freya sits up and one disheveled medical assistant follows red-faced behind roy, starting to sputter apologies. she waves them off, assures them it's fine, he really is family. a small part of her does want to demand he leave, to turn away, to let her hide from the world for a few hours longer. 

but the walls are a sterile white, and the light is bright, and there is no hiding the changes to her body.

her lip curls and she resists the self-conscious urge to touch them, but that slides away to get replaced by a startled confusion at his companion. memories flicker and all the itching parts of her skin feel as though they're rotting, eaten through by a pestilence from another battlefield. 

the battlefield where she saw that creature last. 

"did you...why do you have fernando's zygarde?" she asks, ignoring his question in lieu of her own. confusion turns quickly to panic when she sees the leash, the chain, around his wrist. anxiety eviscerates rational thought. 

"are you okay? it's not...he hasn't hurt you, has he?"

Roy Aker

☉

she's thankful there's no need for a heart rate monitor, lest it betray the jackhammer rhythm in her chest. his confusion does not ease her anxiety until he asks who the hell fernando is in the first place, and only after making herself take a couple of breaths does she accept that he's fine. 

not pacted. not chained. not shackled. 

her palm itches. he sinks into the chair and stubbornly veers the conversation back to her; she looks away, tongue in her cheek. slightly too-sharp teeth press into the cartilage. 

"we lost," she says when she finds her voice, words flat. frustration seethes inside of her; it hasn't left since the press of her palm. she's like a caged animal, thrown behind salt-drenched bars. at the end of the world, all of her progress shining brilliantly at her back, and none of it mattered. now she's left pacing until she bleeds, and until that blood can slake the titan's thirst. 

"but the dragon has returned to its snow-white lair." she says bitterly, touching the side of one curved black horn. "our lineage is more powerful than we thought." for better or worse. 

Roy Aker

☉

she sits up, wincing at aching ribs, and gets a better look at roy's companion. fernando's never seemed so connected to him (quite literally, considering the leash), but she doesn't exactly find that surprising. not many of his pokemon have inexplicably deep bonds with him.

uncover the stones. reclaim your birthright. her mother's parting words. no i love yous or take cares, but a mission. a purpose. the pain of that has lessened with every stride through an alternate version of herself. she'd thought them words from a woman who only wanted to see her daughter take back their home, but maybe there's more to it than that.  

curiosity makes her forget the weight on her shoulders and her expression is slightly more enthusiastic now when she asks, "draconid? where?"

Roy Aker

☉

off the coast of sootopolis. she perks up at this and a glimmer of her old warmth returns. she'll have to tell Eva Morales and Remiel Calcifet. maybe even howard slayte, though the archaeologist has assured her numerous times, and in not so many words, that he'd rather avoid working with the crown prince outside of their colleagueship. 

it's strange, watching the back and forth between roy and the canid at his side. not in a bad way; in a way that reminds her of her bond with lyune - intrinsically deep, as though he's part of her at the molecular level. 

"will you take me there?" she asks. "not now, obviously."

she reaches for her plastic cup of water and swallows back the fire in her sore throat. "wait, did this happen at the warfront?" he would have told her sooner if it had, right? and she'd seen him fighting by her side at sootopolis, the canid beside him. 

"thank you, by the way. for having my back. and for making it out alive."

Roy Aker

☉

she deflates and what hope they'd managed to salvage in the wake of sootopolis' near destruction is gone in an instant. a sigh sinks her deeper into the hospital bed's sheets and frustration has her scratching at her arm without thinking. scales thrum, warm and golden, around the puckered sores on her skin, but the gauze stops her from reopening the wounds.

"it does indeed." a living piece of history uncovered, wrapped around his wrist. a city broken, a city saved.

she blinks in the face of his brutal honesty and an awkward heat rises to her cheeks. friends and found family are still a new concept to her, but her own flesh and blood is another thing entirely. 

"rayquaza always meant to let it take me," she says. "there is nothing you or i could have done."

it's what she tried to tell him that day in the cave. it's why she did not see their pact as a blessing or a gift, but as a curse, and part of her still clings to that resentment - because of what was done to her, and the scars that have long healed but still twinge with echoes of pain. but after her conversation with walsh, of all people, she's learned that perhaps the gods are as strangled by fate as the citizens of hoenn. 

"i need you now too. i need you to help me rebuild my city. protect my people."

Roy Aker

☉

she believes him. he'll be there when she calls upon him. she does not need to do this alone. she'll never have to go through anything alone again. a hand fists gently in her sheets, trembling with a gratitude that threatens to overflow. 

but they're still blood, and caring conversations have their limits. 

so it's with ease that she prepares to discuss the nitty gritty. she'd only ever seen the zygarde up close once.

"it managed to fend off wo-chien. i know that it's strong." but therein is her limit of knowledge regarding the draconic canid. fernando never mentioned it to her. why would he? she wasn't even dignified as a knight on his chessboard - she was always just another pawn. 

"he still has it. or, he should. i can get you in contact with him."

Roy Aker

☉