TRP is a post-Great War AU RWBY RP set in Mistral City and Haven Academy with no canons, no rank claims, no maidens, and no god interference. We offer a progression system and site-wide events that change the setting based on player actions.
Post by Aegle Verdant on Oct 14, 2019 20:44:42 GMT -5
Despite all expectations, the ploy actually worked; Rather than renew the assault against an obviously winded foe, Lily bounced back like she had strings attached to her back, and did a bit of a tumble which Aegle was not sure have been entirely intentional. Moreover, she responded to Aegle's stalling with a quizzical expression, rather than with violence. "That was, erm," She said, looking strangely abashed, "More an issue of discipline than footwork. Mom always said that my biggest weakness was my lack of conviction," "Mine likes to say it's my stubbornness." Aegle proffered, though she'd plainly not been asked. Lily was breathing a bit more heavily, the crooked girl noted with mild interest; Maybe maintaining her semblance really was tiring for her. At least that was something. Not that it took Lily much time at all to get her wind back. "I won't freeze up again." She promised, shining Aegle a grin that, if not as wide as her, was at least trying to be.
"Wanna see if you can hit me again?" Lily asked, grinning cheekily, "Or didja wanna keep fighting?" Aegle felt a tiny flutter in her chest, not unlike the one she'd gotten when she'd fought Carmim, and her eyebrows went up. "Why choose?" She asked back, mostly having recovered her own breath, "Why not do both?"
Aegle sprang forward once again, lancing towards Lily with a straight armed jab that masked the chambering of her other hand. A pretty transparent ploy, trying the exact same approach as before and hoping Lily would respond in the exact same way, but Aegle didn't want to spend the whole fight waiting for the faunus to come toe her, any more than she wanted to suggest just how much wind that last punch had taken out of her sails. Besides which, she genuinely wanted to see if she could hit Lily, despite her surprising quickness, and tricking her into getting hit was the only idea Aegle could come up with.
In place of the hook she'd thrown last time, however, Aegle instead prepared her base for a rising upper cut, fit to catch an acrobatic cat in midflight.
A girl could hope, after all. words - 381 total - 5,810
Post by Lily Finnian on Oct 16, 2019 11:07:57 GMT -5
Lily grinned as Aegle approached her. This was what she was hoping for. She'd never successfully managed to soar over her brother's head like she'd soared over Aegle's earlier, and there were a lot of moves she wanted to test out as follow up strikes to the maneuver. However, she was so excited by the prospect of trying out the attack that she had failed to adhere to her most basic of battle philosophies. Namely, don't be predictable. While she was going to leap over Aegle once more, the special twist she meant to add would not take place until after she was already coming down behind Aegle.
Aegle approached in the same predictable fashion as she had the first timeAs she soared above Aegle's head, she twisted, spinning into a half backflip. Her intention was to land on her hands behind Aegle before springing back to plant her heels inbetween Aegle's shoulder blades. However, in the brief instant where she'd lost sight of Aegle to execute her flip, Aegle had executed an aerial stunt of her own. When Lily's face appeared where her ankle's had been moments ago, it was already too late to readjust her course. Her hands were stretched in front of her, meant to find purchase on the ground just behind Aegle, however, they wouldn't quite make it to the ground as planned.
In hindsight, there were many things Lily could have done to prevent this. She could have stayed in her semblance state for one, but she had been making a special effort to improve her body without having to rely on her semblance in her training with Verne, and wanted to see just where she stood against someone else her age who wasn't using any obvious semblance.
She could have fainted like she was going to jump, but dodge to the side at the last moment and try to levy the momentum from Aegle's loping bull rush against her. She could have activated her semblance and used the extra speed to propel her just a few more precious inches forward before Aegle's reaction took place, allowing the uppercut to pass safely between Lily's legs instead of finding purchase in the poor faunus' groin.
The punch was sufficient to send Lily upward in a new arc, tumbling wildly at first thanks to the source of the momentum originating from her pelvis. To Lily's credit, she didn't bounce off of the floor even once before her feet found purchase. She even stuck the landing, however she quickly fell to her knees with her hands between her legs. Her mouth hung slightly agape, but no sound came through. Each eye held a singled beaded tear that refused to roll down her cheek.
Never stay down no matter how much pain you are in.
The lesson had been a hard learned one. She recalled the training. Her mother had made her stand still while she delivered a gut punch that shattered her Aura in one go. Her mother commanded her to get up, only to knock her down with a thankfully scaled back punch in comparison to the first. Still, without the protection of Aura, it made breathing next to impossible. After thirty seconds on the ground, her mother would whip the back of her calves with a length of bamboo, all the while shouting for her to get up. By comparison this...
