she's three sheets to the wind. she's drunkenly texted KING WAYLAND and she's never drunkenly texted anyone before. every time she looks at her phone because she attempts to remember what she said - because she's nodding along to some random ass person who walks up to her and chats her up and she forgets where she is until she isn't forgetting and she's remembering she really only wants to be near one person right now because she misses him and is this what love is? truly? 

wait, is that?

she sways, sees a name and a photo of a pissed off looking man and declines the call and pockets her phone. blonde hair falls over her neat frame, big green eyes. she stares at an empty glass and freya's squinting at her, sizing her up, asking herself over and over if it's right. who she is. 

what she took from her. 

why she took it. her last salvation.

"heyou punk," she drawls, eyes narrowing, finger raised at eva. 

Eva Morales

☉

Unlike Freya, Eva is only one drink in, barely a buzz reverberates through her slender limbs. A warm smile thanks the bartender for the fresh Negroni and to finish things off, she signs the bills to keep herself from lingering here too long. Quite frankly, she was anxious to get home. The alone time wasn’t as rewarding as she expected it to be. Time with MATIAS SILPH was much better.

heyou punk, the voice is familiar, but it doesn’t quite register with Eva. The words don’t match the tone. After all, how could those words be meant for her? Punk? No one’s called her that since she was little. Her dad, perhaps jokingly, when she was feeling too big for her britches.

But that nagging feelings of someone watching you, eye burning into your back, is hard to shake. An uncomfortable pressure weighs down on her. She shifts in the bar stool and draws her gaze up and over. She homes in on that feeling.

White hair flashes through the crowd – unmistakable. Perhaps that was her voice. The pointed finger is certainly telling. A flash of fire; anger, anxiety, maybe even fear spreads through her limbs. Her emerald eyes narrow in return, cautious but curious, “Freya,” she growls beneath her breath.

---

freya morningstar

said punk does not look too happy to see her. the feeling is mutual. she totters forward, furrows her brows, narrows her gaze - nearly topples over herself in an attempt to look intimidating. silver claw-tipped rings glint, but the noise they make as she sways is lost to the bustling bar around them. 

someone stands in front of her and her prey and the eye contact breaks her standstill spell. 

her brain finally catches up to seeing eva in the flesh and she goes up in flames like a lit oil slick. finger curl, biting into her own flesh, and she ducks her shoulder and barrels through the poor passerby to launch herself at hoenn's head professor.

but that's not how she sees it - that's not who she sees. 

unworthy. thief. hypocrite.

Eva Morales

☉

Of course she’s not happy to see Freya. Her memories flash back to her time in the woods with MATIAS SILPH when he told her she tried to kill him. Eva had trusted her. The sting of betrayal lingered long after the realization.

Eva kept her gaze locked on Freya out of caution. She stumbled forward, all the while keeping a rather sour expression. Eva’s own critical glare turns quizzical before it occurs to her that Freya is piss drunk.

Great.

A patron comes between them, a welcome break in the staring contest. Freya had made her advance clear and Eva wasn’t about to be a sitting duck. The woman seemed unpredictable. Eva pushed herself off the bar to stand, leaning to lance around the man when – “Oh!” Freya comes barreling towards her.

The poor passerby gets it worse than Eva does. He acts as somewhat of a shield to give Eva enough time to sidestep and barely avoid the lunge. It probably helps that she’s a bit more lucid than her counterpart. Eva doesn’t see this ending well in a bar, “Enough! Outside!” her voice snaps like a whip, a hand reaching out to firmly grasp Freya’s arm and lead her out of the bar. It would be in poor taste to fight amongst the other patrons and Eva doubted the inebriated mother of dragons was going simply calm down on a whim.

---

freya morningstar

a distance misgauged. those silver claws go sinking into a disheveled suit. the weight of her, all compact muscle, surprises the tipsy man and he wheels. freya's chin hits his collarbone somehow but before she can shove him unceremoniously away (for getting in her way, of course) there's a clasping on her wrist and a tug. 

fine. so be it. a dragon doesn't belong in a bar. 

she swallows bile (again) and when they're clear of the door, she yanks herself away from eva. with the element of surprise away from her, she stands there, breathing heavily, face flushed with anger. 

