Funny
When Anwyn drops by to check out the rebel artifacts during a quiet hour, she finds Reyce already there. He makes himself difficult.
9-24-2008 (Reyce, Anwyn):
The announcement that finding out about the rebels' history could actually lead to some marks has brought more and more people in here to see the artifacts on display, but there are still a few times throughout the day when one can sneak in unperturbed. Reyce has, of course, pinned down just what times those are, so here he is in the Headmaster's Office at the peak of the dinner hour. Apparently he has neither Issa nor Asha to look after today, so instead he's studying the sword on display.
Anwyn clearly isn't expecting anyone else to have selected the same time as herself to go and eye those artefacts. An assumption easily made, if only because of the state of her attire; her flying gear with her shirt un-tucked and only half the pins pulled from her hair. The goldrider lingers on the threshold of the first room, then sneaks quickly forward to the middle door. When she spots Reyce, her eyes narrow, but footsteps have likely given her away, so she stands her ground.
The footsteps have given away the fact that there's someone else in the room, but since he came here seeking solitude, he doesn't turn around to greet that person at all. Instead, hunching up his shoulders, he makes sure that his sidelong view of the person is blocked so he won't /have/ to notice them, and makes a point of gently picking up the sword so he can examine it in more detail.
"Did you not get a close enough look the first time?" Anwyn calls from the door, after a few more moments of lingering. "If rumours are correct, that is, and you did find the cave with those others." She's silent then and doesn't move from her post, though she leans against the doorframe and watches from where she is.
The voice, instantly recognizable, brings Reyce's head up. He stands there for a moment, unmoving, before finally deciding to put the sword back so he can turn and face Anwyn. A guard hanging in the shadows at the back of the room shifts, perhaps thinking he senses hostility, but settles down once he's sure that the two people here are instructors, therefore trustworthy. "Didn't exactly have time for it," Reyce replies, watching the goldrider through eyes narrowed to a squint. "Busy helping Sasha get out of there."
For all the good that affected relaxed pose against the doorframe might do her, Anwyn is rigid where she stands, frozen in place and her guard up, likely given away by the tense line of her shoulders. "Yes, I heard he fell," she replies. Dark eyes roam over Reyce, then meet his narrowed ones once more. "Bad light in here, Reyce?" she questions, already with a hint of resignation.
Reyce grunts thickly, shuffling a step aside. For a second, it seems he is reacting to bad light - trying to find a better place to stand - but he shakes his head to dispel that notion. Most likely, he was just putting more space between him and the artifacts, so the guard could relax a bit more. "Not going to bullshit you," he says. "Already told Sieren what I think, would guess he told you. Nothing to do with the light." He flicks a glance at the nearest glow, set up to counter the growing dusk of the evening: it's plenty bright for his standards. Yet his eyes remain narrow when they turn back to Anwyn.
"You might be surprised at what I can deduce on my own," Anwyn remarks dryly. "And I will not stand here and bullshit you either: I could not give less of a damn about your opinion on the matter." She folds her arms across her chest. "Political, intellectual matters: perhaps. Not this." Shrugging one shoulder, she pushes away from the doorframe, though her arms remain crossed the whole time. "So you can take the moral high-ground all you like, but in another life you might not have had the opportunity to do so."
Reyce pulls up a sneer for her, eye contact fixed even as she moves off the door. "Only got the one life," he reminds her, in a too-quiet murmur. The guard at the back has started to frown, seeing clearly enough that these two aren't going to be as tame as he'd hoped they would be, but nevertheless under no obligation to involve himself so long as the artifacts are safe. "Doesn't matter. Not looking for moral high ground, just calling what I see, which is that you fucked up. Could be lowest of the low, and doesn't disqualify me to say that." He lowers his head, tipping his chin back so that the light falling on his face gets blocked at his brows, casting a heavy shadow over his eyes.
There's an unladylike snort of laughter for what Anwyn sees as posturing and she runs with it for a couple of seconds, an unpleasant smile in place as her head tilts to one side. She glances at the floor, then back up at Reyce. "Which is your right and I don't dispute that: I never claimed to. People can say what they like, as they do and are." There's one step to the right, into the room. "And you've never fucked up, have you, Reyce? I could lean into your life and make some remarks, but then what would be the point? And what would I get from it? Things are never the same from the outside looking in. So what use is there in defending myself?"
"None," Reyce replies, the word following her questions smoothly and without hesitation. "But you try it. Come in here telling me you already guessed I'd be angry, now acting like you don't see what's wrong. And keep telling me you don't care what I think, but seems like you've found three different ways to say it now, and still trying. Trying to agree with me you don't need moral high ground at the same time you want to drag my life through the dirt, yet won't because it's beneath you." It's Reyce's turn to snort, flinging his head to the side like a bull rejecting its chance to charge. "You're right I've been pretty low, done pretty dumb things. When I see it, though, I own up to it. Never pretended the bad shit I did was blameless."
