Private Tales Everything is Going Great

[Saderzaine Vult]

Sader frowned a bit, his calm expression cracking a little. It appeared he was simply to be stonewalled yet again by Marcia, and so he sighed and decided to give up. The girl’s will was truly indomitable, it seemed, and he figured that by this point he was doing far worse than good as far as making a friend was concerned. He simply raised an eyebrow as the smaller initiate stomped the ground, which couldn't have been the greatest move as far as her foot was concerned.

"Fine, then, do-" he began to say, his words falling to silence as he heard Marcia interject once more. "Sorry, what?" He asked almost involuntarily, a bit surprised. It appeared they had both worn the other out. "I'd never dare try to carry you or whatever. That sure would be a hypocritical thing to do after the big deal I made about how I don't think you're some princess, right?" he said, too tired to do anything but take every word seriously. Honestly, at this point he was just there for moral support. To make sure she didn't run off with an injury and such.

Proctor Perrine was not renowned as one of the best healers of the land for no reason, and quickly being fixed up by magic seemed like the right way to go. After all, if a useful power was more efficient than waiting for time to enact it's power, why spurn such a service? "I meant what I said back there. About doing whatever it takes to get to the place I want to be, I mean. This whole program is a bit like a game of cards, and I intend to be it's victor. If you are having trouble deeming me..." he looked a bit thoughtful for a second, figuring out how best to explain his view.

"My point is, I would never be stupid enough to underestimate one of my opponents. Bless the souls of all who underestimate you or me or anyone else, because I suspect they usually end up underfoot. Another step on the staircase to greatness. I will do all I can never to end up in such a situation, and that I believe the two of us have in common." He said with a bit of a grave look, his face slowly morphing back into that guise of calm he had perfected ages ago. "After you." he managed to add, gesturing towards the exit of the sparring room.

 

[Marcia]

Marcia observed him as he spoke, her brows furrowing in either contemplation or judgment. It was difficult to tell with the girl, as her features always tended to be drawn taut by a tense string of anger. Her nose even twitched at the mention of 'a game of cards'.

She didn't need further prompting when he motioned for her to leave, awkwardly hobbling out of the room as her foot throbbed with increasing heat.

"You don't half talk when you open your mouth, Vult," Marcia commented as they moved through the candlelit hallways. The girl's voice seemed to be more level now, the flash of her anger having been turned down to a simmer once again. That was the problem with rage; its sudden peaks and valleys made it difficult to predict and even more difficult to converse with.

"Thought you were supposed to be the quiet boy."

 

[Saderzaine Vult]

Sader followed her out of the room, calming down a little bit. By this point, he was fairly sure why things had gone awry. It wasn’t that he couldn’t relate to his angry comrade at the most basic level, for he imagined that he would also be rather angry at having been attacked and forced into a locked box. However, the point of divergence was likely how the two of them processed such things.

He still remembered well when he had fully accepted that he was in a place where the only person looking out for him was himself. Trouble was simply a hassle to find a workaround for, and his high pressure environment demanded excellence. The best way to get the advantage was to work quietly and efficiently.
Marcia had probably learned the same lesson on reliability he had, but instead of working out a way to harmlessly walk around disturbances, she seemingly chose to face them head-on.

There were merits to both strategies, but the two directions were fundamentally different nonetheless. He simply walked in silence, content to simply ensure he continued to tiptoe over the mines potentially in his path. Marcia even speaking to him after that whole debacle was a surprise he thus failed to expect. "Nope...I like to be thorough when making a point. " he replied. He cringed a bit inwardly at his inability to hide the slightest bite he added to the words.

However, it was at least a relief that the overall volume of the conversation had lowered. It was a much more familiar scene to the boy. Nobles were, to their credit, usually the types to settle confrontation without shouting. "As for being quiet, I never meant to say that. I just try to be observant and avoid trouble. It's easier to do those things when you don't bring attention to yourself, I've found. Over all my years at the Academy, I've learned it's most unwise to make assumptions about people at all. Got me into quite the slump recently." he explained with a bit of a grimace at the end.

Suddenly, a thought occurred to him. "Marcia, I have a request of you. Tell me honestly, would you rather that I had left you in the box? That I had gone with the fold and left you to rot? If the answer is yes, then that is that, I suppose. However, if the answer is no, then tell me what exactly it is about me you have a problem with. You can also ignore me, I guess." he said with a thoughtful look. Of course, in most cases the answer to what he had asked would seem rhetorical, but he figured Marcia had by now learned he could not quite read her and would take it as a true question.

