daemonized | EL NYSA IC INBOX.

When are you next patrolling?

Tomorrow morning, I've a patrol to keep to. Why do you wish to know?

I'll walk with you. I've a few questions, and given you've seemingly accepted the role of teacher, you're due to answer them.

Questions? Very well. Meet me in the residential district.

[A more descriptive text regarding where to actually find him goes here, and at what time. He'll be waiting in the morning.]

[It's far too early to deal with Ardyn, frankly, but she supposes she did this to herself. So she's there waiting for him on the corner, bundled up against the chill, vivid red hair a contrast to all the black she's wearing.

That sounds like it might be a metaphor, but it isn't. It's just that she gets cold easily.]

All I've seen since the riots ended are guards strutting around, making certain people know that they're still there, and that further riots won't be tolerated. I hope my presence shan't cut into that.

[Nothing like sarcasm first thing in the morning. Rosalind sighs as she brings her mug up to her face. There's a lot she hates about this universe, but the invention of disposable and portable cups aren't one of them. Drinking hot tea on the go is a blessing, and one she savors.]

[His breath is warm against in the chill, though Ardyn does not shiver against the latter. His guard uniform does not possess the same amount of layers as he prefers, but seeing as he did not react to the cold, it hardly seemed to matter.

He greets her with his usual lopsided grin.]

I can still do plenty of strutting regardless of whether or not you're walking with me.

[Morning, noon, or night, Ardyn seems the same as always.]

That's assuring.

[She takes a step inwards, just a little closer to him, as they set off. Joking aside, they really are getting more looks than usual-- or at least, he is. Or at least, his uniform is. Whether they're assured looks or loathing ones she isn't certain, but it's a bit more attention than she wanted for this conversation.

Oh, well.]

You only gave me half a lesson, you know. During those riots.

[She focuses ahead, avoiding the occasional bit of burned wood or rubble in the street.]

Your pride will be your downfall, you told me. You assured me that sooner or later I'd shatter beneath it, that it was my fatal flaw. That I needed to learn to let go of it, or risk dying from it.

But you never once said what it was you thought ought to replace it.

[The looks slide off of him, as expected. He continues as if it were nothing, going along his patrol route, ever unbothered.]

Now, that's not for me to tell you, is it?

[Strange, how she expected that much from him. Perhaps it was only half a lesson, but it was the only half that he could help her with.]

Tell me, Rosalind, why do you feel you are so prideful to begin with? Are you self-aware enough to give me an attempt at an unbiased answer?

[It bloody well is for him to tell, or at least to offer his own opinion, which is more of what Rosalind's really after. And she opens her mouth to say so, except he continues on, and she ends up scowling.]

First of all, you can kindly end that patronizing tone of yours. I'm very well aware of why I act the way I do. Secondly, yes, I rather think that is an answer you owe me-- if nothing else, you might share your own blasé approach to life.

[Not that he's so careless, but he certainly puts on that he is. Rosalind pauses for a few seconds, and then goes on, her tone a little less heated.]

I'm prideful because it was a method to get what I wanted in a world that was hellbent on denying it to me.

I've told you how misogynistic my world was. Pride was a useful solution. I already had the intelligence and talent . . . if I acted as though I was the best, as though it was foolish to even consider doubting me, things turned in my favor. People were left in my wake. If I acted like I was the greatest, sooner or later I'd become so.

[Of course, there were downsides. No friends, no lovers . . . selfish, that's what people call her, and that's the least of it. She'd not been at all popular, but on the other hand, she had accomplished her goals, and one can't have everything.

She'd known what it was she wanted. And nothing comes for free.]

And on the opposite end of the scale . . . I don't know if you can understand it, Ardyn. Not without understanding the common thinking of my time. Women are-- were-- considered inferior in every respect. It wasn't an opinion, it was fact. Women were supposed to be sweet and loving and nurturing; they were supposed to be forbidden, the mysterious, the subtly sexual and primly pure other half that no man could possibly understand. And above all, they were supposed to be stupid.

