[Qiu'li]

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Carving

a path to discover

True

Strength

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Qiu'li gazed at his notebook. The one that he had 'borrowed' from their midterms. While it felt like not that much time had passed, Qiu'li had nearly filled up three-fourths of the thing before he had realized it. The raven-haired man ran his rugged, coarse hand against the tip of each page as he reread all of his carefully detailed notes that he had recorded and updated since his first arrival to the Academy. Lots of scratched out notes were overwritten with additional phrases or memos for him to remember later on, but all in all, anyone could tell at a glance that it was heavily used. In fact, he was down to the last couple of pages. Huh. Qiu'li let out a sharp exhale as he checked to make sure that he hadn't accidentally left some free space somewhere or a page that he had skipped on. Sure enough ,each inch of the notebook detailed his experiences at the Academy, his experiences in the classes, the exercises he performed, the type of people he met, and the relationships that he had developed. As he flipped towards the end of the notebook, he realized that there was an unfinished entry.

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At the top, written in big letters:

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"What is true strength?"

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Qiu'li gazed at the question in contemplation. The single question that he had sought the answer for years. One that eluded him just as he seemed to approach the answer. The question was brought up to him during a meditation with Master Sattota once. He was told that until he could find the answer to it, he would never be able to attain it. A relatively simple and childish question, but one that Qiu'li had learned and experienced much of as a result of pursuing the answer. Who knew if there was really an answer to it. All he had on there was Aegle's and Alexandros' response, which were hastily scrawled underneath. They both sounded right, but was it really? Why did a single question seem to create a diversity of answers? Which one was right? Which were wrong? The raven-haired man didn't know, but he couldn't stop here. Doing so would lose the meaning of his journey. Right. The journey.

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Qiu'li looked outside of the airship window. They had been traveling for quite a while towards a village called Rochdale. A place that was plagued with Grimm, many of which he had seen down below. The closer they got, the dense the crowds of Grimm seemed, as if he was staring at an abyss. Staring out at the window gave a feeling of desolation, one of which he wasn't sure if it was due to the looming threat ahead, or if it was due to the anticipation of the trials that awaited them. Either way, Qiu'li heard a ring and a call for the students to report to a certain area of the ship. Perhaps for a debrief or something. They did mention something about receiving a type of medicine that would control their emotions in the face of terror.

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The raven-haired man thought about what the professor said earlier. About how the villagers were under the effects of these medicine. That it was meant to act as a camoflauge. Qiu'li thought about what it meant. Was it strong to be able to suppress one's own emotions? To shut them off would eliminate a possible risk factor when making decisions, but did it reflect what it meant to be strong? Perhaps, but the raven-haired man was unsure if it counted, or rather, he was suspicious of the idea. He decided not to note it in the page, but he kept the book on hand. As he left the meeting room, they were noted that they had a bit of free time to make preparations before arriving at the village. He realized that there was a lot to do before their arrival, especially with sorting out the large amount of gunpowder that he decided to bring with him onto the airship. As he made his way there, the raven-haired man bumped into a group of guards that were en route towards the top of the deck. Without so much as a word, he would lower his head and apologize before they made their way up and he went down.

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What he didn't realize, however, was that in the middle of the bump, the notebook had slipped out onto a table in the hallway. The pen that was used to record his notes was clipped onto the page that he was last reading before leaving his room. There, like an open journal for all to inspect, laid the page for all to read, and possibly even write themselves if they so chose:

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"What is True Strength?"


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WC: 796 TWC: 796
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--
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Fènnù (+Strength +Agility +Projectile Sword Beam) | Rank D
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Hei Tiequán | Rank E
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Wolf Style: Pounce (Leap) | Rank C
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Weapon Proficiency II (Martial Arts) | Rank E
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Dance of the Wild Winds II (Acrobatics) | Rank E
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Resilience of the Crimson Oaks II (Durability) | Rank E
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Dragon's Roar II (Utility Tool) | Rank E

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[attr="class","fg-cred"]SELKIE

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[Holly Hock]

