Choosing a Side -- And All That it Implies (Diadem: Worlds of Magic; Score/Helaine; #25: Fence)
Title: Choosing a Side - And All that it Implies
Author: Ayaia of the Moon
Pairing: Score/Helaine
Fandom: Diadem: Worlds of Magic
Theme: #25: fence
Rating: PG/K+
Disclaimer: I own Diadem! Really! Am I lying? Yes! But I wish I weren’t…
-o-
Score had never liked choosing sides. Choosing sides was for people with spines; people who actually had a moral compass, and were willing to do good, and stand up for what was right, and other crap like that.
Score was a pickpocket. His moral compass was, if anything, slightly askew.
When Score was ten years old, he made the choice to talk back to Bad Tony. An act of defiance even in the face of the fear he had when in face of the man.
In reward for his choice, Score had been kicked out of the apartment sporting a bloody nose and a verbal death threat ringing in his ears.
When Score was eleven years old, he had been in the wrong place at the wrong time at his school; a fight between a bully and a loner like himself.
Score had chosen to throw a small rock at the bully before making a run for it - it was a big step in the direction of bravery for him.
His reward for his attempt at bravery? A stern rebuke from the loner - he could have handled it fine, and now Score had made it worse - and a black eye from the bully - how dare a nobody like Score interfere with his God-given right to bully people if he wanted to?
All in all, Score had a philosophy involving choosing a side - a neutral party is better than a dead one.
He had never had the eloquence for philosophy anyway.
And, he decided, it was destined to be so - his ass was perfect for fence-sitting.
When Score was twelve years old, he was unwillingly dragged into a war that concerned not only his world, but the multiple worlds that made up the Diadem. And he was expected, not asked, to choose the right side.
Score firmly maintained his right to make his own choices.
What’s the good being a hero if it kills me along the way? He asked, quite logically, he thought.
What’s the good being a traitor if Helaine decided to skin him alive? Pixel answered, just as logically.
Score decided he feared Helaine’s wrath more than the chance that he’d be killed; in the name of logic, of course.
And so, once more, Score chose a side. He didn’t do it for chivalry, he didn’t do it to stand up for what he believed was right - he didn’t even do it because he wanted to.
He did it because of the simple fact that Helaine didn’t seem the ‘fence-sitter’ type. She seemed the type to knock the fence over to spite everyone.
And so he made a new philosophy.
Better by the side of the maniacal sword-wielding Nazi than in her path.
He’d never had the eloquence for philosophy anyway.
When Score was thirteen years old, he was in the process of what he denied was a romantic relationship with above-mentioned sword-wielding Nazi.
He was unsure about the idea of the strings that would now attach him to Helaine. His old philosophy had ensured that there were no strings. He hated his father, his father hated him. No strings. He loved his mother, his mother kicked the bucket. No strings. He lived on a planet where the grass was purple and the trees looked like cotton candy. No strings.
Helaine kissing him? Definite inkling of strings.
Helaine gave him a look then. The same look she’d given him before. He realized he’d backed himself onto a fence.
He sighed, giving in to the inevitable - he hopped off the fence, choosing once more to be on Helaine’s side rather than in her way.
When Score was fourteen years old, having lived a weird life so far, with a really weird collection of friends, and an even weirder collection of defeated enemies, he spared a thought to his abandoned fence. It was so lonely, without Score’s ass to sit upon it.
Rather than oblige its loneliness, however, Score decided to do something else. He decided to have his mental manifestation of Helaine destroy the fence.
He made the choice to not be a fence-sitter anymore.
He made the choice to not be the neutral party.
He made this choice, not because he feared Helaine’s wrath, not because it was in his best interest at that particular time to do so….
But because it was the right thing to do.
And in doing it, Score proved something that he didn’t even realize he proved.
Even a person with a broken moral compass can still have the means to repair it.
It just takes the motivation of a sword-wielding Nazi to expedite said repair job.
He’d never had the eloquence for philosophy anyway.
And his ass could accustom itself to new things.
