Chapter Text
"He just... gave you the plate?"
You start to answer Cogita in the same blithe, half-exasperate tone you've been relaying the events of the last few weeks.
Volo lead you up the mountain, waxed poetic about his bloodline, whipped off his uniform at the temple of Sinnoh, and summoned some eldritch, blood-chilling god -- that's four now! -- and sicced it on you. When you beat them both soundly, he had done just as Cogita described.
But it's the tone -- no, really the expression -- she says it with that draws you short.
Her features, as aristocratic and porcelain as her tea set, are twisted in something... constipated.
You finally hazard, "...yes?"
Cogita seems to catch herself, smoothing her expression placid as easily as she does her black satin gown. She takes a delicate draw of tea before asking with full composure, "And what then?"
"Then he just left!"
It's a half-choked shout, as your frustration wars with your refusal to get that worked up over him.
He doesn't deserve it, you've been telling yourself.
"Apparently Laventon thinks Giratina has holed up in the coastlands somewhere and," you sink back into the iron chair with an enormous sigh, feeling more tired than angry, and more disappointed than either, "and I thought I'd swing by here on my way there."
"And I'm glad for your visit," the woman responds, going so far as to set her teacup on its saucer and reach out a delicate, gloved hand to lay over your knuckles. It's warm, in contrast to the chill of the iron garden table, and after everything that's happened you find your throat closing at the matronly touch.
You nod and glance away, trying to accept the affirmation with grace but such things have been few and far between in your some-dozen months in Hisui.
Cogita picks up on the note of discomfort and folds her hands again, seeming to weigh something.
"I aimed to tell you of a certain cadre of pokemon whose study would benefit the people Hisui, dear lost one, and I will. However," she says at length and flicks up a gaze the color of raw jade, "I think there is something far more pressing you should know."
Snow in the coastlands is nearly unheard of, but at this point, you'd take it over the pelting, icy rain.
The thatch of a rice-straw hat and cloak keep your head and shoulders dry, but your legs are slicked with mud to the thigh despite your leather boots. Still, yet another legendary, otherworldly pokemon has found a notch in your belt to occupy.
So it is, of course, as you slide down the sharp pitch around Turnback Cave that Volo strikes.
He has the decency to bark out your name as he approaches, as much as you can hear it over the din, and keep his distance until you turn toward him. Then, across the ravine wrapping the cave's perch and still dressed in that foreign, ephemeral white outfit, Volo stalks toward you.
And for once in your time here, you're ready for it.
You find your footing in an inch of mud at sink into a braced stance, glowering at him beneath the stiff brim.
"Real fucking bold, Wielder," you bite out, and smother a grin when his pace stutters. "Well? Come to finish what you started?"
Now he freezes entirely, also sunk into the mud, his bangs plastered to his cheeks and chin and his tunic nearly see-through. His stormy expression flickers, and though it doesn't crack you know that he knows...
Volo's hand snaps out wrench at your lapel, his arch features wan when he tries to haul you close. Your heels dig in, and he growls, "Cogita told you."
"About this ritual of yours?" you snap and bare your teeth in a grimace and try not to notice your gut thrum when his fist clenches.
It starts, the elder Celestican descendant had told you over steepled fingers, with a token of defeat; something valuable and hard-won. Something befitting of a dragon's hoard.
"She did," you tell him, then bury a hand in his soaked, silken hair and lunge.
His lips meet yours in a fearsome clash, neither of your eyes daring to fall shut; neither daring to let down your guard.
It's a searing heat in comparison to the rain, increased tenfold when his mouth parts first, breath fanning out and fogging the air. His free hand trails down your arm, at first almost unsure but - after a nip of his lower lip - snakes below and grips at the opposite lapel.
You pull back a second too late; his grip wrenches apart and seams pop all down your front. It's not hard enough to rip the obi, but it's still your goddamn uniform.
