[Aegle Verdant]

"You ain't comin' in."
The bouncer's voice couldn't have more perfectly matched his appearance. Blunt and brutish, it sounded too much like gravel being tumbled to be real. Harsh and gritty, just like his vicious slab of face and his cold, flinty eyes. Aegle stared up at him with a quizzical grin, heart running riot in her chest. She had to admit, there was something awful intimidating about someone so much bigger and heavier than her, who didn't even hide his displeasure at her presence. It was no lie saying he scared her, and not merely by his cold regard. His tight vest constrained a flabby but none-the-less powerful physique, while leaving his bulging arms brazenly bare to the early evening coolness. It was his hands which really made him frightening though. Huge and brutal, just like the rest of him, they sported telltale signs of wear and purpose which Aegle could not help but recognize. Each knuckle was hard and raised by well tended scars, while the bones between were plainly a bit thicker than they were meant to be. Aegle knew precisely the sort of punishment required to cultivate such signs, and this bouncer wore them like badges of honor.
"I ain't comin' in?" Aegle repeated, grinning wide. Her own, equally scarred hands waited in her pockets, her abnormal knuckles swathed in strides of soft linen. She couldn't keep the fear nor the excitement out of her voice, though she managed to keep both off of her face.
"Says who?"
"Says me." The bouncer replied, as irritated by Aegle's defiance as he was confused by it. No doubt he was used to men much bigger than her giving into his commands. That dissonance sparked a hint of wariness behind his flinty eyes. Perhaps even a note of caution. He wasn't an utter fool then. He mistrusted the failure of his efforts to intimidate her. He read that failure, and Aegle's apparent security, as a warning. He hid it well, but Aegle saw his scrutiny clearly. He was trying to guess what she knew that he didn't. Was she secretly armed? Was she not alone? Was she actually a huntress, and therefore well beyond his ability to control, or was she simply cracked in the head, too mad to cower before the obvious physical threat which he represented?

The wise thing to do, when confronted with such uncertainty, would have been to back down. Without knowing precisely why Aegle was so confident, why she showed so little fear at his imposition, the bouncer should have dropped the matter and let her pass. At least, that was what Aegle thought, and the bouncer's failure to do so forced her to rethink things. Instead of backing down, he squared up, drawing half a step closer so that his big bulge of belly was nearly touching her nose; He smelled of dirt and sweat and the cheapest of colognes.
She wanted to ask him why he wasn't given pause, why he was pushing things. She wanted to know why, when confronted with the uncertainty she represented, why he had not caved. It fascinated her, trying to put herself in his shoes, trying to imagine what being so big, strong, and obviously intimidating must do to the way someone thinks. Perhaps he had registered the threat her uncertainty represented, but was merely so self-assured that he hadn't given it a second thought. Perhaps there was something scarier than the unknown keeping him from backing down. Perhaps he was more like her than she suspected, and he was actually hoping Aegle was more than she appeared. Perhaps he wanted her to fight him on this, so that he could put those well trained hands to work.

He must have been thinking something at least, because he didn't look like backing down.

Aegle's grin grew wider. Flexing her fingers, she let her head hang to the side, looking strangely like a puppet with its strings cut.
"Oh aye, and who're ye t'say what I cannae do?"
She was waiting for the twitch, the tell, the sign that he would escalate things. He did not disappoint. With his arms bare, it was easy to see when the muscles in them tensed, in that fractional instant before moving. He began with a shove, raising one meaty hand for her shoulder, intending, so Aegle assumed, to put some distance between them. That was the trouble with squaring up so close, it started things with her already inside his guard. Aegle twitched aside, his grasping hand sliding past her twisting shoulder. That was all she did though.
The bouncer's eyebrows went up, but only slightly, not so much surprise as confirmation. He understood now the game he'd just bought into, and thought he had the measure of his opponent. Aegle just went in smiling, in that fractional instant before his next move.
His boot came down hard on her instep; Aegle saw no warning, only felt the pain as his heavy sole ground down on her boot shod foot. It was a shockingly shrewd move, one which caught her completely offguard. Her smile flickered and, as the wince was working its way up her body, from her bending knees to her hunching shoulders, his fist clobbered her in the cheek.

It was a good punch, hard as a hammer blow for how close he'd been forced to make it. With her standing so near, he'd hardly been allowed any wind up, and had needed the brief distraction of her stamped foot to have much hope of hitting. Aegle staggered back, the weight on her foot suddenly released, the punch to her face still ringing in her ears. She brought up one arm in a half guard, reflexively protecting her wounded cheek, and hardened her aura just in time to take a follow up punch to the gut. It still drove the wind out of her, and sent her staggering back another half step. Legs weak, Aegle flopped onto her rump with a harsh wheeze, white spots popping before her goggling eyes.
"Get outa here, kid," The bouncer growled, "Run back to your academy, ya aint welcome here."
Aegle, face aching, forced a pained grin. The fact that she was still conscious must have confirmed what he'd already suspected.
"Oh aye, I'll get right to that." Aegle said, leering at him from the grimy street. The irony of her statement was not lost on the bouncer, whose eyebrows knit in mingled concern and annoyance.
'So he isn't entirely confident he could handle a Haven student?'
Aegle felt bad for thinking less of him. That caution was good, if expertly hidden. A strong student was more than a match for even the hardest of hired hands, and he would do well to be worried. Aegle wasn't a strong student however. She wasn't even a mediocre student. In truth, she was probably the worst student Haven had to offer.
"Don't start somethin' you can't finish, kid. It ain't worth it."
Aegle tittered, "Funny thing 'bout that, aye? I'm all about finished already."

She sprang forward. Being knocked down wasn't new to Aegle, and she rose as fluidly as her familiarity would imply, getting her feet under her and bringing her fists to bare in one smooth movement. Her first swing caught the bouncer's sizeable gut, she had correctly guessed he would not bring his hands up fast enough. It had been meant to bow him forward, to bring his face closer, and thereby make her follow up uppercut to his chin a little easier. It did nothing of the sort. Instead of letting himself be drawn in for a second punch, the bouncer actually stepped back. With one hand guarding his midsection, he lashed out with a beefy forearm, trying to backhand the advancing boxer. Rather than try to block the slap, which was as sure to send her staggering as any blow from a mace or hammer, Aegle hooked it up with her guarding arm, parrying it past her ear and harmlessly over her head. Her next punch crunched into the inside of his knee, and resulted in a grunt of pain.
'No aura, then.' Aegle thought, grinning. She actually stood a chance.

