freya has never seen ana this incensed. sure, she has her moments - who doesn't, with the state of the world as it is? but she's always been a force of positivity, mind bright with the desire to learn and create. and it hurts, because ana's not the first person to get upset like this, to express these sentiments like this. 

she almost lost king because she refused to shrug any of her burdens, to let him in and take some of the weight. as much as it pains her, she refuses to do the same here. her fingers pinch a lock of hair and freya tucks it behind ana's hear, hoping to pull her attention.

"i wish it could save itself, but it can't. and there are people i care about on this crummy plane, so i'm going to keep fighting, and i know you want to fight too. so when the time comes, i'll tell you."

a halfhearted smile - "but maybe no interdimensional war crimes while you're with me, okay?"

a woman marred by her hand, stricken and stripped of the sygna suit that did not belong to her. nearly unintelligible babble of 'we just wanted to go home, we just wanted to go home.' war and rot and ruin.

she swallows another sip of whiskey. "they're back in their city. supposedly rebuilding. we can't get there anymore, not without palkia's help, and i've no intent of returning anytime soon."

her brows arch and she asks slowly, "what do you mean 'for lyune's wing?'"

ana fell

☉

with ana consequently imbibing more and more liquor, freya decides she's going to be the responsible friend. she nurses her own whiskey, smirking amusedly when she jeers that the megalopolans ought to just stay in their own city. they will. they want to rebuild. they want to recover. they don't have the resources to launch an attack on hoenn.

not yet, anyway.

her gaze follows ana's thumb to the garage door and that smile on her face dies into an awkward frown. she takes another sip. 

"oh. you made him a new wing? i - well, i didn't have time to tell you before i was...he's healed. John Sullivan healed him." he can fly without a brace now. he can fly unencumbered by anything now. he can fly as he was meant to, with his own muscle and sinew and the dragon fire in his belly. 

ana fell

☉

"has for a while," she says through a pained smile, but ana's already shaken the sands loose. it makes sense, she tells herself, that she wouldn't know. she startles at the snap, looks away from ana, out of words. 

i didn't know. i didn't know you'd do that for me. i didn't know you'd do that for us.

instead, she says, trying to salvage it: "he can fly now. he can make me fly now. could you - could you use them on my sygna suit?"

ana fell

☉

i'll take care of it soon. 

and she'll be there; she has to be there, if she's the reason something is surfacing like this in the first place. and for other reasons; too many to count now. but blurting out i love you too isn't something she's capable of doing and anyway, it would be awkward timing, wouldn't it?

"have you worked with sygna suits at all yet?" she asks. "lyune and i can let you run some tests." what am i saying right now?

ana fell

☉

"i'll meet you halfway," she says. the cape housing her sygna suit is rolled and tucked onto lyune's saddle. she hadn't worn it while they were crossing the beach earlier in some failed attempt to relax and pull her out of her fight-or-flight response. 

"hell, you already worked on alex's arrows and my quiver. they work like a dream. i'll give you the suit for a few days to play around with it." not that it'll flood with life, attuned as it is to lyune and aeris and freya herself, but it'll at least give her a chance to look at the way it channels infinity energy.

"and just hope i don't need it while you do that," she jokes. 

ana fell

☉