The moon plays tricks on her this late at night.[break][break]

She's insisted on being alone here -- because if she chooses that fate, then surely it isn't so unbearable, is it? -- but there hasn't been a moment to endure the full weight of her solitude. Not until now, at least, with her humble camp erected and limbs aching too much to do more than rest awhile.[break][break]

It's preferable, hiding here. Her apartment feels stifling ever since the time lost to that penitentiary's cruel confines, and the other places she'd prefer to venture are closed to her.[break][break]

She tells herself there's nothing to miss in Mauville. She's missed the freedom of the outdoors most of all, though she avoids the sea ever since her misstep in Lilycove.[break][break]

Better to leave Hoenn entirely. It feels too suffocating these days.[break][break]

The stars shimmer overhead to map the yellowed sky with otherworldly splendor, and she stares up at them through geyser steam, a little Shaymin keeping watch for its tired mistress.[break][break]

They enjoy the silence of one another's company, until a small squeak alerts them to an intruder on their encampment.[break][break]

"I thought I told you not to follow me."

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

16 search for suitable locations to set up camp/base (e.g. underground tunnels, outskirts, abandoned homes).

[attr="class","pkmn"]

She leans forward on the ground, tucking her knees beneath her chin as she watches him approach. Her mouth turns dry with the sudden memory of mochi, and she clears her throat, hoping to focus on other things.[break][break]

"Depends on the path," she hedges, shrugging. "Sometimes paths converge, only to simply lose sight of their destination."[break][break]

He's near enough that her Shaymin bounces over, sniffing at his heels. A little plot has been set nearby, its seedlings sprouting under what had been the watchful care of the Legendary Grass-type. One plucked flower dangles from its teeth, offering it generously to the newcomer.[break][break]

She's never been so disappointed in a bodyguard's performance as in this moment.[break][break]

"Greatness is quite a thing to promise, though. Even for you."

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

05 harvest the fertile soil or plants of the land.

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"I wouldn't know. My life has been anything but straightforward, I think."[break][break]

What he asks next startles her. It's a complicated question in ways he might not realize, rhetorical or not. She studies him as he bends down, fascinated by how gently he pets the Pokemon at his feet.[break][break]

Does he not remember how he almost killed her in battle with freya morningstar? Does he forget already the indifference he held towards her in the penitentiary that remained an all-too-recent memory?[break][break]

These answers feel too uncomfortable to voice aloud, and they sit unsteadily on the tip of her tongue until he speaks again. When he does, it's enough to make those thoughts evaporate and dissolve.[break][break]

"It's strange, seeing you stricken with guilt," she observes, tilting her head at him. "I'm not sure it suits you."[break][break]

Though it stirs guilt in her in response, dusting her skin with mist-pink shame.

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

24 involve themes of romance, loss, or forgetfulness in some way. this can manifest in geyser steam, gas or plants that can evoke

[attr="class","pkmn"]

Is this regret, then? For his indifference when the mist fled him?[break][break]

Bewildered, she watches him bow to his knees, and reflexively rises to her feet in answer. Staring down at him is like viewing the world upside-down: dizzying and confusing.[break][break]

"I never asked you to pledge yourself to me," she reminds him, arms winding around herself. "Is that the sort of thing you assume I want?"[break][break]

He's not in his right mind, no, but he's not a dull-witted person by any means. Moonbeams can't change who people are, at their essence.[break][break]

It whispers of what his brother falsely promised to her. She can't help but sense there's mockery in it.[break][break]

"People keep their word until they don't."

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

30 depending on the lunar phase, your character's moods may be affected for better or for worse.

[attr="class","pkmn"]

He rises, appearing like the same tall and imposing man she'd met her first year in Hoenn, save for the single eye that beholds her. She's not sure how much of the fresh widow he'd met remains the woman she is now.[break][break]

Is that who this promise is meant for, then? The woman he'd hoped she'd be, instead of the one that she is?[break][break]

"You never told me what you want," she reminds him. There's a chastisement in that observation, skeptical and uncertain. "Maybe what I want doesn't matter to you, but what you want matters to me."[break][break]

All that's given inevitably gets taken, in her experience. That's why no one ever gives more than they can spare, unless they receive something of value in return.[break][break]

Again she thinks of his brother, though she tries not to. What he'd wanted had been obvious enough.[break][break]

She hesitates, unsure of it was worth investigating any similarity between them. He feels different somehow, though the cynical part of her suspects their aim is the same.[break][break]

"I'm not someone who has much I'm willing to give."

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

[attr="class","pkmn"]

The chill night air sends shivers through her skin, her silhouette pale beneath the moon. Long blonde hair shimmers like starlight, ashy as silver to misted eyes.[break][break]

"...Have you?" she asks him, prying. A footstep sets her back, but not enough to create true distance between them. "Someone like you surely doesn't want for company."[break][break]

There's a strange stab of jealousy at that thought, hypocritical and immediate.[break][break]

It occurs to her she doesn't want to be proven right.[break][break]

Sometimes when she looks at him, he looks like someone else to her, too. First loves are hard to forget: the intensity of emotion, the longing and the yearning for something you have yet to know in its entirety.[break][break]

That love for her late husband had died quickly, but its intensity never left her. Its void gnaws at her from the inside, forcing her to seek out that same early rush like a compulsion. It's a love like a flash fire or a flood--a destructive and powerful force, ending in ruins almost as soon as it's begun.[break][break]

Her Shaymin bounds forward to nuzzle up to her, petals fluttering around it in an echo of another day in another place and time.[break][break]

"Would you believe me if I said I miss it, sometimes?" She looks away, attempting to coat her words in self-deprecating humor. "I think I liked how easy it was, being with you back then."[break][break]

Some part of her, always, has invited ruinous calamity in.

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

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"Do you really believe that?"[break][break]

Boys, not men, make grand promises like this. She raises an eyebrow at him, feeling so much older than him in this moment. Is it the mist that allows him to speak so flippantly?[break][break]

"I don't think even Dialga can take back a lost opportunity."[break][break]

The Shaymin is gathered into her arms, a useless guard against a danger she still can't yet articulate.[break][break]

"What do you propose, then?" she asks, dry humor in her query. "What unique power do you possess that gods of time do not?"

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

[attr="class","pkmn"]