homecoming [o]

[king]

alex continues up the stairs behind her. "the pax institute." he remembers her face. "you were... sophia. your physical attributes are slightly different from my memory. going through a goth phase is a bit late for you. but i know you.

sophia."

toska

[toska]

rude. no wonder physis does not remember him.

"...this is my real hair color"

not that too many people knew that. she had been dyeing it since she was a young girl.

"sophia is dead." she doesn't mean it the same way that she used to. sophia's heart is still here, but she lacks any real presence in the waking world. the dream world is the safest place for her, and at that point, what right would she have to count herself among the living? she is a ghost in all the places in which she does not belong.

"call me physis."

there's even less of the second floor left, but at least some rooms still had a ceiling. the house appears to have been ravaged mostly by pokemon, and not fire. admittedly, that makes it a little more problematic.

she finds a nest of wild kakuna in the first room. she leaves them be. in their presence, they will scourgify soon. she sees little point in exterminating the near-dead.

king

[king]

alex stares. "very well." he watched the kakuna, stepping over to stand before them. within such proximity, the husks have barely any defense for the virus. he can see the light dying from their eyes as they change.

he leaves and follows physis further into the house. "a shame your partner isn't a little swinub again. size is powerful, but you yearn for when they were travel sized."

toska

[toska]

at this point, physis feels compelled to look away. scourgification always felt a little too...personal of a process to be watching. even moreso than actual death.

at least they will be gone soon, off to forage for food. the food that being a normal kakuna has denied them. are they better off as scourge? physis does not think about that question.

she does not actually remember a time when phillip was any smaller than a piloswine. a travesty of being born ten years after her brother, she supposes.

"you do not know of the things that i yearn for." she bites back her irritation. first yves, now this boy. they are strangers, the two of them. 

king

[king]

"i know not what anyone yearns for." alex pointed out. "these are things people keep to themselves."

toska

[toska]

she likes alex better than yves already. sorry, yves.

physis wanders to the other side of the room with the grace of a ghost, checking the view from the northern window. there's dust in the window frame, but she doesn't mind too much. it's better than the false cleanliness that castle forlorn has to offer. the smell of ashes and decay here are real, moreso than the illusions that the land maintains.

"...what did you know of sophia?" she takes another good look at him.

qbcb8Tik <50 she at least recalls alex's face this time dear god woman
king

[king]

he's quiet. alex looks out the window and leans out, taking a deep breath. "naught but her face, as she knew but the same of me." all he sees are stars from the dream world, eons and eons spreading before his eyes. he sits on the sill, staring back at physis. "and it seems that's all i will learn of her. you cannot meet people who are dead."

maybe no one would meet alex again.

toska

[toska]

"...you're right." she's finding more reasons to like alex, at least. "i...am starting to remember your face, but little else"

physis can hear the sound of crunching bones and twisting flesh downstairs, followed by an inhuman cry. a wild pokemon had stumbled upon the house, it seems. scourge pokemon made excellent groundskeepers.

she wonders if the sounds are supposed to bother her more than they currently do. would it have bothered sophia once?

what does it matter what she thinks, as long as she can keep her shut away? how does she achieve this? what part of herself is physis able to kill? she takes a good look at the next wing, and it is just as unrecognizable as the last. see, sophia. see the things that you had held dear, see how fruitless it is to keep anything in this world.

it is far easier to crush the hopes of her enemies than to crush the hopes of sophia rosenburg.

king

[king]

alex isn't offended. he shrugs. "i have memorable hair. perhaps next time." he listens to the sounds, can even hear sonata's laughing. "is it any different than a pyroar hunting the lowly deerling? scourge pokemon eat other pokemon, just as a predator does prey. it's simply a different palatte of taste. all of it will die in the end."

in the back of his mind, he wonders why scourge is so different than just the next predator. eos is the prey, but they fight to survive like how deerling run until their hearts bursts.

there was a pause. "try not, perhaps, to remember me from a dead woman's mind but remember me anew as you were born physis."

toska

[toska]

physis smiles rather faintly. come to think of it, maybe this is why she preferred to befriend those who had hailed from pax institute. they tended to prattle less on the sanctity of things that have proven to have little value.

"as long as the living struggle, they cannot complain about the consequences of that struggle." physis does not deny eos the right to fight her and her comrades. the losers, however, would have to accept the judgement of the winners. it is a two-way street. she had chosen this edict from the moment that she decided that she would not simply lie down and die. "i always remember my fruitful relationships, but a name would help."

and a few unfruitful ones. physis finds it difficult to forget.

she holds out a hand for him, as if to prove that she is corporeal. "i am not dead,  assure you. i am alive, and i deny those who will deny me this life."

sophia and physis are one and the same, and sophia exists as a mere ghost. for now, her death seemed like a suitable answer for those concerned.

king

[king]

he watches the hand carefully, but does not touch it. perhaps it is fear that all of this is a dream, perhaps he is the ghost of the two.

"alex."

toska

[toska]

physis withdraws her hand. she does not understand alex's conflict. sophia does, and she understands on some level that he is not reconciled.

if she could be fully reconciled with sophia, then she wouldn't be here, would she?

"pleasure. i'll remember you, alex."


king

[king]

"the thought is heartwarming." alex continues through the house, for once not following physis around. he stands at the top of the staircase, looking down to see philip. there is no interaction between the two.

alex moves on to stand at a window looking out the back of the house. he draws the ghost sign and fades from existence if for only a moment. eyes closed, he simply stands there.

for a moment, the virus is quiet. it lets him be.

it lets him live.

toska

[toska]

physis continues her own ventures throughout the house. it is as she expects. nothing that stirs the ghost in her ear, nothing that brings sophia rosenburg up to the surface. it is a purified existence that rots in a way that only decadence can.

when she eventually reaches alex, she does not speak for a few moments. physis allows him to have a bit of quiet as she observes.

her first words after the reprieve are a surprise, even to her. "the land of nightmares must be hard on you."

it is a place that wears down on fragile existences. sophia would know. in many ways, physis had protected her all along.

king

[king]

alex turns to physis. there's a haunted feel to his eyes, tiredness that he had grown to feel as a norm. dark circles purpled beneath his eyes. "it's the closest i've to home now. i dwell there most days."

it's a puzzling thing, that he spends all his time in a place that could reject him at any moment, break him down into fragile little pieces crushed into dust. yet it doesn't. "it does not bother me most days."

toska