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[attr="class","RDcontainer"] [attr="class","RDcontent"] How long till these pills work? [break] [break] Holly had put the pill into her mouth without even thinking about the question, or taking something like water to make sure it went down smoothly. The girl felt horrible about a lot of things. This pill was supposed to suppress emotions, so hopefully they make you feel less horrible as well. That was the plan, at least. [break] [break] The girl hadn’t moved much on the journey, just making sure that she was sitting in a corner and not taking up too much space. Airsickness, a general dislike of flying, and a feeling of dread about the upcoming mission was enough to keep Holly keep her mouth shut. She couldn’t help much with defending the airship regardless. She didn’t have a gun, nor was she in any state to carefully aim on even if she was handed one of them that was on the airship. [break] [break] Just make sure you get solid ground under your feet again, and all will be fine. [break] [break] Walking back to her solo snuggle corner, Holly walked through a particular hallway. It was by chance that her eyes fell on the notebook on the table. A small spot of turbulence made the nauseated Holly almost fall to the ground, the table being the only object close by to keep herself upright as she stumbled about. Her hands ended up on the tabletop for support, and her eyes fell on the book laying on top of it. The girl blinked for a few times to get her vision straight.[break] [break] “What is True Strength?” [break] [break] Why are you asking me questions, book? Don’t you know that I got other things on my mind? Don’t you know that it is rude to ask too much from someone suffering from head spinningness and tummy tingles? Don’t you have anything better to do? Like being cheap toilet paper?[break] [break] Before Holly started to insult the notebook for longer in her mind, the girl just stopped. She didn’t have the energy to be mad. Wait, was that the pill starting to work? It was fast working, wasn’t it? Was it that fast? Can I no longer shout in my head at objects? That is one of the best things about life! Ugh, fine. What was your question again?[break] [break] Holly read the words for a second time, before she decided to be polite and answer. Finding the pen clipped into the notebook soon enough, Holly just started to write down her first thoughts about it. Why think long about something that will not have a right answer anyway? The question the book poses seemed rather open-ended. Like if you ask someone what their favourite food is. So many answers, all of them equally personal. Unless the answer is oats. Then you are just wrong. [break] [break] The words that Holly scribbled down on the page, in a small and scrawly handwriting. [break] [break] “Nothing is true. Motivation fades, muscles shrifel, and one day we will all just die no matter what we did in life.”[break] [break] Holly blinked for a few moments, looking at the pen, then at the book, then back at the pen.[break] [break] WHY THE HELL DID YOU WRITE DOWN SOMETHING SO DEPRESSING? [break] [break] Holly acted on her emotions. Holly knew that she acted on her emotions. She had done a quiz online that told her that she acted on her emotions. And that her spirit animal was a hamster. Both are true, but let’s focus on the first one! If the first thing that came to her mind was this depressing, what was like going on beyond those surface thoughts. Holly had once tried to read a book about how human’s acted and how the things they thought came to be. It was like…confusing and half of the words seemed to have been made up. Wait, all words are made up…MORE MADE UP THAN USUAL! But one of the concepts that Holly remembered was that like a lot of our thoughts are like…deep unaware thoughts. Like we only are aware of the top layer of our thoughts. Anything below that is mostly a mystery. Holly didn’t feel all that good at the moment, but was she that horrible that she wrote all of that just down? [break] [break] Should she scratch out what she wrote? Tear out the page? Write ‘LOL JK’ behind it? It worked on her scroll! [break] [break] Ugh…[break] [break] Holly took the pen to the page again, before she wanted to write down a small sentence below what she had written before. Only, she didn’t. Holly heard a distinct sound that someone was either coming down or up from the stairs.[break] [break] Her minds went into overdrive as she placed down the pen and made sure to skedaddle away from the stairs and towards the room. Holly was sure that she wasn’t spotted, but the girl wasn’t certain. Shit! They almost see me trying to write something less depressing to cover up the more depressing stuff! They will know that I had written down that horrible line! We don’t want people to think that Holly is anything less than wacky! If even Holly cannot be playful, then what chance do they have for being anything but depressed?! [break] [break] Holly just searched for her moping corner again, feeling another wave of tummy tingles fast approaching again as the airship made some less than ideal movements for someone with airsickness. Still, a certain thought remained in Holly’s mind.[break] [break] Was it the pill that made me write that line, or am I truly that miserable?

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[attr="class","RDwortag"] Words: 915, Thread Total: 915	[attr="class","RDwortag"] Aura: 100%
[attr="class","RDnotes"] Semblance: E, Slicer: F, Survival: F, Gardening: F, Scroll-usage: F, Martial Arts: F, Healing: E, Acrobatics: F, Stamina: F

[attr="class","trinCredits"]TABLE BY TRINITY @ ADOXOGRAPHY

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[Theloria Shadecloak]

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[attr="class","nikki101"]WE’LL RECLAIM OUR DESTINY

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[attr="class","nikki102"]WE’LL SET OUR FUTURE FREE