"Th-This is nothing," she said, still doubled over and clutching her groin. She was shaky as she forced herself to correct her posture. She resumed a fighting stance, she could feel her face twisting from a grimmace into a grin as she stared Aegle down. There was a weird feeling inside of her. It was bubbling up from her belly up her spine and making the back of her brain feel fuzzy. Exhilaration and anticipation in equal measure had been building as each blow had been exchanged. Despite the pain still wracking her body, she felt strangely happy.
"That didn't exactly play out the way I saw it going in my head," she panted. "Maybe this will though,"
As she said that, she focused what little was left of her aura and teased it out of her core. She could feel the gentle warmth of it straining to pour out of her, but she managed to see it done. She began moving once again. There was a new grace in her steps, she bounded toward Aegle with intent. Just like before she bounded from side to side a few paces shy of Aegle, however unlike before, instead of crossing in front of Aegle she backed off, leaving a glimmering trail tracing back to her undeservedly confident face. She repeated this dance a few more times, each time backing off and flashing Aegle a grin that said she was having the time of her life. However on the fourth iteration of her little playful fun, she failed to back off. She began circling Aegle, quickly bounding around her never straying more than eight feet away from her. Trapped in a ring of light, Lily waited just long enough to leave Aegle unsure of her intention before finally sprinting in a straight line directly at Aegle. She paused for just a split moment four feet from the girl, feinting as if she was once again going to dodge to her side, but as she advanced again she continued directly toward Aegle. As she finally reached her, she held her arms in a loose gaurd while she brought her skull down on the shorter girl's noggin. It was her attempt to 'never be predictable' that led her down this course of action. Nowhere in her fighting style were frontal assaults encouraged, and she'd hoped that by leading Aegle on and making her wait for the blow to fall, she hoped to have left her second and third guessing where the blow would be coming from. Most people would assume she'd approach from the side or behind, and thus it was her hope that Aegle would be unsuspecting of her reckless gambit.
Unlike last time, the moment contact would occur, she planned to back off immediately, once again bounding from point to point in a large circle around Aegle in the middle.
Post by Aegle Verdant on Oct 21, 2019 10:06:10 GMT -5
Like a dance, like something prearranged, Lily answered the lancer's lunge of Aegle's outstretched fist with another gorgeous flip, executed with such finesse that it seemed less like she had jumped and more like she had been lifted into the air. Ground bound as she was, as unable to jump as she was to climb or run, Aegle marveled at the acrobatic display, a flutter of excitement hot in her chest. She was already uncoiling as Lily floated overhead, already raising her hand up with every muscle in her body unfolding behind it. Like it was guided upon a string, one connecting her knuckles to the faunus girl's stomach, Aegle's fist plunged into Lily's gut at the very peak of her arch, driving her a quarter stride higher before the last of her momentum carried her past like flotsam on the wind.
Lily landed in a sprawl on the other side of Aegle, just about the same distance as she had landed previously but with a disorganized lack of grace which left her crumpled in a heap at the pugilist's feet. Aegle watched with interest, her guard still up, as Lily struggled to get herself back up to her feet, surprised by the amount of difficulty in the faunus girl's movements. It was almost as though she hadn't entirely blocked the punch, though Aegle had certainly felt the restrictive flatness of her aura when she hit. "This is nothing." Lily groaned, though Aegle hadn't said anything. It made the smaller girl's eyebrows go up, a questioning look passing across her pale face. Which she raised her head however, Aegle saw the faunus was smiling still. A somewhat unhinged smile, if she was being honest. 'Kinda looks like my smile, in fact.' Aegle matched Lily, like for like, proffering her own craziest grin. "That didn't exactly play out the way I saw it going in my head," The faunus said, as a faint blurring of white passed over her face, and seemed to bleed through her clothes and across her exposed skin, "Maybe this will though."
Lily became a flash of light once again, moving so quickly that it fooled the eye; That, for the briefest moment, she still seemed to be stood where she'd landed, even as a vaguery or white light dashed straight at Aegle from that same spot. Aegle tensed, swung, but her fist caught only empty air where her eyes had said a faunus girl should be. Lily was already blurring back, changing direction. Even Doc wasn't so fast, though her movements were just about as unpredictable. Lily came in again, and again Aegle swung and missed, catching naught but empty air. This was what she'd been expecting when she'd first seen Lily's speed in action. This technique, which Ryan had made so effective in her fight with the mute swordsman. Aegle could see no counter to it, beyond the counter she'd discovered in that self-same fight.
