the sea rolls under the ship. her legs are unsteady, as smooth sailing as it is aboard such a large vessel, so she stays by the rail most of the way. her aquatic dragons keep pace, scales gleaming in the surf every once in a while, and above them red feathered wings warn from miles abound not to touch the cargo. 

some had expressed concern - a display like that begs reckoning. her stares had quieted them. 

three long days of combat, foe after foe sent back into the water, out of the sky, off of the beaches. she is weary - not just because of the nonstop fight, but because there is no warmth at her back, no arms holding her tightly through the night, reminding her, at her most vulnerable, that she is not alone. 

she's on her third coffee of the day and her eyes are ringed red with exhaustion. there is a buzz of activity as the ship beaches. freya whistles and one of her roaring moon grasps some of the cargo in her claws to help unload. 

metal planks thud as she treks down, surveying the shore. she stops at the person who'd waved them down and her vision bleeds watercolor. hesitation, a feeling of trepidation, the cardboard cup of coffee in her hands squeezed just a bit too tightly. the cap loosens and she thumbs it back down, approaching. 

"isaac," she says, forming the name before it really touches her mind. not everyone remembers. her eyes flash uncertainly. 

Isaac Merlo

☉

ink bleeds around the edges, changing the shape of his face, adding greys to his hair, lines that aren't there after she blinks. she nearly yawns and takes a sip of her coffee to hide it, not wanting to be rude. his surprise, at first, makes her heart sink. so many have forgotten. 

she would rather they forget, but it does not make it any less lonely.

and then, as though reading her thoughts, he gives her a gift that strips her of her every defense. her nose stuffs up as she swallows back tears and though her eyes go glassy, it's not noticeable against the backdrop of her exhaustion. joy flutters over her lips, even as he gestures at her current state. 

"ruling kingdoms didn't allow for many pleasantries," she says, fondness dripping from her voice. "i...how much do you remember? because yeah, no one else i know can - hey! melusine, you put those rations down now."

the roaring moon slams her tail into the ground, sending a spray of sand over some folks carrying cargo. the sizeable crack she'd made in the crate of food is hastily attended to and freya sighs. snapping fingers and a low hiss bring the dragon's attention back to the matter at hand. 

"i guess now isn't really the time to talk about this." she eyes him and then looks down at herself. "that bad, mm? i'm used to the fighting, but i'm...not sleeping well. i'll recover when this is all over," she says with a wave of her hand. 

"how are we here? any issues securing the beach?"

Isaac Merlo

☉

meeting others from that time reawakens the memories. softly, in snippets, blurred shapes on the corner of her vision. riddled with holes as memories tend to be, leaving her wondering just how much of it is her reminiscing and how much of her is filling in the gaps. but she remembers the coming together of so many wayward, timesick souls, finding solace amongst each other over food and drink. 

she remembers him at the head, a wife and...children at his side. their faces are gone, lost to time, but a pang of guilt flits over her face. she'd forgotten herself. those who do remember may not want to. 

a brow raises alongside her coffee cup. she follows isaac's gaze and has to admit to herself that with the help of his pokemon, the rest of the ship's crew are getting on with the work. if anything, she'd only be helpful with supervising at this point, and that seems extraneous in itself. 

the dragons patrolling the skies are all the safety they need; her job is done. 

her boots sink into the sand as she reluctantly agrees to humour him. she perches on a piece of driftwood and thinks about setting her coffee in the sand, but then thinks, ew, sand, and opts to cradle it in both hands. 

she realizes she's been quiet this entire time. 

"i'm not good at small talk," she apologizes. she's not good at filling in the spaces. most of the time, she's content to simply be. in galar, that meant sitting quietly beside Eva Morales while she studied her books, or taking night watches on the wall, or patrolling the skies.

"what's your idea?"

Isaac Merlo

☉

isaac's avatarship is not at the forefront of her mind. in fact, it doesn't quite click with her that the merlo in front of her is the same as the one from the one in the documents, emails glossed over in the wake of callan's departure and the aftermath of the walking wake's devastation. couple that with the instability of her home life and it's just another snippet that's slipped through the cracks. 

so she's puzzled, watching him more out of amusement as he tries to enter some sort of meditative trance. if he's attempting to coax her to peace, she leans into it, looking past him and out to the sea. watching the waves roll in. seeing the glint of scales just under the surf, her dragons watching from afar. 

she wonders after king. and that hurts too much so she turns to easier things - her incessant check-ins with the island's ranger stations, checking for any sign of Elisabeth Fiorelli. glimpses made, skirmishes reported, but whenever she arrives, it's too little too late. 

alone, tasting decay on her tongue. 