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[attr="class","nikki109"]The emotion dampening pills created a familiar but somewhat disturbing chemical calmness that made it much harder to feel any emotion at all. It seemed like any previous tolerance level had gone away due to lack of use in the past year or two, so that was good at least. The stuff was addictive as hell for those seeking a reprieve from their own mind, and it was also pretty damned expensive. It was much cheaper but more unsafe to just use painkillers to ease mental pain, because the brain didn’t differentiate between emotional and physical pain. It was more unsafe because without a physical wound the body built up tolerance to the painkillers and could develop a physical dependence on the stuff, which was not desirable. Furthermore, addiction to drugs tended to kill any reputation or sense of reliability that one had no matter what other conditions existed. It halted progression through any grief or emotional process temporarily and artificially due to a lack of will to face whatever the issue was, and the evasion of that emotional process just extended the depression and inner turmoil that one was already experiencing. [break][break]

There was still a bit of residual tolerance, it seemed like, because some of the trainees and police seemed to be taking to it more strongly than the faunus… or maybe it was due to the residual effects of previous heavy use. Something about a permanent chemical imbalance or whatever made it so after heavy use for any reason for an extended period the emotions never reached the same highs or lows again. Emotional dampers, frankly, were pretty standard fare for hunters and anyone who claimed to have never use one is either lying, an idiot, or never did anything remotely dangerous. Being faced with your own mortality in a hopeless mission was fucking terrifying, and it was dumb as fuck for someone to not take the chemical boost when it was available. Doping to win against other people is a dirty move but doing so against Grimm is par for the course because good sportsmanship and shit are ideas reserved solely for people. [break][break]

A green cloak with its hood down covered most of her form, including partially the leather pauldrons on both of her shoulders. Brown trousers and boots alongside a dark leather jerkin over a green undershirt completed the ensemble alongside dark green metal gauntlets that ended in claw-like tips. She had two visible closed quivers on both sides of her hips with the tip of the arrow at the top of each quiver. The ship carried over a thousand arrows strewn around in various compartments over the ship, and she always carried two quivers on her person with a larger emergency one on her back when they encountered a lot of resistance. The arrows would look slightly different than the ones the trainees used, but not enough that a non-archer would notice. Carbon arrows provided more weight and durability at the expense of shrapnel when broken, which was a benefit rather than a negative in this case. Four-fletched arrows instead of three increased accuracy, particularly on the quick and instinctual shots that the faunus favored at the cost of power. A long and black western style longbow was slung across her back on the outside of her clothes, and Shade was playing around with her thumb release trigger as she strolled around the ship in a dead period between attacks. [break][break]

She didn’t always use one of them, but consistency was much harder to do over long stretches of time and the faunus felt like it helped her with her left-handed shots a lot more. Arm fatigue was a real thing in higher draw weights, and a mix of sleep deprivation and arm fatigue was potentially deadly to everyone involved so measures to prevent both needed to be instituted. She had always preferred power, with heavier than average draws and heavier than average arrows that could either penetrate the target completely or snap into carbon shrapnel at worst on impact to cause extreme damage with each shot. The downside to opting into that was that extended fights were never her strong suit, and while she recognized that years ago and learned to shoot with her off hand… these long, multiday missions of being on constant alert was exactly the sort of thing she hadn’t done for over a year at this point. She was out of practice, frankly, and as the only hunter who could respond to this mission the fact of the matter was that if she failed in her job than everyone else died. [break][break]

Not a terribly remarkable position to put a huntress in, but also representative on why emotional dampener abuse isn’t exactly the most uncommon thing among those hunters who actually undertook these missions on a regular basis. It prevented burnout and lessened the amount of time with any specific emotional trauma in the short term so the work could continue, which was generally the goal. Some of the trainees flat out avoided her when they could, and it wasn’t exactly hard to see that the faunus wasn’t some of their first choices to be on a mission with. That was perfectly fine and didn’t bother her, frankly, because being liked was never part of her job and being popular hadn’t been something she had cared about for years. [break][break]

A hands-off and criticism oriented teaching style was bound to be controversial, but at the end of the day the most important thing for each hunter was to develop their own way of doing things. Sure, she could teach all the archers to fight the same exact way she did and the more melee oriented trainees a dodge-based style, but that would also be a giant waste of many of their semblances which were flat out better than hers against Grimm. Courage collapsed much more quickly when one was simply following orders and directives that they were not emotionally invested in, and really emotional collapse made the physical collapse inevitable. Some may have very well wanted to be coddled more, but that wasn’t the job of a Huntsman Academy. If they wanted the hunter title and the responsibility that entailed, then they had to learn how to act the part. Mentally weak but physically strong hunters were the most dangerous breed that existed, and typically either burnt out or went insane within a year or two on the job due to inability to cope with the realities of the job. [break][break]

