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Elisabeth was awake, as it happened. Like most nights. [break][break]

Sleep was something she avoided for as long as she could, for many reasons, some recently explored in the sleeping laboratories of Lulu Flint.[break][break]

People joked of friendships where one friend would kill for another, or bury the body. [break][break]

For Elisabeth, however, loyalties forged in blood were truer than those built on words, or even in the intimacy of bedrooms. A sin shared cemented your ties to another person, in a way that there was no going back from.[break][break]

You were damned together.[break][break]

The text was sent back swiftly: "Tell me where you need me."[break][break]

Her hands had been stained with sins of passion a long time ago. [break][break]

The least she could do was lessen whatever burden ana fell's hands carried now.

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[attr="class","thadtag"]Elisabeth Fiorelli

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This erratic, almost-manic energy radiating from ana fell was new. Elisabeth watched as she came in, Cofagrigus behind her with a human body undoubtedly clattering in its heart, and a thousand questions at once came to mind and were dashed aside, like rocks against the shore. [break][break]

Had she killed him? Assuming it was a him. Projection, perhaps, had assumed as much. Not that it mattered. None of it mattered, so long as Cygne was safe, and she was. Everything else they could handle together, whatever it was.[break][break]

Then as ana fell's prattling began to give key details, an image pieced together, like a puzzle snapping into place.[break][break]

"The basement." [break][break]

It was an order, not a suggestion. Elisabeth turned, fully expecting Cygne and the corpse to follow.[break][break]

The white lab coat, the tools, these things the florist all noticed out of her peripheral vision as she led Cygne onward, impressed in a morbid sort of way by how efficiently her friend had assembled all these things, seemingly on her own.[break][break]

Elisabeth liked to believe herself someone who didn't fall for first impressions, who knew better than to underestimate others.[break][break]

In this moment, it occurred to her she had unknowingly underestimated Cygne. Silently, she promised herself to never do so again.[break][break]

The basement door groaned angrily on its hinges, the contraption of locks difficult to unlatch without the master key that once made untangling seamless and easy. Yanking the door back took effort, shuddering back to reveal a revamped interior that was a far cry from the basement that she had showed Cygne so many months ago, back when the Gracideas were in bloom.[break][break]

Fluorescent lights flickered on, a makeshift lab of sterile white glaring back at them as her Ariados scuttled forward in greeting.[break][break]

"There," she said, pointing to a lab table against the wall. "You can dispose of it here."[break][break]

She didn't ask questions. Friends deserved privacy.

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[attr="class","thadtag"]Elisabeth Fiorelli

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“I forgot to say I’m so happy you’re alive.” [break][break]

The unexpected embrace caught Elisabeth unawares, stiffening slightly as she turned to Cygne in frank, utter surprise. The choked emotion that accompanied the words left her speechless, and after attempting to find words that did not come, she cleared her throat, realizing that she didn't mind this unexpected physical proximity.[break][break]

Had she changed? Was she beginning to thaw, season by season, into someone capable of accepting sincere friendship?[break][break]

"I told you that I'd survive," she said, her soft rebuke teasing, but inherently sincere as she squeezed her hand back. "I wouldn't break that promise."[break][break]

She'd stabbed freya morningstar as proof of it.[break][break]

The cadaver splayed out in front of them, and Elisabeth didn't flinch at the grisly sight. The sight of a dead body had stopped meaning something to her some time ago. Fear was to be directed at the living, and the ghosts that the dead left behind in the shadows of the mind.[break][break]

She listened as Cygne continued in a monologue that seemed to want for no interruption, and Elisabeth understood it for what it was: the chaotic unspooling of thoughts so loud, and so desperate, they couldn't stay locked in the mind without driving its inhabitant insane with them.[break][break]

"I'll stay." The resolve was firm, unyielding, and brooking no argument. "This place is yours as much as mine. I hope I've made that much clear to you, at least."[break][break]

She'd had no one at her side when she crossed the line into depravity.[break][break]

Part of her wondered how much it would have mattered, if she had. [break][break]

"I saw." A pause. "I encountered Isaac Merlo in the infirmary. He had the audacity to be worried about me, instead of himself."[break][break]

A scalpel gleamed in the light, followed by the muted glow of Cygne's mobile phone. Elisabeth stared at her friend for a moment, looking for the right thing to say.[break][break]

"Is that why you're here?" she asked gently.

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[attr="class","thadtag"]Elisabeth Fiorelli

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The soft, but firm voice of Dr. Ansa Sharmareddy underscored ana fell's explanation as the scalpel was set aside, hands reaching restlessly in her surgical pack from something unseen. [break][break]

"He's trying to protect you, I think." Men always wanted to protect women like them. "But you aren't some child in need of protecting."[break][break]

A fallacy Elisabeth wouldn't fall for again.[break][break]

The florist stepped closer to the table, wordlessly donning latex gloves of her own as she approached the body. A hand alighted on the man's chest, holding him in place to steady him for Cygne's work. Her gaze met that of her friend and companion, willing to do as directed by both her and the woman on her mobile phone.[break][break]

It should have felt more disturbing than it did, this whole event. The thieving of an eye from a dead man.[break][break]

In some ways, though, it felt like the most natural thing in the world.[break][break]

"He needs you." He needed this -- the sheer depths that Cygne was willing to go to for him. It spoke volumes of Cyg's faith in Isaac Merlo. That was rarer than anything in the world. "If he's smart, he'll stop fighting it sooner rather than later."[break][break]

Careless words from a woman who struggled to admit she needed anyone.

