Chapter Text
Viridi opened the metaphorical door to her Domain, made less metaphorical for the moment to make a point to the visitors. Pit waved to her, Palutena standing beside him with a wide smile.
Viridi held in a groan. "Ever since you guys found out my domain has a buffet you've just been inviting yourselves here at every opportunity. Cut it out."
"Were you planning on inviting us yourself anytime soon?" Palutena asked.
"Obviously not. You guys are obnoxious."
"Then I guess we'll keep on inviting ourselves!" She replied with a smile, strolling through the door with a skip in her step.
Viridi stepped out of the way to allow the other entry, though she looked irritated about it. Pit hung back a moment before entering too. "Uh...you still have nachos, right?"
"Yes, Pit, I have nachos."
Pit did a tiny fist bump. She walked behind him as he followed his Goddess to the dining hall.
It was a routine she was unfortunately familiar with by now. She didn't mind Pit visiting as much as she pretended to, but Palutena's presence was entirely unwelcome. Mostly because she kept accompanying the angel under the excuse of 'chaperoning' when she was doing everything but that.
"It's stupid to me that you both can't be bothered to make your own food." Viridi groused.
Pit glanced back at her, then at Palutena, and hung back to whisper to the Nature Goddess conspiratorially. "We can, but, don't tell anyone this, Lady Palutena is really bad at cooking."
Viridi just stared at him with an unimpressed expression. "I know that. Everyone knows that." She deadpanned.
Pit withdrew. "Well. She's sensitive about it?"
"She's really not."
He scratched the back of his head. "Ok, she's not. I just don't like to be mean."
She shook her head in vague amusement.
They arrived at the buffet soon after, Palutena already having served herself. She was seated at a table, speaking amicably with Arlon, who happened to be in the room as well.
"Hey, I see you! Don't pretend you don't know I can see you!" Viridi shouted, cupping her hands around her mouth.
Arlon jerked a little, but Palutena just kept smiling an easy smile. "You preside over this domain, so I would assume so!" She said.
"Not talking to you, Palutena. Arlon....!" She opens her mouth, but then her remark dies on her tongue. "You know what, never mind, take your time, you're on break anyway." She waves dismissively and goes to serve herself something from the buffet as well.
Pit had already gotten himself his nachos, and he's surprised to see Viridi slide down next to him to serve herself lobster. "You eat meat?"
She glared at him. "Why wouldn't I eat meat."
"You're the...Goddess of Nature and everything, so I figured you'd be...I dunno, not into eating stuff you created?"
She scoffs at him. "Plants are my creations too, dweeb, if I couldn't eat anything I created I just wouldn't eat anything ever. Also, you really think I'm not a firm practitioner of sustainable farming practices? Everything here is entirely cruelty-free, I'll have you know."
Pit coughed, seating himself at a nearby table with his nachos and fried chicken. "I guess I never really thought about it."
"Obviously." She sat herself at the table he'd chosen, across from him.
"I just...assumed it be weird for you, specifically, to be ok with things dying just to feed you." Pit continued.
"Eeeehhhh, wrong. Creatures eating other creatures is the most natural thing there is. No ecosystem would exist without predation." She takes a bite of her lobster. "Mm, shircle ov life!" She says around her full mouth.
"Right. In hindsight that was a dumb question." He relents, tearing a chunk off his chicken.
They eat in relative quiet for a while. Palutena and Arlon's conversation drifts across the cafeteria.
"...yes, I understand. Alas, it's still not my decision to make." Arlon is saying.
Palutena has a strange lilt to her voice when she responds. "But say, hypothetically, it was. What would you say?"
Arlon coughs, turning very briefly to look at Viridi and just as quickly looking away when she meets his gaze. "I...can't say I haven't thought about it, but...I am not currently at liberty to entertain that idea in any capacity, Lady Palutena. No disrespect intended."
"None taken, but I think you're being a bit dramatic. It's not like what I'm suggesting is treason or something."
Viridi stills, her fork falling from her hand. The clatter it makes against the plate is loud in the relative quiet, and attention is drawn to her again. She pushes her seat out and stands, and all but storms to their table. Pit watches her with vague confusion, not ceasing his meal but definitely eating slower.
Arlon looks vaguely frightened at her approach. He opens his mouth, but just as quickly closes it.