He grabbed her, one hand locking her wrist as she recovered from her punch and the other grabbing a handful of her hair. This was hardly a surprise. Confronted with her agility, the next best thing would be to use his size against her. It worked alarmingly well. Aegle was not heavy, not even fully clothed and wearing her brace, and he hauled her off her feet without issue. It did let her score a hook to his jaw, but it wasn't enough. Uprooted, it was a simple matter to turn her over and slam her bodily to the ground. Aegle saw it coming, but there was nothing she could do about it. Hardening her aura, she did her best to break her fall.
The ground rushed up, and the air was driven from her lungs for the second time in as many seconds.
Aegle was just barely aware of the bouncer's cursing, turning the night air blue, as she tried to get back to her feet. She caught a heel in the side of her head for her effort, and was sent sprawling. There was nothing she could have done about that either. Winded and on hands and knees, she was utterly at the bouncer's mercy, and her punch to his face had done for what mercy he might have had.
"Stay." The bouncer grunted, the pointed tip of his boot hitting her square in the kidney, "Down."
Aegle slumped to her side, then rolled to avoid a heel aimed for her shoulder. He wasn't holding back. Having figured out she had aura, he knew he didn't have to.

He chased her half a stride before hooking her arm out of the way and stamping on her ribs. Aegle punched him in the knee for it, but she took more than she gave, and felt something creak in her chest.

The next thirty seconds were a rain of blows, a blur of movement, with Aegle fending off what she could while trying vainly to get back to her feet. Finally, she got it square in the nose, she didn't even see with what, and spent the next few moments getting kicked in the side and head. It was no more than she deserved, but boy did it hurt.
"Ya done?!" The bouncer snarled, pinning her down with his filth smeared heel, almost all his weight crushing down on her chest. Aegle still had some aura to spare, but he'd seen her blood and made the not-unreasonable assumption that she was all tapped out. After all, what kind of madwoman bleeds when she still has some aura left?
Aegle grinned up at him, arms feebly trying to force up his foot, "Reckon I am, thanks f'askin'..."
Her flippancy didn't please him much. Wiping a bit of blood from his lips, the bouncer crushed down harder, making Aegle wheeze.
"You're all the same. Get yourself a little power and think you're indestructible." The bouncer growled, obviously intending to cow as well as beat her, "Take it away, and ya fold like bad cards."
Aegle couldn't help it. She gurgled laughter back at him, and the next kick filled her head with stars. By the time her vision cleared, the bouncer was hoisting her up by the front of her hoodie.
"Hey, watch the..." She tried to say, right before he tossed her as far down the alley as he could, about five strides. Aegle landed in a heap, wheezing and chuckling and gasping for breath, her face planted in the muck.
"Get outta here while ya still have some teeth." The bouncer growled.

Aegle tried to do as he said. She got her arms underneath herself and, still softly giggling, swayed unsteadily to her feet. She tasted blood, and her nose was blocked. Part of her wanted to turn back to the bouncer, to get a few more good swings in. She still had aura to spare, she could make his night interesting, but it was hard to see the point. Why make his night more difficult, just because she wanted something to hit? Standing there, bloodied and bruised, it suddenly didn't seem all that fair, making him an accomplice to her self-destruction.
"Right y'are." She said instead, giving the bouncer a small wave, "Thanks for the memories."
And, with that puzzling statement, she staggered off, turned the nearest corner, and collapsed with her back to the wall and every single part of her burning like fire.
'Give the world some time t'stop spinnin', and we'll see what the next bar says...'

---

Aura - 100% || Words - 2,121 || Total - 2,121

[Sinopia DeStellanova]

Strictly speaking, a bar like this wasn't the kind of place Red was supposed to be inside of. At the very least, she shouldn't have the cheap, watered-down alcohol she was nursing between bites of onion rings. She was 19, too young to be in a place like this, but it's not like it mattered. While she was in Mistral she was Sienna Hajnal, a 21 year old human mechanic from Vacuo here to try to get into the University of Mistral so she could work on airships and other high tech vehicles, and it wasn't illegal for someone like Sienna to be in a place like this, munching on fried food while trying to drink as slowly as possible.

Sienna was here to take a break from studying and to get out of the house. Red was here for a brief reconnaissance trip. Someone was manufacturing a semblance enhancing drug that killed the user with in a few minutes of taking it. Right now, she was trying to find out whether or not the spread of that drug was localized to the capital, or if it had started leaking out of Mistral. She found out that a good number of people that worked for the logistics companies in the city came here, so she decided to spend a few hours listening inside to see what she could find out. Her ears were far more sensitive than any human's. Considering how cheaply built this place was and how thin the walls were, she had little doubt that she'd be able to at least hear pieces of conversations through them. This probably wasn't the most effective way to find out about this, but she didn't want anyone to find out she was looking into it. Not getting caught was more important than actually finding information right now.

While she could hear well, she still couldn't listen to multiple conversations at once without losing a lot of what was being said. It meant she had to tune out a lot of conversations once she deemed them irrelevant. It wasn't that crowded, but there were still enough people making enough noise that trying to filter through it all was giving her a headache. Alcohol always made people so rowdy, it was annoying. Some of the chaff was easy to sort out. Sports, machismo, whatever the hell was going outside with the bouncer, all of that clearly had nothing to do with what she was looking for, so she didn't listen. Some of the others were a bit harder because people couldn't exactly speak directly when talking about smuggling, but they talked differently in a way that was difficult to describe. She hadn't heard anything like that.

The real problem with doing stuff like this was that it was really boring. Red kept lazily munching on onion rings while lazily looking out the window, the terrible scenery of the Ground District being the most interesting thing here that she could afford to focus on. While she hadn't been paying much attention to the fight outside it became a little harder to ignore once she saw the smaller person in the bright orange clothes fly past the window. It was hard to tell given how loose the person's clothes were, but it looked like something was bent wrong and it was really uncomfortable to look at. Red had to suppress a wince and wondered why this person was fighting so hard to get into a shitty place like this. Eventually, she stopped hearing noises from outside at all, which was even more concerning.

Red found herself unconsciously shoving onion rings into her mouth faster than she could actually chew them. This wasn't her problem. She knew this wasn't her problem. But she was never able to ignore someone suffering in front of her. After shoving the rest of her snack into her pockets, she left her payment on the counter and made her way towards the alley across from the bar.

