The scars, like dust (Alexander)

[Dove Brown]

She gave him a long look as she waited him out. If he'd rather punch the wall than sit down - well at least he wasn't punching her. When she finally spoke, her voice was level. "Which is worse? Speaking as someone who deals with both? They hurt differently, but neither more than the other. What hurts worse is when people assume that everyone has a mother, has a loving family, and then treat you like dirt if they learn you don't." She sighed, fetched two cups and crumbled some dried mint into them. She set them on the table and added water from the bubbling kettle, sending drifts of mint-scented steam into the air. "You should listen to your own words. You aren't responsible for your family's actions any more than I'm responsible for mine."

He demanded to know why she didn't leave, as if the knighthood didn't patrol every road and dock. "I moved out here to get away from my father," she said shrugging, even as her shoulders and belly knotted with tension. "If he had his way, I'd still be in the citadel serving as free labour to haul him home from the Stallion when he's so drunk he can't walk. Someone to pay his bills so he doesn't have to. And - I like to farm more than I fear the knighthood. Where else could I go that would let me work a farm?"

She took a seat at the table and tried to let the rest of his words roll over her, the way she'd learned to cope with her father's drunken rantings. They hurt, but she composed her face, and focused on immediate things. "Look, if you poke a wound over and over, it doesn't heal. You have to leave it alone, let it heal on its own. Maybe it'll scar, maybe it won't. You live with what you have, heal yourself first, and go forward in hope that others won't have to learn what you have."

[Alexander Faircroft]

Description "Alex Common" Alex thoughts "Myrian" "Fratava" "Others"

Alex pressed his hand into his head, He couldn’t understand this woman. He couldn’t fathom what in the world she was. Alex sighed slightly upon hearing her words. “It only hurts when people drag it up." He exhaled slowly and eventually felt the throb of his left hand against the wall, that was going to bruise in the morning but he’d deal with it. He slipped into a seat nearby as she brought over the tea.
“The sins of the father are only eclipsed by the sins of the son. You ever heard that expression?” he spoke calmly now his usual tone of voice the venting of the anger helping with his pain. “It means that if I don’t atone for the wrongs of my family…I’m destined to do worse than they did.” His hand circled the edge of the cup as she sat opposite her.

“If you moved to get away from your father then he’s foolish enough to push away the only family he has left.” He took a sip from the beverage. The light drink clearing his senses a little. “Some wounds never heal Dove. It’s why I don’t attack them. I deal in my own way, I try to keep myself to myself. And listening to someone speak with such bitterness isn’t exactly helpful. Normally people are made stronger by hardships. More understanding of others plights, what makes you so embittered about everything? I mean I know what you’ve told me, but I’d strive to prevent the events of the past. Not dwell on them without moving on. I may mope and I may feel sorry for myself but I try to push on and strive to not repeat my mistakes.” He spoke with a tone that not quite questioned her but tried to tease the truth out of her. An answer that wasn’t hidden in an embittered cynicism, but was honest.

[Dove Brown]

She dropped her gaze to her cup and focused on folding the wings of her pain and grief back out of sight. Distantly she heard the creak of a chair as he sat down, but she didn't look up. "No, I don't know the saying. Probably because sons get compared to fathers and daughters to mothers." Her voice was almost calm, with only a faint tremor at the mention of her mother. "Bitter? Well, you and me both. This is why I don't talk about it very often. It doesn't go away, but I can usually hold it without hurting." He claimed this kind of thing made people more empathetic - if chasing her into her home and threatening her and yelling at her and throwing her mind back into the riot was his idea of empathy, she didn't want to see what he thought was normal relations. "But not when tall armoured people are trapping me in my own petching home and yelling at me..." she growled, not quite as quietly as she intended.

"I work for my living. I do an adult's work for an adult's pay and an adult's treatment. I have for three years, alone. I've made it my own, and I deal with things in my own way. But I'm only a farmer..." She did look up briefly as she quoted his words back at him.

