keynote address [mod]

[toska]

her world began in decima town.

she does not intend for her world to end in decima town.

hesperia might have been a better choice, if karimi were the ideal objective scientist. less poison fumes in the air, more scholarly professionals around in case things went haywire, and less scourge about.

but objectivity did not always go hand in hand with her passions. she's not here to summon reshiram. an ideal does not necessarily have to be correct or righteous - she just has to desire it badly enough.

if selfishness is what she needs, then karimi thinks that she can find plenty of it in the poisoned streets of decima. it's a passionate town that sends passionate people out into the world. if she's selfish for wanting so much change in a world of so much inertia, then so be it. so fucking be it, goddamn.

the decima city gym is as accommodating as it ever will be. re: bad for the lungs, but the most secure place in town. melchior isn't around - not when there's still so much scourge to be eradicated, but his trainers let karimi in. she's grown up with about half of them - led their paltry little band of adventurers, even. she lavishes them with gratitude and good cheer, and it's okay that she can't see their expressions beneath their gas masks. they let her have a room at the back of the gym before returning to their usual work.

karimi sits down and takes the dark stone out of her pack. she lays her hands on the smooth surface. they are not clean hands - how could they, after she waded through the taintclouds of decima? they are rough hands worn away by grit and time. somehow, karimi didn't think that it would matter to a pokemon like zekrom. ideals didn't exist because humans are perfect and the world is good. ideals are born when humans realize that they are flawed beings and the world is an awful place.

she holds the stone in both hands and whispers, "zekrom. will you listen to a wish of mine?"


citrus

[citrus]

The universe operates on opposing sides of a coin - light and dark, right and wrong, black and white. Black bleeds into light while white darkens into shadows until both become gray, hovering uncertainty between two sides of absolution. If life and death are two sides of the same coin, sleep is the in between, the uncertainty. It exploits weakness, manifests as hidden fears that are often repressed but never completely eliminated.

In its dreams, there are always humans. Slumbers between summons - sometimes through many decades, sometimes mere months - are often restless, filled with the failures and disappointments of the past that surface in the moments of greatest vulnerability. As a legendary that exists on parallel sides of dimensions, fates and powers alike, it searches for the idealistic, the ambitious that do not fear power, rather, embrace it - the worthy. Beginnings are filled with new hope for the best, that things will be different from the past. All it has known of humans is the uncontrollable urge of destruction, corruption when granted great amounts of power. The dreams remain the same each time because it can't afford to forget about the mistakes of the past.

Zekrom dreams of death and destruction, corrupt kings and slavery. Shadows darken into shades of red that drain to a white that tarnishes like rusting metal. Reshiram has always sought absolution in the form of truth. Its brother's fur flashes across its vision before the dream dissolves in a sea of blue flames.

It does not seek truth because in their world, there are no absolute truths to be found. That is the rift that divides them, yin and yang, two sides of the same coin. Uncertainty is a sin, but belief is part of the same side of that coin, and it is what makes humans the complex creatures they are.

'I do not grant the desires of the foolish.' They connect through her touch. The dark stone pulses quietly while its voice entwines with her own, like an evaporating thought. 'I will hear your wish, but I have seen countless humans be destroyed by those wishes. What makes you think this time will be any different?'

toska