It pained her greatly to watch it all unfold from afar. All she could do was hold her breath and pray to whatever deity was listening that they came out the otherside ok. An overwhelming sense of helplessness constricted around her like a Tentacruel’s Constrict, poison seeping into her skin and tainting her thoughts.

At the first chance of redemption, she seizes it. Finding Freya to check in is as much an act of selfishness as it is a duty. She needs to feel useful, wanted, and put her own mind at ease that both her previous patron and queen were safe after the chaotic battle at Sootopolis.

An emerald flash flies across the sapphire sky, curving over the peaks of the stony cliffs lining the verdant valley. It’s not until she actually sees Rayquaza and Freya that her sense of ease changes drastically. She realizes amidst the searing pain in her soul that this is the first time she’s seen the dragon since they tore themself away. She can’t breath past the hole in her chest but she pushes forward, as she always has, and guides the green Salamence down towards the pair beside the creek.

Mehira lands upon the stony shore, still until Eva slips off her back. She wades into the shallows for a quick soak while the professor slowly approaches the pair. Her critical glare walks carefully over Freya’s changed appearance then the length of the serpent, “Are you both . . . alright?”

---

freya morningstar

freya anticipates being found. and maybe that's why she's here, and why rayquaza rests here too, because at the end of the day only one person can fulfill the ache that's been left in their hearts. she does not try to hide herself when eva approaches, but she does stretch and slip down their scales. her boots hit the ground with a thud. 

"they're okay," she says. "i think."

she doesn't know how to answer her question - her real question, so she bulls forward, saying, "the evolution took a lot out of them. what they did to me...took a lot, i think. your mega stones made it possible."

her arms go around herself. rayquaza stirs, pupils narrowing as they round on their former avatar. they analyze her, unblinking, and then slowly press their snout to her brow, humming softly. freya's smile is tired. 

Eva Morales

☉

She can see they are tired and wounded, but not fatally. She recognizes the sear left by ice on the dragon’s hide, but the damage is nowhere near how critical it was when they rescued them from that terrible, frozen world. But they are both wounded on a deeper level. No matter how skilled she is, she can’t heal those wounds.

What she can do is be there.

The threshold they cross feels like an ocean. Where there once lived the constant hum of their presence, there was nothing but air. To see them but not feel them felt so strange, but a feeling she’d get used to eventually. She holds her breath, still as a mountain, until the serpent’s rough scales kiss her brow. Their hum resonates through her like it once did, and she cries.

Her thin arms embrace what they can of the god’s wide snout, “I was so worried,” she manages between the shudder of her cries, “About both of you,” not just her former patron, of course. She sidesteps quickly towards Freya and reaches to forcefully pull her into a tight embrace, “I wish I could have seen it,” she is certain it was magnificent, though trying on both of their physical forms. She doesn’t shy away from rough scales that tore through Freya’s skin, she simply holds her.

---

freya morningstar

people have broken down in front of freya before. more in the past few years than before, which makes sense, considering but seeing eva so vulnerable makes her hurt in ways she hasn't for others. not even king. a lifetime lived as this woman's wife and all she wants to do is brush aside her tears, and hold her, and tell her it will be okay.

but she knows she's not crying because it's all pain. there is a tenderness to rayquaza's touch, an intimacy between patron and former avatar that runs deeper than that between freya. and part of that is her own doing too, but - 

she blinks when eva pulls her in, readjusting as well as she can in her surprising iron grip. 

"you'll be there next time," freya promises, "but i'm not so sure i looked as pretty as they did." they're not as noticeable in the sun, but her cheeks are laden with thin gold scales. the skin around them is red, but healing. her arms are more cumbersome, bulkier with split, cracked skin. she forgot to apply her prescribed lotion this morning. 

she tucks her thumb against eva's cheek, brushing away a tear. "we're not going to leave you, you know."

not all the way. not all of me. some of me had to go, eva, but the rest is here to stay.

she tries to find solace in that.

Eva Morales

☉

Only when she pulls back, and Freya wipes away her tears, does she study the subtle glow beneath her skin. There’s a roughness to the golden scales but it certainly doesn’t take away from her beauty. In all honesty, she looks brilliant.

Eva’s hand reaches up to run a gentle thumb over the manifestation of her draconid blood. First smooth, then back against the grain, a surprising roughness, “You look equally as magnificent.”

