is there anything, or anyone, he loves, she wonders? if the world came to ash; if it were sundered by the sea, is there a chance he might lose what's left of his humanity? if there is, and she knows this with cold certainty, she would take what's last of it from him before his death. 

if he can be hurt, she wants him to know agony. 

the rain runs rivulets over her patchwork scales. her twin, marred with blood, takes on a glowing pulse, and her nails curve against it. his tongue is slippery in her ears, crushed with the weight of the rolling tide and those hums of ancient, unfathomable grief. 

a roar rumbles within her. wind braces her back and her hair scores her cheeks. it is a beckoner's duty to spill themselves in sacred rite, to offer life for life, but these are not prayers for salvation. so her lips do not part in reverent wanting, but in a disfigured, toothy snarl. 

"rannox ekess bekdri, myvish-isthasy."

declan walsh

☉

there is an insistent pushback, a sort of strenuous smothering that makes freya pinch her brows with with thumb and forefinger. they don't speak to her in words, or even pictures, but with emotions. even those are confusing, as most of them are so ancient and tremulous, that they are almost entirely foreign from her own. 

but she understands frustration. 

and longing. 

"yes, i'm fine," she says and stops resisting. the pressure lifts. she blinks and shrugs her shoulders. she can't pretend to comprehend their anxieties, nor does she kid herself into thinking they want to be here out of concern. nevertheless, they're leaving sootopolis. she can feel it on the wind. 

"sounds like we'd get along." 

the reports say they're not harmful on contact, but still she doesn't reach out to touch them. "don't know. we're hoping you can help answer that question. the soil's different wherever they're growing apparently."

howard slayte

☉

it's not the only secret, she thinks.

kyle lopez is still, by all intents and purposes, dead. his revivification is known by some, and though the shell has been made whole, the parts of him they need - the bits and pieces that made him champion are gone. 

her soul's been moved enough times to know it can be stripped, cut through, shorn. 

that is not why they are here, really, but the thoughts drift that way nonetheless. kos floats petulantly behind her. after one too many snapping, freya had threatened to return the creature back into its ball. micolash wasn't even this bad when it was just a poipole. 

"i'm assuming we can count on your confidentiality," she says dryly as she squats down beside a particularly gnarly spotted fern. 

a pressure mounts in the back of her head and she gives it a shake, murmuring, "no. we're fine."

howard slayte

☉

the last time they'd entertained these chambers, she'd been half a foot shorter. now, obsidian horns curve from her head. plaited braids have been woven around them. missing now are her assortment of mega stones, though lyune's is still twined out of nostalgia. 

she gives a wordless, albeit gracious nod to the commissioner before taking her seat. 

her tablet flicks on. after rubbing exhaustion from one eye, she takes up her pen and waits for the others to arrive. 

dahlia goode  FERNANDO SILPH PENELOPE LIVY

☉

several lifetimes of this act live within her, but never has she submerged this flesh in that sacred pool. never has she lit the candles as her mother may have done, and her mother before that. it had taken time to gather the artefacts, and longer still to adorn herself with them.

the dress is a slip of a thing. she had brushed her fingers over her left shoulder, felt the ruined and knotted flesh from her lover's seal. and she had traced the patchwork scales on her cheeks, the bumped ridge to her once-broken nose, and the scar that lay across her face. 

she is not a soft and beautiful creature. her limbs are scored with silver from a lifetime of training beasts with teeth and claw sharper than blades. yet when she stood in front of that mirror, wearing the vestments of her people, she felt - for the first time - wholly and completely herself. 

the pool glitters up ahead. she can hear the slow trickle of water. phosphorescent algae glows at the basin, but the cavern is otherwise dark. she carries no torch. 

you certainly play the part well. 

mid-step, she pauses. the flat of her bare foot touches, pivots slowly. golds turn and she blinks at the darkness behind her. there - a silhouette, arms crossed, leaning nonchalantly against the rock. that shadow moves with a predator's grace as it detaches from the wall. 

freya takes a step back and curses herself for it. 

"is that how you see me?" she says and with no bow, no dragon, and no sword, she sinks her fingers into the well of power humming inside her. the whites of her eyes spill with ink. slit pupils narrow. 

"i am a servant of the people, but you, i will make kneel before me."

Absinthe Blackwood

☉

she knows what this tree is. rayquaza had tried to burn its likeness in sootopolis. xerneas is dead because of their actions. she looks towards her companion and walks wordlessly to the roots, crouching so that she might lay her palm against the bark. 

how we plague ourselves with what could have been.

here, she can pretend to be a lifegiver instead of a taker. there is a pair of ornate copper watering cans. freya takes one and holds the other out for blossom, expression grim. 

Blossom Delier

water it

☉

she does not bother remarking that the prophecy does not claim they'll take sootopolis in full. even their brightest minds haven't yet cracked the meanings within. sootopolis is her failure, and her burden, to bear. 

the weight of it takes shape as the world blurs. her fingers twitch. there isn't any real danger. and it's not really him, but as their options hover before her, she'll be damned if she lets him get the better of her here. 

"hold his pokemon off," she says to both fafnir and josh as she nimbly ducks under the swiping claw of a gliscor. "i want to kill him myself."

Josh Devlin

defeat him

☉

freya doesn't exist in that moment. not to lulu, and yet she does not know whether that is a comfort or an omen. before she can parse it, the dark void overwhelms her; blackness smothers her like a blanket.

she kicks furiously against it, but the binds continue to tighten. her arms are pinned to her sides, ankles lashed together. golden eyes sear through the veil. ghostly limbs move of their own volition. her own voice startles her. 

'fernando, i'm sorry. feed me again. please. i want to forget.'

she thrashes with a howl. 

Lulu Flint

☉

mauville's gym leader joins her in their disgrace. she's somewhat unsettled by his unwavering intensity, but as she looks out over the ruined city, she admits that seeing sootopolis, even in a simulation, would hurt. 

when the dragon is felled and the letter is in her hands, she rips it open. the other scenario, so recent, is fresh in her mind, and the color drains from her face as she reads what it says. 

they thought they'd found salvation. 

they were doomed from the start. 

the next dawn awaits them. fafnir finds them a safe area to rest. when they both settle, they'll be sent onward. freya starts a fire with faf's help and tosses the note into the flames. 

"the dragons won't be moved back to sootopolis for some time," she says, "but we have the draciary at hq."

Josh Devlin

rest

☉