Akira looked down into the water as it shimmered under the stars. A faint light appeared on the surface, fractured faces, pieces of glass beneath the water that were half buried in sand, clouded by the ever pressing waves. He dug his hands into the shore, clawing at those fragments of himself. He cut his fingers on them, but he didn't care. He needed them, didn't he? Losing them forever would be a tragic loss, wouldn't it?

“You didn’t seem like you intended to perish any time soon, so I figured I’d just take you in now. You weren’t doing anything important, were you?”
A rhetorical question, of course, but Xue Yang still took a second to remember what he had been doing before he’d been spirited away, and shook his head. Nope. He had actually been taking a nap in the mid afternoon sun. Things with his current nation had grown dull with no wars being waged. Apparently that was the case everywhere, even in lands that had previously been unknown to him. A whole three other landmasses! Incredible. He wondered if their wine was any good. Not that he had the tolerance for it, but he enjoyed the taste regardless.

The metallic walls of the submarine suffocated more than reassured. A prison twelve leagues under the sea willingly frequented by its host. Why? He held nothing but contempt for this place, the people inside, and the surrounding ocean. Yet sleep found him despite danger lurking all around.

"A date then." Agreement. Agree to it, and maybe see more of this fine specimen. It was almost like pinning a butterfly to a cork board, wasn't it? Something beautiful caught deep in the spider's web, ready to have the life drained from it. "I do quite look forward to it."

"I... am glad that you are alive."

It's a little too late to be saying such things, but he still has a conscience, and it is telling him to remind the other human being in the conversation that there's relief in them still alive.

(...) Oh that rotten bitch. She certainly had a talent for getting under his skin. As hard as he tried, Cicero sunk his teeth into his bottom lip to show that he refused to budge in the way that meant he'd offer Silvia even a fraction of satisfaction. But as she began to basically grill him with her pointed questions, the sjoskrim felt the words begin to bubble within his throat, ready to burst the moment they reached the surface. As he spoke the truth, he couldn't help but crease his brows in anger and frustration to reflect that he was none too pleased -- something he remained certain that Silvia quite frankly didn't give a damn about. Fingers curled around the cup before him once more as his glare pointed at the chimeran mystic.

"Your outfit, despite making you look like a slutty chandelier, is just right. (...)"

It's fraudulent. But it's the job, and as she reapplies a new layer of lipstick, Cleopatra Sokolov Vanessa St. Clair can't help but contemplate what makes the difference between a star and a slave.

Things had been strange since returning. That hollow, emptiness in his chest that felt... Almost like home. Everything blurred together as time passed. Things around him moving much faster than he could comprehend, as if he slowly swam through a dense fog that encompassed the world around him. Was any of it real? Clouded, frayed. Broken... Nothing but the washing of the waves against the timeless sand that filled his soul. What did that leave then? What in this godsforsaken wasteland of humanity. Of life...

'Quiet now. It will all be over soon.'

Whispered words that fell upon ever-deaf ears.

"Lex - " He freezes at her touch. Though gentle and warm, it cages his lungs in panic. The last time they touched while Deoxys was awake, it attacked. He can't let that happen again.

Killian scanned the depths of their shared space for aggression. The tiniest speck, and he'll know he's made a mistake.

If that isn't Chu-e, it must be the parasite puppeteering him around. Killian frowned. Before he can stop it, his mind is already drawing a comparison. Should he die, will Deoxys treat him the same? Will it hollow him out and use the husk that remained to suit its needs? His stomach twisted into knots thinking about it.

A victim who grew to be an abuser. Deeper than she could realize, a vicious cycle of generational trauma. It was unfathomable, abyssal, predatory. Still, she wore the scars inside and out as she didn’t know any better than masking the pain with absurd amounts of pridefulness that bordered upon ridiculousness. She displayed it to him then as she stood in the middle of his nigh-barren room, radiating a suffocating amount of power, defiant against its banality, a stark contrast to emptiness; she was everything, everywhere, all at once and simultaneously nothing at all, just like him. The succession of misery would end with her. She’d leave behind only a legacy of half-truths.

But as they are right now, so close and with Thian's grip on his jacket so tight and them being so close, Val wonders if he'll ever get to witness this sight again. He wonders if he'll ever be able to be as close as he is in this moment, close enough that, should either of them move ever-so-slightly they would—

That's when everything comes crashing down- the gravity of the situation he's in, and a cold chill runs from the crown of his head to the tips of his toes. This wasn't how it was supposed to go, this wasn't ever how it's supposed to go.