Ruby the Braixen, self-styled “fiery jewel among Pokémon” and “sorceress supreme,” talks life and mortality with Boreas, the recently reborn Amaura.
Ruby: You have something you want to say. Say it.
Boreas: How-?
Ruby: Even if you were a difficult person to read, which you’re not, I possess psychic abilities that make sensing surface emotions trivial. Speak your mind.
Boreas: Milady… by thy power alone was I drawn back into this world.
Ruby: True, but there’s no need to thank me. Your continued service is compensation enough for my necromantic assistance.
Boreas: Er… quite. I…remember my death, faintly, brought on in the merest instant by some celestial calamity beyond my mortal ken. Countless of my kith and kin did fall; whether any did survive, I know not. Verily, ‘twould be no surprise to learn that this were the final close of our age, as some of our prophets did forescry.
Ruby: Mmm. Probably was. I have heard Lavoisier talk about this in the past. Your “celestial calamity” was likely the impact of an asteroid that struck the earth almost seventy million years ago.
Boreas: Seventy…?
Ruby: Million. A thousand thousands.
Boreas: …years? Oh, alas my world, alas my fallen kin…
Ruby: Yes, yes, it’s very tragic, but hey, you’re alive. Could be worse.
Boreas: But wherefore my new restoration? What purpose serves my rebirth, and that of the mad Tyrunt we did face? Thou hast said that thou intended it not. ‘twas it then the mere whimsy of unthinking Fate?
Ruby: Would that be so bad?
Boreas: I confess thy meaning doth escape me, milady…
Ruby: Look, fate dealt you a bad hand the first time around. You died, apparently through no fault of your own, and so did everyone you ever knew; it was a bad day.
Boreas: …’tis putting it rather light, milady.
Ruby: Whatever. But thanks to my awesome power, you’re back in the game. New hand. New fate. More than most people ever get. You can either sit around feeling sorry for yourself, or you can make the most of it. Either way, you have to make your own reasons.
Boreas: And… the memory of my people?
Ruby: Dead. Gone. No good to you now. If you think you’ll be stronger by honouring their memory in whatever primitive way you find appropriate, then fine, whatever. If you’re just going to mope about them, you’re better off forgetting.
Boreas: Milady, in mine era, service to one’s tyrant was an all-consuming duty – ‘twas the reason we did the works of labour, and war, and even love. To be beholden to no tyrant was to be a- a- a lowly vagabond, naught but a base cullion. Thou knowest no such devotion to any cause but thine own. How canst thou understand?
Ruby: [rolls eyes] If it makes you feel better, then think of me as your tyrant. I know you don’t want to cling to the laws of your old world, though. You’re smarter than that. Though just barely, it would seem…
Boreas: Thou speakest true, but…
Ruby: [sigh] Look at Spruce [points skyward]. Spruce is an idiot. But he’s an idiot who knows what he wants, which is apparently to inflict his idiocy on the world in general, and me in particular. He is dedicated to his goal, and he is so far achieving it with gusto. No one told him to be the way he is, or at least I fervently hope no one did; he simply is.
Boreas: Then thou dost counsel me to seek mine own purpose, for mine own good? And thus to emulate thy gentle companion?
Ruby: …let’s not get carried away here.
Boreas: Milady, I… I would serve thee gladly, as though thou wert my tyrant true, for thou didst bestow upon me this… ‘new hand.’ But I will think on what thou hast said, and haply I may find my purpose as we travel.
Ruby: [shrug] It’s a start. Come on; we should catch up with the others before one of them does something incredibly stupid.
Pokémaniacal 