So if I wanted to succeed in a field that was decidedly unfit for women, it meant I couldn't be a woman. I couldn't be-- I couldn't have those emotions. Not any of them. Being angry would mean I was irrational; being upset would become hysteria. Happiness meant I was flighty, but pride . . . they could call me selfish or stuck up or snobbish, but they couldn't deny my pride had a decent point of origin, because my inventions were that brilliant.

So. A display like Wyver, or the one you subjected me to . . . that would render me weak. It would mean the end of my career. To shatter my pride would to be to shatter my entire life, Ardyn.

[A few seconds pass. She adds more mildly:]

Was that self-aware enough, or shall I lean on Freud a bit more?

Well, I don't know who or what a Freud is.

[He says it to be annoying, yet despite appearances, Ardyn did listen to all she had to say, taking stock in it all. She's right about one thing -- he cannot hope to understand what it was like to have been thought of as stupid and lesser because of one's gender. But it isn't difficult to imagine, and she tells it well, throughly leaving nothing for Ardyn to truly question.

Enough room to get at the crux of the matter, then.]

You do not live in that world anymore, you know. What you are is no longer reliant on your pride, it is merely habit you cling to, because you leaned on it for so long.

[So, fair, that she would utilize it the way she had in the past; he is not judging that. But here, in this place, it does her no good.]

Excess pride is used to cover fear, insecurity. Anyone with half a brain could tell you that, and any man with eyes can spot it from a mile away. As I told you, it is weakness, easily exploitable, because it garners a reaction out of you. It guarantees a reaction out of you.

[They round a corner of a building, and continue down a street.]

Know when to accept an insult, my dear. Let it slide off of you, because it do not let it bother you what others think. Your actions, your achievements, will always speak louder than you turning your nose up to someone. You know that you are accomplished. Have enough confidence in yourself that you needn't snap like an angry dog each time someone questions it.

[Give her this: for all she's always a little annoyed at him, she is listening. She knows how to do that, at least. And what he says makes sense, enough so that she pauses for a few seconds before responding, a sure sign she's mulling things over.]

And when too many insults pile up? Surely it becomes ridicule at some point. Surely one's reputation shatters at some point, or at least becomes a joke.

[She waves a hand.]

It's easy to say that when it comes to-- to idiots, or unimportant people. And I see your point there, I truly do, but . . . say it comes from someone whose voice truly matters. You better than anyone ought to know words can do more damage than weapons.

I never said you should be rid of your pride completely. Balance in everything, Rosalind.

[Says the man who is overwrought with all manner of hatred and spite, but even from a logical standpoint, he knows that this is generally good advice.]

You may let it flare up when it is worth the fight. But when you’re standing on stage, with a crowd full of those calling for your blood, and a blade pressed against your neck? Use common sense.

Would you have?

[She glances up at him.]

If it had been you there. If someone bigger and stronger and utterly infuriating had held you helpless before a crowd and put a blade to your throat . . . would you have simply given in?

Yes.

[He's not lying about that.]

I would. For the sake of a show, I would; and because I know that the alternative would not be worth it. But I would hate it, admittedly, and when it was over, I would search for a way to turn the proverbial tables on this person.

[He has control issues, but they spark in different kind of ways. Smaller, subtler, at times. Their display on stage had been a decision made from judging the circumstances around him.]

Is that what you're going to do to me?

It'd serve you right if I did.

[But she doesn't answer right away. Her hand goes to her throat, her fingers playing over where he knows a scar lies just beneath the thin cotton of her shirt. It's healed now, softer and subtler than the one Tani gave her, but it will linger on. Perhaps she'll have it for the rest of her life.]

. . . but no. I don't think so, no. Though I can't promise I'll be kind if I ever have you at my mercy, Ardyn.

And I will. One day, in one way if not another.

I wonder how you'll ever manage it.

[He does, really. It'll take more than a fair bit of effort on her part, to create a situation so compromising for him that he would react the same way as her. Rarely does he allow himself that kind of vulnerability.]

