is this not the woman who starved herself for the sake of the man who ties them together? is this not the woman who was manacled, shackled, made to play doll for the likes of his patron? the truth is a haunting and terrifying thing and it has no place here - this is a dream; not a nightmare. 

"they say the eyes are the window to the soul."

she can step forward with ease, no tethers, because she is no longer chained. that bulbous gift nestled on her neck is a promise. is a gift. and in the reflection of those verdant green pools are her answers. 

"i know you," she insists. "because i finally, finally know myself, and we are so resplendent." 

Elisabeth Fiorelli

☉

she holds her breath. lets it go. the words won't mean anything to delta (until they do, because the girl's too smart for her own good and honestly, she knows how to get on the internet, freya). 

"mostly members of the amnesty program. we folded in optional volunteer hours with the dragons." she tests the waters and leans a hip into the kitchen island. 

"just a few are learning draconid. only the language. the...i'm not sure if i know the right traditions to teach that. one of them, Caleb Harcourt, is learning combat. don't look at me like that! i learned from the best."

KING WAYLAND

☉

"we're all something to someone," she says petulantly, the frenzied wandering of her gaze lapsing only so she can dart clouded golds back to the woman who stands in her way. 

"i saw me in you," she adds all too suddenly and it's though all the muscles that had been bunching, ready to bolt and make down the next rabbithole, have stilled. she moves with purpose now - not away, but towards elisa, head cocked. 

are there memories in your eyes?

"that's why i did it, you know. stopped you," she whispers, leaning closer, eyes wide and searching.

Elisabeth Fiorelli

☉

chromium glitters under her fingertips. no matter how hard she presses, no dust or oils leave a mark upon the window panes. the first had afforded her a look at a swing, dirt-stained cheeks on a girl no older than nine, staring with all the self-righteous fury in the world at a snot-nosed kid before her. 

the next, found shaking and stumbling away from it, that same swing, that same girl, her forehead pressed to another, two syllables she couldn't hear but could read off the same said so adoringly she'd had to run. 

run and run and run. 

to see another her, happy in the arms of a woman who made her kinder, gentler - lovable. 

you don't remember the dreams that came before, but you feel the eons you've lived within them, and she knows, as her shoes slap against the pavement, that she has been running towards something all this time. 

she halts, hand stretched up against the side of a building, her name fallen from an old enemy's lips. none of those ties will matter soon. 

"fiorelli," she says, clipped as she catches her breath. "i don't have time for you." a pause, a glance at the long bay window beside them. no, she thinks as she takes in the expanse of water, the island of her self-isolation, but i'm getting close. 

"have you seen my memories? the ones i'm going to make?"

Elisabeth Fiorelli
FREYA DELULU HOURS

☉

"you mean you don't keep him in check?" she asks delta and gets a variation of the wayland impish smile in return before she leaves the raging bolt behind in lieu of a snack. the dragon opens up one big eye and stares up at her, snorts decisively, and then curls its head away. 

"you'll change your mind one day when you see the draciary," she promises as she follows behind. she's not here for the snacks, but she is there for the company. 

she intends to greedily drink up all she can before he puts her out. 

"it's nothing like the estate, but it's damn well close. i'm even, sort of, teaching." and it feels good. it feels so good, but there is always that missing piece, that pitch black against the sun where he ought to be beside her. it pervades the flushing pride, making her lapse into silence rather than tell him about the people she's met. 

the strides she's taken. 

what if she takes too many without him?

KING WAYLAND

☉

she dips her brows in consternation and tells delta in soft whispers more about the fantastical beasts she bore witness to in area zero. she holds her tongue, though, and opts not to tell her that her dad was down there too. 

"i said once i tame them, thank you. if you're going to get annoyed at what i'm saying, at least listen," she says, a teasing lilt to her voice that'd be vacant quite literally anywhere else. 

"would that be so bad? and besides, not your choice. what do you want to specialize in, del?"

KING WAYLAND

☉

"i don't think it's really over, melody," she says, straightening when melody does, one brow arched. victory is so close and though she now has an incredible amount of respect for the woman in front of her, that's not going to stop her from securing the win. 

the fae she tosses onto the field isn't unexpected, but it does make her lip curl. her fingers twitch, shifting the pokeballs in her hand, and onto the field in a shower of light emerge the ghostly arrowhead of miirym and her steel-shelled aoife. 

we can handle the noivern, she thinks.

