Closed Blond And "Blonder" ( Pm to join/Zand )

[Ximal]

Xi sighed and gave her a sideways look, one line of words and a simplistic mention of a single name and the whole thing had turned on it's head. Xi simply smiled and waved it off. "Zand, there is no point in continuing this if you wont even obey your own rules. After all, you just asked three questions, and all three hav wildly different answers. I could tell you them, or I could just stop here. So i think i'll stop because one of us stopped answering fully long before the other. However i will say one thing i regards to wren. Don't listen to him. That's both a warning AND advice." Xi took a deep breath and then slowly sighed before glancing around the area. "Though I'm closer to wrong I'm no further form right. and how do you know that any thing I've said is even remotely true? I mean i spend time with both you and ana, perhaps some of your deceit has rubbed off on me ? But in the long run, i know i cant keep up." Xi took a deep breath before raising his hand to stroke his beard in thought. "Being honest I've no idea how much magic he has, but he's the one who taught ana. And she told me that. Oh and in regards to our conversation about me not being bale to save everyone. I know that's true, but What if I don't have too ? " Xi smirked letting his arms back down. Took a slow breath, and sat down on a small rock behind him. "Everybody you ever meet, knows something you don't. And in my case, that's very true. But i'm content with that, but the way your acting right now says you aren't, which is the typical zand i know. So simple terms now. Simple straight forwards full answers. Or you can try and force them out of me, but we both know how that will end." Xi smile both honestly and knowingly, he wasn't distancing her, but he was letting her know that he knew something she didn't and she wanted to know. And after all her currency was information. It was a very strange sensation to him to know just how much of her had rubbed off on him, plying at a foes weak spot for your own gain. But then again this didn't go against his own morals...As this wasn't a battle. At least not to him.

[Zandelia]

Well well, the boy finds a spine with which to force his words through. Good…I will need it in the days to come. I have other means of extracting what I want at any rate – these games are merely fun to play she inwardly whilst keeping her face calm and still.

It was strangely comforting, truth be told, that she had managed to t him to such a point of verbose refusal. He needed to become something more than a hunk of meat if he was to be useful and this is what she had been trying to instill in him. He had believed before that he could win what he wanted, earn it, by nothing more than strength and ability. She had proven him wrong, slowly but surely, on many of his presuppositions. She had fought dirty with him, showing him how cunning and immorality could gain more than honesty and brute force if used in the right situations. She had bandied words with his dreams, twisting them into warped figurines as she reflected the impulses behind them into his eyes. If she had much morality left she would have been ashamed – really, however, she was helping him in her own way.

“Rules were made to be broken Ximal, they are limitations upon what one can achieve and generally put there by those who either use them to their own advantage or control the other opponents. Remember that and I will consider my job, in that regard, completed” she told him, looking past him and into the tree line.

She really was a manipulative wretch, a grotesque idol to what could be achieved – and lost – if one dealt more in the darkness than in the light. She spent so much time slipping into people’s minds, ferreting out other’s psyches and their weaknesses. She had not considered the consequences until it had been too late. She had never been taught the real skill of the Intelligencer’s arts – the ability to remove one’s self from the equation. As such her abilities had not overly suffered, her mind however had twisted over time. All she saw these days were tools, advantages and opportunities. As Ximal discounted a portion of his dreams she could feel another small piece of herself slipping away.

It’s for his own good… she told herself, not even managing to summon up bitterness within her.

“My advice to you, Ximal, would be to not try and keep up. One answer I can give you freely is that it’s not worth it. But I have little choice in my life now – I am too old for such luxuries, too wise,” she sighed out loud, her mood had lessened somewhat with her philosophical considerations, “but thank you for telling me of this. I do not trust him on iota – but to know he is a mage is an advantage he does not know I possess”

“And it’s not as simple as you make out, Ximal. You can’t understand so I forgive you your interpretations. I will not explain myself to you, but suffice to say if I didn’t do what I do then worse would befall people” she finished.

It is true too. I am the manipulator, losing myself in the web so that others do not have to. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy it…relish it even. The puzzles, the mysteries…the NEED to know. Why does he think it’s a term of contractual obligation? No one else wants to do what I do unless they are forced to she mused.

“Fine, the game is over. You want straight answers you can have them. However, I would expect the same in kind from you. I know you haven’t lied to me, your ‘tells’ are far too obvious. You skirt the truth the same as me…perhaps less able as I perform it…but still your words have been true so far,” she told him, she knew, “what would you want to know about my magic?”

