hollowchild | IC Inbox

[He approaches her, long sleeves even in the warmer weather but at least it's not slacks today. He lifts a hand in greeting as he reaches her side.] 'lo. Shall we? [He tilts his head to indicate the interior of the Arena.]

[she actually glances at his shirtsleeves, but then she's still wearing long pants and a shirt with the sleeves pushed up to her elbows]

Let's. A room again?

[she's heading that way without waiting for him to answer, though]

Clearly. Should be fairly empty this time of day. [And he follows.]

[and she'll lead him to the room all the way down at the end of the hall, farthest from the entrance. assuming he's going to follow her regardless, she just pushes the door open and goes in, dropping her bag against the wall before sitting down beside it]

You want to know about Connor? Why?

[And Draco...eloquent, graceful, flawless Draco...will flop down right next to her and lay on his back.]

I'll give you a "why" when I get an answer. Deal?

[sophie shifts just enough to be addressing him instead of the wall across from them]

Deal. Do you really want to know how we met, or how we ended up where we are now?

You can't have one without the other. Give me both. [Said as he dramatically flings an arm over his eyes. Story time with Sophie is probably his best choice of the day.]

[she lets out a softly amused noise and runs her fingers through his hair, brushing it back]

You've had a day, hm?

As I said, we're both from Hel. I'd only been here a few weeks myself when I found him wandering around the day he arrived, showed him around. He was the first person who really understood...anything, honestly. About where I came from, about what I'd really lost. And he was willing to explain things, where most people had just looked at me like I was quite stupid for not understanding light switches.

I've had a lifetime, but that's not the point. [See his life's great. He gets babied and loved on by Jade at home, and then he can come to Sophie and she'll do the same thing.

...it's not the same as Rapunzel, admittingly, but it's nice.]

If it makes you feel better, I fought with the toaster for a few weeks before I figured it out. [He seems to get it though. It's natural to be drawn to people with similarities.] All right, so you two bonded over understanding. So then what?

Haven't we all?

[isn't he lucky? and she'll just keep doing it because it makes it easier, being able to fidget and reassure herself that she's with someone who trusts her all at once]

So then we started talking regularly. I started helping him a bit with his shadows, that sort of thing. And then there was the battle. Connor understands being...human, I suppose, better than I do. He was afraid, because these bodies are just...fragile and weak, compared to what he should be, or I should be. So he stayed in the Arena, mostly, helping, and more or less hated every second of that. I went out to fight, because why not? If I died, either I would get revived eventually when we won, or it wouldn't matter because Asgard fell.

[yes, because that's a reasonable and logical way to look at it, sophie]

The important part of all that is that after Freyr bought our reprieve, we both decided, separately, that we needed to be stronger.

[He doesn't say anything immediately, making mental comparisons and staring at the sleeve covering his eyes. Okay...that's not too surprising and there doesn't seem to be anything unusual about that. That's how things go in a war, isn't it?]

...your disregard for death will never cease to perplex me, Sophie. [But it's also a bit refreshing. Jade's like that, too, but hers is more troublesome.]

Separately. If you decided something like this separately how did you end up doing it together?

I've told you before that I'm usually very, very difficult to kill, haven't I? It's...perhaps I'll understand it better if something does kill me here.

I don't remember exactly how that started, though. It had something to do with me nearly giving myself frostbite at the winter festival, I think. It turns out that when you feel cold or hungry or in pain, you aren't meant to ignore it.

[her tone is light, self-depreciating, and doesn't help in the slightest to clarify whether she really understands that being freezing or starving or injured is a serious problem]

Bearing that in mind is a work in progress. With cold, at least, I've learnt my lesson. Somewhere in there we came up with the idea of training together, though. In the mornings, we go running and spar a bit.

You have. Let me know if you ever learn to truly understand. [Don't give him a real reason to test that, Soph. Really.]

Frostbite's not exactly the greatest thing to have, and ignoring pain eventually doesn't work out. Just a hint from a human. [But he can't exactly argue starving, seeing how he was not eating and sleeping before moving in with Jade. Even now some days are one giant argument because really, it's pointless sometimes. It just wastes time when it's just as ignorable. But he's keeping his mouth shut. This is about Sophie at the moment.] Is he any good at it?

Yes, I will certainly keep you appraised of any untimely, if temporary, deaths. [try her, draco.]

