Arceus, Your Timing is Terrible
Ao3 Link
Arceus choses the hero to save Hisui from destruction. But his timing was terrible.
The Prologue of my AU, Inspired Ideals, with some sprinkling of details for the world building.
It had been a month since Rei’s grandmother had passed. He was… Handling it. Maybe not well, but he was handling it. He was functioning. He ate when he should, cleaned when he should, and finished his school year as he should. He was okay! Ish.
He hadn’t had a complete meltdown, at the very least.
Mrs. Simmons was helping as much as she could get away with legally. She wasn't his permanent guardian, though, so there was only so much she could do. Her main job was handling grandma’s estate and figuring out how it would be taken care of now that she was gone.
She'd managed to argue for him to get to stay in Grandma's house while they sorted all the legal stuff out. Last wills and custody and packing and all that. He was old enough to be left at home alone.
Rei hated how quiet the house was.
He'd never really noticed how loud it used to be when his grandma was around. But now it was unnaturally quiet to him. He couldn’t hear her moving around the house anymore. No humming as she cleaned or read. No clatter of dishes in the morning as she made them both breakfast. No call of “Stay safe!” when he went out for groceries while she worked on something in the house, or “Welcome back!” when he came home. No tight hugs, no exaggerated kisses, no goofy jokes as they talked about their days. Just Rei and the creaking of the wood and wind.
He was alone. (He hated being reminded of it.)
He ran his hands over the journals his grandmother had written years ago. Her adventures as a “Pendragon” that she'd gone through when she was around his age, called to the Isles to avert Calamity. She'd never rewritten them, at least not that she'd told him, so he could see all the mistakes and rambles she had put in that she would either skip or skim when she would read from it for him as a little kid. He loved them, though he was pretty sure she had just made most of them up. He was sure some of the characters were based on legends or past family members who’d been notable in some way or another.
They were probably his grandmother's way of combining their family history and stories into a fun adventure, to help make teaching the stories to little kids like him easier. So they could learn about their family in a way that would actually stick with them.
He liked reading about the Fae anyway, even if they weren't real. They inspired him for too long for him not to feel affection for them.
(He would pick a grass type for a starter, in honor of Lady Egrain. He remembered just how many times he'd declared that to Grandma before…)
He was going to bring some of them with him. For his journey. So he could have a piece of home with him. Mrs. Simmons could probably keep the rest or help Rei get a storage locker for them.
He had to start his journey now. He had to. It felt like the only option to avoid losing what little of his grandma, of his home, that he had left.
He was sixteen. He couldn't be put into an orphanage; he was too old to be adopted at this point. Younger kids were the ones parents would look for, ones that they could go through all the “growing up” milestones with. Someone who was almost grown wasn’t what they would want to connect with. He’d just end up staying there until he aged out of the system.
And foster care would be just as bad, he was sure of it. They would force him to leave everything behind and then leave him in a house of strangers until he was too old to be there, until he was too old to shunt to the next house, then they would kick him out and leave him to fend for himself. (There was a reason so many people said that being put into the Foster System was one of the worst things that ever happened to them. Even if it got them out of something terrible.)
The only family he had left was an aunt and a cousin in Sinnoh. But he didn't know them. They were basically strangers, too.
According to Grandma, his mom had gotten into a fight with her parents and hadn't spoken to them in years before she and his dad had passed. They had gotten a card when his cousin was born, but that was it. Rei'd never seen them himself. Never spoken to any of them. He didn't even know what they looked like. He knew they existed, but that was it.
The only way he would have some kind of safety, some sort of anchor to keep from being taken away to a strange, unfamiliar place and forced to live with people he didn’t know, would be for him to start his journey now.
He could be emancipated if he could handle a year-long journey on his own. It would serve as evidence that he could take care of himself, that he could handle being on his own without a parent taking care of him. That he was old enough and capable of living alone and deciding how to make his own livelihood. He didn't know what he wanted to do yet, but he could probably figure something out while traveling. (Grandma always said he was a clever kid. He was a quick study and a good learner. He could handle it.)
Besides, he would be seventeen by then. He would be old enough to move out anyway. At least, this way, it would be on his terms and not someone else’s.
Rei knew the major things he wanted to bring. His grandmother’s hip and waist bags, since he knew he could organize them to hold anything he might need. Her survival compass, which she’d taught him how to use years ago in case he ever got lost when they went on summer camping trips. Grandpa’s cape, since he knew it was warm and would keep him covered during bad weather. Not to mention it would help keep his bags dry, too. And his grandpa’s crafting kit. The tools from it could be a huge help if he were in a pinch. Besides, he liked making things with it.
He curled up on his grandma’s bed, surrounded by various things he was planning to bring with him, one of the journals in his lap and the rest stacked on the bed beside him.
He still had some time. A few weeks more, at least.
He opened the journal, deciding to read from it before he turned in for the night. (He could pretend she was with him, reading it aloud over his shoulder.)
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That night, something otherworldly called to him. Impossibly big and impossibly bright, too much for him to truly comprehend as he looked upon it. It was simply More Than He Could Understand.
It wasn’t a Well-Wisher, there to find the next Pendragon to save the World Tree. There was no All’s-Well portal, glowing with a campfire on the other side and waiting for him to step through. This was someone, something, else reaching out to him, pulling him into a void of stars and speaking things beyond his understanding. Something that thrummed through his bones, his soul, the very Universe itself.
He didn’t understand it. He couldn’t understand it.
The Being before him seemed to know that. It was unbothered by it.
It let him fall.
And then he was alone, in a different world that didn’t have a place for him, having lost everything that felt like home.
(Everything he had been trying to prevent, made terrifyingly real in an instant.)
