[Alina Rybalka]

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[attr="class","nikki101"]WE CAN ALL AGREE THAT VIOLENCE BREEDS VIOLENCE

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[attr="class","nikki102"]BUT IN THE END, IT HAS TO BE THIS WAY

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[attr="class","nikki109"]It didn’t feel real. [break][break]

Gray eyes were unfocused and stared into nothing. Everything was gone. No, that wasn’t right. Everything was taken. [break][break]

She knew this was coming. She was even told this was coming, but still it was more of a shock than she was willing to admit. She had flouted tradition, ignored protocol, and flippantly decided that her way was the best. In her head, she had no regrets… but the trembling from her hands and her eyes reddened from tears disagreed. [break][break]

If their goal was to humiliate her, they succeeded. She could see why they did it, it was because they felt as if she was too much of a loose cannon. Former Police Sergeant Alina Tarasivna Rybalka was such a person, she would never deny it. She felt as though tradition was shackles by those long dead being placed on those still living. She actively went against protocol or laws which did not suit her and used her discretion perhaps more than any other officer in the Menagerie Guard. Whether that was for good or ill was not for her to decide, ultimately. [break][break]

Her stubbornness was also legendary, enough to make an organization that had taken her in from the Mistral National Guard and given her everything to so publicly sever ties. Alina felt absolutely empty inside, but she understood. It was necessary, because they had decided to go into a different direction. No, it was necessary because the person that she was would forever be incompatible with the Menagerie Guard. Still, it was unexpected for them to go so far. [break][break]

They interrupted class with it, so everyone knew something was wrong. A lineup of men in white uniform shirts came in, men with the ranks of lieutenants or higher that most civilians would never see. A half dozen of them, no, closer to three fourths. They had decided to take action, or perhaps the chief. Regardless, a crowd of men in white uniforms only meant that some extreme disciplinary action was to be done and they wanted the island to know about it. The entire walk over to the station she was surrounded by them, but clearly visible. Perhaps they were worried about the former Police Sergeant Rybalka making a break for it, but that was because they fundamentally misunderstood the type of person she was. [break][break]

Even when given the chance to change her ways with the threat of expulsion, she held her ground. She turned in her gear and defended herself rather than begging for forgiveness like some might have expected. The job was all she had, really, because it was very clear that there was no other place in society for someone like her. There was no other job where she could remain as a part of society and use the totality of her skills, and her pride and stubbornness wouldn’t allow her to settle for less. [break][break]

The real issue, if she was being honest with herself, was her complete and utter inability to adapt. Lance Corporal Rybalka never morphed into anything, she was still the same person fighting for the same organization that no longer existed and never would exist again. She had gotten used to the lifestyle and found that she liked it, and brought the same attitude to a country that wasn’t her own and a job that did not suit her. No, it wasn’t that it didn’t suit her but rather that she refused to have it suit her. She refused to change for the situation now in front of her. She refused to adapt, because she would rather ruin her life and place in society her way rather than bend to the will of someone else. [break][break]

This was the essence of who Alina Tarasivna Rybalka was, the woman who refused to not be the driver of her own destiny. Even when it was the smart move, even when she suffered great losses for not ceding control, she refused. It wasn’t that she hated authority, but it was more than she hated carrying out directives that she did not see the point of or agree with. She was willing to compromise, but when she invoked what she considered to be her right to refuse and that was resisted… she would break before she gave in. [break][break]

In every other situation in her life up to that point, it was a positive. It allowed her to survive and take control of situations where others would die. A country in revolution, a large scale global conflict, and a life in flux meant unstable conditions that would bend before she did. This was not a revolution. This was not a conflict. This was an island that wanted to be left alone, an island that wanted to be a sanctuary from the world. They didn’t want a firebrand, they didn’t want a military, and they didn’t want the pushy authority of someone who ultimately only survived through luck despite their inexperience. She tried to establish herself too quickly and pushed the envelope too hard, too fast and built up enemies who didn’t want to see a major change. [break][break]

She was a revolutionary without a revolution, a soldier without an army. It was the first time that she realized how uniquely unsuited to this place she was, now that it was too late to change her course. The thing about Menagerie was that it was mostly desert, with small pockets of areas that were livable like the area of the capital Kuo Kuana where she lived. That made it easy to get rid of the flock of people gawking at her when she exited the station. [break][break]