A bit of turbulence made a very… audible noise come from one of the nearby rooms, and the faunus in no particular hurry went over just to verify that no actual damage had been done. It certainly sounded like a fall, and with aura there was next to no chance of injury for anyone involved. It came from down some stairs, and the huntress made no particular effort to disguise her steps. It seemed like whoever it was didn’t want to be seen, because the sounds of quick movement out of the room were heard before the faunus actually made it down into line of sight. There was a well-used notebook open on the table, and curiosity led Shade to actually look over to see what it was. [break][break]

The first thing that she noticed was the handwriting was awful, and the pen was gone from its clip and the ink was fresh on another set of somehow actually worse than the initial horrific handwriting answer to the original question at the top of the page. The faunus shifted her thumb release to her right hand as she quickly changed the page to confirm what she already suspected, that it was Qiu’li’s notebook that he had forgot for whatever reason on this table. Lots of notes, actually, it seemed like he was using this notebook for everything rather than having a separate one for every class like most people did. The second bit of handwriting she didn’t recognize, both because Shade so rarely required writing in her classes and because there was a disturbing amount of people at Haven Academy with horrific handwriting and questionable grasp of language that neither of these characteristics really narrowed it down very much. [break][break]

There was an alarm that went off every time there was a Grimm attack, so there was no real danger of missing anything if Shade picked up the pen and decided to humor Qiu’li and whoever had wrote the last answer down and give her own. The original question was ”What is true strength” and the first answer was “Nothing is true. Motivation fades, muscles shrifel, and one day we will all just die no matter what we did in life.” [break][break]

To be fair, it was a viewpoint that one might expect from a teenager headed to what might be their certain doom who had just discovered nihilism was a thing and wanted to seem profound and deep or whatever. There was an added challenge, here, because quite frankly if she wrote an entry too detailed the reader might not be able to figure out the meaning of it without a literal dictionary…. Which she doubted he packed along with him. That ruled out anything above an elementary school level, and likely limited it to ten words or less. Solving existential questions within these constraints wasn’t exactly easy, but it provided a momentary distraction from the fact that she was going to have to go back to pulling double shifts shooting Grimm very soon from her break. [break][break]

Picking up the pen, Shade skipped a line from the previous reply and decided what she was going to put down. [break][break]

True strength is stepping up to do what no one else can when required needed. [break][break]

Was there a simpler way to say ‘needed’? Probably, but she couldn’t think of one right now. Required was the first thing that came to mind, but it probably had too many syllables for this sort of thing so the faunus just ran a line through the word so that it would hopefully be ignored. [break][break]

It wouldn’t be ignored. She drew two more lines through it to make it completely and utterly obvious that she wanted the word to be ignored, and then thickened each line to eliminate the word largely from sight. After doing that, the huntress would clip the pen back on the notebook and stroll back up the stairs from whence she came. One nevermore had already shown up during their travels, and which the police could handle lancers and other lesser Grimm the threat of more powerful Grimm required her to be hovering at all times to ensure that the delay between spotting the threat and the elimination of the threat was as small as possible to limit the damage that could possibly befall the aircraft. The thing was armored up, yes, but not enough to withstand an attack from something like a Manticore or a Giant Nevermore for very long.

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[attr="class","nikki103"]1800 words

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[attr="class","nikki103"]1800 TOTAL WORDS

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NOTES

Notes here

PHARAOH LEAP CREATES

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[Carmim Clover]

