vcrdant

[vcrdant]

Oh, to be young... and covered in glitter.

[vcrdant]

"Always the charmer, aren't you?" Virizion giggles, accepting Lugia's hand. She takes up the new seat beside her companion, gingerly smoothing out her skirt as she does.

"A lovely set-up, as always. Though I do think it could use a few more flowers." Leave it to Virizion. Always the master gardener, even on her little vacations like these. She knew there was a certain favor towards minimalism, but still—a bit more color would hardly hurt the place. (Not to mention it would serve to compliment dear Lugia's appearance.)

"So, my lady, what do you have for me today?"

@vcrdant

~~~

The silver lady leaned over on her seat, nothing but a silken pillow amidst the grass underneath a blossoming tree. Currently in the process of brushing her shining fuchsia hair she smiled upon hearing her friends voice, her sparkling eyes lighting up with gentle joy when laying sight upon Virizion.

"Virizion, dear! How nice to see you are still such a radiant beauty even after all this time!" she exclaimed, reaching a perfect hand with silver nails out for her fellow legend.

"Such accusations from you? You bruise my ego, Virizion. I'd like to think I'm a little more smooth than that.

She pat the seat next to her, where another silver pillow appeared out of thin air. "Come, have a seat. I would love to chat with you and feel your presence close to me."

[vcrdant]

@kyuureimu / angst angst angst angst! (cont. from ask)

"Go ahead, then. Be sorry. Don't think that I've forgiven you, though."

The answer she expected, but perhaps not the one she wanted to hear.

It's infuriating. Knowing that their killer is right in front of her, and yet—knowing that it wasn't him. Kyurem may hold that responsibility, but he is not the same monster that slaughtered her sisters-in-arms that day.

"You say 'spared' as though I could have truly killed you." Virizion's voice is always so animated, full of life, but today it's flat and cold. Her hand rests on the hilt of her blade, but she knows that she won't draw it. Perhaps they both know. She hasn't truly wielded it since that day.

"We did not set out that day to fight you, you know. Kel was convinced she could reason with you. That she could talk you out of whatever fervor you were in. You deserve to know."

Deserve. Not as an act of mercy or kindness, but as a punishment. So that he can live with the full weight of what he's done, just as she has all these years.

Sweet Keldeo. Practically the team's own mother. She and Isshurem had always been good friends. If anyone could have snapped Kyurem out of that horrible state, it should have been her. So why hadn't it worked? Why had he only found clarity when it was all over?

"The rest of us came to back her up. We hoped we wouldn't have to. I suppose in a way, we didn't. You slaughtered her before any of us could even make a move."

Her hand grips tighter on the sword hilt. The sensation doesn't calm her, per say, but it does ease the whirlwind of her thoughts.

"Shall I go on?"

[vcrdant]

"You don't even remember it, do you? The day you killed them?" -vcrdant ;)

– — That day. Right, how could he forget? The day he had killed the rest of the Swords of Justice in cold blood – his last remaining friends from a bygone era, right in front of her. The day that marked the end of the horrendous tale of the ravenous monster that plagued the north with senseless bloodshed and never-ending blizzards.

It was impossible for him to forget, but what he does remember probably wasn't what Virizion would have wanted to hear.

Kyurem had lost all control of himself, when he, for a long time after the Split, reawakened and crashed as a Dragon Stone in the far northeast. Rage, betrayal, pain, heartbreak. How was he supposed to react upon catching wind that the Kings he had once loved, that he had once sworn to protect and stand steadfast by their side, had betrayed him not once but twice? By placing all blame of the destruction of the region to the dragons – his siblings, literal embodiments of his love and dedication to them, and condemned them to death by forever sealing them in their stones?

Nothing could have quelled the raging storm of what remained of the Great Dragon. He was left in the cold, and that bitter, bitter cold became his anchor. His power and his anguish were bleeding him out, and the ice served to contain what little he had left before it, too, threatened to devour him. Survival and self-preservation was all that kept him alive and all that drove him.

So... when humans tried to investigate the Chasm to find the source of their torment? When they had tried and failed to send hunters from all around to apprehend this gruesome monster? When the Swords of Justice were left no choice but to step in and stop him themselves, when he has done nothing but fight for his life like a wild injured animal?

No. All Kyurem remembers is the blood of his dear companions in his hands, their cold lifeless bodies below him, the lone and distraught and anguished survivor. Him drowning in his own agony as the red that flooded his vision cleared, silently begging to the survivor to put him out of his misery for what he had done, for what he has become.

He offers a smile, pained as it was, for he has nothing else to provide. "Of course I do, but... only of what came after. What a cruel and empty mercy, that is."

Kyurem brushes away his messy bangs and drags a finger diagonally across his face, slowly tracing the lingering scar of a sword. "For me to forget all that I had taken from you, and what you had spared me... Well, that would be a grave disservice to them, wouldn't you say?"

A painful reminder, another memory that Kyurem would have to live with for the rest of his days.

"I am so very sorry, Virizion."

[vcrdant]

[ aeroblcst ] "Virizioooonnnn~"

"My, my, if it isn't the fair lady of Johto herself."

Virizion was prone to roaming from time to time in her retirement; what else was she to do with her free time, after all? Naturally, she'd encountered more than a few of her fellow legends while abroad. Lugia was among those she had a more, ah, friendly relationship with.