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[attr="class","thadtag"]Elisabeth Fiorelli

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[break][break]

"I don't think you're dramatic," Elisabeth said completely without irony as the woman in front of her performed an unlicensed medical procedure on a stolen cadaver. The glint of metal flashed through the air as Cygne began her work with the hooks, the soft squelch of relenting skin filling the brief moments of silence.[break][break]

"It's been my experience that the people you want to change rarely do."[break][break]

The cynicism of her thought occurred to her moments later, and she blinked, uncertain if this was the wrong tact to take with a friend -- with someone who was currently so deep into their relationship they were literally taking apart a human corpse.[break][break]

"That being said," she continued, remaining honest despite her tacit desire to be positive, "people can and do change. Often dramatically."[break][break]

She had, at least. And so had ana fell, she suspected.[break][break]

It wasn't as if someone woke up one day doing the activity they were performing together now.[break][break]

"Someone like Zev Harcourt will not change, though." These words came out with an emphatic decisiveness, the temperature around Elisabeth plummeting with the iciness of her own observation. "Men who thrive on control will always do what they can to maintain whatever control they currently possess."[break][break]

The scalpel returned to ana fell's hand, and Elisabeth paused for a moment. When she spoke next, it was a tad softer, advice hard-won with years of unfortunate experience:[break][break]

"And those who are most susceptible to that control are often those least likely to realize their own predicament."

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[attr="class","thadtag"]Elisabeth Fiorelli

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[break][break]

Elisabeth watched the process with morbid fascination, unperturbed by the way that ana fell peeled apart the eye as if it were nothing but layers of white, slick petals.[break][break]

Though Cyg kept saying 'we,' Elisabeth was more than aware of her own passivity in the process; when the body jerked with unexpected inertia, she held it down, assuring that Cygne's hands wouldn't be jostled with the motion.[break][break]

"I cannot say I share anyone's fascination for Zev Harcourt." Thinking of the man was something she attempted not to do for too long, in a general sense. "Although I do understand it, to a degree. I think people are enamored by displays of power, and envy those who have capabilities they know they will forever lack."[break][break]

Part of her did envy Zev his monstrosity -- his ability to push aside weakness, vulnerability, and empathy. Had she shared this trait, her own life might have turned out differently.[break][break]

"I don't think I'm normal," Cygne said suddenly, and for some reason, this did surprise Elisabeth. Significantly. In several ways, she held Cygne as the benchmark of what a well-adjusted member of Hoenn might be like.[break][break]

It was an unrealistic expectation, but one that she had accidentally cultivated building something of a 'normal' life alongside her in Petalburg. Moments with Cygne had made her feel normal. Like a regular person.[break][break]

Maybe that in itself was a revealing thing. That Elisabeth found those who were 'not normal' reassuring and reaffirming company.[break][break]

"I wish my studies in biology extended to human anatomy," she said, feeling somewhat at a loss on how to respond to her friend's digression. "If you need anything to preserve the eye, I'm sure there is something we can find." It frustrated her, that she was more comfortable with botany and plants than optometry.[break][break]

Plants, after all, didn't have eyes.[break][break]

"I'll admit I'm curious. Which Pokémon do you have in mind?"

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[attr="class","thadtag"]Elisabeth Fiorelli

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[break][break]

Idle hands continued to press down on a man's lifeless body, seeking something to do for lack of instruction.[break][break]

Her job in this matter, seemingly, was to keep Cygne sane.[break][break]

"You and I share a similar trait, I think." An attempt at wry humour sought to lower the tension. "We tend to find ourselves with stubborn, willful men."[break][break]

The way that Cygne's face dropped, however, and her expression turned sorrowful stirred Elisabeth to attempt something more genuine.[break][break]

"I think sometimes people put those they love on a pedestal. They project an ideal image of who that person is, and then are shocked one day to learn the illusion isn't quite a perfect match for reality." She pursed her lips, clicking her tongue. "I don't think what you are doing horrifies him. It is the fact he would rather you not be someone who has to do anything horrifying at all."[break][break]

A shrug of her shoulders threw off the burden of that observation.[break][break]

"It's an empty wish, on his part. You are already in Rocket. You are bound to do things that the average person would find horrific and shocking. It is the nature of the organisation we are a part of, and you are a member of it as much as I, Zev Harcourt, or even Cillian Quinn."[break][break]

She was reminded, for a moment, of how Felix Gallagher attempted to urge her to leave her position as admin. How he had fervently attempted to get her to resign. There was an echo of that, in this, though of a different nature.[break][break]

To her proposal, she mused: "That sounds daring, but promising." Truthfully, Elisabeth had no idea. The scalpel was already making light work of the eyeball, though, and they were too far gone to bring skepticism into the equation. "Has Isaac agreed to this procedure?"[break][break]

The agitated nature of Cygne's behavior suggested the answer was 'no.'

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