"profssessor," she sneers. "am gonna hit you now."

Eva Morales

☉

Her fingers find the woman’s flesh. She’s hot the touch, but Eva can feel the frigid cold beneath it. Much to her surprise, she is compliant, stumbling out towards the sidewalk and away from innocent patrons that would otherwise be caught in the crossfire.

She shouldn’t engage, she should be turning a blind eye, pretending Freya isn’t right there in front of her. If she pretended, she wouldn’t have to come up with some excuse for why she doesn’t try and arrest her. Curiosity got the best of her. She demanded answers but knows she unlikely to get them from the woman in this state . . . or maybe she’d get answers that were too[ truthful.

Eva watches with a critical gaze again. It’s too hard to hide the judgment, so she studies Freya with it, rolling her eyes as she hisses out the mispronounced title.

Piss drunk.

“Freya, please don’t,” her tone is a sigh, exhausted already with the situation, “I’m not going to fight you.”

---

freya morningstar

and here is dr. eva morales, looking her up and down with a stare that borders on revulsion. she reaches up to her neck, but her fingers rest against her collarbone, tentatively reaching towards the silver necklace. once upon a time her ekans was a comfort laying across her neck, but she has long since abandoned the practice. 

only lyune can scare away the nightmares now. 

if she squints hard enough, eva's edges blur just enough. she can see herself, and what a wonderful sight it is. but her other self is dead and she's here - robbed, discarded. 

she snorts. "then you make it easy," she says and surges forward. 

she may be piss fucking drunk, but muscle memory's a powerful thing and for the last year, she's been doing nothing but training - firstly with the best trainers fernando's facilities had to offer and lastly with KING WAYLAND. and her heavy swing, slack-jawed intoxication, is all king. 

Eva Morales

☉

Behind the smoldering fire of her judghmental glare, her gaze dims with the veil of regret. She regrets trusting Freya. She regrets not being more careful. One thing she certainly not regret is accepting Rayquaza’s offer despite knowing Freya’s emotional ties to the deity.

The Mother of Dragon could spit fire all she wanted, but Eva’s scales have grown thick, fireproof, strengthened by the consistent hum of the dragon’s presence. It’s a defiant and sturdy soul, but one that demands a sense of order, but it ignited to life when it was time to defend that peace.

A part of her hoped Freya would see reason, but she knew better. Her rational mind was smothered beneath layers of alcohol that would take a lot of coffee and long nap to untangle.

“Ooof!” she should have seen it coming, but Freya was faster than Eva predicted. The precision behind the heavy swing was muscle memory, finely toned from hours of training. Unlike Freya, Eva has not been training. She can’t remember the last time she got out of the lab and sparred with Blade or MATIAS SILPH. She’s soft, and her own muscle memory is buried under a thick layer of rust.

The strike stuns her for a moment, her vision flashing white as heat rose across her cheek and lips. The metallic taste of blood rushed from her tongue that got caught between her teeth. The Professor hisses in frustration. The throbbing pain reverberates down to her chest, violently strumming at the chords that tie her to Rayquaza. A deep growl resonates through her mind, a presence in the stars shifting to barrel back down towards Hoenn with EXTREME SPEED, "No," she speaks out loud, rejecting the deity's help.

The faint glow of combat training blinks to life, but it’s dull and a place in her memory that hasn’t been explored in quite some time. Instinct takes over and she strikes out with her boot at Freya’s knee. If there’s one thing she’s certain of, drunks had very sluggish proprioception.

---

freya morningstar

the sight of blood only makes her own tip to boiling point. she jeers with an unattractive cackle, celebrating the successful attack without any foresight to its consequences. but she's laughing at the stars and eva's no brings her back down to a puzzled reality, one with her brow raised and her brain too slow to catch up to the present. 

her arms come down in a helpless attempt to swing eva's kick wide, but the reaction is ten years too late. pain is a dull, but thudding thing that barely registers (though tomorrow she'll feel it, surely) as her knee buckles. frenzied hands claw at the air in front of her as she unceremoniously slumps to one side. 