[Ximal]

Xi leered towards zand his eyes having changed from their slow calm flow to a hard cold edge. Right now he wasn't playing anymore he was cutting to the heart of the matter and he'd do so however he damn well saw fit. "Zand, rules exist to be broken. I agree ther but there are some rules that shouldn't be broken. " Xi now entered a contest of wills with the strongest willed person he knew. Xi took a slow breath and calmed himself slow deep echoing breaths. If he wanted to come out fo this better than her he needed to tread lightly, the former jibes had been just that, jibes, he'd given enough away to see her, to see around her. Now the games ended, and the battle began. "A job is a job but then again a tactician considers it his life, so which are you zand ? A simple mind for hire, or someone who can use their brain for more than just their own whims or those of their contractor." Xi shifted is seating watching her, evaluating her, using what little skills he'd picked up as a guard in the spires to see through her shroud of secrecy. He could see the flickers of inner conflict narrowly break her solid mask. That thing must have taken years to mould but there were still cracks, minor ones but just that. Minor cracks, nothing large to get a real hold of and break the damn thing open. "It's rare you take my advice zand. Very rare indeed. But still that's because i still value you as a friend. And as far as me not understanding. I understand what i need to when i need to. Until then i let things fall as they will. And as far as the conversation goes, i haven't lied to you at all, not have i skirted around the truth. It's you whose always been dancing around the straight path narrowly crossing it with but a foot every so often. And this magic of yours all i want to know is what it is truly used for, i can infer much from what I've seen but i can't piece it all together. I do not want it, i merely want to know how it works. That is what i want you to tell me." Xi flexed the fingers at his side, and took a deep breath again, not sure of the answers he'd receive, but he knew how to spot this magic all he needed to fully know was how the damn thing worked. From there he didn't care, or at least, he made it appear as if he didn't care.

[Zandelia]

Zandelia sighed as Ximal’s words flowed over her, the accusation within them was all too palpable to her and it spoke of barriers between them that still existed – strong and unforgiving. He was missing the reasons behind the style of social interaction she used between them. He was what she deemed to be ‘simplistic’ as a character, though not in an insulting way. Despite his past experiences Zandelia saw his view of the world as fairly naïve in many ways. Her way of countering this was to make him think, to make him suspicious of her motives and her actions – it worked as well. In a relatively short space of time he was beginning to question things he might not have done before and that was what she needed from him. She gave him a direct look, the smoldering embers of frustrated anger within it.

Is it so difficult to understand me Ximal? Perhaps I have been a little too indirect? she asked herself before forming her answers.

“For me Ximal there are no rules that cannot be broken. The only real impairment to doing so is either morality or the consequences,” she told him with a little vexation in her voice, “welcome to my world. There are no barriers to me, nothing to stop me doing as I please beyond self-preservation” she informed him, he would perhaps take issue with it but it was immaterial to her – he could not judge her more than she questioned herself constantly.

“And I am neither Ximal, you should know that by now,” she pressed onwards, more tiredness in her voice now than anger, “I am worse. Do you know how a war is fought? Whether it’s on the streets as a gang or in any other way? Information. You cannot do anything without it, not without un-needed risks. That is where I come in! I do what others either cannot bring themselves to do or cannot associate themselves with”

“You need someone watched, studied and catalogued for murder? Fine. You want someone slept with to lower their guard? Acceptable. You need something to break someone with, to get them under your yoke? I’ll do it. You cannot even imagine what I have done…that is why you cannot understand Ximal. Not because you are stupid!”

“I work with numbers, data, emotions and weaknesses. I find the flesh which one can tear into. I have no rules because they would get me killed…no morality…because it’s a concept that does not truly exist. You fight with honor and fairness, the world for you is simpler than for me. I don’t judge you for that so don’t presume to try and judge me for mine”

“I have my own designs but I’ve had to wade through more than you know to even come close t realizing them. Soon…you will see what I aim to do. For now I will not reveal it. And as for me being a mind for hire…we are all tools in our own way. Are you free Ximal? Is Ana? Anyone? How free are you really?” she questioned him, it would perhaps get him thinking upon it.

