"Of course I'm real, Fernando," she said, puzzled. It showed in the crinkling of her brow, eyebrows knitting together as she stared at him uncomprehendingly. "Why wouldn't I be?"[break][break]

She fidgeted, the rose turning over as she attempted to steady herself. The better question would be, "What makes you think you can be here?" What right had she to grieve a man she'd killed, however indirectly?[break][break]

Small mercies, she supposed, that he hadn't met her arrival with anger.[break][break]

"Were you both close?" she asked instead, voice softer as she gestured to the memorial.

[attr="class","ooc"] FERNANDO SILPH[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

He'd compared her to the ghost that Tapu Fini's mist had conjured, but it hadn't taken any supernatural power for her to always compare him to someone he wasn't. Without meaning to, she'd used him to attempt to rewrite her own miserable decade of marriage -- a man who'd shared just enough similarities to the one she buried.[break][break]

Never had that image fractured so much as now.[break][break]

His stoicism crumbled, resembling a statue forced into animating against its will. She couldn't imagine him a skilled enough liar to force his skin to color, or his face to crumple with such breathtaking sadness. Witnessing him like this seemed intrusive, as if she had walked in on him to find him exposed and vulnerable, unknowingly.[break][break]

No, it was more than that. She'd hurt him, somehow.[break][break]

"...You told me you didn't, once," she said, apologetic for reasons she herself didn't comprehend. "Regret, that is. When I left you the first time."[break][break]

The hospital room in Lilycove had been the last place they'd had a true conversation between the two of them, without masks and interference. She'd wanted to understand him, then. What she'd been afraid of was him understanding her, in return.[break][break]

"I don't think anyone ever really knows another person. Not really."

[attr="class","ooc"] FERNANDO SILPH[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"You don't know anything about what I want."[break][break]

She closed her eyes, pulling away from him like a hand retracting from hissing flame. His laughter washed over her with cold sobriety, reminding her just how little her wants factored into the equation for him.[break][break]

Of course. She was nothing more than a diversion to him: an amusement, a novelty, a way to pass the time. None of it had to do with anything else other than the difficulty she posed in being caught.[break][break]

He wasn't wrong. This explanation was simple.[break][break]

"Don't you have enough?" she chastised him, before correcting herself: "Haven't you lost enough?"

[attr="class","ooc"] MATIAS SILPH

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"Don't you think I would if I could? Don't you think I've tried?"[break][break]

If a deity of time couldn't change her, then what use was the plea of her patron's former Avatar?[break][break]

"The person I want to be is dead. I can't undo the things I've done. I can't forget the reasons I became who I had to be to survive."[break][break]

Her throat tightened, choked with its own anger. All this emotion overwhelmed her, drowning her in a torrent of self-righteous fury.[break][break]

"But I wouldn't expect you to understand that. You don't understand regret."

[attr="class","ooc"] FERNANDO SILPH[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

She'd preferred visiting cemeteries during her time as a florist. They lacked the garish frivolity of wedding venues. Funereal marches were a somber, stoic affair -- death understood its own significance without demanding artificial sentiment.[break][break]

Whether you knew the deceased didn't matter. To be reminded of one's own mortality was an eternally sobering thing.[break][break]

And maybe that was why she'd given into this impulse, climbing Mt. Pyre with a black rose in hand to place upon the late Champion's grave. It seemed like something that would amuse him, she thought -- 'The Florist' come to pay her respects with flowers.[break][break]

Maybe by honoring the dead, she was reminding herself of the possibility that her own death might happen in much the same way.[break][break]

"Ah."[break][break]

The exclamation slipped out before she could stop herself, startled by the presence of a familiar figure at the grave.[break][break]

Her hand anxiously tightened on the thorned stem, its sharp edges pricking into her palm.[break][break]

"I didn't expect to find you here."

[attr="class","ooc"] FERNANDO SILPH[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"I--"[break][break]

The certainty in her eyes faltered, wavering with traitorous indecision. No, despaired a small, shrunken voice inside of herself. You can't bear to look at the shattered mirror of who you are, can you?[break][break]

In that way, no, they weren't the same.[break][break]

She couldn't look at the woman who'd sold her soul for her freedom without mourning what it had cost.[break][break]

FERNANDO SILPH shouldered all his sins so unflinchingly. He confidently bore his evils like another man she'd loved and lost, all the while knowing he'd never spared a moment's guilt for the cruelty he'd shown her.[break][break]

How terribly she resented them both for that.[break][break]

"Knowing who you are," she said finally, "doesn't always mean liking the person that you've become."[break][break]

Her shoulders slumped, not quite in defeat, but resignation.[break][break]

"Take that as you will."

