"You pick a peculiar time to mock me, Fox."[break][break]

Though his comment earned a snort of derision, no true offense was audible in her voice. If anything, he'd note the faintest curl of a suppressed smile that threatened to break her stoic veneer -- like a crack in otherwise flawless marble.[break][break]

Her reputation as a Ruinous Avatar had not translated to her behavior on this voyage; perhaps it was why Tapu Fini floated around her now, rather than the patron that had laid her grudges bare.[break][break]

The scorned madwoman remained silent, while the calm and collected persona of a high-society woman had stepped back into view. Saying little while saying what mattered was a skill that she'd learned to perfect in Kalos. It was a skill that had earned her underboss, though the role had rarely seen her use it since.[break][break]

Petalburg would mark a change in how they saw her. She'd sworn it would be so.[break][break]

"This city is no more my home than Sootopolis is," she murmured, glancing over her shoulder at him. Her own hair was tied back in a severe braid, practical but nonetheless prone to being whipped about by the sea breeze. It was the same wind that she trusted to steal her words so that only Howard would hear them spoken aloud. "Besides, my interest in Kanto remains as it ever was."[break][break]

'Indifferent.'[break][break]

An eyebrow lifted, peculiarly amused as she attempted to gauge his world-weary expression.[break][break]

"And you? Does writing your name in the archives of history 'thrill' you?"

[attr="class","ooc"] howard slayte

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"A rather unforgiving medium, stone. But a lasting one. Fitting for a monument."[break][break]

She leaned back on the railing, inhaling deeply of the fresh, salt-stung air. Being on the sea had an exhilarating quality to it -- like being set free from all the tethers of the earth, in all its snarling roots.[break][break]

When she'd been confined in her late husband's home, she dreamed about the ocean often. It promised escape.[break][break]

"Besides. Hoenn invites as many actors as are willing to dance and preen on its grand stage. Their number and their role matter little, so long as the script concludes as it ought."[break][break]

He'd feel a second pair of cerulean eyes on him, blank and unreadable as Tapu Fini followed them across the waves. The piscine deity cut a graceful figure, her fin slicing through the water like a knife. Spray shimmered like mist around her form, tinged a rosy hue that glittered like dawn on the water.[break][break]

At his mention of her patron, Elisabeth turned her attention to the ocean and offered a wry smile.[break][break]

"They don't favor each another," she said in unasked-for explanation. "Their goals and designs are separate. The two rarely interfere with one another, if they can help it."[break][break]

Together, but apart: befitting of beings of land and sea.

[attr="class","ooc"] howard slayte

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"We harmonize better with one another, Wo-chien and I," she confided, glancing at him again. "It will take part, for it is the greatest strength I possess. But the nature of rot and corruption isn't spectacle, Admin Fox. It's slow and insidious."[break][break]

Her fingers tapped against the side of the boat, nails clacking lightly. Her face contorted somewhat, eyes staring at something distant on the horizon behind them.[break][break]

"And you? What of your restraint?" She squinted, trying to make sense of where the sky and sea blurred. "I was not the one to make Mt. Chimney ignite. But Dewford was all your doing, was it not?"[break][break]

Was it not somewhat hypocritical, she wondered, for him of all people to chastise her?

[attr="class","ooc"] howard slayte

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"Hmm."[break][break]

Vows meant little to her. Words without actions were just noise. Her own promise to MATIAS SILPH had been discarded for lesser reasons. She held no regret for that decision.[break][break]

Pacts like the one she'd made with Tapu Fini, or with declan walsh for that matter, held weight for the power of the other individual involved. She thought little of howard slayte's power. Therefore she thought little of the admin's words now.[break][break]

"We'll see how history remembers today," she said instead of acknowledging him. The land neared, despite how she kept her back to the promise of war that the coast brought with it.[break][break]

A pause.[break][break]

"I wasn't aware you regretted Dewford. Some might call it your crowning achievement."[break][break]

Some might say the same of her and Mt. Chimney.

[attr="class","ooc"] howard slayte

[attr="class","pkmn"]

Her laughter cut through with an audacious brightness, one that attracted glances from the Kanto Rocket grunts milling about the ship. Tapu Fini turned to face her with vague curiosity, drifting back from the waves to study this emotional shift in its Avatar.[break][break]

"Everything cycles, yes," she agreed, but it sounded less like she was talking to him and more like she was talking to someone else. Bitter amusement rang in that observation. "Seasons and history have that in common. Summer is nearing its end, and when autumn claims the world, it begins to rot in anticipation of winter's frost."[break][break]

Ting-Lu returned to her memory, towering and terrible in its prophecy. To a man like howard slayte, such concepts of Fate were nebulous, useless things.[break][break]

To a woman like her, bound to two gods, those strings seemed all too real and binding.[break][break]

"Maybe I'll send you flowers when all this is over," she teased him, finding herself oddly in good spirits despite the foreboding vision that clouded her gaze for a moment. "Something congratulatory to celebrate our victory. Roses, perhaps?"[break][break]

It wasn't a serious suggestion by any means. But making jest relieved tension, and the coming day would be thick with it.

[attr="class","ooc"] howard slayte

[attr="class","pkmn"]