mamoritai mamoritareru

[iconoclassist]

[So, let's say this is the day before we all get hired as adventurers and hit on by bards.

Which is to say, it's a fairly normal evening wherein Shirin has killed something for dinner and brought it back to wherever they're sleeping, even if that somewhere is an inn, because habits die hard. Surely bothering the surly elf will just get you some rabbit stew and not an arrow in the knee?]

Comments

[fieldarcanum]

I suppose not, but it has served you well in the learning...

[He does seem to have had his mood picked up some by the meal, even if it's hard to tell...?]

[iconoclassist]

[She never does seem to have any trouble telling his moods, come to think of it. Wonder why that is?]

I don't like half-assedly learning something, Konstantin.

[fieldarcanum]

[It is strange, given most people assume he is just perpetually gloomy.]

You also appear to dislike compliments of any sort.

[iconoclassist]

Tell you what, I'll take a compliment when you can emote that you're happy, deal?

[Prodding his cheek. She...she may be teasing him.]

[fieldarcanum]

I think you and I both would prefer that I was not expressive. It is far safer that way.

[Oh there now you made the dhampir feel bad.]

[iconoclassist]

Safer? ...I'm guessing Dhampir have some sort of natural charm going on, then, enthralling people when they emote too strongly?

[Taking her own haunch of pheasant.] If that's the case, then don't worry. Elves are immune.

And before you ask; yes, I've tested it, no, I'm not telling you how or why.

[fieldarcanum]

There is the element of magnetism, true...

[Pausing to consider how to put this without scaring the natives.]

But with risk of emotions running high, comes too certain other appetites I would rather ignore.

[iconoclassist]

Isn't suppressing your emotions all the time going to make the inevitable snap much more violent, dramatic, and probably, for some reason, in the rain?

[HOW DOES SHE KNOW ALL THIS--]

I understand the safety concerns, I do. I just think practicing experiencing them safely is probably a better solution in the long term, if much scarier in the short.

[fieldarcanum]

I would have assumed an elf would have understood the need to consider the longer term more closely.

[He sighs, shaking his head.]

It is currently inconsequential, however.

[iconoclassist]

I am considering the long term. You're the prince, and if I don't let you get killed out here, you'll eventually be the King. You already terrify most people because they can't tell the difference when you're upset and when you're just bored and mildly hungry.

The confidence to smile a little without being worried expressing yourself will end disastrous will do quite a deal for your popularity, and, I imagine, your peace of mind.

[fieldarcanum]

You raise good points, save for one: I am uncertain that I ever wish to be popular. It might better suit my subjects if I remain someone they simply fear and respect...

[iconoclassist]

I'm pretty sure that's how you get staked, Konstantin. I think of precisely never being feared didn't backfire on a ruler.

[fieldarcanum]

Then perhaps I am not meant to rule forever. A son or daughter shall succeed me, as I do my lord father.

[iconoclassist]

...I'm starting to see why he sent you on this trip. You resemble him more than I thought.

[fieldarcanum]

I have been told as much. It is unsurprising that I would; he saw to much of my education personally when I was younger.

[iconoclassist]

Oh, that's not what I mean. But I remember talking to another gloomy kid who thought he had the entire future already figured out, alone and stoic.

[Examining her fingernails, casually.]

I decked him when he ignored the hints I was dropping he was being an idiot. What's it gonna be for you, Konny?

[fieldarcanum]

I think you would find me a difficult man to assault, Shirin, but you are welcome to take your best shot, I believe the phrase is?

[iconoclassist]

[Shrugging.

And immediately just going for a right hook. W E L P.]

[fieldarcanum]

[He is not superhumanly fast, but he is obviously trained in a fight, and she'll find her punch shoved off-course with a forearm.]

This is far from the first time... Did you think that that being the king's son won me any favors with the other recruits?

[iconoclassist]

Of course not. [She grins, pretty widely, and and goes for the leg sweep. Turns out, she is ridiculously fast.]

But this isn't about that! I don't care that Mathias is king now, or what bollocks fucking job he's done teaching you to be a regular person instead of just the Prince. This adventuring malarky is far from the stupidest idea he's had, but if he's put you in my hands, it's gonna be like this.

I'm not allowing any more talk like your future will only ever be grim and bleak. You've got decades, if not centuries ahead of you, why the hell have you already resigned yourself to overblown dramatic melancholy?

[fieldarcanum]

[The sweep gets instead a well planted leg leaning into it. He's not fighting back but he's got defending down to a fucking tee.]

You think this some affectation? Some ill temperate mood or youthful belief about my future? By the gods, the temerity of your assumptions is just--!!

[And then he realizes he's lost his temper and his fangs are out - whoever romanticized vampires as having these sleek, sexy little fangs has never seen the four, serpent like monsters that have extended on poor Konstantin here - and just stops.]

I see now this was a mistake on my own part.

[iconoclassist]

Oh you blithering--

[Reaching for his collar to shake him, just a little.] Do I have to spell it out for you? What they fear and distrust of your father is only unfamiliarity and I have watched it wane year after year. Someone on the inside of that world couldn't see that, but I have the time and distance to observe. It might even be my job to watch things.

Do you think your father such an unjust ruler that such fear and unease will remain so strong by the time you take the throne? Or do you think that little of yourself.

[fieldarcanum]

I've much to consider... a very long time before I reach my father's place in the world. You may see some things clearer than I, but you also have only the vaguest inklings of how life happens within the halls of power.

Now. Unhand me.

[iconoclassist]

...I'm going to guess you don't realize how much that sounded like you were looking down your nose at me while assuming I'm a commoner.

[Dropping him.] You may want to be careful about that. Elven hierarchy really doesn't work that way.

[fieldarcanum]

I know it does not, and I was not assuming you were a commoner. I was assuming you weren't a crown princess of some stripe, which feels like a safe assumption.