revenance_comms | 001 ▲ video.

Plenty of people up top care about you too. [But that's just a sulky grumble, not even really meant for her to hear.]

[Rather than attempt to address this whole argument, since it's obviously crazy and total girl-logic which he knows he can't win against, he completely abandons the discussion in favor of something else.]

Speaking of Eidolons, though, you probably need to know this! There's a few people running around that look like Eidolons or the next best thing, but they're not! The four-legged ones with manes and tails are called 'ponies'. And the dog that can paint with magic and walk on walls isn't an Eidolon either, just one really competent dog.

[There, now he's told her useful things, that should calm her down.]

Then maybe they should tell me instead of passive aggressively avoiding me! Or talking about my family like they aren't worthwhile or suggesting that their appearances change anything about who they are and what they mean to me!

[ No one had asked her to stay. Not with them or in general. Why wouldn't she want to go where the people she loved were? Where her room and her bed and all her memories of the past decade and then some were waiting for her? And why didn't he get that? ]

I know that not everyone that looks strange can be summoned. I'm not ignorant. [ That's what he thinks she is, doesn't he? Uncultured and uneducated. Stupid. ] While I appreciate that information, Edward Geraldine, I have no interest in talking to you further. If anything, I'm disappointed that the Edward that I actually like isn't here.

[ Mostly, she's stubborn. She should give in and let it go, but she's not going to make it easy for him. He got himself into this mess, he can get himself out. For as angry as she sounds, she looks more upset than anything. And either anger or hurt is still giving him what he needs. Even if she called him unimportant, that's untrue. She wouldn't react this way if he wasn't. ]

Edited 2013-10-27 17:31 (UTC)

Sorry for trying to keep you from calling them 'Eidolons' for weeks because you didn't know what they were! If I'd known you really preferred to just guess or make up a name for them till someone conveniently mentioned the proper one to you, I wouldn't have bothered!

[Sad truth is, Edge is too straightforward to understand the complexities of her mental state right now. If she'd wanted to stay, she would've stayed and no one would have needed to ask. If she was angry, she was angry, not inwardly upset with him over events long past.]

[He attempts to turn huffily away from the communicator. This fails because it's on his wrist, but he does get a melodramatic cape-snap out of the motion. When he realizes he's still looking at it, he turns his head firmly away.]

Just... be careful of the Nightmares, okay?

It doesn't really matter to me, either way! Someone told me, anyway, because some people are helpful and honest!

[ She folds her arms over her chest and stares at him with some amount of contempt, but mostly just annoyance. Expectancy. She isn't going to ask for an apology. If he can't do it himself and can't understand why he should, then he's missed the whole point. ]

I can take care of myself. I don't need anyone else. [ That's a lie. She doesn't even sound too convinced when she says it and she certainly doesn't look it, though she desperately tries. She covers her face, unaware of how very visible it is to him that she's doing it. Despite her attempts to appear otherwise, she looks vulnerable. ] I don't need you, you... you coward.

[Luckily (?) for her, Edge is distracted from her vulnerabilities by that word. Of all the insults she'd ever leveled at him, this one he can't write off as playful or flirty or banter of any sort. Coward stings a man who takes pride in his willingness to put himself on the line.]

You know, before you sling that word around so casually, ask yourself which one of us went home to pick up the pieces of their wrecked home and rebuild it, and which one of us ran back to their safe living family in their safe unburned-to-the-ground land.

[...That got a little angrier than he meant it to. Fortunately, his mask hides his gritted teeth, which aren't even for her, but for the memories that speech all brought up.]

[He looks away again.]

...I didn't say you needed me or anyone. I said be careful. I've seen you get hurt enough through all battles to last me a while.