She just kept walking until there was no one left but the sand dunes and sat down to process what had just happened. What her next steps would be. If there were any next steps. Rapid, shallowing breathing filled her ears, and the scratchy and painful remnants of all the tears her body could muster filled her eyes. Sitting in the sand, shoulders slumped and staring blankly in the distance on an island that promised salvation but would no doubt become her prison in the coming days and months. [break][break]

The green hoodie she wore was stretched from the hands that grabbed it, threatening her with what would happen if she refused to comply. Shoes were filled with sand from the desert around her, and jeans were just covered in sand and dirt from the journey over. Her long, white hair was probably more sand than hair at this point and the area in front of her was glassed from a moment of frustration she had when first arriving when she unleashed her full power at the earth in front of her in a fit of rage. Pointless, impotent rage. [break][break]

Maybe they were right. [break][break]

Maybe she really wasn’t cut out for this after all. [break][break]

A thousand attempts at this same situation wouldn't have made a difference, the outcome was inevitable from the start.

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[attr="class","nikki103"]1162 words

[attr="class","nikki103"]ASCHE SYNDICATE

[attr="class","nikki103"]1162 TOTAL WORDS

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NOTES

B Semblance, D Weapons, B Dust Enhancement, C Durability, C Agility, C Martial Arts, D Stamina, D Exhaustion

PHARAOH LEAP CREATES

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[Sinopia DeStellanova]

In some ways, adapting to life on Menagerie was easy. For most of her life, what she wanted was completely irrelevant, so she was very good at listening to people and following directions. Until recently, she didn't have a particularly strong sense of self of identity, so she was more than happy to go along with whatever other people wanted. Put simply, she was flexible.

But all that really meant was that she was used to feeling horribly uncomfortable.

She had always felt out of place in this world, as though she was somehow ported to some alien universe where nothing made sense. It started when she was young from growing up somewhere loud and smelly full of people that would be suspicious of her if she walked wrong, went to the wrong places, or carried something they didn't think she should have. As the years went by, it escalated for reasons she wouldn't understand later until she had to flee the country and was getting shot at. Being scared was her normal. Watching her manners, the sounds she made, and how she moved was practically necessary for survival. Expecting something terrible to happen was rational, and preparing for that was necessary. That was just the way life was, and she adapted.

Menagerie was completely different. It was quiet and peaceful and the population didn't have any interest in hurting her. The people looked more like her and she could go wherever she wanted. Her uncle was very wealthy by the islands standards, and while he didn't live in the same opulence as was common among the wealthy in the four kingdoms, he would never have to worry about money even if he stopped making more entirely. Her room in his house was larger than the entire apartment she grew up in, and for awhile, he was willing to get her whatever she needed to help her adjust to life on the island. She just had no idea what that was.

Sinopia was no one. Her life revolved around being no one. Getting seen or any kind of attention was almost always bad. Even with her parents she had to make sure she wasn't too much of a someone or they'd get sad for leaving her alone so much -- it's not like they could afford to pay a babysitter to watch after her while they worked. So she quietly did what she was told and did what people liked. People liked seeing other people smile, so she did that. They liked it when people agreed with them, so she did that. They liked it when people helped them, so she tried to do that when she could. It was hard to come up with the words, and she messed up a lot, but she started to learn. No one wanted honesty, they just wanted a doll that they could do whatever they wanted with.

In that sense, Menagerie was exactly the same. The bruises were replaced with scathing looks of disappointment, though those were often one in the same when she was growing up. Upsetting people had lasting consequences and that had to be avoided. If her smile faltered people would ask questions they didn't want to know the answers to. It would draw attention to herself and attention was almost always bad. Even if it wasn't someone demanding her money or whatever she was carrying, it was still someone demanding her attention and time. She couldn't say no, they would get sad and that would have lasting consequences as far as her brain was concerned.

