a mated pair of lions stand at attention when the scorned enters their master's threshold. before, they were pet lovingly, given marks of her scent and told, in not so many words friend, so that they might not react as they currently are when elisabeth walks in. 

anya is currently in her study, scribbling furiously in her own shorthand. but when her lions snarl, she blinks and stands, sliding her papers into the false bottom of her desk drawer. 

when she emerges into the living room, she is wearing black silks and holds out a hand. the fiery manes of her pyroar still and yet their low warning grumbles do not cease, as the black-haired woman, muttering obscenities stands in the doorway. 

it takes a moment for anya to place her. 

and when she does, she arcs a brow, taking in the smell of smoke and dead brambles. she moves wordlessly over to her kitchen counter and fetches a glass of water. 

"here."

Elisabeth Fiorelli

☉

Elisabeth wordlessly slaked her thirst on the cup of water that the woman put in front of her, clutching it as if it were a lifegiving anchor. It was a graceless, greedy gesture -- something feral, borne of the primal need for survival.[break][break]

When she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, satisfied at last, the snarl that was revealed in the aftermath erased whatever doubts that Anya might have had about the report that had been covertly sent to her offices.[break][break]

"That bitch and her dragon almost killed me."[break][break]

The words came out hoarse and raspy as she leaned back, finding unsteady purchase against the wall. A cold, humorless laugh shuddered through her body, bitter with resentment. Lazily, her carmine eyes drifted towards the Pyroar that had tensed at her entrance, before drifting up to a familiar ice-blue gaze. Usually, they met on better circumstances.[break][break]

Anya had seen her undone before, though, if in other ways. There was no pretense of dignity to be had here, not in Lilycove.

[attr="class","ooc"] anya fowl[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

it's no longer her job to keep tabs on things like that. well, that's not entirely correct. she had been made to understand she was still expected to fulfill her duties as head scientist, but stripped of her title and most importantly, of her resources. it's proven a challenge, not a hindrance. 

she will prove her worth several times over if she has to. she had anticipated roadblocks. 

"oh?" she arcs a brow.

this is not an elisabeth she is familiar with. the woman before her is a variable. but from threshold to counter, fingers wrapped around glass, anya has scrutinized this woman's new strength. and her new vulnerabilities. whether or not elisa is aware of them is out of her sight for now, though she's quick to draw her own conclusion.

not that she would ever let that bias her study. 

"let's get you in the bath, darling. let me wipe the ash from your brow."

Elisabeth Fiorelli

☉

She accepted the offer without protest, a limp ragdoll of a woman with an arm draped around Anya's shoulders. She felt herself be half-dragged along the floor, the eyes of the Pyroar never leaving her until the door to the bathroom denied guard over their mistress.[break][break]

Clothes shed from her like a snake's second skin, whatever vanity they'd once possessed long ruined by her brush with death. Part of her despised the heat of the bath, with the memory of flames all too bright and scorching in her mind.[break][break]

Distantly, she felt a sense of déjà vu as she sank beneath the water -- though she'd been on the other side of this mirror, hadn't she, back in an apartment in Sootopolis with a strange dragoness in her company? What was her name again?[break][break]

As the steam rose, freya morningstar's name failed to similarly resurface in her mind. So much of her life felt like jumbled, discordant pieces, now. Her emotions bubbled over with such vividity and intensity, reason was not always given room to breathe in its shadow.[break][break]

It made opportunities for true solace, or true companionship, decidedly rare.[break][break]

"It's quiet here," she observed suddenly, and in the sound there was a pale echo of the woman who had first met Molly Fowler in a bar all those days ago.[break][break]

A full moon beamed its light high above Lilycove, calming in its muted glow. Somewhere far out of sight, a Ruinous Beast turned to rest, subdued by a Divine power greater than spite.

[attr="class","ooc"] anya fowl[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

the water hisses out of the tub. steam billows as the bath starts to fill. elisabeth is uncharacteristically out of it, and so anya helps her shed her clothing. fingers brush against her hair. still silken, but a brief glance doesn't afford her much information more than that.

when she settles into the tub, though, and anya is able to thread her fingers through her hair, look down through hooded lids, she is able to confidently conclude one thing: this is no dye job. a few strands come loose on her fingers. she dries her hands, folding them into the towel. 

her observation is met with a hmm. water from the retractable showerhead is set to a low pressure as anya works the suds from her hair. 

"i enjoy the quiet," anya says. "easier to hear myself think."

she lets the showerhead dangle again and lathers up a washcloth with body wash. sandalwood suffuses the steam around them. anya is gentle with her face, the slope of her nose, the round of her chin.

"and what about you, elisa? do you enjoy the quiet?" water dribbles down her throat. patters with each lift of the rag from the water as anya cleanses her of ash and destruction. 