Palutena still just looks down at her with a smile. Viridi can't help but interpret it as condescending, which angers her, which then tints her response. "Palutena, quit trying to instigate. I'm right here."
She tilts her head. "Instigate what?" She asks, sounding confused.
Viridi feels herself getting angrier at the ignorance, whether it was feigned or not. So she turns to Arlon, who would never try to deceive her. "Arlon, what was she suggesting you do?" She asked plainly.
Arlon clears his throat, and does a decent job at keeping a straight face. "Lady Palutena was requesting...a personal guided tour of the New Lunar Sanctum when construction is complete. In addition, offering her assistance in said construction as payment for said tour."
Viridi growled at that. If she had fur, it would've bristled, too. "And you didn't even bother asking me?!" She demanded, turning on Palutena with heavy offense in her eyes. "You just saunter over to my domain, try to make plans with my Commanders behind my back-" she has to catch her breath, such is the intensity of her frustration.
Palutena takes the brief lapse as an opportunity to speak up. "Hold on, we weren't making any attempt to hide it from you. We were saying all that within earshot. You just only caught the tail-end because you were talking to Pit."
She looked back at Pit, who stared very hard at his plate of nachos rather than be part of the conversation, which was fair and smart of him.
She sighed. "Well. Peacetime or not between us, I cannot allow your request to be fulfilled." Viridi replied. "Should we clash in the future, I can't risk you knowing more about the Lunar Sanctum than you did last time."
Palutena pouted. "Is the idea of being permanent allies really that repulsive to you Viridi? Because I fail to see any downsides, personally."
The Nature Goddess sucked a breath of air between her teeth. "It's not......repulsive. You're putting words in my mouth."
"Then why not, if you don't hate it?"
"You're still putting words in my- ugh! I'm not having this conversation right now!" She stormed back to Pit's table and dragged him out of his chair. "C'mon Pit we're going somewhere else."
Pit yelped. "Aah! My nachos!"
"Later!" She hissed back at him.
Palutena waved him off. "Be responsible, you two!"
"I'm going to kill you for real!" Viridi shouted back.
Pit swung the wiimote around, stealing a glance at Viridi doing the same next to him before returning his gaze to the screen. Wii Sports Resort. Heck yeah. Go sword fighting.
"Uh....what was that about back in the cafeteria?" He asks.
Viridi groans as she swings her arm out. "Less talky, more stabby!" She snaps, her Mii stunning Pit's.
Pit yelps, his Mii just barely managing to avoid getting sent off the platform. "Agh! Sorry, you just sounded upset about it."
Their Miis traded blows, and eventually Pit's Mii does end up in the water. He blew a raspberry at the Goddess, and she did the same in her smug victory.
But then her smirk falls, and she groans again. "I just- ugh. Palutena bothers me. She only comes here to flirt with Arlon I swear to-"
"Wait what-"
"Aughhhhhhh! And she acts all innocent about it! She's manipulating my commander and she thinks I don't notice!" She set her Wiimote down with just enough force to notice but not enough to damage the equipment. She sat down in a bean-bag-chair of a bush and crosses her arms.
Pit frowns and sets his Wiimote down too. Then he sits in a more normal chair, pulling it up next to her. "....how do you know she's not....uh, genuine?"
Viridi blinks at him. "Because, uh...." She pauses, visibly thinking about it. She shakes her head in frustration. "Ugh! Just because! It doesn't make sense! She wants an in, I just know it!"
"An in.....?"
"She gets on my nerves! And she wants to be able to tell me what to do! But I don't care what she says or does, I don't answer to her! I'm a god, not a demigod!" She shouts.
Pit opens his mouth to reply, but another voice cuts in. "Someone call for me?"
Pit jumps a little, turning to face the voice. "Phosphora!"
"Oh heeeeey!" The lightning warrior greets. "Nice to see the light twin once in awhile."
"Oh yeah, Pitoo lives here, I never see him so I keep forgetting. Where's he at, anyway?"
"Training, he barely does anything else, it's so boring." She remarks with a roll of her eyes that even Pit can tell is a little fond. She turns to Viridi with a smirk. "Anyway, you were talking about me?"
"Ugh." Viridi groans. "Just because I said the word demigod doesn't mean it has anything to do with you."