Because no one was actually concerned about her. Not her as a person. When she had nightmares and trouble falling asleep, she wasn't allowed to sleep with her uncle or her cousins because they were all male and that was inappropriate for a girl her age. Not that she knew what that meant or why that mattered when everyone in the Mistral National Guard piled into the same place to sleep regardless of sex. No one ever noticed the bandages on her fingers if she wore gloves or the bags under her eyes if she applied some concealer and foundation -- though that wasn't always easy with her freckles. Her uncle hadn't even noticed when she started spending large swaths of her afternoons sleeping up until he was finally told she was doing her homework. Telling people how she felt rarely got more than a 'cheer up' or confused looks because of how well she supposedly lived. Her thoughts were inappropriate, wrong, so she tried to change them.

The real problem was that people thought they cared. They thought they wanted to learn more about her. They thought they wanted to let her do what made her happy. They thought they cared about her opinions. All it amounted to was that she had to make up things to say that made sense in this society and it was exhausting. It was hard to know what people wanted sometimes and if she was too obvious about it they wouldn't believe her. Dealing with people got even more exhausting once she actually started having opinions of her own. Socializing started to feel wrong on top of that, and she always wondered if there was something wrong with her when people disagreed.

Though there was a sub-set of people that could always see right through her. Those few that knew her well enough that she didn't have to keep up her facade. Those relationships were the only things keeping her going at this point. Nothing else even felt real.

Alina was one such person, though they didn't get to spend as much time together as she would have liked. She had seen enough of Sinopia, the person, that trying to act like the overly polite self she was projecting would have felt strange. She knew enough that she didn't even feel the need to pretend. They had experienced enough together that she trusted Alina more than anyone else she knew. She could tell that something wasn't quite right for awhile now, but there wasn't anything she could do about it. Not that she could think of anyway.

Not that it was necessary for her to have noticed it before something finally gave way. The Menagerie Guard made it obvious even for people that had never met Alina. The entire situation left her dumbfounded enough that she dropped her pencil and started staring, much to the displeasure of her teacher. Right now, she didn't care about the consequences of upsetting someone and she didn't care that she was still in school. Once Alina started running, there was nothing that could keep her there. All she needed was an excuse to use the bathroom to get out of the classroom, and then she started chasing after her friend.

Sinopia found it difficult to keep up despite usually being faster than Alina because of how out of shape she was. To the point that she actually lost Alina a few times and was only able to pick up her trail again because running wasn't exactly quiet. Her clothes were woefully impractical for this. Skirts were easy enough to run in, but the blazer was suffocating and the heels on her shoes were just tall enough that she had to worry about her balance. It was even worse once they got into the desert. By the time they got there she had to take a moment to rest now that the area was more open and she wasn't likely to lose sight of Alina or she was going to throw up. Her shoes kept sinking in the sand in the worst ways too and she was drenched in sweat. After taking a moment to compose herself, she started making her way up the dune while her legs felt like lead and she was hurting in parts she didn't even know she had.

It wasn't until she got about half way up that she realized she didn't know what to say. While she didn't know exactly what happened, she had a few guesses. There weren't many things that could get this kind of reaction out of someone like Alina. Would she even want to talk about it? Would her presence here be more of a nuisance than a benefit? It was entirely possible that she wanted to be alone. But considering Sinopia's heaving and how long it was taking her to climb she wouldn't be surprised if Alina already knew she was there. She had already come this far, so she supposed she might as well see it through. She quieted her breath until she was breathing normally, which really only succeeded in making her feel light headed. Her hair and clothes were sticking to her and her face was bright red. Her body always betrayed her best efforts in concealing how she was feeling.

She took a seat a few arms lengths away from Alina to give her space and was careful to avoid the glass, doing her best not to stare at it. Unfortunately, she still had no idea what to say. Should she say anything at all? Asking stupid questions like 'are you okay?' or 'what happened?' when both of those had obvious answers seemed like it would only piss Alina off even if they were the first questions to come to mind. Sinopia pulled her knees to her chest and looked out at the desert. In the end, she still decided to go with one of the first things that came to mind.

"I've never been this far out. This place is even shittier than I thought it was."

After saying that she blinked and her head sunk into her shoulders. That was really the best she could come up with? Shouldn't she had said something more uplifting and positive? For all she claimed to care about people she really had no idea what to do when they were feeling bad. Or sad. Or whatever else. She went out of her way to avoid letting it happen in the first place after all.

