Chapter 15

Hayden landed atop the shrine's topmost platform. Instead of grass, sand covered the space, with a thin ridge around the outside. A man sat at the center, with his back to them. He wore the same style as the ceremonial clothing, a plain cloth vest open at the front and pants tied with a simple rope.

"Where's his daemon?" Liz asked. It was a simple question, but came with terrifying weight underneath. A person without a daemon was as horrifying as a person without a head. Yet they saw no pokémon nearby, just a man.

"Awakened Master." Lady Gracidea got down onto her knees in one of the simpler meditative postures Hayden had learned. She gestured for him to follow.

He did his best, but his leg caught in the long dress, and Liz had to catch him. He'd never worn a dress before, how was he supposed to know how?

"I've brought the miracle child to you. The mew learns with great speed, their bond is powerful. They cannot hope to grow further without your help." She showed no sign of the fear Hayden felt. Couldn't she see this man had no daemon?

The man stood. As he did, a storm began to grow around them. Clouds appeared from nowhere, obscuring the stars above the glass. Distant thunder rolled. When he turned, Hayden saw what he had missed. The Guru wasn't missing a daemon—there was a great bird in the storm, a creature so large it barely even fit inside the dome. Lightning arced from its wings.

"A child." The man's face was mature but still youthful. Through his open jacket, Hayden saw a muscular chest covered in scars and burns. Yet the voice was so old, weighed down with a lifetime of terrible things. "You should not make this demand of me, Shaymin. Do they even understand what you ask of them?"

"It does not matter," she answered. She kept her eyes down in supplication, yet her words were commanding. She had already made up her mind. "You know the pressure building against Sinnoh. Without Johto as our allies, there will be war. Only this mew can stop this."

The man laughed, his voice bitter. "You have no idea what you're creating, Shaymin. Is it better for one house to fall, or for the wheel to spin out of its course and shatter?"

She shrugged. "If it is my family who falls, then they are no different. Awakened Master, will you honor my call or not? Will you uplift my child or not?"

"I am… bound by oath," he said flatly. "Go from this shrine, and leave the child. When the day comes when you realize what you have created, do not summon me then. I will not answer."

She stood, and bowed to him again. "I think you may be growing melodramatic in your old age, Camael. Every statistic has its outlier. This child does not mean the end of what we built. We may rule another dozen lifetimes or more before the cracks begin to show."

"You may," Camael said. "Or you may not. I am not Celebi, I cannot see." He gestured with one hand, and this time it was more than just a wave. A great wind blasted against Lady Gracidea, tossing her off the platform like a doll. Hayden winced, bracing for the impact when she fatally smacked against the glass—it didn't come.

Instead, he heard footsteps settle on the grass below, and the shaymin withdrew, leaving Hayden and Liz to their fate.

The old man sat down in front of Hayden, cross-legged. To be near him made the hairs on Hayden's neck stand on end, but didn't strike him. Yet. "I am sorry, Hayden. You have been made into a tool. Do not think this strange—I am a tool also. Other hands move us."

Liz floated out of his robes. She didn't get far, but her fear was replaced by curiosity. Her fur settled down, and her tail started moving freely again. "What will you do to us?" she asked.

"What is demanded," he said. "You may not survive it, elder sister. When the sky was new, most of you would never meet me. You knew the risks, and had years to prepare. Most boys aspired in vain to become Eldest, and would not forsake the promise of greater power later for strength now. But your loveless mother desires this outcome. It is the greater part of my presence here."

"Not my mother," Hayden muttered, "My mom loves me. Lady Gracidea barely knows my name."

If he was expecting rage from the Guru at the correction, it didn't come. He only sighed, slumping forward. "That does not change what must happen here, elder sister. It only magnifies the pain we will share when I act."

Hayden pulled Liz close to his chest, watching in silence. At least he wasn't alone—he had his daemon for company. She wouldn't leave him no matter what. 

"If you survive the next few minutes, you will be the beginning of the end," Camael went on. "You will spend years learning to adapt. Your powers will grow. You will stick a lever into the gears, and rip the mechanism apart. But by oath, not by blood."

Hayden dared to look up. Nothing this man said made any sense to him, except for the general sense of foreboding. He did not hide the suffering that waited for Hayden, or the risks. It was just like— "Once I met a Celebi. She told me that I was adaptable. That was what made me a mew."

He laughed. The sound was not bitter—there was real joy there. "The shaymin doesn't know, does she? Of course she doesn't, she can't rip away the thoughts of a Firstborn. She has no idea what is coming."

He sat up straight, extending both hands towards Hayden. "Take a deep breath, child. Then if you can, survive."

Hayden obeyed. Then he reached forward, and took the offered hands. He waited for something terrible to happen, but it didn't. Not at first. Just a pair of strange yellow eyes, cutting through him like he wasn't even there. "Once there was a wise and ancient craftsman," Camael said. "He worked for many years, until he saved enough to build a home of his own. He traveled far and wide, until he found a fresh plot of land where he could build."

As the man spoke, Hayden's vision blurred. The storm built around them. Rain began to pelt him, thundering down on the grassy garden below. Liz retreated further into the dress, hiding from the moisture.

In those words, Hayden imagined he could see something else. A vast, strange shape, gray with four long legs and a glorious golden crown.

"In time he came to a bountiful new home, where many plants grew, but little else. It was the perfect place to build." Before Hayden's eyes, vast forests appeared, streams and lakes, rich islands and wondrous undersea structures of coral and seaweed.

"He had but one child, the fairest daughter who was ever born. She flew with his grace, and studied all the workings of his hands. She was not so great as her father, but she had never known another land. So she fell instantly in love with the house he built."

