'God.' Singular.[break][break]

He needn't know the truth of her -- the way her soul was bound to two opposed beings, each pulling on the marionette strings of their chosen mortal vessel to achieve their own ends.[break][break]

She felt as if she was at war with herself constantly. It was hard to know how much of it was her own wanting, and how much of it was something greater than her, overwhelming her with its influence.[break][break]

But one deity was easier to keep secret than the other. That mistress was content to wait in the shadows, emerging like the full moon when it was time to illuminate her ends.[break][break]

Which made her choice simple.[break][break]

She lifted her face up towards his, defiant, as her eyes smouldered an unsettling shade of ochre. The landscape around them appeared to blacken and decay rapidly, the nearby trees becoming shrunken in on themselves as their leaves withered and branches bowed before the weight of accelerated rot. Large, thorned plants sprouted from the earth around her as she stared at him, resolved to answer.[break][break]

When she spoke, her voice possessed an eerie after-echo, peculiar in its otherworldly tenor. It was a name that he would not recognize.[break][break]

"We," they spoke in unison, "are Wo-chien."

[attr="class","ooc"] MATIAS SILPH[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

This time, she was the one to breach distance between them. The change in his expression resulted in a shift in her own, her smile widening as her hand alighted as if to touch his cheek. Almost, but not quite.[break][break]

She waited for permission.[break][break]

They waited for permission.[break][break]

"Shall we show you?"

[attr="class","ooc"] MATIAS SILPH[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

How disarmingly gentle it was, to feel her hand against his cheek. Tender in its caress, as if this were a gesture born from genuine affection.[break][break]

The coldness in her stare, however, banished such romantic notions from mind.[break][break]

"You promised me a secret, Silph," she murmured, and this time she was the one leaning towards his ear. "Let's see how honest you are."[break][break]

It was like his skin caught fire beneath her touch; a discomfort that was purely mental, not physical in nature, would snake through his whole being as her hold on him remained firm.[break][break]

she can also touch others to instill her own resentment in others, or to draw out deep-seated grudges to fuel her own spite. this effect, however, is temporary. (REQ: RPER PERMISSION)

[break]

"What is it that you resent most, Matias? Show us. How has the world wronged you?"

[attr="class","ooc"] MATIAS SILPH[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

Her hand stayed longer than it should have, the ochre ring to her eyes the rot of autumnal gold.[break][break]

How many of them had been wronged by their fathers? Without thinking, her resentments bled into his as she wondered at the ways that parents inevitably all wounded their children, no matter how hard they tried otherwise.[break][break]

He'd briefly see the image of a golden-haired man with a crinkled smile, holding his only child close as he promised her, "Light can be found even in the darkest places, Elisabeth, if you know to look for it."[break][break]

But sometimes the darkness only led to more darkness. Sometimes the light had been snuffed out.[break][break]

How naïve she'd been, to ever believe otherwise.[break][break]

His snarl shattered the interlude between them, and she glanced up to meet his gaze as her hand fell away from his cheek. She said nothing as she faced him, unrepentant and without fear.[break][break]

"There's only one person in this world we can rely on," she said at last. "Ourselves."

[attr="class","ooc"] MATIAS SILPH[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"Someone this world has wronged. Like you."[break][break]

A semi-circle of blackened foliage shrouded them from the prying eyes of the sky above, allowing only slivers of moonlight to knife through the branches overhead.[break][break]

She brought her hands together in semblance of prayer, unfolding them before herself as if she was attempting to read the lines of her palms for answers.[break][break]

"But all things cycle, don't they? We all must reap what we sow, in the end."[break][break]

Even me.

[break]

Her hands fell to her sides, empty, as her blood-red eyes returned their gaze to his. He'd seen a world, once, where their goals were aligned. He'd spoken of a universe where they punished the world together for its sins against them, meeting cruelty with cruelty.[break][break]

For a brief, fleeting moment, she could imagine such an existence. Their resentment stung the same.[break][break]

"We who have been scorned merely play the part of the reaper."

[attr="class","ooc"] MATIAS SILPH[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"You called me that before. Insane."[break][break]

Why had she even for a second thought he might understand her? Of course he was like the rest of them. This time, it was her turn to taste the disappointment of a rejected kinship.[break][break]

A sharp click of her tongue dismissed him, filing him away as one more mediocre man in a sea of them she had met and known. He saw what he wanted to see. Most people did.[break][break]

So when she turned to him, it was with the unsettling gaze of someone who sought to pierce through such flimsy, self-deluded deception.[break][break]

"But when I look at you? I see a man who continues to lick the heel of a brother who disdains him, and to serve a League that scorns him behind closed doors."[break][break]

A cruel laugh bubbled out of her throat, followed by a grin that sliced across her lips. Around her, the forest whispered in preparation for the retaliation that her words would surely invite; vines curled around the blackened tree bark, moonlight glinting off their thorns.[break][break]

"Which of us is insane, Matias? The one who serves our oppressor and begs for scraps? Or the one who seeks to ruin them."

[attr="class","ooc"] MATIAS SILPH[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

Ah. A flash of delayed understanding crossed her face, piecing together a truth he might not have realized he'd revealed to her.[break][break]

Of course. Even the most powerful trees collapsed under the weight of broken, withered roots. The forest around them now shuddered as planes of earth tremored beneath them, sliding out of alignment enough to threaten them to toppling.[break][break]

Was this his goal, or his inevitable fate, then? To topple the League from within, Volatile as he was?[break][break]

"You said you'd tell me something in return for the name of my patron," she said suddenly, looking up at him with accusation. "Why is it that you have yet to lose everything? If you are a monster, that is."[break][break]

More and more, she wondered at what specific monstrosity he possessed. Hers stewed in its own malcontent, enraged by circumstance, while his seemed content to bide its time in the face of judgment.[break][break]

Assuming he shared her desire for vengeance at all, that is.

[attr="class","ooc"] MATIAS SILPH[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]