Private Tales Tous les Mêmes

[Marcia]

How?

Just... how?

Marcia stood in the courtyard, arms folded across her chest and neck craned to the sky as she stared upwards at one of the Academy's tallest turrets. She hadn't taken to suddenly admiring the robust masonry that had stood both the test of time and the Revolution, but instead at one of the flagpoles. She hadn't taken an interest in vexillology either, her glare not reserved for the flag of Vel Anir that fluttered in the late afternoon wind off the angled pole that jutted from stone.

No, she was looking at the large, shining, circular object hanging from that very same pole that hadn't been there yesterday.

A shield. Her shield.

Like a turret centrepiece, it hung there, gleaming in its well-polished, spiky glory.

As far as bullying went, it was relatively mild. It was more infuriating than anything, which was a small mercy, all things considered. The last jape that had befallen Marcia had led her into being locked inside of a heavy, nearly airtight chest, considerably more dangerous albeit paradoxically less annoying. Why was it preferable to almost perish in an equipment room than be inconvenienced?

The passing snort of Initiate Terrano answered the question quite succinctly.

It was fucking humiliating.

A swift breath punctuated her rage, the diminutive Initiate's lower jaw jutting and setting as she pulled on the reigns of a sudden, violent reaction. Not now, not in the courtyard where a Proctor's watch could catch and subsequently punish such an outburst. Later, yes. Very much yes. Although, given that almost every one of her peers that passed by had taken a moment to enjoy the spectacle with varying degrees of amusement, who exactly she would force to taste the furious sole of her boot later was an entirely different question.

That was the trouble with being so deeply and unapologetically unpopular. What could she say to them? I'm sorry that I beat you all up when we were younger; I didn't realise that I was going to grow up to be so short? No. Fuck that. The past was the past, and the Initiate was by no means the biggest tyrant that ever walked this place. She wasn't even the worst in the Academy at that very moment. They could build a bridge and get over it.

Or steal her shield and hang it.

"Fucking how, though?" Marcia finally hissed under her breath, face scrunching under the weight of irritation and the thought of trying to climb the turret to retrieve her shield.

 

[Kilien Basmarc]

As it so happened, Kilien was on his way through the courtyard in a leisurely stroll, fully intent on skipping the battle history and strategy class coming up next that afternoon. Most often he paid little mind to those moving about any given area and had grown to expert level in ignoring the jeers of his academic peers - but he found himself giving pause, boots coming to a flat-footed stop as he spied Marcia standing off to one side of the yard.

Staring. Up.

Blinking into the afternoon sun as he gave her a curious, cursory look and adjusted the strap of his shoulder bag, Kil's gaze followed the line of her own up.

And up.

And up some more until he was wincing toward the sky, shielding his gaze with a lifted hand as he tried to focus in one what had her rapt attention.

"Fucking how though?"

He took a few steps closer to try and focus better, squinting at the gleam of - was that her shield? He didn't know Marcia all that well aside from what he'd gleaned from witnessing from afar. They'd never really had beef or any direct run-ins and though she did have quite a temper on her she'd never joined in on the chorus of howls or mockery thrown at him.

"Awwoooooooo-" speaking of which. A glance told him one of his most invested bullies, Mort Pelham, was walking by with his cadre of goons, "Got a new moon to howl at, Basmarc?" he cackled as he paused to look up at the shield swaying in the crosswind, "never thought they'd get it up there. Guess you'll need a new mirror to do your makeup in, Marci."

Mort and his goons laughed.

Kilien winced, sucking air through his teeth at what he assumed would happen next.

 

[Marcia]

The mockery of a howl broke Marci's concentration, causing her face to twitch like the first crack in a dam, teeth exposed in anticipation of violence.

Howling was a sure sign that Initiate Basmarc was on the scene, and right enough, as the girl finally looked down from her shield, he was standing there. She was largely indifferent about the lanky scruff; he'd never given her a hard time but, in the same breath, found him to be only half-committed to their studies. He seemed harmless enough, but then again, anybody who befriended Larrainth was likely a bad seed. Or a lunatic.