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1684/1684

[Alina Rybalka]

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[attr="class","nikki101"]WE CAN ALL AGREE THAT VIOLENCE BREEDS VIOLENCE

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[attr="class","nikki102"]BUT IN THE END, IT HAS TO BE THIS WAY

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[attr="class","nikki109"]Doubt was something that was rarely in the picture. Something that almost never happened, these days, because the deleterious effects of it were rarely things Alina could bear. In the Faunus Rights Revolution, life was simple. She received orders or came up with a goal and followed that through until she succeeded or died. Those were the only two options, because failure meant death while attempting a task she couldn’t complete. After the war was over, she adapted the same mindset over to her day to day life and training. She would relentlessly pursue the path she had chosen until she had either succeeded or died. [break][break]

This was the first time in a long time where she had encountered a situation that was anywhere close to this important where this paradigm fell apart. She had failed but was still alive. Because she was still alive, she had to come to a decision of what to do next. She knew this logically but couldn’t accept it emotionally. Charting a new course was the same as saying that the suffering that had led them to this point was pointless. It was the same as denying the sacrifices of so many others to get them to this point, only to have a defect in herself be the obstacle that prevented those sacrifices from having meaning. [break][break]

She was so out of it that when she heard a voice next to her she nearly jumped out of her skin. For the first time in a long time, she truly looked lost. Shoulders slumped forward, eyes almost as vacant as they were red from crying, hoodie almost to the point of tearing from being stretched so much, on the ground with the glass in front of her starting to be slowly moved away by the wind around her. [break][break]

”You know, I really thought that when we got here that things would just magically come together.” Her voice sounded weird, even to her. Alina was perhaps the person who cared about outward appearance most of all and spent considerable effort to never be seen as weak. Her posture was always perfect, and her inflection perfectly rehearsed and projected throughout the area… except for now. Now, with nobody else around, that same voice that practiced for months to sound as confident and authoritative as possible now sounded small and uncertain. [break][break]

”It feels so wrong, now, that I’m here instead of the ones who could have actually taken advantage of this opportunity.” The thought of an all-Faunus nation wasn’t a new one, and there were several among their group of comrades who had that goal in mind from very early on in the war. Alina was never one of them, but now that she thought about it… it seemed like most of them were a bit more fervent in their defense of others than most, because almost all of them had died in combat… usually from attempting to save one of their comrades. [break][break]

”I feel like I let them down.” Pain was clear as day in her voice, then, as she paused. [break][break]

”It feels like I’m wasting the chance that they gave me, and even worse… now I’m dragging you down with me.” Her voice was shaking, then, almost at the verge of breaking. [break][break]

”You should…” she trailed off, there, with the next word refusing to come out. ”I’m going to be poison from this point forward.” she grumbled, resigned to her fate already. ”This place was supposed to be the salvation we all dreamed of back there, but now I’m just going to be the zoo animal. If I had known that this was the result of all of that suffering, I…” [break][break]

She couldn’t complete that sentence, either. Tears welled up in those reddened gray eyes once more as she closed them and looked at the ground. Out of all the roles in society they had imagined themselves in after it was all over, she had fallen into one that she had never even thought was possible. From Faunus War veteran to outcast in the all-Faunus Menagerie, funny how it worked out in the end. The one place she should fit in the most had rejected her, and she was left to pick up the pieces on the margins once again… dragging down the people around her into her vortex of stupidity, as per usual.

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[attr="class","nikki103"]734 words

[attr="class","nikki103"]ASCHE SYNDICATE

[attr="class","nikki103"]1896 TOTAL WORDS

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NOTES

B Semblance, D Weapons, B Dust Enhancement, C Durability, C Agility, C Martial Arts, D Stamina, D Exhaustion

PHARAOH LEAP CREATES

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[Sinopia DeStellanova]

Alina startling was enough to get her to jump as well. She yelped and lowered her head and shoulders towards the ground, as though her friend was reacting to some kind of danger she somehow hadn't noticed rather than her presence. It was strange because she couldn't even remember the last time something like that happened, and it caught her off-guard. If her face was capable of turning redder, it would have.

