Chapter Text
As Lilith awoke, she realized that something was definitely wrong. A strange energy that wasn't there before seemed to shimmer throughout the air, and furthermore, all of the Pokémon of the forest had fallen into silence, but a trancelike, and somewhat reverential one at that. Lilith looked to Persian and Altaria for reassurance, but she saw that they were still deeply asleep, and no matter how she tried to rouse them they simply would not awake. To her panic, even the grass and the leaves on the trees themselves had stopped rustling in the breeze. It seemed that all of time itself had come to an anticipation-filled standstill. Almost as if a divine influence was guiding her eyes to look towards the clearing’s edge, Lilith looked up in fear and awe to see something stepping out from in between two trees, its footsteps leaving glowing marks upon the ground.
In fact, everything around it seemed to be glowing because of its presence, from the grasses of the forest floor to the tips of the canopies very faintly above. It walked into a beam of sunlight in the clearing, giving Lilith a much better look at its majestic frame. It appeared to have the body of a gigantic Sawsbuck, but several feet taller and with fur the deepest shade of cerulean. Its antlers were almost an armspan wide and encrusted with what seemed to be crystals that reflected the afternoon light in a rainbow of colors, giving the creature a heavenly rainbow aura. Lilith let out a gasp that was cut short, as the Pokémon silenced her with a look from its deep lapis eyes as it came further towards her still.
Just as it reached the patch of grass Lilith had been kneeling in, it sank to its knees in a bow, looking up at her with eyes that had begun to glow white with energy. Lilith felt paralyzed with fear as its eyes bored directly into her soul, and when the creature opened its mouth she was terrified to hear it speak with a voice unlike any other-(that she was sure only she would be able to hear, even if other humans were around).
“Child, I am Xernias, one of the Ancient Ones, and the guardian of life itself. I come to you for I am the patron deity of your family line- did you know that as the plague ravaged your family, you would have died too, had your parents not offered their lives to me as sacrifice for you to survive? You would not exist without me, but I seek you out all the same to give you the same boon of my blessing of life. Should you devote yourself to me just as your family line before you has, I will give you power beyond measure, and you will be protected, not just for a one-time favor but until the rest of your days. Should you decline, I will continue to watch you from afar, but be warned that I will never come back to bless you if you do not accept my offer.”
Lilith stared terrified into the still-glowing eyes of a god itself, and feeling almost powerless to decline such a boon, as she, of course, had heard the old stories of what happens to those who defied the gods, Lilith looked fearfully but resolvedly back into its eyes. The entire forest seemed to hold its breath as she spoke in a shaking voice.
“I accept your gift, sovereign Xernias, and will be forever grateful to you for both this gift and saving my life long ago. I accept the condition of serving you, just as those of my family have served you before, and in return, I place my life into your hands.” Xernias' eyes flashed in something that looked like approval and a rush of glowing energy engulfed the pair.
Lilith felt something tickling at her neck and as she looked down, she saw a collar of silver, crystal, and bone being knitted together from the same glittering rainbow energy, resembling a smaller, almost necklace-like version of Xernias’ own antlers. The ends of the collar connected, and it fell solidly onto Lilith, coming to rest on her collarbone- which sent a jolt of power through her body. She was lifted off of the forest floor in a surge of power and began to hover high above the tree line, hair flapping wildly in the wind like a halo of sorts.
She was a god.
She could sense- no, see- every sound for miles, and she could detect every living being around her along with their pulsing auras of life.
She could see the way everything glowed with the light of life previously-blindly-unseen to her, and with a wave of her hand, everything glowed stronger around her.
She was a God, as high and mighty as life itself, as bright as the sun, longer lived than the infinitesimal land of Kalos itself, as sure and as infinite vast universe.
Suddenly, everything that had seemed to matter to her before was swept away in a wave of clarity. Kalos was nothing, its kings and queens as royal as the common Feebas- but she-she was blessed, finally able to escape her human stature, finally free.
She felt giddy with power- but, with a start, she realized that none of these thoughts were her own. She felt sick as opposed to blessed when she realized what the deity had done-it had transferred its power and therefore its conscious to her body-giving her its infinite boon but also its influence. The girl would have to hear Xernias’ thoughts as well as her own-she had unknowingly accepted to host a god itself, and these were the consequences.
And suddenly, with that realization, the auras of everything around her became too bright and overwhelming, the sounds too loud, her body too high in the air-she could feel the wind nipping and biting at her as a scream escaped her mouth- the weight of a goddess laid too heavily upon her human shoulders now, and it was dragging her down and down and down-
She fell down towards the forest floor, unconscious.