✧ ˖ @second-eruption asked:
[BEAR...?] - Did a blizzard hit while you all were occupied? Your tents are thrashed, your supplies are scattered, and your food is nowhere to be found. Something has clearly gone through your campsite. Something large, clumsy, and utterly destructive. It could be a bear; it could be a Fragmentum monster; or it could be something else entirely. There's really only one way to find out, right?
The destruction at the campsite at the Snow Plains would have been none of Sirin’s business. She could go home whenever she wanted. She had no reason to set up camp. It was a little funny, seeing the humans scramble to figure out what had happened. It was funny seeing their looks of despair. Even so, it really would have nothing to do with her…if it weren’t for the residual honkai energy she sensed. Sirin had long since learned that herrschers these days were not her friends. Honkai beasts themselves were dying out, and what else but a traitor herrscher would be leaving these traces on a planet so far away? Sirin was pretty confident in her ability to at least escape, if it came to a fight, so she decided to indulge her curiosity. The trace didn’t correspond to any authority she was familiar with, and she was always interested in learning more about what GOD had decided to do. She followed the trace through the wrecked campsite, stepping over pieces of tents and overturned bins of supplies. She drowned out the calls of humans. Some were blaming each other. Some thought it was a bear, or one of the frozen figures scattered across the plains. Nobody noticed Sirin, entirely invisible to a human with her shields up. She wouldn’t be so invisible to a herrscher, but she was prepared for that. She found the source of the trace in a woman with long pink hair and eyes like crystals. She was talking to a human, her voice kind and warm. Most certainly a traitor, then. No true herrscher would give so much respect to any of the insects destroying the world. Sirin still wondered if this woman was accidentally responsible for this mess. It wouldn’t be the first time. Sirin lifted her finger and pointed. “Herrscher.” Her voice was bitter and rough, like ice crystals.
"Oh, really? Where?"
The girl's accusatory finger leaves little to the imagination, but Elysia looks around this way and that regardless. And then she laughs, light and airy in her throat. If there is weight in the accusation, it is one that rolls off her shoulders like rainwater.
It's been some long while since that word has been uttered before her with such a tone. Long enough that it is almost bittersweet, and long enough that she has near forgotten its sound. There is no need to ask to whom she speaks, the scars of authority like brands on any human's skin. There is an impossible pity within her for this, and an envy somewhere she has never quite known how to shut out. To have flesh to scar, something genuine to have been ruined in the place of something false to present for salvation.
"I prefer you call me by my name, if we're to be friends. Elysia, or Ellie if you'd rather~"
To that outstretched hand, she levels her own index finger. One eye shut and both brows furrowed, she pushes their fingertips against each other. A triumphant hum, evidently quite pleased with herself, before her hands lace easily behind her back. If she feels threatened, or even concerned, there isn't a single trace of that in her gaze. A young girl bumps into her then, stuttering a hasty apology as she scampers past, and Elysia simply waves after her, smiling.
"It's sweet, how humans band together like this after a disaster. Reminds you of how easy differences are to set aside, don't you think?"
Another child, this one quick to curl fingers in the hem of her sleeve and tug. Elysia laughs.
"I suppose we'll just have to save that conversation for another time, then. Do think on it~"