Not that it mattered; he wasn't the source of her ire.

"I beg your fucking pardon?" Marcia inquired sharply, her attention diverting towards the smug face of two-pronged mockery, otherwise known as Initiate Pelham—a prick's prick. The girl had already unfolded her arms, a sure sign of violence on the horizon.

Undeterred by the numbers game, she was already on the move, looking to square up immediately as a response to the targeted mockery and as the perfect outlet to release every inch of rage that had been building since laying eyes upon her misplaced shield. It didn't take much to forget restraint for fear of a Proctor's wrath, but then again, it wasn't called a long temper.

"Do you want to say that again? Or do you and your bum chums want to fuck right off?" Marcia seethed as she squared up to the bully-in-chief, the height difference making it quite the comical sight. Well, right until the girl launched a solid headbutt into his sternum.

 

[Kilien Basmarc]

That wince turned into a cringe as right on cue he heard the snarling retort of Marcia. Well, this wasn't going to be the afternoon he'd hope it would. Suddenly there were clouds in the sky and he felt the shadow of one on his back as it passed before the sun, dropping a dark onus on the entire courtyard and its occupants like a funeral buggy outside of a flophouse.

His gaze lingered a little longer on the shield, its gleam dulling in the cloud's umbrage, before slooooowly dropping it to watch as Marcia made her move.

Kilien raised a hand and opened his mouth to stop her but-

KLONG!​

She'd fallen for what he presumed to be the oldest trick in Mort's book. Right before the tiny titan collided face-first with her own shield. Kilien flinched at the sight and sound of it - so abrupt and sharp he felt it in his teeth. He could hardly stand to watch it entire, unsure of if she'd face-smashed the pointy side or not.

This wasn't exactly out of the ordinary for the Academy but it didn't make him feel any less bad about it. He didn't care what the Initiates said or did to him - he'd heal just fine. But others like Marci? What was the fucking point? Who did this impress? Certainly not the Proctors.

 

[Marcia]

There was a quick flash of silver and a fleeting single word only thought for a half second:

Shit.

Marcia woke up on the ground a few seconds later, eyes to the sky, which was far too bright despite its cloud cover, causing the girl to squint. Her forearms were suspended mid-air as if she had been in the middle of something before deciding to take a sudden outdoor nap. What had she been doing again?

"....oh," the pint-sized Initiate half-verbalised, the lackadaisical manner in which her jaw moved making her feel incredibly drunk.

In her half-baked cognition, Marcia was, at the very least, aware that her face was wet and stung a little more with every passing second. One of her hands lazily drifted over to touch the source of the wet, missed on the first pass, before then successfully touching down on her nose. Yes. Very wet. Very fleshy. Unbeknownst to the girl, not only had she split her forehead open on impact but had also caught her nose on one of the shield spikes, tearing a large gash through flesh and cartilage, which left a flap of skin hanging perilously where a nostril should have been.

"...oooh," she repeated after lifting her hand and staring at the fresh blood that now coated her fingers.

 

[Kilien Basmarc]

The flinch. It got worse.

It was the difference between his father or mother threatening a sound beating. Mother's beatings were always so much worse.

This. This was much worse than he'd anticipated. Once the sound of impact stopped ringing in his teeth, Kilien chanced a slivered look toward the scene and almost wished he hadn't. Evidently Marci had been met with the business end of her shield and the shield won. Handily.

Laughter, unrepentant and mean, echoed through the courtyard loud enough to turn heads just inside the surrounding buildings. Mort mentioned something about no amount of magic or makeup fixing Marcia's face before sending her shield back up to where it had been lightly swaying in the breeze on-high.

No one stopped them from leaving. No one said a word. Kilien watched them go with sober dejection. It could have been worse. They could have ganged up on the poor girl and beaten her pulpy - but even Mort was smart enough not to pushed those particular limits. The last few Initiates that had dared spent a week in detention with Proctor Harkenov and come back with a few more fears they hadn't yet been aware of.

