"you're right. sans the awful childhood memories." a pause. the mother that was never her mother staring down at her with her cold, distant eyes. 24 karat gold not meant for the grubby fingers of a child, not even a daughter. "kind of."

heights have never bothered her. not even when they're climbing over roiling magma. she's never been afraid of falling in the literal sense. there are pokeballs at her hip, companions she can rely on as much as she can rely on her body to take the next breath. 

"something else. you're the only one who remembers galar like i do." she folds over, propping her elbows on her thighs, lacing her fingers together between her knees. "and okay, i'm going somewhere with this, but before that, did father winter visit you this year too?"

Isaac Merlo

☉

she'd told Eva Morales about it. not all of it, but the bits and pieces that had mattered in the moment. it had seemed so awfully unfair then, that she had been granted some semblance of happiness with a woman that may have meant to be hers. 

"thought they might be interested in you," she says after confirming, but she frowns. "he stuffed me inside...well, me. the me i would've become if my mother hadn't died in labor. but it was like i was in there? like a tourist in my own body."

she scratches her cheek. "that's only half the point." she doesn't know how to put feelings to words, frustrations to coherencies. "the memories from that. from galar. hell, from the first time father winter came around and trapped me in a frozen hellscape for a year. all of it's compounding."

and then she hesitates. "do you get the you now mixed up with the other yous? the memories you shouldn't have? the life you shouldn't have lived?"

Isaac Merlo

☉

amusement flits over her face. she's come to expect his long-winded answers, relied on them. maybe that's why she thought to go to him with this. but to her, it's never been about making peace with these other selves. she's learned to leave her past behind her; losing everything in her present over and over again got tiresome after a while. 

"it was easier for a time, wishing i could trade places with the happier versions of me. the alternative was actually putting in the work to make me happy."

she brushes a strand of silver hair from her face. "glimpsing some of those other timelines were gifts. i got to know a family. my family. i learned more about myself than i ever could have here." she simpers. "i learned i'm a surviving descendant of the draconids. in galar? for two decades, i held fast. i didn't give up. there were times i wavered, but i did not run, and i've been terrified i'd make those same mistakes again."

she closes her eyes. "but there are bits and pieces that could help us more, if i could just pin them down. if i could just remember, then maybe it would help me learn more about how to combat jayden cross. those memories i have of him are so murky, but sometimes they're so, so bright in that way dreams are right before you wake up and forget them all.

"what if there's more information hiding inside of me? information on other rocket operatives that could have been there - like, like Zev Harcourt?" she sighs, rubbing a thumb into her temple. 

Isaac Merlo

☉

they're all part of her, like he says, but how much can the human mind handle? can it triumph past all of these horrors, lifetimes shoved into a body too young to have experienced those multitudes? envy squirms when her idle anxieties rear their ugly head; his connection to suicune makes what are tumultuous waters to her a placid lake to him. 

"you haven't shown me any reason to think you aren't," she says distractedly, eyes still half-closed, thumb still pressing, as though that can pin down the hodgepodge memories that are folding over themselves at her beckoning. ana's face flits by minutely and that secret grazes her conscious too. 

she owes it to him to tell him. 

she owes it to him to keep it secret. 

the woman he loved is gone. dead.

adolescent dragons fall from the sky at the hands of two dueling gods. ash stains the snow of their beloved circhester. a black amalgamation carves through memories made manifest, loved ones with stolen faces, and she opens her eyes. 

"caleb thinks he's a problem." her mouth twists, nose flaring slightly when she thinks back to the stumbling, inconsolable form of Gwendolyn Conway . "i think he may have attacked one of my volunteers. ranger conway. the gabite i gave her - " jaw clenching, she exhales in frustration - "their teeth are strong enough to bite through metal, isaac, and gishath's jaw was a shattered, bloody mess when she brought him to me."

Isaac Merlo

☉

there are too many puzzle pieces, too many anomalies. she thinks back to fernando's office, his hands wavering through a hologram, each meticulous choice bathing the room in red. red, red, red. no matter where they turn or what they do, they inch ever slowly towards their own demise. 

she never thought his job was easy, but gods, she never fathomed how hopeless it is. 

"i'd be more worried about you if you did know what he's been up to." as would others. doubt has wriggled its way out of freya's head when it comes to isaac merlo, but there are still plenty others in the league's ranks that carry a malicious distrust of the rocket turncoat. 

if they can't accept someone like him, how could they ever accept - she shoves the thought away. this isn't about KING WAYLAND.

"i'll need everything you know about him. we'll submit it to sapphire and work on filling out a profile for him so we can create a proper response protocol. he's likely an avatar. do you have any idea what could have aligned with him?"

Isaac Merlo

☉

he says necrozma and the rest of the words struggle to be comprehended. blink. the cable car is no longer there. isaac wears a crown and the skies have been mutilated by the otherworldly. the earth has been sundered by legends. blink. full coverage, head to toe. gwendolyn on her knees, hands fisted in freya's shirt, talking about the impenetrable monster. 

hunter. predator. 

blink. 

murderer. tyrant.

blink. 

she shakes her head and feels like she's wading through sand and this time when she blinks, it's not galar at all. it's a little coffee shop, with a warm cinnamon scone in hand and the bright, adoring eyes of the woman she loves across from her. 

a wet dribble on her nose snaps her out of the feverish instant and she wipes at it hastily, blinking, saying, "that hasn't...happened since i wrote the journal. remembering like that."

Isaac Merlo

☉