what does he think of that? I had heard . . . my impression of things. Was that he chose to stay behind in your realm, when he might not have. Am I wrong?
[Does he hope he's wrong? Saturn isn't sure. It would change everything about everything he's come to terms with, or pretended to come to terms with, in his life. He watches Giratina keenly, with a little tip of his head, making a great effort to keep any of these reactions shuttered away.]
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Saturn is not wrong, exactly, though it's a little complicated. Giratina's guiding hand in the matter was informed by the echo of his own defeat, his own meted retribution. How can he put failing at godhood is its own punishment into words that eclipse the millennia of thought behind it? How should he explain the distortion world's desolation as an act of mercy?]
...It was not his first choice. [A faint echo of a smile crosses Giratina's face as he recalls this. Of course, Cyrus was at the peak of his despair when confronting the architects of his undoing, so some emotion was to be expected. Still... boy, was he pissed. lol] But yes. At the moment of truth, he weighed a life of oblivion over one with his peers.
[Giratina's gaze seeks Saturn's, holds it.]
If that man returned to you, what would you do?
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But Saturn does anyway, wavering. The urge to look away from that gaze is almost too powerful to resist, and yet looking away also feels impossible. In the end, he doesn't. He's pale, and his throat works once or twice in a visible bob, but he maintains the eye contact long enough to say, after a long pause:]
. . . I would pity him, to begin with.
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[Different from "sympathize." An action taken from a perceived position of security. Not that of someone still slavering at the heels of their charismatic leader, of someone anxious to reward self destruction.
Saturn could still be the usurping type, having stayed away from Spear Pillar to guarantee his own survival in the wake of failure... but with the look on his face and questions he's chosen to ask, perhaps not.
Giratina's overbearing look relents.]
I see. I needn't have questioned your determination.
[He steps back. Azelf will surely be cross with him.. Or perhaps proud of its human charge, instead.]
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[Saturn's known this for some time now. Some of him had always pitied Cyrus, even back then, but it had been tempered by the situation. Cyrus's drive and vision didn't invite pity. He was a problem-solver. And now his problem had been solved for him, in a way that was terrible and beyond his control but also maybe a mercy of sorts, and to have that undone would leave him as . . . just a very troubled person. No more and no less.
But Saturn isn't going to fool himself into thinking he would only feel pity, either.
He looks down at his hands, and then up at Giratina again, folding his arms loosely over his chest. Some hard knot of tension has loosened some, even if Saturn's far from comfortable just yet. But is that a bad thing?]
Will you sit with me for a while?
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Without further comment Giratina does as asked. When seated he laces his gloved fingers together, staring out to sea. His incorporeal imitation of a cape floats heedlessly through the bench.]
You wish to ask more questions.
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I'm not going to interrogate you. Not that I wouldn't like to. I would love nothing more than to keep you here for the next six hours and demand detail after detail of what happened and what you know . . . but no. I don't think I would come away from that feeling any better than I do now, about any of it. And that's if you didn't kill me for my impudence before I got anywhere.
[He says this without any apparent fear. It's just a fact. This is Giratina, and it could kill him, and he might deserve it, but it wouldn't matter whether he did or not.]
. . . Do you frequently take on a form like this? I could almost mistake you for human. You remind me of someone I knew once. Though he didn't go quite so far in looking like a human being.
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No. I do not intermingle with humans enough to need it. [...Frown.] ...Or did not, though I suspect that will change.
[maybe being here is a punishment from Arceus after dodging dawn-akari for too long... but regardless, there's something interesting in the man's statement. Giratina peers searchingly at Saturn again.]
You speak not of Azelf. [whomst??]
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[ . . . He's incapable of not just imagining himself, wow. That had been the deal for a while, huh! This man does look like he could be an ordinary human who had been possessed by Giratina . . .
Saturn just shakes his head, with a little enigmatic smile. That explanation can come Maybe Someday, not first thing.]
But no. It's a long story. I'd say you wouldn't believe it if I told you, but—maybe a being like you of all people wouldn't find it that crazy. . . . I spent some time in another world, entirely different from either Sinnoh or this place. A world without Pokemon at all. There I met dragons of a different type, who took on more human forms when it made things easier for them to do so.
[Giratina is probably the only person Saturn would just spill this to immediately. The situation of speaking to Giratina Himself, sitting on a bench overlooking a foreign ocean with his stupid clothes clipping through the environment, entirely willing to murder Saturn, is so ludicrous and alien that it makes Saturn feel comfortable in a way he hasn't in a little while. It's been too long since a good instance of "this shit may as well happen."
Besides, if anyone knows about traveling between worlds . . . ]
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Crossing his arms he scowls-- not at Saturn exactly, but at the thought of Arceus having yet more secrets. It was supposed to be "god is unfathomable to YOU maybe... I get her though" !!!!!!!!! ]
I see. [He doesn't like the implications, but he takes Saturn at his word for now. It would be a Really Weird lie if it was one.] And yet, here you are. Interdimensional travel has treated you kindly.
[Comparatively.]
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[It has, in some ways. Probably most ways. But for now, most of them are private, so Saturn looks over at Giratina with a raised eyebrow, though there's still a little quirk of a smile on his face. Is Giratina sulking? Is he sulking?!]
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Because you remember. [His delivery is as blunt as a hammer and his expression is just as dispassionate.] Mortal creatures are fragile. They do not often escape dimensional transitions fully whole without assistance.
[...]
Or, so it was. [FROWN.] It is inevitable that anomalies occur. But, this island...
[Sulking again]
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Though Saturn's own expression falls a bit at that first part. Doesn't he know it.]
. . . I did have assistance. I had Azelf. It's a long story. But Azelf accompanied me on that journey, and when we returned and were separated again—I had forgotten it entirely. As you say. I imagine most of my companions did as well. But Azelf remembered, and managed to reach me, after a considerable effort . . . I owe it everything.
[Now they can both sulk a little together, as a treat. Saturn crosses his arms and legs, looking out over the water.]