19. In Which Cresselia Breaks Some Bad News

Twig didn’t know quite what to think of leaving Darkrai at the foot of the mountain. It was weirdly emotional, for one thing, but she could easily blame that on her being exhausted and therefore weirdly emotional just in general. But it was strange as well to get away from the heavy atmosphere that followed him everywhere he went. She had gotten used to it, almost like she had adapted to a deeper pressure of water while diving. Coming away from that left her feeling oddly achy and weak. Again, it was simple to blame that on various things— she was constantly on guard, wasn’t she? If she was always waiting for the moment Darkrai would turn on her, she was sure to have sore muscles and a headache from the tension she always held herself in. Dusknoir had mentioned a strange sort of sickness after getting away from Dialga for the first time in years, though, so maybe this was some kind of “mortal absconding from a Legend who radiates bad vibes” sort of deal. 

The trip up the mountainside was chilly. Thankfully there weren’t any mystery dungeons to travel through, so it was a smooth journey, albeit bitingly, bitterly cold. Twig wished for the nth time that she was a true charmeleon instead of a human in a charmeleon’s skin. She’d give anything to be warm right now.

At least she wasn’t trekking through snow. The areas she and Kip had gone through during expeditions where it was full of snow and hail were by far her least favorite to work in. It honestly felt like she suffered more at the hands of the weather than any hostile pokemon they encountered.

Cresselia should be at the peak of the mountain. She just had to make it there, make it down, and then she could trek home and sleep for a week straight.

Twig finally scaled to the point of the mountain and found a shrine at its head— one sequestered away in a cave with torches that burned a warm fire that alternated between pure white, deep blue, and warm gold. The shrine was decorated with crescents carved into the rock and a wooden arch that made up its entry. It gave off an atmosphere of serenity and calm. Twig stared up at the shrine in awe.

Yep. This seemed like the kind of place a Legend would like to hang out. She stepped inside.

Cresselia was deep within the shrine, past numerous carvings in the stone walls depicting ancient events that Twig had a feeling were long gone from written memory. She hung in the air as though pinned in place, radiating gentle light that made the torches keeping the area lit seem dull and dark in comparison. Her back was to Twig, head bowed in deep meditation— or maybe sleep, but Twig might just be projecting.

“Hey, Cresselia? I—”

The Legend whirled around, feathers bristling at the interruption as she rose further off the ground. Her voice seemed to take on a chorus of echoes as she boomed, “Who dares intrude upon this sacred ground? You should know better than to enter unwelcome, foolish—”

She paused as she took in Twig’s cowering form.

“Oh! Twig! It’s been quite some time, hasn’t it? How have the years treated you?”

She cleared her throat and straightened up, encouraged by Cresselia’s sudden shift in friendliness. “I’ve been pretty normal. Could I have a lunar feather? And, uh, maybe ask you to fix my head?”

Cresselia tilted her head, eyes turning sorrowful. “I thought I sensed nightmares clinging to you. You came to the right Legend. But why ask if I could fix your head? Have you suffered some sort of injury?”

“Oh, um—” She paused, embarrassment warming her face. “I just. Uh. I heard through the grapevine that you can heal emotional wounds, and…” Thanks, Chatot! The one time you didn’t peer review your gossip…

The Legend bowed her head in sorrow. “No, I cannot heal such things. Only ailments, physical wounds, and their scars. Are you well, Twig? For what reason have you sought me to heal a thing I cannot?”

I’m so stupid. Oh gosh, I’m so stupid. I’m stuck like this forever. I’m stuck remembering things I don’t want to, I’m stuck freaking out about stuff that doesn’t matter, I’m stuck as a burden that nobody should have to keep around, I’m—

“… Would you like me to heal the scar on your arm, at the very least?”

Twig was jolted out of her mental spiral by that. “Huh?”

“The scar on your arm. Shall I heal it? You came to me for healing as well as a feather. I would hate to send you away with only one half of your purposes fulfilled.”

Hesitantly, she put out her arm for Cresselia to take. The Legend’s paws were warm as she accepted her arm and rested one over the offending scar. The air went taut with a sudden energy as Cresselia murmured some kind of incantation that Twig couldn’t discern the words of, but which felt like a lullaby older than bones. Light erupted about them, and the energy buzzed through her hand, approaching the pesky scar…

… And fizzled out, the scar itself unchanged. 