Elisabeth Fiorelli

☉

A small, hateful part of herself wanted to protest, I am not a child. Yet the part of her that ached to be cared for silenced that indignation for the pleasure of fingers kneading out the stress from her skin.[break][break]

"It's never quiet anymore," Elisabeth said distantly, her mind fogged as the steam rose around them both. Sandalwood. That was a familiar scent, too. Memories of freya morningstar faded out, replaced by the mist of rain on a moonless night, cobalt blue eyes meeting her own.[break][break]

It was better not to dwell on BARNABY FINCH for too long.[break][break]

Her own carmine eyes fluttered shut, struggling to make sense of how all these pieces in her psyche connected together to form a cohesive whole.[break][break]

"I don't know if I have a chance to miss the silence. Everything is always so, so loud."[break][break]

Did she know how to hear herself, anymore? Or was it the voice of someone or something else, always clouding what it is she otherwise might feel?[break][break]

That thought distressed her, mouth flatlining into a worried line.

[attr="class","ooc"] anya fowl[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

this was once a promised haven of sanctity. anya herself had concluded she would only dissect elisabeth's complexities under the strain of the submarine's lights, but this is clearly not the same woman she made that silent promise to. it is with ease and a sense of finality that she turns this warm, quiet room into an experiment. 

she wrings the washcloth and sets it on the lip of the tub. and then she stands, undressing herself quickly. her clothes lay atop elisa's own, cigarette smoke and dragon fire.

a slender foot dips into the water. the other follows suit. her bare legs slide around elisa's sides as she stretches back, resting her head against the back of the tub. her curls dip just slightly, scarlet darkening. 

hands go to elisa's shoulders to coax her back.

"then lay with me. listen to the water, our shifting bodies. your heartbeat and mine. and whisper your wiles, if they're too loud inside."

Elisabeth Fiorelli

☉

Something in her stirred at this intimate brush of skin to skin, her tired mind recalling the sins and pleasures of another life she'd once lived. She used to drown out her thoughts this way, years ago, when she possessed precious few other means to salvage her sense of self.[break][break]

If feelings overwhelmed, then the answer was to find a stronger feeling to silence the others, wasn't it?[break][break]

To let the body distract the mind, falling into a strange Cartesian bliss.[break][break]

The water moved with their shifting weight like a rising and falling tide, washing over them both as Elisabeth gave herself over to this old temptation. Her body remembered the ways in which it once closed itself off, ceasing to think and deciding only to feel. A greed of possession overtook her, lacking in all tenderness, but expressive of raw, primal need.[break][break]

Despite this, the body betrayed scars of the mind, always. In this new life Elisabeth lived, the severing of these two halves was not so clean as it had once been. Her Ruinous patron ensured it.[break][break]

Anya would feel the resentment that burned across Elisabeth's skin, would witness the flames of Rayquaza that had nearly devoured her and Wo-chien whole. She would watch the withering of the woods that had once been this woman's home, and the contempt that radiated from her like blight and decay.[break][break]

She would sense how the Ruinous Beast hunted for the once-blonde woman she held in her arms, chasing her wounded heart as if it spilled a trail of fresh blood.[break][break]

She would feel the terror and the fear that had plunged her towards Celebi, though she would not understand the kaleidoscope of images that followed -- flowers, a dark-haired man, children, and a terrible, all-consuming anger and grief that overwhelmed to the point that sanity shattered and gave way to madness.[break][break]

Further and further back the resentments stretched, until they halted at an image that Anya would recognize more than any other. She'd feel the clammy, cold touch of Tapu Fini's webbed hands against her cheek as Elisabeth's hands encircled the woman's own, and for a moment, the blank and unfeeling gaze of the guardian deity flashed in her mind's eye.[break][break]

Alive.

[break]

The nonsensical collage of emotional impulse and imagery collided with each movement they shared, breaking apart as Elisabeth cried out at last. Her resentment dulled in the aftermath of physical release, shattering the woman's link to her psyche.[break][break]

Leaving the redhead with more questions than answers.

[attr="class","ooc"] anya fowl FERNANDO SILPH[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

there is a voracious hunger within elisabeth, one coaxed from anya's slender fingers as the artist skirts over her pale ribs. elisa's dark hair, still wet, drapes over anya's chest as she rests her head. she is pliant, yearning, though anya would not consider her submissive. 

something unfolds as the redhead's hands wander, doting upon elisa as she had several moons ago. her cupped touch, at her chest, twitches suddenly. a short gasp gives away her surprise and anya is very rarely ever surprised. 

it's a jumble of emotions and pictures with a filmy grain laid over them. her lashes flutter shut in concentration, but she dare not stop her intimate touching, for fear they may be the only tether to these insights. 

petals curl, blackened and haunted. something she has never quite experience before knifes through her, making every nerve in her body fire at once. abyssal emotion, powerful enough to drown in, threatens to peel her apart. 

grief, frustration, anger, horror, pain - 

resentment. 

as real as though they have manifested from her own soul, squirted from somewhere within this carapace of hers that has never been able to manage more than brief snippets of lust and desire. 

and yet it is all at once familiar. something cracks. someone moans. there is laughter, on the other side of the horizon. 

as she reaches out, there is a snapping. there is a sudden pressure. the water becomes a selfish enemy. once, she stood before tapu fini and attempted to claim fernando hers. it had punished her, grip tightening until her nose bled. now that same power pulses behind her eyes, forcing them open. 

in the light, she sees an aquatic face in the steam, a shell surrounded by pink. and then it is gone. a light trail of red dribbles down from her nose, over her sweat-beaded lip. she drinks in the air as the lingering emotions on her skin dissipate, a mental disentanglement from elisabeth. 

anya noses the top of elisabeth's head, smelling petrichor. and salt. 