Still, I can tell you this: I shall be impressed if you do.

My. And will you express that admiration?

[She wonders how difficult it would be. She'd been caught herself, tormented by those mobs, all because her energy had been low. How difficult would it be to get him to that state, where he wouldn't be able to teleport or blast his way out of a situation?

Or some other way. She isn't really all that picky.]

You'd have to find out and see, wouldn't you?

[Ardyn is a master at dangling a carrot on a stick, to wave idly in front of people's faces. Even if it would be at his own expense this time, there's no denying the amusement in his tone.]

One day, Ardyn, it would be nice to get a straight answer from you.

[Perhaps on the same day she manages to get one up over him. There's a silence as they walk along, side by side. She finally breaks it by murmuring:]

My roommate is furious at you, by the by. He finally found out what our marriage gave me.

[Someday. Someday, maybe.]

What? [A huff of laughter.] And what reason does he have to be upset with me? It was a conscious choice on your part, and it can be severed at any time. I am blameless.

And yet.

[Men that are old know how to make the burden they carry seem like a favor, and that is a burden! he'd shouted at her, fury born of love and terror coloring his voice. She hasn't forgotten that, though nor has she gotten rid of her powers just yet.]

He says you're manipulating me. He made it sound as though I was a girl being led on by a lecherous old man, actually, which I took some offense to. But he said . . . ah. That you were using me to ease yourself from your burden.

[The words are conspiratorial and mocking, but the tone isn't. Rosalind isn't saying this because she doesn't believe Dorian. Point in fact, she takes his warnings quite seriously. But sometimes it's best to be direct with Ardyn, just to see what he'll do.

Even if he slithers out of answers, the way he does it will speak volumes.]

Do you wish to sever it?

[There is nothing slippery about the way he addresses it this time. No need to slither out of it. The solution is easy.]

If you believe what you're being told, it's as I said: easy enough to fix. If you think you're being manipulated and led on, Rosalind, if you think you bearing a piece of the Starscourge at all eases even a small part of me...

[What a laughable thought. How many are so quick to assume.]

Then just say the word.

What would it take to ease that burden?

[She doesn't say he ought to remove it just yet. She doesn't answer that at all, actually, in no small part because she doesn't quite know if she wants to get rid of it just yet.]

More than what you can grant me, I think.

[But there's no regret in that statement, just plain fact.]

But it hardly matters. Two thousand years and it becomes familiar, it becomes a part of you. But for you... you don't really speak of it, Rosalind, but surely it writhes under your skin? It hurts, doesn't it?

[It must. Her pride certainly keeps her from telling him, he thinks.]

Others have felt like I've done you wrong. Do you believe the same?

Yes.

[Yes, it hurts. She curls her fingers, her nails brushing against her palm. It hurts so badly, every night, every day, something she's painfully aware of no matter what she's doing. It invades her dreams and creeps up on her when she least expects it, and yet she's grown almost used to it. Like a bruise, or a trick knee; it's simply a part of her now, something she ignores because there's nothing she can do for it.

She's silent for a few seconds, and then:]

. . . but no. I don't believe you've wronged me. Certainly not the way Dorian and Richie do. You told me when we made that pact what I was going to get. Dorian imagines that I'm . . . I'm some kind of starry-eyed girl, following you around and getting nothing while giving you everything in return, and Richie--

[Well, anyway.]

I think . . . I think you do get something out of it, something more than just my powers. I think it's almost an experiment for you, seeing someone far younger go through the same things you did once. But I also believe you would lift it from me whenever I asked you to, albeit in a smug sort of way.

I told you that you couldn't handle it, I assume you'd tell me, and use that to prove your own martyrdom. You'd once again be assured that no one could ever understand you . . . and I think that above all is why I'm going to keep it for the moment.

I haven't given up on that quest.

EL NYSA IC INBOX.

text; early march

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i cant believe you're using that icon on me how dare you

that is literally everyone's reaction to that icon and i regret nothing

IT'S A RUDE ICON