"It's been a while, Lugia. Don't tell me you've come to tease me, out of the blue like this? At least buy a lady a drink first."

[vcrdant]

i think the thing about the current swords of justice that virizion finds most foreign is that they are generally being aligned against humans and with pokémon. that was a division that simply did not exist in the same way in virizion's time, as Isshu had always upheld peaceful, friendly coexistence with pokémon as one of their cultural cornerstones. many pokémon, like the zoroark line and her fellow legendaries, walked among humans all the time and freely went back and forth between their forms whenever they pleased. while she's very much aware of the much more divided relationship between humans and pokémon these days, it's one of those things that she still doesn't really get.

[vcrdant]

oh deer i made a mistake,,

Draws sword.

[vcrdant]

i imagine viri helped to train the generation of swords that followed hers, but didn't really interact with them closely beyond that. i think she spent a lot of time isolating herself as a way of punishing herself for what she thought was her greatest failure. training a new generation of swords was a responsibility, of course, but she didn't feel that she had the right to get closer to them than that, and so she avoided them. (whether or not that's the current generation, who's to say.)

[vcrdant]

headcanon roundup for bio rewrite: > prior to the Swords of Justice being, uh, the Swords of Justice, they were lesser guardians of the dragon force under The Great Dragon, Isshurem > they were essentially comparable to pokémon nobility, in that they were overseers and balancekeepers within smaller regions > any pokémon can be a sword of justice, in theory; the swords of justice are not so much species in and of themselves as they are "ascended" forms of other species. there can, in theory, be more than one of any given sword at a time, but it's not particularly common. it can be assumed that the "current" swords of justice, with Keldeo, are a completely separate generation from This Virizion. > Virizion's "generation" of swords of justice are all gone now. she is ostensibly the last remnant of the Isshurem era. > The others are dead because of Kyurem. > Viri, therefore, considers herself to be retired and serves as an overseer of the Pinwheel Forest. She keeps her distance from the "current" Virizion and their associated fellow Swords.

[vcrdant]

HONSE

"How rude! I'm more of a deer than a horse, thank you."

[vcrdant]

anyway shoves my bio in a locker don't look at that i haven't rewritten it yet

[vcrdant]

"Hm. Alright, then. It seems we need to begin training immediately."

"En garde."

Get owned, deerlady. : )

[vcrdant]

"Oh, shit, for real?" She didn't think it actually could.

That matters?

Yes, I can.

[vcrdant]

"That depends. Can you use sacred sword?"

If I make pretentious declarations of justice that matter to no one but myself, does that make me an honorary sword of justice?

[vcrdant]

verizion, what were the other swords like?

"You wish to know about my comrades? My dear, such things are ancient history. I cannot fathom why you would possibly want to know about four old broads from an era long gone. But... I suppose if you're insistent about it, I can indulge you..."

"Keldeo was our leader in those days. She was at the heart and soul of everything we did. A bit hotheaded for her own good, but her heart was always in the right place. She adored children. Always taking in the little ones when they had nowhere else to go. Humans and pokémon both. She raised a king once, you know—in those days, being born in the royal line wasn't a guarantee you'd end up ruling. Isshurem always chose who would take up the crown. And it happened that time that he saw something in Kel's boy that he didn't see in the princes of that generation. Goodness, it was all she would talk about for years—

"Then Terrakion. I'll tell you, that woman was always a headache for me. I swear, whenever we had a duty, she was always off gallivanting 'round somewhere, drinking herself silly or trying to impress the ladies. Oftentimes both. She loved games, too. Didn't matter what sort; she was always eager to take on a friendly challenge. It seemed like life was a sort of game to her, and she was enjoying every minute of us. Still, she was always reliable when it came down to it. She was the toughest of us, and she used that to save our hides on more than one occasion. ...You know, she swore me to secrecy about this, but I suppose it can't hurt anyone now, can it? She had a bit of a thing for Meloetta. Never could work up the guts to confess, though, no matter how many times I tried to make her!

"Now, Cobalion—you wouldn't think it from the way we acted back then, but she was the one I was closest to. We were inducted into the Swords right around the same time—Kel and Terra were a bit older than us, you see. Quite honestly, we loathed each other at first. Far too different. Cobalion was always... how should I put this? Very by the books. Everything she did, it had to be perfectly structured, down to the very last. No room for improvisation and certainly not for mistakes. I thought she lacked any sort of grace, honestly, and I'm fairly sure she thought I was too careless. We butt heads quite a lot those early years. It wasn't until a particularly messy mishap—well, let's just say that somebody's questionably-timed earthquake caused a cave in and left Cobalion and I stranded together for several days. The trouble we went through to get back out, let me tell you... but, regardless, we found ourselves understanding one another much better after that incident. We did still have our share of arguments, but they were never spiteful. We challenged one another to see things differently. Our different fighting styles complimented one another quite nicely, too, once we had learned how to work together. Her steadiness... I came to find it quite comforting, to tell the truth. She was my anchor...

"Aha. Listen to me, reminiscing like an old woman. I think that's enough for now, wouldn't you say?"

[vcrdant]

"Wow I can't believe Kyurem finally got some bitches, about time."