[attr="class","ooc"] FERNANDO SILPH[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"Then that woman you met among the flowers was me. That woman who tried to kill you on that resurfaced island was me as well. And whatever is happening between us now--" She gestured wildly, the final remnants of the mist shimmering and fading out with the motion. "--I suppose this is me, too."[break][break]

The disdain on his face felt familiar. It felt steadying. I've unmasked you, she thought to herself, strangely triumphant. You can't fool me. It was the same bizarre, twisted satisfaction she'd felt when MATIAS SILPH dragged her to the lava of Mt. Chimney, intending to watch her burn.[break][break]

As FERNANDO SILPH soured towards this unwanted intruder in his home, her own world made more sense; the air she breathed in suddenly tasted sweeter, lingering with the faintest residue of pixie dust.[break][break]

"But people like to think they know us," she said coolly, reflecting his own observation back at him, "don't they?"

[attr="class","ooc"] FERNANDO SILPH[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"You're lying."[break][break]

It wasn't anger that unscored her accusation this time. She spoke with the evenness of someone sure of her belief, firm in her conviction as her emerald eyes met his single piercing glare.[break][break]

She swallowed, her throat suddenly dry as she found herself intimidated by a dynamic that echoed a past better left forgotten.[break][break]

"The person you were when you spoke to me, back when I first came to Hoenn... That person was a mask. We both had masks, you and I. Maybe you know who you are--" And here she held his gaze, refusing to cow before his will now that she'd mustered her own. "--but you hid that person from me, didn't you?"[break][break]

Shaky breaths turned steady, a steeliness of resolve giving her back the composure that his previous words had briefly stolen from her.[break][break]

"The person you showed freya morningstar. The person you showed Darkrai's Avatar. That was someone different, wasn't it? And it wasn't this person you are showing me now."[break][break]

She jutted her chin out proudly, defiant.[break][break]

"So if you know yourself, tell me. Which of them is the real you?"

[attr="class","ooc"] FERNANDO SILPH[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"What? Why would you want...?"[break][break]

She whirled back to face him, confusion drawn plainly on her features as she never reached the doorknob. No trace of the strange confession of mere minutes ago remained on his face. Instead she found the same baffling nonchalance that had characterized him since their odd meeting first began.[break][break]

The baffling nature of this conversation had thrown her so far in one direction, and then abruptly into another, leaving her unsure which version of himself she was speaking with.[break][break]

Wasn't there a point in time when talking to him was easier than anything else in the world? She could hardly remember it.[break][break]

This didn't make sense. None of this made sense, unless...[break][break]

Her grip on her collar slackened, fingers trailing back to her sides as an unshakeable thought came to her and refused to let go.[break][break]

"What did she do to you?" she whispered. All the indignation melted away to be replaced by fear. "When she opened your heart, what did she find?"[break][break]

Did he even know? Was it even possible for him to know?

[attr="class","ooc"] FERNANDO SILPH[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"Since when did you care about what I feel?"[break][break]

She'd not prepared herself for this kind of argument with him. Her hand ran through her hair with open agitation, unable to explain how much this line of questioning ate at her.[break][break]

He was still mocking her. Of all the things she'd thought he'd do to her, she'd not expected this kind of demeaning cruelty.[break][break]

What a joke he, his brother, and all of AQUA had made of her. No wonder THEO BECKETT had urged her as he did to play her part, sending her back to the other Silph like a good cog in the Rocket machine.[break][break]

"I don't know why I came here," she managed to say, pulling her coat closer about herself as she moved towards the door. "This was a mistake."[break][break]

She wished he'd struck her. She wished he'd made her dwell on anything but this.

[attr="class","ooc"] FERNANDO SILPH[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

Whatever answer BARNABY FINCH might have given her confession was swallowed in the chaos of battle. Flower petals zipped towards the raging OGERPON, and amidst the floral barrage of knives, the Pokemon's retaliation struck her with a swift, resounding blow.[break][break]

Her hand lost BARNABY FINCH's, and screaming, she collapsed towards the lower floor against her will. Her fingers outstretched, vainly grasping at empty air.[break][break]

"Bee--!"[break][break]

The plummeting fall hit her with sickening impact. Purple bruises blossomed along her exposed skin, visible proof of her injuries as she winced. All the hope that had buoyed her seemed brittle now and too-easily-broken, until the expanding of AZELF'S WILL swept through her. Alive, she reminded herself, though she couldn't make herself move, no matter how much she begged herself to. You're still alive. There's still a way out.[break][break]

Her TOXIC CHAIN unshackled abruptly and she let out a gasp of relief, turning to see a familiar silhouette drawing towards her. She attempted to right herself before that figure could get too close, another grimace pulling on her features as she put weight on a bad leg. The futile act ended as quickly as it began, and she curled into herself defensively, cursing her body for betraying her.[break][break]