[ Those are the exact reasons she chose it. She wants him to react and it was the only way of getting what she wanted, even if it wasn't particularly like her in the process of getting there. She's still too angry about him ignoring her. He could have done anything else and she'd have been fine. She ignored him plenty, but never like that. Eye-rolling, shrugging him off, walking away with a bit of a laugh. But that might have been the last time she saw him. ]

So, I should be sorry that I had somewhere to go back to? [ She knows Rosa likely told him bits of her past. She can't imagine Cecil being so open to it, but he should know that her home was also razed by fire and she had also lost her first parents. ] Precisely because I have them that I'm going to take advantage of the time we have together!

[ But she knows that tone and she knows she should yield and all of this is piling up and up and up and she doesn't want to be the one that builds and crosses the bridge. She thinks there's pride in this, but she knows there isn't. ]

And when I leave here, I'll go back and stay there. You won't have to deal with me again.

[ Pride, again. It's what makes her say that. She hasn't thought too long or too hard about how quickly she'd age and how difficult it was to see her friends as it was. Even if she went back to Mist, what was there? Seclusion, transport only by foot. She could see everyone just as little as she could if she were in the Feymarch.

She also neglects to mention that she has no place there anymore. She kicks her feet on the ground, trying to draw attention away from... everything. She doesn't want to think about whether they will or won't let her return now. ]

[Really, it isn't that difficult to put together her story, not when you ascend the throne and get reports on the effort to rebuild the world on a regular basis. Destroyed Mist; Caller, than only comes from Mist; hints the others in the group had dropped... Edge doesn't have the details, but he has the broad shape of things.]

[In the meantime, her pride and anger is just making him more sulky. He really knows he can't win against her... mostly because he can't stand to see her upset.]

No one asked you to stay because of what happened on the Lunar Whale, you know. [The whole 'girls stay behind' thing.] But everyone wishes you had.

[ All she wants is for him to say that he's sorry. She wants him to admit that what he did was as stupid as what she's doing right now. That he should have said something and he should have laughed and danced with her and they should have drank and raised their glasses together or something. He's so hard to read sometimes. ]

...then tell me.

[And all he wants is for her to read his mind and understand what he means instead of what he says! That's not unreasonable, right?]

What, you think Cecil the paladin is going to ask you to turn away from what you want? Or Rosa the white mage? Kain doesn't count because he doesn't know what he wants, but think about it! Baron, Fabul, Damcyan, Mysidia, anywhere could have used someone like you to help rebuild. But after everything we went through, who had the right to tell you not to do what you wanted?

[Eblan is very specifically not listed and thus very specifically the 'anywhere', of course. And Edge, of course, doesn't consider that he could've changed her mind... because as a King and as a man he couldn't beg, and once she'd decided what she wanted to do, begging was all he could have done.]

[ The gist of it is: they're both idiots in their own special way. ]

I'm not asking about everyone else.

[ Well, look at that. Miracles do happen. Albeit minor and not incredibly specific ones. She didn't even want anyone to ask her to stay. An invite was all she really needed and she'd gotten them from Cecil and Yang and Edward. Palom had opened his big mouth, too, and asked if she could come train with him (and then Porom had whacked him on the head and apologized for how brazen he'd been). And she would visit them all eventually because they were as much family as the ones who had taken to raising her after Mist's destruction.

But he'd ignored her. It still stung. ]

Why wouldn't you look at me.

[This is true, but it's hard to argue that he isn't the bigger idiot.]

[After all, he's convinced she knows what she could have, if she only asked. Hadn't he made it perfectly clear? By his standards, he sure had. So why didn't she understand that he wasn't happy that she'd turned him down? How is he supposed to react to that?]

Didn't want to spoil the wedding, that's all.

[ In the same breath that he'd flirt with her, he'd flirt with Rosa. It wasn't the same thing at all. How was she to know he was serious about her? In the same conversation he'd say something cheesy and stupid, something that felt lacking in any sort of genuine feeling and then he'd call her a child or insult her. ]

I thought we were friends.

[ She had no idea that he couldn't even talk to her without a whole evening being spoiled. ]

[Flirting with girls who are married in everything but name doesn't count!]

[If he were capable of admitting that he'd spent so very much time dwelling on her after she left, things might be different...]

I didn't expect you there. You caught me by surprise. I didn't even realize they could get a message to you.