He could have walked away and enjoyed his afternoon as intended, but it wasn't in him to leave it be. With a heavy sigh, Kilien stepped over to her and stooped down near her side, "What a fuckin' dick, eh?" The expression on his face was trying strongly to be empathetic and not pitying.

Kilien offered her a hand to help her up, "Can you stand? I'll take you to the Infirmary."

 

[Marcia]

Even then, laid out in the middle of the courtyard with eyes squinting at the sky, the sound of laughter instinctively crawled beneath her skin. Marcia loathed laughter. She no longer knew how to associate it with mirth, instead hearing it as the siren song of mockery—usually at her own expense.

The half-acknowledged comment about her unfixable face prompted her to grimace and redouble her concussed efforts to feel the damage.

Still wet. Still fleshy. Kind of...

...flappy?

"Yea', fucking dick," Marcia agreed with the scruffy figure looming overhead, words slurred as her brain was still in the process of putting the jigsaw of cognisance back together, "...wait, who's a dick?" And evidently failing miserably, the recollection of the last five minutes missing pieces lost under the furniture in the wake of head trauma.

She grasped his hand, smearing blood all over the kind gesture, and pulled herself into a sitting position. Almost immediately, the Initiate was struck by an unpleasant sense of nausea, the world beneath her unsteady and uncertain, everything moving in double vision despite being still. Gravity directed the flow of blood down her mouth and chin, dripping freely as she cringed.

"Noooope..." the girl conceded, flopping onto her back once more, "...just gimme a sec."

Did he say infirmary?

"Is... it bad? My face?"

 

[Kilien Basmarc]

Eugh. Now that he was closer it was a lot worse than he initially thought. He was pretty sure he'd caught a flash of bone-white as she moved about.

"...wait, who's a dick?"

"Mortimer," Kilien let the name slide off his tongue like a bad insult, more amused by himself than anything, "who else?"

The blood didn't much phase him and he didn't know too many Initiates that it would, it was more the... flappiness of her face. Human faces weren't supposed to do that.

Knees locked and heels bobbing just over the ground in his boots while he stooped, there was a strange sense of calm about the otherwise fairly urgent situation dribbling down Marcia's chin. At the question of severity his brows nearly met as they knit upward and formed lines of concern over his brow. Kilien lifted a hand to itch at his hairline, "Well it's not good. You remember that other girl from the year above us ... Fennec I think her name was? Always painted a skull on her face to cover the her scars."

His hand lowered just enough to gesticulate the approximation of a skull shape in front of his own face, lips peeling back to bare teeth for emphasis.

"You might nearly pass for her sister if that flap of yours falls off."

 

[Marcia]

Who else?

Marcia mercifully lacked the grasp of her brain to start listing all of their peers who could possibly be responsible for her injuries. She might as well have named their entire year, present company, and outcast, quiet kids excluded. Mortimer was a contemptible shit, however, ranking highly on the index of cruelty alongside the likes of Larrainth and D'Amour.

For as much as she could remember of the last five minutes, it made sense.

At least she could remember the skull-faced girl; who could rightly forget? She must have graduated at the top of the class in terms of signature looks. Although, her relevancy in the conversation was...

...oh.

"...flap?"

FLAP?!

A renewed sense of urgency found her at the mention of 'that flap', and she rolled over in a fresh attempt to return to her feet. On hand and knee, Marcia grimaced at the rate of blood dripping on the ground beneath her, quickly pooling in the horror show of facial trauma.

"Lemme just..." the girl mumbled, redoubling her efforts to take his hand and pull herself up with more success than last time. "Okay. I think I'm good." She didn't sound confident in that fact, perhaps due to the earth tilting and warping beneath her feet. "Yeah." Didn't look confident either, brown eyes staring off into the abyss. "Infirmary."