Marcia ( Kristen Pirian )

 

[Marcia]

"I can tell," she bit back with much less regret, bracing herself for the lecture as she hobbled along the corridor with a sense of purpose. It was better to keep moving, if not to distance herself from her past mistakes, then to stop Initiate Vult from constructing a podium from which to speak.

Marcia endured, feeling as though being lectured by a particularly staunch pro-Republic Proctor, very nearly fearful that his monologue would turn into therapy.

There was a difference between them, but rather than methodology, it appeared to be the boy's desire to be liked that glimmered beneath the waves of illusion of logic and reason. His solitary friend back home. The way he apologised to her when nothing was his fault. How he asked if she had a problem with him. How strange.

Strange, and perhaps even a little tragic.

"I was running out of air, Vult," Marcia replied flatly, massaging her battered knuckles. "So, no. I did not want to be left in the box."

She was a victim of circumstance of her own making. By design, that box was a box she had made for herself by being a bully in the past and combustible in the present, now that the shoe was on the other foot. Saderzaine looked for a friend, but she was no better than Larrainth or D'Amour on paper, her anger in place of their arrogance.

No less callous, as was about to be demonstrated.

"You're unremarkable. You keep your fucking head down when you should be raising it up. Initiates with less talent than you rise above you because they know what it takes to be the best." Her turn with the podium now. "Yeah, I'm fucking hated, but I'm noticed, I'm seen! Every Initiate and Proctor here knows who I am and why I'm fucking here!"

Marcia looked at him as they walked, her upper lip curling into a sneer as she gave the boy exactly what he wanted—her issue with him.

"Make a mark. Stand out. Fucking do something!" She continued before finally shrugging with a roll of her eyes. "Or don't. Graduate as a Third Level wallflower and take your mediocrity to Parliament, where you can be all talk and no action as much as you want. I don't fucking care."

 

[Saderzaine Vult]

It was a bit odd, to truly grasp the scope of what he was dealing with here, but he had done it. Where he had ignored and deflected whatever anger he felt, Marcia had embraced it. Made it common enough that anger became something usual, if not central. It came with the added side effect, evidently, of not really giving much of a shit what anyone else thought. That was usually a plus.

Sadly, Sader had not quite learned how to do that consistently. See, if there was a potential ally to be won, he couldn’t help but try to seem…nicer than usual? Everyone had the capacity to be a friend until the boy reached the conclusion that such a possibility was akin to fantasy. He had reached such a point with specific people, like King or Vittoria, and now he had arrived at a similar conclusion with Marcia.

He simply waited as Marcia further remarked, now a bit confused at how it had taken him quite this long to figure out his efforts were futile. “Fair enough." he said with a shrug and continued walking, picking up the pace a little to stay within speaking distance. Perhaps, though it was now clear he and she would never be true friends, if he played his cards right they could still depart from this conversation as at the very least allies. However, what Marcia spoke next instantly destroyed those diplomatic thoughts.

Unremarkable. The word had a special effect on him, in that it didn't echo. Most words did, even insults. However, this one, it being the first time he had ever heard it directed towards him, stood in place. Front of the mind, unmissable. He almost felt the urge to laugh at how incredibly weird he felt. Unused to being so out of his element, he momentarily failed to diagnose the emotion that came with that word. After a moment, however, he realized it was rage. That was a tad strange.

That was inane, even. He had asked her for her honest opinion and thus had no reason to get mad. However, in that moment, his emotions surpassed his rationality. "Shut up. You are free to think I use logic to hide my laziness, but do not pretend to understand me anymore than I do you." he said, hands shaking. Instead of looking angry, however, he simply looked incredibly, deeply concerned. After he finished speaking, he walked in silence for a few seconds.

"What....what was that? I asked you for your issue with me and still got mad. That's....stupid." His mind was clearly no longer on their conversation. Sader had always believed he had to be a bit chilly and stoic to survive, and this breaking of character had sent him into damage control mode. "Sor-," he said before pausing, as though unsure how to continue. The next words would be easy: ry. That...was unfair of me. I know better than to be a hypocrite. However, for some reason he couldn't find it within himself to say such a thing.

"Whatever. Let's just keep moving." he said, falling into silence.

Marcia