Finding the kid wasn't hard given how bright her clothing was and how drab and dank the alley was. They looked even worse than Red thought they did, but most of that probably wasn't from fighting. At least, she was pretty sure fighting too much wouldn't do that to someone's face. What the hell was this person trying to do? Were they just on drugs or something? Red figured she shouldn't ask. Really, there were a lot of things she shouldn't ask. She always avoided stupid questions with obvious answers, like 'are you okay' (the answer was very clearly no), or questions that were maybe too personal, like 'do you need to go to the hospital' in this case. But those really were the questions on her mind right now, so she started searching for something better as she made her way to the person next to the dumpster, fidgeting with her hands the entire way there.

"Are you going to be able to get home okay?" was what she settled on, though it sounded stupid now that she heard it out loud. "Sorry, it just looked like you got hit pretty hard."

She offered a hand if this person needed some help standing up, and would offer a shoulder if they needed help walking. If they did need help getting home, she was okay with providing it, but she wouldn't force it. People had to make their own decisions and she wasn't inclined to interfere too hard with a total stranger's.

---

918/918

[Aegle Verdant]

By the time Red had made it outside, Aegle was seated propped up beside an overflowing dumpster, hand hand thrust into her hair to press down a cut along her scalp. Not to keep it from bleeding, but just because the blood had been tickling her ears.
'Funny how the pain is more bearable than the tickling...'
Not that there was anything terribly funny, or even all that sensible, about what she'd just gone and done to herself. It felt like a bad thing, like she'd needlessly made someone else's night worse just because she couldn't control herself. It felt that way because that was precisely what she had done.
'Funny how I never seem to notice how awful I'm being until I'm done being awful.'

There was a pregnant moment, between the stranger strolling up and asking her question, a moment Aegle had to imagine was spent wondering how much of her tragic appearance was from the recent fight, and how much of it was just the way Aegle was. She certainly looked tragic enough. Swelling lip and red nose, a trickle of blood out of both, with a few scrapes on her cheeks and her hand hiding an obvious cut on her scalp, and that was just the tip of the iceberg. Add in the emaciated and sickly features, the lambent and feverish eyes, and the crooked and mishapen body, and her appearance was certainly one worth pausing over.
'For once, I must look just as wretched as I feel,' She thought with a grin, 'And that really is saying something.'

The space between the stranger walking up and speaking was long enough for Aegle to wonder why she was there. Was she driven by some macabre curiosity and just come near for a closer look? Was she some kind of opportunist and trying to decide if Aegle was worth ripping off? Aegle could hardly fault either motive, and both seemed all too plausible this close to rock-bottom.
"Are you going to be able to get home okay?" The stranger asked, defying Aegle's expectations. The question made her chuckle a little, so unexpected it was. Inappropriate and unhelpful an answer as that was, the stranger must have thought she needed to defend her altruism.
"Sorry, it just looked like you got hit pretty hard."
"Did it?" Aegle croaked back, still smiling, still bleeding, still thoroughly amused. Had this girl been in the bar, to see the bouncer working her? Peeling her hand away from her scalp, the crooked girl examined her bloody palm, then shrugged. Each movement resulted in a quiet, aching whir, like bad electronics.
"I've had worse." She said with casual irreverence, pressing down the cut once again. What startled her was that it was true. Her fight with the boarbatusk had left her way more cut up, and her fight at the gates had nearly killed her. A little scratch on the head was nothing besides those beatings. Thinking about those times, those memories, those experiences, Aegle couldn't help crawling back around to what she was doing in the Ground District to begin with. Her grin twitched, her expression became brittle, and it felt once again like there was a hole inside her, waiting to swallow her up.

"Thanks for y'worry, though." She said after a moment, "S'nice t'be cared after." Aegle forced her grin wider, smiling like it could fill up the hole, then tittered softly.
"Dinnae reckon y'wanna be walkin' me home though; S'quite the walk, ye ken?"
Her accent gave truth to that statement. It was a highlander's brogue, heard nowhere other than the mountain peaks and high valleys of Solitas; Aegle was a ways away from home, indeed. Thinking about home, about family, about hearth and clan, Aegle once again felt that tightening in her chest, like it was all about to fall out of her.
"Oh aye," She said lightly, beaming beatifically, "Quite the walk, it is."
Then, emerald eyes going narrow and shrewd, Aegle raised her hand to shake, the one not trying to hold her head together. It looked less like her offering her hand and more like the jerky movements of a damaged marionette, her arm even locking up partway up and needing to be forced that little bit higher. Again, there was the wheeze of tortured motors to accompany the movement.
"M'Aegle. Aegle Verdant. S'a pleasure t'meet'cha."
It was faintly absurd, offering a handshake to a stranger while covered in bruises and her own blood, but Aegle was in that sort of a mood. 'Tonight seems a night for doing absurd things.'
Though Aegle had just about forgotten what it was like to not be absurd.

"Y'came from the bar, aye?" Aegle flicked her gaze sideways, towards the corner around which her most recent fight and loss had occurred, "Did the bouncer look alright to ye? I'm hopin' I didn't rough him up too bad..."

---

Aura - 100% || Words - 826 || Total - 2,947

[Sinopia DeStellanova]

What the fuck was this person even saying? Red blinked, then bit on the inside of her cheek in an effort to keep her expression as neutral as she could. It was like Aegle (and she was grateful for the clarification from her stating her first and last name because otherwise she wouldn't know whether it was Aegle or Maegle) was slurring her words together, saying the syllables in ways she'd never heard, and was possibly occasionally making up words too. How hard was she hit? But that didn't seem quite right because there were parts she understood quite clearly. She'd heard some weird ways of talking in her life because she spent most of it traveling in some way or another, but she was never especially good at deciphering it. If she tried hard enough, she might be able to pretend though.

Red withdrew the hand that she used to offer Aegle assistance in getting up and used her right hand to shake her hand. She was left handed, so she used that one for most anything that required any amount of strength and coordination, but no one ever shook hands with their left hand. She wasn't sure if Aegle noticed it was her left hand in her state, but the fact that she didn't take it meant that Aegle probably didn't want help getting up anyway. She could respect that.

The handshake was loose and a bit awkward, like she was afraid she might accidentally break Aegle's hand if she squeezed too hard, but she was otherwise willing to humor it. It was strange, but if it would make this person feel less weird then going along with it was harmless enough. Though she did have to pause for a moment before responding, both to try to piece together what Aegle was actually saying and to make sure she didn't have any awkward ums in her speech.

"I'm Sienna. It's nice to meet you Aegle."

