[attr="class","illeana"]

[attr="class","illeana b"]

[attr="class","illeana i"]"i might have."

she still doesn't quite remember the full sequence of events. the memories have been eroded by spatial energy creeping over everything and the horror of seeing a charred body at her feet.

most of all, she can still feel the helplessness from that moment. it clings like cigarette smoke to her frame.

"i need control."

otherwise...

"people - no, everything - could be jeopardized if i don't learn."

she no longer has room for error.

MATIAS SILPH

[attr="class","illeana"]

[attr="class","illeana b"]

[attr="class","illeana i"]she stares at him, processing the implications.

"how is it fine?"

people are dead. they will never come back. what about that seems fine to him, to the league?

and would he really help her... if she asked?

"yes."

honesty is laid out in the space between them. she weaves it through spatial matter with a false semblance of mastery.

"would you actually do it, though?"

MATIAS SILPH

[attr="class","illeana"]

[attr="class","illeana b"]

[attr="class","illeana i"]behind her, palkia stirs. she feels its wings shift before they move, the space around each wing parting to make room.

"and what do i bring to the table?"

her head rises a little, as if waiting for a blade or a crown - uncertain which would fall first.

instead, he greets her honesty with his own and for a moment, she feels tendrils of the past begin to waft back in. it's subtle, yet persistent.

"it feels like my head wants to split open sometimes. i can see and feel everything in the universe, from a star dying to a planet's core coming into creation. how does someone just live with that, let alone control it?"

does it feel the same for him? does his mind want to pull away from itself at the seams to escape the sensation?

MATIAS SILPH

[attr="class","illeana"]

[attr="class","illeana b"]

[attr="class","illeana i"]what she brings to the table, perhaps, is not what anyone wishes to see. she knows on some small, intimate level the way people look at her. they see a fragile woman with a fragile mind, easily riled up and selfishly devoted to her own interests. they see her recklessness, a string of actions and subsequent consequences trailing behind her dressed up to look like good faith under false pretenses.

she isn't entirely sure she could convince them otherwise, either.

"okay..."

at the click of his tongue, her eyes narrow slightly and her nose scrunches lightly in focus.

"ripples - i see ripples around you."

she takes a step closer, studying the way they move... ebbing and flowing as water does.

"i've noticed humans take up less space than other things. we create small little ripples like pebbles being skipped across a pond."

she wants to reach out, to touch the parting spatial matter, but she refrains.

MATIAS SILPH

[attr="class","illeana"]

[attr="class","illeana b"]

[attr="class","illeana i"]the spatial dragon, while making a low half snarling sort of sound when matias reaches for its avatar, does not move an inch. there is no perceived threat - not yet.

"i -"

he lifts her head to look at him, guiding her chin up until her eyes follow.

"okay."

she's not entirely certain what he wants of her, though, in this moment. does he want to know his spatial components? does he want her to be a mirror for him to look through to see himself?

in the process of staring and wondering and analyzing herself in circles, the ripples slowly begin to fade from around his head until he's the focal point of her vision.

"i don't see them anymore."

a pause.

"just you."

MATIAS SILPH

[attr="class","illeana"]

[attr="class","illeana b"]

[attr="class","illeana i"]touch against her cheek startles her. she flinches at first, wanting to shy away, and a small ripple - a barely there distortion - rises. it subsequently falls back out of existence as quickly as it came.

"rough skin."

her eyes flicker toward his, half distracted. she feels barely tethered to this world... as if one wrong move and gravity loses its hold over her and she is lost to the atmosphere.

"it wouldn't kill you to invest in lotion, you know."

slowly, she reaches up to peel his hand away from her cheek before releasing her fingers from his wrist to let his hand drop.

MATIAS SILPH

[attr="class","illeana"]

[attr="class","illeana b"]

[attr="class","illeana i"]"you'll end up a wrinkly man soon, then."

if he lives that long, perhaps - they always murmur of avatarship as if it's a ticking clock, nothing more than a gilded parasite slowly eating you alive from the inside out. her fate would be no different from his in the end.

a nod follows and despite every inch of her whispering to distrust, to not listen and scorn him instead... she agrees.

"okay, i'll try."

the first of many final nails in her coffin. she feels this one embed itself into a particular fissure, chiseling away until it's wider and slightly more pronounced.

MATIAS SILPH