"liar," she snarls, because eva said she wouldn't hit her, but there is a fire dancing in her eyes. she tucks her shoulder and tips her full weight into the shove as she goes down. it's a lopsided, deadweight push and she grunts while she does it.

Eva Morales

☉

Liar? Eva? Never.

Ok maybe once or twice . . . and now.

She strikes out at Freya, not with malicious intent like the Draconid, but with the intention to slow down and possibly diffuse the situation. Eva would never strike at her face though the rebellious nature in her flares to life at the thought.

“Liar?” she repeats, voice inflecting in disbelief. Look who’s calling the kettle black. Eva braces as Freya shifts, digging her boots into the concrete to fight back against the weight of her previous ally, “You tried to kill him,” she hisses in the other’s ear, “I trusted you,” Eva pushes back with her own grunt, an attempt to put space between them.

---

freya morningstar

all the muscle in the world wouldn't be able to budge eva off her feet. freya's own grip slips and her knees jumble. palms come hard on the ground, scraping. Blood wells, but she doesn't notice. and then her whole world arcs as eva pushes her. 

she goes backwards, arms windmilling, and collects some more scrapes for good measure on her elbows. that doesn't stop her from staggering back to her feet and swaying like her face might be the next thing to leave some skin on the ground. 

she wipes at some spittle at the corner of her mouth, smearing gravel and dirt on her face. 

"yeah? yeah! and whathefhoooock is trust? how many's he's killed, huh? flattened people." she giggles. "i wasnuh even there for them but hicc-he still killed 'em." 

her lips curl. ugliness rears its head. "and you," she sneers, jabbing a finger. "stealing hem. m'god. my god. only thing saving me. you bitch."

Eva Morales

☉

Eva watches as Freya falls to concrete, streaks of scarlet staining her fair skin. Despite the conflict, Eva feels the familiar need to comfort, to heal, to pick her up off the ground and tuck her safely away in a cab back to her home and pretend she never saw Freya here and brush this confrontation under the rug. Righteous to a fault – perhaps that’s why she failed in Kanto. She’s cowardly and too willing to accept the sliver of good hidden beneath the drunken mess.

A darker hue coats her emerald gaze at her wild accusations of MATIAS SILPH’s sins. The veil of adoration is too thick, and from her bias throne she absolves him of his offences, “Don’t even get me started on the atrocities of KING WAYLAND,” she hisses back, furrowing her brows tightly to stave off the sharp cadence of his voice and the foul memories that came with it.

With the alcohol impeding inhibition, a monster peeks through, an ugly green thing. The truth, or what she believes it to be, is laid bare. Jealousy, accusing Eva of stealing a god that rightfully belonged to no one. Even now, Rayquaza isn’t hers.

Eva knew it would only take one word to rattle the beast’s cage, antagonizing her further. Temptation was there, a sweet treat she debated indulging in for a silent moment. Perhaps if she had a drink or two more, she would have. Ultimately, she shies away from dangling the fact she was chosen in the woman’s face.

“I can’t steal what was never yours, what is not mine.”

---

freya morningstar

if she could collect herself, she might have been able to navigate to more tactful waters. she could have told eva of the people groudon flattened - of the sheer look of glee on matias' face as he ended dozens of lives under the foot of his legendary. peacemaker, they call her. 

but the poised once-councilwoman is overshadowed by this drunken rage. at the heart of it all, she could give a fuck about matias. she could give a fuck about wanting him dead - that's king's vendetta, not hers. 

her chance at greatness, however. her chance to claw free of the shithole she dug herself into, to become whole and become more, that is unquestionably what fuels her searing hatred. 

she glares daggers and does not learn from her past mistake. she lurches forward towards eva again in a drunken stumble, fist cocked. 

"i trested you!"

Eva Morales

☉