she is flushed with adrenaline, pink stained cheeks. nanette only watches as they finish the fight. pokemon battle in quick steps and finishing moves. its quick, and over just as it started.

"i'm ready."

she musters before joining them.

SLJqe3H1

She nods along with Makoto's theory.

The heel of her shoes clack against metal. It is below them and above, beside them on both sides. It moves too, clink and clank the gears turn. "There's not much water, is there?" Her voice trails down empty corridor, "Or plants." Vegetation is found scarcely here, only outside in rare spots, where gears malfunctioned and stopped moving. In between the gaps of them little plants grew.

Nanette noticed them. Green amongst metallics and gray is bound to stand out. "Death is something only we do. Machines just stop working, but they can always be repaired." Eyes carve out the shape of a displaced gear. It stands in front of them, a minor obstruction in their path. Nanette walks around it. "The kingdom died a long time ago, the part that can die, anyway. This is just it's skeleton." All of it was. The self-repairing castle. The land beyond it. The pokemon moving through the halls like ghosts, simply doing what they knew in life.

Clink and clank the gears move like clocks, reliable and uniform. "I find it a bit comforting." It soothes her brain, the part that's always fuzzy.

It was a bit dim of her to keep going, wasn't it? What a silly girl she is! She waltzed towards an enemy, following the rhythm only she seemed to hear. She just lost track was all, the vastness of her mind was elsewhere, spinning in the turns of gears and the life they never lived but experienced anyway. Staying here would be nice, if it weren't for the ——

The pokemon of the Mechanical Kingdom all looked at her now. Eyes glowing even in dim light. Her mind pulled itself together then, adrenaline showing in the redness of her face. This would be a rather embarrassing way to die, wouldn't it? How shameful. She wasn't quite sure what to do, Gallade were already diving for her, mechanical blades unsheathing with a metallic shnnk.

One of the Volcanion attacked too, but the other looked confused. In that way machinery can get confused sometimes. Its head seemed off center and struggled moving to the right. When it tried anyway, the hinge of its neck just shook causing the spikes on its head to vibrate. It looked at her though, as well as it could manage. And it looked confused. In the way that people can get confused.

It looked like it knew her.

Her wide eyes and the bell shape of her skirt, did they trigger something?

It was sudden, like it remembered, like a gear shifted into place. It defended, steam pouring from the spaces in between metal. It fired, the force of it knocked the Gallades together, damaging them as they fizzled in the corner. Wires sparking where they were torn. The other Volcanion was still warming up, the sound of hot air whirled around it, fire loading in its canon-like tendrils. The glitching Volcaonion slammed into it, limbs haywire. The blast shot past Nanette, misfiring somewhere towards the back of the room.

The concussive force seemed to fix it however, as it's head turned right and looked directly at her. Familiarity vanished.

What is she supposed to do?

Run away?

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they were playing a part.

young girl had wound this little music box just to watch. she wanted to see fairy princess and dashing knight, how as the song turned as did they. arms pulling them closer together with each twirl. nanette barely noticed anything past it. angered guards threatened, but she would always be okay, wouldn't she? in this kingdom she had a much larger role to play.

as he leaned down, she let him. this was a tune for a child after all; what princess wouldn't be swept by this pace? his helmet retracted, revealing handsome jaw and plush lips. her eyes carved them out. his closeness a fire lit in her mind. and then ——

it was as if the curtains had closed, the music box shut. with that their romance ended. "what a lovely song." she manages, body still wrapped in the arms of the mech-suited stranger. "the color of your visor is really pretty." she taps at it, absinthe green. an intoxicating hue. "i think i'll have a dress made of it." she pauses. "will you be letting me go now?" she stares into the green reflection her own eyes, lashes curled and long.

"... yes we are fine. thank you for asking." but her voice is distant. eyes look past their protective barrier, and to the clinks and clanks heard just past it. the sheer largeness of machinery looms, architecture medieval but formed not by stone. it is all gadgetry, the twisting form of gears.

tick tock.

the fall, flung from such a high spot. those arms that had just been around her find themselves there again. curled at her waist and fingers a light graze at the back of her head. they crash into the cage, but she finds herself intact. "thank you." she lilts before getting up.

she watched silently as they problem solved. her body aligned with the turns of gears and wheels.

TL;DR - they dance, shes reacting to the almost kiss. the song stops, and she makes some commentary. they fall but seraphim protects her from any serious damage. she watches them pick a lock.

screws and bolts, hinged on on the plucked strings of a music-box-melody. she dances as if she was programmed to. foot placement there and and hands set here, rested on metal shoulder and pressed lightly to metal hand. her dress moves with her, folds undulating with each turn turned.

and she turns. and turns and turns and turns. spins, twirls, cast in a huge circle, music box taking them round and round again. she has no choice, she lets it. nanette is but a cog in the machine. they ignore reason and warning because what else are they to do besides what they were made for?

they dance past protection. past shield and reason. past safety and into danger. she even hums along as they do. knowing the melody to a song she has never heard...

it's almost like a face, isn't it? it's easy to see the human shape beneath all that mechanism. it must cling closely to his skull, ears built into the design and ventilation slitted above the visor. nanette wonders if his eyes are green too, but oh well! this green is much prettier, too inhuman for his eyes to match. she smiles into her own distorted reflection.

"thank you."

ever polite.

how fascinating, this little tool pressed into her ear, capable of reaching such distances. she resists the urge to whisper into it, to say all the things she'd never say out loud. but she doesn't. not when the music distracts.

nanette gasps when it starts. a bright twinkling of music steady over the mechanical kingdom. it's much like a music box, isn't it? through all those pretty notes, the mechanism plucking at them can be heard. little ticks and tocks and clicks and clocks pulled at the shift of each note.

who might the ballerina be? zigzagging on her metal post, twirling with the coil that some mysterious stranger wound. she feels it too, like she is strung and wired and pulled by mechanism. like her little box was wound and now for the durations of the song she too must dance...

---

TL;DR: she is nice to seraphim and smiles at him. shes fascinated by the communication device. she hears the music and feels like a dance is coming on
TAGGED: Cathrine Fisher Amor Rose Makoto Kurumi

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a sound looms over them. it is subtle, a noise stark in its whiteness, but not quiet. each of them should be able to hear it, for with it the world moves.

tick tock tick tock...

mechanism shifts beneath feet, gears move measured with each second passed. an eighth of a turn, nanette watches one particular tooth for the whole of its lifespan, from death until rebirth, refit right back into another gear.

and it's all so pleasing, isn't it? she finds herself moving in time with it. footsteps measured and choreographed, a series of one-and -two-and-one-and.

she looks up at her peers, stopped at the half second.

today she wears a version of what she wears everyday. a dress. comfort in its fabric, a mid-weight blend of cotton and wooloo wool. it's laced hem hits her knees where pantyhoes cover her. she stands at the center of a glass-plated gear. it moves beneath her, an eighth of a turn.

"hello," she curtsies ever-so-slight, synced with the world around her (tick tock). "i am nanette. i apologize for my tardiness. it's so unlike me. i got a little distracted on the way." 

---

TL;DR: nanette is weird, feels very comfortable. meets them at their agreed coordinates late because she was watching gears. 

smiles surround them, crowd enveloping the two in merriment and cheer. it infested her, smile creeping upon the wide blankness on her face. it was sweet, sugar plum plucked, a visage fit for a merry christmas. “absolutely,” she chimes, voice a silver bell ring. “what kind of drinks do you like?”

“… i like sweet things.”