❛ are you sure you’re okay? ❜
"I think so,"
It is a breathless response, swept away by the wind and buries itself in the swell of clouds and mist that waits just over the edge of Celestial Tower. Something that perhaps either trainer could argue she had spoken nothing at all, and they just so happen to be imagining the same thing. They are, to one another, strangers. A coincidence in the crossing of their paths, and yet Serena does not believe his question to be unjustified or a push too far into familiarity. She stands, frozen before a monument, and has been for some time. Free at all sides, free to turn on her heels and hurry down those spiralling flights of stairs, yet trapped by the workings of her own mind. A self-imposed confinement broken only with the turning of her head at his first words, and again, to answer another gentle pry.
Slate grey eyes flicker to the corner of her vision— a cursory glance back to what had drawn her here in the first place. That great bell, that Serena swears, despite its inanimacy, looks right through her. And the ghost of a crease forms at her brow.
"It's just... a little more confronting than I thought it would be. I did not think this, of all things, would be so..."
Horrifying. Though she has heard no way to decipher the chimes given off by it, what if her own is not what she would expect? Some cacophonous and dire sound that would disturb all of those at rest? Could it look that far into one's heart, and feed off of fears and worries in the deepest parts of a person's mind, or would it take every part of herself into account? Arms move, crossing themselves over the heroine's ribs, fingertips tracing the outlines of bones at its sides. And, finally, she finds the will to step to the side, out of the bell's focus.
"—Sorry. You can go first."