Alliances were new for her. In the past, she'd spun her Ariados's web in isolation, knowing better than to trust the prying eyes of those who feigned friendship.[break][break]

Here with him, she took risks she'd never dared to in that last decade. Power made her bold. A mutual misery made her empathize.[break][break]

"Have you found it?" Elisabeth asked him first. "Your reason for living."[break][break]

He'd declared love great enough to outweigh vengeance, but the last conversation they'd shared showed her that still he lacked an abundance of that joy. Bitterness, however, she suspected still existed within him yet.[break][break]

Why else would he meet her in this place of grudges unfulfilled by the dead?

[attr="class","ooc"] ALEXANDER STONE[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"I have." Her answer sang with arrogance and conviction. A triumph sat in her carmine eyes, pride at this discovery that she'd once given up on ever achieving for herself. "We spoke once about being underestimated."[break][break]

The sanguine branches of the nearby tree brightened, the stench of the jubokko leaves intensifying as the gastropod that had infested its trunk revealed itself, its unsettling ochre glare settling on the white-haired man before it.[break][break]

Then its gaze turned to the woman that it had chosen as its Avatar, and the bond between them became evident in the way power shivered like a current between them.[break][break]

"I have finally come into my own strength."[break][break]

Invisible and unseen, the GRUDGES of this place stirred with Wo-chien's slow arrival, swirling around with the muffled cries of the dead and damned.[break][break]

"Are you ready to seize the chessboard for yourself, Stone? Or are you content to watch the living like the ghost you've already been?"

[attr="class","ooc"] ALEXANDER STONE[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"Revenge."[break][break]

At some point, when her old life in Kalos had become a despairing thing of day-after-day misery and repetition, that single word had become the fire that singlehandedly kept her alive.[break][break]

She'd trained her every movement and thought around killing that man with the coal-black eyes, until at last she'd toppled him from the great heights he'd sneered down on her from.[break][break]

The thrill of those years returned to her now as she studied ALEXANDER STONE, looking to see if he would feel the same energy that she did coursing through her veins. It spoke to a competitive spirit in her, a primal desire to survive by outwitting and outlasting those who dared to wrong her.[break][break]

"I will ruin FERNANDO SILPH."

[attr="class","ooc"] ALEXANDER STONE[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

The seething resentment that emanated from her began to shift and solidify like smoke as her grin widened. MISTY TERRAIN seeped from her fingertips, painting the air with streaks of rosy-fingered dawn as the arid temperature around them cooled.[break][break]

"Because when he lost his power," she said, gesturing a hand so that a stream of pink light languidly arced behind her, "I claimed it, instead of him."[break][break]

extensive use of the fog can be used to alter a victim's personality. this can skewer their mental state. repeated exposure to this fog will prove addictive. (REQ: RPER PERMISSION)

[break][break]

She didn't have to explain the ramifications of such a thing to him. He'd already confessed to her the love that he'd harbored in his heart for freya morningstar. That little knowledge was enough for her to confirm this truth.[break][break]

It was why her voice softened as the mist rolled in around them in banks of fog, shrouding them both in the roseate expanse.[break][break]

"And because men like him always underestimate women like me."

[attr="class","ooc"] ALEXANDER STONE FERNANDO SILPH[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"You should know better than most that death is an impermanent state."[break][break]

The more he approached her, the thicker the fog around them both became, enveloping them both in its misty tendrils. Its density swallowed them whole, snapping shut like jaws formed of blushing cloud.[break][break]

And as he dared closer, the mist dared to intrude upon him in kind, stretching towards him with transgressive intent. He'd feel it creeping into his nostrils, his ears, his eyes, and flowing even through the folds of his clothing, seeking any possible way in that he'd allow them.[break][break]

Even into the deepest recesses of his heart, supposedly, if the words of FERNANDO SILPH rang true.[break][break]

"I was told to find Tapu Fini where it had fallen, and the deity saw fit to bless me with the strength it once gave to Silph. He doesn't know that it yet lives. And he doesn't know that I intend to wield it against him."[break][break]

A hand extended to the man in the rose-tinted haze, beckoning him. Her soothing voice wielded his admitted weakness against him with all the sharpness of a knife.[break][break]

"Join me in this. If not for what he might have done to me, for what he did to freya morningstar."

[attr="class","ooc"] ALEXANDER STONE FERNANDO SILPH[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]