[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/r5MA4gk.png[/img][h3][sup]━━━[color=9d78bd]❝[/color] [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRinzjIxEJ4][color=white]ʟᴀᴜɴᴄʜɪɴɢ ɪɴᴛᴏ ᴀɴ ᴇɴᴅʟᴇss sᴋʏ ᴇᴠᴇɴ ɪғ ᴛʜᴇ ʙʟɪɴᴅɪɴɢ ʟɪɢʜᴛs ᴄᴀᴛᴄʜ ᴍᴇ[/color][/url] [color=9d78bd]❞[/color]━━━[/sup][/h3][/center][i][color=B592D2]‘What is this speech supposed to be?’[/color][/i]

Common sense? A cover up and whistle-blowers? Amaris couldn't entirely follow exactly what far-fetched conclusions Elpis had come to. Hounding a man—did this girl even hear what she was saying? Common sense was that companies didn’t like bad press. Common sense was that they wouldn't hesitate to bury a man in return for their reputation. [i]Common sense[/i] was ensuring there was no reason for anyone to think twice about him, and that using their reputations to stir something more exciting than a traffic incident was an easy way to deal with it.

And to have the gall to call any of it something as petulant as [i]silly[/i], regardless of whatever half-baked scheme or speech the girl had... It would have been nice to think Elpis’s head was only full of flowers, but Talents never proved themselves deserving of such optimistic faith.

Amaris thought of her too-big apartment. Of men in suits and whispers at the dining table and of the day she saw specks of illumination dotting the tips of dark locks. She thought of a radiant smile. Of the smell of cigarette smoke fading over time. Of late-night searches and of AGC Rising. Of a phone call. Of staring into a mirror and forcing herself to acknowledge her own uselessness. 

Her skin crawled, each word from Elpis raking across her like sharp barbs. Naïve and innocent, but there was nothing [i]trustworthy[/i] about them, was there? Revulsion and disgust rose like bile in the back of Amaris’s throat as she worked, her movements gentle and precise as they always were when it came to aftercare despite the fury boiling her blood. Surface level first aid, easily removed parts of her coat stripped or severed with thin bolts of moonlight to turn into makeshift support or supplies, a quick perusal for identification to bring in case the hospital might need it; the movements were well practiced, even for an AGC Rising debut Talent. 

This wasn’t out of her usual methods of operation; whether she was acting as Silvia or Amaris the Moon Arrow, it had always been the same: minimize the number of people affected, reduce collateral damage with precision, and above all else, people before press. She’d sold it with some difficulty to marketing before her debut—if she was going to try and hide her face, then it made sense for her to prioritize differently than the average Talent. A slower initial growth in exchange for long-term credibility when it came to her unscripted work, she’d said. If Amaris the Moon Arrow was gone before the press for the same reason every time, then she could always point to her previous efforts for an explanation. For all intents and purposes, laying the foundation was the only thing keeping her in check at the start. It was more for her own conscience—[i]perhaps one day, the distaste would turn into white noise she could ignore[/i]—but the convenience couldn’t be understated. 

Which might have been why she felt little more than revulsion over Elpis’s outburst. Wretched. Revolting. [i]Vile.[/i] She should have known better than to be drawn in by the initial act at any measure. Maiden of Hope? A Talent that cared? That had been little more than a fraying thread to grasp to begin with. Hope was a stupid, idiotic thing to hold onto, and she should have [i]known it[/i]. Long before she came to AGC and she was sure that long after Amaris the Moon Arrow fulfilled her purpose and faded from Neo-Astraea, Silvia Alba would always know only one thing to be true:

[indent][i]Talents were all disgusting in the end.[/i][/indent]
She shouldn’t have bothered with anything more, but perhaps Amaris, Silvia, whoever she felt more like in the moment had held onto a fraction of goodwill for too long. All she could feel as she adjusted the injured man’s position in her arms and prepared for her own departure was a sense of abhorrence. The façade of guarded distance chipped, a sharp trickle of long-held odium managing to faintly paint the her final words with the only emotion that Amaris had ever carried toward her own ilk.

[color=B592D2]“Enough. I get your act already.”[/color]

She really did hate Talents after all.