I just found this in my drafts and I don’t remember writing it or where exactly I was going with it, but hey! Have some random Gardenshipping thoughts!
(cw: none. one minor suggestive mention of office stuff. under cut for length)
For all the silverfox!Emmet x Reina stuff I’ve thought of, for some reason I’ve never thought of Reshiram!Emmet x Reina before? So...
🔥 I imagine Emmet is an aspect of Reshiram - not the god-dragon in full, but a piece of it. He’s probably reincarnated several hundred times by now, as the mortal aspect of Truth, and has memories of all his previous mortal incarnations as well as Reshiram’s memories and probably even a good chunk of Kyurem’s. The man is A Mess™️, especially after Ingo, his twin, his brother, his other half (platonic, don’t make it weird), vanishes. After all, what is Truth without Ideals to give it purpose?
🔥 That’s why, when he meets Reina and she becomes his personal assistant at Gear Station, he gravitates towards her. Just like in Gardenshipping canon, he starts to fall for her because of her genuinely kind and caring nature; she also has no idea he’s a piece of a fucking god, so she just treats him like a normal person. Not a celebrity trainer, not a deity, just. As Emmet. And he soaks it up like a man dying of thirst. Here’s this beautiful young woman who truly doesn’t care what or who he is, she just wants to make sure he’s eating and sleeping and taking care of himself. How can he not be intrigued by her?
🔥 He can also smell dishonesty a mile away and he can tell Reina is just actually that good of a person. Sure, she lies about her living situation (she doesn’t tell him that she’s unhoused for the longest time), but I’d imagine Emmet can also tell the intent of a falsehood, so he probably picks up on the fact that any lie she tells is born from the need to survive, rather than malice or the desire to mislead. She isn’t hurting anyone - she just wants to keep her misfortunes private, and Emmet can... sooooort of understand that? (He might not like it, it makes him worry about her, but in the end it really only affects Reina herself, which makes Emmet bound and determined to get to the bottom of her problems and help her in any way he can. The man is SMITTEN.)
🍃 On Reina’s side, I honestly don’t think she’s all that religious; Reina is from Kanto originally, and she has a lot of internalized stuff from the local belief system (i.e. she’ll say things like “Legends” or “Birds” in place of “Arceus” or “Dragons”). She’ll probably still have a subconscious desire to believe in something, but she doesn’t actively practice anything. Also, having only been in Unova for a couple of years at most, she might not really understand the region’s religion all that much. She probably doesn’t really think about it - which. Valid.
🍃 That being said, she would probably not know how to handle being face to face with a literal piece of a deity. For starters, her entire worldview would be - at the very least - a little bit shaken. After all, if you go from nearly thirty years of disillusionment and not fully believing in anything because you’ve been through absolute hell, to suddenly finding out the man you’re in love with (and who’s been railing you over his desk every day) is the Incarnation of Truth, you miiiiiight need a moment to process.
🍃 (That last part, especially, because how on earth do you reconcile the fact that you’ve had an actual god between your legs?)
🍃 Reina already has hella self worth issues, so to find out that her boyfriend isn’t even human, she might not handle it well for a while. In her eyes, what could a god possibly see in a lowly human like her? She still loves him, that part will never change, but she’ll have to take some time to try and reorient before she can even work up the courage to go near him again.
🔥 Emmet, in the meantime, is going to be utterly distraught. He’ll put on his trademark Subway Master Emmet smile, but it’ll be hanging on with a hope and a wish, because he is not doing okay knowing that the love of his life might be terrified of him now. He can’t lie, no, but he’s gotten really, really good at talking around the truth after countless lifetimes, so anyone that asks how he’s doing is getting a series of non-answers until he can slip away. Reina makes him feel normal, human almost, which is something he’s never fully gotten to experience - because while he might be a shard of a Dragon, he’s still somewhat his own entity, since he’s, you know, actually out in the world of man and not sitting dormant in a rock somewhere. He’s constantly torn between two halves of his own existence, and the thing that made it bearable all this time was his twin; with Ingo gone, however, Emmet has been feeling the extra weight of responsibility around his shoulders like a yolk for damn near a decade.
🔥 Until Reina.
🔥 (Like in regular Gardenshipping canon, one of the reasons Emmet falls for Reina is because she just treats him like a person. Doesn’t fawn, doesn’t get close to him just to challenge him, doesn’t pity him; just sits with him and lets him be a regular guy.)
🔥 I’m also imagining the way Reina even finds out Emmet is one of the God Dragons of Unova is uhhhhhhh not the most pleasant of circumstances. Probably Team Plasma, but I’m picturing there being some sort of siege on Gear Station or an attack somewhere that requires Reshiram’s attention, and somehow, someway, Reina winds up witnessing Emmet with his more draconian features and spewing ethereal fire. Get that sweet, sweet ‘oh shit’ moment with Emmet turning around, eyes slitted and glowing, claws out, wings sprouting from his back, fire still trickling from between fangs too big for a human mouth, only to see Reina standing there, completely frozen, just staring at him.
🔥 The follow-up conversation is gonna be... a lot.
🍃 I feel like it’ll take about a week or so for her to be able to talk to him again
