She didn't know what to make of him when he was like this. She suspected that his showmanship had a mocking undertone, hinting at some cruel joke only he knew.[break][break]

"You must be happier, then," she said with a trace of bitterness. "Freed from the grips of insanity at last."[break][break]

Her arms wound about herself protectively, the thorns receding ever-so-slightly as she fixed him with a wary gaze. The mist rippled with the movement, trembling in place like specks of dust kicked up by a breeze.[break][break]

"Would be a happy ending, I suppose, if it weren't for the high cost that came with it."[break][break]

Despite the sheer hypocrisy of it all, resentment crawled out with her every word.

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

[attr="class","pkmn"]

Her eyes wandered over the primal markings on his skin, glaring in their tie to the earthen deity. Despite herself, she still remembered how they felt against her skin, warm and radiant with power. She hated it, how well she remembered those things.[break][break]

"Have they severed fully?" she questioned him instead, her doubt palpable. "The League guards its darkest secrets well, then. Imagine the pandemonium if civilians knew you'd faced the same fate as your brother."[break][break]

He's lying. He has to be, she thought desperately, though only one shred of evidence pushed against that theory.[break][break]

She tried to ignore how calm he seemed, until she couldn't any longer.[break][break]

"...Is your mind quiet now, then?"

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

[attr="class","pkmn"]

An unspoken tension lingered between them, unexpectedly dissipating as he chuckled at her reply with seeming relief.[break][break]

Confusion flashed across her features at this, and her frown deepened as she stepped back, the mist tugging insistently at her clothing as if to deny her escape.[break][break]

So she held her ground, stubborn as she'd always been.[break][break]

"You weren't supposed to survive," she said bluntly. "Walsh had his own plans for you. The fact you did, and that you weren't severed from Groudon like Kyogre and Dross? That wasn't planned."[break][break]

Wo-chien had noticed the change in him first, slinking behind her with a low hiss of warning.[break][break]

His grudges didn't lie thick on the air, not like they ought to for a man so wronged with grief.[break][break]

They tasted weaker than they should have been.

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

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"That kyle lopez would die for you? No. I didn't."[break][break]

This was true enough, though perhaps her time with Father Winter should have warned her otherwise.[break][break]

The twisting thorns tightened and curled like a fist as she hesitated, attempting to find words that didn't come.[break][break]

"But I always knew you'd suffer a fate like this if you pursued me. One way or another."[break][break]

To be disappointed. To be ruined. To hate her for what she inevitably always would be.[break][break]

"I warned you of that from the beginning. You just didn't listen."

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

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"So you say," she said uncertainly, watching him with mounting suspicion as he ran his hand over his Arcanine's fur.[break][break]

This shift in his demeanor proved difficult to decipher. Shock and numb from grief, she figured, or playing at indifference to conceal ulterior motives.[break][break]

She didn't trust her instincts, not after being fooled so many times in the past by her senses.[break][break]

She didn't believe he could be gentle. Not with her.[break][break]

"Aren't we talking now?" The thicket of thorns subtly stretched outwards through the mist, curling about her like a protective cage. "I can't imagine there's much left to say."

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

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"It's not fear. It's pragmatism."[break][break]

kyle lopez was a liar. MATIAS SILPH would never forgive her for what she'd done.[break][break]

Elisabeth had seen a universe where she'd killed Kyle before, and had witnessed the storm of grief that had enveloped that world's Matias with violence and despair.[break][break]

She'd died in that world, too, though that factor hadn't mattered much to her mind. Her death didn't cancel out Kyle's.[break][break]

Murder was murder, with or without the presence of the murderer to pay the price for it.[break][break]

"Besides," she continued, the embers shimmering across his Arcanine's fur catching her attention, "violence was the language you always understood best."[break][break]

She'd learned that much on Mt. Chimney, the first and the last time they'd met.

