#creationborn

Mari knows she cannot hide. Elders know, she'd been doing so for months; evading certain death while trying to save the rest of her otherworldly kin from a similar fate. She steps back, acknowledging the deity with a callous look.

"Y' gonna kill me? Is that what you want?"

It is not the strangest request: Fathom is old, and before he was Fathom, before he named himself, before being bound into this human form, he was guardian and prisoner both. He knows his fair share about protecting.

And even now, bound that he is, there are some things he can do.

In truth, were a human asking him for such a thing, he would ask for far more. Considering, however, who is asking...

"What is it that must be protected?" He asks.

In truth it is a strange thing, in a way, to be before one who represents life: Fathom, as Giratina, was made before life existed. He is a dragon, and he is a ghost, and so in a way almost an opposite to Xerneas.

"Is it." Comes Fathom's answer, dry as the desert winds and just as merciful.

Perhaps, he considers, he should be afraid: bound as he is by their Parent's desire he is just a speck of power before one of his Siblings, and just as large. And yet...

Never has he missed his wings as much as he does now, even when sunlight no longer burns him. Never has he missed the chance to greet a Sibling like an equal just as much, but then again never has he been anyone, or anything, but himself: the Eldest Child, the Banished One.

Around them, humans and Pokémon scatter. Fathom pays them no mind: he cares not for their fear, and there, so close to Dialga, he can almost feel a shadow of his own might.

"Do not be hasty, Dialga." He warns, cautions. "There is much your ire might call upon this land... and upon you."