Marcia let go of him and took a step. Then, a second, her body leaning perilously to the right. The third step, she attempted to recover, her feet crossing over. By the fourth, she was falling over again like a drunk tree.

 

[Kilien Basmarc]

Kilien hefted her to her feet as delicately as he could, giving no impression of any inordinate amount of strength. Marcia was a tiny thing comparatively speaking to the majority of their class, but she was no less dense with muscle and hid it even better than Zinnia did. Not being one to try and interfere with a female's need to prove herself, he released her from his grip in the very moment she deemed it unnecessary.

That was probably a mistake.

She teetered. She tottered, and by all the Gods holy and not she very nearly attempted her best impression of a freely chopped tree. With luck he had a long reach and she a small stride - he stumbled gracelessly forward to catch her and managed to keep her from spilling entirely, but it was in no way any heroic feat.

"Hooookay-" he winced as he nearly fumbled her while trying to keep himself upright as well. The grotesque amount of blood had made her a bit slimy. "Yeah," Kilien nodded as he hefted her once more, only this time with a bit more certainty that it was, in fact, necessary, "you're completely fine."

An arm scooped her up like a battered pup, the other followed to collect her legs as well. Fireman carry it was. People were watching.

"Infirmary," he agreed and verily did set off to carry her there, flap-flapping and blood-dribbling.

She was losing a lot of blood. Probably more than was considered healthy. Who knew face flaps bled so much?

"So uh... tell me about your shield. You made it, didn't you?" Keep her talking and awake seemed like a good idea.

 

[Marcia]

So maybe she wasn't fine.

Marcia had half-braced herself to hit the deck again, only for her equilibrium to be completely upended when the ground did not greet her. A sound left her not dissimilar to a queasy gnome being placed into a trebuchet for a second launch.

After a few confusing moments, she was aware that she was not making her independent way to the infirmary but was instead being carried by Initiate Basmarc. If having eyes didn't make that clear, then the emergence of scattered tittering and repulsed gasps made it very clear.

It was horrifying, not only that but fucking infuriating. The girl's face might have been red from a one-two combination of mortification and fury were it not, well, very red. She shot back her best glassy-eyed scowl, causing the crimson blur in her peripheral vision that might have been her nose to shift unnaturally.

Before she could threaten people from her dignified position of being carried by Kilien, he interrupted with polite conversation.

"Wha'..." Marcia replied, successfully distracted from the horrors of being helped. "...nah, nah. Got the Academy to... ugh, make it custom. Need a good... a good," what was that word again, "shiny," close enough, "surface, and some protection. The spikes are so it can be... ooooh, used as a weapon."

Her face, which was dripping a trail down him and on the ground, scrunched in confusion.

"Hey. Where'd it go?"

 

[Kilien Basmarc]

There were several things Kilien Basmarc was exceptionally aware of:

1. People were staring. Sneering. Laughing. Making faces. This wasn't far from a normal day for him, but he was moreso aware of it due to the presence of Marcia who he'd never taken for someone that was as openly ridiculed as he.

2. The bleeding was getting worse. He thought. He could feel the warmth of it seeping into his clothing, leaving behind stains of Marcia that would likely never wash out. He tried not to think of the fact that he was wearing his favorite shirt - and he didn't have many shirts to choose from.

3. Marcia was babbling and apparently much worse off than he initially surmised. Head trauma was rarely a pretty thing to look at but often the damage you couldn't see was worse than what you could.

4. The infirmary was far. Like ... why on earth was it at the other side of the Academy campus from the sparring grounds? This made no sense. Who the feth came up with this layout?

He raised his brows at Marcia's response, blinking in some brief bout of disbelief, "The Academy makes stuff for you?" Well damn. He could hardly get them to provide him with a new pair of boots. "Shie-iiit."

