Fifth floor common room, Saturday afternoon/evening

[kenselvren]

After yesterday's class on propaganda, a light had gone on for Jalian. This was how one person could change more than just their surroundings. She'd largely ignored movies and TV before, but now she was curious.

So, she was sitting in the common room, watching TV. She had a bowl of popcorn and was frowning at the screen trying to pick out which parts were stupid and which might be some form of propaganda.

So far the judgment had mainly come down on "both". For just about everything.



[OOC: Open post!]

Comments

[soniaroadsqueen]

A flush and another laugh. "I don't think it's all that big a deal. And I'm kind of retired, or something, anyway?"

[kenselvren]

Jalian joined the laughter. "That you seem young for, to me. But you started very young?"

[soniaroadsqueen]

"When I was eleven or twelve or so?" Ringo shrugged. "I mean, I'd been in Sleeping Forest before that, but I didn't take over until Rika couldn't lead anymore."

[kenselvren]

"That's one of your sisters?" Jalian asked.

[soniaroadsqueen]

"Yeah." Ringo smiled fondly. "The oldest. She was one of the founding members, way back at the beginning of it all." Before the betrayal, and everything falling apart.

[kenselvren]

"What is your tribe like?" Jalian asked.

[soniaroadsqueen]

"Hmm." Ringo hadn't really tried to describe Sleeping Forest to anyone before. "Small. Close." She smiled fondly, thinking about the others, then sighed. "But violent. Our purpose was to keep anyone from gaining access to a specific piece of technology. One we were worried would be misused. So we, um, hurt a lot of people."

She cocked her head thoughtfully. "What about yours? I don't think I've ever heard you talk about what home was like for you."

[kenselvren]

"Small, close, and violent," Jalian answered. She snorted. "Ken Selvren mostly only try to live, but hunting can be dangerous, and there were always other tribes attacking, until only a few years before I left."

[soniaroadsqueen]

"I guess fighting each other is universal, huh?" Ringo said sadly.

[kenselvren]

"When some have something others want," Jalian answered. "There is always fighting."

She wasn't about to deny it; her entire timeline had been a result of nuclear war, after all.

[soniaroadsqueen]

"I think that's why I like being a teenager," Ringo shrugged. "Here, at least, there isn't really that kind of thing, you know? I, um, I prefer not to fight, if I don't have to."

[kenselvren]

Jalian shrugged in turn. "I fight if there's fighting." Sometimes it was easiest.

[soniaroadsqueen]

"It doesn't bother you?" Ringo asked curiously, staring down at her cup of tea. "Hurting people, I mean?"

[kenselvren]

"Should it?" Jalian asked. "If I have to hurt someone I would rather not, I suppose. But I try not to do that."

[soniaroadsqueen]

Ringo reached up and played absently with one of her pigtails. "I don't know if it should, but it does me. Some of the people I, er, hurt," which was a very mild way of putting some of the things she'd done, "I guess, um, I regret it? I mean, it had to be done, but." But.

[kenselvren]

"If it had to be done, than it did," Jalian said. What else did you say about that. "I'm sorry you regret it?"

She was pretty terrible at comforting.

[soniaroadsqueen]

Ringo blinked at Jalian, then snorted softly in amusement. "Maybe I should try to be more like you. Practical."

[kenselvren]

Jalian grimaced. "I'm not good at being not-practical. I don't know if it's better. I was raised to be a Huntress and warrior."

[soniaroadsqueen]

"Well," Ringo smiled down at her tea awkwardly, "I bet you've never had your heart broken, at least?"

[kenselvren]

Jalian turned her flinch into a stony look. "I have."

She nearly left it at that, but as reticent as she was, she also wanted to be fair, and it was very unfair to Ringo not to say more.

"My friend. He was going to leave me. To be a coward and abandon ken Selvren. He was the only one I thought could understand me, but he didn't."

[soniaroadsqueen]

"Oh." Ringo's voice was suddenly very, very soft. "I'm sorry. I, um, feel like a pretty big idiot for saying that now."

[kenselvren]

Jalian waved it off. "I don't forgive him, but you didn't know."



[And I'm off to bed, so back to SP?]

[soniaroadsqueen]

"But it was dumb of me to assume." Ringo's smile was awkward and apologetic as she turned it on Jalian. "I'm sorry that happened to you, though. It sounds terrible."

[ooc: I was totally going to ask you the same thing on my next tag, so sounds good to me!]

[kenselvren]

"It was the worst," Jalian answered. "But now I am here."

Working to make sure they never met. That was a healthy coping mechanism, right?

[soniaroadsqueen]

"Yeah. It's not a very good feeling. And it sounds like your experience was worse than mine."

[ooc: Sorry I disappeared for a couple of days there!]