❝ WORDS: 831 TAG: @kiwismelleboi NOTES: S T RO N GTH TOTAL WORDS: 831 HAVE YOU SEEN HER? HAVE YOU HEARD? THE WAY SHE MOVES, THERE ARE NO WORDS Oh man, it felt good being useful! Carmim had been feeling pretty apprehensive about this mission for the past day or two since she'd been briefed on it, but when she asked Shadecloak if she could help out with the airship defense on the way there, her teacher had agreed, so long as she didn't do anything stupid or reckless, and stepped back into the ship as they got closer. So, she'd headed out to the battlements with the handful of police officers and Shadecloak herself, where she could do her part in keeping the ship safe on the way to Rochdale. It was as much for her, as it was for the ship, though- the emotional dampers were working, and working quite well, but she still felt a little anxious, underneath all the drugs. And while it wasn't much, blasting a few Grimm out of the sky felt good. And did its part in sobering her up to the realities of what they might be facing in Rochdale... small Grimm, she could handle, but she was glad to have Shadecloak and the policemen beside her when she saw her first Nevermore swoop at the ship. It wasn't even comparable to the chicks she'd fought during her Midterms... She fended off three chicks, by the skin of her teeth. But her best attacks didn't even slow the fully-grown birds down. And gazing out over the railing... It was a sea of black, white, and red... If it weren't for the drugs, she would have had a full-on anxiety attack, staring into that dark abyss. It reminded her of the day her own village was nearly overran, by not even a tenth of the Grimm she could see down below. To think... This was what they were up against. She shook her head and returned to defending the airship, as a swarm of Lancers broke the rare moment of silence... After a while, her stamina was running low, and she realized she'd been using up a good bit of Aura fighting, so she decided to head back inside the ship to rest up some, and regain her strength. She'd seen Shadecloak head in a while ago, and fortunately, it seemed she was coming back out as Carmim went in. Heading down the spiral staircase, her mind was no longer even on the Grimm (amazing how easily the drug muted her fears and worries), but on the important question of which cheese made for the best macaroni. Her head said Parmesan and sharp cheddar, but her heart said Gouda and queso. She was in such deep thought, she ran right into a coffee table, banging her knee on it, and giving a surprised blink at its existence. And more to the point, at the book laying open atop her latest obstacle, with pretty plain handwriting not too dissimilar from her own (if slightly more legible) posing the question: "What is true strength?" She squinted to read the first answer, mouthing along with the words until she could decipher them well enough to understand that it was some depressing-ass shit. Wow. She felt bad for whoever wrote all that. It looked almost familiar, too... Maybe she should check on some of her friends... Next was a considerably neater set of scrawlings, which she still struggled a bit to read, but was glad to see sounded much less negative. And looked nicer! Carmim's addition to the page did not look nicer. In fact, it was frankly worse than Qiu'li's handwriting, which was already an extremely low bar to reach. But she added it anyways, after carefully considering the question he'd asked. True strength... She thought about her uncle. In her eyes, he represented true strength, better than anyone else she could think of. All those Grimm out there... All the ones who'd attacked her home, he had fought back. She still had no idea how he'd done it. And even if he hadn't killed them all, and they'd since overtaken the village, forcing her family into a nomadic lifestyle, he'd done so much, and sacrificed himself for the rest of them, so that they could live. He was a hero. true strength is when you help people no matter what, even if your scared or in danjer It took a minute or two to slowly etch out the words in what she assumed was legible handwriting. Legible enough, anyways- she was training to fight monsters, not writing books, okay? And she had barely even started writing at all until Mrs. Long taught her. Satisfied with her answer, she went to go lie down for a bit and rest up. There was a lot of work to do, and she needed to be operating at her very best. She wondered what the villagers were thinking about right now... Were they scared? Beneath all the emotional dampers, of course. She just hoped they hadn't given up on rescue yet. They were going to make sure everybody got out safely. That much was guaranteed.

LAIKA OF GS!

[Jack Dawson Jr.]

●●●

Scorpion sting, I don't wanna

bleed

tell me that I'm not

lost

It was a pretty long, uneventful, ride for Jack. Maybe uneventful wasn't the right word- it was kind of boring.

Not in the sense that nothing was happening. The airship was constantly being bombarded by flying Grimm. It was kind of terrifying, especially given Haven's track record involving airships.

In fact, he was not having a very easy time riding on this one.

The pills helped. They helped so much more than he had expected them to. It was kind of nice, actually. They helped quite a bit. Hell, before they'd even gotten on the damn thing, he had been nervous. Nervous wasn't the right word- his legs felt like lead, and he was a rough gust of wind away from vomiting, up until they got the pills, and they worked their magic.

Gone were the feelings of discomfort. Gone was his ordinary anxiety and nerve-wracking uneasiness around people. Gone was the deep, dark, pool of dread, bubbling up as he recalled, over and over again, that this was the last thing his sister had done before she- and everyone else at Haven- died.

The Fall was hard on a lot of people.

Hell, everyone had lost someone, and the ones that hadn't were very unlikely to be Huntsmen. The ones that were, he doubted very seriously that they would make it to graduation without losing someone close to them.

But still. Knowing, intellectually, that loss was as commonplace and relatable as eating bread didn't actually make it any easier. In fact, sometimes it made it that much harder to bear- the fact that everyone went through such a horrible, aching, painful grief was no comfort. And the fact that his sister's death meant so many more lives lost, that she could have saved, only served to deepen the wound.

It also inspired him. Inspired wasn't the right word either- it drove him. Pushed him onto the path he was on.