If Eva’s learned anything in this short life, it’s that everyone leaves her eventually. It is inevitable. But no matter how far they stray, she’d hold them close to her heart. She doesn’t believe entirely it’s a promise they can keep, but she hopes they will. Because without hope, who is she? The woman’s hand drops to Freya’s wrist and holds her gently as she accepts Freya’s promise with a soft smile.

“I know,” she nods, and guides Freya’s hand from her cheek and back to her side. It’s then that her concern betrays her in the creasing of her brows. Her mind catches up to her and her most recent . . . complications from avatarship, “Are you sure you’re ok, though? Feeling alright?” Such an outpour of infinity energy would have its consequences, eventually.

---

freya morningstar

once, she may have thought so. she used to chase those dreams - drunk on fey mist, she would stand before the mirror and let her eyes play tricks on her. now, as though she had not given enough, the scars serve as a reminder of what was taken from her. 

drawn back as she is, it's harder to avoid eva's gaze, but she looks down at her boots anyway, trying not to flinch when she gently caresses her arms and finds beauty in the marks. 

a furious sadness twists through her and she's not fast enough to stopper it. her lower lip quivers and she draws it into her mouth, biting (gently, almost forgetting that her teeth are sharper now too).

"i - " she starts and has to stop because damn it, she doesn't want to cry.

how can she explain to her these chains? how can she tell her why it hurts when it means shaking her faith of one of the only other people eva's been able to rely on in this world? FERNANDO SILPH. no, she can't tell her. not about the mist, not about her mistakes, and not about his role in it.

instead, she says, "when they evolved, i did too. i felt - gods, i felt my bones shifting, eva. these?" and she drapes her palm over one arm, thumbing the scales - "were worse. i was something more animal than human and if it happens again, i don't know how much of me will come back."

Eva Morales

☉

She swallows, hard, fighting back the growing concern that tightens in her chest as Freya starts to crack beneath the pressure. She doesn’t break, she’s too strong for that, but Eva recognizes the fissures forming on the surface. Dangerous, dangerous scars that weaken you over time. Freya would not break, not while Eva is around to help hold her together. Whatever it is, Eva vowed to herself to be a keystone, holding the shape of the fragile structure as best she could.

“It’s ok to be concerned. More than ok, I’d be worried if you weren’t,” Eva’s lips twitch as they try to find the right way to delicately acknowledge her worry, “It’s . . . unprecedented, the amount of infinity energy that would have had to flow through you both to accomplish such a feat,” Eva’s gaze traces over the various physical manifestations of her draconid blood, an armor bestowed by her patron to protect her, no doubt. Eva might have never survived such a thing, “I can only imagine how painful it must have been . . . how terrifying.”

Eva squeezes Freya’s hand firmly, making her own promise, “I won’t let you lose yourself, Freya. I’ll always make sure you come home,” to her, to KING WAYLAND, to Hoenn, to herself.

---

freya morningstar

the ancient serpent looks on as they exchange words. freya does not know if the dragon expected the manifestations, but they knew about the stalactite, and knew the cost of the sacrifice. of that, freya has no doubt. 

she can't find it within herself to be angry with the god. eva may not have survived it and she'd promised her, and fernando, that she'd take care of her. be her fang and claw when the need arose. 

ironic, how literal her promise has become.

"paxton concordas is upping my check-ins to weekly in order to keep an eye on it." seeing little need to worry her further, she doesn't tell her about their intended plan to evolve again as soon as rayquaza is able. 

"thank you," she says, eyes glassy, returning the squeeze. "it's not perfect and it's not how i envisioned it, but i have my home back. mostly. one of the rocket beasts, neon, took to squatting in it and it'll take some time to rebuild, but...i have a home. even if king - oh."

she flushes, suddenly awkward. "i haven't told you." they still have no rings. only the thin placeholder ribbon she used for their impromptu ceremony; that's woven meticulously through one of her braids.

Eva Morales

☉

From what Eva knew about Sapphire, she respected the concept of the program, but when it came to Freya . . . Her lips turn into a tight frown. What did paxton concordas know about physiology? Biology? Health? Avatarship? Primal energy toxicity? The signs associated with other energy overdoses? His ego had always been inflated, including in Kanto. That’s why they didn’t get along back then. She doesn’t trust Freya’s care with just anyone. It's a topic she decides she will follow up on later, perhaps with Paxton himself.

Always the beacon of hope, she smiles and extracts the good from the bad to highlight, “Well, now you get to rebuild it better than it was before,” she doubts Rocket took good care of the city under their rule. It would be a profound undertaking, and Eva would support Freya in any way she needed along the way.