Another pause. It was taking her a moment to piece together what Aegle meant about her home. Longer than she would like and she didn't want her pauses to be too long or sound unnatural. That just seemed like it'd be rude, or at the very least, awkward and annoying. For the time being, she skipped to the question about the bouncer because she was pretty sure she understood most of that. Hopefully.

"Sorry, I didn't get a good look at him while I was leaving. I didn't notice anything strange at least. He was just standing there with his arms crossed over his chest when I left. I think he's okay."

Such a strange question given Aegle's current condition. Red would have thought that punching the bouncer would hurt Aegle's hand more than it would hurt the bouncer. The fight looked so one-sided from where she was sitting that she didn't even think to take a look at the other person. Granted, she only saw the parts where Aegle went flying past the window from where she was sitting. It still made her question just how hard Aegle must have gotten hit, or if there was something else seriously messing with her head. A bouncer isn't going to fight someone for fun. Aegle must have provoked it somehow right? Why was Aegle showing such concern when she must have both failed in her objective and gotten the shit beaten out of her?

It didn't really matter, she supposed. Red still couldn't understand what Aegle was saying about home, but she was pretty sure it was a negative. That Aegle didn't want help getting home. That wasn't too unexpected. Indirectly asking where someone lived was almost as personal as asking if they wanted to go to the hospital, and she was embarrassed that she even asked it in the first place. She suppressed the urge to rub the back of her head awkwardly but putting her hands in her pockets instead, forgetting that one of them was still full of onion rings.

"Is there somewhere else you'd rather go? I don't mind running to the store to pick up a first aid kit or something. If you want something besides your hand to hold your head I mean," she paused again, realizing the clarification probably made the offer sound worse, then pulled an onion ring out of her pocket and offered it to Aegle. "Onion ring?"

---

733/1651

[Aegle Verdant]

It really did seem like Sienna was just a good person, worrying after Aegle's well being.
'A concern which really couldn't be any more misplaced.'
Usually, this would have made the crooked girl wonder after this stranger's point of view and she would have tried to see things from her perspective. Exhausted and run near to the end of her wits however, so much so that she'd taken to starting pointless fights in dark alleys just to experience something new, Aegle found herself, for once, incapable of appreciating this situation from any point of view other than her own.
'And mine is a point of view I truly doubt anyone else shares.'
"Dinnae worry 'bout my lid, it'll sort itself out soon enough." Aegle answered lightly, peeling her hand away once again to inspect the damage. Sure enough, the bleeding had already staunched itself. That was the beautiful thing about Aura, it let you get away with all sorts of self destructive behavior. With her bloody hand, Aegle took the offered onion ring without question, stuffing it whole into her mouth. She didn't especially like onion rings, but it felt rude to refuse.
'Here I am, worrying about manners after punching some random stranger in the head.'
By the dead, but she was a mess.

Giggling quietly, Aegle slumped back and stared at her bloody palm. Why had she done what she had done? Why was she doing what she was doing? Why was she here? Why had she wasted so much time, learning to fight? Why had she wasted so much time, getting into fights? Why had she wasted so much time, fighting at all? Aegle curled her bloody fingers, pulling a bloody fist, and could not think of any answer which made any sense to her.
"S'there somewhere else I'd rather go?" She repeated quietly, emerald eyes suddenly distant. She felt that familiar anger, that familiar upwelling of helpless fury that made her want, made her need, to do something, anything. It was curbed by the emptiness, the vacuum inside of her, that hole into which all things inevitably fell.
"Nah. Nowhere else I'd rather be. Rock bottom suits me, ye ken?"
Raising her emerald eyes, Aegle peered up at Sienna, this worried stranger, and her smile grew brittle once again.
'What do I want? Where would I rather be?' she wondered silently, even though she knew there was no answer.

"M'sorry," She said finally, looking down, "I'm guessin' I'm not makin' a whole lot of sense. Y'needn't worry, that's fairly typical of me."
Aegle tittered, but it was a hollow sound, a joyless sound, as helpless as the futile anger which burned in her chest. She must have seemed pretty pathetic, but she was well past the point of caring. She'd tried acting brave, she'd tried smiling, and it hadn't made the anger go away. It hadn't filled the hole.
"S'not the done thing, aye? T'put all y'woes on a stranger; Bet I could make ye regret your concern right quick."

What did she want? Where did she want to go? What did she want to do? Questions she'd been asking for years, the answers for which had never made any sense. She realized, acutely, how much time she'd spent asking those questions, and that made the hole yawn ever wider. She realized, painfully, that she'd tried to answer those questions for other people, and how she'd never asked them for herself. She'd always done that, putting the feelings and needs of others ahead of her own. She'd thought she was being a good person by doing thought, thought she was minimizing the harm she caused. Had any of it even helped, or had she just been fooling herself? Had it all just been a waste of her time?

Aegle's brittle smile finally cracked, and that hurt worse than any punch she'd taken, any bone she'd broken. She flinched and raised her hands to cover the shameful transformation of her expression, to hide as her grin crumbled away, as she showed the haunted hollowness beneath.
"By the dead," She croaked, her whole body tingling, hot and cold, "I just wanna stop thinkin' 'bout it, but I cannae... I just cannae stop."
It was always there, always staring at her. She'd forget about it sometimes, getting too wrapped up in her antics, in her self-deception, to remember it was there. Then she'd glance it in the corner of her eyes, and she'd remember.
"What's wrong with me? Why d'I have'ta be like this?"

---

Aura - 100% || Words - 759 || Total - 3,706

[Sinopia DeStellanova]

When Red decided to get involved, she figured she'd be dealing with some unruly teenager that was too young to be in a place like that, or someone that had been kicked out because they refused to pay their tab or something. The typical things that made bars want to hire security. She could still believe that was the case, and that Aegle was involved in some stuff she didn't even want to know about, but there was clearly something more going on here. Somehow, she had walked into something heavy, and the thought made her shift uncomfortably.

Red didn't like giving advice. She disliked it even more when people asked. It was awkward and strange given how poorly qualified she was to do so. She barely even knew what she was doing with her own life and had utterly failed to integrate into society every time she tried. What the hell would she know about...well anything? Some people were desperate and some people liked to talk she guessed, but it felt so wrong every time someone looked at her like that. Aegle wasn't doing that yet, in fact Aegle seemed to be going out of her way to avoid unloading her baggage, but it felt like it was heading in that direction.