Sinopia turned around, not because she was embarrassed, but because she figured Alina would prefer it that way. She didn't make any comments about how Alina looked, that her clothes were going to fall apart if she kept doing that, or about the strangely shaped pane of glass blowing away from them. At first, she couldn't even bring herself to say anything. She didn't even know where to begin. Truly, she wanted nothing more than to wrap her arms around her friend, bury her head into Alina's shoulder, and tell her everything was still okay. That this didn't have to be the end and she could still do a lot for this shitty little island. However, she doubted such platitudes would reach Alina right now. She doubted most words would and trying to figure how to to approach this was difficult, especially since seeing Alina like this was tearing her own heart apart.

So, she just positioned herself. She kept her back to Alina and put one arm far enough back that it would brush up against her briefly before settling into the sand. If Alina wanted to grab hold of her hand or turn around, she could do so, but Sinopia would sit there motionless until something like that happened. She learned a long time ago that people were supposed to ignore stuff like this. That she was supposed to pretend like the other person was just as confident and strong as ever and that she hadn't even noticed that they looked sad. It was hard, always had been, but she found it was a much gentler way to let people come to term with their emotions and that it would let them move at their own pace and comfort level.

She was silent for a moment after that. Everything about the words felt wrong. Not just how she was saying them or how strange Alina's voice sounded to her ears right now, but the words themselves. Sinopia furrowed her brows and gripped the sand around her hands. It felt like her gut was burning as a flash of anger came over her, a feeling that she had so rarely felt before coming to Menagerie that it still felt a little bit unsettling. As complex as her emotions were right now, that was the piece that gave her some idea of what to do.

"What are you talking about? Have you been out in the sun so long that it's starting to fry your brain?"

She tried to sound strong and confident -- like Alina -- but the hesitance and discomfort in her voice was obvious. The attempt only made her talk louder than usual. It wasn't surprising. Being that forward and aggressive was difficult for her. So much so that she was already starting to feel her throat tighten, but she knew she had to do it and that she had to continue. There was no other way to make her words reach Alina and she figured Alina would prefer something more firm and understanding than something nice. Not that this sounded understanding, but it was coming from her, someone Alina had known for a long time and someone that followed her out to the desert fast enough to make her want to throw up. She hoped that meant the words would carry some amount of understanding intrinsically. But mostly, she was pretty sure she had to be at least a little shocking to be heard.

"'Magically come together'? What? Stuff only happens because people do something right? It doesn't just...happen. And 'salvation'? It's not like a random island is just going to be that. Someone has to turn it into that. Since when did you talk about things like they had some intrinsic, immutable quality?"

The rest she didn't touch because it hit way too close to home. She constantly felt like she was letting everyone down and wondered why she was the one that survived the war rather than her parents or some of her far more competent friends. Talking about it would be difficult even while she wasn't trying to be aggressive. She wasn't even sure if she could while talking like this without her throat closing up and having it turn into random sputtering. She was already turning her shoulders inward, as though she could hug herself without taking her hands out of the sand. All she could do was hope that it wasn't making her sound like a total asshole.

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817/2501

[Alina Rybalka]

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[attr="class","nikki101"]WE CAN ALL AGREE THAT VIOLENCE BREEDS VIOLENCE

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[attr="class","nikki102"]BUT IN THE END, IT HAS TO BE THIS WAY

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[attr="class","nikki109"]It would be strange for others to see how Alina shut up immediately at the first hint of a rare pushback from Sinopia. She had more than a bit of a reputation of being stubborn and unwilling to let people get in a word edgewise when she was at her worst. When the faunus thought she was in the right, she wouldn’t budge an inch. When she thought she knew better, she also wouldn’t budge an inch. This was often perceived as arrogance, and maybe it was. The teenager was never the most trusting, and never the most keen to immediately assume new people were either competent or had anyone’s best interests at heart. She needed those who would challenge her to prove themselves worth listening to, and the situation in Menagerie from her perspective was those that were nominally in charge of her in a professional sense failing to prove themselves in that same capacity over and over and over again. [break][break]

She hated tradition. It was the shackles handed to the present by those long dead, and only seemed to benefit the older generation who had grown to a point to where they’d rather rest on their real or imagined laurels and orient society to take care of their needs at the expense of others. The entire system always seemed parasitic to her, with those who did the most for the faunus both here and abroad being treated almost the worst and those who stayed in complete safety and even fought against those advances made so recently with fervor even as their supposed comrades died in droves. [break][break]