'ekess bisek,' she hisses and miirym darts forward in response, summoning an infestation to crawl towards the poor-sighted bat and deafen it with the chittering striations of phantasmal bugs. 

aoife eyes the pools of water about them. she's too slow to close the distance before the gardevoir can attack with psychic energy so she takes a couple of bounding steps forward and thrusts out her gooey hands. a thin, deadly sliver of ice seeks to impale.

Melody Miro

dragalge uses infestation to deafen noivern
goodra uses ice beam

☉

the comradery she shared with Melody Miro gives her some ability to imagine what it must have been like for her in galar. she would have wanted it nearly as much as freya did - home. displaced again and again, fighting for a people who've lost their will to fight, who keep losing their will to fight. 

"i'm not the kind of person to get married," she says, somewhat uncomfortably. complex emotions tug at her chest and though this talk brings to the forefront one man, another face - rounder, with soft green eyes - lingers in the pockets of her happiest memories from galar.

"no, i can't. when we liberate sootopolis, that's when the war really begins. they'll retaliate." another onslaught of glancing blows, fueled with a new surge of energy. lyune's form shudders in response; one of the crystal slivers twined in freya's braid shines.

DRAGON'S FURY

SALAMENCE Z-MOVE

salamence empowers itself to its maximum potential. primal fury overtakes it as it razes the battlefield and opponents before it, eliminating all terrain effects.

his muscles bulk and a fire smolders in his throat. 

"and we will show them no mercy."

Michael Navidson

☉

doug looks like he's in, perhaps, the best spirits she's ever seen him in. the recent calamitous landscape has sullied the spark in most hoenn citizens, especially those more in the know like the avatar himself, and even when he's been carefree and nonchalant, it's never been like this. 

like some shadow has been lifted. like the days have meaning again. 

it takes her a second to follow after him, much too shocked to feel anything but surprise. it does make her feel more confident - for the moment, at least - and when she finds her voice and her will to move again, she does so incredulously. almost amusedly. 

"i can't imagine you're that excited about the surgery," she says. 

John Sullivan

☉

it's the same simulation she'd found herself in with Remiel Calcifet. she braces for the explosion before ollie tells her to and by the time the lava starts for them, her cyclizar is already spinning its wheels. 

the cave constructs itself for them and she dismounts from the drake, leaving it to its heaving. 

"i've come this way before," she says, breathless too, and swallows some of the humid cave air. "i think...if we go deeper, we'll find something. there's no way back out without burning in that lava."

ollie morales

into the cave
+50 points

☉

dragons, she thinks and memories of the morningstar estate flood unbidden to her mind. the nesting caves, the wide yawning ceilings, marble flooring lit by flickering candlelight, how the caverns were always alive with the sound of the ancient beasts.

she misses her home terribly and she knows lyune does too. the centuries'-old dragon snarls as he is beaten by shuwen's fists, but he will not break to the warrior bear.

freya blinks rapidly, jaw tightening.

"no," she says and clicks her teeth together. miss wayland, comes fernando's monotone taunt, tarnishing her feelings of nostalgia. "i have more important priorities than settling down and becoming a pregnant housewife."

Michael Navidson

☉

"it's more than niceties," she argues. the drakloak that had shadowed her here drifts closer, making its head available when she tiredly leans back. "she pleads earnestly. and with conviction. those are powerful tools wielded by too few. i imagine some of our numbers have already become undone."

she sighs out of one side of her nose, thin lips scrunching up in the corners.

"i was molded to be a politician. never quite fit the bill, but i suppose bits and pieces stuck. don't envy me for being better at hiding my fears, livy. "

she's quiet for a bit after that. idly, she raises a hand to thumb miirym's snout. "i'm just as terrified as anyone else with the knowledge we have. we know some of what's out there and we know we don't know half of what's out there. and most days, i still forget to say, i'm scared, because sometimes you just need to hear, i'm scared too."

PENELOPE LIVY

☉