She doesn't share this compulsion the others have, where they starve for human interaction the way that flowers in darkness ache for light.[break][break]

Instead, the dream holds her tight like another prison, her face unrecognizable to herself in glass windows that reflect a dead Kalosian girl back at her. Even the encouragement of Cillian Quinn does nothing to change the severity of her expression; she is gaunt, tired, wrung out from too much reliving of a life once-ended.[break][break]

This man who approaches her is no different. He's a shade of just another nightmare, come back to haunt her.[break][break]

She faces him with an unsettling blankness, erased of its own humanity. More ghost than woman, more dream than real, she listens to his cries as if they are uttered in a language she doesn't fully recognize -- too much distance from it has eroded its understanding.[break][break]

"I've done many things," she says then, because in dreams, nothing you say matters. "Which do you accuse me of now?"[break][break]

There's no remorse, no suspicion, and no taunting to be found here.[break][break]

Exhaustion alone pales her, leaving her a shell of the villain he needs her to be.

[attr="class","ooc"] Navy [break][break]

Prismatic Penitentiary: Ugly Ward

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"Is that all?"[break][break]

Color briefly returns to her as she shakes her head and laughs. It's a lilting sound, almost bell-like in its muted tenor. A pale hand runs through long blonde hair, winding through tangled curls, before turning up empty. She stares at it, imagining a blood-red shard pulsing in her palm.[break][break]

To think of MATIAS SILPH, of all people, seems quaint in this place. The Volatile feels distant, theirs the thread of some complicated tapestry she is beginning to forget.[break][break]

Now she clings to those fraying memories, eager to think of anything but the imprisoned world they find themselves in. She embraces it, because there's power to be found in being hated.[break][break]

freya morningstar had reminded her of that.[break][break]

"Did I pull the trigger, Navidson? Or did the League simply ignore the bullets placed, one by one, into a weapon allowed to exist unchecked?" He will not find regret in her, for she has none. There is no action taken that she would have left undone; she has survived, and therefore, she has won. "You tempted Rocket with opportunity. If I had not acted on that, someone else would have done so."[break][break]

The elation fades as quickly as it comes, and she turns cold once more. She has won, hasn't she, and yet isn't she trapped here with this man and everyone else? A hollow victory, then.[break][break]

Empty.[break][break]

"Death claims everyone in the end. Blame me if you will, but know that kyle lopez chose his death, not me."

[attr="class","ooc"] Navy [break][break]

Prismatic Penitentiary: Ugly Ward

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"No," she says matter-of-factly, sharp as a knife in the swiftness of her answer. "Mankind did that to me all on its own."[break][break]

If she closes her eyes, she can see it all so clearly: those fragile, shimmering timelines Celebi graced her with, bearing witness to lives where Wo-chien has no interest in a woman whose wounds have learned to heal, or whose wounds never existed in the first place.[break][break]

She isn't those radiant, shining women. This world denied her those paths, yet it begged for her unearned mercy regardless.[break][break]

Only Wo-chien accepted her as she was.[break][break]

"Look around you. Do you believe the world bends to the whims of your idealism?" Anger burns her from the inside out at the recollection of his actions in her ward -- how quickly he'd bartered her life and that of BARNABY FINCH in his desire to do what was right, but not what was necessary. How audacious it is for him to accuse her of hate now, when he stoops to it just as easily. "Perhaps your Avatars changed, but you are wrong in your assumptions. Our deities chose us for what we were, not for the potential of what we could be."[break][break]

PENELOPE LIVY had always been ambitious. Eva Morales had always been self-righteous. MATIAS SILPH had always been reckless. illeana reyes had always been a scientist, in pursuit of forbidden knowledge.[break][break]

kyle lopez? Perhaps some part of him had always wanted to give up. Part of her quietly understood that desire, though she'd never admit so.[break][break]

"If you wish to assign blame, Navidson, look in the mirror. Your idealism spurred you to save me from the brink of death, did it not? Back on that resurfaced island, months ago."[break][break]

Her eyes weigh him with judgment, heavy and hard. She allows the silence to linger awhile, letting his mind come to the grim conclusion she soon voices aloud.[break][break]

"You spared my life, and it cost Kyle his."