Breathing softly, trying to calm herself down, Aegle tracked Lily's movements as best she could, but threw no more punches as the faunus darted in, no longer relying upon her eyes to tell her where her opponent was. She braced herself as best she could, trying not to give away any hint of what she had planned, teeth gritted against the pain she knew she was about to feel. "S'a neat trick y'have there," Aegle mused, just for something to say, "Real useful. Y'brother ain't all that clever, I reckon, if he just thinks its for runnin' away." It came all of a sudden. From a space where Aegle had not yet registered the faunus' presence, Lily's face sudden sprang into overt clarity. Close. Too close. Coming forward like a freight truck, Lily brought herself inside of Aegle's guard, brought her forehead smashing down, crushing her crown down upon the crooked girl's nose. A flash of white hot pain sprang through Aegle's face, blinding her, but she was not using her eyes. Her fist was already lashing out, hooking through the air precisely where that blossoming pain told her Lily's face must be, just slightly faster than the faunus could blur back from the blow... words - 670 total - 6,480
Post by Lily Finnian on Oct 26, 2019 14:37:45 GMT -5
Lily could feel the blow coming before it had even reached her. She knew it was happening by the way her opponent's body twisted the moment she made impact. Despite seeing it coming, she was powerless to move. The fist met her in the cheek, and it shattered what flimsy remnant of aura she'd still managed to scrape together to keep her body safe. She quickly became a white blur tumbling and twisting as it made it's way messily to the padded floor.
Having her aura broken wasn't something that happened often. The last time she could remember had been when she'd last faced off against her mother. Thinking of her caused her to reflect on her failures, which in turn made it painfully clear that she'd only lost the fight because she'd repeated the same few mistakes again and again. Her mind was consumed by these thoughts as she hurtled headlong into the floor of the room. It was not a pretty landing, but that fact may have been obscured by the trail of light that obscured somewhat, which did not cease to follow her every awkward movement until her aforementioned meeting with the ground. She sprawled out motionless for a moment as her brain made its displeasure at being bounced around her skull readily known by disorienting the girl and dulling her senses.
For a brief bittersweet moment she was home again. It was not a part of home she particularly missed, but it was just as familiar to her as the things she longed for about home. She was down, out, wouldn't be able to find her feet for a few moments at least, and the blows were coming. Her body had to understand pain if she were to truly fight. She needed to be able to withstand the pain, while fighting in a way that invited as little pain as possible. Ideally by taking down her opponent before they could fight back, but that was always the area in which Lily struggled the most. She curled into a ball, bringing her knees against her chest so that her calves and thighs could act as mutual guards against the stinging switch her mother favored. Her ears flattened on her head, and her hands moved to cover them for this same reason. It was safest like this, because it also served to protect her stomach and head in case her mother saw fit to throw a couple of kicks her way.
She knew she shouldn't curl up and hide like this, that it only infuriated her mother more, and made things worse for Lily, but it was all so Lily could be strong so Lily could never bring herself to hate the treatment or her mother for doling it out.
She stayed like that, guarded from blows that would never come. She held her defense until her head cleared up. She held it until her body stopped trembling, and the understanding that she had lost the fight had settled in. She remembered how much fun she'd had during the fight, wondered where it had all gone, and how free she'd felt fighting... Aegle.
She remembered the girl, and wondered how long she'd been down. Only then did she finally sit up, but that was as vertical as she was inclined to incline. Her eyes never rose to meet the girl who stood victorious over her. She was too embarrassed to say anything. She had no excuses for her poor performance, and felt as if the insults would begin hurling at any moment now.
Perhaps that wasn't quite right though. She couldn't actually imagine Aegle hurling any insults her way, but she still felt like she deserved them, like this experience wasn't entirely complete without affirmation that she was weak, and powerless, and needed to change into something better. She sat there a while, unspeaking, waiting for Aegle to fill the air with something as she hugged her knees against her chest, wondering idly if she'd already tried to do so while Lily had still been getting her bearings.