Some part of her felt like she should leave because there wasn't anything she could do here. It didn't matter what she said to something like that. Trying to convince Aegle that she was a good person and didn't deserve this would be patronizing. Agreeing would be cruel. She knew better than anyone that when someone was deep in their own head like that, that it didn't matter what anyone else said. There was nothing that could convince Red that she wasn't a total failure. There was nothing that could convince her that she didn't have to justify her continued existence. There was a whole list like that, some of which she already knew was stupid, but continued to think anyway. Aegle seemed to be in about the same place.

Logically, that meant she should leave. Maybe leave behind some kind words and some water, but leave none-the-less. But the moment Aegle's smile cracked like her face broke, she couldn't do it. If she did that face wouldn't leave her thoughts for weeks. It hurt just looking at it, and it took all her effort to keep herself from staring or frowning. Her posture became stiff and her hands kept twisting in her pockets.

Unfortunately, she still had no idea what to say. There was nothing she could say or do that would help and she already knew this. There was a lot she could say or do that would make things worse, and she knew that too. Knowing there was so much that could go wrong was paralyzing for Red, but she also knew she couldn't stand there like an idiot for too long or the situation would start to get awkward, which was also bad. Why was talking to people always so hard? It always felt like she had to navigate a minefield to avoid hurting anyone. In the end, she went with the first thing that came to mind.

"You know, these are the weirdest things," she pulled another onion ring out of her pocket. "Who thought it'd be a good idea to deep fry vegetables of all things? Sometimes I wonder what the people around them must of thought when they suggested it," she paused and shook her head. "Sorry, I'm not really trying to say anything. Just...saying stuff. Words are surprisingly bad at conveying ideas given that's their only purpose, aren't they?"

---

610/2261

[Aegle Verdant]

Aegle chuckled quietly at the absurdity of it all. It was a hoarse, bitter sound, pent up with frustration and confusion, but also genuine amusement.
"Y'ain't wrong." She tittered, tipping her head back till it touched the wall behind, "Words couldn't be less useless."
Her smile cracked back into place, like shards of a mirror grinding uneasily together.
"Y'wanna know the funny thing, 'bout words I mean? Even when y'know the words, y'convince y'self y'shouldn't say 'em."
As she finished speaking, her mask fractured again. Lips trembling, Aegle closed her eyes and shuddered out a quiet sigh. Her lips flexed, trying to smile, trying to frown, trying to give some face to the feeling inside of her. No face felt right though. Just like it had never felt right to laugh and to smile, nothing else seemed to fit. She chuckled, trying to give some voice to the feeling, but the noise curdled in her throat before finally just giving up.

This was it. She was finally falling apart. She'd never been any good at handling it, and now it was finally cracking her up. Aegle wanted to laugh. Inappropriate as laughter would have been, it would at least have been something. It wouldn't have been nothing. It wouldn't have been emptiness.
"Y'need to excuse me, aye? M'just havin' a bit of an existential crisis." She croaked, almost whimpered, as she crushed her head back against the wall, wanting nothing more than to tear the thoughts and feelings right out of her cracked head.
"Feels like the sorta thing y'would talk with y'family 'bout. With y'friends. With them that y'loves and who loves ye back..." She shook her head, "But ain't that the hell of it, I can't ever bring myself t'do it. I scrounge and I claw, findin' and hoardin' all those right words, till I'm fit t'explode with 'em, and then I ain't got the heart t' say 'em."

Aegle lowered her hands to stare up at Sienna, this absolute stranger, this person who she didn't know and didn't care about, beyond the care she would have for any other living person. Lip trembling, trying desperately to smile, the crooked girl winked.
"Reckon y'are thinkin' y'have bitten off more 'n ye can chew, aye?" She asked, voice brittle with lightness and levity, "I look like such a small thing, just skin 'n bones, but then y'get me in y'teeth and y'see just how hard it is t'swallow."
Sienna was actually smaller than average, on the painful side of skinny, looking like she was used to missing meals, and she was still taller and heavier than Aegle.
"Reckon that's my shinin' virtue, aye? Bein' more 'n people might expect. More 'n meets the eyes."

The jokes didn't last however, and her expression quickly fell back into that unreadable fracture.
"Y'see what I mean?" She asked, "S'like I cannae help it. S'all these things I wanna say, and I'm crackin' jokes instead."
Cupping her face in her hands, Aegle slumped down and shook her head.
"What'm I even doin'? Am I really sittin' here, complainin' to a stranger for not havin' the nerve t'tell my loved ones how bad I'm hurtin'? Cracked as I am, even I can tell that don't make any sense..."

"And ye? What'm I expectin' ye t'do 'bout it? Even assumin' y'dinnae take me for mad, there's probably naught y'could say what I ain't heard nor thought already. Just a bloody damn imposition, innit? Puttin' ye in a place like that, havin' t'try and defuse some stranger's hurts. I'm a right tickin' time bomb, and I'm askin' ye t'try y'hand at cuttin' some wires, aye? Nothin' 'bout that is fair. Am I really gonna go and punish ye, just f'bein' nice?"
Aegle dropped her head, sniffled, and stared at her trembling fingers.
"Too late for otherwise though, innit? I already showed ye the fuse. That y'aint run away screamin' says y'really are the sort t'try 'n help, even if it means gettin' caught out in the blast ye self."

She raised her head, smiling brokenly, "Oh aye, I know the steps t'this dance. S'bout the only dancing I'm up to anymore. Y'can take off though, and with my blessin'. Y'dinnae need t'hold my hand and defuse whatever's countin' down inside've me. Go on and leave me be. The dead know there's nothin' I have t'say what ye would wanna hear."

---

Aura - 100% || Words - 718 || Total - 4,424

[Sinopia DeStellanova]

"There's only so much that can happen when you go to make sure someone that just got out of a bar fight is okay," she shrugged.

Red understood maybe half of that, but it was enough to get the general idea. Aegle's assessment of her thoughts were entirely accurate, but they were easy enough to dismiss. There was no reason for Aegle to know about those thoughts or for her to confirm them. Besides, if she was understanding right this may have gotten easier.

When people talked about being at rock bottom, they normally meant that they lost everything. That they had no money, no home, no loved ones, and nothing they loved anymore. Or that they had been abandoned by those loved ones because of their choices. The way Aegle talked made it sound like that wasn't the case for her. Whether the 'home' Aegle was talking about earlier was an actual home or a euphemism for one was debatable, but saying that she should be saying this to her loved ones was far less ambiguous.

