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perse

she / her

twenty-four

november 23

sootopolis

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lorekeeper / elite four

elite four

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my own blood pains me, the salt as much as the vein

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persephone amavi

no reflection [w]

POSTED ON Oct 24, 2018 4:38:59 GMT

before persephone could respond to the man, another person appeared from the dark, a white silhouette taking shape.

"officer," she greeted the man with instinctively undue politeness afforded to anyone in a position of authority, especially if that person appeared before her in uniform.

her own promotion to ranger within the league still hadn't completely set in so she still felt the need to justify her presence in the wilds as though combating pre-emptive accusations. "i'm just here to retrieve some samples for the slateport museum authority, i can show you my extraction permit in a moment, if you like?"

she smiled briefly, raising her dusty hands to the chandelure's dancing purple light.

two things seemed to happen concurrently; the sound of sliding rocks and a strange unnatural flickering of lights in the opposite direction, among the rocks.

unbidden, persephone's chandelure chases the blinking lights, slinging out two lazy will-o-wisps and a hex, giving chase like a skitty at a laser pointer.

there was no stopping the pokemon's fixation, so persephone gave an exasperated sigh, murmuring a quick apology and a promise to be back only to break off from the group to cautiously approach the object of lustera's interest.

it felt borderline unnatural to see something like an elgyem in meteor falls; somehow she had never managed to associate the arcane mystery of the caves with the strange futuristic pokemon. the hex seemed to have injured it badly enough that leaving it in such a state was unconscionable.

persephone offers it a way out - an empty pokeball - and he seems grateful for the offer.

@winter @cordelia @creed
bad post but i gotta run!!
& capture attempt at the elgyem <3

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perse

she / her

twenty-four

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sootopolis

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my own blood pains me, the salt as much as the vein

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persephone amavi

DELIVERANCE [ KANTO | INV | FLASHBACK | TRIGGER ]

POSTED ON Oct 23, 2018 16:09:26 GMT

FERNANDO SILPH likes this

SPOILER: Click to show

in truth, elysia did love him.

not immediately, not as passionately as he did her. maybe not with the same fire, but just as much and as deep as any hoenn ocean.

she's not soft; skin, bone, the taste of salt and ash, the body a metaphor for the continent.

he gets to see where the ritual white lines criss-crossing her body connect in full, and she writes the sea routes across his back with her nails.

--------

that's how she knew, persephone knew.

that's the thing. her distant, almost absent nature contradicted her selective sharp attention to detail.

the unmade bed - hers, the strewn clothes - theirs, the passing glances, secret smiles and touches. none of it escaped her, like an unraveling patchwork; she picked at the strings with a taut, restrained bitterness, taking it all apart with a pointed precision.

she wasn't even sure who she was angry at, or why, or if she was at all. but her brief, flat glares were designed to strike their cores.

that's it, really, she wanted them to know; she knew.

FERNANDO SILPH

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perse

she / her

twenty-four

november 23

sootopolis

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my own blood pains me, the salt as much as the vein

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persephone amavi

AFTERMATH [ FUTURE | INVITE ONLY ]

POSTED ON Oct 23, 2018 12:46:53 GMT

she stares at him blankly for several long moments. that same impasse between them; like a physical barrier between them and a conversation long overdue.

she smiles at his final comment almost gently, strained; of course it was easy for him to put it aside.

"remember what my mother used to say? you look to the future, i look to the past. it's not as easy for me."

the words don't come easily and are hard to articulate, getting stuck on her tongue.

FERNANDO SILPH

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perse

she / her

twenty-four

november 23

sootopolis

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my own blood pains me, the salt as much as the vein

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persephone amavi

AFTERMATH [ FUTURE | INVITE ONLY ]

POSTED ON Oct 23, 2018 11:18:17 GMT

she doesn't think she can fight him any more, it was opening wounds she thought she had forgotten about, managed to sew up and suppress.

"what do you want from me?" she repeated with a touch of urgent desperation now. she knows this conversation can't keep going because it's taking its toll on her.

persephone watches his anger blister and thinks about the answers to her question; her dead, her buried, her cast into the sea. or, in the alternative, a bitter bird in a gilded cage, suffocating as the bars close in.

she knows that one concession wouldn't be enough.

the former is preferable, but she feels too weak to admit it to him.

"i just can't make anything be the same as it was. back then."

FERNANDO SILPH

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perse

she / her

twenty-four

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persephone amavi

AFTERMATH [ FUTURE | INVITE ONLY ]

POSTED ON Oct 23, 2018 6:36:23 GMT

she wants to scream at him to stop but is paralysed in a stunned silence.

"i can't outrun her. every time i look in a mirror, that's what i think."

it's no surprise, obvious even in the photographs of his desk. from the skin, the hair, the cheekbones, down to the pensive gaze.

was he scared? acting? what purpose did this farce serve? she swallows the knot in her throat.