"Prick," you hiss, and the hand in his hair pulls him away, grip broken. Before he can react, your other hand curls into the collar of his tunic. One leg swings out, your hips twist, and in a throw that would make Kamado weep you haul his six-foot frame over your far shorter shoulder.
The element of surprise is all that sees it succeed, and even then your boots slide wildly out from beneath you. Volo lands with a shout, and you sink wrist-deep in frigid mud.
The slimy texture sours any thrill in your gut, which at least means you're attentive to his next lunge. His aim for your stomach goes high, shoulders and clavicles crashing against each other like a bruising thunderclap.
Your feet dig in, twisting to throw him again and follow him down.
The two of you roll just once, already suctioned into the mud, and the blows begin to fly blindly. Your fists crack against his jaw, maybe a temple, but your knuckles probably fair worse than he will.
He knocks aside the hat, and the downpour is as stunning as falling below lake ice.
Your breath leaves you all at once, and Volo uses the opportunity to twist his hips and fold a leg over your side, rolling to pin you again.
The mud is a sucking, clinging cold, but your veins are beginning to throb with the heat of the fight.
What follows varies, both in time frame and in practice, Cogita's words whisper in your hindbrain. In some eras, it was simply wielder battle after battle, until the previous victor claimed satisfaction. In others, it was rather more physical.
Satisfaction?
The victor would be satisfied, and this had been delicately, exasperatedly, and blushingly relayed all at once; that their challenger was a fitting mate.
"Then you know," Volo pants, and doesn't his chest just heave, the swell of gentle muscle glistening in the rain, "how this is going to go, yes?"
"I know how it's going to end," you respond, and your grin is feral. His knees are on either side of your abdomen, his frame towering and his heat radiant. "Getting there will be the interesting part."
You buck your hips, barely unbalancing him but it's enough to snake a hand back into his hair and yank. The sound he makes in response will be noted, highlighted, and bookmarked in the ol' spank bank for months to come.
Mate, you echoed. And just like that, a week's effort untangling heartstrings was flushed away. You're telling me he wants to-
That it is a courting ritual, yes. Modeled after that of the greatly revered draconic line native to mou-
Modeled after garchomps?!
Volo's grip is iron at your wrist, bones grinding until you release his hair. When he tries to pin it over your head, however, you take advantage of the split-second overextension.
A proper haymaker is difficult to throw while pinned but goddamnit you try, cracking against his cheek and spilling him off into the mud once more.
"Sinnoh's shit," you hear him bite out, but you're already scrabbling up out of the mud and bolting for higher ground.
You settle for a shallow cave, an overhand really, and barely have time to sweep your plastered hair out of the way before he's upon you again.
His stride outmatches you by a mile, and before you can dart to either side Volo has you crowded against the stone, back to chest. He rips the straw cloak away like tissue paper, and it hits the ground with a ragged slap that really, really shouldn't send static racing along your skin.
Through the sopping wet and caking mud, he's a summer squall against your back, clinging and thunderous and sending sparks up your spine in all the right places. Your gut coils, heat raw and pooling, like it might slosh against the cold stone at your front with the barest jostling.
The man looms like no one else in Hisui, the swell of pectorals pressed to your shoulder blades (though it feels as though they're brushing your cheek) and seething breath against the crown of your skull. You nearly laugh to realize, it's in his blood.
His great right hand comes up to the front of your neck, wrapping around the entire left-half of your throat. Fingers wind into the delicate hairs at your nape, a calloused thumb stroking the corner of your jaw. His palm is burning, unless the heat rising to meet it is a blush, in which case you are so very fucked.
Oh, you had breathed, with a relieved smile Cogita didn't return. Well, garchomps don't take unwilling partners. That much we've learned from surveying.
Indeed, lost one. But -
"So, hero," Volo says, and the clasp of his hand is as much a caress as it is a threat - to either crush the air from your lungs or rip you down from the heavenly pedestal he set you on and force you to your knees. "How is this going to end?"
- a measure of caution, Cogita warned, would not be undue.