"no." it takes a bit for her to say it. even still, to accept it, and when she does it takes the rest of the fight out of her. 

she's been slogging through it all for so long. she's been working herself to the bone, subsisting off of coffee and a meal when she can be bothered to remember, and the weeks have dragged on and they have been unkind, and she has bled and sweat and thought, i will become enough. 

but what she has become is chained. 

cornered, with no way out, and his disbelief hurts her too, but she's not so sure she can parse that pain around all the rest. she can only stare at her hands, blinking when she sees flashes of horrendous claws, and then the smooth, if silver-scarred skin.

she presses human fingers to her chest, feels the hard bump of healed wounds. "i threatened to kill myself. but even that wouldn't have stopped it."

KING WAYLAND

☉

this time, she doesn't manage to answer him. her nails, still crusted with blood, tease the fabric of her shirt. she leaves the table, exchanging it for the squirming papillae of a tongue, his angry breaths for the drop-drop of water and blood. 

the phantom had looked at her quite plainly and had said, in more words than necessary, you will be mine. 

and she had seen delta. she had seen king. she had seen the countless others she's come to love and she had known, despite her affinity for selfish acts, this one would be easy. though she'd also known, as she sliced the skin and burrowed into the meat of her ribs, felt her shuddering, squelching heart, that her death would not solve anything. 

it would only release her from her pact. 

"because i was told i could not," she says, brows furrowing, knowing it makes no sense, even though it's such a terrible, awful truth. "and i couldn't. can't. he knew this and he outmaneuvered us at every turn and now i'm nothing but a blood bag to a, what did you say? primordial leech."

KING WAYLAND

☉

she stiffens when his arms come around her. fingers tuck awkwardly against her chest and after a moment, she wriggles them free to linger against his forearm and relaxes just a fraction. her thumb moves in slow, contemplative circles. 

still halfway gone, grounded in bits and pieces, wordlessly thankful as he attempts to scatter her hopelessness. 

her head tilts. 

"yes." more than asked. she bites her lip. "ran a few tests with sapphire. they want to make sure the...that the primal and infinity energy won't kill me. and maybe, just maybe, we can figure out how to make another blue orb for ourselves to control it without my blood."

KING WAYLAND

☉

she's glad, then, that he holds her at her back so that her eyes do not betray the wrongfulness of his conclusion. but he's a smart man, and part of her wonders if he's saying it out loud to make it so. running from the truth, in a way. 

he knows what the weight of rayquaza's avatarship did to eva, after all.

her mouth curls and she actually scoffs. the doomsday clouds are more than happy to scatter in the face of a tangible threat to focus her annoyance on. 

"i don't talk to him and i certainly wouldn't ask him for help. not after what he did to you. but he did come to my office. asked if i considered killing it. idiot."

KING WAYLAND

☉

where matias was met with annoyance, amusement makes her nose twitch instead. she pats his arm, disentangles a bit from the contact, feeling too skittish still for so much comfort. 

"i am the avatar to rayquaza, peacemaker between the leviathans of land and sea. we maintain a balance. killing kyogre would upset that balance."

her holier-than-thou sarcasm subsides into something softer, something more reminiscent of lingering grief. 

"and it's as trapped as i am. killing it would be a sin, not a mercy."

KING WAYLAND

☉

what she doesn't expect is his suggestion. she startles, thinking surely she must have heard him wrong, but when she considers the torn look on his face, she frowns. worry teethes at her. 

"you're afraid," she says. worry gives way to nervousness and she stands, pauses, sits back down. 

"aside from eva, he's the only person who - hmm." she traces the curve of her horns. "who knows what it's like to be changed by his patron. like this. like me."

KING WAYLAND

☉

she is so tired of being afraid.

when she saw the blood-stained teeth, that gaping maw arcing up towards her, she had been afraid. when her skin ripped apart and she thought, distantly, can i be put back together again? she was afraid.

but she was not afraid when her jaws were snapping at walsh. that rare moment of respite came only when she was awash with rage, driven by furious revenge. 

she doesn't want to be that person either. not anymore. 

so how can she be anything proper to him - a wife, a partner, a lover, when he is afraid too? when there's nothing to be done but be afraid?

"people say he's changed and i feel like such a hypocrite, thinking that beneath the false smiles waits a monster." hadn't she changed? shed her self-destruction to ascend into who she is today?

KING WAYLAND

☉