Having difficulty talking to them was something she understood as well. For the longest time, she avoided putting anything on anyone else's shoulders and tried to carry it all herself. She didn't mind carrying their feelings either and would do anything she could to help them. They didn't like that. Not because she was lying or because she was trying to be strong, but because when someone cares about someone else, their struggles become one. It was impossible to truly care about someone without taking part of the burden of their feelings and pain. Even knowing that, it was hard for her to accept sometimes. She didn't want to hurt anyone, and it was harder to see her friends upset than it was any other person.

She paused for a moment before sitting down and pulling out another onion ring to snack on. While saying she looked relaxed was wrong, she looked far more casual than she did a moment ago. She was leaning against the opposite wall, one of her legs stretched out, the other bent at the knee with an arm resting on it. Aegle had confirmed two things that made this a whole lot easier. The first, that Aegle had a support structure somewhere and didn't need her to be that. The second, that Aegle wanted to talk about it. Or at the very least, wanted to say the words. Red could figure out how to handle those words later. She was perfectly content to let Aegle ramble until she was done.

"You make it sound like it's not too late. You can still go talk to them right? Did you want to practice on someone first? Make sure the words sound the same as they do in your head when you say them? The stakes are a lot lower on a complete stranger you probably won't see again right?"

---

490/2751

[Aegle Verdant]

The bleak smile twitched faintly when Sienna gave every impression of someone settling in for a long talk. Perhaps she should have expected it, life always did have a funny way of working out where she was concerned. She would get the one person in all of Mistral willing to actually listen to her inane rambling, thrusting her into position to actually give vent to all that was on her mind. A position which Aegle wasn't sure she was ready for, despite her claims of wanting to get it all out. As much as she really did want to say everything she'd been thinking and feeling for far too long, the habit of keeping it all in, of doing whatever she could to handle it on her own, was a frightening one to break.

"Nah, that's the real hell of it. It ain't too late. Not so long as I draw breath." Aegle peered at the stranger, and the knowledge that this interaction was fleeting, that they could easily part ways and never speak with one another again, crushed down on her like mountain stone. Here was a person, the same as her, whose thoughts and feelings were as real as Aegle's own were for herself. It was a staggering, almost overwhelming thought, that as much complexity and confusion as was pressed into Aegle's life might also be enjoyed by this complete stranger. It made her grin helplessly, to think Sienna was every bit as alive as she was. It didn't seem possible. How could everyone, even the people she didn't know, be as alive as Aegle was, with all that entailed?

Aegle searched the face before her, trying to read something out of Sienna's features and clothes and bearing, trying desperately to know the sort of person she was, and knowing she never could. All the time she had left wasn't time enough to know one person. Perhaps she should take it all for granted, she should just accept Sienna's apparent kindness, patience, and lack of imagination. If Aegle had been any good at taking things for granted, though, she probably wouldn't have picked a random fight in one of Mistral's lowest streets. Perhaps it was desperation which made her answer Sienna. Perhaps it was her kindness which made Aegle want to open up to her. Perhaps her anonymity let Aegle believe it wouldn't hurt...

"I'm gonna die." She said softly, simply, and without dramatics. Her smile didn't even change.
"That dinnae make me special though. We all are. S'all a part of being alive, that final, unavoidable end," Injecting some lightness into her words, Aegle adopted an almost sing-song tone, addind, "We all know its comin', and there ain't no stoppin' it. One way or another, it's gonna happen~."
Aegle felt a quiver in her guts, a faint shiver in her chest, and grit her teeth against the shudder building beneath her skin. The cold feeling that wasn't quite like being cold.
"So yeah, that's all that's botherin' me. The inevitability of my own death." She tittered softly, then slumped back against the wall, smile curdling into a grit-toothed grimace.

"The funny thing is," Aegle began again, more quietly now, "I sometimes feel like I really am the only one who knows it. I often feel like it, in fact."
She waved her hand minutely, "I look at people livin' their lives, learnin' stuff, accomplishin' things, and I wonder 'Dinnae ye know?'."
Aegle stared off at nothing in particular, and wondered how that must feel, wondered what they must know that she didn't, to be able to carry on so careless of the truth.
Then, shivering, she shrank back in on herself, eyes set once more on her hands.
"I wonder if they really do know, and they're just much better at dealin'... I wonder if, instead of bein' the only one who knows, maybe I'm the only one who cannae handle it."

She fell silent after that. Truth was, what she'd said barely even scratched the surface of all she felt and thought, but it was enough to take her breath away all the same. It didn't feel any better, to have said any of that out loud.

---

Aura - 100% || Words - 702 || Total - 5,126

[Sinopia DeStellanova]

What was bothering Aegle didn't come as a surprise in the slightest. There were a lot of topics that could be awkward or difficult to talk about with even with close friends and family, but from looking at the kid, Red figured that this was a plausible one. Her eyebrows, obscured somewhat by her over-sized hood, went up, but otherwise nothing about her expression or demeanor changed. She wondered if she should act more surprised, as though the fact that someone that looked like they could be blown over by a stiff breeze had some kind of terminal condition was shocking, but it seemed like a bad idea. Red was never a very good actor to begin with. It was easy for her to control her voice, keep it level, keep all traces of anxiety, sadness, or whatever else she wanted out of it, but her body always betrayed her feelings. They were far more difficult to hide.

At first, she kept looking at Aegle with polite eye-contact looking somewhat solemn because of the nature of the topic. It was difficult, and it looked like Aegle didn't have a good a handle on the words she wanted to say as she thought she did. Red was content to give Aegle all the time she needed, and so she waited through any pauses, and even kept waiting once Aegle was done talking. Just kept waiting and waiting until it was clear the pause was starting to get really awkward and it probably looked like she was staring, out of it, or plain not listening. At that point, her cheeks flushed, she shifted, and started staring holes though her onion ring.

Was Aegle looking for a response? Red supposed she could do that. She was more rattled by the idea that she was being rude or possibly hurting Aegle's feelings than she was about the topic of death. It was something she had thought about a lot in the past, and she was still genuinely surprised that she was probably going to live to see 20 given the amount of violence in her life. She still doubted she was going to live to see 25 though. In fact, she understood what Aegle was talking about with that question. Death was one of those things where it seemed like nearly everyone should be able to relate to it, but no one ever seemed to. She let something between a sigh and a snort out of her nose, then looked back at Aegle.