Pit's eyes go wide and he leans forward in his chair. "Wait, you're a demigod?" He asks in surprise.
Phosphora genuinely snorts at that. "Uh, duh, pea-brain. What did you think I was?"
Pit fumbles. "Wh, uh, well, I don't know, I just didn't think about it!" He squints, zoning out for a moment. "Does that mean Arlon is a demigod too...?"
"Pfft, nah." Says Viridi with a dismissive hand wave. "Arlon's a...special case."
She doesn't elaborate so Pit redirects. "So if you're a demigod, then that means you're the kid of a god, right?"
"Thanks for the definition, I had no idea." Quips Phosphora sarcastically.
He cringes. "Sorry. But I meant, who is your..." His gaze drifts to Viridi, still sat in the bush-chair. His eyes slowly widen. "Wait, Viridi-"
It takes but a moment for the two of them to catch onto the question he didn't ask. They both look appalled.
"Ugh! Pit what the heck!" Viridi shouts, offended.
Pit swiftly raised his hands defensively. "What? She works for you, so I didn't think-"
"W-well no! I could never- gross! That idea bothers me on so many levels." She visibly cringes at the thought. "My troops may be my children but that doesn't mean everyone who works for me is!"
"...honestly?" Phosphora speaks up, looking less appalled than before. "That sounds more palatable than the actual answer. You're provably a better parent than he is."
Viridi's ire fades at that, turning swiftly to Phosphora with wide eyes. "Th-thank you? But you know that's a low bar, right?"
"Pfft. Lowest of the low bars. But still!"
"....so who is your dad, then?" Pit asked again, glad neither of them were mad at him anymore.
Phosphora sighs. "Number one deadbeat dad in his pantheon, that's who."
"Which pantheon?"
"Greek."
"..." Pit takes a moment to think. "Oh, right, Zeus."
"Ding ding ding, we have a winner." Phosphora gives a half-hearted cheer. "Wish he wasn't. Big piece of shit."
"Woah, Commander, language!" Viridi shouts, sounding scandalized. "Our game is rated E for Everyone!"
"Yeah? Well the fic is rated T For Teen. If Hades is allowed to say Hell in the original game, then I'm allowed to call Zeus what he is in a fanfic."
".....y'know what, fair, I can't really argue with that." Viridi sighs. "Makes me wonder, if we ever get a sequel, I can't imagine we wouldn't have that guy as an antagonist. Unless they make more god OCs."
"I hope so! That'd be super cathartic for me!" Phosphora grins wide, the air around her crackling. "That'll teach him a thing or two about abandoning his kids all the time!"
"I mean, if anyone fought him, it would probably end up being me...?" Pit hesitantly points out. "Y-you know, protagonist privilege, that kinda stuff."
The lightning warrior pouts at him. "Killjoy! You'd do that to little old me? You'd steal my thunder like that? You wound me!" She leans forward dramatically, into his personal space.
Pit leans away, half flustered and half nervous. "I-I mean, it's probably not gonna be up to me! I'm not really in charge of uh...anything, honestly."
"Oh, right, I forgot you're competing to be the biggest lapdog in all the pantheons, my mistake." She said, a clear taunt.
Pit can't avoid shooting a comeback. "Just because I do what Lady Palutena tells me to do doesn't make me a lapdog! You do whatever Viridi says, too!"
"No, see, the difference is that I do this thing called 'compromise'~" She wiggles her fingers about with an electric crackle. Viridi rolls her eyes.
"More like you respect me a normal amount compared to Pit." Viridi corrects.
"Whaaaaat nooooo I worship the ground you walk on, oooobviously!" Phosphora sing-songs, draping her arms across Viridi's bush-chair.
It's clear they're making fun of him, and Pit pouts about it.
"As your Goddess I command you stop that." Replies the Goddess with a smirk.
"Right away~" She obeys, standing up straight with a wide, self-satisfied smile.
Pit crosses his arms. "I don't sound like that...." He mumbles.
Viridi sucks the air through her teeth. "I mean..."
"I don't!"
"You go on about her constantly. It's kind of annoying."
"No I don't, I just respect her and don't like it when other people don't!"
"Here's a fun way to end this argument!" Chimes Phosphora. "Would you say you respect Mistress Viridi?"