"I won't drag your life through the dirt because it is not my right. And yet you and everyone else believe that you have the right to tell me I fucked up and expect me to agree and ask forgiveness." Anwyn takes another step into the room, as if she might just walk round Reyce regardless. Another nasty little smile. "You do not think just being here is owning up to it? Not running away and pretending it never happened. I got myself into this; could have fixed it like that," and she snaps her fingers, "in the old fashioned way, but I did not. I could have said a rider was the father." The goldrider holds her arms out at her sides and stares up at the ceiling for a moment. "But /that/ all counts as defending myself, which we've both agreed is pointless." She shrugs again. "So yes, I fucked up." Anwyn glances around the room. "Funny: it does not seem as if anything has changed now I've said that."
As she comes closer, Reyce draws himself up, crossing his arms over his chest and slanting his gaze down at her. It's not haughty, per se; it /is/ isolating. Drawing a distinct border between him and her. "You fucked up," he reminds her, as though she hadn't just said it herself. "You expect everybody's going to ignore that? That you get to say, don't be mad I fucked up?" He lets loose a deep rumble in his chest. "It's the same as people telling you to apologize. And don't know about anyone else, but I'm not. I'm telling you to stop talking about what you could have done to defend yourself, but you won't, because every time you do that you're trying again. I'm telling you this is what /I/ think about it, that it's shit, and you can do with that whatever you like, but don't come crying to me about what you could have done different. You didn't, and that's the only life," he harkens back to her earlier statement with a derisive snort, "that matters."
"So you can tell me to stop repeating myself, whilst just telling me over and over again that you think I'm worse than shit?" Anwyn demands. "Whatever I say, it will never be the answer you want. You don't want me to admit it, you don't want me to deny it, so why are you even bothering to continue this conversation?" She steps closer to him, looking him slowly up and down with something of a derisive sneer on her face. "All this petty posturing and looking down your nose at me. It does not affect you and yet you are still so eager to insist that I know what you think." Now it's a step back and arms folded again. "So go ahead. You'll call me a hypocrite either way."
Reyce considers her back, in no hurry to respond to those accusations. "Yeah," he allows, finally. "I will. And I keep saying the same things because I'm not saying what's got me, either, so that's true." He stops to look over his shoulder, finding the guard there and meeting his wary stare for a moment. He's not going to back down, now that it's /clear/ there's hostility going on here, so Reyce leaves him alone and returns his gaze to Anwyn. "Already admitted you fucked up. Can appreciate that, if it's true. But have some trouble believing it's true because I don't believe /you/; what time I've known you you've been going on about how much you care about the things you care about. But where's the caring in this? A third kid when your first two're already distant from you. With a guy who's married to your student. So I'm faulty, too, because I said I didn't want an explanation, but I don't know how you can answer without giving one. It's your thing if you don't at all." He shrugs, his shoulders lifting and then thudding back down as though a heavy weight were dragging them.
There was at least a shred of composure remaining, that is until Reyce mentions her children and Anwyn bares her teeth. "I understand that we're being personal, but you do /not/ have the right to bring my daughters into this conversation," she forces out in a voice verging on a growl. "There is no explanation that I can give that will satisfy you; make you revise your opinion; that you might believe. So I shan't try. I do not even want to." She takes one step back, distancing herself even as her right hand curls into a fist. "Done is done. You'll call the child a bastard when it is born, just like all the rest, and I shan't be teaching it to explain its existence. So I had better start on that policy now." The goldrider turns, heads back for the door. "I'll leave you to your study."
Her footsteps as she leaves are not especially loud, so Reyce gets to answer her in a quiet voice that only just reaches after her as she goes to the door. "I'd never call a kid a bastard." His arms uncross and fall, his thumbs hooking over the edge of his pockets. "But my experience is a kid in that position needs as much explanation as it can get, 'cause it's not going to understand you being self-righteous, but it will understand what others're gonna tell it about itself." About her daughters, and his intrusion on the part of her life, Reyce says nothing; even when she growled at him, he just stared back at her somberly.
Anwyn pauses at the door, one hand reaching up to settle against the doorframe. She doesn't look back, though her head does tilt sharply again. "For what it's worth, I understand," is her quiet response to his first insistence. She peers at the ceiling, then back down at the floor; almost back, yet only across her shoulder. "But why bother to explain when people are perfectly content not to listen." A further moment of pause and Anwyn moves off again, murmuring, "...And why make them argue when it's true?"