"Ah ... it's uh, back up where dickwad Mort put it." A frown plastered itself onto his face as he huffed up a long set of stairs and into the main Academy complex. As luck would have it, classes seemed to be in exchange and the halls were ... rather crowded. Kilien paused briefly, took a deep inhale and loosed a heavy sigh before pressing forward through what he expected to be the longest ten minute walk of his life.

"I can help you get it down after you're fixed up... if you want?" He could perhaps do so in recompense for not just offering to help her earlier. He could have - a simple summoning spell would have done the trick - but Kilien disliked getting involved when he wasn't required to.

 

[Marcia]

"They will if you're good," she mumbled into the ether. The Academy might not have been known for its stellar treatment of its Initiates (even if it was much improved), but they were at least prepared to equip them well to be the future of Anirian might.

Suddenly, it made sense why they had been calling Mortimer a dick before, the events preceding this entire mess still absent from Marcia's memory. The Initiate groaned at the thought of retrieving her shield, feeling skin from her face that should have been attached lift as she grimaced. Her eyes remained closed for a hot minute, the idea of having a brief nap appealing, but Kilien was intent on carrying on the conversation.

"Look, ugh, I..."

Fucking.

Hells.

Marcia opened her eyes to a gauntlet of their peers, heads turning and eyes boggling at the sight of her being carried like some gory, wounded fawn. The horror was incomprehensible. Actually, no, it was very fucking comprehensible. She was hurt, her face was flapping, Moon Boy was carrying her, and everybody was staring.

"Now that's a tragic sight," Initiate Cappel, a girl incapable of smiling without sneering, commented with a snort that started a chain reaction of scattered laughter. "What an embarrassment."

"Did you get peckish, Basmarc?" Initiate Malonne added with a snort, the sweat still on his brow from the sparring class he'd just attended.

Even under the haze of a concussion, Marcia could feel the churn of rage as a chemical reaction to the humiliation. She wanted to scream, leap out of Kilien's arms, and take a running punt at Malonne's. She wanted the corridor to collapse and crush them all. She wanted to erupt.

"Fuck off and die, Malonne!"

So she did. Her words were accompanied by a surprisingly threatening finger point, her crimson mask adding a layer of menace that couldn't be fully undone by being carried. Or perhaps the flap was just that frightening. It did move when she shouted.

Amid the awkward confrontation, a foot was stuck out to trip Kilien and send the pair crashing to the ground.

 

[Kilien Basmarc]

He could have just dropped Marcia and walked away. Hell, could have tossed her at one of the other Initiates in response to the goading. Instead he trudged forward, stoic against the words, willing his ears not to hear them and his eyes not to see their faces or their taunts. More importantly he tried to silently will Marcia to do the same thing.

Just bury her bloodied face into his shoulder and ignore the world.

But she didn't. Wouldn't... or couldn't. He didn't know her well enough to make that call.

Feth.

His arms tensed as she jerked in his grip and his hands clamped down on her shoulder and legs, distracting him from the obstacle of a leg jutting across his path. His boot clipped it and his eyes bugged. Kilien stumbled, hugged Marcia even tighter to his chest, and only managed to catch himself with one foot to keep from completely spilling. The other knee smashed into the tile floor with such force and weight he was pretty sure he could hear the gut-wrenching crack of his kneecap.

"What's... all this?" a voice that not even the Revolution could chase away the terror it caused. Everyone in the hall froze as Proctor Harkenov rounded the corner at the juncture of halls up ahead. Out of all the original Proctors left behind, herself and Proctor Mars were some of the last. Many had slated Harkenov as party to the Bloody Graduation of the year prior, but no one had been able to find any proof on the matter.

Much to Proctor Salak's chagrin.

Her presence severe in every way imaginable, Harkenov took great pleasure in finding more and more creative ways of working around the Republic's new expectations on how the Initiates aught to be handled at the Academy. Her office in the dungeon was rarely empty of students being punished.

Severely.

She pressed forward through the crowd, her one-eyed gaze needling every single child in attendance before landing squarely on Kilien and Marcia, then the trail of blood currently and eagerly blip-blipping into a puddle on the floor beneath them both.