After a moment, she went on. "Life is, kind of like a field. If you don't work on it, you get nothing out of it. But even though you work hard at it every year, you don't get the same results every time. You have to accept that you aren't going to get a perfect crop of wheat every year. Some years you get beans or peas or turnips, or turn animals out on it to graze and renew it. Some years the weather is bad, and the crop doesn't grow as well. That isn't your fault. It isn't a failure from you. You pace yourself, you do the best you can, and then you deal with the harvest that comes in. And I say to myself, that I did the best I could with what I had. Next year there is another chance to do better."

She sighed and took a sip of hot tea. "I look forward, not back. I stand for myself, and only myself. I leave my father to carry his own burden, not take it on my own shoulders."

[Alexander Faircroft]

Description "Alex Common" Alex thoughts "Myrian" "Fratava" "Others"

She crumpled a little, was it at his words or something else? Alex didn’t know but right now he was more worried about what he’d said he’d let someone know his origins. And with someone as embittered as her that could prove to be his downfall, his failing point. Wait, why did he do that? Why did he need to do that? What made him feel the compulsion to blurt that out!? Finally she spoke, she hadn’t heard the phrase and then attempted to change everything.
“It’s not about the wording it’s about the meaning. It means whatever you do, it’s always going to be something that ends up carrying on a legacy, unless you actively work against it.” Though she did have a point there. “I apologize for that…A never was hit and something inside me snapped. It won’t happen again.” Alex exhaled slowly puffing his cheeks out as he did.

“If it’s so important to be treated as an adult then stop comparing yourself to them. Live life your way. The only thing that’s going to change is you.” He spoke with an air of knowing, like he had before and took a drink from the tea to let his words sink in. “Hold onto those words then. You may find out that it’s exactly the same. But then again, maybe you are. The definition of insanity, doing the same thing over, and over and over again, and expecting things to change.” Alex took another drink of the tea. “Nothing changes unless you change it.” Alex smirked slightly and finished his cup.

Stretching out his arms slowly he spoke again calmly lightly. “Where you stand for yourself, I stand for others. It’s the reason I became a knight, and it’s a motivation I wish to propagate more. And now I understand something else. Those with the power to make a decision, have the responsibility to make it.” Alex paused offering her a chance to say something against it. “What I mean by that is, as much as it may gain the ire of some people. If it can save more, it has to be done.”

[Dove Brown]

"I do live life my own way." Dove heard frustration creeping back into her voice and tried to push it away. What did it take to get through this idiot's thick head? "The only things I learned from my father is that acting on grudges hurts people, and drinking is a really stupid idea. Everything else I learned from my brother or my sister." She pushed away from the table and crossed to the window. Resting her arms on the window sill, she said softly, "I accept your apology, ser squire." She kept her back to him as she blinked away the tears that prickled in her eyes at the memory. "I shouldn't have said anything in the first place. But whether you meant it or not, you managed to rake open just about every scar I have." Her ears strained, trying to pinpoint him, and her shoulders knotted with tension.

"I accept that decisions have to made, and not everyone can be saved." She hesitated and her hand crept to the scar on her jaw again. She kept her head turned away from him. "But if you have the responsibility to make the decision, you also have the responsibility to face those of us who get hurt by it. What makes me bitter is that the knighthood treated us - treats us - like a faceless interchangeable resource, not as humans. Something to be stuffed in the storage tunnels and left there without explanation. Even you do it, and you're just a squire. You said I only had to farm, as if it's not as vital or life changing or important as learning weapons. It doesn't matter that we provide your food, or the leather for armour straps or the cloth for your clothes. We're only farmers, so we don't matter. Living, we aren't worth the time it takes to acknowledge our gratitude. Dead, we're a tool for you to hurt yourself with. We never, ever, in your world, get to be people in our own right. And when you treat me that way," she added very quietly, "you remind me of my father. He thinks the world would be better off if I was dead too."