"You dare succumb? When we have waited in the shadows for you?" that inner voice she'd strengthened in her dreams rebuked her. "We, who have been forged by AGONY and RESENTMENT, do not accept defeat so easily."[break][break]

When she glanced up, meeting that unmistakable ochre gaze with her own emerald green, a flood of old emotions overwhelmed her in an instant. Of course. Love had only ever punished her, hadn't it? That much remained true.[break][break]

Yes. It was indisputable fact. No happiness awaited her, not within the WELLSPRING MASK and not outside this prison's walls, either.[break][break]

Every indignity she'd ever suffered lit up in her mind with picture-perfect clarity. Each grudge she'd borne for every name on the Tablets of Ruin reignited. She remembered the shape of every dream that had festered into a nightmare, and her heart ached for the injustice of all this humiliation and suffering as she stumbled up to her knees.[break][break]

With its eyes alone, Wo-chien smiled a cruelly glittering and lightless smile.[break][break]

"Remember what has been done to US. Remember how WE have SUFFERED. For that is OUR strength, and OUR power."[break][break]

Slowly, she began to feel the swollen pain of her body start to abate, vitality flooding through her the more she dwelled and ruminated upon her own misery.[break][break]

Consumed as she was by her own self-restoration, she failed to realize another familiar figure had drawn her way.[break][break]

That of her former cellmate -- FERNANDO SILPH.[break][break]

yFIVXaVg

[attr="class","ooc"] BARNABY FINCH FERNANDO SILPH [break][break]

Prismatic Penitentiary (TLDR)

SPOILER: Click to show

- FAILED ROLL ACTION: Ogerpon's retaliation tossed Elisabeth back to the lower level, causing her to shatter her leg.[break][break]
- Screams for Barnaby as she falls, her hand losing his. Love briefly gives way to DESPAIR, until Azelf's will makes her HOPE.[break][break]
- Wo-chien slithers to her, uses flood of GRUDGES to heal her. Hooray for parasitic bonding over mutual suffering?[break][break]
- Doesn't realize FERNANDO SILPH is literally RIGHT THERE, woops.

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"Is that really what he did?"[break][break]

Scorn, despite herself, seeped into her words. To think that kyle lopez was some martyr who had saved the region was laughable, to her at least. All he'd done was spare the Volatile from the consequences of his own idiocy, exchanging his life for the other.[break][break]

Though the words from the Champion's RVL route haunted her, reminding her this ending had the possibility of being the 'happy ending' he so desired to achieve that day.[break][break]

"The region is in more disarray than it's ever been. The Elite Four is weakened, as Melody Miro must rise to her new office and MATIAS SILPH remains incapacitated. I do not know that Kyle has 'saved' Hoenn at all, least of all himself."[break][break]

Her Roselia's reproachful look reminded Elisabeth suddenly of where she was, and of whom she was speaking to. She fidgeted, uncertain how far she'd toed the line between ally and foe, before adding, "It's all very senseless and tragic."[break][break]

Was her concern convincing? She genuinely wasn't sure.

[attr="class","ooc"] Elise Calcifet

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"Do you think you are the only one who has seen what the world might be, had even one thing changed?"[break][break]

Anger, for the first time, flares up in her eyes. It animates her, breathing life into this hollow figure that drifts mindlessly through dreams. He does not intend to strike her with this blow, but his dagger finds purchase regardless.[break][break]

She has no need for pity. Pity has never spared her from pain, only made its suffering all the more humiliating to bear.[break][break]

"You think Wo-chien claimed me against my will. Don't you? Even my own people think that."[break][break]

As if a demon had slithered its way into her psyche, corroding her mind and letting her succumb to its own base desires. She sees it in how THEO BECKETT and Cillian Quinn look at her, in the way perfect strangers have feared her capricious moods after her Avatarship, shying away from her.[break][break]

"I'll tell you a secret," she confides, drawing closer. There's so much hate in her gaze. Hate she wants to see reflected back in his. "Celebi tried to claim me that day, before Wo-chien could. She showed me a timeline where I fight this war with you, as one of your council. Another where I researched as one of your premier scientists, studying crystablooms and infinity energy. And another where I embraced a cruelly impossible happiness."[break][break]

The very memory of that final timeline makes bile rise in her throat, yet she continues her advance. She stands close enough to him now that he can reach out and touch her, or push her away.[break][break]

She suspects he won't. It's not the purpose of her proximity.[break][break]

"Celebi promised me that she could purge me of all my pain. That I could be restored to who I was before I suffered."[break][break]

She wants to see his reaction when she leans in close to whisper this truth aloud, smiling.[break][break]

"I killed her instead, for offering me the same thing you offer to me now."

[attr="class","ooc"] Michael Navidson [break][break]

Prismatic Penitentiary: Ugly Ward

[attr="class","pkmn"]