The softness of her features twitch to cautious curiosity when she slips the name KING WAYLAND into casual conversation, “Tell me what?” she asks slowly, noting the flush that rises in Freya’s cheeks.

---

freya morningstar

there is eva, her ever-optimist, and the sentiment is so outlandish freya wants to laugh. or cry. the silver spire had already been gutted and broken. the cave of origin, including the murals that had once helped her find the location of the soul dew, has been destroyed. houses that have existed for centuries, carved into the very rock, have collapsed in on themselves. 

she stops thinking about it. 

and consequently has to consider what she'd just accidentally said to the woman she married in another lifetime, to the person she very well may have married in this one if her path hadn't crossed with king first. 

"he's in the amnesty program," she says and then, with an anxious hand on the back of her neck, "and it was complicated. we had to protect delta. make sure he - we - kept custody. we married at a courthouse before the war began."

Eva Morales

☉

It’s quite a lot to process. She tries, and ultimately fails, to keep her jaw tucked tight. It falls open in full, eyes wide in shock. It doesn’t hurt, not yet. Her fractured heart hadn’t quite yet processed what that means. She’s mostly in awe at the prospect KING WAYLAND being a part of the amnesty program.

Are they talking about the same King? She could understand how Freya could capture the heart of a rogue but what on earth did King have that could possibly reign the savior of Sootopolis into marriage?

Protecting Delta, that made sense. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more it did begin to make sense in her reeling mind. Freya may be fiercely independent, but she loved wholly, and hard. She’d sacrifice everything for those weaved into the tight braids of her heart. This is the ultimate profession of her love, the promise of her loyalty forever.

And with that admission, Freya slips a little further away from her, a consistent warm presence letting a cool breeze slip through the cracks to chill her soul.

“That -That’s amazing! Congratulations!” She pulls Freya into another quick hug, sincere in her happiness for Freya despite her reservations about KING WAYLAND, “Have you even had a chance to celebrate?” she doubts it with everything going on. She pulls back with a frown, “If you need someone to watch Delta I can - if you two want to -,” what kind of hole is she digging herself into now?

---

freya morningstar

freya can't anticipate the reaction from the professor. she should have, knowing eva as she does - that any hurt, if she could still feel hurt over this (and why does a small, terrible piece of her want that to be the case?) - anticipated the joy. the smile over any sadness, hug drawing her in close. 

freya says, "i was waiting for sootopolis," and the words sound awkward and stiff in her mouth.

"no, that's okay. it might still...be weird." he hurt her, but she hurt him too. she stood by the man who made him into a monster, who manipulated friends into hating him. who helped hide his own daughter from him in the first place. 

they found compromise in galar, but those memories of his have dissolved. she still has the journal and its secrets are open to him, but he's finished dwelling in the past. 

"i just wanted you to know in case, you know, you see him around hq. and know you don't have to call the cops on him or anything."

she snatches eva's hand, gently rubs the skin between forefinger and thumb - how she used to when she was stressed, when she wanted touch, back when they were queens. and she says, "i asked him that day rayquaza came to me, you know. the day you woke up. and he knew - he knew you needed me. that i needed you. and he told me to find you."

Eva Morales

☉

Weird is the understatement of the century. Not only did she harbor a particularly potent distaste for KING WAYLAND, but she also shared that unfamiliar emotion with a rare jealousy. Even Eva doesn’t recognize it for what it is. If prompted it may surface, but she’s too selfless to truly acknowledge it. Forever second best. Another silver medal to add to the collection locked away deep down. She has to be a world record holder by now.

“Right,” she snorts, shaking her head as if to blow off the notion all together, as if she never said anything, “I won’t arrest him, I promise,” not like she could manage to, anyway. She punctuates it with a hollow smile before Freya snatches her hand.

Her mouth hangs open at a loss for words. She’s not quite sure what Freya expects her to say to that. The way Freya describes it is as if King had a say in the matter. That if he asked her to stay, she would have and Eva would be ice cold and dead in a creek alone. Not even a martyr, just another body crippled under the pressure of divine demands.

Eva would be blind to not see how much her approval means to Freya. How much she wants Eva to believe in King, in them both. She’s also not an idiot. If forced to make a choice, she knows what choice Freya would make. The answer is ritualistically woven in her braid and around her heart forever. If Eva wants to keep Freya in her life, that means King too.

“I’m happy for you two. I really, really am.”

A half truth. It would take a considerable amount of time for her to truly feel that way.

---

freya morningstar