Post by Aegle Verdant on Nov 2, 2019 22:08:09 GMT -5
"Y'alright?" Aegle asked the faunus girl as she gradually sat up, out of the fetal ball she'd been curled into a moment before, her tone about halfway between bemusement and outright concern, made nasally by the cuff of one sleeve pressed tightly down on her nose. Dark smudges were already creeping across her too pale face, spreading out from under her wadded up cuff to ink sooty smears across Aegle's cheeks, just below her too huge emerald eyes. Lily had got her good with that last hit, and no mistake, and it was plain at even a glance that Aegle would be sporting two shiners before too long. Not that the crooked girl seemed to care, or even to notice, beyond the altogether absent placement of her hand and cuff, soaking up the blood from her still bleeding nose. When Lily didn't respond, Aegle's expression grew even more concerned. She'd been rocked once or twice herself, the few times Doc had gone a little too far and shattered her aura for her, and something in the faunus' silence made her wonder if she too hadn't had a few screws knocked loose with that last hook. Not to mention the way she'd curled up into a ball when her aura shattered. Having had her bell rung, Aegle tended to go on trying to throw punches, even if she was laid out flat upon her back. Doc had said something about autonomic predisposition when Aegle asked about it, something the crooked girl hadn't fully understand and had chosen to interpret as muscle memory. That her muscle memory defaulted to lashing out probably warranted a bit of self-reflection, just as Lily's predisposition towards curling into a ball might have.
"Hey," Aegle hunkered down beside the seated faunus, and waved a trembling hand before her eyes, to see if she was even conscious, "I asked if y'were alright. Can y'hear me?" There was no mistaking her concern this time. She hadn't really meant to hurt Lily. Break her aura, sure, but not actually hurt her. This was all just supposed to be a fun fight, not the sort where one or both of them had to visit the infirmary. Aegle grimaced, and not only because explaining what had happened to Doc was a prospect she found especially unappealing.
Then Aegle saw the look on Lily's face, and an entirely new sort of concern flushed through her, crowding out the old. She was conscious, that much was for sure, but she was wearing this expression like she was waiting for Aegle to slap her. Aegle had lived much too sheltered and sedentary a life to have ever seen a beaten dog, but she was aware of the phrase and was sure, at a glance, that the way Lily looked just then was how a beaten dog must look. It was a stricken look, cutting a middle furrow between wary and abjectly pathetic, and one which tugged a well of sympathy inside of Aegle she'd not previously been conscious of. "Hey," She said, more softly this time, suddenly awkward, overcome with the contradictory need to somehow fix what she'd done and run away from it as fast her twisted legs could carry her. "Hey, hey, hey," She repeated inanely, at a loss for what else she could say. There was something so horribly suggestive about the way Lily had reacted, something implicit in it which Aegle, in her innocence, didn't fully comprehend.
Her body betrayed her then; Aegle had been raised in a loving home, with caring if often distracted parents and indulgent, if occasionally imposed upon brothers. Frequent emotional reinforcement and encouragement, both physical and verbal, had characterized her childhood. Before the sickness, she'd never had much trouble expressing herself. The urge to hug someone was an urge but briefly considered, before reflex translated it into action. She'd been utterly unselfconscious, abjectly generous, with her hugs and her touches. In that moment, staring at Lily's worried expression, Aegle felt the gap between that child, a decade gone, and herself mostly keenly. Her hand fluttered up, the same one she'd broken Lily's aura with incidentally, and froze just before touching the faunus' knee. Or, at least, the wretched, trembling appendage did it's best impression of freezing, as in it continued to jitter and twitch, even despite the tight wrappings which bound her fingers.
Aegle felt then, as she so often did, a wave of revulsion at her own body, and her twisted hands in particular. Hands which had been ugly and useless before the days of boxing practice had reforged them into bony weapons. Hands which it sickened her to consider touching anyone with, which terrified her for anyone else to touch. Hands which, more often enough, lay hidden in her pockets when she wasn't beating them bloody against a punching bag or a wall. Not the sorts of hands to provide comfort with.
'If you're sad...' She heard Aaron say, 'If you're scared...' And Aegle was angry at herself. Angry at herself for not still being that innocent girl who'd hugged people when they needed it, and when she'd needed it. She lowered her hands, both of them, the one leaving a red smear on her upper lip, though her nose had finally stopped bleeding. "S'alright? Y'alright? I know I popped ya real good, but seems like most've the lights are still on?" There was a feeble note to her voice, a plaintive admission that the last thing she should have been doing, just then, was speaking. That wounded expression, that vulnerable look on Lily's face, wasn't the sort of thing solved with words. But Aegle's words were the last thing she had which she didn't revile. "Can y'stand? D'ya need some ice? Should I go get the Doctor?" Blathering now, sensing how grossly inadequate her chosen course was, knowing what she should be doing, and unable to stop herself. words - 985 total - 7,465
Post by Lily Finnian on Nov 4, 2019 19:54:16 GMT -5
It was probably for the best that Aegle's hand never closed the distance on the guarded faunus. She had never been comfortable with intimate touches. Even Xanthe had only ever gotten her to endure one single hug, and that was only because Lily lost a bet with Verne over a game of extreme hide and seek.
