canards peu commode [r]

[william]

kopec is, in and of itself, not the large war monster that zemina and boure have become. it is a far more political beast, preferring to work with words rather than guns and hiding its claws rather than flashing its weapons in an attempt to cow the other side into surrender. still, it does not mean that it does not recruit, and so william is left waiting for his charge outside of one of kopec's many bases. this one in particular is inlaid with marble flooring, and he takes the time to examine the rare rock while landon stays by his side, dark eyes on each passerby. in the midst of a war even doctors must be aware of their surroundings. william sighs. though he might be a doctor, he is one on-call for kopec. it has left him available to be asked for assignments, and for this particular one he has been asked to escort one of kopec's authors home to lumiose. if he'd had his way he would have simply teleported them home, but -- not everyone is comfortable with psychics these days. anne is disgruntled by the fact, but accepts it. it is the reason why he has his jolteon with him, and not the gardevoir. at the moment, they are the only two in the hallway, while william sits down in the chair provided for him right outside the room that his charge is in, landon at his feet. they both wait. (patience is a virtue that he has honed.) silas took some liberties with this one, let me know if you want anything changed <3

[silas]

I'M NO GOLD

Silas believed he had won the radio interview. People had taken note of the blunt and lusterless Kopec endorsements that this anonymous "Nereus" - he still clung to the transparent pseudonym - had penned, and had seen them as distinctive or exciting, enough to summon him up to speak on it. What strange tastes. This was far from his best work. Anemic and conventional. The propagandists, he had learned, preferred easy, shallow words to the difficult and lovely.

Regardless, he had won. They had spoken to him about ideals, slogans, the nature of war. Silas had gingerly adjusted his headset, leaned over towards the interviewer (a tall, veiny, damp man) and replied that "slogans" was an ugly word, gutteral and choked out, and that to bother with it would be a waste of tongue. There was plenty to say about tongues, language's beautiful machines, and he relished the feeling of his own forming every phoneme of his statements.

The Kopec public in their cars, their homes, and the streets clearly had no interest in the statements, for the damp man had wedged his own dull words in between Silas', bludgeoned the conversation into a more agreeable shape. They wanted a story of politicization, of the choice to live outside the war's binary, and Silas delivered it into their hungry ears.

He told them about his parents, the gym trainers who had been split by the war, one to Zemina and the other to Boure, and about how his mother had realized, in the heat of battle, that the Zemina man she had shot was her own ex-husband. How his own heart had wept and he had forsaken all war and set out to campaign for an end to the nonsense.

Every word was false, painted in cliches and the slime of sentiment.

Quite pleased with himself, he strode out into the hallway. His agent, a superstitious woman but one of the few who could tolerate his "disagreeable personality" - as if that was the sort of thing one could disagree with - had insisted that he not teleport back to his apartment. He hoped the calm of impending night would outweigh the insectile swarm of urban activity.

A man and a jolteon awaited him. "You must be here to escort me home," Silas remarked flatly. Home - as if there was any familiarity to the strange, cramped apartment. The term would do, in a pinch, but Lumiose City ought to work harder to earn it.

©

[william]

the lights are steady, refusing to flicker despite the region outside being engulfed in war. kopec has resources enough that would provide for many a people, hoarded over the last two years as well as being confiscated from war's fangs. still, it does not mean that the neutral ideology is not subject to its own weaknesses. when his charge and his agent leave the room william stands up, hands in his pockets and shoulders loose. landon doesn't move from where he sits, eyes sharp and gleaming in the light. "i am," he says easily, and smiles a half-smile. he knows who the man is; he'd made sure to receive an information docket beforehand, and it's not like he hasn't heard of one of kopec's more prominent authors before. he doesn't say a word otherwise, though, and nods further down the hallway. his eyes don't leave fenwick's. "shall we go, then?" he has a car waiting outside, doors locked and being watched over by one of his pokemon. even here, in the city, he does not truly trust any ideology's influence to safeguard things left out in the open, much less kopec's, the least militant of all. it will be a three-minute walk out, and a few solid hours' drive back to lumiose. landon stands and stretches, static electricity crackling as his fur shifts in irregular directions. the jolteon is more than ready to move, having been in the same location for more than an hour in waiting. william feels like doing the same, quite frankly, but waits instead for fenwick's cue. silas