the dragons were more nippy around ana than usual. she thought little of it, attributing their strange behavior to hoenn's sliding scale of cataclysms and all the ways their behaviors have shifted with the change in environment. it was when she met her with aeris at her side that she really started to pay attention. 

she says, "i think lyune might sire again," and then, "my gods, ana, are you okay?" 

jacket shucked off, she wads it up and shoves it into ana's midsection, eyes taut with worry but with consternation too. the look of i know you haven't been telling me something and i've been minding my business, but come on, ana, please. 

"how deep did she get you?"

ana fell

☉

it's the exact opposite of what she'd been expecting and while freya's gotten better at covering up emotions like frustration and anger, surprise slips its way through with a dramatic gasp.

"ana, no - what? you can't just - " give yourself surgeries, she wants to say, but isn't she already? hasn't she already? isn't that what she does every so often? scrambles around her brain to shut out the horrors and make more room for the happy, perfect her?

she struggles between chastising her and calling medics over. in the end, she settles on a scowl ana's seen before and says, with feeling, "at least tell me you've had a healing pokemon look at it. you don't want it to get infected."

ana fell

☉

childbearing has always been given little thought. should she have wanted her family's legacy to continue, she could always adopt, as they had with her. but is it different now? her hand drifts closer to her own midsection. the blood of the draconids runs through her, but even if she wanted to - 

they put her back together again after the fall. after her body was broken apart on the bluffs by tentacruel too big for this world. hoenn's best surgeons, saving the councilwoman that would abandon them soon after, though not before telling her there were parts of her they couldn't replace.

"but if it's something you don't want, there are surgeons who specialize in this." her voice lacks force. it's a losing battle and besides, it's already been done. "can you at least tell me when you do these things so i can make sure i'm there in case something goes wrong?"

she rearranges their schedule on the tablet at her hip. they won't be able to tend to the garchomp or the roaring moons or her new paradox pokemon with ana actively bleeding. she swaps duties with some of the caretakers of the applin line and dragonair, satisfied when she sees a confirmation thumbs up from their messages. 

"meru and inari have reproduced with him before, but that was years ago. he hasn't mated since his wing was damaged, but - " she starts and scratches her cheek, "i think i found someone who can help me heal him. to make him whole again."

no metal supports. no special saddle. no pain with every beat of his wings. 

ana fell

☉

another tidbit she's quick to forget. she tries not to think about the mad scientist lab ana's made out of her basement. there's enough time in her schedule to help her forget and even in her idle hours, her worries turn to other matters. 

other memories. 

"you're right," she says. of course she is. it's hard to look at ana and remember the saddest woman she'd ever seen. cygne's as dead as sima 1.0, any attempt at reanimation stamped back into the earth with a homebrew lobotomy.

so it makes sense when she asks, when she doesn't know, and part of freya is grateful she doesn't remember the flurry of claws, the vicious tearing of spine from throat. lyune's mechanical skeleton screeching as he fought for purchase on her dragon. she'd shot cygne too, in that leg. is that the one she needs replacing? 

"years ago, during the first ultra beast invasion. from a guzzlord that nearly leveled mossdeep. i was a wreck after," she says and they move as they walk. syrup-sweet fragrance fills the air and two flapple dive down to teeth playfully at their hair. 

"but alex made the harness he wears. it gives him the support he needs to move the muscle on his left wing. it's easier for him when i'm in the saddle, changing the gears." she grimaces. "manual versus automatic, i guess? but i know he hates it. he's always hated it.

"he's lived centuries in that body," she says, as though they're interchangeable. as though there's any other way to live. does he remember what it was like to be a shelgon? to be less of himself? 

"you're not cutting off your leg without me there," she says with a tired sigh. 

ana fell
( ALEXANDER STONE )

☉

"he knows it's necessary," she says. necessary and demeaning. the intensity of his pride is on par with her own and even after all this time, the vice grips him still. if she can gift him this happiness, at the behest of her better judgment against trusting the tapus, doesn't she owe him that much?

"i don't think we're meant to," she adds. "live that long. i mean, obviously, but." she rubs her face tiredly. half a dozen heads assault her with nervous licking when she nears the nesting tree of her hydrapple. 

"i didn't tell you, did i? about the other life i lived. no, that's not right. that i watched myself live?" for so many long, arduous years. "lately i've felt...bigger than myself. so full of memories that shouldn't be here. that aren't really mine."

she stops, plops right on the grassy knoll and lets pumkin and squib nibble at the fruity treats in her pockets. and she laughs suddenly, almost breathlessly. 

"you can't remember more than the last six months. i can't stop remembering sixty years, all folded on top of each other."

ana fell

☉

"still getting used to that," she says in return. still getting used to telling people about things. not bottling it up. not squaring her shoulders and saying everything is fine. her foundation is - or, rather, was - too cracked to withstand the weight of all she'd put on it. 

and now she's here and she's changing, but she wouldn't change what brought her here in this first place.

she looks at ana and she thinks about the woman she was in galar. it wasn't a woman she knew; no, she'd been too caught up in her own spiteful melodrama to care about the neighboring cities or their rulers. it was a woman she'd hurt, but far less than the world had hurt her. 

there are too many people who rely on her own memory. there are too many bits of her she couldn't bear forget. too many mistakes and too much time squandered for her to risk forgetting and repeat them again. 

but how will you know when it's too much?

she looks away. 

she says, "if we hit that point, i feel like we've already lost. all i can do right now, ana, is get stronger. maybe once this is all over, when the region's, dare i say, safe, you can poke around, but i can't...i can't risk it."

ana fell

☉

there's the truth of it. the region will never be safe. if they overcome their newest adversaries, something bigger and something meaner will come their way. so why not forget? why not give up every bad memory and let it all drift away in a nice breeze?

because i've done that. because i let someone else take my mind and it's the worst mistake i've ever made. ana knows this. ana knows it. all the finer details she's never told anyone else. and maybe that's why she tries to impart the blessing now. 

their die has already been cast. 

when she grins, freya tries to match with equal enthusiasm. "i'm not sure," she admits truthfully.

"i won't breed him like i do the others. he'll pick his mate and when the clutch hatches, we won't separate them. the last male and female left standing will be the strongest after they devour their brothers and sisters."

ana fell

☉