[attr="class","main"]

A laugh is coaxed from him, genuine though it was strained.[break][break]

"Nothing I haven't dealt with before."[break][break]

Though his cynicism had led him to believe the worst upon his sister entrusting him with her treasured partners, the explanation she offers makes sense enough to be accepted in the aftermath of her return.[break][break]

He bites his tongue around empty promises that he'd have protected her, that Rocket would have, that she needn't have run — he knew, perhaps more than anyone, what it felt like to be afraid. She masks that fear in talk of research, but research could've been done in Hoenn. With Darkrai, and with him. Fear was the demon that chased rational thought to the ass-ends of a destroyed region.[break][break]

He frowns as she brings up their parents. He'd forgotten.[break][break]

"Never got around to it." He'd demanded answers from Padraig, and yet Lulu's disappearance had eclipsed all other priority upon his return to the hotel. "Padraig said they'd fucked off to Kalos when it got bad." A pause, as he considers something. "You know that's not why I went, right? I wouldn't have asked you along for that. Not unless you'd wanted." His throat feels thick. "I just wanted to see the mountains again."[break][break]

There's a raw pain in his voice, though he tries to mask it, that suggests there's more to it than mountains and memory — though there was truth in that as well. He'd been running from Rowan's betrayal just as she had, but he'd slunk back to his master like a good little pet when their vacation was through, even with his sister's absence a yawning chasm in his heart.[break][break]

She asks after him in kind, and he considers the worth of a lie. Cillian was an anchor, happy to sink himself to stabilize that which mattered most. But after a moment, he drops his defenses enough to offer the truth.[break][break]

"Been better." An understatement. "A lot's happened since you left. That's Hoenn for you, though, isn't it? Can't fathom why you'd want to come back." His attempt to deflect with humour is poorly matched by a smile that never manages to form. "Alive, though, so that counts for something, right?" He doesn't know what to do with his hands, fidgeting with the pen blade that Aurelie Lefevre had forged him. Its steel shines in the light as he flicks open the blade, then flicks it shut. "I looked for you, you know. I'd never have stopped."[break][break]

He finds he doesn't feel angry. If anything, it's empathy that fills the cracks wrought by grief.[break][break]

She'd never stopped searching, either.

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