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

[attr="class","pkmn"]

The dead ought to stay dead. They ought to, but Hoenn didn't respect the permanence of such things.[break][break]

She'd seen it firsthand with ALEXANDER STONE. Half of her expected to see it with kyle lopez, now.[break][break]

Wo-chien slithered by her side, blending easily into familiar hazy surroundings as its Avatar searched the strange liminal space for the man she'd killed. What better bait was there than this -- the presence of his murderer -- to tempt him into revealing herself?[break][break]

The answer to that question revealed itself all too suddenly, manifesting first as an Arcanine and then as a man she'd done everything in her power to avoid despite the machinations of THEO BECKETT and others like him.[break][break]

Panic caught fire in her lungs, but she fought it down, the cutting tenor of his voice confirming her deepest darkest fears.[break][break]

"Then turn around and go back." The sharpness of her own voice surprised her. "You go your way, and I go mine."[break][break]

Thorny tendrils snaked upwards from the ground, dancing through the mist like shadowy whips prepared to strike.

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

[attr="class","pkmn"]

Unbridled fury stormed within her, denied release as he dropped the thread of their conversation. She bit her tongue, fighting against the instinct to provoke him further.[break][break]

Some sick, twisted part of her enjoyed that -- making other people unravel, the way she herself so often did.[break][break]

"I'm sure you remember the things that are convenient to remember," she said finally, compromising between spite and reason as she arose from her seat. "I do the same, that's all."[break][break]

Her eyes swept over the office, memorizing all its useless minute details as if they might be useful later, before she turned to see him already occupied in some mundane office task.[break][break]

It irritated her, to be dismissed so easily by a man who imagined himself her better, despite the equal rank between them.[break][break]

"If declan walsh has appointed you the caretaker of this mission, then forward it to Admin Bee," she said sharply, turning away to approach the closed door. "He can oversee my progress with MATIAS SILPH, should it be demanded."[break][break]

If this is a bluff, I'll make you commit to it, her eyes warned as she glanced back at him one last time. THEO BECKETT might be quick to lie to her, but BARNABY FINCH? She was less certain of that.[break][break]

She trusted Bee could better distinguish between fact and fiction than her, at any rate.[break][break]

"Best of luck trying to impress Walsh. If you're lucky, maybe you'll get an early retirement. Get to go fishing or something."[break][break]

A careless shrug dismissed that thought before she departed him, enjoying that reprieve from his company for as long as fate would allow her.

[attr="class","ooc"] THEO BECKETT

[attr="class","pkmn"]

Laughter, surprised and sudden, spilled out of her at the matter-of-fact admission of failing botany. "I would have loved to study it deeper in a collegiate setting," she confided, "but I've had great opportunity elsewhere. Rocket can be giving, at least in that sense."[break][break]

A rare compliment for the organization that had lost her trust the day it forced her to enable a meteoric apocalypse. Even so, the compliment was a sincere one.[break][break]

Elisabeth's Kalosian accent would surely fumble and butcher the other woman's Alolan name, she knew. So when she was offered a nickname, she gladly took it, nodding as she said, "A pleasure to meet you, Nenet." For a rare, shining moment in Elisabeth's life, she meant the sentiment. "I'm..."[break][break]

Underboss Fiorelli would be the correct answer. Part of her wanted to hold off on saying it just yet, though.[break][break]

It was a silly, girlish instinct, but it happened so suddenly and reflexively, her name came out before she could reason through it: "Elisa." She tilted her head, eager to turn the conversation away from herself. "May I ask what you'd use radiometry for in particular? I'm less versed in that field."[break][break]

A nagging sense that she already knew the name 'Nenet' hit her with peculiar deja vu -- that it had been echoed by someone else at some unknown point -- before she began to piece things together.

Nenet's study of Zev Harcourt's DNA. The deal Elisabeth had struck with Beast Harcourt.[break][break]

...Well. This might go easier than anticipated.