"Basmarc," Harkenov looked upon him with disgust. He might've taken it personally but, frankly, she looked at everyone that way, "explain."

"Just uh... taking Marcia to the infirmary, ma'am," he replied, eyes looking at Marcia and silently urging her not to speak before carefully glancing up at the Proctor, "tripped over my boot lace."

"Is that so," Harkenov's gaze then moved to a leg which had slowly been drawing itself back to its person and trying very hard not to be noticed, "get up."

Kilien sighed, grit his teeth, and pushed himself carefully back up to his feet. The pain in his smashed knee was monumental enough to show in the wrinkling around his brow and eyes. His laces were, indeed, rather loosely undone but not so much that he could have tripped on them. Mostly he was just lazy and liked being able to slip his boots on and off without effort.

"Malonne," Harkenov did not even look at the Initiate, "tie Mr. Basmarc's laces for him."

 

[Marcia]

As he clutched her tighter on the way down, she returned the favour, her bloodied hands gripping his abused shirt in anticipation of hitting the deck once more. Thankfully, Kilien managed not to spill her in front of their peers, only furthering the day's humiliation. Instead, his knee took the brunt of it, the impact reverberating through his bones to the point where she could feel it in his chest.

Before escalation could even think about rearing its head, Proctor Harkenov emerged and, with it, sucked all of the air out of the corridor. All the tittering reduced to fearful anticipation.

For as much trouble as Marcia had with her peers, she was generally well-behaved in the presence of their betters. For a start, the Proctors didn't goad her into reacting. More to the point, their purpose here was to instruct them, and going against them would have been an exercise in self-sabotage.

That, and the punishments.

They could range from laughably ineffective to deeply-fucking-traumatic, and Harkenov's preferred means was the latter's very definition.

She said nothing, as one should, and witnessed in silence as Initiate Malonne kneeled down to tie Kilien's laces in a glorious dressing down. Marcia did, however, lean her head over to watch, causing the drip of blood from her chin and the tip of her nose to fall upon the top of the boy's head.

The Initiate didn't protest, his better judgment winning out over his pride as both sets of laces were tied (double-knotted, of course) to perfection. After which, he stood and faced the Proctor, practically standing to attention as if awaiting his dismissal.

 

[Kilien Basmarc]

"Any time I see a single loop in Basmarc's boot laces again," Harkenov wasn't looking at Basmarc, but directly at Malonne, "you will find yourself inexplicably short of a finger."

She had, effectively, rendered Malonne to a station of boot-tying services for Basmarc for the remainder of their time spent at the Academy. Kilien would have groaned at the thought of it, but presently the swelling agony of his knee was holding most of his attention.

Her gaze switched back to Marcia. Disgust. "All of you, get to your next classes."

There was hesitation.

"Now."

The hallway quietly exploded with urgency as bodies bumped and jostled, trying to get away from potential detention spent in the dungeon. It didn't take much to earn one's way there and Kilien had spent his fair share of time in her office to know the fear they felt. The woman was fething scary.

"Basmarc," Harkenov barked at him and he jumped at the sound, "get moving."

"Yes ma'am," he muttered and thrust himself forward into a limping gait down the hall once more. At least with word spread that Harkenov was prowling the corridors the crowds wouldn't linger. With a quick glance back over his shoulder, he spied her own uneven stride picking up as she hurried after another dawdling student who yelped and ran away from her.

"Sheee-iiit," he said through a tight jaw, "we're havin' a day, you and I."

 

[Marcia]

Well, that solved the problem of traversing the corridor, even if Proctor Harkenov's look made her feel inexplicably smaller than she already was. There was nothing else to do but admire a Dreadlord who could strike fear and order into a room with minimal effort.

If a grizzled visage was required for such a status, then Marcia and her flap were well on their way.

"I don't think I'm going to remember much of it," she conceded with a groan; this wasn't her first concussion rodeo, after all.