[attr="class","ooc"] Navy [break][break]

Prismatic Penitentiary: Ugly Ward

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"You certainly seem to have it all figured out," she replies, shrugging as she crosses her arms. Her tone is dry, disinterested, and distinctly mocking. "Why bother asking me?"[break][break]

He has his own idea of the woman she is. He proved as much when he begged her to blame Wo-chien for it; wouldn't that have been nice, to assume it was something out of her own control? Then he wouldn't harbor the guilt he holds for her.[break][break]

That could make her a tragic figure. Pitiable. A victim of circumstances.[break][break]

There's some nobility in saving a person like that.[break][break]

Though when that narrative eludes him, he chooses one as flat and one-dimensional. If she's not a damsel, then she's a vicious harpy, picking at the bones of her victims to relish in each morsel of suffering. Yes, if she isn't a victim, then she is nothing more than a senseless tormenter, isn't she?[break][break]

She longs for a cigarette. Of all the things this dream has denied her, she now curses it most for that.[break][break]

"I told Matias what I was. He didn't listen. I refuse to take responsibility for his own stubborn pride."[break][break]

They speak of her as if she just 'happened' to men like that -- as if she's quicksand to stumble into, and not a woman they'd pursued of their own free will. Would they believe her if she said she resisted?[break][break]

Already she knows; she's told that story with another man, in another region, and not much has changed between then and now. This chapter has been retread so many times, there's nothing left to surprise her.

[attr="class","ooc"] Navy [break][break]

Prismatic Penitentiary: Ugly Ward

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"I told him the truth. I ruin people."[break][break]

It frightens her, sometimes, how easily this role comes to her. All of her is sharp and jagged, a blade that once held in someone's arms inevitably bleeds them dry.[break][break]

Celebi had feared her being an Avatar of Ruination, but this timeline had molded her perfectly for that destiny.[break][break]

"The Skorupi has no choice but to kill the Froakie in that children's tale, even at risk to themselves. My nature is no different."[break][break]

Canting her head at the Elite Four, she ponders him and his own part to play in this story. He seems so stricken at every word she speaks. She thinks that nothing she says is shocking; all of it is so blindingly obvious to her, she wonders why anyone might imagine otherwise.[break][break]

And so she continues to wonder: What went through his mind on that October day? Did he want to imagine her as someone different than she was? Pity moved him, she imagines, or misguided mercy.[break][break]

How many lives must someone like her ruin to teach a man like him this simple lesson - that trust, once given, is a vulnerability to be exploited and abused?[break][break]

She knows what he wants her to say, but it's not what he needs to hear.[break][break]

"Does the hammer loathe itself for punishing the nail?"

[attr="class","ooc"] Navy [break][break]

Prismatic Penitentiary: Ugly Ward

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"Do you think you are the only one who has seen what the world might be, had even one thing changed?"[break][break]

Anger, for the first time, flares up in her eyes. It animates her, breathing life into this hollow figure that drifts mindlessly through dreams. He does not intend to strike her with this blow, but his dagger finds purchase regardless.[break][break]

She has no need for pity. Pity has never spared her from pain, only made its suffering all the more humiliating to bear.[break][break]

"You think Wo-chien claimed me against my will. Don't you? Even my own people think that."[break][break]

As if a demon had slithered its way into her psyche, corroding her mind and letting her succumb to its own base desires. She sees it in how THEO BECKETT and Cillian Quinn look at her, in the way perfect strangers have feared her capricious moods after her Avatarship, shying away from her.[break][break]

"I'll tell you a secret," she confides, drawing closer. There's so much hate in her gaze. Hate she wants to see reflected back in his. "Celebi tried to claim me that day, before Wo-chien could. She showed me a timeline where I fight this war with you, as one of your council. Another where I researched as one of your premier scientists, studying crystablooms and infinity energy. And another where I embraced a cruelly impossible happiness."[break][break]

The very memory of that final timeline makes bile rise in her throat, yet she continues her advance. She stands close enough to him now that he can reach out and touch her, or push her away.[break][break]

She suspects he won't. It's not the purpose of her proximity.[break][break]

"Celebi promised me that she could purge me of all my pain. That I could be restored to who I was before I suffered."[break][break]

She wants to see his reaction when she leans in close to whisper this truth aloud, smiling.[break][break]

"I killed her instead, for offering me the same thing you offer to me now."

[attr="class","ooc"] Navy [break][break]

Prismatic Penitentiary: Ugly Ward

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"Nothing is innocent, Navidson," she says, drawing away from him. Palpable contempt lingers behind her, bitter and herbal as the jubokko leaves of the Border. "Nothing is sacred enough to be spared harm. The world remains indifferent to suffering."[break][break]

Not unless it could benefit from the victim's punishment or salvation. She's learned that much.[break][break]

"You only care about mine because Wo-chien violently forces you to acknowledge it. Otherwise, it would go as unseen as anything else."[break][break]

He speaks of kindness as if the prerequisite for it is having endured some great evil. She laughs again, the absurdity of this too much to bear. Far from the truth, to her observation. Evil begets evil. No act of goodness has ever truly undone any cruelty, not completely. Scars remain, whether or not you want to acknowledge them.[break][break]

Wo-chien forces her to acknowledge hers, too.[break][break]

"Tell me." Her head tilts, curious as her smile thins. "Why do you assume I want to kill you?"

[attr="class","ooc"] Navy [break][break]

Prismatic Penitentiary: Ugly Ward

[attr="class","pkmn"]