Viridi has a strange look on her face when Pit chances a glance at her. He turns back to Phosphora. "Uh...yeah? Why wouldn't I?"
"Cool, cool. So talk to her like you talk to Palutena."
Pit widens his eyes a little. "I- I shouldn't do that."
"What, why not? If you talk to Palutena so normally then it shouldn't be weird to talk to Mistress Viridi that way!"
"Phosphora." Viridi says warningly.
"I...it's normal to talk to Lady Palutena like that! It would be weird to talk to anyone else that way!" Pit said in defense.
"Absolutely, Lady Palutena! Anything for you, Lady Palutena!" Phosphora said in her best imitation of Pit's voice.
Pit growled. "Those are completely normal things to say to your Goddess!"
"I dunno, I've never said anything like that to Mistress Viridi. Oh Viridi, I would do anything for you, Viridi-" Her imitation continues.
Pit's face flushes bright. "W-well I bet Arlon does! Th-that makes you the weird one, not us!"
"OH HEY NOT TO DERAIL THE CONVERSATION OR ANYTHING-" Viridi shouts, visibly flustered when Pit turns to look at her. "BUT- ahem, but...Phosphora. Commander Lightning Flash Phosphora."
"Ooo I'm getting full named, that means I'm getting grounded." Phosphora mumbles under her breath.
"Don't be dramatic. It's about Arlon. And...Palutena. What would you say the odds are that Palutena is manipulating his feelings to get what she wants?"
She seems delighted enough by the question to immediately drop whatever it was she was trying to do before. "Oh? Are you finally admitting I'm the love expert around here?! I gotta put this on a calendar, this is a special occasion!" She clapped her hands together for emphasis.
Viridi groaned. "Just answer the question."
"Ok! I'd say maybe 15%."
Both Pit and Viridi go wide-eyed at that, but for opposite reasons.
"That's your low estimate, right?" Demands Viridi, just as Pit says, "No, that should be a zero!"
They turn and look at each other. A beat of silence. Then they both cross their arms.
Phosphora snorts at the sight. "You're both so weirdly stubborn. Would you like to hear my reasoning?"
They both just nod.
"On one hand: it's like, super obvious that Arlon's into her. And I think she's too nice to be manipulating that just to get what she wants." She explains first.
"Well, how are you so sure he likes her?" Viridi demands.
"Because it's obvious?"
Pit raised a hand. "I can vouch for that. He fired a meteor at me once because he thought her sneeze was....pretty? He said it was gold or something, I don't remember. It distracted him."
"That.....is so oddly specific. What are you even saying." Viridi muttered at him.
Pit smirked. "That I'm right!"
"Hey, I didn't say zero, I said fifteen. Because no matter how nice she is....she's still a crafty sneaky little weirdo. If she wanted something, she'd find some way to do it. I just don't think it's super likely that's what she's doing now."
Pit pouted a little. "You guys always assume the worst of Lady Palutena..."
"Hey, I'm the one giving benefit of the doubt! Mistress Viridi isn't even doing that!" She pointed out.
The Goddess in question just gives a resigned sigh. "I think I've had enough of you, Phosphora, no offense. Go bother Dark Pit or something."
"Awwww. Fine, fine, that was the plan anyway. Right there in my daily planner and everything." She clapped her hands together. "Oh! One last thing before I go~"
"Oh great, what now."
Phosphora ignores Viridi and turns to Pit with an almost sincere grin. "You've come here a bunch, but have you gotten Mistress Viridi to read your fortune yet?"
Pit blinks. "I uh...honestly forgot she even did that."
"Well it's a good thing I reminded you, then~! I highly recommend it! Her fortunes are very accurate, it's a perk of divinity, don'tcha know!"
"Commander-"
"I recommend the palm readings the most!"
"Ok goodbye Phosphora-"
"Tarot cards and tea leaves are cool too, don't get me wrong but-"
"GoodBYE PHOSPHORA." Viridi said, loudly, whisking the other away in a burst of leaves.
Pit stared at the spot where the other vanished. "Uh."
Viridi huffed.
Silence for a moment. "So..."
She sighed in defeat, not bothering to fight the inevitable. "Come sit on the floor, I'll read your palm."
Pit grinned wide. "Sweet!"
