This sniveling apology irritated her beyond reason.[break][break]

The underboss crossed her arms as she listened to the Head Scientist explain her reasons for her delay -- something about Oscar Clayton, who'd apparently departed? Elisabeth had frankly not noticed, self-absorbed as she was in her current mental state.[break][break]

Nor did she mind overmuch the loss, save for the way it had inconvenienced her just now.[break][break]

"In the future, I would advise against keeping us waiting," Elisabeth said brusquely, peering up at the Unown-N with a frown.[break][break]

What eerie intruders these Unown were: emotionless creatures that seemed to have no discernible intent.[break][break]

"Is this your first visit to the crystabloom labs?"[break][break]

The inquiry came out sharp, like an accusation.

[attr="class","ooc"] Naomi Sato[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"Good. Then you should be familiar with the processes here."[break][break]

Clipped and terse, her tone neither conveyed interest in continuing their conversation further, nor any desire to make this continuation a pleasant one.[break][break]

Something about the way Naomi Sato held herself had always made her difficult to endure. This... what was the word? Sincerity? It felt saccharine. [break][break]

Suffocating.[break][break]

"I will be then delegating this laboratory to your department. It's an overdue shift, frankly. I have greater matters that require my attention as underboss."[break][break]

This was the excuse she preferred to cling to.[break][break]

The dying light of a crystabloom by her side flickered weakly, protesting its validity in silence.

[attr="class","ooc"] Naomi Sato[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

Elisabeth lifted an eyebrow, frown deepening. Was that pity she heard? Ugh.[break][break]

"Moonlighting as a florist while operating as a Rocket underboss seems like a waste of my time and resources, don't you think?"[break][break]

She stomped off to the other side of the room, arms crossed defiantly, as the crystablooms dimmed with each step that passed them by. They winked and flickered as if serving as a procession of dying lights, only to regain their previous luminescence after being freed of her shadow.[break][break]

"I was just feeling sentimental a little too long, that's all."[break][break]

Proving herself to what, exactly? A dead man? Some version of herself that she needed to believe still existed? How infantile.[break][break]

It sickened her to recall that weakness, now.

[attr="class","ooc"] Naomi Sato[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

A harsh glare leveled the shorter woman with a single, sweeping glance. Who was she to question an underboss? When Elisabeth next spoke, her voice dripped with derision.[break][break]

"On the contrary. I grow things better than I ever have before. I would demonstrate, but I value the state of the submarine at present."[break][break]

She examined her nails idly, suddenly bored in both her tone and affectation. Lips curled into a smirk.[break][break]

"Surely a Head Scientist as bright as you can see that sinking it would be far from ideal."

[attr="class","ooc"] Naomi Sato[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

The floor shook, every so slightly, as Elisabeth stared blankly at Naomi Sato with a look that knew no fondness. The smirk had dissipated, souring into a glower that darkened her expression.[break][break]

"I don't particularly enjoy your tone with me, Sato."[break][break]

Carmine eyes met her red, narrowing to a thin point. The room seemed cast in shadow as the porthole window blackened, covered in a dense curtain of seaweed that sprung up as if from nowhere at all to clutch this part of the submarine in its jealous coils.[break][break]

As Elisabeth's face tightened, so too did the red tide blossoming outside.[break][break]

"For someone so concerned about my ability to control myself, you're rather provocative, aren't you? How very daring."

[attr="class","ooc"] Naomi Sato[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"Us?" Elisabeth scoffed in echo, looking equally amused and insulted by the word. "How naïve. Gods are selfish, Sato. It's what they have most in common with us. Wo-chien has no interest in Rocket, only me."[break][break]

It wasn't arrogance, to her mind. Merely a fact.[break][break]

Her resentment had drawn this creature to her; her emotional energies had harmonized with its own. Whether or not she was a Rocket wouldn't have mattered to it, she knew. Either way, it might have claimed her as the Scorned.[break][break]

"I'll observe that if you're Rocket's only Head Scientist, it would behoove you to act with more self-preservation. I surely cannot be there to shield you from every danger you invite upon yourself."[break][break]

"Including us," a cruel voice whispered deep inside of her mind, basking in her discontent. Outside, the seaweed rippled faintly, as if shuddering due to an unseen impulse. "Insolent girl."[break][break]

This time, she wielded the mantle of authority with the same lofty, self-important air the pink-haired woman had. It was a blatant mockery of mutual respect.[break][break]

"As underboss, it is my responsibility to make sure there is a clear understanding of the dynamics of power within our ranks. It'd be a shame to learn you, of all people, lacked that."

[attr="class","ooc"] Naomi Sato[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

What self-aggrandizing prattle. Elisabeth's eyebrows knitted together, a glower darkening her face as Naomi Sato continued in her lecture. Elisabeth was no stranger to the subtle insults of the Kalosian upper class; she was aware of the way the things unsaid spoke more than the things said aloud.[break][break]

"We can agree on one matter," she said at length, a hand agitatedly pushing back the curls of her hair so that it rippled behind her in a void-black waterfall. "Only those who have been powerless can understand the true weight of power."[break][break]

And what did it mean, to be powerless? The absence of choice.[break][break]

Elisabeth had lived a decade chained to the misery her first true choice had shackled her to. What was fame, but a thousand eyes that judged you for every correct choice you failed to make? What was money, if not a means to control with debt and with obligation? What was political influence, but the final straw that pushed her to kill the monster she'd married before he could gain more power over her?[break][break]

Here she was, this Head Scientist of Rocket, spoiled with choices beyond measure. Hadn't Nomi been the preferred companion of Lulu Flint? Hadn't Elisabeth heard the fondness with which Cillian Quinn spoke of this woman, now? Like a sister. Elisabeth's own bond with the man had been forged in blood, in the trauma they shared. It was an ugliness they understood in one another, wolf to wolf.[break][break]

If Naomi Sato was capable of receiving love, then she couldn't have suffered, Elisabeth silently decided. Not as much as she herself had.[break][break]

"We only understand how strong we truly are, when the world punishes us for wielding whatever strength we possess."[break][break]

And in some way, hadn't Wo-chien done just that? Hadn't it cursed her by rewarding her suffering with purpose?[break][break]

Without what she had endured, no god would dare to bestow its gifts upon her. Not Tapu Fini. Not Wo-chien. And no, not even Celebi, who only sought to interfere in her path when it became clear Elisabeth was destined for Ruination.[break][break]

Without her suffering, Elisabeth would be nothing and no one.[break][break]

"I came from nothing," the woman in front of her had foolishly boasted, as if not realizing that to be a blank slate was its own thing to envy.[break][break]

"There are times it is better to be unnoticed, Sato. To embrace one's own insignificance."

[attr="class","ooc"] Naomi Sato[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]