Completed Everything is Going Great

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.
 
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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."
 
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 )
 
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"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."
 
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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 transformed 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. It was just such a specific word, and meant for very specific comments. Well, he had asked for her honest opinion, and if that was it there was nothing to do but process.

“Alright. Fair enough,” he replied blandly, not really sure what to say next. However, an idea was sparking in his mind. If nothing else, Sader was a learner. Patterns and information was the name of the game in the Academy and especially for him, beyond. Marcia was another pattern he had never encountered before, an interesting new variable.

“Why is it so important to be “remarkable”, though? If being remarkable has thus far gotten you into mostly fights and hassles, I don’t…” he paused for a moment. No, now was not the time for a barrage of words. There was a simpler question he could ask, he was sure of it. Just then, it came to him with a flash of inspiration. “Why does it kill you to imagine turning the other cheek every once in a while?”
 
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Fair enough.

That was it; all she could perceive from him were those words without a single iota of emotion. She couldn't read his thoughts, didn't know if there was an entire diatribe spoken within that she was missing. Unremarkable, like she said.

She had scoffed in the space between his next words, picking up the pace as the boy decided to pursue a different 'reasoning' method.

"You mean capitulate?"
Marcia returned with a scoff and a sneer. Oh, wouldn't her bullies have loved that were she to surface one day with a straw spine willing to be trod on at will. 'Yes, Vittoria, you're right; I'm nothing but a rat. Won't you please allow me to polish your boots for the rest of term.' Fuck, the bitch would be so smug that even imagining the scenario caused the girl's jaw to clench. "This isn't a place to show weakness."

Especially when you were already perceived as physically weak in the first place.

"And being remarkable is to be seen, Vult,"
she seethed, astonishingly still angry at imagining a world where she turned the other cheek to Larrainth, "and to be seen is to be at the forefront of the Proctor's minds when they're handing out mission assignments. The fights, the hassle. It's a worthwhile fucking price to pay. What's your stoicism going to get you? The Sader Vult trophy for most morally superior Initiate?" She threw her hands in the air in mock celebration of the hypothetical achievement. "Congratu-fucking-lations!"
 
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He heard Marcia begin to move slightly faster and almost laughed, imagining how they must look nearly shouting at each other from a ways apart. What she said next, sadly, didn't even spark that much of a reaction from him at this point. It was just another instance in which words were being put into his mouth for no reason, but luckily, Sader was not one to roll over. To give up. "I didn't say anything like that, and you know that. Don't even start with that shit." he replied, audibly sighing.

"To walk away is not to surrender. To show someone that whatever drivel they're spewing has no effect on you is not to surrender." He said firmly, not quite bothering to keep up at this point. It wasn't as though it would enhance his whole idea much anyway. "I am weak in some ways. That much is true. However, if you keep going on and equating measured inaction to weakness..." He paused for a moment, unsure of how exactly to make his point. "You're going to get burned, and badly." He finally managed, content with what he had said.

'From the looks of it, you already have.' A small thought said, popping into his head unwelcome. He simply stayed silent for a while, trying to figure out a way to respond to Marcia's other point. "To be seen and..." he looked for a moment as though he was tasting what he might say next in his mind and realized what he had been about to say was going too far. "It's going to get me a place as a decent Dreadlord. My inability to be rattled is an asset." he said with a shrug.

"Whatever, though. I'm rambling. All I ask is that you try it sometime. You can wish your tormentor chopped in half and sent to hell, just don't respond in any way. Then ya walk away, easy as that."

Marcia
 
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There was something inherently wrong when Sader swore, like witnessing a dog walk on its hind legs or nobility eating street foot. It did not feel prudent to bring this up as the boy continued his assault on her temper as if it were something that words could change.

"Get fucked, Vult," came the retort, she said, stopping and turning on her heel, the motion of which caused her foot to twinge, only riling her up even further. "It's easy just to say shit, it's a different story to fucking do it." It wasn't like the Academy hadn't tried. Every out-of-class altercation earned a stint in solitary confinement, time to cool off and get a grip. The Proctors had attempted to impart the wisdom of anger management to her, such as breathing exercises, counting down in her head, and a litany of useless tools that weren't in her hand when the beast came to the fore.

"Go on, be emotional,"
Marcia sneered, approaching him aggressively. "It's easy just to turn it on and off, right? Stop coasting by on decent. Start stepping up. Start standing fucking out."

In theory, her hostility was pointless. Winds could howl, but mountains never moved. At least, that was the useless, pontificating philosophical take. In practical geology, even stone would erode in time, shrinking mountains and carving out valleys.

If he didn't move, she would be right up in his face, or instead, with her short stature, in his chest. Hands shot out to give him a sharp, painful shove, granted he didn't avoid or try to stop her.

