exsilium | text; where do we keep the lost and found around this place anyway? (forward dated to late 7/13)

[The first person that comes to mind, of course, is Oz. He can't really think of one thing in particular that is most important about him. If he tried to rate everything on a scale, it would end up perfectly balanced, a calm stretch of unmoving water reflecting a perfect sky and warm, forgiving sun.]

I'm not the right person to ask something like that. [He finally admits.]

Why?

( she asks, and that's all it is: asking. curiosity and nothing else, nothing pointed or grand or... chastizing? no... more nonjudgemental. )

The people who are worth protecting, to me...

[They make me weaker.]

Um. [He keeps his eyes on his plate and tries to think of an answer that makes more sense, something that won't bring her down at a time when she definitely doesn't need more things weighing down on her.]

- I'd have to think of something positive to say about Break, and I'll ruin my appetite trying to come up with it.

[That's partially true, actually.]

So why do you protect them? Is it part of... what you're in?

( It's not like there aren't parallels to any fighting force in any world like that; you fight and protect and bleed for people who might well spit in your face if they met you on the street.

... Perhaps not that far, but this was about being personal. What compels anyone to protect someone who is nothing but a negative to them? Though it's hard to read the situation that way. Even with Break, so clearly a bother, so clearly aiming to be, there's always something. )

What about Oz?

( That has to be easier... right? )

[And Oz is exactly the reason that he doesn't trust himself to answer the question. His opinion is clouded by the devotion he feels. He'd stepped in front of a sword to save Jack, and then another to save Oz, cut across his front and his back across an entire century lost to the Abyss. He doesn't remember more than a handful of things that happened back then, but he remembers that.]

I'm a servant of the Vessalius house. [He finally settles on for an answer.]

I protect Oz because...

[He's everything.]

He's my master. It's my duty.

[But Gilbert sounds disappointed in his own answer. It's obvious he's holding a lot of things back.]

( Collette listens, thinking over what he's said, and how he sounds. There's a certain consistent pattern with everyone from his world, and it's rather true to humanity as a whole. She's just been in closer company to, and in closer contact with, Break and Gilbert and Oz that makes it stand out more in her mind.

Masters, servants... she doesn't like how that sounds, not the way it almost seems like a finality. It's not that the concept is so much strange as one that she doesn't identify with on a personal level: it's not how she thought of the world, in those particular relationships, though she knows those who do, on something similar, something about what you can expect to achieve, who you may or may not be.

But less importantly, less something. Honest and private. She's not sure pressing is what she wants to do right now. )

I think... ( she says at last, letting her fork still. ) That it must be very dangerous to be honest where you're from.

( And that's that. She reaches for something else, the salt, pepper, another dish, and says no more. )

Edited 2013-08-19 01:31 (UTC)

[He blinks, and his eyes go a little wider, though they're still focused on the table in front of him. It's a bad habit amongst them all, he knows. Break spends most of his time thinking up ways to lie, Oz has a talent for telling lies as easily as though they were truths.]

...What's most important -

[He repeats, softly.]

- are the parts that are absolute.

Absolutes -- ( aren't they a little dangerous, a little... ) -- are very personal things.

( not universal. she refuses to accept those. glancing to gil, she offers a smile. )

I wish you the best with yours, Gil.

( and she does. she hopes all the best for them; and that whatever may come, regret is not one of the things he finds tying him down in relation to the absolutes he's given himself. )

As long as they're not horrible or racist or deadly something like that, 'cause then I'd just have to flick peas at you for the rest of forever!

[Those things that they consider to be absolute are, indeed, personal things in their world. The facts that they've decided couldn't be changed or erased or ignored, but perhaps that's why honesty was so hard for every single one of them. Honesty is admitting those absolutes, or trying to convince yourself that it never existed in the first place. In either case, Gilbert is pretty sure she understands what he's saying, which is good because he's incapable of putting it any other way.]

O-of course it's nothing like that! And that's no reason to waste food!

( she laughs, sliding back into an honest amusement. )

I think it'd be the only way of appeasing my sense of justice!

There are other ways that don't waste any food!

[It's a grave sin, in any corner of his world. The corner that lived on the street and had to take any food he could get, and the one that has to clean up after people who make messes now.]

AH-ha! But if it was food, it sounds like you'd listen!

( Which she giggles over right now. )

Food is important.