They sat on their knees on opposite sides of the low table they'd set their Wiimotes on before, though they'd moved said Wiimotes aside now that they were using the table for something.
"So, uh, what do I do...?" Pit asked.
"Well, take off your gloves first. Then lay your hands palm up on the table, both of them." Viridi instructed. Pit did so, setting the gauntlets and gloves on the floor next to him before presenting his palms to her. Carefully, she took them in her own. "Now, when mortals do this, it's about how many lines you have on your hands, and how long they are, what shape, that sort of thing." She lets go of one hand to trace a line in the other with her fingernail.
A chill goes up Pit's spine at the contact. For someone so....bristly, Viridi was being awfully gentle with this. And they were holding hands. He felt his heart rate quicken, and he hoped Viridi couldn't tell.
If she could, she didn't say anything. "I do it a little differently. I can sense the aura you have through your palms, and use that to predict things that will happen to you."
"Aura? Like Lucario?"
She shot him a deadpan look. "You do know Pokemon didn't invent that concept, right?"
Pit didn't respond because he honestly thought they had.
A sigh. "Whatever, not important. Each line in your hand ties to a different part of your future. By tracing it, I can draw a bit of your aura through it and see something in your future relating to what that line represents."
"What, uh." He refocuses, still having a hard time not being distracted by their contact. "What do all the lines represent?"
She smiles, like she usually did when she knew more than him. "Depends on which lines you have. There's the four main ones, the Head, Heart, Life and Fate lines. Mortals can have a bunch more, depending on various factors like age, but Divinity, anywhere on the scale, tend to have something else going on." She traces another line on his hand, near the bottom of his palm. "This one swirls a little, if you trace it."
"What's that mean?"
"Nothing on its own, but if you look closer..." She directs his attention to his other hand. "...you only have it on the one hand. And, again, that on its own would be really unusual out of context because your hands are supposed to be symmetrical."
She raises a finger matter-of-factly. "However! The one time Dark Pit let me do a reading for him, I noticed that same line on the opposite hand! So I can only guess it's some kind of secondary Fate line that you share with one another." She frowns at him. "Don't suppose you know if you've always had that line?"
"Oh! Uh, no, I don't think? I don't spend much time looking at my hands, and my gloves cover my palms most of the time anyway, sorry." He replied.
"That's what I figured the answer was. No worries."
"Are there....any angel-specific hand lines?" He asked. "Since you said Divinity has unique hand stuff."
"Yeah, there is. It's this one here." She traces it, a line beginning beneath his middle finger and curving towards his pinky, ending parallel with the side of his hand. "Unoriginally, called the Angelic line, and it has to do with how often you'll be revived. Most Divinity also has...this one, too." She traces another, a pair of more defined lines down his pointer that joined as they met the palm. "The Heavenly line. Has to do with devotion and worship. Giving or receiving, depending on if you're a God or not."
"What kind of use does that even have?" Pit asks, confused.
Viridi snickers. "What, in fortune telling? Well if you ever defected from Palutena, I could use that to tell, for starters!"
Pit gasped in horror. "I would never do that!"
"Yeah yeah, I know you wouldn't." She rolled her eyes. "Anyway, you want a palm reading still? Which line do you want me to look into?"
Pit thought about it a moment. He was pretty sure that the Heart line would give him more clarity on the nature of the feelings he'd been feeling lately...but he also wasn't sure he was ok with Viridi knowing about that yet. It would make it...weird, he was pretty sure.
He pondered the other ones. He knew he'd never abandon Palutena, so the Heavenly line wasn't too helpful. Angelic....he died plenty and most of the time it was barely a setback, so that one wasn't interesting either. Viridi hadn't said if the line he and Pitoo shared even did anything, so nevermind that one. Head probably wasn't helpful cuz he usually acted with his gut, so that left...
"Life and Fate...what's the difference between those? Is Life like...how healthy I am or something?" He asked.
"Well, ehh? Sorta? There's a Health line, but looking at your hand right now I don't see it, so you don't have that one. And there's also a Fortune line, which you seem to have, but small. The best way I can explain it for you, being Divinity, is that Life helps me see stuff in the short term while Fate helps with things much farther off."
It's a long-winded explanation, but Pit gets it. Mostly. "I....think I want Life, then. That sounds cool."
