"And it's Cillian for you now."[break][break]

In another time, curiosity and sincerity would have greeted that shift in her mentor's affairs. Instead, the words came out bitter and mocking, though baselessly so.[break][break]

"I suppose we've both finally shed our masks."[break][break]

Curling in on herself, arms wrapped around her knees, she stared at the vase of flowers some idiotic, well-meaning person had left here. As if she were sick, and they needed to wish her well.[break][break]

The bouquet had shriveled up and died ages ago, but the stench of rot lingered. Part of her didn't want it to be thrown away. It satisfied her, to have something to torment and throttle of life while she waited for her release.[break][break]

"Captivity has never suited me. You know that better than most."

[attr="class","ooc"] Cillian Quinn[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

She didn't answer his probing. Didn't rise to his bait. But the misshapen flower twisted and writhed, knotting in on itself with its own frustration.[break][break]

"Positions aren't given freely. There's a sort of trust involved. A playing nice that's to be expected."[break][break]

Puppets were supposed to dance on their strings. She knew that. She'd danced for declan walsh many times before.[break][break]

But something in her resisted that dance, now: a deep-seated resentment at having to play by anyone else's rules at all.[break][break]

"Don't you get tired of it? The constant distrust? As if we're all seconds away from being the next Remiel Calcifet."

[attr="class","ooc"] Cillian Quinn[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"They'd be foolish to sacrifice you for the sins of a lesser piece on the chessboard."[break][break]

Her gaze slid towards him, glancing over her shoulder. No sentimentality was to be found in her carmine eyes as they swept over him, considering his measure.[break][break]

"You are an extremely valuable asset to Rocket, Cillian. We are not at the strength we used to be. To lose you? To lose your patron? It would be madness."[break][break]

They were perhaps not the comforting words of a concerned friend, but they were the pragmatic observation of a survivor: always, always, she knew to be aware of what worth you offered those in power.[break][break]

"I am glad declan walsh showed reason, instead of acting on impulse."[break][break]

This distracted her from torturing the plant at her side at last. It seemed to gasp with relief at the loss of her attention, keeling over and rotting into dirt on her side table.[break][break]

If she noticed this outcome, nothing in her expression betrayed her. Instead, a deep furrow in her brow revealed other thoughts consumed her.[break][break]

"I cannot tell if they see my value in the same way. If I am seen as a liability or an asset."

[attr="class","ooc"] Cillian Quinn[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"Oh, I don't intend to let it stop me at all."[break][break]

For the first time since his arrival, a smile crept across her lips. It was not the same that had greeted Cillian on numerous other occasions, genuine in its radiant joy at being in the presence of a trusted friend. No, this one was sly. Sardonic.[break][break]

"But one wonders, sometimes. With all these psychiatric evaluations... what the concern is, precisely."[break][break]

She scoffed, rolling her eyes with palpable disdain. They shone an unsettling carmine, different than the gentle green that had glimmered there prior.[break][break]

"We both know it can't be my well-being. Look at how quickly we throw our own to the slaughter."[break][break]

Her posture had begun to untense as she spoke, leaning back now on her arms as she regarded him. Thick black curls tumbled down her shoulders, unkempt from staying in bed too long.[break][break]

"I seem sane enough, don't I?" she asked pointedly.

[attr="class","ooc"] Cillian Quinn[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

She didn't acknowledge her refusal aloud, but the scowl that answered him confirmed the truth of that easily enough.[break][break]

"Our sanity has always been something that others believe they can take from us," the darkness of her thoughts reminded Elisabeth, comforting her with her own cynicism. "First in Kalos, and now here in Hoenn, they dare try to take it from us again?"[break][break]

And then the most unexpected thing happened, as Underboss Quinn took her side in this feud between her and the Rocket medical staff. She glanced up at him cautiously, as if uncertain how to read his show of support. A lie to coax her into cooperation, perhaps? Or genuine belief in her peace of mind?[break][break]

"They haven't let me see the report, you know," she said then, testing the waters. "The one that Admin Bee submitted on what..." (What happened to me?) "...what happened."[break][break]

A bitterness whispered into the confession despite itself -- At BARNABY FINCH, maybe, for bringing her here? For reporting on her at all? The reasoning for her resentful tone was unclear, from her wording alone.[break][break]

But it would be evident nonetheless, to Cillian Quinn.

[attr="class","ooc"] Cillian Quinn[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

A dangerous curiosity glinted in her eyes, red as any forbidden fruit that had tempted man from Eden, as she weighed his offer. "You've seen it?" she ventured instead, leaning forward the way an alcoholic leaned towards a forgotten drink. "What does it say, then?"[break][break]

Her heartbeat became erratic with anticipation as she was overcome with the hunger to know -- to confirm for herself all her deepest darkest suspicions about what it was this organization wanted from her.[break][break]

She licked her lips, all too aware suddenly of how little she had tended to her own humanity since her transformation. Food and drink seemed like afterthoughts, now, but her body was as frail as it had ever been.[break][break]

"What does everyone think happened to me?"

[attr="class","ooc"] Cillian Quinn[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]