Hayden felt that too, as Liz did. The visions before his eyes were so beautiful that he didn't feel the rain pelting his body anymore. He saw snow covered peaks, roaring rapids, and breathtaking canyons. He saw plants and pokémon of all kinds, more than anything he had imagined in a lifetime in Sunyshore. After creating such a beautiful place, who wouldn't fall in love with it?

"The time came for the carpenter to move on. He was finished with his house, and desired to travel and build others. But his firstborn daughter had far more compassion than her father. ‘Who will care for it?’ she asked. "When the roof leaks, who will place new tiles? When the pipes freeze in winter, who will thaw them? If a window cracks, who will place new glass within the frame?"

Something stabbed Hayden through the chest, and he doubled over in pain. He gasped, but his hands were locked to the stranger. He called out in pain, but there was no air in his lungs. Only a strangled gurgle escaped his lips. He twitched and struggled, but no blood sprayed around him. There was no wound, no blood seeping across the silk.

Camael continued as though he did not notice. “‘No one,’ said the carpenter. ‘We crafted it well. In time it will run down and pass away, but that does not matter. The joy was in the building.’

“He turned to leave, to go off and build another home, as he had done so many times before. But his daughter would not go. ‘Let me stay, Father. I will keep it in your honor. I will repair it as you would. I will keep the pests away, and care for the many wonderful things you have planted in the garden.’"

Liz cried out in pain, no less intense than Hayden's. She twitched and convulsed against him, her body flashing with little bolts of lightning. She didn't flee, but cowered closer and closer to Hayden.

She would find no shelter there. The closer she got, the more intense Hayden's pain became. Another spasm passed through his body, at his toes this time. Again his scream was strangled, and again the hands on his just gripped him harder. He could not escape. 

"The carpenter was saddened by his daughter's decision. 'Are you certain?' he asked. 'If you stay, you will not live to see what else we might build. You will become a part of this place forever, and never travel with me. You will grow old and die here.’"

Why did this story even matter? Hayden barely even heard the words. His body twitched again, doubled over in pain. Lightning shocked through his whole body now, then seemed to pass along invisible threads to his daemon. By huddling together the pain was tempered a little—the closer they were, the less severe it became. Liz was stronger than he was, she could endure it. But Hayden—he might not.

"He saw her love and knew that it was pure—if he took her from that house, she would only die of grief. He could not have her. So he accepted her decision. 'I leave this house to you,' he said. 'This stewardship is yours, for love and hatred, blessing and cursing, creation and destruction, life and death.’ But as he prepared to leave, he saw that she was filled with sorrow. She would not abandon her home, yet she would soon be alone, until the end of her days."

Hayden screamed again, and this time it was loud enough to pierce whatever pressed down on him. Rain soaked his clothing through to his skin, washing away some of the blood. It dribbled from his lips, oozed from his skin all across his body. More shocks came, up his legs, across his chest. For a moment, his heart stopped—but Liz would not let it stay still.

With her will, Hayden kept breathing. It was the only thing keeping him alive, as his flesh melted from within.

"’I will not leave you alone in this work,’ the carpenter said. ‘On these days I open your eyes, that you may see your soul.’ He touched her, and the first human came into the world. Together, they became mortal, the first living soul. Just as you have done, elder sister."

Hayden was falling. He saw nothing but the endless storm—great thunderclouds passed on either side, flashing internally with spurts of light. The rain pelted down on him, wary of his intrusion in this sacred space. A shadow flew beside him, never falling. She ruled here, a great bird of yellow feathers and incredible energy. She was the one killing Hayden.

"The ground is coming fast, elder sister!" Called the bird. "You must catch yourself, or die!" She spread her massive wings, and scattered the clouds to either side. 

Hayden saw in an instant what she meant, and whimpered in terror. Below him was a glass dome, glittering with internal light. He was falling closer and closer, so fast the stars themselves blurred past. It would not be long before he hit, perhaps ten seconds at most.

"Catch me!" he pleaded, his voice desperate. It didn't sound like his voice anymore. It was too high, closer to Liz's in tone. He yelled anyway. "I don't want to die!"

He felt terror rising to panic. Liz could catch him, like she'd caught them when he fell off a cliff. Her powers were stronger now, strong enough to fly them both if she had to.

Liz didn't answer. That terror was even greater, worse than any fall. How could his daemon not be there? She was the one being in the whole world who was always there, who always cared about anything bad that ever happened to him, because she was the same person.

"Where are you, Liz? Help!" He shouted without a sound, his voice increasingly desperate. The mansion got closer, and his gigantic airborne companion did nothing to arrest his fall. He had no doubt in his mind that she would follow him to the ground and watch him die without doing a thing to stop it.

Hayden heard no answer—but he felt one. He felt her near him, even if he didn't see her. Because she was. He realized it in a rush.

It wasn't his body at all, it was Liz's. He was a tiny, furred feline, with a tail streaking out behind him in the air. He was her and she was him and—

Liz knew how to fly, that meant he did too. 

Hayden decided not to listen to gravity anymore, and stopped falling. Even so, there was barely enough space beneath him to absorb all that momentum. He slowed to a stop, inches above the ground, before his huge paws touched against cold, damp glass.

The great lightning-bird stopped just in front of him, hovering with its vast wings. Each flap sent little flashes of white through the air. 

"I would have been honored to fly with you a decade from now," she said. "Instead, this was a sour tale of abuse and neglect. We feared you were iron—a strong tool, yet vulnerable to shattering if struck too hard. Instead, you were steel. There is strength in flexibility."

Lightning erupted from her wings, faster than Hayden could react. Even if he had, what could he possibly do to stop such powers? It blasted into him all at once in an overwhelming wave. He was unconscious in seconds.