As they continued their crimson pilgrimage, the girl couldn't help but notice Kilien's brand-new limp, presumably from cracking his knee on the floor. She wasn't one to feel guilty, having always felt justified in any injuries she was responsible for, but this was a brand new perspective. The very concept of this guilt made her grimace.

"You have to... you have to put me down, Basmarc," she sighed, the passage of time offering some degree of coherence. "You've clearly fucked your knee."

 

[Kilien Basmarc]

Basmarc glanced down at her and lightly adjusted her small, dense figure in his arms.

"I've had worse," he replied. They'd all had worse.

Mental coherence was required for walking and he presently had that in spades. Marcia on the other hand? Her coherence was dribbling down her face and leaving a splatter trail in their wake. The janitor was going to be quite busy tonight scrubbing the floors.

"We're almost there," the assurance came next as he rounded another corner and found himself facing a set of stairs leading to the next floor down. His eyes skated to the banister, "Sit tight."

Kilien limped over to the stairwell side, hiked his ass up on the banister, clutched Marcia even more tightly against his chest, and with a little bit of mental mathematics like a cat preparing to launch itself, he pushed off and away they went.

 

[Marcia]

She wasn't going to dwell on it; if he was content to carry her bleeding carcass around, then she had little choice but to respect it. It was too late to be proud about it anyway, with enough of their peers having witnessed the sight that any protests would have been stupid.

When presented with more stairs, she had expected him to put her down for the sake of his knee.

Not pop his arse onto the bannister and prepare to slide them down. The sheer suggestion of such frivolity made her stare up at his scruffy chin as if he were a total maniac. Was this real life?

"You're not serio-ah!"

Then he went.

If he were the cat gracefully launching himself, then she was the one clinging to the curtains, the motion of sliding down the railing hardly a pleasant experience in her state. Somewhere inside her skull, the Initiate's brain was sounding the klaxon that it was officially having a very bad day.

It was a miracle that she didn't hurl.

Marcia was just as, if not more, flabbergasted by the time they reached the bottom. There was something inherently unserious about Kilien Basmarc that infuriated her. He was bold as fucking brass to be sliding down bannisters not two minutes after a run-in with Harkenov. How could somebody so lax be her peer?

"You..." the girl began slowly, her hands relinquishing their grip on his shirt. "You are..." Unbelievable, lackadaisical, inappropriate. Ugh, helping her without any obligation to. "Unorthodox. Is this how you often get around?"

 

[Kilien Basmarc]

"You.... You are..."

"Amazingly efficient?" he offered, inflection up.

"Unorthodox. Is this how you often get around?"

Kilien made a sound not terribly unlike a deflated duck in response to the horrible twinge in his injured knee upon landing, "Ahh - I've been known to polish a few banisters."

Mostly it just saved him a lot of mucking about on the stairs. If only going up them were so easy.

"Being unorthodox ain't so bad," he said with a glance down at her as he hobbled on down the hall. Nearly there now. "I'd rather be that than like everyone else. Would hate to be comparable to someone like Mortimer."

 

[Marcia]

Hm. It was efficient. She couldn't fault him for that.

Marcia could, however, fault him on the landing, which, by the sound of it, was not a pleasant sensation on his beleaguered knee. In all of her infinite grace, kindness, and blood loss, the girl decided not to bring it up; after all, had Kilien not aided her, then he would have been freely polishing all the bannisters in the Academy with his arse unhindered.

"No, it's not," she actually agreed, in a genuine sentiment that wasn't the result of head trauma. "Better to stand out than be another... ugh... fucking dick."

Mortimer wasn't even the best Mortimer. As far as smug, prey-on-the-weak arseholes went, he was barely scraping the top five. How could a Mortimer even compare to a D'Amour or a Larrainth? That was like comparing apples to turds; it just couldn't be done.

"If you applied yourself, you'd be a real threat," Marcia continued, her comment not entirely polite but absolutely truthful in that blunt way that endeared the girl to nobody.