Sure, he'd told Doctor Haragitanai that he wasn't at Haven out of some twisted sense of duty. That he genuinely wanted to help people, and wasn't afraid of risking his life in the process. He hadn't been entirely dishonest, either. But he hadn't been fully honest. Not to her, or to himself. It was as much compassion and a desire to save lives as it was survivor's guilt and an unfair burden that he'd saddled himself with.

In another life, another world, with Merla still in it, maybe he'd have become a dancer. Or a chef, taking over the family diner when his parents were old and gray.

He still had dreams of performing for hundreds, maybe even thousands. And he had the talent for it. The skill, the drive, the desire. Hell, he had the right feet for it, with high arches, thick callouses, and flexibility from practiced en pointe dancing. Before he'd taken up his medical studies, at arts school, his teachers had lauded him as a rare, once-in-a-century dancer in the making. It was rare for a faunus to break into the upper levels of professional ballet, and rarer still for a male dancer, but they'd told him he had what it took, and the demand for a winged dancer, especially one who could make use of the trait, was worth his weight in Dust. Had he continued those pursuits, he could have been famous in the dance world.

Instead, he had put those dreams to bed.

His sister was his idol. His hero. He hadn't wanted to be just like her, though; why would he? She was one of the best in her field. Just as he was gifted at dance, she was gifted at medicine, and unlike his gifts, hers had a nobler purpose. She saved people. She wasn't fighting Grimm- she was fighting death. Ripping people from its vice-like jaws, and restoring them to life.

Maybe that was why his Semblance turned out the way it had.

They say a person's Semblance comes from the core of their being, their personality, their hopes, their dreams, their firmly held convictions and beliefs. Maybe that wasn't necessarily true. Maybe it was all wild coincidences. Still, he liked to believe that his captivation with the work his sister did influenced his abilities. Like a gift, from her, to him.

But he hadn't wanted to replace her. He couldn't fill those shoes.

And yet, here he was.

He sighed as he pulled himself up from his seat. Holly stumbled past, making a valiant, but poor, effort to avoid being seen scampering off from somewhere. None of his business- if she wanted to be left alone, he could manage that. He wasn't in much of a conversational mood either.

The faunus walked down the stairs, towards the bathrooms, when a curious sight caught his eye. A book, hanging open on a table.

He stooped down to pick it up, unsure whose it was, but intending to return it to its owner. He would hate it if he'd left his own books lying around, and nobody thought to return them to him.

Then again, he doubted he would be likely to just leave a book lying around anyhow.

Glancing through its pages, he found that it was Qiu'li's notebook, filled with less than easily-intelligible handwriting. He couldn't judge the man- he didn't especially know him very well, for one, and not everybody came to Haven with the same skill sets. He was exceptionally gifted at more intellectual things, his sole physical trait of note being agility. Maybe Qiu'li was great at all of the combat-intensive skills, but had never been properly educated? He was also pretty certain Qiu'li wasn't from a part of Remnant that spoke the common language, so he was also likely still learning the language. Some of the notes seemed to suggest as much, anyways.

He started to set the book down, then, realizing that he was snooping through someone else's personal writings. But his eyes were drawn again to the page that the book had been left open on- the words marking the top, "What is true strength," asked an interesting philosophical question, and it seemed that others had written answers in. Was the book left here on purpose?

It must have been. He couldn't imagine three other people finding and commenting on the same question, independently, without knowing that the book was meant to be written in. So, thinking carefully, he figured out what he would add:

True strength is being able to do what you must, even when you feel that you can't.

It was a philosophy that he felt summarized his own choices in life fairly well. He wasn't a great fighter, and he was a pale shadow of Merla's medical prowess. He stuttered, and struggled with talking to people, but dammit, he was there, and he was trying. That had to count for something, didn't it?

Maybe that was the duty that he felt. Not to replace his sister, but to become something greater than himself.

He shook his head, and set the book down, careful to leave it open on its current page. He was thinking too hard about it. Hopefully, it was an answer that Qiu'li would appreciate. Satisfied with his answer, he continued on his way to the restroom, thinking now about bigger questions, in hopes of taking his mind away from the massive problems and feelings that threatened to overwhelm him, but for the emotion dampers.