[He answers, more grumpy than angry.]

Especially when you're making it for people as picky as most of the ones I know.

Are any of them on actual diets?

( Break, who she keeps expecting to go into sugar shock or a sugar induced coma... how can he eat like he eats! )

'Cause otherwise, how can you even afford that?

( A beat. )

Wait, nevermind. Master, servant, there's some kind of rich noble thing going on, huh?

[He frowns, in a way that makes him look more uncomfortable with the title than mad or upset.]

Oz's family is one of the most powerful in the country. My adopted family was a house of similar status.

[His words drip with disconnect. A decade later and he still doesn't consider himself to be anything more than a guest in the Nightray house. Even more so now that the family has mostly been wiped out.]

Then doesn't that make you... noble too? Unless powerful means something else back home.

( But a pause, and a belateed: )

'Was...?"

[Oops, that had been a bad slip of the tongue. So he'll ignore the past-tense mistake and just focus on her first question.]

I'm only nobility by name. My duty is to serve Oz.

( Noting your ignoring, sir. Though she thinks she hears two different things there. )

Names have a lot of meaning. Doesn't mean your duty to someone you care about and the idea of having like, a duty to a reptuation for a name are the same, though! Sometimes you can be both. I think the friends, though... is more important.

( Unless they're working with a sense of stricter caste systems, but leapfrogging through something like that... ahah. Besides, it's Caesar she's thinking about, more academically than hurtfully or worried; Silverberg as a name and the connotations behind it. These houses of Nobility for Gilbert and Oz, and the connotations that are probably behind that. )

That's true...but I'm -

[Deep breath.]

- absolutely no good at pretending to be a member of the nobility.

[Sudden oppressive atmosphere clouding the dinner table.]

So... don't pretend! Just be you. That's the more important thing, isn't it? Especially here, where nobles, not nobles, it doesn't mean a thing! Even the kings and emperors realize that after a while... and a few failed attempts to raise their own armies.

( She adds with a laugh. )

It sounds so complicated at home. I hope you feel better about it, once you're back in it. Besides, you've got Oz with you too, don't you?

[If only that had been a choice. Gilbert had, of course, done the most basic of requirements expected of him as an heir to the Nightray name. He'd attended balls, sat through the most oppressive of dinners, spent the time that he wasn't focusing on Pandora with the two brothers who actually wanted his attention and avoided the ones who enjoyed beating him up. He'd politely declined (or rather, Break had) the proposals by women, but even that had only gained him a reputation for being 'hard to get' rather than the pariah he'd hoped to become.

And back home, he wouldn't have to worry about it any longer. The Nightray house is gone. Only he and Vincent remain, and currently they're at a standstill, guns pointed at one another in the middle of a fight that Leo had started.

But she's right. He still has Oz.

He smiles, faintly.]

Mmh. Yeah, you're right.

Then you can enjoy each other while you're both here.

( She sounds pleased as she makes this pronouncement, keeping thoughts of Caesar, and of Marco, pushed back into the depths of her mind. Carmen Electra in finger paint stares at them from the living room walls, along with her collection of signatures from those who would call themselves heroes.

Memories are precious. Most those people, attached to those names, were gone. )

Thanks for doing this.

( She says offhand, looking to her fork. Doing this being any number of things; being here, making the meal, arriving, existing, it's hard to say. )

[He takes her words to mean 'thank you for helping to make the meal'. Which is still weird to him. People at home don't thank him for things, usually. He's never required gratitude, and he's useless when it comes to being complimented, anyhow.]

It's not a problem at all. Anytime you need...

[A meal, anything that requires him to be of use. He trails off with a small nod to fill in the rest.]

( She hums her assent, acknowledgement and pleasure all at once. It staves off whatever loneliness tries to creep in again, thinking that she might just be down another friend.

It'd be a pretty sucky way to end a first relationship, she thinks, but on the upside... who worries about the break-up fallout then? Besides. It's the friends she keeps making that are worth the most. How did the saying go? Make new friends, but keep the old... Whichever was silver to whichever other was gold, it left her a richer young woman for having any of them in her life.

~~The sparklers would have been more fun~~ )

Edited (and that is probably a wrap if that's all right!) 2013-09-04 02:52 (UTC)

text; where do we keep the lost and found around this place anyway? (forward dated to late 7/13)

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