UNPROMPTED.
bcuz lucian wishes to share his brainworms w/ me.
barges in here. tell me about cynthia's feelings on her family. on her ancestry. on her legacy set by those before her. i am always down for Erika Thoughts they are like a fine meal
frankly, finding out about volo would be deeply traumatizing!
as per my Canon(TM) (insert sparkling sounds here) cynthia never, truly learns the full extent of what transpired in the past until cogita herself reveals her identity, and explains it all.
still blessed with arceus’s gift of immortality, cogita kept watch over volo’s bloodline over the years, watching each and every individual offspring grow, flourish, and carry on the last of the celestica blood.
nerve-wracking would be an understatement, waiting so long with bated breath, to see if another with his self-immolating passion would rise and endanger the region again.
but it never came, like some sort of cruel, one-off incident, as punishment for volo and volo only.
cynthia, however, was a special case.
from the day she was born, cogita saw it, saw how much of volo was within her.
she did more than flourish, she excelled in strides far beyond any of her peers. she was voracious, hungry for knowledge, and had to be placed in classes with older age groups to be kept sated.
her inquisitive nature was something that left a small seed of fear to be nurtured within cogita, wondering, if she were to turn out like volo, what would happen?
would she have to step in and stop her?
would another hero arise, like the fallen one in hisui’s past?
however, it would soon come to light that cynthia was not a reflection of volo.
he was a shadow to her brilliant light.
everything that volo could have become, had he not been burdened with such troubles, was what young cynthia blossomed into.
rather than the darkness that would one day consume all of sinnoh, she transformed into the guiding light it needed, spearheading changes that would bring cogita to the ultimate decision of revealing herself in her entirety.
cynthia was (emphasis on was) fascinated by her lineage, her ancestry, what her people meant to sinnoh, and what happened to them.
much of this was taught by cogita, who simply dismissed herself as a very knowledgeable member of their tiny town, a mentor figure her grandmother was good friends with.
after the great crisis at spear pillar, narrowly averted with the aid of giratina, cogita appeared in cynthia’s home, awaiting her exhausted return after her long and arduous battle with cyrus.
solemnly did cogita inform her that she would, finally, tell her everything she truly knew of her family line, and the celestica people.
beginning first with the calamity brought on with giratina’s first, solitary escape, in precise detail, memories never once faltering even over the many years, did cogita recount every last moment of the celestica people’s fateful hero.
the night drew long, but neither felt any desire for sleep as cogita carved the way to the fallen one, the second opening of the rift, and the reason for its occurrence.
confusion and bewilderment as to why now, of all times, when the furthest thing from cynthia’s mind was ancestry, cogita was telling her all of this, slowly transitioned to understanding.
the beginning and the end had met together at the spear pillar, facing off against cyrus.
the dark secret of her bloodline was revealed with grim reluctance, and cynthia realized quickly as to why cogita had hesitated on ever telling her more about the man she had seen in aged, weathered photos who looked so much like her.
sick was the first thing she felt.
after witnessing the near destruction of not simply sinnoh, but the world, the knowledge that her own blood had once tried the same chilled her, sickened her, and had she not already been sitting, surely would she have collapsed.
cogita explained that she had been watching her as both guardian and executioner, should the need arise.
like two sides of the same coin, cynthia showed just as much promise, and as much danger, as volo, and it was this that left her biting her tongue, caught in between providing preemptive warning, and trying not to influence what fate already had in store.
cynthia’s journey to spear pillar, and the distortion world, proved that she was not volo’s copy.
she was the one correcting history, and doing what neither volo nor cogita could manage.
after the raw, emotional turbulence of learning far too much in far too short a time, and after much stewing on it, cynthia feels... murky, on the nature of her lineage.
the fact that cogita was waiting for the potential of her to become what cyrus essentially was set her on edge, resulting in far too many sleepless nights, and far too much wondering:
will she turn to a similar madness in time?
as sinnoh recovered from team galactic’s damages, this was a question she often wrestled with.
it took time, patience, and much self-reflection (and perhaps one too many instances of barging into cogita’s humble little abode to rant and rave) to come to a singular, profound conclusion.
what volo had been did not mean that was what she had to become.
ancestor or not, he was his own person, and cynthia was her own. her destiny was not something that could be controlled by who she was born from, and she knew in her heart of hearts that the past actions of one ancestor would not predict the entirety of her future.
cynthia loved sinnoh for every flaw, for every perfection, for every unique aspect, and for everything that was to come.
she never had once wished to destroy, but to better.
to bring upon change to her beloved home that would benefit not only those of the present, but the future denizens of sinnoh as well, so that its beauty may persevere.
in part, this required letting go of some of her fixation on the past, and her worrying over volo, and what his significance in her family line meant.
funnily enough, this discovery helped her focus that much more on the future, and fixate less on the past.
but if she were to ever meet volo he will be catching these hands.