So, his imaginary fence thusly destroyed, Score marveled in the glory that was the side he’d chosen.
-o-
Author: Ayaia of the Moon
Pairing: Score/Helaine
Fandom: Diadem: Worlds of Magic
Theme: #25: fence
Rating: PG/K+
Disclaimer: I own Diadem! Really! Am I lying? Yes! But I wish I weren’t…
-o-
Score had never liked choosing sides. Choosing sides was for people with spines; people who actually had a moral compass, and were willing to do good, and stand up for what was right, and other crap like that.
Score was a pickpocket. His moral compass was, if anything, slightly askew.
When Score was ten years old, he made the choice to talk back to Bad Tony. An act of defiance even in the face of the fear he had when in face of the man.
In reward for his choice, Score had been kicked out of the apartment sporting a bloody nose and a verbal death threat ringing in his ears.
When Score was eleven years old, he had been in the wrong place at the wrong time at his school; a fight between a bully and a loner like himself.
Score had chosen to throw a small rock at the bully before making a run for it - it was a big step in the direction of bravery for him.
His reward for his attempt at bravery? A stern rebuke from the loner - he could have handled it fine, and now Score had made it worse - and a black eye from the bully - how dare a nobody like Score interfere with his God-given right to bully people if he wanted to?
All in all, Score had a philosophy involving choosing a side - a neutral party is better than a dead one.
He had never had the eloquence for philosophy anyway.
And, he decided, it was destined to be so - his ass was perfect for fence-sitting.
When Score was twelve years old, he was unwillingly dragged into a war that concerned not only his world, but the multiple worlds that made up the Diadem. And he was expected, not asked, to choose the right side.
Score firmly maintained his right to make his own choices.
What’s the good being a hero if it kills me along the way? He asked, quite logically, he thought.
What’s the good being a traitor if Helaine decided to skin him alive? Pixel answered, just as logically.
Score decided he feared Helaine’s wrath more than the chance that he’d be killed; in the name of logic, of course.
And so, once more, Score chose a side. He didn’t do it for chivalry, he didn’t do it to stand up for what he believed was right - he didn’t even do it because he wanted to.
He did it because of the simple fact that Helaine didn’t seem the ‘fence-sitter’ type. She seemed the type to knock the fence over to spite everyone.
And so he made a new philosophy.
Better by the side of the maniacal sword-wielding Nazi than in her path.
He’d never had the eloquence for philosophy anyway.
When Score was thirteen years old, he was in the process of what he denied was a romantic relationship with above-mentioned sword-wielding Nazi.
He was unsure about the idea of the strings that would now attach him to Helaine. His old philosophy had ensured that there were no strings. He hated his father, his father hated him. No strings. He loved his mother, his mother kicked the bucket. No strings. He lived on a planet where the grass was purple and the trees looked like cotton candy. No strings.
Helaine kissing him? Definite inkling of strings.
Helaine gave him a look then. The same look she’d given him before. He realized he’d backed himself onto a fence.
He sighed, giving in to the inevitable - he hopped off the fence, choosing once more to be on Helaine’s side rather than in her way.
When Score was fourteen years old, having lived a weird life so far, with a really weird collection of friends, and an even weirder collection of defeated enemies, he spared a thought to his abandoned fence. It was so lonely, without Score’s ass to sit upon it.
Rather than oblige its loneliness, however, Score decided to do something else. He decided to have his mental manifestation of Helaine destroy the fence.
He made the choice to not be a fence-sitter anymore.
He made the choice to not be the neutral party.
He made this choice, not because he feared Helaine’s wrath, not because it was in his best interest at that particular time to do so….
But because it was the right thing to do.
And in doing it, Score proved something that he didn’t even realize he proved.
Even a person with a broken moral compass can still have the means to repair it.
It just takes the motivation of a sword-wielding Nazi to expedite said repair job.
He’d never had the eloquence for philosophy anyway.
And his ass could accustom itself to new things.
So, his imaginary fence thusly destroyed, Score marveled in the glory that was the side he’d chosen.
-o-