"I doubt they think about it much. It's like..." She paused and looked up, her fingers tapping against the ground. "Most people know they're supposed to get their car's oil changed once or twice a year or every 5000 miles, which ever comes first, but I don't think a lot of people do. I doubt a lot of people think about it until their car breaks down and how little they're caring for their vehicle is shoved in their face. I doubt most people think about how often this sort of thing happens, but I work with cars a lot, so I do. Breaks my heart to think about how many overworked engines there must be out there."

The last part was intended as a joke, but the delivery was so deadpan that it might be hard to tell. Aegle seemed intent on keeping the conversation as light as possible, and she was okay with following suit. Sometimes, it was easier to laugh than cry at the terrible things happening in the world.

"Doesn't mean that talking to someone about it is going to be like a car wreck though. It's just going to make people think about something they normally don't. Or something like that."

---

625/3376

[Aegle Verdant]

"I reckon y'are onto somethin' there," Aegle said quietly, making her best attempt at a hollowed out smile, "Cannae say I blame 'em for it neither."
Looking down at herself, Aegle did her best to feel every part of her body and be aware of each part of herself. She felt the coldness of the night breeze on her face, turning frigid around her drying blood. She felt the ache in her hands that never went away, the sting in her scalp where her cut was healing, the throb in her jaw as she ground her teeth. She felt the weight she carried everywhere with her, the brace and the weakness, and the faint tremors working their way through her cooling body. Then, she tried to imagine it weren't there. She tried to imagine not seeing, not feeling, not hearing. She tried to imagine not breathing, her heart not beating, her mind not thinking. She tried to imagine never doing any of those things ever again.
"Nah," She breathed, voice getting hoarse, "Cannae blame 'em one bit."

Haunted, the crooked girl rubbed reflexively at her jaw, where the worst of the aching lay. She tried to get warmer, tried to stop shaking, but there was no escaping the cold, no hiding from the truth.
"I wish I could not think 'bout it. I wonder how much of my life I ain't lived cause of thinkin' 'bout it. How much I ain't seen or felt or done cause I couldn't stop lookin' for the end." She smiled, but it was a hopeless sort of smile.
"Reckon them that dinnae think 'bout it are the lucky ones. They go their whole lives and its only the last few years, the last few months, the last few hours, last few moments, where they really gotta fear what's comin'. Maybe some of 'em, it comes up so quick they ain't even the time t'be scared. Just confusion, then naught ever again."

Aegle looked up, meeting Sienna's eyes, and shook her head.
"For me, it's been most've my life. I keep waitin' t'get used t'the thought, but I never do. The best I can find is forgettin' 'bout it for a spell. Then, like a punch in the teeth, I remember..."
Her smile writhed, like she was trying to figure out what expression best suited her mood. The one Aegle finally settled on was one of bemused weariness, the way someone might smile while watching their childhood home catch fire.
"I reckon a stronger sorta person could've done somethin' with all that thinkin' 'bout it. Could have let it motivate 'em, so they could do great things with the time they have." She raised her hands, showing her bandaged fingers and mishapen knuckles, and scoffed.
"Me? I learned how t'hit things and, the real joke, I ain't even very good at it."
Letting her hands drop into her lap, Aegle rolled her eyes up to the sliver of sky barely visible between the overlapping rooftops and awnings above her head.
"I spent years lookin' for a reason or a purpose. I tried t'find somethin' that'd make it all make sense, that'd make it all worth it. And now all I have is hands what never stop hurtin' and a knack for gettin' into fights. Never found a reason or a point, and I dinnae reckon there is one anymore."

Closing her eyes, the crooked girl shuddered out a quiet laugh.
"I reckon I wasted my time, and I'd less of it t'spare than most. That's the real joke, I reckon."

---

Aura - 100% || Words - 572 || Total - 5,698

[Sinopia DeStellanova]

This was starting to get dangerously close to asking for advice. Aegle hadn't asked for anything directly, but she got the impression the kid was angling that direction, or possibly even fishing for something, whether Aegle was conscious of it or not. She shifted, as though changing her physical position would actually do anything against emotional discomfort, and paused again. Once the pause got too long, she started nibbling on the onion ring so that she would have some excuse to hold off on talking for a moment.

Part of it was still the accent. It took her a moment to piece together what the skill Aegle was talking about was. Mostly, it was trying to follow the flow of the conversation itself. Trying to figure out what Aegle wanted to hear. Red learned a long time ago that people rarely wanted honest answers and that people tended to have objectives when initiating conversations with people. She tried her best to figure out what they were hoping to get out of it and give that to them. It was why she was becoming increasingly concerned that Aegle seemed to want to know what to do because that was something Red could not deliver on. She was in no position to be giving advice to anyone.

What Aegle was looking for was hard to read though. Hope? Direction? It wasn't just to say the words, that much was clear a this point, but it also didn't seem to be someone telling her it'd be okay or that her life meant something. Platitudes would likely have a poor effect, but she wasn't sure that talking about how she actually felt about a lot of this would be much better. She thought about something similar a lot while she was on Menagerie, once she realized that everything that happened to her was really messed up. She wondered why it happened, what she did to deserve it, and a magnitude of other things. The conclusion she came to was that there was no reason. It just happened, and now she had to live with it. Some of Aegle's words echoed those thoughts she had, so she wondered if Aegle wanted to hear something similar. For now, she was hesitant to vocalize it. She was coping with the fact that she was alive, Aegle was trying to cope with the fact that she was going to die. It was different enough that she figured she should avoid that topic for now.

But what was she supposed to say instead? Meaning was a funny thing. There may be no reason for why she lived or why it all happened in the first place, but it was so easy to make up reasons for it. The brain liked to find patterns, and people liked to be part of something greater than themselves. Maybe that was all Aegle wanted. She could play it safe for now.

"I don't know you very well, so I think you'd be better off talking to someone you knew but..." she rubbed the back of her head. "Why did you learn to fight? Sometimes, it's easy to forget why we did something in the first place. Brains can be amazingly stupid you know?"

