[attr="class","giada"]

[attr="class","giada b"]

[attr="class","giada i"]her silence persists even after he asks a question of her, after he fills spaces with words and syllables and concepts.

she has to blink life back into the eyes. the sound of strings pulling too tightly echoes in her ears as her head turns.

"um, no."

not a single clue.

"what did the brief say again?"

she missed that part and the part after... all of it, in a way. it went into her ears, sure, but nothing stuck.

and beneath confusion lies a secret prayer sent to whatever or whoever above that her partner might just get frustrated enough to go on without her. it'd save her the misery of having to play along, of having to fake loyalty and dedication and everything that makes her want to throw up at his feet.

she knows, though, that she's not that lucky. if she was, she wouldn't be here in the first place.

Isaac Merlo

[attr="class","giada"]

[attr="class","giada b"]

[attr="class","giada i"]yep, not lucky. damn.

she listens, nods where one normally would when paying attention, and tries to focus on what their job is today.

it's difficult. even with an easy, non-lethal task, all she thinks of is several phrases of profanity and how much she absolutely does not want to do this.

she has to push through. she has to brave it.

it'll be over soon... won't it?

"seems easy enough."

up her alley, too. thieving has been all she's known for as long as she can remember.

faintly, suddenly, the urge to know something, anything else, looks to choke her.

"should we just, uh, wait until we see activity?"

does she want to be idle, though? it leaves room for talking and talking leaves room for spilling her guts out to anyone willing to listen for longer than five minutes.

"or should we dig?"

better, perhaps.

Isaac Merlo

[attr="class","giada"]

[attr="class","giada b"]

[attr="class","giada i"]her plans are not, in fact, for the good of the region.

they are for the good of herself, selfishly concocted out of a plethora of emotions. fear, self-loathing, and a loneliness she can't ever seem to shake out of her bones.

"okay. just dig through piles of ash until you find something, right?"

she doesn't debate nor pretend to know what she's doing. this is simple. this is clockwork. this is going by painfully slow.

the strings feel a little too slack. without a puppeteer, she flounders. the control must be replaced, not taken up by her own hands... for she would ruin her chances of getting out otherwise.

"lead the way, i'll follow."

away from the trees, away from the pokemon, means venturing out into the open.

will it make her a sitting duck?

can you feel the target imbedding into your skin?

Isaac Merlo

[attr="class","giada"]

[attr="class","giada b"]

[attr="class","giada i"]for a few minutes, she offers him nothing more than a nod and a mumbled thanks when a shovel is passed her way.

there's not much for her to say. anything that might come out would be related to her mind's own turmoil. it'd paint a bullseye on her back, carved down through muscle into bone.

and they dig side by side until he breaks silence once more. by then, she's found a whole lot of nothing.

"giada, nice to meet you."

it feels like a lie as soon as it leaves her throat. and in a way, she supposes it could be. he's rocket. she no longer wants to be. how is that nice?

"not much of a story to tell, i'm afraid."

there is, perhaps, but she refuses to tell it. her shovel digs into ash a little harder than before.

Isaac Merlo

[attr="class","giada"]

[attr="class","giada b"]

[attr="class","giada i"]is there anything she even wants to tell him?

too much, really, just to get it off her chest...

and yet, she sticks to basics, to ancient history long buried in kanto.

"i grew up on the streets of celadon. i was orphaned or whatever, doesn't matter too much now."

team rocket is supposed to feel like a family in some fucked up sort of way, isn't it?

then why does it feel more and more like a noose?

"now i just steal whatever i can find i guess?"

it's half truthful, too. she has yet to completely kick the habit, but it's still a work in progress.

and she looks to take the spotlight entirely off of her, to no longer feel the warm glow of it. she seeks cold darkness, settling like a heavy blanket.

"what about you?"

Isaac Merlo

[attr="class","giada"]

[attr="class","giada b"]

[attr="class","giada i"]"i don't want to tell you anything."

sharp, snippy, rushed.

attitude hides what she looks to bury, what she doesn't want to indulge in. there's a hope deep in her bones, settled down firmly next to a primordial longing for freedom.

yet she sits in this cage all the same.

fear paralyzes. fear suffocates. fear kills.

his presence, this mission... it's all the same bullet lodging itself into her skin. she cannot cut deep enough to scrape out the shrapnel.

and he doesn't even supply an answer to his own question. it infuriates her, she realizes, as his shovel strikes metaphorical gold.

she supposes in some small way, she had been hoping to hear the words she's afraid to say.

instead, she finds nothing but silence. the tunnel opens up. it swallows them whole.

"now what?"

Isaac Merlo