Aura: 100% ● @kiwimurderman ● WC: 1258 ● TWC: 1258 ● jack introspection, v deep

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOXOGRAPHY 2.0

[Kishka Burzanova]

KISHKA BURZANOVA

Yeah, she needed a break from Nasrin. Hopefully Argent would be fine on his own with her for a minute or two, while she got some space from that rude bitch. And hopefully she wouldn't start filling his head with her shit wannabe-anarchist propaganda or whatever the fuck her skater punk aesthetic dictated she would believe in. Maybe back at Sanctum, she would have thought that shit was cool, but she was a fucking adult now, and had absolutely zero time for teenage rebellion bullshit, which Nasrin was apparently constantly on about. She didn't even have to hear her talk about it- just looking at her felt like reliving her goddamn sixteen year old scene phase all over again. It was cringeworthy and bad. Since he hadn't come with her, she figured she ought to find something to do to kill some time. They had a hell of a lot of that, after all, and while she'd rather be talking to Argent, just being around Pinky was starting to wear on her nerves. It wasn't even anything Nasrin was doing, either. She just straight-up didn't like her face. Or her voice. Or her fashion sense. Or her overall existence. And she was positive the feeling was mutual, so even if she were the least bit inclined to feel bad about it, she wouldn't have. Whatever. She didn't get away to go thinking about people she couldn't care less about anyways. Maybe she could check out how things were going above deck. See if they needed any help fending off Grimm. Though, if she remembered correctly, Red was also out there, and she didn't trust the brainless desert rat with a Scroll, let alone a weapon- she'd be as likely to hit Kishka, as a Grimm. Worse, she might actually aim for Kishka... It wasn't exactly a secret that her and the Kid didn't really need the second bed in their room anymore. Or so she assumed, anyways. Actually, on second thought, the less she thought about what they did behind closed doors, the better. She gave a crinkle of the nose and a slight shudder at the idea. As she did, her eyes fell on the most godawful atrocious handwriting she'd ever seen. Three different kinds of it, one of which she (unfortunately) recognized. Oh, Holly... Penmanship was a definite skill she would have to teach her, if they were to be a truly formidable force, on, and off, the battlefield. She was also definitely going to have to make sure the normally-goofy, weird, but pleasant, girl was doing okay, because judging by what she wrote on this... open survey? Whatever the hell it was. She didn't seem to be having a very good time. Actually, what the hell was this? Judging by the calligraphy distinctly reminiscent of someone scraping a shit-coated stick across a cave wall, she assumed it to be Qiu'li's notebook. Largely because the third and final set of atrocious scrawls could only be attributed to the runner-up for least literate student. The other two answers to the question were much more legible; the first of the two look familiar, but wasn't Argent's or Colton's, so she assumed it was probably Shadecloak's, or maybe one of the marksmen. Although she couldn't imagine her teacher actually taking the time to comment on the barbarian's asinine questions. Actually, maybe he was an idiot, but the question itself seemed a little more thought-provoking every second she thought about it. Or, more accurately, she was killing time before Argent came looking for her or something, and this seemed like an efficient means of wasting another minute or so. At the least, it was something to do. "What the hell. Why not?" She grabbed the pen and stared thoughtfully at the notebook for a moment or two. And then another few moments. Actually, a lot of moments. It wasn't as easy a question as she'd first taken it to be. Now it made at least some sense why Shadecloak had stopped to give her opinion. True strength. Who did Kishka know with "true strength?" She knew a lot of strong people. She was one of them, Argent was another. And Rose. Arguably, Colton too. Heidi. Loathe as she was to admit it, Bel. What did they have in common? More to the point, who displayed the opposite of true strength? Nasrin. Aegle. Qiu'li, Carmim, Jackie, Reynard, Ume, Prince. Tons of people, actually. Hmm. Well, the strongest were all physically capable, but more importantly, displayed mental acuity and tactical prowess in battle. They were each capable of thinking on their feet, making intelligent decisions using logic and rational thought, tempered by well-managed emotion. She almost struck Heidi from her list, on those grounds, before stopping to reconsider. No, Heidi was perhaps one of the sharpest minds she'd ever come up against. Not a proper genius, like herself, but far above all of the others, with the exception of Argent, who was closer to Kishka's level. She fought like a chained beast let loose, sure, but she was cold and calculating under the scorching hot surface. That's why she was so damn fun to fight. And why she was so damn dangerous. Brute, raw, power, coupled with a strategic mentality. Goddamn. Now, she not only wanted to kick her ass in a fight, she wanted to crush her in a game of chess too. No doubt, if she could be coerced into not breaking the game board or the pieces, she'd make for an excellent opponent. What of the weakest? Certainly, Qiu'li was physically strong. But