Things Unspoken Meme

[ironwood]

things unspoken meme► 1. post with your characters ► 2. Other characters respond and comment ICly with something they'd like to say to them (or a question for them) but haven't. Or, things they have, but would like to say again. ► 3. It can be something incredibly minor or something incredibly serious or something incredibly goofy! e.g. "I was the one who strangled your father with a sausage link" / "I actually hate whiskey and you keep on giving it to me because I said I liked it that one time to impress you" / "There's always a booger hanging from your nose and it makes talking with you REALLY DIFFICULT" ► 4. React ICly. SHENANIGANS. ► 5. have fun!! meme from etcelsior

Comments

[ruinsprofessor]

Yes, you should have. Are you going to?

[simulsimul]

I'm not sure I deserve to, at this point.

[Kratos stop.]

[ruinsprofessor]

Did I ask if you deserved to?

[The lineface gets linefacier.]

[simulsimul]

Did I ask your insight on it?

[Kratos no.]

[ruinsprofessor]

You're the one who brought this up.

Like it or not, you're stuck with multiple people who have an interest in your well-being.

[simulsimul]

I'm the one who decides if I have a right to know.

[Yes, this is somehow a hill he's chosen to die on. Stop channelling your bff, buddy.]

[ruinsprofessor]

What kind of ridiculous, backward reasoning is that?

[Oh no. She's not happy.]

No. No, you are not. Lloyd is the one who decides whether he wants you in his life or not, and frankly, every sign thus far implies that he does. You may not abdicate your responsibilities by making those decisions for him, even and especially if you think you deserve it. Your punishment, if you're so wedded to chaining your sins to you, is to do the harder thing.

You want more than anything in the world to flee. Doing so is no punishment if it's self-righteous, masochistic wallowing in your guilt. The more difficult thing is to stay, and live. You've done what was easy for too long, Kratos.

[simulsimul]

[... He's, uh. Not seen Raine genuinely ballistic all that often, really. He doesn't exactly take a step back, but it pretty effectively undermines the wall he'd started to build, so that he has to look away.]

What if it's just that I'm tired?

[He doesn't sound terribly impassioned by the argument. They've had this conversation before and it didn't work then, either.]

[ruinsprofessor]

Perhaps I should make you some coffee.

[No, she knows that isn't what he meant.]

Tired is not what you said. It sounds, more and more, like you are reaching for excuses.

[simulsimul]

[It's almost enough to startle a huff of a laugh from him.]

In what possible way could I enrich the world for being in it?

[In which icon keywords are painfully ironic.]

[ruinsprofessor]

[you get back here with those song lyrics.]

I would say to ask Lloyd, but since you're set on not speaking to him even if the opportunity arises--

Well, you might tell him about his mother, for one thing.

[simulsimul]

-- I did. In Flanoir.

[Which. Is not precisely accurate. He'd told Lloyd about her death.]

Surely doing so would be more pain than peace.

[ruinsprofessor]

[A sigh.]

Perhaps. Sometimes, however-- a wound must be drained, or a bone broken and re-set, before the wound can heal properly. Pain isn't always bad. It's simply a message.

[simulsimul]

[A message, hm? Well, he's known something was very wrong with the world for a very long time. He doesn't really have a response to that, and the time between her words and an answer draws on; then, softly:]

May I hear about Lloyd, before I met him?

[The wound of those years he missed, after all, is one he's still carrying.]

[ruinsprofessor]

[Points for may.]

Yes, you may.

[Where to start...]

Lloyd, to my observations, has never really cared what he should do, or who he should associate with. Therefore, I first met him not as his teacher, but as Genis's friend.

It was after they became friends that he started coming to school more in earnest.

He didn't care, either, that Colette was the Chosen. Just that she was nice, and willing to be friends.

[He's always been compassionate and impetuous, in other words. Raine hunts anecdotes mentally.]

[simulsimul]

I've noticed he's uninterested in academia.

[To put it lightly.]

But he wasn't interested in coming to the village to attend, at all? He didn't have any friends there to meet, before Genis?

[ruinsprofessor]

He came, but... hm. I had the impression it was more because he felt he should, or that Dirk felt he needed to see other children.

[Raine is speculating a bit at this point.]

Lloyd has, I've learned more and more, significantly more interest if he can touch the application of what he's learning.

Would you believe he and Genis thought until the journey they could pass work Genis had done off as Lloyd's?

[simulsimul]

I would believe they thought it was a good idea.

[This is wry, even as Kratos presses a hand to his face to hide the smile. He remembers when his siblings used to try the same thing on him. It had been amusing then, too.]

He didn't have friends in the village until Genis, then?

[ :c ]

[ruinsprofessor]

[Ah, he smiles. You can't hide that from Raine.]

Not quite, no. There was Colette, but-- something about the introduction of a third party seemed to solidify the interaction.

[Raine herself isn't entirely sure how that worked; but it did, and she saw it happen, and that's enough.]

Afterward, he came to be part of the village more.

...once, he talked Genis into helping him give Noishe a bath.