9-24-2008 (Reyce, Anwyn):
The announcement that finding out about the rebels' history could actually lead to some marks has brought more and more people in here to see the artifacts on display, but there are still a few times throughout the day when one can sneak in unperturbed. Reyce has, of course, pinned down just what times those are, so here he is in the Headmaster's Office at the peak of the dinner hour. Apparently he has neither Issa nor Asha to look after today, so instead he's studying the sword on display.
Anwyn clearly isn't expecting anyone else to have selected the same time as herself to go and eye those artefacts. An assumption easily made, if only because of the state of her attire; her flying gear with her shirt un-tucked and only half the pins pulled from her hair. The goldrider lingers on the threshold of the first room, then sneaks quickly forward to the middle door. When she spots Reyce, her eyes narrow, but footsteps have likely given her away, so she stands her ground.
The footsteps have given away the fact that there's someone else in the room, but since he came here seeking solitude, he doesn't turn around to greet that person at all. Instead, hunching up his shoulders, he makes sure that his sidelong view of the person is blocked so he won't /have/ to notice them, and makes a point of gently picking up the sword so he can examine it in more detail.
"Did you not get a close enough look the first time?" Anwyn calls from the door, after a few more moments of lingering. "If rumours are correct, that is, and you did find the cave with those others." She's silent then and doesn't move from her post, though she leans against the doorframe and watches from where she is.
The voice, instantly recognizable, brings Reyce's head up. He stands there for a moment, unmoving, before finally deciding to put the sword back so he can turn and face Anwyn. A guard hanging in the shadows at the back of the room shifts, perhaps thinking he senses hostility, but settles down once he's sure that the two people here are instructors, therefore trustworthy. "Didn't exactly have time for it," Reyce replies, watching the goldrider through eyes narrowed to a squint. "Busy helping Sasha get out of there."
For all the good that affected relaxed pose against the doorframe might do her, Anwyn is rigid where she stands, frozen in place and her guard up, likely given away by the tense line of her shoulders. "Yes, I heard he fell," she replies. Dark eyes roam over Reyce, then meet his narrowed ones once more. "Bad light in here, Reyce?" she questions, already with a hint of resignation.
Reyce grunts thickly, shuffling a step aside. For a second, it seems he is reacting to bad light - trying to find a better place to stand - but he shakes his head to dispel that notion. Most likely, he was just putting more space between him and the artifacts, so the guard could relax a bit more. "Not going to bullshit you," he says. "Already told Sieren what I think, would guess he told you. Nothing to do with the light." He flicks a glance at the nearest glow, set up to counter the growing dusk of the evening: it's plenty bright for his standards. Yet his eyes remain narrow when they turn back to Anwyn.
"You might be surprised at what I can deduce on my own," Anwyn remarks dryly. "And I will not stand here and bullshit you either: I could not give less of a damn about your opinion on the matter." She folds her arms across her chest. "Political, intellectual matters: perhaps. Not this." Shrugging one shoulder, she pushes away from the doorframe, though her arms remain crossed the whole time. "So you can take the moral high-ground all you like, but in another life you might not have had the opportunity to do so."
Reyce pulls up a sneer for her, eye contact fixed even as she moves off the door. "Only got the one life," he reminds her, in a too-quiet murmur. The guard at the back has started to frown, seeing clearly enough that these two aren't going to be as tame as he'd hoped they would be, but nevertheless under no obligation to involve himself so long as the artifacts are safe. "Doesn't matter. Not looking for moral high ground, just calling what I see, which is that you fucked up. Could be lowest of the low, and doesn't disqualify me to say that." He lowers his head, tipping his chin back so that the light falling on his face gets blocked at his brows, casting a heavy shadow over his eyes.
There's an unladylike snort of laughter for what Anwyn sees as posturing and she runs with it for a couple of seconds, an unpleasant smile in place as her head tilts to one side. She glances at the floor, then back up at Reyce. "Which is your right and I don't dispute that: I never claimed to. People can say what they like, as they do and are." There's one step to the right, into the room. "And you've never fucked up, have you, Reyce? I could lean into your life and make some remarks, but then what would be the point? And what would I get from it? Things are never the same from the outside looking in. So what use is there in defending myself?"
"None," Reyce replies, the word following her questions smoothly and without hesitation. "But you try it. Come in here telling me you already guessed I'd be angry, now acting like you don't see what's wrong. And keep telling me you don't care what I think, but seems like you've found three different ways to say it now, and still trying. Trying to agree with me you don't need moral high ground at the same time you want to drag my life through the dirt, yet won't because it's beneath you." It's Reyce's turn to snort, flinging his head to the side like a bull rejecting its chance to charge. "You're right I've been pretty low, done pretty dumb things. When I see it, though, I own up to it. Never pretended the bad shit I did was blameless."
