Fate pulled Elisabeth, time and time again, to these moonlit shores.[break][break]

This far away from the city of Sootopolis proper, she'd find herself secluded in the wilderness that encroached on the outside of the island. Divorced from Rocket hierarchy, she didn't have to hold up the walls of an aloof and intimidating underboss, or play the part that her monstrous Avatarship to Wo-chien demanded she play.[break][break]

Here on these rocky beaches, she let herself toy with the other sides of her psyche.[break][break]

A ring of pink mist coiled about her wrist, summoned by the MISTY TERRAIN the woman was now able to beckon through her tenuous link to her distant other deity, Tapu Fini. So much of this power still perplexed her, as she watched it take shape and shimmer in the air.[break][break]

'Control.' 'Opening up one's heart.' Which version of events felt more true to her? freya morningstar's, or FERNANDO SILPH's?[break][break]

Could it be both? Was prying open someone's heart just a means of manipulating them better?[break][break]

A rustle behind her attracted her attention, and Elisabeth stood up, half-expecting fern delaney after her last rendezvous here. No ELECTRIC TERRAIN pushed against her own, however, as she hurriedly attempted to recall it seconds later than she should have.[break][break]

When the stranger entered the clearing, she tensed like a lone Mightyena sensing the first of an enemy pack approach.[break][break]

"Name your business," she ordered, the plume of pink mist about her wrist dissipating as her voice rose. "Swiftly. Sootopolis is not a welcoming territory."

[attr="class","ooc"] KING WAYLAND[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

What a mocking answer.[break][break]

Elisabeth didn't recognize KING WAYLAND in any meaningful way. Of all the records she'd poured over during her time as Rocket's admin of intelligence, his name had never stood out enough for his face to enshrine itself in her memory. This made him nothing more than a strange face in a strange place, and strangeness to her meant danger.[break][break]

So it was paramount to establish her threat level surpassed his own.[break][break]

"Rocket has overseen Sootopolis for some time now," she said, crossing her arms. A wisp of pink smoke dared to spiral out from a finger, an unruly rebel that stubbornly held over from her previous display of power. "Martial law may not be in effect, but it is observed nonetheless. This is a place where innocence isn't respected as much as elsewhere."[break][break]

Carmine eyes leveled on the other intruder on her sacred solitude, and her mouth deepened into a frown.[break][break]

"And yet, you have a child with you," she commented, gesturing to the small, offensive creature, as if she was incapable of hearing their discussion. "Which leads me to believe you are either very ignorant, or very stupid."

[attr="class","ooc"] KING WAYLAND[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

A dragon.[break][break]

His curiosity sparked her own, begrudgingly. A fleeting recollection of Eva Morales's Rayquaza, jaws open wide as flames burned with the hunger of punishment, left her paler than before. Then the face of freya morningstar replaced it, and whatever vestige of fear had managed to manifest in her melted away to anger.[break][break]

"An intriguing observation," she said, taking a step towards him. As she did so, the sands beneath their feet appeared to darken in her shadow. "For you give off the aura of no dragon."[break][break]

A silent laugh exhaled through her nose, derisive with disdain.[break][break]

"Just a rabid boar, rampaging in places it doesn't belong. Go home with your piglet, then. There are other beaches to be seen beyond this one."

[attr="class","ooc"] KING WAYLAND[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"And why should I indulge in your curiosity?"[break][break]

Her eyes narrowed to two thin slits, twin rubies glimmering with dark intent. They settled on the girl, before returning to the man who was purportedly her guardian.[break][break]

"I will be the one to ask the questions."[break][break]

Another step followed. With it, the waves behind her began to churn and froth. Hideous algae bloomed on the shore, stretching towards them as if animated to life. They thrashed like spidery hands, webbed to form a blooming red tide that stifled the air itself with resentment.[break][break]

"Who is this dragon to you, then? And by what name would I know her?"

[attr="class","ooc"] KING WAYLAND[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"The fiercest of Hoenn's dragons are women," Elisabeth replied, a vision of fangs and claws tearing through the Petalburg Woods still fresh in her mind's eye. "Mine is a natural assumption."[break][break]

She didn't know which held sway over the man in front of her -- Eva Morales or freya morningstar -- until he named the latter aloud. For some reason, that revelation startled her. Perhaps it was due to how ALEXANDER STONE spoke of her so tenderly and wistfully; perhaps it was because of how much the councilwoman's words still stung her, like salt that had made its way into a gaping wound.[break][break]

That raw bitterness seeped into her reply despite herself, each syllable reeking with scorn.[break][break]

"And my business with that dragoness is concluded. She denied the justice I offered her, and I have no need to beg for what is not freely given."[break][break]

And if you beg, her eyes silently promised him, it will mean nothing to me, either.

[attr="class","ooc"] KING WAYLAND[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"Lost?" she repeated, seemingly distracted as her hands splayed out to grasp empty air. As she did so, pinpricks of that rosy mist returned, dancing in and out between her fingers. "You haven't any idea how far I seek to go."[break][break]

She remembered the moony visage of freya morningstar, and the way the ocean had thrashed them both back and forth in one another's grip. The hollow of her shoulder ached with the memory of teeth that had forcibly marked her that woman's enemy.[break][break]

The underboss shrugged the sleeve of her garment to expose that scar to him, revealing where canines and molars had bitten into pale flesh.[break][break]

"Your dragoness makes her pacts in blood, as I do. She swore an oath to a man who betrayed her, once."[break][break]

A calm steeliness entered her demeanor, her stiff-necked posture casting her full height upon the man and child. The weight of a decade's malcontent sat in her words, heavy with implication.[break][break]

"My oath is to destroy that man before he can destroy others like her. So we are enemies, she and I. That is the choice she made."

[attr="class","ooc"] KING WAYLAND[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"Rest assured, I have no intention of taking her from you."[break][break]

That would be too much like chasing a mirror, and Elisabeth was loathe to acknowledge reflections of herself most of all.[break][break]

"You act as if this isn't in itself an old truth: that those who accept love accept pain and suffering along with it." She pulled back her sleeve, covering the ugly scar from view once more. He hid the pity well enough that it didn't register in his voice, and for this reason, she spoke freely. "No one ever emerges unscathed."[break][break]

As Lucario stepped back, the pink mist pooled around them anew, thickening in a dewy cloud that crept towards the man and his child like fog. The sweet-scented pull of it lulled her to peace as much as it sickened her, reminiscent of a man she couldn't remember knowing anything but hate for.[break][break]

"I didn't, and neither did freya morningstar. But only one of us is asking for our pound of flesh."[break][break]

Flintlike resolve crystallized and hardened in her carmine eyes.[break][break]

"I intend to collect what I am owed."

[attr="class","ooc"] KING WAYLAND[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]