Prompt 2

The absol remains stoic as the reporter laughs to the camera, the commercial break now over.

“Today we have a very special guest with us here on Route Rotom! Straight from the chilly heights of the great Starfall Mountain, the elusive prophet Astraios!”

The crowd erupts into cheers, though Astraios couldn’t care less for the others' excitement to so much as see him. The reporter continued on with reading off the script being shown to them, occasionally giving a nervous glance towards the prophet. He knew they wanted a reaction of some kind, but he couldn’t be bothered to put in effort to fake excitement. He was waiting for-

“-so, Astraios, let’s get into it, shall we? Here’s the question on everyone’s minds; Which God, exactly, do you worship?”

There it was. The question he dreaded explaining. He huffed, “Well, I associate with most of the gods-“

“Well we know you associate with them, otherwise you wouldn’t be a prophet. What we want to know is which of the Gods you directly worship- There just has to be one you hold higher than the others!”

“I was getting to that, I do ask you don’t interrupt me,” the crowd giggles, and the reporter nervously clears their throat with a nod, “as I was saying.. I associate with most of the Gods, with some exceptions due to their.. Current circumstances. Among them are the Lord Arceus, who hasn’t spoken with I or the prophets before me in several millennia after the Collapse-“

“Would you care t-“

“I will not be explaining the Collapse, that’s not the question I was currently asked and can be saved for another time.” His tail flicks as his irritation rises, “The Lord, despite Their absence, is the one permitting prophets such as myself to hold these unique powers we have, including the ability to convene with the Gods. As such, all prophets worship Them.”

“So y-“

“I, however, falter from my peers. I truly worship the fallen Goddess of the Night- A taboo subject given the nature of Her death. As many know, it is said She was killed by her own lover due to turning away from the Lord Arceus during the chaos of the Collapse. Despite her transgression, she has done far too much for mortals for us to simply forget her. She graced us with the night sky, allowing us to more readily receive signs from the Gods. She gifted us with protection from the Ultra Beasts, a foreign concept to those now ruled by the tyrants after her death. She encouraged the God of the Sun to share the warmth of the sun with us. She may have turned away from Arceus in those final moments, but we have no way of knowing why. For all we know, she may have been protecting something, or someone, from the atrocities of the time. Say.. Her children? ‘Turning away’ from the Lord is a broad statement. We don’t know if she directly fought on behalf of Giratina, or simply refused to fight.”

The crowd was silent as he spoke. Usually, worship of the Fallen Gods was forbidden, yet these laws applied not to him. The mortal pokemon couldn’t harm him, lest they seek the wrath of the Gods. The Gods who disliked the Goddess and his worship of Her couldn’t harm him, lest they break the contract they had with the prophets, and furthermore, they’d make enemies of the Gods who had no issue with it. 

He had many, many more reasons to worship Her though. Among them; The other space Gods spoke highly of her.. Including He who killed Her. He knew far more of her story, and he knew the moment he stopped worshipping Her, it’s likely She would be lost to history, along with the other forgotten Gods. All she had given the people would be falsely attributed to Arceus, or her children, or would simply be considered as always having existed. He couldn’t have that. In truth, he detested ‘forgetting’ Gods, minimizing what they had done for mortals, even if they may have turned ‘evil’ or ‘astray,’ in Arceus’s words. Perhaps, what he truly believes in isn’t some “God” that rules over a domain, but instead preserving those fallen, ensuring their story still remains told long after their death. The good, the bad, whatever.

The reporter had seized the silence to quickly derail the conversation, going back to joking with the audience, and the crowd quickly forgot what he had said. He withheld a scoff, and when the majority were distracted, he slinked off the set. The reporter would turn to ask him another question, to find him all but gone. He was satisfied with what he said, and perhaps someone listening took what he said to heart. He wouldn’t know, he’d be up in the mountains, largely unseen, largely unheard, until absolutely necessary.