Because of that inherent contempt for the authority structure of the island, maybe this was inevitable. This contempt also had the side effect of making it impossible to go to the elders and leaders for help with personal issues, which compounded into the explosion that happened today. When there was no faith in authority, there was nobody to come to in order to have issues resolved. Alina’s capacity for criticism changed significantly depending on who was giving it, as well, and when Sinopia was talking she was dead silent. The initial response, even, was surprisingly calm in tone. [break][break]

”Maybe salvation was a bad word… but I always thought that this would be the end, you know? The place where I’d just be boring and live forever until I died of old age or whatever, it’s just… What the point of fighting so hard to end the war if I can’t even handle what comes after the war? What the fuck is the peace I wanted so bad good for if I can’t even do anything with it?” [break][break]

The initial shallow calm quickly devolved into bitter frustration. ”Like, what do I even offer anyone at this point? The only thing I’m good at is something nobody wants or needs, and the closest thing to that is a closed door now because I can’t keep my shit together. I have no useful skills, most of the people I knew are dead or who knows where in Remnant right now… and here I am, after taking a one way ticket to the middle of nowhere and only now finding out I wasn’t cut out for it.” [break][break]

The bitterness in her words was palpable, because at the end of the war everyone needed to make a choice on whether to come here or not. Everyone who came along knew damn well that it was going to be a one way ticket for a long time, because travel between Menagerie and everywhere else was so infrequent and dangerous that most never even attempted it. The next ship out of here could be tomorrow, or it could be never. The worst part about it was that Alina genuinely didn’t have any idea what she’d even do with the freedom to leave. [break][break]

It was weird, because she didn’t even remember what she wanted to be before the war started. It seemed so long ago, the only goal she ever remembered having was just to survive day to day before coming here. Her memory itself was a mess, with some parts being crystal clear recollections and other parts just being complete blurs that she lived through but couldn’t tell anyone very many details about. Menagerie was a weird place and mix of people that almost invalidated the past one had lived to get there, due to so few people giving a shit at all. In a place where the past didn’t matter, looking forward became Alina’s sole recourse… and now that was taken away from her as well. With both past and future not mattering, she had no choice but to dwell in a present that would likely soon devolve into a living hell due to how much society’s view of her would change from here on out. [break][break]

It was funny, because Alina was one of the ones who thought it would be a great idea to come here once upon a time. She was sick of fighting and wanted nothing more than to live in peace. Now here she was, reneging on all of that sentiment to do the complete and utter opposite now that she had utterly failed at peace.

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[attr="class","nikki103"]874 words

[attr="class","nikki103"]ASCHE SYNDICATE

[attr="class","nikki103"]2770 TOTAL WORDS

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NOTES

B Semblance, D Weapons, B Dust Enhancement, C Durability, C Agility, C Martial Arts, D Stamina, D Exhaustion

PHARAOH LEAP CREATES

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[Sinopia DeStellanova]

Sinopia looked down and moved her knees towards her chest. She would have hugged them if she didn't want to keep her arms close to Alina. She was glad Alina seemed a little more coherent and able to verbalize her thoughts, but that topic always made her feel awkward, if not outright bad because she thought she might be ungrateful. She never wanted to come to Menagerie. She hated this place and everything it stood for from the bottom of her heart and seriously considered being a homeless vagrant in some city over coming here. If Alina hadn't decided to come to the island she seriously might have, though she still might have come to see if her mother was actually alive here. By the end of the war, she knew that it was a lie her father told her to make her feel better, and to avoid having to talk about what was going on with a child, but she really wanted to believe it was true. It wasn't, but her heart didn't fully accept it until she verified it for herself.

When she first arrived at Menagerie, she was overwhelmed to the point she could barely function. Even before the war, her life couldn't be considered normal and she had no idea how to act in a place that was genuinely peaceful. She still wasn't sure if she was comfortable with it because the few things she thought would come with peace never did. The fear that something bad was going to happen never went away, she was still hyper aware of her surroundings, still couldn't sleep, still was afraid of how people would react if she said something wrong or went to the wrong place, and still didn't have her family with her. Sure, she had her uncle and his family, but she had seen him a grand total of once before coming to Menagerie, and had never met the rest of them. There was no bond. He tried to forge one, but his strict and rigid nature just made her afraid to talk to him at all. It wasn't his fault. Sinopia never blamed him, but every time she tried to interact with him it made it obvious just how poorly suited to this life she was and how much she didn't belong here.

