Elisabeth despised hospitals. Doctors. Medicine. The entire industry, really.[break][break]

People who played god didn't understand what it meant to be one.[break][break]

Her heels cut a cold echo through the sterile floors, the staff scurrying to the side as the dark-haired woman loomed towards the room of one Admin jayden cross. A bitter chill manifested the closer she came to his door, to the point that when it opened, a breath of winter's frost greeted her despite the warm notes of a fading summer still burning outside.[break][break]

"Cross," she greeted sharply, taking in her measure of him with uncaring carmine eyes.[break][break]

Had she looked this pathetic when she'd been brought here by BARNABY FINCH? Disgust curdled inside herself at the notion, although she knew that the frostbitten pallor of his face wouldn't have shown on her own.[break][break]

"I understand you survived your ordeal. Congratulations."[break][break]

Neither relief nor sincerity existed in her words, merely an undercurrent of annoyance -- one she did precious little to hide from him.

[attr="class","ooc"] jayden cross[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

Hatred made a certain sense to Elisabeth, in a way that love never had.[break][break]

It let her weather the frigid storm of his rage, standing stoic and impassive as his eyes revealed what could very well be murderous intent. That wouldn't surprise her, in truth. Elisabeth was used to hateful men wanting her dead.[break][break]

You could say there was even something comforting in replaying that scene.[break][break]

"You're going to have to use your words, Cross," she continued with a dismissive shrug, two ochre eyes blinking behind her to show the other Ruinous Beast that had followed in her wake. She found a nearby seat and lounged in it as if it were a poor excuse for a throne, finding it beneath her while resigned to making do.[break][break]

A small smirk pulled at the corner of her mouth, enigmatic in its amusement.[break][break]

"I certainly don't pretend to know how you feel."

[attr="class","ooc"] jayden cross[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"Let what happen, precisely?" One leg crossed over the other, her stiletto heel dangling with bored affectation. "Tell me, Cross. What was I meant to do? Throw myself at the creature in the hopes it might change its target?"[break][break]

Her mouth quirked into a sardonic smile, privately entertained by her own joke.[break][break]

"Far be it from me to demand multiple curses from the divine."[break][break]

But no such amusement sparkled in his own glacial glare. Had he always seemed this emotive to her? She regarded him thoughtfully, a hand perched beneath her chin.[break][break]

No, she mused with mild interest, this side of him was new. More primal, less inhibited.[break][break]

She could understand that. She'd lost her inhibitions after establishing her pact, too.[break][break]

Fury chiseled its way across his frozen features, the temperature failing to numb his temper in the way it numbed her own. Sludge oozed from Wo-chien at her side, eating its way at the artificial snowscape with rot and decay.[break][break]

"Or perhaps you take umbrage with the fact I was willing to kill you. In which case," she continued with a lazy swish of her hand, "I believe your anger is to be directed at multiple individuals, not only myself."[break][break]

He'd find no apology reflected in her carmine eyes. Only unrepentant defiance.

[attr="class","ooc"] jayden cross[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"I see." The flatness of her voice revealed her irritation at his posturing. "My fault that you suffer, is it? How convenient for you."[break][break]

Frost swirled out and radiated out like a massive snowflake to encase the floor, the finer points of its stellar dendrite design melting before the acidic moat of rot that surrounded her.[break][break]

"Shall I blame someone for my suffering, too? I wonder. Who's the most convenient scapegoat for such a thing?"[break][break]

Even as the man rose to his feet to loom over her, she utterly lacked a sense of fear or self-preservation. If anything, her expression taunted him to step closer to her -- to challenge her further, to goad her into acting on the violence he so wanted from her.[break][break]

"If you want death enough, Cross, there is always someone willing to complete that deed for you. But you know better, I think."[break][break]

Elisabeth leaned back, regarding him with a regal posture befitting a cruel queen.[break][break]

"Your patron has no interest in you relinquishing your mortal coil. I suggest you not tempt that fate."[break][break]

She'd learned that lesson in a distant Galar. Though the memory of that event escaped her, the lesson instilled in her remained.

[attr="class","ooc"] jayden cross[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

Palpable disgust flashed across her features as jayden cross approached her, the pale fingers of frost radiating out to encroach on her minor claim to this artificial tundra.[break][break]

"Are we our brother's keeper, Cross?" she mocked him. "No one deserves protection. No one deserves saving. The strong live, and the weak die. We thought you knew that."[break][break]

She arose from her seat, her heels cutting into the ice to crack with every step that neared him. The sheer thrum of power wafting from her seemed to cement her posture, aloof and indifferent as she raised her chin to look at him, defiant even as her voice softened.[break][break]

"Do you deny your strength, then? That creature seems to believe you possess it, or else it wouldn't have chosen you. Gods have desires, like any other living thing."[break][break]

Her eyes flitted for a moment to Chien-Pao, assessing it in silence, before she looked at him again.[break][break]

Wo-chien seemed almost gleeful at her side in comparison, its presence emanating a sense of morbid excitement at the energy sparking between the two Ruinous Avatars. A tension shimmered in the air, whispering at portents yet to come.[break][break]

"Attempting to run from those desires is foolish, unless your goal is to anger a god. But you know better, don't you?"

[attr="class","ooc"] jayden cross[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"Frankly? I don't care what Rocket stands for." Even as hatred coursed through him, even as his patron's power whispered in the threat of his challenge to her, she couldn't stop herself from provoking him. "Weak people waste their time defending others. What do you stand for? What is the source of your power?"[break][break]

The sight of the wound of his arm inspired no pity in her. Her own body was riddled with scars of itself, the most egregious a brand burned into her left thigh.[break][break]

Her correction came out sharply, chastising him with a click of her tongue.[break][break]

"We are strong for surviving, not for being spared."[break][break]

After the icy frost of Chien-Pao's influence met the withering stare of Wo-Chien's ochre eyes, the two then gazed upon one another's vessels in silent acknowledgment, assessing the other. The stench of RESENTMENTS wafted from this creature, too, but were weakened by other loyalties, other bonds that were far stronger than the ones that held Wo-chien's chosen vessel.[break][break]

Still. Its sibling had chosen well, if differently.[break][break]

"I'm not the one who can teach you about your own godhood, Cross. But if you like," she added, glancing over her shoulder as she turned to leave, "we can be monsters together. Few understand what it means, to be chosen as we are chosen."[break][break]

It is to suffer, her eyes warned him implicitly as she turned to go. This is the easy part.[break][break]

The eternity these nefarious bonds promised them was an unkind one.

[attr="class","ooc"] jayden cross[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]