036 [Private + Anon Texts]

[soggypastry]

[Private Text to: Hope and Vanille; locked]

You two doing alright?

[Private Text to: Talim; PGC Filter]

I'll be in Mahogany tonight. Are you and Ironhide still in town?

[/private]

[Anonymous Text; unfiltered]

When you've been in this world long enough to see and do everything it has to offer, what's left? How do you spend the rest of your time here when there's nothing left to do?

Comments

[soggypastry]

Living without a reason to live isn't much of a life. If you don't have something to do, some reason to fight, what's the point?

[solas_ion]

So you're that kinda person? I get it, I get it. You're the type that's always looking for something to fight for, literally or otherwise.

Well, here's the way I look at it. There ain't any shame in a peaceful life even for a warrior. And the thing about those is, even if you manage to get your hands on one, you're probably still going to have to fight to keep it.

What I'm getting at is, why don't you make living itself your reason? Go about your life doing whatever you want and enjoy that freedom. Then beat the shit out of anyone or anything that tries to threaten it.

[soggypastry]

And if nothing threatens it, just live life enjoying freedom? Is that what you're saying?

[solas_ion]

That's exactly what I'm saying. And if it's fighting in the literal sense you're after, I could sure as hell go for a good sparring match or two. Can't let those skills go to waste, right?

[soggypastry]

Right.

[Live for the sake of living free. It's what they'd planned to do before everything, before she came here...and somehow it seems so much harder than it did then. Ah, well. Keep moving forward. She drops the anonymous filter, letting him see her name and gear number now.]

But I may take you up on that sparring match someday. Been a while since I've fought with a human.

[solas_ion]

Might have to disappoint you on that front.

[He glanced at the name, but thought little of it; Lancer would have said the same to anybody else, anonymous or otherwise. He was kind of stupid like that.]

I'm not what you'd really call human. Or I wasn't. This place's stupid logic always makes that kind of a weird gray area.

[soggypastry]

[It's the principle of the thing, really. Better to have a name to call than reach out to any anonymous poster.]

What I meant was you're probably not a Pokémon. Sparring against a Lucario only gets you so far when you fought humans for years before.

[solas_ion]

Good point. While I have to say practicing against my own can get pretty interesting, it lacks some of the competitive edge, you know?

[soggypastry]

Yeah. I know what you mean. It doesn't help that they flinch just about every time they land a hit on you, does it?

[Or maybe that's just trainer's-boy Sen. Strike doesn't do that.]

[solas_ion]

Yours does that? Half the time I think Tyrfing gets a kick out of trying to knock me out cold.

[soggypastry]

Sen doesn't. It's like he's afraid hitting me at all is going to break me in two, no matter how many times he's seen his mate do it and seen nothing happen to me.

[To be fair Sen's attack stat is higher than Strike's, but still.]

[solas_ion]

Maybe they're just not used to someone looking to take a hit or two.

[soggypastry]

Maybe. But you think he'd be used to it after I've spent the past year sparring with him. I'd get it if we'd only been doing it for a week, but after a year? It doesn't make sense.