She was safe in the little bubble of safety she had surrounded herself with. She was braced for pain and for derision, but the thing that cut through her haze was one simple word, repeated gently, with care and concern. It reminded her of a time when Lily's mother had shown concern like that for her, before the years of disappiontment had quashed that drive in her. She curled tighter into her ball, convinced that this girl simply didn't realize yet that she wasn't worth the concern.
She was a lost cause, an abject failure who would never be worth anything. She reminded herself of that, and felt a small pinch of pain as her nails dug into her calves, puncturing the black fabric of her tights and leaving little wet dark spots on the fabric around her fingertips.
When Aegle started speaking again, Lily almost couldn't believe her. The gentleness in her voice, the worry and concern. It trudged up a lot of ugly feelings inside of her. Why was this person, this class captain, wasting her time and energy on a loser like her? She shrunk away from the kindness, but realized Aegle expecter some sort of response. She felt a sinking sickness in the pit of her stomach as she did what Aegle had asked. She got up fluidly despite her shaky legs. She stole a glance at the bloody Aegle, but couldn't do more than that. Her eyes were averted immediately, pulled down to the floor by the collective weight of her failures.
"I-I don't think that's necessary." she said, unable to entertain the idea of somebody else wasting time and resources on a pathetic mess like her. She felt water collecting in her eyes, and frantically wiped them clear a few times, turning her back on Aegle to hide another pathetic show of weakness.
"M'sorry," she sniffled. She didn't know where the tears had come from, it had been a long time since she'd cried because of a loss. Maybe it was because she'd begun to convince herself she had been changing, that her life away from her family had hardened her. She took a shaky step away, refusing to show her face again. She hugged her arms around her chest, trying to remember the words her parents had told her for dealing with tears and sadness.
If you feel the need to cry, train harder. That just means you have yet to conquer your own weakness.
She'd never known what to make of that advice, especially on the nights when she would wake up with tears streaming. Her brother had helped her put the truth into perspective for her. He told her without malice or contempt that it was her nature that was weak, that she could no more change her weakness than she could change her semblance. She couldn't believe that though, she had to believe that her mother had been right, and that her weakness could be rooted out with training.
"I think I should go for a run, sorry." she wasn't sure what she was apologizing for. Given a moment she could pull ten different self deprecating reasons for the apology, but in the moment she only felt guilty for displaying her weakness in front of somebody better than she was. She wanted to fly out the door, but couldn't bring herself to turn back towards Aegle, who had the door to her back. She was trembling slightly as she held herself there. Had she any aura left, she'd have been gone in a flash of white light without having to show her face, but in the moment she could do little other than sniffle as she waited for some level of composure to return to her.
Post by Aegle Verdant on Nov 17, 2019 21:09:51 GMT -5
Lily, with more reservation that Aegle might have expected, rose reluctantly to her feet. The crooked girl, crooked hands twitching at her side, rose with her, though what help Aegle could be now, she did not know. It hardly seemed like she could be of any help to Lily, who looked so wounded and uncertain. But one glance was all the faunus girl gave, and the look froze Aegle where she stood for how hurt and alien it appeared. In that instant, it was not as though there was a trainee in the room with Aegle, but a frightened rabbit, one who's known the carrot far less than she's known the stick. There was nothing human in that glance, only a rawness of pain which Aegle's actions had brought clumsily to surface.
It was awful. All the more so because Aegle did not know what to do about it. Still did not know what to do about it. If Lily had burst suddenly into flames, she'd have been better equipped to help her. Fire at least had an obvious remedy. 'What remedy could there be for a girl who looks like she's expectin' you to hurt her? A girl who act's just as though she'd deserve it?' "I don't think that's necessary." Lily croaked unsteadily, her silvery eyes averted, her slender shoulders hunched, her whole figure betraying weakness and vulnerability, and at the same time as closed off as a town wall. She turned away suddenly, small hands flashing at the pale face hiding beneath her tousled fall of raven locks. 'Wiping up tears.' Aegle realized, astonished and mortified all at once. Her fingers flexed at her sides, spasms grasping at nothing, at answers that weren't there. Aegle took a step closer, heard the whir and thud of her own footfall, and stopped again. Still her fingers worked, trying to get a hold on things, but where to hold, when it's all made of smoke? 'And when your hands ain't made for holdin' much?'
