"Then you are a man lacking in self-control, ruled purely by your passions."[break][break]

It came out as a calculation, a summing up of his character in a single sweep of her scarlet eyes. Disgust radiated from her every pore as she reached her judgment.[break][break]

"You say we do not decide who we love? Then you do not decide who holds power over you. You do not decide your own weakness. And in this fundamental way, Your Highness, you and I are not the same."[break][break]

He did not know how to deny love before it suffocated everything else. He did not know how to cut it out from his heart, like a weed that had invaded a carefully cultivated garden. So much could be ruined by a single seed that had swept into a thicket of Galarian roses.[break][break]

He thought she was like him, in that way. That everyone suffered such folly; that everyone had no choice but to remain a slave to their passions.[break][break]

She knew better. She had been forced to learn better, many times over.[break][break]

The laughter that left her lips contained a darkness to its cadence. Cruelty echoed in its wake, as if relishing the possibility that he might take offense at what she said next.[break][break]

"I wonder what sort of king you will prove, when the winds of fate seem so prone to toppling you at the slightest provocation -- and you do not seem even remotely interested in fighting back."

[attr="class","ooc"] Caleb Harcourt[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"Love?" she repeated. The single word possessed a flatness as she turned it over on her tongue -- like a smooth, round marble she was loathe to swallow. "Ah. Therein lies our dissonance."[break][break]

'People,' he'd said. Plural. Interesting, that discovery.[break][break]

Elisabeth's fingers trailed across an iron gate that stretched across the barren expanse of her dead gardens, its spikes lightly pricking each finger, though not enough to break the skin.[break][break]

He'd misunderstood her many times since barging into her home, but she didn't care that he did. Most people misunderstood her. That, in itself, was a form of understanding.[break][break]

People believed what they wanted to believe.[break][break]

"And what is 'love' to you, King Harcourt? I'm curious, for you speak of it so passionately and earnestly, you surely must have a definition for such an elusive concept."

[attr="class","ooc"] Caleb Harcourt[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"You truly are a jester, for you speak in nonsense."[break][break]

Agitatedly, she let her hand fall once more on her mage's staff, letting wisps of frost dance around her drumming fingertips. They twirled in tendrils of spiraling mist, reminiscent of Tapu Fini's blessing -- one she'd wielded on the poor fools of this town to great effect.[break][break]

She wondered, idly, what might happen if she were to use it on the man in front of her now. If the myth that it opened hearts, as she'd once been told, would prove true for him as it had potentially done for so many others.[break][break]

...Or if it would ruin them, as it had Lisette's adoptive mother, instead.[break][break]

"You run towards a cliff with reckless abandon, embracing the joy of the plummeting fall. You sing of the glorious view that comes from such heights, how exquisite the vista is that the descent brings you."[break][break]

Her fingers ceased in their movement, curling possessively around the staff's crystal as she chuckled. The sound sat dark and low in the back of her throat.[break][break]

"And you mean to tell me the part of this experience that excites you is the rocks you bash your skull upon? Come now, Your Highness. We both know that is not the part of the thrill which compels you so."[break][break]

A tiredness entered her gaze, one that spoke of years beyond the ones spent here in Galar. Were she another woman, it would be pitying. Instead, it reeked of condescension.[break][break]

"You secretly believe that each time you love, at last, this time shall not be the one that breaks you. But we differ, you and I. For I do not intend to give others the power to shatter me."[break][break]

She'd starve herself of love first.

[attr="class","ooc"] Caleb Harcourt[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

What an arrogant little fool he was.[break][break]

If he wanted the last word, so be it then. She exhaled a bitter laugh after he departed, shaking her head as she muttered to herself. "You don't know how to love someone like me, Harcourt. Or her." Or him, another voice whispered deep in the darkness inside her heart. "You can break yourself all you like, but we can't put you back together. Nor will we try."[break][break]

Men believed their own lies most of all. That had always rang true for her.[break][break]

It was a selfish love, she thought to herself as she entered her tower, this definition he'd concocted. How proud he seemingly was of how his love wounded him so. A truly vexing martyrdom. The low light of candles illuminated her slow steps as she ascended to her observatory, allowing herself the opportunity to witness the panoramic vista of the heavens above.[break][break]

The stars dimmed in and out, blinking and twinkling in a secret language all their own. It made studying them feel less lonely.[break][break]

No, she corrected herself. It made the loneliness more welcoming, as if inviting her into their mutual solitude from across the universe.[break][break]

She understood, suddenly, why such burning beings existed to only be admired for their distant beauty. When everything you touched fell to ash and ruin, you were careful what you let enter your orbit.[break][break]

You knew better than to burden your love on others, lest it break them, too.

[attr="class","ooc"] Caleb Harcourt[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]