"Pfft. Yeah. You're not really a long-term guy, huh? Anything in particular you want me to look for?"
He's distracted from the vague insult by the question, which he has a quick answer for. "Anything fun? I don't really know what else to ask."
She nodded. With her own, she guided his hands to be flatter against the table. And then, with both her own, she drew her pointer fingers across his Life lines, feather-light.
It tingled a little, but Pit hadn't the time to dwell on it. In a sweeping motion Viridi pulled her hands upward, and from his palms came a swirl of energy, a wispy mass of blues and golds.
The colors shifted, airy, bright, until Viridi did another sweep of her hands, through the aura, and shapes began to form.
Birds, flying though the air in a coordinated flock, before breaking apart at what seemed to be a tree line. Deer and rabbits bounding though the wood and brush. A serpent, swelling in the image enough to take it over completely as the focus. Feathers rained around it, and it's maw opened wide to swallow one.
Then, it laid itself flat upon the ground, turning to bone, flowers blooming in its wake.
Viridi stared at the pictures with wide eyes, not blinking once until the flowers bloomed. The images in the energy faded as she funneled the aura back into his palms.
A full-body shudder passed through him. "Woah, that felt weird. Warm, sorta? But cold..."
"Your next trip to the surface world will be joyous and unforgettable." Said Viridi. "That's what your palms said."
"That's what you got from all that? You're good at this." He stretched out his hands, wiggling his fingers as if making sure he still could. "Guess I'll have that to look forward to, next time Lady Palutena sends me out on a mission."
"It might be a causal trip down, who knows. Just whichever you do sooner." She pointed out.
Pit paused, turning to her in mild confusion. "Casual trip...?"
"Yeah. Going down to the surface for fun. You do that sometimes, right?"
"No? Palutena's too busy for that. Most of my off time I'm doing other stuff."
Viridi stared at him incredulously. "I don't believe that. You're saying you've really never just...been down there? In nature? For fun??"
Pit gets the feeling he's made an error, the way she says it. "......for some reason I feel like that bothers you."
"Are you stu- no, you know what? This is Palutena's fault again, she's depriving you of valuable enrichment time!" She got to her feet and stormed back off towards the cafeteria.
Pit scrambled to join her and put his gloves back on. "Agh, wait up! What are you mad about?!"
"Sometimes I feel like Palutena just stuffs you in a closet when she doesn't need you." Viridi huffs in frustration.
Pit does a half-run to catch up with her. "No, when she doesn't need me I'm in Smash Bros."
"You're seriously telling me you've never just gone down to the surface for fun?!" She asks again.
"I'm getting the feeling you're hung up on that."
"Uh, duh! Obviously I am! I'm the Goddess of Nature! And you're telling me you've never just existed in nature for fun with no purpose?!" Despite how angry and presumably targeted at him the statement seemed to be, she wasn't even looking at him. Her focus was still straight forward.
He doesn't know if replying would make her angrier or not, so he doesn't. They breach the doorway and they're back in the cafeteria again. Palutena was nowhere to be seen.
Viridi groaned, and then broadcasted her shout telepathically, "Palutena where the heck did you take Arlon?!"
Pit, being next to her, heard double.
"We're playing chess in the garden, Mistress Viridi." Arlon chimed back.
"Stay there." She replied, and stormed off again. Pit just kept following because he wasn't sure what else to do.
They arrived at the garden in short order, entering though a wooden-mesh gate. Arlon and Palutena sat at a garden table with an ornate chess set.
"Hey, Palutena!" Viridi shouted.
"Yes, Viridi?"
"I'm taking your angel down to the surface! You gotta problem with that?!"
All three spectators went wide-eyed at the declaration, Pit most of all. He definitely hadn't agreed to that, and more importantly, she hadn't even proposed the idea to him in the first place!
But to his surprise, Palutena just grinned and raised an eyebrow. "No. No problem with that at all."
From what Pit could tell, Viridi was also confused by this response. "O-oh, ok, good, cuz that's....what I'm doing!" She declared, and then swiveled on one foot to spin back towards the entrance, grabbing Pit by the hand to drag him out. "We'll see you guys later!"
Pit wanted to object, or fight against this....seemingly inevitable circumstance, but....Viridi was holding his hand again. So he kept his mouth shut.