"are you trying to hurt me?"

more accusatory, the defensive sword and shield.

it's the only thought that comes to mind, and thus the only words she could utter. he got her; pinned down. she showed him her hand and he went, of course, for the jugular.

FERNANDO SILPH

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perse

she / her

twenty-four

november 23

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my own blood pains me, the salt as much as the vein

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persephone amavi

AFTERMATH [ FUTURE | INVITE ONLY ]

POSTED ON Oct 23, 2018 4:55:19 GMT

something felt wrong. persephone can taste a lie on the back of her throat, like swallowing a shard of sharp glass.

this wasn't him; weak and letting her command him like a dog.

only elysia had that power, not her.

she wants to see the report, the one about the attacks in saffron. she wants to see the identity of his father's killer, if he was present at all or if that too was a ruse. the timeline of it all covered in a haze. that is, assuming the pages held the truth at all and weren't fiction planned for this occasion.

did he know she would choose to not look at the file when she entered? she worked through it backwards, trying to guess what he was doing by adducing what she would in his situation.

she only had one method of controlling him, and she kept playing to it.

"stop it, fernando."

it made her sick; a creeping anxiety.

she can't say you've always loved yourself more than us, the accusations she's waited years to level at him, wallowing in her hurt now, felt like a death sentence.

"i won't make you happy, you know that too. i'm the cheap imitation" she never could be bitter about it, because it is the objective truth. "the only thing i ask for is for you to tell me everything as it actually is."

she knows he won't give that to her either.

FERNANDO SILPH

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perse

she / her

twenty-four

november 23

sootopolis

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lorekeeper / elite four

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my own blood pains me, the salt as much as the vein

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persephone amavi

no reflection [w]

POSTED ON Oct 23, 2018 3:57:02 GMT

the underground rivers gurgled around her while she worked, hands covered in a fine layer of white dust, her pokemon and lantern a pinprick of light in the otherwise dark caves.

usually quiet and devoid of activity other than the occasional wild pokemon, persephone could hear the sounds of approaching footsteps - distinctly more than one set, even though she couldn't tell say how many of them there were exactly.

@winter @cordelia @creed

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perse

she / her

twenty-four

november 23

sootopolis

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my own blood pains me, the salt as much as the vein

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persephone amavi

AFTERMATH [ FUTURE | INVITE ONLY ]

POSTED ON Oct 23, 2018 3:40:50 GMT

for the first time, persephone feels she over-stepped. her spine curls into the back of the chair and it would be a lie to say that the shift in tone didn't affect her. she bit her lip quickly.

at least she finally got the mask to slip; his deluge of anger almost more telling than anything else.

lowering her head in something like an apology, she carefully placed her hand on his, as if testing the waters.

"i'm sorry, i didn't think about what i was saying," she lied in a halting tight voice, the tone of someone caught on the verge of tears.

she could tell him that she knows it's more than what he says it is; nikolai had told her his attacker mentioned her by name. but the very idea that it was something like pure misplaced jealousy stuck like tar to her throat pipe and she couldn't bring herself to entertain the notion without getting nauseous.

"when hasn't it been about what you want?" she didn't accuse him of taking whatever he wants with the unyielding of a conqueror, as always, the meaning was inferred between them.

her fingertips trace his knuckles, and she thinks about bone, about his fists.

FERNANDO SILPH

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perse

she / her

twenty-four

november 23

sootopolis

good q

lorekeeper / elite four

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my own blood pains me, the salt as much as the vein

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persephone amavi

CHASITISE

POSTED ON Oct 23, 2018 2:55:18 GMT

snatching the newly filled pokeball from the air, persephone smiled briefly at the girl who had apparently been attacked by the creature. she looked much too young to be out in meteor falls alone so she hung back for a moment to let her catch up.

something disgustingly soft and moist came floating by from one of the cave's dark recesses and persephone flinched back at the touch, taking a moment to let her eyes make sense of the strange translucent body floating before them.

at her side, the manectric raises its shackles, ready to attack at a heartbeat's notice.

"i'll pick up the solosis," she stated to the group. it wasn't a question - she got last pick the previous time and it was just too cute to pass up.

cerza goes through the usual motions; the charged, the thunder wave to keep it paralysed, dropping from the air. plucked from the ground and returned to her feet as though he were a loyal dog.

FERNANDO SILPH thalia black @yoko + capture attempt on solosis

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perse

she / her

twenty-four

november 23

sootopolis

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lorekeeper / elite four

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my own blood pains me, the salt as much as the vein

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persephone amavi

AFTERMATH [ FUTURE | INVITE ONLY ]

POSTED ON Oct 22, 2018 18:19:18 GMT

she can't say she's shocked - her skepticism of the league at large was something she voiced often, in varying degrees of jest and malice. maybe he knew that about her too.