"I won't drag your life through the dirt because it is not my right. And yet you and everyone else believe that you have the right to tell me I fucked up and expect me to agree and ask forgiveness." Anwyn takes another step into the room, as if she might just walk round Reyce regardless. Another nasty little smile. "You do not think just being here is owning up to it? Not running away and pretending it never happened. I got myself into this; could have fixed it like that," and she snaps her fingers, "in the old fashioned way, but I did not. I could have said a rider was the father." The goldrider holds her arms out at her sides and stares up at the ceiling for a moment. "But /that/ all counts as defending myself, which we've both agreed is pointless." She shrugs again. "So yes, I fucked up." Anwyn glances around the room. "Funny: it does not seem as if anything has changed now I've said that."
As she comes closer, Reyce draws himself up, crossing his arms over his chest and slanting his gaze down at her. It's not haughty, per se; it /is/ isolating. Drawing a distinct border between him and her. "You fucked up," he reminds her, as though she hadn't just said it herself. "You expect everybody's going to ignore that? That you get to say, don't be mad I fucked up?" He lets loose a deep rumble in his chest. "It's the same as people telling you to apologize. And don't know about anyone else, but I'm not. I'm telling you to stop talking about what you could have done to defend yourself, but you won't, because every time you do that you're trying again. I'm telling you this is what /I/ think about it, that it's shit, and you can do with that whatever you like, but don't come crying to me about what you could have done different. You didn't, and that's the only life," he harkens back to her earlier statement with a derisive snort, "that matters."
"So you can tell me to stop repeating myself, whilst just telling me over and over again that you think I'm worse than shit?" Anwyn demands. "Whatever I say, it will never be the answer you want. You don't want me to admit it, you don't want me to deny it, so why are you even bothering to continue this conversation?" She steps closer to him, looking him slowly up and down with something of a derisive sneer on her face. "All this petty posturing and looking down your nose at me. It does not affect you and yet you are still so eager to insist that I know what you think." Now it's a step back and arms folded again. "So go ahead. You'll call me a hypocrite either way."
Reyce considers her back, in no hurry to respond to those accusations. "Yeah," he allows, finally. "I will. And I keep saying the same things because I'm not saying what's got me, either, so that's true." He stops to look over his shoulder, finding the guard there and meeting his wary stare for a moment. He's not going to back down, now that it's /clear/ there's hostility going on here, so Reyce leaves him alone and returns his gaze to Anwyn. "Already admitted you fucked up. Can appreciate that, if it's true. But have some trouble believing it's true because I don't believe /you/; what time I've known you you've been going on about how much you care about the things you care about. But where's the caring in this? A third kid when your first two're already distant from you. With a guy who's married to your student. So I'm faulty, too, because I said I didn't want an explanation, but I don't know how you can answer without giving one. It's your thing if you don't at all." He shrugs, his shoulders lifting and then thudding back down as though a heavy weight were dragging them.
There was at least a shred of composure remaining, that is until Reyce mentions her children and Anwyn bares her teeth. "I understand that we're being personal, but you do /not/ have the right to bring my daughters into this conversation," she forces out in a voice verging on a growl. "There is no explanation that I can give that will satisfy you; make you revise your opinion; that you might believe. So I shan't try. I do not even want to." She takes one step back, distancing herself even as her right hand curls into a fist. "Done is done. You'll call the child a bastard when it is born, just like all the rest, and I shan't be teaching it to explain its existence. So I had better start on that policy now." The goldrider turns, heads back for the door. "I'll leave you to your study."
Her footsteps as she leaves are not especially loud, so Reyce gets to answer her in a quiet voice that only just reaches after her as she goes to the door. "I'd never call a kid a bastard." His arms uncross and fall, his thumbs hooking over the edge of his pockets. "But my experience is a kid in that position needs as much explanation as it can get, 'cause it's not going to understand you being self-righteous, but it will understand what others're gonna tell it about itself." About her daughters, and his intrusion on the part of her life, Reyce says nothing; even when she growled at him, he just stared back at her somberly.
Anwyn pauses at the door, one hand reaching up to settle against the doorframe. She doesn't look back, though her head does tilt sharply again. "For what it's worth, I understand," is her quiet response to his first insistence. She peers at the ceiling, then back down at the floor; almost back, yet only across her shoulder. "But why bother to explain when people are perfectly content not to listen." A further moment of pause and Anwyn moves off again, murmuring, "...And why make them argue when it's true?"