Cresselia furrowed her brow, and tried again— murmuring the incantation and gleaming brightly, but the energy once again dispersed without any hint of the scar lightening. “Impossible,” she breathed.

“Ah, don’t worry about it. I hardly notice the thing these days,” Twig said, taking away her arm and flexing her fingers. They tingled with the leftover energy still flitting about her nerves. “Besides, it’s not even that bad. I’ve had way worse scars as a charmander. Those things were ugly—” 

“Have you ever gone through an illness of extreme severity, Twig?” Cresselia suddenly asked, voice grave and solemn. “Or perhaps suffered an injury that just wouldn’t heal properly?”

“What are you…? Why are you so curious all of a sudden?”

“Answer me.”

“I mean, I guess? At one point I was really sick and started getting these awful bruises all along my middle. Couldn’t eat or drink for days because of the pain. And then my arm broke out in this weird burn that eventually turned into this thing—” She indicated the scar on her arm. “—Once it got super infected. Apparently I got blood poisoning from it. Honestly, I don’t remember the order of events that well, I was in a coma for most of it. Why do you want to know?”

Cresselia stared at Twig as though she was witnessing a living corpse shambling about before her. “You shouldn’t be alive.”

She frowned. “What?”

“Do you know of curses, Twig?”

“What, like the ghost-type move?”

“No, these are entirely distinct from that, though the mortal move was developed in a deliberate imitation.” She pulled Twig’s arm into gentle paws once more, examining the scar above her wrist. “A curse is a blow that can only be inflicted by a Legend. It is an attack so base that it enlists the assistance of the universe that we govern in dealing a fate most painful and instantaneous. You should not be alive, because the workings of the world around you were instructed to kill you. If your heart did not seize, your lungs should have failed to draw breath, or your blood cease to flow.” She looked up at her, kind features turning steely. “Is the most obvious suspect the one I can assume who tried to kill you in such a manner?”

(In Dark Crater, Kip was knocked asife by a heavy blow from an illusory pokemon. Darkrai saw the opportunity to strike, and shot forward to finish the job. Twig sent a wave of fire up in his path to buy herself time and launched herself before where Kip was collapsed and bleeding to shield him. Darkrai reared back as flames kicked up before him and used the shadows they cast to his advantage, disappearing and remanifesting at her side, knocking her to the ground with a swift blow to the stomach. He turned to Kip once more, and Twig caught the shadowy train at his back and threw him to the ground as well. He caught her arm as he righted himself, crushing it in a vicious grip and throwing her across the chamber. Cresselia cried out, cornered in her own unfair fight and unable to assist. Nobody was coming to save her, so Twig pushed past the agony tearing through her veins and stood, struggling to get her feet under herself and resume the fight. She had to save Kip. She had to reach him.

(She was so focused on getting to her partner that she didn’t notice Darkrai’s shock when she rose up after being grabbed.)

Twig didn’t answer, staring down at the scar as she yanked her arm out of Cresselia’s ginger hold.

“The distortion associated with you likely saved your life. A being crucial to the function of the universe demanded that it kill you instantly, yet you were such a point of confusion for it that you not only went days without suffering the ill-effects of a curse, you ultimately survived.”

“… Darkrai is back.”

Cresselia leaned in. “Pardon?”

“He’s back.” Twig cleared her throat, struggling to speak above a whisper. “Darkrai is back. He’s alive. He’s got amnesia, but he’s alive, and he’s living with me. He’s at the base of the mountain right now.”

“I was aware of his survival and his memory loss, but… Pardon?”

Twig relayed the details of how she encountered Darkrai in Mount Travail— her fears of his memories returning as her own had before, her willingness to do anything to keep her loved ones safe— and Cresselia listened in shocked silence.

“Funny, isn’t it,” she murmured after a long silence, “that it is a mortal who assumes my role of his minder after all this time.”

“What?”

Cresselia shook herself, motes of light drifting off of her form. “It was a long time ago, Twig, but Darkrai was not always so vile of a being— he was even kinder and gentler than I. Yet times changed, and he changed for the worse.”

“I… I don’t get it.” She furrowed her brow, frowning. “What do you mean? What are you trying to say? I get that he’s different now. That’s pretty obvious. He’s not exactly throwing kids into endless nightmares anymore, you know.”

“I have a story to tell you, Twig. One of nightmares and dreams, and longing and betrayal.” Cresselia turned to the carvings in the shrine walls, misty-eyed and sorrowful. “It was many years ago, when the moon’s phases were new to worship…”