he lacked the intellect to wield that strength any better than a perpetually scowling toddler. That was how Colton was so easily able to pound him through the concrete, and how even Aegle, one of the weakest students at the Academy, had shitstomped him in the exhibition matches. Because unlike herself, Qiu'li couldn't have possibly underestimated Aegle- Kishka doubted he even estimated his opponents, period. More likely, he just started swinging until either he was down, or they were, like a goddamn automated Rock'em-Sock'em Robot. Likewise, Ume was clever, but not especially physically imposing. Against a smarter opponent, she was a joke, and without the element of surprise, she was worthless and pointless as a Huntress, at all. The weakest students all had one of the same two flaws, if not both- either a lack of physical power, or they were dumb as a pound of bricks. In Carmim and Qiu'li's cases, she was sure the bricks outclassed them by an order of magnitude, honestly. But was "true strength" even necessarily related to the worth of a person as a Huntsman trainee? That was the metric she had gone by to evaluate her examples, but that was certainly not the only kind of strength there was. Still. It was close enough- without the ability to do something, and the critical thinking required to accomplish it, any task would be too difficult to even consider. The strongest people, in the world, not just at Haven, all shared those two traits. Especially the latter of the two. "Mental acuity, combined with physical power. True strength is the ultimate culmination of a warrior's sharpened, honed, body, and the tactical brilliance of a gifted strategist. One of those can be taught, learned, and trained. The latter is determined at birth, and while knowledge acquisition throughout life may improve one's intelligence, the fact remains that true intellect is born, not bred. Some people are predetermined to be strong. Others, weak. And while the weak can compensate for their lack of intellect, they will never be able to replace it entirely." It was almost a polite way of telling Qiu'li that he would never progress beyond his current level, regardless of how much time he put into training. Almost, because she had in no uncertain words said exactly that. Then again, she doubted he would be able to actually read her response, without a thesaurus, and she wasn't unconvinced that he knew what a thesaurus was. "is this new grimm? me punch thesaurus." It was also just her genuine, unfiltered, thoughts on the subject of strength. It was simple fact; equality wasn't real, and thinking it was was childish naivete at best. Life didn't give a fuck about fair, the cards are stacked in the beginning, and if you got dealt a shit hand, then fuck you, that's what you get. Don't like it? Too bad. You can change out a card or two, with a lot of work, and some conniving, but nobody changed their whole hand. Not possible. Not even worth consideration, it was too improbable to be anything but laughable. If everyone were born equal, why wasn't everyone born with easily-unlocked Aura and a semblance like Hard Light, or Gravity, or Vector Manipulation? She was grateful for her mental capacity, frankly, because as the trait that was largely fixed, she couldn't have compensated nearly as well for her largely inefficient semblance without it. She was so far and above her peers in that regard, that the playing field was, in most cases, leveled, and the very few students capable of beating her in a one on one fight (in order, Bel, Colton, Heidi, Argent, maybe Rose) were within her reach, physically- given enough time, only Argent would prove a consistent match for her. Colton was by far the most physically capable, aside from Bel, because he'd won the genetic lottery so damn hard. Heidi too, frankly, though of the two, she was the clear intellectual superior. But neither were close to Kishka's level, and importantly, they never would be. She could surpass them, given enough time and ruthless, rigorous, training. And she would. Rose was her first step up, though. She was strong enough to match Colton in a one-on-one duel, and while she was admittedly not the brightest girl Kishka knew, she wasn't stupid either- in fact, much like Heidi, she was much more intelligent than she let on, despite a pretty clear lack of assimilation of Mistralian social norms and "common" sense. And Kishka was confident that, by the Vytal Festival entry deadline, she would be able to wipe the floor with her Vacuan friend. From there, she'd surpass Heidi, then Colton, then finally, Bel, and she'd hold onto her status above Argent for as long as she could, until the day when he finally took, and held, the lead. Hm. What a productive thought experiment. She headed back to her seat, satisfied with her brief escape from Nasrin's annoying existence, and now content with coming up with Vytal training strategies until the ship landed. Apparently Qiu'li wasn't as useless as she perpetually assumed him to be. Even a broken clock is right twice a day, after all.

Notes// :NeroSmug: | Tagged// @mirrorgang | Aura// 100% | WC// 1812 | TWC// 1812

✬

[Wolfe]

Kishka: 18 x 200% (event bonus) = 36

279 + 36 = 315

Jack: 12 x 200% (event bonus) = 24

193 + 24 = 217

Carm: 8 x 200% (event bonus) = 16

508 + 16 = 524

Shade: 18 x 200% (event bonus) = 36

255 + 36 = 291

Holly: 9 x 200% (event bonus) = 18

493 + 18 = 511

Qiu'li: 8 x 200% (event bonus) = 16

213 + 16 = 229