“And I don’t know a better way to explain my ability to you Ximal, if I did I would do so. I can read people…things. I can see through walls at times, doors certainly. Smells are more acute. I can know what something will taste like before even doing so. I can see your emotions and use them to deduce your thoughts…vaguely. It is the art of reading things, even whilst blinded. That is all I can give you until I know more myself” she finished, she left out some of her suspicions as they weren’t proven and she had no answers for them.

“Now you tell me about yours. I know what it does, but I want to know what you plan on doing with it. Are you going to steal identities and blend in? Or is it just a trifle for you? I want to know so that I can better understand it. I want you to teach me what you can”

Not to mention how I can use you she thought privately.

“Do you have any more questions? Or have you learnt enough of me to disgust you yet?

[Ximal]

Xi sighed and stared back at her. No rules, morality and consequences were her options. No barriers to stop her beyond her own life. Her words changing in tone as she pressed her rant onwards, listing closely to what she spoke of. True he couldn't imagine what she had done, but then again from the way she spoke she didn't want too. The continued streak now weighing upon his mind and slowly building in mass, though her last words were the one that sparked his fuse, the ones that really caused a trickle of anger to burst forth and it was visible in his eye's the cold blue flame that had once blazed brightly in sunberth. "You think i don't know this ? You think i don't see what you do? I don't judge you." Xi now rose from his seat to his full towering height. and now donned that cloak he worse ro well, that mask of anger and fear. "Do you know what i always say ? Do you ever listen to those four words? "No man is free." Be it by your own hand, the god's, or another's, no man woman or child is ever free of anything, you say you are free of boundaries there are no barriers, no walls but no. Your barrier is information. You wall yourself in and build your own prison with every scrap of knowledge you find, walling yourself off, even a you try and grow. Being free from rules is fine, but bear in mind, a prison built by your own hands while more tolerable. Is far harsher than a cage built for you. I have no illusion that I'm free nor that I am better than anyone else. I am still bound by the gods whims, by peoples deceit. By other people. I am constrained confined, and often it's far easier to disregard others and build up that self built cage whilst existing free from the one everyone else shares. I don't even pretend to understand what you've done. Nor do i pretend to understand what i do not. Some times honesty can earn more reward than deceit." Xi took a step towards her still out fo arms reach as he felt his fist ball at his side. "What's better, living in your own personal pain and sorrow, alone and uncared. Or sharing the same prison with others? Sharing the same pain, the same hardship? True i don't know much about anything, but i know enough about cages, about confinement. And sometimes it takes more will and more strength to stand up and protect others than it does just to save your own hide! You deal in cold hard facts, you deal with reading people, as you've just said, numbers, emotions, data, weakness. What you don't deal in is people. Others, i may bot say much and i may not speak to others much bit i can at least see where people gain strength, where people gain the will to progress even though they know they live constrained. You view others as tools. As a commodity, something of value to other people...You sound almost like a slaver...But no, you've more decency and you've lived through that crap...So you'd rather just sell out someone secrets. And i know that right now your viewing every word as a judgement. But no I'm not judging you. I'm stating the facts. I'm not one with the right to judge someone." He closed his fist tightly. He could have hit her then and there, he could have struck her with enough force and anger to send her flying, but no. He bottled the rage and the fire in his eye's quenched and calmed. His voice settling down. Her revelation of her abilities came next, she would see people see thing sthat others could not, fine...It suited her, a magic that let you see people as objects and not people. Fine, let her have it. Then she asked about his and he looked down at his hands. Willing the djed there before pulling off his gauntlet. His mind was only one colour right now...Red, bright vibrant screaming angry red. He brought the djed to his right hand and felt the colour pigments of his hand up to his forearm shift before speaking to zand. Turning his hand out for her to see. "As i've told you. i've no idea how much i can do with this magic, no idea how powerful it is...And no i do not plan to steal identities, i plan to use it as a means to disappear should i ever have too...I'll train it and master it, and when i do...I'll vanish, "Ximal Thgegni" will no longer exist. I'll be...Different, or at leas i'l try to be." Xi closed his hand and as his temper quelled he cut the djed flow allowing his hand to slowly change it's colour back to his normal skin tone but leaving him a little drained, a visible difference but not a huge one. He replaced his gauntlet. "Zand...I'm not disgusted. I'm just...angry...For the first time in a long time. I have one last question...If it came down to it...Would you sell out even the closest one too you if it meant you could achieve this goal of yours?"