Thanks to Connor, I've missed out on frostbite and get regular reminders about eating, and I've had an object lesson about pain and exhaustion. But I'm getting away from the point, I think.

He is good at it. Much better with most weapons than I am, but he's used to being able to get by on brute strength, and that doesn't work here. He learns quickly, though.

[He settles for raising an eyebrow. "You better."]

It's not really getting away from the point so long as it's all relevant. It is all relevant, isn't it?

So he's better than me? [It's meant to be a joke, but he knows better.] At least someone's closer to being on par with you.

[she just ruffles his hair a bit, although she smoothes it again right after]

...yes, I suppose it is all relevant. [she sighs] As are some things that I was not intending to make anyone else aware of. And I'm fairly sure that if we were both what he should be, Connor would be better than me.

You've told me worse stories than this, I'm sure. I'm fully entitled to knowing these things. [That's pretty impressive though.] So how exactly did that become...whatever it is now?

Yes and no.

[she takes a breath, lets it out slowly]

It's not that you're entitled, it's that I believe you'll keep it to yourself, because I will be unhappy if you don't. And you already know enough that it might make sense to you.

[she's quiet for a moment, and when she begins to speak, her voice is soft and even. it stays soft and even, but it's increasingly an act of obvious control]

You know a bit about how things were for me, and that I strive to not be idle. It's more than that, though. I don't stop because when I do, I think. I hate this body, you see. It's slow and dull and weak and always the same, and there's really no way to explain how awful that is. And I went from running for my life every night and hiding that every day to...this. That should be like paradise, right? To have food and shelter and to be safe?

I already told you...I'll keep yours if you keep mine. [He peeks out from under his arm then.] We can try it.

[And again he just listens, piecing things together slowly.] No. It's far too stagnant for you, I imagine. Paradise is a bit too overrated.

That's a lot of it, yes. The longer I stayed, the more I began to get bored. And it's...well, I think you know what it is to get what you think you wanted and then find that it's not what you'd hoped. Something in me is broken, though, I think. So I started pushing. Myself, mostly. Train harder, run longer, shape more shadows, climb more buildings. But that only works so well for so long. For all of my manners, I'm not very civilized. What I wanted was a fight.

So I went out and picked one. Well, two. The first was with Connor, who wanted one at least as much as I did. Except I realized, when I hurt him, that I didn't really want to hurt him. And we stopped.

[The revelation doesn't surprise him in the slightest, barely makes him think twice about what's being said.] Being civilized is also a bit overrated. A lesson I learned about sixteen years too late.

He mutually decided he didn't want to hurt you either? What was the point of picking said fight then?

I did crack his ribs before we mutually came to any sort of realization. And we almost didn't. Stop, that is. It's more important than it seems. Neither of us would have, if it had been anyone else. It's a bit messed up, to really go after someone that you like, that way.

[her hand is still moving in his hair, alternately carding through it and twisting it around her fingers. there's a slight tremble in her fingers, but they're nothing less than gentle, never pulling]

But you're right, it didn't solve that problem for me. It did for him, it's a bit hard to do much of anything strenuous with cracked ribs.

[Why is that, he has to wonder. What is it with girls and his hair? His mother from an early age, then Pansy when they started dating, then Jade, and now this. It's not a real point though, but it's enough to get him to remove his arm from his face entirely.]

I wouldn't say that's entirely messed up. [But Draco's not an expert on healthy relationships.] I would imagine you laid him up quite good if you cracked all of his ribs. He must either really like you or be a complete masochist. Which is it?

[it's there and it's excellent for playing with, at the moment. it'd be his hand or the hem of his shirt or something else if not his hair. but also she finds it comforting when people pet her head, and transference is a beautiful thing]

No, it's pretty messed up. I didn't crack them all, though, just a few, and in fairness the fact that he'd fallen a few storeys shortly before helped them along. It wasn't my intent to disable him, not so soon. Not much of a fight, then.

He's not a masochist. Pain's not all that meaningful, but he's afraid of damaging himself, remember? And he got me to promise to stop, after the second fight.

[Fair enough.]

...all right, it's pretty messed up, but you have to remember my view of the world's perfectly skewed.

I know, I know, but I guess I just...all right, maybe I don't understand as well as I thought. So what, you two keep each other balanced and in check?

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