[attr="class","ooc"] Neffatari Nzingha

[attr="class","pkmn"]

All things cycled.[break][break]

With BARNABY FINCH, time briefly wound itself backwards. A heady rush of affection spurred her onwards, aching for the opportunity to even brush her hand against his own, and aching all the more to see his face unmasked.[break][break]

But time marched painfully forward, too, and that cycle continued onwards to its inevitable conclusion.[break][break]

"Love has made you dull-witted and slow," her own voice would deride her in her dreams, inflamed by the presence of a slumbering grudge. "That man will leave you, as all of them leave you, if you love him much more."[break][break]

Barnaby had already begun to distance himself from her, ever since that first visit to the Chamber of Desires. No matter how she reached for him, or how softly she implored him, a cold indifference had formed between them that she couldn't explain, despite the vision the WELLSPRING MASK had promised her.[break][break]

All the intimacy they shared had seemingly been erased, locked behind that crystalline mask like a vault. Yet Elisabeth couldn't seem to stop herself from repeating her nightly ritual, pressed against the bars of her cell as she strained her eyes to see his silhouette in the distance.[break][break]

"How many times have you known this thankless self-sacrifice? How many times must you repeat this cruel lesson, that no one cares for you but yourself?"[break][break]

Other prisoners found solace in their dreams. She watched them, sometimes, running to fellow inmates and exchanging useless sentiments as if they were precious, sparkling jewels to hide from their captors' prying eyes.[break][break]

Cillian Quinn attempted to raise her spirits, but she shrugged off that false bravado, utterly numb to it. Part of her preferred freya morningstar and her hostility; she liked the implication she wasn't a toothless Pyroar left to languish in a circus tent.[break][break]

Instead, she leaned against the glass wall that housed Wo-chien, closed her eyes, and attempted to dream within her dream.[break][break]

"And what will you do, when you cease wallowing in self-pity? Obedience has not saved you. Did it save you back then, when you played the good wife oh-so-beautifully? How long did you suffocate your dignity before you realized you'd forgotten how to breathe?"[break][break]

Waking offered no reprieve, either. Fezandipiti sabotaged her attempts at returning to the Chamber of Desires; the Feeding Pit left them miserable and beaten; the Laughing Hour humiliated them, no matter how well any of them performed for their masters.[break][break]

A rigged game was no game at all. This was torture, masquerading as punishment.[break][break]

"Power has made you soft and complacent. Have you forgotten already where your true strength lies? Do you believe without that creature's influence, you have none at all?"[break][break]

Nothing that remained in her felt strong. Bruises littered her arms and legs from the beatings, while her jewel-roughened hands were riddled with cuts. Her lips had become parched, thirsting for anything besides the mochi she'd been forced to sustain herself upon.[break][break]

She was alive, though it was hardly living.[break][break]

"You fear your captors, when you should DESPISE them."[break][break]

---

[break]

When she awakened during one of the last of these string of pointless days, the seed of spite had been nurtured enough for its thorns to take root in her heart.[break][break]

There had been a moment when she'd accepted the role her late husband had given her, when she'd embraced the narrative of the scorned madwoman. Gone were the polite smiles and pleasantries in front of company; her tongue loosened, forgoing restraint; flirtations once meant to anger turned into vengeful affairs designed to harm her, him, and anyone unfortunate enough to be involved.[break][break]

In some ways, this moment was the same.[break][break]

It started with the mochi. She'd managed only a single bite before she began to gag, the sight of the lavender dessert enraging her. Before she realized it, she'd thrown the remainder of the plate against the wall, watching it smear the purple goop all over the cell.[break][break]

She didn't spare a glance at FERNANDO SILPH for his reaction. All she could do was laugh at the sight of the ugly gelatinous glob, all-too-aware of Fezandipiti's glare behind her, reminding her: This will be your responsibility. You will return to The Feeding Pit, and you will suffer.[break][break]

Strangely, bizarrely, she found she didn't care.[break][break]

Work beckoned her again, as it had beckoned her all those days before by extending the leash of her TOXIC CHAIN forward. She stared down at the dirty, rough, glittering jewels awaiting to be polished, but that wasn't the impulse that spurred her onwards.[break][break]

She picked up a single jewel, weighing it in her hand, and glanced over at BARNABY FINCH. Indifferent as ever. Uncaring. Unaware of her in every possible way.[break][break]

Without thinking, she threw the shard at him, letting it lightly bounce off his shoulder.[break][break]

Look at me, her eyes begged him. Anger flared up in her, its origin difficult to place and its flames even more difficult to smother. See me. Look at me, damn you. I'm still here.[break][break]