[This is a truth, though, if not the entire truth.]

[ It does count and maybe they would be a little different if he were more honest with her -- in the dictionary definition of the word, not Edge definition of it. ]

That's no excuse.You could have said something! Everyone else talked to me -- Yang danced with me, even!

[ It's not good enough. She isn't sure what would be. She just thinks he was being a stubborn ass, feeling snubbed that she left. Or, maybe that he doesn't think too highly of the Feymarch, that he looks at them as monsters. ]

...I'm trying to understand you right now, I really am. [ She thinks it's being stuck here, with him. Although she could just as easily throw her hands in the air and leave it as it is. She doesn't need more stress right now. ]

[Sadly, the life of a clan leader and royalty doesn't often allow for honesty like that. You can't tell your men you're scared, or that you don't know how to get through a crisis, no matter how true it is.]

[He runs a hand down his face, though, because he knows the answer to this one.]

If I'd asked you to dance, you'd have just rolled your eyes and said something about how I was just trying to add one more girl to my dance card.

[ Spoilers: Rydia is not one of your men. ]

How do you know? [ No, he's probably right. ] And would you have actually asked or would you have said something stupid like you did when I first showed up here!

[ Basically, she knows he wouldn't have just asked. He would have said something that made it seem like it was a privilege to be asked by him or some stupid, cheesy pick-up line that she knew he didn't mean. ]

[Nope, but when your teams consists of people like Cecil and his brother issues, or Kain and his mind-control issues, it works out the same in many respects...]

You just answered your own question with your second statement.

[His exasperation is tempered by being right, which is something. He's finding it a lot easier to stay irritated when they talk by communicator, actually; it leads to less, uh, distraction on his part...]

No, I didn't.

[ All she did was get him to admit that he'd say something stupid instead of just asking her like a normal human being. Then again, that would mean he'd have to had something to her at all that night. She tries not to sound or look too bitter. It's not really becoming of her. ]

You ignored me. Do you think I approached you because I didn't want to see you? [ She's so stuck on this. It feels like she can't move forward until there's some sort of resolution. All she wants his him to admit he was wrong. ]

...I think the fact that I didn't hit on you as soon as I saw you confused you terribly.

[Okay, this is kind of honest and even a little self-aware. Lately he'd been hitting on girls purely for the sake of form, like a comfortable routine to convince himself that everything is normal and all right. It didn't work at all, and it had kind of clued him in to how much he'd flirted with her before.]

Right. That's it. That's my real problem, Edge. You didn't say something that made me uncomfortable or upset and that's what I'm angry about.

[ It's true, to some degree. But it isn't that he didn't flirt with her, it's that he didn't say anything at all. She's being honest here, for the most part. At least as honest as she's currently emotionally aware of. ]

When you're willing to admit that you were a jerk and apologize to me, you know where to find me. [ She doesn't think that it's much to ask. She pauses, deciding that it doesn't matter if it fits in or not. It's true. She'd wanted to say it then and she wanted to say it now, so she will. ] I missed you.

[He's kind of getting mixed messages here. Which, in his opinion, he's been getting from her since almost the beginning...]

[He looks down and away again.]

When you left for the Feymarch, I figured I'd never see you again. Seeing you at the wedding... was a shock. [To put it mildly.] You just get used to the idea that someone's gone forever, and then they pop back up. And you know once they leave again, then you're never gonna see them again. How do you pick up for just one day?

But seeing you here... again... I started to get the feeling our story isn't quite over yet.

[It's a complicated and extremely roundabout way of explaining himself -- both why he'd tried to avoid her at the wedding, and why he hadn't here. Is it an admission he was wrong? Well... not in HIS mind, of course, but he's not going to avoid her a second time.]

[ She's kind of been getting them since the beginning, too. To her, he's just a flirt. He's friendzoned because of the behavior he so frequently displays aside from that, the mixed signals, the bragging, the inability to say something that feels real, and of course, the way he gives himself so easily to anger. If he put forth any effort, really, that was his ticket.

