[attr="class","wildtemp"]

Chryssa wasn't sure when she'd made the conscious decision that she wasn't going back to Sinnoh. She wasn't sure whether she didn't want to return or whether she just didn't expect to. As both she and her parents knew, time was limited. They just didn't know when. Just another small cruelty, she thought. She wasn't bitter. Just detached. Just another gift from the Original One, meant to temper the joys of youth. 

But that wasn't unique, was it? It was the subject of countless plays, novels, works of art. The pain of knowing you would die but not knowing when was what made a person human. It was what separated them from Pokemon. Chryssa could almost be envious of the powerful creatures, spending themselves in faith for their owners without ever knowing what was to come.

Perhaps Arceus should have stayed their god. 

It was the deepest flaw of Sinnoh. That streak of zeal for the Creator seemed to saturate every monument, every history book, every mantle above every fireplace crowned with the symbol of His Wheel. Tourists probably didn't even notice it-- but the insignia was entrenched in Chryssa's mind, seared there like the ritual of Breaking she'd gone through as a child. In the beginning, before the world was shaped and all was nothing, He emerged from The Egg...

Sometimes she thought she could still feel it in her hair, down her neck, slithering cold and viscous down her skin. Her parents had thought the cleansing rite would bless her, would cure her. Being able to stand again had seemed proof of this miracle. But miracles aren't everything, right? Chryssa thought, browsing through the flower gardens on the outskirts of the town. She moved slowly. The highland air was still freezing, but she had hardened herself against it. It felt good to be numb. 

Passing by a small pond decorated with small lights and sprigs of holly, Chryssa noticed a tall, sharp-edged fin cutting through the water. "Is that a Sharpedo?" she asked incredulously. She paused-- she was supposed to be hunting for an Arceusmas gift. 

She enjoyed the trappings of Arceusmas. The frivolity. The playful Sawsbuck and Santa imagery, the pop remixes of tired old traditional music, the garish presents exchanged with friends and loved ones. But behind all that, like an impossible blackness, the celebration was for the birth of the universe, and the waking of the one who placed its stars. Created life itself, then watched them burn out one by one. 

Chryssa believed in God. She just wanted him dead.

It was why she was here. Not the Contests-- that was just the official story. No one would sponsor a dying girl whose (charity-sponsored) wish was to defy her own fate. It wasn't marketable, at least not outside of fiction. It wasn't achievable, not by any corporate means. When it came down to it, no matter the result, charity was just that: charity. Pity. A way of averting one's eyes from the poor, terminal girl who'd beat a million-to-one odds by standing again, but couldn't beat her own mortality. 

Well, Chryssa was tired of pity. It was time for action. 

"Pokeball, go." The fin, and the rest of the Sharpedo, disappeared inside the ball, which floated back to the surface. Chryssa summoned her cane and fished it out with the tip, drying it off on her coat and putting it away inside one of the pockets. It was getting too cold to stay out here hunting much longer-- she'd come back once she'd changed into something more appropriate, and maybe once she was in a better frame of mind. Something more thoughtful. Something more generous. 

Something less radical. Something less lethal.