[Alexander Faircroft]

Description "Alex Common" Alex thoughts "Myrian" "Fratava" "Others"

Alex shrugged lightly as if he words weren’t getting through to her. Just how stubborn was she? “I apologize for that as well but sometimes old wounds need to open to close for good.” His words held an honest truth to them like he spoke from experience. Leaning his back into the chair as the wood creaked lightly beneath his eight he spoke calmly. “A fact I’ve come to learn the hard way. And I as much resentment as you may have towards the knights. Know one simple fact, I am not like them. My decisions are my own and I do not look down on others. I look at things from an equal footing. As far as my comment of “only” being a farmer, I meant no offence by that. Simply that we live in different worlds. I used to belong partially to yours, I used to be a simple hunter. Not quite as taxing as a farmer but demanding in its own right.”

Alex took another drink of the tea. “Also remember that A fair number of the knight hood have roots here in farming. They saw themselves protecting more than just what they had. The wanted to protect the efforts of everyone around them.” Alex closed his eyes briefly. “And one thing your most definably wrong on, is the fact I believe you’d be better off dead.” He placed the empty cup on the table and stood again. “Everyone’s life has meaning. In its own way and this I mean. Not just for what they do, but for what they could do. And thank you for two things, the tea, and helping me see things a little clearer.” Alex smiled lightly and turned to walk out the door. A small weight off of his shoulders, something about that had made him realize that as much as he hated having to make a choice, it was still a choice, and inaction was the worst option, every, single, time.

[Dove Brown]

She watched him go from the window, all her words trapped behind the lump in her throat. When he was out of sight, she closed the door quietly and retreated across the cottage that no longer felt as safe as it had only hours before - before Alex had forced his way in and threatened and shouted and raked everything up. Before she'd been forcibly reminded that everything she depended on was at the sufference of the knighthood. And now a squire knew exactly what she felt about them, she was more in danger of beng cast out than ever. He'd said that the knighthood was a different world from the one she lived in as a farmer. It wasn't much of a step from there to seeing her world as a lesser world, and her as a pawn to be controlled. Why don't you just leave? rang his question in her head. A question she'd only half answered - she stayed because it was home, for all its faults and flaws. The fields and the sky were the only places that had ever welcomed her in any way.

She sank into her seat at the table, buried her face in her hands, and wept silently for lost safety, for her brother and sister, and the mother that she'd never known. For the child she could have been, and still was under the scars and the need for self-sufficiency. Her remaining tea was long cold by the time she looked up again, but she did look up, and wiped her eyes on her sleeve.

Life went on, and there were tasks to be done, whether knights understood that or not. She stood slowly and picked up the rabbit, a pot, and a knife. Tears still trickled down her cheeks, but she cut the rabbit's throat and let the blood drain into the pot for making soup later. From there, she sawed the knife down the belly, tearing the skin somewhat jaggedly, gutted it, and began the messy process of sorting human edible offal from that better treated as plant fodder.

[Samuel Longwell]

Grading Complete Please edit your grade request thread so that it's obvious that it's been graded. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions/problems with your grade. Name: Dove XP Award: Tracking 1 Stealth 1 Hunting 1 Observation 1 Teaching 1 Socialisation 5 Unarmed combat 1 Persuasion 1 Philosophy 3 Butchering 1 Lore: Tracking: The shape of rabbit prints Farming: Rabbits are a pest Can't afford to lean on others Alex: Saw his mother die in front of him Alex: Supposed to be an assassin Philosophy: Life is like a field Knighthood: The little people don't matter to them Notes: I didn't give you a point for your sling as hitting a small, fast moving target like a rabbit is not something a novice could do. I really enjoyed your life is like a field analogy! I'm glad she stood up to Alex and didn't let herself get pushed around. Enjoy your grade. Name: Alex XP Award: Riding 2 Observation 2 Socialisation 5 Interrogation 2 Intimidation 2 Philosophy 2 Lore: Farming: Rabbits are a pest Guilt does not fade easily Dove: Mother died giving birth to her Dove: Father blames her for mother's death Standing for others Philosophy: Anyone who lives has potential Shield Points: -6 Ridiculing a civilian -2 Conduct unbecoming of a squire (Intimidation of civilian, Disregard for a civilian's property) Notes: Alex was pretty scary in that thread, I enjoyed seeing this dark side of him. Unfortunately your shield points have to suffer because of it. Enjoy your grade