She'd preferred visiting cemeteries during her time as a florist. They lacked the garish frivolity of wedding venues. Funereal marches were a somber, stoic affair -- death understood its own significance without demanding artificial sentiment.[break][break]

Whether you knew the deceased didn't matter. To be reminded of one's own mortality was an eternally sobering thing.[break][break]

And maybe that was why she'd given into this impulse, climbing Mt. Pyre with a black rose in hand to place upon the late Champion's grave. It seemed like something that would amuse him, she thought -- 'The Florist' come to pay her respects with flowers.[break][break]

Maybe by honoring the dead, she was reminding herself of the possibility that her own death might happen in much the same way.[break][break]

"Ah."[break][break]

The exclamation slipped out before she could stop herself, startled by the presence of a familiar figure at the grave.[break][break]

Her hand anxiously tightened on the thorned stem, its sharp edges pricking into her palm.[break][break]

"I didn't expect to find you here."

[attr="class","ooc"] FERNANDO SILPH[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"Of course I'm real, Fernando," she said, puzzled. It showed in the crinkling of her brow, eyebrows knitting together as she stared at him uncomprehendingly. "Why wouldn't I be?"[break][break]

She fidgeted, the rose turning over as she attempted to steady herself. The better question would be, "What makes you think you can be here?" What right had she to grieve a man she'd killed, however indirectly?[break][break]

Small mercies, she supposed, that he hadn't met her arrival with anger.[break][break]

"Were you both close?" she asked instead, voice softer as she gestured to the memorial.

[attr="class","ooc"] FERNANDO SILPH[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

Elisabeth blinked, partially taken aback by this admission. "I had thought his closest friend was--" she started to say, then stopped herself. "That is, I hadn't realized it was you."[break][break]

Given how intensely MATIAS SILPH had reacted to the mere mention of his elder brother, it stood to reason FERNANDO SILPH might act much the same. Especially given the nature of Kyle's passing.[break][break]

She attributed the subtle shift in his demeanor to mourning, and she faltered, sensing she had intruded on something she shouldn't.[break][break]

"Do you want me to leave you?" she asked, only to question herself for her sudden hesitancy. His needs didn't matter, shouldn't matter, but the lingering guilt kept her tethered to him as much as Tapu Fini's mist bound him to her in return. "I find most prefer to grieve in solitude."

[attr="class","ooc"] FERNANDO SILPH[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

Put on the spot like this, she glanced away uncomfortably, the rose revealing her intentions even if she didn't voice them aloud. A hesitant nod affirmed his suspicions.[break][break]

"It must seem ridiculous to you," she admitted, twirling the stem between two of her fingers. "But it felt like a gesture he'd appreciate."[break][break]

Was it kyle lopez or MATIAS SILPH who had first called her 'The Florist'? She was beginning to be unsure.[break][break]

"Traditions still have a hold on us, I suppose."

[attr="class","ooc"] FERNANDO SILPH[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

...Did he still not realize her part in kyle lopez's death?[break][break]

Her breath caught in her throat -- frozen like a Bunneary aware of a sprung trap -- as she tried to push down the panic that flooded inside of her like a burst dam.[break][break]

Whatever connection Tapu Fini had spun up between them, he was a councilman first and foremost. It was not a matter of 'if,' but 'when' that AQUA report would land on his desk.[break][break]

In that moment, he would choose the League over her, surely. She was not so conceited to think otherwise.[break][break]

"You've always been perceptive. It's unsurprising you'd value someone who was similarly observant."[break][break]

It was unsettling, how much he appeared able to glean of others with his single eye.

[attr="class","ooc"] FERNANDO SILPH[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

Each small step taken towards him felt like a transgression.[break][break]

She had no reason not to approach the grave -- the unacknowledged reason for Kyle's death notwithstanding -- but being near the councilman reminded her of approaching a Pyroar or a Liepard at rest. You had to move quietly, lest you cause them to stir and their hackles to raise.[break][break]

There was no help for this, however, so long as the rose sat in her hands. The task would remain unfinished until she did.[break][break]

An inhale centered her, and as she took the first step into indiscretion, she ignored the nameless warnings ringing in the back of her mind.[break][break]

"How did you meet?" she distracted herself aloud. "You and kyle lopez, I mean."

[attr="class","ooc"] FERNANDO SILPH[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

Her shadow passed over his as she stopped at the grave; sunlight cast them both in the darkness of the day's waning disregard. "Your sister, hm?" she mused, pretending that her skin didn't prickle with goosebumps at the nearness of him. So long as she didn't look at him, her eyes couldn't betray her fear.[break][break]

"That must have been some time ago. Rocket has reformed itself and grown all over again -- like a weed that was never fully uprooted, and left to run rampant."[break][break]

So saying, she cast the black rose on the soil, knowing fully well it graced no corpse buried underground. This place, much like her gesture of mourning, was purely symbolic.[break][break]

A replacement for genuine sentiment, in the absence of its genuine source.[break][break]

"And now it has risen to claim another of Hoenn's champions back to the earth. Though nature claims us all, in the end."[break][break]

Had she and the ghost of Cait Alfric not said as much to one another, before Tapu Fini made good on her claiming?

[attr="class","ooc"] FERNANDO SILPH[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]