Fable - Ask The Fractures

[Kristen Pirian]

Subtle was her reaction, but in tiny tensings of her arms, her hand, her lips and her brow, it was there, though otherwise she stayed mostly the same, sitting in silence.

Alistair.

Aionus's eternal grace, how could he be so cavalier with that response?

Alistair Krixus Evangeline Kalix

 

[Alistair Krixus]

Alistair felt like he had been seen through a bit. Those were his dark thoughts, that side of him that the Academy and his father had made him into. It was difficult to turn that off. He glanced at both Kalix and then at Kristen and his eyes fell on her missing hand and he looked away. Maybe there was more to feel sorry about.

"Friends aren't exactly the easiest thing to have at the Academy. I liked Raf though, he was a good initiate and good to work with. His death is primarily because of my and Kalix's antics. He is gone and there is nothing I can do to make up for that to him. My stupidity also led to another...friend being greatly injured which will take a lot of time for her to heal. So yeah...It's both. Do I hate the situation as a reminder of my failure? Yes. Do I hate the situation because it led to the death of a good person and injuries to another? Also yes."

That was probably as truthful as he was going to get. It was no use trying to lie about his darker thoughts on the subject, but he would not speak them outright. Better to just explain the mix of thoughts and leave it at that.

Kristen Pirian Kalix Evangeline

 

[Kalix]

Kalix huffed at the word ‘sociopath’ being used.

Everyone saw him as a untamed beast. He was sure of it now.

No one in this whole world could possibly understand how Kalix felt. No one understood how Kalix ever felt. He was alone, it was always just going to be him against everyone else.

“Great.” Was all he said, and stood up, shoving his only hand in his pocket. “I’ll take that dismissal now.”

Evangeline Kris Alistair Krixus

 

[Evangeline]

Evangeline gave an understanding nod to Alistair. This was a good start, and a better place to stop. At least for now.
"There is something you can do for Rafael: remember him. Learn from all of this. Let it build you into a better person. And value those you come close enough to even consider friends. Such bonds are rare for our ilk, though I wish they weren't."

Her gaze turned towards Kalix.
"I suggest you think that over as well, Kalix." The proctor promptly tucked the documents of the students back into their folder before glancing back up. "Initiates Krixus and Schafer, you are dismissed. Initiate Pirian, remain here, if you will."

---

Proctor D'Amour stood from her seat behind her desk and began tucking her folders back into their appropriate file cabinets. She allowed a window of pregnant silence to pass as Kristen sat in silence across from her. Once ample time had gone by for the other two initiates to have vacated and moved away from her office, Eva would round the table and sit next to Kristen, in one of the chairs her peers had been sitting in just prior.

The proctor's demeanor changed markedly. All authority melted away, giving way to a concerned guardian as she leaned forward to clasp her hands over Kristen's remaining one. Her voice came softly, gently:
"Kristen...are you okay?"

 

[Kristen Pirian]

The heaviness in her heart kept her gaze weighted to the floor.

"In Vel Acan, when I was so...pathetic...that I could not even lift a finger to fight with my peers...Noel said to me, 'If you ever threaten our lives again, I won't save you.' And she...she was right to say that."

Glad was she for Eva's comforting touch. For all that it did.

"It's finally come back around."

Kristen tried to shield her eyes with her diminished arm.

"My weakness has at last gotten someone killed."

An awful, ragged gasp, near soundless, caught in Kristen's throat.

"...why did he have to believe in me?"

Evangeline

 

[Evangeline]

Evangeline could do little to fight off her gut instinct as she pulled Kristen into a full hug, stroking the back of the girl's hair gently as she let her whispered doubts into the air.
"Sshhhh, stop that now..."

It never ceased to amaze Eva how much Kristen had grown. Once she'd been just a little girl, barely reaching Eva's waist. Now, not only had she grown much taller than Eva, she was facing things that Eva had hoped she never would.

"You cannot, and do not, bear the weight of this. An inability to stop something does not make you guilty of it." Evangeline tried to assure the girl as she held her. "Noel has had a lifetime to get where she is. Most students in your class have. You've had but a year, and you should acknowledge how far you've come in that time."

Rescuing someone from the pits of self-loathing was never an easy feat. Evangeline knew well the pain of what felt like failure. She questioned for months after the revolution what she could have done differently, how she must have in some way failed her House.

The snowy-haired Dread continued to cradle Kristen as she comforted her.
"Raf was a smart young man, Kristen. I'm sure he believed in you for the same reason I do: because he could see the potential brimming inside you."

 

[Kalix]

Kalix sat up and stomped off.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Kristen cried into Eva's shoulder, the sound of her sorrow muffled by that familiar space. Many years ago in the wake of her rescue from the Blades and in the trauma that followed had she likewise done it. Here again, agony was balanced against Eva's comforting touch.

Kristen's voice, fragile and quavering and buried into that shoulder. "I don't want to be like this. I'm trying and I'm trying and it's hard. By the gods, it's hard."

After a few breaths, she could speak again.

"I want to be like Selene. I want to be like Zana."

She pulled back and looked up, meeting Eva's eyes. Her own were wracked with redness.

"I want to be like you."

Evangeline

 

[Evangeline]

A knowing sigh escaped Evangeline. Some small part of her was happy. This was a well warranted breakdown from Kristen, and that she was feeling this pain hurt Eva in turn, but it was the nature of the frustration that gave Eva hope.

"I know, little stormbringer, I know." She consoled her, citing an old Pirian moniker. "Do you know how I know that you will be like Zana, or like me? Because you want it so badly it's driven you to this. You know that it's hard, but you don't give up. You want to improve. You want it harder."

Eva met Kristen's look with one of pride. Even now she struggled to hold back her own tears.
"You mustn't be like Selene, though, little storm," She warned Kristen, wiping the tears from her cheeks. "Zana and I have done naught but work to get where we are. Selene..."

The Dread's eyes wandered as she remembered her fiery compatriot, and the path she went down.
"She took shortcuts...and it ruined her." Eva's eyes focused back on her student, on her charge. "I see such greatness in you, Kristen. You're smarter than most students here, and your will is strong. I know it's hard, but you can't let it break you."

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Little stormbringer. So long had it felt since she last heard that moniker it brought a smile to her face. A meek smile, one trembling and threatening to buckle under the weight of her present guilt and sadness and frustration, but a smile, as impactful as it was fleeting.

Selene Avar would forever be a hero in Kristen's eyes, but...she also knew how she died. The passing of a Dreadlord of Selene's stature did not go without note. Selene was flawed, just like her, and tragically...those flaws did lead to what Eva said. Ruin.

Kristen had her own brand of flaws.

She could not let them lead her to her own ruin.

Eva always had the right dose of wisdom to soothe any troubled spirit. She was right. There but for the grace of a drive and will she scarcely knew she had before enrolling into the Academy, however much it might feel to be in tatters at the moment, did she persevere. Her guilt, her self-pity and loathing, offered the sickly sweet seduction of shriveling into a wretched heap and wasting away. If she let it, it would be the fracture which broke her. It would be her ruin.

All of this she contemplated in a long moment, head and gaze turned solemnly downward.

And then she looked up.

"I won't."

A breath.

And with a more solid resolve:

"I will not let it."

Evangeline