Aegle's face twitched, her expression screwed up and, for an instant, some caustic combination of anger and frustration, of confusion and pain, flittered across her pale features. Her fingers abruptly closed and squeezed down so tight that her knuckles clicked. She squeezed until it hurt, until her heart labored with the pumping of blood into her trembling fists. She wanted to help, but how? What could she do, when she didn't even understand the problem? She could guess at it well enough, but it was so beyond anything she knew, anything which she had experienced, that her trying to sort it out was akin to her trying to punch the sun. 'Ain't got a single clue,' she thought, 'Not even of where t'begin.' "I think I should go for a run," Lily said, finally breaking the strained silence between them, then adding, as though this were all somehow her fault, "Sorry." Her voice was raw and hollow, the way it gets with tears, a way Aegle was quite familiar with. A way which pulled at the heartstrings.
Despite her words, Lily didn't move, and it wasn't for several moments that Aegle understood the faunus had actually been asking for her permission. She was, after all, stood between Lily and the room's only exit. Aegle glanced back at the door in question, then returned her haunted emerald eyes to the pitiful faunus. She didn't want to let Lily go. She wanted to fix this. Felt she had to, that she was somehow responsible for it. 'Who else could be, after all?' But how such help might be given, how such a problem as this might be fixed... Aegle was a broken thing herself, not suited to putting others back together. 'Am barely holdin' myself together.' And yet she heard Aaron's voice again, softer and more insistent, boring at her mind. 'If you're scared... If you're sad...' "Hey..." She tried, awkward, and took another step closer to the faunus girl. Then she stopped, suddenly aware of the burning in her arms, of the smoldering ache between elbows and wrist born from her desperately clenched fists. Aegle looked down at her shaking hands, surprised, almost not recognizing them. With more effort than she would have guessed, she made her fingers open, and her fists unfurl. 'S'a sign, innit?' She thought morosely, 'T'ain't made for helpin' people. Only hurtin' 'em. All I'm good at is punchin' things, not buildin' em up.' Aegle grimaced, gritting her teeth, 'No good for fixin' things, only makin' 'em worse.' But Lily looked so sad. So vulnerable. So badly in need of someone who cared.
"Look... I'm a' let y'go, aye? But 'fore I do..." Aegle stalled out, unsure exactly what she wanted to say. 'Be honest?' Asked an expected voice of her, one surprisingly like her own. Honesty? Such a novel idea... "I dinnae what it is this is all 'bout, or what y'goin' through. Or if I caused it or what..." Her voice broke a little, and Aegle grit her teeth fiercely against the sudden upwelling of emotion which threatened to over take her. She'd just wanted to have some fun, to meet someone new and cut loose, and do with her the one thing she could be reckoned good at. Instead, Aegle'd made a mess of it, and now she felt not only confused and angry, but also horribly disappointed that something she'd been enjoying should end up like this. And what was more, she felt ashamed at her own passivity and inability to help. But how could she help? What did you say to someone at at time like this? 'What do I want someone to tell me?' "Whatever hurt you," Aegle ejected, with force shocking even to herself, "It weren't y'fault. Maybe y'feel like it were, like y'did somethin' t'deserve it, but y'didn't. It's all rubbish, aye? S'not y'fault, but y'brain tryin' t'make y'think there's some sense in the world." Aegle took another step forward, rambling now, unsure where this inspiration had come from, and sure she must have sounded utterly mad just then. "But t'ain't no sense, not t'any of it. Sometimes bad stuff happens, and there ain't no reason for it." Gritting her teeth, worried she might end up frightening Lily more, or else out herself as an absolute lunatic, Aegle willed her voice back under control. "It weren't your fault," She said, turning away from Lily to trudge willfully back to her bag, and give the faunus the privacy she needed to leave. "T'weren't y'fault," She repeated, almost to herself, "And y'don't deserve how it's makes y'feel. Y'don't have t'be sorry."
Grabbing up her things, Aegle limped to the door. Embarrassed, flushed with anger and shame, and something else she couldn't identify, the crooked girl shouldered open the door and stumbled into the corridor beyond. "What am I even talkin' 'bout." She muttered, trying not to think about everything she'd just said, as she retreated back to the main hall. words - 1,157 total - 8,622