She threw another rock in his direction, watching it loudly clack against the hard floor as she waited to see if he'd react in any way. And then another. And another.[break][break]

Until Fezandipiti's large wing buffeted her from behind, thwacking against her skull with a satisfying crack. And she knew then, before she locked eyes with her beautiful and terrible captor, what her crimes would amount to.[break][break]

Elisabeth didn't attempt to be efficient in the Feeding Pit. She suspected nothing, at this point, would have protected her from that strange creature's beatings. Bruises welted over bruises, her body finally numbing itself to the lashing pain.[break][break]

Besides, the true punishment would come later.[break][break]

Elisabeth was the first selected for this Laughing Hour. Her TOXIC CHAIN was yanked forward as Fezandipiti demanded she play jester, her face contorting and twisting in ways that it had only ever known when in the throes of agony.[break][break]

She shut her eyes, the cacophony of laughter around her familiar enough that it didn't instill any new dread inside of her. An old voice, instead, chilled her from within the depths of her mind:[break][break]

"It gives me no pleasure to punish you like this, Lisa. But you give me no choice."[break][break]
"Do not test me. Neither of us especially enjoys it when you do, you least of all."[break][break]
"Why must you insist on being so stubborn? If you behaved like a proper wife, I'd never have to..."

[break]

Lies, lies, lies. If it didn't matter what she did, she might as well take what little pleasure she could yet attain. Her unclouded eyes snapped open, that initial spark of skepticism bolstering her as her absurd expressions contrasted with the ice in her eyes.[break][break]

"Laugh at me. Laugh all you want. I will remember it later. I will remember all of it later."[break][break]

"And my grudge will fuel me, long after hope runs out."[break][break]

Ncu3UGKh

[attr="class","ooc"] FERNANDO SILPH BARNABY FINCH freya morningstar Cillian Quinn[break][break]

Prismatic Penitentiary: Ugly Ward (TLDR)

SPOILER: Click to show

- BARNABY FINCH withdraws from her after the Chamber of Desires, and she begins to lose hope.[break][break]
- Ignores dream!Cillian Quinn's attempts to rally, prefers dream!freya morningstar's accusations because they make her feel powerful.[break][break]
- Lingers near Wo-chien in the dream, and its grudges stir her own spiteful and defiant spirit, reanimating her with a reminder of how she survived her marriage.[break][break]
- The skepticism she's retained allows some of her spiteful personality to escape while waking, making for petty attempts of rebellion: throwing her and FERNANDO SILPH's plate of mochi, throwing the Tera Shards (to get BARNABY FINCH's attention), being beat by Ogrepon for being slow in the Feeding Pit.[break][break]
- ACTIVITY: Is made to endure The Laughing Hour as punishment for her behavior, soaks in the laughter as a source of resentment to fuel her later. Hope runs out, but grudges are FOREVER.

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"I didn't ask for your pity. And I should have never spared you mine."[break][break]

Yet if she hadn't -- if that fateful day with freya morningstar in her Sootopolis apartment had never come to pass -- what then?[break][break]

In that world, where she never learns the tale of the pink ladies, does she confront the false FERNANDO SILPH for his sins? Is there a reality where she doesn't learn of Tapu Fini's existence, dredged up from the coast by moonlit magic and ghosts?[break][break]

If that Beautifly Effect's wings cease beating, does the man in her cell transform into someone else entirely?[break][break]

"He would do the same. If it were me or him, he would sacrifice me every time." Her chin juts out proudly, unwilling to be cowed before this other woman's will. Freya would see her bowing and scraping on her knees to survive, but not here. Not now. "I won't apologize for valuing my life higher than his."[break][break]

Bared fangs mean nothing to her. Their true enemy exists outside these walls.[break][break]

"I have no desire to perish here, lost to an endless cycle of suffering and despair."[break][break]

The councilwoman understands it as well as she does. They are all one another has in this hellscape.[break][break]

"But I will do nothing to risk myself for your sake," including that of the man freya morningstar cares so much to protect, "not unless you risk yourself along with me."

[attr="class","ooc"] freya morningstar

Prismatic Penitentiary: Ugly Ward

[attr="class","pkmn"]