"I believe you." A pause. "I'll handle it."

Something in the blackest hearts of men had always compelled her. There was no reason to doubt his reassurance that, again, this was so.

It didn't make the truth of it sting any less.

The gentle purring of the Sylveon at her legs briefly startled Elisabeth from her fugue state, the CALM MIND from the Pokémon a welcome substitute for the AROMATHERAPY she often relied on to center herself.

Tentatively, Elisabeth's hand rested onto the Fairy-type's head, gently beginning to pet it behind the ears. There was something soothing in the motion. Relaxing.

With the receding panic, Elisabeth's attention expanded beyond herself, beyond her own internal strife.

She looked at Gavin, truly meeting his amber eyes with her own green stare. A tenderness filled her as she asked, "How is your sister, now?"

Lulu's name didn't need to be spoken. The quicker Elisabeth forgot her name, and her part in these dark events, the better.

Social ✿ Outfit ✿ Cillian Quinn

Did Cillian Quinn truly trust her enough to let her fix this problem she, herself, had caused?

She'd expected the underboss to fight her on this point. Perhaps because, in his position, it's what she herself would have done.

And silently, Elisabeth wondered if he'd have been right to.

"Thank you," the admin said instead, grateful for this unearned display of confidence. 'I'm always careful,' is what she wanted to add, but the fact they were having this conversation at all proved otherwise. "I'll remember your warnings. I promise."

The Sylveon rubbed its head against her outstretched hand, lavishing in the affection as Elisabeth leaned back in her seat, listening. There was a subtle distance in the way that Gavin replied to her question about his sister, and though Elisabeth noticed it, she wisely shifted course.

She understood better than most when it was wrong to pry, and when it was better to let painful shadows lie.

Which, perhaps, was why Elisabeth started so much at his follow-up question as she echoed it: "How am I?" Innocuous as it was, there was an implication in the asking of it, an assumption that the answer was not 'fine.' Absently, her petting of the beribboned Pokémon at her feet hastened slightly as she lost herself in thought.

"I am as I ever am," she said at last, and this was the truth, if a bit of a bitter one. Her natural state was not, and had never been, 'fine.' His second request was easier to answer: "I do not think I will need any resources from you to accomplish what I need, in this matter."

The matter between her and Silph had started simply, and could end as simply. So she believed in this moment, at least.

At the change in topic, however, light returned to Elisabeth's emerald eyes, keen with curiosity. "I would love to visit your home in Sootopolis," she replied in earnest, and the Sylveon glanced up at her, intrigued by her abrupt brightening in mood.

It was a work call, of course -- the sharing of a safehouse was hardly a housewarming party -- but there was something warming in the notion of seeing where Gavin lived, some proof that the trust she imagined between herself and the underboss was not entirely fictitious in nature.

"Perhaps sometime you could tour my cottage as well. Not as a customer, but as a guest." An impish grin of her own lit up her features, all trace of her previous stone-faced austerity gone as she continued, "I have a few secrets in my basement, too."

Social ✿ Outfit ✿ Cillian Quinn