"so loud indeed," she murmurs. "how much you have to bear." 

Elisabeth Fiorelli

☉

To have hovered on the brink of death, and then to hover on the brink of pleasure, took its toll. Whatever transference there was between them in this moment felt more dream to her than real. A glimpse was stolen, perhaps, of Tapu Fini's possessive glare, followed by the overwhelming pressure of water and steam -- but it was nothing more than a disjointed thought, unrelated to the woman before her.[break][break]

Broken down in this state, Elisabeth lacked the mental capacity for more than animalistic instinct.[break][break]

Panting with exertion, she looked up with relief at this woman she hardly knew, completely unaware of how her own body had betrayed her to her worst enemy.[break][break]

"Life is nothing but burden after burden," she sighed out as Anya breathed in the scent of her long, dark hair. "And we just carry it forward. Over and over. Until we can't bear it anymore."[break][break]

She wearily leaned forward into the other woman's body, exhausted in every sense of the word.

[attr="class","ooc"] anya fowl[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

tapu fini is alive. to what extent, anya has no idea. nor can she fathom the weight of its hold on elisabeth. though she assumes the mermaid's hand isn't heavy. wo-chien's influence is far more oppressive. 

anya's slick hands draw away from below elisabeth's waist and trail in looping circles up her sides. elisa snuggles closer and the bath's water laps. there's less of it now; some of it had sloshed out over the sides. but her body is a warm comfort.

"i wish that i could cut your shackles, my dear," she soothes, for what are burdens but shackles to regret and heartache and misery?

"tonight, though, know you may sleep in peace. that fire can't reach you here." 

in her living room, two pairs of yellow eyes blink, manes a soft glow. 

Elisabeth Fiorelli

☉

"It just changes shape, doesn't it? Whether it's flames or something else. Calamity is calamity."[break][break]

Some part of her was not fully aware of anya fowl as a person; some part of her was not able to fully equate the woman leading her to rest and repose to the very same one that she had entangled herself with in a Lilycove bar.[break][break]

Instead, her read of the woman was as abstract as Molly Fowler's paintings: 'safe,' 'warm,' 'quiet,' 'far away.' It was less of an understanding than it was a passing familiarity her mind could make sense of, no more than a lost child who clung to the skirts of a strange woman as if she were its mother.[break][break]

"Please," she whispered, the weight of all her trials bearing down on her at last as she begged for rest. More than the warmth of Anya's body, Elisabeth found herself aching for the warmth of her bed. "I'm so tired."[break][break]

It was exhausting to feel so much. That was the price, in the end, of allowing emotion to consume you so thoroughly -- or perhaps that was the deal she'd made with the devil that now considered itself her primary patron.[break][break]

Rather than suture the wounds in herself, Elisabeth had torn them wide open, refusing to let them heal. Hers was a pain that screamed too loudly to let her feel anything else.[break][break]

Though this resentment was not a symptom of primal intoxication, it was killing her in its own way.

[attr="class","ooc"] anya fowl[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

this is an enigma for anya. never has she felt emotion strongly enough to rock her to her very core. those she does feel are trickles, echoes of what could have been. they're visible; she knows what her responses should be, but a thick, miles-long wall of glass separates her body from their touch.

leaving her mind quiet and unperturbed, able to focus on questions that matter. 

she is by no means muscular and untangling herself from elisabeth in the bath is no easy feat. but she holds out her hands and her arms. she pats her down with a towel and leads her to the bedroom. she does not bother dressing her.

the silk sheets welcome elisabeth and when she's folded into the bed, anya draws the dark duvet over her. she stares down at her with her cold blue gaze, for a moment only, and then she returns to her desk.

envy noses open the door to the bedroom and leaps gracefully up onto the bed. she curls against elisabeth's back. anya does not notice. instead, she looks down at the parchment, at her shorthand, her pen poised. 

my pain is its pain. my death will be its hibernation.

what will happen, then, to her child, if tapu fini takes back what it believes is its?

the paper is returned to its hiding spot in her drawer. the pen is placed back on the table. anya casts a glance to the slumbering forms on the bed and steps out onto the balcony, withdrawing a marlboro.

the smoke curls away from her cheeks as she ponders the future, and what it means to love a monster. 

Elisabeth Fiorelli

☉