It seems like he might be learning. Growing up just a bit. ]

All you had to do was say "don't be a stranger." Or, or something. [ Maybe her parents were right, maybe she did belong with humans. At least part of the time. If her desire to see him, see Cecil, see everyone again was so strong, who was she to deny something so simple as being in another person's presence? ]

You make a choice. You either make the most of that time and hope it leads to more of it or you can turn away and regret it. [ She doesn't mean to be conceited, but she'd like to think that he would have. And that he'd dwell on it. It bothers her that she cares at all. ] What was I meant to think other than you hated me? No one else had avoided me.

[ Edge was the only one she was certain would feel the same about her. He was the only one she thought she could count on to remain the way she remembered him. Funny how that went. ]

...you'll be seeing a lot more of me, so I'd like it if you could attempt to stop acting like that. Maybe be a little more honest. At least for a bit. [ She neglects, again, to inform him of her situation. She's feeling him out first. ]

[Sighing, Edge reaches out a hand; his Hebby Repp passes him the swords he'd dropped what seems like a lifetime ago. He sheathes them, using the gesture as an excuse not to look at the communicator.]

Maybe you'll be less of a stranger when you haven't lived months from one day to the next... Maybe it'll be easier to make the most of our time when we have a little bit closer to the same amount.

[If not for the time difference between the Feymarch and here, he might have taken things much differently. Convincing himself she'd come back would have been easy, after all, with the right combination of willful denial and egotism. If she'd gone somewhere he could have visited himself, even easier; what girl could resist a dashing monarch swooping down on her to give her a ride in the Falcon?]

But this isn't just a reunion. We have troubles here. There are dangers and enemies to face. Not every waking moment like old times, but we're needed here.

[He assumes she'll join the fight willingly and without hesitation... the same he'd assume it of anyone he liked and respected. Childish though he may be in some ways, Edge still has the ironclad determination and sense of right that makes some decisions easy for him no matter how conflicted others might be.]

[ For once, she's a little thankful for him to be avoiding her. For once, she's thankful that part of his expression is obscured by a mask. ]

Maybe you should try listening to what I just said. [ There's a bitter aftertaste in her mouth and her words are barked out just the same. Quick, almost ashamed. Not just that, though. She's still angry. He is still judging her, making judgements for her, acting as if he has the right to when he doesn't even hear the words she says.

Rydia folds her arms defensively, wrapping them a little too tightly for it to look like she's more angry than upset. ]

As far as I'm concerned, nothing is like "old times."

[ This time, she can't put forth the effort to sound bitter. It's just tired and sad. Rydia will fight (of course she will). She was thrust into this without a choice. Given one, she likely wouldn't turn around. She had abilities that could be of use and to deny them would be denying herself. For her, it is a natural choice. It's part of her self-identity. And she longs for those days where they would travel together and sleep beside the glow of a fire. This was the closest that she'd get to it. ]

Now you're the one who insists that everything be different.

[At this point it takes an effort of will not to draw his swords again, just because he's very used to having a weapon in his hands when his adrenaline is this high. But even angry, he knows that wouldn't be cool at all.]

Look, this isn't the wedding and things aren't like that. I'm not ignoring you now... [And he hopes he doesn't regret that when this all ends, and it's back to how things were, with him alone on his throne and her happy deep in the Feymarch.]

[His anger is always brief, intense flashes, and this one has peaked and is guttering out. Exhaling, he lifts a hand to his forehead as if to ward off pain.]

I never meant to upset you, you know. Not in my nature to see a pretty girl unhappy. If I'd known you wanted me to talk to you so badly...

[He can't finish this, because even he knows that after plenty of timing pining, he wouldn't have been able to deliver one of his usual lines like normal. Like he had when he'd first seen her here, which was only possible because he'd had so much to finally get his mind off her since he showed up here. (And almost no girls to flirt with, then despair because they weren't her.)]

[It's sort of an apology? At least he finally acknowledged his actions hurt her...]

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