Her father's grave was here too, but that wasn't comforting. When she found out there was a memorial like that here, it was possibly one of the first times in her life she was genuinely furious. Her father dedicated his life to faunus rights at the expense of everything else. He was self-sacrificing to the point that he was willing to give up any stability he might have been able to have, any money he might have been able to earn, and even regularly went without eating just to be able to do it. He didn't even intend to have a family. Meeting her mother and having a child came as a surprise. Sinopia was born when he was 37, an age where he had long since stopped thinking about dating. The fact that someone like that, someone that worked so hard to let faunus stay in the kingdoms, someone that was against the formation of a faunus nation, someone that gave up staying with his own brother and family just to push for it, would have their final resting place here felt like a slap in the face. Sure, his body was probably rotting in a mass grave near Fort Castle and not actually here, but that wasn't much of a comfort to her when the symbol was still here. It still felt disrespectful.

She never thought of this place as salvation. The name alone made the intent behind the 'gift' clear. Menagerie: a collection of animals held in captivity for exhibition. Insulting. She made her opinion known to the people that knew her during the war, but hadn't talked about it since. She avoided talking about it and would continue to do so even now.

"I could show you how to fix cars if you wanted. Or ships. We always need people to move crates around too. Or scrape barnacles off of the bottom of ships. Anyone can do it I think."

Sinopia stopped and let a long breath out of her nose. She started with her uncle's business because that was what she was the most familiar with and where she would likely be working for the foreseeable future. He managed logistics, moving goods from one city to the next. Most of the vehicles he owned her ships, but they were fairly small compared to what the kingdoms used for transport. They could probably pass for large ferries there. His vehicles were much the same, only about the size of a very large van instead of those 18 wheeld monstrosities that she often saw in the industrial district she grew up in. Menagerie didn't need anything bigger, at least not right now.

But this mentioning that was fairly pointless because the odds of her uncle hiring Alina was slim. He hated Alina and considered her a bad influence, as though she was somehow corrupting Sinopia. Alina was one of the few things keeping her sane because she was quite possibly the only person on the island that actually understood her and what she went though. She always hated how her uncle thought of Alina, but there wasn't much she could do about it.

"I know there's always people looking for someone to help with their farms or the fisheries. Or to keep the streets clean and some of the lawns and landscaping around the businesses maintained. I think the couple that owns the burrito place I go to are getting old and wouldn't mind having someone help cook and run their shop..."

Because she had insisted on being social and trying to gain connections at her uncle's recommendation, she knew a fair amount of people. Helped a lot of them too. However, it was difficult for her to forge genuine connections. She quickly found that being honest only made people sad. Having people worry about her was intolerable, and even when they didn't, they'd often get upset if she was even a little honest. So, she focused on trying to tell people what they wanted to her. It made her some superficial 'friends,' if they could be called that, with some of the adults, but she felt no attachment with them. Nothing she showed them was Sinopia, just a doll they wanted to see.

This suggestion was equally as pointless, but for different reasons. Alina might be able to get a job doing something like this. Even if people were hesitant, Sinopia might be able to help. But would Alina take those jobs?

"There's a lot to do but...It doesn't matter does it? It's not good enough is it? I've been thinking about it a lot lately. Is it really okay if I just...fix cars for the rest of my life?"

For all she was scoffing at the idea of things just working out, they really did for her. She just happened to have a rich uncle on the island that was willing to take her in. He just happened to own a company that did something she was interested in and good at. Even if she completely flunked out of school, something that was looking likely at this point, she'd probably have a job doing something she liked, and had enough positive connections that if she ever needed help she was likely to get it. Her cousins liked her and her aunt loved her. She had a place to live, and would probably be able to afford her own place if she wanted. Her life was practically idyllic. The kind of life people strived for. Yet she was unhappy and nothing filled that void. It didn't make sense, and she felt guilty for it. Why was it never good enough?

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