---

540/3916

[Aegle Verdant]

"That's easy," Aegle replied, with wanness creeping back into her smile, "Fightin' always made things seem a lot simpler." Looking to Sienna, emerald eyes suddenly warm with memory.
"Nah, not simpler, that ain't quite the word for it. More sensible, I suppose." she shrugged, "S'not why I started t'begin with, but it's the reason I kept at it. My reason' for startin' ain't nothin' special, 'fraid t'say. I wanted t' be strong and healthy, and so I acted like the strongest and healthiest person I knew."
She eyed the stranger thoughtfully, grateful to be distracted from the mental spiral she'd been descending through.
"Maybe that dinnae make much sense t'ye; Y'dinnae strike me as a kind of a fighter. 'Least ways, y'dinnae strike me like the sort what likes t'fight. Y'have more sense 'n that, I reckon." Her expression growing almost beatific, Aegle chuckled with sincere good humor.
"Fightin' is simple, I s'pose. When y'get right down t'it, it's little more than hittin' and not gettin' hit. It's standin' up and darin' some'at else t'knock ye down, and tryin' to knock it down in return. And, I dunno, it always made me feel like I was in control. When I land a punch, it's cause I earned it. When I get punched, it's cause I dinnae get myself out'a the way. Like, win or lose, I'm makin' the world make sense..."
A quiet chattering beneath her hoodie drew Aegle from her reverie, and her expression twisted into something caught part way between smile and grimace.
"Dinnae reckon it were ever true, that feelin', but it were a comfort." Raising her hand, the crooked girl watched as her arm jerked mechanically with the labors of the rotors hiding under her clothes.

Letting her arm drop, Aegle snorted quietly, emerald eyes returning to Sienna.
"When I get stuck into a fight, though... When I'm in the thick of it, good and proper, it's like this veil is bein' pulled back; It's like I can finally think clearly. All the sense the world dinnae make, all the madness in me, it's like it all falls away."
She grinned, and there was more than a little crazy in that haunted expression. Crazy which Aegle tried and, so often, failed to keep to herself, born from all the mixed up things she knew or thought she knew about the world. Aegle had always felt half-mad around normal people, like her view on things was just slightly skewed from what everyone else saw, and she tried her best to bury that feeling done where no one else could see it. Just like she tried to bury her fear, her frustration, and all of her anger. Just like she tried to bury her sadness.
It didn't feel good, letting someone see the madness she felt inside of herself. It didn't feel good when the mask slipped and she laughed when she really shouldn't have. It didn't feel good to smile when she knew she shouldn't be smiling. It didn't feel good, being different and knowing she was different and being unable to be the way others were. She felt insane, not just from the dread of her impending death or the senselessness and aimlessness of her life, but because she couldn't imagine any sensible person, any rational person, doing the sorts of things she did. It was exhausting, though, trying to hide that part of herself. It was exhausting, to always be worrying that someone might notice. If her reputation around the academy were any indication, there'd been no shortage of people who'd noticed. She really should have just embraced the madness, leaned into the insanity. She could simply give up reason and be as crazy as everyone already knew she was. Except she was ashamed. Ashamed of the things that mad part of her thought. Ashamed of what it did and what it said. Ashamed of how it hurt people, just for not being as cracked as she was.

It horrified Aegle a little, to think she was inflicting that madness on Sienna, whose only crime was concern for a stranger. Even now, she wondered how much she was rambling, and how mad her rambling must make her seem.
"It doesn't last, though. It's like I burn through that feelin', that clarity. Then, once it's all used up, it's like wakin' from a dream, where I dinnae remember how it all made sense, and I'm just left with the things I said and did while I felt all clear and certain on things."
Half of her reputation, half of the maddest things she'd said and done, had been done while the clarity of combat was upon her. It never felt wrong in the moment; It was only afterwards, when the fire dimmed, that she couldn't comprehend the person she'd briefly become.
"But it feels good, I remember that much," The crooked girl sighed, "So good, findin' that clarity. Even if it ain't real, even if it's just the maddest parts of me all comin' out, for those few heartbeats I feel like I'm a whole person after all."
Aegle sagged back, her smile sad once more.
"Reckon I'm made for it, bein' honest..."
She raised her fists, "These hands ain't good for much else, 'part from hittin' things," and she knuckled her forehead, "This mind ain't good for much else, 'part for handlin' pain," she spread her arms jerkily wide, showing off her whole self like some macabre trophy, "I ain't good for much else, 'part from fightin'. And the more hopeless, the better."
Aegle tittered, "Probably why I ain't given up, that. The only reason, most likely. Whatever made me forgot t'put in the quit, and built me so the only way it can all make sense is when I'm tryin' t'stop somethin' from hurtin' me..."

Aegle trailed off, as she remembered...

She was silent for a few moments, before finally turning quizzical eyes on Sienna.
"Why d'ya care?" She finally asked.

---

Aura - 100% || Words - 964 || Total - 6,662

[Sinopia DeStellanova]

It was always hard to tell how honest she should be. Normal socialization felt like navigating a mine field to her, and something like this was even worse than that. However, that kind of response did make the kind of person Aegle was and the kinds of responses she might be looking for. At the very least, Aegle seemed like the type of person that would appreciate this sentiment. The one that she was actually feeling, not the one she was conditioned to say and that most people expected. She put her hands behind her head and let out a sound through her nose that sounded like something between a snort and a scoff.

"I wish I knew why I cared so much. My life would be so much less complicated if I could just...not."

The words came out easily, more easily than they would have in nearly any other situation. Aegle's words were strangely uncomfortable, beyond what she would expect from someone saying they were basically beating themselves up because they didn't know what to do. She didn't understand why it felt so bad, especially when she had seen and heard far worse during her life. Covering it up with sarcasm and dry humor was easier than trying to acknowledge it and figure it out when she was already trying to navigate a different mine field.

"It doesn't make much sense does it? That I wouldn't be able to get my mind off of a stranger I've never met if I just left you here? But I'm pretty sure it'd happen. It always seems to."

She paused, at a loss for words. It was a bit easier to ramble about herself like this, but she couldn't keep doing it. All she was doing was dodging the question, even if it, strictly speaking, did have some relevance. After a moment, she let another breath out of her nose and continued.

"Sometimes I wish I could just say that your life definitely has meaning, or that you should stop beating yourself up for no reason, or whatever stupid shit people say to make other people feel better. I bet you get obnoxious answers like that all the time. I know it's obnoxious. I know it's more likely to make you feel worse rather than better. Yet it's something I want to say anyway." She let another dry snort out of her nose.

"This world has some pretty clear rules. You know something you throw is going to fall and not start floating up into space. Sometimes, it seems like everything should be like that, but I don't think it is. For awhile people thought the stars and the sun were different things as opposed to the same thing, but further away. It didn't change what the stars were, but people didn't see them that way," she paused again and rubbed the back of her head. "What I'm saying is brains are stupid. The world might make sense, but it has to go through a stupid filter before we can even think about it. Or something like that."

---

516/4432

[Jay]

XP Distribution:

Sinopia DeStellanova: 44 XP
308 + 44 = 352 XP Total