Despite the push for lookout shifts, Felix failed to capture the promise of sleep for hours. Tossing and turning beneath the scratchy camper's blanket, nightmares threatened the edges of his mind. Dark tendrils grazed his skin with whispers of an experience better left forgotten in the vast crevasses of the mind.

"Felix," An older voice called out. It sliced through the static with a force befitting its gruff exterior. "Felix."

The man shuddered with every syllable, cowering further into himself. Sweat trickled down his skin like explorers seeking passage across the barren wasteland of its cracked surface.

For a while, he remained there, rustling beneath the confines of his blanket, face scrunched up and eyes sealed closed. It wasn't until a strangled shriek bit his ears did he jump to life. Wide eyes turned to its source, concerned.

"Elisabeth?"

Elisabeth Fiorelli

Something was wrong. From the moment he'd awoken to the sound of the muffled yelp to now, there was a foreign vibrance to the way Elisabeth presented herself.

It betrayed everything he knew of her. From how she purposely shrunk herself small to the uneasy distance she kept herself at, all measures of the woman's essence had seemingly evaporated in the second it took for him to rustle out of bed. As if they never existed in the first place.

A breath hinged off his lips as he just stared back at her, eyes darkened by the shadows that flicked across the only source of light they held between them. It wasn't until she finally spoke that the evidence fell into place.

This wasn't Elisabeth.

"Who are you?"

The question was direct. Imbued in brazen assurance, it was no different than an arrow speeding toward its mark.

Elisabeth Fiorelli

Throughout the lashes of realization, Felix's expression was forced still. The only change rested in his green eyes, which grew bright, like those of a fox, but held no warmth to them. Only the bitter chill of a winter's storm.

When she -- or him, he was quite sure - rose, it wasn't without reaction. Reaching forward, Felix's hand goes for her wrist, biting down with precision befitting a skilled mercenary. There would be no movement under his grip.

"I don't care."

Firm, his voice carried the weight of an unrelenting soldier. In many ways, he was one.

"She owes you nothing."

What he spoke of didn't matter - not unless it was her breathing life into them. And even then, even if these memories were the truth, Felix wouldn't care. Because, without a doubt, there would be a reason tied to her actions. Something to make sense of the madness.

He was certain of it.

Elisabeth Fiorelli

The mercenary answered his questions with an aggressive snort, eyes so narrowed they resembled the slits of the tent. how they wavered only by an inch, loose in the wind.

"No."

There would be no negotiations beyond the obvious: him granting back Elisa bodies and Felix swiping away this occurrence as a bad memory to be forgotten.

"I don't want to negotiate," he reiterated, "give her back. "

Elisabeth Fiorelli