Something had changed in the mood between them. In the air, maybe. Currents always had a way of changing.[break][break]

Slowly, with all the awareness she should do the opposite of what she was doing, she turned to meet his gaze with her own. From these lofty heights, Hoenn seemed so small and insignificant behind him.[break][break]

It made this place seem unreal. His question sounded like it belonged to another version of him, one she'd convinced herself had always been a lie.[break][break]

"That depends," she prodded him in return. "Are you still in the habit of answering a question with a question?"[break][break]

Kyle's grave, empty of its fallen savior, tried to ground her in place with its solemn headstone. But her eyes were elsewhere.

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

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There it was again. That warning. Panic spread through her, its screaming instinct setting her every nerve afire.[break][break]

"About what?" she side-stepped, already understanding what he meant, but pretending she didn't. How small her voice sounded here, dwindling with uncertainty and self-doubt.[break][break]

This time, she couldn't forget what bodies she had walked over to get to these heights: those of the living and the dead. Mt. Chimney itself hadn't been spared from her ruin, no more than Petalburg had been a year ago.[break][break]

She glanced about herself, terrified of an Unown appearing out of the shadows, only to see nothing but clear, empty sky. She breathed easier, knowing their solitude.[break][break]

"I wasn't aware I had to do anything."

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The wind stole away her reply. Sentences wrote and rewrote themselves over and over again in her frantic mind, rehearsing scenes that might make sense of this one.[break][break]

The more this picture became clear to her, the more she searched for an ending that wouldn't result in her standing here again, on another man's grave.[break][break]

Didn't all roads lead here, though? No matter how far anyone tried to outrun that fate, death claimed everyone eventually.[break][break]

"I'm--"[break][break]

'Sorry'? What was the word she was looking for? Whatever that self-conscious thought was, it unraveled the moment she tried to speak it aloud. She swallowed, pushing it down deeper and deeper.[break][break]

The more she internally fought with herself, the harder it was to remember what she meant to say. Words became clumsy, and she bit her lip, no longer trusting herself to speak. She stood perfectly still, paralyzed with her own inaction.[break][break]

Yet the less she resisted the silence, and the longer it stretched between them, the more peaceful the nothingness between them became.

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The spell shattered when he released her from his intense scrutiny. She released a breath she scarcely realized she'd been holding, nearly collapsing from the strange relief of being unobserved.[break][break]

Was this how it felt, to be a puppet whose strings had finally slackened? A hand restlessly lost itself in her long blonde hair, and her attention turned to the cities drawn beneath the burning skyline. It looked like all of the continent had caught fire, at this night-nearing hour.[break][break]

"You're right," she agreed, staring into the distance at a world that increasingly meant nothing to her. "It doesn't matter."[break][break]

This wasn't Mt. Chimney, and she wasn't the same woman tormented by a Ruinous Beast, searching for understanding in whatever form she could find it. This wasn't the Petalburg Woods, and she wasn't a lost girl clinging to the only anchor capable of reminding her of who she was and wanted to be.[break][break]

This wasn't Kalos, either.[break][break]

This moment was different. She was different. She swore it, the interference of men and gods be damned.[break][break]

"I'll leave you to your grief, then," she decided, and made to depart the mountaintop.

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

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