vengeance is a poison, she told tsubaki, but her own is a fire and the walls of her heart have already long since scorched. elisabeth made an enemy when she brought tapu fini to her, and then she forged her end when she turned her 'gift' on delta. 

she will protect fernando because it's the right thing to do. 

she will kill elisabeth because she wants to. 

and this, this is what she's thinking about when blue light spills from isaac's hands. when ribbons twist around them, so like the motherly touch of her dragonair, so like the patron's burden that sought to bind her. 

she startles and isaac's words cannot get past the waterfall rush of blood in her ears, the pounding in her throat. her breaths are quick, tight, drawing the aurora closer to her, and she covers her mouth tightly with her hands, afraid to swallow any of it. to swallow it at all. 

tears prick in bloodshot eyes and she stumbles back, away, breaking out of the wrappings, veins on her wrist pale blue and tense, every bit of her on fire, feeling the grains of sand in her boots and the heat on her neck and the salt on her cheeks, salt of her own making, salt of the sea, that brine threatening to drown her. 

Isaac Merlo

☉

surrounded on all side by walls of her own making, claws trimmed and filed, too weak to shred the ties holding her together and even if she could, breaking out would mean breaking apart. it would mean losing herself - what makes her her. she's a ghost trapped in skin, dead the day ALEXANDER STONE died. 

the thimble under her foot finally disappears and all at once her balancing act plummets and she falls, knees hitting sand, hands finding purchase in the loose granules of earth. her wrist bumps her coffee and it tumbles, spilling a brown stain, barely distinguishable from its surroundings. 

pieces of her coming apart and needing to be put back together, but her hands are already so cut up and she's so, so tired of doing this alone. 

freya!

she comes back with a strangled sound, blinking furiously. her head clears with the ribbons gone. the lapping waves replace the pressing sound in her ears and she inhales shakily, scrambling to find her center. 

"n-no," she says breathlessly. "you didn't hurt me. it's okay, isaac. i'm okay." but she's saying it more for herself. 

she sounds unconvinced. 

"you were only trying...to help." 

several paces away, melusine is standing still as a statue, pupils thin as a sheaf of paper and trained on isaac. freya's voice is a rough scrape, somewhat of a snarl, and melusine's feathers ruffle. she snorts and turns her back with a flick of her tail, returning to her duties. 

freya grunts and slides back up onto the driftwood, smacking her palms together to brush the sticky sand away. 

"i forgot you were an avatar," she admits finally and runs her fingers through her hair, fidgeting with a braid. "i had some...bad experiences with another. it shocked me is all. there's - it's complicated. but thank you, for trying."

Isaac Merlo

☉

at the end of the day, her coffee is the only casualty, and most of it had been drunk already. this is what she is telling herself as she picks up the trash and gives it a good shake, distancing herself as well as she can from the oily feeling on her skin. 

"i appreciate that," she says earnestly when he offers to be more careful around her. 

when he offers to lend an ear, she raises a brow; the exact same thoughts he has are running through her own. and yet there is something so achingly refreshing about his presence, the fact that he is not tied to fernando in the same way that the only other person who might believe her is. 

there is a war in her eyes, a visceral fight, and then the spark dies as quickly as it had come, snuffed out by reality. they still need fernando. isaac wouldn't be able to do anything about all of it. her words could be mistaken as treason. she could lose her title. she could lose everything. 

she could hurt king, and delta. 

"someone very close to me recently made me realize i'm not good at talking," she says with a bit of a simper. "i've always been actionable, but i - hell, i don't know."

she shifts her shoulders, sighs, pained expression shifting to something guarded. careful. almost...hopeful? "i know yours is a special case, avatarship and all, but have you had a chance to take a look at the amnesty program?" 

Isaac Merlo

☉

knowing is hard. things had been so much easier when she looked at everything through the lens of absolutes. when rocket was bad and she was good. but that was before emma and before fernando and before the ultra beast war and the rest of it all, the world crumbling down around her, around them, at all turns. 

the world is run by egomaniacs snapping over each other for the last pound of flesh and all the rest of them will starve. 

there is a hunger in her even now, an aching for easiness, to have and to hold someone's hand and let that be it. gods, to let that be it. 

the thinking. 

her thoughts are her own. my thoughts are my own, she tells herself when she scans the beach, searching not for any sign of rocket forces, but for one rocket in particular. he distracts her with his wave. she gives a cursory glance over her shoulder, but shakes her head, an inkling of a wry smile putting some color back on her face.

"mm, i'd think if you were being watched, you'd have gotten shot already." what with her reaction to his avatar powers and all. she shrugs and waves it away. 

"i'd like to follow up with you on that, but...may i ask you something? and ask that you keep this next topic of discussion between us?"

Isaac Merlo

☉