"one branch says one thing, another says another. you are selectively picking out evidence and information to stoke your pain, fernando. i know what it's like to lose family, but you're jeopardising your council position before you have even received it," she says slowly, softer than anything else she had uttered up until that point.

he has to know, on some level, that she's right. being hostile in raising the point wouldn't help make him see that, after all, he's as stubborn as she is. "that's not like you, and you know it. acting based on vague and conflicting deductions? if you like, show me something current that firmly implicates him, but i know you can't do that or you would have done it."

posturing. the photograph, his expressions as if designed to pull at her. it worked, to a degree. though he tested it time and time again, this almost forced bond was infallible; too much happened between them for her deny him that much. her gaze linger on the photograph longer than it should.

after a moment, she relents, leans back to survey him, a long searching look as if she could decipher truth from manipulation by looking at his face long enough.

"what do you want from me?" her voice sounds foreign to her and came out sounding weaker and more helpless than she expected.

FERNANDO SILPH

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perse

she / her

twenty-four

november 23

sootopolis

good q

lorekeeper / elite four

elite four

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my own blood pains me, the salt as much as the vein

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persephone amavi

AFTERMATH [ FUTURE | INVITE ONLY ]

POSTED ON Oct 22, 2018 16:37:12 GMT

the information feels like it's not meant for her, like she's eavesdropping on another's conversation. she watches him speak closely, clenching her jaw with a firm stubborness.

she feels her shoulders tense, the corners of her eyes go tight, narrowed for a heartbeat, but nothing more. she refuses to pity him.

and yet all she wanted to snarl back that there was nothing between the two of them, he never wanted her anyway. there was nothing to be lost in the first place.

that's untrue.

her mother would have touched his hand; she stared at it, then at the reports, reached for none of them.

she didn't doubt the veracity of what he said, and that was the worst part - being unable to disagree.

"the league deemed him a fit protector for my city. during the slateport invasion-" she cuts herself off, scorning her lapse in control. weak, they both knew it.

persephone forces herself to hold her tongue, inhale slowly. "your pain is my own, fernando." repeating his name like trying to snap him out of a trance.

FERNANDO SILPH

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perse

she / her

twenty-four

november 23

sootopolis

good q

lorekeeper / elite four

elite four

185 height

my own blood pains me, the salt as much as the vein

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persephone amavi

AFTERMATH [ FUTURE | INVITE ONLY ]

POSTED ON Oct 22, 2018 16:10:16 GMT

she can't say the morbidity isn't entrancing, watching out of the corner of her eye as if reluctant to fully turn away from fernando, the images stirring her own memory ( things she could blur out with alcohol, other things, with him ).

the pang in her chest sent a fresh wave of anger down her spine. she hoped he saw her nails dig into her palm and read it at hostility toward rocket and not toward him.

"i'm well aware of rocket did in kanto and what they intend to do here." she couldn't take it, the obvious ploy to her nature. did he remember that blood used to make her cry? yes, no?

she turned from the screens, raised a single shoulder as though in question. irrelevant.

"but why this?"

FERNANDO SILPH

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lyre

perse

she / her

twenty-four

november 23

sootopolis

good q

lorekeeper / elite four

elite four

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my own blood pains me, the salt as much as the vein

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persephone amavi

AFTERMATH [ FUTURE | INVITE ONLY ]

POSTED ON Oct 22, 2018 15:13:24 GMT

she wants to contest the words - tear them apart by one. ran away not torn. she wanted to say that he never needed her; the haunting truth of it in every action he committed towards her, something akin to toying with a discarded broken doll.

he never came back. he only wants to hurt her.

"you never did clarify that to me either."

more prosaic than melancholy. it had long since ceased to matter why he left her alone then, just the fact that he did said more than any empty posturing.

she sits opposite him at the desk, folds her hands, and bites back fire.

FERNANDO SILPH

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perse

she / her

twenty-four

november 23

sootopolis

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lorekeeper / elite four

elite four

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my own blood pains me, the salt as much as the vein

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persephone amavi

AFTERMATH [ FUTURE | INVITE ONLY ]

POSTED ON Oct 22, 2018 15:01:59 GMT

she saw the hand movement, imagined him pulling out a gun and shooting her on the spot. it made her want to laugh at the irony.

persephone wouldn't beg him for anything; too proud, too spiteful.

"answer me properly."

she's at his desk now, close enough to touch him.

she always hated how he dealt in absolutes.

"after all, you are mine." she hoped it hurt him more than it burned to say.

FERNANDO SILPH

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perse

she / her

twenty-four

november 23

sootopolis

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persephone amavi

AFTERMATH [ FUTURE | INVITE ONLY ]

POSTED ON Oct 22, 2018 14:46:01 GMT

"no, fernando." an incline of her head to the side. she knew the gesture, they both did. she never thought she would have to play elysia for him again.

she stepped further into the room, though her gaze never left his eyes, as piercing and analysing as his own. they're from different schools but they had the same teacher, after all. "you're going to explain to me, and i am going to listen."

she felt leaden, like she wasn't here. consciousness attached by a string.

FERNANDO SILPH