"Go on! Respond. Don't walk away. Get fucking mad! Just change who you are. Have some fucking emotions, you sanctimonious prick!"
 
"Wait, can we get one thing straight here? I'm not saying you aren't allowed to feel anger. That's stupid. I'm saying you should try to control it. It's not even as though you have a short fuse, it's that you don't try. At all." Sader replied with a tired look and something suspiciously close to an eyeroll. Upon noticing the momentary pain in his chest and looking down a bit, his expression shifted to an unimpressed glare. "Very mature of you. Stop acting like a fucking child, because you aren't one."

"I'm willing to accept that I'm trying to climb a vertical brick wall with this whole argument, but the truth is that you WILL learn to hold your tongue." he paused momentarily before reconsidering, imagining the rest of their interaction if he failed to elaborate."What I mean is, you will have to deal with many a noble if you achieve your goal of becoming a high-ranked dreadlord." Sader spoke, wondering how best to explain the Nobility to someone who had evidently never seen any.

"They're all shrewd acidic snakes like Vittoria and if you can't keep your hands to yourself and your mouth shut they will silence you. Staying alive in those circles requires much more than in this Academy." For a moment, equating to about five seconds, his mind seemed to leave the conversation for a moment as he remembered Kristen and grinned at the memory. Perhaps they would fight together as comrades one day. "Not all are like that, but exceptions make the rule." Maybe there were more exceptions, but he had no luck in the finding department.

"Here's the one sentence version: Frankly, as you are, you're far more of a hindrance than a help in practically any situation I can think of. Happy?" He asked sarcastically. "Shall we continue the walk?" The last vestiges of his stoicism had long since been used and saying what he had left him feeling refreshed. If Marcia bothered to look, she might see that his footsteps were just a tad lighter on the hallway stone than they were before.

Marcia
 
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Marcia's efforts to physically goad him into action let slip the noble will. You will learn to hold your tongue. Of course, he pivoted into a further attempt to de-escalate, but there was a gulf of status between them in those fleeting seconds. Him from some proud lineage and her from nothing.

She felt smaller, and in the wake of that came loathing anew, the kind reserved for the Larrainths and D'Amours of this realm. Her jaw flexed, molars pressed together, changing the shape of her face from angry to severe.

Before she could fully formulate a response, demanding that he judged her on the merits of her performance on an assignment or mission rather than in the corridors of the Academy, he struck her. Not with a fist or an open hand as would have been preferred, but with a single word.

Hindrance.

That was it—the root of all of her rage.

She froze, fixed to the spot as boiling blood rose to Marcia's head. The culmination of all her fears and anxieties rolled into a savage little summary. To him, she was less than. She heard hindrance, and her mind worked to fill in the blank spaces. Weak. Rat. Liability. It thrummed with the rush of blood to the girl's ears, dimming the clarity of vision and driving nails into the beleaguered palms of her hands. What looked like static silence was a monumental effort to stay rooted to the spot and not charge him down.

Every screaming instinct wanted to smash a fist into his jaw, that impact of bone on bone the only salve that could soothe the beast.

"I'm glad you could be honest with me," she spoke quietly, the strain in her voice the furthest thing from glad possible. He had walked on while she remained still, the tension in the girl's shoulders all he would see from the back. "It's better to say what we mean, no?"

Marcia was afraid to move, as if doing anything other than standing still would have proven him right in the loss of all control for a taste of violent relief.

"Go to bed, Vult. I'll see myself to the infirmary. Thank you for your help earlier."
 
When Sader paused and looked back, it occurred to him that Marcia had frozen in place. Knowing her firebrand nature, this could have a variety of meanings. It was most likely not a good meaning, so far as Sader could tell, but it was better than wasting any more breath arguing. The bridge they could have built as friends was by and large of wood and now consumed by fire anyway. Rolling his eyes, Sader sort of swept his foot to the side as though to kick away the pieces of rubble from the structure still clogging his mind.

If Marcia learned to keep her cards close to her chest through his words, that would be more impactful than anything else anyway. Just then, Marcia spoke again, and her words almost made him fall over onto his face. Did she just...do that? She still sounds like she wants to break down a wall and pelt me with bricks, but even that's progress. He stared at her for a second before an expression crossed his face: Pride. Despite all of their arguing, Sader was proud of her.

He figured that would go over as well as a poisonous dagger in the throat, but he was too tired not to be a little bit of a jerk. "Ironic you would talk about honesty, but I'm glad it's sunk in a little. Just how important it is to be able to lie like this." The poker face would need some pretty serious work, but that wasn't his concern anymore. He would simply continue to do as he did from now on like any other day, and that would be that. "Go on ahead," he said with a grin as he changed direction.

"Oh, and if you ever feel like fighting for real, I'd appreciate the challenge."

Marcia
 
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